Transcript
Intro:
Hi, everyone. I'm Ben Wright, successful entrepreneur, corporate leader and expert sales coach to some of the most talented people our amazing planet has to offer. You're listening to the Stronger Sales Teams podcast, where we bring together and simplify the complex world of B2B sales management to help the millions of sales managers worldwide build, motivate, and keep together highly effective sales teams…teams who grow revenue and make their businesses actual profits.
Along the journey, we also provide great insights and actionable steps to managing your personal health. A happy and productive you is not only better for your teams, but everyone around you. So, if you're an ambitious Sales Leader who wants to build the highest performing and engaged teams, Stronger Sales Teams is right where you need to be.
Ben Wright:
Welcome back to Stronger Sales Teams, the place where we provide real world and practical advice to help you develop super powered sales teams. Well, I’d like to say that today’s episode is going to be all about tacos and tune in. It’s relevant. You’ll hear why in a moment. But it’s not. We actually have a very special guest on today. His name is Christian Hansen and he’s going to be covering a topic that we haven’t covered on this podcast before and one that I’m really intrigued about. So really looking forward to hearing more from Christian as we get into it. But to give you a little idea, a little bit of flavour on Christian, he’s gone behind the scenes in some really big organisations around the world. We’ve spoken as we’re leading in today around some big universities that he’s worked with. He’s worked across multi geographies through Asia, through the Americas. He’s written a book. He is an internationally recognised author. In fact, his book The Influence Mindset was a number one bestseller. But the bit I really like actually got recommended by LinkedIn as one of the 10 best marketing books to go and read. So Christian now is helping individuals. He’s helping organisations learn how to really stand out and become the obvious choice. Nice insight into what the theme’s going to be today. He’s got degrees from Brigham Young University. You can tell me if I pronounce that right in a minute. Christian, but also the London School of Economics. So pretty well travelled, pretty well educated, pretty diverse when it comes to his experience. And of course, with that there’s thousands of people that he has helped along his journey. He’s a composer, he’s a musician. Right. That stuff I’ll probably gloss over because the piece that really got my attention with Christian’s background was not where he’s based. He’s based in Utah, but he’s from L.A., so he is an avid taco man.
So, Christian, first of all, welcome to the podcast. Tell us more about who you are and what you do.
Christian Hansen:
Hey, thank you so much, Ben. It’s an honour to be here on your podcast and I look forward to being able to serve your audience as best I can. Yeah, so as you mentioned in my intro there, yeah, I’ve worked behind the scenes in some really big organisations and ultimately, I’ve learned as thousands of people, you know, come across my way, what makes people stand out and how people can ultimately influence others to choose them. And, you know, it’s a learnable skill that we can grow, improve and develop over time. And I look forward to seeing I can better serve your audience today.
Ben Wright:
Perfect. Excellent. Well, we’re going to get into that in a moment, but before I do that, tacos.
Christian Hansen:
Yes, sir.
Ben Wright:
Really important topic. Favourite taco?
Christian Hansen:
Well, I mean, first of all, my family runs a Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles. And, you know, how does a, you know, whiter than white rice background family create a Mexican restaurant? Well, that’s, you know, story for another day. But it’s appropriately named Los Gringos Locos, which means the crazy white guys. And yeah, the restaurant’s been there since 1996, still going strong. And in high school, I made tableside guacamole for people. That was my job for six years. So, whenever I’ve been anywhere in the world, I make tableside guacamole for people as an icebreaker. It’s really fun.
Ben Wright:
Excellent. Well, then it’s going to be, I’m assuming your favourite taco here is one that has guacamole in it. But what is your favourite taco, your go to?
Christian Hansen:
You know, right now I’m leaning in the birria taco flavour, right, which is this really great braised pork and it’s dipped in a kind of red au jus sauce a little bit. And so that’s right now that, that’s the thing. I’m going for other street style tacos like from Tijuana. That’s another great avenue to go. So, al pastor is usually the way I go with street tacos.
Ben Wright:
Oh, it’s funny you talk about birria tacos. That is absolutely on the list at the moment. And if my wife or daughter happen to listen to this, I don’t think they will, but they’ll know that right now dad is trying to perfect the crispy taco. So, it’s the pork goes in the barbecue sauce. Like, we slow cook it for a long time, 10 to 12 hours. Putting in the soft-shelled taco, throw it in the oven, trying to get some juice out of it. Cheese, guacamole, everything going in. And as my daughter calls them, the crispies. That is absolutely what I’m all about at the moment. So, this weekend we’ve got limoncello making season. I make my own limoncello, so it’s going to be limoncello and tacos rolling out this weekend. So, if you happen to swing by Noosa all the way from Utah, let me know. You can try my birria style tacos.
Christian Hansen:
It’s on the list now.
Ben Wright:
Well, we’ll see a few days. Excellent. Well, today let’s get into the really serious stuff. We’re here to talk about how you can be chosen. More often. We can talk about that being in any forms of life, being at your personal life, but I think we’re going to focus here quite specifically around your professional life. Great topic, because I’ve certainly been in that place where I’m interviewing salespeople who have, on paper, everything but the likeability piece. And I think that is so important when people make snap judgments in this world about whether or not they like you. Right. In an instant, we can decide if someone is the person for us. So really important topic, and no doubt I think we’ll both have some things to say about this. But for me, if we were to start right, about how we get chosen, Right. What do you think leads or helps us best position ourselves as being the obvious choice?
Christian Hansen:
Absolutely. You know, the first thing we got to understand is what are the things that are getting in the way from you being chosen? Right. You know, people lose opportunities most often not because they don’t have what it takes, but because, again, they let their poor communication get in the way of perceiving their value. So, at the end of the day, people don’t choose or reject you. They choose or reject their perception of you. And the words and behaviours that you engage in provide the person in front of you with the materials that they use to create their perceptions of you. Now, if we understand, though, that the brain is wired to pay attention to certain things, then there are certain levers of perception that you can use to nudge and position your message in such a way that it helps put, you know, your poor communication skills on the back seat. Right. It minimises those, and then it optimizes how you’re being perceived to the person in front of you. In such a way that speaks to their fundamental brain needs. And in my recent book that I just published, which got number one international bestseller status, The Influence Mindset for Sales Acceleration, I dig into 7 EQ, or emotional intelligent brain hacks that anyone can do to pull these levers of perception in your favour.
So, for example, I believe influence is the result of a very simple formula and it’s this competence plus connection equals influence. When you communicate, you need to have a balance of both. But because of certain things in our, how we’ve been raised and how we’ve been trained in career and our schooling, we tend to lean towards establishing our competence. But the problem is that competence without connection doesn’t equal influence. It equals just noise, because everyone else that you’re being compared against is also highly competent. On the other side though, connection without competence is merely charm. And so, you have to find an appropriate balance of communicating that you’re competent and creating connection with people. And there’s subtle ways that you can really boost the perception of your competence in conjunction with the perception of your ability to create connection. And that’s what I work and train people on.
Ben Wright:
And it’s very logical we talk about competence. I think that’s very obvious. We need to learn, in specifically the art of selling, we need to learn the basic sales skills that you need to be able to master to get sales, right. There’s technical competence, there’s structural competence, there’s competence about your business, right? And we are often taught about connection as well. Find a way to build an early relationship with your potential customer. I’m really interested in the seven levers, I think you called them, what are they? Even at a very top line level.
Christian Hansen:
You know, it’s a number of things. So, one of the ways to really kind of set the stage here is that in so much of our life, we are raised to succeed in what I call performance environments. Okay, Things like school, right. Or jobs or, you know, even in sales, if you’re running your own business, where success is based on if you’re smart, capable, qualified and passionate, right? In school, if you know the material and you do a good job, you get good grades in your job, if you show up and you do a great job, then you get paid. And so, for 99% of our lives, we are in performance environments and we develop what I call the achievement mindset to survive. And it works most of the time. The problem is, is that every so often we enter situations that are make it or break it moments where the doors of opportunity open or Close things like college applications or job interviews and especially sales opportunities when you’re trying to present yourself. These are fundamentally different environments that I call selective environments. And yet most people are unaware that the game has completely changed, right? And so, when they enter into these selective environments where they need to be chosen in order to be successful, they rely on the thing that works most of the time, which is proving that they’re smart, capable, qualified, and passionate. Right. But that makes you sound just like everybody else.
Instead, I train people on how to develop what I call the influence mindset, so that when you enter selective environments, you’re intentionally communicating and presenting your value in such a way that it speaks to people’s brains. Now, you mentioned what are the some of the seven things, Right? Well, if we look at competence plus connection equals influence, then each of these seven EQ brain hacks fall under one of these two things. So, for example, and I ask questions as a way to kind of hack my brain. So, whenever I enter into a situation where I’m like, okay, I need to really make sure I’m focused, the way I’m able to hack my brain, right, is to ask questions to give my brain something to focus on.
So, one of the strategies of establishing your competence is to make sure that you’re balancing logic and emotion in your conversation. And so a question that I tend to ask myself in these situations is, okay, in this moment, how can I also, you know, as I present my value and stuff, how can I also acknowledge the emotions of the person in front of me right now when I do that in any conversation in sales, sure, I’m going to deliver, you know, my PowerPoint or I’m going to go through the book with all the values. But if I’m asking myself, how can I also acknowledge the emotions of the person in front of me right now? I intentionally take time to then notice things that they’re saying or reflect back things that they’re saying or experiencing. And it’s just that little nudge and that little balance that helps maintain the right balance of competence and connection to create influence. So that’s just one example. Maybe on the connection side, you know, oftentimes we’re predisposed to want to talk about ourselves. And in sales situations, we tend inadvertently to communicate and just to, you know, talk about ourselves because it makes us feel better. But in these situations, I tend to ask the question, the brain hack again, to direct my attention on the right things. How can I help this person feel heard and understood right now? And again, that little question just gives My brain, a little pause so that I can focus the attention and where it needs to be, which is 100% on the person in front of me and not necessarily on my sales deck or whatever I’m trying to present. So those are just two examples of EQ brain hacks. Simple questions that you can ask in any situation that reorients the focus to where it needs to be.
Ben Wright:
I really like the piece around resetting yourself to say, how can I make the person in front of me feel heard? Now, I really like that because what you’re doing is you’re taking the lens away from yourself and you’re throwing it straight over to the other side of the table, video screen, whoever you’re dealing with there. And I think the reason that’s really powerful is because we quickly stop worrying about what we have to say and start actually trying to listen and ask questions and to think about the value that we can be offering. I talk a lot with my customers and my teams around creating value early and often. And what I mean by that is trying to get to the end of your first engagement with a customer. B2B, B2C doesn’t matter. And the customer said, right, Christian, you are my chosen supplier. You are my chosen man. You’re my guy. And then the rest of that engagement is spent confirming through little checkpoints that Christian is absolutely right versus Christian, you are one of three. And the fourth choice might be doing nothing. And I need to work out which one of those I’m going to choose over the next three or four or five or however number of engagements you have with someone. So, getting chosen early and often, I think absolutely, it’s about capability. But that connection piece you talk about, Fantastic. And resetting yourself, I really encourage everyone listening to actually take that one liner, right. To centre yourself. And when you’re in meetings to start to think about what can you do to help the person on the other side feel heard.
Okay. So that moves into. Into the next thing I’m really keen to hear from you about, and that’s authenticity. Right. How do we create authenticity and thereby build relationships really quickly when we’re meeting new people, particularly in business?
Christian Hansen:
You know, I think that’s an interesting thing because the word authenticity, the spirit and we tend to use that word, is mean. How do I be authentic in myself as I connect with someone else? Right. And yet if people don’t choose or reject us, but rather they choose to reject their perception of us. Right. I think there’s a gap between if I’m being truly Authentic. And I really want the sale, right? Versus if I’m being authentic. And I really want the best for the person in front of me. So, my question is, instead of just being authentic, because that can just give me free license to just talk about myself, right? And that doesn’t quite serve the moment. My question is, how can I create authentic connection with the person in front of me, right? And that authentic connection is going to create, I think, the feeling of authenticity.
One of the quickest ways that I know to establish that authentic sense of connection is to say four words. And it’s this. That must have been. As someone is sharing a story or explaining something, if I take a sentence and go, wow, that must have been really difficult. That must have been amazing, or that must have been so fulfilling. If I take the moment to use those four words and I simply reflect back the emotion to the other person that is signalling to them that I am authentically engaged in the moment with them. And I’m intentionally trying to really parallel what their conversation is. I’m not trying to piggyback or take it into a completely different direction and talk about me, right? But instead I’m intentionally saying, I’m tracking with what they are saying. Boy, that must have been. Those four words is such a simple way to establish authentic connection in any situation.
Ben Wright:
That must have been really nice way to be able to acknowledge you’ve heard what they’ve said. And I mean, we call it mirroring. Mirror body language, right? You’re actually also mirroring the verbal communication. Okay, so you’re in a crowded marketplace. How do you stand out?
Christian Hansen:
One of the ways that I prefer to help people stand out is to position themselves with insight. Now, what do I mean by that? There’s four levels of information, okay? You’ve got knowledge, which is just retained information, right? And then you have experience, which is applied knowledge. And then when you take the time to reflect on experience, right? Then that becomes insight. And then if you take the time then to take your insight, connect it to other areas, now you become a person of wisdom, right? So, knowledge, experience, insight, wisdom. Those are the four levels of information. Now, typically, we are really good about talking about how much we know and how much we’ve done. And that’s speaking in lower levels of information, right? Knowledge and experience, whereas insight and wisdom are simply more valuable.
Now, here’s the thing. There was an interesting study done by a research company where they interviewed, I think, about 60,000 leaders. They said, what’s the most important thing to distinguish yourself as a leader? And they said that if you can be perceived as a strategic thinker, then you will be nearly 50 times more valuable than someone who is merely highly skilled. So, if I communicate in knowledge and experience, I’m communicating that I’m highly skilled. But if I can intentionally communicate in terms of insight and wisdom and create paradigm shifts, then compared to everybody else in the marketplace who’s highly skilled, I’m going to be perceived as nearly 50 times more valuable because I can see further ahead.
So crowded marketplaces, how does someone speak in insight? Right. Instead of saying, well, I’ve worked with five of the six largest companies and I’ve helped people save this much money, what if instead you said, you know, when you work with five of the six largest companies, one of the things you learn is, and now you can frame it into a level of insight, or when you help people save as much money, you know, in my business as I have, whatever your thing is, whatever the number is, one of the things you see that most people overlook, or one of the things you see that most people tend to miss is. And then you dispense whatever it is in the form of an actionable insight. Right. So just that subtle tweak of language triggers in you know the neural networks of another person to perceive you as nearly 50 times more valuable than other people in the marketplace who are just spouting how skilled and knowledgeable they are. So that’s one of the strategies that I teach and train on. It’s how do you communicate with that subtle nudge that gets a high impact difference?
Ben Wright:
You make it seem very easy. Right. A subtle adjustment in how you communicate. Moving from transfer of knowledge to communication of insight and wisdom. Right. Through a simple pitch change. Right. Love it. Fantastic. Okay, so you’re a sales leader, you’re wanting to turn the growth engine on over the next 12 months. You’re an established business, but you’re ready to rock. You really want to grow that team and grow that business. Where would you start first?
Christian Hansen:
Well, I think a huge part is how you’re able to build up the team and the narrative, narrative that they like to tell about themselves. Right. So often when we’re in a group settings, there’s a cultural, you know, alignment that is, we’re hard performance and we’re driving and we’re trying to get there. You know, that can work for a time, but great sales teams need to be able to be kind of regenerative in some way where they can work hard, play hard, but also feel that they have the support. One of the Ways that you can easily do this in terms of building up a strong sense of culture and drive is by complimenting the stories that people like to tell about themselves. So, what I mean by that is, what if you took the time and just say instead of saying, hey, nice work, good job, we made the numbers. What if, again, you tweak your language? This is another one of those seven EQ hacks you can use. What if you instead you said, boy, I really appreciate how diligent you are. I really appreciate how persevering you guys have been. I really appreciate how you guys have gone the extra mile with our customers. I really appreciate how creative you’ve been in these solutions. Do you notice a subtle difference in how that would make you feel as a team member if someone was giving you a narrative about yourself that you like to tell? Right. Instead of saying, yeah, I work hard, I did great, but someone is telling me that I’m persevering. Someone’s telling me that I’m diligent, and they really believe that. They see that in me. That’s one of those deep, level things that you can do to communicate to the brains of the person in front of you in such a way that makes them want to follow you to the ends of the earth.
So that would be my first stepping point, is how can I change the narrative that this team is saying about themselves? And I’m going to do that by taking leadership and communicating in language that they haven’t really heard, and that is changing the narrative they tell about themselves.
Ben Wright:
So broadly speaking, we’re actually showing that you care. We’re really ramping the care that you have of your team and you’re communicating that in a nice, repeatable way. Well, I’m a big fan of chunky, practical frameworks. So, I love the piece around from today, around capability and communication. Right? Those two pieces really, really important. I love the piece around ascending how you communicate information, you know, from knowledge and experience to insight and wisdom. And I also like the piece at the end that we’ve just spoken about around. Not just saying, hey, great job, but hey, I really appreciate how you. Right, so three chunky themes for those listening that you can get out of today. Take one of them. Get 1% better each and every day. That’s a big theme we’re rolling through here at the moment. But thank you, Christian, for today. Where else can people learn about you?
Christian Hansen:
Absolutely. I’m on LinkedIn. I make sure that I have a weekly newsletter about how to become more influential and how to become more persuasive with real stories of things that I encounter and research. So, love to connect with people there. Also, I do have a link that we can put in the show notes of where people can access the first couple chapters of the book The Influence Mindset for Sales Acceleration. It’s also on Amazon and I’ll be releasing the audiobook here shortly. But yeah, it’s there on paperback, Kindle and available anywhere books are sold.
Ben Wright:
Fantastic. Well, thank you very much for today Christian. Thank you everyone listening. Keep living in a world of possibility and you’ll be amazed by what you can achieve. Bye for now.
3 Ways to Position Yourself as the Obvious Choice, with Christian Hansen
