“The biggest thing for me as a salesperson is to remember that you are responsible for the result of your communication. You are responsible for all your communication because you want to be. You need to get a point across. It doesn't serve you to say she misunderstood me. He didn't get me. That's not what I meant. They misinterpreted. None of that serves you. What serves you is getting your point across.”

-- Frank Somma, Sales Expert and Professional Speaker at the Somma Group

After COVID forced the advent of video conferencing and only heightened our reliance on digital communication, sales expert Frank Somma wants to remind us that we talk, sell, and function best in person. An experienced sales leader, Frank joins us to speak on neurolinguistic programming, relational selling, and more.

Tune in for insights on taking your sales career to the next level or empowering your sales team to reach new heights. Frank shares wisdom on AI and the future of sales, too. As we hurtle towards an increasingly digital world, don’t forget the power of speaking face-to-face.

Topics discussed in this interview:

- Frank’s start in sales and his journey to the present

- A look at The Somma Group and Frank’s offerings

- His book, B2B is Really P2P- How to Win with High Touch in a High Tech World

- Face-to-face communication vs digital

- Our overreliance on tech as a replacement

- NLP or neurolinguistic programming

- Tailoring your communication style to your audience

- Learning from the best

- How to get through to poor performers

- Challenging the stereotype of the salesperson

- Frank’s thoughts on AI

- Key advice for advancing in sales

- Rapid fire questions

To get in touch with Frank, visit his website: franksomma.com. Also, check out his book, B2B is Really P2P- How to Win with High Touch in a High Tech World.

For more Construction Disruption, listen on Apple Podcasts or YouTube

Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn

This episode was produced by Isaiah Industries, Inc.

Intro/Outro: Welcome to the Construction Disruption Podcast, where we uncover the future of design, building, and remodeling.

Todd Miller: I'm Todd Miller of Isaiah Industries, a manufacturer of specialty metal roofing and other building materials today. My co-host is Seth Heckaman. How are you today, Seth?

Seth Heckaman: Doing well, Todd. How are you doing?

Todd Miller: I'm doing well also. I'm especially excited because we are doing your favorite thing on this show, which is our challenge words. So everyone participating in the show today has been given a challenge word to work in as seamlessly and naturally into the conversation as possible. Our audience can be listening to see if they pick up on what those challenge words are, and then at the end of the show, we will reveal our success or lack thereof, on using our challenge words. So Seth always loves this. For some reason, that makes you nervous?

Seth Heckaman: Oh I'm just competitive by nature, so it stresses me out until I get it in. But I'm kind of looking forward to this week because you've got a challenge of a challenge word ahead of you. So we'll see what happens.

Todd Miller: I do. Okay, well, God bless us all and good luck, I guess. So I do have a couple of things, or one thing in particular, I wanted to reveal to our audience today. I wanted to reveal that I have learned that I can always tell just by looking at someone when they're lying.

Seth Heckaman: Really?

Todd Miller: I can also tell when they're standing by looking at them. Does anyone else watch these guys on Facebook, probably on YouTube, called DocTok, D-O-C-T-O-K?

Seth Heckaman: Yeah, I enjoy them. Yeah.

Todd Miller: Two guys that sit by the dock of the bay and tell very deadpan dad jokes. I think they're hilarious. But anyway, I will tell you one other thing. I did get a new pet in our household recently. We got a pet termite. I named him Clint because Clint eats wood. Okay. Let's move on.

Seth Heckaman: These are just getting worse. Yes, let's get to the highlight of the episode.

Todd Miller: Good. Nope, let's dive into it. So, I'm excited about today's episode. You know, nothing will kill a potentially solid business relationship more quickly, I don't think in today's day and age, then poor communication. And I know it's something we talk a lot about here, you know, and working with customers and also with vendors. But, you know, how many times does a company or someone end up changing suppliers out of frustration? And their comment at the end of that is that the original supplier just had really poor communication. The reality is that in today's world, things happen faster all the time. This is the information age. And if we can't depend upon our business partners to communicate with us, then we we end up feeling frustrated. We end up feeling like our time is being wasted. We end up feeling like the relationship is costing more than it's gaining us. And I don't know if others have felt that way with a supplier, but I know that I certainly have. And so today I'm really excited about our spotlighted guest. It is longtime sales veteran Frank Somma. Frank is a sales expert, speaker, coach, and author. He helps businesses build relationships all the time, but he also helps them, especially during difficult times of what we'll call chaos. Frank's newest book is something that I had read a while back. And you'll be able to see it there on the wall behind him. The book is B2B is really P2P: How to Win with High Touch in a High Tech World. It's a book that came out right before Covid hit our world and it really is a great book that pulls all businesses back to focus on personal relationships as being the things that drive sales and drive the success of a business. I know that Seth had led our sales team through that book back shortly, well into Covid, I guess I'll say. And it's just a really, really well-done book and great reminders, great new information for anyone who reads it. So, Frank, welcome to Construction Disruption. Pleasure to have you as our guest on the show today.

Frank Somma: Well, thank you so much. I'm really glad to be here. And especially among people that have read the book and been kind enough to say that it was good information. I appreciate it.

Todd Miller: Very good. Well, so for our audience members who may not be familiar with you, or completely familiar with you, can you maybe give us a little bit of an overview of your career in sales and you know, what you've done and what's brought you to where you are today?

Frank Somma: Oh, yeah, sure. I mean, what you were just talking about before and the importance of communication is something I've always been interested in. But I started out as a territory rep for Western Union Telegraph in the East End of Long Island, as in the Hamptons. Very little business. And what I found early on was that hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard. I had just gotten out of the United States Navy after four good years of serving our country and, you know, I needed to go out and make money. And I talked to a guy who said to me he was the number one guy in the company. And I arranged the meeting with him to ask him what he would do if he were me being brand new. And he said, "I would go visit every single client Western Union has ever had, you know, dead or alive kind of thing out in the territory and, you know, make ten stops a day if you have to." I'm an old guy, right? This is back with Hagstrom maps and green bar paper but I, without any talent at all for the job, and I mean that you know, I'm not just trying to be self-deprecating. I really knew nothing about selling, but I just I did what this guy said. I worked ten times as hard as anybody next to me, and I wound up making Pro Club in my first year. And that gave me an appetite to become a partner in a business that, oh my goodness, when we got together, we were doing about $300,000 a year in revenue. It was a little copier and telex company. He was one of my clients when I was with Western Union. And when we finished up 20 years later, I was a partner and we sold that business. Our revenue in that last year was about 28 million, and we had about 100 sales reps. So it grew tremendously and not due to me, due to a tremendously good team. I mean, the guy that owned the place, my partner on the outside side, Jim Coler, who I'm still in business with today. So that was the run. And, you know, from there I, I had gotten a lot of experience in front of my own sales team. We had meetings every month with a bunch of sales reps in, you know, 60, 80 people at a time. And my manufacturers and I started hiring speakers. I got interested in what they did. So I asked one in particular if I could take him out one night and ask them some questions. And he did. And I learned and got started. And here we are.

Todd Miller: Well, I have to ask, though. So you and I are roughly the same age group, I'm sure thereabouts. Okay, I really do not recall what Western Union Telegraph was doing back then. I'm thinking of the Pony Express for some reason now.

Frank Somma: That's fine. No, Western Union Telegraph was telex machine, so before fax machines came on board. So this is 1983, before fax machines really became popular. Back in the day, a fax machine, a fax took six minutes. It rolled around the rollers, smelled like burning garlic, and the guy on the other end was on the phone with you, you know. At first you had to call up, get a tone, the different tone. Okay, we're connected. Hang up the phone, put the paper in the fax machine. So telex was you know, when you watch all this, the news and they have that tch tch tch noise in the old days of news, that's the teletype machine. That's what I sold.

Todd Miller: Okay.

Frank Somma: They printed 66 words a minute from one end to the other, and then it became a little bit more, I guess digital went through phone lines and that board rate increased a bit. And then, of course, it all went away as communication got more and more sophisticated and easier. That was that.

Todd Miller: Well, I have to admit, I'm still thinking Pony Express, but I'll get over that. But I do want to thank you very much for your service to our country in the Navy. Thank you very much for that. So today you head up the Somma Group, through which you speak, write, and coach. Tell us a little bit about your typical clients there and who you work with and what types of things you help them with.

Frank Somma: Oh, sure, they vary by industry. The industry really doesn't matter. It's mostly about a couple of different avenues. So I have CEOs for whom I am a private sounding board. It's difficult to be at the top of the heap and not have folks to talk to that understand your business and understand business in general. And, you know, you need a place to vent and talk. So my private coaching clients are mostly people at the top of their business that feel like they need somebody to talk to that that doesn't need to sway them in one way or another. And then I have group coaching, so there are a couple of different sales teams from different industries and they've been regular teams. I did coaching session sessions yesterday with the entire company of a big insurance agency in Michigan. 50 people, we had 10 or 12 in each session. Just coaching them on communication, fielding calls, some tools that I can give them to respond rather than react. And the speaking part. I'm at big sales meetings, small sales meetings. I'm at associations. I've done a lot with the independent insurance associations throughout the country, as well as some real estate associations, some things in banking with Morgan Stanley. So, you know, if you've got a big meeting and a big team and you want to bring in somebody to, you know, give them some tools they can walk away with and let them have fun at the meeting. You bring in folks like me.

Todd Miller: As I mentioned earlier, your most recent book is B2B is really P2P, which is a great book. It came out really just literally months, weeks before Covid hit. I'm curious, did that timing of the book, do you think that was good or bad timing? Is there anything you'd have done differently in writing the book had you written it a year later?

Frank Somma: I've learned more since than I might have included some, you know, some things about Covid and how it changed our world. Of course, the writing would have been different. You know, I'm a proponent of face-to-face communication. I know that people do business with people they like, people do business with people they are in a good relationship with, and relationships are built by face-to-face communication. And, you know, this is not just my opinion. This is science. You can look at a study from Vanessa Bonds, who is a professor at Cornell, and she did a study. She sent groups of people out with an ask. And one group went out and made their requests via email and compared to another group that went out and made their request via audio or video call. And the results were that the chance of a yes was 84% likely on the audio-video versus 16% on the email.

Todd Miller: Hmm.

Frank Somma: She then took that very successful audio-video group and pitted them against folks making the same request in person. In person 66% versus 33% audio-video. So it's really no contest scientifically. We do better when we're face to face. So going back to what your question is, you know, addressing Covid and what you can do and how you could have acted during those couple of years, we didn't have much of a chance to be face-to-face. Would have been an interesting section of the book. And, you know, maybe that becomes a P2P 2.0 or something.

Todd Miller: Well, I love it. You know, no doubt during that time, I think, you know, there are things we're all going to look back and say that we learned. And, you know, some of those probably are things that we learned that are going to push us in good directions.

Frank Somma: Mm hmm.

Todd Miller: You know, as we think about this and, yes, you talk a lot about the importance of relationships and positive relationships with prospects and clients. I mean, why do you, I'm not sure how to ask this. So do you think technology and the advancement of technology has kind of pushed people toward taking a more transactional approach to sales and less of a personal approach? And, you know, why aren't people seeing, hey, this isn't working as well? I mean, what are your thoughts as far as what's going through businesses' heads that are kind of pushing more toward a transactional approach to sales?

Frank Somma: For me, there is nothing more important in business than facilitating good communication. Zero hyperbole here, by the way. Nothing is more important than facilitating great communication in your business. And that means with your suppliers, it means with your customers, and it means with your employees. And it means with your managers, working up and working down. It's the sync, you know, this skill set, unfortunately, and I'm answering your question about the tech in this way, this skill set is not really looked at strongly enough, I don't believe, by most businesses. I think people look at this as soft skills, and they want you to learn, you know, this other selling model or, you know, this strong training that we're going to send you to that's going to give you all this tech expertise. You know, and to me, this skill set will do more for your life and more for your bank balance than any other set of skills I can learn. No doubt in my mind. And I believe that if you take someone who is a superior communicator, someone who you would deem as charismatic and they have the other qualities of a great salesperson, I could bring them to sell metal roofs, two by fours, or supercomputers. It doesn't matter. People do business with people they like. You need a good amount of knowledge of your trade, but more than that, you need the knowledge of the people. I think what happened in the tech that took away from that is it got easier. I got a friend out in the UK named Anthony Steers and Anthony said something I'd never forgotten. He said, "Email will get it off your desk, but it won't get it done." And what Anthony meant by that. Now, Anthony teaches telemarketing groups how to be effective on the phone. So, of course, email is his enemy. But what happens is you get young salespeople and they jump into the tech, right? And they say, well, if I can set up this cadence in my CRM and I can use LinkedIn and Facebook, etc., so I will get all these leads that'll come in to me. And while all those things are important, so, you know, disclaimer here, I love tech. So before I have to explain that because being a guy that's been around for a while, people think, well, listen to Frank here. He's going to get an inkwell and a quill pen. But the truth is that I love tech. My assistant, I hired my assistant Fareeha when she lived in Pakistan. She now lives in theUK. We work seamlessly through video conferencing. She's in my CRM. I use Karma. My CRM has cadences set up by Fareeha that has, depending on what happens when she sends messages out. I'm prompted to call on this day or that day. I love the tech. I lean into the tech. I don't lean on the tech. Because I understand that at the end of it, it's really about creating relationships. So what happens is people get lazy, as Anthony said, "It will get it off your desk, it won't get it done." So you're a brand new salesperson or even semi-seasoned salesperson. What is easier, Todd, than reaching out to 22 different products, 22 different prospects rather with the same email that you can blast out and say I did my prospecting.

Todd Miller: Mhm.

Frank Somma: It's a lot harder than getting on the phone and trying to get those same 20 people to contact with you, but it's not as effective. I think that there is a combination of these things that you can use. Like I have clients that I get their attention via text because I know that that's how they'd like me to get their attention. I use email to confirm the conversations that we have. Often I want a written record of things, so I want email. I buy ads on social media. I think you said before that you likely found my book on LinkedIn. So we do ads on social media. I have a social media person that posts for me a few times a week. She's very good. So I love the tech. I just caution people who believe that tech can replace this human contact that has been scientifically proven to be effective. It just doesn't work. They use the tech, but don't rely on it. It's not going to replace you and what you bring to the market.

Seth Heckaman: Yeah. You know, we have all these new incredible tools at our disposal that should make our life easier, but it doesn't change these first principles that have been proven true for hundreds of years of relationships and quality communication. And, you know, hearing you talk about this, I am thinking back to during Covid, we were in the market for a particular service, and we're talking with a few potential vendors. And obviously everything was being done over video calls and zooms. But I was blown away that we were having all these calls where salespeople were pitching us, and they didn't turn their video on for the Zoom call or the Google Hangout or whatever it was. We went into it assuming that one of the benefits of these new tools is still being able to see a person's face and look in their eyes, at least virtually. But so yeah, the sales meeting after the week of all those calls, I made a declaration that Isaiah Industries will always have our cameras on during video calls. It goes back to that taking the easy way out. Maybe being a little bit lazy but I just don't understand it. But so I'd love to hear when you're working with salespeople and trying to improve their level of communication, what are the key components or key principles you're training them on to try to overcome these typical, maybe perceived notions of salespeople that, you know, lazy or belligerent or, you know, poor communicators? How are you trying to teach them to be different?

Frank Somma: Listen, you could boil it down mostly to listening. Obviously we can't go into an entire course on NLP, neurolinguistic programming, which is where my training is. But the models in NLP teach us not only to listen, but how to listen. It's enormously important. Let's think about this for a second. Think about someone you know that you would deem to be a great listener. Imagine that person from it. Now, think about it. Do you like that person? Do you think that person likes you? Do you respect that person? Do you think that person respects you? Do you think they're smart? You know, so if you want to be respected, smart and liked, what should you do? It's you know, no one ever said, I hate that guy. All he ever did was listen to me. It's really about. It's more than anything. You know, there's a part in the book that I talk about. I think the chapter is called Selling to The Sopranos. I have these two guys who I'm still friends with today that owned this business in Manhattan. And they were just absolutely belligerent and couldn't stand to be sold to. And they were bigger than life. And, you know, you'll read the story in the book. And what I remember about that conversation and it coming around is that if you had one of those giant chess clocks that, you know, you hit every time somebody moves and you keep the timing is that at the end of the hour, it would have been Steve, my sales rep, and me spoke 15 minutes and the Liman Brothers, 45. And we wound up having an authentically good relationship. We generally, genuinely liked each other. We got better all the time. They're great guys. I don't think it would have gotten there had we not shut up, asked questions, and listened.

Todd Miller: So you've touched here on NLP, neurolinguistic programing, and this is not the first time that NLP has come up as a topic here on Construction Disruption. And you've already touched on it a little bit saying, "Hey, it's not just about what you say, it's about listening first." Can you, though, give us for folks who may not be real familiar with NLP, give us a overview of it and how you see it impacting the sales process, and how folks who are cognizant of these things use it to to their benefit?

Frank Somma: Oh, sure. You know, I teach bits and pieces of this all the time. So in NLP we do, you guys have seen different models of personality types and various things that are taught and sold all the time. And NLP has models of people and it talks about what communication styles they like. And if you understand other folks's styles, one of the easiest ones is what I refer to as a view from the air and a view from the ground. And, you know, if you have a view from the air, you like to give and receive information in large chunks. And if you have a view from the ground, you like to give and receive information in small detail. And neither one is better than the other. But when those two get together, if they don't recognize the other person's style and again, the biggest thing for me as a salesperson is to remember that you are responsible for the result of your communication. You are responsible for all your communication because you want to be. You need to get a point across. It doesn't serve you to say she misunderstood me. He didn't get me. That's not what I meant. They misinterpreted. None of that serves you. What serves you is getting your point across. So you want to be responsible for the result of your communication. Therefore, when you learn other people's styles. So if I'm talking to Seth and I know that Seth has a view from the ground and I have a view from the air and Seth asked me about what happened yesterday, I want to give him a couple of big chunks. You know, I ran to the store, you know, took the dog out and work a couple hours on a project. But I've got a view from the ground. What he's going to hear is Frank doesn't give a darn about me. He's trying to blow me off. He doesn't think I'm smart enough to understand what he's doing. He doesn't care enough to talk to me about his day. He's just trying to get past this. How's that for rapport? Pretty crappy. You know, and vice versa. If Seth's given me information and it's a lot of little detail, and I'm sitting there, my whole body posture will be something that looks like, "Can we land this plane, man? I mean, come on, You know, is there a point here?" You know, and that's not good for sometimes what you know, you have somebody that has this view from the air and they're listening to someone with a view from the ground. Their lips are actually moving. They're so anxious to cut him off and say the next thing. Horrible for working. So can't I then offer a little commentary when I know my listener is is a person that appreciates detail? If I'm conscious of that, I will be conscious enough to add all of these bits of color commentary, information and to facilitate rapport. And if my view is one of detail, couldn't I then edit myself a little bit understanding that the person I'm talking to likes to get big chunks of information so I can edit myself in this kind of like, you know, I'll learn a little Mandarin before your trip to China. It's not, you don't want to be manipulative. You don't want to be disingenuous. What you want to be is understanding of the other person's systems and then working within that so that you can facilitate communication. The reason you are doing that and not them is because you are responsible, Mr. Salesperson, for the results of your communication because you want to.

Todd Miller: That makes a lot of sense. Good advice there. And I had never heard that "view from the ground" and "view from the air" sort of analogy before. But yeah, that's very useful. So, you know, as you have built your and progressed in your career and sales, I'm kind of curious to me, did all this just come natural to you or did you have to figure it out on your own or where did you get where you are today? Who were some of the folks you learned from or listened to or paid attention to?

Frank Somma: Hmm. You know, it's funny because I often say, you know, I've for whatever level of success that I've had, was super unlikely. And it was my feeling that I thought I wouldn't be able to get it done that drove me to learn. So sometimes I use this commentary. Sometimes people get, you know, I tell people I work and I have my entire career every Sunday morning for a few hours to get set for the week and people say, "Wow, he's a hard worker. Wow, he's really dedicated." No, I'm slow. You may be able to go into the week and get done everything that I'm going to do by showing up on Monday morning and just kicking in, I can't. I don't have the ability. I need more time than most people. So I've studied like crazy just because I want to keep up. I you know, I've been to Tony Robbins seminars. I studied Tony because Tony is, you know, everything that Tony Robbins ever did came out of NLP. He was an NLP student first. So I studied Tony, he's a wonderful guy. Matter of fact, you all should write down this phone number: (973) 743-4690. That's a number for Success Hotline, a guy named Dr. Rob Gilbert. He's a professor at Montclair State University for 40 years. He has left an inspirational three-minute message every day, seven days a week for over 20 years. Every day a new message. He's phenomenal, he's phenomenal. So Rob is a mentor of mine. He did the introduction on my second audio program for me. He'd probably be a good guest for you too. Rob's a great guy. So I've read everything that I can get my hands on. I read whatever is contemporary in business. Like right now, I'm reading some stuff from Burger. You know, when you read on a Kindle, you never remember the name of the books you read right?

Todd Miller: I hear you.

Frank Somma: I always read electronically. But Dan Pink, I've read everything Dan Pink. I think he's spot on in what he does. So I've taken plenty of classes. It's about always trying to continue to be educated. I've been fortunate to have great mentors. And I think one of the things that I would tell folks is, finding people who are already doing what you'd like to do and ask them how they did it is one of the biggest things you can do for a leg up. You know, people, especially in sales. I mean, we all know that a sales person who has been wildly successful would like nothing more than to tell you about why and how they're successful. So find that person, that number one, number two in your industry. Invite them out for a coffee. See if they'll jump on a Zoom call for you, have some questions prepared ahead of time and ask and they'd be happy to tell you. And then you've got a blueprint. As Dr. Rob always says, get somebody great. Their hindsight can be your foresight. So I think that's a huge suggestion. And Rob is the guy. Remember I said years ago, I hired a speaker? It was Rob. He's the guy I went out to dinner with. He's the guy that has helped me to develop my speaking career. He's been an enormous help.

Todd Miller: You know, I think that's interesting. And you're obviously a guy who has a lot of curiosity and you're always trying to learn and be in that mode of always learning and improving. And, you know, I've worked with a lot of salespeople and I've worked with salespeople who had that bent to them. And then I've also worked with some salespeople who would listen, but they had no interest in utilizing any new information. As a sales coach, how do you work with people who maybe are reticent, I guess I'll say, you know, to to try some new things and learn some new things? I mean, I don't mean to sound lugubrious, but, you know, sometimes you work with these folks that you're just like, the lights are on. I'm not getting through to them at all in terms of something that they're going to change behavior from. What's your advice as a sales coach in working with folks like that?

Frank Somma: For me, the idea is that if you're not doing a thing particularly well or as well as you'd like to, then I have an avenue to help you try something different. And I wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago. So I write this inspirational blog. It's salesy, but not entirely. It's more about communication and things like that. And it's been going on for, since 2001, I guess, when I started it. Comes out once a week and and I wrote a blog that I wrote on there. I can lead a horse to water if I have to, but I'll likely drown. So, I mean, you know, Todd, the answer to your question, is: you have to be ready. You've got to be open. I can ask you some questions about how you're doing now and maybe point out some places that there could be some improvement and then offer you some training. But the truth is that I can hand this out to 100 people, and a great percentage of them won't use it. You know, that's why the Pareto law works. That's why 80% of your revenue often comes from 20% of your team. That's why we rank our salespeople. Why is the number one person light years ahead of the number ten person? It's not ability. You know, you're not lacking anything, but you may be blocking things and you may not be learning things that you want to learn. And that's the difference. You know, I said at the start of our talk together today that hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard. I tell this to salespeople all the time. You're learning something new, but while you're learning, you can just outwork and outhustle the person next to you. If you outwork everybody, you will have great results. There's no doubt about that. If they're doing ten calls a day, you do 20. If they're reaching out 100 times a day, you reach out 200. You know, it's there's only. You know, I used to do a thing. This is absolutely awful. And Seth, don't do this to your salespeople. But I used to do a thing when I had, like 80 reps called Breakfast with the Boss. And this is a terrible, terrible thing, and I'm embarrassed, but I have to tell you because you'll see where we'll come back. And this was in the late 80s. So think about what the late 80s was, right? What it was like. And I would take the bottom person on the sales team of 80-something people and say, Breakfast with the Boss. You have to meet me in my office at 7 a.m. for breakfast. Now, my office was beautiful, Times Square overlooking the Toshiba sign. Right where the parade comes, you know, the Thanksgiving parade. So I'd be sitting in that nice office, and you'd come in for Breakfast with the Boss. And Breakfast with the Boss meant I had breakfast and you sat and watched me. I didn't so much for a coffee. I was really obnoxious. And. And after a minute or two, a chew on my bagel and sip of my coffee, I would look at you and say, Seth. You were 14% of your sales goal last month. So, Seth, answer me this. Are you lazy or do you simply lack talent? And leave the pregnant pause. Now, once you bludgeon someone with a question like that, first of all, if they've got any wits about them, they cop to being lazy. But the good thing about that is once you get somebody in that position now I want to build them up because lazy and lack talent really means, do we need to look at a better plan for your work or do you need some training? And we get there with them. We get them first, and then we build it back up to that lazy or lack talent. That was actually the title of my first audio program. But and that's all it means. So in sales, there are only two components to success, right? There's work and there's learning. There's nothing else.

Todd Miller: Mhm.

Frank Somma: There's nothing else. So while you're learning, you have to remember that you have to balance that skill by working more than the next person. And as you learn more you can work slightly differently than you had to when you were brand-spanking new.

Todd Miller: Yeah, that's a great story. Yes, it's very 80s because I was there with you. I'm kind of curious, though, as you look over your career and over the years, I mean, hard to believe that, you know, the 80s was 40 years ago at this point. But I think we have made a lot of progress from, you know, the 80s was the day of WKRP and Herb Tarlek, you know, that was the salesperson. Can you kind of relate a little bit on that change that is taken from that sort of mentality about sales to more of a professional, high-integrity method of selling?

Frank Somma: Sure. So, you know, I've always railed against the media depiction of sales people. I do it in my book. You know, I have strived to be a professional that helps my clients. You know, the idea is to ask questions and then come to a place where the conclusion is good for them and good for you. And if you can't get there, you need to be able to look at them and say, "This isn't something that I can help you with," and then maybe help them to somebody that can. You know, when you're really good, and you're confident, you've got to know you can't put a square peg in a round hole. It's not about making commission. It's about relationships and doing things well. And I've always been bothered by, you know, the media depiction, as I said, of Danny DeVito in Ten Men, you know, is not my archetype, right? So I'm a professional. I learned in my career. And I think what's happened today more than ever is people are more tuned in with purpose and wanting to have that job that feels good. So, as a salesperson, one of the ways that I direct people to feel good is I ask them, and you see on the wall behind me, this says Give Blood. So that's from the Coolidge Foundation. I've been a board member, past president, then with the foundation for over 30 years. And I tell salespeople all the time, you know, the universe did not give you this wonderful ability with people to line your pockets. You know, Superman could have broke through walls and rob banks, but he didn't. So take the superpower and use it for something wonderful. Find an organization that matters to you. Maybe someone in your family had a particular disease. Or maybe your love of dogs has you volunteering at a shelter or with an organization that takes care of, you know, stray animals. Whatever it is, whatever your passion is that you can volunteer to help, do that. Because those folks need people with our skills to help. They've convinced donors to contribute to drive events. They need big sales-type skills to help them. And by the way, while you're doing that and you're meeting all of these people in their organization, and they're getting to know who you are authentically, guess what? When they need products like the ones you have, they're going to ask you. So you can't give it away. You can try, but you can't give it away. It will come back and serve you. Don't go into the charity for the purpose of canvassing people for your product. Go into the charity for the purpose of helping and the byproduct will be tons of business and wonderful relationships that will come your way.

Todd Miller: Good stuff. Well, I want to change gears a tiny bit here. I'm kind of curious. Something that's in the news all the time now is AI, artificial intelligence. Any thoughts on how that's going to impact sales down the road?

Frank Somma: Well, it's yes, It's going to. You know, it's here to stay. It's real. I've messed around a bunch on ChatGPT, in fact doing seminars. Because sometimes I do like an in-house for a company. So I'll go and do a full meaningof training for a group of people. I'm heading out to Chicago to do one at the end of this month, we'll do a full morning of communications and sales. And what I do is, I jump into AI and say, I'm going to meet with a group of 22 people and I'm going to teach them listening skills. What exercises do you think would be useful? And ChatGPT goes pewww. Hey, ChatGPT, give me five things that people find amusing and useful when they're learning listening skills. Boom. So I scroll through tons of that stuff and then I go, "Oh, that's something I can use." It's great for that. I know a company that I coach for right now. I coach the sales leader and the CEO and they have their marketing department using AI for all their posts. They don't write their posts anymore. They literally do everything through AI. So, you know, where's it going to go? I don't know. But it's going to go.

Todd Miller: So I'm curious, Frank, if you've run across a company called RillaVoice. A few episodes ago, we had their CEO here on the show and actually they're based there in Manhattan. But really interesting AI, machine learning-driven technology. Is that anything you've run across yet? I can give a quick overview of it real quick, though.

Frank Somma: No, no, I don't know them.

Todd Miller: Well, and I won't bore folks too much. They can go back and listen to the episode. But, you know, basically the sales rep records his conversations and this goes through and automatically compares what he's saying to what successful salespeople are saying. And it comes back and tells that salesperson or sales lady, "Hey. Here are some coaching tips to be better at what you're doing." So fascinating stuff. Anyway, I agree. AI is not going to go away and I think there's going to be some cool ways to work with it.

Frank Somma: That's fantastic. What's the name of that company again?

Todd Miller: So again, the name of that company is RillaVoice, R-I-L-L-A Voice. And I think it's the rillavoice.com. Sebastian Jimenez is the CEO and he was here on the show a few episodes ago as well.

Frank Somma: I love it. That's like having a mentor listening to every call with you and offering you correction. That's fantastic.

Seth Heckaman: And that's a big part of their pitch. It's yeah, it was ride-along time versus listening to every appointment and yeah, and it's interesting, you know, some of the learnings that have come out of this. So and you know, for the last 50 years in home improvement selling in the home selling you go into the house and you start with your company's story. This is who we are, what we do, you know how long we've been in business, etc.. They were finding out of all this data that they were gathering, the most successful reps were saving that information for the end of the appointment. And so now the top companies in the country are totally flipping the order and upping close rates because of it. So, definitely lots of learnings ahead that will change things.

Todd Miller: Which I have to say, give us credit. That pivot was something we recommended about ten years ago on the advice of Bill Gladwell, who was another Tony Robbins student, really big into NLP, and he was the one that clued us and said, You got to sell yourself right before the close, not at the start. So, cool stuff. Well, Frank, I'm curious. It's been a great discussion. What do you love about what you do?

Frank Somma: I'll answer that specifically, that I love doing keynotes. I love getting in front of sales teams and giving a talk because I feel like I can offer some tools that people can walk away with. I've had feedback with people that said, "Hey, listen, I tried what you said and it worked really well." Or, "Hey, I incorporated this part of what your talk was, and man oh man, it changed things." So I love to learn. I'm constantly looking out for new information and feedback, and I just. It jazzes me knowing that I can talk to somebody and listen to what they're going through and then look at the research that I've done that I have at my fingertips and say, "Hey, think about, you know, what happened. What Dan Pink said in this study that, you know, 40% of your day as a non-salesperson, this is for real, 40% of your day as a non-salesperson is spent selling." So when I'm talking to groups that are non-sales people, and they look at me as a salesperson, I'm like, Yes, what is selling? It's asking people to part with resources or time in order for you to achieve the thing that you want to achieve, that's what you're doing. 40% according to Dan's study with 9000 people, 40% of your day is spent doing that. So the answer is I love lighting people up with information. I love helping them. I love giving them stuff that they can go out and use. I love researching and learning more and doing more. And then I also have this performance thing. I love getting up on stage and delivering it and giving stories that are funny and poignant and make people move from one place to another. It's what I love.

Todd Miller: That, is cool when you can see someone actually make that movement and make that jump from where they are into some different behavior. So what advice would you have for someone out there who is maybe early in their career in sales or still trying to figure out, is this going to be the right gig for me-type thing? What is some of the key advice you'd give to them?

Frank Somma: Well, in the beginning of our talk, Seth said that he is wildly competitive, and I can tell you that I have not met a successful salesperson that is not competitive. I think it's part of what we need to be. It has to matter to us. You have to want to win. So because, you know, in this business more than anything else and selling, you're going to hear a lot more nos than yesses and being able to push through that is this ability to want to win. So resilience is a huge component. My advice to salespeople would be to think about what it is that you want to do. You know, often in sales, the barrier to entry is super low, right? You can join one of these canvassing teams that's going out to sell whatever, solar panels, gutter guards, I don't care what it is. And they just dump you into a neighborhood, and you know, you can be persistent knocking on doors, but that doesn't necessarily mean that that is selling or that's something that you're good at. Think about what do you like. Do you genuinely like people? Do you like to help out? Are you interested in their business? You know, one of the best parts I found about selling is getting a glimpse inside of all of these different companies that do different things. It was mind-blowing. I couldn't ask enough questions. Really, you manufacture plastic? Talk to me. Where did this come from? How did you wind up in this business? I think that's so if you're not naturally curious, if you want to help people, if you have some competitive instinct, you know, and you also want to be limitless because in different sales professions are not. So let me retract a little bit. Some sales professions don't require all these things that I'm talking about. When you pay for performance, you need to be competitive. You must be persistent. You have to have a desire to be curious. You know, you have to have a strong work ethic and a great attitude. You got to wake up every day, say, it's going to be great day. I'm going to kill today. And when you're paying for performance, if you're in one of these gigs that's 90% salary and 10% bonus. If the whole team gets their number, you don't need those. That's a different skill set. So that's considered a sales position, but it's not classically sales in terms of pay for performance. So let's distinguish between those two. And I'm speaking to folks that are pay for performance sellers. Those people you want to examine yourself and say, you know, am I competitive? Am I persistent? And then you want to remember the most important things are, as I said in the beginning, you can outwork anybody until you learn what you have to learn. That's within your control. You can find people that are doing what you'd like to do and ask them how they did it. And you can have a great attitude and a great work ethic tomorrow morning. It's a choice. It's not a trait. It's a choice. See, in selling, you know, no one ever said you have to be six foot two or two foot six or go to Wharton School of Business or the local community college. What you have to be is persistent. You've got to ask great questions. You have to be resilient, have a good attitude, and that's it. If you bring those things to the table and remember them all the time, you can be wildly successful.

Todd Miller: Well, I love that. And we certainly have all seen that. If you worked with any sales team, you see that new team member that comes on, and you know while they are learning, they are out working, they're out hustling, they're keeping the attitude well. And those are the guys and gals who do extremely well in this profession long-term. Good stuff. Well, Frank, this has been a great time together. Thank you so much. We're close to wrapping up kind of what we call the business end of things. Is there anything we haven't covered today that you would like to share with our audience?

Frank Somma: I would like to say read as much as you can. Listen as much as you can. Get on a podcast like this when you're in your car. I'm not the fun police, I don't want you to not have a good time. But if you're in your car, you know, listening to Howard Stern, that's great. He's funny. But, you know, I'm in my car listening to Lori Santo's Happiness Lab or, you know, various podcasts that I subscribe to because I'm picking up more information that helps me in my profession. And why would I waste a 45-minute drive? I'm either calling clients or I'm listening to something useful. You know, find that downtime to read a little bit in your profession, Find some things that resonate with you. You know, you'll find authors that you like. Maybe you don't want to read, maybe you want to listen to audiobooks. That's great. Listen to audiobooks. But learn, learn, learn, work, work, work. If you want to be at the top of the heap in sales, that's really all you have to do.

Todd Miller: I can tell that you and I were both the guys back in the 80s who were buying every Nightingale Conant set of cassette tapes.

Frank Somma: Frequent flier miles. You know, there's a guy named Peter Thompson who I've never found since that had the greatest audio program. There are two of them that I got on Nightingale Conant cassette tapes, you know, that I have no idea where they are now.

Todd Miller: I kind of still know where all mine are.

Frank Somma: All you need is a cassette player.

Todd Miller: Yeah, exactly. Well, I still have the '88 Mustang that plays my Tears for Fears cassette. So I can, I can put the others in there. This has been great. So I have to ask you before we close out, if you're willing to participate in something we call our rapid fire questions, Frank. Now, this is seven questions that we ask our guests. Some are serious, some are silly. All you have to do is give a response. Are you up to the challenge of rapid fire?

Frank Somma: Absolutely.

Todd Miller: Cool, this is always fun. Well, we'll try alternating questions. Seth, you want to ask the first one?

Seth Heckaman: Sure, absolutely. Question number one. Can you think of a product or service that you have purchased recently that was a real game-changer? Sort of a "where have you been all my life moment?"

Frank Somma: The dot. card for exchanging business card information.

Seth Heckaman: Oh, I heard about one of these recently. So you kind of just beam it to someone else's phone, right?

Frank Somma: Just tap it and your stuff downloads into the phone. I found that this at conventions; it's great.

Todd Miller: I have been playing with a social media platform idea that's kind of a little bit along those lines, but I won't reveal here today, but someday we'll talk about that, Frank. Anyway, question number two. Okay, a little more lighthearted. What are your favorite pizza toppings?

Frank Somma: I think I'd have to go with peppers and onions.

Todd Miller: I may know what I'm having for dinner tonight, okay.

Seth Heckaman: Question number three: would you rather go into the past and meet your ancestors or go into the future and meet future generations of your family?

Frank Somma: Past.

Todd Miller: Really? Because there would be more to learn there.

Frank Somma: I think so. I think I could learn a lot. And plus, I'm curious as to how people manage the difficulties of what like, you know, I'm sleeping in an air-conditioned room with indoor plumbing. What was that like 200 years ago? I'm curious.

Todd Miller: Interesting. Good stuff. Well, kind of along those lines, what one person from history would you most like to have dinner with, and what do you think would be the first question you'd ask them?

Frank Somma: Martin Luther King Jr. Instant, easy, the most interesting human being to me that's ever lived. And I would be I would have note pages filled with questions. I mean, you know, how did he manage to come up from the segregated Jim Crow South beginning and had he lived to me, he should have been president. Like just the most brilliant, lovable, extraordinarily-gifted communicator. I just would love to know the story of how he learned, where he learned, why he learned.

Todd Miller: Good answer, love it.

Seth Heckaman: Next question. You're trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. Who's one person you definitely want to have on your team?

Frank Somma: Hmm. I think my wife. She sees danger come in long before I ever do and alerts me. So she'd be the right one to have. She's definitely attuned to what we have to watch out for.

Todd Miller: Okay, next-to-last question. What non-family member has been a consistent part of your life the longest?

Frank Somma: Oh, that's easy. My kindergarten sweetheart, Karen Marshawn. She and I just spoke two weeks ago, so we've known each other for 60 years. I haven't seen her in probably 30. But we talk a couple of times a year. She's the person outside of my family that I know the longest.

Todd Miller: That's awesome.

Seth Heckaman: Last question. Frank, what would you like to be remembered for?

Frank Somma: I would like to be remembered for my generosity. I'd like to be a person who people remember as making them feel better with each encounter. I think that'd be about the most important thing to me, that people walked away feeling better than when they started. And they remember me as being someone who was generous.

Seth Heckaman: Beautiful. This time and this conversation for us has certainly fulfilled that a little bit more for you. Inspiring and great stuff that is going to help us be more successful. So, thanks so much.

Todd Miller: Yeah, good stuff. So, Frank, for folks who want to get in touch with you, how can they most easily do that?

Frank Somma: Just hit the site. Go to franksomma.com. And there'll be a pop-up that says, "Sign up for the weekly blog." There's a coaching page. You can book a free 15-minute session with me by video to see if we'd be right for one another. My keynote and seminar page is there to see the topics that I speak on and see some video to see if I would be a fit with your group. So the best place to go is to the site. I'm actually just in a conversation today had new video done and we're rebuilding, we're going to rebuild the site entirely. But I still like it as it is now, so I feel comfortable saying go there.

Todd Miller: Oh, it's a great site. It's very vibrant. Again that's franksomma.com and that is, Somma is S-O-M-M-A, franksomma.com. So I need to let everyone know. Frank, did you get your challenge word in?

Seth Heckaman: He did, hyperbole.

Todd Miller: You did it. So that's a real compliment when someone gets it in and I don't catch it. So, good for years. So Frank's word was hyperbole. Seth, I know you got yours in. Yours was?

Seth Heckaman: Belligerent.

Todd Miller: Yes. And I had. I still can't say it well, lugubrious. I got it worked in. Ahh, good stuff. Well, thank you, Frank, very much. It's been great.

Frank Somma: My pleasure.

Todd Miller: And I'd like to thank our audience for tuning in to this very special episode of Construction Disruption with Frank Somma of the Somma Group. And again, franksomma.com. Please, I encourage you, watch for future episodes of our podcast. We always have great guests. Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Keep on looking for better ways of doing things and keep on challenging ourselves into the future. And don't forget, most importantly, as Frank talked about also, have a positive impact on everyone you encounter. Make them smile, encourage them. Simple, fun, easy things we can do to change the world. So, God bless and take care. This is Isaiah Industries signing off until the next episode of Construction Disruption.

Intro/Outro: This podcast is produced by Isaiah Industries, a manufacturer of specialty metal roofing and other building products.