Matt Anderson is an author, a coach, and a speaker who helps people get out of their own way and crush their goals.
95% of the time, it’s the salespeople holding themselves back from smashing targets rather than any external factors that need to change. In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Matt talks about why you must stop blaming others and getting in your own way of sales success.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- Podcast – The Road Not Taken
- Matt-anderson.com
- Book – Fearless Referrals: Boost Your Confidence, Break Down Doors, And Build A Powerful Client List
- Matt on Linkedin
- Book – Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
- Book – The Big Leap
- Book – No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Proven Plan for Getting What You Want in Love, Sex and Life
- Get out of Your Own Way Podcast
Transcript
Will Barron:
Coming up on today’s episode of the Salesman Podcast.
Matt Anderson:
Most people don’t really believe deep down that they can accomplish great things and be the top producer in their company. And I think that’s the much biggest sticking point than competence. Because even if you know your stuff, if you’re afraid to talk to people much higher up the food chain because you’re intimidated by them, then it doesn’t really matter what you know because you’re never going to talk to them anyway.
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 with that, let’s meet today’s guest.
Matt Anderson:
Hello, my name’s Matt Anderson. For the last 17 years, I’ve been a speaker, coach and train on the topic of referrals on word of mouth business. And so the last couple of years I’ve become increasingly fascinated in the subject of how do people get out of their own way because it seems like we’re our own biggest obstacle to getting what we want.
Will Barron:
On this episode of the Salesman Podcast with that legend that is Matt, we’re diving into the psychology behind and then the real life implications, the practical implications of when salespeople get in their own way, when they blame others, when they rationalise things that they should or shouldn’t have done, when they look at things that they were told as a child and that affects them as an adult and a whole lot more.
In a World Where 50% of Salespeople are Not Hitting Their Sales Targets, What Might Be the Contributing Factor to All of This? · [01:27]
Will Barron:
We cover a lot of ground in this one. There’s a tonne of value so let’s jump right into it To tee things up here, in a world where 50 plus percent of individuals, B2B sales professionals are not hitting their sales targets, obviously the answer is multiple things, but is one of the biggest leverage things here that perhaps they don’t know enough stuff or is it that they’re just getting in their own way and self-sabotaging their efforts?
Matt Anderson:
Well, I hate to be black and white about it. I am sure there are some people where it’s a competence issue and if they knew that stuff more, then they would be much more effective at selling what it is that they’re selling. However, if I had to put a number on it, I would bet that at least 80% of those individuals are getting in their own way in different ways.
The Problem with Lacking Self-belief in Sales · [02:12]
Will Barron:
And I want to dive into things like procrastination, lack of consistency, all these kinds of things. But is there a place where we should start with this? Is there a biggest bang for buck thing that we can talk about that affects salespeople across the board?
“Most people don’t really believe deep down that they can accomplish great things and be the top producer in their company. And I think that’s the much bigger sticking points than competence because even if you know your stuff, if you’re afraid to talk to people much higher up the food chain because you’re intimidated by them, then it doesn’t really matter what you know because you’re never going to talk to them anyway.” – Matt Anderson · [02:46]
Matt Anderson:
I think so, yeah. I think that… I mean, the two big broad areas are one, is people don’t do enough of what they need to do and that’s where procrastination comes into it and being inconsistent comes into it amongst many other things. However, what doesn’t get enough air time I think is that most people don’t really believe deep down that they can accomplish great things and be the top producer in their company. And I think that’s the much bigger sticking points than competence because even if you know your stuff, if you’re afraid to talk to people much higher up the food chain because you’re intimidated by them, then it doesn’t really matter what you know because you’re never going to talk to them anyway.
Will Barron:
Sure. So if we stick on that because it seems like our belief system trickles down into other things like our levels of confidence, our body language and things that we talk about on the show which acutely you can change your body language, you can do X, Y, Z and it’ll perhaps give this appearance. I like to talk about, as you were describing here, top of the line things that affect everything else.
Is a Lack of Self-belief Holding You Back? · [03:30]
Will Barron:
How do we diagnose if this is a potential problem for us over than there’ll be 10% of the audience that go, “I don’t believe in anything I’m doing. I think I’m hopeless. And perhaps not on the verge of suicide, but I’m on the verge of quitting it and packing it all in together.” Other than those people who are… it’s obvious that they don’t believe, how do we know if this is affecting us if we feel on a gut level that we’re doing all right?
Matt Anderson:
Well, again, I think most of the time if you’re doing what is the recipe that you’ve been given to succeed and you’re doing it as well as you can and the results aren’t coming, well again, there’s multiple reasons why that might be. But I think more often than not, it’s we’re getting in our own way. In other words, we’re sending mixed messages in some way or with…
Matt Anderson:
I mean, self deceit is a very large area where we fool ourselves into thinking we’re doing the right things but again, maybe we’re actually unwittingly making lots of excuses for our results and blaming it on other people or on circumstances so there’s any number of things. I think it starts by looking in the mirror, I think really and being willing to be really honest with the results you’re getting and what you’re doing to really make a difference in changing those results.
Will Barron:
So perhaps we’re not getting the results. Unfortunately, most people don’t have a recipe, but we’ll assume that there’s some kind of recipe for success that’s been put in front of us just to narrow down the variables so we’re not here for 27 hours going through this. So say we’ve got a recipe for success. There’s people in our organisation having success so we know that it is possible.
What to Do When You Consistently Make Excuses for Failing to Succeed · [05:25]
Will Barron:
Perhaps we’re a B or a C player and there’s the A players who are crushing it so that we can see that there is some kind of pathway to this. How do we get over? And I’ve been guilty of this in the past and I think it all comes down to the same potential underlying issues of self deceit, of blame, of rationalising essentially why we haven’t solved a problem or won a deal, rather than just getting out there and changing things. How do we get past all this bullshit that we feed ourselves to make us feel better for failing and how do we kind of break through that to have the success on the other side of it?
Matt Anderson:
I think it starts with fuel. I think everything… It’s funny when I coached and I still coach, but when I did loads of coaching, I would… I’m embarrassed to admit this, I mean, I would blame clients by saying, “Oh, they’re just not motivated enough. They just need better juicy goals. I think they’re a bit lazy. I think they need to work harder.” And that’s typically what would spin through my head day in and day out when, whatever, 60% or 70% of the people I was working with just were getting really disappointing underwhelming results.
Matt Anderson:
So I think the first thing is you have to be vulnerable enough to look yourself in the mirror and start telling the truth about where you are. And it’s, again, it starts to sound somewhat like therapy in a way but I think if you really want fuel, you’ve got to go back, you’ve got to look at the garbage, the crap that you grew up with, the negative stuff because that’s where we learn a lot of the beliefs that we end up then adopting as adults.
Matt Anderson:
Not wittingly, but that’s typically, and I’m going to generalise but it’s true for many people, that’s what we typically grow up where we start to learn what the limits are in the community we live in, the culture we live in, whatever it might be such that we don’t really believe the big juicy stuff is possible, that I’m not good enough to do that, the I don’t really deserve to get that. And so by going backwards to start to say, “Well, where did I learn that?”
Matt Anderson:
And then you start to connect the dots to the worst teachers we had, a wildly flawed parent who was miserable, then you can start to empower yourself by saying, “Well, why am I still believing that nonsense from those sources?” But until we do that, until we can make those counter connections ourselves, I mean, the sad truth is, is that beliefs can be really, really hard to shift.
Will Barron:
So I had some beliefs that throughout the three and a half years of doing the podcast I’m slowly starting to shift. And it wasn’t maliciously given to me by my parents but I remember my dad probably still says it now, and I’d call him out on it if I heard him say it, but he would always say money, doesn’t grow on trees which very literally money is made out of paper and it is grown out of trees so that’s how I kind of rewire and reprogram this. But Matt, is there a way to use… Before we get onto that, I was going to ask you how we can use language, if there’s any things that we should be doing to rewire and reprogram ourselves.
How to Master the Skill of Uncovering What is Holding you Back and Overcome the Stories We’ve Consistently Been Told About Ourselves · [08:44]
Will Barron:
But before we get onto that, is this a case of very literally looking in a mirror, being vulnerable and then writing down, journaling, I don’t know, how do we bring all of this to the surface? Because if we’ve got these deep ingrained beliefs and we use cognitive dissonance to rationalise that they are true, we may from without hiring a psychotherapist to sit us on a couch and go for our childhood and kind of regress us into uncovering some of this, I guess the skill is uncovering what is holding us back. So how do we go about very literally for the audience now, how do they very literally go back after listening to this at the gym and try and suss out what mixed messages they’ve been told?
Matt Anderson:
Right. So now I got this idea from a brilliant book called Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins who has this unbelievably horrendous upbringing and has done unbelievable things as an adult. But he recommends asking the question, and I don’t know if I can… can I swear on this programme or no?
Will Barron:
Of course, you can.
“This is why goal setting isn’t very effective for most people, it doesn’t get us to change action, it’s our emotion that gets to change action.” – Matt Anderson · [09:57]
Matt Anderson:
So the question is, what kind of bullshit did I grow up with? And really go to town on that. In other words, you got to dig into the pain. And the reason why that matters, it’s interesting because you talked… I’m not an expert on cognitive dissonance, but what matters is, is that just impacting our rational brains which is why goal setting isn’t very effective for most people. It doesn’t get us to change action, it’s our emotion that gets to change action.
Matt Anderson:
So if you dig deep on all the crap that you dealt with growing up, and again, and this isn’t to disrespect to our families. Our parents would almost always doing their absolute best, but they’re flawed just like we are as parents as well. But dig that up and then flip it upside down and say these are some of the negative lessons I learned. But so in other words, step one is find the fuel but step two is who do you want to be moving forward? And that’s where the real meat comes.
Matt Anderson:
It’s like I’ve survived this much nonsense, moving forward, I’m not going to buy in to all that crap that I unwittingly adopted growing up. This is who I’m going to be moving forward. And so we literally have to start burying our weak, older self and becoming more of that person. And the reason why… again, so for those of you that are listening to this thinking, “This sounds like hocus-pocus.” I’ll tell you, the light bulb went off for me several months ago.
Matt Anderson:
I don’t even remember why, but I was on my LinkedIn. I’ve got… it doesn’t really matter. I’m not trying to boast it, but I’ve got at least a couple of thousand contacts on my LinkedIn. But I’ve coached, as I said, I’ve coached over a thousand of these people. And I was flabbergasted how many of the people that I coached were still at associate partner, they hadn’t made principal, they were still assistant this or vice-president that. And these are people I coached three, five, some of them 15 years ago. And I was just stunned, obviously, yes.
“I think we’re conditioned growing up to expect certain things in life and that’s where most people stop. So my fascination is how can most of us get beyond that? Because the vast majority of people do not.” – Matt Anderson · [11:36]
Matt Anderson:
Of course, some people have moved up the food chain, but I was shocked by how many had not. And so the reason why I’m talking about this is because I think we’re conditioned growing up to expect certain things in life and that’s where most people stop. So my fascination is how can most of us get beyond that? Because the vast majority of people do not. How does this apply to your 50% not hitting their targets? Well, very significantly because they may, you talk about money, they may just have themselves pegged as only ever expecting to earn X fairly low amounts and never six times, eight times that even though there’s people that aren’t as intelligent as them or as personable as them, or whatever, fill in the blank as them, who have done it.
Matt Anderson:
So much of it comes down to what’s going on in our heads. And so I think we’ve just got to be more open to this conversation. Otherwise, we can follow the recipe but we’re still not going to ultimately push enough of the right buttons most of the time because we’re going to get nervous. Referrals is a great example. I mean, if most people are actually asked, even just their top 20% of their network for great introductions with an expectation that these people say yes, and they really should if it’s a top 20% of their network, I mean, people start to say, “Wow, I could double my income.”
Matt Anderson:
But most people don’t follow through on that, but that’s a perfect case in point. But what I taught for 16, 17 years, honestly, it’s very straightforward stuff, really. It’s not a complicated subject by and large. It’s about following through and having the conviction and it’s just shocking how many people didn’t.
Will Barron:
So we’ll come on to conviction and consistency in a second because increasingly as I have success from the show, it points out to me that this is basically the only thing I’ve done for more than two or three years in the whole of my life other than perhaps playing basketball as a kid. I played that for perhaps a decade. But I’ve never really had a sales job for more than three, four years. I’ve always flipped and changed like most salespeople do between different roles, different organisations.
Will Barron:
And I see now the compounding effects of the podcast and the business elements of all this and the network that I’m growing by just very simply surviving, you’re doing the same thing over and over and over. So I want to touch on that in a second. But you said two things that were really interesting here, Matt. One, we have quite a lot of data on it and I’m sure you’re aware of all this, and it’s called the something phenomenon, I can’t remember what it is. But essentially most people earn between plus or minus 20% of what their parents have earned because they have beliefs instilled in them, they have upper and lower boundaries of what they feel comfortable at.
Will Barron:
And this is again, something I’ve been through of for a long time if I had more than 10, 15 grand in my bank account, I was like, “Great, we’re doing well.” It would go up, I’d have a couple of months of great selling. I would spend it all, I’d waste it on crap and then I’d get down to that number and then I’d have to immediately then I’d start, I’ve only got nine grand in my bank account, I need to get it back up to kind of 20 plus or whatever the number is.
Will Barron:
I think some people… we’ve talked about this on the show before, I call it like a wealth thermostat. So we can talk about that as well of how we could perhaps raise that thermostat so that we’ve got the drive to, oh, I’ve not got a hundred grand in my account, I need to kind of earn that and kind of double down on the work and use that as motivation so we’ll touch on that in a second as well. But something that is, I think, humbly not knowing that much about the subject, but I know it works for me, is rather than trying to solve my issues that…
Will Barron:
And I’ve had a very good childhood and kind of growing up, went to a nice university and everything’s been great and fine. So I don’t really have like David Goggins, for example, who’s coming on the show in a couple of weeks time. Clearly I don’t have a background like him and kind of his story and the audience will see that when the episode airs. So I don’t have that intrinsically motivate me. So what I do, and this is the technique I always go at, I look at well, where do I want to be in five years? I want to have this, that, I want to have a bunch of property.
Will Barron:
You want the business to be self-sustaining. I want to be able to pull myself away from perhaps doing all of the interviews and run it is a media and a training company, all this kind of stuff. I go, “Well, who is that person?” That person is not wearing jogging bottoms and a t-shirt when he’s doing these interviews. That person is driving, not a crappy, which I loved but I sold it kind of a 12 months ago, Mazda RX-8 was my favourite car when I was a kid, it came out when I was 18.
Will Barron:
Not driving a crappy Mazda RX-8 that breaks down all the time and it’s just a complete mess but it’s fun to drive, it’s driving a car that when he pulls up at a meeting, people go, “Oh, this dude’s here to do business.” All these subtle little things, regular haircuts, I don’t know. All this stuff that when I visualise this person that has all the things I want to have and become and do, I try and rather than solve my regrets and solve my problems in the past, I look forward and try and bring that person to me right now.
Matt Anderson:
Right.
When Dealing with Our Negative Childhood Stories, Should we be Trying to Go After the Person We Want to Be or Try to Solve Our Childhood Problems? · [16:28]
Will Barron:
Whether that’s getting in shape, whether that’s starting jujitsu like I have done recently, whatever it is. So tell us your thoughts on that Matt. I might be talking complete nonsense here, but is that a legitimate strategy to go after the person we want to be as opposed to try and to solve the problems that we have that may be holding us where we are?
“Having a vision or visualising outcomes that you want, I think that’s a really a great strategy. For some people, it might be just defining what success is for them since I think often we chase other people’s definitions of success.” – Matt Anderson · [16:53]
Matt Anderson:
Well, absolutely. I mean, so as I said, my second point is you need a map. So having a vision or visualising outcomes that you want, I think that’s a really a great strategy that’s part of that. For some people, it might be just defining what success is for them since I think often we chase other people’s definitions of success.
“Only listen to the voice in your head that wants you to be better instead of the one that says, “Ah, forget that. Don’t bother doing that,” the lazy voice.” – Matt Anderson · [17:15]
Matt Anderson:
Actually this is from the Goggins book too, you can tell I read it recently, but I mean, he talks about only listen to the voice in your head that wants you to be better instead of the one that says, “Ah, forget that. Don’t bother doing that,” the lazy voice.
Matt Anderson:
So that’s a piece of it, certainly but I also think that another fantastic exercise is figuring out what you’re uncomfortable doing because within that often are the things that we most need to do where our biggest opportunities really are. And certainly in sales, an easy example are the people that intimidate us, that the biggest decision makers, the most, again, respected or influential people, they’re the ones we should be talking to but that scares a lot of people off.
Matt Anderson:
So whatever those… it might be public speaking, it might be going to certain types of networking events. But it’s what are those things that would really be extremely good for you? It might be getting up at 5:00 o’clock in the morning. But because it’s the domino effect of doing those things that are very uncomfortable. And it’s funny, there’s nothing new about probably anything I’m saying, but that’s another interesting thing too because I think it’s doing some of these things.
“Every day I do something that is absolutely out of my comfort zone. Because if you’re not, you’re not growing. And it’s not even that simple, it’s also sort of about who you become. It’s also about realising that if I can do this uncomfortable thing consistently, what else could I be doing? And then you start to get this different vision of who you can become that has nothing to do with the scripts.” – Matt Anderson · [18:28]
Matt Anderson:
So again, when you’re listening to stuff like this, it’s not, I already know that, it’s yes, I do that every day. Every day I do something that is absolutely out of my comfort zone. Because if you’re not, you’re not growing. And it’s not even that simple, it’s also sort of about who you become. It’s also about realising that if I can do this uncomfortable thing consistently, what else could I be doing? And then you start to get this different vision of who you can become that has nothing to do with the scripts.
Matt Anderson:
And here’s another concept, the family story. So all of you listening, what was the story in your family about why you could be hugely successful? And now again, I’m making assumptions. Of course, there are people listening where that was definitely not the case. And in fact, perhaps in the real world, it might be where we got a lot of mixed messages. So I remember my mother telling me that I’d be a millionaire when I was a small boy, but most of the time I was getting a tongue lashing for being useless and worthless and all these other things. So for many others, it might be a mixed message, but the point being is, buying into somebody that you don’t want to be anymore or buying into who you really want to be and moving away from the way you’ve been boxed in, all of those things are going to make a difference.
Will Barron:
It’s funny you should say that, Matt, because, and I won’t talk about too much, don’t want to kind of plug our own product on the show here more than it already gets plugged because obviously it’s a focus of my mind. But the new version of the Sales School has a number of things that get tracked every day. One of the things that gets… well two of the things that get tracked is an obvious one which is the most important task. And we’re trying to engineer it so that you get this done first thing in the morning.
Will Barron:
Before even you do your prospecting, whatever it is, that most important task, whether that’s an important phone call, whatever it is. The thing that goes alongside that is we call it a bold action. So something that gets you out of your comfort zone which is exactly what we’re describing, which is great because it means that I’m totally not off… I’m not going off the rails as I designed this kind of system to get the audience and sales nation to implement, to improve the success of sales.
Will Barron:
It’s a bold action of there’s a customer that has been complaining and you know you’ve got to call them back, otherwise, they’re going to call your boss. I got in trouble for this at the last organisation I worked for. I ignored this person for two weeks. Of course, they ring my boss and it blows up in my face, gets even worse. So it’s not necessarily an action that’s going to drive more revenue which is obviously what we’re focused on, but it’s a bold action that just solving that problem, doing whatever it is, going higher up the food chain than you ever have done before, asking your boss for a pay raise, whatever it is.
How to Remain Consistent When Implementing New Habits and Practices · [21:30]
Will Barron:
Bold actions is something that I want to encourage the audience. Whether you’re part of the Sales School or not, just from listening to the show, this is something you can write down every day and just do one thing that you go, “Ah, I didn’t know about this.” And it kind of pushes you forward in whatever direction you go in. But with all this said, and it seems like if we’ve got some kind of vision, if we’ve got a process in place to at least prompt us to do the most important task of the day, to take a bold action, to do something that gets us out of our comfort zone and allows us to perhaps over time increase our vision of what we can become, how do we make this consistent?
Will Barron:
Because this is the kind of subject where even I will go, I’ll read Goggins’ book and be like, “Great. That’s my motivation. I’m going to… Games change, I’m going to do X, Y, Z.” And then four days later, I’ve forgotten that I’d even said or planned that I was going to do anything. How do we turn this into a consistent action over time? And then I want to talk about once we suss that out the compounding effects of it all.
Matt Anderson:
It’s a great question. And I think I would be a fool to necessarily suggest that it’s easy or that there’s one simple answer because I think that’s why listening to podcasts like this is helpful because a lot of this is a learning journey for us as we try to figure it out. My simple answer is to be more consistent we need more fuel in the tank and that’s why I think everything starts with fuel. In other words, maybe a drive and our commitment isn’t as strong as we think it is. So I think that’s a factor. But I think… So there’s lots of things, so there’s that part. There’s also what we say to ourselves, which is again, a very meaty subject but I’ll be succinct.
Matt Anderson:
There’s a guy who wrote a book, actually that was Gay Hendricks who wrote a book called The Big Leap. He calls it upper limiting. But he basically says we spend far too much of our time, by upper limiting he means again, basically thinking thoughts that limit our achievement. So we spend too much time worrying, blaming, complaining, comparing, criticising, all those types of things and making foolish decisions. So I know a guy, I’ll just tell the truth because you have no idea who I’m talking about.
Matt Anderson:
But I know a guy that is actually very successful in sales. He gets in his own way by having affairs. And so again, most people would consider that a foolish decision. So it’s all kinds of things that we do, or it might be eating too much, drinking too much, or it might be eating too much. I mean, I’ve done this. I get before the big speaking event and you get taken to this nice meal and it’s rather late and the desserts look amazing and I pig out and then I can’t sleep and I’m thinking, “You fool. You know you can’t eat that much that late.”
Matt Anderson:
So it could be anything like that, but it’s those types of things that sometimes mess us up and we… whatever. So there’s many different ways that we can get in our own way in terms of… because some of this is education. And then my last point, I want to make goes around habits. Luckily there’s more and more books on this topic. And so I think part of it is understanding first off, how do you form a new habit? I mean, just understand some of the basics but then apply it to your own life like what new habits have you put into action in the last one, two, three years? How did you do it?
“Most of us unfortunately get so busy nowadays that we don’t stop and think about how we’re living our lives. And if we don’t do any of those things, we’re just busy and we fool ourselves into thinking we’re being really productive.” – Matt Anderson · [24:35]
Matt Anderson:
Because I think obviously building on what you’ve done before that worked and then continuing to add new habits over time, I mean, that’s the way to go. So quite a lot of this is about self knowledge, self awareness, and most of us unfortunately get so busy nowadays that we don’t stop and think about how we’re living our lives or what’s working on the business. And if we don’t do any of those things, we’re just busy and we fool ourselves into thinking we’re being really productive. So it could be any of those things that are stopping us from being consistent.
Sabotaging Behaviors: Is it Fair to Say That How We Do One Thing is How We Do Everything? · [24:50]
Will Barron:
Do you subscribe to this thought, and I feel like the conversation’s leading this direction, that how we do one thing is how we do everything so that we should raise our standards across the board? If we want to improve our sales results, perhaps it’s not a great idea to be having a fuss and lying and messing around and obviously don’t know the circumstances, but I’m painting my own picture here of my fictional character who’s doing this and messing around and get hotel rooms and just the lies buildup and you’re stressed at home, which affects your work performance. Is it fair to say that how we do one thing is how we do everything or is it okay to have a vice or two to kind of relax?
Matt Anderson:
Well, I’ve got to say, to be honest, I think it depends on the vice. But I think the sabotaging behaviour, in my opinion, that comes down to worthiness. In other words, we get in our way because some part of us, and it’s subconscious, we’re not aware of most of this, is doing something dumb because again, it’s another way for us to get in our own way and slow down our progress. Again, because the way we were raised was you’re an impostor. What’s a person like you having all this exposure? And now we start to doubt ourselves.
Matt Anderson:
And I mean, I would imagine many people have had that experience at some point. We certainly get it when we’re new to sales or we’re talking to prospects and we don’t really know all our stuff and we’re hoping they don’t see that. But then even the top people have that. So there’s a lot of layers to this. But in terms of whether you call it a vice, I mean, certainly yes, we can’t be workaholics, no extreme is good. So we want to be able to relax, recharge, have fun.
“We can’t be workaholics, no extreme is good. So we want to be able to relax, recharge, have fun. Therefore, finding time to be inspired and do things you love has again, positive domino knock on effects to the rest of your life as does having lots of energy because your health is good, having healthy relationships at home and in your family.” – Matt Anderson · [27:09]
Matt Anderson:
In fact, it’s interesting. It’s many of the people I coached, I think this is particularly interesting, were trying too hard. They weren’t light about everything. They actually probably put prospects off because they were too heavy handed. And they weren’t light and casual or somehow they enjoyed what they were doing, they were too intense. And I know I can be that way too, but I’m just saying. So therefore finding time to be inspired and do things you love has again, positive domino knock on effects to the rest of your life as does having lots of energy because your health is good, having healthy relationships at home and in your family. And again, the holistic approach while yes, over discussed on some levels, I think it does help most people.
Will Barron:
I’m not sure if it is over discussed. Because there’s plenty, and I don’t want people to take this the wrong way, and especially in the US there’s all kinds of issues of saying what I’m about to say. But if you are fat and overweight, you are not going to be able to perform as a competitor Joe Bloggs but you’re not going to be able to perform and do as many hours and be as intense as the slimmer in shape version of you. It’s a fact. For some reason, I feel like it’s controversial for me to say that, but it shouldn’t be controversial to say that.
Will Barron:
And maybe it’s because I’ve got the skinny gene. I will never be fat, I’ll never be muscly, I’ll never be anything other than just the lanky 6’4” dude that I am and I take that as a blessing. And maybe I feel there’s something holding me back from saying it because I have whatever good genes or whatever it is, but I don’t feel we talk about this enough. If you’re travelling around, and I’ve been in this position, I’m in my car going from hospital to hospital in medical device sales, I’m eating some bullshit sandwich here, I’m eating whatever crap I can get ahold of and I’m just skipping lunch here, but I’m four cups of coffee a day just to stay awake.
Will Barron:
I’m inadvertently drinking all this crappy coffee because that’s all the NHS has, is terrible coffee. Anyone who’s ever worked in the NHS or with nurses will know that that’s all they drink and all they feed you all day. It’s seemingly bad just to say no to it most of the time rather than have to crash five minutes later. So I don’t think it is something that on this show anyway, Matt, that we’ve talked enough about that you should be relatively in shape, relatively. You don’t need to be kind of an athlete or a supermodel clearly.
The Benefits of Having a Morning Routine · [29:40]
Will Barron:
You should be thinking about your finances and if you’ve got debt, you should be trying to sort that out because that will stress you out at work. And over that kind of chain reactions along the side of that, you should be eating healthy, you should be sleeping, and this is something that in the culture of sales, is stay the extra hour, make the extra phone call. You should be having eight hours of sleep a night. Under dire repercussions to not doing that, and it’s been linked to Alzheimer’s and dementia and other things. In fact, down the line it’s a hot field of research at the moment, which I’m particularly interested in for other reasons. And so other than what I’ve covered there, Matt, is there anything else from a holistic point of view that we should be implementing now to give us better chances of success we’ve had for now over the longterm?
Matt Anderson:
Well, I’ve become an advocate more recently for having a morning routine, for getting up early and starting your day out on a great note. It’s again, I can’t imagine everyone listening hasn’t heard the concept before, but to do that and do it consistently, again, it really is wonderful once you get into the routine of it, because you just feel like you have this competitive advantage that most other people don’t have. So I am a huge, huge advocate for that.
“The point to breaking through your social conditioning and what you believe is possible for you is you’ve got to start again, shedding whoever you’ve been in the past that was weak and ineffective and had lots of limits based on what you’re capable of doing. You’ve got to start to say goodbye to that person and start to create the person that you most want to be and start walking into those shoes and believing that that’s possible.” – Matt Anderson · [30:34]
Matt Anderson:
But also again, along the same lines it’s like when you start doing that, something that you’d probably, at some point you like written off as well, I’m not going to be that idiot that gets up early, why would I want to do that? But when you start… Again, the point to breaking through your social conditioning and what you believe is possible for you is you’ve got to start again, shedding whoever you’ve been in the past that was weak and ineffective and had lots of limits based on what you’re capable of doing.
Matt Anderson:
You’ve got to start to say goodbye to that person and start to create the person that you most want to be and start walking into those shoes and believing that that’s possible, which I think perhaps for most people is perhaps the harder part, but that’s why you do uncomfortable things. And I know you gave some sales related examples. I mean, if on certain days you don’t have a sales example for yourself that’s uncomfortable for whatever reason, well then do something in another area like something health-related that is uncomfortable for you personally or maybe it’s a conversation with somebody else.
“People who are excessive people-pleasers, which is actually a lot more people than certainly I ever realised, is incredibly limiting to doing well in sales because they’re not willing to ask for what they really want. They’re willing to spend far too much time with people who have no value to their business whatsoever because they’re too nice to say, “I’ve got other things I should be doing that are more important.” – Matt Anderson · [31:34]
Matt Anderson:
I mean, actually I want to bring this topic up because it’s a bit near and dear to my heart, but people pleasing. I find it very common in people in sales and another limiting factor. Obviously of course, we’re not talking about great customer service, but people who are excessive people pleasers which is actually a lot more people than certainly I ever realised, is incredibly limiting to doing well in sales because they’re not willing to ask for what they really want.
Matt Anderson:
They’re willing to spend far too much time with people who have no value to their business whatsoever because they’re too nice to say, “I’ve got other things I should be doing that are more important.” And so in terms of it’s not just how they spend their time, but who they spend the time with and it’s very limiting. And they are unable to draw enough boundaries, can’t say no enough, and also can’t have difficult conversations with people that are in their best interest, which is another tricky one.
“The consumer wants a salesperson who’s going to tell them if they’re about to make a mistake. But too many salespeople don’t want to do that because they’re like, “Oh, I might lose the account.” – Matt Anderson · [32:32]
Matt Anderson:
And this is psychology. I grew up in a very conflict laden household but never understood or not until more recently that it was because it was unresolved conflicts. So I’ve shied away from confronting people a lot, including coaching clients, shame on me. And so that’s another factor, is the consumer wants a salesperson who’s going to tell them if they’re about to make a mistake. But too many salespeople’s don’t want to do that because they’re like, “Oh, I might lose the account, can’t do that.” So they’re not even upfront and direct with them and even though that’s in the consumer’s best interest. So all kinds of things along those lines are way more common than we realise, I think in sales.
Will Barron:
Have you read the book, Matt, No More Mr. Nice Guy by Dr. Robert Glover?
Matt Anderson:
I’ve not heard of that one, no.
Will Barron:
Okay, so he’s been on the show in the past and he’s coming on in a few weeks. So basically he calls what you’re describing the… he talks specifically about men, but it just translates to women as well. It talks about men who people please, men who will tell a white lie rather than getting… to try and cover a scenario thinking I’d rather not hurt someone’s feelings rather than just being blunt and honest with things. He calls these individuals nice guys.
Will Barron:
And he’s got a whole book about how this is damaging, how this is you being selfish rather than you feel like you’re helping out over people by putting them through these different white lies and different scenarios. I’ll link to the episode in this… in the show notes of this episode over at salesman.org if anyone was interested. But when I read that book, that was a real eye-opener for me because I am a people pleaser or was, I’m a recovering people pleaser. The Objective Management Group which I think they’ve done more personality and they don’t call it personality test, but essentially personality testing of new sales hires than anyone else, kind of millions of them now, they found that a trait of sales success is individuals who, not that they don’t care about what their customers think about them, but they are unbiased.
Will Barron:
They’ll work with a customer who isn’t that fussed about them, they don’t have to have the customer like them to do business with them. They found that this is a real trait of success. So these are things that if we know it’s a trait of success, it’s something that we should engineer into us. And that book just come up as a resource that I got a lot of value out of. So if any of those things kind of sparked up the ears of the audience as you’re going through them Matt, I think that’s a good resource for them.
Matt Anderson:
That sounds really good, you have to check that one out.
The Power of Compounding Self-improvement · [34:42]
Will Barron:
Cool. Well on that front, Matt, the final thing I want to touch on here, and I think this will give an explanation point to what we’re talking about, is how powerful is this idea of compounding, of doing challenging things every day? And just that 1%, the numbers are arbitrary, but that 1% every day, how powerful is it, the fact that after a year it’s not kind of incremental changes that we’re making, we’re compounding on? If that 1% is 1% of 101% of yesterday, how important and how powerful is this compounding of all our efforts over a year and 10 years moving forward?
Matt Anderson:
Well, I think it’s enormously important because our confidence ebbs and flows. And the best way to build confidence even if it’s at a low ebb right now is to precisely build it bit by bit by bit by bit. And so it’s interesting as much as I am fascinated and love to talk as you’ve noticed kind of the mental game and the inside job, there are plenty of people out there that have been phenomenally successful in sales that have never read a book on it, probably couldn’t explain why they think the way they do, but that’s precisely what they’ve done.
Matt Anderson:
I mean, just to use a quick sports examples. It’s like reading about David Beckham practising free kicks when he was nine years old. He wasn’t reading books on neuroscience, but he was hard-wiring himself to handle failure and to get better and better to build his confidence. And I mean, it’s like lots of people in sports, but in any area where they don’t necessarily have that innate natural brilliance, but they worked at it.
Matt Anderson:
But what they also, they didn’t just work at it though, but they also… it somehow also shifted their mental confidence to help them believe that remarkable things were possible, and that’s where most of us fall short. We might even be willing to do the work but it’s the inside job piece. So they compliment one another. But to answer your question in a very long-winded answer, yes, it’s a big deal.
Matt’s Advise to His Younger Self on How to Become Good at Selling · [36:40]
Will Barron:
Good, good. Well with that, Matt, I’ve got one final question. Maybe I’ve asked you in the past and I’m going to ask you again, and that is just to wrap up the show. If there’s one thing… if you could go back in time and speak to… I guess I’ll start again. Do you know what Matt? That is the second time this month I’ve messed up that question after asking it over 600 times now. So I don’t know what’s going on. I think I need to rewire my brain to be able to ask this question in a more appropriate manner. But with that Matt, if you could go back in time maybe speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you’d give him to help him become better at selling?
Matt Anderson:
Better at selling? I think it comes down to fuel and passion. I mean, the more you believe in what you do, the more you believe that you sincerely can really help people, the easier everything gets. And you don’t necessarily even need any magic wording, it comes from the heart and people can see that. And so yeah, that’s the message. The more you love what you do or believe that what you do really helps, the easier this all gets.
Will Barron:
Just to final on this because this came to mind. I’ve been working with a coach and one of the things that’s really helped me, I believe in what we’re doing, I know for a fact what we’re doing is working because we’ve got the data on the back end of it both with the podcast and the Sales School and the results that combine [inaudible 00:38:00] testimonials of people emailing saying, “I got a load value out of this, got a load value out that.” So it’s not necessarily a belief thing.
Will Barron:
But we put together a mission statement for the company. And I won’t share it here because it needs a slight bit of refining. And it basically it goes after a… it’s very similar to Google’s mission statement which again, they’ve refined over the years as well. And with that mission statement, and it sounds super corporate and nonsensical for most salespeople, any marketers or C-suite listening will be going, “Oh, this all makes total sense but salespeople will probably want to brush this off.”
The Benefits of Writing Down Your Vision for Success · [38:50]
Will Barron:
But that ties into kind of my personal values and things as well. And I found that once I defined them, it was a lot easier to make decisions just in general because all I’ve got to do is move toward this one thing as opposed to weighing things up and it gives me that opportunity to cheat myself. So is this something that we should be doing to increase our level of fuel and to blow on the flames here? Is it useful to come up with some kind of mission statements or a list of our values so that we know where to aim with all of this?
Matt Anderson:
Absolutely. I mean, it’s very much part of that. Yes, who do you want to be? And if you can… Look, if what you’re selling isn’t the be all and end all to your purpose in life, however, but the outcomes are so favourable that they contribute then to everything that you are passionate about in your life, in other words, your family and other things you love to do, then yes, you’re absolutely on target. And it helps you focus how you spend your time, because that’s another major part of this conversation, is getting free from all the distractions so that you do less during your day and you focus on the things that you’re best at and love to do because they’re the things that are going to compound your best results. So I think they all kind of interrelate.
Parting Thoughts · [39:57]
Will Barron:
Love it, love it. Well with that, Matt, for everyone who’s enjoyed the show, wants to learn more about you, where should we go to?
Matt Anderson:
Well, at this point, I’d say send me an email. My email’s Matt@mattanderson I-N-T-L, the abbreviation for international. So Matt@mattandersonintl.com. Look out please for my podcast, which is going to be called, Get Out of Your Own Way, it’s launching in mid March of 2019. And that’s probably the best place to start.
Will Barron:
Good stuff. Well, I’ll link to your email address and then I’ll retrospectively link to the podcast when that launches in the show notes of this episode over at salesman.org. With that, Matt, I want to thank you for your time, mate, really enjoyed this one. I think we’ve only scratched the surface, right? I feel this could be a four hour in-depth conversation with psychoanalysts and me lay on a bed and you probably lay on a bed and go reminiscing on different things as well. So with that, mate, I appreciate the candidness of the conversation and for joining us on the Salesman Podcast.
Matt Anderson:
Thank you Will, it’s been really good fun.
