Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey Gorgeous. This is episode number 175. And we have the amazing Larry Levine back on the show today.

Larry Levine [0:08]
Hi, this is Larry Levine. You’re listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Hope you enjoy why I’m

Christine Schlonski [0:14]
So happy that Larry’s back on the show today because I just loved our conversation about no empty suits. And today we are going to dive in even deeper into the revolution. Larry is leading about authenticity, integrity, and substance in the sales profession. And it’s all about selling from the heart which is a business he started in 2016 after a 28-year career within the Office technology space, and he totally started from scratch and only four years he has developed into clients all over the US, Europe, and Australia. He has become the best selling author of Selling From the Heart and he is the co-host of Selling From the Heart Podcast. What a revolution. So tune in have fun, enjoy, and take away lots of amazing wisdom. Well, I am so excited to have you back on the show, Larry, welcome.

Larry Levine [1:10]
This is good round two, huh?

Christine Schlonski [1:13]
This is wonderful round two. I love that. I want to make sure that people get as much as they can from your brilliant brain and heart, which I think the combination is so important that you bring a heart to your business, to the table, to conversations. Your book, Selling From the Heart, has made such a huge impact and so many people’s lives. I’m really looking forward to this conversation and as already kind of started or kind of finished the other episode with, what was the very, very first thing you ever sold in your life?

Larry Levine [1:54]
Wow. Outside of asking my wife to marry me?

Christine Schlonski [2:01]
Well, that was, hopefully, not with 8 or 10, right? That’s probably, that’s the question. What was the biggest sell you ever made?

Larry Levine [2:12]
There you go, Christine. But if I look back, like all the jobs I had in high school and all that, there were nonselling jobs and even —

Christine Schlonski [2:21]
You never sold any cookies or nothing?

Larry Levine [2:24]
I don’t really don’t consider that. Well, I guess.

Christine Schlonski [2:27]
Baseball cards?

Larry Levine [2:28]
I bought baseball cards. But you know, I mean, we had to sell that stuff when I was in Cub Scouts and things like that. But I guess that sales but I go, if I really look back, I mean, my first, first sales job was actually when I was right out of college. Indeed, so. I mean,

Christine Schlonski [2:50]
So, what did you sell?

Larry Levine [2:53]
I came out of the office technology space. I sold copiers my whole entire life that

Christine Schlonski [2:57]
That’s where it started already?

Larry Levine [2:58]
But you know, I guess, you know, we could go back and say, Hey, you know, when I was eight and nine and I was in Cub Scouts or I was in Little League Yeah, we had to sell peanuts and calendars and things like that. But that just comes along with the territory.

Christine Schlonski [3:12]
Well, I get that. So the question is, or the deeper question is probably like, how did you feel when you received money for the first time you ever sold something? Even though it might have been your neighbor? Like, do you think you are a natural salesperson?

Larry Levine [3:29]
You know, that’s an interesting question, because I’m going to answer in a couple of different ways. But it was really hard in the beginning, I’m just going to look at the beginning of my sales career. It was really hard in the beginning for me to extract money from people, profitably.

Christine Schlonski [3:46]
Yeah, and I know so many, you know, many of our listeners have this challenge. I always love the question and love to hear what the people do to overcome this challenge because only then you can be a successful entrepreneur or successful salesperson once you start selling and receiving money.

Larry Levine [4:04]
Yeah, but you know what’s interesting is it goes back into, we were talking about it on the last episode is, if you really understand who you are and what makes you tick and you clearly define you and why you and why you exist, then it becomes a little bit easier. Because, you know, in sales, I’m looking at this, maybe it’s just how my brain works, Christine, but I look at things at totally different manner than most people. It took me a while to really understand, understand this is when I was out in the sales role and even still today in a different role than I have is I believe that we’re selling experiences and memories and we have to capture those. And if knowing that what we’re selling whether you’re by yourself or you’re on a sales team or your that solo entrepreneur or you’re selling your services or your coaching or whatever is We have to understand the issues and challenges that people have in layer, how we can help them on top of that. And if we believe in our message and with conviction, we can deliver it then, you know, rightfully so that we could ask for business in a profitable manner. But I think is when we don’t understand all that and we have all this misalignment going, and we’re not. I always say this, and I have this in a manifesto in my book, is if we open all of our conversations in a sales manner, in a transactional manner, and we talk about I can save you money and all this then guess what happens? I think we demean who we are as sales professionals, and it becomes all about what money but if we can open up relationships and conversations in a transformational way. Then I think that the investment in you is part of the process. And it took me a long time to figure that one out.

Christine Schlonski [5:57]
Yeah. How did it feel to be a salesperson at your beginnings?

Larry Levine [6:03]
You know, I struggled with it. And that’s why I write in my book, there’s a massive difference between a sales rep and a sales professional. And I think a lot of people get into sales because they know that you can make a very, very, very good living in sales. And if you ask, and I always love asking this as if you ask most salespeople, why do they get into sales? What do you think the answer is, Christine?

Christine Schlonski [6:30]
Commission?

Larry Levine [6:31]
Commission, right? I’m into it because of the money. I mean, when I first, I didn’t say I fell into sales. But I was kind of I went down that path because I enjoyed having conversations and I enjoyed building relationships with people and so forth. And I said, “Well, you know, that says parlay that into something which turned into a sales career.” But it took me a long, long, long time to figure out how to profitably, how to profitably earn a living. Because in the very beginning, I got this snot kicked out of me. I mean, it says sales are tough. And I think, you know, whether you’re by yourself, you know, as that solo entrepreneur or you’re on a sales team, or what have you, sales is brutally tough. It’s even tougher when you make it all about you, and you’re really trying to fight for every dollar as opposed to, “Let me really, truly understand that person on the other end, and how can I help them.” And if we can start doing that.

Christine Schlonski [7:35]
It changes.

Larry Levine [7:37]
It changes the game, and it took me a really long time to figure that one out. I mean, I struggled with it probably the first five, six years of my sales career. Because I just think, unfortunately, a lot of salespeople, even the younger generation that’s moving into sales now. The onboarding and the coaching and the nurturing and all that, that goes on. I think it’s non-existent. It’s we quickly onboard people, and then, we might use outdated ways to bring these people aboard. And then we bring a new salesperson. And if they’re not selling anything in three to four months, then guess what happens?

Christine Schlonski [8:17]
Well, they’re gone.

Larry Levine [8:19]
They’re gone. Right? I had the struggle with this the hard way, right? I mean, I could count literally on one hand and not use all my fingers, how many great managers I had in my life. And that’s unfortunate.

Christine Schlonski [8:35]
Totally, totally. Because, you know, all the potential that’s not, use is not the right word. That’s not taken care of by the companies. And I remember when I was in corporate and we talked a little bit before, I did like daily meetings to kind of, you know, engage the team, to motivate the team, to inspire the team and to make sure that I get those different personalities, that they just felt good in their skin. And they were authentic on selling, you know, coming up this, as I remember, people do think in different ways like we have all our own filters where how we see the world. So in a sales conversation, especially when you’re cold call, and you speak over the phone and you don’t see body language or their face, you can, you just have the voice to really hear what they are saying, what they are really meaning. It’s so important to understand that you need to become a great listener.

Larry Levine [9:37]
Yes.

Christine Schlonski [9:40]
I remember one day, I love Argentine Tango. So I showed my team this beautiful video, and if you’ve ever seen it like it looks amazing, but the woman dances like a different choreography than the guy. So if it’s not choreography, it’s like you know you are lead by the men, but you don’t know what step comes next. It’s not like the waltz where you see like 1,2,3,1,2,3, left, right. It’s so much more complicated. So I showed that to the team, everybody watching this video. And obviously, it’s, you know, it looks really beautiful. And you could just see how interesting it was like everybody perceived it in a different way. And then I turned it into the sales conversation. So you as a salesperson, you lead, you have to choreograph your own step. But you also have to help choreograph the step of the person you’re talking to and to understand what they need, because if you don’t give them space, you’re going to screw up the dance. It’s not going to look nice.

Larry Levine [10:48]
No, exactly. And but what’s interesting is how many people, I remember back in my day, I tried it, I was always sitting on top of the totem pole in sales. I was always number one or number two in my sales department always. And I remember one time they asked me to run one of the branches in my organization as a manager, and I stunk at it. It was the worst year I ever had my whole life.

Christine Schlonski [11:20]
Because you took the focus away from you.

Larry Levine [11:22]
Exactly. And I go, “Man, I could never become a manager. I just could never do it.” But now the older that I got and doing what I’m doing now is after I go, there’s a massive difference between a manager and again a coach and the leader. And in getting I’ve only been at corporate sales for years. So I stepped right out of corporate sales, flip the hat around Christine, and started coaching individual salespeople and sales teams, on things that I thought were sorely lacking out there just based on 28, almost 29 years of observing sales teams. I go now I get what sorely lacking and I think what’s sorely lacking is what you just brought up is there’s a severe lack of coaching and nurturing and mentoring and all that to me. I mean, there’s a time and a place to manage and I get it and I’m not here to discredit it, but there’s way too much managing and not enough developing.

Christine Schlonski [12:25]
Yeah. Oh, I totally agree. Yeah, I think it’s, if you bring personal development and sales together, then you can really create magic because the person is going to grow as a person. If you are the coach, I believe a coach always grows with their clients. And you know, and you give the experience to people you are talking to you want to sell to by making it so much better and nicer because people buy you first and then the product basically.

Larry Levine [12:58]
Yeah. Here’s what’s interesting about that is, if you ask your customers, what do they really want from a salesperson. They will tell you, you have to be willing and you have to accept what they’re going to say. Good and bad. But they will tell you, they’ll tell you things like, “I just want you to care about me. I want you to be there for me. Don’t break your promises. Treat me with respect and so forth.” We can go on and on and on and on and on. Well, here’s what I want people to think about is what do you think salespeople want from their managers?

Christine Schlonski [13:39]
Same thing.

Larry Levine [13:40]
Same thing, Christine.

Christine Schlonski [13:43]
Yeah.

Larry Levine [13:43]
Isn’t that interesting?

Christine Schlonski [13:44]
Isn’t that interesting? I think you know, we all what we want for ourselves. I mean, that’s a human right. We all want to be treated with respect. We all want that promises that I made, I fulfilled. So be that I mean, be that person and by being that person you become the leader automatically. Because leaders are respected, managers often not.

Larry Levine [14:07]
Yeah. And here’s what scares me and it concerns me with what I see out there right now is, I took on another layer of what I’m doing. I started to coach high performing sales reps. These are higher earners, and so forth. I started to do it because I started to see something out there. When I was working with sales teams. I started seeing the top one and two and three salespeople in companies being left alone. Because hey, they know they’re going to deliver their numbers, I don’t want to rock the boat. I don’t want to piss these people off. If I piss them off or push them and they leave, then what. See where I’m going with this?

Christine Schlonski [14:47]
Totally. And I experienced that whenever, I mean, I was always a top performer. When I was at peak performance, you know, I was not touched, so to speak, like I could do whatever I wanted. But then as soon as it tanked a little bit for whatever reason, you know, they were all over you, just thought like, “What? Give me a moment to breathe. I’m going to be back in my game because I know what the heck I’m doing.”

Larry Levine [15:11]
Yeah. And it’s sad because I share this because now as I’m starting to coach these individuals facing the things, Christine that I start to hear, as they start being comfortable, they open up, they go, “You know what, things just haven’t been right, you know, with me for the last year, but nobody’s bothered to frickin ask because I’ve delivered the numbers. But my managers never pulled me aside and asked and really said, what can I do to help? Is there anything I can do to help you to become better? It’s okay, where are the numbers at right? Hey, high five, right, yet a fantastic month”, and so forth. I’m coaching somebody right now. And this is kind of just sad where the word leadership’s at is, I’m coaching somebody who’s almost double what their plan number is. Year to date. And all this person did was ask me, “Hey, what else are you going to sell the rest of the month, as opposed to”, it is sad. But you can’t bring your heart to the business table as a leader if you’re always focused on the numbers. And what’s really interesting is, I had a conversation actually earlier this week with one of my old service technicians at a company I used to work for. And we’re still friends that I’ve known this person well past 20 years and say, “Hey, how’s it going at, name of my old company. You know, things still are the same as”, and I’ve been far removed out of this company six-plus years now. What’s sad is leadership, I can’t even call it leadership. The powers that they look at their employees as numbers as opposed to human beings and they’ve attached revenue dollars to who they are. Now multiply that out. Times what’s going on all across the world inside sales teams. And you can see where the issues are at, is we’re pushing, we’re pushing down from the top. And when you start attaching revenue dollars to a human being and you’re looking like them as what’s my revenue per employee and all that, you’re missing the boat folks as we start rolling into 2020.

Christine Schlonski [17:22]
I totally agree. And I know I’ve been in situations right you delivered the biggest deal. And the question is, “Well, congrats. Where’s next?” Sorry. Like what?

Larry Levine [17:35]
Well, that’s why you know, the old saying in sales go, “Hero to Zero”, and that fast, right?

Christine Schlonski [17:39]
Yeah. Yeah, totally. And it just doesn’t feel good. So when you have talented people, talented people have a choice. You choose to leave, I chose to leave it because you know if it’s not managed correctly, and it’s such a shame because there’s so much potential and just the person you mentioned your coaching right now. I think that’s pretty sad. Yeah,

Larry Levine [18:03]
In what’s even worse is, you know, and I’m sure you saw it on the teams you’re at. And it might even be, you know, what the listeners are listening is, if you look at how leadership or management hold their sales team accountable or lack thereof or treat their sales team, I can almost guarantee it’s how their customers are being treated. And that’s sad.

Christine Schlonski [18:26]
Totally. Yeah. So it’s really good because we do have a lot of people who are solopreneurs or small company owners, so they’re still in control. And that’s what I always say, “You don’t have to be that person. You make that decision.” If you want to be the sleazy salesperson you can. If you don’t want to be sleazy for this person, you can.

Larry Levine [18:51]
Yeah, and I want to speak to that for a second. For a lot of listeners who are on their own and there doing things as I always use these three C’s. I think this may help because I think that solo entrepreneur who’s out on their own controls a lot more of their own destiny, and I think you’d probably agree, is, if you can, the three C’s are, it’s how you care for somebody, how you connect to somebody and how you show compassion for somebody. And if you can incorporate those into what you’re doing, is when you connect with somebody, you gotta dig way below the frickin surface and you gotta dig, dig, dig and build that meaningful, incredible relationship. You got to show you care. And you have to genuinely show compassion for somebody. To me, that’s just where it’s at. To me, it’s a non-negotiable thing. I’m even, in what you’re doing, Christine, what I’m doing as well. It’s almost at solo entrepreneur, right?

Christine Schlonski [19:57]
Yeah.

Larry Levine [19:58]
That we’re out there. When you can bring and I looked, and I look at how we connected, it’s the same thing, right? It’s, how we connected, we went below the surface, right? We’re showing that we care for each other. And then it’s just the nature of who we are, right? I mean, what you speak about. And what I speak about is like his mirror moments, because there’s, there’s so much in alignment. But it’s that compassion that you have for people. And it shows and people will genuinely drive and engage in a conversation with you. If you can show how well you can connect to them, how well you care about them and how well you’re compassionate.

Christine Schlonski [20:38]
Yeah. And I think that’s one more layer to it. And you probably agree once you combine those three C’s and you lift those three C’s. Interestingly, more people will show up in your life that has the same values and all of a sudden conversations become easier. It is easier to go deeper than just the surface because people are opening up because they know you are open.

Larry Levine [21:08]
Yeah, it’s interesting. I just think that we live in this fast-paced world and I get it. But we just don’t connect. In other words, if I’m introduced to you, it might just be you know, “Hey, I’d like to for you to meet Christine, and I’ll do little both small talk with Christine. Hey, Christine, how’s it going? How’s your day going?” and things like that. You’re gonna say, “That’s fine”, and so forth. And we move on. As opposed to truly understanding and trying to build that relationship with somebody. By digging in below the surface, it’s just we have too many surface-level conversations. My opinion.

Christine Schlonski [21:49]
Yeah, totally agree. But the good thing is as soon as you have that freedom as a solopreneur, small company owner, you can take your time. The only pressure you put on yourself, but you can take the time to nurture these conversations.

Larry Levine [22:05]
Yeah. And if you do it with consistency, and you make it a priority, it becomes natural. And I think it’s unnatural for a lot of people, because the pressure that’s being placed, whether it’s them they do themselves or you know, from a leader or a manager is, we don’t have enough time to do this. Because we’re being squashed to produce numbers. But if you just, because people always ask me, “Well, how did you do this?” And I said, “You know, I just made a mental commitment to myself.” And you know, sorry, I basically threw up the middle finger to a lot of my managers and just said, “You know what? You’re going to get what you’re going to get with me. And if you don’t, you know, and unfortunately, you don’t like it. I’m doing what’s in the best interest of this company, for goodness sake. I’m taking really great care of your customers”, and but will be interesting is why I believe what you and I are so closely aligned to matters is like I said, I’ve been far removed. I sold out of my last organization in 2013, August. So you know, where now what, six and a half years, I’m removed from that company. I still run into past employees. They’re still my friends. They said that our customers still talk about you to this day. And I haven’t seen any of them, Christine in six and a half years.

Christine Schlonski [23:33]
Yeah. That’s pretty awesome.

Larry Levine [23:37]
Yeah. And that’s what I want people to understand whether you’re that solo individual entrepreneur, or you’re in a sales team, is you have to bring the goods to what you do. You have to bring sincerity authenticity, substance goods, and you got to bring your heart to what you do because people are, they will on it, they’ll crave it. I know they will because you’re going to deliver something that is so unique to what most people believe going on out there, that you will rise outside of what I call this sea of sameness. Because I’ll share something with you, I had somebody on our podcast, this is many, many months ago. And we started talking about the sea of sameness. We started saying, “You know what, we got to take our jaded glasses off that we look at, you know, through the eyes of our sales, we got to take those glasses off.” He says because, through your clients’ eyes or the eyes of your prospect, there’s not much difference between competitors A, B, and C, not much at all. The company could basically service whatever you’re selling competitor A, B, and C all the same way. Somebody’s going to come out with a better faster widget. But what’s going to define you and what makes you different is how fast you get to somebody’s heart. And I firmly believe that in a world where we’re not trying trusted, they think we’re full of BS, and they’re skeptical about everything that we have to say. We already know that we’re behind the eight balls already, the faster I can get to somebody’s heart by showing that I truly care and I’m here to help solve their business problems and challenges right away. They’re going to go, “Finally, finally I found somebody that is listening to me. That’s different and then watch how they start to open up.”

Christine Schlonski [25:27]
Yeah, so, so true. So to finish off, do you have a favorite mantra or inspirational quote you want to share?

Larry Levine [25:38]
Wow, I got tons of them.

Christine Schlonski [25:41]
Well, what comes top of mind?

Larry Levine [25:44]
So this is probably, I’m going to share with you this is my all-time favorite. It’s in my book. There’s a lot of double negatives in this but I think you’re going to understand it. It says, “Salespeople today have hypnotized themselves into believing what they’re not doing, doesn’t work.” Now think about that one for a second.

Christine Schlonski [26:06]
Yeah.

Larry Levine [26:09]
Salespeople have hypnotized themselves into believing what they’re not doing doesn’t work in there. I say this because as people listen to this podcast, they’re gonna say, “You know, you’re full of bull crap, Larry, this stuff doesn’t work.” Well, how do you know you’re not even doing it anyway?

Christine Schlonski [26:28]
Exactly. Yes. That’s so true. Wow, what a quote. Well, thank you so, so much, Larry. You know, I mean, we both could talk for hours since we share so many values.

Larry Levine [26:41]
I promise you this when you come on my podcast, and we’re going to continue this conversation. Deal?

Christine Schlonski [26:47]
Well, that sounds good. So people, take a note. Make sure you subscribe. So let’s send people to the page where they can have a look at your book and your podcast,

Larry Levine [27:04]
You can just go to https://www.sellingfromtheheart.net/ And when you go to https://www.sellingfromtheheart.net/ you can find the podcast, you can find the book, you can find why the book, chapters of the book if you choose to, you could take it for a cruise and you can download the first three chapters of Selling From the Heart.

Christine Schlonski [27:20]
Awesome. Yeah. And I will make sure all the links are in the show notes. So you are just one click away. And make sure you subscribe to Selling From the Heart. It’s an amazing, amazing podcast. You love it. And obviously you don’t want to miss my episode with Larry. So thank you so, so much, for spending time with us. For sharing from your heart. And yeah, have a wonderful day.

Larry Levine [27:44]
Now, this is awesome. I will leave you with this. Isn’t it amazing what technology does when I’m in California and you’re in Germany? This is freaking awesome.

Christine Schlonski [27:51]
It is totally awesome. Thank you so much, Larry.

Larry Levine [27:54]
You’re very welcome. Bye.

Christine Schlonski [27:56]
I could talk to Larry all day long. This was so much much fun, and I hope you had fun as well. And you really learn more about how you can be authentic in sales, how you can have integrity and bring more substance to the table, to your clients so that you can really sell from the heart that it is fun because at the end of the day, your impact counts and heart sells, that’s the truth. You are here in the right place if you are looking to give more of your gifts to the world. To support you, I have show notes for you. I have the three most important key points and the transcripts and obviously all the links that lead to Larry, all you need to do is hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/. Find the podcast tab and the shows of Larry 174 and 175. And all his links are there so you can connect with him. You can tune into his podcast, you can check out his book, and I highly recommend you do this. It’s uplifting, empowering. And in case you might be a little bit frustrated about other salespeople out there who are not integrity or who are not authentic and this will really uplift you and show you there are tons of salespeople and entrepreneurs who want to be coming from this authentic place. So you are right, in the right place if you are tuning in to Larry’s Selling From the Heart material. Also, while you’re over there, join the Heart-centered Lead Generation Summit, where I have gathered over 40 amazing experts, sharing their world-class strategies on how to generate leads, a consistent client flow without losing your authenticity with really coming from the place that feels good, that gets you results. Those people have amazing success. They worked for some amazing names like Grant Cardone, Marie Forleo, Danielle LaPorte, Lisa Sasevich. And you know, they are just there to share their wisdom and what they have shared with others who got this amazing, amazing success. So hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/ and find the Heart-Centered Lead Generation Summit or you can just put in https://christineschlonski.com/hclgs-registration/ and the URL will take you there. Thank you so much for tuning in. Have a wonderful day, wherever you are, and I’m saying bye for now.