Jeff Bajorek is a sales and prospecting expert who helps B2B sellers rethink the way they sell. In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Jeff explains the traits of high performers and how you can become one today.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- Jeff on LinkedIn
- Jeffbajorek.com
- Rethink the Way You Sell Podcast
- Book: The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results
- Book: Awaken the Giant Within
- Book: Finite and Infinite Games
Transcript
Will Barron:
Hi, my name is Will, and welcome to the Salesman Podcast. On today’s episode, we’re looking at the characteristics of top sales performers with my guest, Jeff Bajorek. Jeff is a sales and pro expert who helps B2B sales rethink the way they sell. You can find his new podcast, Rethink The Way You Sell, on everywhere, right, Jeff? And with that, mate, welcome to the show.
Jeff Bajorek:
Thanks for having me. It’s good to be here again.
Characteristics of a High-Achieving Sales Professional · [00:49]
Will Barron:
You’re more than welcome. I think this is the fourth time we’ve had you on. We’ll touch on the podcast Rethink The Way You Sell towards the end of the show: where we can find it. I know it’s a new and exciting project for you, so I’m happy to get it out there and promote it to our audience. But with that, mate, we’re going to touch on this idea of characteristic of top sales performers. And you, when we lined this show up, used the word characteristics. So what does that mean? Is this a personality trait? Is this our DNA? Is this things that we’ve learned? What defines a characteristic of a salesperson? Then we’ll dive into the ones that make the difference when we’re all trying to hit quota.
“I think there’s a 5% difference between mediocrity and super-stardom. It’s the little things that really make the difference between those top performers and everybody else.” – Jeff Bajorek · [01:05]
Jeff Bajorek:
Yeah. I’ve been saying for years: I think there’s a 5% difference between mediocrity and super-stardom, and while there are certainly things that are innate to us that may make us better intuitively at some of these things than others, there’s nothing on this list that I don’t think anybody can do. We can all be just a little bit better if we have some focus in these areas or for these characteristics. So it’s the little things. I’m trying to codify the little things that really make the difference between those top performers and, really, everybody else. And I think it’s something, if people want to aspire to it, they can get it.
Can a Person Achieve Sales Success Without the Characteristics of a High-Achieving Salesperson? · [01:51]
Will Barron:
Can you have sales success without these characteristics? And I’ll give you an example here that I’ve seen; undoubtedly, you’ve seen as well. You’ll be at a company, whether you’re selling there, consulting there, whatever you’re doing, sales leadership in their company. And some new kid will come along who doesn’t know the product, doesn’t know what they’re doing, and then they have an amazing first six months and they crush everyone who seemingly does know the product, does have all these characteristics and does know what they’re doing. So does that disprove these characteristics, or is it likely that this individual just has a bunch of these characteristics naturally and that’s why they crush it?
Jeff Bajorek:
Well, it’s important, and I’ll probably get a bill for this, but my old mentor used to say all the time, “Look, we don’t sell in a vacuum.” There are things that happen outside of our control that impact our results all the time. So that fresh-faced kid right out of school comes and has just a tremendous first six months, first year, and rockets to the top of the leaderboard? Yeah, that can happen. That can happen by dumb luck. That can happen by doing the right things, maybe for the wrong reasons or not knowing why he or she should be doing those things.
Jeff Bajorek:
But as far as sustained success… Okay, year one was great. What are you going to do when your quota gets jacked up? What are you going to do the year after that? What are you going to do to retain those customers? Or what are you going to do to continue to find those things that are really going to move the needle for you?
Jeff Bajorek:
And Will, I think this might have been something we talked about in the past. It’s worth talking about again, regardless, but there are a lot of people who get moved into leadership positions, get promoted beyond their real skillset, and their problem is not that they weren’t successful before. It’s that they don’t know why. And so when you get into a leadership role, particularly, and you just say, to your reps, “Just do it like I did. This is how I always did it. Put it out there,” it doesn’t usually work because there isn’t that understanding or clarification behind it.
Will Barron:
I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this on the podcast before. Hopefully this will be a good analogy for the audience. My first medical device sales job was a company called Olympus that’s super well known; the products are the best for flexible endoscopes and pretty good for rigid endoscopes in the marketplace.
Will Barron:
Well, I took over on my territory from the ex-managing-director of the company. So he was managing director for… His name was Doug, right? Managing director for a decade. And then I think basically he had a few kids, maybe he had twins or something, and so he’s like, “Right, I’m going to take a few steps back. I’m going to go into this senior sales role,” three or four years, whatever it is, have that work-life balance, whatever he was after, and then he’d go back into the managing director role, which he did. And I think he ended up moving to the States and taking over the business over there later on as well.
The Truth About Luck in Sales · [04:59]
Will Barron:
So I didn’t really understand this when I first joined the company, but I thought sales was just super easy and simple. I was the example that I’ve just given at the top of the show, of: I come in, there’s a bunch of deals already happening; I ought to just show up and hand over the order form to get some signatures. Absolutely crushed it that first year. So of course, what happens? My target doubles the next year and things get a little bit more tight from that moment onwards as I had to deal with my own mortality in sales. Right? So I love the way you describe that of the environment, the marketplace, things are in flux, and it is fair that people just have luck sometimes when they jump into sales roles, isn’t it?
Jeff Bajorek:
Yeah. And I don’t think we should hold it against those people. I think we should reserve judgement , obviously, because hey, we’ll see what happens next year, but look, you fall to a good gig? Great. There’s a lot of jealousy, right? You see people on teams: “Well, she’s doing great because she took over from the managing director.” Okay, whatever. I mean, there’s no room for that. I don’t understand how that helps you as a seller. Right? So if we could stay away from that petty stuff, I think we’d be a lot better off.
Jeff Bajorek:
But look, luck happens. Good territories happen. I worked in medical device sales too. What happened when a whale of a customer decided to move to your territory? Hey, you know what? It means a lot of responsibility too. Maybe it was a gift that landed in someone’s lap, but now they got to figure out how to continue to deal with that. Right? And it’s not as easy as everybody thinks, so let’s move on. What’s going to be productive for you, regardless of what’s happening two counties over?
How to Identify a Top Performing Sales Professional · [06:18]
Will Barron:
So with that in mind, then, things that we can control, hopefully: what are the characteristics, Jeff, of top sales performers?
“Great salespeople don’t apologise for being in sales. When you’re in sales and you’re proud of the profession, it means that you’re constantly trying to solve problems for other people.” – Jeff Bajorek · [06:37]
Jeff Bajorek:
I’ve boiled it down to seven, and I think where I’ve gotten feedback where I’m missing something, I’m actually not missing it; I just categorise it a little bit different. So I think the first one is they’re proud to call themselves sellers. I think first and foremost, great salespeople don’t apologise for being in sales. And so that’s something that is pretty simple, not always easy to wrap your brain around, but when you’re in sales and you’re proud of the profession, it means that you’re other-oriented. You’re trying to solve problems for other people, and I think that comes through in personal branding really well too. I mean, I’m really proud to help people the way that I do, Will, and I know you are too, and I just think there’s still too many people apologising for helping people the way they do.
“One of the only ways you can sell more is by spending more time selling.” – Jeff Bajorek · [07:40]
Jeff Bajorek:
The second big thing is that they have a really strong why or purpose, and behind that, we got into just a minute ago the pettiness of some salespeople and wondering about what’s going on in the territory next to them. But when you have a really strong purpose, you’re focused. You’re disciplined. You create really, really strong boundaries, and that helps you get organised so you spend the time that you need, the time that you can, doing the things only you can do. And that’s really, really powerful in terms of just not being distracted, because look, one of the only ways you can sell more is by spending more time selling, and that means boundaries. I think top performers treat selling as a vocation, not just a job, and we can get into that. I mean, it’s continuous improvement really inspired by the work that they do. Top performers take responsibility for their own outcomes. That means doing what needs to be done to get the outcome for the client, not just saying, “That’s my job,” or, “That’s not my job.”
Jeff Bajorek:
And then just the last few: they think about what needs to be done, not how to do something. They’re not following any paint-by-numbers sales manual or playbook. They think about what needs to be done and then they execute in the best way that they can. I think this is probably the biggest one.
Jeff Bajorek:
The last two: they create an environment to buy rather than just pitching a product. And they also keep their swagger, which is a great mindset. And they lean into adversity. They make sure they always move forward and they are really channelling that inner rock-star when they do their best work. That’s my high level running through that, Will. Where do you want to go deeper?
Why You Need to Treat Your Sales Career as a Vocation · [08:45]
Will Barron:
What does it mean to be in a sales career as a vocation, and on top of that, when does your sales role allow you to do that? Because if you’re selling some crappy product for a crappy company, it’s very difficult to turn that into a vocation. And maybe it’s your first job out of college, or maybe you were struggling and you got let go during the pandemic so you just had to grab any sales job that was available. What does it mean to treat your sales role as a vocation, and then what jobs and positions enable you to actually do that?
Jeff Bajorek:
Well, I think any job enables you to actually do that, and there are some people out there right now who aren’t selling for the company they want to be selling for near the end of their career. Maybe there’s a short lifespan in this role. That’s okay. But think about what you’re doing. Think about the way that you interact with and impact other people. And even if this is a short-term stop on your career-long journey, there’s still a lot of greater, broader concepts that you can put into play selling what you’re selling right now. So I think it’s just seeing the bigger picture, and if this is a step along the way, then great, keep your eyes open for opportunities elsewhere. But while you are where you are at, do the best work that you can and figure out how you can be a little bit better.
Jeff Bajorek:
Again, it’s continuous improvement. It’s looking at not just your weak points, but look at the ways that you can double down on your strengths. Test things. Maybe this is a laboratory. You’ve been to these same shows. Well, I used to love going to trade shows and especially when it wasn’t in my territory, because I would run into my friends and my colleagues. I’d run into their physicians, and I’d run into a lot of physicians that weren’t really being called on by anybody in a company, and that was a laboratory for me. I could see which openers would work. I could see which questions were going to get some thought and things like that. And nobody lost, right? There was nothing to lose. So are you tinkering? Are you playing around a little bit?
Will Barron:
Are you familiar with the book The One Thing?
Jeff Bajorek:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Will Barron:
Have you read it, right?
Jeff Bajorek:
I have.
The Only Characteristic You Need to Become a High-Achieving Sales Professional · · [11:08]
Will Barron:
Out of these seven traits, is there one of them that, if you’ve got it, makes all the rest of them either obsolete or unnecessary? Is there one thing that you either need to have right before the rest of them will fall into place, or is there one thing that if you have it and you can leverage that in your sales role, the rest of it doesn’t really matter?
Jeff Bajorek:
It’s like asking me to pick my favourite child. I love that book. I love that concept. It’s tough to get these down to just one, and I think even if I did, it would be that the other would fall underneath it. And I think it’s either taking responsibility for your outcomes, or thinking in terms of what needs to be done, not how to do it. And I think thinking in terms of what needs to be done, not just how to do it, probably it’s arguable which one is superlative to that.
Jeff Bajorek:
And having a broader scope, seeing the bigger picture, I think… And maybe that’s just it. Maybe we just combine them all, because all of this is about seeing the bigger picture, right? It’s boundaries, it’s your professional reputation, it’s your mindset. It’s the tactics of things aren’t as important as that broader framework of understanding the rules of the game and putting yourself in position to win. And that, I think, when you look at top performers, they’re seeing things differently, and it’s because they’re giving themselves permission to see things differently.
Jeff Bajorek:
When I started my career, similar to yours, Will, I took over a territory that my new managing director, if you will, had, and there was a rep between me and him. But I would sell with him and we’d be in the field together, and I would look at him and say, “Wow. Do I need to be like you in order to sell this way, in order to sell this product?” And then I’d go with other senior reps and I’d be like, “No, I don’t do it like him either, or like her either. Huh.” But then I step back and I’m like, “Okay, but what are they all doing? What’s the common theme?” And I think a top performer understands those common themes and creates an ecosystem for themself to work within it.
Will Barron:
I think a lot of this comes down to… And I’m surprised you didn’t say this. I’m surprised, but I can understand, because as I say this, I feel like some weird leadership guru who wrote a book that was three pages of content and then the rest of it was just nonsense, like most business books out there, when we talk about the importance of your why and the importance of your purpose and the importance of knowing who you are, stuff like this. There’s a lot of woo-woo, nonsense, leadership mumbo-jumbo in some of this content.
Will Barron:
But as I said, I feel like that goes above everything else. I don’t mean your why as in, “I want to save the world with my sales job,” because you’re not going to save the world with your sales job, right? You’re going to go and help people, you’re going to exchange your expertise and time for money, and then you’re going to pay off your mortgage, put your kids through college, whatever it is, buy your nice car, go on holidays and maybe retire early and then move on to something that’s probably going to have more impact, if that’s what you care about.
Why It’s So Important to Find Your Why in Sales · [14:35]
Will Barron:
But that why, that purpose, that then leads you to question the game that you play. It leads you to not seek permission to see things differently. It leads you to become perhaps unapologetic as a salesperson. Is there a thread there of the why that you have and the purpose that you have, even if it’s as simple as, “Hey, I grew up poor, I don’t like having debt and I’ve got to pay off this mortgage so that I feel confident and calm and secure in everything else in life; that’s going to lead me to be proactive in my sales to do the right things and to close some deals”?
Jeff Bajorek:
Well, I mean, along those lines, that’s why there are seven and not one, right? I mean, we can argue about which one is more important or a bigger concept or whatever, and I mean, I’m not going to argue with you and your point as the guy who had a podcast called The Why and The Buy for five years. The importance of that purpose is not lost on me, right? And I think it’s really interesting. This is fun campfire talk, right? Let’s dig into all of this and bring up these different points, right? I mean, that’s what I love about what guys like you and I do. So, yes, I won’t argue with you, but if we talked about this again tomorrow, we may come up with different answers, too.
The Traits You Should Drop if You Want to Enjoy Long-Term Sales Success · [16:20]
Will Barron:
Sure. I want you to argue with me. I want you to battle me over it, because the problem that I’ve got in the show at the moment, Jeff, is I’m inviting people on that I want to speak to. Right? And we’re all on the same wavelength, so the conversations are 80%, “Oh, this is a good point. Yeah, I agree. This is a great point. Oh yes, it’s fantastic. Oh yes.” The audience think we’re just sat there stroking each other’s egos. So with that, feel free to battle me on some of this, right? Are there any personality traits, or to use your language here, are there any characteristics that we need to extinguish or leave behind that will hold us back? So some of it is the inverse of what we’ve talked about so far, right?
Jeff Bajorek:
Right.
Will Barron:
But is there any other, even anything counterintuitive that we need to drop to have success in sales?
Jeff Bajorek:
Yeah. I think salespeople need to readdress their dysfunctional relationship with failure and they need to address their dysfunctional relationship with rejection. And I don’t mean get thicker skin. I don’t mean be tougher. I mean, you need to redefine what failure and rejection are, and, I think, learn to thrive, right? Learn to embrace what those things do. Now, I don’t think there’s much rejection in sales at all, because I don’t think rejection actually happens till someone hears you out and then says, “Will, I see what you’re doing there. That’s not for us.” That’s rejection. Right? Most of what people call rejection in sales is really people just never having paid any attention, and I don’t think you can be rejected unless someone’s paying attention to you. So the getting hung up on during your cold-calling blocks and things like that, not only is it not personal, it’s also not valid as rejection. So stop saying you’re being rejected all the time.
Jeff Bajorek:
The other thing with regard to failure is are you learning something? Every sales call that I learn something that helps make me rather better at my next sales call, that’s a win. And again, it’s that broader scope, right? If that sales call didn’t go the way I thought it would, and so now I see this small picture, this small deal here, not being able to advance, and so I’ll probably lose, okay, whatever. But if I step back and say, “I’m going to be doing this for probably another 30 or 40 more years and I just learned something there that will alter the trajectory of the rest of my sales calls for the next 30 or 40 years even in a small way,” that’s a win.
“Every failure is an opportunity to learn. If you choose not to learn, that’s a real failure.” – Jeff Bajorek · [18:49]
Jeff Bajorek:
That’s a big win, because those little steps continue to add up, and no step is too small if it’s headed in the right direction and you keep taking steps, right? So let’s be real about what we’re doing here, and that’s what I mean about that scope, right? So quit trying to do it right. Think about what needs to be done, not what everybody else is doing. And every failure is an opportunity to learn. If you choose not to learn, that’s a real failure.
The Link Between Sales Success and Developing the Characteristics of a High-Performing Sales Person · [18:59]
Will Barron:
How much of sales success comes down to these characteristic? Some of the characteristics that we’ve described are soft skills. Some of them are more logical things that we need to learn and implement, right? How much of it comes down to, for example, these characteristics versus what you’re touching on there, which is the scientific method, which is we make a hypothesis, we test it in the marketplace, we get results, we then refine our hypothesis, and we do this forever because the marketplace is constantly changing. We are constantly changing. The product cycle is changing as well. How much does success in sales come down to, for example, the seven characteristics that you’ve just described, which we could write a book about now and it’ll still be relevant 20 years from now, versus a scientific method, which is this logical iterative process.
Jeff Bajorek:
Well, I think there are elements of both, right? Because there are certain non-negotiable things that have to happen in a sales process, which is why the science exists. But in terms of being able to impact more deals, I think the art part of selling lies in these seven characteristics here. So I definitely think it’s both, and I’m thinking now, “Okay, there you go, just agreeing with Will again.” It’s having the emotional intelligence to know how to react differently to different people. It’s paying close enough attention to understand where those hot buttons and buying motives are. It’s reading between the lines sometimes, and you can’t read between the lines if you’re just following the manual that they gave you during onboarding. Right?
Jeff Bajorek:
So I mean, there’s this nuance that has to come about. You can only really learn and develop by stopping and reviewing the tape after your call, listening to your sales calls, being in the moment regularly enough to pay attention where you made a misstep or where you said the wrong thing or whatever it was. All of that stuff comes about in some way, shape or form through these seven characteristics. But the science is: step one, we pick up the phone; step two, we send an email after we left a voicemail message that gives them another way to hear from us or another way to reply to us. The iteration is different from the approach, but you cannot succeed without some of both.
Will Barron:
I agree. I agree. This is the-
Jeff Bajorek:
No, argue with me, Will. We talked about this.
Will Barron:
This is literally what you said, Jeff, of the science versus the art of sales: why some people jump into a sales role and because of their upbringing, because of whatever it is, the high levels of self-esteem, they don’t have an issue with rejection, right? They don’t take it personally. It could be the job they did as a kid. It could be the subtle subconscious whisperings from their parents or family members.
Will Barron:
I know it as an adult now engaging with kids and I go, “What’d you do?” “Oh, well, I run a small business.” “What does that mean?” “Oh, well, I do this and I take people there and the gap is the value and that’s what they pay me for.” “Oh.” And if someone talked to me like how I talk to… Because my friends have young kids and that now. If someone talked to me as a kid the way that I talk to other kids, I would have known what an entrepreneur was at five and I would have wanted to be one and probably still would have gone down the sales role.
Will Barron:
And young… I say young. I’m 35. I’m talking about the 20- to 25-year-olds that consume the content, and perhaps I go back and forth over emails with. A lot of them want to be entrepreneurs. A lot of them want to be the next Elon Musks. So the first thing is, you’re not going to be Elon Musks by… Reserve yourself, check your ego [inaudible 00:22:42] door. No one emailing me for advice is going to be Elon Musk, because you’re emailing the wrong person. You need to be in front of Elon Musk, as much of a hit on my ego as that is. But then I would recommend to them that sales is the process to go through.
How to Develop a Better Relationship with Failure and Rejection · [23:20]
Will Barron:
So with all that said, some of this is perhaps innate. Some of it is learned. Some of the science side of things is immeasurably based on iteration, and is constantly in flux. But with that said, to get practical, we can wrap up the episode turning a few of these thought processes into a practical application for the audience, Jeff. How do we practically form a better relationship with rejection and failure? How do we go about reprogramming our brains if we do get slightly… We don’t tell anyone at work. We don’t tell our sales manager. But maybe we do get slightly miffed when someone hangs up the phone, or we do get slightly bothered, and we take it personally when we’ve emailed someone and we’ve had a few calls and we’ve sent an invoice and then they say, “Oh, we’re not interested any more.” How do we practically get over some of these things and change the relationship that we have with rejection, failure and even the permission to see things differently, which you said earlier on in the show?
Jeff Bajorek:
Yeah. I think it’s stepping back and seeing the bigger picture. We can be really crass and say, “Well, you got to crack a couple of eggs if you want to make an omelette.” Okay. That’s tired. That doesn’t resonate so much any more. Don’t just tell me I need to be tougher. But think back to when you started. Think back to what you were trying to accomplish. To your point, think back to your why. Why are you doing this? Why are you choosing to sell the product that you’re selling, work for the company you work for, serve the people you serve? What is that gap that is illustrated, and how do you fit in, and what is your role to help these people move forward? If I don’t have someone’s attention, that’s a me problem. That’s not a them problem. Right? So sometimes it’s taking responsibility for why those supposed rejections or failures continue to happen, but also recognising in the grand scheme of things, you’re taking these little steps forward.
Jeff Bajorek:
And I think so much of what we see, particularly when we’re early on in our careers, we don’t understand the long-term ramifications. I go back; my son, who’s going to be 11 here in a couple of weeks… It was four or five years ago. I mean, he fell off his bike for the first time, scraped up his knee, and he thought he was going to bleed out and die right there, because he’d never done that before. So he didn’t realise that, okay, it’s going to feel better soon. Stings right now; it’s going to feel better. He thought he was going to bleed out. You know what I mean? And so without that perspective, he doesn’t know any better.
Jeff Bajorek:
But as you grow, and if you’re in your early to mid 20s, I’m going to tell you right now, everything you’re doing right now is going to have impacts that you won’t recognise until later. And I can tell you the older I get, the smarter my parents get, particularly the things that they told me when I was growing up that I didn’t want to hear and then I find myself telling my kids for the same reasons, right? Perspective is that kind of thing that is very difficult to appreciate until you’re in that position. So take my word for it. Take Will’s word for it. If you can see the bigger picture and the bigger value to these steps you’re taking right now, everything else gets so much less significant, and your ego doesn’t take such a big hit and you learn to reframe those obstacles as opportunities. And that’s what I want to encourage people to do.
Will Barron:
What you say reminds me of this idea of second and third and 22nd order consequences. And the best example I’ve got is you buy a TV and you’re like, “Well, I’ll just buy a telly. I can afford it this month.” Well, and you’ve now got a big, nice TV, so you go, “Well, maybe I’ll buy an Xbox.” And then you go, “Well, I’ve got a TV and an Xbox, so I’ll just play 20 minutes of games each evening. It doesn’t matter. Right?”
Why You Need to Start Taking Accountability for Your Actions · [26:50]
Will Barron:
Well, that 20 minutes of games might take up some of your training time or even just your actual relaxation time, which allows you to recharge for the next morning, which doesn’t mean that it’s going to spiral into some game addiction, but it means over next 15 years… Because games are designed to be addictive, right? The whole element of 90% of computer games is to pull on the dopamine and serotonin cycles to get you to play and buy the next one and to enjoy it as well. There’s an element of fulfilment that could come from media like that. But by making one purchase decision, you’ve then had second, third, fifth, 27th order consequences on the back of that first decision. And the younger you are as you listen to this, the bigger the impact of that over time, right?
Jeff Bajorek:
100 percent, and good luck keeping video games to 20 minutes. It’s easier for me to just not play at all. But you’re right. What are those little things? I mean, how many times have you heard it? Just read 10 pages in a book a day. Doesn’t matter you’re not getting through books as fast as your friends are. You’re probably still reading more than most people do. Practising something… You get back to 10,000 hours of dedicated practise. You can get those in 10-minute increments if you want. But when you really think back to it…
“How many sales reps out there don’t have one customer conversation a day? There are a lot of them. If you had one meeting with a customer or a qualified prospect every single day, your numbers would improve and you’ll be in the top 5% or 10% of people who have booked calendars.” – Jeff Bajorek · [28:07]
Jeff Bajorek:
You know what? This is another great one. How many sales reps out there don’t have one customer conversation a day? There are a lot of them. If you had one meeting with a customer or a qualified prospect every single day, your numbers would improve, or you’re in the top 5% or 10% of people who have booked calendars. It’s not as often as you think.
“No step is too small so long as it’s headed in the right direction and you keep taking those steps.” – Jeff Bajorek · [28:36]
Jeff Bajorek:
There’s a lot of getting ready to get ready in sales. And so when you think about what real execution looks like, I said it before, no step is too small so long as it’s headed in the right direction and you keep taking steps. Take those steps and step back and appreciate what a step really looks like.
Jeff’s Purpose and Why It’s So Important to Him · [28:46]
Will Barron:
Jeff, I can share mine if you like as well, but what’s your why or your purpose? You’ve multiple podcasts. A new one should be out now as we say this. Books, content, tonnes of followers on LinkedIn, everywhere else. What’s your why? What’s the purpose behind all of that?
Jeff Bajorek:
I live for that moment when the light-bulb turns on over someone’s head and they realise they can do something that they didn’t think they could do before, because they thought about it differently. And that’s where Rethink The Way You Sell comes from, right? I remind people what needs to be done, I show them how to do it, and then I make them believe that they can. And that had to happen for me, and when it did, oh my goodness. Life-altering, family-altering, generational impacts on the way that I interact with people on the things my family’s able to do. And it’s not just financial stuff. It’s the way that I look at things that makes my whole life more fulfilling. So for me to be able to help people think about things a little differently, think things through differently so they can see possibilities they’ve never seen before, it’s the most rewarding thing. I mean, and it’s similar to parenting in that. And that’s my why.
Will Barron:
Dude. Yeah. You’re making me feel uncomfortable. My why is super-selfish, and totally built on good principles, I think. And I think to achieve it long-term, you have to build a business that adds just tremendous value, and you can’t cook corners. There’s no opportunity to not do anything the right way.
Will Barron:
But I read Awaken the Giant Within, Tony Robbins’ book, that I think he wrote in the ’80s. I’ve literally got a box of them out there, big cardboard box, and anyone who… No, I will not say this on the podcast. I was just about to say, anyone who wants a copy, I usually send them one. Typically, when I’m chatting with people and they’re not a good fit for the training programme or something, I’ll send them a copy. So that is not an open invitation, because I’ll end up spending the entire revenue of salesman.org sending people books. Right?
Will Barron:
But I read the book, and it helps you outline your values as a human. Now, two of my top ones, and perhaps they’re interchangeable, were safety and adventure. Now these do not mix very well, right? You cannot go on many real adventures and masculine hiking, mountain-biking, rock-climbing, the kind of stuff that… I mean, the golden retriever [inaudible 00:31:30] kind of thing. A lot of these adventures are inherently unsafe, even just to a certain extent. And that’s what makes them an adventure, right? Otherwise you might as well strap on a VR headset and just wander around some computer-game environments and see the same sights, but you’re not getting that intrinsic adventure out it.
Will Barron:
So I’ve got this issue of adventure and safety. Adventure and safety. So maybe this is not my why or purpose. Maybe this is my mission, but my mission is to semi-retire at 40, and I’m well on the way of doing that, and that is: mortgage is paid off, investments all sorted. If I still own the business, there’s people in there taking my place and it runs itself. All the business has been sold and the content machine has been sold.
Will’s Mission and Purpose in Life · [32:20]
Will Barron:
And so that’s what I’m driving for 24/7. It’s why I’m willing to put in the extra hours. As I said earlier on this bit of a rant, I know that to achieve that long-term, especially if you’re [inaudible 00:32:27], you’ve got to have a sound business that adds drastic value to a scalable number of people. And so you can’t cut corners. You can’t be ripping people off. You can’t be saying you’re going to do one thing and not deliver. You’ve got to deliver and go above and beyond everything you say, right? So maybe I’m rephrasing this slightly wrong, but would you agree? Is that my mission or is that my purpose, especially in the medium term?
Jeff Bajorek:
I would say it’s your mission. I don’t know that that’s your purpose. I think it’s your mission, particularly because it’s time-bound, and you know what? I don’t even know if that’s the criteria, but you said earlier you’re 35 and you want to be out by 40, or at least able to be out by 40. That, to me, creates a sense of urgency. That makes it feel like a mission. Like I said, someone who understands these terms may argue with me and they might be right, but I don’t see myself stopping.
Will Barron:
Sure.
Jeff Bajorek:
That’s why I think of this as being more of my purpose. You know what I mean? I was joking with my mom a couple years ago. I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t think I’m ever going to retire.” She’s like, “Oh my God, are you okay?” I’m like, “Yeah, I love what I do. I don’t think there’s ever any reason to stop.” If someone’s going to be willing to have really fun, meaningful conversations with me and then send me a check afterward, yeah, why would I ever stop? There will be a time, certainly, where I do less of that. But this is what lights me up. So I don’t know, Will, but I think regardless, it’s that thing that drives you, and you have something that drives you, keeps you focused, keeps you disciplined, makes you put up boundaries, makes you execute at a very high level. And that’s the important thing. We can argue the semantics. Most people don’t have that. So start there.
Finite and Infinite Games · [34:20]
Will Barron:
Yeah. We’ll wrap up this and you can tell us about the new show. It’s a fabulous idea, and I’ve not read the book, but I’ve heard people talking about it. I think it’s called Finite and Infinite Games, something like that. And it’s this idea of in your life, there are some finite games, which is for most people, and to be fair, I think it’s most people listening to the show right now, sales people, sales leadership, and maybe small business owners who listen to the show as well, of there’s a finite game there. In sales, you want to go in, you want to ramp up your time to success and make that as short as possible. You want to make as much money as morally and as ethically and as value-adding as possible, right? If you’re killing it and you’re winning, you’re making a tonne of money in a modern B2B sales role. Right?
Will Barron:
But then there’s infinite games. So for example, I play drums, and I’m okay, not great, but I’ve just got back into doing rudiments. So if you’re familiar with guitar or piano, these are the scales of percussion instruments, right? And I’ve not been playing songs. I’ve just been doing rudiments every day for the past 14 days. And that’s an infinite game, because I’ll never be perfect at them, because you can always speed them up. You can always change tempo. You can always do syncopation between your hands and your feet or whatever it is. And so maybe my mission is my finite game. Maybe I need to have a think of what my infinite game is, the goal longer-term in my life. And maybe it’s just adventure. Maybe that’s the end goal. Adventure in safety. Rock-climb with a crash helmet on. I don’t know what it is. So some juxtaposition of those two. But we’ll wrap up with that, mate. Tell us, with that, the new show: where we can find it, what it’s all about and anything else you want to drop on us and share with us, Jeff.
Parting thoughts · [36:00]
Jeff Bajorek:
Sure. The show’s called Rethink The Way You Sell, and it’s a departure for me from where I’d been previously in podcasts, just trying to put out a weekly show and have interviews and things. This is really content-focused. It is going to be released in seasons, so in chunks around a subject matter, versus just having subject-matter experts on talking, right? So it’s less a social experiment and much more of the spearhead of my content. And so there will be webinars tied to these seasons, and there will be content and courses tied to these seasons, and really just bringing together what I’ve learned over the last going on 18 years now and putting it in a way where people can focus on this rather topical season at a time. And I’m having a bunch of fun with it. We’ve recorded some original material. I’m repurposing some older stuff that’s still really pertinent. My producer, Doug Branson, and I are having just a ball with the formatting and everything though too. So check it out. You can find it anywhere you find podcasts. And yeah, I would really appreciate giving a shot.
Will Barron:
Great stuff. Well, we’ll link to it in the show notes to this episode, and all the books and everything else that we talked about in this episode is shown over at the salesman.org. With that, Jeff, I want to thank you for your time, your expertise. I’ll just say this, mate: I enjoy just chatting this stuff with you. Some guests come on and it’s like, “Well, okay, well we’ve covered the topic. That’s the end of the show.” But I’m conscious of time here, otherwise I feel like we could have done over half an hour just pontificating about sales, life, careers, and how all this cycles back into performance at the end of the day, mate. So I thank you for your time, your expertise, and for joining us again on the show.
Jeff Bajorek:
Thank you. No, it’s always fun, and now there’s another dimension that I didn’t realise we could talk about, because I never met a flam-diddle that I didn’t like. So we’ll leave it at that.
Will Barron:
Amazing. Cheers, Jeff.
