Guest: Jake Housdon

Can your prospects smell your “commission breath”? Is your eagerness to set the appointment or reach for the deal keeping you from gleaning the information you need from your conversations with prospects?
There is a danger that comes with expertise. When you are a true beginner, your mind is empty and open. You are willing to learn and consider all pieces of information. As you develop expertise, however, your mind naturally becomes more closed. As a salesperson, you might have a preconceived notion that you know where a cold call is heading. Rejectionville again! And this makes you less open to discovering new information, less likely to hear your prospect’s confession about his business or job or a problem you might solve. Your expectations are not immediately met, and you get that sense of doom that this call is a waste of your time. What can save you from that out-on-a-ledge, sales-related fear of impending doom? Shoshin, a Zen Buddhism concept that means “beginner’s mind.” Chris, Corey, and Jake Housdon discuss how employing the curiosity mindset of Shoshin (“I know nothing. Tell me about your experience.”) allows you to take ahold of your emotions, lead your prospect back into having a conversation, and put you back on the road to discovery.

The theory of constraints dominates the world of business, and yet it tends to be ignored by almost everybody in business for a pretty simple reason: it's politically unpalatable. The theory of constraints says your business is a system, and every system has one and only one constraint.
And that's the only thing you should be working on right now: understanding that constraint, characterizing it, coming up with an investment thesis, making the investment, or observing the results of the investment. The investment is something like better cycle time, increased throughput, more units that are doing the work, or better quality. Those who employ this practice will dominate markets.