ARE SALESPEOPLE LAZY OR ARE THE JUST HYPER FOCUSED ON WINNING

Hey, before we get into the interview, I want to make sure you're aware of our other podcasts, the Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers Show, which is a very quick, under 5 minutes in most cases, sometimes just a few minutes where I answer your questions. You can just send me any question to my LinkedIn profile, Brian G. Burns, and I'll put it in the queue to answer. Also, the Sales Leadership Show. If you're looking to get into sales leadership or you want to hear from the world's best sales leaders, that's where I interview them. Check it out, the Sales Leadership Show. Also at b2brevenue.com, you can learn all about all the courses. Links are in the show notes below, as well as our link to our partners over at brevitypitch.com, the fastest, easiest way to become great at sales and practice. Before it's showtime. Here we go. You know, you hear a lot about lazy salespeople, don't you? Managers just hate lazy salespeople.

It comes up a lot. I, I have a different view though, because I, I've never been lazy myself necessarily, but it does come up a lot for managers. And I think there is some of that out there. But when I started, a lot of the people around me were not very lazy. So I think that sort of instilled the work ethic that I needed to be successful in sales. However, I think things have definitely changed with technology and all these different AI things that are out there these days. So perhaps there are some lazy salespeople out there. What, what do you think? What do you see?

Well, I, I've heard it all my career, right? The sales reps are lazy. Well, they're money motivated. Right? And that this is what I never got about sales leadership. If you have a great comp plan and a reasonable product, you don't have to manage your salespeople. That they, they're money motivated. They're going to figure out how to sell this product. Now, why would they be lazy? Maybe the leads suck. Maybe what you're asking them to do doesn't have much of an ROI for them. And, you know, my big thing, and I was thinking about it this morning, I hated standing in the booth of a trade show. And I used to have my whole— I used to show up, say hi to everybody, then kind of sneak away when no one was looking. The Irish goodbye.

Really?

Because, ah, I've never sold anything in a In a trade booth. It's usually, you know, other vendors that come by, people who want to sell you something, people want a chart ski, or people want to— what do you do? Oh, let me tell you. And my boss says, well, you seem lazy about this. It's like, get someone else to do it. Would you rather me work on a deal or stand in the booth and explain what we do? to a complete stranger who has no interest in what we do.

The trade shows are an interesting one, but the only trade shows I've ever been to ended up being a boondoggle where you stand at the booth all day, go out late at night, get up early. You feel like crap once you get back, which negates another 3 or 4 days afterwards of being productive. So it basically wipes out a week. Now maybe there's some camaraderie behind it, or maybe there's some leads that show up from marketing from the booth, but I don't think it's actually closing deals. But yeah, you're right. Some, some of the corporate folks or maybe those micromanagers want you to be there, want you to show face, want you to be, you know, drink the Kool-Aid. But I definitely learned over the years that it wasn't a good use of my time. Now, if I was getting paid differently, then maybe I would, would look different at it. And that, that, that's what you mentioned too, is about the comp plan, because there was a point. in my career where I was more of a high-salary bonus type sales position. In that case, I was already getting paid pretty well anyway. So yeah, I'll go on a trip. I'll go to the spa. I'll go to the spa at a nice hotel and take advantage of all the expenses you can do. In that case, it probably does make more sense within reason. But if you're commission-focused and you have a lot of skin in the game and you can't afford to waste time, then you are gonna maybe be perceived as lazy. You're gonna say no to a lot of stuff and people are gonna think you're antisocial, but you're actually looking out for yourself financially, but also helping the company. So I, it, it, the comp plan, I think, makes a huge deal if salespeople are lazy or not, because that's gonna dictate how they act.

Yeah, because, and I remember vividly, my manager would be calling me, I'd be ignoring the call. And I was, I was closing a deal. Do you really want me to put my customer on hold to find out what you need updated on the forecast? Just leave me voicemail, I'll get to it. And I remember another case where I was at a startup and they hired this new VP of sales, and I was working on a $2 million deal, 6 months into the job, and They go, oh, Brian, he's flying around to meet all the reps. And I'm like, why? Well, he wants to meet everybody, so treat it like an interview. And I'm like, I've got a full week. I don't have time to drive to the airport, wait for him at some gate, pick him out of a crowd, and then sit down and go through my pipeline with him and interview somebody that I've already been at the company for 6 months at. And so I go, I do it, and he felt that I wasn't really cooperative. That's where I got the name Cooperative from. You know, because here he is, he's showing up, he knows nothing really about the company. I'm telling him about this deal because he was asking, how can I help? I got this deal, I really need more support. And he goes, well, tell me about the deal. I tell him all about it, and then he's trying to give me feedback on the deal. It's like, you haven't met anybody there. You don't know anybody there. Let me run with it, okay? And he gave my manager feedback that I wasn't cooperative. And I was like, I don't care. Frankly, after I close this deal, I'm happy to leave if you want me to, if this is the type of place it is. And it's just everyone's got their own impression of what's good in sales. And it's usually somebody identical to themselves. And he ended up getting fired 9 months later. He flew into town and he wanted to go see the account, and he stayed downtown, which was 45 minutes in the wrong direction for me. So I go, get a cab and go to this address. I'm not picking you up. I go, I can't get there and back in time. I just can't. I'm not a cab driver. And he goes, boy, that's why I told you to stay there next to the account. Well, there wasn't much to do there at night. I go, I'm not your entertainment. And this is just how he viewed things. And I wasn't subordinate. I wasn't cooperative. Nor did I care, you know, because my career wasn't going anywhere there. I knew that I had a big deal. And I think a lot of reps are— and a lot of managers look at reps who don't do what they want them to do as lazy.

That's a good perspective. I didn't think of it like that, but that— I'm sure that happens all the time. The other thing that I think has changed quite a bit with those managers is just all the technology, all the predictable revenue model, the AI the last few years is overwhelming. So that I think has maybe shifted the focus or making it appear that things can be easier than they actually are. So it probably just naturally how technology does it makes people lazier because they're pressing buttons, they're over-relying on KPIs or these insights.

Right.

And then the management is eating it up, right? So they're making it worse. And then all of a sudden, now there are a lot of great AI tools that can help you be more effective and efficient. There's no doubt about it, but it's not necessarily going to help you close deals, but people think you can just do that, you know, press these buttons, have AI reach out to customers, get you the leads, all this different stuff. And it's, and it's going to help you close deals at a high level that might work for transactional stuff or different things. But there's definitely some good benefits to it for sure. But I think it's gotten overused and then people might might become lazy because they think they can just rely on that and like, oh, I don't have to do what I used to do in the past. And then they, they don't work on themselves. They get a little not as sharp as they used to be. And then it's just a downward spiral.

It is, you know, because you've seen the progression. First came email, then came these cadence tools to do dumb things faster. Now you got power dialers. To find somebody dumb enough to pick up the phone that you can talk to, and they feel that's an accomplishment. But then when you talk to a rep about what does work, I mean, how many people can you talk to on LinkedIn in a day? A lot, right?

A lot. Yep.

A lot.

Yeah.

Live, interactive. More than any power dialer can ever get you, more than any cadence tool can ever get you. But no one wants to do it because it requires effort. People have to think a little, then they have to think like somebody else, and then you lose them. No, I need to do a lot. And well, do you get paid on what you close or do you get paid on how busy you are? Because I always looked around the team, and the managers always liked the busy reps. It's the appearance of success. It's not success; it's the appearance of success. And then you find the people like, oh, they didn't have a very busy week, but they have a big deal. Do you want the big deal? Everybody wants the big deal at the end of the quarter. All of a sudden, the KPIs get brushed away and all the call blitzes go away because the manager doesn't have time for it anymore. All they care about is revenue. And if they don't have revenue, what do they do? They go to the board meeting with a big pipeline. Or pipe dream and statistics on how busy they are. The same thing that marketing does. Now, who's lazy?

You brought up a few things there. The, so the LinkedIn, going back to LinkedIn real quick. I, so I've been using your process for quite some time now, but I, on average, I actually looked at this recently. I'm, having about 20 conversations per day on average. Now, do all those turn into meetings? Not necessarily, but they're, they're back and forth conversations, like building up interest, all that type of stuff. If you can get that cold calling 500 people or whatever it is, I mean, great, but that sounds like brutal to try to figure that out. And it's way more less labor intensive. So there are some great things with, with technology for sure. Also, Things like Otter AI make my life so much easier so that I actually can listen and pay attention. So there are a lot of great tools that I think that can make people very, very effective with their approach. But yeah, I mean, I, I'm just trying to think of when I have become lazy, why, what was the reason behind it? And usually it was something related to the company or my manager, or I was working really hard and then I realized that there was only so much I could make and then I kept hearing different directions from the leadership that didn't make any sense to me. And maybe I got a little bit older, a little bit wiser, and I just wasn't drinking the Kool-Aid as much. So I do think sometimes maybe people do get a little lazier on purpose, or they do just enough to get by or hit their number because either they're tired of all the BS and they don't want to, you know, put that fake pipeline in there, whatever the case is, or they're just burnt out. from all that, which sales is a huge burnout profession, and then they just want to maybe stay in the status quo. So I think there's a lot of factors. Usually it's the company, the, the leader, or maybe you just are a little burnt out from getting beat up all the time, and then that forces people to be maybe perceived as a little bit lazier. So there's a few times in my career where I was just like, I just can't deal with this anymore, so I'm just gonna— I already had some good, good business coming in, and I just wanted to Lay low for a little bit.

Yeah, because it's usually internal stuff. And remember, there's 2 types of people that get into sales: one that's money motivated, and one they can't do anything else. Now, if you can't do anything else and you're not money motivated, you're not going to be successful in sales. But a lot of people do it. And if you're money motivated in sales, why would you be lazy? The ROI isn't there, right? If somebody sends you an email, hey, we'd like to see your product, you get on LinkedIn, you go on Google, you find out great match. You're not lazy anymore, are you?

No.

But if somebody gives you 300 leads from some bonehead trade show in God knows where, And you go through 10 of them, you're like, these aren't our persona. There's— they were looking for the free refrigerator magnet, or marketing must have got bonused on how many of these things they collect. Because you know what marketing does? They start walking around scanning everybody's badge so they can get the credit for it. But what they don't realize is now you've made work for the sales team. Because the managers say, why haven't you processed them? Well, they're marketing people, not really engineers or salespeople or whatever that we sell to. Well, they may know somebody. I love that. Well, I know somebody too. I don't have to ask them. They know. Maybe I'll call the people they know instead of them. And is that lazy or smart?

So there's a big difference there. It is.

And I think managers paint with a broad brush. And what I've learned about managers, they always say, well, how do I hire the right people? I go, what's your list of requirements? They don't have one, or they send the HR one. I go, no, no, no. You've probably hired and people have failed before. Why'd they fail? Oh, this, that, and the other thing. Well, you don't want to hire people with that characteristic anymore. Before you start looking at people and talking to people, write down what makes a great rep at that company instead of how you feel about them. Oh, I like them. They got fire in the belly, or you know reminds me of me when I was 23. And they hire and they go, they don't know what they're doing, right? So now they take your time and their time. As a manager, what did I want? I want somebody I don't have to manage. I want somebody to bring me deals at the end of the quarter. And doesn't cause trouble internally that I have to clean up, doesn't call anybody names or yell at anybody or ruffle the feathers. That's what a manager really wants. The junior manager wants to mandate things, wants to count things, wants their dashboard. And when I— if I hear it one more time that it starts up here and there's a conversion rate all the way down, and this is what comes out.

No, no, no.

That's not causation. That's, that's not even correlation. You do that to make yourself feel comfortable that you have some kind of control over this. So you keep thinking putting more stuff at the top means more stuff's gonna come out at the bottom. Maybe, maybe not. So if you have that kind of mentality, guess what they do all day? They count everything at every stage, and they think they're doing something. And every rep knows what they're doing, so they make it look that way. So now the rep has to spend time lying to you so they can keep you out of their way instead of pulling you in and helping.

You made me think of a story. So I did med device for several years and it's pretty notorious for having really tough interview processes and it's really hard to break into. So there's all kind of different theories out there about how to do it. But I ended up, was able to get a job at Stryker, which is a great company and very well known for sales. But the process to get, to get in was almost like a sales process in itself. It took 3 months. There was like 8 to 10 rounds. They had worked, they worked with Gallup for the past 2 decades and they had their ideal customer profile of what type of salespeople they wanted. And part of that was, I think it was so hard on purpose and they, there was a lot of maybe games and different things you had to do in between and you had to like go above and beyond and really show that you wanted to work there. But they had their ideal customer profile because they did all this stuff with Gallup and they knew exactly what they wanted. And it was almost like you were trying to get a CEO job looking back with how how many stages there were, but I think they knew if someone could get through that gauntlet, they could probably figure out how to sell to hospitals and go through that type of situation. So I, you know, it's debatable on that, but it, you made me think of that example. And I think the people that persevered through that usually were able to, you know, do, do fairly well. And then I also talked to this startup CEO recently and, and they were Basically trying to find their, their founding account executive, and they put out an application. But if you actually read the application, part of it said, hey, we want you to send a 1-minute video of why you're a good fit and why you'd be interested. So I think 500 people applied, only 5 people sent that video and actually read the instructions. So it's, so it's an interesting— the whole hiring part. Yeah, if you can weed out all the stuff you were talking about and really find the right people, I think that makes a lot of what we're talking about nonexistent because you're going to find people that you don't have to manage as much.

Right. And, and why don't managers write that stuff down? It's hard. You have to think, and you have to face what you did wrong in the past and admit it to yourself. Or you could just go by who you like or come up with a lot of things that show resilience, like the Stryker interview process. Doesn't show you how good you are at selling. It shows you how resistant or resilient you are to obstacles, which is a part of it. It's a characteristic. But I think what it tells us is that people don't know what selling is. Right? They think it's about being likable or having grit. Okay, there's 2 ingredients. What are the other 20? Because you don't realize those until they're hired. Oh, he doesn't like working on the phone. Well, that might be an issue. Have you ever worked on the phone before with cold outbound, not warm inbound? How do you go about that? How do you get a PO through the process? Do you understand the administrative process? They don't. The manager doesn't even know it. And I've met a lot of managers, a lot of CROs that don't know it because they managed accounts. How else would they judge a salesperson. Oh, they played sports. He'll be good at sports, but maybe not sales.

I think the best one or the best question you mentioned at one point was walk me through a deal where it was competitive, right? You can say walk me through a deal and then they're gonna give you the bluebird, the easy one. But no, no, like walk me through a deal where You weren't the incumbent. You had to go up against a couple massive companies that had been there forever. It was competitive. They didn't like you at first, and then you overcame all that. Walk, walk me through that. And if they have no answer, then it depends on what type of sale you're, you're doing. But you know, that, that's a good way to put people on the spot and see how they respond. Because if you can't somewhat explain that concisely, you probably have no idea how it happened, or you just worked for a big company and you had inbound or something.

Yeah. And they'll, they'll come up with a story of an existing account where they sold additional stuff to. No, no, a greenfield account. What was the first call like? How'd you get it? Who was in there? How'd you keep the deal moving? How'd you lock out your competitors? Who made the decision? How'd you get it done? How long did it take? If they don't know that by heart, most of them will say, well, they called in, they were looking for something in our category, we went in, we gave a presentation. Well, now that's kind of order-taking. How to compete and win— a lot of people can't come up with that. Or they— it was my magic, they loved me, it was about me. Or I showed them the the flux capacitor, and once they saw that, or what you really hear is well, they were a customer over here and they moved over here, and then they wanted to buy our stuff again. Okay, could anyone do that? Yeah, anyone could do that. And it's not that it's bad, you just got to understand where they're coming from. What was their sale like? And a lot of people were service clerks, and it's not that there's anything wrong with that because we all go through that stage, and then we become competitors, and then we start to learn about how companies make decisions. We start manipulating that and changing it. And it's okay if you don't know it, but the first challenge is to know that you need to know it. See, a lot of people rationalize why being a service rep is good simply because they don't want to become anything more than a service rep. This is safe. They like me. I'm nice. I'm helpful. Okay. Do you think the other people aren't nice and helpful too? What's your competitive advantage? Price? You're more helpful than the other guy? You get the quote to them faster? Is that your bag?

It's a great point. I've— one of my friends He had worked at the same company for almost 17 years, and it was a massive company. But 15, 16 years ago, they were scrapping and clawing, trying to get market share, all these different things. But he'd been there so long, the last decade, it was like 25% growth every year. It's like just stacking wins, stacking wins, and things— it's still a lot of bureaucracy and whatnot, but it was getting easier. And then he decided to leave that company Went to a much smaller startup and I met with him recently and he's like, man, I mean, he, it's just, he's just getting beat up. He's like, I didn't, I forgot how hard it is when you're not the market share leader and you have all these things going on and it's not easy. And he felt like defeated basically. And I'm like, it's the reality of most situations. And I think if you don't experience some of that, you just get these internal biases or that, that sales is easier, that you just get the orders and you upsell people. And that's to your point, it's fine if that's the life you want to live and you can probably have a pretty good life doing that. But if you actually go out in the startup world or you go to these different industries, you realize, man, okay, it's maybe I'm not as good as I thought I was. I need to step my game up. But it's also hard. So you're gonna fail and it's gonna take you probably a couple of years to get some momentum and start making money that you want to. But that's a journey that ultimately it's going to help you long term because you actually know how to sell. You know how to be competitive. You know how to get leads and close deals on your own. Not many people can do that. And I think it's definitely helped me with all these transitions. It's been painful at many times for sure, but it's helped me become better. Which should be in perpetuity that I can use. Right. But it's, it was interesting. I just talked to him recently and it was like he felt like he got hit by a freight train with how hard it was compared to where he was before.

Yeah, because he thought it was him that they were buying. It was part of him, but anybody else there could have done pretty well as well. And I've done pretty much nothing but startups. And you could just tell what would happen if a big brand guy came in because they would be, where's my leads? Where's my accounts? Where's my team? You're the team. You have no accounts. And the thing called Google, that's your lead generator.

Get on it.

And they just, they melt. Because they have no game in that area. And everyone's thinking, well, they have Rolodex, they know people with these accounts. Okay, how far did that get him? Not very far, right? So if you want to become great at sales, you gotta play the whole game. Even bigger deals, more deals, faster deals. That's what it's all about. Sign up today. Put the excuses away. Yeah, excuses feel good, but they're expensive. Excuse— you know what the excuses are costing you? Tens, 50, maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in lost income.

Really?

Yeah. The difference between where you are today— let's say you're making $150,000, decent, decent income, but you know there's other people in your industry making $300,000, $400,000, $500,000. Well, how are you going to do that? You all think it's just about getting a better job, a better territory, a better manager. They can help. Go do that. Then what happens? It's still you There with those leads, trying to close those deals. And do you have the game? Few people do. Everyone thinks they do. Why not prove it? The market tells you what you're worth. Accept it. Now become better. And the way to become better is to improve every day. Really Make a daily routine of learning and developing because it's not at the knowledge level. You have to become unconsciously competent at these skills, which takes time, repetition, and emotion. And I show you how to do it, how I did it, how I've taught hundreds of people to do it. But you have to want to because I can't Force you. A lot of people wish I could. So do I, but I can't. So sign up today. We'll see you next time.