ExtraBold Sales - Catherine Brown - The Revenue Maze - Episode #020

B2B sales teams are struggling to find new ways to reach their buyers. Today’s guest sees these issues and has answers to this problem. Catherine Brown is the Inventor and Chief Trainer at EXTRABOLD Sales and the author of How Good Humans Sell. Catherine joins host Valerie Cobb to share some of the tips on how companies can sell better and increase their revenue.

Takeaways:

  • One way to increase your revenue is to have a strong call to action. This will hold you accountable while also driving attention to your company.
  • Part of the sellers’ job is to make it easy to work with them and set up everything for the client.
  • It’s important to be crystal clear with clients. If you are clear with them and they understand everything that is happening, they will appreciate that clarity and honesty.
  • You need to believe in yourself and have the confidence to go out there and sell yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, it is obvious and you won’t be able to get the most out of your work.
  • When you are sharing your point or opinion, you should have the base intention of being a good human.
  • Sales shouldn’t feel like there is external pressure that they have to handle along with their regular job.
  • If you want to be an entrepreneur, start in the corporate world and let a corporate company train you and develop the skills you will need to succeed.

Quote of the Show:

5:15 “The seller’s job is to meet that part of the good humanness and to make it easy to work with us.”

Links:

Ways to Tune In:

The Revenue Maze is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

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ExtraBold Sales – Catherine Brown – The Revenue Maze

I’m super excited about this guest now. On LinkedIn, I have gotten to the point that I just love her. Anything that she posts, I try to comment on. She is a workaholic, but she loves it and has fun doing it. She loves to create content. If anybody knows Clifton StrengthsFinder, she’s amazing. She loves to travel. She’s written a book and we will talk about that in just a little bit. She’s just an idea machine.

She used to be afraid of she’d run out of content, but there is no way. If you have ever met her, she’s idea after idea. It’s awesome. She has started several companies. She has written the book, How Good Humans Sell, which I have shared with many of my sales teams. It is just an amazing book. I promote it. I would love to welcome the CEO of ExtraBold Sales, Catherine Brown. Welcome, Catherine.

Thank you so much for having me. That is a generous and diverse introduction, and it’s fair and true. I appreciate the opportunity to talk with your audience. I have been enjoying your show. I enjoy following you on LinkedIn as well. I’m so grateful for your support.

It’s great to have you. We want to talk more about what you are doing and all the exciting fun stuff. First, we always ask one question on the show. What is one thing that you can tell the readers that will help them get out of the revenue maze?

Having a strong call to action is my answer. When I say a strong call to action, what I mean is that in every single interaction that we have, every discovery phone call, giving a demonstration if you are a product company, and if you are ending a coffee with someone, it doesn’t matter what it is. What is the next step that we want to take together? Can we go ahead and set that date while we are together? What I will do in written form or in a voicemail is I will also name what I’m going to do next. I will model that for you.

In a sales email, it would say, “Can you speak on Tuesday or Thursday? I’m available at 3:00 or 4:00 Central Time. If I don’t connect with you by Friday, I will give you a call and see if I can catch you Friday morning.” I schedule that in my own CRM and hold myself accountable. I’m also telling them I’m serious about meeting. It’s okay if you don’t want to, but you need to let me know either way. It keeps the ball moving forward. That has been a big game changer for clients of mine who have practiced that.

That is a game changer. That is one of the hardest things, training people to do that great call to action. They think they are too pushy. I hear all the time, “I have got to be this servant of the client.” You will hear all this, “When can you meet me next,” which is very open-ended. Tell us a little bit about how you train some of these people to get that call to action where they feel comfortable.

It’s really important that people use their own words. They say it as personally and individually as they possibly can. For example, some people feel more comfortable using the passive voice. Some people feel more comfortable using the active voice. Those are a couple of choices. It could be with more relaxed or more formal language. There are different ways people can do it. It is a mind shift. I will tell you that I do receive a fair amount of resistance on that very last point about naming what you will do next. Most people will buy in, “You are right. I should never get off a call.”

It’s like, “Why are you sending a proposal without a time to talk about their proposal?” That’s crazy. Stop doing that. People go, “That’s crazy. I should stop doing that.” Nobody has a problem with some of those suggestions. When it gets to, “How about we do this? Whether or not we connect, here’s what I will do.” That is where to some people cross a line, and they feel like that’s so aggressive. My counter to that is that it’s not helpful to a very busy person, who is most of our buyers, that’s how we are. Look how far out we had to work to book this episode.

A long time.

We have been scheduled for a long time because we both have a lot going on. If we are that type of buyer or business owner, which I think we are. We are the buyer that a lot of people want to sell to. It is the seller’s job to meet the part of the good humanness is to make it easy to work with us. Easy is clear. When you dump this vague statement in my lap and say, “let me know if you are interested,” I know that the seller’s heart is to be kind and not pushy, but it feels like you just dumped a pile of you know what in my lap because now, it’s all of my responsibility. Am I supposed to look at my calendar and send you my Calendly, and propose times next? You are supposed to make this easy for me. You are the one that wants to make a sale.

If I can get people to understand clarity is love and is help. When you are unclear and vague because you are afraid. That’s what it’s about, you are afraid. You are going to be perceived as too pushy. 1) That’s unattractive. Nobody likes to buy from people like that. 2) You are risking that it’s reflecting a lack of a clear process on your side. I will give you a quick example. I was on a sales call. This guy has a podcast service that’s interesting, which reminds me to tell you about it. We are talking and getting toward the end of the call, and I’m waiting. I’m waiting for him to say what’s going to happen next because I said, “I can tell I need to have an internal conversation and do a couple of things on my side.”

Clarity is the help you need when you are unclear with what you need to do.

I was waiting to see if he was going to drive to that next step or if he was holding back for me to do it. In this case, I was the buyer. I think people expect that and want to be given some guidance about how others have purchased it and how it looks, but it’s that fear of not being seen as a good human that makes people hold back. Ironically, I think we are being unhelpful.

Your book points out a statistic, and I want you to share that. Where do salespeople feel they fit in the tier of jobs? This is from your book. This is why it’s so digestible because it resonates with everybody. It goes through. Tell them that story. I have used that story even on the show, and quoted you, because that is one thing that they struggle with and why they won’t do the call to action. Why don’t you share that story?

To do the research for How Good Humans Sell, I did a lot of anonymous surveying. I surveyed both business owners who are the primary seller for their company, as well as the full-time business-to-business salespeople that those owners hire. I had a little bit of a difference in the way people answered. I was expecting that the business owners would have more reluctance because they typically are practitioners who start out to do something. They don’t start out wanting to be a salesperson, they just have to be a salesperson for a while.

What was sad was the volunteering to be a sales professional, and the answers that people gave to a number of the questions. The one that you are referencing is I named seven professions, and being a sales professional was 1 of 7 choices. I asked people to independently rate on a scale of 1 to 7, 1 being not respectable at all and 7 being the most respectable, greatest job ever. I asked people to independently rate these different professions. I asked about a doctor, pastor, religious leader, and plumbers. I tried to get blue-collar, white-collar, and a little bit of religion in there. I tried to give a few choices. Sales were one of them.

What was so interesting and sad was that I did not ask people to rank from most respectable to least respectable in their perspective. I asked them to independently rate them. Even though they independently rated them, sales came out last. It had the lowest score by those who do the job. I think that’s interesting, too, because what will happen is, I noticed this when I hear other sales professionals interviewed on shows, I have read on your show, when people say, “How did you get started in sales,” most people’s story is, “I fell into it.” They are not going into it voluntarily.

They fall into it for some reason and either become convinced or desperate. They are the owner who learns, “I can actually do this,” and they get good at it, and then they go a different direction. I have a good friend who studied Electrical Engineering. He did start out in sales out of college selling very technical things. He has made a career as a salesperson. I would say he would even say he fell into it because it was the next right thing because he decided even though he got his degree, he didn’t like engineering enough, so he was pretty hungrily looking for something else to do. I think that’s how a lot of people get to it, and they are apologetic about the role.

TRM 20 | Call To Action

Call To Action: Most people got started in sales involuntarily. They simply fell into it for some reason, convinced by other people, or got so desperate to try something new.

That resonated so much to me when you did that study. I am a constant learner. I’m a fan of the challenger methodology. All the different methodologies depending on the situation that I’m in. One of the biggest problems with sellers closing deals is head trash. They crafted this so well like this is exactly what’s going on in their mind. They always say that 1 in 8 jobs is a sales job, yet very few of them should be in sales. It is a mental thing. Even with job hires, I will literally now put that in the test. Where do you rank this as a profession? If they might be a CSR or maybe an account manager role or something, that’s okay.

If they are that guy who thinks they are helping with this need that’s changing the universe because why do companies even build products or services to begin with? It’s to solve a need. If you are already seeing, “I don’t feel like I’m solving that need.” In your book, you mentioned that as well that there was somebody you were coaching, and he was really the bottom feeder. He was like, “I don’t feel I would want it. Therefore, I’m projecting this on somebody else.” That’s a whole another show we could get into. How are they expected to then say, “I’m helping somebody by doing a call-to-action?”

I think this category of beliefs, so think of a simple circle that says sales success at the top. 1/2 is belief and 1/2 is tools. Most sales training and coaching that I have encountered and read about is only covering mostly one side of the circle, and that’s the tool side. That’s everything from sales enablement technology to CRM, even the technique we just talked about getting out of the revenue maze. Having a strong call to action. Those steps and tools are important. I think that because I wanted to write about some of the tools in the book, at the time I wrote it, I thought I felt good about the 50/50 representation that I made in that circle.

I will tell you that the more time that passes, the more I think I might have the belief part take over even more in future circles. I will have to figure out how I will test and show that. I meant it as an average, an illustration, and a case to lay out why the book is half about beliefs and tools. In practice and reality, there is so much about what you think about sales in general and the product or service you are representing. The other thing that isn’t nearly addressed enough that I am starting to do more research on, and will probably be in the direction of my next book is about the beliefs about self. This interaction is where personal development meets selling.

Let’s be frank. If you don’t like yourself, not confident as a person, don’t think you deserve to greatly exceed to get the bonus or commission, or to blow the top off. If you don’t believe that, you are going to self-handicap and have self-defeating behaviors, whether they are conscious or subconscious. We all have done that. I know this from personal experience. To me, the beliefs are about a whole direction about what you think about selling, and that’s worth exploring, as is this question of, what do you as a human being deserve to enjoy in your work.

The more confidence you have about that with yourself, it’s that old analogy of the cup. If you don’t have a broken cup, then you are not leaking out the bottom, and you will have more to give. I think you will believe these things that we want people to believe about sales because you will just have more than you are giving from because you are a healthier person.

TRM 20 | Call To Action

Call To Action: If you think highly about yourself that you can do anything in sales, you can give more to other people.

I 100% agree with that, and I can’t wait to hear your finding in your next book on it. We went from selling in the recession of 2008. Everybody started to shout technology and AI is going to take over. To elaborate on the point, I am not knocking tools when I say this, but when we talk about tools, the whole salesforce was scared that this was going to take over. By 2012, everybody’s like, “Sales teams are going to be gone.” Then you are going, “Wait a minute. Even some of the best AI has not been able to simulate exactly that whole human behavior.” We know it. We can smell it on LinkedIn when it’s automated.

Somebody comes and they say, “Let’s connect because I think you are wonderful.” That’s automated. We can smell and sniff out the genuine behavior that a human being can have. If they have that self-loathing or self-limiting belief, then they really can’t tap their passion. We have a very passionate generation. They have been exposed to the media their entire lives, so very passionate generation that wants to love what they do. A tool is something to get more organized or to help them, but it isn’t going to change some of that genuineness that the world is starving for right now, that connection that we talk about. We don’t talk about networking. We talk about connection.

Communities and credibility. We had that conversation about trust me. No. You earn trust, but you have credibility because you eventually become trusted in that whole community and that connection that you will do what you say and what you are doing. Human beings are what I feel somewhat fixed that be able to have those interactions to say, “Yes, we are going to do this.” Someone asked me about buying a list. I said, “Yes, the list will be fine as long as you tell it exactly what you want.” Most of the people who are upset with their list are they didn’t tell them exactly what they want.

It’s ridiculous how specific you have to be. If you are diligent about that, then you will get a pretty good list that will still need a little scrubbing, but it’ll be pretty good.

I love what you are saying with that. I can’t wait until your next book is out but I would love to see that study because 100%, I totally believe in that. You had a little story about working from anywhere, and going out and embarking on speaking in England. You don’t have to share it, but I thought it was such a cool story.

I don’t mind. It’s a case you opened in the intro with the case about the strengths, Clifton Strengths. I can tie it to that. I had an opportunity to go in March of 2022. Think about where we were with COVID, in-person conferences coming back, and I had an opportunity to submit a talk for a big tech conference that was going to be in London. I actually submitted it with a friend who has a marketing agency. We did a pre-con, which was all day, it was eight hours. She wanted a partner for that, which was great because eight hours is a long time to teach by yourself. We shared that time. We also had a breakout session during the actual conference.

We got to speak twice. Our talks got accepted. I am and was looking for more in-person speaking opportunities to talk about How Good Humans Sell. I had not ever spoken internationally about it, so I wanted to go to London, so I could say that I was an international speaker. It’s one of the first times to do something like that. We go to this conference. We have a great time, it goes great. People are taking some COVID precautions. I did everything I felt was in my power except to not go, with reasonable caution. The most cautious thing would have been to not go. I did everything I thought was reasonably in my power to be prepared and be careful.

I tested it in my room. The hotels are providing, at this time, people with in-home tests. I’m fine the whole time. I go to Heathrow in the morning it was time to leave. At that time, to reenter the US, you had to have a test that was authorized. You had to give your passport number, and you had to have it authorized by only a few people. You had to show proof of a negative, and you had to do it a certain way. I booked it at the airport because that was one of the certified testing spots. London’s really big, it’s really hard to get over to one, take the tube, and get across town to your testing site.

Long story short, I take the test, and I am COVID positive. I can’t get on the plane, and it’s 7:00 AM England time, which makes it the middle of the night in the US. I’m thinking, nobody knows that I’m stuck here. I have checked out. It was this amazing, terrible, and interesting experience. I had recently taken the Clifton Strength assessment. I have several people that work for me in my company and I had my whole team. We had a grid made. My friend, Dana Williams whom I recommend did this assessment for us. We talked about what the strengths meant for the team.

I could just hear her voice. She’s from Dallas, Texas, and she has a noticeable Texas accent. You might think I have one, too, but hers is even noticeable. I can hear her talking to me in my head. I sit down. I have a good cry. I’m feeling sad and a little bit stressed. I pulled myself together in the airport, and I can hear Dana saying, “Use your strengths, Catherine.” I was like, “What are my strengths? What can I do?” I literally thought of the top five. You have already mentioned WOO is one of those, which stands for Winning Others Over, which I think is hilarious. Also, I think it’s a funny word.

Another is positivity and another is futuristic. I really did think of that and I thought, “This is going to make the most interesting story.” You have everything you need to make the best of this because you can look ahead, and you are going to be all right. You are going to figure it out. I really did. That was it. I didn’t cry anymore. I started to feel resourceful. I got another cup of coffee and was like, “I need a place to live. Where am I going to go?” I started thinking through what to do. I was proud of myself. I appreciate the opportunity to tell the story because I think it goes back to this idea about beliefs.

Some people might follow me as I get more opportunities and speak more or however, I come across on social media, I think some people might hear it and think, “I’m surprised you sat down and cried. Of course, you felt like you could do it.” It took up to this moment in my life to be able to pivot quite quickly. I still was sad, worried, and scared, but pretty quickly I was able to draw on my resources and say, “What do I need to do to go forward?” Part of why that’s happened is my increasing confidence that I have gained over time with things I talk about in the book and with clients about knowing yourself, growing emotional intelligence, understanding what you are thinking, noticing what you are thinking, and not being ruled by those feelings.

Even in the moment, I was able to say, “You are feeling a certain way right now, but you are going to be okay,” and start to coach myself through. It’s being ruled by feelings that keep people from making their calls. They are like, “I feel scared. I’m going to be rejected. I remember that one time someone was mean to me, and so now, I don’t want to do it anymore.”

We let the way our mind will make up a story and create meaning around the ways that we feel. We let that dictate our revenue success. It’s tragic that we let that happen because we can grow, change, and get better so we can master ourselves in self-control so we can get what we want. I think people want us to be ridiculously successful selling, but they don’t know how to get there and they don’t have the self-mastery to get there.

We often let our minds make up stories and create meaning to our feelings, ultimately dictating our revenue success. We can still grow from this tragic state and master ourselves in self-control.

It’s a plan. It’s how I get there. You talked about how some people just fell into sales. Most of them did. We do know that. Some of them are because it is one of the most lucrative careers you can have without a degree sometimes. It’s like, “I couldn’t do college or I couldn’t do this.” You have a large group of people that think because they want those rewards, but because they didn’t have a college degree or because they didn’t do X, Y, Z, I don’t care if it’s a college degree. Some of the most brilliant people I have ever met never had a college degree because they just learn differently, they couldn’t play the game.

What happens is they limit from the get-go, “I’m only in this because I couldn’t get anything better,” versus seeing the old Zig Ziglar, how it was just a very noble profession. We are helping people. You are helping people with your book. There’s a big following that goes, we talk about sometimes using no statements or things that make people feel comfortable on the end of a sales call or whatever. “Do you want to drink bad water?” “No, I don’t,” because it enables them to say no, and they are more comfortable. They don’t feel conflicted. That’s how the title Good Humans Sell does. It’s the same where it puts people at, “Wait a minute. We are all good humans, and we have something very normal.”

I’m thinking of a guy on a group sales coaching I did where we just talked about strong calls to action. I still see his face on Zoom. He had this little bit of a half-smile, and I could tell he wasn’t bought in. This is not the first time I taught this group, so I went ahead and called him out. I wouldn’t do that to someone I didn’t know. I was like, “John, I’m looking at your face here in the brady brown square. I’m thinking you are not tracking or agreeing with me. What is it? What are you thinking?” He said, “I don’t want to be too pushy.” He did disagree with the last part I was suggesting where you name what you are going to do next. Again, his intention was to be a good human. He said, “I don’t want to be too aggressive.”

I think that whether you are using the idea of being a good person, whether you are using that to underact or to do what you think is acting too much, or the balance that we are looking for here. Everybody wants to claim the name for their own action. They are saying, “Good humans do this. No, good humans do this.”

It’s in politics and religion. You see it everywhere. “If you really cared about people, you get a vaccine.” “No, if you really cared about people, you care about by individual rights.” Everybody’s got a side where they define this is humanity. The commonality that is interesting, and I agree with you, is that people want that identity. For the most part, I think that’s coming from a good place.

If you really cared about people, you care about individual rights.

I think it is coming from a good place. That’s why your second book will be really cool, too. They just don’t really realize that that’s really what they are feeling. They don’t know how to put a name to it. I want to be a good human. I’m not a sociopath. I am this. I am helping my neighbor. I am doing all of these things. We all have our excess baggage from growing up and those things. You are never going to please 100% on how you approach them ever. We can’t bottle that you are going to win at 100% because everybody has their perception, and we have talked sometimes about perception. It’s just that moment of saying, “I am human and I want to be helping people. How do I do it?”

I like what you said at the very beginning, it’s got to be in their format. I think it was you who posted, “You can have a framework written, not a script.” I know when I go into companies, and they are like, “Where’s our cold calling script? Where’s our this?” I’m like, “First of all, no one wants to feel like they are on the other end of a script.” Can you imagine the confidence that somebody has if they are just reading a script? It’s like, “I don’t even understand what I’m saying. You are just asking me to make appointments.” Get on the phone. “Hello, Mr. Customer, we sell X, Y, and Z, and are you interested?”

All day long those cold colors get shut down, or it’s like, “Why do you cold call to begin with?” You have that whole battle. I don’t want to talk to a salesman. You do because you talked to your grandkid. You are selling something to your grandkid. You get that on LinkedIn, no selling here. I’m not saying a pitch. Even when you are not selling, you are selling.

I’m here to build relationships. At the very least, I’m looking for like-minded people. I’m trying to influence or recruit for something, even if it’s not a cash transaction around that.

TRM 20 | Call To Action

Call To Action: You are always building relationships or influencing people around something when it comes to sales, even if it is not a cash transaction.

I remember asking somebody on a show. They are like, “Why the heck do you think I would want to be on your show?” I was like, “You are an interesting human being and you do a lot of amazing things that people want to hear about.” What else am I supposed to say?

I was going to bring this up and I will bring it up here. I think that you have heard different people that this has been attributed to. A place that I heard, I went through some marketing training a few years ago, and when I went through the building a story brand method, they teach a framework for how you frame copy. Again, a framework is very helpful. You don’t have to follow every single thing about it. The principles are useful in helping you design a website, put together a flyer, or think about a value proposition. I brought the information into sales for a value proposition. Donald Miller, this was pre-COVID, so I got to go in person to the training.

It was great, in-person training. One of the things he talks about with the motivation of writing compelling copy that invites people into a story is he had this expression he kept saying, “Deep down most people are wondering if they are really enough. I think that. You think that. The people you are going to serve to think that.” I don’t even think that’s quite the same as impostor syndrome, which people also like to talk a lot about which I think is important and great. What I mean is enough for the task of whatever it is. Am I skinny enough? Am I smart enough? Will I be clever enough? Will I have enough followers? Do I know enough?

I’m not sure it’s even about being found out. I’m not even sure it’s that mature thought. I think it’s just having the crack in the cup. I think the reason I love sales so much and the reason I love to talk with people about sales is because if you can patch your crack in the cup enough and keep working on that, that you can focus on another person and realize that they are wondering if they are enough. There is a way that the right product or service can help that person be enough for whatever task is at hand at that moment. If it’s not, they are either going to buy from you later or you are going to send them on their way to somebody who can help them.

I believe that’s the three main things that happen on calls. If someone agrees to a call with you, this is not a cold call, you are going to qualify them on what is the problem they have with their timing. Are we going to keep talking because this is really a sales lead? This is interesting. They are doing some research. This is an educational call, but this isn’t timely, so they are going to get kicked back over to marketing because they are not ready yet, or I’m going to disqualify them, but because I’m a good human, I’m going to make a suggestion about what they might look at instead. I really want to encourage your readers to think, because I’d love to hear from them on this. Is there anything else that comes up that’s other than those three?

Those are my three that happened over and over again. As of that, this idea of thinking deep down, most of us are worried, “Am I enough?” There’s a way I can serve with any of those outcomes. It’s so empowering to me. It’s made it such that I’m hardly nervous anymore for sales calls because I feel like I don’t know if it’s going to work out. I’m going to show up and do my best to find out, and they are going to ask their questions. If I’m not, I’m going to make a good referral. I have such great relationships now after doing this for 25 years. I have got marketing people, sales leads, and all different kinds of trainers. If it’s not me, it’s probably someone else. There’s something great that’s going to come out of it almost no matter what.

Now, I realize as I say that, I’m privileged because I’m selling for my own company. I don’t have somebody who’s being oppressive or a terrible manager on me. I know that some people feel more pressure because of external forces than that, and that’s where I would say hone your skills so you don’t have to stay there because sales do not have to be that way and shouldn’t be that way.

Some people feel pressured to do sales because of a lot of external forces. Hone your skills so you don’t have to stay in this situation.

You brought up a good point on leadership that I want to address two things, not enough and capacity expansion. To me, those go hand-in-hand with service. Somebody isn’t quite enough, so you give service. Taking the steps to say, “I am a good human because I exist to serve and help others versus this narcissistic whatever you are going to get to on the other side,” and to say that we all have those moments. I sing opera for several years.

You got to steal yourself because you are going in front of people that are going to like and not like you. You go through this lied or respected. “I did my best job. This was beautiful. This wasn’t beautiful.” As a female growing up, sometimes, if you even acknowledged that something was beautiful in my era, for yourself, it was, you were very self-absorbed like some type of diva.

You had to literally learn to say thank you for the compliment. That is one of the hardest things is by me not thanking you, I’m dissing your compliment. At the same time, sometimes, we forget because we get in our own head space with that. That was one thing that I just loved hearing you say, and I’m going to repeat it again for the readers. “When we are not enough, we are giving something that helps them create enough capacity when you are serving somebody.”

Leadership. You just touched on something because micromanagement is not always micromanagement, it’s the perception of something. When I have dealt with some sales teams and they go, “I’m not enough,” because there are KPIs. We all have to grow companies. We all have to be accountable for certain things.

Grow your craft even if it doesn’t fit this model. I have former sales reps that can attest to this. “I will go help you find a job if it doesn’t work here.” At least work on this because I believe you can do it. I believe that maybe product fit isn’t your thing here, but if you hone your skills, there is a product that is perfect for what you are doing.

You are working on personal mastery. You are working on yourself inside that context. That is the thing. People come to me. It’s so interesting to me that they come thinking they want the tools. When we start talking, you realize they are just disorganized. It’s not just their sales life, they are just disorganized as people. They don’t use any lists. They don’t know their goals. I’m not trying to make somebody be wrong or be a jerk. You think your problem is one thing, but then as you get to know people and you invite them and you realize, “I need service in these different ways.” Things that you learn through selling are things like managing myself, initiating with people, and practicing being a clear communicator.

Where did we learn to say and instead of but? It’s from the improv world, into selling. I learned it at a conference. How to write copy. The way I fundraise and the way I write social media posts came from the marketing training I got. Why did I go there? So I could learn to write better value propositions. I have people ask if I will review the header on the nonprofit website. I’m like, “That’s not clear. I can’t tell what you sell.” How do I know that? I cold-called for seventeen years. It all comes together with the practice of the things you get good at. It’s interesting. I’m going to be of an age now that I will have young women and young moms especially will say, “I want to have my own company. I want to work from home. How can I have what you have?” You need a skill.

It can be any number of things. We have got to learn to do stuff. If you are able that it’s still beneficial. I’m not always an entrepreneur, but my own story is that I did corporate. I left the company that trained me. I got lots of great training. I learned to cold call, manage myself, initiate, present, and give demos. Then I went out on my own and thought, “What is my unique take on this that I know how to do that’s special?” I realized people will pay you to cold call because they don’t like to do it. That’s how I founded my first business, but it was only after I got some of those skills.

I just 100% agree with you. I feel like a person can choose to be happy under many circumstances and learn everything there is to learn there, and then take that elsewhere. If you are your same unorganized self here, you are going to bring your same unorganized self over here, and you are not going to know what the problem really is.

TRM 20 | Call To Action

Call To Action: If you bring your unorganized self into sales, you will never understand the problems you have to address.

Know that there are steps. You look back and you go, “I now know what I didn’t know back then, and it’s getting better and better.” It’s okay if you were great at that stage because you will become greater. I have always just loved your enthusiasm with it. The energy is contagious. It feels always so amazing. We only have a couple of minutes left. I want people to know what you like to do in your free time. Who was your biggest mentor and I want you to tell them how they can reach you?

Super thank you. I do love to travel a lot. After a couple of months of being home from London, one day I turned and looked at my husband and I said, “I’m ready for a big trip again.” I was glad but I was freaked out. I have started to look at Airbnbs around the world, and I get this wonderful thing in Houston. There’s a wonderful newsletter that you can get that’s called Escape Houston, which is hilarious. Every day they email you the airfares around the world, the best deal. I love to get that. I watch that all the time. I have really renewed my love of reading. I love to entertain. I’m having a dinner party. I’m so excited. People are doing that in person again. I love to host. I love people. It always involves people.

Mentor-wise, I’m going to name my very first recruiter trainer. I had a recruiting trainer. This was my second job out of college. His name is Jeff. I thought he was a wonderful model of leadership at the time because I had to cold call in front of him. I had to practice. That is such a nerve-wracking experience. At the time, I was 23 or 24. He was so dear. Do you know what he did? He went in one cube over where he could still hear me, but he wasn’t standing over me, and he let me practice first by practicing on some friends.

He said, “Before we start to call some people that you don’t know at all, I want to let you practice and get warmed up, and you can talk about working for our company and give the pitch. You can do that to someone that you know.” He let me call a couple of people first, and get started, and then we started that training. It was just so thoughtful. Think about it. This was back in the mid-’90s. Think about the ring-the-bell culture. He could have been like that, and he wasn’t like that. He was a model leader and a great recruiter. His numbers were awesome. He managed others. We wanted to be like him. I learned a lot. Kindness in modeling. He was great.

Everybody wants to know how to reach out to you. What’s the best way to reach you?

I get a lot of emails, and I really prefer LinkedIn. I check it every day. There are a lot of Catherine Browns out there. At the end of your email, it will be LinkedIn.com/in/CatherineLeeBrown. I would love to be connected with people there. That’s a great way you can learn more about the book. I have a keynote around the book that’s the same title called How Good Humans Sell. I also have sales training courses and all of that is the name of my sales training company, which is my second website, and that is ExtraBoldSales.com. Either HowGoodHumansSell.com or ExtraBoldSales.com are the two sites. I have got free resources, and all kinds of cool stuff out there that people can check out if they would like to learn more. The book is purposely inexpensive and accessible, it’s $10 on Kindle.

I want to thank you, Catherine Brown, for being on the show. It was such a pleasure. I was so excited about this one. I think that what you are doing is amazing for people. I want to thank all the readers for the show. If you liked it, go and share it. Love it, go on Amazon and buy the book, How Good Humans Sell. Show some love to Catherine.

I know that you have a lot of wonderful trainers in your community that you can refer to with your clients. I appreciate you folding me in and sharing me with them. I think you have been a lovely model of generosity for that. Thank you.

You are welcome. Once again, thanks everybody for reading. Have a wonderful day.

Thank you.

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About Catherine Brown

Catherine Brown

I understand what it means to build a business during challenging times. I launched my first company with two little small boys at home in 2003, and I now run a sales training firm called ExtraBold Sales.

I am a veteran of more than 25 years of selling, recruiting, and fundraising with nonprofits. In my new book, How Good Humans Sell™, I combine sales best practices with psychology principles. My training includes research-based workshops that get at the heart of why people hesitate while selling.

I have a Bachelor’s degree from Rice University in Houston, and trained in marketing through StoryBrand. I call Texas home along with my family and love taking walks, reading, planning my next globetrotting adventure, watching sci-fi with my family (#nerds), and hosting dinner parties. I’m active on LinkedIn and you can see more about me here.

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