170: More Than Achieving a Number, Mastering a Craft with Michael Kroll

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of The Sales Collective. They've got a little something for everybody. If you're leading an organization, The Sales Collective can help you introduce real sales process or improve your own process so that you can consistently generate revenue and help your sales team deliver more. If you're an individual contributor, they have a ton of resources, including their Sales DNA test that will help you identify your own areas of improvement, along with 250 videos to help fill those gaps. Check them out at thesalescollective.com or top1.fm/tsc.

0:46 Scott Ingram: 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. Here's your host, Scott Ingram.

1:01 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Michael Kroll. Mike is the top producer and executive sales leader at CMB Insurance Brokers out of Edmonton. Welcome to the show, Mike.

1:13 Michael Kroll: Oh, thanks for having me, Scott.

1:14 Scott Ingram: So really thrilled to have you here and really excited to branch out. I talk to way too many folks in tech. I mean, I know a lot of the audience is in tech, but I think having different perspectives is really, really valuable. So really looking forward to getting into this. And like we always do, I want to kick to kick things off with some immediate value and talk about the top 3 things that you believe contribute the most to your success as a sales professional. What are those?

1:42 Michael Kroll: Absolutely. I think you've probably heard this from other guests. I'm not sure. But the number one aspect for me is persistence, persistence, persistence. And then again, persistence, if that could be the 3, if there were only one to choose from. Yeah, persistence is the only thing that allowed me to succeed, not giving up, just continuing to try. And that's a huge one. Huge, huge one. The one would be trial and error, and it kind of bleeds from persistence. And it's much like you have to understand sales or any endeavor, but especially in sales, it's like you're a bit of a scientist. You don't know what is going to land and you've gotta be open for it to not work and then try something else. And they say necessity is the mother of all inventions. So I had to work it out and I had to do those trial and errors. And then finally it would be reading. There's so many great sales authors out there, great books as well, leaders, entrepreneurs, that have written about their success. And so instead of reinventing the wheel, I'll read about it and see if I can use their knowledge for my use.

2:45 Scott Ingram: Very cool. Let me follow up on a couple of them. I'm sure we'll get into the persistence thing all over the place as we talk through this. But in our first conversation, you said that your industry has changed a lot. I imagine the trial and error piece was really key to keeping up with that. Can you give just an example of something that you tried? I mean, maybe fell on your face initially, but that is really changed in your process and your approach?

3:07 Michael Kroll: Absolutely. So yeah, the industry of commercial insurance, and it's interesting how you said most of your guests are from tech, just something for us to realize too, in insurance, like everything that we're touching, our housing, our cars, our businesses, everything has insurance behind it. And next to tech, insurance is one of the biggest industries in the world. And as with tech, all those changes happen. So does the markets in insurance. And we go through what are known as hard and soft markets. It's much like fashion in a way because you have sort of these different trends that are going on and then all of a sudden it just changes and you got to keep up with it. So with hard markets, that's what I love actually. Hard markets mean that the market of insurance, they're much more strict. Their appetite to insure things are less. They're just really adverse to doing anything that doesn't make 100% sense. And that's where you have to really up your game and you have to start understanding, okay, well, if that's the case, I need to understand what's going on in the industry. And we're big believers, I'm a big believer of specializing in, like, if it's transportation, knowing what's going on in the transportation world or construction or oil and gas here, and the list goes on. So understanding what's going on in the industry, and it always changes. I mean, we were just even talking about politics. How does the political environment affect businesses? And the more that I can understand what's going on in the lens of my client and apply that to the lens of the work that I do and and that being commercial insurance and putting those 2 together and always being current. That's what keeps my message fresh. I just don't reuse old stuff because that's the past.

4:54 Scott Ingram: Excellent. And I wonder if, well, not if, I have to imagine that in a hard market like this, the work that you do, the sales work that you do isn't just with your client. It's not convincing them to buy. It's also then working on their behalf and selling the insurance company on, hey, here's why want to take on this particular policy or risk or whatever it is.

5:17 Michael Kroll: Wow. You said it, Scott. You really said it. That's again where the skill of a sales professional lies because it's so easy in this industry to go on those sort of like, I'm sure you've seen the commercial, the GEICO commercial, I think it is with the little lizard and it says, you know, give me 5 minutes and I'll save you $100 or something. And for a salesperson who doesn't want to perhaps understand what's going on in the market, do the hard work, go to the industry events, speak with the customers, speak with the insurers, then they fall back on price. When they then go to the insurer and say, hey, get me a price. And it's in that hard market of what you just said, where people, the insurers right now are averse to doing things without a real good understanding, then they're gonna fall flat. Their clients are gonna get left in the dust, so to speak. Whereas if we build a proper narrative of our client and built on authentic things that that client is doing based on our suggestion of mitigating their risk and making their business a safer one and a better one. I mean, at the end of the day, insurance is paying for something that you had a loss on. Well, rather than just getting you a good price on the premium that you pay every year, why not make sure that the organization doesn't suffer a loss in the first place by doing all those really good things and having, again, like I said, a full understanding of what's going on in our client's business, in the industry as a whole, and building a proper narrative of everything our client's doing and then providing that to the insurer, that insurer goes, okay, these guys have it together. We want to take on that risk. And not only that, we see you've done A, B, C, and D. We're going to lower your premiums. So it's not about just going to the marketplace and having a bunch of people bid on it because in a hard market, nobody wants to bid on it. They're going to look at it and go, yeah, no, no thanks. You've got to also establish those really good relationships with the insurer. And at the end of the day, that's what our clients continue to love about the work that we do and what makes a great sales executive in our industry.

7:21 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, although I think to some degree that's actually universally applicable. Yes. Your market is very clear in that, again, you have your clients, you have your buyers, and then you're working with the insurers. I think for those of us that sell for any other type of product or service, you're helping your client navigate your company, your solution, and helping them find, hey, how do we get the most value out of this? And there's the work that you do internally inside your organization to help them get the outcomes that they're ultimately looking for.

7:52 Michael Kroll: Absolutely true. Yes, it's universally applicable. And again, what you just said there, Scott, that's the hard work. And it's like that old saying, a lot of folks aren't willing to do the hard work to make their job easy. The more hard work you do, you understand and the value and you can articulate it down to the last sentence of everything that your solution would provide your client. That's what's going to allow them to go, okay, this is the person I want to work with.

8:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great stuff. I usually ask about this later, but since you brought it up in one of your top 3, from a reading perspective, give us a taste. What have been some of the most impactful books that you've read recently?

8:29 Michael Kroll: Oh gosh.

8:30 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

8:31 Michael Kroll: You know, I was thinking about that when you asked that question about reading and where it all began was with Zig Ziglar. I mean, everybody knows Zig. Unfortunately, he passed a while ago, but it really started from that. No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. I think for me, that's pretty much the entirety of sales. That's the umbrella. Everything else below that is based on that understanding, right? So all of Zig Ziglar's books have been so impactful for me. Another great fellow and great author is Art Sobczak. I don't know if I'm pronouncing his last name correctly, but he wrote just a groundbreaking book called Smart Calling because sales kind of has, I guess, really 3 phases. One is building relationships with your your prospects who don't know you. And traditionally you do that via outbound calling. And I love the way he says it, it's called SMART calling. And there's so many amazing ways to go about it professionally because everybody else is doing cold calling. And cold calling is where you have a list or a script and you just say it verbatim and you call 100 people and there you go. They say that that's the activity will lead to success, whereas art is Well, yeah, you gotta have the activity, but it's not about just that. It's about, can you connect with your prospect over the phone and do so in a way that's meaningful to them and that's different? His book Smart Calling was fantastic. And then of course, Jeffrey Gitomer, I'm just a huge fan. When he first, first came out, he was an individual that I had heard about, but didn't really know much about. And he has so many books like The Little Red Book of Selling, I think it's called. And then The Little Black Book of Connections, and he's got so many many other books that go along that fashion, but he was the one that taught me about social branding and your own branding and how important that is so that your reputation precedes you when you go into a meeting. Much like with you, Scott. I mean, the way I was introduced to you was through your reputation, and that preceded our conversation. And of course, Napoleon Hill. I'll end it off by that. The Law of Success. Napoleon Hill, I think, is most known for another smaller book like How to Win Friends and Influence Others. I think it's called, or…

10:53 Scott Ingram: No, it's Think and Grow Rich.

10:54 Michael Kroll: That's the one. Thank you so much, Scott. I got the book called The Law of Success, and this is like, I'm talking a thick book. Yeah, it's big. That was the blueprint. I mean, that was my blueprint. There's so many chapters on that, and I could speak for hours on that book. But when you actually speak to Wrigley Jr., the person who invented Spearmint gum, or you're speaking to Harvey Firestone of Firestone Tires, and the list goes on, like all of those guys' laws of success that they had that them what they are, and all wrapped up in this, this amazing book.

11:28 Scott Ingram: Yeah, some classics there. So as always, we'll have a complete list, all the links, all the good stuff if you go to top1.fm/170. I actually know my episode number for once. Or the shortcut is always top1.fm/michael-kroll. We'll get you there as well. Always kind of first name dash last name. Michael, let's put this in context a little bit and just kind of talk about What is your role? I mean, not everybody that listens to this may be familiar with commercial insurance. I know your structure is a little bit different. Help us kind of understand that. Who are you selling to? What are you selling? What's the structure of your team? How does this all work?

12:03 Michael Kroll: Yeah, absolutely. So commercial insurance, very different than say personal insurance or small business insurance. Traditionally, and there might be some exceptions, but traditionally across the board, the way that the teams are structured is you have a sales unit and and a service unit. And the sales unit is traditionally comprised of what we call practice leaders, those that have a lot of industry knowledge, experience, and understanding of this thing we call commercial insurance. That's gonna be your practice leaders. Below them, but you know, we're all working together, but below them would then be what are called our business development representatives. Those are the folks that are going to say networking events or going to general events industry events and understanding what's going on for a particular industry. But most important, they're building relationships by outbound calls. That's why that smart calling I mentioned about that. And the goal for someone in the industry to come in is to understand, okay, how do I reach those decision makers? Once I reach those decision makers, how do I start the process of their just being aware of us and what we want to do? And then from there, how do I provide that prospect a way to be introduced into our company, but also be introduced into the practice leader. And so the way we do that is by setting up a discovery meeting, and then the practice leader, the industry practice leader would take over that meeting along with having the BDR present. And we then, that person then qualifies the prospect. That's generally how most operations in commercial insurance are run. There are other, I would say the smaller brokerages, what their methodology is, is you start and you get your knowledge and simultaneously you're also setting up meetings for yourself. That's a little tricky because imagine if you were a lawyer, you just got your law degree and now you're trying a case without a mentor. How does the court system even work, right? I know the law from an educational standpoint, but I don't really know the law from an execution standpoint. Like, Where do I go? What paperwork do I need? Like, what are all those things? And that makes it really challenging. And so therefore, the rate of success for folks going into the industry is not high if they go into a firm that's like that, because again, you don't have any mentorship from the sales side. So how do I build those relationships and get in the door? And then once I'm in the door by happenstance, maybe by luck, well, how do I then move this along? It's really tough. So just to summarize, is what I've found and what I've seen the best methodology is by having someone as a BDR in the team. They get to learn sales, they get all of that training, they build relationships with the prospects, they set the meeting. Then the practice leader comes in, that practice leader allows the BDR to understand, here's how we're gonna prepare for the meeting. Here's the topics that we're gonna bring up and here's how we're gonna qualify this prospect to see whether or not it makes sense for us to continue the conversation. And they get to be present in that meeting and they get to learn the types of questions that the senior practice leader shares, and as well as hear the questions that the prospects are asking. And then they slowly learn by a little bit of osmosis as well as industry training, and then eventually they grow their wings, so to speak, and hopefully they're going to be that practice leader and someone else below them is going to make those calls. Hopefully that gives you an idea.

15:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah, for sure. And Mike, how many BDRs do you have supporting Well, right now on our team, there's approximately, we'll go with 6 because one just came aboard.

15:56 Michael Kroll: So we have 6, and then in total there is approximately, there's about 7 producers, and then there's a few other senior producers. So we're not to split hairs on the titles, but there's those that have, say, I would say 5 years and below knowledge, and we don't call those senior risk advisors quite yet. And then after you get into about the 7-year timeframe, that's when you become a senior risk advisor.

16:22 Scott Ingram: It sounds like a lot of your role, it's almost a player-coach type of a thing. You're working all of these deals, you're managing this full book, but you're also helping to train and develop these BDRs so they can be successful. And the more successful they are, the more successful you are.

16:36 Michael Kroll: 100%. Absolutely. And one of the big things that I'm a big believer in, and especially when you go to these conferences, you know, I've gone to hundreds of them, not thousands quite yet, but definitely hundreds of them, read a lot of books and, you know, we were chatting about it, but one of the things that really bothered me about even just sales training or coaching in general is you've got someone who's talking about, here's what you do. It's sort of like, uh, how do I drive a car? And you have the instructor stand outside of the car and yell at you. Yeah, that's the clutch, that's the steering wheel, and that's how you go. And then they're running behind you as you're in the car and they're screaming, no, don't go left, go right, or whatever. Right. But they're not actually doing it. The lot of what I do is actually doing the work, making that outbound call, Having that first conversation with the prospect and allowing the BDR, similar to the process I was talking about with the senior producer and the BDR in that first meeting. What I like to do is make that call and allow the BDR to hear what it feels like. How does that quote unquote car corner when you ask this? Or how does this statement land when you say that? The other thing is, is it just allows for way more respect in the sense of, okay, this guy's the real deal. He's not just telling me what to do, he's doing it. It, and then we're coaching on it afterwards.

17:59 Scott Ingram: Nice, nice. So going beyond the do what I say to do what I actually do, right?

18:04 Michael Kroll: Mm-hmm.

18:06 Scott Ingram: Mike, I know you work for a private company, but can you kind of put your results in perspective for us in whatever ways you can?

18:12 Michael Kroll: Yeah, absolutely. And of course, I appreciate that, Scott. I have to be very careful of that with the private and the competitive nature of our industry. But what I can tell you is we belong to an American firm that basically tracks many companies that are in commercial insurance. And when I say track, meaning they have many people that belong to them, and I'll be safe to say in the hundreds, if not thousands. And we're in the top 1% of those. In fact, we're leading it here in Alberta right now for our growth. That is a feat to achieve that. And the results that we got this year, I've been told, have been historic. So I'm I'm a very humble person, but for the nature of understanding what we're talking about and the importance of everything, it's historic. In other words, it's never been achieved. So how did we achieve that for this year? And we've achieved it before even the year has ended. It's like understanding about the F1. Again, we're talking about cars earlier, but like F1 racing, you have to understand what you're getting into. And with our organization, everyone that comes into our organization has to understand that what we're trying to do is build build a company, and we want to be the largest independently owned company in Canada. And we don't build our business based on acquisition, and that's a big thing that's going on right now in the… our industry. What's going on in our industry is a mass consolidation of insurance companies buying… well, insurance brokerages buying other smaller insurance brokerages, and their growth is based on path. I was talking about technology earlier and how big commercial insurance is and how valuable it is, and it's everywhere you go, everywhere you see there's insurance behind it. Well, you're seeing massive exponential valuations of these brokerages, and these smaller companies, the more independent companies, are going, you know what, I've been at this now for 20 years, I'm coming up to retirement, don't really have a succession plan, so I'm going to So what's going on is you're getting these folks that are now in these brokerages, and now they used to be for working with an independent. Now all of a sudden they're working for one where they're headquartered in New York, and here they are in Edmonton, Alberta. What we're seeing from that standpoint, vantage point too, is a real… and I can only speak on my experience here and speaking with prospects… is now the level of service, the level of personal attention, the level of knowledge is going down because all of a sudden now who I used to be dealing with isn't there anymore. 'Cause a lot of those guys don't wanna work here anymore. For a company like ours, it's been great. I mean, not to say anything about that, that's a bad thing, the mass consolidation, but we choose to grow in a way that's innovative. You know, we've got all sorts of different things. I can't really speak about the way we go about doing it, but they're innovative ways. Training, sales coaching, seminars, weekly meetings, like it is an intense environment, but it's fun and it's exciting, and it's kind of like being on the ground floor of, you know, I don't want to say we're like Microsoft, but it's like being on the ground floor of something that's about to just explode, and everybody has to be in on that.

21:32 Scott Ingram: Yeah, fantastic. Let's switch gears a little bit, go all the way back to the beginning. I would love to hear your origin story. How did you get into sales in the first place?

21:41 Michael Kroll: Oh yeah, boy, that's That's a really good one. How did I get into… I probably got into it when I was about 8 years old, to be honest with you. And how I got into it was through my mom. My mom was a single mom, and back in the '80s, she was a vice president of large women's retailing clothing store. Because she was a single mom working retail, I'd have to go with her to the mall. Like, you know, I didn't stay at home, I was at the mall, and she'd give me a big roll of quarters or whatever. I played video games, etc. Anyways, one day, and this is what stands out for me, how I got into sales was we were in the food court and we We ended up having some lunch and this lady comes by, the lady that they take the trays away and they clean the tables once you're done. And she comes over, puts her hand on my mom's shoulder and she said, Lucy, my daughter just had a baby. And my mom stood up and hugged her. And I'm sitting down, I'm about 8, 9 years old. I'm looking at that interaction. I'm just going, what's going on? Who is this person? Anyways, that interaction goes and she leaves. And then I go to my mom. I said, mom, why did you just hug the janitor? Like as if that was a lowly position. And then my And my mom kind of, her smile left her and she looked at me and said, Michael, we're all people. And regardless of what they do or what they're in, we're all people. We have to treat them the same. And she said, Michael, right? That's how she called me when she wanted me to listen up. Anyways, I didn't quite understand what she was saying, but where it clicked for me is we finished lunch, we went back to the store holding her hand. I remember this. And the, happened to be the president of the company was there and my mom greeted him And interacted with him identically to the lady in the food court. And I remember just having this kind of this smile, like this kind of like whatever my mom's doing there and in the way that she's building this relationship, that's what I want to do. So she was one of the greatest teachers and she did, I think, Amazon selling, obviously before Amazon was around. But when you go into a store, usually the person that's working there, they go, can I help you with anything? Can I help you find anything? That's the general way. But what my mom would do is if they were looking at something, let's say earrings. I remember her doing this a lot and she would go, oh, those are some of my favorite ones. And you know what really goes well with that is this necklace. Or you know what else? What dress goes really well with the color of that is this, right? So it's sort of like that Amazon, others who've bought this bought that. That's where my love of sales really began. So really fast forward the tape, went to university, really wanted to understand psychology, social psychology, cuz I believe that sales is, that's what it is. It's all psychology. And I then went to a company called Unifirst. And it was between Uniphore and IBM because I was like, I want to go to the best sales company to learn this professional sales, not how to be a peddler sales, like where you just try and get somebody to buy using manipulative ways. I want to learn the art, the science of sales. Anyways, IBM was insane, like in a good way. They went through a whole battery of actually psychological tests and evaluations, and I had an offer. And then I did sort of very similar with Uniphore. And Uniphore, I read at the time, I don't know if it still holds true today. I know it's a billion-dollar company today though. But at the time they were ranked the top 3 sales companies for training in the world. So not just Canada, but like in the world. And Glenn Davis, who I still know today, I still keep in touch with him. He was the fellow that just brought everything to light for me. I really truly think I would not be where I am today without that inspiration, that coaching. And he did what I said earlier. He went out with me and did the sale and I got to see what it was like to be a professional salesperson. And one story just sticks out and then I'll be done. But we go to this, it was just a cold, we'd go into an area and we just do what are called drop-in drop-offs. So this company that we have no idea anything about it, and I remember we drove up and it said, there's a little sign and it said, absolutely no solicitors. And I'm looking at that sign, I go, well, Glenn, I guess we gotta go. He's like, and Glenn has it, imagine a fellow who's, he's a bit shorter, but he's not dolly, he knows that. And he's got like a big hair, like a slicked back hair, but it's poofy and a big old mustache. If anyone knows Lanny McDonald in hockey out there, that he had a Lanny McDonald mustache. And he said, Mike, come with me. And he always said, you gotta go into these drop-in drop-offs with a pamphlet or a book. And so I'm there with my little black book and a little pamphlet, and we go up to the receptionist desk and there's this receptionist. I'll never forget, her hair was just tight back and she had glasses that sort of went down to the bridge of her nose and was hooked behind her neck and a little sweater, Like just your stereotype receptionist. Glenn goes right up to the desk and kind of slams his hand on the top of the reception desk and he says, I bet you, you think we're a bunch of solicitors, don't you? She just kind of smiled and started laughing. Long story short, we end up meeting the plant manager, taking a plant tour, and we sold it. Like we sold the deal and we did it. It was like magic. I couldn't believe, you know, we go from a sign that said absolutely no solicitors to walking out the door with a signed deal. And ever since then I was hooked, really truly hooked. Like all those things I spoke about, persistence, trial and error, and reading just got me to where I am today. I will also say that I started 2 companies in between that after Unifirst. Tough thing for me was my mom passed away, really rocked me, but came and started 2 companies that paid homage to her and Glenn in a way too, but really to my mom. And they were phenomenal successes. One of them is still running to this day. And that's where I am with the company I'm with now.

27:23 Scott Ingram: It's awesome. It sounds like you took a route that is really hard to find these days. But if I understood it right, your choice of who to go to work for was primarily based on where am I going to get the best training? Where am I going to get a real hands-on education in selling? Is that accurate?

27:42 Michael Kroll: Absolutely, Scott. It's funny because that's what I'm doing to this day. The companies that I'm with have a strong belief of mentorship. Mentorship is different than coaching. It's different than training. It's different than whatever you want, instruction, right? Mentorship is where you have someone who cares, right? Again, goes back to that Zig Ziglar, no one cares how much you know until you know how much they care. The companies that I've been with and the companies that I do business with care about their team. They have a strong cultural belief in that mentorship and that guidance. And it's funny too, because even my dad, he was a police officer and He trained, he ended up being a trainer for new recruits as well. And it was like, even in the cop world, if you will, the policing world, it's all mentorship. Law, it's mentorship. I have a lot of friends who they could have got more money at a firm, but they wouldn't have had the mentorship. And they decided, you know what, I'm gonna go to this firm that's not gonna maybe pay me as much, but I'm not gonna have to work 80 hours a week. I might have to work 70 hours a week, but I've got a mentor behind me. Find me. And I'm not going to get as much money. But I know the learning that I have now is going to pay huge dividends in the future. So yeah, mentorship guidance, that's… I'm a big believer of that.

29:02 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What I typically ask is, if you were starting over today with everything that you know, would you approach it differently? Or how would you approach it? Because I think it's really hard to find organizations that have… I mean, back in the day, IBM had this reputation of, you This is world-class sales training that you're going to get.

29:21 Michael Kroll: Yeah.

29:21 Scott Ingram: There's not a lot of organizations that really come to mind for me that still offer that in this environment.

29:26 Michael Kroll: If I could do it over again, I wish I knew what I know now and apply it back then. But here's what I would do is I would become involved in the industries into which I serve. I mean, going to industry events and doing it like if all you do to go to an industry event, the whole sole reason is to meet someone to sell them something. You're gonna pretty much lose, I think. I mean, you're gonna get sales. You might get some opportunities and deals. Great. That's awesome. However, if you go there with the intent of building relationships and genuinely connecting with people, you can learn an awful lot of knowledge. It wasn't until I really started my business where I went to the next level and I'll never forget it. I woke up the next day, right? I quit my job. I'm next day. I don't have an office to go to. So I ended up going to a coffee shop, DiCapo. Here in Edmonton is no longer here. But anyways, ended up talking to the owner and we just hit it off. And then he introduced me to another person and then he said, go to this event. And I just started, you know, I didn't even really have a product to sell, or at least I didn't even realize what that product was when I first started. But the advice and the understanding of what business is was just invaluable. The trial and error part of it, like you've gotta be, again, as I said, you gotta be really, really hard as nails tough to understand that a lot of the stuff that you're gonna do isn't gonna work. You gotta be able to understand when you go into sales, that's what it is, especially in the beginning. But if I could have done it over again, like when I was in my early 20s, I absolutely would've went to these events and tried to really build relationships, not to sell them something, but to build a relationship to say, hey, listen, you know what, Scott, you have a business right now. I don't have a product right now that could really sell you, but boy, you've run this now for the last 10 years. Boy, would I ever love to build a relationship to understand how you did that. I'd love to buy you a coffee maybe once a week, once a month, whatever you're willing to do. And I just love to learn from you. And I would do that with all sorts of different industries of people. And had I done that and not been in the, oh my God, I need to sell something to make quotas, or I want to sell this guy so I can get a big check, good big commission check. Again, I've seen salespeople people extraordinarily successful, like I'm talking in the millions of dollars a year, having an adage of, I just want to sell, that's what I want to do, and I'm going to do good work, and there you go. But the fellows, the people I should say, men and women that I've met that take an approach of really building the relationship, they get farther than any of those. They're the ones that end up being the leaders of the industry, building relationships that far exceed just the sales quota that they need at the end of the month or the year. So that's what I would have done. If I could have done that earlier, boy, I would have done that way earlier.

32:25 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Mike, when you say industry events, are you speaking to your own industry? Are these insurance events or is it more along the lines of your clients' industries?

32:35 Michael Kroll: So both. But what I would say for the specifics of sales, I just actually wrote one on LinkedIn LinkedIn. We wanna be what are known as sector specialists in our company, right? You know, oil and gas, I was saying earlier, construction, transportation. There's one called a landscaping association, right? Landscaping sector. I'm talking big landscaping jobs here. I'm not talking about a local arborist who's going into a neighborhood doing backyard jobs. I'm talking about city contracts, like big airport snow clearing contracts. This is what the landscaping sector is like. So what we decided to do is let's understand who the association is. Is there an association? We did. Then what we did was, and again, this is before we make a phone call to a prospect in this industry. So then we go and I make a call. I reach out to the president and we start having a great conversation. I said, listen, to be honest with you, Scott, one of the comments was, oh, okay. You just wanna sell us something. You just wanna get into this association so you can sell. I said, wow, you know what? I appreciate that comment. You're saying that because others have tried to do that without having real true authentic knowledge of the industry. Right? So I said, listen, no. We're coming to you first because we really want to understand what are these folks faced with. And Scott, they are faced with a lot. I won't go into it, but just imagine slip and falls for just a second and how difficult that is to manage. That alone in snow clearing is a big deal, right? So we started to really understand it, under… get to know the president, get to know the different members, all that stuff. And then there's one of the biggest events The year just happened yesterday, actually the last 2 days, and it just ended yesterday. We went to the association event and there's all those folks that are in the event and we're genuinely and authentically connecting with them at that event. And that's what builds trust. That's what builds, okay, these guys are the real deal. They're not just trying to, hey, gimme 5 minutes, I'll save you $500 or $100 on your premium. So for me, going to us, being a part of an association, speaking at an association, right? Providing value to association members without there being the context of I'll give you this if you give me that, and continually learning and understanding. Like, as I said at the very start of our conversation, markets change, and boy did the landscaping market change over the last few years. The more you can be involved in those associations genuinely, the better you will be in building your business in whatever sector that is.

35:06 Scott Ingram: Yep, yep, love it. The show is called Sales Success Stories. I would love to hear Your favorite sales story?

35:15 Michael Kroll: Oh boy, there's two. You know, I was thinking just right off the top of my head, there's two of them, and I wonder which one I want to go with. I'll go with the one in Chicago. We'll do that one, and if you want to hear the other one, you can ask me too. But so this is when I have my business, and I'm looking to have a job that will consult for an American company in Chicago. And it's not about consulting, it's actually doing the work. It was setting up a whole sales team, but first actually having to prove yourself in terms of getting jobs and getting the work, right? Selling the product. So it was all based on how well you did that. So I was competing against not only the existing sales team that was a part of this company, but I was competing against other companies. And I'm talking from Like all across America. There's about 2 from the States. I can't remember where. And then one that was international. And I remember going into the office and just love Chicago, but it was the office kind of near the Trump Tower. It wasn't even called the Trump Tower back when I went. They were just putting up the signs. So it was 2014, 2015. Anyway, so I go up to the main floor and there's the sales manager fellow or the top sales guy, whatever you wanna call him. And all I remember, his name was Chad. He looks at me, he has blonde hair, looks sharp. He goes, aha, so you're one of these guys. Where are you from? And I go, oh yeah, I'm from Edmonton. And he goes to me, from Edmonton? Where's that? And I go, well, that's in Canada. And he just laughed, like he almost just laughed to the floor laughing at me. He says, oh buddy, this is Chicago. You're gonna get massacred out here. So that was my greeting to Chicago and the sales team. And I just did the work. I remember, okay, here's what I'm gonna do. I get the lay of land. That being, you know, Chicago is very neighborhood-driven. Like, you get a map and each neighborhood has its own spirit to it, its own culture to it. In fact, and I can't remember which one it was, like, I didn't know this, but Chicago has the highest population of… or the second largest population of Polish people in the world next to Poland. And this one neighborhood was all signs was in Polish, and it was like, wow, I'm in a different country. But what I did was I first went out to all the businesses, just boots on the ground, started doing very much what I was talking about in terms of understanding and building relationships authentically, and went door to door to door to door to door. And I remember the owner, I don't wanna name the name, but anyways, he's a billionaire. And he says, so how are you doing? And I go, well, I think I'm doing pretty good. My first step was to build relationships with people in the neighborhood. And he goes, wow, that's how Merrill Lynch did it. I go, Merrill? Who's that? Well, Merrill Lynch. He's like, yeah, I knew him. He's a much older gentleman, right? And I was like, oh, okay, well, okay, there you go. Anyways, make a long story short, started building those genuine relationships, then held town halls, if you will, for these neighborhoods. And I did it in businesses that could use the product and got people… like, did a lot of hard work, boots on the ground. But like I said, I established established trust with all these folks. And then the product was just a natural fit. I didn't have to sell anything. And make a long story short, every other team that was involved in this RFP, so to speak, they were done. It was just me. They were like, okay, let's build a team. And ended up hiring about 30 people, training them, and they became an award-winning company. So to me, that was one of my biggest successes.

38:55 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. So you've done a lot, you've accomplished a lot. What are you most proud of?

39:00 Michael Kroll: I think at the end of the day, what I'm most proud of is the genuine relationships that I've built and how I've genuinely helped people. I know it sounds, probably sounds, boy, this guy's all just sunshine and rainbows or whatever, but it's absolute business. At the end of the day, it's about being able to hold my head up high, going to meeting with somebody and knowing that I'm helping them. And that goes for the clients that I work with, as well as the internal people I work with. I would be safe to say that anyone that's worked with me would say, yeah, Mike, he cared about me. He really wanted to make a difference. That's what I'm most proud of.

39:37 Scott Ingram: Love that. What about the flip side? What do you find to be the biggest challenge or what do you struggle with the most?

39:43 Michael Kroll: Well, what I struggle with the most is sales is to me like a battle of, and sort of sound nerdy here, but it's sort of the battle of the light side versus the dark side of the force, if you will. And I shouldn't say it that way because doing it a different way other than that one that I suggested doesn't mean it's wrong. But I guess what I battle the most is individuals who want this now. Like, I want the sale now. How do I get it fast? How do I sell the most and how do I do it the easiest way? How do I do it in a way that… case in point, it's easy and I don't have to really learn the work, but I can just kind of say the right things even though I don't even know what those right things mean. And that's a constant battle. Because especially too, when you're up against someone like that, a competitor, and we often find ourselves in these OGs. There's one I can just even remember this year where the competitor that we were up against, just what we felt like, we felt that they really just lied. We didn't want to necessarily say that they lied to the prospect. Of course, that's a self-promoting statement, but we wanted to share with them, here's why we think this isn't true. You know, this just is too good to be true. And they ended up going with that company, even though they felt bad about it. They just said, Mike, I know, I get it. But at the end of the day, this is a decision we made. And so I don't often lose to that strategy, but that's the strategy that I'm up against the most, as well as individuals who come into this industry, that being sales, who are just like your typical, they look the part, they act the part, their character is shallow as it gets. They just don't care. They just want the money. And that's a struggle because most of those people don't last and then they go on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. So my other mentors told me sometimes you got to go slow to go fast. That's something that a lot of those guys just don't understand. So that's probably the hardest one I'm faced with.

41:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Is it just a mindset thing? Is it continuing to be patient and be persistent, recognizing that, okay, well, you're going to win it this year, but you're not going to deliver. We'll get it next year and forever. Forevermore? How do you think about those situations?

41:58 Michael Kroll: It's a great, great question. So easy for me to say that. Very difficult when you've got bills to pay, family to feed. You got to make these goals. Otherwise, listen, sales is a performance industry, and if you're not performing, you're out. So that's where mentorship comes in. That's where guidance comes in. We have a new person and I'm working with them, and the first 3 months I let them know you're not gonna see anything. It looks easy. We almost make it look easy, but it is gonna be 3 months. Here's what you need to do and here's how we're gonna work together. What I'm trying to say on that, Scott, is this, is when you're first starting, you have to understand what are the metrics that lead to the next metric. In other words, if you go to the idea of outbound calls, I could go speak ad nauseam about that, but just generally speaking, if you're making $5 a week, let's just say, you're not going to be successful. Similarly, if you make 500 dials a week without any thought to it, you won't be successful. It's understanding, okay, here's what we're going to need to see on an average daily basis. We're going to need to see, let's say, 25 to 50 really well thought out, well strategized outbound calls. And what we're judging isn't how many people we get ahold of. Now we're gonna start judging how many people did we connect with? How many people went, oh, okay, I get that. Okay, interesting. You guys do things a little different. How many of those conversations did we get? And then that leads to how many meetings did we get? And then how many meetings we get leads to how many potential opportunities we're gonna have. And then how many opportunities we're gonna have leads to how many deals we're gonna close. 'Cause that's where the science comes in. Kind of like Moneyball, like everything is Moneyball. In sales, in my opinion. But it's also how good are you at the skill of connecting with people? So it's… Moneyball's great. Like, if you're striking out though 500 times, well, great, I know that stat. You're striking out 500 times, great. But now it's about, okay, here's what I saw on that strikeout, here's what we have to adjust. And then all of a sudden, okay, now you're hitting 1 for 500, can we do 2? And you slowly, slowly build. So I would say that understanding the steps and understanding that you're doing the right thing because, and I'll just end off by saying this new person, they were feeling a bit dejected. They were like, shoot, I haven't had any meetings yet. Well, yeah, that's okay. But remember commercial insurance, most people like 99% of them, they're not gonna talk or even entertain a meeting until closer to their renewal. When you spoke to these and I was there, I heard heard them, the prospect said, yeah, I really like what you're talking about, really appreciate it. Here's the deal though, we're in November, my renewal doesn't come up until July. Let's connect sometime in March or April. And she had a whole bunch of those, right? She has a whole bunch of those. One month ago or 2 months ago when she had called someone and she said, yes, someone give me a shout, or I'd like you to give me a shout in the top of November. Well, she did, and she got her first deal. Not one deal, but 2 deals. And she did that at end of month 3. That's the hardest, hardest part is understanding that what you're doing is actually moving forward. You just can't see it. And when you don't have that, anyone to tell you that, and all you're looking is the closed deal, like it's either closed it or it's absolutely nothing, you're in some real trouble because you have to celebrate every single thing along the way until you get to that. Because sales is a culmination of all sorts of different acts to get to the final one. It's not like there's some big, you know, it's the big moment, it's the big pitch. There are times where it does come down to that, sometimes very rarely though. It's having that right first call. It's having that right second email after the phone call. It's responding to a question that the prospect had before the meeting. It's like if you do all of those things and you do them right, it will lead to the sale. So anyways, that's what I would say is it has to be Understood.

46:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah, Mike, let me ask you this. I'm intrigued by this idea of kind of the light side and the dark side. How much of that do you think really ultimately comes down to leadership and culture? Because what you described was a more patient approach and more focus on, are we performing and producing the right inputs, recognizing our business, our sales cycle is 6 to 12 months on average. So how could I possibly expect somebody that somebody's going to get great results in month 3?

46:47 Michael Kroll: Gosh, yeah, another great question there. I did some research on, you know, like I'm not talking university-level research, but I just started doing some digging around and I'm Googling stuff, I'm reading stuff, I'm going to, you know, asking of this, and I found a training video. I bet you I could find it again. It was on YouTube. It was for car sales for Chevy. So it was an old, old-time Chevy, like how to be a car salesman. Back then it was car salesman. There was no women in that industry at that time. I could not believe how good it was. Like it was so… yeah, I'll have to send it to you, to you, Scott, because what it did was, if I think back to it, it was like a guy, he's in the dealership and the boss comes up. He's like, so, you know, Henry, how are you doing? He's like, well, I'm not getting anything. And he's like, well, and then he sits down And he is like, okay, well, and this is a manager that wants to help, right? This is, he cares, right? He wants him to succeed. He says, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna go out to the area, little neighborhood area, and we're gonna do some drop-in drop-offs at houses. And back then you opened the door and it was all women at that time who opened the door and they would drop off things, drop off things. And then he was like, so now that you've done that, kind of time passes, elapses, and you know, how are you doing? Well, I got one. And he is like, okay, well, did you call the other folks that you'd left that? And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was really based on what I'm talking about today, which was like in the car industry. I can't even imagine that mindset happening to train somebody to build relationships with neighborhoods and understand who's going on, what's… it was mind-boggling. That's what worked back then. It wasn't this flashy, come on down, we'll save you. Like none of that marketing existed at that time. The world was a different place, so to speak. And it was all based on trust and relationships. And so now we enter, you know, you go through the '70s, the '80s, the '90s, you know, now we're here, the age of the internet. Now even AI, and everything's so bloody fast and easy and in your face, and you're sold every second. You're sold when you're watching YouTube, sold on radio stations. You're engulfed by sales. It's working. I mean, obviously it's getting sales, it's doing this. People are making lots and lots of money on it, but yet they don't speak of the companies that I'm talking about, the companies that say, yeah, great, that's great. We're talking even in our industry, and I'm biased, of course. I'm sure someone else could come in and say taking over and buying businesses is the way to go, and that's great. I'm happy for that. No problem. All the power to them. I'm not saying that's wrong, but what I'm saying is that has more legacy to it, that has more meaning to it, is building something with people, building something with companies, with their people in those companies, and having a true understanding of what's going on in their landscape. So to speak, the business has to truly believe that. You can even look at Warren Buffett. He did a video for entrepreneurs, and it's about a year old. He talked about Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Quick story on that one is the guy who started it was he went to the Marines or he was in the Army, left the Army, got a job at a car dealership, couldn't do well. He wasn't doing as well, and he said to the boss, "Can I rent cars?" You know, and he's like, "Well, yeah, sure, if you want to do that." He did okay, but he was always constantly challenged by this manager. So he decided. Decided, you know what, I'm gonna do something on my own. So he started with one car, 2 cars. And what he said to himself was, I wanna help people and I wanna help people get good jobs. I wanna help people find good cars, et cetera. And he was up against, right, I mean, Budget or Avis or who knows at that time. And now his company Enterprise Rent-A-Car is bigger than all of the rental companies combined. And he does it by also the training that he has for those people. I know a lot of Enterprise Rent-A-Car training, phenomenal training, and they get to own it. They have a sense of ownership and they have a sense of building relationships in the community. It's all done backwards. And yet here's this company that's doing things, albeit what we think right now is slow. It's not flashy. It's done based on relationships and they're bigger than every rental company there is. And, and the other thing that Warren Buffett said, and the guy that he named it Enterprise because that was the ship that he was based on, it was the Enterprise ship in the US Army. He called it enterprise. And I was like, wow, that's amazing. So I think again, it's easy to be seduced by, oh, hey, we got 10 sales. Well, what's the margin on those 10 sales? How much margin did we get on that? A dollar. Wow. So we made 10 sales at a margin each. We made $10. What about if we got 1 sale and the margin was $50? Wouldn't that be better? Again, it takes a great deal of, like you said, leadership in understanding that this is actually stronger. It's actually more lasting, and it actually leads to happier people that don't feel pressure. It's something that can be better. So don't take my word for it. Take Warren Buffett's word for it.

51:48 Scott Ingram: You know, it reminds me of a similar, very recent story, and I'll find a better link to this article again. We'll put all this stuff in the show notes, top1.fm/170. So the CEO of American Express. Warren Buffett's a big investor, and they have a conversation during the pandemic, and the CEO… and I'm probably missing the mark on this because I'm just barely refreshing myself behind the scenes here, Mike. Yeah, he basically says like, look, this is in the pandemic. He's like, we are going to freaking miss. Like, we are going to be way off. And so he's at this crossroads of how do we react to this and what do we do. And I don't think we can Argue that Warren Buffett isn't a smart businessman, a great investor, right? His advice to the CEO is protect two things: protect your customers and protect your brand. I think to me this is that light side stuff. It's the you have to take a longer term view. If you do stupid pet tricks and you try and save your number this one quarter or this fiscal year, but you under. Undercut your employees, your brand, your customers, all of those things, you lose it in the end and you've got all of these disconnects. So you and I are very much on the same page with kind of this. You've got to take a little bit more of a longer-term view of this. I wish there was stronger leadership in sales around this because again, everything comes down to the number and the top line number. Number, a lot of times we're not looking at, well, what was the margin on that deal? There's a big difference between, well, we brought $10 million in and our margins are negative, we're losing money on every dollar that we sell, versus, hey, we brought in $8 million at a 25% margin. One of those is a way better outcome, but if you only look at the one number, you're screwed. And looking at long-term customer lifetime value of customers, again, $10 million is great, but if 80% of that is going to churn next year and I gotta resell all of it. I'm on a soapbox here, so I'm gonna get off. I'm gonna politely step down before I get all riled up. I wanna pivot to another area that I just absolutely love to dig into, which is really just your habits, your routines, the way that you structure your day. And the way I always like to ask this is, your alarm clock goes off, tell me what time that happens, and I want a pretty detailed blow-by-blow until your head hits the pillow again.

54:20 Michael Kroll: Absolutely. Yeah. I was just listening so intently to what you're saying. I want to get on that soapbox too, Scott. So I hear you. Having said that, yeah. What's my routine? So first is my alarm goes off at 6:45 and get up, go to the shower and I put on just relaxing music. I have Spotify and I put on like, you know, I don't know, jazz. They've got this really good jazz channel and it's just instrumental chill jazz. I can't remember what it is and it's just great. And then what I do, and I learned this from my mentor who I see every week. I have my own mentor and he is an amazing individual. Anyways, one of the things he taught me is to run through your gratitude. It's hard though. Like, I mean, this sounds all warm and fuzzy. Oh wow. Okay. Just get up at 6:40, get some nice music going on and start going through gratitude. That for me was infinitely difficult because what I want to do is I want to get up. I want to start looking at my email. I want to, or maybe not, maybe I just want to get some coffee and just watch TV or whatever. Do the stuff that's easy. You know, again, it goes back to that whole thing we talked about in the beginning… what's easy versus what are you willing to do that's hard to make your life easy. All the things that are you doing that are easy actually make your life hard, believe it or not. Well, I can just get a McDonald's. And if you do that every day, well, guess what? I don't think you're gonna be too healthy. That's the first thing, is get up, get some good music, and start going into this gratitude. And it's almost like, I guess it would be almost akin to going into yoga, almost like when you just try and close your eyes and you just start imagining success, or you start imagining good things, you start imagining what you want to have as an outcome. And again, that's after you do the gratitude. It could be, I'm grateful to be alive. I'm grateful I'm healthy. I'm grateful. You gotta start positive. You just gotta start the day positively. And what I would say is in sales and in anything, I would think in sport, in anything that's performance-based, being an actor, I would say as well, like if your mind isn't healthy, I mean, we're in some serious trouble because you're going to be dealing with some really tough conversations with people. I can be all rosy and sunshine and everything in terms of what I'm saying. But again, what am I up against? Well, I'm up against, I want price. I'm up against, I want this tomorrow. I'm up against, you're just a salesperson. Just Give me the price. You're up against all this negativity, right? So you gotta get armed and ready to do that. And then afterwards, the next thing is, is just getting into a mental… it's almost like I've seen anchors do this where they go like, they'll start speaking like news anchors. They'll go like, AEIOU, AEIOU, like they're gonna get their muscles going, right? So my muscle though is a mental muscle. So I start playing out, okay, here's what I've got to do. Here's the day. Here's how I want it to succeed. Like I'm just almost mental mapping the day. And then getting my clothes on is also very important. I mean, obviously we all have to put our clothes on, but I like dressing in a… not a crazy suit, but just a suit jacket, something that I feel nice in. And all of a sudden, once I get my suit on or whatever, my suit jacket and everything, now the next phase is getting into the car. And all of a sudden it's like, you know, not to say I'm Superman, I'd like… I wish I was Superman, but it's like I'm now a different entity or a different person. It's not to say I'm putting on an act or anything. And again, not that I'm going work for battle, but I don't know another word to explain it but other than I'm getting prepared and I'm in the zone. Traditionally, I like to listen to, like, again, some good music, get that going, and then the whole mental part of it starts. And then I walk in the door, and then the first thing I'm doing is I'm talking to as many people as I can on my team, just get the juices flowing, get that rhythm going. And then it's prioritizing the top 5 things that I have to do. Like, forget every everything else, these are the top 5 things. And I've mentally already mapped that. And then I write it down and then I checkmark it and then I can visually see, okay, check, a check and a check. It's almost like for that, the writing down, I think a lot of people hear, you know, you write things down, why? And the reason why, like even if it's success, like I was talking earlier to you, Scott, how the pandemic for me was a tough one. I think it was tough for a lot of people. And what I lost was that writing things down. I started getting in my head and being in my head. And I was listening to a psychologist or a psychiatrist actually. And what he said was, for the time that it takes you to write 3 paragraphs, you can have something like a million thoughts go through your mind. And when he says million, it's not even subconscious, it's unconscious, it's conscious. It's maybe you're ruminating on something or maybe like a million of those different thoughts in the time it it takes you to write something. So the act of writing isn't just some miracle of write it and it will happen magically, but what it does is it slows your brain down and it goes, okay, here's what I want to accomplish. So even if it's writing something like… and I start that in that day… okay, here's the main goal I want to accomplish and here's how I'm going to do it. And I write it down, just not in my head. I write it down and that slows it down. And then here's the top 5 things, it down, like going, oh shoot, I forgot that, or oh shoot, I forgot that. Or no, it's like I checkmarked it, and sometimes I'll even forget what was that. Oh, let me just look at my… oh yeah, right, I gotta do that. Gotta pick up the phone, give that fellow a call, and we got to work that thing out. Yeah, that's how I start my day. That's how it goes. And generally speaking, over the last… other than in that COVID era where I lost that, and it really showed, I was actually like, wow, this is unbelievable how I forgot the importance of writing things.

1:00:05 Scott Ingram: It's interesting that your focus on kind of those top 5 things, because a shift that I've made really recently is exactly that, is getting to what are the absolute top priorities of the day. And even 3 is fine. More than 5 is probably too many. You know, I've got this giant to-do list, like there's 20 things I'd like to get done today, but, but going through the exercise and going, okay, if I got 5 of these done today or 3 of these done today where it would feel like a win, it would be meaningful progress in the work that I'm doing. And miraculously, since I've started doing that, I'm clearing my entire to-do lists in a day. You get that build in momentum, which is not a normal thing. It's usually, oh well, I got 70% of it done, stuff carries over to the next day, the next day, the next day, the next day. It's really, again, it's the priority. It's what is the most important stuff and knocking those things out. Mike, when you get into… so we kind of got the run-up to the start of your day and how that starts once you're in the office. How are you structuring the rest of your day in the office?

1:01:06 Michael Kroll: For sure. So one of the big things that I'm becoming a big believer in is warm-ups. And it's sort of like, it's hard to describe that. Warm-ups would be easy to describe if we were in sports. Okay, you know, get on the ice or get on the field or whatever, start throwing the ball around, warm up. As the day starts, and I've done that first part of written everything down, I sort of start doing some warmups. And the way that I like to do warmups is like speaking to some folks that are not like critical. In other words, like if I was speaking to you, which I am right now, but I didn't have a warmup, like if I haven't spoken to anybody before our call today, I'd probably be a little rusty. So what I like to do at this, once that first half or morning part of the day has become written, everything out is to do warmups. And what I like to do is just run through things. Like I have scripts for virtually almost everything. I start speaking it out. Like in the case of a meaningful call that I have to take, I'm gonna go, hey John, how's it going? I use an iPhone and I do this with everybody that I work with as well. So they know this is true, right? I'm not just saying it. I have a voice recorder on iPhone and I just record it. I go, hey Scott, how's it going? Oh, excellent. Well listen, the reason I'm calling you today is because I was hoping to build a relationship with you. I'm wondering if you're open into that. Okay, fantastic. Well, the way we traditionally start that is I'll send you some information, let you know who we are, what we're all about, and a couple links to our website. And I'll also throw in a one-pager, that way you understand the specialization that we're in in your industry. And yeah, wondering, would that be okay if I sent that to you? Okay, fantastic. What's your email? Excellent. Well, I'll get that off to you. And really quick, just before I let you go there, Scott, when's your renewal? Oh, okay, so that's coming up in March. Okay, well, listen, since we're in November, I think it makes a lot of sense for us potentially have a call, see if we get some preliminary information, and maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to help you out in March. Would you be open to having a call with one of our senior partners and practice leaders to see whether or not that makes sense? Okay, well, fantastic. You have your calendar in front of you? Okay, perfect. So I'm thinking, what about next week on Monday at 2 PM? How's that? Okay, great. I got that in. I'm going to send you the email on who we are, what we're all about, and that our one-pager along with an invite. And then, you know what else, Scott? I'm hoping just to collect a little bit of information as it relates to what's going on with your insurance program. Okay, great. I won't go into any more of that, Scott, but that's the warm-up. And then I press stop and I listen to it, and then I go, okay, my tone over here, good. My pacing, maybe a little too fast. Oh, I kind of hesitated. Like, even thinking back, I hesitated on one part of it. And then I just do it again and again and again and again and again until it's just my muscle memory. That's what's going to be the end. I really truly think sales training, and I'm actually speaking to a company about this right now, is going to go all AI, like artificial intelligence. And they're going to do warm-ups, they're going to do presentations, they're going to do sales calls, and they're going to mimic… and I say mimic isn't the right word for it, but AI… they're going to respond to the way that you say it, how you say it, the tone in which you say it. The number one thing I do to get the day going and throughout the day is that. And then I'll do that with my team. We'll go through it and then we'll replay it and then we pause it. We go, okay, see right there, that, look what you said there. Listen how that sounded. That's a big part of my day and getting prepared and ready. That's the other part of my day and being just strategizing and playing things out. That's another big part of my day. I was watching an episode last night. My kids love The Office, believe it or not. And there was Michael Scott and he was speaking to somebody and he didn't really know what he was saying. He was blathering on. And then it cuts to him just talking to the camera and he's like, you know, I never know what I'm gonna say in conversations. I like to just wing it. And I call it much like an improvisation. So it's not a conversation, it's an improvisation. And that's what I find most people do. They wing it. They just wing it every single time and kind of cross their fingers, hope the call goes well. And I don't like doing things based on hope. If I'm going up a mountain, I wanna know I got my ropes here. I got my different knots here. If something happens, I'm ready. I don't want to go up a mountain that's really high and not be prepared to go up it.

1:05:22 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it's an interesting process. Are there any other kind of habits or routines that are core to your success or the way you operate?

1:05:28 Michael Kroll: Yeah, absolutely. So what it is, another core habit that I have is if they say this, then what will we say? So we're going into a meeting, okay, what if they say that? Okay, here's how we're going to respond to it. Not like a rebuttal system, like a rebuttal system is more like, if they say this, then say that to persuade them to see the way that you want them to see. That to me is more like manipulation, right? What I like to do more is if they say this, then what's really behind that question? What's the question really asking? Another routine is understanding. And as we said at the top of the show, hey, the industry's changing. Somebody has a concern about price. It's not the same concern that it was 5 years ago. I was talking to you about Canada right now. We're in some tough, tough times and inflation's at an all-time high. Cost of living is at an all-time high. Interest rates just changed here in Canada where one mortgage payment used to be $2,000. Now it's close to $4,000. Like people are hurting. If someone says, yeah, Mike, that's great, but what about the price? That's not coming from a, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what price can get me. Like monumentally 2 different things going on right now. So we have to be able to understand what are the concerns. So that's another exercise that I go through. Again, it's just practicing, it's reviewing, it's understanding, okay, here's my pipeline, where am I at? Like, I'll tell you what, I've gone to and seen many organizations and I call it what's called the lead graveyard, right? And it's amazing, Scott, how many leads have been just left completely. Like I'll go in, this is going back years, right? A lot of this data exists years. So I go into the opportunity, I see the conversation and the conversation says, yeah, interested. Timing isn't really good right now. So give them a callback in 2 months. Now it's like, and I'm looking at this account that's 5 years old and we haven't given them a callback, obviously. So it's understanding what are my callbacks? Where am I at with all of that? What about all these leads that are just open without any activities set to it and reviewing all of those kinds of things. And then it's also, okay, where am I at with my goal? So if I need to have X in the pipeline and knowing your numbers is important to this. Okay. So for me, it's like, okay, we have about a, let's call it, I'm just gonna make this up. It's pretty close to the truth, but I'm gonna make it up. Let's say we have a 90% close ratio. When we get to this stage of the funnel, we have a 90% close rate. So that means if I close, these deals and I work them, I could have this in my foreclosed deals. What people tend to not do is just that. What they do is, okay, I'm gonna get another prospect and another prospect and another prospect. Like they just keep adding to the funnel, realizing though that like for one guy speaking to him and I go, so how do you think you're doing? And he goes, well, look at my pipeline. And I go, okay, yeah, I'm looking at it. It says you've got $1 million in your pipeline. He's like, yeah, aren't that great? And I go, well, let's look at where the million dollar is. Like you've got $900,000 in stage 1, and our ability to advance those deals, that's about at a 20% ratio. Whereas right now in stage, like your presentation stage, let's call it, you only have $10,000 in there. Let's worry less about getting more in the pipeline and let's now focus on advancing that pipeline from stage qualify to stage whatever it is in your industry. For us, it would be like, say, marketing. How can we connect with that prospect today and get them to buy in. And I say buy in, not sell them, but get them to realize why is it important for us to now get into this part of the sales process. Yeah. So that's another big skill is understanding where your pipeline is at, at all times.

1:09:17 Scott Ingram: Mike, you mentioned at the very top that reading was a key thing. When does that typically happen in your day?

1:09:22 Michael Kroll: For sure. So traditionally for me, the best time I do that is either at lunch or at home. Once I've done my work and I'm done, it's like, okay, let's get an hour in. That's my routine. It's almost like working out. And so I traditionally do that after I've eaten. Everybody's doing their own thing and let's get an hour. Like, if an hour doesn't work or for whatever reason, let's get 30 minutes in. If that doesn't work, let's get 15 minutes in. Like, it doesn't have to be an hour. It's just the consistency of it. And there's so many amazing ideas that I've been… as a result of that. And not only that, the reading makes you more interesting when you're meeting a prospect or you're looking to build a relationship with someone or you're going to see a client. If all you have to speak about is like, okay, so Scott, let's go through this. Okay, great. We'll talk to you later. Like there's no relationship there versus if you're interesting or you are interested in things. I mean, that just makes your life I guess I don't even want to sell that. I mean, to me, it just makes things much more rich. So that's when I do that is right after I eat, and it's either hour, thirty, or fifteen minutes.

1:10:32 Scott Ingram: Nice, nice. And then do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

1:10:38 Michael Kroll: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, I do. So I would say my mind is blanked on this one for some reason, but it's spin selling by Neil Rackham. Spin selling. Very similar to the challenger. Sales philosophy. But SPIN Selling to me is one of the real great ones. Neil Rackham actually teaches a university course on sales. Wonderful, fascinating guy. He's one of the leaders out there, that's for sure. So he bases everything like as a science. So his book was actually founded on, I think it was like 15,000 or 20,000 real-world sales calls. So the philosophy of him is to understand what's an advantage advance versus what's a continuation in sales. Like, I had one other guy who's like… I said, so how's your day? He's like, just fantastic, Mike. I said, well, oh, how's that? Well, I met 15 people today. Oh, okay, well, great. So what's going on with them? Nothing, but I met with 15 people. Oh, okay. And then this other fellow, I did a ride-along with him and we went to like 7 different places and he bought donuts for them, coffee, everything. And then I afterwards, I was there not to do anything yet, but just to observe. And at the end of the day, I asked him, so how do you think your day went? Well, he's like, well, Michael, I had 7 guys. They told me to come back. And I said, how did they ask you to come back? They said, well, next time you're in the area, yeah, come on back with those donuts and those coffees. Right? Those are continuations in sales. Those don't go anywhere. You gotta advance. There has to be what's the next step and why. And you need to know that with absolute certainty. It's like a doctor. Like you gotta be a doctor in these things. Scott, if you said, or if I said to you, like, I'm a doctor, you have a knee pain, you come in and you go, my knee's hurting. I go, great. Well, so what do you think we should do? Well, Mike, you're the doctor. Like, I don't know, maybe we could do an X-ray. Maybe I'll do some exploratory surgery, find out what's going on. You'd be like, man, okay, thanks. I'm out of here. So like, if you don't know what your advance is versus you go to another doctor, he's like, okay, where's the pain? It's right over here. Okay, let me feel. Okay, what do you… when you do this, what happens? Okay, here's what we're going to do, Scott. Here's what we're gonna do. Not in a brash way or conceited way. Here's what I need to do in order to further evaluate and understand what's going on. I'm going to send you with Stacy. She's the nurse out at the front. File out the form and we're gonna take an x-ray. Once that's done, we're gonna come back here and we're gonna look at it together. Okay? Okay, great. Thanks. Bye. So if you don't know that in sales, if you don't know your process and you're just, like I said, it's an improvisational every single time you go out there hoping someone's gonna say yes, you're in real trouble. What's your continuation? And I call continuation, Scott, kind of like sales purgatory. You're not in heaven because they didn't say yes to anything, but you're not in hell because they didn't say no to anything. You're in this sort of la-la land of sales purgatory. And that's where a lot of people spend their time is sales purgatory. Nothing is advancing. I'd rather have someone say no to me immediately, like say, Mike, I'm not interested. Scott makes a lot of sense as to why you'd be feeling that right now. Let's continue to build the relationship and I'll connect with you next year. Thanks, Mike. Yeah, click.

1:13:44 Scott Ingram: Bye.

1:13:45 Michael Kroll: You know, you were talking about what we're up against. Well, you're up against people that go, why'd you do that, Mike? You could have turned that around. Yeah, I could have. Probably. There's definitely some of the folks where if I really just kept… and that's where Neil Rackham in the book, there's a great example of this, right? Where a guy comes in and he's trying to sell copiers, like Xerox copiers. He goes to the prospect and he does what's called the assumptive sale. He goes, well, okay, so Scott, here's what I'm gonna do. We're gonna get that started in for next month. I'll get the Xerox in and away we go. Like the assumptive sale. And this was a real-world call. This was an observable call. And the decision maker goes, well, no, you know what? I'm gonna need some time. I got my partner, I gotta speak to him. I can't just get this thing in. And he's like, oh, okay, I gotcha. And then he does the alternate close, right? You know, all these different closes, right? He does the alternate close. He goes, well, I gotcha. How about this, Scott? I know you have to meet with your business partner. I'm going to allow you to test the product, this Xerox machine, for 30 days free of charge. Take it out for a test drive, make sure it does everything that I said it was, and it gives you a chance to evaluate it, et cetera. And then the guy goes, Scott, thanks for that. That's a great suggestion. Although we've got all these existing copiers to get those out, move yours in. That's a lot of time. Just not going to be able to do it, but thanks, thanks anyways, right? And then the guy's about to speak to rebuttal it, and he's like, but, you know, hang on for just a second, Mike. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to give you a choice here. You can either get up out of my office on your own accord, or I can call security. What would you like to do? I walked up and left, right? It's understanding the advance. Which advance am I going to use? How am I going gonna use it and when should I use it? And again, I could rebuttal people to death, but is that what I really want as a person? I'm pulling teeth on every single stage and I have to convince that person every single time. It's like, no, I don't wanna have a list of clients and prospects where every day it's a battle to the end. I wanna be able to hold my head up high, qualify properly, do things that advance the sale, and then not things that continue it. And if it's not an fans today and there's a real reason why, then that makes sense and then move on.

1:16:04 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. I have a very wise mentor who's fond of saying, speak to open doors.

1:16:10 Michael Kroll: Right.

1:16:10 Scott Ingram: Right. So simple sometimes. It's like, why are you beating yourself against this wall? Clearly it's closed. Just move on. Find something that's a little bit more open to the conversation. Mike, what motivates all of this? How do you think about motivation and drive? And all of that?

1:16:28 Michael Kroll: Really good one. Used to be so simple when I was in my 20s. It was just, I want to win, right? Motivation, just want to win. I think for me, motivation now is so layered. I use motivation in almost, I guess, maybe 3 different areas if I think about it. One is motivation for my family. So when you get older and you get kids and you got more and more responsibility, and then your kids want to do things and they want to go places. And you wanna provide a life for them and all those kinds of things. That's where a big part of my motivation comes in. Different though when you're 20, like what's your motivation there, right? You don't have kids, but I'll speak to that in a second. But that's my first layer is motivation for my family. That's what gets me up in the morning and being grateful for them. That's the first thing when I talked about being grateful, grateful for my family. So that's motivation number one. Motivation then number 2 is a desire, a true desire to succeed and to wanna win, not to wanna win just for the sake of winning, but because I take a great deal of pride in what I do. So motivation to win makes me want to learn, makes me want to do better, makes me want to understand, makes me want to figure out how do I be a winning team. I'm out here to win. Again, you know, it's not win at all costs. There's some times where I've won a deal by stepping away from it. I've actually won that deal in my mind. That client or that prospect actually came back like a year later. So it's recognizing wins just don't mean paycheck wins. Wins are true wins where I hold my head up high, I can look myself in the mirror and go, okay, you're doing the right thing, right? And then I would say last part of motivation is the people I work with. Like now, as I'm, I'm in my later 40s right now, and I was talking to my mentor about this too. And for me, I'm starting to really feel motivation as to how can I make others around me better and more successful? Like, again, sounds very touchy-feely or whatever, but it's the absolute truth. Like, you know, to see the young next generation of talent coming into our industry and helping them and passing this type of knowledge along to them, that makes me feel like, okay, right on, let's keep doing that. That's a huge, huge motivator for me.

1:18:44 Scott Ingram: Love that. Now, we put the soapbox away a little bit earlier, but I'm going to pull it back out. I wonder if there's something you believe that the average or typical sales professional would think is crazy.

1:18:57 Michael Kroll: It was kind of like what we were talking about just a moment ago as it relates to the advance versus the continuation. And getting someone on the phone, just getting the deals however way possible, we're going to do it. What I feel is the crazy… like, I actually experienced this with a new individual that joined our firm, and we walked away from a deal. Like, at the very beginning, we were walking away. We were saying, you know what, with all respect, Scott, it sounds to me like what you have right now is exactly what you're looking for. And to be honest with you, we're not in the business of breaking up absolutely fantastic relationships that have spanned, in the case that you're saying, 15 years, just for the sake of trying to get business from you. So why don't we agree to continue to build our relationship, get to know one another, and if anything changes there, then let's definitely connect. We'll still connect with you 4 times a year. We do events, we do seminars, we'll invite you to those, and then that's the way we'll stay in touch. We've got a newsletter as well. I could tell the fellow was looking at me. I think his jaw was like, this was a huge deal, Scott. Huge. And we all work on commission, right? We're all working to create that paycheck and that great lifestyle that we're all accustomed to. We were just about to walk up, you know, we're getting off the phone and then boom, something happens where the prospect goes, okay, well, hang on. It's almost like Columbo. For those that don't know who Columbo is, look him up. It's like you're just willing to go, okay. Yep. Nope. Got it. And then you walk out the door and then you just, one other question. And in this case, the prospect brought it up or he says, wait, wait a Wait a minute, hang on. And he was kind of putting that on as a bit of like he thought that that's how he's going to negotiate. He's going to say everything's great, everything's perfect. He's like, well, you know, the willingness of you guys to walk out the door shows me that you really do care. It's not just about the money. So let's get down to brass tacks, right? Very tough to do. Again, from the eyes of the average typical salesperson, you go in for the quote unquote kill. Yeah, we're better than this and we're better than that and we can save you this and we can da da da da da da da. And that's what every everybody does. That's how everybody talks. So it's like, do you want to be how everybody does something, or do you want to do what few do? Because it's tough. Again, it goes back to that very few people are willing to do the hard work, and sometimes it's the hard choices that makes this job quote unquote easy. And so for most people, walking away from deals… I don't mean it like just, oh, we're just walking like arrogantly. It's a very fine line. It's that you're doing things with authenticity and with like, listen, if this is what you say it is, why are we here? Why would you want to entertain this? If I'm with somebody for 15 years, you'll love the work that is… you're telling me the pricing is great, everything's good, I wouldn't want to leave. So therefore, why would I want to get you to leave from that? Anyways, I think that for the typical salesperson, that's insane.

1:21:53 Scott Ingram: Let's look at the other side of that coin. I wonder if there's something that, again, the average or typical sales professional believes that you think is crazy?

1:22:01 Michael Kroll: Oh sure. What I think is crazy is just what they say, calling, dialing for dollars. You know what, I did 15 dials, so I got 15 nos, but I know it's going to get me to a yes. Now there's some truth to that. I understand in the basic understanding of Wayne Gretzky said, you know, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And he was also a guy that shot or got his puck saved, like when he made shots. He has the most shots saved by any one player that's ever played the game, but yet he scored the most goals. You've got this idea out there. I still think it's crazy because I know with Wayne Gretzky, sure, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, but he's not gonna shoot it at his goal line. Like, you know, like, well, I'm just gonna shoot it because what the heck? Similarly, he's not gonna just shoot from the center line because of that adage. Well, you, hey, if that adage holds true, just shoot from the center line, shoot from anywhere. I think that's insanity that people think it's about the, at the end of the day, this Sales is about, it's a performance skill. Sales is performance-based. It's not activity-based. What's not gonna make me a great salesperson is making 100,000 calls. That's not going to make, I mean, it's part of the muscle. Like it's great that I can do, I'd be like, wow, that's amazing, Frank, that you did 10,000 dials a day, but they're absolutely terrible calls. Like, have you heard the way you sound? Do you know what you're saying? Do you even understand? Like, so that's to me the craziest thing that people think it's, activity-based role. This is a performance skill-based role. 100%.

1:23:39 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious about what you would want to know about or from the top sellers in other organizations.

1:23:49 Michael Kroll: Earlier on in the call here, we talked about understanding metrics in a sense of what metrics do you look for that, you know, lead to success? So for me, like, again, it's very much like Moneyball. When Moneyball, that whole way they came in, if you watch the movie, I'm sure the listeners have watched that movie, but he started looking, or whoever that fellow was, started looking for other things that predicted success more than what the average person thought or traditionally thought. Like, I think sales is very much like that. They look right now at call volume as that's not the stat you should be looking at right now. Or they look at, look how many deals that guy did. Yeah, but so he did $1 million. Let's just say. But if you look at his stats, he actually lost $4 million. It takes this guy to go through $4 million of opportunities to get one. To me, that's like, well, wait a minute, let's postmortem those $3 million losses. And we look at it and we go, because if there was the slightest hurdle, he or she just left the deal. Okay, well, what is the hurdle that he or she keeps going off on, right? So for me, what I would want understand is what do you know leads to in a metric sense, as well as a connection sense? What are you looking for that leads ultimately to that closed deal? And if you don't know, then hey, let's find out. For me, it's very much gut feel. Like if I ask somebody what leads to success and they just go, yeah, we know our stuff. What I would want to get is much deeper into the metrics of, well, what does that mean? Yeah.

1:25:26 Scott Ingram: What is that for you? Like what's your money Yeah.

1:25:29 Michael Kroll: So for me, Moneyball metric, there's a bunch, there's a lot of metrics, right? So the first metric, just like in Moneyball, is get on base, get the hell on base. I don't care about home runs. I don't care about like a home run. Like that's what we all wanna see. Like one guy, he's like 100%. He didn't count all the lost deals, right? But on the CRM, he's 100%. So for me, it's first base. How do you get onto first base? So that's the number one metric I wanna know. How good are you at and how many times does it take you to get on first base? So if it takes you 50 calls to get one interested party, then we got some work to do. So that's going to be the first metric.

1:26:07 Scott Ingram: And Mike, real quick, just to interrupt, what is first base in your definition? Like, is that a meeting? Is that a first meaningful conversation? What is that exactly?

1:26:14 Michael Kroll: Great question. Yeah. So first base for us is a second discovery call. We're not in person yet, quite yet. But what we are is we're setting up another call. Now, some people who are super super skilled, they'll just go right into a meeting. If they're that real experienced individual and they just have this fantastic phone call, well, you're not gonna go to someone like that and say, let's not meet. I have to go through process 2 in order to… but traditionally you have a first phone call or a first meeting, even if someone introduced you. And that one is meant to be just a very brief, like, here's who I am, here's what we do, here's how I'd like to start building the relationship. And then from there, you start qualifying and seeing how interested they are. So for me, first base is they agree, you know what? Yeah, I have my renewal coming up at some point. Let's have a call. That makes a lot of sense. So that's first base. That's everything. If you get on first base with that, okay, now we're cooking. 'Cause now we can start to really prepare and to start to, you know, almost like you get a rag and you're gonna squeeze as much water outta that rag and that's gonna be on that second call. And that second call is traditionally about 15, 20 minutes. And in that second call, what we're trying to do is all the things that qualified them in the first call, we're now exploring a little bit more. So we would say something like, Billy was mentioning you had had some experiences as it relates to claims. Can you tell me a little more about that?

1:27:44 Scott Ingram: Right?

1:27:44 Michael Kroll: We're diving into it a little bit more, but we're not going in for the quote unquote kill quite yet. Just some surface. Yeah, well, this and that. Okay.

1:27:52 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:27:53 Michael Kroll: The other thing Billy mentioned was this, and then you want 2 2 or 3 max. You don't wanna go on 15 different things. And then once you got that, and then you make it about the decision has to be 2 people here. And what we always say is, well, to me it makes sense, Scott, that we would have an opportunity to meet together to really dive into it. What do you think? That's kind of like second base. If they go, yeah, you know what? You're right. That really is something I think that makes a lot of sense. Let's meet. So that's second base. So understanding you've got these stages. And then third base is you go through the discovery on second base, and that first meeting you're diving like really deep into the things that you discussed on the first and second call. And you're diving really deep, you're getting into it, you've built some stuff, and then you get, okay, here's what we want to do, here's how we want to advance this, this is the next step. We've been talking about continuation versus an advance, but Scott, for us to get that next step, here's what we're gonna need from you. Are you into that? Like, it is a lot of work. I'm probably gonna spend 40, 60 hours on this. It's gonna be a lot of time on your end. You're gonna probably spend 10 hours, maybe 5, 10 hours getting all of that. Does that make sense to you? Like, do you think it's worth our going and doing that together? Yeah, Mike. Yeah, I do. Because you've done that good work on that first meeting and then you get to work and then you have your presentation meeting and then that's a wholly other different way to prepare? And then they either say yes or no. Like, and sometimes that decision won't be right after the presentation meeting, could be a week later, could be a few days later, and that's when you quote unquote score.

1:29:28 Scott Ingram: I interrupted your flow a little bit. I think you maybe had one more Moneyball metric for us.

1:29:32 Michael Kroll: Oh yeah, so the other Moneyball metric is… so we talked about getting on base, that's the number one thing. The other aspect that I look at is, again, it's finding that Goldilocks, not too hot, not too too cold thing, which is how many times are you going up to bat? Like, how many times are you… and going up to bat in our world is you're making an outbound call or you're going to an event and you're going up to somebody. That act, how many times are you doing it? If you do it too few, like one fellow I was working with, they would do an hour of research or something like, or 30 minutes, something ridiculous. Like they did a Google search, then they did this, and then they went there, and then they… 15 minutes goes by, 30 minutes, they take a phone call, right? And then they make the call, ring, ring, ring. Oh, went to voicemail. Or ring, ring, ring. Is Scott there? No, he's not in this week. So they spent an hour of their day or 30 minutes of their day making one phone call. Similarly, if you get up to bat too many times and you're just swinging away without a thought. Like, it'd be like if you play golf, you get onto the golf course, you don't look where's the tee, you don't look where the hole is, you just stick your ball in the ground and swing and you go 4 and you just keep doing that. It's like, what are you doing? For me, the Moneyball metric there is, for me, looking at the numbers right now, it's between 25 to 50 and 50 is on the real high. It depends on what you're selling. We're building relationships with people. So for us, it's more towards that 25 level. We've got good insights. We've got good understandings of who the prospect is. We've got some research done. That's what we need to have every day.

1:31:13 Scott Ingram: Nice. So let's dispense a little bit of advice, issue a challenge, and get out of here. So the first thing I'm interested in is just what advice would you give to somebody that is starting out in their sales career today?

1:31:26 Michael Kroll: Well, for sure, what I would say is something that I wish I would have done, which we spoke about earlier on in the call here, which is get out to the industry in which you serve. So if you're in the whatever industry, like, are you serving… is it manufacturing? Is it engineering? Is it construction? Is it whatever? Like, get to know the industry because you got to love it. If you don't love it and all you're looking to do is get into something so that you can pitch something so that you can make money, this isn't the way to make money. You got to care. You got to care about the industry. You got to care about the people who are in that industry. So get out there, get into the industry. I had a 25-foot rule. Anybody who's 25 feet inside of my little circle circumference area, I would introduce myself to them. I'd have some cards, right? Like, hey, I wanna introduce myself. I'm new to the industry, but I'm really keen on learning things. My name's Michael. Here's a card. Mind if I get one from you? And I'd love to start getting to know you, build a relationship. Yeah, sure. Here you go. And then get to those industries. Then after that, the next thing I would do is start talking to those people that you met. Hey, listen, wondering if I could bend your ear, have a cup of coffee. Love to get to know what's going on in your business and some of the challenges you're face. Promise I won't sell you. Don't be one of those guys either. I have one guy, I won't name the business, but he says, yeah, I'd like to take you out for a cup of coffee, get to know you. Then we get there and he takes out this big binder, and now I'm stuck in an infomercial on a financial product. And it was the worst, worst thing. So don't sell in the beginning, which is, again, that flies in the face of, yeah, I listened to this guy, he told me not to sell but to build relationships. But keep in mind, this is your learning time. You gotta get to understand that. Then start building scripts for yourself, but don't make them sound like scripts. Like I went through that warmup that I go through, I say that. So get a script, write it out, and then start recording yourself on it and start listening for the nuances and give that recording to your peers and your companies. Give those to friends. Actually, even some of the relationships that you started to build when you went to those association things, say, hey, listen, Scott, you know, I'm new to the industry. As I mentioned, we met at that association event. Can I grab a cup of coffee with you? And I was hoping you could actually critique critique something of mine. I'd love your opinion on it. And then you just say, hey, can you listen to this? And I'll tell you what, you'll be so endearing and so different that that guy's like, wow, that sounded pretty terrible. But you know what, Mike? I think I'd like to actually see what you might be able to do. Like, you'd be astounded at how much business you can get because you're just real. Anyways, that's a wholly other different topic. But practice, practice, practice, practice that. And then seek out a mentor, whether it be in your business or whether it be someone who's successful in sales. Like, the whole reason I'm even here, Scott, to be honest with you is because I got referred by someone who did what I just said and we're still connected. And he said, you know, you should meet this fellow, his name's Scott. And this is a fellow that connected with me for the sole purpose of building a relationship. And that's our relationship to this day. We've done some business and I continue to try to support him and he tries to continue to support me. These things really do work. So that getting into the business, just in summary, understand the industry that you're in. Have a real curiosity about it. Get to know the people, build relationships with those people. Get a script, practice a script, get that script in front of things. And then again, trial and error, trial and error, persistence, trial and error. Keep taking it out until you got something that just works for you.

1:34:55 Scott Ingram: Nice. And then what about for somebody that is further into their career? Maybe they're good, but they haven't found like that great gear. There's another level that they they're trying to get to. What do you tell them?

1:35:06 Michael Kroll: Boy, that's a really good one. That has inklings of even my experience from last year to this year. We got another gear from some of the folks by challenging them. And there's that challenger sale mentality. But I'll never forget there was Oliver Stone. So Oliver Stone, great, great director, did Wall Street, Platoon, and JFK, on and on. Anyways, he did the movie Wall Wall Street, and he, against the advice of Hollywood execs, he, he casted Michael Douglas for the role of Gordon Gekko. He was typecast, Michael Douglas, like different. He wasn't this, like the kind of character we all know Gordon Gekko to be. This was not his personality. And anyways, Oliver Stone, he's seeing this like he's too nice. He doesn't sound brash enough. So he goes up to him and takes him aside. There's a story that I heard, or I read about He says, you know, Michael, you're not the actor I thought you were. And Michael Douglas looked at him, he's, what? He's like, yeah, I really saw you as someone that could really bring it. To be honest with you, I'm disappointed. I'm surprised because I really believed in you. I wanted you for this role. And yeah, I guess maybe this just isn't gonna work out. And what Michael Douglas said is that lit a fire under him that led him to win the Academy Award. I mean, like, he won Best Actor, right? That's hard. I sit here saying that, that is hard because we're all driven by ego and it's like a landmine with some folks that have been like, these are senior guys, senior people, men and women, been at it for a long time, have had some success. Who are you to tell me what you're telling me? So the way I like to try and find that first is it goes back to building relationship, understanding what motivates them, and then getting to a place where they feel like you're not there to attack them, but you're there to say, you know what, I think you can be better than what you're doing. I honestly do. Not better in who you are as a person, not better in your knowledge, but I think you can be better. Do you want to take that journey with me, or do you want to just keep doing what you're doing? Either way is fine to a degree, but are you up for doing something even better? And that's generally… it's either you're with me or you're not. And thankfully, I have people that wanted to be better.

1:37:28 Scott Ingram: And the last thing we'll do is we'll try and make this as actionable as we can. We've talked about a lot of stuff, but what would you challenge our listener to do over the course of the next, say, 1 to 2 weeks to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:37:43 Michael Kroll: Oh, for sure. Okay, so what I would do is first and foremost record yourself. Like I said, get that iPhone, or if you have whatever means in which you can record your script, record record yourself and do a first, second, third, fourth, and fifth and see the progression. Like, actually notice and listen for the progression of that. Then what you ought to then do is put yourself out there and ask a peer to listen to it and say, hey, listen, John, can you listen to this? I want your honest feedback here. I will not be offended. This is my career, this is my life on the line here. I need you to tell The good, the bad, the ugly, and get them to do that. And then with that, then do it first, second, third, fourth, and fifth. Let them listen to it again. That would be exercise one. Easy to say, so easy to say. But if you do it, like I said, if you do the hard work, it'll make your job easier, I promise. Then the next thing is, is try to get someone that you know and trust and that will be willing to provide you with some feedback. Like a client would be ideal. Like if you have the opportunity for a client that you'd like to critique your script with, choose what you think is the best and take 'em out for coffee, invite them over to the office or do whatever you can. And say, I'd love your opinion on it. And I'll tell you, boy, there's so many things I look, cuz it's all about perspective. If you're sitting from someone and you look at me and you see there's like an entryway and there's people coming into a restaurant and all this other stuff, and then you say, well, what do you see behind you? And then I go, well, I just see a wall. That's what perspective is until we actually go and see what that prospect sees, we'll never really understand how that lands with them. That's exercise 2. And then exercise 3 is putting it to use and seeing and understanding how is it working. Not just calling for the sake of calling, but going through it and then doing it 10 to 15 times. Not once, that's too small of a sample size. 10 to 15 times a day. And for that week you've done it 10 to 15 calls and afterwards, go, okay, am I getting better or am I getting worse? If I'm getting worse, why? And if I'm getting better, why? And then you go back to the drawing board.

1:39:58 Scott Ingram: Perfect. Very actionable. Michael, thanks for the time. Thanks for the conversation. I appreciate it.

1:40:03 Michael Kroll: Oh, thank you so very much, Scott. Really, really appreciate it as well. 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.