Tony Jalan Podcast Transcript

[Royce Hall]

Hey, I'm Royce Hall, your host of the Coffee Dreamin Podcast.

I'm a Salesforce Consultant by day and Podcaster by night. I'm joined today by Tony Jalan, who is a Growth Strategist. Great to have you today, Tony.

[Tony Jalan]

Hey, it's great to have you. And I even have my coffee too at this point, so truly living Coffee is Dreamin.

[Royce Hall]

Oh, don't get me started on that. We can talk coffee forever. So Tony, tell us about what you're doing. And I always like to ask people, what is your why behind it?

[Tony Jalan]

So I'm currently working with Heartland Payment Systems as a Growth Strategist for financial institutions. My role is to enable them in developing programs to refer merchants over to Heartland at the same time, growing their books of business at the same time, growing our book of business.

[Royce Hall]

Right on. That's complex. So like unpack that a little bit for me. How do you like, how do you help them figure that out?

[Tony Jalan]

Alright, so a lot of it is just a lot of phone calls and understanding like, what are their needs? What are their customer needs? And providing them the tools and resources to help those customers out.

Like in the banking world, you know, a lot of times they're going after increasing the amount of deposits, right? But also, they're trying to find ways to help their customers grow. So at Heartland, our goal is to provide them products and resources to help their customers grow, reduce risk and liability, to streamline their cash flow and operations.

So my job is to come up with programs to do that.

[Royce Hall]

Right on. And you've been doing that for a long time. Like I was looking at you on your LinkedIn profile. I think it says you have like 18 years in at Heartland. That's a long time. Congratulations to you.

[Tony Jalan]

Well, thank you. Yeah, it's interesting because I started out in the field sales world as a sales rep, you know, knocking on doors, you know, saying hi to people right now. Thank you cards.

And I loved it, right? Getting a chance to hear the stories of why people start their businesses and helping them grow it and help them figure out ways to like, hey, you know, remove that obstacle to grow it. It's been huge.

I did it for a long time. Actually, about close to 17 years, I was in the direct field sales channel. And then last summer, it was time for a change.

And I was offered this opportunity by our leadership says, hey, you know, we want you to come on here, help us develop systems and processes to go ahead and help grow our financial institution partnerships. And it's been one heck of a ride. I absolutely love doing what I do because I get to do a lot of problem solving and solution provided.

[Royce Hall]

Right on. Well, tell me a little bit about a few things that you've learned along the way, a few things that stand out to you. I think, you know, before we started recording the show, you're talking about, you know, how do you build wealth? What does that look like? So share a few gems with us, if you will.

[Tony Jalan]

Yeah, you know, like I said, I was in the full time sales world. I still feel like I'm in sales to like sales is really truly influence. That's it. It's like leadership. Everything rises and falls on influence. And I think.

We all want, especially the sales world, you know, we want to, you know, earn more income, also want to buy more time. Right.

[Royce Hall]

Right.

[Tony Jalan]

Lifestyle. I think the best way to do that is to adding value to others. You know, they say the bigger the problems you solve, the bigger you get paid.

But a lot of times we truly want to make it about us. And in reality, if you look at all the people who've accomplished great things in terms of growing tremendous businesses is because they brought more value to the world. And ask yourself, like, how can I use the gifts that I have?

And add value to others. And I think we have that focus. You grow wealth.

[Royce Hall]

I love that. And I think, you know, you kind of hit on something. You mentioned that as a salesperson, you know, you went door to door and and you're aggressive and there's a lot of coaching around that, right?

There's a lot of coaching around like, OK, how do you make that cold call? How many do you have to make a day? How many do you have to make a month to hit your quota?

And we focus a lot on like, OK, if I if I put X input in, you know, I hope Y income comes out and I get, you know, excise commission. But, you know, what you're saying is kind of above that, right? Instead of focusing on that, OK, how do I get that commission?

How many cold calls do I have to make? You know, we have to think less about like, you know, pushing my product as fast as I can to as many people as I can and focus on that, that value. And does that like for the salespeople listening, like that requires more finesse, right, that requires more thinking caps on does that slow things down?

Does that make sales harder or how does that, you know, what's the net effect there?

[Tony Jalan]

That's a great question. And I think a lot of times in sales and people have this misconception of a good salesperson. They say, oh, he's a good talker.

Hey, you should go into sales because you're a good talker. And yes, the ability to communicate does help. However, though, I've learned in sales, I've coached, you know, hundreds and hundreds of sales professions.

I've been on thousands of sales appointments. Literally. And the thing that I've learned is that build the relationships, the money follows.

And a lot of times it comes down to being curious. Because curiosity and resistance cannot coexist. So an example of that would be we sat down and talked today, right?

Most time we get into the sales point, especially if it's one of those consultative type sales calls, you know, we go on to our agenda and everything like that. But there's a question most people won't ever ask. I think if you ask this question, you're going to hear exactly what you need to tell them in order to help them.

And it's this. So, hey, right out of curiosity today, like really, what's the outcome you want to get out of our meeting? Because they agree for a reason.

It could be because your persistence is hacking. Your persistence broke down their resistance. Right.

But there's a reason for it. And nine times out of 10, we don't uncover it. We make these assumptions that this is what they need without really understanding what they need.

So your question is, can it slow down the sales process? Yes. Could it speed it up?

Yes. Because sometimes people just need to talk. And most people don't give people that room to share what's truly on their mind.

[Royce Hall]

That's a great point. And, you know, I think about, you know, in terms of speed, like that's going to slow down the front end of that process. Maybe like, you know, there's like, if you have an hour-long discovery call, I could kind of be saying something.

So like, is it the most important thing or not? Are we focusing on what's actually driving the deal or not? But on the back end, it's going to speed up the sell-off because like you've aligned with the internal buyers, you've aligned with the business purposes and unlocked, you know, what is actually driving that deal.

And I think a lot of times we think in terms of like KPIs, right? I've got the use case. Here's the case studies. Here's the KPIs that matter. Well, doesn't matter to the person you're talking to, though. Like you can never assume.

[Tony Jalan]

And that's so true. I remember this was years ago. I was doing a lot of travel from Milwaukee to Chicago.

And I wanted a vehicle that was really comfortable on the road because I was in my car a lot. And so I found a car online. It was this one Lexus car.

And I mean, they had the best rated seats for traveling. That's truly the reason why I like this car. I mean, this car is kind of nice.

They're not going to lie, right? And so I make this appointment and therefore get to 530 to go ahead and gamble the car I get there. The guy is all excited, right?

He's opening up all the car doors, opening up the hood, talking to me about, you know, this is kind of engine it has. It has this kind of like safety system on it. And in a half an hour, there was not one conversation about why I booked it in the first place.

I was kind of annoyed, to be honest with you.

[Royce Hall]

Well did you buy the car?

[Tony Jalan]

I did not buy the car.

[Royce Hall]

There you go.

[Tony Jalan]

And because what is happening is that I mean, I literally stopped in the conversation and asked him, I go, okay, I'm just curious. You know why I booked this appointment? I'm not like a car guy.

He goes, I don't know. It looks, you could tell the light bulb goes off in his head. He goes, why?

I go, cause I want to see how this travels on the highway. So I do a lot of driving and the seats are supposed to be free. Dog uncomfortable.

He goes, are you serious? I'm like, yeah. He goes, man, why didn't I ask you that?

I go, I have no idea, but I like you. He was a nice guy and everything like that. And, um, the, the point of that story is, is that it's hard to influence someone until you know what influences them.

And it's when we make those assumptions and there's, there's truth in those assumptions, right? By what we see, what we hear, but let's confirm those before making them. So like I said, like, I mean, I was one of those people who got to make the calls, right?

Yeah. You got to make the calls. Cause unfortunately, you know, not everyone's thinking up waking up in the morning and going, you know, I don't want sales force today.

You know, you know, I want that phone call. Um, so you, I mean, it is a numbers game to that degree, but what you put into those numbers matter too.

[Royce Hall]

Right. I think that's where like, yeah. As you come better about that, like that knowing those things, like not everybody's incredibly forthcoming about, you know, what they truly want.

Right. So, you know, having those case studies are important, but, you know, again, like you figure out like, uh, a lot of times we figure out like, Oh, like we can increase productivity by 17%. It's like, okay, like, sure.

I want that. But a lot of times it's more personal. Like, Oh my gosh.

Like, I just hate filling out that form every freaking time. And, you know, it's like, okay. So it's the same thing when you boil it down, but when you can put it in their own language, you know, it becomes powerful and that becomes shareable as well.

So, you know, the, the guy that you're buying the car from, like, you know, you know, some, sometimes it helps to be like, okay, like, you know, some people come to me, they, you know, they want something that's powerful that can, you know, take down the neighbor in a drag race. You know, some people like, they want to travel and like, they're looking for a comfortable ride. Like, what is it?

What's the experience that you're looking for? And, uh, you know, they'll tell you.

[Tony Jalan]

No, a hundred percent tell you. I mean, I think people like Peter, people are not sold on what you tell them they're, they're sold on what they understand and connect with.

[Royce Hall]

Yeah. I think, you know, modern times as well, like there's so much power in the buyer's hands, like the buyer, like going back to your car example again, like you knew why you wanted to buy that car before the salesman ever said anything, right? So there's, you know, it's a different, uh, experience these days of like, okay, I've done my research.

I know what I'm looking for. And I probably know a decent amount about you. Like in that, in that situation, you probably didn't know anything about the salesperson, but, uh, like people can look me up on LinkedIn.

They can look you up on LinkedIn. They can form an opinion about you and your company and your services before they ever talk to you. And that can be good or bad, but, uh, you know, again, they're coming in with more robust thoughts and, and unpacking those up front helps a lot.

[Tony Jalan]

A lot of times they're coming to the table with a lot more questions. You know, cause I truly believe every answer will lead to three more questions. You know, and some of it is because they want to get a confirmation on what their thought was or two, they didn't understand it.

So I think we're learning in the age right now where the mentality of be quick to listen to slow to speak really pays off.

[Royce Hall]

So, so we've, we've talked a good amount about discovery. We've talked about, uh, you know, building wealth and, and, you know, who influences you, uh, is there maybe one or two more things that are top of mind that you're like, I wish I knew this earlier, or I wish that somebody told me this earlier in my career that you'd like to share with us.

[Tony Jalan]

Reflection. I think we're sometimes in such a go-go-go mode that we don't take a moment to reflect and inspect until we have to. Oh, I'm going to have that meeting with my sales manager.

Oh, I got to make sure I got all my numbers, right. And I think, you know, one of the things that really has helped my productivity over the years and also some of my sanity and allows me to be more present with my family is at the each end of every day, reflecting the day. Now people go, I don't like when I'm doing like when I'm doing executive coaching or something like that, they're like, I just have such a problem shutting off.

So when did you shut off? I don't know how you unpack your day. No, not until like nine, 10 o'clock at night.

Well, that's probably the reason why. So at the end of every day, I reflect. I ask myself, what were my wins today?

What went well? What did I learn? What were some of my challenges with some of my questions?

And then what's my outcome I want for tomorrow? That's it. Answer those questions at the end of every day.

And it's like me closing my cash register at the end of the night. So that way I can go ahead and be present for the other things I want to be present for. And it's amazing when you go back and start looking at that.

Cause I do that. Then I put my plan together for the next day. And you look and you start to see trends and people go like, God, I was so successful.

X, Y, Z time. Well, why were you? Well, I don't really know because they didn't document it.

If it's not documented, it doesn't exist. So that's my big thing is reflect and inspect. Everyone set these forward goals, but you got to truly stop and reflect on what's going on.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

[Royce Hall]

So are you, you actually like journaling this or?

[Tony Jalan]

Yeah, I have my notes app. I've been in my notes app. And then I put my plan together for the next day.

Like what's my outcome I want for the next day? What are my, my appointments? I break down the categories.

And then, um, that's, I plan tomorrow today. And literally I do it every day of the week, Monday through Sunday. And people go to me, I don't know if I can do that, but then they'll say, but we'll go, I don't know how you do all these things that you do because of reflection.

That's the one thing when I started doing that, the game changed for me. I went from working 60, 70, 80 hours a week to half that time. But also at the same time, you know, doubling and tripling my income.

And it allowed me to help other people do the same too. Cause I realized they were doing it during the same kind of trap that I was in and that's still fun. It's not sustainable.

[Royce Hall]

So let me ask you, uh, let me ask you then. So if somebody wants to do that training with you, if somebody says like, yeah, like I'm not a systematic thinker. Like I just, I just, you know, grip it and rip it.

I just go for it. Like, how do we find you? Uh, how do we, you know, work with you?

[Tony Jalan]

It's simple. Just go on LinkedIn, send me a DM. I'm pretty easy to find, you know, type in my name.

I'll come up pretty easily. You'll find a guy with a smile button with an orange background.

[Royce Hall]

Right on. Uh, is there any, uh, website or any upcoming event that we should be aware of?

[Tony Jalan]

Uh, not yet. Not yet. I think you simply follow me on LinkedIn.

Now that's where I share any information, you know, on like, you know, different programs I'm doing, trainings I'm doing, leadership thoughts that I share. It's literally all good. Just find me on LinkedIn.

[Royce Hall]

Very good. Well, we'll find you on LinkedIn, reach out to Tony. If you need any help with that systematic thinking and, and, uh, coaching.

And definitely if you need any help with a payment processing as well.

[Tony Jalan]

No doubt. Hey Royce, thanks a million for going to have me on. It's absolutely been a pleasure.

I look forward to talking to you more about coffee and whatnot, but you're doing a good thing, my friend. Keep it up.

[Royce Hall]

Thanks Tony. Well, I appreciate you being on here. You got it.