[00:00:00] Darryl Praill: My name is Darryl Praill. I'm your host and you, my friend, well, you and I we're gonna go on a journey every single week, talking to the industry's most accomplished sales legends, as they share with us, their tips, their tricks, their techniques, and their tactics to becomes sales rockstars. You simply need to do what they're doing and you will achieve similar nirvana. If you like to laugh, you like to be entertained, if you'd like to go off on tangents and tell stories, you're going to love what you're going to hear next. Sit back, relax, it's going to get real.

How is everybody doing today, my friends? Another week has come. It's exciting. I'll be honest with you, my voice is is challeng. I have been doing way too much public speaking again, and and it's, it's a dog days of summer and I am dying. Normally what I would do in this case is I would put humidifiers on sounds, stupid, humidifiers at bed, humidifiers my office, and I would, you know, eventually coax my throat and my voice back to health.

But in the middle of the summer, the thing I have that most of it seems inside my house, Is humidity. So I'm not sure what I'm gonna do. I'm sucking lozenges. Hey, have you ever had that? Everyone on a sales call where you're dying, you're sick, or you're all toughed up and you don't know what you sound like, but you know you don't sound good and you're like, Should I be doing this or not?

It's, it's crazy the things we do that's part of our jobs. Speaking of that, I do have a question for you. If I were to say to you, what are the top. I don't know. Let's start with three people, like threes and fives for some reason. Right. What are the top three things that you think you need to have in your job as a sales professional?

To excel at your job, Just don't whether you have it or not, I want you to sit in your head. Well, Darryl, that's a great question. I think I need to do A, B, and Z. Maybe it's objection handling. Maybe it's discovery. Maybe it's negotiation, Maybe it's under, maybe it's it's setting pain, maybe it's prospecting, maybe it's social selling.

I don't know, top three attributes, and they could be anything. Anything that you think you need to have, what would it. We're gonna come back to that. Okay? So, hold that thought. The reason I ask this is because I'm always amazed as a sales leader when I talk to reps about their skills. And I, and it's always a setup, You should know this, Okay?

Just if you, if you don't know this, that your, your manager is setting you up and they want to talk to you about your skills, one of the things they're gonna ask you is they're gonna ask you, you know, You know what he good at, what he need, help back. I'm here to coach you on mentor, all that kind of stuff.

We'll get you queued up, we'll get you trained. Life is grand and you're gonna say, I'm great at A, B, and C. And, and, and I don't know, you know, maybe I could use some help here maybe, but you know, I'm not bad bed. So for us sales leaders, what we know that means is that you probably suck at almost everything you just told.

And you have an overinflated sense of where you're good at. And I told you the story recently in one of my other episodes, I was working with the sales manager one time. The thought they were the cats meow, they were God's gift to sales sequences. And when I looked at their sales sequence, it was three touches and it was reusing old dated outreach formats that others have advocated for that had no originality and they couldn't understand.

Why their sequence wasn't converting, because dammit, they're great as sequences. That's, this is what you kind of see. And I know early on in my career, I was looking at other sales professionals and not just sales reps by the way. I would look at other people in my community, in my, in my neighborhood, near my cubicle that I thought was doing an incredible job.

They were a rockstar. They were performing. If I can be like them, that's what I want to. And what I started to note was, well, that person was kind of good at that, so maybe I'll do that. And then it had no change, and then that person's good at this, so I'll do this. And then it kinda had no change. And the reality is a sample size of one or two or three, not enough for you to figure out what you need to do.

Combine that with what you think you're good at, which you may or may not be good at. This isn't looking good. I mean, what are you gonna do? I mean, if you think you're good at something, but you're not, you're not gonna put any more time into it because you're good at it, even though you're not. I mean, the reality is what you need to do is you need to look at a large sample size.

You need to look at candidly. I dunno. I was looking at industry as a whole, like the top 10%. Let's look at the top 10%. If I were to look at the top 10%, I would say, what are their shared secrets? What do they have in common? And that I'm gonna, I'm gonna humble myself and I'm gonna just discard whether I have that skill or not.

I'm gonna assume I don't. And then I'm gonna go pursue the top traits of the top 10%, and I'm gonna talk to them. I'm gonna have them tell me, I'm gonna read their stuff, I'm gonna watch their videos, I'm gonna practice it. I'm gonna AB test it, and I'm gonna just assume I suck at it. When I started doing that, My life changed.

Now there's a little bit of ego. You have to, you have to worry about here. If you're like me. I have no shortage of ego, you know, suggesting that I may not be as good at something as I thought I was, was hard. But then when I started doing the research, I looked at the traits and I started understanding, you know, going, reading their books as an example.

Then I understood that what I thought I was good at was like the first lesson, like going 10 or 15 lessons deep on what it really means to have that skill. And these top 10 percenters were helping me understand that it was just simply a case of, not that I was inept, that's not it at all. It was a case of I just didn't know what I didn't know.

And then I had to be willing to learn. So with that said, you know, we've never talked about here, we've never talked about the secrets of the top 10 percenters. So where do I go for that? Well, you know, the way this works, folks, I reach out to my handy, Dan, incredible Rolodex of amazing, brilliant, smart people who are way more successful than I am.

And I, they all have their own little skills. And then this particular case, you may know this one because she's kind of. I wanna talk to you today with my friend Kristie Jones. She is the principal at Sales Acceleration Group, and she loves to help founders drive revenue through improved people processes and strategies, but mostly she is a sales rockstar.

If you go to the Sales Acceleration Group website and you actually look at the website, you're gonna, and you look. Kristie's bio. I love it. You'll see there's a principle profile page and what I love about that particular page is all the freaking awards. She's got top 50 sales and marketing, top sales world.

You know, just, it just goes on. You know, she was an active member of the sales experts channel, as was I, by the way, shame. One has ended, but missed that. I know. Missed that. I know. Isn't it awesome? But and Deb Calvert who led that, it just, just incredible, incredible women. But with that said, Kristie, welcome to the show.

[00:07:36] Kristie Jones: Darryl, thanks for having me.

[00:07:38] Darryl Praill: Kristie's, we're recording this on a Friday. Kristie was sharing with me before we went live that she's having a crazy ass Friday. Normally it's a little bit laid back, but you're having a crazy ass fry. What's making your day so crazy, Kristie?

[00:07:49] Kristie Jones: Oh, we've, you know, I, we have started the day with a little little turnover, you know, You know, we love to start our Friday.

I mean, it's come out with that way and, you know, had an employee quit this morning. You know, we always love to start our day a Friday with a little turnover, so, Little bit of that. Little bit of this. Yeah. So that, that always kicks the day off nicely. You know?

[00:08:07] Darryl Praill: Was it, was it the class that, I love this part.

Like when you have the, Again, now can we have a, can, can we have a conversation? I need, I need to chat with you. Sure. Side sidebar. Sidebar. And then you're probably not gonna like this, and you know, right away where it's going. Like, Oh, don't say it. Yeah. I it's good times. You can smell it coming a mile away and, and are you like me?

Where I like immediately, selfishly think of myself and I go, This is gonna really mess with my plans. And then I correct and go, Oh, wait a minute. I need to talk about you and why you're leaving, and is it a better opportunity or have I not made you happy? But yeah, I always go into the, this is about me situation first.

[00:08:42] Kristie Jones: Oh no, totally. Yeah. I was like, I don't have time to cover your job right now. I'm very busy. So my, So you know me, my first question. And so how much notice are you giving?

[00:08:52] Darryl Praill: Yes, exactly.

[00:08:53] Kristie Jones: I go, I go. Oh, a full two weeks. Thank you.

[00:08:57] Darryl Praill: A full two weeks.

[00:08:58] Kristie Jones: I'm so grateful.

[00:08:59] Darryl Praill: It's funny, I work for a European company now and the norm, so there, there are, they're outta France and I was unaware of this. Kristie, you may be aware, the norm in France is you have to give three months notice.

[00:09:10] Kristie Jones: Yes, I am aware of that. I do have some European clients.

[00:09:13] Darryl Praill: It blew me away when I got into that. They're like, Yeah, we just found this. And it was the opposite. We were like, We, we had this role. We had a film. We found this incredible candidate.

And it's like, when, you know, what can you start? And it's like three months later you're like, What? Yeah, because they have to get through it notice. I'm like, But we all know the minute you give notice, you're already partially halfway through to checking out and and moving on.

[00:09:32] Kristie Jones: Out the door.

[00:09:33] Darryl Praill: Yeah.

[00:09:33] Kristie Jones: Yep.

[00:09:34] Darryl Praill: So, yep. Anyway, sales reps, Give us more than two weeks notice if you can, and if you can please stay engaged until the bitter end, we would be grateful. But with that said, that's, we would be grateful. Let's talk the top 10 percenters. You've got a you've, you've spoken on this before. You've got a presentation and everything, so let's just wing it.

[00:09:53] Kristie Jones: I do.

[00:09:53] Darryl Praill: What, what are we, what are we talking about today? And the top 10% are specifically,

[00:09:57] Kristie Jones: Yeah. So I'll start, I'll kick mine off with a little story as well. So I, I like to call it what rockstar sales reps have, have in common. And the kind of the concept came around. If you went to my bio page, you probably saw that I play tennis competitively.

I'm on a women's U S D A team. And so our team is we say we bring people on the team who can help get us to districts, but we also wanna drink with afterwards. So we equal up, we're equal opportunity tennis, tennis teammates. But a few years ago, my team qualified for districts and we had a woman on our team.

Her name was Laura. And Laura came in and Laura had been just a solid player, right? Like, you know, she was just a solid B, B plus player when, when we needed her, she was there a doubles player. And, but during districts, like, she became like, she became this incredible tennis player. And normally the rule is like, we'll put the first, like we play normally five matches over a weekend.

We'll put the first two lineups out for Friday night and Saturday morning. And then from that point forward, earn your spot. Right. That point forward winners, you know, winners. Winners win and winners keep playing and losers get us support and bring us water when we're dehydrated. Well, Laura was playing at such an incredible level, like we just couldn't believe it and she just kept playing better and better and better.

And so poor girl never left the court. And so at some point over the weekend I said, Oh my God. I'm like, We. Need to get Laura her own tour bus. Like we are literally just her backup singers, right? She was our rockstar. Like we knew if we put her out there. That we won that court. Like we had to have, you know, three courts out of five to, you know, to win that match.

And we could put Laura out over and over and over again. So I always say like, you know, when we came off, you know, when we came off at the end of the weekend, we all went out and had drinks. And we were like, What happened? And she's like, I don't know. Like it just, I was in the zone, right? But I think it's not just we, you know, athletes talk about that, performers talk about that.

Like I was just in the zone. But I think there are things that people do. That create the zone, right? You don't just wake up and dec and decide that you're gonna be in the zone. It's things that you've done to put yourself there. So Darryl, let's jump into rockstar trait number one.

[00:11:56] Darryl Praill: Number one.

[00:11:57] Kristie Jones: Rockstar trait number one is rock stars know themselves. I have a Kristieanism that goes with each of these traits. So the Kristieanism for this is own your own shit and rockstar traits know themselves and they own their own shit. What I mean by they know themselves is, listen, when I get the call from, people are like, Hey, I've got a friend who's thinking about going into sales.

Will you talk to them? And I'm like, My motto is, I got 30 minutes for everybody. Sure. Shoot over an invitation. I go, By the way, what kind of sales. People are like, What do you mean? I go, Well, sales is not just sales. Like there's a lot of different types of sales jobs. Do you have any idea what we're talking about?

They're like, No, they just said sales. But I think rock stars don't just say sales when that question's posed to them. Right? Do you wanna be an inside sales rep? Do you wanna be a territory sales rep? Do you wanna have an walk into an existing book of business and grow that? Do you wanna hunt? Is customer success really your thing?

Do you wanna grow relationships after the fact. Do you wanna be in sdr? Do you, you know, is that your forte? You know, hunting out, finding key accounts? So there are so many different sales jobs and the people that are performing at the top 10%, they understand what their secret weapon is and what their swim lane is.

And as sooner you can figure that out and the sooner you can figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are, and where you really play and where you play better than other people. You're gonna be on the way to success because not everybody is built to be an outside sales rep. Not everybody is built to be a customer success rep.

Not always built to be, you know, to, to, you know, keep what you catch, right? Some people don't wanna do that. So the pdo, you can figure out where you play best. Why not put yourself in the best position possible to win? And so, number one trait, Darryl, is they know themselves.

[00:13:47] Darryl Praill: I, I prefer Own your own shit. Personally, I think I tell I much.

[00:13:50] Kristie Jones: I understand, I understand. It's catchy. Right.

[00:13:53] Darryl Praill: But you know, for those, listen, I mean, how many times have you heard me beat this drum? I, you know, Kristie, I always use the term be self-aware. Know your strengths, that this is our and where you want to go. Right? But you gotta be honest with yourself.

So like that example I gave where that fellow said, I am the best sequence maker in the world, you know? I know they knew they weren't the best sequence maker in the world. I mean, if they were, they wouldn't have had this, the results they were having, but they were so focused on protecting their own ego and vanity that they stuck to their story.

You can't do that. You gotta, you gotta be honest with yourself. You gotta own your own shit. You gotta know your strengths and weaknesses, because that becomes the starting point from where you go from there. That's the foundation as the best way I describe it, because your next steps are driven by the step.

It's kind of an important step. All right. That's rockstar trait number one. Yep. You ready for two? I'm do it. Let's do it. Number two,

[00:14:44] Kristie Jones: Darryl two. This is gonna be age appropriate for the two of us, but we may have to explain it to what I affectionately call the zillennials. So I just combine the millennials and the Z. It's just easier, right.

[00:14:55] Darryl Praill: Heard that And I got it and I love it.

[00:14:58] Kristie Jones: You can use it. You just gimme credit.

[00:15:00] Darryl Praill: I will.

[00:15:00] Kristie Jones: So we'll explain to the, the millennials afterwards. So number two, be Colombo. Oh, you will have to for this. Yes, I know, right? I know. The Kristieism for this is, it has to be all about them before it can be all about you.

Before it can be all about us. So zillennials, Colombo was a detective back in the day, trench coat top hat, the whole bit. But he was a master at discovery. He could have been in a, he could have been, he could have made a lot more money as a sales rep than as a detective, because he knew what questions to ask, when to ask which questions, and he knew when to go in for the kill.

So, There may be a phrase out there that your parents have used that may have been like, Oh, you just colombo'd me. And the impotence of that is Colombo would ask all of what I'll call like the tactical housekeeping questions, right? Like, tell me about your current situation and what could be improved upon, and you know, the how all the good, how, what questions.

And then just as he was walking out the door and he thought he had his man or a woman, he would get to the door and he would be like, Oh, but just, But wait, but just one more question. And that would be the question that caused them to hang themselves. And so he was the master of discovery, but he understood that it had to be all about them, or he wasn't gonna get what he wanted out of that, and he wasn't gonna get the prosecution that he was looking for.

And so rockstar sales reps. Truly understand, not only just questioning. So I think the other Kristieism here that I like to say is discovery is not an event. It's a process. And if you think once stage two in your sales funnel called discovery completed and all, like once that, once that box is checked and you've moved on to the demo stage, which are awful stage names by the way, you know, will not advocate for those if you think that's what it's all about and that discovery stops once you've moved them to stage three in your pipeline.

Wrong. So the best sales reps understand that discovery is a process. And that every opportunity they have to ask additional questions to gain additional information, to build additional trust is what's really gonna take them to the end of that sales funnel and get that closed one deal.

[00:17:25] Darryl Praill: So I almost feel guilty here because I've been hammering in a polite, loving way, right folks the, my, my poor crew here nonstop lately on discovery being a process.

And I've been hammering them saying, You guys, you think you're doing it, but you're not. You're taking shortcuts. You don't want to do it. If I look at, one of the biggest things that I see sales leader after sales leader, after sales leader do is spend time training people on the process. I don't care if it's, you know, if you follow our process like, you know, medic or med pick or spice or spin or challenger or complex, you know, I don't care.

But it's a process. You gotta do the steps, and the steps are there for a reason, and too many of you don't do it, and too many of you rush through it. And I wanna bring this back to what Kristie was just saying. Colombo, ask all the obvious questions, which is what you folks are doing. Then he started getting deeper and then he asked just that one more question, which is where he was able to, in this case, you know, prove their guilt by getting their answer.

But in your case, that last question is gonna be the question that's gonna be able to help you differentiate your solution for somebody else and validate that you can fix their pain and validate the impact and all this wonderful stuff. I could go on. You get the idea, it's it, but I'm always amazed at how little questions.

Get asked, like, you follow the script, here's the opening question. You know, so I'm gonna ask the opening question, and then they say, they give you something, the answer, which begs for a follow on question to understand more. And I, when I listen to the calls, you ignore that and move on. That's

[00:19:09] Kristie Jones: It's painful. it's painful, Darryl.

[00:19:11] Darryl Praill: Yeah. That's not what Colombo would do. That's not what Colombo, that's not what Sherlock would do. That's not what per would do. That's not what Miss Kristie would do. You get the idea.

[00:19:20] Kristie Jones: It's definitely, It's definitely worth a worth a YouTube, Colombo. Yeah. Colombo, last question. It's definitely worth a YouTube.

[00:19:28] Darryl Praill: It's kind like, I'll put it in a more modern generation. It's a variation of what Steve Jobs used to do. Just one more thing. Which course? He's been dead now for maybe 10 years, so maybe that's the even too old. Colombo, my gosh, seventies, by the way, kids, you're running mid seventies . So and wore a trench coat, which today would be creepy. And it was kind of creepy back then too. But what,

[00:19:46] Kristie Jones: Yeah, today if you wore the trench coat, you would probably be profiled and arrested on the spot.

[00:19:50] Darryl Praill: Very much so. But Peter Fa was the actor, and he's fantastic. All right. That's number two. Yes. What's the next rockstar trip? Tip.

[00:19:57] Kristie Jones: Number three, rock stars. Understand the mental game.

[00:20:02] Darryl Praill: Ooh.

[00:20:03] Kristie Jones: Kristieism here is I cannot motivate the unmotivated, but I can inspire the self-motivated as a sales leader. So rock stars truly understand all of the components of being an A player, a top 10 percenter, a top performer. And this is the same thing that we see in other, in other industries, right?

So this is not unique. To the sales world, but I think for some reason we don't give it enough attention. We don't give it enough time. We don't speak to it. We as sales leaders don't speak to it, but I ask an interview question and this, it goes like this. Hey, Darryl, regardless of the job or the company that you work for, tell me three things that you do regularly consistently that you think make you successful.

[00:20:52] Darryl Praill: Ooh.

[00:20:53] Kristie Jones: And rockstar sales reps answer the question the following way. They have a meditation practice. They work out first thing in the morning. They eat well. They may have a religious or a spiritual practice. They try to read two books a month. They listen to podcasts regularly. They surround themselves with positive, successful people.

and I think that as, again, going back to my tennis situation, I am, I'm a four oh U s d a tennis player, which means that the mental side of my game is about 80% of me winning or losing. , Right. They understand that visualization's important, which I spend a lot of time doing on the court and, and, and around big matches.

They understand that self talk is a, is a make or break. They understand that saying and doing things, self care, getting, exercise, all of those things. All play into their success as a sales rep, and particularly because, you know, our job as sales reps and sales leaders, super stressful, not nine to five start at zero every month.

How would everybody, how would other, how would other professions like it if they had to start at zero every month and then try to hit a number by the 29th, 30th, or 31st of every month? So if you're not taking care of yourself, if you're not doing all the things that you need to do, if your mental game isn't. Then I then you're just making your life harder.

[00:22:23] Darryl Praill: There's so many ways I can go with this one. So guys, and I use the term mindset, which is a variation of what Kristie's talking about here, the whole point about being, it, being mental. So let's focus a little bit on what she said here. More of the things that jumped out at me.

Pro athletes, roughly, she's saying is 80% mental, right? 80% mental, which means. That 20% is just the actual execution of, of the mechanics, if, for lack of a better word yeah. When we watch them, you know, like tennis player, we watch them on the court, you're like, Wow, look at the top spin. Wow. Look at the reaction.

Wow. Look at the, the speed in that serve, right? Wow. Look at the placement, which you think it's all mechanics, but it takes a lot of mental health. To take, to have the nerve to make those shots in the first place, right? And that's a lot of confidence in your abilities. So let me ask you this, Kristie, kind of what comes first does do I get good at the mechanics?

I get the positive results, I then get the confidence, which then builds my mental game. Or do I build my mental game, which then allows me to take the risk to do the mechanics and get better than mechanic? Which then allows me to apply that and get better. So is it chicken or egg? Which by the way, I know this is a no-win answer, but I'm asking you.

[00:23:40] Kristie Jones: This is, Yeah, you totally set me up for failure. Thank you. Appreciate it.

[00:23:43] Darryl Praill: I'm here for you.

[00:23:44] Kristie Jones: As an athlete, I, I did the first, so I worked on mechanics. And then put the mental game to that. But I think one of the things, you know, going back to the thousand hours of practice, right? Malcolm Gladwell, you know, the top performers in anything have put in 10,000 hours.

But here's how I translated it. So I grew up playing competitive racketball. I had a sponsorship with head rackets. I was a ranked junior, and then at some point I switched over to tennis. So I have a natural slice. It's nasty. My slice is my secret we weapon, it's also a BOGO because it disguises as a drop shot. So I like, I just like worked the hell out of that shot, forehand and backhand.

But what happened over the years is that women played me enough that they knew what was coming and then they knew how to react. So several summers ago I said to my coach, like, I think I better learn backhand top spin seemed like, to me that was gonna be the easier shot.

So we spent, I don't know, eight hours filming, working on it, you know, together. And then he said, Now I need you to go spend the next 50 hours at the wall. I said, What the hell's the wall? He goes, Well, I don't know, but you've got one in your neighborhood. Go. He goes, It's a two story brick or concrete wall, probably located on a school, on a public school campus.

And I need you to spend 30 minutes to 45 minutes a day for the, you know, for the rest of the summer. Cuz this was my summer project so I could be ready for U S D A in the fall. And so I was like, he goes, I said, You know, you think it's gonna take 50 hours to build muscle memory? And he goes, Yes, I think you can do it because of your athletic ability and the things that you've done in the past.

I think you can get this done in 50 hours. I was like, okay. But what people don't know is once I've learned that mechanic, well then all of a sudden the fall season shows up and now I have to have the guts to put it in play in competition. When I know that my court counts whether or not our team wins the match or doesn't win the match, I have to, as a singles player, I normally, we have to, we play, do two singles players in three doubles courts.

At least one singles player has to win. Cuz you know you're not gonna get all three doubles. So you know that you have your court is important. So then I have to use mental memory right? Then I have to go back into my, into my mental archive and build the mental memory of, of being at the wall, of, of trusting my shot, of trusting the 50 hours they put in at the wall.

In order to have the guts, as you said, to put it in play when I needed that last point, when I needed a, when I needed to get my opponent off the court with my backhand cross court so I could come up and take that ball the opposite way. So the, the, the, like you said, all of the processes, strategies, the tactics, all of that, you know, that's your muscle memory.

But you gotta be able to have mental memory. You have to know that in this situation. So I know, like again, I know when to use my drop shot. I know when to use my slice. And now I know when to use my top spin. So you have to be able to see the whole core right to that chess game. You have to be able to see that and know when to put it.

That's mental memory. That's like, Hey, that worked last time in this particular situation. Same thing. Hey, listen, the last time I had someone wanna negotiate on price in this situation, I did this. It worked for me, gave me the confidence to try it again. So I'm gonna go down that same path, but, but you want it to be automatic, just like muscle memory.

You don't think about. I want people to have that mental memory where they're gonna be able to go to that positivity that you know that, hey, I know that I've got the confidence to do this. You know, everything's gonna work out for me. I am the top 10%, or I am a rock star. So you have to build that, that mental memory just like you would muscle memory.

[00:27:21] Darryl Praill: So now let me, so what you just kind of heard Kristie say there for her is sort of the mechanics and, and then she had to, you know, build up the mental game to have the confidence to do it right. So chicken and egg. But just to make you aware, it can go the other way too. I look back, what did Kristie open up by saying?

Is she open up by saying There's lots of different ways you can go in your career path and you gotta kind of figure out the path you want. Right? So you wanna pick and choose, and part of that was by owning your own shit. That was, that was rockstar trade number one. I look back on when I started my career, I knew, and for those who haven't heard this story, bear with me.

My wife and I knew that when we were gonna have our first kid, when that day came, we thought, we thought it made sense that one parent would stay home for the first couple years. That was a conscious choice we made. The moral of the story here was, Okay, well, which, which, which spouse has. Better earning capacity, so then the other spouses would stay home.

So it wasn't predefined that my wife would stay home. It was whoever could make the most money so we could eat as a family. It quickly became apparent. That was my career path, but I had to figure out which way I wanted to go. So where am I going with this? Where I'm going with this is this. I started to realize I, if I went to that position, maybe from, you know, a rep to a manager or a manager to a director, but maybe this was indirect sales and that was direct sales or what have you, you get that different path.

I knew I could, if I went to that open position, I applied for it. It would have a paid belt, and that's the way I go. And that's what I started doing was I would apply for jobs that I probably wasn't necessarily qualified for, but I knew mentally. That I wasn't putting myself so far out there. I wasn't like going from being a computer programmer, which is what I actually went to school for, to say, now I'm gonna be the next van go.

That would be a dramatic shift. I would fail miserably. This was just, this was just a little further than my comfort zone, a little further than my knowledge. But I knew mentally that if I got the job, The pressure on me to succeed quickly, provide for the family, not screw it up, not have to come on my wife and say I oversold myself.

I got fired. That pressure was gonna motivate me. So I had the mental acuity, the mental strength to say, my mindset to say I can risk that and I'll figure it out. The mechanics out of urgency and necessity. So it's a balancing gain. That's all I'm getting. You can use both, but one without the other mechanics, without mindset, you will never be a rockstar.

That's the takeaway you need to know there. Awesome.

[00:29:54] Kristie Jones: Darryl, I would be remiss if I didn't play off a comment that you made as a member of the Women's Sales Pro group throughout the United States. You mentioned that you decided to stretch yourself a little bit and, and maybe apply for a job that was maybe just a little bit out over your skis.

[00:30:08] Darryl Praill: Yep.

[00:30:09] Kristie Jones: Ladies in the room, we need to follow this. It is statistically probable that when you read a job description, if you don't think that you fit that job description by 97% of everything under the nice to haves and the requirements that you will not apply, we need to take Darryl's strategy. We can be a little out over our skis and then we can catch up to that.

That's not a problem. But Darryl, we're always trying to promote, you know, ladies, we need more women in sales leadership. We need more women in sales roles. So you made a, you made an interesting point. Men have this mentality, right? Men, men don't have any problem getting a little out over their skis.

And, and ladies, we need to get there. We need to get there soon.

[00:30:51] Darryl Praill: It's, it's true cuz when I did this, my wife was freaking, she. You're not qualified. And I'm like, Well, I'm not, You know, maybe I'm a 60 to 70% qualified, but I'm not. You're right about a hundred percent. And she's like, You're gonna, you're gonna get fired.

You can't do that. And I'm like trust me, honey, I'm not putting this at an unnecessary risk. You know, we're trying to shoot for a goal. And you're right. I mean, over and over again. I love that you brought that up. I mean, I love that you brought that up, ladies. How do I say this without sounding like a privileged white guy?

You are way better and more talented than you or society gives you credit for. You are as good if not better than most men out there. And guys, I'm not trying to be rude, but historically the best reps over and over again in my teams have been women. Don't let yep, society tell you you can and cannot do trust. You've got this. Just go for it. Mindset. Good segue. It's all about the mindset. All right,

[00:31:53] Kristie Jones: Well, and that happens to be rockstar trait number four, rockstar trait number four is top 10 centers have a growth mindset. Ooh, growth mindset. The cism for this is there are jobs with a set income and there are jobs where you set your own income. The choice is yours.

And so top 10 percenters are doing some of those things that we, that we would expect them to do, but at a different level. They really do take the Jim Rome quote, which I love and live by. You'll be as successful as the five closest people to you.

They eliminate negativity from their lives. They nega, they eliminate those type of people from their lives. They know how to set boundaries. They are constantly seeking out learning opportunities, whether that be self-directed, instructor-led. Whether that be on the job training and they're not just reading. It's interesting when I ask people, one of the, again, one of the other interview questions, Darryl that I ask is, what is the last podcast you listened to?

Book you read seminar you attended, and about 80% of people tell me they've read or attended or listened to something that had nothing to do with sales. Could have been about crypto, could have been about business, could have been about, I wanted to learn a new skill.

Top 10 percenters are very diversified. They have other, they have other pieces of their life. And even if, even if you have small children in a family, they have, they have things that they do for themselves. Whether that be, you know, I'm into again, craft beer. I love to make craft beer. You know, I love to do wine tasting. I love to do crafts. I love to do gardening.

But they have a growth mindset and they know that this is just sort of the tip of the iceberg. And they're always looking to surround the. But people, and I, and I say this all the time, I'm always looking for people that are gonna make me better. And if you're not gonna make me better and I'm just gonna make you better, that's gonna last for just a short period of time.

And I'm really, and I'm kind of snotty about it, in fact, you know, I mean, people say, they're like, they're like, sometimes you've got that resting bitch face. And I said, You know what, that's cuz the people in the room weren't worth my time. And I hate to be mean about it, but I really do. Like, I have very low tolerance for people that aren't gonna, that aren't bringing something to the table.

It doesn't always have to be about business. Like I have an amazing friend and she knows everybody, so she's like the most fun person to go out on the town with because we can't go anywhere without her running into somebody. And I, I mean, I must meet five new people a night when we go out and I love meeting new people.

You know, like I can't, like, she like her eyes gloss over when I talk about my consulting business. She doesn't really understand at all what I do. When I say tech startup, she's not really sure what I mean. But I love having her in my life because she's a super positive person that everybody knows her name, she's got a unique name and everybody knows who she is, and people will literally like just gravitate towards her and she has an amazing memory for names, so she knows everybody.

So, and I, and I love to be a connector, so it doesn't just have to be somebody that you know, is a awesome business person or an awesome tennis player or whatever, like, but bring the right quality of people in your life and honestly, let those other people. I call it addition by subtraction.

[00:34:56] Darryl Praill: I'm, I'm smiling and the reason I'm smiling, I,

[00:34:59] Kristie Jones: I saw that the reason

[00:35:00] Darryl Praill: I'm smiling cause there's a lot of people right now who are struggling with what you just said and, and they need to hear it. So let's, let's talk a little more about that cuz why they're struggling with is things.

Doesn't that mean I'm disloyal? Doesn't that mean I'm just using people? Doesn't that mean you know, doesn't friendship count for something? I, you, you, I'm sure you know where I'm, where I'm going with this. Yep. So how do you respond to people when you when you give them that, that advice and they react that way?

[00:35:28] Kristie Jones: I use another non Kristieanism, but reason, season, lifetime, everybody does come into your life for a reason. I truly believe that. Right? I'm super spiritual. I like the universe has been kind to me. I laid a very blessed life. But I have figured out that some people are just there for, for a reason and I need to, I need them into my life for that period of time, which is normally shorter.

Some people get to stay a season and that's because that's, you know, that was what I needed or what they needed at that time. And then it's a very small handful of people that stay a lifetime. And, and I have, you know, and I have let multi-year friendships go when things did not align anymore. And it wasn't mean and it didn't have to end like that.

But I am sort of forthcoming with people and saying like, Hey, like this is the journey that I'm taking and I'm just not sure that you're gonna be interested in going with me.

[00:36:19] Darryl Praill: I love recent season, lifetime. I use that analogy often with my own employees. One of the things I'll say to my employees when I'm trying to coach them and mentor them and develop I'll, I'll remind them.

I'm like, You're here, you and I were together more than likely for a season, you're gonna move on. And they, then they get panicked thinking that I'm trying to get rid of them. And I'm like, I'm not trying to get rid of you. It's just natural that either I change jobs or you change jobs or we're gonna be apart.

But right now, I want you to be so successful that you can leave this job because there are jobs with a set income and there are jobs where you set your own income and you're gonna go take that next job and then you can look back upon me and you say, you helped me get there and I will feel fulfilled.

Reason season, lifetime is awesome, but I'll throw another one out there. This is when I tell my kids all the time.

[00:37:06] Kristie Jones: Great.

[00:37:07] Darryl Praill: I'll throw the one out there. You are the company you keep. Right.

[00:37:12] Kristie Jones: So true.

[00:37:12] Darryl Praill: And that doesn't mean you can't keep company with multiple sets or groups, right? You can have the childhood friends.

[00:37:19] Kristie Jones: Yep.

[00:37:20] Darryl Praill: You can have the career, you know. Crew or what? Absolutely. So, or as if you're married like me, I have the play date crew that my wife sets me up with the go out with. So,

[00:37:34] Kristie Jones: When she wants you out the house for Saturday afternoon

[00:37:36] Darryl Praill: Wants. Exactly. I set up a play date for you And Mary's husband, Jim, you don't know him, but he's, he's a nice guy and you guys are gonna go see Ball. He's the great guy. Yeah. Great guy. Go see him. Yeah.

So those, we talked about the top 10 percenters. Kristie used the term rock. Same thing, what rockstar sales reps have in common. The top 10 percenters are, and should we given four traits here and in no particular order, I'll, I will try to go. Logical.

We had so many Kristies, I may get this wrong, but I love them. Right?

We said, number one, own your own shit, which is understanding your strengths and weaknesses are, and where you play better than other people.

Number two, be Colombo. It has to be all about them before it can be all about you. Before it can be all about us. So knowing what questions to ask when you need to become the master of discovery. It's not an event, it's a process. That was number two.

Number three, rock stars. Understand them. Mental game, Kristieanism. I cannot motivate the unmotivated, but I can inspire the motivate. I think I got that right. Self-motivate. Self-motivated. I knew I was missing a word. I will fix that.

And number four, growth mindset. And I love it. Again, there are jobs with the set income and there are jobs where you set your own income. And so the company you keep reason, season, lifetime, the list goes on. Be diverse. Have, you know, additional interests.

[00:39:00] Kristie Jones: Good point. Yep.

[00:39:01] Darryl Praill: All those kind of elements. So those are the four traits that Kristie's got. So as you listen to this, folks, your takeaway, cuz there's always a takeaway: are you lacking in one or more?

Remember the old, the first one was, own your own shit. So we're gonna practice it. What of these four are you lacking in? And number two, What are you gonna do about it? Number four of course, was that, you know, you wanna, you are the company you keep, et cetera. So you can go and build that network to get better, to compliment you, to grow you, to develop you. So you can, you can backfill where you're weak.

So those are the four, Kristie. With Sales Acceleration Group, who by the way, if you don't know, I think I mentioned this already, sales acceleration group.com, they do everything. If you need a fractional sales leader, they can help you out. You need sales process execution. They got your back. You want sales training and coaching. They can do that. You need help hiring the right person. They can do that.

And of course, you've heard Kristie today, so if you've got any kinda speaking gigs, maybe a sales kickoff, you would be naive not to approach her on that. So what is the best way for them to reach you Kristie?

[00:40:16] Kristie Jones: Darryl, let's reach out on LinkedIn, please. Oh, LinkedIn. I love to I love to connect with people on LinkedIn and I love to hear that you listen to the podcast, and I would love to hear your takeaway. One takeaway.

[00:40:27] Darryl Praill: On LinkedIn, folks, it's linkedin.com/n/Kristie with a k, followed by another K, followed by Jones Kristie K Jones. That's what we're looking at it.

So that's a rare reach out to her. But again, sales acceleration group.com. Get the website up, show the boss. Say we need to talk to Kristie. With that, I had a lot of fun. Kristie, did you have fun today?

[00:40:45] Kristie Jones: I did have fun today. Thank you for making my Friday a little better.

[00:40:48] Darryl Praill: Make the Friday a little better, right.

We, we lost, we lost a resource on Kristie's team this morning, but we gained some new friends and the whole community from the Inside Inside Sales Show

[00:40:57] Kristie Jones: I'm hiring

[00:40:58] Darryl Praill: Guys, they are hiring. Give them a call. Oh, one more thing. Kristie does have a, a special treat for us. She is gonna create a a downloadable to figure out your special traits. By time this puppy goes to air, you'll be able to find it as sales acceleration group.com/iis, which of course stands for the Inside Inside Sales Podcast. So check that out.

Kristie, thank you so much and crew, practice your top for rockstar traits and that starts with listening to this podcast. Give it to the rest of the world and they'll be smarter and better and more successful, and they'll thank you for it and that will be the reason.

My podcast will be the season and we'll be in this as a lifetime together. Talk to you, soon bye-bye.

This episode was digitally transcribed.