Latest / Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching] / 53. The Accidental Salesman Who Won Over Chick-fil-A with John Buckner

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53. The Accidental Salesman Who Won Over Chick-fil-A with John Buckner · Scrappy but Successful [Consultant's Personalities When No One's Watching]

• 0:03
  What's happening everybody? Welcome to Scrappy But Successful. It's a show where I sit down
• 0:07
  with your favorite consultants and we find out if they're successful today because they're sophisticated
• 0:12
  or because they're a little bit scrappy. I'm your host, Jack Tompkins, CEO of Pineapple
• 0:16
  Consulting Firm and Pineapple Analyst AI, always helping small businesses become more data driven. Fun
• 0:21
  fact of the day we got a local guy on and we both live on
• 0:26
  Lake Norman in north of Charlotte. I didn't know this. John, maybe you did. Lake
• 0:30
  Norman has its own lake monster legend. It's called Normy. It is North Carolina's answer
• 0:35
  to the Lochness Monster. And I gotta tell you, the Lochness Monster is winning that
• 0:40
  battle pretty easily.
• 0:41
  Ha
• 0:42
  But that's neither here nor there. Today I'm joined by my friend John Buckner. He's
• 0:46
  the founder of Insightful Selling. He's got a broad sales and growth background and 30-year
• 0:50
  corporate career. And I mean, we got some heavy hitters on the on the resume
• 0:55
  here. We got DuPont, we got Chick-fil-A, we got 7 Eleven, we got Walmart Home
• 0:59
  Depot. And that's not even the full list. This guy knows what he's doing, I
• 1:04
  promise. Now, John uses his skills for good. He helps small businesses, especially those who
• 1:08
  are accidental sales folks, grow through people process and technology. So John, I'm pumped to
• 1:12
  have you on. Obviously we know each other fairly well. We know that you're successful,
• 1:17
  but the question I have for you today, do you think you fall more on
• 1:21
  the sophisticated side, more on the scrappy side?
• 1:24
  Well, Jack, first, thanks for having me on. And for today I'm gonna be scrappy
• 1:29
  as all get out. And I'll tell you why, because I gotta I you're setting
• 1:35
  the pace and I gotta step it up. But here's here's the thing between scrappy
• 1:40
  and sophisticated. If I'm sitting down with the vice president, general manager of DuPont's two
• 1:46
  billion dollar business, building science business, I gotta be sophisticated. If I'm sitting down with
• 1:52
  the head of culinary and And menu innovation at Chick-fil-A, I gotta be sophisticated. But
• 1:57
  in between times, right now I'm building insightful selling and every day I'm scrappy. I
• 2:03
  just want to let
• 2:05
  Yep.
• 2:06
  you know that before today's call, I just wrote it down and gave myself a
• 2:10
  big check on my to-do list. I had twenty plus touches with presents and CEOs
• 2:16
  of small to mid-sized companies where I'm doing my personal outreach. So I'm doing outbound
• 2:21
  calls, outbound emails, LinkedIn requests, LinkedIn messages. And I'm doing this for a program that
• 2:27
  I have coming up, a workshop. And I want I want them to hear my
• 2:32
  voice. I want w I want to personalize it and I want them I want
• 2:38
  to convey passion. And I you can only do that by personally being connected. So
• 2:43
  I'm being scrappy and I'm gonna be scrappy because I have three hundred presidents and
• 2:49
  CEOs I'm working through to finish this particular list. And I'm excited about it, you
• 2:55
  know, and I want them to hear that. So here's here's the scrappy and I'm
• 3:00
  glad that I can be scrappy with you, Jack.
• 3:04
  Absolutely. That is as crappy as it gets. I like it. And when you say
• 3:07
  they have to hear you, are you cold calling these folks? Are you reaching out
• 3:10
  to the lem LinkedIn first? What's an outbound look like?
• 3:12
  Yeah, no, a hundred percent. So in this workshop I'm already in a group and
• 3:17
  I'm a preferred supplier. So that gives me some status and it gave me access
• 3:22
  to a really good list with precise emails and pr precise phone numbers. So I
• 3:27
  would say it's warm. I wouldn't say it's cold because when I say I'm a
• 3:33
  preferred supplier, you know, that gets some attention because I had to meet qualifications to
• 3:38
  kind of get in the group, so to speak. So yes, but When you say
• 3:43
  cold, it does mean met meet this definition. I've never met them before. And I'll
• 3:48
  tell you something, this is being scrappy, right? Cause I had somebody yesterday say in
• 3:54
  big bold all caps letters in my to my email follow up, opt out.
• 3:59
  Ha ha.
• 4:01
  And and when you get opt out, you know, there's a little part of me
• 4:05
  that feels rejected, but I just keep reminding
• 4:08
  Yep.
• 4:09
  myself that in prospecting math, we are not concerned about the rejection rate, we're concerned
• 4:13
  about the yield. So therefore, statistically the numbers are gonna catch up and they're in
• 4:19
  my favor over the long haul if I stick with it. And persistence and persevering.
• 4:24
  when you're working on the top of the funnel is being scrappy. One hundred percent.
• 4:30
  And I think every salesperson should do it. I've got a a friend also in
• 4:36
  our community and I told him that I was gonna start working direct and working
• 4:41
  directly to get my sales going, to build my business. I've got a great call
• 4:47
  to action with this workshop. And he said, All right, John, you put together a
• 4:53
  program and then I'm gonna hold you accountable. You call me, you know, we're gonna
• 4:58
  touch base in two weeks. I want to hear how you're doing it, what's your
• 5:04
  platform, what's your up what's your rhythm, how are you measuring success. And sure enough,
• 5:10
  in two weeks I had it all worked out. You know, I have an AI
• 5:15
  driven platform that helps me with this set my list up. It's got a dashboard.
• 5:21
  I know you're a big dashboards guy, and it measures how many of these outreaches
• 5:26
  I've done and gives me, tops it up and gives me a cue so I
• 5:32
  know exactly what to do next. called top sale. But anyway, the reason why, you
• 5:38
  know, I give you that example is that my my buddy said it's like drinking
• 5:43
  your own champagne. And I like that. For a scrappy guy, it's, you know, if
• 5:49
  I'm gonna be out there teaching salespeople that prospecting's important and it might not be
• 5:55
  your favorite thing, but it's the absolutely fundamental activity, then guess who's gotta do some
• 6:00
  prospecting? Me. So there's your scrappiness.
• 6:03
  Absolutely. Yeah. And practicing what you preach, drinking your own champagne. I love it. All
• 6:05
  right, let's figure out where all this comes from. Tell me, take
• 6:07
  That's it.
• 6:10
  me all the way back to the beginning. Where did you grow up? Did you
• 6:12
  have any entrepreneurs in the family?
• 6:14
  Yeah. I sure did. So my you know, my grandfather was an electrical contractor and
• 6:19
  appliance repairman. And he had his own a company called Belmont Electric, not very far
• 6:24
  from here, Belmont, North Carolina. And my dad got an engineering degree and started off
• 6:29
  with Duke Power, which is now called Duke Energy, which you know as your the
• 6:35
  number one utility in the area and and a force in this area. As a
• 6:40
  matter of fact, Lake Normand was created. Because of hydroelectric
• 6:44
  Right.
• 6:45
  power and there's a nuclear plant on Lake Norman. You're aware of that. So that's
• 6:50
  why they created the dam to create that hydroelectric power. Anyway, my dad was involved
• 6:55
  in designing the nuclear power station as a civil engineer, but he had the itch.
• 7:00
  He got it from his dad and he enjoyed the outdoors. And so he saw
• 7:05
  business for sale in Western North Carolina, bought it. And he became a land surveyor
• 7:11
  and I had a summer job for the next eight years.
• 7:15
  Yeah.
• 7:16
  Which I like to tease about my dad. You know, I didn't go into surveying.
• 7:20
  I'm not an engineer, but he sure did teach me a lot. One of the
• 7:24
  things he taught me was how to be tolerant of things that you don't love
• 7:28
  to do. So when when you're battling a hundred degree heat index in summer of
• 7:32
  North Carolina, which is when I worked for him, you know, in the summers when
• 7:36
  I was out out of school. And you're battling, you know, sunburn and poison ivy
• 7:40
  and yellow jackets and snakes in the foothills of North Carolina. That's teaching ya what
• 7:44
  you don't want to do. I think it was his objective
• 7:47
  He
• 7:48
  to make sure I stayed in school. There's plenty incentive
• 7:51
  There you go, yeah.
• 7:53
  for that, Jack, for sure. So there is some entrepreneurship in in my family and
• 7:58
  I'm really proud to be able to inherit the mantle of my papa and my
• 8:03
  dad. And having my own business now. And moreover, working with small businesses, you know,
• 8:09
  my dad never generated the sales that really made his business fly. He was one
• 8:14
  of the best engineers. We'd even call him an engineer's engineer. He has there are
• 8:20
  thousands of maps in Lincoln County in the Registrar of Dis deeds with his registered
• 8:25
  land surveyor stamp on it. He could solve any problem when it came to measuring
• 8:31
  distances and angles. Which is really what surveyors do. And I know because I was
• 8:36
  out there in the field with him on the hot summer summer days. But I
• 8:42
  You're out doing the measuring.
• 8:43
  asked Dad one time, Jack, I said, Dad, how are we going to get these
• 8:48
  customers? And he said, Son, I want t I want to come to me. So
• 8:53
  back in those days, it was you had a business card and you're in the
• 8:58
  yellow pages. And he really felt like if I do excellent work, word of mouth
• 9:04
  will spread. And that was true to a point, but it fell short. And the
• 9:09
  the big outfits out of Charlotte began to come up into our neck of the
• 9:14
  woods and snake those projects. Those the big the big work, which would be the
• 9:20
  three hundred and fifty home subdivision right out from under us. And you know, dad's
• 9:25
  dad was relegated to, you know, a lot survey. And that was tough for us.
• 9:30
  And so one of my missions, Jack, is to help technical people. who do outstanding
• 9:36
  work realize that they can get comfortable with this sales process. There's a little salesman
• 9:41
  in all of us, Jack. And that was and and what I want to do
• 9:46
  is to help them understand the process that they can lean into and understand that
• 9:52
  you can sell within your own personality. You don't have to be somebody you're not.
• 9:57
  You don't have to be any of those stereotypes that make all of us cringe,
• 10:02
  like the men manipulative car salesman. None of that works. It's all outdated. Today's salesperson
• 10:08
  is a curious problem solver. And our job is to help our customers get to
• 10:13
  the destination they're on with the journey that they're taking. We just want to be
• 10:18
  their guide. So more on that later, but I think I've morphed into a a
• 10:24
  a different subject. You you asked me, you were taking me through something and I
• 10:29
  want to get right back to you.
• 10:32
  No, this is great. I appreciate it. That's, I mean, let's keep going on that
• 10:35
  thread a little bit. And we'll we'll jump throughout the timeline quite a bit here.
• 10:38
  But in today's world, I'm a small business owner, you're a small businesser. Most of
• 10:42
  the listeners are small business owners and consultants. We're really good at the thing that
• 10:45
  we're supposed to do, right? Dad's
• 10:47
  Yeah.
• 10:48
  case, and surveying, right? My case, dashboards, whatever it is. But convincing, I do that
• 10:52
  in air quotes, somebody to buy from me. is I you know, I throw open
• 10:57
  my mouth when I say that, right? It's if I can help you,
• 11:01
  Yeah.
• 11:02
  that's great. But how do you how do you get all these folks that are
• 11:06
  really good at their technical thing, how do you get them to just kind of
• 11:10
  sell within their self?
• 11:12
  Yeah, so first mm let's take all the pressure out of it. Let's it's actually
• 11:16
  remove the convincing part for a minute. I'm not gonna
• 11:19
  Yeah.
• 11:20
  suggest that being persuasive isn't an asset when it comes to sales. But let's first
• 11:25
  redefine sales. Okay. Let's just let's think of it in a couple different ways. That
• 11:30
  our hero, the customer, finds himself in a hole. And the hole is they have
• 11:36
  a major problem. And it's It's starting to become intolerable. Or they have an ambition.
• 11:41
  They aspire to get better in some way. And that's creating a lot of cognizant
• 11:46
  cognitive dissonance internally. There's turmoil because they're here and they want to get to here
• 11:52
  and there's this gap. So they go on this journey, and first they got to
• 11:57
  get out of the hole. Well, to assist them in getting out of the hole,
• 12:02
  they need a guy. So we saw this. all the time in in movies, Jack,
• 12:08
  you know, we saw it with Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games and Hamich, you
• 12:13
  know? It's it's when the hero is in need, the guy will appear. And Hamish,
• 12:18
  as you recall, he had already won the Hunger Games. So he was qualified. He
• 12:24
  had expertise. And the other thing is he understood exactly what Katniss was going through.
• 12:29
  He had empathy. So when you think of our role in this process, we want
• 12:34
  to do exactly what you said, Jack. We want to be a guide because we
• 12:40
  have some expertise and we have a lot of empathy that we can bring to
• 12:45
  bear on this process of the customer's journey. So we're going to do some very
• 12:50
  simple things, Jack. We're going to give them a three step plan, very clear, so
• 12:56
  that we can spark action. We're going to and as a matter of fact, we're
• 13:01
  going to call them to action to break them out of this sort of this
• 13:06
  turmoil that they find themselves in. Bait because we know the way, right? We've already
• 13:12
  been to the summit. We we know how to get there. I think that metaphor
• 13:17
  of guide and hero, you know, Hamich and Katniss, working with the customer to fill
• 13:22
  to develop a plan so that they can reach their goals, that's more the way
• 13:28
  I would describe sales today. Do they have a problem? We're gonna try to help
• 13:33
  them solve it. And along the way, we're gonna provide different services. I'll give you
• 13:38
  an example if you don't mind. This was recent that happened to me in 2026,
• 13:44
  Please, yeah.
• 13:45
  you know. They my wife had been talking to me for a long time about
• 13:50
  the shingles shot. So shingles afflicts people at different ages, but it's incredibly painful. And
• 13:56
  once you get the shingles, which is a derived from people that have had smallpox,
• 14:01
  not smallpox, but chickenpox, early on as kids. It's a and it's a indication that
• 14:07
  you might get shingles. And if you get it, sometimes afflicts your scalp, your face.
• 14:12
  And there's very little they can do to alleviate the pain. It lasts can last
• 14:18
  six, nine months to a year. People can almost be incap incapacitated. So it turns
• 14:23
  out that I was a prospect for the shot, but I had not purchased the
• 14:29
  shot. And I ran smack dab into a guide that helped me because I do
• 14:34
  have a goal. My goal, my destination is I love to be productive for a
• 14:40
  long time in my life. I love I love for instance, I love to work.
• 14:45
  I love to work out, I love to be involved in the community, and I
• 14:51
  want to be active, but I don't really want to be sidelined. face this pain
• 14:56
  and other health issues. So I was at my pharmacy at Hare Cedar in Davidson.
• 15:02
  And the pharmacist, Preeti, noticing that I was there to get my flu shot, she
• 15:07
  made a a recommendation. And the recommendation she said, Mr. Buckner, you know, I can
• 15:13
  see that you take care of yourself, get the flu shot every year. I want
• 15:18
  to let you know that you're in the demographic that is susceptible to the shingles.
• 15:24
  We have a shot. It's a two-step shot. If you'd be willing to come back,
• 15:29
  I would recommend that you might get it maybe on a Friday afternoon so that
• 15:35
  if you get kind of tired and lethargic afterwards, you can just lay down. And
• 15:40
  after a good night's rest, you'll feel like yourself the next day. And this recommendation
• 15:46
  really touched me. And she said, Now I want to let you know that you
• 15:51
  could choose not to get it, but I have three patients right now that have
• 15:57
  the shingles. And their life is misery. Negative consequences, also known as negative states, stakes.
• 16:02
  But John, if you get the shot, it's protective and preventative of ever getting the
• 16:08
  shingles. It's like ninety-five percent. And if you do get it, you'll get such a
• 16:13
  mild case that it won't even really bother you that much. Positive consequences. Sh kind
• 16:19
  of shined a bright light on what my future could be. if I get the
• 16:24
  inoculation. So needless to say, I followed the plan by Preedy. She became my guide
• 16:30
  and she got me to a shingles free future, which was my goal and my
• 16:35
  destination. Now I'm pretty sure that in pharmacy school, Preedy never took a course on
• 16:41
  sales, never had a workshop. And I'm also pretty sure that the manufacturer of shingriks
• 16:46
  may be promoting that drug, the medicine, the and the fact is that Hair Seeder
• 16:52
  Pharmacy probably wants Pretty to sell more of it. And I do not begrud that
• 16:57
  fact because she told me later and I said, Can I use you in a
• 17:03
  case study in one of my workshops? She said, Absolutely.
• 17:07
  Yeah.
• 17:08
  I'd be honored and she said, Do you realize that I would have never suggested
• 17:14
  anything that didn't make your life better? And that's the trust. And Jack, you do
• 17:20
  that with your customers. You know, you've Become that guide, you exhibit the kind of
• 17:26
  the the authority that comes from expertise. You show empathy for your customer because you
• 17:32
  understand the journey that they're on, and then you help them make progress towards their
• 17:38
  goal inside their circumstances. And in this case, Preedy, who's a pharmacist, a very technically
• 17:45
  trained individual, became the consummate salesperson. She would never even describe it as sales. She
• 17:51
  would just describe it as I help my friend John, who happens to be a
• 17:57
  customer here at Hair Teater Pharmacy. So tribute to Preety. She did an outstanding job.
• 18:03
  And I'll tell you something products and services are transacted the way I'm describing every
• 18:09
  day. It's what makes our economy go. We need outstanding sales folks to guide their
• 18:15
  customers on the hero's journey.
• 18:18
  I do like the hero's journey. And as you point out with Hunger Games and
• 18:21
  there's the karate kid, right? There's a bunch of those
• 18:24
  Yeah.
• 18:25
  movies that are just copy paste of that same format. so let's where does this
• 18:29
  start? Did you always have this sort of helpful sales nature? Like, let's go as
• 18:34
  a kid first. What did you have a lemonade stand? Were
• 18:39
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:40
  you bartering with friends or anything like that?
• 18:43
  I was more quiet as a kid, very oriented around I began to play basketball
• 18:49
  at a pretty high level and I love to compete. So there is there's a
• 18:55
  side of me and I think there's a side of most people who just enjoy
• 19:01
  winning and that there's there's something about that. And I don't mean to suggest that
• 19:08
  that necessarily everything about It's winning at all costs necessarily, but I do mean that
• 19:14
  a victory is I think it's it it's data and it's evidence that whatever we
• 19:20
  set out to do that we did it effectively. We we did it
• 19:26
  Yes, that's a good way to put it.
• 19:28
  w we did it well and therefore we enjoy the rewards. And and there is
• 19:32
  opposition, so I don't want to take that factor away. And we know in in
• 19:37
  this world of business, there's competition and they are opposed to us. Or they're trying
• 19:42
  to do they're trying to get the business. And if we don't get the business
• 19:47
  and they get the business, that would be just fine by them. But I think
• 19:52
  there's plenty of business to go around, you know. I practice more of an abundance
• 19:57
  mentality today, Jack. And but I will say that for years, you know, that competitive
• 20:02
  drive did did give me an edge. I think today I'm I'm I'm a little
• 20:07
  different, but I did want to mention to you that I did I had an
• 20:12
  early experience as a part time retail salesman at a men's habitashery in Greensboro, North
• 20:17
  Carolina. And and there was I had I had
• 20:20
  Here we go. This is what we're talking about. Yeah. All right. Take me inside
• 20:24
  the store.
• 20:25
  rapport with the other guys and we had I remember the there was this sort
• 20:29
  of a cadence. And what would happen is we were told by our store manager
• 20:34
  and he said the you know, there's a a rhythm to this. And, you know,
• 20:39
  Jack, if you take the next gentleman, because it was a men's store, who comes
• 20:44
  through the door, then John gets the next one. And then Andre gets the next
• 20:49
  one. And then it rotates back through again. By that time, you know, Jack, you've
• 20:54
  served your customer. And then you you're back to the door and you would you
• 20:59
  would sort of intercept those customers to assist them in their journey through the store
• 21:04
  with it. Maybe at those days you needed a sports jacket, you needed a suit,
• 21:09
  you needed a, you know, a dress shirt or a pair of pants, or you
• 21:14
  maybe you need a pair of shoes. And I still remember that on certain Saturdays,
• 21:19
  if we sold a an accessory, like a belt or a necktie with that with
• 21:23
  a suit or sport coat and a pair of pants, We got a spiff. And
• 21:28
  they would actually take fifteen dollars out of the cash register. And at the end
• 21:33
  of the day, I got cash money as a spiff if I did that. I
• 21:38
  thought that was the coolest thing. Yeah.
• 21:41
  That's awesome. Yeah.
• 21:42
  You know, and then to this day, spiffs are a very well known technique to
• 21:47
  to just to get that extra motivation from your sales team. Sometimes you might use
• 21:53
  a spiff. So I'll do anything
• 21:56
  Yeah.
• 21:57
  for a A damzign gift card, Jack.
• 22:02
  I love it. Scrappy through and through. Now, does this same sort of approach apply
• 22:06
  to the Chick fil A's and the Walmarts that you work with?
• 22:10
  So little bit different. So I I I wanted
• 22:12
  Okay.
• 22:13
  to share with you Chick fil A story. And, you know, back when I was
• 22:17
  in wholesale coffee and tea, Chick fil A was the one quick serve restaurant that
• 22:22
  had eluded us. So we had McDonald's, the majority of the McDonald's coffee and 100%
• 22:27
  of the tea business. We had a one quarter of Dunkin' Donuts business just kind
• 22:32
  of going down the line. We had, when I say quick serve, it's it's those
• 22:37
  chains, usually franchise food service concepts. That had multitude of locations. I think at one
• 22:42
  point you probably recall McDonald's had eighteen thousand, you know, restaurants in the US. But
• 22:47
  guess the d the the growth was coming from Chick-fil-A. And I think today you
• 22:52
  would still notice that today. We began to kind of figure out who do we
• 22:57
  know at Chick fil A and they were at eighteen thousand stores. Today they're at
• 23:02
  thirty six hundred. So this is this is going back a little ways, but not
• 23:08
  that That long and Chick-fil-A wanted to get it breakfast because you you know in
• 23:13
  restaurants you have all those fixed costs. And so, but if if you're gonna operate
• 23:18
  you know a restaurant, you want to sell all the day parts breakfast, lunch, dinner,
• 23:23
  obviously the snack in between, drive-thru is so important today, all those things, you know
• 23:28
  all about that. So it turns out that CEO at at Chick-fil-A at the time
• 23:33
  felt that was quoted as saying that coffee is the most broken item on the
• 23:38
  menu. Hey, so if we're gonna, he said to his team, we're going after breakfast,
• 23:43
  we gotta change our coffee. It's terrible. You know, and and you know coffee as
• 23:48
  a very important meal complement that that wakes me up, energizes me, and gets me
• 23:53
  going in the morning. So it's it's the most important beverage at breakfast, far none.
• 23:58
  People use coffee
• 24:00
  For sure.
• 24:01
  on their commute time, pick up something to eat, drink their coffee to make it
• 24:06
  to their you know, place of business or wherever they're going to school or wherever
• 24:12
  on time in the morning. Well, Chick fil A put up a what's called a
• 24:18
  request for proposal on RFP. Twenty-four roasters replied to it. But here's the key. When
• 24:24
  I saw that RFP count come out and all the questions that we had to
• 24:29
  answer, I wrote our proposal. It was I still remember Jack, it was 20 pages.
• 24:35
  And and this is the point that I wanted to make, and that is that
• 24:41
  while the RFP was substantially about roasting ground hot coffee, I had seen the data
• 24:47
  on generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Z. And they preferred actually iced coffee to
• 24:52
  hot coffee with breakfast as a meal complement, not just as a snack or a
• 24:58
  treat. So I c armed with the data, we developed an ice coffee solution from
• 25:04
  cold brew concentrate that we could make in 75 seconds or less. Speed is important
• 25:10
  in quick serve restaurants. So we came up with our proposal and included absolutely. A
• 25:15
  plused up hot coffee that was also sustainable. But then we also brought, and this
• 25:21
  is the key you want to bring more value than what the customer expects. And
• 25:27
  we made our recommendation based on consumer insights, consumer wants iced coffee at the breakfast
• 25:33
  day part. And the new consumers, the big consumers that are on the horizon are
• 25:38
  really Gen Y and Gen Z. Right. So we need to begin to think about
• 25:44
  not only do we want to serve the hot coffee drinkers, but we want to
• 25:50
  begin to serve the iced coffee drinkers because those are our future guests. So Chick-fil-A
• 25:56
  not only got they got a two for one. And and later they got a
• 26:02
  three for one because they learned they could take their ice cream ice cream, our
• 26:07
  cold brew concentrate for the iced coffee, spin it in the shake machine, and it
• 26:13
  became a third menu item called frosted coffee. Which was became a dessert or a
• 26:19
  treat. So Chick-fil-A got a three for one and we won the business. And I
• 26:25
  tell you all that, Jack, to tell you that part of our job in sales
• 26:30
  is to bring an insight. We want to think ahead to something that would help
• 26:36
  our customers on the journey they they are on. They want to attract more traffic.
• 26:42
  They want to sell more breakfasts. They want to sell more coffee with breakfast. So
• 26:48
  here is the menu item that that consumer's looking for. I had the data and
• 26:53
  I provided the insight. And that's why I called my company Insightful Selling. That's where
• 26:59
  the story started, that's where it came from, and that's what it took to win
• 27:05
  versus those twenty three other roasters at Chick fil A. Still have the s that
• 27:11
  business today.
• 27:12
  Wow. That's awesome. Did you ever hear what the other proposals were by chance?
• 27:18
  I never heard, but I got a feeling. So
• 27:21
  Okay.
• 27:22
  I I truthfully believe, Jack, that all the other roasters came in with their best
• 27:26
  hot roasting ground coffee. And I truly believe that we distinguished ourselves. You know, you
• 27:32
  want to think about how are you unique and how are you differentiated by bringing
• 27:38
  in that cold brew iced coffee concentrate solution and showing them how they could build
• 27:44
  that seventy-five seconds or less. But the proof ultimately is how does it taste? And
• 27:50
  it tasted amazing. And then of course later they they got that third product with
• 27:56
  the the frosted coffee product as well. Very interesting isn't it that when you think
• 28:02
  ahead think for your customers even beyond what they were requesting, they realize okay, that's
• 28:08
  a true partner. They don't just
• 28:11
  Right.
• 28:12
  meet requirements, they exceed expectations. And that's what we're trying to do as a true
• 28:19
  supplier partner.
• 28:20
  Do you find, especially in the small businesses, we apply that to some consultants like
• 28:24
  ourselves or other small businesses, do you find that people often inadvertently or accidentally or
• 28:28
  however it ends up happening, that they kind of put themselves in a box, right?
• 28:32
  I do, I use you as an example, right? I only do sales rep training,
• 28:37
  for example. And that's the way that they see you. And then you say, by
• 28:41
  the way, I also do all this other stuff. I do five other things, and
• 28:45
  sales strategy would probably be the best place to start. Because without that, the sales
• 28:50
  reps won't know what to be trained on, right? So is it that sort of
• 28:54
  like you as a small business, you kind of accidentally put yourself in a box
• 28:58
  and you just have to let the customer know, here's the other things that I
• 29:03
  do and here's why this would be a potential good match for you. Is it
• 29:07
  that sort of a conversation?
• 29:09
  Yeah, I think you said it really well. You know, your assortment is important. And
• 29:14
  and that that's really a merchandising concept. But think of it as all the products
• 29:19
  and services that you have and having some breadth there is critical, right? So you
• 29:25
  can meet more problems, solve more problems, meet more needs, help customers on different journeys.
• 29:30
  So that's good. And and I do have some variety, everything A to Z when
• 29:35
  it comes to sales, and I also do go to market strategies. But I think
• 29:41
  the profound truth of what you said, Jack, was I am not trying to impose
• 29:46
  anything on my customer. So that's a sure recipe for a major backfire.
• 29:51
  Right.
• 29:52
  However, if I really listen well and diagnose, so think about discovery and diagnostics as
• 29:57
  the beginning front end of the sales process, they'll reveal what their journey is. They'll
• 30:03
  reveal the problems they have, their ambitions and their aspirations, and where they're going. Now
• 30:09
  it's my job to curate out of all of my services. I need to now
• 30:15
  put on, think about a museum curator. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna pick the items
• 30:22
  that I'm going to now propose to the customer. Just like when you go to
• 30:28
  a show at a museum, they do, they've already curated the artwork that they believe
• 30:34
  is appropriate for this show. We wanna curate a service. And a secondary service and
• 30:40
  another product that fits with the c the progress the customer's trying to make that
• 30:46
  will get them from here to there. And those are the things I'm gonna propose.
• 30:53
  Now there may be, I've got this other thing over here. Boy, it's really profitable
• 30:59
  for me. I'd really like to sell in that. Okay, okay, that's fine. However, let's
• 31:05
  solve what their presenting need is now. Let's build trust. Let's get on this journey
• 31:11
  and help them get to their destination. Invariably, other needs, problems will surface, and there'll
• 31:17
  be opportunities to penetrate that account to build further. We might even get to something
• 31:24
  we'll call enterprise sales, where we can go into another area. But we need to
• 31:30
  build trust first. And we need that we want to have a success with them.
• 31:36
  And then from success, we'll be able to that we'll get permission to guide them
• 31:42
  on other journeys.
• 31:44
  Okay. Do you in the assortment that you have, in the collection and in all
• 31:48
  the different offerings that you have, do you say up front, hey, we do a
• 31:52
  whole bunch of other stuff, but here's what I'm gonna pick for you. So you
• 31:56
  just kinda like plant that seed a little bit. So that way when when the
• 32:00
  need arises later and you find that, this would be great for them later down
• 32:04
  the engagement, they've already had that knowledge that there is other stuff that we do.
• 32:08
  Maybe it wasn't the right time yet. And so it feels less like selling in
• 32:12
  the future. It's more like, Hey, like I mentioned we do other stuff. Here is
• 32:17
  one of those other things. Is that kind of the the flow of be very
• 32:21
  kind of just open and saying, Hey, here's all the stuff and then when the
• 32:25
  time is right, you mention it.
• 32:27
  Yeah, I think timing is everything, Jack.
• 32:30
  Yeah.
• 32:31
  But I don't wanna I don't wanna underestimate the power of a single solution. So
• 32:35
  based on this
• 32:36
  Okay.
• 32:37
  initial problem that we've uncovered, and that could be the one where the customer is
• 32:42
  most frustrated, where a lot of the where a lot of the pain is. You'll
• 32:48
  hear that a lot in sales. People will say, Well, you gotta find the pain.
• 32:54
  And that's true. Sometimes the frustration has gotten to the point where it's almost intolerable.
• 33:00
  But it also can be That can be feel a little bit on the negative
• 33:06
  side, the customer's really in a whole, right? But also on the positive side, it
• 33:12
  could be an ambition that customer really has a great desire and they're zealous to
• 33:18
  get to a higher plane, another level, grow their business, be more successful in the
• 33:24
  future, be build their business, be bigger and be more meaningful. So those are both
• 33:30
  of those are viable journeys, right? But when we come back with our proposal We
• 33:35
  want to be fairly precise and not dilute ourselves. If we give the customer too
• 33:41
  many things to think about, it they get they can be overwhelmed. So that's the
• 33:47
  better part of goodness for our conversation today is to teach your listeners that we
• 33:53
  want to think more in terms of single solutions and stay super riveted, focused on
• 33:59
  what it's going to take for them to move on this journey to get to
• 34:05
  the destination. invariably in conversation it's gonna come up. Well John you also do sales
• 34:11
  coaching right yes I do sales coaching today we're actually working on today on your
• 34:17
  prospecting and your customer relationship management because you don't have a pipeline so we're stay
• 34:23
  focused on that but absolutely I would be happy to entertain the concept that I
• 34:29
  could coach your team or your head of sales. I have a coaching practice. And
• 34:34
  if I do really well on CRM and prospecting and they get a good big
• 34:40
  pipeline, I promise you that those coaching opportunities will be there for me.
• 34:46
  Right. Right. Okay. All right. Let's let's hit you with some lightning round scrappy verse
• 34:53
  sophisticated questions here. Alright, so back to back to kind of early days childhood. you
• 35:00
  ever bought or sold anything at a garage sale?
• 35:05
  You know what, Jack? I can't ever remember a garage sale. I don't know what
• 35:09
  happened. I guess we were hoarders and we just held on to everything.
• 35:13
  Okay, then perfect follow up. Did you collect anything as a kid?
• 35:16
  Yeah, a hundred percent. I I loved all sports cards baseball cards, basketball cards, football
• 35:22
  cards. That was a big collection for me.
• 35:26
  Okay. Did you ever think that they would make you rich? Have you ever sold
• 35:30
  any of them?
• 35:31
  I have never sold them, sold them. I've hung
• 35:33
  Yeah.
• 35:34
  on to them. They're at my mom's house and I think I need to go
• 35:35
  and make sure that I can find them again. I'm worried that they may have
• 35:38
  gotten lost
• 35:39
  Okay.
• 35:41
  or lifted somehow over the years.
• 35:44
  Right. Okay. Did you sell candy at school ever?
• 35:49
  Yes, I think everybody participated in the the marching band fundraisers and other
• 35:55
  Okay.
• 35:56
  such fundraisers, yes.
• 35:58
  Okay, okay. early business, your own business, insightful selling. have you ever had to play
• 36:03
  the credit card timing game where you wait till tomorrow to charge something because that's
• 36:08
  next month's statement?
• 36:10
  Yeah. I am absolutely concerned about cash flow, Jack.
• 36:14
  Yeah.
• 36:16
  I'm I'm very worried about paying my bills and I will never stiff or draw
• 36:20
  out one of my vendors or suppliers, somebody I'm working with, because I know how
• 36:25
  it feels. Yeah. But with that said, yeah, I'd much rather pay you once I
• 36:29
  get paid, because then I got money in the bank and
• 36:33
  Right.
• 36:34
  I can cover it.
• 36:38
  have you ever rolled out an offering or a product or anything like that where
• 36:41
  it's like fifty percent done and you're like, all right, let me go out there,
• 36:45
  let me just promote it and we'll figure it out when the time comes. Or
• 36:49
  do you prefer to build something to kind of a full sophisticated level and then
• 36:53
  roll it out?
• 36:54
  Yeah, the second is the preferred. You need a couple of things
• 36:57
  Okay.
• 36:58
  to do it. You gotta have time has gotta be on your side in order
• 37:02
  to do the voice of the customer. But at some point you've gotta decide where
• 37:07
  we're going and you gotta launch. But yeah, I'm a big I I said I'm
• 37:12
  insightful selling. I'm big. I gotta get the insights. I gotta find out what the
• 37:17
  customer wants and needs, what's important and what's being not satisfied so I can get
• 37:22
  to those unmet needs, then my product that meets those needs is gonna be uber
• 37:27
  successful.
• 37:28
  Okay. Okay. Take me inside the office. How many monitors do you use on your
• 37:32
  desk?
• 37:33
  Only one. It's it's a big one though. I'm looking at it right now and
• 37:37
  it's about a I think I got a twenty eight inch monitor here.
• 37:41
  Okay, okay. How many business cards are currently on the desk?
• 37:46
  I'm looking at a hundred business cards and they there's a rubber band around
• 37:53
  Okay. I mean it's it's organized chaos for sure. what is the most unique thing
• 37:58
  in your office? Anything stand out as a as a cool trinket?
• 38:02
  Yeah, I'm looking at a Gibson guitar that my dad gave my mom. She was
• 38:06
  a piano player and he thought she would learn to play the guitar. She never
• 38:11
  did. And then later it got passed down to me. I never learned to play,
• 38:15
  but all this time's gone by and now I've got a appears to be I
• 38:20
  think we did the the math on this. We have a almost sixty year old
• 38:24
  Gibson parlor guitar that is that is a collector's item. It it needs a little
• 38:29
  attention. I think we need to refurbish the fretboard. And probably just it needs a
• 38:34
  little bit attention, but I think it's worth something now at this point.
• 38:38
  Wow. I I bet it is, yeah. All right, take me inside the inbox. How
• 38:43
  many emails unread is too many.
• 38:46
  yeah, Jack. Yeah, I'm I'm on top of my emails. You know, five emails on
• 38:50
  red is too many for John here.
• 38:53
  Okay, okay. you ever send any emails that are only in the subject line, nothing
• 39:00
  in the body?
• 39:02
  Close. In the body it
• 39:04
  Okay.
• 39:05
  might say thank you or with gratitude. But I have been known to do
• 39:07
  Yeah.
• 39:08
  the only in the subject line emails. I do like that approach.
• 39:12
  Okay. Why do you like that approach? Just it's quick to the point? Okay.
• 39:15
  Brevity. And I think I I think it's asking a lot for people to read
• 39:20
  paragraph and paragraph and paragraph in the email. Now I'm good on some bullets and
• 39:25
  some links. If you want someone to link over to register or link over for
• 39:30
  a time or link over to view a video, I'm big on some links. But
• 39:35
  I think we're we're talking about quick transactions, not let's not write a novel on
• 39:40
  the emails.
• 39:41
  Fair enough. Okay. do you ever email people that we can do something when it's
• 39:46
  really only you?
• 39:48
  yeah, yeah. I d I love that the we
• 39:49
  Yeah.
• 39:50
  has been ingrained in me because I'd thirty plus years in corporate America was always
• 39:54
  working on a team and and we is the brand, but the brand is comprised
• 39:59
  of the people. And that just meant a lot to me. So now I'm a
• 40:03
  solopreneur, Jack, and I'm still using we. Why don't I use I more often? I
• 40:08
  don't know.
• 40:09
  Yeah.
• 40:10
  I I I gotta shift.
• 40:13
  I don't know. It is scrappy and sophisticated at the same time. John, I gotta
• 40:16
  say, you walk in both worlds. I love it. There's a lot of sophistication going
• 40:20
  on, but there's scrappiness
• 40:21
  It's okay.
• 40:22
  to get the job done for sure, man. I'm a fan. give us give us
• 40:26
  one takeaway. Small business sales. There's one thing that we could focus on as small
• 40:30
  business owners in the sales world. What should we be focusing on?
• 40:34
  Yeah, customers are our true north. We want to get on their side, the demand
• 40:40
  side. We wanna guard against being on the supply side because that's when we get
• 40:46
  internally focused. So let's just remember to let's make the customer our hero and figure
• 40:52
  out our our our role as their guide and they're gonna reward us with wonderful
• 40:58
  journeys that we can reach the mountaintop together.
• 41:02
  Nice. I love it. I love it. John, thank you so much for coming on
• 41:05
  man. Anything you want to promote? Anything coming up that you want the folks out
• 41:09
  there to know?
• 41:10
  No, not right now. I'm I've got some things coming out in the fall, so
• 41:14
  I'll have to get back on that. But Jack, this has been just a a
• 41:19
  true pleasure and you're wonderful host and facilitator and you made it super easy and
• 41:23
  fun for me today. So keep being scrappy. I wanna check in from time to
• 41:28
  time just to make sure that you haven't lost any of your scrappiness.
• 41:32
  There's no chance of me losing any scrappiness. I could probably see that. But I
• 41:38
  I will need you to check in though, still. thank you so much for coming
• 41:44
  on, John. This was great. I got a lot of takeaways. And thanks for listening,
• 41:50
  everybody. Stay data driven.