Why 94% of Salespeople Never Become Elite, And How To Fix |EP21| Will Aitken

Mark Ackers: Listen. It's hard work making a podcast. I want to know that it's worthwhile. Like, subscribe, share, show me that you enjoy it, and we'll keep making them.

If not, I've got two orange chairs for sale. What's coming up in today's episode? My Will Aitken: wife asked me, Are you sure sales is right for you? I felt like I was failing, and I felt like it wasn't doing good, and I felt like I couldn't get any better.

Mark Ackers: Today's guest has made millions laugh while teaching people how to sell. Gone viral on Tiktok. He's co founded sales feed and built a LinkedIn following of over 65,000 people. Behind the skits is someone who nearly gave up on sales completely.

My guest is will akin did you used to be crap at sales? Will Aitken: Yes, I was crap at sales for a very long time, far longer than I should have been during the interview process, I realised I was horribly under qualified and not what they were looking for. I tried to keep the focus off me as much as possible. I basically just recited what I just learned, which wasn't necessarily the truth.

The whole job of sales is to make the company money, and if you're not doing that, then you are losing the money Mark Ackers: 100% good salesperson shouldn't cost anything. Will Aitken: I blamed everything. And I thought, Oh, it's my territory. It's my manager.

Ironically, after all this, after dropping the ego, my ego made me leave that company. I knew they were they had the senior candidate title, but they were being paid much more aggressive, both accelerators and a base salary, and that made me bitter and hurt. So I went to my manager and said, Give me the promotion. I've earned it.

And he didn't. How Mark Ackers: have you become so self aware? Because so many people aren't 2023. Is Will Aitken: probably the worst year of my entire life, because I didn't believe in what I was doing.

I wasn't learning anymore need for approval validation. I wanted to be the best. That wasn't about being successful, in my mind at the time, it was about trying to look the most successful. If someone Mark Ackers: listens to this has realised that they've got a need for approval or even a need to be loved.

What's something they can do to start to overcome that. Think about what you do with Hello and welcome to a new episode of The I used to be crap at sales Podcast. I'm Mark Akers, your host, the co founder and Head of Sales here at my sales coach today's guest, born in Milton Keynes, armed with what he calls a pointless degree. He's been a pub bartender, a recruiter, a SaaS AE, a content creator, and now he runs his own sales business.

In their bio, they say they're a salesperson, a sales trainer, a keynote speaker, an author and a piss taker, fluent in English, memes and sarcasm. They're the chief vice directing, president of managing things. If you've not guessed it, by now, I'm really excited for this episode. My guest is will Aitken will?

Hello and welcome to the Will Aitken: podcast. Mark. What an intro mate. Very happy to be here.

Thank you for inviting me on. It's Mark Ackers: good to have you. Will we start the podcast in the same way every time, which is a yes, no question, did you used to be crap at sales? Will Aitken: I wouldn't have agreed to come on a podcast called I used to be crap at sales if that wasn't the case.

Yes, I was crap at sales for a very long time, far longer than I should Mark Ackers: have been. When you think about being crap at sales. Is there a particular moment that springs to mind when you really realise that to be true? Will Aitken: Yeah, probably, when my wife asked me, Are you sure sales is right for you?

You know, like the person who knows me the most is you sure you want to be in sales? You know, because I was in a place where I was I felt like I was failing, and I felt like it wasn't doing good, and I felt like I couldn't get any better. And she asked me that question. I was like, damn, but do what am I?

Should I? I I don't know, Mark Ackers: but I figured out. So take me to that moment. Where were you when she asked you that question?

I'd Will Aitken: been selling media sponsors, advertising, that type of thing, for a couple of years, and the journey to that point had been a lot of highs and a lot of lows as well. Really inconsistent, right? So we're, you know, going from feast to famine each month, no consistency whatsoever. And then when my son was born, I took some time off, as you should, as a father to help out.

It's a really tough time, especially when it's your first kid, you don't know what the heck you're doing. And I came back and I just had nothing, no pipeline. And following that, there was just a few months, just in a row, just zeros or very low numbers on the leaderboard. And I was like, I don't know how to make this work.

And that was, I was having a lot of self doubt, right? I'm like, Okay, well, I obviously don't know what I'm doing. I've been lucky in the past. You know, that's kind of how I felt about my past performance, and those, those feast I mentioned the high months.

So when we had that chat, that was, that was where I was at Mark Ackers: when she asked you, What did you say? Like, how taken back were you by that question? Will Aitken: Obviously, it's within the context of that conversation, and I was complaining about, you know, things not going well, and being nervous about making enough money to support a new family as well, right? I'd ask myself that question, to be honest, I hadn't probably said out loud, like, you know, you when you when you have that self doubt, you're like, maybe I shouldn't do this.

Maybe it's just go and be something else. I also thought, what else am I supposed to do? I haven't got any skills. I haven't really got any passionate desires or interest to do anything else.

There was nothing really that that was calling to me, or that a lot of people go I want to be this, and then end up finding that they can't make that and then end up in sales box, and I just didn't have anything. So I just got into sales because I could, right? I thought to myself, well, I don't have anything else. I kind of have.

Be good at this, because otherwise I won't. I'll be starting again. And as I said, I was young family, so I thought starting all over again in my career wasn't really an option that point as well. Mark Ackers: It's really interesting.

I imagine so many people listen to this would have had that moment where they think, what else am I meant to do? It's not going well, but what else am I meant to do? I really feel the similarities. I felt that I remember there was a point where I was in sales.

I fell into it. Well, fell into it. It's probably not quite right. I went into it because I wanted to earn more money.

Sounds like you're saying the same wasn't going so well. What am I meant to do? I remember that exact thought, I wish I just had a skill. And I was thinking, Could I be an electrician?

Could I be a plumber? Could I be a carpenter? I wished I had a skill. And it feels like at that point, though, you didn't realise you had a skill, because you've got one, and you've got many, actually, and but you probably didn't realise at the time that sales is a skill, and it feels like you've got on that journey to realising not only is it a skill, it's a fundamental skill that if you can and look, Master's a very strong word, but if you can get good at it, actually, there's a lot you can achieve.

And it feels like you've had to go on that journey to a place where you are today, which is really what we want to get to in the podcast, right? That journey of how you got into sales, realising it was crap to where you are today, because so many people follow your content, love your content. I'm one of those people, and so many people look up to you, and they think, Ah, it's easy for this guy. And I know, you know, that's just not true.

You've gotten a journey, and that's we're going to share today. Let's take it right back when you were growing up, you were the odd child. What do you mean by that? A Will Aitken: lot of people in sales often are add a HD, that type of thing sometimes just correlates with ending up in sales in the first place.

I find I was never the worst at school, like in terms of academics, but I was definitely the most in trouble at the time, you know, acting out, probably looking for some kind of attention, if I'm honest, but then also being the loudest and doing things somewhat differently to everyone else. I was known by a lot of people, not because I was their friend, but just because I got noticed for the right things and the wrong things, most of the wrong things, getting in trouble. Nothing mean or nasty, just normally, just being very mischievous, not following the Mark Ackers: rules.

Obviously, you talk about not being academic. You went to university. You call it a pointless degree, which is not saying I'm comfortable with because I think with degrees, really, it doesn't matter what it's in. It's showing that you can self study, learn, hold yourself accountable, show up.

You can take a project, you can break it down, you can you can provide information in a way. It's digestible like that. When I look at degrees, that's what I'm looking for, and I put far more weight on what Mark did they get versus what was it in? But you call it pointless.

What made you choose that and has it helped you at all? Do Will Aitken: you really want to know? Absolutely, I wanted to be an engineer when I was, like, high school age. Apologies, I've been in America for so long I can't remember sick form.

I wanted to be an engineer. I wanted to be I had a private pilot's licence that I got when I was 16, so I was really into planes. I want to go and do aerospace engineering at Liverpool, and my backup was, like, Swansea or something like that. But the issue was I really struggled with math and physics, and I didn't actually like them that much.

And I don't think I quite realised it's not about aeroplanes. It's about like science and things that I probably didn't enjoy as much I wanted to do, but I had it in my mind. You pick your A Levels sometimes, and you kind of feel a bit stuck in that path at that point, even if you know you're not enjoying it or doing well and you're too young to have the the self awareness to say, maybe this isn't what I actually want to do. I just said it because it sounded cool, and I like planes, you know.

So then when my a level results came back, and I did have to get some extra studying and tutoring to even get to what I got to, but they were, they're pretty bad grades. So naturally, the bull didn't want me to on that aerospace engineering course. Swansea gave me an option, a second option, of doing a course I wasn't as interested in. It was called something like aircraft maintenance engineering or something like that.

But it was kind of like it was a trade. You know, it was more of a trade. It was like a mix between a degree in a trade school. And I said, Well, maybe I don't want to either of those things, but I knew I wanted to go to university.

I knew I wanted the independence, and I had a bit of pressure for my parents to do that as well. All my sisters, my old, two old sisters, had also gone to university. And even my dad said, what you kind of almost said, it's about not just going to university and learning something that you're going to plan to use about being independent. It's about going out there and learning skills of just learning and getting better.

So then what I decided, I went through clear I decided to say, note Swansea's offer of this second course I wasn't interested in. And I went on Google, and I typed in which university, because I was 17 years old, has the best, I shouldn't say best, the highest girl to boy ratio. Yeah, 817, year old boys only have really one thing on their mind. And I was thinking, oh, yeah, university girls.

And then I went on a step further, which course at the University of the most girls has the most girls on it, and that was events management, because a lot of people on that course wanted to be, you know, conference planners or wedding planners. That was, like, the thing that was standing out to them. So a lot of people wanted to do that. And I just said, you know, it's something and it's it by the coast, and it will be good fun.

So I chose that and, and that's how. Ended up at Mark Ackers: it. I feel like such an idiot. I picked, I picked my university based on what was the furthest away from home that had a Premier League football team where I could get a Will Aitken: ticket.

I'm glad to know that we've made decisions based on things that probably weren't that important. Yeah, no, definitely. And how many times did you get to go see the footy? Mark Ackers: Because I realised back then, you could get away with buying a child ticket, and no one checked.

So I was getting tickets for like, five quid, and walking up Will Aitken: to you because I didn't manage to get pull any girls, I won't lie. So my plan didn't work out quite the way it went. I wanted to Mark Ackers: Fair enough. So okay, so that's really interesting.

I've got a little bit of insight here from you in school, in university, and from there, it feels like you couldn't do what you wanted to do. You've got this degree, not really wanting to use it. And it's it feels like you had then a bit of time to yourself, where you worked. Well, it says on LinkedIn, you worked in Will Aitken: a pub.

I worked at that pub while I was at university. So after I graduated, I was sat there thinking, I get a job. And I did get a job. I went and worked.

I don't know if this is still on my LinkedIn, because it was a short stint. But I worked for Connells, the estate agent, a call centre of people who basically would call anyone else who had their home listed with, I know, tailors or wimpies or whoever it may be, and try and get them to switch estate agents. So for three months, I was just banging the phones on that. I enjoyed it, and I was okay at it as well, but it was, it's, you know, that classic, very high volume cold, cooling environment.

I think that's good for people as well, in an office in lane buzzard. And then while I was doing that, I was like, I'm still young. I still want to travel. So I went and then did a ski season in France where I managed a bar in a hotel and skied and did the class thing there.

And then I came back from that the bar that I was managing. That hotel, like most, like shallow people, it's kind of weird. I had a quota as the bar, so I had to try and get as many people to buy from that bar as possible every single week. So I'd be throwing pub quizzes, just doing anything to get people to go from dinner, where they got free wine, to come and spend money in the bar.

And I was actually really good at that as well. Pub quizzes would always go down. Well, it was a chance for me to get to know everyone in the room, because every room, because every week we'd have a new round of guests staying in the hotel. And after that, they paid out a big bonus, because I absolutely smashed the bar target and and I used that money to then go backpacking.

That's where I went across Asia, did all that stuff, and landed in Australia, which is where I had met my partner and got probably my first real big boy job, which was when I got into recruitment. Mark Ackers: Wow. So first of all, I'm starting to see where some of this event management degree did get used. Organising pub quizzes is definitely an event.

Play it down, if you like. But what, what I think you're you are doing, though, is you're learning the fundamental skills of sales when it comes to communication with different types of people. You'd have met different people at university, different people in the pub, different people at the ski lawn, learn ski lodge, then you've gone travelling, and one of the key things that sales people can do is adapt to whoever they're speaking i In your case, whoever you're serving. And you'd have been learning without even realising it, how you need to adjust the way in which you communicate with different people, which is such a difficult thing to do.

And you've been at a call centre in a pub as a university, you've been travelling, so you're learning the fundamentals here. That's going to set you up for a strong career. You're right. I saw you went travelling, went to Sydney, and obviously, for reasons, everybody understands LinkedIn is not 100 accurate.

I've got your first job as search it local in Sydney. You mentioned advertising earlier. You only left two months. I didn't know that was part of like work placement on there, Will Aitken: because from there, it's all honest.

I think the Connors thing wasn't really worth putting on there, because then it would have been a break as well. But the Yeah, I got a call centre. And that was actually where I did, I did meet my my wife. She was sat next to me.

And that was if, if I made Connells sound like a bit of a boil over environment, that was insane, like, at least Connells had a click to dial, you know, this was like, tapping on the phone, yellow pages, you know, this was in, like, 2015 2016, yeah, and I was just tapping away, and yeah, the cold hard target was 300 and the service, we didn't realise it at first, because they did a very good job making sure no one knew this, like it was helping people set up a free page that they could do for themselves on Google, and then charging them subscription price for it.

So the product was kind of scammy as well. So you just had to just make as many dollars until you get someone who was willing to stay on the phone with you, and then they would be like, stood behind you, like, don't let them go. Don't let them go. Don't let them hang up.

Because if they hung up, they'd go online and they would Google the company see all these negative reviews. So you can do this stuff for free. You can do it yourself. We can get someone pay someone like on Fiverr to do it for you, and they would never, we would never be able to get them.

So it was either like, close them on that first call, or you would never talk to them again. And that was really high pressure. And I remember I was pretty good at that, but also, like those kind of I don't want to call a scam, because they did actually provide a service of sorts, but like that naturally attracts some very intense people who were okay of all that, and the environment was just very toxic sales environment, right? So one day a.

I was sat next to my wife, and I said, you want to go get some she wasn't even, I wasn't even date her. At that point, I went. I was like to go grab some lunch. And she said, Sure, I don't think I love working here.

She I'd made a few sales, she'd made none. And then I was like, Hey, would you like to go have dinner? And then we actually made it start a real relationship. But once we left that, I was like, Okay, now I need a real job, because I don't want to do that.

And we left on the same day. We just quit. And we just quit, and we actually moved in together very soon after that, very fast. The reason I even started working at Connells in the first place, the reason I got a sales job the moment in Australia, was because everyone always said, you'd be great at sales.

Will you'd be great at sales and or you'd be great, you'd be great at recruitment. Because I find recruitment, a lot of sellers who work in tech don't realise this, I don't think, but it's very sales adjacent. If you're working in an agency, you are going to have to cold call and fire clients. If you do not have a process, you will not place candidates.

Is very quota based as well. So I started working as a recruiter at that point, and that was actually a real job and great company. And I had an amazing boss there. God, I remember him the way he he really invested in me and his team.

Mark Ackers: So yes, I saw you. You move from there to recruitment. And the line that you used was you were reading a Reddit article, and it said you could make bank moving into recruitment, which made me laugh. I've not heard that phrase before, but obviously you can depict what it means.

But you moved to recruitment, and you said you were top performer there. How long before you become a top performer? From joining to become a top performer? How did that Will Aitken: take you?

So they had a grad scheme, and I don't think, I think a lot of people don't realise this, but sometimes companies will hire five people with the not full knowledge that three of them will not make it. So they hired a grad scheme of people who were like, had the right attributes, have had no experience in their field, with the idea of training them up because they were trying to grow as an agency. And how firing and finding good recruiters is just as tough as finding a good salesperson, oftentimes a good recruiter will be making enough and be happy enough that they won't want to leave a lot of the time.

So they thought that was a better strategy. And in that grad group, it was just like nine day between me and the other people who joined. I just showed up, I guess. But also, I think the biggest difference actually, was probably the fact that I was willing to cold call, because I just come from what I just described, like, it didn't like, I could get clients, and if I had enough clients, I could, it meant more placements, basically, you know, whereas they were all struggling to try and fill these jobs that that they'd been given, but the ones they were being given weren't the best jobs, you know.

I mean, so like, they, they would be working with another recruiter in the office who'd be like, I need you to help me find some candidates for this role, but I'd be going out and making calls to start finding new roles where there'd be more urgency and there would actually be, it'd be a placeable position, basically. And while I was doing that as well, I mean, I was focusing on hiring salespeople, a lot of them in the SaaS industry as well. And that's where I started. My first exposure to software, which is which informed my direction, going Mark Ackers: there as well, looking to unlock your team's full potential.

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We provide coaching that sticks and delivers visit mysaliscoach.com use the link in the bio, and start achieving your goals today. And it's interesting, because you're right. You see recruiters get exposed to these jobs all the time, and they think I could do that job.

But I suppose, just before we get to that move to I'm guessing it's hr.com you went to next when you're with the other grads. I get it. You, you've you've made cold calls before, you've been in boiler rooms, etc.

Equally, I've seen this happen far too many times. You hire someone knowing they know how to cold call. They've done it before, they've been that boiler room, but they get in with a group of other people that don't do it, so they just stop. They just follow the norm and the pack.

And that's really easy to do. What made you not follow the pack and think I'm gonna go outbound here, I'm gonna go and win new customers. I appreciate it might seem obvious now, well, make money, makes up, but it's really hard to do that. That's Will Aitken: a really good question, actually, because you're right.

It would have been easy to not do it. I think I'm really competitive. A lot of I know I said I'm did it to make bank, but a lot of the things that actually fulfil me. Working in sales is sometimes just being the best, not necessarily the best trait to have, because if you're constantly comparing yourself to someone else or measuring your success against other people, that's not really a route to fulfilment.

I don't find but I wanted to be the best I and I saw that as my competitive advantage. Have you always felt that way? Yeah, I've got. I grew up in a family of with two older sisters, we're still competing today.

And even when I started making really, really good money selling software, I was like, I didn't necessarily need the money, you know? I mean, like, I didn't have a plan for it. And even when I had it, I didn't know what to do with it, it was still, man, this feels good. Just feeling accomplished and being a top performer.

That was almost like a big, big thing that kept me going. It was like, that was it. But the opposite side of that is that when things aren't going well and you value that type of thing, you can end up in this opposite end of the spectrum where you feel self doubt because you're not doing as well against other people, or you're you're underperforming, and you're not feeling like you're a winner, you know? I mean, Mark Ackers: yeah, attaching your self worth to your performance.

Went to work. I think I see a lot of people do that, and I've been quite vocal that I've struggled with that, you know, periods of my life where you not had the quarter a month that you want, and you take it home with you, and you've shared before we got on a couple of points in your career that we're going to get to just before we do that. As I say, it feels like you're an upward trajectory here. You've got a new job, you're in recruitment, you're a top performer.

How long did that take you, though, to get to the point where you knew people were tapping your shoulder at this recruitment company saying, Will you're one of the best you could see you're one of the best. How long did that actually Will Aitken: take you when I was the last grad left, and I was I was making more placements than people in doing it for years, and here's the thing as well. Like, I didn't necessarily do it, by the way. I was told I had a team lead there.

So the managing director of this firm was the guy who sit me down. He felt like therapy would do, like coaching one on one sessions. He would recommend books you should go and read. It was really helpful stuff.

But I was at a team lead British guy. Every recruiting in Australia feels like a Brit, you know, just seems to be the thing that everyone does when they move there, as a pom, as the Australians like to call us. And he said, Man, you never do what I want you to do. It's like you feel there's more glory in doing it your way than just doing it the the easy or best or most effective way.

Like I'm building you a bridge, and I'm telling you, just walk across it and you're going down the road, down the stream, jumping on a rope swing to swing across so you can go wee Look at me, and then jumping onto the other side. That was the analogy using it that stuck me for so long. And he was like, I'm trying to help you, man, and you keep doing things your own way, and it works, but you could be so much better if you had a process, if you listen to these things I'm trying to help you with.

I also felt there's a sense of responsibility that I think a lot of people miss when they go and work for a company, and it's not something that you should prioritise over your own career, your own things. But I felt, when you're getting paid a base salary, you know, you're now costing that company money, right? And it wasn't a huge company, it was probably, I think, office at the time, of 25 people, right? And it was privately owned, so I knew, and I knew the guy owned it, right?

So there's a sense of responsibility. I felt that I had to do make sure that I was a profitable person to keep around, right? And that was, at the start, one of my main focuses. So although they wanted to focus on hiring for tech roles, and that was, like, their big focus, I remember the first role I placed, I just cold called this company and said, Hey, I saw you hiring a junior accountant.

I've got someone. And then I played and they're like, Well, we're a tech recruitment agency. Why are you placing accountants? Is like, because I wanted to make a placement, you know.

And I thought any, any placement, is a good placement. Is a good placement, and that person worked out, didn't, they didn't leave, or anything like that. And then it became more focused on the sales side of things, because Mark Ackers: that was, that was interesting to me. It's fascinating, like, in the sense of, you've gone out of the swim lane to make a placement, to have that success.

The bit that really interested me, though, was the way in which you were so aware of your salary cost the business needing to repay that. Do you think most sales people think Will Aitken: like that? I haven't asked, I don't know content. What do you think I'm contemplating me too.

Mark Ackers: I tell you why. I don't know if they do because, and I know anyone listening to this will take this in the way it's intended, to be in sales and to be good. And people listening to this podcast are good at sales because they're listening to podcasts. They're trying to get better doing the work.

Exactly they're doing that. They're doing the work. We've all got some level of ego, right? And being aware of it, it's important.

But we've all got some level of ego. We've had a level of success. I think most people see their base salary is that's why I get paid, because of how good I am not. I'm in debt to this business, and I better repay that.

I don't know. It's an interesting one that, like you say, I've never really asked Will Aitken: people that, yeah, and I've never really spoken about it. I don't think I've ever said this definitely, definitely on a podcast. But it's also like, if you're objective about it, the whole job of sales is to make the company money, and if you're not doing that, then you are losing the money 100% good salesperson shouldn't cost anything.

Yeah, exactly. It should be a no brainer, yeah, that to pay them a base and the other commission they're earning as well. But I think it's harder when you get people who Mark Ackers: don't, oh, 100% like because they are, they just a cost on a, on a on the spreadsheet, you know, and they're not bringing in and obviously, it's not just about covering their cost. It's multiple Will Aitken: times that it's, it's a similar, I don't know if it's, I don't know if this is rather just the conversation.

As you can probably tell Mark, Canadians don't know this because they don't know the different lingual areas in the UK. But I'm pretty posh. You can probably you would you consider me posh sounding Mark Ackers: when you can't really detect where someone's from? Yes, yes.

Will Aitken: Okay, so I went to boarding school my father sent me to. I think it's like the eighth most expensive one of the country, but it's also the one that's like, also the one that's like, all the wrong goods go. It's not stove, but it's near that, you know. And almost my entire life, I felt guilt for the fact that my dad sent me to school, really expensive school, and I went to, like, the 78th top university in the entire country, University of brown.

At least it said, University of of no shame in Polytechnic. But at least they had that right. I was that was my justification, and I felt guilty they had spent this money on me. I'd actually been the least successful of my my siblings at that point.

My sister went to Loughborough. My sister went to, I want to say she went to University of Swansea, actually, but I felt this guilt, and I felt like that was for a long time until I got some therapy and. Realise that this isn't how you should be thinking about things. I felt like I had to be successful to make it, to make him feel okay about spending that now I've now had much more mature conversations my dad where he's like, Oh, well, I wanted for you to be happy, man.

You don't owe me anything. I did that because I love my kids, you know. And that's a great conversation to have, right? In my mind, I had to be successful.

And I think it's very similar almost to the fact that when a company pays you a salary, I feel like I have to, I owe it to them to make sure that I am profitable. And then some on top of that, you know, I mean that I think the two mindsets are in a similar place. Now, a couple of years back, my dad was like, will you make twice as much as me? And I'm like, holy crap, you're the most successful person I've ever known, or in my mind, he always was.

Then I realised that's not even just it, it's not just that, it's not just that's not all success and happiness, right? That's just a side tangent of I was thinking about it when you asked me that question. That's like, similar to Mark Ackers: that. I think a lot of people can relate to that.

You know, this feeling indebted to someone that's given you a great opportunity and and part of me wondered if the fact that you knew the owner of the business that you were talking about made you feel a slightly different way. I think a lot of people will relate to that. And it's it comes down to that need for approval. And that affects so many salespeople.

And, you know, I appreciate people listening to this won't see the facial expression you just pulled, but you kind of pull that face where you almost saying, now that Will Aitken: Yeah, and this is something that that I still work on today. It's need for approval, validation. And you can almost hear it when I say, I say I was the thing I enjoyed about being a top salesperson wasn't helping my clients. It wasn't making tonnes of money because I didn't need the money because we bought a house at a good time, and our payments aren't that high, you know, like we weren't ever struggling.

It was winning, being the best. And then even now, when you look at what I do for my work, there is a lot of that they've you, if you, if you prioritise that over anything else, you can become dependent on LinkedIn likes and engagement, you know, I mean, and I've had to, I've had to rein that in. I've, I've actually spoken to professionals about that very topic. That's why, yeah, need for approval, chasing validation, versus just there's this thing of, do you want to look successful, or do you want to be successful?

And being successful is a much more fulfilling and happy and whole place to be than trying to look successful. And when I say I wanted to be the best, that wasn't about being successful, in my mind at the time, it was about trying to look the most successful. Mark Ackers: This is one of the greatest challenges that salespeople have, is a need for approval, and it ties back in. There's so many threads that we could tie this back to right, feeling like you don't have a skill, feeling like you've got to earn money to repay, feeling like you've got to be the best, feeling like you've got to go out and win new customers and and validate the reasons for being hired and being better than everybody else.

It all comes back down to need for approval. The impact this has, though, in sales conversations, and I want to be really clear, everybody in the world has got a degree of need for approval, a degree. There's a company in Boston called objective management group, and they assess salespeople. They've got the world's most sophisticated sales assessment.

It's research proven, it's scientific, it's validated, all all those buzzwords, but it's it's a phenomenal assessment, and when you complete it, it benchmarks you against 2.5 million sales people and counting. I've taken one. Everyone in my team has taken one.

We provide them at my sales coach, not an intended plug, but since we're here, the thing that's really interesting is the need for approval is the thing. And I won't be able to do the stats justice, but I'll be able to relay them enough that the point is made that need for approval is the biggest thing that separates elite salespeople to weak salespeople. And when I say elite, they found, bear in mind, 2.5 million people.

They found that only 6% salespeople are elite, which is, which is such a small number, but when they look into the biggest differences, and this is the bit, I won't know the exact maps and percentages, but need for approval was the biggest thing that they found that the elite didn't have it. Okay, that was my question. The Elite didn't have it. Because when you've got a need for approval, the weaker you are in sales, the more it becomes a need to be loved, right?

Need for approval means you don't want to upset the person you're speaking to, and when you don't want to upset them, it's because you're worried about what they might say or feel to what you're about to say. What that stops you from doing is asking the tough questions that get to the truth really going beyond surface level pain, and when you've got that need for approval, you fear asking those questions because you're connected to the outcome, you don't want to upset them. You want to be loved, you want to be liked, you want to be seen as helpful and successful.

You want to be a servant. You don't want to be a consultative seller. And I think everybody's had a moment in their career where they realise I'm just doing what I'm told. This prospect is pushing me around.

They're bullying me. They're, they're, they're getting what they want. And, you know, I've got loads of stories, yeah, exactly, being used, you know? And it's fascinating.

That you seem to be so in tune that you've had this need for approval. I love that you've openly spoken a couple of times already just about having therapy and, you know, speaking to someone that can help you work through what is head trash, but is put in there to everybody as part of the way we grow up. So need for approval is a fascinating topic, and we're not going too deep. Everybody listening to this podcast, it's had that realisation, or they will go on to have it as a result.

Listen to this where they've not asked the prospect the right questions because they've been worried about what they might say and how they might feel. And the reality is, when you don't ask the right questions, you don't get to the truth, and when you don't get to the truth, you can't help Will Aitken: so Chase lies a pipeline full of lies, Mark Ackers: well, lies and hope and that doesn't sell. And I would say, Well, let me ask you, if someone listens to this has realised that they've got a need for approval or even a need to be loved, what's something they can do to start to overcome that sounds like you've you've gotten a bit of a journey.

Will Aitken: Think about what you do when no one's watching, and lose the ego just for a minute and realise that you need to focus on what you know about yourself versus what other people might think or know about you. Most people, when they look inwards, aren't happy sometimes with what they truly have been bringing to the table, what they would bring to the table if no one was going to pat them on the back, if no one was going to say they liked them or they did a good job, what would you do?

Then that's what you need to think about, versus these approvals that don't really mean anything. It's a much more deep topic than that, I think, but it needs to come from what would you be without approval? And are you building the skill set and the mindset that would make you proud of yourself versus anyone else proud or happy with you or like, Mark Ackers: how old you will you don't mind me asking, I'm 3030, so yeah, you're you're seven years younger than me. So this will relate even more to you, but with the rise that you have seen, as I say, you'd have been younger when you got exposed to it.

But the rise of social media, I feel like the need for approval rocketed. Oh my gosh, because everything is about instant gratification. Everything is about likes, shares. This is where I'm going to stand a little bit on retweets or hearts, whatever it is in platforms, right?

But it's that instant gratification and that need for approval like you want to, you want to share what you do, but if you're in a career of sales, having that need for approval is going to really harm your career and the trajectory of it. And I think just even becoming self aware is the starting point. What a great segment. Let's start to move on.

Obviously, we're going to end up to where you are today will, which is obviously in a phenomenal place, but we're not quite done yet with your with your journey, because you shared with me, and I wouldn't have known this, and I love that you shared this in advance. When you were@hr.com you said you felt like you were constantly worried about getting fired. And again, every salesperson has had that feeling, right, like they've had bad cause, bad months, but you seem to Yo Yo, 230% one quarter, 11% another quarter.

What was going on? Will Aitken: Yeah. So after I finished up that recruitment agency in Australia, and this was also like, I felt a lot of guilt for because they were sponsoring me to stay in Australia. So that means they were spending money and going for effort to make sure I could remain now when, when you're under a certain type of visa there, you wouldn't be able to work at a job for more than six months.

And at the time, I knew that if I told them I was planning to leave within the next couple of years, they would never keep me employed, because recruitment sales, it's a longer pipeline than you know that normally. And I felt like if I told them the truth about that, then they would not want to keep me around, even if I was doing well. But I always my wife, uh, is from Canada, and she when we met, and I started doing all this, she was actually she'd gone travelling by herself, and she had left her degree half finished, so she knew she wanted to go back and finish.

So we stayed for longer than we planned to, and I carried on working at the recruitment agency. But I had this. I always knew I was going to move to North America to help her with finishing her studies and go there. And this is where I was thinking, Okay, well, from what I know, I'd really like to get into software sales, because I've been hiring these people.

I've been recruiting them. I'd known about the OTs and I'd seen Whoa. I mean, recruitment is great money as well. But like, I was also thinking, the part I enjoy a lot about this isn't working with flaky candidates.

It's also it's working for clients. It's talking to them. As I said, the thing that made me different in the office was my ability to cold call and willingness to do it. So I thought, if I could get paid more to just do the selling part of it, instead of trying to manage a pipeline for the candidates as well.

That's a great outcome, right? And it was quite funny, because when I, when I finally told them, they're like, Why didn't you tell us sooner? That recruitment agency, they, man, we would have, we would have helped you. We've got you on stuff that you could have worked close quicker.

And then, man, they've really helped me out as well. They gave me a huge bonus when I left and they said, You they said, You didn't stop trying until the day, until your very last day, like you were always there. They took me out for dinner. I'm like, Guys, I've lied to you and betrayed you, and I'm leaving you guys, like, why are you being so nice?

And they're like, Could you show it up? And I was like, That felt really, really nice. So I still talk to the Managing Director, my team lead from that company. Because, you know, a lot of people would have been, wow, he lied to us.

Get me. Out, but they just wish me my best on my move to North America, and off I went. So then when I landed North America, my wife is from a small province called Prince Edward Island, where there are about 50,000 people who live there and a university. And believe it or not, there's not many tech companies there.

So my goal of getting into tech wasn't as realistic it could be. However, there was a company that sold to tech companies, and they were selling media sponsorships, email campaigns. They were like this big media company, essentially for HR people. So a lot of the sponsorships you were selling into were companies like CareerBuilder, the job ad sites, indeed, LinkedIn.

You know anyone who has a HR audience, we were selling into. So it was close enough, and I needed a job that it was along along the way of where I wanted to get to. It was B to B. It was somewhat consultative selling.

So that's where I ended up there. But it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows from where I just come off feeling like I was top of the world. Even when I left, they still loved me. That company was a little bit different how so I was working fully remotely, and this was before 2020 when that wasn't really the norm, and I wasn't prepared to.

I have focus issues, be it ADHD or just avoidance. So when I was in a room by myself, in my office, all that cold calling, I told you I love doing harder to do when I only had myself to keep myself accountable, and there was detachment from all these people I worked with and knew it was really, really tough. So I'd go through these big, big pushes of motivation, and then I'd slack off, you know, and not work as hard as I should have done. I also, oh God, the things I was doing, the skills that I had at that point, you know, I've read your book practical prospecting.

Is it problem? Prospecting? Sorry, I apologise, you know, my the messages, the emails that, and I wasn't really making any calls, honestly, they were bad, you know. And so I was just kind of brute forcing it by sheer volume.

When I had the motivation, which was rare or inconsistent. Should I say? I had a sales leader who very quickly left after I joined after she hired me, and then we replaced him with another sales leader. But that sales leader wasn't really the type to get involved.

He just said, Oh, cool. Keep doing what you're doing. You know. Just didn't really have to talk to me.

You'd cancel out one on one every week pretty much. And then when we get on we'd be like, how you doing, mate? Yeah, good you. Yeah, good bye.

That was it, you know, got any big deals? Yeah, that's that, you know, there was no All right, what are you struggling with? What do you want to work on? Because I was having these big ups and downs.

I was sometimes being celebrated, but then most time not or, like, it wasn't even that much celebration as a team, because we know no one knew each other. We were remote. We used to go to conferences. Sometimes that was nice.

And I got to walk the floor and basically try and sell a bunch of trade show sponsors. If you've ever been to a trade show, you know, there's these people walking the show. Walking the show show floor, trying to sell it, you know that then they're not there as attendees. They're just that.

So I was, I think it's called briefcasing. I was just doing that a lot, and that was quite good fun, to be honest. That's probably where I got the most of my success. Because you're at an event, you're there, you got paid to fly out there, you're going to, you know, work.

You know, I started making a lot of excuses for I wasn't doing well. Rather than being accountable for the fact that I wasn't really trying by showing up in any meaningful Mark Ackers: way. You shared that as well. You said you blamed everything, like your manager, the territory, the product, but you didn't blame yourself at that point.

What is interesting is that there are, and you can be like a degree of one of these, but I've just found there's two types of people, when you work with them, if you think about your finger and your thumb, when something goes wrong, goes wrong, you either point with your thumb inwards, or you point with your finger outwards. Sounds like initially you were pointing your finger outwards. Oh, big time. It's my manager.

It's my territory. It's the product. But then it sounds like you transition where you point inwards and tell me that's not easy for people to do. How did you go from taking no to responsibility, no responsibility to full responsibility.

I'm Will Aitken: not sure there was a moment that I can pinpoint. I just knew that I hadn't been showing up, and it was almost like I wanted a fresh start. You know, I said I had me showing up here, and that almost made me go almost embarrassed I hadn't been showing up, and I knew I hadn't been. The thing is, I was going, okay, my territory sucks.

The CEO's daughter, has the best territory. No wonder she's the best rep. She was really, actually very good at selling, like, very good. When I was on a call, I wasn't, like, writing down what she was doing.

She was doing, like, deep discovery on media, which is quite transactional product. She was really finding people's problems. She was disqualifying. She was challenging people's opinions.

You know, I'd just be like, Oh, all right, here's a deck. This is what we offer. Product one, product two, product three. These the results we drive.

Would you like to buy? Sometimes not even ask that quite let's be probably most time I would even ask that. You know, I wasn't thinking about like, Okay, what am I showing up with? It was probably very soon after that conversation my wife, yeah, because my son was born in April of 2020, I went back to work in in late May.

It was, though, during those months where I was having some bad performance, I then just said, I need to, I need to, I need to change, and I don't want to give up on sales just yet. And I think I'd been reading about, I knew, I read that it was possible, and maybe even the things in my head like, Oh, it's my territory. It's my my manager, it's my manager. Did leave very soon after I came back from parental leave, my managers, my territory.

I was like, Oh, I was good to a new company, but better product, a better manager and a better product, a better manager and a better territory, you know? I mean, that was probably my motivation to that point. I didn't recognise now I look back at that company, I'm like, I could have made bank if I hadn't known them. What I know now, that comp plan was ripe for the abusing like insane.

Money could have been made there, but at the time, I didn't, I wasn't honest with myself about that. I just assumed they're the problem. So I'm going to change. And to get that change, I had to find a new company.

Mark Ackers: So you said, again, you're very helpful. In terms of a few notes beforehand, you said this was the point in your career where you allowed yourself to be coached. And you actually used the word finally. I finally allowed myself to be coached.

Tell me more about that moment and what changed I was at this company. I blamed Will Aitken: everything, and I thought that was that was probably the reason why I left that company. I didn't have the realisation. Company.

I didn't have the realisation while I was working there that I was the problem, yeah, but then I applied to a new company, and during that sale, during the interview process, I realised I was horribly under qualified and not what they were looking for. So during the first interview with the manager there, I tried to keep the focus off me as much as possible. And this is actually kind of a tip I've learned since that's actually a really good way to run an interview. I was just asking just asking him questions about the role, why the role was available, what he was hoping that someone would achieve in the role, like what the rest of the team looked like.

And inadvertently, I was actually doing discovery, but I don't think I realised it. And I also said to him, hey, you know, you mentioned you got this team and you're really happy with a team you've done speak transition recently, like, what's some things that the team are doing, and what resources they looking at, because I'd love to see if there's any that I'm not yet looking at. And he said, there's two things we love here that really, really worked well for us. One is gap selling, and the second one is the sound of the sales system, neither of which I'd even heard of at the time.

And he said, I'd love to take you to another interview. You seem like an interesting dude. Sounds like you're you know this, this is aligned with somewhat of your experience. I was a little bit worried when I saw that you were selling media.

I was worried you weren't being going to be very consulted, but you're asking a lot of questions, which is good, give me hope. And I was like, Okay, I've kind of faked my way through this. So then you told me those two things. So the first thing I did was I went and bought gap selling auto, order your book, and I booked a second interview of the other hiring manager in that case, who would actually end up being my manager.

And it was a week later, so I took a sound the sales system. Course, I paid for it myself and listened to gap something like three or four times. Keenan is an intense guy. I'm now writing a book with him myself.

He is shouting, but it really resonated with me. It all kind of, it was almost like clocking out because I was still working in several companies like, I've not been doing any of this question thing, not really been understanding anyone's situation before they even get like, before I start showing my product, like, I this was like, a light bulb moment, and I was hearing this like, Oh my God, there is so much I could have already been doing better. Why did I not listen to this and go and look out for this stuff two years ago, I would have had a great time and you, but like, it was actually really exciting to be learning, right?

So then by the time the second interview came around, I'd like gotten consumers resources, so I kind of knew what they wanted to hear. So I was so this guy was like, Can you walk me through your sales process? And I gave him like the classic, yeah. So I go early on, and I basically just recited what I just learned, which wasn't necessarily the truth about how I actually was running my sales process at the time like I told you.

I was showing up, putting a deck up, and just taking them with it and hoping they'd buy. So I told him instead that I was doing a much more consultative solution style sale, but because I had all this new information in my brain, I was just kind of telling him what I just learned, but I thought it was okay, because I said to myself, Okay, now I know that I there's all this new stuff that I haven't even focused I will. I'm okay with bending the truth a little bit. Let's get this opportunity, because I know I'll make up for it, and I will show up if I get it.

And this is the point, I think, where ego almost completely dissolved. I suddenly realised I know nothing, and if I want to be successful, I'm going to have to try and work and get coached and learn more from places like what I'd already learned, gap, selling and timer, get my manager to help me. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna probably have to, like, to get this job. And I did get the job in the end, but once I'm in there, I will not make failure an option.

It can't be. I would do. I would take every piece of coaching. I will commit my heart to learning this, because at this point, I have to make it work.

And sure enough, then we got in, and the two managers I worked with at the time, and I'll give them full credit, Daniel Herbert and Scott tower, were incredibly involved. We were doing two a week call reviews. We were doing team tape reviews. We were doing training sessions, both as a team and one on one.

I'd never had anyone listen to my calls before. At first, I was like, oh, that sounds scary. I'm gonna have someone. Scary.

I'm gonna have someone listen to my recordings. I'm terrified of that. Like, now, now they're gonna know I'm full of shit. But I then I realised, oh no, hang on.

Will stop caring what they think and just look at what they're saying. So you can use that stuff to get better. And it really worked. Like I would say, even my willingness to listen to my own calls, that was probably the biggest thing that improved my ability to sell and the work on specific parts.

And I then had a sales process as well that I stuck to. And then once I started doing well, I had this confidence, not because I was like, being the best and doing really well. It's like I suddenly felt competent all of a sudden. And for context, the company I was working at the time, they had never had a sales rep hit quota, because it was a monthly quota, not once, certainly not 345, months in a row.

And I was just like, it was, it was almost easy, you know, and if they were really great, not only because I was winning, but once I was winning, I stopped caring about that as well that piece, even though I'd always been focused on in the past, and I got better at disqualifying and asking those really tough questions, and although I hadn't read the book at the time, essentially challenging my customers on like that, because also found that that company, the company I was working for, still didn't have a great product.

There was a lot of deals where, if I had have gone product first, I would never have won, because we were inferior to the biggest competitor. We were, like the third or fourth best in that space, I would say we weren't a widely adopted solution. The other competitor had the same price point on us, and then a lot more functionality and integration. And all that type of stuff.

So the only thing I could control, though, was the way I showed up and sold and I found that would still made it possible to do some serious numbers Mark Ackers: there. Hey, sales leaders, do you want a cost effective way to develop your team skills and help them smash their quotas? My sales coach offers team memberships for just 20 pounds per month per individual plus VAT. This will give your reps access to small group tactical coaching sessions daily power hours and exclusive events, all led by world class sales coaches with over 25 group sessions to choose from.

Monthly. There's something for every role. We have. Sessions for SDRs all the way out to CROs.

Empower your team to perform to their best visit mysalescoach.com to get started. The link is in the description. There's loads to unpack there, but I'm smiling because I feel like this is, this is the turning point, right?

And if I break down what I'm hearing and what I believe all ties together. You go for this interview. You meet some people, impress you. They name a couple of books.

One bit of advice I'd give to anybody listening to this podcast, and this has always served me well, is every manager I've ever had has had a book, a book that they've read, a book that they've loved, and whether they want to admit it or not, maybe they don't even realise it. It deep down, kind of dictates how they feel about sales and their philosophy. And I can, I can rattle off some of those books, right? So one of my first bosses, her book was Jeffrey Kitman, the sales Bible.

I remember she gave it to me, and I took this shitty old book to two new zero on holiday with my girlfriend, and I remember her looking at me like, What are you reading? I remember someone at the pool laughed at me because it was called the sales Bible. But I was like, no, no, this. If this book's important to her, I need to read it.

Soon as I read it, I understood her a whole lot better. I then had a different boss, and it was the lean startup. I read this book I didn't enjoy at all, but understood him a whole lot more. And then it was fanatical prospecting.

Then it was, I think it was the challenges out, right? And and then it was no what was the predictable revenue, right? All these books I'm getting the time I say wrong, but every manager I've had has had a book. If you can find what that book is and read it, you understand them a whole lot better.

And you've gone away. And this is the interesting bit. You've read gap selling. I listened to it.

I won't lie, yeah, no, no, don't worry. It's absolutely fine. You've Will Aitken: listened so some people will fight you on that one over accounts, but I listened to it like a few times on two work speed, one at one beat. Speed took notes the second time through.

You know? So Mark Ackers: it's interesting. I think, look, this comes down to everyone's got their own learning styles. I think some books are totally acceptable as audio books.

There are some books that I feel like you need to read because, because they're really tactical, but that that's me. Do you remain like I Will Aitken: enjoyed reading your book? I don't think. I don't even know if you have an audio book Mark Ackers: on that one.

I don't know. I feel like the accent would ruin it. So, Will Aitken: yeah, word, I'm sorry, mate, you and Richard, Yeah, hello there. You know the northern thing, especially for American audiences.

They were like, What are they speaking English Mark Ackers: Exactly. So, no, we don't. But again, I would say that I feel like so problem prospecting, which you kindly reference, and then you very kindly help promote deconstructing discovery. I actually passionately believe that they are better to be read because of how tactical they are in the transcripts, et cetera, that.

And I do think our accents would be horrendous, but there we are. But back to my point, you've gone and read these books, and I think this is the moment when you realised, oh, hang on, this is a skill. This is something that you can learn and something you can get better at. Holy shit.

Imagine if I would have read these books five years ago, and this is where you go. Okay, if I can just get this job, work with these people, learn these ways of selling, get get surrounded by people that have been where I want to be, got what I want. If I can get the coaching that I need, I can build this career that Do you know what I've always wanted? And then here's the kicker, you need for approvals gone, because you're now working with people that are and I know you're saying the right way at this point in their careers ahead of you.

They're smarter than you, they're ahead of you. They're further ahead. They've done what you want to do. Your egos had to go.

You've got a six month old baby. You've got a family that's depending on you. There's no time for egos. You've realised I'm in this career.

I can't get out of it. This is a skill I've been exposed to, this literature, these books. I've got this opportunity in front of me. I actually don't care anymore.

Criticise my calls, because when you do that, I get better because you're coachable. And this feels like just the key moment where so many things have come together, but the best thing of all is you've realised it's a skill, and you've dropped your ego, and you've lost the need for approval, because you know this is what's going to send you down the path that you want to get to, and where you're going to do for your kid what your dad did for you. And I think this is just a key moment for you, and I'm really happy that you had that moment, because it feels like without it, where do you think you'd Will Aitken: be today?

Maybe trying my best learner trade by I'm a clumsy man. It definitely just did change my life, and I think that also speaks volumes to the quality of the managers that I had. I give them a lot of credit, well, I don't give them enough credit. Should I say, Well, Mark Ackers: you've given them a shout.

I hear, what would you say if someone's listening to this and like I say, I think most people listen to this podcast that they're ahead of that part already because they are actively seeking sales collateral, but perhaps they are going for a rut. They are blaming other things. They are blaming and pointing out, and they're maybe not as open to coaching and learning that they should be what advice would you give to them? Will Aitken: What can you do?

Like what can you do, both in actions and in learning right now, they are always something in your control. Excuses are very toxic. I also don't like people who are saying no excuses, because I think that leaves room for a lot of prejudice as well. But especially in sales, accountability is vital, and knowing that I didn't have for a long time, it was really hurting me not having so wake up.

You may have taken a job that it wasn't everything I promised, but be accountable for the fact you accepted that job. The emails might not be getting opened. Okay, be accountable for what can you do? Can you make calls?

No one's picking up the phone. Okay? Have you made enough calls? Have you tried calling other numbers?

There's always something you can do. You can do. And if you just say, I am in decision of this, I'm in the control of this one, then you start figuring out the answers to those and knowing what you can do, instead of Mark Ackers: complaining about what you accountability is such a key word will and actually, that's what coaching provides, being accountable and and I think this is the thing that, again, lots of people will just resonate with. How many times have you read something in a book, watched something on maybe a video podcast, listened to something, heard something and thought, well, great idea, but then done nothing with it.

And it's because you're not accountable. And that really is what a great coach does. It's where are you today? And it sounds like this is what your boss is.

Where are you today? Will I know where you can get to? Do you want to get there as well? Because if you want that, that's great.

If you don't, we can't want more for you than what you want for yourself, but we see where you want to get to. What are the goals then? Okay? And now, every time they meet you, it is about, have you achieved what you want to achieve?

If you haven't, why not? What are the reasons? Let's break them down, and what you're bringing to the table is, well, I'm going to point inwards. What can I control?

I can control showing up. I can control being coachable. I can control my work rate. What I need from you is the guidance, and I don't know what I don't know.

And it's like a perfect marriage between a really hands on coach that can see the potential, agrees with you where you want to get to, and works with you on a cadence that's not about the number, not about KPIs. It's about actual sales acumen, sales skills, and you're there, hungry for it, and so coachable, which, which is why you've managed to go on to have the career that you have had. But accountability is at the root of coaching, and if you're not accountable, it's very, very hard to achieve those goals.

And for anyone that's thinking, Well, where do I start accountability? Journaling is the place be accountable to yourself. I know people that just every day write down a few things that they want to achieve, and at the end of the day, have they achieved it or not? It takes a couple of minutes.

I will give a shout out to Steve Myers, one of the coaches of my sales coach, who's got his own bagels. He calls it and I won't do it justice once I can't remember it, but it stands for different things about what you're looking to achieve. But journaling is a great way to start accountability. Then then a coach, Will Aitken: yeah, yeah.

No. It just sounds like you and I have similar things, similar things I found to do list journaling, but also getting your feelings down there keeps yourself aware and causes you to make sure that you don't get that ego back as well. Because you gotta, you gotta be keeping real of yourself. Mark Ackers: So start to build this exciting career that you are and that you've gone on where you are.

Now let's start with sales feed under Vidyard now independent. Just give us the headlines. What is it? How'd it come about?

Will Aitken: Ironically, after all this, after dropping the ego, my ego made me leave that company, because I went out drinking with some other account executives at the company. We all got talking, and as I told you, I'd been the first rep to really even hit quota yet alone, several months in a row. And I found out that I knew they were they had the senior candidates title, but they were being paid much more aggressive, both accelerators and a base salary, and that made me bitter and hurt.

So I went to my manager and said, Give me the promotion. I've earned it. And he didn't. So although I had completely never, wouldn't even consider leaving, because I didn't get my instant gratification from that.

Because even honest, the things he said to me is, well, there's no doubt you've earned it from a sales performance standpoint, but if you want to be a senior thing, you've got to be an example for the team. And you show up on calls sometimes and you're immature, and you show up at cool sometimes, and you don't communicate, or think about the way you'll communicate. And I heard that, and I was like, you're just giving me an excuse because you don't want to pay me more, versus actually.

And it's funny, because that was that was coaching, that was feedback, but I didn't take it because I was coming from a place of emotion. So although I'd actually shot down the idea of working video, especially once I found out that was actually a marketing job, EO marketing, no sales for life, when I then had this, this kind of chip on my shoulder that I hadn't got the promotion I wanted. So when took the interview, and at this point, this is when I'd started posting stuff on LinkedIn, because, as I mentioned, I moved to a new city, I didn't really have that many friends, and.

And I wanted something to do, so I started making these videos, just sharing what I was learning in my day to day sales, but also making some skits and things that were like almost laughing through the pain of like the deals I did lose like it. I thought everyone must feel this, you know. So I started making these funny pieces of content as well. Got on the this, uh, Tyler sods radar, and he wanted to bring someone in who actually understood the sales owners create content full time.

So when I started talking to him, and he said, Yeah, this role will pay this. And the base salary for the role was about the same as my ote. I was over performing, so it was less, technically than the motel amount I was earning. But it was a marketing position, and it was full base.

So I was thinking to myself, hang on, I would get paid this and not have to deal with, like, the end of quota anxiety, end of quarter anxiety, end of month anxiety. I'm like, hang on a second. And because I was still home from ego, I was like, You know what? I'm open to it.

And it was offering a job that was basically my hobby at the time. Was what I was doing for fun. They wanted me to do that full time, so I took Mark Ackers: it, and really, that's been a big turning point for you. Well, a week Will Aitken: later, I then got promotion, right?

But I was net interviewing, and I was, I was Mark Ackers: hooked. Talk to me a little bit about what it takes to create funny content. Where I Will Aitken: found the most success is one journaling, because things happen to us all day that are hilarious or other people can relate to. And when you're in sales, other sellers could as well, right?

So being aware, thinking about those, but then also sometimes just saying the quiet part out loud. We spoke earlier about prospects who give you the run around, and you just do everything they say, and then they end up ghosting you because they got all the information they need, and then they got a lower price point. That's where. Or they weren't ever really serious about buying in the first place, or they were just using you to get a price to beat down one of your competitors.

Of these posts I was speaking to three months ago, you know, like those things are things that happen to every seller, right? Every seller has felt those so if you can point that out and say it, or even make light of it sometimes, then I think that makes people nod and go, Oh my God, that's so true. I think that's normally where my mind goes. Mark Ackers: And has humour always been your way of sort of connecting with people?

Yes, when you're creating that content, what do you do when you put it out? It flops. Will Aitken: Learn it didn't hit. That's okay.

What can I learn from that? I there? There have been ebbs and flows. And here's the challenge again, because social media that that became my entire life, it was my work now, and you cannot control algorithms and things.

What can you control again? It comes back to accountability. But I'm not gonna lie, this has been a challenge in the past. What's been like four years where I've been doing this so much on growing online and doing it for myself and other people?

Like, there were times where, like, I'm like, I'm realising that. I've had to realise and I've had to get out of the idea of chasing validation. Because what you said earlier the world today on social media especially, is there's instant validation everywhere you go when you don't get it or you get too attached to it, well, when you don't get it, you're going to be miserable, and that's not a good place to attach any level of your self worth. So look at what you can if something flops is not necessarily because if they didn't do well as well, it wasn't a great idea.

But like, over time, you can't do it based on one thing. Like you have to look at the broader picture. How we look at how's that theme or type of content performing overall, not just that one piece. It sound like going, Oh, that cool flopped.

I suck at cold calling. But no, look at all the calls. What's the what's the common themes? That's when you need to start looking into what to fix right similar, similar things that you can look at Mark Ackers: there.

What I really love about that, though, is straight West. It's learn, like, learn wide and and actually, what you said towards the end as well, it didn't flop, and I was purposely provocative with the word flop, but it didn't flop, it just didn't quite land. Like, the algorithm didn't quite like it that day. Maybe, like, I've got to learn about when I'm posting it, or the hook, etc.

But here's the thing, so many people are still not well, you know, 99% of people on LinkedIn aren't posting. But those that do and do it well, like you are able to create big brands and followings and off the back, but you've got to put yourself out there. And it's not always gonna it's not always gonna work. You've had a job, and this is when I first really feel like you come on my sort of radar, so to speak, was lavender.

When you're head of social there, tell me what was the brief when you took that Will Aitken: role twice the money for the same job that that was, that was the main thing. That was Mark Ackers: a driver for taking it. What was the brief? Will Aitken: Brief?

We want you to do more of what you've been doing with salespeople, but for lavender. And I said, No, I love it here. I have an amazing manager who I get along with, who trusts me, who still is willing to coach and teach me in the place where I need it, but for the most part, fully believes in me and took a risk on me. And then they went, Yeah, but you know how much this pays?

And I'm like, oh. And then I also had a friend who had literally just started working there, Janell and Knuth, and we'd become very good friends just from living with him alive, she'd become like an evangelist. A challenger, I think, at the time. And we were kind of talking about how, how we make sure that this growing, these brands actually drives revenue, and we would like share ideas, etc, and they wanted me to do more of the same thing that I didn't even say it has to get better in any way.

It's still already great. That was Mark Ackers: the proof. What would you say when you think about that role growth, head of social it feels like from the outside, there must be so much fun. What's it really like having that Will Aitken: role?

I didn't enjoy it. I It wasn't the same as what I've been doing. And the reasons why I enjoyed what I'd been doing were no longer reasons. And then you've got different people with different expectations and different management and different opinions as well.

I think there was, at that point I'd been doing it for long enough where I knew I was good at it. You know? And I was getting a lot of validation, both from online and compliments and stuff and performance and growth than the brand I had been managing and my own brand as well. I thought I was just the best, already, the best person who could ever be in that role.

So I had ego, then I also had new challenges, people who also had ego, who had opinions, et cetera. And that was probably the biggest challenge. And I stopped learning for sure for a period of time there. And I went like 2020 2023.

Is probably the worst year of my entire life, because I didn't believe in what I was doing. I wasn't learning anymore. I had stopped. I thought I was King hot shit.

And it affected my life, not just personally, professionally, but in my personal life as well. I lost friends that year, you know, because I just had this aura about me that I thought I was too good, too successful, making more money than I ever thought I had, getting all this external validation deeply. I'd stopped getting better. I'd stop learning, and I wasn't doing Mark Ackers: work.

I actually believed in it. How have you become so self aware you do you strike me as someone that's just so aware of where you've gone wrong, the mistakes that you've made, the ego that you've had, and that's obviously not who you are today. How have you become so self aware? Because so many people aren't Will Aitken: I think it's an ongoing thing.

There are still things that I've I'm aware of today that I wasn't aware of last week, and it's willingness to be wrong, I think. And you get kind of good at it once you've kind of started seeing patterns in your past, behaviour, like, what am I not seeing today that I will think about in three years? And also, like, You're not meant to do it alone as well. Whether it's a partner, a boss, a coach, a therapist, those people are there to help you get to those answers as well, and that's why it's important to work on yourself, be there for yourself, who coaches you today.

Mainly, this is something that I realised recently that I want and I miss, because most of the work I've done on developing myself has been with more like counsellors, therapists and other types of the folks like that. I became very focused on being a boss again, but I still surround myself with people who I do believe are smarter than me and can point out where I'm going wrong, but I certainly haven't been as actively coached today as I would be, and that's why I'm actually doing some some things about that as well.

I will say that while writing this book with Keenan, which will be the prequel to gap prospecting, which, as I mentioned earlier, is a book that means a lot to me, because it was a lot to me, because it was a big turning point in my career. I've learned a great deal from deal with deal from him, and he's been willing to coach me essentially while we've gone through that process together. What amazing Mark Ackers: coach to have, right? Will Aitken: And I'd end with pay him.

Mark Ackers: What can you tell us about this book that you're working on? Yes, Will Aitken: so I always wanted to write something. I enjoy writing. I want I know that feeling that I had when I first had the click moment.

You know, I thought sales was a numbers game. I thought I was just getting lucky. I didn't realise it was a skill. I thought there are some people out there who haven't had that moment yet, and that's the type of person I want to help.

And the thing that helped me was reading a book that was actually really, it wasn't just like, do this, ask this question. In fact, when you read that book, it doesn't really spell out what exactly you should do in discovery. Just kind of breaks out the mindset of, like, effective discovery. I'd argue your book is much more prescriptive, right?

But like, the storytelling and it helped me turn the pages and actually get it in a way, you know, I mean, and I thought, okay, how can I do that for the other part of sales that I didn't feel? How can something that good be possible for earlier in the process, where I found myself spending a lot of time thinking about and talking about prospecting. So I hit Keenan and said, you wanna write book? He said, No, I was a year and a half ago.

And then hit him up again and again and again, and I prospected the shit, living shit out, and then I probably did some gap song on him. And somewhere along the way there where I asked him some questions about his business and what he wanted to do, and never finally gotten to agree to agree to it, because I felt, I felt like I didn't have all the answers, and I also didn't feel like I had the ability to put it in such a compelling story as the first time I touched that book, and now, boy, this thing is, it's coming along.

Nice. It's so good to read. It's like, almost like a novel, you know, that's, that's, I think, what, well, what I like about that? And I think there's a place for both types of book or content, so in the mix, you've moved you or something that helps you do something, you know, and, yeah, so, yeah, that's, that's the book.

It's going to be gap prospect, you coming out this fall, if everything still goes to plan, but it's looking like it's going to definitely happen in probably September. I was Mark Ackers: going to say that's, that's when you know, you've been Americanized when you say it's coming out in the Will Aitken: fall. Oh my God. I said autumn.

I'm sorry. Mark Ackers: Whenever I hear fall, I remember being a kid, being frustrated whenever I was in the cinema and the trailer be coming out, as for when is that? When is this film coming Will Aitken: out? The crappy thing is, I've adopted that word, but I don't say it the same as all of them as well, because they say fall, yeah.

And I say fall. You know, I think northerners are probably somewhere in the middle, but depending on where you're from, if you're if you're a man, I think you'd say fall, yeah, like halfway between. So Mark Ackers: let's recap a book with Keenan gap prospecting the prequel to a book that fundamentally changed the structure of your career. Incredible will, and this is because you've had an idea, you've made it happen.

You've used what you've learned in your career to prospect someone to make it happen and and this is why I've loved about talking to you, is shits not always gone the way you want it to go, but you've always looked at, what can I do, what can I control? And you've made it happen. And I think you're so self aware. So let's talk about where you're at now the business.

Well, I. Linkedin.com. Is what it says on LinkedIn as well as a great title, but ultimately it says you're running the business, coaching, training, keynotes, content.

Tell me what's what's the mission. That's something Will Aitken: that I'm kind of in the middle of figuring out right now. A bit more in depth, I did find that I I've lost that as a couple of times over the past year, since running my business as well, where, you know, you fall into, back into old habits, chasing validation, etc, as well. The most impactful thing, and I'm certain you can relate to this that I've been able to do since I started my business is definitely not the thing that made me the most money, but it was just the little part of my page that said book a one on one coaching call.

Because you know what that does, that attracts people who are ready to learn, who want to work on themselves, the best types of people and those conversations and getting better at coaching, which is a skill now that I need to work on being a better coach, because I've never done that before as much until I start offering it, and then people start booking, and then I'm just like that. I need to get better at that piece that has been the most fulfilling part of my work by far, because you get to see these people, and you take no credit for it as well.

It's them, but the right people show up to that, the right people seek it out, and then the right people actually go ahead and do the work. And when you help them to get there, they often see the results. And that is just feels good, man. So that's been the most fulfilling thing.

So I'm now figuring out how I could do more of that without going broke, because selling one on one, coaching by the hour. I mean, therapists do it, but it's also not as scalable as I'd like, so I'm still trying to figure that part out, but that's where I'm thinking. I want to spend thinking, I want to spend Mark Ackers: more time. Gotcha, what is the most common bit of advice people ask you for help on Will Aitken: a lot of job, a lot of work, like, I want to get promoted.

I want to get I want to get a job in this but funnily enough, most people come to me with when they've got something new going on. The best thing about coaching is when you can help someone get to the answer themselves. So sometimes someone comes to you with what they think is the problem, like they go, Oh, this deal or this thing isn't working, but then you can almost help them collect that. So most people come to me one thing, but it's not really the true issue.

So it's either like a new initiative or ongoing prospect, or I've got this new job and I want to hit the ground running, but it's like there's actually something else there underneath a lot of the time. So when someone comes to me like, there's this deal I really want to move forward. I'm like, Okay, let's unpack that. I can tell you immediately 10 things you could try to move this deal forward, but like, let's walk back on that a little bit.

And that's when you see people Mark Ackers: start to get way better as well. And again, being a great coach, you're not connected to the outcome, because it's them, like you say, and you don't need the need for approval, because they're already coming to you for the health and guidance. You can ask those questions to get to where you need to get to. But then, like you say, it's not about telling them, it's, I love that.

I love the analogy of the movie Inception. Have you ever seen it? So sometimes what you need to do is, is give them the seeds so they feel like the idea is actually grown in their own head. Yes.

And that's that's when an idea becomes really powerful. I have genuinely love this chat. I know anybody that's listening to it will feel the same. We've had some amazing guests be open, honest, but I think this is one of, if not the most open, honest and rawest of conversations that I think so many people are going to listen to and have that either that's me or that light bulb moment of bloody hell that is, that is me.

I didn't realise it. People could obviously find you on LinkedIn. People can look for your book that's not out for pre order right now, I'm guessing, given that this Will Aitken: corn, there is a link, or if you just go to my newsletter page, I will be sending out updates and pre reads of that as Mark Ackers: well. There we go.

I'd love, well, I'll buy a copy when that comes out. I'm looking forward to reading that, and Will Aitken: I sent you one mate. Oh, well, I didn't want to hint, but if I bought your first book, but you sent me a second book for free, so I owe you now. Okay, well, the first book was a good read.

It was well worth the money. So thank you. Thanks very much. Mark Ackers: Well, yeah, I just want to end it there and say thank you so much.

That's kind of what I'm getting to thank you. And you know, anytime that you're over in the UK, let's definitely meet up. Keep in touch. Well done, mate.

Thank you. You.