09. Karl Schaphorst ~ Karl Schaphorst & Associates

Transcript

0:04 All right, we've got another episode of Tailwind. Today I'm joined by Carl. And Carl, you know, we were talking before this and we're talking about how you got

0:11 into sales training. I think that's a perfect way to start, you know, this episode. What brought you into sales training? How did how do you end up there?

0:18 Yeah. Well, I wasn't one of those guys that when I was a little kid, I told my mom I wanted to grow up to be a a sales trainer. Um um you know to be honest

0:27 with you I fell into sales kind of by accident and and you know what's cool about sales is that we'll take anybody right I mean the the barrier to entry

0:35 into sales is pretty low you don't have to have a lot of pedigree you don't have to have initials behind your name you don't have to have doctorates or PhDs

0:42 you just have to breathe show up make calls set appointments and move product and if you do that not only will you

0:50 keep your job but they'll pay you pretty well in fact some of the wealthiest people in on the planet are salespeople.

0:57 So, I love that you don't you don't have to be smart, but you got to be gritty and you got to be willing to to enter into the arena and and deal with the

1:05 blood, the sweat, the dust, and the dirt. And uh not many people are up for that.

1:11 So, so, so, so I found my way into the sales arena. By the way, I wasn't that good. Uh Sandler changed that for me. Uh

1:19 it it took a it took a lousy salesman and I still am that lousy salesman but it but it helped me uh with the because

1:26 I'm very disciplined. It's like I I work hard.

1:29 I just don't always work smart. So the sailor gave me the smart piece and uh boy did it just it worked and uh and so

1:36 for five years in a professional uh selling posture uh I was using Sandler and saw how it worked and became a

1:44 believer and then you know um that 20-year career came to an end. Got to tell you Austin I I thought I was going

1:52 to go into the ministry and uh and it and it didn't happen. Um, the door that opened up was this idea of becoming a

1:59 sailor trainer because I so believed in it and uh and and I I went into it thinking

2:07 that there's no way this is going to work. What right do I have after selling HVAC for 20 years that I've all of a sudden become a sales trainer? There's

2:16 no dotted line to there. And it was just simply this. Um, I I do believe God gave me a gift of of training and teaching.

2:26 And I really believe that he would bless that if I took the risk and jumped off the cliff. Mhm.

2:32 And so on that faith move alone, I jumped off the cliff and 15 years later, he's just blessed it. And uh and so uh

2:41 and I tell my clients that story because I I want them to know that I'm not one of those guys who killed it, made a ton of money, and I'm Mr. Knowit all. in

2:49 sales. I I'm a struggling salesman just like everybody else that has a story to tell and has a system that I really do do believe that

2:57 works and that's how I got into it. So yeah. No, that's great. And I mean those are pretty different ways to spend the rest of your life as terms of careers.

3:06 Like what was that final shove that said, well why don't I take the leap into like the sales trainer Rolf?

3:14 Well, um, I love Sandler. And it was interesting that when I when I left my previous employer, that was the first day of my life I had ever been

3:22 unemployed. And I very quickly realized that the the expertise that I had in my industry was in high demand.

3:29 So, I could have gone back to work for a competitor at the same comp, the same benefit plans, all that stuff. The wife kind of

3:37 was rooting for that because that was a more secure path.

3:40 True. But I'm telling you what, again, it's it was a calling for me. It was it was a calling that there's people out there that are struggling with sales and

3:49 they need to know what Sandler's all about. And um and and that was what caused me and and and and the faith

3:57 piece that I I just felt God would bless it if I if I did it for him. Um you know, there's a there's a scripture

4:05 verse in Psalm 131. that says, you know, uh, you know, people, uh, wake up early,

4:12 um, vying for food. They go to bed late, you know, worrying if if it's all going to work. Um, but those who who trust and

4:19 love love in the Lord, they sleep and they relax. And so that was kind of me.

4:24 I just I just instead of building in vain and and watching it in vain, I I let the Lord build the house. And all I can tell you is he's faithful and he

4:33 built it. He built it. And uh, and that's that's why I'm here. Yeah. Well, you mentioned one of the things. Well, first of all, I do want to comment on

4:41 that it might be a low barrier to entry to getting into a sales role, but it's a high barrier to get into success and being able to have like a Sandler system

4:50 and to be able to rely on that and to have the grit and grind. I mean, that's why you should have a sales trainer.

4:55 I'll I'll do a pitch job for other people for you.

4:58 No, I I I certainly would agree with that. But what's interesting about success is that it's available to everyone. Mhm.

5:04 And and and what separates the people who produce and the ones that don't, especially the ones that come into Sandler because I believe it's 100% effective. I I I know that I've been in it long enough to know now.

5:15 And Sand works all the time. Why do we get marginal results with some because they can't stay committed?

5:22 We become the biggest problem ourselves.

5:24 We become the problem. Uh maybe it's fears, maybe it's concerns, maybe it's worries. And so instead of trusting that the system will produce the results, we

5:31 we we go back to what we did before thinking that that's going to work. And then guess what? We get stalls, we get

5:38 objections, we we get we get ghosted and uh and that that harasses success. So

5:46 look, because that was me and uh man, a lot of risk-taking, uh a lot of failing,

5:53 a lot of pain, but but always getting back in the arena, right? Mhm.

5:59 And uh so it's available to everyone. I I I think everybody can be successful if if they just stay committed

6:07 and that that first of all, it's a painful position to be in.

6:11 And uh and it's hard to sustain. That's why New Year's resolutions always fail, right? Uh but boy, if we do,

6:20 success is almost guaranteed. Now, there there could be some extenduating circumstances outside of our control.

6:26 Yeah. But uh but that is a a formula for success that that really is is helpful.

6:32 And Sandler is simply a catalyst. It it takes those important qualities of the of the individual and it's like pouring

6:39 gasoline on that fire and it just gets us there faster. That's all. It just gets you there faster.

6:44 Yeah. Yeah. Um I mean I think that's such a big important part of it. It's like there's obviously people using the Sandler, you know, training methodology

6:52 to get success. So it really comes down to the individual when you're talking about it takes a commitment. I mean what are you looking for to identify and how

7:00 are you what are some of your common strategies to help people stay committed to the process as you know anyone might people you know have the right to waver

7:09 a little bit as they're trying to gain experience and get the reps and all that stuff.

7:14 Well so let's let's just define what commitment is. Um uh commitment means you're doing something that you're scared to do. Mhm.

7:22 Um uh in other words, your emotional position says uh let's do it a different way because that's easier, safer, we've

7:30 done it comfortable.

7:32 Tends to lead to a very reactive behavioral pattern. In other words, you wait for opportunities to come your way.

7:37 If you're committed, then you're trying to create opportunities. You're being a true entrepreneur. Yeah.

7:42 Uh the problem is is that it goes contrary to your emotional position. So it's always awkward. It's always uncertain. It's always risky. It's always dangerous.

7:50 And and so that's why so many people fail to stay on the line because they just can't put up with all that that pressure, all that angst. We have a

7:59 saying at Sandler, and you might even be familiar with it, Austin, you don't have to like it. You just have to do it every

8:06 day. That is the salesman's charge every single day. Uh and and the best place to

8:13 go uh to to reveal whether someone stays committed in the sales position is prospecting. Are they doing it or they not? Yeah.

8:21 And let me tell you about most salespeople, they're not doing it. Yeah.

8:26 I talked to a lot of managers. I talked to a lot of business owners. Their salespeople aren't prospecting.

8:33 Oh, they talk a big talk and and they and they always celebrate the order takes, right?

8:39 Because, hey, look at this, but they're not creating.

8:43 And that is a problem when the businesses are trying to grow. So prospecting is is where it it shows up a lot. Yeah.

8:50 Yeah. I mean, if I was going to look at anywhere along the the process, it prospecting the where it all starts.

8:56 Unless you're getting, you know, the inbound, which is I hope everyone gets plenty of inbound and tons of referrals, but at some point in time, you got to

9:03 have to kind of pull your own cart. Uh yeah, that's the part where it's the most uncomfortable, too. Hence why people tend to that.

9:12 Yeah. So, there's never a line at the phone at the airport, right? making cold calls. No, there's no line. It's wide open.

9:20 So, you were mentioning, you know, previously when we talked um that, you know, you think the easiest way to to deal with that lack of comfort and to be

9:28 keeping yourself committed is through systematizing your cookbook. Um, and is that kind of where those things come together? you've identified that the

9:37 commitment tends to be the thing that needs to be solved most often and then the best solved it is you know a systematic way.

9:45 Yeah. So, so you mentioned cookbook. So, what does a cookbook do for us? It it defines what the minimum daily behavior is. I I like that term, right?

9:53 Um if if we could sc if we could build a recipe that would lead to success, what would that recipe be in terms of behavior? The reason why we like the

10:01 behavioral recipe is I'm truly 100% in control of that. Yeah, it's not a function of externals. Like the economy can be crappy. We can have a

10:09 pandemic. Uh the business products can be lousy, the operations could be screwing up. Doesn't impact what I do as a as a professional, right? I still can

10:18 do the work. Uh a big message we always tell our clients is don't focus on results.

10:25 Just focus on the work that will produce the results and the results will take care of themselves. A lot of sales people what they do is they they keep looking at the results as they're doing

10:34 the hard work. they don't see them, so they get discouraged and then they quit, right?

10:39 How long will it take to get the flywheel spinning, folks, before the results start coming? And so the hack

10:46 that I that I had to do in order for me to to to do what I'm saying because folks, I got I don't like prospecting. I don't like it.

10:54 Yeah.

10:54 But I do it. And I've been doing it I've been doing the cookbook now faithfully for almost 10 years straight.

11:04 and it's now become habitual. And it's because I systematized it. What do I mean by systematize it? Can you imagine if you just sat down at your desk, you

11:11 flipped a switch, you left it in the on position for an hour, and then after an hour goes by, you turn it off, and then you go do other work. And what happened

11:18 in that hour? All I did was prospect, and I got all the minimum daily work done. And uh and so that's what I mean

11:26 by systematizing. You take all the emotions out of it. You just make it you just make it a a a behavioral exercise

11:33 and and you just go uh you have to trap yourself. You have to schedule appointments with yourself as part of the system so that when we enter the

11:41 prospecting block, we go and when it's done, we can stop. You don't have to prospect all day long. Nobody does.

11:47 Nobody can. It takes way too much energy for at least for me. I know I know there are some call centers that make a lot of calls, but I think that's more

11:54 telemarketing than than real prospecting of for for for big big deals.

11:59 Um and uh and so there are a number of elements that I certainly can talk about in regards to what the system needs uh

12:08 to to be, but but that's really it. Sit down, flip the switch, take the emotions out of it, stay objective, get the work

12:15 done, don't focus on the results, go home feeling like a winner. Yeah. I mean, if you don't mind me asking, I don't want to take away like make you

12:23 spill a secret sauce, but I'd love to understand when you when it's flipped on, what does that mean? And when it's flipped off, what's your indicator to say, "Hey, now it's time to flip it

12:31 off." Well, so when I flip it on, that means the system runs. And everybody, the system has to be built.

12:39 You got to have something. So, um, a lot of, so it's easy, for example, it's easy to get a salesperson to schedule time to

12:46 prospect, but then when they get to their prospecting time, they don't have the data. So, they'll spend all their prospecting time trying to gather data, and they won't make a single call and

12:54 said, "Hey, I spent an hour prospecting." That that's a great way to rationalize how to not do the calls. Um,

13:01 so, so the system has to be there ready to turn on. So, you have to have data and, and that takes effort. It's not

13:10 prospecting work, but you got to build it. Uh, and now there's so many AI

13:16 tools that can scour data that can look at your CRM that can really pull forward what what it thinks are really good

13:24 leads. Of course, you know, I I really don't do cold calling um because I've been doing Sandler for 15 years now and

13:32 so I know people a lot of a lot of people know me. Uh there's referrals, there's people who've I trained in the

13:39 past that could become clients again. Uh there's people who sat through my talks and my presentations that know what this is. And and so I'm looking for those

13:47 people and and I do I build a list. I'll use me as an example. So every week I have to do at least 30 calls.

13:56 I can do more, can't do less. Now some days I have full days of training, so I'm not going to do any calls then. So,

14:05 I have to double up then on the days leading up to that so I get the number in. The rule is you can't you can't do less. And if I were to show you my

14:13 numbers now, you would see that for the month of May, we're way ahead of pace actually.

14:18 Um, so so then what you got to have is you got to have what I call a prospecting box. Okay. Now, what is that? It is a finite list. So, if I'm

14:27 going to do 30 calls and I I like the cadence of once a week. I like the cadence of once a week. In other words, you you call somebody

14:35 uh and then you can call them again in a week. Uh don't do it more than that because I I don't want it to be oppressive.

14:41 So once a week. Uh so if I'm going to make 30 calls, how many members do you think I should have in my prospecting box?

14:48 Yeah, tell me. Well, it's 30, right? Okay. Okay.

14:52 Why don't we? So now when I prospect, again, this is so systems have rules.

14:58 If you're in my prospecting box, the only way to get out of it is if you tell me yes or you tell me no. Otherwise, you stay in and the next week you'll keep

15:06 getting you'll get a call and the next week you get a call. The next week get a call. This is kind of the magic. Again, I don't care. I'm just flipping the

15:14 switch. Remember, um I have I have called some prospects every week for a year.

15:22 Um now it is true that that I don't get a hold of everybody. Yeah, but my hit but I connect with 90% of the

15:30 people I'm trying to connect with and I'm calling CEOs and business owners, folks. So, the system does work. Um, the

15:38 10% are people who I either decided, yeah, they're going to be bad, they're not going to be good, or I really believe they're never going to take my call, so I'll take them out. Um, but uh,

15:48 see, the tragedy is most salespeople, they'll try once, they'll try twice, and it typically is with email, not even a phone call. Mhm.

15:56 And and after after a couple tries, they give up and they move on. And the truth is they might have connected, but they

16:05 just didn't give it enough time. And there's been research on that that often times it's the sixth, seventh, eth, ninth try,

16:12 before you you get through and get that connection. And sales people are giving up way too soon. I don't give up. I just keep going and I don't I don't really

16:19 care. Um and so so if they say yes, then that's an appointment. goes in the

16:26 pipeline. If the prospect says no, that comes out of the prospecting box. And and then at the end of the week, what

16:33 the list of 30 now is a list of 20. You see that?

16:36 Because I got yeses, I got nos. And then you got to rebuild the the data list again. Yet, that's why you have to do research. Now, I got to find 10 more data points to fill back up the list so

16:46 that when I flip the switch the next time, I'm ready to go and I got the data. I just prospect, prospect, prospect. In fact, it's kind of funny

16:53 cuz I have my CRM on my phone. I I open it up. There's the people. I I call them. All the calls are recorded.

17:01 I I walk in my training center. I just walk around because I I love the energy that gives. And I just go until I've got my five or six calls done. And it

17:10 doesn't matter whether I connected or talked to anybody. It's not about the result. It's about doing the work. And once the work is done, I can feel good

17:19 about accomplishing what I set out to accomplish that day. It's it's amazing how reliable that is. And the results

17:27 will come and go and fade and and and and it'll be feast and famine.

17:32 Uh and they rarely do the results track with the effort.

17:36 Um, but I am certain that if if the if the effort is good and it's the right kind of effort, the results will present

17:43 themselves and typically in in ways that will surprise you. Yeah.

17:48 So, so, so that is that is key. That's a key element of the system is you got to have a finite list, the warmest prospects you got. And if you don't have

17:57 enough warm prospects and you got to fill it with cold ones, you and you make the calls at at a cadence of once a week. At least that's

18:03 what works works for me. Now, what happens when you're 8, nine, or 10 or or

18:10 even three, four, five, I I do I do mix it up. I always start with a phone call.

18:16 That that's the cadence. You start with a phone call. I like leaving voice messages. Uh not many sales people are doing calls anymore. I hardly get them. I get I get maybe one or two a week.

18:25 Sad.

18:25 Uh but I'll get 50 or 60 emails a day, right? Well, you know what that tells

18:32 me? That the sales uh profession is littered with a bunch of pansies and they're afraid to pick up the phone and call because there could be conflict on

18:40 the other end of that line and they'd rather not embrace that. So, so again, stay out of the arena. I make the call. Um, and I leave messages.

18:49 Um, and then if I get to the the the the third or fourth try, then what I'll do is I'll I'll maybe make a call and then I'll send them a text.

18:59 And then next time I maybe I'll make a call and then I'll send them an email.

19:03 And so so the cadence will change and shift and I'll start bringing in and leveraging all the different digital channels that are available to me. And

19:11 there's about four or five of them just because sometimes people prefer to communicate on one channel versus another. And uh and and you know what?

19:20 After about the eighth or ninth try, I get a response. Hey, I'd like to meet. Hey, this isn't for us. Thanks for call. By the way, no one no one is ever upset.

19:29 Nobody ever gets I think sales people have head trash and I'm going to be bugging people. When you're on the prospecting side of it, they're the ones being rude, not me.

19:40 Even their voice greeting says, "Leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as I can." Well, guess what? They're not calling me back. So, who's the one that should be mad, right? I mean, it's me

19:49 that should be mad. And it's kind of funny because when I finally do get a hold of people, they always say, "Hey, sorry for not getting back to you." They're never upset. Now, if it's on the

19:58 sales side and you start bugging people, that's a problem. And sales is a totally different behavior than prospecting. And that's what we're talking about prospecting, right?

20:06 The system has a cadence to it. It has a a different uh channel perhaps at each

20:12 attempt. all designed and and dialed in to get connections. And boy, I'll tell you, um 90% of the time I get

20:21 connections and those connections then lead to uh meetings, opportunities, and and real business. So, yeah.

20:28 Uh so that's kind of kind of the system.

20:31 Uh I will tell you, Austin, it's helpful to have a good CRM.

20:35 It'll help manage it. You want to keep score. You want to know how many attempts you're making. You want to know what happens when you make the attempt.

20:43 Do you do you leave a voice message? Uh do you send a text? Do you talk to somebody? Do you make a connection? Uh

20:50 because I want those ratios. I I I want the data because past history, past performance will predict what future

20:58 behaviors might produce. And so I can use that to help dial in the cookbook.

21:03 All right. Again, it's a systematic approach and systems produce good accurate data as long as we stay close

21:12 and follow the rules. Um, and uh, and then the nice thing about the CRM, anytime I I connect with anybody,

21:22 always say and they say no, I say, "Hey, would it be okay if I check back in six months or or whenever." Um, and then I

21:29 just set it my uh CRM to have them pop up 6 months later. And so I get another lead and always the next time you

21:38 prospect it's a little warmer than the last, right?

21:41 Um, I have a lot of clients that I've prospected for years that we now do training for. Again, I

21:48 don't care. I don't care. I just flip the switch. I I don't know if that makes sense, but makes perfect sense. It is taking the

21:56 fear and the worry. I just sit down and say, "All right, it's time." And then you just go to the data. You could care less how many times you've called them, how many years you've called them.

22:04 You just if you have good data, that's always a big if. And I I think I have the best data I can find.

22:13 Make the calls and and the business comes. So So somebody wanted to do right practical application. Let's say I was working

22:22 with you, you were my trainer. You basically just be like, "Go to your LinkedIn, find 30 people that you think

22:29 would be interested in whatever your service is that you're connected to, the first contact. Put them in your CRM.

22:36 Next week, you're going to call every single one of them. And then anyone who doesn't respond, they're going to get called next week. Anyone who does respond, go back in, find the next most

22:45 likely five, 10 people, and then just keep working through that until, you know, that's going to be like a way to start the flywheel." So, so the prospecting box is key.

22:56 Um, I have to rely on the sales professional to understand and know who their ideal client is. In other words, we should have a very well- definfined

23:04 ideal client profile. If you're calling bad people, if you're calling bad data, if you don't have good information, prospecting does suck and it doesn't produce any results.

23:13 Totally.

23:13 So, so the system doesn't work if you don't put good stuff in it. Garbage in, garbage out.

23:20 Exactly. So it's very important that you put good stuff in it before you flip the switch. So the people you're calling are people that that that use your services,

23:28 use your products, right? So you got to know that. Um and uh and then once you have that, yeah, then then we we go back

23:37 to the cookbook and and you got to you got to determine how much money do I want to make? Uh how much do I get for

23:44 each sale? How many sales do I need? How many appointments do I need to get those sales? How many conversations do I need to get the appointments? How many attempts do I need to get the

23:52 conversations? And then that gives you a big number that ultimately you back down to a daily recipe. So I I told you it was six a day.

24:00 Well, for some who's just starting it, it could be 30 a day.

24:04 Um especially if the data is relatively cold.

24:08 Um and uh and so uh yeah, you you you follow that recipe and then yeah, then

24:15 then you go out and and again AI helps here. Uh if I know what my ideal client profile is, I can I can put that into CH

24:22 chat GPT which has access to databases and I think sales people should have access to database. U for example, I use Zoom Zoom Info. Well, guess what? Chat

24:30 GPT is connected to Zoom Info. So I'll say this is what I'm looking for. this is these are the these are the these are the hot ones. And then it goes through

24:39 the the data in my territory and pulls forward potential customers that that would use what I have. And then I then

24:47 with oversight, my oversight, I'll pluck out the ones I think I should be prospecting. Yeah.

24:53 And that builds the data and then the discipline has to kick in. you know, you you you call them once a week,

25:01 replenish, call the next week, replenish, and then that becomes the pattern. And I tell you what, it has

25:07 worked for me. Um, and uh, you know, I I doing the business a long time, and a

25:14 lot of trainers when they get to my age, they they just kind of lean on their referrals. Um, and I do. I lean on that,

25:21 too. But I still make the calls and uh I ask my clients to do it. And I I I don't want to be hypocritical in that area of

25:29 our training because I know how hard it is. So So we're in it, too.

25:33 Nice. Well, hey, we said an upfront contract when we went to record this that we would stop at the half hour mark, so I want to honor that. But before we do,

25:42 any final parting wisdom that kind of sums up what we just talked about?

25:47 So, um, yeah, sure. Um, and this is this comes from uh uh uh Sandler Dave Sandler's rules or selling. And this is

25:57 from the old rule book, not not the one that's been updated. Um, it was Sandler rule number nine. Every unsuccessful prospecting call earns compound interest.

26:08 And uh, and this is what that means.

26:11 When you are in the arena working and you're getting killed and you're getting sliced up and you're bleeding, oftentimes you don't see much reward.

26:22 But what you don't realize is that you're creating vibrations that go out into the future. And you just don't know how that future is going to reward you.

26:30 Because I cannot tell you how many times I I call a prospect, they say no, and then months later they reach out to me and says, "Hey, can you come and talk to

26:38 us about that training stuff?" So even when you get nos, you're producing work,

26:46 you're producing good things. And uh and I tell you what, that mindset, that belief

26:53 is uh is important for me to stay with it because if I really look at the results I'm getting today, it can be discouraging at times. It can I can be in the wilderness,

27:02 but uh it just sets up it just sets up a plethora of opportunity in the future.

27:07 You just don't know when. So, uh, so I stay with it. So, that is a huge takeaway for those of you that that that are are in prospecting and have to do it

27:15 and don't enjoy it. I get it. I understand it. But I'm telling you what, if you stay with it, it will produce a future that I think you're going to really really like.

27:25 And that's how you keep that commitment, right? Understand that that's the truth.

27:29 Is it? Yeah. And I I've seen it enough to know that it is true. I' I've I've had way too many people reach out back to me.

27:38 uh because I was prospecting them and became clients.

27:43 So yeah, it would not have happened if I wasn't faithful and got the rejection who knows how long ago.

27:49 Um it would not it would not have happened. So yeah, because you stuck with it. It did happen. Cool.

27:55 Well, hey Carl, really appreciate your time on this one. Great insights on it.

27:59 Love the systemic approach, systematic approach to it. Um thank you again for joining me.

28:04 Yeah, you bet. It was a pleasure. Thanks Austin. Thanks.