What do top-performing sales professionals and sales leaders do that others miss? I met with Dan Lappin of Lappin180 to dive into their approach and mindset. We discussed the traps that average salespeople fall into and the opportunities that exist with a shift in mindset.

We also covered:

• Traps run-of-the-mill or average sales professionals make and how to correct them
• Why BS sales hacks often harm rather than help
• Why sales professionals perform better when they let go of the outcome
• How top performers visualize the right results
• Learning to bet on yourself and on your process
• Often overlooked discrepancies between a salesperson’s objectives and the prospects
• The power of the advisor mindset

Here’s a transcript of our conversation:

Habits of High-Performance Sales Leaders

Rich: Welcome. How are you doing?

Dan : I’m doing great, Rich. I feel good.

Rich: Good. That’s good to hear. Especially in these current times. People may not have heard of  Lappin180. Tell us a little bit about what you guys are doing over there.

Dan: We’re a sales consulting, high-performance firm. So what that means is we actually teach people to stop selling. There’s a psychology around how human beings make decisions and psychology on how we debate change. And ironically, the traditional and the typical sales standards or sales activities of presenting and pitching proving value and finding pain, ironically, those key sales actions do nothing to help the other human being objectively debate and evaluate change. And so that’s what we do. We get into that part where we teach our clients, how do they help their prospects truly and objectively go through that decision process of risk and uncertainty and discomfort to debate the opportunity to make a change? And that’s what makes us different.

Rich: So before we get into the details of what we’re going to cover, there are two particular areas that I want to get into. Just at a high level, given the current circumstances at a high level, how are you seeing the pandemic at the moment affecting the sales profession right now?

Dan: We see it mostly in new meetings, prospecting or outreach. There’s different terms for it as you and I both know Rich. And what we’ve seen is that prospects are not tolerating the traditional, “Hey, love to get together, and love to tell you about what we do and show you how we can help your business.” And what we’re finding is that the prospects out there just won’t tolerate that approach anymore. They’re tired of it. And so what we’re seeing is a true shift toward you have to be high intent, you have to be completely focused on what’s in the best interest of that prospect when you do your outreach.

It can no longer be about, “Let me tell you, let me show you. Here’s a free demo. Hey, do you want to learn how to increase, blah, blah, blah by 100%?” prospects are running from that left and right. And so you really have to learn now how to be and truly authentic when you give your outreach, whether it’s LinkedIn, whether it’s a voicemail, whether it’s an email, because again, there’s this little thing called pattern recognition that we as human beings do each and every day. All day long, we look for patterns so that we can determine what kind of experience we’re going to have, whether it’s going to a coffee shop in the morning, whether it’s walking into the office, whether it’s on a Zoom call, whether it’s wherever. And so prospects now are keenly looking for patterns that tell them, “If I accept this person’s LinkedIn invite, if I accept this person’s email, am I going to have an unfortunate sales experience?” And that’s what prospects don’t want to have anymore.

So we’re seeing this huge shift to having to be truly genuine and authentic. I know long answer to your question, but we’ve done webinars on it. We’ve had many of our clients want to spend extra time on it, because you have to shift your approach now, if you want people to feel safe talking to you. And prospects, once again and businesses, aren’t in the mood for a sales experience.

Rich: Excellent Dan. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to get into that in a little bit more detail further on into the episode. I want to give people a little bit of a framework around what we’re going to be covering in the episode today. To begin with, I want us to spend a little bit of time focusing on the traps that sales professionals tend to fall into. And then in the second part of the episode, I want to look at the opportunities that there are. You guys are working with high performing sales leaders around the world, you’re seeing trends, you’re seeing patterns, you’re coaching people to achieve the best that they can be. I want to try and extract some of the patterns that you see in some of the highest performing sales professionals. Before we do that though, can you just describe to us some of the traps that you guys see in your kind of run-of-the-mill or average sales professional? What are the traits, what are the behaviors that those guys are falling into that leads them to have a less than optimal performance?

Dan: Great question, Rich. We see a lot of trends in sales. I can give you some significant trends that the listeners can be thinking about right away within their business and what kind of adjustments your listeners might want to make. So, number one, it’s mindset. High performers have a very different mindset when they walk into an appointment, and I’ll share a little bit. Number one, a high performer, and this is going to sound very strange to your listeners, a high performer let’s go of outcomes. So yes, that high performer in sales is going to prep and they’re going to prep their questions, not script, but prep them. They’re going to think through all the curve balls that could happen in the conversation. They’re going to do their research and all that. But what’s going to happen is when they walk into that appointment, they let go of the outcome.

They tell themselves, “All right, no Richer what the prospect says or client says, in that moment, I will not label it as good or bad.” And here’s why, when a sales professional hears something good, they define it as good because it probably signifies that the conversation’s going well. And then that sales professional fast-forwards in their head to if it’s going well, that means they must like me, or they might see my value, or we might get that second meeting. That is outcome-based thinking. And so what that sales person will do is they will only then continue to ask questions that drive toward what they want, which is that positive outcome. And more importantly, excuse me, they will only listen for things that drive toward that outcome. So they start listening for only what they want to hear, but not what they need to hear.

And so top performers realizes that, “Can’t do that.” And the top performer, when they hear something bad, where the prospect might say something like, “Yeah, I think we’re really happy with our current provider. We feel really good about where we are with our current solution.” Or, “Our current partner has done a great job for us.” Many sales professionals will feel frustration in that second and disappointment, because what’s happened is they’ve tied themselves to an outcome of, “Oh crap. Now we’re not going to get a second meeting.” And so what they do then is they try to over prove in that meeting why they might be a better alternative, and they stop asking questions and their listening changes. So top performers know, don’t assign a value to the outcome. What they also do top performers, and here’s a big shift, top performers will also move from what we call a sales intent, which is, “How do I get this prospect to like me? How do I get them to see my value? How do I get them to want to do business with me?”

Top performers will move from that type of intent, Rich. They’ll move to an intent which is, “My only role in this conversation is simply to determine how and if I can help this organization or person, and are they ready for my help?” That mindset shift drives a completely different line of questions. So I would invite your listeners because they can all do this as of today, once they hear this podcast. In their next appointment, that mindset should be, “My role today is to determine how and if I can help. Are they even ready?” And what I would also suggest is two more things top performers do; Number one, they prep. I did talk about it, but they’re very deliberate in their prep. And they prep because they want to perform in the clutch.

And there’s all kinds of studies on cognitive behavior. There’s all kinds of studies on neuroscience, there’s all kinds of studies on resilience and all that. And a common theme is the more we prep for something, the more we can perform in the clutch. The more likely we are to get into that state of flow which top athletes describe where everything slows down for them. By the way, it happens in conversations too, if you fully and truly prep. And then the last thing top performers do is they visualize. But they don’t visualize a victory. The top performer doesn’t visualize walking out of the prospects or clients’ conference room or building, with their hands up in the air in victory, with a crowd out in the parking lot waiting for them. No, that’s not what a top performer visualizes.

A top performer visualizes moments of deep thought and a deep interaction with the prospect. A top performer visualizes that prospect, really thinking and sitting back in their chair contemplating and debating. That top performer visualizes those moments where they can tell that that prospect is 100% committed to answering whatever question was asked. So those are the separation points between say a traditional sales performer or someone of average performance and a top performer.

Rich: I love that. And one of the things that reminds me of listening to your own podcast, Breaking Sales, which I highly recommend by the way, is one of your colleagues. There’s a quote from one of your colleagues, Pam, on one of the episodes, which I absolutely love. It’s not a tactic. It’s a way of being. And I think that that’s what we really need to stress here is that these aren’t hacks, these aren’t sort of quick fixes. These are a way of being and a way of coming to the conversation that allow your prospect to see you as a genuine advisor, as a genuine helper, as opposed to, “Let’s use some sophisticated language to try and achieve that outcome.”

Dan: You know, Rich, you just said something, which I really appreciate, because I see a lot of people promoting the term hack. I see it on all kinds of coaches, whatever their coaches. I see it on all kinds of LinkedIn posts, on social media. To your point, if you want to get really, really good at something, there is no hack. It won’t happen. You’ve got to put the time in and you’ve got to be committed. And so, yeah, that word hack, I just don’t know how it fits truly into what we do if you want to be a top sales performer. Because as in anything in life, you’ve got to be fully committed to your preparation and to your process, in order for you to Excel at a higher level.

Rich: And we’re going to come onto that in more detail I hope later in the episode. Before we do, I want to circle back a little bit on what you said prior to the previous answer, and that’s around not being focused on the outcome. Now, if I’m a sales professional listening to this, I buy into it, I get it, but then I go and I speak to my manager and my manager is putting pressure on me. In other words, do we not create circumstances under which where those behaviors manifest themselves? The structure around us in the way sales professionals are targeted, lends itself to having the sales professional focus on the outcome as opposed to that helping advisor role.

Dan: Yeah. This idea of letting go of an outcome, Rich, truly is probably a challenge for many of your listeners as it is for ours as well. We’re all bred, and we’re all taught, even way back in preschool and in our schooling, it all comes down to the grade, the final exam. What grade did you get on the report? You know, we’ve been taught to focus on outcomes. The challenge is though, that if you take a look at how the brain works and you take a look at how our behaviors work, when we start focusing on outcomes, we lose our ability to truly be in the moment and execute the skill that we’re fully capable of executing.

But once we hit that outcome level, we start feeling scarce. Like, “Man, I hope this goes well.” Or, “Oh, don’t ask that question. You might screw it up, and if you screw that question up, the prospect’s not going to like you. And if they don’t like you, they’re not going to invite you back for a second meeting.” Our brain works in patterns, and so one of the problems that we all have is that we have, and there’s been studies on this Rich that any day we have 50 to 70,000 thoughts a day. And out of those 50 to 70,000 thoughts a day, 80% of them are negative. That’s 40,000 thoughts minimum that are negative or have a negative pattern or connotation to them. And out of those 40,000 thoughts, 95% of them are repetitive patterns. So it does take some self-awareness to start this process of learning how to get into that meeting and remind yourself, “Okay, I know I want this meeting to go well. I can feel it. I’ve got to learn to let that go because how has that helped me in the past?”

So what we do is we teach a process for people to guide themselves through right before they get into the meeting of how to finally let go of that outcome, and just start asking themselves some simple questions, which is, “Okay, if I’m so focused on this outcome, how is that going to help me? I know it’s not, because I’ve been here before. And I start feeling antsy. I start feeling frustration. I start feeling angst. I I’ve got to stay away from that.” And we also teach Rich, people how to, when they’re actually in the meeting and they find themselves feeling frustration or angst, which is usually a 100% symptom of attaching to an outcome in that moment, we teach them how to back away. That’s how we as sales professionals can truly start performing at a higher level.

Rich: And also, you’re not talking about necessarily not caring about making sales and performing, because again, I’m just thinking of that fairly inexperienced sales professional who buys into the idea, but still has to have the conversation with their VP or their manager to say, “Well…” How do you square that circle between on the one hand, I’m not focused on the outcome as a professional, but I also know I’m working in an environment where everything is geared towards me hitting, getting that next meeting, being positive about that next meeting even though I know it wasn’t a good meeting. It’s really how do you square the circle of bringing that approach into an organization where the organization just simply isn’t structured in a way that supports that?

Dan: One of the first things you have to do and I’ve been through this, so I speak from experience. It takes time and it’s not easy. You have to learn to bet on yourself. You have to learn to realize, “Okay, wait a minute. I know I have paid a bonus, and that bonus I get, and that commission I get is a direct correlation with, “Do I win sales or not? Do I close deals or not?” Oh, by the way, my job and my employment also rely on the fact that I need to close deals. I need to make sure I’m above plan, above quota. We understand all that. The key to it is your preparation. When you prep your mindset and you prep your questions and you prep for the curve balls that can happen prior to the meeting, it allows you to feel more comfortable to realize that you’re ready for this conversation and you’re ready to bet on yourself.

And so when that conversation unfolds, you can say things to yourself like if you hear something you didn’t want to hear, you can say things like, “Okay, I heard what that prospect just said. They just said that they are very happy with their current partner.” Now, if I’m attached, I’m going to feel disappointment, and I’m going to feel the angst in that moment. But what I can do is I can remind myself, “Hold on, let me stay in the game. I worked my butt off for this meeting. How do I know objectively that what that prospect just said is truly right for them?” Should they be happy with their current provider or is that just their loyalty biased coming out? And so I remind myself what they just said doesn’t mean anything yet. And I say that with the emphasis on the word yet, because we all know the word yet signifies a lack of permanence.

And so we say it doesn’t mean anything yet. What we’re saying is what they just said isn’t permanent. Let me dive further into that and see if what this prospect thinks, feels, or their perception is valid. And that’s what a true advisor does. Now, I realize as I’m answering your question Rich, working with leadership in an organization, you’re right, it is a challenge. Because if you have what we call a scarce leader, who is always like, “You’ve got to get the deal, you’ve got to get the deal. You got to get the second meeting. You got to get the data. If you don’t get the demo, you’re shot, you’re done, forget it.” That is a challenge. And that scarce leader is going to breed scarcity in the organization. What that leader needs to do is start to dissect and focus on the process of conversation that is occurring.

So for instance, we teach the psychology of decision making. And there’s other things that this leader can do as well. Doesn’t have to be psychology of decision making, but the leader needs to determine the process. Focus on the process, don’t focus on the result. Because the more you focus on the result as a leader, the more stress, the more scarcity, the less likely your team is to perform in clutch, competitive situations.

Rich: That is a perfect answer to the question. And I think it’s a pragmatic answer as well, one that I hope people will get a lot of value from. I want to just go back onto the traps. I want to focus a little bit more on the traps and the pitfalls that sales professionals fall into right now. One of the things I’ve listened with great interest to on your podcast is how you guys talk about the discrepancy between the sales professional going into the meeting and their thoughts and objectives, and the thoughts and objectives of the prospect. Can you speak a little bit to the discrepancy that those two parties bring to the meeting and what happens when the sales professional focuses too much on their own outcomes?

Dan: I’d be happy to. And I think I need to share this in an example with your listeners. So for your listeners out there, I’m going to ask them to kind of go through a pretend scenario with me. For all the listeners out there, let’s pretend someone that you respect and someone that you trust sends you a referral through an email that says, “Hey, why don’t you meet with this sales performance coach Dan ?” Most of your listeners in that moment are going to feel probably a slight annoyed obligation. I don’t want to be presumptuous there, and there’s always a degree, but most of us feel an obligation like, “Okay, I respect this person who’s telling me to meet with Dan, but why do they want to have me meet with Dan?”

And so then I reach out and they’re going to acquiesce out of respect for the referral, and they’re going to meet me, say for a cup of coffee. All right. Now what I want you listeners to do is pretend you pick a coffee shop near where you live, and I’m going to meet you there in the morning. And when I show up, how do you feel? Do you feel like you want to tell me all the things that are going wrong, or all the things that you want to improve and your sales performance, or do you feel a little bit skeptical? Do you feel a little bit reserved, a little bit cautious because you don’t know anything about me and you don’t know what I want? My gut is it’s the latter. So let’s pretend as the conversation unfolds, all right, I’m asking your listeners questions one-on-one.

Here’s where some of the things start to occur, Rich, which we call biases. And this is what prospects bring into conversations, and this is what sales professionals bring into conversations. So as a sales professional, I’m asking your listeners questions. How are your listeners receiving them? Most of your listeners as I ask questions, they’re going to say to themselves, “Why is Dan asking me that? What does he want? Where’s he going with that?” And because of that, they’re going to feel caution, and they’re going to feel hesitation in terms of how much do they share with me? Do they give me some honest answers? Do they become vulnerable? Most likely they’re not going to become vulnerable, because as each question as I ask, your listeners are thinking, “What’s he going to do with the information?” If your listeners sense for a second, that I am purposely asking questions to get them somewhere, to share pain so I can solve it, your listeners more than likely are going to start to shut down and become defensive.

And why does that happen? It’s because they feel a bias for me. They can tell I want to find their pain. They can tell I’m trying to find their pain so I can solve it, and in hopes that I get a second meeting with them. In other words, your listeners are probably going to pick up very quickly in this discussion with me over a cup of coffee, what do I want from them? They can tell that I want and need something from them. And the second your listeners can tell I want and need something from them, maybe because of the questions I’m asking, maybe because I’ve jumped really quick to try to solve problems that may be not even be problems, or I spent the entire time in the first five to 10 minutes talking about my expertise and all the other companies we help, your listeners are going to start to feel they’re biased, and it’s going to shut them down. And the trust, or any trust that would be created between us is going to go away.

On the flip side, for me, I’m going to feel your listeners remove themselves a bit from the conversation. I’m going to be able to tell that your listeners aren’t being maybe completely engaged. And I might start pressing because I want and need something, I might start proving heavier. Am I telling more stories? What’s going to happen there is what we call a collision. Your listeners don’t want to feel like somebody wants and needs something from them. Your listeners do not want to feel that way. As a sales professional, I walk into that cup of coffee with your listeners and I want and need something. So what’s going to happen. It’s going to become what we call a sales collision. There’s going to be some nuances and so forth at the end of the day.

But at the end of the day, your listener is going to leave that meeting, or think about leaving that meeting going, “Okay, they’re going to spend their time trying to disqualify me, because as soon as they can disqualify me, they’re off the hook from having to spend more time with me. They’re off the hook from having to think about investing in themselves. They’re off the hook from having to do anything and change anything in their business. And all that happened because I was the one that at first brought my biases of maybe a need for another conversation, maybe an attachment to the outcome of getting a second meeting. That’s what started it all. And so that’s how biases start to show up, and that’s how they play out between one human being and another human being.

Rich: So those are all fantastic examples, Dan, of how a sales professional could go into a situation with the wrong sort of ideas, the wrong outcomes, the wrong intent. What could somebody do on a slightly more practical level to ensure that they avoid those pitfalls and traps? What are some of the things they can do in the next meeting on the next call to just remove that focus on outcomes? Give us some practical tips and suggestions on that.

Dan: Here’s something I want to share with you. I want them to think about this for a second. Just slow everything down for a second. We’ve talked a little bit today, Rich, about what we call a sales mindset, which is how do I get the prospect to like me? How do I prove my value? How do I earn the opportunity to give a demo? Or how do I get them to give me the date? Or how do I get a second meeting? That’s a sales mindset. I want your listeners to think about their competition for a second. How many of their competitors probably have the same exact mindset? My gut is your listeners are going to say most of them. So now let’s slow down. Let’s think about this.

If most of your listeners themselves might sometimes have this sales mindset unintentionally, and their competitors have this sales mindset unintentionally, what’s going to happen is they’re going to all end up having the same conversation with the prospect. Because how we think drives what we do, what we say and what we ask. Let me give you an example. If I walk into an appointment and I’m excited about the appointment, I have a sales mindset and that prospect says to me right away, “Hey, Dan, I’m sorry. I know we scheduled 60 minutes on the diary here, but we’ve only got 30. And because of that, I need you to just tell me what do you guys do? What makes you different?”

If I have a sales mindset, I’m going to feel this pressure to be profound in that moment and try to say something that impresses that prospect enough, that hopefully I make it through the question safely and maybe if I’ve influenced them that our conversation might be worth more than 30 minutes. I’m going to go into innate proving mode. “Okay, I better prove my value now because I’ve been pulled on the line here. And if I want anything good to come out of this meeting, here’s my go time.” Now here’s the key. You have to shift first and foremost to what we call an advisor mindset. Because again, how we think drives what we say, what we do and what we ask.

An advisor mindset is like, number one, how, and if I can help and are they ready? You know, number two, I’m not going to label the outcome. I’m not going to assign a value to this conversation. I’ve got to let it go as I walk into this meeting. Number three, I also have to remind myself, “Look, my entire sales career doesn’t come down in this one conversation. The sun comes up tomorrow.” With that mindset, I should be able to take some of the pressure off me, and I should be able to think more clearly. Because in essence, when the prospect says, “Rich, how can you help me?” Me answering it in that moment truly doesn’t benefit that prospect because I really don’t know anything about that prospect’s business other than what I’ve researched.

I’d be assumptive if I just started saying what I think would help them, and I could be completely wrong. And I haven’t done anything yet to try to ease the prospect’s biases that they brought into that discussion with me. So the real answer, if I’m just going to be human about it is, “Mr. Prospect. I understand what you’re asking. Here’s the problem. If I start sharing with you all the things I think make our company different, that would be very assumptive on my part. And I’d probably be doing our time together a disservice. Here’s what might work better. Why don’t we spend a few minutes here for maybe 10 or 15 out of the 30. I have a few questions for you. I’ll learn a little bit more about your business, a little bit more about what’s working and what’s not, then maybe toward the end, I can share a few things about what our company’s doing that might better align with what’s important and relevant within your business. Can we try that?”

Again, Rich, long answer, but I really wanted to give your listeners a real example of how quickly this idea of mindset impacts what we say and what we do, which impacts the reaction and response, and at the end of the day, the results of our conversations.

Rich: And it’s a very powerful example, extremely powerful. And it brings to mind, as you’re talking, a colleague of mine at Allego recently actually cancelled a demo 10 minutes into the demo of the product because the prospects at the time was not giving them any information, was very much, “Just give me a harbor tour. Just tell me what your product does.” Was very unresponsive to questions. And I’ve got so much admiration for my colleague who did this. He said, similar to what you’ve suggested there, “I’m not sure I can help you because I don’t have enough information from which to help you.” And the demo didn’t happen as a result of that.

Fast-forward a week, the prospect actually comes back and they do a demo and it goes very, very well. But it’s about having the… And I’m going to say courage, it might not be courage, but for me, it’s courage. A courage to say, “If the circumstances won’t allow me to help you in the way that I think I need to, then what are we doing talking in essence?”

Dan: You nailed the courage part. We’ve really showed, or we’ve really talked about a lot of different things with your listeners. This mindset shift that I’m talking about, empowers everybody who is in sales to finally be able to put themselves on equal ground with the prospect. That is the key. It enables sales professionals to truly bet on themselves as a peer or as an equal sitting across the table, across the Zoom call across the phone with their prospects and clients.

Rich: Yeah, powerful. Really, really powerful. We’re running up on time, Dan. I just want to give the listeners one or two extra takeaways, short, short, short answers if you can. From the perspective of the high performer, give me one or two areas where those guys, the guys you’re coaching, where are they paying attention? Where is their attention going that the average or poor performer isn’t? What are they focusing on that the others aren’t?

Dan: The biggest thing they focus on Rich is process. So they plan out their weeks and their months, and it’s not easy for them. They’re not all wired to be very methodical and deliberate and organized. Many of them struggle with organization and consistency, but they realize that it’s a process. So what they do is they focus so much on their entire process each week of when do they have outreach? When do they do practice time? What days do they do their meetings? When do they do their debriefs? They structure their week so that it is structured in a high performance process fashion. That’s where they spend their time, because they know at this point they’ve got to bet on themselves, and betting on themselves is betting on their process.

And I’ll give you one example. If you’re going to surf an 80-foot wave, and probably most of your listeners, and certainly not me aren’t, but there are people out there who do, here’s how people surf an 80-foot wave. They start with two-foot waves. They start then the six foot, eight foot and 10 foot and so forth. And they master their process of preparation and execution. So by the time they get on that 80-foot wave, they can do two key things. They can let go of all expectations because they’re so well prepped, and they can let go of outcomes, which enables them to completely focus on the execution of the skill that they have been working on for months and years. That’s my biggest advice to salespeople. Sales is a high performance profession. Immediately start looking at it as a profession of process and preparation, and you will see your results grow.

Rich: What a place to end the interview. Dan, I’ve absolutely enjoyed so much speaking with you today. There’s a lot more that we could talk about, but for now we’re going to have to leave it there. Before we do the obligatory mention of the company and where people can find out more about you. And importantly as well, where do you give your podcast to plug? I highly recommend it to people listening. So over to you.

Dan: Thanks Rich. Yeah, if you want to get in contact with us, you’re welcome to join us on Lappin180 on LinkedIn. We post content. We post our podcast episodes and all that on there. And then of course go to our website at Lappin180.com. And then we have our podcasts called Breaking Sales. And Breaking Sales is a culmination of our content, our stories, and the stories of high performers and other individuals in the mindset, in the neurosciences, in the cognitive behavior, in the psychologies behind high performance. So we do a lot of interviews there and bring a lot of really smart people on to our program with a 100% focus on how do we increase the performance and raise the level of achievement in sales?

Rich: Awesome. Dan, thank you so much. I hope you have a fantastic week.

Dan: Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure to be here.

Learn More

Download The Complete Guide to Conversation Intelligence to learn how Conversation Intelligence can help improve sales coaching, content, and training.