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Glenn Mattson
Welcome back, Building Blocks of Success. This installment we're gonna be talking about is the Success Triangle. And as you know, we've talked about the Success Triangle, it's obviously a triangle in the middle is the word success. Success is not something that you are hoping for, it's something that you're going to go get that you're going to do whatever is necessary to get it. And that's goals and objectives. So we've talked about what the attitudinal pieces are. And we talked about the behavioral pieces. And obviously, what we're talking about is congruency. So your attitude is going to drive your behavior. Your behavior allows you to use your strategies and tactics. So this conversation is about your technique. It's about what you're doing when you're in front of people. So when we look at technique, there's a couple of things you got to remember about tactics and strategies.
Glenn Mattson
The first thing I want you to make sure that you have down in your notes is the importance of having a system. Now, when I talk about a system, I'm talking about your sales process. I'm talking about prospecting. I'm talking about new business development, talking about new business underwriting or processing of new business. What about your system for follow up? What about your system for enablement? What about your system to hold your people and your team accountable? So when I look at technique I want first thing you all to realize is process runs the business. So process is really important. Process is about having systems; systems will help you figure out if you're on track or if you're off track. If not, you're winging it. And I'm telling you right now, winging is not a good recipe for success in anything that you do. So we look at the importance of having a system.
Glenn Mattson
First is you've got to have a system to maintain control, to make sure that you're doing the right behaviors with the right mindset, the right time. A system, you'll make sure that you're saving time, you're going to save time because it helps you qualify or disqualify people sooner in the process. Very important for a sales system. I have it's shocking to me that I'll go into a company in the C suites, or the manager will say, yes, we have a sales process it's fantastic. How many people know it? Everyone owns it. Did you got it? In the first 15 minutes, I'll hand out a piece of paper my first day being training there, I'll hand out that piece of paper typically has eight or nine columns on it. The top of each column says stages inside the first column bucket area is the must have below that is the should have and below that is next steps. And you'd be shocked. Well, maybe you wouldn't. It's disappointing. How many individuals inside of companies, when I asked them to write down their sales process, stare at the piece of paper, or what they write down isn't even close to what the person next to them wrote down. So if I have two salespeople, one salesperson, 35 salespeople, 5,000 salespeople, and they're all doing it differently, not a good recipe for success. Then what you have is a culture saying what we want is results. Yet, if you have the ability to drive process, you're gonna get there a lot quicker, a lot faster, and not using a people mover to get to success but an elevator. So why have a systems insane? Why people will not have consistencies beyond me? Right? Consistency creates predictability, which creates scalability; can't forget the fundamentals.
Glenn Mattson
So the systems will help reduce what I call leakage. Leakage is, look if you have a conversion ratio where you do you know, 10 proposals, and you close three people, right? Some of you may think that's fantastic. Some of you may say, hey, I would love to have a statue made out of me. If I can get those ratios in my role. That's insanely bad. So what I mean by that is this, you do 10 proposals, you close three. And we'll get into this more later. To me that seven leakage. Now if those sevens Yeah, I'm gonna have a debate with you all later about thinking overs, longer sales cycles, and all that fun stuff. And we can debate that later. But for right now, if you propose to 10, three of them bite it seven, say no.
Glenn Mattson
The end of the day, we have seven leakage. So that means you have seven situations where you're doing case design work seven situations where you're pulling people off to do proposals, follow ups, creat it all, go through the actual proposal meeting and do your presentation. All that time and energy to my mind is leakage. Leakage is the time that we spent on things that we should not have been pursuing. My gosh, you'd have no idea how many practices that we go through and look at the amount of leakage happening. And the funny thing is, they always say the same thing. We don't have enough time in the day, we're stressed out on time, everyone's stressed in. No, we're all over the place doing this and this yet, when you look at what they're doing, from a sales standpoint, they have leakage coming out of their ears. So system gives you the ability to say, to save time.
Glenn Mattson
The other thing about a system is it helps you allows you to stay on track. It helps you understand where you are, and more importantly is where are you supposed to be going? Not because the prospect wants you there. Remember, there's always a plan in play. So having a process allows you to run your plan. Because I'm hoping your process obviously is the best for both parties, right? It's good for them, it's good for you. Having a process that's just good for you is not good at all. It's unethical. So we have to have the ability, we're staying on track.
Glenn Mattson
The other thing about having a system, which is just awesome, is it recognizes problems way before most people see them. What I mean by that is, is that we got to have the capacity to see major roadblocks. So if we're just looking at results and not having a system, we don't know where the breakdown is, you realize how many times I have to sit down with individuals either privately held businesses, entrepreneurs or large corporations and they have no idea where their roadblocks are. They have no idea within the sales process, why people are not getting to the pipelines, right, why they're not getting qualified while they're doing this, why they're not doing that. At the end of the day they don't have a process. There's no way to figure out what's working and what's not working.
Glenn Mattson
The other reason we want to have an ability to have a system is for the ability to repeat it. We have to have best practices, we want to recognize and duplicate successful behavior and reduce or eliminate unsuccessful behavior. So having the system allows us to figure that out. The other great reason about having a system that allows you to understand honestly, where you are within the process. If you do this, I mean, listen, I get it. I don't understand it, but I hear it. An awful lot of pipeline meetings I'm in is why think we're here, or I hope this and what's really happening is, is that the salesperson selling everybody else in the room where are they are within that sales process with that certain type of client.
Glenn Mattson
It's not a pipeline report. A pipeline report, we have a good process will tell you everything on the page, not necessarily an individual telling us what happened or didn't happen, or why it didn't happen, or what they think is going to happen in the next meeting. But speculation. So we have to take a look at having a system and the systems are things like, do you have a system for prospecting? Do you have a system for prospecting that is broken down, where you understand the results that you want? To get the results, you understand how many sales you need to make to make those sales, you understand how many first appointments you need to have, and to have those number of first appointments or conversations, what's the behavior that you have to do by source to generate those number of discussions you need to have? It's reverse engineering. So having a system for prospecting is critical. Having a system to gather names is critical. Having a system to make sure you can process business is critical. Having a process to make sure that you understand your P&L is critical.
Glenn Mattson
For us, we're gonna be talking about sales and prospecting. Having a system insane, the important we got to make sure it's transferable. See, a lot of rainmakers will turn around and say well just do what I do. Or just come with me on 10 sales calls and go do what I do. Well, part of the issue is a system has to be transferable. And what many of you do off the cuff is kind of riding the bike your own way. The question is, is it transferable? Is what you're doing transferable? Has to be transferable. So having a system, having a system to understand what qualification means, having a system to understand how to prospect, how to present, how to follow up after the presentation. What is your systems?
Glenn Mattson
Now when you have a system, especially in sales, you have to take a look at within a system. What our stages within there? Now Sandler, right we have three stages, it's finding reports, qualifying, and then it's closing. We have seven steps in our system strictly from a sales standpoint, the seven steps. To system in our world we know that people buy emotionally and they justify intellectually. We know in our world that if we can't uncover or discover or have a conversation about emotional pain or pleasure, there's no reason to continue the conversation. We know in our world that we want to have that conversation about problems to the emotional drivers to do they have a commitment to fix those before we talk about our solutions before we talk about budget before we talk about decision making. Let's figure out what the problems are in the problems big enough that you want to fix them. So what's your system? Because coming from a system comes your debriefing questions coming from your system becomes your checkpoints to checkpoints of proficiency, your KPIs. Systems are the sequential steps that we have to do to achieve the objective.
Glenn Mattson
Now within your system, think about it as steps on a staircase. So within that system, I want to do is to share two things with you. What do you need to know? And what do you need to own? Nothing is the part of learning. Owning is exactly what it sounds, you can do it without getting it wrong. So you should ask yourself 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, the next quarter, what do I have to know? Like the list? What do I have to own? Own means I can hit you with a two by four and you can do it. Knowing it is you're still learning it, you still got a pivot, you still got to go to your notes before and afterwards, you're still going to do a little bit hit your head and you know hit yourself on top of the head when you're leaving and moving on. Aww I should have said this I could have said that. That's all part of the knowing part. So you have to have a plan on what are the parts of the system that I need to know that's the tactics. What do I say? What's my rebuttals? How do they open with my tactics? My strategy, what tools do I have to use? What's the dialogue? What's my pivots? I have to know it you have to practice it to the point where it's nauseam, you own it. Once you own your tactics that would reduce your emotional involvement. So your emotional involvement happens when you know it but you don't own it. So why would you reinforce the second largest attitudinal beat roadblock that we have, you can eliminate that by owning your tactics, owning your systems.
Glenn Mattson
Now, when you look at your systems of process, I would have you take a look at a couple of rules or things to think about. Number one, realize that people buy emotionally, and they justify their decisions intellectually. So your system should be geared around how people buy, which means you should be doing very little value propositions, you should be doing less and less features and benefits because people don't buy features and benefits. What they have to do is translate, does that feature or does that benefit fix my problems? Does that feature benefit fix my pain? So why are you letting the prospect make that translation? Why aren't you doing that. So you got to make sure that your system fits the way in which people buy. You also want to make sure that your system fits within the framework that you have of the culture of the office. You also have to make sure the system fits within the timeframe of your sales process. Meaning that you don't want to have a system that sells in 30 days, if the environment is a three month sales cycle. You also have to make sure this system is owned by everybody. And you have to own the system. And along with the system is its gospel, meaning that it drives everything and it doesn't change. No more winging it. Systems will give you an idea of where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are. The weaknesses, you work on the strengths, you continue to develop. Your strengths, you're gonna get stronger, your weaknesses are becoming less and less. When those weaknesses disappear. Your confidence and courage goes to the roof, which gives you more availability to take more risks. So let's eliminate the roadblocks that we know we have with bravery, by owning the tactics and strategies.
Glenn Mattson
So when you look at success, we have to remember that it's for three core areas or elements. It's our attitude, which is our head, heart and gut, that drives our ability to do the behavior and do it consistently. That behavior is what is our plan? How do we track it? And how do we fine tune it. That's the dials. The contacts, the number of referrals and we're face to face is everything that we need to have done. Called KPIs. Then we have the technique. The technique is all focused in on strategies and tactics now to prospect qualified, close present, etc. Some techniques and strategies we're good at some were not so good at. Doesn't mean that we're bad people, doesn't mean that we're losers doesn't mean that we're failures just means that we have to learn the tactics and strategies. That comes from a lot of role playing, it comes from knowing that you're going to fail to learn how to get it done, right. Which means you get to lean into failure. If you want to become an ownership of tactics, it doesn't come because you sleep on it in terms of putting the tactics under your pillow. It means that you practice it. And when you practice it, you cannot have a fear of embarrassment of doing it wrong. That's attitudinal, the more fear you have embarrassment, all of a sudden, that's fear of rejection. When you have that you want roleplay as much as you want roleplay as much you're not going to ownit as fast. See how they're all connected.
Glenn Mattson
So as you start this journey on your Building Blocks of Success, always remember and have is one of your greatest filters is to go back to the Success Triangle. And look at all my attitudes driving my behaviors are my behaviors getting me in front of the right type of people at the right time, are my tactics working where I can have a dialogue, have an appointment, the appointment sticks, I qualify them either makes sense to move forward or not somewhere in the qualification. If it does, then we get to the presentation in the closing, they become a client, you onboard them, and the process gets into the next phase depending on your business. So when we look at this congruency is key.
Glenn Mattson
We're gonna have a lot more conversations on each of these areas as we dive in. But I wanted to start at 30,000 feet up and have you look at the Success Triangle as an amazing filter to help you plan out how to be successful and also help you identify what maybe is holding you back from being successful. In our journey in the Building Blocks, we will take great depth into the techniques, we will take great depths into the behavior and it takes some great depths into the attitude. But understanding the Success Triangle will give you availability of creating a hell of a roadmap to reach whatever level of success that you have, or at least helping you identify why are you not doing the behaviors what's holding you back from doing the behaviors? Is it lack of knowledge, or is it just the fact that you're wimping out? So you have to identify what the cause is to understand how to fix it. And I gave you some absolute hammer nail ways to address some of the biggest roadblocks that we have with attitude. And as we go on this journey of ours, the Building Blocks, we're going to uncover more issues, we're going to talk about absolute ways to address it, and I'll give you outlines and how to address it.
Glenn Mattson
Again, a Building Block of Success is building on top of each other. So take a look at the Success Triangle, drill through it, listen to it, identify where your weaknesses are and always ask yourself at the end of every single day when you're driving home, or you're leaving your one office and walking into your kitchen, depending on where your office is having the ability to actually take a moment, take a debrief of your day, take a look at what happened. Just don't turn off your computer and leave, walk into the kitchen, sit back, take stock, take 15 minutes and just say to yourself, all right, based on what happened today, based on what happened in that call, based on what happened this week.
Glenn Mattson
What am I doing well, what do I have to do more of, what I have to be better at? What do I have to do differently? What do I have to start doing? What do I have to stop doing? Maybe you have to be better at your questioning in your prospecting. Maybe we have to stop wimping out. Maybe you have to stop procrastinating, maybe you need to start leaning into it, maybe you need to start having courage. Maybe you need to start asking the tough questions.
Glenn Mattson
So these lessons are always areas that we can improve in versus looking backwards saying you should have coulda woulda, which is looking at your faults. And when you look forward on what are the areas for improvement. Your areas for improvement every day can be on your attitude, behavior and technique. Get to congruency, focus on all three as you develop and as you start your journey through your lifeline of your business and our journey together through the Building Blocks of Success. I'll give you more and more tactics and strategies on how to make sure that you can become your best version of yourself when it comes to your attitudes, your behaviors and your techniques.
Glenn Mattson
This has been the Building Blocks of Success with Glenn Mattson.