Jason Forrest - The Mindset of a Sales Warrior (#21)

Jason Forrest from Forrest Performance Group joins us this week on the Maximize Business Value podcast to talk about his successful sales and training techniques including the 4 traits to look for in hiring a salesperson, using the NLP method and winning sales formulas.  Sales and growth are the primary drivers of business value. When your sales engine is running swell, it helps you maximize your business value. Listen in and learn how to turbo- boost the sales engine in your organization.  You can get a free copy of the book “The Mindset of A Sales Warrior” by visiting warriormindsetbook.com - you just pay shipping and handling. 

Jason Forrest is CEO of Forest Performance Group, a best-selling author and sought after speaker. FPG is a sales-training and recruiting company that is all about profitable results. While so many trainers focus on theoretical solutions, they provide relevant, tangible strategies that produce measurable results. They are the experts in increasing profitability through training programs, event-based speaking engagements, assessments, and one-on-one coaching programs. We transform employees into corporate gladiators and companies into high-performance organizations. Check out Jason’s latest book The Mindset of a Sales Warrior, which can be found at his website warriormindsetbook.com or on amazon. Reach out to Jason at jason@fpg.com.   

Tom Bronson is the founder and President of Mastery Partners, a company that helps business owners maximize business value, design exit strategy, and transition their business on their terms. Mastery utilizes proven techniques and strategies that dramatically improve business value that was developed during Tom’s career 100 business transactions as either a business buyer or seller. As a business owner himself, he has been in your situation a hundred times, and he knows what it takes to craft the right strategy. Bronson is passionate about helping business owners and has the experience to do it. Want to chat more or think Tom can help you?  Reach out at tom@masterypartners.com or check out his book, Maximize Business Value, Begin

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Tom Bronson is a serial entrepreneur and business owner. He is currently the founder and President of Mastery Partners, Mastery Mergers & Acquisitions, and the Business Transition Summit. All three companies empower business owners to maximize business value and serve business owners in different capacities to help them achieve their dream exit. As a business owner, Tom has been in your situation a hundred times and knows what it takes to craft the right strategy. Bronson is passionate about helping business owners and has the experience to do it. Tom has two books to help business owners on their journey to a dream exit: "Maximize Business Value Playbook," (2023), and "Maximize Business Value, Begin with the EXIT in Mind," (2020). Both are available on Amazon.
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Transcript

Announcer: 0:05

Welcome to the maximize business value podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Mastery Partners where our mission is to equip business owners maximize business value so they can transition their business on their terms. Our mission was born from the lessons we learned from over 100 hundred business transactions with fuels our desire to share our experiences and wisdom so you can succeed. Now here's your host CEO and Mastery Partners Tom Bronson.

Speaker 2: 0:33

Hi this is Tom Bronson welcome to maximize business value- a podcast f or business leaders who are passionate about building long term sustainable value in their businesses. In this episode I'd like to welcome our g uest Jason Forrest, CEO of Forrest performance group a sales training and recruiting company. I met Jason a few weeks ago when I commented on one of his LinkedIn posts about holding sales huddles daily and sometimes twice a day.

Tom Bronson: 1:02

Jason immediately reached out and we connected like we were old friends. In addition to his training and recruiting business Jason is also a writer eight books. I think maybe nine. And he's a sought after speaker with his wife Mary. After this podcast I recommend that you go visit their Web site FPGdot com and get a flavor for their dynamic speaking style. So welcome to maximize business value. Jason how are you?

Jason Forrest : 1:32

I'm great I'm great. Yeah it's funny you you. I'm not a big fisherman. I don't like fishing. I think it's too boring but I like fishing for money. I like fishing for prospects. And so what I do and you took my bait. So what I do is I put these post up on LinkedIn and then and then I look and I go through look at who likes and comments and I troll for money I look for the titles and then I direct message them.

Tom Bronson: 1:55

Awesome. I think that's an awesome strategy. And I think that our business owners could learn a lot from that strategy. So tell us a little bit about Forrest Performance Group.

Jason Forrest : 2:06

Sure. So this is our 10th year of doing this. So I had I had one simple goal When I started my company 10 years ago and that's what I want to be the first sales trade organization that can actually change behavior. So most training companies they can't there's actually research out there that says hundred sixty four billion is spent every year on training but 70 percent fails to ever achieve a ROI hundred sixty four billion. So we've decided to I became obsessed. I want to be in that 30 percent. How do we do that. And so that was really my focus. Ten years ago when I started the organization I wrote a book when I book I wrote was called W T F which stands for why training fails obviously.

Tom Bronson: 2:44

It says it's the first thing that I was thinking yeah.

Jason Forrest : 2:48

I wrote the book there and then of course other books on sales coaching and my most recent book is called the mindset of a sales warrior. I say that in March I wrote I wrote a quick Kindle book that I want to give out to the world on Kindle.

Tom Bronson: 3:00

It's called selling through the coronavirus. You know I'm going to talk about that and a little bit because I want to I want to ask you a couple of questions about that that's exciting. So what's your background and why did you get into sales training and recruiting.

Jason Forrest : 3:14

So I so I was very fortunate you know most people when they think of the word sales they think of you know some kind of negative four letter word. Well I grew up in a very positive sales family. So my father owns the oldest jewelry store in Dallas. And since I was a little kid he was always just him. He's always been in sales always been in sales and my Sunday school teacher was Zig Ziglar. How cool is that. Yeah I was really blessed with that. My mom is a debate coach and teaches public speaking. She's 78 years old at a college and so I was just kind of like brought up in this programming of motivational speaking and selling and mindset and all that stuff right. And so that was really me and so I never I only had sales jobs and then went into management and then decided to create my own company and that was that.

Tom Bronson: 3:59

That's a that is an incredible background. You know how fortunate you were to grow up with with those great role models in mind lots of it sounds like. I want to talk a little bit about your most recent book which is of course the mindset of sales why you're so right after we talked a couple of weeks ago I downloaded and then devoured the book like you. I read a lot probably 50 books a year having spent a significant portion of my career in sales. I think by the way that every CEO should be the chief salesperson in their organization. I read the book thinking that perhaps I'd find out a few things that I could challenge you on here today but dadgummit every chapter just rang true. So in the book you dive deep into 42 specific components of the mindset of a sales warrior and I genuinely I was looking for something I could disagree with and I never found it. So what I'd like to know is what what maybe you can share with our audiences. What is the difference between a sales warrior and the average everyday sales consultant.

Jason Forrest : 5:06

That's great. So. So if everyone kind of picture a pyramid at the bottom level pyramid you would write the word kind of follower. So think of a sales person that's a follower. It's they're always kind of waiting really great maybe an account manager kind of waiting on a customer to tell them what they want in they're right above that you have a helper. That's actually the majority of salespeople out there those sales consultants you're talking about the helper is really it's all about relationships. It's all about you know friendships and eventually people will buy for me. There's a lot of assertiveness in that. And then and then above the line you create a profitable sales professional and that's a leader and a leader is a great salesperson. They lead the sales process. They follow a process. But the last component is a warrior and a warrior is is an advocate for your organization. They're an advocate for your organization. So a great example of a warrior is usually the CEO or the at the founder not necessarily the CEO but the founder right because the founders the artist they're the original visionary that if you were to attack them and say something negative about their product or service they would like Buck up and they would feel like no no no. Let me tell you why you're wrong. You know like they would get kind of upset about that. Well that's a warrior a warrior is an advocate in the sense that they believe so much and in the benefits of what you are offering what they are offering that they believe it's the biggest mistake of a customer's life to not go with them. They believe that if a customer is spending less they're getting less. And so their job is to advocate for the product and service they represent as well as advocate for the customer's best interest because the customer doesn't necessarily know what they don't know they're not the expert of whatever their role like in your case you know you're the expert in how to sell a business and make top dollar. And and so so you know I don't know what I don't know and so I would I would give you kind of my own moxie I would give you my my my respect. Right. But but but at the same time though the problem is is that so many sales people out there they don't have that internal conviction that internal advocacy and there's a lot of reasons for that. I can go into I mean in the book I talk about 42 specific reasons why they don't but that's that's the basic idea. That's what a warrior is.

Tom Bronson: 7:24

And one of the things that they're frustrated me that you jumped right out I think in the first section of the mindset was one of things that's always frustrated me is that thousands of companies do everything they can to avoid the word sales. Right. You talk about that in the in your book that you know account managers or relationship people or whatever but they just avoid calling people salespeople. Why is that and how can we go fix that problem.

Jason Forrest : 7:56

So the reason we the reason we got ourselves in this problem is we had a couple of bad apples that spoil the bunch right. So you have the Wolf of Wall Street maybe thing going on you had the boiler room you had you know you just had some Glengarry Glen Ross you had some people in the past that that did some crooked things you know like Bernie Madoff is a crook but he's also he technically if you actually look at what's interesting what Bernie Madoff is that the state the process that's used this is where people get really hung up. I'm going to try explaining this as well as I can the process of the world's best sales professional the world's best sales warrior is the same process as the world's best con artist like a Bernie Madoff.

Tom Bronson: 8:42

wow.

Jason Forrest : 8:44

So the mistake that people make is that back in the early 80s what they would look at is they said well we don't want to be the Bernie Madoff we want to be these manipulator these conartists, these crooks. And so that's what's selling. No no no. That's what manipulation is that's what manipulation is. And so what they did is they said OK well we don't want to be that anymore so we want to be instead is a sales consultant an account manager a relationship adviser. Want to change all of it wanted up happening and this is what's sad is that would end up happening is that now you had the con artist the manipulators that had the most persuasive processes mindset and language patterns in order to convince their customer to choose them. But then the good guys didn't have all the weapons anymore so we had this whole soft selling revolution that happened in the early 80s with again consultative selling there's a lot of them out there integrity selling again they're great products but what they do is they reinforce this notion of make a friend make a sale like there w as a person during c overed that I got i n a fight with on LinkedIn and they came out and they said you know right now all these people that are selling s top selling and start helping a nd I came back on a kind of tear on LinkedIn. And I said you're creating role rejection in sales people because. Because what you're saying is if I sell you I'm not helping you. That's the presupposition there. If I sell you I'm not helping you. Well my belief system is if I know you as a customer I know you intimately what you're looking for what you're trying to accomplish what pain you're moving from life improvement or moving towards what ambiguity is keeping you from making those decisions. Well well it's my perfect right to sell you. To convince you in doing something that's obviously in your admitted best interest. Like that's my perfect right. So if selling is to help you see we got ourselves in a real big kind of problem is this is the situation. So I'm trying to cure all that. My, I have a personal mission that I w anted my tombstone that Jason Forrest m ove the needle on bringing back the pride purpose and respect professional selling.

Tom Bronson: 10:54

Yeah yeah that's as I think you even pointed this out in the book when when I used to do sales training in the businesses that I've owned through the years the first things I ask when you when you hire a new class of recruits if you will I said What was your family's reaction when you went home and told them that you've now you're a sales representative. And oh that's horrible. You know why would you do that. I think your wife actually told a story about that in the book and sales is an honorable profession and good salespeople are bringing solutions to their clients. And so so I just wanted to attack that that head on you know in your book you also the mindset of a sales warrior. You talk about four leashes that hold salespeople back. Can you share those with our audience. Sure.

Jason Forrest : 11:49

So the best way to understand the leash concept is this kind of overarching formula I created called a performance formula. So performance equals knowledge minus leashes. So performance is what a person does. Knowledge is what they've been taught to do in a leash is any charge mental resistance chokehold that holds them back limiting belief that holds them back from executing on the knowledge. So I'll put it in your world right. So you give people a you know whatever it is a 12 step strategy you know on here's what here's the plan in order to sell your business at top dollar by X date. Well what percentage of people do not do everything you tell them do. Every single second you tell me do it. What percentage

Tom Bronson: 12:32

that would be high.

Jason Forrest : 12:40

So those are the leashes. Those are the leashes. Now I've identified four and the four are. One is self image. I don't have the confidence the self worth in order to pull it off. The second is a story. It's it's something outside of them. So the stories we're hearing right now are well people just aren't going to buy during the coronavirus they're not gonna buy during coronavirus. Well that's just a made up story. They just made it up or I can tell you Jason that customers is not going to buy based on like the interview questions I've had and how they look and how they're talking to me. So there's some sort of sales whisperer. You know they've got some they've got some sixth sense that a low value. Right. Right. And the third is reluctance and there's actually 16 different types of reluctance is that a person can have but a reluctance is a fear I don't come across too pushy. You know selling your friends and family is different. You know I can't sell over the phone whatever you is a reluctance as in the last is a rule and a rule is anything I could I need a c filler here to give myself permission to engage. And so the rules we hear a lot right now are you know it takes like this is a dumb one that I heard from one of my competitors. Well you can't put together a proposal until you've had until you've had conversations with three people on three levels of the organization. That's what my competitors teaches that. Well I was just on a sales call from a cold lead that I just had before this podcast and I'm presenting a proposal to him on Monday. So on my second conversation and here's what I do today is because I you on this podcast that's already you know

Tom Bronson: 14:06

I don't I don't mean to be the director o f sales prevention for y ou.

Jason Forrest : 14:16

But I would have done it you don't I mean so. So rules are these dumb things we come up with that that prevent us from selling. So another rule we have right now we here in sales is this whole coded thing has been a disaster because you know my whole sales process is face to face and now I can't go face to face. I can't travel across the nation and then have all these big huge expense cards to take people out to ballgames and then add it up. So because I can't do that I can't make my quota. Well that's a rule. There's no evidence to prove that to be true. And so those are the four types of leashes that prevent people from the knowledge the knowledge in my world to be like hey ask every customer what holds you back from choosing X Y Z Well why don't you do that. Well self-image I don't feel confident with the answer or respond with story I can tell you they're not going to bias why would I ask that question rule. I'm afraid it's going to come across too pushy. I'm sorry. Reluctance to across too pushy or rule. I haven't earned the right yet. It's only my first conversation with them. So what I do in the book in my entire again we we have a recruiting program a sales training program and a coaching program where we will identify the sales person that has those four types of leashes on the recruiting side. We make sure that we recruit people who don't have those leashes to start off with which is great if you're an existing if you're already a salesperson. We can teach how to unleash those leashes and then on the coaching side we can teach the managers how to remove those leashes as well.

Tom Bronson: 15:45

Yeah that's that's brilliant. You know there's so many different components of each one of these. You call them leashes that hold folks back. I love that term you know confidence not only in yourself but but even confidence in your products right now. You can tell a sales guy is spoiled if he's lost confidence in the product for whatever reason. You know I hear over and over again from salespeople Well I've got to make sure that it's exactly the right fit in my world. You know in software sales in almost any product sales. If you can find an 80 percent fit it's almost a perfect fit. And then you work around the other things and and you know if if the sales rep doesn't have confidence in his own product then he's not going to convince anybody that this is the right solution. It's almost like you know raising money for for a charity you can't raise money unless you're first a believer. Right.

Speaker 8: 16:46

We'll Tom. Yes in that the line I use is there is no such thing as a unicorn product or service. Every customer is looking for the best blank with the lowest price with their timeframe their qualifications et cetera. But what I always tell people is no one offers that. So just let go that your competitors don't have that you don't have that. So your job as a sales professional is to is to show them and convince them that you have more of what they're looking for than anyone else offers for the best overall value. Like that's the best that you can do. And that's the best the other salesperson can do. And that's really the game of selling is no one has the perfect unicorn and everyone's trying to convince the customer that ours is the best the best of the options that are out there. You know?

Tom Bronson: 17:38

Yeah. Exactly. You know the other thing that I run into so frequently is reluctance to ask for the order. Right. And that's one of your leashes is that that reluctance. And I tell folks a story my dad you know was it was a business owner like like your dad you know. Did a great job. He was not a salesperson though he did everything he could. Back in the you know the 70s and 80s to learn how to sell and you know took the took the Dale Carnegie courses and things that were available at the time and he learned a way to ask for an order that wasn't asking for an order that you know you just got down to the point where he felt like that it was time to close the sale and it would just ask a simple question like well which color do you want blue or brown. And if they answered that question you got the order right. And I'm just I'm astonished with with many of our our clients and as we're working with clients we do we do touch on sales of course as a part of our review of the overall performance of the organization. But as I as I listen to their sales calls if they're recorded or I can watch them on video I'm just astounded at the number of salespeople that are that are just not hearing the buying signals and not asking for the order when that's the end of the day what they were hired to do. What do you think about my dad's approach of which color would you like.

Jason Forrest : 19:02

Yeah. Well that's very similar right. So we have a process called the 5 4 3 sales process. It just got listed Ardmore you're selling sales training got listed as the second best sales trainee program in the world by global gurus which we're very proud of. We beat out Sandler and great Cardona with all of them which we're very proud of. And and our process the three steps at the end is exactly we decide it's it's great. So here are three different options that we can present you know that we believe they're right for you. Here's the advantages of option 1. Here's the advantages of option 2, the advantages of option three of the three which one would you say is your favorite. Great. So based upon that I mean you're definitely not going for with option 1 you're in between option 2 and 3. Great. So based upon that are you definitely in for with us or is are someone else you're considering. Oh you're definitely it's you're shooting somewhere else. Great. So before we talk about someone else let's just narrow down of the two options remaining which one you believe is the one that you would go forward with the most. Great. So it sounds like option 3 is the right one for you. So tell me what you like about option 3 compared to X Y Z competitor. Great. So that's basically our process. So it works really well.

Tom Bronson: 20:05

I love that. It's a formula. You know when you and I type before our sales sales is paint by numbers. Right. I mean if you understand the process and you understand how it works then then it's as simple as training your mind to go through all of those sayings so we're going to take a quick break. We're talking with Jason forest. And we'll be back in 30 seconds.

Announcer: 20:29

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Tom Bronson: 20:58

W e're back with Jason f orest CEO FPG. And we're talking about sales so sales and growth are two of the primary drivers of business value. And of course that's what we focus on here at this podcast helping business owners maximize business value as I think about our clients and other business owners and as they are recruiting for sales. What would you say are the most important traits of top sales professionals.

Jason Forrest : 21:48

I love that. And just to just to play with yours I guess I don't know everything about what you teach but I always say there are two problems in business. There are sales problems and all the other problems.

Tom Bronson: 21:58

Right.

Jason Forrest : 22:01

I also tell people Look look I you know we're a better if we're a four time best place to work culture in Fort Worth of 80000 businesses. So I'm a big. I believe in culture I believe in operational excellence and all that great stuff. But I always tell people it is a lot more fun to have a retreat to talk about our vision mission and values and culture. And we've got revenue like that stuff's not fun losing revenue. So. So anyway so going back so we pivoted. You know I love the question about the traits of a top producer because we pivoted our company over a year ago where we now will recruit for people and it's just been disrupted we've disrupted the whole sales recruiting industry by combining the recruiting company assessment company a training company into one. And so we'll go find a fearless sales warrior top rate them based upon the existing people use assessments to validate the results. I'm a master practitioner on neuro linguistic programming. So we have A.P. questions to make sure they have the right mindset and we put it through a 90 day program and guarantee the results right. So. So it's awesome and we're having tremendous success with it and it's great The four traits that I look for though and everyone of you in the media want to hire me because go look at these portrayed. So the four traits that we look for. It's it's just think of the word gump. So my last name is Forrest so think of Forest Gump you know run Forrest run. Right. So Gump so think of Gump G stands for goal oriented U stands for unleashed which you really talk about that and we'll talk about more U stands for unleashed M stands for motivated and P stands for procedural based. So you've got to have more Gumps in your organization. So let's go the first one so goal oriented goal oriented is a salesperson that wakes up every morning a sales warrior wakes up and says OK I'm going after these five accounts today these are my hot accounts here's how I'm going to get in front of them here's my strategy here's my pursuit here's my why you know here's where I'm stuck hey boss can you help me out with such as that. They're just everywhere they wake up every day so dialed in the opposite of that is your typical account manager which is what your focus is today Oh my God I got like nine hundred e-mails I got to respond to and I got so many accounts that was asking for things My boss wants me to do this report I got to get the CRM cleaned up they have all of their goal orientation is towards everything else but prospecting OK so goal orientation U is unleashed. We talk about that self-image stories reluctance in rules M stands for motivation. So I'm not talking about like energy general energy I'm talking about energy towards prospecting energy towards being an advocate so someone can have high goal orientation but just don't have sufficient energy to do it all day long. I mean it's a lot of work. I mean you know like for me a nd I mean I I personally send out t wenty to t wenty f ive Bom Bom videos every single day. You know and I'm on Linkedin constantly working it you know and so as my team I set the standard I always tell my team I said my goal is to be the the the least successful sales person on the team. So I tell him I'm your pace car I'm your pace car. So I will always do the minimum. You better you better not ever do less than me. I'm going to be doing the minimum you know. So that's the motivation. And then last is procedural base and that's a fun one. So again like I said we've got about a thousand hours of neuro linguistic programming training so NLP. is it stands for neuro is brain linguistics is the way we talk to ourselves and others programming a s it's been proven that the way we talk to ourselves and others can program our brain wiring. So how someone speaks can say a lot about what they were end up doing. Right. So one of the meta patterns in NLP is are you option based or procedural based. T his actually really good for you Tom when you're interviewing the people you want to work with. Right. So an option based person is e very i s a new day every day is different procedural b ases. Every day's every day's might be different. But I just do the same thing in the exact same way every day. So like Warren Buffett you know the richest guy in the world. Every day he wakes up but he goes to McDonald's and gets you know whatever. And so we have the same thing as every single day. You know another guy David Mandrake who's worth I don't know 50 something million dollars the CEO of MDC Holdings. He wakes up every single morning at four thirty gets on his elliptical reads The Denver Post and then he takes a shower, listens to this audio book and yo u k n ow I m e an j ust like the set routine that he does every single day. Right. And so procedural bases is very important because most people think that selling is some sort of like magical ar t f o rm t hat every customer is different. A nd what that is not true. T he top producers follow a step by step process. S o if you were to ask a top producer Hey tell me your process. T hey would say oh wh y f irst do this an d I do this and I do this and I do this. T hey just kn ow t h at t hey know it wh ile e veryone else would say this. A n d t e ll m e y o ur p rocess. Oh well you know every customer is different. So you don't hire that you don't hire them. So I'll give you I'll give you one if you want a simple interview question. Yes this is a good it's a good one. This is one that you can actually use to now in your world. I mean I would assume the people that you're working with is the visionary and those visionaries are probably more option based. OK. So visionaries are more option based which is why you know we all heard the story right. A visionary starts the company the reason why they fail the companies they don't have. They don't find an integrator. They don't find some operational person to create procedures and process and so forth. So. So normally visionaries are more option based but a great interview question is hey tell me about tell me about how you got into the job that you're in. OK. So what's interesting about that question is that that a a a visionary type person will answer more of a Why based question so they'll say Oh I wanted to look for a salesperson. Oh I wanted to I want to help a bunch of people I want to make a bunch of money etc.. Right. Aye aye a procedural based person would give you a story. So if you were to ask me hey by the way I messed up the question. I know this sounds horrible on a podcast but I messed up the question. It's tell me why you got into this business. If you if you say how they're all going to tell you how if you say why then what's going to happen is the option based person will tell you why the procedural based person will tell you how but if you say how they're both going to tell you how does that make sense. Got to make sure I clear everyone. So the question is they tell me why you got into sales OK so again the option based person will say well I got into say look I like people like making money. Blah, blah, blah. Like flexible hours the procedural based person will tell you a story. So if you're asked me I would say likes you too. So why did you get the train. The first time this was ever asked to be my NLP coach I said you know what that's a funny story. And as soon as that funny story Susan I said you know first I was a sales manager and then the position got eliminated and all the sudden this position came up for training and I really always like training. I like Zig Ziegler. And so I decided to interview for the position. Turns out I got it. I was pretty good at it. And then all of a sudden I realized when to start my own company. So I left start my own company here. Yes you see I'm like I'm telling a story like step by step by step.

Tom Bronson: 29:31

Yeah.

Jason Forrest : 29:32

I never said I wanted to help a bunch of people change behavior. I mean I didn't say that. I'll just speak for a living. None of that. No not why I came out of me.

Tom Bronson: 29:41

Oh that's awesome. I love that.

Jason Forrest : 29:46

It's a trick with the brain. Yeah. And so it's great. So to met a pattern there's so many questions you can ask about the meta patterns. But what my recruiters do is they have a series of these questions about a hundred questions that they are screening and what they're doing is they're asking these questions of the candidates to figure out their meta patterns and what I've personally done is I have created the cheat the cheat sheet for my recruiters and so they're basically looking through. And if they answer the Jason way then they get a plus if they answer not the Jason way they get a minus they had to have so many pluses to kind of move on to the next level. For my, for our clients that we're recruiting for.

Tom Bronson: 30:19

So. Tell me about the types of businesses that you recruit sales for.

Jason Forrest : 30:24

Oh my gosh everyone. So I mean we are we're talking to a you know an I.T. company we've got banks we've got homebuilders we've got you know architects we've got big commercial machines. I mean everyone

Tom Bronson: 30:39

That's awesome is your sales is a fungible skill right. It can move from place to place. And so you're looking for these same things regardless of the type you know one of the things that you mentioned there in Gump and now by the way you're forever known to me as Forest Gump right.

Jason Forrest : 30:57

Well that was by by the way. So when I was in high school I could run if I could run. I was the rush linebacker at Dallas Jesuit and I had a forty of 42.40. Right. But I ran so that that movie came out around when I was in high school when fortunately I ran upright so I ran. I was I could I could run like the wind blows and I had to run so fast but I would run the ball right and everyone that run Forrest run and so back then it really hurt my feelings. But I've gotten over it now.

Tom Bronson: 31:30

Yeah. Kids are kids are cruel that way. But I've heard a lot of stories like that recently. One of the things you mentioned that was goal and and I was fortunate enough to have a sales management position early early in my career and as this is back when we would get in a car and go drive to clients and carry a bag and you go walk in and talk to folks and that still happens a lot. But but more and more sales and of course during this pandemic sales are going on this way. Over zoom calls and things like that. But I would always ask the same question as I was writing with our sales reps when we get to our destination and just as we're pulling into the parking lot it's OK what is the goal. What is the outcome we're looking for in this call. And when I when I first got the position and the sales reps at work for me there we go I'm not I just want to introduce you here and I'm like well then you can you know we could do that over the phone or I can send them a letter. What you know why are we here. What are we trying to close. Are we trying to close something and got them into the mind frame of. We have a goal with this call and if we didn't have a goal any outcome works right. And then you walk out and you think it's a successful call and you didn't do anything but have a conversation you have a goal then you can actually approach that goal. So I love that that goal is the g in Gump and and I just got lucky enough to stumble onto the fact that you got to have a goal not only for your day not only for what you want to accomplish long term but what is the goal for this call right now. What do you think about that.

Jason Forrest : 33:10

Well of course I love that and I think that's what I'm all about.

Speaker 4: 33:13

Another NLP concept it's everything starts with an outcome frame and that's what you ask I know you ask of your clients do it's what are you really trying to accomplish. Like what do you what do you want by selling your business. What are you looking to achieve with that money. What's the purpose of it. Right. You always start with the outcome frame and then as humans the way are brains wired is we're all telling logical. So there's a fun word in our brain called the reticular activating system. It's actually in the back of our brain right. And so that's our goal seeking mechanism it's been taught since the beginning of time with thinking real and psycho cybernetics and as a man thinketh and everyone. Right. So but that's the idea.

Jason Forrest : 33:50

So whenever you can can coach a salesperson to tell me what the outcome is what the purpose of this visit you're actually programming their reticulating activating system to be locked onto that and the other thing I would say Tom which is fun is the different way I tell people what is the difference between a friend and a sales warrior is a friend has a conversation To achieve resolution to make money.

Tom Bronson: 34:11

Wait that's a friend or is that the warrior?

Speaker 17: 34:19

That's the sales warrior. The difference with the friend and the sales warrior right. If the sales warrior maybe I said it wrong with their friend at the sales warrior is a sales warrior has a conversation to achieve resolution to make money to move some sort of sale forward. Right. That's the purpose of it. Yeah. If I'm not if I'm having a conversation with you to not achieve resolution to make money then we're friends.

Tom Bronson: 34:40

Yeah exactly.

Jason Forrest : 34:41

Which is fine. It's just not the purpose of the job description.

Tom Bronson: 34:45

which I call a random walk in the woods. Right. You know it's just a random walk in the woods so you're saying also that that 64 percent of sales reps missed their quota in year one. So why is that. And what can be done about it

Jason Forrest : 35:01

Oh my goodness. OK. So there are a loaded question. OK. I'll just let Eldoret Rob a few. Right. So number one they don't have sufficient product training. Number two they have not have sufficient brand training. Number three they don't have sufficient finance deal training. You got to sell the deal and then sell the finance the money just like you sell the product and service. Number four they don't they haven't been taught the process. They haven't been taught the process of selling and they have been taught the language of selling. Number five they've got stories. Number six they got reluctantances and then obviously rules and self-image and then and then the last would be a couple of more that come up as they don't have a sales coach they don't have a bill Belichick Nick Saban and Pat Pat Carroll or Pete Carroll. Pat Summitt you know that's that's coaching them that's doing what you did for your wrap of Hey what's the focus today. What's the purpose of this call. Hey let's reverse engineer it let's talk about how we're gonna get there. They don't have that and so I wrote a book when my first books I wrote which I was very proud of called Leadership sales coaching and it's because I couldn't find a single book out there on how to teach a sales manager how to be the Bill Belichick of coaching. And so what I did is I went and studied all of them. I studied I study. I studied Pete Carroll Bill Belichick Nick Saban. I studied Bill Walsh the 49ers study sadly all of them in my pre frame was a sales person was an athlete and they should be coached like an athlete not managed like an employee. So then I wrote that book. So this mindset book is forty two strategies the coaching book is seventy five strategies. So I wrote the book on. OK. Well what would Nick Saban do in this situation you know what would Pete Carroll do in this situation. And so I came up with seventy five things as if they were coaching your sales team what they would do. Well that book I'm very proud to say is now used at High Point University in North Carolina as a third of their MBA for sales leaders. That's a pretty cool.

Tom Bronson: 36:56

Oh no kidding. Yeah I've got a great friend of mine a college roommate that is a professor there. So I will now I've got something else to talk to him about. Next.

Jason Forrest : 37:05

I'm a huge fan of High Point again. I went to Texas Christian University but I'm a huge fan of High Point because highpoint you know is doing what schools need to be doing and that is they are saying you know what forget these professors that are not practitioners. And instead they go and hire practitioners they go to hire retired like in this case sales executives for whatever and they said hey you're retired now come teach. And so there's one professor or the head of the sales management department. He couldn't find obviously any textbook that was real world. And so he went to Amazon like everyone else does. Right. And he found like here's my best books on sales leadership and I just happen to be fortunate to be one of the ones that he chose and teaches from which is great.

Tom Bronson: 37:47

You know that's awesome. I will tell you that for my friend who teaches there once a semester. He has me come on and do a zoom call with his class to talk about entrepreneurship.

Jason Forrest : 37:58

So I do the same thing Tom for the sales leadership group.

Tom Bronson: 38:02

Yeah. That's amazing. I didn't realize that that was a prevalent practice there.

Jason Forrest: 38:06

I didn't know either until I just found another person that did it with you.

: 38:09

I think that's I think that is brilliant. So. So we're at a pivotal time in history where many if not most businesses have been impacted in some way by COVID19. So you mentioned earlier that you got some grief about jumping out early with some advice for creating a growth strategy during turbulent times like this. So frankly as many of our clients have discovered turbulent times like these always create opportunities for those that are ready and looking for it. So. So tell us again why did you catch grief over the advice that you were giving. And remind us again what you said about that.

Jason Forrest: 38:49

So the book that I wrote came out. I wrote the book in two weeks with my writing team. It's called selling through the coronavirus. You can get it on Kindle for a dollar. So I just wanted to get it out and help as many people as I possibly could because I was getting kind of annoyed with the incorrect advice that was being tossed. I just want to get it out there. It achieved bestselling status that week which I was very happy about in the sales category. So it did well but anyway so I just got grief because again the underlying belief systems right. So so beliefs are what we think to be true which drives our emotions what we feel to be which we feel about things which drive our motivations why we do we do what drives our behaviors what does what we do which drives our results was what we are what we achieve now where we get these beliefs we get these beliefs from our programming programming is our parents culture political party etc.. So like for example there's a stat that actually says that 90 percent of all people that have a certain political party like 90 percent so they're Republican or Democrat they acquired that from their parents there's like 10 percent that actually made a decision for themselves that says you know what. What I think I'm going to switch sides. You know I think I want to do something different. You know like it's just crazy right. So we're unfortunately we're a bunch of weird really just a bunch of kind of mindless drones that just might just get plugged into the matrix and the matrix is tell us how to think you know what I mean and so we've got to take the pill and see things differently and so and so I just got some grief around that. And but you know what I did in the book and again it's I have all that. The book is actually very tactical you read the whole thing an hour just a bunch of tactical things of language and mindset and strategies you can say to you know move sales forward during coronavirus. And so like one of the things I said the chapter is in the book as I said you know this is there's worse we're in an uncertain time right now. But we're also an interesting time and some might even say an opportunistic time. For example Warren Buffett says be opportunistic when others are fearful and fearful when others are opportunistic Yeah but that's it like that's actually a line like that's actually a language pattern. And so that's NLP that's called match pace lead and so I taught that strategy to our clients and so clients would compliance would say you know you know clients would say something like You know I'm just not sure if it's a good time to invest in your product. And then my response back is oh I'm curious what you know why not. I'm curious why would you think that way. Well because you know because a blank blank blank. And what are you hearing from our competitors. Well they're also kind of talking about doom and gloom out there it's a little bit scary. Well the first thing I would say is Well that's them. That's not us. You know we're very successful right now. People are choosing from us because of blank blank blank you know. And so it's teaching these little language patterns that you can use to help provide certainty to customers to get them to move forward you know make decisions.

Tom Bronson: 41:43

Yeah I love what you even said earlier is that you know what. How are we separating helping people from sales. You know that's great salespeople are helping people so why are they mutually exclusive. I just think that that's such a such a prevalent mindset out there so so.

Jason Forrest: 42:03

Remember So one last thing Tom you know I know I'm kind of going to limb here but no the whole reason why we're giving you know unemployment checks to people is because people people are not spending money right. Right. What do you think great salespeople do spend money get people to spend money because it is so. So I'm teaching people how to convince people to spend money. If there are more sales warriors out there they can convince people to spend money and put money back into the economy. You would not need the government to give people money.

Tom Bronson: 42:36

Yes.

Jason Forrest: 42:37

And I think I think I'm a patriot. Tom.

Tom Bronson: 42:39

Yes.

Jason Forrest: 42:40

A Patriot!

Tom Bronson: 42:41

You're not going to find an argument here. So. So real quickly what sets FPG apart from other sales training and r ecruiting businesses other than the fact that you're INC 5000 and big award winner what s et you guys apart.

Jason Forrest: 42:57

I mean I mean the big the biggest thing is that most recruiting companies that are out there they one don't know salespeople and the ones that do no salespeople they don't use assessments which I think is a huge integrity problem. Just slows it down. The ones that do use assessments whose personality assessments we use behavioral assessments based on fear which is more accurate. We also use cultural assessments and then we're the only ones that we know of that put people through a 90 day sales training program. And if anyone else has a training program I know at least it's not the second best in the world. So not only is it a training programand we also are the second best one in the world for those people guaranteeing their performance. And we do all for a flat rate. So I was just on a sales call right before this and I said I'm curious why would you use a recruiter yet and they said well they they want a percentage and duh da duh. And so again the person I was competing against they didn't use assessments. They don't use NLP questions I don't know salespeople and they don't have a guarantee and they use a percentage it's crazy.

Tom Bronson: 43:56

Wow. So one last question and we'll start to wrap up here this podcast is all about maximizing business value to you.

Jason Forrest: 44:06

Jason what is the most important thing that you recommend business owners do to build value Ooo that's a great question. OK. I would say I would say they need to do some very strong soul searching on on. Why is my product or service truly better. And I I I would I would do a little like I'm gonna out my mom out right now. OK. Well she's 78. Again she was on the first team for North Texas to beat Harvard at a national debate. S he's an amazing debate teacher amazing speech teacher. And what she taught me when I was a kid is in debate it doesn't matter what you believe. It matters what you can prove in t he court of law. Right. So so so many times I ask business owners I'll say so great. So tell me you know so your charge twenty thousand dollars more than x y z competitor. Tell me why. And then they just give me some Yaki answer. Oh we're better quality. The other day I was talking to someone I said You do realize that Wal-Mart says they're quality the lowest priced option I promise you says says quality we're built. We're you know we've got great we've got a 30 year 30 year family heritage. So today you know like telling your you're twenty thousand hours more then you better be able to prove in a court of law. What is the evidence to support it. You've got to tell me why and prove it. Not just on your Yaki belief system. And I would say that's the fastest way to improve value as you guys go spend several hours figuring out what our competition's doing. What are we doing. What's our blue ocean. You know and then the salespeople better memorize that stuff and when they're asked you know like the other day I was asked by someone Hey why are you X number x percent more expensive than the other two training companies we're looking at. And my first question was I said was. I said Well do you want to. Do you want to play it at X percent higher level. Firstly I said okay. And then I said as well there are several reasons why we're x percent more expensive. I said this and this and this and this and this and this and this I went through it and as that based upon that I said we can definitely take those things away and then we would be able to charge you the same price that they're charging you. Like our custom videos our relevancy all the things we're doing. And I said Would you still move forward with us if we were that he said No no I like all those things. That's a great. So we're X number X more expensive than they are. But we do all those things that you want. And if we took those things away you wouldn't pay for it. And so I would gladly give you permission right now to spend more you get more What do you think the guys said yes.

Tom Bronson: 46:37

Sir that's brilliant. That's great.

Jason Forrest: 46:39

So it's real simple though it's transparent it's clean you know.

Tom Bronson: 46:42

Yeah. I love that. I love that. And so and make sure that you communicate that through the sales organization and that they memorize it. I love that. So I know I said what. That was the last question. But I do have a bonus question and if you've watched the podcasts and our listeners and viewers know this I have to ask my my favorite question and that is what personality trait has gotten you into the most trouble through the years.

Jason Forrest: 47:06

Oh easily. No tact.

Tom Bronson: 47:08

no no tact.

Jason Forrest: 47:10

no tact. Yeah I think I might be I think I might be socially dyslexic.

Tom Bronson: 47:15

That's. That's awesome.

Jason Forrest: 47:16

So when I was a when I was a kid I would go to like cotillion you know and all kinds of etiquette schools my parents would send me to and that was the number one thing I got until before was I don't have any tact. Fortunately I'm a consultant now. So it's totally fine.

Tom Bronson: 47:28

Yeah exactly. Exactly. Well how can our viewers and listeners get in touch with you.

Jason Forrest: 47:34

Great. Yeah. Love to talk to you. Just I would email me directly at Jason at F P G dot com. Show me an e-mail. Loved our conversation Web site FPGA dot com as well as I got a free gift for everyone who doesn't want a free gift so if you listen to this long you look at the free gift. So you go to warrior mindset books com you can actually get the mindset of sales where your book for free you just pay shipping and handling. And then there are some I'm not going to lie to you. There are some up sells in there that some additional value that you can get like the audio version you can get some success guides and goal setting guides and coaching sessions all kinds of extra stuff. I mean I think the entire package is like the most expensive is like a hundred twenty bucks so it's not really that much but it's a great deal warrior mindset book dot.com.

Tom Bronson: 48:18

I recommend it to all of our listeners. I got to tell you it was it was a great easy read and I've and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course I listened on audible as well so I got kind of the bonus conversation between between you and Mary so that was awesome. So this has been so much fun. Jason thanks for being our guest today. You can find Jason at his Web site FPGA dot com or on LinkedIn or email him or reach out to me. I will be happy to make a warm introduction.

Speaker 2: 48:47

This is maximize business value podcast where we give practical advice to business owners on how to build long term sustainable value in your business even during challenging times like these. Be sure to tune in each week follow us wherever you found this podcast. Be sure to comment we love comments and we respond to all of them. So until next time I'm Tom Bronson reminding you to find ways to build sales warriors while you maximize business value.

: 49:16

BOOM!

Announcer: 49:21

Thank you for tuning in to the maximize business value podcast with Tom Bronson. This podcast is brought to you by mastery partners. Where our mission is to equip business owners to maximize business value so they can transition on their own terms. Our mission was born from the lessons we've learned from over one hundred business transactions which fuels our desire to share our experiences and wisdom so you can succeed. Learn more on how to build long term sustainable business value and get free value building tools by visiting our website. W w w mastery partners dot dcome that's mastery with a y mastery partners dot com. Check it out.

Tom Bronson: 50:06

That was perfect. I would make any changes on that.