0:00:01.6 Wayne Brown: Hello, I’m Wayne Brown, and welcome to the ET Project. We’re delighted to be delivering this podcast for executive talent all over the world, whom we’re affectionately referring to as Team ET. In our episode today, we journey to Mexico and chat with fellow Aussie, Miquette Dobros. For me, Miquette epitomizes the spirit of a successful entrepreneur. She has that never-say-die attitude and is constantly seeking ways to optimize her approach in everything she does. Miquette and I first met through shared interest, one of which is coaching, and I’ve experienced firsthand that she’s an excellent coach, focused on helping businesses and individuals succeed in the areas of marketing and sales. Miquette’s featured in the book The Amazing Women of Influence 2021. And in addition to us having coaching in common, we’re also working together with a cohort of coaches writing a book, which is scheduled for release in early 2023, so you’ll hear more on that as time draws closer. For this podcast engagement with Miquette, I’ve discovered that we share an interest in neuroscience and the workings of the whole body, not only the brain. And this is something that you’ll hear us get into conversation about during the episode.

0:01:19.8 Wayne Brown: A very impressive aspect that Miquette shared with me is that she’s pioneered eight business ventures, and this is where she first realized her love for business, and it’s what led her along this path of becoming a certified business coach. As you’ll hear us discuss in this episode, when Miquette first started selling high ticket programs, she made a hundred calls and zero sales. Rather than deter her as it probably would for most of us, it had the opposite impact and made her determined to unlock the secrets that would eventually result in her being recognized in the top 2% of all sales professionals in her industry. Her passion is guiding leaders to smash self-defeating thoughts and emotions that block their sales success. And she customizes sales strategies that enroll clients with increased confidence and certainty. With a holistic approach, her mission is to change our relationship with selling. So with that, and in preparation for our 45-minute episode, please ready yourself to capture the sales lessons and the insights with my good friend, fellow coach and author, Ms. Miquette Dobros in the episode titled, Pitfalls and Challenges in Reaching the Top of Your Field.

0:02:39.6 Speaker 2: Welcome to the ET Project, a podcast for those executive talents determined to release their true potential and create an impact. Join our veteran coach and mentor, Wayne Brown, as we unpack an exciting future together.

0:02:57.4 Wayne Brown: Good morning, Team ET. Welcome to another wonderful week, and we have a great guest, a friend that I work with and we’re actually co-authoring a book due to be released, I think, in about 3-6 months. So a wonderful opportunity to invite Miquette onto our show. Miquette, you’re sitting in Mexico somewhere at the moment, I believe, right?

0:03:23.3 Miquette Dobros: Yes. I’m Australian, but I am sitting in the middle of Mexico, in an amazing place called San Miguel de Allende.

0:03:33.0 Wayne Brown: Miquette comes to us with a wonderful background, a great story, and we’re going to tap into that a little bit during our conversation. Primarily, what our focus will be on is talking around sales, and in particular how to overcome some significant challenges to rise to the top of your field.

0:03:53.7 Miquette Dobros: And thank you for having me. I’m really delighted to be here.

0:03:57.2 Wayne Brown: I normally kick off our discussion by asking if you have any fun facts that you’d like to share with the audience.

0:04:04.3 Miquette Dobros: Yeah, I don’t know in which parts of the world the Day of the Dead is celebrated, but here in Mexico, they celebrate the dead, and it’s the dead pets and relatives. And so it’s an amazing time where people get dressed up as a skeleton or like a ghost type face, but it’s with the Catrina, and the Catrina dresses up to the nine. She’s got a big hat on and she’s got beautiful costumes on, and it’s so… Such an amazing event and it’s coming up in… November the 1st. And so, everybody at the moment is organizing their clothes for it and working out what events they’re going to. And my favorite fun place is at… Through this art gallery that has been… It’s small art galleries within a big old manufacturing factory. And so you just have people coming out in the wildest gear. So, it’s a wonderful place for photography and a lot, a lot of fun. So, I’m looking forward to that.

0:05:18.8 Wayne Brown: It sounds amazing. I think Disney released an animation at some stage a few years back on this very topic, right? And I can recall sitting with my wife and my daughter watching it, and it was a fantastic show. So if it’s anything like the Disney movie, I can imagine how exciting it’ll be.

0:05:35.6 Miquette Dobros: Yes, it’s all that and more, to be honest.

[laughter]

0:05:39.5 Wayne Brown: Excellent.

0:05:40.2 Miquette Dobros: Thank you.

0:05:42.4 Wayne Brown: And I guess that’s very much occupying your thoughts at the moment, but I’m wondering, is there anything that, apart from that, the Day of the Dead, that’s exciting you in the world or in the business scene at the moment?

0:05:54.8 Miquette Dobros: Yes. From my point of view, and I think everyone would agree that the world is going through huge transition. And for leaders, there’s really great opportunities to step up, and I really mean that sincerely and I’m often referred to as being a holistic sales coach. So what’s exciting for me is I’m in the process of developing phase of launching my new business, which will be early next year, and it’s called Elevate Online Today. And it’s really to help leaders and entrepreneurs to really step into their own and then also gain more online visibility and more sales.

0:06:41.0 Wayne Brown: So when will you launch… Do you have an official launch date?

0:06:45.4 Miquette Dobros: To be honest…

0:06:45.9 Wayne Brown: Or is it still a secret? [laughter]

0:06:47.1 Miquette Dobros: You could say it’s a secret, but I keep fluctuating between sort of mid-January to the beginning of February. So it’s the early 2020, yes.

0:07:00.6 Wayne Brown: Very nice. Well, I look forward to reading and watching and participating perhaps in the launch, so good luck with that. If we look back over your career, as you mentioned, you’re from Australia, we fellow Australians are a particular breed, we live in very much in isolation. And as a result, we find our own way through life in a lot of aspects. And I’m wondering, is there anything as you look back over your career, over your life, that you found was really a pivotal moment that helped shape your direction and your future?

0:07:39.2 Miquette Dobros: Yeah, thank you for asking. Well, firstly I’m gonna say that I fluctuated for many… For a long time between being a healer and a health professional. I had a personal training studio in Australia that was very successful in the early days, and also in sort of promotions and marketing and business. And I had to come to that realization that although I loved all the healing modalities and health modalities, I really loved them for myself more than even working with clients with them. However, I do lean on them sometimes with clients. It was truly my love of business that was a pivotal moment for me. So I ended up doing a business coaching certification program in Australia, and my specialty area was to go into small businesses and work with entrepreneurs, solo entrepreneurs, and have a look at their sales processes and then re-engineer it for profit. And it was something that I was also able to guarantee them results with.

0:08:49.9 Miquette Dobros: So I really loved doing that and thrived on that for a long time. So that was one, and that then really… I was in a very male dominant environment in Australia and it was very difficult getting clients sometimes, unless I moved out of the country region I was in. So I got an idea or an inkling on what high ticket sales were, and I went, “I’m gonna do that. I’m gonna learn how to do that.” [chuckle] And so I was given a script and I was given what to say, when to say it, what to say if they had objections, everything like that. And also told to convince them to buy, right? So that was the parameters of it. It was a good script, but… And I was given the leads, so I had warm leads, interested leads.

0:09:46.7 Miquette Dobros: Well, I made a hundred calls, Wayne, and I got zero sales. [laughter] And I dunno if anyone else has experienced that, but it’s sort of like, well, maybe I’m just no good at selling. Maybe I should just give this up. And it was funny because I could really help people as a sales consultant, but this was different. This was me getting on the phone and doing it, and I found it really difficult. But there was really a voice inside me that said, “You know, Miquette, you’ve gotta sort this out. It’s going to be worthwhile if you sort this out.” And that’s what I did. I went on a huge journey, on trial and error, but also researching and signing up with different mentors at the time, which there wasn’t that many back then, but… [laughter] You know, it was limited. And I even learned about network marketing and anything to do with it, I could put my hands on at that point. And one of the big things that happened though was that I realized I had to shift my mindset around selling as well. And so, that became a pivotal moment because now today I understand why I’ve heard no a hundred times and no sales, you could say.

0:11:08.4 Wayne Brown: Yeah. So it’s a great story and I’m sure many of us have been… Maybe not to that same extent, but I’m sure many of us have experienced rejection, and it’s a natural reaction that the voice in our head becomes very loud, and the negativity really starts to overwhelm, and we don’t go forward. So I love the fact that instead of just giving up, you took the initiative and you had the mindset to realize that it wasn’t a fait accompli that you weren’t a good salesperson, it was just what you were doing perhaps, and you needed to find other ways.

0:11:46.8 Miquette Dobros: Yeah, thank you. I really felt if others can do it, there must be a way for me to find out how to do it. But what was really interesting is, I really did not resonate with the whole idea of convincing people. I just didn’t think that was right. I just felt really incongruent in my being about that. And that was the biggest issue. It really was. And it was because I was so naive. I didn’t know how to really talk with people and really get to the heart of things and see whether it was a true fit for them. And I also don’t even think I had enough knowledge about the product itself. And it was a $3000 product over the phone, you know? And it goes back to when we were using phones and not Zoom and Skype. [laughter]

0:12:40.5 Wayne Brown: So you’re looking at my gray hair as you’re saying that, I can see you. I’d say… [laughter] So let’s fast forward to more recent times, I guess, and your learnings and your experience coming out of that. But what did you do with that new knowledge and approach?

0:13:00.6 Miquette Dobros: Well, firstly, I ended up… From that, I became a top performer and I was like in the top 2% of my industry. And so I got a wonderful contract with a company who said, “Hey, we want you to set up a sales team and train them, and we want you to sell this program,” which they were selling, I think at the time, for $2000. “And we want you to make $2 million for us at the end of the year.” So doing all the figures, I actually worked out that they needed to double their prices, so we did that first. And the result of that was… And there’s a reason for me telling you this story. The result of that is that we actually achieved in sales, selling a $4000 program in just under six and a half months. And that was starting with one salesperson, and in the end, I had a team of 12 in total. And it was just… And each week, I was taking them through a training program. And what I discovered, it was really because of the trainings that I kept doing and altering according to the group, is that I discovered there were three areas that we really needed to pay attention to in regard to our thoughts and our feelings and behaviors. That’s why the team achieved such great results.

0:14:29.5 Wayne Brown: If I recap a little, $2 million target selling a $4000 product, and you had 12 months to achieve it. You achieved it in under half the time, and in the process, you discovered a whole methodology or approach that is now what you practice and you deliver.

0:14:50.4 Miquette Dobros: Yeah, and it’s sort of the first thing that… I mean, there’s a lot of things we can do in regard to making sure we get top sales, and there’s the lead generation, the sales processes, the sales funnels, social proof, so many different things. But before all that, if you are working in a situation where you are talking with people, what I found was there’s actually three… I call it three main relationships that we need to be aligned in before we can really move forward effectively, or to get the results, the top results that we really want. And I really believe that to maintain being a top executive and a leader, then it’s really essential to be congruent in our thoughts, in our emotions and in our behaviors, in understanding these three relationships.

0:15:47.7 Miquette Dobros: And so that’s where it starts. And the first relationship is actually with ourself. And I do have a story to share with you on that, which makes it easier. But to do that, I sort of need to lay a little bit of foundation on [chuckle] what it is all about. So I’m gonna tell you a story about Gabby, and she was a leadership coach in corporate. But before I do, I’ll just explain about these three relationships, and the first one being yourself. So within ourself, there’s actually also three energy centers that are responsible with how we think, feel, and behave. And I call it the three-body wisdoms. Now, I just really wanna point out for the listeners that I’m not talking about three regions within the brain, so I’m not talking about the primal, the limbic or the neocortex brains.

0:16:51.0 Miquette Dobros: And I’m also really not talking about the conscious, the subconscious, and the unconscious mind. I’m going to talk about these energy centers that are in our body that really do include… One of them does include the brain, but it really helps us to… Help us when we understand it, we can move into being congruent and being in alignment with ourself. It really started with neuroscience and ancient wisdom, and if we’re looking at these sort of spiritual and esoteric traditions as well, they actually acknowledge that we’ve got these three intelligent centers within our human body and that we can communicate with them. So, I know you’re asking, “Well, what are they? [chuckle] What is it if it’s not just the head?”

0:17:41.4 Miquette Dobros: Well, it was actually as… Way back in the 1800s that the philosopher, Goethe claimed that we had… He referred to them as three brains, so because they have an intellect, right? And one’s in our head, one’s in our heart, and one’s in our gut. Now, the head one is intellectual brain, the heart is the emotional brain, and the gut is the sort of… I like to say it’s the brain of action, of flight, fright, or freeze. So if we are moving, if we are in a state of procrastination or indecision, it usually comes because these three brains are not congruent, they’re not aligned, they’re not supporting each other. And when we can find that out, then miracles can happen. And obviously, I can go into enormous detail on that, but we’d be here all day. But what I want… The message I want to give you and your listeners, or give your listeners, is that each one of these energy centers, head, heart and gut has its own voice and own role to play, and if they’re not supportive to each other, you’re literally sabotaging your success.

0:19:00.0 Wayne Brown: And what’s interesting is, even though we’re talking going back thousands of years and now to the modern time, neuroscience today is proving these connections, right? That there is actually a neural pathway connection between the brain, the heart and the gut. And we do have these three somatic centers, etcetera, so I think a lot of people, probably less informed, probably say, Aye, here we go, this is all a little bit spiritual and out there, but modern science is proving that not to be the case. Yeah.

0:19:34.7 Miquette Dobros: Exactly and we know that there’s 85 billion neurons in the head… Functions, but the heart actually has 40,000 to 120,000 neurons, and depending on how people use them, and the gut has 50 million neurons, now they are all connected by the Vagus Nerve, so that’s how they communicate with each other via the Vagus Nerve, and that travels up to the brain, and then the brain sorts out things from that information.

0:20:10.4 Wayne Brown: We get all manner of things like chemical releases, through the guts, not only through the brain, so there’s a very strong connection and I think it’s a great way to approach, thinking about what you’re talking about in sales.

0:20:25.9 Miquette Dobros: Yes, so giving example and Gabby’s story is a great one because she was a very successful leadership coach, working with a corporate company, and then after several years of her success there, it was at a time when she was deciding whether she’d renew her contract or not, she actually decided to go alone and set up and become an independent consultant. And so this meant now she had to go and find her own clients as well, and she’s a beautiful, heartfelt social human being who went to a lot of networking meetings before pandemic, but she never actually took action in arranging in a meeting or scheduling an appointment in any way. And so she was really stuck and you could say she was frozen and just not taking the right action, even though she knew that’s what she needed to do.

0:21:24.1 Miquette Dobros: So when I started working with her, I took her through the two parts of the three body wisdom session, and the first part was to uncover her disconnect and this is what it sounded like. She said her heart was saying, “Oh, I truly wanna help people”, but the head was saying, “Yeah, I know a lot about the industry, but I wanna be more holistic, maybe I need to do another course, more education”. And the third one, and her gut body was saying, “Hey, I’m really scared, I don’t wanna be pushy and I really don’t want to ask for the money”. So that was the disconnect. So they’re all saying something different, so how can you move forward when you’ve got these three voices pulling you in three different directions, or saying something different? So the second part, once we identify that, I take them through another exercise which is with breathing, and it’s based on NLP and breathing and some visualization, it’s… I call it, the integration part of the session, which it also accesses internal resources and the wisest wisdom of yourself.

0:22:44.6 Miquette Dobros: And this is what happened. She contacted me the next day, I was living here in Mexico, and she’s in Australia actually. And she contacted and she said, “I’ve made four appointments,” and this is after like months, six months or so of not doing a thing. “I have made six appointments”, and so I said, “So when’s the first one?” And she said, “Oh, it’s Friday, three days time”. I said, “Okay, so now that you’re feeling ready for this, do you have any idea what you’re going to say and how are you going to conduct that?” So we had a very fast track training in the enrollment conversation and how to have that conversation, and I got her printed out as well, just to keep her on track, well what happened was that she contacted me immediately after she had that meeting and said, “I just made my first sale of $4500, thank you.”

[laughter]

0:23:46.4 Miquette Dobros: She’s been myriadly good ever since, So, it’s quite exceptional to, that’s the difference, because when we’re incongruent, when these three body centers are in-congruent, what it causes is confusion and indecisiveness and frustrated, we can be more stressed and feeling out of sorts, things just stop working properly. So then that leads to incongruent behavior that doesn’t match what you want, and also the outcomes aren’t going to be there because it’s sort of like you’re all over the place.

0:24:25.9 Wayne Brown: We actually have chemicals like Cortisol shutting you down rather than building you up and getting your active…

0:24:32.9 Miquette Dobros: But the interesting bit is also Wayne, is the gut energy is also your courage energy, it is the energy that makes you step forward instead of being in fright or freeze or even flight. Fright or freeze, it’s really a courage center as well, and just by simply putting hands on your gut when you’ve gotta do some… [0:24:57.9] ____ And asking your gut, “Hey… ” I used to do this, getting on some calls when I was feeling a little bit apprehensive about doing the calls, I put my hands on my gut and just breathe into it and basically go, “Okay, I need your energy today, help me out”. And it was just amazing just that recognition would shift things, and when they all aligned and that you want the best interest for your clients, and you know you have the knowledge and the expertise and the solution for them, and you can take action in the right direction, then it just flows. It makes decisions easier, things flow more easier, you’re more relaxed, you’re more happier and hence yes, you do get better results.

0:25:48.1 Wayne Brown: Yes, fascinating. I know you also do meditation practices, and… There’s one meditation practice. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it, but it’s the heart breathing meditation practice. And I’ve tried that myself a few times that I found difficult to actually start doing it, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes quite an effective tool as well. So you mentioned the gut, if you can also work on the heart and then the head, then you really have a powerful somatic hole. Definitely.

0:26:21.5 Miquette Dobros: Exactly. Yeah. And HeartMath is the people that instigated that breathwork. And there’s a lot online about of it if anyone wants to go on, have a search for it. And you’re right, we can almost just knock the head out for a while and just focus on those two. And remember what I said, the vagus nerve sends the message up to the brain through the vagus nerve and sympathetic nervous system. So the brain’s gonna get there anyway. If you focus on the… Even the other two, it’s quite interesting. So really what I focus on then with yourself is that you’ve gotta get congruent in your thoughts, your feelings and behaviors around selling yourself or selling your company or selling your services. Otherwise, you’re gonna sabotage yourself in some way or struggle. You wanna make it as easy as possible, to make success.

0:27:18.0 Wayne Brown: Yeah. I’m reading a book at the moment called No Fear, No Excuses, and the author talks about, it’s centered around passion. And you mentioned right at the very beginning that, you were doing a lot and you realize that your passion was around business. And I see there’s a connection, I guess is where I’m going with that. If you have the passion, then you have more impetus or commitment to continue, even when times get tough. And if you can then look at your alignment, you really then have a powerful entourage to help you become successful, whether it’s sales or whether it’s operations and business, whatever it might be.

0:28:00.7 Miquette Dobros: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think that is the basis, but it’s not just even passion. I don’t think it’s just passion because it… Not everyone has the opportunity to absolutely work in their passion. Maybe their hobbies are their passion. But you need to, if you’re working in an industry or in a way, you’ve just gotta feel aligned and integrity, be in integrity with it. I think that’s something that we can be aware of, because I just don’t believe everyone has that opportunity to totally be in their passion.

0:28:37.3 Wayne Brown: Absolutely. So what’s the next step? So once we get the alignment, we move into the selling part. Right. What’s your experience?

0:28:46.0 Miquette Dobros: Yeah, so let’s just say that the second part is all about clients and understanding clients and what’s going on inside their head when we come forward. And want to bring forward our solutions. So what I discovered with working with the teams that I was working with, and the thousands of conversations I’ve had on the phone or Skype is that there were five categories that the mindset of everybody fit into. So that’s, whether it’s a 10,000 K client or a 10 million K client, or a $10 client, it still goes through pretty much the same. And every potential client will have either a combination of these five categories in varied degrees. So I’m gonna go through them, but if you don’t address them, then you’re gonna risk people saying no.

0:29:47.5 Miquette Dobros: So the first one is trust. So in the mind of your client, and that’s what we’re talking about here, what’s going on in the mind of your client is they’re assessing whether you are congruent, whether you are operating in integrity, whether you have the right intention, being their right intention in your heart. They want to assess whether they’re going to get what they need and will it work? Will it work for them? And will it meet their expectations? So there’s this trust, not trust factor happening. And they’re also, perhaps, and this is an interesting one, is in some products and services, the trust might be that they don’t trust themself in following through. And as a consultant, it’s really up to our responsibility to find that out and see whether it can be discussed and moved through. So that’s one trust.

0:30:54.8 Miquette Dobros: The second one is risk. And the client is worried about things. That’s why it’s a risk, is they’re worried about failing and fear of maybe feeling like a fool. They don’t wanna be judged by others, by the decisions that they make. They’re often even scared about letting down a family member or someone, a relationship. They’re really worried about, will I… If this doesn’t work out, what will the someone in the relationship feel? Because they’re holding a lot of responsibility within their relationships. They’re worried about making the wrong decision, and that can happen a lot. And will it meet the expectations again that they have? So there’s a lot of areas of risk. And I’ve actually got a cheat sheet that I’m happy to send out to your listeners if they want it. It’s just a really good chart to remind yourself, have I got all these covered in my material? Okay. The third one is effort. And this one’s a really interesting one as well, Wayne.

0:32:09.7 Miquette Dobros: Because we often don’t think about the… What’s the client assessing as far as effort goes? And this is often like in his mind that he doesn’t even talk about. But there’s a time commitment. He’s assessing the time commitment. He’s actually even assessing the effort that will be required to take on this service or product or system that’s going to be on. And it could be… What about the mental energy it might take, or the physical energy or the resource energy? They’re all effort, right? And what will they need to… Will they need to re-arrange their life or their business strategies if they take on this service or product or system into their… For themselves or their company or for their teams or whatever? And what will they have to give up? That’s an interesting one.

0:33:07.2 Wayne Brown: Yeah.

0:33:07.9 Miquette Dobros: There’s an effort in giving things up sometimes. And how uncomfortable is it going to be to do something new. Now that doesn’t figure everything that’s being sold, but it can really be relevant to some clients. And then there’s value. And… A lot of people say, well, a lot of sales professionals say, “Oh, if they didn’t buy, then you didn’t show the value properly.” Well, I don’t agree entirely. It’s one of the things, and these five that I’m talking about all contribute. So the client is really gonna be assessing. And this one… These are fairly obvious. They’re going to assess value for money, value for the amount of time that might be needed to invest, value for what they might gain or learn or experience or achieve. And they will also might be thinking about can… Do they really need it? Can they do it themselves? Can the company find another way that’s gonna be a lot cheaper? [laughter] Or do it themselves, Right? And sometimes it could be, do they really need it? Do they really even need it yet?

0:34:16.5 Miquette Dobros: So it can be those sort of questions that they’re assessing and what’s different about this to something else. And then there’s the other one. And it’s, “Well, I’ve tried something before and it didn’t work. Why should this be any different?” So these are all value assessing questions and depending on the product, the service, the system that you’re offering your client or the solution and the offers you’re offering the client, some of these are gonna be more important than others. And there’s a fifth one. And the fifth one’s a little bit more obscure. It’s the unspoken concerns that they haven’t voiced or won’t voice.

0:35:01.0 Miquette Dobros: And in a way, I’ve touched on them in all the other four, but there’s often something else that they haven’t told you about that they could be assessing, that could prevent them from stepping forward and proceeding with you. So it’s really is… For us as a consultant to find that out. And I’ll give you the example of a really simple one. Is that the person… And I’ve done this before, I’ve spoken with a client, they’re about to come on board with a 10K program, and then I find out that they’re going into hospital in two months or a month. Now, that is a major thing that is happening in their life that they never spoke about because… And I hadn’t found out about. But I did find out because I asked the right questions. About what could get in their way from being successful in this program. So it really wasn’t the right time or the highest good for that client to get going immediately.

0:36:06.9 Wayne Brown: I think all five are very powerful. How do I make this judgment as we’re going through the process? Like, how do I know if I have all the information or if I’m providing them with all that reassurance and building the trust and… What are some of the things that I would recognize with a client?

0:36:28.0 Miquette Dobros: Yeah. Yeah. That’s a great question. I truly believe that sales start well before you actually even meet them. So it can be in the sales funnel, in your messaging, in the questions you’re answering beforehand. There’s situations where you can have a whole conversation with someone dealing with all the possible objections that can come up at the end. But you’ve threaded them through the conversation. And I do call it a conversation framework, not a script, because I think it should be fluid. I don’t think it should be step by step very much like we have a conversation just now, but it should be fluid. So then… But there are some basic questions that can be asked. And those questions can then stimulate, “What else, what other questions.” And I think one of the big things that’s still a problem in today’s world is that, firstly people don’t see sales people as credible very often. And that still pertains in our world, right?

0:37:38.5 Wayne Brown: Yes.

0:37:38.6 Miquette Dobros: But I believe that we can shift that by… Over time by doing it differently. And what I’m saying about doing it differently is that probing and pitching is out. [laughter] I hope everyone knows what I mean by that.

0:37:53.8 Wayne Brown: You’ve probably just shocked half the audience today.

[laughter]

0:38:00.0 Miquette Dobros: Well, it started to really change around 2015 and this symbol consultive way and solution orientated way and really getting to know people and also this. Those three brains that I just spoke about, like, the thoughts, feelings or behaviors. There’s a way, and this is what I teach in my programs, with sales, Elevate Your Sales, as I refer to it as, is that there’s a way you can also have conversations with your clients or your potential clients that really helps to get to understand their thoughts, their feelings, their behavior. Are they congruent or not? Are they actually aligned with what they think they want or don’t want? And it’s very much, through the process you can help them get back into alignment. Right? Get clear about so, because sometimes it’s just they are lacking courage. So how can you help them through that to recognize it and also help them move forward? And I do appreciate that some people might be saying, “Oh yeah, but you can’t do that in the corporate world.” [laughter]

0:39:21.3 Miquette Dobros: Well, yes, you can. There are some ways in which you can do that. And there are, skills that you can learn if you like, in the conversation, framework that can really help keep you congruent and aligned with what you know to be true, but also help them. And being able to ask questions that aren’t the stereotype probing questions. My pet hate one is what keeps you up at night? I hate it. [laughter] I really do, and it’s not my favorite question at all. And yet I know it’s a very, very popular question to ask people. It’s a very, it works, but I think these days people have heard a lot about it. I have heard that so much. It’s no longer a new question. And we have to get smarter because our audience, our potential clients have done a lot of work.

0:40:30.3 Miquette Dobros: And if you are also talking to other leaders, they’re very often done a lot of personal work as well. So we need to find those connection points and similarities there that we can talk to them in their language. Like you can really go through those five categories. And really almost consider what questions do you need to ask that person relative to the industry you are in. And also how can you sort of deal with those in your discussion as well with them and thread it through so that they can feel secure. And this is why I say so much can be done also prior the sale. Like have a process that they can go through to learn about you and to learn, the way you can put your best foot forward, where you can put yourself there in an authentic way. And I think social proof is obviously one of those things that sometimes you need to bring forward those things as well. Go through those five areas and think about, how can I address or answer this question for this client?

0:41:45.7 Wayne Brown: I’m sure that our listener base will be able to take a wealth of knowledge away and, you know, what I loved about the conversation is very actionable. So, it’s something that we can all take on board and practice and see how it impacts us.

0:42:04.3 Miquette Dobros: Yeah.

0:42:05.0 Wayne Brown: Are you working on anything or doing anything at the moment? You mentioned, you’re gearing up to open your business and I guess that’s occupying most of your time. Are you focused on anything else outside of that, at the moment?

[laughter]

0:42:22.4 Miquette Dobros: So, like you, I’m co-authoring the book. So that’s… And I believe that’s gonna be published in February, it’s in 2023. So that’s exciting. And also I’m looking at putting a lot of what we’ve talked about into either a mini book. I certainly do have it in video form and in PowerPoint form and and training forms. But I’m actually thinking of putting it into a book form as well.

0:42:55.6 Wayne Brown: Where can people go to chat with you, connect with you, see your work?

0:43:00.5 Miquette Dobros: Okay. So they can go to, given that not everything’s in place, but they certainly can go to Elevate Online Today. And it is, I should have that up for you. I also, if, do you think your listeners might like that, the cheat sheet you can put in your notes, Would that be useful, Wayne, at all?

0:43:19.2 Wayne Brown: Absolutely. Maybe we can link to it or we can put the actual copies. I’ll leave that up to you, but for sure.

0:43:25.9 Miquette Dobros: Yeah. I have a link that they can go to to download it. And that would be fiveways.elevateonline.today.

0:43:39.7 Wayne Brown: Okay. Well, we’ll definitely put the link in the notes and, that’ll be great. Thank you.

0:43:44.5 Miquette Dobros: Okay. And, I’ll have on there my email address if they want it, my email basically is just info@elevateonlinetoday.com.

0:43:56.0 Wayne Brown: All right. Well, we’ll get all those links and details in the notes. Final words of wisdom from Miquette before we finish up our episode.

0:44:08.0 Miquette Dobros: I’m just gonna say that there is a third relationship, which we didn’t really go into today, but I’m just gonna touch on it super briefly, is that you also need to have a good relationship with your solution and offer. You truly need to believe that your offer and solution is gonna be for the highest good of your client. And, not be focusing on the money, that it’s really about that. And then you really need to think and know how you think and feel about it. You know, do you think it’s overpriced? Is it the right price? And go through all the elements of it and really understand it. And when you do that, then the comprehension of the value of it will come through. So I really think that, once again, you can almost run your solution offer through those five categories as well.

0:45:02.0 Wayne Brown: Wonderful. Miquette Dobros, thank you very much. I love the conversation. I really look forward to, connecting again in the near future. Obviously, we’ll be talking as the book comes closer to a release, but, I look forward to keeping you in contact and thank you for sharing your insights and your wisdom with our listener base.

0:45:22.2 Miquette Dobros: Well, thank you very, very much, for having me on, Wayne. It was a pleasure to be here and I certainly do hope that the listeners got something from it also.

0:45:33.5 Wayne Brown: Absolutely. Thank you.

0:45:36.3 Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us on the ET Project, a show for executive talent development. Until next time, check out our site for free videos, eBooks, webinars and blogs at coaching4companies.com.