EPISODE 152 INTERVIEW WITH JAIME ROWE: THE ELEPHANT IN MANY BUSINESS OWNERS’ ROOMS

Transcribed by Otter.ai

Hello, hello, and welcome to this episode of The ready yet podcast, we finally decided to just hit record because we could have gotten all day. But I’m very excited about today’s guest, Jamie row, not just because we figured out, we have amazing people in common, which is always nice. But I absolutely love your topic because to me, it’s the big scary elephant in the corner that stops people from moving forward. And it doesn’t have to be. So I love people helping make those breakthroughs and show people what’s possible, and make it easy for everybody. So before we get all into that, why don’t you tell everybody who you are and what you do.

Jaime Rowe  

Hi, Aaron, I love that you talked about the big elephant in the room? Because you’ve two elephants behind you. Yes, this is it. They fit like you’re just symmetric.

Erin Marcus  

It’s almost like the OCD kicked in. And I totally.

Jaime Rowe  

That’s great. Well, I am Jamie row, I’m from impact income. I’m a mindful sales coach. And sometimes we were like, why would you put mindfulness with the word sales because sales can come across as sleazy. And in the past two we have you know, you look at Hollywood and how they show like for Matilda, was it Danny DeVito. And he’s like the sleazy, you know, fast moving car salesman, and he’s gonna send you so your car is gonna break down a block away, something like that. But I focus more on the ease of sales. And when you bring your authentic self to a conversation, it never feels like selling. Just just having a conversation, which we were just talking about. We focus more on hearts over hustle. No one wants to hustle when it comes down to it at the end of the day, and you really don’t need to. And so I love helping entrepreneurs to get over the fear around sales. I myself really struggled with sales. And I’m happy to talk a little bit about that today, because it was a very difficult journey that no one really needs to go through. And there’s a lot of shortcuts and there’s ways to bring your heart and bring a heart centered perspective in the sales.

Erin Marcus  

I love it. Love it, love it. Love it. I love the reframe. I think that’s one of the number one things I end up doing with my clients is it’s not that the action they’re taking is good or bad. It’s not that the action they’re not taking is good or bad. It all hinges on how our own perception of what everything is, dictates what we’re willing to do.

Jaime Rowe  

Well, exactly about the reframe. And that’s what the majority of you know, any good sales coach is going to reframe that it doesn’t have to be sleazy. And when you think you’re selling someone which I have an air quote, like an old school way of selling it, that’s what you bring to the table. When you bring to the table mindfulness and selling. We’re all human beings and coming from your heart. That is a very different feeling that is a different energy. That’s a different way of how we speak together. And we’re coming as a partnership, to do my product or service to serve you. And if it doesn’t serve you, then here’s someone else that can help you or maybe suggest this. I can’t tell how many times I’ve said, Hey, listen, you’re not ready to work with me. But here, I’ll give you someone to work with first, or, Hey, let’s spend some more time with this certain type of therapy, then I want you to come back to me, or you need help with marketing more than sales right now. So focus on that first or something or another. So I think that’s important, just being honest, and like how would you want to be treated? I think that’s important too.

Erin Marcus  

Absolutely. And I think, you know, like attracts like and when you put your marketing out into the universe, the people who it resonates with come to you. One of the things I find myself saying to my clients over and over and over again, is the number one thing they’re scared of, in terms of sales is exactly like you mentioned being that pushy, sleazy salesperson, when the truth of the matter is, they can’t be that because it’s not who they are as people. So they’re allowing something to stop them. That’s not even a possibility because it isn’t who they are, and because they’re not actually good enough to pull it off. Right. I like that. I told him I told him that because it actually alleviates the concern. Here’s some really good news. You couldn’t do it if you tried. Well,

Jaime Rowe  

That’s hilarious. Second is that I think it’s really beautiful when people start to be concerned. Yeah, that they could be pushy. Because that means that they care. Yes. When you bring caring and kindness to a sales call, that in and of itself, you’re right. They wouldn’t have the capacity to be pushy and to offer something to someone you know, they don’t need, those sticks are gone. And those types of salespeople aren’t going to make it. Because now we have the internet, we can research everything. Now we don’t have to trust the salesman that comes to our door and tells us we have to buy these windows for our house or whatever the case. And that now we can, we can be present to a more mindful way of selling, which is more about relationships and connection to

Erin Marcus  

absolutely, absolutely. And I love how you brought marketing into it for me. It’s just your business as a system, and it all goes together. And when you do marketing Well, sales are so easy.

Jaime Rowe  

It is so when you have your messaging kind of dialed in, and I think a really important part. I talked about a phrase I use to lead with impact. Yeah, so know what your impact is and how you can serve someone. So when I was a pet photographer, I knew deep down when I saw two matching Bulldogs, I was like, You have no idea what I can do for you. That’s what I wanted to say when I was talking to you. I would meet people at dog parks and hand out my business card for dogs that I thought were cute. Sorry, I’m a little discriminating. But I really love all dogs. But there’s some dogs that like the beauty and the shape of a Weimer Rayners body. Yes. You know little chihuahuas with their little triangle years in there. It’s so true.

Erin Marcus  

You’ll love this because I grew up with Great Danes. They were show dogs. And then when in let’s see the late 90s. I had three Dobermans and one three at a time, because that was a great idea. It was like a three ring circus. We came to what my team had a conversation the other day, nobody sets out to have three dogs. A third one always just finds a way to show up like you can set out to have two dogs, but that third dog when that happens in your life, right? That was not planned. So I was one of those Dobermans in particular, as soon as he put on his outside collar. He stood up as a completely different animal like he knew it. And that’s what show dogs were like, they’d be lunatics. But they gotten that ring and certain animals just have that something about right they know

Jaime Rowe  

I especially agree. And yes, the third dogs they just kind of fall slide into the feeling. I had three corgis I was photographing, oh my god. And corgis have very big personalities. I understand why Queen Elizabeth loves them so much. And they know they have the little fluffer. But that cute little fluffer but and so two of the dogs were just playing the multicolored one and one was a fun one. But the main fun one had the beautiful black eyeliner around its eyes and knew it’s fluffy, but and would run away and then turn around and look at me

Erin Marcus  

over the shoulder over the shoulder and Aquaman

Jaime Rowe  

100%. So, dogs know what some dogs are very good at. I don’t, we’re talking about?

Erin Marcus  

Well, so here. But here’s the thing, because it’s all it all relates it all relates.

Erin Marcus  

It’s about putting your best foot forward, right? Well, and knowing what you have to offer, right that John knew what she had to offer.

Jaime Rowe  

And I know when I was a distributor and I was selling CBD, and I specifically focused on, hey, if you have clients who have done this have seizures, that have cancer, tumors, or other ailments, itching those types of things like it can change dog’s life, an owner’s life and I knew that impact. So when I would walk into a pet store and they didn’t have CBD, I was like, I would love to just sit and talk to you about what your clients are coming in with and what they need help with and see if this could help you or not. And it was just it came from a very loving, authentic place to see if I couldn’t serve them. That was fine, too. And that’s how I trained all my sales reps nationwide to

Erin Marcus  

and one of the things I noticed, as I’m listening to you say that is, especially with service based entrepreneurs, when the service is themselves. It’s so much harder for people to break through the blocks when we’re selling a third party’s XYZ, and I come out of corporate sales. And I remember when I was having challenges in my business, way back when I started, I met a woman and I told her I don’t understand why I’m having a little bit of a problem with this. My parting gift was like a million dollar deal in corporate. And she said to me the most brutally horrible truth bomb. How come you could do it for someone else and not for yourself? How come you can sell something for someone else and not yourself? And so I do think I’d love to get your input on when you are the service. Why is it so much harder to get past your blog? than when you’re selling either a third party product or even a third party service?

Jaime Rowe  

That’s a great question. I hear that all the time, especially when I work with women, and they’re selling a service, which is themselves. And what it comes down to, it comes down to really taking a flashlight and shining in on do you feel that you are worthy? And I know that sounds really kind of corny and cheesy, but it comes like an arrow right to the heart like, are you ready to do this or not? Yeah. And so it comes to this existential crisis, if I’m worthy enough in life, not is this product or this service worthy enough that I’m offering, but am I worthy enough. And so it’s a very interesting place, and it only cracks open something that’s already been dormant in there. That’s why I’m a firm believer of that. You can heal through business, because you’re given opportunities that you normally wouldn’t in a corporate environment, absolutely be head on to these difficult things that we may have pushed down like a beach ball into the water as hard as we can. Then we become an entrepreneur, that beach ball

Erin Marcus  

and explodes,

Jaime Rowe  

explodes and you’re like, What do I do with this?

Erin Marcus  

Totally. And we always say, your people talk about this all the time. And I absolutely agree that the entrepreneur journey is the biggest self development journey you could ever go on

Jaime Rowe  

100% it shines it again, it takes that flashlight to shine on anything, any cracks in the system, think of a whole water system underneath the ground, if there’s any cracks. You know, if we work really hard in this area, it’s going to be a crack in this area, like sales and ops. And so it’s going to shine a light on and give you an opportunity to really get to know yourself better, right to lean into those things where maybe, that it’s your opportunity to really shine. And so I know when I originally owned six businesses, I bought and sold the business. I took one business from zero to a million in about 26 months. I’ve had great failures, great successes too. But one of my biggest pieces and some of those failures in those first businesses is I did not feel worthy enough to sell my photography. I was doing sales consulting. I never sold, I just had conversations with people and coffees and I just thought this would eventually lead to business. No intention. No direction. No focus. Hey, guess what? You get a lot of coffee. Super doesn’t work.

Erin Marcus  

Great. Everybody loves you. loved me. Nobody has any money.

Jaime Rowe  

Yeah, right. Bingo. And so I was spinning my wheels forever. And I’m like this you know what, I’m a smart person. I can figure this out. And it went through a whole therapy coaching speaking courses, speaking coaches, sales coaches, emotional intelligence, books, podcasts, you name it, of me going through like I can figure this out. And I found my own way and one of the big pieces was bringing my feminine the masculine . We all know it. You and I were both talking about this like when you’re a corporate and your business like I knew my smart goals, my KPIs, I hit everything. I was top five everything like whatever the case like

Erin Marcus  

would the answer always get more intense. Yeah. Right.

Jaime Rowe  

And even if you burn out, keep pushing through, crush it, kill it. That’s all I heard. Crush it and kill it. Just push through that pain.

Erin Marcus  

Sorry, I was with a client and love that you say this because I was with a client yesterday. And you’ll probably relate to this with a photography background. And we were talking about language and language is important. And she’s a photographer, and she hates how violent photography never occurred to me. We do a photoshoot, it’s a headshot. I’m going to capture your image. She’s like I don’t have a net. And I never realized how aggressive I was. Yeah, I’m gonna shoot your dog.

Jaime Rowe  

Tell her it please come up with new words and let me know because

Erin Marcus  

her geography phrase. She’s an amazing creative, I will connect you totally like, we are like, Oh my gosh, when you really put them all together like that you then you can see the trend. Yes, of how aggressive the languages

Jaime Rowe  

and sales is very aggressive to crush your sales goal.

Erin Marcus  

That’s the one that always got me.

Jaime Rowe  

Yeah, well, what’s the hit list? Oh my gosh,

Erin Marcus  

back in the day, right. What’s my hit list? What’s my target list? Like I wouldn’t want to know that I was on someone’s hit list of who they wanted to. Close, right. No one wants to

Jaime Rowe  

always being closed. The ABCs of closing put that coffee down in that movie Glengarry Ross. So interesting. And I think when I released that sandbox of how to do sales, yeah, because sandbox is now aren’t designed that type of sandbox really isn’t designed, it doesn’t even serve the people who are in it, the burnout in sales, the turnover, and like it doesn’t even serve them. And so I just created a different sales bot or sandbox, not a sales box, a different thing. didn’t have that too. And I brought more of the feminine like before I went on this call right here, I did a quick little meditation just to drop in and make sure I was really grounded. You can call it prayer, whatever you want to call it, and just sit in the space so that I can be mindful in this conversation. So I can be present. So I can be authentic. And I can be my real self. And doing small things that bring pleasure and joy into a sales call. Having a piece of chocolate after you do a really good job on a sales call, that’s a reward, how to set up for boards. I mean, really, having heard about that, really having opportunities to have some fun with this, we’re so serious about sales, sometimes so serious that it takes away from the joy of the conversation with

Erin Marcus  

the conversation and the connection. And I think for me what I learned, it’s really interesting to hear what you have created as your rituals. I did mine a little differently. But now as you’re talking, I can hear what the alignment is. My whole thing is to focus on the other person. Right, like, and I tell the story because it happened by accident, the way I got much better at sales once it was for me. Speaking of dogs, I talked to my dogs and the cat like full conversations. They talk back, some people understand it, some people don’t. And I was leaving one day, I had a full schedule of consultations in a business I owned at the time where those consultations were in people’s homes. And when I went to leave, I looked at the dog and I said don’t worry, I’ll be back. I have to go help some people today.

Erin Marcus  

I don’t know why it came out of my mouth that way. changed everything.

Erin Marcus  

changed everything. Because now when I go into these conversations, what I go through mentally is how excited I am to talk to that person, how curious I am to find out about them and what they’re doing. It has nothing to do with the outcome of the conversation. Except I know I can help them in some way.

Jaime Rowe  

Yes, and selling is serving. And sometimes I use an analogy that helps people by selling it’s kind of like offering a suggestion. So if you were coming into town, Aaron, and you’re like, hey, I want to go out to a great restaurant and like, okay, define great for me and I start asking questions. I get curious. I’m like, Okay, do you like seafood? And you’re like, No, don’t don’t eat seafood in Denver, by the way, just eat

Erin Marcus  

your way or the sea. God see

Jaime Rowe  

is the best place for seafood. Kind of Denver. And they’re like, oh, I want to have shrimp. And I’m like, You’re in the wrong place.

Erin Marcus  

Wait, all

Jaime Rowe  

right. And so I’ve asked you what type of food you like, do you want it downtown? Do you want easy parking? Do you have any allergies? Like I’d start keeping curious because I really want to make a good recommendation that you have a wonderful evening. So asking all these questions and okay, I would suggest X, Y and Z. It’s downtown. They have free parking. It’s a really beautiful X, Y and Z type of food that you say you would like. And then it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside because I know you’re gonna have a great evening. And then you feel good about it because I asked questions. And I also asked what you wanted, which is very important. Know what you want. Ask what you want. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. And then and then you have a beautiful dinner

Erin Marcus  

like that, where and it doesn’t have to be harder than that. So true. The things that I’ve

Jaime Rowe  

heard, are we this is what I would ask people this is what story it is to my clients. What story are you telling to yourself?

Jaime Rowe  

About sales? Right? Is it really really hard

Jaime Rowe  

to sell? Is it Do you sales, sleazy? Like I would almost do like a stream of consciousness journaling, just like what does sales mean to me? What stories am I telling about myself and just brain dump? Because we want to bring that unconscious feeling to the conscious, so then we can decide what we’re going to do with them. And so I think that there’s see if you if someone was in corporate, I mean, yes, they could handle this, but Right. Because listen, when it comes down to an entrepreneur, you are the cook, you’re the sheriff, you’re the front desk, you’re doing the laundry, like you’re doing everything in a household. So you’ve got to make it work and put food on the table. So guess what? You need to figure this out.

Erin Marcus  

You have to figure this out. This is such the key to everything because I come from a place of business strategy and marketing is where I really start with people. But we did a lot of stuff for training. Because if I can get you past your fear of being visible, it won’t matter. If you can’t close a sale. Yeah, if you cannot turn your community into clients, it won’t matter. That’s where we go from being a

Jaime Rowe  

professional friend, to being a business owner. Yeah, that’s so true. And I think too, it is about practice. It’s about thoughtful practice. And I hate to say it’s a numbers game. But I mean, the more people you talk to, the more practice you get, the more natural your conversation is.

Erin Marcus  

You don’t have to say the numbers game as if you’re reducing someone to a number. If you just look at any book about professional athletes, how many times do you have to do something until you get good at it?

Jaime Rowe  

Yeah, I mean, Malcolm Gladwell is the 10,000 hours to be a master. We don’t need to be masters. Just kind of, but not at all. Yeah, but try and have some fun with it. I mean, I like to say I tell my clients, if you have someone coming in, you’ve never met them, they came with your website is a leak, do a little research on them. Light stalking,

Erin Marcus  

stalking, like very light, very, very light stalking

Jaime Rowe  

an eye because to me, excuse me. Human beings are so fascinating to me.

Erin Marcus  

I agree. I really love people.

Jaime Rowe  

I mean, I think they’re so interesting. So when I start to look at their LinkedIn, their Facebook, their Instagram, just search their name on the web, I see their face and I start to connect with them and wonder what they’re like and wonder what they were like as kids, and what they’re really looking for, and where’s their pain? And am I able to help them and I start building this relationship before I even had a conversation with them. And I get really curious, and the conversation is so much fun. And I asked a really silly question in every sales call. And not everyone, I would say 90% of people start to laugh, and then they give me an answer. And I can even share it. Here is the question for you.

Erin Marcus  

Awesome. Let’s hear I

Jaime Rowe  

I want to know, let’s hear it. So, before preface here is Are you familiar with disc profiles? Oh, yeah. Okay, so this is related to disc, I want to know what their disc is. But I want to hear it from them. So I asked a mentor to share this to me probably 25 years ago, I asked him the question. I said, Listen, when you ask you a question, just let me know the first thing that comes into your mind. And Aaron, I want you to answer as if we’re on a sales call. Okay, awesome. So Aaron, I’m curious if I gave you an elephant?

What would you do with it? Feed it.

Jaime Rowe  

Great. So that tells me a lot about you. That tells me is that your quick decision maker? You answered like that. Some people sit and spin out and it’s silent. I’m just

Erin Marcus  

almost D off the charts.

Jaime Rowe  

But your answer was very s, you said feed it. The D was a quick response. And then the s was fed it which is very nurturing. And yeah,

Erin Marcus  

my disk is way, way high D goal driven almost as high interpersonal, which is what keeps me from being a jerk. But by the way, under stress that goes away. Just FYI. My steadiness goal is I’m like a 40. I think it’s a female. Enough, right? And then you’ll love this for consistency: what’s the C stand for? I forget, I call it the interest conscientious I call it processes out of 100 Possible Points. Seven. And I will tell you, I wrote telling you, they are all for accounting after over a decade in a public financial services business. All my process I follow is accounting.

Jaime Rowe  

I love that so much. That’s great. Yeah. And I think too once you get to know the system, you can change every six months, but your core doesn’t. And you probably took

Erin Marcus  

Yeah, and I laugh because the other thing that gets influenced by you is I said feed it because the Tick Tock algorithm knows I’m only interested in baby goats, many cows and elephant sanctuaries. So when I take my Tiktok break, I am inundated with baby elephants and you ask before we start about the elephants behind me. My life you know this is one of the things I teach us. How do we put what’s important to you front and center for you? You don’t have to wait to get involved in it. So one of my life goals is donate a million dollars to wildlife rescue. I volunteered at a wildlife rescue. I’m launching a foundation this year. It’s not completely altruistic. I figure if I show up with a big check, they will let me play with the baby elephant.

Jaime Rowe  

That’s your goal. That’s the goal.

Erin Marcus  

So the elephant is my reminder of my big why. And my little mantra is, we have to be able to feed the baby elephants.

Jaime Rowe  

Well, I think that’s an important point. A funny, yes, another and I’m a tic tac bird person, listening to birds talk. I love

Erin Marcus  

lots of birds and wildlife photography. And

Jaime Rowe  

Yes, I love birds. That’s all I watch with a tick tock smile. Now everyone knows everything. But I think it’s important to know why you’re doing this. So when it comes down at the end of the day, understand your impact. But also, what’s bigger? Why are you selling the service? Is it so you can have a vacation for your family? Is it to pay for your bills? Also, why are you doing this service? If you’re helping someone, for one of the reasons, my big reason is that I would love to play with baby elephants. That makes me reevaluate a little bit here. But maybe you

Erin Marcus  

should rethink why you’re doing what we could do. There’s a lot in common here we would have fun.

Jaime Rowe  

Well, if you look at the number of women that are in Running Companies, starting companies that are over a million, it’s less than 2% of all the companies in the US. Okay. So my goal is to increase that number. So how can we spend more time with women, not just hitting the million? Listen, your revenue number is vanity, your profit is sanity? Yes, yes. And so I think it’s important to not only have the revenue of a million, but also profitability there. And so that’s what I teach with the sales piece to get people because I only work with people that I believe in what they’re doing. And they’re really good at what they do. It’s just the selling part. It’s a learned skill. Everyone can learn how to authentically and be mindful of selling. Absolutely. It’s a learned skill. It’s not whether I’m good at sales or not, such a story people tell themselves. But yeah,

Erin Marcus  

but sales is one of the big differentiators between what you get to have and what you don’t get to have.

Jaime Rowe  

Yes. And it is an indication of what you feel like you deserve. I had a mentor tell me that a long time ago that hit home kind of like you said, like, oh, right here, right? She said, You know, it’s a reflection of what you feel like you deserve. And I’m like,

Erin Marcus  

ouch. Right. It’s

Jaime Rowe  

those brutal truths. Absolute. Yeah, it’s a moment to just sit and reflect on that. I mean, I think reflection is important sales to, I mean, any to I just came from a three day silent retreat. And I’d like to do more of them. And I think that it’s an opportunity, if anyone has a chance to do it. It’s not easy. It is difficult to sit in silence with 40 other people. But it is, it’s a game changer, especially when it comes to sales. Because you’re really getting to know yourself, the more you know, you sell yourself, the more you’re open to learning about others, and reflecting what’s important for them, because you know what’s important to you, and that you can even serve them in a greater capacity. So step one here is learn to know yourself.

Erin Marcus  

Who are you? Absolutely. And I teach that with sales. Because if you don’t know yourself, going back to our conversation about disc, I know my tendencies and my defaults. So I’m able to say, Okay, I have to pay special attention to how someone else is presenting so that I can meet them where they are. Because sales is about them communicating the way they need in order to better understand other things. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Sales is of service. And if it’s of service, and it’s not about me, it’s about where are they? What do they need? How do they need to hear it in order to absorb it?

Jaime Rowe  

Yes, meet them where they are happy to where they are? And not all, you know, you know, people come to me that are, I would say, not an advanced intermediate. But there’s some people where we’re starting from the basics, which is super fun to those foundational pieces, where it’s almost like you’re kind of starting over with them and you’re growing with them and playing with them and that kind of new sandbox. So yeah, it’s, I love it. I love what I do. So if people

Erin Marcus  

I want to learn more and connect with you, and your approach to sales, which I absolutely love. What is the best way for them to reach out and get a hold of you? Yep, so

Jaime Rowe  

The best way to reach out is to go to impact to income program.com That’s a long URL, I know that so that’s gonna be in the show notes. And then also impact income on Instagram. I’m also on LinkedIn, Jamie Roe, r o w e you can find You there. We even do a LinkedIn newsletter which is quite funny. So please join in and have some fun with us.

Erin Marcus  

Awesome, so great. Getting your approach talking about dogs, birds, tiktox disk, all my favorite things. So this was awesome. Thank you. Thank you for your time today.

Jaime Rowe  

No, thank you. I appreciate you and I appreciate everyone listening today. Thank you