Connection Over Perfection: What Really Moves the Load

What really drives sales success in today's world?

In this exclusive conversation, leadership and communication expert Jay McChord joins Between The Forks to discuss why connection—not product features, perfect presentations, or memorized sales scripts—is becoming the ultimate competitive advantage.

As attention spans continue to shrink and five generations work side by side in today's workplace, leaders and sales professionals face new challenges in how they communicate, influence, and build trust. Drawing from his experience working with organizations across business, education, government, and nonprofits, Jay shares practical strategies for connecting with people, understanding customer motivation, and communicating value more effectively.

From the power of better questions and stronger relationships to leveraging AI for smarter prospecting, this episode is packed with actionable insights for anyone looking to improve their leadership, sales performance, and communication skills.

Whether you're leading a team, managing customer relationships, or looking to shorten the runway to success, this conversation offers valuable lessons on what really moves the load.

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 Podcast Directed and Produced by: www.hiredgunsagency.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome back to Between the Forks, the official podcast from Clark Forklifts. This is where we explore leadership, culture, communication, and the people shaping today's workplace and business landscape. I'm your host, Sean Reigns, and today's episode is one where every every leader, sales professional, and communicator needs to hear. We're joined by Jay McCord, president and CEO of McCord Incorporated, who works with organizations across business, education, government, and nonprofits, helping leaders and teams improve how they communicate, how they influence, and how they connect. Today, we're getting into what Jay calls the two major headwinds that are working against success today, shrinking attention spans, and the reality of up to five generations working side by side in the workplace. We're going to discuss communication, leadership, sales, connection, and how professionals can actually thrive in this increasingly chaotic environment. Jay, welcome to Between the Forks.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Oh, I am so honored, Sean. I could not wait for us to dive into this. Thank you for having me. And I sincerely appreciate Clark going that extra mile for folks that listen to this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah, for sure. I've been looking forward to it as well. I want to start with uh the fact that you work with leaders and teams across really every sector of the economy, from business to education, government, nonprofits, as I mentioned in the intro. What are the trends that you're seeing when it comes to communicating and selling and influencing others?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yeah, what I see, whether it's a Fortune 100 company or uh a group of legislators, um, nonprofit leaders, there is this epidemic, Sean, of geeking out on our own stuff, is what I like to call it. So my product, my service, my policy, my procedure, my my thing, everybody loves their stuff. And what's happening is that we're almost allowing the product managers to run Roughshod and basically thinking that feature and functionality is just going to sell it. Oh my gosh, Sean, you're not gonna believe it. This new XJ5 has everything on it, a thousand things, and thinking that somehow that you're gonna automatically know what that means to you. And again, I see it everywhere. It doesn't matter what business you're in. We all get really enthused about our own thing, as we should, but we don't realize that there's a gap missing, that very few people are training people on how to communicate uh with folks in a short attention span world across multi-generations. And so I get the great fortune of working with leaders and teams uh in those spaces to help uh break down those walls, help build better relationships, help people sell more, and what I like to say shorten the runway to your success, whatever success means to you.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Yeah. I'm sure that the Clark team is, well, they're already familiar with you, so I'm all I'm sure that they're excited to have you back uh coming up pretty soon in about a month. You talk about two distinct and kind of new, really newer headwinds to success that everyone is facing today. What are those headwinds? How do you see that they're holding people back?

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yeah. So uh the way that I teach this uh is that they're represented by two numbers that you'll never forget from now on, the numbers eight and five. If you can remember eight and five, you're really going to understand our times. And you know, Sean, one thing that I love to tell people that I do for a living is I help people be recognized, organizations like Clark be recognized as knowing the times and knowing what to do. Uh, because that makes you very relevant if you know what's going on in other people's worlds and you have solutions to people's problems. So what you have to understand to be relevant today is that number eight and that number five, let me break it down. The number eight represents what the average attention span of someone is today, eight seconds or less, many of us much less. Our brains are really full of stuff and a lot of messages and a lot of stimuli. And it's becoming more and more challenging for you to articulate value in those tighter spaces, uh, articulate vision for leaders, articulate uh the path forward. And so what folks don't realize is that this has never happened before. You've never had this short attention span. The research was showing back in 2000, our attention spans were 12 seconds. So it's markedly going down. And whether it's hard science or an urban legend that said that goldfish have nine seconds of attention span. So people just don't have any space. So when you load people up with more information, it's just counterproductive. And if we go back to what I said earlier about feature and functionality, you know, being so exciting, oh my gosh, this this new iPhone can do a thousand things, but I only care if it does four things. But by gosh, that that product manager or that sales rep is going to tell me all thousand and just be super excited about it. And I don't have anywhere to put all that. So eight is a big, big number that is warring against us. We've got to be better communicators than ever before, uh, regardless of how long we've been doing things. And then the other number is the number five, and that is the number of potential generations that are working side by side right now. That's never happened before to have five separate generations. So I'll give you a real life example. My dad is 90 years old, and is uh this recording, my dad is still working every day. He's a civil engineer, and he is kind of the foremost authority on concrete in the world. And uh, but he loves to work, he's he's still viable, he's teaching and training, and and his boss, Sean, is 50 years younger than him. He's 40 years old. So, I mean, think about that for a second. Now, my dad was his mentor when uh his boss was first coming into the industry as a 20-something year old. They have an unbelievable relationship. But the point simply is what if that's you? What if you're trying to sell to people that are two generations off? What if you're trying to hire people that are two generations off in either direction? All of that is just making things very, very jumble. But what I want you, your listeners to know is that when you realize that almost every problem you have right today, whatever the issue is, uh that if you're watching this, that you are struggling with, if you give me long enough, I'll show you how it rolls up to one or both of those numbers, either eight and or five. Um so the other thing I was going to say, Sean, is that the generational piece is so interesting and I love digging into it and we can talk about it as long as you want to talk. But the long and short of it is different generations see things differently. Now, that's an obvious statement, but let me give you an example. If I were to say the words simple technology, and I ask you to define them, my question to you, Sean, is would someone older than you define the word simple technology differently? Oh, yeah, of course. Someone younger, oh my goodness, yes. But I just said, oh, this is simple technology. So what happens a lot of times is even if we get into the eight-second space with a message, if we don't understand some of these generational differences and dynamics, then it could get lost. So I, again, I get the great fortune of untangling that and demystifying that and helping people see that it's a little more simple than they think it is, but you got to know some very human things. And it's not all about the product, it's about humanity.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Yeah, it's a couple, a couple of areas that you're talking about. To me, I as I listen, I think that this is almost broadening um the lens, if you will, on needs analysis. If you don't know, you know, if Clark is an example, you know, with uh their new renegade truck that came out this year, all of their progression with lithium-ion, and then you mentioned all the features. They I mean they have so many different features, but that needs analysis across attention span, generational potential gaps, uh means that there probably is a short list of items that matter most to them. And if you miss that, you may miss the entire opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Um well and and to that point, Sean, let me just riff on that for a second. You know, a lot of times sales leaders, sales professionals um are constantly prospecting. They're trying to qualify a prospect or a customer, uh, like you say, do a real needs analysis that meets the need. And what they don't quite understand is that you probably should spend more calories on the person than the product, even their own company, because that person is gonna buy from someone they like and trust first, then they're gonna go to the company that they like and trust. Uh, and then the product is always last. But we put the product first, you know, product's gonna, and it is, it's important. But if you if it doesn't meet the need because you've tried to uh cram something in into a space that doesn't really fit, and really the need is over here, and you missed it because of a generational uh misunderstanding. Uh boy, I love fixing those types of problems because all of a sudden you, as I say, you shorten the runway of your success. Now you can sell more, now you can influence more, and you can uh just be a better leader across the board.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Yeah. Well, let's talk about some of those mistakes. Like what are the in your world, what are the biggest mistakes that you're seeing that companies will make, um, especially right now, when it comes to the development of their people, um, especially in sales.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Yeah. Yeah. I think that what happens a lot of times is we find someone who, you know, oh my gosh, look at Sean. He could sell ice to an Eskimo. He is so extroverted. Let's let him sell. Turn him loose, right? And one, you're not giving a lot of sales skills, just the sales, um, what is the sales funnel? How do you, how do you move from one piece to the next, those types of basic sales 101, a lot of that's being missed. But even with the folks who have a uh a sales program or um a methodology that they use, what I'm watching happen constantly is there is a just a uh a natural tendency to go to the product, to go to the service, to go to the quota, the number, and so forth and so on. And what I like to do is let's put the humanity back in things. Let's talk about uh the human that is going to make that purchase or that human that's you're trying to recruit to your company or organization. You you have got to think about them and obsess on them. And I don't see a lot of that. And what's funny is let me give you a crazy example that has nothing to do with this industry. But I work a lot with equine vets and I live in Lexington, Kentucky, and obviously there's a lot of horses here, but I get a chance to speak all over North America to equine vets. And here's what's really funny about those guys and gals is they are awesome with the four-legged, with the horses. They love, they they love it. And so many of their classes, though, their continuing yeah, they're their speakers that come to their conferences, deal with the four-leggeds. I'm generally the only guy that shows up in their world that talks about the two-leggeds. And the two-leggeds are what drive them insane. The people they got to hire, their client, you know, the owner of that horse. And they constantly are frustrated with people, and yet very few opportunities are available to them for them to even get human training. And uh, I was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa last year speaking at this big uh equine conference, and it was a two-day deal. I had like 90 minutes, and I was the only guy talking about the two legs. Now, I followed the foremost authority on horse dentistry. So this guy is awesome, and he's the best in the world. But at the end of the day, he's doing the same thing that I'm watching manufacturers do, or uh, you know, as I said earlier, anybody out there that just geeks out on their own stuff. They love their stuff. But what they're not teaching a lot of across the board is how do I relate better to Sean? How do I build better, stronger connection to you and let that be the driving force? So there is a decline, Sean, in um human training, or you know, being a human. Um, and I'll give you another example while while Netta just kind of popped in my head that last year I worked with a major Fortune 100 company. Uh, they brought in all their HR professionals from across the globe. So there's like 60 HR vice presidents, if you will. And they brought them in for four days to learn a brand new software system that they were going to implement across the globe. And these guys had to be the standard bearers for that software. And they brought me in on the last two days to teach uh change management and how to be a change champion, basically how to do the human side of this thing. And it was so funny because they didn't say it exactly this way, but they were like, Jay, your job is to dig these guys out of the ditch because they've been in feature functionality world for so long. We got to get them excited about people. And I remember staying on the stage pretty early on, I said, uh, you know, what's interesting about being at this meeting, you all, is you've just spent two days on a lot of feature and functionality, and you're in human resources. I I don't see you get a lot of human training. I'm here to help you do that. And it was so incredible. The response of people going, thank you for allowing me to connect better, not just professionally, but everything I teach is apply uh is applicable in your family life and in your community life, because uh people are everywhere around you and we're struggling with this connection piece. Uh, so that's that's what I see a lot of, Sean, is a lot of product training, a lot of excitement about the new, best, whatever, uh, but very little training as to how to communicate and lead and influence uh other humans.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Do you have a favorite or a preferred um sales methodology of all of them? They maybe in the last 20 years, there are plenty of them. Are there any of them that you that you like that feel like they capture what's going on with today's market?

SPEAKER_01 15:00

You know, uh people I get asked that a lot, and I have a lot of favorites. I don't have a favorite. I mean, Sandler's great, uh, trusted advisor is great, uh, you know, even things like spin selling and others. And here's what I see. Any of those methodologies have real value in teaching someone the sales funnel, the sales pipeline, whichever way you want to uh think of it or call it. And there's a real need to understand that you move from prospecting to qualifying to needs allows to closing objection handling. That that's kind of almost a uh a foundational layer of this is what the sales process looks like. My what I try and do is complement anything like that that you have in your organization. So I'm never going to conflict with anybody. Um, I'm gonna compliment it. I'm gonna be able to vote on because my content is really around communication excellence. Like, how do you just become a better communicator, whether that's a sales professional or you're the owner of the company or fill in the blank? All of us need to be better communicators. So, to answer your question, I'm like numerous ones, I think they all have really good bones where I see the gap that I try and fill for organizations like Clark with their partners and so forth is hey, let me teach you uh how to prospect better, whichever methodology you're using, not swap it out for something, but let me show you how to get in better or how to warm that prospect better. Let me show you how a better way to ask questions might be or a richer way to ask those questions. What do you do with objection handling? Here's a way to understand that maybe that makes it a little easier, versus just trying to do the assembly line process of sales, uh, the sales process. So it makes sense what I was what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. As I was listening to you, it just made me think of various sales methodologies, a handful of them that I've gone through the training of and I contextualized that with Clark. And I think, you know, it's really important what you're talking about around communication, because a lot of salespeople will start with what you're talking about, which is features, right? They they start with the payoff as opposed to teaching people and helping them understand the problem and where it aligns so that solution and problem actually are connected. It's you it's almost the communication is what leads somebody to seeing, oh, this is the solution versus uh trying to do all of that up front, which is uh is just misaligned. Um go ahead. Well, go ahead. Oh, I was gonna I was gonna take you towards this multi-generational piece. So um the multi-generational piece is certainly a real thing, like we've never seen before. Um, very much in the workplace, adding this complexity layer to leadership. Um, how do you see all that working in terms of communication and sales?

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Yeah. So uh, you know, the first thing everyone has to understand is you're gonna always go to where you're comfortable. So let's do it this way. A lot of times in our workplaces, the word diversity carries a you know, electrical charged uh uh uh connotation. I want to give you a different way of looking at diversity uh that I try and teach. And I just love trying to get people to see things differently, and it's certainly in a more positive light. A lot of times we look at diversity, Sean, like a uh Golden Corral salad bar or a buffet at Vegas, right? Oh my gosh, look at that mile of salad bar. Look at that. That's so diverse. Yeah, except when you look at it a little closer, everything is with like kind on that salad bar. So the tomatoes are hanging with the tomatoes, the lettuce is with the lettuce, onions are with the onions. It's not until you take them out of their individual bowls and put them into a giant salad bowl that you have any real flavor. It's not until you take those elements, put them together. And what I see a lot of times is that we want to hang on the salad bar. Uh I'm Gen X, and so I love quoting movie quotes, you know, to my peers because I can have an entire conversation in movie quotes. But if I'm working with Gen Z, uh, they don't understand that, and I don't understand what TikTok they're talking about, and so forth and so on. So it's easier for me, certainly, to hang with my own people. So one of the big things that I see, Sean, is that uh we gravitate to what's comfortable and we tend to complain about who's above us and who's below us, those older people, those younger people. And and it's it's funny because it doesn't matter uh as you move through the your age, some of the things that uh my dad was saying in his 50s, like I am, are the same. I mean, you know, you you want certain things at certain times of life. So those things are consistent. Here's where the difference is. The difference is that we are so interdependent now, generationally. Uh, we are seeing uh decision makers change generationally. Uh, we're watching, for example, baby boomers are retiring today at the rate of 10,000 a day at a minimum. But what I'm watching uh is the effect of AI on that number. And Sean, in the last six months, I'm watching how that is absolutely throwing gas on that fire because so many boomer leaders are like, you know what? I'm out. I'm not doing this whole AI thing. I don't want to learn all that new stuff. I'll just retire. And so boomers are stepping out at a certain clip over the next however long. Gen X is moving into leadership. Millennials now are the largest generation on the planet, largest generation in the workplace. They're moving into leadership. And then you have Gen Z coming into uh the workplace. Then you have folks like my dad at the under other end of the spectrum that are still very much viable either in an advisory role or a board role, or like he is, he's still actively working. So all of that just creates this electricity, this friction that is really problematic. And as I said, you know, if you think about simple technology like we talked about before and how different generations would define that, think about how different generations would define words like mental health, uh flexible work environment, a good sales call, you know, a great marketing campaign. Different generations are defining things differently. So if you are you and I are working together and I say, Sean, we've got a killer marketing print campaign going. And you say, Yeah, but you built it all for Gen X, Jay, and I'm entirely stock full of. millennials that are all leading and they're they're all the people decision makers in my organization, you know, it's not really you're you're missing it. You're just talking a different language. So where where the opportunity lies is for folks who spend time thinking about this, spend time with me, we can demystify that. We can see I give uh I have one word per generation. So I and I can teach it to you right now. I can give you that one word per generation. I'm not giving away the farm, you know, it we we teach this deeper, but but let me give you I believe that it's always about giving value and I want this podcast to be the most valuable one that you've done so far. What comes after me, I just want it to stair step. But but so far I want to I want to bring as much value as possible. So let's take the five generations and let me give you the five words. So let's start with traditionals. They're the oldest generation out there. They are my dad's age. They're about 81 ish and above their word is rules. Man they love rules they love structure. So when you're selling to them when you're talking to them you want to be as buttoned up and structured as possible because that's what they love and appreciate. Boomers come next uh they're about 61 ish to 80 ish uh in that time frame and their word is legacy. And the reason why is because they are retiring they are moving into that phase of life where they want their work to have mattered. They want their family life to have mattered they want to be remembered well. So legacy matters. So if I'm selling a baby boomer uh that that's the decision maker I want to know what they see as their legacy Sean like what do they want this this company to look like afterwards? What do they want people saying when they retire or they're no longer here my job is to help them secure that Gen X is next that's me uh we're about oh 40 uh about 45 ish to 60 ish and our word is level we're at that age and stage where we are trying to climb levels in our career and with our families and we're trying to get to that next level and so if I'm selling a Gen X decision maker I want to know what he or she is trying to get to the next level in what what is that? And I need to help them do that. So if they're trying to take their business to the next level then I've got to position my product or service uh my relationship with them to help them do that. Uh millennials are next millennials are as I say the largest generation on the planet uh largest generation in the workplace they're about 26 ish uh to 45 ish somewhere in there and their word is impact and they want to have impact and they want it now it's one of the coolest things about the generation it's it's built into their DNA that they really want to change the world they want to do it now. And so if I'm selling into a millennial decision maker I want to know what's what do they see as changing the world is that the world or is that their world or their work world and I want to help them have that impact they want right now with my product service or relationship. And then lastly is Gen Z uh born and they're they're roughly um oh I'd say they're about 25 ish down to about 11 or 12 ish somewhere in there. The bulk of them are still in school uh middle school high school college uh about three four years out of college is kind of the top end they are the entry level folks that you're hiring and you're going to be hiring for a while and their word is customize everything in their world can be customized to them the individual and that is their expectation and so it now now let's roll through all those real quick. So traditionals is rules boomers is legacy Gen X is level millennials is impact uh and Gen Z is customize if you know those five words which now you do you can sell anybody right because that's what they want and that's how you need to position yourself your product your company is to help either let them uh have rules to play by help their legacy be established or or or solidified help them go to another level help them have impact or help them have a customized experience so it demystifies like I have you ever gone to a conference where they teach on generational stuff and you walk out like more confused than when you walk in because you're just like I don't know how Gen X's favorite song is supposed to get help me hire them and so forth. What we found was hey let's boil it to five words now you know the five words and in the session that we'll do uh with Clark and some of the things that we're going to be doing with them over the next little bit is as part of this training sales training and human communication training is helping you really understand that and then let's take that understanding but let's look at your client base. Look let's look at who you're trying to hire and move it to action so that now it's not just head knowledge it's actually shortening the runway to your success. Mm-hmm I love that I think that people need to spend a lot more time uh in in this particular area of understanding communication and the generational differences uh it's certainly more of a factor today than it ever has been but it has been a factor for a long time and one that people don't really pay much attention to yeah we've had three we've had four but we've never had five and it just creates this very strange dynamic and you know uh if you if you think about let's just take the nonprofit world for a second you know they're always asking for for uh for contributions to support the cause well every campaign should have a slice of generational communication to it that if you're going after people like my parents in their 80s and 90s um you want to say the same thing you just want to say it with the word rules or the at least the the structure of this better that you're really tapping uh or tapping I should say into their legacy desire or into Gen X's wanting to go to the next level or having impact for millennials or Gen Z with customization. So it's it's everywhere. But once you see it uh now it's just so amazing uh I'll give you for instance Sean that that will mess you up uh for the rest of this this calendar year sports year when you watch college sports I want you to watch it through this lens that uh five six years ago millennials were it was the bottom end of millennials that were still undergrads and every college in America basically said start here change the world come here impact the world that was always in the the uh the motto or or their slogans or the campaigns now what you watch is that Gen Z is that primary undergrad you'll start seeing things like story and journey and words that show customization in your track and so forth and so on. So when you're watching you know the baseball world series and you see um you know the whatever those colleges are in their their ads look at how that what they're saying there because they're they're talking Gen Z language they're trying to get that person as a customer. And you know when you watch college football and and basketball later in the year just watch it through this lens of that they are they are selling someone different. Now I tell you that to say this for those that are listening to this are you doing that I mean this is where the miss is the miss is oh I tell you what we've got this brand new XJ5 phone and it can do a thousand things Sean you you'll be amazed it does a thousand things but you only care about four things.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

And if I don't spend the calories on the front end learning what Sean cares about and and speaking to those things then I might miss the sale I probably will miss the sale because I'm trying to you know show you a future functionality and get you excited hoping you get excited about something in there yeah the generational segment is fascinating you're actually in the state where there's a hotly contested congressional race going on right now and I have seen all over social media the younger generations the ones uh maybe there might be some younger Gen X's in it but there's certainly a huge chunk of the millennials that are descending upon Kentucky to use their creator and influencer status to try to uh communicate they want and why are they doing that? Because they feel misrepresented by people who are not assessing what's you take that into the sales environment and you know all these different areas nonprofits and politics and all that but it is so true that the influence that's going to happen based on how you communicate with all these different generations it has to be part of your thought process your training or you're gonna miss more it's and that's it it I mean we're at the beginning of something that doesn't slow down. It is not going to make this any easier.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

No, it it just goes from here. But but here's something I want everybody watching to understand because again I want to demystify this and declutter it for you that it's not as hard as you think it is but you do have to put the calories on the front end. One of the things that we teach a very core tenet that I teach uh and and we really dive into this but this will help you sell more if all you do is see this segment and the generational piece uh you're gonna sell more just understanding these these basic things there are only two reasons only two that someone makes a decision to do something either it's the avoidance of pain I don't want to have a heart attack later this year I better start running right now I don't want something to happen so therefore I move to action. So the avoidance of pain is a determiner of action and the other one is the acquisition of game. Hey I'd like to run a marathon later this year probably ought to start running right now what's interesting is when you know that Sean that really the only thing that's going to move someone to action so let's just keep it in the sales space right now someone is going to buy your product or not buy your product either because of what it'll help them avoid downtime loss uh you know uh revenue loss you know the uh morale loss those types of things if it's gonna help me avoid that pain I want to buy it or and or if it's gonna give me greater revenue if it's gonna give me a better uh production if it's gonna help me increase efficiency that's what I'm chasing that gain so before every call before every meeting all you simply need to do is ask Sean's my audience hmm what is it he's trying to avoid at all costs I need to talk to that what is it he's trying to get I need to talk to that and then guess what you don't have to sell all thousand features of this thing you're only just talking to the four that Sean really wants but most people here's the fall down is oh you got to get out there and pound on doors and you got to you know hit this many phone calls or emails or whatever and I don't have time to think about that. Well okay fair problem is is that you're either going to spend it on the front end those calories or you're gonna spend it on the back end cleaning up and or have to do 10 times more calls if and and this is what I argue is if you'll just spend a few more minutes on the front end and looking for that connection point and looking what's their pain and gain what is it they're trying to avoid what is it they want and talk to that oh my goodness I uh let me give you a real life example from my past so for four and a half years I was the global senior sales trainer at Lexmart and Lexmart makes printers and one of the things we found were was that our reps in the healthcare space really understood our product very well very well versed solid sales performers okay but they didn't understand the business of healthcare very well they they didn't understand how healthcare made their money what were their pain and gain and all that kind of stuff. So uh we created a training where we brought all of our healthcare reps from across North America and we trained them for two days in a hospital. We did this two years in a row so that they could learn that environment understand it and and really see what was going on there. Well here's what is interesting about healthcare in the U.S. uh healthcare in the US brief tutorial for you all I'm I'm gonna I'm deviating but I promise I'm gonna bring it right back to where you're living uh all of my all of my viewers right now healthcare in the U.S. uh hospitals make about 80 cents on every dollar from Medicare Medicaid reimbursement the government okay so the way they get that dollar is by having a good patient satisfaction score from someone staying you your mother high patient score they get their money there is one determining factor that hospitals have found that will drive a patient satisfaction score up and that is FaceTime with a nurse. So if you see a nurse child while you're in the hospital or you your mother's in the hospital and she saw a nurse a bunch you tend to score that hospital pretty high uh if they if you don't see anybody any nurses for a while you're like this place is terrible okay our healthcare reps Sean prior to this training would say something like this uh Mr. CEO of hospital I'm Jay McCord with LexMark and I I uh I'm so excited to be with you today because our printers print at 60 pages a minute and the drawers don't jam okay awesome but I don't know where to put that what does that mean to me so forth right that's geeking out on your own stuff those are really great things you know they they print fast the drawers don't jam the technology the feature functionality is awesome okay after the training what our reps could say uh very fluently was Sean I help hospitals like yours get higher patient satisfaction scores well Jay I thought you sold printers well I do but would you agree Sean that the more time your nurses spend with patients the higher the patient satisfaction goes up yeah well our printers print really fast they don't they don't jam that keeps the nurses out of the nurses station and in front of the patient I could not wait to talk to you about this today. In that little brief exchange I just told you I know how you make your money I know what you're trying to avoid and I know what you're trying to get. And I could do that in the first basically eight seconds of a conversation that's what I love to train. And it doesn't matter what sales system you use because this bolts onto that it just makes you better at saying it better. And all of a sudden you just become the go-to guy or the go-to gal, the go-to company and this is what I love about Clark is they are so interested in in improving folks' uh ability to communicate so that you can make more money so that you can you know shorten that runway to success and that's why I love partnering with them. You know they're just an ideal uh fit for what I get to do.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Yeah. And a great example and I, you know it obviously the uh healthcare industry and forklifts are different, but what's exactly the same is Clark deeply cares about the satisfaction of their dealers and the people who buy their products. And uh they have countless dealers all across the country that have been selling them for decades some of them 50 60 70 years. Yeah uh you give people like that who already care um the understanding that you know exactly what their pain gain levers are what which buttons to push uh you're just pouring gas on a fire a good one right in yeah not not a bad way you're getting them motivated and helping them unlock the things that they hadn't seen before they hadn't thought about before but they deeply care about.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Well and you know one of the things I've found especially with sales reps is yeah we we want to make as much money as possible. That is why we got in this business because generally there's not caps on on our income and though and you have some freedom and flexibility. If you have two or three new things in your hip pocket like we've talked about today oh pain again that's easy to remember you know I need to do that and five generations are out there you may not even remember the word but you're going to remember the fact that maybe I don't talk to them the way if they're a different generation than me the than how I talk um all of a sudden you're different. And Sean there's a this great stat out there that is the number one factor in sales success is simply this an individual reps ability to articulate their value concisely and clearly that's it. Can you articulate your value your value your company's value the product's value can you do it clearly and concisely if you can then all of a sudden your opportunities go through the ceiling and that's what I love trying to do for people but especially in this Clark universe.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

Yeah um it's a good segue for the next thing I want to ask sales professionals are always looking for like a more direct path to getting the deal done like that's what they want. What would be a couple of teachings that you would give someone that watches to this episode that will shorten the runway to what they would call sales success.

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah I want to I that's thank you for teeing this up because there's two things I want to give you that are hard and fast. And as soon as you hear them you literally can run out and go do them. Okay. And and that's kind of how I'm wired is I don't want to teach a theory I don't want to teach you some stuff that's hard to remember easy stuff pain gain uh you know five words so here let me give you two tools one is what I do with everyone and how what I teach whether you're uh Fortune 100 CEO or you're a librarian uh or you're in college or high school I teach everybody this I taught my kids this there are three questions Sean to ask yourself before any appointment any meeting anything you're responsible for so if it's a sales call or it's just you're in charge of the meeting um here are the three questions you ask yourself that will help you connect better they are simply this who what how before the meeting if you ask who what how of yourself you're gonna connect so much better than if you didn't and literally you can take 60 seconds and do this beforehand. This isn't something like you have to put in the CRM system and it's not something heavy you can do it on a napkin. Big caveat the bigger the meeting the the more time you want to spend on the who what how I mean if we're gonna go ask for 100 million dollars we we need to spend more than 60 seconds on it. But here's the deal if you did spend 60 seconds on the 100 million dollar deal you would connect better. So let me flesh it out for you who who is my audience specifically in this situation so let me give you this um I challenge anybody that's watching this I want you to go to yesterday's calendar and think about all the people you talk to all the people you engage with that could be customers it could be prospects it could be uh your boss your subordinates your peers your spouse your kids their homeroom teacher think about all day long you are audience switching like crazy we all are okay doesn't it warrant a little bit of time a few seconds to pause and think I'm getting ready to meet with Sean and Sean is the CEO of this so I can focus on my audience I need to understand who they are and so that's the first thing you do before any meeting before any uh sales call second thing you do is the question what what is important to them and simply put what's their pain and gain that's it what is it they're trying to avoid what is it they want as best as you can figure out you may not know any I have any idea but you can guarantee that uh even if this was a total cold call but you're getting ready to meet with the CFO of whatever organization CFOs have the same pain and gain because of their position there's so there's a number of things you can know just by by the the position. You don't have to have a deep knowledge but second question is what's important to them? What's their pain and gain the third question is really a magic question how how do you want them to feel when you walk out the door hang up the phone click off that email what is the feeling that you want them to have with your encounter and uh a guy explained it to me this way Jay have you ever tried to push a string or a chain in a straight line you can't do it just a little here a little there right but you can pull a string in a straight line every time this how question is the pull a string question. Simply put Sean if I'm thinking about at the end of this podcast so I I did this with you uh beforehand okay Sean's my audience but he's not really my audience my audience is much bigger I don't see who they are but I know they're people that are in the Clark universe they care about these types of things this is their pain and gain how I want you to feel as an audience and certainly Sean, you personally is I want you to be encouraged and equipped. That's what I'm aiming for. I want you to feel like, man, that guy is a heck of a cheerleader. And but he gave me real meat. He wasn't just like, hey, you got to buy my $799 set after the show, you know, or hey, come see me. And that's when there's value. I want to bury you with value every chance I get. And I want you to be able to have tools you can take away immediately and be equipped to just shorten the runway to success. So, first thing I want to teach you, or I would give this audience, is what I call the tool of the three questions. Who, what, how? Who's my audience? I got to think about who this is, focus on them. What? What's important to them, their pain and their game, and how do I want them to feel at the end of this thing? And when you do that ahead of time, you don't have to spend nearly the calories that you're going to cleaning up a mess if you didn't do it and just found another door or whatever. So that's the first tool that I would give you, Sean, is the three questions I give the audience. And when we do sales training live, this is this is one of the most fun things that we do is we teach this, but then we start to take the real people you're calling on, the real types of people that someone is calling on, and we workshop this out. We put up on the board, okay, this is the purchasing manager or this is the CEO of whatever, whatever, what's important to them? Here are the things, here's how we want to feel. And then once you have that and you take a picture of that work, keep it in your hip pocket. And every time you're calling on, you know, a CEO of a whatever, now you got it. So that's the first tool. The second tool is something that uh I just started to do uh a number of weeks ago that's having huge success for sales reps. And a lot of times sales reps, especially if you have to prospect a ton, you don't have a natural market or you're not a farming rep where you're just sort of managing accounts, you've got to go out and hunt and kill new stuff, take them out and plant the flag. Um this is for you uh especially, but it's for everybody that wants to build that deeper connection uh with anyone. And this is where you let AI do what it does best, and you stay the human. All right. So what I want you to do is whoever you're gonna call in. So I'm calling, I'm calling on Sean uh here in a little bit. So I go to Claude or I go to chat, whatever my AI engine is, and what I want to tell it is simply, hey, go look at Sean Reigns, mine the internet, scrape the internet for everything on him, specifically his LinkedIn page, and tell me everything that I need to know about Sean to uh build a better connection and potentially introduce my products or services or myself to him. Tell me what not to say, tell me what to say, tell me what to lean into, what not to lean into. Chat, give me a word or two or a line or two in an email that I might send him. If I bumped into him on a plane, what might I say? Put that in. And then once it comes back, it'll blow your mind with what it comes back with in the order. Then ask it to do the exact same thing on yourself. Hey, go mine the internet on Jay McCord, specifically my LinkedIn page. Uh, every single thing that you can find on me, I want to see every connection possible to Sean Rates, knowing everything that we just learned about him, tell me every possible way I could connect to him, and I have an opportunity to potentially build a better relationship. You do that, that takes you all of five minutes. And chat or Claude or whoever has literally just given you your pre-call planning. Now you drop that into who, what, how. You start to do this in a way that now you start to blend those two things, and you can walk in the door really focused on the person, not worrying about the thousand things this phone can do, but really the four things that Sean cares about. So those are the two tips, two tools that I wanted, I'm so glad you went here because I wanted to give these to people. Is you know, here's how you prospect in a world that has eight seconds. You only have eight seconds, right? I mean, what are we going to do normally? We're I'm gonna go to your LinkedIn page, right? I'm gonna try and see your LinkedIn page, and I'm gonna put you in a Google search. And I'm doing all the work of trying to find connection. Let AI do that. That's what it does better than anybody. You be the human, take that, make it your own, and then then start to communicate well to the person or the people that you did that on. Now, if you don't have someone you're co-calling a company, let's just say, you can do the exact same thing for the company and tell me how I connect. Uh, but let AI do its thing, it's better than you are at that. Let it do that. And so you can have more time to be the human, more time to build the connection and the relationship. Does those make sense?

SPEAKER_00 49:02

Yeah, those are good tips. Um, I tell people oftentimes most people don't go in and turn off the setting where some people anybody can go and literally download your LinkedIn profile as a PDF, yeah, which is a another version of what you're suggesting here, which you can then upload that PDF of Jay McCord, yeah, and then ask it these specific instructions, give it some parameters, tell it what you want. You can literally do that with multiple PDFs as you're prospecting and tell it to actually dump it all into a spreadsheet for you. And so, yeah, I love I love all these tips. Uh I definitely geek out on those things for sure.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Well, and and so if you take those two suggestions, one you can do on a napkin by yourself in the car, a quick who, what, how. You can always do a who, what, how, no matter the situation. If you have time for real pre-call planning, if you're really doing that or that is part of the culture, um, or getting ready for a meeting and prepping, uh, use the second one to do all of that more detailed type thing. They're both literally the same thing, but one is just sort of a quick gorilla. I've got this in my hip pocket, and I don't have to put in a CRM and keep up with all that. But the second one is, like you say, you can get as sophisticated as you want with spreadsheets and and you know, roadmaps and everything else.

SPEAKER_00 50:22

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The world of AI is kind of uh opening doors for salespeople, prospecting the various elements of sales that it's pretty fascinating. I think that's still largely unused. So I think when you hit some of this uh at the upcoming upcoming uh Clark training, they're gonna love that. Well, you know, Sean. But there are a lot of salespeople that are oblivious to what is out there in terms of capability.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

Well, and and it is an unknown. We don't really know all it can do or all it's gonna replace. And again, there's fear and trepidation. And I just want to cut through all that and be uh, like I say, encourage and equip you uh with something like, well, you can do this with AI and it really works for you. Um and and so one of the things you said that's really, really key is that people are always looking for a faster, more efficient way to do things. This is it. And if if you haven't thought of AI this way, somebody explained it to me early on a couple a year ago, and this has just made sense is think of it as a super smart intern, a wicked smart intern. But if I had a let's call it a 20-year-old intern working for me, and I said, go out and build me a uh dominating business plan, if that was the only instruction I gave it, it's probably gonna come back with something pretty lame that's not anywhere close to what I want and so forth. So, but if I think of it like that intern who doesn't really know Jay yet and is trying to learn, the more specific instruction I give it, the more prompts I give it, the easier it's gonna be for them to bring back what I really want. So think if you think of it as a really super smart intern, and the more effective prompting you can give it, the more you're gonna get by it. But literally, I tell you, I'll challenge everybody in the audience right now. Uh, after this is over with, go into whatever you use, chat, Claude, whatever, uh, type in your own name and say, How would I sell Jay McCord with no prior relationship to him? Uh, my products and services. Even just something simple like that. You don't have to get into detail prompts, but just how would I sell Jay McCord? I did that on myself, which is what started all this about six, seven, eight weeks ago, uh, earlier this year. I would buy from chat, man. What came back was incredible. I'm like, that's me. Yeah. If somebody said that or sent me an email with that headline, oh my goodness, I'd I'd buy from them. So I just want to prove to you that this works. Do it on yourself first. Try it on yourself. How would I sell Jay McCord? Uh, if I had no prior relationship, where some things I could say, what do I stay away from? Just some general prompts and let it do that on you so that you can have the confidence that if I'm calling on Sean, I can do that and it's going to give me uh quality stats.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

Yeah. For sure. For sure. Well, let's talk about value selling. We hear a lot about value selling. How do sales professionals find not only their personal value, which is really important, yeah, but also their company and their product value.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

Yeah. Yeah. We talk a lot about this, and it's one of those terms that just what does it mean? You know, we have this value prop. Hey, you know, the organization has this value proposition and so forth and so on. We hear that, and then what happens a lot of times is we one, don't know how to translate it when it's given to us. So someone says, here is our value proposition, but we don't know how to use it or or translate it. Um, and then secondarily, a lot of times we don't know. And you know, we're uh what is my value? So let me give you an easy way to do this. One, to find your value and then to start articulating it uh in a way that's clear and concise. Um think of it this way. Uh think of three rings, the Venn diagram that we used to grow up with, the three interlocking rings. Um if you put the word you in a ring, if you put uh the word your audience words, your audience in a ring, and then you put your competition in a ring, there is a space, there's a little little funky space in that that um is something you have that your audience wants that the competition can't give them. It looks like up in this little quadrant here. That's the value at your value. So what you want to find is one, who is my audience? So the who, what, how. Who am I talking to? Oh, I'm talking to Sean Rains. Okay. What's important to him? What's his pain again? What is this stuff he wants? I gotta know that first and foremost. And then you need to figure out what you have that's truly unique. So, uh, you know, if I'm trying to get a job with you, Sean, and there is uh, let's just say you've got a um an open space uh application out there, and I'm one of 40 people that's applying for this coveted role to work for you. Okay, I have to figure out what Sean wants. Okay, what's his pain and gain? Right. So I I can do a lot of that again with AI, with a who, what, how. What's unique to Jay? Well, guess what? I'm probably the only person that's going to ever apply for a job from you or for you that was a college mascot. I was the Wildcat mascot at the University of Kentucky from 1988 to 1991. And I went through school on a D1 scholarship doing that. It was a childhood fantasy. It was awesome. Guess what? That's truly unique to Jay. Nobody else out there can probably claim that. So I can zone in on well, what's the value of that? Well, one, that makes me very unique. It gives me some a different vantage point, but that helps you make a sense of the fact that this guy seems to be an encourager, a cheerleader at heart. I always have been. I still am, Sean. I'm going to cheer everybody that I get uh to work with in your organization, our prospects, our customers. I'm just I'm a cheerleader at heart. I've been doing it since I was in college. You know, that's leveraging my value because I'm looking at something very unique to me. So let's put it into Clark World and into the products that uh that folks are selling and offering. You've got these trucks, you've got this technology, you've got these uh amazing super high-tech devices that do all kinds of stuff. That's awesome. But again, if you get, you know, this thing can do a thousand things, yeah, that's awesome. But I only have so much brain space. So the first thing you got to figure out is who is the person you're trying to convey the value to? Is it a prospect, customer, is it you know, someone that you're trying to move to action? Okay, what do I know about them? What's the pain and game? Once you have that, then take either yourself, your company, or the specific product, and just ask yourself so what's so unique? Why is the Clark product so unique in this space? All the products can do this one thing, let's just say, okay, well, that's cool, but only Clark can do that one thing this particular way, or with this energy efficiency, or with uh in tight spaces, or whatever that is. You're trying to find the uniqueness of yourself, your company, or the product, and or the product, and you want to marry that up with what's important to these folks over here. So you've got a warehouse that has uh very funky spaces uh that are different, let's just say uh aisle to aisle, but Clark has this really interesting calibration that allows it to do these types of things and work with anything that's not uniform and so forth. Let's just make that up in a vacuum and say that's something that's unique to Clark. Then you speak to the fact that this person that built this warehouse knows standard stuff just doesn't fit my warehouse. Man, this is such a frustration, you know, and and we have to buy multiple things for that. Oh, did you know that we can do that with one device because it's got this calibration that can do X, Y, Z. So that's you you have to spend the time, you can't just regurgitate my value uh because it may not matter to you. You let's go back to the example of Lexmark. You know, I my printer prints at 60 pages a minute and the drawers don't jam. That's awesome, but I didn't put it into Sean's language where you would understand that. And so you've got to spend this is the human side again, right? And what uh you asked me at the very beginning of this show was simply what am I watching out there? I'm watching us geek out on all this feature and functionality that is so great. We we all love it, except we're not translating it into their language.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

Totally makes sense. You have a phrase questions feed your family. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_01 59:33

Yeah, so sales reps, you need to know questions feed your family. Meaning the better you are at asking the right questions, the more you're going to understand that person's need, and you can meet the need. And when you meet the need, you get paid, right? You so you sold your product. So you've got to become really good at asking questions. And what I find is that many people aren't. Uh they they want to talk about again all the feature and functionality. This thing does all these different things, and they're hoping it connects, versus let's go back to the hospital example of asking that CEO of the hospital, wouldn't you agree that the more FaceTime a nurse has with a patient, the higher your patient scores go up? If that person says yes, then hey, guess what? You've positioned your product to do that thing for them. That questioning is going to feed your family because you're going to sell the product. And Sean, there's also uh a big difference between good questions and better questions. And what I mean by that is there are certain questions that are good. There's nothing wrong with them. Uh, let me give you a couple of those. Uh is this a good time to talk? Nothing wrong with that question. It's it's a good question. Uh, what's your budget? You gotta ask that. It's a good question. But maybe, maybe there's a better way to ask that question that would give you more insight into them and help you sell more effectively. So let me give you an example. So, is this a good time to talk? That's okay. Uh a better question might be, is this a bad time to talk? Because it's easier to say no than yes. But an even better question might be Sean, I know you are extremely busy. Uh, I believe I've got something of real value here that I can share in four minutes with you on the phone right now, uh, if you have time, or we can schedule a time later. Do you have time now? That question is being very sensitive to the fact that there's never a good time to talk, right? Um, is this a bad time to talk? Yeah, probably it is. Yeah, dug on it. Um, and then but if you're saying, hey, I'm gonna give you something of value in four minutes right now, versus the pain of we're gonna have to schedule a meeting a week from now. It's a what yeah, just tell me what you got, Jay. Okay. So that's the first question, a better way to ask it. Let's take the second one. What's your budget? Got to know that. But maybe a better way to ask that question might be hey Sean, uh, everybody I work with has a different process of coming up with a budget number. Would you mind sharing with me what your process is and and what your budget is in that uh for this year? If you ask that question, you're gonna get a lot more information, right? Like, hey, we start a budget process in March, we we have decision-making committee meetings in uh you know July. We now I know timing issues, not just a number. And so there's good questions, nothing wrong with them, but there's a better way to ask them. And what's interesting is you have to formulate those questions in advance, they're not going to like magically appear in your head in the middle of a meeting. So, again, I'm I'm a fan of spend the calories on the front end, let's pre-call plan, let's think about good questions. And I will tell uh sales reps watching this if you ask a question just in your back and forth with a customer, and they say, I've never been asked that before, or that's a good question, you know you got a good one. Hang on to that question, whatever you just ask them. I ask that a lot when you're out there. Uh, but let me give you my best question to sales reps, right? Uh Sean, is it okay if I give you this? Uh and yeah, this is the one I teach, and I want you all to have it right now again. I just want to bury you with value. If we never get a chance to work together, I want you to sell more. Here's my best question: Who is your customer's customer? And how does your product or service solve their problem? So let's go back to the example of the hospital. My prospect, my customer may be the hospital that's CEO, but his customer is the patient. So when I position, in this case, a printer to solve his customer's customer's problem, which is I want FaceTime with a nurse, I want to get out of here and be well, when I can position it that way, you're selling no other rep because every rep will talk about this is how I solve your problem, Sean. You know, but if they've thought in advance of who does that company rely on for their business, and you position your product or service, and this takes the forklift to solve that problem, and you talk to that, nobody talks like that. You you'll have a competitive advantage immediately.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:39

Yeah, that's great advice. Uh, what's the one thing people listening today should immediately put into practice? Like, don't wait, do it now.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:48

Yeah, simple phrase. You hang out with me, you're gonna know this is my go-to phrase. It's a north star for literally all of my content rolls up to one phrase: connection versus perfection. What do I mean by that? Perfection has to do with me understanding all thousand features of this thing and keeping it straight and having the right uh brochure or whatever. I have to be perfect. When you focus on perfection, you're really focusing on yourself, your company, your product, you're geeking out on your own stuff. And this is where we're all doing, what we're doing that I'd really like to get you to think differently about. And that is if I use this example all the time. If I'm in front of an audience and if they think it's all about Jay, and I'm just being a narcissist and I'm talking about how great I am and how much they should learn from me and so forth, and my computer or my technology goes out in the middle of that, man, they're like, hey, we're getting out early. This is great, right? Because it's not about them, it's all about Jay. But if they're picking up what I hope I throw down all the time, which is it's about you, I want you to get the value. I want you to walk away better. And my computer or my technology goes down. They'll probably give me grace. The same thing applies to you all. If you're focused on who your audience is, what's important to them, how you want them to feel, then it's about connection. And you never have to be perfect again. You don't have to have the perfect brochure. You don't have to have the perfect pitch. You don't have to do it perfect and memorize all this stuff anymore. All you gotta do is just think about the audience. That's the big missing piece. And so if I can sum up all of what we've talked about today in one phrase, connection versus perfection. Hopefully, you've gotten some tools that help you connect and communicate better to whoever that is. Uh and everything we've talked about, by the way, applies to your home life and your community life. You can literally take everything that we've talked about and apply it everywhere. And that's the stuff I love to do is take an audience and help them be just better people, better leaders in their homes and their businesses. And you just need new skills and new tools, stuff that you haven't learned before or that isn't readily available. And that's why I'm so appreciative to Clark for partnering in this way and bringing me in to work with people that are in this universe. And this is why Clark is a true different leader in this space, because they see this as important. They see developing skills around communication, especially sales skills, as being something they can help with that other people just aren't. Other manufacturers don't do this. And I would just say, you know, when you see, oh, I could sell this versus a clerk, ask yourself who's helping you sell that more effectively? Who's teaching you how to talk to people, not just give you all kinds of cool features and functionality?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:46

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Uh absolute dead center bullseye. Uh the takeaways audience. I mean, Jay's just kind of chapter and verse rolled through a lot of stuff on sales technique and philosophy. I know the Clark team because I talk to them all the time. They're excited about this. They're going to get the benefit of actually being in person with Jay and going even deeper on these teaching concepts around clear and concise communication, around the human connection that we talked about, how that drives leadership and sales success. You heard it, but Jay completely understands the multi-generational uh issues, the workplaces now that require a completely different level of adaptability. How your questions create influence, they are actually what usually is what's uncovering opportunities. And he just mentioned it. The connection over perfection is literally a North Star for everybody. It it when you can actually remove that uh has to be perfect every time because of how well you're connecting. Well, that literally should be your guide as a modern sales professional. Jay, this has been incredibly valuable. I really appreciate the conversation. It's easy to see how your philosophy aligns so well with Clark. I think one of the biggest takeaways for me today was that leadership and sales is no longer just really about the product or knowledge. People really obsess and mistake on that, like you mentioned for obvious reasons. Um, but it is about connection. It is about knowing how to communicate with people and understanding them so that that communication is effective. So to the audience listening andor watching, thanks for joining us on another episode of Between the Forks. And Jay, thanks for sharing your insights and experience. We just appreciate it. Jay, if people want to get connected with you, where's the best place? Do you send them to LinkedIn or elsewhere? What is the best place?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:37

Yeah, so so certainly look at Jay McCord uh and I spell my name a little funny. It's M C C H O R D. Uh you can go to LinkedIn and find me, but you also can go to my website, which is just mccordinc.com, m-c-c or d I-n-c dot com. And would love to have a conversation about, you know, whatever it is that's tripping your folks up, or whatever it is you're trying to gain and get ahead of to be a market leader or to go to that next level. Those are the conversations I love having. Would love to have an exploratory call with anybody that wanted to do that. I appreciate you, Sean, for letting me be a part of this, as well as as Clark's leadership in this space. For sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:19

Audience, if you enjoyed the episode, hey, subscribe, especially if you're on the YouTube channel. That way you'll know when new content's dropping there. Uh, leave a review. Uh, share it. Even more importantly, share the episode with your team or somebody in your network that you know that will benefit from it. And until next time, keep doing the heavy lifting.