EP: 003 Imposter Syndrome and Mindful Selling
The Power of Persistence in Building a Sales Career
What does it take to make 75 cold calls a day for 90 days straight before getting your first "yes"? Ashley Beck Cuellar, founder of Sales Spark Coaching, knows exactly what that grind feels like. In this episode of the Sales Spark Podcast, Ashley shares her incredible journey from making hundreds of daily cold calls in 2007 to building a thriving sales coaching business and growing her LinkedIn following from 1,500 to nearly 12,000 in just 18 months.
Ashley's story isn't just about sales tactics; it's about the mindset, persistence, and authenticity that separate good salespeople from great ones.
The Cold Calling Gauntlet That Built Character
In 2007, Ashley joined TriAuto (later Perk Marketing), selling direct mail to car dealerships. The company hired 20 new sales reps and immediately threw them into the deep end with a quota of 75 cold calls per day. Within two weeks, only four people remained.
Ashley was one of them.
For 90 straight days, she dialed prospects with minimal research, no social media intelligence, and just the basics of Sandler sales training. Her strategy for maintaining sanity? She kept a jewelry catalog at her desk, flipping through it while making calls to give her ADHD brain something else to focus on.
✅ Key Takeaway #1: Persistence beats perfection. Ashley's willingness to endure 90 days of rejection before her first sale built the foundation for a 17-year career that generated $49 million in revenue.
The ADHD Advantage in Sales
One of the most fascinating aspects of Ashley's story is how she turned what many might consider a disadvantage—ADHD—into a superpower. By understanding how her brain worked, she developed strategies that not only helped her succeed but could benefit any salesperson struggling with focus.
Her catalog technique wasn't a distraction; it was strategic brain management. When facing difficult conversations, having another focal point actually allowed her to listen better and stay present with prospects.
✅ Key Takeaway #2: Understanding how your brain works isn't an excuse; it's a competitive advantage. Work with your natural tendencies, not against them.
From Corporate Grind to Entrepreneurial Freedom
After 17 years of building expertise in direct mail marketing, Ashley reached a crossroads. The company wanted her to help rebuild their marketing division, but she'd lost passion for the product. Instead of forcing it, she made the bold decision to leave and start Sales Spark Coaching.
Her first year in business has been marked by saying "yes" to unexpected opportunities, from teaching ChatGPT workshops to dental business brokers to developing 90-minute AI training sessions for small businesses. This openness led to four new prospective clients and speaking opportunities she never could have planned.
LinkedIn Growth: Authenticity Over Algorithm
Perhaps the most impressive part of Ashley's recent success is her LinkedIn growth. In 18 months, she went from 1,500 to nearly 12,000 followers without bots, cheating, or algorithm manipulation. Her secret?
✅ Key Takeaway #3: Stop being "businessy and stuffy" on LinkedIn. People connect with authentic stories, not corporate speak. Share who you are, not just what you do.
Ashley's LinkedIn strategy is refreshingly simple:
Share real stories, not just business lessons
Engage genuinely in comments (not just post and ghost)
Connect over personal interests (she searches "yoga" to find new connections)
Use video DMs because they always get watched and almost always get responses
The Yoga-Sales Connection: Mindset is Everything
As both a sales coach and yoga instructor, Ashley brings a unique perspective to sales training. Her biggest insight? Mindset is the most important part of the sales process.
In yoga and meditation, you learn to let thoughts flow in and out without giving them stories or emotional weight. This same principle applies directly to sales, especially when dealing with impostor syndrome.
When calling a CEO or GM, thoughts like "they won't want to talk to me" or "I'm not qualified" will inevitably arise. The key is recognizing these as just thoughts—not facts—and letting them pass without creating stories around them.
Notable Quotes from This Episode:
💬 "Your mindset is the most important part of the sales process. You can follow all the rules, but if your mindset is trash, none of it's going to work."
💬 "Those are all just thoughts and you can just let them go out just the same as they came in."
💬 "The best salespeople I know always have another question."
Practical Takeaways for Sales Professionals
For New Salespeople:
Understand that 75% of the world doesn't know what you know, and the other 25% need to be reminded
If you're not getting responses, change the message or change the channel
Match your prospect's communication style (if they text, text back; if they email, email back)
For Experienced Salespeople:
Consider how your unique background (like ADHD, yoga, or other interests) might actually be advantages
Don't chase algorithms on social media, focus on authentic connection
Be willing to say yes to opportunities outside your core business if they energize you
For Sales Leaders:
Recognize that what looks like a distraction might actually be a focus for neurodiverse team members
Encourage authenticity over corporate speak in team communications
Support team members in finding their own paths to success
The Million-Dollar Mindset Shift
After generating $49 million in revenue over her corporate career, Ashley's biggest insight isn't about tactics or techniques; it's about showing up authentically every single time. Her final piece of advice in the episode was powerful:
"My authenticity and my ability to show up as myself all of the time and to not ever let somebody else affect how I show up, because it's how I show up that is going to affect the sale."
This isn't just feel-good advice. It's a strategic approach to sales that builds trust, creates lasting relationships, and ultimately drives revenue.
Whether you're making your first cold call or building your own sales coaching business, Ashley's journey proves that success comes not from perfecting a system, but from perfecting your ability to be consistently, authentically yourself.
Key Points:
How to survive 90 days of cold calling rejection and come out stronger
Why ADHD can actually be a sales superpower (catalog technique included)
The mindset shift that separates good salespeople from great ones
LinkedIn growth strategy: 1,500 to 12K followers in 18 months (no bots!)
How yoga and meditation improve sales performance
Why "change the message or change the channel" when prospects don't respond
The power of saying yes to unexpected opportunities
How to turn authenticity into your biggest competitive advantage
📲 CONNECT WITH JASON:
Website: https://www.firestartersinc.net/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason%F0%9F%94%A5-barnaby-252a68/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firestartersinc/
📲 CONNECT WITH ASHLEY:
Website: https://salessparkcoaching.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-beck-cuellar/
Yoga Studio: https://indyyogastudio.com/
Transcript:
Impostor syndrome is the best example that I can think of when you are getting ready to pick up that phone and call a CEO or call a GM of a car dealership. Don't let the thought flow in and flow out that that person is not willing to talk to you and that you are not qualified enough to speak to that person, that you don't know enough to speak to that person. Those are all just thoughts and you can just let them go out just the same as they came in.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the sales spark podcast. My name is Jason Barnaby, your host, and I am here today with the amazing Ashley Beck Cuellar. Ashley and I have known each other now for eight-ish years, I think. Probably. If you watched the first episode with Brian Neal, we actually met when we both were being certified in blind zebra content and we have been friends ever since. So Ashley, welcome to the show.
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I am so excited to have you. And I think I may have said on the first show to Brian that I am, yeah, I'm pretty sure I did, that I am comfortably unaware of things. For example, like when I said, do you want to be on my podcast called the sales spark podcast? Your response was, please go ahead. My company's name is sales spark coaching. So of course I will be on your podcast. So I was like, oh yeah, I think I knew that. So yeah, it just makes sense. It just makes sense that you would be good. So I'm curious for you, why did you call your company that?
Sales Spark. Yeah. Because I would say I wanted sales to be in the name because I'm one of those people who like, if you Google it, what comes up first, right? You know, that's everything. But also, I think I am a high energy person and have a spark. And so that and also, I just think that a lot of the sales coaching that I do lends itself to being a spark in people's sales team. It's that type of thing. I love that.
Which is very similar to what I do in my business. And I say strike the match a lot and we talk about sparks and fire and heat and all those things. So this is very synergistic and I'm super excited to have you here. And I would like for you to tell the people listening a little bit about your sales career. How did you get into it? What did you do? And what are you doing now?
Well, so funny enough, lots of people would probably tell you my sales career started way before I would tell you my sales career started. My boss in college, I was a waitress in college at a little family restaurant at Ball State. My boss would tell anybody that wants to hear it now that I was the best salesperson on the floor, that he printed t-shirts one time and I convinced him to let me sell them to customers and they became a thing and everybody wanted t-shirts.
Of course they did. Yeah. So this is my surprise face by the way. You're like, oh, shocker. So that would be, you know, like in my twenties, but my parents would probably also tell you I was trying to sell them on things way before that. What I would tell you, my formal sales career started in 2007 with a company that was called TriAuto at the time. Became Perk Marketing, but I sold direct mail to car dealerships. That is what I did for 17 years.
Wow. Okay. That's so for those of you who are out there going, sold direct mail for 17 years, unpack that for us. What does that, what does that look like? What was a daily, daily deal for you? What kind of clients did you have?
Well, it started out so I was hired with a large group. I think there were 20 of us at the beginning and we were just given sales. They had just gotten Salesforce for the team and so we had our theorem. Our list uploaded to our CRM and we were given our territories and we just started hitting phones and I would make 75 calls a day.
And OK, hold on, hold on. So 75 did they just say here's your CRM go? Did you have a script? Did you have bullet points? Make it up as you go? What'd you do?
No, we did some training. It was very Sandler style training. I think we even trained at Lushen. For those who are not familiar with Sandler training, tell us what that means. It's a sales philosophy of coaching and training. And God love them. There is a lot of stuff that I got from that, but it's a lot of tactics, I often feel like, which is not necessarily like repeatable tactics that are scripted. And I am not a fan of the scriptedness.
We are on the same page. No pun intended. I get it. When you're a baby salesperson, you do need a little bit more guidance and some words. But I think being able to take the script and make it your own is what makes people good at it.
Okay. So we started there, people just started dropping like flies. Like, I don't want to make 75 calls a day. I'm out of here. I'm out of here. There was like four of us within about two weeks.
Holy, so it was 75 the quota? I don't think that I think maybe 50 was. I don't necessarily know. It was kind of like a, better be hanging with the crowd situation. And I vaguely remember 50 being a number that I was targeted to hit a lot of times. But so I did that for...
And I mean, I did lots of calls a day, not 75. It was 75 at the very beginning, but it was less later on. But I did cold calling just straight out to build my book of business for like two and a half years. And I was calling car dealerships and it was not, it was no research. It was like, yeah, cause we're talking how many years ago, 2007, was, I mean, almost 20 years ago. So were any of these people, could you find anything about them on? Did you even, were you even on LinkedIn in 2007 at that time?
In 2008, I built a LinkedIn profile when I met Brian Neal and he came in to be my sales coach and was like, you have to have a LinkedIn profile.
Sounds about like Brian. Yep. I'm sure Brian Neal is going to be mentioned many times on the sales spark podcast. So he, once I back back up, I would like what we call social selling then kind of was talking back then and it was just looking people up on Facebook or whatever, Facebook was really all there was. MySpace probably when I started in 2007. Yeah, you're probably right. But just looking people up on websites, I would just go to the dealer, but I didn't even do that. I was making so many calls a day at the beginning, but I wasn't even checking their website. I'm just like, next number, dial, ask for the general manager.
So eventually I got some people, I mean, I was persistent enough that eventually somebody said yes, and I got to have...
Do you know how long it took for you before you got your first yes?
It was 90 days.
Interesting. Do you remember who your first yes was?
I do. His name was Tom and it was a dealership outside of Boston. I remember the product specifically.
Isn't that interesting? Well, because 90 days was a long time. I know there were other people that beat me to it. But 90 days was like, you're pushing it if you haven't gotten anything in 90 days.
So let's pause here for a moment for people who are listening. For those of you who are in a BDR role, you're fresh out of school, you're smiling and dialing, as we like to say in the sales world. Could you do it for 90 days? 50 calls a day. That is banging it out. And that's a lot of no's. And so you will hear me talk a lot on this podcast about grit. And I don't mean grit like work till you die, like burn yourself out, picking up the phone after every no, picking it back up after every no, going in again the next day after a day full of nos. And when you think about, I would be very interested to know in that 90 days, how many nos you collected because there had to be probably hundreds.
And before we move on from that, what, I'm curious if you remember, what was the worst thing somebody said to you when you called them? Cause I've heard of people like getting cussed out and you know, like, why don't ever call here again. Did you get any of that?
No, I mean, I had a lot rougher conversations once people became clients because I don't know how much you've worked in the auto business, but it's pretty rough crowd. And I mean, I like people hang up on me and lots of people tell me don't call back. But I, you know, that kind of stuff is going to happen. And so if you just get the mindset that like, it's going to happen and there's another dial to make. So just keep going.
It's funny. I met somebody once who asked me if I thought I was a people pleaser. And I was like, I do kind of think I am. And they were like, well, then how do you deal with rejection as a salesperson? And I was like, because there's another person. There's one more person right beside that one. I love that. The next one.
And also one of my tactics for any BDRs out there listening who are doing what Ashley was talking about. I used to take catalogs. I know catalogs are hard to come by. I had a jewelry catalog that sat at my desk. For you millennials, go look up a catalog on Google. Yeah. Seriously, I guess nowadays it would be like just shopping online or something while you're dialing. But it was like to have my brain doing something else so that I'm not focused as much on the negative interaction. I'm just like, hey, is Bob in today? Nope, Bob's not here today. Okay, thanks, talk to you later. You know, whatever it is. And I just flip in there because that made the 50 calls go by faster.
I love that idea because you're well and also we should probably say if people haven't figured it out by now that we are both extreme ADHD folks and we send each other Instagram memes and things that we found about ADHD because yeah, it's real. The struggle is real. Giving your brain another thing to be focusing on if you're real for us.
So that was something I always did. I did it. I also would use that when I would have to have like a really hard conversation. It's the most bizarre thing. I think it's, people kind of think it's weird because they're like, you're not focused on the conversation. And I'm like, no, actually that allows me to focus.
So let me say this to the, to the sales manager who thinks your salesperson is jerking around and not doing what they need to be doing because they have a fidget toy at their desk or they have uh, you know, another website open where they're shopping for car parts or the perfect vacation coloring. Yeah. Oh, I think yes. Coloring or whatever that I, I just, I feel like I just started learning about my ADHD specifically, uh, a little over about a year and a half ago.
And it is it's interesting because it's so different for everybody, but there are a lot of similarities and this whole like somebody is doing something else. It really does help them listen. So when you take that thing away, because that's not the way you would do it, you're taking away something that's actually helping them be more successful. Absolutely. So I think that's really, really interesting.
Let me just say 90 days, that's badass that you kept it going. And then you worked there for 17 years. Do you remember how long it was between the first client at 90 days and when you got the next, yes?
I like another 90 days. Holy crap. Well, because think about what year it is. We're walking into a recession and car dealerships are literally closing their doors on a daily basis. Yeah, that's right. And so I was coming up against some pretty tough economic times and was really just buying my seat one month at a time. Actually, you know what? It may have only been 30 days. I think after the first 90, I had a deal. I had at least one deal every 30 days until I started to pick up pace. OK, maybe I had one month that I missed in there, but it was pretty close.
And when you say pick up pace, what does pick up pace mean for you? What pace did you eventually get on?
Well, so by the time when I was in, when I was full blast, when I was like managing accounts, but, it was, it was full cycle account management, right? So I'm sourcing my own leads. I'm doing all my own discovery and demos, doing all my own closing, doing all my own account management. I had, I had people that helped me with like, processes and things like that. But for the most part, it was me doing client management as well.
And so you didn't have like an internal salesperson who was doing things for you. You were doing all the things.
Yep. I had one, I had an account manager who she would help me like put together the lists and do, and I had a graphic artist. So that kind of stuff. But no like no customer management situation, no like client management to help me. But which was great. I love that. Like I like to have the relationship. And I didn't want to pass that off. That was how I liked to operate.
So when I was going full force, I was about like at the top of my game, $5 million a year in $20,000 direct mail deals. So in my career with Perk, I was right around 49 million in revenue. So that didn't even start though until 2012 is when we started recording the revenue as mine, because before that I was on a team and I was kind of a BDR and kind of a, I did some like operational stuff. So I was part of a team at that point and that it was tied to Steph. So the revenue was tied to at that point. And then when Steph became a manager, I also got the rest of her book of business.
Gotcha. And for those listening, that's Steph Neal, also known as the wife and I believe she is the CEO at Blind Zebra. I call them sales mom and dad. That's pretty accurate. That's pretty accurate. I like that. I love it.
So you were there for 17 years. What did you love? What did you hate?
I loved being an expert in something that was really niche. Like the direct mail that I did in particular and most of the direct mail, but I knew forwards and backwards, whether your stuff was going to work or not. Yes, I was wrong sometimes. But I knew how to make a campaign do what we wanted it to do, which was get people in the door. I loved no, I love being able to like, when I close when I would close a client and know that like, I could take over everything for them and make it so hard for them to leave me. I love being good at that, you know, like, I love being able to, to be so expert level that they didn't need to check in. They knew that what was coming was quality product and that they were gonna be happy with what I did. That's awesome.
I did not love that it felt like a startup forever. Yeah, that can be a grind. It was a startup and then they started a software company with the money we were making. And so the whole vibe always was just very startup. Very bootstrappy. Yeah. I know, I mean, we were funding the startup. And so all the shiny objects, all the fun toys, all the big conferences, they went to that. And I just was, you know, down in the basement cranking off. On your dime. Well, on the dime that you were making.
Yeah. Well, and so at the end, when it came down to the end and I was ready to leave my career there, they asked me to help rebuild that side of the business. And I was like, I just don't have any passion for this anymore, guys. Like the marketing that I was selling was no longer something that I saw that much value in or wanted to be selling anymore. And so I just knew it was time. I was like, I just don't think I have the passion to be able to rebuild.
And that's a really good, that's a really good point that you bring up because, you know, I know that there are people who are going to be listening to this who are like, dude, I just need a job and I'm going to sell whatever I need to sell. But I do believe because what I sell in my business is it's something that I've built and something that I believe in it's easy for me to sell it because I believe in it I've definitely been sold to by people who I know as they're talking to me don't believe in what they're selling me They don't know about what it is if we ask them They're like, you know, you ask him any kinds of questions and they're like, yeah Or you can tell that they're just making shit up and I'm like, you know what? I just rather you wouldn't even give me an answer instead of make it up so I find that that's that that's interesting that that was a turning point for you and a good segue into when it got to that point, you decided to do what?
I decided to leave and start my own sales coaching business. Wow. So that is where we are today. And that sales coaching business, ladies and gentlemen, is called... Sales Spark. Sales Spark. What a perfect match for today.
So tell us a little bit about what you do. Tell us, tell us about why you do it and tell us also, because obviously this is something that you have passion around. Tell us why that passion is there.
Yeah. Well, so it's actually been a really, it's been a year since I got my last paycheck from them. Congratulations. Thank you. And a year since I opened my LLC. And I really have taken the time to let the energy of the universe just bring me some things like what I had in mind, right? That was the thing that was in my brain. I also said yes to things that were different because I had energy towards them and I don't know what I don't know. And so I had a great time doing a seminar about chat GPT for an association of dental business brokers. That was one of the things that I've done.
Okay, I think what you're doing, and I want you to continue, but what you're doing right now is so important because we all, I think many of us think when we leave, whatever the thing is that we've done, we're gonna go do a thing, right? Like I'm sure you thought I'm gonna do sales coaching, right? I thought when I left that I was gonna sell leadership development to HR people. Some, but I have our good friend our sales dad, Brian Neal, to thank when he said to me, why aren't you doing fractional sales leadership? I told him, I'm like, well, I don't know what that means. I probably would if I knew what it meant. So he explained it to me.
I love what you said. And this is one of the greatest pieces that I think people miss. And I'm doing some of this right now. I have some things that are outside my normal scope of business, but I have energy toward it I'm good at it and I enjoy it. So I'm pitching it and I'm looking at it. That's the beauty of that's one of the beauties of being in the place that you and I are both in because you can say yes to things. You can also say no to things. And I will also say I've been in business for seven years. I've probably pivoted. I don't know, no less than seven times, probably more than that, at least once a year. COVID helped that tremendously.
I love that you here's here's what I find that makes people in sales successful. We say yes, if we have the energy, right? We say yes to the thing, and then we go figure out how to do it. Absolutely. So tell me more about this chat GPT thing.
Well, so that was just random. I had a girlfriend of mine as the CMO for Centric Consulting. She actually knows Brian and Steph as well. I met her through Blind Zebra, Raquel. And she and I had lunch and she was like, I've been seeing you all over LinkedIn. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I know. We, she mentioned a girlfriend of hers who's the executive director for this association who needed somebody to come in for, to do a seminar and she wanted it to be on AI or something like that. And I was telling Raquel how I had trained my chat GPT to make playlists for my yoga classes. For those listening, I'm also a yoga instructor.
It's pretty baller. We will talk about the yoga thing in just a minute, but yeah. Okay, good. Because Jason was in my first ever class. I was sweating like a freaking pig. I'm so hot in there. I don't know the last time I've sweated. Is that what we say? The last time I've sweated like that, but it was really good. Yeah. And you're an amazing teacher. Thank you. Thank you. It has gotten so much better. You'll have to come to another class sometime.
Anyway, I taught my chat, taught chat GBT how to make playlists for me because it was taking me a bunch of time. And she was like, oh my gosh, you would be a great fit for this seminar because she wants basic stuff like that. Like she's not talking about like building out huge systems or anything like that. These guys just need basic stuff. Yep. And so I said yes to it. They flew me out to San Diego and put me in this fancy freaking hotel, was a paid gig. I stood there for few hours and blew these guys' minds on things that ChatGPT can do because none of them had ever really played with it very much. Yeah.
And so had I not said yes to that, I would not have four of them as prospective clients right now. They've invited me back to their next association meeting to go deeper dive on some of the things we were talking about. So if I had never, and I have energy around it, you know, it's fun, obviously. And so if I had not said yes to that, then I wouldn't have any of that opportunity.
And I, I love that. And I think I'm going to, I'm going to refer back to my first episode with Brian again. Brian told me, and I know we, you and I have talked about this, you know, Brian told me when I, first got into consulting, he's like, 75 % of the world doesn't know what you know and the other 25 need to be reminded. And what you just talked about is a perfect example. Like we think because we use these tools every day because we do these things every day, doesn't everybody know about that? I've had multiple friends and I've told them, I said, you know, we'll sit down anytime you want and I'll show you what I do and how you could do it. Just posting stuff on LinkedIn. They're like, I don't know any, like I'm on LinkedIn, but I don't really understand it. And I'm like, happy to help you. And I'm not, I wouldn't put myself out in the world as a LinkedIn expert. You probably wouldn't put yourself out into the world as a chat GPT expert, but definitely somebody who knows stuff about things. And guess what? We have energy around sharing it and it helps people. And that's definitely something that we like to do. And I think that's awesome.
Yeah, absolutely. That's the thing is that we don't realize how much we use some things and how smart we are at some of the things that we're using. I mean, so I have created a 90 minute workshop that I made a flyer and I taking it around to park 100 and dropping it off at these small businesses that is it all it basically says, I know you need you know, you to use chat GPT and I know you're afraid to try. Bring me in and I'll teach your team just in 90 minutes, really basic how to use chat to be, because most people are just scared to even give it a shot. They just don't even know how to try.
And so I have had so many friends that I have had coffee with and met with recently who are like, one of them is a senior VP with JLL commercial real estate agent. One of them is the owner of a commercial roofing and painting business. I love it. Know how to use it and are like, please, can you just help me? Yeah. And I'm yes, I will teach you. so because of that, I was like, look, I'm not going to charge my friends to teach them and help them. But if these small businesses need this help with this, I would love to do that.
And what I love about this is that you did you did a. you did a version of direct mail with your flyer. You took like it was direct walking, not direct mailing, but I love it. And that's I'm sure you like, I'm sure you had some conversations in the, you know, in those offices and here's the other thing that I think I just did this this week. I haven't done the dropping off yet. Okay. Here's the thing that I think some salespeople, they'll look at this thing and go, well, everybody else on my team is doing this and they're successful. I guess I need to do that too. There is a part of trusting your gut in sales and doing things differently. Whatever that happens to look like. And if you believe in it and if you've seen that it works and it builds relationship, which I know you and I both believe is at the heart of sales, then why not?
I'm going to send people fidget toys. Yep. Totally. Why not? There are a lot of people with ADHD out there. I love to send Grove cookies to people. Actually, I was on a webinar not long ago and a guy was talking about that he sent Grove cookies to a prospect that he knew was training for a marathon every week and was like, I'm going to keep sending them until you take my call. And of course, the guy took his call that it was hilarious. You know, he was like, that's great. I will totally take your call.
So doing, and I just coached this morning, a team that I was coaching. I was talking about one of the things, one of the things I always say in sales is if you're not getting anything back, change the message or change the channel. Either your messaging isn't right or you're not getting there through the right channel. So you got to switch it up. And also if somebody texts Messages you don't call them. I know that in sales we've been trained to just immediately pick up the phone. But communication in the world right now is such that if someone is going to communicate with you in a certain fashion, you should follow that communication line. Yep. And get back to them that way.
I agree with that. I totally agree with that. Yeah. In fact, one of the things that I will say to people is when you have a prospect, and you have a conversation and you set up your CFD, which we know is a clear future date. When you set up that clear future date, I ask also, what's your preferred method of communication? Would you rather me send you an email? Would you rather that I text you? Would you rather that I call you? Because my 17 year old daughter the other day, when I said, she's like my friend, won't answer my text. And I said, I looked at her and I said, well, just pick up the phone. You should have seen her face. She's like, Pick up the phone. She's like, Dad, that is so rude.
I'm like, I think it's rude to just text people all the time. But you know, again, whatever works. I think that's important. And I love what you said. Like if you're not getting it back, change the, what did you say? Change the channel or change the message. I love that.
All right. So I want to talk just a little bit about how you incorporate. So two things before we get into the rapid fire. How do you incorporate yoga and what you do as a yoga instructor into your sales training, your sales process. What can people take away? What's one little match they can strike from Ashley when they walk away from this? They go, yeah, I'm going to start doing that right now.
So here's the thing. I know that everybody thinks that meditation is this really hard thing that you have to like sit still and be quiet and all that. Guilty. I used to think that. I know. Well, and there is something to be said for doing that type of meditation from time to time. It does not have to be done every time. However, the your mindset is the number one most important part of the sales process. If your mind, that again, say that again, say that again. Your mindset is the most important part of the sales process. So you can follow all the lines of the process, follow all the rules. But if your mindset is trash, then none of it's going to work anyway.
Totally agree with that. One of the things that yoga teaches you and meditation, yoga and meditation teach you is that you don't give a story to the thoughts that come in your head while you're meditating. The thoughts come in, you let them go out, you don't give them any recognition or acknowledgement. You just let them flow in and flow out. So give me an example of that. In meditation or in sales? In sales where I would not give a story to the things that are coming into my head.
Impostor syndrome is the best example that I can think of when you are getting ready to pick up that phone and call a CEO or call a GM of a car dealership. There don't give let the thought flow in and flow out that that person is not willing to talk to you and that you are not qualified enough to speak to that person that you don't know enough to speak to that person. Those are all just thoughts and you can just let them go out just the same as they came in.
That's all I can and can I just say to you that that is as I was preparing to record today, I was like, why am I doing a podcast? Nobody, nobody cares. And this is real real for folks that are listening who think like, oh, Jason's got a podcast and oh, Ashley's like, just because we talk about imposter syndrome and ways to deal with it doesn't mean that we've got it all figured out. I had a major thing today. Like I almost canceled. I almost was like, ah, you know what? I know you got a busy afternoon. We'll just do it at another time.
And here we are having a fantastic conversation that wouldn't have happened if I would have let, know, if I would have to use your words, if I would have put a story to the thoughts that were coming into my head, which I did not do. I love that. And that is, that is what my yoga teaches me is that I can just take a breath and move on to the next thing, move to the next pose, move to the next posture. I can just take a breath and move on to the next thing and let those thoughts go and not give them any attention.
And it has because it's taken me a long time to get there. I mean, I've practiced yoga for almost 15 years and I've practiced it seriously for about five years and been an instructor only for a year. But the last five years of really letting myself sink into the practice has changed the way my brain works completely. I mean, I, that's facts, take a deep breath in a situation and just move on to the next thing. I love that. I love that. So if you are in the indie area and looking for a yoga, a yoga place. Where do you teach?
I teach at the yoga studio and we have a studio in Broad Ripple and we are opening a brand new studio in Carmel that will also have Pilates at both studios and then the new studio is going to have saunas also. All right. So as we wrap it up and bring it home, you are one of the people I watched your follow number last year absolutely blow up on LinkedIn. Absolutely blow up. And if I'm being honest, which I'm going to be, because that's what this podcast is all about, I was a little jelly. I was like, fuck. I wish like, like what, what, what is she doing? Why is it not, you know, there for a minute, I was like, why isn't it? Why is that happening for me?
And then, you know, I press pause and I was like, no, it, you know, it You are doing specific things that I wasn't doing and still don't do as well as you and that's exactly why it's not happening. Not that there's necessarily a formula, but I will say one of the things that I know you're going to talk about is, and you may have a phrase for it, but like hanging out in the comments, which most people don't do. just give us, so.
In the spirit of 75 % of the world doesn't know the things that we know, what are the two or three things that you would recommend to somebody who comes to you and goes, Ash, I'm on LinkedIn. I don't feel like it's working. I'm not getting new connections. I'm not connecting with people. I just, don't get this platform. Give me your two to three best things that I can do.
So the first thing that you're probably doing is being too businessy and stuffy and you need to knock that shit off and just get down to what is real. Every single thing in the world does not have to tie to a business lesson for it to belong on LinkedIn. what you and I both know is that relationships and building trust is how revenue is created. That's how people buy. And if they can see your face and know your stories and understand who you are, they're more likely to buy from you, no matter what your product is.
Totally agree with that. Also, the comments, like you mentioned. Like I said, I've had a LinkedIn profile since 2008. And I did not use it really until about a year and a half ago, two years ago, maybe. It's been about a year and a half now. And you have how many followers currently? Creeping on 12,000.
Do you know where you started in 23 and where you are now? Like how many? Like 1500. So in a year in less than a year and a half, you have increased your following by over 10,000. I hope people are paying attention. No bots, no cheating. No, I mean, I'm in networking groups. But that's not the same thing. We support each other, know, things like that. Right. there's no algorithm chasing. The other thing I would say is don't bother chasing whatever the algorithm thinks it's doing. Show up as yourself. Tell your story. Share your things and let the people who need to find you find you and don't worry about the rest of it because the algorithm is just nonsense.
I love that. And I heard somebody say, don't follow the algorithms because they're like, for all y'all that out there that just think there's one, there are multiple. And to also validate what you said, I will tell you that I think to date, my most watched video was the one where I held the bottle of antidepressants and said, I just got put on these meds. it was a, for those of you who are like, it has to be this long and it has to be this. This was a six and a half minute video, unedited, unscripted. me pissed off about being on antidepressants and being real real. And I literally recorded when I was done, I hit post, I never went back and watched the video again. I remember a couple of the things that I said, but I don't remember a whole lot. that got me more... And it wasn't a business thing. And that's not why I did it. But that got me more DMs, more text messages, more emails from people who were like, dude, thank you so much for putting this out there. I would never have the guts to do this. I've been on meds for blood. I mean, the messages were unreal. I probably got close to 60 messages from all different types of media letting me know. Um, and if you would have said that that's what's going to come of it at the beginning, I would have told you, I was like, no way people aren't going to watch this. It was a six and a half minute video.
Yep. I mean, people want to connect. They want to find things that make them feel validated in themselves in other people. also the thing about not showing up personally on LinkedIn or whatever, so silly, because here's the thing, there are 100,000 coaches out there. And we all have different philosophies, but we're all talking about coaching salespeople. Who do you connect with? Do you connect with me because I'm a stepmom and I'm talking about what being a stepmom is like. And so that's what makes you reach out to me. Is it yoga? Because I'll tell you what right now, I use the search bar on LinkedIn to search yoga all the time, because if anybody has yoga in their profile, then we should probably be friends. so regardless of what industry they're in, I will reach out to them. And because it's a personal thing that I'm like, let's be friends. We like yoga.
I think that's, I think that's so unbelievably important. And the, the, the whole, you know, Be yourself, be who you are. And I think so many of us are afraid. I know for me, my fear in doing that wasn't that... I grew up a pale-faced, redheaded, freckle-faced, big red Afro in the 70s kid that got made fun of all the time. So what did I learn? If I make fun of myself, I can make fun of myself better than anybody can, and then nobody wants to make fun of me.
So I don't care. I don't care if people laugh. I don't care if people say my idea is stupid. I don't care about any of that. My biggest fear was what if I put this thing out there that I care about deeply and nobody responds and the world just goes, meh. And I will tell you that I did it anyway and I've never had that response. And so again, that's just the bullshit stuff that comes in our head that we don't want to give a story to and let it pass and move on to the next thing.
All right, speaking of that, we are going to run through what I call rapid fire. See that little connection to fire. Five questions that we are going to start putting at the end of the podcast every time. So you have a choice of three cold call, cold email or LinkedIn DM. Which one would you bet on right now and why? LinkedIn video DM right now because video DM. Love that. Say more because it always gets watched every time.
I mean, I. And they almost always respond, almost always respond, even if it's just a thumbs up or no, thanks, it's rare. I love that question to what's a book, podcast or resource you think every salesperson should check out? Yoga. Say more about that. Why?
I just think people are sleeping on yoga and that it is so good for your mind and your body and your soul. it will, if more salespeople were using their brain in that way, it would be so helpful for the thoughts. really would. Can you imagine how much nicer it would be for the client? It would be so less high pressure and so more chilled. I love that. And also I love the Challenger sale. That's my other one. The Challenger. The Challenger sale.
Okay, is that a book? It is, it's a book and it talks about sales personalities and not being just best friendy, but also being assertive and like having your client's best interest in mind. Challenging the sale a little bit. Okay, the challenger sale. I love that. What I love about this is I'm going to learn all kinds of shit that I need to go read and look up and listen to and all that. Question number three, what's one sales myth you wish would disappear forever? That high cold calling numbers.
make a salesperson better and good at sales that like high cold calling numbers just means somebody's dialing the phone a lot. You can be better. That's a great point. What's a recent spark of inspiration you got inside or outside of sales that's helpful that's helped you lately?
Hmm. You know, just thinking outside the box and looking around at the buildings that I'm driving past every day and saying to myself, what, what is it? How, why do I not think that these people need the knowledge that I have and how can I help them? And realizing that I don't need to make calls all over the country necessarily. I can walk into businesses right in my backyard, shake hands, introduce myself, and probably get just as much business doing it that way.
I love that. All right, last one. Finish the sentence. The best salespeople I know always blank. Always have another question. Always. That's so good. It does not matter when, if even when you think the conversation might be over, I guarantee they'd have another question to ask if they felt like they needed to. That is fantastic.
All right, Ash. So one last thing as we think about all. So the way that I'm framing this is our, we all have a sales toolkit. Right. We all have lots of different things that are in our sales toolkit. I ask people to think about that as a matchbox of things so you can pull out different matches for different things. If you could only pull one match out of your matchbox and strike it, what would that one match be and why?
My authenticity and my ability to show up as myself all of the time and to not ever let somebody else affect how I show up. because it's how I show up that is going to affect the sale.
Wow. That is a mic drop moment. And for those of you listening, rewind to that, write it down and make it a mantra because that is some good shit right there that's going to help you sell some things and get out of your head. Ashley, it has been an Absolute pleasure getting you on the show today. Thank you so much for joining us We will have lots of links down below for people to check out what Ashley is doing how you can connect with her for yoga for LinkedIn Maybe a chat GPT session, whatever it is that you've gotten out of this Thank you so much and remember everybody who's listening strike the match because fire always wins. Thanks so much.