In episode 87 of The Kitchen Table, Ken Baden interviews Kelly Shaw, a number one Amazon bestselling author and entrepreneur, as he shares valuable insights on how to make sales fun, the significance of internalizing your sales techniques, and the power of storytelling in connecting with clients.
Tune in for valuable tips and inspiration from a true sales expert!
TIMESTAMPS
[00:03:25] Selling as service.
[00:03:47] Serving first in sales success.
[00:10:00] Importance of sales scripts.
[00:12:52] The importance of asking why.
[00:17:31] Importance of asking "why."
[00:20:33] Dreams and aspirations in sales.
[00:22:26] The importance of great performances.
[00:27:07] Self-evaluation in sales presentations.
[00:30:09] Selling through emotion and fun.
[00:33:48] Gamifying sales techniques.
[00:39:36] Life designed through sales skills.
[00:41:11] Business idea and Tony Robbins.
[00:45:12] New book and sales insights.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Ken Baden
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialkenbaden/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialkenbaden
Kelly Shaw
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyshawcalif/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kelly.shaw.3158/
WEBSITES:
The Kitchen Table Podcast: https://thekitchentablepodcast.net/
Blue Collar Ballers Union: https://bluecollarballersunion.com/
___________________________________________________________________
BOOK IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON!
The Greatest Sale Ever Made: https://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Sale-Ever-Made/dp/B0D8JS8926
Welcome to the kitchen table, a podcast about where business is done. So pull up a chair and join your host, Ken Baden.
All right. Welcome back to another episode of the kitchen table podcast. I am Ken Baden and I am with Mr. Kelly Shaw. Number one. So your book actually is a Amazon bestseller, right? I was going to say number one bestseller. It's true, right?
Ken Baden
It is true. It is amazing. And Amazon number one bestseller.
Kelly Shaw
It's the greatest sale ever made, right?
SPEAKER_00
Yeah. Number one Amazon bestseller straight from Amazon.
So I said that quite literally correct. I thought it was a mouthful and I said something funny, but no, that's amazing, man. It's a huge accomplishment. So Mr. Shaw coming to us all the way from Arizona, number one bestselling author. Again, the book is the greatest sale ever made. He is also an entrepreneur. His company is Kingdom Sales Academy. So we've got an accomplished sales trainer. And those of you who are active and avid listeners to the show should know that this is something that's going to be, this is going to be a really fun episode for me because I love Sales, recruiting, all things sales, building sales teams. I have a consulting company myself. I even have a coaching company that I haven't done a whole lot with as of recent called Blue Collar Ballers, where we kind of focus on the blue collar, obviously. Businesses, not just sales, but the entrepreneur plight. But I think the sales is where everything starts. So that's amazing. How did, I mean, before we even get to the greatest sale ever made, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd imagine that Kingdom Sales Academy perhaps led to the writing of the book or which came first?
The book actually came first. It got bogged down. I wrote it under a different name and I went to a a mastermind group, and they hated the title of my book. And they came up with the name, The Greatest Sale Ever Made, because we were kind of walking through. And then they were saying, well, when are you going to publish this book? And I go, well, maybe. They go, no, no, stop. Pick a date right now. And I go, and I picked a date. And they said, OK, you got a month to write this book. Get it done. So I had like 25 people like hounding me every day. How are you doing on your book? How are you doing on your book? The book started many years ago, and it's kind of like morphed quite a bit since then. And then I said, you know what, I just got to put this out. And this is the basics. And there's going to be a new book coming out in December, which will be the greatest sale ever made 2.0. And it'll have a lot more content and a lot more stuff. But this is a good couple of hour read that gives you everything you need as a salesperson entrepreneur, business owner, sales manager, to take your sales to a new level. And that's really what it's all about. For me, selling is fun. I just realized I've been doing it now 49 years. Next year will be my 50th year. And I'm more excited today than I was 50 years ago. And I was pretty damn excited 50 years ago.
What do you attribute that to, if you don't want me to ask him? That's the longevity only we could hope to achieve.
Yeah, you know, it's I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I learned many years ago, selling isn't something you do to somebody. It's something you do for somebody. And I was trained under the old salesmasters. They didn't talk about closing techniques or any sleight of hand or any any of that crap. You know, they talked about serving first. But all the old great sales trainers, OG Mandino, You name it, Dale Carney, they're all Christians. They use Christian beliefs, which is serve first, reap the reward later. If it's the right thing to do, make it easy, make it fun. That's my philosophy. If it's the wrong thing to do, let them go down the road, send them in the right direction, point them in the right direction, and tell them you're not a good fit, but maybe this place is and go there. I think at the end of the day, if you do that, you'll get 10 times more out of it than if you just focus on closing deals and making money.
You said that, you mentioned Dale Carnegie, I mean, a lot of powerhouses just now. And it's funny, I had Scott Hogle on the show recently, and I don't know if he rings a bell or not, he's the president of iHeartRadio and also a number one selling best offer author of the book, Persuade, it's a sales book, but the connecting theme there is theology, as he would say, but Christianity, his tying down. tying God into, bringing God into a place that I was saying in that interview, like, you know, this is so refreshing in that I'm trying not to Bible thump anybody, but listen, I consider myself also like that's a big part of who I am. It's a big part of my background. I would certainly say perhaps more spiritual than religious, but just the same, bringing that into every facet of your life. And you don't often see it, at least I don't, in like selling or making money or the pursuit of making money or business success. It's almost like, but I really loved what he said there. And I love that you just tied that in like, hey, they're all all of those guys that are hyper successful, they're all Christians. I mean, they're not saying you can't make money, you can't have success, but at the heart, if I'm hearing you correctly, it can't be just X's and O's and making money and just, but helping people is what I would say ultimately, like, what would you say to that?
Yeah, I would say you're spot on, Ken. I mean, look, one thing I learned many years ago is I have to serve first. If I serve first, and I'm not worried about the money, I just want to do the right thing for the client and do it to the best of my ability, eventually, I'll reap the rewards. You don't always know what those are when they're coming. It's kind of like having faith, right? It's kind of like tithing to the church. You just got to have faith. There's an old George Michael song, I think. Yeah, it is.
It's an old George Michael song.
I was fortunate, you know, when I came out of the Marine Corps in 1972, towards the end of 73, 74. And I went to work for my stepfather building homes, which was, I love that. Hopefully most of them are still standing. I'm afraid to go back and look. But I realized, and I don't know what it was. I wanted to get into sales. Now I had no ability at sales. I had, when I went in, my senior year of high school, I was four foot 11, weighed a buck seven. I wrestled 101 and 112. I had to really guzzle Hershey's syrup just to get to 112 to try to wrestle. I had no self-confidence, but something said I needed to get the sales. It must have been God, though at that time, I probably wasn't listening. Like most people don't listen to God, their intuition. But I actually filled out my resume. It was the day when you actually put it on a piece of paper and you dropped it off at all the places. Nobody called me back. One day, I finally got a phone call. Oh, wow, maybe I'm going to get a job. This lady says, she interviews me and she goes, there's no way you're ever going to make it in sales. You are the worst. She just rigged me over the coals from top to bottom. I felt like she was just pushing me to the end of the gangplank and pushed me off into the ocean to drown. She threw me a life preserver. She goes, But something tells me that you might be able to develop some skills. So here's what I'm going to give you. I'm going to give you homework. And she wrote on a piece of paper, go take this course. And when you graduate, come back and see me. I will not hire you because you don't wear the clothes that I sell. And the only way you work for me is if A, you're a great salesperson, and two, you're wearing my clothes. But I do know somebody who would hire you. and I'll put in a good word and get you a job." And that note said, Dale Carnegie Sales Training School, which by the way, if you was signed up for the sales training, you had to take the public speaking course, which was, oh my God, no, send me back in the Marine Corps. I'd rather go to Vietnam than fricking do a public speaking course. But I did it. I kind of went through it. I ended up top of my class. And then I actually went back to her. She called her friend and her friend gave me a job who was my first mentor in sales. And that was 50 years ago. So I learned And I think it's something I picked up from the Marine Corps. I have to practice, drill, and rehearse. I had to take the sales scripts, or the sales, we'll call them techniques at that time, and I had to internalize them. I had to make them mine so they came out with no effort. I didn't have to think. And I look at a lot of salespeople today. and they haven't internalized it. They don't really have a script. People tell me, oh, you know, I don't really like scripts. I like just free flowing. I go, well, how's that working for you so far? Like, what's your income? What does your bank account look like? How many days a week, how many hours a day are you freaking working? And I say, look, we all have scripts, dude. Like you're born in Alabama, you got a script that sounds a whole lot different than my script. You're born in Texas, that script sounds a little different. Yet, you're born in Wisconsin, But we all have scripts. Y'all sales scripts are worth 50 to 100 grand a year. I know people that make $150,000 a month. I got friends that make almost a million dollars a month because their scripts are spot on. But when they deliver their, quote, pitch, it doesn't sound like a script. It sounds like they're genuinely concerned. They know how to use tonality. They know how to sound like. And it's not like they have to sound like they care. They truly care. And a friend of mine, a couple years ago, said, Kelly, you got to quit being selfish, man. You're depriving the world of some really cool stuff. And I go, I'm not selfish, man. What are you talking about? He goes, yeah, you are. You're not throwing yourself out there. You're not throwing your talents out there. You're not helping salespeople anymore like you used to. You're just sitting there resting on your laurels, making money, you know, doing your thing. And you could be changing thousands of lives every day if you share your damn knowledge, but you're just lazy and you're like selfish. I wanted to punch him, but I said, you know, damn it, you're right. Um,
Is that where the book came from, ultimately? Or the idea for the book?
Yeah. The idea for the book was you got to make the number one most important thing, the thing I think made me really successful. I've never hit seven figures in a year, but believe me, I've come off damn close, like four years in a row. is that I made the sale to myself first. Number one, about me and knowing that I, as a salesperson and as a caring, loving human being, am probably better to help take care of your needs, wants, and desires than anybody else out there. The services that I provide, I bought. Everything I've sold from financial services to cars or boats, I bought them. Didn't know how to run a boat, but I bought the doggone thing because I can say I have one. And I made that sale, and I knew I wanted to be and I was trained to be the most knowledgeable person in my business in what I sell. And I also know the competition better than most of my competitors know their own damn product. And with that, I can get into a situation and I know my product and I know the sales skills so well. I don't have to think about it. I can sit there, watch somebody. I can come up with an answer, make it sound like I'm thinking about the answer. I can ask questions a lot. I'm a very question-based salesperson. I think that's the secret. We've all been told a salesperson should listen twice as much as they talk. What they haven't been told is that when they talk, they should only be asking questions. And if they ask the right questions, And I was on a panel a couple of years ago, and somebody said, is there a magic word in sales? And I go, yeah, there kind of is. And I said, the word is why. Like, why right now, Ken? Why did you think about going on this weight loss journey now? Tell me more about your previous journey. Oh, really? How did that work out for you? What do you think that didn't work out? Why do you think it might work out now? And like, I love the word why, because you can use that so many times. And like, you know, can you, you said this, do me a favor, can you help me out a little bit and share with me like, exactly what you meant by that? Give you an example. I learned years ago, I think I'm a really great communicator. My wife would probably disagree with that.
I would probably disagree with you as well, but she always, in fact, points that out whenever we, uh, the fact that I don't, as men, sometimes we might bottle things up, or at least I don't know if you're anything like me. She's like, don't you literally like get paid to communicate and you have a communications degree and an NLP certification and blah, blah, blah. And she's like, and you don't communicate it. How am I? That's like emotions. I don't, you know what I mean? Like I can do it in the business, but like, it's different. So anyhow, I didn't mean to go on a tangent, but please continue.
No, it's like words are really, really, really important. When I was a financial advisor and I was gathering huge amounts of assets, I always would interview somebody with my assistant in the room, right? And we would do a debrief after the client left and said, well, you know, the client said this, and I took it to mean this. My assistant might say, oh, wait a minute, I took that a different way. And I go, really, which way did you take it? She would say, well, I think they meant this, right? And I wanted a woman's perspective here. So it was always a female. And I'd call the client. Now, the cool thing about that is you call the client to verify something they said, they know you actually listened. And I say, Hey, listen, john, you said this. Now, I took that to mean this. But Jennifer took it to mean that which one of those is right. And by the way, I quit asking that question after about three calls, because I found out a third of the time I was right. A third of the time Jennifer was right. But you know what I found out a third of the time we were both wrong. Huh? And it was like, oh, so then I changed the question to, you know, I took it this way, she took it that way. What way did you really mean it? So I had clarity. And it's fascinating. You can't get that deep if you don't ask the right questions. And many times I just say, Hold on a second, Ken. You're on page 27, I'm still back here on nine, thinking about the statement you said a minute ago, and people appreciate that, right? Say, can you clarify, when you said that statement about it being really expensive, what does that actually feel and sound like to you? What does that mean? Well, they're gonna tell you, but if you were to just take their face value, right? Or like, yeah, I just want to pay less taxes. Okay, well, what does that really mean? Less taxes, it's vague. We know that everybody wants to pay less taxes. When you say, what are you talking about? Well, I talked to a guy the other day, he said, I paid $400,000 in taxes last year. I want to do a Roth conversion. I go, really? How much? Three and a half million. Okay, how are you going to pay the taxes? Well, I got a couple of million sitting in the bank. I go, okay. It may make sense, and I go, let me ask you this. Why now? Why are you thinking about doing that now? Why not five, 10 years ago when you could amortize that tax over multiple years? He goes, well, I'm in a really high tax bracket. I'm never going to go lower than this. I pay at least $400,000 a year. I know no matter who wins the election, we're kicking the can down the road and the tax rate is going to go higher, especially if you're a high income. Now, again, if I didn't ask that question, like, okay, so why now? And I say, so if you don't do it now, and you kick the can down the road, what's that gonna mean to you down the road? He goes, well, that might go to 7 million, then I gotta pay tax on 7 million, where if I do it now, I might have 7 million, but it's all tax-free. And so, again, If there's one word I would say most people should put in their sales vocabulary, that's the word why.
And that right there, by the way, is a million dollar freaking value grab from him. A big part of our show is. We want to make sure we provide value to our listener, and you just went on a freaking I hope. That they're taking notes, I'm literally, by the way. taking notes, because this is great, man. I teach a lot of this stuff, and I think I told you before the show, this is something that I hope In my sales career, it's something I intend to explore once I'm not actively running a company I can focus on. I love sales. Same thing. I love NLP. I got into it. Why do people make the decisions that they make? How tone, rate of speech, and emotion can dictate the outcome of a sale, and base principles of mirroring, and base principles of understanding how information is even absorbed. And it sounds like you're a big student of that game. tell me a little bit about the greatest sale ever made. So it sounds like just hearing your story that you surround yourself with winners like most people do and these masterminds and these high level folks that know you're this amazing salesperson that's a student of the game. And then they guilted you in to like, hey man, you gotta share this knowledge, dude. You're in your twilight years of selling, just kicking the can down the road, killing it, but you're not sharing the knowledge, which, I'm on one of my podcasts with another friend of mine, he talks about people don't do that anymore. They don't share the knowledge. They go to the grave with that knowledge and they don't share it.
Yeah, that I tell you, you know, I gave a keynote speech. I ended my keynote speech talking about the the richest place on earth. And I asked a question, I go, you guys know where the richest place on earth is? I go, you know, it's not the gold line streets of New York City, or LA. It's not the oil wells of the Middle East, or the diamond mines and the gold mines in South Africa. The richest places on earth are damn cemeteries, dude. It's like there's so many number one best-selling hits that never got recorded. There's so many billion dollar ideas for a business that never got started. There's best-selling books that could have changed the world, but they never got written because they were afraid or they had imposter syndrome. And I ended that with a mic drop just saying, I don't care if you remember my name, I don't care if you remember me, I just want you to remember Don't take your dreams, your goals, your aspirations to your grave, because nobody on the deathbed has ever said, please bring me my trophies or all the money I have in the bank so I can hold it before I die. They all say, you know, I wish I could have done this that I dreamed about, or I wish I could have spent more time with my family and my loved ones. They never want their trophies, their plaques, their awards, and they don't give a rat's poop about money at that point in time. They just wish they could have been a better father, a better husband, and a better partner.
So if you're in sales, and if you're listening to this podcast, there's a good chance you are or you're an entrepreneur. Tell us why. What can we expect to get out of the greatest sale ever made? I mean, we've already gotten a lot of great value nuggets from you just I could tell, by the way, Kingdom Sales Academy, I can tell that's your deal. And I love it, by the way. But the greatest sale ever made. Take us a little through, so we got a little taste of why, why you were inspired to do it. So take us through what we could expect to benefit from that book.
Yeah, there are plenty of stories. And I think if you understand the stories like the parables in the Bible, right, if you really understand them, you really get to the meat. Probably the greatest storyteller ever made, to me, is Jesus Christ. But, you know, I tell a story about—and Ken, you've heard this saying before, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Yes. Make it drink. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah.
So, an old mentor of mine said, only an idiot would take a horse to a watering hole and try to make it drink if it ain't freaking thirsty. You want to get them, you want to get them thirsty. So you know what you do, you get on the back, you're riding around the track till they're frothing at the mouth, they got that little bit of kind of spittle there, you know, and they're breathing a little heavy. Now you take them by the watering hole, you cannot hold them back. That's called getting your clients frothing at the mouth. That's what we as salespeople, again, need to get on our clients back. be able to understand where they're coming from, the pain they have, and get them to the point where they're so thirsty, you can't hold them back. They're gonna buy it, you just gotta make it easy and fun so they buy it from you. So I go through that story, which hopefully gets people to understand that you've gotta give every presentation, every time you're with a client, it's like, it's showtime. Another story I tell is about in the 60s, Zero Mostel was at a play, and it was the longest running play in the history of Broadway at that time. And he was interviewed by New Yorker magazine. And when they interviewed him, they asked him, like, what is the reason for the success of the play? And he goes, well, if you've ever been involved in a Broadway play opening night, he goes. There's just a different tension in the air, like we know. Every critic is going to be in the audience. We know that the people who put money into funding this play are in the audience. We know that everybody of influence in New York City is going to be here, you know, and this is going to make or break your whole run. If you walk out the first night and you haven't done a good job, your play is over. He goes, so everybody treats every performance like an opening night performance. You see, we don't just give it that extra go the first night, because we realize that people have been waiting years to come see this play. And we owe it to them to give our best performance every night, even if it's a two o'clock match. And he goes, there are people that have come and seen the play five, six, seven times. We cannot give a lesser performance because they're going to be judging us by how we did it before. So, I try to get across in the book, man, when it's showtime, it is showtime, you got to give it your best shot. There's so many times in life, we're just mid, you know, we do everything. Like, I remember that book, Good to Great. And I used to have a stage when I was speaking a lot. And I would say like, good sucks. Like, dude, like good really sucks. Like, yes, it's nice to be a good father, it's nice to be a good husband, it's nice to be a good partner, it's nice to be good at my job. But if you realize that the difference between good and great is about this much, why wouldn't you want to be a great husband? Why wouldn't you want to be a great father? Why wouldn't you want to be a great salesperson or a great pastor? Why do you want to settle for mediocrity? There was a study done in the 50s, two horses that ran in 10 or 12 races together. One won a million dollars, one won $100,000. The average distance in time was half a horse's head. Now, horses has big ass heads, man, I got to tell you. That's about a foot and a half. The difference between a million bucks and $100,000 in winnings was a foot and a half. It's the same thing in life. Like the difference between achieving greatness is just, who was it? Edison said, somebody interviewed him and they asked him to go like, you know, you failed 1600 times. And he goes, no, I didn't fail. I learned 1600 times that there was a better way to do it. And I found a different way, but I kept doing it. And Einstein was asked one time, wasn't asked, somebody said something about being the smartest man in the world. He goes, Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. I am not the smartest man in the world. I just don't quit. There's a big difference. And that's the difference between greatness and mid. Yeah, yeah. That's fine. I don't. I learned a long time ago, and part of this is in the book. I talk about perfecting your craft, knowing your product better than anybody else's, knowing your competition better than your competition. Don't badmouth your competition. When I was selling something, I said, when you go to see that, you're going to really like this. They have this, this, this, this, and this. You're probably going to really appreciate that. Now, on the other hand, our product has this, this, this, and this, which I think is a little bit better than that. And I think you might appreciate this and what it'll do for you and your family more than that. And it's like, if you know the competition, you can talk about it and how good it is. You can almost give them a demonstration, but then you show yours is better. It's like, well, I don't need to go shopping anymore.
especially if they've just spent hours with you. And it's like, I don't care how much they like you, do they really want to go through another two, three, four hour presentation? They'd have to really love you to want to see another three, four hour window demonstration. Like, that's, that's how I was taught with these base principles. And, you know, I was doing some content the other night about like, what makes it great? Like, what's one of the things that makes, you know, a best salesperson and, and honestly, being a student of the game and just like knowledge, like what I think for me, to your point, like when I've been in plenty of sales rooms, and I've been the top many times, and I've been not the top and, you know, hustle and drive is always like, you just can't, you just can't either have that or you don't. But being a student and like when I really committed to reading books, but ultimately I would leave a sales call and like, what didn't go right? What could I have done better? Where was the objection? What should I have said?
Stop right there. That I try to get that across to so many people. What you're talking about is a debrief, right? And I would, whenever I went into it and when I was training salesman live, I always took them in the field with me and I'd say, okay. And I would let them give part of the presentation. I say, so, Tell me, what do you think you did right? Oh, I did this and this and this. Now, I may not think they did that right, but I'll agree with them and say, yeah, I think you did. I think that was a pretty good job. What do you think you maybe could have done better? And then I might ask them, what went wrong? Why did it go wrong? And the next presentation, what are the two things you're going to avoid that you did this time and the two things you're going to work on to be more effective next time? Right? That self-evaluation and being honest with yourself is so important, right? Of course, I asked that question right when you got a mouthful of food and drink.
Oh, man, I was trying to, I muted myself. You just totally ratted me out. We're going to edit this. We're going to edit this. And nobody would have ever known. But, you know, of course, I'm trying.
This is the first. Now we might as well make it part of the podcast.
This protein bar here is the first thing I've consumed all day. So. I was trying like, heck, Kelly and I were supposed to shoot this a bit ago and our time zones got mixed up, which is why I'm not in the studio right now.
But I couldn't miss the opportunity to chop it up with the author of The Greatest Sale Ever Made. Not to mention, talking this stuff is just like, dude, I could do this all day long, especially from someone like you. I want to be a student of the game. I've been selling since 08 in terms of being in the remodeling industry, but I sold men's suits before that. I sold insurance. In between that, about 20 years. You said you've been doing this for what, 50?
50 next year, yeah. One of the stories I tell in my book, you mentioned men's suits. I was brought in and hired. After I got into sales for a couple of years, I really excelled to a pretty high level, but it was in like shoe sales. I had a mentor and he said, hey, look, when you're selling shoes, you're selling anything. The brain can only have one thought at a time. You know this from NLP, right? And Tony Robbins, you know, you got to change your state and change your mind and change your life and blah, blah, blah. So it's like, you can only have one thought. So try to make it fun. If you make it fun, there are endorphins, you know, chemical. He didn't know the word endorphins, but he said chemicals in the brain will make it easier for them to purchase, which we now know through neuroscience and everything else that there's reasons for that. And so I learned to make sales fun. I can make people laugh like all day long. I was not born that way. I learned it, but I can just do it naturally now, because I do it all the time. When I first tried it, it didn't really work too well. People would look at me like, that's supposed to be a joke. You went through NLP, right? NLP, if you internalize a lot of stuff, and you have all this knowledge, and you've really internalized it, you haven't memorized it, you've internalized it, so you can make it your own. You actually now can spend more time actually listening to the client, paying attention to their body language, when they're thinking of something where their eyes going, right? And you can learn to use tonality. You said, like, you could, if you like pause, in a word like I just did in a sentence. When you say pause and stop, they're like, and now you're going to make your point, right? These are very subtle things that a lot of people don't train on. It just blows me away. There's a guy named Jeremy Minor. You probably know who he is.
I feel like Jeremy. He's supposed to come on the show, but go ahead. Maybe not if he hears this.
Let's see what he has to say first.
So Jeremy was always talking about the new way of selling, like it's this new thing. It's not, it's been around forever. I've been doing it for 50 years. But I took acting classes in 1980 to be able to understand how to communicate better with people. I took it from guys that were doing stage plays, right? And I had to get in front of a camera By the way, I hate watching myself on camera. But you know, I had to do that. And I had to act out certain things. And I learned a lot. During that time, Jeremy talks about it in his programs that he I think Maybe a dozen years ago, he went to some acting coach in LA who did all these famous actors. Mine wasn't that way, but it gave me enough of an edge that I could learn how to use my facial, probably why I have wrinkles everywhere, how to use my facial expressions. I could do something, the client would see me doing something with my face and they go, what'd you see? Nothing, I just found something kind of curious in your thing. But again, people by emotion, even if you're a purchasing agent, if you know how to ask the right questions, you can get to their emotions. Because I don't care what freaking job you're in, we are always every day graded by performance. I try to gamify everything. The worst thing in the world that could ever happen to me is coming number two, because that just means I didn't try hard. Like, you know, if I got my butt kicked and three people beat me, hey, that's on them. They're great. I just sucked. But if I'm coming in to you better watch it at the end of the month, dude, because I'm within striking distance, I will kick your behind. And I have that mentality every day.
I'm actually putting that in my phone because I've heard that many times, many times, but I haven't thought about it recently. Gamify everything. It's so important. And if you're running a sales room, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're a sales manager, and you're not already doing so, and I'm sure you are, but like gamify everything, even in your own life. We're kind of up against it, but I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours and hours. Kelly, this has been so awesome. Honestly, I really kind of want to have you back on.
Hey, man, like to talk. Hey, we can make it a weekly thing. Just get on here and talk about.
I mean, if you're up, I honestly, I'm going to take you up on I'd like to let's rebook another one, because I want to focus on the greatest sale ever made. And I want to make sure that it gets its due. But I can say this genuinely. I am somebody who prides myself on I've spent a lot of time, effort, energy, I spent over a half a million foolish dollars in coaching and things that some of which was valuable. And some, I spent money on people that, well, outsold me, I guess, because it wasn't so valuable. That's okay. I learned lessons, right? Or I got networking or whatever. But my point is, this guy knows his stuff. And there was a few people that were just brought up. And what I can't stand is some of these like most tried true real sales techniques that are like now being spun back and brought back to like, that are like new things. There's been no wheels reinvented. These are things that have been passed down and passed down and passed down. Like I was trained on it back in 08. You were probably trained on it 40 years ago. Like it's just, no one does it anymore.
Yeah. So it reminds me of, I laugh about this all the time. When I was a kid, which was many decades ago, You know, if you had an ailment, your mother always gave you cod liver oil. Like, there's no way I would ever have bought that stuff when I was an adult, except now they package it and they call it fish oil. And you spend all this money to eat the same thing in a pill form your mother gave you as a kid and you hate it. It is fun in marketing. But you know, the thing is, it is good for you. It's like really good for you, right? Yeah. And you talked about, you know, taking care of yourself mentally, physically and gamifying things. My wife and I, I'm 71 still got the guns. I started working out when I was about 55, probably almost 60, really got serious about it. Like, we do push-up challenges now against each other. Like, the other day, we did one, and, you know, I, she pumped out 44, so, of course, I had to beat her and pump out 50.
I believe in it, so I think that's amazing, man. I try to take care of myself, too. I'm, I just think that's so important, man, but I didn't mean to distract you from that, the game of flying.
I want to talk about the book for two seconds. One, I'm going to give you a link so all your people can download the book for free. I want to give it away. Number two, when they download it, they're going to get the email with the book, but also, everybody who gets the book will also get a copy of my new book coming out in December, absolutely free, the week before it's published on Amazon. And what am I going to get from that? You know what I'm going to get from that? I hope to hear stories of how it changed somebody's life. I was at a resort in Miami a few years ago, speaking at a conference. A guy came up to me and goes, are you Kelly Shaw? And by then, my hair was gone. And he said, hey, I saw you eight years ago, speak at a conference in Nashville. He go, you were the second best speaker I ever heard. And I went, who's the first? And he goes, I took all of your ideas for that 45 minute to one hour speech you did. And I was about ready to get out of the financial services business. But I was working 18 hours a day, six days a week, had no time for my family or kids. She goes, I am now the number one rep in my broker and I've changed brokers and I'm at a big broker. Out of 1500 reps, I'm number one. I'm making seven figures a year and I don't work more than three to four days a week. And I take two weeks off every three months and I'm able to attend all of my kids' events. I haven't missed a birthday. I haven't missed a dance recital. I haven't missed a soccer match or a soccer practice in five years. He goes, dude, the stuff you taught me that day changed my life. And I go, well, you changed your life. I gave you the tools to do it, but you did the hard stuff. You did behind the scenes, when the lights weren't on, the work that it took to be successful. And just like I said earlier, success leaves crumbs, so does failure. You just got to pick up the right crumbs from the right person, and you too can be successful.
That's beautiful, Kelly. Where can, back to your, I want to make sure that we get, where can people for one find you if they want to reach out to you, social media, anywhere like that?
Yeah. I never know my social media handles in a way. We have a team that does all that stuff. I'm lucky I can get onto Zoom by myself. If it wasn't for my staff and my wife, I'd be clueless sometimes.
What about the greatest sale ever made?
How about that? I'll make sure, as soon as we're done here, Ken, I will send you the link to that so you can share it with your audience. And then my email, if anybody wants to talk to me, they want to pick my brain for 15 minutes, is kelly at kingdomsalesacademy.com. And, you know, look, if you want to live a life on purpose and with purpose, sales is the way to go. Because I don't care what you're doing, each and every day you're selling yourself to your family, your spouse, your lover, your partner, the people, your kids, and you got to get them to buy in. Because when two people are talking, somebody's selling somebody, it's who's buying what. If you want to change your life, I live a pretty damn good life. I designed my life about six years ago. My wife and I travel six months of the year. We're leaving literally in 12 hours. We're going to Europe for six weeks. I'm going to be on a two-week transatlantic cruise. I'm going to be finishing up my book. We're going to a Wrexham football match in Wales because I love Wrexham. We're going to Sardinia. We have a house in Spain. We're going there. We're going to Portugal, the Azores. We're going all over, and I'm still going to be selling, making money and try to help other people sell and make money. Because I dropped this up six, seven years ago, but I put a plan into action. So my wife and I get to eat great food all over the world. We're not rich, but we designed a life based around sales that you can do anywhere in the world with a phone or a laptop. If you've got the skills, the difference, I learned this from Tony Robbins, I'm fortunate to be a friend of his. And Tony taught me years ago, the difference between you and anybody else is the level of skills you have in whatever you're trying to do. Own your skills, become the best.
Difference between that's, you know, Tony?
Let's talk about intent for a minute. I had an opportunity to go to Melbourne, Australia in 2010. I said, okay, I'm going. Number one, it's expensive to go to one of his first business masteries. Tony had made a big difference in my life and I didn't know him at this time. I go, well, I'm going to go there, but I'm going to meet Tony and I'm going to give him my business idea. And I'm going to get to know him. And people thought I was absolutely freaking crazy. Day one, I raised my hand, he calls on me for like, must have been 400 people raised their hand, but he called on me. Why? I don't know. Intent? I threw the energy out in the world. And he asked me my business idea. And I told him when he goes, dude, I want to talk to you. He said that like in front of 5000 people. So I don't hear from him for like six months, I go to another event, and I'm in VIP up front. And in the middle of his opening remarks, he's talking to the audience, he sees me out of the corner of his eye. And he stops and he walks right over to me and he goes, dude, you know how he does that booming voice? Why haven't you called me? I'm looking around like, Christ, is he talking to me? I go, He goes, my staff's been calling you, you haven't returned their calls. I go, dude, I have not gotten an email or a phone call from you. I don't know what number your staff has or email, but believe me, if you were calling, I'd be answering. He goes, get up right now, go back there and see my assistant. We ended up meeting that day, and I ended up selling him five of these what are called biodensity machines. One for him, one for his mother and father-in-law, one for his house in Palm Springs, one for his retreat in Bali. Then he took my idea, and we talked about it, and I hooked him up with the owner of the company. He ended up buying that company. I don't know if you're familiar with OsteoStrong, Here's one of his side businesses. It's these four machines where you do these isometric exercises. That was my idea. I said, we need to take the concept of biodensity and make it into four machines so you can actually do it as a business. And that was the start of his idea for OsteoStrong, which is I don't know there's probably 50 of them through the country right now but yeah so we actually have his phone number we text each other every once in a while when he moved to Florida he sent me a text of his feet just his feet, by the way, in his lawn chair over his lawn looking out of the ocean. I go really dude making me jealous. Right? But yeah, he's got my kids into all the programs. He invites me quite often to events because for an old guy, I got plenty of energy where I can I can I can I can go to a rave with the best of them and rave all night. Music's good.
This is amazing, man.
I actually have already emailed my team. So we're going to get you back on.
I mean, I don't know if you were just saying that or not. Well, no, no. We've already we've already roped you in.
So there's two things I can talk about at length and get so excited about. One is sales. The other one is music. I'm a huge music fan. 19 years. I went to Coachella in a row. Didn't miss one. Now I attend the Mad Cool Music Festival in Madrid because it's like so fun and so cool. And you have a house in Spain. And I have a house in Spain, but you know, it's like, I love music and I love people and I love sales. So like anytime I can turn somebody onto a new band or a new artist or, you know, a new style of music, uh, I'm always searching the airways for something new. I'm not one of those guys that got stuck in the music trend from high school or college. It's okay. Guys today are phenomenal, but if I can talk sales, Dude, you could have me on once a week for the next year, and I'm sure I could bring value.
So I'm with it, man.
I think we should do it. We're going to do it. We're going to get you back on. We have to. We have to. You have too much. I could talk sales with the best of them and the value. And plus, you have a new book coming back out. I've just thought this was for selfish reasons. I'd love to get you back on, man. I think and plus the providing the value. So look, but, but if nothing else, the greatest sale ever made, there's going to be a link attached to this. If you're listening to this, go to the show notes and there'll be a link there for you to get that. I mean, honestly, Kelly, thank you. That's amazing. Um, you were too kind. Thank you so much for bringing all the values today. I know that I can tell you, I've, I've learned a ton and I can't wait to have you back on, man. Enjoy your trip, fly safe, and we will see you soon.
All right, man. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Love you, man.
Love you too, brother.
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