Disrupting Conversations #1

Stop falling for the self-help slop

Already this year, I’ve received dozens of emails with subject lines like “Are you ready to change your life?,” “Release your inner strength in 2023!,” and “Join my master class so I can help you achieve your dreams.”

I’m tired of it, and you should be too.

👉️ All of those things sound good, but they are elixirs of exaggeration that play on one’s frustrations, anxieties, and desperation. If business development and sales were as simple and linear as so many try and paint them, you wouldn’t be reading this, and I wouldn’t be writing it.

After 15+ years of collaborating on, researching, and coaching high-performance sales, here’s what I can tell you…

If you want to achieve, create, and experience at a higher performance level, then get ready to work through the suck because it’s coming. It’s not a matter of making a mistake, feeling silly, or failing, because you will do all of those things. It’s how you respond and work through it.

The suck refers to those moments of self-doubt, uncertainty, disappointment, and insecurity that arise because your immediate results aren’t congruent with the effort you’re investing.

It doesn’t matter what all these expert coaches promise in their emails or how hard they wave their pom-poms of encouragement.

If you aren’t willing to do the work—and you don’t have a process—nothing changes.

My favorite people to work with are the ones who want something greater, and who have the courage to try and create a bigger vision for themselves and others. I have an immense amount of respect for people who do the work, so I get frustrated when I see my contemporaries selling an ideal or result instead of helping you understand the process of equipping yourself to get through the suck.

There’s a reason why every great story features a protagonist that gets knocked down and pushed to the limits before they rise up and conquer whatever obstacles are in their way. It’s the ebb and flow of life.

That’s why I started this newsletter—so we can have more honest, authentic conversations about what it really takes to achieve something greater.

Thanks for joining me on this journey,

Dan

Breaking Sales is my podcast to connect with those who are ready to break free from the chains of old sales methodologies that don’t work.

These three episodes highlight our recent work on unraveling that vague set of social behaviors we call trust. Listen in as I discuss how trust really works in our relationships, risk evaluation, and decision-making. My two experts are Dr. Kent Grayson from the Kellogue School of Management at Northwestern University and Dr. Nicole Fisher Roberts, an expert in neuroscience, a contributor to Forbes, and a consultant to many national and international organizations on the topic.

Episode 96: Evolving Trust with Dr. Kent Grayson

Episode 97: Giving People What They Need with Dr. Nicole Fisher Roberts

Episode 98: Not All Trust is the Same with Dr. Nicole Fisher Roberts

Think Different

Are you questioning the ROI of your new business outreach and the results you’re creating? If so, perhaps it’s time to “change the conversation.”

👉️ What does it mean to “change the conversation?” It’s the process of breaking conversational patterns of distrust and establishing trust.

Think back to 30,000 years ago and what might happen when two tribes cross paths. As they approached one another, they had to develop skills that would help them quickly perceive each other’s intent. Body language, tone, energy, and facial expressions had to be cataloged and remembered for future reference to keep the tribe safe.

Back then, the outcome of that human-to-human interaction was potentially a life-or-death situation. Today things are different, but the instinctual process to protect oneself and control one’s environment and experience is still as innate as ever.

The important concept here is that over time these interactions create experiences and biases on how we judge another person's intent (good or bad), and whether or not we can trust that intent.

For example, if the intent of the other tribe is to take your food or harm your tribe, over time you will pick up on the nuances needed to be able to protect yourself. You will also develop biases that create shortcuts for the brain to hopefully recognize danger signs quickly. You learn to distrust based on the patterns you recognize.

This is what your prospect is doing when you try and connect with them.

They are assessing your intent (why you are reaching out to them). If they accept your invitation to connect via social media, email, or Zoom, can they trust the experience they are going to have, good or bad?

👉️ For many of your prospects, the bad experience shows up all too often. When someone has made an effort to sell them something without learning who they are or what they need, they learn to avoid and distrust many of the accepted sales approaches.

Changing the conversation happens when you are able to alter the prospect's experience because you’ve changed your intent. You move from an intent founded in what you want—to make or advance a sale—to one with a lot more benevolence that focuses on determining if the prospect could use some help.

Your prospect may not be facing a life-or-death situation with you, but they have become very skilled at recognizing patterns in your outreach and conversations so they can avoid wasting time and energy sitting through a sales experience they don’t want to have.

Changing the conversation helps you avoid the patterns and biases that cause the prospect to distrust your intent.

It's Bigger Than Sales

I believe that life is about experiences. In this section, I'll be sharing the experiences—big and small—that are generating fulfillment for me, in hopes that they spark something impactful for you.

In early 2020 (a few weeks before COVID hit), my wife and I spent five days in the desert with Geshela, a Tibetan Bon Lama (bio).

For many years I’ve been a student of how human attachment is the root cause of our struggles, and how it holds us back from achieving, creating, and experiencing what we want in life. Geshela offered an incredible amount of wisdom that can be applied to anything—business, family, community, and obviously, self.

I almost feel like I’m cheapening the experience with such a simple mention. Check out my take-away points from day four in the final picture below—great perspective in strengthening all relationships.

Thanks for reading!

Want to know more about the work I’m doing? Follow me on LinkedIn.

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