In this episode, Larry Long Jr. shares his journey from college athlete to sales leader and motivational speaker. He emphasizes the importance of having a clear vision, working hard, and embracing teamwork. Larry also discusses the process of finding your vision and purpose, investing in yourself, and surrounding yourself with the right people. He encourages listeners to overcome fear and self-doubt, practice their skills, and take action. Larry shares the three-minute challenge, a daily habit of reaching out to someone and making a positive impact. He credits his mentors and his father for shaping his mindset and values.

Takeaways

• Having a clear vision, working hard, and embracing teamwork are key to success.
• Invest in yourself and surround yourself with the right people.
• Overcome fear and self-doubt by practicing positive self-talk and seeking guidance.
• Practice your skills and take action to achieve growth and transformation.

Chapters

00:00- Introduction and Background

01:06- Larry's Journey to Sales

03:27- Teamwork and Collaboration

07:06- Finding Your Vision and Purpose

09:05- Investing in Yourself and Surrounding Yourself with the Right People

09:41- Overcoming Fear and Self-Doubt

11:22- Dealing with Rejection and Challenges

13:07- The Importance of Practice and Role-Playing

14:17- The Power of Daily Habits and the Three-Minute Challenge

20:06- The Journey of Transformation and Personal Growth

23:37- The Impact of Relationships and Serving Others

25:51- Influential Mentors and Role Models

28:10- Closing and Contact Information

Connect with Larry Long Jnr

LinkedIn- linkedin.com/in/longjr7

Website- larrylongjr.com 

Connect with Wesleyne

LinkedIn- linkedin.com/in/wesleyne  

Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/wesleynewhittaker/?hl=en 

Tiktok- https://www.tiktok.com/@thewesleynewhittaker 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/transformedsales  

Youtube- www.youtube.com/@wesleynewhittaker 

Twitter - https://x.com/wesleyne  

Website- TransformedSales.com   

Email- podcast@transformedsales.com  

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Transform Sales Podcast. Today I am so delighted to have Larry Long Jr. with me. How are you Larry?

Oh, I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me on. Can you hear me?

I can hear you. I can hear you and I can see you with your golden microphone. I love it. I love it. I love it. Let me tell you a little bit about Larry. He is the chief energy officer at LLJR Enterprises, focused on motivation, inspiration, and most importantly, transformation through speaking and training programs. He is host of both the weekly live show, midweek, midday motivational minute, live podcast, and the cold calling podcast, and also the author of Joke.

He's a former college athlete and extremely passionate about coaching and helping leaders take their game to the next level. As an experienced sales leader with demonstrated history of success in software sales, Larry brings a unique perspective to the table, understanding many of the challenges faced by professionals today. Okay, so how did you get started and how did you get to where you are today?

Oh goodness. So played baseball in college, worked at Accenture doing IT consulting, wasn't passionate about it. So I opened up an indoor baseball and softball academy. Unfortunately, I struck out, went out of business. So I had to find a job. And what was the job that was knocking on the door? It was a sales job making 150 ice cold calls every day to accounting firms. That was a whole lot of no's. But from there, I had a career in software sales.

Tech sales tech sales leadership and now I have the opportunity to help sales professionals sales leaders sales Organizations take their game to the next level I get to rock the mic as a motivational speaker MC coach trainer content creator Influencer. Oh, I'm out of breath. The list goes on and on I'm living the dream. Happy to be here

You are living the dream and you are wearing many, many hats. I love all the props. I love the props. I do. So tell me as a college athlete, I know many times there are lessons that you learn early in life. So what are some of those lessons you learned as a college athlete that you still apply today?

Yeah, great question. Number one, having a strong and clear vision. If you don't know where you're going, uh -oh, good luck getting there. There's gonna be a lot of you turds. Even when you know where you're going, there's gonna be some bumps in the road, but really having clear vision. Number two, working hard. And I don't mean kinda working hard. I mean working hard. The entrepreneurial spirit.

the best athletes in the world know that you get out of it, what you put into it. So a lot of people fool themselves, oh, I'm working hard. No, you're not. What I've learned is that when I work hard, magical things happen. The last lesson, teamwork makes the dream work. There's a saying that if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, mount up. Let's go ahead and mount up. And I'm...

That's why I'm so excited to be here with you, because it really, it just makes things so much more enjoyable. We're able to touch even more people. Teamwork really does make the dream work.

Okay, so let's double down on that teamwork, making the dream work by first starting with the dream because so many people, whether they're entrepreneurs or salespeople or sales leaders, they just do what they think they need to do, right? A company tells me to make calls. I think kind of like you, I want to be an entrepreneur, but I don't have the vision. So how do we go about finding our vision? How do we tap into that inner core, our purpose?

Yeah, well, sometimes you gotta slow down to speed up and put your thinking cap on. And I know there's some people listening in right now saying, Larry, I'm not very creative. Survey says, nah, yes you are. And I'm here to tell you so. You've gotta step into your creativity. You've gotta step into what your brilliance in your mind can take you to.

to create that vision, that mission of where you wanna go to. So often we, and I wrote a chapter in my book, Jolt, what story are we telling ourselves and believing? I've been guilty as charged. Oh, I'm not the most creative. Yeah, I am. I can be very creative when I take the time, I create the space, and I actually put my thinking cap on. That vision is, in the words of the great philosopher, J .J. Walker. Dynamite, come on now.

You have me rolling over here. You are keeping me on my toes. And so that word creativity, it gets a lot of people down because some people are like, no, I'm not creative. I can't draw. No, I'm not creative. I can't speak. No, I'm not creative. I can't do this or I can't do that. But creativity stems from so many different areas. It's like, did you think of a slightly different way to solve this problem? Okay, you're creative. And so I think that we do ourselves a disservice.

really by that negative self -talk when we talk ourself out of doing something. We often don't talk ourself into it, but we always talk ourself out.

And a lot of times that's based on fear. The great Henry Ford said, whether you think you can, whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you're right. And oftentimes we write that story, that fake news narrative that, oh, I did it myself. I can't rock the mic. And I definitely can't rock the gold mic, the platinum mic for a career.

Mmm.

Come on Cletus, who do you think you are? And I've got this voice on my shoulder, his name is Cletus. Come on Cletus, you're gonna walk over, but you're gonna limp back. That tells me all the things that I can't do. Larry, who do you think you are? You can't get up on stages and serve people, impact people. Well, then the voice of my father. Rest in peace, daddy. He says, you're more than a conqueror. You can do anything that you put your mind to and I encourage, there's someone out there. I don't know if it's you.

If it's you or if it's you that needs to hear this, yes, you can. You can do anything that you put your mind to. And I'm here to give you permission to step into that inner greatness that you got inside of you.

That's so good. That's so good. And that taps into the second thing that you were talking about, that teamwork. Because if you're operating as an island on your own, what happens is you're your own worst critic, you're your own best critic, and you never really pushed yourself out of your comfort zone. So having the right team of people around you helps you in more ways than you know. So if I'm sitting on this little island by myself, or maybe I have advisors that have been leading me astray, how do I...

get out of that little box that I might be stuck in.

Where are you investing your time, your energy, your resources, AKA money? And believe you me, I'm balling on a budget, but I encourage everyone to invest in your greatest asset, yourself. What are you doing to invest in yourself? Do you have a coach? Do you have a mentor? Do you have a guide, a sherpa that's going to help you get there? Do you have a crew, an A -team, a hype squad that's gonna lift you up and not tell you what...

Yeah.

You want to hear, but tell you what you need to hear that, hey, let's step your game up. Let's step into your greatness. If you don't have it, I'm going to give it to you right now. There's a word that you need to hear. You're not living in your best greatness right now. And I'm talking to myself. There is opportunity knocking at the door and you're ready to answer it. Don't be scared. Let's go ahead and answer that door and step into our greatness.

Jim Rowan says you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Are you around folks that ain't about nothing? Are you around negative Nancy's, negative Nellie's, negative Ned's? Or are you around people that are getting after it and are encouraging you, hey, let's get comfortable with being uncomfortable because that's where the growth and the little hair I got on the top of my head is standing up now. Now I'm thinking about this. Now you see why I'm the CEO, Chief Energy Officer. You got me excited.

But let's go and get it. So many times I see folks that they're living at, not their worst, but me. It's the great philosopher T .I. who said, I don't want no mediocre. Let's step our game up.

I love it. And you're right, because the people we surround ourselves with literally make or break us. If we're surrounding ourselves with people who we admire, then we will aspire to be them. One of my best friends is the CEO of a hundred million dollar company.

And I tell her all the time, I'm like, I don't need a business coach. You are my business coach, right? Because she has seen so much in her career and within her organization. And so my goal, my aspiration is to have a multimillion dollar company just like she has, right? And so, but I can surround myself with people who are like, I'm just trying to get to my first six figures. I'm trying to get to my first six figures. And yes, I can mentor them, but if I'm in that mindset and I'm already risen above, then I'm never, I'm going to be like, oh, I'm the greatest.

I'm the greatest and it's not going to stretch me out of my comfort zone to really move to that next level. So you went from dialing for dollars into sales leadership and entrepreneurship. So what was that journey like for in that first sales job as you made your way up the ranks?

I love it.

Yeah, I'll be honest with you. There was a lot of FUD, not Elmer FUD, but fear, uncertainty and doubt. Can I really do this? I'll tell you, hitting the phones, making 150 calls every day, that's tough stuff. I'll never forget there was an accountant in New Jersey. I'm not going to say his name. I remember it. But he said, Hey, Larry, I got something. I thought I was about to hit the ding, ding the little bell. I thought I was going to Sizzler. They were getting a sign up. He said, I want you to put on a pair of concrete shoes.

and jump off a bridge. I said, good googly muggley. I looked in our little manual of how to overcome objections. That wasn't in there. So I said, the first thing that came to mind, I said, God bless you too. And then I hung up. It was so tough to make that next call, but we persevere. We learn, we take the strikeouts and we learn our lesson. What I learned is that wasn't personal. He wasn't personally insulting me. I just caught him at.

the wrong time of the day is dog pride bit him on the kneecap. So the journey, what I learned is you got to persevere. When you get a challenge, you got to find a way over it. If you have to around it, if you have to under it, sometimes you got to dig a tunnel and sometimes you got to put on that big the boxing glove and get right through it because we're going to be faced with challenges. Nothing in life is guaranteed except for you are going to be faced with challenges.

And I'm here to tell you, if Nappy had a Larry Long Jr. when I had hair, if I can do it, anybody can do it. Shoot, let's go.

So how do you go about, because that fear of rejection, that self doubt, that uncertainty as a salesperson or even when you're a brand new sales manager, it's like, nobody taught me how to do this. I don't know what I'm doing. How do you get through that day to day mental spaghetti of feeling like I'm not good enough? I don't know what to do.

Yeah, you gotta find what works best for you. For me, it starts with the mind. It's that positive self -talk, talking about, I am great. It's looking at the reviews. Hopefully you have a brag book of reviews of times, examples when you've been great because I know you haven't. Then it starts with the heart. You gotta go to the heart and truly believe, and sometimes we gotta manufacture it. Sometimes we gotta make it up. I am the greatest.

I encourage you, I'm getting hyped now. Stand up. At the end of every day, stand up in a power pose and say, I am somebody. When you say that 10 times, now all of a sudden you start to believe that you are somebody and that you're somebody great. We talked about it before. Who's the company that you keep? Are you surrounding yourself with people that have been there and done that and can help guide you along the way? If you don't have that, you need to go ask my coach.

who I invest in, I write a check every month because it's an investment in me, says healthy people ask for exactly what they want. If you want mentoring, you want guidance, you want help, I encourage you to go get it. You better ask somebody.

Mm, that's so good. That's so good. One of the things that I do and I recommend people doing, I say that I talk to myself like I talk to my best friend. And so when I have a win, when I have a good day, I record myself a voice note or a video. And on those tough days, because they come, I watch my video. I listen to my voice note because I have to encourage myself. And the second point that you made is invest in yourself, right? Like,

If your company won't do it, if you're an entrepreneur and you're like, I don't have money to do this, you can afford not to do this. Because if you don't invest in yourself, I can guarantee you your competitors are. I can guarantee you the people who you're going up against when you're in those competitive environments, because hello, we're in sales, there's always a competitor, they are doing something to make themselves better.

make themselves better. And again, it's about having that tribe of mentors, having people around you that will get you out of those stuck places.

That's right. I love the point that you made there and I'm going to add one more caveat. Now I'm no Allen Iverson, but we're talking about practice, not the game. When was the last time you practiced your skill that you role played? And I know that is uncomfortable, especially with your peers. And I also know that practice, intentional practice, diligent, consistent practice will help take you to heights that you never would have imagined.

Mmm.

So my encouragement, I know I'm talking, your actions speak so loud. I can't hear what you're saying. Will you do it? And I'm not sponsored by Nike yet. It's part of my vision. But like they said, just do it. So oftentimes we noodle. And I know there's someone out there right now that's noodling. Oh, I'm thinking about this. Oh, I'm thinking about reaching out to this.

Mm.

No, just do it right now on your mark. Get set. Let's go right this second. Let's go.

Yes, and you know, every no you hear, it makes you better. It's like every rejection I hear, it's like, okay, I didn't do that right. They gave me a little bit of time a day. Let me get that a little bit better. But what you're saying about that role playing and that practicing, it's so key and people shy away from it. They don't like doing it. So when I'm thinking about building skills, right? So let's say I know that I have a list of 10 things I need to get better at. Where do I start?

I want to role play, I want to develop myself. How do I figure out what to work on first?

That's great. Leverage technology to your advantage. I wish I was chat GPT, but I would say a great place is on your pitch. So what do you do? What's your value? You can then go to objection handling. We're all going to face objections and we know what those objections are going to be generally around price, budget, timing, priorities, value. How do we combat those objections that we face our demo?

pieces of our demo. So I speak for a living. I do sales training for a living. What's your process? When you get faced with these certain scenarios, I'm wearing my Salesforce sales blazer shirt. So what do you do? You're a sales blazer. I should know exactly what I'm gonna say. First of all, I'm gonna pause. The power of the pause. I'm gonna take a deep breath. And you won't believe this because I know I barely come up for air, but I'm gonna come up for air. And I'm gonna answer it.

with that confidence, with that courage that I've been there, I've done that, I've heard this before, that just comes across from when you practice. Because when you don't, you're now practicing in live scenarios and oh no, no, no.

tell salespeople, please stop practicing on your prospects. Please don't practice on your prospects. That is the worst place to practice. Practice with your colleagues. I mean, in worst case scenario, practice with your spouse or somebody in your family, but don't practice on your prospects because what you're doing is you are actually hurting yourself. You are impacting your close ratio. You're impacting your conversion ratio before you even get started. And again, it's what you do behind the scenes that actually matters when you show up.

So if I think about, and I've mentioned this on the podcast before about Kobe Bryant, he said, like he always, he's like, I'm going to work harder than you. I'm going to do more than you. You're going to come out here. You're going to see me practicing when you leave. I'm still going to be here because you need to see no matter what. Cause I want that image in your head when you get ready for the game that Kobe was out there practicing more than me. And that's exactly what we have to do as salespeople, as entrepreneurs, we must have more shots at goal.

The more we practice, the better we get.

I love it. And it's that mindset, that mamba mentality. And then it's a growth mindset. And I'm going to couple that with an action mindset. What I found is the most successful people, they take action. They take that first step. It might not be a great first step, but kind of like a baby. You take a step, you fall down, you get back up, you learn. You might be weevil wobbling, but now all of a sudden you're moving.

Mmm.

Yeah.

You're grooving. Uh -oh, I'm running now. I was running. It's amazing. But sometimes as we get older, we get bashful. We get scared. We don't want to take those risks. And we're missing out. We're missing out on the greatness that was really destined and that's out there. And I'll tell you this, if you don't take it, somebody else will. So my encouragement is why not you? Yeah, you. I'm talking to you.

So.

Mmm.

Yes, and you know, a lot of that fixed mindset and growth mindset, it actually stems in childhood. And so those of us whose parents never let us fall and hurt ourselves are always there to catch us. We're scared to take steps. But those of us that grew up with bruises, like my nine year old son was like, Mom, look, I got another scar on my leg. Oh, what does this one mean? Oh, this one hasn't even healed yet. Why? Because I let him tumble and fall and he gets back up and he keeps going and playing.

I get a bandaid, I'm going to right back outside playing football, right? And so the thing is we have to realize that some of these self -limiting beliefs that we have in sales and life, they're not just what's in front of us, they're what's behind us. And in order for us to overcome them, sometimes we got to do some deep work.

And you have to be honest with yourself with what I need to do. And that investing in yourself could be therapy. It could be a coach. It could be getting in a group environment of people who understand and know where you are and help push you along. But I think that the biggest thing I want people to take away is it's okay, like you said, to ask for help. If you don't ask for help, then you'll never get help because people won't know that you need it.

That's right.

There's a reason why I was so excited to come on the Transform Sales Podcast. It's that word transformed. I'm all about motivation, yes. Inspiration. But that comes and goes. Transformation, and you said the key word there, work. Some people are allergic to it. It's a four -letter word. Work, work, work, work, work. Yeah, don't get me singing, I have you crying. But for true transformation, you've gotta put in the work.

Yeah.

You gotta put in the blood, the sweat, the tears, the ugly stuff. It's kinda like that iceberg of success. People see the top of the iceberg shining, glimmering. They don't see underneath it the sacrifice, the pain, the hard work, the sac, I mean the discipline, the commitment. There's so much that goes behind the scenes as you shared, but I absolutely love transformation.

Yeah, and that transformation and I think that we share this philosophy when we show up on a stage or when we're doing training It's not just about getting you excited I want to transform the way that you think Transform the things that you do like if you leave a session with me whether it's five minutes or 60 minutes and you haven't transformed how you're thinking doing moving acting then I haven't done my job and we should each have

that moment of transformation within us each and every day. Like literally, I always say, how can I get 1 % better today? Just 1%. What does 1 % do? You don't even think about it consciously, but it's like, I wanna get 1 % better at one thing today. And if we take little bites of the apple instead of just trying to do everything at once, we're a lot more successful.

That's it. I got to give your listeners and your viewers this tip. It's a daily tip called the three minute challenge. Everyone's got three minutes in their day. We're all in the relationship business and we know this, but knowing isn't doing. What I encourage you is every day take three minutes, find someone in your Rolodex. I know some of y 'all are like, hold up, is that the fancy watch? Nah, that's a Rolex. Go into your contact list in your phone, find one person every day that you haven't been in touch with.

It could be three weeks, three months, three years. It could be even three decades for those that are old enough to know what three decades looks like. All I want you to do is find one person every day that you can surprise and delight. If you were my surprise and delight, I'm going to find a funny Alcorn State meme or Jeff. I did my research and I can see the smile on your face. I'm going to send it to you. Say, Hey, hope you're having a wonderful week. Just know I was thinking about you today. I'm not asking you for anything.

I'm just making a relationship deposit. So many times we try to make withdrawals and we're overdrafted. We haven't given anything to that relationship. So if you do the three minute challenge and I'm an overachiever, I do the 15 minute challenge, I touch five people intentionally every day just to let them know I'm thinking about you. Maya Angelou said, people will forget what you said. Talk is cheap.

Hmm.

They'll even forget what you did. Oh, that's tough, Larry. You told me actions speak so loud, louder than words. They will never forget how you made them feel. If you do one thing every day, make one person feel good, you're gonna touch so many lives. And I can guarantee you, your life will be touched as well.

Hmm.

Mmm, that's so good!

Like, literally drop the mic, drop all the mics you have, because that, and you know, the thing is it's about the other person. And so when you go in with this servant heart, or when you start impacting people in this way, what happens is you start seeing, I'm sowing in these fields, and in other fields, you can actually reap that benefit.

Thank you.

and the heart and you're like, oh my goodness, how did this door open for me? Oh my goodness, how did I get this new lead? How did I get this new opportunity? It's because you are giving of yourself and we have to deposit seeds all throughout the world and have no, and the thing is people will do it for like three or four days, like I'm not getting anything from this. And the thing is your heart is in the wrong place. It's not about getting anything from it. It's about giving completely, totally giving, no taking.

So true. And I'm gonna call it like a T is like a TIS. Sometimes we live in a microwave society. We want to 30 seconds. But what I learned is if you want some good eats, which I'm an expert at eating, sometimes you got to let it marinate. Yeah. For those that marinate, yeah. Marinate. You got to put in that consistent work. You got to really work it out.

Yeah.

Hmm.

and it's going to take years to build. But I encourage you, be patient and have the mindset of, I'm giving from the bottom of my heart because I want to give, I want to serve, I want to be a blessing to others. It is amazing. There's no guarantees in life other than taxes and death. And I can say that I can guarantee that if you touch other people's lives, your life will be more fulfilled and more meaningful.

if it's not come and holla at your boy Larry Long Jr.

I love that, I love that. So you are this impactful speaker and trainer and coach. Can you share with us an experience or a person that has impacted the way that you show up?

My goodness, I'm gonna do two. I know you asked for one my mentor mark Winchester. What's up mdub? I? Wrote a co -author to book and my chapter was about mark the little things are really the big things I wanted to be called the little things are really the big things they said nah You want to talk like that write your own book so I did but what mark showed is that leadership is about actions and it's about caring about that under other individuals

Before I joined, he wrote me a handwritten letter and he wrote my wife a handwritten letter saying behind every good man is a great woman. Thank you for allowing us to have Larry to take his time away from you and the family. That's strong right there. When my father passed away eight years ago, Mark was there. He drove up to Maryland five hours just to be there. He didn't tell me he was going to be there. He was just there. That's a true leader, a true friend. And that leads into...

Mmm.

Mmm. Mmm.

the lessons that I learned were in my childhood, from my mom and my dad, but mostly for me watching my father and what he did. It wasn't what he said and it's kind of crazy. My dad was a man of few words. He didn't talk much. I get my chattiness from my mom. I get it from my mama, but watching my dad, the way he operated, he grew up in Baltimore city where he was surrounded by crime and violence and drugs. And he made a commitment.

to himself that he was gonna be the best person that he could be. He worked hard, he cared about people, he loved his family, he was strong in his faith, and it was his actions. As a kid, I remember just watching him. That's the example, that's the blueprint that I've been following, and he encouraged me, don't just follow my blueprint, make it better for others. That's it right there, that's it. Mark Winchester, my father, Larry Long, Sr.

That's awesome, that's awesome. And it's amazing that these people have poured so much into you and I can see how you're taking what they put into you and you're multiplying it 10 -fold, 100 -fold, and really giving back to this community that you operate in. So thank you so much, Larry. This has been a fantastic conversation. If people want to get in contact with you, what is the one best way?

Ah, LinkedIn, Larry Long Jr., the man with the microphones. You'll probably hear me before you see me. I would love the opportunity to connect. I would love the opportunity to serve. And I wish you all the best and continued success. Be great.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Larry. And that was another episode of the Transform Sales Podcast. Remember in all that you do, transform your sales. Until next time.

Thank you.