8 Things to Book More Meetings

Speaker 0    00:00:01    Coming to you from Orlando, Florida, Orlando, Florida, and streaming around the world around the world. You are now tuned in to the sales samurai podcast. The only B2B sales podcast, providing unfiltered unapologetic views and tactics directly from the sales trenches. Here's your host, Sam Capra.  
Speaker 1    00:00:30    Welcome to another episode of the sales samurai. Thanks for listening. Uh, before we begin, do us a favor, take a moment to subscribe and download on today's show. We're going to be discussing how to book more meetings. I mean, I think that's the chain of all conversations when it comes to B2B sales and generating pipeline and things of that nature. And it's highly important. I have a fantastic guest with us. Marcus Chan, who's just been doing everyone, knows who Marcus Shannon's. If you've been on LinkedIn at any point in your life, you've seen this content. He does a tremendous amount of things around the sales spectrum. And he's going to do a little quick introduction for us, but Marcus sincerely appreciate you being on the show.  
Speaker 2    00:01:06    Hey, Sam was my absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.  
Speaker 1    00:01:11    Well, man, it is my pleasure brother. So you're out there in Portland, so we're a good three hours across the coast. So you're in the middle of your day. We're slowly wrapping it up here on the east coast.  
Speaker 2    00:01:21    Yeah, man. So it's, you know what? I envy you guys, but I'm also excited because I have three more hours ahead of us. So I got more time to go my day. I love it.  
Speaker 1    00:01:31    That is fantastic, man. So tell us a little bit about yourself. I'd look at, I said, I know you're all over LinkedIn. You do a tremendous amount of different things from LinkedIn, Salesforce from influencer Forbes, you name it, kind of give the audience a little bit of a background if you don't mind.  
Speaker 2    00:01:44    Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, thanks so much for having me on I'm Marcus Shan, founder of Bentley consultant group, in which we work directly B2B sales professionals, to help you earn an additional 50 to a hundred thousand dollars more without making thousands of cold calls working your ass off due to all of the type of things, a sales coaching business I've run now for just over two years, been really fortunate, got featured in all those things. We've had incredible success and that's been a really cool and I feel absolutely blessed for that. The truth is actually never applied to be an entrepreneur is never actually goal because before this, I was in corporate America for about 14 years and I love what I did. I started B2B sales. I will only work for two major companies and I can promote a new 10 times and 10 years hallux assess what all the wars presidents club is always awards trips and all these things that was all now was gravy.  
Speaker 2    00:02:31    It got support where Lily, I was running a team of 110,000 employees over multiple states and we were crushing. It absolutely loved it, but it got to the point where I knew if I wanted to serve at a higher level to really reach my potential, how to go uncapped completely uncuffed, if you will no limits to be able to do whatever I want and now start my own business. So I actually started my own business. You know, a couple of years ago, I actually started as a side hustle while stork of America is exploded in growth because of it. And I made the leap a couple years ago, but since then it's been a wild journey, but I've been super blessed, made a lot mistakes all throughout my whole career, but it's been a lot of fun getting to this point.  
Speaker 1    00:03:13    That's fantastic, man. And I love I'm going to dig in a little bit on that because I love those origin stories, but I love the fact you said, I think two years ago, three years ago, that was actually before side hustles became a thing. I mean, I think side hustles are all the thing now, but that was back when you were actually grinding and no one knew  
Speaker 2    00:03:31    That's right. That's exactly right. Yeah. It was as well as things where I grew up really poor. I grew up brutally poor. You know, my parents are immigrants that came to America, so, and they were entrepreneurs. They had a restaurant. So I saw how hard life was. So I never want to go into that Laumaka. That's not for me. I'll want to like use my brain, like for money. I want to like, you know, wear nice clothes. I don't want to work in a restaurant. So corporate life was really good for me. And it really started in two, out of 15, where at that point I'd been promoted really 10 times in like seven, eight years. And for these major fortune 500 company, people were like, how the heck did you do that? You should write a book, just do whatever. So I learned how to read some eBooks, start to sell those online. And that grew into building online courses, coaching and all the other things that just kind of brought into fruition because of that.  
Speaker 1    00:04:22    That's fantastic, man. That's awesome. So tell us a little bit about your origin story from a sales perspective. I always laugh about with guests because I don't think anyone's ever grown up as a kid thinking to themselves, I'm going to be a sales rep one day. That's not usually the career path, but tell us how did you get into the sales spectrum of things?  
Speaker 2    00:04:39    Yeah, absolutely. So what's interesting is it took me a long time to even admit that I was in sales. And I remember when I graduated college, I told my family and what else was going to do? I mean, they were not happy because they wanted to be a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant. And they kind of saw through my college trajectory that I wasn't going to do those things. Cause honestly I didn't go to school for the stakes. So when I graduated, I was really fortunate because at the time I had a few different job offers on the table and one was B2B sales for a startup division for a company I had already been working for as an intern. It was brand new is all B2B sales, leading into other roles, working at banks, you know, financial advising, et cetera, analyst roles. So accounts like a popery mix of different roles that range like a 30 K base salary to a 60 K base salary.  
Speaker 2    00:05:29    Right? And I went for the 29 5 20 $9,500 base salary. Why, which is the BDB sales for the startup division two basic cut my teeth into sales. And even at that point though, I wasn't willing to middle sales because to me I'm like build something from scratch. This is a starved division. We have zero customer, zero clients. I'm going to go out there and figure out how to sell and grow as business. It's real. Except when you build an empire, if you will, to me, that's what I saw. And before this, you know, I did other types of like eat, not always an easy sales rules, but they were like just like business, consumer retail, sales, done different things like that. So, and it was mostly customer service focused. So I was like, okay, I'm pretty good at this. And I always had pretty good results doing that.  
Speaker 2    00:06:12    And I'm pretty good with people. So this should be pretty easy. And this is my first taste into like pure cold outside sales, outbound, cold calling cold email door, knocking boots on the street. And I remember like on day one, I had no trading of course. Right. And my boss never did the job, but he did give me a manual. Sam written by people that had never done the job before. Right. A lot of theory, which you're good to go, man. Awesome. Good luck. Here you go. Boom. I'm like, all right. And so I went to my boss, Hey, Hey, you know, what should I do today? He said, I want you to go out and I want you to knock on 30 doors. All right. I do you have business cards yet? So he gave me a stack of his business cards. Okay. I see he's at 30.  
Speaker 2    00:06:55    I'm going to show him what's up. I'm going to do 60 I'm to assume it's up. I'm going to crush this role. All right. I go out there and walk into 60 businesses by foot. That day zero booked appointments, zero closed deals, zero interests. I'm like, that's insane. That makes zero sense. Let me try again next to the next day. I'll walk into over 60 businesses again. So at this 0.2 days, 120 plus businesses, zero interest, zero like bookworm and zero deals. Oh my God. This is like way harder than expected. And I go to my boss and say, Hey, what, what should I do? Should I keep going back on? Like, I mean, I have a less than 1% success rate now, which sounds insane to me. He's like, no, call them. All right. So that day I call every single one. All right.  
Speaker 2    00:07:38    I'll make over a hundred calls that day. No book appointments, no interest. I'll be like next day. What should I do? And he's like call yet. I'm like, all right. So I called again at this point, I'm like four days in, right. I think Monday came, when did Monday, but Friday, I'm like, I'm feeling an absolute failure and absolute failure. I'm like, I can't do sales. I should have been accountants. I should become an engineer. I should have been a dentist or something. What is wrong with me? I can't do this. And the, you know, fast forward, you know, eventually I figured it out how to have success. And by month three, I was a number up in the company. And then from there I could do to kind of skyrocket up, but it was pretty hard. I mean, it was, that was like my taste into, but here's the thing.  
Speaker 2    00:08:15    So I got promoted multiple times, built multiple seven figure operations. And at this point, like several years in, I've been coming for years, like four years and I was running a small team. I still wasn't willing to admit I was even a sales leader. I was like, I'm a branch manager. I oversee like operations oversee it all. I'm like, but I was like, you know, but then at that point you can't get to the point where you want to continue growing. So I decided to make, even though life was really good, like I was like 25 years old life was good. Bought my first house. Awesome house, making great money. Just got married, Oscar, my MBA the whole time. Like I'm thinking myself life is good. I'm like, but I need a lot more. I need to challenge myself more. Like maybe Falcom was so actually made a look to a whole different company.  
Speaker 2    00:08:57    Right. And start back over to go to step to motion, go back and do individually contributor role. And I'm like, can I do this again? Cause I wasn't sure. I'm like, maybe I got lucky, right? Within nine months I got promoted. So the nine months got promoted, had lost access to go to the sales team and then kept going up from there. But that's how I got my teeth in. But at that point it probably took me about five, six years to even admit that I was actually in sales to be actually be proud dozen sales. So now I probably would say, but at that point it took me a long time to even say, yup, I'm in sales  
Speaker 1    00:09:30    Without it. That's fantastic, man. So let me ask you, so now you've been in sales. I know you're an entrepreneur, but you're still selling. I mean like that's what you do. You're that's at your core. I could tell. Yep. So you've been doing it now for what? 10? What's the magic number.  
Speaker 2    00:09:44    Let's take a look. So officially in B2B sales we're 14 years specifically.  
Speaker 1    00:09:48    Okay. So I'm going to ask you a question and this is one I always love asking people is tell me in that 14 year span, like what is from a sales perspective, what has gone the right direction? What is going the wrong direction, in your opinion,  
Speaker 2    00:10:02    And worse, just like overall, the sales of the industry,  
Speaker 1    00:10:06    Anything that relates to sales, you know, some people say technology is great, but then it also creates so much noise. Like whatever you think, mark is just curious what your take is on that.  
Speaker 2    00:10:16    I mean, if we're going to talk about, say technology, I would say it's actually a weekend. A lot of reps it's actually absolved a lot of salespeople from actually being good at the core fundamentals of human psychology of persuasion. So here's what I mean by that. So yeah, it's because probably, cause I figured out buy it I'm like a dinosaur, but they're like I started sales before there was an automation tools, sequencing tools and all these other things that many reps today depend on. So what they end up doing is, you know, the baby company buys a bunch of leads or they get a marketing list of lead. Like I'm gonna put them into a sequence and I'm going to send off like all these emails and like the 1% that we're going to convert over and I'm going to convert those to close deals.  
Speaker 2    00:11:01    Yeah. That can work for sure. To a certain extent when the market is good, the economy is good. But if you don't know how to be able to convert other people, not the, those ones are going to buy anyways, this is a matter of timing, right? It doesn't matter. Get in front of them. It's how can we give more to other people who are just not thinking about that? The completely cold traffic. And I think it's really weakened reps to have the skills and the fundamentals of actually being good in the role, like made them want to hide behind email sequences versus picking up the phone, having a phone conversation, being able to negotiate. So for example, it's not uncommon. I'll talk to clients and they're like, oh man, like the email back, like, you know, like trying to go, should I be emailing it?  
Speaker 2    00:11:45    Could I do this temperature instead? How should I respond? And I'm like, pick the phone up and call them can negotiate an objection that they don't like you had to get them on the phone, get them on a zoom call and have a conversation like a human being. So that way you're able to eliminate any uncertainty they actually may have about your solution with that. So I think with a lot of this automation, a lot tech can really help for sort of extent. It can supercharge a really talented sales professional, but it can really weaken many other reps as a result of the dependent entirely upon it. I believe though, if you can combine both, if you have strong sales fundamentals, any use also like automation tools to help you as well, it can explode you and amazing in the, in the growth and results. Like for example, from my business, the reason we've been fortunate really successful over the last couple of years is because I'm taking all the technology that I've figured out how to use plus the fundamentals of sales and a combined together to grow my business. And it works together. It wasn't one or the others. I need both.  
Speaker 1    00:12:47    So, and I want to make sure I kind of, I know where you're going with this. What you've said is really kind of technology is the good and the bad into itself. Right. And I've had, I've used this, I agree with it. It's made laser your sales reps, even lazier and it's made great sales even better. Right? It's that yin and yang if you will. So I love that piece of that. And I love what you said when you, when we were talking through this, that if someone brought this up to me, they were like, it's kind of like field of dreams. Some reps just think I'll send out the emails and then they will come. You know, if I build it, they'll come and that's just not sales-ey and that's just not how it works. If you're agreeing disagree, I'm assuming you're agreeing because you're shaking your head. Give me your thoughts. Yeah.  
Speaker 2    00:13:27    Oh yeah. You're right. Because they'll look for the magic script, the magic templates, right? And they're like fire, right? This specific line in here, this specific email framework they're going to come back automatically book means I'm like if it was that easy that every single person will be in sales and they would all be making multiple six figures to seven figures plus like, but that's not the case. That's not the case. If it was that easy, then you compound will be way harder. You're going to be way harder to achieve.  
Speaker 1    00:13:57    Right. Without a doubt, without a doubt. And what's the old saying, if it, to your point, you know, if it was easy, everybody would do it. But also if there was a tip like this, it would be saturated in one week. Cause everyone would jump on to that. Correct.  
Speaker 2    00:14:09    Right. Correct. So this is actually why I have an issue with like sales, gurus and influencers because it's like they put something out there on the interweb half the time. Most of them had never actually carried the bag, done the job and actually aren't even practitioners to this day. And then suddenly the market's saturated you'll do the same template. And I seen them like, all right, the breakup email, it was a good example. I'm like, oh my God. Like if someone sent me a BRCA BMO, all just all of those, do I think that makes zero sense. We're not even dating. Why is it record email? You know? Like it makes no sense.  
Speaker 1    00:14:41    It's funny because when you say that, I remember way back in the first days where I literally got my first email and sales, which has many moons ago. I remember we used to call it a dear Gabby. I don't even know what that came from, but it was a breakup, but it's been around since I've had an email address and sales, which is going over two decades. So you're right. It's one of those types of things. We fall into these ruts as sales professionals that if someone tells us to do it, gets into the masses, whether there's legitimacy to it, context to it, we just fully charge at it. And we just kind of hang around to it if you will. So it's funny, you mentioned that,  
Speaker 2    00:15:17    Uh, so spa, this is the dangerous part about social media, because if they have a big following, whatever, I've seen some people with big followings and I can tell like, oh, I talked to them and we had a scenes. Like if they have their own business, some of these sales coaches don't actually know what they're doing. They're actually not practitioners, even what they're preaching. And some of the watch to try to strangely enough to try to like pay me, to work with them, to help them. And I'm like that. I'm like, there's a conflict of interest for our stuff. It's really kind of strange. But number two, like if you can actually do what you're saying, then you shouldn't be selling it. I mean, it's just not ethical.  
Speaker 1    00:15:53    Got it done. So I appreciate you kind of giving me that background because it's funny, you know, as I talked to, I think individuals like yourself that have lived in breeds that continue to live and breathe it right. There are much more practitioners and they are the quasi influencers. They're in the trenches today, which that's what I love about having these conversations. I wanted to talk to you because you've put something out. The reason I reached out to you really wanted you on the show is because you put something out called eight things to book more meetings. And obviously as, as a head of sales, leading my team, I'm still in the trenches as well. Booking meetings is like the holy grail to me. Right. Cause you can't close a deal unless you start it feel right. Does it happen? So I wanted to get you on the show. I wanted to talk through it. So there's eight things that we're going to talk through, but I want to kind of walk through and get your thoughts around it and just kind of boil down the ocean a bit on these things. So as it, isn't important as we go through this is that fair  
Speaker 2    00:16:47    100%.  
Speaker 1    00:16:49    Awesome. So number one and this I think is number one, I couldn't, I was so happy when you put this number. I think this is actually things people skip right by. You put, prepare a hyper targeted list. Tell me about that. Walk us through that a bit.  
Speaker 2    00:17:05    Absolutely. So one of the most common mistakes I see is people, you know, if they're preparing to call or whatever, either they take a list or company gave them or these kind of build an arbitrary list and the arbitrary list could be just like, oh, you know what? These are people like in this industry. Okay. Like, it's the same, for example, let's just say, if I sell an HR software, I'm going to a target HR execs. Yeah. You could do that. However, like what is your ICP, your ideal customer profile. So when is that general that doesn't incorporate what industries they're in, what they actually do specifically, how big is a company they even qualify. Like if you picture, like when you call and say HR, exact, you call HR exec of a, say a $5 million company versus a $500 million company. It's a wildly different conversation.  
Speaker 2    00:17:59    Now, if you are able to be hyper niche down, say, okay, I'm going to look for specifically on the west coast at HR executives who work for a 250 to $500 million company that believes 500 plus employees. And also they've been in business for at least 10 years. And they're in this specific industry of manufacturing. Now you build way better niche down list. So now when you actually calling, you have a higher chance of actually booking the means, but also they probably got money because they're actually a good size business versus an arbitrary list. And, and you can pass across the board, but it's really getting as deep as you can, as niche as you can to have a better list. So we have a better list, you know, better quality lists can buy better data and you can actually go and have a higher chance actually booking because you're actually using more relevant references as part of your talk tracks, like I said,  
Speaker 1    00:18:54    And I absolutely love the fact that you listed that as number one, I didn't know if it was stack ranked or not, but it's listed as number one and know as I was reading through this.  
Speaker 2    00:19:03    So we're all stars to list.  
Speaker 1    00:19:04    It all starts with that. Right. And it does a few things, right? In my opinion, it does a few things because I remember back in the day, Marcus, you've been doing this a long time, just as I have. It used to be. I don't have enough accounts. I don't have enough people to call. And that used to be the sales mentality. It's a numbers game. I got a call more. And now it's really not. It's it's swung the other way. I'm not trying to have 50 bright people in 5 million wrong people.  
Speaker 2    00:19:27    Right, exactly. Right. So  
Speaker 1    00:19:29    That's, I think where you're going, I love about this is if you get really hyper personalized, you don't have to think about pivoting on a call. Every if like, if you're talking to the same kind of person get like, you know what I mean? You kind of start to wield and mesh to that kind of role. If you will. And the pain points, you already know the objections you probably are and you make life a lot easier on yourself. Right? Am I off base?  
Speaker 2    00:19:54    You're a hundred percent like you literally, you literally like, Hey, why talk to other HR executives say they have one of three problems. Number one, they have high turnover. Number two, be problem. Number three, problem. C R a is relevant to you, right? Yeah. Actually, yes. That makes sense because it's a highly targeted list. Like it's pictures, it's as simple as this. If you sold specific vegan products a year to list of only vegans on the list and you also found their income levels, Hey, you know what? You can, now you can sell the specifically expensive vegan products. However, if you didn't have a good lens to make sure that people that eat meat, eat whatever, and then you try to sell them like vegan proximate. Like, why are you calling me? I'm a heavy stake heater. They're like, they're hanging up on you. Right? Like you're not speaking their language. You're not, they don't feel it. You don't feel it. They don't, you don't know their pains with that.  
Speaker 1    00:20:43    That's funny. So let's move on to number two. I think it kind of dovetails because of what we just talked about, about practice, what you plan to say. So it's muscle memory. So walk us through that  
Speaker 2    00:20:54    100%. So our brains are very simple. We can map out how we planning to go and with specific word tracks, for example, the more we practice with a word track, easier, it becomes. So the mistake many people make is, and I'm not about saying we need to memorize scripts and be a script robot. I'm just saying you need to have frameworks and have a pretty clear idea of what you're going to say. Will you write a script out? Probably should, should you practice? It doesn't sound like a script. Absolutely practice. It doesn't sound like a script, but the more, you know it, the more, you know, the more you internalize it, the more present you can actually be on the call. If you are scrambling wondering what to say next or thinking about to say next, you're actually not listening to them. And you're not able to be present.  
Speaker 2    00:21:41    This applies on the cold call to a discovery call or a thing because thinking too much. So you are practice of point where you don't have to think so the way I think about it, it's just like athletes, athletes spend 99% of their time working out and practicing that 1% on the field, on the track in the pool. And actually competing is only 1% of the time, but they spend so much time practice. So that way, once they're actually playing the game, they're ready to win. And someone throws in the ball, they're not thinking, oh, what should I do next? They know exactly how to catch the ball. Exactly what to do next. And that's how the ball box should be as well. Because when you, once you're on the phones, you block out your a hundred percent blocked out and it's like, it's go time. And all your instincts will go out the window unless you've honed the instincts. And you mapped out the pathways in your brain on what to do next. Once they give you the objection. Once you know what to say, once they answer the phone,  
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Speaker 1    00:23:17    So well, I love what you said in there is you use the term framework. I know people throw us scripts. I think everyone kind of talks about a little bit differently. I love the term framework. You know, I've heard talking points, you know, kind of top, but what I really love is the fact that you backed it up by saying, Hey, you need something. You need a foundation. And an old mentor of mine used to always say, Hey, have you ever seen a movie Brad Pitt or whoever, right? Those were all scripts, but they've learned it so well that it looks natural. That that's how you should in sales. Right? That's the goal. That's the utopia. So I love that piece of it. So talk to me about number four. Cause this, when I was actually thinking through a little bit, you put, expect for objections minimum before they book. So help me understand that a bit.  
Speaker 2    00:24:00    So when you think about the objections, you get, you always the same, like three to four objections. It's like always the same. It's like, I'm not interested. I'm too busy. We already have a vendor  
Speaker 1    00:24:13    Of happy with my current customer. Yeah.  
Speaker 2    00:24:15    Yeah. I mean, to me, here's the why, but I actually, it was a different time, but I believe all objections are the same. It's just status quo. That's all it is. Like I don't want to change. Right. That's all it is. So, but when you mentally prepare for that and you mentally prepared it into, you know, Hey, you know what, they're going to give you four objections. You're less likely to give up after two objections. Like when you're preparing for the worst, that's going to happen. You as many objections as possible, then you, if you know that, then you're like ready to go. You're like, you're ready to like to handle all the objections. But when you're not ready, you think it there's only be a couple and you get like three you're like in crumble or you get one you crumble. You're like, ah, you're like, you like fall over.  
Speaker 2    00:24:58    I'll give examples. So I'm a ride, just hired a rep who had said they were like super good. And then all these things and everything's going to work out and turns out though, they were big on the phones. I didn't realize this. So these are all worked for me. And I'm sitting in the bullpen with them. I remember they sound amazing. And the first thing the person answered, they sound amazing. At first, first objection comes raw. And then the customer says something like, I can't really was like, I'm not interested. And like, it was like, seems like it's just like ice cream melts fast, fast. I can only see like the COVID drip out of this rep. And he's like, okay, thank you, marina. Time hangs up. He hangs on me. I'm like, Hey, why are you? What happened? He's like, that's never happened before.  
Speaker 2    00:25:41    I'm like, what do you mean? It never happened before? Like what? He's like. Yeah. I just didn't see. I come and I'm like, whoa. And that was like such a great reminder that he just meant wasn't mentally ready for more than what? Objection. We're ready. Really. He had one to get knocked over. But my point is, is when you expect to like, sort of come at you with like four objections, you're like, all right, I'm ready for the four. So if you give me anything less than four, great, the only three nailed it. And reality is most reps I find give up after one or two objections, they just kind of give up. They fold and they move on. But the really good ones understand they can handle three or four objections. Their chances of booking go up drastically. But also on top of that, they are able to create more of an expert authority on the phone with the prospect because their level of conviction so much stronger, that process is like, wow, okay, this person is so convicted. What they're saying? I promise you get a little bit of time. You know,  
Speaker 1    00:26:38    Funny mark says, as you were talking through that, I remember my days, way back when back dinosaurs roamed the earth and selling uniforms. I had a weekly quota. I had to make 500 dials a week. I had to make 200 face-to-face cold calls knocking on doors and you misquote or two weeks in a row you're out. And I'd never forget my old trainer. He threw a phone book and said, okay, call every mechanic in Birmingham, Alabama, and go at it. But he gave me a script. He said, learn this, like the back of your hand, work with your wife, work with your daughter, whoever you got your ass, just nail it. And you know what I really found in doing that outside of learning the script, but is having that many calls. And I know we're not here just to just make, dial for dollars anymore, but I just kept hearing the objection over and over.  
Speaker 1    00:27:23    It automatically prepared me that by the 800 time I made the calls, like I just knew what to say because I had heard it so much that it was just a, to your point earlier, a muscle memory. Hey, I heard that before. I actually heard that with this customer yesterday or the day before. And here's what we, what we taught you. We just went down that path. It was just a natural conversation and not a confrontational you're objecting to me. Let me overcome that objection. So I love the, how that kind of unfolded based on the rep that you had picked up the phone and got rolled over with the one objection.  
Speaker 2    00:27:56    Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And by the way, I'm not sure if you knew this, I came from the uniform industry to nine years. Oh, where were you at Cintas?  
Speaker 1    00:28:06    They sent us, but we're going to wrap it up and we got to get offline. We can talk about that. I will say to this day, that training, like, it was just great for me. It was great because the weekly, the urgency of just the volume I had to do, it really helped me understand the urgency you have to have in sales.  
Speaker 2    00:28:28    That's right. That's right. So talk to me a little about  
Speaker 1    00:28:30    Role-play because I love this one. You put, role-play your five calls with friend before you actually start calling. Give us a little insight onto that  
Speaker 2    00:28:38    1%. So it's interesting because in sales, if you have a certain driver within you, you feel like each day gets kind of start back over each day, got, prove yourself. And no matter what happened yesterday, you know, if you're a good salesperson yesterday, it means nothing now of like today's a whole new day. It's not approved by self a once again. And the thing is like, the hardest call to make is always the first call, right? Like the hardest door to like to knock down. It's like, is your house door, right? Like it's your car door. Right? And then is your prospect's door, right? So there's always these multiple levels. He had a breakthrough. So you can get a great day. The next day we going to start back over, no matter how many calls you've made in your life, like your brain is not quite ready for that next call the next day.  
Speaker 2    00:29:25    Like from the objections to what you're going to say. So you want to just warm yourself and I pictures. It's just like working out. Even though I worked out yesterday, before I work out today, I'm going to stretch. I'm going to warm up first. So this way I can do a great work at the best peak performance before it go. And I see cold calling as exactly the same. So if you had a great day yesterday, great, your new day to start it before he go into it, role play with you. Don't a friend appear the first five calls on your list. Imagine they're going to give you four objections each. So you mentally walk through how you would handle projects. You're verbally doing it. So you actually, you warm up your brain, your mouth muscles, your throat, and even your body language. So you can actually set yourself up MEK, physically you to actually Excel.  
Speaker 2    00:30:18    So one thing that I did, which really helped me early on, I suppose, what I was driving to the office is a 45 minute, five minute commute. I literally would role play out loud on my drive, in my car, to the office, right out loud. I'm like handling every objection. I'm going through everything. So by the time I'm at the office, I had role play that I don't know, like eight, nine times that cold call, the worst possible cold call could happen. So I was mentally ready. So that way, once I pick up the phones, I'm ready to go. There's no thinking there's no warming up. There's no stretching needed to be done because I already did it. So not only this way, be better on the phones. This estimate competitive advantage because when the clock hit eight o'clock, we started dialing in the bullpen. Everyone else is twiddling. Their thumbs wasting time. I'm ripping down my dials. I'm ready to go because they're like this guy's machine. I'm like, I'm not a machine. I simply prepared before I got to the office, I just warmed up. I role-play, that's the best way to do it.  
Speaker 1    00:31:18    She loved that. I love it. So here's a couple of things I've heard people always talk about, you know, today's day and age, you've got the gongs, you got the choruses, you got these homeless, you got these conversation intelligence tools, and those are valuable to listen back and hear what you did wrong and how should you use coaching all that. Fantastic. But I love the angle and I think that's an element to it, but I love what you're saying, because it's not just for that. This is actually intended for you to get some of the at-bats right. It's intended to get some warm ups. So correct. You're in the right frame of mind, as you do hit the dials to hit the ground running. And I don't, I think that's actually missed quite a bit one that aspect of things that warming up. So I, I really thought that was a great call out.  
Speaker 2    00:32:02    Great athlete warms up before any game, any event, they don't dislike, roll a bad and just jump on the gymnastics, you know, bounce, beat, you know, they'll just jump in the pool. They'll just run and try and be like the little warmup fricking hours that time potentially.  
Speaker 1    00:32:19    I have to say, I've never thought about this. When I was kind of, when I saw your list, I thought to myself, I'm going to create a list on my own. And I'm just going to think through what I'm going to kind of block out. Marcus's are not cheap from his, and I just don't pull over, but I didn't think of this one. And as I saw yours and number five, just for the audience, stand up while you call. But I noticed I didn't list, but I noticed when I'm making calls, I'm always standing up. I always, I like walking around. I like I'm very hands oriented. Talk to us a little about standing up. What's the thought process behind  
Speaker 2    00:32:50    For sure. So one of the great things you can do understanding that how you're officially set up standing, sitting, and laying down, doing whatever changes, how you think and the way I think about it's like this. Like if you're ever like really, really upset, try smiling, it's really hard. And it's really hard. If you're sad and you're crying and you're trying to like start laugh, try to laugh. It's like almost impossible. So what that happens is whatever your body is doing, it really shifts how you think that's, that's the power of it, right? So people will say, yes, smile while you dial also for sure. But I have found when you are positioning your body and power poses and you are standing in a position where you feel more confident, I go like Superman or superwoman. You operate, your chest is out. Your shoulders are back.  
Speaker 2    00:33:44    And you're like looking at the screen, you're feeling good and you have energy and you feel grounded. It comes through in how you speak as well. So if you know that to be true, simply take advantage of that and such hope to stand while you call. It's always pacing. Walking can be powerful for many people. So why don't do that as well, as well as little hacks, if you will, that when you do it, it just works really well. Cause you feel good. And like I personally found that for myself. It's the same thing. Like I'll do like my zoom calls. Like, you know, if I'm running a sales call, they're all standing up. They're all like, I'm staying my stay out of the desperate. I'm standing up because I can feel bad. I can move around. I can go unrestricted. So that's the power of be able to set yourself up to fizzle, to feel good. And if for some people they feel better sitting down, find easy to reverse that that's totally cool too. But if your stay, if it's damaged, feel better, stand up. It's an easy hack.  
Speaker 1    00:34:39    That's fantastic. So the next one this way, I think is low-hanging low-hanging but out, I think it's actually one of the big things that people lose because they don't practice enough is the tonality pace and inflection. That's a tough one. Even for me, I find that's the biggest one. I either get real fast or I just, so talk to us a little bit about that. Why that's so important. And I want to ask you a follow-up question to that because I just saw something on LinkedIn. I want to get your thoughts on it, but talk to us a little bit about the tonality.  
Speaker 2    00:35:09    So tonality is so powerful. It changes how the message is being perceived. So for example, if I said, I don't know who ate the cookies. There has a meeting with there. I don't know who ate the cookies. I don't know who ate the cookies. So by even as shifting the tone to different, the inflection, a different word, the meaning has shifted as a result and as no different than on the phones as well. So when you emphasize certain words, it drives home different points. And when you understand that it's able to create a feeling for that prospect. But on top of that, when you're on the phone, they can't see you. They can't see you. So the way you hook them in and get their attention is not just the words you say, but it's how you say it. The how can also hook them in different ways.  
Speaker 2    00:36:12    Because if you're listened to like, I can audible book, like if some of them, if it's a boring reader, it can be the best content in the world, but I don't care. But if they are a good reader with good and fluxion, I'm like, damn, like it can be the most boring, but the world that sounds really good now. And if they are this excited, this passionate, and they're this much energy about this, I probably should pay attention. Yeah. So, you know, I think Brian, Tracy said a sale is a transfer of enthusiasm and on the phones, they can't see you. So all you got are the words you say and how you say it  
Speaker 1    00:36:49    Without a Def that's basically, you've just touched on the question I have, because I just saw LinkedIn poll, which is now all the rage. And it was that the question was, Hey, is it more what you say? Or how you say it? Like, you can only pick one and I want to get your thoughts on it because I don't know, it's kind of the chicken and the egg for me. I'm kind of like, well, both are important. But to your point, that audible bluff, if it's boring, it can be the greatest content. That could be exactly what I need to hear about. I'm like, I don't want to hear, it's just really boring. So maybe something that's less, not as good from a content standpoint, but how they delivered it actually does resonate with me more. Like, what is your thoughts on that? I mean, I know it's hard to pick, but what is your feeling on that?  
Speaker 2    00:37:33    It is hard as it, cause he definitely, you know, balance a boat, but had like choose one, like gun to my head. I would say it would be the how, like how you're saying. I know from personal experience, I remember I'm a fast talker by nature. I grew up with a speech. Impediment is still kicks in. I went through speech therapy for years, still have issues with it. I talk fast. I mumble, I stumble over all. It still happens today. So, but there's been a number of times where I booked an appointment of a prospect and I get to the meeting and it's before like zoom was the thing, right. Be face to face. And they will be like, Hey, I know we had a meeting, but this is gonna sound kind of stupid. What are we talking about? Who are you with? Like, you just sounded so passionate that I felt like I had like fearless FOMO that I had to talk to you. I'm like, damn, that's awesome. I'm like yet cable you actually showed up with that. I can't believe she kept her meeting. But my point is, is like, honestly, that's probably a exaggerate example if you will, of the how, but if you have a good balance of both, it's wildly powerful. So when you are intentional, if you are a real pro, you're not thinking about just the, what you're thinking of the how, and you can buy both together. It's a recipe for just a calendar full of appointments  
Speaker 1    00:38:47    Without a doubt. That's fantastic. And so these are two last ones that I actually thought are things that are very easily overlooked. You know, especially as, you know, people get to be everything going on in their lives, you know, they want to unwind, they stay up a little bit later, but the number one number seven thing on your list is getting a proper night's rest. I mean, as simple as that, like talk to me a little bit about like why, of all the things you could have put in this list. That's number seven. So obviously you see a lot of value and there's a lot of stock you're putting into it. Tell us a little bit about that.  
Speaker 2    00:39:19    Sure. A hundred percent. So you, when I think about this, when you think about sales they're are a high leverage activity, the low leverage activities, there are Y called IPA's income-producing activities. And then there's like, crap that you got to do as well. So your IPS or makes you money. And they usually require the most amount of energy to do the most focus. So those who are most effective of managing their energy, that's mental, physical, emotional, spiritual energy, the better they can be able to before when they're executing on the IPA's or the high leverage activities. And one of the key drivers, which helps recovery is proper sleep. Like when you get proper sleep, you just feel way better. And everything is totally different. Like we've all had those days where we had a bad night's sleep, we didn't get enough rest. And it's the normal things that would normally set us off.  
Speaker 2    00:40:10    Totally set us off. Just like little things like, ah, this prospect said, no, I'm so mad now I'm again, you know, irrational, you know, rage angry about it in a normal day. It wouldn't matter. So when you think about this, it's just the, if you have maybe call blocks set for certain times a day or week or the days before, you're just really trying to specifically those days, if not all the days you have proper sleep, you are position yourself to have a best possible day the next day. And the way I think about it is you can't always control the outcome on the phones. It cannot control the outcome on the sales call, but you can control things leading up to it. You can control the certain things that can help increase your win rate. One of the best ways is making sure you have proper sleep. When you get proper sleep, you feel better. You show up better, you're more focused. This allows to be better to do a better job with preparing for your calls. Actually role-play actually do the things that you want to do when you're tired. You don't want to do anything. So if you can control these, that piece right there of making sure your proper sleep, it can set you up to be wildly more productive with anybody else.  
Speaker 1    00:41:16    Yeah. You know, it's funny as you're talking through that is I find when I don't get enough sleep, two things either happen. One I get started later, right. It just takes me time to get started. You know, we might just start at 7:00 AM. I'm not getting started to close to deny it. I just lost two hours. Right, right. Or I compensate with coffee and then I crashed around two o'clock, 2 33 o'clock I lose the back half of the day, which is the two, three hours. So you're right. I don't think people connect those dots enough that that's absolutely vital from just a, a peak performance standpoint. I think you've tied it always back to the athletes. I mean, that's why athletes just get so much rest to eat healthy to your next point. They eat healthy breakfast is to kind of get their day started. But talk a little bit about that because I'm horrible with eating a healthy breakfast. That's my worst capacity. I don't do very well with that. So talk to us a little bit about that.  
Speaker 2    00:42:09    Yeah. So we've all had those like, you know, days where we're like, if we don't eat breakfast, then we start getting hungry. Right. And then it's hard to focus or on the flip side, if we eat too big of a breakfast, like we have a guy, I think I put there eat like a monster breakfast burrito, delicious a hundred percent awesome. Delicious. But now you feel it and you feel like a giant burrito and we don't, it's like being sick. We don't feel good. Or at your best, it's really hard to show up and be your best in sales. And I think about sales is like one of the best things I learned was to master sales as a master yourself. That's what it is. If you can master the personal development of yourself, you'll increase your chances of being successful in sales, right? Like just like Jim Rhodes said, right?  
Speaker 2    00:42:53    When you work hard, your job, you make a living, you work hard on yourself, you make a fortune. And when I think about the healthy breakfast piece, again, it ties back to managing your energy. If you know, certainly give you more energy. Those are the things you want to eat. If eating a breakfast burrito makes gives you energy. It doesn't make you feel like terrible and then doubled over. So be it for most people, it's not going to be that way. So I prefer eating clean, lean, and healthy. So that way, once I'm executing, I'm feeling super good in my clogged up as well. But it also has been proven when you eat a bunch of junk food like that morning, you are more sluggish, your brains, more sluggish. You're not as sharp. You're not as tight. Like I remember making a drastic shift back into 14 of going from like eating whatever, to like a hyper clean diet with specific rules that I felt like followed for six days out of the week.  
Speaker 2    00:43:43    And it was insane. My productivity, like, because I'd be able to get it, I'll be more productive during the day. So in the same amount of hours, everyone else, I got way more done at a better quality level of work. And that's really important as a sales professional, when you can execute your work at a very high quality, you feel better. So does that mean you should never have a great breakfast? No, not at all. Like I'm saying like, you know, you just control when you have it. And if, you know, eat a big burrito really does, you know, is your jam. I love burritos. Right? Awesome. Just eat a different day or eat it like say after day is over. So it's not impacting your results before you need to go. This is why top athletes, again, do not eat crazy things. The morning of the eat specific things that give them energy. So their body is fueled the right food, the food for the body and their mind to actually have a great performance.  
Speaker 1    00:44:36    You know what I, as I've read through this lesson, as we've had in this conversation, I think what we, what we really lose sight of as sales professionals, it's really the attention is in the details. I mean, that's really what the list is saying. I mean it healthy breakfast eating where I, you know, going to sleep, getting rest, being focused, driving, everything that we've talked about is the hyper-focus the diligence, the details. And it really takes to separate yourself that one to 5% from anyone else in the space to get that deal, to land that, to get that call, to be in a position to succeed. And it's not to your point around practice and game time, it's the people that get to the gym an hour early and stay an hour late. Those are the Michael Jordans of the world. You know, they don't have to do it, but they know that's what it's required. That's the details they have to put into it to be the best at their craft. And I think that's really something I want to make sure the audience kind of homed in on any thoughts around that final thoughts around that Marcus,  
Speaker 2    00:45:34    A hundred percent. I mean, the separation is in the preparation, but a lot of times these things may be simple to say, but they're also hard to do. And those who are most consistent with these type of compounding habits are the ones who have the most success. Like I remember being new in a sales and being the worst rep in the company and struggling and yes, working hard to get you to a certain level, but it's these micro details. I've found that over time really compound and they really blossom and make you just a better version across the board. Like when you think about any top performer in any field, whether sports or anything else, like they typically are not that much better than the second place person, but they do these little things betters a little bit better. Like these things are here and that's what separates them so far.  
Speaker 2    00:46:27    And the cool part is, is like, even when it looks at a company, like you look at like salespeople, the top person versus the second person, the top, person's usually still making more by like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50% more. If not more than that, then the second place person, it doesn't mean they're 10, 20, 30, 4% and 50% better. They're just like a little bit better, right? Like maybe like 1% better on these type of things. And that's actually what separates them from everybody else because most people lack the discipline to actually execute. But, you know, I think just Jocko Willink said discipline equals freedom. So when you are disciplined to these type, these micro habits, micro commitments, you become a better version of you that ultimately leads to just a better result, not just in sales, but just also in your life as well.  
Speaker 1    00:47:13    Without a doubt, I love that this is the conversation I have all day long. So I absolutely love it, but tell the audience a little bit. And by the way, for the audience, we're going to have Marcus's information all over our website. We're going to have it in the call notes and or the show notes I should say. But mark is the audience a little bit about how they can connect with you and get to know you learn more about you, your training, business, everything that you're doing in the space, how can they find out more about you?  
Speaker 2    00:47:37    Awesome. So, uh, easy to find me on LinkedIn I'm most active on their local market. Shan's the only guy was Speedos in the body of his profile because I sold Speedos at one point sky's competitive swimmer hat. So that's why it was like a weird thing. It's a follow-up  
Speaker 1    00:47:51    Podcast, a  
Speaker 2    00:47:52    Follow-up podcast and how he could sell a lot of Speedos back in the day. And then of course he had to mold my website, which is a six figure sales academy.com six figure sales academy.com head over there. You can access like my free Facebook group. We have like 20, 30 plus hours of free training on cold calling objections, sales process. I mean, I just did a train today on how to close the year strong. I mean, absolute killer stuff is completely free inside there as well.  
Speaker 1    00:48:17    That's fantastic. Like I said, I will make sure all that get in the show notes, Marcus. It was an absolute pleasure Ave, man. Thanks again for taking the  
Speaker 2    00:48:24    Time. Thank you so much for having me on.  
Speaker 0    00:48:27    Thank you for listening to the sales samurai podcast with your host, Sam Capra. Be sure you subscribe to our podcast and visit sales samurai.io and join the conversation. Access show notes and discover bonus content.