Building Sales Through Authentic Relationships featuring Larry Levine

Larry Levine: We're all capable of doing a whole heck of a lot more than we think we're capable of. It's the self-limiting beliefs and it's the self-doubt that keeps us squash. It keeps us on that comfy couch. We just gotta look inside of who we are and go, you know what?

I challenged myself. I challenge you all. We can become better louder. Kate Volman: I am so excited about this episode because we are joined by my friend Larry Levine.

Author of Selling From the Heart, a podcast with the same name. He also wrote, Selling in a Post-Trust World. Larry believes that more trust equals more sales. Through his business, working with CEOs and leaders across a wide variety of industries, he's built a movement of sales professionals who are passionate about being genuine and authentic and about doing the hard work.

Kate Volman: Larry, I am so excited about this conversation. Larry Levine: Same here. I've been looking forward to this for a while. I am so glad we've gotten to get to know each other, Kate.

Kate Volman: Yes. It's so fun. So you and I, I actually got to be a guest on Larry's podcast Culture From the Heart. Well, you have Selling From the Heart, you have Culture From the Heart.

Larry Levine: It's gonna stop there for a little bit. Kate, Kate Volman: for now. For now, for now, just two podcasts. But we had a great conversation about culture and then I read your book Selling from the Heart, which is such a great book.

And after being on your show, we obviously have become friends and now I just, I just adore the work that you're doing. Kate Volman: We're obviously very much in alignment of. What we're doing in the world and really just helping businesses, helping leaders, you doing that specifically with sales. And I just love the topic of sales because we're all selling, we're all selling ourselves businesses and growing and, and this is what you get to do for a living.

Kate Volman: So why don't you just share a little bit about your background, because you have a very fascinating background and what inspired you to start the book, start the Business, Selling From the Heart, and why is it so important for you? To teach people how to sell from the heart. Larry Levine: I just gotta play on what you just said about sales. Larry Levine: Everybody is in sales.

Sales is about influence, and every day we're having influential conversations, both in our personal life and in our professional lives. So we just have to remove the stigma of sales. Which that's what I'm all about. But just a quick backstory is I spent my whole entire career, so I live in Southern California, just north of Los Angeles, and I spent my whole entire career selling copiers.

Larry Levine: That's the sales channel. I came out of office technology, so Kate Volman: glamorous. Larry Levine: Oh, it is like the most sexiest industry out there, Kate, let me tell you. Selling things that require massive amounts of service.

But I got into sales 'cause I wanted to, I wasn't forced into it or anything like that. I chose the career. Larry Levine: I wanted to get into sales. I'm a highly relational guy.

Grew up that way. I love having conversations with people. I go, what better thing to do than to get into sales? And I soon learned that if I was gonna carve this niche in sales, I had to do it completely different than anybody else.

And I'll tell you this, I struggled with it from like the first six to seven to eight months of my sales career. Larry Levine: Back in the late eighties. I tried to emulate some of the top salespeople that were in my company, and I soon realized I was trying to be like them. I wasn't trying to be like me, and so I flipped the script on all of this.

Yeah, I, I got to know products and I got to know the company lingo and things like that. Larry Levine: But what I did is I brought to the forefront how I was raised. I was raised by a highly relational mom and a rocket scientist for father, literally. And so what I did is I just smashed both those together.

I go, I'm gonna bring a plan, a process, I'm gonna practice like none other. That was drilled into me by my father, and I'm gonna bring the highly relational side of things, which was ingrained by my mom. Larry Levine: And I go, I'm just gonna smash those all together and just do me, just do it this way. And I, I parlayed that into a very successful career.

And then at 50 years old, I had some life altering moments and I found myself going, what am I gonna do with myself at 50? I made one phone call and that phone call was to somebody, you know, Kate, and that was to Darrell Amy, and all I wanted to do was tap Darrell's network. Larry Levine: Hey, Darrell, who do you know? Who knows somebody who knows somebody who might be looking for insert what I was looking for.

And after two and a half hour conversation, Kate, he goes, you know something, you don't need to go back into sales. What you need to do is coach and train people on how you built a very successful business. Larry Levine: Based on relational selling, bringing authenticity to the forefront. And I had never publicly spoken, never written a book, never wrote an article, never.

I didn't even know what podcasting was, but I go, okay, I'll try it. But he saw something in me I didn't see. And, and this is, this is the kind of how this whole story takes shape, is there's people out there that will believe in you more than you believe in yourself. Larry Levine: And that's what Darrell did.

And he goes, you know, something. What else do you gotta lose? And I go, you're right. What else do I gotta lose?

And I dove into it head first. I dove into the entrepreneurial ocean with 50 pound weights on, and I didn't have this big Brinks truck in my backyard funding a lifestyle or anything like that. Larry Levine: I had to get to work immediately at 50 years old. So just to age stamp this, I'm 60, so that was 10 years ago.

Kate Volman: Wow. And Larry Levine: in the span of 10 years, we started the Selling From the Heart Podcast nine years ago, which basically kickstarted this whole business that born two books that born a second podcast that born this movement we call Selling From the Heart, where we're just bringing authenticity, trust, sincerity, high character, high integrity to the forefront, and we're coaching sales teams on how to build your people skills and relationship building skills to turn revenue.

Larry Levine: And profit at ginormous rates. That's the Reader's Digest version, Kate. Kate Volman: Okay. First of all, so inspiring.

It really is. 'cause I feel like there's probably someone listening that is maybe in their late forties, early fifties, and to them it may, it might be this, I don't know what's next. Like whether it was a layoff or whether they're in this phase of life where they're just thinking, I want something new. Kate Volman: It's so funny because.

I've been having more and more conversations with people around in midlife that kind of feel like it's too late. I've missed my chance. Who am I to start something new? And it's so important that you had a Darrell.

We all need a Darrell in our life, right? Somebody that does see so much more in us than we might see in ourselves. Kate Volman: And the fact that you say that when you were 50. Like for, for you to have that experience at 50.

'cause I think a lot of us have that experience when we're younger, but maybe not when we're older for somebody to say, no, no, no, we gotta get you going on your own business and doing your own thing and writing these books. Kate Volman: So what advice would you give to someone who's feeling like, oh, well that's great Larry. It worked for you, but like, I feel hopeless, or I don't really know if I can really do that. Larry Levine: You know what's interesting is this is the first thing that, that I would share with somebody, and it's all the, it's all the stories and the self-limiting beliefs that we conjure up in our mind.

Larry Levine: I've always said the stories in our head become the stories of our lives. And there's so many people out there. I mean, IW you know, the whole backstory to what happened at 50 was, you know, I was career adjusted at 50 and that was a humbling fricking experience to be career adjusted at 50. It was a lot of crying, a lot of self-doubt.

Larry Levine: What am I gonna do with myself? Wo always me and so forth. I just leaned onto somebody, so I would just share with somebody. Everyone's got that close friend.

They have somebody they can confide into. Just be vulnerable and just let it go. You can't solve life by yourself. I learned that a long time ago.

I really did. Larry Levine: And now more than ever at 60, I'm like going, I'm having the time of my life at 60 years old. I go, I wish I would've done this at 40, but I had all the stories floating around, right? I had a family to raise, I had kids to raise and things like that, and I needed the comfortability of having a W2 check and things like that.

Larry Levine: I had that. That was comfort to me. At 50, it was a whole different story. So the, you know, people that are in that, that mid part of their career still, you could still find things that light your fire.

In fact, you talk about it in your book, right? That's what Dream Managers about. All of that is we all have these dreams and these aspirations and these goals we wanna accomplish. Larry Levine: But it's all the self-limiting beliefs that's holding us back from doing this.

I mean, I can't do this. I'm 55 years old, right? Who's gonna hire me at 50? Well, maybe, maybe not.

Go out and start something. Think about all these businesses that were started in corporate America by men and women in their fifties that are household well-known corporate names. Larry Levine: Right? The first one, I think about's Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Kate Volman: Yep. He was 60, right? Isn't that one? Larry Levine: I pretty, pretty darn close to it.

And. Kate Volman: You know what? It's so funny that you're saying this because I was just looking up a bunch of people that had done things much later in life. I think he was one of them, but I know Vera Wang got started later in life too.

Kate Volman: I think she was like in her forties when she started in her design career. The thing that I appreciate is we're creating this entire body of work. Like I think about body of Work as everything that you've done. It's a collection of everything, all the jobs you've had, all the experiences that you had.

Kate Volman: And you get to take that just like you did. You took all of these years of experience in sales, learning from some of the best salespeople, then taking those best practices and then deciding, Hey, I'm gonna do this on my own, and create your own way of doing it, becoming very successful at it. And now your next step was to have a business. Kate Volman: So who's to say you would've had as much fun doing it and building it if in your forties?

Maybe, maybe not. We don't know. And so all we can do is exactly where we are today. Take all of those things that we've done and then move forward.

I love that you said it's like such the Headspace thing. You know, Matthew Kelly calls it head trash. Kate Volman: Like we have to get our head trash out of there in order for us to be able to move forward. Larry Levine: You, you know what's, what's interesting about all of this is I'm gonna make this sales centric for just a moment, this, but this, Kate, plays out.

Just about anywhere in any career and all that is, we always have this mindset and heart set for certain things. Larry Levine: And in the sales world, I think about this as somebody's will to sell. And then I think about their sales, DNA, right? All the self-limiting, all the, all the head trash that floats around.

Zig Ziglar a long time ago called it stinking thinking, and we all have it. And what's interesting is as executives and as sales leaders, we so often wanna coach and train the skillset. Larry Levine: How can we help somebody tactically become better? But yet if we don't change their mind and if we don't change their heart, everything still remains the same.

And that's interesting in business and in life. So I'd encourage everybody out there. What are you doing to work on your mind and what are you doing to work on our heart? Larry Levine: And we just don't do that enough.

But yet, if I ask any business owner, if I ask any executive to peer inside their business and answer this question, are you in the people business and relationship building business? Everyone always says yes. Then my next comeback is, what are you doing to build the people skills and relationship building skills of your people? Larry Levine: Yeah, so they can turn that into increased revenue and profit.

It starts with mindset work and heartset work. Kate Volman: So why do you think, and you talk about this in your book that you talk about if you're not willing to invest in yourself, something around, like you are really, you talk about investing in yourself and the importance of investing in yourself and other people, and then you being able to invest in other people. Kate Volman: Why? Why do you think some leaders are more hesitant to.

Have programs that are really there to develop their people, specifically around sales. I mean, we need sales in order to run a business. That is one area of focus. We should be helping our people.

Larry Levine: It's the age old saying, and this is gonna play out and, and I think there's massive amounts of truth to it and it, and it's just a cliche that's out there. Larry Levine: You can find it out there on social and all you gotta do is Google it. Well, if I invest in my people, what happens if I invest in my people and they go somewhere else? I'm setting that up because I think, I can't say that's all, but I think it's ingrained in the back of people's heads.

Man, if I invest in Kate and insert names of all the people that are on my team, if I invest in Kate and I pour into Kate and then she winds up six months later leaving, then what? Larry Levine: So. I'm not saying that happens all the time, but people, it's that age old saying, well, guess what if you, the more you pour into people, I really believe this. The more you pour into people, the more they'll pour into your customers.

The more you don't pour into your people, the more they won't pour into your customers somewhere around down the road. Larry Levine: I think it goes a couple even layers deeper. I think it's lack of trust. More than anything else is if I invest in my people, I trust that they will invest in themselves and they will invest in our customers.

Kate Volman: And this, this goes back to the. The hiring process, like hiring people that are growth minded, because the best team members are the ones that they want to grow. Kate Volman: They want to get better. So when people say, well, what if my people leave?

Well, if you have. A players on your team, they're going to leave if you don't invest in them that, I mean, we, they, you, we have to give them an environment in which to thrive, in which to grow so that they wanna stay so that they get excited about the mission. Kate Volman: And of course some people do have dreams. You know, we get that question a lot too, right?

Because they're like, what one of my team members dreams is to leave the company? Great. At least now you're gonna have a plan. If you know that they're gonna leave, you can, they can help you create that plan and you get to support them in that dream.

Kate Volman: So when they're off and doing their thing, they're gonna remember this company Selling From the Heart. Larry, Larry, like not only supported me leaving, but we had a year plan and then he supported me going, and now he talks so well about you and the company so that other people would wanna come to work with you. Larry Levine: You know, you know what's interesting? I, I just have to bring professional sports into this conversation if you allow me to.

Is 'cause I was sitting there listening to what you're saying, especially like on the hiring end of this. So I live just north of Los Angeles. I'm gonna bring Los Angeles Rams into this just to put some thoughts and and things around this. Larry Levine: But this is culture driven.

This is hiring driven, this is heart driven. The Los Angeles Rams were just a complete utter mess like eight or nine years ago. Just a mess. They had just moved back from St.

Louis, right? 'cause they, they were originally in la then they went to St. Louis, they came back to la. When they came back to LA Complete mess.

Larry Levine: The owner knew they were a complete mess. Basically cleaned house of all the leadership upstairs inside the Los Angeles Rams. And that's when they hired Sean McVey, who's the head coach, you know, the young wiz kid and so forth. But what happened since.

Is they figured out how to bring in high character, high integrity players who aligned to the values at a leadership level, and they bring those type of players in the A players high character fueled with integrity. Larry Levine: The reason why I bring this up is imagine if CEOs and executives brought in high quality talent. Yeah, based on character integrity that matched their values instead of just hiring warm bodies. Just think about all the revenue increases in profit increases you'd have if you paid really close attention to the front end of your hiring process.

Kate Volman: Yes, and the reason why I think so many people don't is because it's, it. That takes discipline and practice and you have to have a good process in place. And a lot of businesses don't have a good hiring process and you have to hire for not only talent, but also are they a good cultural fit. You know, we've all experienced someone, especially, especially in sales because yes, I know there's a lot of people that have come to us saying.

Kate Volman: I can't get rid of this person. They are the rainmaker. They are my top sales guy. They bring in so much revenue and yet everyone hates them.

They're not a great cultural fit, but they don't wanna get rid of them because of. The performance in sales. So let's talk a little bit about sales teams, because what does that dynamic look like? Larry Levine: I'm so glad we're gonna have this conversation.

'cause I, I gotta play on what you just said on the front end At Selling From the Heart, the front end of what we do is driven by sales indexing sales teams. We figured if we're gonna bring on the right types of clients. We wanna help CEOs lift up the hood of their sales team to uncover what makes their people tick and what are they capable of. Larry Levine: And the reason why I bring this up is exactly what you just said.

As we start leveraging data and analytics on sales teams, we're looking at all their, all the whole entire team from their top sales person all the way down from mid-level managers, all the way even to VPs of sales. I remember this is about three months ago. Larry Levine: We ran data and analytics on a company, and the sale, their sales teams has about 31, 32 salespeople, mid-level managers, and a VP of sales. Their top salesperson does a ginormous amount of sales, well past seven.

It's into eight figures on an annual basis. Top salesperson comes back. This person is not coachable. Larry Levine: Tactically, they're weak, high relational seller.

Point behind all of this. They don't even wanna look at this person because they're bringing in the most revenue, but yet this person's not coachable. So you're not gonna, you're not gonna squeeze any more lemon out of this person, right? It's not gonna happen.

Larry Levine: Probably cancerous, high ego, but yet as a leader, you don't want to, you just don't wanna rock the boat with this person. 'cause what happens if they go elsewhere? My take. Let that person go elsewhere.

Find three or four other people that would run circles around this person. I know there's some leaders going, Larry, you're a box of rocks. Larry Levine: I can't buy into any of this. Kate Volman: And envisioning somebody listening, going, okay, Larry, that sounds great, but where are they?

Like, where I, where are these people? Okay, Larry Levine: but Kate, this is why as executives, you gotta constantly be building your bench, of finding talented people. I'm here to tell you this, whether that be baseball, football, basketball, hockey, the minute a player gets injured. Larry Levine: The general manager isn't out there trying to recruit somebody to, to fill the spot.

They already got a bench. They have a farm team. They're developing players in business. Why can't we as executives do that every single day?

If your salespeople have to prospect for business on a continual basis, then you as leaders and mid-level managers gotta constantly be looking for talent. Larry Levine: Every single day and be building your bench. The reason why most sales leaders don't want to get rid of the cancers in their company, they have no one to fill it. They have no one to fill it, so they allow it to happen.

It's excuses, Kate. It's excuses, Kate Volman: and we don't like excuses because what do you say? I even have a little note in your book. Kate Volman: Excuses are a way of saying, this isn't important to me.

I love that. Yeah, love that. I love that. And it's true.

We could talk about hiring all day, that obviously it's a big passion of ours here at Floyd too, just like working with leaders to help them with their hiring process. But let's talk a little bit, dig into sales because. Kate Volman: It's like one of these things where I think every company can get better at the sales process. Like any process, right?

The hiring process, the sales process, there's lots of ways that we can strengthen. So when you are going into a team, you're not only assessing the team, you're looking at the processes, systems, like how they're selling, the just different things that, that you can help support them in fixing. Kate Volman: Two increase, conversion increase. I don't know if you help them with leads, but just increasing obviously sales.

So what are some of the mistakes that you see people make like right off the bat that somebody can go back into their company today and see how they might be able to improve those things? Larry Levine: Oh, great stuff. Larry Levine: I'm gonna break down if you allow me to. I'm gonna break down my second book and it's going to answer your question is 'cause I see this and it's why I took Selling from the Heart of the Foundation and created selling in a post trusts world.

It's around four pillars and when I walk into a company, I see it right away. Larry Levine: It's salespeople straight across the border struggling to build authentic, genuine relationships. And they're struggling to build meaningful business value, and they're struggling to bring in an experience that's inspirational to their clients, and they're struggling with disciplined habits. And what's really interesting, this has nothing to do with tactical stuff like prospecting in winning business and all that.

Larry Levine: It all has to do with how are y'all showing up? And it goes back to a little bit ago in our conversation, we were talking about that I ask executives, are you and the people and relationship building business and then just really zero in on your sales team? Are they doing the same thing? And they all say yes, but yet we as leaders aren't coaching and training our salespeople into how to build their people skills and relationship building skills.

Larry Levine: So when I walk into companies, that's exactly what I zero in on. Our people skills and relationship building skills, we could kind of zero in and say, these are soft skills, but soft skills, yield hard dollars, and these are the things that I coach and train to and inspire leaders to go, you know what, we can become better around how we build genuine, authentic, congruent relationships. Larry Levine: With our clients, like before we started recording this, we were talking about how many sellers and executives really know the goals, initiatives, challenges, dreams, aspirations, visions of their clients.

And it's sad and it concerns me. Not many do. And if they say they do, they may know one aspect of all of this. Larry Levine: There's no really relational alignment between salespeople and their customers.

In other words. Companies and their salespeople think the relationship is this. Their clients think the relationship is something completely different. So when I walk in, I want there to be congruency.

So we coach to it, and then we coach to how to bring meaningful value. Larry Levine: And this is where a lot of salespeople struggle, and this is where I'm gonna look leaders in the eyes and said, if your salespeople became better at having business conversations, watch what starts to happen. But because there's so much lack of trust and there's so much skepticism out there that salespeople fall into this trap of, I want Kate to like me, and I want Kate to be my friend, and if she likes me and if she thinks I'm friendly, she'll buy from me, which I think is the complete opposite.

Larry Levine: I want Kate to think I'm trustworthy and credible, and then Kate will buy stuff from me. So we work on how to build these authentic relationships and bring meaningful business value. And then we just wrap it around how to inspire these people through an experience like none other to scene, achieve things they don't think they can do on their own. Larry Levine: And then you just gotta be disciplined with it and, and it's just tough because as adults, some of the hardest things we could do is be disciplined.

Discipline requires. Tough stuff the most, you know, I'll just say non disciplined people, they just find excuses. So these are the areas that I work on. These are the areas that I see massively impacts revenue and profit, employee retention and client retention.

Larry Levine: This is how y'all build trust, and trust drives increased revenue and profit. Kate Volman: So it sounds like if those are like some of the key things that you're supporting people on, it sounds more like that, or maybe that's just the starting point and less of because. What I would think the answer would be is we, you know, we've gotta look at their process. Kate Volman: We have to look at their, what are they like, their sales scripts, and what are they saying and what is the process like after you get on your initial call and then the second call.

And so like how do you put that, those ideas that you just shared, which are beautiful and creating those authentic relationships. Kate Volman: But how do you put that into practice? Larry Levine: Obviously a lot of it's through coaching, but it's just. A lot of it's just observation.

So, and we were talking prior to, you know, recording. This is when I bring a new client on, or, or even before it happens, a, I spend almost an entire week at a company and I'll do field write outs and I'm sitting in meetings and I'm observing and I'm watching. Larry Levine: For one simple reason. I wanna see what's going on so then I can use this experience to say, Hey, by the way, when I was in this meeting, this is what I was observing this person saying.

So that when we do decide that we're the right fit, these are some of the things that we're gonna change. We're gonna change how they open their first meeting with an executive. Larry Levine: We're gonna change the questions they start asking, 'cause this is what I'm observing, rather than just after the fact. I'm doing it before the fact.

I just wanna see it. I wanna see it with my own eyes and I wanna see it. I wanna listen to it because then I can say, this is how we change it. I've been in cars with salespeople.

Larry Levine: I've been in meetings with your salespeople. These are the things that they're actually saying. These are the things that we could change. Kate Volman: One of the things that we were talking about before.

We hit record was LinkedIn. As far as social platforms, it is the one that more that is, I get it's still more of that professional. Kate Volman: A lot of professionals are on there. A lot more CEOs and executives are on there probably than on other platforms and.

For someone like you who is very, you know, you wanna build relationships, I'm the same way, right? Like I always think I would love to meet more people on LinkedIn that wanna reach out to me. Kate Volman: And if we have, and if we have things in common around wanting to grow your business and support your team members and what does that look like, and create a great culture. All of those things, I mean, those are the kinds of people that we work with and I would love to meet more people, but I just feel like when you talk about trust being so important.

Kate Volman: One of the things that's so challenging is I feel like there's so many salespeople or there's so many just leaders out there that are mass emailing anyone and everyone, and it's so. Oh, it's just like, to your point from the beginning when you said like, we need to like not be so like, make sales so sleazy, like people still kind of think about it as like the, you know, the car salesman, like the sleazy car salesman. Kate Volman: Like that's, that feels so inauthentic.

It's annoying is what it is. You know, you get these messages of people that are already just automatically, they, it's like five paragraphs. This is who I am and this is what we do. And do you wanna jump on a quick call so I can teach you how to do it?

And it's like, no, no. Kate Volman: Yeah, Larry Levine: yeah. No, you, you know it, it's so interesting and, and I'm a massive believer in, you know, we can use these platforms, insert name of whatever social platform. We can use these however we see fit.

Right? And it used to just grade on me how people use this. Now I kinda laugh because. I just pay attention to how I show up.

Larry Levine: That's what I can control. And so often I was getting sucked into, these are how all these other people are showing up. Why can't I be like these people and act like these people? Well, guess what?

It may or may not work for them. Who knows? But if this is LinkedIn specific, just for a moment, it's a big charade. Larry Levine: I mean, everyone's got their best dress and their best suit on and all of that.

And the light's always shining on them. I'm a massive believer in the three E's. I want to show up to educate. I want to show up to engage, and I wanna show up to excite somebody into a conversation.

Say, I wanna know more. And if they wanna know more, all they gotta do is do a couple clicks and they can find out more. Larry Levine: Let's just face it. Kate Volman: It's what I love about these platforms too is that you do get to connect with people that you would never find otherwise and connect with them in a way to learn about their thought process around, you know, I follow some people that are like sharing a lot about AI and I'm like, this is so great.

Kate Volman: You're doing all the research and then sharing with us like what you're discovering, what you're finding. So it's like they become this someone that. I trust in that particular industry. And so when you become that person, like with you, like selling from the heart, it's like you're sharing with your podcast, what you're doing is you're sharing, you're helping to highlight other people that are putting in the work, that are creating great cultures and then working through sales, highlighting them.

Kate Volman: And then other people get to know, oh, and by the way, Larry, this is what he does. Yeah. And let's find out a little Larry Levine: bit more. No, a hundred percent.

Hey, I just wanna let everyone know. Kate and I connected because of social platforms like LinkedIn where Kate became aware of selling from the heart. I mean, you remember the whole story, right? Larry Levine: And then Michelle reaches out and so forth.

But I wanna let people know is you never know who's following you, who's paying attention to you. And what was really interesting is I got to know Kate. It's how many people Kate already knew that we knew. Yes.

Right. And so when you start following like-minded like-hearted people, you'll be amazed how small this community really is. Kate Volman: Yeah. And then you get to connect great people.

So you've been connected me with some really great people that I've had wonderful conversations with, so that's so good. All right, so if there's, if someone's listening, they're like, okay, what are like three things that I should look at with my sales teams? Kate Volman: Or if they're a smaller team, maybe that them or one other person on their team, how do they assess? Their sales process today, and how do they start to move forward to create these better, authentic relationships?

Larry Levine: I would say a couple things is if I'm an executor of executive or I'm a leader listening to this i'd, and then answering your question, I would, first thing I would sit down and ask myself is, do I really understand what makes my team tick? Larry Levine: Do I truly know what they're capable of above and beyond what they're currently doing? If both those answers is, I don't know, then obviously we have solutions around that. Set that aside is if I'm an executive and I'm looking into this and then answering your question in another way, Kate, I'm saying to myself, what types of questions when my salespeople are sitting in front of our customers, how are they carrying themselves?

Larry Levine: What questions are they asking? What kind of relationships are they building? What are they doing with our customers? What would my customers have to say about my salespeople every day?

Are my salespeople connecting to more and more people inside this company? Are they dealing with the same old people? Larry Levine: Now, I'm keeping this highly focused in highly relational industries where salespeople are driving all of the revenue and all of the profit. No.

No one's making phone calls for 'em. I mean, the salespeople are driving all of this. If I'm an executive, if I'm peering into the window of my sales team, I wanna know, Hey, what types of questions are these people asking? Larry Levine: How are they engaging with our customers?

How are they building relationships? Are they having business conversations? Are they having surface level conversations? When they see our customers, what are they doing?

Are they inspiring them? Are they sucking the life out of them and they'res, right? They're simple questions to ask, but simple's, the hardest thing to do with consistency and discipline, even at an executive level is just ask yourself a couple just simple questions and maybe be an invisible fly on the wall on some of your salespeople's calls and just go, how are they interacting with people? Larry Levine: What are they talking about?

How are they carrying themselves? Are they paying attention? Are they shining the light on themselves? Are they shining the light on our clients?

Just by asking some of these questions, you're gonna open up Pandora's box of opportunities. Kate Volman: Yeah, spoken like a true coach, like asking great questions, asking great questions, and uncovering some things that you can really support your people and and helping them. Kate Volman: And helping them grow. Obviously, when you help your sales team grow, you're gonna help your business grow.

That's the way that it works with sales. Larry Levine: Yeah. Amen. On that.

And twice on Sunday. Kate Volman: All right, Larry, you know, we love a good recommendation, whether it's a tool that you're using, a book that you just read that was inspiring, something that you're really enjoying right now. Kate Volman: Do you have any or a podcast that you love? Larry Levine: Actually, it's a podcast I love, and by the way, I'm not dropping mine.

I absolutely love the Craig Groeschel Leadership podcast. It's my go-to it. It just so happens his message resonates with me. He inspires me, he impacts me, he influences me, and I've never met this person before.

Larry Levine: So on my bucket list to me. Kate Volman: You should have him on your podcast. Larry Levine: Oh man, I'm trying. I've circled, I've had people who know him directly on my podcast and, uh, I'm batting zero, but it just means that it's just around the corner.

But if there's one podcast to listen to that he is just a man fueled with high integrity, full of character and heart. Larry Levine: Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast is my go-to. Kate Volman: All right, good. And what is one of your creative pursuits?

What is a creative dream that you have? Larry Levine: Oh wow. You know what? Somehow I knew that you're gonna go down this road, Kate, and you're gonna throw me on the spot.

I knew that. Kate Volman: I have to know because it's, you know, you have this business, you're super passionate about sales, but like is there something that you do that is just kind of. Kate Volman: Do you do it for the joy of it, just your fun little activity? Larry Levine: I would say the thing that that I do for fun that I just get complete joy from, is I love mentoring other people and I love helping people become better, especially those young in sales.

There's anything that I will geek out on that I will never say no to is helping somebody early on in their career. Larry Levine: Just because A, it didn't happen for me. It didn't happen, right? There's a no mentor stepped into my life.

I wasn't even seeking when I saw my first business coach at 40, so 20 years ago. But now the creative side of me is going, if I can just mentor and guide and coach and nurture young up and coming salespeople and help them see and achieve things that I didn't see at that time of life, that's that I mean, to me. Larry Levine: Yeah, that brings me joy. Kate Volman: I love it.

All right. Well, Larry, you're in your fourth quarter. I know you kind of shared a little bit, but just we wanna leave on a little bit of advice for, for someone in heading into their fourth quarter. What wisdom do you wanna share?

Larry Levine: I would say this, we're all capable of doing a whole heck of a lot more than we think we're capable of. Larry Levine: It's the self-limiting beliefs and it's the self-doubt that keeps us squash. It keeps us on that comfy couch. So I'm kind of in that fourth quarter of career and life.

I know there's more. I'm still unpacking it. I'm 60 years old. I'm still unpacking it.

So I'd say this is, I think we're all capable of doing a whole heck of a lot more. Larry Levine: We just gotta look inside of who we are and go, you know what? I challenged myself. I challenge you all.

We can become better. We just have to find somebody who's close to us that we can confide in that might be able to pull it out of us. Kate Volman: Love it. All right.

This is another reason why coaching is so important. Kate Volman: When you have a good coach, they are your encourager. They're your cheerleader. They hold you accountable.

They make sure that you're not making excuses, and you stayed disciplined to achieve your dreams. Larry, this was such a pleasure. I just. You're the best.

Larry Levine: Thank you. I appreciate you. Kate Volman: Well, I so appreciate you and where, where's the best place for people to find you? Larry Levine: You can go to sellingfromtheheart.

net. You can find out everything and then some about what we're up to. You can find the podcast on all your podcast platforms. You go to YouTube, you can find me on LinkedIn.

I'm everywhere. Kate Volman: Larry is everywhere. And you and Darrell, thank you again for having me on Culture From the Heart. Kate Volman: That was such a fun, that was a fun podcast.

And you're doing really wonderful work. So if anyone's listening and you wanted Joe, check out Larry, of course, go. You can connect with him on LinkedIn and get his book, get a copy of Selling From the Heart, because we all need more authentic relationships, especially in selling. Kate Volman: So thank you for the work that you do to help more people.

To grow their businesses, right? Like if you have a business, you believe in your product, we hope you believe in your product. And so to create those relationships and help people share that in a authentic way is important. So you are awesome.

Kate Volman: Thank you. Thank you so much for listening and for being here. We so appreciate you. And until next time, Lead with Culture.