Bad Habits of Your 'Salesperson' Alter Ego

When you think of the word ‘salesperson,’ what comes to mind?

In this episode, John and Mark explore how professionals can shed ineffective sales habits and adopt a more authentic, client-centric mindset based on inquiry and curiosity. With guest insights from Mel Lester and Blair Enns, you'll learn why introspection and a shift from selling to serving can lead to more satisfying and successful client relationships. In this conversation, we cover:

• The pitfalls of adopting a stereotypical 'salesperson' persona and why authenticity matters.
• Practical tips for improving self-awareness and identifying bad sales habits.
• Examples of how using servant leadership with clients can lead to better business outcomes.
• Lessons on tactical empathy and how open-minded conversations can extract real value in sales.

Connect with our guests on LinkedIn:
• Mel Lester: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mellester/
• Blair Enns: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blairenns/

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markhwainwright/
Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johntyreman/

www.breakingbizdev.com

Transcript

John Tyreman: 0:19

Hello, business developers and welcome back to another episode of Breaking Biz Dev. I'm John and I'm joined by my trusty co host, Mark Wainwright. Mark, we're going to beat up a topic today that we've talked about a few times in the past, but I think we're going to do a little bit of a deep dive on this one. This whole salesman alter ego. I'm excited to unpack this one with

Mark Wainwright: 0:40

Absolutely. This is so fascinating. And, and I think the reason we wanted to go deeper was both you and I have had conversations, I mean, there was, there was a, we had some guest voices on the, on the podcast and they. Brought up two people one of whom we haven't actually kind of had on the podcast previously. I guess both we had one's and one's a new voice that we introduced today, Mel to the, to the podcast, but both talk about similar things and in conversations, both on the podcast and outside of the podcast, we've, we've recognized that this weird. alter ego thing. Multiple people recognize it and see it. And I've seen it. And when we had those guest voices come in, that was kind of an aha moment for me. And I thought, Oh my, Oh my gosh, other people actually see this.

John Tyreman: 1:40

Yeah, it's a, it's a pattern that you, once you see it, you, it's hard to unsee it. And it's like, you know, I, I think to, to like examples in movies that I've seen, Danny DeVito and Matilda, I know I've used that example before, but I think it's a great one where he's running the miles back on his car, right, to reverse the mileage because he's a used car salesman. And we, we, when we're selling expertise. Based services, we kind of lean back into, until this like default state of what is sales and what are sales habits that you've seen. That's I think that's kind of what we're getting into today.

Mark Wainwright: 2:18

Right. Right. Yeah. We're going to, we're going to talk a little bit about that, that whole default setting. And I use that term on and off. Okay. When I, in the work that I do because particularly when we're, we're in the world of, of expertise and I'm talking to people who are. Engineers, consultants, architects, all those, all those experts. And, but they're, but they're, but they're not, they're not experts in selling their services, right? So when we find ourselves as an expert at the edge or slightly beyond our comfort zones, you know, when we're kind of pushing the edge of things and the ground below us gets a little shaky we want to default. Back to, or we don't want to necessarily, but we sort of kind of automatically default back to some sort of known thing. And a lot of times in selling services, people will default back to these really strange salesy, Behaviors that they picked up somewhere, right?

John Tyreman: 3:28

Well, I think it's interesting because. If you're a, a doer seller, let's say you're an architect or an accountant and you're used to having the answers, right? You're used to being sought out. You, you know, your expertise is in demand. You're the one who has the answers. You can solve a complex problem during the sales process. It's kind of hard to kind of like take yourself out of that mindset of being the expert. And I think that's, that plays into it a little bit.

Mark Wainwright: 3:57

I will see this. I know we're kind of all over the place on this because it's such a fascinating topic, but, you know, I'll see this crop up kind of all over the place early on later on. effectively, you know, what we see happening is all of these behaviors that people despise in general that they look at and they say, oh, I don't want to be that. Lo and behold, we see those kind of manifest at some point, which is so strange, so fascinating, actually, and, you know, the 2, the 2 voices we have on the podcast today. Reiterate that. And yeah, I've, I love it. So maybe, maybe we can talk for a second before we get to those about what, what are we, what characteristics are we talking about?

John Tyreman: 4:42

experts, accountants, architects, engineers, consultants, these folks are in a position where they're usually, providing answers or recommendations to solutions, solving challenges. And so I think there is that the characteristic of talking a little bit more than listening. Because the expert sale is very much centered around understanding challenges and qualifying opportunities. And so I think that's one that I've noticed in, in certain scenarios.

Mark Wainwright: 5:14

yeah, yeah. I would, I would agree in it. And it's, it's definitely one of those sort of hindsight things. I mean, I'll talk to people and I'll say, well, how did that, how did the conversation go and what went fine? And, you know, as I dig into it, you know, one of the questions I'll ask folks is look, who did the majority of the talking and it's like, well, we kind of did an intro and then we pulled out the slide deck and we started doing that and I said, if you talked. For 45 minutes of the 60 minutes, that's a problem, right? Particularly in sales where it's, you know, it needs to be based in inquiry and listening. So yeah, that, that happens and it'll happen without even people realizing it. I'm like, wait, oh my gosh, you're right.

John Tyreman: 5:54

When did you first kind of realize that Mark? Like, when did you first notice that within yourself

Mark Wainwright: 6:00

not that long ago, you know, quite, quite frankly when I first started out selling services, I was lousy at it. You know, I was, I was everything that doesn't work. You know, I was the show up and throw up. I was the show them the deck. I was what are we going to talk about? What, You know, what expertise are we going to tout? What resumes and you know, certifications are we going to show, we're going to show up at this, this big wild west gunfight with the biggest six shooter out there and just level the competition and It wasn't until kind of recent history where I started to a see that and then see more of it in me and then from there be able to start to start to change. So absolutely in the last, you know, ever since I started doing what I was doing, which was about, you know, shoot 88 ish, eight plus years ago or so, that really wasn't I was able to kind of step outside myself and, and, and look at my history, look at what I'd done in the past and start to really understand what it, what it means to sell well, where I started to recognize that. So, yeah, it was recent, it was recent history. I was not I was not a good, salesperson of services. And I think that helped me because I was. You know, I was the talk about yourself all the time person. And now I can really look back on that and say, Oh yeah, what I'm doing right now is radically different from that. And what I help people do is radically different from that.

John Tyreman: 7:39

I wonder, were you in organizations that were on that RFP hamster wheel, as we like to say

Mark Wainwright: 7:44

well, yes. And I was some of the firms that I worked with previously, you know, as an employee, I was part of that whole hamster wheel and I was making proposals look like brochures and all of that. All that stuff. And I didn't know any, I didn't know any different. And then I moved to a management consulting firm where very rarely did we entertain,

John Tyreman: 8:07

Yeah. That's a bit of a

Mark Wainwright: 8:08

those solicitations, but still, you know, everything looked like, you know, a show, a production, you know, there was the pitch and there was there was all of that. And there was no there was no order to. A sales process. And, you know, there was, yeah, it was, it was chaos. So, at least

John Tyreman: 8:26

the re the reason I ask is, is cause like, I'm, I'm just wondering if that competitive scenario, like you mentioned earlier, you said like level the competition, right? You know, you're showing up and you, you want to win. And I'm wondering if that kind of like feeds into that mindset, that this alter ego that we're talking about this concept of, of winning. And we've talked about how sales is not a zero sum game, but you know, to, to some, it might appear that way. I'm wondering, what do you think about that?

Mark Wainwright: 8:56

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, it's that what you just talked through it, there feeds into that whole, you know, we're not, we're not engaged in this process to to be focused on the client to come up with the best solution for the client. Which, you know, is a win win for everybody. We are focused on the competition and we want to level the competition. And yes, it is a zero sum game and we're going to win and they're going to lose. You know, so it's that. It's that mindset and there's layers of problems, you know, a lack of client centricity, too much time spent and too much focus spent on the kind of competition of which, you know, little about, you know, and so, so there's, that's, that, that absolutely that whole zero sum sort of we're competing against them rather than we're trying to find the best way to serve the client that is pervasive.

John Tyreman: 9:43

Yeah. So we talked a little bit about some characteristics you know, talks more than listens, they have all the answers. Are there others, Mark, other characteristics of this kind of like alter ego, salesman, salesman, alter ego.

Mark Wainwright: 9:57

Right. The, the, you know, and, and people that, that know me, and we've talked about this kind of endlessly, John is, is the ability to ask really good questions. And the, the coming up with really good questions to ask your perspective clients is more difficult than just talking about yourself, right? It's harder. So people. Don't do it as much. The fantastic thing about these good questions. If you really think hard and you're able to come up with fantastic questions, they do a good job of implying your expertise rather than you needing to be explicit about your expertise, showing the bullet points, showing the, the certifications and the years of experience, et cetera. Your good questions will infer that to the degree, to the degree where the client comes out of the conversation thinking, wow, they. Yeah, they, they know their stuff without even you having to, to be, you know, kind of overtly, you know, explicit about it. So, and that's a hard one. And, and, you know, people prioritizing the development of good questions over the pitch is a tough nut for a lot of experts to swallow. They say, wait, we're, we're really not going to go in there, you know, with our flags waving and, you know, talking about our decades of experience. And I said, you're not. You're not, you're going to spend the time right now coming up with really fantastic questions to ask this client because it's more important to know that you're focused on them and you're curious about them and you want to get them rather than they seeing your, you know, list of 40 services and your decades of expertise. It's more important that you just get them and they need to see that.

John Tyreman: 11:38

outside of these characters. It's like, why, why do they arise? Right. And so, you know, we, we talked a little bit about, you know, being exposed to poor examples of what a salesperson is, and then emulating those behaviors by default. You know, I, I suppose that this could, this kind of same phenomenon could happen in other aspects of people's lives.

Mark Wainwright: 12:03

we mentioned before when we were talking about this, that you've, you've, you've seen your your podcast persona rear. It's rear. It's ugly head. I, I've, I've probably seen it in, heck, I don't know, even thinking outside the box. our subject matter here, it's,, you know, parenting, all different kinds of things. Like, you know, parents can default to these really strange behaviors with their, their children. I mean, reflecting on that personally, you know, I have two older children now who are now young adults and, and my wife's a preschool teacher. So, you know, she's, she's a pro at all of this. So I can absolutely recall. different moments, different behaviors that I exhibited that you know, why? You know, look back on that and I'm thinking, wow, why was I being such a jerk dad? how could I have approached that situation completely differently? That, you know, wouldn't have had me sort of just defaulting to these weird, weird behaviors. And, you know, I have a fantastic relationship with my family, but yeah, I mean, there's, there's moments that You Come up where the, you don't really know what to do, or, you know, the, the, the, the reaction or the behavior in the moment is unclear. So you default to some weird thing.,

John Tyreman: 13:21

you know, Similarly, you know, in my career, I've, I've spent just trying to understand, you know, what is good marketing, And I keep bumping into this notion of like tactical empathy and, and really putting yourself in your buyer's shoes at scale with marketing. When we're talking about with sales, it's definitely more one on one, but you know, you, we can take those same principles and we can apply them to like broader marketing. I found myself in the early days of hosting an interview based podcast, where if, if I'm talking with a guest and they say something that is at odds with my You know, my, my own predispositions, my own biases, I kind of found myself like digging my heels in a little bit and getting into more of a defensive posture, but as I've kind of learned that in those conversations, it's better to approach it with an, with an open mind and curiosity, because that's how you extract value to your listeners. That I'm kind of like connecting dots between podcasting and selling. There's a, there's a lot of similarities there.

Mark Wainwright: 14:28

Yeah. And, and, and hopefully the listeners can make some similar connections in their own personal experiences. You know, whether it's. In marketing or selling your services or, you know, elsewhere in their lives. It's this whole weird thing of, you know, when we're at the edge of our comfort zones we find that we kind of unconsciously default back to these behaviors and hopefully the behaviors are good, but often they're not. And that's a, that's a huge, it's a huge problem. You're listening to breaking biz dev

John Tyreman: 15:01

the podcast that beats up, breaks down, and redefines business development for the professional services firms of tomorrow. Your hosts are John Tyerman, founder of Red Cedar Marketing, the podcast marketing company for experts and professional services firms,

Mark Wainwright: 15:16

And Mark Wainwright, principal consultant and founder of Wainwright Insight, the fractional sales manager and sales consultant to professional services firms.

John Tyreman: 15:26

If you find this podcast helpful, please help us by following the show and leaving a review on Apple podcasts

Mark Wainwright: 15:31

and now back to the show.

John Tyreman: 15:36

Yeah. So we've got some guest voices I want to get to Yeah, so first I want to introduce Mel Lester. He is a fellow Virginian shout out to VA. He is the owner of biz edge. He's a management consultant. And trainer focused on helping firms improve a wide range of corporate functions like strategic planning, leadership development, operational efficiency, project management, and more. Mark, we both kind of know Mel independently and it was fun to uh, finally kind of sit down with him and have this conversation. And he brought up many of the points that we're making right now. So here comes Mel.

Mel Lester: 16:16

When I do sales training, typically I will open with, by posing this question. If I mention the word salesperson, what impressions immediately come to mind? Yeah. And as you might expect, they're overwhelmingly negative. And, uh, and when you take the comments and boil them down, I think one trade emerges, and that is the perception that most salespeople are motivated more by their own self interest than the interest of the buyer now. And so that begs the question when you're asked as a technical professional to step into a sales role as a seller doer. How do those impressions of salespeople affect you? I have noticed two problems. The first is that most professionals in our business are uncomfortable with the sales role. They may not always admit it. The most have this discomfort with the role and given their, you know, how they view salespeople, that's, that's no surprise. Why, you know, why would you want to be one of those? Um, and then that, uh, gets us back to the age old challenge of how do I get our seller doers? to do more selling. Well, part of it, the big part of it is among all the other excuses that might be offered is I just don't really like to be in that role. Now, the second problem is an odd contradiction. I've been on over the years, hundreds of sales calls with technical professionals. And here's what I observe most often they adopt many of the same tactics that they resent in salespeople. you know, it would be things like, talk too much, focus on themselves rather than the client, don't really listen very well. So why would they do that?

John Tyreman: 18:29

Right.

Mel Lester: 18:30

Um, it's, it's because. They don't know anything else. That's what they have observed. Even though they may not like it, there's this underlying assumption that this must be the way you have to sell. And that gets back to the issue why the people want to then, I don't like to do it. Let's hire a salesperson. They think that that's the persona. That we need to have to sell. And, uh, and so, uh, it, it creates this, this vicious cycle that don't like this image of, of selling. And yet when I'm in the sales role, I don't know what else to do, uh, except to do that. And, um, and so it's, it's a mindset problem. And, and that's something you got to get in and address this mindset about what selling looks like and what motivates us to sell. And you need to address that mindset problem in my opinion, before you can really get, have success teaching a specific sales methodology, mindset before methodology. So doers, stop selling and start serving. If our business development efforts are primarily for the benefit of our firm and for us, well, join the crowd. That's, that's where most folks are. But if you want to distinguish yourself and gain greater trust from clients, then define business development as seeking more opportunities to serve, namely clients. And so if you, we need to recast this role of seller to not just doing it motivated by our own needs, which is what is natural to fall into. We had the pressure to go out and sell, right? We need the business. And I need to be successful as a seller doer, but what I've found is the greatest, the best path to success as a seller is to focus on those that you are approaching with, uh, offering to help.

John Tyreman: 20:44

Okay. Yeah. Some of the, um, some of the images that come to mind when you're talking about. Um, you know, talking too much or having that kind of salesperson persona, you know, Glen Gary, Glen Ross, coffees for closers, right? Right. And or always be closing, you know, some of these like cliches horrible. Horrible examples of, uh, you know, what sales really is. So, you know, let's, let's contrast that a little bit. What are some of the, maybe you could just list a couple. What are some of the qualities of a salesperson who is seeking to serve their clients? What are some of the habits or activities that you notice?

Mel Lester: 21:25

I think one of the things is that you focus on more than just what's the service offering, which is our tendency. It's what we know best. And focus on how can this contribute to the client achieving their business outcomes. And so taking this broader view, this broader interest in what it is that, uh, is what, you know, as the, the old, you may have heard the old example that, uh, People aren't looking for a quarter inch drill bit. They're looking for a quarter inch hole,

John Tyreman: 22:00

right?

Mel Lester: 22:01

And too often what we find ourselves doing is we're selling the drill bit because that's what we have rather than what is it the client needs. They need the hole. And so to be able to sort of frame what we have to offer in the context of what the client needs to achieve their goals, which is something we don't often do.

John Tyreman: 22:25

So it sounds like it's an exercise in empathy and understanding and really putting yourself in the shoes of your clients to see things from their perspective. You know, sure, the drill may be the tool that is used to create the whole, but that's not what the client needs.

Mel Lester: 22:40

Right. And I think another factor that when I began to embrace this approach, because when I started in a sales role as a business development specialist, I very much approached it like traditional sellers. Uh, that's, that's all I knew until I began to really examine and I remember driving to work one day and, and I had this epiphany. I hated my job. I, I either had to change the way I approach selling or I had to find something else to do. And so when I began to take this sort of service oriented approach. One of the things that became sort of a mantra for me is never waste the client's time.

John Tyreman: 23:21

And I

Mel Lester: 23:21

realized that I did that a lot. Because a lot of times, you know, sales calls would be based upon my needs. You know, well, I haven't talked to him in a while, I need to talk to him again. Or the famous, I'm going to be up in your area. Uh, because I was out in the Rocky Mountain region. So sometimes you had to travel quite a distance to, to meet with a client. And so you're going to Green River, Wyoming, four hours away. And so while you're there, you want to see as many people maybe as you can. Sure. And so it'd be my convenience. And so, and then you go in and what do you do? Chit chat. And, uh, just to touch bases, in fact, we, and we have that sort of dialogue or that term that we use touching bases with in a sales context. Well, for what reason,

John Tyreman: 24:07

for what

Mel Lester: 24:07

benefit to the client. And so I came up with this idea and really barred a lot of what I came up with from some of the sales training I received is the idea. Of having a business minded reason for every conversation I had with the client, something for their benefit. I call it the entree, the reason, you know, what you have information or insights. to share that are, that are beneficial to the client, whether or not they ever do business with you. So you bring something of value to every sales conversation. That to me is kind of the driver for the taking this sort of service centered approach to selling. As you bring, you bring something of value to every conversation that you would have with the buyer.

John Tyreman: 25:01

So you were in a position where you hated your job. And you found, um, inspiration to take, to adopt this new behavioral mindset and kind of flip the script a little bit and thinking of things through the client's point of view. And, um, how do you feel about your, your career from that point to now? Do you enjoy selling?

Mel Lester: 25:25

I think the best way to put it is I enjoy serving. That's the greatest, that's the greatest, uh, you know, motivation I have for what I do is the opportunity to help my clients.

John Tyreman: 25:39

Mark, what did you think of what Mel had to say? for having me.

Mark Wainwright: 25:41

So good. I just, I'm nodding. I'm nodding the whole time, right? All that, that whole sort of self orientation thing where people talk too much and they're poor listeners and, you know, why do they do that? Well, they don't, they don't know anything else, right? They're those default behaviors. And you know, the big idea here is just, man, it's just, he's seen it. Mel's been around a while. Right. He's a, he's a long timer. So he's seen a, seen a lot of this. And this is one of those, when you, when you share that recording with me, I said, wow, Mel's he and I are totally simpatico on this. We are aligned. He has, he's seen it. I've seen it. It's, it's, it's wild.

John Tyreman: 26:20

Yeah, what stood out to me when talking with Mel was how much he just disliked sales at first, it was painful for him, but when he kind of reoriented his mindset and thought about it more as serving the customer rather than selling to someone that mindset shift helped him, you know, reframe that. And he's had a successful 30 plus year career. As an independent business owner, independent management consultant. So, you know, this, these, these are, these are definitely sage words of advice.

Mark Wainwright: 26:50

Yeah. The, the you know, the part we said he just, he just hated his job and he either needed to change the way he did things or find another job. Yeah. Right. He was like, I just can't stand day in and day out coming in and doing this. It just doesn't feel right. And then he made that mindset shift and You know, that whole sort of, you know, stop selling, start serving thing. Nailed it. Yeah, absolutely. So great. Thanks a ton, Mel.

John Tyreman: 27:17

Yes. Thank you, Mel. Should we shift to our, the other clip that we have?

Mark Wainwright: 27:22

Absolutely. And this is one from Blair ends that we've featured at least part of part of Blair's.

John Tyreman: 27:30

part of this clip on an earlier episode.

Mark Wainwright: 27:32

Yeah. Yeah. We featured some of this and Blair's actually written about it. I read about this a long time ago. He has an article on his win without pitching site. Really great source of information. I think the article is called something like the dichotomy of the expert sales person. So it's a, it's a, a, a good read. Absolutely. People should check it out.

John Tyreman: 27:58

Alright, here comes Blair. Blair, what's one thing you think is completely broken about the way firms go about developing new business?

Blair Enns: 28:06

I think it's the stereotypes around the greater sales function. We don't even call it sales, right? We call it new business or business development. And there's a lot wrapped up in there. I've kind of built a business around. on that, uh, friction, you've got this expert advisor or practitioner of some kind of professional who, um, who's expected to show up in the engagement a certain way. And then when they go into sales mode or business development mode, they adopt a different personality. We're all kind of constrained by these fallacies of how we think salespeople should behave, like the salesperson should have the answer, not the question. That the salesperson has to be brilliant, has to always have the exactly the right, know exactly what to say. Um, there's just too many statements, not enough questions, too much pressure to be somebody you're not. So I, I see it as a David and I did a podcast episode on it. I've written a blog post on it. I call it the dichotomy of the expert salesperson. You're an expert first in a salesperson second, and then. You adopt these sales techniques that might be applicable in other domains and are not applicable. I'm not saying not everything, like there are some aspects of selling that are universal but what's but, broken is the assumption that expertise of any kind can and should be sold the same way that products are sold or transactional services are sold, drop the salesperson persona, be yourself, do what David said. Which is like pick one or two things and just be consistent.

John Tyreman: 29:52

Mark, I think that these are two, you know, great other voices that are supporting this whole notion that this alter ego salesperson is killing the expert driven sale. And you know, I think you and I have talked a lot about different ways that experts can, can take a different approach to business development.

Mark Wainwright: 30:12

Yeah, absolutely. And I, in the first step that anyone needs to take, I've taken it. Others have taken it. The first step that people need to take in this whole process is. People need to see it first. You need to be able to

John Tyreman: 30:32

In themselves or in others.

Mark Wainwright: 30:34

right. In your, in yourself, right. You, you need to be able to almost, you know, take yourself out of yourself, right? That whole sort of I'm, I'm, I'm floating, I'm floating above myself in the room, watching myself talk, behave, whatever else.

John Tyreman: 30:48

You can listen back to your call recordings.

Mark Wainwright: 30:50

Yeah. Yeah. If you're, If you're able to see it in yourself and see those behaviors, then you can start to change it. But until you actually see it, you're going to have a tough time changing it. So that's the first step. The first step is not just, Oh, I'm going to start behaving differently. It's being able to see in yourself some of these default behaviors, regardless of what they are and recognize them and then start to understand ways to act differently.

John Tyreman: 31:21

Yeah. And that, that is, it's so uncomfortable to do that and to do that kind of introspection. listening to myself, editing my own podcast audio. Sometimes it's like nails on a chalkboard to me But, you know, doing that over and over again, I'm able to, you know, hear myself and, and learn and grow. And it's kind of that same phenomenon that happens where, you know, you have to step outside of your comfort zone in order to even take that first step to look back at yourself. You know, it's easy to, to just say, push that off. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do, I'm not gonna listen to the call recordings. I'm not going to ask for any feedback on that last sales call. I'm not going to have somebody sit in and give me feedback. No, those are examples of how you, you can take that first step. But it's hard to do that.

Mark Wainwright: 32:06

Agreed, agreed. This has been a fantastic episode. I'm, I'm, I'm certain there are listeners out there who upon reflection, maybe have seen or see some of these behaviors kind of crop up and hopefully this helps people recognize them and then start to seek ways. To, to change that. So fantastic episode, John. I've, I really enjoyed this and thanks to, thanks to Mel and Blair for adding their voices to the Breaking Biz Dev podcast until next time.

John Tyreman: 32:40

Until next time.