Death of the salesman? - Two old salts reminisce on door to door hustle and the lost art of relationship building

Foreign.

Spotlight Podcast, powered by the Growth Farm production. Hi, I'm Warren Zenna, founder and CEO of the CRO Collective, and welcome to the CRO Spotlight Podcast. This show is focused exclusively on the success of Chief Revenue Officers. Each week we have an open, frank and freeform conversation with top experts in the revenue space about the CRO role and its critical impact on B2B businesses. This podcast is the place to be for CROs, sales and marketing leaders who aspire to become CROs and founders who are looking to appoint a CRO or want to support their CRO to succeed. Thanks for listening. Now let's go mix it up. Hello and welcome to this episode of the CRO Spotlight Podcast. I'm Warren Zenna. I'm the CEO and founder of the CRO Collective and you know, been having like a spate of guests over the last, like, month. It's been great every week, amazing conversations and I'm really excited about today's because I'm inviting someone whom I've known since my career started. Matter of fact, you'll hear the whole spiel here. This gentleman is a close friend and a mentor, almost like a family member to me, and an amazingly accomplished sales executive and business owner and entrepreneur with an amazing background. Some great stories to tell. So without further ado, introduce Jim Wexler, whom I've known since 1992, I think it is. Right? Yeah. 92. We met, I think something like that.

No, in New York settings in the 80s.

That's, you know. Yeah, it was a long time. And you know, Jim, I. I'll just explain this. So Jim and I, we have known each other for that long and we worked together. You know, we first were friends and then we met because I went on an interview, my first like sort of real corporate sales interview. Someone introduced me to Jim and he interviewed me. And he didn't hire me, but he called me a lot afterwards, offering me other opportunities. I was like, this guy's pretty cool. And then we saw each other out in the city, bopping around, and we ended up being friends. And then amazingly. And this is where the story gets really fascinating. This is an important story because at the time, around 1994, I was sort of, I don't know, floundering around, trying to figure out what I want to do for a living. And Jim was just met his. His current wife and they were just getting engaged. And as my memory core calls, he might. Jim, you might be able to like, fresh refresh me on this, but came into my bar. I was working as A bartender at the time and basically, in short, said, you know, you could sell anything, you know, and I'm going away for three months and I have all these accounts that I'm trying to close, and I think you could probably close them for me while I'm gone so I don't lose the business. And he just basically said, I know you can do this very casually, here are the accounts, here's the phone numbers. Call these people, close these deals so that when I'm away, I know that business will be taken care of. And, you know, at the time, it was a big deal to me. I really looked up to Jim and the fact that he gave me that sort of responsibility so casually. And I did it, you know, he was right. I mean, I called up and I got these three things closed or two or three things closed. And, you know, when he came back from the vacation with his. With his then fiance, he was like, you know, I'm going to hire you. So he gave me my first job. Like, Jim gave me my first real job and then mentored me and taught me how to sell. And a lot of what it is that I do today is very much grounded in the work that Jim and I did together. And we still talk and we still do work together. So I thought we're always talking all the time, Jim. Roy's yammering, you know, on shit all the time. So I thought, I'm going to invite you on and let's have a cool conversation about some of the amazing things we talk about the way that the world has evolved since you and I started selling with like, like, briefcases in our hands and the notepads. So anyway, without Jim. Thanks for being here, man. Yeah, really great, great, great seeing you, man.

Listen, just to correct the. The record on one thing, and that is that when I interviewed you, I didn't give you the job because I said, this guy is going to be much better at this than I am. So I got you out of there as quickly as I could.

I got it. Well, I appreciate that. Hey, look, it turned out to be a fortuitous thing. I mean, if you probably hired me, we'd probably never work together again. But in any event, so it's important I want to tell the story a little bit more, more depth, Jim. Because, you know, Jim was first working for this. Jim was always very entrepreneurial and he was working for this small startup. He was like a consultant. Sales consultant. Rap sheet. Right. Yeah, Darrell. And so, and so Jim was selling advertising and in, in paper, newspapers, you Know, and it was owned by this guy that Jim knew out in California who owned a bunch of publications. And when Jim brought me in to sell Rap Sheet, his boss at the time, this guy, his client, I guess at the time, Jeff said, well, let's just bring him on and have him sell everything. And then we started selling all that other Hispanic media, and that was amazing. We were traveling all over the country doing this stuff together. And I learned everything from you. You really taught me how to sell. It's great. Love watching you, you know, and you hammered me. I mean, it was old school style sales training. I mean, you just, like, you sat next to me and you're like, no, you have to write it like this and you have to say it like that. And it was, it was great. I mean, you drilled it into me and I, I sat next to you, I listened to you on the phone, and I, I started to sort of emulate you. And there was a time, I think people were making fun of us because we sounded alike. Like, I would make calls and I would mimic you, you know, and then it sort of eventually, like, I tell the people that I train, you have to copy the master until you can make it your own. And then I kind of created my own style, but it was all grounded in the stuff you taught me. So anyway, Jim, tell everybody about yourself and who you are and all that.

I will. You know, it's. First of all, it's fascinating because back then you didn't really mention it in your intro, but when you were bartending. You're also an actor. You're an actor and you had some success. I did, but I was originally attracted to the possibilities because you could act. Because to me, at the time at least, I think my thinking has changed. But it was a role that was being played, the role of the salesperson to deliver believability to the customer. And so you can take people who think they can sell, but if you can take someone who can act, then they can assume the role. And I've hired many actors to take on this job over the years in the same way. So it's interesting that it's funny because.

People ask me this, right? Like, I, I don't tell. I don't tell people that often that I was an actor for a while. I do it for this reason. It's funny that you bring Sorry on your podcast. I don't care. It's not that I'm trying to hide it. I'll tell you why I don'. I. I enjoyed it. It was amazing. And I. I did have some stuff I did. I ended up actually working. But it's another story for another time. It's because I do hear sometimes people say, oh, that means you're just acting. It's not really you. You're playing a character. I hear that all the time. Like, people have this idea, which is wrong, by the way, that if you're an actor, you're sort of making things up or you're faking things. But in fact, it's actually a good, good topic. Just for a second. Is that what. When acting is when you're trained to act, which I was. I went to a really, really, really good acting school. It's very complicated and very difficult. It's really. It's you. It's. You're finding your own sort of sense of yourself, and then you're adding onto it. All the behavior that you create is your own. You're not faking it. I mean, it's all your own behavior. So, in fact, the best actors, and I'm not sure I was the best, but the best ones are really authentic, just take on a Persona and they're kind of merging their own reality with that Persona, and it's not fakery. And, you know, I ask myself this. I've had this question asked me a lot, is, you know, did that acting training help me at all? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I think maybe. I certainly feel okay being able to talk to people and. But you do too, right? You never had any acting experience, but you're really as good at. You can get up in front of a thousand people and just talk. So I don't know. I bring it up because it's interesting.

Let's just say that the. The authenticity and authentic. I think we'll go full circle in this conversation. But authenticity is one of the few things that's remaining in this busy and noisy world. It's what you bring to the table, is your authenticity. There's nothing else. The stuff in the satchel or the things that you're delivering as services are delivered by you. The human connection is a key part of any success of convincing anybody to buy anything. So I. Maybe it's because actors are in touch with the authentic. Might have been some of the thinking for me, maybe back then, but it's quite true. I will tell you this because we're talking about ancient. Such ancient history that we're not even remembering the dates correctly, but the stories are accurate. But when I started selling stuff and this Is, by the way, the stories you're talking about, the mentoring. We were both in our twenties when all this was taking place. It's not like I was the grand old man. We were just young people with some skills. But at the beginning, when I first started selling, I thought the job was deliver the material in a. The mental image of a salesperson is what I thought you were supposed to do. To be very expert and deliver the material in a straightforward way. And it wasn't that at all. It's never been that. And I wasn't successful at first trying to be the expert sales guy who puts stuff over like a car salesman or something. In fact, it's just being you. It happens that I think for you and for me, being me works. In the situation of reaching out to strangers, cultivating the relationship and, and providing them with information. The reason I've had any success is because I guess they want it from me on some level. My, I'm really hyper and talkative and passionate and, and funny and goofy. Whatever it is that I'm bringing, that's me wrapped into the, any one of the dozen things that I've put forward over all the years is what sells. And it ends up, I, I, you know, for me, a lot of the relationships that I've cultivated are with people who continue to trust me and want to hear what I've got to say and buy stuff over a. Over three decades. Perhaps they, they're still there or people who, they know that because the connection was correct in the first place and real and it's, it continues to serve. You know, I remember in selling we used to go into the. Okay, I mean we're talking about, you're wearing the suit and you're going into the office and you're getting past the receptionist. All the things that don't even exist anymore, but on the way in you try to see something about them. They have a sailing painting on the wall and if you know something about sailing, then you're golden. The whole conversation could be about sailing because that's what they care about anyway, you know, that that authentic connection could last a lifetime and that it's, you know, it becomes a factor. I remember once I went to a meeting and the guy said, I've met you before, I've met you. And I didn't know if he was right or wrong, but that was pure gold. It was the brand manager at Gillette trying to sell him some digital game based services. Yeah, yeah, I think we do know each other. We've spent about 10 minutes trying to figure it out. Did you come from Western Massachusetts? You ever work in the amusement park? What about the. Did I date your sister? You know, all that stuff. By the end of it, it didn't matter whether we'd known each other. We knew each other now. And, you know, what's the difference between me and 900 other guys who are trying to get time with him? It's the connection. So you better be yourself because how else could you connect, you know, with anybody?

Well, that sort of like launches off. The whole reason why we decided to have this conversation in this format because one of our, you know, many, many conversations, we were talking about modern sales. I talk about this a lot and I guess to frame it for the sake of the audience and was listening to this right now. How does this relate to the CRO Collective or chief Revenue officer? It does a lot because it. Despite my protestations on sales as being too much of a focus for chief revenue officers, the reality is that for companies you got to sell stuff. I mean, ultimately the role of the organization is to persuade people to consider what you're offering and get them to buy it. And there's a lot of things that go into it, right? There's marketing and all these other things. But, you know, you're going to be overseeing a sales organization. And you know, Jim and I, we really did. We literally, we grew up in this like kind of old school sales world. Like he said, our world was flying to locations and getting seven meetings in that location and walking into everybody's offices and going up to the seventh floor and walking into the office that are receptionist and sometimes even like Jim and I on many occasions were in a building where we saw there was a company there. We just tried to go in and just see if we can meet somebody because we were in the building, you know, and these are the kind of things that you did in those days. And to Jim's point, you make a great one. I want to emphasize this. It's kind of key thematically to what we're talking about is, you know, salespeople at the core are relationship builders. They, they make connections with people, they make meaningful connections with people, and they are able to persuade people not just on the veracity of, of the product that they're offering, which we'll get into that because it is important and if not critically important, but it's just who you are. And I, and what we were saying and the reason why we wanted to talk about this is that's that art is gone. It's just not as prevalent anymore. What I'm seeing, at least in, in my world, Jim and I were talk, talking about this. Salespeople today, many of them have SDR groups that do all the prospecting for them and do all the, I'd call the hard work, the real hard work, you know, and salespeople as a result are losing out on the opportunity to develop critical skills that make them not just great salespeople, better people. You know, being a salesperson and having to convince people or persuade people or get people to, you know, connect with me, it made me a better person. There's no question about that, that having done this all the time, I developed new skills. And Jim, you too. So, you know, we wanted to talk about this a bit because we're seeing that it's still needed. You know, it's missing and it's not going away. I don't think machines are going to replace it. I don't, I think that's actually going to be bad. But when we're, when I'm looking at my clients, businesses, we're seeing that salespeople are spending all this time in front of software. They're looking at their CRM screens, sometimes their Salesforce or HubSpot screens for like 30 hours a week or something like that. And they're not really on the phones. You know, we didn't have any technologies, Jim and I. Like, we, dude, we had like notebooks, you know, like, we had, we had a board on the wall and we'd write our stuff down on it and we'd look at it and every day we go, okay, what's going on with that account? And we kept notes and so we.

Had, we had, we had phone. Not, not a mobile phone. There was a phone. It was a whole thing of, you know, calling it after 5 o' clock because you get the guy on the phone, you know.

Yeah, all those tactics. Exactly. So, I mean, we sound like two old salts here.

Yeah.

The point we're making is it's important because people that possess those skills, they're still needed. They're not maybe certain the technologies have advanced. But if you can't make a meaningful connection with people, you're, you're not going to close a lot of business. And if you rely on your product alone, the only people that are going to survive are people that sell things that are like everyone's calling up to buy anyway. You're just order taking. And not many people get the benefit of working for companies that like Salesforce or whoever that just is order taking. So, you know, I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on this. So if you were to, I guess a couple things I want to ask you. Never asked you this before. You probably know the answer. But if you were to summarize, if you could, like, what your kind of core philosophy is on selling, like, what's your point of view on sales? If you were, like, teaching some young whippersnapper today about sales, how would you sort of quickly articulate what your thought is on what is your point of view on selling?

It just popped into my mind to how I would answer that question if I were asked ever. And the answer is, the job is to get people to believe you. That's the entire thing. They have to believe you and that. So it could mean they have to believe that the product is going to be effective, or it could just mean they believe you. So it doesn't matter what you say, but that is it. That's the entire job and a lot of ways to deliver on that. We used to try to prepare to go to a meeting by reading about the company and its goals or finding out what they did for a living or some key insight or. Because another thing I tell salespeople is, you know, 99 of the people calling on the person you want to do business with are, you know, morons. They're not your competition. There's just a few, maybe 2% that actually are valid competition for the possibility of having a relationship. Getting that person to believe you, it's. It's not as thick as you think. And even in the modern world, with all this SDR, 99% of that is just falling by the wayside. It's recognized from afar. There's a lot more noise in front of you, but most of that is also recognized as being not worth engaging with. So you're. You have to get through the noise. But again, your competition for actual mind share with that person. But the ability to buy is. Is. Is slim. So get. Getting them to believe you is what you're working on. Oh. What I was saying is in the old days, we would prepare because I would go to a sales call and asking them what their plan is or what are your plans for the coming months or. Or leading questions that got them to talk or allowed for you to hear something that you could be insightful about was the entire battle. It was not about, as they say, vomiting, the presentation and saying what we do. It was not that at all. It was finding out what they need and then giving it to them. You know, so the heart of it is, is getting them to believe you. And part of that is preparing. It's never been easier to prepare every single thing that they need. And a competitive analysis is available at your fingertips online. But how you use that in the service of establishing a, a rapport and a relationship is, is tbd. Just because the information's there doesn't mean that it's being effectively used in service of building the relationship.

Yeah. One thing I noted in this response is that you and I grew up mostly selling complex services. We weren't selling widgets or some subscription or some sign up program that we're getting somebody to do a recurring payment thing. We were selling complicated things. We were trying to explain a offering that. And another thing I learned from you, which I know you and I talk about a lot, is you got to sell something that you really is really amazing and really cool and provides value. Because if, if that's not, if you don't believe in it, then you're screwed. It's really hard for people to go out in the marketplace.

How could you get them to believe you if you don't believe in yourself?

Exactly. Well, you know, okay, so this is a big topic for me because think about how much stuff is being sold. That is meaningless, Right. I mean, there's just so many offerings that come into me that are just commodities and there are people selling them. So in some weird way I kind of think, I sort of think that people that have the ability to sell something that they don't really believe in, that's an incredible skill. I mean, I do admire people that can do that and people do, because people, stuff gets sold. I mean, I. Look, I worked in the media business like you did, right. So when I came out of the media business, I stayed in the media business and I was selling online advertising, which, you know, I mean, how many online advertising, you know, agencies are there or services are there? It's just ridiculous. Endless. You can, it's endless, Right. How many people got into that business, mainly because it's so lucrative. So if you're selling or buying media for people, that's about as commoditized as you can get, but yet there are some people that have the ability to do better at that than other people. So the human element is the only differentiator, Right? Right. Because you don't have a product that sells itself.

It has to be the relationship and the human element. You're going to sell to a media buyer at an agency if there's still such a Thing, the relationship with that man or woman is the only thing that would differentiate or influence their decision. I mean, there are. There's data, and then maybe they have to make some decisions about that. But if it's commoditized, meaning if it's. I could buy A, B, C, D, E, or all the way, the whole Alphabet, why you. Because of.

They.

They want to be with you. And maybe part of that is because you're bringing a dynamism or an expertise. So it may be that your insightfulness or your acumen that brings value to their role as a media person would be valued by them, but it's. It's probably because you're a decent person to spend some time with.

You know, I'd say there's no doubt that the differentiator with a commodity, commodity sale is you. But here's the problem. This is a big problem, is that probably up till about as recently as three years ago, you could build those relationships. You could take people to the ball game, and you can take them out to the, you know, whatever. You know, people did some crazy stuff. I mean, you remember the days in like, the 90s, you take them to strip clubs, wherever you ever. You can do, you know, you took the client out, you went to the Yankee game, you went to a restaurant. Those days are done, man. I mean, those. That doesn't happen anymore. I mean, Covid changed the game to such a degree that now getting a client out to dinner or to get them to an event or get that, it's just. It's impossible. And what we saw happen, a lot of my friends who worked for companies whose business model was basically all based on travel, entertainment, budgets. That's how they won their business was matter of fact, I'll tell you a story. So when I was working at Havas, I was an executive that I had a budget and I was being sold to. So I had a really good experience of seeing what it was like to be on the other side of the table with a big budget. This is actually what launched the CRO Collector, was my observations from that one company, another commodity, big agency, media platform that wanted the business from Havas and knew that I was the gatekeeper. They took me to the Masters. I didn't just take me. They took a whole bunch of people. But their strategy was really simple. They were like, all right, how much is it going to cost us to take 12 key prospects to the Masters?

$25,000 or more.

Okay, more than that. A lot more than that. I can tell you that it was a lot more. So the whole thing was first class the whole way. I mean, they drove us to the airport in this big huge bus and then we landed at the airport, they took us to another place in a big huge bus and they put us all in these beautiful rooms and they had a party for us the day before and then they drove us all out. The Masters, he spent the day at the court thing and then they got tickets to the, the event at the Masters. Like after that night, you know, when everybody was there, it was like a star studded affair. I mean it was about as amazing an event as you could possibly ask for. It was incredible. I mean it really is memorable. And I remember thinking to myself, man, these guys are smart because you know what I'm going to buy from them, right? It worked. Did I think their product was any better? No. Did I even like them? Not particularly, to be honest with you. I mean, they were just a bunch of dudes, you know, but they won me over because they gave me this experience that the reciprocity was so deep at that point. Like, how could I not do business with you? So the calculation was really brilliant because they sort of knew it in a way. They were like, how could people not buy from us if we do this for them? And that's not possible anymore, right? It's done. I mean, I don't get meetings with people anymore. I'm on Zoom calls with them. So in the Zoom world, it's called the world of Zoom now. You know, the new the zoom. What's the way that a salesperson in your view, can maintain that connection without the ability to have as much access? Particularly if the company you work for, the success they had was predicated a lot on being able to entertain people. And those are. Things are gone.

Well, no one said it's going to be easy, that's for sure. But I do think that whatever the margin is for that connection, it's still the differentiator on a Zoom call. You can be with someone or not. And you know, you said you didn't like those guys that much. They would have their, their cost per acquisition would go down if they were connectable and likable. And they could have, you know, they could have you for life on the One Masters and not have to. It's extrinsic versus intrinsic, as we used to say in the gamification outline when we're talking about ux, it's the spiffs get you in, but it's the connective stuff, the sense of purpose Giving the customer autonomy and giving them a chance to make their own decision and so on. Those are the things that, that make a difference. It may be that the, that the margin has closed on both gifting and also on human interaction, but without it there's nothing. So on the zoom call, it means that the talking head who is trying to sell something to the other talking head has to be, get believed, be relatable. It should be after the zoom that the person says, I wouldn't mind being friends with that person, getting a beer with that person, or entrusting them with this piece of business which is meant to get me a promotion. They earned my trust through expertise, through personality, not I guess in that situation, not so much through Spiffs and Greece. It's the same thing.

You say that because in a way what I think happened was similarly, the old school way of selling afforded you the ability to borrow equity from a Yankee game or borrow equity from a Masters game, or borrow equity from a great restaurant or a great meal, that you could just bring that person there and that experience did all the work. Now granted, you're correct. The real professionals do both, right? They bring you to this event and they're awesome people. So not only do you have a great experience, but you really enjoyed the person's company. That's probably about as good as you can possibly get. But they don't have to be.

Yeah, no, but it has to be. I think about my own successes in the past and you could inexperienced or ineffective versus experienced and effective at the sales process. You're in a fine restaurant and the food's amazing. That's the opportunity to connect. It's not about the food. It's, it's just that you've soften the, the ground for a relationship.

That's a, that's a philosophy, right? So you, me and I know we're on the same page here. If I'm taking somebody to the Masters or I'm taking somebody to a restaurant, I view the context of that. I view them as not, oh great, I'm going to take them to this great place and the steak is so good that they're just going to have a great time. They're going to buy something for me. I like you think this is a great venue for us to connect and have a great relationship together because we'll experience this together and we'll, we'll. The same thing that I would have done with them in their office by looking on the wall, seeing that they have two kids and one has a Baseball hat. My kids also plays baseball. To do that in an environment like that only enhances it. But I think what happened was a lot of these companies were relying too much on the venue. Right, Correct. To make up for the lack of personality that they had.

It's a very expensive, very expensive equation.

It is.

And the proof that it's expensive is when you take away the. When you take away the extrinsic, there's nothing left.

So what I'm saying is now the zoom meeting, that it's even harder. Like, you really have to be incredibly talented now because if you're in a flat screen, like you and I both are, you have to learn how to make that connection. And the people that can do that are on a high wire now. Right. They don't have the benefit of, you know, music and, you know, food and, you know, a game going around.

But I think it's just human. It's just human. I'm sorry. It's just human stuff. It's just being human. You think about the relationships you have. I know what kind of person you are, and you're. You're able to relate to. It's the bus driver and, and the coffee guy. And Warren didn't. Why did he take an extra half an hour, get home? Because he was being relatable or kind or got involved with other humans on the way home. And I'm the same way. I can. Not only can I talk to anybody and not only do I talk too much, but that's what drives me and makes me human and gives me a good time in the world. So I think, you know, maybe first of all, I think that that's. If that's lost in the mechanized sales world of the. Of the X last years, then it becomes more valuable. And that may be the. Maybe there's an inflection point. I mean, everything's being automated, everything's being maximized. I'm a little less connected because I continue to sell consultative services that are highly sophisticated to people I've known for a while or people who know people I know. I mean, for me, it's not a lot of cold calls at this point. I have a. A network of. Of people and I. I work it. And despite. I've got a new initiative, as you know, and I'm. I'm really excited about it, and I'm taking it to some of my communications contacts from over the last 20 years, and many of them have heard me come up with some new item that I thought would be worth their while. You know, a dozen times over the last period of time.

So you're, you're, you're capitalizing on the equity that you built in the marketplace over the last three decades. And most people don't have that benefit. Right. You did a great job. I mean, I know we talked about all the time. You know, we just had a conversation last week. You spoke to somebody that we both know from 20 years ago, and you're going to meet with them.

Right.

And I know that's probably the case and I can do the same thing too. I'm very proud of the fact that I can make those phone calls myself. Sure. It took us a long time to cultivate these relationship with people who are happy to hear from us. They like our company, they want to talk to us. Right, right. That's, that's beautiful. But someone who doesn't have that, you, we had to build that.

Someone who doesn't have that has to build it. They have to build it now and they have the benefit I don't have. If you're 22 and you are calling on some guy, you, first of all, you're gonna have known him when, I mean, the people that I'm doing business with now were junior communications people. Some of them disappeared, some of them xyz and some of them are running the joint now. You know, in other words, the networking. By the way, it's a networked world. All the things that we, we came to see as a, as a leg up. I'm good at networking. I'm staying in touch. I'm being smart. I'm never, you know, I, I got introduced the other day. I'm doing this nice project now for the, Involves the, the NFL and, and this thing I'm doing that the client introduced me to all his peers and he said, Jim is, he's, you know, he's an innovative guy. He has been forever. And it's always straight up and he's always got something valuable and he'll never try to sell you anything that's inappropriate. And everything he said was just so complimentary, even though I've been hawking him for years. But it's not, it isn't that the, the expression of value and the trust that I built that I, I'm bringing you some value. You're lucky I called you because I have something valuable. You're lucky. If it's not a fit, then we don't have to talk about it. But I'm not here to shove anything down your throat ever. Oh. My point is if you're really young. You have to recognize. I always was patient enough to realize that what I'm doing is interacting with someone and I don't care if they buy from me or not. It's about the moment and about the relationship and where's it all going. Because if you, if you have the benefit of being far younger than I am, then you've got years to cultivate that relationship and you've got to see it that way or you're a transactional person in an oversaturated world. So it should always be that you're, this is the acting, that the, what you're bringing present is real and relatable and valuable. Not when can we close? It used to be that way. If you take someone to lunch, are you expecting them to buy something from you? Well, that's not a relationship or it's only a transactional one. It should be, I don't care what. Can we just have a good time? Isn't it great for two minutes to take a breath of fresh air and be humans on the planet Earth? That's a very celebratory mood. It's a long term view, but if you're young, you can take the long term view. I had a young woman call me the other day who was the daughter of a guy I used to do business with. And she's in, she's in audio, she's an audio sound engineer. And she, I said, I, I know some people that you should talk to. I want to do her father a favor. And she was nice and I connected her with my college buddy who runs the podcast company. I should have had her call you. And I, and I connected her with some people, you know, but four people, all of which were great connections. They could all actually offer her work. But I told her this is not, can they help me? This is, you know, this is forever. The lady that I connected you with who is the head of production for that TV company, it's forever. If, I mean until she, she's, she'll be retired before you're too old. But that woman in 10 years will say, I knew you when and you're, that's your friend for 10 years. And if you, if you don't see it as transactional, then you have the opportunity to make it a real relationship. I mean, you know, you think about the, your friends. You and I are friends. You think about all your friends. What are you hoping for? Something value out of them on a short term basis. You're not in it for anything except the relationship. And that's, that's how you have to think about humans who have, who have the potential to issue pos. They're just humans that'll be so different already that you'll have a chance of getting the business. That's the only way to go.

Your point is well taken. I would say this, this is an interesting point that you bring up when I'm thinking about this, is that the world of the commodity, the marketplace, has become almost hyper transactional. And what's happened is that salespeople that are deployed into the marketplace today are not told to cultivate relationships, they're told to close deals and as many as possible and as quickly as possible. That's why all this technology has been invented to support them, to do that, right? So what's in, what ends up happening is. And I see this all the time, right? You get this. I mean, the evidence of this is in the amount of inbound I get every day, right? All the emails I get and all the inbound LinkedIn messages I get. Because people are managed and they're expected to be transactional in the way that they deal with people. And they have quotas they have to hit, and those quotas are very, very strenuous. And they have to hit them every month. And so they don't have the luxury to think about it that way because they're on the wire to make their number. And if they don't make their number, they're going to be canned or they're going to lose whatever, right? So it's really difficult for people in today's very highly transactional world. Everything's sped up like a lot more, so much faster now, right? I mean, we have dialers now. You can literally press a button, it'll dial like 80 numbers in a row and it'll only answer the one that answers, right? We have machines that you press a button that'll send a cadence of emails out to a thousand people right away and it'll give it to them in succession. I mean, these are things that you and I remember. We had to craft our emails, we compared them, we'd read them to each other. And I still do that. And so what I'm saying is that we don't have the environment that allows as much room. And plus, you and I have been, for the most part, even though I work for a lot of companies, we're both very much like entrepreneurial people, right? We've always had the ability to kind of think about our next thing and how we're going to carry this relationship to our next thing. We always knew there was going to be something new that we were going to be doing. And it gave us the ability to do a couple things. One is we never ever worked, very rarely ever worked for any company that didn't sell something really cool. You and I had the benefit of selling some really amazingly cool things. Some things that you in fact invented. We'll talk about that in a second. But a lot of these people are working at these big machines. They're selling software, sales software, automation software, programmatic software. They have very strict quotas and they're on zoom calls or they're on the phone and they don't have the luxury of thinking. Because what you're saying obviously makes sense. I mean, to argue the wisdom of the point you're making everyone, it's perfectly logical. But I, I would say the possible pushback on that from some person who's 25 or 26 would say, are you kidding me? How many phone calls I gotta make a day? Germany people, I can, I can only have two seconds with them and I got to get them on the phone. And I, my point is I don't think that's a very effective way to sell and I don't think it's a very effective way to go to market. But that's the way things are today. They are done that way.

I guess, I guess I would say that it's the, it still is. The discretionary tidbit is the human stuff. So just because you have these quotas that say slam it down the client's throat at an accelerated pace does not mean that's going to be successful. Even short term meaning, even in the moment of, of sped up transaction. Finding the, the human element. Listen, I will say this. If you think about this and you think about what we did learn together. Remember, you'd make a phone call and you knew you had 4 seconds or less to keep the person on the phone. What were you going to say? We used to say, I'm calling. I can't remember the. We used to have a patter that went. And a pause that meant that you wanted them to say and. Or yes, they had to permit you to continue not hang up. And so it was a transactional short moment of seeking, manipulating, but seeking a connection. It had, you had to have the connection in order to go to part two. It had to be as there's, there are probably parallels between the two. Meaning even. Look, you just said, the guy says, I've got to make 40 phone calls a day to close to. All right, well if you're making 40 a day or 400 a day to close some small amount, it should be that when you get past the roto dialer and a person finally says yes, that you're using that moment effectively to try to deliver some.

Yeah, you almost have to condense the relationship into small little nanoseconds in a really effective way. And I think that the people that are good at that probably succeed in this, in this new world. But you know, I want to because we only have about 10 minutes. I got, I got another thing I got to do, but I wanted to ask about your business. Right. Because when you, when you first hired me, it was, it was a publishing company, but then you went to go work for a partner of yours and you hired me to help you sell an incredibly innovative thing which was your company built custom video games for brands, which at the time was revolutionary. I mean now it's like, no shit, there are video games being done all the time. It's a huge industry. But you know, this is, you said it and it's true. You, you're a pioneer in gamification as a industry and building experiences that create greater retention for people, whether they're learning things or they're trying to buy things or even want to sell things. And as a result, it was the most satisfying time of my career was selling this amazing program to people when they, when they bought it. The stuff that we built was amazingly cool and fun and it really worked and it made a really big difference and it was also very lucrative. You know, it was a very good business. And then you've done so many other things. So in the next like three or four minutes that we have, I want to tell a little bit more about what you're doing and how you've kind of capitalized on this idea of, you know, building engaging experiences for people that have them learn more, do more, retain more, etc. Etc.

Well, thank you for letting me tell my story. Back when we were working together originally we had this aha moment that games would matter to business. And I hate to, oh God, these things, I hate to say it, but it was, you know, it started in a pre web era. We were doing it when the only way to deliver interactive experiences was either on a laptop and even the green screens were crummy or maybe on a place based kiosk at a trade event or on disc. And so we started by making games as deliverables that were used promotionally. And I'm not going to go deep into detail because it's so long ago, but we waltzed into Coke and Taco Bell and General Mills and gave them this idea that they should make games about their brands. They had no idea what we were talking about. And so it led to a really good promotional business where they would order 3 million of those things. Can you deliver 3 million? And then we'll give them out with the kids meal kind of thing. The great business that evolved into the gamification side of things where we were making a game for business that taught their people stuff, simulations mostly where we'd build a custom made experience that reflected their processes and their values. And you would immerse the, either the new hire or the, the employee into an experience that mimicked the real world. Very effective business. For it's still, still my business, still effective. But it was revolutionary early on to promise this medium that is so important to people, particularly young people as a, as an interface and yet replicate the, and simulate the world they were in. So you'd create for salespeople. We would create situational selling and they would meet the customer. We would populate it with the, with the sales materials that they needed to sell and what they needed to say, branching dialogue. And they could go anything from being kicked out of the meeting to closing deal. And those simulations are, are an effective way of teaching as you, as you said, the change in the business is that everybody is expecting it off the shelf now. They'd rather buy an off the shelf.

Piece of software that it's harder to stimulate people today. They're overstimulated already.

That and, and, and, and the, the powers that be think that an approximation of their process is good enough for the price rather than expecting to build things by hand. So but that, that business has been very effective. And my business, as you know, is called Experiences Unlimited. I went into the experiences business for delivering people experiences, usually digital, that would reflect the world. That's what we've been doing for quite some time since you asked the new iteration, the thing that's so exciting now is doing a similar effort taking a medium that is incredibly important to people and applying it to business. In this case, our medium is graphic storytelling. We're creating graphic storytelling in order to deliver brand communications, talent acquisition, CSR initiatives and so on. And it's a really effective format. My studio creates commercial quality graphic novels and applies that skill set to creating something that will actually capture the imagination of an employee or a stakeholder or a customer or a consumer. And it's really novel and effective, and it's got great traction. So it's a. It's. It's old again. It's new again. Can you take the things that make people respond and engage and create an emotional experience and apply it to business? Because people at work are humans. You know, the old. Saw that you and I used to tell was the person went out and saw the 3D movie, and then they played video games on their. On their PlayStation, and when they got to work, you gave them a PowerPoint. So they completely disengaged and said, all right, I'll look at the PowerPoint, but it's not me. That's not my world. Why would you disengage your employee with the media that you put in front of them when you can actually give them something that they would value? And I just keep. I keep doing that, trying to find the emotional media that will help communicators engage their audiences.

Yeah, no, it's great. I love what you're doing, but we're getting out of time. But this has been fun. You and I can talk for three more hours. I know we probably will. I'll probably call you after this and talk more. But anyway, look, man, this is fun. I'm really glad we're talking, and thanks for doing this. It was a cool experiment, and I'm sure that people find a lot of value in some of this stuff, particularly some young people who are looking at two old salts who really carried bags around and actually did the hard work. And there's no. No offense to young salespeople, because you tell you it's a lot different. It's a lot different. The amount of tools that young people have today. You know, the mid. Mid. The early late 20s, early 30s. I have a lot of friends who are in that age group selling right now the amount of tools they have at their fingertips. We didn't have any of them. And, you know, they. If they just add a little humanity to what they're doing, they can be superstars. Superstars. Because there's very few people that know how to do that well. So that's the kind of takeaway I get from this conversation, is if you could be a really amazing human on top of all this stuff, you. There's, like, so few people that are good at that. You'll kill it. So that's the. That's the kind of takeaway from this whole thing.

Agreed.

I.

And I wonder if those young people would hear that or agree. I don't know. But I. I don't either. I. I think it's true, but I got.

I got a dash here, man. Yeah, thanks.

It's such a pleasure.