Why Your Spiritual Foundation Is Your Biggest Sales Asset

Bill goes somewhere different today — and that's intentional.

In this solo episode, Bill Caskey shares the first six of twelve core sales principles, each grounded in a biblical reference. From understanding your divine assignment and serving before selling, to detaching from outcomes and deploying your unique gifts, Bill connects the spiritual underpinnings of great selling to the real-world results you're after.

This isn't a tactics episode. It's a foundation episode — and for many listeners, it may be the most important one they hear.

Part two drops in a few days on another solo episode.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey guys, I'm not really sure how to uh broach this subject with you for today's podcast, but we're going to be talking about some biblical principles and some biblical references to the principles that we teach. And this all comes from my belief that our spirituality, our spiritual grounding and strength determines a lot of what we do in the marketplace. And I don't just mean what we do, but what we achieve in the marketplace. So you might say, well, Bill, I thought you guys have been talking about, you know, tactics and strategies and all that. Yeah. But I think there's an underpinning. There's an underpinning of what we'll call a spiritual worldview, which is, do I believe in a power greater than myself? Do I believe in something that's out there that's bigger and beyond me? And if I do, how will the belief in that help me do my job better and improve my state in life and well-being and all that? So I'm going to go through six principles today, six next week, that uh, and probably next week's will be on the solo episode, but we'll go through them nonetheless. And these are 12 principles that we teach in our work, and you've heard on the podcast, but I'm going to deliver a little bit of a biblical reference to some of these. Not because I don't think you believe me as is. I think sometimes we just need a second source. You know, Bill Kaske and Brian Neal and whomever say this stuff, but what about the world's oldest text? What does it say about these principles? So I'm going to go through six today, and uh I would love comments from you. And I know for those of you who are not biblical, spiritual, uh, don't believe in such things, this probably is not the episode for you. And you might want to just pass and pick us up next time. Uh but I know many of our listeners uh, you know, it's okay. It's okay either way. How about that? So here's number one. Principle number one. I believe that you have a divine assignment and a divine purpose. I believe that God made us on purpose for a thing. He he or she gave us an identity that we live out today. And the closer you can understand what that divine assignment is, the more likely you are to live inside of that and be the best you can be. The biblical reference is Jeremiah 29, 11, for I know the plans I have for you. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. So the idea here is that we need to figure out well, how do we internalize that this work that we do, whatever you sell, whatever business you're in, is not random. That there's a there's a knitting of your life that happened that has led you to this place, and it might lead you to another place in a couple of years, but generally I don't find that everything's by coincidence. Like if you sell financial planning, a lot of the times I work with financial planners and people who are high-level you know, high net worth people, and these people who sell these products typically they've had something happen to their parents to in their upbringing that causes them to really understand the assignment of helping people with their money and their wealth, etc. Now, you call that a divine assignment or coincidence? I don't know. I I think it's a divine, I think there's something divine about you taking an experience that you had earlier in life and creating what you do today out of it. Number two, serve first. Uh I think the obligation is to create value before extracting it. And we talk about this when it comes to how do you communicate your value to another human being? Do you brag about it? Do you tell them how lousy their life is going to be without it? Hopefully not. Or do you inquire, which we teach, inquire about, well, what's what are the issues you have, you being Mr. Prospect, that are causing you trouble? What what where are you where are you lacking? Where do you want to go and where do you have a what is causing you to be blocked in the pursuit of that? And you serve people by having that conversation. I gotta tell you, most people don't have that conversation. I hang around a lot of not a lot, but a few people from the church. And nobody seems to want to have that conversation. What is your obligation to create value? Where are you going? What's in the way? It's a very simple question, and I want you to learn how to ask your prospects that. But ask yourself that too. And the moment we shift from how do I close this deal to how do I genuinely help this person, everything changes. Your presence changes, your vibe shifts, everybody feels it. Trust accelerates. You know, we talk about the trust gap. You want to build it, you want to decimate the trust gap? Ask this question How can I help this person? Bible. Matthew 20, 26. Whomever wants to become great among you must be your servant. You have to serve people. Serve first, serve always. By you serving people, you will reap the rewards, and not in heaven. You'll reap the rewards here on earth. Be in serve first mode. Sell second mode. Serving, you're serving by selling them, but you're not selling them and then serving them. You're serving them by asking the right questions in the sales process, and you're explaining your value in a clear and concise way, and then people are saying, Yeah, you know what? I want on board. I want to do this with you. There are a couple other verses, but Galatians 5.13 says, serve one another humbly in love. Serve one another humbly. I like that one. Okay, principle number three: be a guide, not a convincer. Your role in professional selling is to illuminate the path, not to drag people down the path. Convincing, and even some persuading, is exhausting. And to be honest with you, it's not very effective because every time you go out trying to persuade somebody to your way of thinking, there's resistance. They throw up the gauntlet of resistance. We all do it. Guiding, though, is sustainable and it's empowering for you. It's powerful for them. So when you position yourself as a person who helps prospects understand A, where they are, B, where they want to go, and C what might be in the way and how to get to that promised land, you become indispensable. You're not interchangeable, you're not a commodity. You're indispensable. Proverbs 11 14 says, for lack of guidance, a nation falls. But victory is won through many advisors. And that the notion there is that we are an advisor to our prospects, to our clients. Just like I might be an advisor to you. And I know that some of you are clients of mine, uh, paid clients, some of you are community service clients on the podcast. But hopefully I have helped guide you over the months or years. I am not trying, I never try to convince people. I do webinars. In fact, we've got one coming up June 11th. Uh it's called the Lev the 2X Leverage Workshop. And it's complimentary, 60 minutes. Uh, let's see, I'll put in the show notes how to get access to that. Um, but it's a 60-minute free webinar on the three master keys I have found to really leveraging yourself in the world of selling and achievement. But I tell people right up front, look, you're all we're all adults here. I'm going to make you an offer at the end, going to invite you to participate in something that we're doing. It's called the 2x group. You may discover as we go that, man, this would be perfect. You may discover this would be the biggest waste of time and money ever in my life. I don't care. I really don't care. I mean, I'm not I'm not biased. I'm not here trying to get you to do something. And we're going to talk about principle number four, which is detach from outcomes. But I'm not, as a guider, I'm not invested in in you doing business with me. I'm just not. I'm just not. I I would would I prefer you do business than not? Well, yeah, if it's the right thing. If I believe I can help you and you believe you can help me, and you say you want to go to a different place and you really are committed to that, yeah. Well, it's better. But I'm never convincing or persuading. Never. Principle number four, detach from outcomes. You know, you've heard us say this, me say this. Clarity and confidence come when you release your grip on the result. You become more confident when you do not have a grip on the result. Attachment, which is the opposite of detachment, of course, it's the outcome or attachment to the outcome, is what makes people pushy, desperate, and weak. When you are genuinely detached, like I just told you in my webinars, when you can walk away, you show up as your best self. The real you, your true identity shows up when you're not wondering and wishing when the customer is going to say yes. And prospects sense that free. They want to be a part of that, draws them in, doesn't push them away. So where in the Bible do we find a little bit of this detachment? Matthew 6.34 says, Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. And really, isn't that what detachment is? Detachment's the springing free of our worry about the future if we can't fix this thing in the present, like we don't get this deal or we don't get the book call or whatever. Isn't that what detachment really allows us to do is to set aside the worry of tomorrow? We're not worried, we're not concerned with it. We'll do all the right things. We're not going to sit sit around in bed and eat chocolates all day. We're going to go out and work, we're going to serve people, we're going to tell our stories, we're going to post, but I'm detached from the outcomes. I don't ever worry about tomorrow. Now, I can't say I don't ever worry about tomorrow. Yeah, I mean I sometimes I like if I have something big coming up the day after, you know, tomorrow or the day after. Yeah, I'll set my mind on it, but I don't know if I worry about I used to, but I believe these biblical principles and whether you have a spiritual foundation really helps you let go. And you know what happens when you let go and get unattached from the outcomes? People feel that. People want to be around you. Customers now, the trust explodes between you. All right, principle number five know and deploy your uniqueness. Your gifts are not accidental. They're part of your assignment. And we talked about that a little bit earlier, divine purpose. But this is about your uniqueness. Most people spend their careers trying to be a better version of someone else. But the market does not need that version of someone else. It needs the full, unapologetic, unique expression of you. Your unique combination of experience, perspective, and insight is an asset. Can't be replicated, can't be commoditized, probably can't be shipped. So what is that unique expression of you? And are you afraid to deliver it? I know in my business life I've been afraid from time to time to deliver my unique expression because I have counterintuitive takes. I have non-traditional strategies. And you've heard them here. And sometimes when I get ready to share those, I get a little queasy. Oh, am I going to be accepted in the club if I say this? Then at some point you realize there is no club you're trying to get accepted into. Or you get accepted in the club, and you say, I don't really want to be in this club. That's not the club for me. Okay, what's the biblical foundation to this? Here's Romans 12, 6. We have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. I've been listening to a lot of Jamie Winship, who's an online pastor. He does a lot of uh interviews on YouTube, and he's got a program called Identity Exchange that he does with his wife, and he talks a lot about identity. And really that's what this is. Our uniqueness is wrapped up in who we are at our core level, not who we say we are, not who other people tell us we are, but who we really are. And that's a hard thing to get to. It's uh you don't just you know, you don't just roll up and say, okay, well, I'm gonna you ask me who I am. Here's my uh here's my paragraph. I mean it's it's work because we have been, I don't know, infiltrated by the world to say, well, you have to be this person. If you're gonna be in this business, you have to be this person. If you're gonna be in sales, you have to be persuasive. You've probably heard that. If you're gonna be in sales and be successful, you have to be persistent. No, you don't. You don't have to be persuasive or persistent. But that's the that's the identity we've taken on. I'm persuasive and I'm persistent. Well, okay, maybe you are, but you don't have to be that way for you to be successful in sales. And I will challenge, I will challenge anybody. And I know I've got some challengers out there I hear from them on LinkedIn. Bill, you don't know what you're talking about. You've got to be persistent, you kind of not give up, you've got to keep calling people long after. Not in my world, you don't. Not with my philosophy, you don't. What you do need to do is do a better job up front of understanding their dilemmas and being able to explain your value. Let that suffice. Now you you get rid of all these thousands of follow-up conversations. So we have different gifts according to the grace given to each of us. There's a couple other uh biblical references here, uh, but I think that should do on that one. So principle number five is know and deploy your uniqueness. Our uniqueness scares the you know what out of us. It really does. Because we have been built in a world that rewards conformity. It doesn't reward people stepping out of line. It's the whole tall poppy syndrome. You know, you grow too much, somebody's gonna cut you off at the knees. Principle number six your body is your temple. Physical fitness is not separate from professional performance. It is performance. We need, as professionals, to think clearly under pressure, to bring the right kind of energy and presence to the to the marketplace, and all of that flows from our physical condition. And neglecting our physical body is is not humility, it's poor stewardship of the instrument, the physical instrument you've been given to carry out your assignment here. First Corinthians 6, 19 and 20. Do you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? You are bought at a price, therefore honor God with your bodies. So I and I know that sometimes people around me say, you know, Bill, that's not your lane. Physical fitness is not your lane. Look, my lane is anything that can help you grow. I don't I don't care what anybody admonishes me for. My lane is anything that's going to help you get a result without working yourself to the bone. So if that means shooting better video, we're gonna talk about that. If that means physical fitness, we're gonna talk about that. If that means spiritual foundation, check, check, and check. Because I don't want to limit myself in talking to you about just sales training and sales tactics. And here's a tip. When they say this, you say that. Here's a tie-down close. If they're not closing, tie them down. I mean, literally, get your rope out and tie them down. No, you're not gonna hear that here. What you're going to hear is all lanes, all roads that lead to your success. And if that's not what you want, if you came in for sales tips, go somewhere else. I'm gonna give you some sales tips, but it's gonna be non-traditional, counterintuitive. You're probably not gonna be able to learn them and use them anyway. But if you want true growth, income growth, sales growth, results growth, this is the right place for you. Hopefully that helps you today. Those are six. I'll go through the next six on a uh solo episode that'll probably come out here in a couple days. And I hope that has been helpful. Go to advanced sellingpodcast.com slash LinkedIn if you want to comment on this. Good, bad, or ugly. Love to hear it. Bye.