Ep. 207 INTERVIEW – Brian Brogen

Executing Excellence – 4 Steps:  INTERVIEW with Brian Brogen – host of the Build Your Success Podcast shares his P.L.A.N. method for achieving your potential.  
Voice over:

Get ready for an unfair advantage over your competition. This is The Sales Edge podcast. Where globally recognized sales expert and trainer Joe Pici helps you sharpen your skills for booking more appointments and closing more deals. And now here’s your host Joe Pici.

Joe Pici (JP):

This is Joe Pici of The Sales Edge, and I’ll tell you what, we are so excited. Have you ever wanted to just sit down with an expert? Somebody Who understands both project management, but human behavior. What a combination because sometimes they don’t always mesh. Well today We’ve got that person for you Brian Brogan, but let me just give you an idea of who he is, you know, and and then we’re going to expound on that. You know, right now he is a project manager professional. He’s also a disc trainer and a speaker coach and trainer. We’re going to Come back to that because there’s a whole lot more to him. But first I want to thank you. I want to thank you from the sales age for your loyalty as we’re growing. We want to thank our sponsors Pici and Pici, which is a speaking coaching training consulting firm, and where we’re helping companies recapture lost Revenue clients and momentum. Also sell more virtually.com where every Thursday night. I’m on doing a lot of coaching or training downloads e-courese. Tremendous amount of information. So as we’re welcoming Brian Brogan. Hey, Brian welcome

Brian Brogran (BB):

Hey Joe, it’s so great to be here today.

(JP):

Well, I know how humble you are. And you’re a Powerhouse. So three little terms on Brian Brogan. Just don’t get it. I’d like our audience to get you know, you better, what you’re doing, who you’re doing it for, because I know you work in a couple silos.

(BB):

That’s that’s wonderful Joe. Oh, yeah, so my wife likes to tease me that what am I going to do Next? Said it won’t be sitting around and being still, you know, I tell everyone that I’m looking for a job and I found a very rewarding career in construction and project management. I had no idea how complex running projects was and building the teams that actually do the work. And so when I when I grew into the role that I have today is a vice president a construction company we built some

Great projects man things that we’re excited to put our name on. And I realized it’s not just the labor that goes into this. It’s not just a skilled Craftsman, but it’s also what these people call soft skills as a construction guy. I’d like to call him foundational skills and just being able to speak well to have a conversation to understand others. And as you know, I’ve grown into that and learn that side of the business and became enter through the disk method. Which you’re very familiar with and got to understand that people have different wirings and they’re set up different but they’re but they can all be successful in the in each personality type. And just learn to grow and recognize strengths and others has been something I’ve enjoyed doing.

(JP):

When do you start to embark on that that level of learning about human behavior?

(BB):

So I tell you I started volunteering in high school, with high school students because Brian was not very good in high school. I was struggling student. And so when I realized there was an opportunity to go in and speak to students High School, those are construction. I really realized the different personalities and things and said, hey, I’m helping these young people they’re coming to me. They’re asking me questions outside of this project school project, and I said, I want to learn to develop and grow other people. And so, you know, I took some training and got trained up to do training, coaching, and speaking and I’ve even been to some of your training you know that I’ve been there and learn from you. You’re a great teacher. So about 10 years ago, I guess is when I start on the journey to actually develop and grow people.

(JP):

Okay. So in that same note for I’d like to go a little deeper on something else there. There’s a topic. I know that’s writing your sweet spot. I’m going to read it here and I’d like you to develop it for our team. You talk about developing and executing a plan.

W ould You unfold that for our team?

(BB):

Absolutely Joe. You know, I like this. I think I speak on it. It’s one of my keynote speeches is a plan. It’s executing Excellence developing a plan and I think that too often people plan more for vacation than they do for life, or they do for business, you know, they spend all this time setting up a vacation. They know where their budget in mind. They’ve got places they want to eat. They got things they want to do and they don’t even sit down and do that for life. And they don’t do that. Your goal, you know these things people set these audacious goals, but they don’t set the steps to make them happen. And Excellence is not Perfection. That’s another thing that we got to talk about here is people that they get they get paralyzed by Perfection and and so the acronym plan is purpose, length, action, and negotiate. And so with anything, you know, we heard from Simon Sinek in his book and his speech about why what the Y is what motivates us.

Want doing what we’re doing. So sit down and really think through whether it’s a project, whether it’s a life goal, create a plan, you know could create a have a purpose for what you’re doing. Have the have the end in mind. And then the second acronym is length and I use Length for two things. One thing is a schedule. How long is it going to take me to reach my goal? So a short-term goal can be something you’re going to do in a week. You know reach out to this person you want to speak to you can make that happen very quickly, but a long-term goal can take multiple years to pull off it but you do that in small steps and and what we call and you set those processes out, but you also create what we call Milestones.

In project manager, so when I get to this point, so let’s just say your goal is is to raise $30,000. So when we reach 3,000 you’re at 10% and to all the people give up because they only made 3,000 or raise 3,000 for goal. But they’ve reached that they met that milestone of 3000. Now, they’ve got the momentum to go forward. And so I think you got to celebrate those milestones and what we call check. I’m A Private Pilot and one of the things that we have as a Private Pilot is checkpoints. So if I’m flying from Central, Florida, let’s say up to Atlanta, Georgia along the Route. I’m going to have found things that I can pick out from the sky and for me, that’s big lakes. That’s easy.

Industrial facilities like power plants that I’m familiar with. A river, anything that you can make it really see from the sky. And when I get to those points, I’m checking to see if I’m on time. And I’m on budget and the budget for us is fuel. One of the one of the biggest things that kills general aviation Pilots is no fuel, you know, but if they created a flight plan and where they’re going, they’re not going to run out of fuel because they’re going to pay attention to where they’re at. And let’s just say if I’m in a route from Lakeland, Florida to Atlanta and for some reason I have wound up over in Jacksonville. I’m off course.

And then I realize I missed some of my landmarks now. I’ve got to get back on course and what do we do to get back On course? We change our route and we take action and we end so that’s the next step in this is action. And I think again I said it earlier people get paralyzed by Perfection. You got to get actually got to do something these little imputs take us to our destination. And so the Winds of law blow

off course. And what do we do heading? We correct course and the same thing on our goals and projects when we realize we’re off course, we do some minor inputs that put us back on course. And that’s the negotiation piece in the end. You know, when we come up and we realized when I set out and laid out my plan either I did I didn’t have enough information in on my plan wasn’t accurate or life has happened and something has happened. That is that is pushed me. Hey, let’s talk about a worldwide pandemic.

Did that put some people off of their plan for 2020. But there’s the coach and and I know a master of this his name is G that immediately I recognized in March you started saying recapture lost Revenue it instantly you pivoted and you changed your course because you had goals in mind that you are going to meet regardless of the situation. But I know you got the white Board, you’ve got the plan in place. You’ve got the processes and I believe I don’t know this yet, but maybe you can put now that you have some Milestones. When you meet those targets you said, okay, we’re on track. I think that’s that’s what a lot of people they have the you know, they get encouraged by these great speakers, these motivational pump you up people to have these big audacious goals. I don’t know how to take the small steps to get to those goals.

(JP):

Yeah, that one that’s well said and you know being able to Pivot being able to get back on course so you don’t run out of gas and we’ve seen it. I mean we’ve seen when when covid hit. especially in the industry of speaking coaching and training so many of the Consultants out there. They went right into a give all my stuff away for free because this is not the time to sell and I didn’t believe that was the right course I believed that there were verticals that were still open and ready to invest in their growth. And so we pivoted just like you said and we checked our gas gauge and we said, okay, that’s where we’re going and we went there. So your that’s a great analogy there. And and what’s your favorite book?

(BB):

My favorite book, you know, I have so many books here.

(JP):

Give us your top three reads from the last 15 months.

(BB):

You know, John Max was a great author. He’s got many books leadership 2.0 developing. The leader within 2.0 is a really great book that I’ve enjoyed reading another one that I’ve enjoyed reading and used it for courses students. And that one is a topic that they’re talking about how to prepare yourself for crucial conversations. because guess what you got any big goals in life. You got any big plans in life. You’re going to hit some crucial moments where you’re speaking to someone. And you need to think about how to do that correctly. Crucial Conversations. . But I don’t remember who it’s by tomorrow. So for a third book, good to great. It’s going to be that the one that I really enjoy their that that’s that’s a great book. That’s the kind of a stand by everybody at one.

(JP):

What a phenomenal book that is. I often tell people the number one thing I got out of good to Great was five years from now where you are is dependent more what you say no to than what you say yes to. and I think that’s a challenge for people making that decision.

(BB):

I had a very Lively guest on my podcast recently, she told me that that was called Horse Sense. You have to know what to say nay to.

(JP):

Brian I’m going to Ask your question that I know is near and dear to your heart, talk to me about being mentored or being the mentor.

(BB):

You know, that is as you said, it’s just near and dear to my heart. I have been mentored throughout my life, you know your parents Mentor you at times, but also some great Business Leaders had mentored me. I’ve today I’ve got Mentor Joe you’re one of them. I listened to your podcast Faithfully every it comes out twice a week. I listened to it and I mentored by you you give me a call at once while you can. Hey do this maybe Brian you should be doing this and I listened the other thing about being a mentor is you want people to listen and that’s the payoff. I think when someone gives you something to do and your mentored by them, you should take action and do that thing so that they say okay this person is respecting what I’m telling them to do. If you get back within two or three weeks later, they haven’t done that thing that you’re mentoring them about that it’s not going to have the power that it’s There’s activity going on so that I just really enjoy helping others and growing and developing others. And I think mentorship is something that we could do a lot more of in this country to have a better outcome on society.

(JP):

Okay, we’re going to take that a step further. I so was some of the greatest lessons you’ve learned in your professional and personal growth Journey?

(BB):

Anytime you can you can help others and be a help to others. It’s just a phenomenal way to grow yourself and then have others help you don’t be don’t be so prideful that you can’t have it. That’s a that’s a big mistake.

(JP):

What would you say was the Catalyst the single thing that caused you to decide but to execute your passion of coaching. What was the Catalyst for that move?

(BB):

When you see the lights go off and other human beings and they start to become better as a result of some influence you’ve had with them. It’s just phenomenal.

(JP):

I have always been a big proponent is charged for what you can All tan because you’re doing your client a favor because the act of them sacrificing will cause them to execute have you found that?

(BB):

100% And you know this just so I’ll just reinforce it for those that are listening to this if you spend $1000 with someone in through training through coaching, it can have multiples of tens of thousands in if you take action, you know, too often people go to seminars and go to hoorah speeches and they walk out of there with a folder full of notes and they shove it in a filing cabinet never to be seen again. So it takes it takes some action take some commitment. But if you’ll commit to you know, I tell a lot of people about the get-rich-quick schemes. I’ve been to a couple of seminars about the real estate. Yeah, it’s not get rich quick and that’s the problem with it. But if you followed most of those examples and put those processes in place and did those things you would become successful in in real estate, but people buy a book and buy A two thousand dollar seminar and walk away and they don’t take the steps because they got sold that it was rich quick that they don’t take the time and the effort that it really takes in sacrifices and the pain. You talked about to make it happen because as you said Nothing in life comes easy anything worth doing is this going to be an uphill battle?

(JP):

Yeah, and there’s principles and practices and and a very solid principle is, you know, if you don’t have to give something up to get, in fact last night we were on our SMV coaching. And I said to people that the thing is you have to determine what it is you want. Okay, how you’re going to get there? But what do you willing to give up to get it? And that’s where most people struggle with the giving up? Okay, and that’s why when it comes to entrepreneurship one of the facets of your life is not everybody is wired to be a business owner or an entrepreneur. You know, and there’s nothing wrong with that boot. Takes tremendous self-discipline to Be a business Builder business owner. Please tell us about your upcoming event promote your upcoming event. We’re really excited about it.

(BB(:

Let me first off day that listing is something that Brian’s struggled with early on I’ll just be honest right here, you know, when they when they give you might only give you a super busy position. Typically it’s because you’ve done a good job as a trade person at least in the construction industry and when they first came out I felt like okay, I got to put the Superman cape on. I got to make things happen. I got I’m responsible for this and I’m the responsible kind of guy. And then I found that’s blowing past people’s ideas blowing past things and you know, sometimes I’ll get say I go to a conference and I get an idea. Well, I’ve had an opportunity here that completely out. I have a conversation in my mind about how we’re going to do it how we’re going to act upon it and I go back to the team and say this is what we’re doing and this is why we’re doing it. I haven’t given them the opportunity to Think Through the steps that I through to give it consideration to buy in like we talked about earlier

And so that listening piece is something that I’ve struggled with and you know, they say the best way to learn is to teach and so I have studied this for the last several years now and I feel prepared now to deliver a workshop to teach people how to actively listen how to show trust and develop trust with one another through listening. You know, this is one of the major tools that we can use to hear people out. There’s a Salesforce study that says we’re four point six times more likely to feel empowered to do our best work when we feel heard.

So this is the statistics prove when people are heard they do a better job. And so that’s why we’ve developed this this Workshop. It’s the hear and be heard Workshop. So just think about that that title there. Do you have first we’re going to listen first. We’re going to hear others. Can we show them authentic that we have authentically want to hear from them now, they’ll hear from us when we when we get into their understanding and understand where they’re at. And have some compassion for that then they can start listening to us and then our ideas so the building that trust and understanding we’re going to do this in Lakeland, Florida. So it’s centrally located in Florida. I’ve been telling people from out of state if they want to come. Hey, the beaches are on both coasts. It’s a short drive to get to the beach if you want to go to the beach on Saturday. Yeah, absolutely, but we’re going to have it at a Hampton Inn there and it’s on June 18th, 3/4 day workshop we’re beginning at 8:30. Finishing by 2:30. And just going to have it some really interactive Concepts, some thought process trying to just flip that switch for others. That was flip for me about listening.

(JP):

You know, I will tell you that I believe and Dawn developed this piece and I was the first person she taught it to and so I decided to not only hear it. But to really take it in and start to take it out and use it. Our closing ratios Just because of listening went up 51% I also believe when you can prove to another human being you’re listening. It’s the highest form of validation. You can give them with your children your grandchildren your peers your co-workers your clients. So I’m excited about that event. I know it’s the value and I’m going to I’m going to promote it with you that this will be a great event for you. I’m excited about this Brian. It’s always as we’re wrapping this one up.

Please take out your phone and put the word sales edge in, one word. Send it to five five six. Seven eight. It will be links there to a 5 video ecourse. No fee involved recapture lost Revenue through virtual selling. Aalso information on sell more virtually.com. We also have free downloads ebooks one on LinkedIn one on selling and links to our podcast. If this has been about Value to you can you liked it share write a comment on it. But Brian thank you so much your Powerhouse. We’re getting ready to move you over onto the sell more virtually.com.

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