Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hi Gorgeous, a welcome to episode number 024 with our amazing guest today is Lisa Earle McLeod.

Lisa Earle McLeod [0:11]
Hi, this is Lisa Earle McLeod you’re listening to Heart Sells! Podcast, enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:18]
Before I give you some more background information on our amazing guest today Lisa Earle McLeod. I just wanted to make sure that you have gotten your Sales Journaling Prompts. These are actually prompt that help you to shift your mindset when you use them. And you can download them at christineschlonski.com. Make sure you sign in to the Success Library for all the amazing free content and grab your copy of the Sales Journaling Prompts. Start today to shift your mindset into sales is love and sales as fun you can so do this. So let’s dive into Lisa Earle McLeod’s background a little bit more so you understand what a remarkable guest we are having on today. Lisa is a global expert on purpose-driven business. She is the author of five books including her best seller selling this noble purpose. Lisa has spent two decades helping leaders increase emotional engagement and competitive differentiation. She developed the noble purpose methodology after her research revealed that purpose-driven organizations outperform their competitors. So gorgeous, you are in the right place because if you are listening, I am so sure that you are a purpose-driven organization. Lisa is a former Procter and Gamble sales trainer who found her own firm MacLeod & More in 2001. Her firm’s clients include Cisco, Roche, Volvo, and Dave & Busters. And Lisa has also keynoted in 25 countries and authored over 2000 articles. She has made appearances on The Today Show and the NBC Nightly News and her firms work has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and NPR. Her newest book Leading with Noble Purpose: How to Create a Tribe of True Believers is a breakthrough book that shows leaders how to win the hearts and minds of their teams and customers. So I am so super excited to have her on today. Welcome, Lisa McLeod.

Lisa Earle McLeod [3:06]
Oh, it’s so good to be on here.

Christine Schlonski [3:09]
Awesome. I just love, love, love what you are all about. It’s so resonates with Heart Sells! because you all about selling this noble purpose. And you’ve written this amazing book with the same name Selling with Noble Purpose. And also you speak at a lot of events and conferences about this. So the listeners just had a letter Lisa’s Bio in a nutshell, can you maybe share something that we don’t know yet?

Lisa Earle McLeod [3:45]
Sure. Well, the backstory of selling with a noble purpose really came about because I spent years as a corporate sales executive, and was a corporate sales trainer for many years. And the backstory is, I was looking for that magic thing that differentiated the top performers. And what I finally came to realize was, it was an internal motivation, what I call noble purpose, to really improve the lives of their clients. And so the backstory of Lisa as I spent 20 years living these sort of dual lives, one of them was this hard-charging sales executive and the other part of me was this, you know, loving, caring, giving mother and it took me a good solid couple of decades before I realized that the combination of those two things was actually the single most powerful thing. And the only way I realized that was by doing research around what differentiated top sales performers and that was where identified this emotional element that was very much focused on the client. So the backstory is finally in my 40s, I came to be who I had been all long.

Christine Schlonski [5:01]
Yeah, so so after we have these realizations at a later stage life, which is also fun because at least you know, we, we find out that the easiest thing is actually being ourselves.

Lisa Earle McLeod [5:16]
It’s true. And it’s and it’s interesting, because when I talk about selling with noble purpose, and there’s, it’s more than just an idea, there’s a real methodology behind it, that takes you from how to position yourselves to how to open sales interactions to have to negotiate. But when I first talked about it, one of the things that I get, as I get one of two reactions, I get people saying, oh, thank heavens, this is what I’ve always believed about sales, the selling one that will purpose is really about having what I call your noble sales purpose, which is a clear identification of how you make a difference to your customers. And using that to drive through every element of sales, whereas most people are taught in sales is that the driving force should be hit the number hit the number, hit the number make money, but what we actually found was that the top performers, the sellers who performed at the top, whether it is in a corporation, or whether it is entrepreneurs, the ones who generated the most revenue, we’re the ones who had that drive with the drive was how can I improve the lives of more customers, and it’s a nuance thing, but it’s very distinct. And and so I was saying is, I get one of two reactions, I get a lot of people, usually, their top performer say, “Oh, my gosh, that’s what I knew all along. Wow, that that’s true. This thing that I added me”. But the other reaction I get is from people who want to create a false dichotomy. And they’ll say, “But don’t you have to worry about the number? Don’t you have to worry about the number?” and they kind of missed the point because it’s the integration of that assertiveness for improving the lives of customers that actually produces them.

Christine Schlonski [6:55]
Yeah. Oh, I so, so agree. I always say “Sales is Love” and that has the same reaction, either people freak out because they think it’s so not true. Or they think, well, that’s really interesting. Yeah, because we are giving our products, our services. So so many people in the audience, they have their own businesses, and they come up with their own ideas and creations and put them to life, what would be a really good advice or story you could share for them not to really be afraid of making that offer, and also making the offer at a price point that they really truly want to ask for.

Lisa Earle McLeod [7:39]
Okay, I will share a story on this one, because it’s emblematic. And what I want to tell you at the start of this story is if you are an entrepreneur that has your own business, I want you to think about why you started your business, what was the niche you saw, as I tell this story, and at the end of the story, I want to talk about how you can use the feeling that you have to create higher margin sales. So about 10 years ago, as I said, I had a sales consulting business, and I still do only has a slightly different bit now. But about 10 years ago, a major biotech company ask my team, and I studied their sales force, and they wanted us to identify what differentiated the top performers. Because in sales, the difference between poor performance and good performance is pretty easy to put your finger on your sales leader yourself. You know, poor performers don’t know the product, great performer, you know, spring performers know the product, the poor performers don’t make sales calls, great performers have a regular routine of sales calls. And it’s, it’s, it’s a very defined set of skills. And most of us know what those are, we can train to them. But what was harder to put your finger on is what differentiates the exceptional performers. And so that’s what this company asked us to study. And so we went out in the field working with their sales team, we shadow them, we did right along, we watch them make sales calls, they were the medical profession, and we were always searching for what is that magic thing that differentiates the top people and we were near the end of the study, and I was with a representative in Phoenix, Arizona, which I’m an American, and Phoenix, Arizona is like one of the hottest places in America. And so I was riding around with this woman in July, going in and out making sales calls. And we got to the airport and I had was going to get out of the car, and I come a long walk back to the terminal. You don’t got on a jacket, and I got my bag. It’s really hard to get on this long flight. And so we’re seeing their car and air conditioning is on. I just had a minute and I decided to ask her question that wasn’t on our list of questions. And I asked her, What do you think about when you go on sales calls? And I will never forget her answer. I will try the car. And she says, Well, I don’t tell this to people. And I’m thinking like, Oh, my gosh, with this good. She said, I always think about this one particular patient. She said I was early in my career with this company. And I was standing in a doctor’s office and this woman, this older woman, grandmother looking woman came up to me and tap me on the shoulder and said, excuse me ma’am. Are you the representative or this drug? And she said, Yes, ma’am. I am. And she said, literally looked up at me and said, Well, I just want to thank you. Or thank you for giving me my life back. See, prior to taking this drug, I can go anywhere and do anything. And now that my doctor has prescribed this for me, I get on a plane and fly across the country. I visit my grandkids and get down for play with them. So thank you for giving me my life back. And as she’s telling me the story, she’s getting really emotional. And I found myself getting emotional. Listen to her. She said I think about her every day. That’s my that’s my purpose. That’s why I do my job. So rainy Friday afternoon, other sales reps, go home. I don’t make an extra sales call. Difficult healthcare situation, difficult Doctor, I pushed through, I think about her.

Lisa Earle McLeod [11:07]
So I got another car, slept my bags at the airport, got on my long flight. And I just kept turning it over and over in my head. Because see, this was a decade ago, people weren’t talking about the emotional sales that much back then. And so what I kept thinking was this thing called purpose is that the magic thing that we’ve all been looking for that drives top performance, I went back to my office when I got home. And I started looking through all the interviews. And I found it, I found it in a couple of the comments I found it with. One representative said, you know, my father was a doctor, that’s a much harder job than people realize. I just want to make the doctor’s life better. I found it with a representative who said, I’m so excited about this. And I found five people that alluded to this thing that I now call noble purpose. And the interesting thing about the study was, it was a blind study. My team and I didn’t know who the top performers were, and we went out in the field. And so at the end, the biotech company said, Who do you think the top people are? I said I think it’s these five. And I was 100% right. And, and if you’re making, you’re saying, mhhh, you’re nodding your head, because anyone who’s out there listening to this, who’s in sales, or who’s an entrepreneur, the data confirmed what we already know, in our hearts to be true. And one young woman who spoke and such emotionally engaging terms, she was a number one performer three years in a row. And so for me, that was a watershed moment. And so I decided to study this across organizations.

Lisa Earle McLeod [12:43]
And the data could not be more clear sales, people who sell with the noble purpose, who truly want to make a difference to their customers, outsell sales, people focused on targets, unquote. And it’s so interesting because we tend to think of people who care about others, and people who make less money as people who just give, give, give. But when you’re in the right spot, what you’re doing when you’re selling is you are making a difference. But you have to believe so passionately in what you’re doing. And, and that’s the thing and I’ll tell you, there’s two things that happen. One is with entrepreneurs, I know that’s a lot of your audience, they lose sight of the fact that what they came up with whether it was a new widget, or new eyeglasses, or cupcakes or whatever it was, usually they came up with that idea. And they went into that business because they saw a need, but what happens is the day to day cadence of business takes over, and they feel like what they need is money. And so then when they’re calling on people, they feel like, Oh, my gosh, I need money so badly. I don’t want to ask for money. I don’t want to ask for money. And you got to get that you got to stop that mental train. Because what you’re doing is you’re providing something to someone. And the other group of people I think they get mixed up is heads and people for big companies, they also lose sight of the fact that what they’re doing actually matters. We work with a plumbing company, and we took them through an exercise about what happens if people don’t have good working faucets and toilets? What happens if couple don’t beautiful bathrooms? And I’m telling you, it matters…

Christine Schlonski [14:19]
I would agree right away.

Lisa Earle McLeod [14:22]
Yeah. So one of the things that we do is we use what we call the three discovery questions to help people get clear on their noble purpose. And it’s how do I make a difference? How do I do it differently than my customers? And you’ll love this last question. On my best day, What do I love about my job?

Christine Schlonski [14:43]
Yeah, I do. Yeah, that’s, you know, one of my biggest motivations was when, when I was in sales, I studied to become a coach at the same time. And I saw all these beautiful people, great backgrounds, Heart Center, driven, and we had this one day where we were supposed to learn a whole day about how to sell yourself as a coach. And the whole day turned out to be just half a day because it looked like the people teaching when I’d really confident with the topic either. And then the reaction in the room just looking at, you know, these colleagues, I trained for, like, a year emotionally freaking out. And, you know, not wanting to sell their services. And I knew what they could do. Because, you know, you coach and you, you also get coach, it’s, it’s such, you know, when I think about supporting people, that’s what I think about, if you don’t give gift you, you know, you, you lose out on the whole world, and especially the people that need you.

Lisa Earle McLeod [15:52]
That needed and, and the thing that’s interesting is you I’ve been in sales my whole career. And when you talk about I’m in sales, a lot of times you’ll get this reaction, Oh, my gosh, I could never do that. And I’m like, I’m not a drug dealer, for heaven’s sake. I don’t sell bags of glass to kids. But there’s this idea that somehow sales is convincing people to do something that they don’t want to do, and it’s sleazy. And it’s, in fact, what we know is the top performers take the opposite approach. And sales is one of the few professions where we let the people who are bad at it, define it. And one thing I often say is, we know there’s bad teachers and ministers and engineers out there in the world. But we don’t let them define those noble professions. And so it should be the same with sales. And so one of the things that you have to be so clear on is how you are improving the lives of customers. And that’s why that first question are the three discovery questions is, how do I make a difference. And one of the things that I I hope, if you’re an entrepreneur listening to this right now, that I want to ritual is this belief that if you have to convince people that there’s something sleazy about that because there is an I’ll give you a couple of examples. There is nothing sleazy about convincing people that they need to eat healthier. But if you give me a 365-page book on eating healthier in 10 point type, with no photos, and it’s really hard to access, I’m not going to do it. And so the people that do weight loss who are very well intended, they serve it up for you in the most compelling easy way. And the reason I use that as an example is you if you believe that what you do whatever it is, whether you make cupcakes, whether you are a coach, whether you are an accountant if you believe that what you’re doing truly helps people. And oh, by the way, if you already have customers, you have evidence of that, because it would keep coming back. So look at the people who are buying from you now, or look at the idea you haven’t identify how it makes a difference. If you believe that you know that in your heart, you have a moral obligation to serve it up in the most attractive possible way, in the way that engages the most people in the way that makes it the easiest for people to say yes, because it’s not their job as the potential customer to figure you out is your job to figure them out, and then serve up your services in the easiest way. And so for, for our company, we have a declarative noble purpose statement. And when I work with clients, that’s what we come up with. And in our company, we help leaders drive revenue and do work that makes them proud, we are about two things, making money and making a difference and bringing those together. And so so the way that I just said that I help you will make money and make a difference. It took me a long time to get our methodology to that point where I could articulate it that clearly and I had the title we’re selling with a noble purpose. And so now when I talk to people, I say, let’s talk about how you could make more money, let’s talk about how you could experience more joy and more happiness and how we get those two things together. Because that’s my job to help you see that that’s not your job to figure it out, and then call me and say, Oh, please help me is my job. Yeah, well, and that’s, yeah, that’s entrepreneurs have got to get over it. And we see it all the time. accounting is a good example. And people will be good accountants, but they’re afraid to sell themselves because I don’t want to belittle myself by selling myself. And, frankly, that’s just a cop-out. If you don’t care enough about what you do to assertively go after the market and broadcast it from the rooftops, then, then maybe, maybe you’re not clear enough on how you make a difference.

Christine Schlonski [20:02]
Yeah, and I see something when you go into entrepreneurship, you are taking on really a leadership role. You are, you know, a role model for the people around you. It’s not just your family, but you know, the people you serve, or how you come across in your, in your marketing, what kind of conversations you have. So maybe we can we can dive into that a little bit. How do you feel about being a role model? I mean, you got the book out Noble Purpose. I mean, those are big words. So I assume that lots and lots of people check, what is she doing? What’s Lisa doing? How’s Lisa doing it? So maybe we can give those entrepreneurs also a different idea on sales because they took on that leadership role if they have a company, even if they are a Solopreneur.

Lisa Earle McLeod [21:02]
Well, and it’s kind of scary to think that people are watching you, and people are thinking about you in that way. And I remember when I was in college, and I took a sales and marketing class in college. And this woman, she was actually somebody’s mother came and spoke to us. And I’m pretty old. So this was a long time ago, this and so this woman stood in front of us in this professional suit. And she had written a book and she was the lead of she was the head of sales for AT&T. And she’d written a book and I never I didn’t even know that existed. I she is sitting my 20-year-old self, I was looking at her everything from what she wore, to the way she spoke, to the way she charged her career. And I was like, I didn’t even know that’s possible. And it was her name was Beverly Keepmann everything about the reason I’m sharing this is people are looking at you, especially young people, you know, I was just reading I was actually listening to Michelle Obama’s book. And she talked about being a role model. And she said a lot of people who are in lead positions will say, Oh, no, I’m not a role model. And she said You are. And you have to accept that. And so what I realized is, if you think about every boss you’ve ever had, you’re looking at them, they may not be a good role model. But they are a role model, you’re looking at how they conduct themselves, and the way they act. And, and it doesn’t mean they have to be perfect in every way. But if you go into a company, and you’re making a presentation about why they should hire you for, you know, your services, your consulting services, the people in that room are looking at you. And they’re saying, how does this person conduct themselves and it and so in that sense, if you are any kind of a leadership role, you are a role model. And I want to be super, super clear on this, it does not mean you have to be perfect in In fact, the opposite, you are allowed to show and it’s better to show vulnerability and talk about the things that you know, especially with younger people that are challenges. Yet, at the same time, the way that you conduct yourself, you ought to do it with the knowledge that other people are looking at you. And if you are an entrepreneur, you are a role model. Because for every entrepreneur out there, there’s 100 people sitting in a corporate job thinking, wow, I wish I could do that. And so it’s, it’s really about owning your own story, and your own language and your own behavior. And that’s why this idea of noble purpose has taken on taken off because one of the things that we are really good at as human beings is where we make instantaneous judgments of each other based on gut reaction. And there’s a lot of data that says, we’re usually right. And so what you need to know is that people are reading you, and if you’re coming in unconfident or insecure, they’re going to read that contrast. If you’re coming in thinking, I got to close it, I got to close it, I got to close it, they’re going to read that too. And so what I often say is being aggressive is usually because you want something for yourself. Being assertive is because you are driven to make a difference to others. And so one of the things that’s really helpful for entrepreneurs is if you have clarity about how do I make a difference? Why should people do business with me, if you have clarity in your heart about that, then what people are going to read is, I am here and I’m going to assertively pursue this opportunity because I know that I can improve the customers condition and that’s where that assertiveness should come from, from your deep belief that you can improve the customers condition. And so that’s why those three questions How do I make a difference? How do I do it differently? And on my best day, what do I love about my job? That will help you name and claim your own noble purpose and you don’t even have to be the best in the world. I hope you get there. But all you have to know is I care passionately and I can improve life for this customer, and let that be the galvanizing force of your business.

Christine Schlonski [25:38]
Amazing, amazing or thank you so so much. I just love this conversation. And I’m looking forward to continue it.

Lisa Earle McLeod [25:47]
Great. Let’s talk more.

Christine Schlonski [25:49]
Thank you so much for being here. Lisa. What a great reminder, Gorgeous, as entrepreneurs, we are leader and so often we might not even see this. So it is our responsibility to actually sell with noble purpose, check out Lisa’s homepage, website www.mcleodandmore.com so that you can get more information about her amazing work because many of her clients are having growth in their revenue by 250%, and I think that’s pretty skyrocketing. So you can go to www.mcleodandmore.com McLeod is spelled M-C-L-E-O-D for all the show notes, the resources that we have mentioned, as well as a transcript or a link to Lisa’s website of that was too complicated hop on over to christineschlonski.com check out this episode and just you know, with one click it will take you to Lisa’s page and all her social media links so that you can connect. Also on christineschlonski.com you will find the invitation to join the Success Library where you can download a free PDF with a Sales Journaling prompts and those prompts help you to shift your mindset help you to go maybe from a little bit fearful or not as confident in sales to a stronger salesperson by you know being yourself being authentic and actually having fun. So thank you so much for tuning in. Make sure you subscribe and join us for the next episode where I will deepen the conversation with Lisa and I’m just saying bye for now.