Larry Levine is the best-selling author of “Selling from the Heart” and the Selling from the Heart Podcast co-host. With 30 years of in-the-field sales experience within the B2B technology space, he knows what it takes to be a successful sales professional. In a post-trust sales world, Larry Levine helps sales teams leverage the power of authenticity to grow revenue, grow themselves and enhance the lives of their clients.
Larry has coached sales professionals worldwide, from tenured reps to new millennials entering the salesforce. They all appreciate the practical, real, raw, relevant, relatable, and “street-savvy” nature. He is not shy when it comes to delivering his message. Larry is leading a revolution and a movement of authenticity, integrity, and substance in the sales profession and believes people would rather do business with a sales professional who sells from the heart instead of a sales rep who is an empty suit.
Larry spent almost 29 years in LA and held every imaginable position with the copier channel of sales before inevitably moving on to the corporate side of life within the copier channel. He walked into a net-new corporate account team and had to build from the ground up. For the first 90 days, he didn’t sell a thing, but he slowly began tapping into his network and positioning himself as a regular human being.
He moved from #18 on an eighteen-person team to #2, billed out 1.6 million in net-new business, and then found himself career-adjusted out of a job (fired)- one of the most humbling, heartbreaking experiences Larry has experienced. So after losing his job in sales, he decided to pivot into coaching the next generation of sales leaders on how to survive and thrive in a highly competitive and often toxic environment. That’s where his podcast, Selling From The Heart, grew from.
There’s such a negative perception of salespeople right now, and the thing is, every sales leader or professional is in charge of the perception they’re projecting. It’s how congruent you are; there’s no psychology to it. Larry had plenty of dysfunctional sales leaders in the years he worked in the copier channels, and he decided long ago he was going to carry himself differently.
He always sold from the heart because he would never sacrifice who he was or his integrity. That was his reputation out there in the marketplace. He attributes his values to what his mother taught him but what drove him by the dysfunction he had with his father and a need to prove himself. He also wanted to prove building relationships was worth it.
Sales is a full-contact sport; you’re going to get knocked down. You constantly need to be looking for your why, your passion, and your vision. Larry believes that like attracts like, so understanding your values is essential to attracting clients and team members that align with those values when building your business. Honesty, integrity, vulnerability, and authenticity are vital to achieving that alignment.
It might be tough but walk away from deals that will require you to sacrifice your integrity to close. Not every sale will be worth it. Also, keep in mind that how you treat your people will mirror how they treat their prospects, so make sure you are presenting as the leader you want to be. Your team is a direct reflection of the head coach.
Barriers are the stories we tell ourselves and everything that goes on in our minds, and those things are what become our lives. To overcome it, bring heart to the mindset. In writing his book, Larry focused on discovering yourself to become a better leader. He recommends keeping a thought journal and challenging yourself. He’s a huge believer that it’s a success if you get one thing from a resource.
If you can’t hold yourself accountable, you can’t manage yourself. The more you invest in yourself, the more you’ll collect from yourself.
Welcome to the Athletics of Business, a podcast about how the traits and behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance. Now your host, Ed Molitor.
Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. I am your host and CEO of the Molotor Group, Ed Molotour. Now, today's special guest here on the Athletics of Business podcast is someone that I have admired, respected and read for quite a while and we spent a year or two trying to connect on a consistent basis. Obviously, all of our worlds changed with COVID We all get distracted and about a month and a half ago, Larry Levine and I reconnected and what an amazing conversation we have had and he does so much great work. He is the bestselling author of Selling from the Heart and as well as the co host of the Selling from the Heart podcast. Now we're gonna have the links for all that in our show notes obviously for you now.
30 years of in the field sales experience within the B2B technology space. Larry knows what it takes to be a successful sales professional. In a post trust sales world. Larry helps sales teams leverage the power of authenticity to grow revenue. How powerful is that? Grow themselves and enhance the lives of their clients. Larry has coached sales professionals across the world, from tenured reps to new millennials entering the sales force. They all appreciate the practical, real, raw, relevant, relatable and street savvy nature of his coaching. Now those are all things that we speak to all the time here on the Athletics of Business podcast. Now Larry is not shy when it comes to delivering his message. Larry is leading a revolution and a movement of authenticity and integrity and substance in the sales profession. Now listen to this closely.
Larry believes people would rather do business with the sales professional who sells from the heart as opposed to a sales rep who is an empty suit. Larry, thank you so much for joining us today on the Athletics of Business podcast. I am really fired up to have you here.
Oh my gosh. We're going to have a great time. I don't know if we're going to talk sales more or sports more, Ed.
But we're going to try to grab it to or talk both right at the same time. We can do that. Yeah. And it's amazing how the world works, you know. And we both value relationships and this has been a long time coming as we connected a while back, I believe on LinkedIn and Total Mutual respect for each other's work and to share your work with our Audience is honestly perfect for me because I love what you.
Do, you know, I appreciate it. Things happen for a reason. So we're going to have a great time.
And, you know, I filled the listener on the introduction, right? I filled them in on your journey a little bit and where you've been and what you've done, the amazing accomplishments, but love to hear it in your words, how you got to this point where you are right now.
Wow. I tell you what, Ed, you never know where life's going to take you. And I just think life's just one big roller coaster and you got to be able to just take the E ticket ride and ride with it. I spent 28, almost 29 years in the office technology channel in LA. I'm a copier guy. I sold copiers my whole entire career. One of the most brutally challenging sales positions out there. I had every imaginable sales position in the copier channel. I bought it. I was a first employee at a copier dealership, bought into it and we rapidly expanded around the LA Marketplace in about 2012, I'd been there about almost 20 years and it was just time for me to move on.
We just all agreed to disagree on some things and I sold my shares of my company back and I went to go work on the corporate side of life, still in the copier channel. And I share this because this is where I really learned what corporate America was all about, is I walked into a net new major account position in downtown LA. This would have been the summer of 2013. I had left 20 some odd years behind me and said it's time for me to try new things. I walk into a corporate major account team for a Japanese OEM, a Fortune 500 company in the office technology channel. All net new. And what I mean by net new is they gave me zero. They gave me an $840,000 quota. Welcome to insert Name a company.
Here's your desk, there's your laptop, Here's a couple days of onboarding. You have to develop 50 current accounts, right? Or 50 accounts and let's see what you can do. I'm number 18 on an 18 person corporate major account team. All I did is I shared with their director, corporate major accounts. I said, here's my business plan. Here's how you're going to help me stay accountable to what you're asking me to do. Guy falls over in the back of his chair and I said, just watch what starts to happen. And I share this because I'm a big believer that things Happen for a reason. Ten years prior to that, I hired a business coach. My business coach taught me how to brand myself and how to play in this online social world where this was just starting to come together.
This would have been the mid 2000s. For the first 90 days, I goose egged. I didn't sell a thing. I started to tap into my network ad and I started to position myself and connect as just a regular human being. I'm really big into how you authentically position yourself and how you authentically connect and use all the tools available to connect and influence and build Networks. Span of one year, I went from number 18 to number 2, build out about 1.6, $1.7 million. A net new business. And here's where my life takes a turn. The spring of 2015, I get career adjusted right out of the company. Just blindsided. Career adjusted at 50 years old. First time ever I've been career adjusted out of a job. And it was just the most humbling, heartbreaking experience I ever went through.
Can you explain what career adjusted means so our listeners clear on that?
I'm just being polite. I was fired. So be it. I was fired. Just the corporate stuff. And I just found out this is what corporate America is all about. And at 50 years old, I did a lot of soul searching. And I said, you know, I could easily go back and be a VP of sales right off to a very complacent sunset and make very good money. There's two people who influenced me to do something different. One's my wife. Second person's Darryl Amy, my podcast partner, who really got me going in the right direction. After driving home through Los Angeles traffic, talking to my wife and crying on the phone, first person I called outside, my wife was Darrell. All I wanted to do was tap Darrell's network and say, hey, you know what? This is what happened.
Do you know somebody who knows somebody? Now Darrell, salt of the earth, knows my story, knows what I'm all about. And after a lengthy conversation, he goes, you don't need to go back into sales. You need to coach and train sales leaders and sales professionals on what made you. In a highly competitive, toxic environment, which was the office technology channel, not knowing anything about entrepreneurship, coaching salespeople, coaching sales leaders, I just doubled down on myself and I went into the world of coaching and training salespeople. And in the first couple years, it was a roller coaster, absolute roller coaster. And then I had a light bulb moment. And that light bulb moment was if were to get our message out into a broader audience that start a podcast.
This was four and a half years ago as we're speaking right now, and I remember it as plain as day is I shared with Darrell, hey, Darrell, you want to start a podcast? No, not really. He says. I go, no, serious, you want to start podcasts? He goes, no, I really don't want to start a podcast. He goes, what are 2x copier guys going to talk about in sales that anybody in their right mind is going to listen to? I said, I don't know. We'll figure it out. We'll figure this thing out. But if we're to get our message out there, we gotta use all the tools available to get our message out there. He goes, well, I'll do it under one condition, and that condition is you better come up with a really cool name for this podcast or you're flying solo.
And I said, we'll call it Selling from the Heart. And he goes, oh, man, I'm all in.
Just like that. You came up with it just like that.
Literally, it was like 30, 45 seconds later. And he goes, where the heck did you pull this one out of the. I said, well, you've known me for decades. I'm a highly emotional guy. Relationships mean a lot to me. I wear my emotions on my sleeves. I build deep connections with people, and I leverage this to build a very successful business selling copiers. We're just going to start talking about it. He goes, I'm all in. The next week, we start podcasting. A year and a half later, Selling from the Heart. The book comes out in September 2018. And in the last couple years, my life has turned around tenfold. That's the kind of the short version this Ed, but I share this because we all go through transformational aha moments.
We're all dealt that stick that just beats us over the head, but you got to learn what to do with it. And I just doubled down on myself. I had no idea what to expect. I had no clue what we're doing with podcasting. I'd never written a book before, never publicly spoke before, never coached and trained salespeople before. But I turned all the mess that happened in my life at 50 into my message, and it's turned into a big movement around Selling from the Heart.
Well, and I love it because you've been in the fight, and the way you succeeded when you were in the fight was absolutely heart driven and purpose driven and value driven. And the title of the podcast, Selling from the Heart, the title of the Book. It changes the whole way that people perceive you, and which is obviously, it's a correct perception. Right. It goes back to what Darrell said. Well, what are two copier guys? You're way more than just two copier guys.
Oh, no. And thank you for sharing that. But you use a word that's really near and dear to me. Use the word perception. I'm a big believer we control how people perceive us. I'm a firm believer in that. Let's just flip this around for just a moment, because I love asking this question to sales leaders and sales professionals. How are salespeople viewed? What's the perception of sales out in the marketplace? And, I mean, it's comical because throughout the years, I've heard just about every word and every phrase imaginable. I said, here's what I want us to think about. If there's such a negative perception of salespeople out there, each and every one of you, each sales leader out there, every sales professional out there can control how they're perceived. It's how they carry their self. It's the walk, it's the talk.
It's how congruent are you? And there's no psychology behind this. I'm just a big, huge believer. People smell what you're cooking. Really fast. Really fast.
Think about the value that. Like, we know this, right? We know today that the workforce wants three things. They want to know that the work that they do is important. Okay. They want to know that they're valued, and they want to be coached. But think about the power of it. When you give people permission to sell from the heart and to be their authentic selves, and that they're good enough as long as they continue to work on their skill sets. Right. And their behaviors and what drives their success. That's such a powerful movement. And I mean a movement. And we talked about this the other day. That's exactly what you started.
Yeah. It's difficult. I remember a friend of mine shared this with me about a year and a half or so ago. He says, you're doing one of the single hardest things that's out there is building a movement around something that you are so passionate about. And I always sold from the heart. I always did. Was I made fun of Ed. Absolutely. All the time. I was needled at. But I just said, hey, I am who I am. You're not going to change who I am. And I just chose to carry myself in a different fashion because I had dysfunctional sales managers. I was on dysfunctional sales teams. But I was never going to sacrifice who I was, nor was I going to sacrifice my integrity because it was my reputation out in the marketplace, and it's how I wanted to be known for.
Well, and it all comes back to your values, right? Who you are and what you stand for. And where did that conviction when you were needled and when there might have been a path of least resistance to success a different way, where did that conviction come from inside of you to continue to be loyal to and true to your process of selling from the heart?
Wow. If we really want to get deep for a moment, it goes back to how I was raised. And I share this because I was raised with a highly relational mother and a rocket scientist for a father. And I had a very good relationship with my mother. I don't have a very good relationship still to this day with my father. That's just the way it was. I'm a big believer. Your products, your environment, I'm going to tie this all together, but you'll understand this, and so your listeners is we're products of our environment. Salespeople are products of the environments that they've been raised in. So when I went to market with what I learned from my mother. But what fueled me was the dysfunction I had with my father.
And I share this is because when you grow up with a father who's a rocket scientist for United States Air Force, total propeller head, total brainiac, one thing fueled me is a he hated salespeople. So just because of that dysfunction, I went right into sales, Right? So that even fueled it even more. But the second thing that fueled me was the deep desire I had to build relationships with people in the way that I wish I would have had that relationship with my father. And I wasn't going to waver from it, Even though I was made fun of in sales bullpens and all that, what really drove me wasn't the needling that I got from salespeople, though. It wore on me.
What really drove me was to prove to my father that I was worthy and that relationships matter and salespeople matter, if you get what I'm saying.
I absolutely get what you're saying.
We can choose how to carry our sales lives however we choose to carry our sales lives. But if we all peel this back at a human level, something's fueling us in sales to do what we do.
Right. First of all, that's a tip of the hat to you because there's some folks that would use that lack of relationship with their father to make that their shield, right? Like, okay, well, then it is what it is. He's successful. I just need to grind in numbers and metrics and that's it, right? Like, I don't need to value relationships. But you looked at it from the other way, so that's a complete compliment to you and who you are and what you stand for. And I've got to imagine that wasn't easy. But you've talked about with Selling from the Heart. You've always been that way. And I know that one of your favorite books is Simon Sinek's why. Okay, we both share that. But you were that way before you read that book. You were that way before it was popular.
To have, you know, your purpose attached to a meaning and attached to your story. How did that evolve? Like, when did all of a sudden, did you realize you were onto something very significant?
I didn't know in the very beginning. One of my sayings is, you know what you know, and you know what you don't know. I had no idea. But here's where my 20s and 30s really started to come to life is it wasn't until I was 40 that I hired my very first business coach. And the reason why I did it was shortly before my 40th birthday. I was successful, but I just felt I was stuck. And I was in a rut, and I didn't know what the rut was. And I happened to see somebody speak at my son's private school. And it was something about what this person said just drew me in. And at the end of it, you know, I just introduced myself, we exchanged some pleasantries. I said, totally up to you.
One of these days, I'd love to buy a cup of coffee. And two weeks later, we're having a cup of coffee here in the city that I live in. And in between meeting this person and having that cup of coffee, I just did my due diligence on this person, and I go, man, I really got to peel this thing back. And something in that conversation just got me to think. And I'm a big believer. If you ask not, you get not. I took a flyer and I just said, hey, totally up to you. I'm throwing this out there. I'm stuck in a rut. Here's where I'm stuck. Would you coach me along for a little bit? Now, keep in mind that I'd never had a coach before, didn't even know what they did. But there's just something about this person.
And this person said, sure. And I'm condensing it. But here's where I doubled down on myself at 40. This person said, I'll coach you for three months. I said, okay, well, what are we going to cover? And he goes, this topic and this topic. It was all the inner work. There's all kind of stuff, self reflective inner work and so forth. And I go, okay, how much is this going to cost? He said, $10,000. Didn't even ask. My wife didn't do anything. I grabbed my checkbook out of my car and I wrote this person right there a $10,000 check.
Probably wishes he would have said 15. No, but you know, I had. He said 15. You would have figured that one out too.
I would have figured it out. And here's why I'm saying this again. I'm a big believer things happen for a reason. People enter your life at certain points in your career for a reason. And at that moment in time, I said, this might be my breakthrough. And I didn't ask my wife. I just wrote a $10,000 check, came home and said, hey, by the way, I just hired a coach, cost me ten grand. Trust me on this one. It was the single best return on investment I have ever made in my life. Because if it wasn't for that person in that 90 days, I don't know if I'd be here today. This person taught me how to do the inner work.
Really uncover who I was and why I exist and what lights my fire and what am I passionate about and what are my values. Second thing this person taught me was how to carry myself in dual worlds. And what I mean by dual worlds is how you carry yourself face to face and in a business setting and out in the marketplace and out in the community is the exact same way you must carry yourself online. So I'm going to date this conversation. This conversation happened about 2005, 2006. This is where I really started to uncover. The more work I do to find out who I am, the more congruency started to happen. I just didn't know it.
I didn't know it before because I was just going about doing what I was doing in my 20s and 30s, all the way up until right before my 40th birthday. And then ever since then. I mean, I make it a mission, Ed. I work harder on myself than I do on a lot of other things. I really go down places by myself that some people just won't go down. But that's just me. I'm just fueled by finding what makes me tick. And why I do what I do and what I value and all that. And I bring that out in the open and it's how I connect and it's how I relate to people. Now I just think it's my gift. This person just helped me pull out a gift that I didn't know I had.
Let me ask you something. You just said something, right? It's a huge gift. Figured out what makes me tick. People ask me all the time, why won't leaders try to figure out what makes their people tick? It's a longer answer, but it's a lack of self awareness and the fact that they don't try to figure out what makes themselves tick. So they don't have that ability yet to understand the value and the power in that.
You hit the nail on the head on this. And here's what's really interesting. And again, I have to preface this just for your listeners and all that. I have no master's degree in psychology. I don't have a PhD in any of this. I always tell people I got a PhD from getting the crap kicked out of me my whole life in sales. But here's what's interesting. Here's what I started to uncover. The better I connected to myself, the better I started to connect to my clients, my future clients, to my friends, people out in the community. And the other thing that I noticed is I started to build a different set of friendships with people. And when I went through this journey, guess what? Some of my friends that I had 16, 17 years ago aren't my friends anymore.
And God bless them, I mean, it doesn't mean you think less of them. It's just, it's just not your world right now.
No. And this is why I bring the message around. Selling from the heart and the inner work and all that. Because in sales is a full contact sport. It's chaotic, right? You're going to get knocked down. I don't care if you're in sales leadership or if you're in sales. Point being is we got to constantly be in search of who we are, what drives us, what are our values, what do we stand for, what's our why, what's our vision, what's our purpose, what's our passion. And once I really uncovered that, I just started to evangelize it out into the marketplace. And I'm a big believer. Like attracts like hearted attracts like hearted. So what was really interesting is once I started to go through this whole self discovery process again, I don't know what it was just something that just happened.
I had a whiteboard in my office and I started to put my clients into buckets. And those were A, B and C buckets. And I just ranked them like 1 through 20, 1 through 20 in those three buckets. A being the most prestige, B being right in the middle of the road, C being their clients. But right. However, I wanted to put that in there. So I looked at my A clients and I threw those into verticals. What verticals do these all belong into? What vertical markets are these businesses in now? Of the people that I know in those organizations, what do they know about me and what do I know about them? And I soon started to figure out we all shared a lot of the same values. Isn't that interesting?
That is so interesting, yes.
Once I started to uncover that, when I went out to grow my business, I grew my business based on alignment of values. So if I'm going to bring people into my community, then I want to make sure they understand my values. I understand their values, and there's some alignment there. Why? Because it made for deeper connections. We could relate. And it became more profitable business. And I helped them grow their business, they helped me grow my business. And it was all around alignment of values. I was being heart centered with them, and I found people that were heart centered, which means I had to do a lot of prospecting and had to do a lot of conversations in order to really uncover all of this. Imagine a sales leader working with their salespeople. Imagine how that would transpire to grow your business.
Right. And think about that. If you don't do that exercise with your whiteboard and put your clients into the three buckets, you would never would have known that. I never would have identified that. I'm going to ask you a question and you'll get a chuckle out of this, but what do you do when people say to you, larry, I get it, self awareness. It's really not that big of a deal. How significant is self awareness? Now, I know your answer, but I want to hear you articulate it. Because everything that we're talking about, that's where it's all started with you.
Yeah. So here's where I would throw that right back. Let's just say it's you and I having this discussion and you go, hey, you know, this stuff's high, touchy feely stuff. Right. I don't buy in anything that you're cooking. What's all this about? Right. I don't think I even buy into it, Larry. Then I'd fire right back at you, Ed. I'm going to keep it professional and say, well, help me understand. Right? What do you mean? Right. What are you struggling with when it comes to self awareness? What is it about that A you're confused about, not too sure about? Help me understand that. What's that look like to you? And then I just listen well, and.
You can even take it a step further. Like, are you struggling with what's getting in the way of you being able to move from point A to point B or whatever, you know, achieve things at the next level? Well, I'm not really sure. Well, okay, well, let's. How are you going to solve it if you can't figure that out? That's self awareness.
Yeah.
You know, and you talked about the inner work. I mean, to me, and it's been, you know, proven in studies that self awareness is the number one predictor of success for C Suite, you know, executives. But to me, it's everything. And you and I talk a lot about authenticity, you know, and to me, the way we break down authenticity here is honesty, integrity, and vulnerability. And I want to get out of your way and let you talk about that a little bit and authenticity and how. And we've already, without using the word we've been talking about, be authentic. Right. The dual roles. But I would love to hear you talk about authenticity and the significance that plays in selling from the heart.
Yeah. I'm going to share. This is coming. Right. I mean, I'm just going to throw it out there. To me, authenticity is a lifestyle. It's not a light switch.
Amen.
If I had to use a word and I had to tie it into authenticity, be congruency. Does the walk match the talk? Plain and simple as that is. Do you carry yourself with integrity? Do you hold yourself accountable? Are you being who you really are? And authenticity, quite frankly, right now has become a buzzword. Hey, I'm being myself. Are you really? And I'm not going to challenge somebody on it. Right. This is not my style, but it will go through my head. And the reason why I say this and I say authenticity of the lifestyle, it's not a light switch. You just don't wake up. Maybe some people do. God bless them if they do. But you just don't wake up in the morning and say, you know what? I think I'm going to try authenticity today. Right.
If it works, I'm going to double down on it and really understand what this is all about.
We'll give it a whirl but you know what? We'll try it out, right?
We'll try it out. And guess what? Well, you know what? If it doesn't work, I'm just going to throw it in the garbage. And I tried it once and there was nothing there. That's why I said sincerity, integrity, being humble, having humility, those are traits that people carry. And they stand straight up and they're. And you can tell, I think it's a sixth sense that people have. And if we look at this through the lens of maybe a sales leader, sales professional, somebody out there, you know, I'd loved when I was a kid watching WWF wrestling and all that, right? And so, you know, Dwayne the Rock Johnson would always say, hey, do you smell what I'm cooking? People smell what you're cooking. If you're in a leadership capacity, your team smells what you're cooking. They can tell if the wok matches the talk.
They can tell by how you carry yourself, how you lean into your people. The same can be said with salespeople and how they carry themselves out in the marketplace and how they work with their clients. The exact same thing can be said.
Out in the marketplace, right? Like we talk a lot about winning, we talk a lot about, you know, defining what victory means to you and helping people win. And for whatever reason we're in this society now, this cancel culture, we're being a great person, selling from the heart, being authentic, right? Operating with integrity and winning. Somehow sometimes they become this mutually exclusive. Like you can't do both, which is a total crock. Doing things the way you do things is a competitive advantage. We'll get into that. But how is it like when you're in the fight? Go back to when you were selling, when you were in the fight, when you were fighting for an account, fighting for a new client and things were getting heated up and people to resort to alternative techniques, we'll call it.
How did you stay true to selling from the heart and operating the way you did and dialing into the power that came from that without wavering?
I had to walk away from some deals too. Ed, I'm just letting you know, I mean, I would get to a certain point and I was just gonna say, you know what, I'm done, I'm outta here. And I would exit stage right. And it might be tough for some people to do this. Here's why I did it. I'm a big believer in this. If you want to have an ever flowing sales funnel, you got to build an Ever flowing relationship funnel. And there were certain non negotiables that I had right from the start. I was never going to sacrifice my integrity. I was never going to waver from it. I was never going to succumb to anything just to get a deal because then I sacrificed my integrity.
I follow Andy Stanley and his leadership podcast and I remember him saying, once integrity is about doing things that are right even if it costs you. I was just never going to waver from it. I share this because my sales funnel, and I'm not bragging when I say this, my sales funnel was always full because I held myself to certain non negotiables. And that means every day I had to prospect, every day I had to build, grow and nurture relationships. And they all fueled each other. So, as if I was in an uncomfortable position with somebody and I knew that there's no way that I can turn this around without sacrificing who I was about. I just politely walked away and said, you know what? I don't think we're right for each other. How many salespeople are willing to do that?
Not a lot. And here's the thing, it has a lot to do with where your focus is and where you're directing your attention. Are you directing your attention and your focus on just making your number or is it the bigger picture like you're talking about?
Well, it goes back. Do you have short term vision or long term vision? Is this just a stopping point for this place in time or is this actually a professional career? Think about that one for a second and it goes back to what do you want to be known for? And I will tell you this, in this day and age with where we're at, your reputation arrives well before you do.
Amen.
Yeah, think about that. And people talk more now than ever before because there's so many more channels for people to communicate in. Think about this through the lens, not through a sales lens or a sales leadership lens. For a moment, think about this through the lens of a client, a future client, an executive, a mid level decision maker, an influential person out in the marketplace. I will tell you this because I've walked through it. Perception of salespeople is really low. Trust is really low. Credibility is really low. They're skeptical about everything you have to say. They think you're fully, you know what? They'd rather figure out how to do things on their own than ever talk to a salesperson.
But I will tell you this, they will talk and they will connect and they will do business with somebody who sells from the heart as opposed to a sales rep who's an empty suit. There's a lot of empty suits out there. If you want to be the 1 percenters or the 2 percenters that we oftentimes hear, you have to be willing to do the things that everybody finds excuses for. And so what I would tell somebody who wants to challenge me on what's it mean to sell from the heart or I can't do that. You ever tried? You ever trained yourself to try to do it? That's why I write in selling from the heart, salespeople have hypnotized themselves into believing what they're not doing doesn't work. Think about that one for a second.
It's a story.
How do you know all this story they're telling themselves?
Right. It's convenient for them to tell themselves that store.
Absolutely. Here's what I want everyone to just latch around for just a second on is I believe each and every one of us are heart centered. We're human beings. It's how we connect. We connect at the heart level. If we can do this in our personal lives, if we build relationships with people who mean a lot to us based on connecting at a heart level by showing gratitude, appreciation, kindness, respect, what prevents each and every one of us from doing this in our professional life?
Only ourselves.
Amen.
Yep, that's it.
And think about that.
It's the only thing that's getting in our way.
Yeah, exactly.
And it's a controllable. That's mind blowing. Right?
I was going to say, what happens if you do this? What happens if you do this and things become even better than they were before?
And I'll tell you this, I don't make a lot of guarantees, but I will make one guarantee. You're going to have a lot more fun. You're going to feel a lot better about yourself.
Okay, so here's a funny. Let's just all think about this for a second. You ready? Can you imagine, just for a moment, let's all think together on this. Can you imagine treating your significant other, the people that are close to you, like you treat your clients? Think about that for a second.
Reverse it. Treat your clients like you treat some of those people close to you or how sometimes we treat ourselves.
I'm a big believer sales leaders and salespeople out there. And I don't care if you're in sales or this transcends into corporate America. Love on your people. If you don't love on your people, they'll Go find some other place to work where that happens. If you're a sales leader working with salespeople, if you want your salespeople to sell from the heart, then you must lead with the heart. The way you treat your people is exactly the same way that they will treat people out in the marketplace.
That speaks volumes to what I always tell my clients and something I've always believed as a coach. A team is a direct reflection of their head coach.
Okay, so I was just a matter of time and. Right. It was a matter of time before the sport stuff would happen. So.
Hey, we. We made a pretty good run right there, brother. We made a pretty good run. Okay.
We made it really far into this podcast.
I could see your itching. So I did it.
I was. Okay. So I got to walk through this really quick in the. In the time that we have remaining. I got it. I have to share this because I live and breathe Los Angeles sports. It's just because where I was raised, I look at somebody like Sean McVeigh, the head coach of the Los Angeles Rams, and I've been a die hard Rams fan since I was a kid. It's the first day I remember back. Probably I was in fifth or sixth grade seeing the Rams play the Vikings on Monday Night Football, the Los Angeles Coliseum. I just became fanatical about the Rams.
Understandable.
I followed them through all their ups and downs. I followed them to St. Louis. I've been a fan. Now they're back and so forth. This speaks to leadership. If you sense that there's some dysfunction going on, start looking at the top, your organization for what's going on now. Either love this person or hate this person. Stan Kroenke, right. People in St. Louis are going to hate this guy. But at least when he moved to la, he had to have a fresh start and he had to look within his organization at the leadership and where everything was at. And he had to part ways with people in the Rams organization and. And it filtered all the way down to the head coach. And he takes a gamble on Sean McVay, who happened to be the youngest coach that was hired in the NFL.
But here's what's really interesting. Sean McVay knows how to lead. He leads with his heart. He's passionate, he's engaging. The reason why I know this is because the Rams practice in the city that I live in, about two miles from my house. So I've been sitting on hills with binoculars watching, and he's out there running plays. And you can see how passionate this guy is. And as a head coach, he changed the culture and the dynamics of the whole Rams football team. Short sports story, but think about this, leaders. If you want to change the culture of your team, it's up to you. It's solely on your shoulders. If you want to bring a heart centered approach inside your organization, we all have the capability of doing it. Are you willing to go there and be intentional and lean into your people?
If you lead by example, watch what starts to happen. It's pretty powerful stuff. I coach a VP of sales right now and over the past year he just leaned into this whole heart stuff and completely turned his whole sales team around.
Let me ask you, because were about to get to it here. What are some of the barriers? What are some of the pushbacks? What are some of the things that make people, I don't want to say skeptical of selling from the heart, skeptical of themselves doing it?
It's the stories we tell ourselves. It's everything that goes on in our minds, right? I'm a big, huge believer. The stories in our mind become the stories of our life. The stories that we tell ourselves soon play out. And it's all those people who doubt, well, I can't do this right? Insert excuse. I can't do this fear of this, right? My ego, it's my pride. What happens if I do this and it doesn't work? Well, what happens if it does work? But at a leadership level, it's up to you to influence and impact your sales team and help them to become even better. Leaning into your people means connecting at the heart. Does that require some vulnerability? Yes. Absolutely. Want to grow your sales? Want to grow your team. Want to grow the culture of your organization. Bring heart to the forefront.
Watch what starts to happen. You got to be willing to go there.
You have an incredible tool to do that. Because if someone's sitting there like, okay, I get it, where do I start? Can we talk a little bit about your book and the way it's structured and how you hit on these things and the work that folks can do? Because this, to me, it's a handbook, it's a guide, it's a tool, it's a resource. It's everything that you need to get started.
Thanks again. Going down the road of writing Selling from the Heart, I didn't know what to expect, Ed. All I wanted to do was write a book that a was going to pack a punch, which I believe Selling from the Heart does pack a punch. It hits home for a lot of people. But I wrote it in a way around how I carried my life and how I wish that I would have been raised by. I had lots of sales managers, never sales leaders. So the first half of the book is just the journey to uncover who you are. It's about self reflection and self care and self love and self acknowledgement. I tie a self reflection journal into the book.
So after you read each chapter, then there's a series of questions that you have to ask and it's going to require some work. And then the last half of the book is the skills that you need to really bring to the forefront to wrap the inner work that you're doing on the first half of the book to have the outer success.
What is the best way for a person to utilize this book, you know, in terms of going through it step by step to get the most out of it, to squeeze a sponge dry, so to speak?
A couple things, read each chapter, digest it, and integrate the self reflection journal. What I found is as a suggest, I'm just throwing this out as complete suggestion. You want to really get something from the book, have an accountability partner and read it together. Don't just read it to read it and digest it. And all I'd ask is if there's one thing that you can implement out of the book, then the book had an impact, simple as that.
And then it was worth all your hours writing that book, which we've talked a little bit about that before. The podcast was just such a wonderful journey and I know we got a roll and I know there's not a, a lot of time left. In addition to the book, where can they find the podcast selling from the heart? Where can they find you on social media? You do amazing work on LinkedIn. I have to mention that. And we have to talk about again some other time. Your journey on LinkedIn has been mind blowing. I mean, it's been awesome. So where can folks find more about you?
They can go to sellingfromtheheart.net they can learn everything about the whole movement. The podcast is available on any podcast platform. Wherever you choose to listen to podcasts, you can find me on LinkedIn. Lastly, if you want a free autographed copy of the book, just go to sellingfromtheheart.net book.
Perfect. Can I just request one of those right now?
Absolutely.
Hey Larry, this has been awesome. I mean, this has just been incredible. This is a great podcast episode. Not to just listen to once, but to go back to and refer to time and again because there's so much here. And not that you can't digest it all in one listen, but the reminders, right, and the constant check ins and the constant reflections and holding ourselves accountable. Cause at the end of the day, that's all we can do, right?
Yeah. That's been my big thing was I was willing to hold myself to a higher degree of standards than anybody else was. And if we can't hold ourselves accountable and we can't manage ourselves, you're going to be on a crazy roller coaster of a ride. Great things happen when you hold yourself accountable and you manage yourself and you're willing to go down the roads to explore who you really are. Great things happen. I'll just leave it at this. The more you invest in yourself, the more you're going to collect on yourself.
Amen. That is absolutely spot on. And Larry, I can't thank you enough. We'll have links to everything that Larry mentioned in the podcast notes. Again, go get your autograph. Free autograph copy. It's been a long time coming. I am so grateful we got connected. We've been able to spend some time together and this is just the tip of the iceberg. We're going to have so many more conversations and I'd love to have you back on again.
I would welcome it. And I can't wait for you to come on the Selling from the Heart podcast in a few months.
I'm looking forward to it. I might have to jump on a plane and do that in person. Sorry honey, I got to go to Cali. I got to get out.
You're a class act. I've enjoyed this. You're just a terrific guy. Thank you for the opportunity for me to share Selling from the Heart with you listeners.
I appreciate those words and I appreciate you my friend.
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