RM: Speaking of refined tools, you use an analogy that, when doctors are looking for why patients might be ill, X-rays are a fine tool, but they are old technology. More advanced methods that are more precise have changed the way patients are treated. Can you explain the analogy a bit more? LF: Yes. The executives I work with are the ones who wrote their preferences. I’m just a radiologist interpreting the results. I function as a serious, heavy-duty radiologist. So, when I coach people, whether I coach them on how to coach their salespeople, or I coach the producers themselves, I can give them very specific contours of what their behavior is and how to put together combinations of the various strengths into winning combinations. There’s no such thing as a natural salesperson. There are only people who have more strengths geared toward speaking, and then they use that. Or they’re more outgoing. This is called woo. They’re very good at small talk. They’re very good at making people warm. Those are natural strengths, but guess what? There are people who are highly introspective, and that’s how they lead the sales conversation. They establish themselves with their quiet demeanor and very careful thinking. And then they create a sales portfolio. They build their business by being quiet and introverted but extremely thoughtful people. They can’t fake the woo. And the woo guy, Mr. Networker, can’t fake the quiet, introverted. But guess what? Wouldn’t it be nice if you thought, as a manager, in detail about the profile of Mr. Networker versus Mr. Introspective? I went too deep, but I wanted to give you an indication of the sophistication of today’s tool environment. I was certified by Gallup as a CliftonStrengths coach about 17 years ago. And, by the way, this approach to performance management and performance enhancement is used by Toyota, Bank of America and Walmart, but the public never hears of it. RM: What other tools do you use? And how does neuroscience factor into what you do? LF: There are a lot of people who don’t make enough money in reverse mortgage sales because they have so much noise in their system. And I call this noise “sales call reluctance.” So that’s my second major tool. The first major tool, which is CliftonStrengths, you cannot use for hiring. However, with sales call reluctance, you can use it to screen out people with debilitating call-reluctance issues. They might have telephobia, or they’re afraid to go on the platform for a webinar, or they’re afraid to ask for referrals or they have social self-consciousness, which means they’re afraid to pitch to higher-level executives. And then I determine what the salesperson is doing on a regular basis, or should be doing, to maintain their motivational energy, their focus, their adrenaline and their drive. And that is where I introduce people to the basics of neurobiology and neuroscience. I’ve been doubling down on neuroscience, particularly on filtering out the things that can apply to day-to-day performance, whether you’re a writer or a salesperson or an artist. The substrate of motivation has always been and always will be dopamine. Now we have a third variable: How well does someone manage their dopamine consciously? Do they have the right sleep? Do they eat the right way? Do they wake up and expose themselves to the sunlight? And how do they trigger deep sleep? Do they have sleep discipline? These little things typically are energy leaks. But once you fix them, you’re able to sleep well. You eat well; you’re able to rest deeply. Suddenly, the capacity of your neural circuitry without doing drugs increases sometimes 20, 30 percent. Why? Because now you have this new hack to access the brain circuitry in a systematic and strategic way. RM: I would imagine that once you do so, the dopamine high for a salesperson getting a big sale—even if it was difficult—they would want to keep repeating it. LF: It’s the effort and knowing that it was a hard sale. Suddenly, they build this momentum. And they say, “What did I do? Oh, I asked this question, etc. I applied my top five skills in that sale. I used strategy. I waited. I was patient. I used my sense of harmony. I was able to smell the potential conflict coming up, and I diffused the threat.” And so, if the salesperson is at the kitchen table, Nurturing Your Talents continued from page 26 28 REVERSE MORTGAGE / MARCH–APRIL 2023
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