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August 12, 2025 38 mins
The Advisory Board Podcast

Big thanks to our episode sponsor, ClientTether, for making today’s conversation possible.

This week, Dave Hansen welcomes his friend (and occasional karaoke co-star) Jim Stapleton, VP of Franchise Development at Caring Transitions—the largest senior relocation and household goods resale franchise. With 30 years in sales, six years in franchise development, and a knack for doubling system size, Jim blends performance, psychology, and just enough musical theater flair to keep audiences hooked. 

The conversation dives deep into one of the most powerful forces in sales—fear—and how it affects both franchise buyers and salespeople. Jim unpacks the primal origins of fear, its clash with logic, and why love is just as influential in decision-making. Using analogies from high dives, Bob Ross paintings, and even piles of laundry mistaken for monsters, Jim explains how to guide candidates from hesitation to confident action.You’ll hear strategies for:
  • Spotting when fear is stalling a deal (hint: excuses and missed commitments are big tells).

  • “Feeding the dream and starving the fear” to keep momentum high.

  • Anticipating and addressing objections before they surface.

  • Leading with empathy (not sympathy) to move candidates forward.

  • Building trust through genuine enthusiasm and belief in your brand.

This is a masterclass in blending psychology, sales craft, and human connection to help people make life-changing franchise decisions—without pushing them into the deep end.
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guys, I want to welcome you to another episode of
the Franchise Advisory Board, where we bring in experts from
across the community to share insights and best practices that
will help you build a memorable and thriving franchise brand.
Now I have with me a really good friend of mine,
Jim Stapleton. You may have seen us paling around running
crazy karaoke groups or generally a conference. Jim presents an

(00:22):
awful lot. But Jim's he's the VP of franchise development
of Caring Transitions, which is the largest senior relocation and
reseale of household goods brand, super cool concept. I actually
have been on their bidding site and bought stuff before
before I even knew Jim. So anyway, you've got to
check them out. But Jim's he's just a pro. Like

(00:42):
he's been in sales for thirty years, been in FRANDO
for the last six He's helped more than double the
size of this franchise system since he got there. But
he's also the reason I want him here is he's
not as karaoke skills, so he's the karaoke king of Buffalo,
New York and Cincinnati. Now that's the late the title.
But he's an incredible thinker and he looks like he

(01:05):
might be like a full back, you know, or something
like that. But he but he's really talented in regards
to helping people understand fear and seales strategy and franchise development.
He just funneled all of his knowledge and experience into
our industry, so I want to get his insights there.
But you also need to know he's a family guy.
He's got a thirteen year old he loved. If you
watch his LinkedIn feed it all, you'll see these incredible

(01:26):
insights he drops for his son that hopefully become a
book or something in Jim, hopefully that's the project intent.
But married for twenty years, loves guarding and woodworking. You
wouldn't know this stuff, honestly unless you get a chance
to know him. But Jim, tell us just a little
bit more about you about carrying transitions, and then we'll
jump into the indo our topic today.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, thanks, Dave. I'm really excited to be here talking
to you about this. There's been, you know, so many
times that when we were at a conference or something
like that, we go over this stuff. We just roll
naturally into this right, and it's like we should be recording,
so I'm had to be able to actually jump on
and actually to record some of this. Yeah, I mean
I've been in as you mentioned, I've been in sales

(02:04):
for about thirty years. I mean I got professionally sales
trained at one of my first jobs doing door to
door insurance sales, not going to someone's door, get in
the house, steal fashion way selling life insurance and disability
and things like that way back in the day. Man,
that was my trial by fire. And I can tell you, man,
as hard as that was, I wouldn't be here right
now if it wasn't for that experience. Right. Also, you know,

(02:27):
beyond karaoke, I did eight years of musical theater over
in Buffalo. So I was in Jesus Christ Superstar five times,
West Side Story, I was in Tony Team's wedding twice.
So you know that's I just love being on stage,
you know, performing, but also you know, being able to
drop knowledge. You know, for me, self development is so important.
I'm always trying to attend a conference or read a

(02:50):
book or trying to learn more. Just a sponge you know,
from everything that you know, I've learned over the past
thirty years and then being I'll add on top of it,
the part of sales that I absolutely love is that
psychological part. Why do people make the decision they make?
You know, I believe in the salespeople, we're not just
here to you know, be order takers. You know, We're

(03:12):
not here just to be able to give them exactly
what they're looking for, exactly what they want, because sometimes
we can't. Well we are truly our influencers. We don't
force somebody to make a decision, but we can definitely
influence them to make make a choice that's going to
either better change their lives or give them something that
is more than what they have. Now. This is the

(03:34):
reason I love training, you know, because people that are
sitting in front of you, even if you can drop
one piece that they're like, oh my god, I never
thought of it that way. You know, that makes the
whole conversation worth it.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Totally agree. I found I had an early career in
teaching of teaching language fluency, and I just love that
experience helping people get it, like the light you see
the click and they're like oh and then they move
they do something I find sales to be very much
the same. It's it's an educational process. It's a development process.
I'm helping you improve by helping you buy something. But

(04:06):
ultimately we have the same shared goals. We're going to
help you get from here to there. Yeah, and I
know you see it the same way.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, you know what I mean. Once again, we're not
forcing somebody into something. We're not. I tell people at
the time, I'm not going to push a you know,
square peg through a round hole if it's for us,
Especially with franchising, it's an interview process, you know, I
tell people all the time as once you're looking at us,
we're looking at you. But here's the difference is we
absolutely mean that. You know, we sold seventy nine franchises

(04:34):
last year, but we turned thirteen people away that weren't
the right fit. You know, it's not We're not definitely
not the oh you have a pulse in a checkbook, okay, yeah,
come on in. Right For us, it's just as important
to you know, bring good people in, but also our
responsibility to have people leave the system too that have

(04:54):
something that they can sell and they can grow, or
they can grow and then be able to sell for
a profit. You know, once they're done to move on
to something different.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
So it's a wealth building, legacy building, It's it's all here.
That's why I love franchising man, so so Jim. One
of the things that we didn't talk about is you're
you're kind of obsessed with self development. But you've also
you've been to Tony Robbins five times now, is that right?

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Times? Yeah? So we've done uh, we've gone seen him
my best friend and I from Buffalo, So we've gone
across the United States. We even went to London to
work one of the events. I've done two Barefoot Flare walks,
and you want to talk about life changing experience. Man.
As soon as that happened, and it's like the light

(05:36):
bulb went went on, and it's like, man, if I
can do that, I do anything. It's like, you know, now,
stop me from hitting any goal I have because for me,
if it's legal, moral, and ethical, nothing that to stop
me from hitting the goal I have in front of me.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Right, Yeah, And that's what we want to talk about today.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Right.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
The topic is a fun, meandering trail to get to
the point, but like we are going to talk about
fear and how fear can how do we help people
overcome their fear to make the choice to buy a franchise?
And and this is all inspired by something you posted
months and months ago. It just took a while to
get on the schedule. But why don't we talk about

(06:14):
that for a second, because fear, if you, if you
can break it down for it is Jim, like, this
is like a this is like a bioscience thing as
much as it is an emotional thing. Help us break
down this concept of fear in the mind, Like, how
does the human brain interact and create this emotion that
then prevents people from doing things that are actually really
good for them?

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Yeah, I mean, well, here's here's one of the things
I learned at Tony Robbins is that our emotions control everything.
You know, you've heard different people Titans of Industry and
some other in the past that Henry Ford that said
do you think you can or you think you can't?
You write right, Napoleon Hill wrote, thinking you're all rich.

(06:54):
It's we we buy an emotion to keep because of logic. Okay,
there's a reason that it's called think and grow rich
and not work really hard and grow rich. Follow a
process and grow rich. Right, why is it? Why is
it that? Because it all starts up here. Everything I mean,
sales itself is everything's in between your ears. It's whatever

(07:15):
you think it is is what it's going to manifest
itself to be. Right. So if it's a problem, guess
what it's going to come out as a problem. It's
whatever's there. Right. So when it comes to fear fears,
what we have to understand is fear is one of
the most primal instincts we have. You know, our pre
historic ancestors needed fear to be able to survive. Right,

(07:37):
It's is that something moving in the bushes. I got
to stay away from this fires it is too hot,
you know. Survival nowadays fear is looking making sure you
look both ways before acrossing the street. So it's not that,
you know, it's as prevalent. But guess what, man, it's
still there. Didn't go away just because our circumstances and
our lives change. It's just a different dynamic that we

(07:58):
use it in now. So I read the book, start
with why Simon Sinek and he talks about the development
of the brain. So he talks about, you know, the
prehistoric part of our brain called the the Olympic part
where all the emotions are built. I mean, prehistoric man
was all you know, emotion was their main driver. And

(08:19):
then we have the neo the neo cortex part of
our brain with the thinking and reasoning as we as
we evolved into the creatures we are now. But the problem,
the thing is the we are all still driven by emotions.
So one of the things I always like to talk
about you when we're talking about fear, But the other
main driver in our lives lives is love, and love

(08:40):
is one of the most powerful emotions that we actually have.
Both of these have nothing to do with logic, but
they drive our lives. Right, You've got a beautiful wife.
You've been married for for years and years. I'm sure
when you met your wife you weren't doing the checklist
in your head of like, Okay, I want three I
want three kids, and you know she works, you know

(09:02):
this job, and so it's gonna give us a steady income. No,
there was things that she did, and sometimes there are
small things. I ask you to pinpoint the day and
time that you fell in love with your wife. You
probably couldn't, right, it was it was we we this
a reasonably, they say, we fall in love with things,
so you know, with people with things, we buy with

(09:23):
vacations and memories. You know, this is exactly where we are, right,
But when it comes to fear, it's kind of the
same thing, right, it's uh, we we associate different logical
things with fear, but it's an it's a non logical
response to things.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, yeah, it's true. And because because of that, and
this is the challenge it all sales, right, Like I've
been in sales front actually not quite as long as
you although technically since I was five, but that's that's
a different story for another time.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Go back that far.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
But but we we uh, because because of fear though,
like most many deals, I would say many deals, especially
in franchise development, they're stifled because of this this limbic
region creating conflict and the people not living in the
neo cordex and like making logical decisions that so, so
how do we how do we help people break the loop? Like, well, first,

(10:20):
how do you know, like you're you've been doing this
for six years, but been doing sales forever, how can
you identify when somebody's got fear? That's a prime motivator
for their behavior. That's that's kind of I think step
one here.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, I mean what I trade my team on is
especially a franchise sales. This is in the sit of
the table, spend an hour with somebody in the writing
you a check, right. I mean, if somebody was able
to read the FDD, wait fifteen days and then you know,
pay for a franchise, there'd be no need for any
of us, right, us as sales professionals, you know, we're influencers.

(10:53):
I got to keep on reminding my team this. You know,
we're taking people on this journey, right, So I always
using an analogy when it comes to this journey itself.
Is you know, people are climbing the high dive. So
if you've ever stood in the end of a high dive,
and higher you go, the scary it is, right. So
they're climbing the ladder as we're taking them through an
intro call, taking them through a territory, taking through the education,

(11:14):
taking them through the fded and as we're getting there,
the higher and higher they're going. Right, So finally we
can bring them in to meet our team or do
it virtually. Now they're walking on the end of the
high dive. Now they're on the end of the diving
board where they have to make a decision. But the
problem is the longer they stand on the end of
that diving board and they're looking down and they're like,
you're allowing them to think, Wow, this is really high.

(11:37):
Oh my god, it's water cold. Really would be up here,
I might have survived the fall. There's a lot of
questions that start, you know, churning in their head, and
it's all fear based. It has nothing to do with
reality because everything they want is in that pool. Every
single day. Thing they want that they've told you what
their why was, and everything's going to change their life,
for their family, for their future, for their community is

(12:01):
right there. Yeah, they have to jump. I can't push
them in the pool. They got to take that jump.
And here's the thing. If they're in a franchise system,
if they hit the water and they start drowning, guess what,
we got lifeguards that will jump in and save them.
So this it's we as influencers have to be able

(12:21):
to if they're looking in the closet that there's a
big scary monster in there. We gotta be able to
turn the light on be able to show them it's
just a pallel laundry. It's a naxtal monster in there.
It looks scary right now, but it's you know, bringing
it into the light to say, yeah, listen, we gotta
we got a solution. This is what we're gonna be
able to help you do now if you're gonna do
it on your own. Yeah, there's probably a lot of

(12:43):
pitfalls a year and a fall into guess what, we're
your gps. We're gonna get you from point A to
point B, come up with the plan and tell you
exactly where to bob and weave to be able to
get you exactly get you on.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, and that's that's a real challenge. So especially for
a guy like me. Where I was, I was eleven
years old and I fell off the ladder of a
high dive and hit my chin on the concrete and
split it open. But I've gone off. I've I love
high dives, so I still go off of them. But yeah,
like this idea of identifying, like when you when you
know you know someone, someone's letting fear hold them back.

(13:16):
Things that that I've observed are like like they start
throwing excuses or like they stopped, they stopped keeping commitments,
like they're there are things that you see on the
outside that represents something that's happening on the inside. Now,
sometimes people have true emergencies and crazy things happening. It
seems like statistically more and friend of sales cycles than
any other sales cycle I've ever seen before, across a

(13:38):
lot of industries. But what are some of the key
indications that you and your team see and franchise where
we're like, oh, fear has got this guy or this gal,
Like what what do you see on the outside?

Speaker 2 (13:48):
You know, the one of our h one of the
gentlemen that is an investor with strategic franchising. I love
talking to him. He's a sales guy through and through.
He's got a term. He says, you'd feed the dream
and starve the fear. You know, if the dream is
is the main focus and this is exactly what they want,

(14:09):
then the fear goes down, right. But you have to
you have to elevate this. You have to really feed
into it. You know, it's kind of like painting this
picture for them. I talk to my team all the time. Listen,
we don't we don't sell on terms of conditions. Right,
you're stuck in the t's and c's, then guess what
you know? You're that's sticking with the logic. You know,

(14:30):
I talk about all the time about you know, being
in your head or being in your heart. People buy
from here, I don't buy from here. So if people
are giving you those excuses, and statistically the first three
objections that somebody gives you are not the real objections.
It's the false objections. It's not the real reason that
they're not buying from you. Usually falls into two different things.
They don't have the money or they want to think

(14:51):
about it now. Time kills deals. We've heard this from
a thousand different people, right, So the longer you go
in your pro to be able to extend this out,
then the more of a chance that they're not going
to make a decision or they're going to make a
decision to go back to what's comfortable with us. It's
a lot of the times, you know, people are coming

(15:12):
from corporate people are coming from a nine to five.
This is their first time looking at a franchise. You know,
the people that come to us aren't the big investors
that have for McDonald's in a couple KFCs and their
portfolio and going to add a carrying transitions, right, especially
a lot of emerging brands, it's the same thing. You know,
they're getting people that are this is the first time
they've ever even explored this. So for us, it's all

(15:35):
about being able to show them exactly what this is.
Take them on this journey, paint this pitch or form
so it becomes real. You know. They have to be
at the by the end of it. They have to
be able to close their eyes and see themselves walking
into the store, working with the team, doing a consultation,
doing the service itself, you know, and with us, you know,
being a service based industry. There is no building, there

(15:58):
is no inventory, there are no trucks, you know, so
us we sell this. Let me sure you again cause
you missed it. Yeah, it's literally their right, So we've
got to really build this dream of ownership. This is
what your data life's going to look like. You know,
I always use the analogy. Have you ever watched Bob
Ross paint?

Speaker 1 (16:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Okay, so you know when he first starts thrown on colors, right,
being bing bing bing ban, not really sure like what
this is or what it's supposed to come out to.
But as he adds the paint on, then you're like, oh, okay,
this is clouds. Oh okay, that's a that's a mountain,
there's icecape. Oh, here comes the river. Here are the
happy trees. Right. This is what we need to be
able to do as influencers in this is as we

(16:42):
you know, go through our intro called and start in
the education piece. Everything's got a layer on top of
each other. So by the end of it they get
this clear picture of exactly what it is, how it works.
And guess what, that fear factor goes way down and
the excitement goes up at that point. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
And so I love that you mentioned starve, starve the fear,
build the dream.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
It's a really good example of how to do that.
And you mentioned this, So I want to come back
to it because it's funny. Objection handling is is it's
you know, it's a real thing it selves. You've got
to be able to get the real objection and uh
and and then help help the consumer understand and actually
tell you how they're going to resolve it. You can't
solve it. I wish being the guy. I just want

(17:25):
to fix crap all the time, but it's not not
that easy. So tell us, like this objection process when
you're when you're you're talking to somebody and they're throwing
up smoke screens or or it feels like they are, like,
how do you carve through the smoke screens and find
the real objection that people are struggling with?

Speaker 2 (17:41):
You know? It's uh we We actually just had this
with one of my directors. She pulled me on a
call because this woman was just stuck, stuck in the mud,
spinning your wheels, you know, and she couldn't get outside
of this objection that she had. She was stuck here.
So I told her, I'm like, how do we move
her from here to here? A lot of the times
it you know, just being totally upfront with them. So

(18:02):
when I was on the call and she's given every
objection of the sun, I need to know how much
you want to make. I need to know what my
team's gonna look like. I need to know all this stuff.
What I what I just mentioned. Peer paralyzes us, right,
So we get into this part where you start, you know,
you start breathing through the paper bag. So I just
I stopped her. I said, you know what I'm gonna

(18:24):
let you know right now, like you are an analysis paralysis,
you are just stuck in this thing that you know.
It's the information we can give you right now. But
what I can guarantee you is once you buy the franchise,
all these questions are going to be answered. You're gonna
have an onboarding coach that's literally going to ask you
how much money do you want to make and tell

(18:44):
you exactly what you need to do to be able
to get to that number, help you build this business plan.
But I mean, this is here's the thing we have.
The thing I can guarantees we have the people, the processes,
the tools, we have everything you need to be successful,
the X factors you what are you going to put
in it? What are you going to do? So I
think a lot of the times with objections and you know,

(19:05):
people getting stuck in this. It should be a tennis match.
We should be serving the ball back. But I think
new directors they could serve the ball and then they're
stuck on their side trying to keep the ball up,
you know, so it doesn't hit the ground, instead of
serving it back to them. To bring reality into it,
you know. And here's the other thing too. One of

(19:25):
the things that I learned actually at the insurance company
was anticipate the objection. You know, if you're in, if
you're if you're going to anticipate that they're going to
say no at some point. It won't sweep you off
your feet. Ye. And if you have, the more that
you do this, the more you're going to face every
objection that's out there. I've had people before that were like,

(19:46):
I'm out and with whatever I told them at that
point about you know, once again feeding into their dreams.
Why did you want to do this in the first place?
Building that up, you know, then once again the scale
tipsy other way. Then they should be excited about this.
But just because you're bringing somebody through the process doesn't
mean they're going to buy at the end. You know.

(20:08):
I always use the analogy of a you know, football,
so you know football season's coming up, right, So man,
you get the ball. Every call that we do, we
start on our own goal line. Every call we do
gets is another first down, right, every time they book
another one, we get closer and closer. But when we
get to the twenty yard line, you know, almost ready

(20:29):
to score. What's that called the red zone? Red zone?
Is it hard or easy to score once you're in
the red zone?

Speaker 1 (20:35):
Well, statistically you should be scoring a lot easier, right.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
Well, a lot of the times people get to that
point and they can field goal though. Right, it's true,
you know, so it should be easier because it went
smooth up to this point. But in sales the same thing. Man.
Just because you're right at the end doesn't mean that
you're in to make sale. I think there's a lot
of people, especially in franchise sales, that are very good
at bringing people through through the process, a lot very

(20:59):
good at bringing meet bringing people to meet the team,
but they don't get them across the goal line. So
this arc as you come up, I mean for us
to meet the team is the cherry on top of
the Sunday. Yeah, you know, afterwards, after they meet the team,
what else do you have to ask somebody besides hey,
ready to pay? Hey get to pay? That's financing going right,
It's it's all of this chase and chase and chase,

(21:21):
you know, part of the sales process. I hate the chase. Yeah,
we're doing everything on the front end to build this
up it should be pretty easy for somebody to you know,
to pay, and then the downswing is much easier.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah, I've got a couple of insights on that too,
because every single industry, whether you're selling franchises or you're
selling you know, garage doors, it doesn't really matter or insurance.
They're generally speaking, you're going to find a bucket of
three to five objections that everyone's going to have at
some point in the process. And so I think it's

(21:54):
wise and you kind of hinted at this, but you
you should be anticipating those in your selling flow and
you should be a dressing those in the selling process.
It's just as you're basic like these miles, so you're
talking about first downs. It should be part of your
sales flow. And I'm sure with you it probably is,
because I know you're very structured in strategic But a
lot of people they're like, boy, sure, hope they don't
get afraid of spending all the money, like what the

(22:16):
fetch like. Of course they're going to be afraid of
spending all the money, So you need to help them
understand like you need. Actually, I think it's really helpful
and positive to feed it to them. Not because you
want to fuel their fear, but to say, hey, I
know that you're already filing. This is super common that
people feel this way often, or if people will will
have a concern about this. And by the way, you're normal.
If you like, you need to substantiate that, it's okay.

(22:37):
They feel that way. They need to feel validated. You
can't just like stifle it. But by minimizing the fear,
sometimes it feels like you're being condescending to people in
the sales flow. So you've got to help. They have
to confront their fear, they have to confront their concerns,
and they have to solve them. You can't solve them
for them. That's where I think a lot of salespeople
make mistakes. And the SAME's true. A friendom like, oh,

(22:59):
don't worry worry about that. No, don't worry about that.
You say that three or four times, and someone's like,
I'm out of here, chump, Like you're not hearing me
at all.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Right, it's funny that you mentioned that. So you know,
our brains cannot they don't. It doesn't register that don't.
So if I went to you and said, Dave, don't
think of an elephant, What are you doing elephant? Right?
So it's kind of the same thing. You ski and
if you're going down the hill and you're like, don't
hit a tree, don't hit a tree, don't hit a tree, right,

(23:30):
So it's followed the path, right. So you know, if
it's like, don't worry about that, what are they gonna do?
They're gonna worry about it even more, or it's gonna
be like, well, what are you hiding? Right? Then this
sphere you know, doesn't move on to this you know,
unlogical thing. Now it's like now they're focusing it on
what's wrong with the brand? Why are you not giving

(23:52):
me this information? Right? So you know, getting ahead of
this is definitely a great way to be able to
make sure that you're not stepping in pot holes because
that's another thing too. A lot of the worries and
a lot of the concerns that some people have, we
put them there. So you know, I've done I've been
guilty of this myself. When I first started, was like
I'd be off. I would get off a call with

(24:14):
someone and be like this lady's crazy, Oh my god.
She went in so many different side things, right, and
listen to the call. Then I realized, no, it's me.
I took her about the hand and let her right
into there, and she was like, oh yeah, what about that? Right?
So there's a lot of the times that you know,
we are our worst enemy because you know what, we
don't know when to shut up. You know, salespeople like

(24:37):
to talk. I am definitely bowling a china shop when
it comes to, you know, talking about a subject. Right.
So there's one of the quote that I that I
absolutely love when it comes to fear that I just
heard a couple of months ago is fear is a
mile wide and an inch deep. So think about that.
Think if you're standing on the you know, at the

(24:58):
shor's edge, and everything you want is a mile across
the way, you can see it. And imagine so with
with water, we all know it usually gets deeper in
the middle. Right, So a lot of people are thinking,
am I going to survive it? Is it too deep?
And can I swim that far? But imagine if I
told you that, you know, you can run right across

(25:18):
the water and it won't go up any higher than
your angles. How fast would you go towards whatever you're
looking for? Yeah, that's what it's, you know, and when
for us. And we're not even talking about prospects anymore.
Let's talk about us because a lot of them. I mean,
what we do we can make the thing I love
about sales, We write our own paycheck, right, We make
it much of a little as we want, depending on

(25:40):
the actions that we do. I tell my team all
the time. Listen, you know there's two things you can
control in the sales world. It's your attitude and your activities.
Attitude and activities are the only thing you have control over.
And there's a reason attitude is first. The zig Ziglar
calls it stinking thinking, right, you know where you get
into this rout that it's the leads, and it's the

(26:00):
the prospects, and it's you know, all of these other
outside factors. No, if you really look at you so
one of the things that I've experienced through my career
is when you are going towards your goals, there's three
different things that you know you're gonna fall into. If
your goals in front of you, you're either gonna be men.

(26:22):
Those are the people that just don't care. They got
to go out there. It doesn't mean anything to them.
They're just coming to work every day nine to five.
If they sell something, they sell something, No, there's nothing
else behind it. Hopefully something falls in their lap. Right,
there's excited, which is the middle column. Excited means that
you know they are they've got a plan, they're executing

(26:44):
their plan every day they come. They're chipping it away
at it and they are doing all of the right things.
And then even on top of that, there's a difference
between being excited and having a burning desire. Yeah, right, desire.
I will run through walls to get to exactly what
I want. And then there's fear. Fear side is mostly
because you're going to lose something, Right, you're gonna lose

(27:05):
your job, you're gonna lose the deal, you're gonna lose money,
might lose your family. Well, it's it's that fear of
oh my god, I have to get something now. That
salesperson that's desperate to get something. A lot of the
things go out the window that we would normally do. Right,
if they're gonna they need to make a sale or
they're going to lose their job, they're no longer guiding

(27:26):
somebody through now they're pushing them. Yeah, no prospects that
like to be pushed.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
No. Well, it's funny because the same things we're talking
about with prospects, right, they're the same things that exist
within our people and ourselves. Like we I think that
the more we can confront our personal fears in this process,
then then we can start to understand how other people operate.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Right.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
We have to recognize like I'm doing this out of
fear right now, I'm doing this because I'm afraid to
lose a deal. So I'm desperately flailing. And I've seen
it in my own team. I've seen it in you know,
my own friends. Like I've seen it all over the
place from like, dude, you're you're struggling right now, and
it's showing is because you're afraid of. So I don't
know what you're afraid of, but clearly fear is driving
your behavior right now. You see it in the marketplace,

(28:09):
you see it and with the stock market sometimes. I
mean a lot of what drives and motivates these crazy
surges and falls that we see in the marketplace is
all fear. So how do we how do we live
beyond that personally? And if we as the salespeople drive
in the driver's seat have overcome that fear and we're
we're living in a place of real internal harmony as

(28:29):
we're making decisions and helping people find and by franchises.
I think that that's a layer of control we have
to put in place first. And how do you do
that with your team? Like, how do you help your team?
Have you ever you any experience with that? Jim?

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah, I mean, well, once again, it's identifying it. I mean,
the hardest person to be able to point a finger
at is yourself. Yeah, you know, the hardest thing to
do is look in the mirror and like, wow, I'm
acting like an idiot right now, right or there's something
wrong with me. You know, our parents always tell us, oh,
you're you're a shining star. You know, have these ideas
you're growing up that there's nothing wrong with with me.

(29:03):
It's the outside world that's affected. One of the things
in self development is, you know, it's it's you can
say this by yourself. You can say this about a prospect.
It's not buying the bs. You know, if this is
really what you want, then what are you going to
do to get yourself there? If you believe in law
of attraction. Whatever you put out response back to you, right,

(29:26):
positive or negative. So if you're putting negative things out,
guess what negative things are going to start coming back
to you putting positive things out, the univers willign itself
up to give you exactly what you're looking for, you know,
and put every te whatever tag you want it. And
every time I talk about law of attraction, it's God,
your whole guardian angel, it's the universe whatever. I always
talking in general terms. But whatever you believe in, there's

(29:47):
something there, right, there's something that's going to be able
to get you to what you're going towards, especially if
you have that burning desire for it. It's real in
your mind, you know. And when it comes to a prospect,
Zigziglar talks about empathy and sympathy. So when they're giving
you those objections, right, there's a difference between empathy and sympathy.
In this empathy, if somebody is like, ah, you know,

(30:11):
this is really a lot of money, okay, empathy would
be like, yeah, it's kind of expensive and you've got
a lot of things going on, so call me back
in six months. So I'm sorry. That's sympathy. Empathy. It
would be working with them on saying, listen, it might
be a lot of money now, but think of what
the reward's going to be. Think about how that's going

(30:32):
to be able to change your life and change your family.
What are the pros that are going to come out
out of this once you work this plan, you know,
And it's changing their mindset towards the fear to what's possible. Right.
Sympathy is going along with them. Empathy is helping them
solve the problem. And what do you think they're gonna
be more appreciative of.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
Epythy empathy side of.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
It, right, Yeah, help them them, you know, be able
to be that guide, which is what they're expecting you
to do. You know, you go to what doctor after
a diagnosis because you're trusting that professional, right, You're trusting
their guidance, their information, their expertise to be able to
get you the care that you need to be able
to overcome whatever you're facing. Same thing here, right, you know,

(31:15):
and a lot of the times, even with us, we're
stuck here. We need to move ourselves here. You know,
there's a difference be some you know, when when people
start out new directors start out, they're learning the terms
of conditions, but they're not in love with the brand yet, right,
So magic happens as soon as it's like you know,
you can talk about this in your sleep, but there's

(31:36):
a difference between your talking about the business and being
able to deliver the message on the business. You know.
I always use Martin Luther King as as an example
on this of like you want to talk about somebody
to deliver a message. I mean, what's the famous speech
we always think of. I dream a dream, right, you

(31:58):
know it's is uh, I have.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
A dream that one day my little children will watch.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
Yeah, it says I have a dream speech right, So
but I mean, do you know do you know why
it wasn't I have a plan speech? Think about it,
because that makes sense. I got a plan on how
we can give exactly what we're looking to do. Because
nobody remembers the plan. They remember the dream and his
being being able to deliver that message and be able

(32:26):
to really talk about you know, what's important itself and
not the terms and conditions of how we're going to
do it. That's why we remember that speech. And if
it was anybody else that was delivering that message besides him,
probably wouldn't be remembered in time. It just be another
speech that someone of some other leader gave.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
Right, Malcolm X didn't give that speech.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Right, it's the same thing with us, you know what
I mean, We're not just we're you know, there's it
is a difference in sales about you know, just giving
the terms of conditions and delivering the message. Right. Yeah,
once you can turn it from the t's and c's
to man, I love this brand, and you know what,
Enthusiasm is contagious. So everything I say about it, it's

(33:09):
gonna come out and energy is going to flow through
that through that zoom call, and these people by the
end of it will be even more excited than they
were before. And that excitement's going to carry. Yeah, you
can't wait for that next call to come because I mean,
if we're I mentioned before, this is an interview process, right,
So if I was going to tell you, Dave, I'm
gonna you're gonna be interviewing for a job that's going
to change your life. It's going to hit make it

(33:29):
allow you to be able to make as much money
as you want to make, hit every goal you have,
and have a better life for your family. Are you
ever missing one of those interviews. No, are you ever
showing up late for one of those interviews?

Speaker 1 (33:42):
No, unless you're afraid. Unless you're afraid, and then you
go show up.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
That's where it starts coming in. So you see that
you know this pattern, right, there's show.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
You know.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
I'll give somebody the benefit of the dobt if it
happens once or twice. Life happens, you know, people get sick,
things happen, work happens. But man, if it keeps on,
we're alone like this, you know you got to stop.
And you also have to be able to be comfortable
in telling somebody no. The takeaway is incredible, you know,
being able to say, you know what, you got a

(34:09):
lot of things going on right now. This probably isn't
the best time to look at a business. So I'm
going to close your file with what you're dealing with
right now and then call me when you're ready. And
most times that call doesn't happen. But you've got to
be able to. I mean, the one thing that we
don't have a salespeople is time, right, that's a commodity
we don't have. So especially if rick calendar starts filling

(34:30):
up where we're doing back to back meetings, right, and
then if somebody books an appointment with me that I
can put somebody else in there, they don't show up
and pitchforks and torches, right, So you get so mad
because like, oh, I could have put somebody else there,
because now this person is wasting my time.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
Right yeah, And there's a fine line there, right, Like
you get to the point where you have an abundance
like that in your meetings back to back, and I
appreciate that we're both there, right yeah, And yet I
guess point you're no longer operating out of a position
of fear either as a salesperson. You're you're you realize
you realize that, you know, I'm not afraid from my
next my next opportunity, my next deal, my next whatever.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
That that's actually if you can get your whole team
into that zone, it changes a mindset rather than the
person's got two appointments all week and they're they're afraid,
like they're really scrambling something.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Right, So you're sitting somebody through the process that you know,
you meet that person at the end, you're like, this
person's not buying in any way, shape or form, they'll
do a meeting with you, you know, look at the
information and still kicking tires, but are they ready to
make a decision? Right. It's kind of like I always
use the analogy also with this process of window shopping.
If you're walked by a store that you looked in

(35:40):
the window, you're like, get some of my stuff in here, right,
you're looking in the store from the outside. You know,
that's them, you know, looking in the beginning at your brand.
Something caught their rye and they submitted a form. You know,
as you start doing the intro call and start taking
it through the education, now they're inside. Now they're now
they're looking. Now they're looking through the recks. Now they're
grabbing stuff and put it on their arm. When you
are doing territory and FTD calls, now they're trying the

(36:02):
stuff on, seeing how it fits, seeing if they like it,
and if if it looks good on them.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Right.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
Well, when you get to like validation and having them
meet the team, they're in line. This is where a
lot of the fear starts creeping in on Oh my god,
do I need all these pair of pants? They started
to start adding it up. Right, it becomes real to
them till after the brand visit they're holding their credit
card in their hand where they got to swipe. That's
where all the adjuta starts coming through. That's why people
lose people at like FTD call or validation. People just

(36:29):
gone in the wind because we didn't do a good
enough job on the front end to be able to
tell them, Man, that looks phenomenal on you, that combination
is amazing. You have to wear that out tonight, right.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
Yeah, or that looks terrible on you. It's this isn't
a good fit, right yeah, either way, either way.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
That should be real with them. That's what people want,
right Nobody wants to feel like that they've been mamboozled,
you know. Salespeople have a bad enough rap as it
is with you know, in the mindset of most people.
You know, people coming in and already have the guard up,
you know. To lower that guard down to where they're
actually listening to you is a skill set all in
its own, And it's a totally different podcast to type

(37:09):
into that. I'll be able to release some of that,
but I mean, people have that fear coming in and
our job as influences is to give them enough feel
good about it at the end of each call. They
should feel better. When I ask people, I'm like, you know,
to make a decision on something, or if they I
want their opinion on something, I'll ask them, how do
you feel about that? I want to ask them what

(37:30):
they think about it, because I don't want them to
be up here. I want them here, right, I got
to keep them here. So and if the more you're
able to keep them here and out of their own
head less of that fear.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Is in a creep in. Yeah, yeah, I love it, Jim.
This has been fantastic. I think we could. We could
probably keep going for quite a long So tell me
if somebody wanted to reach out to you to you're like,
I'm struggling with this with some of my candidates. I
need some help or some advice, or I'd love to
pick your brain about how to help my people overcome fear.
What's the best way for somebody to reach out to you.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
Yeah, I'm really active on LinkedIn, so anybody that's listening
to this please find me on LinkedIn. I've got like
three thousand people I'm connected with, so I should be
pretty easy to find. I'm actually google myself the other
night and I actually come up on the first page
of Google, so that's pretty exciting. But also my email
address is the letter J. Stapleton S T A P
L E T O N at Carrying Transitions dot com.

(38:26):
So anybody can drop me an email and you know,
I'd love you know, taking people. I love talking sales.
Me and my best friend. This is like what we
do when we we're together as we talk about different sales,
things that have happened and the successes we had. So yeah,
I mean, anybody that's interesting connect with me and you know,
let's have a conversation.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Good love it. Jim, Thanks so much for your help.
I appreciate you taking some time away from your role
at Carrying Transitions to give us some knowledge and best
of luck to you and the team as you keep growing.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Yeah, thanks, appreciate it. Thanks to
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