7 Lies About Sales Success

What if the beliefs driving your sales career are built on a foundation of lies?

In this solo episode, Bill Caskey breaks down seven deeply normalized lies about achievement, income, and sales success — the kind that quietly run your life if you let them. From "hustle harder to earn more" to "the best closer wins," these aren't fringe ideas. They're mainstream beliefs that keep good salespeople permanently busy, permanently stuck, and wondering why the results never match the effort.

Bill challenges you to audit which of these lies you're living — and gives you a framework for getting out from under them.

The 7 Lies:

1. Your performance determines your well-being
2. The prospect holds your future in their hands
3. Income is determined by work ethic
4. More activity equals more results
5. The best closer wins
6. There's a scarcity of opportunity
7. If you're good enough, they'll find you

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hey comrades, Advanced Delling Podcast, episode number I Have No Idea. I'm Bill Kaske. I am solo today. Brian is out and we'll be for the next two weeks, but then we'll be back. So I'm going to be uh trying my hand at a solo episode. I think I can do it. I don't know. So today I want to talk about lies. And I know sometimes what we do is we talk about the prospect lies. And and and yeah, maybe that's true. I mean, I feel like that's a little harsh to say that they lie to salespeople, and you know, you got to deal with buyers or liars, that whole thing. They may be, and that's okay. And maybe when we're buying, we lie as well. But here are the lies I'm talking about. I'm talking about the lies that we've been told about achievement, sales, um, success, and I'm wondering if we've been operating on lies, on a platform built on lies. And these are not small ones, these are big ones. It's it's the in the kind that get into your head and quietly run our life if we let them. I mean, think about how many lies were exposed during COVID, during that whole year or two. Uh and it was just like every day there was something else like, oh, well, I thought that was the way it was. That's not the way it is. And there was a lot of that. And I feel the same thing is true in sales, business, and achievement. And that's what really makes these lies dangerous, is because you know, we've normalized them all. We've just assumed that, well, yeah, you know. So let me give you seven. And I think the way to get past these is to, first off, admit you have a problem. You you have to admit that, yeah, you know what, sometimes I believe that. And then sometimes you might, as I go through these seven, you might say, Well, that's that's the way I see it. That's not a lie, that's the truth. Well, it's the truth according to you, but it may be the may be a lie for other people. And you've heard me say recently, we've got to see how the other half lives. And that doesn't mean income spreads. What that means is there are people out there who don't believe these lies. And are they living better? Are they earning more? Are they happier, more fulfilled? Are they because they have gotten rid of these lies? And I think they are. So here they go. Here we go. Excuse me. Lie number one, your performance determines your well-being. And I know that most of us would say, now, I mean, my well-being is based on maybe a relationship with God or a higher power, a relationship with your family. You know, your well-being is based on other things. And I think we all believe that, but you can't argue that if you have a really bad month, it affects everything you do. If you're in a slump, I got a call the other day from a guy who says, you know, look, I'm just, I'm in a slump. I don't know what's going on. And he was, he was kind of laughing at it, but sometimes slumps happen, and it does affect you. So this idea that, oh no, that doesn't, you know, my my performance has nothing to do with my well-being, it's just it's just not true. Now, should it? No, it shouldn't, but it does. And so what we have to do is we have to say, well, let's, when it happens, let's investigate and let's explore. And if I'm feeling less than, or if I'm feeling off in some way, which I I gotta tell you, I've I experienced those things. I probably experience them more now than I did in my twenties and thirties. When I was heavily into the party scene, there were no bad days. Uh no, but I experienced those things. And the and I can't tell you that it always works, but generally the way I get out of that is I say, okay, what's really going on here? What's really happening? Am I lying to myself about the the true cause of this? Because you can lie about the about the solution too, just like you lie about the problem. So anytime you have a situation where you're in a slump or down or you feel like your well-being is being attacked by your performance, you just have to slow down, take a look at it, close your eyes and say, what's really happening here? And then you'll realize, oh, what's happening is I allowed this lost deal to affect my relationship with my wife or my husband. And once you realize it, it goes away. Number two, lie number two, the prospect holds your future in their hands. Man, I tell you, I see this everywhere. It's like we've got to go put our best foot forward and we've got to go be impressive and be credible and all that stuff. That lie creates desperation for you. The moment you believe that lie that the prospect holds your future in their hands, you are you become attached, you lose your confidence, you lose every ounce of leverage that you ever had in that conversation, because now it's all about it's all about them and what they're quote doing to you, unquote. You hold your future in your hands, no one else. As the saying goes, no one is coming to save you. No one. So we have to save ourselves. What's that mean? 100% responsibility. 100% responsibility. It's not it's not your company that holds your future in their hands, it's not your manager, it's not the CEO, it's not your customer, prospect, client. It's you. But the lie is that, well, we've got to we've got to treat the prospect right. I'm not saying don't treat the prospect right or the client right. Of course not. I'm treating everybody right. But I'm not a hostage to them. I don't want you to be a hostage. Number three, your income is determined by your work ethic. Hustle harder, do more, grind longer. Except that's not the way the high earners that you know are working. That's why I say sometimes it makes sense to see how the other half lives. Because there are people out there who are earning the same as you, 2x more, 5x more, 10x more in a similar business who aren't working as hard as you. I know you don't believe that. I know you find that hard to believe that someone is earning more and working less. But I can tell you from my experience, even in my business, in the coaching and training business. And I'm also working less hard than other people and earning more. So it's not like one person's better than the other or one group, but you have to always be on the lookout for what are they doing? How are they doing their what's their business model? Can I learn something from that? But you can't even get there if you still buy into the lie that uh income is determined by work ethic. It's not. It's just not. Number four, more activity equals more results. And this kind of goes along with number three. More action equals more results, more calls, more cold emails, more demos, just do more, more, more, more, grind away, grind away. Except volume of activity without a system, without a governing system is just exhausting. This lie keeps people, all of us, permanently busy and permanently stuck. So you've got to get past the idea that if I want to change my results, I have to bump up my activity level. Now, it could be that in order to change your results, there are actions you need to take that are different than what you do today. And sometimes when there are actions, here's an example. Let's say that you want to double your business in 2026 and seven, and you need to be in front of more prospects. Well, one way to do that is to go call those people you want to be in front of front of, cold call them and you know, harass and harangue them until they agree to see you, or another way to do it is to be creative and create products or items or content that would be useful for them and then and then send those to them, or uh let the algorithm take your LinkedIn post to them. So if it's the algorithm and the LinkedIn, the content uh uh path, that's more work. But eventually, that may be the only work you do. And so what you have to decide is if I'm going to do more activity to get more results, what is that activity? Is it just more cold calls, more labor, no leverage? You're gonna hear me talk about that a lot in the next few months. Leverage over labor. It's always leverage over labor. You can put out one podcast and have ten people call, or you can go call a thousand people to get ten appointments. You have to decide. But the old, the lie is, oh, that doesn't work. Oh, that's for somebody else. That's not for me. Yeah, really? There's a lot of podcasters, a lot of people have big media platforms that probably said that at one point and then they said, screw it, I'm gonna do it. Here's number five, the best closer wins. It seems like our whole industry worships closing technique. But if you need a great closing move, you've probably already failed somewhere earlier. Closing is just simply the last step of good qualification. I don't even like the word closing. It's just it just feels manipulative only because, and I know it's not, but all only because of how it's been positioned in the last 50 years. How do you close them? What are you gonna do to close them? You're gonna do the alternative event close, or you're gonna do the Ben Franklin close? Or are you gonna do the press hard third copy's yours close? I always like that one. Uh press hard. Well, sounds like we have a deal. Press hard now, third copy's yours. That's the old carbon days when you used to have to press hard. Anyway, um come on, stop with this putting all your emphasis on closing. It's just it's not where the action is. The action is up front. Closing is organic, it just should happen. What do you want to do? But I mean, I've got a client, I think I've mentioned this too, I've got a client who is a pretty good uh disciple of these concepts. And uh he says, my mission, my goal through the whole sales call is at the end have them say, How can we start working together? And he says, it happens probably 50 to 70 percent of the time. He says, My goal is to have it happen 100% of the time. But he says, I've got to change a lot of things, I've got to improve my process so that that happens at the end, as opposed to not improving your sales process at all, and then at the end laying out some kind of clever closing moves and all that crap. So I agree that it's closing, uh, don't put so much emphasis on closing. Number six. Oh wait, is this five or six? Yeah, six. There is a scarcity of opportunity. The belief here is that the market is saturated, that someone else has the relationships, that prospects, all the good ones are taken, all the good women are taken. This lie keeps salespeople small and timid. Opportunity is everywhere, but it's only visible to those who have built a systematic way to attract it rather than always chase it. That's why I like the content strategy so much is that if you can be visible and always be out there, not in a weird uh in influencer way, but just be out there with good stuff. Just be out there with good stuff. Just like we are in this podcast. We're out here with good stuff and people call. But opportunity is everywhere, you just don't know where it is sometimes. And the fact is there's an abundance of opportunity. Even though your competitor might be in at a company, you don't know what kind of pain they're experiencing. I mean, the the rule is that fifty percent of the people are not happy with their with their vendor. It was either not happy or slightly unhappy or something. So that means 50% of people don't like who they're working with. That seems like a that would open up an abundant uh cavern for you. All right, number seven. If you're good enough, they'll find you. Just do great work, Bill. Phone phone is bound to ring. People will go out into the marketplace and grab their trumpet and trumpet your trumpet your value, and people will show up at the door. Now, you gotta do good work. And I want you to pay attention to your reputation. But there are no trumpets anymore. People are not trumpeting your your value and how great you are. And even when you ask them to do it, they don't do it. I've had over the last couple of years, and after someone comes through a training program, the last session I always ask each person to share what they learned, two or three things that really made a difference for them in the program. And almost everybody shares really good stuff verbally. And then I ask them to, would you mind I I loved what you said, thank you for that. Would you mind writing down that so I can use it in a either in a video or somewhere? And I would always I always give people access to how I'm using it, so they can either say yay or nay. I will get 20% of the people who write anything down. And these are people who just just told me a day earlier that they loved everything. It's just people don't. People do not trumpet things. They get busy, they move on. That, yep, Bill Kaske, that was yesterday. Bill Who? So this idea that if you're just good enough, they'll find you. They don't even find you when you are good enough. So, or I mean when you when you even after you work with them, sometimes they don't. So I want you to um decimate that lie. You've got to be not only good enough, you've got to be findable. And good enough. I don't mean good enough. You have to be good, you have to be great, but you still have to be visible. And what does what does that mean? You have to be out there in the world. You have to be promoting yourself and marketing. And I know some of you don't like to do that, but you can do it in a way that doesn't feel promotional. You can create content or a YouTube channel where you where you give advice, you give value. If you want to do a call to action, okay, great. If you don't, that's fine too. But invisibility is no way to grow a business or grow your income. So how'd you rate yourself there? Performance and well-being. Number two, prospect holds my future in their hands. Number three, if I want to earn more, I got to work harder. Number four, more activity equals higher results. Number five, best closer wins. Number six, scarcity of opportunity. Number seven, ah, if I'm good enough, they'll find me. I want you to blast those lies. And if any of those resonated with you, maybe one or two did and the other five didn't, just pay a little more attention over the next week or two to how you're going to get out of that line. All right. Good job today. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.