IAM578- First Lady of Sales Helps Create Sustainable Growth

DR. CINDY MCGOVERN is known as the “First Lady of Sales.” She speaks and consults internationally on sales, interpersonal communication, and leadership. Dr. Cindy holds a doctorate in organizational communication and worked as a professor of communication before starting Orange Leaf Consulting, a sales management and consulting firm in San Francisco. She has helped hundreds of companies and individuals create dramatic and sustainable growth. Dr. Cindy regularly coaches both professional sales employees and those whose jobs are not sales-related in an effort to help them both take advantage of opportunities to bring more business to their companies. For more information: www.drcindy.com

• CEO Hack: Planning my day
• CEO Nugget: Sales is a life skill
• CEO Defined: Choosing to help others

Website:http://www.drcindy.com/

The free Gift with the purchase of the book to send the code is I AM CEO – Every Job is a Sales Job and a Wall Street Journal Best Seller

Twitter: https://twitter.com/1stladyofsales

Instagram: @1stladyofsales
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcindy/

Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/DrCindyMcGovern/?_rdc=1&_rdr

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29

Hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Dr. Cindy McGovern of drcindy.com. Dr. Cindy, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Dr. Cindy McGovern 0:39

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Gresham Harkless 0:41

Pleasure is definitely all ours and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Dr. Cindy so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Dr. Cindy is known as the “First Lady of Sales.” She speaks and consults internationally on sales, interpersonal communication, and leadership. Dr. Cindy holds a doctorate in organizational communication and worked as a professor of communication before starting Orange Leaf Consulting, a sales management and consulting firm in San Francisco. She has helped hundreds of companies and individuals create dramatic and sustainable growth.

Dr. Cindy regularly coaches both professional sales employees and those whose jobs are not sales-related in an effort to help them both take advantage of opportunities to bring more business to their companies. Dr. Cindy, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Dr. Cindy McGovern 1:33

I am excited to speak to the community.

Gresham Harkless 1:36

Absolutely awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I want to hear a little bit more about your background, your CEO story what led you to get started in business.

Dr. Cindy McGovern 1:43

So the funny part about that is I thought I was meant to be a college professor, like you said in my bio, that was what I went to school for my PhD is in. All of a sudden I woke up one day and said this is not where I'm supposed to be. So I ended up doing some consulting. Then at the bottom of the market 2008-2009. I said it's time to be CEO. So I went out and started my own company. It was terrifying exciting and exhilarating all in one. But it's funny when you're sort of pivoting your entire career multiple times in a fairly short amount of time. That's what actually propelled me to want to help other CEOs and want to help other folks to be able to learn from the things that I did not do well on the way so they can avoid those pitfalls.

Gresham Harkless 2:28

Yeah, well, that's really great, that you're doing that. I don't know if you have seen this, but I almost feel as if sales have become a lot more kind of like being a professor like you have a certain expertise anyway. So I don't know if you've found that a lot of your past life, I guess you can say it's trickled down into all the awesome things you're doing now.

Dr. Cindy McGovern 2:48

Well, it's funny because I actually never wanted to be in sales. So that's the humor of it and how I ended up writing this book is part of that journey, and being a CEO is you have to sell, you have to sell yourself. Prior to that consulting firm, I woke up one day at a sales job and thought, Oh, God, I'm gonna get fired like, this is not me. Through my work, I realized I'd been selling all along, I just didn't call it sales. That was part of what gave me the confidence to go out on my own, because I was like, oh, man, if I can figure that out, I can do this, I want to help others to embrace their kind of inner salesperson to be able to move their companies and their people forward to.

Gresham Harkless 3:27

Yeah, it makes so much sense. I definitely appreciate you for bringing that to light. Because a lot of times, we don't realize that we're selling quote-unquote, without knowing that we're doing it, whether we're trying to get to, we're having an interview, we're trying to put our best foot forward to get a job, or we're trying to get our kids to eat their vegetables. process. Those skills are kind of necessary, literally everywhere, where we're walking and talking.

Dr. Cindy McGovern 3:51

I actually use that example in my book where I talk about if you've ever gotten a toddler to eat anything green salespeople on the planet and use that skill set and apply it to business. So, everybody, all of your listeners are our salespeople.

Gresham Harkless 4:05

Exactly. Probably definitely not in their head and agreement on that. So I wanted to hear I know, we touched on a little bit, hear a little bit more on what you're doing to help support the clients you're working with, and of course, about your book, and all the awesome words of wisdom on there.

Dr. Cindy McGovern 4:18

So the moral of the story is I am on a mission to change the way that people look at sales. That's what I do as a company. That's what my company Orange Lead Consulting does we believe that truly every job is a sales job, which is how the book ended up being titled that. But it's more than that. It's about how you empower your people to know that they are good at sales, and they can do it and then helping them to actually be successful at it. So a lot of the consulting we do is working with CEOs and owners to help their entire untapped sales team, their account management team, their front desk people, the back office, people, anybody that's emailing with a client, those are all people in sales.

I'm on a mission to kind of change the way we look at the word sales and help everybody realize we are all in sales, and we can be successful at it. The more successful you are as an individual, the more successful the company is to you.

Gresham Harkless 5:08

Yeah, and that makes so much sense. I definitely can see what you're saying. Because I think there's a lot more accessibility maybe is the right word to businesses, no matter how big or how small that you're interacting with more than just the one person that's supposed to be talking outside. So a lot of times, the way that your company looks, the way it presents itself is not just that outside salesperson that's knocking on doors, it's the person that's picking up the customer service phone and interacting through email, or through chat and all those things. If you don't kind of have that awareness, then that could be a detriment to every company.

Dr. Cindy McGovern 5:41

100%. and I think a lot of folks, especially CEOs, we sort of forget that part, like we're focused on strategy, we're focused on growth, we forget there's a huge trickle-down approach that lists every person in your organization is a walking, talking commercial. Even if they don't have, day-to-day interaction with a client, they are talking to potential clients, their neighbors, and their families, they are carrying the banner for your organization, are they telling the story you want them to be telling? If not, we need to change that and that's a lot of the work that we do is we coach them and help them. But first, it starts with the CEO recognising that they too, are in sales.

Gresham Harkless 6:19

Yeah, they don't know and we don't accept that and nobody was definitely aware of it. It starts as a lot of things with us and us having that mentality in that perspective. So definitely appreciate you know, all the work you're doing related to that. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, and it could be for you personally, or for your business but what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

Dr. Cindy McGovern 6:44

My secret sauce is more with regard to the fact that I think sales is a life skill and I think it gets miscategorized. So like, I'm on a mission to change the way people look at sales. Honestly, Gresh by the time I'm done, we might need a new word. To call it something completely different. But I think sales should have been taught in high school. I mean, we learn reading, we learn writing, you learn arithmetic, you learn it, and sometimes you even learn job interview skills, that is nothing more than a sales skill. But we don't teach it as that. We sort of categorize it as this thing that these people over here do.

Quite frankly, most of us probably shied away from it, because we thought I'd want to be like that. I don't want to be that guy. Oh, that's a key, that's manipulative. So my big secret sauce is the fact that you do sell. Every interaction is a sales transaction and as we said, if you're going to your kids eat their vegetables, if you've convinced one of your colleagues or one of your employees to stay late, you sold them on the idea. So we shift the way we think about it. That's the secret sauce I actually look at basically, everyday sales conversations. It's just a series of sales conversations.

Gresham Harkless 7:50

Yeah, absolutely. I think that definitely when you start to change that perspective and change that narrative around it, it starts to be like, as you said, a life skill, one of those essential skills that you need to be successful. Especially I loved as when I was introducing you that you start to become aware of your ability to bring value to your organisation, no matter what stage or title you have. Because if you have that kind of sales mentality, or that approach, or the way you look at things, then that starts to make you think about how you can bring value rather than take away a lot of times.

Dr. Cindy McGovern 8:26

It isn't and I think the other piece that I want to empower the listeners today to think about too, is the fact that you can't be afraid of it if you want your people to do it. I think that's one of the things is a lot of times when CEO or CFO or CEO comes to us for consulting and they think, Okay, well, these people are the ones that need it, we. My friend is starting with you in the C suite, and then we're trickling down. So they have to really embrace that for themselves and know that it is a skill they already have, or else they wouldn't be in that C suite anyway like you do have this, you just don't call it that.

Gresham Harkless 9:00

So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be something from your book, like an ad, or it could be an app or book or another habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

Dr. Cindy McGovern 9:12

So there are five steps that I go through in the book and my favorite hack is actually step one is planning. I think we think we plan. I think we play plan, where we do these large strategic initiatives. We all sit around the board table and we brainstorm and then we put all these goals up on a board. But how are you planning your day, your week, your month, and your minutes, and looking at it in terms of the best return on investment? So the hack for me is to replan every day and I search for and I always have a to-do list for the day. If you saw my list you giggle today, but it's something where I truly think that's the piece because that's how we start to really measure our time and control our time.

As CEOs were pulled in 30,000 directions every second of the day. You have to plan Do you can go back and measure? Because I don't know, even a lot of CEOs that I coach, I'll ask them, I'm like, where are you spending your time where's your best ROI, and they can't even tell me where half their week went. It's like, I get it but let's look at that, let's chunk it down and there's some magic to writing it down. So that is absolutely step one in my book. I think that the best CEO hack that I can share is, if you're not planning and writing it down and putting real due dates to it, you're kind of flying by the seat of your pants and that's not enough.

Gresham Harkless 10:28

Yeah, it makes so much sense. So now, let me ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So that could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice, it could be around sales or something you might tell your client or your younger business self.

Dr. Cindy McGovern 10:41

If I could tell my younger business self, I would tell my younger business self that sales are not making, and what I would have used 25 years ago, is that sales are truly a life skill. If that is my my message for everyone is that isn't icky. You don't have to be that sales guy. I call him Johnny two thumbs because you think it's like, hey. So in my head, I have this picture of a guy in like, plaid pants and white shoes, off the car lot. So Johnny, two thumbs and my message to everybody is you don't have to be done. I would never teach you to be that, nobody wants to be sold. Everybody likes to buy. So is to invite them to survive, to invite them to adopt your idea to invite them to sell. I think that's really the message that I would I would share with any CEO, but also any employee is making sure it's about invite.

Gresham Harkless 11:36

Yeah, that makes so much sense. A lot of times you're trying to be a value. So you're trying to introduce something to you or invite people to something that you're providing. I think that you're absolutely right. A lot of times when we think back to the traumas I have, they might be a strong word. But a lot of times we might have bought something from somebody we didn't necessarily want to buy. So now our association with sales is that, and we don't want anything to do with it, because we don't realize that maybe that person was just an outlier to what the whole process was. Where we can actually be people that are providing and inviting people and helping out the world.

Dr. Cindy McGovern 12:13

Totally and the media doesn't do a great job of helping us to change this, it's very stereotypical of sales, and you see sales person in a movie, or a television program nine times out of 10, they're that cheesy Johnny to the home. I want you to think about the fact that you've sold to and you sell every day, every interaction with a customer, every interaction with one of your colleagues, if you have had a board meeting this year with your team if you haven't had a video message go out, you sold them on the idea. That's the kind of sales I'm talking about. You're inviting them to buy into the ideas and the goals of what you want your organization to be this year, that sales and that's the kind of wonderful,

Gresham Harkless 12:54

Nice, well, I definitely appreciate you for changing the narrative, super excited to hear what that new word comes out. So I know we've been talking a lot about the different narratives around sales. So I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question which is the definition of what it means to be CEO, we're hoping to help create an entirely different narrative around what it means to be a CEO, entrepreneur, and business owner. But Dr. Cindy, I want to ask you very specifically, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Dr. Cindy McGovern 13:23

I actually have an acronym that I use for it, and it's choosing to elevate others and that's the way I look at CEO. My job is to make everybody else better. I'm supposed to surround myself with people who are younger, better looking, and smarter than me, that's the plan. But it's really about truly finding ways to continue to elevate because if I live in a bubble, if I stay here, and I think I'm the only one with a vision, I'm missing literally everything. So it's how I look at this person and make them even better. It's going to make everybody around us better.

Gresham Harkless 13:55

Yeah, it makes so much sense. I think that a lot of times, when you have that mindset and mentality, it helps raise the entire tide and all the boats rise. So to speak, just by us having that mentality and looking to others, to kind of tap into their potential with things that they do best and we can continue to kind of win as a team.

Dr. Cindy McGovern 14:15

For sure. I've got a gal who works on our social media, and she was doing certain on-the-fly posts, she texted me this morning and said, Do I need to run these by you and I said, Of course not. Like, run with it girl, go out there like you're doing great. But it's funny because I think so often we feel like we have to manage. Yeah. If they don't need managing stop managing them.

Gresham Harkless 14:37

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of times when you give somebody the freedom to be a leader within themselves as well, too, that also helps out so much because they become empowered, they take ownership and it starts to manifest itself in the work and you get a lot more joy and a lot better product at the end of the day.

Dr. Cindy McGovern 14:52

It's so much more fun. I mean, the CEOs, that's the best part is when you see somebody else totally crush it. I actually like being a CEO.

Gresham Harkless 15:05

Yeah, absolutely and it keeps our cup filled as we talked about before as well, too, which is a. Awesome, well, Dr. Cindy, truly appreciate that definition and in that perspective, appreciate your time even more, what I want to do, especially the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional, you want to let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best they can get hold of you.

Dr. Cindy McGovern 15:25

Absolutely. So I'm super easy to find it's drcindy.com, or a consulting firm is orangeleafconsulting.com. I'm all over social media, just search for either one of those. But really, it's about helping you to grow your business and to grow as a person. So I'd invite your folks to check out my book if they're interested and share it with your staff. It's not written for the salesperson, it's written for the regular person. So you're really trying to grow that business, check it out.

Of course, I've got a free gift for your listeners too. They can go to drcindy.com. They just need to up in I am CEO and the promo code when they buy the book and I'm going to send them a bonus chapter on personal branding, as well as some sales tips to help them out to be able to grow the business here in 20 flame.

Gresham Harkless 16:04 

Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Dr. Cindy, truly appreciate your time again. I truly appreciate obviously that gift and all the awesome things you're doing to change the narrative around sales as well. We will have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up as well thank you again. I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Outro 16:21

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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