Welcome to SALES with ASLAN, a weekly podcast hosted by ASLAN Co-founders Tom Stanfill and Tab Norris, geared at helping sales professionals and sales leaders eliminate the hard sell. At the end of the day, we believe that selling is serving. ASLAN helps sellers make the shift from a ‘typical’ sales approach, to one that makes us more influential because we embrace the truth that the customer’s receptivity is more important than your value prop or message.
The goal of these interviews is to spotlight various experts in the world of sales and sales leadership – sharing informational stories, techniques, and expert interviews on the sales topics you care about.
The following are notes from EP. 205 Celebrating 200 Episodes and the Evolving Sales Landscape
Join us as we celebrate 200 episodes of Sales with Aslan! In this special episode, Tom Stanfill, Scott Cassidy, Marc Lamson, and Tab Norris reflect on the podcast's journey and discuss how the sales landscape has evolved. From AI and virtual selling to the impact of COVID-19, we'll explore the key trends shaping the industry. Discover the importance of Other-Centered® Selling and how to adapt in this new era of selling.
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00:03
Scott Cassidy
Welcome back to another episode of sales with ASLAN, your weekly therapy session for those who sell for a living and those who help those who sell for a living. And I cannot believe I'm back 200 episodes later. How many years later? When was the first.
00:21
Tom Stanfill
February of 2019 is when you lost.
00:24
Marc Lamson
So unprepared. So unprepared. I know February of 19 professional podcasters.
00:30
Tom Stanfill
Would be prepared for the 200th anniversary episode.
00:35
Scott Cassidy
Well, you shouldn't have gotten rid of the host of the podcast, then, because I don't give a shaboo about ails with Aslan. I'm kidding. I listen to every. Every episode.
00:44
Tom Stanfill
Every episode. It is.
00:45
Tab Norris
I have a. Does every. I see a tear flowing. Do you some.
00:50
Tom Stanfill
Wait, I think, you know, tab, our latest listeners may not know who they're talking. They don't. They have no earthly idea.
00:58
Scott Cassidy
That's. I mean, who wasn't listening? Episode one, raise your hand. Oh, I can't see it. No, it's me. It is I, the founder of Ales with ASLAN now. Sales with ASLAN from 2019. February, Scott Cassidy. Welcome back to the show, everybody.
01:14
Tom Stanfill
Welcome back to the show. Great to have you in the state. I will say I don't want to speak for our listeners, but I can say for my. For myself. I can speak for myself. The podcast has been in decline since you left.
01:27
Scott Cassidy
Oh, stop it.
01:28
Tom Stanfill
We're just hanging on, I think. Not in the quality of tips and strategies and helpful things that we're sharing related to how to sell and lead better. I think that's trending up. I think that's trending not because you're gone, but because there's a picture.
01:50
Scott Cassidy
Look at the photography that has come up. I mean, wow. I had a beard. We had some help. We had staff.
01:57
Tom Stanfill
Look at that. Look at that office. We got to put this picture.
02:04
Marc Lamson
Forward for the podcast on that table. It's a little bit pulled forward.
02:08
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
02:09
Scott Cassidy
Oh, yeah.
02:10
Tab Norris
Yeah.
02:10
Scott Cassidy
That's a great shot. Look at that. For those who are just listening on this picture means nothing to you, but you got to go find this picture. It is.
02:18
Tab Norris
We'll post it somewhere.
02:20
Tom Stanfill
Our producer, Tyndall, will have to put that in the show notes.
02:24
Marc Lamson
Yeah, absolutely.
02:25
Tom Stanfill
The picture of our first podcast in our old offices.
02:29
Scott Cassidy
Well, and, you know, Tom, I mean, I think for the purposes of this show, which, you know, might not be your regular, perfect amount of tips that salespeople tune in to listen to, but from a therapy perspective, we are going to go back to what this was in the beginning. And we're going to talk about our favorite beverage, which for most of us is beer.
02:49
Tab Norris
I do miss that, Scott.
02:50
Marc Lamson
I do.
02:51
Scott Cassidy
We'll talk a little bit about our relationship with beer, but also let's talk about what we're drinking. And, you know, as you remember, the rules were, if you can find it, what's the percentage of alcohol? Describe the beer and then the Ibus. Does everyone remember what an IBU is? I do remember that bitterness unit. Yeah.
03:11
Tab Norris
Okay. Okay.
03:12
Tom Stanfill
Is that american bitterness unit or average bitterness?
03:16
Scott Cassidy
Introducing.
03:17
Tom Stanfill
I think we need to remind some of our newer listeners may not know we used to say, you can't spell sales with Aslan without ales.
03:26
Scott Cassidy
That's true. Yes.
03:27
Tom Stanfill
So we would always talk about our favorite beer or what the beer were drinking for that week. The problem is some of us had to check into treatment. Others have a struggle.
03:40
Tab Norris
I've got, I gained twelve pounds of beer weight.
03:42
Tom Stanfill
Some of us gained weight, and some of us slept well.
03:47
Scott Cassidy
And I think when we started actually shooting these in the morning, I think that was when we really said, perhaps.
03:53
Tom Stanfill
This is such a good idea.
03:55
Scott Cassidy
Wait and have a beer.
03:56
Tom Stanfill
I kind of like the beer part. Kind of. I forgot about the podcast, but the beer was speaking to me. Yes.
04:02
Scott Cassidy
Yes.
04:02
Marc Lamson
Well, it's 1144 Eastern. Remember doing this? And the Olympics are on in the background, so it's practically like the afternoon.
04:09
Scott Cassidy
Let's celebrate in Paris. It is afternoon, so would it make sense for me to get started with my beverage of choice?
04:17
Tab Norris
I think you should. I think you should.
04:19
Scott Cassidy
So being up here in Rhode Island, I believe Mark is in his office in Rhode island. We've selected today a Narragansett fresh catch. This is a citrus session ale, 4.2% by volume. They've elected not to share the number of international bitterness units. So I can't tell you what that is, but I can tell you that.
04:42
Tab Norris
You can't open it.
04:43
Scott Cassidy
Frosty, cold and refreshing.
04:46
Tab Norris
Oh, yeah.
04:47
Marc Lamson
Oh.
04:48
Scott Cassidy
Oh, my gosh. That is really good.
04:51
Marc Lamson
That's.
04:51
Tom Stanfill
I have not tried that one.
04:53
Scott Cassidy
I'm a big fan of that.
04:54
Tom Stanfill
Is it there a Narragansett brewery?
04:57
Marc Lamson
Yeah. Yes. In upstate New York.
05:00
Scott Cassidy
They're in upstate New York now using the old genesee cream ale brewery, as I understand.
05:07
Tom Stanfill
Wow.
05:08
Scott Cassidy
Guys, tell us in the comments section if I'm wrong about that, but I believe they took over Genesee cream ale's brewing area, so.
05:13
Tom Stanfill
Okay.
05:15
Tab Norris
All right, Mark, what are you out there?
05:17
Marc Lamson
Well, we also talked a little bit about, you know, we're going to talk about our relationship with beer. So let me leave with my relationship with beer. Last night, I said I want to drink my favorite beer on the podcast. Nary answer. I mean, whalers rise and that.
05:30
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
05:30
Marc Lamson
From Rhode island.
05:31
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
05:32
Marc Lamson
And my relationship with beer is such that was important to me. Unfortunately, friends came over, went out in the boat, and now I have no more rise to drink on this podcast.
05:42
Tab Norris
So you still have a very strong, good relationship with deer, it sounds like.
05:46
Marc Lamson
So I have shifted to a lighter land shark lager, which I also enjoy in the summer. Premium lager, quality island style lager, Margaritaville Brewing Company, St. Louis, Missouri, 4.7 abv and I 17 on the IBU.
06:05
Tab Norris
He's cracking.
06:07
Scott Cassidy
It would be inappropriate to miss the fact that we lost Mister Jimmy Buffett this past year. And that's beer, you know?
06:15
Tab Norris
Yes. Yes. Thank you, Scott, for that.
06:18
Scott Cassidy
Well, my relationship with beer and Mark has never changed. As you know, we are still very close. When I say I do it for life. And I said it a long time ago with beer, probably when I was maybe a little younger than I should have been.
06:34
Tom Stanfill
So that hasn't. So since our podcast in 19, your relationship with beer has not changed. It's mermaid constant, very faithful to the beverage choice. Who's up?
06:47
Tab Norris
You, Tom?
06:48
Tom Stanfill
Oh, I'm up. I'm up. Okay. So I am going with local as well. One of my favorite breweries is located in Roswell, Georgia. And my. This is my favorite beer, regardless of locations called cashmere. I mean, what a name.
07:03
Tab Norris
That's so perfect.
07:05
Tom Stanfill
Smooth. It is a New England. So this is to, you know, a nod to the northeast. My brother's in the northeast. New England IPA, 8%, which is the ABV, which is why I'm not drinking it right now. But I am going to says add to cart, and I will. I will enjoy one of these beverages today. It's on tap in so many places. It's in golf cart reach of where I am right now.
07:34
Tab Norris
Wow. Wow, that's fantastic.
07:36
Scott Cassidy
If you were to have one of those to start the day, I can't imagine an effective day would follow.
07:41
Tom Stanfill
No. But it was probably not good. Yeah, it's really good.
07:44
Tab Norris
All right, well, I guess I'm going to. I'm going to wrap it up here. My relationship with beer has evolved. I used to probably drink a lot more beer than I drink now, but, you know, I still love beer. We. We do love each other. So I'm going with. It's. It's a classic. This is probably my favorite beer. And I'll show you that. It's called slap fight.
08:07
Tom Stanfill
Oh, yeah.
08:07
Tab Norris
And, it's at. It's Monday night brewing out of Atlanta, Georgia. It is a west coast IPA for our west coast brethren and sister. And, take good care of them. And it's. I made it up. So this is a. It's an India pale. India pale ale. Its alcohol content is 5.8 by volume.
08:30
Tom Stanfill
It's a little bit more reasonable.
08:32
Tab Norris
It is more reasonable. So I'm gonna crack mine open. And, you know, I think it's. It's 05:00 somewhere.
08:39
Scott Cassidy
Take a swizzle.
08:43
Marc Lamson
Can I also make our last alcohol? We're probably not our last, but before I run out and it's a rough transition, another alcohol related sort of factoid here. Does anyone know what our number one most listened to episode is of all time? Number I don't.
09:02
Tom Stanfill
Wow. No.
09:03
Scott Cassidy
No.
09:04
Marc Lamson
Episode 74, cold calling, is not dead. And do you know the only difference other than our ridiculously good other center content and Scott and me and others are on the call? The only difference in that episode from all the others where alcohol were involved?
09:26
Tab Norris
Yes.
09:27
Scott Cassidy
Oh, no, don't tell me. Can I guess?
09:29
Marc Lamson
You should know. I would hope. At least I hope you remember. Please.
09:33
Scott Cassidy
I don't. Well, probably I don't remember because was it bourbon instead of beer?
09:37
Marc Lamson
So we upgraded. It was Christmas time. It was Christmas and it was cold and we upgraded. We were in person. We upgraded. We said it's Christmas. Forget the bourbon, forget the beer. We're going to upgrade to bourbon. The ABV on bourbon is 40%. And I had no idea we had 12oz.
09:58
Tom Stanfill
We had 12oz.
09:59
Marc Lamson
And I think. I think I slurred a little bit when we got to the adapt response. By the time I got to the t, I think it got a little bit rough. But it's our number one episode of all time. Therefore, you could conclude the most popular episodes contain hard liquor.
10:19
Tom Stanfill
Okay.
10:20
Marc Lamson
Booze with Aslan. Not sales with Aslan. Booze with Aslan. Because you can't sell booze without boo. What is.
10:28
Tom Stanfill
Wait, where. Where were we, Mark? Were we all together? We up in Rhode Island.
10:33
Marc Lamson
Scott. It was me and Scott. And so were in his house in Rhode island at Christmas.
10:38
Tom Stanfill
Okay, so weren't on it.
10:39
Marc Lamson
No.
10:40
Tom Stanfill
Okay, perfect.
10:41
Marc Lamson
We used to rotate guests all the time. Remember? We used to.
10:44
Scott Cassidy
Oh, that's right.
10:45
Tab Norris
That's right. We weren't all on them often. Very seldom.
10:48
Tom Stanfill
That was just. Well, I know we did a couple altogether. I remember us.
10:51
Marc Lamson
Yeah, we did a few altogether. And then he would just. We would just rotate through. And sometimes none of us run. Sometimes with other people. Sometimes, yeah.
11:00
Scott Cassidy
I had a forensic questioner at one point. He was pretty awesome. I remember how to interrogate, and I was like, well, what's.
11:07
Marc Lamson
What?
11:08
Scott Cassidy
We don't really want to interrogate our customers, so why. Why should you come on the show? And he said, I'm really good at questions. And you know what he really was? I forget what episode it was, but go look it up. Forensic interrogation guy. By the way, before we go too much further, tab, I know you're a Georgia bulldog fan, and this is not a bulldog shirt, but I thought I would wear the only thing I have with an a on it for the Aslan podcast. So Aslan shirt, you'll have to put up with Alabama.
11:32
Tab Norris
So great that Aslan shirt. Just funny looking a it is.
11:39
Scott Cassidy
Well, good. I mean, so I guess, Tom, I know you're the new host meets the old host. What a great time to come together and maybe reminisce a little bit. About 200 episodes of sales with Aslan, which is. Congratulations on an enormous accomplishment. I think I was here for the first 120, maybe. That was when I turned in my microphone, and I remember that wonderful trophy you gave me with a crystal microphone.
12:08
Tom Stanfill
Didn't you get a Grammy?
12:10
Scott Cassidy
It was like, a microphone Grammy. Some sort of podcast Grammy. It's still on my shelf at home. I'm actually not broadcasting from my home studio today. I have a real studio up here in East Greenwich, Rhode island. Actually, it's not a studio at all. But when we think about what's changed over the last 200 episodes and, what, five years almost, or four and a half years, anybody got any good stories, things that are different now? I mean, obviously, went through a pandemic and massive global health scare and markets overturned and so forth, but a lot changed for Aslan. People are changed for our customers. Let's roundtable a little bit on what's different from 200 episodes ago.
12:55
Tab Norris
Well, I mean, anybody want to get us started?
12:58
Tom Stanfill
You got the mic, my friend.
13:00
Tab Norris
Okay, well, I mean, there's so many things. The huge one for. For me has been AI. Yeah, think about that.
13:14
Marc Lamson
We didn't even.
13:14
Tab Norris
That wasn't on the radar when we did our, you know, 200 episodes back. Right. AI is just taking over the world. I mean, it's just crazy how it's just hit the scene and exploded and, you know, every time I was in a training session the other day. And the whole group was talking about how they now all had AI assistants that were driving all the knowledge that, you know, feeding them knowledge when they would get questions asked. And at first, they were scared to death of this. They were going to lose their jobs. And now they're embracing their little assistant that they've named. This is our new world. You know, AI's writing emails for people, writing papers for kids in high school. So, yeah, that's changed a little bit.
14:00
Scott Cassidy
Well, and, you know, remember when Covid hit, I was actually at an event, one of those sales 3.0 events. Oh, yeah. Gerhardt's when all hell starts breaking loose, right? Hello to Gerhardt, if he's listening, and we get the call that, you know, this, you know, everybody's got to return to home, and we're going to kind of, you know, shut this country down for a couple of weeks. Remember that? And do you guys remember, like, taking our face to face training company and going, okay, we gotta go online? Like, the transition to doing exactly what we're doing right here. Video calls, video training, video everything, because mark stuck in his office, and I'm stuck in mine, and you guys are in Georgia, and we're gonna have to just transfer the business that direction. But think about everybody, how to do that, right?
14:50
Scott Cassidy
I mean, it was the craziest thing we ever probably had to go through. And we did it kind of seamlessly, I felt like. Right. I mean, it was an amazing time of collaboration to come together and figure out how to leverage tools to still deliver the value to clients in a very different way than what we'd ever done before. And what an interesting, you know, change that really was.
15:12
Tab Norris
Yeah. You're not kidding. And the crazy thing about that, you think we didn't have any of that. And then we became only that. And now we still have some clients, what, almost, what, five. Almost five years later, they still do it that way. They had traditionally been all face to face, and they're still doing the virtual. So, yeah.
15:32
Marc Lamson
Can I ask a question which has baffled me since COVID which I've tried to, as you try to make things, I'm a kind of a rules guy. Kind of a rule follower. Things. Be right. A little more black and white.
15:43
Tab Norris
Yes.
15:46
Marc Lamson
I think the world's got this wrong. I got to figure out where I write into to fix this. You've got to write with the world from God.
15:52
Tab Norris
It's okay.
15:52
Tom Stanfill
Okay.
15:53
Marc Lamson
In all seriousness, Santa Claus, why is it called virtual? Why is it virtual? Virtual means like, fake, not real. Why is it virtual? Why isn't it remote? Meetings, remote training, remote selling. When we're not together, we're remote. Why the f, is it virtual? It's not fake. It's real.
16:18
Tab Norris
But it's a projection of an image of me that's really struggle.
16:23
Marc Lamson
I mean, I can give you, like, a virtual, like, I can make a virtual AI avatar of me, but, like, this is me in all my glory and all my stellarness. This is a real me from.
16:39
Tom Stanfill
Do we know for sure?
16:41
Tab Norris
Yeah.
16:42
Scott Cassidy
Oh, that's true.
16:43
Marc Lamson
So I'd like that question to answer. Maybe someone in our audience could tell me, why is it virtual? Do you agree? And can we start a movement to change that? It's remote. It's hashtag remote, not virtual. That's what I.
16:54
Tom Stanfill
Okay.
16:54
Tab Norris
All right.
16:55
Tom Stanfill
That's good. Well, I think there's some wisdom in the question, because I do think it's not quite a real meeting. Yeah, I mean, I think that's one of the things that's changed because of the shift, because, yeah, we've pretty much gone back to on site workshops. Yes, we still do some virtual, but I think everybody's convinced and sees that the engagement, the experience, the learning goes up when we're on site. I mean, we have the scores to prove that virtual, sorry, Mark, still works, and there's some benefits to it. But when you meet with the prospect, I think prospect is probably key. I don't know how much it's, I think it seems like it works pretty well when you're meeting with a customer. When you meet with a prospect and everybody's still meeting virtually, and I think that's not going away.
17:49
Tom Stanfill
I think people are going to have virtual meetings and, you know, for, I think it's going to be a percentage of sales going to happen virtually. I think sometimes it does not represent what happens on, I do not think it represents what happens face to face. I mean, I've been in meetings where everybody, I mean, ten people just turn their cameras off.
18:05
Tab Norris
Oh, yeah. And it's just the worst feeling in the world.
18:08
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Or like you've got, well, we're going to have a virtual meeting, and then we're going to have an on site meeting face to face. And so you're supposed to talk to both of them. It's like, that's not a real me. It's like there's problems. There's problems with virtual selling. I think that's a challenge. It's here to say, and something maybe we can even address on this podcast. But we do want to provide some value to our listeners.
18:27
Tab Norris
Well, no, well, I had along those lines. I had exactly. This happened. I mean, this is what drives you crazy. I was willing to get on a plane and fly all the way across the country to meet with these three people. Right?
18:40
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, I'll get there.
18:41
Tab Norris
I don't care. Just tell me. I want to be there. And it's like it would take four months for us to schedule that meeting, for all four of us to actually sit in a room together. That used to not be the ever the case, ever. I mean, I might go in four months. I think that's probably too long. They said, yeah, the project will have been gone by the time you could get out here for a face to face meeting.
19:06
Tom Stanfill
Well, I think there are situations that we have to in sales, I think there's situations where we have to dictate the engagement. I'm not saying that was one of them, but I've been in situations now looking back and Mark, you were part of this. Like, I'm not doing that again. Like, if you want to evaluate my solution, right? And you don't know me and you need to evaluate, these are the ways we're going to engage. And if you don't want to engage that way, I'm wasting my time. Time because when I look back on the outcomes where I didn't lay down the framework of how did this go? You know, we used to come on site and people would experience what we offer and we would do, it was so much easier to do that.
19:47
Tom Stanfill
And people give you the time and the right people be in the room and now they're like, well, let's just have a 45 minutes meeting and talk about your 16 days of content and your transformation process and all that. We're going to learn about that in 45. No, you're not. And by the way, everybody's going to turn their cameras off. So what happens if you're not the, if you're not clearly the recognizable leader in the category that's going to drive the decision, like the most office locations or the most experienced in a certain country, for example, then they're not going to buy you. And so I think we've got to change how we think about it. I think it's here to stay.
20:22
Marc Lamson
I think if you're selling a solution that doesn't involve people, I mean, I know all selling involves people, but if you're selling real, just products and it just, we can just ship this back and forth. I think virtual creates some efficiency around that process. Your point that we can get people together, we can have meetings, we can connect, and for sure, a virtual meeting is better than a string of emails or back and forth. But if there's any people component to your solution, any service, any people, any culture, any vibe, anything, it's very hard to communicate that overdose a virtual meeting and transparently, I think it impacts us quite a bit as a sales training company, where we're going in and trying to talk about who we are. Just even. Here's the materials, like, just send me a PDF. Well, PDF sucks.
21:14
Marc Lamson
And this rich, deep book that's laid out in this portfolio is a rich learning experience. But sending you a digital thing that flip through is so, yeah, I think, to me, this is where I've landed. Virtual meetings are very productive. There's less of a virtualness. People are more real once you've met them in person, when you meet people. This is where I think the formula is. I think for us, what we sell is workshops. In person workshops is a very hard thing to replace initially, but what it allows for, given five years of or four years of using these tools, is the reinforcement sessions virtually with the instructor I spent three days is much easier. I know you now we can talk and now it's easy. And that's where there's a real efficiency.
22:05
Marc Lamson
But even co workers, until you meet someone in person and have a non virtual beer with them, then I think it's hard to get a relationship. And two, I would say this, tom, I'm convinced, actually, that's a good idea, that these are virtual meetings, because it's not the real me. I'm going to go to my to do list of change what the world called virtual, and I'm going to cross it off. Thank you.
22:33
Tab Norris
We're going to stick with virtual.
22:35
Marc Lamson
Thank you very much.
22:36
Tab Norris
The world was actually right.
22:38
Tom Stanfill
I'm going to go to my to do list. So you were. You were going to change the world?
22:43
Marc Lamson
Yeah, change the world.
22:44
Tom Stanfill
And you. That was. Changed the world. That was going to take a lot of time. You were going to do it, but that was going to take time. You owe it.
22:51
Marc Lamson
You only plan. I can see my Gantt chart if you want. I can sort of lay that out there and talk about resources and, you.
22:56
Tom Stanfill
Know, I want to piggyback on what you said, mark. I say the same thing, but just a little bit differently, is when we have to influence people's beliefs, you are going to be challenged in a virtual meeting and you have to set the stage for what that looks like you have to have the time and, you know, they got the camera. You got to be able to say, this is the rules for that. If you want me to change people's. But, but product is a lot. A lot of times it's more about education. I can even maybe send it to you. Like you said, you see how it does this. Yeah. So it's education. I'm not changing your beliefs. I'm explaining something to you, which does have some challenges.
23:32
Tom Stanfill
But if I've got to move people from believing, having bias about in one direction to changing that bias to believe something different, you got to have, you got to set up, set the stage for that. And I. It can happen virtually, but you need to be able to have the time and the platform to do that.
23:50
Tab Norris
Well, have you noticed along those lines when I've had to do that, which I'm with you, I don't want to do that ever. I've had more success when I've done multiple meetings. Yeah, like, okay, we got to do it this way. Let's break it up.
24:05
Tom Stanfill
We can do that.
24:06
Tab Norris
And I'm starting to see this. It accidentally happened the other day and it was great because we did like a pretty, because a few people were out and so we did a pre meeting and it was awesome. We got to know the person, we got to run some ideas. So now when we do the real meeting, I think it's going to be much better. So I think there's some. This is probably worthy of a whole podcast, Tom.
24:27
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, well, you know, there's a practical.
24:30
Scott Cassidy
Piece that I've noticed even since I've left Aslan in larger companies, when they're training their sales reps and they're using tools like Zoom and teams, and then I saw it on the converse side when people were trying to sell to me and they'd be trying to go through discovery, their own version of discovery, on a live feed like this, and they could record it. And I remember thinking, the very advantage of Mister customer, would you mind if I recorded this? That way we can just talk and I don't have to be scribbling notes. It can be more genuine conversation. Right. There's your other search, and now we can really chat and then this will be recorded. And I'm happy to share that recording with you if that was interesting to you. And now we can just have a conversation.
25:19
Scott Cassidy
And that didn't exist four or five years ago. Right. That was a really, it is transition.
25:24
Marc Lamson
Easier to take notes. What I found too is that now there's almost like recording overload. Something I found helpful is if you just find a little like your windows, you know, your video edit or whatever. We should all, I think we should all be getting more improving our video agility. Like, you know, we can work with files and copy and paste and cut the word document. We can do PowerPoint like videos, like. But it's not really a big deal to go chop stuff out. And what I have found effective is not to send someone an hour video because that's kind of a huge pain in the rear end.
25:56
Marc Lamson
Yeah, but to go and say, hey, you know that part that, where we talked about our, in our case, like, you know, how we transform an organization that three minutes, I'll just cut that out and send that to you to send your boss. And it's a really easy thing for him or her to just kind of watch. So there's a lot of benefits to that. And the other thing is sales coaching. So sales coaching used to be have to go meet somewhere, get into a parking lot, get there early, go walk in, come out, go to Starbucks. And now you can just record a phone call and not even be there and go view the recording. Record a virtual session. Definitely benefits, like everything. There's benefits and there's a place for it, but it doesn't replace certain things.
26:39
Tom Stanfill
Well, I want to ask you guys opinion about a philosophy that I have, which I've also talked to some other consultants in the business who agree with. This is the AI and the virtual. And all the automation has kind of leveled the playing field for all sellers. Getting information to our customers whether through the sales rep or through AI or through whatever sources they can get. And all the automation that makes it easier for sales rep to just do their job leaves them with the only value they offer is their ability to partner and consult with customers because there were reps out there like knew more about the product or they worked harder and they could be successful just. Bye. Being smarter about what they offered, being the best encyclopedia. That's an old term, isn't it?
27:33
Tab Norris
Anymore?
27:34
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, I don't know if that any.
27:35
Marc Lamson
Yes.
27:35
Tom Stanfill
Look those up. They're thick, they're very heavy. And they wrote all my term papers.
27:43
Tab Norris
Yeah, we didn't have. That was our AI.
27:45
Scott Cassidy
They didn't item.
27:46
Tom Stanfill
That was our AI.
27:48
Scott Cassidy
You had to copy them.
27:50
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, I would copy it and change one word.
27:55
Marc Lamson
Yeah.
27:55
Tab Norris
The population of El Salvador is Salvador.
28:00
Tom Stanfill
Oh God. For all you baby boomers, you're probably really enjoying this. Other people like what this is before Seinfeld. So anyway, so. Yeah, so there is, it's, if you want to compete, you got to raise your game right. You got to be, you got to, you know, as we talk about, buyers don't need sellers anymore, but trusted, but decision makers need trusted partners. You got to be able to walk into a room and earn a seat at the table and be able to say, let me add value to your strategy and let me provide insights into new ways to solve problems, because just educating people and working hard is not going to cut it anymore. And by the way, we just did an impact study to prove this.
28:51
Scott Cassidy
Awesome.
28:52
Tab Norris
All right, well, who else wants to talk about something that's changed?
28:55
Scott Cassidy
Well, I'm just looking at something else that's changed. Tom, your background in your new office is just fabulous. I mean, Mark show, but have you.
29:05
Tom Stanfill
Not been to our international headquarters or new.
29:07
Scott Cassidy
I was there when were looking at that space. Yeah. I don't think I've ever been in it with a plant in the background, for example. I see growing out of your shoulder that I did nothing see before that.
29:18
Tom Stanfill
Well, the word on the street is that this building is haunted. So I've been here for a couple of years and I've not once, I haven't seen a ghost yet.
29:25
Scott Cassidy
Nothing.
29:26
Tom Stanfill
But were in a building that was built, I think, in the 18, late 18 hundreds. And literally the walls, you probably, you guys are probably used to this, but where you live. But the walls are built all out of bricks. I mean, it's just double layers of bricks have built the wall. It's just an old building. And I. It's pretty cool. I think it was old, like cotton exchange. Yeah, exchange or something. But yeah, it's cool building. We love it.
29:55
Scott Cassidy
Well, and you know what else is new here? Is, is this going to be put out on YouTube as a video podcast?
30:04
Marc Lamson
What's you do?
30:05
Tab Norris
We only use TikTok. That's all I do. No, we didn't.
30:17
Marc Lamson
I'll propose. I'll propose something that's out there. I mean, it's kind of. We were talking about virtual selling, but I think in general, I'm going to go ahead and say, I'm going to use the word harder. Selling is harder.
30:35
Tab Norris
Yeah.
30:35
Marc Lamson
It's always different, but it's harder. Well, in the research, is that more right. In 2019, Washington, with the first year, Forbes came out and said more people were missing quota than ever. Like, more than 50% of sellers were missing quota. So first time it had moved over 50%, that was podcast number two, actually. Why 50% of sellers are missing. I can continue tab. I'm going to continue the whole list.
30:59
Tab Norris
This is going to take us through.
31:00
Scott Cassidy
The whole talk about an encyclopedia.
31:03
Marc Lamson
But it's, and, but now what people are saying is what sells force does an annual like survey, 70% of selling. It's thousands and thousands of sellers across all kinds of industries. Anyone is using Salesforce. 70% say it's getting harder, 89% say I'm burnt out.
31:29
Tom Stanfill
And you think about all these tools are supposed to make their life easier.
31:32
Marc Lamson
Yeah. And, you know, so the mill, so that's changed. Well, the question is why? I have a couple, I think there's a lot of reasons. I have, like I have two things that I think are really changing in the work, in the world of making it harder, making them burn out, making a misquota, making them look for a new job. I think, I think prospecting is completely changed. I think that, you know, you, I mean, I have had a phone book put in front of me and I have dialed numbers when I was right.
32:16
Tab Norris
Oh, yeah.
32:17
Tom Stanfill
I think, you know what happened.
32:18
Marc Lamson
You know what happened. People would answer some percentage, yeah, you.
32:23
Tom Stanfill
Used to have to answer the phone and, yeah.
32:26
Marc Lamson
And so, you know, as a sales training company, I have to admit some, some confusion about, you know, where does marketing start and stop and where does sales pick up. We had a customer panel last year with our partner summit and the customers that we interviewed. We said, how do you decide? What's your advice to sellers? And most of them said, I only work with people who are referred to me. In other words, I'm not waiting for referral, but I'll reach out. I'll reach out and say, who would you suggest I talk to? I literally just had a prospect hit my radar two weeks ago, had a conversation and said, hey, Todd, how did you hear about Aslan? He says, I'd send a note to my leaders and said, does anybody know of anybody that you suggest I talk to, period.
33:26
Marc Lamson
And then he gets those names and then he does research and then he reaches out and then you got to show up and you got to be intelligent and get yourself separated pretty quickly. But I just don't know where that falls. I do think in certain targeted markets, if you, we've done a lot of research about improving your message. It needs to start with their whiteboard and you can still separate yourself. It just needs to be in the right place. I think that's, I think the world's gotten so big.
33:50
Tom Stanfill
Well, I think it's part of being your job is you've got to back to my point about elevating your role, you have to learn how to leverage so many different mediums. It starts with, first of all, it starts with how they deliver their message. I mean, or I should say the message itself.
34:08
Marc Lamson
Correct.
34:08
Tom Stanfill
Because most sellers are, again, the easy thing to do is say, here's our product brochure, here's stuff about our products, and send that out in the world. Well, that doesn't work anymore. Yeah, we got to be able to talk about the customer. We got to provide disruptive truths. We've got to talk about what's different, what they don't know. We've got to understand their bias. There's just so many things we have to change about our message. But then we've got to leverage all these different channels. And somewhere in there, whether it's social, it's sponsorship, it's phone, it's voicemail, it's email, somewhere they're going to go, I heard about this company, XYZ, and who knows if it's response to your call or your email or whatever. But one day they go, hey, we need XYZ. We should call this company. And they may not even know.
34:50
Tom Stanfill
This is obviously what marketing has been saying for years, decades. They may not even know where it came from, but it's building brand awareness. And the other thing is, we got to have a platform on in social where people are listening to us. You know, where we have to. We have to have something to say. And that's making it harder to sell.
35:08
Marc Lamson
Yeah, you got to be where they are. You get to be, you know, and I think as an example, I think LinkedIn, there are people that are there looking and listening, and they're building, they're forming an opinion about you as what you can't control in sales is timing. Timing of the need and timing of the project and timing of when they're going to. But what you can have some influence over is being there when the timing is right and being on the short list. It's about getting. There's a different process for getting on the shortlist, I think. And it doesn't necessarily mean absolute, just pure cold call con. I think there's a place for prospecting. We have some partners that prospects real targeted, using the tools. Get a select group. And Tom, you're 100% right. It's not about, are you looking for sales training?
35:56
Marc Lamson
We have cool sales training. It's about saying, you know, we see, you know, we see construction firms in northeast struggling with this and they're trying to do that. We've solved that problem. Is that, is that eventually? And when you say, yeah, I think prospects are willing to talk to people who think that they know something that I don't like. If you know something I don't, I want to learn from you. And so I say, we've seen this problem, then we're going to talk to you. But it's just different.
36:22
Tom Stanfill
It's, well, I'm an example of that right now. I mean, I'm working. I can share a personal example where we're working with a company that's a very large, probably one of the top five deals we've ever pursued at Aslan that came from cold calls. So now it's, it's, you know, it's not your typical, I'm banging, I got the phone book out, but it was cold, outbound, proactive, led to something, that led to something, that led to this opportunity.
36:52
Marc Lamson
And so it's changed. They don't even drop off phone books anymore, do they? Or no.
36:57
Tom Stanfill
What are you going to say, Scott?
36:58
Tab Norris
I don't think.
36:59
Scott Cassidy
I was just thinking, you know, marketing in the old world was really advertising, right? It was, it was an ad campaign or something like that. Marketing and sales have really moved into this, what I just call two sides of the same coin. They're both the customer facing area where customers receive information. I mean, what was it, ten years ago? The study done by Gartner, I think it was one of the predecessors that they acquired, talked about 70% of the decision process being done before the sales reps invited into the conversation. That's only getting worse. That's only getting to be a lower percentage the more that the customer can self serve. What does self serve really mean? We have to show them what we want them to see, right? That's the drip marketing campaigns of 1012 years ago that still go on today.
37:47
Scott Cassidy
But more importantly, it's the ability to hit people with information where they consume it. And that's on social media. That could be, in some cases, back to the old bingo card that arrives in the mail, depending on your industry, that still works in real life.
38:01
Tom Stanfill
We're working with a company that does that right now.
38:03
Scott Cassidy
Like, exactly, you know, the bingo card. Why did you call me? I called you because of your bingo card. Like what? Really? You called me because of the bingo card. Yeah. So, you know, there's the, the two sides of the same coin that marketing and sales has led to this thing called account based marketing. Now, which 90% of you listening know what that is, but that is really simply sales and marketing working together to say, we're going to go after Tom Stanfeld, he's the CEO. So my marketing messages that are going to hit him are going to be the same as what you're going to say when you actually get him on the phone or get him on an email.
38:33
Tom Stanfill
But here's where, here's the challenge. I'm glad you brought that up because I'm getting all of these messages and they're all the same because AI makes them. They, I can now get, I probably get five emails a day from AI and they know it's AI because they'll pull something out of my background.
38:55
Scott Cassidy
Yeah.
38:56
Tom Stanfill
And they lead with that. And then there's this awkward transition to whatever they want to talk to me about, which I'm getting five a day right now. For some reason, they want me to know if I can borrow $400,000 from them, I can borrow capital. If they're all saying the same thing, I'm like, I don't need any capital. Thank you, though. But I'm just getting so anybody that, who wants to sell, it's like you just shut off all. And this is part of your point. You just delete everything that looks like marketing. And that's why the seller's ability to rise above the noise and say something specific and meaningful about their business and do the work. Gonna be able to break through the noise, but they can't do the same. They can't out work AI, right?
39:37
Tom Stanfill
Because everybody can fill AI with the, with generic information either about products or industry or people. They're gonna have to have that had, they have to have bad value. They have to have something to say, whether it's social or something. They have to be able to. And we didn't. I was mentioning an impact study, the high perform. We took two groups, a large number of people. We took two groups, people that were 150% or above quota and people that were 75% of quota or below. And we compared the performance of the two. The number one driver between the two was the high performers, which were trusted partners, is the way we would quote. They had expertise. They led like, you watched them like lead a meeting.
40:15
Tom Stanfill
It was like, this is what I know, this is what I do, and this is how we're going to drive results for you. It's like they either were super confident. They had expertise. They would also drop the rope. They didn't pressure people. They were also trusted partners. Like, they would position as, this is how we're going to help you grow your business. It was. But it was. And then the lower performers were. I wrote down, I wrote down. They would say things like, I put LMK, let me know. You know, let me know. Here. Here's some things we do. Let me know. Let me know. I'm here. Let me know. Or keep in mind. That was another one. Keep in mind. Let me know. Keep in mind. And it was like, that was how they sold.
40:54
Tom Stanfill
And the difference was their ability to enter in early in the process where people are trying to figure out what to do, and they're like, hey, I'm glad you're part of this team because you have expertise. I think that's the only type of rep that's going to have impact.
41:10
Scott Cassidy
Well, and you probably have 20 on your phone right now. Of the people that call, say virtually nothing and then say, so, give me a call back. And you're like, I can't figure out why in the world I never do that.
41:23
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, I did go to Georgia Tech. Thank you. Yeah, I don't.
41:28
Marc Lamson
Backgrounds, impressive. There's like, there's some random things at the bottom of my LinkedIn profile. Like, I volunteered for junior achievement, like, 25 years ago, Scott, when were at APC. Like, your volunteerism is impressive and junior achievement and whatever. And, like, you know, it's just. It's just crazy.
41:50
Tom Stanfill
Or they'll pick a restaurant in Roswell where my office is, you know, and they'll go, hey, so and so, you know, like, which is my favorite is.
41:58
Tab Norris
They pick my high school.
42:00
Marc Lamson
Yeah.
42:00
Scott Cassidy
What in the world?
42:02
Tom Stanfill
What in the world?
42:03
Tab Norris
I'm almost 60 years old, and they're going to pick my high school. Well, I understand, really.
42:10
Marc Lamson
Can I. Could I offer reason number two, why I think selling is getting harder. So we're talking about the prospecting, separating the noise, and getting kind of into the mix. Let's talk about when you're in the mix, when you're kind of talking. This might be a little controversial, but I'm going to say here's a question for you. I have low expectations of the dates and recall of this group, so just anything close would be helpful. Just said, when was the iPhone introduced? Oh, 6 June of 2007 was the iPhone introduced? First real smartphone in the market.
42:54
Tom Stanfill
That's hard to believe.
42:57
Marc Lamson
I'm going to do some real quick rough approximation of math for you and say that, you know, in 2007, you know, I think the average age of kids getting cell phones was older, right. But basically, since our podcast started five years ago, there's been about 40 million people that's been added into the workforce based on ages of people, right? Based on people, kind of. And those people have exclusively known smartphones, right? Exclusively known smartphones.
43:36
Tom Stanfill
I don't know any other.
43:37
Marc Lamson
And what that's hurt. I mean, you know, I saw on YouTube the other day, there was. They gave, they gave three teenagers a rotary phone and they put a. They said, here's a number. If you can dial this phone number in 1 minute, we'll give you $100. And they were like, pressing it and circling around like, oh, God, I would love to see. They had no idea how to use a rotary phone, right.
44:02
Tom Stanfill
I would love to see that.
44:04
Marc Lamson
They definitely didn't have a kitchen phone on the wall with a 200 foot long stretched out cord that went around the whole place. They just don't know any of these things. Here's what I see a degradation of in, I'm not going to say young people, but I am going to say people who exclusively have used smartphones is their conversational intelligence is decreasing. They've built a platform on communicating in 140 or 160 characters. Tom, you mentioned LMK and OMG and half the other things I have to look up when I kind of get it. And so these bits and bytes of non grammatically correct emails or words or other things that are incomplete is communication to them. But to others that still expect decent handwriting on something, or well written or conversational intelligence, how to have a conversation.
45:07
Tom Stanfill
How to respond when people say, well, the reason I was I couldn't meet last week is because I had a heart attack. I heard this call.
45:16
Marc Lamson
OMG, OMG.
45:19
Tom Stanfill
The rep said nothing.
45:21
Marc Lamson
Well, have an emoji for it. They don't know what. They don't know how. I say an emoji comes down, I say the right emoji with a wink.
45:32
Tom Stanfill
Could you imagine? I just like. I couldn't believe. I couldn't believe the call. The guy had a heart attack.
45:37
Marc Lamson
So I think this is her.
45:39
Tab Norris
What are you gonna do this year?
45:42
Marc Lamson
Yeah.
45:43
Scott Cassidy
Any budget?
45:44
Tom Stanfill
No. They chose to say, I don't know what to say. Someone can say anything.
45:48
Scott Cassidy
Yeah.
45:48
Tom Stanfill
At least they didn't say, yeah, they.
45:51
Marc Lamson
Because, see, because back to the phone and the social media and all the proliferation. I'm using the iPhone as a data point, but I'm not blaming Apple. I'm appreciative of Apple. The stock that's changed. Stock has gone well in the past five years. But the issue with just the back and forth, real time communication versus a post on social media and a like and a tag and an emoji and a share is a different way of communicating. But the back and forth of current selling is harder for some people. Naturally. I don't think they have it.
46:28
Scott Cassidy
Well.
46:28
Tom Stanfill
The other good point about that, I love that point, Mark. You brought that up in a meeting the other day and I thought that was really wise. The other thing, I think not only do they not know how to respond, but there's the ability to like, you know, we talk about throw the tennis ball back and forth or hit the tennis ball back and forth. When you're talking about a conversation, you know, how do you have a. People don't know how to. A lot of people don't know how to do that. It's like, I'm just going to talk and when you stop talking, when, if you can interrupt me or I'll stop talking, you talk and then I'm going to talk about something. It's like there's no, everybody's making their little speech.
47:06
Marc Lamson
Yeah.
47:07
Tom Stanfill
No one makes a speech and just sits there and they don't know how to, there's no consultative dialogue. And the ones that are good at it are crushing it, which I think that's the good news, Mark, even though selling is getting harder, that's the good news. It's like when the interest rates go down and you're in the mortgage business, it's like, okay, well, that gets rid of all the riffraff. People that only know what they're doing and the cream rises to the top.
47:34
Marc Lamson
Yeah. I do think, I do think it can be, it's easier for an effective, dare I say, other centered, seller, trusted partner. It is easier for them to separate themselves from others.
47:50
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, that's what I think. That's the reality. But that means you actually have to be other centered. You actually have to be somebody that's worthy of being a partner. You actually have to earn a seat at the table, which is a lot about who you are. I mean, most people want to talk about what they sell and how difficult it is. The first question we need to ask is, am I somebody people should listen to? Right. If I want an invitation, which is what selling and influence is all about, it's getting an invitation, especially if we're going to get in early, am I invitable right. And most people aren't willing to ask to answer that question, but if they're not willing to answer that question, I would say we're probably going to have to find something else to do. Yep. Yep.
48:35
Tom Stanfill
And there's a lot of good you could be a, you could be like, tabs. Tabs. An influencer on social media. And he does, what is it that you do? A wine shirts. And he's got, I don't know, 50 followers.
48:45
Tab Norris
Pretty much tick tock is all I do now in a hawaiian shirt. But you guys look it up.
48:51
Marc Lamson
It's fabulous.
48:53
Scott Cassidy
We have to.
48:55
Tom Stanfill
You know, it's gone viral.
48:58
Scott Cassidy
You might want to check how many followers I have.
49:01
Tab Norris
Well, I'm pressing.
49:03
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
49:05
Tab Norris
So needless to say, a lot's changed. Five years.
49:09
Scott Cassidy
A lot has changed.
49:11
Marc Lamson
I'm not sure if anybody has any other, you know, moderately useful sales changes, but I was going to be remiss if we didn't end with some, like, personal changes, like five years. What's happened in your lives in the last five years?
49:29
Tab Norris
That's a good. Finished.
49:32
Tom Stanfill
Let's go with Scott first, because I know he meant he bought a mansion on the ocean.
49:39
Marc Lamson
Now he's going to get spam. Now he's going to get spammed. Now that his followers are on.
49:44
Tom Stanfill
Your way up, you want to sell something expensive. Scott Cassidy as a.
49:49
Marc Lamson
Can we? And if you want to have water.
49:53
Tom Stanfill
Venue.
49:54
Scott Cassidy
Yeah, yeah.
49:56
Tom Stanfill
Mar a largo of the northeast.
49:59
Scott Cassidy
Oh, well, maybe. Yeah, no, we've been very fortunate with that, but we, yeah, a lot has changed for us, personally. I, after I left you guys, I did a small startup down in Texas that didn't last very long and then spent, went back to the data center industry for several years, and that's kind of wrapping up as well. And I am kind of going into early retirement with a full sale of opportunity. I'm extremely excited to be got my real estate license, and I've become a realtor here in Rhode island that I'll be kicking off here in the fall. And things are going great with that. We're doing the give back stuff now. We have two nonprofits that we look after. One is the one I'm sitting in, which is a community science center called the Academy Science center here in Rhode island.
50:44
Scott Cassidy
And we run programs for kids after school. We run lecture series on Thursdays. We do Saturday science Saturdays, and all kinds of fun things, rocket launching and all kinds of really neat things that gives back to the community. And then we're still doing a ton of work with our church, which has always been important to us with the marriage prep program. So I'm in this phase of, like, not one job, but five jobs, and, you know, looking forward to continuing my relationship with you guys. I love. I love this. I love this collaboration. I love what you do. I love the other centered approach to life, not just business. And I'm super excited to have spent the last 34 years in corporate America now doing what I really think my purpose is, which is working with the community in a much more important way.
51:32
Scott Cassidy
A very other centered way, I hope.
51:35
Tom Stanfill
Awesome, Scott.
51:36
Tab Norris
Good stuff. How about you, Mark?
51:41
Marc Lamson
I asked this question without giving a lot of thought.
51:46
Tab Norris
I love that.
51:47
Scott Cassidy
We were hoping you were going last.
51:49
Tab Norris
I just wanted to tell everybody else.
51:50
Tom Stanfill
Answered, I think guilty of that too. Like, I'm interested in what they're the Anthony.
51:54
Marc Lamson
I am nothing really. Big milestones that we have, like, kind of a delayed celebration for. During COVID I turned 50 and my wife and I were married 25 years. In fact, our 25th anniversary was April of 20. I mean, it was. It was. It was, you know, a month into Covid. So talking about virtual, we had a zoom valve. We were planning to go away and renew our vows, so we did a virtual val renewal. We had every single of the twelve people in our wedding party on Zoom. Because that's easy because everyone was home.
52:37
Tom Stanfill
Right, right. That's pretty cool.
52:39
Marc Lamson
And we had the pastor who married us on Zoom.
52:43
Tom Stanfill
Wow.
52:43
Marc Lamson
Renew our vows on Zoom. I will also share a surprise that Tyra wore her wedding dress, which still fit. I did not wear the same tuxedo that I wore when I got married.
52:56
Tom Stanfill
Why, Mark, did you lose a little?
52:57
Marc Lamson
Lose.
52:58
Tom Stanfill
Did you lose. It? Was it. It was a rental. It was a rental.
53:04
Marc Lamson
It was a rental, actually. That's.
53:05
Tab Norris
Yeah, there you go. There's your answer.
53:07
Marc Lamson
But. But, yeah. So. So we owe ourselves a 25th anniversary trip somewhere and a 50th birthday party. My oldest son went to the University of Central Florida, and he's going to be a junior and doing well on his own and didn't come home to visit this summer because he doesn't really need to come home and visit this summer, so. Yes. And our youngest is a junior high school, so, yeah, we're in that phase of getting ready to be what empty nesters. Are you an empty nester when they go away to college or when they, like, graduate from college and don't actually come back? Like, when are you officially an empty nester?
53:48
Scott Cassidy
When they stop living in your house?
53:49
Tom Stanfill
I think it's when they go to college.
53:51
Tab Norris
I think so, too, because people could have them come back to their 35. You're an empty nester.
53:56
Marc Lamson
Okay.
54:00
Tom Stanfill
Good.
54:00
Tab Norris
How about you, Tom? What's changed?
54:02
Tom Stanfill
What? Gosh, if I go back to 19, well, you know, the book came out. I think that was 21. That's kind of cool.
54:11
Tab Norris
Yeah.
54:13
Tom Stanfill
And we moved. Yeah, that was a big deal. We moved out of an. Out of our house into a townhome because we're trying to kind of in transition, kind of downsizing, trying to build maybe another house somewhere else. So we're still in the middle of that process. So I think those are the big changes. Everybody's already out of the house. No, I still have 14 grandkids. There's no more grandkids. I do have. My oldest grandkid is in senior year in high school this year.
54:43
Marc Lamson
Oh, wow.
54:44
Tab Norris
That's amazing.
54:45
Tom Stanfill
I've got two other teenagers.
54:48
Marc Lamson
Wow.
54:48
Tom Stanfill
Which now we have a text chain of. I just. Where I just text the teenagers and send dad jokes and stuff like that.
54:57
Tab Norris
That's good.
54:58
Tom Stanfill
That's good. That's good.
55:00
Marc Lamson
Well, have you on the doc talk. Doc doc talk. Best dad jokes, like, ever. I mean, just. Just. These guys are.
55:10
Tom Stanfill
I think I'm a natural at dad jokes.
55:12
Tab Norris
Oh, yeah.
55:13
Tom Stanfill
He's cocky about his dad jokes. I mean, bad, corny jokes. I'm not putting that. I don't think that's a good. I don't think that's a compliment.
55:20
Marc Lamson
Maybe you should put, like, my latest one.
55:23
Tom Stanfill
I didn't know there was a stick bug. Like, there's actually a bug that looks like a stick. So I was sitting outside on the porch. We were at the lake, and were just having a family vacation, and there's a bug. I literally thought it was beach pine straw. And then all of a sudden, it moved. I'm like, what is this? And so I looked it up, took a picture, and then I talked about the stick bug and showed petrol. A stick bug. Of course. Just the kids for two or three days. And so now that's. I send them pictures of random bugs now. And so that's kind of a thing. And they're make. They make fun of me. And it's enjoyable.
55:55
Scott Cassidy
It's warranted.
55:56
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, it's warranted.
55:57
Tab Norris
Awesome. I guess I'm last.
56:00
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
56:02
Tab Norris
Trying to think my. All my kids are gone now. My little girl is now going to be a sophomore in college, and one of my middle son got married since COVID Since 2019.
56:17
Tom Stanfill
Oh, that's right.
56:18
Tab Norris
Yeah, that was fun. And the big, I guess a big thing for me is I started kind of a mentorship for seniors in college here at UGA, kind of a christian entrepreneur program for, you know, amazing program business. It's just been an incredible blessing. And, and so been doing that for the last three years, and that's become a huge thing for my wife as well as myself. So those have been the big changes in my life.
56:51
Marc Lamson
So, tab, dare I say I'm thankful, I give a prayer of thanks for your surviving a near death experience.
57:01
Tab Norris
I wasn't gonna bring that up. Yeah, I did run over it myself.
57:06
Marc Lamson
I'm sorry. This is, this is not what's happened. It's what's changed. Here's what's changed. You work out of a recliner primarily, versus a desk. Is that, what's, that is true.
57:13
Tab Norris
I stand or still work out of a recliner. I still can't sit in a chair for more than about 45 minutes.
57:24
Tom Stanfill
So for Scott, we gotta explain it for Scott and our listener. So, tabdeh.
57:29
Tab Norris
Yeah.
57:29
Tom Stanfill
Have we explained this on any of our podcasts?
57:31
Marc Lamson
And I think somebody, Tab, should explain it. I think it's better.
57:36
Tom Stanfill
Tab's car wouldn't start. It was a small convertible. It wouldn't start. So he put it's on the driveway. That it's a driveway is downhill. So he's trying to move it to the back of the house. So he's going to start to push it, get in it, and guide it down the hill so he can get it out of the driveway where it blocks everybody from the driveway in the, downstairs in the garage, et cetera. So he pushes, it doesn't go. So he gets back out, pushes it again. It starts to go. He goes in the car. He doesn't quite get in the car. And we're laughing about it now because he's on this podcast, but it literally, the car runs over him, the door runs over him. He has 20 something stitches in his leg. These are tire marks on his back.
58:19
Tom Stanfill
But he comes out with five broken vertebra. Vertebrae. Yeah, five broken vertebrae for vertebrae. And I mean broken collarbone, I mean.
58:31
Tab Norris
A broken shoulder blade. And two run over by your own.
58:34
Marc Lamson
Car that you were sort of driving. You were, you were driving at 1 second, you got ran over by the next second.
58:41
Tab Norris
But the fact that I'm not paralyzed or dead is still a miracle.
58:45
Marc Lamson
But a lot of work to do. A lot of work to do. We're glad you're with us.
58:48
Tab Norris
Yeah, I'm still, I'm glad. So that's a good thing to finish with right there. Probably the biggest change that I'm alive, either.
58:57
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. You're a little bit more grateful.
58:59
Tab Norris
I am. I've got some more gray hair, a bad back, and more grateful. How's that?
59:04
Tom Stanfill
It didn't affect your golf game?
59:06
Tab Norris
No, it was bad. And it's still bad. Yeah, you're right.
59:08
Tom Stanfill
It's just like, you played pretty well.
59:11
Scott Cassidy
And we're all here, New England. We'd love to. We'd love to have you up here. So get your tails up here while it's still nice weather.
59:19
Tab Norris
Sounds good. This guy is just fun.
59:22
Marc Lamson
Thank you for starting sales with Aslan 200 episodes ago. Cheers to you. Cheers for getting tab for continuing to propagate this in the world of moderately useful sales podcasts.
59:41
Tab Norris
Is that the category we.
59:45
Tom Stanfill
Moderately useful.
59:46
Tab Norris
Moderately useful.
59:47
Tom Stanfill
Moderately useful. What I've been, what we've been told is, and Scott, this is probably because you left, is that people just fast forward the, you know, pass the banter so they skip. Yeah, they just kind of. All right. When are they going to start talking about really serious stuff? So you probably fast forward in this episode. I think they might have to fast forward the first 20 minutes.
01:00:05
Marc Lamson
Yeah, I think you're at this point still fast forward. You can quit.
01:00:10
Tab Norris
We'll be back.
01:00:12
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, we'll be. We'll try to show. At what point in the show notes. We'll try to put. At what point do you see to start listening? Well, we'll add that to the notes and I'll add that to the note. But Scott. Yeah. Seriously, it would not. We would not have started this podcast without you.
01:00:27
Tab Norris
Yes.
01:00:27
Tom Stanfill
You made it happen. You got it going, and you launched us. And we are very eternally grateful for you. And you're welcome.
01:00:35
Scott Cassidy
Yep. No, it's been a. It's been a blast. And I enjoyed every episode we did and love coming back periodically, and it's just a great time. Good to see your faces and look forward to staying in touch.
01:00:46
Tab Norris
Yes.
01:00:47
Tom Stanfill
Close us out.
01:00:50
Scott Cassidy
Well, you've been listening to another episode of sales with Aslan, and we hope you'll take some good notes and pass this on to your friends. Make sure you bang that, like, button and subscribe and get yourself an ale. See you guys.
