July 6, 2025 • 45 mins
On this episode of The First Responder Playbook, I sat down with Phil Whitebloom—legendary sales leader and coach with over 40 years of experience driving innovation at companies like Sony. We explored how groundbreaking technology shapes industries, why adaptability is the secret to staying relevant, and how Phil’s hands-on coaching helps leaders and teams build real sales confidence, not just theory. If you want actionable takeaways on leadership, active listening, and growing your impact—this is an episode you can’t miss.
Want to be a guest on The First Responder Playbook: Insights on Leadership and Training? Send Brent Colbert a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1748037097521814b71b1b454
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Guys, welcome to the first responder playbook. I'm
excited. I've got Phil White bloom with me tonight.
Phil has a long career in business. He's with
over 40 years in sales and sales leadership. He's helped build
businesses of all sizes, from startups to Fortune 100s,
breakthrough barriers, and close with confidence. He spent most of his career
(00:24):
in senior leadership and executive roles, including vice president of sales
for Sony Electronics of America where he is twice honored with the
prestigious Samurai award. He's led US Federal government
sales organizations for multiple companies, served
clients worldwide, and drove national growth across industries including
corporate accounts, higher education, sports, thousands
(00:47):
of worship and broadcast television. He's been consistently at the
forefront of innovation, selling and leading through shifts like the introduction of
word processors, the rise of network workstations, the
transition from analog to digital, and the evolution from standard
definition to HD and 4K. Today, through his firm
Bend their consulting services, Phil helps businesses and individuals implement
(01:08):
tactical real world strategies that deliver fast results,
including how to open doors, ask high impact questions,
advance opportunities, and close more sales. He's
especially known for helping owners and salespeople build unshakable sales confidence,
a key contributor to breakthrough performance. This coaching
isn't based on theory. It's grounded in what works. Now, Phil,
(01:31):
I'm excited to have you. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm excited
to be here and be here with the, this platform and with your particular
audience. It's, it's much different than
where I usually show up and, and it's, and it's like, I love
it. Even my wife said, she goes, oh, you're gonna like this one because, uh,
this is your thing. She told me. Absolutely.
(01:54):
So, so let me ask you, how did you get into sales and how did
you work your way up the corporate ladder? So
I went into sales directly out of college, so I was interviewing for
jobs. Where'd you go to college at? At the University of Wisconsin in
Oshkot. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And I still go back there.
I've been. This will be my 20th year of going back and guest teaching and
(02:16):
speaking and things like that. That's awesome. In the fall. Yeah. So whenever you're watching
that, it's in the fall when I usually go back. So anybody. Listen, you're watching
your, your podcast here. And my first job
was in sales and it was selling something called dictation equipment
for the younger people. They have no idea what I'm talking about.
(02:37):
For those who've been around, they'll know.
And then it went from there. So I was as you had mentioned in my
introduction. It was a very nice introduction. Thank you.
I was around for a lot of disrupting technologies. And disrupting
technologies in my definition here are technologies that
(02:58):
change the way things are done. And people were always worried about it was
going to replace their jobs. Everything is now like AI, now it's all
going to replace our jobs. And guess what? The people that want to
move and learn more, they're always going to do well.
And there's always jobs for everybody. You just have to move with the technology
because. And you know, and whatever way
(03:20):
things are going. So you just look for, okay,
what could I do in this area? How could I be valuable? And most of
the time, when you have a technology change or some kind of major change like
that, it actually frees resources up, in
this case, people to do things that were not getting done before because they didn't
have the time. Now this new thing allows them to have the time. So now
(03:42):
companies move them into those roles. So there's always a positive way to
look at things. You could panic and overreact. But as first responders,
I'm sure that, you know, you, all of you who are listening in will know
that the worst thing that could happen is when you let somebody panic, right? Yeah,
absolutely. And I think people get freaked out by technology
when they should look a lot, a lot of times as is, it's more just
(04:03):
helping them be more efficient than taking their jobs
could be right. Or it could, it could be literally, you know, replacing their function.
But that doesn't mean they're going to have to be gone. And, you
know, even in my early career, I was laid off, you know, when I
first showed up at Sony, within the first year and. But I never left. I
had my papers, I never left because I found another role inside the company. And
(04:26):
that set up my entire rest of my career. That change
was almost singularly responsible for what
happened over the next almost 40 years.
Awesome. Can you talk about that? So,
you know, for. I didn't really work for that many companies,
even though I was in the
(04:47):
corporate world. I started in 1980
and I actually
retired officially from the corporate world during COVID and that
lasted all of about two months. And I started
this coaching business to help people out, to give me something to
do, keep me stimulated and things like that, and help others. And it turned into
(05:09):
a business by accident. And all of a sudden I had clients and I had
to develop a business. But in between there,
it was really great role. I was fortunate that I was
promoted to A sales management role when I was in my early 30s
and now I'm 67. And
so that was a long time ago. But during that time
(05:33):
I worked with some excellent people and,
and almost all of them were really good and I learned a lot from them.
And for the few that were not that great, you know, I learned a lot
from them too. And so, but,
but I was able to participate with
so many different applications and so different, so many different
(05:55):
markets and it's almost like you, you name something and
I could honestly name
an application, a customer, whatever. If you want to talk about first responders
and things, everybody from all, all
branches of federal law enforcement for sure. And then
I was also responsible for state and local governments and I had
(06:18):
salespeople all over the place. So it wasn't me, you know, by myself.
There was, there's a whole team plus all the support people and
everything from Law Enforcement Videographers
association, which are the, the folks that
put their lives on the line going in, you know, putting
(06:38):
surveillance devices, let's call it for bad people. And it's not
an easy thing or a safe thing to be doing, but somebody's, but they do
it for our benefit all the way to, you know, 911
was an incredibly terrible
time and many first responders were killed
and my team and
(06:59):
myself and Sony did an excellent job. I mean like just
dropped all the bureaucracy and did everything can in New York
in real time for a very long time to take care of
everything, especially the fire marshals and the fire department there
and, and, and the FBI and others.
So then there was also things that were
(07:22):
not quite as dramatic that, that were. But you know, helping
National Institutes of Health with technology to help them find cures for
diseases and all kinds of things out there. You know, there's all kinds of stuff
going on there. Supported the White House from Ronald Reagan
through Barack Obama and that was,
and every, every military action
(07:45):
we part of and
things at Smithsonian and things with, you know,
very cool things with pharmaceutical companies bringing them new
technologies to help them sell their products and all kinds of
stuff. So we go on and on and on and I've said very few specifics
only because we laugh for time and I don't want to put your audience to
(08:07):
sleep. Yeah. So what in your opinion
is, I mean almost 40 something years. What,
what do you think was the most impactful technology change
during your time? Well, certainly going
into chips now that goes way back when, you know, there were tubes
(08:28):
and cameras and video cameras and things like that. And
so that brought on the ability to miniaturize
and improve things. That was probably
the foundation for everything else that came behind.
And as the
(08:48):
quality improved, it's always, they say, like with high definition. Well,
we would never use high definition for news. And why would news ever need high
definition? Well, now you can do in 4K, right?
Because it's always that. But the miniaturization of everything
was really dramatic. And then all the analog shifting to digital,
and there we go from there, especially with film cameras going
(09:11):
to digital cameras. I was part of that entire transition. And
I mean, there were organizations and agencies that said,
we'll never get away from film, never, ever, ever. And
that didn't, you know, that didn't last. I remember when
that started, that transition started to happen because that was right around the time
I graduated high school, started going to college. And I remember
(09:35):
growing up like we would carry those cheap disposable cameras.
You'd get at Walmart and take them, get them developed. And then it seemed
like within a couple years those were gone and all you were doing
was digital cameras, you know. Right. Well, you know, you had, you
had to get the, for the quality to get there. So it's
amazing. There used to be a thing called broadcast
(09:57):
quality. It was. And if it
wasn't broadcast quality, then there was no way a television station was ever going to
air that. And, and, and especially Sony,
who was all about the quality at the highest level.
There was such high standards to meet. And then
during the first Iraq war, when all
(10:20):
of a sudden cell phone video started showing up from the
war zones, and that kind of
video quality would have never been aired before that.
But now this was real world news coming in real time
over the cellular network and it was
getting aired. And that changed everything from
(10:43):
an, from an information communication standpoint.
And all of a sudden it wasn't broadcast quality was as important,
was good enough, which was something that was tough for some of us to
adjust to, you know, hearing that it's good enough. And then also cost
is always an issue. And that technology was way less expensive
to run and the ability for
(11:05):
redundancy and things like that that were really important were now available.
And as it all moved into the same thing
as the IT world, you know, it kind of merged, just different applications.
So I hope I answered your question. Oh, yeah, you definitely did. And I, I
love that because I remember that that's definitely like my
generation of when things started to change. And
(11:28):
I very vividly remember that. Yeah, but it was a
game changer. I have to Tell you one time during
President Bush won during his term,
the Emperor of Japan had died.
And so he was going to the funeral. And when the president
travels, at least my days of doing this, the
(11:51):
advance team would go out ahead and they would go
take pictures, film pictures of everything,
the routes and everything else. And then they would, it was like television. They would
put it on a plane with an agent and they'd fly it back to Washington
or someplace here. And then they would add. They developed a film and they would
analyze everything and they would plan out the routes and everything, all this kind of
(12:13):
stuff. And then we come out with this technology. It
wasn't even digital, it was analog and it was a spinning disc called
Mavica that would go into this filmless camera. And, and for the first time,
you could do nonlinear type of work in a photographic
camera. So what we did is we set up, we sent the
agents out with this camera from the advanced team
(12:36):
and then they put it in. We set up one,
the transmission system, which worked at 2400 baud.
You guys could google that or do an AI search and learn what that means
if you don't know. And, but it was,
it was super high speed at the time. And right now you would, you would
throw your, your system away instantaneously,
(12:58):
but they would put it in there and then they transmitted that
information back from the US Embassy in Tokyo
back to the advanced team office and the White House property.
And, and they were. Overnight, they were able to get the pictures back
without having to put somebody on a plane. It was the first time that had
ever been done. And it really changed on how they did these things.
(13:20):
And it was secure because it went over secure phone lines. You know, they put
it into their secure phone line systems. So it was a
pretty game
changing kind of time. Yeah, I didn't know that. That's
awesome. No, no, nobody really does. And there's a bigger part of, there's a longer
part of that story which is kind of funny that. But we won't go in
(13:42):
there because. I can always have you back for part two.
Yeah, you go. So tell me, how did you get into
the coaching space, especially in
sales? I could see the benefit of it. How did that come about
for you? So somewhat
accidentally, I would love to tell you, I had this big plan and I
(14:03):
implemented this plan and here we are today with all the things going on, which
I could share with you guys if you're interested, but the.
As I started my LLC, my limited
liability company in
2021, but
it wasn't focused. I just had it. And so
(14:26):
I started doing some contract work during COVID at this
time. And I took on a contract with a company based in Israel
because they couldn't get into the United States and I was in their technology space.
So I. For one year I had a contract and I
went contract ended. I didn't continue with them, but that's when
I just retired. Retired. And so when I was sitting around,
(14:50):
I was talking to people and I were talking about what would help and
talk about sales coaching. And they thought that was a great idea.
So it was a bad time to really launch into something around
Thanksgiving and in December because there's just way too
much going on. So I really got it going in
January, almost the first days of January 2023, when I
(15:12):
joined the Chamber of Commerce and introduced myself and I got two
signed clients introducing myself. And then I decided I have to start a business
because I didn't have anything going. And now there's all kinds of things that
I've done and I'm doing and transitioning into.
But that's how I got into it. It was really. And for
a second, I'd like to just share with everybody that this is not sales
(15:35):
training. And I'm very intentional about this.
And I tell everybody that sales training is really important.
And across the country and across the world, there's so many great trainers
out there and there's so many great programs that you get in person or online.
But what I do is I help people in need right now. And I don't
want to go as far as saying I'm a first responder
(15:58):
for companies that are having sales problems. But
it's not a bad analogy. I just don't want to diminish the role of a
first responder. So I won't go there all the way. But it is a kind
of a good analogy where I go in and help them because
they're in business now, they need results now. And training is very
linear. You start at the beginning. How do you
(16:20):
get in the door, how to do these things, and all the way through to
how to close and hopefully how to retain
customers and clients. But that doesn't mean you're gonna help them with
what they're working on now, because they're gonna be all over the place. They're in
business now, they have their challenges either as
a whole and they're not driving sales like they need to and they have to
and they want to, or they're stuck with not being able
(16:43):
to do something well, in the sales process. And Brent, one of the things I
hear more often than anything, my people are not good closers or I am not
a good closer. And the reality is the closing's not happening.
It's not because they're bad closers. It's because the customers, the
prospects, are not ready to be closed yet. They haven't done all the right things
in the middle. And so when I go in there, I
(17:05):
purposely do not have a curriculum because every job is custom
based on what their needs are. And then I eventually coach myself how to
work, you know, either because it worked or it didn't. Most of them work.
So. So how'd I do? I
love that. And can you kind of touch on.
Because I, I feel like, especially in the middle part of the country, coaching is,
(17:27):
is new. I actually just got my coaching
certification and I'm, I'm working towards my ICF certification.
And you know, I come out there and I interact with these people
and they don't know what coaching is. Can you kind of explain from your point
of view, especially coming from a consulting training background, the
differentiation there? So
(17:51):
coaching is first you have to have expertise
in what you're coaching on. It's not like, you know, buying
a franchise per se, and then, you know, in a field
that you didn't know anything about and you learn and the franchise
corporation trains you and everything else like that. But when you're coaching,
these people are expecting you to know
(18:14):
what you're talking about and from experience. Right.
And it's not about the book stuff. The book stuff is important
to a point, but it really is about
active listening and then giving them real world solutions that's going to
help. And active listening is not a cliche. And how
to ask high impact questions and, and it's all
(18:36):
about helping them. So for all of you who are
listening to this podcast and if I'm to
ask you right now to say out loud,
why did you choose to be a first responder
and I could hear the majority of you say, to
help others. So
(19:01):
sales is all about helping others. Coaching
is all about helping others you already have.
The most important thing going for you is that you
are passionate and sincere and have already given of
yourself to help others. And that's what coaching is about.
It's about helping them to get better. You think of
(19:24):
sports coach is a great analogy. You know, sport coach is not out there
to yell at people for the sake of yelling at them. They're pushing them to
do better. And you have to win and when you're coaching somebody, you
have to win. So this is. So
it's about really listening. You
know, when you go out on your first responder call and you're with
(19:46):
somebody who's hurt or there's something wrong, you're. Even though you could may be
able to see them bleeding or have something broken or whatever it is, you're still
asking them what's going on. What do you hurt? What's. You know, tell me what's
happened. If they could communicate what's going on. If they can't communicate, you're doing all
this stuff to try and find out what's going on. It's the same thing you
do as a coach. You have to find out what's going on before you could
(20:08):
help them. You can't just walk in there and say, oh,
I see what's going on. Well, you have no idea. You don't even know.
For example, when I was doing a coaching session for a,
believe it or not, a plumbing company with all the plumbers, because they have to
sell, they have competition, they give quotes, they have to close
(20:28):
them. And, you know, one person was up like this, and if you're
not watching us and in video on audio,
I've got my hands folded across my chest and I said, you know, you have
to read the body language. And that's a very defensive thing, although you can't make
that assumption. So I turned to the person and I asked her, I said, I
said, have I, you know, am I talking about something that's
(20:50):
making you uncomfortable or are you not agreeing with
it and you're unhappy, or are you just cold? She goes, I'm freezing.
And I said, see? So you couldn't make a decision. You couldn't assume
because her arms were crossed that she was in a
defensive mode. She was cold and it was cold in there.
So, you know, that's what you have to do in coaching. The first thing is,
(21:13):
is find out what's going on and what the desired result is
supposed to be. Well, I think he hit on something very
important, is that when you're coaching
someone, one, you absolutely have to be an active
listener. And that is something paramount that
can come, that we can use in the first responder world. I mean, that's
(21:34):
95% of our job is listening to what's, you know, these people in their
time of need, they want somebody to listen to them. But what you
really need to realize is don't go in there and just listen to what
they're saying. Watch their body language. You know, a lot of
times people will tell you something and there will be more meaning in that story
that they tell you, and you got to pay attention to those little bit of
(21:56):
clues. So I think absolutely is just hammering home
the, the importance of active listening to first responders.
But I also really love the fact
that as a
supervisor, there is a very
good implementation of coaching ideals, I think, to your people
(22:18):
beneath you. Because, you know, what
are the two things that affect everything? Your life and your career.
And a lot of times in the first responder world, we're told, hey,
you know, kind of check your life at the door, come to work, do your
job, and go home. And to be honest with you, that's not a
fair, not a fair thing to happen because it
(22:40):
doesn't matter how much you check it at the door, your life's still going to
affect your job and vice versa. If your job's bothering you, it's going to
affect you at home. And those supervisors and first
responder agencies are the perfect person to be these coaches,
be it career coaches and life coaches kind of combined
because, hey, where do you want to be six months from now?
(23:03):
How do you want to get there? You know, where do you want to be
three years from now? And it's helping them build out that plan
of success in their career because you, you got to think,
I mean, your first few years, especially being a cop, and I'm sure it's the
same, and being a medic and firefighter, you just want to go fast and do
fun stuff at the end of that, I mean, you really do. But after that,
(23:25):
you kind of hit that wall of, well, what do I do now? You
know, like, how do I grow myself? And some guys will
just stay there because they don't want to, you know, rock the boat
or jump over the wall. And I think, like, coaching programs
could very help with that because these
people don't have that guidance
(23:47):
to take that next step. Does that make sense? Yes. And
there's so many layers to this, and I've lived it myself.
I was never exposed to entrepreneurship. I was always in the corporate
world. And I, and I share with
my friends and with my wife, we're just talking about this and said, I've
learned as much in the last two and a half years
(24:09):
as I did in the 40 plus years prior. But it was
as experiences the 40 years earlier that allowed me to get to the point
where I'm learning all these new things and totally
energized at my age and how many years I'VE been in.
I mean, I'm flying fully gung ho. And
the thing that everybody needs to remember is that it is
(24:32):
also a business. And there's so much to running the business and everything else. And
that's the part that could be overwhelming. And it's really good to.
I always say never hire a coach that doesn't have a coach. I have a
coach and I pay my coach a lot of money and I
learn from my coach and it's reading all the
books and I do audiobooks and, and, and constantly
(24:54):
and, and then get it, get out there and get the experience.
Because you have to do all the business
stuff too to have it running correctly and everything else. And
so you really need to know what's going on. But you could be a coach
in different ways. You could be an entrepreneurial coach like I
am. I'm, you know, self employed, building my own business. I have a
(25:16):
team that I put around me and adding to
that team. Or you could be a coach going
to work for another company that specializes in placing these people for
people in the first responder world. Unfortunately,
there's a huge need for you in the private sector. And let me just
say the private sector is anybody that you're going to work for,
(25:38):
you know, from. That's not getting a government check of some kind.
And because everybody
needs religious organizations. You know, we have
security all the time. Who would have thought it that we have to have armed
guards in our religious organizations? Right. It's a, it's a terrible shame.
You know, explain to the kids why there's, you know, law
(26:01):
enforcement in there walking around in the hallways
and so, and what's going on in the corporate
world. I mean, look, you know, at the time of this recording, you know, just
look what happened out west with the, with the ambush on the
firefighters. Yeah, I mean, it's like it doesn't
(26:22):
get any crazier than that. So. But so there's a real need
for executives and businesses
as well as not for profits
and everybody else to get quality consulting
and coaching from those who have been there.
And
(26:46):
those people are really listened to and they're very
well respected. I always tell people that
99% of the people in the world are really good people. It's just that the
1% of the bad people make 99% of the news.
And it's the same thing with first
(27:07):
responders and law enforcement too. When you have a bad officer,
well, then it makes it look like everybody's bad. And it was one out of,
you know, A million. So not, not 900,000
other million. It was one. It's just all over the news worldwide, so
instantaneously. So. So what I say is,
you know, I always like giving
(27:29):
takeaways, you know, something to help. That's my promise to everybody when we talk and
when we meet and, and for this is think about where your passion is.
Think about what it is. You know, if you close your eyes and you say,
this is what I really would love to do as a coach or whatever
you're going to do, don't worry about, don't start thinking about all the things
that won't that will prevent you from doing that. Just answer that
(27:51):
question. And then it's about finding who could help
you to get there. Notice I didn't say how to do it. It's really
about the who's. And there's a great book out there. Everybody's called who, not how.
Download it, buy it, whatever. It's a fantastic book
because so many people are hung up on the how. And it's really who could
help you get there. And
(28:15):
for those people who say, hey, you can't do this or
you'll never make any money at it or why would you do that? You know,
why would you take on all that stress? Those people are not
helping you. Okay? You say to them,
you are my, you are my family. You
are not helping me. I know you're trying to protect me because you love me.
(28:38):
However, I will see you on the holidays. I'm going to go find somebody who's
going to help me to reach this dream. And that's what we do in
sales. That's what I coach everybody on. And that's what we do when we're helping
others is to achieve things that are very difficult for them to
achieve for whatever the reason. And all of you
have plenty to give in that area.
(28:59):
Absolutely. I, I want
to get your thoughts on how we can implement
coaching in, in leadership levels, you
know, because I feel like a lot of times,
especially in the first responder world, I'm sure it happens in the business world too,
is sometimes people get moved up the ladder
(29:22):
not because of what they know, it's because they've been there the longest.
And I want to get. Pick your brain for a second, see what your thoughts
are and implementing coaching ideas into like leadership circles. So,
Brent, could we do a role play? Yeah, absolutely. We do a role
play. Okay. So the reason I say this is
that it's not just leadership roles, it's any role. The most important
(29:44):
thing before we jump into the role play is that the leader
has to be willing to accept coaching and want coaching and want
to do better and everything else. And there are plenty of
people out there who are looking for that help. Because one thing with
leadership, for all of you who are in leadership or have
been there in the past or thinking about it, it's lonely, it's not a cliche
(30:07):
because who could you talk to? You can't talk to your team
because they're the ones, they're expecting you to make these decisions. You need
to get input from your team. But when you need to bounce something off or
you need to make a tough decision, you need to lay people off, you may
need to fire somebody, you may need to reassign,
restructure and things that are going on and you have to.
(30:28):
Who do you talk to? Right? How do you adjust? The world
is changing for all of us. I just heard a thing this morning.
I was watching something as stoic, being stoic and
it was a great thing. One of the ancients said
you never twice step into the same river. And
(30:50):
when you think about that, it was saying even if you stepped in, stepped out
and then stepped immediately back in, you're stepping into a different river because all that
water and everything that was flowing has already gone by. And it's
the same thing that happens, all this planning, everything is great until
it's not. And usually when you get on scene, right,
oh, we got this great plan where you go in and it's like, oh my
(31:12):
God, nothing's laid up like the playbook said. And then you gotta,
you know, trust your gut, take your experience and go
do things right. So same thing with the so if we roleplay for a second
and I'll be a salesperson
selling coaching to for leadership and you'll
be the prospect, the customer. Okay. Okay.
(31:35):
So I'm gonna walk in and you know why I'm there so we
don't have to get hold through the whole thing where I'm gonna talk my way,
you know, why I'm there and everything else. We're talking and watch what happens.
And let's say you're a little bit skeptical just in the nearby but you're open
minded enough. So. Okay, here we go. Brent. So you're still Brent, I'm still Phil
and you're leading a organization,
(31:57):
first responder organization, whatever it is you want to do and say, hey Brent,
really thrilled that you, you, you know, you agreed to meet with me
today. And let me ask you right up
front here Is what were your, what are
your expectations for this meeting? What are you hoping to to gain?
And if it's say to get me out of here as fast as possible, that's
(32:20):
okay too, right? It's, it's to take
new ideas and implement them in my organization. Okay.
Okay. But I imagine you've been doing that all along though, right?
You have, you have, you know, tell me about your
some new ideas for things that you have successfully implemented.
(32:41):
We got new body cameras at our agency and we got new tasers at our
agency. Yeah. And then was that a successful
implementation? Yes. And what made it successful?
They work. No issues with them. The
employees, like they're, you know, they're easy to use.
So I feel like so far they're working good. So what role of that did
(33:04):
you play in that as a leader as opposed to just something that
showed up and they tech guys made sure it was all working and
hooked it up to everybody. So what as a leader, what was your role in
that whole process? Help picking out, you
know, the right technology for the agency overall. Right.
Okay. And how do you feel about that program overall?
(33:27):
Sounds like so far it's going well. Right? It's a, it's
always kind of nerve wracking because it's a big purchase, but so far so
good. Good. So there's a lot of things you did, right? Correct? Yes. Yes.
Right. So now there's all kinds of
decisions that you have to make and everything else. Share a
story with me. Maybe it's one you're working on right now where
(33:51):
you're struggling or things aren't going as well as you wanted, or
you're even struggling making a decision, whatever it is. I don't want to put all
these ideas in your head, but share with me, you know, something that isn't going
as smoothly or you're concerned about not going smoothly. Is that as
that one we just discussed. Making sure that we have
enough manpower out on the streets. Okay.
(34:12):
And so what's the. What's it
seems like such an obvious easy one in some ways. Obviously it's not. What is
the challenge there for you and what is the challenge for you as a leader
in this one? Obviously
there's a lot of negative publicity these days about law enforcement.
So recruitment in general and then to keep the employees
(34:34):
is the retention is tough.
Competing with the private sector in pay and
just burnout in general, those are the main ones that we deal with.
Okay. And so this is a real live situation you're
dealing with today. Is that Safe to say. Okay, yes.
So great. And so if
(34:58):
we were working together, and I say if,
what would you. How could I help you? The best. And what would
that mean to you? Help me
manage my time, you know, help me,
you know, make sure to go through a smooth decision making process,
(35:19):
Stuff like that. Okay. And
what's, what's, what's impacting your time now and what's.
And where do you think the process needs improvement?
Just everything. I mean, you know, with trying to retain your employees
and recruit new employees, plus, you know, upgrading the
(35:39):
technology all at once is, is a lot of time that takes up your day.
And then, you know, there's everything else that goes along with running the agency
and so maybe like delegate, start delegating some of those tasks out
instead of just handling all, you know, just my office
would be. Maybe be a start. Okay. And then when that's all
(35:59):
working for you, what will it look like? What. How will you feel? You
know, what will allow you to do next that's really important
to you?
Did we get lost? Oh,
you're on mute. Weird. There you
go. Awesome. Technology. We're back. There you go. There you
(36:22):
go. So by the way, I was just giving you the winning lottery
numbers and I'm sorry you couldn't hear them. So they've already gone on. So
anyways,
anyways. Can you hear me now? Yes, I can hear you now.
Okay, great. So I was just asking, you know, when all that's working
(36:46):
problem.
Okay, that's better. Could you still hear me?
Okay, I can't hear you, but
(37:07):
I can see your lips moving. Oh, I hear
something.
Hear me now. There you go. Awesome. I don't know what's going on.
Gotta love technology. All right, sounds good. What did you hear last.
Was basically, you know, what all I could do to like
(37:30):
help manage my time a little bit better. Okay. And then,
you know, and then how it. So we would take that further on and,
and when we get to. So we're going to go through some of the
things and say, okay, so Brent, how
would you like to get started working with me? What would work best
for you? Did you want to have a detailed meeting, you know, that we
(37:53):
could schedule either. I actually have some time tomorrow or
early next week. What would work best for
you? Probably
early next week. Okay, great. So let's come out of the role play.
Yep. What did you like?
You actually were very personable about it.
(38:16):
That's what, that's what I really took away from it, is that it didn't feel
like you Were pressuring me to like go in any direction. It was more of
like, I'm here to help. Right. And this is a, this
is a real question, okay? And
I'm not suggesting that you're going to hire me right now or maybe
ever. But what I'm saying is if you were looking for
(38:38):
somebody to be your leadership
sales coach, would you consider me? Yeah.
And why? Because you made a connection. You made that rapport with
me pretty quickly. Right? And now I want you to think about this. And for
everybody who's listening, what did I tell you?
How much did I talk? What did I tell you? It was mostly
(39:00):
questioning. I didn't tell you a thing. But you're willing to hire me. You've already
grown trust and everything else. This is what I coach
and this is amazing. And I
ask people questions for 30 or more minutes and especially other
salespeople and business leaders and they say,
well, I don't want to sound that salesy or because for you
(39:23):
guys. And by the way, ladies, I call everybody a guy. My dog
would be a guy. Everybody's a guy. So
that the, that it's about
the asking the questions. And by asking, you'll learn. And see
here you were ready to bring me on board. You could, you, you're willing to
do that right now. And how much do you know about me other than what
(39:46):
you read in the intro? But how much did you learn from me in this?
Nothing. I didn't say a word. I just asked you the questions. And
then we would get into it a little bit more about some ideas and the
things I could do because now I understand where your issue is
to a point. And then you know, because I asked all these questions and not.
And I asked you what was called high impact questions. So a high impact.
(40:07):
So I'm sure in first responder training
and stuff they talk about don't ask yes, no questions, close ended questions, because they
don't tell you anything, right? You ask 10 people, do you like my
shirt? Or you know, everybody who likes my shirt, raise your hand, say
yes. Everybody who doesn't like my shirt, raise your hand, saying no.
And no matter how you answer, it doesn't tell me a thing
(40:30):
or anybody else, right? It's like if I say tell me what you
like best about my shirt. And then if I come back and say, tell me
what you would change if you could change something about my shirt.
I didn't say tell me what you don't like because people remember negative things. But
if you say then they do. In A positive way. Now you're learning about it.
So when I say asked you a couple of questions, I said, I asked you
(40:50):
a question, I said and then tell me why you answered that way. That's a
high impact question now. And a high impact question. So now you've got an open
ended question where they're telling you more but then they're going to explain
more about it and then you may ask more a deeper question beyond that.
And these are the skills that you
as first responders already have. You
(41:13):
just don't know it. And that's one of the things I love about what I
do with coaching is because my thing is I learned what's really works best for
everybody I talk with and I leverage that. I don't focus on
what you don't do well. I mean if there's something that's
blatant, I mean then you go ahead and you fix that thing. But
you focus on everybody's strengths and you build on those strengths. And, and
(41:33):
people respond very positively to that as opposed to somebody
who's always telling them what's, you know, what's wrong with them. And
nobody likes being around those people. Right, right, nobody. And,
and, and you're not going to want that. Especially you know, if you're a leader
and you have an ego and you have, and you're, if
you're, you know, worried about your job because you're living, you live in a political
(41:55):
type of environment, doesn't have to be in political life to be in politics.
Believe me, I was in plenty in the corporate world and, but
you stay focused on those you're trying to help and that
is you have that skill. And I'll tell you the, the
biggest thing is, is that if you're going to go in for your
business for yourself, you know, get help
(42:18):
because there's a lot to it even from all kinds of stuff from invoicing,
bookkeeping, you know, I'm not scaring anybody away here. I am telling you
there's, I
named my company Been There Consulting Services for a reason
and I've been there through a lot of stuff and I'm still going through it
and through a lot of great stuff. But I
(42:40):
also learned and I made some pretty
significant financial bad decisions during my growth period here
and it could be done. And
so that's my
spiel there, Brent. What else could I, how could I help you? How, what else
could I do? I love that. Well, as we wrap
(43:04):
up, where is the, where can the people reach out to you
at? And where can they get your book at? Okay, well, thank you for asking.
So they can reach out to me at. My
website is. You can hit me on the Contact us page. It's been there.
All one word. B E E N T H E R E C S
(43:25):
Charlie Sierra or consulting services. So been there
cs.com and you go right there. Or you could send me an email
directly. Please just go right ahead and send it to Philin there.
CS.com I love to hear from you. Put something in the subject line to
say, hey, I heard you on the first responder playbook with. With Brett
and that's the best way. And I respond
(43:47):
and, and, and my book is
Handling Objections Clues for closing the sale and it's doing great. And this is on
Amazon so you could just put in Handling Objections and Clues for
Closing the Sale. You'll see if you're looking at it on video, this is what
it looks like. And I really do appreciate you doing that. And
this really helps a lot. Way beyond business.
(44:08):
And I say that because of the. The things people call me with
everybody, even from somebody who was going through a terrible divorce and she said, fill
your book. Help me get through my divorce. And it was like, who would have
thought when I put this book together that that was going to be one of
the applications. But when you're dealing with people who and how to
head off objections before they happen, it's called pre handling.
(44:29):
Big deal. And it really is powerful. Well, I'm going
to put a link to both of them once the episode's live. I will put
it in the episode description as well so that way everybody can find it. Yeah.
Phil, it's been my pleasure tonight. Thank you so much for joining me and
you're always welcome back. Okay. Oh, yeah. Thank you. It was an honor. And I
can't believe how fast the time went by. It was. I really appreciate you
(44:51):
asking me to be here and I. And thank you to everyone for your
service. It's greatly appreciated. Thank you so much. Have a good night.
Thank you too.
Guys, welcome to the first responder playbook. I'm
excited. I've got Phil White bloom with me tonight.
Phil has a long career in business. He's with
over 40 years in sales and sales leadership. He's helped build
businesses of all sizes, from startups to Fortune 100s,
breakthrough barriers, and close with confidence. He spent most of his career
(00:24):
in senior leadership and executive roles, including vice president of sales
for Sony Electronics of America where he is twice honored with the
prestigious Samurai award. He's led US Federal government
sales organizations for multiple companies, served
clients worldwide, and drove national growth across industries including
corporate accounts, higher education, sports, thousands
(00:47):
of worship and broadcast television. He's been consistently at the
forefront of innovation, selling and leading through shifts like the introduction of
word processors, the rise of network workstations, the
transition from analog to digital, and the evolution from standard
definition to HD and 4K. Today, through his firm
Bend their consulting services, Phil helps businesses and individuals implement
(01:08):
tactical real world strategies that deliver fast results,
including how to open doors, ask high impact questions,
advance opportunities, and close more sales. He's
especially known for helping owners and salespeople build unshakable sales confidence,
a key contributor to breakthrough performance. This coaching
isn't based on theory. It's grounded in what works. Now, Phil,
(01:31):
I'm excited to have you. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm excited
to be here and be here with the, this platform and with your particular
audience. It's, it's much different than
where I usually show up and, and it's, and it's like, I love
it. Even my wife said, she goes, oh, you're gonna like this one because, uh,
this is your thing. She told me. Absolutely.
(01:54):
So, so let me ask you, how did you get into sales and how did
you work your way up the corporate ladder? So
I went into sales directly out of college, so I was interviewing for
jobs. Where'd you go to college at? At the University of Wisconsin in
Oshkot. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And I still go back there.
I've been. This will be my 20th year of going back and guest teaching and
(02:16):
speaking and things like that. That's awesome. In the fall. Yeah. So whenever you're watching
that, it's in the fall when I usually go back. So anybody. Listen, you're watching
your, your podcast here. And my first job
was in sales and it was selling something called dictation equipment
for the younger people. They have no idea what I'm talking about.
(02:37):
For those who've been around, they'll know.
And then it went from there. So I was as you had mentioned in my
introduction. It was a very nice introduction. Thank you.
I was around for a lot of disrupting technologies. And disrupting
technologies in my definition here are technologies that
(02:58):
change the way things are done. And people were always worried about it was
going to replace their jobs. Everything is now like AI, now it's all
going to replace our jobs. And guess what? The people that want to
move and learn more, they're always going to do well.
And there's always jobs for everybody. You just have to move with the technology
because. And you know, and whatever way
(03:20):
things are going. So you just look for, okay,
what could I do in this area? How could I be valuable? And most of
the time, when you have a technology change or some kind of major change like
that, it actually frees resources up, in
this case, people to do things that were not getting done before because they didn't
have the time. Now this new thing allows them to have the time. So now
(03:42):
companies move them into those roles. So there's always a positive way to
look at things. You could panic and overreact. But as first responders,
I'm sure that, you know, you, all of you who are listening in will know
that the worst thing that could happen is when you let somebody panic, right? Yeah,
absolutely. And I think people get freaked out by technology
when they should look a lot, a lot of times as is, it's more just
(04:03):
helping them be more efficient than taking their jobs
could be right. Or it could, it could be literally, you know, replacing their function.
But that doesn't mean they're going to have to be gone. And, you
know, even in my early career, I was laid off, you know, when I
first showed up at Sony, within the first year and. But I never left. I
had my papers, I never left because I found another role inside the company. And
(04:26):
that set up my entire rest of my career. That change
was almost singularly responsible for what
happened over the next almost 40 years.
Awesome. Can you talk about that? So,
you know, for. I didn't really work for that many companies,
even though I was in the
(04:47):
corporate world. I started in 1980
and I actually
retired officially from the corporate world during COVID and that
lasted all of about two months. And I started
this coaching business to help people out, to give me something to
do, keep me stimulated and things like that, and help others. And it turned into
(05:09):
a business by accident. And all of a sudden I had clients and I had
to develop a business. But in between there,
it was really great role. I was fortunate that I was
promoted to A sales management role when I was in my early 30s
and now I'm 67. And
so that was a long time ago. But during that time
(05:33):
I worked with some excellent people and,
and almost all of them were really good and I learned a lot from them.
And for the few that were not that great, you know, I learned a lot
from them too. And so, but,
but I was able to participate with
so many different applications and so different, so many different
(05:55):
markets and it's almost like you, you name something and
I could honestly name
an application, a customer, whatever. If you want to talk about first responders
and things, everybody from all, all
branches of federal law enforcement for sure. And then
I was also responsible for state and local governments and I had
(06:18):
salespeople all over the place. So it wasn't me, you know, by myself.
There was, there's a whole team plus all the support people and
everything from Law Enforcement Videographers
association, which are the, the folks that
put their lives on the line going in, you know, putting
(06:38):
surveillance devices, let's call it for bad people. And it's not
an easy thing or a safe thing to be doing, but somebody's, but they do
it for our benefit all the way to, you know, 911
was an incredibly terrible
time and many first responders were killed
and my team and
(06:59):
myself and Sony did an excellent job. I mean like just
dropped all the bureaucracy and did everything can in New York
in real time for a very long time to take care of
everything, especially the fire marshals and the fire department there
and, and, and the FBI and others.
So then there was also things that were
(07:22):
not quite as dramatic that, that were. But you know, helping
National Institutes of Health with technology to help them find cures for
diseases and all kinds of things out there. You know, there's all kinds of stuff
going on there. Supported the White House from Ronald Reagan
through Barack Obama and that was,
and every, every military action
(07:45):
we part of and
things at Smithsonian and things with, you know,
very cool things with pharmaceutical companies bringing them new
technologies to help them sell their products and all kinds of
stuff. So we go on and on and on and I've said very few specifics
only because we laugh for time and I don't want to put your audience to
(08:07):
sleep. Yeah. So what in your opinion
is, I mean almost 40 something years. What,
what do you think was the most impactful technology change
during your time? Well, certainly going
into chips now that goes way back when, you know, there were tubes
(08:28):
and cameras and video cameras and things like that. And
so that brought on the ability to miniaturize
and improve things. That was probably
the foundation for everything else that came behind.
And as the
(08:48):
quality improved, it's always, they say, like with high definition. Well,
we would never use high definition for news. And why would news ever need high
definition? Well, now you can do in 4K, right?
Because it's always that. But the miniaturization of everything
was really dramatic. And then all the analog shifting to digital,
and there we go from there, especially with film cameras going
(09:11):
to digital cameras. I was part of that entire transition. And
I mean, there were organizations and agencies that said,
we'll never get away from film, never, ever, ever. And
that didn't, you know, that didn't last. I remember when
that started, that transition started to happen because that was right around the time
I graduated high school, started going to college. And I remember
(09:35):
growing up like we would carry those cheap disposable cameras.
You'd get at Walmart and take them, get them developed. And then it seemed
like within a couple years those were gone and all you were doing
was digital cameras, you know. Right. Well, you know, you had, you
had to get the, for the quality to get there. So it's
amazing. There used to be a thing called broadcast
(09:57):
quality. It was. And if it
wasn't broadcast quality, then there was no way a television station was ever going to
air that. And, and, and especially Sony,
who was all about the quality at the highest level.
There was such high standards to meet. And then
during the first Iraq war, when all
(10:20):
of a sudden cell phone video started showing up from the
war zones, and that kind of
video quality would have never been aired before that.
But now this was real world news coming in real time
over the cellular network and it was
getting aired. And that changed everything from
(10:43):
an, from an information communication standpoint.
And all of a sudden it wasn't broadcast quality was as important,
was good enough, which was something that was tough for some of us to
adjust to, you know, hearing that it's good enough. And then also cost
is always an issue. And that technology was way less expensive
to run and the ability for
(11:05):
redundancy and things like that that were really important were now available.
And as it all moved into the same thing
as the IT world, you know, it kind of merged, just different applications.
So I hope I answered your question. Oh, yeah, you definitely did. And I, I
love that because I remember that that's definitely like my
generation of when things started to change. And
(11:28):
I very vividly remember that. Yeah, but it was a
game changer. I have to Tell you one time during
President Bush won during his term,
the Emperor of Japan had died.
And so he was going to the funeral. And when the president
travels, at least my days of doing this, the
(11:51):
advance team would go out ahead and they would go
take pictures, film pictures of everything,
the routes and everything else. And then they would, it was like television. They would
put it on a plane with an agent and they'd fly it back to Washington
or someplace here. And then they would add. They developed a film and they would
analyze everything and they would plan out the routes and everything, all this kind of
(12:13):
stuff. And then we come out with this technology. It
wasn't even digital, it was analog and it was a spinning disc called
Mavica that would go into this filmless camera. And, and for the first time,
you could do nonlinear type of work in a photographic
camera. So what we did is we set up, we sent the
agents out with this camera from the advanced team
(12:36):
and then they put it in. We set up one,
the transmission system, which worked at 2400 baud.
You guys could google that or do an AI search and learn what that means
if you don't know. And, but it was,
it was super high speed at the time. And right now you would, you would
throw your, your system away instantaneously,
(12:58):
but they would put it in there and then they transmitted that
information back from the US Embassy in Tokyo
back to the advanced team office and the White House property.
And, and they were. Overnight, they were able to get the pictures back
without having to put somebody on a plane. It was the first time that had
ever been done. And it really changed on how they did these things.
(13:20):
And it was secure because it went over secure phone lines. You know, they put
it into their secure phone line systems. So it was a
pretty game
changing kind of time. Yeah, I didn't know that. That's
awesome. No, no, nobody really does. And there's a bigger part of, there's a longer
part of that story which is kind of funny that. But we won't go in
(13:42):
there because. I can always have you back for part two.
Yeah, you go. So tell me, how did you get into
the coaching space, especially in
sales? I could see the benefit of it. How did that come about
for you? So somewhat
accidentally, I would love to tell you, I had this big plan and I
(14:03):
implemented this plan and here we are today with all the things going on, which
I could share with you guys if you're interested, but the.
As I started my LLC, my limited
liability company in
2021, but
it wasn't focused. I just had it. And so
(14:26):
I started doing some contract work during COVID at this
time. And I took on a contract with a company based in Israel
because they couldn't get into the United States and I was in their technology space.
So I. For one year I had a contract and I
went contract ended. I didn't continue with them, but that's when
I just retired. Retired. And so when I was sitting around,
(14:50):
I was talking to people and I were talking about what would help and
talk about sales coaching. And they thought that was a great idea.
So it was a bad time to really launch into something around
Thanksgiving and in December because there's just way too
much going on. So I really got it going in
January, almost the first days of January 2023, when I
(15:12):
joined the Chamber of Commerce and introduced myself and I got two
signed clients introducing myself. And then I decided I have to start a business
because I didn't have anything going. And now there's all kinds of things that
I've done and I'm doing and transitioning into.
But that's how I got into it. It was really. And for
a second, I'd like to just share with everybody that this is not sales
(15:35):
training. And I'm very intentional about this.
And I tell everybody that sales training is really important.
And across the country and across the world, there's so many great trainers
out there and there's so many great programs that you get in person or online.
But what I do is I help people in need right now. And I don't
want to go as far as saying I'm a first responder
(15:58):
for companies that are having sales problems. But
it's not a bad analogy. I just don't want to diminish the role of a
first responder. So I won't go there all the way. But it is a kind
of a good analogy where I go in and help them because
they're in business now, they need results now. And training is very
linear. You start at the beginning. How do you
(16:20):
get in the door, how to do these things, and all the way through to
how to close and hopefully how to retain
customers and clients. But that doesn't mean you're gonna help them with
what they're working on now, because they're gonna be all over the place. They're in
business now, they have their challenges either as
a whole and they're not driving sales like they need to and they have to
and they want to, or they're stuck with not being able
(16:43):
to do something well, in the sales process. And Brent, one of the things I
hear more often than anything, my people are not good closers or I am not
a good closer. And the reality is the closing's not happening.
It's not because they're bad closers. It's because the customers, the
prospects, are not ready to be closed yet. They haven't done all the right things
in the middle. And so when I go in there, I
(17:05):
purposely do not have a curriculum because every job is custom
based on what their needs are. And then I eventually coach myself how to
work, you know, either because it worked or it didn't. Most of them work.
So. So how'd I do? I
love that. And can you kind of touch on.
Because I, I feel like, especially in the middle part of the country, coaching is,
(17:27):
is new. I actually just got my coaching
certification and I'm, I'm working towards my ICF certification.
And you know, I come out there and I interact with these people
and they don't know what coaching is. Can you kind of explain from your point
of view, especially coming from a consulting training background, the
differentiation there? So
(17:51):
coaching is first you have to have expertise
in what you're coaching on. It's not like, you know, buying
a franchise per se, and then, you know, in a field
that you didn't know anything about and you learn and the franchise
corporation trains you and everything else like that. But when you're coaching,
these people are expecting you to know
(18:14):
what you're talking about and from experience. Right.
And it's not about the book stuff. The book stuff is important
to a point, but it really is about
active listening and then giving them real world solutions that's going to
help. And active listening is not a cliche. And how
to ask high impact questions and, and it's all
(18:36):
about helping them. So for all of you who are
listening to this podcast and if I'm to
ask you right now to say out loud,
why did you choose to be a first responder
and I could hear the majority of you say, to
help others. So
(19:01):
sales is all about helping others. Coaching
is all about helping others you already have.
The most important thing going for you is that you
are passionate and sincere and have already given of
yourself to help others. And that's what coaching is about.
It's about helping them to get better. You think of
(19:24):
sports coach is a great analogy. You know, sport coach is not out there
to yell at people for the sake of yelling at them. They're pushing them to
do better. And you have to win and when you're coaching somebody, you
have to win. So this is. So
it's about really listening. You
know, when you go out on your first responder call and you're with
(19:46):
somebody who's hurt or there's something wrong, you're. Even though you could may be
able to see them bleeding or have something broken or whatever it is, you're still
asking them what's going on. What do you hurt? What's. You know, tell me what's
happened. If they could communicate what's going on. If they can't communicate, you're doing all
this stuff to try and find out what's going on. It's the same thing you
do as a coach. You have to find out what's going on before you could
(20:08):
help them. You can't just walk in there and say, oh,
I see what's going on. Well, you have no idea. You don't even know.
For example, when I was doing a coaching session for a,
believe it or not, a plumbing company with all the plumbers, because they have to
sell, they have competition, they give quotes, they have to close
(20:28):
them. And, you know, one person was up like this, and if you're
not watching us and in video on audio,
I've got my hands folded across my chest and I said, you know, you have
to read the body language. And that's a very defensive thing, although you can't make
that assumption. So I turned to the person and I asked her, I said, I
said, have I, you know, am I talking about something that's
(20:50):
making you uncomfortable or are you not agreeing with
it and you're unhappy, or are you just cold? She goes, I'm freezing.
And I said, see? So you couldn't make a decision. You couldn't assume
because her arms were crossed that she was in a
defensive mode. She was cold and it was cold in there.
So, you know, that's what you have to do in coaching. The first thing is,
(21:13):
is find out what's going on and what the desired result is
supposed to be. Well, I think he hit on something very
important, is that when you're coaching
someone, one, you absolutely have to be an active
listener. And that is something paramount that
can come, that we can use in the first responder world. I mean, that's
(21:34):
95% of our job is listening to what's, you know, these people in their
time of need, they want somebody to listen to them. But what you
really need to realize is don't go in there and just listen to what
they're saying. Watch their body language. You know, a lot of
times people will tell you something and there will be more meaning in that story
that they tell you, and you got to pay attention to those little bit of
(21:56):
clues. So I think absolutely is just hammering home
the, the importance of active listening to first responders.
But I also really love the fact
that as a
supervisor, there is a very
good implementation of coaching ideals, I think, to your people
(22:18):
beneath you. Because, you know, what
are the two things that affect everything? Your life and your career.
And a lot of times in the first responder world, we're told, hey,
you know, kind of check your life at the door, come to work, do your
job, and go home. And to be honest with you, that's not a
fair, not a fair thing to happen because it
(22:40):
doesn't matter how much you check it at the door, your life's still going to
affect your job and vice versa. If your job's bothering you, it's going to
affect you at home. And those supervisors and first
responder agencies are the perfect person to be these coaches,
be it career coaches and life coaches kind of combined
because, hey, where do you want to be six months from now?
(23:03):
How do you want to get there? You know, where do you want to be
three years from now? And it's helping them build out that plan
of success in their career because you, you got to think,
I mean, your first few years, especially being a cop, and I'm sure it's the
same, and being a medic and firefighter, you just want to go fast and do
fun stuff at the end of that, I mean, you really do. But after that,
(23:25):
you kind of hit that wall of, well, what do I do now? You
know, like, how do I grow myself? And some guys will
just stay there because they don't want to, you know, rock the boat
or jump over the wall. And I think, like, coaching programs
could very help with that because these
people don't have that guidance
(23:47):
to take that next step. Does that make sense? Yes. And
there's so many layers to this, and I've lived it myself.
I was never exposed to entrepreneurship. I was always in the corporate
world. And I, and I share with
my friends and with my wife, we're just talking about this and said, I've
learned as much in the last two and a half years
(24:09):
as I did in the 40 plus years prior. But it was
as experiences the 40 years earlier that allowed me to get to the point
where I'm learning all these new things and totally
energized at my age and how many years I'VE been in.
I mean, I'm flying fully gung ho. And
the thing that everybody needs to remember is that it is
(24:32):
also a business. And there's so much to running the business and everything else. And
that's the part that could be overwhelming. And it's really good to.
I always say never hire a coach that doesn't have a coach. I have a
coach and I pay my coach a lot of money and I
learn from my coach and it's reading all the
books and I do audiobooks and, and, and constantly
(24:54):
and, and then get it, get out there and get the experience.
Because you have to do all the business
stuff too to have it running correctly and everything else. And
so you really need to know what's going on. But you could be a coach
in different ways. You could be an entrepreneurial coach like I
am. I'm, you know, self employed, building my own business. I have a
(25:16):
team that I put around me and adding to
that team. Or you could be a coach going
to work for another company that specializes in placing these people for
people in the first responder world. Unfortunately,
there's a huge need for you in the private sector. And let me just
say the private sector is anybody that you're going to work for,
(25:38):
you know, from. That's not getting a government check of some kind.
And because everybody
needs religious organizations. You know, we have
security all the time. Who would have thought it that we have to have armed
guards in our religious organizations? Right. It's a, it's a terrible shame.
You know, explain to the kids why there's, you know, law
(26:01):
enforcement in there walking around in the hallways
and so, and what's going on in the corporate
world. I mean, look, you know, at the time of this recording, you know, just
look what happened out west with the, with the ambush on the
firefighters. Yeah, I mean, it's like it doesn't
(26:22):
get any crazier than that. So. But so there's a real need
for executives and businesses
as well as not for profits
and everybody else to get quality consulting
and coaching from those who have been there.
And
(26:46):
those people are really listened to and they're very
well respected. I always tell people that
99% of the people in the world are really good people. It's just that the
1% of the bad people make 99% of the news.
And it's the same thing with first
(27:07):
responders and law enforcement too. When you have a bad officer,
well, then it makes it look like everybody's bad. And it was one out of,
you know, A million. So not, not 900,000
other million. It was one. It's just all over the news worldwide, so
instantaneously. So. So what I say is,
you know, I always like giving
(27:29):
takeaways, you know, something to help. That's my promise to everybody when we talk and
when we meet and, and for this is think about where your passion is.
Think about what it is. You know, if you close your eyes and you say,
this is what I really would love to do as a coach or whatever
you're going to do, don't worry about, don't start thinking about all the things
that won't that will prevent you from doing that. Just answer that
(27:51):
question. And then it's about finding who could help
you to get there. Notice I didn't say how to do it. It's really
about the who's. And there's a great book out there. Everybody's called who, not how.
Download it, buy it, whatever. It's a fantastic book
because so many people are hung up on the how. And it's really who could
help you get there. And
(28:15):
for those people who say, hey, you can't do this or
you'll never make any money at it or why would you do that? You know,
why would you take on all that stress? Those people are not
helping you. Okay? You say to them,
you are my, you are my family. You
are not helping me. I know you're trying to protect me because you love me.
(28:38):
However, I will see you on the holidays. I'm going to go find somebody who's
going to help me to reach this dream. And that's what we do in
sales. That's what I coach everybody on. And that's what we do when we're helping
others is to achieve things that are very difficult for them to
achieve for whatever the reason. And all of you
have plenty to give in that area.
(28:59):
Absolutely. I, I want
to get your thoughts on how we can implement
coaching in, in leadership levels, you
know, because I feel like a lot of times,
especially in the first responder world, I'm sure it happens in the business world too,
is sometimes people get moved up the ladder
(29:22):
not because of what they know, it's because they've been there the longest.
And I want to get. Pick your brain for a second, see what your thoughts
are and implementing coaching ideas into like leadership circles. So,
Brent, could we do a role play? Yeah, absolutely. We do a role
play. Okay. So the reason I say this is
that it's not just leadership roles, it's any role. The most important
(29:44):
thing before we jump into the role play is that the leader
has to be willing to accept coaching and want coaching and want
to do better and everything else. And there are plenty of
people out there who are looking for that help. Because one thing with
leadership, for all of you who are in leadership or have
been there in the past or thinking about it, it's lonely, it's not a cliche
(30:07):
because who could you talk to? You can't talk to your team
because they're the ones, they're expecting you to make these decisions. You need
to get input from your team. But when you need to bounce something off or
you need to make a tough decision, you need to lay people off, you may
need to fire somebody, you may need to reassign,
restructure and things that are going on and you have to.
(30:28):
Who do you talk to? Right? How do you adjust? The world
is changing for all of us. I just heard a thing this morning.
I was watching something as stoic, being stoic and
it was a great thing. One of the ancients said
you never twice step into the same river. And
(30:50):
when you think about that, it was saying even if you stepped in, stepped out
and then stepped immediately back in, you're stepping into a different river because all that
water and everything that was flowing has already gone by. And it's
the same thing that happens, all this planning, everything is great until
it's not. And usually when you get on scene, right,
oh, we got this great plan where you go in and it's like, oh my
(31:12):
God, nothing's laid up like the playbook said. And then you gotta,
you know, trust your gut, take your experience and go
do things right. So same thing with the so if we roleplay for a second
and I'll be a salesperson
selling coaching to for leadership and you'll
be the prospect, the customer. Okay. Okay.
(31:35):
So I'm gonna walk in and you know why I'm there so we
don't have to get hold through the whole thing where I'm gonna talk my way,
you know, why I'm there and everything else. We're talking and watch what happens.
And let's say you're a little bit skeptical just in the nearby but you're open
minded enough. So. Okay, here we go. Brent. So you're still Brent, I'm still Phil
and you're leading a organization,
(31:57):
first responder organization, whatever it is you want to do and say, hey Brent,
really thrilled that you, you, you know, you agreed to meet with me
today. And let me ask you right up
front here Is what were your, what are
your expectations for this meeting? What are you hoping to to gain?
And if it's say to get me out of here as fast as possible, that's
(32:20):
okay too, right? It's, it's to take
new ideas and implement them in my organization. Okay.
Okay. But I imagine you've been doing that all along though, right?
You have, you have, you know, tell me about your
some new ideas for things that you have successfully implemented.
(32:41):
We got new body cameras at our agency and we got new tasers at our
agency. Yeah. And then was that a successful
implementation? Yes. And what made it successful?
They work. No issues with them. The
employees, like they're, you know, they're easy to use.
So I feel like so far they're working good. So what role of that did
(33:04):
you play in that as a leader as opposed to just something that
showed up and they tech guys made sure it was all working and
hooked it up to everybody. So what as a leader, what was your role in
that whole process? Help picking out, you
know, the right technology for the agency overall. Right.
Okay. And how do you feel about that program overall?
(33:27):
Sounds like so far it's going well. Right? It's a, it's
always kind of nerve wracking because it's a big purchase, but so far so
good. Good. So there's a lot of things you did, right? Correct? Yes. Yes.
Right. So now there's all kinds of
decisions that you have to make and everything else. Share a
story with me. Maybe it's one you're working on right now where
(33:51):
you're struggling or things aren't going as well as you wanted, or
you're even struggling making a decision, whatever it is. I don't want to put all
these ideas in your head, but share with me, you know, something that isn't going
as smoothly or you're concerned about not going smoothly. Is that as
that one we just discussed. Making sure that we have
enough manpower out on the streets. Okay.
(34:12):
And so what's the. What's it
seems like such an obvious easy one in some ways. Obviously it's not. What is
the challenge there for you and what is the challenge for you as a leader
in this one? Obviously
there's a lot of negative publicity these days about law enforcement.
So recruitment in general and then to keep the employees
(34:34):
is the retention is tough.
Competing with the private sector in pay and
just burnout in general, those are the main ones that we deal with.
Okay. And so this is a real live situation you're
dealing with today. Is that Safe to say. Okay, yes.
So great. And so if
(34:58):
we were working together, and I say if,
what would you. How could I help you? The best. And what would
that mean to you? Help me
manage my time, you know, help me,
you know, make sure to go through a smooth decision making process,
(35:19):
Stuff like that. Okay. And
what's, what's, what's impacting your time now and what's.
And where do you think the process needs improvement?
Just everything. I mean, you know, with trying to retain your employees
and recruit new employees, plus, you know, upgrading the
(35:39):
technology all at once is, is a lot of time that takes up your day.
And then, you know, there's everything else that goes along with running the agency
and so maybe like delegate, start delegating some of those tasks out
instead of just handling all, you know, just my office
would be. Maybe be a start. Okay. And then when that's all
(35:59):
working for you, what will it look like? What. How will you feel? You
know, what will allow you to do next that's really important
to you?
Did we get lost? Oh,
you're on mute. Weird. There you
go. Awesome. Technology. We're back. There you go. There you
(36:22):
go. So by the way, I was just giving you the winning lottery
numbers and I'm sorry you couldn't hear them. So they've already gone on. So
anyways,
anyways. Can you hear me now? Yes, I can hear you now.
Okay, great. So I was just asking, you know, when all that's working
(36:46):
problem.
Okay, that's better. Could you still hear me?
Okay, I can't hear you, but
(37:07):
I can see your lips moving. Oh, I hear
something.
Hear me now. There you go. Awesome. I don't know what's going on.
Gotta love technology. All right, sounds good. What did you hear last.
Was basically, you know, what all I could do to like
(37:30):
help manage my time a little bit better. Okay. And then,
you know, and then how it. So we would take that further on and,
and when we get to. So we're going to go through some of the
things and say, okay, so Brent, how
would you like to get started working with me? What would work best
for you? Did you want to have a detailed meeting, you know, that we
(37:53):
could schedule either. I actually have some time tomorrow or
early next week. What would work best for
you? Probably
early next week. Okay, great. So let's come out of the role play.
Yep. What did you like?
You actually were very personable about it.
(38:16):
That's what, that's what I really took away from it, is that it didn't feel
like you Were pressuring me to like go in any direction. It was more of
like, I'm here to help. Right. And this is a, this
is a real question, okay? And
I'm not suggesting that you're going to hire me right now or maybe
ever. But what I'm saying is if you were looking for
(38:38):
somebody to be your leadership
sales coach, would you consider me? Yeah.
And why? Because you made a connection. You made that rapport with
me pretty quickly. Right? And now I want you to think about this. And for
everybody who's listening, what did I tell you?
How much did I talk? What did I tell you? It was mostly
(39:00):
questioning. I didn't tell you a thing. But you're willing to hire me. You've already
grown trust and everything else. This is what I coach
and this is amazing. And I
ask people questions for 30 or more minutes and especially other
salespeople and business leaders and they say,
well, I don't want to sound that salesy or because for you
(39:23):
guys. And by the way, ladies, I call everybody a guy. My dog
would be a guy. Everybody's a guy. So
that the, that it's about
the asking the questions. And by asking, you'll learn. And see
here you were ready to bring me on board. You could, you, you're willing to
do that right now. And how much do you know about me other than what
(39:46):
you read in the intro? But how much did you learn from me in this?
Nothing. I didn't say a word. I just asked you the questions. And
then we would get into it a little bit more about some ideas and the
things I could do because now I understand where your issue is
to a point. And then you know, because I asked all these questions and not.
And I asked you what was called high impact questions. So a high impact.
(40:07):
So I'm sure in first responder training
and stuff they talk about don't ask yes, no questions, close ended questions, because they
don't tell you anything, right? You ask 10 people, do you like my
shirt? Or you know, everybody who likes my shirt, raise your hand, say
yes. Everybody who doesn't like my shirt, raise your hand, saying no.
And no matter how you answer, it doesn't tell me a thing
(40:30):
or anybody else, right? It's like if I say tell me what you
like best about my shirt. And then if I come back and say, tell me
what you would change if you could change something about my shirt.
I didn't say tell me what you don't like because people remember negative things. But
if you say then they do. In A positive way. Now you're learning about it.
So when I say asked you a couple of questions, I said, I asked you
(40:50):
a question, I said and then tell me why you answered that way. That's a
high impact question now. And a high impact question. So now you've got an open
ended question where they're telling you more but then they're going to explain
more about it and then you may ask more a deeper question beyond that.
And these are the skills that you
as first responders already have. You
(41:13):
just don't know it. And that's one of the things I love about what I
do with coaching is because my thing is I learned what's really works best for
everybody I talk with and I leverage that. I don't focus on
what you don't do well. I mean if there's something that's
blatant, I mean then you go ahead and you fix that thing. But
you focus on everybody's strengths and you build on those strengths. And, and
(41:33):
people respond very positively to that as opposed to somebody
who's always telling them what's, you know, what's wrong with them. And
nobody likes being around those people. Right, right, nobody. And,
and, and you're not going to want that. Especially you know, if you're a leader
and you have an ego and you have, and you're, if
you're, you know, worried about your job because you're living, you live in a political
(41:55):
type of environment, doesn't have to be in political life to be in politics.
Believe me, I was in plenty in the corporate world and, but
you stay focused on those you're trying to help and that
is you have that skill. And I'll tell you the, the
biggest thing is, is that if you're going to go in for your
business for yourself, you know, get help
(42:18):
because there's a lot to it even from all kinds of stuff from invoicing,
bookkeeping, you know, I'm not scaring anybody away here. I am telling you
there's, I
named my company Been There Consulting Services for a reason
and I've been there through a lot of stuff and I'm still going through it
and through a lot of great stuff. But I
(42:40):
also learned and I made some pretty
significant financial bad decisions during my growth period here
and it could be done. And
so that's my
spiel there, Brent. What else could I, how could I help you? How, what else
could I do? I love that. Well, as we wrap
(43:04):
up, where is the, where can the people reach out to you
at? And where can they get your book at? Okay, well, thank you for asking.
So they can reach out to me at. My
website is. You can hit me on the Contact us page. It's been there.
All one word. B E E N T H E R E C S
(43:25):
Charlie Sierra or consulting services. So been there
cs.com and you go right there. Or you could send me an email
directly. Please just go right ahead and send it to Philin there.
CS.com I love to hear from you. Put something in the subject line to
say, hey, I heard you on the first responder playbook with. With Brett
and that's the best way. And I respond
(43:47):
and, and, and my book is
Handling Objections Clues for closing the sale and it's doing great. And this is on
Amazon so you could just put in Handling Objections and Clues for
Closing the Sale. You'll see if you're looking at it on video, this is what
it looks like. And I really do appreciate you doing that. And
this really helps a lot. Way beyond business.
(44:08):
And I say that because of the. The things people call me with
everybody, even from somebody who was going through a terrible divorce and she said, fill
your book. Help me get through my divorce. And it was like, who would have
thought when I put this book together that that was going to be one of
the applications. But when you're dealing with people who and how to
head off objections before they happen, it's called pre handling.
(44:29):
Big deal. And it really is powerful. Well, I'm going
to put a link to both of them once the episode's live. I will put
it in the episode description as well so that way everybody can find it. Yeah.
Phil, it's been my pleasure tonight. Thank you so much for joining me and
you're always welcome back. Okay. Oh, yeah. Thank you. It was an honor. And I
can't believe how fast the time went by. It was. I really appreciate you
(44:51):
asking me to be here and I. And thank you to everyone for your
service. It's greatly appreciated. Thank you so much. Have a good night.
Thank you too.
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