Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.
Joshua Kornitsky: Welcome back to High Velocity Radio. I’m your host, professional, US implementer, Joshua Kornitsky. And I’ve really got a one of a kind, amazing guest here in the studio with me today. Today my guest is Terri Lonowski . Terri is a speaker, a coach, and the creator of the Soulful Listening Methodology. Her work focuses on helping leaders and organizations strengthen communication, build trust, and really improve workplace relationships. Terri brings a science grounded in human centered approach to leadership and connection lending neuroscience with practical application. Her perspective is rooted in real world experience and a deep commitment to meaningful listening. So I’m going to do my very best to be an excellent listener. Welcome, Terri. It’s a joy to have you here.
Terri Lonowski : Joshua, I am so excited to be here, and I can hardly wait to see what happens in our conversation.
Joshua Kornitsky: That’s fantastic excitement, I love it. Um, so let’s begin with what brought you to this path, to this type of work. Because most people are all about talking, not about listening.
Terri Lonowski : Oh gosh, that’s such a great perspective. And what brought me here was I was coaching human centered design teams from across the nation. And human centered design, at the core of that is empathy. And empathy is used to shift programs on their ears to be more meaningful to the customers they serve. And these teams were competing to showcase workforce innovation at the white House.
Joshua Kornitsky: Wow.
Terri Lonowski : So a couple of different times, my teams got invited to go to the white House. And so that was very exciting. And I learned from that just how powerful empathy is. However, I also knew that there were major missing pieces in how we communicate, and at the same time, I was reviewing some research that indicated over half of the American population is lonely.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay, so I’m looking for the thread that connects these things. And yes, and I and I sort of see it, but but please help me connect the dots.
Terri Lonowski : Yeah. And you know, the health implications of feeling lonely is equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Joshua Kornitsky: Wow.
Terri Lonowski : With health risks now exceeding those of obesity. So this broke my heart. And I wonder, I wonder we have to be able to do better. And so I sequestered myself for two months to really unearth what made my relationships different, what made the way that I’ve been exposed to in early life and then evolve throughout my lifetime different? And out of that emerged what’s now known as soulful listening that has five simple elements.
Joshua Kornitsky: Will you share them with us?
Terri Lonowski : Oh, of course, I’d love to. So the first element of soulful listening is self-care.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.
Terri Lonowski : And rarely do we hear the direct connection between high quality self-care and high quality communication. But they are directly linked.
Joshua Kornitsky: And I certainly can understand it. I mean, it’s not it doesn’t make me scratch my head and say, why would that matter? But of course it would. The healthier you are, the more likely you are to be able to communicate clearly, I presume.
Terri Lonowski : Right. And in addition to that, it includes more than a bubble bath, although that could be fun, sure, but it includes things like what’s our self-talk? What’s that loop that’s going on in our head? Are we setting healthy boundaries?
Joshua Kornitsky: I that resonates a lot with me, because I do believe that the internal monologue sets the tone. And if you’re beating yourself up all the time, that comes through in your communication all the time.
Terri Lonowski : Oh, well said, well said. And it also includes things like, are we coming to our conversations with a higher degree of emotional intelligence? Are we self-regulating our emotions so we don’t come in just pummeling somebody?
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.
Terri Lonowski : Okay.
Joshua Kornitsky: Um, I certainly can understand that one. And I won’t give examples, but I think every human being can. Right. If if you’re in an agitated state, if you’re already, um, if you say have been driving in Atlanta traffic and then you walk in the door at home. Occasionally we can be short with our loved ones.
Terri Lonowski : Ah, indeed. Indeed. And have we gotten enough sleep? Sometimes that’s really under underrated on how important that is.
Joshua Kornitsky: I understand that. So that’s self-care, right?
Terri Lonowski : And when we take care of ourselves in the way that we just talked about, we’re ready for the second element of soulful listening, which is becoming fully present.
Joshua Kornitsky: Let’s talk about that because I don’t I don’t subscribe to any of the isms. If you’re gonna tell me that someone who’s 17 or 23, the ages of my daughters is guilty of X because of their age. That’s no different than in in my perspective, if you lump all people into a group, um, it’s no different than any other word you want to put on the front of the ism because you’re stereotyping. So I want to understand what you mean by that because it’s so easy to dismiss others.
Terri Lonowski : Yes. So becoming fully present, I imagine we’ve all been in situations where we can almost see the thought bubble of a person’s head with all the things they’re thinking about. We feel it. But when we’re in the presence of somebody that is really there for us, We feel that also. And so I’d like to share a way of getting there because it sounds kind of abstract.
Joshua Kornitsky: Absolutely.
Terri Lonowski : But if we can just kind of take notice of our body right now, just notice your body, shrug your shoulders a couple of times, up and down and up and down. Wiggle your toes. Okay. Now we’re going to take three intentional breaths. And the way we’ll do that will exhale all the way. And then we’ll breathe into the count of four. Hold and then breathe out to the count of six.
Joshua Kornitsky: Is that circular breathing. Is that what that’s called or is that something.
Terri Lonowski : It’s a little different than that. And there’s a reason that we exhale more than we inhale. So we’re not going to go into the science of that. We’re going to let’s just do it. Okay okay. Exhale all the way. Breathe in 234. Hold exhale Six old. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. And the last time. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. Notice your body now.
Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah. I feel noticeably calmer. And I’m not I’m not a hyper guy. But I definitely can feel a bit of a sense of calmness. And that’s, uh, that’s a breathing, a similar breathing technique. Without going into the neuroscience to one that, that we use at home when, when one of one of our family gets particularly anxious, we, we count for and breathe a box for, for for for.
Terri Lonowski : Right, right. Yes. And that’s a great one to box breathing. Excellent. So when we truly take care of ourselves and become present like we just did, we’re ready for the third element of soulful listening, which is quantum listening.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.
Terri Lonowski : My way of describing that is if active listening and empathy had a love child.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.
Terri Lonowski : It would be this element. And it’s when we listen all in with every fiber of our being through our senses and maybe a little bit beyond.
Joshua Kornitsky: So that’s not that’s easy to describe. I don’t know how to do that physiologically other than to focus on you as you speak.
Terri Lonowski : Right. And, you know, and another thing to maybe have in mind is to enter that conversation with a sense of openness.
Joshua Kornitsky: And I think that’s an excellent, excellent point. But it must take some time to, to get comfortable with this concept for somebody who’s never heard it before. Right. It I, I don’t exactly know how to do it, but I certainly can give my undivided attention. Not look at my phone, not look at my watch, just look at you and try to focus on on what you’re saying.
Terri Lonowski : Right. That is that is great. And I’m a big proponent of start now start small.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.
Terri Lonowski : You know, whenever we enter a new body of information or we try a new exercise starting now and starting small is critical. You know, we’re not going to be an Olympic athlete the first time we put on a pair of tennis shoes.
Joshua Kornitsky: That’s sadly true. Yes.
Terri Lonowski : Sadly true.
Joshua Kornitsky: As as as we say around my house, you have to eat the elephant in bites, right? You can’t try to take it all on at once. Yes. Um, any other suggestions for that? Fully intentional listening, right.
Terri Lonowski : And I had mentioned, you know, not playing out both sides of a conversation before you enter it.
Joshua Kornitsky: Sure.
Terri Lonowski : And that may sound like, well, of course, I would not do that, but it’s really easy to slip into, oh, we’ve been here before. He’s going to say this, I’m going to say that. And and there we go. So enter with an openness and have a couple of high quality questions in your back pocket.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.
Terri Lonowski : Yeah.
Joshua Kornitsky: All right. So that’s three.
Terri Lonowski : Three. And then the fourth one is what I call the secret sauce. And that’s inspired action. When we connect on this deeper level, we often gain insights into how we might be helpful to another person. You know, whether it’s making a connection on LinkedIn, whether it’s making a phone call, maybe it’s sharing a book you’ve just read that might be of great assistance to another person. We all have access to incredible resources. Sure. Yes. And so that’s, you know, from this insight that was gained, offering some help or taking some action, okay. Inspired action, no strings attached.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay. So just, uh, and this is iOS, but my own verbiage as well. It’s that help first mentality. It’s it’s to to offer to do for someone else. Uh, and the minute you use this word, you negate the word. But it’s essentially an altruistic outlook, right? I can’t be intentionally altruistic because then I’m not being altruistic anymore.
Terri Lonowski : Yes, yes, I know you can’t get tripped up a little bit there. I can see that. I can see that. And so the last element of soulful listening is, is the feedback loop. And the reason that is so critical, we can have these great conversations. We can lean forward, not our head. Take it in, listen deeply, let a person know we heard them take action. But if we don’t let them know the individual we had this conversation with will, as most humans do, fill in the blanks that make up a story, and it’s almost always not accurate.
Joshua Kornitsky: And it’s from another version of that that I have heard from Brene Brown. From from reading her books is it’s never ever positive. I don’t think Terri was late today, hypothetically, because she won the lottery. She must have been hit by a bus. We don’t ever tell ourselves a positive reason why someone did or didn’t do something. We skew human nature to negative. Would you say that?
Terri Lonowski : That’s absolutely. And connecting it to conversations. The person that didn’t receive feedback didn’t wasn’t let known what happened. Well, boil and make up the story. They didn’t even care. They didn’t do anything. I am never going to open myself up again. Ever, ever ever. My great idea has gone flat, when in fact action may have been taken and the feedback could look simply like this. Hey, I heard what you said. I have this great connection on LinkedIn. I’m sending you both a message. Or here’s here’s a phone number. Give them a call or give them a heads up, you’re going to be reaching out. Yeah.
Joshua Kornitsky: And I can see if you’re following these five steps how that would change your interactions with just about everybody.
Terri Lonowski : So true.
Joshua Kornitsky: So I’m going to pause, because the first time that you and I talked about this, I asked you a question and I’m going to ask you the question again so that people understand this is not mumbo jumbo, Terri. Share with us your your actual education and background, please.
Terri Lonowski : Oh, okay.
Joshua Kornitsky: I think I think that I want to put it on record for anybody that’s like, oh, that sounds nice. So tell us your if you would real briefly what’s your background.
Terri Lonowski : I appreciate that. So I have a master’s degree in educational psychology. So that’s one thing I’m you know that’s where the neuroscience.
Joshua Kornitsky: Into the white.
Terri Lonowski : House.
Joshua Kornitsky: A couple of times.
Terri Lonowski : Really love that. And I am a TEDx speaker.
Joshua Kornitsky: I, and we’ll put that link when we publish. People need to see that.
Terri Lonowski : Yeah, yeah. And we’re really excited about that. We’re getting closer to 200,000 views and over 200 comments. So anyway, that just makes me kind of light up. And I have, as I had mentioned, showcased workforce innovation at the white House a couple of times.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right? So you’re a recognized expert in your field. And that’s the point that I really wanted to establish, um, without demeaning anyone. We live in a world where where these days you can put a flag up and say that you are X, Y, or Z, and people just nod and smile. But you’re the real deal. And I think that that’s something that’s really, really important for anybody listening to understand that this is backed up by knowledge, education and experience. This isn’t just fanciful thought. Um, and maybe you can hear in my tone I get defensive on your behalf, but it’s it’s because I want because I want people to understand that it’s rare to find a gem of this quality in in knowledge that is really, um, I’ll give the best example I can. It is simple, but not easy, right? You. There are five simple steps. They take some work to get them down, but it sounds like in just the breathing alone in 45 seconds, I could feel the impact of that.
Terri Lonowski : Um.
Joshua Kornitsky: Um. So. Meaning that I could feel the impact of the breathing on on myself. Um, so let me ask you then, with, with this concept, this methodology of soulful listening, what what’s possible as opposed to through traditional communication. Once you’ve got this in, in your tool belt as a tool that you’re able to use.
Terri Lonowski : Yeah. One thing that just kind of bubbles to the surface right now when you embody this, you know, you were talking about just kind of introducing people, but when you really embrace it and incorporate it into your life, how you are in one setting is how you are in all settings. So if you have an area of your life that you really kind of want to tweak some relationship skills, it will bleed over into others.
Joshua Kornitsky: So and that makes sense to me because truthfully, this is such a healthy way to approach things that if you are this way to the best of your ability at all times, you’re probably going to get a lot more out of life. As silly as that may broad, you know that that that’s boiling the ocean. That’s a big example. But if you follow those guidelines, where would it where’s the downside to it?
Terri Lonowski : Oh there isn’t. It’s, you know, it’s, um, it’s holistic. You know, we really look at it in a holistic approach to connecting with another, and we also connect with ourselves. How are we listening to ourselves?
Joshua Kornitsky: So, broadly speaking, I describe myself as an EOS implementer. I’m a leadership team, uh, coach, teacher and facilitator. How effective, how impactful is this? Because my mind goes towards leaders that I’ve met who are lacking in some, if not all, five of those skills. How impactful is this in your experience with leaders?
Terri Lonowski : Oh, it’s incredible. It’s just incredible. And and when we look at what’s happening in the workplace right now, I think Gallup, maybe a year or so ago, I came out with a study that indicated only about a third of people are fully engaged in the workplace.
Joshua Kornitsky: And that number is probably higher than reality.
Terri Lonowski : It’s I think it was 23%. But anyway, it it really reinforces the fact that we have breakdown in communication in the workplace and it is a very expensive breakdown. It’s costing when you have employees that say you pay somebody $100,000 a year and you’re really getting, um, maybe $30,000 of work out of them. Sure. You know, multiply that by your workforce.
Joshua Kornitsky: And that’s where this is. This is the real practical application. And and ultimately, while it will enhance the personal side of your life, let’s talk a little bit about the professional side. And, and if you, uh, take the soulful listening approach to, to just your, your professional relationships, what kind of changes have you seen with those you’ve taught?
Terri Lonowski : Yes. What I see is, you know, deeper engagement. And, you know, we’re we’re at a time in our world where we need solutions to really significant challenges. And to me, in order to really address those. We have to be the fullest expression of ourselves, our gifts and talents.
Joshua Kornitsky: And I can see that.
Terri Lonowski : And deep listening, or the soulful listening way is one way to unleash the potential that is locked up.
Joshua Kornitsky: Does it impact things? And this is loaded because I have to believe it does. But does it impact trust and confidence?
Terri Lonowski : Absolutely, absolutely. You know, when we, um, practice these five elements over and over again, it embeds integrity and confidence within relationships, whether they be personal or business. Yeah.
Joshua Kornitsky: Does it. So the breathing exercise, I told you I could feel a moment of of calmness. And I’m not a particularly violent storm of a guy. Right. But I could feel that. Are there other physiological changes that people experience, not just from the breathing but from all of it, really?
Terri Lonowski : Right when we hold the space for another person, which soulful listening allows us to do, the other person can access their higher reasoning because they would not be in fight or flight. When we’re in fight flight, we cannot access our prefrontal cortex.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay?
Terri Lonowski : Our higher reasoning is shut down. It’s not physiologically possible.
Joshua Kornitsky: That’s an interesting point that I was not aware of.
Terri Lonowski : Yeah.
Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah. Because a lot again going leaning on leadership as just a broad concept. Uh, aggressive leadership styles have a tendency to put, um, downstream employees as I like to refer to them, because I don’t want to denigrate the role, just someone who’s a direct report of a leader. Um, aggressive leadership can can trigger that very quickly that that fight or flight. And it’s not that the leader themselves is trying to be intimidating, although sometimes they are, um, you know, leaders emulate what they believe is an effective strategy. And if and if you learn from a drill sergeant, you may think that’s the best way to do it. But as I’ve recently learned, drill sergeants actually care a great deal about the people under their control or under their, their, um, uh, under their care. You from the outside, you may not know that, but the reality is they’re there to make sure no one gets harmed or hurt, and they’re there to toughen the soldiers that they work with so that they’re able to do the things that are needed from them. But as as I think about soulful listening as a framework, it, it it seems, um, pretty superpower ish. I don’t I don’t want to say that. I don’t want to oversell it. Right.
Terri Lonowski : But yeah, I believe I believe it is a superpower of sorts. I don’t know if I would call that that, but you did. And so I’m going to.
Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah, I’m going.
Terri Lonowski : To latch.
Joshua Kornitsky: On to jump on. And the whole idea is just that I try to think about what it would be like. You know, we we all aspire ourselves to be a certain way. Um, this very much appeals to me to to be a soulful listener, to be someone who is so in that moment and so able to help others achieve the things they want to do. That’s that’s a lot of why I’m sitting on this side of the microphone. And it’s a lot of why I do what I do for a living, because I want to help others. What if somebody’s not wired that way?
Terri Lonowski : Well, we don’t need another person’s permission or another person’s skill set to be this. That’s a great operating in this higher way of being. And what I have observed is we tend to entrain to the others that were around. You know, we’ll kind of match. And so if we are operating at these soulful listening level.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right.
Terri Lonowski : You know, other people will kind of like lean into that because it works. It’s appealing.
Joshua Kornitsky: That’s a really good point. So they see it. They see its effectiveness. And and that’s something I had not considered. But it makes sense to me. It there’s there’s some ancient lesson in US process. Uh, that’s that’s true. That basically process is born out of we do the things that produce the results that we want, and we don’t do the things we don’t repeat the things that did not get us our results. And ultimately, process is born out of that very crude concept. And it ties in here really in a way I hadn’t considered if I witnessed someone else using these components and this approach, and I see it being effective, I’m going to try it.
Terri Lonowski : Right, right. And and we’re kind of magnetically drawn to people who are Open who are in alignment within their own own being.
Joshua Kornitsky: Sure.
Terri Lonowski : You know, you describe the the leader that was, you know, like people were walking on eggshells around them. You know, that that, you know, like elicits people shutting down. But if you have this quiet confidence and it doesn’t mean that just being quiet is going to do it. You know, there has to be some meat behind it. So you have a leader that has a lot of substance to them. Maybe they’ve had some practices where they’ve been off putting to people that they’re trying to lead, like your drill sergeant. Right. You know, they had the best of intentions. But when we really look at human behavior and what we need as humans, and we are designed to thrive when we feel seen and heard and supported by others, period.
Joshua Kornitsky: I think that that’s a often overlooked, realistic perspective on, uh, managing human capital to to use that term, to the best of my way, to describe when you’re thinking about people that work with you, with people that work for you, that the leaders that are under your care or that you report to us, we all do better with the right mindset. We all improve if we’re being heard and believe that we’re being heard. And it doesn’t mean I have to win every argument for lack of a of a better expression. But to be heard is to be recognized.
Terri Lonowski : Yes. And when we when we are seen in this way, we feel more confident to bring forth bold ideas, you know, and that’s the space in which innovation can thrive.
Joshua Kornitsky: 100% that that aligns with exactly what what we teach. And in that you have to have vulnerability based trust before you can experience constructive conflict. And it’s only from constructive conflict that accountability and results will come and commitment will come, because you’ve got to believe the other person isn’t trying to hurt you. That we’re working towards common goals and clearly this would help people work towards a common goal. So. So let me ask, do you teach this to organizations? Do you teach this to people? How how are you bringing, uh, outside of your Ted talk? How are you bringing soulful listening out to the world?
Terri Lonowski : Right. You know, I can work with companies. And, you know, I had one that a CEO reached out to me. Within a year, they had grown from 100 employees to 250.
Joshua Kornitsky: Wow. That’s pretty significant.
Terri Lonowski : And so they were having, you know, miscommunication, misunderstandings, breakdown, hard feelings, people missing deadlines, so on and so forth. So in that case, I went in and I wanted to spend a little bit of time with the people and I wanted to listen. And so I asked to speak to people from all the different levels. Right. And I got some insights into how they how each of these levels was experiencing all of this change. And so then I had a half a day when I was with the executives. So we did like a deep dive into this. We’ve kind of skimmed over some of the elements today, but we dug deeper and I was able to offer some real life examples from within their house.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.
Terri Lonowski : And then a couple days later, I did a keynote for all 250. So they had a similar framework from which they could support each other in moving forward.
Joshua Kornitsky: And I think that that’s a really important thing to consider. Right. Is that while that’s great, if you’re able to work with one team, the biggest impact is if the organization has a common language and has an ability to understand why we’re saying the words we’re saying, why we’re taking the actions we’re taking. Um, are there particular size organizations that you work with or up and down?
Terri Lonowski : I’m kind of open to that. I would want to have a conversation to so I could sense whether I would be able to offer great value. That’s the most important thing to me. Yeah.
Joshua Kornitsky: This is a question that that jumps out and it’s a little it’s a little off center, but I feel like it’s something that that you have expertise to speak to. Terri. Um, what are the misconceptions? What are the assumptions people make about communication and whether it ties to soulful listening or not? Your communications expert, what are the what are the most common mistakes you see that you’re able to help with?
Terri Lonowski : Well, it’s kind of, uh, you know, I don’t know, kind of disregarded as being important. You know, maybe looking at communication as a hug, a tree. Really not that big of a deal. Soft skills, when in fact, that is not true. Miscommunication in the United States costs businesses $1.2 trillion a year.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay, that’s enough messing around number.
Terri Lonowski : Okay.
Joshua Kornitsky: And that that is directly attributable. I’m asking to.
Terri Lonowski : Yes.
Joshua Kornitsky: To miscommunication.
Terri Lonowski : And you know, in that in that bucket would be things like people not engaged at work.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right.
Terri Lonowski : Quietly quitting actually quitting. Right. You know turnover and and so it’s all of that together, um, not communicating effectively with your clients and missing an order, uh, being off putting to them because you have what you want to say, but you’ve not listened to what they need. Yeah.
Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and I have to believe that assumptions play into it, right? Because to me, that’s the the greatest pitfall that I typically observe with, with organizations that I work with and even organizations that I don’t work with, is is that assumption that A is handling B, which will make C not happen except A and B have no idea that C occurs?
Terri Lonowski : Yeah, I can see.
Joshua Kornitsky: And that gets awful expensive. And then you know anytime you put yourself into that mindset what’s it going to cost us to fix. What’s it going to cost us to to remediate or to go back? Um, you know, of that 1.3 trillion.
Terri Lonowski : 1.2.
Joshua Kornitsky: $1.2 trillion? It’s as the expression goes, it’s hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube. I wonder how much of that is. I wonder how much of that is lost confidence equating to loss of business. Right. Because if if that communication breaks down and I lose confidence in your ability to deliver my widgets, I’m going to go somewhere else. And that’s that’s harder to measure because who knows how much revenue was there. But we’ve all we’ve all seen it. And most of us that have been in business have made that decision. I wasn’t getting what I needed here. I’m going to go elsewhere.
Terri Lonowski : Right. And when you look at what that does to an employee, you know, if let’s say it’s a high functioning, high performing employee and the widget doesn’t get delivered and that looks bad on them and they’re going to go, I’m, you know, good luck. I’m not I’m going to go find another place where that widget can get there on time.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right. So it’s it’s it sounds like it can be a multifaceted or it can be a cascading fallout when you have a communication breakdown.
Terri Lonowski : Totally.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay, so tell me, based on your experience, um, some without giving away, uh, identifying information. Right. What are some of the the changes you’ve been able to see happen in some of the companies or organizations you’ve worked with?
Terri Lonowski : Well, you know, the one that I just gave an example of, the CEO ended up writing this letter. And what happened there is they they found a way of communicating with one another, taking the breath, listening, offering good questions so they could really get at the problems. And, and they just had a healthier, um, feeling seen and feeling heard. And that mattered a lot to the employees at all levels. And when we look at the, um, the admin level at this organization, right, you know, they were just like, you know, all this change has happened. Nobody’s connecting with us. They’re just, you know, like throwing it upon us and didn’t even ask us, how could we do this a little bit better? And so after that, they got brought in the loop of the conversation.
Joshua Kornitsky: And that’s a great point because you can’t you’re not I, I presume you’re not going to be as effective at implementation if you limit it to only a portion of the organization.
Terri Lonowski : Right. It’s it’s better. I mean, you know, a leader can really have an incredible ripple effect, too. So if, you know, if we just get to the, you know, the higher level, right, that can, you know, like I say, the entrainment, the matching, the demonstrating and being the leader of this.
Joshua Kornitsky: So Sam, a leader of an organization and I’m listening to this right now. What are some key indicators to me that I’ve got communication issues. What are things that I should be looking for to tell me? Because, you know, we’re making money. Uh, we’re we’re we’re growing, whether it’s at full potential or capacity. You know, a, uh, leader may cage that answer and say, well, we can’t say for sure. But how how would a leader what are some of the signs that a leader should look for.
Terri Lonowski : One thing you can look at is what? Your turnover rate.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.
Terri Lonowski : You know, if you have people running out the door and they’re the high quality people, that’s a really good indication that something’s amiss.
Joshua Kornitsky: Okay, that makes perfect sense to me.
Terri Lonowski : Another thing, if you haven’t had an innovative idea brought before you recently, you might want to take stock of that.
Joshua Kornitsky: That’s that’s a really interesting tell. Um, because that goes back to trust, that goes back to openness and the willingness to take that chance to say, hey, boss, what if we did this?
Terri Lonowski : Right. And the container that soulful listening can create is a safe container in which you can innovate because innovation is messy, right? You know, the ideas are not perfect upon first being formed. Sure. And so you have to have be able to bounce that around and have, you know, the the freedom to fail fast. You know, reiterate and then really get to something that may have saved you countless dollars.
Joshua Kornitsky: And I can see why enhancing your ability to communicate would dramatically change that pattern. Because one of the things that that I always work with my clients on is accepting that, you know, we can’t we’re not likely to solve every problem 100% the first time we try. The companies that get that and can iterate succeed ultimately much quicker because they understand, okay, this path A didn’t work. Let’s try path B, let’s try path C, but occasionally I encounter organizations where you know they’re going to ride path A down to hell and, and and even then you will have somebody demanding that this is the only way. And it’s because they don’t have that ability to communicate openly and say, hey, we tried that. That didn’t work. Next up.
Terri Lonowski : Yeah. And even if that did work at one time, very, very, very well. The world is different. It’s changing every single day. We can even look at technology, and we don’t even need to have a deep understanding of that. But to know that there are tools that maybe take the place of a task that was, was done by 12 people. Now two can do it. And so where can that capital be utilized in a better way? Yeah.
Joshua Kornitsky: So I want to ask a harder question that just occurred to me with what you said.
Terri Lonowski : Okay.
Joshua Kornitsky: Because you are an expert in communication with, let’s say, the influx of AI and all of the whatever version you want to call it, whatever tool, whatever name you want to use, is that introducing an element of of either chaos or anxiety into the communication Channels.
Terri Lonowski : You know, I think.
Joshua Kornitsky: In your opinion.
Terri Lonowski : Yeah. You know, it depends on the setting. In some ways it could be like an incredible aid, you know, like a augment, you know, to augment what’s being done. And, you know, sometimes we’re afraid of what we don’t know. And so maybe giving stock to and asking, asking your people like, how are you? How does this set with you? We’re bringing this on. How does this set with you?
Joshua Kornitsky: And maybe there you go communicating again.
Terri Lonowski : Yeah.
Joshua Kornitsky: But but you actually gave me an answer that I never would have thought of because, uh, most people don’t do that. They’re just like, here’s the new tool.
Terri Lonowski : Right? And and that ultimately may be what needs to happen. That tool may need to be there. But by just tapping the brakes for just a second and checking in, then you can create an environment where there could be bigger buy in, and maybe that person will come to you and say, you know, I see that we’re going to use it for this, but what about if we also used it for this?
Joshua Kornitsky: Right. Yeah. And that only comes from the ability to communicate clearly.
Terri Lonowski : Right. Right.
Joshua Kornitsky: Terri, I can’t thank you enough. So would you mind taking us through the five steps briefly, just so that anybody can write them down? Uh, and obviously we’re going to link to your website. We’re going to link to, to whatever the ways are to communicate best with you. But if you’ll run them, run through them one more time so that everybody can have them.
Terri Lonowski : Of course. Happy to. So the first element. Self-care. Take stock of that and maybe even commit to yourself this next week doing two self-care activities and then seeing how you feel about that in the week. The second one is becoming fully present before your next conversation. Somebody you care about. Take three deep breaths and listen.
Joshua Kornitsky: I love how you slow down when you say that, but you force people to listen.
Terri Lonowski : And the third one, quantum listening. Like, tune in, put everything else aside. Listen with all that you are.
Joshua Kornitsky: And you said that it’s okay. That. That takes time.
Terri Lonowski : It’s okay. Start now. Start small.
Joshua Kornitsky: I just wanted to reiterate, because a lot of people are going to be frustrated that I don’t know how to do that. Well, you gotta take the first step.
Terri Lonowski : Step. One little baby step. And then the fourth element inspired action. When you get a nudge that somebody could use your help or use a connection that you have. Offer it no strings attached. And then the fifth element circle back and let them know what you’ve done.
Joshua Kornitsky: I can’t thank you enough, Terri. What’s the best way for people to get Ahold of you?
Terri Lonowski : Well, I do have a website. Soulful listening comm. One word. Soulful listening.
Joshua Kornitsky: We’ll post that link.
Terri Lonowski : And then I’d love to connect with people on LinkedIn.
Joshua Kornitsky: Oh.
Terri Lonowski : So that would be by my name, Teri. And I’m the only one.
Joshua Kornitsky: Speaking is Joshua Kornitsky. I’m with.
Terri Lonowski : You, so connect with me there. And that is the place that you’ll see what I’m up to. I’m on an awful lot of podcasts and different media, you know, social media platforms. So check me out there too.
Joshua Kornitsky: That’s fantastic. Well, um, I can’t thank you enough, Terri. I certainly learned a lot and will be doing my best to to adopt this. I know that you have other things in the works, and when those come forward, I absolutely would love to have you back on the show to talk about them. Um, my guest today has been Terri Landowski. I can’t emphasize enough also a speaker, keynote speaker, and a coach, but she’s the creator of the soulful listening methodology that we’ve just learned together. Uh, the five steps that will help us become really much more effective listeners and in indirectly incredible communicators. And I say indirectly because it’s about listening first. Is that fair or am I fair? All right.
Terri Lonowski : That is fair.
Joshua Kornitsky: Terri’s work focuses on helping leaders and organizations strengthen communication. You guys just heard that build trust and improve workplace relationships. It’s a sound, a science grounded and human centered approach, um, to both leadership and connection, blending neuroscience with practical application. Terri, again, thank you for being here. My name is Joshua Kornitsky. I am a professional EOS implementer and the host here on High Velocity Radio. Thank you for joining us. We’ll see you next time.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.
Joshua Kornitsky: Welcome back to High Velocity Radio. I’m your host, professional EOS implementer Joshua Kornitsky. And today I am joined by Reese Gomez. Reese is the CEO and founder of SalesSparx. He’s also the author of Light Your Sales Fuze, a book that provides a playbook using their proprietary approach to accelerate your company’s go to market maturity and sales. Reese is a recognized expert in the healthcare go to market space, and was part of a leadership team that took a company from 50 to $250 million in just three years. Welcome, Reese. It’s a pleasure to have you here.
Reese Gomez: Hey, Josh, great to be here as well. I really appreciate you taking the time. I’m excited about the opportunity to interact today.
Joshua Kornitsky: Well, I really want to learn more about who sells sparks helps and how you help them. So let’s just jump right in and let me ask you when when companies come to you, what is it that they’re coming to you to to get help with what is what are the, um, the the items they’re struggling with?
Reese Gomez: Uh, it’s a it’s a great question. So the very, um, we only focus on companies that that are selling either, um, services, technology or software to health systems, health, um, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies. So we stay strictly in healthcare. We understand the decision makers, how they think, um, how they buy. Um, so that’s, that’s really our, our big focus. And when organizations come to us, there’s usually three areas that they have concerns in. Um, and some of them are more important than others depending on the, on the client. But the first thing is I’m not getting enough leads. So we call that top of funnel. So I’m just just not getting enough interest. Not enough people are aware. And then when you sort of think about the middle part is well I’m getting the leads, but I’m not closing as many of them as I should. Uh, or the third part is I’ve closed the deal and I’m not getting I’m not getting penetration, so I’m not getting adoption. So it’s it’s really important we call that revenue operations. So it’s not just about closing the deal. It’s actually turning into revenue. So we try to take a holistic look at it. So most of the time organizations that we’re working with of those three areas, they have one of those areas. That’s a common pain point for them. Um, and so I would say, uh, in general, I would say 50% of the organizations are more on the middle part, which is I’m getting leads in, but I’m not closing them. And I would say about 25% and 25% are on. I’m not getting enough leads. And then the other is I’m getting in, but I’m not doing a good job landing and expanding. And I’d like to do better, but it’s it’s one big cycle and that’s something that we always educate people on is that that has to you sort of have to have an integrated approach to marketing, sales and customer success and think about it as a process.
Joshua Kornitsky: So what are I mean, if that commonality excuse me, commonality exists across most healthcare firms, right. Uh, obviously you’re bringing a tailored solution. It’s not a one size fits all. But what are some of the keys to to helping them succeed? What is it you you need to help them better understand and operate on?
Reese Gomez: Well, I think a lot of the organizations that we work with, um, they’re well, they’ll range from 5 million to 500 million. And so, you know, depending on where they are in their lifecycle, they have different kinds of needs. But I would say a common theme is, um, what we call heroic selling. And so even I mean, we believe it or not, we’re working with a company that’s very large, $500 million, owned by brand name private equity firms. And most of their sales have been driven by 3 or 4 people.
Joshua Kornitsky: Really? That just seems shocking at that scale.
Reese Gomez: It’s it’s well, what it usually means when you have an organization that’s that successful with that kind of a sales model, it means they have a heck of a product. You know, it’s a it’s like basically if you think about a kid that likes ice cream, that’s how good their product is. You know, you know, it’s like good analogy. Yeah. So so that’s how you so that’s how we usually, um, you know, so what’s happened with these organizations is they’ve got, um, most of their sales are being driven by a small percentage of people, uh, and often they have high revenue concentration with 1 or 2 customers. So if you look at organizations, you know, more than 50%, it’s coming from one customer. And so what you’ve got to be able to do is to be able to take this heroic mindset and heroic capabilities because it’s amazing, right? I mean, people who know how to do that, they have all this amazing information in their head. How do you get it out of their head and put it into a system? And that’s fundamentally what we’re really good at, is helping organizations to understand how to put those systems together so they can replicate that founders success through a team and scale as a team, as opposed to being dependent on, you know, just a few founders to other founders to make rain for them.
Joshua Kornitsky: That’s incredible. Now, does that tie into your, your proprietary fuze, uh, approach?
Reese Gomez: Absolutely. So when we first started the company. So we started the company about ten years ago. And, um, my partners and I, when we decided to it was really on a big question. Right. Why do why do some companies scale? Uh, you know, so yeah, we look at two, two, two parts of the business life cycle. One is we call it the nail it phase, which is I’m finding product market fit. Somebody actually wants what I, what I, what I sell. Um, and then once you’ve nailed it, how do you scale it? And when you, when you think about the nail it phase almost there’s a lot of, of, um, work that’s been done. You know, the Lean Startup and there’s a bunch of a bunch of organizations that kind of help you go from 0 to 1 or a lot of content, but that going from 1 to 100, there’s not a lot of great, especially industry specific. There’s not a lot of, um, guidance on how to do that. So what we saw was there was a lot of variance. Once somebody made product market fit, we saw a lot of innovation in the healthcare market that wasn’t getting to market, because the founders didn’t know how to scale from that 0 to 1, from one to.
Reese Gomez: So how do we go from 5 million to 50, or how do we go from 10 to 100, or from 50 to 250 million? So what we did is we did about 10,000 hours of research to understand how organizations go from that nail it phase and successfully through the scale phase. And so what we what we did, what we did is we created a framework where within less than 30 days, we could actually diagnose what an organization is doing really well across those best practices and and what they need to do better. And then we help them develop a plan. So so sort of think about it. It’s not a one size. Even though our approach, our methodology is is very consistent, we apply it depending on where someone is. We we look at exactly where they are and where their points are of strength that they need to work on to be able to get to that point where they can successfully scale. And and then we work a lot with them, not just developing the plan, but actually being with them to actually execute, learn along the way and then help them scale to get to the next level.
Joshua Kornitsky: So even when it’s in motion, it requires. I don’t want to say course correction, but it requires monitoring. And and truthfully, all good systems do very, very few things in the universe. Do you build it once, set it free, and never have to look at it again? Um.
Reese Gomez: Exactly. Right. And and especially especially that’s probably the biggest, uh, area when you go to execute is we there’s a lot of excitement and enthusiasm at the end of the plan, right. Like, wow, we got a plan. We know exactly what we need to do. Uh, and then when you go to execute on it, you know, the, the, the day to day of what you’re trying to do now you’ve got that momentum and that those demands and now you’re trying to change. And so one of the things that we’ve learned a lot about is the change management process and how important that is. And uh, we follow, um, a methodology, it’s called prosci. But within that the easiest thing to talk about is what we call Adkar. So Adkar is an acronym. It says are you aware, do you have the desire? Do you have the knowledge? Do you have the aptitude? And you have reinforcement. And if all five of those areas have been addressed, then you’re going to have rapid change. If just 1 or 2 of the areas are being addressed and the rest are not being really like, for example, reinforcement is a common thing, right? You go in, you train everybody, everybody gets excited. And then 30 days later they don’t remember what they just learned. So you have to have the reinforcement to be able to go along with it. So that change management process, Josh is the most important thing and we can go in and develop a great plan. But if at the end of the day you don’t hit your outcomes, you know everyone’s wasting their time.
Joshua Kornitsky: And from my perspective with how I spend my days, I can tell you that change management is everything. And and the innate fear of tools, technology, concepts, and even training is probably one of the biggest impediments to the scaling of any organization at any size. But it’s human nature. So how do you help them get past that.
Reese Gomez: So, um, a lot of the, a lot of it is, uh, making sure that, you know, if you think about the acronym, is everyone aware? Did they even know? So the big thing there is why are we changing?
Joshua Kornitsky: Right.
Reese Gomez: Why. Right. That’s always the big thing is like why? Um, and so when we when like even in our sales process we call it shared vision selling. So fuze is our our framework and shared vision selling is the way that we sell within that framework. And it’s always about the three wise. Why change. Why now and then? Why your company. So when you’re when you’re developing a change management approach, you have to get everybody to understand and be aware of the why. But then you have to make sure that they have the desire. Does everyone want to be part of this? Right? And then do they have the knowledge or do they have the aptitude? They may have the they may have the desire, but if they don’t have the aptitude, it’s going to be really hard for them to be successful. And do you have the reinforcement you have to monitor to make sure that that that you’re along those points that you’ve that you’ve addressed each one of those points and the other. The other big component of this, Josh, is leveraging what we call an agile approach to project management. So we create scrums. And so what happens is you basically implement in sprints. So you say, hey, um, what are we going to get done over the next 2 to 4 weeks within the context of what has to happen over the next year. And then that way you get a lot of little wins along the way. Right? Oh, we got this. We got that done. Um, you know, as they say, you know, the the journey of a thousand miles begins in the first, you know, few with a few first steps. And that’s what we’re trying to do is get people the little wins along the way and start to see the benefits. And the quick wins are really important because that creates a lot of buy in up front.
Joshua Kornitsky: It does, and it creates the momentum that gets people excited. I have to imagine.
Reese Gomez: Well, you know, one of the big things that we do in these organizations, um, in especially when you when you move, when you’re working with founder based organizations that have had a lot of success, right? They’re like, okay, well, we’ve been really successful up to this point, and they they wouldn’t have us working with them if they hadn’t hit a ceiling that they could get through on their own. Right. So we’re trying to work with them to, to make to make, make a difference. One of the things you really want to look for is some really good examples of what good looks like. And even if you have to go back retrospectively. Oh, so tell me what your best deals were that you got. How did you get that done? And let’s learn from that. Let’s get that, um, uh, turned into a system and then you get a lot of buy in because. Oh yeah, XYZ client that went really well. We did everything right. And we call that moving from unconscious competence to conscious competence. Right. So you know what you need to do, right? If you’ve been successful up to this point, you just can’t necessarily explain it. It hasn’t been documented. Um, it hasn’t been put into a framework. And so and this isn’t just about kind of, um, you know, a documentation project. This is really about how do you really drive change? How do you put this in a framework that’s scalable?
Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and that begs the question in my mind, you know, I know that every experience is going to be different, but what what is the time frame look like to affect this type of change?
Reese Gomez: Um, so, so a lot of it depends. Sometimes organizations, it depends on how aggressive they want to be in their in their goal setting. Um, most organizations that come to us want to achieve at least 20% growth. You know, they might have been achieving, uh, 5%, 10%. So they want to double that. So, um, you know, we’ve had organizations come to us. We have one now that we’re working with that wants to go from, um, you know, 24 million to 48 million. We have another one that wants to go from 20 million to 100 million. And obviously that’s not going to happen overnight. It’s not going to happen in, uh, in, uh, but but what you have to be able to do is you have to be able to understand what are the things you almost have to work from the goal backwards and say what things that we have to be doing now to be able to be prepared for that future.
Joshua Kornitsky: Well, it sounds like engaging with sales parks is much more of a collaborative partnership than just a simple agreement to go from A to B.
Reese Gomez: Well, that that’s where we pride ourselves. We pride ourselves in that, in that collaboration. So when you think about, for example, our concept that we call shared vision selling, shared vision selling is all about understanding where the customer wants to go and then how do we collaborate through the process? We call it selling with the customer instead of selling to them, so that by the time you’re giving them a proposal, it’s as much their proposal is your proposal. And you can imagine. Exactly. So we see about 70% acceptance rate of proposals when that process is followed. Because you think about it, if you’re going to engage in the time to do that and you’re going to, um, uh, co-create that and refine that solution together. You’re going to probably be highly likely to take to take that investment and want to want to be able to move forward and working with somebody that you collaborated with to make it happen.
Joshua Kornitsky: And that concept of co-creation. I’ve literally been exposed to dozens of different forms of sales acceleration, and that’s the first time I’ve heard that term. But with a background myself in experiential learning, I know what an unbelievable difference that must make.
Reese Gomez: It would. It does. And the thing that I always try to, uh, be careful of is we’re not saying that every solution is custom. Right? So if you go in and, and you’ve got a particular, um, offering that helps in healthcare to say, reduce costs or improve revenue, we’re not saying that you have to, you know, develop every solution that’s custom. How does this solution fit in your environment? Right. Every every organization has a little different IT infrastructure. They have a different profile for size, maybe different types of customers. So how are we going to fit our solution into your environment in a way that’s going to create success. And um, and what you find is that you build trust and confidence through that interaction. And, and then what it does, uh, Josh, is when you do that, you sell a deal and then, um, because the expectations have been set appropriately, you then have a much higher likelihood that the customer is going to be delighted, they’re going to buy more from you. And, uh, and then they’re going to refer you. So you kind of start to get this flywheel going.
Joshua Kornitsky: Sure.
Reese Gomez: When, when you do it right.
Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and from the outside of the healthcare industry, which is where I find myself, right? I, I have always made the, the leap that doing business in such a tightly regulated space is is akin to juggling balls of fire while riding a unicycle through a hoop, right? So how much does your past healthcare experience come into play in kind of cutting through that red tape.
Reese Gomez: As a really great question. And that’s that’s why we focus on healthcare, because it really is. Um, it really is very different. And I’ll tell you why. There’s, there’s sort of three, three things that make healthcare different than anything else. Right? It’s there’s I was industrial engineer by training. Right. And when we went, one of the big things that we learned is reduce variance. Like the if you go into a situation and it’s always done differently, the chances of a quality outcome are much lower because you know you’re not doing it in a repeatable way. Well, healthcare is the most horrible place to control variance. In fact, when I was getting out of school, my professor said, don’t go into healthcare. You can’t control variance because you have you have variance at three levels. The patient. Right. So you and I have different genetic profiles. So how I might respond to a medication or a treatment because of our genetics is going to be could be much different. Right. So that’s one thing. So you got all the patient variants. You got physician and trainer variants where they got trained, what part of the world they came from, where they had different experiences that that allowed them to make the diet that, that that influence the way they diagnose and treat patients. You got a lot of variants there. And then, you know, you go into a hospital or a clinic and yeah, there’s some similar things about like where you check in where you check out, but most of them are very different, you know? So what ends up happening is you walk into a healthcare organization and yes, there’s some similarities, but they’re very different in the way that they the community that they treat their their culture. And so because there’s so much variance as opposed to a bank, right. If you walk in a Bank of America versus TD Bank or whatever, an ATM transaction is going to be handled the same across the world?
Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah.
Reese Gomez: Pretty much. But how you think about diagnosing and treating a patient, someone might have a surgical focus. One might have more of a medical focus. One might say, hey, I’m more of a pediatrics. One might say. So if you don’t understand those nuances when you’re bringing your solution in, it’s very difficult to hit the mark in terms of what the outcomes are. So you almost are our approach, even though it could be used across any industry where you sell complex solutions. We just do B2B complex solutions, healthcare. It’s more important than than any other industry that you know, that I’ve been exposed to.
Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and there is great truth to sticking to the area that you know well and do best in because, you know, if they don’t want you to paint their house offering to wash their cars, great as an ancillary service. But those are two very different skill sets. Stick with what you’re best at in order to succeed more deeply and more widely, for sure. Um, but you had mentioned something before and it put a light on for me. You were talking about technology. So, you know, these days I find myself in a lot of conversations where there’s this sort of elephant in the room, and the elephant is AI and and whether it’s from a perspective of productivity or interacting with customers or in a thousand other ways. How does AI impact what you do and how you help your clients?
Reese Gomez: Well, it’s been um, for us for as a company, we we tripled last year over the year before. And I credit a lot of it to AI. Um, what I’ve found with AI is that you you really there’s two words that I think are most important is context and nuance. Okay. Did you give enough context to the AI about the problem you’re trying to solve, or the question that you’re asking it so that it can actually give you something that’s relevant? So that means that you have to have a lot of experience. You have to have a lot of, um, knowledge. And so because I see a lot of people saying that, you know, AI is going to, um, replace certain kinds of, of thinking and certain types of jobs, and I think it will. But I do think that that is going to get offset by a whole nother set of opportunities. And so our view is that the first thing you have to do is you have to provide the context to the AI. And then when it gives you the answer, you have to be able to look at it with a lot of with a nuanced eye and understand how to take that and make it relevant and, and, and connect it to the problem that you’re trying to solve. And so there’s there’s two areas that we’ve seen AI, uh, impact for our customers. One is how do you make a salesperson more productive. And the second is how does it impact the way that we’re interacting with our customers? How can we create a better customer experience? And, um, there’s just a lot of a lot going on. And no matter what though within that with. So I’ll give you an example on the, on the sales side when I talk about context, you can you can have a you can have a meeting with a customer and download the transcript in the ChatGPT and say, hey, how could I have done better? And ChatGPT will give you some generic advice about, um, you know what? What you could have done differently, uh, based on its expertise in from a sales perspective.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right. But with no real context, just cold analysis of of words.
Reese Gomez: Exactly. So now picture the analysis of what you did, knowing whether it’s a new customer or existing customer, what solutions they are interested in, what are they aren’t what stage they are in the sales process. How many meetings you’ve had with them in the past. That’s where the and that’s why that’s why we see a lot of AI projects be disappointed. Uh, there’s a lot of disappointment right now and a lot of AI projects because the context is not there. So someone a seller, a sales leader, uh, buys a generic product, they download the transcript and they get generic advice.
Joshua Kornitsky: Right?
Reese Gomez: So what? You. So what this means is you’ve got to be able to set up a process that allows for the context, and then it has to come back to the seller, who then looks at it with an experienced eye and refines that. So think about it. Think about a sales process. Well, how can I use AI to prepare for the call? Well, it has the context. This is a new versus existing customer. These are the these are the meetings that we’ve had. Here’s how I should prepare. Right. And then it sits on the call and evaluates how you did and what you could have been done differently, what you did well. And then it does the follow up. Each one of those with the proper context and nuance can take us a seller. You know, they can improve their productivity by 50% or more.
Joshua Kornitsky: And is that something you help your clients with? Because that I think that’s a giant missing component out of the whole AI thing. Uh, because, you know, it’s the it’s the new magic pill, right? It solves all problems. But does it really? Because whether I have a headache or a backache or my leg is bleeding, one pill is not going to fix all three.
Reese Gomez: Exactly. It’s like, uh, it’s like you’re trying to take an Advil when you’re, uh, when you’ve got a bloody nose. It’s not going to help. You know? So, so so what? We, um. Yeah. So that’s that’s what we do. We help organizations, uh, leverage AI, but so, so, but the thing is, a lot of organizations aren’t ready for it. So what we do is we help them to understand the readiness. And one of the key components of readiness is, um, have you do can you provide the context to the AI? Are you using a disciplined sales process? Are your sellers, um, documenting or gathering information and putting it into the CRM? Right. So if all this information isn’t being collected and, and there’s a lot of ways to do it without harming, uh, productivity in the sales team, you can you can do a lot of these things. So it happens as a, as a passive, um, uh, uh, activity as a part of the sales process. Right. So if you, if you do it right, but if you don’t have the processes defined, you don’t have the right technology infrastructure, just lay an AI on top of your list isn’t going to solve any problems at all.
Joshua Kornitsky: You mean like the refrigerators that now come with AI to let you know you’re low on milk? Sure, it’s got AI, but is it really useful?
Reese Gomez: Exactly.
Joshua Kornitsky: Um, and I have to tell you, it amazes me, uh, how much it always seems to come back to sales process. Right? And, and, and in your case, you’re not directly speaking to it, but the absence thereof proves that we’re going to have failure down the road because we don’t. Going back to your first principles, we’re not executing consistently. And if we’re not executing consistently, that’s it falls apart pretty early in the process. It sounds like.
Reese Gomez: Yeah. You brought up a great point about sales process. And and that’s really an important distinction and a nuance because, um, there’s a difference between sales methodology and sales process. So you may have heard of um, there’s a lot of great tools out there. So you may have heard of challenger.
Joshua Kornitsky: Oh yeah, I’ve read it. Went through the training.
Reese Gomez: It’s a great it’s a great, um, methodology. Um, Miller. Heiman. Um, that was one of the first ones that came out. Blue sheets fill out fill out a blue sheet about an account and a sales opportunity. Uh, there’s another one called medic. It stands for medic, and it has a bunch of acronyms about the key things that you have to worry about in a sales process. Those are all in a sales situation. Those are all methodologies. But what happens is that they they they don’t get applied because there’s a big there’s a lot of work to go from that into. How does that apply, um, to what the seller does on a day to day basis? Right. And so what we did is when we did our research, we took the best of those methodologies and we put it into a sales process. So now, um, when a seller comes through our training, they’ve learned industry best practices. But then the next day they know how to apply it. And that’s what’s really exciting about what we do is when someone goes through our training, like, in fact, we just recently did one, we we did an on site role play, and they had just gone through our training and they were now, you know, they had gone through and seen how to apply it. And so one of the sellers came and said, wow, this is amazing. What we talked about this morning, I just applied it, um, in a call this afternoon. And so what they were able to do was connect all the dots between all of these things that you should do that are really best practice. And what I have to do as I progress through the sales cycle with a, with a customer. So that’s what we’ve done is we’ve defined that sales process and infused it with best practice around how you actually interact with a client and how you, um, you know, leverage, uh, areas like challenger and some of the others that exist out there.
Joshua Kornitsky: I mean, it sounds like it’s a pretty solid solution because you’re able to work with those different methodologies and still get the effectiveness.
Reese Gomez: Well, it’s a it’s a great point because people will come to us and say, hey, well, you know, I’ve already I don’t really need to look at what you guys are doing. I’ve already implemented the challenger medic. And I say, hey, that’s great. In fact, that’s a great foundation for us to build on this. This isn’t, um, it’s not mutually exclusive. What we would do is build on top of that.
Joshua Kornitsky: And I think that that’s a fantastic recipe that clearly is paying dividends, because from that perspective, it it it’s the landed cost fallacy. I’ve already invested in X. I don’t want to invest in Y, because then I’ll lose my investment in X. And and you’re able to stand there and say no, no, no, X is great. Let’s let’s apply Y to it and bring it to the next level, which is really a great amplification. Or some might even say sales acceleration. So reset it. It sounds like what you’re able to offer really goes a long way to to that concept of collaboration. You really you meet your your customers where they’re at. You amplify a lot of the work that they’ve already put in, in the investment that they’ve made, and you help them overcome what sounds to me to be a fairly common but ornery concept of getting the real return on all of those investments.
Reese Gomez: Well, you know, we we really try. It’s a great it’s a great summary. And we really try to really focus on some key key, some key performance indicators that really, um, allow everyone to sort of like what’s, what’s my dashboard here that I really have to measure against? And how am I going to make sure that I’m making progress? And so we try to look at it from a leading indicators perspective as well as trailing. So now you always have a good dashboard of things that you need to really stay on top of to ensure that you’re making. You know that you’re performing.
Joshua Kornitsky: That sounds like great guidance. Well, let me ask you, what’s the best way for people to get Ahold of you and and or SalesSparx?
Reese Gomez: Well, um, our, um, our our website is w w. E as two S’s in the middle. So SSP comm, um, and just I would say just get onto the website and, uh, you know, peruse through there and then you can contact us. There’s any number of ways to contact us through through the website.
Joshua Kornitsky: Wonderful. And when we publish the interview, we’ll publish it with that link so everybody will know how to get Ahold of you. Um, great. My guest today has been Reese Gomez, CEO and founder of SalesSparx, also author of Light Your Sales views, which will help provide a playbook for how to take their proprietary approach and accelerate your company’s go to market maturity in sales. Reis is a recognized expert in the healthcare go to market space, and he was part of a leadership team that took a company from 50 to $250 million in three years. And his book, Light Your Sales Views, is available on Amazon to order now. Thank you again, Reis. I appreciate you being here.
Reese Gomez: It was great. Great to talk with you, Josh. Great questions and I really enjoyed the interaction. Thanks for your time.
Joshua Kornitsky: My pleasure. So I am your host professional EOS implementer Joshua Kornitsky and this has been another exciting episode of High Velocity Radio. Please join us again next time.