Your Sales First Aid Kit: How to Recover When Things Go Wrong

0:01good to uh oh are you okay my love gosh i'm gonna need a first aid kit for that wow but not for me Who for? For you. Because this episode is all about the first aid kit, which is actually a little thing in sales is therapy that you coined, isn't it? And I'm going to give you credit where credit's due. What'd you call me? Don't lead me down that dance, okay? Okay. This episode is brought to you by First Aid Kit. The first aid kit was an idea that I had thinking about everybody waits until they're drowning to get swimming lessons. I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true. They do.

0:45Because how can so many people swim then? Well, you tell me. Everybody's waiting until it's raining to buy an umbrella. True. Do you know how many umbrellas I bought in one week once? Have a guess. Six. Four. Wow. You know why? It was raining. It was raining. Yeah, it was raining, obviously. I think it's like rain, isn't it? A new wedding day. Yeah. Isn't it ironic? Alisson Morrissey. No. anyway so what does it actually mean though right so you've got so the first aid kit why don't you start us off with this i'm going to hit you with a question that's actually in your style okay the first aid kit right what is it where does it work how do you do it when do you do it why do you do it where do you do it wow big question let me unpack all of that so mr uphill who was our head of year used to say uh if you fail to prepare prepare to fail we'll put mr uphills uh instagram handles in the description.

1:36Okay. So basically what you want to do with your first aid kit is, am I prepared? I know, right? I'm signing a contract. I'm going to work as an SDR, a salesperson, a job, whatever it is. You can apply this in life. Fuck it. So you're applying for a job. You're going to do that. Okay. What does this job bring? If you're working in sales, I guarantee it involves projection, hangups, people being rude to you, da, da, da. So say to yourself am i am i 100 of the time going to be fine with that no i'm human it's fine okay so in those moments what are the things that i'm going to do what how am i going to get myself out of that rut if i'm in a month slump of i've missed my commission two months in a row or i'm two months off hitting target well how do i get out of that okay i've started playing with this new idea that's not in the book but we'll share it it's called the one one one rule okay i've not told you about this you might like it um and i think it really boils down nicely to the first aid kit it's something you can do in one minute something you can do in one hour and something you can do in one day okay wow so these are the ideas of the first aid kit is metaphorical but actually it could be an email that you send to yourself it could be a desktop it could be printed documents or a folder and it could be quotes it could be lyrics to your favorite song it could be can i put you on the spot please all right i'm a sales person who it was looking like i was going to hit target and actually week three there was a bit of a knockback and now it looks like week three and four i'm just going to coast and i'll start again next month okay don't do that all right but what's my first aid kit to make me not do that so your first aid kit is probably a reminder of why you do it a technique that we do with our sales people is like why are you in this job and why do you want to earn money or what are you doing it for?

3:24What's the why? Okay, let's go deeper. Well, you've got this one thing could be materialistic. I've got a holiday at the end of the year. So I open that up and I can see Wayne Lineker on Ocean Beach. And I know that actually if I don't hit target, I'm not going to be able to go and buy one of those, what does he do? What does he sell? Beds. Ocean Lineker. Ocean Lineker. I'm not going to be able to do that. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's why I'm doing it. That's a reminder because the brain doesn't think in these moments. It's not rational enough to remind yourself. Okay. Why are you smiling? I was thinking of what his business partners have on the podcast that he called that takeaway.

3:58Yeah, I mean, that episode's coming out. So that's what I do, like a reminder of yourself. And you can be very smart. You can make mood boards. You can make vision boards. You can make, if you're creative, make an own video. Record yourself, your phone. Listen to this when struggling. And it can be a pep talk that you give to yourself. It could be questions that you put into AI. It could be your favorite podcast. that it could be your favorite album. This one, one, one rule that I'm thinking about is like, what can I do in one minute? Which is like, there's a quote, there's a mantra. Here's some breath work.

4:29Cool, here's a little video. I love the YouTube video of like Earth zooming out. You know that one, love that. One hour could be go for lunch with a friend, go for a walk, get some fresh air, walk around the park, speak to a family member, sit down with your manager. Speak to a frog. Speak to a frog, yeah. What? On a park? you're in the park yeah what have you got no friends there speak to a frog yeah speak to a frog okay uh contribution levels for this episode why is this hand empty that i finally one day um so i know that me and you will talk great great netflix and bro oh great netflix series wow great book great film watch that watch one day um shout out one day we'll put there one day um But I would also say that you can, I've got something in my phone where it's like, when I need a bit of a detox, if things get too fizzy or work, phone goes off.

5:26I fast for a day. There's like lemon. Go here, go to this place. Speak to this people. The lemon bit through me. Lemon water. Oh, right. Lemon. It didn't all connect. No, no, no. But it's up there. It's working. So that's the first aid kit. You've got to prepare yourself for those hard times because the storm's coming. I've got a few for you, actually. Please, chuck it. I didn't know this was first aid kit stuff, right? When I was working in the trenches, and I'm like, oh, I'm trying to get myself geared up or whatever. It's going to sound weird, based on what's happening tomorrow. I'd watch a Julian Treasure TED Talk.

6:02Yeah. How to speak so that people listen. It's only 10 minutes. I'd watch that, and Julian Treasure will be sat there tomorrow. Yeah, I'm glad that you said this is weird based on what's happening tomorrow. What's happening tomorrow? We're going to Ninja Trampoline. that and then if i was like oh i'm not really like in the zone i'd actually watch people doing like i probably can't say who it is now i'd watch this guy who isn't he's quite controversial now but wasn't at the time doing uh interviews he did very short interviews on mtv at the time um and that would just get me like oh he's quite creative and fast it was actually about colquhoun almost but those two things in tandem would sort of get my personality like all right i'm ready to go now i'm fired up but if i took that right and i applied that to every member of our team 10 20 people it wouldn't it might work for some but it wouldn't work so as a sales is therapy so as a sales leader you can't dictate what is in people's first aid kit no you can only help them is there anything your first aid kit that would be considered it was cheeky in the 80s but it's actually illegal now thinking about my answer that's what i'm gonna do anyway sales is therapy it's like a child in terms of size you could beat an intruder with it but if you open it up and open your mind and ingest it with all of your soul perhaps you will unlock something deep within you that opens up like a flower and says hey plant me in the sun make room and we're getting the results on next week's episode to tune in