3: #1 Regional Sales Director at Influitive – Justin Bridgemohan

0:08 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.

0:23 Scott Ingram: I'm in Dallas today with my guest, Justin Bridgemohan, who is and has been the number one seller at Influitive in his regional sales role. Thanks for having me over and welcome. To the show, Justin.

0:33 Justin Bridgemohan: Thank you, Scott. You're very welcome.

0:35 Scott Ingram: So what we do to start on this show is I've asked Justin to prepare a little bit and kind of talk through the top 3 things that have really set him apart and allowed him to get to the top. So Justin, why don't we talk through each of those at a high level? But having seen a preview, we're going to be digging in a little bit. So why don't you talk through the 3 pieces first?

0:56 Justin Bridgemohan: All right, let's do it. The first thing I would say that I do differently is I have a very strong focus on being an expert in my domain. Just to give the audience an understanding, Influitive is an advocate marketing software company. We sell both services as well as a marketing product. For me, marketing was brand new when I started first at Influitive back in 2013. I'd never been in the industry, didn't really know a whole lot about it, never went to school for marketing or even business. My first foray into marketing was really interesting. It was intriguing because I had an academic thirst to understand what it consisted of. And I just so happened to be in a situation where when I first started at Influitive, there wasn't really anyone there to help me or mentor me to say, this is the direction that you should be focused on, these are the things that you should learn. So I went out seeking it on my own. I read every single page of content that we had, did my own research, read my own books, and over time I started to accumulate knowledge enough to realize that in most of my sales calls that I was having, my customers or potential customers were deferring to me to understand the intricacies of Advocate Marketing. And at that point I realized that that's probably my biggest asset. That I have interacting with customers and delivering value, the knowledge, my understanding, and my expertise around advocacy.

2:09 Scott Ingram: Awesome. So we'll definitely come back to the expertise, particularly around how you developed it, right? So to your point, it wasn't something that you'd gone to school for. And I don't know that anybody go to school thinking I'm ultimately going to go in a sales role and how do you prepare for that? But to your point, it's very situational. It depends on the industry you're in. And obviously this advocate marketing space is a very new one. So there's that this isn't something that's been established for 30, 40, 100 years. So let's… we'll come back to some of these things. So what's the second thing?

2:42 Justin Bridgemohan: The second thing that I do is I follow a very specific methodology where I ask my prospects to opt in, so to speak, to the sales process. And this is a methodology that I follow on every single one of my sales deals. And if a prospect doesn't opt in, they don't agree to participate in the buying process that I've outlined for them, that I'm not going to really spend any time working with them. And that for me has been one of the biggest keys to my success. Now, of course, over time I've evolved my approach here. My methodology is not the same that it initially was, but at its basis, that is something that I require from my prospects if they want my time and my expertise in helping them to work through the creation of an advocacy program.

3:24 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. And we're definitely going to come back to that one. It's really intriguing to me, both the process and the qualifying that you're that you're really doing around that. Okay, cool. And then, uh, the, the third one.

3:34 Justin Bridgemohan: I'd say the third thing that I do is I mitigate risk for my prospects. And it somewhat is aligned to what I've been saying in my first 2 points, which is that people don't necessarily have a great understanding of advocate marketing, which is my domain that I sell towards. And as a result, they're very risk-averse. The number one reason, in my opinion, that prospects are not gonna make a decision, are not gonna take a step towards change, is because they're afraid of the repercussions. They're afraid of the what-ifs, and they're not really sure of what should be happening before, during, and after the sales process. So if I can remove those blockers one by one, I can ultimately open people up to the vision that I create and hopefully can sell them on.

4:16 Scott Ingram: Awesome. So obviously we've got a lot to dig into just from the first 3 points that Justin has shared. I've, I've got some questions about, about each, and we're obviously gonna go much, much deeper just in, in terms of Justin's history and some of his mindset and some of the things that he does behaviorally beyond his process and things. So lots to look forward to. But before we go there, I want to give a quick shout out to my inaugural sponsor, the, my friends at Nudge. Nudge is a modern sales platform that leverages relationship strength to help you find and keep your best customers. I've been using Nudge myself since a very early beta version, and they continue to add more and more to the solution. So if you value relationships the way I do, then you need Nudge. You can sign up for free at neednudge.com. That's N-E-E-D-N-U-D-G-E.com. And then, you know, you can pause the show and come right back and listen to some more of my, my conversation with Justin. Now that you're back, Justin, let's, let's talk about that first piece. So what would you recommend, or maybe just what was your own process for gaining that expertise? What, what did it take? How long did it take? Really to establish yourself as the expert in the room on, on this topic of, of advocate marketing?

5:31 Justin Bridgemohan: I'd say we can quantify it a couple of different ways. If we want to use in terms of the number of hours, I would say probably several hundred, anywhere from 150 to about 300 hours, probably over the first 6 months of my time at Influitive was required. And that consisted of a variety of different things, internal content, Every single blog piece that Influitive had written up to that point, reading books that I was able to search and secure. And then it also consists of having conversations with customers and really digging to understand what is it that they don't know. So if there was one thing that I would say on the macro level, there's one judging question that I used. It was this: what is it that I can know about advocate marketing that my customers won't?

6:17 Scott Ingram: Interesting.

6:17 Justin Bridgemohan: And when I used that question, that basically framed where my knowledge gaps were because I was never gonna be the expert in marketing as a whole. I was brand new to marketing. I'm speaking to CMOs or VPs that have been in marketing for their entire careers, 20, 30, 40 years. I was never gonna be that expert. I was never gonna know more than them about marketing, but I could know more than them about advocate marketing because for most people it was something that was exceptionally new.

6:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah, very, very cool. And I think that sets a good bar too, right? This is not, oh, you're going to spend 20 hours, you're going to spend a weekend and study hard and you're going to be good, right? It's going to take some time. You're going to invest some number of hours every week. And what I love about what you said is there was a purpose. You had a definite goal about here's how I'm going to get there in the gap that I'm trying to fill. So it wasn't just surveying the market broadly for data. You were really trying to answer questions that you were then going to be able to turn around and answer for your prospects.

7:15 Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly. And I think one of the important things to understand is that when you have that level of knowledge and understanding and comprehension about your domain, there's a certain confidence that emanates from every conversation that you have as a result. And those 2 things are intricately linked. So confidence, in my opinion, comes partially from competence. So in order to be truly confident about what you're selling, and everyone knows that confidence is integral in any sales process or any sales conversation. You do have to be knowledgeable and you have to believe not only that you're the right person that someone should be talking to, but you know the right things as well.

7:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So speaking of confidence, you're obviously also very, very confident in your process. So what is the process? I mean, peel that onion back a little bit and kind of walk us through where does it start? What are the steps? How do you position that with the client that they're opting into to basically go through this journey with you?

8:08 Justin Bridgemohan: Certainly. I think the number one thing that I focus on in terms of getting people into my process is very simply this: if I work with more people who actually want to work with me, then I'm going to have a higher chance of success. And that seems very obvious or self-evident. However, I can tell you that for most salespeople, it isn't. It's like getting someone into the first discovery call is pulling teeth, and getting the second meeting is the same thing. I think it was probably about 3 or 4 months in during my time at Influitive, I thought, well, wait a second. What if people were following my lead and they volunteered to be part of my process? So I started experimenting with, you know, what could I do to get people to follow my lead? Because I felt if I knew the most about advocate marketing, I also knew the most about how to launch a program and how to lead people through that buying process of launching a program as well. So what my focus was is I'm going to group people into 4 buckets. First bucket I call A1, and then the second bucket is A2. And A1 are my top prospects. These are the people that I'm going to spend 70% of my time on. And A1 is described as people who have a champion, have budget, perhaps have some type of specific project that they're working towards. But the most important thing is that they've agreed to follow my process. Now A2s are people who have agreed to follow my process but have neither of those things. They think what we do is cool, they think it could work, and they're a champion, so to speak. B1s and B2s are the bottom thirds and fourths of my buckets. And B1 is someone who has a project, is perhaps interested or has budget, or the executive is interested, but they haven't agreed to follow my process. And then B2s are those who have done neither of those things. They neither have a champion.

10:01 Scott Ingram: Forget about it. Exactly.

10:02 Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly. So I would say my time split is about 70, 20, 5, and hopefully 0 should be my goal for the B1s or sorry, the B2s.

10:14 Scott Ingram: Got it.

10:14 Justin Bridgemohan: Um, that's probably how I split it up.

10:17 Scott Ingram: So what, how are you articulating the process? What, what are you explaining to the client that they're opting into?

10:24 Justin Bridgemohan: Certainly. I think the most important thing for me is about framing, because if I frame this conversation the right way, this is a crucial conversation. This should happen on the first call. It does for me. I'm saying essentially something like this. I've worked with 50 or so other organizations to help them launch an initiative like the one that you're looking at, and I've seen certain common denominators that if we do correctly during the planning process will lead to insurmountable success. So I'm gonna outline what that process is for you, and I wholeheartedly believe if we follow that process, we're gonna align you correctly to gain buy-in from your executives. We're gonna create a wonderful ROI and business case, and we're ultimately gonna lay the framework for a successful program for today and years to come.

11:09 Scott Ingram: Awesome. What about the flip side? So somebody says that, yeah, that all sounds good, but we've got kind of our own way of doing things. I've got, I've got an approach that I want to take, or basically they're not opting into your process in one way, shape, or form. How, how do you, how do you tell them no?

11:27 Justin Bridgemohan: I usually try to disarm them, um, with the understanding that I've done this more times than you. Of course, selling it in a, a more gentle way. Exactly. So something like I often use is, I understand, you know, Scott, you do have your own process of how you bought software. I'd like for you to tell me a little bit about your experience in launching an advocacy program at the company you work for.

11:51 Scott Ingram: And you probably get similar amounts of crickets.

11:53 Justin Bridgemohan: You've got it. And from there, they're probably gonna take a step back. Well, I haven't exactly done this before, uh, but I've done something similar for another piece of marketing software, um, like Eloqua. And I'll say, okay, I understand. You know, one of the things that I've learned is that implementing Influitive and implementing a marketing automation platform is really very different. And I respect completely your experience in launching your marketing automation platform. But I think that if we follow this process, and part of my responsibility is equipping you for success down the road, if we follow the process that I've ordained for this particular initiative, then we're going to have the types of results that you'd like. And if we don't follow this process, and I tell you I've tried it multiple different ways, then we're probably not going to have the type of results that you'd like, and you probably wouldn't want to work for Influitive. And there's never been a time where I've used that and someone has said, well, nope, I'm still going to follow it my way. You know, most people, if they're a champion, if they're one of the people that you want to be working with, then they're probably not going to tell you no.

12:55 Scott Ingram: Nice. How are you incorporating kind of the traditional buying process into that as well? Right. So different organizations have different processes in terms of procurement and especially in our space these days, security review and all of those things. How do you incorporate that into that process?

13:13 Justin Bridgemohan: I list it as one of the bucket items that we're going to have to check off. And in fact, usually I'll put procurement as one of the last steps, but technical or security sign-off or legal sign-off comes actually much earlier. So I may say something like, one of the things that I've noticed is that since advocacy is something very new to organizations, your legal department is probably going to want to vet this pretty extensively. So in my experience, we should probably be getting started on this process of of legal vetting quite early.

13:42 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense given a conversation I was just having with one of your colleagues last week.

13:47 Justin Bridgemohan: Completely.

13:48 Scott Ingram: It hangs you up, right? And it's when you've been through the process, you know, this is going to come, this is going to happen, this is going to become our bottleneck, you know, to be able to get in front of it and not be surprised by it and miss your number in a quarter because, oh shoot, this is going to take another month longer than we thought, right?

14:03 Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly. Now, the one determining thing as part of my process I should probably have prefaced this with this one comment is that I get people to say, in an optimal world, when would I launch this initiative or project? So that's their date that they've set. So let's say they say it's December 31st. Okay, great. Usually my experience is that the legal paperwork can sometimes take up to 2 months. So with your blessing, I think that's something we could probably get working on concurrently as we check off some of the other items on this list.

14:32 Scott Ingram: Perfect.

14:33 Justin Bridgemohan: The second that someone has volunteered their ideal timeframe, then they've agreed to my process, they've set their own goal, and I use every single thing that I do in that process as working towards a goal that they've set.

14:45 Scott Ingram: And do you, are you creating basically a joint project plan with them that you're checking in on? Like what, what's, how does that manifest itself as, as you work through that, your process?

14:56 Justin Bridgemohan: I would say that's exactly what it is. I know some people call it success plans or close plans, whatever it is that you use. But this is essentially what I'm doing, except it's something that I do on every single deal from the very first call. And that's the key, because I think that consistency is one of the most powerful things in sales, is that if at the very first call I've set my objectives, my goals, and I'm saying this is the process that we are going to follow, inherently if you continue the conversation with me You're agreeing to follow my process.

15:28 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Great stuff. And then lastly, um, I don't know, maybe not the most interesting, but something we all have to be thinking about. And obviously you've done a good job of that in terms of mitigating risk. Which do you see the most often and what are you doing to get ahead of those things? Because I imagine again, it's consistency in approach. It's part of the process and just staying ahead of it, not being surprised by it. Right.

15:50 Justin Bridgemohan: Certainly. I think the first is understanding where that risk or what set of beliefs have triggered that apprehension that people have in moving forward with the project. And this for me is a lot to do with psychology. You know, everybody has a certain set of beliefs that they go into a situation for. Uncovering what those beliefs are then helps me to determine what type of risk mitigation I need to do. So that could be the most basic one, probably that everyone encounters as a salesperson. What if this doesn't work? I understand that you probably have an apprehension about why this isn't going to work, tell me about where that comes from. And then as people start to say, well, you know, I had an implementation that took too long and we didn't get up and running long enough, then my focus is going to be on the implementation plan. This is how we get you up and running and started, and this is how we keep you successful. Or it could be, well, I'm worried that a year down the road that the executives may not sponsor this program for another year. Then I may go into, well, this is why we do an executive check-in during that annual process so that we equip you with the metrics and the qualitative data that you need to go in there and speak to your executives in an intelligent way and demonstrate success. So I think it's uncovering what are the belief systems that our prospects have around risk, because another person may be like the complete opposite spectrum. Well, what if we do this and it's such a success that, you know, we need to expand the program by 3x? And that's an entirely different circumstance of risk mitigation than, right, you know, the others.

17:22 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. That's great stuff. Good, good, good. So let's, let's start not quite at the beginning. Let's talk about kind of your current role. How did, how did you get into this role? How did you get to the top? And I'm also interested in how is it that we're sitting here in Dallas? 'Cause that's not where you started.

17:37 Justin Bridgemohan: That's correct. Uh, I'm a regional director at Influitive and I've been in this role now for about 2 months, 2 and a half months since the start of August. Prior to that, I was a regional sales manager, so I received a promotion in August of this year. I was a regional sales manager from August 2014 up until August of this year. Then prior to that, I was an account executive at Influitive from August 2013 to August 2014. So I've had 2 promotions since I've been at Influitive, from an account executive to a regional sales manager and now to a regional director. Working with our enterprise customers.

18:16 Scott Ingram: Awesome. So talk about what each of those roles kind of entailed, because you're still… it's all individual contributor all the way through, right?

18:22 Justin Bridgemohan: That's correct. So my first role as an account executive was working with companies that had less than 500 employees, primarily in the B2B software space. Those are the types of prospects that we target, and I reported directly to the VP of Sales. Now, of course, part of this has to do with the growth of Influitive as an organization. So I started off as the second salesperson at Influitive, which was a great experience in and of itself. And then during my first year of performance, I performed pretty well and I moved into the regional sales manager role. And that was handling accounts from 500 up to 2,500 employees. And then now I'm handling basically 2,500+ employees as a regional director. But in its fundamental piece, My role is basically the same. I have a quota and I need to hit that quota as an individual contributor. The types of companies that I work with and the complexity of the projects that I deal with, that has evolved now, but the fundamentals I think remain the same.

19:20 Scott Ingram: Cool. And then quantify your results for us because you've done very well.

19:24 Justin Bridgemohan: For my first year, so from 2013 to 2014, I hit about $670,000 in ARR, annual recurring revenue. During my second year as a regional sales manager, I bumped that up to $900,000, and then my third year as a regional sales manager, it was close to $1.2 or $1.3 million, so a pretty significant increase. Part of that has to do with the growth of Influitive, part of that has to do with our great marketing team, but I think arguably the most fundamental factor is evolving the processes that I've used A/B testing and ultimately just following that process all the way through to success.

20:03 Scott Ingram: Yep. And obviously number 1 each of those years.

20:06 Justin Bridgemohan: Correct. I've been number 1 each of those years for the past 3 years.

20:09 Scott Ingram: Awesome. So what's your origin story? How did this all start? How did you get into sales?

20:15 Justin Bridgemohan: So if I was to take it back, you know, way back when, my very first job, so to speak, was selling chocolate bars for a charity. And that was, I think, back when I was 12. But my first formal job in sales was working at Future Shop. Canadian folks will know what that is, but for the Americans, it's the equivalent of Best Buy. So I worked selling home theater systems during my last year of high school. That was my very first formal job in sales. And so I finished school and my very first official job in sales post-graduation, I was working at a consulting company. And really the only reason I took the job was because It probably had the best paying offer of anything that was out there, if I'm going to be 100% transparent. And I thought, well, I'm either going to go back to school now to do my graduate studies into medical school or law school, whatever it happens to be, or I'm going to take the job that's the most well-paid and hope it turns into something. And that's what I did.

21:12 Scott Ingram: I think that's how so many of us got here. Very rarely is it intentional. I mean, at what At what point did you become intentional that, you know what, this, I'm serious about this. I'm going to turn this into a real profession.

21:25 Justin Bridgemohan: I would say after the first year, I started to realize that a lot of the skill sets that I think I had in my natural aptitude as a human equipped me pretty well to be successful at sales. And I realized, I think it was probably about, yeah, after a year I was having a conversation with who my sales manager was at that time, and he was leaving to go to another organization, and he was telling me about the compensation plan that he was going to be at on the next company. I was like, hmm, I can probably turn this into a good gig, make more than I would as a lawyer or a doctor perhaps. And that for me was the primary goal.

22:07 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So now that it is something that you're really committed to, is there anything that you would've done differently if you were kind of starting out on your own sales path today?

22:21 Justin Bridgemohan: I would say so. I think business acumen is probably the one thing that I think salespeople can acquire as early as possible. Because regardless of the role that you're in, whether you're a business development representative making cold calls or you're an enterprise executive calling on Fortune 500 companies, Business acumen is something that can help you in every single one of these situations across any industry that you're in regardless of the type of sales that you're doing. Now, I didn't go to school for business and that's part of the reason why I'm doing my MBA right now is to help supplement some of those business knowledge and things that I felt like could be pretty instrumental in my success. But I would say acquiring just general business knowledge, finance, accounting, how basic things work, strategic planning, marketing. These things, these fundamental concepts, I think are helpful in just about any sales scenario. And that's one thing I wish I would have acquired earlier on.

23:17 Scott Ingram: Yeah, totally agree. And it helps you connect all the dots, right? How, how does this company function? What's the ROI case study, right? It's really hard to come up with that if you don't understand how the business works.

23:28 Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly.

23:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great. So from an accomplishment perspective, what are you most proud of to date?

23:34 Justin Bridgemohan: I would say probably 2 things. I think getting 2 promotions within the course of 3 years is pretty great. I think that's probably something that I'm quite proud of, particularly that I think I'm ahead of the curve in relation to where most people would have been however many years I am currently into my sales role. But probably the thing that I'm most proud of is my year-to-year growth in income, which is since 2013 has been anywhere from 30 to 45% growth year over year. And I think that it's not just about the number, the raw number. Of course, the commission checks help, of course, but it's also about what that's reflective of. It's reflective, in my opinion, of my knowledge about advocacy, but it's also reflective of my growth as a salesperson, as a human being, as a business person. As a potential entrepreneur. I think that's all reflective and indicative of that year-over-year growth. And that's probably the thing that I'm most happy about.

24:33 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. On the flip side, what's been the biggest challenge, or was there a particular period in this role or in a previous role where it got hard, it got to be a struggle?

24:45 Justin Bridgemohan: I would say my first 6 months at Influitive were quite difficult. As I mentioned, we didn't have a vice president of sales. I reported directly to the CEO. Didn't get a whole lot of face time with him. Of course, being a very busy person, I didn't have someone there that was able to mentor me 24/7 or even for, let's say, 10% of the time. So I basically got thrown into a situation where I didn't really have a whole lot of leads, didn't have a whole lot of direction, didn't have a whole lot of content. And I struggled for my first 4 to 6 months at Influitive really finding my footing. Understand… understanding how I should sell this process, um, you know, how I could sell Influitive as a company. And that for me was probably the most difficult time to endure.

25:28 Scott Ingram: And how, how did you break through that? What, what, what was the impetus that really got you through the challenging period?

25:35 Justin Bridgemohan: I think it was predicated on my belief that if I put in enough hours of work and I acquired enough knowledge, that ultimately there was success at the end of the road. And I think it seems really simple, but I think our belief systems really influence the way that we view these types of situations. And I think in any profession, belief systems may not be as important, but in sales, I'm telling you, when you're enduring something that's really difficult, a tough quarter or a tough year even, having that belief that with enough work, with enough effort, with enough improvement, there is a light at the end of the tunnel is something that's Really instrumental, I think, if you're going to get into sales.

26:13 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So how did people play a part in that or continue to play a part in that? So whether that was new sales leadership that came on or the way that you worked with your peers, or maybe you had other mentors, like how did you leverage that to continue to elevate your game?

26:33 Justin Bridgemohan: I think every meeting that I went into, whether it was with product or marketing or business development or or really anyone, executives at the organization, I was going into it with a mindset of what can I learn from this person? And so I would say that the entire executive team at the time, as well as just about everybody, played a role because we were a small company at that time, maybe of 30 people. So I got to listen to everyone's perspective, whether it was Jim, who's our VP of marketing. I learned a whole lot from him. The way that he handled and managed his team, but also with the way that he ran the marketing organization. And so I would sit down and have conversations with him if we were at a conference, as an example, and just get his perspective on marketing in general. And those were certain tidbits that I would start to infuse into my process as a salesperson. In my first 6 months, I also spent a whole lot of time listening to Mark Organ, who's our CEO, on sales calls himself. Not necessarily so much for the tactical aspect of how to execute a sales cycle or a sales process, but more so for his vision. So I started to take certain parts of his vision and then append them into the way that I would sell. Emanuelle, who was my first VP of Sales at Influitive, her enthusiasm, her fervor overall for advocacy was something that I started to infuse and inject into my sales process. So I think it's the amalgamation of so many different people where I just pull certain different things that they all exemplify very well and then infuse them into my process into very specific ways.

28:06 Scott Ingram: Nice. Nice. And having worked with Jim Williams, he's a pretty good sales guy for a marketer.

28:11 Justin Bridgemohan: He is, definitely.

28:13 Scott Ingram: So I asked before, I'm still curious about how you got to Dallas from Toronto.

28:19 Justin Bridgemohan: That's a great question. It was a combination of circumstance, opportunity, and ultimately, on vision on my part of wanting to be somewhere different, I think. That certainly played a role. But from the strategic standpoint, Influitive has 3 different levels in the sales team or 3 different progressions that you can take once you're a salesperson. So, there's an account executive and then a regional sales manager and then a regional director. Now, I was responsible for the Texas area as a regional sales manager, but we didn't have a regional director yet at that point who was going to be working in Texas. So I looked at that and I said, hmm, well, I've been performing pretty well for the past 2 years as a regional sales manager. We haven't hired anyone yet to be a regional director in Texas. I'm in Texas probably about a week out of every month, just as is. I don't necessarily like the cold weather back in Toronto, which is where I'm from, although I love the city.

29:19 Scott Ingram: We'll fix the cold weather in Texas.

29:21 Justin Bridgemohan: And As a result, I said, this is the perfect opportunity here for me to make a move, grow, experience a new city, a new culture, a new environment, and then also progress into that role almost as a blocker, so to speak. I made the move before I was even promoted to the regional director role with the assumption that I would eventually be able to progress into that role. I moved here at the end of May. Um, so end of May 2016, and by August I was promoted into that role. So it made sense and happened to work out, uh, as a calculated risk on my part.

29:58 Scott Ingram: Nice. How, how's the shift been? Because you went from being in a position where you were in the headquarters office. I know you guys have a couple of offices in different places, but you were in the main office and now you're, you're in, in your remote outpost here in Dallas. How, how is that and how do you manage the being virtual aspect that, that so many of us are in?

30:21 Justin Bridgemohan: I think everyone's going to have different challenges. My challenge really isn't around discipline. I would say my challenge is more around staying connected to other members of the team. I'm someone who's usually quite autonomous, even introverted, many would say. So making sure that I'm constantly evolved… or involved rather on our sync-up calls that we have, on our daily discussions with our team, all of our team meetings and so forth. That's probably been the biggest challenge for me because I'm not in the office right there physically. With everyone. But if you make a commitment to it, I think it's, it's an easy transition to make if you're the type of person that doesn't necessarily require that face-to-face interaction every day with your colleagues.

31:00 Scott Ingram: Yeah, 2, 2 good transition points there for, for us as well. You talked about the discipline and you talked about introversion, which we have a very small sample set so far, but there will be more. It's interesting how often the introversion piece is coming up, but going back to the discipline, What, what is your, what does your day look like? How, how do you structure, um, the way you work from a routine perspective starting, you know, when, when the alarm goes off, when, when does that happen and, and what happens from there?

31:29 Justin Bridgemohan: Sure. You know, when the alarm goes off, it depends. Right now I'm working on some East Coast accounts, so that can be anywhere from 6 to 7. Um, probably closer to 7 for the one reason that I don't have a commute. So that's, uh, 1 hour of productivity that I've gotten back. Both in the morning and the afternoon. But I would say probably around 6:30 if we gave it an average. When that happens, I'm going to probably be groggy for about 15 minutes, but I get right into my morning routine. And I've taken this right from one of the people that I look up to the most, Tony Robbins, which is the hour of power or 15 minutes of fulfillment. So I'm going to be throwing on my clothes and I'm going out for a 15-minute walk. During the first 5 minutes of that walk, I'm just doing some deep breathing, getting my body awake, acclimated to what's gonna happen for the, the first part of the day. During the second 5 minutes, what I'm doing there is focusing on gratitude. What are some of the things that I'm thankful for in my life? And it could be something as simple as the opportunity to wake up another day, the food that I have in my fridge, but then I change it into the deal that I'm about to close. And I start envisioning what I'm going to do in my sales career that's going to bring me success. The house that I'm going to have a year from now. And I'm very thankful for it even before I receive it. And then from there, I go into 5 minutes of incantations, as Tony Robbins calls it. So an incantation could be, every day in every way, I'm getting stronger and stronger. And I repeat these for 5 minutes. And then I probably finish up with about another 5 to 10 minutes of walking. I'm back to my place. I'm ready to get started and working on the day.

33:08 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And then throughout the day, I mean, are there particular routines or rituals that you're doing or particular ways that you structure the day maybe to take advantage of energy levels or what have you?

33:20 Justin Bridgemohan: Certainly. I would say my goal is to make it up to lunch without really any distractions or interruptions whatsoever. So during that first part of the day, I'm really focused on getting work done, getting things out of the way. And I try to schedule as a result all of my meetings for the afternoon. Because I think when you have meetings naturally, things become a bit disjointed. One goes over, one starts early, whatever it happens to be. So my first part of the day is when I'm trying to get out my proposals, my ROI business cases that I'm working on, responding to emails as an example. Get those things out of the way. And then in the afternoon, I'm going to do my meetings. Now, if I don't have any meetings, what I like to do is spend 50 minutes every hour completely focused, you know, no interruptions, no surfing on the internet or watching TV. And then 10 minutes just relaxing, listening to music, going for a quick walk, walking around the house, grabbing a drink of water and so forth. So I work in 50-minute intervals. Uh, in terms of productivity.

34:24 Scott Ingram: Is that, is that Pomodoro driven?

34:27 Justin Bridgemohan: It is. It is. So Pomodoro partially influenced that. Um, but also I found that it worked well for me. So I, I've modified it a bit to fit my, my behavior. And sometimes I could be working for 50 minutes and then the next thing that I know, I look up at the clock and I've actually been working for an hour and a half because I'm in that zone. Um, and I will just continue all the way through and then I'll take a 30-minute break. I'm at the end of that.

34:52 Scott Ingram: Nice. How about when you're traveling? How does that routine differ? Are there things that you're trying to do from a structural standpoint to help you manage being on the road?

35:03 Justin Bridgemohan: Sure. I think there is some alteration that has to happen, but I try to keep things as stable as possible. So when I'm on the road, definitely still going to do my 15-minute walk in the morning. That's non-negotiable for me. So if there's one thing that I don't want to change, it's certainly that. Now the other things more or less change, I would say, pretty significantly. You know, the meetings are usually all over the place, driving from one end to the other. So I would say there are certain things that I alter in my day. One is that I only check emails at the start of the day and at the end of the day. Any internal messages from folks from my team, I'm only checking at the start of the day and or at the end of the day, and then the middle part of the day is there for meetings or executing on business cases and so forth. So that's the only difference that I make because things are a bit more frantic when I'm on the road.

35:55 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So that's interesting because a lot of people in the sales role have sort of pushed back on the, I can't do email only twice a day because people expect me to be Johnny on the spot and always available. So what's kind of your mindset around, I only do email twice a day?

36:14 Justin Bridgemohan: I would say probably 2 things. If it's prospects that we're talking about or customers that you're working with, probably the most important thing that you can do is the very first interaction you have with them, probably set some type of expectation around when you will be responding to things that they do. Or you can set your out-of-vacation or out-of-office, so to speak, response and just say, I will be responding to emails at 9 AM and 5 PM Eastern time. So I think it's just the expectation that this is what is going to happen, and then people aren't surprised by it. You know, if you're going away and you know that you have an enterprise customer that is always calling on you or emailing you probably twice every day, then you need to tell that person that you're going to be away and you're going to get back to them at those points in the day. But I think the second thing, and probably in my opinion the most important, is let people know that you are going to be meeting their needs, but it's just going to be at different intervals during the course of the day. I think that's probably the most important thing.

37:15 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Are there particular apps or tools that you use either to support that process or just in general throughout the day that are kind of key to your process?

37:26 Justin Bridgemohan: Sure. I have a MacBook and I probably the thing that I use the most is Reminders. Funny as that sounds, of course, you know everyone uses Salesforce or whatever CRM system that they use. I'm not going to say that I could I couldn't live without Salesforce because I think I probably could. I think managing opportunities in a Word document, although not ideal, is probably not the end of the world. You know, I probably have to say I'm a minimalist when it comes to tools or or applications that I use. My notebook and my reminders are probably the 2 things that I use the most.

38:01 Scott Ingram: Very zen. Very zen. So email twice a day, don't use any other apps. What is your… I mean, we talked about kind of building up the expertise in the beginning, but what does your ongoing information diet look like?

38:16 Justin Bridgemohan: For me, I try to merge business and my personal interests as much as possible. Because I think when you do that, then you can find yourself doing things that increase productivity quite substantially. So as an example, I have no games on my cell phone. So if I'm waiting at Starbucks for a meeting to start, or it's the morning and I'm just waking up and I'm on my phone, I'm probably gonna end up reading Forbes or Harvard Business Review. Or something that I think brings some type of knowledge to me instead of playing games, as an example, or watching funny videos. I think there is a time to decompress and do those things, but I try to maintain myself in a very knowledge-thirsty state as much as possible. So that's my ongoing 5 or 10 minutes every single day, just reading any relevant business article or Or book. And the other thing that I do is I try to complete a book every single month, whatever that book happens to be. You know, it can change from, you know, month to month in terms of topic, but it should be focused on, for me anyways, business, personal development. Those are usually the topics that I focus on. So just to summarize, a book every month, and then other than that, I spend, I would say, 10 to 15 minutes every day with little snippets of knowledge. Now, anytime that my content team at Influitive or marketing releases a new ebook or new blog post, I'm reading that every single day and I'm taking notes on it and so forth.

39:49 Scott Ingram: Nice. And, and so that, that daily kind of short period, what I heard there was mostly like mainstream business news kind of oriented stuff. So Forbes, Harvard Business Review, any, anything else that is kind of must-read in, in that time period?

40:03 Justin Bridgemohan: Um, Business Insider. Those are probably the 3 that I use the most. And it's not just about Netflix stock soared by 20%. It's more often than not…

40:14 Scott Ingram: Or not.

40:14 Justin Bridgemohan: Yeah, or not. It's often the more, I would say, intellectually stimulating things. 10 ways that you can be a genuine person. Those are the types of articles that I'm really focusing on. The psychology that perhaps often goes overlooked in sales.

40:33 Scott Ingram: Yeah, good stuff. Of the last year of books, so one would assume you've read about 12, is there one that was the most impactful or just the most fun? Which one was the favorite out of that read?

40:46 Justin Bridgemohan: I would probably say Getting More by Stuart Diamond. So it's a book about negotiation. I know the oft-mentioned book is Getting to Yes.

40:56 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

40:56 Justin Bridgemohan: And it's not actually…

40:58 Scott Ingram: Getting More is the Bible of one of my friends. He reads it almost annually. Yeah. Yeah. So I think every time I call him, like there's some type of, well, you have to go read this.

41:06 Justin Bridgemohan: You know what? And it's true. And I think, you know, to anyone who's listening. Yeah, exactly. Um, did you say Gerald?

41:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

41:15 Justin Bridgemohan: All right. Well, Gerald, Gerald knows his stuff because I'm telling you, anyone who picks up Getting More will immediately save $1,000 in the preceding 12 months of buying that book, whether it's negotiating with your cable company or your cell phone company. Or a rate at a hotel, whatever it happens to be, you will save money if you get that book.

41:34 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Among other things, it is a really great read, although it takes a little bit to get through. So let's talk about your style a little bit. How would you describe your style?

41:48 Justin Bridgemohan: I would say I'm very laid back. I think that comes partially because I have a confidence in the process that I've outlined. I'm very inquisitive. Certainly, as I mentioned, I'm introverted, so I'm very… I'm always seeking to understand what my prospect may be thinking, what they may be feeling, what type of situation or circumstances they're in that's going to impact the conversation that we're about to have. So, I would say my style overall is laid back. It is not aggressive. Confident, but certainly not cocky or arrogant. And I think that I try to inspire people. So if I was going to describe it in 3 words, confident, calm, and inspiring would probably be the 3 words that I would try to choose.

42:37 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And I think that's probably coming across. Maybe it's because we're nice and relaxed sitting on your couch here, but I'm getting the calm, confident, and man, it's inspiring me. So I hope those listening are feeling the same way. You've maybe articulated this, but maybe there were some formulative elements. I mean, do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

43:02 Justin Bridgemohan: I would say that the Challenger Sale methodology probably has the biggest impact or influence on my mechanism of selling. And that's because I think it makes sense. I think that naturally salespeople should be teachers. And anytime that we're educating people, we're delivering them value. And I have this belief… I've talked a lot about beliefs… but one of my beliefs is that value is the driver of every human interaction, or the lack thereof. In other words, every time that we deliver value in an interaction, whether it's ordering food at a restaurant or with a prospect, we can move that interaction forward. Every time there's an absence of value in that interaction, then the movement halts. In other words, or to put it into sales terms, the sales cycle stalls. And so I think too often as salespeople, myself included, you know, I'm someone who's done this before as well, we don't deliver a whole lot of value in every interaction. So when we do that, you know, people stop returning our calls. They're no longer interested. They're no longer motivated to interact with us or to take that process through to the next level. So with that belief in mind, my focus is very heavily on how do I tell someone something new that they didn't know before? Because every single time that I do that, you know, someone's interested in continuing the conversation. You know, if you ever had that friend who you say, you know, I really like this guy, but I don't necessarily like talking to him. You know, as an example, and this is completely impromptu.

44:42 Scott Ingram: Yeah, no names here.

44:43 Justin Bridgemohan: Yeah, exactly. You know, as an example, a conversation may go something like this. You know, hey, how's it going? Good, how are you? What'd you do this weekend? Oh, well, um, you know, I went to Toronto. Well, what are you doing next weekend? I'm going to Montreal. Okay, cool. What about you? Like, it's a very boring conversation, but if at that point where that, that person says, I'm going to Montreal and you say, hey, you know what? There's this awesome restaurant called La Banquise that sells amazing poutine. I really think you should try it out.

45:13 Scott Ingram: I love that you just worked in poutine into this. This is fantastic.

45:16 Justin Bridgemohan: I'm trying. I love poutine. And if you say that to that person, you've actually delivered value and the entire interaction changes. It's no longer that mundane back and forth. What'd you do? Good. How are you? And when you deliver value or interaction into your interaction, then it changes everything. And I think that's what we need to do. And that's what I strive to do as well.

45:36 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. And that sounded like a real recommendation. So if you're ever in Montreal, what's the name of the place?

45:41 Justin Bridgemohan: La Banquise.

45:42 Scott Ingram: There you go. And if you don't know what poutine is, man, look that stuff up.

45:45 Justin Bridgemohan: Definitely.

45:47 Scott Ingram: When you head up to Toronto or Montreal, man, you got to make that happen.

45:51 Justin Bridgemohan: Definitely.

45:55 Scott Ingram: Obviously, you've got a really high level of discipline, a good amount of structure. What motivates that, or how do you motivate yourself?

46:05 Justin Bridgemohan: That's a great question. I'd say there's probably 3 things that motivate me. The first is a desire to help people. That's true about me as a person, not as a salesperson. As an aside, I think that's one of the things that I've learned probably is most influential in my growth as a salesperson is that the moment that you try to be a different person in your sales life than in your personal life, it's no longer congruent, and that's going to come across in the wrong way, whether it's in results, whether it's in your conversations you have with your customers or prospects. So I try to merge those 2 as much as possible. And for me, the biggest thing that motivates me is the opportunity to help people. So when I go out there to sell Influitive or sell my product, I'm thinking, How can this product impact people's lives, get them promotions or better job opportunities, make them happy, make their bosses happy, make their work life easier? And that is a huge motivation for me. The second thing that motivates me is continual evolution and growth as a person. If I can change, you know, 1% of my approach every day and improve, then that has a monumental impact not only who I am as a salesperson, but who I am as a person. I always look to make that distinction as well. The third thing that motivates me is, I think it would probably motivate many salespeople, is the financial aspect. I think having money, but also attributing it to a specific goal, whether it's family security, or it's the new car that you want, or the new house that you're saving for, or it's a particular savings goal, or you'd like your parents to retire. Having a specific obtainable goal, um, aside from just, you know, having X number of dollars, I think is something that's important and it's definitely motivational to me.

47:54 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. Is there, is there something that you believe that the average sales rep would think is crazy?

48:01 Justin Bridgemohan: Yes. Um, I definitely think that there would. I believe that digging for pain is not a necessary part of the sales process.

48:10 Scott Ingram: Tell me more.

48:12 Justin Bridgemohan: In my opinion, only…

48:15 Scott Ingram: notice how he's digging there.

48:16 Justin Bridgemohan: Yeah, exactly. Uh, only 40 to 50% of people are motivated by the aversion of pain. So in other words, if you step into a room of 10 people, 5 people will move away from pain. So for 5 people, that process of SPIN selling, so to speak, and really getting to their needs and their pain and uncovering it, That's going to work. But for 50% of the people that you encounter, they're actually motivated by moving towards something that's better. And that isn't necessarily exemplified by digging for pain, but by creating a very compelling vision of the future. So I think that in 50% of our sales calls, that digging for pain is pointless, almost useless actually. Um, and it's not something that's going to motivate people. Or really deliver any value for them whatsoever.

49:08 Scott Ingram: And that makes even more sense in your space where it's not like their advocate marketing program is broken. It's much more likely they don't have one.

49:16 Justin Bridgemohan: It's true. But you know what? You know, even people on my own sales team will disagree with me on this and they'd say, well, they don't have an advocate marketing program, but let's say that they're missing specific goals on their marketing team or their marketing goals that they want to obtain. Um, that is a pain. And you know what, in many circumstances I'd say it's true, but that's my core belief is that digging for pain is not a necessary part of every single sales process.

49:44 Scott Ingram: So besides the pain piece, is there something that you think other sales reps believe, you know, those who are average or subpar that you think is crazy?

49:56 Justin Bridgemohan: I would say always be closing. You know, that oft-mentioned mantra from, I think it's Glengarry Glen Ross or something like that, um, that we should ABC, always be closing. I think it's, it's really nonsensical, um, at its core for a variety of different reasons. But one of them is that no one wants to be closed. No one ever wants to be closed. You know, I bought a car after my move. I never wanted to be closed on the car. I never wanted someone to get me to say yes 3 times in a row and then trial close me. It's ludicrous because that's not how we function as human beings. So that's part of where my process comes into play. I believe that if you set out a process for someone and the vision is compelling enough or the pain is great enough that they're moving away from it, that all you need to do is guide someone through the process. I don't remember the last time that I used a trial close, so to speak, because closing should be the natural result of the relationship and the process you've established. In my opinion, that causes the least amount of friction, and it also causes the least amount of inner turmoil for me as a salesperson. You know, maybe other people are fine with some arm twisting and some, you know, some tactics that are a bit more hardballing, but that isn't who I am as a person. So I don't, I don't undertake those types of methods.

51:19 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I mean, that congruency theme is becoming really consistent, right? It's, it's when you're out of step with, with who you are and doing unnatural things to people who also feel that it's, it's unnatural, right? Obviously, um, what you're doing is working. What some of the other folks that I've talked to, uh, here have been doing is, is working. So I think it's really being mindful of who, who you are and what your style is and having, having that level of empathy and be mindful of what do they want, right? It's at the end of the day, it's not all about us.

51:54 Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly. And that's not to say that always be closing doesn't work for some people. I just think that for the majority of people that I encounter, you know, whether it's colleagues or in conversations that I have with other salespeople, it's probably not who they are as individuals.

52:11 Scott Ingram: There's one to think about. So Justin, what have been the most important decisions you've made or lessons you've had to learn to get where you are today? I don't imagine all of this came real easy.

52:23 Justin Bridgemohan: I think probably establishing certain rules or standards that you're going to hold yourself to is the biggest thing. As an example, you may say to yourself, I didn't respond to that email because I didn't have time. Well, anyone who says that, I'm gonna ask them, well, did you brush your teeth today? And the answer I would hope is gonna be yes, but that took you 2 or 3 minutes, and that's probably how long it would have taken you to respond to that email. What you're actually saying is, is that you didn't prioritize sending that email over something else that you did. So I think setting standards of priorities is one of the most important things that I did really early on in my sales career. And I've adhered to those standards in a very unyielding way up until this point. Whatever your standards are, you have to decide. You know, your standards may be, I will send out a follow-up email after every single call. And maybe your standard is, is not to do that. Maybe your standard is to call someone after every single call after 48 hours, whatever it happens to be. Set a specific set of standards and follow through on what those standards are. And I think that when I did that and I have my own set of standards, that's probably what's made me most successful.

53:45 Scott Ingram: And is that something you've documented or is it just a set of things you've accumulated over time and you just know what You know what they are?

53:53 Justin Bridgemohan: I'd say a combination of both. Um, sometimes I've documented these things and then other times I've focused on just learning and evolving over time. Um, you know, one of the things that I believe is that reframing is at the heart of persuasion. That's one of my things that I believe, um, one of my core beliefs. So in every situation where someone may have an objection, um, in the sales process, My immediate focus is to reframe. And that's something that I live by. It's a standard that I have, um, that don't argue with people, just reframe the way that they think about it. And whatever it is that you believe is, is ultimately going to make you successful, I think people should document what their standards are and live by them and follow them. And those are your standards as a human being and then as a salesperson first.

54:43 Scott Ingram: Nice. What advice would you have for somebody that's starting out in a sales career today or even a new sales job? Right.

54:54 Justin Bridgemohan: I would probably give 2 pieces of advice. Become a master of psychology and become indispensable in some way. And to delve a bit further, I think that sales at its heart is a psychological interaction between one person and a group of people. And the rest is really just negligible in my opinion. And then the second thing that I believe is that if you are indispensable to an organization in some way, shape, or form, you don't have to worry about job security. But also you are going to be so specialized and so emphatic in one area or in one asset that you possess that when you get to uncover that one particular area in a sales process, when you get to unleash it on a prospect, there's going to be very little they can do but succumb to that power that you've generated, that knowledge and expertise that you've created.

55:55 Scott Ingram: Nice. What about somebody that's a little bit further along in their career and is looking to take it to the next level, or maybe they've gotten to one of those hard patches like we talked about before and is looking for something to, to break through, maybe they, maybe they, they're listening here because they're looking for some type of motivation. What, what should they be thinking about or doing?

56:15 Justin Bridgemohan: I would, I would say they should probably be thinking about certainty and their belief systems. So what I mean by that is that let's say you're 5 years into your career, you hit your quota 4 years in a row, but this year has been really rough. So what beliefs do you have that are impacting the way that you view the current situation that you're looking at, and what level of certainty are you operating with? And what I mean by that is that if I told you, Scott, if you went out there and made 50 different sales calls every single day for a year, that you would get $5 million, would you do it?

56:54 Scott Ingram: I would do it.

56:55 Justin Bridgemohan: Okay, but no one's ever going to give you that guarantee in life. That guarantee has to come from yourself. So if you can say to yourself, if I send my emails when I say I'm going to, if I prepare for an hour before every sales call that I have, and if I'm on time to every single meeting, and if I'm learning a new thing every single day, that I will get 100% of my quota, then you'd probably do all those things. But if you don't have that certainty, if you think, well, I could probably do 10 calls a week and I could probably do all the research that I should to expand my knowledge and I should probably send out all of my proposals, but I don't really think that it's gonna give me the type of results that I'm looking for, then you're probably not going to do it and you're probably not gonna succeed. And that's when it comes time to evolve your belief systems about what you have because those 4 years that you hit your quota, You obviously accumulated different belief systems or levels of certainty, but some event has caused you to change that. So I think it's reevaluating your level of certainty and reevaluating your beliefs is something that I'm always looking to do, even as far into my sales career as I am right now.

58:10 Scott Ingram: Nice. Let's go back to the psychology and the indispensability. So first of all, what resources have you leveraged or found the most useful in just learning and understanding the psychology piece? I imagine that was some books you read many, many months ago.

58:30 Justin Bridgemohan: Certainly. I think a lot of them are probably books that many people have read. How to Win Friends and Influence People. It's a classic. Most people have read it, but reading something doesn't really do a whole lot for you. You have to take specific steps to applying that knowledge. Other books that I've read, let's see here. Influence is another great one. It's another classic. A lot of people have read it. Very few people apply it into the sales process because if we did, we would reject a lot of the traditional sales things that we're told, like always be closing. And if we really believed human psychology, which I think is far more advanced than where we are in terms of sales tactics, then we'd probably discard a lot of the things that we currently do right now. So I think Influence, How to Win Friends and Influence People are 2 of the biggest ones that I would read really right off the bat. Let's see here. What other books have I read that are really powerful and impactful? Basically everything that Tony Robbins reads. I read, so let's see here, Unleash the Giant Within. Great book. Both for, I think, personal motivation, but also uncovering how people approach situations, how people learn, how people adapt. I think those are the books that we should be focused on. Crucial Conversations by Susan Scott. It's a book that I'm reading right now. Another great way that, another great book that gives you insight into how people think and approach conversations. So I think anything that has to do with psychology and probably doesn't include sales in the title is something that you should read.

1:00:18 Scott Ingram: So Justin, what is your process then for taking that step to application? Reading is one thing. How are you applying and making use of that?

1:00:29 Justin Bridgemohan: So every single book that I read, I'm going to distill it down into 2 different pages of notes. I'm giving you the very tactical, real application here. I open up a Microsoft Word document, and as I'm reading or listening to something, which I often do, I'm going to take notes and I'm going to summarize those notes into usually 3 or 4 key concepts. So a key concept may be something like consistency is the key to trust. So if that's one of the key concepts, I'm going to say, well, what are areas that I can make consistency and embed it as part of my process or every single interaction that I have? And I'm going to evaluate and write all those things down. And then I'm going to make it a point to go through every single day and implement those 3 different things. There's this chart that I've seen, which is that… so we first start off at unconscious incompetence. We don't necessarily know what we're doing wrong because we're just not aware of it. Then we move into conscious incompetence. We've realized that This is…

1:01:30 Scott Ingram: I know I'm gonna do this.

1:01:31 Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly right. And then from there, we can move into conscious competence, which we're actively thinking about. Okay, I've written down that consistency is the key, but now I need to actually implement this. And then ultimately, we move into unconscious competence, which is what we should be aiming towards. So whatever your process is, however you learn, and however you take action on something, just remember that ultimately the goal is that you're doing this unconsciously. Because you're never gonna have that notebook in front of you with the Microsoft Word documents and all the things that you just read. That's, that's not gonna happen when you're in a meeting trying to close a deal. What is gonna happen though is the steps before that. And if you do those steps correctly and you progress towards them, then you won't even have to think twice about many of the things that you learn, um, from the books that you read.

1:02:16 Scott Ingram: Nice. Yeah, I, I think that's a really good process that, that applies to anything, right? It could apply to listening to this conversation.

1:02:23 Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly.

1:02:24 Scott Ingram: Right. And going back and taking some notes and of the things Justin's talked about, what's, what's most relevant, what's pertinent, and then what's, what's the theme? How do you apply that?

1:02:33 Justin Bridgemohan: Definitely.

1:02:34 Scott Ingram: We may come right back to that. Uh, before we do that, I, I'm curious about what would you want to hear from top sellers in other organizations? What, what would you want to know from them?

1:02:46 Justin Bridgemohan: I think Your first question that you ask is probably the most important one. What are the 3 things that you do differently that make you stand out from anyone else? There's probably another question that I find really interesting to ask people in general, which is, if I called up the person that you're closest to in the world and asked them what are the 3 things they admire about you the most and the 3 things that they're not so fond of, what would they say? And what I'm looking for there is, you know, what are some of the character traits that the top salespeople possess that I need to work on? Is it adaptability? Is it their resiliency? Is it their resourcefulness? You know, is this someone who's so resourceful that they're able to make a dinner out of the scraps that they have left in the kitchen? So, and that may be what, you know, their wife or their husband says about them. You know, my goodness, Jason is so resourceful that I can come home. We haven't done groceries in 2 weeks and he still manages to put together a meal. Well, what that ultimately means is that Jason is exceptionally resourceful. So he goes and finds those nuggets of information, whether it's internally, externally in his network that help him to sell better as a person, because my belief is that We really aren't that different as human beings as we are in our personal lives and our professional lives. So finding out those key core characteristics that people have can ultimately enlighten me to say, okay, maybe I'm not making use of all the resources that I have available and I should be probably doing a better job.

1:04:23 Scott Ingram: That's interesting. And I hope you recognize this is totally a trap.

1:04:26 Justin Bridgemohan: Completely.

1:04:27 Scott Ingram: Because I'm going to ask you, what are those 3 things on either side for you? What would What would the people closest to you say?

1:04:34 Justin Bridgemohan: I would say that people would call me dependable. I think dependability is created as a result of consistency. People know that I'm going to be there. They know I'm going to perform the things that I need to, whether it's remembering to throw out the trash, picking up groceries, paying the bills, or if it's hitting my forecasted number. There's that sense of dependability that I strive to bring in every relationship that I have, whether it's with customers or in my personal life or with my colleagues. I'd probably say that the second thing is my resiliency. Regardless of what happens, I find a way to endure it and make it through to the other side. And I think the people that are close in my life see me, or I hope that they see me, as a beacon of stability that they can count on. That goes back on to dependability. And I think probably the third thing is confidence. You know, I have a certain sense of certainty about myself, and as a result, when I'm in situations that are uncertain, I can bring that and really provide, you know, a sense of comfort to people, whether it's the prospect that's worried that the project is not going to be a success, or it's my sister who's worried about her application for her PhD program. You know, whatever it happens to be, I think that's probably the 3 characteristics that…

1:05:56 Scott Ingram: And it's a cool level of confidence because it's very calm and understated but strong and not… I think you mentioned it earlier, like the just super arrogant in your face. Confidence can be taken too far.

1:06:09 Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly. No, definitely. And I think that it's important not to cross the line into arrogance.

1:06:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So what about the flip side? So what are the 3 things they're going to say about you that are gaps or perceived challenges maybe?

1:06:21 Justin Bridgemohan: My rigidness. I think, you know, at the same time, while I do have a process, a big hole there could be I haven't evolved my process enough because I've fallen in love with it.

1:06:30 Scott Ingram: Those, those folks are all in the B1 bucket.

1:06:33 Justin Bridgemohan: You got it, you got it.

1:06:34 Scott Ingram: I'm not doing that.

1:06:37 Justin Bridgemohan: So I think definitely my rigidness is certainly one aspect of it. Um, I would say a second aspect is that People often think that I'm very serious, perhaps maybe too serious. I don't do, you know, this could manifest itself as…

1:06:56 Scott Ingram: this guy doesn't even play games on his phone.

1:06:57 Justin Bridgemohan: Yeah, exactly. This could manifest itself as, you know, in a sales conversation, it could be I don't break the ice well enough. Although I feel that I do, but other people may think in a larger sample size that I'm not as friendly as I actually could be or I actually am. With prospects. Or on the personal side, I'm not speaking to everyone at the party. You know, I choose a few people that I really like and I stick with them. So some people can see that as being perhaps closed off or perhaps too serious in certain situations.

1:07:31 Scott Ingram: Or it could just be the introvert exposing himself.

1:07:34 Justin Bridgemohan: Yeah, exactly. And I think if I was to choose a third thing…

1:07:39 Scott Ingram: if they were to choose a third thing…

1:07:40 Justin Bridgemohan: yeah, if they were to choose a third thing rather, What would people say about me in basically every aspect? That I don't share enough. That I don't share enough. I don't share necessarily my emotions or my learnings or my… the knowledge or experience that I've accumulated, whether personally or professionally. That's something on every single one of my performance reviews that's probably the one thing that you're going to be seeing written there is that I don't participate enough in sharing my knowledge, the irony of which… Exactly.

1:08:16 Scott Ingram: I was going to say, I think you're doing a pretty good job here and maybe we'll just send them this episode. But if there were… I mean, is there anything we've left out that you feel like, I really, I should have shared this or I should be sharing this element? Hopefully I've captured that, particularly with the with the top 3 things with where we started, but is, is there anything else that you're thinking, I really, I should take this opportunity and put this out there?

1:08:43 Justin Bridgemohan: No, I think probably the one thing that I want to, I want to reiterate, although I've said it and emphasized it many times, is that I think that sales is at its core a game of psychology. So people who excel and understand human psychology and motivations are, I think, the ones who are the best equipped to be the top performers in any sales industry.

1:09:08 Scott Ingram: So let's turn that… one of the things I'm playing with here at the end of these episodes is creating some type of challenge and summary. So I think you probably just summarized what that key element is, right? It's, it's becoming better at psychology. And I'm guessing when you talk about that, you're meaning not only of the folks we're interacting with, but also of our own psychology and our own beliefs and our own mindsets.

1:09:34 Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly.

1:09:35 Scott Ingram: So how would you frame some type of challenge? And I'm thinking shorter duration, 7 days, 10 days, maybe a month. But what would you challenge the person listening to this right now going, okay, yep, I get it. That makes sense. I'm going to Um, take action, right? I'm, I'm going to not just learn and have listened to this conversation, but I'm going to use it to make myself better. How, how would you create that challenge for them to take on?

1:10:07 Justin Bridgemohan: I would say focus on 2 things, 2 beliefs that you have about sales and 2 beliefs you have in your personal life that are inhibiting your success. And an example of that could be in sales. I believe that people don't want to buy my product. You know, you'd be surprised, but a lot of salespeople feel that way. Yeah. So I would look to uncover what is the source of that particular belief that you have and then aim to change it. And I think that's something that we could do, I would say in 10 days, you know, write down the 2 things. Uncover them, really dig deep below to understand what those things are. And when you do, then figure out a way to change them. Figure out a way to replace those beliefs with more positive ones. And in doing that, you're probably going to uncover a lot about your psychology or things that you don't want to admit. It's actually a pretty personal exercise. You know, you may believe that you don't have a whole lot that's important to say. And that could be formulated in your psychology as a person, not as a salesperson, but it could certainly manifest itself in that way. So when you're picking up that phone to make that cold call, or you're picking up that phone to call on that executive and ask them if they want to take your meeting because your champion thinks they should, do you have an underlying belief that you don't have something important to say to an executive? That your time isn't as worthy as their time? Because if you do, then that's something that you ought to change.

1:11:42 Scott Ingram: That's an interesting exercise. And I would encourage you to put some type of time constraint around that, right? So I don't think it needs to be very much. If you spent 10 minutes a day or 15 minutes a day, put it in the calendar, go through that exercise. So call it, call it 10 days, right? 2 weeks.

1:11:57 Justin Bridgemohan: Yep.

1:11:57 Scott Ingram: Right. So every business day, 10 or 15 minutes a day, put that in there. Start by identifying What are, what are those limiting beliefs? And then start acting on them. And I, I think just through that daily exercise and being more aware of them, right, is gonna give you that opportunity to, to start working through. Any, any other resources they should bring into that, or maybe partners in that challenge to help them think through, talk through? Any thoughts on that?

1:12:24 Justin Bridgemohan: I think the person that understands you the best, whether that's your parent, your significant other, a friend, a colleague, Because they're gonna be able to give you insight into, well, you know, now that you mention it, this is probably the belief system that you have that a lot of people don't. Um, this is the belief system that has caused trouble in our relationship, whether it's a, you know, significant other or it's a colleague or a friend, they're gonna be able to uncover and give insight into what those things are.

1:12:52 Scott Ingram: Nice. So one other thing that might be interesting to bring back into Um, that is, is the question you suggested of what would people say about you? Sometimes it's a really interesting exercise to go ask them, go find 3 friends or 5 friends who know you really well and ask them what, what are the 3 most positive attributes that I bring to the table? Because I think you can bring a lot of positivity around that and help understand better who you are from that perception. And on the flip side, what, what are the 3 things that I don't always do so well that you see as, as limiting, uh, my, my abilities, my, my future and opportunities?

1:13:37 Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly. And understand that when, when you get those responses, probably from people in your personal life, that when you go into the office and you're banging out sales calls, you're sending out proposals or sending out emails, you have the core of what those responses are embedded into the DNA of your interactions.

1:13:59 Scott Ingram: And what a great congruency test, right? To talk to a couple of personal friends and get that feedback and then talk to a couple of professional friends. And do those things match up or are they really different? And do we have other things that you may want to start working on yourself and growing?

1:14:15 Justin Bridgemohan: Exactly.

1:14:16 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Jason, this has been Fantastic. So the last part of the show isn't really even a question, and I'm trying to figure out how to hand this over to you because ultimately it's about the call to action, which is you've spent now well over an hour listening to this conversation. I like to think that Jason and I have added a lot of… Justin, sorry. Justin and I… you started talking about Jason. I got all confused.

1:14:40 Justin Bridgemohan: It's my fault.

1:14:43 Scott Ingram: Justin and I have been talking for quite a while now. Hopefully we're you've gotten a lot of value from this conversation. I wanted to invite you into our community. If you go to the website, if you go to top1.fm, uh, put in your email address, you will get an invitation to our Influitive community. So, um, Justin, I'm going to ask you to be psychic here a little bit. And, um, if, if you mention things that I'm not yet doing, I'll obviously have to start doing them, but maybe talk about why you think I would be using Influitive Influitive as the place that we're building community around this show and creating a place for folks who are like-minded, growth-oriented sales professionals that are looking to take their game to the next level? Or maybe you're just getting started in sales and trying to figure out how to kick this off, right? Why would they want to go into that Influitive community? And what might we be doing in there that's so valuable?

1:15:38 Justin Bridgemohan: I think probably the most important reason is that It's an engaging way to interact with other people. That's the key. You could be in a LinkedIn group with several other hundreds or even thousands of sales professionals, and maybe you get a notification in your email inbox. There really isn't a whole lot of fun there to participate in. Whereas if you go to the top1.fm Influitive program and you start to engage there, you're going to have a fun element to it. You're going to accumulate points for doing various different things. But most importantly, you're going to be able to network with the people that you want to be connected to, the people that you want to be learning with and learning among at the same time within that fun environment. And I think that's probably what's going to make it the most unique, engaging thing. It's going to be a place that you want to go back to.

1:16:25 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. I didn't prep Jason for… Justin, gosh darn it. I'm totally off. I didn't prep Justin for that question. So obviously you are the expert in this space. I really appreciate that. And what I will talk with Justin about is what we might be able to include, whether that's one of his action documents, the notes that he's taken on a book and how he's turned that into something so that you've got a guide for that. Or maybe it's some of the things that he's written around his own standards and things like that. Something that we can kind of add for your participation and you're getting involved in that community that you're not going to get anywhere else than getting into the Sales Success Community. So again, top1.fm, put in your email address, we'll send you an invite. At least that's how it works today. In the future, we may ask you to do a little bit more work and maybe give us a little pitch on why you should be involved and what you're going to add to the community. But for now, it's wide open and we hope you'll get in there. And Justin, thanks again. It's really been an honor.

1:17:23 Justin Bridgemohan: Thank you. 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.