P.O.D. People - Sales Influence Podcast - SIP 610

0:00Welcome to the sales influence podcast where we talk about finding the why and how people buy. I'm your host Victor Antonio, thank you for joining me, super excited to have you with me. Love the fact that you're listening to the podcast. Thank you. Today we're going to talk about pod people, P-O-D people, pod people. Now, before I get into what pod people means, you know, let's talk about success in general. I like to ask people, you know, what's your goal? That's one of my standard questions. Tell me what your goal is. Tell me what you're trying to do, where you're trying to go, and then how are you going to get there, right? I love asking this question because the answer to those questions, simply what's your

1:01goal and how are you going to get there? Just those two questions. Tell me everything I need to know about an individual. Their answer reveals everything. And what I found is something very fascinating, almost like the parade or principal, the 80 20 rule. 80% of the people can tell me this is what I want to do. This is where I want to go. This is what I want to achieve. But then I'm going to ask them, how are you going to do that? How are you going to do that? See, there's a difference here. There's the what questions, what I want to do. But then there's the execution question, which is how I'm going to do it. And many people have figured out what they want to do, you know, where they want to be, but few have taken the time to figure out how they're going to get there. And the fact that they cannot articulate a plan, an approach, tells me that they're living in a state of persistence of delusion, again, persistence of delusion, pod, P-O-D. They're living in this state where they just, again, I don't know if they're hoping

2:04to one, maybe they'll get lucky because when I ask them, well, how are you going to do it? Well, you know, Victor, you know, we're going to try certain things. He would works. Okay, you're hoping to get lucky. I also know by what they're telling me that they don't have a plan. They're hoping to get lucky. They don't have a plan. And if they do have a plan, it's usually one that's very light on details. In other words, some scribbled outline of how they're going to get there. And immediately I know in my brain, they're not going to get there. I'm not saying that you have to write a 50, you know, page business plan to figure out where you're going, but I believe have some concrete steps that you're going to take. It's a cute over time that you have to do in order to reach your goals. So when I talk to people and they say, well, Victor, I'm still thinking about it. You know, there's different ways. I'm going to approach the market. You know, I don't have a plan yet, but I'm putting something together. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, when you get together for the holidays, I'm always fascinated by people who last year, and maybe even two years ago, maybe even three years ago, we're talking about, you

3:06know, this is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to, you know, this is my goal. And a year goes by and we meet the next year again for the next holiday and they're still talking about the same thing. Two years passed by, they're still talking about the same thing. Three years later, guess what? They're still talking about the same thing. They just talk and they don't execute. That is persistence of delusion, pod people, people who just like to talk about what they're going to do, but they don't actually do it. Many years ago, I used to watch this show, I don't know if you're too young to remember this, but old school should have remembered this, there's something called the gong show. That's where people with, you know, minor talent would actually get on stage and actually perform and hopefully they wouldn't get the gong, which means they'd have to get off stage. They were horrible, right? And that was this guy who always went on this as he had a trumpet and he would say, I'm going to play my trumpet, I'm going to play it now. Okay, I'm going to play my trumpet, I'm going to play it now. Man, I'm going to play my trumpet, I'm going to play it now. And his whole stick was to just keep saying that, but he never played the trumpet and

4:10eventually got the gong, right? So every time he would come back, he'd do the same thing. I'm going to play my trumpet, I'm going to play it now. I'm going to play this trumpet, I'm going to play it now. When I hear people talking about these people who were the pod people talk, that's what they remind me of. I'm going to start my business, I'm going to start it now. Oh, I'm going to start this business, I'm going to start it now. Oh, time to start this business, oh, time to start it now. But they never start. And every year, again, they hope things will change. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. You know the rest, right? Expecting different results. What's fascinating is that these same pod people don't see themselves as being insane for continuing to think about doing something and never doing it and hoping something will change. They believe hope is a strategy. Hope has never been a strategy. There was never will be. They hope that they'll be discovered. You see this a lot on social media, especially. There's a lot of people on social media who post beautiful pictures of themselves, got

5:15the cool look standing next to a nice car, right? They're at the beach, sipping pin your caladas, right? They show you their toes, right? They show you, you know, they're on a boat or something, whatever it may be. But you know that 90% of that stuff, if not more, is fake. It's like we have fake news. We have fake social media and everybody's pretending to be something that they're not. It's amazing. You can take all these cool pictures. You can put up all these great quotes. That's another one of my favorites. You got a lot of people who talk about achieving your dream and they post all these wonderful quotes by all these other people. My favorite part is that every time they post a quote, they give Will Smith credit. That makes me laugh because I'm like, Will Smith did not say that. Will Smith got that from somebody else, but for some reason, that should be a meme, right? Every quote in the world should be given credit to Will Smith. And these are people who put quotes up there and all they do is put wonderful quotes about succeeding, taking risks, doing the things you have to do, making it happen.

6:16But then I know some of these people in real life and I know that they're not taking action. I know that they're not executing on the plan. They're telling you they're reading the book, they'll post a picture of them with a new book. I just bought this book. Here's the book I'm reading. Well, that's great. Reading a book is one thing, executing on what's in that book is a whole other thing. These are people who living again, it's a persistence of delusion. These are pod people. They don't want to put in the work. And that's the problem. They don't want to put in the work. And the question is why? I think they're afraid. They're afraid of failure. They're afraid of rejection. But it's always interesting to me how people can be so delusional. They think it's easy. Look, if you want to be successful, one, you have to be clear. What is it that you're going to do? Let's just start with the what? So three step plan. Here's what I want to do, right? Here's what I want to do. Be very clear. If you want to be a trainer, here's what I want to be. I want to be a trainer. I want to be a speaker. I want to have my own business. Whatever it may be, here's what I want to do.

7:18Then step number two is how? How are you going to do it? What are your steps? How are you going to execute? How do you get tactical? What are you going to do? In other words, here's what I want to do. Here's how I'm going to do it. And then, like anything else, we assign it a timeline, right? Because again, a dream without a timeline is not a goal, right? Because it'll never get done. Without a timeline, it'll never get done. So in other words, set another way, a goal without a timeline is a dream. So we need timing. So here's what I want to do. Three step process. Here's what I want to do. Here's what I want to accomplish. Number one, to get out, to not be a pod person. What I want to do, here's how I'm going to do it. And here's by when I'm going to have this done, when will I start executing? If you can figure out the what you want to do, how you're going to do it, and when you're going to do it by, now you're not a pod person anymore. You're out of that. In other words, we have to figure out how to get out ourselves out of this. Now, if you find yourself, if you're listening to this, you go, you know, Victor, I think

8:21that's me. I think that's me. Every year I talk about wanting to do something and I never do it. I never do it. Well, here's what you need to do. You need to figure out what training you need, what education you need in order to have the courage to make that decision to move forward. Sometimes what's holding us back is not so much the fear of rejection. It's the not knowing how. So if you need training, get the training. If you need the education to begin this study, I have a simple saying, no train, no gain, no train, don't gain. If you don't train yourself, guess what? You're not going to move forward. One of the things people ask me, Victor, how can I be a great salesperson? I always say the same thing. If you're not getting the results you want today, but yet you're not doing anything about it, you're being a pod person, right? That persistence of delusion, that something's going to change. So what do I recommend? What I recommend to all my students, right? Go to my sales velocity academy.

9:21You know, go in there, study the courses on selling, start from the basics, how to sell, then move up to the more sophisticated, how to present, how to pitch your product, and then how to quantify value. All these programs are in there. All you have to do is train, no train, no gain. So again, if you're listening to this and you're a pod person, it's real simple. Figure out what you want to do. Make a decision. Two, determine how you're going to get there. Will you get it right the first time? No, but you take steps. How are you going to do it? What plan or execution are you going to put in place to make this happen? Three, put a timeline. I want to have this done by three months, six months, one year, two year, whatever it may be, and last but not least, remember, no train, no gain. If you don't have the education, I think the more education you have, the more certainty you have, the more certainty you have, the more you reduce that anxiety, reducing that anxiety allows you to launch yourself forward into what you want to do. So you are no longer a pod person.

10:24Anyway, that is it for this sales influence podcast. Don't forget to leave me some feedback on iTunes, Stitcher or YouTube. Let me know what you think. I'd greatly appreciate it. Also, as I mentioned, check out my online sales training platform, the Sales Velocity Academy. If you're serious about increasing your sales velocity, check out salesbalacityacademy.com. It's 25 plus courses, 400 videos, my 13 books you cannot go wrong. No train, no gain. Lastly, I want to thank you for listening. This is Victor Antonio, always reminding you, selling ain't hard, whether you know how. Take care. Great speaker. Is it someone who delivers real content that the audience can use? Is it someone who engages the audience on their part of the learning experience?

11:26Or is it someone who can motivate an audience to push them beyond their comfort zone and discover new abilities? The answer is yes, but the most important thing to remember is that I'm not there to look good. I'm there to make my client look good. Simply put, it's never about me. And it's always about them.