Patterns That Are Holding You Back

Bill and Bryan dig into what they call "patterns of limitation" — the ingrained habits and mindsets that quietly cap your sales growth, often disguised as things that are already working.

They explore four key patterns worth examining: the tendency to focus on the big picture while ignoring critical details, the trap of pursuing vague or undefined problems with prospects, the danger of plateauing without recognizing it, and the gradual drift away from your core purpose and identity as a seller.

The conversation also includes a fun detour into time zones, a live phone interruption from Bill's wife, and a preview of their upcoming 20th anniversary celebration event in September — where every listener who submits a video is invited to join.

This is Part 1 of a two-part series. Part 2 picks up on the concept of drift.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome everybody to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast in the history of podcasts. My name is Brian Neal. My name is Bill Cask. Here every week for your listening enjoyment. We've been here every week for 19 years and nine months. And that's what a great, cool, fun thing. Uh Bill and I, we started doing this in 2020, 206, as they say. And uh we are having a big celebration about that. We decided to have our own. We, you know, a lot of people called us and asked us if they could do a celebration for us, and we turned them all down. That's not true. Nobody called. Nobody, none of you called and said, Hey, Bill Brown, we'd like to do that.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

I got one call from the Globetrotter group, the Andy Bacone group, and and they want to do something, so they're waiting on instruction right now. They're standing by their phone.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Well, wait no longer, friends. Um, we will shortly, we we don't have the timing on this, but soon we will have on the website, advanced sellingpodcast.com, your chance to participate in our 20th anniversary celebration by recording a video, maybe an audio if you are video shy, but prefer like a video, either something you've learned from us, a clarifying question, something like us to talk about, or just to say thanks, or anything that the advanced selling podcast has done for your sales career. And if you participate, there's a prize. You're going to be able to join Bill and I for a live 20th anniversary uh celebration, celebratory live training event that's coming in September. We'll have dates in detail.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

We will fly you out. We are not calling anyone to a spa in Northville, Indiana.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

A spa. Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Uh we're not gonna be rubber. We will rub down.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Yeah, right. We we actually that's part of our training regimen. Um, but just go, you just go uh to advanced linkpodcast.com. Now, if you go today, we're working. This is like in in process, so it's not up today. Go back tomorrow and the next day. It'll be up. But all you gotta do is you'll be able to click a button, shoot a little video, record it, upload it, whatever there. And then uh that will get you your ticket to our live event in September, which is free and it's on a sweepstakes. Everybody who participates gets to come to the 20th anniversary celebration event in September, which will be virtual, it won't be live.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

And if you're not a part of our LinkedIn group, uh we'll be communicating through there, I suspect. Uh go to advanced selling podcast.com slash LinkedIn, get on in the group, and so we'll be posting some uh notifications there and the links and stuff like that. So we'd love to hear from you. But uh all kidding aside, if you want to do it now, if you're like, oh no, I need to do this now, just send us a link, post it up on Dropbox or Google or somewhere in the cloud, send us a link to uh listener at advanced selling podcast.com, and you're in. You don't have to fill out registrations, forms, anything like that. No, it's easy. Fun. All right. I um you know I can't help but listening to people when I'm having coffee and listening to people at the next table. And it was this uh father of two little girls. They were probably three and four or three and five, and they had their, they were communicate, they were doing a FaceTime call with Auntie or grandmama or somebody. And and um he says, Well, we'll do it, but you know, she lives in Denver, so it's eight o'clock, it's nine o'clock here, it's seven o'clock there, and I could see the girls' faces like, huh? Well, what are we talking about here? And I thought, what he should have said before he went into this said, Look, girls, I'm gonna give you a lesson on life. Over the course of the next 50 years, you will spend an inordinate amount of time on time zones, understanding use time. Um, you will you might even go on vacation sometime with your family, and some of the family will be operating on home time, and some will be operating on, and um, you will start to get familiar with well, is Kansas City and is that central time or is that mountain time? Because there's always those, and then you've got Arizona, I think, that doesn't change, and Indiana used to not change. You got to keep that all sorted out because and then you've so you kind of know that Europe is four or five hours ahead. You kind of have a general sense, and then somebody from Australia calls and wants you to wants you to have a call with them, and you have no idea, but not only what time it is, what day it is if it's possible.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

So that would have been funny, a little tired to go on with a seven-year-old. She just would have gone, what is he talking about? And I have this, this is in my DNA, where I grew up in Evansville, Indiana. Oh, our whole state is on the eastern time zone, except about five counties in the northwestern corner, exactly, four counties in the southwestern corner, one of which is where I grew up. Yeah, so if I call Indianapolis, or as we say down there, Indianapolis, people from Evansville take all the vowels out, they go Indianapolis. Um they uh we were on different time zones. We're on multiplied same state. It's brutal, it's just brutal.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Not only is Indiana a border state between east and central, but there's a few counties and cities totally, yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Oh my god. Uh we went on a vacation to um Punta Cana, which was great. Um, it's near the equator, and my kids were complaining, which is funny to hear them complaining when they're in Punta Cana. It doesn't stay light out here, dad, as long as it does back at home. It's kind of weird. The sun sets early. I'm like, that's because we're near the equator. It's always this way, it's 12 hours basically all the time. They were struggling to figure that out. And they thought that was a bad thing. Like, why doesn't it stay up longer? I'm like, uh, I don't know, ask God. Hey God. Yeah. Why did you tilt the earth? Why didn't you just keep putting it up and down straight? Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

So you pulled out the uh out of your pocket the global blow, the blow-up globe and says, Okay, now here's why the sun, because it's bigger, it's fatter, the earth's fatter.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Yes, you now get um, yeah, you get astrophysics, uh, physics uh lessons now in the advanced learning podcast. You're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

I remember my my mother-in-law, who's no longer with us, she was a great lady, Sally. And I remember when Kelly got back, my daughter got back from Japan one time. Kelly was uh talking about uh the food and the cleanliness, and she was just going on and on about what a great trip. And and Sally was more interested in more now. What time is it there? When it's when it's six o'clock here, what time is it there? It's nothing to do with it's also the next day.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

It's so confusing when you cross the international day. Oh, yeah, exactly. Well, it's nine, but it's nine on Thursday. Not whoa, whoa, whoa, huh? Yeah, when it's nine Wednesday here, it's nine a.m. Thursday there. Well, how is that anyway? Yeah, it's funny.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Okay, uh topic. Uh, you want me to go into this real quick? Take it, please. Uh you know, Brian and I have talked on the show about when we go into an organization or we have coaching and we give advice, counsel. Sometimes that advice is not taken. In fact, more more often than not, it's it's not, but when it is, it's beautiful advice, and we think all of our advice is good, and maybe it's not, but generally we we don't dish out advice that's not proven and that we haven't time tested. But the challenge is that what happens when that advice lands on the ears of our clients? And what happens when we on this podcast give you something to go do and it kind of lands with a thud? And it's like, yeah, it sounds good, but you know, my business is different. And so I was talking to a prospect the other day. I said, look, there's a difference between the seed and the soil. And the seed is the things that we give, the advice, the strategies, the tactics. But the soil is what that seed is planted in. And if the soil is not healthy, and and you're in this case, an individual, if their heart is closed and their ego is humongous, and they're just not willing at all to take in any kind of new data, then they're not going to grow. And so we started going down this uh this path. And I said that, and he asked, he said, well, what is what causes people not to engage and not to? And I said, Well, there's there's patterns, there's patterns of limitations, and that's the title of today's program is what are the patterns that we've kind of bought into that actually limit us from taking in new information and deploying it and getting the ultimate benefit from it. And so I've got a handful here. I posed this to Brian when we started, and we we changed the name of it from what it was to patterns of limitations. But I think it's useful because if if we're not growing, if our business is not growing, our income or we're we're feeling stuck, it probably has something to do with some of these things.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

And I read uh listened to when you teed this up, Bill. I'm thinking these are often disguised as patterns of progress or patterns of success because they have been. And for me, I'm thinking one of the telltale signs, even when we do these topics, it's good because we think of them ourselves. I do, we both think of them. How do I think about it? You know, what do I do with this? Um you you you will the soil it, you know, you're like, Well, what do you plant there? Well, we plant corn. Oh, we just plant corn there always, because that you know, whatever. It's like have you ever planted beans? Like, well, no, we don't plant beans because this and that and the other thing, versus going, hmm, that's a good question. Why don't I plant beans there? Maybe I should plant beans, or maybe I should grow hemp these days. You know what I mean? It's like, and be and because part of it, we're just so used to the thing that's because it's work for us, yeah. And so these patterns of limitations are disguised as things that are already working for us. So for me, the first trick is to start to question things. Um, Elon, everybody knows now, is the first trillionaire. I've here I'm paraphrasing it, but I've heard him say often he talks about this all the time. So many times we are taught to optimize for the wrong thing. So we are taught to optimize for a thing that shouldn't exist. That's what he says. That's right. And so he questions everything. Like, why should this exist? So if you're a seller, yeah, and you're going, Oh, yeah, well, here's how I organize my day because of da-da-da-da-da. You're never questioning why do I organize my day this way? Why why do why should I? Should I do that? Should I not do that? Um, um, it's stupid. We in football, we have a uh there's a little concept we have. Like there's very few times you would decline a 15-yard penalty. This is American football. And I was listening to a uh rule coaching session this morning, and one of our my buddies he said, uh, anytime you're gonna decline a 15-yard foul, you should always ask why. Because you almost never do it, even if you're supposed to, you never do it. Always question. So I think that's the first thing for me is okay, can I get in this place of constant questioning of what I'm doing?

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Why don't we do a two-part series on this? Because there's this is a lot, and it's a lot to take in. And uh you're blowing my mind, bro. No, I always always like when the podcast hosts, oh, I'm taking I'm taking a lot of notes here.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Taking notes or not, you're not taking notes. These days, too. Everything's recorded, man. Just get it transcribed. That's funny.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Um, yeah, one example. I I thought you were going down the idea that, well, that's just me, that's just the way I do things, like big picture people versus detail people. And there is some kind of badge of honor that the big picture person wears proudly. Oh, I don't get I don't get messed up in the detail. I'm a big picture guy or or person. That would be bad. And I feel like, yeah, that's probably not a good badge today because if you if you delegate all the details, who's to say that the people who are doing the details have the same vision you do? So you almost have to be in two worlds, you have to be in the big picture world. That then the question is, well, how am I gonna get to that big picture? There's a whole lot of freaking details between where you are and that big picture destination. And I think we I agree with you, Brian. We wear the badge of, well, that's just not me. Uh, you know, I'm I'm not built for that. Well, yeah, maybe you should be.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Yes. I had a conversation with a friend who uh is the COO of a really, really big distribution company, and um he's a great friend, and he's the really great business, great, super successful business. We were talking about sales. He goes, I don't really do much uh CRM compliance. He goes, for me, the output's the output. As long as we get the number, it's all I care about. And that I used to think that way. I was very guilty of that because I'm the bit like it. I don't care how you get it, I don't care what happened, just get the number. And what I've learned over time is that's not always the best way. No, because you uh one of my friends gave me the saying because you look behind them and you see a trail of dead bodies, even though you got the number, you screwed up ops, uh, you know, you you your stuff got sent late or it was wrong and your invoice or whatever. And so, but you have to question that, you have to question yourself and your processes to get any growth, uh, to build the soil. That's part of tilling the good soil, yeah. Um, and treating it.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Well, you and as a farmer would understand though. Okay, so let's go through some of these patterns. And I've got two or three, and I've given you one, which is that whole idea of too much emphasis on the macro, not enough on the micro, which is the big picture versus the detail. And I don't, yeah, so we've already done that one. Um here's a here's another one is I feel like uh one of our patterns of limitation is we are not we are not clear about what we're solving for. And when we're not clear with our prospect or with ourselves, and how many times have you have you gone into a meeting or or or um kind of observed a meeting with your client, and you think, what are we doing? What what's the purpose of this meeting? What are we solving for? And that's the same thing with your prospect. And I find this a lot as we get into these gory details with our customer, but we we really haven't identified, well, what's the problem that we're trying to fix or remedy or improve upon? And so this idea of the the the problem solving trap of it's vague and it's unclear, just have a real clear understanding of what you're solving for. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

And I would and I can I add to that one? Yeah, and and I I think you would have continued to say this if you went deeper in it. And is that problem worth solving right now? Because I think too often uh sellers when we're doing in that qualification mode, we're looking for uh anything that sounds good, good, good, good for us. We're lit, yeah, we're listening for anything good for us, and as soon as we hear it, we think we're done. We stop questioning that thing versus going several steps deeper to say, well, just because that just because I can help you fix that doesn't mean we should. Yeah. In the example I just used with my friend when he's like, you know, I'm not a big CRM compliance guy. Well, if my system, you know, that helps with CRM compliance and it's just not his thing, I'm like, it's not his thing. So and they've done really well without it, and they've got high demand, and their problem is fulfillment. They don't need more sales right now, they know how to fulfill. It's like there's just nothing here, you know what I mean? Exactly, in a very real, authentic way. So yeah, so the what's the solution there? Well, the solution, hang on a second. It's all right. Now we have a rule, we answer the phone on air. Hi, I'm I'm in the middle of a recording.

unknown 15:28

Okay, bye.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Let's keep that. Keep that, Travis.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, well, my wife is, you know, like she doesn't know what to do. Hi, we are in the middle of the advanced selling podcast for guys. You called during the show. I had to answer it on air. Oh, that's a really good one. Okay, can I get one?

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Yeah, let me uh let me plus one what you plus one. Well, let's do it. I'm gonna plus yeah. Um the uh the the other side of that is be diligent and rigorous about understanding what problem you're solving, the impact of the problem, like you said, what happens if we don't solve it? I mean, there's a whole host of things around that problem solving and problem-finding mentality that that probably could be would would improve our capability to to working on the right thing because it life is too short to work on the wrong problem. We do it all the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

All right, go. Uh, so I have one that um in I would and uh think of this like in two different ways. Uh, one way is uh how do I question or how do I recognize I'm in a plateau? So I have flattened out something in my process or in my sales life. I've plateaued on my income, I have plateaued on my sales results, I have plateaued on my margins, I have plateaued on the number of deals I close, I've plateaued on the size of deal. A lot of notice your plateaus. And you you can look back with data and look at you know, three to five years or a trailing 12 months or whatever you want to do, and go, man, I have, you know, my growth has been fairly flat in this thing or marginal at best. That's that's an indicator of a plateau. Um, other folks will say we run on this EOS system, this this uh EOS uh business system, they call it their um hitting the ceiling. And they talk about hitting a ceiling where you know you you this is very common. We just talk to a company, um, you know, you you hear this, you read this on you start a company, a million is a ceiling, and then three is next, then five, then 10, then typically 20 to 30, then 50, then 100, and then there's a 250 to 300 million ceiling. These were companies get stuck, is the point. That's revenue. But um, how to notice, constantly notice your plateaus andor your ceilings. That's that's good.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

I've got one here, which is it's kind of a cousin to plateau, and that is drift. Uh, sometimes I feel like we we drift away from our purpose and our mission, and we we drift into the into the fleshy world of yes, well, how much am I gonna make and how much do we need to bring in, and how many calls do I need to make, instead of drifting back to wait a minute, what are we doing here? Why are we in this business? How are we serving our customers? How are we pleasing our higher power or what whatever those things are that are that are intangible and unseen? And because you can see the revenue and you can see how many people you're contacting and what your conversion, those are all seen. But what about the unseen? Because there's a whole world of unseen things that I think really matter, whether it's you know who you are, your identity, how you think, who you're seeking to become, who you need to become. All those things are really important, and we just we drift away from those big time. Um, do we want to stop and do episode two now? Let's stop because uh yeah, let's stop here and then uh we're gonna we're gonna sign off and they're gonna re-record so I can handle these phone calls.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

And then I want to see remind me next episode to pick up on your drift comment because I have something I want to add to that. Is that cool? So go to advanced selling podcast.com, participate in our 20th anniversary uh uh success or a uh uh what do you call it? Celebration. That's what I'm looking for. Celebration. Sell it, sell it, sell it, yeah. And if you don't want to wait till we have the website up, go ahead and email us.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Listener at Vanceelling Podcast.com, send us a little video. You will get a ticket to this event in September. Everybody gets a ticket. Okay, see you next week. Bye.