Hi, welcome to another episode of Unlocked. Today, I've got O'Brien McMahon. He is the SVP of Lockton, where he works with specifically as a salesperson, but he works with the younger salespeople coming onto the organization. And he helps coach them and teach them what it means to sell, what it means to build influence, what it means to tell stories, what it means to be both curious and helpful. All these things are the things we talk about in this interview. So if you're not into sales, which you should be because we sell everything. Every day, we're selling things. Ideas, we're selling products, we're selling ourselves. Whatever it is, listen to this conversation. We talk about the parallels of selling and the parallels of relationship. We talk about the parallels of selling and the parallels of leadership.
So it's all tied together. And that's what's so brilliant about what O'Brien brings to this conversation. His knowledge of sales and how it integrates into everything we do. It's so powerful. We talk about what good leadership is, meaning what good sales is. What does it mean to be a good salesperson? So not only are you going to learn about what it means to be a good leader and how to be a good leader. You're going to learn about how to sell some stuff. Okay? And what it takes to be a good salesperson. If you hate sales, if you love sales, whatever it is, listen to this conversation. You will learn something. It's probably one of the longest conversations I've had because it was so good. I loved this conversation. Awesome. Let's go see O'Brien. O'Brien, what's going on?
O'Brien McMahon:
Hey Skot. Thanks for having me on the show.
Skot Waldron:
Yeah. Looking forward to this. So I love sales guys, right?
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
You're one of a few.
SKOT WALDRON:
I guess.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Rare few.
SKOT WALDRON:
Okay. Let's sit. I love sales guys that are selling for me. I don't like being sold all the time. Right? So I get it. You know what? I do love the sales guys that don't try to sell me.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Yes.
SKOT WALDRON:
You know?
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
And I'm sure I'm sure we'll get into it and talk about that. But I mean, everybody likes somebody who's helping them make good decisions.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's what I like. I like the coach mentor type salesperson. Not the hey, you ready? Hey, do you need this? I get a text message probably every other day by people trying to give me some kind of business line of credit. And I'm just like no. Stop texting me, you know?
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Yeah. You don't know anything about me. You don't anything about my business. You don't know what I need.
SKOT WALDRON:
No, they don't care. They don't care. They don't care. But the sales end of a conversation is critical because that is what enables somebody to do what they need to do. We're all selling. Every day, we got to sell. It's a part of life. So going into the sales profession, right? You coach people on selling, you coach the internal people there at Lockton on selling. Why selling? People are like, "I hate selling. Selling's the worst." But you're like all day, every day. What is it?
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Well, I think think sales, there's a couple things to unpack here, right? So there's a lot of shame around sales from people who are not in sales. That it's something icky or bad in some way, right? That you're imposing on somebody else. And you think about all the bad sales experiences that you've had as a buyer. And you think that that's how you're going to come across to somebody else.
So people hesitate, right? And they don't want to go out and sell. But what is sale? Right? It's growing your business. It's helping somebody out with a product or service that you offer. If you're selling something to somebody that they don't need, you're probably not doing it right. And you shouldn't be doing it. There should be plenty of people out there who need what you have, that you can go out and find a viable audience and really add value to them.
So I think people just need to rethink the story that they tell themselves about what it means to sell or be a salesperson. And a lot of people, everybody sells, right? There is a certain amount of the population that are salespeople. I am a salesperson in my job. That's what I do professionally. But sales is really just influence and decision-making. Right? You're trying to influence somebody to make the decision you want them to make and pay you for your service, or say yes to your project, or just get out of your way so you can go do something that you want to do, right? Call it negotiation, call it sales, call it influence, whatever you want to call it. This is how we communicate. This is how we interact. Right? And we want some value for providing some other value. We want to move the world in a certain direction, in our favor. And it doesn't have to be totally selfish and bad. It's just where we want to go. It's what we want. And for salespeople out there if you make money doing it, you're putting food on the table and providing for your family, you're helping your business grow. You're providing job opportunities for your colleagues and coworkers. So I think we just need to retell ourselves a different story.
SKOT WALDRON:
So what about the dialogue that I have going on in my head of O'Brien's just doing this because he works off commission and he's just making his own life better? Right? So what's that dialogue like? Where does that play into what you do as a salesperson, but how I view you as somebody who's being sold to?
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Well somebody who is a salesperson. I mean, you have to realize that the first hurdle you have to get over is the fact that you are a salesperson. A buyer walks in, you go actively out to a buyer. They're going to be defensive right off the bat, because they've been taken advantage of before. They want to make a smart decision. They want to look good. They want to feel good about the decisions that they're making, and they don't want to be taken advantage of. And there are plenty of examples, whether they've read about it, seen it in movies, lived it and experienced it themselves. There are plenty of examples out there of bad, pushy salespeople. So they don't want that experience. So if you're giving them that, if you're out there to collect a paycheck and you're just trying to push as much volume as you can, people are going to feel that. There's nothing wrong with wanting to make a lot of money. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you're out there just for your own needs, it's going to come across. People are going to feel that you're going to give them a bad experience. If you are out there genuinely trying to you help people, that's going to feel different.
And to your point, what's the buyer going to feel? The only thing you can control as the salesperson or as the person who's selling your idea is the mindset, and attitude, and approach that you bring to it. How they react to it is going to be on them. There are some things you can do to help them react in a better way, but it starts with you and what you bring to the table.
SKOT WALDRON:
So good. Okay. Let's talk for a second. I'm going to do this periodically. Okay? Because I want to take what you've said to me, and I want to flip it over into the leadership mindset of okay, so we've got this idea. You said if you're selling something to somebody that doesn't need it, you probably shouldn't be selling that thing. Right? So as leaders, what are we selling to our team? What are we selling to our organization? What are we selling to the people that are under us? If we're selling them something that they don't need, or that they don't believe in, or that they don't want, there's misalignment in that organization. That's going to create some contention. Right? You said selling is nothing more than influence and decision-making. Super powerful. As leaders, as people, as team members, we're all trying to build influence. We're all trying to create influence, because that's where true power comes. That relationship is built off that influence that we can share with other people.
And then you said something about whether we're in it for our own self. If we're in it for our own. If it's just for me as a leader and that person doesn't feel like I'm there for them, no loyalty. Right? And it just parallels the whole sales conversation. So there's a lot of beautiful parallels in this whole thing. So what else do you see as crossing that bridge of sales and leadership and just interacting as humans?
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Well, so one of my beliefs is that to be a really effective high performing salesperson, you have to be a really effective high performing leader. I think the two are tied together. I don't think they're separate things. I think if you are a really good sales person, you're also a really good service person. You often think of sales as I'm just going to get them to buy. And then I walk away. But really good salespeople, even transactional salespeople take care of the people who buy from them.
Great example is my dad's Verizon rep, right? My dad goes to the Verizon store and has been dealing with the same person for years now. And it's a very transactional sale, right? He comes in, he buys a phone every couple years and then he moves on and he doesn't have many questions in the meantime. But when he does have a question, he has somebody to go to. And that person will drop what they're doing and bend over backwards to help him figure it out, make life easier for my dad. And my dad loves him and goes back to him all the time.
So I think being a good leader is being a good servant to your people, just as being a good salesperson is being a good service person to your people. It's all about really providing value to the community that you're serving. And if you're providing value, you'll get value back. If you're a leader, you'll get value back in a bunch of people coming to work for you, staying, recruiting, retention, motivation, having them roll up their sleeves, stay late when they need to, working hard, being innovative. Everything that a healthy culture fosters, you'll earn that back if you're selling them things that they want, and need, and are leading in the right way.
Similar on the sales side, if you're selling and adding value out to your community of buyers, they will keep coming back. They will keep giving you your money, and you will earn a wonderful lifestyle, and you'll reap a bunch of rewards. There's a whole bunch of other benefits that you'll get too beyond just the money, right? The relationships. That's a whole separate thing on value. I think a lot of salespeople get stuck on value being dollars. And I think value is anything that you find valuable, right? You could provide value to somebody by helping them get their kid into a private school, or helping them find a charity to donate that aligns with their values. And same to you. What I find in sales is the more people I'm helping more often, the more they're helping me financially and non-financially. Sorry. That was a little bit of a-
SKOT WALDRON:
No, no, I was processing that because that's so good. And I love that the more you give, the more you receive, right?
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
And that's not just woo woo bullshit. I've lived that firsthand. The more value that I add, the more people want to help me. And now you don't want to take advantage of that, but you want to reap the reward of that. There's nothing wrong with helping each other. I think that's the other thing too is we all feel bad when we need help. And I think life is richer when we are all helping each other and when we're accepting that help, because it just creates a lot more opportunity to do more fun things and live a better life.
SKOT WALDRON:
Well, and I think it also goes to the idea that I feel like I have been taken advantage of quite often in the sales, since these guys are not for me or whatever. Right? And in those cases I go in protected. And when I find that salesperson that is awesome, that I know is for me, it makes me want to be there for them too. Right? I want to give back to them. And that's where I sit there and say well as individuals and the people we are interacting with every day, whether it's our family, our team, our boss, whatever, are we doing things that helps them realize that I'm for them to create that trust and loyalty back, you know? Because that's what's going to help us survive, and succeed, and keep that synergy going amongst the entire organization.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Yeah. So I enjoy reading about leadership. I have my own podcast where I talk about a bunch of human centered topics, and leadership is a big one. And one of the big things that has struck me, especially recently is just the concept of servant leadership and how really great leaders are both out in front leading and serving the people on their team at the same time. It's not about getting walked all over by your team and letting them do whatever they want. But the best leaders that I see, just keep seeing example after example of leaders who set the direction and then set out helping their team remove any barriers that they can. They're just in service to their people so that people can go execute the mission. And I think that that's modeled in good sales too, right? It's helping the people see the vision of where they're going to go, and then setting about removing the roadblocks through your service, or product, or whatever, so that they can use your service, use your product, and get where they need to go.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's exactly what I was going to say as a result of, and you took the words right out of my mouth. It's that leaders are a big function of being a good leader is removing the roadblocks. Removing the blocks, the bumps, the whatever red tape in order to enable that person to be Unlocked, to be able to get the job done, to do what they were meant to do in that position. Right? If they're constantly feeling held back and they've got to go over this, they got to deal with this. They got to go through this. And they're feeling micromanaged by you and all these other things. They're not going to feel free. They're not going to feel like they can do what they've been built to do. And that's going to be a problem. And as you as a salesperson, you enabling that for me, enabling me to reap the value of whatever I'm trying to get, I'm just going to be able to fly. And I'm going to be so appreciative of that ability that you had to remove that from me. That's awesome.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Yeah. And I think a mistake that certain people make is they think that the transaction is the end, right? And the transaction could be I'm a salesperson. Somebody buys from me. And now that's the end. They bought, and great. I got my commission check. They bought, they go use their thing. But they may have questions. They may need a tutorial on how to use it to get started. There's all this other stuff that they may need to have a great experience, and it's still your job to deliver that great experience. Similarly, if we're talking about sales from an influence standpoint, as a leadership team, you might sit in a room and make a bunch of great decisions on where the company's going to go and say, "Great, this is where we're going to go." And then you go out and you sell it to your people and say clap your hands and go, great. Rah, let's go. But there's then a bunch of service stuff that needs to happen after that to make that sale effective and successful going forward.
SKOT WALDRON:
So what would you say are the things that hold us back from being effective and great salespeople?
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
I'm going to answer that a little differently if that's okay. And you can tell me if I miss and need to go back.
SKOT WALDRON:
Man, you're the hero. You do your thing.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
I'm a salesperson myself, but I also work with all of our new salespeople who come into our organization. We have a sales coach who comes in, and then I support her and involved in the training. And we were talking recently about the different levels of what it means to be a good sales professional. So I can walk through those for you. And I think that kind of answers your question of what are the levels of the game and where are people getting stuck?
So I think one, if you're just talking about a sales professional, I think level one is volume. You hear all the time sales is a numbers game. And to some extent that's true. So I think that level one, you're never going to make it as a salesperson if you are not talking to enough people, enough potential buyers. Real potential buyers. So that's one.
On the leadership side, I don't know that that has an analogy other than maybe you need to be talking to the right people well ahead of time. You need to get the right constituent in the room if you want to sell an idea. If you're a salesperson, you need to find a way to get out to your target market. So 101 is volume.
Once you get volume going, 201 is the mindset you bring. We've already talked about it. I just like the simple cue that I use for myself and that I try to prime our other salespeople with is you want to walk into every interaction being curious and helpful. If you can just think of nothing else, just be curious and helpful. If you're curious, you're going to learn a ton. You're going to ask a ton of questions. You're not going to focus on yourself. You're going to focus on them. And then if you're helpful, that kind of allows you to focus on yourself a little bit, but now you're using what you bring to the table to help that person achieve their dreams or achieve their goals. So curious and helpful.
And if you just have high volume and are being curious and helpful, you'll do great and can build a great career. I think where we get maybe into master's level, we get into 301 is storytelling and your ability to use language and communicate in a way that really resonates with people. And I think the easiest entree into storytelling is just to think about analogy and metaphor, right? Can you frame what you're going to say using an analogy or a metaphor that makes them just go yep, got it. Oh yeah, I see it. Or, "Oh God, I've had that problem." Just to get them to connect emotionally.
And I think that's the easiest way to do it because what storytelling really does is it gets somebody to create a picture in their head. And when they have the picture in their head, they're going to have a feeling about that picture in their head. And really good storytellers are commanding emotions by the imagery that they create. And you can do that through analogy and metaphor. So that's 301.
And then 401, and this is one that I'm spending a lot of time I'm thinking about now is actually reducing friction. So a lot of times as a salesperson or as a leader where we're trying to influence others, we're trying to add as much fuel to our argument as we can. Here's why you got to buy this. It's going to solve this problem, and that problem. And the other thing. You didn't even know you had this problem, but it's going to solve that too. But the reason good ideas don't land, the reason your good product doesn't sell is often because of the friction that exists in the buyer. Not because it's not good enough. There's some hurdle, there's some drag on the idea that just kills it. So I think 401 is helping the buyer understand where their friction points are going to come in that are going to kill this idea and addressing them early so that when you do hit them, they're just maybe little potholes and not big mountains.
SKOT WALDRON:
So I call that overcoming resistance. And you heard of the change equation. Dissatisfaction times vision, times natural next steps needs to be greater than the overall resistance or else nothing's going to change.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Got it.
SKOT WALDRON:
And you can only use that in a sales mindset, right? The dissatisfaction of that client has to be big enough. And if their vision isn't high enough to match that dissatisfaction or overcome it, then it's just hopelessness. Right? If I don't have enough vision, if you aren't persuasive enough, or informed enough, or whatever enough to create that vision of what could be through storytelling possibly, then I'm just going going to have hopelessness. I'm not going to think you can help me or anybody else. But if that vision gets high enough, and then you can label the natural next steps for me. If all of that is greater than that resistance or what you call friction, right? Then we can move forward. But if it's not, my dissatisfaction can be super high. My vision can be super great. You could lay out the best plan in the world. But if that friction or resistance is too high, it's not going to change anything. I'm just going to stay where I am. And that can be super frustrating I'm sure.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
So here's one sort of nuance to that. I like that. But I think that's where this fuel mindset comes from that we just need to add, and add, and add, because we think this friction is really high. So we've got to keep adding to this left side of the equation.
The problem is the more you add to the left side of the equation, the more the friction actually increases in a lot of cases. So there are things that you can do to lower the friction so that you don't have to get the left side of the equation so high. I think that's where a really skilled influencer salesperson can really have an impact. So this comes from a book called The Human Element, which was written by Loran Nordgren and David Schonthal, who are two professors at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Business. And David was I think a partner at IDEO design thinking lab. And they've kind of coined this as friction theory. And the book is fantastic. Lays out a really easy, simple framework for identifying the four different types of friction and then giving you steps for how to lessen, how to overcome them.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's brilliant. I am on board with that, right? Lowering the friction. The first step is to name the friction. So I say name it to tame it. Right? And I always go back to that story of Rumpelstiltskin where I ask what was the sort of [inaudible 00:24:56] they were like well, it's the beast that had the baby. And then she had to find the name of Rumpelstiltskin and figure that out in order to get what she wanted out of the thing. So it was all about naming the beast and identifying what the friction was first, so that we then could understand what had to be done to tame it.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
So that actually proves out. I've interviewed two former hostage negotiators, one with the FBI and one with the police department around the DC area. And both of them have said, and have some data to back it up that naming a negative emotion actually reduces that emotion. Conversely, naming a positive emotion actually reinforces the positive emotion. It's really interesting. So if somebody's really excited about something and you go, "You seem really excited about this," they go, "Yeah." And they get even more excited. But if you say, if somebody's talking about their buying process or a struggle that they're having, and you say, "It seems like this is really upsetting you." "Yeah. I am really upset by this." And they actually will deflate. Or if somebody's mad at you, it's really good because then you say, "It seems like I've really stepped in it here. It seems like I've really upset you." "Well yeah, you have really upset me." And they'll tell you why you upset them, but it will start to lower their emotion. So you can use that when things get heated to label the emotions that you're seeing from the other person. One, it gets them to clarify it. And two, it'll actually help you smooth out some road bumps if they're mad, or frustrated, or somehow skeptical about you.
SKOT WALDRON:
Love it. Love it. And I think as leaders, being able to do that same thing of, "Wow, you seem really excited about this project." "Yeah. I am." Right? Maybe they just didn't realize it, but it's like hey, you're really in the groove right now. I see this. And being specific about that encouragement, it can be really empowering. And likewise, if they're kind of miffed about something is bringing them in and saying, "Hey, I've noticed that you're pretty down on so and so, or you're down on me about something. And I'd like to understand that a little bit more." It's like bringing that out and trying to understand. So being curious, right? Going back to curious and helpful. How can I be curious? Instead of just going right to critique of, "Man, you're being a real jerk lately." It's like, "Hey, I've noticed this. What's going on? And then how can I help with"-
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Yeah. Well, and that's where you can actually focus your curiousness, right? It's like if curious is 201, when you get to the 401 level, you're sort of learning how to control your curiosity and start to draw out some of the things that are going to help that person make a decision down the road.
SKOT WALDRON:
Reducing friction. Love it, love it. That's really cool. Okay. I love this. So give me another sales idea. What is something that you hang your hat on? It's a proven method. Something that you really live by and teach when those younger generations are coming on board.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
So I don't think there are any silver bullets. I will say too, everybody does sales a little bit differently. There are people, I have a really good friend of mine who does what I do. We work very closely together, and he's much more aggressive than I am. And he's very successful. And that's okay. Right? We both sell a decent amount. We hit our quotas. Right? We do what we need to do. But he's much more direct and aggressive about it. And I'm not. I don't like being a pushy salesperson. So I sort of tend to overcorrect the other way. It's just about figuring out what your style is, and then leading into the fundamentals. And I think those fundamentals are that 101 through that 401.
So I like to boil things down. There's so much bullshit that you can deal with and hear from people who try to tell you well you got to say this or do that. And I just try to distill it down to what is the essence of the task, right? In this case, selling somebody else. And I think it's are you talking to enough people? Are you bringing the right attitude? Are you communicating effectively? And are you helping them get over their own hurdles? If you could just focus on that, you just could be wildly successful, and there's really no end to that work. You can always be sharpening that saw and honing that craft. So I'd love to give you more, but I really am big on just focus as simple as you can and then do it really, really well.
SKOT WALDRON:
So your training takes five minutes because you just kind of come in and you just-
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Well no, it's really hard to execute that stuff. And you need a lot of reps. That's another thing that I've learned from the podcast that I do. I've just had people from all these different disciplines who are exceptional at what they do. And when you really get down to how they got exceptional, it's they got a massive amount of reps in. So I interviewed this one woman who teaches basically professional skills to new employees. So younger employees. And she's pretty young herself. I don't even know if she's 30 yet. So one might think where did you learn all of these skills? They all need these skills, if your counterparts need them? How did you learn them? And she told the group great story about how when she was three years old, whenever the phone would ring, her parents would make her or her older brother who was a year or two older answer it. And they had to ask three questions of the person on the other end of the phone before they were able to hand it off. So she's doing that at three. And then as you can imagine, that only expanded in the task that she was asked to do. So just her whole life was having conversations with adults, with successful professionals. Because her parents were both successful. And it just conditioned her and taught her how to act and behave. Now she teaches others.
Similarly interviewed two gentlemen who were Green Berets for 20 plus years. And they both went to West Point. And we were talking about why West Point is such a great leadership institution. And it's because from the moment you get there, you are witnessing and trying out leadership. You are seeing leadership in action. It's being modeled for you. You're also being taught leadership theoretically. And then you also from the beginning have an opportunity to try it out for yourself. So the time you get through four years of that, you've just had so many more leadership reps than anyone else who's your age. And then in the military, in Green Beret, you get even more of that. So I think reps are so important.
So what we do a lot in the training is try to help people get the reps in. So what do your conversations sound like? What does it mean to be curious? Let's practice being curious. Let's practice being helpful. How do you do it? That's a really hard one for people because they want to go back to well but I have this product or but I have this service. So you got to try to get your reps in to condition your mind to be helpful, to be curious. And then storytelling takes a lot of practice and uncovering frictions and helping people through them that takes a ton of practice. So the reps, that's a long way of saying reps are really important.
SKOT WALDRON:
So you train people often. What's the difference between the ones that make the cut and the ones that bow out? The ones that are just like, "Ugh, I thought this was for me or it's not." Or it's something you see, it's just like, "You've got it. You're struggling. You're going to keep struggling unless blank." Right? What's the difference between those two?
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
They have the humility to change, the ones who are successful. The ones who aren't will say, "Yeah, but that just doesn't work for me. That's not really my personality." And again, everybody's got to find their own style. But when somebody shines a light on a blind spot, you have to be willing to say, "Yeah, you're right." And that is incredibly uncomfortable to do. It's very uncomfortable for me. So you have to recognize that that thing that hits you as the most uncomfortable is probably the thing you need to spend the most time on. And the people who can do that and say, "Yeah no, you're right. I was really attached there. And I was really desperate, and I had a scarcity mindset. Let me try it again." Those people who really start to apply the stuff, they inevitably get better. And the people who get defensive and don't think that they need to change or who find it too uncomfortable to admit to themselves that they need to change, they inevitably don't make it.
SKOT WALDRON:
And this sounds exact. So we're talking about salespeople, right?
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
That's just people.
SKOT WALDRON:
That's just people.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Yeah.
SKOT WALDRON:
I mean, that could literally be people that make it in marriage, right? That could literally be a friendship that you have with somebody. Let alone your boss or a leader of some kind. So in coaching people, I talk about being secure, confident, and humble, right? Because the opposite is insecurity, arrogance, and pridefulness. And we know we're dealing with secure, arrogant, and/or prideful people. And we don't want to be associated with that. And if you're selling, if you're leading, if you're married, if you're communicating with somebody and you're insecure, arrogant, or prideful, you're not going to build influence. And you're probably not going to last very long in the lives of those that you're trying to build that friendship or partnership with.
On the opposite side, that humility piece being secure and confident, that just radiates I'm here. I'm teachable. I am somebody that wants to be better. Thank you for you bringing this to me. Now I can be better because of you, right? It works. It's so powerful.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
It's very hard for people to get their head around the fact that weakness in the moment creates strength in the long term. Right? Admitting weakness in the moment, suffering through something that's beyond your capability, getting that feedback, really taking a critical look at yourself will make you stronger and better down the road. And it's really hard for people to see the long-term payoff of that. So people shut down.
So I'll name drop one more for the podcast. Navy SEALs are really sexy right now. So I had a former seal on the show. And we were kind of talking about this. And he was saying that the biggest contributor to success there, you think about mental toughness and what they have to go through, mental and physical toughness. He said, "Humility is the key trait." And he said, "And that's not to say that it's a lack of confidence," to your point. I liked what you had said about that. What was it? Capability, confidence and-
SKOT WALDRON:
Security, confidence.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Security, confidence, humility. And he was saying if you look at the SEAL teams, they are incredibly confident. They are peak confidence, but the really good ones are also peak humility because they understand that the only way to stay at the razor's edge is to find all the little deficiencies that they have and make them better. So they dig in after every mission to figure out what they did wrong and try to find ways that they can be better, that they could be safer. That they can be faster, whatever the case might be. So you have to have a really high humility level to be a really high performer.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And-
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
It hit me really hard. I've been giving a lot more thought to the value of humility over the last couple years. And it has a pretty profound impact.
SKOT WALDRON:
Yeah. You seem like a real prideful guy O'Brien. I'm just kidding. You're awesome, dude. It's like practicing what you preach. And I talked to my wife about this yesterday. Right? She says, "I appreciate you working on yourself. I appreciate the fact that you put the extra effort into being who you are and what you do." And this is no plug about me, but I'm just saying, and I had two big coaching sessions yesterday after she said this. And I said, "I don't know how I couldn't." If I'm out teaching this and preaching this all day to multiple people and I believe in it in my soul, how could I not integrate this into my own life? And I think that's what you're talking about. Right? As you have learned to preach humility to those people you're coaching, you have learned to instill that in your own life, which is helping you I would imagine build influence with others that you're working with.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
This conversation always rubs me a little funny. And I don't really know why, but I think it's because people who talk about humility a lot don't acknowledge that ego still exists. Right? It's like you can't be at all egotistical to really be humble and really have humility. And I don't think that that's true. I have a fairly healthy ego on me. I don't think that I would've taken the risk getting into the sales job that I did if I didn't have an ego on me, and believe in myself, and think that I could do it, and think that I can get to a pretty high place. But that doesn't mean that I need to carry that into my interactions with everybody. I can still be humble in my interactions with everybody, and be curious, and helpful, and giving, and all those other things. So I think it rubs me the wrong way maybe when people sort of mask the ego side of it too, because I think that's a little bit just disingenuous. I think really successful people have very healthy egos and a lot of confidence. And then also have the humility to check themselves, have good interactions with other people, and to be servant leaders and give.
SKOT WALDRON:
Well, and I think the difference here that you're talking about is are we talking about ego, meaning arrogance? Are you talking about ego meaning confidence? Because we can look at the people that are confident, and we respect them. It's like I can look at O'Brien and I can go that dude is confident. That dude knows what he is talking about. That guy is good at his job. Right? And he's passionate, and he's got this era aura of humility to him, which also that just says confidence to me. Arrogance is when we look at that person and we go they have no self-awareness, they're in total denial. I don't want to be around that person because they're just trying to beat their chest and trying to prove something that I know isn't authentic. So I think that there's a difference there, and it's kind of a gut. You kind of feel it. And I think that that's what you're talking about. In my language agree.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Yeah. No, I totally agree. I want to circle back to one other thing too, that you said about, I don't remember what I was saying, but you said well that can be applied to everything. That's good marriage, good friendship. That's what I love the most about all this stuff. I think that's why I like teaching this stuff. I mentioned before, I like distilling things down and being like what are we really talking about? What is the core of this?
And when you really distill sales down, it's relationships. And it's how do you have positive relationships with as many people as you can? The principles of relationships apply whether you're selling somebody something, whether you're leading a team at work, whether you are a junior team member, whether you're trying to pick somebody up at the bar, trying to get them to marry you, trying to keep a friendship group, meeting people in college, whatever it is. Relationships are relationships and the same things apply. I talk all the time about how you have to date your friends as you get older because they're not just around anymore like they're where you're younger. You go out and you date somebody that you're attracted to. You have to go out and date people that you're platonically attracted to. Right? That you want to be your friends too. The same principles all apply. And I think the more we just realize that, the more it's easier to be humble because we just realize everybody's an individual and we all just have to go out and try to build relationships.
SKOT WALDRON:
Well, and I think this is what I respect about you is that you're a sales guy. You're not just stuck in this sales guy silo, right? You believe in the impact of people that they can have on others. And that's when your podcast is people business. It's not salespeople business, right? It's people business. And it talks all about human behavior, and what makes leaders do what they do. That's cool. And to me, I sit there and look at that and go, "Okay, so he's bigger picture. But he's using that as a way to strategically gain insight and understanding about relationships because that's what sales is. Right?" Whether you're selling an idea or you're selling a pack of gum, it's all relationship building and influence.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Absolutely. Amen.
SKOT WALDRON:
Hey, there you go. There you go. You can give me $5 afterwards. You can Venmo me. So I appreciate you being on man. This has been awesome. And I hope people check out your podcast, People Business w/ O'Brien McMahon and go there. You've had some awesome guests it sounds like. So good for you for having them on and con conducting great conversations. Where can people get in touch with you? If they want to dig further in this conversation, they want to find out more about what you do and how you do it, and just more about the show.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Sure. And first of all, just appreciate you having me on. I love what you're doing too. I think the more people are having these conversations and have the opportunity to listen into these conversations, the better we all get. So appreciate what you're doing. Appreciate you having me on.
If anybody wants to connect with me, feel free to follow me on LinkedIn or send me a message there. I do try to limit my connections on LinkedIn to people that I know, because I do use it as a network relationship tool. But feel free to follow, feel free to send me a message, and we can get to know each other. Or feel free to send me an email at my Lockton email address. It's obrien.mcmahon@lockton.com. Yeah, I think that's it. Or go check out the podcast. Podcast is www.peoplebusinesspodcast.com or People Business w/ O'Brien McMahon anywhere you'd listen to a podcast.
SKOT WALDRON:
Brilliant. You're rock, man. I really appreciate you. Great insights. I think people definitely learn something. And if they didn't then I did. And that's what it's really all about. Right O'Brien?
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
That is the benefit of being the whole host of a podcast.
SKOT WALDRON:
That is it. That is it. All right, man. Thank you so much.
O'BRIEN MCMAHON:
Thanks Skot.
SKOT WALDRON:
I was at a conference where a guy was standing up, he was a sales trainer. He looked out over the audience said, "Raise your hand if you like to sell things." And there were a couple hands that went up. About 95% of the hands did not go up. And then he said, "Raise your hand if you love to liberate people and help them." And almost everybody's hand went up, because that's what we like to do. We like to create opportunity and empower other people and help them. And he said, "Well, that's what sales is."
And I think that's O'Brien's idea. And if we can do that, then it's not a scary thing. It's not a sleazy thing. And it's not an icky thing. It's empowerment and opportunity, and helpfulness. The more we do that, the more we pour into others, it comes right back. And O'Brien mentioned that has happened a great deal in his life. It's happened a great deal in my life. And I believe it's happened a great deal in yours. Maybe not in transactional business sales, maybe it has, but just in the way that you give to others, it comes right back. I love those four principles of good salesperson.
101 volume. Talking to the enough people, but talking to the right people. Mindset, being curious and helpful. Storytelling, telling the right stories through analogy, metaphor, and reducing friction. Naming the beast, got to name it to tame it, right? Naming the beast, understanding those points of friction so that you can reduce the friction. Therefore, you don't have to so hard at selling the other stuff. Help reduce the friction, be helpful and curious to solve the problem. Then you can keep moving and moving forward. And then ending up with, I think that that weakness in the moment, I love this, the weakness in the moment keeps us from looking into the future. We are so into immediate gratification, immediate problem-solving, putting out fires right now, that we jeopardize the thing that we're trying to work towards.
Here's a tip, right? A question I want you to ask. Will my future self thank my present self? I want my future self to say, "Thank you Skot," in the present, "For making the decision you made. Because it's enabled us to be who we are and who we want to be."
So thanks O'Brien. I appreciate you. Y'all go check out his People Business Podcast. He's got some awesome, awesome guests on there. And if you want to find out more about me, you can go to skotwaldron.com. You can explore the site there, see what I do like subscribe, comment on my YouTube channel, please. I would love some feedback and I would love you to check out some other ... I got some free tools on there that you can use to build your own leadership and communication journey. And connect with me on LinkedIn. I would love to build my network there. So look forward to connecting. Look forward to engaging with you more, and I'll see you next time on another episode of Unlocked.
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