7 Minutes to Better Selling Podcast - S2 - Ep. 6

Hey, welcome everybody to season two of the seven minutes of better selling podcast. I'm your host

Colin Lake. So Jeff, thanks so much for joining us. We're real excited to have you on the show

and lead off a great discussion on better selling. Hey, thanks Colin so much. I'm a big fan of the

seven minutes of better selling podcast. So really it's an honor to be on here today. It's nice to be

on the other side of the equation. Usually I'm sitting where you are. So it's nice to be on the other side of that. Yeah, right, right, right. I agree with you on that sentiment completely

So I'm real interested in this question. So I ask a lot, like tell the listeners about you

So I ask that. But my question is maybe a little bit more pointed. How do you get from like doing what you were doing, just like a salesperson to creating

this platform and doing all the wonderful things you've been doing in the financial services

industry today? Yeah, I mean, my journey has been a long one. I mean, I've been in the business for over 22 years now

I started in 1999 as a financial advisor. But, you know, I always kind of struggle with that question of what makes me different

And I think it goes back to the American story that we all have, which is, you know, at least on my side, I wasn't in financial services

My family wasn't in financial services. My dad's a third generation lobster fisherman out of the South Shore, Massachusetts

My brothers are fourth generation. I'm like a black sheep with a white collar. So, you know, I learned the value of hard work

And my father at 16 years old, he lost his father at sea, which is, you know, he was left, you know, kind of holding the bag

So he had to quit high school and work the boats to try to make a living for his family

And I saw that, you know, I saw every day him working all night. He would go off to the fire department where he had his second job, work a 12-hour shift and trade in his firefighter boots for fishing boots

And we'd bring the boat in to pick him up in the morning. And you know listening to these podcasts with you you know you have great guests and they talk about this idea of what makes them unique what makes them different right And I always think about how can I do something different than every other advisor

every other wholesaler, every other sales director that comes in front of an office

what am I doing differently? And that was really the genesis of the Investment Masterminds program

Boy, that's awesome. Great description. So I have to ask you a question about your dad. That's

That's amazing. Did he do that five days a week, six days a week? So was he working like 20 hours a day, 18 hours a day? What type of

Yeah, I try to take Sundays off to watch the Patriots. You know, that you try to take off at six days a week

Really from April through like September, October, November, you know, it gets a little colder in the wintertime

You know, he depends on the winter. You know, the price of lobster has to be right because it's not worth risking your life in the middle of winter if the price of lobster is not there

But yeah, he's 80 years old. He still does it. It's great. Man, man

Oh, it's so impressive. And so it's a great transition point to the second question I want to ask you

He has this internal why. He's able to wake himself up every day and say, this is what I should be doing and I should be doing it to the best of my ability

He has that why. So my question to you is, what drives you

Like, what makes you really successful at selling yourself to perform at your highest level every day

And by the way, your highest level is one that you have to hold yourself intact or in check with

Like if I'm capable of performing here, I can't allow myself to perform here and call it that

So how do you do that, Jeff? Yeah, it's a good question. I recently listened to season two, episode four of your Better Selling podcast with Bobby Harrington

And he kind of nailed it right on the head. And really, it's about believing in yourself first

That is the toughest thing for me. At every level in my career up until about five years ago six years ago every level of my career even as much as I got advanced as much as I became number one or two in sales year after year after year I never really believed it to be true And I read actually a book on the TED Talks that talks about make it until you become it

It's not make it or fake it until you make it. Yeah, it's not fake it until you make it

Because you really want to become that person over time, right? If you have the goal in mind and you know where you want to be, you're in the right spot, right

So every day when I get up, I think, what can I do to be better at collaborating and making sure that I'm bringing values

And if you're listening to this podcast, that tells me right off the bat that you want to become better at what you do

And that's what I continue to tell myself every day is to continue to be better

So it's not only about believing in yourself and helping to connect other people together

I'm all about collaboration. That's why we're having this conversation, Colin. You and I like to collaborate and bring people together

And when you think about whoever your end user is, whatever the product is, if you can bring specialists and you're now the quarterback and you're bringing in these different players that are specialists in that relationship, you now are the point of reference

We haven't even talked about product or solutions. Yeah, I want to offer a thought here. So I want you to expound on it, please, or elaborate a bit on it

there's an expression that says in the blind man's world, the one-eyed man is king

And so what I just heard you say, how this hit me is you don't have to be

like the absolute best at everything. You just have to be better than the next person

Like you keep saying, what is the differentiator? If everyone's performing it here and I perform it here

then I'm going to be seen as the best. And that was what I heard, which I think is a nice point

So tell me more about that. How do you gauge what is different

Different just to be different is not better. Different and better is, in fact, way better

Yeah, great question. So it about meeting your end user your client where they at right And that the problem There no secret sauce to sales And that what I learned over time There no secret sauce

You have to look where your client is going. And think about today

Today, how do we absorb information? We used to watch TV, right

It was great. And we'd watch commercials. And that's how we would learn about products and services and solutions

Do we watch commercials anymore? Not really. I mean, exceptional Super Bowl, right

A lot of people get content. They're getting it through, you know, the Netflix

They're getting it through Amazon Prime and those types of things, right? So how do they monetize that

Well, they charge a fee for it. But now there's other competitors that also charge a fee

So how can they give it for free? Well, they might do one micro commercial that is more geared to a specific audience

And they also have microcosms of that where, you know, you know it on Amazon all the time

When you talk to, you know, like if you have Amazon Alexa or Siri and you say something, suddenly it's right in front of your phone

They're meeting you, the end user, where you are at. They are bringing you content that they already know that you need

So if you see someone on social media, right, and you're seeing that they're using it and that's your end user, you know you can meet them there

If you go to a LinkedIn page and they don't have a picture in their profile, they're not going to be listening to this podcast today, right

So you're going to have to call them. You're going to have to knock on the door. You might have to do more of an old school approach with that. So it's all about meeting the end user where they're at in that conversation. So investment masterminds is very easy. If you just type in investment masterminds into Google, it comes up as number two or three. If you tag on Swan on that, it will come up as a first choice automatically

So after the ads, when I put in investment masterminds, it pops up pretty quickly

That's an easy way. My name is Jeff Thomas. So if you put Jeff Thomas in there and investment masterminds, it's going to pop right up in LinkedIn for you

Oh, thanks. It's our website for Swan Global Investments. So thanks, Jeff, for being a guest and good selling, everybody