Ted Olson On Selling! We NEED Confidence For That

 

Mastery of the sales process is not about jamming products down your target market’s throats and earning the biggest revenue. It is more of playing the role of a counselor and problem-solver who brings genuine value to everyone.

Alicia Couri sits down with Ted Olson, author of Feel Good About Selling, to discuss how to create an efficient sales system that is more about helping others than merely selling. He presents his unique framework and methodology called PEP, which stands for Positioning, Exploring, and Presenting. Ted also explains how to build confidence and implement the right marketing approach as a master at sales. He discusses how this tactic can invite potential buyers to your business instead of pushing them away.

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Ted Olson On Selling! We NEED Confidence For That

An Experts Guide To Becoming A Master At Sales

On this episode, we welcome Ted Olson. I’ve known Ted for a couple of years and this is going to be a fun interview. Ted to me is that compassionate sales trainer. He sells from the heart with a lot of respect, not just for the sales process but for the people involved in the sales process. I want to read his bio because there’s something very important in it that I must say.

Ted Olson is the Author of Feel Good About Selling, a book written to help people feel good about selling and avoid the bad habits that hurt sales. He has trained thousands of salespeople from all different backgrounds and industries. He uses his sales experience to help individuals and organizations with sales enablement, sales training, demand generation, and marketing.

He’s built sales teams that have broken every record at their respective company. He’s created a unique sales framework and methodology called PEP, which stands for Positioning, Exploring, and Presenting. PEP offers a flexible approach based on core selling principles for anyone in sales whether they like selling or not.

When not at work, Ted practices martial arts and homeschools his four children with his wife, Nicole. They have two dogs, Oatmeal and Honeybee, and a guinea pig, Pinball. His kids wanted to make sure that that part was in there, so I needed to read the bio to make sure we talked about the two dogs and the guinea pig.

They’re always talking about pets, for sure.

Ted, how did you get started in sales?

I started when I was seventeen and it came from the automotive space. I was an auto mechanic. I’m hands-on fixing cars. What you realize very quickly in the particular shop that I was in is I did my own upselling. I had to talk to the customer. I had to first feel the call and make the appointment. I did everything.

What a great start.

It laid the foundation for what sales is so I had to have that initial conversation, get the car in, do the diagnostic, then come back to the prospect. Tell them what’s wrong and I would upsell like, “While it’s here, I noticed this, this, and this. Should we take care of that or do you want to space it out? It’s entirely up to you.” That is where I developed a lot of my selling methodology. With that said, my mom, who’s now in her 70s in 2022, has four decades of President’s Club. I learned a lot from her as well growing up.

That’s always great when you have a parent that’s a mentor for you to learn these vital skills. I remember my first job was in sales. Probably around the same age as you and around the same time too. I was horrible. I didn’t have any mentor or anybody I can look to that was in sales. I was put into that role of selling and I was like, “I don’t know what to do.” Hopefully, I’ve learned a few things from then. Before we start, we were talking about our different behavioral profiles. You are a strategist. How has that helped or hindered you in the sales process?

PI is an amazing company and an amazing product. That is how I build sales teams using PI and that’s how I tell everyone to do it. Not using PI when you’re building any team is a little silly.

You’re like doing it blindfolded, basically. You’re feeling around trying and it is like, “Why not use the tools that are available?” It feels like you’re groping in the dark.

It does. That’s a great way of putting it. I think as a strategist, PI has seventeen reference profiles. The one that I fall into is a bit more analytical, a bit more introverted and so how does that play out as a seller? What are the strengths to that? What are the caution areas? We’ll start with the caution areas and land with the positives.

The negatives would be I can be very blunt and very terse. I can get to the point and I don’t have a lot of patience. The positive side of that is I am driven. I don’t need to be motivated. I do want to help people. I truly have the desire to do good. Being a strategist allows me to think about and reflect upon what is the best way to do that. How can I create the best customer and buying experience?

What do I need to do as an individual to execute that? For example, I have to bring up my empathy and my warmth. I have to be patient and execute a process and not jump to the end as I often try to do. A little bit about what some of the self-awareness that using behavioral tools like PI can bring to an organization.

Sometimes, you’re doing it without any knowledge whatsoever. You’re trying to convince yourself of the illusion that you’re going by gut instinct and that our gut is always telling us the truth and it’s not. Sometimes we need to understand the other people in the room and not just ourselves. We don’t even understand ourselves half the time. Using the tools that are available through PI is foundational for building any team.

I have a two-part question here so you can grab or hold of whichever part you want to answer first. You’ve trained thousands of people in sales. Over the course of your career, what would you say are the top three challenges that teams have when it comes to selling and individuals? For individuals and for teams, what are the challenges that you have found universally?

Universally, there is no clear system. When you look at teams, you come in and you realize, “You’re all doing it differently. Interesting.” That’s tough to scale. If we shift a corporate mindset for a second, it’s like, “If you want to build a sales system, you need to build a sales system.” That system needs to be able to be iterated on. It needs to be flexible and you need to be able to teach it so that people can do it, so it doesn’t feel like a robot.

If you want to build a sales system, it needs to be flexible and teachable to people who need to do it without feeling like a robot. Click To Tweet

It looked like in frameworks, not specific scripting because as we talked about behavioral types, there are some people that won’t follow the script.

For sure. If you certain maverick profiles that send tend to go off script like yourself and wing it. There’s beauty in that because there’s humanity and authenticity. That’s very important in sales. You never want to strip that out. Here’s what I think. When we’re thinking about organizations, their biggest shift now is they’ve got to stop being salespeople and they need to be trusted advisors.

That is number one, a mindset shift. Number two, a skillset to learn because they don’t know how to do it. What they sound like is everybody else. This is a hat tip to one of my mentors, Jim Speredelozzi, who turned beyond to this idea of a business therapist to be a coach, a counselor to your prospect, come to the table with value, create a safe space, and allow your prospect to find their way and how you can help them solve that problem. The sales industry is in the middle of that now and at the beginning of it. They’ve got their little baby giraffe legs trying to stand up to be a trusted advisor. That is what I see most when I look at sales teams in general.

I’m going to flip to your book first for a moment because we’re going to talk a little bit more about the methodology that’s in the book. You talk about in it, the hero’s journey, where a lot of times we might see ourselves as a salesperson as the hero but it’s your prospect that it’s the hero. That’s one of those flipping things around that you’re talking about.

Most people will nod their heads and agree with you. All that makes sense but then go right back out there and start talking all about themselves, their company, and their product. What we need to be talking about is the problem we solve for our customers because that is what’s going to engage them. It’s great that we’ve been doing this for many years and we’re the number one in X. Our product can do this, that, and the other thing.

What the prospects care about is, what’s in it for me. That’s all they’re thinking about. That idea goes all the way back to Aristotle but it comes from folks like Joseph Campbell and Nancy Duarte. Who does a great job with this is Donald Miller in his book Building a StoryBrand. It’s this idea of the hero, the guide, and the villain.

The villain is the problem. The hero is your prospect and customer and you are the trusted guide. The greatest example of this is Star Wars. Yoda is that trusted guide. Obi-Wan is that trusted guide who needs to empower Luke and help him with the force to knock out the death star battle, the empire, etc. Most people get that wrong. You see it in their copy and on their banners. It’s all about them. It’s all about me. Look at me. Look at how awesome I am. Nobody is interested. They want to know how you can help them.

How can you help me turn it around, flip it around and help me? That’s one of the things that I read when I was reading your book. The book is called Feel Good About Selling, by the way, if you didn’t catch that at the beginning. That idea that we need to be that guide to help them come to the decision. I’ve heard you talk about that.

We need to empower them or at least let it be their idea. Help them see that this is their idea. That our solution fits them so that they have ownership. They get the buy-in and that’s one of the Laws of Leadership. It’s to get the buy-in but in a way that they own the decision and you’re not convincing them of the decision.

That’s a great point. A lot of us in sales think that it’s our responsibility to somehow force that decision or make that decision are we’ve got to get something. The reality is what we need to do is create the buy-in experience, ask the right questions to help our prospects make that decision for themselves, and give them that choice.

Many assume that sales is about forcing buyers to make a decision. In reality, it is about creating a buying experience and allowing prospects to decide for themselves. Click To Tweet

A lot of folks have struggled with that because that’s where it gets into this mindset of a trusted advisor. That’s what a trusted advisor will do. A trusted advisor will say, “Here are your options.” A salesperson will say, “If you buy now, you can save 10%.” Suddenly, you’re trapped in the corner and that doesn’t feel good to anybody.

I have a mentor who says, “Everybody resists everything.” We have this idea that we have to overcome objections but the minute you start to push the natural Law of Resistance you’ll push and they’ll push back. We need to work differently so we’re not working against that Law of Resistance where people are automatically going to be like, “Wait a second,” and give us a reason or the obvious objections, like money, time, and family. Those are usually the top three objections that people have. “My family won’t let me do it or something.”

Money, time, and bandwidth. Time and bandwidth are big now. Money for sure, especially in economic times of economic uncertainty. There’s a new book coming out, and it’s called The JOLT Effect. It comes from some of the folks who wrote The Challenger Sale and The Challenger Customer, which are two books that I recommend all the time to everybody.

To be clear and to be fair to everyone, this isn’t rocket science. They didn’t discover penicillin or anything. This is something that if you’re in internet marketing, you’ve known this for a long time and that is to eliminate risk. If you’re selling something and you are looking for somebody to make a change, you have to de-risk that process because if they sign up with you and things don’t work out, they’re going to look bad.

This is even less about fear and it goes back to shame. No one wants to feel shame. We will go out of our way to avoid feeling shame if we can show a clear process of how someone can be successful. That’s why I go back to this whole concept of, “Tell me your sales process. Show me what that buying experience looks like.” Speaking of your show, about confidence. If you’re not clear on your process, then you won’t have confidence in your process neither will your buyer.

That was going to be my next question. How many times did you have to help boost someone’s confidence in the sales process to help them step forward to make sales, especially if they’re not specifically on a sales team but they’re a business owner, a consultant, or a coach? You have to now help them even have that belief in themselves that they can go out and sell.

That’s my audience. I didn’t write a book for salespeople. I wrote a book for people that aren’t crazy about selling but need to. There are quite a lot of folks out there. If you read the sales books that are out there, it’s like, “I don’t want to be part of that. That’s enough toxic bravado for me. Thank you very much.”

I love that you wrote a book for people who don’t want to do sales because we all have to.

We all have to but what I think we need to do is help people. Let’s redefine what sales is and let’s be simple about it. It’s about helping somebody get from a place where they don’t want it to be to a place where they want to be, which should feel good. If it doesn’t, we’re doing something wrong. Back to your question, number one, in order to have confidence even before your process, what problem do you solve?

Whenever I ask that question, what I hear is all kinds of answers. “We do this.” “That’s not what I asked. I get that you’re awesome at this but what problem are you solving in the marketplace? Can you articulate that? I’m not being aggressive here. Help me understand what problem you’re solving.” For example, a hairdresser. A hairdresser cuts hair but that’s not the problem they’re solving, especially with me losing my hair.

I don’t have that problem. What a hairdresser will do for me is they’ll make me look good or better, which is a hard stretch to begin with. We have to understand what problem we solve. Does a landscaper cut grass or do they help you keep up with the Joneses? Do they save you time or money? Those are problems solved. That’s a mindset shift that is the first thing. Once you lock onto that, now your confidence goes, “I solve a problem. I can help you.”

I think that’s one of the hardest things to articulate for consultants because a lot of people say, and I could probably group myself into one of those years ago, that, “We do it all. We can help you with a lot of things. I don’t know what problem I solve. Tell me what your problem is and I’ll help you.” It’s to dig deep and figure out what is it that you solve. What is the problem you’re out there helping people with? There are a lot of things you could do. Not just what the problem is but where’s your sweet spot in that? Where’s your sweet spot in solving that problem?

That’s right. There’s a problem but then there’s probably a sub-niche that it’s counterintuitive because you want to go less is more here. You want to scope it down because now you’re the expert in this particular thing. You could be an expert in writing for beginners or writing in general because that’s too much.

What are we talking about? Shakespeare? Let’s narrow this down. I help writers. As someone who is a copywriter might say something like, “I help beginning writers crush it on LinkedIn.” That would be super niche and a lot of people need help with that. It’s like, “I’ll take your course if you’re going to teach me to do that.”

Even better is in 140 words or less. I can help you crush it on Twitter. It’s like, “Yes, please help me because I hate doing it.” If someone could teach me how to do Twitter, I would appreciate it that much.

The first framework in the book is it teaches you how to get clear on the problem you solve in the marketplace.

That’s the first P.

The second one though, in terms of confidence is you have to have a process. If you’re not clear on your process, how in the hell is your customer ever going to be clear? There are two sides of confidence. Your confidence as a seller, as a consultant, as a business owner but then they’re your prospect’s confidence. If you are not making them feel confident because you don’t have confidence, I can guarantee that’s going to translate over to them. They’re going to take a step back and say, “Thanks for your time. I’ll let you know.”

I heard something. I was on a coaching call with my mentor and I had the biggest a-ha about sales because he was talking about our values. The things that we value when we are buying are not the same things that we value when we’re selling. We end up in a value conflict because we try to sell the way we buy instead of looking at, as you were saying, the buying experience. What does your buyer value? Do they value results or do they value price?

You might be buying based on price because you’re looking at your budget so you buy based on price. When you’re selling, you want to sell based on results but you’re still in the buying mindset, so you reduce your prices. You do all kinds of stuff because you want a better price for yourself when you’re buying. Now you have that cognitive dissonance in the process and your prospect feels that energetically.

You’re right. You’re putting your finger on the reality that a seller’s mindset is compared to a buyer’s mindset. Those are two different things. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand the psychology of a buyer. There aren’t people out there every day talking about it on LinkedIn and Twitter. They’ll tell you, “This is what your buyer is thinking.”

I talk about it in my book. This is what your buyer is thinking, so don’t approach it. There’s a big to-do about being your authentic self and I’m all about that. I heard my mentor say this, he said, “If you went sat down with a therapist, would you want your therapist to be their authentic self?” You’re like, “No, I want them to help me.”

As a business owner, consultant, and seller, that’s what your prospect is looking for. “Can you help me? Ted, can your book help me? Will it help me sell more effectively? Will I have more confidence? Will I have a process and a path forward?” That’s what I’m suggesting it will do. Whether or not it does that for you, you’ll have to find out but that’s what I’m saying.

You got to read and implement. I want to talk about the process. I want to talk about PEP. How did you come up with the framework? Let’s dive into that a little bit.

I’m a big fan of triangles. The rule of three is my favorite thing. As I was exploring sales methodologies, I’ve executed five sales methodologies in my life and got to the point where I’m like, “I’m going to build my own.” The reason was we spend so much time trying to last our prospects into our process. What I realized is that’s not effective and that’s part of the problem.

What I wanted to do was create a principled-based approach. It’s like, what are the principles that need to be in place? If you’re operating off of the principles, that gives you more flexibility. The question becomes not how you created the safe environment. Did you? See the difference? You’ve got to create ownership, but did you create ownership? That’s what principles do.

Each section of P, which is Positioning, and includes positioning and prospecting. If you don’t have your positioning right, that’s your point of view. If that’s not clear, your prospecting is awful because you’re not talking about the problem you solve. You’re out there saying, “I’m awesome. Look at me.” You sound like Arnold and we don’t want that.

You cannot do proper prospecting if you don't have the right sales positioning. As a result, you cannot talk about the problems you want to solve. Click To Tweet

The way I think about it, sales is a series of movements. Positioning is the movement from getting someone’s attention to getting them interested and talking to you. That’s just step one. If you can’t do that, then don’t go anywhere else. Focus on how you do that. How do you get someone’s attention? How do you get them interested in talking to you? That’s positioning. Exploring takes that interest and moves it to buy-in. Buy-in is when a prospect looks at you and says, “You could be a potential solution.”

Finally, Presenting. This is sales presenting. You’re pitching and being persuasive. It’s the smallest part. Presenting is taking that buy-in and turning it into ownership. Letting your prospect take it or not. That is the hardest mindset shift right there to be able to say, “This is how we would do it. Does this resonate with you or am I barking up the wrong tree? Does this resonate with you? I heard somebody say or am I fishing without a hook?”

After hearing you for the last couple of years talk and even deliver some strategies to us, you’re always giving people an out and an opportunity. In every step of the way, you’re giving them an opportunity to continue to own the process. Allow me to continue to walk down the street with you or we can part ways. If we got to the corner, you can go this way. I can go this way. I want to walk down, so we’ll walk down a little bit.

I ask you again, could we still go this way or this way? You’re always giving people an option to make a decision throughout the process of the sale so they don’t feel high pressured and sold to. They don’t feel like, “This person is trying to get me to buy something.” It’s like, “I’m here to help you solve your problem but if you don’t want the way my method is, that’s fine.”

If my solution doesn’t meet your need, I’ll try and help you find somebody else who can.

 

That’s where the evolution of sales is getting to. Instead of pressuring people into spending their money, it’s more let’s be of service. A lot of times, when you’re of service, people do come back to you if they go somewhere else and realize, “These people can’t do what I don’t need them to do. I can’t do it myself, so I might as well hire you to do it.”

If worst case scenario, you leave as a trusted advisor. That’s what I want to leave as. Whether you use my services or not, you’ll remember me as someone you can trust. That’s the most important thing because you may come back or you may refer others. Not that I’m doing it for that reason. I want to do it for my own reasons of my integrity and to help somebody get to where they want to go. If they don’t feel like I have the right solution, I might revisit and say, “Could I tweak my solution to make it better?” I learn.

Do your kids sell you?

They do. They are quite good at putting together presentations. I give them the framework when they were young like 6 or 7. The framework is very simple. It’s PSA, Problem, Solution, and Action. “Dad, here’s the problem. We’re lonely without a dog. Our family is not complete without these pets.” If you were to agree to this, they list out all the things they would do, how it would benefit them, how it would benefit their experience of growing up, etc. They sell quite well. My kids are masters at empathy. Thanks to my wife. I’ve learned empathy from my kids and from my wife more than any other place.

That goes back to people saying, “This is how I’ve done it all the time. This is who I am and I’m not changing. I can’t change at this point.” We started the conversation there whereas a strategist, you can be this particular way but there are techniques that you can learn to help soften that or to help you navigate more effectively the way you communicate. It’s important to understand who you are and what those caution areas could be so that you can do something about it and not just keep saying, “That’s how I am.”

You bring up a good point. A lot of times folks will get an objection and a lot of people won’t realize that. What do they do to the objection? They push back on it. What does your prospect do? They push back. Now you’re in a fight. Why would you ever fight with your hero? That doesn’t make any sense. I’m not suggesting don’t challenge your hero. When you think about an objection, I’m a fighter naturally. If you push on me, I’m going to push back. That’s how I’m wired.

It’s not a good thing or a bad thing. Let’s observe it. No judgment. It just is. The question becomes, there are times when that’s very effective. It’s not effective in a sales environment. In a sales environment, you want to be cool-hand Luke. You want to be com assertive. You want to have a non-anxious presence. You don’t want to be this excited puppy and talk. That is one of the biggest turnoffs that is killing your deals.

Talking too much is creating a horrible experience. What we want to say when a prospect or customer has an objection, we’ll to say, “Tell me more. That’s a great point. I hadn’t thought of that.” An objection is an emotional response and we can’t respond to it rationally. We have to create a safe space to say, “Let’s talk about that.” Once you do that, at the end, you can say, “I appreciate what you shared with me. Are you open to a different perspective or should we put this aside?” I’m not going to be rattled. No one wants to talk to a rattled trusted advisor. Mr. Miyagi and Yoda didn’t get rattled.

 

There’s one last thing I’m going to ask you about and then I have some rapid-fire questions for you. I felt like this can lead to our rapid fire. What is the rapid discovery approach?

That is when you know your industry well and when the problem is known. For example, I train a lot of folks who are dealing with complex organizational issues all the way from talent to strategy. The solution could be a whole number of things. You have to do a real deep dive of discovery to figure out the best path forward and prioritize.

On the other hand, a lot of sellers out there are working with known issues. A deep-dive discovery would be a waste of time. It’s like, “No, we’re dealing with this tax software and we want it to do this and it doesn’t.” Something like everyone knows that there’s a turnover problem in retail. Keeping people in retail is almost impossible.

You don’t necessarily need to do deep-dive discovery. What you can do is you can do all of the pre-call planning, which is pretty standard. I have a template for it. That’s part of the book. You can, in fifteen minutes, find out about everything you need to do. You can say, “Mr. or Mrs. or nongender retail person that I’m talking to, we all know that turnover is an issue in retail. What we don’t know is this and this. We have a different approach. It allows you to solve that problem that nobody else is doing.”

That creates interest. It creates that buy-in. It’s like, “I want to hear about that. Show me that because we’ve tried everything else for the last 50 years and it’s still not working.” You can go in with the rapid discovery. It’s like, “This is your position. You’ve been here for ten years. You’ve risen through the ranks, you’ve done this and your organization’s here. This is what’s happening in the industry. Here’s my suggestion. Here’s how we look at things. Again, I’m in love with this. You may not be, so say no if you don’t like it but this is how we approach it. What do you think?”

Salespeople having different problem-solving approaches will always create interest and buy-in. Click To Tweet

You don’t have to go deep into the discovery process to know what’s it like.

That would frustrate people.

Two things that frustrate me is, that’s one and two when people talk past the close. It’s like, “I’ve already said yes and you keep trying to sell me on your product or service.”

That goes back to process. You don’t have the next step process. It’s like, “I’m so glad to hear that,” then you layer your next steps.

They just don’t hear the yes because they didn’t get to the end of their thing to ask for the sale yet. Sometimes, you know that you have this issue and you’ve been looking for that solution. They happen to get you in the right place at the right time and you’re like, “I’ve been waiting for someone to call me about this but I’ve been busy. I didn’t have a chance to go search for it so yes. Let’s go.” They want to go through their entire process. Now you have to sit through their whole fifteen-minute presentation when you said yes fifteen minutes ago and that could have been done.

It is hard to see that for sure. It’s hard to sit through it too. No salespeople will listen to speak. They won’t listen to learn or they don’t listen to learn. A trusted advisor will listen to learn.

Most salespeople will listen to speak. A trusted advisor will listen to learn. Click To Tweet

That’s what’s happening now with a lot of these scripted sales call centers. It’s because they have to go through their script, get to the end of their script, and pass you on to whoever’s the next person in line even if you say yes at the beginning of their script. They still need to go through because they’re being recorded and they have to do certain things. Maybe that should be the next iteration of the sales process. Can we figure out how to have better call centers?

Sales at scale suck the life out of people when you start to do it in that scripted fashion. It can be done and there are organizations that are doing it but it takes a different approach and a different way to think about it.

I had one and it was not something I was interested in. I told her and she kept going on and on. Finally, she’s like, “Let me pass you over to whatever that person was going to be.” I’m like, “I told you I’m not interested,” and I hung up. They called me back and she’s like, “Hold on.” I got to the other person and the other person kept talking. I’m like, “Yes, but I’m not interested.”

She’s probably comped on getting you to that. It doesn’t matter how she gets you there as long as you’re there.

She calls from a different phone number. They have all these randomized numbers that they call you from. He kept talking and I threw a monkey wrench. I wasn’t trying to be mean or anything. I’m like, “I’m telling you this is not something I’m going to be investing in. It’s not something I’m interested in for my business. It’s just not. Thank you very much. I appreciate you calling me. Bye-bye.” This guy got completely confused.

All he had to do was turn it in as, “Glad to hear things are going well. Tell me what’s working for you.” Have a conversation and see where that goes. That’s not on the script because no one knows how to be a trusted advisor. It’s because no one’s teaching it. That’s what I try and teach in the book. Stop being a robot and be real.

They’re probably not going to be trusted advisors. They’re looking to crank out volume because they know it’s a numbers game so they’re just playing the numbers. It could be a numbers game with compassion.

You could add some empathy in there and some principles of having a conversation, active listening, and watching how it changes.

I love this conversation. We’re going to jump to our rapid-fire questions. Don’t think too much about it. Whatever comes to your mind, you can share. The first question is, what is the biggest leadership mistake that you ever made or were the victim of?

Doing too much myself as a leader. I didn’t give it to the team.

That’s usually a big one. What’s the best leadership advice that you ever got that you still implement now?

Humility. It’s hard to implement it but it’s always thinking about, “I may be wrong here,” and truly meaning that. It’s like, “This is just an idea,” or even better, don’t come up with an idea. Give this problem to the team and let the team think it through because they may come up with something. It’s my high A and my higher D. The problem with the strategist profile is not only do I have the idea. I also have the solution and I think it’s right. A strategist could be defined as let’s do it fast and let’s do it my way.

 

You have that low C too, so you’re a fast driver. People have no idea what I’m talking about but if you want to know more about A, B, C, and D we’ve been talking about, drop me a note.

Alicia is a pro, so reach out to Alicia. She’ll show you how you can understand how your people think and work in ways that you never thought possible.

Thank you. If you were a castaway on a desert island, what three things would you hope washed up on shore or was airdropped that you couldn’t live without? One could not be your cell phone. I know you have four kids, let’s say your whole family got washed up so you don’t have to pick which ones.

My first one is I hope a boat washes up because I don’t like the beach. Get me out of there. It’s too hot. I’m hell-white. I burn if I go out into the sun, so I want to get out of there. If a floating Starbucks came in, I’d take that because I got to have my coffee.

You were the first person that said you wanted a way to escape. I’m a helicopter. The faster, the better. What’s the third thing?

Good food. I don’t want to be eating raw fish. According to Castaway coconut is a natural laxative, so I don’t think you want to be in that position if you can avoid it.

This is an interesting one that always stumps people. It’s, if you were a song or song title, what would it be and why?

It’s the Stumbling Man Keeps Getting Back Up Again. My life’s journey has been a series of stumbling and learning as I go. It’s like, “That was a mistake,” but I get back up and I learned from it.

You created your own sound title. I wanted a song that’s out there that you know that you love that’s a song.

That’s probably not fair. I’m a songwriter. I have a whole history on music. I’d have to think about an actual song. Start Me Up, maybe.

There you go. If you’re the stumbling man but you always keep getting up, start me up. Now, you’ve thrown out a bunch of books throughout our conversation but what are you reading now?

I’m reading several but the one that I’m most into now is The Inner Game of Tennis by Tim Gallwey, written originally in 1971. He’s the Father of Modern Coaching. It’s all in your head. He captured that very early on back in the 1970s when nobody was talking about it. Everyone was talking about technique and what that technique does is makes you rigid.

That’s why in sales, your structure and system is important. If it’s not tempered with principles, it allows you to be free and move within that framework of the principle. You get tense. When you get tense, your prospect feels that and it feels like this and this. Who wants to feel like this when you’re buying something or when you’re trying to help with something? It shouldn’t feel like that. The Inner Game Of Tennis is about tennis but it’s not about tennis.

It’s about tennis but it’s about the mindset. Since I love tennis, I’m going to check it out. That sounds good.

You’ll enjoy it.

Thank you so much, Ted. Is there anything that I haven’t shared that you would like to share with the audience that I haven’t asked?

Only that let’s stop selling and start helping. Let’s not be like what we’ve grown up with that we don’t like when it comes to sales. We don’t have to be. We can be trusted advisors that people will seek out. Thank you so much, Alicia. It’s always great to talk with you. Great job.

You’re welcome. How can people get the book?

It will be available on Amazon in September 6, 2022.

It’s available now. Go out and get the book. Feel Good About Selling by Ted Olson, check it out. You can also connect with Ted. Let him know how the book is once you get it. Thank you so much, Ted.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

 

Important Links

• Ted Olson – LinkedIn
• Feel Good About Selling
• PI
• Jim Speredelozzi – LinkedIn
• Nancy Duarte
• Building a StoryBrand
• The JOLT Effect
• The Challenger Sale
• The Challenger Customer
• The Inner Game of Tennis
• https://www.Twitter.com/TedOlson

 

About Ted Olson

Ted Olson is the author of Feel Good About Selling – a book written to help people feel good about selling and to avoid the bad habits that hurt sales. He has trained thousands of salespeople from all different backgrounds and industries. He uses his sales experience to help individuals and organizations with sales, sales enablement, sales training, demand generation and marketing. He’s built sales teams that have broken every record at their respective company.

He’s created a unique sales framework and methodology called, PEP, which stands for Positioning, Exploring, and Presenting. PEP offers a flexible approach based on core selling principles for anyone in sales – whether they like selling or not. When not at work, Ted practices martial arts and homeschools his four kids with his wife, Nicole. They have two dogs (Oatmeal and Honeybee) and a guinea pig (Pinball) – his kids wanted him to add this last part about the pets.

 

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