How To Be Relevant In An Interview

AI-Generated Transcript below. There may be errors.

Claire Davis 0:00

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of today's medical sales leader and I am so thrilled to bring you my guest today. His name is Josh Braun. It's somebody who I actually, gosh, Josh, I met you through right here on LinkedIn where this is gonna be airing today. And I have to say that you're the first person that I know personally, who has gone toe to toe in hostage negotiation with Chris Voss. So tell me how that felt.

Josh Braun 0:48

I know it's interesting, I prep for that exercise. For those that are not aware he does this exercise called 60 seconds or should be dies. And the simulation is you have to say things to be able to extend the clock. And if you don't, the clock sort of ticks down and if it gets to zero, you end up killing the hostages. And I knew this exercise, and I prep for this exercise. But when we actually got on the podcast, and we did it live, I just came unglued. I think I got about five seconds in before my heart was beating at like 220 beats per minute. And I tapped out and it's a good reminder that you can know something but not be able to do it until you get a lot of reps in. So it was a really good reminder that like I kind of knew it, but when I was under the gun, I just couldn't I fell apart and he luckily said okay, okay, we're gonna we're gonna because he saw I was about to have a heart attack.

Claire Davis 1:41

And true Chris Voss fashion, by the way. And for those of you who who haven't met Josh or or Chris Voss yet either Chris Voss is a master hostage negotiator. And I actually thought you did rather well, when you had to be on the spot in front of the master himself. So give yourself a pat on the back.

Josh Braun 1:59

Thank you. Thank you.

Claire Davis 2:00

That was high stakes right there. Yeah, yeah. But super cool. You know, I, I really liked actually how, if you if you go back to that episode, I binged it twice, because it really is that good. You have such a great interview style. But he mentioned immediately, your heart is probably about to beat out of your chest. And I just thought, Oh, my God, thank you. Everybody's feeling the same thing. My heart is pounding. And I'm not even there. So I thought that you guys handled it handled it really, really well. But I'm so glad you're with me today. Thank you so much for joining me. You know, for those who are listening, mostly medical sales professionals here today, Josh is one of my favorites because he approaches sales in a different way. I think that if you've been in the industry long enough, and frankly, if you've been in sales long enough, you've heard the Challenger selling, you've heard the consultative selling, and all different iterations of how we should implement best practices for selling. But after a while, and if you're still in the game, I think that you know, people have come around to the realization that sales really isn't a one size fits all. And it's not about pushing the the customer into making a decision anymore. So I'm hoping we can kind of start a little bit with your journey going from I'm in sales, to mastering and figuring out that what has worked forever, or seemingly worked forever. doesn't work anymore, and how you ended up now becoming the amazing sales trainer that you are, can you kind of walk us through your journey first?

Josh Braun 3:32

Yes, so 2009 and I am a salesperson for jelly vision, which was a small boutique agency out of Chicago. And after two or three months of cold emailing and cold calling, I land a meeting with one of our dream accounts, which was Verizon. And that meeting went so well that Rick the head of Digital Strategy invited the team to Basking Ridge, New Jersey to pitch the execs. So the following week, we get on a plane fly out to Basking Ridge, we pitch and during the pitch, all executives are sort of nodding their head. It couldn't be going any better. After the presentation is over, Rick pulls me aside and goes you guys not get out of the park. On the plane ride home. I'm high fiving. My boss. I'm high fiving, the creative director, and I'm thinking about all the cool things I'm gonna buy with my commission check a couple days later, I follow up with Rick for next steps. He doesn't respond. I call him he doesn't answer and leave a voicemail message. She doesn't get back to me. follow up, follow up, follow up. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I never hear from Rick again. I never know why that sale didn't close. until about five years later, when I get this alert on LinkedIn that he had switched jobs. And switch companies got a fancy title. So I sent them off a congrats. We had an exchange and that led to a phone call. And during the phone call five years later, I said Hey, Rick, what happened to that deal? Because we just did it in house real casually. And then I asked him the million dollar question. Why didn't you tell me? And I'll never forget what he said. He said I was afraid of you. And I said I'm afraid of me. I'm like an old Jewish guy from Boca Raton. Oops, lightweights, like look, I'm not very intimidating, because I was afraid you were gonna try to talk me into the gun with you. You're pretty persuasive and pushy back then. And I thought it would just make more sense to sort of disappear. And that's when it hit me that I had spent my entire sales career reading books on how to persuade people how to talk them into things, but it was having just the opposite effect on Rick and God knows how many other people. So there's a time for persuasion, but it's not the first step. The first step is being able to create an environment where prospects feel comfortable having a conversation with you, so you can get some more truth. Because without truth, you can't have a transaction without truth or following up. Without truth. You're hoping deals close. So that would set me on this journey of how do I create an environment where prospects don't feel like they're being pushed? Because that's what salespeople bring? It's the natural dynamic salespeople are trained to close. And yet, when prospects smell the commission rep, they sort of pull away. So that's, that's what sent me on a trajectory in 2009, from persuading to get into more truth.

Claire Davis 5:59

Yeah. And I love that you, you know for for all of you who just heard that phrase he threw out there to commission breath. Can you talk a little bit about what that is? Because I think that, you know, the phrase in itself, we all kind of get an idea. But does everybody in sales have commission breath? And what does that mean to you?

Josh Braun 6:16

Yeah. So I don't know. You probably be in the situation, Claire, where you're like in the mall, and you're going somewhere, and one of those kiosk people locks eyes with you and says, Can I ask you a question? And if you're like most people, you're like, I'm good at your pretend to getting a phone call. Why is that? Why do you why do most people do that? Clint, why do you think most people just like say, I'm good? Or they don't like engage? Why do you think that is?

Claire Davis 6:41

I think it's a lot like the person who, you know, it's it's a lot like Rick and your example. They don't want to be strong armed. Right? I mean, it's not a it's a push. And I don't think we really want to be pushed at the end of the day. Would you agree?

Josh Braun 6:55

You kind of know what's coming. So all salespeople are biased. Right? They all have a vested interest in getting something and prospects know that they've had experiences with mall kiosk people before. So there's this rap that has this reputation salespeople have, because they have a vested interest in getting the sale, that they don't put the prospects best interest first, they put their best interest first. And this starts way, way, way before you're walking around in malls. I mean, I remember when I was five years old. This is when this started. I mean, I love to read comic books. And in the comic books, there were these ads for these things called Sea Monkeys. And yeah, look like six foot tall things that you could train and I was going to train one to beat up my brother who was a year younger, I saved up my money. My mom, let me order it. I couldn't wait for this thing to get there. As soon as it came, I put the water in it. And I was like, what it was like this big. And it died in like two weeks and you couldn't train it to do anything. It was the first time I was duped by a sales sales message. But this happens all the time. So salespeople make these promises, I'm going to 10x this, I'm going to 20 and prospects I've grown skeptical because they've been duped and manipulated before. So we are really starting at a big disadvantage when we approach something just because of the seller buyer dynamic. Claire Davis 8:06 Yes. And you know, I think, well, first of all, that's so young to be so keenly observing of Oh, my God, I just got taken. Five, that's pretty observant. That's how it feels right at any age. And, you know, there are a lot of best practices out there. Right. There are a lot of things that, you know, back in challenger, selling days, you know, every no is a step to a yes, right, push, push, push, push, push, use their their first name a million times as their favorite word in the universe. And I think it obviously a lot of this is coming straight from your interview, because I just listened to it again with Chris Voss. But, you know, I think that we've got to give people credit to, there seems to be this sort of veil between like the sales team and the prospect as if the prospect doesn't realize they're being sold. But of course they do. Of course they do. And so I really like your analogy there. So we're Where do people start to begin to turn the ship here, because, you know, there's a lot on the line, they've got to be in sales, they've got to exceed in sales so that they can put food on the table for their families. So how do they start getting with the idea of selling without being pushy, without the agenda of trying to trick someone into buying from them? How do they switch it?

Josh Braun 9:27

Yes, so this is the most important part of the whole process. And I'm gonna kind of walk you through why it starts actually with your intent. So if your intent is, I think it's my job to talk everybody into my medication or my medical device, everyone needs it. If my goal is the sale or the meeting, if that's my intent going in. Everyone needs my grass fed beef delivered to their door because it's amazing grass fed beef, and my job is to talk everyone into it if that's your intent, which is right because a lot of salespeople are quoted and they have put food on the table. So if that's your intent, what happens is when you approach people, you behave in ways that are consistent with that intent. Because your thoughts, this is just neuroscience, what you think affects what you say. So if my intent is I got a book people, no matter what, what ends up happening is when someone says, I don't eat meat, I'm a vegan, I've been a vegetarian for 30 years, you think that's an objection that you have to overcome? Well, you just haven't tried our meat yet. This happens all the time. I mean, I just, I just did this exercise at a sales conference and said, How would you overcome this objection, you sell meat to a door. And the prospect says, I'm a vegan, I've been a vegan for 30 years, I don't believe in killing animals. And every salesperson tried to think how to overcome that. Because their intent is I gotta get the sale, versus maybe that person is not a fit. For the first shift here is to let go of assumptions and expectations. Of course, you have a hypothesis of how you could potentially help. But you don't know until you actually have a conversation with people, there could be any number of reasons why your thing is not a fit. Maybe the doctor is retiring next week, maybe what they have is getting the job done, there could be any number of reasons. Maybe this person is vegan, you know, for any any number of reasons. So this shift of letting go of assumptions and detaching from the outcome, and letting prospects persuade themselves, which we'll get into a little bit. Rather than explaining and persuading. And talking at people which we established doesn't work. Because you're the mall kiosk person, what we want to do is we want to shift to asking someone a question that's going to get them to scratch their head and think a little differently, so that they're leaning forward, so that we can understand their motivations versus us giving them ours. And it turns out that people change for their reasons, not our reasons. And yet salespeople like to give our reasons, our value proposition. I'll give you just a quick example of this. Yeah, imagine you get an inbound lead. And there's two sales reps. And they work for two apartment complexes. And the prospect calls the first apartment complex looking to rent an apartment and they say to the salesperson, do you have a pool? And the salesperson says with unbridled enthusiasm. Not only do we have a pool, it's a 25 meter lap paint lap playing pool. It's got Remar sighting. It's got a beautiful marble around the thing. It's got umbrellas and lounge chairs. It's the best pool in Boca Raton. And the prospect says, Oh, that's too bad. I have a two year old, I don't want them anywhere near a pool. They call the other salesperson at another complex who's not attached to the outcome, asked the same question because your apartment have a pool. And this salesperson in a calm way says this sounds like a pool is very important to you. And the prospect says, well actually, it's not I have a two year old kid that want them near water. And the salesperson says I have a two year old too, which is why I live here. The pool has a fence around it that can only be accessed with a fob. When it's not in use. It's covered. And there's a lifeguard on duty 24/7 When it's opened, if you'd like to share with you, the prospect says I'll be right there. Right. So this idea of I need to understand what the prospects value versus what I value. And so getting to the motivation, we can talk through different examples of how to do this get into the prospects motivation, rather than you telling them what your motivation is, I'd have the best drug, this medical device is the greatest thing since sliced bread, of course, you're going to say that you have a vested interest.

Claire Davis 13:17

Right? Right. It's brilliant, because truly unless we go into figuring out what their needs are, right, what they even care about, how can we ever be relevant? I work a lot with folks who are looking to get their next step in their career in medical sales, too. And I find that there's a real parallel as well with when they're going into the interview, another negotiation situation, right high stakes negotiation situation, you have to prove yourself as the right candidate for the right fit role, right? It's both have to fit. And so often, you know, we can Google and we can find what are the top 20 interview questions for medical sales. And you can get them and you can practice them and you can get them down pat. But then if we go into that interview, and we share all that information, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It very rarely has the effect of uncovering what their problem is that they're dealing with, they might not need to know at all what your 90 day plan is, they might need to know what you know how long you're going to stay with the company because people keep leaving. So they don't want a quick hit. They want a long term. So I really like what you're sharing.

Josh Braun 14:28

I mean, one of the things I would do in that scenario, just brainstorming here, let's say you're applying for a medical device, jobs salesperson job, and they've screened a bunch of resumes and they've selected you for an interview. One of the things that I might say in an interview is this. Hey, Claire, you've gotten a lot of resumes for this position. And somehow you thought mine was interesting enough to bring me in here. What is it about my resume or cover letter that you thought looked interesting enough to want to talk to me today? So now I'm gonna understand what their motivation might be and looking at your resume? Well, I like this, I'd like that. And now we're hearing their motivation. I do this with inbound calls all the time. Whenever I get an inbound lead, I say, Hey, before I tell you about my training program, you've probably seen me on LinkedIn. Maybe you've watched some of my videos on YouTube, perhaps you've listened to a couple of episodes on the podcast? What is it that you think I can help you do better. And then the prospect tells me my value proposition which is much more valuable than me telling them this, they might not like cold calling, or cold emailing, they might want something completely different. Maybe they want to work on listening, or whatever the thing is, I just want to listen to someone says, Why should I choose you? And I might say, the traditional approach is when we say how great I am. That's me talking again. And when you're talking, and you're explaining as Chris Voss said, You're losing, because of course, you're gonna say you're the best. So another approach is, I don't know, you could hire John Barrows. You can hire a, b and c, what is it that would inspire you to want to hire a former kindergarten teacher? And then they tell you the reasons why they might want to bring you in. It's the same thing. If you're approaching a doctor, we wouldn't want to start pitching. We want to start by acknowledging who they are. Now, you might say, Hey, Dr. Jones, as someone who's been in this medical profession for 25 years, I can tell you're really passionate about X y & z What is it, you want to get them sort of leaning in a little bit to that? I know you didn't have to meet with me today. You could have, you know, opted out of this thing. What is it that you saw that prompted you to want to chat with us for a couple minutes? Right. And then from there, you might say, Hey, I'm sure you've thought of it curious to know, if someone was like doing this doing this for 25 years? What are your thoughts on an x, which is maybe the drug or device that you're selling? Because chances are if this person has been doing the job for 20 years, they know about what you're selling already? Right? Right. So you got to kind of bring out that this is about bringing out someone's motivation. You're kind of surfacing versus persuading.

Claire Davis 16:59

Is it also an element of trust building? Because you're sharing with the person you're speaking with your prospect that you're giving them credit that they know more than people normally give them credit for?

Josh Braun 17:13

Absolutely, I mean, that's, that's really ego stroking right? We never want to ever tell anyone the wrong. I'll give you an example of someone came to me, it was a window salesperson knocked on my door and said, Josh, I noticed that the garage window, you have a crack in it, why haven't you gotten that fixed? That's gonna make me defensive, because you're basically saying, You're a moron. For not getting it fixed. You're gonna tell me I'm doing my house chores wrong. And salespeople do this all the time, whether they realize it or not, they're telling people are doing their job wrong. Right. So a better approach is, Hey, Josh, I noticed that you have a small crack in your garage window. Is that something you're looking to get fixed anytime soon? See the difference there? It's it's subtle. But there's a difference there. I'm highlighting a problem. But I'm not assuming that the homeowner doesn't know about it. Perhaps there's a number of reasons why they don't want to get it fixed. Maybe they're short on money. Maybe they're moving? Maybe they've already got a vendor for who knows? You never want to tell a prescriber persuade? Yeah, that's the persuasion that backfires. The, the questions are key, asking questions that surface problems that illuminate problems are a superpower. Like, give me an example of what I mean by that. Well, imagine for a second that you are sending a bunch of cold emails out as an organization. What the salesperson knows that the prospect might not know is that half of those emails end up in spam. So what the salesperson could do, instead of pitching when a prospect picks up and says, Hey, John, hey, Claire out, we know that about 51% of cold emails landing spam. If you don't mind me asking, how are you ensuring that the cold emails your SDR send, don't land in spam today? And then just be quiet? What you're gonna hear us? What do you mean? Well, I don't know what I think we're doing next frenzy. Or they might say, you know, we're not doing outbound. We're not sending any emails to which case conversations over. Right. So you're asking these questions to make people think I'm not sure to bring up their motivation again, rather than you telling them your motivation.

Claire Davis 19:15

Yeah. Okay. So they start to explain a little bit about kind of what they're looking for. And just thinking, Hmm, okay, he's on the same side of the table with me actually. Right. He's, he's in he's got a vested interest in what I have an interest in. I mean, I feel like that's really powerful. And it is unlike what traditional selling has taught us for the last 20 years. So is this new? Is this just a better use of psychology? Where does this all come from?

Josh Braun 19:45

I don't know if it's new. I think the first thing to keep in mind though, if you're going outbound, if you're if you're approaching people, is that you have to have a point of view. You have to know something that the prospect doesn't know you have to have a hypothesis they may not agree with you, they may know about it, but you actually have to have a perspective. From I'll give you another kind of quick story on that just so you can bring us in. I mean, several years ago, I'm in the mall with my wife, I needed nothing. She was shopping, we were gonna grab true food after the shopping excursion to kill some time, I just walked into a fit to run store and not needing anything. If the store associates said, Hey, what brings you in today? I would have said nothing. If she said, Can I help you out? I said, I'm good. If you said we got these brand new books, and they got these great salts. Notice I'm good, I'm good. I'm good. But she didn't do any of this. Then she looked down at my sneakers. She said, Are you a runner? I said, Yes. She goes, what distance are going to finish my first marathon? And she said, Have you ever had a gait analysis? And I said, What the heck is that next minute, I'm on a treadmill in the store. This is the frame and she zooms into my ankles. And she goes, You notice how your ankles are overpronate. And when you run? And they go, yes. So watch. Here's the problem is if you run into sneakers that are not made for pronated feet, you can get plantar fasciitis and get sidelined. If you'd like I could take a look at your sneakers to see if they're made for pronated feet. And sure enough, six minutes later, I'm spending $180 on new sneakers and insoles. The point being that she knew sounds she had a hypothesis. So if you're going and you're approaching someone, you have to you have to have a hypothesis, a perspective on what it is that's broken about the current way, because if nothing's broken, if they're making progress, there's no reason to switch because switching is really risky. Mm hmm. Claire Davis 21:21 I think that, first of all, I hope your wife was watching when you had to be on the treadmill, treadmill in public. And that's, that's so fun. So I think a lot of times, what I remember back when I was in sales, and of course the folks that I work with, you're listening now, you know, we go in, and we're told no all day long. I mean, it's just part of developing the thick skin. And if you've been doing it long enough, you just you become immune, and you keep moving. But I see that that's something that you uniquely focus on. And it's not overcoming those objections. So if that woman said, you know, if she she was probably prepared for you to say like, no thanks. You know, I'm good. Like, I don't need any more shoes or what have you. And so she didn't pitch you something that you could easily object to she was just getting curious. Right?

Josh Braun 22:15

So curiosity is a key thing, right? So the talk track that she had didn't lend itself to I'm not interested. See the talk track that would have lended itself to analysis, it is the traditional sales pitch. The reason that I stopped you in the store today is that we have a breakthrough in Sneak as soon as the prospect here's the reason for my there switch is gonna go on that damn being sold. What I'm doing is I'm asking a question, that's gonna get the prospect to think, Hey, have you ever had a gait analysis? I can't really say, I have a vendor for that. It doesn't really make sense. I can't really say, can you send me an email? I can't really say, can you send us information? It doesn't really make sense. So a lot of these objections are created by the rap at the beginning, and how well, yeah, you're kind of losing people out a little because you're going in, and you're sort of in that mall kiosk persuasion about?

Claire Davis 23:03

Yeah, you know, speaking of, can you do you feel like these, this style of curiosity and not going in not giving them something to object to right away? Do you think that it works just as well, virtually as it does in person? That's one thing that God, God, God. So that's one thing, that's really, you know, of course, everybody has had to jump on Zoom and learn how to, you know, communicate and get by in the last three years. However, specifically, in medical sales, a lot of hospitals and offices have closed their doors, many, just many as a as a rule for safety, which, you know, of course, we understand, but, you know, it's caused a huge shift in how they sell. And while a lot of the other industries that have sales in them, which is almost every industry, have been able to kind of get back to more in person meetings. Still, there's a lot of medical sales folks and healthcare organizations that aren't allowing the in person interaction unless, for example, you're a med tech rep, or you're a device rep and you're in the O R, and they they need you to walk you through it. So do you feel like this translates to a virtual setting too?

Unknown Speaker 24:13

Here's my take on this. Let go of things you don't have any control over.

Josh Braun 24:20

So I don't have I just got done with a training. I did take a flight from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale, and the flight was delayed twice and there was a guy losing his marbles over this. He was getting upset as if the flight is doing to him. Right? Because when you focus on things you don't control, it's a recipe for being angry and upset all the time. So if I don't control if I meet someone virtually, or in person, I'm going to tune that out. In fact, in my life, I always look at things in the two buckets. Do I control it or not? If I don't I tune it out completely. I don't control pace meetings or virtual. So sure I can start to think about is it better as I don't know. It doesn't matter. It is it just is Is flights being delayed just are. Right, so I'm gonna have the intent of I have a hypothesis, I'm gonna have a conversation with this person, some people will be comfortable opening up sharing some more and continuing the conversation, some won't. I have a surfers mind, surfers minds, they don't get set up upset when they lay down on a wave. They just sort of paddle out. And they wait patiently and they ride the next wave. And there's always new waves coming. It's only when you get fixated on this person that's on the Zoom thinking that they're the only wave where you start to go down the rabbit hole. So whenever I talk to prospects, I'm like, Okay, here's a wave that came to me, right, I prospect to them. And it's gonna either be a short ride or a long ride. And it's okay either way, good and bad waves are all part of the same experience to a surfer. So I kind of treat all this the same way. It just kind of tuning out what you don't control is a profound idea. Because you don't have to think about it. Like I don't control it. It is what it is. It just is.

Claire Davis 26:00

Yes. Okay. So speaking of things we can't control my earbuds fell out to do. So while I recalibrate here, okay, so let's dive into that a little bit. Because it takes so much of the pressure off, and it gives such a greater perspective. And I love your thoughts on this. So speaking of your hat that says, detach, what else? What other ways can we detach and practice the art of detachment? Like having a surfers mind? You know, and not hinging everything on this one sale? What what do you say to, to those who maybe this is a new concept, the best way that I know to go down this path is to practice mindfulness.

Josh Braun 26:39

So I know that's a big buzzword. But you can't get better at anything that you haven't been taught, or that you haven't practiced. And so there's an app that I've been using for a long time called waking up by Sam Harris, it's five minutes a day, okay. And I treat it like brushing my teeth. Just because you've been taught something doesn't mean you shouldn't be practicing. I mean, Buddhist monks have been practicing meditation for 20 years, but they do it every day. Serena Williams knows how to hit a forehand, but she practices every day. So this is a practice. And what you learn in mindfulness pretty quickly is that most of the time, you're unaware of your thoughts. Thoughts are just coming into your head all the time, your dog, your kids, where you have to be, you're not even thinking about your thoughts. They're just coming in all the time. And the thoughts drive how you feel. And if you're unaware of your thoughts, you're going to feel a certain way all the time, usually not going to, you might not even know why. What mindfulness teacher teaches you as you are, start to be aware of your thoughts. simple act of observing how you're feeling is a profound skill. When you can actually just observe your thoughts, it just turns the volume down. And now you have a choice. You can say, hmm, I want to do this, or you know what, I don't want to do that I want to do this, I want to feel this way or that way. But if you're unaware of your thoughts, you're sort of a slave to your thoughts. Because your thoughts again, getting back to the beginning, affect how you feel. So mindfulness, and specifically the Sam Harris app, waking up, and I'm not affiliated with him at all, is a really good way to sort of get into this mindset of detachment.

Claire Davis 28:16

Oh, wow. Okay. So I mean, this isn't just for selling, right? This is really how we can operate. In any phase of our life. One of the things I really enjoy about the content that you put out on LinkedIn, if anybody's not following Josh, please do yourself a favor and do it right now. Finish the podcast first, and then the podcast. But one thing I really like is that you bring your these concepts that you're sharing with teams and sales people all over the world, to your everyday life. And a lot of times you do it with your wife in tow, right, you'll have a great post. And one recently was you too, we're having a probably maybe a stage argument and talking through two very common ways that people end up butting heads in a conversation. But by using some of the methods that you're teaching all of us like detachment, and like you're sharing now, it was moving the conversation forward so that she and you felt understood, and not judged. So can you talk a little bit about that? Because I love this idea of practicing this mindfulness and this art of detachment, but then it should once we get good at things like this, it should influence the rest of our lives. So can you tell us more about that?

Josh Braun 29:36

Yeah, I think it starts with being aware of your thoughts. So when you're not aware of your thoughts, someone will say something to you. And you'll react. So my wife will say, hey, I want to eat. She'll say I'm so sick of Japanese food. And I'll say why are you sick of Japanese food? And that's going to create some defensiveness, right? That's an immediate reaction. I'm just gonna say Whatever matter where my thoughts if I'm aware of my thoughts, and my wife says, I'm so sick of Japanese food. By being aware of my thoughts, I can slow down for a second. And I can think about how I want to respond in that gap. It's the gap. That's everything. And in that gap, I can say something like, this. Sounds like you're in the mood for something else. See how different that is? Unless you might say, I'd like to have some Mexican food. And it sounds good, right? So if you're not aware of your thoughts, you react. A good friend of mine has a seven year old kid. He's our car buff guy loves cars. And his kid would have this habit of getting in a car eating Doritos. And it would make him bonkers. Because he didn't want his car messed up. He didn't like the fact this kid was eating Doritos. He has stuff on his hands and all this stuff that just goes everywhere, right? But he's now gone through mindfulness training. It's kind of on the same path time that we started about the same time. We're by no means experts at this. But in that moment, now he's got in the car yesterday, he was telling me this open the bag of Doritos. Actually, it was Cheetos worse. Okay. Yeah. And because he's now aware of his thoughts. He's like, I'm about to get mad at my kid for eating Cheetos in the car. What else could I do? And in that gap, he decided to do nothing. He thought to himself, there's only 15 Cheetos in the bag. I could make this a big deal and ruin the entire day because we're going to the zoo. Or I could just let my kid be for six minutes. And eat the Cheetos? Why do I have to impose my Cheeto habits on my kid? Who am I to determine what is and what isn't? Should be eaten in the car. I don't want my my kid my product? Or can I keep my kid. And so we did that moment as he let his kid eat the Cheetos. And sure enough, in five minutes, she knows we're done. It gave a kid a towel and everything was fine. If he didn't have this scale, he says, I told you 1000 times to stop eating Cheetos in the car, he rips the Cheetos away puts in the time and the whole day is ruined. Oh my gosh. Well, this starts with the starts with again, being aware of your thoughts, which is what mindfulness really starts to teach you. But you have to practice it every day. You have to rewire 50 years of reactionary, you have two kids, you could probably relate to this you have two kids like probably really well when you're talking about your brother to your part.

Claire Davis 32:21

So my kids are two years apart. And you know, they very much want to be each other to an extent. If one is playing with Legos, the other and wants to play with Legos. If one wants to, you know, ride in the front seat, the other one wants to ride the middle seat and the other one wants to ride on the way back. And now we've placed the car seats further from each other. So it's a lot less car fighting. But I mean, there have definitely been those moments like today, Mommy has to do a podcast recording. But I'll have my youngest my five year old come in and come in and come in. He wants to he Mommy, I need you mommy, I need you. Hey, can you can you color can you color can you color? And I'm like No, not right now. Not right now. And the other day I was recording a podcast. And luckily it was a fellow parent. And I said, you know, what? Do you have five minutes, I just I just want to go, I just want to go check in with him for a minute. Because in my mind, I'm thinking, if I don't get this podcast done, I won't have 45 minutes to work with this person who's given me their their graciously given me their time. And you know, they just won't keep quiet. Right? So this person was so very generous. I walked over for five minutes, he just wanted to show me a pirate ship that he drew for his brother. Now first of all, I had to stop myself from crying. Because it was so sweet. And it was such a reminder of what's really important. And I sat there I colored with him for about four minutes. And I said buddy is do is it okay, if mommy goes back to work? And he says, Yep, that's it. I'm good mom. And I was like, perfect. I came back in, I joined my guest again, it was no big deal to him, and we moved on. Whereas I think before I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have. And I'm no perfectionist for mindfulness by a longshot. But I have to say that, you know, from being on LinkedIn from from learning from other people like you from doing the work that it takes to build your business around your family. Some of those things you you either have to learn or you sink, right and it's not always perfect, but when I when I had a chance to use that principle the other day, it really panned out, and I'm so glad I took the time.

Josh Braun 34:38

What did that feel like when you broke out of that and you actually had that interaction with your with your child, so much peace, like peace?

Claire Davis 34:44

Because otherwise parenting and running a business at the same time can feel so incredibly frazzled. You know, at times, you're just trying to do everything at once and And I just felt like, there was a little bit of peace between he and I, we like, reestablish that connection. And then everybody got what they needed in that moment. And then we just moved on, it probably saved a mountain of tears and frustration later in, you know, 90 seconds, 120 seconds.

Josh Braun 35:19

So what happened during that moment, because you're right, most of the time, your negative story that you tell yourself in head, like, Oh, my God, I'm not gonna have 45 minutes, this isn't gonna work out. And you're so right. Like, nobody cares. Nobody's listening to our podcast, we're not like that important. What happened in that moment that causes you to have what I call that gap? Right? You sort of caught yourself saying, Hey, I'm telling myself this story. What else might be happening here? What other options do I have? Then? Sure, you could have chosen to ignore your kid, but use, you have a choice? What was different about that moment, that allowed you to have the gap and ultimately say, You know what, I'm gonna take a timeout here. And I'm going to choose this door instead of this door.

Claire Davis 35:55

Well, part of it was I was interviewing a mindset coach. I'm not about to lose it in front of this gentleman. You know, and, and I think that, you know, recently, we've gone through some tough events, as a family, we've lost it a dear fixture of our family a couple weeks ago. And it did trigger for us the reminder of what's really important, you know, we came back to real life after a funeral with a completely renewed perspective on how we should be giving our kids more time, and how we should be interacting with each other and focusing on what's really important, you know, and I think to a degree, as a parent, you have those moments. And as a business owner, you have those moments of okay, like here, here's the balance, I'm seeing the balance what I want to shoot for. And I don't know in that moment, it just after he asked me the fourth and the fifth, and the sixth time, it was like, almost like somebody poked me and said, wake up, don't you remember that lesson that you learned just a few weeks ago?

Josh Braun 37:00

And so there's, there's a famous psychologist, I think, his name's Gartner or something, he calls these bids for attention. These are these moments where a kid walks up to you and says, Mommy, I want to show you something. Yeah, right. And this is a bit for attention. They want a little of your attention. And at first, you might think those moments don't really add up like later. But those, those moments add up a lot. And what they teach the kid is like, does not love me? Does she want to pay attention to me. So I really, you know, when someone bids for your attention, especially if it's your kid, and even if it's the middle of a podcast about the story, like, hey, my kid wants me to take a look at something for a second, I'm gonna take a look at it. Or you're on a cell phone. And your kid says, look a butterfly, rather than like, making the call as long because I couldn't hold on a second. It wants to me a butterfly, the person the other in the phone doesn't doesn't care. But your kid matters a lot to them. But you have this choice. What is mindfulness stuff, which is why I love this story is that you're giving yourself a choice, you can then choose to say you know what this is? I can't do that. In this case. Without this muscle, you have no choice. Yeah, so I love this story. And that you sort of like, Hey, I have this choice. And I'm gonna choose this this time. Yeah, I think it's a it's a great story in our minds do this stuff all the time, when we think the worst, the worst is going to happen. And it's never the worst I had this happened last week. I'm doing this training for a company. It's a four part training I did the first part a couple of weeks ago. And it was a little hard on one of the STRS. I reached out to the person that I work with him saying let's schedule part two, I don't hear back. And I'm like, Oh my God, it was probably so hard. They want to cancel the contract. They're gonna sue me procurements gonna call me. It was none of those things. She was just out of town. Yeah, when you have this mindfulness stuff, you can eventually catch yourself, which took me a couple hours, like, whoa, what am I doing here? Who's making me think that? What else might be true? And the simple act of just observing it sort of calms you down a little bit, which is why I love that story. You had that gap? Where you got to say, hey, I want to I want to do this. Yeah.

Claire Davis 38:56

You know, what, what is up with that too? Like, why do we have this knee jerk reaction? It's almost like a, it's almost like a desperation. Like, for example, I see this a lot with my clients when they're going into an interview, you know, or they're going into to see a new account new physician for the first time. And they're, you know, they're stealing themselves because they're like, they're theirs. They're so intense. They're so nervous, you know, they're so ready for that person to say no, why is that? Do you think it's like a fight or flight?

Josh Braun 39:29

No, I think it's what we talked about earlier. Most people are unaware of their thoughts. They're unaware that they're, the thoughts that they're having in your thoughts affect how you feel. Right? So if you are waking up in the morning, and you are feeling anxious or cranky or sad, that is coming from thoughts. So the first step of this is again to sort of be aware that you're actually even having these thoughts then you switch into this I'm aware mode versus unaware mode. And in that moment of being aware, it changes everything. Because then when you observe your thoughts, you realize that they just disappear pretty quickly. And some other thought comes in like a guitar or lunch or a doughnut. Like if you had a speaker or a megaphone on your thoughts would think you're crazy. There's so many coming and going all the time. And you don't control them. Yeah, well, it's coming and going all the time, you don't control them. And when you are just a slave to them, you're on this autopilot, downward spiral. But when you can observe them what you realize that really short shelf life, all of a sudden, you're thinking about something else completely, literally. So I mean, 10 minute meditations, you realize thoughts are coming and going, like waves all the time. And that just turns the volume down? Because all you have is this really this interaction that we're having right now is all there really is right now?

Claire Davis 40:49

Right? Right. Give it 100%.

Josh Braun 40:53

Or just be be what it is be in the moment for what it is. Right. So that's what this this, this training really starts to build that muscle a little bit.

Claire Davis 41:03

Oh, my gosh, I love it. There's so you have so many great lessons for salespeople. You know, it's interesting, I know when I asked you to come on, and thank you so much, again, for joining me. You know, I told you, hey, this is going to be as a podcast for medical sales people, not all, not necessarily all salespeople, SAS salespeople, medical sales people. And I said, Josh, do you think this is something relevant for the healthcare space? And he said, Yes, absolutely. So I love what you're sharing, you know, if you as we wrap up here, what I'd like to ask you is, if you could predict the future of sales as a whole, you know, if you were to say, I'm going to touch all the lives of people who are in sales right now, and teach them to adopt this new way, we know what is possible when people start to embody this better mindset approach this detachment approach, you know, what is possible for the future of sales?

Josh Braun 42:00

Yeah, I mean, maybe have a little bit of a different take on this. I've been asked similar questions like this before, you could certainly could certainly, like plan for the future, but I don't really live in it too much. I try to stay in this day that we're in now, I don't really like to make a lot of predictions. What I'd like to work on is something that's timeless, which I think is, you know, sort of reflective listening skills, being able to make people feel heard and understood, we can kind of go down this deep rabbit hole. But this idea of staying present, being aware of your thoughts, and making other people feel heard and understood, getting good at that, not just learning about it, but actually practicing it daily, I think is one of those things that's not going to ever change, like Amazon, people are always going to want faster packages delivered. That's never going to change. And I think this is another one of those skills, unlike AI, or holograms, or whatever the next thing is, that's never going to change. Because I think the fundamental thing that all humans want, whether they're in medical device sales, or selling popcorn, is the hunger to be heard and understood. When people feel like you get them. They're much more likely to open up and have a conversation with you.

Claire Davis 43:09

Amazing. Yeah, I completely agree. Where do you before we go? Where do you feel like if you, you know, considering that this applies to so much of our lives, all the corners of our life? If you were to say the the the most use? I've seen the biggest impact or I've seen this make in my life? Where has it been for you? Is it been family work? Friends, the environment, your health record?

Josh Braun 43:33

That's a good question. I would say with my wife. So this is the this is the epiphany that I had with her sometimes. And we all do this, right? We all have things that upset our partners, or things, right. So like, for instance, one of the things my wife would do is she mixed coffee in the morning. She would like leave, she leaves his little coffee stains on the on the counter. Now I do a bunch of things. I'm sure that she but this thing was it would bother me. Right? So I would bring it up. Right away, I would say why didn't Why can't Why can't you? That's the first problem. Why? Why can't you just clean up the coffee stain. When you're done making coffee? It seems so simple. Right? So what was white with mindfulness training. What I can do now is look at the coffee stain and say, Maybe I should just take two seconds, just wipe the coffee stand up and get on with my life. She does a bunch of things for me that I don't even know about laundry, whatever. But I have to make a big deal out of everything. does everything have to be judged? does everything have to be a big deal? Or can I just let things be an acceptance for how things are? Right? And so this is the same thing with with any judgment that you have. Let's say my wife is on Instagram taking pictures of the food and I don't like that. Well that's my thing. That's me putting my judgment on her. You shouldn't be taking pictures of food, but maybe she feels differently. Maybe she got some and why does Why does my opinion matter more than what she Once, just because I don't think it's socially acceptable. So this this idea of like, I'm starting to think I'm getting annoyed by hurts taking a picture of the food, I can certainly make a big deal out of it. Or I can just let it take a picture of the food and move on my life and not judged that she should not be doing that, because that's what I would not do. That's the ego exerting itself on someone else. Yeah, you could just let people be and accept people for who they are and not judge and let let it go. So beforehand, I would these things will be big deals. And you can make things a big deal. Put a huge strain on a relationship. Or you can be aware of your thoughts and simply have a different choice. You can choose to just wipe up the coffee stain. You could choose to just let the picture be taken.

Claire Davis 45:43

Yeah, yes. Oh, my God. And I mean, I feel like I know, but what's it done for your relationship?

Josh Braun 45:50

I mean, Jen. Jen? No, I don't I would have to ask her. I don't know. I would ask her.

Claire Davis 46:01

Yeah, I think that's pretty. That's pretty awesome. I really admire how you guys are such a great team. My husband is my rock and in business and life as well. And you know, it wouldn't be any fun without him. So I'm really, really happy for you. And Jim, it's so awesome. So so much. Yeah, yeah, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much for jamming with me on all of the things that you have today for the last hour. You know, you have a lot of things that you're doing, you're doing your sales trainings, you've got your poke the bear cold calling staff, you've got your tongue tied sales flashcards, where can people find out? Or where should they go first, to find out more about your methods and your sales training.

Josh Braun 46:43

So LinkedIn is a good spot. And then my website, Josh brown.com/shop, is where I sell all my stuff. And Claire we shouldn't let so much time go by I really enjoy speaking with you. You're a delight. I always enjoy our conversations. You've got this like light and energy about you that is always so very fulfilling to talk with. You got the hit factor as Oprah Winfrey says, Come on.

Claire Davis 47:02

You just wanted to see my cat. It's okay.

Josh Braun 47:07

When did your cat was blending in? I've even noticed he's a lovable app.

Claire Davis 47:11

No, I adore conversations. Josh truly, I have to say I have the I'm truly blessed to be able to chat with a lot of people in the industry, a lot of sales leaders, a lot of wonderful, generous people like you have met on LinkedIn. But I have to say, above all, every time I hop on the phone with you or on Zoom, you always really make me feel heard. And it is I feel an instant connection. So thank you so so much for your time. You guys. If you're not connected with Josh yet, please do yourself a favor. Check out the things that he's offering. You can only benefit from having him more and more in your circle in your sphere.

Josh Braun 47:46

Thanks, Claire. Hopefully we can meet one day in the real world.

Claire Davis 47:49

Yeah, let's do that. That'd be great. Alright guys, thanks so much.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Claire Davis

At Traction Resume, write resumes and linkedin profiles so you can focus on making an impact in med tech, biotech, diagnostic, device, and pharmaceutical sales.

https://tractionresume.com
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