The Wicked Podcast

Michael Sherlock: Sales Mixology

• web@thewickedcompany.com • Episode 57

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What makes people productive? We talk to the amazing Michael Sherlock about teams and management and what counts.

Author page: https://www.shockyourpotential.com
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The Wicked Podcast: Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thewickedpodcast

The Wicked Company website: https:www.thewickedcompany.com

Music: 'Inspired' by Kevin MacLeod Song: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Marcus Kirsch:

Welcome to the wicked podcast where we read the business books you don't have time for. I'm Marcus Kirsch.

Troy Norcross:

And I'm Troy Norcross.

Marcus Kirsch:

And we are your co hosts for the wicked podcast. And

Troy Norcross:

like magic presto, I'm back in London, and I brought sunshine with me. Can you tell? Can you look outside their sunshine? You haven't had sunshine in five months. But no, I'm back. There is sunshine. Any coincidence there?

Marcus Kirsch:

I have no idea. Did you fly with Ryanair though?

Troy Norcross:

Remember, fly was rise. All

Marcus Kirsch:

right. So point.

Troy Norcross:

All right, Marcus, enough of our flying and our sunshine who's on the show today.

Marcus Kirsch:

So today, we have Michael shurlock. on. She's a very lovely guest. And she wrote Well, two books, actually. So one is called sales, sales mythology. And young was called Tell me more. And we talked and essentially ended up talking about both as a matter of fact.

Troy Norcross:

And, you know, she was really, really, as soon as she came on camera, I have to say, she has a great presence, you know, she is instantly likeable. And she's incredibly credible. So just, you know, you want to talk to her, you want to trust her. And it's a real great gift and a skill to have that you've done over the years. Before I go into what I got out of the book, tell me what were your insights from this book?

Marcus Kirsch:

Yeah, so she, as she said, she, she has some great, she worked with some great companies and in some great companies. And she was also kind enough to have me on our podcasts as well. So little disclosure there. But at the same time, we had a really great time on her podcast, we're talking about wicked problems. And now we talked about customers and sales. So what I took away from it is two things. One is that the way she wrote sales mythology is sort of like she tells a story with fictional characters use sort of fictional characters actually all based in reality. So all the bits and pieces you found here and there, she put together in this kind of storybook, which is really nice, because it's telling a story. And I think it's very relatable. So it's not trying to be over analytical. It does it through fiction, that's based on reality. And I found that quite nice. It's quite different than most people are writing about. And I think it will help people do a little bit better understand scenarios, which then reminded me a little bit of recent guests we had as well, when we talked about service storming about basically acting out what is going on what's out there? And through that understanding way, way better what's there rather than having some graphs and some processes that are mapped out? So I really liked that. And when I asked her at the end, you know, how do you ask the right questions? She responded like, Well, you know, ask why, and why this and why that and don't assume things, treat things as assumptions. And that's really lovely. Because I think the whole story and exploring the why of what's actually out there, I find it more important than ever, because the map has changed. The world is very, very different today than it was definitely over over a year ago. And so I think that is one of the more important things to to focus and take away from and explore more for any organisation out there now, regardless of industry, literally, really, regardless industry at this point. So that was my main major takeaway.

Troy Norcross:

What do you even though the book was entitled sales methodology, there was so much in it about teams and management. And this is not your classic sales vote, it tells you now I will talk to a customer how to go and get them to absolutely yes, and all the rest. So I think that she's bringing in so much of her additional kind of leadership and management skills that really adds incremental value. I think the the other thing is, she was saying, I've kind of gotten out of consulting, it just it's just too much work. And oftentimes the people who don't want to be under the microscope, they don't want to be actually under the microscope and have to ask the hard questions. And the last point was, she was in agreement with me that sometimes people don't have problems with a god or symptoms. And they're really the art is figuring out what's the underlying problem, which is what you and I talked about all the time love the problem, not the solution. Yeah. But anyway, Marcus, the sunshine is out. And guess what, somebody just brought me a gin and tonic. And that means we should do what?

Marcus Kirsch:

Go to the interview. before the interview, a quick word from our very first sponsor, sand caster. We use sand caster for all our audio and video recording. And it's a very nifty tool that splits up all the channels for very easy editing. suncast is used by 10% of all active podcasts. You can get 40% of the first three months and unlimited audio and video recordings with our special coupon code, wicked podcast. I repeat, I repeat, I repeat, we get podcasts for 40% off. And now the interview. Hello, everyone. And welcome to the show today we have Michael chalak with us. Hello, Michael. And thanks for joining us. I thank you. So as usually we start from the top. And that means please tell us a little bit about who you are and why you wrote the book or books, just many. But please start with the one we talk about.

Michael Sherlock:

Absolutely. My name is Michael Sherlock. And I own and operate two businesses. One is called shock your potential. And that is my primary business where I teach leadership sales and professional development seminars all over the world. And that was really the purpose of writing both of my books thus far and more to come. And I also own a company called cuckoo abyss, which is a remote staffing company where we match talented professionals from Kenya with small businesses all around the world. So I guess the reason I wrote both my books and the first book that I wrote was called Tell me more how to ask the right questions and get the most out of your employees. And I really wrote that to kind of document the leadership journey that I took throughout my career, which the pinnacle at the end of that in the corporate world, was leading teams of as many as 500 people at a time, and being responsible for upwards of almost 100 million in revenue a year. And I really wanted to be able to document, you know, the mistakes I made the challenges I had. And finally, what got me through to the end result, which was learning how to ask more questions and better questions, which is actually kind of the premise of sales methodology, which was, you know, how do I take this further and in sales and customer experience environments? How do we know what questions to ask to get you not only an excellent experience for the customer, but to really increase revenue opportunity. So it's been quite a journey, I have a few more books that are in the works, that will be coming. But I really enjoyed the process.

Marcus Kirsch:

Yeah, and I think, you know, on the book, it says something to have this particular recipe for that which of it goes really well with the mythology and with the drink I share right now actually, having a cocktail? Yeah. I'm jealous. I know, well, you know, freedom of what we haven't video now. So I can be careful with this. Right? And essentially, but the really nice thing there, and that relates me a lot to the work we do as well is you know, you go into businesses, and you tell them like, you know, what should we do? And a lot of businesses basically say, look, we're quite different. We're like this, we're not like that. And then when someone comes along with a recipe, which is what consultants often do, and this is a Yeah, but that it's not going to work yet. Or you can just have a recipe or sometimes they want a cookie cutter, but to every different. So when organisations come back to you, so like I ads, we don't do recipes or wibit different What do you usually tell them? How does it How does it gel into?

Michael Sherlock:

Well, and I love that it's such a great question, because I always start with, well tell me more, what makes you different. Because I want to have the dialogue, I don't want to say hey, I don't care how different you are, this is one recipe. But it allows me to really get a business owner or an employee, a leader to talk about why they think that they are systematically or organizationally different than others, either in their industry or in their area. And those are great conversations, because what we come out of it, and I don't have to point this out to them. But what comes out of it is that most of the time, we're all very much the same. We just are very afraid that we're going to be seen as something cookie cutter. So one of the questions I ask is, you know, what's your favourite family recipe either that you make, or someone in your family is made. And so they'll come up with all kinds of, you know, amazing things. And I asked, Do you if you make the recipe? Do you follow that recipe? Exactly. Or have you put your own spin on it. Because a core recipe is fundamental. There's certain elements of a recipe that need to be followed to have an end product, that's good. But that doesn't mean that you can't allow for individuality. You can look at things from your unique customer's perspective or your unique country's perspective. But understand that there's a reason for the recipe. And that's to give you a baseline that's going to turn out with a product that is is going to be good. But throughout, you know just those questions that I asked people help them to realise in the end of the day, that they that we're all just still humans dealing with humans and The differences are less important as our willingness to try something that takes us out of our comfort zone and find different success being different from what we've been doing.

Marcus Kirsch:

Yeah. And when when you say that, so, yeah, the cookie cutter is such a typical thing. And I think it's sort of the way I sometimes find it a bit of a paradox. When you have companies who say, well, we're different, we're doing things differently, and certain things don't work. And at the same time, they have a thrive to really make things cookie cutter, because it saves money. And especially with bigger organisations, there's a strive, that then goes counter recognising that, actually, you have 50 teams, and they're all a little bit different. And when you start talking about that, and some people are going, like, oh, let's do the Spotify model, because the Spotify model is sort of you have to process but everyone treats it differently. And as of some reason articles, even Spotify doesn't actually do the Spotify model for some reason. How do you then how do you then sort of balance between that paradox say, some side of the company probably is gonna say, well, we just got to create that system. And then everyone's gonna use the system and hopefully in the same way, and then we're gonna have a process, it's gonna be signed off. And there you go, how do you how do you break those? Can you break those those those elements of sign off of processor, procedures, and all these all these big, more important people sitting there and signing things off? Can you or how do you deal then with those existing structures in order to make things more personalised?

Troy Norcross:

Don't worry, Michael, he'll eventually finish the question.

Marcus Kirsch:

I just did. I got it, I was falling in love. I see Oh, guest attention.

Unknown:

And that's the thing.

Michael Sherlock:

Meanwhile, dries Go on, come on, come on. That's a great example. Because some of us, you know, move down through the end of the question. Some of ours are like, whatever I'm on board. What I love about what I did with my recipe in this book, is didn't say, here's the five steps. I said, here's the five important ingredients, you know, and so I put it into what I call the blend the recipe, the blend. So, you know, the B stands for be immediately and fully present. So it's not a you know, here's the 10 steps to be a better sales organisation. It's, are we really aware? And are we paying attention to our customers? And so when we start to ask these questions about why are you different, what I'm really trying to find out is tell me why you think you're different, because I want to know, we can still use that in in the environment. But at the end of the day, my question is, do your sales people in this in this example is sales mix ology? Do your sales people really show up fully, and presently engaged with their customers? So you know, let me ask you guys a question. Have you ever walked into a store, maybe a clothing store, you know, going to buy a cell phone, something, and everyone who works there is on their phone? And they and somebody glances up? Because they heard the bell rang over the door, and they go, Hi, welcome to you know, ABC, you know, technologies, let us know if we can help you with anything. And you're like, could you even look at me? Could you actually seem like you care that I called, or that I walked in the door. In fact, this morning, I called to schedule finally some appointments, doctor's appointments, you know, annual things that you haven't done forever. And when I called the the hospital to, to get one of these appointments, the person who answered the phone goes, hello, you know, Jefferson hospital, I'm like, good guy, did I bother you? Have you not had your coffee. And so what you tell me what your sales people tell me as the customer is that if they're not immediately and fully present, they don't care whether or not I spend money. So you as the sales manager, you you as the CEO, if you don't know whether or not your people care, then you can't even get any farther. So you can tell me all that you want that you're different. But if your sales results are not where they are, I can guarantee you by the time you get down and you break those things apart, that you don't have your sales team operating with the highest Not, not just about the customer's always right, because the customer is not always right. But with the company's best interest in mind, and with an actual care and concern that a customer wants to do business with you, aka spend money with you. And so my elements of the bl end and blend, you know, so be immediately and fully present. Listen with your ears and your eyes. Ensure you've asked all the right questions that are important. And is never ever, ever let them feel like a number. But the D is what I always wrap it up with which is deliver an exceptional customer spirit experience while always being mindful of a financial return for your company. In other words, respect the people who pay your paycheck. Respect the business that writes your check. And when we do those things and we dive down in them, then then businesses start to say Oh, okay, let's start over. Okay, let me tell you why we're different. help us figure out where we're off the mark. And that's when we start to have dialogues that really make a difference.

Troy Norcross:

And I was the right kind of questions to be asking. Sorry, Marcus.

Marcus Kirsch:

I just wanted to say I want to say like the one person that definitely always says hello is the security guard at the entrance. I think that's always happening to cut that alone, right, Dante? Sorry, Troy.

Troy Norcross:

I think that there are a couple of things. There's the whole unengaged employees, which can be a serious problem. And then either unengaged because they're unmotivated, they have no idea what the vision is, they're underpaid, you know, whatever. And so the the problem may not be that the people don't know how to treat customers, maybe they're not motivated to treat customers, which is a much different problem. But moving on to one of the questions is getting the balance between customer experience and business value is really important. There is an airline in the European area, who is my least favourite airline in the world, who provides a negative customer experience at every step of the entire journey. And just look for profit. That's all they care about. They are the most profitable and the most use airline. And well, I had somebody actually explained it to me that their view is we're giving you customer experience at the end of your journey. So you're we're getting you somewhere. And it kind of falls apart along the way to Ryan air. You know, he's just one of those companies that doesn't have any balance at all. They've been a zero or a negative customer experience and 100% focused on just make profit. Other companies focus 100% on the customer value and not focus enough on the profit and wind up going bust because you still got to be beholden to your shareholders. How do you how do you tell leaders and communicate within an organisation, this balance?

Michael Sherlock:

Well, it really comes you made a great point about how many people are not engaged. I was just I would just want you to some read some bullet point that said before the pandemic 72% of American workers said that they were unengaged, at least like 30% of their work week. I mean, that's just terrifying. Just to think about that, now, I don't think anybody's even answering that question right now, because nobody wants to have the microscope on them. But But there is a way to find the balance. And you know, my book has kind of you know, and I tell it in a story format for a reason. And that's to make you you know, fiction allows you that ability to have suspension of disbelief, say, Okay, this might seem really perfect in a perfect world where a business operates, and an incredible capacity. But I write it in that format, for that specific reason to show you what can be if a business really cares enough to train people make sure they're hiring the right people first, and train them to a level that they not only know their job, but they feel safe asking questions, that they that they challenge their own training methods that they're looking for more, but at the end of the day, they understand that their position is vital in the greater scheme of that business. And that's where people miss the mark is when they don't think that their job matters. Well, a lot of times, they don't think their job matters, because there's a system within the company that proves out, you can have the plaque on the wall that says our employees are number one, you know, resource it, but it's a bunch of bunk. And on the flip side, you can have companies that say, okay, we're going to train you really well, we're going to hire you exceptionally, you know, through a rigorous process. But we're going to expect a lot of you. And we're going to expect that you consider that this is your business, and that you would treat it as if it is your money on the line, not just a job to be in. And so I love to put the challenge out there that we don't push this enough, we don't push this idea enough of a sense of ownership and belonging for the employee in the organisation. And that takes a lot of effort. But when you do it, people aren't so willing to waste a moment waste a customer experience waste $1 you know, steal a box of paper clips, they're less willing to do those things. When they value the company's writing of their paycheck because they see that they're in, you know, entwined and that it's important that they that they that they deliver a return on investment for that company. And it takes more work, it takes more effort, which is like why a lot of businesses don't do it. It just takes more time. But once you do it the payoff is so great. That you say okay, that took a lot of time and effort. But now we see why now we have loyal employees, they stay longer. We have a higher customer experience. And now we have higher returns on our on our investment of our people and the services that we offer. Yeah,

Troy Norcross:

it's it. It's really, really important to get right To get employees engaged, but the other half of that is knowing when they're not engaged, and ad leaders caring that they're not engaged. And as leaders in a business feeling empowered to fix the underlying problem, I think we find a number of occasions where it may be one small team, or one group or one division, we decided to do things differently. And it starts infecting the rest of the organisation with positive transformation.

Michael Sherlock:

Yeah. Hopefully, people are afraid. Yeah, they can be afraid of demanding that kind of environment. But employees when they are motivated enough to say, we want that kind of environment. If if the company's got the right people, at some level, they will listen and they will deliver.

Marcus Kirsch:

Yeah, and I think it's quite telling when you're in the middle of projects transformation project where you know, things have not been going quite right. And then you see sort of the level of engagement that normally tells you how bad things are when you ask open questions, and you don't get a lot of responses to it, one of that aspect, and also goes into the whole mantra of you know, love the problem. Not the solution is that, can you actually challenge the problem perceived by the leadership, stairs direction, and people say this is the problem we want to fix this we want to improve is what we do? Are they actually listening to the people work for them? And one of the one of the things, therefore, is, can you actually challenge that? So in that sense, you know, in that sense, how do you get organisations to embrace this kind of more holistic view on things to say, look, we as leaders are not giving a solution and tell you exactly what to do. But we're actually honest enough to say, we're not we're biassed ourselves. We don't know the map ourselves fully. So why don't you help us together that we actually get there? And we're listening to you? And then we take action on that? How do you how do you go about that, to establish that with organisations?

Michael Sherlock:

Well, it's interesting, because, because when I get brought in, most of the time, and I don't do a lot of consulting work anymore, because it's just exhausting. I'd rather come in help train and move on. But I still, from time to time Get, get pulled into, you know, these scenarios, which I love. And I had, I think the greatest example I have is I was working with a medical practice of, I think it was eight physicians. And, of course, they brought me in to say, help us fix our problem. We're not profitable in these areas of our business, they have to do with sales, how can we do this? And I said, Okay, I will consider taking you guys on as a client, but I want you to understand what this is going to be is, the focus is not what your team is doing wrong. The first focus is what are you doing wrong? You know, a physician sitting around a table, who are all surgeons, you know, they've they're way more educated than I am, you know, highly driven people. And they were looking at me, like, I had two heads. And I said, No, honestly, the thing is, is it all starts at the top. And it's you guys in your office manager. So when I started to investigate, I am not first looking at the bottom of the food chain, I am going to talk to you guys. And they all agreed because it was really funny, they thought they were you know, they're like, Oh, well, we don't know, if we're gonna hire you. I said, you don't understand, I don't know, if I'm gonna be hired by you. I don't, I haven't chosen you guys yet. Because you have to be able to go under the microscope. And it was an interesting, I ended up finding where they had lost almost a half a million dollars from a series of mistakes by one person. But that her mistake was because it was continued to be allowed and overseen and ignored, and therefore given permission. And you might think how can one person create a half a million dollar problem? Well, it was very easy. And that was just what I found when I reviewed two and a half years worth of data. So chances are they would lost millions. But when I came back to him, and I said, here's the problem, here's the gap. And it happens with you guys. And I said now just so you know, the other day, I was walking through the halls and I heard and I turned to the one physician and I said I heard you say XYZ to a patient, which basically said don't come to our you know, don't don't buy that product through us go to Costco, it's cheaper. And I said you were giving mixed messages. In order to fix this and fix the problem. You guys have to be aligned, you have to be one team, you have to work with one voice. And if you're not, then you're never going to fix all the problems. Maybe that's okay with you. But you will have to decide how much financially you are willing to lose. As opposed to coming together and having one clear vision. And I'll tell you what that was it was a really big pill for them to swallow. But they did it and they started to turn around and that the way they operated was much differently and it was so much help fear that even to this day, some of those employees still connect with me and say, I can't believe that, that you know that we're still having this kind of opportunity that was 15 years ago, you know, and so things can have lasting long term effect, but it's somebody has to have. And that's a lot of the reason that, you know, people like us are brought in is somebody from the outside has to be the one often to make the uncomfortable dialogue about, here's the problem. Employees can find ways to do it. But it is challenging. And it doesn't always have great outcomes for them. There are ways to do it, though. It just takes a lot of guts, and it takes a lot of planning in order to have those dialogues that nobody wants to have.

Troy Norcross:

And I think if you go a bit back to your other book, tell me more. I was started off in it. And I did tech support. And I got a phone call one time, many, many years ago, that still sticks with me, I've got a problem I can't print. And at the end of the phone call, I realised the printer wasn't plugged in. And what they described to me was a symptom. And the symptom was I can't print, the problem was the printer isn't plugged in, or it's out of ink, or it's out of paper. So when somebody comes to us and says, the problem is we're not making as much profit, like no, actually, that's the symptom. Now, let's dig in and figure out what is the one or more problems that result in you not having the profitability that you'd like to be able to have. And so we always love the problem, not the solution. And let's get to figure out what is the problem. And sometimes it's politically charged, you're gonna tear down somebody's fiefdom, you know, it's a little empire building actions that are going on, and they don't want to be called out on it. But if you have the right environment, where there are no sacred cows, and you can ask any question you want, it's healthy, even if painful.

Michael Sherlock:

Yeah, and I'd love that line, love the problem, not the solution, I think that's a perfect way to to characterise it. Because until you love the problem enough, that you're willing to uncover it and look at it in the light of day and hold it up and have it be seen, then all those symptoms, you know, are just going to be more painful, because they're going to fester longer and longer. And so you know, as we as we get there, it's going to take some, some uncovering of that. Yeah, that's excellent.

Marcus Kirsch:

Yeah. And following it with another, potentially snappy line. So you know, experiment, like there is a tomorrow, some of the best performing companies like to tell everyone that they're doing like 1000 experiments a month, and they're trying a lot, a lot of small things. Which then indicates, well, that means, you know, and they tend to say that, and it's quite evident that, you know, this kind of a lot of failure, there's a lot of small d risk failure. But there is how do you go about to implement something like that, where you say, look, you don't just do one or two things, you do 10, you try, and you expect that nine out of 10 will fail. But the one gets you one iteration further? How do you get people into that experiment and experimentation, or sometimes you like to call it the long game? That is just not the right or wrong? But actually, the better and better better? How do you how do you get people there?

Michael Sherlock:

Well, one thing is, you know, as a leader, you have to share your own failures. And you have to I mean, it's, I always joke that I, you know, make 10 mistakes before breakfast, and 17 before I've had my second cup of coffee, you know, so we have to give those examples, like, here's how I screwed up. And I've been really working on this with my team now for the last six months. So I'll give you a for instance, I you know, I constantly say look, there's you, we're all gonna make mistakes. And, and, you know, most of them are not going to be life or death. So we can come back from all of them. And I encourage them to share those with each other, share those with me. And I, we had one that really played out. Interestingly enough, we had something go on last week, the details really don't matter. But I had one of my team that made a mistake that had to do basically got us flagged in our in our CRM for a message that went out to the wrong group. So that can flag you with GD RP and you know, all these anti spam things. And it's, you know, that can be a costly mistake. And it wasn't this time, we'd never made a mistake. We have a very clean record. But the he made the mistake, but I made the mistake because I didn't train him for that. And he took a risk on something that we needed, and found a solution that ended up having another problem, you know, but it was great, because when I went to him, I asked him the question. I'm like, Hey, tell me what happened here. And just so you know, it's not the end of the world, but this could be costly to us in the future. So let me tell you how we're going to avoid it. But I didn't tell you this. I didn't train you to this point. I didn't tell you what the repercussions were of that So, you know, in the end, I knew he was nervous, he was upset that he had done something that you know, had caused a problem, but it wasn't life or death. And the way he handled it was fantastic. But I love the fact that he came back and said, just so you know, I researched this even more, not only will it not happen again, but I'm really glad that I now have some more questions to ask. And that's, you know, that's what you want to celebrate. You want to celebrate those, you know, mini failures, but you have to be able to show them yourself, and you have to prove it out. Because otherwise people won't believe it. If you don't share your own mistakes that you've made, you don't have to share everyone, but share examples or share something that you've done. That proves that you make mistakes as well, and you can keep getting back up from them. And people will start to understand that that is the culture that you're trying to create. But it can't be just words it has to be followed up with with reality has to be authentic.

Troy Norcross:

And you know, authenticity is, it's become such a popular used word, we're gonna have to find a new word for being authentic, because it's being abused, I think, in some ways. So it's a, it's a really important thing to get. We are in the luxury position and the terrible position at the same time of always having more questions than we have time. So I'm going to ask you a really quick question. I'm going to give Marcus the ability for the wrap up question, as we say, the book is written as a beautiful story, how much of it's true?

Michael Sherlock:

I get those questions all the time. So there's elements in each part of the story that are true, but not necessarily all together. So for instance, the experience, you know, that my main character has in the beginning in the cocktail lounge, that cocktail lounge, and the beauty of the cocktails was based on an actual hotel experience in Belfast, North Ireland. But how that those people were trained, and how they operated with the customers was not true. But each one of those parts was true. And another element of another client that I've worked with or another colleague, or my own experiences, and so as you weave them through, I like to take those kind of like take the best parts of everything and put it together and show what because there's no reason that that hotel couldn't have had that entire experience. They just didn't. But businesses when they when we look at it and say, okay, we may not be that perfect. But what is one takeaway that we could take from this, of this perfect example? And how could we employ it in our business, to raise that customer experience, even a minute level, because those, those minor increases are what make up continual desire to continue to improve. So as we pull it together, every part of their that story has some truth. But I will tell you one thing, that the funny thing was, is that in the very end of the book, when my character, Jane is on the aeroplane, going back home, and she's here in the guy with about the Bloody Mary, the flight attendant did not bring him all those things. I gave him those things out of my bag, because I knew that it's mighty Bloody Mary was the only way to go. And they don't serve those on planes. So

Unknown:

no one is here. It's just me.

Troy Norcross:

Well done. market. So you got one last one.

Marcus Kirsch:

I think I have one. Yeah, I was looking through questions, trying to pick the right one for a nice wrap up. But you talk a lot about questions and asking the right questions. Do you have some insightful advice on the kinds of questions characteristics you Will you tell people like this is sort of a good question. And this is not? What sort of makes makes the right questions for you?

Michael Sherlock:

Well, I think it's all starts with what we make as assumptions. So if I'm selling cars, and someone walks into buy a car, I assume they're there to buy a car. Now, if I see them buy the sports car, I might assume they want to buy a sports car. Now, the thing is, you don't want to be obnoxious in your questions, but you're still just making assumptions. Now, they are probably there to buy a car at some point in time. So it's not just like, Hey, can I sell you a sports car today? It's Hi, I'm so glad to see you. What brings you in to look at cars today? That allows somebody to say, Well, I'm looking because I need to. I am not going to have my company vehicle in another few months. So I'm starting to shop or I'm looking for you know, it's time for me to retire. I'm going to buy the sports car. But by asking certain questions about, you know, what brings you in today, or what makes you call to look at our services today. You learn the immediacy, you learn what is driving somebody that day. And then just think about the questions that are related to your product goods or service that allows the person to tell you exactly why they're there. You probably are right on a lot of assumptions, but not all of them. But regret regardless of whether or not you're right or wrong, until the customer says this is what I want. At the time. I want it we don't know for sure. And we can blow a sale or an experience very quickly. But once they say that out loud, they are committed, they will are now a part of the process. So even if somebody said to me, I am looking because I want to find the perfect car, because in three months, I'm going to lose my, my company vehicle and I want to have the new cart chosen by them. And my next questions are going to be easy. Well, what kind of car are you most excited about? How soon before you lose your company car? Do you want it? You know what's important to you until the person says, You know what, I want this sports car. And I want to be able to have it at least a month before I lose my company car. Boom. All right, now we've got a timeline, we've got an exact description. And now we have a place to actually start the negotiation. And that's the element is the questions are always about put yourself in that person's shoes. What questions would you want asked of you that would make you feel respected, wanted and not be sold. And that's the part of the element that no matter what you sell, because we all sell something, then that will always give us that perspective of the person, that customer and help us to create a journey for them that makes it faster, easier, and way more enjoyable for everyone involved.

Marcus Kirsch:

Wonderful. I think you know, that little word y is something that a lot of people should not adopt, for sure. Right? especially in times like these where we are drawing a brand new map of the world. And people really ask why. Yeah, great words to end on. So Michael, thank you very much for your insight and for being with us. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Troy Norcross:

You've been listening to the wicked podcast with CO hosts Marcus Kirsch and me, Troy Norcross,

Marcus Kirsch:

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Troy Norcross:

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