Paul M. Caffrey (00:01.11)
Welcome to the Selling From the Heart podcast on the SalesCast network. You've joined a global movement of sales professionals who are dedicated to being authentic and building trust. We call it Selling From the Heart. Together, we are on a mission to bring sincerity and substance to the sales profession we all love. Get ready to be inspired and equipped as we join our hosts, Larry Levine and Daryl Amy.
Paul M. Caffrey (00:36.686)
Are you ready to unleash your business? Work Better Now provides incredible full-time remote talent that positively impacts your business from day one. Free your time and resources from administrative tasks and from tedious hiring activities. Whether you need an executive assistant, need to staff up a department, or you're a high-performance sales professional that simply needs more time, Work Better Now's reliable, full-time, and dedicated remote workforce is vetted
and matched specifically to your operational needs. Larry and I have enjoyed having our Work Better Now assistant, Carmen, on our team for almost two years, and she has made an enormous positive impact on our business. Head over to workbetternow.com to schedule a free consultation and transform your business. When you mention the word heart during your conversation, you will receive $150 off for the first three months of your service.
Paul M. Caffrey (01:39.714)
Hello and welcome back to Selling From The Heart, your co-host Darrell Amey here today with Larry Levine. What's going on Larry? We have so much going on. I've been looking forward to this podcast. Our guests come from all over the world and truly you're gonna enjoy our conversation today with Paul. We got Paul Caffrey in the house. Get ready, this is gonna be a fantastic conversation. And Larry.
Right now, if things are heating up out there, especially for our friends in the Northern Hemisphere, is upon us. And right now I'm so excited about all that's going on. And most of all, we've been talking about this, but this is the time right now that selling from the heart as a movement of authenticity in the sales profession has a huge opportunity to move forward. And specifically, we're talking about the re-release.
of the book, Selling From the Heart, five years in, Larry, we're on barnesandnoble.com, so congratulations. No, thanks. I keep going back, and this is a pinch and poke myself moment, because for all of you who've been following along our journey, this all started six years ago, based on the Selling From the Heart podcast, that turned into a book, that's turned into what it is today. I'm super grateful, I'm super grateful for the worldwide community who's joining us in bringing Selling From the Heart to the forefront, much needed.
in the sales world today. So thank you so much. Yeah, the great thing right now, you've probably heard this, is you can go right now to selling from the heart dot net slash preorder. And when you preorder the new release of Selling from the Heart on Barnes and Noble dot com, guess what? You get three hundred dollars of special bonus items, including a access to a workshop on how Larry plans his day, which goes right along with what we're going to talk about today. So thank you to everybody.
in the community who stepped up and gone to Barnes and Noble.com, got the pre-order and a double bonus for those of you who leave a review. We really, really appreciate it. The whole goal here is to build this movement of authenticity in the sales profession. The aim is to get something from the heart, not just on BarnesandNoble.com.
Paul M. Caffrey (03:42.454)
but also on the shelves, Larry. So when you go get that cup of coffee, and you wander down the business aisle, there is selling from the heart and the movement's gonna spread. It's so exciting. All of this though, when you think about, we've talked about planning your day and we're looking forward to that workshop coming up. All of this is around the topic of preparation. And we've got a great guest today. Paul Caffrey is a master of sales preparation. He's the co-author.
of the work before the work, the hidden habits of elite sales professionals that they use to outperform the competition. He is highly educated in the fields of science and business, and he spent the past 14 years mastering his chosen craft, one that's familiar and close to the heart for all of us, and that's the sales profession. As an elite sales professional, Paul is trusted by some of the world's biggest brands and most innovative scale-up tech companies.
Paul Caffrey, welcome to Selling From The Heart. It's great to have you here. Darrell, thanks so much for such a kind introduction and it's great to see you as well. No, it's great seeing you again, Paul, welcome. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you have the distinguished honor of being the first person that submitted a video about what it means to sell from the heart to actually be a podcast guest. And I'm so excited about this. So today though, I know we're gonna get a fresh twist on this question that every guest answers on the Selling From The Heart podcast.
That is, what does it mean to you to sell from the heart? Well, thanks very much. And it is unique. I'm going to give an additional twist to this. For me, what it means is shown up and shown that person that you know them. So when you're in that first, whether it's the first sales meeting or you're right the way through the process or with an existing client, every single meeting that you're going to.
You are prepared. You are looking at what's going on in their world and you're ultimately looking out to make them successful, to look at who else can you help them help. So what does that actually look like? And I guess this is the opportunity to get to go a little bit further with this answer is, if you're prepared and if you actually are selling from the heart, you are then building a strong relationship. So you're going to be in the position of having somebody who, you know, let's say you need a reference call to.
Paul M. Caffrey (06:01.89)
helping with our client make a decision whether to move forward or not. Or let's say you want to have your LinkedIn profile spruced up. These are the people that you can ask for referrals and they'll be only too happy to actually do that or make that call on your behalf. And how you know if you've truly sold from the heart, I really was thinking about this before I came on the show, is how many people have you sold to over the years that you could actually still call up today, that you could actually send a WhatsApp message and actually have a conversation with?
have a coffee with or whatever that may be, even if you're working in a different company or even in a different field that you can still have those relationships. And if you've sold from the heart, you will have a lot of those contacts in your phone book. So for me, that's what it's about. Building that genuine connection, being truly prepared for every interaction and looking to make that other person as successful as they can be in that role that you are with them. Oh, this is so good. And I'm so glad, Paul, that you brought up the word care.
Because throughout the years and the decades that I was in office technology sales, I wasn't the smartest person out there. I mean, there's people that were way smarter than me. But I always held myself to this as I was just going to out care everybody else. And you know, today's day and age, people sense this right away. They sense if you actually care from that very first conversation, in those very few minutes that you start speaking.
I mean, they can tell if you're in it for them or if you're in it for yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And it's just a natural way a conversation goes on. How many times have clients will recognize this a lot, but also sales professionals on the other side will see you might start a meeting and all of a sudden you just see that person leaning back. They might start checking their phone and you're like, oh, they've drifted off. And why is that? Because they don't sense that you care in that initial exchange. So.
If you can show, you know, you've had you moved offices or what's happening there, or you won this award, or maybe the local sports team are doing well, whatever that may be looking to actually make this person lean forward and go, oh, you actually did a little bit of homework here. And let's face it, a lot of executives we meet, they're showing up on podcasts, they're doing their own personal brands on LinkedIn. There is a lot more information available on people now than there certainly was 10 or 15 years ago. And just
Paul M. Caffrey (08:26.026)
that little change, the rest of your conversation will probably be pretty much the same in the sense of if it's a discovery you're looking to see, you know, if they have a problem, if you can solve it, if it's a priority and so on and so forth. But framing it in that position of showing that you care, it just makes a huge, huge difference. I love it. I love it. And you know, when you think about caring, we talk a lot about giving a rip. We talk about
You know, that true sincere desire to be a servant, to help and all of that part of caring, a huge part of caring is preparation. And this is what I absolutely love about the work behind the work is there are habits at selling from the heart and our trust formula, we call them disciplined habits. There are habits of highly high performance sales professionals that.
that relate to preparation, that relate to not just showing up with a heart to care, but showing up with a mind that's prepared to actually add some value. And I love this story. We were talking in the show before we hit record here about the backstory of your sales career and what brought you to this whole revelation, realization of the work behind the work. Would you be kind enough to share the backstory of Paul Caffrey and this aha moment that you had?
Yeah, absolutely, Daryl. My pleasure. And I started my career in the first recession. It was particularly difficult in Europe in 2008. So I pivoted from science into sales. And I just thought that's what it was. I just thought it was something that was really difficult. It just takes a lot of time, slowly but surely. Like anything, you stick with it, you figure it out. And I had a number of successful years. I got to go live in different countries and was having a great time with sales.
Well, I reached a point five, six years in where I couldn't do any more work. I was literally at the point of 12 o'clock at night, working on quotes, planning out where I was going to go the next day and sometimes jumping in the car at five AM the next morning and going to my meetings. So it led me to look at, well, how can you actually perform better? So I came across some of the work from Todd Herman and his 90 day year, which was brilliant and helped me look and improve my performance mindset.
Paul M. Caffrey (10:42.53)
But then I quickly realized, delving deeper into it, that it was not so much about improving performance or improving volume of work, it was improving the work that I delivered for the opportunities that I was working on. So that meant two things. Number one, being more selective about what I worked, but number two, actually working that opportunity better. And the one thing that I noticed that a lot of people lost over was being prepared. And if you are prepared for the opportunities that you deem valuable to work,
you actually end up being a lot more successful and delivering a lot more value as opposed to being that person who does all the meetings, does all of the work and then gets, does okay. But you know, that plateau, you will never break through with that mindset. Now here's the catch. A lot of people don't want to do the work. You know, that's not for me. Then it comes down to, well, I'm kind of saying you've got to do the work and now you've got to do the work before the work. So it's, it's even more. So
This is nice because it means most people won't take that step. But for those who do, really the standards aren't that high for you to actually outperform the competition. Because let's remember, you're probably only against two or three other sales professionals when you're looking to actually win a deal. There'll be a lot more options out there. Whoever that buyer, they will whittle it down to a small few. And sometimes that will be based on the brand of that company.
And you could be up against two or three companies that are pretty similar, have strong brands, then it comes down to you. So how are you going to be that bit better than the two or three other people you're up against? And that is really how to work before the work was born. This is great stuff. And I want to go back. If we can just camp on preparation just for a second is I love the title, the work before the work, but I'm going to throw you on the spot. Paul is what's preparation look like to Paul?
So, and the reason why I'm asking this is preparation means so many different things to so many different people, but in the context of the work before the work, what's preparation mean to you? I'm just curious. What's that look like? So for me, preparation is being ready for the opportunities that come into your world or that you go out and find, okay? There is, there's strategic preparation and there is more tactical preparation. So...
Paul M. Caffrey (13:05.502)
If we look at it from a strategic perspective, let's say you want to work in a certain position next year, or you want to move into a different field altogether, whatever it may be, or you just want to get promoted. Well, can you honestly look at yourself and see, well, here's the skills that I have, and one or day out of 10, and what am I missing? What do I need to add? And then put together a structured plan to tick off what you're missing.
and give yourself the best possible opportunity of landing that next role. That is strategic. We all know about that personal development plans, that personal growth. There's a lot of different ways you can go with that. So that's one side of it, is being able to be brutally honest with what's good and what's bad and then actually going out and doing something about it. A lot of people will think about doing the course, will think about doing something else. Fewer actually take that leap. But then the other side of that is, typically if you want to land in that position, you
Um, you want to be performing at the moment. You want to make sure that, you know, your numbers are good, that you're finding opportunities everywhere that you can and that you're delivering. And what, what that really means is, well, how can you be prepared for that? And it kind of comes down to two things. If you're going into an opportunity, it's, you know, what are you looking to achieve and how are you looking, how are you going to achieve that? That's really in its simplest terms. Then you can expand upon that, depending on how big that opportunity or that, that piece is. So.
Let's say you meet somebody randomly at a conference. If you straight away just imagine an hour of pointing at that person that you're speaking with, most important person in the room, and you ask yourself, what are they looking to achieve? How are they going to achieve that at this conference? Then you can start actually, you know, the conversation will be guided. You will start thinking of that, potentially answering it in your head based on the conversation, and then offering valuable nuggets to that person. I mean, somebody gets something, they get energized.
They want to give that back to you. So you end up in this serendipitous exchange that can take you literally anywhere. And again, if you feed through to more opportunities that you're working on a weekly, monthly, quarterly basis, you can actually be prepared in advance. So you're going into a discovery session. Yeah. You want to qualify that person. You want to find out the pain points. You want to uncover urgency and all that stuff that we know that we want to find. What does the other person want? Well,
Paul M. Caffrey (15:28.118)
They may want to know if you can solve their problem. They may want an indication of pricing. They may want something else. You have to think about that. And if you can be addressing both parts of that, then you're onto something that is going to do really, really well for both parties. And that's where you go places. I love it. I love it. What a fantastic conversation. And all of this and everybody, we want you to hit pause right now. Go grab a copy of the work before the work. The hidden habits elite sales professionals use to outperform the competition.
by our friend and guest, Paul Caffrey and his co-author, a former guest and friend, Phil M. Jones, fantastic book. We're gonna take a brief break and hear from a member of the Selling from the Heart community. When we come back, we wanna dive into some of these six habits of elite sales performers. So get ready for that. We've got an exciting video from our friend who is going to share with us what it means to him.
to sell from the heart, James Collins. So we're gonna hear from James after a brief word from our sponsors. Great news. The Selling from the Heart book has been picked up by a New York publishing house and is now on the Barnes and Noble website. To help fuel the growth in our movement of authenticity, it'd be awesome to get the book, not just on the website, but also on the shelves of Barnes and Noble stores. To do this, we need to demonstrate how popular this book is by pre-ordering as many copies as possible.
To thank you for helping me with this huge goal, when you pre-order the book on BarnesAndNoble.com, I will say thank you with over $250 in special bonus items. To get started, please pre-order Selling From the Heart on the BarnesAndNoble.com website. Then go to Sell forward slash book to learn more about how to get your special bonus items. Thank you for your support as we continue to build this movement of authenticity.
inside the sales profession.
Paul M. Caffrey (17:29.046)
What does it mean to sell from the heart? Selling from the heart is really a conscious decision that we make as salespeople to be ourselves, I think first and foremost. A lot of us are taught as sales professionals of a young age that we need to put on this specific type of front that the customer will likely want to engage with. When the reality is the customer wants to get to know us so they can make an informed decision if they like.
respect and have built rapport with us and then decide if they want to go ahead and actually move forward with us as their sales or service professional. So too often, again, people try to put up this front of who they think they should be in the customer's eyes when the reality is the customer really just wants to get to know us. And then from there, you know, selling from the heart is putting the customer's needs first, you know, getting to actually know them, figuring out how
and doing it for the right reasons. Because again, sales is a game that's so tied to so many bad connotations, and it's because there's not enough sales professionals really sowing from the heart. I love it. Oh, I love my dear friend James Collins and such a great sales leader because he just wears his heart on his sleeves. Absolutely, thank you, James. And if you'd like to submit a video and be a part of answering the question in this movement of authenticity in the sales profession, what does it mean to you to sell from the heart?
just text the word video to 21,000. That's video to 21,000 and we'll send you instructions. Well, we're here with our friend Paul Caffrey talking about the work before the work, the hidden habits elite sales professionals use to outperform the competition. So Paul, what are some of these habits that people are gonna discover in the book? Yeah, it's a great question. It's something which, when this started,
I saw Phil M. Jones speak at a conference. We started working some projects together and it actually was born out of conversations in between, you know, some of the events that we were running. And what we both noted was that elite performers do things a little bit differently to the rest. So, you know, most people, they have aspirations, they sleepwalk through their career, whereas elite professionals always seem to know what they're going to get out of.
Paul M. Caffrey (19:48.994)
the next conversation, the next meeting, the next year, they're very, very driven. And sometimes they might share stuff with you and you're kind of going, Oh, we don't know if you're going to do that. Then they actually go and a lot of the time they achieve it. And if they don't, they get pretty close, which is still pretty great. So what it comes down to is it's having a clarity in your preparation and really is having sales preparation nailed down. And the great thing about it is anybody can do it. You know, it really is, it's that easy. It's.
about having frameworks that you can follow. So, you know, what are we looking at? What are the six habits that we tend to see? And they are first, elite sales professionals, they tend to know what they're looking to achieve. They also tend to understand the current situation and they always make sure to understand the decision-making process. So when they've understood these three, what's still have a perspective or a viewpoint on that, if they're going into a meeting.
they can get that reframed and they can clarify if it's on point or if it's a little bit off, but at least they've got a starting point. So that's all well and good knowing what you want to achieve. Then the other side of it is they're looking at, well, how am I going to achieve that? How am I going to progress that? Very important, easy to set a goal, more difficult to actually carry it out. And being able to progress it is absolutely crucial. And then finally, how do we measure success and having that down?
What elite sales professionals do is they take this framework and they put it through three lenses. They put it through the person that they're meeting or the people that they're meeting. They then think about themselves and then they consider everybody else. Who could be the external stakeholders that this could impact? That simple framing, it just gives them a real upward trajectory when it comes to charting out their career.
You know what I like about this is that I keyed on onward because it's near and dear to me and it's part of my why operating system is clarity. I think all too often a lot of salespeople and I'll say even a lot of sales managers or sales leaders miss the clarity boat. We have to bring clarity to the forefront. That's why I'm glad it was the first half of the successful habits of elite performers is they have to make sure things are crystal clear because we know what happens when they're not.
Paul M. Caffrey (22:08.734)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's, you know, you have to speak about outcomes. You need to be that visionary to bring people along with you. But if you're not clear on what you expect and how you expect it to be done, you know, can you prospect and find some opportunities or can you, you know, work that territory means a hundred different things to a hundred different people. And again, yes, specificity. It just means that you're able to then, you know, roll in the right direction.
Awesome. Yeah, this is so, so super practical and powerful. And, you know, one of the things we like to talk about, it's only from the heart, is the difference between sales reps, kind of the average run of the mill, you got the name on your business card, and sales professionals. And when you think about the difference between a sales rep and sales professional, what words would you put to differentiating those two?
I mean, the key thing is both are salespeople. So we're all people at the end of the day. And then when you, when you think about, you know, a sales rep, we all, we get that negative connotation from many years ago, oh, they just want to make their number or they're just trying to sell whatever they're looking to do the least amount of work, they're cutting corners. They won't update to CRM if they don't have to. Whereas when we put the word professional in front of anything.
You know, our expectations are raised, you know, because we're going to have a great customer experience. We're going to actually have our expectations delivered upon. This person is going to bring information and insight to me that I can actually use to maybe challenge my frame of thinking on my business. And they're just so vastly different. And you know, how you are perceived is in your control. You show up prepared. You're on point.
It's vastly different to rocking up five minutes late for a meeting or logging on a couple of just these small little things. Professionals will not be late. Reps probably will be and won't think anything of it. And then we'll wonder why is that person not in this conversation? This is a great tie into your book, Paul, by the way, is you want to know the difference between a sales rep and a sales professional is just have them just start sharing the work before the work. How'd you like that one, Paul Caffrey?
Paul M. Caffrey (24:27.69)
That is ideal. I like it. These are the questions I need to ask. Oh man, what a great conversation. And I'm curious as we look towards the action steps, and what can people do other than go out and get a copy of the work before the work? You're going to want to grab a copy of this book, I promise you. But what are some things that
some action steps people listening to this podcast right now can do to up their game in terms of being prepared and doing the work behind the work. So when it comes down to it, really, you know, if you've got a meeting coming up in the next hour, or if you've got something coming up tomorrow, whatever it is, just simply ask yourself, what's the person the meeting looking to achieve and how are they going to achieve that? And then ask the same question of yourself.
tiny, tiny bit of preparation is going to help you see some gaps. And you'll be surprised at the gaps that you think that's covered and it is not. So just doing that straight away will help you bring a greater level of professionalism and success to your next meetings. And yeah, obviously, you know, the book, the work before the work, we dig into frameworks that you can use so you can apply to the smallest or to the biggest things in your year to basically make you.
as successful as you can be at the opportunities that come your way. And you know what's interesting about doing the work before the work. And as I started just listening to what you were just sharing is this also helps us, at least I believe in that very first conversation, if you're doing the work before the work and you're using the framework that Paula just mentioned, doesn't it make that first conversation and those first couple minutes with that person a little bit easier? Because we know that's his face and we know there's some awkward moments.
It happens to all of us. But if you're prepared, you're doing the work before the work, you're asking yourself these questions, right? What is it that I'd like to achieve? What is it that the other person may achieve? I believe it takes that first couple minutes. And it takes it to a different level because you're not, you're, you know, you're walking in there with the thought of what does this person really want to achieve and it's how you position yourself. At least that's how I believe it, you know, the work before the work happens. Absolutely. Um, couldn't agree more, Larry. And.
Paul M. Caffrey (26:51.85)
A key thing is nothing says that you're going to listen to somebody more than sharing something about them that they didn't know you knew about them. That straight away crowds attention and makes them realize, oh, this is going to be an interesting combination. Yeah. I love it. And I really like the concept of frameworks. I think as a sales professional, it's something that I need something that I can repeat because
You know, we've got so many different demands coming at us, so many emails, so many, you know, we need this dot that in the absence of frameworks that become habits, we just tend to react. And that story you told at the beginning about staying up till midnight doing proposals and then getting up, you know, and going, that is not a sustainable lifestyle. And it's also not a productive lifestyle either.
But the habits behind this are so, so powerful. I absolutely love this conversation. Paul, I'm curious for our listeners, Chris, everyone's going to want to grab the book. How else can people get more Paul Caffrey in their lives? Yeah, absolutely. I'm on all the platforms. But for your listeners specifically, if you go to paulcaffrey.com forward slash heart for the first 10 people who go there, I'll get 10 copies sent out to you. So you may be able to get the book for free.
And then, yeah, it's, you've got to be getting the message out there. Um, and on top of that, what I'm, what I'm doing is for a limited number of people, you can't do this for everyone. Uh, I'm doing a coaching session one-on-one where I go through your prospecting and your sales, uh, strategies and processes, and also where you're looking to go for your career. And then the output of that conversation that we have is a forward on a personalized report that you can use to actually help.
guide your career to a more successful outcome. So again, and that will be a free of charge, one-on-one conversation, not too different to this, but we won't have everybody listening. So paulcaffrey.com forward slash heart, let's get connected. And yeah, I'm looking forward to sharing books with your audience. Oh, super grateful for you sharing that. And you know what, hey, by the way, I just started thinking, Darrell, my apologies. I'm going down this road, but sorry, is I got the title of your second book.
Paul M. Caffrey (29:14.742)
based upon the title of your first book. And Paul, you just got to roll with me on this, right? Just indulge me on this is, right? You wrote a great book in the work before the work. How about one about habits? It's the habits before the habits. I don't know, I just thought of it. I like it. The habits before the habits. That's good, I absolutely love this. This has been incredibly practical and super inspirational. Paul, thank you so much for sharing.
not only your ideas, but also your heart with our community. This has just been an awesome conversation. Thanks so much, Daryl. Thanks so much, Larry. Great connecting with you both. And yeah, look forward to speaking again soon. Also, congratulations on going mainstream with your book and getting that publishing deal. I'm so excited to see where your new book goes. No, I appreciate it. And thank you for being a part of the community, Paul. I really appreciate you.
Cool, cool. What a great conversation, Larry. I love this concept of preparation. We talk a lot about being a sales professional. You write a lot about it in your blog. And I think this concept of preparation and doing the work behind the work lines up so perfectly with this. And I gotta say, I'm challenged to the core on this. I've been taking mental notes all the way through that I gotta write down.
as soon as we're done recording. But I think this is a rewinder as far as an episode that you really wanna go back and think through what is the work that I need to do behind the work so I can show up prepared, ready to go. And it's those things like preparation that give you that competitive edge that you need to be able to win. And that's what makes this so exciting. Yeah, and then just think about it.
I just want to bring in sports for just a second is because there's been throughout the years, there's so many crossovers, people want to relate sports to sales. But if we just if we look in its simplest format, a professional athlete every single day prepares, they have to prepare for game day. They can't just wing it. They're held to right, they have to plan, they have to practice, but a big, big part of this, right, and this is face it.
Paul M. Caffrey (31:31.122)
Athletes are almost seven days a week and they may have a day off here and there, but these guys are rolling or gals are rolling seven days a week. They have to prepare every single day. So right. And here's our challenge. And here's what we'd ask, you know, to really think about is the way I'm carrying out my day. Is that more like a sales rep or is that more like a sales professional? And it all starts with your daily preparation.
Incredible and so, so powerful. So I know everyone's going to want to grab the book. Look for Paul Caffrey and Phil M. Jones, the work before the work, the hidden habits, elite sales professionals used to outperform the competition. Larry, we've got an incredible roster of guests coming up throughout the summer. If you want to stay focused, you want to stay on fire, you want to stay motivated, make sure to like or subscribe. And if you want to be a part of this movement, go to Barnes and noble dot com. Grab a copy of the book.
head to sell slash pre-order and get your special bonuses. Speaking of the work behind the work, you're gonna learn as one of those bonuses how Larry plans his day and how he gets himself set up for success. So sell slash pre-order. Till next time, keep being genuine, keep being authentic, keep building trust. Do the work before the work and most of all, sell from the heart.
