How to Separate Yourself in Sales | Stories With Traction Podcast

SHOW NOTES:

PODCAST EPISODE SUMMARY: In this episode, Niraj Kapur and Matt Zaun talk about how you can separate yourself from the competition in sales.

NIRAJ KAPUR BIO: Niraj is the Managing Director of “Everybody Works in Sales.”  He is a keynote speaker, TEDx speaker, and he’s been featured in the BBC, Forbes, and Fortune.

For more info, check out Niraj here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nkapur/
https://everybodyworksinsales.com

MATT ZAUN BIO: Matt is an award-winning speaker and storyteller who empowers organizations to attract more clients through the art of strategic storytelling. Matt’s past engagements have catalyzed radical sales increases for over 300 organizations that range from financial institutions to the health and wellness industry.

Matt shares his expertise in persuasion with executives, sales professionals, and entrepreneurs, who he coaches on the art of influence and how to leverage this for profits and impact.

For more info, check out Matt Zaun here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattzaun/

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors.

 

 

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

Stress, depression, radical change, uncertainty. These are some of the words I hear from salespeople. Sometimes they feel like they're in a pressure cooker.

That's why I wanted to do this episode. I want to talk about sales in a way. way that's not typically talked about.

Joining me today is Niraj Kapoor. He is the managing director of everybody works in sales. He's a keynote speaker, a TEDx speaker, and he's been featured in the BBC Forbes and Fortune.

Welcome to the stories with traction podcast Niraj.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

Matt, it's so great to be talking to you.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

Thank you. I very much appreciate your time. And I really appreciate what you do. So I want to unpack elements of what you do.

But I want to focus on sales, these unspoken stressors that a lot of sales reps find themselves them. It's no surprise to everyone that the last few years have been very different.

There's been a ton of uncertainty, a ton of stress, and more and more sales reps are crying out for leadership for a better culture for someone to take them and lead them.

A lot of them want to do well. They want to offer tremendous value for their clients, but they're under tremendous stress.

I want to talk about that. kind of what we see on the horizon this year. And there's a lot that we can dive into, but let's talk about just the unspoken stressors of individuals that they're trying to perform for their clients and they feel completely burnt out.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

Have you seen recently more and more people have this burnout? I have. People are wanting to provide the best they can for the clients who themselves often don't know what they want, but also a lot of salespeople are worried about their jobs.

Because we are most pure companies like LinkedIn and Salesforce were almost bulletproof compared to many of the SaaS sector.

And salesforce had huge layoffs recently. So, and these are good people. These aren't people who are struggling to hit target.

A lot of them are people who are doing very well. So naturally, that's going to be in their mind as well.

And of course, I'm not sure about America, but certainly across the UK, there's been a massive, I mean a huge cost of living increase, where things like gas.

electricity bills are going up by 100%, 200%. My car insurance went up this week by 22. I mean everything is just going through there.

The cost of food's gone up several times in the last three months. So naturally that's going to play in people's minds.

And this is what I'm hearing pretty much every day, Monday to Thursday, I'm just constantly talking to salespeople, sales leaders, business owners.

That's all I do. And that's the biggest stresses they're telling me. They're uncertainty about the future, but also the stresses of handling it mentally.

Not many people already talk about the mental or the mindset part of sales, but if you don't get that right, you're going to be in big trouble.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

Sure. So this really dives into the mental health piece. So where would you direct leaders as it comes to at least setting an environment where there is better focus on mental health?

So sales reps can perform, so to speak, they can offer more value to their clients.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

Where should they go? Well, I don't see leaders. being very human with many other staff. I have seen leaders at nine o'clock.

I'm sitting there, that means the office through some training. And I'll sit there, I leader comes in, nine o'clock, boom.

What are your KPIs? What are your targets? Did you hit the line? Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on a second.

Let's just take a few minutes. Okay. How was your weekend? That's the first thing you say. And then you just be quiet.

You don't just say how is your weekend casually? You ask somebody how the weekend is and you just give them a minute or two to talk.

Okay. You got to relax them in. Okay. And then you ask them what was the highlight of the week next week?

What was the highlight of the week last week? Sorry. What did you do really well? Okay. That's brilliant, really well done.

Now, what do you think you could have done better? This is how you talk to people. This is how you raise people to another level.

The words you use, most leaders are not very self aware when it comes to their language. They're really not.

And they're not aware that the words you use can master the effect someone's performance. sure you're doing it. And also your next and commands are doing it as well with the people they report to, people who report to them.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

Yeah, that's, that's a really good point. And I don't want people to lose sight of for someone that is in sales to build that rapport, build that trust.

They need to be human themselves. And what better way for a leader to show the initiative to really set the culture for being human.

I mean, if sales VPs, so leaders that are trading sales forces, if they truly want their team to be human so that they can offer value to clients, they need to show and set the tone themselves as the leaders and be human.

So I really appreciate you mentioned that. That's more of a top down leaders really do need to latch on and focus more on that human element.

So I appreciate you mentioning that. So let's talk about the human element, but definite change is coming. We mentioned a while back about AI technology, what that could potentially do.

Basically, it's not a human element. It's more robotic in nature for sure. And I see that there is this storm that's happened recently where everyone's talking about AI.

And I've seen a lot of people use AI in a way that is just a turn off. It really separates from the human element.

Now, obviously, there's a good way to do it and a way not to do it. But what are you seeing regarding AI?

Let's just talk about this year alone. What do you see coming down the pike regarding AI?

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

OK, I'm not an expert in AI. So all I can do is talk about what I know. In 2016, everybody said AI is going to replace salespeople.

In 2017, they said it's going to replace people. In 2018, I went to see Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins is the one that was top peak performance coaches.

And he's trained huge Jackman, Mark Benny off of Salesforce, Serena Williams, Pitbull, some of the greatest people in the world.

He's not investing, I believe, heavily in AI. In the last seven years, nothing has happened on any significance. whatsoever.

In 2023 that started to change because for the first time ever I'm seeing a lot of people interested in it and of course you should be aware of it.

I'm also aware that people tend to run to shiny objects rather than improve their current situation. That's just a fact of life.

Okay so if somebody has to if somebody has to lose weight the sensible thing is to get a really good personal trainer to talk to you about nutrition.

Not to lift heavier weights or to do cardio but mainly to get your nutrition. I had personal trainers back the day when I had a sex pack and I look much healthier.

Okay so I had one for three years. It's fantastic but took a long time to find the right one.

But here's the thing there are so many personal trainers out there you will say you know what you hire me cost you $30 a month you can eat whatever you like and you know what they're the ones who make the money.

They're not the good ones by the way they're terrible but they make the money. It's like okay being a millionaire I have been to events called BMD and Arnold

weekend. I thought this sounds amazing. Why did it work for a decade to be rich? I can just go to this course and I've been to these courses and they've cost money and they were terrible.

You know the secret of becoming rich was, Matt, it's all on your head. That was the that was a weekend learning.

I'm like, seriously. So people will always rush towards new things instead of focusing on things they should improve, which is learning about how to understand sales, how to understand psychology, how to understand LinkedIn, and how to get your mindset right.

You get those four things right. You will start to see a massive difference, not just in your well-being, but in your performance in the world of sales.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

All right. So I really appreciate you mentioning the health and fitness aspect. In fact, I remember I must have been, I was either in middle school or I just got into high school.

I'm standing at the checkout line in the grocery store and I remember my My father pointing to a muscle magazine and he said, Matt, do you know why businesses like that can continue to print magazines?

And I was perplexed by his question. He said they've learned how to repackage it and make it look shiny, but it's the exact same information.

So his point was think of all the muscle magazines that are out there. I mean, a lot of these are the same routines.

It's the same stuff that's been shared over and over again. It's just those muscle magazine companies have learned how to repackage it to make it look shiny.

That's how they're able to continue to sell those magazines. I'll never forget my father telling me that. And it really goes back to what you're saying, Nourage, where a lot of times people reach out for that shiny object, but there are core fundamentals that people, if they knock it out of the park, if they do exceptionally well with, they will see radical success in the sales world, focusing on those sales pieces, the psychology linked in, and then also mindset.

Those are four really good pillars. that you had mentioned. So let's dive through. Let's focus in on a few of these.

So from a sales perspective, if you were to instruct a VP of sales, that has become very flustered based on their team's numbers.

If you were to say, hey, these are a few things that I recommend you focus on to to steer the ship in a better direction.

What would be some of those things that they should focus on regarding sales?

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

Well, if VP is going to be successful. If his or her staff are performing well and you get your staff perform well by first of all, what I said about 10 minutes ago, but spending time with them.

Everybody and everybody should be having one to one meetings Monday morning with their team without exception without feel, even for just half an hour.

And the first few minutes, like I said, you talk to the person, you listen to the person and then you spend time supporting them.

Not why did you make 40 phone calls a day? I mean, come on, this is 2023. Stop using all world metrics.

You must book 10 meetings a week. You must have 20 demos a week. I'd rather you had five demos a week that were brilliant than 20 demos a week that were forced to not hold.

You've got to get people realistic KPIs. The third thing you've got to do is get them all to have vision boards.

So before anybody works with me, we create vision boards because vision boards help you mad when you're stressed. They help you maintain focus.

They help you when your phone is pinging your WhatsApp is pinging your email is pinging when people want to have meetings with you or when you have meetings about meeting, you know, it helps keep you focused and centered and then sales people are so distracted by everything right now.

You know, I have this on it's on airplane mode right now, but three times a day, this is on literally you can't get hold of me because I have to focus and do good work.

Otherwise, I don't get anything done because I'm distracted by so many things. People want to my attention. People saying can you join our group?

People saying can you join our WhatsApp? Free people saying, can you give me a top what we can pay you people saying, can you pitch for this project all day long?

I'm inundated while trying to run a business and make sales. So I understand exactly what it's like. Don't forget, I spent 23 years of my life in corporate London.

So I've done the sales executive, the sales manager, the VP. I've done those roles. I know exactly what it's like.

Those stressors have only increased in the last few years. They haven't got better. They have increased.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

Yeah, the vision board really ties into the psychology of what you're saying, right? You mentioned sales and then that psychology piece.

I appreciate you mentioned that something that we can look at so that we recognize again and again, here's what we're striving for.

I think that's really important. You also mentioned distractions and I feel I don't know if this is a generational thing, but it's no surprise that younger generations like millennials are more distracted than ever before.

And I've been hearing almost on repeat from leaders across the specific. typically the United States that they're having a really tough time motivating millennials.

How do we inspire millennials to produce the numbers that we want? Now, obviously you mentioned the human element and not just numbers, but are you seeing even more so when it comes to distraction with younger generations?

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

Oh, yeah. And then you also believe that their phones every 65 seconds. Now, you look at your phone. You don't just look at your phone like this and get back to work.

You look at your phone. You often get distracted by something else. And most people who do an eight hour day get roughly three hours work done for a third lucky.

That's terrible. You can't work an eight hour day and do three hours work in sales and expect to succeed.

And the reason you're being constantly distracted is you're looking at your phone. So there has to be some control over your phone.

Don't get me wrong. When I work with millennials, I don't say to them, look, you must do what I do because I respect the fact that, you know, I have a daughter and I have two step daughters and her twenties.

So I have a very good understanding of millennials. They happen to be exceptionally good at technology. They happen to be much more cultured than my generation in terms of people, race, religion, gender.

They're actually brilliant. They have so many skills my generation just didn't have or took years to find and I respect admire them for that.

I really do. At the same time it's important for millennials to understand that people in my position can also teach them so much as well.

But to do that you have to get out of your comfort zone. Everybody knows, I'm sure you know this as well Matt, you want success in life?

Get out of your comfort zone. I don't like putting my phone on silent three times a day. I hate it, but I do it.

I hate having cool showers. They suck. Now the worst experience in the world is having a 30 second cool shower, especially in Ireland in the winter when it's freezing already, but you do it because it just wakes me up all of a sudden boom, I'm on fire.

You know, as you can tell by the size of me, I love my food, my chocolate. I do, but in the mornings, in the mornings, I'm on fire.

It's just herbal teas and it's so flat. Even now evening herbal teas. You know, what have I got here?

I got water, you know, because to give the best performance I gave, you have to have certain routines and habits and I don't see many millennials really talk about routines and habits.

I don't see many people of my generation. I've just turned 50. And so many salespeople in their fifties are just becoming irrelevant and they're either quitting sales and going to work in customer service or they're being demoted or in any case, they're quitting completely because even people are in their late 40s and early 50s are not changing with the times.

They're not adapting to LinkedIn because I've always done things a certain way. So you have to evolve the times and you have to know what works for success.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

Yeah, so let's talk about LinkedIn. So let's talk about this. It's very well. It's a good segue regarding the phone.

So the phone, as many people know, could be a huge asset or a huge liability. It is a liability based on just the amount of time.

So we pick it up. The 65 second thing that you mentioned, that sounds horrifying. I'm sure that you're right with that.

I mean, I've looked at a lot of different pieces out there just in the sheer amount of times that people pick it up in a day, looking off of screen time analysis, particularly that the iPhone puts out.

I had never really thought about that effectively almost every minute of the day, which is just absurd. So that is a huge liability, but also it is an incredible asset.

I mean, I've been able to scale my business more than I ever thought possible due to LinkedIn in the last few years.

And a lot of that is based on my phone. I could be on my phone anywhere when I'm traveling.

I have different marketing pieces. I have different things that I'm putting out in the world through LinkedIn. It's been very, very helpful.

So how do you, how do you separate it being a a liability versus the asset piece. So someone truly wants to embrace LinkedIn, they understand the value, they wanna use it as a way to supercharge their sales.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

How do they figure out a balancing act between this is becoming very distracting and using it as a way to drum up more business?

Okay, I'm gonna say something that millennials might find controversial. It's not meant to be, but the way I'm just giving you a simple facts.

I've never seen a generation so obsessed but work-life balance in my life. You shouldn't take work home with you, you shouldn't work weekends, things like that.

And as somebody who few years go through a traumatic divorce, I'm a big believer in having some kind of work-life balance.

Of course, I don't work 15 hours a day and sleep four hours a night. Of course I don't, but I don't work 30, I don't work nine to five.

You wanna be successful in life? Millennials, you will not do working nine to five, I'll tell you this much, you really have to put in not long hours but more hours.

So I just want you to be aware of that, okay? I know it's not something you wanna hear. But I don't really care if you want to hear it or not.

It means nothing to me. If you want to hear this or not, I'm telling you what's going to help you.

Okay. And you've got to put in extra hours to be successful at anything in life. So with my LinkedIn, I spend 16 minutes, one hour every Sunday morning.

And I review my week and I plan my next week and I reflect. I have tremendous self awareness. And I recommend everybody does this to bring it exercise every week.

What did I do already? Well, this week, what could I improve on this week? What went well? And just reflect on your general, sort of for 30 minutes and eventually they'll go to 60.

And after I do one hour of self awareness work, then I spend one hour doing LinkedIn planning. So what I want to talk about next week, not who do I want to sell to?

Who do I want to help? It's a very different attitude. It's like when you pick up the phone and call a customer or when you email a customer.

I don't sit there going, I must sell this. I must say, how can I really help this person? How can I share value with them?

How can I stand out? These are the questions you must be asking because you're competing with so many people, not just in the USA, but in Canada, in Europe, in London.

I have to compete with people from all over the world. I lost job with four months ago to LinkedIn, Coach in Australia.

Three thousand miles away. Okay, the company was Australian. So we went for somebody local, but still, that's Australian I'm competing with.

Do you have to be aware you're competing with people everywhere? Okay. So put in the extra effort, and Sunday mornings or Sunday evenings from me are just gold, because they're really quiet.

I don't work all day Sunday. I just do a few hours work in the morning, and then take the day off, then I coach in Sunday evenings.

This Sunday evening just helps me very busy time for coaching for me. But that's what you want to be doing for a start.

Okay? Spend time planning, spend time thinking. And then in terms of your work day, one of the best ways to raise your awareness on your profile on LinkedIn, is to spend 10 to 15 minutes a day.

Okay. liking and commenting on other people's posts. People are interested in doing business with. Don't just go, hey, cool, or well done.

The LinkedIn algorithm says at least five words or more. Now, my LinkedIn knowledge comes from the fact that 10 people in the world every year are given award by LinkedIn headquarters.

This is not some popularity contest. This is not done by people in my network. This is LinkedIn head office.

And I was honored to be a LinkedIn top voice. 10 people in the world, two were based in the UK.

I was one of them. So I really know what works from a sales perspective on LinkedIn and how to grow your brand on LinkedIn.

Two and a half years ago on LinkedIn, I was a nobody. I had about a thousand followers. Nobody knew who I was.

I was struggling and I was selling a lot, not quite getting there. And now I've got 20,000 followers, which is a huge jump in a business sector in just over two years.

So when I say plan, I mean plan. When I say spend every day liking and commenting and posts, it means you're giving value.

When I say you don't have to post it every day, but at least twice a week give value to people in your sector through LinkedIn post.

And the best way to do that is through video. Younger generation, they take the video so naturally because of technology.

My generation, I procrastinate it for six months. I don't procrastinate very much. And I couldn't do video for so many excuses.

Look at my ears, look at my double chin. No, no, who wants to see me do video? The answer is nobody.

I don't want to see me do video. Anybody, you know, but younger generation, the very technology is so natural to them.

So video should come more naturally. I'll just pause there for a second because I'll give you loads of information, but all this information is so valuable.

Not just to help you right now, but to help you build a career as well.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

All right, so let's dissect your process a little bit. I want to make sure that I'm not misconstruing what you're saying and I have some clarity.

So, all right, so. Correct me if I'm wrong. So every Sunday morning you spend one hour on reflection, debriefing, and then followed by an hour on game planning.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

Is that correct? Two hours over the weekend. So one hour on review my week, sing what went well, sing what I can improve on, and then planning next week.

That's one hour altogether. And then I spend a further hour thinking, what am I going to talk about on LinkedIn?

Over the next week, there's going to get people value. Because during the week, I'm very busy. So I can just copy and paste something I wrote on Sunday on a Tuesday morning or Monday.

That makes my life easier for me. Because during the week, I've got time to spend one hour a day planning.

I just happen I'm running a business. And I'm traveling, no international travel, from March to sort of October time.

I travel a lot internationally. I've got time to write LinkedIn posts. So I didn't do Sunday morning because it's quiet.

There's no emails coming in. There's no WhatsApp popping. Nobody's bothering me this Sunday morning.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

That's why it's a good time to do it, you see. So let's talk about the reflection piece. So... Well, paint this scene for us, the pictures.

So you're, let's say you're sitting down, you're spending an hour, you're reflecting, you're going through your LinkedIn account. I'm guessing the previous week, what would be a red flag on this needs to change versus this went well?

Is it based on engagement? Based on follower count? Is it, what is it based on maybe deals landed? How do you say this was a good week versus this is a week that I need to pivot away from?

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

A good week is, or after the weeks, I get LinkedIn inquiries which convert to business. Getting LinkedIn inquiries is great, but if they're not converting to business, they don't really mean anything.

I think that's very important. So I've got LinkedIn inquiries from people who just want to get 30 minutes recoaching.

And I'm like, no. You know, whenever the bank says to me, you can pay the mortgage or free coaching, I'll do it.

But you know, whenever I can pay for my step-overs university fees, you're doing five years of law, I can pay that with free 30-minute chats for you.

Um, you know, so, um, and it's about, you know, it's very hard to say no to people. It's very hard ignoring people.

And it's very hard not to lecture people who are stupid. It really is. And so when people say, can I have 30 minutes of free coaching, I used to engage.

I'm saying, no, why did I do that for? This is my time. No, no, I just ignore them. So you got to learn to ignore people who make unreasonable requests.

You got to ignore people who, if they spam you two or three times in a week, don't engage with them.

Just go right click, block, get rid of them. Okay. There's nothing on blocking people who repeatedly spam you, who you don't even know.

Okay. So my inbox is very tidy. Um, I've blocked so many spammers from harassing me. I don't say yes to people unless it's paid work.

Why would I? The only exception of course is when I do charity work. So I am very ruthless to my time.

And I do look at LinkedIn leads very carefully in terms of conversions. In terms of success on LinkedIn, I don't measure my success by how many likes I get.

That's irrelevant. I do look a lot at the comments I'm getting, which I do value, and I do make sure I'm connected to all the people who've commented in my post, because it's important to do that.

I make sure I'm doing things like leaving happy birthday voice notes. If someone gets a promotion, I leave a voice note, not a text message, not a LinkedIn DM, a voice note.

If you're not a person very well, I'll do a video. Because when you do a voice note or a video, Matt, your enthusiasm, your energy, your tone, everything comes across so much better.

And like I said earlier, you stand out. My 50th birthday I received, I think that a post on LinkedIn about it, about 900 to 1,000 messages.

Wow. Most of them are generic happy birthday, and I ignored every single one of your soul lazy. But all you do is press a happy button.

I just don't want to talk to you. Really, that's so lazy. And about 20 people sent me messages that were typed up.

They sent me messages that were sent up. back to them. But the ones I applied to first, the ones who sent me a video, I think I got about two videos and about six voice notes.

And then the clients know me very well, picked up the phone and called me because they know that's what I do in their birthdays as well.

But again, that's how you stand out. I have no idea what 90% of people did or said because it was just generic.

I don't care about generic. You have to stand out on LinkedIn because that helps you stand out in sales, which helps you stand out in business.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

Wow. All right. So there's there's two things that I want to unpack with what you just said. So the first is that you got between correct me from wrong, 900 to 1000 messages.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

And two of them were video. Yeah. And they were so cool. Both women from the USA, one was Chicago and one was Vegas.

And all fairness, the Vegas is a video coach.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

But it was brilliant. But that's amazing, though. That's amazing. And you've remembered that you even remember the location that they're in their name.

They're located.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

That's something you don't forget. Again, it's standing. All right. And what did I do? I went and told people.

Oh my God. Lauren from Chicago, she's said this lovely message. And Jillian, I mean, Jillian literally was telling me now, hi, it's Vegas.

I know it's probably two o'clock in the morning or time, but I don't want to miss the opportunity. I wish you a happy birthday.

50 is so good.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

And it's just, it's so personalized.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

It's not a copy of this, you know?

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

So I want people to recognize just how that separated them from everyone else. I mean, those numbers are staggering.

So just doing something that simple. And I'm guessing these were not long in-depth videos. They were probably fairly quick, right?

But that stood out.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

I linked in, I don't believe if you do a video more than one minute is your max. And most videos I send and most voice notes I send are between 30 to 40 seconds.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

You don't have to use up every second of the 60 seconds.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

Sometimes less is more. You know, I left someone a message today just wishing him a happy birthday. That was all.

Hope you have an amazing birthday. Look, I know it's a Wednesday. So I hope you have a day off work.

If not, I hope you're drinking. Don't drink up too much at work, but if you have cake, I just a...

Brilliant time. You know, because I think things said, um, as I'm actually connected to this person on Facebook, I'm not connected to that many people on Facebook, I'm LinkedIn.

They're 44 years old. So between 41 and 49, it sucks because nobody really cares, especially if you're a guy, nobody cares.

So you got six more years to celebrate your 50th and that's an amazing time. But even though 44 is not a big deal to a lot of people, I wish you an amazing birthday.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

That's it. 30 seconds. Wow.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

Yeah. But it makes a difference. That person came back me within five minutes to say, thank you.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

Wow. Oh my God.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

Because it stood out among everything else. It was just generic copy and paste.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

Happy birthday, copy and yeah. Wow. All right. So that's something people should really recognize. Just the difference that two people spent less than a minute doing that.

And you remember that that's the first piece. But the second piece, I want to talk about the success, how you measure success, which I think are really good gauge.

What kind of inbound messages did you get that converted to actual sales? Do you see more conversion based on doing something in a week?

So when you spent that hour of reflection, are you saying, hey, I did X amount of videos. I got this amount of inbound leads that led to this result.

Was it text post? Was it picked? Like are you picking apart every element of your content?

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

Or how does that work? I almost like to know where that leads come from. I think it's very important to know where your business inquiries come from.

A big chunk of it should be recommendation. That shows you're doing your job correctly. It should be asking your clients for recommendations and for testimonials because that's a big deal in business.

Again, Americans are very good at this. The British European are terrible at it. They're just so scared of asking for recommendations.

If you want a recommendation from somebody, I'll do this as a bonus because it's so important. If you do good work with somebody, just say to them, were you happy with the work I delivered?

What was the experience like working with me? Did I deliver what I promised? And then that I over-deliver at any stage?

And hopefully they'll say yes. And if they do, you say that is awesome. I'm sure you know testimonials really do matter to small businesses.

Would it be okay if I sent this to you as a LinkedIn recommendation? You're welcome to change any words you want, but I just type in the words you've said.

Majority of people say yes, half and forget to do it. You have to chase them up, but majority will say yes.

And that's a really simple and easy way to ask for a testimonial. Cause number of businesses I've had to pitch for.

And it's being neck and neck. And I've had 50 recommendations. My competitors had five. And it's actually quite incredible.

Cause when you win a deal, you'd always ask why did I win? And if you lose a deal, you should always ask why did I lose?

Cause that's how you learn. And the number of deals I've won simply because they said I was a human being, not a corporate voice.

And I had more recommendations than my competition. That was it. Not that I was exceptionally smart, which I'm not.

Not that I have a high IQ, which I don't. Not that I have a university education, which I don't.

It's because I stood out and I was a human being.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

Wow. I appreciate it. So. A recurring theme has been that human being a term that you've thrown out, like the power of just simply being a normal human being.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

It's really important. You would have thought, you know, for sure, for sure.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

All right. So we talked with the reflection piece. Let's shift gears and talk about game planning. So when you game plan, what are some of the tiers that you're looking for?

So let's say this upcoming Sunday, during that hour, you're going to be looking for A, B and C.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

What would those A, B and C points be? Okay. It's really important when you look at business and say, what did I really enjoy doing this week?

What made me happy? And ideally, there should be a recurring theme in there. And for what makes me happy is helping people.

So I've had three people I know have lost jobs this week. So I gave them 10 to 15 minutes of my time saying, look, your LinkedIn profile is they should go to start this side.

You got to be posting regularly. And by the way, does your resume match your LinkedIn profile? Because if it doesn't, a recruitment consultant or an HR director will notice, you know, because again, I know people in the recruitment industry and no hard works.

So I spend a lot of time giving people advice. I look at the inquiries I get thinking, okay, how many of those did I convert?

Brilliant. Okay, the ones I lost, why did I lose them? Could I have done something better? And anytime I do lose a deal, that's one of two reasons.

A, they just chose somebody bigger. The sadly bigger companies like to work on bigger companies. I don't agree with that.

I think it's dumb, but that's how a lot big companies work. And sometimes I'm like, nah, I shouldn't have presumed.

I spoke to decision-maker and influencer, but there was other people involved in the decision-making process. That's my fault. I got too cocky.

I shouldn't have presumed that I would have wanted to slow down next time they are at. So being self-aware is so important because you kind of know what you have to do, but of course it doesn't mean you do it, Matt.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

That's the thing as well. For sure. That cold shower example that you gave, I know that I know the health benefits, but every morning I'm not taking cold showers, right?

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

I know I need to do it, but it is the worst. But I think, you know, when you get 50 to 50.

you know, about two years ago, my joints started aching. And you get out of bed in the morning and you're making noises.

You can't get good noises. And I speak to people in their 50s about this thing, oh yeah, you're getting old.

What can you do? I'm like, well, no, I don't accept that. I refuse to accept that I have to get up in the morning.

Why can't I wake up full of energy? Why can't I wake up full of joy? Why can't I just kick ass?

Why do I have to slow down? Because I'm 50. I don't want to slow down because I'm 50. You know, the people are going to...

These are 30s I have to compete against. Sometimes they're not slowing down. They're drinking red balls. Getting through the day, okay.

So I'm always looking... You know, I do obviously watch a lot of Tony Robbins. I've been in Tony Robbins events.

I read a lot of Dave Asprey. I listened to a lot of Jim Quick or Relentless, but mindset. I read a lot of books recently on speed reading, just so I can quick...

Now I can read very quickly and batch, which means I can read paragraphs at a time. So I'm always looking to do things that give me more time or improve energy.

And that's awesome.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

You know, I love that. I love that. I also really appreciate what you mentioned during your planning process that question you asked what made me happy this week.

I think that's a really good question to ask.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

People in business often think they forget sometimes that it's okay to be happy sometimes. Joy, what you do? Yeah, there are times it's very stressful.

There are times where clients can become unreasonable. There are times when you outsource work and the person who's been highly recommended to you doesn't do the job.

They should have done. There's so many stresses involved every day in a business. There's so many things that can and do go wrong.

Remember, it's not what happens. It's how you react to it. And that's really important to understand as well. And that comes down to the human element.

You know, my virtual assistant, she's great, but not again.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

She makes mistakes.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

I'll call her up and scream at her. I pick up the phone and say, is everything okay? It's the first thing I say to her.

And nine times out of 10, something has happened. This is with the school or with herself, whatever it might be.

But you don't start yelling and screaming at someone to cause they don't do their job properly. So again, just being a good human being does make a big difference, you know?

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

Sure, sure. I appreciate you mentioning that. And Naraj, I really appreciate your time today. I know you're extremely busy.

I appreciate you spending time going through a lot of different elements that made you successful within your industry. I just wanna touch on three of them that I got from our conversation.

So I really appreciate you highlighting the human element. I don't think that's talked enough about the sheer power of what it means to be human, especially while we're connecting with other humans.

It's good to be human. I appreciate that. I also appreciate what you mentioned regarding AI. I actually didn't think that we were gonna go in this direction.

You actually focused on the fundamentals. You said there's too many people reaching for that shiny object. You mentioned fundamental sales, psychology, LinkedIn and mindset.

Under psychology, you mentioned vision boards. You mentioned putting in the putting your phone away and limiting the distractions. I also appreciate what you mentioned regarding LinkedIn.

I found it fascinating. You sent upwards of 900 to 1,000 people, sent you all these messages, happy birthday, only two-cent video.

I'm actually going to start setting more video myself. I think it's a great way to separate. Thank you for that.

And then the third piece is the way you handle your weekend according to planning. I really appreciate you expressing to us the hour reflection that's the debriefing.

And then also that 60 minutes of game planning, simply asking what made me happy last week that I could carry into this upcoming week.

So those are three things that I got out of our conversation. I know listeners probably got a ton more.

So I appreciate everything that you mentioned, Neuraj. If people want to get more information on you, what you do, what's the best place that they can go to get that?

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

Send me a personalized invite on LinkedIn, because that will make you stand out. Go to everybodyworksinsales.com. some PDF documents on LinkedIn, on mindset, on prospecting, just little things that will help you.

And the most important thing is please don't just watch this and go, that was interesting. And get on with your life, please take action because nothing happens, nothing at all until you take action.

 

Matt Zaun (mattzaun.com)

I like that. Thank you, absolutely. To make it super convenient, I will include all of that in the show notes.

People can just click and go to those links.

 

Niraj Kapur (everybodyworksinsales.com)

So again, Naraj, thank you so much for your time. I very much appreciate it. It's lovely speaking, Nima. Take good care of yourself.