Why Dyslexia Makes You a Better Salesperson

Matthew Pollard: Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Introvert Edge podcast. I have to admit, I’m ecstatic to welcome another sales leader to the podcast, another introvert, well another sales person that’s willing to out themselves an introvert publicly on the Introverts Edge podcast, which I’m even more excited about now, John Dwoskin is actually the host of the Think Business podcast as well.

So for those people that think that introverts can’t, you know, engage in small talk or be, you know, those people that kind of a front and center on main stage, hopefully his interview helps you realize that not only can you do it, you can actually excel, but with no further ado, John. Welcome to the show mate. I’m excited to have you here.

Jon Dwoskin: Thank you. Matthew. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Matthew Pollard: Absolutely. And, you know, I will say that there are a lot of people. And, I mean, even though my books very much talk about how introverts have the edge for a lot of introverts that are listening, anytime I get somebody on that has a background in sales, the very first thing that I try to do is help people realize that who we are today perhaps isn’t where we started, because I feel like we’re always projecting extroversion and natural ability onto anybody that, happens to have a great sales ability.

Matthew Pollard: And so what I would love for people to do is and I appreciate your willingness to allow yourself as an introvert and to show what I would love for you to do, though, is to to help people understand a little bit about your humble beginnings, how you discovered you had introversion, and how you ended up in the world of sales, which most introverts believe they can’t do.

Why Jon Loves to Explore Topics with Prospects, Not Talk About Himself

Jon Dwoskin: Well, I love sales, you know, I, I, I’m kind of right on the cusp of, like, introverted. Extroverted, you know, if you take, like, a personality test and where I think I excel in sales is because, I ask a lot of questions. And so, you know, I like I need my downtime. I need my kind of time to, you know, just kind of.

I’m kind of a homebody, you know? I mean, I like being with my wife and my kids. I mean, I like being with my friends, too, but, and being active. But I need that kind of time to refuel, to kind of reset, to prepare at, to do all of that. And with that, you know, I ask a lot of questions.

And so I think people sometimes think I’m more extroverted than I am because I ask a lot of questions. And, and I like to kind of think of the quiet, you know, you know, go, go a little bit deeper with the questions, and I’m, I and I can and get a little bit more granular. And so I think sometimes when you ask a lot of questions and you’re very interested, interested, people think you’re actually more interesting.

Matthew Pollard: That’s, that’s, that’s that, that is actually very interesting. It’s funny though that introverts tend to not want to make things about themselves. Yet when they’re selling or networking it tends to be all they do because they feel like they have to copy those extroverts or be self-promotional, which is, I mean, for the people that are great at sales, tends to be the last thing that they want they spend their time doing.

So I’m interested in how you kind of discovered that. Or was it just something you naturally decided to leverage when you started to sell?

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah, I think it was just something I naturally, I naturally did. I’m never I’m not one to really talk about myself. I provide a lot of even in my business now, I provide a lot of content, but I never I never really enjoy talking about myself. It’s so much easier if somebody else talks about me. Because the minute I’m in kind of a sales situation, I can kind of get into a zone where I can be thinking about the questions, and then as soon as soon as somebody answers a question or two, I kind of begin to uncover the problem.

They don’t. I usually made many times before them, and so then I get downloaded in my head a ton of questions to reverse engineer, a lot of things, to get them to a place where they can raise their awareness of the situation, and then I can come in and provide a solution. And, and again, I think it’s because of that, people think you’re more extroverted because you’re so interested in what they’re doing.

You’re so fixated on their issue, their stuff, all about them. And so I always find a lot of times people say, oh, that was such a great conversation we had. But really a lot of times it was me asking them questions to get to a space they can’t couldn’t get to on their own without my questions.

Matthew Pollard: Interesting. I think one of the things that a lot of introverts struggle with in small business is really talking about what they do in a way that people actually want to engage with them. So what I’m what I’m hearing is that you like to be interesting before, so you like to be interested before you. You’re interesting. Which, you know, I definitely talk about in my, my introverted networking book.

But I think for a lot of that, a lot of people, especially in that sales world, and especially in the small business space, the problem they have is like, okay, so how do I how do I get to that, that sales process? How do I actually get to have a conversation where I’m asking a thousand questions, like, if I just meet someone and I’m peppering them with questions, isn’t that the wrong thing to do?

Or if I go into a sale and I haven’t built trust in rapport yet, like how are they going to respond to those questions? Am I allowed to ask all these deep and penetrating questions? How do you mentally prepare for that, and how do you go through that process?

Jon’s “Three Meeting” Insight

Jon Dwoskin: Well, you know, to me, there’s three meetings in every meeting. Right? And it doesn’t matter if you’re going to a conference, having a meeting, there’s three meetings in every meeting. There’s the meeting before the meeting, the meeting and then the meeting after the meeting. The meeting is one that everybody, knows what to do. Maybe they get anxious, etc..

The key for me has always been the meeting before the meeting, right? The preparation and the meeting before the meeting. And and and the more I prepped and think about and I visualize the meeting, I pay attention to who I’m meeting with. And so the rapport building is, is somewhat easy. Again. Hey, how are you asking questions and then trying to just get the first question it right?

It’s the person who has the question controls the conversation. And so the rapport building and then it’s about waiting for that quick lull to say okay. And then asking the first open ended questions. You kind of get them get them talking when it comes to talking about myself, I’m not a big fan of talking about myself, but I when I need to, I do my best to talk about myself through what other people would say.

So you’re really just kind of a storyteller through the eyes of the client, right? The eyes in the eyes of current or past clients. Right. And it’s really great to be with everybody today. You know, working with clients like you. In the past, they have shared with me that one of the things that they benefited from was X, Y, and Z.

I hope to get that. Today when we walk out the door, can everybody go around and tell me one thing? They want to walk out, walk away with from today’s meeting? So I’m listening to, you know, what they want to walk away with. And I’m shaping my questions and getting a, a feel and an understanding of what’s kind of below the surface based, what their answers are.

Matthew Pollard: I think that’s a valuable innovation. I, you know, my number one rule in sales and networking, public speaking is always being it’s not about me. Like is if we can follow that rule, it makes everything easy. And I think you’ve done that really, really well where you said, you know, here are what my custom how my customers have benefited. So it’s about them.

And then what do you need when you walk out of this meeting. And I think that’s I think that’s really powerful. I’m blown away at how many people go into sales. And they they want to show the logos and show their deck before they even ask the customer a question, or is they they go in and say, tell me a little bit about your business where my response is, well, sure, I’d love to.

You know, after checking out my website, what questions do you have? And then you find out they’ve done no planning and no preparation. Though I will say a lot of introverts do that planning and preparation. But don’t make it known that they’ve done that planning and preparation. And I think that’s today that is service as well. There are there ways that you would suggest that an introvert seeds that they’ve planned, they’ve prepared, they’re not just asking willy nilly questions.

I actually have a plan to help people get to an outcome.

Why Knowing Your Avatar Is A Superpower

Jon Dwoskin: While it’s also paying attention to who you’re meeting with. Meaning, I need to know the avatars that I’m working with. So I work with a lot of salespeople. I work with a lot of solopreneurs. I work with a lot of solopreneurs to fortune companies and everything in between. And every client falls into a different avatar. And so there is different levels of salespeople, you know, there’s different levels of small businesses, sizes.

You really want to kind of spend some time zooming out and observing, kind of, okay, what is this? What is the pain of this avatar? Right. And so I know when I work with salespeople, for example, predominantly salespeople have a hard time ironically asking for business, right? They don’t like they have a very difficult time asking for the clothes, asking for the meeting, asking for anything.

So if a sales person calls me, they’ll say, I’m stuck, right? Because I work with successful people all over the globe who are stuck and I get them unstuck. So they’ll say, I’m stuck. And I say, well, okay, let me ask you a question. On a scale from 1 to 10, how are you for asking for a meeting, asking for the business?

And they’ll say, six. So, okay, let’s start there. Tell me why. And so I know the avatar right. And so if a manager calls me so the answer is have all your different avatars know your different avatars because they all kind of fall into similar buckets. And then what are the initial number one and maybe number two pain points in each of those avatars.

And then what’s a question that recognizes that and then opens them up to talk. So you can learn more and then use your introverted skills to be, to really listen and actively listen and be intuitive and provide them, you know, some, some, some great quality.

Matthew Pollard: That’s really valuable. It surprises me, though, how many introverts, how many small business owners, how many companies, even don’t know their primary avatars and don’t spend their time doing that planning in preparation for introverts? I feel like if they it’s what is that Winston Churchill saying those that fail to plan to fail. And I think that’s even what it’s the most true when it comes to introverts.

Because, you know, a lot of times, and I’m going to come back to your energy statement in a second about how, you know, you still get tired. You need your alone time because I find c I know my avatars introverted, service based business owner. And when I get on a sales conversation with one of those avatars, I know that they’re going to give me a series of different issues.

And the underlying problem is twofold. One is they don’t know how to articulate their value when somebody is politely listening to them in a networking room, and then they don’t know how to articulate their value, where somebody’s willing to pay them what they’re worth. So I will ask them a question. I’ll make a few statements, and then I’ll say, I don’t want to project anything.

You know, I just I want to confirm, like, if you if I was to meet you at a networking event, maybe you’d read my book. So you were interested before you were interesting. And then I ask you the question. Oh my gosh. You know, John, I can’t believe I haven’t even asked you what it is that you do.

What would you say? And they get unstuck. And then all of a sudden we’ve, you know, identified the core problem they have and because of that, there’s no anxiety. There’s no stress because I know my avatar and I know exactly what questions to ask them, to get them to open up and share their problem. You personally do you find.

Because for me, what I’m trying to highlight here is that my the reason why I actually, you know, don’t lose much energy with sales and I enjoy it is because of the planning and preparation, the knowledge of my avatar. It doesn’t feel, you know, I don’t get anxious. I don’t get anxious when I get on a call. I don’t get anxious when I go to networking events because I plan and prepare what I’m going to say and who I’m going to talk to in advance.

Do you find that when you say I’m closer to the to the center, is that because would you suggest that you lose a lot more energy if you hadn’t done that planning? You hadn’t done that preparation, you hadn’t known your avatar?

The Strength and Benefit of Real Preparation

Jon Dwoskin: I have to prepare. I have to prepare. I interview the other day on my podcast, which I know you’re going to be on soon, which I’m looking forward to. I interviewed a snapper, the snapper at northwestern. One he played. He’s a business guy now, and he’s. So I said, what do you what do you do in those ten seconds that you have where, you know, half the stadium loves you and half the stadium hate you?

He said, I spend 60% of the time preparing of the 10s a little bit of time on the execution. Right. And, it’s all about the preparation. And people typically don’t prepare. When I don’t prepare, I feel it. I feel it when I walk in, I feel when I say my first sentence, I can feel it because I’m.

I’m disconnected from the audience. And I think for an introvert, when you are, you’re more connected. There’s more of an emotional connection when you’re an introvert, because you can feel more of what people are. Receiving versus this isn’t a negative, but an extrovert who’s more kind of, you know, I agree with you. It’s not about me, it’s about them.

A person who’s presenting, who’s all about them. They’re not as connected, really emotionally connected to the audience sometimes. So if I don’t prepare, I feel it right away. Every facial expression, every, you know, no nods or this and the other. So, yeah, I mean, preparing is, you know, when I give a talk, it’s like I, I overly prepare to make it look like I’m winging it.

And so anytime I’ve given a talk where it looks like I’m winging it, it’s been it’s there’s a ton of preparation to make it look like I’m winging it. Yeah, yeah.

Matthew Pollard: I, I’m trim that. I think it was Jim Irwin, who is a well known, comedian in Australia. I’m not sure if he’s relevant in the United States, but he did all these things where he was just winging things, seemingly, and he said, it takes me ten times as long to come across as I’m winging things than somebody that actually, you know, is just, you know, winging things, you know, sorry.

That has a structured presentation. So I, I agree, I mean, when I’m asked questions from stage, when I’m asked questions on podcasts, initially I did a ton of planning and preparation and I do a lot less now. But, because I have so many things to draw upon and I find that, when somebody asks me a question, I can connect it to something.

But if I haven’t checked out their website, their LinkedIn profile, if I get on the scale and I haven’t done that, my homework, if I speak from stage and I don’t know the brief, and I haven’t really thought about every point that I’m going to make, I end up well, I’ve never done that. So. But I would assume that the presentation that I would provide would be underwhelming.

My closure rate would be less. Did you this natural gravitating to asking more questions, did you, when you were starting to learn the process of selling and networking and even, you know, coaching? Because I know that comes with a ton of preparation as well. I’m wondering, is the the early John, before you really figured out and mastered these skills, did you try to wing things and it not go well and that’s why you gravitated to this or for you, could you just not have imagined going into these scenarios without doing a ton of planning and preparation?

I’m trying to work it out. Yeah.

How Jon Discovered His Dyslexia at Age 30

Jon Dwoskin: I always, intuitively would ask a lot of questions. It’s just the way my brain is wired. But I didn’t know why. When I was 30 years old, I was in commercial real estate, and I had this all of these deals that I was presenting, five different deals that I was presenting. I was in a, Detroit, and I was presenting them to my Chicago offices, and I knew everything about them.

Everything. I had spent hundreds of hours on these deals, and they were, investment deals. And on a Friday I, you know, went home to look at them over the weekend. And then on Monday, I did a conference call to present them, present all of them. And I couldn’t remember anything. I couldn’t remember anything. And, I was like, sweating on this conference call, presenting it.

And so I read in a book, Herb Cohen, you can negotiate anything if you hang up on yourself talking. Nobody would think that you were hanging up on yourself. So I, I hung up on myself talking because I couldn’t remember anything. Long story short, I’m 30 years old. I went to my therapist at the time, who still is my therapist, and I took in a five day, two hour at a time, IQ test.

And it came back to me that I was dyslexic. And so what I, what he what he talked to me about is you have to you always have to prepare because your brain needs your brain needs it. So, and so that was kind of the, the pivotal moment for me when I thought, okay, it’s just it just kind of how my brain is wired.

I have I have no choice. I have to prepare. There’s certain things I don’t prepare for, like my podcast. I don’t over prepare for because I want it to be an organic conversation. I wanted to be natural and real, and I don’t prepare any questions because I wanted to. I want to listen and guide it that way and rely on empathy.

But I prepare for, you know, every meeting that I have. And, and that was yeah, that was a turning point. So that was 21 years ago.

Matthew Pollard: Wow. Okay. Well, I will say a lot of introverts feel like they’re not put the time for preparation is wasted, which leads to lack of productivity in a way. So they jump straight on the call and then they wonder why it doesn’t go well. So I think this advice should click for everybody listening, it is so critical that you plan and prepare. Because for us introverts, it is a superpower or our biggest weakness slash learning disability if you will that we haven’t done the preparation because then we’re trying to rely on natural abilities we just don’t have.

So I think everybody really heed John’s words here. John, I like to finish all my interviews, with a question around just because every person talks about what introverts can’t do. And I feel that there are so many superpowers we have, lots of resilience. So I would love to. I would love to know in your mind, what do you consider your introvert edge?

Jon’s Introvert’s Edge, In and Out of the Workplace

Jon Dwoskin: Asking questions, right. Really intuitive. Like taking time to really think, to prepare, get grounded and, and think of a question, a question, a question goes a long way.

Matthew Pollard: I think that’s powerful. And for a lot of people, it’s not any question. Right? It’s your ability to be able to think, what question really is going to have the most impact will get me the most information. Right? I think that’s what you’ve really articulated here, is that you really go to planning what questions to ask for your specific avatars, and I, I think that that’s a skill set that every introvert has.

Yeah. And you’ve fostered it and honed it over a period of time. And I’d, I’d highly recommend other people do the same job for those people that are just hearing about you for the first time. And I have no idea, about any of your content that’s out there. Where would you suggest that people go to get their first kind of deep dive experience of the work that you’ve done?

Jon Dwoskin: Yeah. Go to jondworskin.com. And it has everything of mine, all my videos, my podcast. There’s so much content. And if and if you want to know more, give me a buzz. (248) 535-7796 and, yeah, I mean, I’m always I’m always accessible.

Matthew Pollard: Unbelievable. Well, John, thank you so much for sharing that. I think you might be the first person that I’ve had on this show that has given out a phone number as well. Clearly outside that introvert, characteristics. So ecstatic to say that for those people listening, I hope you’ve got value out of today’s, interview. I know, I know that I have.

And make sure you check out all of the other amazing Introverts Edge interviews, as well as check out for all the new episodes we have coming up. But thank you for joining us today. Thank you for joining The Introverts Edge, and we’ll see you in the next one. Cheers.