Maestro Spotlight: An Interview with Will Fuentes on Resilience in Sales

This week we speak with Maestro founder and fountain of knowledge Will Fuentes. (Author: Fuente means “fountain” in Spanish. Recognize my bilingual pun genius.) Resilience is important in all walks of life, but doubly so in sales, a job where we are so often told “no.” Come along for the ride as I pick Will’s brain for his thoughts and tips on resilience and how to achieve it to become a great sales professional.

Adam: What is resilience to you?

Will: It’s the ability to continue moving forward even when you feel tired or defeated. It’s being able to take the punches and dust yourself off to continue putting your best effort forward.

A: Where is the connection to sales?

W: The ability to do what is necessary even when things aren’t going your way is vital in our field. Sticking to best practices, to process, getting back on the phone after hearing “no” 100 times. Being able to seek help to improve when things aren’t going well. In sales, we all have tough times or a tough go, so knowing how to stick it out is essential to staying in the field.

A: When is seeking out help reliance versus resilience?

W: If you aren’t taking the time to understand where you are going wrong, it’s reliance. You are focusing on others and then expecting them to give you solutions. Being self-aware, knowing your gaps where you need improvement, and seeking others to help fill those gaps is a different story. Resilience requires a combination of awareness, self-understanding, and the desire to improve. Reliance is when you just want people to tell you the answer.

A: So, a mix of self and external support and help?

W: Yes, so part of it is taking the punches and continuing, but then knowing when you just don’t know. When you can recognize you need outside help rather than bashing your head into a wall after your thousandth “no.” Resilient individuals know to look inside first and how to judge when to tough it out and when to seek improvement.

A: Essentially seeking growth rather than avoidance.

W: Exactly.

(Sidebar): It comes down to internal checks versus external checks. Is your focus on the improvement of the self, or simply on changing what is around you so that you don’t have to change?

A: Where do you think resilience comes from?

W: I think some people are just that way naturally and just exist that way, but for most people it’s a learned behavior. Through experience, learning to stick things out, and learning from failure rather than avoiding the possibility of failure. It can be a learned behavior. Hopefully you have seen others in your life who have been resilient, and you can emulate them.

A: If you were to teach someone resilience, what is the first thing you would have them do?

W: Think about a time when they wanted to give up but didn’t and were able to accomplish something. Or think of a time when they thought they couldn’t do something at all or something went totally wrong, and then consider what came next.

Like, they are alive, they didn’t die! I often think people just don’t understand that the things that cause us these anxieties aren’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. There’s always a light, a path. It may not be the path you wanted, but there’s always a path, always a light.

A: I like the “you didn’t die” part. Do you feel that your resiliency comes from your own experiences where “you didn’t die,” or rather the experiences you know of your family, such as your grandfather and his story? Where does your resiliency come from?

(Sidebar): Will’s grandfather has an incredible story where he had to leave school at third grade to care for his siblings, only to end up self-studying while working a night job and creating an extremely successful business and life for himself. This does not do the story justice, but it’s a quick glimpse.

W: I think the majority of times when I am facing tough times, I think of family members who have faced much worse situations and come out the other side of it. I think it is focusing on the examples that I have had in my life. My grandfather with a third-grade education who made himself a great life, became a diplomat basically.

When I coach sales professionals or children in sports, I say, “Well, it’s not that bad. There are so many worse things that can be happening than this thing right now.” And while that may not be a lot of comfort in that moment, I think it helps them take a second to breathe and remember that there are other worse things that have happened that others or they themselves got through.

A: So, essentially, this remembrance of other experiences in your life or the lives of others allows you to not necessarily ignore your situation, but to know that you can get through it focusing on logic and removing the emotion.

W: I think that’s part of it. Like the sayings, “this too shall pass,” or “time heals all wounds.” When something goes bad, I think, “Ok, this is bad, but is it the worst thing possible? No. I have a roof over my head, food, a job, and there are many people in the world who don’t have these things. I have a base they don’t have that helps me get through these things.

It’s about people changing their perspective on what they are suffering through. It’s easy to get caught up in a single deal or get worn down by so many people telling you “no” all the time. Sometimes people have to be reminded to put things in context. If your basic human needs are being met, there is always a path forward.

A: I feel like we are getting into grit. The idea of saying, you have to hunker down and power through. Do you think there is any resiliency without grit, or are they inherently hand in hand?

W: (Will pauses to use brain.) That’s an interesting question, because the definition of resilience is your ability to withstand difficulties (pauses to use brain again), so I don’t know how you do that without grit.

A: Exactly. I see them together all the time, but they are different words, right? For me I view it as a car and engine. Grit is the engine that gets the car there, but resiliency is the car with a lot more parts that move. You can have the engine, but you need some other parts to get moving.

W: Yeah, I think you’re right. Resiliency gets you through; grit is what allows you to accomplish what that goal is. Like you’re saying, it’s the engine. (Pause.) I guess you could be a gritty individual without resilience, so you just grind things out that are uncomfortable.

A: To me, resilience is the ability to use grit to get through things smartly. You can have grit, but you might not better anything or improve your happiness. That’s not exactly resilient to me.

W: Yeah.

A: How does Will Fuentes tell if someone has grit?

W: Grit or resilience?

A: (Humbled laugh.) Resilience, thank you.

W: I love to ask people to tell me about a time you failed, but don’t tell me the hero’s journey. I just want to hear about a time you failed completely.

A: That’s a question you asked me in my interview. (Author thinks wistfully about the nerves of interviewing with Will and reminiscing on total failures.)

W: Yeah, I just want to hear about when you failed, and not your hero journey. I just want to hear what happened afterwards in the sense of what did they learn. I think if someone can identify true failures that, for me, means that I can help them tap into resilience that maybe they don’t even know they have.

A: Yeah, I remember when you asked, I thought, usually companies want to hear about some time where you say how glorious you were after a struggle. But when you asked that question, I remember feeling comfortable. I remember feeling comfort and that if I worked here, I would be comfortable in my failures because we focus on persevering, not just blind perfection. It’s where the whole Phoenix Sales Method comes from.

W: Yeah, I don’t want to hear about a bad review. I want to hear about something actually crushing from which someone didn’t recover, but they found a way to process what happened and moved on in life, even if nothing came of the event.

A: I think that’s the word—process. I think process is what gets you from grit to resilience.

W: Yes. It’s funny because sometimes you don’t know how someone will react until things get tough.

A: Yeah, it’s like relationships, romantic or even friendship, you think you know someone after a while until you see them under complete pressure, and sometimes your view of them totally changes, for better or worse. It’s easy to be a winner when things are good.

W: Oh, 100% true.

A: Okay, personally or an event you have witnessed, what is one of your favorite anecdotes that has shown or taught you resilience?

W: (Brain power pause.) Good question (Author: Thanks). (More brain process time.) Yeah, so I had the fortunate pleasure of going to a football camp my son went to, where a former NFL player who has become a successful coach in his post-NFL career spoke. His brother was an amazing player, and this guy was in the NFL but not getting much time. Then, the moment he gets his big opportunity, he rips his pectoral.

He played a few more seasons, but after he was injured he really dedicated his life to figuring out how young quarterbacks can avoid injuries like his, to help kids stay healthy but also have the mental fortitude to play the position. That, for me, is so tough. He dedicated his whole life for something, and when he loses his moment, a lot of people would spiral. But instead, he rededicates his life. That for me is an extremely resilient individual.

A: Any time you can take a negative and turn it to a positive, it’s the basis for resilience.

W: I agree, and now he’s one of the best-known gurus in the sport. He coaches people like Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes, all of them.

A: Do you recall his name?

W: Yeah, his name is Jordan Palmer. My point is, you hear of athletes with these types of stories where they fall off because they experience these big highs, and that moment destroys them. But for this individual to rededicate his life and help kids with it even, working with high school kids, that’s awesome to me—that is so resilient.

A: Any final thoughts for the people?

W: When most people encounter something difficult, they think of it as this massive thing. If they took the time and viewed it as small pieces, they would see there’s a way to get to the other side. It’s not about the big problem today; it’s about piecing together the small things, the incremental progress in the right direction. That to me is how you build resilience.

It’s like sand in an hourglass. Sand isn’t all dropped all at once. It goes grain by grain and suddenly, the hourglass is filled.

A: And it’s just like sales. You don’t drop every bit of info on a client at once. You give them information piece by piece to build a case. Resilience is the same—handling things step by step. And on that note, I think that’s a wrap.

W: Awesome, thank you so much.

A: No, thank you so much. (Author, again: I do think that’s a great wrap, so I will be brief. Resilience is something that’s intentional. In life, and in sales, you can always find your path, even if it’s not the one you planned for.)