How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange

Welcome to the How Leaders Think podcast,

a how that helps you change the way you think so you can change the

way you live and lead. I'm Kenny Lang, and with me

today is John Grubbs. Based on his new book,

the Wolf Sales Model. Non relationship selling. John has created a powerful

training series to help sales professionals learn the skills to hunt

for new business. His hard hitting method for results is

not for every organization, only for those

who are truly determined to improve and make difficult choices to win

the game of business. Welcome to the show, John. Thanks,

Kenny. Lang. Every time I say your name, I think of the Rocky Movie

Clubberlang. Do you remember that episode?

Mr. T was playing Clubber Lang. And that was right. Well,

now I'm very interested and I think I'll invest in a new hairdo and

some chains. There you go. So I might even pity a fool.

So, John, tell me what has been on your mind

lately? Kenny multipliers have

been on my mind. I recently reread Liz Weissman's

book Multipliers, and it has kind of hit me differently

this time. I'll give you an example. In the last five

years, I have worked with many sales teams and

I've seen so many sales reps,

high end, highly capable sales reps, be promoted to sales manager

and they failed. So I'm thinking of

an article right now called Kill the Term

Manager. Why don't we change manager to multiplier?

That's what I've been thinking about. Interesting.

And we'll grab links to the book and to that

article for the show, Notes.

In reading that, and obviously you've been in business a

while, so you've seen multiple different approaches.

But what are you seeing then as the current thinking or prevailing wisdom

of being just a manager versus being

a multiplier? So if you think about the term

multiplier and what it means to multiply,

I think most people see human resources as additive.

In other words, we need to add resources. And what I think

Liz did a great job of in her book, she says if

you look at a multiplier versus someone who's a diminisher,

maybe just a general manager or even a bad manager,

she says you can multiply human capital rather than

just add human capital. And that really resonated with me.

I like that.

When we're thinking about that and we're thinking about managers and

somebody's out there listening, maybe they are a manager,

maybe they aspire to be and keep moving up the ranks of a

corporation, what would you

tell them about why that sort of thinking of traditional management

is unproductive? Because this sounds like a different

way of thinking that flies in the face of what

has been the conventional wisdom. Yeah, we've been practicing

the same carrot and stick management for over

100 years now. And I think most people realize

that there's a change afoot in the workplace, there's a change

in how we lead the workplace. Ten years ago,

there was a Harvard Business study that said 75% of

people quit a job because of their relationship with their direct supervisor for

having a bad boss. Well, I recently did a poll, and what I found out

is that almost half of people that are in what

they consider a toxic workplace, the reason it's toxic

is not the boss. It's a lack of accountability for the coworkers who

aren't carrying the load. And I think we've seen a shift

in the last ten years from the boss being the issue to coworkers

who are not being held accountable as the issue that

is causing this disengagement at work. Got you.

That makes me think of something

Dave Ramsey in his Entree leadership book talks about.

It's not the five dysfunction of the team because espalincione, but he talks

about that there are five man,

I forgot it was like five ways that you're killing team unity or

something to that effect, and one of them was sanctioned incompetence.

And that could sound harsh,

but it's an accurate descriptor, I think, of what you were just describing,

which is basically people who they aren't giving 100%

in their job, they're not fulfilling the duties, responsibilities, and hitting the KPIs

and metrics that they're supposed to. And when you look around and feel like you're

the only one giving the effort for that, it's demoralizing.

Because in your mind, even if you're a grown adult, you still expect,

if you have someone who's in authority over your team, to go to that

person and say, hey, you're not performing the way that you

should. And we've expected.

And would you say that that's accurate? The sanctioned incompetence

is an accurate term for what you described. Well, I'll give you an

example. I'm working with two global chemical companies right now,

and the issue with engagement

I did an analysis with both companies, and the issue with

engagement has continued to surface. And here's the

prevailing thought. If you can get hired,

pass your initial period of

what do you call it, the onboarding probationary period. If you can

pass your probationary period, as long as you show up to work

and don't do anything egregious, you have a job for life.

And what that has done is it's created almost

this attitude that I don't have to do a lot of work and I'm

okay. I'm not going to be held accountable for doing anything more than the

bare minimum. And it's that bare minimum

that I think is causing angst for the high performers

who are going to pick up extra low. They're going to do the work,

they're not going to leave things undone. And it's causing wholesale disengagement

in many workplaces right now. I see.

Yeah, I definitely could see why. So if you're sitting across

the table from a leader and they're bringing up

these things and you're saying, hey, it sounds like maybe there's some things in their

leadership that are allowing that to happen because

sometimes it can be hard, especially for newer managers, newer leaders.

Right. They want to be friendly,

they want to make sure that they're well liked. I mean, who amongst us

just says, I just love being hated and it is fantastic.

Right? Like nobody's saying that except for psychopaths.

But how would you tell them to start

thinking like a multiplier kind of manager

and leader and shift the way that they are

even considering leadership from now until eternity?

Yeah, well, unfortunately, early in my career

I was able to assume a leadership position at 24

years old. Someone thought because I had a college degree I would make a great

supervisor and I failed miserably.

That failure didn't prevent me from getting promoted to manager at age 27.

And I made all sorts of mistakes as a manager.

But here, this was what I learned. I said I was a

pleaser. I was someone who wanted people to like me.

And it took me several iterations of

failure to understand that it's not being liked

that's essential as a leader, it's being respected.

And I had to subordinate that urge to be liked

in order to maintain respect. And respect meant doing the

hard things, providing accountability for the team,

enforcing whatever I was asked to do as the manager on behalf

of the organization. That was a huge learning curve

for me in my early thirty s. And that's what I would

tell a manager if you want to be successful in that role,

you're going to have to give up that innate need to

be liked and opt for doing think that are going to gain the

respect and eventual trust. Because respect is

often a predicate of trust of the people that you're blessed

enough to lead or serve. Right? I think

that's great. And some similarities there to

your story because I could sell,

I got quickly promoted to manager and we're

leading People 1015. I even had a guy who's 50 years older than me and

I repeated what I saw my manager do,

but it wasn't my style because everybody seemed to like him. And I was like,

all right, well, I'll try that and I'll try to make favorable decisions.

I made all sorts of mistakes, so I've got some good

scars. Now, how is that thinking overlapped?

The introduction talks about your new book,

the Wolf Sales Model and Non Relationship Selling, which probably

takes some people by surprise. I love the shock value.

You definitely piqued my interest. When I saw that on LinkedIn, I was like,

wait, what? But how

would you weed that advice for respect and being a

multiplier, how is that affecting sales,

especially in our current environment where it seems like

the role of salesperson keeps evolving?

Right. And it's not just, well, I have more automation,

but I think there's fundamental changes

happening in what great salespeople look

like and what's being asked to them and not everybody's making the

shift. How would you weave those two together? Well,

the thesis is this is the misconception

in the world of sales. A client will become a

friend faster than a friend will become a client.

And the misconception out there is that if I'm friendly

to people, if I can become their friend first, that they'll

buy from me. And that's the big fabrication in

my mind. We want to buy value. And if

you're only around me and I sense it, and we have a great 6th

sense for people's intentions, if you're only being friendly

with me because you want me to buy something from you, it creates a

disingenuous relationship from the beginning. And what I teach

sales reps is, hey, let's go out there and earn the sale first.

Let's earn it through value, through a true, dedicated value

proposition. And then if we want to build a relationship

after that, that's okay. If it happens organically after that, it's okay.

It's the relationship after the sale, not the false relationship

before the sale. Got you. So you would say

that most sales reps are essentially

putting a cart before the horse. They got things out of order.

But that's the part kind of like you were talking about with managers,

of being liked as opposed to being

respected. You can be liked as well, but you can't sacrifice

the respect. Would you say that those are somewhat paralleled?

So I've been doing sales training for a long time. In recent years,

90% of the people that go through my classes are not

prepared to sell or hunt.

They're non selling entities. They're non selling

professionals. But they've been given this title, maybe because they've had

that title in the past. It's really hard to vet a salesperson. Well,

I was in sales for 20 years. Okay, what did you do? What did

you learn to hunt? Did you develop a new area? I mean, how did sales

look? Well, if you're not a salesperson, if you're an HR person or

a general manager, it's really hard to vet a salesperson.

And we really look at their resume and trust that what they say on their

resume is true. And we know how often that is accurate.

Right? I heard someone say once

that like on a resume, you may see, well,

to your point about, I've got 20 years experience,

and this stuck with me is that they said,

well, 20 years is not the same for everybody. Some people

have one year experience 20 times. Other people have

20 years of experience. They've continued, they've evolved.

So not all things are equal, right? Not all time spent

is equal. So if someone is thinking about

generating respect and being honest, because that could feel at times.

I do business development. I sell, as do you,

to put money in the bank and food on the table.

How do you go about it without it being like one of these

LinkedIn people. You get hit with a solicitation

the second you accept their invite. And they're

not trying to be my friend, clearly, because they're doing that and it irritates

the bejesus out of me, but they're also not earning my

respect. So that feels like those people have fallen in a different

ditch. How do you bring that back

to where you will respect what I have to say and

offer and the value seems clear? So I'll

tell you where this concept for the Wolf sales model and non

relationship selling came from. I had worked with several large

sales teams nationally. They were coming into my studio,

we were doing training, and one of the modules that

I teach is how to do proper discovery with

a potential new client. And I

soul tell them, okay, here's a methodology. I want

you to go into groups or rooms if we're remote and I

want you to practice using this methodology of just asking

questions and using labels to gain a deeper understanding of what

the potential client needs. And I said do it for

15 minutes and see if you can stay in discovery mode

for 15 minutes. And as I would go and visit the groups

or check in the rooms, within five or ten

minutes they were doing something else. They couldn't sustain a

deeper level of discovery for more than ten or 15 minutes without slipping into

the pitch. They wanted to talk about their product or

talk about their service. They couldn't stay in discovery mode.

And I started looking for that as patterns and

what I've discovered is so many sales professionals lack

the skills to be true hunters in sales.

It's not that they're not smart, super capable people,

they've just learned the wrong way to sell or they haven't

developed the skills to stay in discovery mode long enough

to unearth what are the emotions behind the buyer needs. Is someone wanting

to buy this machine because they're frustrated because the last vendor

wouldn't provide enough support and the machine was down? All think so.

The emotion is frustration. If I know that early in this discovery process,

don't you think I can use that as leverage later on in the buying journey?

Sure. It's a lack of skills, that's what I've noticed.

So it's kind of like an undeveloped muscle. It's very

weak, they can't lift much, they can't stay in that focus.

Or it could be like a kid that doesn't have an attention span more

than a goldfish. I'm speaking to my own children at this

point, but something interesting there.

Why do you think it's so difficult for

people to stay in that position or that posture,

that place of asking questions, staying curious?

And why is that so difficult or uncomfortable?

I think you're right. It is a muscle and it has to be practiced and

it has to be worked. I think most sales reps are taught how to

pitch their product or services and they feel compelled

to make the pitch that I have to make the pitch I have to make

it in this first. If I don't impress them with my service or my product

in this first meeting, they're never going to buy from me.

It's that lack of patience to truly discern what problems

the potential buyer is trying to solve. And if you can ever get to

the core problem, the core emotion, the core issue,

now you can start to build your product in a way

that feels like it's specifically for them.

Okay, so what's

a good way if somebody's they're uncomfortable,

maybe staying curious, asking questions, what's a great way someone

could start to strengthen that, right? You don't need

them to jump down and bench press 225 right away, but everybody's

got to start somewhere. What advice would you give to someone who's listening? Because I

could see that applying equally in management

to be a multiplier. Stay curious, ask questions,

wouldn't you? So where can someone get

started and start building their muscles? There? So if I were

telling a new sales rep, or even an experienced sales rep who's

struggling that's listening to this podcast right now, if I were telling

them how to do this or how to get started with

this, it would be to write down five

to eight truly open ended what or how questions.

Have those open ended questions written down before

your first meeting with your client. And as

they answer the questions, I want you to use three labels. And these

are called the questions are called calibrated questions.

What are how questions? And then the three labels are it seems like

it sounds like it looks like. So if I ask you a

question, if I say, hey, what's the biggest challenge you've had in getting

a podcast started? How would you answer that question?

If you're asking me legitimately, it has been getting someone

to do all the post production editing so that

they can be released. I'm great at the conversation and booking stuff,

but getting them finished up has been a struggle.

It seems like it's a bit complicated.

A little bit. At least my schedule is complicated.

Well, it sounds like it's more than just

the how to. It's the when to that you're struggling with.

Yeah, that's right. So if

you notice, I asked the what question, and then I followed it

up with two labels. And what I teach these sales reps to do is to

be able to go back and forth digging deeper into what's

going on. And if you don't know that I'm doing it, you're going

to give me a lot of information. And by the way, I tell the sales

reps, always ask permission to take notes and even

show your pen while you're taking notes, touch your chin, take notes.

And then at the end of the first discovery session, if I'm giving advice still,

I'd say how? Ask permission to go back over your notes, kenny,

let me go back over my notes because I want to make sure I really

understand what you're struggling with right now.

And I go back through the notes and I said,

correct me if I've got anything wrong. And if they seem aloof

or disengaged, I may even throw a false label out there sometimes just

to get them to reengage. So a false label might be like, kenny,

it seems like podcasting may not be a big priority for you.

Got you. And then I can say no. It is. I'm just struggling,

so you got me to say no, which there's some great

books on leading from that place, but at least no

is better than yes, right? In certain

cases, and that's just one example.

It blew my mind how many sales professionals couldn't

do what we just talked about, what we just gave your

listeners in a broader sense, interesting.

That's really cool now, because much

like other podcast interviewers,

I'm going to be selfish and get some free advice. So I just told you,

I got back from a conference and I

had people coming by the booth and saying,

what do you do? Now, we did have one guy next to us that another

coach heard and said, how do you separate people

from their money? Which I thought was just kind of a funny way to ask,

what do you do? If you're in that sort of situation,

right, or a networking event and people jump

straight to what do you do? I have found, at least

for me, it activates that pitch.

Pitch them now, reflex, what advice

would you give in that situation? Because it's one thing to schedule the sales

meeting, the discovery meeting, exploratory, whatever you call it,

and go in. You have your questions, you have your preparation. It's another thing

when people are actively asking, well, what do you do? And how do you help

right away? And to avoid that pitching

sort of knee jerk response. Such a great

question. So one of the things that I do real early in the training with

the sales reps that I work with is teach them how to write a Power

Statement. And a Power Statement is a one page document.

It's got four sections. A little bit about you, a little bit about

the pain points that you help your customers solve,

a little bit about how your organization does what it does.

And then the bulk of the Power Statement is about how you're different

from everyone else that you compete with.

It's the differentiation part. And if you

were asking me, if you came to my booth and I'm there with my

Wolf sales model and you said, what do you do?

I might say something like, well, I teach how to sell

without relying on relationships.

Just full stop. I want them to ask

me a question is what I want.

What does that mean? And I might follow

it up with, well, what kind of sales are you in?

What sector are you in? And they say, well, we're in the financial services

sector. I said, oh, wow,

I bet it's difficult to find really good financial advisors

in this economy. Right? Tell me what's

going on. Got you. So you have something to present

them just to answer their question, because you don't want to be too

cute or clever about it. But you give them something and then

quickly turn into asking them a question. Then walk down

the accusation, audits the labels, the calibrated questions that

you were just mentioning. And sometimes you can be very direct.

I call this avoiding the red herring in my training. The red herring is when

they jump to what do you do? Or how much is this going to cost?

Or all this? That's the red herring. I may

give a really brief answer, like if you say, hey, what's this going to cost

me? I say, hey, well, you know, I don't really know enough to give you

a price right now. Let me ask you a few more questions so that can

give you a really good price on this. I want to give you the best

price on this. Then I go back into discovery mode.

Got you. So you didn't ignore what they said, but you just

took it and redirect it back into the line of questioning.

I got you their

first step, go make a list of those you said eight questions

before their next meeting. And I would say

even managers, you should be preparing for your

meeting if you want to be that multiplier. I want to go check out that

book from you said Liz Weissman. Liz Weissman,

I actually talked to her on Monday. I had a question with her about comparing

her work with multipliers to Bradford smart's

work on Top Grading. I says, if you multiply an A player, do you get

a different multiple than if you multiply a B player or a C player?

And she said, we haven't compared those two bodies of work yet,

but that's a great way of thinking about it because

I do think you get a higher multiple with A players.

I would assume so, but that sounds fascinating. I'd love

to. I'm definitely going to hit you up, see if she gets back

to you on that because I'll be curious. So,

salespeople managers, if you want to multiply your leads,

your sales, your pipeline, or just multiply your

people, right? Because you're charged with not just making sure

things get done, but that people are growing and that your area of influence

is growing. So write down those questions before your next meeting.

And I think just that simple level of preparation will build that

muscle. John, if people want to know more about you,

wolf sales, model training and what you're doing, where would you

direct them? So the easiest way to find me right now

is Johngrubs.com. That's Johngrubbs.com.

And you can also Google wolf sales model or wolf

sales training. Any of that will put you back towards me

and my body of work. I think what I want

listeners to get from this podcast is that if you

do want to be more effective in training

or in selling or in managing whatever you do,

the first thing we have to do is work on our mindset. You talked

about multipliers and managers. A great

experiment for your listeners to do is in their next meeting,

try not to make any statements, try to stay

in question mode only.

See how long they can do that. That'll test their ability to do

discovery in a non selling environment. And Liz

Weissman actually did it with her kids one night and she said the

whole night changed from getting them to bed to

the stress level came down. I mean, it's just stay in question mode,

don't get in statement mode or declarative or don't order people around,

just ask questions and you'll see a change in the

people's response. So, mindset,

skills and habits, that's the three tenets

of the wolf sales model. What's the mindset of a hunter?

What are the skills of a hunter? And what are the daily habits of

a hunter to be successful in sales? I love that.

Thank you so much, John, for coming on and sharing your wisdom and

I hope to have you back in the future when you've got some more research.

Awesome, thank you.

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