June 21, 2025 | Read online

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Last week’s RevFest conference was unique in so many ways. One of the more interesting things they had at the event was a tattoo artist giving away free tattoos. Yes, real ones.

I had been wanting to get a new tattoo for a while so I was excited to take advantage of it but unfortunately they were only doing preset tattoos and only in black and white so I decided against it.

However, it did create an itch that I had to scratch, so last weekend when my daughter said she wanted a belly button piercing and it was at a tattoo parlor I decided to go for it.

It’s based on a cartoon I saw a while ago. I made a few adjustments to have it reflect me giving the finger to all my problems and floating away with the ones I love.

It’s also about me starting to understand more and more the difference between being kind versus being nice.

Here’s a link to a breakdown of the difference between the two.

Kindness isn’t about keeping everyone comfortable. It’s about showing up with empathy and honesty, even when it’s hard. I also think it’s about not pretending to be nice and walking away from things that don’t align with your values.

That’s true in life, and especially true in sales.

I’m kind but not necessarily nice all the time and think we need to add more kindness to our lives, including Sales, which is what I wanted to write about this week.

TACTICAL TIPS: Name. Validate. Offer

TECH/RESOURCES: The War for Kindness

SALES FROM THE STREETS: Kindness For The Win

TACTICAL TIPS:

Name. Validate. Offer

Kindness isn’t about keeping everyone comfortable. It’s about showing up with empathy and honesty, even when it’s hard. That’s true in life, and especially true in sales.

So this week, I’ve got a tactical tip for how to bring more real kindness into your conversations—particularly when you’re handling objections.

Most reps get tight when objections show up. They either go into defense mode, pitch mode, or start dragging prospects through features they never asked for. Instead, try this:

Name. Validate. Offer.

It’s simple. It’s human. And it works.

When a buyer throws out an objection—budget, timing, competing priorities—they’re not just pushing you off. They’re telling you something matters more to them right now. If you don’t acknowledge that, you’re dead in the water.

Here’s the move:

Name what you hear:
“Sounds like you’ve got some heavy initiatives competing for attention right now.”
Validate it:
“That makes total sense—if I were in your seat, I’d be questioning whether this deserves focus too.”
Offer a next step if it’s welcome:
“Want to talk through what makes it worth prioritizing for others in your position?”

This approach shows you’re listening, not pitching. It puts you with the buyer, not against them.

This is basically “Feel, Felt, Found” for 2025. The old school model worked because it showed empathy:

“I understand how you feel—others have felt the same—but here’s what they found…”

“Name, Validate, Offer” modernizes that. Less canned, more real. And it gives you space to earn the next step, not force it.

Use this in your next objection. Don’t dodge it. Don’t bulldoze through it. Acknowledge. Align. Advance.

That's how you stay kind and close deals.

(By the way, here’s a link to my Objection Handling bundle of my Membership if you want to check it out)

SPOTLIGHT: RegieAI

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With RegieAI, you focus on the "why" and let the AI handle the "how." It's all about the human, the tech, and the AI working in harmony.

Their AI prompt library is full of helpful information & tips to help sellers write high-quality AI prompts that generate even higher-quality messaging. They've even thrown in prompt templates to help you get started.

CHECK IT OUT HERE

TECH/SALES RESOURCES:

The War for Kindness

A great resource to help improve empathy and leverage kindness is this new book I’m reading called The War for Kindness: Building Empathy in a Fractured World by Jamil Zaki.

It’s not a “sales” book - but it should be. Zaki is a psychology professor at Stanford, and what he lays out in this book is backed by research, not fluff. The core idea? Empathy isn’t fixed. It’s a skill you can train. That has massive implications for how we show up in sales, especially in a world where buyers are more skeptical, distracted, and burnt out than ever.

Quick Summary (from ChatGPT)

The War for Kindness makes the case that while the world feels more divided and disconnected, we still have the capacity to build bridges—if we’re intentional about it. Through stories, science, and real-world examples, Zaki explores how people from war veterans to prison guards to violent offenders learned empathy and became better for it.

It’s not about being soft. It’s about being effective. In sales, the reps who can genuinely understand and connect with buyers win. Period.

Why It’s Relevant to Sales

Here are a few takeaways that hit home for me and how they tie to what we do:

Empathy is a muscle. Use it or lose it.
If you’re just blasting emails or powering through cold calls without listening, you’re atrophying the exact skill that sets great reps apart. Empathy gives you the edge in discovery, objection handling, and closing.
Perspective-taking matters more than “feeling their pain.”
Zaki explains that you don’t have to emotionally absorb everything your buyer is going through. You just have to understand their context and see things from their angle. That’s what separates top reps—they speak the buyer’s language and connect it to real outcomes.
Environment shapes empathy.
If your sales culture is all about speed and grind with no room for curiosity or reflection, empathy dies. But if you build habits around pre-call research, asking better questions, and doing post-call reviews, you actually train yourself to give a shit—and buyers feel it.
Empathy can be taught.
That’s what we do every day when we train teams. We’re not just teaching frameworks—we’re helping reps build the skill of connection, of relevance, of knowing what to say and when to shut up and listen.

This book is a reminder that kindness isn’t weakness. It’s strategic. When buyers feel seen, they open up. When they open up, you uncover the real levers to move a deal forward.

Highly recommend adding it to your list - whether you're a sales leader trying to shift your team's mindset or a rep looking to build real connection in a world of noise.

SALES FROM THE STREETS:

Kindness for the win

On my way back from New York, my flight was delayed by 2.5 hours so I tried to get on an earlier flight.

The earlier flight was delayed too and there were a bunch of pissed off passengers lining up at the counter and yelling at the flight attendant while she tried to expedite the boarding.

I was standing at the counter waiting for her patiently to come up for air to see if there was any way I could get on that flight so I could be home early enough to have dinner with my family.

As the passengers continued to be annoyed and argue with her she made a comment - “and I just got into work today so this is how my day is starting, huh?”

I laughed and said “Well, at least it can only get better from here 🙂”.

She looked at me and laughed with a look on her face of “at least someone understands.”

I continued to wait patiently, without trying to engage with her or ask her to help me. I didn’t want to add any more stress to her life.

After a break between boarding groups 2 and 3 she finally looked at me and asked if she could help me with something.

I pulled a Chris Voss (hunt for the “no”) and asked “would it be ridiculous for me to ask if I could get on this flight? Mine is delayed 2.5 hours and I’d really like to get home to see my family.”

Not only did she help me, but she stopped taking people’s tickets to find a seat for me, upgraded me to first class and when I got on the plane she gave me free drinks.

All because I was seemingly one of the only people who was kind to her.

Kindness isn’t just the right thing to do, it can be your competitive advantage.

Let’s practice more of it.

(p.s. I am presenting my Keynote this Friday where I’ll be going over how kindness saved me in some of my darkest hours. I hope to see you there.)

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