It's the first of June. We're both on the sofa. We're very, very excited and very lucky to have Soph in the studio. Round of applause! Round of applause for Soph in the studio! So Soph, we're going to give you the most upright honor we've ever had and we're going to let you read out The most upright honor. don't know if that's a thing. Let's go with it. Okay. Carry your mental armor. That's a good one. Am I reading the little quote?

Please read it. No one can derail the intentions of your mind. Your thoughts can't be burned, broken, silenced, smeared or stopped by anything. How are we saying his name? Marcus. Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius. Good Curlychops. Curlychops. 1st of June, Soph. When you hear that, what's the first thing, obviously you're a sales guru, you get in the world. What are the first things that come to mind when you think about sales? You just got to be strong-willed. You've got to know what you're doing.

And whatever's chucked your way when you're given a task, you just need to be like, I need to get to the finish line. So yeah, when saying you can't be burned, you can't be smeared or stopped. You just need to like push on through. you have certain triggers that you've recognized in yourself throughout your career? Like a deal that didn't close or like someone being a bit rude to you on a call or something? Yeah. mean, my work...

I actually, you two will hate this, but I don't love cold calls. What? What? Get off the sofa. Go home. No, like I just see cold calls as a means to an end. Like I don't enjoy it. And I feel like I need to be like proper prepared for objections and like have them written out a little bit. I don't like having a script as such, but I feel like if something throws me off or I'm not like prepared for what they could say, I get really stressed. So I need to be like, if there's a trigger or a word that they say like time,

not priority, whatever it might be. I need to like know where I'm going to take that conversation. I was on my, I'm scared. so yeah, I think just making sure I've got anything that could derail me on any, in any given situation, I need to like have a little bit of a prompt to get me to the right place. Do you know what mean? Yeah. Yeah. I also get a bit scared. rejections on cold calls. It's very obvious to say like, right, okay, they're rude to you. tell you to go away and say, where'd you get my number and stuff like that. It flusters the best of people. I've been on many of cold core. I'm like,

My cheeks are turning red. They're making me feel awful. Yeah. Do you see that in any, any other parts of like your sales journey, like pipeline and discovery calls where you really feel the burn of a rejection? Yeah, but I feel like, I don't know whether this is a time thing, but over time you just get way more like, it's not a you problem. Like, but also you need to test as soon as you possibly can, like in the sales process and in the deals, I just feel like.

I almost try and qualify out so that I'm not then stuck or I'm like, fuck, they're gonna cancel or they're not gonna carry on with the audit or whatever it might be, wherever I am in that process. If someone's watching this now, right? So they feel the same. They're like, oh, I resonate with that completely. What advice would you give them for how to deal with objection, how to build like a bit of a framework around it? I think being almost writing down the risks.

from the very start, like what could possibly go wrong. And to be fair, it's a bit annoying that you have to do that because if you put yourself in a bit of a negative mindset, and I love to be optimistic, and I always think the best, I'm like, this is going to close tomorrow. And my boss is like, it's literally not. You haven't even spoke to them. But yeah, so I think preparing for what risks you could come across, you feel a little bit more confident that if something bad does happen, you know how to navigate it.

That's very stoic of you. The stoic used to call it premeditorium. Is that how you pronounce it? the worst. Yeah. you just, what the stoics used to do, and this is going to sound pretty grim, but I'm going to give it to you. And they would stand at the cot of their children and they'd imagine that they wouldn't make it through the night. And then it brings that like gratitude into the situation. it's the case we've talked about it on previous episodes of

rather than doing a post-mortem so you don't get the deal, you do the pre-mortem of, okay, what could go wrong? And then you can start to think, how can I do it? So you can still be an optimist, but do a pre-mortem. then say, say shit's hit the fan. Okay, so if you've had one of those rejections, it's not gone the way you thought, you thought it was gonna close tomorrow and it hasn't. What do you do to pick yourself back up? We call it the first aid kit. So you've got a metaphorical first aid kit, which you might have a.

Mars bar in a quote or a nice song. What would be in your first aid kit to say, right, so get your head back in the game tomorrow is a new day. Yeah, on a personal level, put my headphones in and listen to I'm Coming Out. Wow, because it just lifts you up. Soundtrack to your life. I want my mom to know. Nice. So, yeah, that's what I do, first of all. And then I sit back down and think it's just got a crack on. Do you know what mean?

From a professional level, I try and pick where I've maybe dropped the ball a little bit with maybe not fronting something up. And what I do like to do on a, with customers or prospects or whoever is front what the risks might be and get them to buy into it. Like I'm thinking that if this doesn't happen, am I fair in my assumption that this maybe won't go this way or if we don't do this by this day, is this going to happen? So like holding them to account, also front in any risks you feel like.

And I always find that that one builds the relationship a lot better and you just both, you all feel a bit more like they can tell you if potentially something's not working out or something's gone wrong. Like they don't feel so stressed to like ghost you or do you know what mean? You've built a bit more of a personal relationship. So nice. What a start. What a start. We're going to do something now. We're going to show you how the sausages made. Okay. ⁓ Jack's going to look.

at that camera, right? The camera right there. And he says, I'm Jack Frimstone. That's my name. I want to look at that camera and say, I'm Zach Thompson. And then you're going to look at that camera and say, I'm Sofellas. OK. Right? Yeah. Are you ready? I'm in. I've been Jack Frimstone. I've been Zach Thompson. I've been Sofellas. Remember you will die. Don't we in the bath? Love me forever. Yeah!