Kat: I cannot wait to hear if you can relate to any of this in the podcast. This is for you, if you have had some traction in your business, in your selling, in your Instagram posting engagement, and you honestly feel pretty freaking good about yourself. You think , I know what I’m doing. And maybe there are times where you think, man, how exactly did I do that? I mean, I was kind of winging it, I was excited, people vibed with it. So you don’t really know exactly what you did, but you know that you love what you do, you have a product that you’re proud of, and you know that you have the right heart. So you can do all of this with integrity, and it just feels good. But you don’t necessarily know why it feels good. And most importantly, can this last, right?

So I was reading a book called Start With Why by Simon Sinek and this is probably the, not even joking, like the 20th, the 50th time I’ve opened this book, because it’s one of those books where you can open it up to whatever page you want and get something out of it. And I don’t do that with books, except for this book. It’s the strangest thing. But it works really well. So I encourage you read it from front and back and then keep it as a resource. Because what he talks about is how you are not selling your product. I mean, you are having your product available to people to sell, but that’s not the biggest thing that you’re doing. In fact, when you do get into the I sell makeup, or I sell skincare, or I sell courses, or I sell mastermind, whatever it is you do, when you get wrapped up in that, all of a sudden you end up in competing with other people who do the same thing cycle. They also sell makeup, right? I mean, how many millions of people in the world sell makeup? Right? You have Sephora, you have Ulta, you have the online companies, you have the network marketing companies, and they pop up left and right. And they’re all different. And that’s when you get overwhelmed. What is the difference? Why should I buy you over someone else when you get into the product business? And I don’t just mean product like a tangibles makeup or skincare, I mean, the thing that you sell, period, whether it’s a core service, tangible product, whatever it is, this can happen to you.

And so he talks about how when you get into the the what you do, the tangible thing that you do, and that’s your biggest thing you end up in competition. What happens when you go a little bit deeper than that? And you don’t just sell to the obvious thinking brain, the conscious brain, what is called the neocortex. We have this evolved logical, rational brain, that we want to look at like does this make sense for me? Do I like the ingredients? Can this make me money? Like it’s the computer part of our brain. He encourages to sell to the deeper, more subconscious brain. This is known as the limbic brain. And it is just like if you were to take your brain and split it in half, it’s the deeper one, near your brainstem. And really, the whole point is that it makes more high quality, emotional gut decisions. And this is huge, because this is where you really want to be selling from.

As the seller, you also want to be selling to this part of the brain when it comes to your prospects and customers. What does that mean? That means that you don’t focus on the logical, the justifiable, the rational, right? All the facts and figures, they just line up and it’s a cream makeup, or it’s a powder makeup, or it’s toxic skincare, or it’s not toxic, or whatever the case, you want to be aligning with someone’s emotions, and their beliefs, and their values, like what do they actually care about? And then all those tangibles justify it, so you want to have both, you don’t want to just negate the facts and features and stuff like that. What you want to do though, is focus your attention on the deeper beliefs and values. And you’re able to do all of this by the way that you communicate. But why does this really matter? Let’s zoom out for a second. This matters so much because you do not sell what you think you sell. I’ve used makeup as an example once. I’ve used skincare, courses, masterminds. You do not sell what you think you do, you sell something deeper. You sell a belief, you sell a vision, you sell values. I’ll give you an example, Apple computers, I can’t even say Apple computers because it’s just Apple as a whole, the Apple company. They don’t sell technology, they sell a mission, they sell a person you can be, they sell a lifestyle that you can have, it’s hard to even put into words what Apple is for people because that subconscious part of our brain that just feels like we aligned with Apple, it’s subconscious, it doesn’t have the ability to put words to it, literally, that part of your brain does not have words to describe.

So we end up saying things like, man, I just feel aligned with them. And that is the goal. The goal is to be like, hey, I feel this, I just know that it’s right. It’s all adding up, okay? Now, the fact that Apple doesn’t sell technology and computers, they sell a greater mission. This is why when Apple back in the early 2000s, I guess it was, when they came out with iTunes, it made sense. It was like, oh, iTunes is like music on the go, it was 1000 songs in your pocket. Remember, when it was like the Apple shuffle, and it was just that little thing you could stick it in your pocket and walk around with your music. It just made sense that they would do that because they were selling who you were, who you could become, what you could identify with, when you had Apple products. And we didn’t care what form they come in.

And now in contrast with that, Dell computers, which I don’t even know if they exist anymore, they came out also with mp3 players. And when they did that, it just simply didn’t hit the same. Apple doesn’t even make up a most of the computer market, but they have blown everyone out of the water with the mp3 sale. Why? Because Dell identifies as a computer company, not a company on a mission, they are selling their computers and they identify as a computer company, not something that is greater, and therefore gives Apple the ability to pivot and adapt and change and mold into the new technologies. We are open to whatever Apple does, like I mean, I have an Apple TV for crying out loud. I remember when it came out. I was like, wait, what is this little box, and now I get it, they want us all to have the ability to live flexibly. I know that I love it, I don’t even have the words because of the way the that they have triggered our brains and trained our brains, it’s honestly the coolest thing because their product, their technology does back up what they ultimately stand for, which is our lives being better, being better, having more flexibility, and having an elevated lifestyle, because of their product, and they deliver on that. Okay, so that’s really cool.

And so the biggest thing is that you do not sell computers, you do not sell makeup, you do not sell skincare, you sell a greater mission. I’m sure that deep down inside of you, you have a knowing of what this is, and it doesn’t have to be directly related to makeup, skincare, courses, whatever, it can be greater, it can be about legacy, it should be about something bigger legacy, who someone can become, just greater the reason for why you do what you do. Now, the next reason why this is really important is because when you focus on this deeper, not though what you do, but why you do it, what’s the reason, is because you’re not in the business you think that you’re in. So many people think that they are in their product business, I’m in the makeup business, the skincare business, etc. You are actually in, again, a greater business, you’re in a bigger vision of your business.

And I’ll give you an example of that. And start with why Simon Sinek talks about how in the late 1800s, the railroad was the thing, it was the way to get across the country. It was the highest level of technology possible. And they they were doing amazing, they were killing it. Now what they did was they got a little carried away, they got a little conceded and they thought so highly of all their features. Oh, they can get across the country in this amount of time, and this is the way the rails are built, and this is the way the trains are built, and it just became all about the train, all about the rail system, until what happened? New technology came out, and that technology was airplanes. And how much do we hear about the rail system now? All they’re doing is taking cargo really, they’re not transporting people. But what if they’re not transporting people as much? Now, what if they had not been so obsessed with the rail business? What if they had thought bigger, they had pictured a better life for people and said, hey, we’re not in the rail business, we’re in the transportation business. And whatever it takes, wherever you want to go, we are the people that take you there, because we care about you, and you are getting to where you want to go. They paint the vision of you getting to be at Christmas with your family, they get to paint the vision of you working your butt off, and then getting on that vacation and enjoying yourself, they painted a vision of the value of transportation, not the freaking rail system. And this is what a lot of people are doing is selling their rail system. It’s so much bigger than that.

So what happened? They’re obliterated, they’re basically gone now. But if they had identified as the transportation business, I guarantee you that the same company could be owning all airplanes. Now, which is better, to identify as the product train business or the transportation business? I’m sure if I were sitting across from you, we could go back and forth and discuss how one is beneficial and whatever. But I can guarantee this, only one of those options is going to last for the long haul. Only one of those options is going to carry out through technology, because technology is changing faster than we can even wrap our minds around. I mean, how many trends have you missed? How many pieces of platform technology updates have you missed? And you’re like I can’t even worry about that right now because I’m trying to focus on this last one I did. And that’s great, you can’t do it all.

Technology is changing faster than ever, how are you able to adapt when it does and it does force you to change? Because I can also guarantee you that no one listening to this is on MySpace anymore. No one is selling the way that they were selling 10 years ago, right? Instagram is still only 12 years old, and it is the main platform that people sell on. Billions of people are on Instagram, that is insane. TikTok is still also brand new, and people are making tons of money and selling their mission and their vision for people. It’s just my point is that technology is changing and your ability to adapt to that is going to be the reason you stay around for the long haul.

Which leads me to the third point, the third reason why selling your bigger vision, your bigger products, your deeper why, the reason for why you do what you do, to speak to that subconscious, limbic brain that people have. Why is it so important? Because just like I was saying about technology, I mean, you think about if you’re in business, and you want people to benefit from what you do, which of course you do, are you spending all of your time learning the new Tik Tok trends, the new dances, the new ways of posting? I mean, goodness gracious, if you’re trying to run ads, how much time has it taken you to learn that? Even if you have an ad agency, how much money are you spending for them to learn it? Because they change every day. Are you stressed that you’re gonna miss out? Because can’t keep up with that trend, much less make the money that you want to make and sell. So it can really feel like you’re split and spread thin. And so how long can you really last doing that? And who is moving faster than you, because maybe they have been selling a deeper reason for why. It is a good thing when technology changes, just like the airplane when it was created.

This is something that we want to happen and we want to embrace it. So don’t waste any time resenting that or thinking like, oh man, I just wish technology wouldn’t change. I wish more airplanes wouldn’t be created. We don’t want to be the railroads wishing that airplanes weren’t created. No, we want to be have the ability to adapt to be there for the long haul. This is a good thing. It is your ability, it is your advantage, to be able to communicate how you are the rail system that does want people to be able to get to their families, that does want to help you go from your job to your vacation, because your mission, your heart, is bigger and greater. But like I said in the beginning, the brain, the deeper, emotional brain, does not have the capacity to put things into words. It is beautiful and frustrating at the same time.

And I want you to know that there is a way that you can have the rational truths. Your product is good quality. It will help people be healthier. It will help people get to their goals. That is amazing. How can we balance that with, hey, there’s a greater place you can go because of this product and that those values and those beliefs can actually help people feel like it’s a good product, and I just know that it’s right. I don’t just think it’s right, I don’t just feel that it’s right, I know that it’s right. It is something so much deeper, and you have the ability to help people feel that way. And it’s through the ability to frame it, to have a method that packages it correctly. When I was reading this book today, I thought, man, I love this book, I am so thankful, but at the same time, it is not teaching you how to do it. I have not seen anyone teaching you how to do this. How can you be the real system that translates into the airlines one day, right? Because it’s bigger, life is changing, the world is changing, how can you last the long haul, and sell the thing that really matters, that helps people make these high quality, I know it’s right type decisions.

And that is with a method, that is with a framework, that keeps the rational, the emotional, and the truly credible pieces all together so that your brain and your heart are aligned. And you just know that it’s right. And if you’re the one selling this way, you can do this for your people. This is why you can sell the exact same thing as someone else and stand out, why you can sell the exact same thing to your teammates as someone else and your team is thriving, you have a culture that is winning, and everyone just feels and thinks and knows that they’re on the same page. Because you can sell this way, you sell something deeper, not just what to do, but the bigger reason for it, so that you can have a business that people trust, so that people want to be aligned with you, something bigger, a greater mission. And it’s a powerful, and this is the power of having a framework. And this is the literal thing we’re going into.

At the time I’m recording this, we’re going into week five of school of sales, week five of eight. And this is where this is going to be driven home. This format that I’m talking about has been practiced week after week for these people. And the results that are coming in are quite literally mind and heart blowing. There’s been one doctor who you think would have so much knowledge, and she absolutely does have so much knowledge, what she has learned is a framework to sell the supplement she wants to talk about, the treatment she wants to talk about, it’s actually helping her hair go from gray back to its dark, beautiful brown color. And by talking about it in the right way, she was able to sell out the company. She posted the link, and it was able to sell out the company, and she has under 10,000 followers. They’re like, what are you doing? How are you doing this? She said, it’s the sales skills that are completely transforming the way I’m talking about things. It’s because you’re selling something much deeper and much more important to people, because there’s a lot of hair products on the market and she was able to do it in a way that mattered to people. And that’s what you have to do so you can last for the long haul, you can sell what you’re really selling, which is so much deeper. And you can be focused on the business that you’re really in.

I hope you enjoyed this. I hope it encouraged you. And if you are interested in school of sales you are so welcome to DM us at the Guide Culture or go ahead and get your seat, because there are only about 75 seats left in this cohort coming up in October, and we hope to see you there.