Episode Sponsored By: Death Wish Coffee
Our guest this week is Mark Eaton, NBA All-Star and Utah Jazz shot-blocking great.
At 7 feet 4 inches tall, Mark was a dominant shot blocker in the NBA even though growing up he had little interest in the game.
Now, he uses his height to command attention when he walks on stage in his new role as author and speaker on teamwork in the workplace. But it is his words and wisdom that keep you locked in and wanting more.
We discuss a variety of topics including his history in basketball, keys to sales performance, teamwork and a commitment to greatness.
Pre-order Mark’s book The Four Commitments of a Winning Team TODAY!
This episode is brought to you by, Deathwish Coffee,the world’s strongest coffee and the only brew we drink when we do the show. It’s the only choice for the true Sell or Diehard!
On today’s show…
13:43 – How Mark used four commitments to go from a 21 year old auto mechanic to an NBA All-Star
20:00 – Why making others look good is key to your own success
22:30 – Who do you protect at work and who is protecting you?
24:30 – Mark’s early struggles and how he overcame a late bloom to achieve greatness
30:00 – Proper team execution in basketball and sales
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FULL TRANSCRIPTION
Mark Eaton:
I was in the airport the other day in Houston and I was changing planes and this lady walks up next to me. She takes a few steps and she looks to me and she says, “How tall are you?” I keep walking, I say, “I’m 7’4″.” She ponders that for a moment, she says, “I hope you did something with that height.” I said, “I did,” and we kept walking.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
That’s cool though. That’s a beautiful piece of Americana.
Mark Eaton:
Yeah, yeah.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Where do we start this? The answer? It doesn’t matter. We’re having a good time. Right.
Jennifer Gluckow:
He couldn’t wait to get in here.
Mark Eaton:
You need sales balls to make sales calls. I’m tweeting that puppy. Okay.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Hi, everybody. Welcome to Sell or Die. My name is Jeffrey Gitomer. You may know me as the author of ‘The Little Red Book of Selling’, and I’m joined today by the lovely, the talented, the amazing-
Jennifer Gluckow:
Jen Gluckow, founder and CEO of sales in a New York minute.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
And we’re about to talk to you today about some amazing happenings in the world of sales, but we have a guest today that is, I don’t know, not only off the chart, but bumps his head on the door jam when he walks into any door.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah, he is pretty amazing person.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, nice guy, professional athlete, the great Mark Eaton, who at 7’4″ tall, played for the Utah Jazz for a little bit more than a decade, made the all-star team, set some records, and has been a friend for a long time.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah, before we get into it, Jeffrey, I want to talk today about sales teams, because sales managers-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I don’t want to talk about sales teams. You talk on your own.
Jennifer Gluckow:
All right, fine. See ya. Sales teams-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
See, that’s how sales teams are.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah, but sales managers-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
They don’t want to talk.
Jennifer Gluckow:
-often refer to their sales force as my sales team. They use the word team as if they’re a team.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Well, they’re trying to be nice and inclusive.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Well, they actually want to think, or they’re trying to think they’re a team-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Right, but sales people-
Jennifer Gluckow:
-but sales people don’t think they’re on a team most of the time.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Not only not think it, Jennifer. They don’t want to be on the team. They want the guy next to them to die so they can have his leads or his book of business. You go up to his boss and you got, “If Bob dies, can I have his book of …”
Jennifer Gluckow:
Here’s the thing. If I’m selling something in New York City and you’re selling something in Utah and we work for the same company and we don’t have the same territories, why shouldn’t we be on a team?
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Well, we can be on a sort of a team. We can come to a meeting and we can both give ideas about how we close the deal.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Because I can learn from you and you can learn from me.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Maybe, but if I’m the best sales guy on the team, I don’t think I can learn from anybody. New York people don’t want to learn from other people. They just want to go out and make a sale.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Smart New York people want to learn.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Okay, name 100 of those, but here’s the deal: the sales person doesn’t want to win one for the team. They want to win one for themselves.
Jennifer Gluckow:
No, they want to win for themselves and their customer. Then, the team.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Right, so if you go watch a movie, ‘Win One For The Gipper’, the new Rockne story, that’s a movie. They’re not going to win one for the Gipper. They’re going to win one for themselves and their kid’s tuition and their car payment and their mortgage payment. If the manager understands that the sales person want to win for themselves, then maybe they can say, “Hey, if you want to win more, listen to what your fellow sales people are saying. Maybe you can learn something from them and make more sales.”
Jennifer Gluckow:
So this episode is all about the four commitments to a winning team from Mark, and I just want to set the stage, because a lot of sales people as we said don’t feel they are on a team. I ran a sales team for a couple of years, and I believe one of the reasons we were so successful at exceeding our quota was that we did act like a team, so let’s talk about the benefits there are out there when you’re a sales person and you are part of a team and you contribute to the team.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Bob wants to win the sales contest so he can make the President’s club, but bob has to realize that he is on a team and the sales manager has to say, “Hey, you’re on a team.” Everyone on the team has a different position. They’re not all sales people on the team, or it’s not a real team, because there are people that ship the product. There are people that bill for the product. There are people that answer the phone. There are people that provide inside service.
Jennifer Gluckow:
So the company is a team.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
The company’s people on his or her team. There are specific people. There may be five people in accounting, but only Mary is assigned to Bob. Bob has an internal team, and maybe even an external team, somebody who delivers the stuff, and that’s how they have to coordinate so that they make the best impression to the customer, make everything perfect. Somebody may have to be there when the product is delivered.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yes, that’s correct, but often times in a company sales people are not competing against each other for the same sale. Maybe if you’re-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Oh right.
Jennifer Gluckow:
-selling at Sachs Fifth Avenue and a customer walks in and you don’t have some sort of code between your employees, you’re going to jump to get that customer. That’s bait. You want to work with them.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Right.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Especially if they look like they’re pre-judge them and you think you can sell them a lot of clothing. If you work at a corporation where it’s b2b, your team, if your manager is smart, has been divided up into specific territories, so let me go back to this. If I’m selling in New York and you’re selling in Utah, I own the New York City territory. You own the Utah territory. We are not competing. Our competitors are those other guys down the block.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I agree. I totally agree.
Jennifer Gluckow:
So what I wanted to talk about were the benefits of us working together on a team before we get into how to be a team.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
No argument on that, Jennifer, but understand that they make up about a third of the sales teams. The car sales guy, as an example, wants the other guy not to come to work today so he can have more leads. There’s no kumbaya on that team, but there’s a service manager, there’s a finance guy-
Jennifer Gluckow:
100% agree.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Okay, so there are vertical teams and there are horizontal teams. The sales manager has to be smart enough to know when he or she can build a horizontal team.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Correct.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
If there’s no competition, perfecto mundo. The horizontal team can be built. If there is in-house competition, then it’s very, very difficult to create any kind of kumbaya.
Jennifer Gluckow:
I would argue that most of the time the b2b sales are horizontal where you can have a team that you’re working with that are not just the internal people supporting you, helping with leads, helping with follow up proposals, that kind of thing, but also your teammates are the sales people.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
If there are specific territories.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Right. B2c is more vertical where you need the inside person and the other people within the company internally to be on your team.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Okay, so we’re in agreement that there can be conflict, but what I wanted to ask you, Jen, is if you would share with our listeners how you made your team work. How did you create that team that worked in harmony?
Jennifer Gluckow:
It’s not easy, because even when they are not competing, because they have different territories, they’re still competing for number one.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Right, of course.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Sales people are naturally competitive, and like you mentioned going to President’s club, they want to be in whatever form of President’s club you have at your company. They want to not just be in it, but be number one in it.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
They want to win. Of course.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Right, but I think that people are naturally born with a desire, most people, to help others. There is this desire, or what I have seen, you can bring it out of people if someone is really good at something, let’s say you are the closing expert and we are on a-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Let’s say that. Yeah.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Let’s say, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Okay, let’s say that.
Jennifer Gluckow:
We’re on a team call. I’m going to talk you up and talk about why you’re the closing expert, give specific examples of amazing deals that you’ve been able to close that were really hard closes. Then, have you talk about how you did it.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Or why you’re the king or the queen.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah, so I’m going to give you the spotlight and then have you educate the rest of the team on how you did it so that now they feel like here’s how he did it. This is real world. This is not just our manager telling us how to do it.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
What you’re saying is a sales person can actually come on with an objection to a sale or a time lapse in a sale and then talk about how they overcame that or stuck with it, and the sale actually got made over an extended period of time, which can really reinforce the belief of all the other sales people when they do it.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah, and the key is for the manager to know exactly what’s going on, the details of how their sales people have been successful so that when they’re on a team call and someone says, “Well, here’s where I’m stuck,” the sales manager can say, “Hey, Joe, you had that same situation three weeks ago. Why don’t you talk about what you did?”
Jeffrey Gitomer:
What I’ve found in sales teams, and what I’ve found in sales forces is that they all have the same objections. There’s only 10 of them. They all have the same ones, you know? The guy said the price was too high. The guy wouldn’t return my call. The guy didn’t take our proposal because he took the lowest price. I couldn’t get in to see the decision maker. There’s nothing new other than I lost it to a cheaper price to Amazon.com on the internet. That’s going to be universal, and people are going to have to deal with that, but when the sales person feels that there’s camaraderie through adversary then they’re more likely to join one another.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Here’s the thing. They want to feel like they’re part of a team even if they hate the next guy. Even i they’re competing against the next guy, they want to feel like someone else is going through the same thing that they’re going through, because they’re all alone in their territory. They’re not going to an office every day seeing-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, I agree with that.
Jennifer Gluckow:
-companions.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
But the manager has to come in. The leader has to come in and go, “Guys, or women, when you talk about this, no bitching.”
Jennifer Gluckow:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I mean, take the negativity out of it like the company doesn’t understand me, the boss is a jerk. Well, the boss may be a jerk, but you know what I’m saying. There has to be a sort of an understanding of language back and forth so that there can be a potential solution rather than two people talking at the water cooler about how bad things are.
Jennifer Gluckow:
100%, water cooler conversations are not usually good.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Exactly.
Jennifer Gluckow:
You know, so what Mark Eaton’s going to talk about is the good advice that’s going to help if you want to be on your team and advice that’s going to help if you think your team sucks and you don’t want to be on your team, because it’s going to help you be a better team player no matter what.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
The one thing you have to understand about Mark Eaton and this whole thing is at his core he’s a nice guy, and he is a helpful guy. He is a friendly guy. He is a giving guy, and that helped him win for his team.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
He stuck with it. He was a loyal guy, and he made friends. You know, he’s still friends with all of his teammates. You look at it from that perspective and think about your own qualities, so when you listen to this interview, don’t simply listen to it with a what’s this guy going to tell me? Listen to it and compare it to what kind of a person you are and could you execute this in the same way that he did, because keep I mind he was on a winning team, and he became an all-star by following his own creed and his own credo, and more importantly, you’re going to find out here’s a 7’4″ guy that didn’t really start to play basketball in earnest until he was 21.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Hated the game.
Jennifer Gluckow:
All right, let’s take a listen.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Here we go. The great Mark Eaton.
So Mark, welcome to Charlotte, North Carolina where you will be giving a major presentation to a major fortune 10 company tomorrow.
Mark Eaton:
Thank you.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
You’ll be speaking to the people at Caterpillar, and you’re going to be talking about … What are you going to be talking about, Mark?
Mark Eaton:
A little bit about teamwork and staying safe out there, because obviously they’re a company that has a lot of safety concerns as well.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Of course.
Mark Eaton:
We’re going to talk primarily about the four commitments of a winning team and getting rid of that internal competition at work and how to make each other look good and how to trust each other a little bit more and hopefully improve the camaraderie and the culture of the organization.
Jennifer Gluckow:
What are the four commitments of a winning team?
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Oh, that’s a secret, isn’t it?
Jennifer Gluckow:
I want to know.
Mark Eaton:
No, it’s not a secret.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Oh.
Mark Eaton:
It’s on the inside flap of the book I think.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Got it.
Mark Eaton:
For those who just want to read that part.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Wait a minute, you mean this book here, the one that’s coming out in April?
Mark Eaton:
Yes, the four-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
The four commitments?
Mark Eaton:
Yeah, four commitments-
Jennifer Gluckow:
Of a winning team?
Mark Eaton:
-of a winning team.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
That you can buy right now on Amazon if you pre-order it?
Mark Eaton:
Correct, or Barnes and Noble. Yes.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Okay, cool.
Mark Eaton:
So the commitments are really couched in my story of coming from a 21 year old auto mechanic who couldn’t play basketball to an NBA all-star. Along the way, I met people, coaches, who pulled me aside and shared things with me that I share in the book that helped me kind of get my career launched and then get to the next level, so the first one of the stories is an encounter I had with Wilt Chamberlain at the men’s gym at UCLA one afternoon. I wasn’t playing much at UCLA. In fact, I didn’t play a whole lot there during my couple of years there, but I was in the men’s gym one day and kind of struggling trying to catch a lot of the faster, smaller players.
Wilt Chamberlain grabbed me and said, “Quit doing that. Don’t chase these little guys up and down the court. You’re 7’4″, come with me,” and he parked my butt underneath the basket, and he said, “Look, your job is to stop players from getting to this basket. Your job is to make them miss their shot and collect the rebound and throw it up to the guard. Let them run down there and score it. Then, your job is to kind of cruise up to half court and see what’s going on.” That was a life changing moment for me where I started to understand how to focus more in on my role and the thing that I did well.
I call that point knowing your job. What’s that one thing you’re excellent at that you could leverage more? I walk people through exercise of how to kind of focus in on it. We live in such a busy world. We’ve got so much stuff coming at us. What’s that one thing that you do well? What’s that one reason that people buy from you or do business with you?
Jeffrey Gitomer:
However, let’s talk about it. You were able to take the coaching, and you were able to discern from that what the message was that was being given to you by arguably the greatest basketball player of all time. People will argue it’s Michael Jordan, but Michael Jordan didn’t average 50 points a game for a season. Michael Jordan never pulled down 55 rebounds in a game.
Mark Eaton:
Nor did they change the rules because of Michael Jordan’s impact.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Exactly. They widened the foul line for Wilt.
Mark Eaton:
Wilt would always say that when they talked about Kareem being the greatest player or Michael Jordan-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
[crosstalk 00:15:46].
Mark Eaton:
-he’d always say, “Unless they change the rules of the game because of your impact, I don’t know if I would say I’m the greatest of all time.”
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Well, and you can argue the point that back and forth, but the bottom line is that you took the coaching and did something with it. Most people will go “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” and give it two thoughts, but not a third thought.
Jennifer Gluckow:
And still think they know everything.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Right. You actually molded your career around it.
Mark Eaton:
Yeah, and there was probably sometimes I probably listened to too many people, but I was always interested on how to do it better and how could I do it more efficiently and I wanted to succeed. I wanted to get better, and it was only through the experiences of others and learning what they had learned in their life or in their careers that got me to that next level. I was always grateful that somebody was willing to come alongside me and say, “Hey, Mark. Have you ever thought about doing it this way?”
Jeffrey Gitomer:
So what’s number two?
Mark Eaton:
Number two is about execution. It’s about doing what you’ve been asked to do, so are you really clear about what other people want from you? When I was at UCLA, I wasn’t playing very much, and I called my junior college coach who had convinced me to leave my toolbox behind and try basketball again, and he was always there for me. Still is today, and I was all the frustrated that I wasn’t playing. He said, “Well, that’s great. If you’re not going to play in the games then you need to start making your practices your games. The problem is not the coach. It’s not the team. It’s you. You need to get better. If you’re not going to play in the games, you got to be the first guy at practice and the last to leave. Do your running and do your shooting.
We’re playing for the long term here. This isn’t about whether you’re playing or not this year in college. This is about what you’re going potentially do when you leave college, whether you’re playing overseas or you’re playing in the NBA, whatever it is. You have to keep getting ready now for that.”
I make the point that in business so many times we think we just did our best, and I was willing to go and talk to my coach and ask him what do I need to do differently? That’s what I ask people when I speak to them. What do you need to do differently? Do you really know what other people want from you? Do you ever take the time to ask them? Are you just assuming that you’re running along providing the right product or the right service or doing the right job without that knowledge?
Jennifer Gluckow:
And do you have the right coach who will say the harsh reality like yours did. This is what you need to do differently.
Mark Eaton:
I don’t even know if it’s harsh reality. I think sometimes we just assume we’re doing these things, you know? It’s that same thing like they talk about like Kim Blanchery’s talking in that book relating fans about you go from hiring people to judging them without the coaching piece in between. So then people get hardened, and that way is like well, I don’t really know how to do my job, and I really don’t want to go ask him, because I’m afraid I’ll get yelled at.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, but that coach did not give you advice. He gave you vision. He was willing to challenge you to take the long term look. Instead of you whining about you not playing right now, he said, “Don’t worry about right now. Worry about the next 10 years.”
Mark Eaton:
Right, and let’s get ready for that opportunity that’s going to come down the road, and I think we’ve lost a lot of that in our society today. I think it’s always about what’s here, what’s happening right now, and who’s tweeting about that or talking about that? I’m sure you see it in the world-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Every day.
Mark Eaton:
-of sales.
Jennifer Gluckow:
All the time.
Mark Eaton: It’s like no one knows how to really develop relationships or think about why do you do business with people? It’s not because I’ve got the wildest whiz bang thing. It’s really because there’s a relationship established there.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
There’s also about the pressure of having them make your number, your quota, every month. There’s an intensity about that that doesn’t really have time often to look at the big picture. I don’t want to see about next week. I just want to see about Friday.
Mark Eaton:
Right.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
You know, you were given the blessing of somebody telling you to look down the road for 10 years and just go out and play every day no matter what it is and pretend like the practice is the real game. That’s huge advice.
Mark Eaton:
It is, and I think that regardless of what career you’re in, there are those fundamentals that you need to execute every day that make the biggest difference, that transcend the pressure of Friday or this month or this quarter, whatever it is. I think to your point that’s right. That was important for me. That was number two.
Jennifer Gluckow:
What’s number three?
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah.
Mark Eaton:
Number three is about making other people look good, and I tell this story of coming to the Utah Jazz in the early 80s when they were a bad team in a bad market losing money, losing games, and our coach, Frank Laden, at that time, who was also the GM, saying, “Look, if you guys will just stop competing with each other and start cooperating with each other a little bit, the individual accolades will show up.” Back then, you know, if you signed a contract with a team it was all based on what’s your scoring average is how much money you made based on comparing it to other players in the league. He said, “Look, no one cares if you’re scoring a lot of points on a losing team. Everybody wants the players from a winning team,” so he got us to start trusting each other a little bit more, cooperating with each other a little bit more.
The more we made each other look good, the better the team looked, and in time the individual accolades showed up. Perfect example, the second year I was in the league we went from a losing team in the cellar to making the playoffs for the first time, winning the division for the first time, and we had four individual statistical leaders in the NBA, which has never been done since. We had one player that led the league in scoring, Adrian Dantley, player that led the NBA in three point shooting, Darrel Griffith, player that led the NBA in steals, Ricky Green, and a player that led the NBA in blocked shots,
Mark Eaton.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Cool.
Mark Eaton:
So the team won. We won.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
That’s amazing.
Mark Eaton:
That’s make people look good.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I’m sure that you having a vision over the top of everybody else’s head in the game played a role as well, because someone could give you the ball and you could see what other people could not see.
Mark Eaton:
Well, one of the things we did was we predicated our offense on playing great defense first and running an opportunity. My job was to collect the rebound off the glass and then fire it out at half court to Ricky Green or to John Stockton and let them run down the court with it. That was the easiest way to score, so I think it correlated to what’s the shortest distance between you and a check, right?
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Right.
Mark Eaton:
So the easy score was a fast break, like who wants to take the ball out of the basket, walk it up the floor, and try to grind out a offense? If I can get it out quick-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
[crosstalk 00:22:09] number three, you know?
Mark Eaton:
Yeah, if I can get it out quick and get it to my guard and he can throw it to a streaking Karl Malone at the other end of the floor, slam dunk, boom, that’s two points. Next.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, exactly. So now we’re at the big number four.
Mark Eaton:
So point number four is what I did well in the basketball court is I protected my teammates, so point number four is called protect others. I asked a question, you know, who are you protecting at work and who’s protecting you? Do you really feel safe at work? Some people say, “Well, my boss doesn’t make me feel safe.” Well, it starts with you. Do you make the people around you feel safe? The key to trust and the key to loyalty from your teammates and from your customers is that knowledge that you really have their back, you know, that you’re really there protecting them. I actually ask in my presentation, I say take five seconds right now and write down the names of three people you need to let know that you have their back this week.
That’s something that really I think gets missed. It’s like we get the sale, we move on, right? We’re done, we’re out of there, that’s the end of that relationship. Who we do business with over the long time are those people that we do trust. That’s where that loyalty comes from. I see that even in businesses that are highly commoditize where there’s 1000 vendors out there and you can just prize shop all day long. Who do you choose to do business with? [crosstalk 00:23:27].
Jeffrey Gitomer:
The guy you trust.
Mark Eaton:
[crosstalk 00:23:28] relationship with and somebody you feel is they’ve got your back. How can I make that person look good in their organization? How can I let them know that I’m there for them? What do you need? How can I help you?
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I’m not going to buy price if I can’t know that the product is going to be delivered. It’s more important for me to keep a crew working than it is for me to save a dime.
Mark Eaton:
Right, so how do you count on that delivery? It’s because you trust that person that they’re actually going to deliver if you give them the business. I want to be that person.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
So you’ve taken an improbable basketball career literally. I mean, most guys who are 21 years old have already been playing basketball for 15 years or more.
Mark Eaton:
Right.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
They have 15 years of dribbling under their belt.
Mark Eaton:
Correct.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Correct?
Mark Eaton:
Correct.
Jennifer Gluckow:
What was it like to start later?
Mark Eaton:
It was a challenge. Number one, I didn’t like basketball, and being 7’4″ what’s the one question everybody asks you?
Jeffrey Gitomer:
How’s the weather up there?
Mark Eaton:
Well, that or do you play basketball?
Jennifer Gluckow:
Do you play basketball?
Mark Eaton:
I didn’t have a good experience in high school. I sat on the bench. I didn’t like it. It was not fun, and I grew up in kind of a blue collar household. My father was an educator at a junior college and also a diesel mechanic, primarily working on boats, marine diesel. I grew up in that kind of environment helping him fix boats on the weekends and things like that, so I went to trade school, because I was like, “I don’t know what I want to do. Basketball’s definitely not in the picture.” I became this auto mechanic, and I was working at a tire and auto store in southern California when this junior college coach pulled in and convinced me to give it another shot.
It was challenging, because I’d been eating junk food and hadn’t done really anything athletic for a long time, so the first few weeks were pretty darn rough, but I liked what he had to say, because he had worked with a couple of other big guys, a guy named Swinn Nader, who played behind Bill Walton, and helped him. He understood the game from a big man’s perspective, which was different than your standard high school coach would know.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
A lot of young big guys have the walking, chewing gum problem.
Mark Eaton:
Yes.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Where you can walk, but not at the same time you’re chewing gum, because there’s a coordination problem.
Mark Eaton:
Because they develop later. They’re growing so fast that the muscles and the coordination just doesn’t catch up until they’re 19 or 20 or 21, or in my case never.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I went to [inaudible 00:25:48] high school. We had a kid named Ed Sweeney who was 6’10” as a sophomore, and it was going to be like our golden year with one exception. That is you couldn’t dribble and you couldn’t shoot. The coaches, I would go to basketball practice after school just to watch this guy, and the coaches were so frustrated with him that they didn’t know how to coach him. They didn’t know what to do with him because he didn’t have fundamental skills.
Mark Eaton:
Right, and so those players get cast off aside, because they’re not about the here and now.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
He never played.
Mark Eaton:
They’re not willing to take the time to develop them understanding that it’s going to take some time. This junior college coach, that’s what he did with me. Even when I came to the Jazz, Frank Laden looked at me and he was an old Staten Island high school coach, and he coached at Niagara and he’d been around awhile. He says, “Look, I want you to be comfortable with a basketball. I’m going to force you to do dribbling drills, force you to do ball handling drills. Not that I need you to bring the ball up the court. It’s going to increase your confidence with the ball on the basketball court.”
He was right. I did the dribbling drills. I did the running drills, everything else he wanted, and I got more comfortable with the basketball. It improved my confidence. It improved my game.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Isn’t it interesting that one of the most watched things in professional basketball right now is Steph Curry’s pre-game dribbling drills?
Mark Eaton:
Correct. Yeah.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Thousands of people will show up early to watch this guy go through his dribbling drills unlike any other player ever.
Mark Eaton:
Yeah.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Geez, it’s so amazing that he can dribble so well on the court. I wonder how that happens.
Mark Eaton:
Practice, what’s that?
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, and his daddy … I mean, he’s got the lineage, you know what I mean? He could already shoot. He was born a shooter. Now all he has to do is become a ball handler to a point where you’ve seen him make some of the most unbelievable plays in the history of pro basketball.
Mark Eaton:
Yeah, it’s extraordinary. Yeah.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Anyway, so you’re a dribbler now. I mean, you can-
Mark Eaton:
I don’t know about that, but I was always comfortable that if I had to take two or three dribbles to get out of traffic and create the outlet pass that I was comfortable doing that. It did increase my confidence with the ball when I got a rebound and had to clear some space or whatever it was to get rid of it. I felt more comfortable and more complete as a basketball player because of that.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
The most interesting thing is you had some pretty good players that he played with.
Mark Eaton:
Yes.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
There were no slackers on the Utah Jazz for a long time.
Mark Eaton:
Right.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
You won a lot of … Your nemesis, obviously, was the Chicago Bulls.
Mark Eaton:
Yeah, but yeah. No, they didn’t ever win a championship, but we had 20 consecutive playoff appearances, and we went from a team that was losing money in a bad market and made it a perennial contender. I think that’s what I’m most proud of and I think many of my teammates are most proud of, so whether it was starting out with Adrian Dantley and Darrel Griffith and Ricky Green and then moving on to John Stockton, Karl Malone, Throw Bailey, Bobby Hanson, guys like that that became a part of the team going forward, that-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
20 consecutive playoff appearances?
Mark Eaton:
20 consecutive playoff appearances.
Jennifer Gluckow:
That’s amazing.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
That’s pretty amazing. So you certainly always were in the hunt.
Mark Eaton:
Yeah, and we were always in the mix, and we were respected, and our coach would tell us, “Hey, look, if we’re not going to make the playoffs, we’re going to affect the playoffs. We’re going to beat the Pistons and the Lakers and the Celtics and some of these things.” Frank would tell us that kind of stuff. We’d look at him like he was crazy, and he’d say, “I’d rather lose the game by two points instead of three that first year when we had a losing season.” We’re like, “Why?” “Because two points is closer to winning.”
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Exactly.
Mark Eaton:
You would do things like that.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
And what was the difference when you went from Frank to Jerry Sloan?
Mark Eaton:
Jerry Sloan?
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah.
Mark Eaton:
Well, Frank had an interesting challenge, because he became sort of the face of the team, because my rookie year there were only 17 televised games, and those games were showing on taped delay at 11 o’clock at night.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
In Salt Lake City, Utah.
Mark Eaton:
In Salt Lake City, Utah.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
So nine people were watching.
Mark Eaton:
Right, no one-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Because they all drank milk and cookies in their bed by seven.
Mark Eaton:
And they go to bed. Right, exactly, so no one really knew who we were. Frank took on this personality of being this fun-loving, funny guy, because he was a great joke teller, great standup lunch time speaker. Once he got the team to a certain level where we’re competitive, then coach Sloan came in, Jerry did, and really took that intensity to another level. He said, “Okay, you guys do this well, you do that well, but we’re going to focus more on execution now. We’re going to focus more on proper defense and getting through screens and really not cutting any corners,” and turned up the heat.
He was also very consistent about it. You knew exactly what he expected every day where Frank was a little more emotional up and down kind of all over the map sometimes. Jerry was just the same way every day. He expected that performance, that intensity, and there are certain things on a basketball court you can do every day regardless of whether the shot’s going in or not. You can play defense. You can get yourself prepared. You can get rebounds. You can get a steal. You can get your hand on the ball, whatever it is. That’s what Jerry Sloan expected. I think that’s what took the team to the point where they were able to go to the finals a couple years in a row.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I think that if you’re a sales person right now and you’re listening to this and you go, “Okay, it’s a basketball talk.” No, no, Mark is talking about preparing. He’s talking about consistency, and he’s talking about intensity. If you don’t have those three pieces as a firm part of your repertoire when you’re out on a sales call, you’re going to die. That’s why this show is called Sell or Die, because you either make the sale by selling yourself and then your product or service, or you die, because your preparation sucked. Your consistency sucked, and your commitment sucked.
If you lose either one of those three things, you’re going to die.
Jennifer Gluckow:
So let’s say you did lose a game, which is like losing a sale, what did you do to pump yourself up for the next game?
Mark Eaton:
Well, I think we always looked at it as the long term play, that you know, you never got too high after a win. You never got too low after a loss, because there’s another game tomorrow. There’s three more this week, and if you started dragging around that kind of negative energy from the game we lost last Wednesday, you’re not going to be 100% available for the possibility today of winning this game or winning that next sale. Much like golfers where they talk about they have a bad hole and the golf psychologists, the sports psychologist will say, “Okay, leave that hole behind,” and you get on the next tee box. It’s a brand new game.
I think that’s what carried us is letting go of whatever happened, good or bad, and being completely present and focused on what the opportunity is right now.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
So let’s go out into the street. We have been friends for a pretty decent amount of time. At least I’ve been friends with you.
Mark Eaton: We have.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, and we belong to this group called the National Speakers Association, which is highly evolved egotistical group of 4,000 people of which 200 make all the money. When you go to their annual convention, they have two separate rooms. One for the speakers and one for their egos, but the bottom line is that when you find the people that you can relate to, you become friends with them, really good friends with them. You’re a person who no one’s ever said, “Hey, have you seen Mark Eaton? I can’t find him.” You’re easily-
Mark Eaton:
If I’m there, you know it.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Exactly.
Mark Eaton:
That’s right.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
So how do you handle your height in a social situation when people are sort of gawkers?
Mark Eaton:
Well, I will tell you it is a challenge at times, but I think what I’ve done in terms of looking at my speaking career, it’s like all right, I’m tall. You got to accept that. What else can we do with it? Whether it’s knowing that at the end of the speech people are going to want to take pictures and say, “Why don’t you pick up a book while you’re here?” To saying, “Why are you going to hire me versus somebody else that they’re looking at?” That’s unique advantage that I have.
It’s taken me a long time in my life to be able to get okay with that to use that as an advantage, because it’s always been something. Like I said, it’s been very challenging at times.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Hello, 7’4″.com.
Mark Eaton:
Yeah, and you know what, you get a standing ovation, you walk off stage, and everybody’s like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” and you go to the airport and first person’s like, “Hey, how tall are you, dude?” You know?
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, [crosstalk 00:34:28].
Mark Eaton:
So you have that reality to deal with, but I think for the most part I’ve done a good job of trying to make it an asset.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Well first things first, we’ve both heard your talk.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Oh yeah, we did.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
You’re a 10.
Mark Eaton:
Well thank you.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
You’re welcome.
Jennifer Gluckow:
It was phenomenal.
Mark Eaton:
Thank you very much.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Your talk is informative and inspirational.
Jennifer Gluckow:
And engaging.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, totally.
Mark Eaton:
Can you write that down?
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah. Well, you’ll have this [crosstalk 00:34:56].
Jennifer Gluckow:
Actually, it’ll be on-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
[crosstalk 00:34:58] put that on the back of the book right here. Oh,
it already is. Okay.
Mark Eaton: Yeah.
Jeffrey Gitomer: I think that when you have that as your base, your foundation, then you don’t have to worry about any of that kind of stuff, and somebody says, “Hey, how tall are you?” You go, “5’9″, but I’m on stilts.”
Mark Eaton:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jennifer Gluckow:
You should wear a pin that says 7’4″.
Mark Eaton:
That’s why we hang out, because you’ll tell them that, and they’ll say, “Oh, that guy was really annoying,” but I’m still a good guy, so it’s okay.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Well, you’re from Salt Lake. You’re not allowed to be annoying. It’s part of the, you know.
Mark Eaton:
Yeah.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
You’re actually polite to everybody, which believe me, it’s one of your weaknesses.
Mark Eaton:
You got to work on that. Maybe it’ll improve sales.
Jennifer Gluckow:
I don’t know, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I think the challenge for you is daily. It’s not something where you can all the sudden wake up and walk around on your knees to be as tall as everybody else.
Jennifer Gluckow:
But do you have fun with it? Do you give out fun answers?
Mark Eaton:
You know, to a degree. I mean, I make fun of it to a certain extent when I speak, but I also give people the reality of it, of hey, this is a challenge, but this is what I did with this challenge.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah.
Mark Eaton:
I think that’s relatable to people, because I think everybody in their life can look back and say, “Geez, I get made fun of when I was in junior high,” or whatever it is. You know, I try and level the playing field by bringing that up. Yeah, I don’t know. Sometimes I have fun with it, but most of the time people come up and they think they’ve got the newest, greatest, most creative one liner that you’ve ever heard before.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, how’s the weather up there?
Mark Eaton:
Yeah, and so I don’t know. You know, I have this friend of mine who you know, Mark Mayfield, who’s a comedian speaker, and he and I got together one day and he was like, “You should write a book about just the things people say to you.” We were sitting in this bar in Corn Lane, Idaho. We’d both spoken at this conference, and we get up to go the elevator, and I’m thinking yeah, so that’s a pretty good idea. As I duck into the elevator, another guy in the elevator gets there and he goes, “Dude, I feel your pain.” Mayfield looks at me and is like, “See.” You know?
[crosstalk 00:36:55] write this stuff down.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
This is where I think somebody says how tall are you, and you can say, “I’m so tall that when I sleep in a king sized bed, I have to sleep catercorner.”
Mark Eaton:
Catercorner. Yeah. You and I could get together on a book about that.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
A couple [crosstalk 00:37:11].
Mark Eaton:
Be a little-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
This is how I sleep in a king sized bed.
Mark Eaton:
Right, get a little 50 page book of questions and answers like that.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Zappy answers too.
Mark Eaton:
I was in the airport the other day in Houston, and I was changing this planes, and this lady walks up next to me, and she just takes a few steps and she looks at me, and she says, “How tall are you?” I keep walking. I say, “7’4”. She ponders that for a moment, she says, “I hope you did something with that height.” I said, “I did,” and we kept walking.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
That’s cool though. That’s a beautiful piece of Americana, but the challenge that you have is in your everyday life you have to maintain an attitude and a sense of reality.
Mark Eaton:
Right.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
You have to carry your attitude into your speech every time, because you have to be the best you can be in front of that audience regardless of who said, you know, “You know if it’s raining before I do.”
Mark Eaton:
Right. Well, and that’s the realty when you’re a speaker is every audience is a brand new group of people just like a sale who don’t know who you are, don’t know what you do, maybe they heard of you. Of course, I bring some NBA highlights, so that helps a little bit, but-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
And they’re good highlights by the way.
Mark Eaton:
Well, thank you. Then, they’re going to be like, “Who are you? What are you going to say, and what could you possibly know about my life?” I think that’s the attitude going in. I take that seriously. I know when I walk in a room it’s like okay, it’s my job to prove myself, but it’s also to gain your trust during the conversation.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Calm the audience and be able to transfer your message.
Mark Eaton:
Correct.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I’m going to tell you that he has as transferrable a message as I have ever heard on a platform.
Mark Eaton:
Wow.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
You have to look at it from the perspective of if you get a chance … Yeah, write that down. If you get a chance to see Mark Eaton speak, you should take it. Go to his youtube channel, take a look at some of the highlights, go to his website. It’s sevenfootfourcom.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Buy his book. Pre-order his book.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Well, pre-order the book.
Mark Eaton:
Pre-order the book.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I don’t want to make this like it’s a commercial and I’m fawning all over Mark Eaton. I’m a speaker.
Jennifer Gluckow:
It sure sounds like it, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I’ve seen everybody, and when we walked out of the speech that you gave for the BI group, it was phenomenal.
Mark Eaton:
Thank you.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I mean, you’ve honed your skill. You’ve been doing it for a decade.
Mark Eaton:
Right.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
And you’ve honed your skill to a point where your talk is compelling.
Mark Eaton:
Thank you.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
When you have that kind of a talk that can transfer that kind of a message, you’re going to sell a hell of a lot of books.
Mark Eaton:
Aw, thanks, I appreciate that very much, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
We are now going to thank Mark Eaton for showing up. It’s going to take him a long time to get out of the building. He has to duck everywhere, and we’re going to wish him well for his talk tomorrow. We may show up for a little bit of it in the back of the room.
Mark Eaton:
Please do.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I’m assuming there’s going to be food.
Mark Eaton:
Yes, there is.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Okay, cool, so we’ll show up for the food and for the speech.
Jennifer G.:
Oh man.
Mark Eaton:
I’ll notify the media.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Please. Tell both of your friends. Is anybody else going to be there? You bringing any troops with you?
Mark Eaton:
No, just me, and it’s their annual sales awards and safety awards I think kind of meeting for the company. Very excited to be a part of that. We’re going to have some fun.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, absolutely, and we will look forward to seeing you again on Sell or Die. Get a book or three, go to amazon.com. Get a book or three. Get them for your friends and your family. I can promise you that it will deliver a memorable and transferrable message.
Mark Eaton:
Well, thank you both very much.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Thank you.
Mark Eaton:
I appreciate that so much.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Mark Eaton rocks.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
And he’s a nice guy, and he can dunk.
Jennifer Gluckow:
You know, we should count the number of times you’ve said he’s a nice guy on the show, but the truth is-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Well, we’ve been friends for a long time.
Jennifer Gluckow:
He is a really nice guy. I 100% agree with you, and we keep saying that, and people who don’t know him don’t really understand how nice he is.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah.
Jennifer Gluckow:
And he’s a smart guy.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
There’s a lot of athletes that are butt heads.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah, butt heads, that’s like-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Well, better than asshole. He exudes approachability, and you know,
well, we’ve been friends for a long time. I’m very proud of that, and we have been communicators for a long time. We’ll text each other about one thing or another at odd times. We help each other.
Jennifer Gluckow:
That’s cool.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I think the most important part is he’s dynamic.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
When he makes a presentation, I would pay to watch him speak. That’s
how good he is.
Jennifer Gluckow:
That’s pretty cool.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah.
Jennifer Gluckow:
He was really good when I saw him. Yeah, I agree. So you know, a lot of people are thinking at the beginning we were talking about teams that don’t get along and compete and people who don’t want to be on a team with anyone else except the people that are really helping them at the back office, and so if that’s you, take the link for this episode and send the people on your team this episode and tell them, “Here’s how we can work together.”
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Mark gives great advice for each player on the team no matter what your role is.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
If you’re a sales guy or a sales woman out there and you don’t forward this to every single person that you know who’s in a leadership position, even the CEO of your company, you’re making a big mistake.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Mark has a way of bringing people together and making them play together in harmony to be winners. That’s the objective in your company. If you’re listening to this and you have one ounce of inspiration from it, give it to somebody else. Let them be inspired as well even if you know other people on other sales teams. Just do it.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah, Mark’s a record breaker, and he’s going to help you-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
And a record holder.
Jennifer Gluckow:
-be a record breaker.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
He’s a record holder.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey Gitomer:
But I think that more important than that, he understands the game and how to play the game and how to win the game. He doesn’t win every game, but he’s consistent enough to win more than his share.
Jennifer Gluckow:
So his book is coming out in April, April 3rd, on Amazon. It’s ‘The Four Commitments of a Winning Team’.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
You’re going to see it all over our stuff.
Jennifer Gluckow:
You can actually pre-order it right now. You can add it to your cart. It’s discounted on Amazon. You know, they play around with the price.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). We know that well.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Actually, one of the cool things I learned about Amazon is if you buy something today and then tomorrow you see it at a different price, all you need to do is email them and they refund you.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Oh really?
Jennifer Gluckow:
That’s crazy.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah.
Jennifer Gluckow:
I bought a book that was like $18 and then three days later dropped to $14. I was like, “Dear Amazon.” No problem. We refunded your account.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Wow.
Jennifer Gluckow:
I know. It’s pretty cool. His book is coming out April 3rd. It’s called ‘The Four Commitments of a Winning Team’. Go pre-order it now.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
We’ve pre-ordered several copies, but for Mark, because we want ours autographed. I’ll bet you that if you look deep enough and find his address, which we’re not going to give on this show, but I’m sure it’s out there somewhere and maybe mail it to his office, he would sign it and send it back to you in a heartbeat.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Oh yeah. Well, he’s a nice guy.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, exactly.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Of course he would.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, exactly. We do the same thing here by the way. People ask-
Jennifer Gluckow:
People send books here all the time and then we send it back signed.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Postage free.
Jennifer Gluckow:
It’s pretty cool. Yeah.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
So there’s a long pause.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Well, I didn’t know if you wanted to talk about anything else that Mark said. That’s what I was really thinking. You know, about any of the commitments that may have stood out.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah. To me, the biggest one is to know your job. How do you fit on the team? What are the expectations of you as a performer? It’s so interesting that Mark Eaton was taught by Wilt Chamberlain.
Jennifer Gluckow:
I know.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
It’s not something where he just, “I picked this up on …” No, he picked it up from Wilt freaking Chamberlain.
Jennifer Gluckow:
But what a cool strategy from Wilt to say, “Look, your job is not to go running back and forth across the court. Your role is to stand right here.”
Jeffrey Gitomer:
And get balls.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Right, and by Mark knowing his role and those other guys knowing their role on the team, and I’m not really a sports fanatic, so I don’t know everyone’s name that he mentioned, but you know, by each of those guys, they were able to hold records all while being on the team. That’s pretty freaking cool.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
So before you criticize other people about how they’re doing their job, why don’t you think about how you’re doing your job? Are you a 10 at your job or a 10.5 at your job so that no matter what you criticize somebody’s going to say, “Yeah, but well, he is our best guy, so I guess maybe he’s accurate in that.”
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah, and Mark talked about what can you do better?
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, so you have to look at this from the perspective of it’s about you being a member of the team, and then playing as a teammate.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Even if you hate your freaking team.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Right. So look at it that way, have a wonderful time on your team. Maybe you’ll take a little bit of a different perspective back with you, but I want to make certain that you do it with Deathwish Coffee.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Before we get to Deathwish Coffee, and I didn’t mean to interrupt you,
Jeffrey-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yes, you did.
Jennifer Gluckow:
-but I’m going to.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Okay, good.
Jennifer G.:
We have the most phenomenal mugs on the planet, and they just arrived. Everyone on the planet can go get their new Sell or Die mug. They say there’s no prize in second place in sales. There’s no prize for second place in sales. Sell or Die podcast. Then, on the other side they say, “I’m a die hard.” Pretty freaking cool. They’re black with the red rim. I really like them.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
They’ll hold coffees or pencils.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah, or paperclips or tea, whatever you-
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Or money.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Yeah.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
If you want to stand on the corner and beg, there’s plenty of room for dollars in there.
Jennifer Gluckow:
Well, hopefully you’re making enough sales that you don’t need to beg. Anyway, you can go to buygitomer.com and under all products scroll to the very bottom and you will see the mugs. We’ll also put the link in the show notes directly to the product, but right now the first 50 mug buyers are getting a second mug free. If you buy one mug, you get one mug free. If you guy 10 mugs, you get 10 mugs free.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
But the mugs are cool. We’re drinking Deathwish Coffee out of them right now. Deathwish Coffee, the strongest coffee on the planet. It will keep you awake for days, and we drink it because they’re our sponsors.
Jennifer Gluckow:
And they’re really good. Well, no, they are our sponsor, but if the coffee wasn’t good, we wouldn’t drink it.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
No, we drank it way before they became a sponsor
Jennifer Gluckow:
Right, we wanted them.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Exactly.
Jennifer Gluckow:
We have their stickers plastered everywhere.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
Yeah, we’re-
Jennifer Gluckow:
It’s like a daily reminder to have more coffee.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
We are a Deathwish home, not simply a Deathwish drinker. Get out there and get your Deathwish, but more important, I think you should look at the lesson you’ve learned today. Subscribe to us, share us, we’re on every form of podcast broadcast on the planet. Go to gitomer.com. Go to the Gitomerlearningacademy.com. Take a look at what we offer for a long term. Maybe get a mug or two, but be the best you can be for yourself. Be the best player you can be for yourself. Then, you can be the best you can be for others. That’s the real leadership tip of the day.
My name is Jeffrey Gitomer.
Jennifer Gluckow:
And I’m Jen Gluckow.
Jeffrey Gitomer:
I’m reminding you to get out there and sell something even if you’re ass falls off.
