Dr. Robert Glover, author of “No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Proven Plan For Getting What You Want in Love, Sex and Life” and is an internationally recognized authority on the Nice Guy Syndrome.
On this episode of The Salesman Podcast, Robert explains what nice guy syndrome is and Will shares his nice guy past.
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Proven Plan For Getting What You Want in Love, Sex and Life
- DrGlover.com
- Robert on Linkedin
Transcript
Dr. Robert Glover:
A nice guy basically is a person who believes they’re not okay just as they are. So basically nice guys are just trying to please other people, get the approval of other people, just do whatever it takes to make the right impression and keep the right impression. But the nice guy syndrome really goes deeper than just being a good person. And my intention in life is still to be a decent human being, to be honest and generous and caring.
Will Barron:
Hello sales nation, I’m Will Barron, host of The Salesman Podcast, the world’s biggest B2B sales show where we help you not just at your target, but really thrive in sales. Let’s meet today’s guest.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Hey, this is Dr. Robert Glover, the author of No More Mr. Nice Guy. And I’m talking with Will Barron from Puerta Vallarta, Mexico.
Key Characteristics of a Typical Nice Guy · [01:00]
Will Barron:
On this episode of the show with Robert, we’re diving into nice guy syndrome, how convert contracts are literally ripping away commissions from your bank balance, how it’s stopping you from asking for help and a whole lot more. So let’s jump right in. Do you have a definition of a nice guy or perhaps we can run through some of the traits of a nice guy and we’ll see if we can spark some imagination, get the ears freaking up in the audience to see if they ate with some of this as well.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Okay, well, let’s do both. Let’s just give a brief introduction to what is, who is a nice guy. And then we can talk more about some of the traits of a nice guy or a nice girl, because they’re both out there. A nice guy basically is a person who believes they’re not okay just as they are. And typically their paradigm, their roadmap, their worldview often developed very early in childhood is basically this. I have to become what I think other people want me to be in order to be loved and liked and get my needs met. And I need to eliminate or hide anything about myself that might get a negative reaction from other people. So basically nice guys are just trying to please other people, get the approval of other people, avoid conflict, avoid upsetting people, just do whatever it takes to make the right impression and keep the right impression so that they can be liked, loved, and get their needs met.
Why Being a Nice Guy is Not the Ideal Way of Living · [02:12]
Will Barron:
And that doesn’t sound like a horrible thing or a horrendous set of traits to have necessarily when they’re just kind of written down or stated like that Robert, but how does that manifest itself, I guess, neutrally into the outside world. And then we can dive into some specific traits and I’ve got some jotter down here that I know have affected me in the past that we can then perhaps work through and see whether they are actually positive or negative to our success in business and in life.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And you’re right. Just to say, “Well, I’m a nice guy.” That doesn’t sound so terrible. And I’m a recovering nice guy, as you indicated that you are as well. And at one time in my life, I thought, well, why doesn’t everybody think the way I think, why isn’t everybody trying to follow the golden rule and treat people well and be a good person? But the nice guy syndrome really goes deeper than just being a good person. And my intention in life is still to be a decent human being to be honest and generous and caring, but it goes much beyond that. It really goes to that core belief about self, and that core belief about self that says I’m not okay just as I am. And in the book, I refer to this as toxic shame.
Dr. Robert Glover:
It’s not just that I do things that are bad or wrong or make people upset, but there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. I’m fundamentally unlovable. And because of that desire to try to get approval, to get external validation, to create positive impression on people, there’s a number of problems that accompany that, with the foremost and most primary one is that nice guys are not honest, they’re not authentic, and they often lack integrity, which seems kind of paradoxical that while they’re being nice, they might actually be men and women lacking in integrity. And that’s because if you’re holding your finger, if you lick your finger and hold it up to see which way the wind’s blowing in every context in life, there’s no real you there. There’s no honest you, there’s no authentic you, and there’s no integrated you, that has an integrated sense of values and morals to even use that term where you decide what’s right, what’s wrong. Instead, you’re trying to figure out what will make people happy or what will avoid their disapproval.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And that in itself leads to lots of problems for nice guys and the people trying to relate to them, whether it’s in a relationship, in work, in sales. If you’re not authentic, if you’re not integrated, if you’re not honest, if you’re not real, that sets you and everybody else up for a lot of problems.
How Nice Guy Traits Evolve From People-Pleasing Into Toxic Dishonesty · [04:47]
Will Barron:
So very practically. And again, I want to doom it down as simple as possible, and we can build it back up. How does a nice guy go from being, I just want to please people to then becoming, and again, I’ve had this more so in my childhood, I guess, but become someone who is dishonest, a liar, someone who will tell fibs, how does it go step by step from someone going, I want to help people to telling fibs,
Dr. Robert Glover:
Well, actually it is probably reverse. What happens is that at least my view, my theory based on my own process, working with thousands of recovering nice guys, is that it often begins very, very early in childhood, maybe just a few weeks, few months, very definitely just few years into life where a young child, inaccurately interprets, and then internalises emotional beliefs about themself and the world. And this happens to every child, not just the children that grow up to be nice guys and nice girls. It happens to every child that we have experiences that they become experienced at an emotional level as a deep abandonment. And this could just be if we’re hungry and nobody’s there on time to feed us, or if we’ve messed in our diaper and nobody changes us, or if our parents are having difficulties, or if we only have one parent, one is disappeared, or if mom’s depressed or dad’s angry or there’s addictions, or we have older siblings or younger siblings, and we’re vying for attention.
Dr. Robert Glover:
All of these things affect a young child in ways that affects their sense of security, their sense of wellbeing and their sense of who they are. And children being very narcissistic by nature are the centre of their world. By nature they believe they cause everything that happens to them, so that they’re very grandiose to all children are. Their grandiose and when we’re children, we believe we cause everything that bad, but we believe we also can cause everything that’s good. So this grandiosity leads to this belief. If I can just hide or get rid of the badness and just keep the goodness, whatever that happens to look like, then we’ll be loved and liked. But here’s the problem. This stuff in our, in our brain gets internalised at a very young age. When the only part of our brain that’s fully online and fully developed is a part called the limbic system that has the amygdala that controls survival.
Dr. Robert Glover:
That’s where our fight, flight, freeze mechanism comes from. And the theory is that when we have negative or painful experiences as a child, we record that as emotional memory in that primitive part of our brain. Now, the reasoning prefrontal cortex part of our brain, doesn’t finish fully developing in men until around age 25. That’s why our car insurance goes down, is we quit doing so many stupid things because the brain finishes wiring up. But what happens is that limbic system, the amygdala is wired into every other part of the brain and the emotional dynamic that says there’s something wrong with me. And that fear of being abandoned, that fear of not being loved, the fear of not getting our needs met, the fear of not being good enough, emotionally then gets wired into the rest of our thinking. And then we carry this paradigm and this roadmap with us into adulthood, thinking that our perception of the world and our experience, our reaction and our actions, we think all make sense.
“The truth is, the way we see the world and how we think about things and how we decide things and how we act is really based on emotional belief systems that we internalised at a few weeks and a few months old.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [08:26]
Dr. Robert Glover:
We think they’re all completely rational and logical, but the truth is the way we see the world and how we think about things and how we decide things and how we act is really based on emotional belief systems that we internalised at a few weeks and a few months old. So then it affects everything we do as adults. And we don’t understand when nice guys tend to pick up my book or read something I’ve written or listen to a podcast. It’s like a light goes on. It’s kind of like, oh, this makes sense. Why I’ve been doing this for so long and why it doesn’t work? Why me trying to be nice and treat everybody well, doesn’t get me love? It doesn’t get me dates. It doesn’t get me sex. It doesn’t get me sales. It doesn’t get me promotions. It doesn’t put money in the bank. All it does is keep me feeling frustrated and resentful and trying harder to do the very same things that aren’t working very well, because it all goes to that emotional imprinting very early in life in a very primitive part of our brain.
Is it Possible to Be a Nice Guy and a Not-so Nice Guy at the Same Time · [09:25]
Will Barron:
And is this on a sliding scale? Can you be a little bit of a nice guy versus just a total sucker kind of thing? Or can we be somewhere in the middle of this as well?
Dr. Robert Glover:
Probably, yes. Everything in life’s on a sliding scale. And yes, what I’ve even found, and maybe you’ve seen this as well, and the people listening maybe see it, is that some people in their personal relationships are total wimpy nice guys. But in work, they’re assertive, they’re a go getter, they take no prisoner’s mentality and then sometimes that can even be switched, and sometimes it can vacillate. So at times, most nice guys tend to be, have these nice guy attributes in every aspect of their life. But sometimes it’s just in relationships, sometimes it’s just in work. But when we see these traits showing up of the people pleasing, the avoiding conflict, the trying to make a good impression and be liked and get validated and avoid conflict, avoid negative responses. All of this goes back to that very early core programming, and it tends to affect us negatively in whatever area of life we want to succeed in.
Experiences That Give Birth to the Nice Guy Syndrome · [10:50]
Will Barron:
Because the reason I asked this, or ask that question, Robert, was that I had some of these, and we’ll talk about it in a second. And I can open about some of this as well. Some of this is manifested with me reading the book and learning more about all of this in general. I’ve changed some of my actions, even though practised instinctively. I still want to do certain things, but I had a seemingly perfect on breaking. My parents were together, there was no problems, we were financially, not millionaires, but fine. I had a went to great schools, I had loads of friends, I had seemingly no real huge or fundamental problems of any abuse or anything like that, which I know kind of can potentially manifest itself in things later on. I was just fine, but I would still kind of identify as a nice guy.
Will Barron:
I was still a people pleaser, and I would do things for context for the audience. Again, on this sliding scale of, I would perhaps if a customer, if an order wasn’t going to be delivered on time, I would tell a white lie to avoid conflict, rather than just tell him the truth. And then that would lead to another problem, another white lie, and it would spiral out of control. And this happened numerous times. So what I just want to put across for the audience to give him the context of it, and this isn’t a huge, it’s a massive problem or it’s fine. I guess little things can build up and become problems over time if we don’t deal with them. And yeah, as I said, I had a great childhood, but clearly there’s something underlying it that I’m not quite uncovered just yet. But-
Dr. Robert Glover:
Well.
Will Barron:
Go on Robert.
Dr. Robert Glover:
GO ahead. And then I’ll share an idea with you that might put a little bit more of a light on that.
Will Barron:
Okay. Well, dive into that. Yeah. Let’s jump straight into it.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Okay. And in the book, I do talk about the various things that can contribute to this inaccurate internalisation of who I am and where I fit in the world. And a lot of nice guys that I work with say, well, I grew up in America, we had a television show called, Leave It to Beaver, where you had a mom and dad and two boys and everything was peachy keen and rosy all the time. And parents never fought. So people say, I grew up in a Leave It to Beaver family. And that may be true. And there’s one link there. And everything that we get internalised at a young age isn’t necessarily because of mom and dad. Doesn’t mean they were addicts, doesn’t mean they fought, doesn’t mean that they were neglectful of us, but here’s the thing.
Dr. Robert Glover:
All of us as children spent good part of our early life being small and helpless. That means everybody had more power than us. Anybody in our world, could be older siblings, could be older kids in the neighbourhood, it could be the priest, it could be the teacher in school. Everybody had more power than us. So we were all operating from this kind of disadvantaged situation. So one of the things that children try to do is they try to level the playing field with whatever assets and tools and skills they have, which are not many because we’re immature. Like I said, our brains aren’t fully developed and we just don’t have any power because we’re small. So for example, one of the things a child learns to do to level the playing field with the bigger people, parents, siblings, school teachers, is they tell lies.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Lying is actually very adaptive for a powerless person. It levels the playing field and kind of helps them avoid painful consequences. That more powerful people can impose on them. But what the problem happens in is natural for children to lie. My background is I’m a marriage and family therapist. So I’ve worked with a lot of families and parents will come in and says, junior, six year old lies to us, we’ll ask him a point blank question and they tell us a lie and I’ll go well, good for him. He’s being adaptive. You can impose painful consequences on him that he has no power to stop. So lying is an adaptive behaviour for junior. The problem is when we get to be 18, 25, 45, and we still use these childhood adaptive behaviours, like you telling a white lie to a customer.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Why? Because your mind exaggerates the ability this customer has to do harm to you and do damage. So you go back to being the four year old will that says, I’ll just tell the little white lie. They won’t know the difference. Even though they often do just like our parents saw through most of our little white lies, the customers get some vibe or feeling about it as well. So we’re behaving like that four year old child that needs constant approval and constant avoidance of negative consequences. So as you say, it may not be that we had amazingly terrible things happen to us as children, but we were children. We were small, we were helpless. We were powerless that then became our operating system of our mind that we’ve carried into adulthood. And that’s one thing as grownups, we have to readjust that operating system to get what we want.
The First Step to Overcoming Your Nice Guy Traits · [15:44]
Will Barron:
Well, before I have some kind of regression and a nervous breakdown as I discover that something terrible did happen to me as a child, let’s pull that to one side for a second of the why and the how, and perhaps start talking into dealing with it right now in this moment. And I’ve just got a couple of traits here that I’ve felt so strong that I’ve noted down in these kind of post-it notes. When I read through the book myself of avoiding conflict, seeking approval, hiding flaws, not putting myself first and a big one. And I’ve actually covered this on the show. A couple of times I had a couple of psychologists come on the show to talk about this is not asking for help. So asking for help in B2B sales in when you’re doing a deal size of 500,000, 20,000, whatever it is, you’re selling to a team. So typically you need to have a team with you to enable that. So this is a real breakthrough moment.
Will Barron:
And it was for me, especially as an entrepreneur now, after kind of working in sales, asking for help and having coaches and having people board on your side, it’s crazy important to growing any organisation. So if we’re suffering from any of these, what is the first step to becoming a, I guess, recovering nice guy and then getting to the other side of some of this?
“You did not become a nice guy in social isolation. You cannot recover from this in social isolation either.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [17:26]
Dr. Robert Glover:
Well, the thing that I say in the book, when I talk about becoming what I call an integrated male, and we could use lots of different names to describe this person, but, but is a person who’s actually growing up. Who’s becoming the psychological term is differentiated that where we have the ability to ask ourselves, what do I want? What feels right to me? What’s important? And then do that. Even when we get resistance from outside of us or resistance from between our own ears, in the form of anxiety or neurotic guilt. Now, the thing that I often say to nice guys is you did not become a nice guy in social isolation. You cannot recover from this in social isolation neither. You became a nice guy, typically in the context of your interaction with people. And so I tell nice guys, don’t try to do this alone.
“Nice guys always think, I can do this by myself. And there’s no greater recipe for disaster in life and in business and in sales than the attitude of, I could do it myself.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [18:20]
Dr. Robert Glover:
That’s a very typical, nice guy trait. Well, I’ll just figure this out by myself and I can go get better. But I tell guys, go get help, go get a coach, get a mentor, get a therapist, talk to a good friend, put yourself into a situation where you can get a more accurate feedback, more accurate representation of who you are, what your skills are, who you are as a person. And you’re not carrying around these belief systems that we internalised as a young child. And you mentioned that one asking for help, and this really just fits well into that. Nice guys always think I can do this by myself. And there’s no greater recipe for disaster in life and in business and in sales, then the attitude of I could do it myself. We can’t, we have to do this as part of a team.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And so learning to work as a team, whether that means working on just your own individual traits that are getting in the way of you getting what you want, working with a team to achieve your goals and business and sales, this is crucial, and this is essential. And it’s one thing that people listen to this may help them identify if they do indeed have the nice guy traits, do they tend to try to go it alone? Do they tend to try to figure it out themselves and then try to go just do it on their own? And closely tied with that, do they tend to hide their mistakes? Do they tend to believe they’ve got to get know it all and have everything right and never be able to say, I don’t know, I’ll get back to you on that.
Dr. Robert Glover:
It’s those kind of things that we have this fear that if people see that I don’t know the answer or that I can’t get it done by myself, or we tend to think that people are going to see right through us and see us as that scared little child that says, “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I’m over my head.” So that’s the number one thing I say, don’t try to do it alone. Go find good help, go find a men’s support group, a mastermind group, a coach, a mentor, a therapist, whatever. And they can help give that more accurate view of who you are, what you’re capable of, you look at your distorted belief systems and help you get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself.
Why You Need External Help to Overcome Your Nice Guy Tendencies · [20:03]
Will Barron:
Is this typically when you work with people and you hear anecdotal stories of people like myself who are kind of breaking through this, is this a light bulb moment? Or is this typically a gradual process of realisation over time?
Dr. Robert Glover:
It can be both because I know I’ve had a lot of men who will contact me. They’ll send me an email or sign up for a course and they’ll say, I’d already begun realising I had these nice guide traits and working on it, but it wasn’t till I read your book. And all the pieces came together and it was an aha moment. And that was true for me as well. When I started working on my nice guy traits, I didn’t realise I was working on my nice guy traits. My then wife threatened me if I didn’t go get some therapy, she was going to divorce me. She says, “You’re so passive, aggressive. Everybody thinks you’re a nice guy, but I’d rather be with a jerk, because at least I know a jerks going to consistently treat me bad. You treat me well, and then out of the blue, you treat me badly. You have a victim puke, your passive aggressive.”
Dr. Robert Glover:
So I actually went to therapy to figure out why me being a nice guy didn’t make my wife more responsive and appreciate me more. Luckily, along the way, I got into some good situations with therapists and groups, where I started learning about boundaries, making my needs a priority, asking for what I want asking for help saying no, facing my fears. And so that really was a fairly gradual process. But as you may have found out, it’s actually a lot easier if you pick up a book and you read something and you go, that’s it, that explains it all. Then you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You don’t have to figure this all out by trial and error.
Will Barron:
And, and that’s exactly what I thought. I had a light bulb, well, I read the book. I was like, oh, this is me. I understand what the other side of this looks like. And so now is the time to put in a bit of work and self development and to get through to the other side, I also had a little bit of a light bulb moment as well, reading the book. And that was that I’m worrying about what people think of me. I’m worrying about this. I’m considering this. And again, some of this is 50% is consciously, oh, I don’t want that person to get mad. The other percentage is perhaps subconsciously and I’m taking habitual kind of reaction steps to prevent things happening. And the light bulb moment was that people typically don’t really give a shit.
Why You Need to Stop Lying and Trying to Avoid Confrontations All the Time · [22:24]
Will Barron:
And this is business relationships and family, my partner, and other things as well. People would much rather, you just say, I’ve done this stupid thing. I’ve made a mistake. Hey, I’m going to try and solve it. This, this and this, versus you spill wine on the sofa and then you put a pillow over it. And you hope that pillow is going to stay there for the next 15 years or however long that kind of sofa remains in the room, that’s a random kind of anecdote, but that’s the light bulb moment that I had that when you tell people to go, they might be mad for a second. And then the problem solved versus when you lie, when you fib, even the way I’m using the word fib, I’m trying to not use the word lie. Because that makes me feel bad where fibbing feels less bad than lying. It’s the same thing, right?
“Most people would rather hear a difficult truth than hear a bunch of our fibs and lies. People can deal with a difficult truth and 99.9% of the time, us making a mistake and telling the world about it, doesn’t change people’s opinions of us.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [23:29]
Dr. Robert Glover:
Yeah. Yeah. You’re being less than authentic. And I love your examples. And as little kids, we all had that experience where we knocked something off, we broke something and we tried to like hide the damage and that’s normal. But if we keep doing that as adults, that creates problems and you’re right, most people would rather hear a difficult truth than hear a bunch of our fibs and lies. People can deal with a difficult truth and 99.9% of the time, us making a mistake and telling the world about it, doesn’t change people’s opinions of us. And in fact, one of the things that I most consistently hear from people in my workshops, of my classes is they say, “Robert, I love how authentic you are. How real you are. You just put everything out there.”
Dr. Robert Glover:
And I can honestly say, I don’t have any secrets. Every one of my fuck ups is on public display, mainly because I talk about yep. But I tell you what, 25 years ago, nobody would’ve said, “Robert, you know what I like about you best. You’re so authentic. You’re so real. You’re so transparent.” Nobody would’ve said that. But now that’s my favourite thing to hear people say, you’re authentic, you’re real. And people are drawn to that. They feel safe with that, they can connect with that, because we’re all flawed, we’re all imperfect. And that’s how we connect with each other. And I promise you, if you can tell a customer, actually I don’t know the answer to that. I’ll find out and get back to you or I’ve got some bad news.
Dr. Robert Glover:
This isn’t going to be delivered on time. There’s some things out of our control. Here’s the situation. Here’s the best bet I can give you the best promise or when it’s going to get delivered. Is there anything I can do to help in the meantime? If we can just put it out there without sniffling apologising, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. And just say, Hey, here’s what’s happening. And people, as you said, they might be initially upset, shocked, whatever, but then they go, “Okay, what are we going to do with this? What’s our best options as we move forward?”
Will Barron:
I really think this is a competitive advantage for the audience. If you are in a… Especially a sale of your product is somewhat commoditized and you as an individual are a differentiator. If you’ve got this sad sloppy man or woman who’s a people pleaser, who’s the opposite of a leader and you come across or not come across. You are a leader, you’re an expert in you’re space. You’re straight with people and they can trust you because you are authentic. And as you said, and I’ve had, this is one of the first pieces of advice that I got told when I worked in medical device, sales was never try and bullshit a surgeon. And I’ve had plenty of times where they’ve tried to in theatre. They’ve asked me about the equipment and they’ve asked me questions that they probably know that I shouldn’t be able to answer.
What are Covert Contracts and How Do They Destroy Relationships? · [26:24]
Will Barron:
Whether it be anatomy wise and when things can be used, whether it can’t be used, the legislation on the procedures themselves and they’re testing you. They want you to say, “I don’t know, I’ll go and speak to the specialist in the organisation.” And the times that I’ve gone to answer, you can see them getting riled up and read faced, because they testing you because they do want that results. And I’ve been tested as well from people like CFOs and high level executives. They want to test whether you’re on the same level as them, before they can open the doors and have trust and build that relationship and do deals. And on that, Robert, there’s something that I want to dive into. And perhaps we might even end up wrapping up with this and that is, and you’ve kind of alluded to it. Anyone who knows what this is, will have seen it throughout the conversation already. And that is covert contracts. Can you explain what they are and then how they… I can give some examples in the B2B space, but what they are and then how they are detrimental to us building relationships?
Dr. Robert Glover:
I’m glad you asked about that because I think that the most common feedback I get about the book No More Mr. Nice Guy is people said, Hey, this whole thing about covert contracts really just made everything clear. So basically nice guys operate with three fundamental covert contracts, unconsciously. That’s why they’re covert. And all of them are in an if then proposition and they’re really all a form of a manipulation or of strings attached. But the first one is, if I’m a good guy, I will be liked and loved. And in terms of relationship and the people I desire will desire me back. So if I’m a good guy, I’ll be liked and loved. The second nice guy covert contract is if I meet other people’s needs without them having to ask, then they will meet my needs without me having to ask. And I would think that particular covert contract would be the death nail of any salesman.
“These three covert contracts: if I’m a good guy, I’ll be liked and loved. If I meet your needs without you having to ask, you’ll meet mine without having to ask. And if I do everything right, I’ll have a smooth, problem-free life. These are what create havoc in the life of the nice guy and especially for the people around them, because the people around them don’t know that there’s a contract.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [28:31]
Dr. Robert Glover:
Oh, I’ll do all this for you without you asking. And then you’ll just know what it is I want back in return. It doesn’t work because nobody else knows what the contract is. And this is what leads to a lot of actually nice guy, bad behaviour. The victim pukes, the passive aggressive behaviour, the resentment, the lashing out is because I did all this for you, but you didn’t keep your side of the contract. Covert contract number three of the nice guy syndrome is if I do everything right, then I will have a smooth problem free world. Well, the world isn’t smooth or problem free. His chaotic, is ever changing. And I don’t know where the rule book is that says how to do everything right? And we’re human and we’re not going to do everything right. So these three covert contracts, if I’m a good guy, I’ll be liked and loved.
Dr. Robert Glover:
If I meet your needs without you having to ask, you’ll meet mine without having to ask. And if I do everything right of smooth problem free life. These are what create the havoc in the life of the nice guy and especially for the people around them, because the people around them don’t know that there’s a contract. They’re covert, they’re hidden, they’re they’re not clear. And this is probably the number one thing that actually keeps nice guys from getting what they want in life. Whether it’s love, whether it’s sex, whether it’s sales, whether it’s promotions, whether it’s raise, because they’re operating by these covert contracts. They think if I just be a really good guy and just stay busy and work real hard, then I’ll be noticed and appreciated and I’ll get the sale and I’ll get the promotion and I’ll get the raise and it doesn’t work out. And then we sit there and look at why is that asshole getting the sales and the promotions? I work harder than he does. I’m a nice guy. He’s a liar. He’s of this, he’s of that. How come he’s succeeding and I’m not?
Will Barron:
You to the words right out my mouth. I’m glad I teed you up for that one. This is amazing. And this is if there’s one takeaway from this episode sales nation, this is it of a covert contract where you feel well, if I do all the hard work, if I do all the leg work on my side, the deal will just close. They’ll appreciate that and they’ll pay me in kind, if not in more in return and obviously I’ll get my commissions from it and that leads to this and this and this, we project forward. And this is very easily solved by a series of questions or almost a verbal contract when you sit down or when you’re towards the end of the sales process. Even at the beginning of the sales process, that can be used of saying, “Hey, if we do X, Y, Z, is there any reason why you wouldn’t do business with us?”
Will Barron:
You get a yes or a no. If they say no, then you say so when we commit on these four or five things, when we provide this bit of work for you, when we can prove X, Y, Z return on investment, we’ll do the deal. They say, yes. If they say kind of, yes, there’s, there’s something else to this that we need to get done. When we ask the question the first time round, then we re-ask the question and recalibrate it. We document it down in an email. We send it to them after that first meeting. And then we just keep going through what we’ve both agreed. And it’s as simple as that. We overcomplicate sales all the time. And I know I have done as well of, I’ll run around like a madman. When I was a medical device sales, I had a literal territory here in Yorkshire, in the north, the UK I’d be dropping off stuff and I’d be doing this.
Will Barron:
I’d be picking up. I’d be doing people favours, quote, unquote favours. And they didn’t give a shit. They didn’t care. And then what happened was, we’ll wrap up on this. I didn’t set any boundaries, and so then people would just abuse me. People then thought that the service that I was offering was to run around like a madman when it wasn’t, it was to service my customers. And obviously I’m driving around like an idiot. I’m wasting petrol, I’m abusing the company’s time almost and not leveraging from that perspective. So now I’m like, “Well, why is me boss on me back? Why is he chasing me for all of this? When I’m doing the right thing? I’m helping people. I’m supporting people.” When all it needed in reality, and we did this in the end with one particular customer.
Will Barron:
I just said to him, we’ll loan you this equipment, because he wanted to loan it all the time rather than buy it as a capital outlay in one go. I said, we’ll loan it to you, but it’s going to cost you, I mean, it’s like 250 quid every time you borrow it. And I’ll only deliver it on a Friday for a Monday’s procedure rather than getting up at five o’clock in the morning and dropping off at six o’clock on a Monday morning. What did they do? They just bought it and they weren’t bought it.
Dr. Robert Glover:
I love it.
The Benefits of Setting Boundaries in Both Our Personal and Professional Lives · [32:23]
Will Barron:
And it was a kind of like 10, 15 grand deal for all these endoscopes I was selling, they just bought it. They were like, “Yeah. Okay, that’s fine.” And I’m trying to do my best for them. And the reality is I had this covert contract that eventually they would see the value and they buy, and it’s ridiculous. So just final thing on this, cause I’m conscious of time and I we’ll love you back on in the future. Hopefully we could dive into this a bit deeper. Because I gauge one of these could be an episode in itself, but what are the benefits or not even the benefits. Why do we need to set boundaries with people both in our personal lives and in the business world as well? Why do we need to do it and what’s the upside of doing it?
“Boundaries are what allow people to get close to each other and have healthy reciprocal relationships without destroying each other.” – Dr. Robert Glover · [33:32]
Dr. Robert Glover:
Okay, well you’re you’re right. We can do a whole nother episode around boundaries. What you just described that contrast of your before and after you went from using covert contracts to using overt contracts. And the world works much better when the contracts are overt, they’re out in the open and you created a reciprocally cooperative relationship in which both of you got value out of that relationship. And part of that was a boundary and the truth was the boundary wasn’t like, “Okay, you have to stop abusing me.” It wasn’t anything like that. The boundary was, “Okay, I’ll be happy to do this, but here are the conditions under which I will do it. I yell do it for this price and I’ll deliver it at this time.” And that was a boundary. And as you said, maybe we can dive into this another time, but just briefly boundaries are what allow people to get close to each other and have a healthy reciprocal relationships without destroying each other.
Dr. Robert Glover:
And the best analysis, the best example I know of that is driving down a highway or freeway. We have all kinds of boundary, markers and signs. We have speed limit signs, we have stop signs, we have yield signs, we have red lights, we have green lights, we have yellow lights, we have crosswalks. Those are all boundary markers. They’re what allow people, especially in cars, moving at high rates of speed, to coexist in close proximity and everybody not kill each other or grind into and to dead deadlocks, not dreadlocks, into deadlocks. And so boundaries allow us to function smoothly and easily in complex situations. And sales is a complex situation. Relationships are complex situation, freeways with cars going rapidly are complex situations, and it is conscious adult people that can set boundaries. Again, as children, we couldn’t because we were little. And so that’s such a great example you gave of both an overt contract that involved boundaries and everybody walked away happy.
Covert Contracts Won’t Make Your Life Any Better · [34:50]
Will Barron:
And, and I’ll give final bit of context or maybe a metaphor or similarly, I always get those two confused here of perhaps as a child. So I might be able to whack you on the head if you’ve done something wrong. So you’re like to avoid it. Well, at B2B sales, no one’s hitting you for not delivering an order on time. No one’s coming around your house with a shotgun and shoving it in your ribs because you’ve made a mistake on an email or you’ve sent the wrong thing to the wrong person, or the deal’s going to cost a little bit more than what you perhaps honestly thought at the beginning of the process. So when you put it like that, it all seems deaf doesn’t it
Dr. Robert Glover:
Yes it is. And the reason why was really the difference of is our three month old brain driving the bus, or is our 30 year old or 40 year old or 50 year old brain driving the bus? And yeah, when we become aware of those things we do that you say seem kind of deaf. They’ll go, okay. They were adaptive when we were three months or three years old. Now they just fuck things up, they mess things up. They don’t serve as well or serve anybody else well. And sometimes just becoming aware of that can shift the entire paradigm. As I said, sometimes we need to go get some coaching, some mentoring, some support systems, because they can be pretty deeply ingrained and kind of hard to overcome.
Dr. Robert Glover:
But the main thing is just learning to be aware and really what you’ve talked about today, I think helping your listeners just be aware the next time they go to tell a little white lie or a fib to somebody they’re going to hear your voice in their head and go, “Oh, that’s kind of a childlike way to behave. Maybe I can just tell the truth.”
Robert’s Advice to His Younger Self on How to Become Better at Selling · [36:35]
Will Barron:
Sounds like a nightmare of my voice in your head. But answered that before we talk about a little bit about the book and he tell us where we can find it. I’ve got one final question, Robert, that ask everyone that comes on the show. So I know you’re not kind of an out and out sales person, but everyone has to sell. So you’ll have an insight for this I’m sure. If you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you’d give him to help him become better at selling?
Dr. Robert Glover:
Oh, that’s, that’s a good question. And by the way, I am a salesperson. I’m a marriage and family therapist by training, but my entire business is online now. So when people ask me, what do you do? I said the most honest answers, I’m an online marketer. So what would I say? It would be don’t let my fears control me. Everybody has fear in doing something new out of your comfort zone’s going to bring fear. So that’s what I’d say. You’re going to be afraid at times. That’s okay. Everybody’s afraid. Go do it anyway.
Parting Thoughts · [37:20]
Will Barron:
Perfect. Well with that, tell us where we can find the book and then tell us a little bit about the online course that you’ve got running as well.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Okay. The easiest way to find me is at my website, dr.glover.com. That’s just D-R-G-L-O-V-E-R dot com. If you want to just Google Robert Glover or Google No More Mr. Nice Guy. I come up on the top of both of those pages. So I’m real easy to find. The class you’re referencing that I teach about every four months is a eight week online course called Nice Guys Don’t Finish Last, They Rot in Middle Management. And the basic concept is that nice guys are often good at being good, but not great at being great. And that all these tendencies we’ve been talking about during this programme show up in that we tend to be pretty conscientious and we tend to work hard and we tend to do okay. But those same tendencies actually get in the way of us really doing great. And so this course addresses that and helps us become what I call a full achiever by becoming aware of our nice guy tendencies and using work and career as a way to challenge and overcome them.
Will Barron:
Love it. Well, I’ll link to all of that in the show note to this episode over at salesman.org. And with that, Robert, I want to thank you for your time, I want to thank you for coming on a show, which isn’t perhaps directly related to your very kind of niche. So I appreciate the hustle of coming on our sales show here. And with that, I want to thank you for your time again in joining us on The Salesman Podcast.
Dr. Robert Glover:
Thank you for the invitation. I had fun.
