Episode 89

They keep telling me our price is too high... but I don't believe them

Dennis Collins, Leah Bumphrey, and Paul Boomer crack open a "diary entry" confession from a founder who has a major trust issue with their sales team. When every lost deal is blamed on pricing, is it a market reality, or is it just a convenient excuse to hide a lack of sales skill?

We dive into why the "price excuse" is often just insulation for much bigger problems — a lack of organizational clarity and a failure to make the customer experience value rather than just hear it explained.

In this episode:

[03:26] The Trust Gap — what happens when a founder stops believing the feedback coming from their own team

[13:34] Immunity to Change — why business owners often resist hiring outside help even when they know they aren't great coaches

[19:37] Value vs. Explanation — why "pitching" is loud, but trust is quiet, and how to track the latter

[22:56] The "Price is Final" Rule — understanding that price should be the final chapter of a sales story, not the first argument

Resources Mentioned

The Sales Trust Playbook — a free guide for founders, including the "price is the final chapter" principle discussed in this episode. Download it at ConnectAndConvertPodcast.com

Connect With Us

Website: ConnectAndConvertPodcast.com

Got a "true confession" or a question you want us to cover? Email connectandconvert@wizardofads.com

Transcript
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(Music)

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You know, if you're a

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founder and you're thinking, gee,

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I've had this thought and I don't have a

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solution and it's kind

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of like bothering me.

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And by this point in my life, I should

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have figured this stuff out.

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Well, get in line.

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We are here on Connect and Convert to

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talk about the true confessions of

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business owners and business founders,

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the true confessions

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they don't tell anybody.

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They don't even tell their spouse.

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These are their secret thoughts as if

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they were written in their diary and

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we're getting inside their diary.

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And aren't we, Leah, aren't we Paul?

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We're getting inside

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their diary and said, ooh.

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It's one of those little

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locks with the little key.

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Yeah.

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Remember those?

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Easy to break into.

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I used to break into my sisters.

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I had three sisters.

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I knew it.

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I had three sisters and they had those

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little locks on there.

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Oh boy.

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I became a lock picker.

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So all you need to do, you guys, is take

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somebody out to coffee and

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just start asking questions.

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You don't need to pick.

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Yeah, you pick locks.

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You're so sweet.

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There's no fun in that.

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I know.

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I know.

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So anyway, we're back

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on Connect and Convert.

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We tell the real stories, the true

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stories, the true confessions of small

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business owners and business founders.

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We try to make it safe for you to think

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those thoughts and to name those thoughts

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because you can't do

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anything about it until you name it.

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So we, this podcast is 100% about you,

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about helping you name it

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and helping you find solutions.

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Today, here's the confession

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of a small business owner.

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And these are real, by the way, we all

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have multiple decades of experience.

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I feel like these confessions came

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dropped in brown paper and

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like, I don't, I keep waiting.

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I keep waiting.

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Brown paper.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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No, no, no return out.

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No return out.

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Yeah, exactly.

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Or from the dark web

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somewhere from some unknown

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email address.

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Before he gets to the confession and that

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nice wrapping paper is

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as a listener of this podcast, what I

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want you to do is I want you to go to

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whatever program service, whatever that

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you're listening to us to, and

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I want you to write a comment.

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Yes, please.

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What are you getting out of this?

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And more importantly, what you, what

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keeps you up at night?

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Yeah.

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Because those things and you know, the

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more detail, the better, but even the

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simple things, it helps us provide more

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value to you for sure.

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So please take just a few moments and go

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find the comment section

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and just add your comment.

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And especially if you disagree, because

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you're going to hear things on, on, on

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this whole series of, uh, confessions.

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Uh, you're going to hear things you don't

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agree with, or maybe you have a question

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about what the hell do they mean by that?

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That will give us direction.

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We, we actually read those.

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So, uh, thank you, Paul for that.

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Okay.

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You ready?

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You ready for the confession?

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Here it goes.

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Real confession from

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a real business owner.

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When we lose a deal,

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almost 100% of the time they tell me it

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was because our price was too high.

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Now I'm not stupid.

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I know that high price, uh, the high

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price excuse by used by salespeople,

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that's been going on

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since the beginning of time.

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That's easy.

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It puts the blame back on me.

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It's not their fault.

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It's my fault because I'm

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setting that price as the owner.

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Well, guess what?

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I don't believe this.

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I don't think that's true.

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I don't trust my salespeople.

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I'll be real Frank.

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That's part of my confession.

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I don't trust them.

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Okay.

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I don't think they're

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giving me the right information.

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They're just not telling me the truth.

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I don't, and I don't know how

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to address this effectively.

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I mean, I'm not sure I, you know, I, my

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belief is that buyers are willing to pay

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more when they trust you and they value

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the seller and the solution.

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So, uh, but honestly, I have

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no idea how to track this down.

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It's just a fear that I have.

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And it's something that is a

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trust issue with my sales team.

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And that's not good.

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Paul, I'm letting you go.

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Cause I am getting so

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irritated listening to this.

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Maybe I don't want to go.

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Maybe I don't want to stand

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in front of this train here.

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Um, but what I will say is in

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this, in that

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confession, what I'm hearing is.

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The pricing excuse is simply an

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installation from bigger problems.

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Bigger problems like what

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clarity,

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understanding clarity,

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self value, not just in the service or

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product, but in thyself,

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the salesperson self value.

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That's a good one, but it also goes into

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its leadership value, leadership in

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themselves, the, I'm sorry, uh,

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confidence and comp

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confidence within themselves.

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And in the organization as a whole,

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the pricing excuse is simply an

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installation to bigger problems.

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Hmm.

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Wow.

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The only thing this guy said that has any

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merit is that yes, buyers will pay more

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when they trust and value

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the seller and the solution.

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Yes.

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People buy more or will

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are willing to pay more.

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That's the only thing he said that I

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think has any clarity.

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Why are myself people telling me it's

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always price?

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Well, he, he, he said it.

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I'm saying you Dennis, I don't mean to

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direct this at you, but

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you read this guy's stuff.

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He he's all about not

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trusting his people.

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He doesn't trust it.

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I don't trust him.

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Leave it.

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He doesn't even trust himself to know how

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to, how to, uh, have any transfer of

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confidence to his people.

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Right.

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The whole thing is shaky.

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There's no way this business should be

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in business.

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This guy should not be owning.

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He should not be owning a business.

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No, they shouldn't even be in business.

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If he doesn't understand why he

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should be, he should be

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deprived of his right to own a business.

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Yes.

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I sure wouldn't work for him.

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Would you guys work for this guy?

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He doesn't trust you.

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Not knowingly.

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No, of course not.

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Who would remember Leah.

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These are silent confessions.

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They don't tell anybody

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this, not even their own spouse.

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This is their silent alone moment.

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So, and there's no

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absolution from me on this one.

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Sorry.

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Oh, well, I can tell.

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We we're going to have to dig.

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We're going to have to dig really deep.

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Well, this is this.

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So you say, you say these are, you know,

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private conversations

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or private thoughts.

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No, I've had this conversation many of

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times with a few different owners.

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They, they will have it

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with us as consultants.

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Yeah, exactly.

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But they don't, they

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don't tell their team this.

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No, I mean, they won't say,

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Hey, I don't trust you guys.

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Oh, some of them do, Mike.

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And then of course we

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have a whole nother.

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Well, actually I can name a, yeah, I can

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think of one right now.

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Yeah, I can too.

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So I guess that's not universally true,

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but most people, most owners are not

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going to go out there and just accuse

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them of being untrustworthy.

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And I'm going to soften.

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I'm going to soften a little bit because

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he is asking how to

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address this effectively.

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And what I, what I'm going to believe

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that he's asking is how does he correct

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his lack of trust in his salespeople?

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Because if he thinks they're lying,

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we need to fix that.

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When I was a new mom,

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there was stuff I didn't know.

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And I thought I was going to be pretty

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good, but there's stuff I didn't know.

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How did I solve that?

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And I thought it was going to be really

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good because I had the oldest of seven.

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So I had experience with babies.

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Wow.

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But how did I solve the problem?

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I talked to other moms.

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I talked to my mom.

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I talked to, I read tons of stuff and I

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made mistakes that I then corrected.

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Okay.

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So, because if, if, if you don't know, if

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you believe you don't know how to do

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something, there is waste.

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And so he's taking that step with us.

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Yeah.

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So Leah, this, what you just said is very

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consistent with what you've said on some

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of our other contestants.

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Right.

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That if you don't know how to do

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something, buck up, buddy,

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get it done and figure it out.

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I don't know.

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That sounds a little harsh to me.

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You know what?

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It's not, it's harder not to, because

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he's going to end up

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not having a business.

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These salespeople are

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not going to have a job.

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If there are reasons why, and if he

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can't, if he's not a trainer, some people

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are not trainers, we all love training.

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Some people are not trainers.

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Then you hire a trainer, you hire a

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trainer to be able to, okay.

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Cause sometimes people come

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from selling low end products.

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We all know there's, you know, you have

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four choices with a product.

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You can be cheap, you can

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be fast, you can be good.

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You can be expensive.

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You only get three of those, right?

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You can't be cheap or you

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can't be cheap and good.

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You can't like, so if

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you don't know how to,

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yeah, you have it on the tip of your

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tongue better than me.

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I feel it in my heart.

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I always get confused on that one, but I

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know what you're talking about.

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You can have cheap, fast, or good.

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I think it's three, but

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you can't have all three.

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Right.

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I think that's how it

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goes, but anyway, go ahead.

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Yeah.

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But I get the point.

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Okay.

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So hire someone to help you do this.

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And if you can't hire someone, then

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again, it's communication.

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Let me ask you this.

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Okay.

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So basically,

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you're talking a business owner and a

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business founder, in my experience,

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generally did not come up through sales.

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They did, they were

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not great salespeople.

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They became good at some level in sales

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because at first they were probably the

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only one selling whatever it is they do.

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But later as they scaled, they had to

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pass that off to somebody else.

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Okay.

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So the big question in my mind is

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our business owners and founders for the

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most part, great coaches and trainers or

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lousy coaches and trainers.

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Can we put a bucket

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together, two buckets?

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They're great coaches, trainers, they're

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lousy coaches and trainers.

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What, what, where would you tend to go?

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Paul, which way would you go?

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Uh, the one question I think I heard was

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our owners, you know, typically good or,

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or, or not so great coaches.

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Training and coaching.

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Training and coaching.

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Okay.

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In my experience, they are not good at

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coaching or training.

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Okay.

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They're, let me back that

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up actually a little bit.

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They're good at training the

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thing that they are selling.

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Meaning if they're selling a service,

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they're good at selling.

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They're good at training, how to use a

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service or what the service provides or

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whatnot, which can translate into great

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training for sales if they

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understand what they're doing.

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But most owners that I've interacted

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with, they became an owner either because

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they inherited it or because they're

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really good at this one thing.

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And they said, Hey, I should go do this.

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Leave this job and go do it over here.

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And they started to do just that.

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Right.

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Which is great.

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But there are also many other aspects of

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having a great company that requires

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completely different, completely opposite

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knowledge and to be good at what you do

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being a business

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owner, you cannot do it all.

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There's no possible way,

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especially if you want to scale.

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Now, if you don't want to scale, fine.

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That's a whole different subject.

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But if you want to continue to scale, not

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everybody wants to or has to.

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You've got to bring

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people on from the outside.

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Who can do those things.

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I can't afford that.

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Come on, man.

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I'm trying to make a little profit here.

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So you're saying you can't afford not to.

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Well, yeah, but you're telling me that

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I'm not a good trainer.

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I'm not a good coach.

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Okay.

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I'll buy that.

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I'm probably not, but I got

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to go out and hire somebody.

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That's going to cost me a bloody fortune.

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You guys are just trying to sell sales

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training, aren't you?

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What?

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Okay.

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Why?

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Why is it that we are

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comfortable going to a doctor?

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For expertise.

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Because I'm sick.

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I'm comfortable.

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I'm comfortable going to somebody who

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knows computers to

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help me set up my stuff.

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I am more than happy to let somebody else

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tell me why my four wheel drive is not

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going into four wheel drive.

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All right.

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But when it comes to something intangible

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that I just for some reason feel I should

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have magical abilities, I'm not willing

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to go to someone else.

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That just, it's a license for failure.

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Okay.

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So there's a thing out

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there called immunity to change.

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Oh, there is another fabulous word.

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That is an act.

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Boomerism.

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That is no, that is not boomerism.

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That is a Dr.

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Richard Kinken.

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You're right.

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You told me about this before.

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Yes.

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And what they've,

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they both teach at Harvard.

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They're both professors and everybody,

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just like our bodies,

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we actually have an immunity, well, we

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have an immunity to change.

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Our bodies are working in a certain way.

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And when we push it, it's like, whoa,

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whoa, whoa, I don't want to do that.

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Like, you know, working out.

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We know we need it, but our body is

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saying, yeah, it's much better just to

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sit here and go, right.

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The same thing happens psychologically.

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So it's much more easier.

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I can give myself excuses all the day

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long saying, I can't afford that.

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No, I, it's going to eat into my profit

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margins, this and that, because there's

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an immunity because it's comfortable.

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Great.

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But what is really honestly under

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underneath that comfort level?

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Are you afraid?

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What are you truly afraid of?

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It's not about spending money.

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It's about possibly not looking at the

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part that you think you should be owning.

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So in other words, if you hire an outside

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and we're talking sales today, but you

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hire an outside sales trainer, that shows

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that you're incompetent.

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For some people, yes, but they want to

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admit that and they may not even know it.

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No, because that's an interesting take.

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So they, they take it personally that

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they should be able to do this and they

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can't, so they got to go

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hire someone else to do it.

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Yes.

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And what's even worse is that the doctor

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thing quite often they have other people

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in their lives saying and reinforcing

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that desire not to change.

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You're the owner.

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You can take care of that.

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You don't need to hire someone else.

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And they internalize that

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and just to sample that.

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Is this a muscle you can exercise, Paul?

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Oh yes.

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It is, it is definitely a muscle that you

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can exercise, but I will say it requires

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somebody who understands how to take

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something through the process to dig deep

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because it is something

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to work to understand.

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Okay.

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Why am I not doing the thing?

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Why am I not taking a heart medicine?

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What I know it's the thing

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that's going to save me my life.

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Oh yeah.

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So here, here's some just popped into my

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head based on what

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you guys are telling me.

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I think

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one of the things that I deal with with

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salespeople when talking

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or training salespeople is

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creating the fear of doing nothing.

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What is the fear?

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What's what's going to happen if you

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don't solve this problem?

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Okay.

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Uh, that fear and it's called FOMO

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sometimes fear of missing out.

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What are you going to miss out on if you

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don't solve this problem?

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Isn't that what we're talking about here?

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Isn't that about how to create a case for

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hiring outside training?

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Well, it's even more dangerous than that

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because you're recognizing an issue.

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You know, you recognize that this is

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something you have to fix.

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Yeah.

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You are not willing to do it.

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So it's more than just

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even a fear of missing out.

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It's an active

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immunity to change issue

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that you're, you're just

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like not willing to move on and

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now,

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so

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what, what are we, and so when it comes,

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when it comes down to, I think it's a

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lack of trust that

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doesn't start with bad intent,

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but it starts with

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missing a missing language.

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And when you have a language,

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then you're able to, to

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do something about it.

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And when the language is missing,

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training turns into guesswork.

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Okay.

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Stop right there.

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Another one.

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Training turns into guesswork.

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Tell us more about that.

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You don't have a language you have.

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Leah often asks us define

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what is the definition of.

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Right.

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Define your terms.

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If you don't have the terms, if you don't

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have the language, then just hiring

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somebody to come in and train or yourself

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train just turns into the guesswork

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because you're floating around trying to

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do something that you don't all agree on

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because you have

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different points of view.

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And it might not be industry specific.

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It might not speak the

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language of your area.

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Up here in Canada, there's different,

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different specifics that are necessary

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and important that a salesperson

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translated, transported from the Southern

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States here wouldn't get.

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Right.

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And I feel like we've kind of gotten off

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course a little bit because we're talking

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about pricing and you know, people say,

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well, our price is too high to maybe what

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we should maybe change it to is we don't

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know where the trust broke down because

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my opinion is about trust.

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We don't know where the trust broke down

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in a buying process.

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They're trying to figure that out and

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they don't know how to figure that out.

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And when price is blamed,

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it usually means that value.

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You're talking the customer, right?

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Right. Not inside the business.

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It can be inside business too, but, but

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yes, the customer here I'm talking about.

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Sorry.

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But in, in prices is blamed.

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It usually means value wasn't

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experienced, but it was only explained.

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Right.

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There's another good one.

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Value was explained, but not experienced.

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And that comes down.

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That makes me think of storytelling,

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which of course we're sponsored by

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wizardacademy.org, which is all about

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stories as kind of a

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portal to what's next.

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So we can all think, and we've identified

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different areas where people

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do this.

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But having a story and having business

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owners be very specific with someone who

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knows how to pull that language out.

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Yeah.

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Because pitching is loud, right?

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Pitching is loud, but trust is quiet and

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quiet things are harder to track.

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If you can't articulate why buyers don't

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trust enough to proceed, the price

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becomes the default explanation.

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Again, that's the

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installation from the bigger problem.

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And that's the easy thing to blame.

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Exactly.

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That's, oh, it costs too much.

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So should I, should I as a business owner

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go out and hire, is there a sales trainer

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that helps you

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understand how to build value?

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Is that what I'm hearing?

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That's who I should hire.

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I need to do something.

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It doesn't necessarily actually know.

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This is contrarian a

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little bit right here.

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All right.

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You don't need a sales trainer, not yet.

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Hmm.

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Because as I believe, again,

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this confession shows a bigger issue

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and that issue starts at the top,

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the person at the top is not clear,

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either isn't clear or hasn't clearly

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articulated what they're so

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clear about to everybody else.

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So therefore you don't have people.

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Therefore you have people

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saying, Oh, it's the price.

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It's the price.

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Right.

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You don't need a sales trainer yet.

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You need somebody to get in the head of

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the owner to yank the stuff out and say,

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okay, how far have you

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really thought about this?

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How much have you really thought about

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this and how much have you actually

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communicated consistently to your staff

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until then you can hire sales trainers.

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And yes, you will make progress most of

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the time, not all the time, but most of

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the time, not all the time until you have

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clarity from the owner and from the

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leadership team, sales

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training is only in good so far.

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So you're getting back to the, you know

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how many times we talk

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about clarity in these episodes?

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Yeah.

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I'll bet if you go back and listen to all

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the podcasts in this series that we're

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doing, I'll bet the word clarity is the

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most often repeated word.

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Would that be a fair statement?

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I think so.

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There's also something, something really

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basic that we're ignoring you guys.

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What's that?

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Are they too expensive?

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Uh-huh.

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No.

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Okay.

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That's very valid.

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That is very valid.

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Just speak, like we're going in because,

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and I know we work with many clients and

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it's high value propositions and they are

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the highest value and the

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most expensive and for a reason,

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but I've also worked with people and

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it's, I'm sorry, you are pricing yourself

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out of this market or your price is not a

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reflection of the service or the actual

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product that you're doing.

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This stuff is crap that you're getting

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built overseas and bring it like,

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is it too expensive?

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Wow.

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How do you determine that?

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That's where you're talking to yourself.

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Again, clarity comes from communication.

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You talk to your, you

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talk to your competition.

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You talk to your staff.

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You talk to your manufacturer or where

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this is coming from.

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And you do it at a marketplace analysis.

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So not only are we asking our listeners,

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you to comment on this, but also in the

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uh, description of this podcast, you will

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find a downloadable PDF, uh, the

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founders, small business owner, sales

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trust playbook, and the principle number

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four is titled price is the final

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chapter, not the first argument.

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All right.

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Download it,

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download it, read it, ingest it,

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understand it, the rest of it.

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And this will all start making much more

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sense than we're

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already attempting to do.

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Um, well, we think we're making sense.

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Well, you think we're making sense.

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Yes.

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But you need, but go download that.

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Find that again, you'll find that link in

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the, in the

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description of these podcasts.

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But I want to start wrapping this up

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because you're absolutely right.

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Price may be the actual issue,

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but you have to understand,

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okay, is it, how do you do that?

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What do you do with that?

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Can you go up?

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Can you go down?

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Things like that.

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What do you each

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get out of this conversation?

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Well, uh,

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I'll tell you what my experiences, uh, my

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experiences that it's usually not price.

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That is a false response from salespeople

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who have not learned how to create value.

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Is it impossible to be on price?

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Not impossible, but it's rare

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that your price is too high.

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If it is too high, you didn't do your

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homework in the first place and shame on

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you for mispricing it.

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A couple phrases that stuck out to me

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value explained, but not experienced.

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Wow.

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That's powerful.

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I explained the value.

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I walked you through it, but

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I didn't tell you the story.

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Did I pull?

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I didn't tell you the emotional story of

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someone who realized the emotional value

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of what we sell value was

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explained, but not experienced.

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And

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price may be too high,

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but I would say in my experience, that's

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usually not the case

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and, uh, training can only do so much.

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Uh, we talked about mindset.

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We talked about clarity.

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If you adopt any type of training,

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particularly sales training, you better

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have a very tight definition of what you

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want to accomplish and how

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it's going to be installed.

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The biggest problem I've seen from small

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business owners is doing a one off

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training event, a day away.

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We go out and we have a party and we

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learn and tomorrow, 70%

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of it is already forgotten.

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That's a waste of time and money.

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If you want to just

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have a party, go ahead.

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Don't even bother with the training

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because you're,

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you're wasting your money.

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Leah.

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Bring it home.

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I think that

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sales, I'm sorry, business owners, we do,

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we deal mostly with family businesses.

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I know business owners that mortgage

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their homes who borrowed money from their

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aging parents who put everything them and

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their spouse had into, you

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know, buying out their parents.

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Like my heart is with business owners

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that are family run businesses and as

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they grow and sometimes it's hard to even

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recognize them because they get so big.

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But with that has to come the realization

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that you can't do everything.

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You don't know everything.

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There's power in people helping and that

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applies to business.

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It applies to real life

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that we live every day.

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If you're not willing to ask for help, if

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you're not willing to be vulnerable, man,

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there's only so much you're going to be

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able to scale and that's not where I am.

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I want to help people.

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And I know, gents, you too.

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You want to help people go like, wow, I

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didn't know how easy that could be.

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That's fun.

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I love how Leah packages things.

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You're a good packager.

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Well, don't forget to follow us.

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Like us subscribe.

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But most of all, as Boomer pointed out

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earlier, please, we love

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your comments and argue with us.

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Tell us we're full of beep.

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You know, maybe we really not me.

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Well, well, you can

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tell me, I don't care.

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I've been told that so much in my life.

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It's I'm immune to it.

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So, so we'd love to hear from you and

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we'd love you to join us on every episode

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of connect and convert.

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I'm Dennis.

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The good looking one is

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Leah and the smart one is Paul.

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Okay.

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It's Dennis Lee and Paul.

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We are connect and convert just so you

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know, we have spent decades listening to

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small business owners

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and founders just like you.

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We've listened into their

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fears, their confessions.

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We've worked with their teams.

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So in this podcast, we talk about only

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real fears, real pressure, real moments

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that decide whether a business is going

Speaker:

to grow or quietly stalls.

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This is where those

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conversations finally happen right here.

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You're safe on connect and convert.

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We'll see you next time.

About the Podcast

Show artwork for Connect & Convert: The Sales Accelerator Podcast
Connect & Convert: The Sales Accelerator Podcast
Insider Strategies for Small Business Sales Success