Ep. 26: Selling From the Heart Author Larry Levine on How to Sell Authentically through Care and Emotion
In this episode, Darren Reinke chats with Larry Levine, Author of Selling from the Heart. Larry discusses what it means to sell from the heart, the importance of authenticity and substance in sales, what "heartset" is and how to develop it, and more.
Selling from the Heart’s mission is to bring authenticity and substance to the sales profession. Selling from the Heart brings a fresh way to think about sales performance and complements organizations’ existing sales tactics and processes by adding substance.
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SHOW NOTES
How College Chemistry Led Larry into Sales [1:15]
Where Larry Learned His Authentic Approach to Sales [4:18]
How Self Education Played a Significant Role In Larry’s Success [7:50]
Why You Should Read Everyday For 30 Minutes [9:28]
What it Means to Sell From the Heart [17:55]
What it Means to Have Heartset and How to Develop It [20:34]
What You Can Do to Bring More Care and Emotion to Your Sales Process [24:43]
The Power of Vulnerability in Sales [29:42]
How You Can Practically Practice Vulnerability [31:32]
Why You Should Fire Yourself on Friday Evening and Hire Yourself Sunday Night [32:43]
What’s Next for Selling From the Heart [38:46]
SHOW LINKS
Selling from the Heart Company Website: https://www.sellingfromtheheart.net/
Selling from the Heart Book Website: https://www.sellingfromtheheart.net/book
Larry Levine on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/selling-from-the-heart-podcast/
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For additional leadership tips, be sure to check out Darren's book - The Savage Leader: 13 Principles to Become a Better Leader from the Inside Out.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
“Selling From the Heart” Author Larry Levine on How to Sell Authentically through Care and Emotion
[00:00:00] Darren Reinke: Welcome to The Savage Leader Podcast, where I interview leaders from all walks of life so that you can walk away with tips to apply to your life and your career. But this isn't your traditional leadership podcast because I believe that leadership tips come from successful entrepreneurs in business executives of.
[00:00:21] Darren Reinke: But they also come from unexpected places like from Navy SEALs, successful professional athletes, sports coaches, musicians, entertainers, and more. So let's dive right in to today's episode. My hope is: You walk away with something tangible that you can apply immediately to your life and your career.
[00:00:42] Darren Reinke: Today's guest on the Savage Leader Podcast is Larry Levine. Larry is the author of selling from the heart, a book that has kicked off a company and movement helping sales leaders sell more authentically. Larry, thanks for coming on today.
[00:00:55] Larry Levine: Hey, it's my pleasure. Good to see you, Derek. Likewise.
[00:00:58] Darren Reinke: So take us back in time.
[00:00:59] Darren Reinke: How did you get into the world of sales?
[00:01:03] Larry Levine: How much time do we have, four or five hours?
[00:01:05] Darren Reinke: Sound good.
[00:01:07] Larry Levine: Are we having, are we going to have Joe Rogan as podcasts?
[00:01:10] Larry Levine: No seriously. I would say I fell into sales, so in, I write about a little bit and selling from the heart, but I double majored in college. I actually wanted to be a pharmacist.
[00:01:20] Larry Levine: I worked my way through college in a pharmacy, but I couldn't pass chemistry. So, I said if I can't pass college chemistry, there's no way I'm going to be a pharmacist. The next best thing was to get into pharmaceutical sales. Because I was working in a pharmacy as a pharmacy tech and I go that's cool.
[00:01:37] Larry Levine: I see people in nice suits and company cars and all that. And I got in NABARD after I'd just, said, Hey, I'm not going to be a pharmacist. I became enamored with sales just because I saw pharmaceutical sales reps come in. So, I double majored in college in health science and marketing. And I went through all the on-campus interviews, and I was always losing out.
[00:01:57] Larry Levine: I was losing out to salespeople because they had sales experience and. I just have college degrees, no sales experience. So, I remember I was getting married shortly, right after I graduated from college. My father said, Hey, you need to go get a job. You get married, you got to go get a job. And so now I'm going to date myself, Darren, and all the listeners.
[00:02:17] Larry Levine: I open up the yellow pages. So now I've just officially dated myself and I found the largest ad. There was. For a copier dealership because my dad had said, Hey, I heard, if you could sell copiers and last one year, you're worth your weight in gold and sales world. I parlayed that into a 28, almost 29 year career selling copiers throughout the Los Angeles marketplace, great times.
[00:02:42] Larry Levine: But I learned something along the way that if I was going to survive in a very dysfunctional sales environment with broken promises and busted dreams, a lot of sales turnover. A lot of mistrust and so forth. I had to do things completely different. So, I took, I just brought in how I was raised in, I was raised by a father who was a rocket scientist for the United States Air Force in a highly relational mom.
[00:03:08] Larry Levine: I smashed that together, Darren and I brought that to the sales world in a very unique way. I brought high relationship, a deep caring, appreciation to every single person I came across. I took better care and I out cared my clients than anybody else. And I wasn't the smartest person out there. I just knew that if I could bring the relationship aspect to the forefront, I'm talking about deep, meaningful relationships about care and respect, and even the L word, the love word, it would change.
[00:03:41] Larry Levine: And sure enough, it catapulted me through the copier channel on the LA market. I built deep, meaningful relationships with my clients that are still friends to this day, all because I was willing to do things completely different.
[00:03:55] Darren Reinke: Where did you learn that? I think about selling copiers and probably that's an imaging competing on price and so forth, but what, who are your mentors?
[00:04:01] Darren Reinke: Where do you go to, to learn all this and not to sell features and benefits and price, which still, whether it's copiers or in today's world technology and software and so forth, but where did you actually go about learning and.
[00:04:13] Larry Levine: So it's interesting that you bring it up is I'm a big believer that people are products of their environment.
[00:04:20] Larry Levine: Now we can say that about leaders and salespeople as well, your products, your environment. I look back on how I was raised, and I was raised by a highly educational father and a very loving relationship oriented. And I picked that up early on, and it carried that forward because I was real observant. My very first year in sales was really unique.
[00:04:40] Larry Levine: I learned a lot, and it was one of the most dysfunctional times of my life because I saw how salespeople were acting. I saw what they were doing, it's not doing. I saw how they were treating customers. I saw what was happening at the end of the month. I went on write-ups and I saw what was said, and I listened to what was said as not.
[00:04:59] Larry Levine: I said, there has to be a better way. The very is so to answer that I brought together how it was raised, but there were two books that I read my first year in sales. The first book was how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. The second book was how to master the art of selling by Tom Hopkins.
[00:05:19] Larry Levine: Two legends in fact, Tom's a personal friend of mine, and I took the relationship aspect of. Dale Carnegie's book because I think it's about building relationships and changing the way people think. And I just took the root foundation. I had a master, the artist selling, and I just applied those, but there was something else that I did that carried me through the beginning.
[00:05:40] Larry Levine: Part of my career is I'm a very inquisitive person. And I like asking a lot of questions. And I remember asking all of my customers, how would they like to be treated? What do they like? What do they don't like about salespeople? What's a great experience? What's a not so great experience? What would well, you, you can craft that perfect sales person, if that person ever existed, what would that person look like?
[00:06:04] Larry Levine: And I was just willing to try new things, but I think here's where it takes a little bit of a turn is I really never had a great sales manager. Or, for that matter, a leader. And based on how I was raised, I said to myself, this, if I can't hold myself accountable, nobody else will because they weren't. So, I've doubled down on myself.
[00:06:27] Larry Levine: I doubled down on learning. I just taught myself self accountability and just to always be learning and learning and never rest on my laurels. Because, I'm raised with a father, who's a rocket scientist, a mom who's highly relational. They both despise salespeople. Then I go into sales.
[00:06:45] Larry Levine: So I had all this going against me. All I did was just bringing all of this to the forefront, and it's called the sales profession for a reason. I just carry myself as a professional, but I just was an avid reader and I loved asking questions and I would just seek help. And I was never afraid to ask.
[00:07:02] Darren Reinke: Yeah, it's such a great point.
[00:07:03] Darren Reinke: Just having that outward focus, but also just underscores a bigger point. It's not just in sales, which is this whole idea of lifelong learning. And self-development because. You can't always rely on having a manager, or they're not more than a manager. They're a coach, and they're a leader who can develop.
[00:07:19] Darren Reinke: You got to take it on yourself to learn not just within the context of a job, but also even probably more importantly is between jobs. Most companies, aren't going to prepare you actively for the job that you want to have down the road. So it's really upon each of us to continue that growth and Devon.
[00:07:35] Larry Levine: Yeah. And I always invested in myself, whether that be the books I read or stuff that I listened to. So now again, I'm going back to dating myself because this was pre-internet is, the CD tapes and the cassette tapes that I listened to fast-forward today, obviously all that's online and they're podcasts, and you go on YouTube and accomplish the same thing who was really interesting.
[00:07:57] Larry Levine: I'm a big Tony Robbins fan. I remember this goes back a long time ago. I was listening to something that he said, and it's stuck in my head, Darren. And he said this because he reads, he's just an avid reader. And he went on to say that, he encourages people to read, 30 minutes a day. And I took that to heart because he said, if you don't read 30 minutes a day, we'd start to grow in your bind.
[00:08:21] Larry Levine: And if we look at this and the term in the world is sales and leadership. And if we're not constantly feeding our mind and constantly feeding our brain new things. To me, our brain just goes into this little complacency mode and I don't have a doctorate in any of this, but I've experienced it where if I don't read things for a while, if I'm not feeding my brain, I know it starts to happen.
[00:08:45] Larry Levine: So I always made it a quest to always learn something new and read something every single day.
[00:08:51] Darren Reinke: Yeah, I think that's sometimes what gets in the way for people is I just don't have time. And I think one thing I know that helps me and helps other people as well as is even redefining what work is and work isn't just, for me, it was always billable hours as a consultant and work is building your business, learning new things and reading and recasting that I know, even with reading in particular, I go, gosh, there's so much I want to go do and read, but it's carve out time midweek because that's such an important thing.
[00:09:17] Darren Reinke: And I love that it is. If you don't read, we'd start growing in your brain. What a great soundbite
[00:09:22] Larry Levine: it is, but here's, what's interesting. And I want to touch on this time for a second, because I think we, a lot of people in that I'm not here to disrespect anybody, by no means, but I think we use the time as an excuse.
[00:09:34] Larry Levine: I don't have time to do this. How are you managing your time or what energy are you cooking for? To do it. So, this is where, and again, I remember one of my very first mentors taught me this, Darren, in these gentlemen said, Larry, he goes, figure out when your brain works the best and capitalize on it, do all the heavy lifting and all of that.
[00:09:57] Larry Levine: When your brain is alert, when you're fresh. And I just happened to be a morning person, a really early morning person, forever and a day, I've been getting up at three o'clock in the more. Seven days a week. I have, even when I was in my set, in sales and even with what I'm doing today, but I carve out that early morning to work on May.
[00:10:18] Larry Levine: And part of working on me is reading, and I will literally read 30 minutes a day. That it is however much I can read in 30 minutes. And I think we, whether you're in sales, whether you're in leadership or any parts of your career, I think we can all agree. We can carve 30 minutes of a day. To read doesn't necessarily have to be a book.
[00:10:38] Larry Levine: You could read an online article. You could watch a podcast, you can watch stuff on YouTube. That's educational 30 minutes a day. You'll be amazed, what starts to happen?
[00:10:49] Darren Reinke: Yeah, for sure. For me, it's About writing, and I've just, it's just writing every day, making that an active muscle that you're working on.
[00:10:55] Darren Reinke: So being really intentional about that, and it could be writing anything and not always judging the output. Sometimes it's easy to go. What did I learn? What did I actually gain? Did I actually get a blog post finished? So, they get a book finished. Did I finish that book to learn something? I think it's a lot of, it's rewarding.
[00:11:10] Darren Reinke: The act of actually doing it. Not always just the outcome of doing.
[00:11:14] Larry Levine: You bring up a good thing about writing, cause you and I have had some sidebar conversations about this. I didn't learn how to write when I was young. I learned how to write. I'll be 57 here pretty soon. I learned how to write when I was in my fifties.
[00:11:28] Larry Levine: And when I talk about writing, I'm talking about writing blog articles. Again, stuff like that. And obviously led me to write selling from the heart. But I think by doing something with consistency and discipline over time, you start to learn new things. And I'm a big believer that everybody has the capability of writing.
[00:11:45] Larry Levine: You bring this up, we've spoken about it before. It's just a muscle. You got to work. And, coming out of sales in other, part of my backstory is I was fired at 50 years old. I was fired from a high-paying corporate sales job at 50, which led me into doing what I'm doing now. And I had to learn new things and I had to create new disciplines and I had to create new habits.
[00:12:07] Larry Levine: And a lot of it was just getting noticed and sharing stories and all that. And it was through the power of variety that my story got told. That's how people started to figure out what I was all about in the movement, being created at selling from art, but it was all about writing Darren. It's something that you get, we can't take for granted. I don't care whether it's reading or writing. Let's go back to the three things, reading, writing, and I'll throw it arithmetic, is all the things that we have to do that we did when we were kids, we got to double down on now we've got to continually be learning all these things.
[00:12:36] Darren Reinke: Oh, I'd love to, just to transition a little bit. You mentioned selling from the heart. So, how did that come to fruition? Obviously, you have a great success with the book and the podcast and creating courses. It even manifested itself as a company. So take me back to the beginning of selling from.
[00:12:49] Larry Levine: So it all started.
[00:12:52] Larry Levine: I will get started with the podcast, but I just touched on it a little bit ago. At 50 years old, I was blindsided, and I was let go of a company inside of a company, and I had to figure out what to do. And it was, it would've been so easy for me to, just to go back to what I knew. I could have been a VP of sales and I could have written out in a very complacent sunset in the copier channel here in the Los Angeles market.
[00:13:16] Larry Levine: But I did a couple of things. I reached out to my network and I reached out to my inner circle to start asking for help just to share, “Hey, here's what happened.” And I was looking at tap networks, Darren, and so forth. And my wife had said, Hey, it'd be easy for you to go be a VP of sales, but I know you very well, six months from now, you'd be bored.
[00:13:36] Larry Levine: And then you'd be looking for something else. And I remember the very first conversation I had was with Darryl, Amy and Darren, Darryl because he'd been on our podcast and I called Daryl just to reach out to him, share my story. And I was looking to tap his network, who does Darryl know that know somebody that I could at least have a conversation with.
[00:13:56] Larry Levine: And shortly into the conversation, Daryl flips the switch on me, Darren, and he goes, whoa. You don't need to go out and find another job, you need to go out and coach sales teams and sales leaders. What made you so different and unique in the copier channel, how you brought sincerity and substance and influence networks and build deep relationships with people, you need to go out and coach salespeople on how to do that.
[00:14:20] Larry Levine: I'd never done any of this before, ever here. I am at 50 years old, but I go, why not give it a shot and see what happens if it doesn't work? I know it can go back into sales in the first year and a half, two years. I will tell you this, Darren, it was pretty rough. It was, I was trying to figure it out, and I was trying to figure it out.
[00:14:39] Larry Levine: Two things happened. This was right before the podcast, and we touched on writing, and I'm bringing this up because it ties everything together is I had a conversation. With a guy named Keenan, his first name, Jim, but he takes Jim off, and he goes by Keenan, and he actually wrote the code on the front of selling from the heart.
[00:14:57] Larry Levine: And this goes back two weeks before Christmas. In 2015, we started sharing backstories. We had both very similar backstories, but he shared something with me that forever changed the course of where I'm at. Now. He says, if you want to get noticed in the marketplace, you've got to learn how to write. And you got to consistently write to reality.
[00:15:19] Larry Levine: And from that point forward, I've written an article every single week for now. Gosh, almost six and a half years. The reason why I'm sharing this is that it helped me get my story out. It spoke to my marketplace and it started to get traction and build a little movement around who I was and how I can help.
[00:15:38] Larry Levine: But it wasn't until I convinced Daryl to start a podcast with me, and he goes, what are two X copier guys going to talk about that anyone will listen to. And I said, I don't know, we'll figure it out. He goes, but I'm all in under one condition, you must come up with a really good name, but you're going to podcast by yourself.
[00:15:57] Larry Levine: And I said call it, selling from the heart. That was four and a half years ago. And at that time four and a half years ago is when selling from the heart was born, and you've been on the podcast. The nature of the podcast, Aaron, if we're just going to bring heart and sincerity. Authenticity to the forefront in the sales profession, in an environment that is sorely lacking.
[00:16:18] Larry Levine: And so through the podcast, the movement started to come about. The book came out three years ago, and it's been an easy ticket ride ever since. But I think what makes us unique and what makes me unique is, I'm willing to talk about things in the business world that people think about, but they have a hard time bringing to the surface.
[00:16:40] Larry Levine: And that's heart and sincerity and love, care, and respect. We can wrap this up and call it the soft skills, but it's the things that relationships are built on and whether you're in sales or whether you're in leadership, relationships matter and selling from the heart and the movement we're creating helps build the relational bridge.
[00:17:02] Larry Levine: And the gaps that exist, and it helps build the trust gaps and the bridges that exist out in the business world. And so in a very short period of time, it was through a podcast and through the book that the movements.
[00:17:17] Darren Reinke: So I feel about selling them from the heart. And we talked about sincerity and even love, which is probably a word you don't hear in many boardrooms.
[00:17:23] Darren Reinke: You definitely don't hear in sales conversations. So, take me back just to dig in that a little bit deeper in terms of selling from the heart, what does that mean? Practically speaking for a sales person, a sales leader, sales executive, or even someone who doesn't have a formal selling task as part of their role.
[00:17:39] Larry Levine: Yeah. Yeah. So, I'm going to preface this and say, listen, I don't have a PhD. In psychology. I don't have a master's in human behavior. I'm not bringing collegiate level terms to the forefront. However, I'm bringing this through a practitioner's eyes through, almost three decades in sales. And how I was raised is I'm a big believer in this, and here's what I'm going to challenge people on.
[00:18:03] Larry Levine: It's going to answer your question here in a second. Darren is if we can bring in our personal relationships, we can bring things like love and sincerity and care and respect. To our personal relationships. All I did was be able to remove the barrier. And I brought that right to my professional relationships because to me that's how relationships are born.
[00:18:25] Larry Levine: So to me, selling from a heart is doing the same thing that you do in your personal life. You bring it to your professional life. It all starts with doing the inner work. And I've always been a big fan of doing the inner work. And I always say this, the inner heart work that you do, H A R D the inner hard work you do is the hardest things that you're going to do.
[00:18:44] Larry Levine: But it's the most rewarding. And I say this because in order to sell from the heart, you got to get your heart, and unfortunately, a lot of times are hard to misaligned to what we're doing. And it's hard to sell from that. Now that we're into the podcast four and a half years, it's our question.
[00:19:00] Larry Levine: You experienced it. When you came on the podcast, we always ask people, what's it mean to you to sell from the heart? And I've heard some really great responses. But I think the two that hit home that I think bring this to full circle as this. I remember somebody said it's hard to sell from the heart of your hearts, broken.
[00:19:18] Larry Levine: Somebody else went on to say this, it's hard to sell from the heart. If your heart's not. So in order to sell from the heart, we've got to be willing and commit to work to the inner part of what we do, which is hard work. So, I'm a big believer selling from the hearts is a combination of three things.
[00:19:35] Larry Levine: It's about heartset. Get your heart, get your mind, and always continually to hone in on your skillset and always have your customer or your client. However, you want to refer to them as best interest in.
[00:19:49] Darren Reinke: Yeah, I love that. Obviously, I think a lot about the inner journey of course, and mindsets and skillsets, but I talked about heartset.
[00:19:55] Darren Reinke: That's pretty interesting. And I imagine also in terms of just people hearing that, and that's, I'm all about the squishy, but that's even like the squishy of the squishy in terms of getting your heart set, getting your mind right. Talking about what that actually means, and then how you actually get people to make that leap because that's a pretty big leap for most people.
[00:20:11] Larry Levine: It's a huge leap. Let me share it with you. This. In business. We've heard this before. And so, this is the best way to describe this. And I think it, I think. Everyone who's listening will really understand. This is how many times in the business world, whether you're in sales or you're in leadership, by the way, I think everyone's in sales is we've heard this expression before, and I'm going to use you as an example, Darren, if that's okay.
[00:20:35] Larry Levine: That's just say I'm a C-level executive, and you're trying to sell me something and I got to let you down easy because I'm deciding to take my business elsewhere. I'm deciding to do business with somebody else, and we've all heard this before. Darren, our team under careful consideration, so forth, we weighed this really heavy.
[00:20:55] Larry Levine: We went back and forth, but we decided to take our business elsewhere. Darren, I don't want you to take this personal. It was only a business decision. How many times have we heard that before? It may not be exactly rolled out like that, but I think you get where I'm going with this.
[00:21:13] Darren Reinke: I could see that even just in whether you're in client services, you're selling, whether you're interviewing for a job, whether you're dating, frankly.
[00:21:20] Darren Reinke: Dude, it's so true.
[00:21:21] Larry Levine: It's so true. But I bring this up for a reason because business is personal, and I brought my heart to the forefront because the more comfortable I made somebody feel the more comfortable they would start opening. No CRA. And the reason why I say this is I grew up in a channel that was highly commoditized, heck.
[00:21:45] Larry Levine: So copiers my whole life, Darren, there wasn't one difference between copier a and copier B in the minds of my clients and future clients. So, I couldn't really differentiate on product, that was, in their eyes, we're on an equal playing field. What my differentiation was how fast I got to somebody.
[00:22:06] Larry Levine: How fast that I connect to that person and relate to that person. How fast can I make Darren feel? How fast can I get Darren comfortable with me? So in tune, Derek and Darren will start opening up and start sharing things. Does it work with everybody? No, of course not. I can't do business with.
[00:22:26] Larry Levine: However, what I did was, I assume, found out who are like-minded business people and lighthearted business people. And when I started to create that alignment, magic started to happen. I had deals that I sold that were at higher profit margins than anybody else, I wasn't smarter than anybody. In fact, there are people way smarter than me.
[00:22:48] Larry Levine: There was people that were way out to strategize. But when it came to care and when it came to respect and when it came to bring it, even the love word, to the forefront, I had no problem doing it because I got vulnerable enough with myself that I was willing to bring it to the forefront. And I think that's the biggest thing that people are afraid to do.
[00:23:08] Larry Levine: They're afraid to bring it to the forefront because they create all these stories in their head. Gosh, man, if I do all this stuff with Darren, and he ends up not buying anything from me, I look like a tool or. I'm just throwing it out there. Its, this is my challenge is if we can bring this to our personal relationships, this is my challenge.
[00:23:27] Larry Levine: Why can't we bring it to our professional relationships? That's the $64,000 question. I was just willing to do it. I removed the barrier.
[00:23:36] Darren Reinke: So how did people practically do that? That's a pretty big leap and I think a lot of people have a hard enough time, frankly, being vulnerable and being more heartfelt, even in their personal asthma.
[00:23:47] Darren Reinke: A experienced salesperson who succeeded in different ways. How do you get them to make that shift? What are some practical things that someone can do? Obviously, you talked about the inner work, the self-reflection, but what does, can someone do practically speaking to be more connective in terms of what their clients and customers go back?
[00:24:06] Larry Levine: This is what I encourage people to do all the time is going back to your customers, go back to your customers and ask. What do they truly crave? And again, I'm a big believer in the words that people use and the messaging that people use, and you gotta be willing to pass this. It's amazing. When, when I work with sales people and sales teams, they have a hard time doing this because they craft all these stories in their head of why they can't do this.
[00:24:33] Larry Levine: And boy, I'm really putting myself out there, and I don't know what I'm going to hear, but it's amazing. I just asked them to check. Just go to one of your customers, start asking them what words would you use to describe me? How I've been taken care of you? In fact, what to, what are the words, care and respect and appreciation?
[00:24:52] Larry Levine: What do they mean to you? How would you feel? If somebody brought care, respect, appreciation, and love to the forefront as a sales person, how would that make you feel? Can you imagine that people doing that? Darren, I coach people to do this, just to ask it takes a while, and it's really uncomfortable, but the only way you're going to grow as a sales professional is you gotta be willing to do uncomfortable things.
[00:25:19] Larry Levine: This is really uncomfortable stuff, but I know people can do it because they do it in a personal life. That's my challenge. And again, this isn't doctorate level stuff, but I know people can do this because they've done it in their personal lives. And if you can do it in your personal lives, if you can do it in your professional life, watch what starts to happen to the relationships that you've formed and watch how that starts to transfer into.
[00:25:47] Larry Levine: Now, they will open up literally. They will open up to other people to say, man, I can't believe this sales guy that I have for the sales lady that I have, most relationship oriented person. They bring care and respect to the forefront. You should check this person out again. It's not rocket science, it's not rocket science stuff, Darren, but it's really difficult because it does cross the line for a lot of people.
[00:26:12] Larry Levine: And they're not willing to cross that line. Just try it. I remember this goes back to. 20 some odd years ago, I was out on a ride out with one of actually I was in a really unique position when I had a copier dealership. I was in sales, and I'll set business partners, and I was on it. I was my business partner for those who don't know what rideouts are.
[00:26:32] Larry Levine: We just spent the day together. We just spent the day together, go see customers, and then we'd go on a couple of appointments. And I would literally walk in and hug people, not bro hug people. And I'd give ladies hugs and things like that. And we'd go out into the car, and he goes, you're the only person I know that could pull this off.
[00:26:52] Larry Levine: And again, I want your listeners to, I'm not crossing the lines in an HR kind of way, Darren, and all that. That's not what I'm here to say, but what I am here to say is there was a way, in a real subtle way. I brought that love to the forefront because I grew up in this commoditized sales channel, but I just knew that if I could tug on somebody else.
[00:27:13] Larry Levine: And I could bring care and emotion and how I was raised to sales. I was willing to do it. I had nothing else to lose at the time. And I saw at work my goal. I'm just going to keep doing this because that's who I am. That's how I was raised. And that's how I carried myself in the sales world. That's how we built, selling from the heart.
[00:27:31] Larry Levine: Again it's creating the alignment of people who believe in this who want to become better. This isn't for everyone. I would say this is not for the weak at heart. It's really. And it's just, and it's just it's no different than what you do, Darren and leadership stuff. There are people that are gonna align to your message.
[00:27:47] Larry Levine: And there are people who are not going to lie to your message. I can't convert somebody. Who's a non-believer in any of this. And I tried a long, long time ago, but people who believe in authenticity and heart and sincerity in the business world, Then we bring this to the forefront, and we just magnify it, and we just do it, and we do it, and we do it over and over again until it becomes a routine.
[00:28:13] Darren Reinke: Yeah, no, I said that you haven't said, but something I've learned from my own life is through writing the book. I became more comfortable with being more authentic, and it brought that more into the work that I do with clients and the unexpected. The benefit was, it's actually more fun just to be more, to show more of your real self.
[00:28:30] Darren Reinke: And I suspect that with you selling from the heart, it's it is more of that personal relationship. So, there can be more joy and more personal fulfillment from your role.
[00:28:38] Larry Levine: Yeah. I always told people I got nothing to hide. I really don't. I removed that a long time ago. If I'm going to build relationships with people, they're really going to get to know who I am and the way I act, the way I act online, the way I carry myself online is exactly the same way I am.
[00:28:55] Larry Levine: If you've met me face to face, I always tell people I'm the most transparent person you're going to meet. All you gotta do is ask. I will tell sometimes you don't even have to ask. I'll just tell what was interesting is I had mentioned. The more comfortable. I made people feel the more comfortable, they would start sharing things, which meant I had to go first.
[00:29:14] Larry Levine: I just share a little bit of me in order for them to share a little bit of fam I'm a big Steve Harvey fan, Darren. I know you know who Steve Harvey is a big family, few big families, few junkies. But I remember watching this is a couple of years ago. I remember watching a YouTube video that he did, and he talks about that at birth.
[00:29:35] Larry Levine: Everyone's been given again. And he goes on to talk about his gift was he believes that he has been given the gift of being funny because he believes that you don't go to college to learn how to be funny. You don't get a degree in being funny. You're either funny or you're not funny, but he talks about the gift is something at birth that you've been given that comes easy and natural to you that you don't think about for me bringing heart and sincerity and authenticity to the forefront.
[00:30:03] Larry Levine: I don't think about it comes easy and natural. It doesn't come easy and natural to a lot of people. However, I think we're all genuine, authentic people. We just choose to carry ourselves the way we carry ourselves. But I believe authenticity and heart and all that. It's a lifestyle. It's just not something you can just flip on and say, yeah, I think I'm going to try this today.
[00:30:25] Larry Levine: If it works great. If it doesn't, but it's something that you just, I think it's ingrained in all of us. It's just how we choose to carry ourselves.
[00:30:34] Darren Reinke: And how do you do that? If you're imagining people sitting there thinking, gosh, this sounds great. I think I am I'm okay. Or I'm ready to start being a little bit more personal and more vulnerable, whatever the words they may choose.
[00:30:44] Darren Reinke: How can someone actually practically speaking know they're ready for that and get started? I would
[00:30:48] Larry Levine: just start really simple. Even just jot down on a piece of paper and go old school. What are some of my core values? What do I want to be known for? How would I describe myself? Simple. Things like that.
[00:31:03] Larry Levine: That's where I started is I just started with my values. What do I want to be known for? How would people describe me and so forth? And in, I just started to write it down. I started internalize it and I started to ask people, how would you describe me? What words would you use to describe me? What's value mean to you?
[00:31:24] Larry Levine: And I just started to smash all of this together. Again, this is. The doctoral level stuff. I just taught myself this stuff because I was just willing to ask, and I just went on these journeys to find out. And that's what I just bring in, into working with salespeople. It's just coming right through your practitioner's point of view and just say, Hey, if you can do a couple of these things and reflect upon it.
[00:31:46] Larry Levine: And then I love reading stuff like this. So maybe that's where it comes from as well is I'm on a quest to always learn stuff about.
[00:31:53] Darren Reinke: Absolutely. One of the things I stood out to me in your book. Amongst other things is you talked about Friday at 5:00 PM, firing yourself and then hiring yourself on Monday at 8:00 AM.
[00:32:05] Darren Reinke: Talk to me about that. I know the weekend is obviously the magic, but what does that mean? Why do you do that? What's the actual process of doing that? What does that benefit you?
[00:32:14] Larry Levine: It's just to mentally say, what have I been doing? So, I said, stuff, imagine. And this isn't literal, but if you just mentally said, okay, Darren you're fired, you're fired. It's Friday five. O'clock you're fired. Now you've got to think about what you've been doing with yourself, what that week look like, what the months look like, what the quarter looked like, what got you to where you're at and use the weekend to fix that. And then you rehired yourself on Sunday night before you went to bed, or first thing Monday morning with a fresh mindset and a fresh outlook on what would happen.
[00:32:46] Larry Levine: It just it's just to get people to think, Darren, and that's why I wrote something from the heart. The way I did it was to poke the bear a little bit, but it's to say, Hey, listen, we can all agree. We can do so much better than we're doing. But we gotta be willing to look ourselves in the mirror and say, I can do better.
[00:33:04] Larry Levine: I will do better. Throughout the whole books, I'm a sales geek at heart. I talk about the difference between sales reps and sales profession. And the whole reason why I wrote it, the way I did, was I was harder on myself than anybody else. And I'm just saying, imagine what would happen if you worked harder on yourself than anybody else did on you?
[00:33:25] Larry Levine: That's the whole purpose behind this. This is to get people to think if you find yourself on Friday at five o'clock, and you thought about it long and hard over the weekend, as far as what are you doing to yourself, and you rehired yourself with a fresh perspective, what would happen at love?
[00:33:38] Darren Reinke: That for a lottery's is such a practical thing that you can do.
[00:33:42] Darren Reinke: It forces you to look really critically at the way that you're spending your time and whether you're managing your time effectively or focusing on. Your highest amount of most important tasks, but also are you living up to those values that you talked about that are really important to you? But then I also like the idea of, if you're rehiring yourself, it's a little bit of a flipping the page, so to speak, in terms of acknowledging.
[00:34:05] Darren Reinke: Those things that, that you do well, and it's a fresh start. It's an acknowledgement of the successes you've had. But even more importantly, it's just let's reset ourselves at what's realigned with what matters most and set the path moving forward. I don't know if that's any part of the process you do with that really makes me think about so much richness you can gain from a very simple exercise.
[00:34:26] Larry Levine: And it's interesting because. I just love every aspect of sales, but this applies to just about anything in life these days is we live in this world where they don't trust people straight across the board. I think trust is at an all-time low. I don't care if you're in business, you're in sales. It doesn't really matter.
[00:34:45] Larry Levine: We can all agree. Trust is extremely low right now. And everyone's skeptical about what everyone has to say. And then you're really keying in and listening to people because we think that a lot of people are fully, what, the BS acronym. So, I always kept this in my, in the back of my head. If I operate in a world where they don't trust me, they're skeptical about everything I have to say.
[00:35:06] Larry Levine: And they think you're full, it's. You know what? The way you change people's perspective is to carry yourself with integrity, to lead your life with authenticity, to be sincere, to being cared, to bring respect to them. It changes how you're viewed, and watch what starts to happen to conversations and relationships.
[00:35:28] Larry Levine: It's really interesting because these are all the things that people talked about a hundred years ago. It's no different, I read how to win friends and influence people in the late eighties. And that book was written in 1937. I just think over time again, I'm just going to say we've overcomplicated a lot of things.
[00:35:46] Larry Levine: I've just kept things really simple. I lead a simple life and sales. I lead a simple life and how I work with people. I'm a big believer. You double down on the basics and you double down on relationships, drive, business and relationships. Drive your personal life as well. Remove those. And what do you have?
[00:36:05] Larry Levine: We're humans. We crave human connection, or we crave a sense of belonging. It's no difference, no different in business.
[00:36:13] Darren Reinke: Yeah, I think that it's interesting as I think people step over that so many times, I think, oh, we've got the hottest new tech, you have to find some way to stand out. But what you're saying is keep it as simple as is connecting in a real humanistic way.
[00:36:24] Darren Reinke: And I remember, I forget who said this, but people buy from people they like and buy. I don't mean just as if you're a salesperson. If you're in a negotiation, finding strategic partners, getting higher dating, et cetera, it really comes down to creating that real human connection.
[00:36:40] Larry Levine: Yeah. In, and in the beginning, Darren, they may not know me.
[00:36:44] Larry Levine: They may not like me, and they may not trust me. That's just the way it is. However, if I can make them feel comfortable with me and if I can connect and relate to them immediately, to me, that's the first part of the process. Is connect and relate. Those are the two words that I think everyone needs doing grain and really understand, Hey, how do I connect with that person?
[00:37:07] Larry Levine: And how can I relate to that person at a human level? And here's, what's interesting. We live in this technology-driven world. Everybody hides behind technology, but how do we humanize ourselves through the use of technology to better connect and relate to. And the only way, in my opinion, that you can truly connect and relate to somebody as you got to find a place into their heart.
[00:37:31] Larry Levine: And if you don't, everything's kept on the surface, and it's just, to me, it's just the first word that comes to my mind. Just a passive relationship.
[00:37:39] Darren Reinke: So what's next for selling from the heart? Obviously, you've done so much in terms of starting with a podcast, a book, a sales training, sales coaching, like what's the future hold.
[00:37:48] Darren Reinke: Like what are you guys looking at doing next in terms of bringing this message to more people in a more meaningful.
[00:37:53] Larry Levine: The next journey is selling from the heart, just around the corner. So, the outline for the second book's done, it's still selling from the heart, but it's no more empty sewage, which plays off of the last chapter of selling from the heart.
[00:38:05] Larry Levine: The subtitles going to be how sales professionals build trust in a post trust. So, we're going to take the core philosophy around selling from the heart, and we're going to turn it into an equation, Darren, in how to build trust and build trusting relationships. It's all about building authentic relationships with meaningful value, inspirational experiences.
[00:38:29] Larry Levine: And you time that by, you multiply that by daily discipline habits. And that's the next version of selling from the heart just around the corner is we're all going to be working on authentic relationships with meaningful value. Creating those inspirational experiences. And we're going to double down on doing this consistently with discipline habits.
[00:38:48] Larry Levine: And that's what we believe is building trust. So, we're going to take selling from the heart. We're going to take the next version of selling from the heart, bring it together to build trusting relationships on the corner, reading that book.
[00:38:57] Darren Reinke: When's that coming out and the idea?
[00:39:01] Larry Levine: It's going to be next year.
[00:39:02] Larry Levine: Just now as we're recording, as I just started to get into writing it. So if everything goes well, it's probably going to be by the summer of 2020.
[00:39:11] Darren Reinke: Larry. I appreciate your time. You're a busy guy. Obviously, I know how all consuming writing a book can be and running the running of business and all that work.
[00:39:18] Darren Reinke: And people go to find out more about your book, more about you, connect with you on social media.
[00:39:23] Larry Levine: You can find everything. We're creating a seller from the heart. It's something from the heart.net. If you want to learn more about the book you can go to selling from the heart.net forward slash book, you can find me all over LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
[00:39:37] Larry Levine: You can find the podcast and the blog all on selling from the heart.net.
[00:39:41] Darren Reinke: And Larry, thanks so much for coming on.
[00:39:44] Larry Levine: No, it's my pleasure. Look forward to next time. Darren, take care.
[00:39:49] Darren Reinke: Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Savage leader podcast. My hope is: You're walking away with tactics that you can apply to become a better leader in your life and in your career. If you're looking for additional insight into. Be sure to check out my book titled, The Savage Leader, 13 Principles to Become a Better Leader From The Inside Out. Also be sure to subscribe to the podcast and I would truly appreciate it. If you left a review and also rate the podcast. Thanks and see you all on the next episode.