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- [00:00]
A
You're listening to the Sales Hunter Podcast. My name's Mark Hunter. And hey, do you face challenges in your. Oh, come on, you're in sales. Of course you face challenges. Sales is nothing more than one challenge after another. But how do you deal with them? What's your mindset? How do you. How do you process through it? And let me tell you something. When you understand how to do that, it is amazing the success you will have with me today. Patrick Engasser. He's going to join us in just a moment. Why am I talking. Let's get the show going.
- [00:30]
B
Right now, you're listening to the Sales Hunter Podcast with Mark Hunter, where the focus is to help you as a salesman, sell with confidence and integrity. And now, here's your host.
- [00:46]
A
We have with us today in the studio Patrick Engasser. Patrick, say hello to the audience.
- [00:51]
B
Hello, audience. Mark, thanks for having me. I appreciate it very much.
- [00:55]
A
Hey, we're talking about challenges. And in the green room, we were. The green room. What is the green room for a podcast? I have no idea. But we were talking about challenges and your path, your journey. It is an amazing story. Bring our audience up to speed on your journey, your travel, because you were incredibly successful today.
- [01:18]
B
Thank you. I appreciate it. So I started in. My goal originally was to get into radio, so I went to college for communications and radio broadcasting, and I was on the campus radio station for a while. I've been blind since birth, so radio is kind of my. My equalizer. How I used to listen to sports while other people watched it. I'm from Buffalo, New York, originally. So you can't be from Buffalo and not be a Bills and Sabres fan, football and hockey. So that was kind of my equalizer. So I wanted to get into radio, but I graduated during the 2008, 2009 economic apocalypse, if you want to call it that. It was a small radio market in Buffalo, and so I took a call center job doing debt collection for a short period of time. I really did not like that. And I was like, I want to find the opposite of this, whatever the opposite of this micromanagement factory is. That's what I want. I want more freedom. I want to have more control over my time and buybacks on my time. I don't know if I was that articulate about it at the time, but that's what I was thinking. And I met the former regional coordinator for a Fortune 200 insurance company, and we had a conversation that led me to a career in outside sales. And to say that it was a Bumpy road to start the first two years in the business would probably be an understatement. It was a straight Commission, outside sales, 1099 position. So I was kind of self employed and in sales at the same time. And for someone who couldn't see, couldn't drive, everyone's like, you're insane for taking, for taking an outside sales position.
- [02:54]
A
Patrick, I want to stop you right there because you're just glossy. That's some major challenges. Blind since birth, you outside sales job, you naturally can't. Wow. I mean, the fact that you put yourself into that position is amazing. So continue the story. This is, this is incredible.
- [03:13]
B
Well, thank you. But it was, you know, it was probably a crazy idea at the time. I'm grateful. That's kind of the direction God pushed me in because like I said, if I hadn't had. And I'm sure someone in your audience, probably a lot of people can relate to this. They've had a point in their life where they were doing something that felt like it was the worst thing that they could be doing. But now they look back on it and say, that was good that that happened to me at that time. Because if I hadn't worked that collections job, I probably wouldn't be doing, wouldn't have gotten into sales and I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now as a coach and a speaker. Because if I'd done something that was comfortably miserable, but I could tolerate it, I probably would have tolerated. How many people can relate to that? But because of the fact that it was something that was, to me, intolerable, I'm just like, I'm not going to keep doing this. I started looking for other opportunities and I was probably open to opportunities that were not the norm or were outside the mainstream, if you will. So that's how I started in outside sales. First two years were really rough. To say I was. I was not the top sales professional at the time was. Would be an understatement. I was out of about 615,620agents in the organization. I was ranked somewhere in the 500s. I don't want to remember where, but I know it was five. The number started with a five and that was not. It wasn't fifth, so it wasn't top five. So then I hired a business and sales coach at the end of my second year, like November of my second full year, and that changed my whole career. Took some time, took some hard work and commitment. But 14 months later, at the end of the following year, my third full year. I went from in the 500s in new account sales closed to the number one account closer in the organization in just over a year. And I know for a fact it was that coaching and mentorship that made a big difference because that was the one main thing that I had changed. And obviously I changed different habits and things I was doing. But all of that really started from me being willing to invest in my business and invest in myself. And then I was promoted to district manager and trained dozens, if not hundreds of sales professionals within that organization over the next 10 years. And then the last five years, really, I've been doing the sales and business coaching and started my own business. So, yeah, it's been a fun ride and a bit of a wild ride, but I wouldn't change any of it because it got me to where I am right now and I'm grateful for the life I have now.
- [05:45]
A
Patrick, it is an amazing story because the challenges you had to overcome and along the way, you could have easily thrown in the towel and said, I'm going to go down a different path. But you stayed in. Why did you stay in the game? Why did you. Because again, that was the number one challenge just to stay in the game.
- [06:05]
B
Why did you.
- [06:06]
A
Why did you stay in the game?
- [06:08]
B
Well, I think two things. I think one thing, my faith, just belief that there was a reason why I was being. Why I was doing what I was doing and that this change was what I was supposed to be doing. I felt like that was the path God wanted me on, was to make an impact in the. In the profession I got into in the sales profession, because I felt like I was doing that. I didn't feel like I was doing that in the call center job. And the second reason is I had a really strong why, you probably heard that before, having a red hot why. That was the biggest thing that kept me in. And I. Every day I would remind myself when it was hard, at least on the hard days, good days, you don't have to remind yourself about something in the past. And it's important not to live in your past, but it is. You can go, you should go back and check in with your past and say, hey, where was I before? Where am I now? And I would remember back sometimes in great detail to those days at the call center when people were, you know, cussing me out and hanging up on me. And I had to. I had. My bathroom breaks were timed and I had to make 150 calls a day. They were all monitored. And I'm just Like, man, do you want to go back to that? And I'm like, nope, it isn't that bad. Like, today was a tough day, but tomorrow will be a better day. We're gonna re. We're gonna recalibrate. We're gonna wake up tomorrow with a better mindset, and we're gonna get back at it. So that reminder of where I'd come from, and I think this is something I hope everyone can relate to or can use to their benefit, because it's a good reminder for me, even to this day, to keep doing that, Checking in with where you've come from and how far you've come. Sometimes we like to measure to our. To the future goals and say, hey, here's where I want to be. But there's always more that you don't have than you do have. So it's important to check in with, hey, this is where I was five years ago or last month or six months ago. Where am I now? And how far. Look how far I've come. Because once you realize you've made all of this progress, then the future becomes possible. You can stretch into that future and reach for that next goal because you know you've done it once, so you know you can make more progress in the future. So that's the biggest thing that grounded me.
- [08:08]
A
Wow. Patrick, I love what you're saying here, because don't live in the past, but sometimes we've got to reflect back on the past. And that's so powerful because I think today people don't have success because they haven't had enough adversity in their life.
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B
Life.
- [08:22]
A
They have not had enough. You know, you. You've had more. You've had so many challenges in your life, it's unbelievable. And yet each one of those challenges has made you stronger as to the leader that you are today. So somebody who's listening to this and they're not where they want to be in sales. They're. They're. They're just having a hard time. What would be some advice? Give us some coaching advice for those people.
- [08:49]
B
Yeah, it's a great question. I think the first thing would be it really sit down and analyze or. Or look at what is the thing that drives you. And a lot of times, it isn't what people think. They may think, oh, I want to make more money, but that alone, when I'm coaching someone, let's say someone goes to talkwithpatrick.com they book a strategy session with me. They usually think we're just going to get Right into sales strategy. And I get that because that's what I thought when I hired a coach. But for me, the biggest thing I work on is mindset. Because a lot of times it's, people may think, oh, I want to make $20,000 or $50,000 more this year than I did last year. But if you can't quantify what that means and how that's going to drive you and how that's going to magnetically pull you out of bed in the morning to get to work on the things that matter, it's not going to, it's not going to happen. Because the money itself is not for most people, a enough driver or magnet. The magnet is, what is that money going to enable you to do? What is improving your life? How are you going to do that? Is it going to enable you to put your kids through college, send them to a better school? Is it going to enable you to have more freedom to invest more time with your wife or your husband and your kids? Is it going to enable you to travel the world and go backpacking through Europe for two months every summer? What is it going to enable you to do? That's the thing that's going to get you excited. So find something that excites you. Write it down, put pictures inside front of yourself is something I couldn't do as the picture side. But get that, keep that in front of you on a daily basis. What that real why is, and make sure it's the real why that gets you excited. That it's not just, hey, this is something that would be cool. No, it should be something that gets you fired up every day. Because once you have that, the rest of it, the doing the hard things becomes easier. And let's face it, you know this, Mark, your audience knows this, that they're in sales. If you're not willing to do the hard things, you're gonna have a really tough time being successful in sales. The second thing, the other thing I would say is look at your habits. Are your habits, your daily habits, how you start your day, the things you do in your day to day activity, are those things that are gonna drive opportunity to you? Are those the things that are going to actually put you in front of the right people to help you move those people to action and help them solve their problems? Or are you just, are you just kind of moving files around and not actually doing things that are going to move the needle? Are the things that you, that you're doing, are they actually moving the ball down the field to Use a sports analogy or are they just kind of. You're in your office eight hours, nine hours a day, so you feel like you're working, but in reality, nothing important is getting done. Change your habits, because if you change your habits, you can change your whole life.
- [11:36]
A
Patrick, there's so much what you said there that is so powerful. I want to unpack several of those things. I want to unpack the morning because I'm a strong advocate. How you start the day quickly tells you how you're going to control the day otherwise. But b, the piece that I want to run with first, and that is you first got to understand your why before you figure out your how. And it. It. It, like you said, you got to paint that picture, so to speak. What's this picture of what it is that I. That. That where I want to be, what I want to achieve. When I know that why, then I can figure out how I'm going to do that. And so many people just jump into the process, Let me fix the process. But that's not going to put any juice in the tank. How do you convey that to people you coach? Because like you said, you get somebody on the phone and they want to talk process, they want to talk process, and you say, hold it, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
- [12:28]
B
Yeah, the biggest, the biggest thing I do is, is I ask a lot of questions, right? And you're. You've been in sales a long time. You, you know, biggest thing you want to do is ask questions. Whatever you're doing when it comes to sales or building a relationship with someone, that's a professional, business relationship. And if you want to find someone's pain points, you want to engage them and ask them a lot of questions and let them tell you the story because they'll. Pretty people like to talk about their problems. If you haven't noticed. You sit next to someone on the airplane, you start asking them questions, it'll be five minutes, they'll tell you their life's problems. I can't tell you, can't even begin to tell you the number of people who've poured out every problem they've ever had from the time they were a child sitting next to me on an airplane simply because I asked a few questions. So asking questions about what drives you, what do you want your life to look like? And I'm going to tell. And you know this mark, but it's very rare that someone has someone ask them that question. Like if you could paint a picture of what you want your life to look like. Six months from now, a year from now, three years from now? What would that be? Let's take the limits away right now. Let's not worry about the money. Let's not worry about the other things. What would your perfect life. And no life is perfect because people are perfect. But if you could paint the picture of the life you want to live, what would that look like? And once you have that now, we can start putting the pieces together of that puzzle of how do we get to make that happen? How can we create the life that you want? And in my work, it's helping people build their business around their life or build their sales career around their life rather than their life around their career. Most people do the opposite. They live their life in the scraps of time left over by the process, rather than building the process around the life that they want to create. And in doing so, they create the life they want, and they can start living every day like every day is a holiday.
- [14:22]
A
I have a sense that that's driven by your faith.
- [14:25]
B
You have a strong 100%.
- [14:28]
A
I love that. Because if you're not anchored with your faith, it's amazing how everything else just. I'm sorry, it just falls apart. I. I love that. Hey, I want to unpack now. This whole morning routine, because I'm a staunch. You know, I. I love. You know, when. You know, when people say, oh, I'm a top performer, I always ask them the question, how do you start your day? And if they can't be very clear as to how they start their day, they're not a top performer, or they
- [14:55]
B
won't be for long. One of the.
- [14:56]
A
Won't be for long. You're right. Oh, yes. Thank you, Patrick. Spot. Yeah. So again, what's your advice for how people should start the day?
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B
I think most of the time, people get up in the morning, at least for most of the people I coach. And most of the people that I. That I've been around, even in the sales industry, they jump right into their day instead of really investing some time, grounding themselves, preparing themselves, and really getting alone. For me, it's getting along with God. I know that everyone won't relate to that, and that's fine. But that's what it is for me, Patrick.
- [15:33]
A
I can relate to that, because I spend every morning. Every morning doing just that.
- [15:36]
B
Yep, There you go. So for me, it's. For me, it's prayer, reading, the Bible, meditation. As a Christian, that's what I do. It's one of my favorite times, if not my Favorite time of the day. And you know, how you start is. Plays a huge role in how you finish. Not just your day, but everything else. If you don't start right and you jump right into. If you wake up and the first thing you do is turn on the news, have fun, that's. It's good luck. It's not going to go well because, let's be honest, we have a. When I was in journalism school, as part of my communications degree, one of the things we used to say is if it bleeds, it leads, right? So even if there's good news out there and there's good news everywhere, it usually doesn't make it to the top. It's not usually in the headlines. So find something, whatever it is for you. It could be music, it could be prayer, it could be meditation that grounds you and really sets the tone for the day. For me, it's a gratitude routine to start before my feet even hit the floor, before I even open my eyes. 10 things I'm grateful for. It's very difficult to be grateful for things and then start out with a bad day. Then it's getting in the Bible, getting in God's word for me, and then meditating on that, praying, and once again with a. With a grateful heart. And then, then for me, I. I want to do some type of exercise. And I, I, you know, for. Whether that's weightlifting, running, or, you know, some AB work. But I try to do something that moves my body every day, at least six days a week. Sometimes on Sunday, I don't. And then I would say the. The other thing is breath work. So I don't. Not everybody, you know, knows about breath work or finds it to be beneficial, but for me, it makes a big, big difference for me. Just breathing, being alone with myself and God and setting the tone for the day. And then I try, you know, as I'm getting ready, then after I start getting ready for my day, taking my shower, you know, eating my breakfast, I put something. If, you know, obviously, if my wife's having a conversation with me, I'll talk to her. I'm not just gonna throw on the audio, but I try to put something on. If I'm by myself for a period of that time, whether it's a video where I can listen to the audio of it, something motivational, something uplifting, something positive. Because if you. I have a chapter in my book. If I can do it, you can do it. It's called Breakfast for your brain. I believe you can feed. I know for a fact Because I've been doing it, and I have times where I haven't done it. If you're feeding your brain something positive in the morning, it's going to. The day is going to go a whole lot better. Or let's put it this way, you have a far, far better shot of that day going the way you want it to go.
- [18:13]
A
Man. Patrick, I'll tell you what. I love the routine. I. I'm with you on every one of those things, except I haven't done the breathing routine. I haven't done that. That's pretty. But I truly believe that I got to have time alone. In fact, if my wife gets up at the same time, I do. Fortunately, she doesn't. I get up much, much earlier because I need that alone time. Because it just makes my day better. Because I feel like now I'm in a position to control the day. You mentioned 10 things that you're grateful for. I've got a notebook sitting right here on the side of my desk, but every morning I write down 10 things I'm grateful for.
- [18:46]
B
Yep. And it's amazing how. It's amazing how you find people who actually are high performers, and they, many of them have the exact same or very similar routines. I wonder why that is.
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A
See, this is the whole thing. It's. You know, what's funny is it's not a deep, dark secret.
- [19:03]
B
No.
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A
It's not some mysterious medication people take or a drink or a food. No. It's just you gotta have a routine and be consistent with it, and that's amazing. Hey, we're running out of time here. Real fast. Absolutely fantastic conversation with you, because I can't. I mean, again, somebody who's overcome the challenges that you have to reach the level of success that you have is amazing. Now, you've got a book out there, right?
- [19:33]
B
Yes. It's called if I can do it, you can do it. Inspiration for eliminating excuses, overcoming challenges, and succeeding in business, in life.
- [19:41]
A
And that sums it up because that's a book only you can write. Because in your background. Yeah.
- [19:46]
B
Yeah. Thank you.
- [19:47]
A
How do people get in touch with you?
- [19:50]
B
Yep. So they can go to patrickngasser.com my last name is E N G A S S E R. But if someone wants to. And I'm going to open up a few slots, waving and waive any fee I have on a strategy sessions specifically for your. Your listeners, your podcast audience. They can go to talkwithpatrick.com and they can jump and book a spot right on my calendar and jump right on my calendar. Talkwithpatrick.com when my executive assistant, assistant Jona reaches out to you, just let her know that you came from the Mark Hunter podcast and she will not send you any invoice. So. But I'd love to talk to some of your audience, people who are serious about growing in their sales career and really want to get to the next level, and that's that. That strategy session is free for your audience. So I appreciate you having me on and I look forward to helping any way I can.
- [20:43]
A
Hey, I'm not going to let you go here because you mentioned the word serious, and I think that's so key. So many people, oh, yeah, I want to do this, but they're never serious. They never make the commitment, the personal commitment to become better. And I think that's only done because for you, it's the adversity. I mean, you had to. And again, I think that's so. I'm glad you dropped the word serious. So, hey, we've been talking today with Patrick Engasser. You have got to reach out to him. Grab his book. What's the title of your book again?
- [21:18]
B
If I can do it, you can do it. Inspiration for eliminating excuses, overcoming challenges, and succeeding in life. It's 20 tips. You can start at any one of those. 20. They're meant to be in order, but they don't have to be. And those are 20 strategies that have made an impact on my life and have helped me get to where I am. And they will work for you, too, if you implement them.
- [21:37]
A
I love it. We're going to put a link to the book in the show notes. You've been listening today to Patrick Engasser. Absolutely. Man who has overcome significant challenges and lives his life. It's amazing, amazing success story. You've been listening to the Sales Hunter podcast. My name is Mark Hunter. Why do we do the show? We do it to help you see and achieve what you didn't think was possible. Hey, would you do me a favor? Leave me a review on your favorite podcast app. Two shows a week, one like this, where we do a deep dive with a subject matter expert. Second show is just me where I take one topic and kind of unpack it for you. Hey, thanks for listening and most of all, great selling.