Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey Gorgeous. This is episode number 142

Darrah Brustein [0:06]
Hi, this is Darrah Brustein, you are listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:12]
Well, I’m so excited to have Darrah Brustein back on the show today and I hope you enjoyed the last episode, How to be YOU and Sell and today we are going to go deeper on shifting from selling to sharing so that you really can thrive in your business. Darrah Brustein stands for entrepreneurial empowerment, and Darrah’s thought leadership articles on lifestyle design have been read by over 1 million people across Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Thrive Global. Her motivating model built a life of your own design, a career to fund it and the network to support it has inspired thousands to reach higher and dream bigger. She was named by the BossBabe Magazine, the “#1 to follow” and most recently, Dara and Deepak Chopra have launched a video series “Diving Deep With Deepak & Darrah” to make deep topics relatable and translatable into your life. For the past 10 years, Darrah has founded and scale two businesses and tandem and network events company serving more than 30,000 people and payment processing companies spanning 38 states in the US. So tune into her wisdom today and enjoy this episode. I’m so excited to have you back on the show Darrah, welcome.

Darrah Brustein [1:38]
Thank you.

Christine Schlonski [1:40]
I just loved our first interview and we finished with the 55 questions you can actually ask to break the ice. I think it’s so important because at the end of the day sales come down to relationships. The more and better relationships you have, the more referrals you gonna make or receive, the more sales you will have, the more people you can support. And you’ve shown that in such a beautiful example by building these companies and having such a great impact. We talked about the Y that people have to look into when they are really fearful, and not really sure how to sell or how to ask for the sale. And you mentioned something that I would love to dive into is that you really need to relate with a product you’re selling. I think a lot of people are fearful of sales because they have had that bad experience, where that slimy, sleazy salesperson just did everything to get that deal, took the money and then kind of ran. What can people do to dissociate with these emotions inside of them?

Darrah Brustein [2:56]
It goes back a bit to what we’re saying in our first conversation, but really what it comes down to is shifting the mindset from selling to sharing. That if you have that definition because of your own experiences and some PTSD from bad sales, then it’s just about sharing what you have. And it’s about being curious if this is useful to someone, it’s not about being forceful. It’s not about shoving something down someone’s throat that they don’t want or they don’t need. And it’s about listening and taking the cues based on the questions you’re asking and based on their body language and the words that they’re using. So you can very quickly ascertain, “Is this actually something that is useful or not?” The second you see it as serving and helping, that is very different than selling. And again, it ends up being the same thing. But if you have an issue with the semantics of selling because of experiences that you’ve had, then go out and look for examples of people who sell really great stuff, look for places where you buy stuff, and you feel really comfortable with it because ultimately, we all want to buy stuff. We all want to alleviate our challenges and problems. So if you can be one of those people doing that then great. Just find the right audience who wants it so it doesn’t feel forced. And again, when you look at the things that you buy effortlessly at the grocery store or subscriptions that you have, or magazines or whatever it is, think about what that process was like for you. And then the positive ones, let that begin to override whatever the programming is in your mind of the poor example version. I say this all the time, even around the word networking because I write for Forbes on, Networking Done Right. And I do speaking on this subject, and people often think it’s this cringe-worthy thing of, ” Networking is about self-serving. It’s transactional. It’s a short term. It’s what can I get for me. What can I do for you”, and I see it as flipping all of those things on its head. It’s just a fancy word for relationship building. And so when I can help people understand that this exact thing that has this name that you think is yucky, is actually just this other thing that you’re probably really happy to do. Then just call it something, call it something else.

Christine Schlonski [4:55]
What great advice. It really helps you to get out of your head in regards to that bad word. I love it. You’re so confident. Have you always been that confident? Was that something you grew into?

Darrah Brustein [5:11]
It’s funny because I have never felt confident. I have always been plagued by some of these own Achilles heels limiting beliefs that we talked about a bit in our first conversation. And for me, it was always this idea of you’re not good enough. Whether it was my first day of college and my dad seeing it written all over my face and saying, “Darrah, I see that you think that you’re not good enough. You’re not smart enough to be here. You got to just like everybody else.” Every class the first day, I would think, “Oh, they’re going to find me out. They’re going to realize I don’t belong here. I’m going to be the stupidest person in the room.” Every time I started a new job, a new career, push myself out of my comfort zone. It’s always the thing that kicks up dust in my mind and says to me, “You can’t do this. You’re not good enough.” So I always look back in the rearview mirror and I think, “Where else did I feel this? What was the actual data? Like what actually happened?”, and 99% of the time, that voice was a liar. And it’s not what was real. And it was just trying to hold me back from pushing through. And so I’ve gotten much better at identifying it more quickly. And letting action be the antidote for the fear because it really is the kryptonite that the second you’re in action, and you’re able to just call the fear what it is, is the liar. The fear diminishes and it dissipates. And it goes away, which makes it a lot less of a thing when you step into it each time after that it becomes a beast you can slay much more readily.

Christine Schlonski [6:39]
I just love that. And it’s so true. I always say, “Stop just dreaming, act now.” Because once you get in the momentum, things will just shift doors opening.

Darrah Brustein [6:52]
I say people think that they have to have the entire roadmap planned. I think there’s a distinction here. That it’s important to have a Northstar in mind. So maybe for someone, it’s got five new customers this month. But then to let the path unfold a bit as it needs to, meaning that you have an intention, you get into action. But you might realize five is actually seven or five is four. But you’ve got three who are teed up for next month. And that’s okay. But you have to just start moving based on the North Star and letting it evolve as it needs to.

Christine Schlonski [7:28]
Totally agree. So how do you deal with rejection today? Because people will always say no at some point, and you explain it so beautifully in the first episode, that no means not now.

Darrah Brustein [7:41]
Well, it depends. There’s two types of No’s. There’s No forever and there’s No not right now. And that’s part of your job as a salesperson to discern which is which, by asking the right questions like, “Would this be something that would be better for me to follow up with you at a later date?”, and if they say yes, then you ask, “Well two months, three months, six months, 12 months”, you get that buy-in so that they’re prepared for it. And then you know that it’s not a no forever versus if they’re just like, “This actually isn’t for me and here’s why”, and you know that it’s never going to be a fit for them, then that’s where you move on all together. So one of the things we talked about a little bit in the first part was this idea of not taking things personally. And so another book recommendation is Don Miguel Ruiz’s, The Four Agreements, with agreement number one being, “Don’t take it personally.” We also kind of touched a little on this idea of being a spiritual entrepreneur where, I studied religious studies in college and I do work with Deepak Chopra now. He and I partner on a weekly video series, and a lot of what I do underpins, from some basic spiritual principles. However, one of the things I had to do to get comfortable with selling in that space, selling ideas and selling things that were really helping business owners and people to improve their lives and improve the quality of their business so that their life also improved. Recognized that this wasn’t personal. It wasn’t just that when you tell me no, when you reject me that it’s not about me, it’s about the thing, or it’s about your own timing or whatever else, but about recognizing that I’m just a vessel of a message. It’s not about my ego, and I can take my ego out of it, that it doesn’t matter either. This is not to say that I don’t get hurt. Like there’s a lot of mean trolls on the internet who say rude things, or people who like, I had a customer the other day for my credit card processing company who reached out and started yelling at me over email, and even when you are on email, you know, when someone is yelling at you, and in that moment, I was like, “I have two choices. I can take this personally and be hurt by it, or I can help her and also stand my ground a little”, and I did and I said, “I’m doing everything I can to help you and your yelling doesn’t assist that. If you feel like what I’m doing isn’t enough, that’s for you to choose. But if we can get on the same page and back on the same team, I think we can make this be fixed much more quickly.” And she immediately redacted. said, “You know, I’m so sorry. You’re right”, and we fixed it. It’s in those moments where you can get outside of yourself enough to realize, “Is this even about me? Probably not. If it is, what can I own from that and correct it?”, and otherwise, move on.

Christine Schlonski [10:16]
Yeah, just just love it. Move on. Don’t get attached to it. I’m a big believer that you should be attached to the goal. You want to help the person. You want to assist them to make their life better if you can if it’s a fit, but if it’s not a fit, like don’t be attached to the outcome.

Darrah Brustein [10:37]
Absolutely.

Christine Schlonski [10:37]
In the conversation, it’s totally fine. If it’s a yes or no, just have the best conversation. Don’t have a sales conversation. Have a fun conversation. I really feel this person. Know where they are, where they want to go. Listen, don’t prepare your answers where they speak or ask a question.

Darrah Brustein [10:54]
Yes, that’s robotic.

Christine Schlonski [10:55]
I really have a deep understanding of them so that you can help them to make an informed decision. Because at the end of the day, they decide. Even though if they don’t them to book, it’s their decision. Can you share with us something that inspires you daily, maybe a quote or a mantra, something that helps you?

Darrah Brustein [11:19]
It’s more about the impact that I can make that inspires me. I keep what I call a Hype File. It’s the random things that are kind that people share with me about the impact of my work on them. So you know, some get shared publicly, but most of it is in this Evernote that I go back to in those moments where I feel depleted or I feel like I’m in my own BS, or I’m stuck or I’m taking things personally. Then I remember that that’s the thing that why I’m doing whatever I’m doing. Whether it’s matching businesses with the best credit card solution or helping people build authentic and meaningful relationships or helping children get financial literacy from an early start, or my work now, helping people design their lives and build businesses to fund it and networks to support it. Whatever it is, I am always motivated by the impact that I can make, which is so attached to the giving that we talked about in the first episode.

Christine Schlonski [12:10]
Yeah, love that. So, so stay tuned to your own impact.

Darrah Brustein [12:14]
Absolutely. Because otherwise, what’s the point, then it just becomes about you. And about your gathering of money or your gathering of followers or your gathering of customers or your next title, like, have to remember that we do not value. Our value is not inherently connected to our titles, our accolades, our achievements, our bank account any of those things. But that really when we do a little deathbed exercise, and we reflect back from hundred-year-old, hopefully, selves, when we’re about to go. What are we going to have valued? If we’re not aligning our daily actions and intentions with that, which for me are about the impact I made in the relationships that I had. If I’m not moving the needle in that direction on a day to day basis, then I intrinsically misaligned.

Christine Schlonski [13:02]
Yeah. So if a business owner is having some challenges in getting business into the door, you know, the roller coaster ride. What can you tell them from the perspective you have now? Because I’m quite sure you have been on a roller coaster at some point. What would be the best advice, especially when the roller coaster is going downhill? How can they kind of catch their breath and really go back to that place that feels good and aligned so they can show up in a different way?

Darrah Brustein [13:36]
Yeah, I’ve definitely been on that downhill many times. Like in the first five years of building the credit card processing company with my friend we had two embezzlements, which will take us back to zero. And that was devastating. But what I realized is that the energy that you put out is what comes back to you. When I put out that desperation, energy of, “Oh my gosh, we need this. This isn’t working. We’re going to be bankrupted. We don’t have any money”, and I came from that perspective. Nothing was working. And I was bringing on awful clients who were drama. But the second I realized, “You know, what if I come at this from an abundance rather than a scarcity mentality, and even though that truth was still the same, we were back at zero”, and that was painful and a lot to digest. The second I realized there’s plenty for everyone and the right customers are going to present themselves and I’m just going to do the things to put me in that position, like, go to networking events, and have coffees and one on ones with people that are in my referral network, or build out referral partnership programs, or start a networking event series to bring people together and add value to them or do a giving challenge or do any of the natural progressive steps that put me in an aligned state of where can I give without feeling desperate and make the ball move forward strategically, but not desperately. That’s when things really shifted.

Christine Schlonski [14:57]
Yeah, yeah. Needy energy as I call it, they repel people. Nobody wants to be in that energy, even if you think it’s not showing, it is showing. So you have to get into the right mindset.

Darrah Brustein [15:10]
It’s the person who walks around a networking event, shoving their business card and everyone’s face, vomiting their canned, rehearsed, elevator pitch on everyone. Sizing you up in 10 seconds and then moving on, where you just feel dirty after you’ve interacted with that person because you felt unseen. They didn’t try to connect with you. Their business card goes in the trash. It was just worthless for both of you. So instead of doing that, how do you be more intentional and spend quality time with three people rather than in quality time with 30 and actually make that mean something?

Christine Schlonski [15:45]
Yeah, such great advice. Is there like a daily routine you have to put you in that space where you can show up as the best version of the day?

Darrah Brustein [15:57]
Yeah, I mean, it’s trite, but I have a morning ritual and my ritual is. Actually I start the day doing the opposite of what everyone says to do. They say don’t get on your phone, I get on my phone and post to Instagram because it’s for me a place where I want to share inspiration and activated, things that can activate people to actually move the ball forward in their lives. So just recently was talking a lot about some of these sales things, actually. I start there, and I like to connect with people. I like to see what DMs came in and what was helping people and see what comments came. I start there, and then I read the news, and kind of have a slow pace to the morning so I don’t feel frantic and frazzled. Then I do a seven-minute workout because then I can get my body moving. I journal on gratitude, and I meditate. I drink a lot of water and then I get my day started. And it feels good because I feel like I’ve hit on that gratitude energy. I’ve gotten myself into a state of stillness so that I can let stuff process from the night in my meditation and then I’ve gotten my body moving and gotten water back into it. And at that point, I’m totally ready to go.

Christine Schlonski [17:00]
Yeah, I love it and seven-minute workout, right? Not 70. 7-minute workout.

Darrah Brustein [17:04]
Because I would always do prioritize a workout when it was longer or more intense. I couldn’t just do it on my yoga mat in my bedroom. This has been one of the only things that I’ve consistently stayed doing. Because it’s one of those things that is impossible to say no to.

Christine Schlonski [17:20]
Yeah, just love it. So it says still something like, do you have any fears today? Like what’s the biggest fear right now?

Darrah Brustein [17:31]
I’m probably not giving of all that I have to share in this world of holding myself back and playing smaller than actually I had the capacity to do and to give.

Christine Schlonski [17:44]
What do you do about that?

Darrah Brustein [17:47]
I everyday shut myself into it. When we get off this I hop on an airplane and I go get hired by Visa to do onsite correspondent work for one of their Women’s Entrepreneurship events. Those things I enjoy. But it’s also scary because it’s improvisational. It’s in real-time. You don’t know what’s coming, you’re interviewing high profile people, you’re interviewing all sorts of people. And I just throw myself in. And I, I’ve done it before. So I look back and think, “Okay, there’s evidence that I can do this”, and the first time I did it, there was no evidence but I thought, “I bet I can do this because I love to ask questions. And I love to build relationships in these ways.” The first interview I ever did was of Deepak Chopra, and talk about throwing yourself in the deep end. Once I did that, then it was like, “Oh, I interviewed Deepak. Now I can interview all”, like, I’ve interviewed Shaq and Seth Godin, and Shaquille I said, Shaquille and Bill Belichick and Jillian Michaels, and — , like the list goes on and on. And each one felt less scary because I had this repertoire that I had done. Often just putting the one step forward, and throwing yourself in and thinking, “What’s the worst case that’s going to happen? I’ll do a bad job and embarrass myself and then those days over and no one remembers. Great.”

Christine Schlonski [18:59]
Yeah. I love that. It’s so important, no one remembers, but you.

Darrah Brustein [19:04]
No, no one’s paying attention. This is one of the things that really helped me get over the hurdle of starting my first businesses. I thought, “Okay, well, if I do this and it fails, everyone’s going to laugh at me. And they’re going to know that I’m a failure.” And then I started to realize that in the most freeing way possible that no one was paying attention, that everyone is so focused on their own stuff, that if they are paying attention, it’s probably because they care. And they’re going to be there to help lift me up on the other side. And that just felt so good to realize that I was, it was like pretty narcissistic of me to think that they were paying that much attention in the first place. So then I felt like, “Well, why not go for it? What’s to lose at that point?”

Christine Schlonski [19:41]
Yeah, so many, but so many people do that. They are so afraid of what others think, what others say about them. For me, it was so freeing to understand that they’re busy with their own stuff. And whatever I want to do I need to do so that my heart sings and my soul is happy. And I get much better results when I follow that.

Darrah Brustein [20:03]
People remember the stuff that hit. Like there’s all of these memes that are very famous about. Oprah failed at XYZ and Shaquille O’Neal missed all of the shots and all these other things that famous people who missed. People remember what you share, and people remember how you make them feel. And people remember the things that stand out. They don’t necessarily remember the flop. I mean, even like the fire festival guy, if you know this reference, or Elizabeth Holmes from Theranos, in a year from now, no one’s going to remember and that was like top epic media news that everyone on the planet was aware of. And the chances of you, me or anyone listening to this being to a place where we fail that epically are really slim. And even then they’re going to have a second chance. So let that be freeing for you.

Christine Schlonski [20:48]
Yeah, totally. So you brought a wonderful gift that because at the end of the day, also in this episode, I would say it comes down to relationships, having great relationships. I also say, “Sales is love”, because you serve and you make that impact, and you help people. So your wonderful freebie is about 55 best questions that break the ice, which is so important for both of the people in the conversation or even more than two and really get to know someone so you can start off. Where can people go to find you by sites, the show notes that will be provided

Darrah Brustein [21:27]
They can grab that freebie at https://darrah.co/, which is DARRAH.CO

Christine Schlonski [21:34]
Wonderful, anything you want to leave us with.

Darrah Brustein [21:39]
Ultimately, I think if you are feeling stuck or you are feeling like someone is going to come and save you or identify what you need to do next, there is this really important shift that needs to happen of recognizing that you are the writer of your own story, that you are the knight in shining armor that’s going to come in and be the hero of your own tail. And until you recognize that if you’re not your own biggest cheerleader and champion, no one else can get on board and support either. It’s just an interesting dichotomy that we don’t get anywhere in life without the help of others. However, we have to build the momentum initially for ourselves before others feel invited and excited to be a part of that journey with us. So begin to champion yourself and then invite others into that.

Christine Schlonski [22:25]
Love it. Thank you so, so much for sharing your wisdom with us today. And I can’t wait for people to listen in and to take action so that they get results.

Darrah Brustein [22:36]
Thank you. I appreciate being here. Thank you so much.

Christine Schlonski [22:39]
Well, how fun was that? And how deep was that? I really, really hope you got a ton of value out of these episodes, this Darrah Brustein. I hope you took notes and you are implementing and you are overcoming that. That feeling, that nagging feeling of that sales is not something you do or sales and spirituality don’t go together. Just think about how you can share from selling to just sharing your amazing, amazing gifts. Hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/. Find the podcast tab for all the episodes, for the show notes, the transcripts and the amazing resources that we are offering you, to help you on your journey to sell with ease, grace, confidence, and to ask your price. And also I want to invite you to sign up for the sales journaling to success. This is a 30-day email course I am offering right now for free. You can hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/ and find the podcast tab and sign up and get a daily empowerment, sales empowerment prompt into your inbox with some knowledge around it, with some insights so that you can actually shift from a sales mindset but usually for people who is not really a good one into a sales success mindset, supporting you to give your gifts to the world, serving more people, having fun in the process and building a business and lifestyle you just love so that you can have the impact you desire and also make the money to fund your own dreams. Have fun with it. And I’m looking forward to you to tune into the next episode. And right now, have a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world. And bye for now.