Episode 203: Paul de la Garza – Adapting Leadership and Sales Strategies for Today’s Challenges: Navigating New Avenues for Success

Paul de la Garza  00:02

We have to stop selling and we want to attract. And in order to make it really, really truly social, there has to be a recognition that a professional salesperson is predominantly an individual that provides solutions to people’s desire to either mitigate a problem, promote a success or deal with change, and that you’re going to be able to do it through the products and services that they provide. 

But to truly make it social, there’s got to be an essential connection that the sales professional has to do by intently listening, and then taking whatever they learn as a point of departure to effectively make your value proposition that’s going to be meaningful.

Intro  00:43

Welcome to the Making Sales Social Podcast featuring the Top Voices in Sales, Marketing and Business join Brynne Tillman and me, Bob Woods. As we each bring you the best tips and strategies. Our guests are teaching their clients so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show!

Brynne Tillman  01:08

Welcome back to Making Sales Social, I am here with my friend and client, Paul de la Garza. He guides sales professionals and business leaders who are responsible for revenue to shift from market trend sales, to selling in any market. I am beyond excited because what I love so much about Paul is everything from being the best human you can be from being kind and respectful. And it goes beyond traditional sales training and really touches the heart. So Paul, Welcome to Making Sales Social.

Paul de la Garza 01:44

Gosh, Brynne, after that introduction, I hope I live up to it. That’s quite an intro. But thank you so much. And it’s a pleasure for me to be here with you. Thank you for inviting me.

Brynne Tillman  01:54

Oh, I’m very, very excited. Before we dive into some of your I think it’s EQ genius, that emotional quotient right? Before we dive into that, we ask all of our guests one question, Which is What Does Making Sales Social Mean to you?

Paul de la Garza 02:13

You know, it’s interesting, because by you asking that question, it pretty much summarizes to a significant degree, the actual premise by which I coach and train people in the areas of effective selling, one of the things that we do is to you, we have to stop selling, and we want to attract and in order to make it really, really, truly social, there has to be a recognition that a professional salesperson is predominantly an individual that provides solutions to people’s desire to either mitigate a problem.

Promote success or deal with change, and they’re going to be able to do it through the products and services that they provide. But to truly make it social, there’s got to be an essential connection that the sales professional has to do by intently listening, and then taking whatever they learn as a point of departure to effectively make a valid proposition that’s going to be meaningful. So that is what I think is really the power behind your question, making sales social, it’s about the client, not about the sales professional. 

Brynne Tillman  03:19

I love that. And I think that that’s critical. Often we say detach from what the prospect is worth to you and attach to what you are worth to the prospect. So that actually.

Paul de la Garza 03:27

Actually, I could have said that much more briefly. You just said it. So yes, that’s exactly correct. That’s our credo.

Brynne Tillman  03:35

Yeah, I love that. So you work with both sales professionals and sales leaders? 

Paul de la Garza 03:42

That’s correct. 

Brynne Tillman  03:43

So I’m going to start with the sales leader side and ask you what are some of the biggest challenges sales leaders are facing today, especially as we enter, what we’re hearing could be a recession or a difficult market to sell, And I guess, what are some of the challenges those leaders are facing, And what do you recommend for them to do to prepare?

Paul de la Garza 04:06

Yeah, great question. It’s an important question in today’s day and age, because I felt like summarizing and reducing it to a couple of avenues or a couple of topics. The first one is that we find a lot, a great deal of leaders and managers, I should say, that are in a position of authority, and they struggle because they don’t necessarily have the necessary training or the necessary understanding in terms of what truly leadership is one of the things that I promote with my clients and my trainings is that there’s a significant difference between management and leadership. 

Management is a process of execution, Leadership is the fashion through which an individual becomes relevant to promote a particular mission that resonates within the team that that person is leading. And the other aspect is that leadership cannot be claimed leadership has to be conferred by the team that is having the person in their stead in their group. The biggest problem that I think right now people are facing is that they’re dealing with things that they have not dealt with before. The dynamics of the economy and interest rates and, and availability of inventory for real estate agents. 

And it is a completely different game. And the biggest challenge that leaders have today, especially in the sales area, is that they apply old solutions to new problems. And, and that is a critical point of a flaw, if you will, because they will apply, they being the leader or the manager will apply a solution with whom or with which that individual is familiar. And even though that solution needs to be much more creative, because it’s a brand new problem that they haven’t faced before they continue to apply the solutions with which they are most familiar and there is a disconnect. 

This is a big challenge. Today, I will tell you that there are a number of companies as a matter of fact. Just today, I had a session with a senior leader. Now they’re beginning to really focus on the development of leadership, because before things were so easy to employ that they did not really have to apply those things. Today, leaders have to really focus on leadership, on creating a culture, on validating the individual, on empowering the team, on making sure that they coach and they make, Tane the mission clear and reaffirm it consistently. So those are the biggest challenges that exist with leaders today, especially in the sales area.

Brynne Tillman  06:35

We now have this strange hybrid, Right? Where we used to have water cooler conversations, and we can, you know, stop at the desk and see how someone’s doing. And in some cases, sales leaders haven’t even met their team in person yet. 

Paul de la Garza 06:50

I know.

Brynne Tillman  06:51

So what does that look like? And what should sales leaders do to earn that right to be called a leader instead of a manager in a remote environment?

Paul de la Garza 07:01

Yeah, well, the first thing that you have to do is communicate. I mean, if you talk to any, any leadership, individual that is like an opinion maker, Steven Covey, Maxwell, Tony Robbins, and so forth, they will tell you one critical thing, and it’s this communications is the centerpiece of effective leadership, communication, communication, especially in the side of the leader listening intently to the team. But let’s take that question and parse it for a couple of areas. 

Number one, an effective leader has to be very, very clear in terms of the mission that an individual wants to achieve for a particular period of time, the mission has to be extremely clear. The second thing is that they have to look upon their team as a brain trust of creativity. In other words, now they have that the leader has a clear understanding of the mission, to actually sit down with their team and share the mission.

But more importantly, to call upon the team to give the leader perspectives as to how to achieve the mission, because what happens is that you begin to connect the mission with the team.The team becomes part owners of that mission. And when you have that kind of ownership, you have a higher level of productivity, a higher level of commitment, otherwise, it’s just task oriented. And it’s very transactional. 

Third one would be to empower the individual members of the team so that they can actually execute against the suggestions that they have made. And when that team member sees their signature, their voice, their vote, in the overall detail of the accomplishment of the mission and of the process. Let me tell you, you have magic, you have extraordinary results. And unfortunately, I shouldn’t complain, because this keeps me employed. Unfortunately, we don’t see a lot of that. 

Brynne Tillman  08:41

So what’s the mistake, you’re seeing?

Paul de la Garza 07:42

That people who are in leadership positions number one think that by virtue of being in the position of authority, they are, quote, leaders, and that does not automatically make them lead? They have to really have that conferred upon them, because leadership is about character. It’s about ethics. It’s about what people see in those particular individuals, should I follow that individual? 

Do I want to follow that individual and the decisions that are made are based on what that individual perceives that team member perceives to be the character and the ethics of that leader. So that’s the first thing, the second thing needs to be that they need to recognize that they’re not the chief No at all. And then not the chief doing all that delegation is effectively powerful, because that calls upon the better angels of that team member to say, “I’m going to rely upon you.” This is the leader speaking to provide the following results.

And I think you have the criteria, the intellect, the business acumen, to be able to really accomplish those things. And when that empowerment is received, it’s amazing how the culture of that group becomes so much more cohesive. And then there are a number of other things that leaders can do in terms of coaching, communicating effectively and listening intently. 

And applying it, you said it earlier, an element of an emotional quotient that really allows that team member to recognize the leader is also an individual who’s fragile and who, frankly, has a lot of human traits. And the connection begins, it doesn’t take away from the leadership. On the contrary, it strengthens it.

Brynne Tillman  10:18

So I hear that vulnerability there.

Paul de la Garza 10:20

That is the word that I was looking for. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.

Brynne Tillman  10:26

Why is that our instinct is that if we have to lead a team, we’ve got to be strong. And we know we have to be the one they look up to for everything. And so that we have that credibility. Obviously, we’re human. And that’s not the case, ever, that it’s everything. But why is vulnerability so important in order to be seen as a leader?

Paul de la Garza 10:49

Well, let’s go back in. I’ll address your question in two seconds. But let’s go back, a leader does need to have an element of initiative that will call upon different resources and people to be able to address either the crisis, or the challenge, or the problem, or for that matter, the aspiring objective, definitely, what cannot be is that the leader declares themselves absolute and being the only source of that. 

And what happens is that when the leader does that, there’s a detachment that this is this engagement by the team, and it becomes a leader here, and a team here, and it becomes more of a task-oriented approach, as opposed to a culture as opposed to a shared mission. In addition, now to address your question, when a team member sees the delicate balance between a strong sense of mission, an effective level of delegation, and extraordinary communication on the part of the leader at the same time sees a certain vulnerability, there’s a higher, higher connection and commitment by the team member simply because we get closer. 

And when we get closer, and there’s that unity, we become more effective. There is an African saying that says if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far go together. And this is critical in leadership. Leaders’ primary objective is to make sure that they promote the mission and that they create a culture of high performance that is going to promote the achievement of the mission.

Brynne Tillman  12:19

Yeah, that’s fantastic. So let’s move into the salesperson themselves. So you have what you now have producers, Right? Their job is to start conversations with the right people and take them all the way through to close.

Paul de la Garza  12:33

Correct.

Brynne Tillman  12:34

As we enter, a turbulent economic environment, which, at the time of this recording, has started, but the Fed is predicting, it’s gonna get worse, Right? So salespeople get nervous. They’re, you know, should I go get a different position? Should I not rely, like, am I, I rely so much on commission. And now 

Paul de la Garza  13:03

Should I get a second job? 

Brynne Tillman  13:04

Should I get a second job? Yeah. So what can salespeople do now to prepare for a little bit of an economic turndown? What can we do for an economic downturn? So that I mean, there’s still going to be some business, Right? It’s not like businesses are going to stop completely. So how do they keep their market share? And what can they do now to prepare for that?

Paul de la Garza  13:33

That’s amazing, you should ask that question. It’s amazing how you put it, that there’s always business. The best thing that I can tell you is that they need to understand that the business is still there, you just have to look in a different place. Look, the dynamics are extraordinary Okay? The dynamics are that if you’re used to going to a particular path in order to get your business and you’re consistently finding it there you become somewhat, shall we say used to and to some degree.

Maybe even numb to the process you go into autopilot and the creative juices are replaced by habits? “I go and I call Brynne” “Brynne is my client,” “She’s gonna give me business,” “I know it’s there” I right off the order,” “Right close the deal.” “Thank you very much. Next month, I will go back to Brynne” now brand is no longer there or something has happened with Brynne is in a situation that she can no longer accommodate that. 

And what we’re seeing is that it’s amazing that there are a number of people that despite the economic conditions print, consistently performing and yet you have the majority of the people that go through these peaks and valleys with a strong sense of what I call panic, Why? but panic, nonetheless. What happens is they have to start looking for the business in a different place. Do you remember a book by the name of “A woman and manager?” 

Brynne Tillman  14:52

Oh, sure. 

Paul de la Garza  14:53

Yeah, it was an extraordinary book, but the same author, Kenneth Stewart, I can’t remember Louis, something like that. He wrote another book called, “Who Moved My Cheese.” And this is a fable, written type of book. And it’s talking about four little beings that lived in a maze. And every day, they would travel from the center of the maze to, and they would find the cheese and they would eat and they go back and the next day did the same thing. And it was over and over and over again, the day came up, when all of a sudden, they went to the same place where they expected to see this wonderful amount of cheese. 

And not surprisingly, there was no cheese, two of them went into a serious, serious panic, and fear and their humor began to change. And they started to insist that they were going to find more business in exactly the same place, the other two went back to the center of the maze, and they started to explore different places, until they found not only they find cheese, they found a significantly higher amount of cheese, the basic object lesson of the book is essentially that we’re creatures of habit. 

And when we find conditions that are changing in a market, we have to adapt and change along with it. It’s when we refuse to make the change that we start suffering. I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about if we have the time. Yeah, the prime example is this. “We have people within the mortgage industry,” Okay? And they go to the real estate agent, and they go to a particular Well, a database, and they have interest rates that are conducive for refinances, and so forth, and so on. 

And it’s all automatic, it’s almost a windfall type. Okay. Now, within this industry, there are some very astute individuals that recognize that that can change on a dime. And what they do is they constantly are looking into other different areas. And as a result of that they’re preparing themselves for the eventual downturn that is secretly about AP. Well, this happened. And it will happen again. 

Here’s what we’re finding, some people are now going to people that are current homeowners, and saying, by the way, did you know that it’s still a good time, even though the interest rates are higher than they were a year and a half ago, it’s still a good time to buy because your, if you buy a house, the accumulation of equity over the span of five years is going to by far outpace the extra money that you would pay in monthly payments, as a result of the higher interest rate. And it’s astonishing how they found different cheeses in a different place. 

Okay, still within the mortgage industry, these are people that are closing 12-14-16-20 deals a month, I have a number of clients that are doing that. So it’s a matter of adapting and changing with the times as opposed to just simply trying to apply an old solution to a new condition.

Brynne Tillman  17:46

So interesting. So I love that. So how would sales folks know where to which new paths to try? Like, you know, here I am, I’m preparing for the potential downturn. I’ve gotten leads up to this point, business has been pretty easy and the inbound is slowing down. What’s the first thing I should do?

Paul de la Garza  18:11

The first thing that you need to do is you need to get rid of your autopilot. The very first thing that you need to do you need to come through the rigor, the recognition that this is a great deal about mindset. I no longer have business there. That business has dried up, it doesn’t mean that there is no other business. Because we see this daily in real estate in sales, and computer sales in a number of different things. 

We see it. So the first thing is your mindset. The second thing is to really seek to understand the market. In terms of where the client is, here’s the biggest problem that we see in sales. And again, it keeps me employed, Brynne. The biggest problem is that people make it about themselves. The sales professionals seek to understand the psyche and the needs and wants in, in challenges of their client base. It’s astonishing how they can really find creative ways of being able to appeal to the client’s needs and wants from a different point of view. 

But we have to abandon that previous habit with which we came very accustomed. Recently people don’t do that because “Habit is Safety.” Habit is comfortable. And when we are demanded upon to discontinue that habit, we no longer feel safe. And when we no longer feel safe, we abstain and some people are seeing their business go down. And the conclusion is the business isn’t simply not there. I have to change when in reality the business is there just in a different place.

Brynne Tillman  19:51

So this is great and I could go on and on all day but if our listeners are like man, I want more Paul, where would they find you?

Paul de la Garza  20:00

Yeah, wow. Okay, so we have my website, you can go into my website and you can actually ask for a complimentary session. And it’s right there on my website. It’s a highperformance-solutions.com. Okay, you can contact me directly, and I’ll give you my direct number which is 970-420-8951. And I make myself available, and I will be more than happy to entertain questions or requests from your listeners.

Brynne Tillman  20:34

Or help you find your cheese. 

Paul de la Garza  20:37

Or help you find your cheese. I love it. It’s a great book, by the way. I agreed America used to give those I think they still do and increments so the 1000s Yeah, because of the powerful message.

Brynne Tillman  20:49

Well, and you mentioned, Stephen Covey.

Paul De la Garza  20:53

Yes.

Brynne Tillman  20:54

Stephen Covey’s son who also ran, Franklin Covey came out with a book called trust and inspire. It is also fabulous, and it aligns so much with what you’re talking about. So I thought I’d throw that out. 

Paul de la Garza  21:10

Well, thank you. Thank you. And I will tell you, Stephen Covey wrote that book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. For your listeners, I would like to say this. There are some books that are religious books, and there are certain books that you must read. This is one of them. Yeah, I submit to you that this is a book, this is a book that you should read every other year. 

Because as we grow, we will find different aspects of what Kobe was talking about. And we will find the relevance and how it can apply to you. So I would strongly recommend that if you haven’t read this book, then you pick it up. If you have read it again. It’s kind of going to feel new. 

Brynne Tillman  21:48

Yeah, I love that. So new habits, new way of thinking, shift in mindset. Have the confidence that the business is out there and talk to Paul, if you’re struggling to find your cheese, I think that’s the way to do it.

Paul de la Garza  22:04

Brynne, I want to just tell you that so I think it’s wonderful that you’re doing these interviews, I think that you are a light and you are a great contributor to the people that listen to you. You have been to me. And I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me because it’s been great.

Brynne Tillman  22:19

Well, I adore working with you. So, thank you very much for being here and to our listeners. Yeah. So to our listeners, make sure you’re connecting with Paul. And lastly, when you’re out and about don’t forget to make your sales social.

 Outro 22:39

Thanks for listening and joining us again. For more special guest instructors bringing you marketing, sales, training, and social selling strategies that will set you will park don’t forget to subscribe to get the latest episodes from the Making Sales Social Podcasts, Leave a review down below. Tell us what you think, what you learned, and what you want to hear from us next. You can also listen to us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play. Visit our website socialsaleslink.com for more information.