Welcome to the 7 Minutes to Better Selling podcast. I'm your host, Colin Lake, president and founder of Developing the Next Leader
Hey, Colin. Thanks for having me, man. My man. Happy to be here and so happy and so looking forward to this conversation
So, a couple things about Mike. So, first one is Mike has been around for a really, really long time
performing at a really, really high level in this industry. And so, he'll tell you a bit more about that. But Mike wrote a book called Never Ask a Barber for a Haircut
And you see the results of that. There it is. There's a beautiful book. I've read it. It's awesome
Chock full of ideas. Mike is also the CEO and founder of SalesMax, which he'll tell us a little bit more about as well
So, Mike, I'm going to get out of your way in a second, but I'm going to set it up with this
You start like as a sales guy with a small little territory and you're expanded into like running half the country
and then the whole country and divisions and panels. You've done all these amazing things
How do you get from there to here? Because that's what so many of us are looking to do. Hey, again, thanks for having me on, Colin. And great question. And probably similar to most of the people out there
Honestly, I got into the business almost by accident. I got in as a retail advisor at Late Nation
I took my Series 7 exam October 19, 1987, Black Monday. Really, the day I started, they called me
from the training department and said, congratulations, you passed your Series 7. Go get them, Tiller. The market melted down 23 percent, over 30 percent the prior week
So an auspicious debut. But you know what I learned, though, Colin? I learned about passion, emotion
and understanding. This is the big league. Our business matters like nobody's business
I traveled with some guys, two in particular, Tim Seifert and a guy, Phil Eichinger
that you know both of them. Some of the best in the business still today. Legends in the business
And I learned a lot from those guys. And I basically copied what they were doing, Colin
And I started doing what they were doing. And guess what happened? I started being successful
So I moved up the rankings and I just figured it out. You know, this is a simple business
It's all about working hard and working smart. And that's what I did. When I traveled with Phil
and Tim, I saw what they were doing. And they weren't doing the conventional stuff. They were
doing seminars and they were doing basketball events. They were doing all kinds of creative
stuff. And I know Jimmy's quote a few weeks ago. And he talks about two things. And I'm going to
echo those sentiments exactly. Passion, process, hard work, work smart. That's the passion piece
And it's in everyone. You just have to find it. You have to be able to understand what your value
system is, what you do, who you are and who you want to help. And once you understand what you're
doing as a really noble professor, then you can get passion in the family. It's not a job. This is
a career. And it's an impactful career that helps thousands and thousands of people. Mike, let me
ask you. Yes. So two things. One is you took a leap of faith, meaning someone says you want to
wholesale. You don't know what your job is, but you say yes. You took a leap of faith. That's one
And then two, you saw what the successful people were doing and you minisked it. Like you said
that's working. I'm going to do that now. What gives you the courage to stay down that path or
to take that leap of faith? Well, you know, it's funny because when you have a little bit of
success, success is success. And so what I started doing was and when I talk about in my book
hard work, work smart, number two is get results. And the results piece is so critical to any
wholesaler. Whether it's the amount of appointments that you do or what type of appointments that you
do on a daily, on an hourly, on a monthly, on a yearly basis, you need to show results. And once
you start getting some results, it propels you and it gives you energy and it moves you along
So, for example, take a look at where you are in the rankings at your own company. If you have 50
wholesalers, you're number 25, don't try to be number one. Just try to get to number 24 or number
20 or in the top 15 and move that along and have that in your mind and in your heart that that's
what you really want to do. Let me ask you all. How does that like that theory is a popular one
two years long Matthews and proportionately. Yet so few people are able to execute on it
If you were to give the listeners like what's one thing that you could do as a salesperson
and we like this whole shower. You heard him reference it a couple times. That's just
that's just interchangeable with salesperson. So what's one thing that a salesperson can do
to in fact execute on that plan of like two years on Matthews and proportionally or
listen close as much as you talk? That's the essence of the whole thing. You need to be able
to slow your mind down and understand and know going in what are the specific questions you're
going to ask and what problems that that what pain points that customer has that you might be
able to help with. So by doing that you need to ask the appropriate questions to figure out exactly
where their pain points are so then you can help them. And that's all just about asking a question
biting your tongue, sitting back and let them give you the information because they'll tell you
exactly where you need to go. Yeah that's awesome. So in terms of takeaways, Mike
I'm going to give you a second to wrap up here. But in terms of takeaways, one is have the courage
to identify who the best people are at your firm. And if you are the best look elsewhere because
there's always someone bigger, always someone better, always someone better, always someone
bigger, always someone better. I was using the term bad meaning good. But you should like have
the courage to identify who the best are. Then have the courage to ask them what's driving you
to get there. Listen intently. Learn from it. And then go out and bring that to your territory
That is a real, real plan for us all to work with and to take away. So Mike, I'm going to give you
a chance to wrap up your thoughts here as we get close to that 11 minute mark of the call
All right, Tom. Real simple. You know, work hard, work smart. That's table six. Everybody
kind of knows to do that. And the longer you're in the business, the more effective you'll be
You have to get results. And results, it's not your month end numbers. It's not your year end
numbers. It's your daily numbers. What you do every day. If you're not planned out six months
in advance in today's world, you're not going to be successful. So you have to be planned out
and you have to get results. Whether it's rankings, whether it's a production goal
whether it's an appointment goal, whether it's a seminar goal, whatever it is, you need to have
the metrics and you need to hold yourself accountable to it. And lastly, Colin, you had a
call, gosh, three or four years ago. I don't know if you remember. And when I first wrote the book
you read it. You said, you know, the third thing you always talk about is have fun. And you said, you know what? Man, I'm not having enough fun because I'm starting this new business
I'm running like a hamster on a wheel. And it's crazy. And I got to have more fun. And here's
the thing. I have always tried to create an atmosphere in my divisions and in my groups
A lasting thought from what you heard from Mike is, you know, maybe practice a little courage
We talked about that from a sales perspective in terms of reaching out to more clients and
things like that. Practice a little courage in your own little sales world. Who's better than
you? Ask them why and how they're doing it. Ask them enough questions so that they fully tell you
everything and be courageous and execute on it. So I wish everyone a wonderful, safe
holiday weekend and good selling, everybody