The Psychology Of Making Sales with Larry Guy, Senior Instructor and National Training Manager at Allstate Dealer Services

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:01) Today, we're talking to Larry from Allstate Dealer Services all about learning styles and the psychology of sales. You're listening to the Modern CTO podcast.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:15) Yes, we got to interview Bryna, and I found out that Blackboard was more than just college software, and that they did all sorts of training. And I said, "Alright, do you have anybody that's actually used this that I can talk to, and I could see what their experience has been like with Blackboard? Have you used it in a way that's other than the college way?"

(Larry at 00:00:33) Yeah, absolutely. So we use it in a B2B format, and our users are salespeople within the retail automotive space who need to better understand product knowledge, sales processes, sales psychology. So our courses aren't necessarily linear like your traditional college pathway or structure. So our coursework is a little bit different, not that much different, but then we utilize Blackboard in all kinds of ways that are nontraditional in the higher ed space.

(Larry at 00:01:08) So for example, we actually run a podcast through our Blackboard instance because it allows us to control the audience. So if you can imagine, Allstate is very cautious on who has access to our content and materials, and we have to make sure that it isn't open to the public, that only our audience can access it. So there's that proverbial paywall and logging in to get that you have to get through in order to get to the material. So that's one out of the box way that we use Blackboard. Another way is content distribution or content management. We have a series of, or a group of, general agents that utilize our products and services, and Blackboard serves as a way for us to deliver content to them so that they can turn around and use that material with their customers. So it's worked out very, very well. We've had the relationship for about three years now. We just went through our third contract renewal, and we've gotten a significant lift in the perceived value that we can bring to our customer base.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:24) And so you use this for a number of things, like across the board. You do sales training. Do you do culture training? Like, is it for all types of training at the company?

(Larry at 00:02:32) External. So internally within Allstate, we have our own home built system, our home built learning management system. Our external customers are a little bit different because they don't have access to our direct network. So they can't get beyond the firewall, so to speak, into the internal learning management system. So we had to find an outlet that we could use with external customers that were outside of, or off of, the Allstate network.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:03) That is very cool. And so how did you even get into this? Like, how did you become a trainer?

(Larry at 00:03:07) So it's an interesting story. I began my career in retail automotive sales in 1998 selling cars. I got right out of high school, jumped into selling cars, and I love everything about cars. I love everything about the automotive space. So I thought, you know, let me try my hand at this. I was promoted into management after a year, and in retail automotive, that's not a big hurdle, but I was 20 years old. And, you know, being promoted to a manager at 20 was a little confusing. And where do you start? Right? You're a 20-year-old person. I couldn't even drink. And so I took a step back and I was like, "Well, let's see. I can speak Spanish fluently. I'm half Mexican. Maybe that's it." Well, in Chicago, being fluent in Spanish, that's a great skill set to have. So, much longer story short, in '05 I decided that I wanted to position myself to be able to have a family, and there was not one person in the retail automotive space that I knew that wasn't on their second marriage. So I was like, "Okay, well, retail automotive isn't really conducive to a white picket fence family life." Right? And so in '05, I decided to start looking for that opportunity outside of the retail space. I knew I wanted to stay in the automotive sector, but I didn't know where to go outside of retail.

(Larry at 00:04:35) So in '07, I had the privilege of joining Allstate Dealer Services. I wanted to be a sales rep. I wanted to be an account rep. And the only role open at the time was an international trainer in Mexico. And so I jumped at the opportunity, and I was traveling back and forth to Mexico three weeks a month, training retail automotive sales in dealerships in Mexico all over, from Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey. And then after a year, I finally realized that, "Hey, I really enjoy being an educator. I enjoy being a trainer. I think I like this more than being an account rep." Fortunately for me, I got the best of both worlds going to Mexico. I got to be the trainer and the account rep. I was the only one going to Mexico. And that lasted for a little over a year, and then Allstate transitioned me back to the States. And I spent the last 15 years dedicated to helping our customers enhance their performance through a commitment to education. But beyond that, it's really more about implementing what they learned. That, I think, is the big opportunity. It isn't so much about the knowledge transfer as much as it is being there for the actual implementation of the learning, whatever it is. And the big part of that is using technology and data where you can, so that way you can overcome operational inefficiencies. A big thing that we're focusing on now is the difference between being efficient and effective. They're not necessarily the same thing. So you have to make sure from a sales perspective that you're not just effective, but that you're efficient in doing it the right way.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:19) No, you're exactly right. They always do those charts. Right? It's like efficient, effective. You need a balance too, because some of the most effective ways could take a long time and are hard to scale, but they have a high level of certainty. Yeah. No, that makes sense. So I have about 15 people at the company currently, and three of those are full-time sales. And so we haven't gotten to the point really where we have a formal training program to train our sales staff. What we essentially do is just have the salesperson go through the culture interview. They then interview with the sales team, and we check that they have these basic sales skills. And then we pair them with a salesperson for a couple weeks until they're ready to start taking their own sales calls, and then they sort of go off on their own, and they're part of our weekly meetings and things like that. At some point, that's not going to scale. Right? I don't know when, because I haven't scaled a sales organization. I've scaled an engineering team, but I haven't scaled a sales organization. Do you know when that's going to happen for me? Like, at what point in time are we going to need an official system or something of that nature?

(Larry at 00:07:24) Well, from an education standpoint, sooner than later. And I say that because your sales process is always going to evolve. It's going to change, and probably I would say at a rapid pace. But the first thing to do is you have to establish the process and then hold the sales team accountable to that process. That's where you're going to uncover the education opportunities that exist, where certain individuals need more focus or attention at different phases within the sales process itself. The sales teams that I've worked with over my 20-plus years in sales that have struggled the most didn't have a clear defined process laid out for them. One of the very first questions I always ask a dealership when I'm getting ready to work with them, kind of in this exact same structure, is, "Show me your sales process. Talk to me about it. What is it?" And they do a great job of explaining. But then the second question, Joel, is the more important one: "Show me where it is in writing." And if it's not in writing, then you don't have a process for your sales team to follow. And then if it's not in writing and they don't have a sales process to follow, you can't really diagnose education needs because you don't know where the system is broken. And so it's going to come up sooner than later, unless you've got that process written down. You're managing the data in a way that can highlight those opportunities for growth and development.

(Larry at 00:09:00) You know, and it's actually one of the things that I think in the corporate space, whether you're a small company or a big company, is a problem with education. And it's what I call "educate with a purpose." So one of the big challenges that I see internally within our organization is some training need gets highlighted to leadership, and it usually comes around from a performance indicator that's lagging. Right? Some metric that you're tracking is underperforming. And so leadership gets together and they say, "Okay, we have this education opportunity. We have this education need." They task their education team, their training team, with developing content, developing a course or a program. And then the leaders move on to the next thing, because the education group is going to get it done and taken care of. Now, the problem here is that the education team, when they get the ask, they develop the material and they put a lot of focus on measuring knowledge transfer, which is an important part of training. But what they don't measure is how that training is impacting the original key performance indicator that was lagging. Right? So we can measure whether someone, whether our audience or our learner, actually learned. And every instructional designer that I've ever worked with, they do a great job at that. But it's on the business to understand if that training and education is actually having the desired result, which isn't just knowledge transfer. Right? It's impacting some key performance indicator. So that's where "education with a purpose" comes in. You have to think beyond measuring the knowledge transfer and connecting the dot between the class or the program and the performance indicator that created the need to begin with. If training doesn't move the needle on that performance indicator, then it was a waste of time. Yes, your learners may have learned something new, but unless they actually use it and implement it, it's never going to touch that end result. So, you know, "education with a purpose" becomes the focus, and what we try to bring to all of our customers is it's not just about communicating product knowledge and helping someone learn a new skill, it's are they utilizing it and implementing it. And that's the funny thing about training adults: short of their leader telling them, "You must do this," you know, training is typically done by someone who doesn't supervise that individual. So there's a disconnect a little bit between the trainer and the audience in that the audience doesn't report to the trainer. So that leader really has to have their finger on the pulse of the training hitting that key performance indicator.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:00) Yeah. Because if the manager doesn't know what's being asked of the trainee, how are they going to bring that up in one-on-ones and follow it?

(Larry at 00:12:11) Exactly.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:12) Now there's a lot of tools out there. There's AI tools that will read my emotions while I'm on calls. They'll track to see if the salespeople are asking the right questions, and they'll take notes of the call and summarize it and all of that. Have you found any of these sort of sales AI-type tools that monitor conversations useful?

(Larry at 00:12:37) We've used them a little bit, but not to any real major success. It's a new endeavor for us. Our sales conversations are with dealerships. Right? We're a B2B sales organization. And so, you know, it's a lot of heavy face-to-face selling. We don't have any over-the-phone contact communication that we're trying to get done. There are email communications, and we've tried tools that have allowed us to evaluate the effectiveness of an email campaign or something like that. But in terms of role playing and, or, you know, listening to audio calls, we haven't gotten—we don't have the opportunity to implement those things. Now I will say on the role-playing side, that's one area that we're starting to explore with Blackboard right now, and that is building in a role play lab where our learners can upload videos of themselves conducting a sales presentation. And then my team and I, we can evaluate their performance in that presentation. And the best part about the Blackboard use is that they can take that video with their cell phone or their tablet. So there isn't a big need for additional technology or additional resources to get it done. They can simply have one of their partners at the dealership use their phone, get the recording, and then upload it right into Blackboard. So that gives us that opportunity, and we're starting to bridge that now.

(Larry at 00:14:08) The bigger thing we've tried recently is AR and how to work AR into education content and giving our learners the ability to interact with that type of content and coursework and material using programs through Adobe.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:28) How does that work?

(Larry at 00:14:29) It was amazing, amazing at first. And then we had some technical challenges with Adobe's move to the cloud and doing away with software, actual software, that was installed to your machine. Allstate's got a little security issue that they're working through. So until that happens, we've been put on pause with AR. But when we first started utilizing it, our learners were all in.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:54) But like, what's the AR part? Like, I don't understand that.

(Larry at 00:14:57) So Adobe Aero allows you to create content within the Adobe framework, and you scan a QR code. And then on your iPad, you have little, what I'll call widgets, that you can interact with and touch. And then there's pop-up boxes that come out, but it is in augmented reality. So you're looking at, you know, your home office or your office at the company. And, you know, there on your desk is a little rocket ship. And when you touch it, all of a sudden you have your learning content pop out of it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:29) So it's not like the training itself, as in you and I are going to have a conversation, there's AR technology involved. It was just something to make learning more interesting.

(Larry at 00:15:40) Correct. Yep. More engaging. And those are the things that your audience is going to remember. Those types of ways to engage your audiences, they're going to hold on to. It's one of the fundamental things that we actually teach our salespeople: that human beings communicate in three ways. Right? Audio, visual, and kinesthetic. Now I'm a car guy. I couldn't spell kinesthetic if you spotted me the two T's. And so, you know, I call them see, hear, and do. And those are the three primary ways that human beings communicate. Well, guess what? Those same three primary ways are how they learn also. They learn by seeing it, hearing it, or doing it. And not every learner that you are going to come into contact with or work with is going to interpret information the same way. So one of the things that our team does is as we're delivering material live and in person, we're evaluating the audience and what their primary learning style is. And so that way, as the course moves on and we change mediums, we know how to control the content delivery to that specific individual. So AR is really an opportunity to get kinesthetic learners engaged in learning that capitalizes on how they need to consume it so that they can remember it and carry it forward.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:05) Is there anything that you can't train in salespeople?

(Larry at 00:17:10) Yeah. I mean, there are the fundamentals like, you know, want, desire, commitment. The individual has to bring those things. Outside of that, outside of the want, the desire, and the commitment to succeed, no, you can train just about everything. I mean, you know, there's an old school philosophy that people who are outgoing are more able or better at selling.

(Larry at 00:17:33) And that's not just, that's just not true. I myself am an introvert. I don't necessarily have to be the center of attention or the center of the room, and I'm a pretty good salesperson. It really is about listening to your customer and understanding, and all of that can be taught. But that desire to succeed, the commitment to give the extra 10% that's needed, that stuff the salesperson has to bring with them to the table.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:59) Can you identify that in the hiring process? Like, is there something I can do with people as we're going through the hiring? We have three open roles right now, and I'm like, okay, how do I test if these people have want, desire, and commitment in a few short interactions?

(Larry at 00:18:15) So it's the little things that you look for. Right? Like, I was interviewing a content designer probably six, eight months ago, and I asked for a portfolio. Now, because of the role that he was in, he couldn't deliver me a portfolio of work that he had done. And so he went out that night and researched our products, our programs, the things that we provide to dealerships, and developed a course in Captivate that evening and turned around. Within five, six, seven hours, turned around and sent me this course. And he had no previous knowledge of the material, the programs, what the stuff, what the products do. And it was a pretty good course for somebody who had never done it before. So finding ways to test, that's gonna be your first step. Finding ways to test that, whether that's through asking for sales performance reporting and then determining how quickly they get that information back to you. The other things that you can look for are in the behavioral assessments. Find questions within behavioral assessments that can show you how they went the extra mile for a customer.

(Larry at 00:19:27) Describe a time when you went beyond what the customer was asking for to deliver that amazing customer experience. Because I say it in what we do all the time. Any deal you win on price, you're gonna lose on price. Price is not the deciding factor for most people making buying decisions. It's the experience that went along with the sales process. And so the better experience that you can give, the more commitment that you can demonstrate and show, the more value you're gonna bring to the equation. And, you know, again, any deal you win on price, you're gonna lose on price at some point.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:07) No, that's exactly right. I started talking with, we opened up a new line of business in the past year. Right? Like, we were mainly podcast sponsorships, and then we started building podcasts for other companies. And it's a very different transaction because the sponsorships are fairly transactional. Right? One time interaction. And then the podcast production services is where we actually are augmenting their marketing team and producing content, and there's like five of us added to their team. And so it's a very different type of engagement. And what I found after winning deals and then asking the people after, like, why did you go with us when you were evaluating customers? It came down to trust. Like, they're like, we trust you guys. Like, we believe that, it had nothing to do with price. It was just like, we believe that you guys will actually deliver. And from their perspective, I'm like, okay, I guess that makes sense. Right? Because when you get to the top of companies and, you know, there's roughly hundreds of millions, if not billions, in cash flow, the premium becomes the people who can actually execute. Like, they're, it's actually pretty rare. And so to learn that is actually an advantage, and it's very, it makes me very optimistic because it's like, you have to be curious. You have to care about your customers. You have to have a good quality product, and then you have to price it in a way that you can hire the best people, you can produce the best product. And so that's where I'm at in my learning journey right now.

(Larry at 00:21:30) You know, you're 100% right. And that I think is something that has changed as we've moved from a service-based economy to an experience-based economy. Joseph Pine, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Joseph Pine. He wrote a book on different economies. There's a great TED talk that he did about this concept of how we've moved from an agrarian economy to a service-based economy to now the experience-based economy. And salespeople who've been doing it for a while have not made that same transition to that experience-based economy. And they don't understand that the experience drives the decision. The example I'll give you is this, Joel. So when I was first taught to sell, especially B2B, the initial part of the conversation is about, you know, tell me about your company, how long have you been doing this? You know, and this is the business owner asking you, the perspective company that I wanna do business with, you're gonna tell me all about your company, how long you've been in business, and all the great things that you've done. But the truth of the matter is that me, as the decision maker, I'm not there yet. I don't need to know yet, just at the beginning, how long your company has been in business and how long you've been doing what you've been doing and how great you are at what you do. What I have to figure out before I care about all that is what are you going to do for me? How are you going to affect my business?

(Larry at 00:23:03) So let's start the conversation there. And then on the back side, towards the end of the sales presentation, we can bring up how long your company has been doing business, you know, other customers that you've worked with, what are those references that you can provide, but only after I better understand that you can deliver what I need you to deliver. Right? So if you think about most sales presentations, the way they're traditionally or typically structured, the first fifteen, twenty minutes of the conversation is about you. But most decision makers who are making buying decisions are selfish, softly selfish. They wanna hear about them. So we need to, that experience economy, we need to make the shift in the sales presentation to make it about the customer. And what we train, I'll go back to when I was taught to sell cars. When I was originally taught to sell cars, the model was, you know, tell the customer what the feature, how the vehicle works, how the product works, tell them what does it do, and then ultimately, what's in it for them. And that as a model just doesn't work today in an experience-based economy, because the first thing that the customer wants to understand is what's in it for them. Why do I wanna continue to sit here and listen to this conversation? So you have to get to the what's in it for me so much faster than we've ever had to before. And part of that is most buyers, they process the information very quickly. So we need to make sure that we're getting to that what's in it for me so much faster than we ever have before.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:39) Yeah. Well, I'm just a direct person. Like, that's just become my personality. I say become because I used to not be that way. And then I found that it's pretty useful. I'll get on calls sometimes with, like, when whenever it's like a Fortune 500 company, it's exactly what you said. They just wanna talk at me for twenty minutes and run through their standard demos so that they can, I don't know, go to lunch or something. But I'll go in there. I'll be like, look, no, all I wanna know, like, I've already researched, I've already looked it up. I just wanna know, can you do these three things that I'm interested in? And if you can, tell me yes or no and then show me that you can, and then send me the contract, and then we'll do the deal. Right? And it's funny how, like, you know, sometimes they'll be taken aback by that. I'm like, look, I wanna do business with you. I just don't wanna sit here and listen to you talk about yourself for twenty-five minutes. And what I found, what I learned from that experience and then applied to my business, was I start the conversation, I try to disqualify them. I had heard this guy and he was a popular guy in like the seventies. And when I was broke and needed sales training, I just went on YouTube, and because he had passed away, he had this brilliant stuff. So all his examples were like selling vacuums and stuff. Right? So I started watching his sales training. He would explain how he'd sell these encyclopedias and that from the moment he knocked on the front door, he had a list of disqualifying questions. And if at any point they disqualified themselves, the conversation was over. But if they made it all the way through, it could result in a sale. So I was like, alright, let's do something like that. So I figured like, I learned how we're useful to people. And now with the podcast production services, the way I start the conversation is, where are you at in your podcast journey? Like, that just, tell me where you're at. And then I can help shape it and guide it. And so on this business, you know, you go broke real fast not knowing how to run a sales team.

(Larry at 00:26:23) Yeah. Well, so, Joel, it's what's interesting about what you just described, so there are three fundamental things that you have to know about every customer before you ask them to buy anything from you. Number, the first thing is you have to know how they communicate. What is their primary communication method? Is it seeing, hearing, or doing? Right? And you have to know that so you as the salesperson can understand what marketing tools, what conversation tools, what resources you're gonna bring to the conversation. Right? If you are working with somebody who processes information visually and you ask them to listen to a podcast episode, for example, they're gonna totally miss the mark because they don't process information that way. So you have to know, number one, how they communicate.

(Larry at 00:27:18) The second thing you have to know is why they're buying. Is there a problem that's causing the need, or is it a want? Those are the two things. There's only two reasons why people buy anything. Right? And whether it's a business or whether it's the retail side, you either buy it because you want it or because you need it. So what is the driving factor? Is it a want or is it a need? And then the third thing that you have to know is what level of detail the customer needs in order to make a decision. We actually just wrote a podcast episode on the paradox of choice. And the concept there is simply that if you give someone too many choices, more often than not, like nine and a half times out of 10, they're just gonna say no, because they can't process that many choices. And to what level of information do they need in order to make that positive buying choice? And I categorize them into four buckets. Customers can be placed into what I call the information bucket, meaning they need to know everything—who, what, where, when, why, how, how much, and how many—before they can make a buying decision. And that's a tough sales conversation because it's lengthy and in-depth. The opposite of that person is the person who doesn't want any of that. They just, just answer my question. Don't tell me how the pie was made. Just answer my question very short and briefly. So that's the second type. The third type is what I call the social buyer. They're the very, I don't wanna say social butterfly, like outgoing and eccentric and egotistical, that's not what I mean. Think doctors or lawyers who are very decisive decision makers. And then the fourth group are the opposite of those. And those are the friend buyers. Those are the people who are looking to make a personal connection with you before they'll say yes. And so once you know those three things, the how they communicate, whether they're buying because of want or need, and then the third, the type of buyer that they are, then, only then, can you develop the most direct presentation, conversation possible. That's the only way you can have it.

(Larry at 00:29:31) And it's effective and it's efficient because you're capitalizing on how they prefer to communicate. You're delivering the information that they want to hear because you understand their need or their want, depending on the product that you're selling. At every stage of sales, whether I was training somebody to sell cars, I worked with an individual in a coaching capacity to help him improve his real estate business. In every stage of sales, those are the three fundamentals, the three cores that you have to start with.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:01) How do they communicate? Why are they buying? And what level of detail does the customer need?

(Larry at 00:30:07) Mhmm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:07) And you figure that out through conversation.

(Larry at 00:30:09) Absolutely. The first one is my favorite. Right? How do they process information? So I'll get off the car examples because those are easy. I was with this real estate agent that I was working with. I coached him to every customer that he was bringing to show a house to. I urged him to drive with the customer. Right? Not have the customer meet them there, but drive with the customer. And then when they get out, when they pull up to the house, as soon as they walk out of the, get out of the car, the very first question is, what's the first thing you notice about the home? If the response is, I love the way the house looks, there's so much curb appeal. Well, okay. Are they a see, hear, or a do person? How do they, what's their primary communication method? Is it seeing, hearing, or doing? Well, if the first thing they said was, I love the way the house looks.

(Joel Beasley at 00:31:01) Yeah.

(Larry at 00:31:01) They're a seer. If they say, wow, the neighborhood's really quiet. Well, now they're a hearer. They process information using their auditory skills. If they say that's a big yard, that's a lot of yard maintenance. Well, that tells you that they're kinesthetic, they're the doer. So it's that first question in that example. And we do the same things in car sales. What's the thing you're looking forward to the most about driving your new car? You know, I can't wait to feel how well it performs in the corners.

(Joel Beasley at 00:31:32) Not being at the dealership anymore.

(Larry at 00:31:36) That is definitely me too. Yeah. So it's that first question. And through the rest of the conversation, you can uncover the other things. But it really means that you have to activate your listening skills. You know, we have one mouth and two ears for one reason. Right? To listen twice as much as we talk. And those are some of those sales skills that we have to bring to our sales staff, our sales teams, to maximize both efficiency and effectiveness.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:05) Alright. So do you ever volunteer your time to advise startups? Is this something that you've done, or is it just you mainly do your corporate gig and you'll take some contract work here and there? Or?

(Larry at 00:32:17) I do my corporate gig, and I, you know, Joel, I, the real estate agent I was working with was a friend. And, you know, now, I mean, if you want tips, advice, I love talking about this topic. I think sales is, there's not a position in life where we're not selling something. Someone is always selling someone something. Right? And it's either me selling you on why you need my service or you selling me on why you don't. All the way to my kids. My kids are always trying to sell me. You know, it is a fundamental skill that I think every human being needs. So I help anywhere I can. I volunteer all kinds of places.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:57) Yeah. You should. You've got good information. Yeah. I interview a lot of people. I can tell when people know their topic. You're exactly right. When I started to give you an example, I'm 34. I started sales at, I started being consciously aware of sales and trying at it at 27. So.

(Larry at 00:33:16) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:16) And when I did start reading books and consuming all the information and listening and watching the YouTube videos, boy, was it great for business or whatnot. Far greater in my personal life.

(Larry at 00:33:28) Mhmm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:29) Because when you can look through that lens, everything is sales without an exaggeration. And the difference is not whether it's happening. The difference is whether you're aware that it's happening because it is happening.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:44) And it's not, you know, I'll have engineers, you know, talk with me. Is that sleazy or, like, you know, is it weird? And I say it's all about intent. If your intent is to get somebody to do something that's bad for them that you know they don't want to do, that's a whole... If your intent is to enrich yourself just for that pure sake, you know, there's different intents. But knowing how to dance in a world that's dancing is kind of important.

(Larry at 00:34:11) Well, Joel, here's the secret. You're 100% correct. Intent is the foundation. But here's the secret that no one really talks about. Selling is nothing more than communicating. That's it. It's just communication. That's all sales is. And the better communicators are better salespeople. If your communication skills aren't on point, then you're not going to be a great salesperson.

(Larry at 00:34:23) And that comes from, that goes to everything from knocking on doors and cold calling, being able to have a clear and concise conversation that goes to the actual, you know, discovery step itself, all the way down to addressing questions. And I don't like the word objections. I think it has a stereotypical negative connotation to it, but concerns, you know, questions and concerns. When a customer says no, that doesn't necessarily always mean no. It just means maybe they need more information. And then all the way to follow-up and being able to communicate in a way that still carries the conversation forward. Even if you didn't make the sale, even if you weren't able to work with the potential customer, can you bring value after they've said no?

(Larry at 00:35:32) And just because they say no today doesn't mean no tomorrow or no next week. So, you know, salespeople who stop after they hear no and never touch that contact again, those are going to be traits of that person who doesn't have that desire and want to succeed. One of my very first sales interviews, the interviewing manager asked me, he said, you know, how many nos do you take before you move on? And I said, I didn't know anything. I was 20 years old. I said, three. And he looked at me and I didn't get the job. Come to find out later that the answer is as many as it takes. Now that doesn't mean as many as it takes in that moment. And that's where that intent marries to or couples with the process and the cycle.

(Larry at 00:36:19) You know, if you're teaching your salespeople to take seven, eight, nine nos in a one-hour conversation, it's not going to be a good outcome. But if you're teaching your salespeople to take seven, eight, nine nos over a period of ten, twelve, 15 contact points, that will yield positive results. So it's all about communication and being able to deliver in a timely fashion, and then exceeding the expectation because we do live in that experience-based economy. You know, when someone emails me and says, hey, I need this and I need it by November 14th, let's say, I don't just stay silent working in the background, getting the ask done, and then communicate it on the 14th. I may wait 24 hours and say, hey, this is where I am so far. Just wanting to keep you in the loop. And that's that going the extra mile example that we were talking about earlier. But sales is nothing more than two people talking to each other and making sure that we do it in the right way with the right intent is how we succeed.

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:21) No, you nailed it 100%. That's actually one of the most common mistakes I see when people are individual contributors moving into management. They value so much the act of getting the checklist item done. That's the real work. And the communication, that's a luxury. And so, you know, they're like, why are you upset at me? I was doing the real work. It's like, well, yeah. But if a tree falls in the forest, they don't know what's going on, and they have no idea, like, what are you, you know?

(Joel Beasley at 00:37:49) And so that's where I... I used to be that person, by the way. I'm not even talking badly about other people. I used to be that person. And then I realized that it doesn't... For me, I don't know if this is right for everyone. You just have to put the relationship first. And it's super cheesy, cliche. The shortest distance between two points is communication. I think about that all the time. I was having lunch before this with my wife, and she has a client, and there's some whatever, and she was writing an email to them. And I said, look, not... This is a human emotion thing. Pick up the phone and call them. Like, this is... There's a miscommunication between somebody doing work you should be doing. This is not something you need to articulate out in a four-page email. You just have to pick up the phone and say, hey, John. I'm curious. There's some miscommunication. This person's doing this task. I thought I was supposed to be doing it. What should we do? And then let the client, you know, interact with you. So as we wrap up, I want to know, is there ways you can improve your communication skills? Can this part be trained?

(Larry at 00:38:46) Absolutely. Absolutely. Because just like usual, I was, in the beginning, I was, let's do the hard work. Let's do the hard work. Let's do the hard work. And I didn't go that extra step. I didn't understand the value or the impact of a lack of communication on a potential relationship or a relationship that started through a sales contact. And it took my leader, my current leader, it took him to show me step by step by step how that impacts your overall success. So the communication steps can be taught. You know, the three things that we detailed out, each of those ultimately boil down to communication.

(Larry at 00:39:25) And we teach that every day. The follow-up techniques, how you begin a conversation can be taught. There was a very interesting book that I read that taught me this acronym called PLAN. P stands for pivot. L stands for logistics. A stands for agenda. N stands for next steps. And that is something that I've adopted into my sales process, my training process. Every conversation that I start begins with a plan. We pivot, discuss the logistics, review the agenda, and set next steps upfront. And since I began doing that, the communication, the ability to have a clear message has been improved exponentially. So, yes, those things can be taught. You have to have that willing participant, the willing learner who's willing to consider alternate methods. You know, one of my foundational principles as a leader is that it is incumbent as a professional. It is incumbent on all of us to continuously test best practices.

(Larry at 00:40:31) Just because something is a best practice today doesn't mean that it is going to be in ten years. So it is our responsibility as leaders to always test and retest best practices. And so the communication items or methods or ways that worked well in the service-based economy don't work as well in the experience-based economy, and we need to change. One of the worst things a leader can do is get mired down in, well, that's the way we've always done it. You have to constantly be evaluating best practices, and that comes down to communication, the sales process, whatever your sales process is. You should be evaluating it, you know, maybe at a minimum once a year. At on the high side, twice a year to make sure that your process is efficient, not just effective. So that being stuck in the "this is the way we've always done it" is really going to wreak havoc on your ability to communicate, your ability to be successful over time.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:34) I fully agree. I mean, like I told you before we started, the product at the back of last year, so almost almost a year now. And we switched things about three or four months ago. And it's the same product. We execute it the same way. It was just how our sales was designed. And once we started doing that, people went from, you know, they're like, wow. I'm going to get five people on my team for the cost of, you know, one expensive person. This is unbelievable. And you guys, you know... So it just shifted everything. It's so funny how, like, a small little perspective change can be the difference in closing deals or not.

(Larry at 00:42:09) Absolutely. And it's little tweaks.

(Joel Beasley at 00:42:11) Yeah.

(Larry at 00:42:11) You know? And even for the most successful salesperson, just some minor tweaks can mean the difference between effective and efficient. You know, and it doesn't have to be a major change. It could just be one word. You know, one of the best, the quickest examples I'll give you is the elimination. When I train, I eliminate the use of the word extend from our dealership personnel's vocabulary. It's a bad word. It elicits all kinds of, you know, emotion in your audience, in your customer. And we replaced it with enhanced. And sales success went up 20% by just that one little change. And, you know, do they mean the same thing? At their core, yeah. But it's about the perception that the customer has when they hear the difference between extend your manufacturer's warranty versus enhance your manufacturer's warranty. And it's those little elements, those little tweaks that can take you from a good salesperson to a great salesperson.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:15) I'm going to change that. We actually say we act as, like, an extension of your team. I'm going to find a way to use the word enhance. Yeah.

(Larry at 00:43:24) Yep. Yep.

(Joel Beasley at 00:43:24) So no, this is great. You're extraordinarily knowledgeable. And so how come you didn't end up being, like, a Grant Cardone?

(Larry at 00:43:31) So I love retail automotive. I love training. I love working for Allstate. It is, you know, been an amazing privilege to be a part of the good hands. And, you know, I tell people all the time, internally, Allstate's worked very hard to build that brand and reputation of, you know, being the... that when you're an Allstate customer, you are in good hands. Everything we do has to live up to that brand and expectation. I love the dealers that we work with, and I have the networking opportunity to work with people like you. Bryan with Blackboard, you know, has given me the opportunity to branch out, but do it in a way that is constructive for the sales community at large. And, you know, I'm happy in that space. I don't want to leave retail or I don't want to leave automotive yet. And I like the insurance aspect of it because I think that when you buy a car, there's so many opportunities for things to go wrong.

(Larry at 00:44:33) And you're so, you know, when they do occur, you're so far removed from the actual car buying process when you actually bought the car that you don't think, you know, I could have done this. I could have done that different. And so getting out in front of it is a tremendous opportunity. My kids are driving ages now, and, you know, I'm trying to teach them the value of making sure that they're not chasing bad money with good money.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:56) Well, this has been fantastic, man. We made a podcast. How do you feel?

(Larry at 00:45:00) I feel awesome. I feel great.

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:02) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you'd like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn, or send me an email [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.