𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗔𝘀𝗸 𝗕𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗬𝗲𝘀

𝘼𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙥𝙖𝙮 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙣.

“Maybe I’m the problem.”

I hear some version of that line quite often.

Usually from someone good. Someone who has sold well before, somewhere else.

A few weeks or months into a new role, the numbers aren’t coming, and they’ve started to wonder if they’re not as good as they thought they were.

So we look at it together. Not their calls and performance first (which they are expecting).

No, first, the role itself.

The company, the lead quality and flow, the pre-call experience outside their control, the culture, the expectations and the type of prospect who books most of the calls.

I usually have many questions.

Questions like how many other reps on the team are currently producing?

Producing numbers that match what they were told was normal before accepting the role - and that would count as a real success for the sales pro.

The answer is often a handful. Sometimes, nobody at all.

What do a normal month’s lead flow and performance look like for someone 30, 60, 90 days in - and how does that compare to what other new reps are getting right now?

Often nobody ever told them.

Did they hear recent calls from the current top performers before starting?

Often not, or maybe one or two old ones.

Is there a working call structure, or is everyone figuring it out live?

Figuring it out live is great for an expert but poor for someone newer to the work.

What kind of buyer are they speaking to all day?

Sometimes not the kind they’re built for or want to work with (this is especially the case with higher-level pros).

Who do they actually report to, and what feedback has come from them - are things normal or abnormal right now?

They assumed the person who hired them would be their contact and keep them informed but that’s often not the case.

So many questions…

Yet none of those questions got asked before they said yes to the new role.

Every one of them got answered after, if at all.

That’s the pattern.

The questions you don’t ask before you accept a role become the answers you pay for once you’re in it.

You pay for it in time. In energy. In money.

And the expensive ones - in confidence and sometimes reputation.

I’ve done it myself.

I once joined a role without asking who I’d actually be working under once I settled in. The person who

recruited me wasn’t the person who ended up managing me, and that made the role unworkable fast.

One question would have shown me this dynamic was waiting for me and I’d have known that it was not going to work.

Yet I missed it before accepting the role.

And I learned my lesson.

Here’s what’s strange about the fact that we, as sales pros, often miss these things before accepting a new role.

On a sales call, we’d never let a prospect buy from us without asking the right questions first. We find out what’s real, what’s in play, whether it’s the right fit - before anyone says yes (us to them and them to us).

That’s the whole job.

Then we take a new role - one of the biggest buying decisions of our working year - and ask almost nothing, or miss so much of what we really need.

We develop an objective mindset that serves us on sales calls when we represent a company, yet it fails us when we represent ourselves and we slip into “just grateful to be offered the opportunity” mode.

So, we miss things.

We miss them by getting too emotionally attached and / or no longer being as detached and objective as we ideally would be.

What I’ve learned is that it helps to see it this way: a recruitment process is a sales process - and you are the buyer.

The same rules apply.

They - the offer owner or recruiter - have all the answers.

Your job is to ask the right questions.

All of the questions needed.

And you don’t trust their initial answers to be complete and accurate.

You dig in and test them. Ask for examples, for proof, for more context.

You test what is fixed and what is moveable.

You keep doing this until you’re clear on what’s in play and it feels real.

From this you can make an informed decision which has a very high chance of being the right and appropriate one.

When you start asking the right questions (the right way and at the right time) during the whole recruitment process, something changes.

You stop being the person who takes whatever’s available and hopes it works out.

You stop spending months spinning your wheels in an ecosystem that was never going to give you what you needed.

You stop misdiagnosing yourself as not good enough when that wasn’t actually the issue.

You bring the same approach to the whole interview process as you do to a sales call.

You are calm, curious and collaborative.

You give and you take.

You get the information needed and are quite prepared to say “this isn’t for me” if it doesn’t align and that doesn’t feel moveable.

You move from guessing, hoping, assuming and wishing to actually knowing.

Knowing the role is both legit and right for you.

And if it is, knowing the one thing left for success here is your performance.

And your performance is yours to own and yours to keep improving.

Most of the people who tell me “maybe I’m the problem” aren’t.

They just didn’t know what they didn’t know.

Often, they didn’t know they were even allowed to ask

........

I apply my version of the above in my sales work on the account I still sell on.

I teach my students (in the paid group) how to do their version of this too.

DM me if you'd like to explore coming into the paid group too so that you can learn and apply this in your selling world.

1 comment

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗔𝘀𝗸 𝗕𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗬𝗲𝘀

True Sales Pro (Free Group)

skool.com/truesalespro-free-group

Selling can feel great and be really lucrative!

A free group - where Michael shares what he knows - to help you get your version of that!

Leaderboard (30-day)