S7E3 - Selling Against the Competition and Sales Interviewing Best Practices

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What is happening, everybody? Uh, welcome back to season 7 of the Surf and Sales podcast. Uh, Richard Harris here, one of your co-hosts, along with my good friend Mr. Scott Leese, who is back in Texas after a quick visit to Northern California where he didn't even visit me.

So there's only so much you can do. On these quick strike missions.

I understand. And let's face it, your, your, your mom was needing a little bit of extra help around the house. How's she doing?

Yeah, she's doing okay. She's, she's, she's recovering. She's recovering. So if she's listening, thinking about you and sending you some love, Mom.

Oh, I thought you were probably thinking about me.

She always, she's always listening to the show.

Yeah. Yeah. So, hi. Good to, good to talk to you. One day Scott will let me meet you, I think. After 15 years.

So, all right, let's get into it. We've got a quick little episode today. We're gonna do about 20, 30 minutes or so. We've got at least 3 topics that we want to dive into. We've kind of chatted about. You want to kick off yours first? It's kind of fun.

Yeah, yeah. I was thinking a little bit about, you know, how we all use ChatGPT or Claude, whichever you prefer. And we're always looking for competitive differentiators, right? And I decided to go do a competitive differentiator between Scott Lise Consulting and the Harris Consulting Group. And see, just see, just see what, just see what the internet says. And part of this isn't just for the fun of it, cuz it is a little funny, but also for, you know, I'm gonna bring up some things that differentiate me from Scott, and Scott's gonna have to figure out how he would actually respond to them. Because how often do we practice this part, right? We, we practice a lot of things. We can practice our competitor battle card. But how well are we at it? And do we just sound scripted? And do we just sound like, yeah, but, yeah, yeah, yeah, but here's what you should know, right? Like, I think that's what happens a lot. And this is something I teach as well as I'm sure you do too. So anyway, so we're gonna, we're gonna kick one off. So this is the first thing it said is, and I use Claude, by the way, and the first thing it said was who they're selling to. Scott Lee founded with a concentration of company on companies growing from $0 to $25 million ARR. This is from G2, by the way. His buyers are almost always the founder or CEO and not a sales manager or an enablement leader or a VP of sales. Me, Richard Harris Consulting Group, sales team, frontline managers, VPs of sales at companies that already have a team. Your buyer is typically further right on the maturity curve, meaning Scott's focusing on that early stage. I'm focusing on a slightly more mature curve, which is unusual because usually Scott's the more mature one of the two of us. So the— there's— so this is what it says, I should say. There's minimal overlap, different buyers in entirely at most companies.

I think that's pretty accurate. That one's pretty accurate.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, this is the one where it gets more interesting. What do they actually deliver?

What do they do?

Yeah. What do we, what do we do? So, Scott is a GTM strategy fractional rev ops and advisory for founders and revenue leaders according to your own website. It's strategic and structural, building the machine from scratch. Richard, you have NEAT Selling, specific proprietary teachable methodology focused on rep behavior and managing and coaching. You train people how to sell, not just what to build. Scott can build a house, but you teach people how to live in it.

Interesting. Interesting.

But I know you. I know you well enough to know that you teach people how to live in it.

To a degree. Yeah, I, I, I do. Maybe it's just not down the line as much as, as you.

Yeah.

So like, I, you know, I'm typically working with people for 6 months or so and, right, I gotta kind of build the foundation and then build the house and, you know, get into some of the like tactical stuff and, yep. And how do I live in the house, to your point. But you sort of start in the house. Already.

Yeah.

So it doesn't surprise me that Claude is interpreting things that way.

Yeah. Here's another one. This one's on methodology. This one gets funny, actually, I think. Scott Lee's no-name proprietary sales methodology services a span of people, process, and infrastructure. Recruiting, LinkedIn, execution, scripting, messaging, sales ops, data audits, broad and generalist. Richard, NEAT Selling is a distinct, defensible IP asset. It's something a buyer can point to, train, and hold their team accountable to. Cool. This is my biggest differentiator. You have no equivalent.

No, I do have the— okay, my rebuttal would be I have the equivalent. I just didn't trademark it, which is, you know, my own failure.

I suppose I wouldn't call it a failure.

I think, I think my addiction selling methodology and, uh, and process is, you know, in line with what you're talking about with, with NEAT selling. It's the same kind of thing. It's uniquely mine. I don't know anybody that talks about it the way that I do. Yeah. Um, yeah, yeah, I wouldn't disagree. Rebuttal, my rebuttal would be I should have filed trademark Yeah, but you don't do legal shit. No, I don't. I wouldn't even know where to begin.

Right, exactly. Exactly. Although you've gotten into the technology world, so.

Yeah, maybe I'll tell— maybe I'll tell my agent to go trademark all my stuff finally.

Yeah, an agent.

Trademark my voice and likeness, you know?

Yep, yep. All right. This is a fun one. A funny one called Credentials. Scott Lise is a 3-time winner of Top 25 Inside Sales Professional by IASP, American Association of Inside Sales, 3-time author experience scaling 12 unicorns and 11 exits according to LinkedIn. Me, I'm a 5-time sales leader, 5-time ASP, AAISP sales leader, and 5-time Salesforce influencer to follow. I actually have more AAISP and Salesforce Recognition. This is where I can legitimately out-credential you everywhere.

This is where I say there's a trophy for everything these days, I suppose. And how much do they really mean? How much do they really mean? That's one of those credential opportunities I opted out of after the few years that I didn't feel like—

I think that's the best rebuttal though. Like, yeah, there's a trophy for everything. There's, there's a— yeah, thanks to the trophy culture. This is the last one. All right. This is something I think you're actually going to walk away from. And I kind of wish I didn't tell you this one because I think you'll go do it.

Do something now.

Yeah, the real gap to exploit. Scott's profile has been inactive on G2 for over a year and only has 638 LinkedIn company followers. His brand is built around him personally, not a transferable framework. When a company outgrows the startup phase and needs to train 20 to 50 reps on a repeatable methodology, Scott doesn't have a clean answer for that. You do, Richard. The sharpest position. Yeah, the sharpest positioning. Move, own the space where you hired the GTM consultant. Now it's time to actually train your team to sell. That's what I should do. That's how I should differentiate you. That's a natural next stage from buyer for anyone already worked with someone like Scott. So anyway, so that was just sort of like the point being is that we all run into competition. We all have been told not to bash the competition. And actually, I'll give a lot of credit to Scott. One of the things Scott has taught me, and I teach people too, is— I can't remember if this was Leapfish or somewhere else, but you once said something of like, well, let me tell you— or not, let me tell you, Scott, would you like to hear why people have chosen me over Scott Leese Consulting? Right? Which is a great way to differentiate your competitor without bashing them. And if you have the right stories, it works, because nobody's gonna ever say no.

And there's a big difference between, between me saying— excuse me— big difference between me saying don't work with Richard— excuse me, I can't even get the rebuttal out—

exactly, don't work with Richard. That's what you're not saying.

Big difference between saying you know, don't work with Richard, he's not good, or whatever, and saying, well, let me tell you what I hear, let me tell you what I heard, let me tell you what I've been told, let me tell you why somebody left ChatGPT for Claude, let me tell you why somebody left Salesforce for HubSpot. This is what I keep hearing. But it doesn't seem like as personal of attack, it's secondhand information.

So let me ask you a question. You said it different, you, you said it one way, I say it differently. And we're riffing here, so you may change it, right? You said, well, let me tell you why people have done this. My version of that is, hey, would you like to hear why people? Because in my opinion, I'm trying to get them to lean in.

I don't do it that way.

Why?

Yeah, you're asking. Well, to me, you're asking for permission, which is a little, a little bit timid and a little bit like I'm— I feel subservient and like I'm begging and asking this person to please, please let me explain something to you.

And I don't like that.

I don't like that dynamic. I don't like feeling like I'm not in control. So I'm not asking for permission. I'm just going to tell you straight up. All right, that's why— that's why— that doesn't mean that I'm right. I know there's a lot of people who believe in permission-based kind of selling. I don't.

Yeah.

Which is why I'm not operating that way.

Which is, which is also why you never went and got a trademark. You don't need permission for a trademark.

I don't need permission. I just demand it already.

Which, which, by the way, is a big differentiator in us, I think, personally, too. Like, we each have unique ways of doing things in life. And I think that's also why we're good partners, because we can have this conversation and And for what it's worth, because I know we're going to segue into this next topic, so I'll go ahead and bring this up. This is why it's always good to have a partner that you can bounce off of that doesn't think exactly like you, right? If you're always working with people who think like you, then you're going to get stuck in that bubble, right? You're going to get stuck in the Facebook only see the shit I want to see. Politics or life or things. And I remember there was one time I came to visit you in Austin and you were going to do your cryo chamber and we were sitting there and this is before I started consulting and I was like, dude, I'm getting to these 4th or 5th interviews, right? But I just can't seem to get over the hump. Do you remember this conversation?

Vaguely.

Vaguely. And, and I was just like, I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. You know, and I think the advice at that point was something along the lines of, well, you know, are you qualifying the person you're talking to to understand what they want to get out of the conversation? Or are you just coming in to present? Because usually by like the fourth interview, you're like with the team, you're not with the managers, right? And I think you nailed it when you said, you know, you aren't really asking them, well, what are you looking for in a manager? What makes it good for you? What makes you want to follow somebody or work for somebody? I think that was the advice she gave me.

Yeah.

But this now segues into our next topic. But anyway, we hope you like—

Segues to our next topic.

Yeah.

Segues into the next topic, which is the continuing saga of Richard's application to ChatGPT to try to be on the sales team.

Yeah.

Well, has there been any movement, Richard? Has there been any movement?

Just disappointment.

Oh no.

Okay, well, you—

we know that you need to get a referral in there is what you need.

That's probably true.

That's the next move, I think, is comb, comb their, uh, you know, LinkedIn page, find the people who are in the hiring positions and the CRO and all that kind of thing. See who you know that knows them, and let's see if we can't get you a direct intro.

Well, it's interesting because I think it's funny because, you know me, I tend to follow rules a little too much, right? And I think there are lots— yeah, and I think this happens to a lot of people when they're applying. And we're going to get into some other things around this, but I can't remember if it was this one or Claude or Perplexity because I was looking at all of them. And I'm just doing this as an experiment, although the salary is around $300 grand. So like, I might, you know, if they hired me, I'd probably have to consider like $300 grand. Like, it's a lot of money to turn down.

But it'd be kind of fun and interesting to work there actually as well.

But I can't— one of them said, don't reach out to people on LinkedIn. Don't reach out to HR people. Don't, um, don't, don't use a ChatGPT or a Claude to write your resume. Right? Which I actually like because it sort of forced me. But yeah, the update is I've gotten no response. And the, the initial response was if we find something relevant, you know, then, you know, we'll get in touch with you. So the unique challenge, right? I've been consulting for 13 years. Right? I've got a list of 100+ companies, thousands of sales reps over my career that I've interviewed, multiple hundreds that I've hired. I've written a book on how to sell, right? You can say all that out loud, but how do you get it in a resume?

Right?

Because I had no quote unquote management experience of running a team in the last 14 years. Other than in small doses, right? Or teaching leaders. So it was a very interesting exercise in writing a resume. I haven't had to write a resume in 15 years, right? 16 years. So, so it was a unique challenge, which I'm not giving up on. Like, okay, I should probably know how to do this. It's good exercise, right? So anyway, so advice, Scott, what do you, what do you got?

Well, first of all, I would throw out the advice and the rules of like don't contact people on LinkedIn and don't message people and all that kind of— that's old antiquated advice. I mean, if I was actually trying to get hired at OpenAI, the first person that I would talk to would be Alyssa Rosenzweig, who was the global head of sales there for 3+ years, uh, she recently left, but I've connected with her on, uh, on LinkedIn. I've interacted with her before. That'd be the first person that I would talk to and say, hey, you know, I know you've moved on, but I'm sure you still know people over there, and who are the right people to talk to, and etc., etc., etc. That's like no-brainer move for me. And then I'd see who else that I knew. So if But if you're, you know, wanting to pursue this exercise further, that is definitely a move that I would do. So that'd be partly part of my advice.

So let me ask you a question on that. So, because I think this is what happens for people, and, and, um, I agree with you. Do I reach out to Alyssa and say, per Scott Lee's recommendation, or do I have Scott reach out on my behalf?

It—

well, it's— it— great question. Let me think about this for a second. So I would— what I would do if I was you is I would go to her profile, for example. Assume I'm not connected to her, I don't know, and I would try to see who we have that are mutual connections. So I would go to those mutual connections and say, do you Do any of you know her well enough, you know, that you could get a response from her, or you could put something on her radar? I'm trying to look for a role. I'd love to have a chat with her. And so I'd wait to see who felt confident enough that they could do that. Um, and then I would wait for them to say, hey, yeah, I pinged her, let her know that you'd be reaching out, or what have you. Or I'd ask for an introduction. And, you know, have the mutual connection broker that quick intro—

introduction. So let me ask you, that's how I would do—

that's how I would do it.

So the next question is, Scott Leese or somebody else does this reach out, Scott doesn't hear back from her in 48 hours, 72 hours, and I—

even after the referral, even after the referral, right?

So let's— because you have a relationship for 48 hours, right?

Okay.

And now here's the first thing is it's my job. It is incumbent upon me as a candidate to reach back out to Scott in 48 hours, not wait for Scott to get back to me and say, hey man, I haven't heard from you, I haven't heard back from her, right? Like, if I'm asking Scott for a favor, I got to stay on top of it, right?

Yes, that's correct.

48, 72 hours later, is that the— A, is that the right time? And B, then do I say I go direct and say, hey, Per Scott-Lise, or do I go get another referral?

Well, I would probably do all of the above, but I'm a psychopath. If I really wanted to work there, I would do all the above. Okay, so I hit him, I'd hit the DM myself, I'd ask for a different person to try an intro, and I'd ask for the referring person to also try to get back in touch with them.

Got it. Next question, going all in.

Yep.

Next question, and this may go, this goes backwards a little bit. When I ask Scott for a referral or anybody, what message am I writing to Scott and say, Scott, will you please deliver this message? Because again, I'm asking for the favor. I do not need to make someone like Scott or me, if you ask me for a referral, do the work, right? I should have a message that says, hey Scott, I was thinking you could send this to her if you're comfortable doing it.

Yeah.

Now Scott could tweak it. But yeah, don't make Scott do the work.

No. Yeah, I agree with that 100%. My note would be something like, you know, hey Alyssa, super interested in the strategic account executive role posted over there. Would love to talk. I'm sure you have thousands of resume submissions on your desk. I'm just trying to cut through the noise and cut the line a little bit. Would love to chat. My good friend Scott can vouch for me being, you know, decent candidate, something like that.

Yeah. You know what's gonna happen? Oh my goodness. I just got a message back from her saying, I am fully disconnecting with Scott because you mentioned my first and last name on the podcast. We, hey, maybe next time we, um, go, uh-uh for someone's name.

Yeah, maybe it's public information. Why, why would she, why would she be mad? Anyway, maybe she's gonna get too many DMs now, but that, that's the move. I don't care if it's that company or any other company, right? I would do the same thing if you listen. If you're trying to get hired at Qualia— when I was running sales, oh yeah, which is a multi-billion dollar unicorn right now, right? Um, the right move would be to somebody that I know messages me and says, hey, you should check out, uh, the resume that just came in from this guy Richard. I can vouch for him, he'd love to work there. I'm paying attention to that. Yeah. And I'm, if I'm not dealing with it myself, I'm pushing it onto my hiring manager, my recruiter, sales manager, or somebody and saying, hey, see if you find a resume for this person. Um, you know, somebody that I know is vouching for them. I think they might be worth conversation. That one's getting special attention. That's the right move. That's the right way to try to, try to go about getting a job right now.

Cool.

Right now, let's shift it. What you're going to run into, what you're going to run into, I'm just going to skip ahead, right? And you kind of, you kind of asked about this a little bit of, well, I haven't run a sales team in 14 years. So it depends a little bit of whether you're going for an individual contributor role, which that's, that feels easy to me. You could say, listen, I've been prospecting and closing deals on my own, running full cycle for 14 years as a consultant. That's a skill that I've been using the whole time. Leading a sales team, I have not been using that in 14 years. I think that's probably at this type of company going to be damn near impossible to land like a leadership role when you've been that far removed. If you were going to an earlier stage startup, I don't think it would be impossible at all. But a big huge company, my guess would be it'd be impossible to go straight into leadership much more realistic to go straight into an individual contributor type, uh, role. So the story, I think, and this is very relevant for people who are facing a reality right now where their entrepreneurship or solopreneurship journey has come to an end, or there's— they can't make the ends meet the way they used to. And I know a lot of these people who have folded up tent and are now taking AE roles or seeking VP roles again, and they have to figure out a way to tell this story. Like, what happened? Why are you— why are you interested in working, you know, a W-2 job again, right? So how do you navigate telling that story? So I pose the question to you— this is like interview prep for you— well, Richard, you've been doing this for 14 years, like Why are you looking to step away and why do you want to come work for us, XYZ Company?

I think the true answer is I want to dive in harder into the AI stuff. Like, I love being on the cutting edge. Every company I've been a part of was always the cutting edge, and this is too new to ignore.

But why can't you do that on your own? Why can't you do it on your own? Why, why go work and have a boss and be told what to do and have a quota?

I've never, I've never minded that. I've actually always liked that.

I—

wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you trying to tell me that you have always loved having a boss? Is that what I just heard you say in this interview?

And if I sounded really sincere, then it tells me I'm saying— right.

Okay, good, good. All right, good, good, good.

It's like I've always enjoyed that.

In the interview you'll say that?

Okay, good. Yeah, I'm always looking for great leadership. I think it's a Fantastic organization in a fantastic time. Look, I was around when the first internet came out, when the internet, all it really was was your frickin brochure. You couldn't even sign into Wells Fargo. And that stuff has always intrigued me. I did it again. And, you know, 10 years later when APIs were all the rage and it's time to do it again.

Do you think people should at all just be transparent and be like, listen, I was running my own business for the last few years. I did pretty good and it just got really hard and I can't sustain it anymore.

I think so. I think there's too much information. I think you have to read the room. Right. And I think that these interviews are going to be very different if you go into an Anthropic or an OpenAI. You've got to read the room. I think it's very different if you're 2 years in. And I think it's a very fair statement. Let's say you've been doing it for 2 or 3 years. It's like, look, you know, things started to drop out. A couple of years ago and people asked for me for help and it was a great way to make money. Right? I, you know, it was a little bit harder to get jobs. The technology is so different. And people are hiring again. So it's time for me to go back.

Yeah, good.

Like, that's good. That, you know, that's a good way.

I think that's a good way to convey the narrative and to tell the story.

Yeah, I think I can't say that as someone who's been doing it for 13 years, then I look slimy.

Yeah, but, but for other people who've only been doing it for a year or two, you know, they sort of gave it a shot and they did what they could do.

And the economy changed, right? I had to do something.

I, I think that's the right answer, you know, combination of all that. So now you've heard it, how to go about getting in front of these people and trying to cut the line a little bit. Richard's going to try to do this a little, a little differently this, this coming week. We'll see if we get an update. And then how to tell that story if you're somebody that left W-2 work to work for yourself and now you're considering or having to go back into the W world. That's how you should tell that story. So quick little, uh, hopefully constructive and helpful exercise for people. And also pay attention to, pay attention to how these LLMs are telling your story for you. And if any of that information is inaccurate you're going to have to do some work to try to retrain them and get information to be accurate in there.

Yes, you are.

I don't want the LLMs telling stories about me that aren't true or describing the work that I do in a way that isn't true anymore or whatever. So yeah, don't ignore, don't ignore this stuff.

Yeah, agreed, agreed, agreed. So all right, another excellent episode. If you haven't, we want to know why. Email Scott Leese at scott.leese@gmail.com.

Scott@surfandsales.com.

Scott@surfandsales.com. And tell him why you haven't come to Surf and Sales yet. Yeah, because it's coming up in November of 2026. It's an excellent time. It is, as we like to say, it is a no assholes kind of event. We've never had to kick someone out, but we tell people all the time that we will gladly do so. And it's definitely not a bro drunken fest. So don't worry about that too. Because it's not that kind of event. So I don't think people— we want to see you though. Ah, they—

I—

a couple of people—

I never get that objection.

They only—

you only get that objection because that's your image. Your image—

that's what I mean—

the drunken bro. That's why.

Exactly right, exactly. Yeah, I'm a tech bro. And, uh, by the way, that doesn't mean men anymore apparently. So, uh, but that's a whole other conversation. So another episode.

All right. We'll see you all next time on the next episode of the Surf Sales Podcast. I'm Scott Leese. That's Richard Harris. Have a good week, everybody.

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