Scott Bliss on Sales Cookbooks, Prospecting Discipline, and Pipeline Consistency

Transcript

0:02 All right. Well, welcome to another another uh episode of Tailwind. I'm joined today by Scott Bliss. He is a Sandler sales trainer in New Jersey uh for the last nine years. Is that right?

0:12 Nine years. Yeah, just nine years in May this month.

0:15 Anything else I should have mentioned uh during that intro? Nope, that's fine.

0:20 Cool. Yeah, people can research it, right? Yeah, exactly.

0:23 Yeah. Well, so we want to talk about cookbook today. Um and then you were mentioning that there are the five C's.

0:28 uh would love to get kind of like the the groundwork, the foundation around cookbook and then dive into those five C's.

0:34 Yeah. No, absolutely. And and I'm sure I'm sure your listeners, you know, already know at Sandler, we rely heavily

0:40 on what we call a cookbook and if if you think of the term cookbook, um if you

0:47 are following a recipe, you have all the ingredients laid out for you and the measurements of exactly how much of what you need. And if you want to make

0:56 grandma's sauce, and I know there's that whole debate, is it gravy or is it sauce? Right? I grew up it was sauce, but uh if if you want to follow

1:04 grandma's recipe for her sauce, if you loved her sauce as as a kid, you have the recipe. If you deviate away from her

1:12 recipe, it's no longer going to taste like grandma's sauce. So that kind of the ingredients list, that cookbook, it's a recipe and you can predict the

1:21 outcome. If you follow that cookbook, it gives you a bit of a predictable outcome. In sales, we talk about it the

1:28 same way. A cookbook in sales, I also refer to it as a revenue generating plan. Uh sales reps are notorious for

1:37 always complaining about uh their quota is too high, it's out of reach, it's unattainable. And a lot of times uh they

1:46 feel that way. And I'm not discounting those feelings. It it may be there may be some truth to it, but most of the time they're thinking about how are they

1:54 going to get that growth from all the accounts where people know them and love them and they're comfortable in right then they're right. Right. If they

2:03 have to continue to maximize growth in accounts where they have the majority of the wallet share already, then that

2:10 quota looks uh you know unattainable. Uh many sales reps have territories where there's a bunch of accounts that they've never been to. They know nothing about.

2:21 They don't have any relationships there and quite frankly they don't enjoy calling on them because they don't know

2:29 anybody, right? So when they get these lofty growth goals that they have to attain, they need to develop a plan on how they're going to do it. And this is

2:38 where that recipe list, that ingredient list or in Sandler, our cookbook, uh, this is where it comes in handy. And it

2:46 outlines the daily activities that we have to do every single day that's going to get us in front of new people that's

2:54 going to lead to uh, potentially new meetings, new conversations, and new opportunities entered into the funnel is pretty much the cookbook.

3:04 Yeah. I I found as a a recently trained Sandler seller that the cookbook is extremely helpful just keeping me on task. And then like being able to focus

3:13 on um you know, I'm just going to do my cookbook and maybe not every day is going to turn out great, but if I continue to do it every single day, the

3:21 wins will start to accumulate. And as those start to accumulate, it feels better and better and then it's like and nothing changes. or maybe like I try to improve the cookbook based on what I'm

3:30 seeing out there, but like I just like every single day just get in there, execute on the cookbook. Um, I've been learning a lot about uh it being more

3:39 than just cold calling and cold emailing. Like I think there be like variety to it and that's been fun to be able to integrate that in and make my my

3:46 cookbook a little bit more robust than just like two things.

3:50 Let me ask you, what are besides cold emails and and cold calls, what are some of the things that you've been doing? um you know other kind of we call them

3:59 leading indicators. What are other those leading indicators that you're doing besides cold calling and cold emails to to strike up conversations?

4:07 You know, networking has been part of it. That's pretty basic. Um and then I don't I don't know if this is too meta, but like doing like these podcasts, getting on, you know, creating, you

4:16 know, valuable content because we're getting expertise for that people is relevant for, you know, our audience.

4:21 Um, and then we're able to put it on LinkedIn and that generates, you know, interest in ter like for inbound. Um, which has been, you know, interesting. I

4:29 I'll be very honest, I never ever thought I would record a podcast ever and not as a guest, not as a host. And now I'm doing it because it's the

4:38 cookbook started showing like we had um I I did one just because of like I don't know people do this for lead genen. Let me give it a shot.

4:45 You know, I did one I got two leads from it and I was like ah this is working. I think I have to do it. And then and then

4:53 like I kept doing it and it kept getting us opportunities and I was like okay like totally just an experiment but then because we took that experiment we were

5:00 able to identify oh this is like another thing that we can do that's part of it.

5:04 Well congratulations to you for expanding your comfort zone because a lot of folks just kind of want to stay comfortable stay with the things that they know and they know they're good at.

5:12 You you took a leap of faith there and did something different. got you out of your comfort zone and now the more you do it, the more value you see in it and

5:20 the more comfortable you get. So that's pretty cool. Definitely.

5:23 Yeah, it's definitely be a it's been a consistent uh practice of being in my discomfort zone but growing because of that

5:32 opportunity to be discomfort like uncomfortable during that. Um and I'm sure in like a year I'll be like look back and I'll be comfortable with these

5:39 things. It'll be nice. Uh, but I've definitely been it's been a long road of like a year of just like totally being outside of my comfort zone. Um, but hey,

5:48 it is what it is. So, um, we mentioned like the five C's. Comfort doesn't happen happen to be one of those, is it?

5:55 Comfort is not Okay. I didn't think it was, but I figured what's the chance?

6:00 Yeah. So, the five C's, the first one that I always talk about is conviction, right? So that conviction is you have to

6:07 genuinely believe that the the leading indicators the things that you decide to do are going to work.

6:14 Uh so as an example uh leading indicators are the things that you do that produce results. The results is the

6:22 lagging indicator right? So your your sales numbers at the end of the month at the end of the quarter at the end of the year that's a lagging indicator. The

6:30 leading indicators are the things like podcasts, cold calls, cold emails, other types of LinkedIn and social media work,

6:38 uh video emails that you send to people, uh video messages on LinkedIn, and and my favorite and probably the most

6:46 important and the easiest that so many people forget, referrals and introductions. Right? There's a difference between referrals and

6:53 introductions. A referral might be uh I've experienced Sandler. I've I've experienced you as a trainer. It's helped me greatly. I would absolutely be

7:02 willing to to to talk to somebody else and let them know how Sandler was great for for me. But a lot of times with the

7:09 networking, we get in front of a lot of people and and we we want to be able to give and and give introductions to those other people that we work with as well.

7:19 Uh, and sometimes even though Austin, you're experienced in Sandler and you've worked with some great trainers uh, over

7:26 the years, you've never worked with me as a Sandler trainer. So, if I were to ask you for a referral, it might put you in a in a weird state saying, you know,

7:34 Scott's a good guy and I love Sandler, but I've never experienced Scott as my trainer. I feel kind of weird giving him a referral. That's where the word introduction comes in.

7:45 Yeah.

7:45 An introduction is merely just that. An introduction is if I asked you if I asked you for an introduction to to your

7:52 friend Bob who runs a sales team. Uh all I would want you to do is say, "Hey Bob, listen. I know Scott. Uh I know Sandler.

8:00 I've never been trained by Scott, but he seems like a really great guy. Uh very committed to Sandler." And he asked for an introduction to you. Uh I I think

8:08 it's going to be worth a 15-minute conversation. That's an introduction versus a referral. And they're really warm leads, warm calls.

8:16 Yeah. Right. Nothing better than a warm lead, right? All parties involved. Like, that's the best. It's funny. I I never really had thought about the difference

8:24 between a referral and introduction, but I would do I would I would phrase my emails or my the connecting of dots

8:32 based on referral or introduction. Um, and I just kind of always thought of it as like the same thing, but just how

8:38 much conviction I had within uh making that dot connect and being like, "Hey, I for sure can tell you this person's great." versus, hey, this person seems

8:47 great. Every time I talk to them, they're really they're really intelligent. I really don't know what they do. I can't really vouch for them at this point.

8:53 But it's nice to have that bifurcation in my head now thinking about what that looks like. And then what again what you're asking for during the process of being like, "Hey, I know we've ever

9:01 worked together. I'll take an intro." Or like, "Hey, we work together. I'll take a referral." Um, that's going to be like nice to be able to just have that clearly defined

9:08 in my head. I know salespeople that do such a good job with the referrals and introductions uh that they get in front

9:17 of enough quality new people weekly to where that's that's the main thing that they do. And there's really easy ways to

9:25 do it and uh be happy to share that share that with you. But um you know talking to people that you already know

9:33 and asking for those introductions. Uh, but anything you do, anything you put together in your cookbook, whether it's a certain, you you want to put granularity to it. You don't want to

9:41 just say, "I need to make cold calls, send cold emails, ask for referrals and introductions." You want to put numbers behind it. Mhm.

9:48 You want to put numbers and you want to stick to it. And the conviction piece comes into play where you really believe

9:55 that ultimately at the end of the day, these are the things that I need to do to be successful. And we're going to have some bad days. If we say, "I want

10:02 to do 15 cold dials a day." There's going to be days where you make 15 cold dials and you leave 15 voicemails. And you're going to feel like, well, even

10:10 though that doesn't take a whole lot of time, you're going to feel a little bit deflated. But, you know, over time that those are the numbers you have to do.

10:18 You have to send those emails following up those cold calls that you do. You have to do those video messages. You have to do the referrals and introductions. having a conviction that

10:27 overall at the end of the day, these are the things that I need to do that if I do them no matter what, even when I'm

10:34 having a bad day, I stick to my cookbook, good things are going to happen overall. So, really having that conviction in what you're doing, that

10:42 belief that it's going to work over a longer period. It might not work in that day or that week, but over the long haul

10:50 that's going to work, right? So having that conviction, so when you're early and you're just starting with your cookbook and it's,

10:58 you know, the conviction maybe is, you know, trust, but it's not necessarily from your own personal experience. Like

11:04 how do you recommend for people to like like cuz like once you like have done something and it starts to work, the conviction becomes easy, but that early

11:12 stage seems like it's a little bit more difficult. Like what would be your recommendation on navigating that as an individual who's building their conviction, I suppose?

11:20 Yeah. So, a couple of things. Um, number one, we have some rules at Sandler. One of them is, uh, you can't fail at prospecting,

11:29 right? You can only fail the prospect, right?

11:32 You can't fail at it. You can only fail if you don't do it, right? So, being in the right frame of mind, having your attitude and your mindset, saying that, you know,

11:41 it's going to work over time. It might not work right away, but I have to build this up and I have to start somewhere and I can tweak it over time, right? But if I find things I need to do less of

11:49 this or more of this or change my talk tracks a little bit, let me let me find the the talk tracks that actually work or let me talk to some of my colleagues

11:57 that have been successful at it. But but being in that right frame of mind um because we are going to have those rough days at it, but we know I'm sticking to it because it's going to work.

12:08 Yeah, it's going to work. I just have to stick to it. So, uh but trying new things, right? um not being afraid, not being

12:15 close-minded, not not being uh afraid, putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. My third cold call I ever

12:23 made, uh on my first day in business, uh when I opened up my Sandler business, I went through two weeks of intense

12:30 training and certification. Came back 8 a.m. The next morning, I'm sitting making my cold calls. The third person I

12:38 called not only hung up on me, but told me to lose their number. That was the third person I called and I was like, "Wow."

12:47 You know, and I said, "I I must have got him on a bad day, right? That was it." He said, "How'd you get this number? This is my cell phone.

12:54 Uh, these are for my friends and family only." To which you are neither, you know, lose this number. And I was like, "Wow." Yeah. Right.

13:02 You know, two weeks later, two weeks later, I called him back though. I did. I just didn't sit right with me. I called him back. He didn't remember.

13:09 He didn't say, "You're the guy who I told you to lose." He didn't remember anything. Super nice guy. Super nice guy. We had a small conversation. He

13:17 didn't have a need for what we do. But I just Yeah. I just couldn't let it sit with me where he was just like so rude and arrogant that first day. I got him

13:24 on a bad day. And that's the mindset that you have to have. Sometimes people, you know, you're going to get him on a bad day. Yeah. Right.

13:30 Did you call him back on his cell phone, too? Like, did you not Yeah, I love that. I gota I I gotta find some next time somebody gives me a hard time when

13:38 I call them, I'm just gonna have to store their number number and call them in two weeks.

13:42 It's so true that like the second they hang up, they've forgotten about you.

13:45 Like they they don't think about you the rest of the day and then it sits with you on the other end though where you're like that bad phone call sits with you

13:52 and it's like that's so silly. It's not sitting with them anymore and then you can call them in two weeks and they might just be super happy to talk to you at that point in time.

14:00 But but that also defies my Sandler rule of um you cannot get emotionally connected to the results of of these cold prospecting. And to me, I let that

14:09 emotionally affect me because I called them back two weeks later just to prove a point to myself, right? But um um but yeah, you have to have that

14:16 conviction in the activities that you're going to do. And you can tweak them as you go, but the activities that you do, you have to have that conviction that they're going to work. That's the first C, that conviction.

14:25 Yeah. The second C is is commitment. So conviction is the belief, but the commitment is the action.

14:35 The action of showing up every day and doing those behaviors even when you don't feel like it. Right? You're

14:42 feeling down and dejected. Uh or you got a headache or um Aunt Sophie liked my f my post on Facebook. Let me go hang out

14:51 on on Facebook for a little while. You have to have the commitment to doing the behaviors no matter what. And that's

14:58 going to show up every day uh in what you do. Being committed to it, you know, throughout the good times and the bad.

15:04 The the the cookbook only works if you follow the recipe. Mh.

15:09 So, you have to have that level of commitment because at the end of the day, we as salespeople cannot control

15:16 our results. We can't control if people answer the phone. We can't control if they respond to the email. We can't control if they respond to the LinkedIn

15:25 video, whatever it might be. But we can absolutely control our behaviors. Yeah.

15:30 And whether or not we do them or not. So the commitment needs to be there. 100%.

15:35 Like if you're if you start with commitment, you can build the conviction if you don't have it yet. And then eventually have the conviction because

15:43 you've had the commitment through the period of time that it takes to build it. I mean, I know on a weekly basis, like I have my number that I have to hit

15:50 for that total touches and there'll be weeks where like I'll have like a Wednesday like everything is like on fire and like I'm in tons of meetings

15:57 and I just don't like I literally have no time and I always sit there and I go, "Okay, well, tomorrow is going to be double the effort because I'm going to hit my number." And it's just a

16:06 non-negotiable internally for me is I have to do it every single week. And you know, like I you know, I am the founder of my own business. I don't like report

16:15 to anybody, but it's just like but I know that if I can hit my number every single week that could I fulfilled my commitment and it always feels great.

16:23 Like I always kind of like I I wake up and I'm like I don't know if I want to make twice as many cold calls today. But then being able to then get done with it

16:30 and be like I I I accomplished something. Even if I didn't secure a meeting during that like time period, at least I accomplished my commitment and

16:38 was able to like, you know, hang my hat on that at the end of the day.

16:41 Yeah, absolutely. It's a It's an accomplishment. And think about it this way. You just said it, right? Today's Monday. Let's say you don't feel like doing your your cookbook activities.

16:50 Tomorrow's Tuesday. Uh you get busy and you only do a couple of them. Wednesday comes, everything's going on. You know,

16:58 same with Thursday. There's no way you're going to sit there on Friday and make 80 dials, send 40 emails, ask for

17:06 12 referrals, or it's not going to happen, right? And then that's a lost week. So you have to have that that commitment which is the only thing you

17:14 can control, right? The behavior, the what you do, right? This is all about the what. And and it's a really simple way to um put down on paper how you're going to do it.

17:26 And you said something really interesting. It's not part of the five C's, but uh you know, you you own your own company. You're doing it for for

17:34 yourself, right? So at at the end of the day, your motivations change. When I worked for corporate America, uh, I was

17:42 motivated by pleasure, meaning got a nice paycheck, got nice, you know, 401k, company car, expense account, all that

17:50 stuff. And while I was never one to ever live beyond my my means, um, my wife and I and my family, we like to do nice

17:57 things. We like to go on vacation when we want to. We like to be able to have a savings account and be able, you know, we don't live in a McMansion where, you

18:05 know, and and we have a bunch of credit debt. We we live a nice lifestyle, right? Motivated by pleasure. Every two weeks that paycheck would come in, it was great.

18:14 When I started my own business nine years ago, the that motivation of living a pleasurable lifestyle is still there,

18:23 but it changed just a little bit because now I'm motivated by the fear of not

18:30 being able to live that pleasurable lifestyle. So, if I don't do my cookbook, that's going to be not it's

18:37 not going to enable me to get in front of enough new people that have a good pipeline. The cure to sales cancer is is a healthy pipeline, right? So, sometimes

18:46 we as sales reps, we get lazy. Things are going good for a couple months. We stop doing the cookbook.

18:52 Uh, and then of course, you know, next quarter begins and we're look at the pipeline and it's light and we're like, "Oh, man. I get to get back onto my my

19:01 prospecting type stuff, my cookbook. If you stay committed to your cookbook, you will not have those down times, right? And you'll always be able to

19:09 flourish with at least uh some good stuff at at different stages of of the pipeline, right? So that commitment is huge.

19:18 Yeah, we have like a three to six month sales cycle. So it's like what I'm doing now is going to affect how I feel in six months. And I know that if I stop if

19:26 things are good now, it's not gonna be good in six months if I don't do the job. Like then in six months if let's say I do a great job now and in six months things are great.

19:35 That's another time to slow down because in the next six months it's going to be well what did I do during the time when things were flush?

19:41 Y um it's uh it's very interesting because I've you know in my career I've never really been like a saleserson in like a

19:50 you know I like ran other jobs. I had a very bad sales job early in my career. I wasn't really supported. I didn't know what I was doing. So, I don't really count that. Um, but like being somebody

19:59 who was like a project manager, worked closely with sales people, I would see these things, but I never experienced them. And it's very different to experience them and be like, "Oh, I now

20:07 understand exactly what that means now because I've had that time." Um, so all right, so we got conviction,

20:14 commitment. What's the third C? The third C and arguably the most important C is consistency.

20:23 Right? So if we think about it, sporadic effort produces sporadic results.

20:29 So we want to make sure that the cookbook is specifically designed to create some good consistency, the same

20:37 behaviors week in and week out. Again, you can tweak them as you see fit, right? But and you might find that one's working better than the other. So maybe

20:46 you do more of one, less less of another. Uh but regardless of how the pipeline looks, you just said it, right?

20:52 The stuff you're doing today is 3, six months out.

20:56 Regardless of how that pipeline looks, you want to continue with the consistency of your behaviors of doing

21:03 the cookbook. The biggest problem I see with my clients for years, and I think you'll get the same from any Sandler person you work with, the biggest

21:11 problem is that salespeople are inconsistent.

21:14 Mh. you know, uh they prospect hard when the pipeline is kind of empty and light, but they stop when it starts to to to

21:22 fill up, right? So, that's going to create that bed of uh inconsistency. And once that happens, they kind of wonder why they're on a roller coaster and

21:29 their their results, you know, kind of go like that. It's all because I don't know if it's necessarily part of their conviction or commitment. Uh more so of

21:39 their consistency in in doing the things that they know are going to lead to the to the right things.

21:45 Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I I feel like there's a theme building where it's like I see how these all overlap, but it's like almost putting up like an

21:52 impenetrable wall to be like there's no there's no sneaking around how you're going to execute this stuff. It's like I have to have conviction but commitment

22:01 and like I see how those things are slightly different and then now we have uh consistency and it's like all right I can see how commitment and conviction is also now consistency is walling off

22:10 another excuse or an escape route from it. Yeah. So what's the what's the next C?

22:15 The next C this is the hardest one for for salespeople. Um consequences.

22:22 And when I say the word consequences to you, where does your mindset immediately go?

22:27 Uh, I've actually thought a lot about consequences and what it means because sometimes consequences are great and sometimes they're bad. And it's there's

22:35 that negative connotation of consequence just means a negative thing, but it's really just a result of action. Um, but I think, you know, a lot of people I

22:42 think would go to uh something bad. I'm being punished. That's my consequence, right?

22:47 And that's what most people think. But consequences are both positive and negative, right? So every behavior that we do does have a consequence

22:55 and and the cookbook makes them visible and predictable, right? So a positive consequence is if

23:03 we hit our cookbook numbers, um sales consistently kind of flow, the pipeline gets some some good stuff in

23:11 it. You'll start seeing those fuller fuller pipelines, maybe a little bit more predictable income, less stress, greater confidence. Those are all aspects of positive uh consequences.

23:23 You even have a good solid uh this going to sound silly, right? But you reward yourself. You you have a good couple of

23:30 months of of really, you know, adhering to to your cookbook. Go reward yourself, right? You get the pipeline starting to build up, but

23:39 go get that bottle of wine that you've been holding off on. Go to that nice meal. Take your wife out or your husband out or your your significant other out

23:47 for that nice meal. Celebrate. give yourself a pat on the back, right? And just keep rewarding yourself for those for those, you know, the positive

23:55 consequences that you should have from completing Yeah. uh your your cookbook, right?

24:01 On the reverse side though, negative consequences kind of happen when you skip your cookbook activities more than

24:07 you actually make them. Um we we start getting a little negative because results don't show up immediately. Some,

24:16 like you said, sometimes they show up 60, 90, 120 days later. Yeah.

24:22 Right. For an empty pipeline. So that lag is kind of dangerous because it it tricks people into thinking that they can skip one week and it won't matter.

24:30 Mhm.

24:31 Right. So, you know, we kind of want to make sure that we understand both sides of of the consequences because that's what's going to really create the real

24:39 urgency around your daily behaviors, right? It's not just about reward, but it's also about avoiding the pain of future scarcity.

24:47 Yeah.

24:48 Right. So, do you like do you is it do you have like a practice of how you like directly tie consequence to the to the cookbook

24:56 of like be sitting down like once a month and being like, hey, this activity led to these meetings and like tying them together directly or Okay.

25:05 Yeah.

25:06 How would you recommend like somebody puts that into practice?

25:09 Uh, start start small. We eat elephants one bite at a time, right? Start small and start looking at it weekly. If you don't have a cookbook and you're not

25:16 doing a cookbook today and you're just kind of willy-nilly, put one together and then at the end of each week, sit down there and kind of grade yourself on

25:24 it, right? Say, "What did I do? Why didn't I do what I needed to do? What do I need to change?" Right? Like I said, your cookbook for the most part is kind

25:32 of like a breathing document. You can tweak it. Um, if one one activity is working better than another, do a little bit more of it. But you should sit

25:40 there. You should get into the habit of it. Your cookbook should be visible. It should be uh on your desk, on your computer, on your phone, something that you look at every day.

25:49 I I used to laugh. Um I still chuckle a little bit. Um and I'm almost embarrassed to admit this, but you know, when I go to the gym, I'll always see

25:58 those one or two people that are sitting there right in their workout with a notebook and they're writing things down and they're checking things off and I

26:06 kind of chuckle. But then you kind of look at those people and they're the ones that are all ripped and looking good and doing the exercises the right

26:15 way and keeping track of it. And I'm sitting there thinking, "Wow, you know what? You know, maybe I should uh be tracking what I'm doing a

26:23 little bit better, a little bit more often in the gym, right?" So, yeah.

26:28 Um, you know, you wanna you want to be able to reward yourself. The negative consequences to not doing your cookbook, you're not going to have the pipeline

26:35 where you need it to be. If you are an employee and you have a boss, some other negative consequences are you're going to feel a lot of pressure and stress

26:44 from up above saying you're not hitting your numbers. You're pulling the rest of the team down. Um what's going on? Why aren't why are you just staying in

26:53 accounts where you know people you need you need to go out there and meet other people? I remember years ago before my Sandler business, uh I was in the uh the

27:01 pharma space and I was working with one of my reps at at a pharma account and we sold a lot of R R&D type chemicals and I

27:10 was working with them. We'd walk into like three R three labs in a row. Then we'd skip four labs. Then we'd walk into another two. Then we'd skip five. And

27:18 I'd be like, "Hey, Brian, what's going on? Why are we not going into these labs?" "Oh, I don't know anybody in there." Right? I'm just going talking to

27:27 people that order stuff from us. I'm like, well, don't you think there's something wrong with that? Right. So, it's kind of like, you know, putting yourself in in uncomfortable situations

27:35 to, you know, the the cookbook's going to help you avoid uncomfortable situations with your boss because your behaviors, the accomplishment the

27:44 accomplishment of your cookbook is the only thing within your control that you can guarantee gets done the right way.

27:50 I like I like this this focus on the positive side of it, too. Like it's for me especially like right now newer business like we're still trying to

27:58 establish ourselves. So like very much focused on the negative consequences rather than focusing enough on the positive consequences. And I love this

28:06 idea of just like at every Friday like my co-founder and I do a debrief. We talk about the week. I think we just need to sit down, look at the cookbook, talk about the consequences of what

28:15 happened during that week. And I that's a new adopted practice that we'll have to definitely do like after having this conversation. Uh, we're a little over

28:23 the time, but I do want to hear the fifth C. Is that all right?

28:25 Fifth C. Yeah, let's do the fifth C. The fifth C is clarity, right? You cannot execute what you don't clearly

28:33 understand. So, the cookbook must be specific. Not make some calls, but make 20 prospecting calls, right? By by noon.

28:42 Uh, do 18 emails. You really want that clarity because what clarity provides you is it removes the ambiguity and the excuses.

28:52 So when the expectations are crystal clear, your personal accountability becomes much more straightforward and

29:00 fair. So you have to have the clarity, but also the clarity kind of works both ways, right? The salesperson needs clarity on what to do and the manager

29:09 needs clarity on where they're going to coach their salespeople, right? If they're working with, you know, a sales manager that needs, right? So if I had a

29:17 a sales manager or your partner can be your accountability partner, your business partner. Hey, right Austin, did you do what you said you were going to do? Right? You hold each other kind of

29:25 accountable because without clarity, conviction, commitment, and consistency has nothing to attach to, right? So it kind of all starts with

29:34 with with the clarity there. And and kind of like in in closing of this, um the five C's are not independent, right?

29:43 From that aspect, they build on each other. So the clarity tells you what to do. The conviction makes you believe it's worth doing. The commitment makes

29:51 you do it. And the consistency makes you do it repeatedly. Yeah.

29:55 Right. And of course the consequence is you reward yourself or you penalize yourself. So they all kind of work uh independently of of one another.

30:04 Yeah. That's great. Yeah. Um, it's such a good way to like work on the mindset around cookbook to have these five C's

30:12 and then just like a think through them and have them consistently like does are are the five C's applied and actually

30:19 active in my cookbook or do I just have a cookbook that is maybe spineless or like doesn't have like any teeth to it.

30:26 And this is like a great way to like give it a backbone, make it something that's going to be strong and not just like I have my, you know, my cookbook, I

30:33 have my piece of paper with everything now. How's here's how I make it like powerful by using the five keys. That's super.

30:40 Don't make it Don't make it a check the box activity cuz then it's Yeah.

30:44 You know, you don't have the commitment there.

30:45 It can feel like it sometimes like it can feel like it's checking the box and then like you're losing track of what the 5C's are reminding you is like what

30:54 what this really is underneath it, right? Yeah.

30:57 Yep. Absolutely. It's a box that you have the con conviction in that's really going to help you get to the place where you want to be. So, yeah, that's the mindset you want to have. Oh,

31:06 building and using a cookbook has changed my business. That that there's no it's un it's undeniable. We would not be where we are if I didn't have one if

31:14 we didn't use one every week. Like we are reaping the benefits of having that as a framework to use. And now the five C's will help us make it even more powerful. I believe it.

31:24 Perfect. Very good.

31:26 Well, Scott, I appreciate it. Thank you for staying a little bit longer. Um this is great. I'm really excited to to start applying this to my own cookbook and getting that into action.

31:34 Great. Awesome. Thank you for having me today.