Coaching Strategies That Build Top Sales Performers | TFOS 25

In this episode of The Future of Selling, Rick Smith sits down with Kristie Jones, startup sales coach, author of Selling Your Way In, and creator of “Kristie-isms.”

Kristie shares how she helps early-stage SaaS founders scale from founder-led selling to real revenue teams and why most reps fail not from lack of training, but from lack of discipline. She breaks down how to spot top 10% performers, why your circle matters more than your résumé, and what leaders get wrong when hiring for sales.

💡 Whether you’re a founder, a sales leader, or just trying to hit quota without burning out, this episode will challenge how you think about performance and coaching.


📘 Grab her book Selling Your Way In: https://www.kristiekjones.com
🔗 Connect with Kristie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristiekjones/
🔗 Connect with Rick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-smith-094b29b/
🔗 Learn more about Conquer: https://conquer.io

Creators and Guests

Host

Rick Smith

Chief Customer Officer at Conquer, Host of The Future of Selling Podcast, Eternal Student

What is The Future of Selling?

The Future of Selling is the go-to podcast for sales professionals looking to sharpen their skills and stay ahead in the competitive world of B2B sales. Each episode features expert interviews, real-world case studies, and actionable tips to help you navigate the complex B2B buyer's journey. Whether you're dealing with long sales cycles, multiple decision-makers, or rapidly changing technologies, we’ve got you covered. Tune in to discover the latest trends, best practices, and proven strategies for closing more deals and building lasting relationships in the B2B space. Perfect for sales leaders, account managers, and anyone aiming to master the art of B2B selling.

Future Of Selling (00:02.849)
Hey, welcome to the Future of Selling podcast where we dive into challenges and trends. We dive into innovations, anything that's impacting the future of sales is a sales landscape. My name is Rick Smith. I'm your host. I'm so thankful and appreciative that you guys have decided to join us today. Our guest today is Christie Jones. Now, Christie is the founder and principal consultant at Christie K. Jones Consulting.

She works with early stage startups and also with SaaS companies who are scaling. She's really passionate about a couple of things and it comes out in her book. We'll talk about that book in a minute. She's really passionate about hiring and retaining the top 10 percenters, right? Reviving the art of sales and also designing repeatable and scalable sales processes that help organizations grow and help individuals and leaders actually be successful in their roles.

As I mentioned a minute ago, she's written a book. The name of the book is called Selling Your Way In. She sent me a copy of that, which I was kind of blown away. I don't know if that didn't always happen, but I thought that was just such a kind gift that she sent me. And I'm actually right in the middle of it right now. I'm on chapter, upcoming chapter eight. So it's been a really good read, really great book. So I recommend if you don't have it, grab it. I'm telling you, I'm a fan.

I'm really really excited about the conversation today. So Christy welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here with us today

Kristie Jones - Author (01:32.15)
Rick, thanks so much for having me on. I'm excited about our conversation.

Future Of Selling (01:35.127)
Yeah, yeah, me too, me too. But before we get into the deep stuff, right, kind of the book and kind of the concepts and things like that, I would just like to start with just a couple of fun facts, just to open it up, let people know you're a human being and just make it more personable. I hope that's okay with you. Good, good, good. So fun fact number one, you're really good athlete.

Kristie Jones - Author (01:52.077)
Absolutely.

Future Of Selling (01:59.103)
And you use a ton of sports metaphors in your book and I assume because I've been reading it and but I assume also you use that in your coaching as well. that accurate?

Kristie Jones - Author (02:09.794)
That is accurate. Yep. I'm a sports junkie. I know that that's not for everyone, so I am sort of sensitive. But in general, I play in a sports, or a male dominated industry. So a lot of times that works just fine for me. But yes, I'm a sports junkie. You can find me in front of the TV on most Saturdays and Sundays watching football. And I love basketball, college basketball particularly.

Future Of Selling (02:14.947)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (02:33.091)
Yeah, yeah, love it. Love it. Yeah. And I was reading that, that, you know, played racquetball back in the day and then, and then absolutely transition to tennis. Do you have you done the pickleball thing yet or just not interested in it?

Kristie Jones - Author (02:44.386)
I just, yup, I just bought a pickleball racket after having my first pickleball experience. I haven't used my new racket yet, but my girlfriends got together for one of our, call it my tennis, my tennis inner circle, as I call it. We get together monthly for girls night out and one of the, one of the girls had a birthday. And so she said, can we all play pickleball instead? So that was my first, I never tried it before. So that was my first boy. And it was, I was a little bit addicted. So, yep, I went out and bought a used racket at Play It Again Sports.

Future Of Selling (02:56.727)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (03:06.445)
Yeah. Yeah.

awesome.

Yeah, love it, love it. Well, I've got a little bit of a bias on pickleball. I've played a couple of times. I'm like, why won't they make that ball bounce just a little bit more? Not tennis ball bounce, right? But just give it a wee bit more bounce and it would be, anyway, I think it'd be more fun game, but I do like it as well. So cool. Also, you are known for Christyisms and you sent me all these Christyisms and we're gonna talk about these as we go, but you've kind of turned them into what I would call like playing cards.

Kristie Jones - Author (03:31.949)
Excellent.

Kristie Jones - Author (03:43.416)
Yes.

Future Of Selling (03:44.379)
And, you know, I want to talk more about that and find out how you use them. think I know, but I'm ready to dig into that in a few minutes. And then also, I love this thing that I read in your book that you have time to give anyone 30 minutes for a conversation. Has that ever gotten kind of got you in a bad spot, like from a calendar perspective, or has that always worked out pretty well for you?

Kristie Jones - Author (04:07.616)
I say I'm hoping to be busy enough someday to only be able to give 15 minutes, but currently I still have time to get 30 minutes. So, you know, I can, I can always squeeze people in. They, again, everybody kind of comes from referrals. So it's normally a friend of a friend or something like that. So when you, recently I posted something on LinkedIn that got a lot of attention and I had a lot of out of work sales people reach out to me and ask for 30 minutes. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (04:28.77)
Oh, wow. Okay, I bet. yeah, that that well, one, I think that's awesome that you're doing that. And secondly, I may grab 30 minutes with you at some point. So I love love the idea. You know, when I was reading the book, I like to read kind of who you're dedicating these things to or, who people dedicate their books to. You dedicate the book to your parents and and also to Scott. And you talk a lot about the impact of the kind of the kitchen table MBA. Do you mind?

Kristie Jones - Author (04:38.542)
Perfect.

Future Of Selling (04:57.218)
Do you mind unpacking that a little bit? You know, talk about how your parents influenced you and, I'm assuming Scott, you're assuming that's your brother. that accurate? Okay. Okay. And maybe how he impacted you as well. Love to just, I love the story and love to maybe just dig into that a bit.

Kristie Jones - Author (05:05.228)
Yes, yep, yes.

Kristie Jones - Author (05:13.866)
I think it was something that I didn't really understand at the time, right? When you're in it and it's your normal dinner table conversation and you don't always spend time at other people's dinner tables, you don't know that it's unusual. But it was after the fact, know, after sort of I had gotten into the business world myself that I realized that just by osmosis. So my mom had started out as a teacher and my dad had been a mid-level manager for what today we would say AT &T. So he worked for the United Telephone Company before Bell.

Future Of Selling (05:41.228)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (05:41.263)
And so those table conversations weren't that interesting because I have no memory of those whatsoever. But when I was about 12, my dad went into the real estate business with his brother and became the owner broker of a Coldwell banker franchise. My mom was still teaching a couple of years later. She got her real estate license over the summer break and taught one more year and then never again. so, you know, there's a couple of things about real estate. So I always say like, this is one of the worst professions ever for people. And really the only time like

Future Of Selling (05:46.647)
Right.

Future Of Selling (06:08.384)
Right. Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (06:11.104)
My it's funny because even though they worked in the same office, you know, my dad was sort of working a nine to five Monday through Saturday ish, but my mother was working when everybody else wasn't right. So nights and weekends. And so a lot of times they were, they didn't see each other during the day. And so if we could sneak in dinner, which a lot of times my dad became responsible for, and that's where, right. Her stopping teaching flipped our whole world upside down. My dad and I was responsible for orthodontist appointments and getting us to softball practice on time and cooking dinner.

Future Of Selling (06:17.953)
Right.

Yeah.

Future Of Selling (06:26.935)
Right.

Ha

Future Of Selling (06:39.948)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (06:41.384)
but, but when they got together, they needed to not only catch up about what was going on with us as kids, but also like what had gone on professionally during throughout the day. And so the table conversation revolved around, you know, buyers and sellers, commission checks, listings, the business, the industry, and both my parents were very involved in the state and local associations. And so, you know, I think like, we didn't know it wasn't normal until we went out, my brother and I went out to find jobs.

Future Of Selling (07:04.545)
Okay.

Kristie Jones - Author (07:11.146)
And it was, it's no surprise when you look back that, you know, I decided to take the leadership route that my father had taken and my brother took the individual contributor route that my mother had taken. and, and when we, you know, had talked about it, you know, over the years, neither of us would change places with the other. he thinks I'm crazy. He's like, I can't believe you rely on other, you would rely on other people for your income. and I was like, I can't believe you're like, know, like you would just be completely reliant on yourself or.

So we would always have this debate, neither of us would switch places, which was really interesting. But a lot of the things, as a result of that, I say that we grew up differently and I felt an obligation. And it took me a while to figure it out till friends started saying to me like, hey, we don't know what you know. We didn't grow up the way you grew up. Most people don't have business acumen and financial literacy, and we had both. And so I don't think it's any surprise that we both ended up in sales.

Future Of Selling (07:41.004)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (08:05.455)
I think there were, I mean, I have a journalism degree, by the way. So I always tell people, said, I didn't, you I never set out intended to be in the sales environment. And the first job out of college was in retail sales, at a department store. you know, they, and I tell people I've been on, I was on John Burroughs' podcast a while back. And I said, he was, has a smaller daughter and he wrote a book on sales, a children's book on sales. And so we hit, yeah. So we had gone down that path of talking about that a little bit. And he said, after reading part of my book, he said, you know,

Future Of Selling (08:08.62)
Mm-hmm.

Future Of Selling (08:29.147)
wow, that's cool.

Kristie Jones - Author (08:35.233)
I assume that you advocate for parents having very transparent financial conversations with their children. And I said, I do, because we're not teaching that in school. No one's teaching that. Even in high school, maybe you got personal budgeting or whatever. people, that's still a little bit of a taboo topic. And I say to people, if we all discussed it, we'd all probably be more financially stable. We'd be making more money. We'd be better investors.

Future Of Selling (08:50.722)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (09:03.011)
You know, we would know how to handle negotiations probably better. And so, but it's one of those taboo topics that people just don't talk about.

Future Of Selling (09:10.742)
Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Well, and when I was reading it and kind of, you know, hearing that, hearing you tell the story in the book, I just kept thinking about how much it must have impacted you as well, as well as all the financial piece and the financial literacy that you took from that. But to actually see, to actually see your parents kind of step out of the comfort zone of a, of a nine to five job being a F being a full-time employee for someone else, step out of that comfort zone and into the stretch zone.

Kristie Jones - Author (09:34.713)
Mm-hmm.

Future Of Selling (09:38.164)
And then everything that goes along with that, I mean, that had to be, again, I think probably just really inspiring and part of what, you know, kind of made you who you are today.

Kristie Jones - Author (09:49.251)
Yeah, until we were adults, I don't think we really understood the risk that our family had taken. My dad had kind of put us in this position because we had never, mean, like you said, like they were just going to work every day and getting a set paycheck every two weeks. I don't think we really understood the risk and the fact that really like my mother went into a, mean, for someone who'd never been in sales, who had an English degree.

Future Of Selling (10:12.674)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (10:14.127)
Um, and it taught English. She'd lived overseas in Europe and grown up in Europe. So she spoke Spanish fluently. So she also taught Spanish, but she taught English and Spanish. And, and for her to go from that situation to a hundred percent commission sales rep. mean, I don't really know. I very few women, right. And then that was in the, that was in the early eighties. Um, until like I got to be an adult, I don't really think I understood the risk that was being taken. Um, but it also put our family in a.

Future Of Selling (10:20.726)
Yeah. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (10:34.167)
Mm-hmm.

Future Of Selling (10:40.407)
Right.

Kristie Jones - Author (10:42.435)
different position, right? Financially. to position that, you know, I say like my parents paid cash for college for my brother and me. you know, we came out of college without student loans, but they hadn't saved for it, but business had been, you know, gotten so good when we were in around the time we went to college, that they were able literally to pay cash for college. So it made a difference. It made a difference in our family. But yeah, I think, I think one of the reasons why I work with early stage startup founders is I have like a little bit of a soft spot for the risk takers out there.

Future Of Selling (10:59.99)
Wow, incredible.

Kristie Jones - Author (11:11.427)
who leave their comfortable nine to five and go out and try to sell their first million dollars and then try to get some VC money after that. that's a, I always say like, I understand that you've probably like, mortgage your house, right? You've probably lean on your house. You've probably done some things. You've borrowed money from friends and family at this point to do something that you truly believe in and are passionate about.

Future Of Selling (11:37.123)
Yeah, yeah, it's incredible to see people do that. But you've done that as well, right? I you've stepped out. I you were working as an FTE, I mean, I say full-time employee, but you were a leader and you're doing some different things, but you working for another company. So kind of use that maybe as a transition to tell me about, dive in a bit deeper to Christy K. Jones consulting.

Kristie Jones - Author (11:48.996)
Mm-hmm.

Future Of Selling (12:02.306)
What do you do? Who do you serve? What type of results are you seeing? Those kind of things, just so people can understand that.

Kristie Jones - Author (12:08.313)
Sure. Yeah, I've been kind of living in the startup space as a sales leader when I was a W2 employee. And so when I went out on my own and started my own consultancy, that was the niche. Like that was like, my swim lane. So that's my swim lane. So really, you know, B2B SaaS startup founders between one and five million in revenue who are trying to move from founder led selling into building out their first sales team. I kind of come in, I say, as an extra set of expertise hands.

and help them build up, unformalize and document all the processes that are right now just in their head. Nobody ever writes anything down. They're like, this just worked for me. And I'm like, great, did you write it down? They're like, no, I'm like, okay, well, let's do that now. I feel like I'm writing somebody's autobiography a lot of times, right? Now I'm like, nobody writes anything down. I come in and build out all those processes, sometimes even help them purchase their first CRM system, make sure the CRM system is customized and tied to all those processes.

Future Of Selling (12:38.486)
Yeah. Yeah.

I was just telling people

Kristie Jones - Author (13:02.095)
And then I begin the process of helping them hire those people. So before we go hire sales rep number one, two or three, we need to have some kind of a playbook and framework for them to work through. yeah, I I really do appreciate, I love what I do. Everybody's so appreciative. And I really love like that is my niche. And I love being in that one to five. It's very different than going from five to 10 or 10 to 50 million or 50 million to 250. So.

Future Of Selling (13:26.06)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (13:28.755)
Those are really, that's really the expertise that I have is helping people. do do some other things outside of that. I do some executive coaching and I do some interim sales leadership from time to time as well. But in general, I'm just helping you figure out the playbook and the framework so that we can go higher and build out and start to build out your sales team.

Future Of Selling (13:45.879)
Yeah, tremendous amount of value there, right? Because just like you said, mean, typically that's going to be a founder led initiative. And I mean, I've worked for a couple of startups in the past. And I mean, like I remember one, thought it was much bigger than this before I joined it. But once I joined it, I found that I was like employee number 12. And at that time it was kind of founder led, right? And there's just so much they can do. So bringing in that expertise to take them to the next level.

I mean, that's definitely high value. What kind of led you to start your own company and then ultimately write the book?

Kristie Jones - Author (14:20.643)
sure.

Kristie Jones - Author (14:29.485)
Yeah, I got fired. that, you know, that's that was definitely the impetus for that. A reorganization happened at the last W2 company I was working for. And I really was in search of my next sales leadership role. So I was starting to meet with VCs that had invested in companies that I had been a part of in the startup world and other former, you know, individuals, partners that I'd worked with companies. And really, like I was in I was in no way intending to start my own business.

After having grown up the way I grew up, I knew how hard it was. My dad had had bypass surgery at 53. I was convinced that was stress related. And there was a whole bunch of things that had happened. And of course, the real estate is either really great or really bad. And so I'd had a jaded view of that situation. But I say very openly that the universe conspired to do something different than I was intending to do. And all of these things started to happen where

relationships that I was meeting, follow-up calls were happening where a major general partner at the biggest VC in Missouri called me, said, we just invested in a cybersecurity company. He's moving from founder led selling to building on his first sales team. He doesn't know what he's doing. Would you have coffee? And I said, of course, I have 30 minutes for everyone. And I gave him 90 minutes. And at the end, as we were walking out of the Starbucks, he said, I'm pretty much not qualified to do anything you told me that needs to be done. Who do you think can help you help me do this?

Future Of Selling (15:56.14)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (15:56.277)
And without even, I was still employed at the time. I knew I was transitioning out. They'd asked me to stay on for three months while they rebuilt the team in Phoenix, Arizona from St. Louis. And so I said, I can, without almost stopping myself. And so like that was the first ball and a big snowball that happened. And before I ever left the W2 job at the end of that three months, I had three clients, three, I was helping build out the first sales team of the cybersecurity company who 18 months later was bought by Cisco.

Future Of Selling (16:17.932)
Wow.

Future Of Selling (16:25.58)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (16:25.807)
So that was major success number one. And then ended up getting some fractional sales leadership jobs at two other companies who were, again, founder, who were being founder led. But the founder was ready to step out of that role and let somebody else take over.

Future Of Selling (16:41.986)
Wow, it's amazing. And then at some point, you get into this and you're doing the consulting, you're doing the fractional sales leader. And then at some point you decide to write the book. What kind of made you decide, need to, now I need to, was it because nobody ever documents anything?

Kristie Jones - Author (16:59.023)
It was not that, but that's a better story than the one I'm going to tell you. I had actually been approached during pandemic by a company called Udemy. So an e-learning online learning company, they were starting their business division. originally Udemy was started by, I always say, I use this really bad example where, you know, if your expertise is in building birdhouses, you can, you know, go on Udemy and create a birdhouse building course and they'll, they'll host it and you'll get a certain percentage of the, of the revenue that you generate.

Future Of Selling (17:03.234)
Alright.

Kristie Jones - Author (17:28.825)
but they were starting a business side, a B2B side where they were going to sell the business courses to companies. And they had found me on LinkedIn and reached out and approached me about doing a course on sales and their sales catalog. So I ended up during 2020 and 2021 creating a prospecting course for them. Prospecting fundamentals, a very basic entry level sales prospecting course. And so at that point I was like, I had done all of this work. They'd given me an instructional designer, taken about six, seven months.

Future Of Selling (17:45.719)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (17:58.319)
But I had all this content and so I was like, well, let's build up. Let's make a book, right? And so I hired a book coach and about a couple months in I told her I said Like I'm really struggling like I'm not enjoying this something's off like give me 30 days to try to figure that out So 30 days later I came back to her and I said I'm writing a dumb dumb how-to book and I said there are a lot of people out there that write how-to sales books that probably can do it better than I can do it and I don't and I'm not enjoying this and she said okay. Well, does that mean we're like are we scrapping the book idea?

Future Of Selling (18:12.342)
Right.

Future Of Selling (18:16.352)
Right.

Kristie Jones - Author (18:27.321)
you know, entirely and I said, no, I said, I think one of the things I'm continually seeing is people, sales professionals putting themselves in the wrong sales role and not, and then limiting themselves from getting to the top 10%. And I said, I think, you know, when, when people think about sales, they don't really understand the hundreds of job roles that fall under the sales umbrella. And some of which people don't even think at that is a sales role.

And so I said, I think I want to write a book that incorporates the information that I learned as a child. you know, the things that I gained in a sales, you growing up in a sales entrepreneurial household, along with the things that I've been seeing as a consultant. And so, I started to write a book that I really was proud of and that I was really excited about and that all of a sudden it became a lot easier. And so that's when I knew I had hit on something. I, you I, I talked to a few people and, know, everybody said, there's really nothing like this out there. There's no.

I'm calling it kind of like the career sales guide manual, if you will, but not really anything out there like this. So that's how the book came about.

Future Of Selling (19:31.574)
Yeah, again, the book is really good. can, and you know, I'm interviewing you now, I can feel your energy coming through, but even in the book, you know, sometimes you read a book and you can kind of feel the author is kind of sitting in an easy chair, lean back, just writing, and then you can feel the energy come through at times. And with yours, feel, I mean, I could feel it. I mean, it was like, my gosh, she's really on this thing. So clearly you were in your lane, which is

part of your thing, right? know, being in your lane. I also like the fact that you did break it out by, know, one seller's not like every other seller. You know, you've got the account executive, you've got the SDR, you've got customer success, which, know, I'm the client customer or chief customer officer at Conquer, and that's where I've spent most of my career is on the customer side of the world, but also huge piece of sales, right? And not everybody recognizes that.

Kristie Jones - Author (20:27.407)
I mean, in majority of companies, the majority of revenue comes from renewals and expansion. And we give all of this attention. know, I say, I sit in these board meetings and all everybody wants to talk about is net new. And I get it because it's early stage startups. But even after the first year or two, the customer success team is generating more revenue than the net new sales team. And it will always be the case. yet we're not, we never give that, you know, we said like, sometimes it feels like the customer success team is the redheaded stepchild of sales.

Future Of Selling (20:32.139)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (20:54.219)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (20:55.663)
or not even considered part of the sales org. People don't even think about it, but I say to people, I do you understand how much revenue they're generating versus the NetNewSales team?

Future Of Selling (21:04.459)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I agree. I mean, if you can't renew clients, you can expand them. And if you can't renew and expand, you probably can't land net new. really hard to do if you kind of don't have that credibility behind you. So anyway, I thought that was really nice the way you broke that out. Let's talk about this idea.

Kristie Jones - Author (21:21.359)
Mm-hmm.

Future Of Selling (21:28.769)
of the top 10%. I know that was one of the things you really wanted to hone in on. So what defines a top 10 % in a sales role? How do you think about that? Is it just the numbers or kind of what are you thinking?

Kristie Jones - Author (21:42.115)
Yeah, I think, I think it first and foremost is the numbers. So sales is an objective sport. We're keeping score and it's very easy to keep score. There's nothing subjective about sales at all. So it's people who figured out how to, you know, how to hit their quota, how to get to be the number one or two person on the team. You know, you're doing things better than your coworkers and competitors. It's obvious. but I also think there, you know, when you start to talk about additional traits, of top temper centers, they're also doing things. say the work to get to the top most times with top temper centers.

happens outside of work, right? So I always use the example, I'm like, know, Susan's sitting next to and, you know, Susan's saying everything that Kay is saying, and, but yet she's only at 60 % of quota. And she goes home frustrated every day going, but I don't understand, like, I'm doing exactly what Kay's doing, but I'm not getting the results that Kay's getting. The fact of the matter is you're probably not doing exactly what Kay's doing, right? Kay probably has cut alcohol out of her life. She's probably at the gym five or six days a week. She's probably going, you know, getting eight hours of sleep.

She probably has a mindfulness or spiritual type of practice. She's probably surrounding herself with the right people. She's probably a lifelong learner, right? She's probably constantly improving her professional and personal development and taking responsibility for that. And so when I, you over the course of several, I mean, you even going back to my retail days, the first eight, you know, eight or so years out of college I spent in retail, the people who were doing the best,

were also taking care of themselves in a different way. Like they understood the mind-body connection, they understood the physical and mind connection, and how that impacted their professional lives.

Future Of Selling (23:12.832)
Right.

Future Of Selling (23:20.491)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (23:24.159)
Yeah, got it. Yeah, I completely agree. I have a mastermind that I lead on. It's called Let's Grow, but it's basically, how do we grow? How do we become? How do we get on this process of kind of moving toward the next thing? And the people who do that and do that consistently, I think are always at the of the top of their game. How do you...

Kristie Jones - Author (23:47.78)
Mm-hmm.

Future Of Selling (23:49.442)
In an interview, how do you spot the top 10 percenter? mean, you know, other than, you know, again, numbers and things like that. But I mean, how do you how do you know that you've got the real thing?

Kristie Jones - Author (24:02.383)
Yeah, mean, asked them certain questions. Some of them are leading me down that path for sure. One of the things I ask everybody in an interview is tell me about the art of sales, I call it. So tell me about sales soft skills training that you've been provided by prior employers. The number one answer I get is I haven't been. And so the follow-up question to that is, so what have you done for yourself? And I ask it just that way, right?

Future Of Selling (24:18.934)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (24:27.457)
And if people hesitate and they don't know what they've done or they can't, you know, I mean, like, then I'm like, I know I'm not dealing with the top 10 % or another question I ask is, tell me about the last time you learned something new. What was it? How long ago was it? And how did you learn it? You know, and then I ask, you know, I ask people about who their advisory board is. Right. Because I say that in the Christism card you have in front of you says your circle matters. Right. And you can't.

Future Of Selling (24:33.739)
Okay.

Future Of Selling (24:38.336)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (24:54.927)
where you can't surround yourself with people who are not ambitious, who are not taking care of their bodies, who are doing things off hours that aren't going to benefit them on hours and think that those are the people that are in your circle, then you're probably not going to get to the top 10%. It's more than just, I no longer use that phrase, it's more than just you need to be the least smart person in the smart room. It's more than that, right? You need people who are going to go on the journey with you.

Future Of Selling (25:20.192)
Okay.

Kristie Jones - Author (25:24.783)
who are not gonna sabotage you, who are gonna support you, who are not gonna criticize you for the hours that you work or the things that you do or the fact that you're gonna drink club soda and lime instead of vodka and tonic or gin and tonic. So I think it's all of those type of things that, there's certain questions you can't ask, but I'm hearing more and more as I ask certain types of questions. I ask people about risk taking. think top 10 % are risk takers.

Future Of Selling (25:35.542)
Right.

Kristie Jones - Author (25:53.135)
Right, they don't have a fear of failure. And so one of the questions I ask, I ask it either one of two ways. The first question I ask, it could be just as simple as, me the last time you took a risk. The other way I ask it is, tell me the last time someone said to you, oh my gosh, I can't believe you just did that. Right, because risk takers make other people who are not risk takers uncomfortable. Right, and so a lot of times they're like, I can't believe you're gonna like quit your job and go start your own company, right? Or, I can't believe that you just said that to your boss or.

Future Of Selling (26:03.776)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (26:14.101)
Right? Yeah.

Future Of Selling (26:22.571)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (26:22.767)
I can't believe you said that to a customer. so, but those, know, like it's more than, again, like it's more than just confidence. It's more than a lot of things. It's, you know, it's, read people, you know, you're reading people well, you know, you're creative about how you go about doing things. You have a strategic, you know, mindset. So there's, and I say to people like, you can interview for this, you know, just like I can interview, I consider startup fit a competency.

that I can interview for. So I have about six or seven startup fit questions, right? So I mean, you can interview for all of these type of things. I say, we're not looking for characteristics, we're looking for traits. There's a difference. And we're also looking for competencies, right? But people who are, the other thing that top 10 %ers do is they're accountable, right? A lot of people aren't accountable. And so I ask a question, tell me the last time you missed quota and what were the circumstances surrounding it? I will never forget.

Future Of Selling (26:53.141)
Okay.

Future Of Selling (27:01.055)
Right.

Future Of Selling (27:08.906)
Okay.

Kristie Jones - Author (27:19.247)
a candidate I interviewed recently. And she said to me, the last quarter, she's like, I knew I was leaving. And so I just didn't care anymore. I was like, wow. That's what I said. I was like, I can't believe you said that out loud. And she was trying to be authentic and honest, but it cost her the job. Right? Because, know, and again, I get it. Psychologically, I get it. But

Future Of Selling (27:28.959)
Right. Wow. Exactly.

Future Of Selling (27:36.863)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (27:46.261)
Even if you're looking for a new job or you're done with this one, top 10 percenters don't check out like that. Because they understand that they built brand and reputation and that their next job is probably going to come from their network. And the next job could be in the two jobs from that could come from the current leader who leaves that company and goes to another company. how often do we hear when I hear a lot from top 10 percenters? This is one of the early questions I know. I'm like, how did you end up at X company?

Future Of Selling (27:52.085)
Yeah. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (27:59.382)
Right.

Kristie Jones - Author (28:16.351)
my boss from the previous company left and went to that company and brought me with them. That's a sign.

Future Of Selling (28:22.655)
Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So what would you, so a lot of good interview questions are, are, are, you, and I, I don't think I've gotten to it yet. do you have those interview questions in your book or some of those interview questions where people can use them and if they so choose to buy the Okay. Okay.

Kristie Jones - Author (28:40.623)
Yeah, I do not, but I do have a hiring guide on my website. So at christykjones.com, there's a resources tab, there's a worksheets tab, and I have, it's called Your Gut is Wrong. It outlines my hiring process and interview questions along the way.

Future Of Selling (28:50.997)
Beautiful.

Right. I like that. That's good.

Yeah. Okay. So I was going to say, bet my next question was going to be, okay, you've got it. Let's say I was a sales leader and I'm trying to upgrade my team. What would you recommend I do? Maybe it's go to your website and find your, you know, your interview questions and things, or maybe there's a better answer than that. So, you know, again, I'm a sales leader. I got a team I'm trying to upgrade. not, you know, we're not, not doing well enough. Maybe I'm new to the company. What would you, what would you tell that sales leader to do?

Kristie Jones - Author (29:28.387)
Yeah, I think there are couple of ways. call it the easy way and the hard way. The easy way is to, is to terminate people who you don't think are the right fit for the situation and hire a players. it sounds like that's the easy way it takes some time and money. but I break these in and the other way would be to train them, right? Is to first start by providing them the art of sales training instead of the science of sales, which is all right now, data, data, data, you know, automation AI. and again, like run people through an assessment.

Future Of Selling (29:37.121)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (29:41.889)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (29:57.071)
Right? There are plenty of sales assessments out there if you're not sure. And I say, I break things into two categories. I'm very binary. Will and skill. Right? Will and skill. Those who don't have will, but have skill will always be a problem. Right? Once they get, once they hit their quota, they'll coast, you know, they're they don't care about the 120%. They just care about the a hundred percent or the 99%. So if they don't have the will, but they're skillful,

Future Of Selling (30:03.809)
Okay.

Future Of Selling (30:19.851)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (30:23.235)
that's probably gonna be someone that will need to roll off the payroll at some point. If they're really trying, if they've got a lot of will, then the question is, can we provide them the skill to get them to the next level? And again, that's the leader's responsibility to make that attempt. So I mean, as sales leaders, we walk in, we always, I just call it inherit people, right? We inherit people all the time. And in the 90 days, I try to put people in a couple of categories.

Future Of Selling (30:36.971)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (30:51.631)
The best case scenario with the top 10 % is have will and skill, right? And so you've got the will skill group, which are gonna be your leaders on your team. Then you've got people who have the will, but just were never properly trained. That's not their fault, right? That's a leadership problem that can be resolved. But the people who do have the ability, but just don't have the drive, I think probably it's in the book and it may be in a Christiaism card, but I say,

Future Of Selling (31:07.051)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (31:15.467)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (31:20.749)
we can't motivate the unmotivated, right? We can inspire the self-motivated. And so there's a big difference. it took me till almost in my 40s to figure out, sometimes I was just like, I'm not always the cheerleader, but sometimes I would come in and I would run the contest and get my pom poms. And I had the sales fairy, I had my sales fairy outfit and my wand, and I put some glitter into a...

Future Of Selling (31:25.941)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (31:48.353)
salt jar and sprinkled it over people's head and waved the wand and try to make the mojo happen. I was trying to create mojo. But then I finally figured out, I was working double time, particularly with the people who just weren't self-motivated. And there was nothing I could do, right? Like the contest didn't matter, the glitter didn't matter, the positive reinforcement didn't matter. They just weren't self-motivated. And those were just people I chose not to work with going forward.

Future Of Selling (31:50.848)
Right.

Future Of Selling (32:00.77)
Yeah. Right.

Future Of Selling (32:12.171)
Yeah, gotcha, gotcha. So is the Rowland skill quote, that one of your Christiaisms as well or is that or not? Yeah, I think it might be a good, how do you, I'm interested, I've got it later, but I'll hit it while we're here. How do you use the Christiaisms in your coaching and in your consulting? I mean, you got like, like I've got the stack here beside me, which I'm in love with. And there's like probably 50 of them, I bet.

Kristie Jones - Author (32:21.047)
It is not a Christ-e-ism. should be, I need to come up with a good Christ-e-ism for that. It should be good.

Kristie Jones - Author (32:41.167)
There's a lot of them in there. Yeah. I had to find clever. was trying to figure out clever ways to make certain themes stick. And so, and then I started putting them in phrases that, that I thought were entertaining. And then I was hearing people repeat them back to me. And that's when I kind of knew Christeisms had started because people would say, you know, you know, you, you know, hunters don't want to, you know, give birth to the baby or whatever, or, you know, farmers just want to raise the baby. and certain things that just, they just stuck with people, but

Future Of Selling (32:42.591)
Yeah, do it.

Future Of Selling (32:49.078)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (33:10.063)
I was using them to try to get muscle memory around the concept, right? And mental memory around the concept. And so I just kept saying them over and over and over and they were entertaining. And so people, and then people start repeating them back to me. I was like, okay, so like it's working. Like it's working. They're, they're remembering that's what I needed is something catchy. So they would remember.

Future Of Selling (33:14.313)
Right.

Future Of Selling (33:29.033)
Right. Got it. it. Do you do actually, I mean, since you put them in cards, you actually use them in your consulting gigs and in your meetings and kind of throw it out and go, okay, what's your feedback or how would you, like, I've got one, decisions are free, consequences are not. What would you do with that?

Kristie Jones - Author (33:36.341)
yeah, all the time.

Kristie Jones - Author (33:47.427)
Yeah, you know, I talk a lot about making bad, you know, making, you know, poor decisions. Like, and that, that one ties very closely to my other Christeism, which is panic causes bad decisions. Right. And then decisions are free and consequences are not the number one bad decision that people make is not having enough pipeline to hit quota or to hit the revenue target. Right. And so, you know, an anemic pipeline is never going to get you where you need to go. Excuse me. It's the decision.

to not prospect, right? It's the decision to call an existing customer or decision to do a check-in call with somebody in the pipeline versus the discipline to go out and prospect. And by the way, while we're talking about it, that's one of the number one traits of top temper centers. They have discipline. They're disciplined people. They're disciplined in their personal life, meaning the alarm goes off at 5.30 in the morning, they get up and go to the gym, they put the right things in their bodies.

Future Of Selling (34:17.76)
Right.

Future Of Selling (34:28.683)
Okay.

Future Of Selling (34:35.85)
Okay.

Kristie Jones - Author (34:45.345)
All of that requires discipline. And so the different, the people who have full pipelines have the discipline to time block prospecting two hours a day and then hold themselves accountable to doing it. It's not enough just to time block it. You actually have to the discipline and accountability to do it.

Future Of Selling (34:47.979)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (35:03.009)
Yeah, got it, got it. No, I love the card and I really love all of them, to tell you the truth. And so I'm trying to figure out how I'm gonna use them. I'm assuming that, and I'm just kind of showing them here, right? If somebody's watching this, I'm assuming that somebody could probably get this off your website and incorporate them in there. Like I could see taking that into one of my staff meetings and going, hey, okay, here's your Christ-e-ism for today.

Kristie Jones - Author (35:24.398)
Yes.

Future Of Selling (35:29.301)
Decisions are free, consequences are not. Use it maybe as an opener and say, tell me, help me understand how this may impact our gross retention, net retention and the efforts you're putting toward it this year or this quarter or whatever, right?

Kristie Jones - Author (35:42.701)
Yeah, think there's, yeah, I mean, people have favorites, like you said, people have favorite ones that they love to, but I, but really, like, I just want people to stop and think, I think sometimes we're, we're busy always working in the business and not on the business or working in situation, but not on ourselves. And so I think, you know, like, what does that mean to you? Like, what does the Christia's I mean to you? Like, what, how does that, could that possibly change your behavior? the, the decisions and consequences one was actually one that I started using with my son.

And so that was not an actually an initially a professional one. Um, know, because I, you know, I mean, as he was growing up and going, you know, through high school and college, there were decisions I thought he was making. And I just said to him, like, every decision has consequences, good and bad, right? So, you know, you can make a good decision that comes with very good consequences, you know, and it's, you know, the decision to play Xbox versus study, right? Or the decision to, you know, take a risk and

Future Of Selling (36:31.967)
Right.

Kristie Jones - Author (36:39.375)
ask for the promotion at work versus just to sit back and hope that it's going to come. But every decision and or, and again, by the way, not making a decision is a decision. Right. And so a lot of times like my son is a non-conflict kid. I'm not sure he's, that's definitely from his father's side. That's why I'm like, sometimes I look at him and like, that's totally your father's side. But he doesn't do conflict. He has trouble with constructive conflict. And so he, a lot of times, I'd a lot of times I say to him, I'm like,

Future Of Selling (36:49.908)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Future Of Selling (36:56.618)
Mwahahah

Yeah.

Future Of Selling (37:05.257)
Okay.

Kristie Jones - Author (37:08.975)
Hey, you needed to defend yourself in that situation. Now he's out in the working world. He's like, know, in, in a, know, fully adulted and in the working world, but still young, still in his 20s, mid 20s. I say, Hey, when you're like, you know, he would call me be like, you know, I got, you know, my boss, I got in trouble today. My boss, she called me this hap, this happened with one of the customers or this, that, I said, but the way you're explaining it, doesn't sound like it sounds like it was a miscommunication, but not an intentional thing. He's like, well, right. And I said, but you didn't say that. Right. And so that decision to not defend yourself.

I said, it doesn't have to sound like, you know, it doesn't have to sound defensive. It just has to say, Hey, this is actually how the conversation and what was intended. definitely got misconstrued or miscommunicated. And so, you know, that's a lesson for me to learn and do better next time. But I said, by just saying, okay. And, know, getting off the teams meeting, I said, you're not giving her a chance to also, you know, like to know what really goes on behind the scenes. Like there's always two sides to every story.

Future Of Selling (37:37.952)
Correct.

Future Of Selling (37:41.439)
Right.

Kristie Jones - Author (38:03.289)
So that one really started with Logan because I said, hey, listen, like everything you do is gonna have an output, right? That input is gonna have an output and you wanna make sure that that output benefits you.

Future Of Selling (38:05.768)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (38:15.392)
Yeah, no, I've had similar conversations with my girls back in the day, very much like that. So I love them. here's kind of, again, if somebody's looking, here's the whole deck. And what a great one. Stalled is not a sales stage. then there's another one in here, success begets success, I think is what it is, which is when I saw it, I'm like, I've said that for years. That's awesome.

Kristie Jones - Author (38:27.673)
Thank you.

Kristie Jones - Author (38:32.495)
You

Future Of Selling (38:45.12)
But just the ability to take those in, especially if you're a leader of a team, to be able to take those into a staff meeting or whatever it is. Because if you can get people to process that information in a meaningful way, all of a sudden you begin to change the way people think, the way they feel, and the way they act, behave, and perform. anyway, just kudos to you. I think they're awesome. I think they're great.

Kristie Jones - Author (39:10.479)
Thank you.

Future Of Selling (39:12.522)
Cool, well, I'll stop talking about that. I like them. Well, talk about the art of sales and soft skills. you said that the art of sales is becoming extinct. Unpack that a little bit. What do you mean by that? And which soft skills do you think are the most powerful versus the ones that are missing today that we're not seeing enough of?

Kristie Jones - Author (39:16.003)
I can go on all day. I've got a, yeah, I can go on all day about that.

Kristie Jones - Author (39:40.623)
Yeah, I think in general, you know, I've seen this over the last few years, right? As data has become more readily available, as AI has come onto the scene, as automation has come onto the scene, I think leaders are now sort of leading through data. And I'm hearing again, that interview question I asked that I'm always so disappointed in the answer, which is what kind of soft skills training have you been provided? And they say nothing. You know, I mean, it's communication, it's persuasion, it's negotiation.

I, I have a webinar that I did a while back. and I talk about this often, like the culture of accountability goes beyond just the company. You can also hold prospects accountable, but people don't know how to do that. Sales reps don't know how to hold a prospect accountable. It sounds like scary and icky, know, like, what do mean hold them accountable? Like, you know, I, I'm relying on them to, you know, to pay my rent, but we can hold people accountable inside the organization, but also outside the organization.

I just think all of those type of, you know, objection handling, right? I teach, we handle objections by asking questions to seek to better understand, right? That's the Christeism for objection handling. but yet most people talk their way out of an objection, which never works, sounds defensive, but you know, I see leaders all the time, even if you're going to provide some objection handling training, they normally teach you to talk your way out of the objection, which doesn't ever work.

Future Of Selling (40:50.912)
Okay, love that. Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (41:10.135)
And so I just, I just think there's so many, you know, how do we, sales is so based in psychology, right? So I have a minor in psychology. I am a true crime junkie and people like, can't believe you watch this stuff. And I said, how people like why people do what they do. I go, this is all about sales. And even if it's like, you know, cutting up your neighbor and putting them in deep freeze, you know, or, I, I just came back from a conference in DC and.

Future Of Selling (41:16.33)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (41:39.007)
One of the keynote speakers was a gentleman who, at a period of time, not too long ago, had the number one Michelin star restaurant in the world. And he wrote a book called unreasonable hospitality. And it was, it's a main, I haven't read it yet because I didn't know he existed until then, but he talked about, I mean, he talks about how they, he, he said the number one, said, I did some research as like when I got into the restaurant business.

Future Of Selling (41:48.77)
wow.

Future Of Selling (41:53.352)
I I've heard of that book. Yep.

Kristie Jones - Author (42:08.279)
and all of the top Michelin star restaurants were run by chefs, people who were culinarily professionally trained as chefs. And he said, I was a front of the house guy, not a back of the house guy. And so I was like, how will I be able to compete with these other restaurants without having a culinary background, even if I hire the best culinary chef I can find? And so he decided that the experience needed to be the differentiator. And he said,

Future Of Selling (42:16.714)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (42:37.679)
One of the examples he gave, which I just thought was amazing, which was he said, he asked the audience, were about 350 of us or 500 of us in the audience. And he said, how many of you got engaged at a restaurant? And people like 10, maybe like raised their hand and said, yes. And he pointed a guy out in the audience who was sitting across the aisle from me he said, and did they give you champagne? And the guy said, no. And he goes, oh.

He's like, you're kidding, right? Like you didn't get any champagne. Like they didn't give you free champagne. goes, no. And so he goes, okay, well that was supposed to happen. He goes, that was supposed to happen. So that was the big miss. But he said like, that's just sort of commonplace if someone gets engaged to your restaurant. So we were giving people champagne, but we, but I asked the staff like, how could we take that to the next level? Like what would the next level look like at that? And he said, his restaurant's in New York on Madison Avenue. And he said across the street was the Tiffany's headquarters.

Future Of Selling (43:09.589)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (43:21.962)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (43:35.459)
And he so I walked over one day and started knocking on doors till I found the CMO the chief marketing officer Told her who I was and told her I had an idea that I thought would benefit her and what he asked for was a thousand Well, two thousand champagne Tiffany champagne glasses two in a box and so he finally convinced her to do this and then so going forward anybody who

got engaged was serve champagne in these Tiffany glasses. They didn't understand that at the time, but after they were done, they took them back to the kitchen, they washed them, they put them in the Tiffany box, put the ribbon on it and gave it to him as an engagement gift. And he said, when people stop me or, know, I'm like, my gosh, this happened at your restaurant? He said, nobody ever remembers what the hell they had for dinner.

Future Of Selling (44:20.062)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (44:31.22)
But they were.

Kristie Jones - Author (44:31.435)
Nobody can tell me what they had for dinner. I have no idea what they ate, but they remember that. And so at the end of his keynote, out of nowhere, one of the people who was putting on the conference said, like, goes, hold on just a second. I'm not done. She handed him a bottle of champagne and he handed it to the guy that didn't get it as an engagement.

Future Of Selling (44:34.933)
Yeah.

Future Of Selling (44:54.378)
Yeah, that's cool. That's so awesome.

Kristie Jones - Author (44:56.227)
Right, and so I'm like, it's those things, like it's all of those, it's the little things like that. So when you talk about a top 10 percenter, like reading a book like that, if everybody went out and read Unreasonable Hospitality, which has nothing to do, I mean, he said, how many of you spent time in the restaurant industry? By the way, a large percentage, I already knew this, 90 % of the hands went up in the room. A large percentage of people in sales grew up in hospitality in some way, shape or form. So anyway, I just, that like,

Future Of Selling (45:18.09)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (45:22.849)
I thought, you know what, there's lots of things, you know, that made me think like, how can I make, cause again, it was the Maya Angelou quote, right? You'll never forget, right? They'll forget what you did, but they'll never forget how it made them feel. And so he's like, he goes, when, people tell me their stories of being in my restaurant and how I impacted something, I mean, you know, he had, he had story after story. could go on, but you know, the guy who was headed to the airport, stopped by for lunch, was headed to the airport and realized he hadn't gotten his daughter, the I love new, the teddy bear with the I love New York shirt on it.

Future Of Selling (45:30.484)
Right.

Kristie Jones - Author (45:51.945)
And I mean, somebody ran out, somebody on the staff ran out, got the bear and gave him the teddy bear. And he said, like, he goes, see a grown man cry. And he was like, you know, he goes again, he goes, that guy probably has no idea what he had for lunch, but he remembers, but he remembers what the people cared enough. And he goes, he said, you know, it costs us a little bit more. And he took it to, he actually created a position and he had a cutesy name for it, but basically like it was the director of experience of customer experience or something like that. Right. And.

Future Of Selling (45:55.968)
Yeah. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (46:04.756)
Yeah, yeah, no.

Future Of Selling (46:17.96)
Right. Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (46:20.879)
He literally like this person was just like hovering in the corner waiting for a service person or somebody in the, you know, whether it was a busboy who was clearing dishes and overheard something, this person's full responsibility was to make dreams come true basically, the customers that were in the restaurant. But that's what top 10, like that's what top 10 % looks like, right? Excellence in everything you do, even beyond, and he knew he was not gonna win. And I would say he understood his superpower.

Future Of Selling (46:32.383)
Right.

Future Of Selling (46:35.84)
Wow. Yeah, now that.

Future Of Selling (46:41.706)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Future Of Selling (46:49.845)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (46:50.093)
Right, not everybody understands his superpower. He knew his superpower was gonna be great food, but not number one in the world Michelin star food. He knew his superpower was going to be making people, the way people felt when they left his restaurant, not the way their tummies felt.

Future Of Selling (46:57.343)
Right.

Future Of Selling (47:04.692)
Yeah. Well, and you kind of, you kind of talk about, or I think that's what you're talking about in the book when, when, when you're talking about, what's your secret weapon? You know, and, and knowing, it really caused me to think, cause I'm like, wow, what are my secret weapon is? I mean, I think I might know, but I don't know that for sure. I would say, and especially as we're drawn to the, we're getting to end of our time. I would say if somebody's listening to the podcast,

Kristie Jones - Author (47:13.807)
That's right. That's right.

Future Of Selling (47:32.852)
they should go grab your book. because, I mean, I lot of books, right? But not all of them make me pause and think and consider. And then the other cool thing is you've got like a downloadable guide to go with the book. So.

Kristie Jones - Author (47:49.197)
Yes, please download the workbook because I call it getting quiet with yourself.

Future Of Selling (47:53.237)
Yeah, yeah, I think it's good. to me, and again, when you think about the top 10 percenters, I know when I think about them, I think top 10 percenters are always on the path to becoming, right? They kind of have this understanding that excellence always lies in the distance. And no matter where they're at, they're not quite there yet. They're not looking for perfection because perfection is limiting, right? But continuous improvement, that's liberating.

Kristie Jones - Author (48:15.363)
right.

Future Of Selling (48:20.852)
I mean, that's how you get there. anyway, I think that's, I think that's exciting.

Kristie Jones - Author (48:25.903)
Thank you for that. think there's a ricism in there about, I think there's a ricism about continuous improvement in the future. think you can work through, make a ricism out of that.

Future Of Selling (48:36.576)
All right, I'm making a set of cards. like it. I'm gonna create some cards and send them to you, see what you think. all right, well, real quickly, I like to leave people with a few key takeaways. And I think one of the key takeaways from my standpoint, get the book, read it, right? But from your perspective, if I were a seller, right, and I'm motivated and I'm hungry, but I know that I'm not yet in that top 10%,

Kristie Jones - Author (48:42.135)
Excellent.

Kristie Jones - Author (48:51.267)
Thank you.

Future Of Selling (49:01.054)
What are three things that you could say, go do this, go do that, and go do the other, and then you'll hit that 10%. Anything?

Kristie Jones - Author (49:08.143)
Yeah, yeah go take a top 10 % or to lunch Right and don't ask him about their professional life ask him about their personal life. I think you'll be surprised what you might hear And then you know, think you know take responsibility for like like you said take responsibility for your professional and personal development You know, you have to probably know areas that you're struggling in and again, I'm also a good to great person So I say like don't take your F skill and think you can make it an A skill

Future Of Selling (49:12.49)
Okay.

Future Of Selling (49:38.143)
Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (49:38.147)
You know, take your C plus, your B minus, your B, your B plus skill and do what needs to be done in order for that, you know, to become an A skill. And then I do think this concept of discipline, right? Like what things do you need to be more disciplined in your personal and your professional life? I think a lot of, mean, you know, it's this is I am again, going back to my child when we were growing up, I was, I was a big proponent of want versus need, because we would go to Target and he would want Pokemon cards.

Future Of Selling (50:04.181)
Right.

Kristie Jones - Author (50:04.345)
But I would explain to him that I know you want them, but you don't need them. Like they are, they are not going to make your life, they'll make your life better in the short term, but not exponentially better in the long term. And so, you know, that I think a lot of us live in the want, but not the need. And so, you know, what do you really need to do to get, know, do you want to be a top 10 % or first off, right? Not everybody wants to put the work in, right? And that's fine. So I would say, that's why I say like, I like that concept of getting quiet with yourself.

Future Of Selling (50:18.292)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kristie Jones - Author (50:33.433)
you know, get quiet and honest with yourself. If you're like, you know, I made the decision a lot of years ago to have a lifestyle business, right? I vacillated with like, am I going to hire, you know, employees? Am I going to try to take this thing to the next level? And I decided that really I loved being, you know, I love being someone who got her hands dirty and I didn't want to get too far away from the business. I liked being a solopreneur who had 10 99s. but I had to get quiet with myself and then I had to come to accept it. Right. And then I had to feel that there was no shame around it for me to be able to say people like, well,

Future Of Selling (50:39.487)
Right.

Kristie Jones - Author (51:02.307)
you know, are you going to, you know, how, how far are you going to grow this thing? And I said, I'm not going to grow this thing. I have a lifestyle business and I love what I do. And I love the, the, the place I've taken it to, but that's where I want to take it. And I needed to feel no shame around that. so, you know, I would say those things, I think, you know, if you read the book and you get the workbook, please do that. But I mean, one of the first things I ask you to do is really kind of get quiet with yourself and you know, what are you willing to do to get to what level? And if you don't want to be a top 10 % or, but you want to be in the top 80%, that's fine too.

everything's gonna take some level of work. It even takes work to be in the bottom 50%, right? So yeah, I think those kinds of things and again, like find your tribe, right? Your circle does matter. Make sure you're surrounding yourselves with people that have similar aspirations and goals as you do.

Future Of Selling (51:36.32)
True, very true.

Future Of Selling (51:49.664)
Yeah. Okay. I love those. So, take a top 10 % of the lunch and don't just talk to them about their business life, but what are they doing in their personal life, right? Take responsibility for your development. Make sure you're inserting discipline, both in your personal and professional life. And now we're asking kind of number four, said, hey, pay attention to your tribe. Make sure you've got one, but pay attention to who you're hanging out with, because you're probably not going to, you know, if you're hanging out with

Kristie Jones - Author (52:13.348)
Right.

Future Of Selling (52:19.24)
you whatever, you're probably not gonna get to where you wanna go. So make sure your tribe is going the same place you wanna go. incredible. Well, thank you so much for the conversation today. I wanna stay connected with you. I'm gonna finish the book and then I wanna reach back out to you and have the 30 minute conversation. So thanks much, appreciate it and look forward to talking to you again soon.

Kristie Jones - Author (52:24.791)
Agreed. Thank you.

Kristie Jones - Author (52:35.375)
I love it.

Kristie Jones - Author (52:42.105)
Thank you, Rick. Thanks, everyone.

Future Of Selling (52:43.956)
All right, bye bye.