Weldon Long is a successful entrepreneur, sales expert and a New York Times best selling author. He’s one of the nation’s most powerful speakers and a driven motivator who teaches the Sales and Prosperity Mindset philosophies that catapulted him from desperation and poverty to a life of wealth and prosperity.
In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Weldon opens up about his journey and shares why consistency might be the only thing that really matters when it comes to winning in business.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- WeldonLong.com
- BOOK: The Power of Consistency: Prosperity Mindset Training for Sales and Business Professionals
- BOOK: Consistency Selling: Powerful Sales Results. Every Lead. Every Time.
- BOOK: The Upside of Fear: How One Man Broke the Cycle of Prison, Poverty, and Addiction
- BOOK: The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness
- BOOK: The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life
Transcript
Will Barron:
Coming up on this episode of the Salesman Podcast.
Weldon Long:
Consistent results come from consistent activities. When we think about the manufacturing operations end of our businesses, we know that our products are good because there are consistency in engineering, and product development, and manufacturing, but the same rules apply in sales. Consistent sales results can only come from consistent sales activities regardless of the technology and the medium we’re using to talk to our customers.
Will Barron:
Hello, sales nation, I’m Will Barron, host of the Salesman Podcast, the world’s most listened to B2B sales show. If you haven’t already, make sure to click subscribe, and let’s meet today’s guest.
Weldon Long:
Hey everybody, Weldon Long here, author of the New York Times bestseller The Power of Consistency and consist selling. Really excited to be on podcast. We’re going to talk about getting the mind right, getting the sales right, and getting your consistency right on an ongoing basis. You can check out my books on Amazon or visit my website weldonlong.com.
In a World Full of Tricks, Hacks, and Shortcuts, is Consistency the Only Thing You Need to Achieve Sales Success? · [01:30]
Will Barron:
On this episode of the show with Weldon we’re diving into consistency. And if that sounds like a bit of a boring topic it’s not, this show is fun. This is one of the best shows we’ve done all year. There’s emotional stories within it. There is essentially the power of consistency and how it helps you go from thoughts to emotion, to taking more action, how you can set goals bigger than you could ever possibly imagine. It’s a real fire episode I promise you that. Stay tuned to the end for some real insights as well from Weldon that I’ve taken on board personally having recorded this show and I’m implementing right now as we speak. And with that, let’s jump right in. And just to tee up the show here. In a world of … And I’m guilty of some of this, two-minute videos and talking about hacks, and tricks, and shortcuts, and Instagram fame, and seeing people going from seemingly zero to having a Ferrari overnight is consistency. Potentially something that’s underrated right now in the world of business and sales.
“Consistent results come from consistent activities. When we think about the manufacturing-operations end of our businesses, we know that our products are good because there is consistency in engineering, product development, and manufacturing. But the same rules apply in sales. Consistent sales results can only come from consistent sales activities regardless of the technology and the medium we’re using to talk to our customers.” – Weldon Long · [02:10]
Weldon Long:
Well, absolutely. Now, let’s not knock the Ferrari because I do have one but I didn’t get it overnight. You’re right about that. There really are no shortcuts. It’s a great question. In this day of instant communications and seemingly overnight success, consistency really is the key. It’s a very simple concept. Consistent results come from consistent activities. When we think about the manufacturing operations end of our businesses, we know that our products are good because there are consistency in engineering, and product development, and manufacturing, but the same rules apply in sales. Consistent sales results can only come from consistent sales activities regardless of the technology and the medium we’re using to talk to our customers.
The Link Between High Performance and Consistency · [02:30]
Will Barron:
So is it fair to say … And I don’t know if there’s data on this or if this is anecdotal, but is it fair to say that high performers in sales are all consistent, or are there still the unicorn people who have the gift of the gab or they have some random skill that allows them to have success without consistency?
“At the end of the day, there’s four components to any sales process no matter how new you are or how old you are. There’s four steps. You’ve got to build a relationship, you have to investigate your prospect’s problems, of course, you have to have solutions for those problems, and then you have to ask for the order, bring the sales call to a conclusion. Not necessarily a close because I think that’s a huge misconception in sales. It’s not necessarily about closing every call because no one’s going to have a 100% conversion rate, it’s about bringing every sales call to a reasonable and a logical conclusion.” – Weldon Long · [03:22]
Weldon Long:
Having worked with thousands of salespeople, there are some seemingly unicorn-type people. People that are so good at communications, building trust, and creating dialogue between themselves and their prospects. But I find even the most skilled, they still have a bit of a process. At the end of the day, there’s four components to any sales process no matter how new you are or how old you are. There’s four steps. You got to build a relationship, you have to investigate your prospect’s problems, of course, you have to have solutions for those problems, and then you have to ask for the order, bring the sales call to a conclusion. Not necessarily a close, which we’ll talk about today because I think that’s a huge misconception in sales. It’s not necessarily about closing every call because no one’s going to have 100% conversion rate, it’s about bringing every sales call to a reasonable and a logical conclusion. But those four components are in every sales process from the most skilled, as you referred to as the unicorn, the super talented, just off the charts productive salesperson, and the new person. Those four components have to be there.
Do High Sales Performers Have Consistency in aAll Areas of Their Lives? · [03:44]
Will Barron:
So one of my … One of the things I’m embracing this year … Not necessarily New Year’s resolution but more a principle for having greater success, is the … I don’t know who said this. If it’s a quote or just a cliche of, the way you do one thing is essentially the way that you do everything. So I’m looking to have more consistency in all areas of my life as opposed to just in sales specifically. So with that said Weldon, is this something that high performers, other than just in business, athletes or entertainers or whoever it is, do they all have consistency in their world as well?
“In sales just like in sports or business, there’s the process of sales and there’s the outcome of sales. Yet, we have very little control on the outcome. At the end of the day, our customers are going to decide if they want to buy something from us or not. What we have 100% control over is the process. And if you keep running the process over and over and over, eventually the results will take care of themselves.” – Weldon Long · [04:24]
Weldon Long:
I think the highest performers do. And you use the sports metaphor, that’s a great example. If you look at the best athletes, they will tell you that they’re very process-driven. In sales just like in sports or business, there’s the process of sales and there’s the outcome of sales. There’s the process of playing football and there’s the outcome of the game. We have very little control actually on the outcome. At the end of the day, our customers are going to decide if they want to buy something from us or not. What we have 100% control over is the process. And if you keep running the process over and over and over, eventually the results will take care of themselves.
“At the end of the day, our job is to diagnose problems or recommend solutions. Our prospect’s job is to buy them or not to buy them. Far too many salespeople will get hung up on the close rate and the outcome. You don’t even control the outcome. You’ve got to stay focused on what you control, which is your ability to earn trust, and build relationships, and run your sales process.” – Weldon Long · [04:56]
Weldon Long:
At the end of the day, the customer gets to make their decision. We can influence their decision. In other words, the better we do our job the more likely they are to say yes to us. But at the end of the day, our job is to diagnose problems or recommend solutions. Our prospect’s job is to buy them or not to buy them. Far too many salespeople will get hung up on the close rate and the outcome. You don’t even control the outcome. You got to stay focused on what you control, which is your ability to earn trust, and build relationships, and run your sales process.
Will Barron:
So you say the ability to control, but as we touched on before we clicked record, I am terribly inconsistent. This is something that I’ve … I’m consciously having to focus on. And as a sidetrack note that got me onto all of this and made it a huge focus for me, we’re developing a sales personality typing system for our sales training product sales school so that people can go in and see well, perhaps you are predetermined to this or your predisposition to this, and so this training might help or this training might help. Long story short. So I started doing a bunch of personality tests. Learned more about it, had a few people to help with the process of building it, and it blew my mind that my personality type … I can’t remember the numbers of the acronyms, but essentially it said creative and is unable to focus on one thing for more than 15 minutes.
How to Cultivate a Personal Culture Around Consistency · [06:15]
Will Barron:
And so the advice from the product that we’ve built that’s airing shortly, is that if I can focus on keeping the creativity by having more consistency and focus, that’ll turbocharge the results that I’m having. So with that said, use the words or the phrase on the lines of, it’s something that we’re in control of. How do we become more in control of it? Because I know physically I can … If a gun to my head I can do X, Y, Zed consistently for a few weeks, months, or years, or whatever it is, but when there’s no gun there how do we implement this and make it happen?
Weldon Long:
That’s a really great question. And I would just first say that I would never undermine or understate the value of the creativity in that part of it because at the end of the day that’s what’s going to make it successful too. It’s why you’re so successful with your show and your products here because of the creativity, the entertainment value. Just talking to you, the expressions on your face. It’s that cue factor we talk about that some people you just like to interact with because they’re interesting so that creativity part is really important. But doing the same things on a consistent basis are so important, but we can create that habit in our minds.
Weldon Long:
Let me give you a little background. I didn’t start out this way. I was a terribly incompetent, inconsistent knucklehead for 25 years of my life. I’m not sure if you’re aware of my background, but I spent 25 years of my life on the streets. I was a ninth-grade high school dropout. I went to prison for 13 years. I was a complete knucklehead and loser. And so it was in my prison sentence … I went to prison three times over 15 years for a total of 13 years.
Weldon Long:
But about 22 years ago, 23 years ago in June of 1996, I was in prison and my five father died unexpectedly at 59 years old. At the time I had a three-year-old son that I was not a father to. I had fathered him out on parole and came back to prison. And I started looking at my life for the very first time. And what I realised, as I started studying and learning, I made this decision. I was going to be a son that my father would’ve been proud of and I was going to be a father to my son. That was my two driving things. And it has been for 20 some odd years.
Weldon Long:
But what I realised is that I had some aspirations and some goals. Things that I wanted to accomplish in my life. I wanted to be successful. I wanted to have a home, but I realised that my values and my habits were not consistent with those goals. In other words, I had the goal of wanting to be successful, but I didn’t have the habit of educating myself. I didn’t have the value of self-discipline and postponing gratification, the things we need to be successful. So as I began to learn and study this. I began to realise okay, I got to have these goals. These goals are great but I have to have values and habits that are consistent so how do I create those habits?
Weldon Long:
And what I learned over my study is the classic Emerson philosophy that we become what we think about all day long. When I started on this journey 22 years ago, I’m sitting in a prison cell, I still had seven years left to serve, and I came across a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche said, “We attract that which we fear.” And I remember thinking that and why would I attract things into my life I don’t want? Why would I attract things into my life that I fear? So I dismissed it. A couple of months later in the summer of 1996, I was flipping through the pages of the Bible. I came across a scripture in Job. Job said, “Father, that which I had feared has come upon me.” So I started realising these things that I fear. My habitual thoughts were all manifesting in my life.
Weldon Long:
And so I started thinking about okay, how can I habitually change my thoughts? How can I rewire my brain? And I started studying the neurology and I’ve got a 103 IQ and a ninth-grade education so I had to keep it really, really simple. And what I learned is that when we have a thought, any thought, good, bad, happier, or sad, it goes in the little part of our brain called the hypothalamus. When the hypothalamus gets that thought, that energy, that little bolt of electricity in our brain, we begin to secrete a chemical, and the chemical triggers the emotion that will be consistent with the thought. In other words, if I get frightened I start producing epinephrine and adrenaline. I have a frightened emotion. If I get happy I start producing happy thoughts and I start getting this dopamine and endorphins.
Weldon Long:
And so I started realising if I control my thoughts I can drive better emotions, which will drive better actions, habits, which will produce better results. I talked about that a lot in the Power of Consistency, in my second book. And we could talk more about that process. I don’t know how much time you want to spend on that, but it really came down to reprogramming the neural connectors in my brain to start making decisions that were consistent with my goals and developing a value system that was consistent with those goals.
Will Barron:
We’ll come onto that in a second because clearly, that’s … That’ll be the crux of the conversation, the real practical steps we can implement here. But there’s two things that popped up so I’ll ask you one of them, the other, the first one. So I’ve never been to prison. I’ve had a really just average upbringing, middle class.
Weldon Long:
You wouldn’t like it. I’m just saying, you wouldn’t like it.
Will Barron:
I’m too soft. I’m way too soft for prison. I trained in Brazilian jujitsu and I got beat up there enough, and I dislike that most of the time I’m there but that’s slowly toughening me up. But the point being, I’ve had a relatively comfortable … My parents aren’t particularly rich or anything but they’re always there for me. They were together, they were divorced, all this stuff. Two and a half years ago, my mom died of cancer at a relatively youngest age. And that was my kick in the ass of, I thought I was a good son all that thing, but I thought, if mom can pass away of this and I’ve got her genes, I can do things to improve my health and hedge my bets on certain things, but I need to get my ass in gear and get stuff done.
Success Motivators: The Link Between the Suffering we Experience and the Amount of Success we Achieve · [11:21]
Will Barron:
And that was a huge motivating factor for me. And I know maybe 50% of the audience will have had an experience like this that they can relate back to and they go right, that was a changer. What I want to ask you though Weldon is, for the over 50% who perhaps have had just a comfortable life, they’ve not had anything necessarily hugely bad or good or no windfalls or no losses, do you need a kick in the ass moment like that to be able to implement some of this stuff? Or is it possible to do it without that catalyst?
Weldon Long:
That’s a fantastic question. And one I’ve never actually been asked before because I think we always assume that people have had some bad thing happen in life like losing their mother or losing their father going to prison but you’re right. I think there is a big percentage of folks out there that have haven’t had that. And what it comes down to I think … First, I will say, I believe there is a relationship between the amount of suffering that we experience and the amount of success that we experience because it can be a huge motivator. I’m a huge Tony Robbins and Tony talks about the two big motivators in life. You can move towards pleasure or you can move away from pain. Moving away from pain is a far bigger motivator than moving towards pleasure but it doesn’t mean it’s not impossible. You can still have ambitious goals.
Weldon Long:
One of the things I tell people that … When I’m speaking, and I’m teaching, I’m training, and I’m reading my books, and I’m talking to them they’ll say, “Well, I’ve” … I talked about three areas of your life. Your money, your relationships, and your health and you got to be consistent across all three. We can talk about that some more. But they’ll say, “I have a really good income. I’m retired, I’m set financially, my health is great, my spiritual health, my physical health, my relationships. I’ve been married 30 years I’ve got a wonderful family. What’s supposed to motivate me?” And the thing I always come back to is a single word-
Will Barron:
Is it-
Weldon Long:
And that’s contribution.
Will Barron:
I was going to say, is it Ferrari because I thought that was what was coming then?
Weldon Long:
No, the Ferrari is the benefit of the contribution because it truly is the case that the more we receive … Or the more we give the more we receive. When Tony … My very first book was a book called The Upside of Fear. And I was very fortunate … It was a autobiography about my life, won numerous awards. It was what really got me into the writing and speaking business. And I was fortunate enough to connect with Tony Robbins and he endorsed the book and his endorsement read, congratulations on your turnaround from prison to contribution. He didn’t say congratulations on your turnaround from prison to a house on Maui, right. It was the contribution. And so I think everybody is motivated by contribution. If somebody has it really good and they don’t have a lot of pain in their life well … I mean, you go back to the old Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, right. What’s the final need? Self-actualization. Making a difference, a contribution.
Weldon Long:
One of my big inspirations and a man who became a very good friend of mine before he passed away, endorsed my books was Stephen Covey. He wrote The 7 Habits. And many people don’t know, Dr. Covey wrote another book called The 8th Habit. And The 8th Habit was finding your voice and making that contribution, spreading your message, spreading your light. And so I think no matter where someone is if they haven’t had the suffering, then look to how you can help others make a contribution whether it’s building an orphanage in Ethiopia, or maybe a little league team in your hometown. It doesn’t matter what is, but extend yourself emotionally, financially, professionally to help other people.
Weldon Long:
If there’s something that you really want that’s a big enough goal that you want to go to well, then great. That fear or that pursuit of pleasure may be enough for you. But most all of us have some pain. Dig into that pain, use that as your motivation. If that … If you had a charmed life I get it, then look for the contribution or the big goal, that big audacious goal that gets you up in the morning, gets you excited. And then once you figure that out it’s a pretty easy process to get there believe it or no.
Is Weldon Long a Deeply Religious Man? · [15:05]
Will Barron:
Love it. So we’ll come on the process in a second, but something else you mentioned. And I don’t want to dive into personally on this because I don’t know how … Whether you want to discuss it or not, but you mentioned reading the Bible. Can I ask? Are you a religious man?
Weldon Long:
I wouldn’t say I’m religious. I’m deeply spiritual. I wouldn’t … In terms of an organised routine religion, I wouldn’t go that far at all. But I’m a deeply spiritual person in that when my father died I was 32 years old and I was at the time essentially an agnostic. I wouldn’t go so far as to say atheist but I just wasn’t sure. But you’ve heard that old saying, there’s no atheist in a foxhole. Well, when you’re in the pain I was in … Lost my son, destroyed my life, lost my father, I was in an emotional foxhole. And when I got there I needed some help, man.
Weldon Long:
And I remember one day laying on my rack on my bunk and I was sobbing. It was a few days after my father died. And I had the sheets over my head so that my cellmates around me wouldn’t see me crying like a little baby. I was 32 years old. And I started thinking and I guess it turned into praying or meditating or whatever you want to call it and I just begin to say, “If there’s anything out there I really need some help here. I am the least deserving person on the planet but I have destroyed everything around me, and this is the best I’ve been able to do on my own.”
Weldon Long:
And I’m telling you when I said that I experienced what I consider just a warmth for maybe 10 seconds. And in that moment I knew I was going to be okay. I had seven years left to go in prison, I had so much work to do. I had to become a man of honour, character, integrity. I had to get an education, I had to change my value system. I had so much work to do, but I knew in that moment I was going to make it. And since that moment I’ve always thought that … People will ask me all the time, how did you do it? And I tell them, “I didn’t do it happened to me.” And it’s a huge difference. And so to that degree I’m very spiritual in that I believe that there is a universal intelligence, a universal being, whatever you want to call it. A lot of people call it a lot of different things but I personally feel a lot of energy, direction, and clarity that I get from that source.
Does Believing in Some Kind of Faith or Religion Help People Develop a Consistent Way of Living? · [17:10]
Will Barron:
And the reason I ask, and regular listeners will know this because I’ve asked similar questions before, but I’m an atheist. And I sometimes feel like that could be a disadvantage. So I wanted to ask you, Weldon, having faith in something … However you want to describe it, and other people will describe in other ways. But having some kind of faith, does that allow you to be consistent for longer periods of time, not with less efforts but does it enable that? Because you can say, “Well, I’m being guided. Or, I’ve got a 20-year plan and I’m being guided on that, and that’s going to help me get there.” Is that an advantage for people perhaps?
Weldon Long:
I don’t know if it’s an advantage. We’re all so unique in our individuality and what we believe, what we think. I don’t know there’s an advantage. If there is an advantage for me personally, and I can’t speak for you or anybody else for that matter, but when I’ve had really tough times … When I made that decision in 1996, I still had some tough years ahead of me, right.
Will Barron:
Sure.
Weldon Long:
There were a lot of really, really tough times and there’s … And I don’t … I’m not a big Bible thumper. I don’t read the Bible every day or even every week, but there are some scriptures I’ve read over the years that jump out at me just like James Allen or Napoleon Hill or Jack Welch. But it’s just … I mean, it’s good stuff, all right. It’s definitely I believe inspired from somewhere beyond mankind’s old brain. But there’s a scripture that says, “Even as I walk through the shadow of the valley of death, I fear no evil, for thine is with me.” And that’s a thing that has helped me through so many difficult times. When I feel down I don’t feel alone. I feel okay, it’s Man’s Search for Meaning Viktor Frankl. What’s the purpose of this suffering? What’s the meaning of this suffering? What can I do good out this difficult situation? And it’s that belief and then feeling I’m just not alone.
Weldon Long:
And maybe it’s delusion, right, but it works for me, right. Maybe it’s like cartoon strips. I don’t know. Maybe I could think of Bart Simpson and he could pull me out of this mess. But the bottom line, it works for me, and I think there’s something about the comfort in that, right, especially if you’re alone physically in prison or in a very bad situation. And I’m just curious … I lost … My brother’s wife of 35 years died last year of cancer at 57 years old. Very young. And just suddenly just came and took her.
Weldon Long:
And I’m just curious. When your mother passed I’m sure she had … When you have cancer you know it’s coming so you have time to prepare. And I went through this with my sister-in-law and it was … At first, I thought it was scary and sad, and it turned out to be a beautiful experience as she talked with everybody and we knew this was happening. And I’m curious. Your mother no doubt had some great sense of peace. People don’t go to the grave kicking and screaming in most cases, right. They’ve made peace with their life. And I’m wondering where she got that peace. I always wonder that about people. Where do they find that? It can be an inner thing. It could be a God thing. It could be … It might be a Bart Simpson thing I don’t know. But people all got to find that peace.
Will Barron:
Well, I … We’re getting away sales there, but I know for my mom she had cancer for 10 years so technically she was a cancer survivor even though it kept coming back into that side of things. And she had great peace and this is motivation for me. And I did the … I think you call it a eulogy. I did a speak … A talk at the funeral and stuff. And one of the things that she mentioned before she passed away was just how proud of me and my two brothers that she was. She never mentioned my dad.
Will Barron:
But I mentioned then again, not being religious but having to … Not having to but choosing to speak at the church. I start talking about DNA. So for everyone who was missing her, me, my brothers were literally 50 odd percent of her and that was her legacy. And that was something that she … So she was a pharmacist, a pharmacy technician so she wasn’t a business person entrepreneur or anything like that, but she was a crazy lady and would talk to anyone and all that side of things. So she at her funeral … There’ll be more people at her funeral than mine. I know that for a fact. The place was rammed, there was a queue outside to get in. It was crazy. So with contribution, she had left contribution of making people smile, and just having engaging conversations with individuals, and looking after them, and mothering people without even realising it. And so that was a nice come round. And that does relate to the conversation. Whether she was at peace or not I don’t know. It’s difficult to get in someone’s brain at that point.
Leaving Legacies and Contributing to the Greater Good · [21:38]
Will Barron:
But that was an interesting one for me to see that not even … I’ll say even a … And I’m doing this somewhat sarcastically, but a lowly technician in a hospital still gave that much that … I think there was 600 people at the funeral. There was that many people there. It was incredible. So that leaves us, no matter how old we are watching this, right, that contribution is something that we can always work on. And I think it’s Gary Vaynerchuk bangs on about this. He’s less bothered about how much money he has in the bank and he’s more concerned about leaving such a legacy that there’s … So many people want to go to his funeral that they all can’t fit in on a grand scale. And perhaps that’s a good way to look at things and to … Is that a good way to look at things and try and motivate ourselves?
Weldon Long:
That’s a great question. I was thinking about Dr. Covey’s book 7 Habits. When you mention that, one of the things he recommends people do to get clear on their personal purpose is to imagine your funeral. What would you want your spouse to say? Your kids? Your coworkers, right? And what would you have them say? And when you think about the things you want them to say, you realise what’s really important to you. When I first went through that exercise in 1996, I pictured my funeral. And at that time the only one I envisioned there was my son who was three years old, but I envisioned him as a grown man at my funeral one day and coming up to the lectern and saying, “My dad was the richest convict ever.” And I realised that’s not what I want my son to say, right. Because at that time I thought it was all about creating wealth and I could stay out of prison.
Weldon Long:
When I realised that that’s not what I want my son to say, I had to think what do I want him to say? And you know what I came with? I came up with, I want my son to be able to say it … Matthew, he’s 26 years old. I want him to be able to say, “My dad changed his life about halfway through his life. And when he changed his life he made me a promise that he would never lie to me again and he would never leave me again. And my father kept those promises until the day he died.” If my son can say that when I die, then it’s mission accomplished for me.
The Upside of Fear: How to Practically Incorporate Some Consistency Into Your Life · [23:40]
Will Barron:
I’ll tell you what, Weldon, we’re going deeper than what I expected on this show, mate. Let’s pull things back to sales and consistency just for a second. We can go down a rabbit hole in this if we choose to. But for someone who’s listening to this and they’re going okay, right. Hopefully, someone’s … People are somewhat emotionally charged after listening to this they’re going, this is the time I’m going to make a decision. I’m going to stick to it. This is out of the 500 New Year’s resolutions that I’ve had consistency in X, Y, or Zed, or perhaps being consistent across money, relationships, and health. Choosing one thing is after this conversation that they’re geared up to do that. What practically can we do to implement this? Because you mentioned the word habit, for example. What should we be doing to make these things stick and take it away from perhaps willpower and turn it into something like brushing our teeth that we do every day?
Weldon Long:
Well, I’m glad you mentioned willpower because scientifically studies have shown that willpower is an exhaustible resource, right. You can really force feed yourself something for a short time, but over a short amount of time, hours, or days that breaks down and you have to fall back on habits, right, what are we doing habitually? So it’s actually a really simple process that going to blow you away. My book The Power of Consistency outlines this whole process in detail. But the thing I always warn people is that don’t mistake its simplicity for it not being powerful because it’s so simple people often overlook it, but it’s so powerful it can move mountains. So I call the process the upside of fear and fear is an acronym for focus, emotional commitment, action, and responsibility. The upside of fear by the way is also the title of my first book.
Weldon Long:
So here’s the fear process. Step number one, you got to get focused, obviously. What do I really want? A lot of times people go through life not exactly sure where they want to go. They want happiness, they want success but these are vague terms specifically in your money, which is your career, your financial security, that type of thing. Your relationships, which is your family, your community, your friends, and your health. Your mental, spiritual, and physical health. What do you specifically want to achieve in those areas? The classic book, Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich, the very first thing that he talked about in that book that was a habit of the most successful people is that they all had a definite purpose. They had specificity in what they wanted. So get clear. What is your financial goal? Is it to earn 200,000 a year? Is it to retire at 50 years old? Is it to buy a house on a lake? Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter what it is just be specific, right.
Weldon Long:
In your relationships what do you want? My very first prosperity plan, by the way, the very first list of goals I wrote out I put it on a sheet of paper and I stuck it to the wall of my cell with toothpaste. And the very first thing on that list said, “I am an awesome father to my son.” Now it wasn’t true yet, obviously, these are aspirations. Dr. Covey said, “We have to learn to live out of our imagination not out of our past.” And so I was living out of my imagination. I’m wealthy beyond my wildest dreams. I’m an awesome father to my son.
Weldon Long:
And then what do you want physically? Do you want to run a half marathon? Do you want to weigh 180 pounds? Maybe it’s a spiritual goal. You want to be a deacon in your church, right. Maybe it’s a philosophical goal. You want to be Friedrich Nietzsche. Whatever. It doesn’t matter what it is. But what is important to you with either your physical, spiritual, emotional health. And you simply identify specifically what you want. One money goals, keep it simple. One, maybe two financial goals, one or two relationship goals, one or two health goals. Then you simply have to ask yourself a simple question. What do I need to do every day to achieve these goals? Now, the key here is to limit it to one or two things. What one or two things could you do every single day to move closer to your financial goal? What one or two things every day could you do to move closer to that relationship goal? What one or two things could you do every day to move towards finishing that marathon?
Weldon Long:
The reality is, Lao Tzu said “A thousand mile journey begins with what? A single step.” But we get so overwhelmed and we get the paralysis through analysis. We start thinking what am I going to do the 50th step? What am I do the 100? Don’t worry about it. All you have to do is figure specifically what do you want and what’s the first one or two that you have to do? That’s the focus step. The next step is emotional commitment. You got to get deeply, emotionally committed to the things you want and the things you need to do. Again, Napoleon Hill said, “After you have clarity of purpose or definiteness of purpose,” as he referred to it, “You have to have a burning desire”. I call that an emotional commitment. How do you pick an emotional commitment? This is where we really start rewiring the brain.
Weldon Long:
The key is to write out the things you want and the things you need to do. So I earn $200,000 a year. I run every call with passion and purpose. I ask the order every single time. Two simple things that if I do every single call I’m probably going to move towards my financial goal, right. So you write those things out. I’m an awesome father to my son. I love, and respect, and honour my son. I give him my most valuable asset which is my time. One or two things if I do every day I’m going to be a great father. So you simply write these things out in present current tense. Your entire plan, in my estimation, should fit on one page so you can keep it in front of you, right. So you can stay focused. That’s the key.
The Quiet Time Ritual · [28:45]
Weldon Long:
Then we got to start putting those things … We got to start rewiring the brain with those things. How do we do that? Well, I call it a quiet time ritual. It’s 15 minutes a day reading, and reviewing, and visualising that list. Now, we don’t have time to go to the neurology, but what I can tell you is that by doing this on a consistent basis it reconstructs, rewires the neural connectors to where these new things on this sheet of paper they become your expectations. They become the value system. They become the thing … You got to make another strand of your DNA.
Weldon Long:
So every day when I would get up I would look at that list on my [inaudible 00:29:22]. I didn’t know the neuroscience behind all this at the time, but I would review that list, I would imagine what it would be like to be that man, to have that life. And over time my brain began to recreate those expectations. Seven years later I walked out of prison and the thought of not building a successful company and being a good person was like not … It was foreign to me at that point, right. So those are the first two steps. If you … I can pause here if you have a question or two about that.
Will Barron:
No, you keep going this is amazing.
Weldon Long:
Okay. So again, I told you it was simple, right. I told you it was simple. That’s why so many people overlook it. It’s funny. When The Power of Consistency came out I got a call from a guy named Ed Nottingham. He’s a PhD and a clinical psychologist. He’s written a couple of books of his own, the mindset, and he works for FedEx, as you know global company, right. $50 billion. And he calls me up and he says, “Mr. Long, I got to tell you, this book, The Power of Consistency is the simplest explanation of the neuroscience behind success and the principles that are the underpinnings of rationally motive behaviour therapy I’ve ever read in my life.” And I said, “There’s a name for this?” It’s like it’s common sense, right. I just read all the historical books, right, some new, some old.
Weldon Long:
So you figure out what you want, what you got to do, you write it out, you review it for a few minutes every single day. But here’s the key and you’ll see why this is so important in the action step. You have to get yourself deeply, emotionally committed as you read those things. You can’t just read it from wrote. You have to get emotionally connected. Again, it’s the emotions that trigger our actions, right. Neurologically. Your thoughts trigger your emotions, emotions trigger your actions, actions trigger your results. So you got to get so deeply committed emotionally that it starts driving new behaviours.
Weldon Long:
Let me give you an example. The first thing on my list was that I’m an awesome father to my son. He was three years old. Seven years later I got out of prison I get custody of my son, he’s 10 years old and I raise him. When he’s 18 years old he goes off to college. When my son goes off to college we didn’t make a big deal about it. He was just going to school at the University of Colorado a couple hours away. But we get to the dorm where he’s going to be living and we walk in and this lady checks his name off of a list. And she turns to my son and she says, “Mandatory housing meeting 3:00.” And I said, “Yes, ma’am, we’ll be here.” And she looks at me and she says, “No, you won’t. At 3;00 he’s a grown man. No parents allowed.” And all of a sudden it hits me. Wow, this is a huge day, right. So we go around campus. We get him all squared away with his classes, his books. Set his dorm room up.
Weldon Long:
At 2:45 we’re out in front of the dorm. And I’m so proud of my son he’s been through so much and he’s a really good, decent person. I put my arms around him I give him a big hug and I tell my son I said, “Son, my greatest wish for you is that one day you will have a son that you love the way I love you because that’s the only way you’re ever going to know what it feels like to be your dad.” Of course, he’s 18 years old, there’s kids around everywhere he’s embarrassed. He’s like, “Dad, what’s the matter with you today. Are you sick? Are you dying?” And I said, “No, son, everything’s right as rain. But 15 years ago your grandfather died and I made a promise to myself to be the father you deserved and this really worked out.”
Weldon Explains Why Commitment Drives Actions · [33:03]
Weldon Long:
And I put my hands on his shoulders and I said, “Son, words cannot even describe how much I love you and how proud I am of the man you’ve become.” And my son looks at me dead in the eyes, 18-year-old man, he takes my hands off his shoulder he puts them down by my side and he puts his hands on my shoulders and he gets right up in my face and my son says to me, he says, “No, dad, I’m proud of the man you finally became.” That moment with my son was beyond sublime. But you know what the crazy part was? The way it felt in that moment, the love, the understanding, the recognition that we made it, it felt the same way that it felt 15 years earlier when I was pretending it alone in a prison cell. That’s what Napoleon Hill said of burning desire for your dreams. A deep, emotional commitment. It’s got to become so deep and a part of you it drives everything you do. That’s the emotional commitment part.
Weldon Long:
Now let me tell you why it’s so important in the action step next. Action is where the rubber meets the road, right. Will Rogers said, “Even if you’re on the right path in life you get run over if you just sit there. We got to move towards those goals. We got to engage in those actions. Well, there’s a little thing called cognitive dissonance which we all know. And it’s basically a primary driver of human behaviour. Dissonance is the anxiety between something we say and something we do. So if you tell me you’re going to pick me up at the mall at 3:00 and then you forget and you look down at your watch it’s 3:15, that anxiety you feel, that’s called cognitive dissonance.
Weldon Long:
So you want to get rid of the dissonance because a human condition wants to be back in a state of residence. So how do you get back to a state of residence? You do the thing you said you would do. You turn the car around you feel better. You come get me we’re friends again, right. Think about that and think about this. Suppose you get up in the morning and you’re reviewing your prosperity plan in your morning, quiet time ritual. You visualise yourself earning $200,000 a year. You visualise yourself running every call of passion and purpose. You visualise yourself asking for the order every single time. And then a few hours later you go out in your first call. You walk in, you write up a quick bid, and you drop it off and walk out. What do you think you’re going to feel? You’re going to feel cognitive dissonance because that’s not what you visualised and told yourself that morning. So you feel like a fish out of water.
Weldon Long:
So you go on your next call and you remember that. That didn’t feel good. So what do you got to do? You’ve got to do the thing you said you would do. You run the call with passion and purpose. You ask for it every single time. So it’s the ultimate and personal responsibility because the quiet time ritual through the cognitive dissonance starts driving the behaviours that we’ve already decided if I do these things I’m going to get these things. So now I’m habitually, automatically doing these things because I’m telling myself every single day to do them.
“We all have problems in life, but your problems do not define your life. Your decisions about your problems define your life.” – Weldon Long · [34:57]
Weldon Long:
The final step is responsibility. It’s a very simple concept that we all have problems in life, but your problems do not define your life. Your decisions about your problems define your life. And who’s responsible for those decisions? Me. If it is to be it’s up to me. So focus, figure out what you want what you got to do. Emotional commitment, write it down, review it for 15 minutes every day. Action, let mother nature do her job. Dissonance will keep you on track. And then understand that your problems don’t define you, your decisions about your problems define you and we are 100% responsible for that. So that in a nutshell is the upside of fear. A simple process but very powerful.
Reasonable Timeframes for Setting Achievable Goals · [35:38]
Will Barron:
Well, for sure you blew minds here and you’re getting the audience fired up with this, Weldon. One thing that came to mind of all this is, what are the timeframes that we should be aiming towards here? Is this a … Clearly you’re talking about your son and there’s a definite timeline of that. Or when he’s a man, when he can have these conversations back with you. When he … When you can see your work into him and him becoming a good lad as a young kid or whatever it is. Is this … Is the answer it depends? Or, should we be looking at one-year goals, 10-year goals, 50-year goals, a mix of all of them?
Will Barron:
How do we go about … Because I guess that’s the key point here of it. If I set a 20-year goal … And I’ve talked about this on the show in the past. So that I want to fund and my contribution is going to be scientific research into different things which I’ve talked about in a previous show so I won’t dive into it in too much detail, but that’s definitely a 20-year goal. As much as I want to be rah-rah and then discuss and get psyched up about the fact that I could blow things up, and expand the business, and start this, it’s probably 20 years away. Is that the range that we’re looking for or do we need a mix of things to be passionate about because we want to see results, right, and that gives us a feedback loop?
Weldon Long:
That’s a great question. And so there’s really three goals in my estimation to keep it simple. There’s long-term, what you’re talking about within the 20-year plan. There are shorter-term which can be one to three years. And then there’s what I call current goals. In other words, being an awesome father to my son starts right now, right. I don’t have to wait to get there. So I’ve got things on there that are just the current goals that go to who I want to be as a person on every basis. I’ve got for … Personally, I’ve got a one-year income goal, and then I’ve got a long-term financial goal. So yes, it could be a combination of those. So you might … If your goal is to make $10 million it’s going to be longer-term than if it’s to make the first 100,000 of that.
Weldon Long:
So definitely long-term, short-term, and then what I call current goals. Who do you want to be today? What can you accomplish today? The key thing is by doing this on an ongoing basis, you’re going to start driving the behaviours. I will tell you this. You’ve all heard the old expression, it takes about 30 days for something to become a habit, these new activities. There’s a great story in John Ashcraft’s book the Answer about these astronauts in a spacecraft and they put goggles on them to turn their vision upside down, right, where they were training. And after 30 days their vision corrected because it took the brain about 30 days to carve new neural connectors. And so that’s why it takes the brain about 30 days to catch up with the new behaviours, new habits. So you got to have a little bit of patience during that timeframe. But in terms of how long it takes to reach the goal, you’re going to have short-term, long-term, and current stuff that you’re working on.
Why Big Goals Should Never Be Realistic · [38:15]
Will Barron:
Amazing stuff. Well, final thing to wrap on here, Weldon. And I don’t know what your take is on this because some people will say, “We should go for broke and go huge.” Some people perhaps would say, “We should go for sensible.” Not necessarily sensible but slightly above sensible. How big should these goals be? Because I use the cliche all the time if you see people on Instagram going from … Seemingly going from nothing to 10 million in revenue and buying Ferrari’s, Porsche’s, Lamborghini’s whatever it is. And then clearly they’re using that lifestyle to sell product or service on the back of it. So there’s more elements to this than what meets the eye in a lot of scenarios.
Will Barron:
But for me being 32, I’m at the top end of the millennial group. My brother is a … I’ve got a middle brother and a younger brother, he’s on the bottom end. And I know he is somewhat susceptible to seeing these individuals and being like well, I could just do this like them in six months down the line. Without that much hard work, I’m going to have achieved X, Y, Zed. How do we … How big should we set our goals is question one? And the same question is, should we … I guess should we be going for broke with all of this? Or should we be realistic with our goal setting?
Weldon Long:
I am not a huge fan of being realistic. Think about my life for a second. What would’ve been a realistic goal 22 years ago when I was sitting in prison? What would’ve been realistic? Maybe getting out of prison, getting a decent job, maybe having visitation with my son. That would’ve been realistic but I’m a big fan of dreaming big, right. I was dreaming of a house in Maui. I was dreaming of a house in the mountains. I was dreaming of wealth and prosperity and my son, all these amazing things. And within a few years of getting out … I got out of prison I was living in a homeless shelter in January of 2003. 16 years ago I was living in a homeless shelter. By 2007 I had a house on a mountain, right. I believe in dreaming big and here’s why. If we got just another minute.
Weldon Long:
The reticular activating system is a filter in your brain. It filters out things that are irrelevant to you so you can focus on what’s relevant to you. Right now, until I mentioned that coffee cup by your hand, you probably weren’t thinking about it, right. Because the fact it was there wasn’t relevant. But what if it had been a rattlesnake? Would you have been noticing that? You would’ve just ignored … You’d been keeping your eyes on it because your wellbeing depends on you watching, right. Well, that’s what the reticular activating system does. Things that don’t matter it filters them out so we can focus on what does matter like this conversation, for example.
“Your results will never exceed your expectations, and your expectations will never exceed your imagination.” – Weldon Long · [41:01]
Weldon Long:
But here’s the thing. Suppose your expectation is you’re going to make a $200,000 a year. That’s what I’m going … That’s my dream. I’m going to make 200 grand a year. And then a half a million-dollar idea comes past you. If you think it’s not relevant to you the reticular particular activating system will say, “Well, that’s not relevant to us, we’re looking for ways to make 200 grand a year.” So listen. There’s a thing I write about and we haven’t even talked about my new book. Maybe we can do another podcast sometime and talk about that. But in my … In The Power of Consistency … I was just writing an article for a trade magazine this morning and I started the article with this quote from the book. “Your results will never exceed your expectations, and your expectations will never exceed your imagination,” right. So your results are limited by what you expect. You’re never going to accidentally make five million dollars. Those things happen on purpose, right. So I believe in big dreams. I believe in imagination just big as the whole universe.
Will Barron:
I thought you were going to say that, Weldon. I’m glad I asked you, mate, because this is a groundwork of going from … And it’s almost society’s expectations, your parents and their wealth and how that translates to what you feel comfortable with.
Weldon Long:
Listen. I write extensively and speak extensively about limiting beliefs. Ideas that other people put in our heads 20, 30, 40 years ago. And they didn’t even do it directly it was just indirectly because we just assumed their beliefs, right. They didn’t say you have to think like me, but hey, if my dad was middle income I guess we’re middle-income people, right. So you got to make sure … Examining limiting beliefs is a big part of the focus step. We didn’t have time to talk about it today. We could speak for two days just on limiting beliefs, right.
Will Barron:
Well, we’ll definitely have you back on Weldon to dive into this into more detail.
Weldon Long:
I’d love … I’d love to come back. I really enjoyed this conversation.
Weldon’s Advise to His Younger Self on How to Become Better at Selling · [42:13]
Will Barron:
Well, I’ve got one final question for you, mate. It’s something that I ask everyone that comes on the show and I’m genuinely fascinated to hear your answer with all your experience that you’ve just briefly touched on in this episode. And the question is, mate, if you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you’d give him to help him become better at selling?
Weldon Long:
Better at selling. The most important thing that I tell people when I’m working with a sales group is that you got to do everything in your power … You won’t always be able to do it. You always have to be respectful, and polite, and professional when you do it, but you got to do everything in your power to try to get your prospect to make a final decision about you and in your company with you in front of them or on the phone. You don’t want them making a decision about you and your products with you away from the situation because then it comes down to a number between you and someone else. If you can get people to make … Now, I teach the whole process of how to do this. You have to know how to do it. That’s what consistency selling is all about.
Weldon Long:
How do you approach the sales call? I don’t approach the sales call with the mindset of selling the deal. I approach the sales call with the mindset of doing everything in my power to position the conversation so that my prospect will make a final decision about me at the end even if it’s no. In fact, I tell my prospects, “No’s a perfectly acceptable answer.” So the key is to try to get them … You can’t always do it because some people refuse to make a decision one way or the other. That’s fine. But in most cases, you can get people to reach a final decision about you and your company while you’re still in front of them. And you give them permission to say no. You don’t want them to feel cornered or pressured. No’s a perfectly acceptable answer, but just let me to know today whether or not you think I’m a good fit for you and your family. Simple things.
Parting Thoughts · [43:49]
Will Barron:
Well, with that Weldon, it’s been an absolute joy chatting with you, mate this episode. I was looking forward to it because I said consistency is at the forefront of my mind personally, but you’ve blown it away. With that tell us … We touched on the book, but tell us a little bit more about the books and where we can find out more about you as well.
Weldon Long:
So my first book as I mentioned was The upside of Fear. The Power of Consistency is the mindset and the Consistency Selling is the sales model. I would encourage your listeners and your viewers to text in the word videos … Video or videos to 96000. And if you’re international and you can’t do it just go to my website weldonlong.com and there’s a banner at the top. And either way, you do it you’ll get about an hour’s worth of three videos I created. The first ones on the prosperity mindset, a lot of what we talked about today. The other two are how do you get people to make a final decision about you on a sales call. So it’s a free video series, it’s about an hour long. You can text videos to 96000 or go to weldonlong.com and just … You’ll see a big orange banner across the top, you click on that, put in your info, we’ll send it to you. And, of course, they can check out the books, and the website on Amazon and those types of places.
Will Barron:
Perfect. Well, I’ll link to everything that we talked about for anyone who’s on a treadmill, anyone who’s driving at the moment trying to scribble things down and not crash the car. We’ll do it over at salesman.org/consistency. That’ll be the link for this episode, the show. And with that, Weldon, I really appreciate you coming on the show, mate. I really appreciate this conversation. You’re a complete legend. And with that, I want to thank you for joining us on the Salesman podcast.
Weldon Long:
Thank you, my friend, it’s been a real treat. I appreciate it.
