Next Level University

#1428 - What If Your “Success” Is Just A Number’s Game?

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about sales, explaining why persistence is critical and success is ultimately a numbers game. They discuss overcoming the feeling of rejection or failure by understanding and leveraging the dynamics of the numbers game. They also discuss the correlation between adjusting expectations, taking more shots, and finding success. Success is a numbers game, and it is vital not to take failure personally.

Links mentioned:
Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
Email Alan at Alan@nextleveluniverse.com to book the hosts for speaking engagements: https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-speeches/
Blog #8 - How to Become a Sales Star: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-become-sales-star-alan-lazaros

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Alan: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/

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Show notes:
[3:04] You've been lied to
[10:11] Persistence is the key
[14:29] Expectations are off
[16:41] Rebecca praises Alan's coaching and the effectiveness of the Peak Performance Tracker in keeping her consistent and moving toward her goals
[18:26] Sales is not what you think it is
[22:48] Taking one shot is not enough
[29:47] Shoot more shots and adjust expectations
[33:25] Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Speaker 1:

Can you go a little deeper on why a thousand listens is not going to lead to a ton of success?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's, there's just a lot of, there's just a lot of layers. So if you have a thousand listens, hypothetically, and if you're not a podcaster, this might not resonate, but it will if you can connect it to whatever it means to you. You have a thousand listens, okay. Let's say you have a hundred episodes. Okay, that means 10 people listen to each episode. So it's really, instead of a thousand, it's actually 10 people. And then, okay, out of those 10 people, how many do you actually know? You could say, oh yeah, chris, chris listens. Or Brittany, Brittany listens.

Speaker 2:

That number gets smaller. So let's say, out of the 10 people that listen, you only know three of them. Out of the three people that listen, how many real authentic relationships have you built? Let's just say, maybe it's one. Out of the real authentic relationships that you've built, how many of those people have you tried to offer a compelling solution to? Aka, coaching, speaking, engagement, whatever? It is? None. There you go. That's why you don't have any results. Yet. The ratio, the conversion rate, is probably going to stay the same, but when you get a million listens, it makes things a little bit easier. That would be the.

Speaker 2:

A little more than a little bit.

Speaker 1:

It's still I mean it's still challenging. Yeah, it is, it is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it makes it a lot easier, but it's still very challenging. Yep, it's just less challenging.

Speaker 1:

Well said.

Speaker 2:

I appreciate that I have a podcast about podcasts. I talk about this all the time, son, as you so 57 episodes I hear, as you so beautifully talked about last episode.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah most of it is just a numbers game and if you have any Aversion to getting no or to getting ghosted or to getting feedback, it's very hard to play the numbers game Because our emotions are tied up in it and then it gets to our self-worth and we think if somebody says no to me, it means there's something wrong with me, and this isn't just in sales or business. Alan's story is very much for anybody trying to better their lives. I had something coming to me.

Speaker 1:

Okay, you mentioned earlier that Taylor Swift's latest concert was the most successful concert ever the tour or tour. Yeah, I don't know if it was the most successful ever, but the government came out and said that she actually boosted the economy in like a meaningful way.

Speaker 2:

So that's pretty cool, nice, yeah, that's pretty cool Of all the people who have ever heard. So let's say, I'm in a room with a thousand people and I'm on stage, I'm speaking.

Speaker 1:

And I say who here has ever heard a Taylor Swift song? Every hand would go up, even if it's in passing. We'll say 95%, so 950 people. Their hand would go up. Who here has ever heard a Taylor Swift song? Their hand would go up. Who here has ever listened to an entire Taylor Swift album? Most of those hands would go down. Maybe, I don't know, 100 or 50. Hands are up still. Okay. How many of those 50 people have ever been to a Taylor Swift concert? Oh, okay, so only 10 of them. And then of those 10 people, how many of them have ever been to a Taylor Swift concert in the front row? And maybe there's only one hand still up. That's a lot of how business works. Taylor Swift has touched the lives of everyone on the planet not everyone, but a lot of people. Definitely not everyone, but billions. I would say billions of people have at least heard a Taylor Swift song, but very few of them are ever going to meet Taylor Swift, and I think that that's a good understanding For anyone who's out there listening. You kind of have to understand when Kevin says numbers game. That's what he's talking about. That's what he's talking about the story that I had for this that I think is very compelling is I was at the, so we spoke on Friday for three and a half hours and the next day I was sitting at lunch in the very lunch room that we spoke at the day before and I joked about how I had some empty seats.

Speaker 1:

So I ate. Their food is awesome. But the reason why we are doing this episode is because I was talking to these college students and I Spoke them the day before and we had breakout sessions. I got to know these kids pretty well, but then I really got to know them at lunch. So it's me and one, two, three closing my eyes right now because I'm trying to remember one to my right, two, three and One father. So there's five undergrad students, college kids and myself in this table, big round table in this lunch room, and one of them. So there's six people, seven people including me, and one of them is the father of one of the kids, and ones in robotics, ones in material science, all this stuff.

Speaker 1:

They were talking about how they they couldn't get internships. Two of them were talking about how they just couldn't get an internship and I remember thinking of myself like I mean, I'm a business owner, I would hire you guys for sure, like, and again, I wouldn't, because we like to work with people from the community and there's a lot of things behind that. But my point is is like, of course you could. In my head, my career development brain said I, you two are brilliant. Yes, you, you're gonna get an internship, no problem if you do it right. They continue talking. I'm just observing at this stage and and they're both talking about how hard it's been to get an internship and I said, well, how many internships have you applied to? And he's like oh, two, three, nothing. Didn't hear anything. And in my head, and again, this is the benefit of being on both ends of the table.

Speaker 1:

I remember when I was at WPI, which these kids are from, my alma mater, my school, worcester Polytechnic Institute, for those you don't know, kind of like a mini MIT. It's in New England, it's. The point is is these kids are very sought after. It's a tech school. These are very it's a very hard school to get into. You know, I didn't know how I was gonna get in it. It was. It was a big deal. So I'm sitting there with my career development brain going you only applied to three internships. You can't expect to even get an interview. But I remember back when I was their age and I remember I was scared not to get an internship. My first internship was at a place called Tyco safety products and I must have applied to at least 50 jobs at least. And Then my next internship, my aunt Jane was working at iRobot and she got me that one.

Speaker 1:

So as a kid you don't really know how valuable you are. You don't really know how rare you are, particularly these kids, because they're at a tech school and there's a lot of tech companies and they're in high demand. So there's no question whether or not they could get an internship, no question. But if you apply to only three, what if? What if the people at those jobs got a hundred applications? And what if they're looking through the applications and then they get to the third application, they go oh, this person's perfect, let's get them on the phone. They get on the phone with them. They hire them. It doesn't mean you're not good enough, it doesn't mean you're not valuable, it just means that you got lost in the pile of other applications. You got to apply to at least a hundred jobs before you can expect ten interviews. You got at least to ten interviews before you can expect one Job. That's the numbers game we're talking about. But if you are afraid of rejection, to Kevin's original point, you're not gonna apply to a hundred companies.

Speaker 1:

And I had that moment, listening to these two kids talk about this, where I'm like, oh my goodness, you guys actually think you're not valuable. I Could actually feel it, I could. It's like they actually think they're not good yet, good enough. Yet I had that moment of like, oh, you actually think that your worth is not there. These companies would love to have you, that you just haven't shot enough shots to hit a three-pointer.

Speaker 1:

It's very clear to me that that's common and I do remember going to career fair fairs, feeling worthless and in hindsight I'm telling you I would do anything to hire me. You just don't know that because you've never been a business owner yet. You know, and I think that's really important to understand. So, quite frankly, some people don't get a job because they don't have a good resume and they probably aren't at a great school and maybe they don't have many skills that are relatable or not relatable but marketable. And that is true for some people. Quite frankly, if you have no resume, no good grades, no good college, no good skills, no good interviewing skills, you're, you're in trouble and I'm not gonna sugarcoat that okay, but that was not the case with these kids. These kids are articulate, for the most part, they're brilliant, and they just didn't shoot enough shots.

Speaker 2:

I would try to paint a picture. It's kind of a story. If you were trying to sell something this is the clicker to my fan in my office but if you were trying to sell this and I said you have to sell this by the end of the day and you, okay, cool, let's do this. If you sell this by the end of the day, I'll give you $100. I have $100 bill here you go. So if you sell this, you get this.

Speaker 2:

The only rule is you can only go to your laptop one time. So you can go to your laptop one time. You can message one person. Or you can message a thousand people, but you can't go back to your laptop. Say you message someone and they say I'm not interested, you can't message somebody else. You only get one seat one time at your laptop. You can send as many messages as you want.

Speaker 2:

I think most people would probably say well, I should send a message to every single person my friend group, I would think. But I also know in the beginning I would say, okay, who are the three people that might actually buy this. I'm just going to send a message to them. Even in that analogy, in that example, there's not a lot of rejection because it's not that big of a deal if you don't do it. But the reason I paint that picture is because, as humans, I think we know it's a numbers game. You know if you ask enough people, eventually you're going to get a yes eventually. But I also understand it's not that simple. If you have any fear of rejection, if you have any attachment of self-worth to the outcome, I understand.

Speaker 2:

The other thing that I think happens to us, alan, is I believe our expectations are off because there's not a lot of people that say oh no, I applied to 50 jobs before I forgot it. Or people come out and say that, but even them saying that is more the rule than it is the exception. I had a call with a podcast client the other day and they said I can't get on any other podcasts. I said how many messages have you sent? They're like five or 10. I said Laura sends seven a day. It's three. Is it three a day?

Speaker 1:

Well, at one point it was seven.

Speaker 2:

And I said that's every day, that's every single day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, she never misses she never misses she never misses.

Speaker 2:

She never misses. That's the reason I get on so many other podcasts and we have credibility and perception because of this show and all that. But if we only sent three at once, there would be none.

Speaker 1:

And you have like 130 reviews or something crazy of people saying how amazing you are at interviewing, which is wild.

Speaker 2:

It is wild. Yeah, I'm not that good and I suck pretty bad. No, no, no, I know, if we sent three once, nothing would happen.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, no.

Speaker 2:

Nothing would happen If we sent three twice. Yeah, the likelihood goes up a little bit, but not a lot. And I'm always trying to paint this what I said this on Podcast Growth you this is a plug for Podcast Growth you. I said everybody has the same problems you're having, just most people aren't willing to admit them. Well, we had the same exact problems at the beginning. I have no idea why nobody's signing up for this or doing this, because that's not the way it works, that's it. But everybody's saying it's the way it works. I just think they're pulling blinders over us and they're hurting our expectations. So that would be an early next level. Nugget for me is odds are the challenges that you're having are kind of par for the course, and it's most likely because you haven't played the numbers game to your advantage yet. That's what I would say.

Speaker 1:

So how do we make this even more tangible? Here's what we'll do. I just wrote an article, a blog next level blog every other week. So if you want on the blog, message me, alan, at nextleveluniversecom. I'll put you on the mailing list. Every other week you're going to get an article, a blog, that is extremely, extremely focused on how we talk a lot about why on this show, what self-awareness. This is how to, how to, how to. There's eight of them so far, eight bi-weeks in a row, which is what You're looking at. Four months, yeah, so we've been doing this for four months, haven't missed, and it's all about how to blank. In this case, it's how to become a sales star. I have this simple framework. I'll put it in the show notes. You can download it, but it's five steps, and the first thing that I talk about in this blog is that sales is not what you think it is. If you're trying to get a job, you're trying to sell yourself to this company, to this organization, to this nonprofit, to this charity, to whatever, if I try to.

Speaker 1:

Kevin on the podcast said last week that I should go see Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer is a new movie that he thinks I'll like. He sold me on it. I'm convinced I'm going to go watch it. That's sales. Anything you influence anyone. Sales is not the sleaze it can be. Some people are lying through their teeth, quite frankly, so it's giving sales a bad rep. Some of these people are quite frankly oh, you're going to make $100,000 this year on this court. No, you're not. No, you're not. It's all fake. It's the wonder mop. It's not real. If you've ever been at the Big E in the US, I don't know if the Big E is global or not.

Speaker 2:

I doubt it. I don't think so. The Big E is this it's just New England.

Speaker 1:

Okay. So New England has this fair called the Big E and they always are trying to sell you these things that don't really work. You've ever been to a circus and you try to do the basketball and you want to win a big stuffed animal but they crimp the rim so you can barely get the basketball in the. Yeah, that it's rigged in in in Instagram land and Facebook land and TikTok land. These ads, I'm telling you, some of these courses, a lot of this stuff is rigged, kevin, and I will never, ever sell you something. That is not an integrity. That is not exactly how we did it. Okay, we are leading by example in everything. As a matter of fact, we're the ones telling you it's not going to work. You need to actually work for this to work. We're the ones that's why it's so hard to sell, because we're basically saying, in five to 10 years, this will work really well, we promise. Other people are like you know, in three months you can make $100,000 on, you know, amazon dropshipping. No, you can't. Yeah, you can, but one in a billion people do that. You might as well go win the lottery. So I digress. The sales star is five steps. I'll go real fast with this. If you want the blog, it'll be in the show notes. The first one is get exposure. That can be a podcast episode, that can be an Instagram post, that can be a post on your Facebook.

Speaker 1:

Emilia and I found a kitten on the side of the road that we rescued. Okay, now it's Tiger Lily and it's Tucker. It's Tucker Tariel and Tiger Lily Tilly for short and we decided to keep it. But when we were trying to rescue it and find a family to adopt, she posted on her Facebook get exposure. Okay, in a way we're trying to sell the kitten. Obviously we're not selling it because we were giving it for free, but we wanted to find a night aligned home. So glad we didn't actually, because I've fallen in love with this kitten, but anyways, get exposures. Number one. So she posts on her Facebook. Number two is make a meaningful connection. Someone reaches out and says I have a daughter who really has always wanted a kitten. Okay, meaningful connection. Number three. So, step one get exposure. Step two make a connection. Step three build the relationship. She started asking them questions hey, is it a good home? How old's your daughter? You know, I still got to take the cat to the vet to make sure you know we're good to go, all that kind of stuff. Okay, build the relationship, build the relationship, build the relationship. Last one is offer a compelling solution. A fourth one, I should say Kevin already mentioned this Offer a compelling solution. In this case, here's the kitten. You really should make sure that they get their vaccines and XYZ, okay.

Speaker 1:

Fifth and last one is meaningful follow up. Assuming we did actually let this family adopt the kitten we didn't. We kept the kitten, glad we did. But if we did, hypothetically, we would have followed up and said you know, to make sure that it's a good home and they're taking good care of the kitten. And Tariel was actually adopted. There was a family that got a new dog or no. Tariel and the dog of this family were not getting along. Tariel was like seven weeks old. Tariel is my cat, my cat, my other cat, and Bianca, emilia's business partner, said hey, you want a cat, you. And now I've been talking about getting a kitten because Kevin keeps talking about how he's the ultimate cat dad and obviously you know you can't have that. So no, I'm joking.

Speaker 1:

We ended up going to see it and the point of this is that there are steps in this process. You can't expect to shoot one shot and expect it to go in the hoop. You have to do this process and you have to play this numbers game and you have to be willing to get rejected quite a lot in order to be successful in pretty much anything. And that has rained true. That has rained true my entire life. You know, of all the people you know, maybe there's only a hundred of them that want a kitten. And of those hundred people, how many of them are actually good homes for that kitten? Maybe 10. And of those 10, maybe you only trust three of them enough to actually give the kitten away. And again, that's. You know. Just like, in college you applied up. You know 20 colleges. Maybe you get into 10 of them. Maybe you really only want to go to two of them and then you're torn between those two. Everything in life is a numbers game. Yes, you can get better at sales.

Speaker 1:

Yes, you can get better at influence. Yes, you can get better at speaking, but at the end of the day, you have to shoot a lot of shots if you want to succeed.

Speaker 2:

Last thing I would say. Let's just say we'll use the example of your date X amount of people you approach. Let's just say that hypothetically. Let's just say you date One out of every five people you approach. If you only approach five people, you'll think you're only capable, or you're only attractive enough, or you're only a good enough partner, or you only have enough personality to date one person. But if you date 10, or if you approach 10 people, you get two. You have two dates. And you'd say oh wow, this is going better than I expected. Maybe If you approached 15 people, you get three dates.

Speaker 2:

The problem is that when I say the conversion rate stays the same, all I'm saying is if you approach one person, you get five dates. Or sorry, if you approach five people, you get one date. It's the same, it's one to five. So if you approach two, all right, I'm jeffing this whole thing if you approach 10, you get two. If you approach 15, you get three. The problem is, we think it's us. Well, I sent five messages and I only got one response. That's actually really good, yeah, it's really good. And if you sent 10 messages, you get two responses. And if you sent 15 messages, you might get three responses and you're learning this whole time. Now, if you're not in sales and business, I promise this is everything. It's not just that, it's everything.

Speaker 1:

It's absolutely everything.

Speaker 1:

Before we go. I know you gotta jump, but can you give one more example that would be more relatable maybe than the sales stuff that I just did? I tried with the kitten. I don't know if that was the best, because technically we were actually the one with the product. We were the ones who were like I don't know, that home's not good enough. You know what I mean. We were having them sell us more than the opposite. So what's one?

Speaker 1:

Because, kev, you struggled with this in the beginning of our business a lot. Kev used to be and I'm not trying to make fun of him or anything, but Kev used to be offended when people wouldn't get back to us and it's like, dude, that's fine, that's not, that's how it works, that's totally okay. But I've been getting rejected and failing my entire life. So that was never. It never hurt my self-esteem. It's not like I applied to 100 jobs and then was like offended that I didn't get any of them. I just kind of knew that that's how it works and maybe 100 is an exaggeration. But if I applied to 10 jobs, I don't expect to get 10 jobs. I don't even expect to get 10 responses. You know, maybe get one response. So I think, as someone who struggled with this a lot in the beginning and you've really overcome this seriously you're like, yeah, of course you're being ghosted by many people and you're dealing with that. So, yeah, what would you say?

Speaker 2:

Well, one again. Somebody's response to you is oftentimes more a response to themselves than it is anything else. That's one thing that's helped me tremendously. I said this at one of our events. I've said this at many events. Has anybody ever given you $1,000 and then run away from you? That's happened to me. On more, I have thousands of dollars sitting in a bank account from people who gave me money and will not answer me. They are rejecting me, even though they didn't reject me in the beginning. It's still happening in different ways, so I throw that out there, just so you know you're not alone. If that happens to you, man, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

The best example I could give is it's most likely not the first conversation you have with somebody that's going to change their life. It's most likely not the first person you date that you're gonna marry. It's most likely not the first job you get that you'll stick with forever. Most likely the first house you buy is not the one you're gonna live in forever. It's just a numbers game. It's almost never the first thing that's gonna be the forever thing. That's probably the best. I think it's different for me just because I was so broke that I had to figure this part out. I had to deal with it. I had to deal with the fact that you're gonna get no's before you get yes's, but I just had so much necessity.

Speaker 1:

We used to interview people every single week for this podcast. How many messages do you think we sent versus interviews we got?

Speaker 2:

Man, for every interview we had, we probably sent I mean, we've sent thousands of messages, definitely, yeah, so for every interview we had, we probably sent 10 messages.

Speaker 1:

At least and that's us who, I would say publicly, are pretty strong at sales, we're good at this, I'd say we're good at this, and we still sent 10 messages for every interview right Even okay, let's do this.

Speaker 2:

What do we have? A 40% conversion rate or a 35% conversion rate? 30% conversion rate?

Speaker 1:

for getting on the show. I think it's 30.

Speaker 2:

So for every 10 messages we send, I get on three shows. Laura gets me on.

Speaker 1:

Which is amazing. Numbers.

Speaker 2:

That's unbelievable, but even that Even that is great. If you come from the expectation of I sent 10. I was expecting like at least seven or eight. It's the opposite. It's the opposite. The people you expect not to get back to you that number say you've only I don't know. Probably two out of 10 probably won't get back to me. Those are the people who're gonna get back to you. It's the opposite. It's the opposite of what you think. Probably that's what I would say.

Speaker 1:

Well said, this is important. Very important when it comes to success. That's why you put success in quotes.

Speaker 2:

because I did for those of you who are just listening. Well, if you're listening, you can see the title.

Speaker 1:

Success is in quotes, because success means something different to everyone, but success is about achievement, and if you want to achieve a specific goal number of clients, number of customers, number of dates, number of jobs you're gonna have to shoot more shots. And so that would be my next level nugget it's just shoot more shots and try hard not to internalize the failure, as you are a failure because you're not. It's totally normal.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, my next level nugget would be. One of the reasons that you haven't had the level of success that you believe is because you are off on your expectations. Your expectations are just a little bit off of the way it should go. That's it. Most likely. It's not gonna be the first person. Yeah, it's just that we have 709 people in Next Level Nation. We have 850,000 listens. It's just a numbers game. None of our clients have anywhere close to that level of people in their Facebook group, of course not. They don't have as many listens as we do. That's it. That's it in a nutshell. That'll be my next level nugget. Strong work. Thank you so much. You as well.

Speaker 2:

Hey you as well, very important concept.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, again, this isn't about sales or business. If you're not in sales or you're not in business, this is life. This carries over to the amount of conversations you have with your child. It's a numbers game. The first one where you say, hey, smoking's bad for you. That might not be the one, but it might be the 500th one you have when you just kept at it, I kept at it, I kept at it.

Speaker 2:

If you haven't joined our private Facebook group, if you're not one of those 709 or 712 or however many people it is, we would love to have you in there. The best group in the world. I'm going to say it. There's a lot of people that say it. I mean it when I say it. It's the best group in the world. Link will be in the show notes. You can be yourself, you can be authentic, you can be vulnerable. You don't have to worry about getting judged, because everybody in that group is into growth. They know what it's like to be judged, because maybe they're the weird person in their group who is always talking about how to get better, staying up all night, having deep conversations, like Alan and I were in the beginning of this. You're not going to be weird in this group. You're going to fit right in, I promise.

Speaker 1:

Also, Kevin and I talked a lot this week about the speech that we gave in Pittsburgh. Three and a half hours, three keynotes, two breakout sessions. It was powerful, it was deep, it was definitely life-changing for some of those kids and definitely transformative for us as speakers as well. If you resonated with a lot of that stuff, you have an organization, you have a company, you have a charity, you have a group of people, a group of individuals that you think a speech would be good for. If you are local, we could potentially do it in person. If you are not, we do virtual things. If you are intrigued, please reach out to us. Email me, Alan at nextleveluniversecom. Say hey, I have a speaking opportunity. We also have a landing page where you can look at the different types of speeches that we give. I will also have the production team put that link in the show notes as well.

Speaker 2:

Tomorrow for episode number 1,429,. We really wish we stopped spending time with these people sooner Again. We had a lot of breakthroughs. Alan and I spent a lot of time together over the last half of a week. We learned a very important lesson that allowed us to connect to so many other things we could not share with you. We will be talking about that tomorrow. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we are fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Speaker 1:

Keep shooting more shots. Do like all the time.

Speaker 2:

I'll catch you on the next one Thanks.

People on this episode

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Alan Lazaros

Host
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Kevin Palmieri

Host