This Sales Test Revealed My #1 Weakness

Sean Weisbrot: So this is going to be a special kind of interview because we've gone through and actually done one of the tests that Mike's company provides, and we're gonna go through the results. The point being to give you the opportunity to better understand yourself as a salesperson and or a sales leader. So that will be the entirety of this conversation. If that's something you're looking forward to, then keep watching. If you're not interested in that, then there's probably nothing here for you today. Come back next week and see us. So let's get going. Mike. Let's talk about this test and let's go through the results and see what kind of a leader I am and, and how bad I am at it 'cause I know there's gaps.

Mike Irving: Uh, very good. I, Sean, I really admire your willingness to have this conversation and, and to have it publicly and, and to share your experience here. So, um, so to be really specific, the test that you've taken is a, a sales ability test. So it's not necessarily gonna show us so much about. Leadership and your leadership qualities, it's gonna help us understand where are the opportunities for you to improve in sales. Now I have a really particular definition for sales, so I think it's worth sharing that definition because some people out there might be thinking, oh, well, hold on a second. I wanna, I wanna run a company. I'm not in sales. Everybody is in sales, whether you know it or not. And my definition for sales is selling is effective communication towards action and commitment. And if you're not sure if you're in sales, just think about how good your kids are. If you have kids, how good your kids are at. Making sure that you do what they want to do and not what you want them to do. Um, and, and even your, your life partner when it comes to where you're gonna go out for dinner or go out for a party on Saturday night, we're, we're always selling every day.

Sean Weisbrot: And that's why I majored in psychology 'cause I thought it was the only useful thing I could possibly learn.

Mike Irving: Uh, very good. Well, so, um, do you wanna jump straight into this and have a look at what the results tell us? Or, or do you have questions you wanna ask further about the test first?

Sean Weisbrot: No. Why don't you just share your screen and we can get into it to make sure we have enough time to do the whole thing.

Mike Irving: Sounds great. Sounds excellent. One of the things I'll preface this conversation with is that when we look at, uh, a sales ability test like this, uh, or when we look at a result like this, um, there is a lot of detail. That comes in our assessments, this being an ability test. Uh, we also have aptitude assessments which measure things like at attitudes and competencies and, um, a number of different success factors. But when we look at your result here, the first thing you're gonna see is the comments that are made by the researcher. So excellent with people, excellent with sales and excellent logic. Now that's me overall. Yeah. Really it is. Oh, it's okay. And, and overall that is an excellent result. Right now though, the thing that I want to encourage you and, and everybody to think about is, you know, when we're not, when somebody does one of these tests, they're not looking to just get told that they're fantastic. Because what, what we innately look for is, Hey, how can I be better? How, how can I be the best version of myself? Where are my opportunities for improvement? And so that's why I wanted to do this, go through this E Exactly right. So we're gonna go through this and, and it is an excellent result. And with your permission, we're gonna go through it still looking for, well, where are the opportunities for improvement? How can we, how could we get that extra one or two or 3%? That can make all the difference in the world over time and distance. Does that make sense to you?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, of course. I, I didn't expect that as my result. I, I, I know I'm good with people and I know I'm good with logic and I know that I, I'm okay with sales. I, I think the test, uh, says I'm better at sales than I think I am, so maybe there's a gap that could help me with my confidence around sales.

Mike Irving: Well look, it's actually really interesting 'cause I, I have pre-read through all of this to make sure that I was prepared to have this discussion with you, right? Um, and, and you've got a very, very good sales ability test result and there are opportunities. So as we go through it, I think you're gonna see those, right? Um, so. Now when we come down, you took 44 minutes, which is within the timeframe that we would normally hope somebody would complete this in. Um, and so that's not had any negative effect on your result. Um, the benchmark we use is salesperson also doing cold calls, which that's, that's what we would use for somebody just taking this test on its own. Um. Now when we come down, we start to see some, some interesting graphs. So the green bar over here on the left hand side, that green bar is the score of your average top performer who fits into that category. And your score is the blue bar to the left of that. Mm. So you are above a, a top performer, uh, which is again, a, a great result. Now we take that overall score. Break it into three different areas. So people, sales and logic, and all three of those areas you have a lot of strength in. Um, now when we take those three areas down here, we break them down into individual traits. So the logic traits are the three traits on the right hand side, discernment to drawing conclusions and unusual logic. And for all three of those traits you are above, at or above the green bar, which is excellent. All the traits to the left of those three are your people and sales traits. And so as you look at this, tell me what. Grabs your attention when you look across these traits and the graphs.

Sean Weisbrot: Uh, what's interesting is understanding human nature, but then not knowing how to deal with people. I, I feel like I know how to deal with people better than the test says I am. I'm a bit surprised by that.

Mike Irving: Yeah, you, you know how to deal with people is just slightly below the green bar, and that's a really interesting. Right. Or it's a really interesting result, um, particularly because understanding human nature, general sales knowledge, sales manager, relationship, sales, closer solution selling. These are all nineties and hundreds, right? Yeah. Now, what it indicates is it, it just indicates that there is an opportunity to help you to improve. If we were to able to help you with knowing how to deal with people now, what circumstances are there where your knowing how to deal with people trait might show up? I don't know that, that, I can't answer that. I can't tell you. All I know is that based on the data that we've got over that the last 45 years, the way that you answered the questions shows that there's an opportunity to improve that somehow. Mm.

Sean Weisbrot: The, the question or trait I, what does that signify?

Mike Irving: Yeah, that's a really interesting trait. So what this is measuring is the amounts of the amount of importance that you place on asking questions. And what it indicates, uh, in fact, I'll, I'll quickly scroll down and show you something, because down here all of these same traits are listed again with a more, uh, more written description rather than a, a v, uh, an a visual description. So questioner, this person does not believe in asking questions.

Sean Weisbrot: That's weird because I spend most of my time asking people questions.

Mike Irving: I know. So some, there's something that happened when you were completing the assessment. The, the test itself where there's a way that you answered the questions that indicates that, um, there are times where. And perhaps this is very sales focused, but there are times where you will somehow, um, feel or believe that that talking or what you say is more important than asking questions. If I ask you this, where, where or when does or could that show up for you in a, in a selling process?

Sean Weisbrot: I mean, probably discovery. Trying to figure out what their problems are. Mm-hmm. I try really hard to put the transcripts from my calls into Gemini and learn from those so that I can figure out better questions. Like I'm, I'm actually actively trying to improve the questions that I ask in discovery so that I can have a better conversation with the person I'm talking to, so I know if what I am selling is actually something that they need. Mm. So may maybe I am subconsciously already aware that I have an issue there, but I, but it's, it's still strange because in a non-sales context, inside of interviews, I typically don't really talk that much. I typically in, I typically ask a ton of questions and think, give great deal of thought to that. So maybe I treat a sales call differently than I do an interview, which maybe I shouldn't, maybe I should be treating it more like an interview.

Mike Irving: Well look that that is, that is a possibility. Um, the only thing I, I, I've scrolled down just to show again here how the candidate answered sales marketing questions. The way you answered indicates that you think that talking is more important than asking good questions. Mm-hmm. So we've got, yeah, we've got a few data points that indicate a, a similar thing and so. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you, Hey, this is right and no, you want to get better at asking questions. What I would say is, it would be worthwhile for you to put your attention on this and, and be aware as you go through your next five or 10 or 20 sales conversations, have an awareness of, do you find yourself, I'll say dropping into talking too much or telling too much. You may or may not find that that happens. Um, it could happen more when there's a degree of pressure or a stressful conversation that's happening. Um, I'm, I don't know you well enough to say, well, this is what I've observed, so all I can go on is what this is sharing with us.

Sean Weisbrot: Sure.

Mike Irving: And it's still valuable. Yeah. Well, it's, it's a. It's a thing to inspect and be aware of. Um, my, my experience over the last 20 years of using these assessments is that, um, what they, what they reveal, it always shows up somehow. It's just a matter of being able to work out, well, what is the way that, that shows up in my life?

Sean Weisbrot: Hmm. I, I can say that. I have had instances where I felt like, uh, people were asking me like friends or people would, would like, let's say you go to a networking event, people will want to ask me questions and my life has been so interesting compared to most people I meet that they don't wanna talk about themselves, they wanna know more about me. And so maybe I have learned over time that. I'm more interesting than other people, therefore, me talking is more valuable than them talking.

Mike Irving: Yeah. Look, possibly, I, I, again, I, I don't know, I don't know you well enough to comment about that and to have my own personal experience of you. Uh, is that possible? Sure. Could that be an underlying subconscious belief that, that shows up that way? Maybe. I don't know. Um, it's, it's possible.

Sean Weisbrot: So the other one is discernment. What does that mean? It says I'm just above or at, I can't, it's hard to tell, but it looks like I'm, I'm just at,

Mike Irving: yeah, just, just, just slightly above the green line there by like a point. Right? Um, so discernment is measuring your ability to differentiate one thing from a similar group of things.

Sean Weisbrot: Oh, I remember that one. That was difficult. I, I thought back to like my, my high school, like, uh, SAT prep, like I was thinking about the college prep where they would say, okay, this thing is to that thing as something is to something else. And so I, I went back to that, even though it's been like 20 something years since I did that. I, I went back to that and I was thinking about it and I was like, okay, I've gotta make sure that I do this the way I did it back then. 'cause that back then I did an, I think an okay job. So it seems like I did an okay job using that, that same strategy.

Mike Irving: You absolutely did. Um, you know what, what we've established over the last, well, the, the researcher who created these, I think it was 45 years ago that he created this. And what we've established is that these traits are the traits that, uh, apart from attitude and in general competency, these are the traits that will determine. Person's potential to, to succeed in a sales environment?

Sean Weisbrot: Discernment specifically?

Mike Irving: Uh, no, no, no. All of these traits as a whole, right? So not, not discernment by itself, all of these traits.

Sean Weisbrot: So how does discernment impact

Mike Irving: a, a person's sales ability?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah.

Mike Irving: Yeah. Um, so. If you think of discernment, uh, one way that you can think of discernment is in a person's ability to differentiate buying signals.

Sean Weisbrot: Mm.

Mike Irving: To to differentiate, um, the the ideal client description. How that actual person shows up in real life and their ability to, to see and identify that's a person that I want to talk to, or this is a person that I wanna make sure I keep the conversation going with. Versus actually, that person really is not our ideal client description. That they don't fit. That is the ability to discern.

Sean Weisbrot: Hmm. I feel like that's a fair assessment because like sometimes people will say, okay, let me get back to you. I'm gonna talk to my marketing team, whatever. And I've learned that like, now, at least half the time, that means screw off. Basically. It's just a, a nice excuse to get out of the call, but then the other half of the time they actually come back and they actually pay. So that's difficult for me because I don't know which of the times they're gonna come back and which of the times they're not. And, and so I am, I just haven't had enough specific sales calls to be able to have the, to be able to learn that skill. So I feel like I need more sales calls to learn better how to discern who is go, who is a yes, but not yet, and who is a definite no. And, and whether they're. Trying to be nice to get outta the call or whether they just need more information. So I, I, I agree. Uh, my skill there isn't developed very well yet.

Mike Irving: Well, and that's fascinating because that, what you just described there actually goes hand in hand with asking questions. So the most experienced and, and best performing salespeople know that when someone says, for example, I, I want to think about it, or I want to talk to so and so about it. The best and most experienced salespeople will not all the time, because the best and most experienced salespeople trust intuition, right? But a big percentage of the time, instead of saying, okay, no problems come back to me, they'll actually persist with more questions.

Sean Weisbrot: That's something I've had to learn.

Mike Irving: Yeah. If somebody goes, oh, I wanna think about it. Okay, great. So look, just to make sure I understand, what specifically do you want to think about?

Sean Weisbrot: In, in the beginning, I would just let them go. I'd say, all right, no, fair enough. Um, you know, let's talk, let's, let's do another call in a week or whatever. Let's do, let's follow up by email, whatever. And then. Crickets. Um, and so I've been learning, Hey, so I understand like, what, let's, let's talk. So it's something that I'm, I'm figuring out now how to do, um, especially when they say, I need, I, I am, I. On the intake form, they'll say they're the sole decision maker, but then on the call they go, yeah, but I've got a, a marketing director and this is coming out of their budget. I need to talk to them. So say, okay, well what can I pro, you know, what answers can I give you that like your, your, your director might have a question about or, so I'm like, I'm trying to, oh, what if we had another call with the marketing director? I actually had. A call a month or so ago with the CEO of like a 50 or $60 million per year brand, and the marketing director was on the call. I, I didn't invite them. Like I, I have no problem if they're on, but I, I never experienced that before and I was like, nervous, oh no, this person's gonna get in the way. Like, I'd rather just talk to, directly to the CEO. But what I found was. The marketing director had a lot of power over the CEO, so much so that I spent the vast majority of the time selling the director and the director on the call convinced the CEO to do it. There you go. And I was like, I should be talking to marketing directors, not CEOs, because the marketing director gets it. The CEO EO doesn't.

Mike Irving: So the marketing marketing director for you can become that, that internal. Supporter. Yeah. They, they can, they can become the internal supporter to help you get it across the line, the internal stakeholder that stands up and goes, Hey, this is a good idea.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. But then I had another call, like an, like a week or two after that with someone who wasn't the director. They were in marketing, but they, they weren't the top of the, the department, and they sunk the sale for me. I think the CEO was interested and they were like, yeah, we're not doing any of that stuff right now. And I'm like, okay, so that, so it it's, it's hit or miss. I think it, it depends on the position of that other person and the power they have within the organization. Because some are really close and some are not. Like I had A-A-C-M-O in my tech company, but if he came to me and said, let's do, like he didn't have the power to do something without me saying yes. So we would've to have a COVID conversation and I'm able to understand the cost benefit analysis of an opportunity. So I'll be able to go, yeah, that's not gonna happen, or, okay, let's do it. Um, so I, I think it depends on, on the power dynamic among the executives of the company. So it's a very interesting social psychological dynamic, which I think I'm a lot more, I'm a lot more tuned into. Than, you know, sales specifically.

Mike Irving: Yes. Yeah. Um, what, what's the way that a, an organization makes its decisions, and what is the, the, the power structure that exists there? Who has the authority to make the decision? Exactly.

Sean Weisbrot: Um, and then Hunter, hunter is just a few points under, but it's still lower than those other ones. So I, I want to ask about that. What's the, what's a hunter?

Mike Irving: So, hunter is, is measuring, it's, it's, it's called callability. It's understanding how to go out and create new business from nothing. So Hunt hunter is, is kind of like. A really good hunter is somebody who, they're not gonna care about how many leads they're being provided from online marketing. They're gonna go out and they're gonna find their own leads. They're gonna go and hunt. They're gonna go and create referrals. They're gonna go and knock on doors. They're gonna make cold calls on the phone. They have an understanding of and an ability to go and create that.

Sean Weisbrot: Okay. Yeah, I, I would agree that that's a more developed skill that I have actually. Uh, so I, I invested in an AI and automation agency, and I've known the founder for 28 years. It's actually his birthday today, and he, he's an operations guy. He was actually the COO of my last tech company. He's very much an operations guy, and he's not so great at the people stuff like, like I am. And so I'm cons, I'm, I'm actually in the process right now of building a referral network for him so that he can focus on the, you know, development of the product and, and serving of the customers and all of that. And he, he constantly tells me how amazed that he is of my ability to just constantly go out and find people to talk to. He's like. If you have an idea, within like three days, you've got 10 people that you've booked calls with to talk about this idea. Even if they're not potential clients, even if they're just someone in the industry, someone that's serving those eyes, like you are just so good at like finding these people and talking to them and learning from them really fast. Is there any value in this idea? Can this idea help your people, et cetera. He's like, I wish I could do that, but it's not who I am. It's not what I'm focused on. You know, I'm, I'm an ops guy, like, it's just me. I just, I love talking to people.

Mike Irving: Yeah. Uh, and it's a real, it is an innate skill, um, and I'm a believer that it is, it is a skill that anyone can learn.

Sean Weisbrot: But I think it's also very personality because I, I have this will, this, this desire to talk to people and sometimes not, maybe it doesn't annoy my wife, but I think she, she, maybe she admires it a little bit as well, secretly. 'cause she's also kind of introverted, but her job forces her to be extroverted and she sees just I'm naturally extroverted and so she sometimes is like. Wow. I can't, like, I, I can't believe you're like just talking to these strangers and now she's Asian. So there's also that part to it, I think. But, um, yeah, I think it's just a personality thing. I think. I think it's a skill you can learn, but if you have the personality for it, it makes it a lot easier. It doesn't, it doesn't feel like a skill to learn. It feels like part of who you.

Mike Irving: Yes. If you, if you have it, that's correct. Um, you, you have a very interesting profile here because we, we've talked about a bunch of things on the left, all the way through, over to like, you know, your solution. Sellings. Excellent. Your assertive scores really strong, very strong listener, uh, exceptionally strong managing fear. And one of the. Two, two of the biggest things that you actually have going for you is a very strong, not nice score and a very strong, humble score.

Sean Weisbrot: What does a high not nice score mean?

Mike Irving: That's a good question. So, so that trait not nice is actually measuring your ability to be not nice

Sean Weisbrot: s So it means I can be an asshole if I want.

Mike Irving: No, no. It means that you have the ability to be not nice. And, and, and so think of it in terms of the opposite. So, so if you score too low on not nice, that's gonna mean that you'll error on the side of being way too nice all the time.

Sean Weisbrot: Mm-hmm.

Mike Irving: And so somebody who's way too nice all the time, uh, they become a doormat. Mm. Like my dad. You have the ability to be not nice. So you have the ability to be firm. You have the, the ability to call a spade a spade. It doesn't mean you're gonna do it in a rude way, and it doesn't mean that you're gonna, you're gonna be an asshole. It means that you have the ability to be not nice. And that's, that's actually a really significant strength. I've had

Sean Weisbrot: to deal with a lot of BS mile in my life. Yeah, I, I'm surprised at the humid, at the humble score. I feel like that's too hotty.

Mike Irving: Um, look, what it's, what it's showing me is, is that you're somebody who is, you know, you're willing to inspect, you are willing to admit mistakes. You, you are not overly prideful or arrogant or egotistical. It's showing me that, that you are. Willing to learn. And look man, I'm, I'm gonna make a personal comment here. There's not many people who have met with me over the years. In fact, you're the first person who's met with me over the years with the intention of having a conversation about the sales ability test and publishing it for the world to listen to. So that's, yeah. Not showing a degree of humbleness right there.

Sean Weisbrot: I mean, it's, it's a, a way for other people to learn. What's the point of me taking the time to do this and you taking the time to help me and then me not share that with other people because they have the ability to hopefully learn something for themselves. Everything is a learning opportunity, and deep down, I'm an educator at heart. You know, I was like, my first job out of college was as a teacher, so, and I did it for years. So it's, it's, even though I haven't been a teacher for years, I still. Teach people any chance that they're willing to listen to me about anything that I'm willing to talk, you know, that they're willing to listen to me talk about even if they're not paying me.

Mike Irving: Yep. Well, my, that's, it's funny. My first, my first job or, or career out of university was sales. Uh, I cut my teeth going door to door and business to business in Sydney, new South Wales, in Australia. And, um, and I learned how to sell by going out and representing phone companies and energy companies and things like that. Um, and I, I then spent 10 years building sales teams on behalf of large corporate clients. I wish that I had had access to this test back in 1997 when I first started my career in sales. Man, I would've learned so much faster had I seen what I didn't understand about the process. So, um, you know, these become really valuable as a learning.

Sean Weisbrot: I feel the same way about like Duolingo. I know it's not exactly the same, but still, um, down the same vein where I have a natural ability for language. However, the languages I've learned until very recently were without an app. Like, when I was living in China and I taught myself Chinese, I didn't have a smartphone. They didn't exist yet. So there was no Duolingo, there was no app that said, Hey, this is the next word you should be thinking about. This is the next verb I learned based on if someone said it and I didn't understand it, and it was something I felt like I needed, I would ask them to write it down for me on a note paper, on a notepad. Uh, I carried a notebook and a paper with me, or sorry, notebook and a pen. So I only learned what I needed to learn as I needed to learn it, and it took years, but I learned in a natural way, and so I had time to refine my skill. But if I had an app like Duolingo 15, 16 years ago, I would've learned Chinese probably 10 times faster.

Mike Irving: Yep. A hundred percent. And, and getting, I, I, I have viewed sales. As an apprenticeship for a long time, if you really wanna learn how to sell, the way you're gonna learn how to sell is go out and sell, attempt to sell, and then work with somebody who can help you to understand the principles that govern the whole process of selling. And when you're successful, what you'll find is that you've actually followed those principles. And when you're not successful, what you'll find is you've broken one of the principles.

Sean Weisbrot: So I need to figure out how to ask more questions and I need to figure out using the answers to those questions, who is more likely to actually want this or not, and how to deal with people is a little bit more of an unknown Maybe that will improve by improving the questioning as well.

Mike Irving: Yeah. Yeah, it will. Um, yeah, I, I look, I, I have written a book called Sales Scripts Are Dead. And I'm very happy to give it to you for free. In fact, any of your listeners who would like it, I'm actually very happy to provide it for free. We do sell it online, but you know, I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you today about this and, and I hope your listeners find this valuable. If this can help them to develop their own journey along the, the skill of mastering sales, I'm happy to provide that. So if anybody would like it, they can request it. We'll send it through in an email.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, sounds good. So what I'll do is I'll put a link in the video description, I'll make a pinned comment for it, and then I'll make a special poll just to point it out for people, uh, within a few days, let's say three, four days after this video comes out, so that I'll be able to give them the opportunity to specifically say, yes, I want it in case they missed the, the video or, uh, in case they're, they're not paying attention to the description and all that.

Mike Irving: Yeah, perfect man. And I'll, I'll send through the, the book to you and feel free to forward it to anybody who requests it or if they want to email me directly. That's okay too. No problems at all.

Sean Weisbrot: Alright, sounds good. Well, I appreciate the time and the energy is, is there anything left from this that you wanna mention?

Mike Irving: Uh, look, overall your profiles excellent from a sales ability perspective. Uh, there's a few things that you can read down here. Uh, all of those traits. Broken down into up to three SubT traits, and in this description you'll see that each SubT trait can have its own, uh, rating. So, so here, sales manager strength, an excellent understanding of aggressive sales, sales, manager, communication and supervision. So all three are excellent, right? Mm-hmm. But closer, an excellent savvy of persistence and closer reading people. But good clothes are bravery, so there's quite a lot in there that you can read. Yeah, you, you see there's subtleties in what you read in those written descriptions. Um. What you'll also find is that if you click on this, there's a hyperlink. Every one of these traits, when you even up here, every one of these traits has a hyperlink that you can click on. It will take you to the backend of my website to a page that will give you the specific definition for that trait. And it will also tell you that if your score is between here and here, it means this. If it's between here and here, it means this. So this, you know, couple of page report all of a sudden quickly becomes a, a, a 30 or 40 page report pretty effortlessly. So I'll, I'll email your results through to you. Take the time to go and, and have a look through all that. And if you wanna ask any questions later, you know how to reach me.

Sean Weisbrot: Sure. All right. Well thank you very much. I appreciate your time and your energy and hopefully those of you watching found this interesting and there's something for you to learn about yourself.