Commonsense Strategies to Succeed in Life & Business with Casey Jacox

What happens when you lead with relationships instead of results? In this episode of The Staffing Show, David Folwell sits down with Casey Jacox, author of Win the Relationship, Not the Deal and host of The Quarterback DadCast. Casey shares how his journey from college quarterback to top-performing staffing leader shaped his philosophy on sales, leadership, and fatherhood. He also reveals the value of humility, vulnerability, and curiosity in business, the mindset shifts that can help sales teams succeed, and how intentional relationship-building drives long-term success. If you’re ready to move beyond surface-level conversations, build more meaningful, authentic connections with your clients, and transform “just business” exchanges into true partnerships, this episode is for you. Whether you’re in staffing, sales, or simply trying to lead with more heart, tune in for practical tools and a healthy dose of inspiration!

[0:01:14] David Folwell: Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us for another episode of The Staffing Show. Today, I am super excited to be joined by Casey Jacox, who is the author of Win the Relationship, Not the Deal, and the host of The Quarterback DadCast. He is also a sales and leadership performance coach with an incredible tenure in the staffing industry.

Casey, super excited to have you here today and to talk about who you are, what you’ve done, what you’re doing. To kick things off and give a little bit of context to the audience, could you tell us how you got into the staffing industry?

[0:01:46] Casey Jacox: Well, David, first, I’m grateful to be here, excited to be on. Well, like most people in staffing, I dreamt about it as a kid. Next, I had –

[0:01:53] David Folwell: Everybody, all of us.

[0:01:56] Casey Jacox: Yes. Kforce and Insight Global and Sloane, et cetera. I just dreamt one day, I’m going to get into staffing.

[0:02:03] David Folwell: You’re like, “Astronaut or Kforce? I don’t know.”

[0:02:05] Casey Jacox: Yes. I was like, “I don’t want to go to the moon. I want to go to work for Kforce. Why wouldn’t I?” No, joking aside, like most of us, we fall into it. Former college quarterback, that’s an Uncle Rika moment right there, everybody. I could throw the ball over the mountain if you want me to. But college athlete, got into a sales job called Barcodes West. They were a labeling software company. I called them stickers.

[0:02:26] David Folwell: Yes.

[0:02:25] Casey Jacox: And my boss was like, “They’re labels.” I’m like, “But they’re kind of also stickers.”

[0:02:28] David Folwell: They’re stickers.

[0:02:30] Casey Jacox: So, I kind of showed my maturity quickly and it was one of those sales jobs where you pound the phone, pound the phone, pound the phone, but yet no one could explain the commission structure. I remember when I left, and then my good buddy Kelly Hansen who’s still at Kforce doing great things. He convinced me to take this interview to a company called Hall Kinion, which was Kforce purchased in June of 2004. I didn’t even understand. I was like, “Staffing?” The contractors and the pay rate. It just didn’t make sense and all of a sudden, I was interviewed nine times at Hall Kinion with the likes of talented Lisa Crawford, the talented Angela Veronica, my first former leaders, and Lisa gave me a chance, and it was so silly of me to do, David. But I guess it shows my naivety.

I took an hourly contract sales job to become kind of a sourcer, [inaudible 0:03:13] at Hall Kinion, and I left a full-time job.

[0:03:16] David Folwell: Commission only?

[0:03:18] Casey Jacox: No. It was like an hourly. It was like 16 bucks. I thought, “Oh, my God, I’m making so much money, this is amazing.” But she bet on me and I bet on myself that I was like, I mean, I could have said the wrong thing and got canned on accident, whatever, but yes, I just fell in love with the staffing industry. I had some great leaders. I think guys like Jeffrey Neal was a huge mentor of mine. Then Kforce purchased us June 2004, 20 years later, there I was and met some amazing people, had some amazing clients, and learned so much, so much. And I think that’s why, I guess, really inspired me to write the book on relationship building because I think so many companies tell their sales team to build relationships, they just don’t slow down to teach them. So, that was my goal.

[0:03:59] David Folwell: That’s amazing. And set you up for a little bit of bragging, but I know that you and I talked recently and you were sharing some of your achievements at Kforce. Do you mind digging into that a little bit?

[0:04:09] Casey Jacox: So, I always say, right guy, right time, right place, at a fantastic recruiting team, fantastic client. But I was our number one rep 10 straight years and actually left as one of the firm’s all-time leading seller in the history of the company and I always say, “Who cares?” Now, I’m very proud of that, but I’m also, I know that when you dial 911, my phone doesn’t ring. So, I’m inspired by people who are humble. I work on humility every single day. But yes, I’m definitely proud of what I achieved. But have you heard about the book called The Second Mountain?

[0:04:40] David Folwell: No.

[0:04:41] Casey Jacox: So, one of my buddies turned clients, he’s a chief strategy officer at a company called Brighton Jones. He had me read a book called The Second Mountain, which is about like, in life you climb a mountain and you come back down. So, Kforce, I kind of looked at as my first mountain. I didn’t realize, and then as I came down, I kind of went through this, I’m right around 45 years old, like, well, what’s next? I didn’t know.

So, I feel like I’m kind of on the second mountain where you have the same skills I used in football, the same skills I used in relationship building, and nonprofits, and at Kforce, now as a leadership coach, it’s like, same things, they still work. But yes, grateful for the time at Kforce and definitely was a nice run we had together as a team.

[0:05:18] David Folwell: That’s incredible. I think one of the reasons I was excited to talk with you today is I know our industry, the staff industry right now, everybody’s trying to figure out sales, people are trying to figure out what’s the strategy, what are the tactics, how can we approach it, how can we improve our process around it. I would love for you to dig a little bit into lessons that you’ve learned over the years at Kforce. And then, I also want to talk about your book and kind of dig into that as well.

[0:05:43] Casey Jacox: Shoot. That will be a seven-hour episode of the things that I’ve learned, but I think the things I’m continuing to see in the industry right now are a lack of focus, a lack of understanding of who is your ideal customer, your ICP. I see a lack of people using a sales process. I see a lack of curiosity inside sales teams. When curiosity and humility and vulnerability don’t exist, you have this little four word, a nasty F word called fear. When fear likes to hide itself inside of sales teams, that means ego is going to be big, which are recipes for disaster.

I think a lot of the best practices I learned that either I was unconsciously competent or consciously competently taught. I didn’t realize how uncommon they were in it, but now, as I teach people these skills around setting a meeting follow-up, having a call to action, documenting in your CRM, asking a follow-up question. Don’t ask two or three questions inside of one question. Create space after you ask a question and shut the F up. Just because you feel like you have to talk as salespeople, you don’t. The best sellers in my experience are curious storytellers. They believe what they do matters, hence the sign behind me.

So, one of the pieces of advice that I got taught that I shared for days at Kforce that probably my friends got tired of me saying and I share it now on my journey as a leadership coach is a leader asked me, he said, “What’s more important? Do you want to be right or do you want to get what you want?” And my 23-year-old self, I said, “I want both.” He goes, “You can’t. You got to pick one.” I’m like, “Okay, well, I want to get what I want.” He’s like, “Good answer. Because if you had told me you want to be right, that means you have a massive ego and this is not going to be a place I’m going to have you work.” I was like, “It’s like blue pill or red pill. Good thing I guessed the right one.”

But to me, it’s like, if you’re always someone that wants to be right, you’re going to find yourself in a constant turmoil and I think about that piece of advice really resonated with me in staffing, because if I had to convince a hiring manager that this is the perfect candidate yet I don’t have a software degree, I don’t know how to code, I don’t know how to write business functional requirements, I don’t know how to wireframe as an IA, I don’t know how to do engineering, who am I to say what’s a perfect candidate?

But if I ask great questions and understand what he or she might be looking for, then the client will close himself, that’s what selling is. So, I just focus on me as like getting what I want, which is more consultants working, more deals close, more friends that have a good experience with me, more recruiters that, “Man, that guy Casey, he makes my life easy. He’s got his requirements tight. He really has a tight process. It gets the client always to follow up with us,” which it’s easier said than done. It takes time and effort to build those things. But I think that’d be the one piece of advice, hopefully I’d want people to take away from our conversation today is really ask yourself, “Do you want to be right or do you want to get what you want?” And as a 49-year-old, I use that advice often still, probably why I’ve been married for 26 years.

[0:08:32] David Folwell: I love that. And I also have a personal story to that, which was from couples’ therapy years ago, therapists literally asked in couples’ therapy, “Do you want to be right or in the relationship?” I’ll never forget that moment. And I was single like a month later, but it wasn’t for a good reason. But I’m married now and happily married. But I think about that often and I haven’t thought about it in terms of the business context. That’s amazing.

You and I recently, when we were talking before this podcast, you brought up that you have kind of an interesting leadership equation. You tell me a little bit about that and the background and what that is.

[0:09:12] Casey Jacox: I touched on it a little bit so far, but the math equation, which I wasn’t the best math student, but I created an algebra equation for leadership, which is H plus C plus V equals L, which is humility plus vulnerability plus humility equals leadership. So, H, humility, curiosity, vulnerability, equals leadership. There we go. And the reason why I believe that is because I’ve experienced it in sports, in non-profits, in my professional journey when I was around leaders who were always humble enough to thank the team first versus all about them. They were vulnerable enough to say what they don’t know or where they used to suck. And they were curious to ask us as a team a lot more questions. They encouraged people to ask questions. They encouraged people to ask for help.

And when any of those skills are lacking, as I mentioned earlier, then fear likes to hide. And if you’re a sales leader or recruiting leader listening right now and you find yourself in your 30 to 45 to 60-minute sales meeting or recruiting meeting, ask yourself, “Are you talking more or is your team talking more?” If you’re talking more, I’d be willing to bet there’s probably some fear. How often do you practice? Practice like for a meeting, practice for a recruiting conversation? Or do people like shut down and say, “Oh, I don’t want to practice that.”

If they say they don’t want to practice, which means they want to wing it, they want to practice on their candidates, so they want to practice on their clients, and if we told them that, they probably wouldn’t be too happy. So, I’m convinced those skills are superpowers. I’m not saying I’m right, but I’m saying for me, my experience on Earth for 49 years, they’re the best skills I’ve seen any leader possess. I’m sure there’s other ones out there, but for me, those are my top three.

[0:10:47] David Folwell: Yes, I want to feel like if you take any one of them out, you have immediate gaps. So, I feel like it makes sense to me and it feels like it aligns with what good leadership looks like. What are some of the other, when it comes to building the skill set for the humility, vulnerability, curiosity, any specific approaches to that?

[0:11:06] Casey Jacox: Yes. So, one of the things around curiosity, I got taught late in my career that I absolutely love and I love sharing with the world now because I was taught and the best ideas are meant to be shared. So, I teach a framework now called TED, which stands for Tell Me, Explain, Describe. It’s a way that I like to ask questions when I’m going on meetings. I learned this at age 41, which is a huge year of growth for me on many levels.

When I coach people, I’m like, “Anybody who’s listened to this that’s worked with me knows that he’s a freaking psycho with TED-based language. He’s always on my ass. He won’t let me off the hook.” I’m like, “That’s the same thing this guy who did taught me. Shout out John Kaplan if you’re listening.” I just think TED-based language, it just allows for really open-ended ways for the conversation to go anywhere and I remove modifiers before my TED-based questions and what I mean by that is if I said, “Hey, can you tell me more about you?” You could say no because it’s really a closed-ended question. But if I said, “Tell me two things that made you want to start this podcast,” totally different way of asking it and by me be putting a number on the question now that you as the human say, “Well, he asked for two reasons, so I got to give it to him because you can’t say yes or no.”

Or if you go to a meeting, this is one of my favorite questions I like to teach and I’ll give it away for free today is, “If I was starting meeting with you, David, instead of me assuming my agenda is the right agenda or what you want to talk about, I’m going to say, “Hey, thank you for your time today. I know we spoke a couple of days ago. I prepared an agenda based on our conversation, but more importantly, describe what would be an ideal outcome for you in the 45 minutes we have today?” When I ask the question that way, I get the answers to the test. It takes away the guessing, just like you and I joke like it’s like people in software. I got to give the demo.

[0:12:45] David Folwell: Yes.

[0:12:45] Casey Jacox: No, you don’t. You don’t have to do that. Just like, we’ll have an agenda and I have to talk exactly about what I’m supposed to talk about. But what if your client doesn’t want to talk about that? What if something’s changed? What if they don’t want to see the demo? It’s like, just like before you share these things, get another way of curiosity. It’s like, before I want to tell a story or convince or tell someone I can help them, I ask a question, TED – “Tell me, would it be helpful if I shared a story around X, Mr. and Mrs. Client?” Now, they’re ready to listen. Versus me just assuming that they want to hear these things, which again, I think it really takes a skill set and mindset of slowing down, being present in the moment, which is hard to do in this fast-paced world.

[0:13:22] David Folwell: Yes, I think that’s great advice and also nuanced. I mean, I think about my own experience and sales calls and conversations, asking people like, “Oh, well, what do you want to cover today?” “No, we’re good.” The way that you ask it changes the outcome pretty significantly. And I think making sure that you’re doing it in a way that actually encourages people to participate and give an answer is one of the more challenging things when you’re trying to ask questions. I find myself always going to yes and noes, just non-stop, dead ends.

[0:13:52] Casey Jacox: Takes practice. I mean, it took me a year to get really good at TED. I’ve been teaching it and we’re practicing it since almost, for almost 10 years now. So, it’s always top of mind for me. And I think the best people I practice on were my kids. If there’s parents listening, TED-based language is you want to get your kids to talk, because most parents, when their kids come home from school, it’d be like, “Hey, how was school?” “Good.” “What’d you do?” “Nothing.” “Did you have fun?” “Yes.” All right, dude. “We’ll go play Xbox for six hours and we’ll see you later.” It’s like dad of the year versus, “Hey, Ryder, tell me about school today.” “It sucked.” “Great. Tell me why it sucked.” “Well, because we had to go to school.” “Well, tell me what would you do differently if you didn’t have to go to school?” “Well, maybe go golfing.” “Great. Tell me why.”

So, I think like I’m being sarcastic and joking here, but like, when people practice, I call it TED-based language, TED-based questions, but where they miss it, or just like anybody’s, you don’t have to even use TED, you can use your own framework, but where most sellers miss is the second and third level. What I mean by that is if I ask a question and you say, well, let’s say for example staffing, “Hey, describe what would be an ideal outcome.” And you say, “I’d like to learn more about your contract to hire terms and your prominent experience.”

I’d say, so the common approach is the seller might just go in and say, “Okay, well, we can do contract hire. We can help you.” Versus, “Great. Tell me why that would be impactful for you today.” “Well, because we recently had a situation or competitor that, or one of your competitors who was not flexible.” “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?” “Yes, we wanted to convert after two months and they wouldn’t let us do it.” “Oh, describe the impact to you in the business by having,” – I mean, I could keep going deeper and deeper and deeper and all of a sudden, those questions create the story. Again, I didn’t sell one thing, but it takes practice.

[0:15:34] David Folwell: Absolutely. And I want to jump into some of that, I mean, this is part of your sales coaching, obviously, and these are some of the skillsets that you teach on. But you can tell me a little bit more about what the coaching process looks like. And also, if you can dig into, it seems like you focus a lot on rather than just the specific tactic. And I assume that you have these formulas, but just explain a little bit more about that.

[0:15:55] Casey Jacox: Yes, so I think definitely mindset, which is why the believe sign is behind me. I think how you start the day, you have to believe in what you do matters. You have to believe in yourself. If you don’t, you’re already going to get beat because the person who does believe in what they do matters, you’re going to hear it in their voice. You’re going to hear it in their body language, how they show up. I was lucky enough to do about a year of consulting for a company called Limitless Minds, which is a short little guy called Russell Wilson. You might have heard of him. They started a consulting company called Limitless Minds. His brother, Harry, great dude, Harrison Wilson and DJ Eidson. I met some fantastic people there, Colin Henderson, Henna Pryor and such, but I learned a lot about the mind and I learned a lot about the thoughts we have a day and how thoughts become things.

I learned a lot about science says we have, well, I think I’m guessing you’re like, not guessing, but I don’t have the stat in front of me. You want to say it’s like 80,000 to 90,000 thoughts a day on average.

[0:16:48] David Folwell: So crazy.

[0:16:49] Casey Jacox: We as humans. And of those thoughts, 75% to 85% are negative. So, when I speak on stages or work sales teams, I’m like, “So, think about that. Tell me why that might impact you.” Like, “I don’t know.” Well, if I tell myself, “There’s no way I’m going to get in that account. There’s no way. Or there’s no one hiring. We’re screwed. Oh, my god, all this stuff going on in the world, we’re screwed,” which I don’t have control of that. What I have control over is how I show up. I have control over how I compete. I have control over how I respond to things. I have control over so much more than we think we have control over.

I used to joke when I was a Kforce, I said, “Until the governor of Washington holds a press conference and says that every company in Washington is going to go on a hiring freeze, every industry, every company, that’s the day I’ll freak out.” But until that happens, it’s my job to go find them. Those are the types of mindsets I try to instill in people. But coaching programs, I always, at minimum, my work with people is three months just because if you’re forcing and changing habits. It starts with a coaching assessment document that’s proprietary. I created that really kind of level sets me on where someone’s at, what are their values, how they’re motivated, are they coachable, what kind of words do they use, sorts of things. Then the first month, we would talk weekly for an hour, and then months two and three, we talk every other week.

First couple sessions, it takes time to get through the assessment, where I’m really learning, they’re learning about me, I’m learning about them. And then I always say, sessions three through eight, I’m looking to really tie our time to specific revenue or things we can measure so that they’ll be like, “There’s no way I would have ever asked that,” or, “Oh, my God, we got that meeting because you helped me write that email or I would have never thought to do that.” I was remind people I coach like, “I’m going to help you do this, but guess how much commission I make when you close the deal?” Zero. But I get paid in a currency called karma, which I believe wholeheartedly is, I mean, that’s why I think every client I’ve worked with so far, Dave has been referral, every single one.

[0:18:41] David Folwell: It’s the best kind. It means you’re doing good work. I want to touch on two parts of that. So one, I want to go into coaching and hear stories from that. But first, on the subconscious side of things, the 80,000 to 90,000 thoughts. There’s a book, I think it’s actually called Subconscious, but the amount of thoughts that we have and then the inability to control what thoughts we have is such a mind-blowing concept to me. The fact that it’s just like, they’re happening. You just control how you react to them. And then, I think that is the mindset, I just couldn’t agree with you more on the importance of trying to figure out how you react and also over time trying to figure out how you keep the right mindset in place so that you are filtering in the right direction.

[0:19:22] Casey Jacox: I find stories help people learn better. It’s kind of like I’m very sarcastic, which I think sometimes humor gets people to learn quickly too. But I always say, imagine you’re on a flight and you’re about to go through some turbulence and then sometimes people get nervous. I get nervous of turbulence. I hate it. Imagine the pilot comes on, “You guys, keep your composure!” Go straight Will Ferrell. “We can’t have anybody freaking out!” I would start freaking out, but they’re calm. Flight attendants are calm.

[0:19:48] David Folwell: Always calm.

[0:19:49] Casey Jacox: If we freak out, well, our clients are going to feel it, our recruiting team is going to feel it, our ops team is going to feel it, our back-office team is going to feel it. All things we have control over, but instead we love being the hero or the victim of our own story and then telling ourselves these false statements that aren’t true, but we’re going to keep saying to ourselves and try to make ourselves believe them.

[0:20:08] David Folwell: Yes. It’s definitely easy to get into some of those loops, especially when things get hard. And I think in the staffing industry in the last few years, I personally had some moments. I’ve seen some people have some moments, and I know that there’s been challenging times where it’s hard. You got to make sure that you’re writing your own story. There’s good insights on that front.

Speaking of stories, I would love to hear some coaching success stories from you. Any of your favorite wins that you’ve had, or anything that you’ve heard from clients that you’ve worked with over the years?

[0:20:38] Casey Jacox: Humbly, I have a lot of success, which is rewarding, very rewarding. I think a couple that come to mind, one, a staffing client hired me to coach their top performer. When I was running a desk, the most number of consultants I had on was 300, 306. This person I was coaching had 100 on and they thought they were freaking more popular than Oprah and Michael Jordan combined. The CEO was telling me that, “Man, this guy’s got a huge ego.” So, I found a couple of ways to get connected to him. And I didn’t want to like to say, “Yes, let’s hire me as a coach.” I said, “I’d like to set up a discovery call with this person first.” Just to get to know him and not going to tell him why we’re talking, but all I said was, “Hey, your leadership team thought it might be helpful if we spend some time together, but I want that to be your idea, not mine. So, I want to use today as a way to ask questions and I’ll learn about you, you learn about me.”

I found out that he had a certain situation with his family that my family and I were going through. So, I’ll save that part for the story just from confidentiality in case the person knows who it is. Long story short, we had now an immediate connection. I think because we really connected, he kind of forgot that I spent time in the staffing industry. He said, “Well, how long are you there for us?” “A few years.” He’s like, “Well, how long?” I go, “I don’t know, a couple.” “How many?” I go, “Twenty.” He’s like, “Whoa.” I go, “Did you have a good success?” I go, “I think success is measured by everybody differently. I mean, I had an okay run.” I just kept answer his questions. And all of a sudden, he goes, “Well, how are you measured?” I go, “We were measured by Revenue GP and contractors on billing.” He’s like, “Well, how many did you have on billing?” I said, “I had a few.” “How many?” I go, “I had 306.” And the look on his face like he went white. I go, “Sounds like you’re close to that, maybe a couple hundred away. I’d love to share some best practices if it sounds like you guys might be looking to hire a coach. If I can help you, I’d love to share. But if you feel like you got everything figured out, that’s fine too.”

Immediately, he wanted to work with me. Again, I wanted to make his idea. Fast forward to like four or five months later, the CEO is like, “I don’t know what you said to him, what you did, but he’s like a freaking different dude.” So, it’s like the stories like that, it’s super rewarding because you can impact somebody, but it’s not me telling somebody, because I think that’s what coaching is about asking really good questions and being okay with silence and letting people come to their own rescue, so that they control the outcome.

I think another success story that actually, well, I coach the CEO, but one thing that I love to do, David is, I teach this to, it’s called a boomerang mindset. And I’m constantly trying to find ways to connect others, but I don’t keep score. And I don’t ask for permission to make connections. I just assume that, “Hey, if we’re on LinkedIn together, that you wanted to connect with me, but we’re friends.” And if I think a friend should meet another friend, I’m going to do it because I believe what I do matters.

I introduced one of my clients to another client. So, I have one client in the staffing software space hired me to speak, one staffing executive hired me to coach her. She was a diversity woman-owned supplier, really, really good culture, really good team. Her story is amazing. Well, I reached out to this software supplier and I said, “Hey, if you’re looking for really good company, if some of your end clients have diversity spend, or you’re looking for more diverse programs, I go, I’d love to make this introduction.” She’s like, “Oh, my God, timing is perfect. I actually would love that.”

Well, fast forward story, I get a phone call from the CEO of this staffing, almost in tears one day. She goes, “You just changed my life. You just changed my team’s life because they got added to this massive vendor and they’re going to now crush it.”

[0:24:11] David Folwell: That’s amazing.

[0:24:11] Casey Jacox: I get paid zero. She was kind enough to send me a gift card to a restaurant locally, but I didn’t expect it. But that’s what’s fun is seeing, because I feel like I’ve had my time on stage. I’ve had my time as a quarterback in college and the number-one producer at Kforce. It’s now my time, I feel like, to send the elevator back down and it’s such a rewarding feeling seeing others have success. Maybe that’s why you and I are together. It’s like people keep whether referrals happen, like connections happen, but those are just a couple stories that come to mind that hopefully this kind of highlight.

[0:24:42] David Folwell: Yes, well, I mean, you clearly find joy in what you’re doing, which you can see for those who listen, you can’t see it, but I can tell that you enjoy it. I was referred to you from Chris Dews. I think it was about a year ago, he was like, “If you haven’t read this book, you need to read this book.” And I went and bought the book immediately. I haven’t gotten through yet, which is that I need to do that. But he was like, “This is what you need to figure out right now is the concept behind this book, and stop thinking or worrying about the deal, worry about the relationship.” And it sounds like you’ve got that dialed in. We’re connected through a referral as well.

[0:25:18] Casey Jacox: Yes. How about a shout-out to Chris Dews, he’s going to be a dad.

[0:25:21] David Folwell: I know. It’s coming soon. You’ve got to have them on your podcast now.

[0:25:27] Casey Jacox: I told him, “Dews, if you’re listening, get ready, baby. You’re going to be a guest on the show.”

[0:25:32] David Folwell: How long ago did you start your podcast?

[0:25:34] Casey Jacox: January 2020. I have 293 episodes. Today, on April 3^rd, baseball fans out there, the famous Mike Matheny from St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals. He has a new book out called The Dad Coach and so he came on to talk about that and life as a dad. This is where it’s fun. Like I don’t have a script for my podcast. I just let curiosity drive it, but he also played for the Brewers, Milwaukee Brewers, and so I said, “You got any good Bob Uecker stories?” He’s like, “Oh, Uecker is the funniest man I’ve ever met.” Anybody who loves the Major League like I do, Bob Uecker is a freaking beauty. Rest in peace, Bob Uecker, by the way. But he goes, “Casey, I was with Bob Uecker on Lake Michigan on 9/11. We were fishing when 9/11 happened.” That’s why I love podcasts is having those stories organically come out.

[0:26:22] David Folwell: That is amazing. Then you had some new guests that are coming out. It sounds like you’re getting tied into the professional sports arena with your podcast.

[0:26:30] Casey Jacox: I’ve been lucky. I’ve had the Seattle Mariners Play-by-Play, the Seattle Kraken Play-by-Play announcer. I’ve had Yogi Roth from the Big Ten, Pac-12 channel, but I’ve also had stay-at-home dads, so that’s what’s kind of fun about it. I’ve had the big names, I’ve also had names you’ve never even heard of. But what we all have in common is that we’re dads and I’m teaching dads to become more humble, more vulnerable, more curious, just like I’m teaching leaders. Sales teams do the same thing because I think, again, when those skills are present, we have better home, better office, better culture, better huddle.

[0:27:01] David Folwell: I think even just teaching dads how to talk to their kids and to get their kids to talk, valuable. That’s a valuable skillset.

[0:27:09] Casey Jacox: I got a story there.

[0:27:09] David Folwell: Yes. Let’s go.

[0:27:11] Casey Jacox: So, we go out to this island on the east coast called Cuttyhunk. That’s off the coast of Boston. We made the crazy decision to buy a house there a long time ago, which is still amazing. But yet, did we really do that? So, my buddy’s daughter was, and she was like 14, she was kind of going through a tough time. Wasn’t talking enough. And this is where I really was getting to be addicted to TED-based questions. I said, “Let me try this TED stuff on her.” He’s like, “Dude, it’s not going to work.” I go, “Well, let me try.”

So, we were taking her to guitar practice. Now, I suck at guitar. I can play like five chords, but for the average person, I’m probably decent. For the person that knows music, like, “Oh, this guy sucks.” So, instead of just, I was like, “Hey,” towards the name I said, “Tell me what’s your favorite chord to play.” “D.” No biting. I go, “Tell me, do you ever find it hard to go like D, E, G?” She’s like, “How do you know?” I go, “Well, I self-taught it. If you have tips, man, I’d love to hear what you’re thinking.” Started to bite a little bit. “Tell me what some things I can do to practice better than that.” Or, “Tell me what your favorite site is to go learn to these songs.” All of a sudden, you could hear it in her voice. She starts opening up, opening up because I found something in common or connection that she wanted to talk about.

We get out of the car and my buddy’s like, “What the hell?” I go, “It’s magic, dude. If you ask the right question, it’s just like a janitor or a custodian that unlocks the door. If you try to force the key into the wrong hole, it’s not going to open up.” It’s funny. Fast forward to that story then like two summers ago, we were together, so I’ve known her for over 10 years. She had the guitar, we have a bunch of people on the deck, might have been a few soda pops out there and I go, “Hey, let’s go play.” She’s like, “No, I’m not playing in front of everybody.” I go, “You are way better at guitar than I am and you have a way better voice than I have.” I go, “How many people play out there?” She’s like, “I don’t know.” I go, “Take a guess.” She’s like, “I don’t know.” I go, “One, me. So, I’m the only one that’ll know if you mess up. They won’t. Let’s go play. I’ll play the first one. And then you –” She’s like, “Oh.” I go, “Come on. Let’s do it.” She’s like, “All right, one.”

Then we’re like, “Hey guys, we’re going to play a little bit. Anybody want to listen?” Everyone got excited. Like, “Yes.” So, I play the first one and I’m like, she promised to play next. I’m going to suck on the first one. Just trying to self-deprecate through humility, through vulnerability. And next thing you know, dude, she played for damn near two hours. The whole deck was full. In the next day, my buddy’s like, “I’m going to start calling you the Ted Lasso of Cuttyhunk. I don’t know how the hell you just did that.”

So, that’s what’s fun. It’s like finding human connection, finding helping people. And I’m working on these skills every day just like that I teach. But when you find it and you see it work, it’s really, really fun place to live and fun way to live your life.

[0:29:41] David Folwell: That’s a really fun story. It’s a hard skill to grasp. I’m always trying to figure out how to improve the questions that I ask. I think having a framework seems like it’s super helpful as well. I also just connected – you’ve got the believe sign behind you. And I’m thinking about the TED process now. It’s just all the Ted Lasso connections all there now.

[0:30:00] Casey Jacox: Yes. Well, one way to know, I’ll put you on the spot. So, if I had to give you two words, if you knew you asked good questions, tell me what two words would come to mind if your client, if you made him think. Tell me what two questions you’d want to hear from them?

[0:30:13] David Folwell: What two questions would I want to hear from the client?

[0:30:15] Casey Jacox: If you think you’re asking good questions.

[0:30:18] David Folwell: “I haven’t heard that before,” and people say, “That’s a good question.” I’m like –

[0:30:24] Casey Jacox: We just said it.

[0:30:23] David Folwell: Yes. People go, “Oh, That’s a good question.” Because it gets them to think and they go into their brain, haven’t thought about that process that way, you’re about to change behavior or belief inside of me.

[0:30:35] Casey Jacox: Bingo. Well, again, I look for that every meeting I go on. That’s how I measure success for me.

[0:30:40] David Folwell: That’s great.

[0:30:41] Casey Jacox: If you hear someone say “great question,” this is where I see people mess up. They just go. They don’t say, “Well, great. Well, tell me why? Why was it a good question?”

[0:30:50] David Folwell: I’ve never even thought about that. I’m usually like, “All right, got a good question in there. Score.”

[0:30:55] Casey Jacox: Make him think more.

[0:30:56] David Folwell: Yes, that’s great. Go deeper. And then you learn how you can replicate it because you understand what the thought process was there. That’s really smart.

[0:31:05] Casey Jacox: And when you get that question, now you have a story to share with future clients. So, it might be, “Hey, Mr. and Mrs. client, I was meeting with someone similar to you in a similar industry. Would it be helpful if I shared some of the questions he thought were great questions that really impacted him and his team?” “No, I’d rather not hear those.” I’d rather do some really transactional shitty questions.

[0:31:24] David Folwell: I’m great at those. I do want to jump into a transition, which I think is kind of relevant right now. But as we’re talking about the sales process and the questions that you asked, sales techniques. You talked about how you use the MEDDICC approach. Could you just explain a little bit about why you use that and why you think it’s effective?

[0:31:47] Casey Jacox: Yes, again, I learned the power of MEDDICC, M-E-D-D-I-C-C, for everybody spelling it home. It’s not just medic like the medic, but it’s an acronym. Google it. I learned it from one of our vendors, partners, and I fell in love with it because it took the guesswork out of – so, if you have a team of salespeople or you, your leader, and someone says, “Hey, when do you think that deal is going to close?” “I don’t know, maybe a couple of weeks.” And someone says, “I think it’s going to close tomorrow.” And then one person says, “I don’t think it’s going to close at all.”

Well, the reason why no one knows is because they’re using their gut feel, and there’s no way to measure gut feel. But MEDDICC is a sales process. I mean, other companies have different ones, but MEDDICC, I like it, it stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion, and Competition. It gives you a framework to figure out where your gaps in the deal. Because as a seller or sales leader, I want my reps saving time. I want them winning time. And that’s the number one thing.

The second thing I want them doing is winning relationships, winning people, creating memorable experiences that they’re like, “Wow, that person was great. She was fantastic. Man, his follow-up was good. I’ve never seen somebody ask that type of question. I’ve never seen someone go out of their way to do A, B, or C for me.” So, if I’m winning my time, if I’m winning relationships, the next thing that organically is going to happen in my experience is, well, then you’re going to win revenue. That’s how you win deals.

So, MEDDICC helps me spend time so I don’t convince myself that the client has an issue or they convince themselves they have a problem, gives me a framework to ask questions to really go deep to make sure that, again, I’m not guessing because I don’t want to guess and I actually had a situation recently where a larger company wanted to hire me to coach some of their leaders and the person said who I talked to four years ago, wanted to work with me again and they said, “Hey, I think we’re ready to work with you.” I go, “I don’t believe you.” What? I go, “You told me that four years ago. Tell me what’s changed.” He’s like, he’s taken aback, almost like stunned. I go, “Cool.” I go, “What I just did to you, I’m going to teach your leaders, because we want to win time. Now, I believe you, but I wanted to prove you how I’m going to do it.” It went from me working from three to working with five people, and now they just extended me to work with a very large group of folks.

So again, I’m not making this stuff up. And what gives me the most excitement and passion, David, now is sharing this with people who are a lot younger than me. I tell them, I wish – I learned MEDDICC at 41. I learned TED at 41. I wish I would have learned at 23. And yes, I had a good run at Kforce. But I think I would have even had a better run if I had these tools back then.

[0:34:13] David Folwell: Yes, I feel like the frameworks just help it scale, right? It helps it scale and helps to give the common language between people and predictability part of it. I think for all of us in sales and especially with the market, the way it is. I mean, every conversation I’m having with staffing agency owners, even today, people are like, “Well, there’s a bunch of false starts.” We think things are moving, then they’re not moving, but I know sales predictability is something that everybody is trying to figure out. It sounds like that was a key element for helping to forecast that.

I know you had also talked about the importance of the follow-up and how the meeting recaps has been a game changer for you. Could you dig a little into that?

[0:34:54] Casey Jacox: I actually give a real live example in the book on page 283. If people do want to check it out, but yes, because most sellers, they don’t follow up. Most sellers don’t document their CRM. What I do, I teach is I help people with the framework of having a call to action, but the meeting recap is essentially just telling the customer, I’m going to send you a recap what I heard, and I’m going to prove to you that I listened, and then I want to make sure that I articulate what are the next steps for both you and me to move our relationship forward, whether it’s next steps of a meeting, could be the deal, could be me getting introduced to his peer or her peer, it could be a number of things.

But I love the word, uncommon. Tony Dungy wrote a book called Uncommon. I think uncommon people do uncommon things and achieve uncommon things. So, the meeting recap, I did not realize is uncommon, but I’m learning it is very uncommon. So again, free coaching for everybody listening. Watch what happens when you start sending meeting recaps to your clients. A, you’re going to stop wasting time and the client is going to be very, very thankful that you actually care about them, that you understand their business, and you’re taking time to learn, versus just calling the “check-in”, which is code for wasting their time.

[0:36:00] David Folwell: The check-in emails are the most overlooked for sure. And it sounds like not only are you doing the focusing on coaching for how to do the follow-ups, how to do them right, to even get to a spot where you are doing a meeting recap in a meaningful way, you have to do the discovery correct. They have to make sure you’re asking questions there. Explain a little bit about how you would approach a discovery and what makes it important.

[0:36:21] Casey Jacox: The biggest and most impactful discovery question I love asking is, “Describe what would be an ideal outcome for you?” So, it helps me focus on what they want to talk about. I’m trying to understand specific things about their business, specific things. I’m trying to take them to a time maybe when I was in staffing of when something did not go well. Then, I’m trying to almost find that pain and let them sit in it for a while, because if they can sit in that pain or that discomfort, they’re going to be more likely to want to make a change. If sometimes a client would say, “Well, I just wanted to meet with you.” I go, “Are you sure?” Because most people don’t meet just to meet you. I’d be willing to bet something’s not right because you seem like a busy person.

Now, challenging somebody takes belief to do that. And again, you saw my tone change, right? So, most sellers don’t think about that. It’s like how you ask the question. Every word you say matters. When I think about discovery, I don’t ask two questions in one. What I mean by that is, “So, Mrs. and Mr. Client, so how’s business, how’s the team, what have you guys been working on and what are you up to?” Well, I just asked four right there. Most likely the client’s going to answer the last one. I’m going to forget the other three that I just asked, which might be decent questions, but now that I’m not listening, I’m hearing, which is what Chapter 3 is about. Now, I go right back into this and I become transactional just like every other poor salesperson.

So, I think the discovery for me is just, it’s a first half, second half, it’s a takeoff and landing, it’s like front nine, back nine. I like to talk about them as much as I can, even when they try to make me talk about myself so that I understand their business. Do they have a pain or problem? Do they have discomfort or not? Which is what the I in MEDDICC is about too, Identify Pain.

[0:38:00] David Folwell: It definitely feels like, I mean, the experience with any sales call in the beginning process is the buyer typically is coming in with like, I want to see a demo. I just want to see it without even explaining any of it and they’re trying to get to that as fast as possible. I’m talking about from a software sales side, but I feel like even on my experience, I was a buyer of staffing services and have been multiple times at different ways for hiring engineers. I probably wasn’t the best buyer because I was like, I just want to, like what’s the rate and what can you do? Then I’ve had somebody who sat me down and said, “Look, it doesn’t matter. Like if you don’t want to talk about it, it doesn’t matter. The rate’s not the important part. Do you want to understand what we can do and what are you actually trying to solve to see if we can solve the problem?” So, it’s kind of getting people to slow down, focus on that, kind of stop people and their fast-paced approach to it. It makes sense.

[0:38:50] Casey Jacox: Well, and I think, I mean, through discovery, let’s say for example that you were that type and let’s say that you didn’t want to change as a buyer. If I was coaching somebody, I said, “Is that the client you want to work with?” Maybe that’s not who you want to work with. I talk about deals where I walked away and I think sometimes, again, when you don’t have a sales process, you end up like, I have one client now that they have a bunch of MSAs. I’m like, “Who cares? What if they don’t use your services anymore?” But that might be something to figure out before we just rely on the MSA, right? They’re like, “Oh, my God. It was so basic. It was right in front of us.”

But sometimes an external person sees it, but internal people don’t because you’re clouded by all the noise of what you’re doing. So, again, I just think kind of back when we talked earlier, you’re like, “Win time everybody by slowing down.” I don’t know, I could talk about stuff for years.

[0:39:40] David Folwell: Well, I agree with you, and I think that our industry needs more of it because I feel like, I mean, the world might need more of it right now with the way that everybody’s kind of accelerating to try to do more, to automate more, to be less human, less personalized in a lot of areas. Then, they’re like, “What’s not working?” Well, you’re not actually getting to the connection into the present moment in a lot of those moments, which is part of the challenge that we face today.

[0:40:08] Casey Jacox: I don’t know about you, David, but I can tell when I get these automated bot-driven messages that I use one of my favorite buttons, delete. But the people that actually take time to slow down. The old-school stuff still works for me. If they show, “Hey, Casey, I just listened to your podcast with blah, blah, blah, blah. Man, it reminded me of my experience with my dad. Great job.” Except, I had one person. This gives me job security. David, the guy goes, “Casey, I just listened to your podcast, Winning the Relationship.” I go, “Bro, I don’t have a podcast called Winning the Relationship and we will not be meeting. Good luck.”

Even sometimes, I mean, I’ve had people show up like six, seven minutes late to a meeting and they wanted to meet me, and then they don’t say anything.

[0:40:53] David Folwell: And they don’t even apologize for it. They’re just like, “Just is.”

[0:40:57] Casey Jacox: So, I have a choice. So, there’s great leaders are kind and nice. Kind means I’m going to give you direct feedback. You’re not going to like it, but I’m going to be kind about it and do it with grace and genuine tone. But, well, this meeting’s over and we’re not going to meet because, A, obviously, you don’t respect my time. You didn’t even say you’re sorry, but I’m going to give you feedback on and hopefully that since I wasn’t a buying client – but imagine if I was, imagine I was a vice president of a company and you wanted to meet with me for three years and I finally got the meeting. You guys got the meeting and you just show up late and you’re not prepared. I go, “All that for what?”

So, it’s like, there’s just a lot of people that are relying way too much on AI and ChatGPT. It saves time, but also it doesn’t help things I’m passionate about, which is still the emotional intelligence. You can ChatGPT all the world, but if you don’t know how to apply it in real life and have the conversation, you’re screwed.

[0:41:49] David Folwell: I completely agree. Completely agree. I think that’s why your skill set in business coaching is, I imagine, in pretty strong demand at the moment.

[0:41:59] Casey Jacox: I hope.

[0:42:02] David Folwell: Well, it sounds like it’s moving along the right path. What are some of the, I mean, we talked about, you just brought up the ChatGPT, and we’ve talked a little bit about kind of the state of the world. What are some changes that you’ve seen happen in the last few years and kind of the progression of sales? Where do you see it going in the next few years in terms of the approach that people are supposed to take?

[0:42:22] Casey Jacox: I think one thing that I see that actually I like helping clients on that I think some aren’t slowing down to do is like slowing down to really make sure is what you think you do, is what your clients think you do. So, practicing voice of the customer, going through voice of the customer. I have stories for days on when I was at Kforce where I remember, I told clients for multiple times we do this, we can provide the skill set, we can provide that. And then they forget and they go to a competitor and I’m like, “I told you.” But obviously I didn’t tell it the right way because I didn’t articulate the right way, or I didn’t maybe send the recap to follow it up.

So, I think one thing I’m seeing sales teams do that are having success is slowing down to make sure their message is tight, that what they think they do, the problems they solve, and how they do it differently or better, would your clients say the same thing? I mean, some sales teams, I love asking them, if someone came down the hall and said, “ABC Company,” let’s say that’s where you worked. And you said, “Mr. Manager,” if someone came down and said, “Hey, Casey from ABC company, if you had to describe what he does or how his company, what they do for us, tell me what you would say.” And you’d be surprised what people say.

What the gift is, you either can pretend that they’re going to say it perfectly or if they don’t, you can do something about it and you take the chance away from them. But I definitely am seeing people go back to the basics. I mean, there’s so many automated tools and ChatGPT and this message and that and software and all these things. I think they’re great. I think there’s a lot of great tools out there. However, what I still don’t think will ever be replaced is this, how I make you feel, how I make people think. I’m like, “That one ChatGPT response, wow, he was good. That made me feel so special.” But if they said, “How did he remember my son had a golf tournament this weekend? How did he remember my daughter had a basketball game? How did she remember that it was my wife and I’s anniversary?” That’s a feeling that, boom, into my subconscious that I’ll always remember now by people.

Again, I think sales teams that are doing that are advancing a little bit more than others because, and some might argue with me, “Oh, it’s old school.” Well, the old school still works in my mind. I’m not saying pound the phone and send faxes out so much, but when you ask the right question, it unlocks the right door and changes. And that’s how relationships move forward, in my opinion.

[0:44:41] David Folwell: I could not agree more. And I do think that the approach, the way I always talk with our team about is like, it’s not shotgun, it’s sniper, and we got to shift that mindset. Just because you have the tools to send emails to everybody, there were periods where that was effective, at least getting the conversation started. But I think more than ever, the noise has gotten so loud that figuring out how to truly connect and have something meaningful is what’s working.

We talked about going back to the basics. I’ve even heard stories recently about print advertising working, again, with direct mailers being effective because people aren’t doing it in B2B. So, it’s like things like that. It’s like when channels get overcrowded, going back to what the fundamentals are can be pretty impactful.

[0:45:24] Casey Jacox: Even like a handwritten thank you note. I mean, it’s silly and outdated. It still is unique. I mean, someone sent me – I made an intro to a recruiter for the staffing industry. I was impressed by her. I introduced her to another one of my clients. They’ve now placed like three people. She sent me a handwritten note and I was like, because I wouldn’t give her my address because she’s like, and then she found I was getting mad. She was like, “I want to send you something.” I’m like, boomerang mindset. I’m not keeping score. She’s like, “Cut the shit. Give me your address.” She sent me a nice little, little gift. So, I need to follow up with her.

But yes, but it stood out. Handwritten note. I could read her writing. It was meaningful. She mentioned my son. She mentioned my favorite hockey team. Little things.

[0:46:10] David Folwell: Absolutely. As we wrap this up, I want to jump into our speed round of questions. I might be able to guess this one, but I’m also curious to know about what book or books have you gifted the most and why? I assume your book is part of that, so I want to know why for that, but I also would like to talk about a secondary book. Anybody that’s an author – that one.

[0:46:32] Casey Jacox: I think as an author, you got to say you can’t answer your own question, ego maniac. I am a big, big, big, big fan of Patrick Lencioni’s work. One of my favorite books is Getting Naked. I would encourage people when you search for that one, don’t use your corporate directory. In case you get in trouble. But it’s about humility and vulnerability. He’s great business fable. He also wrote a great book called Ideal Team Player, which is a great thing for leaders to look for. He talks about being hungry, humble, and smart. I think his work, I think Malcolm Gladwell, a big Malcolm Gladwell fan.

Unfortunately, one of my favorite sports authors has passed away, John Feinstein, who I was lucky enough to interview before he passed away. He’s written some fantastic, sorry, if you’re not looking for like some non-business books, great sportswriter. But those would be three authors I think of that I probably share the most.

[0:47:21] David Folwell: Awesome. That’s great advice. And what advice do you wish you were given before you entered the staffing industry?

[0:47:27] Casey Jacox: I wish someone said, “Hey, learn as much as you can about what we do, but more importantly, I want you to practice asking questions each and every day, and I want you to listen for someone to say great question in every meeting.”

[0:47:40] David Folwell: I love that metric. I’ve never heard anybody talk about that metric. I think that’s a great concept. If a sales rep, this might be the same answer. You might have the same answer to this question. If a sales rep could change only one habit, what would you recommend?

[0:47:54] Casey Jacox: I would say talk less, listen more.

[0:47:57] David Folwell: Awesome. Any closing comments for the audience?

[0:48:00] Casey Jacox: Well, let me self-plug the book. As the author of the Win the Relationship, Not the Deal, I read it a little over 10 times not because I’m an egomaniac everybody, but to the editing process or through, when I record the Audible, or when I coach people, I’ll go refresh myself and parts of it. I learned from myself, everybody, which means I’m flawed just like you. These six things I wrote about, which is bring energy to the room, treat people you want to be treated, set expectations, be a great listener, always use your CRM and document, check your ego, practice, and have patience for people, let relationships organically develop, but be persistent, but have patience. Those still work and it takes practice.

So, I would just encourage people that if you’re looking like a tool that will help you a long time because I’ve helped, I’ve heard people that I’ve read that said, “Man, I ran out of school and it’s helped me. I’ve had someone who’s north of 40 years old that’s told me, “How did I forget to do this?’” Which is why I wrote it. I wrote it for myself, selfishly, but I also wrote it for people that, “Here’s how you build relationships and if you forgot how, here’s a great tool to go do it.”

[0:49:05] David Folwell: When did you start writing it?

[0:49:07] Casey Jacox: I wrote it. It took me four months. I wrote it in April or May of 2019, and I wrote for every day from 9 to 11:30.

[0:49:18] David Folwell: Oh, my gosh. So, you just went back and looked at like, “How did I get to where I am? What was the core elements of it? How did I have the success I’ve had?”

[0:49:24] Casey Jacox: I actually did a word map exercise. This is great advice. I did like a word map exercise, look at the wire frame. So, I just wrote down words and then I put like clouds around them, like kind of like a wire frame on an e-commerce website. And I just said, okay, when I was winning people, when I’m having “success”, what did I do? I was curious. I was humble. I documented. And I wrote all these words and I just then I kind of like, what words matched together then I highlighted those. Those high certain highlighted. So, every, was six different colors left, as the six different chapters, and I just then I started writing.

[0:49:55] David Folwell: That’s incredible. I’ve already got the book in Audible. So, my next run I’m picking it up and I’m reading it and highly recommend others to highly recommend it to me from Chris and I trust him and trust you and I’m excited to see what it’s all about.

[0:50:07] Casey Jacox: I narrate it too is my voice, so it’s almost like bedtime by Casey. Bedtime stories.

[0:50:15] David Folwell: Awesome. Casey, I really enjoyed having you on today. Appreciate all of the advice. We’ll drop a link to the book in our show notes and also link to your coaching, and it’s really nice talking with you today.

[0:50:29] Casey Jacox: It was a blast, man. Keep up. I love what you’re doing and grateful too that Chris introduced us, and it was a really fun conversation. Thanks again.

[0:50:36] David Folwell: Awesome. Thanks so much.