Transcription
****Please forgive any and all transcription errors as this was transcribed by Otter.ai.****

[intro music]
Kenneth Kinney 0:16
Welcome back and thank you for joining A Shark's Perspective. I am Kenneth "Shark" Kinney, your host and Chief Shark Officer.

Kenneth Kinney 0:23
First let me tell you about two amazing sponsors who make this show possible.

Kenneth Kinney 0:27
Let's talk first about inbound from marketing to sales and commerce to CX, Invoca's active conversation intelligence platform enables revenue teams to create better buying experiences, drive more leads and increase revenue. trusted by top brands like Dish Network Mayo Clinic Mutual of Omaha and ADT, the Invoca team is doing some amazing work in turning conversational data into automated action to enhance digital touchpoints and human interaction.

Kenneth Kinney 0:52
Next, let's talk about outbound. I hope that you'll take a look at Drips, the founders of conversational texting where they use conversational AI to help you reach customers where they're most responsive, and that's on their phones. And working with major brands like three day blinds, liberty, mutual credit repair, and Gainesco, Drips is leading the way for some of the biggest brands in the world to improve engagement rates and outcomes for their prospects and customers.

Kenneth Kinney 1:16
Thank you to Invoca and Drips! And now back to the show.

Kenneth Kinney 1:20
Most people don't enjoy the thought of having to deal with a salesperson. After all do you? Bad reps are destroying the idea of it just on LinkedIn alone. Car salespeople always get a bad rap and oftentimes that's merited, but people still do it because they need help. And a good salesperson, a good professional and one that can help you get from point A to point z is better when they're being authentic, not only with you, the customer, but also with themselves. We're welcoming back a previous guest who I introduced back on episode 276. Jason cutter is the founder of Cutter Consulting Group, a sales operations focused advisory consulting and training firm. He's a podcast host, as well as the author of selling with authentic persuasion transform from order taker to quota breaker. And on this episode, we'll discuss being a successful salesperson who is authentic to themselves, call centers and inside reps versus outside sales. How people generally fall into sales roles, the authentic used car salesperson, how company culture reflects in a sales team, selling from a persona, actors reading a script, saying no, that guy for Mitch and Murray who always wanted to be closing, palm trees in the sand on both coasts, tagging great whites, chocolate gravy, and a lot lot more. So let's tune into an authentic persuasion author with an authentic shark who's also very persuasive on this episode of A Shark's Perspective.

Kenneth Kinney 2:46
Jason, thank you so much for joining us today on A Shark's Perspective. Could I just say that I'm mildly excited to welcome you back today? Or should I admit and be authentic that I'm very excited to have you back. We'll dive into the book shortly. But tell us a little bit about your background and your career today.

Jason Cutter 3:02
Well, and I am super excited to be here. And ever since I heard your podcast before even knew you. I was jealous and mad at myself for not having a shark's related business podcast. I

Kenneth Kinney 3:13
I own it. Nobody else can have it. (laughter)

Jason Cutter 3:14
Yeah, nobody else can have it. But I actually have a bachelor's degree in marine biology and tagged sharks for years so authentically, I could have a shark related podcast, which is an interesting transition to what I do now. So I am a sales focused consultant coach trainer, I wrote a book that came out last year called selling with authentic persuasion transform from order taker to quota breaker. And I help sales teams transform, and help them build scalable processes and systems. And depending on how much you want to get into, none of it makes sense because I literally chose sharks over people as an indicator of how much I did not like people growing

Kenneth Kinney 4:00
up. Which is odd because I chose sharks because I've been swimming with them for forever in a day. I don't know that it came down to sharks versus people. It's just that was kind of my spirit animal and my, my happy place in the water. Yeah, so it was back in Episode 276 that you're on the show, but we really didn't get to dive. You know, we were talking about speaking at a conference together, we really didn't get to dive into the book, which I really wanted to do justice to because I really enjoyed selling with authentic persuasion. So for whom did you specifically write this book?

Jason Cutter 4:35
I wrote that for people who were are like me, and in sales, so I had no intentions of being in sales. I didn't plan on being in sales. Again, my bachelor's degrees in marine biology, nothing to do with sales. After that when I wasn't able to make a career out of that, and I didn't want to do more schooling. I actually worked at Microsoft doing Tax support for a couple years. And then I kind of fell into a sales role without even realizing I was in sales. And what I realized in the process of writing the book is that I have received zero minutes of sales training at a company as an employee, no company has ever hired me and said, Okay, we're gonna put you through how to handle objections, here's how to use a script. Here's how to, you know, walk people through this, here's how to do a demo, like, I've never received a moment's training. Shortly after I kind of fell into sales, they always assumed I knew what I was doing. So I was the guy who had to teach everyone. And so it's completely self taught on the backs of lots of mistakes, lots of lost revenue, lots of things I did wrong, because I just had no guidance and no idea what I was doing. And so I wrote the book to appeal to those people who a, they they fell into sales, it wasn't a lifelong path. They didn't you they weren't a kid, excited about selling stuff to people, which I know some of those people, we know some of those people jointly where they knew they wanted to be in sales from from early on. And that's fantastic. Other most other people like myself, they didn't. And here's the other part that I really why I wrote this, too, is that most people by the time they enter a sales role, even if it's not a career, but a role. They have had experiences as a customer, in some capacity buying something, right. So they've gone out to buy a car, buy a TV, whatever it is, and most likely had some bad experience, which left a bad taste in their mouth, about what sales means, right? That old school, it's not fair, but they used car salesperson persona, the snake oil salesperson. And so when they enter into sales, they go, I don't want to do that to other people, because that sucks. And it's gross. And so I'm not going to do that. And they default to being an order taker. So they end up too much far on the other end, which is, they're really nice to people, but they're not really helping people by they're just waiting for people to decide which doesn't work. And there's a really successful place in the middle as a sales professional, that's not crossing the dirty line, but not sitting back, just hoping as your main strategy.

Kenneth Kinney 7:15
Well, so the base of being a good salesperson to you that you define it as being authentic, what is an authentic salesperson. It's a little bit of an oxymoron, if you will, but especially when I think about a recent car purchase, new car purchase, that was just as bad I could imagine as a used car. But you know, I started thinking about this as our is our read through the book. I don't even know how many people actually would know if they're being authentic or not. You know, I don't know how many car sales people know that they are acting like what we typically think of as a car salesperson. It's not everybody's taking a look in the mirror to define themselves as authentic or not authentic?

Jason Cutter 7:55
Well, and and I love that question. And a lot of people I've met with, especially over the past nine months, year, as we're talking about this phrase, right, authentic persuasion, people debate authenticity, and what does that mean, debate persuasion, whether that's good or not? To me, it's that combination. That's why I put those together as the title of the book is because it takes both parts, right is the authentic piece and the persuasion to make for a successful like sales professional, the authentic piece, and the way that I look at it is somebody being true to who they are, knowing why they're in sales and what they want to accomplish, like what their goals are. And then also understanding their strengths, and what makes them who they are. And the value that that has to the prospective consumer, right that the buyer, there's, a lot of times people enter into sales. And they think, oh, I've got to act like so. And so or I've got to act like this. And then they put on that persona, and they sell from that place, but it's not real for them. And it's just an act. I've, in fact, sat in call center as a visitor A long time ago, and I sat next to a guy who was in LA, and he's like, I'm just an actor. That's all I do. I get on the phone, and I act like whoever they want me to be. And I give them that performance. And then they buy and then I move on, right? Like, that's what he figured he was on stage, every single phone call. And that may work some of the time. It's hard to sustain. It's hard to deal with long term. And it's usually not very replicatable. You can't go from one industry to another if you're just pretending. So I think that's the biggest thing. And a lot of times when you look at the How do you sleep at night question regarding salespeople, if you're not being authentic and true to yourself, then that's a tough one. Now, there are people who will say I'm authentic to myself, and I love just talking people into buying crap they don't need and making lots of money and I don't care what happens to them. And that's true as well. But obviously none of us want to deal with that person, either.

Kenneth Kinney 9:59
So define what you think an order taker is.

Jason Cutter 10:04
So for me, an order taker is somebody who is in a sales role. If we're talking about sales, in particular, they're in a sales role. And they're not an active participant in the sales conversation and the decision making process, such that they're getting someone, the right person who has the qualified need, right, they have a need, they have a goal, they have pain that could be solved. And that order takers not helping them get out of their comfort zone and make the decision which requires change. An order taker is hoping the other person sees the value, and just wants to buy for their reasons. And fundamentally, there's a percentage of people that do know what they want to buy, they walk into the store, they make a phone call, they know what they want, and they make the decision. But most everyone else, if they knew what they wanted, they would have just already bought it. The fact that they're interacting with a salesperson, which no one most people do not enjoy the thought of having to deal with a salesperson look at, you're able to tell me what happened, your car buying experience. But you know, most people aren't like, Hey, this is awesome, I can't wait to go to the store and talk to a salesperson and see what they say to me and what they try to convince me. But people still do it because they need help. An order taker is not recognizing that and being proactive in the process.

Kenneth Kinney 11:26
Well, I always think of an order taker as someone who's not necessarily helping me get from point A to point z, which is solving some sort of problem in the way and a good salesperson. And I've been a good one and a bad one over time you recognize when you're actually helping somebody solve something for themselves or their business or whomever. But you know, you've run a call center. And I'm kind of curious, especially when you think of it from that perspective. You said, You wrote this book in a way for somebody that reflects you, you know, when you're a sales coach, now, how much of this do you think falls on the organization versus the individual? Because you can have a great salesperson and a crappy product, and vice versa? And, again, sometimes it's hard for those parties to identify what is the real problem? Is it the brand? Or is it the the individual salesperson? And that's hard to diagnose as well?

Jason Cutter 12:19
Yeah, so for me, I've had the fortunate, I won't say the luck, but the fortunate opportunities in what I've sold or been a part of, especially now as a consultant with the clients, and then I've made a conscious decision as well, long term is that I have not and do not want to sell something that people don't need, or is crap, right? Like, you don't need this, but I'm going to try to convince you of it, right. There's, let's say the the 18th CRM company that somebody is trying to, you know, sell you, but you're not using the one you have now. And it's like, okay, like, Is that really necessary? Is it really? Is it the same? Or is it different? And so for me, I think if it's something that's actually solving a problem, then it's not the product, it could be the company, or it could be the salesperson. But if if somebody if a consumer, a buyer company has problem x and you have solution x, then that's perfect, then we know it's not that now is it the company, a lot of companies, what happened is they go, Okay, we have this product to sell, we just let's hire some salespeople, salespeople know how to sell, that's what they do. And then we'll just trust them to sell. And that's like saying, okay, we want to win the Super Bowl, let's just hide it, let's just, let's just hire a bunch of football players, and then throw them together, and then just hope that they know what to do. And they can win, right? I think that hockey version that was called the Mighty Ducks, and it didn't work well, in the first part of the movie. It was not successful. And so a lot of companies just do that. And they're playing sales, but they don't have a system. They're not running it like an operation. And then there's the sales side where salespeople aren't getting the training and their mindset is stuck on. Here's what I think it takes to be successful in sales. And I don't want to do that.

Kenneth Kinney 14:12
So you're an excellent sales coach. What are some of the things though, that you've seen that you couldn't help teams overcome? And the reason I'm asking that way, is, is what you're tasked to do really to help the sales team or what the brand necessarily owns as a problem?

Jason Cutter 14:28
Yeah, I would say the biggest, the first challenge that always pops into my mind is the company culture, especially relative to being open and willing to change or get feedback. So there's a lot of organizations where, and if you're listening to this, and you're slightly triggered or offended me, you can call me and we can debate it and talk about it. But like, there's a lot of organizations where they're like, this is our way, this is what we've always done. We're not going to change our sales people do This, we don't need any help. Here's what we always do. And their metrics don't necessarily support their awesomeness, or their scalability,

Kenneth Kinney 15:09
you just name 99% of the companies out there.

Jason Cutter 15:13
Not necessarily. There's a lot of companies out there who aren't winning. And they want some help. A lot of times, they just don't know where to start, or they don't know who to trust. Because here's the problem is I'm a sales consultant, which means by default, I was also a salesperson, which, depending on how you think about salespeople, I am not to be trusted. And so it's a battle I have to face just to get people who go, oh, okay, he's somebody who can help me. And so, you know, thankfully, I encounter a lot of organizations who are open to help. But that's one thing, I can't change. If the culture from the top down in the company is one of close minded, here's what we do, I'm the boss, just do it my way mode, and that's who they've hired in sales and sales leadership. And that's just how it goes, then it won't work. If If, if you as an organization, if I take a recording of a sales call and sit down with your sales rep, and they are not open to feedback, and they think everything else is their fault, including Canada's world, which is the marketing and they say, well, the leads are bad, and the lead suck. That's why we can't close more deals. And they are not open to feedback. There's nothing, nothing that I can do.

Kenneth Kinney 16:24
When you talk about being authentic, and especially with inside sales. How much of that do you lean on? I'm thinking real to, you know, tactical examples, script versus no script versus some moderated script. How far do you let your folks go off the rails? Because there's a big difference between being authentic and just, you know, smile and dial and read from a script.

Jason Cutter 16:48
So that the answer to that question is always based on the metrics and performance. Right, and not being authentic thing. But well, but but so here's the stats that are really important to right, because again, it's not just the closing percentage, it's not just the number of sales, it's not the number of marks on the whiteboard, or the number of times you you hit the gong because you close the deal. It's also the retention of your sales, I generally deal with long term client acquisition type sales, where somebody is enrolled in something, and it's a service where somebody is going to be a client long term, right? This isn't an A here, buy this widget, and I'll never see you again. And good luck, I hope it doesn't break before you get home. This is like, hey, you're hiring this company to do this, or you're signing up for this subscription, or this program. And the ultimate goal that the company wants is that long term client, right? Nobody wants you to sign up for the gym and then cancel next week, because you realize it's crap and the salesperson lied to you. They want you to be a member of that gym long term. And so the things that I look at performance wise, is the closing percentage, but also long term retention and lifetime value, slash cancellation percentages of that salespersons deals. Because what I want is sales, I want the company to have clients long term, like for life, raving fan mode. And so if that's not there, then we have an issue. If they're just closing deals, that's not enough. And then working backwards. Sometimes it's the script, there's a lot of salespeople who they think their job is just to talk the crap in circles and features and benefits and just go on and on and hopefully confuse somebody enough that they eventually buy or overwhelm them or talk them into things. And that doesn't work. There's specific ways the sales conversations work and what people want from that consultative salesperson. So sometimes it's full on script, sometimes it's like you are so far off the map, you need to read this. And by reading this, it's gonna sound robotic, but it will actually work. I've worked in some environments where that actually works really well. For new people, they've got to be scripted so that they don't have to think about it. Because once they start thinking about what they're going to say it's over. And so sometimes it's evolution, sometimes it's, you know, triage where the problem is.

Kenneth Kinney 19:12
So how much do you lean on technologies to help you advance this as well. And the reason why I was thinking about this is, in particular, one of this shows sponsors, if you were leveraging certain technologies, like invoca, you're listening to your call center teams. And that gives you a remarkable capability, also optimize your ads on top of that, but it really can change the experience. Where do you really kind of sit with the technologies that teams need to rely on to help them get a little more clarity?

Jason Cutter 19:41
So here's what I'll say is the there's two main things like I'll say to this one is the fundamental purpose in this day and age and I will date and timestamp this show as 2021 right? So don't leave it In the can too long before you publish it is that this in this day and age, if you're still having humans interact with other humans to make decisions, which means you have a sales person interacting with a customer, and they're doing that over the phone or some kind of medium, they have one job to do, which is to get that person to make a decision that's right for them and for the company. Right? If everything else has been automated, there's automated chat bots, there's automated SMS, there's automated everything else, if you are using a human to talk to another human to, to help them make a decision, that human should only be focused on that one thing, which is the conversation, your job as a leader of a sales or operation should be to plug in technology as much as possible around them to facilitate the conversation and augment anything else that they shouldn't have to be doing manually. Right? In this day and age, there's very little, they should have to do manually other than just have conversations with other people. And that's where, again, the technology and the sponsor of the show come in and things like that, where it facilitates it. Right, the SMS lead knows, like, how do we get it so that you spend most of your day on conversations with people, and then the call data analytics feedback model. And that technology supports the management side, because one of the things that happens is that if I have 10 sales reps, and they're on the phone five hours a day, right, that's 50 hours a day of recorded phone calls, if I have one sales manager, or the team lead to a ratio of 10 sales reps, I have lost by about 10am, I've already lost the game, I no longer have any idea what's going on. And I've lost, I it's over. And so you have to have technology, if you want to scale and you want to be efficient and profitable, you have to be able to coach everyone. That's why if you look at like a sports team, like a football team, they have a team of people who edit the game footage down into little bits for every player and then show that to them. And what you see on TV that three hours is one segment of their week, which is nothing the rest of it. They're watching film they're practicing. They're getting better with a team behind them. And sales operations don't do that. So you have to leverage technology.

Kenneth Kinney 22:27
Yeah, that question answer was brought to you by invoca and drips. So one of my favorite chapters, though, later on, and I wish he would elaborate on chapter 19. what you meant by how a salesperson can be honest by saying no.

Jason Cutter 22:42
Yep. So I think this goes back to a comment I made earlier, which is how do you sleep at night, right? People who are not in sales have that thought especially when they get ripped off. They feel like they've been ripped off. They have buyer's remorse. It's like how, how a How is somebody allowed to do that? And how be how is somebody morally okay with what they did to me, right, we've all had those experiences, or known someone in that environment. And so what happens is if you're in a truly consultative sales role, and a consultative sales role, to me is where I have to first determine if you're a good fit. And then based on that, if you are a good fit, I'm going to see my role as a professional and I'm going to help you make that decision. If it's not a good fit, I'm going to tell you know, maybe advise you what to do instead. But I'm not going to force you I'm not going to force a square peg into a round hole. I like I said, I've never sold something to people that they don't need. I've also never been in an environment nor worked as a consultant environment where everybody wins, where anytime you talk to any single person they should be buying from you, right, like a magazine subscription, right? Like any human you talk to should be signing up for it like No, that's not what I'm focused on, which means there's yeses and there's nose, there's qualified and there's not qualified. And what I wanted to do in that chapter was empower salespeople to realize against the norm that they might think, which is I have to tell everyone that they need to buy and I need to push everyone forward. Well, no, that's what's wrong with sales, right? That's why people don't like that sales process. So instead, if it's not a good fit, tell people No. And what that will do to you energetically and for your mindset is when you make that shift, and it's like Hey, Kenneth, this is not a good fit based on what you told me this is not going to help you and here's why. And then here's what I suggest instead. And and that's it right when you do that. What it does is it also empowers you for when you say yes when somebody is a good fit when it's a square peg in a square hole. Then you know when you tell them they should by you mean it because otherwise you would have said no.

Kenneth Kinney 24:49
And as well a kind of elaborate if you will later on in the book where you you know even talking about selling with authentic persuasion how that helps generate referrals mean may sound obvious that it helps. But I mean, there's a real difference between authentic salesperson or someone selling through authentic persuasion. And now that helps generate referrals versus the opposite way. Yeah, I

Jason Cutter 25:11
mean, it's two parts, right? So it's that part that you just asked about, which is, if it's a good fit, I'm going to tell you yes. And the reason why is because otherwise, I would tell you, no. And I'll tell you, there's like, this is a long time ago, when I was selling and or helping my reps, close deals, where people would say, you know, customer prospective customers would say, well, you're just telling me that I need to sign up, because you just want me to sign up. It's like, no, if you didn't qualify, I would have told you, but here's why I'm saying you should sign up. And here's the situation. And here's how it's gonna benefit you. And here's the numbers. And people go, Okay, alright, like I just, again, coming from a place of abundance, I don't need to convince everyone to buy no matter what I've ever sold, I don't need to, which means if I tell you should, it really gonna benefit you. When you take that approach, and you're persuading, like a professional and helping people like a professional would in other industries, let's say like the medical field, then what happens is those people know that you solve their specific problem, and did it in a way that benefited them, where you happen to also benefit as a sales professional. But that wasn't your only driver. And when you do that, then you're getting referrals. And what's really fascinating, and this is super fun to blow sales people's minds with and companies is I just told, you know, Ken, if you don't qualify, you're not going to benefit from this thing that I'm selling. Right? I'm not going to sell it to you, even if you want me to, I'm just not going to do it. What are you going to turn around do? First? Sometimes I've seen people get kinda upset be like, wait, I really want to buy it's like, No, no, don't like stop, like, stop calling companies, just please stop trying to buy stuff. And then what's going to happen is you're going to realize that kind of like those pizza commercials when we were kids, like, I'm the last honest salesperson, right? Like the last one is pizza company. And so what happens is, that's so mind blowing, to have a salesperson tell, you know, like, you shouldn't buy this and you don't qualify that I have seen so many times that people who don't buy turn around and refer refer more clients, because they understand and the example I use in the book, you know, an analogy, like my mom, my parents had to get their dishwasher fixed. It wasn't working person comes to the house and says, Hey, this is like a $15 part. My dad's really handy. The guy told my dad said, Hey, you just go down there, you buy this part, you can install yourself, it'll take five minutes, I'm not even going to charge you. And I'm not going to do this for you. Because you can just do it yourself. Right? over the next six months. My parents, my mom especially referred so many people to that person, because she appreciated the fact that he could have but he didn't have to sell them something. And he didn't. And he chose that route. And she appreciated that honesty. And so like it's it's paid off a lot more.

Kenneth Kinney 28:04
Jason, what is your favorite kind of shark and why?

Jason Cutter 28:07
So for me, it's the bull shark. I really always been fascinated what I yeah, so for me, but you're tagging

Kenneth Kinney 28:14
great whales, right? Yeah, I

Jason Cutter 28:16
mean, greenways are cool. They get a lot of publicity. And they're giant, and they do crazy stuff. But I've always loved the bull shark because it goes into fresh water, which is mind blowing and scary, which I respect and appreciate. And then it also has some weird stuff, which I won't get into. But people can research it with the development of the babies inside of it and what comes out as a result of the super Baby Shark that comes out after taking care of its siblings in order to be the most dominant bull shark. So yeah, that's just the crazy shark.

Kenneth Kinney 28:55
Yeah, I don't dislike them, but I find them very pesky. And they're extremely curious. That's part of the reason why they're so they come into contact with people so much in beach waters, and everybody thinks every bull shark is a great white, but all sharks are good in my book. So where in the world were you tagging sharks, what parts of the world?

Jason Cutter 29:14
So I went to UC Santa Cruz for school and then we were tagging sharks in and around Monterey Bay. So we would do blue sharks and Monterey Bay did some Maiko sharks there in the slews Elkhorn slew I that's where I did my senior research project and tagged smooth hound sharks. And then we're doing great whites off of anuna Weibo just north of Santa Cruz in the surfing area. Yeah,

Kenneth Kinney 29:38
yeah. Beautiful. Well, JC It's a special time the show. Are you ready for the five most interesting and important questions you're gonna be asked today? Let's do it. Alright, number one. Biff loman or Blake from Mitch and Murray. Let's go with Biff. Do you know who the ladder is? No, Alex vol one in Glengarry Glen Ross. Ah, he was the sales guy that told him to put the coffee down and always be closing. Yeah. Depends on obscure reference, but I hope the salesperson would get it. So

Jason Cutter 30:12
I know the movie I don't remember his name or any of their names.

Kenneth Kinney 30:17
Truth be told, I didn't either. I had to look it up. So I figured I was hoping Mitch and Marie might ring a bell. Alright, number two, Shark Week on Discovery or shark fest on Nat Geo.

Jason Cutter 30:28
So I haven't watched Shark Week in a long time. So I am going to say shark week on Discovery. Because I remember the first year it came out and I had the VHS set to record them. So I could watch them throughout the year. And I just had stacks of tapes that I kept from getting recorded over of that first year. Shark Week.

Kenneth Kinney 30:51
Yeah. Alright. Number three, inside sales or outside sales.

Jason Cutter 30:56
You know what, for me, it's inside sales. And here's why I think outside sales is easy and cheating. And the reason why I say that is outside sales is person, the person. It's I can see you. We can build trust, I can read body language I can pick up on the other 90% of what you don't get when you have a phone call. I think it's easy. I don't know. I think it's you know, I think it's it's obviously it's not easy, because you're convincing somebody no matter what. But you take that and you go inside I started outside. And then what happened is I went to inside I didn't think it was possible. I literally didn't think phone sales was possible. And you have to be really good at what you do to pick up on everything you need to know inside.

Kenneth Kinney 31:39
Alright, number four, the beaches of Florida, or the beaches of California. beaches of Florida all Amen. Yeah. Now that you've come over to the gotten away from the dark side.

Jason Cutter 31:51
Yeah, yeah, there's there's and I'll tell you, I am no fun at the beach, especially in Northern California having tagged stuff that's right there. I know what's literally right out there. And I'm no fun. I do not want to go in the water. Because I know not like from jaws. I just I've seen it. At least in the in Florida. The waters clear enough you got a chance. True.

Kenneth Kinney 32:11
True that so the most important question you're going to be asked today. Number five is biscuits or cornbread.

Jason Cutter 32:18
Definitely corn bread. However, that's being a California guy and liking cornbread. And now being in the south. I don't know the biscuit thing. I don't know. We'll see. Yeah,

Kenneth Kinney 32:28
asked me in a year. Oh, just as long as they're not vegan or no dollar for our biscuits or anything like that.

Jason Cutter 32:35
Yeah. No biscuits with lots of butter. And this thing I heard about in Memphis is called chocolate gravy. That's that's a game changer.

Kenneth Kinney 32:44
Yeah. So Jason, this is an awesome book. Where can people find out more about you follow your thoughts on authentic persuasion. Get a copy of the book. In more

Jason Cutter 32:54
simplest places, if you go to Jason cutter dot com. That's the hub for everything I have going on, including the website for the book, which is that authentic persuasion calm, or it's available on Amazon as a hardcopy or Kindle or the audible version. But if you go to Jason cutter comm you find me on their LinkedIn, email me Jason at cutter Consulting Group. com.

Kenneth Kinney 33:17
Jason, thank you so much for being with us today on A Shark's Perspective.

Unkown Speaker 33:21
I appreciate it. Thanks again.

Kenneth Kinney 33:27
So that was my conversation with Jason cutter, the founder of cutter Consulting Group, a sales operation focused advisory consulting, and training firm, a podcast hosts, as well as the author of selling with authentic persuasion transform from order taker, to quote a breaker. Let's take a look at three key takeaways from our conversation with him.

Kenneth Kinney 33:45
First, to sell with authentic persuasion it takes someone understanding what their strengths and what values are, and not just selling anything to anyone, Jason looks at authenticity and sales with someone and I quote as being true to who they are, knowing why they are in sales, and what they want to accomplish, what their goals are, and then also understanding their strengths, and what makes them who they are, and what the value that has to the consumer or buyer.

Kenneth Kinney 34:11
Second, we spoke a little bit about the importance of using technology, especially in the call center environment. And Jason made a good point that if you're still having humans to interact with other humans, then that human should only be focused on that conversation to move things forward. And you've got to basically plug in the right technology to help them with those conversations. My sponsor invoke is a great example of that kind of technology.

Kenneth Kinney 34:34
Third, love the point on how some salespeople are just acting and selling from a persona that they may imagine. Now, obviously, this is not meant to indict all salespeople. But he makes a point when asking if you're an actor, acting like you're in a sales role, or do you authentically know, are you basically unstaged with every single phone call, and authentic salesperson and persuader is also someone who will say no, a lot of salespeople People will not but some of the best ones and the authentic ones will when given example of someone being authentic he said I quote you know when you tell them they should by you mean it because otherwise you would have said no.

Kenneth Kinney 35:13
Got a question send me an email to Kenneth at asharksperspective.com. Thank you again for the privilege of your time. I am so thankful to everyone who listens. Thank you to my amazing sponsors Invoca and Drips. Would you consider writing a review and letting me know your thoughts on the show? I love to read the reviews. And it sure does help me create better shows for you and me. It's time to be authentic. And by that I will authentically tell you that I'd rather be in the water right now. Please join us on the next episode of A Shark's Perspective.
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