Sandler Training - July 2018

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WWW.CROSSROADS.SANDLER.COM / (208) 429-9275 / JULY 2018

FIND YOUR EDGE

A HISTORY FOR THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS PART 2 OF 2

When we decided to come on board with Sandler Training, we knew nothing about it. We wrote a sizeable check, but we had no idea what we were getting into. The instrumental decisions that led to us pulling the trigger taught us a lot about ourselves, but that didn’t mean my wife or I had a plan in place to make this venture successful. Someone would say, “I don’t think Sandler will work in Idaho,” which, if you know anything about reverse selling, is a great tactic. And it sure worked on me, because my response was always a headstrong “I’ll make it work.”

succeed and help any way they could. That’s the difference with the mindset of the people in this network. They believe there is enough success out there for everyone, and they’ll help you find it. That’s how I started with Hal Thorsvig. If you haven’t been exposed to the Sandler process, it’s hard to explain how talented Hal is. He came down from Seattle to help us get started, and the first time he spoke to a group of people, I was mesmerized and inspired. The whole foundation of Sandler is based on a nonselling system. Hal spent a majority of the time backing away and providing techniques through demonstration. He could command a room and make an impact through Sandler’s models. It’s not as if I immediately became the perfect representative of the systems we have today. In many cases, I wasn’t much better off than when I was going door to door as a child trying to sell seeds. The most significant conflicts I had along the way were mental. I had to shift my mindset from focusing on myself to listening to the client. It was a challenging process for the first six months. Whenever I went on a sales call, I always brought a roll of duct tape with me. I sat down in front of a prospective client, set the roll down in front of them, and said, “If I talk too much, feel free to reach out and use this.”

“ “I HAD TO SHIFT MY MINDSET FROM FOCUSING ON MYSELF TO LISTENING TO THE CLIENT.”

Our first step in this endeavor started with a mountain of books sent to us from Sandler. It was all the materials we’d need to start the franchise, but there wasn’t a lot of direction with it. I started off learning by trial and error. There were significant deficiencies in my abilities, and I desperately needed help to overcome them. Luckily, the Sandler network is full of abundance-minded people; they wanted to see us

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The first four or five times I got on a phone to call to someone, I clocked myself at doing 90 percent of the talking. The Sandler process is built out of 70-30 split — 70 percent of the time actively listening and 30 percent of the time asking questions. You need to help your client discover a compelling reason to buy, but you also need to qualify whether the prospect is the right client. It’s not about them qualifying you; it’s about you qualifying them. Six months in, my work week dropped from 90 hours to 60. Our revenue stayed the same, margins went up a little, and I had 30 extra hours each week to invest in those closest to me. The success I had — and that you can have, too — stemmed from three fundamental concepts: attitude, behavior, and technique. Sandler helped me refine every one of those qualities, and I’m proud to lead others to the same conclusions that brought us to where we are today.

–Jim Stephens WHAT IS PARKINSON’S LAW? USE AN OLD ADAGE TO MANAGE YOUR TIME BETTER

6. DON’T CONFUSE URGENCY WITH IMPORTANCE

Parkinson’s law states, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Our natural work efficiency relies on the deadlines set for our given tasks. The sooner the deadline, the more likely we are motivated to work toward completion rather than perfection. With a better understanding of how to time block and a bit of planning, you can use this theory to your advantage.

attention, will increase learning ability and retention. According to Parkinson’s law, there may be no more significant way to work effectively.

An email drops in your mailbox right now: What do you do? Not all important tasks are urgent, and learning to differentiate the two will make us more successful in our roles.

3. KNOW HOW TO MANAGE YOUR HABITS

7. DON’T MULTITASK

If you take a look inside yourself, you know the weaknesses that hinder your productivity. To move forward from these, you can’t enable behavior that slows you down.

“I know other people can’t do it, but I can.” Even if this statement were true, it wouldn’t make multitasking a more effective work style. If you time block effectively and process importance accurately, you’ll be more productive than if you had simply tried to multitask.

1. YOUR TIME BLOCKS MUST BE PRECIOUS

4. TOUCH IT ONCE

We’ve all worked in a scenario where either we or others have openly disrespected our time blocks. If you’re going to block out your time successfully, you have to treat those blocks as precious.

As soon as something gets your attention, finish. Sounds easy, right? Well, there are a lot of nuances to this, but the critical aspect is to understand that time commitment is relative to the solution.

These are just the basics. If you want more information on how to fight against Parkinson’s law, reach out to us today and we’ll flesh out these

2. UNDERSTAND AND VALUE THE IMPORTANCE OF DEADLINES

5. TACKLE THE HARDEST TASKS FIRST

The difference between “I must have this done” and “I will have this done” is profound when setting goals. Anders Ericsson is famous for exploring the concept of deliberate practice — applying focused time to your function, rather than general

Children are always going to want dessert before dinner. The same reason we make them eat dinner first is precisely why it’s essential to tackle the hard items before easy ones.

seven concepts

some more.

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LUMENCOR LIGHTS UP WITH SANDLER TRAINING

under the umbrella of Sandler Training to find solutions to their problems. This edition gives us the opportunity to explore an entirely different business that is sure to shine a light on an industry you may not have known existed: solid-state lighting.

WHAT IS SOLID-STATE LIGHTING?

Lumencor is an innovative company specializing in high-quality light engines that can be used across a variety of fields. To fully understand their technology, you’d have to have a be chemist or physicist. Luckily for us, we were able to sit down with Claudia Jaffe, co-founder and executive vice president of the company based in Beaverton, Oregon, to gain a better understanding of what they do and how Sandler helped them accomplish new feats. “Our lighting is different,” explains Jaffe. “In a bulb, you heat a vapor to form a plasma. A charged arc persists inside the vapor and emits light. That is a fragile thing. You can break a bulb over a countertop. [What we do] is solid. Sometimes it’s LED or lasers, and other times we use proprietary technology. We have three different ways to create light that is better than a bulb.” Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have recently become a staple across a variety of fields. Light bulbs, high-definition televisions, and heads-up displays often come to mind when discussing solid-state lighting. Before Lumencor was founded, that’s precisely where Claudia’s husband Steven, co-founder of the company, honed in on his vision for a business.

Sandler Training is a platform that allows us to work with a diverse group of businesses. Our first case study focused on Gaspar’s, a design-build firm that exploded to new heights after adopting Sandler’s unifying approach. In the last newsletter, we discussed the technology company Cougar Mountain Software and how they’ve pioneered growth in a highly competitive field. Each of these companies is led by very different people with unique strengths, but both have come together

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After receiving his doctorate in solid- state lighting, Steven Jaffe formed his own company with some friends from grad school. They were building high- performance lighting for TVs, electronic billboards, and cockpit displays. After some initial success with television, it was clear the company’s business plan and Steven’s passion weren’t in line with each other. “I told my husband one day, ‘You don’t even watch TV, ever. Maybe you should focus your efforts on something like advancing health care, where it’s not consumable pennies on a product,’” Claudia explains. Steven took his wife’s advice, which is always a smart decision, and in 2006, Lumencor was born. Developing a sales strategy to release your product is one of the more challenging aspects of a startup. Lumencor’s first product was a custom light screening for other businesses to use. They started off by pursuing big microscope companies. “Some of them had 250 salespeople around the world, so if we could get them to be our customers, they could produce and sell the volume we needed,” Claudia says. Practicing the concept of leverage is always a great strategy, but it requires a mutual relationship. Without a two-way street, everything falls on its face. “It turns out [microscope companies] are more conservative at adopting new technology,” said Claudia. But their tentativeness was justified. “These companies all outsourced their lighting and had been burned because it underperformed. It wasn’t bright enough, and the manufactured product wasn’t up to standards,” says Claudia. “It created a reluctance to take something new on.” When a market is saturated with an underperforming product, it can be difficult PUTTING THE PIECES OF THE PUZZLE TOGETHER

to build trust with potential clients. After hearing sales pitch after sales pitch, only to have the same product let them down, it can be easy for a business to feel burned. But Lumencor was working on something different, and they came up with a unique way to win clients over. “We found we had to find a champion in the potential company who understood our mission,” says Claudia. Developing a unique selling proposition in a tarnished industry requires dealing with what Claudia calls “healthy skepticism.” “They didn’t appreciate that we were building something different,” says Claudia. “The uninformed consumer thought, ‘I’ve seen that, and it didn’t work well,’ while the aware consumer said, ‘Show me how you can do better.’” This wasn’t viewed as a negative by Claudia, however. “It did help us differentiate ourselves. We’ve always felt that performance is king. If we could show we could do better, then we could close the sale.” The first product Lumencor rolled out was for a genetic training company. “We needed to go to someone that had some relative pain and needed solid-state lighting,” says Claudia. The company was using lasers, but it wasn’t giving them the performance they wanted. The product Lumencor developed wasn’t just the same

LED rehashed. It ended up being the first of its kind.

TAKING RISKS

While the company was getting off to a good start, it wasn’t

without its risks. Right out of the gate, Lumencor ran into a patent issue that had the ability to bring their company to a screeching halt. “It was a patent that was granted to a very large microscope company,” Claudia says. “In our opinion, there was technology that predated that patent, but it didn’t really matter because the patent was granted.” They were faced with a pretty big decision that many companies would potentially shy away from. “Ignorance can be self- serving,” says Claudia. “In our fear and ignorance, we sold products despite [the patent’s] existence.” That fear and ignorance affected more than just Lumencor. “When people came to us and said, ‘I don’t know if we can buy from you because of this patent,’ we did our best, but it was an impediment,” admits Claudia. If you’re an entrepreneur, you don’t get anywhere without risk. “You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable,” she says.

Lumencor moved forward and sold their product anyway. But it couldn’t go on

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that way forever. It was clear that for Claudia and her team to move past this, a decision needed to be made. “Finally, after enough sales, the patent owners came to us to work something out,” says Claudia. “They were gracious in the end and gave us a fair and expedient license. They are actually our partners now.” It was a weight off the shoulders of Lumencor, and it meant they could push forward with new products and exciting ventures. Winning that battle helped this young, up-and-coming business break into the market. As Lumencor continued to grow, it was apparent to Claudia that the speed of the leader is the speed of the pack. “I had to groom myself to be a better manager,” she admits. “I wasn’t getting the information I needed. Asking a question once wasn’t sufficient. Transparency was a problem.” Claudia’s solution? Sandler Training. When your team lacks a unified approach to how your company does business, it’s impossible to be consistent. You can’t track anything. You can’t measure success. Achievements become a random occurrence rather than predictable. SANDLER STEPS UP TO THE PLATE

“We had a big team when we started [with Sandler Training], all with very different backgrounds. We had different vocab for how to talk about sales. All different approaches of how to talk to customers. I was concerned the face of the company was different based on whoever was representing us,” Claudia says. For a business, this situation would be like having one client interact with Jack Sparrow, another customer converse with Edward Scissorhands, and a different prospect talk with Willy Wonka. They’re all engaging with Johnny Depp, but very different versions of him. Sandler helped her solve this issue. “Manager training was hugely helpful for me … the way you take someone through a sale, defining that, and helping people work consistently,” Claudia says. But not everyone immediately jumps on board with new solutions. Resistance to change is another significant hurdle for a growing business to overcome. People naturally want to operate in their comfort zones, and that can lead to difficult decisions.

how much each salesperson needs to make to justify their employment.” Pulling the trigger on a difficult choice is never easy. But when you’re looking to separate employees from your company, the subsequent emotions can be even more challenging for some leaders. “It was difficult. It is anytime you have to let people go.” Knowing you’ve made the right decision will help you maintain perspective and allow you to see how your decision impacts the big picture. “I got to the point where it was better for them and better for the company to let them go,” Claudia says. When you let someone go, it’s not just a high-five before moving on. There’s a mess that has to be cleaned up. “Every time I let someone go, I went through the exercise [with Sandler] of how to manage what they had been doing. Who picks up the slack? Who covers?” Claudia says. But rather than scrambling to put the pieces back together, Claudia eventually had a revelation. “What we uncovered is that they weren’t doing [their work] anyway, so letting them go wasn’t going to be a big change.” But for the changes that did need to be made, Claudia’s calculated and logical approach to business enabled her to tackle them head-on.

TRIM THE FAT

“It became very obvious people weren’t doing what they

needed to as far as carrying their weight as salespeople,” says Claudia. “We were looking at the ROI for the company and

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implements go well beyond professional development. Claudia recalls how Jim would come on site and tell her how he’d use Sandler at home. “I thought, ‘There’s no way I’m going to use Sandler in my personal life,’” she says. But that idea was quickly blown out of the water. “I’d ask my kids, ‘Are you sure that’s the right way to go forward?’ and help make them the rock star of the conversation.” Sandler Training has helped Claudia so much that it has become a running joke with her children. “They look at me with this raised eyebrow like, ‘Mom, I know what you’re doing,’” Claudia says. Jim tells a similar story, where his kids say, “Stop Sandlerizing me!” Jim still Sandlerizes his children to this day, as Sandler Training is a family business for him. Claudia also continues to Sandlerize her family. “My dad is 92 and is amazing. He can be crotchety and difficult … and [Sandler] works.” We’re proud to work with such phenomenal people and can’t wait to see the continued breakthroughs of Lumencor. Even to this day, their technology has new and innovative uses for it. In fact, the Library of Congress commissioned Lumencor to design an instrument that allows old source material to be listened to without damaging it. This technology allowed the very first recordings of Alexander Graham Bell to be published. Head online to the Library of Congress website, which is available to the public, to hear these recordings.

SANDLER + CLAUDIA = NEW LEVELS OF SUCCESS

Implementation of Sandler’s principles takes a significant amount of commitment. It’s two hours of training, but that time would often be wasted in a typical day without it anyway. That two-hour investment pays off with days of saved time and an increased level of accountability. If a goal is discussed during a Sandler coaching call, that goal will be followed up on during the next conversation with your coach. Sandler provides coaching to Lumencor’s entire team, and it has given Claudia an insight into both new hires and existing team members. The way they respond to role- playing exercises is particularly insightful. “[Role playing] is the biggest challenge for everyone. It’s intimidating. It takes some humility to do that and make some mistakes, but it’s essential,” says Claudia. “You will have staff members who will not participate in a routine way. They will fail to attend, and that is very telling.” According to Claudia, her best hires have been people with an open mind and little to no sales experience. “We hired quite a lot of people with the mindset that they had a background in sales, so they could sell,” she explains. “Actually, the most successful people we have are not salespeople.” If you’re trying to sell — opposed to customers asking for your product — you aren’t doing it right.

“Depending on the channel, [ROI]

is a different number. But in any case, sales needs to know what that calculation is and what they’re doing to achieve the milestones that are mutually set up for them to achieve,” says Claudia. “What [firing] forced us to do was prioritize in the funnel where we were going to spend our time — what accounts to groom for growth and where to find new business. We’re a smaller team now, but we do more sales, and it costs us a fraction of what it used to.” One of the major concepts Sandler preaches is ongoing reinforcement training. Progress is about small incremental change over a period, but this concept isn’t always immediately embraced. Many people expect a seminar to provide instant solutions, but if you’ve read our most famous book, you understand why we believe that is not the path to true change. Even Claudia had her reservations about it. “I had a lot of hesitation. It was unproven to me when I got started. I read my first Sandler book, ‘You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar,’ and I felt like if I was really unhappy with it, I could bring that up.” Fortunately, Claudia never reached that point, and she saw an immediate impact. “It became obvious in the first couple sessions there was a lot to learn. It was almost an overload, like drinking from a firehose.”

STOP SANDLERIZING ME!

Jim Stephens, president and CEO of Crossroads Sandler, is a firm believer that the methodologies Sandler

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FIND THE ‘WHO,’ NOT THE ‘HOW’

TAKE A BREAK

I am on a journey to learn how to market better, and part of that experience has led me to create a very specific process that we take prospects through. Creating this system has not been easy, and one of the biggest things that held me back when I first started down this road was not knowing how to do it. I enrolled in a coaching program specifically for marketing and have been applying it ever since. Part of this coaching program involves five different mentors who all focus on different aspects of growing a business. The benefit has been that I am now learning from others’ mistakes and getting results much faster. All of my coaches are helping me learn the “how.” One thing that has stuck out is the theory of finding the “who,” not the how. As entrepreneurs, we have a vision of what we want to create and how we would like it to look. Once we have created that vision and can see the future, we start to figure out how to make it a reality. Since we don’t already know how to do this, entrepreneurs tend to spend too much time learning on their own to make their dreams a reality. If we can shift our thinking away from the “how” and instead look for who already has the skill set to accomplish this, we will get results much faster, and our vision will come to fruition quicker. Once I changed my mindset, I was able to start reaching out and finding partners who were already good at the skills I lacked. We can move faster when we find the right “who” rather than focusing on the “how.” I would encourage you to think about these questions over the next week: What does your vision look like? To reach your goals, who do you need to partner with to get the results you want? If you can make this small shift in your thought process, your dreams can become a reality much faster! If you need help figuring out the “whos” in your world, reach out to me and we can brainstorm together.

–Justin Stephens

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE

1

Discover the Origins of Sandler Training, Part 2

2

Use Parkinson’s Law to Your Advantage

3

Case Study: Lumencor

7

Find the ‘Who,’ Not the ‘How’

8

Do You Know Someone Who Can Use the Idaho Talking Book Service?

LOCAL SERVICE SPOTLIGHT: Books are the foundation of society. For centuries, they’ve provided us with stories and knowledge that help shape how we view the world. Now the rapid acceleration of technology has changed how books are published and the medium in which we digest their information. It has helped to increase the dissemination of data and empower an underserved portion of the population.

TALKING BOOK SERVICE than 85,000 audiobooks, 70 magazine titles, and 200 daily newspapers aloud. The Idaho Commission of Libraries provides this service so that everyone can enjoy the beauty of books. In addition to audio, the service offers thousands of books, magazines, and local publications written in Braille that can be shipped to your home.

All the audio titles will play directly from a digital player that is provided with a free authorization key. The service is a revelation for more than just people with limitations. Caregivers have found it to be an excellent way to connect with their patients and keep them engaged with the world. The Idaho Talking Book Service bridges societal gaps and ensures that no one is ever without the pleasure of a good read. If you know of someone who can use this service, head on over to Libraries.Idaho.gov to find out more.

Individuals with physical limitations, like blindness or an inability to turn pages, have found their access to some publications limited. The Idaho Talking Book Service took notice of this problem and is proud to offer an opportunity for people with disabilities to experience books in a new way.

The Idaho Talking Book Service is an entirely free platform that will read more

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