Hello and welcome to the Sales Yak Podcast, a show where we seek to discover the different sales environments and career paths that are out there today and show you whether sales is a good fit for you in your career. Whether you're starting your career and thinking about getting into sales or your mid-career and thinking if you should stay in sales, keep listening and this show can help bring clarity to those questions. On today's show, I want to share three key pieces of advice that I've received from people in my career. They may be the top three pieces of advice I've received thus far, but they've stuck with me and I've really uh brought them along as I've progressed in my career and they've really helped me. So first off, I talked to uh one of our and I try to ask um people I work with, you know, what's your one piece of career advice? Or I, you know, I'm in sales, what's your one piece of sales advice that you would give uh to someone in my position? Things like that, because you never know what you'll learn from other people. So the first instance is I was talking to one of our VPs, I asked them, you know, hey, what's a piece of career sales advice that you'd give to a young salesperson in my role and position. I was fairly new into sales at that point, and uh this this gentleman had been a a big time seller, really successful in his career, and what he told me was simple and interesting yet profound, and he said, be a farmer. And I actually have uh another episode where I kind of get into the more details of what um what I believe that means, but he r really was just saying when it comes to sales specifically, but it in life you can apply it to life as well. You need to plant the seeds today to reap the harvest tomorrow. I mean, this is a a biblical um concept, this is uh agricultural concept, it's uh it's very important when it comes to selling. And I'm reading a book right now by Jeb Blunt called Fanatical Prospecting, and he really goes into you know what you do today will you know bear fruit in the next you know 30, 60, 90 days, things like that. So his simple but profound, you know, be a farmer. Sometimes you ask a big wig or uh you know superior manager, things like that. You expect a long-winded, you know, complex earth-shattering answer, but uh be a farmer. That's that was his advice, and I've taken that with me. Again, that's important in sales, obviously, but also just any aspect of life and career. Secondly, was uh my direct uh boss at the time, he told me, Chris, don't listen to anybody. And you want to know the context, obviously, of uh what he was saying before you you know just take that as gospel and be disrespectful to everyone at work. I wouldn't want you to do to do that. But really what he was saying is uh he we were talking about a story when he was a sales rep, and again he was uh in management at this point of his career, but when he was a sales rep, he kept calling on a company that all his superiors and co-workers said, You're wasting your time, stop calling on them. Now, is there wisdom in that in some cases? Sure. You know, maybe uh maybe salespeople need to know where to spend their time uh more efficiently, things like that. He just kept at it, he kept persistently calling on them, and what he ended up doing was landing one of his most significant deals when uh in that role through this company because when it was time to buy and when it was time for them to make a change, he was the one at their door. And so that just he he told me as a young sales rep at the time as well, just you know, there's a lot of biases that come with people that have been in a position or been at a company or in an industry for so long, it's hard for them to look outside of the box and get outside of their bubble. So his his comment, don't listen to anybody, was just saying sometimes, you know, being naive or being new to an industry or being new to a position, uh being hungry is a good thing because you don't know any better and you never know what can happen when that's the case. So obviously, if you keep at something and it's really not uh working results for you and you need to change course, uh do it do whatever needs to be done and make sense. But don't listen to anybody really has stuck with me, because sometimes you'll get uh one answer from one part of the new company that you get hired at, and then you ask someone else and they say something different, or someone uh certain methodology works for someone in this role, but someone else in a different role says, No, I don't like that. So you just never know. Take everything with a grain of salt, learn from everybody, but really uh do your own research to see how to be successful in your position. And lastly, um this one again pretty simplistic, but a fellow sales rep and I used to go on sales calls together, and this is when I was uh out and about hitting the streets, knocking on doors, things like that, and he said, uh, Chris, ignore no soliciting signs. And as you know, uh when you're first into a role, you're maybe more by the book or whatever, and he just said, you know, ignore no soliciting signs, just go in there and see if you can meet someone, see if you can grab a card, uh, see if you can introduce yourself if someone's there in person, things like that. His ignored no soliciting signs was just an encouragement to, you know, go for it, be bold, and um obviously be respectful if they ask you to leave. I will say that I think I can only remember one time when I went into an office that had a no soliciting sign where they actually reacted and asked me to leave. And uh I can say out of the hundreds of times I did it, it only happened once that I can remember. If it happened twice, you know, I live to tell about it. So ignore so uh to recap, first off, be a farmer, plant the seeds now for the harvest that you want to reap in the future. Second, don't listen to anybody, meaning do your research, get multiple opinions, seekwise counsel, and sometimes you know being uh being new and naive is not always a bad thing. Sometimes it lets you think creatively and think outside the box. And third, ignore no soliciting signs. Obviously, this was pretty specific in its application, but it does encourage me now to just kind of uh be willing to go for it, be bold, think creatively, and uh push forward. So hopefully uh these three different pieces of advice were intriguing to you and maybe you can glean something from them. Last but not least, don't forget to check out our sister show, Career Yak. You can find a link in the show notes where we interview different entrepreneurs and professionals from a wide variety of industries, not just sales related. So go ahead and check that out. Thanks for listening and have a great day.