E61: Sell with Extreme Ownership with Jordan Benjamin

Amy: 00:00:04

Uh, what's up human. Welcome to the revenue real hotline. I'm Amy Rahab check. More importantly. I'm excited. You decided to join us. I know you've got a ton of options and I appreciate you. This is a show about all the hard and uncomfortable conversations that arise while generating revenue and how to think, or rethink what you're doing, why you're doing it. And then of course, how to execute differently. And like I said, I'm happy you decided to come along for the. Don't forget to follow the show wherever you listen. So you can be notified each time a new episode drops and to be a favor friend, don't tell anybody about the shell. Let's keep it our little secret. I'm Amy Rahab check. This is the revenue real hotline

Jordan: 00:00:53

enjoy. I think this is where, you know, for me, this feels semi relevant, but I love the Victor Franco quote. It's like between stimulus and response. There's a choice. And that choice is what gives us our power. It's nobody else's job to keep us entertained, to keep us developing, to keep us learning and growing. I do think companies are starting to realize that if they support the whole human, more than just the individual seller, they're going to retain employees longer. They're going to see people level up, but it's not the company's responsibility. It's up to you. And if you're in this job and you're bored and you're over it and you've done it for. Go look for something else. You may not take that job, but that may start helping you really understand and reflect on personally. What are the values that matter to you that you really love about what you do today? Because as you start exploring those different options opposed to saying, well, this is the only path that I have, and I neither continuing to move up into the right or I'm flat-lining and upstaging. Now have the opportunity. I'm going to use one quick example on this. I have a friend that, um, just switched companies really recently. Had been working on a side project for. Probably about a year and a half, two years and got a text message from him last night. He was like, I cannot believe I didn't make this move two years. I am so fired up. Like I'd been coasting because I had good money. I was comfortable. It was easy. And literally, if I look at this text message right now from him, he said something along the lines of, I couldn't imagine being in a better place. Uh, I have been happy in years. It's been a slog for me for a couple of years for working on some really big opportunities. I'll be able to build a team, get paid more. And I think so many of us get trapped and I've done this many, many times. In this comfort zone. And I, the quote that I use to remind myself on this one is I'm comfortable as the cousin of complacent. And again, it comes back to it's on me to decide like, do I stay there, stay comfortable, stay complacent. Or do I challenge myself, get uncomfortable? Whether that's listen more on the conversation or that's take on new responsibility or just go out on my own? All these other opportunities that open up to us, but nobody else is going to do it for you.

Amy: 00:03:13

Hmm. Okay. So many things there. I just want to pull out the wisdom that I heard there on like what to do in the place of boredom. I think when you said to focus on, you know, empowering your peers or teaching those around you to do what you've done, I think that is a fantastic option and something to consider. It's frankly, how I was able to find my, my passion for sales enablement was with looking back and realizing that that's where a lot of my joy came from right. In those moments. It's also one of the places where sellers learned best, right? Not from the formal sales trainings, not from the sales bosses, right. It's from your peers in many ways and in many instances. So be that blessing for, for someone coming up behind you. Okay. My dad. So I was raised by a sales leader and we were asked at my sisters and I, right. So we're all 18 months apart, right? Like some crack heads. I don't know what they were thinking in that regard, but you know, well, that's a different conversation for a different day, but my dad asked us all at dinner every night. When did you feel butterflies? In your stomach today. And so the moral of the story was if we didn't have anything to report at dinner that night, then it was, we were, it was not so subtle in association to the fact that we had not grown that. Hmm. And so I learned from a very young age, not just how to interpret that discomfort differently, and then eventually right. Had a seek it out with the knowledge. And I still think about how that just altered the trajectory of my mind, body, soul, and all, all of the above. So anybody that's got kids, I would encourage, I would encourage that question. All right, Jordan, we're going to come back to your one piece of advice, which was taking extreme ownership, but I'd want to talk about your most uncomfortable conversation. And so like, w what, tell us a quick story. And with knowledge friend, that this is what episode 40 something, no one has shared this particular uncomfortable conversation yet up until this moment. So you're the first, which is just, that's pretty interesting to me in and of itself, but what was the most uncomfortable revenue conversation you've ever had, sir?

Jordan: 00:05:31

Weaknesses, not every month is always going to be over 150%. And for me, uh, I, I put up a nice, I didn't put up a, you know, a zero burger cause I've heard it referred to in past, but I put up about 18%, uh, in a given month. And that's after, you know, years performance and, and like coaching and talking to other people, shit. What ha what happened here? And so I had, uh, had to sit down with my manager and even looped in my director after we kind of said like, Hey, w what went on with this 18% month? And oh, that conversation suck. I hate even talking about it. But for me, I went and started writing and said, you know, well, what are the things that went wrong here? What is in my control? And I noticed I was pointing the finger at a lot of things that were outside of my control. Surprise. The easy thing to do in sales. Well, my lead sucked, you know, the partners that I was working with, you know, weren't really motivated like, yeah, it's all these pieces that came up. And so for me, this conversation was one that got me. It really kind of rocked me because one it's so easy in sales when you're performing to not have any questions asked of you. To not go that second layer to not dig into. That sounds like you're making up a bullshit excuse right here. That's a cop out. And so for me, when I, when I hit 18% and had to sit down and like, really realize that, yeah, there are a bunch of people that I can point the finger at, but it's up to me to decide what actions I'm going to take, how I'm going to leverage this story. So I went in, I think I wrote like a email or a post on LinkedIn, even about here's what I do in my month suck. Because at the end of the day, we can go back to what are the things that I control? What can I focus on? I could either sit there and wallow in my sorrow and sadness, which sure that's fine to do for a handful of minutes, but I kind of set a timer for myself to say, all right, great. Like I'm going to feel bad. I'm going to feel sad, mad, angry, whatever the day, 15 minutes, whatever it is. Cool. Now that's gone. Now it's time to find the solution. And that's what really helped me think about, you know, how do I pick myself back up to move forward. Versus being embarrassed and angry and sad. And all the other emotions that came up, that aren't the ones that kidney butterflies.

Amy: 00:08:04

It's interesting to me that it didn't occur to me that this was the first time that this particular conversation was mentioned because. I mean, hell, it's such a big one. It's such a big one, but, wow. Okay. So how long did you lick your wounds? Like how many days after you had the conversation before you threw that post up on LinkedIn? That you've referenced for

Jordan: 00:08:28

me. It was like two or three days probably of like sitting there. And I, I think it was. I think it was on a monthly quota. And so the month ended on a Friday. And so luckily I had the weekend, you had the weekend and it was like, oh my gosh,

Amy: 00:08:41

how many business days

Jordan: 00:08:44

about a full business day. But then it was like, I, and I'm a huge fan. Um, I have a lot of these concepts around ownership and accountability. And so for me, it was like, So my dad used to run meetings, uh, with a nonprofit. He was a part of, and he'd set up a BMC timer, the bitch moan and complaining time. And it's like, oh, we're going to start the meeting. And like, I understand there's issues. There's challenges five minutes, 10 minutes. And so for me, that's kind of been a helpful insight to think about like, all right, I understand sadness. All these things are going to be part of a life of a career of, you know, being a human. The more time that I spend in those, the less time am moving to the things that I really love that do fill me up to give me the insight and the passion. And so I try to put some form of a box on how long I'm going to feel that otherwise, maybe it's a conversation with my therapist or coach or something else that can also help guide me through that when I may not be the only one that can take it all on.

Amy: 00:09:44

Yeah. Okay. I love that. I love it. And that's exactly where I was going with it, where I did. Why doesn't it surprise me that your dad has. Um, this is a skill to friends, right? Learning how to bounce back quicker. And it, it takes some practice. Now I do want to just toss out there that there's a difference between feeling the feels, and then bouncing back for aspiring to not feel the. Which is a bureau listener of the show. You know, that was one of the massive mistakes that I made during my, my time as a seller early seller. Right. And where I just, I aspired to not feel anything bad, but the reality of the situation is there is no such thing as just icing out your negative feelings, if you are seeking to ice them out. And like Jordan, I too was a science of, or a student of neuroscience. And had read everything that I could about behavior change and habit forming in like whatever own, the context of sales. So I was very good at executing a mental plan on myself, right. And so I went a decade until my feelings, absolutely revolted and needed to seek out some professional help to get myself back on track. Right. Literally develop the tools and the systems to be able to experience those feelings. That said once you are experiencing the fields, work on bouncing back quicker, right? Give yourself that time and that space, wherever it is, wherever you are on that journey, to feel them take ownership of the situation, right. And pick your ass back up and do it again tomorrow. Okay, Jordan. I love this. I don't, I'm sad to pivot away from this placing blame, right. Taking ownership. But I I'm, I do want to ask what are you working on right now? Like what's coming up for you.

Jordan: 00:11:29

Too. Oh, delightful. Uh, I love that. So, uh, at my CoreOS, we work with teams and top sellers. Uh, on building their own personal operating system on really, you know, as we talked about ownership and self-awareness, I think is a key for almost all of this. And so we work with folks really understand, like, what are those things that fill you up that take you down that drain you? And how do we look at your entire life to understand that? And then how do we start creating our systems and habits and routines that help move us to the outcomes that we want. And so I've been doing some different workshops. Uh, with teams around, how do we support mental health? How do we manage burnout and stress? Because I've gotten told and had this feedback in the past that I look at stress as something that is only a bad thing. And to your point of like fuel the feelings, like stress can be an amazing thing to help push us and do a lot of incredible things. But how do we actually manage that? How do we build resilience? And so I've been running a lot of different workshops with teams on all those different areas, especially as we get to the new year, thinking about, okay, how do we set goals that are actually meaningful to us beyond just what the company quota is? And beyond maybe the dollars I want to make. And understand, like, what is it for and how do we go beyond that? So that's where I've been doing a lot of work with different folks and teams. I've worked with top sellers in the last year that have had their best years ever, but are struggling and burnt out and. What to do, how to support themselves, why were they burnt out? And so been doing a lot of different work, uh, with micro Rahsaan folks and a bunch of those different areas. We're

Amy: 00:13:03

going to talk more about this offline so I'm just from a professional standpoint. I like, I would love to compare notes on this one. So the public, thank you. So I added a phrase, the sales cast community. I added a question on top of like, who referred you and your friend, Nick. And it was like, who would you mind elaborating on whatever. And so Nick did a little thing about. All the things that you had shared about what we were doing. And I've read that. And I mean, we were already booked at that moment, but I just, from my heart to yours on this one, too. Thank you for. Talking about the space that we're creating there and the connections and the skill development all on, you know, how to share your story, like adjust. It means the world. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Jordan: 00:13:52

Nah, I'd love it. I think there's a massive opportunity for folks at sales for professionals anywhere, um, to really start refining who they are, what they believe. How to tell their stories. It's a powerful thing. And I think we'll be more and more powerful in the years to come. Amazing.

Amy: 00:14:07

Amazing. All right, Jordan, how can people find you?

Jordan: 00:14:10

Uh, find me in Jordan Benjamin. Yes. It's Jordan first name Benjamin last name confuses a lot of people. Peak performance selling. That's my podcast where I'm interviewing different folks. The mindset. How does that work? Uh, beyond the cold caller, social outreach tactic, uh, and then my coreos.com hit me up there if you want to.

Amy: 00:14:30

Amazing, amazing, amazing. All right, Jordan. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for making time for us today. This has been a blast. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and to friends. Thank you for hanging around for the remainder of the conversation. And happy selling that wraps another installment of the revenue real hotline. I'd like to thank my guest for being so damn real and for sharing their insights and for, of course, being so much fun. And I'd like to thank you to. It means the world. And I appreciate you. If you have any thoughts or comments or experiences, you feel inclined to share head straight over to revenue, rail.com. There's a new join. The conversation feature on the right side of the page. I am all damn ears. Final thought. We are introducing a coaching aspect to the show. So anyone who's brave enough to dig into an account strategy or outbound strategy set. That's where we kick. Please do follow the show wherever you listen to your podcasts. So you'll always have the latest episode. Download it. If you want to contact me, I'm at Amy ad revenue. real.com. If you want to follow me on social Twitter is Amy underscore Rahab check, and LinkedIn is linkedin.com. Backslash Amy rev. This episode was produced by the fabulous Nian Fiedler Iraq man. And I appreciate you too friend. And of course, whatever you do, don't tell anybody about the show. Let's keep it at our little secret until next time. All I'm Amy. This is the revenue real hotline, happy selling.