Episode 5: From Recruitment to B2B Mastery with Mark Colgan

From recruitment to marketing, and eventually making his mark in B2B sales and consulting, Mark shares invaluable insights and strategies. Learn how to overcome Imposter Syndrome, increase your luck surface area through action and connection, and maintain a winning mindset. Discover timeless sales principles from classic literature, practical tips for networking in a remote environment, and the significance of consistent good habits. Whether you're looking to enhance your sales skills or seeking personal growth, this episode is packed with actionable advice, motivational insights, and comprehensive resources, including Mark's YouTube channel and sales course.

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00:00 Introduction to the Podcast

00:33 Mark Colgan's Career Journey

04:21 The Importance of Sales Skills

06:05 Overcoming Challenges in Sales

08:27 Lessons and Advice for Aspiring Salespeople

13:30 Increasing Your Luck Surface Area

16:17 Increasing Your Luck Surface Area

17:46 The Importance of Execution

18:06 Hiring Problem Solvers

19:16 Giving Without Expecting in Sales

22:15 Networking in a Remote World

26:01 Consistency Over Perfection

29:39 Mindset and Positive Intention

30:52 Shameless Self-Promotion

32:26 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Will: Hey, everyone. It's the "Your future on meritt" podcast with myself, Will Koning, and one of our very special guests and instructors, Mark Colgan. Mark is the founder of a company called Yellow O, which is all about B2B sales and consulting. But before that, Mark's been a recruiter. He's been in marketing.

And we're going to learn a little bit about his journey and how he got started. So, hey, Mark, how you doing today? 

Mark Colgan: All good, Will. Glad to be here. I'm looking forward to this one.

Will: It should be a good one because like Mark, you and I, we've known each other nearly a year, introduced through friends. And we always talk about what we're doing now, but why I always like to talk about is, you know, how we got into the crazy game of sales. 

 I always had a tough job explaining to my mum and dad that I wanted to be a salesperson because I know it's not quite, you know, uh, [00:01:00] The most, uh, loved profession,

shall we say, um, so yeah, we'd just love to know from you, Mark, how did you get into sales?

Mark Colgan: Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll try and keep this as brief as possible. Um, but I studied business studies and marketing at university and

Will: Yeah.

Mark Colgan: degree was to do a placement year in the third year. But when I looked for a lot of marketing roles, they just seemed like being an admin or a tea boy,, which I didn't fancy doing. Uh, and I saw an opportunity to go and work at Hayes PLC, which is one of the large recruitment agencies in the UK and internationally. Um, so I applied for that and got it. And I worked there for a year where I really cut my teeth in sales because you do a bit of prospecting, you do some account management, and then you have to sell the hardest thing that exists in the world, which is people and their emotions, especially when you're trying to get somebody into a new role. Um, so after I finished that year, I went back to uni. Finish my degree and I had a job offer to go back and work at Hayes after I finished, which was great. [00:02:00] It meant that I could just apply my whole self to my final year at uni. I got much better grades than I did in the first couple of years, which was good. Um, I worked at Hayes after uni for about a year, then went to a smaller regional recruitment firm, which was very much boiler room, uh, power hours. There was about 15 of us that are all out of uni pretty much. So young, hungry. Smashing the phones every day. Um, after a little while there, I actually got headhunted to go and join Experian, which is a, a large footsie 50 companies work in house in the HR team. Basically being a recruitment agency by myself. Um, did that for a little while, but I was really missing marketing and that's what I studied. That's what I really enjoyed. So I applied to be a online marketing manager back in the day, there wasn't such a thing as digital marketing. And will, I bought this book, the dummy's guide to internet marketing.

And I got it on here cause it was such a pivotal moment in my career.

Will: Nice.

Mark Colgan: so I worked as the first kind of [00:03:00] digital person within, uh, these B2B software and tech companies.

Will: Yeah.

Mark Colgan: that for about five years, quit my job at 30, went traveling for, for a year, which was a lot of fun. just towards the end of those travels, I started to become a consultant by accident doing HubSpot CRM and MarTech implementations. Then I ran a hundred person agency, which was very different to just being a consultant. Uh, after that, I decided to co found my own agency. See, and I exited that about two and a half years later, we grew that to 22 people, and now I'm back to being a consultant, helping B2B sales teams book more meetings and close more deals. And well, I've not updated my CV in about eight years. Uh, but it took me 10 years to get to the point of not having to have to update your CV anymore.

Will: Yeah. Right. Unbelievable. That is quite a journey all from recruitment to marketing, to traveling, to consulting, to agency, to big agency, and now [00:04:00] to consulting. Now, what, how, how many years now we've been doing this journey? Uh, oh my God.

Mark Colgan: Ah, so I finished uni in 2005. So Jesus, a long, long time or coming up to 20 years if I count the placement year.

Will: Yeah, okay. We're the same age. Yes, that's so it's, um, it's incredible, isn't it? Our audience is for people that, should I go into, into sales? Um, and, and, you know, like, if you look back now, do you think that you could have got to where you are now or done the things you could have done?

If you hadn't have gone into sort of recruitment and sales and that journey,

Mark Colgan: I don't think so to be honest, because learning sales and how to sell, sets you up for life. It really does because everything in life is sales. In my opinion. So like, and if you know how to sell, life is a lot easier. So if you start a side project or a [00:05:00] side hustle, you're selling. If you want a new role or you're applying for a promotion, you're selling yourself.

If you're renting or buying a house, that's sales, uh, relationships with your partner, that's negotiation

Will: it certainly is.

Mark Colgan: If you, you recently got engaged. Um, and then also like convincing friends to go on like a trip together. That's also selling. So I really think starting in sales sets you up to not only be able to go and do lots of other things in the future, but always knowing that you can fall back on the skill that you developed, which is selling, which is what every company pretty much needs as well.

Will: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think about, you know, the fact that I'm, I'm, I'm getting meritt off up off the ground and I'm able to bootstrap through effectively same stuff that we do, which is sales consulting. You know, I imagine it must be so much harder for a founder that doesn't have those skills.

Mark Colgan: Absolutely. You could have somebody doing a very similar thing to you, but they're not from a sales background and you're going to win because you know how sales works. You know, the motions, you know, [00:06:00] how to deal with the emotions of the rollercoaster as well.

Will: Yeah, no, totally. Um, but like, let's, let's take, take yourself back to recruiter Mark. First of all, explain to the audience what a boiler room is. You don't hear those words too often anymore.

Mark Colgan: Yeah. So it comes from, uh, from a, from a film, but it's like all of you in one room, you're doing power dials. It's a two hour block where no one talks, there's no smiles. You are hammering the phones. Usually you call not the best leads as well. So you don't have a lot of great conversations. Um, but yeah, very much like, uh, Alec Baldwin, Always Be Closin!" attitude.

And the directors at the time were. They cracked the whip for sure.

Will: I've also done some of that type of sales in my early days I always look back on them and I always think, I am so glad I did it, but oh my God, I never want to do it again.

Mark Colgan: Yeah.

Will: How do you feel about it?

Mark Colgan: Yeah. It was funny. Like it just [00:07:00] teaches you so many things that you can use in life, like not fearing rejection. So one thing that I do to this day and I advise people to do, especially when they're new to their career is anywhere that you go, like a restaurant or a coffee shop, or even like H&M or Zara, like a clothes shop, ask for a discount. The worst thing that's going to happen is they say no. best thing that's going to happen is they'll say, yeah, okay. We've got a special on at the moment. I saved about 40 pounds on a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses just because I asked. Um,

Will: in like a Ray Ban store? Like a proper department store?

Mark Colgan: Yeah, Sunglasses Hut!

Will: Really?

Mark Colgan: yeah, yeah,

Will: No way!

Mark Colgan: yeah.

Will: I haven't been doing that. I think I should be doing that.

Mark Colgan: Yeah, what's great about it is, one, it helps you just overcome rejection and that fear of rejection, and then two, it just helps you get better at these little interactions, which sometimes can be awkward. A lot of times are a lot of fun. Very rarely are they negative. But just, you know, being able to be elastic and dynamic [00:08:00] with the way that you are and how you are with people and building rapport,

Will: Yeah.

Mark Colgan: into and helps you in sales in general as well.

Will: Yeah, no, indeed. I totally agree. And now I'm going to be going out discounting

Mark Colgan: Do it! 

Will: On the street when I go shopping. Can I have a discount, please? Yeah, excellent. And then, um, but there must have been some, like, more challenging times, right? We all have those times in sales where it, shall we say, hurts?

Anything that you can kind of share around that for yourself?

Mark Colgan: Yeah. I think for me, the one that really stands out for me is that "Imposter Syndrome" that I used to feel. And actually I felt it more when I moved into marketing because it was like a new field where I hadn't done that job before. So I'll talk about that experience, but it's, it applies if you're moving into sales for the first time as well.

Will: Mm.

Mark Colgan: So when I moved into marketing, I had taught myself everything about digital marketing or internet marketing from a textbook. And like I said, it's this one here, which I

Will: That on there.

Mark Colgan: sentimental value.

Will: Yeah.

Mark Colgan: I practice on some friends websites [00:09:00] and my, some families had a business. So I did websites and social media for them. I genuinely remember being asked questions by the directors at the company I worked for, and I was nervous. I was short of breath. I couldn't get a sentence out fully. Um, and I was like questioning my knowledge. Uh, and I thought they were, but they weren't at all. They were just interested. They just wanted to know some answers. Uh, and really. It wasn't about me kind of having to justify myself, but what I found helped me get through this is get some results under the belt initial results really helped improve my confidence because I proved to myself I could do it and therefore I could always fall back on the fact that no, I do know what I'm doing. I can do it. I've done it before. I can do it again. Um, so the loop that I started to build myself, uh, into, which was study, take action. Study some more, take more action. Uh, and that just really helped, uh, remove that imposter syndrome. And I really don't feel it at all anymore. Uh, maybe cause I'm a little bit [00:10:00] older and I don't care as much about what people think about me, which is another thing

Will: Yeah.

Mark Colgan: you do when you're a little bit

Will: That does happen. Yeah.

Mark Colgan: Yeah. Um, also another personal challenge is I, I failed my driving license, uh, four times and only passed on the fifth time. That that's pretty

Will: My god. That is embarrassing, isn't it?

Mark Colgan: Yeah.

Will: Very good. Very good. So funny what you're saying though, going back to the learn, try in my world, fail, learn, try again. What I think so many young people getting into sales or any career for, for that matter, they think that they need to achieve perfection.

Mark Colgan: Yeah.

Will: Off the bat and it, and it couldn't be further from the truth, right?

Mark Colgan: A hundred percent. The amount of times I failed, I wouldn't even be able to count, but I don't, the difference is I think before when I was younger, I'd get hung up on the failure. Now I just think, see it as a learning experience and something to learn from. Um, if I don't learn from a [00:11:00] failure and I keep making the same mistake, then. That's obviously not great, but now if I fail, I'm like, all right, move on, like apply what I've learned into the next thing to avoid that mistake

Will: Yeah.

Mark Colgan: run a hundred miles an hour into the next one.

Will: As much as I like try to adopt that, when I, when I catch myself making the same mistake twice though, I get so upset with myself, uh, it gets very annoying. Yeah. But no, it, it's really important. one of the things I always get people to think about is, there are things that we wish we'd done differently, especially in our early, early career.

What would be some of the, the lessons that you would want to impart on yourself where you to have a time machine, do you think?

Mark Colgan: yeah, I'll give one like sales specific lesson and then two more like life lessons, which all combine into sales as well. So.

Will: Yeah.

Mark Colgan: One, which is sales related is just know your numbers and take control of the inputs because that's the only thing that you can control. Like if you are [00:12:00] behind target, do more. Um, if you're behind target and your director asked you, why are you behind target? You can obviously give them the answer and then say, and here's the plan. So I used to work next to a guy who was pretty useless at just managing expectations, which is never good in recruitment. Uh, and the director would always be breathing down his neck because he didn't know his numbers.

He would then make stuff up or he'd just remember something because he's panicking, uh, whereas I always knew my numbers and then I would be seen to be staying later and making those extra dials to catch up, uh, because ultimately you can't really control the output, but you can control the inputs much more.

Will: Yeah, and I think it's so important because you touched on something which I think does often get lost, which is you still have to work very hard, do, do more. But I think often it's like, well, what does that really mean? Like how hard do you have to work? And I think that kind of helps answer that question, right?

Which is knowing your numbers, you know, how much effort you've, you've got to put in.

Mark Colgan: Yeah, [00:13:00] a hundred percent. If you know that it takes 20 calls to have book one meeting or whatever that number is for you, it's going to be different for everyone. And you are two calls behind target, then make 40 calls or make 60 calls and go above that target. But it's a lot easier to know that you've only got 20 calls to get through or 40 calls to get through rather than thinking, Oh, Oh my God, I wish I'd book a meeting soon because you're not looking at the numbers and you're not falling back on those.

Will: Yeah, of course. So lesson one, know your numbers.

Mark Colgan: Yeah. So the other thing I'd tell myself if I was a bit younger is to, um, consciously increase my luck surface area. And I'll go into a few ways that I've done

Will: Yeah, tell me more about that. I want to know about luck surface area.

Mark Colgan: so luck surface area is essentially the amount of opportunities and things that just seem to fall your way.

And some of my friends and family call me quite lucky. Okay. But I'm like, I worked fucking hard to make this luck happen.

Will: Yeah,

Mark Colgan: and there is like a [00:14:00] system to it. So a few things that you can do to like increase those opportunities or that luck surface area is to meet new people and do it often. I like to call this the ABC, but not Alec Baldwin, more "Always be Connecting."

Will: yeah,

Mark Colgan: are always going to be people who are ahead of you. There are going to be some people who have just got started. So there may be a couple of years behind you. There's some competitors or friendly competitors who are on the same level as you. There's people on the other side who are maybe selling or marketing to the same people that you want to be going out to.

Mark Colgan: So there's already like several people that you can, you can reach out to and connect with and make new relationships. Um, another thing is just tell people what you're up to. I think that was a thing that I was a little bit afraid of doing before, but I do it all the time.

Now I constantly update people of what I'm focusing on, what I'm planning. and then they remember that and then they introduce you to people or they say, Oh Mark, you said that you're going to be in, um, in Spain. Uh, I'm going to be there. Let's meet up for a [00:15:00] coffee or a beer, um, make connections as well.

So it's not just about you meeting new people, but if you can connect one person to somebody else that you've, you've got in your network, that's super powerful. Um, so hosting events is great for this. And, and Will that the example of those London beers back in July, which unfortunately didn't go ahead,

but it's so simple, I've bought you the first beer turn up at this pub at this time, or this restaurant or this coffee shop at this time, there's going to be 10 or 15 other people who are there and I'll introduce you to who those people are, I've done that consistently for the last four or five years and people that I introduced in that first year. I've even got into business together. They've partnered. They're now lifelong friends, which is, which is awesome. two more things as

Will: yeah,

Mark Colgan: well for that increase, that luck surface area is to take action and take action often. Uh, and lastly is to like, be curious and be keen to learn more, then also understand You can, you most [00:16:00] likely know enough of what you need to know. Now you need to execute and take action. So I,

Will: mm,

Mark Colgan: like seasons, I guess of like, okay, now I need to learn a new skill, acquire a new skill set. Then I need to need to take action on it. So I'm not going to learn anything new because I know what I need to do right now.

Will: Yeah. There is so much to unpack there, but if I were to try and sort of summarise that, so to increase your luck surface area, luck surface area, I should say, the things you want to be doing is you want to be Connecting "ABC", always be connecting, not to be confused with mine, "Always Be Calling" or Alec Baldwin's, "Always Be Closing", but always be connecting. 

And [00:17:00] And I totally agree with that, by the way, like, I mean, the only reason that we're doing a podcast right now is because we were connected by our mutual friend, Mikey, right now, there's a literal thing, right? It's, it's real. Um, you know, we were just talking in my, uh, team about, you know, our marketing, uh, channels, And our, our, our best as a bootstrap company, our best marketing channel is literally my network by a long way.

So there's, so there's, there's that type of thing. And then the other thing you kind of read, talk, touch on there, I think is, is, is execution. So actually just getting things done. And I totally agree with you on that. Like, you know, the best people in my team, the best people I've ever worked with. They [00:18:00] get shit done.

Mark Colgan: Yeah.

Will: Um, and then the third is the curiosity, right?

Mark Colgan: Yeah. I was just going to say like, when I've grown teams and I've hired people, I want to hire people who can solve problems, not bring a problem to me. And that's not to say that no problems ever exist. Problems exist all the time, but it's much, the person that you want to hire is someone to say, "Hey Mark, this has happened. Here's what I'm thinking of doing, or here's what I've started to do. Just want to run that by you. Make sure that's what you would do in this situation." Um, so yeah, I think that's a really good point of like the, uh, the, the problem and coming up with a solution and taking action.

Will: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think, I think it is. It's, and there's a lot of themes around ownership there as well, right? It's, it's, especially when you're running a small business or being a salesperson. You know, like having all of those kind of behaviors and traits is what makes it. It's funny. It's not about being the smartest or being the best, is it?

It's about just doing those things consistently is what [00:19:00] separates you from the rest, which again, is such a lesson from sales. Um, amazing. So have we gone through all three of your lessons then? Oh, yeah.

Mark Colgan: Just one more, which is

Will: Yeah,

Mark Colgan: life slash sales. So wish I had this mindset when I was younger and just starting out in my career. I mean, I did it, but not as much as I do it now, it is to give first without expecting anything in return. And I

Will: Totally.

Mark Colgan: how hard it is to think like that when you are new to the sales role.

You're an SDR. You're in a bigger team. You've got targets to hit your directors, breathing down your neck. You might be put on a pip. However, you need to play the long game in your life and career. So giving first without expecting anything in return might not impact you right now, but good karma could come around in the future.

So a few examples of this is, uh, give a recommendation to somebody in the sense that, Oh, actually it sounds like. We can't help you with our solution and our service, but you might want to go and speak to this company, or you might want to look into this, this, this is what you need to focus [00:20:00] on. So you're actually giving some advice and help, make introductions to people.

If you've got nothing at all to give, maybe you can make an introduction to somebody, um, point someone in the right direction. So that could be a, to a video or some content, a podcast like this, uh, do something for free. Um, that's something that you can do. You can offer to help somebody out. And then lastly, just offer to help in general.

Is there anything I can do to help you? Um, to give a real, uh, recent example of this, my wife is currently looking for a new role at the moment. And I reached out to an old client of mine from about three years ago. Three or four years ago, he's in the FinTech space. My wife wants to work in, it has worked, wants to work in FinTech. So I messaged him and said, Hey, any chance, you know, of any of your clients who are hiring in compliance, he turns around and says, not that I can think of, but my wife is actually head of compliance at such and such company.

Will: Right.

Mark Colgan: let me, um, let me see if she's, she's open to, um, talking to my wife. Put them in touch.

That turns out that my wife had applied for a job at [00:21:00] that same company, but in Portugal, different, different, um, team. They, our wives both spoke to me. I'm still getting used to that. Will, you've got that to come.

Will: Yeah. Yeah. 

Mark Colgan: Our wives, they spoke,

and she gave some great advice I could have just left it there.

I could have just said thanks for, for making the intro, but I know that they've got two younger kids and they live just outside of London. So I went and bought a, um, every man's cinema voucher for them, like a gift voucher and sent that to them as, as a thank you, um, not expecting anything in return from, from that. Um, and they said that I didn't need to, didn't need to do that. But I think little moments like that are really, really important. And I said like, either tell your kids you've got them and take your kids to the cinema or just go on a, on a date night where just with you and your wife, it's like, it's up to you how

Will: Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Colgan: use it.

Will: Yeah, it's so like, I mean, I could, I think you and I could probably trade a million examples like this, right? Because I think we're, you know, we both kind of made it on our own type [00:22:00] characters. But like, one of the things that strikes me that I think has been why I think I'm good at this is because I used to just like turning up to events and going for, frankly, free drinks when I was a younger sales person.

That's kind of what got me into like building out my network. And one of the things that really concerns me about Um, you know, the new generation of salespeople is so much of it is remote. So rather than us trade stories around that, I wondered if you could share or impart any advice to say an SDR that is remote or, you know, like it is doing more of like the zoom kind of lifestyle, if that makes sense.

Mark Colgan: Yeah. It's so tough. Like I learned so much through osmosis of just sitting, sitting next to Andrew, and Greg, I can remember the two guys that I sat next to when, when I worked in one of those companies and I

Will: Yeah, me too.

Mark Colgan: to their calls and learned a lot from them.

Will: Yeah,

Mark Colgan: online, you obviously can't do that physically, but maybe your company might be using a [00:23:00] gong chorus, these cool recording platforms.

So definitely listen to a few of those and even listen to those, I'm not saying that never switch off, but, we always have more time in the day than we give ourselves the excuse of having. So maybe when you are walking from the office to the tube station or, or driving home, you could probably plug it in and listen, obviously. don't get in trouble for doing that, but find opportunities for you to learn a little bit more. That's what I do remotely. I think what I would also do physically is go to meet up meetups and events in your local area and get out there and build rapport with people. Have conversations like be interested in other people because all of that practice translates directly into how successful you are in sales and how successful you are at cold calling and writing emails and make it less about you and more about them.

Will: yeah,

Mark Colgan: you'll be in a much stronger position.

Will: yeah. It's, it's just so, it's just, it's just so funny when I'm hearing you talk about that. It's, it's the same lessons again and again, isn't it? But it's just 

 done in a different way. I, as you were talking, it just reminds me of [00:24:00] the arguably the oldest sales book there is, which is how to win friends and influence people,

Mark Colgan: Yeah.

Will: you know, and it's asking questions about others.

And then suddenly then turn around going, Oh, you were the most interesting person in the room. And he's like, well, I didn't say anything about me

Mark Colgan: Yeah,

Will: talking about you. It's the same, it's the same terms and I do, I do worry for the slightly more remote world, but I guess, I guess technology and stuff is gonna, is gonna catch up with us and connecting and there's things like LinkedIn, of course, as well.

Um, I also think, um, these communities, like where we met, or Mikey's community, like the Slack community, that's a good way of, of connecting too, hey?

Mark Colgan: So Will I, I, I have a, I'm fortunate enough that I have like a home office, which I may manage to kit out how I wanted it. And I know not everyone's in, in that position or don't, don't have the space. But I am a massive extrovert. Like I love people, I love catching up with people. I love going out for beers, although I'm, I'm off alcohol for until the end of the year just going

Will: Me too!.

Mark Colgan: Oh nice!, [00:25:00] but every week I have a coffee walk scheduled in the morning on a Wednesday or Thursday morning. It's with a friend or a contact of mine that lives here in Lisbon. 

Will: Yep. 

Mark Colgan: It's not the same person all the time. It's somebody else. Um, and then once a week night, I'll go out for beers, although I'm just drinking water or Coke zero if I'm really going to push the boat out, um, to catch up with friends and get that interaction. And then another part I do is when I don't have calls and I know I've just got a bit of admin to get through or just something that I just need a bit of solid time, I'll go to a coworking space. I don't speak to anyone in the coworking space, but it's just nice to see different faces,

Will: Be around the energy, yeah.

Mark Colgan: Mix it up a little bit. 

Will: Oh no, I totally agree. I think there's some really, really amazing tips there I just want to ask, like I ask everyone, Mark, what is your favorite quote and why? 

Mark Colgan: I've got 3 and two of them. I can actually see a cheesily put in a poster above my desk. So

Will: Yeah.

Mark Colgan: the [00:26:00] first is. Play to win without the fear of failure.

Will: Yeah.

Mark Colgan: I am extremely competitive with myself. I couldn't care less about anyone else, but I am always playing to, to win. That's why I do better in like golf, tennis, squash, not so much the rugby or the football teams.

Will: Gotcha. 

Mark Colgan: Yeah.

play to win without the fear of failure. If you fail, it doesn't matter. You're the only one that's going to remember.

Will: Yeah. Yeah. 

Mark Colgan: The second one is

"It's better to be consistently good rather than occasionally great." And that one's been really powerful for me to unlock, like building healthy habits, going to the gym. Um, I had a herniated disc at the beginning of this year. I think we spoke about that. And now I have to do Pilates, yoga, stretching. Uh, I am going to the gym four times a week to do a class in Portuguese, which I really have to look at the instructor to see what I should be doing. Um, but I'm doing that consistently and I'm already feeling better and I'm making better decisions about myself because of that as well.

I've got to go to the gym, got to make sure I [00:27:00] have enough rest, got to eat right. So being consistently good is so for me in this example. Going once a month and working really, really, really hard on my stretching is not as good as just going three or four times a week and just doing like, exerting some energy, but not, you know, too 

much. Uh, and then the last one is, is more of like a personal one, which is "Por Que No", which is, uh, "Why Not" in

Will: Why not?

Mark Colgan: and I think you can answer a lot of questions in life with "why not?" And, uh, some of the most exciting uh, fond memories have happened after saying, like, "Why not?"

Ha 

Will: Oh, I wish you were an investor.

Mark Colgan: ha ha ha ha ha

Will: Um, uh, so, so let's, let's, let's just go back to that. So, um, play to win and don't be afraid of failure. You know, we've obviously talked about that a lot and I think in sales that is so true, right? You know, You know, you only need to win one of those deals to turn everything around that you can turn around a month, a quarter, a year with a great deal.

Right? Um, [00:28:00] and, uh, the second one is, Oh, remind me what it is... 

Mark Colgan: "It's better to be consistently good, rather than occassionally great." 

Will: Exactly. And, uh, Jono, who's, who's our producer in the back, I know he's hearing me tell him, which I remind him every day is, uh, perfection is the, uh, enemy of good enough,

Mark Colgan: Mm hmm.

Will: Which is the one that I use all the time. And it's, it's, it's the same thing, isn't it?

If you're constantly chasing perfection, I think, I think not only is it better to be consistent, so you're consistently like stretching more, like you want to go to the gym every day as opposed to once, uh, once a year, but also I think. If you're always striving to be like perfect or, or like, like really amazing.

It's also like, that's so hard to achieve all the time. It's almost impossible. So it's also going to prevent you from doing stuff. Right.

Mark Colgan: 100%

Will: Which then aligns with all the stuff you're talking about. Um, execution as well. Right. Earlier on.

Mark Colgan: Mhmm.

Will: Then the third one, why not? And I think that is [00:29:00] the entrepreneurial spirit that we, uh, we live by.

Hey. And, um, I'd rather be doing that than that. Yeah, I think, working in a big office block somewhere.

Mark Colgan: Yeah, I think another quote which kind of goes closely with the why not one was uh, An old boss told me that his mother in law once said, "life is too short for shit hotels" And that...

Will: Yeah,

Mark Colgan: really stuck with me. And, and of course, I'm not suggesting you go into debt and put, put staying in a nice hotel on credit card.

But if you have the money and it stretches a little bit, stay in a nicer hotel because you feel better. You wake up in a beautiful environment. It changes your, your mindset. And I think we haven't really said mindset as a word, but all of this stuff is mindset.

Will: It's all mindset. Yeah.

Mark Colgan: Will,

Will: 100 percent.

Mark Colgan: to go, go in that play to win, you can take this mindset to things that you have to do in life.

So in Portugal, the, uh, there's a lot of red tape and bureaucracy with getting anything done. So

Will: Yeah.

Mark Colgan: Usually you have like a really bad experience when you go to [00:30:00] these, um, like the finance office or local government, it's the same in the UK. I went with a mindset of like, I'm going to have the best experience of my week in this place.

I'm going to go in and be charming. I don't speak the language, which is on me, but I'm going to do my best. I'm going to try and crack a, crack a joke, make them smile. Um, and I had an awesome experience and I got what I needed. I didn't have to wait for hours and hours and hours. And it's because I went in with that mindset of like, this is going to be good. Now apply that to work. Every time you pick up the call, every time you send an email, every time you're chasing a prospect, you want to come from that real positive and kind of like abundant mindset rather than that scared. 

Will: It's that "Positive Intention", isn't it? It's, yeah, a hundred percent. Well, look, we are coming to the end, so I know we could always, uh, talk about all these mindset things. It's like a whole other, it's a whole thing, isn't it?

But like, you know, here we are. Um, so some shameless self promotion time, you know, this is a sales podcast. We get to sell ourselves a little bit on this podcast, Mark, [00:31:00] you know, sell us something, Mark. Tell us, tell us something about, you know, you want the world to know.

Mark Colgan: All right. Well, I, I'm on a bit of a mission to a bit similar to what you, you guys are doing at meritt, of just up leveling the sales game. So I'm looking to positively help as many salespeople as possible, and one way I can do that one to many is like through YouTube videos. So if you want to check out my YouTube, I've got a ton of videos on list building, strategy, cold email writing, social selling. I love producing these videos on a weekly basis. Uh, and then I also have a newsletter, which I release on a weekly basis, which is more in depth step by step playbooks for generating pipelines. So that's mixture of sales, marketing, little bit of a operator, like customer success and delivery. Um, and always you can connect with me on LinkedIn.

Um, my LinkedIn connections are open.

Will: Amazing. So on that, follow Mark on YouTube for all those skills and believe me, Mark is a great teacher. I've sat here listening to Mark talk more than several times now. And, and honestly, I always feel like I'm learning [00:32:00] something. So I highly recommend that. Follow the newsletter.

Mark really is a great person to learn from. And I would also say my turn to shamelessly self promote is that if you are looking to just get into sales, and you're looking to pass those first all important interviews, Mark also has a course on meritt, of course, which is all about sales and sales technology and how that applies into our roles.

Now we haven't got time to talk about all of that now, but just go check out on meritt. 

That is the end of the episode. I hope you found this useful and as engaging as I have. Um, Mark, I keep, every time I talk to you, I'm like, I've got to go to Lisbon. So I really, I really, I really have to come.

So, um, thank you so much for joining us. Um, and thank you everyone for listening. If you've got this far and remember everybody, your future, it's on meritt. [00:33:00] 

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