Kyle Crooke: Unlocking Exceptional Leadership: Human Connection, Overcoming Challenges, and the Path to Empowerment

Ever wonder what distinguishes a good boss from a great leader? This episode's rich discussion with Kyle Crooke, Chief Performance Officer at Raise Your Revenue by Sandler, promises to illuminate the ways in which leadership transcends mere management, fostering a culture of empowerment that can skyrocket business success. We dissect the hidden costs of high employee turnover, particularly within sales, and debate the effectiveness of AI against the undeniable power of human connection.

Join me as I bare my soul about my own entrepreneurial journey, starting a business with my father and learning the ropes of leadership through the lens of personal development. My guest, Omar, and I share candid stories of overcoming challenges like social anxiety, and we explore how these experiences have sculpted our approaches to building networks and handling rejection. Our tales take you from the importance of consistent effort in professional growth to the transformative effects of coaching, mentorship, and the pivotal moments that one conversation can have.

We wrap up with a practical toolkit for listeners: from the art of active listening to the strategy of niche targeting, these are the skills that forge stronger client relationships and drive sales forward. The episode also journeys through the evolution of sales practices, emphasizing the rise of a consultative approach grounded in trust and transparency. And for those looking to boost productivity, we offer a simple yet effective method: breaking down your day into bite-sized, focused efforts to propel you towards achieving your business dreams. Don't miss this insightful exploration into the heart of what makes a business—and its leaders—truly thrive.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

I never told no one that my whole life I've been holding back. Every time I load my gun up so I can shoot for the star, I hear a voice like who do you?

Speaker 2: 0:11

think you are All right. Everybody. Another day, another dollar, another one of my favorite episodes. Yes, I'm biased, it's my own podcast. What if it did work? Here's my next guess. Found him on LinkedIn. He's what I would describe a hustler, always posting content on a consistent basis. Kyle Crock, chief performance officer of raise your revenue by Sandler. Kyle's background is in consulting, coaching and training. He's consulted for Fortune 100 companies and has personally coached and trained Executive teams in his prior life. Now, with raise your revenue, kyle creates customized learning paths for salespeople, sales leaders and business owners to enhance the behaviors, attitudes and techniques Required to dry long-term business performance For themselves and their organizations. Kyle believes that organizations need to be empowered To empower their people in order to enable their sales amen, and that's precisely why he's focused, as consulting and coaching services, on relationship based business performance. Well, how's it going, brother?

Speaker 3: 1:23

It's going well. I want thank you for having me on man. I feel very, very privileged.

Speaker 2: 1:28

You know. You said it best there, though, because so many people. That last line is so powerful. Organizations need to empower their people to create sales, but yet and I was telling this at at my one of my past places of consulting is there's a difference between a boss and a leader. A Boss is somebody just do it, just do it, just do it. Has you under their thumb, like the Rolling Stones song has a book on what you cannot do. Everybody's checked out, everybody's on, indeed, or everybody is so checked out. Hey, can you handle this? It's not my department. Horrible customer sales, everybody's disengaged, while what you just said to empower, that's a leader. That's when you tell the person I believe in you, let's make this happen.

Speaker 3: 2:28

Oh, yeah, we're saying that we're big on positional versus relational authority Possessional authority being supervisor what you just described there and then relational being broken down into Essentially a coach, mentor and trainer. A lot of too many bosses and leaders spent a lot of time in the supervisory aspect and not nearly enough time in the coaching and mentoring aspects.

Speaker 2: 2:52

Well, not only that, but a lot of times it's too many chiefs, not, not enough Indians. We're not trying to be, I know, I'm afraid to say, but that old saying and your top heavy. Everybody, everybody has a title. Congratulations, you have a title, but what about everybody else? Let's grow this company.

Speaker 3: 3:15

Oh yeah, there is. In my and one of my other Consulting past lives there were really gifted senior consultants and there were so many of them that there was a bottleneck for them to be promoted a manager. There were more managers and senior managers than there were senior consultants, but the Breath of talent was at that senior consultant level and since they weren't able to get promoted, compensated or additional stretch opportunities, they started going to other companies, other big consulting companies, and so, just just like you said, it's not only a positional versus relational thing, but it's also just a number of people in leadership roles and if they're stepping on each other's toes, but when you do that, you lose good people.

Speaker 2: 3:58

You look, you lose your stars. Mm-hmm, ours are disengaged daily. What stays with you are people that just do whatever it takes just to get by the cancers, the people that spread the bad habits, which even even a good employees. They see that and they're like what's my motivation? This guy does absolutely nothing. Why am I going to get paid? The same, and it's you have that effect. And then when you have people all checked out and your stars are leaving, this constant turnover costs money and time, which is the same because you have to retrain new people.

Speaker 3: 4:41

Well, yeah, especially in in sales right with the really high attrition rates, and there's a lot of statistics on how much easier it is, both from a training system and systems perspective, and then also monetary, to be able to keep really good people. Generally, profits aren't very welcoming. Their hometown companies can very easily lose, lose sight of the power of their people in pursuit of other things.

Speaker 2: 5:04

Well, when you pursue other things, you have a hope, strategy, hmm, workout, you know.

Speaker 3: 5:12

Yeah, that's absolutely right, it's. It's interesting, omar, it's. You know the economy is always gonna be up down Side of this or that, but it seems like For decades and it's becoming more prevalent now companies still don't understand that keeping their people and investing them through the good times and the bad times is Gonna not only alleviate the bad times but also set them up for great growth long-term, and it's something that is an ongoing, endless cycle. So it's mind-blowing to see, with the, how much technology we're putting out AI, all that stuff is great, but at the end of the day, it's the highest lever. The most leverage is people and a lot of large companies. I understand that, but a lot of smaller companies, especially since most companies are entrepreneurial in small business, I think they're sort of getting a hang of it.

Speaker 2: 5:57

You know AI. Ai is a tool, but we know too heavily on a tool. It's like Congratulations. So many people lean into Tools, lean into other things, instead of taking accountability and Realizing. It's all about connecting. You can have AI right in the amazing script, but if you can't, if management can't connect with their sales staff, who cares? And if that sales staff is disengaged or they don't have the tools, they don't have the training. Congratulations. Ai wrote an amazing copy, but one. There's no personalization because it's just a tool. I mean, if your whole business it runs on AI, it's not. It's not cyberdine, it's not Skynet, it's not that capable. And yeah, it's funny because you know, I've heard people Just say, oh, I'm gonna let AI do everything, or AI is gonna write books. Yeah, it's a tool. Neither one of my books Well, one, it was written before AI, but it sounds like a robot, or it sounds very mechanical. It's not like. Oh my gosh, you fooled me. I thought this was anyway. Who wrote this?

Speaker 3: 7:20

Right, exactly, and then you have you know AI bots. Talking to AI bots, you've got LinkedIn, all these spam messages that are going through. People have information overwhelm. And then, to that point also is you know AI, being able to leverage it for a lot of automations and leverage it as a tool is great, but, like you said, the main and what we teach here at Sandler is it's really about the communication and relationship building. That's where not only you're gonna build relationships and build trust and build your business, but it's also we're gonna be able to charge premium pricing for the services that you're that you're offering. So I know AI is you have big topic. It's a great part of your strategy, like you said, but to convert a hope strategy into an actual strategy that gets results, that's where you need to really leverage your people.

Speaker 2: 8:04

Now, Kyle, what got you on the path of being an entrepreneur?

Speaker 3: 8:11

Oh, I love that question. My grandfather he spent his whole life working for the government and little did I know. He was always doing side hustles, so he had a little bit of an entrepreneurial bug there. And then my dad he's worked over 23 years for a local company here in South Florida called Jan Family. He has been looking the last 10 years into entrepreneurial endeavors. He's looked at franchising, he's looked at Anytime Fitness. He's looked at Jeremiah's Italian Ice. He's looked at Rita's water ice as well. None of them really piqued his interest. And over the last few months he looked in Sandler and said hey, you know what my background's in sales and marketing? Sandler's got a lot of great stuff. I think it's a good opportunity for you, kyle, to take a look into it.

Speaker 3: 8:55

With my background in consulting and coaching, what I love to do more than anything is have one-on-one coaching sessions with people. That's where the ideas are just flowing and it is an amazing flow state where I'm focused purely in the moment on the other person. So that fires me up. And what we got into now with my dad and I opening this business, is a combination of sales, business development and then empowerment through coaching and training. There's so many training programs out there, but at the end of the day, the best performance, as I like to make the analogy if you're focused on getting stronger, getting fitter, you're going to have to go to the gym almost every day. You're going to have to go to a regimented plan, and a lot of people benefit from having a coach at least for six months, 12 months, so you get an understanding of where they are and what they need to do to improve.

Speaker 3: 9:44

And that's exactly what we do at Sandler. We have the tools, we have the gym, and then we have the coaching and training to deliver that. And to be frank, omar, I never really envisioned myself as an entrepreneur. I always thought I would be growing from consultant, senior consultant, manager, senior manager and then ultimately a partner at a consulting firm. And then I realized for me what fires me up is the one-on-ones and is working with small, medium-sized businesses on tangible change that transforms themselves, their families, their employees and the communities. And that's going to be my entrepreneurial journey for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years.

Speaker 2: 10:18

That's being in service. You're literally changing the lives of the trajectory. You're changing people's stories, their legacy, because being in service, you're helping. Because everybody has this adage that anybody can be an entrepreneur. It's a lie. You've been listening to Gary Vee too much, to all these people. Not everybody's designed to do that.

Speaker 2: 10:48

Unfortunately, my entrepreneurial background it kicked in because I had horrible boss after horrible boss my wife at the time and we did an Anthony Robbins seminar. I've always been in sales. I was a financial advisor, choose a pharmaceutical rep, and we did the Anthony Robbins. We walked on fire and we're like, screw this, it's 20 years of being an entrepreneur. It seems like it might be bringing me back because after retiring from that, I keep on getting bosses instead of leaders. So I don't know whether it's God or the universe saying hey, man, it's like you've touched the hot stove but now you want to touch it again to see if there's a difference. Because I can't say that I was born to be an entrepreneur. My mind goes a million miles an hour and maybe it is my ego, but I know I'm smarter than everybody that I've ever worked for.

Speaker 2: 11:58

So, I'm one of those. I know the rules, I dance around the rules, but still, congratulations, man. There is no better experience than waking up. Yes, it's at zero, what night. But you're doing it, congratulations. That's the true entrepreneurial spirit.

Speaker 3: 12:20

Thank you, omar. I appreciate that. It's scary, it's exciting, it's nerve-wracking and I came to the realization that I could spend the next 30, 40 years feeling that way, working for somebody else, because I, like you, have had a past of bosses not enough leaders and what I want to do and what I endeavor to be is, as the company grows, is to be a leader, not just for clients but also for the team that we're building, and thankfully we've already got our first client. We have a few others in the pipeline. We're starting coaching and training full speed ahead in January. And could it be more stoked?

Speaker 2: 12:56

But you're a hunter. I can tell that because you're consistently posting. It's all about consistency. It's about networking. I'm sure you go out there not because you want to go to a chamber meeting, not because you want to go to a meetup meeting, but it's a numbers game. You have to meet people.

Speaker 3: 13:17

Oh yeah, in my past I had really bad social anxiety, to the point where I couldn't see anyone ever, and thankfully, by the grace of God, overcame that and now it's at the point where I love going to networking events.

Speaker 3: 13:31

I love meeting people. I go to at least two to three a week at the chamber and through other venues. And what's really cool is, now that I'm out of my own head and my own anxiety, I can be engaged at these networking events and I can serve people better. But the best thing is I can also see when other people are uncomfortable or if they're anxious, and then I can use my experience and my empathy to help them, not just from a sales and professional perspective, but also helping them personally. And it's really interesting because in sales you can have a million conversations. You're never going to know the one that is a turning point, or you're never going to know the person who knows, five people who are going to be your next five best clients. That's what makes it interesting, that's what fires me up to get out there and hunt, just like you said.

Speaker 2: 14:17

Well, and you and me must be like-minded souls. Because I had severe anxiety, literally, I wrote a book on how I overcame social anxiety.

Speaker 3: 14:30

That's amazing. I took me 40 years to ask out my neighbor.

Speaker 2: 14:33

Now people think I never asked any women between them. It's just one of those things fear of rejection, fear of everything. I couldn't talk, dude. I was in East Soul English for speakers of another language my first three years in school and, as you can tell, I have no accent because I always spoke English. It was just one of those things. But once you get past your limiting beliefs just one phone call away, you're just one pitch away, you're just one connection away and not everybody is going to be your client and once you realize that what's the worst that they've ever told you, kyle? No, or, I'm sorry, they cussed you out. That's not on you, dude, that's on somebody having a bad day.

Speaker 3: 15:20

Right, right, I've been cussed out on the phone, which is someone that I don't even know, and I'm just calling them just to engage them out of curiosity. The unfortunate thing is there's so many salespeople now who are just kind of bugging people right In person. I've never had anyone cuss me out at least cuss me out directly, maybe in their head Like, wow, this guy is just too energetic, he's too annoying, blah, blah, blah. And hopefully they wouldn't say that. That's why, for me, I'm cold calling every day, cold outreach. But what I really love to do is to warm out reach with warm introductions, referrals and networking events. It's interesting to see people's reactions in real time and then being able to play off their energy, and for me it helps call me because I know, hey, at least I'm seeing you face to face, and then it's a lot harder for someone to hang up on you or to walk away from you at a networking event.

Speaker 2: 16:12

You know, even though that call are reluctance, you have to have that everybody gets that. You know you get too bad calls. Somebody's having a bad day and then you're like, oh my gosh, you think something, dick, and that phone all of a sudden looks like it's 500 pounds. Yeah, you go around. Well, I need to clean up my desk, I need to rearrange this, I need to get an oil change, I need to do this and that I'm super busy. Maybe I'll get back to the phones. That's all in your head. If you have that mindset, hey, that person's gonna miss out, which you could follow up days later, forgot anyways. Exactly, I'm gonna find that person that I'm gonna help because I'm gonna help solve that problem.

Speaker 2: 17:05

That entrepreneur out there is losing money. That entrepreneur doesn't know how to market. That entrepreneur doesn't know this. It's my duty to find that person because, if not, I'm just being selfish with my time. I'm helping him out because I have the answers, because, dude, I know it sounds like, well, anybody can be a salesperson. No, they can't. They don't know. They don't know how to market. Dude, yeah, it sounds common sense what you're doing. You post content every single day, but if you follow most small businesses, they're not posting anything.

Speaker 3: 17:50

No, it's for the lovely introduction that they gave earlier. It's all about the behaviors, attitudes and techniques A lot of. For me, the main focus is on behaviors being consistent every day, not looking for perfection, but just getting it out there, getting it done. It's very easy to when you stop posting frequently. It's very easy to come up with excuses and to kind of go down that mount top of momentum. The same thing for cold calls, the same thing for referral meetings. I've spoken with a few business owners and entrepreneurs who said you know what? It's been a couple of years since I've really been engaged in networking events and I've been losing clients. Lately I feel like I need to get back to that, which kind of breaks my heart a bit, because the great thing about being a business owner or entrepreneurs is that you have full control over your consistency in referral meetings, in those one-on-ones, so that there's never a reason that you need to worry about losing a few clients if you're continually engaging, networking and getting more clients at the same time.

Speaker 2: 18:47

Do you think, Kyle, sometimes it's just they're limiting beliefs, they're mindset, they keep on running into negative behavior or self-destructive behavior.

Speaker 3: 19:00

Oh yeah, oh yeah. At Sandler we like to call that head trash. We have a belief wheel that goes essentially from your thoughts and beliefs to judgments, to actions, to results. A lot of people stay in the thoughts and beliefs category and it stalls them out because they're not gonna take any new action to get them out of their status quo of their head trash, because it's, like you said, a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if we focus on taking action, at least one new action every day, you're actually recreating those thoughts and those beliefs. That's the only way to get around. It is to essentially say screw you guys, for the day, I'm gonna go ahead and take this one action. A lot of people think they need to change their head space and change their attitude in order to change their life. I haven't found that to be the case. You gotta focus on one action every day, get it done and over time it'll reframe your perspective, your thoughts and your beliefs.

Speaker 2: 19:58

You know, without taking any action. It's a dream, I know. We live in Florida. It's like going to the house of mouse and living in fantasy land. Either fantasy land or tomorrow land. It's either. Oh yeah, it's one day. One day, one day, or fantasy. That everything's. You know, I open up my own business. I own this franchise, I own this. I don't need to tell people what I do, I'm just gonna open up the doors and people are just gonna flock to my business.

Speaker 3: 20:29

Yeah, yeah, my nightmare is that it's gonna be just a dream for 30 years. I'm gonna wake up in 30 years and have accomplished nothing. So for me, that's what fires me up to take action every day. And, like you said, you know I don't need to talk about me or really what I'm doing. I need to talk about you and understand what you need and if what I can do can actually help you. That's the focus for my conversations, for opening this business, and so far it's definitely helping it get off the ground.

Speaker 2: 20:58

The one thing when it comes to marketing social media, marketing posting content. It has to be about the audience, it has to be for the viewers. What can I inform them? How can I better their day? What can I do? What problem can I solve for them? And a lot of people earn this whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Then why are they gonna hire me? It's the most successful out there, the most successful air-conditioning reps, texts or whatever they're on YouTube showing you how to change out an AC unit. Congratulations. I see that I'm not gonna go to Home Depot and do all that. I'm gonna hire you. So, and that's what you do, and that's why I DMed you and I'm like man, you got it because it wasn't like. You're like okay, I'm Kyle, hire me. Hire me because that's the same, that's what's out there, that's what most people post.

Speaker 3: 22:02

Oh yeah, oh yeah. There's what I find refreshing is, especially on LinkedIn probably the last 12 or 18 months, the most engaging posts that I've seen are the ones where people are extremely vulnerable, whether it's they've been out of work for a few months, whether it's hey, they've been a business owner and they've been struggling with depression and anxiety for years, or if it's something that somebody's celebrating a personal victory in their lives. The cool thing is seeing everybody liking it, commenting and engaging on that, and so that's what kind of inspired me to get a bit more personal with my posts. Whether it's talking about anxiety or talking about sales or talking about professional development, it's all one of the same. I also wrote a book a few years ago now that essentially helps people connect the professional, personal and social parts of their lives. Ultimately, they're one of the same. You're engaging yourself in everything. Therefore, instead of compartmentalizing, you should bring your full self to everything that you're doing to get maximal results.

Speaker 2: 23:00

Vulnerability. Vulnerability is so refreshing and it's because in social media it's so full of shit. Dude, everybody is a realtor, staging their lives, making it look like hashtag, winning On everything. Oh, I'm with my soulmate, even though six months they're filing for divorce. But when that oh hashtag, I'm at Nobu, I'm at SDK State, wow, you have a credit card, congratulations. Oh, look at me. Everybody posts their wins. Everybody posts I mean, heck, they all have filters.

Speaker 2: 23:38

I had people I just turned 50, I went to school with some of these women and it's like shit, you look like you're 20, congratulations. That's a filter. But that's what we do. We live with the filtered lives. So when you have vulnerability, when you have somebody say I'm going, I'm down in it because we're human, everybody gets fired. Heck, I wrote two books. After each book I got dumped. I had a TED talk. I got fired. You know we're human, but everybody's just like oh well, I drive this, I do that. No man, we all bleed, we all have our inner demons, we all have social anxiety, we all have stuff, and that's why when somebody's being vulnerable, it's like it's a shocker because, oh my God, that guy's not a robot, that guy's actually human.

Speaker 3: 24:34

Exactly that's where the humanity, the empathy comes in and that's where people can actually trust you, because they know you're not bullcropping them and they know that you're a real person. Whenever I've opened up about anxiety in the past, or whenever I've just been more vulnerable with people, that's been the most engagement I've received and the most meaningful, genuine connections that I've made, and it's exciting to see more and more people taking that approach. It's something that it's not just on LinkedIn, but also I'm seeing with a lot of the clients that I'm working with and the prospects that I talk to. They're not looking for a sales guru who knows everything. They're looking for a long-term partner who's looking to grow with them and can also provide insights step-by-step with them.

Speaker 2: 25:14

Yeah, but it takes vulnerability being an entrepreneur, oh yeah, because we're so narcissistic we think we have all the answers, we're big shots, we're, we're war, the warren Buffett's, the Charlie Munger's. We know what we're doing. It takes a lot to say I need help, especially an entrepreneur saying I need help to turn this around. I'm drowning. A lot of people can't, so when they hire you, that's a sign of vulnerability. That's a sign of I'm bending the knee.

Speaker 3: 25:54

That's a great point. That takes humility and that takes self awareness and situational awareness. That's something? Oh yeah, no it's. I've seen it too. I've seen some really gifted people who struggle To give up some of their own gifts delegated out to others so they can leverage their highest use gifts, and that's a struggle that you know not just business owners, not your mirror space, but really all of us face, right as we we try and cling on to things so much and we think we have so much control over things, when that's not necessarily the case.

Speaker 2: 26:27

And also, you have to break down people's bad habits, things that they perceive to be the truth, because they were trained wrong or that they learned something that completely wrong. So for you to break them down and go, no, what you've been doing is wrong. Your sales process is broken. This is why you're not successful. That, no matter what you could be Fred Rogers, that's a punch in the gut.

Speaker 3: 26:59

Oh yeah, yeah, that's. That's something where you know it's a hey, the we're not playing the blame game and it's where you know it's. You talk about the behavior, not the person. That's the same methodology we have when it comes to the sales process. Especially if someone created their sales process and I'm sure they did it the best they could there's some nuances, whether about sales itself or their particular industry or the dynamic in their company, that they weren't able to account for, then they would be CEO of Google, because it takes quite a bit of insights and it takes incredible team behind you to do that. So the fact that one person can create some level of success in that sales process should be valued more than the brokenness in it and then being able to collide it together to where you're empowering them, getting their buy-in and make those changes and then leveraging what they have and then what can be, which is where our coaching and training comes into play.

Speaker 2: 27:56

And plus, you're pretty much telling people this is common sense, but let's start outsourcing your weakness, because, yeah, you know, we all think we're rock stars but we all do have weaknesses and we can invest time, energy and if it's something that you really suck at, at best you can just be mediocre. Why waste time, energy, effort and just outsource the stuff that you really suck at?

Speaker 3: 28:27

Right, and I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't do that right. My clients are attracted to me because I can help them with improvement areas in sales, business development, leadership, so I'd be a hypocrite if I said, oh no, I've got everything covered and I can do it all me. That's not the case for any entrepreneur or business owner. There's things that they excel in. That's why they're in business in the first place, and they'll excel faster, with a lot less stress, if they delegate stuff that they don't enjoy and that they're not good at. So they just have to let go of the ego, which, for some people it takes a few months, other people a few decades, which is why it's really cool to see people's entrepreneurial journeys and whether they're climbing, descending, wherever they're at. All they have to do is just keep moving forward, step by step, day by day.

Speaker 2: 29:13

Do you get a lot of blowback from the do it yourself first? Well, I watched a Zig Ziglar video. I watched Grant Cardone. I'm subscribed to his YouTube channel. I don't need help, I just go on YouTube. I might buy that 10X book and I read a chapter once a month, and I believe I'm the next Grant Cardone, zig Ziglar or Jordan Belfort. Why do I need you?

Speaker 3: 29:45

Yeah, I get lots of pushback. Hey, I've been in business for 30 years. I'm six years old, you're 30. 30 year old is not knows, not knows. What can you teach me about business or sales? I even had that feedback from someone close in my life who's just over 60 when I wrote my book. Who gave you the right to write a book? What the heck do you freaking know?

Speaker 3: 30:10

It's kind of funny because what I found personally for my coaching consulting is that people only really get old or they get outdated when they refuse to learn. So for them, you can always learn something from other people. My best client coaching personally was my first client ever. He was older than anyone else I've talked to because he invested himself into learning and growing. Without him I wouldn't have had the confidence to coaching a salt with a bunch of other people. It's really interesting to see that it's really not an age thing, it's just a perspective thing. You'll have 25, 30 year olds who think they know it all, and so over the next 20, 30 years it's just going to get worse and worse and escalate there, whereas you have people like myself and like, oh Ma, you're always learning to look and learning to grow, and no matter if we're 100 or 20, whatever, we're going to be learning and growing from anyone, of any age and of any disposition.

Speaker 2: 31:04

To me, you're either growing or you're dying. That's binary, all of us, nothing static and there's nothing wrong. Dude, there's people 20, 25 that I asked for advice because, when it comes to technology, I just mastered the advocates and the work. You know whatever. So I'm not ashamed. No, I'm not ashamed at all.

Speaker 3: 31:39

No, there's. There's a reason to. The only shame that's you know on it is if you don't ask or if you don't don't open yourself up. I don't. I honestly think there's no such thing as a stupid question. Great, okay. Maybe a stupid question is the same question you have to ask two or three times. We've already been told the answer. But I generally don't think there's this. There's a stupid question. If you have a question or concern, I can almost guarantee that a lot of other people have had that same question or concern and we're just too scared to ask it. To begin with, it's you, it's it's the ego dude.

Speaker 3: 32:08

Oh yeah, oh yeah, pride ego come before the fall.

Speaker 2: 32:13

I mean, I I'm not ashamed to ask for help, Because why am I going to go spend hours upon hours trying to figure something out, where I can just ask someone that knows the answer and can give it to me in a couple of minutes? If he thinks I'm a or she thinks I'm an idiot, oh well.

Speaker 3: 32:34

You know what? You're not the first person. Yeah, hey, take, take an AI approach to it, right? Ai? You automate. Save a lot of time. It's. Save a lot of time for your personal professional development by relying on other people and raising your hand when you can't figure something out in the first 10 minutes.

Speaker 2: 32:50

Oh my gosh. Now I know someone that was completely like drank the AI Kool-Aid and wants their whole business revolved around AI and it's like are you f and kidding me, dude? No, it's just there, man. It's like having floaties. It's like saying, okay, throw me in the ocean, I've got floaties. It's false confidence.

Speaker 2: 33:23

It's yeah, dude, what could? I would never hire you or anybody. That's like yeah, I have zero creativity. I just type it into the AI program and it spits it out. It's like congrats, why go to the doctor? I've got web MD. I could be coughing up blood. Hey, don't worry, web MD has got me. And that's the same thing with AI. Oh yeah, person told me that you know how easy that maybe I could write my third book. It's like yeah, wow, no, dude, you can use AI for whatnot. But overall, it's about relationships. People are going to hire you not only because they believe in you, but they like you. And there's rapport.

Speaker 3: 34:21

Yeah, oh yeah, for sure, that's the name of the game. If you make that determination early on, that's where you can leverage it really really well. And from a psychology and communications perspective, you can have all the cool sales techniques of pattern interrupts, upfront agreements, that stuff's great, but at the end of the day, intent matters more than technique. Your behavior and attitude, your desire to generally help someone, to be engaged, and instead of talking a lot about your products benefits, talking about you. Just take more time to listen and you'll find, like you said, a lot of common sense is not really followed very commonly. So that's what we're in the business of, ultimately is bringing more common sense, more consistency and, ultimately, more success from a sales, business development and leadership perspective.

Speaker 2: 35:17

In sales. Someone just wants their problem solved. Just give me the three bullet points. How is this going to make my life better? How is this going to solve my problem? But yet the sales person is going to vomit all over the person Like the 20 page. Well, I need to talk to you for an hour about all the bells and whistles. I need this to sound important. I need you to understand that I'm smart because I know my product and I'm going to do all the talking Instead of have that person do 80% of the talking. Just listen, connect, build rapport. This is what it'll do. Offer a little rebuttal. More than likely you'll close. If not, guess what? You can follow up because, oh my gosh, nobody follows up. Because they got rejected. Man, they hit me yeah.

Speaker 3: 36:27

You know what the learning I really like that the sales professional learning curve is. Whenever somebody the sales person starts to have you company, they get some level of success because they don't really know much about their products. They spend more time actually listening to the prospect and then they're able to get some sales. Then when they start to learn about their product or service, that's when their performance actually drops because they have that fake confidence where they think it's all about them. Then, when they become more professional and understand that's really about the client and prospect, that's when they're essentially putting the same approach that they did when they were an officer or beginner, but they're doing it with intent. The professional does what the beginner does, but with intent. That's where the common sense approach comes into play.

Speaker 3: 37:11

The biggest thing that I've seen is, in order to prevent a lot of that follow up and objection, handling that back and forth with proposals and presentations is, during the qualification phase, to really be intentional on what we just described as the pain analysis, but also on what investment and decision making looks like. It's not just the money or the access to financing. More importantly, what I found is the time and education requirements for it, for training. There's certain time that you need to allocate. Every week, every couple of weeks. We're in the business for Sandler of putting way more money in our clients' pockets than theirs and ours. The money or financing isn't as much a concern as it is to get that time commitment so they can learn and that they can actually grow. Being able to understand what your niche is, you can have a better understanding of how to target their pains and also the investment required from them to get them from status quo into taking action with you, and to taking action with you quickly.

Speaker 2: 38:11

Niche, you said it best. It's common sense If Disney World, if Apple, if Starbucks doesn't have 100% penetration, doesn't have 100% penetration, why do mom and pop business owner Joe Blow there think everybody is my client, everybody is my prospect? It's like please, you need an initial. If you don't have one, you're going to be running, run aimlessly.

Speaker 3: 38:41

What I've been told is if everyone's your prospect, everyone's your target, nobody's your prospect, nobody's your target, because people like clarity. If you confuse, my never buys. If you're like, wait, this product is for everyone, well, I'm not everyone, I'm unique. Even if a person is not unique, they're going to have that ego with them. Hey, I'm unique, I need this particular product, this particular service. How's it going to be meaningful for me Just saying that you're advertising everyone? There's no personal connection, there's no branding there to really identify yourself and how you're positioning yourself in the market. Go back to the gym example. There's CrossFit gyms, there's weightlifting gyms, powerlifting gyms, there's bodybuilding gyms. For me, I love CrossFit. If I'm being marketed from someone and saying, hey, we help with all fitness, I'm like what are you even talking about? I wouldn't look at their advertisement twice. It's very important to understand not only your niche and your target markets, but you need to understand how they think and how they value themselves and what they think about themselves and what they need from you.

Speaker 2: 39:47

Hey, 13 years CrossFitter might solve for you Lots of fun, man.

Speaker 3: 39:53

My fiance kicks my butt every day and it's fun.

Speaker 2: 39:57

You said it best with the analogy. Do you think lifetime and total lifetime fitness and equinox fitness, which is like what? 150, 200 bucks Yep month? They have the same strategy as the Globo gym, the plan of fitness, the Ufit that charges like 10 bucks a month. No, they laugh. Completely different target market. Oh yeah, you go.

Speaker 2: 40:26

The last woman I interviewed she said I'm a personal development coach for women, middle-aged women from 40 to 50. I'm like my drop right there. I didn't have to ask her for success because she knew her lane. She wasn't like well, I'm a personal and business development for people that breathe. If you're male or female from the ages of seven to 100 and you breathe and you have money, hire me. That's how so many people run their business. It's like no man. Who are you targeting? Who do you want to go after? Once you have your mission statement, hopefully you have your exit strategy. Hey, then let's worry about the scripts. Oh yeah, the script that everybody believes that they had the founding views, that they had the cure for cancer, that everybody needs this item.

Speaker 3: 41:47

If salespeople actually had that belief, that would allow them to overcome all their call reluctance and their inconsistency behavior. Right, because if I actually had the cure for cancer, I would call every single person with a lot of confidence and conviction, knowing that I'm helping them. Salespeople practically should absolutely have that belief. From a strategic perspective and long-term wise, you're absolutely correct, they need to be methodical in understanding where they're going, who their target is and then being narrowly focused on serving that target.

Speaker 2: 42:21

Now, everybody is in sales. I'm in sales, you're in sales. I had to sell you to be on my show.

Speaker 3: 42:31

Yeah, everything is sales there's all of it.

Speaker 2: 42:34

You had to sell your fiance to go out on a date with you one day. I did. Then after that, hey, let's become an item. Then you had to sell her again and give her a compelling reason to have a future with you.

Speaker 3: 42:50

Yeah, I know a lot of people when they hear about salesperson or sales, they kind of go yeah. Oh, I'm not in sales.

Speaker 2: 43:00

I've got an office job Right.

Speaker 3: 43:04

Like you said, at the end of the day, we're all leaders. We all lead ourselves. We need to take the accountability and ownership there. However, our leadership impact is on others. We also have that control and being able to do that. The same thing is for sales. You can either sell nothing at all or you can sell everything in your life. It's really your perspective. The people who are able to lead themselves the best and sell themselves the best. Those are the homerun hitters that we're talking about for the superstar salespeople and the superstar leaders who are not bosses but actual, effectual leaders.

Speaker 2: 43:38

Just society in general. People believe that sales is only like the use car salesman, oh yeah. Or the timeshare salesman I'm here to sell you a week or two weeks points RCI. It's like why. I've always wondered why they believe that sales person which we all sell something maybe sell, hey, change my diaper. Hey, I'm not going to shut up until you feed me. That's a sale. Was it movies? Where was it that all of a sudden? Oh my gosh, are you selling cars? Are you selling used cars? No, I'm not. I've never sold a used car in my life.

Speaker 3: 44:31

Yeah, one of my clients, before he ended up signing and working together, he said straight up you know what, kyle, I really don't want to be a sales person or come off as salesy. Is that something that you can help with? And immediately, first, by my heart broke. And second of all, I said you know what have I sold you this entire time? Have I used that analogy? Do I come off as a used car salesman? You don't fancy used car salesman? He's like no, not at all. I said that's because I'm in focus, I'm building our relationship and that's what I'm going to instill in you. And he said all right, I'm all in, let's go forward. Let's go forward.

Speaker 3: 45:10

Besides, you know hunters and gatherers. The next most long you know longest duration profession has been sales. Right, because having gathered on your own and then bartering and exchanging, that's automatically sales. And what's interesting is, over time, especially last 50, 60 years, the kind of buyer seller dance is that. No offense to salespeople, but buyers do have a right to be skeptical of salespeople because they know that salespeople are incented to sell them more things that aren't necessarily in their best interest. So there's been a long history, whether it's personal experiences or experiences from their family and friends, or the movies seeing salespeople take advantage to invent their own careers and their monetary gain. And so for me, I focus my right to run as a salesperson, really as a trusted advisor, a blend of consulting and advising, where I'm generally looking to serve my client the best by giving them exactly what they need nothing less than nothing more.

Speaker 2: 46:10

The thing is, though, you operate on when, when, when you talk about hey, I suckered, to me that's not selling anyways. To me, sales is always win-win. I win, you win. When you go out and you know this person does not need this product, you oversell. That's manipulation. Manipulation I win, you lose. Maybe you break even. Who the F cares, as long as I come out ahead.

Speaker 3: 46:51

Yeah, there's a lot of salespeople now, sales coaches. They focus on authenticity and I think authentic or authenticity was like the most used or researched word in 2023. There's a lot of the sales push now is you know, of course, to say hey, I'm not a pushy manipulative, I'm ethical salesperson. I'm ethical and I'm trustworthy, which is great. But if you're walking the walk behind it, that's where it really pays to be a true blend of consulting and advising as a salesperson.

Speaker 2: 47:25

The thing is with a lot of consultants, a lot of advisors, is they want to be a carbon copy of someone. They want to try to be the next Grand Cardon, they want to be the next Andy Elliott.

Speaker 2: 47:38

You know they watch that and they try to parrot it and it's like no, the world doesn't need another Anthony Robbins. The world doesn't need us to dig up Zig Ziglar. The world doesn't need that. The world doesn't need Andy Elliott, another one. I mean, well, I can't fit into those tight pants anyways. What the world needs is the best version of Omar Madrona, the best version of Kyle, and plain and simple find your target market and go for it. There's billions of people on here, but yet you know, we all live in scarcity, thinking there's a limited amount of people, there's a limited amount of businesses, there's a limited amount of people and like there'll never be enough personal development people because so many of us are broken. If that person tells you to f off, that business says, hey, we're fine, but they go out of business the next month. You can't save everybody, that's absolutely right.

Speaker 2: 48:52

That's the one thing that a lot of people that's the number one lesson is. You feel you have the answer to help that person, but personal and business development is very invasive. That person needs to find it. That person needs to say, yes, I need it, because if you and I just start walking into a bar and go, hey, I can help you out, I can help you out, they're not going to listen because they're going to close off.

Speaker 3: 49:23

Right and sales. A lot of people forget that your prospect is qualifying you and you're also qualifying and disqualifying your prospect. An example I like to give is in my MBA program there were about 35 or 36 of us. There was one class where everybody had to take a survey, where it had everybody else in the class listed and pretty much said would you work with this person post MBA, like in an actual job, in an actual career, would you want to work with this person? Ultimately, I was the least picked person. Nobody wanted to work with me at all.

Speaker 3: 50:00

So when they visualized it on the board, it was if you had a really big circle and met, 30 other people wanted to work with you. If you had a really small circle, nobody really wanted to work with you. I had the smallest circle, but my circle was in the center of the entire image. The reason why is because the four really big circles that everybody wanted to work with those were the only four people who wanted to work with me, but they were the ones who everybody wanted to collaborate with. So that was my first understanding.

Speaker 3: 50:30

Hey, there's a natural qualification and disqualification process that goes on from other people and from myself, and I don't need to focus on those 30 people who aren't my people, and it's not a bad thing, it's just that they for some reason didn't get along with me. I thought I was really good at this grade, but I guess not. But what's most important is that I was naturally qualifying those four people who I worked with in the MA program. I worked with as part of the association with charity things and all that is. Clearly my strategy was to qualify the people who are the connectors and the most popular in the class, and that's what I've leveraged throughout my consulting, my coaching and currently trading as a standard trader. So really focus on those people who not only want to work with me but who are well connected, who can provide great referrals and a great network to be able to expand my reach.

Speaker 2: 51:20

You know what? You're very evolved because, well, when I got my master's degree, if it was something like that heck before business and personal development, I was a mess.

Speaker 2: 51:32

I was like oh my gosh, what? What do they hate me? How can I change my hairstyle? What can I do to try to win them over and be my friends? But you said it best that's not your problem, that's their problem. But yet we always focus on the shit that's not going to surface. You said it best Focus on the ones that want to do business with you, focus on the ones that want to collaborate with you. Focus on the people that are going to push you ahead, because if you're going to be focusing on everybody or focusing on the people that are like, yeah, no, you're going to go under, you're going to go out of business.

Speaker 3: 52:21

Yeah, it's easy as a salesperson to focus on those 30 people who said no and don't want to work with me or collaborate with me, but why Right Focus on those four, on those four people who are your people and who are going to connect you with a lot of others to grow your business. That's my one send off that I would give to anyone listening is it's easy to be discouraged with a lot of negativity and a lot of rejections. It's tough to be encouraged, but stay the course. Take one action every day and know that ultimately you will. If you have the right behaviors, attitudes and you're leveraging the right techniques, you will have the impact that you're looking to make. It takes time. It takes a lot more time than Instagram and LinkedIn the way you fit, but you'll get there.

Speaker 2: 53:09

Everything worth having takes more effort and more time than you can imagine, but once you get there, man, it's amazing. Oh yeah, kyle, I can talk to you for hours upon hours, but we live in a TikTok society, so one hour is one hour. The listeners doze off and they instead watch empowering stuff, like two dudes kicking each other in the nuts the stuff that serves them. So, kyle, how do people hire you for Sandler? Raise your revenue by Sandler. How do you find you, how do they hire you and how do they follow your amazing content?

Speaker 3: 53:54

Appreciate that. Oh, maria, you can look me up on LinkedIn. It's Kyle Crook K-Y-L-E. His last name is C-R-O-O-K-E. You can also reach out to me on my email, which is my first name, kyle dot crook, at Sandlercom, which is S-A-N-D-L-E-Rcom, and then also our website is wwwraiseyourrevenuecom, and you can find out more content, more blogs, more about our services, and whether it's through email, calendar, link, phone call. I would love to stay in touch with Steve whatever I can, how I can be of service to you.

Speaker 2: 54:32

Kyle, we're going into a new year, the cliche new year, new me and all that, but what words of wisdom? This is the last question for you what words of wisdom do you have to that person, that entrepreneur that's just sitting waiting. They might have one client, possibly two. They're using money left and right or they're just waiting, waiting for something to happen, waiting the life to happen, waiting for the genie. They're just afraid to take action, they're afraid to give you a call, they're just afraid to do anything. What words of wisdom do you have for that one person?

Speaker 3: 55:14

That's a good answer question. That's something for anyone starting their own business. I've experienced that myself. One thing is for me it's focus on your most value-adding, high-priority activity. Focus on that for the next hour. Take things hour by hour. Do not look 24, 48 hours in the future. Focus on that one hour where you can accomplish and then write down what you accomplished in that hour, so that you're not only taking action but you're also reinforcing that you've completed something or that you've made some progress. Because in that waiting, in that period of if it's a few days, few weeks, few months, a lot of discombobulations happen in your brain. Focusing on the next hour, getting something done or at least getting some work towards it, your building momentum, your building reps every day. Then soon you'll be able to focus on the next two hours instead of the next hour and so on and so forth, where you'll be able to be short-term and long-term thinking. That long-term thinking is a gift that a lot of entrepreneurs will get to. After focusing on those short-term, step-by-step goals every hour, every two hours.

Speaker 2: 56:28

Well, kyle, the one thing that I would end this with be like Kyle Keep your work on a consistent basis. Do it. Don't look for affirmations, don't look for confirmations. Bear blinders, look forward. Keep on doing the work. Replace bad habits with good habits. If you keep on doing the work and you keep on stretching and you keep on growing every single day, before you know it, everything that you ever want, everything you ever dream, it's within your reach, brother. Hey, thank you, man. Thank you for being a guest.

Speaker 3: 57:09

Thank you for having me on Mars. It's been great. It's definitely like I said, starting has been a privilege for sure, Awesome. Okay, thank you, thank you.