Unlock the Secrets of Sales Success: Master the Art of Conversation with Jake Stahl

I’m thrilled to have Jake Stahl, a conversational virtuoso and fractional chief learning officer, who will reveal the transformative power of authentic dialogue in sales. Here’s what you’ll learn after listening to this episode:

• Conversational Blueprints: Uncover the secrets behind sales conversations that work and those that don’t. Learn how rhythm, cadence, and genuine connections can forge lasting relationships with clients.
• Beyond the Script: Explore personalized communication strategies and the psychological underpinnings of sales interactions, including neuro-linguistic programming and the impact of intentional speech.
• Tailored Training: Discover why generic sales training falls short and how mirroring and personality traits play a crucial role in securing successful deals. Jake will share insights on reducing turnover rates and associated costs through customized training.
• Practical Communication Tips: Gain practical advice on enhancing communication, from phone etiquette to LinkedIn networking. Experience the “two and ten” rule’s effectiveness in fostering engagement.

Join me for an episode packed with expert insights and actionable tips to revolutionise your sales and communication skills. Tune in to not just listen, but to equip yourself with a mindful toolset for success!

Enjoy!

Tailoring Talkers head to https://calendly.com/jakestahlconsulting/60-minute-meeting

You can book a FREE one hour consult with Jake to explore how you can elevate your game. Whether you're an individual hungry to boost your sales or a company needing top-notch training without hiring a full-time Chief Learning Officer, Jake has  got your back.

In your session, you'll assess if you're the perfect match and he'll arm you with actionable strategies you can use immediately.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Welcome to Terrain Talk with Roberto Rivilla, bespoke Taylor menswear designer and owner of Roberto Rivilla, london custom clothing and footwear. I activate your superpowers through the clothing I create and the conversations tailored. On this podcast, we'll 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, please, by hitting the subscribe button, and a rating slash. Review would help out immensely.

Speaker 1: 0:42

In the cutthroat world of sales, countless professionals struggle with the same issue generic scripts and impersonal interactions that leave prospects unmoved. Conversations become repetitive echoes and training often feels like a one-size-fits-all approach. Enter today's guest, who is a conversational maestro with a revolutionary blueprint to transform sales interactions. For over 30 years, he's travelled across six countries, impacting over 10,000 individuals. With his unique approach, the adaptive conversational blueprint, he challenges traditional methods, emphasizing the power of rhythm, cadence and genuine connection in building lasting relationships with prospects. His groundbreaking work has earned him international recognition, including an award for outstanding instructional design. Taylor and talkers, please welcome a pioneer in conversational dynamics and highly regarded fractional chief learning officer to the show Jake Stahl, how are you?

Speaker 2: 1:50

Oh, thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here. I'm really honored to be your guest.

Speaker 1: 1:55

So now I got asked my first question, which is what's a fractional chief learning officer? Because I've never, ever heard of that before.

Speaker 2: 2:06

Yeah, so the fractional movement is picking up steam here in the States. It's based on three concepts. The first is you don't need an executive or a C level person full time for in certain areas. So fractional chief learning officer is basically just a fractional head of training and development, and a lot of people will hire a head of training and development for a year 20 to 40 a year and you don't need somebody like that for 40 hours a week. So I work with you only when you need me. I work with you for a brief period of time. I get you off the ground, get you up and running and make sure you have what you need, and I do it at a fraction of the price. So fractional time, fractional hours for a fractional price, and I do it from a C suite level so that I can help you make decisions that are going to move the company. So I'm really a fractional chief executive level, but at a price your budget won't really notice.

Speaker 1: 3:12

Yeah, so that's a fractional, because you're only there for a fraction of the time that you're actually needed. I love that, yeah, yeah. I remember organizations that I've worked at where we would have like they would bring in a chief training officer or whatever and they didn't really seem to do that much work. They'd maybe have a couple of sessions with us, like a month, and then the rest of the time. I mean, this was back in the days where you could smoke indoors and stuff you would just go find them in the smoking lounge right, Pretending to be doing training notes and stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 3:45

I'm really sorry. Anyone who's a sales trainer out there that's listening to this and I've offended you. I apologize, but you know perceptions, everything right. Make it look like you're doing more work. So, Jake, let's dig into a little bit about you and help the audience get to know you. So, originally from Pennsylvania, and there are a lot of places you've mentioned, like Syracuse and Bethlehem, that I know from my time watching the US version of the Office- one of my all time favorite shows.

Speaker 1: 4:26

So I just know these names and I know that they're in Pennsylvania because occasionally you got to meet some of the branch managers from the other offices and so on, but you've not lived in Penn State for quite some time, right?

Speaker 2: 4:42

Correct and the joke about. We grew up near Bethlehem and I lived near Bethlehem for a while and I always used to joke with my kids that's where Jesus was born, that's the Bethlehem they're referring to. That is funny because it's right down the road from Nazareth and so it's always the big joke about. You know, I was raised near Bethlehem, but at one point in my career I got an offer to move to Connecticut to take a training position and so I moved there and I've lived there ever since, and Syracuse, of course, is a harken back to my alma mater, which is where I went to school.

Speaker 1: 5:16

Yeah, and you've got a very I was going to say big brain. Well, it probably is big, a very muscular brain. You don't seem to let that part of your body ever rest, because you're very much into kind of digging into the mechanics and the science of how things work, whether it's physical or whether it's I don't want to call sales a mental concept, because it can be a bit mentally taxing though. Where did that come from, I'm guessing? Have you always been that way since you were a child? I'm trying to go back 10 years to young Jake, because it's not that, because you're still quite young 10 years is still old, jake.

Speaker 2: 6:04

When I was raised, I was raised by a father who was very prominent in the community, and I was raised in a generation where kids were to be seen and not heard. So I spent a lot of my childhood just sitting in on meetings or conferences or business things my father held, and not saying much or not supposed to say much. And a lot of it sunk in and things started to baffle me after a while. As strange as it sounds, the greeting how are you still puzzles me to this day. And so all of that led into wanting to be involved with the psychology. How do we make decisions? Why do we do what we do? Why do some businesses go stellar and others fail? And so I got a degree in psychology from Syracuse.

Speaker 2: 6:53

I since had multiple certifications in neuro linguistic programming and just I'm constantly on the search for the perfect conversation. What makes that perfect back and forth that is so memorable that you not only remember me, but you want to do business with me, and renewing with me is not even a question, it's let's just sign up for another year. What is it that makes that happen? And the journey that, roberto, has been fascinating, because there is no right answer. It's not like you do A and B to get C. It's you have a million variations of A that can lead to a trillion variations of B and maybe, if you're lucky, you'll get to C, and that's what makes it so fascinating.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Yeah, I don't even know exactly where to start with this. Well, I guess in our pre talks we talked a little bit about my experiences and I worked I've worked for big corporations. When I first got into telling I worked for a big American company. Forever grateful for my time. There is there for seven amazing years built an amazing business. Most of my clients came with me when I left because the relationships that I built Right, of course.

Speaker 1: 8:08

But as a company, their kind of blueprint for success was very prescriptive. So when you were going, so you would basically spend half of your day on appointments, if you had any, and then you would spend the second half of your day trying to hit a certain number of outreach metrics, and their formula was 80 dollars a day equals 17. You'll speak to 17 people, and if you speak to 17 people you should book seven appointments. By and large, those metrics worked, because I worked them religiously. From that point of view, I did what I was told, and the salespeople who failed or didn't do as well, they didn't stick to that prescription and forgive me if I'm not articulating very, very well, I've got two cats and I think my dogs are asleep behind me.

Speaker 1: 9:09

Yeah, but the cats are running around creating havoc. One of them is a bad one.

Speaker 1: 9:14

Crazy bitch. So from that point of view that worked. So I was fully on board with that. What I wasn't on board with was the fact that I had a very rigid script that not only did I have to give verbatim, but if I didn't give it verbatim I was in big trouble. There would be a sit-down with a sales manager or my sales leader and I would get told off and then I would have someone listening in on my calls until I was back on track again. This then, once you were out in the field and you were on appointments, you would then have a presentation folder and you would have to then give another script verbatim History of the company where we started, how the stock price has changed over that period of time.

Speaker 1: 10:09

It never made sense to me. I could get it from a building credibility or establishing credibility point of view, but the stock price of the company had nothing to do with the clothes that you might want to wear or how you might want to look or how you want the world to see you. So as I kind of established myself and I rose up through the sales ranks, I started to basically do what I was not supposed to do, because as far as I was concerned, I was serving individuals and every single person was different, and therefore every conversation, every presentation needed to be tuned to the person that was in front of me. And in order to work out how to do that, I had to ask more questions than actually talk at them, although I realized that I'm actually just talking at you now. I had to ask more questions and just sit there for the first 15 minutes talking at them. I needed to find out about them, and then, once I'd gained all that information, then I'd say, right, jake, let me see if I've got this right. So you do this amount of traveling. You see these types of people you like to fill this way in your clothes, and the priority for you right now, if you were to try me out no obligation, by the way is this, this and this? Am I right? Yeah, absolutely Okay. Great, let's get to it then. And so my close rate was very, very high. I knew that if I had an appointment with someone, they would probably 95% they were going to become a client, and if they didn't, it's because I did something wrong, I didn't ask the right question, I wasn't listening properly, whatever, but yeah, I relay that story to you.

Speaker 1: 11:57

It's still, I'm betting, to this day, the way that a lot of corporations kind of run their sales training and their sales systems as a blueprint for their quote, unquote success. How do you deal with that when you're going into it? So let me get let us get some understanding about what it's like when you enter an organization, when they call you and say, listen, something's not working. We think we've got everything in place, but something's not working. We need to kind of change it up, but we don't know what it is. What does that look like for you most of the time when you're kind of walking in and saying, right, what the hell's going on here?

Speaker 2: 12:35

Yeah, and thank you for asking, and there's there's a lot to unpack there. When I go into a company, the first thing I do is I give them an hour of time free. Let's just sit down and see where you are and see where you want to go. And it takes me a while to analyze this. A lot of companies that do training and development will go in and say here, do this methodology and this is going to be great. Here's nine binders and 12 videos for you to watch and now pay me, you know, $50 per head until time comes to a close and you'll be fine. But here's where the issue comes in, and you said it well. You said you can make so many calls, you get so many closes, and I run into this all the time. For every, you know, 100 calls we make, we close 10 of them.

Speaker 2: 13:26

So in order to close 100, I have to have 10 reps making 100 calls a piece. But what they do is they base it on past performance. So they say this is what my CRM says happens. So we're going to make future plans for that. Roberto, we look at nothing else in life like that. I don't.

Speaker 2: 13:45

There was a study that came out, british study that said the chances of you finding your perfect mate on any given day is one in 356. So if I read that study, am I going to say to myself I have to meet 356 people each day in order for me to find my perfect mate? I don't do that. What I do is, when I look for my perfect mate, I do my research. Where did they go to school? What did they like to eat? What movies did I like? What's my best chance for success? Right, I really try and narrow it down. So my close rate goes up.

Speaker 2: 14:23

But many companies what they'll do is they'll say here's a script, like your company did for you, and the reason their close rate is the way it is is because that script will match certain personality types and so you will close those personality types. But this is where the scripting goes wrong when you fall outside those personality types. It's not that the script is wrong, it's that the script is not geared towards that person. If they don't care about the stock prices, you're going to lose them. If they don't care about the company history, you're going to lose them. If a rep came into me selling me a product I was really interested in and they started with company history, you're done. I'm not going to waste my time. We're out of here.

Speaker 2: 15:10

But companies by and large want to take that shortcut that says we provide a script, we get this close rate, so we budget on that amount. And that is where sales teams fail. What they need is a customized approach and they need to understand mirroring and personality traits and how to localize messaging. It's all about the psychology. I've been doing this for a long time 30 years and I will tell you, never, ever ever, have I seen price be the main factor ever. If you provide value prices just academic, it's just a matter of how they'll pay for it. But most companies get so caught up in the pricing. If a rep doesn't meet that demand, the rep is out. My question has always been why put the rep out and why not train them properly? And that's what I come in to do. I am deeply embedded in psychology, multiple certifications in neuro-liguistic programming, and it's not what you say to people, it's how you say it and how much are you appealing to where they learn and see the world through their lens.

Speaker 1: 16:29

Yeah, do you think also part of it is I mean, that's so important what you said there Rather than putting the rep out, actually train them to be able to tune themselves to prospects and so on. But do you think companies are still not seeing past their noses Because they say, for example, like the firm that I worked for, their whole philosophy was it doesn't matter whether it's UJ or whether it's Roberto, or whether we get rid of you and someone else comes in by having these scripts. The reason why it's important that you give it like that is so that one day you will be training somebody else. We don't need to rewrite the whole rulebook again. We basically just have a fixed training manual and we can just they would compare themselves to McDonald's and Starbucks and people like that and you're kind of thinking well, they're multi-billion dollar companies but they're selling food.

Speaker 1: 17:26

So really the value for the customer isn't in the customization, because you can't really customize a McDonald's hamburger. You can nowadays to an extent, but not to the extent that you can, for example, close or consulting or whatever it is. The end result most customers want from McDonald's is that if I go to McDonald's in London or Birmingham or I come over to New York and I order Big Mac in man in Times Square. I pretty much want what I get back in London and that is what they do really really well. You can't really compare yourselves to them, but companies don't really see past that For them.

Speaker 1: 18:07

The whole reasoning behind what they do partly is this whole replication thing, that if we have turnover of sales staff it doesn't matter because we just get the next one in and we just train them. Eventually the system will stick with enough salespeople. But over a period of time the amount of money that they've lost in hiring and firing and hiring and firing because training someone takes a good six months before they get up to speed. Six to nine months maybe, and then what You've got, maybe every two in 10 maybe actually make it and stay with the company long term. The other 80% fall by the wayside within years one to five.

Speaker 2: 18:52

I agree, and that's why onboarding is so important. Let's take a just real quick scenario. Let's say I have a high ticket item. The average onboarding just to get somebody to walk through the door is 18 grand a person. Then let's say you have a five grand in hardware costs. You have 7,000 to set aside for the benefit package. Let's just round it to say it's 25, 27,000 just for that.

Speaker 2: 19:18

Now they have a million dollar quota, but because they don't do their job real well, they only hit 250,000. So you budgeted on that million but you've fallen short by three quarters of a million. So that rep now has cost you almost $800,000. Now let's tack in the fact that you have to re-hire somebody after that. That's another 30 grand. So the cost of not training somebody can hit 800,000 to a million dollars. And yet companies don't seem to recognize that in the balance sheet Lost opportunity is the same as revenue because you're budgeting on it. So the cost of not training someone is astronomical. As a company I would much rather spend $20,000 on a good training program versus spending a million dollars on a hire that didn't work out. So it gets frustrating to me when I see companies that do that.

Speaker 2: 20:21

The second piece of that puzzle, roberto, is you said about the scripts, and I believe in scripts. In the beginning, you need some foundation for them to just get started and get rolling. However, the part that gets me when I talk to a company is they turn sales into a process. Now, the process of making so many calls a day and getting so many closes, I agree with. But as soon as they pick up the phone, it's no longer a process.

Speaker 2: 20:48

Sales is an art. Conversation is an art and, to be frank with you, roberto, none of us are great at it. We all make mistakes, we all say crap we didn't mean to say, we all spout off when we shouldn't or say something off color. So none of us are good at it, but we do it all the time. So why don't we ever seek to get better?

Speaker 2: 21:10

And if my salespeople are the only revenue generators, why am I not investing in them getting better? And here's the answer Because when you hire a salesperson, you say you're a salesperson, just sell. But you don't say that to anybody else in the company. You don't say you're a CEO, just CEO. Ceos are expected to research and get better and hone their skills and network, but for some reason we don't apply that to salespeople. We assume they're good. We don't provide any resources for them to get better, and when we do, it's a video in an LMS or a YouTube thing. Are you kidding me? It's time to get back to the conversations and allowing people to get good at conversations, not selling. Conversing, building trust, getting a relationship that's what makes people successful. The last company that implemented my program they three X their sales by doing nothing more with the exact same people other than teaching them how to have the perfect conversation on the phone.

Speaker 1: 22:19

Yeah, now, arguably or maybe not now has never been a better time for sales professionals to get to grips with, moving outside of scripted conversations and so on, because what's the buzzword at the moment? Social selling and all this other BS. That really makes me roll my eyes when I hear it, because I'm a target for that sort of thing all the time. I mean the number of LinkedIn connection requests. I get people trying to sell me stuff they haven't even read. They're trying to sell the podcast. They actually haven't read my profile. If they even spent five seconds, they would know what I do.

Speaker 1: 23:04

I'm a bespoke tailor. I'm the MD of Roberto Reveller London. That is what I live, breathe, four to five days a week. The podcast is the side thing. And I get people who come to me who've just started businesses and they'll say I need to get out there, I need to do more on Instagram, I need to get to grips with LinkedIn and I'm just like no, if I was starting a business today, I would go find out who my ideal prospects are.

Speaker 1: 23:37

I would go to people I know and ask them for if they knew anyone, if they could recommend me or refer me or introduce me, and then I would start picking up the phone and start introducing myself. You know not this kind of hit and hope strategy. You know you very rarely hit a home run sending a connection request and a Jake hey, this is Roberto, we're working with CEOs and so on, like you, to improve their wall droves. It's like no go away. You don't know anything about me, you've not taken any time, you're just. It just seems like an incredible waste of time to me. What do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 24:18

I agree. One of my favorite things is not original by any means. But hope is not a game plan. So you see a lot of people working with the AI and automated marketing now and they think, if I just thought a million messages to a million people, some of them have got a hit. I am honestly amazed that we're not looking more at what the message is.

Speaker 2: 24:43

On LinkedIn. Every day I get people trying to sell me. On the first communication they do with me, I delete it immediately. My reach outs, roberto, are very simple. My first three reach outs to anybody have nothing to do with me or my product. It's hey, I see you're a fellow fractional. How can I best help you? What can I do to promote your business? Is there anything I can help you with on LinkedIn? By the time I get to my fourth message, people are being human. They want to reciprocate. So they say, wow, I've talked a lot about me. What can I do for you? And that's when the message is gonna be received the best. There are a certain phase in a conversation with Roberto where messages are gonna be better received than others. In the beginning is not the time. What's our favorite topic to talk about?

Speaker 2: 25:36

Ourselves Right, exactly so if I can let somebody talk about themselves for three minutes and I assure you I'm genuinely interested and I will actively listen because I wanna know about you. But there's gonna come a time, I guarantee it. There will come a time where the person goes, wow, I've done nothing but talk about me, so now tell me a little bit about you. Now, I know, is the peak time to talk about my messaging. It is such a simple process and yet most sales companies I go into don't use it. It's the. Let me slap you in the face and jam this down your throat and hope you'll take it, and if one rep can't do it, I'll hire another one who can. I don't get it.

Speaker 1: 26:22

Yeah, totally. I mean, I'm very poorly, badly trying to push you down this lane of starting to talk about because we've been talking about conversational blueprints, right.

Speaker 2: 26:36

Yes, yes. So let's talk about.

Speaker 1: 26:40

Your approach is adaptive. Yes, which is what I was probably unintentionally doing, because the script I kind of seem to have talked down about it and anyone who's listening that I used to work with. I'm very, very sorry, I don't mean to offend Actually that's not true but I was very grateful because when I started you are 100% right that having some form of script for a sales job that I'd never done before, that I needed to very quickly get to some level of proficiency out, otherwise I'd lose my job gave me a really good, rock solid foundation. But once I had that foundation, I had the fundamentals of the kind of messaging that the company wanted to give, because that's very, very important. I was then able to start, so I would listen to people that were sat next to me, Jake, and they'd be calling people up and you know the person on the other end of the phone, because all we're dealing with is high net worth individuals who are extremely busy. These are C-suite level people, right.

Speaker 2: 27:45

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 27:47

You know, what do you think these people are doing at five past three on a Monday afternoon? They're probably just walking in late for a meeting.

Speaker 2: 27:54

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:55

And you wanna just push through that and you've gotta regurgitate this script in front of you just to hit another little X on your call sheet, right? No, so you know, it's like my boss would sit behind me sometimes and be like so, jake, so you're me now. Right, jake, I just overheard that call and the guy picked up. You managed to get through to him, but then you asked him for permission to speak. You asked him if it was okay or was he in the middle of something right now? I heard you on another call saying oh, are you on a conference call right now? Don't do that. You just got hold of the guy. It's really hard to get a hold of these people. Once you get them, you grab onto them, you don't let them go, and I'm just like but isn't that just gonna piss the guy off? Because when people do that to me, I get pissed off and I don't wanna do that to someone else that I'm trying to build a long-term relationship with.

Speaker 2: 28:55

I agree 100%.

Speaker 1: 28:57

For me, listening to what was going. You know, when I train people, I would say to them when your prospect answers the call, listen, not to them. Well, listen to them. You want to listen to their tone of voice. Do they sound stressed out? Do they sound distracted? Is there something going on in the background? Can you hear other people talking? Because they could be on a call, they could be in a meeting, they could have just had some really, really bad news, they could be under pressure with something. Listen and try to tune in in the first five seconds, and that's why, a lot of the time, when someone does pick up the call, I will say to them it's Roberto from Roberto Revilla, london.

Speaker 1: 29:44

Jake Stahl asked me to give you a call and introduce myself, but it sounds like I might have caught you in the middle of something. I might have caught you on the hot. Are you in the car right now? Are you on a conference call right now? Yeah, I am Okay. No problem, listen, I'm going to get right off the phone. I'll give you a call another time, roberto. Thank you, I appreciate it. I'll speak to you soon. Oh, brilliant, okay, great. So here's the next time that I call. Oh, that guy was actually considerate. Am I wrong in anything that I'm doing here?

Speaker 2: 30:15

No, as a matter of fact, I think that's probably why you're successful and why people view you differently. You know, salespeople have made an ugly bed. We get on the phone call and we think you know, I got to make the sale, I have to get something done. Because I just talked to him and I agree with you, roberto. You remember the people who are courteous and gracious and respect your time. Now, granted, you didn't make a sale at that instant, but that person will be more receptive to you the next time, because one thing we need to remember and it sounds like you have this mastered already is every conversation we had sets a precedent for future conversations. Every minute we spend on the phone sets a precedent for future minutes on the phone. So when we look at a conversation, it's super important to remember that every second you're talking makes an impression, and that impression is going to be what makes them pick up the phone next time. We're not picking up, so no, I think you're dead on, and it sounds to me like you always had this secret.

Speaker 1: 31:27

So I've been dancing around it for the last few minutes. But adaptive conversational blueprint is the concept that you've developed to come up with. Talk the listeners through that. They probably guess what it means because it's pretty on the nose as a description.

Speaker 2: 31:48

So there's a couple of pieces to it. The first is everybody talks about mirroring and everybody says you know mimic, the gesture and the posture that they're in, but that is one one hundredth of nearing. So part of adapting, Roberto, is listening to what the cues are. We all have some modalities, primarily their visual, audio and kinesthetic, and when somebody talks you can get that modality. So just talking to you, you rely on the verbal modality a lot. So when I speak to you or we talk about something I try and mirror back verbal modalities. So if somebody were auditory I would be more using audio modalities. Talking with you, on the zoom I watch your eye motions. Where are you recalling memory from? Where are you picking up different cues from? The adaptive conversational blueprints says you need to constantly be adapting to that other person and making sure you're always in tune.

Speaker 1: 32:48

And there's a lot to it, you know I read a lot of things that say yeah, mirroring is their tone and their posture.

Speaker 2: 32:56

It is, but that is such a tiny piece of mirroring. So the adaptive conversational blueprints says you start with a, you do a lot of listening and then you adapt your style as you go. So I'm going to mirror you the best I can and if you have a negative thought and you're primarily verbal, then I want to bring in another modality. I want you to get to get you to think kinesthetically and auditory, so that other parts of your brain start to kick in. So I want to get you to think on all levels and I want to talk to you directly on all those levels. I often call this localization of message. So if I'm sitting in New York City, I'll talk to a fellow New Yorker one way, but if I'm talking to somebody in Savannah Georgia, I have to change dramatically Right, I have to slow down, I have to think about the linguistics I use, I have to think about my syntax and terminology and I want to match their tone and their modality to make sure we're on the same level. Many companies don't do that and scripts don't allow you to do that, because you're talking in the modality of the script writer and that may not be that person you're talking to. So the adaptive conversational blueprint basically tells you listen, repeat back things people say in a way that they're going to understand, to elicit more information and then adapt your process as you go. This could take five seconds, could take 30, could take a minute and a half. You could have somebody that works primarily in all three modalities. So you need to be careful with that as well. But the bonding that takes place is amazing.

Speaker 2: 34:46

The coolest part, roberto, is the psychological aspect. If you and I enjoy talking to each other, you don't enjoy the conversation, you enjoy the feeling you get conversing with me. So what winds up happening then is you associate that good feeling with my name and then when my name comes up on your speed dial, you go that's Jake, I love talking to Jake. So then you pick up the phone. But here's where that can dramatically interfere with the sales call. If you have somebody sitting at the desk and they're fielding calls for the C-suite people the decision makers that phone ringing automatically sets off condition responses. It's a rep. I have to get them off the phone. I don't want to talk to anybody as soon as their phone rings. I'm fighting things and I will advocate the absolute worst way to start any conversation with anyone is how are you? It's the death of the sales call, and yet I hear it all the time. Yeah, so you need to adapt constantly, roberto.

Speaker 1: 35:55

I'm sorry. I just wanted to say I'm so glad you brought that up, because on my notes right here is Hi, how are you? One of Gates pet hates? Bring that up with him and see how he reacts. Yeah, I get that all the time. So I get like numbers that I don't recognize right, and then I answer the phone. Hi, it's Roberto. Hi, roberto, how are you? What do you want?

Speaker 2: 36:21

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 36:22

Yeah, I don't know you. What do you want? It's the worst possible way to start a conversation, right? Because then and even I'm conscious of it, because I'm like you're being really horrible right now, but then, at the same time, it's like, well, naturally I don't do that to people. It's like when I call people up, I didn't say Jake, hi, it's Roberto, how are you? Because I know that the guy on the other end of the phone is probably thinking I don't know who the hell you are. So you better get to it down quick.

Speaker 2: 36:51

Right, Yep, my wife and I went out shopping over the Christmas holiday and I walked by and I my eyes locked with another guy who was walking by me and I nodded my head, I said hey, and he said Good thanks, how are you? The conversation never took place, but we're so conditioned to that it's crazy. So imagine, Roberto, if you called somebody and you did a little bit of research ahead of time and I you picked up the phone and hi, there's Roberto. Roberto, this is Jake. You cannot imagine how excited I was to talk to you. I read about your podcast, wanted to run something by you. Imagine how that changes your perspective. I break the conditioning of hi. How are you? I tell you I'm looking forward to speaking with you. So my call was intentional and I knew a little bit about you and what's your frame of mind then.

Speaker 1: 37:46

Oh, okay, yeah, it's like awesome, wow. So who is this again? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:52

So now you have your opening to get started. But yeah, how are you has been a pet peeve of mine for a long, long time.

Speaker 1: 38:03

I love that and there will be other. You know, like those knee jerk kind of muscle memory reactions. You know like when you you're talking to a friend and you put the phone down, you go Okay, yeah, bye, thank you very much, bye. And then you're like what, what did I just do.

Speaker 2: 38:19

I just went to a while. When those really condition, one slips out. Hey, good, talking to you. I love you.

Speaker 1: 38:23

I mean oh, I get that sometimes from my clients, but then we laugh about it because I messaged him often and I'm like Jake, do you realize? You just told me you love me on the phone and he's like, oh my God, you know what? I just it was just a knee-jerk response. I was on the phone to my wife before that and you're the next closest person in my life and I'm like you know, I'm doing my job properly, right.

Speaker 2: 38:48

Conditioning is so powerful and yet we never use it to our advantage. To either use it to help us or break it to help us.

Speaker 1: 38:59

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:59

And this is what I help companies understand your prospect wants a relationship with you and for you to say to them hey, I want to partner with you. What does that even mean? Show me, don't tell me, and show me from the first second I get on the phone with you. That's what I want to hear you partner in.

Speaker 1: 39:18

Yeah, Does that translate to? Does that translate to when people are messaging as well? Because you know when and I do it to hands up, right If I can't reach someone who I've never spoken before, I will drop them a note, but when people do that with me, it's like they they're really holding everything back. You know, same concept as on the phone, right? So it's something a common one that I get is something like Jake, hey, fascinated by the work that you do on the Terrain Talk podcast, we would really love to partner with you and please, please, reply if you're interested.

Speaker 1: 40:07

And I'm thinking number one, I don't know who the F, you are. Number two partner on what? Number three, like I don't understand any of what you just said, and then I delete it. And then they follow up a few days later and I'm like hey, I emailed you the other day. I just want to make sure that you got the email and find out if you're interested to talk further. You can book a call on my calendar. Click the link below. And I'm just thinking it reminds me. This person then reminds me of do you remember the comedian he died? Chris Farley, I think his name was.

Speaker 2: 40:44

Oh yeah, chris Farley.

Speaker 1: 40:45

Remember that very famous scene I think it might have been from one of his movies where he was like an insurance salesman, I think. And then he's kind of describing, like you know, the pitfalls of not having insurance and the car setting fire, and he sets fire to this car and this guy Do you remember that one?

Speaker 2: 41:03

Yeah, what a great movie.

Speaker 1: 41:04

Right, okay, I need to look that movie up. I'd only ever seen that clip as an example of you know like the worst, but does it try what we've been talking about in open dialogue? Does that translate in written communication as well, and how would someone kind of go about approaching that, or would you always advocate trying to speak to someone in person?

Speaker 2: 41:27

It's hard because, as a generation's go on, there's certain parts of certain generations that take a phone call is almost like to assertive so they want to get that electronic introduction, which is fine. But I think, roberto, the best way to answer that question is to say I use different modalities depending on what I want to do. So if I'm doing, let's say, an introduction, I want to introduce you to a possible guest in the future, I'll send out an introduction email. But if I want to get you interested in partnering or collaborating, I would be much more brief and I would make it almost a little mysterious. Like Roberto, saw your podcast, listen to five episodes, loved it. Curious how you choose your guests.

Speaker 2: 42:15

You know, just kind of get you to talk a little bit. So it depends on the modality. If I'm dealing with my kids, I three daughters and a son if I'm dealing with them, they know if they're going to go beyond two sentences, don't email me or text me. You call me text and email is not anything for something past two sentences, unless it needs to be retained for some weird reason. But our attention span for reading. I just talked to a marketing expert the other day. They said you've got eight seconds. Once you go beyond that, nobody's going to read me further or absorb anything further. So I try to keep any written communication I do super brief, a little bit mysterious. I don't ask them for anything unless it's about them, and then I follow up with a phone call.

Speaker 2: 43:08

Yeah just my mode, not saying that's the answer for everybody, it's just I prefer to do it.

Speaker 1: 43:13

Yeah, yeah, no, it's awesome. But you see, you gave a couple of live examples there and listeners can't see my reaction, but when this goes on YouTube, they will. But you know, we actually gave some examples of how an approach can provoke a negative or positive reaction, right. So when we were doing the phone thing.

Speaker 1: 43:35

we probably could have actually workshopped it a bit better, so I'm sorry about that but you know, like we gave the first example of the wrong quote, unquote, wrong way to do it, and you know I was almost swearing at you, which I don't want to do because you're such a lovely guy.

Speaker 1: 43:51

And I don't want to expose you to my potty mouth, but then you gave your approach and immediately I actually felt better about myself. I was like, oh my God, this guy's done his homework and, yeah, actually I'd like to talk to him. And then it was the same, with the written version, right, my version. Like what the hell do you want your one? I'm curious as to how you select your guess. Oh, wow, he's curious about something that I do. Hmm, maybe I want to share this with him.

Speaker 2: 44:20

You know, it opens the door, right, which is it does, and I think the thing people need to remember when doing this is people do this a lot Like. If I could show you a way to do this, would you be interested? Wrong question to ask. You're asking a question where you're guaranteeing a yes. Well, of course I'd be interested. The way to do it is to ask something more open-ended. Just let their mind wonder. Let it break the conditioning of the yes or no. I'm not taking away from any of the books that say how to get to yes or getting no right away is a great idea to approach things. I'm not taking anything away from those methodologies. As a matter of fact, they're amazing in the right scenarios but to me, breaking the conditioning of a yes or no and getting them to tell a little bit about themselves is how I start somebody to get to feel good about communicating with me.

Speaker 1: 45:16

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:17

I'm not saying it works 100% of the time, but it has worked well enough that 99% of business I get is through referrals People just saying, hey, you really need to talk to Jake about this, and I think that's the best place to be. It's just not having to rely or build your life around cold calls and you need them to get started. But the whole goal, man, is to build such relationships with people that they say, hey, listen, roberto's the guy you got to talk to. I'll make an intro right now. That's the spot you want to get to, yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:58

Jake, I am conscious of time and I want to ask you about 210.

Speaker 2: 46:04

Yeah, we can, we can come in the nutshell.

Speaker 1: 46:09

But I feel like I could go on and on with you forever. But I mean, we're talking about such a complex subject, right, but talk to me about 210. And it's something that you are going to. I mean, at the moment, you're working on a book which is not in a form that we can talk about at the moment.

Speaker 1: 46:28

It will be coming in the future, but 210 is something that you will be talking about within that. Talk to me about the 210 rule of communication, because that is something that really intrigued me when I saw this theorem that you've come up with. You need to name it the Stull method of anyway. Over to you, sir.

Speaker 2: 46:53

So the 210 rule says it's this in a nutshell the cadence of a conversation is far more important than a content, especially in the beginning. Let me tell you what I mean. The 210 rule basically says for every two minutes you're talking to somebody, you should add one interaction, meaning that I get you to talk more than a yes or no, but I get you to talk in the conversation and at the end of 10 minutes I make sure I wrap up which we just said over the last 10 minutes. So, roberto man, we just talked about a lot and I have blathered endlessly. Do you have any questions or have I been unclear on anything? So the first objection I get is wow, two and 10 minutes. What if the conversation short? The two and 10 are just the police tape around maximum times. Don't go beyond two minutes without an interaction. Don't go beyond 10 minutes without a good, all encompassing question. For all I care, it could be the 22nd two minute rule, it could be the 32nd five minute rule, but make sure those are buried in there. And here's why People need to be heard. You look back in our history. You see cave drawings. So even back to our caveman ancestors, there were people yearning to be heard. They either want to see their story again or they want other people to see their story. So we've always needed to be heard. So if I can encourage that interaction between the two of us by doing that those two and 10 breaks it's amazing how, what an increase in feedback there is on both sides. You're happy because I'm not just yelling at you. I'm happy because I'm learning about you, which I want to do, and at the end of 10 minutes I'm removing any doubts about what we just talked about the previous 10 minutes and then I'm restarting the process again. So it encourages interaction and conversation.

Speaker 2: 48:58

And the reason I developed this, roberto, is very simple. In the past 30 years in training development, I have heard countless teachers say you have to have a conversation, you have to actively listen, but nobody has ever said here's how you do that effectively. All I did was put time parameters on there and then, during my coursework on 210, I teach you how to create those interactions through empathetic statements and questions, through mirroring, through repeat backs and then, as it lines up, happening as people's relationships grow. I've helped marry couples with this and they can now talk to each other again as kids. Roberto, this is easy. Listen to two five year olds I like trucks. What do you like? My favorite color is black. Do you like pink? That's my mom. Which one is yours? It's natural Somewhere along the line we lose it and sales people for some reason never get it back.

Speaker 2: 49:57

All I do is teach you how to have the perfect conversation and how to make it meaningful. The rest of it just sells itself. Because once you and I have that in that cadence back and forth, the content matters. But until that case is there? My argument and my theory is the content has very little impact.

Speaker 1: 50:19

Everything that we've talked about is about creating little micro win-win situations in between each site, right, whether it's sales person to prospects or just with each other. And it's funny because I was thinking when you were describing 210 there, I was thinking exactly that in a relationship situation. So my wife, for example, I could actually benefit our relationship a hell of a lot if I applied that kind of rule. Right, because most of the time she just wants me to listen to her and I know that I don't listen to her because she constantly tells me that I don't. There was a famous I think it was McDonald's, but the guy I think it's McDonald's it was an advert that ran over here in Britain, jay, you'd have probably loved it. But the guy's daydreaming about what he's kind of ordered, like the new steak stack or whatever, and his wife asked him a question. He completely does not pay attention. And then she's like, hey, tell me, what do you think? And he turns around and he's like, oh, orange, because he's got no freaking clue what the hell she was talking about.

Speaker 2: 51:45

That's great.

Speaker 1: 51:46

Yeah, that's my household, Jake. Thank you so, so much Thanks for having me. I would you let me know when the book's ready so that we can actually get on again and talk about it. And I want to buy it, but I just I want to. I want to spend more time with you. You're awesome. I think it's also because of some of the little examples you gave that have like just strengthens our connection. But yeah, no, I had a blast with you and I think you were recommended to me as a guest.

Speaker 2: 52:22

Am I correct? Yes, I was yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's that referral thing again there was that referral thing again right? But yeah.

Speaker 1: 52:32

I just every interact, listen you lot listening. Every interaction that I've had with Jake prior to jumping on today and today is the first time he and I have spoken. We only had a couple minutes of pre-talk, so you've heard our relationship develop over the last 45 minutes or so and he is living, breathing, testament to everything that he actually does. So if you do want to book a free one hour consultation with Jake and explore how he's able to help you to elevate your game whether you're someone who is maybe in leadership within a corporate organization that wants to kind of give a kick up the ass to your sales organization so actually, no, that's not what we do, we help or you're an individual that is is just really looking to kind of up your own sales game, then you can get 60 minutes, no obligation, with Jake. Go to Karen Lee dot com.

Speaker 1: 53:35

Forward slash Jake style consulting. Forward slash 60 hyphen minute, hyphen meeting, and I'll put that in the show notes as well. You can book a call with him. You've just spent the last 45 minutes listening to him. He's a lovely, lovely human being. He's not going to ram anything down your throat. But if, after that 60 minutes, I reckon, jake, your attitude is if you've managed to help someone and they don't want to do anything after that, that's absolutely fine.

Speaker 2: 54:05

But yeah, there's no pressure.

Speaker 1: 54:07

I'm guessing, more often than not, that you know they want to do something with you, so thank you. So yeah, so head to that link. Jake, have you had fun today?

Speaker 2: 54:16

Oh my God, Roberto, this is one of the best podcasts I've ever been on. This was fantastic.

Speaker 1: 54:22

Oh, thank you. I'm going red underneath this brown exterior, but no, thank you. Thank you, we didn't talk about your dog. You have a German shepherd. I grew up with German shepherds.

Speaker 2: 54:35

Yes, her name is Carrie. She is a wonderful dog. Responds to probably 1520 commands and I take no credit, for she's smarter than I am. When I'm not talking to her, she's typing her master's thesis somewhere in the bedroom. Hits.

Speaker 1: 54:50

She's a good dog yeah. I'm blessed and I can see how much you love her, because I could see. I could see the emotion in your eyes all of a sudden.

Speaker 2: 54:58

Yeah, she's a great dog.

Speaker 1: 55:00

I mean, I love us so much and our cat, Frankie. He's kind of sitting just on the chair next to me in the, in the CFO's chair over there. The only one that we struggle with is the Bengal, but you know she's semi-feral. What can you do, Jake? Thank you so, so much. Thank you all so much for joining Jake and I. I've had so much fun with Jake today and I've learned so much, and I hope you have as well. Please follow us on Instagram for our latest episode updates, highlights and news. The podcast is also available on YouTube. I didn't realize, Jake, do you know how many people listen to podcasts on YouTube? Your eyebrows are foreign. It's crazy. Currently they just press play.

Speaker 1: 55:42

Even the ones that there's no video. They just press play on their laptops or whatever and just leave them running in the background.

Speaker 2: 55:48

I had heard that YouTube was becoming the top podcasting platform.

Speaker 1: 55:53

I think that's fascinating. It's great. I think it's fantastic. You and I are going to do this again. Sounds great, yeah, and if you've got any questions for Jake or for me, email the show at tenorintalkpodcastgmailcom and I'll put them forward to Jake. He and I are in touch now and who'd be more than happy to answer them. Maybe we could do some shorts or something.

Speaker 1: 56:15

Hit subscribe, give me a rating and review, click the share button in your player to send this episode Someone you know who needs to hear what Jake shared and taught us today. And if you want to support the show, there is 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.