Duane Marino is a sales training expert who helps salespeople win “Twice The Sales In Half The Time”.
In this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Duane explains the benefits of developing a killer attitude VS developing sales skills.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- DuaneMarino.com
- Book: Unstoppable Attitude: The Principles, Practices, Patterns & Psychology for Achieving Your Highest Goals and Living the Fulfilling Life you Have Always Dreamed Of
- Book: The Six Sales Powers to UNSTOPPABLE SELLING
- Book: The Slight Edge: Turning Simple Disciplines Into Massive Success
Transcript
Duane Marino:
We have fear for a reason. Fear is actually meant to be a survival mechanism. When I say have to, I mean like my life will come to an end or the world stops spinning, that sort of priority of what do I have to do today, I never have… and again, doing this with many thousands of people now in seminars, more than three things on that list. But negativity is going to sell. So we’re never going to get out of that.
Which is More Important in B2B Sales: Attitude or Sales Skills? · [01:45]
Will Barron:
Hello Sales Nation. I’m Will Barron, host of The Salesman podcast. On today’s show, we have Duane Marino. He is the author of Unstoppable Attitude. He is an automotive selling expert and on today’s show attitude is exactly what we’re diving into. Everything we talk about is available in the show notes over at thesalesman.org. With all that said, let’s jump right in. How important in, I guess, the grand scheme of things for a B2B sales professional, how important is attitude versus things that are probably more tangible and easier to learn such as sales skills or sales process and things like that?
Duane Marino:
Okay, I’ll come at that a couple ways. First off, an attitude is truly, I think the most contagious thing out there. We notice when we hang around certain people, we feel a little depressed, a little angry, agitated, or we feel upbeat and open and great and all that other stuff. And somehow, if it’s pheromones, if it’s energy, if it’s body language, if it’s just, I don’t know, a feeling that we’re getting from the other person we’re talking to, attitude is picked up from a long, long way away. When you’re selling somebody something, it’s really enthusiasm. Root word of enthusiasm is ethos, which is the Breath of God. You are breathing life into your deal, life into your transaction by having enthusiasm. And you can’t give somebody something you don’t have. So from that point, I think it’s crucial.
“I could give you a Ferrari, but if the Ferrari had no gas in it or has contaminated gas, it’s not going to drive great. And I think selling skills without a great attitude is like a Ferrari with bad gas. It just doesn’t ride the way it’s supposed to drive.” – Duane Marino · [02:18]
Duane Marino:
The other way, I’ll also look at this is in sports. You’ll see somebody choke, have a terrible game. And then somebody has a great game and they don’t gain or lose skills game to game. They’ve got a certain skill level, but what you gain or lose is access to those skills. A great attitude or great mental state gives you full access to your own skills. And then the person that you’re selling has a chance to mirror you, pick up that enthusiasm, and go along with the entire thing. If you don’t have a great attitude, I could give you a Ferrari, but if the Ferrari had no gas in it, or if it had contaminated gas, it’s not going to drive great. And I think selling skills without a great attitude is like a Ferrari with bad gas. It just doesn’t ride the way it’s supposed to drive.
The Benefits of Being Enthusistic and Having a Positive Attitude · [02:30]
Will Barron:
I love this. So you’ve just come up… And this is not what I was going to talk about, but we’ll go down this route now you’ve kind of teed it up here Duane, of, attitude is almost a shortcut to a whole bunch of sales skills, of we talk about body language on the show. We talk about how to use your voice to influence, to inspire people. But if you are just damn happy, damn contagious was the words you used, which I loved, if you are in that frame of mind, people want to spend time with you and you’re exciting to be around. And perhaps they’re having a bit of a shitty, miserable day and you come in their office and you bring that energy and that brightness to it. They’re going to spend time with you. You don’t need to understand mirroring body language, that sort of thing because it all happens organically. Right?
Duane Marino:
Well, every business out there has the example of the new person that comes in that has a tremendous first quarter or first month, and then starts to slide from there because all they had starting out was a great attitude. They believed in the product, they were happy to have a job. They had lots of enthusiasm just talking to customers. Then they got smart or lazy, or they got talked out of it, started to pick up the negative attitude of the average salespeople in their company, and it’s all downhill from there. Yeah, absolutely right. If you could have a great attitude, you probably could throw out the window a little bit of the product knowledge and selling skills, because it’s great to have those things too, but I wouldn’t want to replace one or the other. I would take attitude over the rest of it all day long.
How to Maintain a Positive Attitude Especially as a New Sales Rep · [03:40]
Will Barron:
Okay. Well, let’s use the example of Sam is a new salesperson. Perhaps ignorance is bliss in some of this of he’s been told that his product is the best in the market. He hasn’t quite seen the rest of the market yet, so he’s going out sharing that with his potential customers. He’s excited, he’s bold. He doesn’t know that he shouldn’t perhaps be calling CEOs. He should be dealing with people low down the food chain. So he’s calling people above his paycheck and he’s in this kind of first honeymoon period of the first one to three, four months. Listening to this show now, how does he continue that momentum rather than being browbeaten back into average, as you use then that particular word? How does he keep that momentum rather than being sucked back into the crowd of the salespeople around him?
“A lot of professionals in all industries would do better if they stopped setting goals and started setting up systems. Because if you don’t have a process, life is going to have a process. And life’s process is often very cruel, very harsh.” – Duane Marino · [04:50]
Duane Marino:
He has to find, or she has to find something that is going to keep that level of juice up for them. There’s a million ways you can do this. On the attitude piece, it could be listening to great music on the way to work, or while you’re at work, could be telling jokes. It could be just watching your body posture, your breathing, could be exercising, could be meditating, could be praying, could be just staying away from negativity, not reading the newspaper because it’s all bad news. You need a system, you need a programme. And a lot of professionals in all industries really would do better if they stopped setting goals and started setting up systems.
Duane Marino:
I have a goal or I have an outcome for myself to have a great attitude, but I’ve got daily systems. I’ve got habits that I built in that pretty much ensure I can have an okay day, most days. And in case a lot of drama or trauma doesn’t come my way, it’s going to be a great day because I built those systems into my day. I’ve already done half a dozen of at least this morning, maybe more. I almost can’t count, but you need to have a process. Because if you don’t have a process, life is going to have a process. And life’s process is often very cruel, very harsh. That would be my first tip.
Duane Marino:
And the second thing with momentum for somebody who wants to keep it going is train, train, train, and train stuff that works because in training it automatically keeps you sharp and keeps you bright. Yes, you get to grow hopefully as a salesperson or as a professional if you’re training the right stuff, but it keeps re-instilling in you what you want to do and how you feel about things. Training is like mental hygiene. It keeps all the boogeyman and stuff out of your subconscious mind and keeps your wheels greased for what you want to get done every day. There’s a lot of things you need to do, but those are top of mind for sure.
The First Step to Building a Positive Attitude is Eliminating Negativity · [06:14]
Will Barron:
Awesome. We’ll come onto your system, your programme, the hacks, the habits you have in a second, and then we’ll come onto the training elements of this because I’m intrigued as to whether that means we read a sales book or whether that means we read a personal development book or attitude book. We’ll come onto those two in a second. But something that got me smiling then, Duane, was limiting negativity. I have this ongoing joke with my girlfriend. She is a doctor. And for whatever reason, she likes watching the morning news. I think it’s so she’s got something to talk about with her patients during the day because she’s a geriatrician, so she’s dealing with lots of old people. And half of her job is just sitting next to them, getting a tale, having a chat with them, and then find out within that story, in that context what’s off and what she can help with.
Will Barron:
She listens to the morning news. I hate the morning news. In the UK, we always watch the BBC, one, it’s boring as heck. There’s no positivity in it and it’s negative. I’d rather watch nothing to be neutral than have negative influences come in, which affect my day, affect the podcast that I record, affect my attitude towards even just the way I’m writing. If I watch all the negativity, I start writing in a more conservative manner versus if I’m excited about whatever deal, if I’m excited about whatever’s going on, I will then push my own limits as I’m building this business, as I’m selling the ad space for the show, and all that good stuff. With the negativity piece, is it more effective then to just eliminate negativity altogether? Or is that non-realistic? Do we need a way to be able to manage when negativity hits us so it doesn’t knock a dent in our positive attitude during the day as we go through it?
Duane Marino:
On the news thing, in journalism, they’ve always mentioned, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Negativity is going to sell. It’s going to sell copy, sex sells copy. The second topic is probably more interesting and better for attitude than the first one, but negativity is going to sell. We’re never going to get out of that. I don’t know if I necessarily trust any news source. They obviously have an agenda and people behind them. I’m not saying it’s fake. It’s just that you’re always getting one side of it. So to actually keep up with it, I don’t think is a terrible idea a little bit so you have common ground with some customers that want to talk about current events, but you really have to watch yourself not getting emotionally immersed in it.
Duane Marino:
Here’s my quick answer on that. It’s not so much the negativity. It’s more that you’ve got to focus emotionally only on things you can control. The Mandela Effect, I don’t know if you followed that, I don’t know if life was like a box of chocolates or life is like a box of chocolates, but I look at life as being a donut. And it’s in one of my chapters in my book Unstoppable Attitude. If you picture a donut, the hole in the donut, and then you’ve got the donut part that we eat, the hole is all the stuff in this world we can worry about, but we have no control over. And if you watch people, a lot of people get hugely emotionally invested and engaged in that. That is politics. It’s economics, it’s the weather, and everything in between. The meat of the donut, the dough is everything can focus on or worry about that you can control. And a lot of people look at that almost as silly entertainment.
Duane Marino:
Like this podcast, for instance, some people are going to flip right by this. They go, “Oh no, not this again.” And all we’re talking about here for a few minutes or an hour is stuff we can control. My advice here is every time somebody is under stress or they’re learning about the news or whatever else, separate it. Ask yourself, “Can I control this?” If you can’t control it, I’m not saying not to pay attention to it, but look at it only as entertainment so you’re not getting engaged in any of that stuff I just mentioned like politics, economics, weather, whatever. If you can control it, look at that and make sure that’s your centre of huge, emotional, and psychological engagement.
“The more you focus on stuff you can control at a very high level, you start forgetting about all the stuff you can’t control. It actually doesn’t even become entertaining anymore. But the flip side is true and it’s way more common.” – Duane Marino · [09:43]
Duane Marino:
What ends up happening? I talk about everything through experience because I had to go through this years ago to get myself off of the news addiction that I was brought up with in my family, is the more you focus on stuff you can control and the more you get engaged on that at a very high level, you start forgetting about all the stuff you can’t control. It actually doesn’t even become entertaining anymore. But the flip side is true and it’s way more common. The more you focus on all the stuff you can’t control and the more you get engaged on that, you start looking at all the stuff you can control in yourself as basic entertainment or simple entertainment if you’re lucky. But actually what starts to happen is you start forgetting about all the things in life, everything you can do, all the behaviour and attitude changes that you can do that you can control that would hugely affect your outcome.
Duane Marino:
So bottom line is news, I can’t control it. It’s entertainment at best. My life, all my processes, the way I want to live, I can control it, a large extent of it. And it’s what I get engaged in all the time. And I’ve got to catch myself too because sometimes you get sucked not a conversation you shouldn’t be in. And I just go, “Hold on. This is my circle of entertainment. Why am I getting all involved?” And then move onto your circle of engagement which is me and people around me in my life.
Will Barron:
That’s a far more succinct, and pretty way, and easy to understand way of dealing with than what I have. But it’s somewhat similar. I deal with this as if it’s going to affect me personally right now, or directly in 10 years, maybe I should pay attention to it. Everything else is just bullshit that’s taking up mental bandwidth. And as we know, there’s tonnes of science on this now, that we’ve only got so much willpower during the day. So watching the news, getting angry about it in the morning, and deliberating on things that you can’t change… Maybe you can change it. Maybe you need to go into politics. Maybe you should spend 20 years doing that rather than moaning about it with me as you eat your porridge in the morning. But if I can’t control it right there and then, I just let it go in one ear out the other, and I get on with the things I can control. That’s empowering. That allows me to get on with my day. Hopefully, that’s useful for the audience.
Duane’s System For Starting the Day on a Positive Note · [11:35]
Will Barron:
Okay. Next topic here of, Duane, what are your systems? What are your processes? What are the habits you’ve got in place to ensure, as you said before, that you start the day with as positive an attitude as what you possibly can? And then as things come in and try and knock you from that, you stay positive.
Duane Marino:
Okay. Here’s the basic track that I run in all the time. I try to get decent amounts of sleep. Sleep is underrated. It’s pretty important. I’m in bed fairly early, probably 9:30 I’m starting to shut it down, by 10:30. I’m asleep. I’m up by usually 5:00. I get up in the morning. I do intermittent fasting most days. I found that’s being huge for my personal energy, the way that I look, the way that I feel. Monday to Friday, I don’t consume any calories until about 4:00 when I’m done work and by 8:00 or 9:00, I’m finished. That’s been incredible for me. I just have black coffee or tea water during the day. I have some supplements that I take that are all designed to keep my brain and my body functioning the way that I want. And I do pay a lot of attention to my physical activity and what I eat and what I drink and what I consume.
“People that don’t pay attention to their body, don’t educate themselves on it are making a huge mistake because your attitude can only go so far if you’re physically not feeling great. Everything is better, everything is easier when you feel good.” – Duane Marino · [12:45]
Duane Marino:
We are trapped in this physical body. People that don’t pay attention to that, don’t educate themselves on it, I think it’s a mistake because your attitude can only go so far if you’re physically not feeling great. Everything is better, everything is easier when you feel good. I found that out from experience. Next thing, I don’t watch the news. I’ve got some people that I follow on YouTube, such as yourself that inform me without dragging me down. And I’ll do some kind of I call it mental hygiene or check-up from the neck up or self-education every morning while I’m making my shake or whatever I’m doing, maybe 15, 20 minutes. I find that’s enough, for the most part, to keep me abreast of current events and also get my head dialled on straight.
Duane Marino:
Then from there, I’ve got some stuff in my book I’m not going to share and bore you with all the way through here, but ask myself some questions before I leave my house that are going to focus me for my day. I conduct my day. I try to stay in my circle of engagement, not my circle of entertainment. I try to focus on what I can control. And then in the evening, it’s my time. And some nights I have to work until 10:00, 11:00, 12:00. That’s fine. But I do have some time for myself built into most days because we do need some shutdown time. We need some time away from the family, away from the kids, away from the clients, whatever else, and you can’t get this every day. It’s not possible. But that’s my blueprint for a perfect day and a lot of days, it goes down that way.
Extroverts Versus Introverts and How They Recharge Their Batteries · [14:00]
Will Barron:
Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?
Duane Marino:
The clinical definition of introverts are people that recharge their batteries alone or with very small groups of people that they know well. It has nothing to do with social skills or how good of a salesperson you’ll be. Extroverts need to go to other people to get their batteries recharged. I’m a massive introvert. I love what I do, being in front of people, the bigger groups, the better, I love selling one on one, all of that. But when it comes to the end of the day when I’m spent, I’m by myself with very small groups of people that I know very, very well. So long answer, I’m a big-time introvert. And there might be some introverts watching this, that realise now you need to honour that because if I have to go out every night with people I’m going to burn out. And if the extrovert has to go out every night with people… Or sorry, if the extrovert has to go alone every night, they’re going to burn out. You have to know where you get your batters recharged.
Duane Marino:
I happen to do it alone with small groups. Extroverts have to go with other people. So long-term viability in a career, you have to honour that, which way you’re built.
Supplements to Keep You Sharp During The Day · [15:30]
Will Barron:
You nailed it because we’ve done a couple episodes recently on extroverts, introverts, both from our perspective, understanding how we deal best, how we recharge, how we build our energy and I guess attitude comes into this as well, and then also how to deal with introvert or extroverts on the perspective of the customer, how they best want to interact with us. You’ve wrapped it up nicer than me, to tee it up, but as you said, in your evenings, you have your quote-unquote my time. I thought that would be an opportunity to just touch on that subject. I appreciate that. A couple of things. Supplements. When you say that, are you talking about fitness supplements? Are you talking about Nootropics or anything exciting down that route?
Duane Marino:
Okay. There’s two aspects to that. One, if you want to live at a higher level, you need better quality gas. The second part of it is just environmentally, our soil is degraded and there’s lots of stuff going on with our food, where our food is just not what it was for our great grandparents. It’s not something to me that’s even optional anymore because you really can’t get what you need from your food. Two categories, I guess, maybe three categories I put my supplements into. I don’t mind saying what I take if anybody’s interested, but I’m 51, I feel fantastic. I’ve never had more energy.
Will Barron:
Tell you what. Anyone who’s listening to this, you do not look 51.
Duane Marino:
Thank you.
Will Barron:
You look good for your age, mate. Not meaning to stroke your ego too much randomly in the middle of a sales podcast, but that made me take a breath then.
Duane Marino:
Well, thank you. A lot of people seem to think I’m in my mid-thirties or late-thirties. Whatever it is, it’s working for me. I do nutritional stuff. I’ve got a high-quality food-based, not synthetic multivitamin. That’s very straightforward. I take additional mineral supplements on stuff that’s very tough to get. I’m now also taking something called C60. Your watchers maybe have not heard of this yet. C60 was an oil they were using as a lubricant that has carbon nanoparticles in it. And they did a study on trying to determine the level of toxicity because it was people, machinists, and stuff that were being exposed to this. They not only could not determine a level of toxicity with the rats they were giving it to, the rats never died. They ended up living two, three, four times their natural lifespan without any tumours or cancers, which is what rats get after a year.
Duane Marino:
And what they ended up finding out was this C60 stops your telomeres, which are the strains at the end of your DNA, from eroding. So I’ve started taking C60 oil. I’ve noticed a difference in my energy level. It’s one of those most powerful antioxidants on the planet. They’re saying it might be the fountain of youth. By the time we figure that out if they did human testing, it would be too late for all of us. I’m basically experimenting on myself, but all the animal tests come in saying, “This is one of the most powerful supplements anybody could ever take.” And then as a male, there’s things that I take to keep my oestrogen low because there’s a lot of oestrogen mimickers in our food that I’m trying to keep out of my system that are constantly coming into our bodies. And other things to keep my testosterone up and high because that’s a male thing. If you maintain those two things in proper balance, that’s great.
Duane Marino:
And then I meditate and stuff and keep my cortisol levels down. And I love to win, get my endorphin rush now and then through the day. I try to drink some clean water. And if anybody wants this, I’d be happy to send this to you if you want to email my website. I’ve got a shake that Natural Path has looked at. Actually, my son is turning it into a nutritional bar. If anybody wants some ideas on a very full spectrum, nutritional shake, be happy to share that. Chlorella and spirulina are the core components of it, but there’s other stuff in it. But it’s taken me years to develop a process that I can do when I travel that isn’t overly expensive and it’s got essentially no side effects or negative impacts. And it’s very, very sustainable, not just obtainable. I can do it long-term. I spent some time developing that for myself.
Will Barron:
Good stuff. The reason I asked and wanted to dive that a little bit deeper is I’m interested in all this as well. I know just super simply if I have a smoothie with loads of vegetables in, a load of bunch of raw eggs, some coconut oil, other fats, I feel better for it. And I intermittent fast. I basically just skip breakfast, have a smoothie for lunch, and then perhaps have more carbs in the evening. Nothing more complex than that. I will say, clearly, unless you tell me otherwise, neither of us are doctors. Anyone listening, I always try and prerequisite it every conversation we have of, “Neither of us are doctors, so take this advice as you may.”
The Five-Second, Five Questions Personal Development Programme · [19:42]
Will Barron:
But with that, a couple other things that you brought up here. And this is fantastic. And I love just diving into the actual person and a real high success individual like yourself on the show rather than going back and forth with our thoughts and opinions on things. It’s an interesting show for the audience to get your personal perspective on this, Duane. But what would be a couple of the questions that you ask yourself in the morning that I think you said set yourself up for the day? What would be a couple of examples of those?
Duane Marino:
Really glad you asked. There’s five of them. And I can do this… Literally, I call it the Five Second Five Question Personal Development Programme. I do this in the morning. And the first question I ask is how do I want today to be? Now, I’ve asked these in seminars now with a few thousand people. Everybody comes up with a positive word, awesome, creative, empowering, whatever. That’s really made me a little more optimistic. I do believe our core is to be awesome and be great. And then life gets in the way. How do I want my day to be, has been a very empowering question because I get to set the tone or the mood and put myself on a track. And I tend to stay more on that track on the days that I ask that. It is most days.
Duane Marino:
Question number two is what do I have to do today? And when I say have to, I mean my life will come to an end or the world stops spinning, that sort of priority of what do I have to do today. I never have… and again, doing this with many thousands of people now in seminars, more than three things on that list. I call this Changing the Rules. It literally changes my game where I’m now designing my game so I can win it every day. And if I get those two or three things done, it’s going to be a great day. And then I handle the other stuff that’s going to come at me through the day.
Duane Marino:
Question number three, how am I doing with my interactions? I think of my family, my dog, my customers, people at the gym, people I pass on the streets, my students, my clients, how am I doing with my interactions? We live in an interactive society. Because I know I’m going to hold myself up to that question again tomorrow, I catch myself today on trying to have higher quality interactions so I don’t disappoint my future self tomorrow as corny as that sounds.
Duane Marino:
Question number four is how do I want my evening to be? How do I want to be? I started these questions probably three years ago. With all the technology… I mean, I’m sitting in a car right now in a parking lot, Skyping you in the UK, we literally can work 27 now. These things have made work more accessible, not less accessible. But when I started asking myself this question of how do want my evening to be, the voice in my head kept telling me, “Duane, you don’t need to work right until bed every night.” So I started doing more stuff for myself. That one really was a great question to give me more balance.
Duane Marino:
And the fifth question is two things I’m currently doing well, two things I could be doing better. And what I do there is I pull up my written goals and gratitudes. And I look at my goals, and gratitudes and I go, “Okay, two things I’m doing well. And two things I could be doing better.” Because it’s my blueprint, my goals, and gratitudes, I’m able to compare my actions to my blueprint every day and make minor or major adjustments. That’s my five questions. It’s been hugely impactful. I can’t put a price on them actually for what it’s done for me.
Practical Strategies For Super-Productive Days · [22:20]
Will Barron:
So super practically, for the three things that a B2B salesperson should be writing down or making note of that will lead them to have a successful day. If they tick these three things off, they’ll have won the day. What would an example of those three things be for someone who perhaps they’re not 100% in control of their diary and perhaps they’ve got incoming requests that your sales manager asks you to do before the end of the day, that if you don’t do it, you’re going to be causing trouble with them?
“Your income is confined to the size of your network. The larger your network, the more people you have in your scope of influence, and the better chance you have to sell or to connect with people. So, the bigger your network, the higher your net worth, essentially. Just don’t hide behind social media.” – Duane Marino · [22:50]
Duane Marino:
Okay. The first one is you’re often confined, your income is confined to the size of your network. The larger your network, the more people that you have a scope of influence and credibility and connection, and respect, and likability for, the better chance you have to sell or to connect with people. The bigger your network, the higher your net worth, essentially. Just don’t hide behind social media. In a lot of cases, social media is making some people antisocial. They post stuff, they do things. They’re afraid to phone anybody or reach out and send a message. Definitely have your presence on social media, and a massive one, the bigger, the better, as long as it’s relevant. And you need to reach out personally. If it’s going to be phone calls, face-to-face visits, something as old school as mail, I don’t care what it is, you have got to have a process for reaching out to individuals, making contact, doing your follow-up as well as your overall network with social media. That is something that should never stop. And that should take precedence over your lunch.
Duane Marino:
I will miss a meal. I won’t miss my marketing stuff that I have to do because I can’t sell a secret. And it’s done very well for me to be consistent with my marketing. And I’m not the best at it for sure. There’s other people that do a much better job, but in my sphere of influence in what I do, I do a good job with it. And I literally have, at times, missed all kinds of events to get my marketing and my networking done and that kind of thing. That to me is job one. The second thing tied right back into what we just covered is keep your head screwed on straight. That’s the only way I can put that. If your head starts to get a little bit off-kilter and your attitude goes, your focus goes, it’s all going to go. So be very cognizant of what’s getting your attention, what your dominant thoughts are, where you’re spending your money, who you’re spending your time with because that’s going to affect you a lot.
“You need to ask questions that are going to surgically uncover your customer’s pain points. And then from there, move in with the conversation because people’s attention spans today are super low. And if you can’t be relevant with whoever you’re talking to and address those points that they need answered immediately, you’re going to be talking to yourself.” – Duane Marino · [25:02]
Duane Marino:
And the third one is, develop a system, maybe your own system, or take one from somebody… most people have to develop their own at some point, where you’ve got some key questions. And questions really are the answer. You want to be able to ask your clients engaging questions, to focus in on what you need to focus in on conversations with them. Because the old feature advantage benefit pitch that people just used to drone on about, now if you notice, your customers start rolling their eyes, they’re like, “Oh, here we go. Of course, you’re going to tell me how great”… You need to ask questions, which are going to surgically uncover where your customer’s pain points are. And then from there, move in with the conversation because people’s attention spans today are not there. And if you can’t be immediately relevant with whoever you’re talking to and address those points that they need answered, you’re going to be talking to yourself. So selling system, attitude, network, that’s my three big ones.
Will Barron:
Awesome. Have you read the book The Slight Edge?
Duane Marino:
I have not read it. I’ve heard of it. I’ve had a few people mention that book. Actually, I read books all the time but I’ve not read that book.
Will Barron:
I will write it down now and I’ll send you a copy after the show is finished. I’m about halfway through at the moment. The gist is essentially get the right things nailed every day, every morning. And over the course of a year, it doesn’t just double your potential income, it doesn’t potentially double your success, it compounding-ly over the years doubles, triples, 10Xs it. And it’s interesting that the three things you outlined then, Duane, each of them over one year will make a big difference. And sales will become easier, become a nicer role. But specifically, you network over 10 years, people just start coming to you then. There’s less cold calling. There’s less of the stuff that we avoid in sales. If you’ve got a strong enough network in a specific vertical with a great product, you’re just going to win because people will come to you.
How to Reduce the Chances of You Messing Up Your Day · [26:45]
Will Barron:
This is my experience in medical device sales of working for the best companies in the industry and just horsing down, working really hard, building a network with the right people here locally. Because it was a geographical area that I literally drove around and dropped stuff off and worked with surgeons on. There was no cold calling. The surgeon would email me when there’s money and say, “How can we spend this money with you?” And it was as simple as that. And it made sales a really nice place to be. Coming onto fear, cold calling, and this side of attitude now, or fear of cold calling, perhaps. It’s something that I get asked about a lot from the audience listening to this, specifically the newer sales reps. Is there anything that we can put into place that will maybe not reduce our fears, but reduce the chance of fear getting into our day and staying positive and just going with the flow and moving forward? Is there any hacks, techniques, or anything we should be doing to eliminate fear before it even happens perhaps?
Duane Marino:
Here’s my thoughts on fear. We have fear for a reason. Fear is actually meant to be a survival mechanism. Now, if you ever heard of the paper tiger paranoia argument, which I think is pretty true, how we’re wired to really avoid things that might hurt us and sort of go towards things that might help us. In other words, you’re walking through a bush today outside of wherever you live, where I live, and a bush shakes, we panic, we jump, we move because someplace in our DNA, there could be a bear or a tiger in that bush. And you’re better off to freak out and run and be wrong and be alive than stay calm and be right and not move and have the bear come after us. I think fear is looked at in a way where I see a lot of very balls-out, aggressive, cocky people in my space that I wonder, are you really all that cocky, all that aggressive all the time, because fear should be a motivator.
Duane Marino:
Here’s how I look at fear. I use it as a huge motivator. I set two goals. I set the number I would like to attain every month in terms of income gross for my company, which is a seeking pleasure number. And I have a pain avoidance number, a fear number of, “And I can’t do any less than this.” And I figure out my three-month average. And I’m always trying to move both of those up a little bit. If I’m trying to have a great month so I don’t have as bad a month as this or I have as good a month as that, we do things to either seek pleasure or avoid pain.
“Everybody getting a medal and everybody getting a ribbon is removing the fear of failure. And the fear of failure shouldn’t be there to hold us back. The fear of failure is there to show you how much more you are capable of doing. If you either want to die and go to heaven or die and not go to hell, I don’t care if you’re seeking pleasure or trying to avoid pain, but to take the fear factor out, my opinion, is going to demotivate you.” – Duane Marino · [29:02]
Duane Marino:
The fear I would instil in everybody, and I talk about this again, in all my workshops, is have the fear of your kids being embarrassed where you live, have the fear of them not going to the colleges or universities you want them to go to. Have the fear of you not retiring when or how you want. Have the fear of you getting fired, have the fear of you losing the deal. Have the fear of you not getting promoted, have the fear of you missing a mortgage or rent payment. Those are hugely productive fears. I think everybody getting a medal and everybody getting a ribbon is removing the fear of failure. And the fear of failure shouldn’t be there to hold us back. The fear of failure is there to show you how much more you are capable of doing. If you either want to die and go to heaven or die and not go to hell, I don’t care if you’re seeking pleasure or trying to avoid pain, but to take the fear factor out, my opinion, is going to demotivate you.
Duane Marino:
I have my fears lined up. I know what I’m scared of. Part of my reason for taking care of my health is I don’t enjoy a cold. I couldn’t imagine anything a lot more serious. So there’s no fear. I’m not giving it energy. But part of me taking care of myself is so I’m less likely. Anything could happen so that I’m less likely to not feel great. I don’t think fear is a bad thing.
Will Barron:
Amazing. This is framing, right? This is taking something that-
Duane Marino:
Yes.
Will Barron:
… instinctively we think one way and adding perhaps a layer of intelligence over it to change our perception of it. And I know me in sales, I’d close some huge deals at the beginning of the year. Then I’d slack off, probably still doing the same amount of hours, the same amount of work, but I wouldn’t be putting in the quality hours, the quality work. I wouldn’t be pushing the boundaries. I wouldn’t be trying to sell to that surgeon who’s a bit of a bullock and a pain in the. I’d go to someone who’s easier to deal with. And then I’d see the gap. And then I’d go back up and try towards the end of the year to rush it back up. And I’d always hit target, but I was always in this up and down. This is seemingly a great way. I really like this of having your push goal, a stretch goal, and then having a minimum of, “I will feel like shit if I don’t hit this,” and then try to push them both back up. It’s fantastic.
Duane Marino:
Yeah.
Will Barron:
Yeah. Okay. So final thing-.
Duane Marino:
And I called it a box goal. I set box goals. I teach it for seminars. Yep. Set a box. Can’t do any less than and want to do maybe as much or more than, and get that box and move that box up all the time.
The Negative Impact of Jealousy and Comparison · [30:50]
Will Barron:
Got it. Got it. Okay. And final thing I want to chat on here before we wrap up, Duane, this is something that I saw in your book. It’s something that we never really talked about on the show. We’ve covered attitude. We’ve covered mindset. We’ve covered motivation from loads of angles, but this I thought was unique and interesting of how does jealousy and then comparing ourselves to others affect our ability to both winning sales over the long term, and then have a positive attitude? Because a lot of sales teams, there’s a leader board. You’re comparing yourself to people on Instagram. People are driving around in ridiculous cars and they’re 10 years younger than you. And all they’re doing is a sales role. How does this affect us? And can we leverage this positively? Or should we try and get rid of it from our mindset?
“Don’t be jealous, be curious, transform that emotion into curiosity.” – Duane Marino · [32:10]
Duane Marino:
I’ve been blessed I think because I don’t understand jealousy. I’ve never felt it. There are people in the world that are better at everything than me. They’re better looking. They have more money, they’re better salespeople. They’re better trainers, better fathers. They’re better everything. What I’ve always done, always done, is… And I go back to when I’ve sold somebody vehicles when I was 20, 21, somebody who was super-wealthy. And I just found the right time in the conversation to say, “Hey, listen, I’m not being nosy. I want to commend you for how well you’ve done. And how did you do it?” I look at successful people as potential role models for what I need to change. So rather than become jealous about what they’ve done, I talk about, don’t be jealous, be curious, transform that emotion into curiosity. Just acknowledge that you’re not always going to have the biggest boat.
Duane Marino:
And if you want to have a bigger boat, ask the person, “How’d you do it? Where’d you get it?” Because in those questions, if you can get the jealousy out, which is a very caustic emotion, it’s an awful emotion, you can’t grow, and if you can literally get curious from a really good, positive, happy place of love… People love talking about themselves. Most people like helping people. If you’re not being too nosy or personal with what you’re asking, I have found so much success in my life by asking people what they do. And this goes right to Joe Gerard who’s the Guinness Book of World Record salesperson, I remember him holding my hand over a meal with his wife sitting there, breaking down, almost crying, asking me if I had the disease. And I go, “Joe, what is the disease?” And he would’ve been probably almost 80 years old at the time. And he goes, “It’s jealousy.” He goes, “Everybody sooner or later”… Relationships he has with people fall apart cause of jealousy.
“You only know how fast you are as a runner until you end up running with somebody else. And if you get beat, you get beat. But part of having people around in society who drive different cars and live in different homes and do different things is so you have a different benchmark to compare yourself to somebody else and then ask yourself, “Do I want to pay the price and go that much further? Or am I okay where I am?” Because there’s always a price to be paid, always.” – Duane Marino · [33:23]
Duane Marino:
And I told him, I said, “I don’t understand jealousy. I’m curious. I want to figure out what made you great. What makes you great even at your age. But jealousy, no, don’t get jealous. Get curious.” So comparisonitis, just to finish that, is a coined term that I use that is like a disease that people catch. You only know how fast you are as a runner until you end up running with somebody else. And if you get beat, you get beat. And I guess you realise maybe you’re not going to be in the Olympics or maybe you got to train more. But part of having people around in society to drive different cars and live in different homes and do different things in their businesses is so you have a different benchmark so you can compare yourself to somebody else and then ask yourself, “Do I want to pay the price and go that much further? Or am I okay where I am?” Because there’s always a price to be paid, always.
Duane Marino:
But jealousy, it’s a disgusting emotion, quite frankly. I feel bad for people that have it a lot. And you can see it on their faces. It’s like an insincere smile when they find out you’ve done well. And my heart goes out to them. I really feel badly because you’re missing the whole point of it.
Will Barron:
I think paying the price is the best way to describe this because I’ve been… Well, try not to name names. There’s a bunch of sales podcasts out there at the moment. There’s a couple that have tried to… There’s one particular dude who tried to slag me off versus two potential sponsors of the show so that they would move over to his platform, his audience. And, of course, I do well for them, so they’d just come back to me, told me that he’s been a and we’ll work with him because he makes himself look stupid. And I find this happens quite a lot with the audience of they’ll go, “Well, this sales rep is achieving this and I want it. I’m better. I’m a better person than that individual.”
Parting Thoughts · [35:10]
Will Barron:
But what they’re missing out in the gap there is, as you phrased it then, the other person very likely is paying a price that this individual who’s jealous isn’t willing to pay. Doesn’t know how to pay it. Hasn’t sussed out the difference that this other person has been working 10 years longer so they’ve got that network in place. They’re working 10 hours more a day and YouTube slacking. So paying the prices is the gap between perhaps what you want and the jealousy of being somewhere else. I thought that was really a really insightful way to put it. And with that, Duane, we’ll wrap up with this, mate. Tell us a little bit about the book Unstoppable Attitude, the other books as well. And then where we can find out more about you as well.
Duane Marino:
Thank you. Thanks, Will. Online www.duanemarino… It’s D-U-A-N-E-M-A-R-I-NO.com is my website. On there, you’ll find the keys to everything that we do. I’ve got a few YouTube channels, social media, Facebook, Instagram accounts. My three books, bestselling books are on Amazon. One is Unstoppable Selling. The next book I wrote was Unstoppable Money. And the one after that was Unstoppable Attitude. If I could redo the timing of how I launched those, just to prove the point with everybody in the audience who’s listening, Unstoppable Attitude should have been the first one because, without an unstoppable attitude, the unstoppable sales techniques don’t matter. As you’re studying and learning and growing, get that attitude in check, learn your selling skills. Then when you start making money, then Unstoppable Money comes in because it’s never what you make. It’s always what you do with it.
“Sometimes you’ve got to stop worrying about how much money you’re making and really start paying attention to where it’s going.” – Duane Marino · [36:17]
Duane Marino:
And a lot of people, there’s lottery winners, professional athletes, a lot of examples, people that made tens of millions of dollars and three, four, five years later are totally flat broke. Sometimes you’ve got to stop worrying about how much money you’re making and really start paying attention to where it’s going. But I think they’re all great books. They’re my books. I’ve read a lot of books to get those books together. There’s a lot of outside influences there, but they’re all things that I believe in, that I value, and that I live. And there’s nothing that I teach that I don’t do.
Will Barron:
Fantastic stuff. Well, I’ll link to them in the show notes of this episode over at salesman.org. And with that, Duane, thank you for your time, mate. Thank you, especially for opening up your little world and showing us the inner workings of Duane and his positive attitude machine. I appreciate that, mate. And I want to thank you for joining us on The Salesman podcast.
Duane Marino:
Thanks, Will. Thanks for having me. You have a great day and we’ll maybe see you again.
