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. 151 – Sales & Parenting: Learning to Influence
In this episode of SALES with ASLAN, Tom and Tab take on a topic that may hit close to home for many of us out there: the similarities between parenting and sales. Both require the ability to influence (those of us who have raised or are raising teenagers definitely understand this).
In fact, many of the concepts and principles in Tom’s book, UnReceptive, were born in the “lab” of raising four teenagers.
Everything they discuss really applies to any personal relationship we have, not just as a parent. And if you can learn to apply these principles at home, you’ll have no trouble applying them in a professional setting.
Tune in to hear Tom and Tab, both fathers, take on this fun-filled topic.
Listen to the conversation here:
Or check out the full transcript:
00:03
Tom Stanfill
Welcome to another episode of SALES with ASLAN, Tab. Yes, I’m here with Tab Norris. I’m your host, Tom Stanfill. I didn’t say my name, Tab.
00:11
Tab Norris
I was going to fill that in.
00:14
Tom Stanfill
Good. Yeah, it’s Tom Stanfill. It’s in the little description. I’m first because I’m older.
Tab Norris
And taller.
Tom Stanfill
And taller. We’ve always talked about that. Yeah, but I’m glad we got another episode. Do you know that we just surpassed our 150th episode last week?
00:35
Tab Norris
Really? That’s awesome.
00:37
Tab Norris
And we still have all those listeners.
00:39
Tom Stanfill
We’ve got 73 listeners now. I heard it’s up. Hopefully one day we’re going to have as many listeners as we do episodes.
00:47
Tab Norris
I like it.
00:50
Tom Stanfill
Those of you that are sponsoring our podcast because we’ve got all the good ones. Apple. All the sponsors. We never mentioned our sponsors, Tab, because we don’t believe in that. We just kind of every once in a while say something about it. We hold up products. It’s just product placement.
01:07
Tab Norris
Exactly.
01:09
Tom Stanfill
Now we have more listeners than that, Tab, a lot more. Anyway, big topic today, I know we got a pretty interesting… we’ve got a disruptive topic of something that’s kind of probably not anticipated..
01:27
Tab Norris
Where did that come from?
01:29
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, right field like that.
01:31
Tab Norris
What is our topic today, Tom Stanfill?
01:33
Tom Stanfill
Well, I’ve had some requests over the years through dinners that I’ve had with clients, partners, conversations I’ve had with all kinds of different people about parenting. Right. Well, in the book, UnReceptive, and I use a lot of examples that I kind of brought up – the best lab for developing some of the principles and concepts that I wrote about the book and about influence really comes from raising teenagers.
02:02
Tab Norris
Yeah.
02:03
Tom Stanfill
I mean, if you can influence teenagers, you can influence anybody. How do these questions… like how does selling or how can I leverage what you’re teaching us about selling to be a better parent?
02:18
Tab Norris
Well, see, yesterday I was teaching a class yesterday’s workshop, and it’s funny you say this. Everybody was lighting up around the parenting application all day long. All day long, because I kind of opened the gates . I threw out a story and you’re exactly right. They were just like raising their hand. Golly, this really would work with my son, who I have some challenges with. I think it’s a very relevant topic that I’m excited to hear what you have to say.
02:49
Tom Stanfill
If you’re thinking right now, well, I’m not a parent of teens. Right. Or preteens, everything we’re going to talk about applies to all of our relationships. I think and if we can apply to our relationships outside of work, it also really applies to selling. Right. So it all connects. But I think about it. If I can successfully apply some of the principles we’re going to talk about today with my spouse and my children, then customers are easy and one of.
03:26
Tab Norris
The guys on the call yesterday said, tab, I don’t know about you, but I find that my application of some of this truth at home is a.
03:33
Tom Stanfill
Whole lot of harder if you can do it. Yeah, I’m constantly told I think you teach this stuff, but you’re not doing what’s me?
03:41
Tab Norris
I just added that yesterday too.
03:43
Tom Stanfill
Remember what you talking about?
03:44
Tab Norris
Like to take the trip?
03:48
Tom Stanfill
I’m not taking the trip. The good news is I do see it. I’m like, you’re right. I’ll do it with employees. It would have really been helpful if you would have asked me what I thought. I’m like, you know, isn’t that hard? That’s really a good point.
04:06
Tab Norris
Yeah, well, I was working with one of our people and he called me out on my trainer huddle to do what I actually teach. I’m like, oh, yeah, that’s pretty bad.
04:17
Tom Stanfill
Listen, we just sell this stuff. We’re not really no, but it works. It’s just so counterintuitive that you have to constantly remind you that going with the stream, with the current is going to lead you in a bad place, which is kind of crazy. That’s true about life, I think about that life. It’s like if you go downhill, if you coach, you go downhill. If you go downstream, if you do what’s natural, everything’s in a state of erosion. It’s like it doesn’t work. We’re going to talk about some counterintuitive stuff related specifically. We’re going to apply it specifically to parenting. We want to focus on when you’re moving and you think about the stages of parenting. A lot of people struggle from moving from this kind of role of conform. We go from care to conform. Like we’re caring for you. If I don’t take care of you will die.
05:09
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, right. You kind of move into this conformed stage. Like don’t buckle your seatbelt. Right? You need to do your homework. You got to eat food. You got it. Don’t cross the street. You got it. All the things it’s like, again, if I don’t get you to do this protection, there’s a reason why. You don’t need to explain to them why. They move into this next stage. This is where a lot of parents struggle to adjust. This is where we start to apply kind of the same influence, skills and approach that we talk about at Aslan. As when you move into this, what I call council stage. This is when you’re more of a coach because you can’t control them. This is when this big shift happens. Where a lot of people struggle is when they kind of move into that stage. And that’s what we talked about today.
06:00
Tab Norris
Well, that’s good. Yeah, because I have obviously two kids that are grown and out of the house, but I have one that’s still left senior in high school. We talk about that all the time. We’re in this launch phase. I call it the launch phase. We’re letting go. She’s about a year, she’s going to be off on her own. I love that my influence falls apart, falls away. Yeah, but it’s a balance, isn’t it? We still want to be in control, but we need to let go. How much and you’ve always been my superhero role model for anything around parenting.
06:33
Tom Stanfill
Well, I was first, so I made all the mistakes, and I think it’s helpful to know that I raised four children, and so my kids are all now married, and so I’m now watching them raise their children. I have 14 grandchildren, so I’ve seen this whole evolution, and so a lot of what I share is from my mistakes, but there were some things that I did well as well, and that was really because it was role model for me, so I can’t really take credit for it. The first thing I would say is I think really critical is kind of what you’re saying in the launch phase, is that we got to change our role and our objective. So, like, when I’m talking to my kids, when they’re signing at the teen years, I’m starting to change my objective from getting them to do what I tell them to do your homework, all the things to actually, how do I lead them to the truth, how do I influence them?
07:24
Tom Stanfill
It’s not about do I get them to do what I want them to do? Other words, I think of it as if I can put the truth on the table, and I can get them to look at it. I can’t force them to take it. It’s like food. I can’t force them to eat it, but I want them to look at it and see it and go, okay. They can choose to take it and receive it. I want to have the relationship where they want to be with me, they want to spend time with me, and ultimately, they’re willing to go, okay, dad, I will consider that. I will listen to you, and so that I can walk with them through this path so that when they leave and they go to college or wherever they go, I’m still with them. Right. They’ve embraced the truth.
08:02
Tom Stanfill
I can’t control, because control is just an illusion. So how do I get them? How do I get them to go, okay, I’m going to listen to you, and that’s a different objective than I’m going to control and get you to do something. Because there’s a lot at stakes. Our instincts are to control because we’re afraid they’re going to drink and drive, or we’re afraid they’re going to not go to school, and then they’re going to make really bad decisions, and they’re going to have a miserable life, or they’re going to marry the wrong people. All those things we worry about is big, but control is just an illusion. We have no control. We can’t control what they do when they go to school. We can’t control what they do. We don’t have control. So we want influence. We want to trade illusion of control for influence.
08:41
Tom Stanfill
Love it.
08:42
Tab Norris
And it’s a fight. That’s our daily conversation around here right now.
08:49
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
08:51
Tab Norris
Remember, we can do nothing in ten months.
08:55
Tom Stanfill
Yes.
08:56
Tab Norris
We’re living in illusion, so we’re better off coaching right now.
09:00
Tom Stanfill
You want receptivity. You want them to say and that’s what I would I think that’s the first thing to focus on is when there’s an opportunity to influence. You’re seeing something and you want to influence, the first thing you want, and this is super critical, is you want them to extend an invitation. Right. My daughter, when she was about 16, she started dating this guy, and I’m going to change his name to Roger.
09:33
Tab Norris
Roger.
09:35
Tom Stanfill
I don’t know where he was. Roger. She started as a first, really love. Her older brother was playing football with Roger.
09:46
Tab Norris
You probably knew about that.
09:48
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, the FBI was the Family Bureau of Investigation was telling, and Taylor really loved Kendall and cared about her, and he was a little concerned, so he’s telling me about Roger. I want to talk to Kendall because I can tell they’re getting serious. There’s a lot of things you worry about when 16 year olds get scared.
10:11
Tab Norris
Yeah, that sounds like the deal.
10:13
Tom Stanfill
She already was starting to drink, and there were some things she was doing that was making bad decisions, and so were starting to worry. She was starting to rebel. She moved from that she moved to the blue eyeshadow phase. Oh, God, she’s wearing that really dark eyeshadowed. She had that face. I heard somebody say RFB.
10:35
Tab Norris
Oh, yeah.
10:37
Tom Stanfill
RBF. Yeah. You can look that up. You can look that up. I did not have influence for them, so I wanted to go talk to her, and I knew the first thing I’ve got to get her to say, dad, what do you think I should do about my relationship with Philip? I’m sorry. Roger. Roger, Roger. Roger Phillips. Was his last name.
11:06
Tab Norris
Roger Phillips? It was mr. Phillips is what you meant to say.
11:11
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, Mr. Phillips. Roger Phillips was his name. That’s so funny. I’m sure he’s listening to this podcast. I knock on our door because I want the invitation until Tindall says to me, what do you think? Whether she audibly says that or she believes that. Until your daughter says, what do you think about her new boyfriend? What do you think about this? What do you think about that? Until they say that they are just when you talk, they’re thinking about something else. Yeah. You’ve talking might feel good, but nothing happens. I knock on the door and this is my first conversation. I said, hey, I heard you’re dating Roger Phillips. I said, hey, can we talk about that? And she says, what? Yeah.
12:02
Tab Norris
Not receptive.
12:03
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, she’s in the closed zone. I said, what? I can tell she’s closed. She doesn’t want to talk to me. There’s no invitation, so I’m not going to come in and give her a speech. She’s got to say she’s going to invite me to sit on the end of the bed and start having a conversation about this. I said, hey, listen, I want you to know you can date whoever you want to date. You could see that she was kind of what? I said, I can’t control you. I said, you can date whoever you want to date as long as you abide by the rules of the household, and it’s within reason. You’re not in trouble. You’re not in danger. I should say trouble, danger. I said, you can date whoever you want. I can’t control it. You marry whoever you want. You can do ultimately whatever you want.
12:46
Tom Stanfill
I cannot control you. I said, here’s my reason. I want to talk to you. I don’t want you to get hurt, and I want you to be happy. She’s like, okay, what do you say to that? If you want to dance? She’s like, well, okay. I said, so tell me about Roger. Yeah, and so we started quickly.
13:10
Tab Norris
Almost immediately.
13:11
Tom Stanfill
You saw almost immediately, she started having conversations. She let me in so we would go to lunch, and we would talk about she invited me in to allow me to enter into her world. The first thing because here’s what we want to do. We’re like, let me tell you why you’re not going to let me tell you what’s going to happen. Let me tell you why this guy’s wrong for you. Let me tell you what you’re not going to do. Let me tell you what I did. And we just start talking. While they’re doing that, they’re checking their phone in their head or whatever. So that’s the first step. Got to get an invitation. Have you done that with have you got any examples?
13:50
Tab Norris
Yeah, I’ve done that with my daughter as well, and we have this conversation all the time. I’m like, I remember telling her that when she turned 16 because she was going out with a boy at that point in time.
14:10
Tom Stanfill
Really?
14:10
Tab Norris
I said almost the exact same thing. I just said, it scares me to death. Now that you’re driving, you can do anything you want to do. And I hate that. It makes me feel really out of control. I said the most important thing for us, there wasn’t on a traumatic experience. I kind of was doing it in a preemptive way, what I mean? I just said, I really just want to talk. I want you to feel comfortable because I can’t control you. I want to be somebody you can always talk to, good, bad, or indifferent. I want to walk through this with you, but I know you can do whatever you want to do.
14:48
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Let’s change this to be about you and the fact that I’m communicating that I don’t have control. So there’s nothing to resist. There’s obviously two things. We need to communicate another centered objective to get an invitation. We need to communicate another centered objective, and we need to drop the road. Right. We need to not pull them, which is really scary with your children. But remember, control is just an illusion. What you’re doing is you’re creating the illusion of control for the opportunity to walk with them, for the opportunity to be part of that discussion, which scares us. I think if we stop and say anything else I do won’t work. Yeah. Now, again, if they’re open, you already have the invitation. They’re like, yeah, what do you think? This doesn’t apply. They’re like asking, you can go to that. The next step is once we get an invitation and this is where it’s really hard, I think this is when they start talking.
15:46
Tom Stanfill
Yes.
15:46
Tab Norris
Now you want to fix everything. See, that’s what my problem is.
15:51
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Like, they start talking. Okay, so this is what we’re doing, and we’re going to the parking. Takes me to Spark.
15:55
Tab Norris
Like whoa, wait a minute.
16:00
Tom Stanfill
The next thing we want to do is we want to validate whatever they tell us, because, remember, our greatest need is love, acceptance, and worth. This is an opportunity where I can communicate that I accept her regardless of what she says. Yes. That whatever she tells me, I’m going to accept her. That doesn’t mean I accept what she wants to do or her opinion, but her, because whatever’s important to her needs to be important to me. We started talking about why she’s excited about this and how she feels inferior to her brothers. This is the first person that’s ever really blah, blah. She starts communicating to me how she sees the world, and she needs to know that I get it. I felt the same way, and she feels heard, and I’m not trying to fix her. Yeah. Because here’s what we do. Okay, great.
16:54
Tom Stanfill
Here’s what’s going to happen when you do that. All right? Does he drink? Are you going to do this? Really, it comes from love, we’re afraid.
17:08
Tab Norris
The thing I will say, my wife do this with my daughter in a tough situation and a lot of prayer, obviously. It was really brilliant how she did it, because she waited till there was a time of receptivity. You know what I meant. Timing was important. What she did is she started just asking. I mean, she literally set it up and just asked questions yeah, that’s what she said. She just said, I know you may forgot we talked about remember we talked a long time ago about this and kind of things you’re looking for in a boyfriend. It’s like, have you ever gone back and gone through that list? She’s like, I really hadn’t looked at it in a while. She goes, Wouldn’t it be kind of cool just to kind of run through that grid and see how it works? It was so funny and didn’t do it.
18:15
Tab Norris
On her own and I think that’s what you’re saying. You’re kind of releasing control.
18:20
Tom Stanfill
It was just exposing it’s her life.
18:23
Tab Norris
It’s her life and it’s her thing and it’s her deal. You’re just kind of reminding her of something that she already talked about.
18:31
Tom Stanfill
That’s really a good point. And that’s what’s hard about changing roles. Now, this is your life, right? And as a coach, right? As a salesperson, we’re talking to customers. It’s their world. We got to say. We got to help guide them. We’re asking questions, we’re like, is this what you want? You can ask those questions in a way where they can tell you’re manipulating, and you can ask those questions in a way where they can tell you’re curious. You’re pulling the rope. Here’s the way that I try to coach myself. What am I going to do when they get the wrong answer? Yeah, and if they get the wrong answer, then like, okay, now you kick into and it’s hard and I think part of it is, go ahead, what are you going to say?
19:21
Tab Norris
No, I was going to say they gave the wrong answer and you’re triggering this. I gave the wrong answer and I didn’t want to shut down the communication, so I wanted to go fix it. I wanted to say, well, you’re being an idiot and I just wanted to launch. If I did that, I was afraid it was going to shut down the communication and I didn’t want to do that. Tell me, how do you do that? What’s the best way to handle that?
19:52
Tom Stanfill
Well, I think I want to finish kind of the discovery with a customer. Finished discovery. I feel like I got everything. Your time will come and your time will come. It might be like in Tindall’s case, I walk down the road with her and we had multiple conversations and I will never forget. I had taken her to lunch and she was starting to ask me questions about what I think. She goes, what do you think about this? I said, well, she started by drinking and she saw my other thing. I said, if you do that, this is going to happen. I don’t think that’s what you want, but this is the way the world works. If you do that, this will happen. She goes, I don’t think that’s going to happen.
20:41
Tab Norris
My daughter said that to me.
20:43
Tom Stanfill
Yes.
20:44
Tab Norris
You don’t get it.
20:45
Tom Stanfill
You don’t get it. And here’s what I said to her. I said, look, I’ve been down this river already. I’m way down the river from you, and I know where all the rapids are. I said, it doesn’t mean I’m any better than you. I said, I’ve been in some of those rapids. I’m just telling you where the rapids are because you’re just starting down the river. You listen to me. Not listening to me. I’m just telling you where the rapids are. She’s like, well, I’m not going to listen to you. And I said, cool. It’s your life. I’m having lunch with her, and what I said was going to happened. She gets a call from her boyfriend. He breaks up with her. Some things happen. I don’t need to get into the detail. She is devastated, but I’m there with her sometimes. That all ended as I predicted that it would or helped her.
21:33
Tom Stanfill
The pain that I was trying to help her avoid was not avoided. Our relationship was never contingent upon her following my advice, because the advice wasn’t about me. It was about her. Yeah. All this thing hit the fan and her life was wrecked, literally, by her 17 year old perspective, I mean, literally, were worried she was even suicidal because of some things that happened. We sent her flowers. We didn’t say, I told you so. We didn’t say, you should have listened to me because I’m smarter. It was like, hey, I’m sorry. It’s not about you following my advice. I just didn’t want this to happen. That’s ultimately the goal, is to get them to tell you what’s going on, and that will give you an opportunity at some point to share your perspective. Until they want and I always ask, do you want to know what I think about this?
22:34
Tab Norris
Yeah, I love it.
22:37
Tom Stanfill
She says, no.
22:39
Tab Norris
Yeah, that’s okay.
22:40
Tom Stanfill
You need to own that now. You need to own it. There’s somebody that’s been down the river, wants to love you, wants to share. She said, I don’t want to hear what I want them to say. I don’t want to hear what you have to say. And I say, okay, sweetie. If there’s no baggage from that, okay. You want to go shopping? Yes. Because our relationship is not contingent upon you following me. Our relationship is not contingent upon anything. My love for you is unconditional. So I’m here to offer truth. You take it, leave it. You and I are fine regardless of what you do. There’s nothing you can do. There’s no behavior. There’s nothing that one thing you can do that’s going to separate you from me.
23:17
Tab Norris
I think people talk about that, but it has to be real. Give that lip service and they go, do you know that I love you no matter what. It’s just like the kids are going, well, whatever. I don’t really think that’s true. It’s conditional.
23:32
Tom Stanfill
That’s a really good point. I think that’s one of the things that motivated me to do it is it was always a test to me, like when she did something that should end in a damaged relationship. In other words, I kind of talk about taking the punch. She punched me and I didn’t punch back. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t consequences. That wasn’t mean that I was soft, but it never damaged the relationship. It was an opportunity for me to demonstrate that my love was unconditional.
24:05
Tab Norris
Yeah, well, that’s the best thing that happened for us with our kids is we’re on the other side of it.
24:11
Tom Stanfill
And.
24:14
Tab Norris
Think that they know. They start realizing that we just love them unconditionally because we just went through a really bad thing and we did exactly what we told you not to do, and you clearly knew what was going to happen and you did it anyway. We love you, and we love you and we supported you. We didn’t throw you on the curb, and we didn’t do anything else. And now it’s just easier. I won’t name I have three kids, but I have one.
24:42
Tom Stanfill
One of them named Roger.
24:44
Tab Norris
No Roger, but one of them, and I tell them all the time. You just seem to like to learn through pain.
24:54
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. And they laugh.
24:57
Tab Norris
They go, I guess you’re kind of right. I go, you don’t have to do that, but it’s okay.
25:05
Tom Stanfill
To your point, it’s their life if you’re like walking with them and you love them regardless. This is tries to our customers like anybody in our life. Hey, listen, it’s unconditional acceptance. As long as we’re in a relationship, you can do whatever and it’s non negotiable. I’m in. Yeah, but I’ll tell you what, I think Tindall would do stuff and then I would be like, why are you taking her shopping? She lost her car because she drank and drive. Why? Doesn’t mean I’m not going to punish her with that. I think this is what people believe. They believe, I’m going to punish you with the lack of relationship and therefore that will be effective consequence. That’s not good consequence. Let the actions that they take be the consequence. I’m not going to punish you by the way I treat you. Right. You just lost your car.
26:04
Tab Norris
Yeah, right.
26:05
Tom Stanfill
It sucks that you can’t drive.
26:07
Tab Norris
Yeah. I’m a big fan of the consequences thing. I mean, freedom to choose, baby. But, like telling the kid, you can do whatever you want if you do this is the consequence.
26:17
Tom Stanfill
I still love you.
26:18
Tab Norris
Some of my kids chose to sleep in the hallway. That’s fine. It’s their choice. Whatever they want to do.
26:24
Tom Stanfill
Exactly.
26:25
Tab Norris
That’s good.
26:26
Tom Stanfill
My anger is never the consequence, but I think going back to kind of where we are leading with this, though, is when we get the opportunity. We got to let them share everything they want to share without you. Get the invitation, get the invitation and we got to go. What is all the things you feel about? What do you think? What do you want now?
26:49
Tab Norris
You’re taking the trip, right?
26:50
Tom Stanfill
You’re taking the trip. You’re seeing their perspective. You bite your tongue. Especially when they say stuff that’s just ridiculous. Because again, what you’re doing is you’re building your foundation to be hurt. You’re building your platform. More sales, same as sales, the longer I can get you if I want to be able to feed it back to her. Like one time, my daughter part of her consequence, she lost her car, and so she wouldn’t drive her brother’s car, and so it was ridiculous. I’m starting to think, okay, you’re doing this because you’re spoiled or what? I don’t know. It just really grated me because she’d want to drive a lesser car. In her mind, I’m not going to be seen in that car. It had that whole rich person materialistic, and I just really rubbed me the wrong way. Instead of attacking her and telling her she was wrong, I said, so what’s going on with this?
27:46
Tom Stanfill
Why don’t you want to drive the car? Because you don’t understand. I said. Well, try me. What don’t I understand? She said, I don’t have the confidence that Taylor and Christian have. I’m nobody. They said they don’t care what car they drive. I don’t know who I am. Instead of when I drive in a car like that, I’m very insecure and I’m like, okay, that makes a lot of sense. You don’t feel like you’re going to be judged and people are going to reject you because you don’t have a nice car. And she said, exactly. So you’re learning. Like, instead of, hey, with my finger wagging and telling her you need to drive that car and quit being now, that doesn’t mean I say, okay, well, you have to drive a car.
28:32
Tab Norris
Well, then let’s get you a car that’s really makes you feel good about change all that. Well, dad, what would that be? A brand new Porsche? That would be awesome.
28:39
Tom Stanfill
I’m going to do whatever you want. No. She still had to drive the car. Her options were to drive that car, which was I don’t know what it was. I couldn’t even remember. It was just an old junk. Somebody had given it to Christian or take the bus. She wouldn’t do either one. I’m like, well, you got a problem.
28:56
Tab Norris
Yeah, take a bike to school.
28:58
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. So I’m like, it’s her problem. You and I are fine. Did she get mad at me? Yeah. Well, I hate you. I’m saying, well, I love you, but you’re still taking the bus and driving that. Car. That was letting her talk about that. Here’s the thing I think we struggle also with and the next thing is when we do have the opportunity to talk to her about that situation or dating or sex or whatever it is we want to talk about that we need to talk about with our children. I think this is the thing that most parents really miss and also most salespeople miss and most leaders miss. They can’t start the sentence with because you they start the sentence with they say things like you shouldn’t do that. They can’t build a case why it’s in the child’s best interest, the teenager’s best interest not to do something.
29:51
Tom Stanfill
They just say don’t do that. They don’t know why they have a do not versus a because you yeah. And I think that takes preparation. Just like in a sales call. I remember having to talk to one of my kids and I was traveling with my youngest and I was preparing to meet with one of my older ones about something really important, maybe going to college, maybe something. I got up really early because I was in California. It was early and I spent like four or 5 hours thinking through how I could make this point, which had to do with a movie clip. It was a lot of things I was working on. And Brett goes, what are you doing? I’m like, Well, I’m preparing to talk to so and so. He goes, well, tell me what you’re doing. We started talking about, were sitting there saying, Why are you doing this?
30:42
Tom Stanfill
I said, well, because my meeting with Taylor is far more important than any meeting I ever have with a customer. If I’m going to prepare for a customer meeting for 2 hours, I should prepare 3 hours for a meeting with my son. I think that’s like we have call conversations about really important things rather than saying how much time are we going to spend thinking about how to position this and how do we validate our recommendation and how do we get them to see it, what word pictures are we going to use and all of that. I think that’s really if we get the invitation, don’t blow it. That’s another way to say that.
31:16
Tab Norris
Yeah, get all the information you need. Make sure you can say because you I guess that’s a litmus test, right? If you can’t say because you don’t have enough information.
31:26
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. If you can’t position it in a way like what I would tell Tyndall or any of my kids, I said, what you want is lust. What you want is love. Not lust. Lust kills love. I said, and so if you start doing certain things in relationships, it kills what you want. You want intimacy and all of that other stuff kills intimacy. So you don’t know you want that. But that’s what you want. You do this other stuff over here, it actually destroys the very relationship that you want. Well, what do you mean by that? Debt? I could explain it to them versus just don’t do that. A lot of the answers like, why shouldn’t I drink? Well, because the law says you can’t. Oh, that’s very motivating.
32:09
Tab Norris
Right.
32:10
Tom Stanfill
I was able to tell our kids, if you want this, you won’t get that if you drink. And so it was an easy way. Now, some kids didn’t care. I mean, some of my kids were like, I’m not drinking. Okay, cool. I had one that was like, I’m drinking. Yeah. It was like, what am I going to say about that? Especially if it’s very obvious to us. I think part of that is prep, part of its thinking through it. You may have to talk to other people, but don’t blow the meeting or the opportunity because you’re not ready. If you can’t fill in the because you yeah, then you’re not ready. Delay it. That’s good.
32:58
Tab Norris
So is that it? Am I done?
33:03
Tom Stanfill
I got one other thing. I would say that’s on my website, and I think this is something that hit me a couple of years ago that I think really captures kind of what we do with customers and what we should do with customers and we should do with our children. I said this earlier, but take a punch. Yeah, right. If you get punched because they say something negative about you. My dad was great about this. It was my mom, I think, to feel like I punched my dad more than my mom. When I mean that, I’m obviously speaking metaphorically, but like, they say something, they attack you, verbally attack you. They put you down. They say? I hate you. As soon as you metaphorically punch back, you lose all opportunity and influence. Now everything is going to be focused on your punch. Well, yeah, but you’re a little spoiled brat or whatever you say.
34:01
Tab Norris
Right.
34:02
Tom Stanfill
If you can take the punch and love through that and let them sit with that. I just told my father I hated him, and he still loved me. He still wants to be with me. He still didn’t respond. That has such weight. And then same with our customers. I’ve been punched by customers, too. I’ve been punched really hard by customers. I put all this effort and they said things to me that I could really hurt my feelings. I’m not saying they were wrong. Maybe part of it was wrong, but it felt like a punch to me. To be able to say, okay, tell me what you’re thinking. Why did you say that? Help me understand. I’m not going to punch back. I mean, I’ve had people want to punch the customer for me, right? I’m not going to take that. I’m like, okay, yeah, I remember one time flying to California to meet with a senior vice president.
34:57
Tom Stanfill
I think I mentioned this on a podcast earlier. We did all this work and all this prep and all these people. We walked in and we made this presentation. We were told to be making the first, and the guy just basically punched me. Right. I have no idea what anything you just said relates to me whatsoever. Right. I heard a little bit.
35:15
Tab Norris
I spent a lot of time in it.
35:16
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. I did everything everybody told me to do. It felt like a punch. The guy that was traveling with me started punching back. Yeah. I’m like, you got any experience with that? Do you know what I’m talking about?
35:34
Tab Norris
Totally. I mean, I just had this the other day. We got some feedback, and it was somebody on our team was basically kind of punched, and I wanted to punch them back. They basically said well, they said they didn’t do exactly what they did. You know what I mean? Like, we need this. This is how we need to set up prior to and we need these things done. Clearly communicated, said they would said it would be done, and then as soon as it’s post, it’s like, yeah, what? Moving forward, your team should do a better job of really setting that up to where we do that before any launch. What do you want to say? You want to punch back? We did that, and you’re an idiot, and you did exactly opposite of but that’s not going to help anybody. I was proud of my coworker that they took the punch, and I took the punch, and we just said, great advice.
36:42
Tom Stanfill
There’s a way that you can respond. It doesn’t mean you don’t defend what you did or doesn’t mean you don’t. But here’s the thing. If they punch, then you punch, then they punch, then you punched. By the time you’re done, nobody knows what happened.
36:58
Tab Norris
Well, that was a perfect example. There’s no reason, because that person knows that they did not know. I think it’s more powerful when you don’t punch back, because they’re just like.
37:11
Tom Stanfill
Wow, that’s exactly right. I remember my daughter one time said to me, she said, well, you’re supposed to pay for college. You’re my father, or you’re supposed to pay for my car. I was like, I wanted to go. You selfish. I wanted to say something. As soon as I said something, all she would go is, he called me that, or he said that she remembered, and then she wouldn’t even know what she said. If you do that like you said, the weight of what they’re doing and saying rests on them. The end of the story is, I remember my daughter came back from college after her first year. It was Christmas. I’ll never forget where were sitting there, and I guess I kind of can close with this. We went around and talked about what were grateful for the year. She said she went last, I was not ready for this.
38:06
Tom Stanfill
She said, I am grateful for unconditional love. It was a moment because we all kind of had that philosophy with her. Again, this was all taught to us by other people, mostly our parents. The power of loving somebody unconditionally… do not underestimate the moment. Maybe they want to do something scary. The big picture is if you love them unconditionally and when I mean conditionally, I mean there is no condition and where your relationship would be damaged by what they no matter, think of the worst thing they do in the acceptance doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, but that acceptance. Like when they walk in the room, you have a response. It’s always been a delight when my daughter walks in the room, or my son walks in the room. My response, regardless of what the punch they threw, regardless of what behavior, my response should always be delight.
39:06
Tom Stanfill
The consequences to what they are doing should be connected to what they’re doing. It has nothing to do with me. My relationship is never going to be leveraged. I think if we can do that over time I can tell this from experience over time they will do what you want them to do and they will listen to your advice. If it’s the truth and the focus is you want to deliver the truth. Yeah.
39:32
Tab Norris
Great stuff, Tom.
39:33
Tom Stanfill
All right. Beautiful.
39:35
Tab Norris
I love it, man.
39:36
Tom Stanfill
Well, great. Love the topic. Hope that helps some of our listeners and give us some feedback. Tell us what you want us to talk about. If you liked the podcast, let us know. It helps other people find us and also it motivates us to continue to do this. So thanks, Tab. Good to see you, my friend.
39:55
Tab Norris
You too. Enjoyed it.
