How To Master First Impressions, Shift Your Mindset & Conquer Sales Challenges with John Lester

Unlocking Sales Mastery: join me as John Lester, a seasoned expert with four decades of experience, unveils the secrets behind magnetic first impressions in sales. 

Beyond suits and handshakes, discover the subtle signals that shape business interactions. From dressing with purpose to exuding charisma, this episode is a treasure trove for refining your sales narrative.

Ever wondered how a McDonald’s rejection led to a 20-year saga in the apparel industry? We explore winding career paths, customer service skills, and the evolving sales battlefield. Economic upheavals and AI revolution stories await!

But wait, there’s more! 

Dive into the psychological depths where true sales mastery resides. John guides us through fears, mastermind sessions, and the art of mental space control. 

By the end, you’ll navigate the sales world with resilience and humanity. 

Enjoy! 

If you’d like to connect with John then please head to

https://attitudeselling.com/sales-training-mastermind 

This will take you to the Sales MasterMind for individuals page.  Below that you can order a copy of his book, "Winning the Inner Game of Sales”.

Links:
Roberto on Instagram http://www.instagram.com/robertorevillalondon
Tailoring Talk on Instagram http://www.instagram.com/tailoringtalkpodcast
Tailoring Talk on YouTube https://youtube.com/@robertorevillalondon

Credits
Tailoring Talk Intro and Outro Music by Wataboy on Pixabay
Edited & Produced by Roberto Revilla
Connect with Roberto head to https://allmylinks.com/robertorevilla
Email the show at tailoringtalkpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

Roberto Revilla: 0:09

Welcome to Tailoring Talk with Roberto Rivela, bespoke tailor, menswear designer and owner of Roberto Rivela, london Custom Clothing and Footwear. I activate your superpowers through the clothing I create and the conversations I tailor on. This podcast will meet self starters and creators to learn about their journeys, while they share valuable lessons to help you be the very best you can be. Support the show. Hitting the subscribe button and a rating slash review would help immensely, especially as those pesky algorithms have changed recently. We are delving into the world of sales, which is going to scare some of you, and some of you are going to be chomping at the bit.

Roberto Revilla: 0:48

With 40 years experience in direct selling, sales management and process improvement, my guest has certainly experienced many highs and lows, from Fortune 500 companies to startups. He's repeatedly proven that the essence of sales is not just in the technique, but it's in the mindset. He transforms the act of selling from a dreaded task to a genuine and enjoyable process, breaking down barriers and debunking myths. He's here to guide you through your sales journey and prove to you that, with the right mindset, sales success is not just possible, it's inevitable. Tainering talkers, let's welcome the master of sales, john Laster, to the show. John, how are you?

John Lester: 1:33

Roberto, thank you, I am excellent, good to see you and good welcome audience. Not that I can see you, but welcome audience.

Roberto Revilla: 1:41

Exactly. Let's jump in. When people do hit the YouTube version of this, which will go out eventually, they'll see that you look like the tailor and I look like some bum that's come in to get himself transformed by you. Usually this happens the other way around Monday to Thursday but you look fabulous and I'm guessing you have always pitched up that way.

John Lester: 2:10

I miss the days of double-breasted suits and Italian ties. I miss those days. I used to sell in New York City all the time and I made it a point to try to be one of the best dress sales people that there were. It changes the conversation from the second you walk in the door, and this is what a lot of folks don't understand. People are attuned to the cues that you give them, and if you walk in this is why my entire business is called attitude selling If you walk in the door confident and looking fantastic, you have set the stage, yeah absolutely, and it doesn't take anything to do it.

Roberto Revilla: 2:54

I have this conversation so much these days because back in the day, like 20 years ago when I first started, it was all about having suits that fit and clothes that fit better so that you could elevate yourself. Now it's a completely different conversation because people are going into their jobs at banks and law firms and so on. I see more people wearing jeans. Sometimes you would see that if a client it was a Friday, maybe like a Friday afternoon, and they just come in to do some admin work and get some stuff out of the way and then they were heading off somewhere, dinner or something in the evening afterwards. Why they were still wearing jeans, I have no idea. But now it's not unusual to see that on a Monday or a Tuesday and find time to change and so on, although the suit is starting to creep back and make its way back in a business setting, mainly because people are just fed up of trying to put smart casual outfits together. It's too confusing for them.

Roberto Revilla: 4:04

But I'm talking more and more to people about just considered dressing. Fine, if dress casual is your thing now at your firm, at least look like you thought about what you put on before you left the house rather than you just picked up whatever was on the floor when you rolled out of bed. Because it shows care and attention to detail. Right, it doesn't matter whether I'm wearing a three-piece suit shirt and tie or I'm wearing a sweater or a pair of jeans. You can't see my sneakers, but it's all. Even though it's casual, it's all coordinated.

Roberto Revilla: 4:40

So, yeah, it's a big thing. And the first impression thing I think will always hold true for eternity. Because, at the end of the day, that's how we're built as creatures, is where the law of attraction is embedded within our DNA, whatever it is, whether it's a life partner, whether we're choosing a car or a cell phone. When we're choosing to do business with someone, it's that first few seconds that sets the stage for the rest of the day. It's where most of the decision to do business with someone is made, right, john?

John Lester: 5:15

Well, you're 100% correct, and I'll get going to that in a second. But if you show up feeling confident, feeling that you belong, and expressing that in the way not only you present yourself, but in the way you dress, what happens to the prospect is that the prospect gets a signal in their subconscious that says this person cares, so the probability that this person will care about me is actually higher. It's not about just yourself. It's about what you project and how the other person picks it up. And look at there, there are some women that are extraordinarily beautiful.

John Lester: 6:02

We know this. There are some women that are not extraordinarily beautiful. They're a little more to average. And yet you look at some of these women and you realize that what makes them so attractive is their attitude, their presentation, the way they dress, and it changes the game for them completely. But I'm going to go back to what you said, because this is so crucial to understand, and now we're talking about initial meetings, so we're not talking about well, I've been talking on the phone for a few times and this is the first time I'm going to. Now I'm going to meet you, even though we've built a relationship over the phone.

John Lester: 6:42

The first thing that we do as creatures not as humans, but as creatures, when we meet somebody new is the subconscious goes through this process to say well, is it going to eat me or is it going to be friendly? Should I be scared of it? Should I run its fight or flight? Okay. And when you think about it, the only cues that you get, that the prospect gets, is visual and auditory. So if you shut down the visual cue by being sloppy, being relaxed, not sitting properly, not coming across, you've lost 50% of the battle in the first 10 seconds.

John Lester: 7:25

There's a lot of research that talks about the fact that people will subconsciously make the decision that you're okay or not. Okay in the first four to six minutes, all right. And then the rest of the because most discussions and presentations are still about 45 minutes in our societies and the rest of the time the brain will be going oh, it's okay to keep trusting, or oh, you know what, I don't trust them. From that first four to six minutes. How do I get out of it? How do I get out of it? How do I get out of it? How do I get out of it? How do I get?

Roberto Revilla: 7:55

out of it.

John Lester: 7:55

So, ladies and gentlemen, you got four to six minutes. Game's over after that.

Roberto Revilla: 8:02

Yeah, exactly, I tell my clients. You know, my job is to make sure that you hit it in those first few seconds. After that, you need to open your mouth, and that's up to you, and that's up to you.

John Lester: 8:18

Yeah, there was a book many years ago that you probably remember, and I'm sure there've been others like it, but I just remember this was called Dress for Success.

John Lester: 8:27

And what impressed me so much about the book was that he had done actual research that spoke to how people react. How does somebody react? And again, this goes back a lot of years, but the concepts are the same. Does somebody react differently to a male that walks in in a tan raincoat versus a black raincoat? Things as simple as that, which you think well, that's not really going to matter. And the fact of the matter is, yes, it does matter.

John Lester: 8:53

We used to do and I'm talking back from the 1980s, 1990s, early 2000s there were big things we would go through. I have an extensive cufflink collection because cufflinks were a power play. I have some beautiful cufflinks. I have an extensive fountain pen collection, because you'd go into a room and you'd open. This is no computer. You're taking notes on paper and you open up your fountain pen. It sets the tone, it sets the stage. Watches we're actually. Watches are coming back. They're coming back stronger, they're huge as status symbols and you have to understand that people do react to status symbols. I'm not saying go out and be a complete jerk and just buy everything that you think is expensive. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying understand how humans work, understand how the prospect of the buyer works, because it's not about you, it's about them.

John Lester: 9:46

I didn't mean to take you off on that.

Roberto Revilla: 9:48

No no, I already knew before jumping on this call with you that this was going to happen and I'm so, so happy right now you have no idea Just to touch on the watch thing and then we'll get to the most important thing, which is you, because I'd like my listeners to get to know you a little bit. But I had a customer come in the other day and he said to me the racing car driver, jackie Stewart. So this customer is very much into Formula One and stuff and he actually races himself. And he said I noticed that, jackie Stewart, he has his watch always on display.

Roberto Revilla: 10:25

What's the deal with your customers, cuffs, watches and so on? And I said well, most customers have me make the watch wearing wrist a little bit bigger so that the cuff slides over the watch. I do have some customers that actually just have me make it a little bit tighter so it sits above the watch. And for some customers I haven't done it many times in my 20 years, but I have once or twice We've actually created a cutout in the cuff for the watch, which I think looks stupid. But anyway, he asked me to make his left sleeve of his shirts an inch and a half shorter, so they're going to sit.

Roberto Revilla: 11:02

I'm viewers. I'm pointing at my forearm now. So the cuffs are going to. The cuff on one side is going to sit up here. He said I'd rather on that side, I'd rather have my watch on display than a little bit of cuff, and that's the first time for a long, long time that anyone's paid given any kind of consideration to that. So yeah, your mention of the watches coming back just made me think of that. So there we go.

John Lester: 11:31

That's kind of fascinating. But I think there's a quick secondary lesson in that, roberto, and that is that never underestimate and I'm talking now to the audience if you are in the business of selling, never underestimate the peculiarities of your prospect Just because you might go. Oh Roberto, that's silly. I can't believe you did that for the guy. That's not the point. The point is that that's what the customer wanted and it was within your ability to provide it to them. But you provided to them with style. So, folks, yeah, you're going to run into some customers that have weird ideas. You choose whether you want them as a customer, but don't belittle their ideas.

Roberto Revilla: 12:19

No, never. And you know I always find the ones that seemingly are you know, on the surface of it the most quote unquote difficult are the ones that if you get them happy they'll be your best customers. Yeah, there's a whole nation called raving fans.

John Lester: 12:36

I mean, they may not talk about it, but oh, I have that book upstairs as well.

Roberto Revilla: 12:41

Yeah, it's fabulous, it's absolutely fabulous.

John Lester: 12:44

It's like wow, I can't believe this is true. Yeah.

Roberto Revilla: 12:47

Right, john. So very, very quick, because it's always good to swap right. So we trade stories. So I kind of got into sales from the off because my grandfather, when he came over to the UK from India, he brought a big carpet floor coverings business with him. He had two stores in central London and he had a couple restaurants. So he was kind of building his little empire.

Roberto Revilla: 13:11

And so my mom and dad, they couldn't really afford to send me to nursery and they used to take me to work with them, and so I used to spend my time on the shop floors of these carpet stores watching my uncles selling to customers that would come in and so left to my own devices. A customer would be wandering around on their own because everybody else was busy, and I'd just waddle up to them, all of two feet tall or whatever, with a little e-walk and I'd tug on their sleeve and say, can I help you? And they'd just look at me and not know what to say. And then sometimes they would actually go well, yeah, actually we're going to be recopiting our entire house, and we were just wondering where to start and I'd be like, okay, let me show you what we have. And then suddenly I'd be up in the air because one of my uncles would have run past, picked me up and be apologizing for me, saying sorry he shouldn't be out of his cage, and then they would sling me back in the office.

Roberto Revilla: 14:10

So that was kind of like my first exposure. That's insane. I know it's crazy. And then I tried to get a job in McDonald's when I was 16, 17 years old and they would not hire me. It didn't matter what I did. I kept applying and applying, and applying, and applying. And then I demanded to speak to the manager and so she sat me down, she got me a strawberry milkshake, which was my favorite, and I said to her listen, I can do this job. I could do this job in my sleep, I could do it better than anybody there. And she said that's why I won't hire you.

John Lester: 14:48

Oh ouch, boy, does that bring memories back? Oh yeah, she said.

Roberto Revilla: 14:52

She said, kid, that's why I won't hire you, I'm doing you a favor. And sure enough, I got my first job in electrical retail and then I just kind of fell my way into other sales jobs from there until I got into my real passion, which was clothing. And here I am 20 years in the business, 21 years in the business. Now I think, wow, that's great. Yeah, it's been going great, with all the highs and lows. Yeah, how about?

John Lester: 15:19

you Kind of interesting. I have two pieces that I'll share. When I was I don't know 15 or 16, you'd have jobs like delivering newspapers and things like that, and eventually I wound up as a busboy in a restaurant. So the busboy cleans up after the waiters. And I noticed that well, didn't notice. I knew that my tips or what I would make for the night were dependent upon what the waiter that I was assigned to, because we would be assigned two specific waiters and waitresses and I might have two or three on the night. So I knew that I had to do an excellent job, and so I had to figure out what the excellent job was, because if I did an excellent job, the satisfaction level of the customer would increase. The customer would tip higher, my percentage would be higher. So I figured that out pretty quickly and wound up consistently being able to number one or the number two busboy in any house that I worked in, and of course, the natural progression from that is to be a waiter. So I became a waiter and I started to think about OK, now what I did now, what game do I play? So what was going on at the time In the houses that I worked?

John Lester: 16:31

We all wore the official jackets, whether they were red or they were gold, and they had a couple of pockets inside. So here's a few things I noticed. People dropped their napkins, people didn't have a fork. Female smoked Guys liked to buy wine. So what did I do? I stuck extra napkins in my jacket, extra forks in my jacket. I carry two lighters every time. Right, the female went to have a cigarette. I all right. I said what are you having tonight? What are you thinking? Oh, by the way, the beef Wellington is phenomenal tonight because it's all the power of suggestion and you know, what really goes nicely with that is we have a very, very nice, sincere that I would like to recommend. Yes, it's white, but it's going to complement. Oh, ok, we'll try it Both average price up.

John Lester: 17:21

But all I was really doing was ensuring that the customer didn't have a good meal. I was ensuring that the customer had a great time, because nobody goes to a restaurant to have a meal. You go to a restaurant for a different reason, whether it's because you just need the time, whether it's because you want to impress somebody. Oh, valentine's Day, I made a fortune, just go away. Valentine's Day and Mother's Day I made a fortune. So, and I didn't know I was selling, roberta, I just thought that's what you're supposed to do, right, when he comes in, go go out at night. I was young go out at night and get drunk. Come back the next day and do it again, have drinking money.

John Lester: 18:02

So I eventually wound up getting into electronics repair and wound up working for a small company repairing their computers. And long story short. But the boss came in one day and he said look, we were. We were divested by the parent company. Now which just us? There's like six of us in a couple of offices. He said I don't need a computer repair person if I don't have sales. He said so two choices either you go into sales or you leave. I said all right.

John Lester: 18:33

Well, I mean, and I had great relations with all my customers, just because I like making people happy. It's kind of cool. And I was selling to the weirdest group in the world. They are life insurance actuaries. These aren't actuaries, are known as accountants with no personality, if that makes any sense.

Roberto Revilla: 18:53

It makes no sense to me.

John Lester: 18:54

Well, I love these guys. I went out and I started selling. I had no idea what I was doing, but it was a challenge and I got into it and I said you know what, let me try to do this. It took probably six or seven years before I even had a clue as to what I was doing. I had no training and finally I signed up for sales training and said, wow, this is starting to make sense. But it probably took me 12 or so years of selling to actually start to hone my craft and be good at, because I had no mentors, I had no teachers.

John Lester: 19:25

But that's 12 years of frustration. That's 12 years of waking up in the middle of the night going what the hell am I doing? That's 12 years of getting fired from jobs and laid off from jobs and companies closing around you, and it was like I don't want anybody to live like this because this sucks. Now, we didn't have kids, but I know that if I had children, they would have been the recipients of my frustration, and the other thing that drives me crazy is kids don't deserve that. So I've transitioned to the point where, if I can help people understand what this game is about, truly, what it's about understand how to play it ethically, morally, consciously, which calms them down and gives them a better home life. I'll do something Very simple. Business owners are the same. Business owners have no idea what this game is about. They really don't. So if I can help them, I'm happy.

Roberto Revilla: 20:20

Yeah, why we touched on this a little bit when we first got on the call. But another reason I was so excited to be connected to you is that I'm in the beta C space with what I do. I've been in B2B previously, like when I worked for a big tech firm, so I've kind of been on both sides of the cell. From that point of view, b2c is. I think it's harder, but I think it's hard, it's not harder, once you actually find the way to connect with your prospects, to actually speak to them and get in front of them. I actually found B2B easier.

Roberto Revilla: 21:00

There is so much more literature and training out there in the B2B space than in B2C, and even when you do pick up what is preferred to be a book that will teach you more about the nuances of B2C selling and so on, very little of it is actually B2C.

Roberto Revilla: 21:19

The author kind of flipped back to B2B mentality again and whilst there are principles of selling that hold true for both, as I can attest to, the nuances are different. Maybe I don't know. There's just something that seems to be missing out there and a lot of my listeners and a lot of people in my network and even quite a few of my clients now, whether it be because of the pandemic or because they're people that have had long successful careers, and then some things happen. Some events happen where they've decided right, I'm going to go do my own thing. They're increasingly finding themselves more in the kind of B2C situation than they might have previously, where they were more in a kind of B2B situation. Why do you think that is? Why is there more support out there for B2B people than there are for B2C?

John Lester: 22:24

It is actually a great question and I'm going to answer it directly and then I'm going to throw a couple of hand grenades into the conversation for you.

Roberto Revilla: 22:31

Oh, I love grenades. Pull those pins, john, let's do it.

John Lester: 22:37

To me, the most obvious reason was because the market was larger in B2B sales. Simple, you can go into a corporation and I've seen guys that walk in and charge five and six figures for sales training in corporations. You're not going to get that from an individual. You're just not all right. That's point number one. What has happened since COVID, and especially in 2023 and now 2024, I mean, and I don't know. I only follow the United States. I don't follow Europe or Asia and what's happening, but in the United States, the number of especially tech workers and especially white collar workers that have been released from their positions is staggering. When you look at scalebacks, I'm not even going to call them recessions, but reductions in forced layoffs or whatever you want to call it. Historically, in the United States, it's been a blue collar phenomena. White collar was considered to be what was needed. The thinking is that the pandemic time a lot of these large corporations, especially tech, increased their staffing, increased their hiring. Right now and I'll be very honest with this and I'm not saying anything negative at all right now a lot of the corporations have no idea what 24 and 25 are going to bring, because a lot of them are completely confused about two major things. One is the political factors here in the United States and the second is AI. They don't understand what to do with either of them and I don't blame them. But when you think about it, let me get back to the grenade. Here's the reality, and I have only seen this done once, I've only seen it taught once, and I've embraced this because it is so true.

John Lester: 24:21

In any sale, there are two sales. There are two sales. The first is to determine the dominant problem or the dominant buying motive, the personal buying motive. So why is this person looking to make a decision? What problem is this person trying to solve? Even if you're in a corporate setting, even if you're in a B2B, an individual has to get off their duff and do something in order to make that happen. Why are they doing that? They are always doing it for personal reasons and, yes, the personal reason can be as simple as because my boss told me to, when I don't want to get fired. That's still a personal reason. Now here's where it becomes very interesting. The second sell is the justification aspect of that.

John Lester: 25:12

So, if you look at it, what we call B2C the individual has to make a personal decision. Yes, I'm willing to do this, yes, I'm willing to risk my own money, my own time, whatever it is, but I still have to convince somebody. Typically it's the spouse, right, or it's your business partner or something like that, but they're always these two sales. The difference in B2B, especially in larger organizations the larger an organization, the more bureaucratic it becomes. The more bureaucratic it becomes, the more predictable the decision-making process becomes, the more the roles of the individual in the decision-making process are predictable. So in large corporate selling I would typically have anywhere from 12 to 20 influencers or decision makers. But because I understood the structure of the organization, because I understood the mechanics of the organization, I could rip through those very, very quickly. But the fact still remains that you've got a personal buying decision that has to be made and then they have to rationalize that in their own mind and to somebody else. And that's the technical side of it. What people miss is they miss the personal buying decision. They don't get it. They think a guy's making a decision. Oh my goodness, I can't get it.

John Lester: 26:34

It was probably one of the top five insurance companies in the world and they had an annual conference and I don't know why, but they published the slide decks of the annual conference. It's internal. And they said here are our top nine objectives. I looked at what I was doing at the time for an organization and I said look, we can satisfy six of those. I mean, I know we can. I knew what we did. I know what we did. We can satisfy six.

John Lester: 26:59

I wrote emails to everybody with a C title and I started calling them and got crickets back. Did they really care about that? I got on the phone with the CFO at 7 o'clock one morning. This is New York City. You know you can start making calls at 6.30. It's great. London has got to be the same. The decision makers are in early. And I got on the phone with the CFO and he goes look, that doesn't make any sense to me. I said well, let me put it to you simply, sir. I said because of your title, because of your role, you are responsible for knowing the status of every single dollar that goes into your organization and comes out. He thinks for a minute and he goes how fast can you be downtown?

Roberto Revilla: 27:49

All right.

John Lester: 27:51

So, in answer to your question, they are somewhat the same. But because you have a little less predictability when you're selling to an individual, because it's all emotional, it's all behavioral in the corporation, there's more structure to it. That's what makes it sometimes harder. But here's the other thing I'll give you. We're at what? 7.35 or 7.5 or 8 billion, I didn't even know. I mean, the numbers are just ridiculous.

John Lester: 28:19

How many clients does your business need a year? 300? 200? 100? I used to make my numbers on two clients a year. Seriously, so when you think of it that way, most people even whether you're selling real estate or whether you're selling insurance or whether you're selling consulting services most business owners only need 10 to 15 clients a year to do very well to achieve their objectives.

John Lester: 28:53

So if you can't align on personal problem solving with an individual, walk away fast. That's the other thing people make mistake with. They keep holding on. They keep holding on. No figure out and leave, or figure out and close. It's very, very different than corporate Corporate sales cycles and you know this. Corporate sales cycles can be six months, they can be a year. I was having corporate sales cycles of 18 to 24 months. At the end of the day I was signing multi-million dollar deals. You're not going to get that in a B2C environment, but basics are the same. People need to solve problems. They need to solve the problems as they see them. They need to solve the problems for their reasons. I hope that helps?

Roberto Revilla: 29:39

No, it absolutely does. I realized, as you were saying it, as you were describing, that when I worked at the IT company I built a business within the corporate unit because I realized nobody was really focusing on the police forces up and down the UK and so once I broke the first one, I wouldn't say it was easy, but it became easy as I got to know each force. The structures were by and large the same. So by the time I got to my third one, I knew exactly where I needed to go and the individual that I needed to find, who was the key to unlocking the entire thing. And you could almost cocky and paste it as you went from public sector organization to public sector organization. There were other patterns that and I'm sure it's the same in the States you get to the end of the financial year, you call up your contact, you find out how much money they have not spent of that year's budget and you get them to give the whole thing to you on a whole load of stuff. And now I say it, it sounds disgusting, but you get them to give it to. You buy a bunch of stuff that they don't need, but the reason why they do it is if they don't spend it, they lose it the following year. Those were very, very predictable patterns With individuals. You just don't know.

Roberto Revilla: 31:01

I had a client yesterday who said what are you doing Tuesday? I said I'm fully booked, but tell me why. And he said well, I want to introduce you to a colleague and we're wondering if you could see us both at the same time. I said thank you, so so much for the introduction. I really appreciate it. I would love to connect with him, but I won't see you both at the same time. Why? Because he's an individual, and so are you, and you both want different things, and I know you. So I've known you for 20 years. I can probably predict what you're going to want. I don't know this guy. I've never met him before. So I need to make that connection. I need to figure out what his pain points are, because they're going to be different to yours. I need to treat him and then build a service around him as an individual. So I won't see you both at the same time.

John Lester: 31:53

Good point, very good point. Yeah, the issue that I find and the core issues I'm trying to stamp out of the fact that it comes in different ways. There's enough research that speaks to the fact that by the time we're about five or six years old that about 60% of our personalities already cast in stone and we really can't do much to change that. But you start to say, well, why are you bringing that up and how does that relate to this notion? So imagine you're three years old. Four years old, mommy and daddy go out on a Saturday. They want to buy a new car. They take you into the showroom because, I mean, they're your babysitter. Let's get real as to why they're taking you into the showroom. And they run into the salesperson. The salesperson is not particularly professional. Salesperson walks away for a moment and mommy looks at daddy and goes what a jerk. Salespeople are just the worst.

John Lester: 32:48

Now what becomes really fascinating about that is yes, it's off the cuff in the moment comment. The mind of a three-year-old or a four-year-old does not know that and that comment goes into the subconscious. That gets reinforced through additional comments. It gets reinforced in literature, in television, in movies, et cetera. Person turns around. They're 27, 28, 29 years old, they say what am I going to do with my life? I finished university. Oh, I think I'm going to go sell.

John Lester: 33:15

Consciously says I think I'm going to go sell. They go to try to sell and they can't. They don't understand why. The reason is because their subconscious is telling them hey, wait a minute, you're an honorable human being because most of us think we are. You can't do this job because selling is bad. And they have no idea that their subconscious is sitting and going. You can't do it, you can't do it. You can't do it. They don't, they don't. That's so many of the things that we think, so many of the things we believe. What the seller believes about the prospect, what the prospect believes about the seller, are pre-programmed and are wrong. And I'm not a big believer in no offense to the psychologist in the room I'm not a big believer spending, you know, 10 years to try to figure out why I sucked my thumb when I was four years old. They don't care. I care about how to work around it. I care about mitigation and usually I can take somebody in a couple of weeks and get a lot of those things those cobwebs, those spiderwebs. I can get them out of their head. Because once you're faced, once you shine them in the light of reality, to go that doesn't make any sense. But if they're living in the sub, you can't control the subconscious. Give it up, guys. All right, business owners, shout out to your business owners.

John Lester: 34:33

Business owners think that as soon as they have a revenue problem in the organization, what's the simple fix? Let's go hire a salesperson. Do you know in the United States the average tenure of a salesperson is like 14 months. Do you know that there's the four-time turnover rate of salespeople than the general population? Because people go oh, I don't have to understand my business, I don't have to understand my value proposition, I don't have to understand how what my marketing team does and my legal team does impacts the way I'm perceived in the sales world. It doesn't matter that the salesperson doesn't understand. You know the inner thoughts that I had when I built this company and why that's so powerful. Just go sell. Wow boy, is that a recipe for success? It takes the average salesperson anywhere from three to nine months to learn your product and how to sell it. 14 months they're gone and you sit there and go oh, what a shitty salesperson. No, sorry, that's not the case.

Roberto Revilla: 35:30

Yeah, I remember when I was you know you inevitably I worked for an American company for a while and once you get up there sales wise, then they want you to hire. So you go into a sales leadership role, which for some people is the perfect role for them and for other people like me, the lone wolves is the worst possible thing you can do. But that's a whole other tale and you know you'd invest so much time, money, etc, etc. Into training an individual and it would, on average, take about that. For them to become consciously competent, I guess could take anywhere from nine to 18 months and usually they would burn out by that time.

Roberto Revilla: 36:18

The other thing and you touched on it very gently was when you have business owners funny enough, I've been talking to some of them recently and there's been a bit of a drop in revenue. And over here, the thing that I hear more than I need to hire a salesperson is they immediately dive to places like their website. Oh, we need to redo the website again, we need to add more pages to the website, I need to invest in SEO, I need to do this, this and that. How do you do it? How do you manage to sustain a business for so long. What do you do things when things get quiet? I just look at them and I'm just like I just pick up the phone. I don't even know that people really look at my website. As you know, the people that probably do look at my website, the ones that click away because my service is not for them, they're not the right type of customer.

John Lester: 37:08

That's correct.

Roberto Revilla: 37:09

I think that's the actual customers when I think about it, either come via referral, and that's because I pick up the phone to my own customers and say hey, john, how are you? How's the last set of clothes that I did for you Great, I love, as always. I love the way you did Brilliant. Thank you, whilst. I've got you in that headspace. Who else do you know? Can you just look around? Just let me know if there's anyone else that I should be speaking to that would appreciate what I do. They look at me, john, like I said that I eat my dog's poop or something. They're horrified. You do what. You pick up the phone. You talk to strangers. Yeah, I do.

John Lester: 37:52

They don't understand. They don't understand what's selling us.

Roberto Revilla: 37:56

Because what else am I going to do? I'm not just going to sit there, lick my finger and stick it up in the air and help. The wind blows in my direction. I can't control that.

John Lester: 38:07

So there was. One of my favorite movies of all time is a movie called Usual Suspects.

John Lester: 38:14

It goes back a number of years. It's a great movie. The best line, one of my 50 things. I always remember the best line in the movie. I think Kevin Spacey said it, I can't remember.

John Lester: 38:26

He said the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing us. He didn't exist and you say, well, why bring that up? Well, what's so fascinating to me is that we have gotten so good globally not United States globally at understanding buyer behavior, buyer preferences and triggers, and we've convinced the world over the past 15 years now, or so 12, 15 years we've convinced the world that social selling is the way to go. God forbid, you have to actually go reach out and touch a customer, but you can do it with a computer and it's failing miserably. But it doesn't matter, because the guys that were out pushing social selling in the beginning, they've made their fortunes. They're done. What do they care? We're doing the same thing, right?

John Lester: 39:12

The fear that we're generating with AI I'm not saying AI is good, bitter and different, I'm saying the fear that we are generating with AI and the amount of money that is being generated to certain groups or certain individuals, certain companies, just based on the fear, is incredible. Here's the reality, ladies and gentlemen. People buy from people, and people don't buy your product. They buy the trust that you can help them solve a problem. So you've got to generate the trust and you've got to generate, somehow, the ability to expose the problem. If you can't do those things, don't try to sell. I can't make it simpler.

Roberto Revilla: 39:55

Sorry, I've said to people younger than me that we're getting into it. They would wave a training course at me, like maybe you should send me on this, should I do this? And I'm like, look, there is no silver bullet to this. The tried and tested ways are the most effective. They're going to give you the most ROI, usually because the tried and tested ways don't actually cost anything. You need your voice, you need to engage your brain to listen to what's going on on the other side. You need a phone, just pick it up, start darling.

Roberto Revilla: 40:32

So, before we get into the kind of fear thing and how you help people to kind of tackle, overcome that, I want to come at it from now, the other end. So we've talked about people who may not have had any sales experience whatsoever, don't realize that the business they've got themselves into requires a level of selling. They do realize, they're horrified and then they're scared. Now, at the other end of it, you have your tenured, seasoned salespeople who may have been going for 20, 30 years top of their game and all of a sudden they crash and burn and then all of the fear that they normally have their own ways of over. Because I don't think it. I don't. I think even you would probably admit that you probably still have that wolf in the background just as you're about to pick up the phone. But you know how to push that away and power through.

Roberto Revilla: 41:37

And a lot of tenured, seasoned, successful people salespeople do develop their own techniques for that. I know this from personal experience as well. But then they reach a stage in their careers or any event happens in their life and then they lose it. You know, it's a bit like I guess it happens in soccer when a striker just can't score a goal for love nor money, or I don't know who the person is at the front of an American football team, a quarterback can't score a touchdown, or a baseball player can't hit the ball, score a home run, whatever. You know what I mean, right? How do you take because you must have some of those people who've been clients or our clients how do you take those people and help them to work through? That Is the. Is the concept the same for an individual who's coming the other end of it, who's got no experience whatsoever and is being held back by fear?

John Lester: 42:38

There's a base level concept.

Roberto Revilla: 42:43

Have I asked a dumb question Actually actually let me read some for you.

John Lester: 42:46

It's actually a book, but it's not mine. Again, I like literature. I like movies. There's a very American movie called the Replacements, a number of years ago with Keener Reeves it's about it's a football game, right?

Roberto Revilla: 43:01

Yeah.

John Lester: 43:03

And Shane Falco, who is the character that Keenow is playing. He says you're playing as the quarterback and you think everything is going fine. Then one thing goes wrong, and then another and another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink, until you can't move, you can't breathe because you're in over your head like quicksand.

Roberto Revilla: 43:25

That's it. That's what I was trying to badly describe.

John Lester: 43:28

How do you get out of quicksand?

Roberto Revilla: 43:32

You don't fight it. If I think back to every Indian Indiana Jones movie I've ever seen, Pretty much you don't fight it.

John Lester: 43:40

You don't fight it. Okay, take a deep breath. We get so ingrained in what we do when we think that because what we did yesterday is going to work today and it's going to work tomorrow. And yet sometimes we may forget that that many of the variables around us change your manager might change the direction of the organization might change your competitors might change your competitors positioning of their offering might and I've lived through this.

John Lester: 44:11

Oh my God. I've watched fortunes go down the tubes because the competitor figured out a way to market their offering just differently and it was so subtle that we didn't pick it up for six months. And we're watching deals fall hard, six and seven and eight figure deals just falling apart. So what you have to really do is you have to be able to sit to stop and say, look, I'm okay and it's not about me, I'm not bad, I'm not doing something wrong. But let me figure out what's changed and maybe it's me and maybe it's the market. I've watched sales guys get thrown out of companies, come back for another organization and be super heavy hitters. I've been in organizations where I've been throwing out because I couldn't figure it out. They couldn't figure it out to organizations where it's within the top 5%. I never want to be number one. It's too much pressure. I always like to be in the top 5%. It's just a nice place to be.

Roberto Revilla: 45:11

Around about four or five is kind of good job, exactly Because the guy at the top always gets yelled at at the end of the quarter. I don't want to be yelled at at the end of the quarter.

John Lester: 45:23

So it's very valid. The whole thing is to really try to understand the situation, understand what's going on, and sometimes all it takes, believe it or not, is go out for a walk, go on vacation, and I will say this I have my wife and I have two cats. None of them here. They're all sleeping right now. I have two cats. If I move the camera, there are two beds behind me. There used to be a bed on my desk, and one of the things that's so fascinating about the cats to me is that when they decide to come up in the middle of a conversation, when I'm stressed, it doesn't matter If I am smart enough to take three minutes, pick them up and start to pet them. Their purring and their heart rate starts to sink with me and immediately pull me down and immediately calm me down. I didn't go into the shelter. My wife and I didn't go to the shelter and say excuse me, but I need to calm me down, pet they just do so.

John Lester: 46:38

What I would say to that segment of your audience is one understand that. It's normal, it's okay. Give yourself the permission to go through it. Give yourself the permission to recognize that you're not the entire problem. What's more of a problem is the way you're addressing it, but it's okay, you're human. Deep breath. Now let's figure it out.

Roberto Revilla: 47:09

Wow, yeah, I love that. I think it's the same for me. We have two dogs and two cats. I have two beds right behind me right now, so the dogs are sleeping in there. The cats know better than to disturb me when I'm podcasting and times when I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall, I think almost the feeling is I'm my own worst enemy in this moment and I'll just go for a walk with them or I'll jump on my bike and just empty my brain of what I'm doing, and then when I come back, usually everything's still here, nothing's burned down, the world hasn't fallen apart. Now let you say to your deep breath and you say okay, now, let's, let's figure this out Now what some people might be minded to do, and hopefully some of our listeners as well, as they'd be minded to say I still need some help figuring it out. So then they come to you, john.

John Lester: 48:06

That's fine. Yeah, that's fine. But that's what you need to do, is you stop? Stop beating yourself up and say what needs to be true for this to change? Oh, I might use some help. Fine, go get the help, it's okay. Doesn't make you less of a person. That's, that's thinking. That's been gone for years. So they come to me and I can. I can look, I am very open with folks in Burdo. Pick up the phone, call me, send me an email, send me a text, send me a carrier pigeon. It's a little hard to get across the water with the carrier pigeon, but it's okay, don't worry about it.

John Lester: 48:41

I run the way I when I'm not doing one on one work the way I like to run it, and I'll explain why is I run a mastermind? And the mastermind is focused really on four areas. It's around mindset of yourself and your relationship with sales, mindset around your prospect, how you think about them, how they think about you. It's around how you think about your product and position it, and some general market information that I find to be extraordinarily valuable. It's things around red velvet role policy. It's things around raving fans. It's things around discipline of market leaders. These are all notions that are out there, so I'm not bringing anything new to the table, but sometimes we forget them. Market acceptance curve is another, is another notion that's out there, and we go through that in group setting.

John Lester: 49:26

And the reason I do this in a group setting is we are trained and we're built shouldn't say trained, we're built. It's interesting how, how the creator made us our eyes, look out, our ears here out, we can't see ourselves is very hard actually for us to hear ourselves, and so when we have somebody, we have somebody else feeding into us that maybe it's our same problem, but we see it as their problem. It's easier for us to solve. And so one thing I love about cohorts and group dynamics is that the group helps each other as they're helping themselves, and it's much more efficient. It's much more effective. Nobody feels like an idiot. We do that. Maybe the most I'll do is 10 people in a group. That works really well. It's safe. Also, Nobody, nobody gets a report outside of them. Nobody gets sold, oh well. Well, jimmy didn't do his homework. Or because I tell you what sales people people that are professional salespeople worked for organizations. The biggest thing they fear is that their boss is going to find out that they can't sell and fire them Scary.

Roberto Revilla: 50:40

Yeah, I think also salespeople that work in big organizations. It's the competition as well.

John Lester: 50:48

Oh definitely. Oh, the leaderboards that are sitting out there. Yeah, I worked for. I was working with one organization for a little while doing some some some market building work and every month if you hit your monthly number they would give you a plastic toy tank. I mean, the thing is this big in the box and I remember going in look at these guys like 1520 tanks all over their office, like okay, what exactly are you getting them to believe?

John Lester: 51:21

Yeah, there's a how can I help your audience, what can I do for your audience? Because this is, this is not a simple problem we've been talking about.

Roberto Revilla: 51:33

No, it's complex and I almost feel like you know we need to do this again Because sales is so complex. I mean, you know, I think whether it's my clients who are in the corporate space sorry, my listeners, I should say because you're not all my clients. And if you're not, why aren't you? No, I was just joking.

John Lester: 51:59

No, he's not Dress better?

Roberto Revilla: 52:01

Yeah, exactly, interestingly, I was looking at our listener numbers the other day we have slightly more in the United States than we do in the United Kingdom and Europe, funnily enough. Interesting, yeah, which is kind of interesting. I love you all if that's what you say, but no, many of many of you talking to you guys and girls right now in corporate organizations and many of you are entrepreneurs and solopreneurs who are dealing with a lot of the things that we've talked about. You know, I think the fear thing is probably the biggest one which you know.

Roberto Revilla: 52:39

You wouldn't use the word fear. I would guess you would focus on the word mindset, which has a completely different connotation, right, because fear feels like something, like some beast or some element that you need to fight through or around or over and trying to overcome, and for most people it's like that's just too much effort. I'm just gonna, you know, I'm just gonna make a cup of tea and sit in front of Netflix and tomorrow's another day. That's correct. How a lot let's face it in this day and age. That's how a lot of salespeople deal with fear. Mindset's a different thing. Mindset, to me, has more connotation of taking action and so on. What would you say about?

John Lester: 53:23

that we express what we believe we're feeling in words that make sense to us, which is why you know, as you mentioned before, somebody will come in and they'll, when their business is down a little bit, they'll say, oh, I need a new website. It's not because they need a new website, it's because in their mind they relate a new website to increase traffic, all right. So I totally agree that I talk about mindset, but I also completely understand fear, because I've lived through that fear. That's why I do this. I've, you know, the worst thing in the world, I will tell you this, the worst thing in the world from a business perspective or related to business, and I know some of your listeners have lived through this and I hope very few have, and I hope nobody ever has to going forward. But it's coming home at night and walking into your house and seeing your spouse or your significant other and having to say I hate to tell you this, I lost my job, we have no income. It is the sickest, most debilitating feeling I have ever had outside of a death and I don't want people to go there. I don't want them to have to go there, as I've said. So I understand fear.

John Lester: 54:48

I understand how much fear plays a role. I want to change the words, I want to change vocabulary to, because if I could get them not as you said rightfully so, if I can get them not thinking about the fear, but about thinking about something, oh yeah, mindset. Okay, it's kind of squishy, right? Yeah, let me do that. Yeah, I can think about mindset, that's okay. Yeah, but it is mindset, it's. We control what goes on in our brain. We control the space between our two ears. That's the only thing we control. We don't control the prospect. We don't control the product. We control the market. We can manipulate them. All right, as a chiropractor, manipulate your spine to help you feel better. Manipulate is not a bad word. Folks Use it properly. We can do that and get rid of the fear.

Roberto Revilla: 55:41

Yeah, I think it's. I mean, the thing for me is focusing on and knowing. Focusing on the things that I can control and knowing, having the wisdom to know and let go of the things that I cannot control, whether it's the weather, other people's behavior, what's going on in the news and media, market conditions. I can't do anything about that stuff. I'm not a sorcerer.

John Lester: 56:11

Yes, you actually, you can. That is one of the big differences.

Roberto Revilla: 56:14

you can here's what you can do Really.

John Lester: 56:16

Yeah, here's what you can do about it. You can stop reacting to it. There is an action that you can take. Stop reacting to it, Laugh at it. I have had customers the most insane customers over time that start yelling and screaming at me right to my face. I start laughing at them After a while. We're out having a beer. It's your mindset.

Roberto Revilla: 56:51

It reminds me of my out of office message. The last vacation that we took just this last summer. I put something like start it off the usual way. I'm away until taking that thing that some people call a holiday that we've not had for over three years now. Before you get irate or frustrated, please remember that I'm just your tater, I'm not your heart surgeon. Whatever it is that you're panning over, I'm sure it will keep till I get back. If you need me, you can reach me at Roberto, at please do not disturb our first holiday in over three yearscom. I was worried about it, but actually most people would actually really loved it. I had some people actually write back and say this is single-handedly the best out of office message I've ever read in my entire life. It was partly written. I was being a little bit cheeky, but also it was partly written because I was genuinely just fed up. I was like I need a break from you right now.

John Lester: 58:01

But you're a human. Yeah, if you treat people like humans, most of them will reciprocate. Here's something I will offer to your listeners. It's up to you, however you want to deal with this. As I said, I cap my masterminds at 10. I'll run them from between six and 10 people. I need a certain amount in there, simply because you have to have that interaction, you have to have that dynamic, otherwise it turns into a one-on-one consulting session, which is not what I'm talking about right now. If folks listeners I'm talking to you and to Roberto and his customers if you want to collect six, eight or 10 of these people, I will do a mastermind session for them at a greatly reduced price. And yes, I'll speak slowly because we're going to have different accents in there. I get thrown by it. Look, I mean we're global. Now we're all global. Okay, because I'm a New Yorker and I can talk really fast.

John Lester: 59:05

I have to slow it down sometimes, but I will put that out there. Folks, If you want to get in touch with the broderone, say hey, that sounds interesting. We'll work out the details if we have the interest in it. I'll just put that out there.

Roberto Revilla: 59:18

Yeah, awesome. I'll make sure I put that out there the various ways that I do and I'll also make sure that I've got your link in the show notes as well. I also really want to put a copy sorry, a link to where people can get your book, which we didn't get time to talk about winning the inner game of sales. My copy is on the. You just sold another one. My copy arrives on. That's okay. I did it more for me than for you. Let's be honest. I like honesty. I need to read it, but my copy arrives on Sunday, so I will get in touch with you once. I've worked my way through that and I'm really, really excited because it is highly rated and reviewed. You've gone at a lot of fans through that book, Thank you. So thank you for putting that out. There Is the best place for people to procure it through your website rather than the A word, or is the A word okay?

John Lester: 1:00:22

It lives on the A word.

Roberto Revilla: 1:00:24

Okay fine, because I can get it on Audible. So if you've really loved listening to John for the last hour and his lovely New York accent, which he's deliberately slowed down for everybody's benefit, unless I'm just, my ear is so tuned because New York's like second home to me, so my ear might be just, you might have been talking at proper New York space, but I'm completely tuned to you. But you can get the hard copy, which is what I've just done. You can get it on Kindle and you can even if you're an Audible subscriber. You can get it on Audible and you can listen to John. I'm presuming you narrated it right? No, I did not. Actually I had it narrated I did Whoops.

Roberto Revilla: 1:01:10

I'm sure if we get one of my AI guests from a couple of weeks ago, jonathan Green, I'm sure he could take a sample of John's voice If you really want to hear John narrate it, and then we can use AI to have John narrate his own book that he didn't write. I can.

John Lester: 1:01:25

It's getting scary out there.

Roberto Revilla: 1:01:27

Yeah, exactly, or you can do what I'm going to do, which is I'm going to curl up with John's book and a notepad and a pen and as I read it, I will be reading it in John's voice as if he's reading it to me. John, thank you so so much. Like I say, I feel like there is so many places we could have gone with this, so we will have to do this again. If I haven't scared you off, definitely have you had fun today.

John Lester: 1:01:55

I love it Absolutely. Have I really do appreciate it.

Roberto Revilla: 1:01:59

Next time I let the cats in.

Roberto Revilla: 1:02:03

Yeah, I will Do. You know what it is, john. We moved house and you know dogs, like they were out of sorts for maybe an hour and then they're like this is our home now. Okay, they're really happy, exactly. Yeah, we have a Bengal and F3. She's beautiful, but she is effing nuts, like absolutely.

Roberto Revilla: 1:02:27

She has been apocalyptic the last six weeks. It's only in the last couple of days that she's calmed down enough, but there it's been tears. My wife loves this cat to bits. I mean she's technically her cat. See, my wife's not here, actually she's mine. We have a closer bond, I feel.

Roberto Revilla: 1:02:47

Yeah, well, you know, caroline is still like 100 episodes away from getting to this one. So we're fine for a little while. But yeah, I mean even to the point. A couple of weeks ago my wife was like do we just let her out of the door and just let her disappear, because I can't deal with this anymore. That's how bad it's been. But no, I mean she never would, she never would. But she just said it out loud and I was like she's our daughter, we've got a.

Roberto Revilla: 1:03:17

I feel as a human child, it would be even worse and we don't have any of those. So you know this we can. I'm sure we can solve. So, yeah, she's just gotten to the stage where she's calm. She hasn't peed all over the place, she hasn't destroyed anything for the last couple of days. So we're at like two days zero incident on the. You know, like they're having the factory days without incident. Yeah, so we're at number two for the first time in six weeks. So yeah, so, so yeah, but I think by the time we get together next time, yeah, I'll introduce you to her Definitely. Maybe my boys will show up, yeah, or I'll stick her in the mail to you.

John Lester: 1:04:03

So I will leave this though, in case the boys ever show up. We have two boys. They're brothers. Yeah, okay, adopt together. They are both all black. So my wife decides to name because she wanted the black, she wanted the black cats. I said, fine, she. I lost. I wanted to name them Cheech and Chong. I got overruled. I did Okay. She named them Biggie and Tupac.

Roberto Revilla: 1:04:27

Oh, wow.

John Lester: 1:04:32

And they are so significant in my life. If folks, if you don't have cats I know I'm sounding like a crazy person, but it's like children that actually behave and don't ask you to bar the car it's wonderful.

Roberto Revilla: 1:04:45

Yeah, exactly, children that do behave generally very well unless you move home, and then they go absolutely postal.

John Lester: 1:04:54

But we love it. Let's do this again. And seriously on the offer, I'm serious about that. Yeah, and just to kind of put the topic on that, I have worked with people that came out of corporate. A lot of people now that are coming out of corporate have to do their own thing, that think they understand the game, but when they speak to me, talk to me about frustrations that indicate to me that nobody has ever explained the game to them. Yeah, so this is not about you are wrong. It's about you have never had the opportunity to understand and appreciate the inner workings of the game. And it's really interesting it's just one from American perspective.

John Lester: 1:05:35

If you've at all followed the Super Bowl and the writings about the Super Bowl, the discussions about how important it is to truly understand the game and how that makes a difference when you play at a Super Bowl level, and how a large part of the reason that the Chiefs won was because of Patrick Mayhem's understanding of the game. Now they're not saying how he played, but his understanding of how to utilize the game. That's what made the difference and that's what put him there and that's what I think his three-year package is what? $210 million or something like that. So all I'm saying, folks, is look, admit that you might not know. There's no points off of that. If you want to talk, let's talk. If I can help you, fine. If I can't, we'll find time to have a pizza somewhere, that's all.

Roberto Revilla: 1:06:25

Awesome.

John Lester: 1:06:26

John, thank you.

Roberto Revilla: 1:06:28

I know you're so welcome, thank you. Thank you all so much for joining John and I on this episode. Follow us on Instagram at tateringtalkpodcast for all the latest show updates, highlights and news. The podcast is also on YouTube at Roberto River London and you can email me at tateringtalkpodcastgmailcom. Please hit subscribe, give me a rating and review and click the share button in your player to send this episode to someone you know who needs to hear what John and I discussed. And if you want to support the show further, there's a support the show link in the show notes. Have a great week, be good to each other and I'll catch you on the next one.