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. 187 The Tips You Didn't Know You Needed for 2024

Welcome to a new year! On today's episode Tom and Tab dive into what changes we can all make to ensure that 2024 is our best year yet and it's not what you think! Tom and Tab each share four practices that they have put into place in their own lives to help them be successful at the office and outside of it. From creating space or margin in their week so that busy doesn't turn into constantly distracted to seeking feedback so blind spots don't undermine your success, this episode has something for everyone who is looking to start their new year off right.

Listen to the conversation here:

Or read below- 

00:13
Tom Stanfill
Tab, welcome back to the new year. Welcome back to the podcast 2020. Vast international audience. Welcome to sales with ASLAN. It's a whole new year, tab.

00:26
Tab Norris
Didn't it feel good to be a new year? Fresh start, wipe away the past?

00:32
Tom Stanfill
All new it is. I love the do over. I do love the idea of the do over. Hey, it's all over. It's like, this is new. Go forward.

00:42
Tab Norris
Or in sales, you could think of it like, well, damn, I got to start all over.

00:49
Tom Stanfill
It depends on the type of salesperson you are. Yeah, you have a pipeline. It could be good if it all starts over every year. It could be a little challenging. But new year, it's a good time to think about what is going to ensure we have our best year ever. And I made a decision, tab, I don't know if I told you this. When I turned 60, I decided this is going to be my best decade yet.

01:12
Tab Norris
So you picked the whole decade? Yeah. That's good. Good.

01:15
Tom Stanfill
I like that. I think the old decade, I'm like, and that's a decision. I'm in life in a crescendo, and I'm just going to continue to have better decades. And I've made that decision.

01:28
Tab Norris
So 70 actually could better.

01:32
Tom Stanfill
I know there could be some people that might argue with this, but I'm not going to listen to this.

01:36
Tab Norris
No, but I've heard 60s. I'm not 60, so I can't relate.

01:41
Tom Stanfill
But I've late at all.

01:44
Tab Norris
I got two whole years. I got a year and a half until I'm punching into 60.

01:48
Tom Stanfill
I will say that the decade didn't start off great.

01:53
Tab Norris
Didn't you, like, tear your knee up to get started when you messed yourself?

01:58
Tom Stanfill
That was not a tear my knee up.

01:59
Tab Norris
I remember you hurt yourself.

02:01
Tom Stanfill
No, that was the beginning of COVID Okay. Yeah. Covid was the beginning of my. Right after I made the decision, best.

02:10
Tab Norris
Year everything falls apart.

02:12
Tom Stanfill
World is, that's okay, but it's going to be relates to our talk today.

02:18
Tab Norris
Yes.

02:19
Tom Stanfill
We were thinking about what's a great way to start 2024. And I think it's what do we need to do differently? I think about all the years of work that we've done with some of the top, really most successful people in the world in our field of sales and sales leadership. And I'm always fascinated, and I know you are, too. What do the best people do? What do the one percenters do? I love to talk to people who you're the best at, what you do, what's unique about you. A lot of people have some of the same things in common, but there are certain things that are different and we want to talk about what do we think? We each picked four because it's 2024.

03:05
Tab Norris
Oh, I didn't realize. I forgot about that.

03:08
Tom Stanfill
What are four things? You got four. I got four that we think are critical to having your best year yet. So why don't you get us kicked off with your first pro? I like to call it a pro tip. Because you are professional.

03:23
Tab Norris
Yes. Yeah. This is a great topic. It was fun one to kind of contemplate as the year kind of through the kind of thinking through this new year. And the first thing that jumped out at me is, and I care a lot about, I think the people that I see that are highly successful in everything they do, they work on themselves as well. You know what I mean? And so that's a big pro tip.

03:54
Tom Stanfill
They don't just work on what they do professionally.

03:57
Tab Norris
It's who they are. Yeah, it's who they are. And one of the first one that jumped out to me, the tip I was going to share is focus on your health. And you may be thinking, well, that's crazy. We're talking about sales and sales leadership. But what I've learned is that people that are amazing, they take care of themselves like they're healthy, their mind is clear, they are focused, they have the right amount of rest. And it's silly things that I'm reinspired on. I just know I am at my best when I focus on my health. And if my health slides, everything else slides. And it's sleep. I need 7 hours of sleep. I'm funny and I have to think through my systems to do that. And I have to make some decisions to make myself get rest.

04:53
Tab Norris
I have to walk, run, move, lift. I have to do some kind of physical exercise. I think everybody's different in what they want to do, but I think it helps us be our best selves. I think it does help build our confidence. It helps us work on disciplines that I think help us in all that we do. And here's the big one for me, and this is new for me, Tom, it sounds a little crazy, but it's meditation and quiet time.

05:25
Tom Stanfill
And that relates to your health 100% because it settles you. Like if you're stressed and you're running on cortisol because you're just constantly running and adrenaline pumping, that's not healthy.

05:40
Tab Norris
It's not. What I've done is for me, I get up early, it's early in the morning before the sun. And I have to have about 45 minutes to an hour where I walk and I process and I'm still and I'm quiet and I just have downtime, which seems crazy, but it's just so powerful. I've been doing crazy, and I've actually added meditation, ten minutes of meditation in the evening before I go to bed. And I know to me, focusing on some of these things can make you more effective in your job. So that's my first tip.

06:19
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, man, I really agree with that. It's so hard to do because you feel like there's things I got to get done. And the more time I focus on those things that I get done, the things will get done. But the reality is if you don't take care of the car will break down.

06:33
Tab Norris
Exactly.

06:36
Tom Stanfill
And it's also true when you're healthier, you're more productive. I've done these whole 30 diets where you eat healthy food, and there's something about how when you start really living healthy, based on what you eat, you start living healthier, you sleep better, you think better, you make better decisions, and it just kind of gets you in this right mindset. Totally great. Plus, it's just practical. You will break down. I love that wheel of life analogy where all these things that you have to do in your life are like spokes on the wheel, and if you ignore one of them, like your health, then your wheel will break down, you'll have a flat tire and you're going to be out.

07:18
Tab Norris
Very good. And I think food, you bring up another one. Food is important, too. That's obviously what we eat. It's all fits under that bucket. All right.

07:26
Tom Stanfill
We had to hear about that tab. Well, I want you to know that I did not follow any of that advice during the holidays. But in the new year, it's a new year. It's not. Forget the fast. My number one is more practical. And it's probably, I mention it and I think it's important because it's important for me because I'm not a natural planner, doesn't come naturally to me. I'm more of a kind of feel it, believe it, kind of do it, but I don't like to stop. Kind of related to the healthy thing. I don't like to stop and say, what's my number? It's like when I first started getting motivated to start saving for retirement, the first thing the financial planners will do is say, we got to figure out what your number is. What do you mean, what's your number?

08:06
Tom Stanfill
It's like, what number do you need to have in savings so that when you get to a certain age, you don't have to work anymore? That will produce the income that you need to live the life that you want to live. So I got to make a decision? Yeah, you got to make a decision. So I got to pick a number. What's my number? And it's x million, I guess, or whatever your number is. But what it does is it forces you to think about, okay, well, how am I going to spend my money? How much do I have to save? It drives everything. And I think in sales, which is od to me, because we're also number driven. We all have quotas, we all have goals. We know what our team needs to hit. We know what our individual numbers are.

08:42
Tom Stanfill
But what we don't do is actually write it down because believe it or not, there's only 3% of the people that actually have goals, and only 1% of the people actually write them down.

08:51
Tab Norris
It's crazy.

08:52
Tom Stanfill
But even fewer know the numbers that drive the number. Yeah, right. So, like, if you say, I have to create this, much, like, we have a number of business that we want to acquire this year, well, what's the number of prospects that I need to talk to? What's the number of opportunities that I need to drive? What's the number of meetings that lead to the number of opportunities? And then what is the number? What's based on our close rate? What's the number of deals that we need to when all those numbers lead to a plan? And I'm working with a new client, and they didn't know how many new customers they need. They didn't know the answer to that.

09:33
Tab Norris
Right.

09:34
Tom Stanfill
They had all these thoughts about what's happening in the market, but what do I actually need to do to hit my goal? And so my advice is really clear about your number, which is funny, because we all know we need to do that, but we don't.

09:51
Tab Norris
Yeah. So easy. And I'm guilty as anybody. I always have a number. I always have a big number. There's probably a lot of sales. You always have a number.

10:00
Tom Stanfill
Big number, small number.

10:01
Tab Norris
Yeah, exactly. It's the small number. The ones that people that are super successful, they just live. I'll never forget, I talked to a very successful salesperson one time, and I said, he's talking about how often you're watching your numbers and looking at your productivity. And I said, yeah, once a month, I kind of go back and he goes once a month. Are you freaking crazy? A month. You're almost done with a year. It's got to be daily and then weekly. It has to be just this constant state of looking at those numbers. And I thought that was very challenging.

10:39
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. And we all know, we believe in these dashboards, all these tools, but actually, like you said, look at those, know what the number are and look at them on a daily basis and constantly be measuring. This is the big picture. This tells me how I'm doing. And so, yeah, the other thing I would say is, obviously, once we have our numbers, a lot of people will develop a plan, but I think it's even more important to develop a process which kind of goes back to sort of your helping. What's our process to maintaining our numbers? We can say when I see successful sales organizations, they'll have their numbers nailed down. Like eight, two, one. I got to have eight meetings to get two opportunities to get one deal. It's like 821821. They all have it.

11:26
Tom Stanfill
And it takes this sort of fuzzy world and makes it really clear. Great. So what's your process to do that? What do you do on an ongoing basis to hit your numbers and then live that process? And then people just break things down. And some of us are really good at thinking that, and some of us are not. So that may require more work. So that's advice for me as well. What's my number?

11:51
Tab Norris
Okay, so we got focus on your health. What's my number? My next one is create margin.

12:02
Tom Stanfill
Oh, God.

12:04
Tab Norris
I know. We live crazy lives.

12:08
Tom Stanfill
Everybody is out of control.

12:09
Tab Norris
Out of control. I mean, I was doing a little research. I did a talk on this last year, and I started doing some research. It was fascinating. But bottom line, this is several years ago, we looked at the times that the average American touches their phone, their iPhone every day. You probably have no idea. Now, this was several years ago, okay? It was 2617 times a day. That's two and a half hours a day. Now, this was at least four or five years ago they said that number. And that's for the average American. For the younger generation, which we're not in, it's double that. So they're touching their phones 5 hours a day. Think about that. It's just a constant distraction. And by the way, the impact on this is staggering. There's something that researchers are calling hurry sickness.

13:14
Tab Norris
Tom, you may never heard of this. It's a behavior pattern characterized by continually rushing and being anxious, and it's causing irritability, hypersensitivity, restlessness. Workaholism, emotional numbness, isolation. It goes lack of care for your body, out of order, priorities. I mean, it just goes on and on. It's a real thing that really hits home.

13:44
Tom Stanfill
That describes me. I feel like I'm always in a hurry. Even if you create margin, which I try to do based on the beginning of the day and the end of the day and certain, but it's still during the day. Creating windows of time. And all of these things are so counterintuitive, but they make you more productive. I know that's the more by doing less.

14:07
Tab Norris
Like just yesterday I was nonstop, just full of meetings, full of trying to hit things, get things done, and I'm just like, I made myself get up and just get the dog and go walk around the block. It's amazing how much more productive I was after that seven minute break. I mean, I know that sounds silly, but there are things that we can do that are practical if we want to create margin. I'm not going to go into details, but I'm just going to throw these out there, take them, leave them, whatever you want. And I already hit one under health, which is silence and solitude. Got to build some silence and solitude in your life. That's one of my walks, my morning walks, which I think impacts my health, but it also helps create margin.

14:50
Tom Stanfill
Right.

14:52
Tab Norris
Number two, have a sabbath. Not talking about a religious perspective. It can be, but just have a day off. Take time off. We have to do that. Some people never take time off. Simplicity. Looking at ways you can simplify your life, that's one of my big goals for this new year. My word for the year is balance, and simplicity is a big part of that. And the last one, slowing. Like just slowing ourselves. Meaning. I read a book, ruthless elimination of hurry, by this guy, John Mark Comer, which I highly recommend. And said, next, go to the grocery store and get in the longest line to check out because that's a great little thing to work on. Work on slowing. I mean, we don't live in a world that anything's slowing, so that's a whole lot to unpack.

15:55
Tab Norris
But I will encourage people, if you want to be the most successful that you can be, you look at people, there's balance. You're going to be more productive. Like you said, we become more efficient, we become more effective. We live a fuller life. And so I really challenge everybody, including myself. Let's work on creating a little more margin.

16:18
Tom Stanfill
That's something that I was thinking about coming into this year, too. Tab. It was one of the things that I was going to share, but is creating space in my like, because to me, that problem typically is due to poor planning. Like, I just load my calendar up versus looking at my day and saying, I'm only going to schedule this much. Kind of go back to process. What's our process for slowing down? Because usually people that are good at managing their time, they create margin in their schedule and say, I'm only going to have this many meetings a week. I'm only going to do these things. And the fear is, well, if I don't do that thing, it's not going to work out.

16:57
Tom Stanfill
And that's one of the things that age, the wisdom that comes from age is you realize it probably wasn't going to happen anyway, or waste of time, or it's like, you're just going to better by creating that balance. And that's really the other thing I did several years ago is I got off social media.

17:14
Tab Norris
Me, too. That was my last year.

17:16
Tom Stanfill
I'm not on Instagram. I remember getting off Facebook, and all of a sudden I was deluged with all this information. I'm like, people reaching out, like, no, I'm out. So I'm not on Instagram or Facebook, and I'm on LinkedIn for business.

17:30
Tab Norris
Same here. And that was a big margin thing for me, too. Amount of time I wasted, and I.

17:35
Tom Stanfill
Very rarely work the weekend.

17:39
Tab Norris
I'm real weird. You and I both. That's one thing I feel like that's a good pro tip. That served us well, is we've always fought for that if we have to do something. In the early days, of course, we did all niners and we did all kind of crazy things, but that was.

17:54
Tom Stanfill
Built around a project. It wasn't built.

17:56
Tab Norris
It was.

17:57
Tom Stanfill
We didn't work. We have to work weekends to get.

17:59
Tab Norris
It's like, no, I think we're beautiful. You're better off. All right, so you're up.

18:04
Tom Stanfill
I'm going to go to. This is going to be kind of deep, but I read an article about this, and it reminded me of something that I believe in so passionately. But my next tip is focus on the solution, not the problem. There are really two kinds of people in the world. There are people who see things as the world happens to me, and there's nothing we can do about it. And that's called an external locus of control. And then there's people in the world who go, it's up to me. I can change what happens. And I'm responsible for my success. So either things happen to me and I'm out of control or I'm in control and I can make it happen. And I've always been fascinated by that way of the way people see their world.

18:50
Tom Stanfill
When I'm interviewing sales reps and having focus groups, there are people that go, well, the market's happening. And I'm like, well, what is it that you want to do to be able to better at what you do? And they just continue to talk about, well, what's happening in the market and what's happening with the comp plan and what's the company doing. And then there's other people like, I'm going to do this and I can do this. And they look at what they control. So you focus on the solution expands. You focus on the problem expands. And so it's an orientation. And there was a guy that this came from, a guy, Dr. Julian Rotter, who's a research psychologist. And he was fascinated by studying what was the difference in people that are successful.

19:29
Tom Stanfill
And he's the one that came up with those terms, internal locus of control, I can control it versus external. And he studied people graduated from college, and he found the people with an internal locus of control were successful in every area of their life, were much more successful in area of their life. And the people with the external, like it's happening were not. And so he's been studying that. He's passed away now. But yeah, I just love that idea of, there's the people who say, I'm going to figure it out. They come up with, what is success? Is success possible? It's not possible, but is successful possible? Like, I was in a meeting with the number one rep for the organization, and the same meeting was a low performing rep. The person, the low performer was saying, we can't do it.

20:26
Tom Stanfill
Here's all the problems. Here's what's happening in the market. Here's the thing. And the number one rep who was crushing it, I asked her, so how many new customers have you signed up? And it's a big number. It's like almost 1000. And then I asked the low performing reps how many new customers had. They signed up, and it was like, it was 100. So it was like two different approaches, but it was basically two ways of thinking about it. I remember talking to a guy in the, he was talking about, he goes, well, you can't really be an entrepreneur anymore. You can't start your own business. There's nothing to invent.

21:05
Tab Norris
So it ended in the 80s.

21:07
Tom Stanfill
It's like, it went to the 80s. It's like, no, it's over. It's done. Okay.

21:17
Tab Norris
We have microwaves. Do you understand? We're not going anything any bigger than microwave oven.

21:24
Tom Stanfill
I don't think the Internet had really. Even. The Internet hadn't even happened.

21:27
Tab Norris
No, were still faxing people.

21:30
Tom Stanfill
It was like, it's over, but it's wiring. And so I think we've got to decide is, what can we control and is success defined? Can be success be defined and what do we need to do to be successful versus. Let's look at the market and the negativity.

21:50
Tab Norris
Well, and the thing I've noticed too.

21:52
Tom Stanfill
Tom, and that is a choice, by the way.

21:54
Tab Norris
Oh, yeah, 100%. But what I've noticed is, even if people are in a situation where all the problems really are awful and it's awful, they still do as well as anybody, and then they go to something else and they crush. Can't. It never hurts. I mean, you're always going to be successful if you have that mindset. And by the way, everybody wants to hire people with that mindset.

22:21
Tom Stanfill
Oh, yeah. And they'll figure out a way and where everybody else is. Like, when the market crashed and when Covid hit, there's people buying. Like, this is an opportunity. They bought stock and travel companies. They made a lot of money. It's funny, this came up the other day. I have this meeting on Saturday morning I go to, and I am almost always late. And I'm driving to this meeting and I'm almost always late. I don't know why, I just don't want to get up. So I'm driving to the meeting and of course I hit traffic or I hit something. They closed a road and something happened. And I'm like, basically I was thinking about it. This isn't my fault. There's traffic or they closed this road or they did something. I can't remember what happened, but it's like, gosh, I'm always late.

23:10
Tom Stanfill
And so I'm thinking, I have two ways to think about it. Either I'm doing something wrong, like, I get up at, like, eight, at the buzzer, I get up at eight, and for some reason it takes me till 840 to get out the door and it's 30 minutes away and I'm always late. And it's like, no, it's my fault. I don't want to fake. It's not anybody's fault but mine, which means I have to change.

23:33
Tab Norris
That's good. Oh, I love it. Okay, so focus on your health, we had. Know your number. Pick your number. What was it? Know your number. Right.

23:42
Tom Stanfill
Know your numbers. Know your number. Numbers. Big numbers. Not big numbers, small numbers.

23:47
Tab Norris
Okay. Create margin. Fight for margin in our life. And then what did you say? Focus on the solution.

23:56
Tom Stanfill
Focus on the solution, not the problem. There is a solution. Find it.

24:02
Tab Norris
Perfect.

24:03
Tom Stanfill
There's a solution. There's a path to success. There's a path to success. Find it. Focus on the solution, not the problem.

24:11
Tab Norris
All right. Get me inspired, Tom. Love it. Here's mine, my third one. Stretch yourself. Get out of your comfort zone. And I don't just mean if you want to better in sales, you want to better in leadership or whatever your role is, stretch yourself. Not only in those roles, that's fine, but it doesn't have to just be in that world. It can be in any world. A guy just reached out and said, hey, can you come speak at this rotary thing? I'm like, I don't want to do, but I'm like going, but I should. But it'll stretch me. It makes me better. It'll make me a better presenter and it's a pain in the rear. But look for opportunities where you can be stretched. Maybe it's. And you know this about me.

25:02
Tab Norris
I like to stretch myself, too, in even physical things because I think it builds confidence, like my rim to rim or running marathons or anything like that. What it does is it builds confidence that you can do more than you even think you can do. And people that are really successful, they stretch themselves. Just look at them. And everybody has different hobies and they have different ways they do that. But it's the same principle. They are getting out of their comfort zone. People that stay in their comfort zone are very seldom highly successful.

25:39
Tom Stanfill
Well, they're not. I don't think it's possible. And they're also unhappy. Yes, because the reason we don't get out of our comfort zone is because it's painful. It's always painful when we get out of our comfort zone. You want to be good at skiing, you're going to fall. If you want to get better at skiing, you're going to fall. Fall is painful. If you go speak and you say, I'm going to go practice speaking, I'm going to get out of my comfort zone, that's going to be painful. The fear of that, the nervousness, the prepping, there's just pain. But pain is the path to happiness. And it's like we're not going to be fulfilled and feel good about ourselves and reach the goals that we want.

26:15
Tom Stanfill
And it's just part of building our character and becoming the person, because the opposite is I'm the person who doesn't want to do anything.

26:25
Tab Norris
That's right.

26:28
Tom Stanfill
And I'm going to blame, by the way, I'm also going to blame everybody for why I can't do it. Those people are not the people you want to be.

26:34
Tab Norris
Was. I was. I'm. I'm rereading the Bible this year, and I'm in the Old Testament. Yeah, it's a good book. It's a. And I was reading about David and Goliath. I've read that story a gajillion times. Right. But I just started thinking, know, it was the whole idea of reading it with a different perspective. And you just think about David. Little guy comes and kills the giant and that's awesome. Well, I forget he was a shepherd and he was stretching out of his comfort zone in developing. He killed lions and bears and things that built confidence that he could do more than he even thought he could and trusting God to help him do that so that he was prepared for the giant. And see, I think that's a great lesson for us. It's these little victories.

27:25
Tab Norris
When you stretch, even if you fail, it doesn't matter because it makes us stronger, it makes us more confident. It's going to make us be more proactive as we're trying to find new opportunities. So I just encourage whatever it is, find a way to stretch yourself.

27:41
Tom Stanfill
That's so true. Because when we don't try something, we bank it as a failure.

27:48
Tab Norris
Right.

27:49
Tom Stanfill
And it becomes identity. I'm a person who doesn't try something. And although we might have a different narrative around it, but how we deposit that event is I'm a quitter versus the way you say, I know. Yes, it's going to be painful. It's painful for me to step on a stage and not do well.

28:10
Tab Norris
Right.

28:10
Tom Stanfill
It's painful to pursue an opportunity and to lose it, but pursue it with all. It's painful to try something the best that you can, try it and say you're not good enough. That feels like I'm going to potentially look at that as something that says something about who I am and I don't measure up and those are all things I have to navigate. But it's far worse than saying I'm the person who doesn't try anything.

28:34
Tab Norris
Yes, that's it.

28:35
Tom Stanfill
Because that's just how you beautiful. And I think that stretching yourself, we have to do think of it differently to say, no, this is a path to where I want to go. It doesn't define who I am.

28:48
Tab Norris
Right.

28:49
Tom Stanfill
If I do fall, it doesn't define who I am. It's a part of the process of becoming good at whatever it is I do. And so I had to rethink how I thought about failure, which is a challenge for me.

29:01
Tab Norris
Yeah, I'm the same with you.

29:04
Tom Stanfill
Well, my next one is, which is related to a lot of what we talked about, but it's probably my favorite advice, and I repeat this all the time, is seek. Seek feedback. And I think going back to the person who lives life as a victim or a person who has an internal locus of control, a person who says, it's up to me to make it happen, if you want to know the kind of person you are, it really will be determined by your willingness to seek feedback. Right. So people who want to blame the world for where they are, and it's kind know the John Mayer song, waiting for the world to change kind of have that mentality. They're not the kind of people that are going to go get advice.

29:47
Tom Stanfill
But if you really do want to achieve your goals and you want to take control and be responsible, the first thing we should do is get advice. There's something that you want. If you think about, there's something you want. And somebody, I think it was Andy Stanley said this in a talk. He said, there's somebody who knows how to get what you want.

30:09
Tab Norris
Yeah, somebody's done this before.

30:11
Tom Stanfill
Somebody's. And it's already thinking. I think about the things that I want to do and the things I want to figure out. Somebody knows that. Somebody knows how to get what you want. Everybody wants something. We all struggling to get something. Either we want to better parents, we want to be a better spouse, we want to better in our role. We want to better. Somebody knows how to do that. And I think about things that I've accomplished very few things, but I've accomplished some things, and I've become pretty good at certain things. Very few people ask me, how did you do that? You have very few people. I remember being in an airport one time and sitting next to a guy and I said, what do you do? And he goes, I'm an inside sales rep. I just started in sales.

30:58
Tom Stanfill
I'd spent at this point probably 25 years working with INsidE sales organizations and sales organizations to help them better. I've worked with hundreds, some of the best and the biggest in the world. Right? He goes, what do you do? I go, well, I'm a consultant sales training company. I want to run a sales training company. And we work with inside sales organizations, a lot of inside sales organizations. Now, what should he do?

31:20
Tab Norris
Tell you all the things he knows, right?

31:23
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Here's what I'm doing. You're sitting next to a guy who gets paid. All I do is I get paid to help other people become good at their job. Maybe I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I've spent a lot of time with people in his role. I know people where he go. I mean, just think about all the things that I know that this 25 year old person who doesn't know, and he's like, all he has to do is go, hey, this is an opportunity.

31:44
Tab Norris
What have you learned? Give me some advice. I love when people do that.

31:48
Tom Stanfill
It's just so powerful, but it's so rare. So I'd say seek feedback in two areas. One, seek advice about. Find somebody who knows how to get what you want and seek advice. And the other thing is, I would say seek feedback from people who know you and can give you insights on blind spots.

32:09
Tab Norris
Yeah.

32:11
Tom Stanfill
Like, you think about the people we know who talk too much. Who? Me? Monsters. People who are arrogant, people who are condescending, people who you're around them. Everybody knows that this person acts this way, but that person doesn't know. And all they have to do, all I have to do is talk to somebody that I trust and say, I want to ask you some questions about what's it like to be around me. And that's a lot less painful than the consequences of not knowing.

32:45
Tab Norris
Well, it's a perfect transition to my last one, which is community. Have a community, which is really nice.

32:57
Tom Stanfill
Hang out with you.

32:59
Tab Norris
We have our own little community. We do. This is actually, by the way, hey, we're still in driving distance. We cannot get it done alone, whether it's seeking, but it's community and seeking. I think your community helps you do this because your community could be coworkers, somebody that sits next to you or works with you that you can kind of inspire each other and help each other. It can be a mentor. It can be professional groups that you're a part of. It can be, go pay for a personal coach. Get somebody to. I just was with a person that I highly respect, and he got a new job, and part of his deal was, I'll only take this job if you'll pay for an executive coach for me, because I've never done this before, and I want somebody to.

34:03
Tab Norris
And I thought, that's awesome, like, building that into accepting a job. I thought that was really. That's somebody who understands that they need community and they need feedback. Anyway, I just encourage you, find people to help you and to encourage you and to kind of come alongside you as you continue to stretch and do the things you want to do.

34:26
Tom Stanfill
And, like, everything we're talking about is you just have to be intentional about it. We all want that. We all want community. I don't know if this is a male female thing, but it feels like males. And this was part of Arthur Brooks in his book strength to strength, where he talked about the loneliest people on the planet are 60 year old men. I believe that because he just said, I don't remember the specific data. But his point was, they're just bad at building community. They focus on their career, and they're bad at building community. And we have to be intentional, which it feels a little weird to say, all right, who are the people I want to hang out with, and what do I need to do to invite them, and how do I organize?

35:12
Tom Stanfill
And I think it's part of the problem is we're too busy. We don't intersect naturally with people as we get older. Like, if you've got community at work, because although I think this is harder now with people working remotely. Right. You used to have community at work.

35:27
Tab Norris
I totally agree with that.

35:29
Tom Stanfill
I think that's it. I look at our organization. If I go back ten years, we all are in a building. We're all on the same floor. I'd walk down the hall. I'd see people. Community was built in. Now there are zero people in the office. I think it's a bigger challenge. That's a great point, tab. Great point. Would you coach me on that?

35:48
Tab Norris
Yeah, I'm coaching myself. Everything I share is typically, because I'm working on it, that I'm trying to improve upon.

35:57
Tom Stanfill
All right, beautiful. My last one is a real simple one. It's so incredibly rare. It's like to know your numbers. It's like, duh. But it's so rare. My last one is practice. Don't talk.

36:18
Tab Norris
Say that again. That's practice.

36:20
Tom Stanfill
Don't talk. We love in our profession to talk. Here's what you could have done. Here's what you should have done. Here's what I should have done. Here's what I could have done. The reason that happened, and we all talk about everything that happens in our profession. Here's what we need to do. We spend very little time and I would even say maybe zero time actually practicing. So we played golf with John Ferguson, who's one of the ASLAN partners, and love this guy. So we played golf with John Ferguson, who's one of the Aslan's partners, and love this guy. And so he's a great golfer and so were playing golf with him and I always talk about my golf game. Oh, man, I could have done this, I could have done that. I should have done that. I can't believe I did.

37:04
Tom Stanfill
Can't I love to talk about it. Love to talk about it. I go, John, why are you so good at chipping? You're amazing around the greens. You're unbelievable. I mean, he always gets up and always, and so he has a great score, a lot of it, because he could recover. And if you don't know anything about golf, sorry, it's just his ability. If he misses the green, he chips it so close to the hole, he almost always makes par. Booking. I go, tell me, talk. Tell me what your secret is. I want to know what your secret is. I practice an hour every day, pretty much all summer long. He goes to the driving range at the end of the day and he chips balls. He chips balls. He chips balls. He chips balls.

37:46
Tom Stanfill
Okay, well, but no, just talk to me so I can not.

37:49
Tab Norris
How do you have your hands and what do you do? Just go freaking practice.

37:54
Tom Stanfill
I go practice and it's like, oh, I got to go practice. And I thought you think about the most important things we do, like discovering, like the ability to flex and navigate, a discovery meeting. If I'm a leader and how do I naturally know how to coach and follow a process and how do I present and I'm in a most critical presentation and I've got to deliver this. How often do I practice? Developing sales and leadership is all about skills and discipline and habits.

38:26
Tab Norris
Right.

38:26
Tom Stanfill
And there's just no way around it.

38:28
Tab Norris
Yeah, there's no shortcut.

38:30
Tom Stanfill
No, it requires practice. If you look athletes, which I think sales and leadership is very similar to being an athlete, they spend 95% of their time practicing.

38:42
Tab Norris
Yes. So true. Well, man, this is good.

38:46
Tom Stanfill
Those tips, we got them all.

38:50
Tab Norris
We got them all. Two for four.

38:55
Tom Stanfill
Beautiful. Know your numbers. Focus on the solution, not the problem. You are not a victim. You can figure out how to be successful. Figure out a way, what needs to happen for you to hit your number and do that. Build a process to do that, seek feedback, seek advice, practice, don't talk tab. Once you review your last year, four.

39:18
Tab Norris
Focus on your health. Create margin, stretch yourself, get out of that comfort zone and find community.

39:28
Tom Stanfill
Beautiful man. Well, here's to having your best year yet. I hope this advice was helpful. As always, we'd love feedback from you. Love comments so we can get better. And thank you for joining us for another episode of sales with ASLAN. And thank you for joining us for another episode of sales with Aslan.