165: Relationship-Based Selling, Treating Clients Like Family, & Achieving Alignment with Intricate's Blair Hamer

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Vidyard. To learn more about them and their free plugin, along with the rest of our sponsors, click over to top1.fm/sponsors. You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm/successstories. Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Blair Hamer. Blair is the top client champion for Intricate out of Calgary. Welcome to the show, Blair.

0:43 Blair Hamer: Hey, thanks, Scott. Great to be here.

0:45 Scott Ingram: So this is going to be a ton of fun. Even the pregame has been a lot of fun. I probably should push record earlier, but let's jump into things like we always do. I'm all about the immediate upfront value. I would love to talk through the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success in sales.

1:03 Blair Hamer: Absolutely. So really it's very client-centric is certainly one of them. And by that, I just really use empathy. I love talking to my clients. I love hearing their stories, truly connecting with them. In doing that, I'm able to understand them. I'm able to figure out what would help them the most. And then from that perspective, yeah, we work together, we create shared visions and create win-win deals. So that's gotta be the biggest Characteristic right there. Another characteristic is just how I do my homework. I get the job done, whatever that takes. I'll work in the evenings or on the weekends, but then I'm also very fortunate that my company allows me to have flexible hours and have a lot of life integration because there is a lot of high trust within my own company just to go out and get the job done in really authentic ways that represent the company and its reputation incredibly well. Those are 2 things right there that are strong. And Scott, I sent you my answers ahead of time. Do you have those in front of you? Because I actually don't have those 3 answers in front of me right now.

2:09 Scott Ingram: I do. I do. And I was actually going to ask you about one that I was particularly excited about. So you said use empathy was the first one. So we already talked about that kind of the client centricity and your empathy. You talked about bringing similar clients together. That's the one I'm most excited about. Talk about that.

2:24 Blair Hamer: Yeah, that actually was a client idea. We were at the Calgary Stampede hanging out, watching the rodeo. Sweating under my black cowboy hat and never ever buy a black cowboy hat. Go white if you ever buy one. Really, he said, you know what'd be great? We really like working with Intricate, but we know that you and your company do a whole lot more. And it would be so good if you allowed me to be part of a group where there were other clients that were very intelligent and successful. And you brought us together, Blair, and allowed us just to network and talk and figure out what do you do, what do you do in the energy sector, because it's such a big industry where it is changing so quickly. These individuals want to do good in their jobs and they want the top of the industry people to network with. So I am bringing those clients together in a room, just having a good time, developing the authentic trust and rapport with myself, but then also with them. And then just allowing them to talk and have just synergy conversations that grow to help each other.

3:35 Scott Ingram: I am such a huge fan of that approach. So, 2 stories, and ironically, I still haven't finished it, but I was listening to it a little bit today. My friend Mark Schaefer wrote a book called Belonging to the Brand. The tagline is, why community is the last great marketing strategy. And it's about kind of this customer community sort of concept. And I've seen it done. The company I worked with that they did the best was Eloqua. Like the customer community that they built in the early days of the company was amazing. And this was, you know, at the time that marketing automation was emerging and people were building their careers around this platform and this concept. And so for them to be able to come together and support each other and share those best practices and all of that stuff was absolutely epic. The other story is, I'm trying to think, actually, I think it was the Eloqua CMO. So same company, we brought on a new CMO as we were just on the cusp of going public. So this is kind of like, this is the CMO that you bring on to get you all shiny to go to market. And as she came in, she was previously a client. She was a customer. And so I went to her and I said, Heidi, you know, you were a customer and here I am in sales. So Eloqua was sold to you and I'm sure that you get approached a gajillion times a day for all kinds of things. And I was just kind of asking around what stands out, like how do people break through it? How do you kind of get people's attention? And she shared this story with me. She said, you know, One of the people that is really important, or one of the partners that's really important to a marketing leader is a recruiter for 2 reasons. Number one, my job lasts like 18 months, so I need a new job all the time. So it's good for me to have a relationship with recruiters, but she's like, when I move into a new role, I'm always working to build that team. And I've got roles that I've got to fill really quickly. So I really need a good recruiting partner. So she's like, I have tons of recruiters that reach out to me, but there's one recruiter in particular. I wish I knew this person's name, but she said what she does is she puts together these CMO dinners with her other clients and her other prospects. And she says it is so valuable because we hear so much noise. There's so much marketing that we're getting around, oh, you need this, you need that. This does this, this does that. She said it is so hard to break through to the truth and to be able to hear from and connect with my peers and get their perspective on this is actually working. You should work with this person. Do not work with this company. They can't deliver all of those kinds of things. She's like, that dynamic was so critical and so valuable. And she says because she brought so much value to me through that, she's just the recruiter that I work with. And I was like, oh, that's fascinating. And it really is. It's this. Customer community idea. But the beautiful thing is we can run that as individual salespeople. Like we can do that just with our clients. It's not like you have to rely on your company or your marketing team to go run this play. You can do it in really small scale.

6:48 Blair Hamer: Yeah, absolutely. I have 3 or 4 clients together in a room allows everyone to contribute, everyone to be listened to, and for real solutions to be shared where they will hit you with the truth. They'll be like, hey, they're good at this. They're getting better at this. They suck at that. And just kind of go from there. And actually with the Client Champion model, and it really aligns just to who I am as a person, what happens is you give and you serve. You've mentioned serving, Scott. And so it, you, you just really build that trust authentically and you try to help out your clients as much as possible as if they are your best friend or your brother or your sister. And then from there it reaches a point that they're sitting back and they're like, okay, How can I help you out? And honestly, the answer is very simple. Like, referrals are awesome. And if you can join in on this networking lunch that I'm having next month, just sit in and give your true honest opinion about everything. Don't fluff anything, hit them straight. I would really appreciate that. And they do because at a certain point they do see how hard you've worked for them. They do see that this guy is not a salesperson necessarily. Yes, he is, but he's my friend first. And so when you put in the work and it's authentic and the trust is truly there because the actions support it, then all of that just continues to percolate and grow together. And it is beautiful.

8:19 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You had one more thing that you shared, but before we go there, I want to really dig into like this truth. Element, because it's so funny. I literally had this conversation yesterday around like truth in sales is a superpower. Like what's ridiculous is, and I see this consistently amongst the top performers that have been on the show, it's like, look, I'm just going to tell my client the reality. And I think it is a massive differentiator because everybody else is just telling them what they want to hear. Right? Absolutely. Which is often not true.

8:54 Blair Hamer: Yeah.

8:55 Scott Ingram: So, talk about that, like the truth, the trust, like clearly, this is something that you believe in.

9:00 Blair Hamer: Oh, 100%. It allows you to, when you tell the truth, I think a level higher and a little deeper is just be authentic. And when you're authentic, you do things like tell the truth, you do things you care, you do all the things that you would want your best friend to do for you. And I think people are craving that because we are inundated with media and social and Instagram and just so much messaging. How do you filter through what is just noise and what is beautiful truth that you can trust and believe in? And I think that it's becoming a very rare commodity where people can say, look at that guy there. Like he will tell you in his own company what not to buy from his company and what is good and what is really gonna help you out. And I've done that, Scott. I have mentioned to clients that that I first regard as my friends. I mean, I wouldn't send a friend to a vacation spot that I knew was mosquito infested. You know, I would only send them to the best vacation spots, the nuggets where it's like, is this paradise on earth? What am I looking at here? And so then I will only send my friends to the best service line that I have within my company. And when I first started in sales 2 and a half years ago, There were some of my business units that were not as strong and I actually, and they're better now. We actually moved people around, got rid of some people, brought in other people, but I actually would tell some of my clients, I do not want to sell you this service that my company offers because I don't like it. It is not good. And then they simply say, thank you. And then we just do all the good stuff so that they are happy because If you send them somewhere and you say it's good or it's even okay, and then their experience is not that, trust is gone and your long-term relationship is gone. Now you're just another person who's desperate to make a sale.

11:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. So your last point that you had, so I think homework was our bonus that we got from you, but you also said create client journeys and see the big picture.

11:14 Blair Hamer: Yeah, yeah. So that takes a lot of homework in that first you need to understand the industry and where the industry is going. So whatever your industry is, you need to do your homework. You need to almost be a pioneer. You need to be on committees that are advancing the way that the industry is moving. And when you're at the cusp like that, you'll find clients also are on those committees. And so that's really a bonus. What I mean by a client journey is every interaction you have with anybody, if it's a friend, if it's a client, every interaction you have gives them a feeling like Maya Angelou. I forget the exact words, but it's like people remember how you made 'em feel, right? And so for every single interaction, people will remember, was I inspired? Was I not? Was I just, was it okay? Was I truly taken care of? Was I hoodwinked? You know, and just a whole bunch of different things. And my, in my just personal life experience, I'm gonna always wanna move towards where the beauty is, where the inspiration is, where I get excited and where I feel taken care of and where I can trust that what the people are telling me is true. And so yeah, the client journey is something that John Westman and I have developed together in the Client Champion Model. And it's really, you look at every single interaction that you bring to that client, every single deal that you create a win-win with, with that client, and you scope it out and you say, okay, like here's the economics, here's what we are charging, here's what the competitor charges. So my clients save this much in a month or this much per year or whatever it may be. And so you just make sure every single step of that client journey, the client truly feels taken care of. And if they aren't, you go back, you just kind of investigate, you reflect, you think on your own, you do that work, and then you approach the client and you say, here's what I think we could do better. What are your thoughts? And then you work together on that and Yeah, most clients are taken aback. Where I had one client where we had a deal locked in, it was worth about $100 grand a year. My business unit leader and I went back to this company and this individual and we said, look, it… like, we really want to grow with you. We like you as a person. You're enjoyable to work with. You're checking all the boxes. We're going to reduce what we're charging you by about 10% and just keep the same quality level of service. And the reason why we're doing this is we're thinking long term. We just want to grow with you. And he sat back, and again, in the industry that I'm in, the energy sector, he sat back and he said, this has never happened before where I was happy with what I was paying you guys, but you're doing the homework and you're just looking, you're truly trying to find a way to make me happy in all the levels. And from there, the contract just continued to grow.

14:16 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. When you do those kinds of things, I always think about it… well, I don't even talk about it with the clients… as we're investing in the relationship. Like, we believe in this. This for us is not about this deal this quarter, right? This is about lifetime value, right? And we want to grow this relationship and those kinds of things. So I think that makes it easy. Let's start to provide some context here, right? You gave kind of the first mention of you're in the energy sector. Before we get into kind of your role and what you're selling and those kinds of things, maybe we should talk about kind of the client champion pieces as well. And once again, I owe a thank you to John Westman. John introduced me to Leon Baumann, who others heard on the podcast, incredible episode, introduced me to you. I know you guys do a lot of work together. Why don't you talk just a little bit about John and his program? And I mean, the fact that you adopted his concept as your actual title is pretty awesome. So talk about this whole Client Champion thing.

15:11 Blair Hamer: Absolutely. So thanks for the opportunity to talk about it. It is one of the most exciting things in my life because it aligns with just who I am. It allows me to be myself and really be authentic and grow relationships based on solid just principles that we all know make sense. So a little bit, I'll just rewind a little bit before I was doing about 10 years, no, 9 years of just working in my company and doing different reports and interacting with clients and just kind of working that way. And then I felt like, okay, I can actually I used to be a teacher, so I can actually bring my skills from being a teacher and a principal into the energy industry by joining sales. So I asked my company, can I join sales? They said yes. And I feel very fortunate to all the support my company has given me. Now, when I joined sales, I was enrolled in a, I'm gonna call it a typical sales program. If I said the name, I'm sure people would be very familiar with it. And they had some decent ideas somewhere, But I felt that a lot of the concepts were manipulative, were smoke and mirrors, were tricky, were untrustworthy. I didn't like 'em. I felt gross hearing some of the concepts. So Scott, I immediately went out and I said, there's gotta be a more authentic way that will attract just a great career in sales. And so I started searching and John Westman came up from Harvard. He was offering a course, not at, and at the time it wasn't called The Client Champion. It was something like Authenticity in Sales. And so I enrolled for that course, took the course, met John in the course. I was saying things to John like, why do you call it that? Why do you call, like, why did you say the ABCs of Sales, always be closing? Why are you saying that? And he's like, what's wrong with that? People say it all the time. I'm like, well, okay. Do you like to be closed on? If you and I were hanging out and I closed the door on you, how would that feel? He's like, not very good. I'm like, okay, so like, why do we always say always be closing? And I'm sure, Scott, you've heard of this, like the minutest word choice can have a great effect on people. And so now John and I always say creating win-wins, thinking long-term. So we never ever talk about closing a deal. It's always, we created a win-win along the client journey. It's beautiful. It really focuses your efforts on what you're truly trying to achieve for the client. And when you serve the client, you end up helping yourself because it just, it happens. So then from there, John was teaching another concept called the Persuasion Equation, and it was a great concept, a lot of good things in there. And he's been teaching it for about 15 years. And I pulled him aside after, I said, I don't like that one. I don't like how it's called the Persuasion Equation. He goes, what's wrong with that? I'm like, well, do you like to be persuaded? And he is like, no. And so I said, okay, let's change it and let's change it to be the Inspiration Equation. And so where everyone's inspired, the salesperson, or now the client champion, the client, and everyone's inspired to do it. And let's set it up so that it makes sense. It's transparent, it's authentic. There's no smoke and mirrors. It's just what's there and you build it with the client. So you sit down, you're shoulder to shoulder, you're not across the table, you're not forcing anything. You've done your homework. You bring concepts to the client where you're like, I think that this could really help you out and here's the reasons, but I need your permission to have an hour, 30 minutes with you just to walk through this to see if these numbers are right, if the concept is right or where it needs to be tweaked to make it a true awesome win for you. And so John and I worked on that and made it the Inspiration Equation away from the Persuasion Equation. Then we got into other conversations around trust, and there's a Trust Equation out there which is beautiful, really. If you're reliable, if you're intelligent and authentic, that's on the numerator side, and on the denominator is selfishness. So any level of selfishness will kill trust, will kill deals, will kill anything that the salesperson is really trying to do. And people's radar for when salespeople are selfish is so honed in. Like, just don't, just truly don't. Just be in line with what the client wants. They'll sense that and then they'll believe in you and you'll grow together. So John Westman and I met a couple years ago. Yeah, as I mentioned, he is a huge inspiration in my life now. We call each other once a week, we call each other on weekends, we share success stories personally and professionally. It's beautiful. And so together we did create the Client Champion Model. John is absolutely the guy who is pushing it much harder than I am, and I'm very fortunate to work with John on that. And yeah, it's beautiful. We did start a cohort where it was in-person in Calgary, there were about 20 people signed up. And then John and myself, we had about another 20 signed in to attend a monthly session to get the training and authentication to become a Client Champion. And so I think to this date, we have about anywhere from 10 to 15 Client Champions, and where they learn the concepts and they put their own flavor on it because everyone has their own characteristics and personality, which is great. Yeah, so Client Champion, it is, it is an authentic way to do sales, and I love it. My clients love it too.

21:07 Scott Ingram: I'm going to interrupt myself here real quick to talk about Vidyard, because if you believe in this approach the way I do, you're trying to build trust with your clients and you want to inspire them in an authentic way. There's nothing more authentic than you and your voice on video. So rather than sending a plain email where it's really difficult to convey all of those things. Use Vidyard to help you quickly create videos of yourself or a screen share that are way more impactful. The best part is it's free and you'll get notified when your videos get watched. Download their free plugin today at top1.fm/v for Vidyard. And now back to my conversation with Blair. I love that this is emerging, right? So when I'm not quite sure how John and I initially connected, but you know, when he kind of shared what he was doing, I was like, this is a really, really strong encapsulation of so many of the things that I have seen as kind of the true commonalities across the top performers that I've interviewed here. What's also interesting is it seems to be like there's a groundswell of this, right? So John's been doing this work with the Client Champion. There's a couple of professors out of USC that are also talking about authentic selling. And it's really all about, it's selling your way, it's being you. And what you just said at the end there, I think is so important of like, well, you have to kind of make it your own, right? Like this has to be, it's not authentic if it's not you. You can't like, we're not going to rubber stamp you as a certified client champion. Like it has to get incorporated into your DNA and this has to be kind of combined. Right. So such great stuff. Big fan of the work. And actually I'm really looking forward to just learning more about some of these concepts and some of these stories. So Leon Baumann, who I mentioned earlier, top performer at Dell, is going to be presenting at this year's Sales Success Summit around this whole client champion concept. And what's funny, we recently did a webinar series where Jamal Reimer was presenting, and Jamal is like the whale hunter, right? Like, this is what he is known for. And he starts this thing, and we, you know, just to get some audience interaction and participation, he's asking, hey, you know, what's the biggest deal that everybody's done? And Jamal's done… did multiple $50 million plus deals for Oracle. And Leon was in the chat watching because, you know, know, a student of sales, of course. And he pipes in, he's like, oh yeah, my biggest deal was like $65 million. Jamal's like, geez, that's bigger than what I've ever done. This is amazing. So really looking forward to that program. Let's… you gave us a little bit of context around your transition to sales, which I think is super fascinating, right? That you sort of saw this is a way that I can make more impact, right? From where you were, talk a little bit about what is your role What are you selling? Put some of the results in perspective, like give us that whole view.

23:59 Blair Hamer: Yeah, I'll get to that. I do want to circle back to the Client Champion and just how the entire concept has made me a better person, has made me reflect on authenticity. And so for you to be a true Client Champion the way that it is, you need to first do the work on yourself. And then once you've done that, then you can start to apply the concepts. In a free flow kind of way because it's just who you are. It's not any sort of strategy or manipulation. It's just honestly be a good person based on concepts that are in old school books like The Road Less Traveled, 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. You name a book that has good values and it's ingrained in the Client Champion way of doing things. It's pretty great.

24:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

24:44 Blair Hamer: So my background, I did, I went to university, became a teacher. I taught, I was an athletic director, and then I wanted to get more intellectually challenged in the education space. And so then I became a principal for 4 years, and then I wanted to continue growing. And I felt in the education space that you're always gonna grow, but at a certain point, if you reach kind of 90% of understanding of a job, that last 10% is really just refinement. So I had a very fortunate experience where somebody approached me, and they were with the company that I'm with now, and I was their friend. And they said, why don't you come work in this company in the oil and gas energy sector? And I said, you know, I don't know anything about oil and gas. I don't know why you're asking me to do this. And he said, I'll teach you. You just… I'll just teach you and you'll figure it out. And so I did. I took the jump. It was a risk, but I took the jump and continued to grow. And I think that that's a huge thing that is very inspiring for me is there's so many ways to grow. So I continued to grow in that risk and it opened so many doors for me. And from there, I was in that role for about 8 years working in that guy's department. And then to the point around year 6, 7, I was managing the department and then I did that for a bit and I said, you know what, I think I really know that I could do more for the company, for myself, just to be better aligned with who I am if I got into a sales BD role. And so I just, yeah, brought that forward and the company said, yeah, let's go for it. So it's turned pretty well. What was the next part of your question though, Scott?

26:35 Scott Ingram: What was that impact for the company? Because you have made an impact. Yes.

26:39 Blair Hamer: Yeah. So the company, the annual quota that is put on the salespeople in the company is $2 million. We really started tracking that data about 7 quarters ago, but I've been doing sales for 2 and a half years. So in the 7 quarters that we've been really tracking it, my numbers are 3.5 times my quota as to what is expected. It is a bit of a point of pride that they're have been 7 other salespeople join the team, but none of them were able to achieve that quota even once. And so that kind of feels good because sometimes if I think about the results that my team has helped me with, my internal team in my company has helped me with, I do wonder if the quota is set to a right level. And I do believe that it is. But if I didn't have the other 7 salespeople unable to achieve it, then I would be wondering if it was maybe too low. Yeah, so, you know, you kind of have to gauge that and try to do apples to apples. So, but the honestly, like, my success is based on a lot of other people, like the subject matter experts that I lean on within my company. Couldn't have done it without them. And there's, there's about 5 really key ones. And then also tons of guys that are just out turning the wrenches, doing the hard work, you know. And because they do a good job, then my clients are happy, and then we can do more work. And so it's It really does take a whole team and if the team is broken, then you need to fix it. And so things slow down. You need to slow down to make sure that what you are delivering is a strong product.

28:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

28:19 Blair Hamer: Yeah.

28:20 Scott Ingram: That is quite the varied adventure. One of the things, what's fascinating to me, and I've not done a deep study around this, but anecdotally, there was a group of people that connected at the summit last year that recognized, and many of them of this group had been on the podcast, they realized they all came from teaching and education backgrounds. Like, super interesting. So with that, hopefully I'm not leading the witness here too much, but I wonder if you could start over right now knowing all that you know, like, would you do anything differently? Like, would you start in sales? How would you approach things?

28:56 Blair Hamer: Yeah, I would have gone to university for business. And just really get a good understanding of business because I do have a lot of deals in front of me that do get into just really, really in-depth business arrangements. And so I think that that would've been healthy. In terms of the teaching perspective, I love teaching. I love helping the students. I love networking and helping… not networking, it's not called networking and teaching, just working together with the other teachers and just really the focus. What is really neat is the focus is on the students. And so you give, give, give, and you're taught in university to give up your weekends, give up your evenings, and you don't start class until your lesson plans are tight and you know that it's gonna be a great day for those students. Not for you.

29:45 Scott Ingram: No, not for you. Not about you.

29:47 Blair Hamer: It's, no, it's for the students. It's for the kids. And, and so I do think that the Client Champion model is around that. And also in teaching, you gotta reach 'em to teach 'em. If you don't have a relationship, they aren't gonna listen to you. They're not going to learn and grow. They aren't going to want to be around you. So I think a lot of that does transfer over into your relationships with your clients. And so that did play in. So I certainly learned a lot of transferable skills into sales from the teaching. If I could go back… that was a tough question when we were prepping for this podcast. That was a tough one because I did have my initial answer as no, I would have done it the same. But then I did change it and I said, no, I would've gone into business. And second part B answer was, I do wish I spent more time in the field in the oil and gas energy sector just so that you can truly talk about almost anything. And so when you have that hands-on experience, it's better than the theoretical only experience. When you have the practical and the theory putting it together, then yeah, you become more of a master of what you're really talking about and you can talk to anybody in the industry. I've actually thought about taking some… you had another question, Scott, about like what's something people would think is kind of crazy about how you operate or something like that. And I've actually thought about taking some of my holidays and just putting on my steel-toed boots and coveralls and going to the field and just doing the work and just to learn. And so that then I could relate better to my clients and that kind of stuff.

31:24 Scott Ingram: Wow. Yeah, it's a really interesting observation because similarly, I mean, I've seen people from teaching backgrounds, but another just amazing way is to have come through that role, right? If like your ability to connect with the person that you're selling to, if you have had their job and all of the same responsibilities and all the same pressures and all the same challenges and everything that goes with it, there's just… you're going to be able to connect in a way that is impossible for somebody who hasn't sat in their chair.

31:50 Blair Hamer: 100%. Yep. Yeah, it's kind of like… so as a Canadian and a hockey player, you know, it would be like a hockey coach that never played hockey a little bit. Yeah, right.

32:01 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. Hockey coach that can't ice skate.

32:06 Blair Hamer: Yeah, and it's funny that Americans call it ice skating. We just say skating.

32:10 Scott Ingram: But anyways, well, because here it's not quite as cold, and heck, I'm in Texas, it's really freaking hot right now. There's no ice anywhere. So our skating often happens on wheels.

32:20 Blair Hamer: True.

32:21 Scott Ingram: So you have to specify. Gotta specify.

32:22 Blair Hamer: Yes. Yes. Thanks.

32:24 Scott Ingram: So Blair, you, I can tell you are a story machine. And we'll maybe have to come back to the cake story because that's a pretty good one. But what's your favorite sales story? Whether this is like you won, you fell on your face, maybe there was a great lesson from it. Like what's that favorite story?

32:41 Blair Hamer: That was a great question. I took a lot of time to prep for it too there, Scott. And What was really interesting is when John Westman and I were first meeting and the ideas were synergizing, we were talking about how to do the client champion thing, what it looked like, what it meant. We were putting a lot of work into it. And so it was at that same time that the largest energy company in Western Canada called my phone number, and it was our marketing team that brought that in. So the guy introduced himself and said, yep, I'm so-and-so from this very large company, the largest. And I said, okay, yeah, I'm Blair Hamer. I'm from Intricate. How are you doing? And he was very professional and no intonations in his voice and just, I am good. I would like to talk to you about these things. And I said, okay, that's great. I can talk to you about those things. And I think that you're really gonna like it. But first, you and I are gonna spend 10 minutes just getting to know each other, cuz I like to do business with people that I like and people that I have rapport with and trust with. Do you have 10 minutes just to get to know each other, Scott? There was a long silence, like a super long… this guy was used to dealing with lawyers and just contracts and just all of that. And I'm from a very small town up in Northern Canada. Where, yeah, you do get to know your neighbors, right? You look people in the eye and you know that you're dealing with somebody authentically and you're both doing the best you can. And so there's super long silence from this guy, and eventually he said, well, that is not the way that we do business at all, or maybe ever, but okay, let's give it a shot. So we talked for 10 minutes, we laughed, Shared stories about our families, favorite camping spots, favorite things to do, all that kind of stuff. And then after 10 minutes, I think it was like 7 minutes, he said, okay, can we, can we… that's enough. The business.

34:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

34:49 Blair Hamer: I said, all right, all right, we can talk about business now. So then at that point though, I just, I took notes. I said, why are you calling me? Like, and it was just authentic. I just, you just have a conversation with somebody like you're at a barbecue. Just talk to people and you just listen. That doesn't happen. People just listen and watch their body language and they're telling you so much all the time. And so then I did, I listened and I was writing furiously notes down and everything else. And his points were the service that the company we are currently using is horrible. They don't reply to my phone calls or emails unless they want something from me. They're charging us a huge amount of money and I think that we're getting screwed over, but I don't really know because our contracts are vague and obscure and riddled with so many points that are things that I don't understand. This was a very intelligent individual, quite high up in this company, and it was one of the leading topics that this company was going after. Again, the largest oil and gas company in Western Canada at the time. And so then I just listened. I just took notes down. I said, okay, at the end, thank you so much. It was awesome getting to know you. Do this stuff for your kids. Go here, go to Callaway Park or whatever I said, and just have a blast. And we laughed and I said, I'll get back to you. So then I took that immediately to my subject matter expert. I said, here's what we are scoping. We need to make this fantastic for this guy. Let's put ourselves in his shoes and just make the biggest win in all regards for this person. So then I went back to the individual at the company And we did that. And it was conversation after conversation, just authentic. And then I was doing the homework all over the place so that he didn't have to. I would listen to like maybe 4 words that he would say that I could tell were key. I would then go and do like 2 hours of homework based on just a little thing that he said. And then when we were negotiating the deal, I was advocating for him. And he'll tell you this to this day. He will say that, Blair, you were asking all the questions I was just about what to ask, and you were grilling your own team. You were putting them through the grind as to try to get like the best deal for us. He's like, I have never seen that. And I was like, well, yeah, I told you I'm your client champion. I'm advocating for you, right? And he's like, it was awesome. And so we ended up creating a win-win deal that is long-term and growing to this day. It is just beautiful. From there, so that was one department in this really large company. Me. Then because he was so happy, he referred me to another department. We are currently scoping out the largest win-win deal with that department. It is being built right now for that other department. Then a government program to help the environmental emissions, methane emissions going to net zero, all the popular environmental talks going on right now. It came out for Alberta companies to really get in front of this to help kickstart a certain initiative on that front. And so this large company didn't hear about it. So I went back to the first guy that we're pretty tight at this point. We're now about a year in. And I said, look, there is free government money right here. You take it. I don't even want any credit. You just take this in your own company. You go make it happen. If you use us, great. If you don't use us, you know, I'd like to know why, but you do what you gotta do to make yourself look great within your own company because it was worth, it was worth a very large check to this company. It was a government grant, so it was just right there. He called me back, pretty much said, here, Blair, you're getting all the credit 'cause I really want you to look great. I wanna help you out. You've helped me out so much. I want you to get credit. I want you to have another deal. Here's the person you have to talk to in the company. So now we now have his department, another department, and a third department, and that government grant has now grown into a project about 10 times the size of that government grant. And so those 3 departments are there, and now we're talking to other people and VPs. I went to the Calgary Stampede with somebody very high up in the largest I think they're now the 2nd largest oil and gas company in Western Canada because of acquisitions and things. And so anyways, it's just the relationship is high, trust is high. And it was really interesting, Scott, because one time… and this is now going to answer another one of your questions… one time I was like, okay, I need to go and just help out other clients. This company is in a really good spot. So the owner of my company was like, Can I work with them? And the owner of my company is exceptional at interpersonal skills. He's a very smart individual. I really respect him. But for whatever reason, he went into this company that we have grown together and really flourished together. He started to mess it up. He started to like ask the wrong questions and do the wrong things. And I went to the owner, I was like, like my owner, and I was, I said, what are you doing? And he goes, I'm doing these things. I said, okay, like With all respect, I have to ask you to not ever touch this client again because they are not happy. And so then I said, you can't. I have to go back in and fix things and everything else. But owner of my company, you're a great guy. I know you're good with this. Can we just knock this one up as like, okay, we all make mistakes and move on? And he was like, yep. And so then I went back in and things are good. And well, it's not just me, it's a massive team within my company making it really great. That is one of my favorite stories. But the best part was I was out for lunch with this first individual who didn't want to give me 10 minutes to get to know each other. We were out for lunch about 3 months ago and he said, you know what, Blair, if I had to choose everything falling apart with your company or you being my friend, if I had to choose one of those 2 things, I would choose you as my friend. And instead of all the great stuff that we're doing As a company, I felt the same, Scott.

41:16 Scott Ingram: That's so cool. That's so cool. Yeah. I want to poke at one other piece of context just because it was fascinating to me because just to give everybody that's listening some context, as we did just our little kind of chat, like, are you ready? Any questions about the questions? You know, this, that, or the other thing. I got the Blair treatment. He's like, no, we can't start. We have to talk about you. So yeah, the thing that stuck out to me when you talk about you are from a small town. In Northern Canada, you sort of exploded my head in terms of what Northern Canada means. Can you talk about where you're from and like kind of how far north of Calgary? Because to me, Calgary is quite far north. Like, yeah, just contextualize. I want to know more.

41:59 Blair Hamer: Sure. So the town is Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Beautiful spot in many ways. And I was just up there 3 weeks ago. I was telling you, Scott, that to drive from Calgary to Yellowknife Just highway time is 18 hours. And so when you stop and visit friends along the way, it's a 2-day trip. Yeah, it's about 10 hours first day, 12 hours the second day of just stopping along the way. I thought I was gonna run out of gas because where I stopped to get gas, where there's a very small town and one little gas station, it ran out of power and the gas pumps didn't work, the Visa machine didn't work, the slushie machine wasn't working, nothing was working. So So anyways, we ended up getting power in about 10 minutes and I was able to carry on my journey. So Yellowknife is called… well, I'll put it this way, they have a golf tournament that starts at midnight. And it starts at midnight because it's above the Arctic Circle and it is daylight there. Well, the summer solstice is June 21st. It's daylight there all night long, especially around June 21st. So it's a beautiful place in the summer. Don't expect much sleep, but expect to go on the lakes and everything else. And there's First Nations people that are the majority of people. It's their land, and we're very fortunate that we're up there and just kind of experiencing the beauty of their land with them. And yeah, so that's where I'm from. But really, Scott, if you have a bad reputation in a small town, no matter if that town is in Texas or California, you name it, Alberta, If you have a bad reputation in that town, it's gonna stay with you. And so you know that if you promise somebody something, you deliver. And if you don't, then it doesn't feel good inside. And so you just deliver and you always make sure it's better than what you promised. It's basic, you know, things about being a human that you always want to be treated by.

44:01 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Blair, you've done a lot, accomplished a lot. What are you most proud of?

44:06 Blair Hamer: My relationships with people that are really pure. Yeah. And 2, there's so much noise, there's so much confusion for, I'd say, everyone as to what you should do with your life. And but I think everybody really just wants to be seen and really wants to be loved. And really wants to be nurtured to be free to be their best selves. I hope our world keeps moving in that direction.

44:41 Scott Ingram: It's interesting. I have, I'm rather deep down the AI rabbit hole at the moment and have been thinking a lot about what is this going to mean, you know, because it is progressing so fast. You know, I mean, the capabilities are growing exponentially And when you look at the billions and billions and billions of dollars being poured into and invested in these types of capabilities, I just come back to over and over again that the thing that is going to be left for us, because honestly, like AI is going to do most things that I do better than me. So, okay, I'll let it, but it won't ever do relationships.

45:19 Blair Hamer: Yeah.

45:19 Scott Ingram: And that is going to be and is the differentiator. And I really think we have to be so mindful of that. In everything, I mean there's so many dynamics, right? We've talked a lot about the client relationship. You've talked a little bit about the peer relationship, right? Like the relationships that you have with the people in your company who allow you to do what you do, right? Who deliver on the promises, right? And I think also we need to think more about the community relationships, right? I mean this is really what I'm trying to do in the sales piece with the sales success community. Because we need each other, right? We need each other to open doors and create opportunities and to mentor each other and be able to learn from each other. And some of those things we were talking about before, right, with your clients, right? I mean, it's why I host the summit. It's so that we can be together and learn from each other and have a freaking great time, right? So I love it. I love it.

46:17 Blair Hamer: And other questions that you, you asked are, what are some things you do? What's in your daily routine or weekly routine? So So I mentioned Road Less Traveled, 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. So I've… those are kind of 2 guiding books for me. And in that, I have my own mission, vision, values, roles, and goals lined up. And John Westman, I've shared them with him, and what a great mentor he is and friend. But then I also have a weekly reflection. So, and I've taken my goals and who I want to be And I've broken them out into 10 different compartments, and then those have been sub-compartmentalized. And I give each compartment a score out of 10, and then I add them up for the week, and I get a weekly score as to how aligned, integrated I am towards my mission, vision, values, and my true purpose. And so many… like, of those 10 sub-compartments, one is related to my And others are related to personal health or absolutely relationships. I really think that if you focus on relationships, everything can come into alignment. And I'm in a very lucky position, Scott, in that I do have a great team in my company. They are very reliable. They're very intelligent. They are the reason why together we are successful. Like the numbers that I've been able to put together are because of the team. So with that as well though, it really does allow me to focus and realize, okay, I don't need to meet a quota. I've already met the quota, and for future quarters, I'm well positioned to meet the quota again. So there's no stress, and I'm very fortunate for that. And so because there is no stress, I then can go into every interaction with a potential client that I am just meeting or a current client that I'm working with And just truly take care of them because there's no need to do anything different. There's no… I'm not starving to meet a quota. And when you have a good team in place that you care about and they care about you, then I do believe that that will happen.

48:28 Scott Ingram: There's something really important about that dynamic. And, you know, every now and then I try and think about like, gosh, is there a way to hack this? And it's this idea that the way we often act and sell is different when we're not at our number yet and we have more to do versus when we're above it. And there's just something about that dynamic that changes. And I'd love to get your perspective on that. We also had a pretty interesting conversation about kind of the financial component as well and how that kind of evolved. So I'm gonna just kind of set you loose from there.

49:01 Blair Hamer: Well, thanks for setting me loose. As a teacher, I feel bad for when I'm set loose on 25 students and they have to sit there for 60 minutes. So hopefully, Hopefully what I'm adding is good, but I read a book, it was called Power Versus Force, and it really put life into perspective for me. And there's fear. It talks about fear, it talks about shame, it talks about guilt. And if you're operating on those levels, you're actually detracting from your life as reaching your full potential and those around you. So if you're in a fear-based Scott as to like, oh gosh, I might not meet my quota this quarter. And people will sense that. It'll be your word choice, it'll be your mannerisms, it'll be just your energy that you put out there. It's going to be sensed that you're afraid of something. And when people are putting out that fear vibe, other people, humans will… AI might not, I bet you AI will, but humans will not be able to get away from that. They'll sense your fear and then intuitively they'll ask, why is this person afraid? And then it has the effect of pushing the people that you're wanting to attract away from you. So if you can do the homework again of just removing fear, removing shame, removing guilt, and just look at what causes that in your life and move towards more of doing the work of who you want to be, how you want to conduct yourself, What are your values? And then for me, that is some of my values, and it was written in the book, are if you move towards joy, if you move towards being loving, if you move towards really just those 2 things are what I took away. There's others. Then people will sense that too, and then it will come back and the energy continues to grow. And so when I wasn't meeting my quota, I certainly had some fear, but I had to reflect on that and think, and it is when you're really tested too, because then you do want to go and you want to say, oh yeah, I can do this or I can do that. And you can, like, it never happened to me, but I'm sure people do go to more manipulative tactics. Whereas what I was fortunate enough to be able to do was I had some good relationships in some clients at that time. And I just went to them. I said, "Hey, can we move this project up? You know, six weeks or something like that." And they said, "Why? What's going on?" And because we've had that transparent, authentic friendship going on, I just told them. I'm like, "I'm hoping to bring more to my company." And Scott, I've never missed my quota, so I can't use the words "I'm hoping to reach my quota." But there were a few moments where I was like. I'm a little concerned. So instead, I do have some times in, in my company where there might be 20 people in a particular department, and these are great individuals, men, women that have families, and they're just trying to do good, honest work. And so then if I say I get a call from a larger client and they're like, oh, can we postpone this project for 3 months? You're not gonna tell them no. So you say, yeah, we can do that. And then that's when you have to call your other clients and say, can we move these ones up? And then if you have that relationship, then they do say, I'll do what I can. And often they are able to move projects around for you too. So really, I am gonna take your question to a place of move more towards joy and love. And if you catch yourself acting in a place of fear, shame, or guilt, Just reflect on that. Don't like push it down and hide that, but like reflect on it, figure out what's going on, tap into your resources if that's yourself, if that's different strategies you have around meditation or journaling or exercise, that kind of stuff. And yeah, use those or other resources like people in your team or whoever it might be.

53:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah, you know, since we're already pretty close to this, I'm curious about… let's just lean into the hard stuff, right? So we've got fear, shame, and guilt. What do you find to be just the most challenging, right, in your day-to-day? What challenges you?

53:24 Blair Hamer: Ego. Like, when other people are bringing ego to the table and then they're playing little games, and I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, why? Why does it need to be? You're making it harder. Like, if you would just, like, share this and just bring down your walls and just share, then that's everything would go so much smoother. I've seen it with so many other relationships with clients or relationships in my own company. Sometimes egos do grow, get bigger, and everyone has bad days. I got bad days, everyone has bad days. And so when those negative challenging energies come at me, that's the hardest. When it's like, honestly, Scott, so I played hockey. Honestly, there's times you wanna drop your mitts and punch someone right in the face and But you can't, you know, you'll get fired or you'll lose the client or something.

54:20 Scott Ingram: It's worse than a penalty box.

54:21 Blair Hamer: Yeah, it's the weirdest thing. Like in a hockey game, you can punch a guy and you, you only spend 5 minutes in a penalty box, but in life that might be 5 years, you know, I don't know what it is. But so yeah, you have to dig deeper in those moments when you are taking in other people's kind of negative energy, or maybe you put it out there and then they're just giving it back to you. And so you need to do the reflection and the growth on that So how are you breaking through that, right?

54:46 Scott Ingram: Like without punching them in the face, how do you overcome the ego?

54:50 Blair Hamer: Oh, I've had situations in the last four years. About four years ago, it was really, really tough where got divorced and my daughters didn't spend that much time with me. And so you ask the questions. You ask some really tough questions about what am I doing here? Who cares? Like when you've been taken and you've lost. The things that you've spent 18 years growing, like your daughters, and just really doing your best in your heart and trying everything you can to make that amazing, and then that happens… honestly, there's nothing else that can happen that can be worse. And sure there is, there's lots that happens, lots. But for me, at that point, that was a really hard time. That's a better way to say it. And so then from there you kind of realize that this moment about this deal or this person, it's gonna pass and just let it pass. And so take some deep breaths, think long-term, just kind of, yeah, use your emotional intelligence and yeah, give people forgiveness and love and yourself too. And then it gets better.

56:01 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Now you were trying to ask yourself my questions and you gave it a good shot. I think you did pretty well. I like to go a little bit deeper though. So you gave us like this super high level on your routines. Here's how I like to do it. I like to know what time does your alarm clock go off in the morning? And I want kind of a detailed blow-by-blow kind of how's the day structured? How do you set things up until your head hits the pillow again? All right.

56:28 Blair Hamer: So Atomic Habits was a great book that guided a lot for me. So I'm up at 5:30. My alarm's up at 5:30. From there, I eat oatmeal and berries most mornings. Sometimes it's toast.

56:39 Scott Ingram: What kind of berries?

56:40 Blair Hamer: I buy the frozen berries because buying the real berries are like, I don't know, 3, 4 times more expensive. So I just buy the frozen ones and put them in there. It's probably not the healthier way to go, but it's just what I do. From there, I work out. So in my condo here, I've got a bench and dumbbells right here. Also in my building, there's a gym for cardio machines and other machines, so I work out. I'd say 5 or 6 times a week I do that, and that's Saturday or Sunday too, depending what's going on. Then I sit down and I plan my priorities for the day. So there's the urgent, the non-urgent, the important, non-important, the 4 quadrants. And so then I try to only do the things that are important and non-urgent and are important to me. Otherwise your day gets lost on other people's initiatives and what they want you to do. So that's what I do. I prioritize it, and then I just… once I have that, that removes a lot of stress because now you've done reflection, and then you just start doing your best to go through your tasks. And so that might mean going for a meeting at a client's office, or it might mean going for a lunch, or it might mean replying to emails, or internally working on quotes for projects, or could just be a lot of those kind of things. And I do that until, depending on the day, most days it would probably average 5:30. So I'd start around 8, 8:30, go till 5:30. And then in the evenings, if there was things I needed to get ready… this is the teacher part again… so if you're not ready for class the next day, you best be ready the night before so that you have a great class the next day. So I really make sure that I am ready for my workday the next day, or if there's a big project coming up, I put time in that well ahead of time so that you're not scrambling at the end. From there, I like to mountain bike and, uh, like to do different cardio things. I like to go to different events around Calgary. It's a great city for different cultural events. And whenever I can, however possible I can, I get into the mountains. Banff is Really, it's an hour away. So it's, yeah, there's so much beauty around here. I try to get into nature a lot. And then I'm in bed at most, I mean, this is most days, I'm in bed around 9. Just have a really enriching conversation with a friend normally, and then just kind of share things about life. And then, yeah, sleeping by 10 most times. And it's all my thing. I meditate in there sometimes. I want to do it more. I journal sometimes. I want to do it more. And yeah, that's kind of my day.

59:23 Scott Ingram: Nice. Nice. What about your information diet? What are you listening to? What are you reading? What are you watching? When does that happen?

59:29 Blair Hamer: Actually, yeah, I keep that one really simple. Client Champion content, John and I are working on. He's written a theory for the book and it's great. And so now kind of like you said in the preamble there, Scott, that there needs to be the practical side of the books that are out there on how to do sales. And so John has asked me for practical stories to include in the book to support the theories. And so that's kind of what I'm working on pretty much. I've read the book, I think, 4 times through now, provided different ideas to John. He's fantastic. And then from there, I'm now rereading the book and providing stories to help those theories along that are just true life stories.

1:00:11 Scott Ingram: Very cool. Very cool. What about kind of the tools and apps?

1:00:14 Blair Hamer: What are the things that kind of support you throughout Yeah, so very simple again. My company has a CRM tool. It's a pretty popular one. That's one of them. And then Google Sheets allow different people to access it and work together on it. So keep it simple that way. That's really, really that. Yeah.

1:00:33 Scott Ingram: Beautiful, beautiful. I'm gonna skip over… usually I don't disclose my questions, but I think we're pretty clear on what your sales philosophy is.

1:00:41 Blair Hamer: Yeah, what is it, Scott?

1:00:42 Scott Ingram: I don't know. I'll have to go back and listen. Maybe I can pick up on it again when I relisten. But let's touch on kind of the motivation piece. Like, what motivates you? How do you think about motivation? Like, what is that for you?

1:00:54 Blair Hamer: Yeah, it's an internal feeling, I would say. You know, we all have it. We all know when we're feeling good and groovy and ready to go and powerful and beautiful and ready to… I call it sprinkle sprinkle to other people. You just kind of do what you can to make other people's days better. So how do I get there though? Yeah, you have to do the work. You have to, you know, plan. You have to do the… you have to work out when you don't want to. The hard things, you just, you know what's healthy. I've started to realize there's something out there called a choice high. So really it's little things throughout the day. And you know, if you put on your workout gear and you go work out, well, that's a choice high. Even just tying your shoe knowing you're going to work out, it feels good because you know you're doing the right thing. Or if there's a piece of litter on the sidewalk, most people walk by that, but you know it feels good. I'm not saying I do this every time, I, I don't, but I know it feels good when I just do the right thing. And so we all have that. We all know the things that we can do that are the right choices. And so you get the high off that. It's like a runner's high, but just make the right choices and get the motivation and the inspiration from Um, the choice high. Yeah, so in detail, that often is included in how I work with my clients, how I associate with my people that I love, my family, my friends. You know, life integration and balance has become really huge. Getting into nature, truly just kind of… there's a source there that is really beautiful and powerful. Get into that, and then you do come back refreshed and ready to So yeah, if you feel yourself so inundated, then do that. Yeah, I got a story for you if you want.

1:02:41 Scott Ingram: Bring it.

1:02:42 Blair Hamer: Okay, so when I was driving to Yellowknife 3 weeks ago, there's a town called Peace River, and a buddy of mine there, he's one of the 5 main people that I work with in my company. Great guy, his name's Jeremy, and Jeremy owns a boat, lives in Peace River, and we have another client who lives in Peace River. And so I asked Jeremy, hey, why don't we take this client out on your boat on the Peace River and yeah, just have a day, just go out and just enjoy each other and just cook up some steaks and everything else from the Peace River and do that. And so Jeremy was totally on board. The client was like, yes, I've been working way too hard, let's go. That was fantastic. And honestly, Scott, we just went out, we enjoyed nature, we laughed, we just grilled steaks, and then it was the client who again brought up, okay, here's what I need some help with. Can you do that? Can you do this? How would you do that? And then he brought up the conversations and we talked for, it was about an 8-hour day on the river. We talked for about 30 minutes about business, but I truly just wanted to connect with this client and get to know him as a person. And then from there he did bring up the opportunities and now we're looking at doing It's about three pretty large deals with this company, but I only want to do them truly if it's gonna help him in his job and everything else. And by taking that approach, it is true. I've had to do a lot of work around that. It sounds like bullshit, but it is true in that you have to be there for the client first. Put yourself totally to the side. If you're truly there for the client, they sense it and it grows.

1:04:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Love it. Love it. So why don't we continue story time? Because I don't, I don't want to miss the cake story. Tell the cake story.

1:04:36 Blair Hamer: Okay. So the largest deal that I've done was, it was really cool. My company put 28 companies into one deal and I didn't know any better, Scott. So what was happening was another government grant was coming out to improve the environmental initiatives in the oil and gas industry for Alberta. And so what happened was this grant though was so complex and challenging that a company would look at it, know about it, but it would take so much paperwork to get it across the line that they're like, no, forget it, we don't want to be bothered for the smaller win and all the paperwork. So I figured that out and I started just approaching companies and I said we could get this grant for you. We'll do all the paperwork, we'll do all the work and everything. We just need enough companies to be in on this to make it worth our time. And so by networking and collaborating with clients and everything else, we were able to get 28 companies into this. And I don't know, I'm sure that's happened before. There was another project like this that had, I think, 7 companies… might have been 6, might have been 8, but something like that involved. So The story about the cake though comes in, and many months later, all these 28 companies are coming down. It's a very large project. Pretty much we were just working out the last details of the contract. And as you know, Scott, I like to get to know people. And so I started the meeting by saying, hey, rhubarb is out. Like, there's so much rhubarb growing around here that it's crazy. And then an older guy that was the decision maker on this entire project that would approve the money from the government for this. He piped up and he said, oh man, I haven't thought about this for years, but I love a rhubarb cinnamon cake. I said, I love… that's one of my favorite cakes as a kid. I totally forgot about that. And I said, I'm gonna make you one. And he goes, well, do you know how to bake? And I said, not really, but I'll figure it out. He goes, no, No, forget it. I only want like a grandma's rhubarb cinnamon cake made from scratch, a tried and true recipe. So I was like, all right, sit tight. So there was like 4 other people in this meeting. I called my mom in this meeting. I picked up my cell phone, called my mom. I said, mom, you're totally getting blindsided here and no pressure, but there's 28 companies that are really relying on your answer and a lot of millions of dollars are on the line here. So please don't screw it up. And so I told her that this guy really wanted a cinnamon rhubarb cake. And now everyone in the meeting's just laughing, right? They're like, are you kidding me? Like, who calls their mom to do this? And so mom was like, is this for real, Blair? And I was like, yeah, it's… this is on, mom. So she said, yeah, I'll make you a cinnamon rhubarb cake. Then when do you need it by? And I said, well, next weekend, because I'm driving north to Edmonton and one of these guys live in Edmonton. And at this point, Scott, Everybody in the meeting now wanted a cake. And so now my mom wasn't just making one cinnamon rhubarb cake, she ended up making 3. I delivered them all and we ended up… the contract was won and it was enjoyable. Cinnamon rhubarb cake, get your mom in there because honestly, when… you know what, this is… I've never thought of this before, Scott, but when you bring a friend over when you're younger, the friend is always polite in front of the mom, right? Like, yes please, no thanks. And I And so then, you know, I'm gonna start bringing mom into more of my meetings and be like, hey, okay, got client, client. Hey Sean, you know what? Like Josh, I need you to be on your best behavior because my mom's in this meeting.

1:08:27 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I don't know where to go from there, man. It's a new technique. Like this is like authenticity square. Yeah. Right. You're like, well, this is where I came from.

1:08:36 Blair Hamer: Yep.

1:08:38 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:08:39 Blair Hamer: You know where I think I would take that is enjoy what you're doing.

1:08:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:08:45 Blair Hamer: Just laugh, enjoy what you're doing. And then there is tons of work, but just do that work on your own time and enjoy the people you're interacting with.

1:08:56 Scott Ingram: At the end of the day, I mean, that's sort of what the authenticity boils down to, right? Like, how do you make this personal? How do you make this real? How do you share yourself? How do you get other people to to be themselves and be human in the process and not automaton buyers, to your point earlier, right? This is fun. Let's talk about… I'm curious about the advice that you would have for somebody that is just starting their sales career. And, you know, wherever they came from, maybe they're younger and this is their first job, or maybe they've had a whole storied adventure to get to this point where they decided, hey, you know what, I'm gonna make this change. I'm gonna go into sales, but they're at the beginning. Or in the early stages of that journey, what do you tell them?

1:09:38 Blair Hamer: Yeah, learn your craft. So no matter what you're selling, you better know what you're talking about because the people that are buying, they want to talk to somebody who knows what they're talking about. So do the homework, learn your craft, whatever that takes, whatever you're trying to sell. Yeah, learn the widget, the gadget, and so that when you need to talk about it, that the people have faith in you that you're the right person to talk to. So that's something I would do. And then from there, once you know your craft and you can speak about it, then strategically network and authentically create friends within your industry and client base. So join different committees, just network strategically, hit up LinkedIn, get going on there, try to get as much face-to-face as you possibly can. Enjoy all the experiences, including the rejections, because you're gonna send messages out, you're gonna reach out, and people are not gonna answer. And that's… but honestly, think about that from your perspective. Do you answer every person that reaches out to you? Like, I don't. I try to be nice, but I don't. And then yeah, when you do get someone who's truly like a potential client who truly wants to work with you, put in the time. Really take the care, really listen to that client, really make it great for that client because the best way to grow is to get referrals from clients.

1:11:05 Scott Ingram: I've got an idea and this is a thing that I do a lot, even as far into my career as I am, where you can put those 2 ideas together, the idea of learning your craft and the idea of strategic networking. And that is build those relationships by getting to just the day-to-day of their world. Like, the better… I actually am a huge fan of the idea of learning your buyer, I think, is more important than learning your product. So really just getting in their head and, you know, finding people and just… I mean, this is the greatest reach out. Like, look, I'm new to this. Would you be willing to help me? Yeah, you know, I'm just… I'm trying to understand you, you know, like, what is your world? What goes on? What what comes at you, right? And obviously I enjoy this because I can interrogate people for an hour and a half, 2 hours very easily about what they do and what their life is like and how they structure things and how they think about things. But it's powerful, right? And it gives you that baseline. Now you've built that relationship. Now you can ask for a referral. Like, who else can I talk to? I'm trying to get this perspective. Who under, you know, it sounds like you don't deal with this dynamic. Well, who does? Could you introduce me to that person? Like I need to get in their skin.

1:12:21 Blair Hamer: Yeah, yeah. I love that, Scott. You're absolutely right. And then listen, just listen, learn, and grow.

1:12:28 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Send questions in advance. They might start answering them ahead of you. It's perfect. Blair, what about somebody that's a little bit further into their career? And I know you're not deep into your… you're deep into your professional career, but you're not deep into your sales career. But once you've kind of gotten your sea legs, you've kind of gotten to a place of comfort and competence, what do you tell them then? Always grow.

1:12:54 Blair Hamer: And then there's so many ways to grow. And John Westman, him and I chatted this morning and he's like, Blair, I really want you to mention this. So I'll take this spin on it. There's the currency of dollars. Everyone understands that, but there's so many many more valuable currencies. There's the currency of what is your personal strengths, what is your health, what is your spirituality, what is your… and not even religion, just what is yours, what are you putting out there. And there's so many other currencies. What are your relationships like? What are your connections to different things? And grow those. And then be the kind of person that people want to approach to you about new ideas. I've been approached to go to different companies and work for other companies, and I've said no thank you. But it is because of just, I think, always growing and always trying to really be authentic. And so that's important. From a technical perspective, if I was more and more into my career, what I would do is just continue networking Always, always network. Make those networks as personal as possible and real though, like authentic. And so then that's important. And then at a certain point, you do want to network with the more higher-level individuals that have more decision-making powers. So if before you were talking in my industry, an area foreman, that's great to start, but try to talk to the VP of operations. And they'll, you know, if there's 10 Aries in a company, now it's 10 times the power of what you were doing before. So I would, yeah, try to create those ideas and concepts that can multiply and it saves you time. So if you can get in front of a certain concept where it could then become 28 companies instead of just one, that's very powerful and creates a very big win. So yeah, that's something that I would go for and want to continue going for as I move forward. Yeah. Yeah.

1:15:04 Scott Ingram: And on your own growth journey, what would you want to learn from the top sellers in other organizations or excuse me, the top client champions in other organizations? Yeah.

1:15:15 Blair Hamer: Yeah. Way to make the adjustment, the client champions. That was a great question. Actually, that was the last question I had blank coming into this podcast, but my answer is all I want are their most inspiring stories. That's it, just stories, because that's where the true messages are. That's where people get to kind of live their experiences and share something beautiful. Everything else I can research. I got Google, you know, I can figure it out.

1:15:46 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I love that call-out. Maybe you've already told your most inspiring story, But if you have, what's your second most inspiring story? Hmm.

1:15:54 Blair Hamer: I was sitting down with another client. So this is totally… I haven't talked about this client yet today. His name's Mike, and Mike is from a small town, but just a great guy. And we had the rapport where he was like, Blair, this product right here, we're liking it. It's great. But actually we've discovered another product over there that we think is similar enough to get our needs done and it's less price. And my boss is telling me that I have to switch to it. And I said, well, tell me more. And I listened and I said, yeah, that kind of adds up. I understand where you're coming from. So then I said, just gimme a little bit. So I contacted the owner of the company, of my company, and I said, here's what's going on. And we looked at the numbers to make sure that we were still gonna do okay. Not great. It was not a good deal for us. But it was an okay deal for us. And so then I went back to Mike and I said, you know what, because again, Mike is a great guy to work with, family guy, just an awesome person. And I said, because it's you, Mike, and I'm being fully honest here, if it was somebody else, I probably wouldn't have done this, but because it was you, Mike, we will honor and beat that price of the other company just by a little bit. And he was expecting me to not do that. He was expecting me to come back and say, nope, that's it. And so he was taken aback by that. And then Scott, like from there, I drove 3 hours to go meet him in person because so much of our world is video conference. And so yeah, I drove up, met him in person, had a great sit down. And again, we're sitting down for 2 or 2 and a half hours and about 95% of the conversation just getting to know each other and just building that trust and that rapport, knowing that he knew that I could help him out on a lot of things. And it's evident why I'm there because there is a business component, right? You don't need to come out and be like, we gotta talk business right away. It's so clear that that's the precipice… that's not the right word… but the instigator of the relationship. And so from there, just just build the relationship and truly do it, learn about the person, and then yeah, the deals will come to the table. And so with Mike, we're now looking at doing about 6 different business lines with him and his company. Awesome. It's how, and it's because I do get to know these people that I do advocate for them truly, because I know that Mike has 2 little kids. I know that, you know, I just, I that he's trying to get his oldest kid on the bus and that kind of thing. And, you know, so it's, you wanna take care of your clients because you know them. Oh, and here's another great story. I forgot about this one. So that really big company, the guy I first met and I wanted 10 minutes, he only gave me like 7 or something. That guy in a little comment off the cuff, he said, it is so hot in my house and to install an air conditioning unit, it's gonna cost $6,500 and they can't do it for 6 weeks. I was like, are you serious? He's like, yeah, my wife is mad at me, my kids are little, no one's sleeping. And I said, ah, that's horrible, man. Sorry that happened. And in the conversation, I didn't think about it, but when we hung up, I was like, what would a client champion do? And so this was kind of like, again, kind of outside the norm, but I went on Google, I found an air conditioner installer guy to do it, I think for $4,500. And he could be there in 2 days. And so my client was… I called him back, I said, you want this? And so I think I said $6,500 at the start of my story. It was $6,000 because I know that I saved my client $1,500 on the unit. And so anyways, got it installed. And when my client had that one installed, he said, Blair, can I get 2 more of these? Because my sister lives down the street, my parents live around the corner. Can you call the guy and do whatever you did to make this happen? I was like, sure. So then I called him, I said, can we get 2 more for the same price and can you do it in the next couple days? The guy was like, totally. And so yeah, my client then had like nothing to do with business but just taking care of a friend, you know?

1:20:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, client champion and air conditioner broker, right? Yeah. Blair, is there anything else that you were hoping to share or is there a question I didn't ask that I really I should have. No, this has been great, Scott.

1:20:33 Blair Hamer: Just thank you so much for inviting me on your podcast, and I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Awesome.

1:20:40 Scott Ingram: I always try and wrap it up and make it as actionable as we can. So what would you challenge our listener to do over the next 7 days, maybe 2 weeks when we'll release the next interview? What would you challenge them to do to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:20:54 Blair Hamer: If you've been a salesperson trained on any manipulative tactics or things where you know that is not how you would treat your brother or sister, I challenge you to just be yourself and be transparent, be authentic, be more loving, and just establish friendships with your clients and treat them like they are your brother or sister, and it will pay off. Beautiful. Thanks, Blair. Yeah, thank you, Scott.

1:21:26 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.