45 - Selling is Problem Solving

Season #3 November 11, 2026

Episode 45: Selling Is Problem Solving

Become the Leader Podcast with Jody Holland, Mike Grigsby, Meghan Slaughter, and Maleah Berens

Episode Overview

Selling and leading run on the same engine: influence. In this episode, the team shares stories from their own time selling, from MLM recruiting pitches and door-to-door water filters to telemarketing and custom framing. The conclusion they all reach is that the best selling doesn’t feel like selling at all. It comes from genuine curiosity, careful listening, and solving a problem the other person actually has. The episode also covers what not to do (the “pitch slap”), why people buy the emotional outcome rather than the product, and why every executive is in a sales role whether they realize it or not.

Key Learning Points

If it doesn’t solve their problem, don’t sell it. Building on Donald Miller, Jody argues that the way to avoid feeling “salesy” is to only offer what genuinely helps.
Every leader is in sales. Mike points out that executives are constantly selling budgets, rollouts, initiatives, and change.
Lead with discovery, not the pitch. Strong questions help people get oriented, uncover their real priorities, and lower the anxiety that comes with change.
People buy outcomes, not products. Zig Ziglar’s quarter-inch drill bit example: nobody wants the bit, they want the hole.
Show the problem before offering the solution. Jody’s water filter sales took off once he started testing tap water against pool water, so homeowners could see a problem they hadn’t known about.
Solve both the practical and the philosophical problem. The event is only the vehicle. What people really want is trust, belonging, and identity (the Bernays/”Carousel” example).
Remove pressure to build trust. Meghan’s practice of saving quotes and inviting people to explore their options made them more comfortable, and more likely to buy.
Avoid three sales turnoffs: the decade-late “Hey girl” connection tug, the pitch slap, and opening by criticizing the prospect’s past decisions (Stephan Schiffman’s “brown cow”).
Listen for what matters. Small details people mention reveal their priorities. Being seen and heard is what drives conversion.
Niche down. Become the answer person for one problem, and clients will come looking for you.

Quotable Moments

“People don’t like being sold to, but they love being helped.” — Meghan Slaughter

“If you’re an executive, you’re in a sales role.” — Mike Grigsby

“If my service doesn’t solve your problem, I don’t want you to buy it.” — Jody Holland

“I have never sold anything, but I have helped countless people buy stuff.” — Mike Grigsby

“You have to learn the art of the interrogative.” — Mike Grigsby

“Sales is really about helping bridge somebody else’s anxiety.” — Mike Grigsby

“People make decisions based on emotion and back it up with logic.” — Meghan Slaughter

“Being seen and heard is what drives conversion.” — Maleah Berens

“It’s a gentle pitch tap instead of a pitch slap.” — Maleah Berens

“As soon as the pain annoys you enough to take action, that’s when you buy.” — Jody Holland

“You’re never really selling anything. You’re just really good at solving one problem.” — Jody Holland

Final Takeaways from the Hosts

Meghan Slaughter: If you can solve someone’s problem, holding back your product does them a disservice.
Mike Grigsby: Practice compassionate curiosity.
Maleah Berens: Solve problems with people, not just for them.
Jody Holland: Don’t try to be everything to everybody. Serve the niche that really needs you.

Episode Transcript

Jody Holland (00:01.721)
Hey guys, Jody Holland here with the Become the Leader podcast. We are going to be talking about sales and sales strategy today. Correlate this over to leadership. It is influence to sell and it is influence to lead. And I think we've got some fun stories that we're going to talk about about some of our own experiences on the sales battlefield and correlate that back to you. So I'm Jody. We've got Malia, Mike, and Megan on as well.

Let's jump straight in. Malia, I want to hear your story first. when you first got tried to they tried to recruit you. I did air quotes for anybody just listening. Recruit you into sales your senior year in high school.

Maleah Berens (00:42.688)
Yeah, so I remember it was like nearing the end of senior year. We're all trying to figure out what we wanna do after we graduate and all the things. And one of my friends asked me, she's like, Hey, hop on this webinar with me. They're gonna give us a whole pitch and let's just listen in. And the very first like thirty seconds of the whole call is like, Hey, do you wanna have something fun and interesting to talk about when you go home for the holidays? Do you wanna make a difference and be the top person in your friend group? And I was like

I'm seventeen years old, I'm just I'm still trying to learn how to tie my own shoes on my own. So it was very like high level, clearly for people that were not at the same same pace of life as I was. And it was just I immediately was like, Click, this isn't for me

Meghan Slaughter (01:18.345)
Yeah.

Jody Holland (01:29.613)
Yeah. Mike, do you remember Amway? That I remember multiple times people like, look, all you gotta do is you gotta get five friends who are gonna sell this stuff and buy it, and then they gotta get five friends each. And if those people get five friends each, then you're all gonna be multi-bajillionaires, and then you'll retire and own an island. And if it was really that good.

Mike Grigsby (01:33.225)
my gosh. Drawing circles, man.

The plan works if you work the plan.

Jody Holland (01:56.27)
Like, I know there's a lot of people that did good in Mway, but if it was really that good, why'd they have to pick you up and take you to a remote area to do the pitch when you don't have your own car to get out of there? I got to the point where when somebody says, Hey, I want to take you to this meeting, we're gonna talking about some really cool business concepts. First question was Is it Amway? And like, no, no, no, it's a global product solution system. I go, is it Mway rebranded?

Mike Grigsby (02:07.41)
That's right. That's right.

Mike Grigsby (02:15.57)
Is it is it amway? That's right.

Mike Grigsby (02:24.656)
Right.

Jody Holland (02:24.759)
Like, well, I mean, yeah, technically, I'm like, I'm not going with you. And I did multi-level marketing sales. So just so you know, I wasn't afraid of the sales side of it that, nor was I afraid of the MLM thing, because I did sales for NSA, National Safety Associates. I don't know what they were keeping you safe from, but bad air, I guess, because we sold air filters and water filters, and eventually they had a deal called Juice Plus that

Meghan Slaughter (02:27.297)
Mm.

Mike Grigsby (02:32.103)
Right.

Jody Holland (02:53.187)
Would cleanse you and make you a whole person again or whatever. It was fruits and vegetables a way to get five servings of fruits and vegetables and some pills. But I I just remember thinking, I've got to find people with this problem before I can sell them something. And a lot of times when people just come in and straight start pitching, they have no idea what your problem is. They're just trying to convince you to go do something. So

Mike, I'm sure you've got some stories because you and I both grew up during the Amway days. But talk a little bit about the good, the bad, and the ugly on problem solving as it correlates into sales.

Mike Grigsby (03:27.546)
Yeah.

Mike Grigsby (03:34.215)
Well, I think to to the point that you just said, you know, they they jump in with a a lot of people will jump in with a pitch without asking questions or I like how one one person says that th they don't allow you to establish your orientation to whatever it is they're about to to to to hit you with. And I think the and we'll dig into this, I'm sure we'll we'll unpack this a little bit more, but too many people I think translate sales to like

seduction, right? Or or or like they're trying to get you to do something that you weren't otherwise disposed to do. And I think that is the absolute wrong way to think about sales. I remember I sold as as a telemarketer. that's how long ago that job was as a telemarketer, I sold accidental death and dismemberment insurance. And one of the things that I did, I and I was a phenomenal, I I my, my

record, you know, my success rate was incredible. one of the things that I did was one, I I went ahead and bought the the solution myself, understood, read through all the paperwork and everything else. But the other thing that I did was I went through the phone book on Saturdays and l called people up that had weird spelled names and literally asked them like, how do you pronounce your name? And that translated to anytime I got got somebody with a a name that looked kind of sort of like that, if I got

Close, I almost always got the sale. And the reason I bring that up was it had nothing to do with me like influencing them to do something they didn't want to do, but being able to get them to a place where they can now establish an orientation. Hey, I've had a funny name, nobody gets it right. This guy got close. It just bridged the gap and allowed us to have a conversation. But we'll we'll talk more about that. But I I love this conversation because

Jody Holland (05:08.023)
Yeah.

Mike Grigsby (05:26.236)
To the point that you made, you know, at the start, it's about influence. And most of my career has not been as a sales rep, it's been in as an executive. And anyone listening to this, if you're an executive, you're in a sales role. You are selling your budget, you're selling your next product, you're selling your next rollout, you're selling your next integration, you're selling your next whatever else it is. You you are in a sales role. So you need to widen the

kind of open the aperture a little bit and and try to understand what we're talking about today.

Jody Holland (05:57.028)
So Megan, I know when you were co managing the frame shop at Hobby Lobby, you were doing a lot of sales. So talk a little bit about when people came in, did you ever feel like you were pitching them or did it what did it feel like in that setting?

Meghan Slaughter (06:13.429)
I never felt like I was pitching because I just started asking them questions and I would get them talking about the piece of artwork that they were bringing in because people love to tell the story of something that's meaningful that they want to display in their home. And I never put pressure on them to purchase anything or to go custom or ready-made. I always left that decision up to them. And I really just tried to understand what they were hoping to get out of the interaction.

And I think that helped a lot because people don't like being sold to, but they love being helped. And so when you approach it from that way, it's a lot easier to make a sale. And then we also had a system in the frame shop where we could save quotes. So if I ever felt like somebody was unsure or very hesitant to go forward with it, I would let them know, hey, we can save this as a quote if you want to think about it for a while, if you want to explore your other options. And even just saying like

Take the time to explore your options can put them at ease because it doesn't feel like I'm pressuring you into doing something that you're not ready for or trying to trick you into the sale. Because I want you to feel comfortable with it. I don't want you to regret it. And I want to help you. So that's the goal of every sales interaction is to help them solve a problem that they have, not just to sell them and make the transaction.

Jody Holland (07:36.568)
Yeah, I I think about like the stock market. when I think about what I do for a living. With the stock market, if somebody's got a stock that has a guaranteed return, like say 10%, which is a pretty decent return in the market, especially this last week, how much money would you put in if you knew you were gonna make 10% back? And the way I look at the investment is I'm I need to make money off my money.

So I'm going to put in as much as I can on a guaranteed 10% return. And then I'm going to just let it ride. Now, if you could get a bigger return than that, I'd borrow some money to put it in there to try to make sure I could get what I wanted to get. Same thing is true in business, though. Somebody comes to you with a problem. Let's say you're dealing with marketing and they're like, we just we've been spending all this money on marketing and we're not getting a return on our investment. You go, well, your copywriting is off.

This is something that Megan has provided for businesses to go in, evaluate their communication strategies and fix them. You fix it in such a way that it's serving the customer and it's about the customer and the customer's problem, the customer's needs, as opposed to the company and its founding and how brilliant they are. Then all of a sudden people start buying. If you spent $10,000 on advertising and you got a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in sales.

a an average profit of 30%, you'd be like, that was a good deal. We need to do another $10,000 on this ad and really go all in. So would it feel like you were quote unquote selling them copywriting if what you knew how to do would take them from losing money, making no sales off their $10,000 to making $150,000 off their $10,000? No.

What it would feel like is you just solved a really important problem to allow them to go out and serve their customers more effectively. That's the way it is in any business when the business is set up correctly, is you're not really selling. Donald Miller describes it in marketing made simple as the best way to not feel salesy is don't sell stuff to people if it doesn't solve a problem. I'm like, whoa, revelation time here.

Jody Holland (09:59.78)
Like such a simple concept. If my service doesn't solve your problem, I don't want you to buy it. That that's like really, really simplistic. And, you know, Mike, you think about you didn't do quote unquote sales, but in parts of your job, you've done business development, which is developing the relationship and uncovering through good listening techniques what the actual problems are that they want to pay to have solved. And so talk a little bit about that. I know you talked a little bit about.

Mike Grigsby (10:07.546)
Yeah.

Jody Holland (10:28.547)
You ask a lot of questions and try to understand their perspective, but just talk about from the perspective of how do you build the kind of relationship that unlocks what people are looking for?

Mike Grigsby (10:38.466)
Yeah, discovery is a huge portion of that. You know, to the point that you just made, you know, the reality is sales and whatever that transaction looks like for you and your your business, sales is about you having capability and your customer having priorities. And then the goal is to identify if the gap between where they are and where they wanna be can be resolved faster, cheaper, and more efficiently through yours. Then let's sit down and and craft a plan for how we're gonna get there.

Otherwise, to the point that you just made, the the best thing that you could do is say, Hey, let's let's get to know as fast as we can. So you can go do your thing and I can go do my thing. You know, I got stuff to do, you got stuff to do. But it if we if we we if I can help you bridge that gap, let's let's sit down and design a plan. You know, you talk about the relationship, and the relationship comes from questions.

Jody Holland (11:18.999)
Yeah, I got stuff to do.

Mike Grigsby (11:36.177)
You can call it discovery, you can call it whatever it is, but you have to, and I've said this before, you gotta learn the art of the interrogative, meaning you have got to learn how to ask really, really good questions. And too many salespeople will will look at their rubric and try to get through all the questions as fast as they can so they can get to a product, so they can get to a feature, so they can get to a benefit. I love what Zig Ziggler said. last year there were a million quarter inch drill bits sold. Nobody wanted a quarter inch drill bit.

But a million people wanted a quarter inch hole. If you had, if you understand that most people don't actually want what you're selling, they want their own outcome, then you can start to ask questions that will peel back the layers. And what you're doing by peeling those layers back is you're narrowing the gap between where they are and where they wanna be. And more importantly, you're narrowing the gap of anxiety, right?

If you think about sales is really about helping bridge somebody else's anxiety, there sales is about change. And especially I mean, get get outside the, you know, commodities and transactional stuff. You're not talking about you don't need to sell a a a a pack of chewing gum, right? But if inertia is in place where s where it's easier to stay where they are versus make that change, that's where sales is needed. And the more you can discover, unpack and un and and ask those

Jody Holland (12:30.145)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Grigsby (12:59.888)
more probing questions, you actually begin to narrow their anxiety levels and help orient them help them orient around where they're trying to go in in their own their own challenges, their own problems, based on, you know, kind of what what they understand and where they're trying to go.

Jody Holland (13:15.457)
Yeah. And I I think when you do understand them, you figure out, okay, can I help or will I not help? And back to Megan's point, everybody wants to help. I want to go back to an ad that I thought was absolutely hilarious. And the ad had to do with the Dollar Shave Club. I don't know if you remember this ad, Mike, but they didn't have any money. They're about to go out of business. And the guy that started it, he's like,

I have a friend that produces some internet content. I'm gonna see if he can help me make an ad. And so he and his friend sat down and like, we got to be brash and bold, we got to get noticed. And they set it up in a warehouse and hired some people. And it the total cost of the ad was $4,500. Now, was it worth it for him to spend the $45, $4,500 for his friend to make the ad? well, that would be depending on, like you said, what's the outcome they were looking for?

What his outcome was is I want to stay in business and sell some razor blades. And if you remember the ad, it was like, Are our razors good? No. They're blanking awesome. And like it's really brash and in your face. And like, please help Maria keep her job and like pulling this lady in a wagon who works at the factory. It was hilarious. And it sold well over a million dollars.

Mike Grigsby (14:29.362)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Grigsby (14:38.395)
It was.

Jody Holland (14:41.187)
Worth of razors and it was shared like crazy on YouTube because it was such a good ad. If people are sending you an ad on YouTube for you to watch, you know they got the message right. What we tend to do in business though is we look at things and we go, I really like selling training. So I go out and try to sell training. And I did this when I first started doing door-to-door sales with water filters when I was doing the multi-level marketing thing.

I would go in and go, hey, my name's Jodie Holland, and I want to try to sell you a water filter. I didn't know what you were supposed to say. There was no script. So I just told them I'm trying to sell you a water filter, just so you know up front what we're doing here. And it usually resulted in them showing me how beautiful the door looked while it was closed. So it didn't work. I got rejected. And I thought, maybe this isn't working. So I lived in a town where the water did not taste good and there was a massive amount of chlorine in the water.

Mike Grigsby (15:26.029)
Ha ha.

Jody Holland (15:39.418)
So I got a pool testing kit that you could get back then. I got, I think I got it at Target. And it was like $8. And I go, Hey, my name's Jody. I'd like to just show you what's in your water and then show you how I can help create better water for you and your family. would you mind if I had 10 minutes of your time and I'll just run a quick test on your water and show you what's there? And they go, Yeah, come on in. And if I saw that they had a pool.

I would say, let's compare the water coming out of your faucet to the water in your pool. There was always more in that town, more chlorine in the water coming out of the faucet than there was in the swimming pool. Like, and you're adding this bleachy stuff every day to the swimming pool. So I would run the test and I'd show them where it was at. And I would say, you know, there's several options on how you can make sure that you have cleaner drinking water for you and your family, because I figured that was a problem they wanted to solve.

Mike Grigsby (16:13.254)
Mm. Right.

Meghan Slaughter (16:23.458)
Well

Jody Holland (16:37.549)
They are my options? So as soon as they ask you a question back or the interrogative and the it reverses the other direction, you know they want that problem solved. We can do under sync, we can do this, we can hook it to your faucet. And so I had talk all this and we have a whole house. I never sold a whole house system. They're like, let's do the one under the sink. when can it get installed? I go, I could be back tomorrow to install it. I did the installations too, because why not? You know?

And so I'd be back the next day installing a water filter and giving them clean drinking water. And then I carried one that I could just hook to the faucet and I'd say, now let's run it through the filter real quick. So I'd hook it on the filter, pull a little thing, run it through the filter, and it would show zero chlorine. And I would say, it's not that the chlorine shouldn't be in your your water. It's that the chlorine shouldn't be in it once you consume it. That's not good for your body to drink chlorine. I don't know if they ever taught you that in school. And I would always be kind of funny like that and like, okay, we'll take it.

So I sold a lot of water filters just by figuring out that most people really do care deeply about the health of their family and they wanted to solve a problem that they were unaware of before I showed up. So sometimes you need the proof. And like Megan, you you did copywriting actually for a PR firm for a while. It was one of your communication contracts. So talk a little bit about what was it that you were helping them figure out when you were.

Auditing, editing, and rewriting their stuff.

Meghan Slaughter (18:09.625)
I think the problem that a lot of organizations have is that they know what that they're what they're selling and what they offer to people, but they don't always know how to articulate it well. So they have this great product and they want everybody to know about it. So they just push it out in front of them and assume that everybody's gonna love it and pick it up. And that's not always the case. You have to be able to frame it in a way that people understand and can relate to. And so that was a big thing, is just

Okay, you we already have the basis for what we need. How can we transform this into a way that people are coming to you and it's not that you're just trying to push it onto them? And, you know, we've talked a little bit about what we like seeing for sales, but there are probably three things that I really don't like seeing in sales. one is the old connection tug where somebody comes in and says,

Hey girl, I started selling this thing and I immediately thought of you. And I haven't talked to them in a decade. And now they're trying to sell me this thing. And sometimes it's a multi-level marketing, sometimes it's something else. But you know, the last communication I had with you was in high school. So that drives me crazy at times. number two is the pitch slap, which is a phrase that I heard the other day.

Mike Grigsby (19:15.866)
Okay.

Jody Holland (19:26.829)
Yeah.

Meghan Slaughter (19:34.56)
At a conference, which is where somebody approaches you under the guise of something else. So just talking to you, building a connection, they send you a request on LinkedIn, and you know, they congratulate you on a promotion. And then once you respond, they're like, Hey, actually, I have this thing, and I think it would be great for you. And so, really, you weren't interested in connecting with me, you were just trying to sell to me. And I think

Jody Holland (20:02.296)
Yes.

Meghan Slaughter (20:03.469)
That is not always a positive thing. And then the third one is when they do some research on you and they say, Hey, I took a look at your website and here's everything I think you're doing wrong. That is an immediate turn off for me. Why do you think I'm gonna give you my money if you're criticizing everything that I've done? and a lot of the time it's they're copying and pasting what your website says anyway. So

Jody Holland (20:17.72)
Yes.

Meghan Slaughter (20:31.565)
You know, I think it's really important that you do your research on somebody that you're trying to sell to, but it's not reciting their website back to them. So the questioning strategy is really helpful, but you also don't want to approach somebody and ask them questions from the ground up as far as like, so this is your organization, what do you do? You should have a basic understanding of what they do before you approach them and try to get to know them.

Jody Holland (20:53.752)
Yeah.

Mike Grigsby (20:53.97)
Yes, absolutely.

Meghan Slaughter (20:58.327)
But it's all in about how you communicate when you're trying to sell to somebody. And so thinking about that as a consumer, think about the things that would drive you crazy if somebody was selling to you. And simple thing, just don't do those things. It'll help a lot.

Jody Holland (21:14.477)
I am gonna use, I am going to use pitch slap at least once a day for the next week. But also that third one you talked about, Steven Schiffman described that. got to know him years ago. Really, really great guy, lots of books on sales. But one of the things he described is that if you walk into an office and they have a brown cow in their office and you immediately start going,

Mike Grigsby (21:18.192)
I I love that. I love that.

Jody Holland (21:38.052)
Brown cows are awful. You should never own a brown cow. You should have bought a holstein. Holsteins are way better. We sell Holsteins and we can sell you a Holstein. Because what you're essentially saying is, hey, buddy, you're horrible at making decisions. And I don't think you're very smart. So buy from me and prove once again that you're not very smart. Like it's just not a good combo. So Malina, I want to ask you a question on real quick.

Meghan Slaughter (22:00.046)
Yes.

Jody Holland (22:03.043)
Think about it from the community side of things. I know you're you're building up a leadership program, youth leadership program in Kansas City. thinking of what people want to buy, not what you want to sell. So you have the event that's the thing you're selling, but what is it that people are looking for that would make them think, that's the place I need to be?

Maleah Berens (22:25.166)
It's actually been really interesting and a a huge growth experience for me getting to meet with so many different people as I'm trying to kind of test the waters with this product and everything. But so many people are looking for kind of the same few things. And I I think this is where a lot of our community is and why we go into investing in leadership experience, leadership development.

Or even why you show up to church every Sunday or why you go to your knitting group every week or or whatever it is. But people are looking for a space where they get to not only show up as their most authentic self

But it's their most authentic self that's the very thing that's celebrated in the room. And they're looking for a sense of of belonging and community. And so I share that because even when you're thinking about sales, and I actually my brother just got into real estate and everything. So I was talking with this with him and learning how you you get to learn someone's whole entire life story, and the every little detail that they share with you is an exposure of what's important to them.

And you have to listen really carefully to understand what it is that is actually important to them and hearing the things that they're maybe not intentionally saying, but the things that they're sharing with you. So it could be something like, when I'm taking my kid to soccer, I like driving on this side of the highway or whatever it might be. But understanding, okay, now I know they

Only like taking the highway. They only or they have a kid that is in soccer and like understanding those little things that they're saying and what's important to them helps drive that conversation and helps to be able to show that you're intentionally caring about every little thing that they're sharing and helping to move that conversation along and that idea of actually being seen and heard is what drives conversion.

Jody Holland (24:18.945)
Yeah. And that's so trust, sense of belonging, a lot of identity. And this goes back to Edward Bernays, who was Sigmund Freud's nephew. He fundamentally shifted the way we do advertising. He said, Nobody he was doing work for Lucky Strike. Nobody wants to buy a cigarette. Tell me about cigarette. And this was in an episode of Mad Men. I don't know if you watched that show or not, but and it was like, Well, we do this and we toast it and we did it. And he goes, Whoa, hang on a second. You toast it? Because everybody toasts.

their tobacco. He goes, but nobody's talking about toasting their tobacco. And so he's like toasted to perfection. he also in Mad Men that was talking about the do you remember the slide projector you put the slides in and you go and then we go to the next picture and you had to see everybody's vacation for the last like four hundred and seventy two pictures of Rome. he said he came up with the term the carousel.

And they go, it's the wheel. We've finally reinvented the wheel. He goes, That's the worst thing ever. Nobody wants to reinvent the wheel. And like we're set on the name. It's the wheel. So he goes through his whole presentation and he says, This isn't this isn't just an image or a set of images. This this is a time machine. This transports us back to when our kids were little, transports us back to our wedding.

And the love that we felt on that day. And he like goes through all these emotional things. He goes, It's not a wheel. The wheel's been around forever. This is something brand new. This is the carousel. And people are like, We'll take a hundred. Like the the whole thing that you figure out in sales is you're solving different kinds of problems. You're solving a practical problem, but you're also solving a philosophical problem. And the one that people want to buy.

Is the philosophical problem. nobody wants to go to another event. What everybody wants, though, is they want to feel like they belong in a group and build relationships. The event is the vehicle. And so when you say sense of belonging, that's the way that they're they're looking at that. So each go back to the make a list of all your best friends that you've never talked to in the last 10 years and then call them. That's the worst advice in the world. But

Mike Grigsby (26:23.718)
Mm.

Mike Grigsby (26:36.92)
No, but the worst advice. Yeah. And Jody, I had a chance the other day. You you mentioned it. Malia is standing up a new program, training program, leadership program in Kansas City. And I had a chance the other day to sit sit down and and listen in on one of her calls to a a prospective program participant and

What's really interesting is the people that she's going that she's reaching out to are both consumers, meaning that they are doing this for their personal benefit, but they also have professional careers that they're looking at this through that lens. And so she has to navigate the both sides of that, the consumer side and the professional side. And what's really interesting is probably the first 15 to 20 minutes of the call, she doesn't talk about the the the program at all.

She's building that rapport and everything. And Mali, I don't know if you want to comment on it, but the way that you navigate that is exactly what we're talking about here is it's it's not about extraction. You're not s seducing somebody into something that they weren't predisposed to do before. You are you are engaging them in conversation to uncover.

why they might be interested in doing it. Do you wanna I don't know, do you wanna s share some thoughts on on how you balance that out? 'Cause I thought you did a fantastic job the other day, by the way.

Maleah Berens (28:00.942)
Well thank you. Most of that is just because I like talking with people. I'm a yapper. But it's no, I think the biggest piece of this is is learning that well I I've given myself a new title lately and I've been saying I'm the keeper of stories, where there is a warmth that I have been gifted to be able to bring to conversation that allows people to kind of let their guard down and just share authentically with me.

And as a result of that, I I keep like I was talking about, I noticed the little things where that call that he was talking about, the girl that I was on with, the first minute or two she was on, she's like, I'm sorry, I have to turn my camera off. Like I am in maternity leave still. I was like, my goodness, like thank you so much for taking the call. Like you didn't have to do this. Obviously, you have a newborn to be taken care of. And we started talking about like the name of the baby and like when he was born and all of these different things. And that little bit of interest that I showed.

continues to to build that rapport and it helps with it's a it's a gentle pitch tap instead of a pitch slap by the time that I I get to actually talking about the the product. So where people people don't even understand that it it is a pitch, mostly 'cause I hate the pitch part of sales. I hate it so much. I don't want to tell you that I want your money and I want you to buy this product and all these things.

Jody Holland (29:12.355)
Much better.

Meghan Slaughter (29:14.018)
Yeah.

Maleah Berens (29:25.612)
That's so not me, and anyone who knows me knows that that's not me. So this has been really getting me outside of the comfort out of my comfort zone with this. And so part of navigating that has been really just like embracing the thing that I know that I'm good at. And that's creating a warm, inviting conversation for people to come and sit down and just say, I want to hear your story and I wanna hold on to your story and use it.

And just get to know who you are because the more people that understand like I I get to be a good connector now because I know what your story is and how that relates to this person. And like, by the way, while we're at it and you just share this whole problem that I actually have a product that's sell or that is solving that problem, but that's not even the point of this conversation anymore.

Jody Holland (30:01.304)
Mm-hmm.

Jody Holland (30:10.659)
So, but you think about that. Trust and sense of belonging, two philosophical things that you're selling, people will chase that down because they identify with finding someone they trust and having a sense of belonging with a group that's similar to them or accepting of them. And so that's why the program works. So I I want to kind of do a round robin. We're getting up, we're at our 30 minute mark. So Megan, I'm gonna start with you and then we're gonna go to Mike, then Malia, and then I'll close it out.

What is one piece of advice that you have to help people as they are trying to solve problems for business that result in revenue for you solving the problem?

Meghan Slaughter (30:52.439)
I think the biggest thing to understand first is that people make decisions based on emotion and back it up with logic. So as you're trying to help somebody by solving their problems, you have to help them realize the pain of not solving that problem and the benefits of solving that problem through your product. So you're actually doing people a disservice by withholding your product from them if they have that problem and you are able to solve it. So start thinking of it like that.

And stop thinking of it as pushing a transaction onto them.

Mike Grigsby (31:25.85)
Yeah. Jody, you've heard me say this before. I have never sold anything, but I have helped countless people buy stuff. And that comes from what here's my advice: compassionate curiosity. You have to be genuinely interested in what their problem is, what their challenge is. You have to understand that they really don't want what you're selling unless it really does solve their problem. And you'll only know that by asking questions. So

Jody Holland (31:25.995)
Excellent. Mike, you're up.

Mike Grigsby (31:55.591)
Be compassionately curious about who the other person is and what's going on in their world sitting on the other on the table across from you.

Jody Holland (32:01.785)
All right, Malia, your advice?

Maleah Berens (32:04.782)
I think problems understanding that problem solving for the sake of sales isn't one sided. It's not someone dumping all of their problems on you and you having to just kind of wrestle through it and and figure it out for yourself. But it's working alongside that person who's struggling and kind of taking away these bits and pieces and working through it to find the problems together. Just like Miracle on Thirty Fourth Street, if we don't have it we'll find it for you. So even if I don't have the thing that you can buy to to help solve this problem, we're gonna figure it out together because it's

a problem that someone else probably is dealing with too and now I know how to help them too.

Jody Holland (32:39.809)
Excellent. And I like the miracle on 34th Street reference. That was good. And then I will round it out and close it out with this. when you think about a problem that you have that's costing you sleep at night, that's preventing you from living your best life, or that's costing you money, when you evaluate how bad do I want it to go away, as soon as the pain annoys you enough to take action, that's when you buy.

So I don't think you have to persuade people really. You just have to find a way to be the answer person where you know how to solve one specific problem really, really well. And then pretty soon people chase you down to get you to help them solve that problem. So you're never really selling anything. You're just really good at solving one problem. I'm really good at solving the leadership problem.

So I get a lot of referrals and a lot of people reaching out and saying, hey, can you come do this? Because that's the problem I solve. So don't try to be all things to everybody. Try to be the very best version of you and serve that niche of clients that really need you. thank you guys for joining us on Become the Leader. I hope that you will share this with your friends. If you've ever struggled with the I don't want to pitch to somebody, or you've ever been pitch slapped, maybe you, I told you I'd use it.

Maybe you should share this episode with that friend that just reached out about the emu oil. So we'll see you guys on the next episode of the Become the Leader podcast.

Meghan Slaughter (34:00.917)
Yeah.

Mike Grigsby (34:10.962)
Love it.