In episode 59 of Pit Stops to Podium, Phil Gerbyshak discusses how and why having a good mindset is the basis for being an effective leader and a person of influence. Phil coaches, trains, and believes the alignment of all three ("the sweet spot") is crucial to success.
Phil works with self-employed and small business owners to build more business using social media, video and technology. He has spent the last 12 years as a LinkedIn sales trainer, the last 6 as a talk show host, and within the last year moved to a sales enablement consultant role at BambooHR, which is a leading software provider powering the strategic evolution of HR in small and medium businesses.
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Our head and our heart have to align. It is vital to pin down what we're doing, why we're doing it, and what the desired outcome is. For example, the goal in sales is not to sell things, it's to solve problems. Having that correct orientation around what you're doing allows you to be better at your job. When your mindset is stuck in a hesitation or desperation state, you will not be effective at achieving your goals.
"To sell is to serve and to solve problems for folks"
Leadership starts with yourself. As a leader, you need to be passionate about self-development (e.g. listening to podcasts, reading books, taking classes). Along with this, you have to have the mindset of always being better tomorrow and learning from all angles. You need to be willing to grow, learn, expand, and be open to feedback. Have the humility to admit you don't know everything and seek out mentors.
"Always ask one more question...you'll find out more about your people if you're a leader and more about your prospects if you're a seller."
You want to be a person of influence as opposed to a person of persuasion. Influencing means sharing the best options, which may often mean leaning towards our own product or service as a solution, but ultimately not persuading or manipulating someone to buy something they don't want to buy. You always want to lead people to a decision that's in their best interest. You also want to think value over volume. Value for prospects means progress (i.e. more revenue, solve more problems).
Bottom line: be someone people want to spend time with even if you're not the solution.
"As a sales rep, if you're a person of value, you will sell more."
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philgerb/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philgerbyshak/
Website: https://mindsetbrew.substack.com/
Brendan: Hey everybody, welcome to Pit Stops to Podium, the RevPartners podcast where we talk to execs that have competed and won in taking their companies from high growth to high scale. My name is Brendan Tolleson and I am the co-founder and CEO of RevPartners and I'm delighted to have with me today Phil Gerbyshak for this episode of Pit Stops to Podium. Welcome Phil.
Phil: Hey thanks Brendan it's great to be here man.
Brendan: It's nice to be here too. So Phil I would love to start out our episode getting for our audience to get to know you a little bit so who Phil who are you what do you do um and and why are you on this podcast today?
Phil: So yeah I work with small businesses small business owners uh self-employed folks to help build their business with social selling help them with uh you know kind of those sales type of stuff I help them with leadership video stuff and any of that technology kind of a sales stack without being overwhelming I think it's super important that we go as simple as possible and so I help with that messy middle I don't do lead gen I help with kind of everything after that as far as closing goes right if you do a good job in the middle right do a good job in Discovery you do a good job you know helping the customer with solutions they should be able to close themselves so really that messy metal is my best part on that whether it's via email via video or uh via a telephone.
Brendan: That's great yeah I think that's where a lot of deals go to die and so if you can impact from a conversion perspective once they're in the funnel or the time we talk a lot about conversion uh and time as it relates to what rev Ops can do but I think from a sales perspective if you get that right uh you're in business so uh I'm sure our audience can really benefit from that. Phil before you know a big idea which gets into some of your lessons around us like sales uh we'd like to get to know our guests outside of work so Phil what are three fun facts our audience should know about you?
Phil: Yeah so first got three dogs I've got two kids and I've got one wife I was shared in that order because it's way more fun than one two three so uh you know so with that you know I uh uh a pinball wizard I love pinball I love to play it when I speak that's typically my walk on music from The Who and I've been playing pinball since I was hanging out with my mom at the middle Inlet in in the 70s so I'm older so I've done that and then I love listening to audiobooks especially when they're read by their author and love listening to podcasts as well uh so yeah whenever I can hear an author that reads their book especially if they're a podcaster it's almost like they're coaching me one-on-one and I love that.
Brendan: Phil what is the last podcast or audiobook that you listen to so I'll give you two here so first the last uh podcast I listen to is 30 minutes to president's Club Arman and Nick do a great job on their sales podcast it's super actionable it's almost too actionable listen to one episode do the work there and then as far as a book goes uh non-fiction is what I focus on and so I listened to Miracles and wonder it was Paul Simon and Malcolm Gladwell it was fantastic really great book but if you if you want an escape though I just got a plug for this it's Ender's Game alive so Orson Scott Card wrote the Ender's Game series Enders Game alive has like 60 voice actors and it is the most amazing audiobook I've ever ever heard and the voice of Ender is hopefully going to be on my podcast in 23.
Brendan: That's very cool well for somebody that doesn't like fiction that's impressive that that's your favorite so maybe you need to read more fiction.
Phil: Yeah probably well probably I would say I need to relax more I really love what I do so it's hard to you know it's it's hard to not be working or not be learning.
Brendan: So well and for those that may be listening via audio versus video I think it's fair to assume Phil that orange is your favorite color is that is that an accurate statement?
Phil: Oh my gosh absolutely so orange is it right so uh orange uh phone case I've got an orange wallet I've got an orange share I've got an orange wall in my office my next book will absolutely have an orange cover and I was showing my sister-in-law this morning downstairs we've got like six or eight orange things just in the kitchen alone and uh the funniest thing I have that's orange I'll tell you Brendan is a little mini spatula that I ordered by mistake it's little itty bitty the head is maybe an inch and a half big I ordered two of them one of them I snuck to my High School baseball coach I gave it to him he gave it to his wife for Christmas and it is the funniest thing so because I love kitchen gadgets so of course I was looking for an orange kitchen gadget oh yeah am I that's right and my Apple watch and my wedding band are all orange as well.
Brendan: How's your family feel about this obsession with orange?
Phil: Um you know they're fine with it I've actually convinced my my little guy that uh he likes orange too so it works out pretty well so my wife she loves me in Orange and she loves me so that's good and my daughter is a teenager uh so she just ignores me it makes no difference.
Brendan: All right well Phil thank you for for sharing a little bit more about who you are it's always fun to get to know our guests outside um well let's transition to the big idea and so I think this is relevant to what you do on a daily basis as a sales coach and really helping people that messy middle that you talked about uh it's really how do you make them more effective and so the big idea that we really want to park on today is like how do sales reps or sales leaders Revenue leaders whatever that title may be invest more time in The Sweet Spot and The Sweet Spot that we're talking about is that intersection between sales leadership and mindset so uh before we kind of get into each one of those categories I'd love for you to give that contextual layer as to what you mean by that intersection and why that's so important.
Phil: Yeah so first of all right so everybody sells everybody leaves and we got to get our head on straight first super important right so whatever we're doing if our mind isn't right it's gonna be really hard to succeed you know now now don't get me wrong everybody has bad days sometimes we even have bad weeks bad months bad quarters bad years that happens right but let's be honest if we really want to succeed we have to find a way to get our mind right and it's not some Pollyanna hey everything's on fire behind us I'm not talking about that I'm talking about get your mind right today right now so that you can move forward as quickly as possible and with that right once we do that we can sell we can influence we can persuade we can work with people with that then we can lead we can be go first we can be the person that people want to follow but if we don't have any of together right and they're not all three in alignment that's why it's a Venn diagram right that sweet spot right there if they're not all three gonna overlap and align with each other it's going to be a long day a long week long month so that's uh that's what I coach uh that's what I train and that's what I believein and that's what I work on for me too and it's work right it's work this isn't Magic there's no Silver Bullet in sales sales leadership or entrepreneurship at all so we have to find a way uh to instead do the good work that we need to be the most effective and efficient.
Brendan: Yeah I like that and it's interesting you start and we'll let's go into minds a little bit further just to start out uh the session because usually mindset not what people start out with but you're saying that's actually everything starts from that that Center um so help me understand or help our audience understand you kind of impact it a little bit but let's dive into a little bit further as to why does that need to be the first kind of building block as it relates to how it impacts sales and Leadership?
Phil: Sure so so first our head and our heart have to align right let's get that right so why we do what we do is super important and that means our head aligns and our heart aligns with that we have to feel good about what we do we really do it because if we don't it makes it really hard now with that we have to think about so what am I really doing here what's the real outcome of what I have here and what's my desired outcome now some might say you know if you're in sales well the goal is to sell things and I would argue it's not to solve problems that's what I love about sales that's why I love to be a sales coach that's why I've loved to sell in the past I love to solve problems I'm a Problem Solver now sometimes the answer is me and my product or my service for sure and sometimes it's not and I happily refer that away now that also means right that that I have to have abundant mindset right I have to get my my head straight and say okay well Brendan you might not be my ideal customer and that's okay I might be have to be okay with the fact that you know what I might get five or ten in a row that are not people that I can help my friend Andrea Watson Richard Fenton uh wrote a book called go for no right and they're all about right go for the no and know that you're gonna have more yeses if you don't go for it because hesitation right because our mindset is messed up uh I'm not sure or desperation which means we get commission breath uh neither of which are good things instead be of service and I'll tell you uh for those reluctant sales people or those people that were thrust into sales and like oh my gosh I'm not even sure that I'm really a salesperson or leaders right I want you to replace the word sales with the word service and I believe that to sell is to serve and to solve right to solve problems for folks but first we have to right be of service and we have to understand and take time to really get our head on straight.
Brendan: I like that I was going to ask you for a practical next step on that specific topic but you kind of just hit it so in terms of changing it from a sales to a service type of mindset so I think it's a good actionable takeaway for for our our audience so let's transition we talked about mindset let's get into leadership a little bit um so we've got the building block of mindset so now how does that start to inform or impact or influence how you think about leadership?
Phil: Well leadership first starts with you you have to lead yourself first every time every time so that means as a leader you have to be the one that is passionate about self-development you have to be the one that's listening to podcasts that's reading books that's reading articles that's taking classes that's doing things to stay sharp because otherwise your team's going to rip past you and you're like whoa what happened and if you're a sales rep you have to be able to manage up because your sales manager has 8 10 12 15 people underneath uh them and with that they don't know what you need unless you tell them so what's your responsibility it's your career it's your business you have to take some time lead yourself first with that you have to have the mindset that I'm going to be better tomorrow I'm gonna be better tomorrow than I was today and I'm gonna learn from all angles so it doesn't matter your position it matters that you're willing to grow that you're willing to learn that you're willing to expand that you're open to feedback hey you know what I will tell you I don't know everything there's a lot of stuff I don't know so I seek out people to help me and sometimes I have blind spots I don't know what I don't know so I'm I have a coach right that can help me with that I've got a manager that can help me with that I've got a leader that can help me with that and see those blind spots and say Phil you know what you might not have seen this but here you go here's some things now with that we have to be open to feedback and if you're in a formal leadership position you have to ask are you looking for a solution here or are you just looking to bend either of which is okay right because you know what I think as Leaders sometimes we tell our team well don't come to me unless you have a solution and I don't think that's true because we have to be able to vent nothing is perfect in sales I'm not saying we spend time in the mud whining and complaining and just saying everything sucks but as Leaders it's our job to listen to our team you know what everything isn't going right yeah and sometimes it's just about getting it out there right because we we flip too fast into Solutions as leaders and we Whip too fast into Solutions as sellers so we have to slow down lead ourselves first and find out are they looking you know is it even time to propose a solution yet or is there still more that I need to get out of them and that's you know Discovery is sales or whether you're in leadership and that's you know getting curious Michael Dunne talks about that right getting curious or curious or I'm curious sir that's my job as a leader and as a seller so if I can do that right again a quick actionable takeaway for that is ask one more question yeah maybe you asked tell me more maybe you say explain that to me or maybe you ask them to describe it to me yeah I want one more and you'll find out more about your people if you're a leader and more about uh your prospects if you're a seller.
Brendan: I really like that uh ask that one more question concept and um the theme that I heard you really capture there is humility like curiosity and initiative um and the people that lead themselves well have that humility where it reveals what they don't know uh and the curiosity is a way to say like I don't know it but I really want to improve or learn uh an initiative is like taking that action um and one thing that we do even at our organization is we called feedback as a gift when you talk about feedback and it's yeah this whole idea of like hey our desires for you to grow and be better and so the way in which we do that is actually to be open with you hey sustains and improves or like start stop continue uh and that's the way say hey here's what you're doing really well here's areas that we think you can be better at in a way of we want to be better versus like coming down on you uh and when it's done right it's actually very effective but you have to be very careful about how you how you communicate and roll that out um yeah well let's um let's go into the third topic so we talk about mindset we talked about leadership and now let's get into sales or as you mentioned kind of the idea of service um so how how should we think about sales and the Paradigm of of this kind of intersection?
Phil: Well first understand that you're always selling which again if we change that right we're always serving right if we flip that word that yeah I just fundamentally believe that's true our action or our inaction is of service and is of uh you know we're selling so with that right we want to be a person of influence as opposed to a person of persuasion yeah the difference is influence means that you know I'm certainly going to help understand uh what that is I'm going to sometimes yeah okay I might lean my way on on the solution for sure but I'm not going to persuade you to buy anything you don't want to buy whether again whether I'm leaving you I'm not going to give you my idea and pretend like you have to take it right that's persuasion that's manipulation right there's no I'm not going to use any uh sales tricks or language tricks to make that work instead right I'm just going to influence you and I'm going to tell you all the reasons why it makes the most sense to make the decision you do that's in your best interest okay that's in your best interest so that's the difference right person of influence versus a person of persuasion with that with that in sales you want to be a uh I believe in value over volume value over volume you don't have to be the loudest and you certainly don't have to build the biggest pipeline but as a sales rep if you're a person of value you will sell more and value for our prospects means progress when they take a call from us if we can help them move forward their organization help them move you know more Revenue if we can help them uh solve more problems right that's progress and they want that and if I can help with that I am now a person of value and that's really important right someone that I want to spend time with even if they're not the solution even if the product doesn't help with that it's someone that I want to spend time with you know I have I'm fortunate that I live outside Orlando as we talked about and I get people you know they they come here uh because Orlando's the convention capital of the world besides maybe arguably Las Vegas and I get to spend time with them and I always want to be a person of value it's not just hey let's have a meal but let's see if we can help each other in our business I want to be a personal value help them progress right so value over volume uh with that understanding that sales is nothing more than exchange of three things first kind of change of confidence I have to believe that my product or solution is the one that will solve problems your problem specifically if I'm not the prospect will feel that now secondly it's an exchange of emotion meaning uh and maybe that's empathy right but typically the emotion is that I care about you and I care about your problems enough to share this with you to offer you this and then third it's an exchange of energy so as a sales rep or as a sales leader right we have to keep our energy level up it's why physical fitness is important it's why it's important that you know we don't over caffeinate because if we're too energetic and we're just dangling people are like holy crap who is this guy settle down and if we're too sleepy like droopy or Eeyore that's a problem too so we have to be even and I always I always tell my reps right the goal is not for you to be excited like me the goal is for you to be excited like you so get you know that you're offering them a because you care about them so they all intertwine there much like sales leadership and mindset do.
Brendan: Yeah I think well I think about that exchange we talk about confidence emotion and energy um and really I mean there's some components there that that make a lot of sense but the energy it's really authenticity like be yourself uh and if you or yourself then that will come through uh the confidence kind of speaks into that whole piece where you say like persuasion um if you're confident what you're selling that adds value uh then you're leaning from that perspective versus like forcing something into somebody that they don't want um and so I think those are really and the motion with the empathy uh is really kind of to me that's like the the service kind of concept of really what's best for them versus what's best for me uh and when you walk into those kind of conversations with that mindset to your original Point um you're gonna be successful doesn't mean you're not gonna have the bumps like you talked about the very beginning but sustain success over time is likely going to happen as a result of that um well Phil this is really informative and I really
Phil: Hold on can I share how to get started on that one because we didn't share that right actually yeah right so how do we get more confidence more emotional more energy especially for starting out yeah and the key to that is preparation and practice so take the time to prepare for every conversation and then practice I know most sales reps most sales leaders hate role play well start stop calling it role playing start calling it practice you know what if if Aaron judge who just signed a 400 like 350 million dollar contract if he can take batting practice and hit 62 home runs as a coach as a rep as a leader why are you not taking sales practice why are you not taking coaching practice why are you not taking one-on-one practice that's a role play get in there prepare and then practice prepare and then practice because you'll perform way better and that will give you the the energy the emotion that you need to get your mindset back on right after you maybe you've been kicked in the teeth and you just close lost the deal that you thought was going to close at your end.
Brendan: Yeah I love that and it gets back to kind of humility and curiosity it's if you have the arrogance that you don't need it that's a that's a signal that you may not be the right person for that seat you need to have the ability to learn uh and to grow and role play is a great way to Foster that so Phil thank you for the actionable insights if our audience wants to take that next step to get to learn more about you a book a podcast or your service where should they go?
Phil: Well so uh first you can always email me super easy Phil at Phil gerbyshak.com g-e-r-b-y-s-h-a-k Phil at Phil gerbyshak.com or find me on LinkedIn or Facebook you put in gerbyshak you'll find me there or you can check out my new project that I'm testing out because I believe mindset is the under uh utilized secret to better leadership and better sales at mindset Brew b-r-e-w.com mindsetbrew.com.
Brendan: Oh sweet well Phil thank you for your time thank you for your insights and look forward to staying in touch.
Phil: Absolutely thank you