ARE YOU DOING WHAT THE BEST ARE DOING IN B2B SALES?

In sales, how do we get better? How do we learn? It is a very difficult profession to learn and become better and better every day. Why? We get a lot of false positives. We get role models that may not be perfect. We get managers who want us to do things that used to work. We get varying Feedback from the market. We see a variety of people doing a variety of different things and having varying results. So how do we boil it down and decide what to do and how to become better at it? That's what I'm going to be talking about today. And as opposed to having just a great salesperson, having somebody who's both a great salesperson and a great sales leader. that great salespeople feel is a great leader. It's a very different model. I think you're really going to enjoy this interview. I was going to put it solely on the Sales Leadership Show feed, but I think it's so good. I'm putting it here first. It'll eventually get up there probably in a year or so. But for right now, it's going to be right here. And this Wednesday, what is it? The 23rd of March, 2022. I'm going to be going LinkedIn Live talking a lot about these issues, both the mindset and several particular ways that we can each become better every day. And it— and I really kind of a process that I worked on for this. So check that out on LinkedIn Live. I'll put the recording up on YouTube so you'll be able to see it there as well. I may turn it into a podcast episode.

Hey, Max, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Absolutely. Thank you, Brian. Thank you for having me. A little background on myself. So, I have a unique background, I think. I spent a decent amount of time on the sales management consulting end of things. This was years ago. But, you know, I worked with a lot of, let's go with SaaS and tech services companies. Just helping infuse sales culture, customer centricity, the basic things you would imagine, sales training and things of that nature. Then about 7 years ago or so, one of my clients became a company called Qualitest. I don't know if you know that company name, some people do. They are now the world's largest pure-play QA company.

Oh, cool.

So they, yeah, they do nothing but software testing. And I eventually became their global head of sales, We went through a number of acquisitions and then there was a big, you know, private equity exit, which was very exciting. And then they decided to, you know, they wanted to keep growing. We were over $200 million in revenue at that point. But I have this love for startups. I have a love for helping smaller companies get big. And I eventually decided to make a switch to this wonderful company called Commit. I don't know how long to explain, but Commit is a global tech services company. Think of us as a company that likes to build custom software, you know, IoT solutions, cloud solutions, Israeli-born. So, you know, the startup nation. And I decided to make the switch and here I am building— I'm the global CRO, but I also am the managing director for our fairly new North America practice. So I really am focused on growing our US business.

Cool. And why sales leadership versus selling yourself or staying like a small team leader? Sure.

So I, I fell in love— I love coaching. So, uh, coaching is kind of the— my passion has always been to, um, watch people or watch companies grow. If I can see people excel, it really does excite me. Like, there's nothing that excites me more than when I see people Go beyond where they, they even themselves thought they could. Um, but, you know, you don't teach what, you know, what you don't do. So I obviously always sell. I've always been on the front line. I think, uh, it's much easier for people to relate if they see you actually doing it.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, um, yeah, I, I would hope that over my career, the folks who have met me know that, uh, you know, the advice I'm giving them is stuff they've seen me do in a meeting.

And how do you become good at coaching? Because it is a critical element, otherwise people get stuck.

So I don't really know the answer to that. I'll walk you through how— what happened to me. Okay? So what we did— so at the time, the company I started with, we started off as almost like an outsourced sales organization. So think of us as somebody would outsource our time to sell on their behalf and we would have multiple clients, you know, kind of selling. So maybe I would work on one client for 8 hours, another client for 8 hours and hold the quota and do well. And, you know, often I would hear, how is it that you're doing that? So what I did is I turned to my business partner at the time and I said, why don't we write it down? Why don't we write down what it is that we do? And yes, we created a framework. None of it would blow people's minds away. It's the basics. But you pointed out, the truth is, Brian, I think I was so bad at sales. for so long that I started to notice patterns of like things that when I do this, bad things happen. So I kind of just started noticing these patterns. But the biggest pattern that I noticed, Brian, is I would reach out for coaching. So, and I think that's a really big element. So to answer your question, how do you get good at coaching? You focus on— you separate yourself out from the deal. And focus on growing the individual you're working with. So you don't just tell them what to do. You help dissect the deal so they own it. And ideally, they come up with the micro move or the thing that they should do on their own. It takes time. It takes practice. But if you're properly incentivized, if you're incentivized by having somebody do well and have them get excited, then naturally you'll be more patient and willing to work with a, you know—

And what I got out of that is a couple things. Um, one, that you view it like a performance versus just right or wrong.

I think so.

Yeah, because it is, right? A million ways to do it. If you get the outcome, it's right. If you don't, it's probably not as right.

Yeah. And listen, and I think, uh, anybody who's been in sales long enough knows that, you know, you don't do A, B, C, D, this happens, you know, you do A, B, C, and then something crazy happens and you have to adjust. And, and that's why I think coaching comes into, you know, in my opinion, Brian, if I was coaching somebody, I'm sure that I want them to win the deal. But there's no way that I want them to win the deal more than they want them to win the deal because it's their deal.

Yeah.

So by definition, I'm a little bit more able to potentially help see the blind spots, you know, a sales people, we get excited. You know, we deal with a lot of rejection. So if somebody comes across and they're interested, you know, we may start paying attention to the buy signs and ignore some of the stuff that may have been pretty obvious to somebody who was not as in the deal.

Yep.

But I think you're right. I don't think there's like a perfect way to coach. If anything, it's a framework.

Yep.

And the rest you own and you kind of, you know, you— individual specific.

The other thing is, if you can kind of point out how the client is viewing it, like if the empathy— if I was the client, I might be thinking this, or I might want more evidence, or I, I may need a little bit of time, or I may need some more reassurance.

I love what you're saying there. I watched one of your videos recently, and it's probably one that's been recycled, but I— They're all original. So I hear you, I hear you. But I mean, like, it may have been like the second or third time I've seen it, but you talked about the concept of being like a Sherpa, like you—

Deal Sherpa.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, so I really like that. I agree. To your point, most of us will think, what's in it for me? And you have to be customer-centric. It's so crazy. If you focus on the client first, miraculously more sales will happen. So if you, instead of sitting there and thinking like, what do I need to do to win this deal? Instead, think of what do they need to do in order to actually get a solution in place? Because it's our job as a sales professional to remind them and get, get our prospects to think critically so they know nobody's trying to trick them. It's to say, hey, look, there's a chance that this might happen. What are your thoughts about engaging procurement? Because to hit your timeline, based on what you've told me, I'm not sure that's going to be doable. So, uh, authentic way to focus on the customer tends to work best, I think.

Well, customer-centric is a great way of phrasing it because empathy can be confusing.

Well, uh, I, I'd love to hear what you mean by that. I agree, but I love it.

You know, when you hear empathy, people might think sympathy, feeling what they're feeling. Well, that's part of it. But centricity is like they're trying to accomplish something. Let's really dig into why they're trying to accomplish something instead of focusing on what we want to accomplish.

I agree. I agree completely. Um, I think the idea is to create alignment with the other party that you're talking to. Uh, it's not to be a sales resource. It's to truly, you know, align with your person and partner with the person you're dealing with. And if you can align, if you guys can truly align, then you're on the same team, then you're trying to solve the same puzzle.

And that's where the magic happens because the communication is open and you're viewing this person as a helper that you're aligned trying to Solve the same problem, get the same objective.

I agree. And I'll tell you something, um, you know, in preparation for, for our conversation, I was sitting there thinking of topics to discuss. And, um, there was, there was the mention of, um, like, what do the good— what the really good sales professionals that I've come across, what do they do? What is that thing that they do? And I, I really do believe, and it's the strangest thing, the The folks who are really passionate about what they're selling, right? So obviously, there's a bunch of things that are a given, right? You need somebody who's accountable, somebody who uses their brain, somebody who's coachable, all these other things. But the really good folks, not only are they passionate about this, not only do they focus on the customer, but they reach out for coaching proactively, and they might be the ones that need it the least. They're just saying, hey, I have a situation. Let me explain what's happened. What are your thoughts? And I'm telling you, like, in my career, the folks that I've had to force into coaching are less able to execute on it. Whereas the folks who are truly good closing 7-figure deals are reaching out and not saying to me, hey, Max, everything has fallen apart. Can you help save it? No, they're literally coming to the table saying, hey, I had a really interesting discussion. It's a complex situation. Let's have a chat. And I think the most successful people that I've come across do that naturally.

Right. And the great leaders encourage that because it's discussing a deal. No one can predict the future, but if you talk it through, you get to see how the other person views it and think about it differently.

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. You know, I've, as I mentioned, I've seen some of your stuff and I don't know if sales leaders or managers get a bad rap sometimes, but I think if some— if people have the right mindset going into it, then I think it's amazing, right? Like, you can— what's more exciting than seeing a team that is proactively reaching out, is succeeding, is hitting goals? Obviously, it's not 100%, as we all know, you know, sometimes these goals are crazy, but actually one of the roles of the leaders is to make sure to calm those goals down, uh, to be the voice of the salesperson in a boardroom. Uh, but, but I, I think, um, I think, I think there's a lot of really great leaders that I've personally, uh, learned from, and I constantly try to improve. You know, you know, you learn, you learn every day, I hope.

And why is your preference startups? Is it just closer to the, the metal, the ground, um, and further from the bureaucracy?

Yes. It's less politics. It's less politics. But no, it's so exciting, right? You could have an amazing year at a large company and, you know, have a tiny little increase and all you did was, you know, like you said, made a couple of shareholders happy and, you know, and survived the finish line. In a startup, I mean, I've personally helped companies, you know, 2x, 3x, 4x their size. And when that happens, like, I think it's life-altering. Like, it changes how people view their life. It's, you know, like, I think it's much more exciting. And partially, I think I have more to give there, right? So typically where I can help a company most is their— most organizations, especially earlier stage ones, are built on the passion of their founders. and they tend to figure out the delivery element, right? So they get really good. They get to the point where they say, delivery excellence is our DNA.

Yeah!

And then at some point they say, okay, it's time to make customer centricity a core competency. When they make that shift, I feel like I have more to give there, you know? As much as I think I'm okay in a boardroom and stuff like that, I think I'm better at, you know, infusing uh, the basics and, and, and culture is important in every company, but in startups, it's everything.

It is.

Yeah. And what do you think is your strongest suit as a sales leader?

Um, building teams, uh, getting people to believe. Um, you know, it's a, it's a fine line between being, uh, um, I guess humble and confident. Uh, I sometimes struggle with the humble part, but I do think there's an element of of giving people confidence and giving them a goal and giving them a belief system, being able to pivot. So I think, I think you talk about empathy. I think I'm empathetic to as many individuals as I possibly can be, and that's not limited to just sales. I understand different departments. I understand different people pretty well. And I think it's, you know, I think it's a— I hope I build a culture that people want to be a part of. So I think a strength of mine is to that people want to do to achieve the goal that we're looking to do, not because I told them to do it, but because we believe.

And what do you look for when you're hiring, say, somebody you haven't worked with before?

Sure, sure. Um, I look for somebody who's coachable. Um, I look for somebody who's intelligent. Um, I think it's a very important element in sales. Um, I, I frequently say that, um, If I wanted to be a doctor, if I wanted to be a lawyer, I would think about the long game, right? Like I would sit down and I would say, hey, I got to go through a lot of schooling. I got— it's going to cost me a bunch of money. I'm going to take a lot of tests. You know, I'm eventually going to work my way up. And for some reason, a lot of folks in sales don't think that way. They just, they don't think of it as a profession.

Yeah!

And I think people who put their all into it and are intelligent, they're able to pivot. They learn from each experience. So in turn, they improve. So I think somebody who's coachable, somebody who wants to improve, and somebody who's actually able to improve is very important. I think I need fearless salespeople, people who aren't afraid to ask a difficult question or to do something. So I think those are probably the key elements. I also believe that I— and I think I mentioned it before— I think people need to be passionate. Um, I don't believe in this whole like, you come into work, you do the exact same thing every single day, you know, just do what I tell you to do, trust me, the numbers will work itself out. No, like, you need to listen, you need to pay attention, you're going to need to experiment. I like to say crack the code. It takes a while to crack the code. Yeah. So, um, anyway, I don't know, hopefully that answers your question.

Well, that passionate part, because a lot of people have different words for it, you know. I did a video about competitiveness. But I think what it comes down to is an emotional attachment to success or failure.

You gotta have—

you have to have your skin in the game. You gotta care.

You do have to care.

And if you don't, it doesn't work at a startup because you've got to do a lot more than the job role. The market doesn't really understand you yet. You have to probably deliver a lot more than your competitors do. It's harder.

It is. And I think— but I think always having passion in it is important, like startup or not, right? So I've worked with a lot of companies that aren't startups, and I think, I think if you have a, um, a rep who cares is going to care enough to improve, to crack that code. Um, I even say— this is going to sound ridiculous, but If they care about their numbers, if they care, if they know them, if it's not like an annoying nuisance that they check once a month when they get their commissions, but they understand the bigger picture and the granular— if they really treat it like a profession, like if somebody was going to operate on me, I want them to care.

Yes, you do.

You know what I mean?

Oh, just another liver.

Yeah, exactly. So, so I think, I think the— I think it's important, right? If you, if you care I mean, again, I said it earlier, I feel like I get better every day. I mean, there are days where I get worse, probably, but I learn. So there's always things to learn, I think. So if somebody cares enough to do it, great. If they're just going to be repetitive over and over again, there's a ceiling they'll never get above.

Yeah. And a lot of people you interview aren't that way. They don't want to get emotionally attached to winning because they don't want to get upset. And I go, well, that's the byproduct, right? And that's part of it. How do you learn if you're not going to get upset?

Welcome to sales, man, you know.

Right? Because, you know, the old touching the stove as a kid where the parent says, no, that's hot, that's hot, that's hot, then they still touch it, right? They don't ever touch it again because it really hurts.

I, I think, I think that, uh, people need to care, and, and I think, uh, one way to do it is goal setting. And I don't mean just goal setting from a perspective of like hitting company goals, but like personal goals. And, you know, you need smaller goals along the way because sales is a— sometimes can be a sport that isn't— you don't immediately feel that you're progressing.

No, you don't. Right.

Yeah. So I think that if you have goals, then you're passionately attached to them. And I think they should be personal. as well. You know, personal growth is important.

And what about reps who want to get into leadership? What do you look for there?

Oh man, uh, that's difficult. Uh, too frequently people take the best rep and, and make them the leader, and that is not always the case. Uh, and I know that management gets a bad rap, like, like they say, well, you should use the word leadership, not management, but I think they're both important.

Yep.

I really do. Like, you can have an individual rep who's a leader, who's a leader of the entire team, but is not the manager. So if you're talking about sales leadership and you're referencing the, like, the role, like the management, the role, there's more detail orientation involved. A lot of reps are not so good at that. There's gonna be a lot more reports. Unfortunately, you're gonna have to build some decks. There's gonna be elements of needing to become more empathetic to other departments.

Departments.

Yeah, you're gonna have to learn how to play nice with others. So not every rep should do it. I'll give you an example. I've run across a lot of reps that— I actually just did a vlog on this— who are sort of, I call it, they're afraid of tech talk. They get, you know, they don't like— they need They need their SME. They need to bring in their SME because I don't want to find myself in a conversation with a CTO or CIO where the conversation turns too technical. And the truth is, you need to align and understand it's— you need to be having a business discussion, not a technical discussion. But folks who are a little uncomfortable with that will have a difficult time managing a whole bunch of people because it— let's talk about empathy going in the wrong direction.

Yeah!

Because now they're going to make excuses. They're going to be too empathetic for a bunch of folks who can. This is not a scary thing. You can do it! You know, one thing in preparation for this again was an idea of like, what's something that I wish I learned earlier in my career, Brian? And when I started my career, I knew that I needed to be good at asking questions. Like, I need to—

Yeah!

It's not just about asking questions. You're qualif— it's asking the right questions. But I knew that was important. But man, did I spend a lot of years relying on other people to do my presenting. And what I have learned is— I'm not talking about on a first call, you're not doing a presentation, but on that second or third call where you're looking to really ignite the opportunity— too frequently people will bring in technical resources. too early, uh, because it's a beautiful moment if you as a salesperson can own what you're about to present.

Yes.

And you tell a sale— it's a sales deck. It's not an about us deck. It's not a— it's a sales deck. But you do it well, man, you, you build rapport with the person because you bring value to your prospect. And then later on in the sales cycle, you guys are actually— all your micro moves and everything you need to do and find out, but you can actually do it if you earned the right to early on. So if there was one thing that I think a lot of these— if you're talking about VP sales level, sales management level, they need to be good at the presenting part too.

Yes. And I think a lot of people think, oh, I got to go get a master's degree in electrical engineering before I can do that. It's like, no, you got to spend a good weekend, maybe a couple of weekends Do it, do it in front of your Se. Give me feedback. What don't I know? Write down the acronyms, go learn them. Because that credibility that you get when you can have that discussion—

Yep.

And control it if it gets too deep, bring it back up.

You're able to, if you're good enough, you could do it.

Yeah.

You're allowed to say, hey, you just went a little too technical for me. But, you know, you can, you can do that. But I want to come back to something you, I think you said, And maybe it's a weekend, maybe it's practicing with your SME, uh, maybe it's sitting down with your boss. What's scarier than that? But honestly, it's just passion. If you actually care, yeah, if you actually care, you'll get better at it.

And what do you see most first-time sales leaders mess up on? Because I'm sure you've seen that happen once or twice.

Sure, uh, and I've probably done it, um, I think too many over-micromanage. Like, they focus on nothing but the KPIs. They don't realize what the KPIs are there for. Yeah. Uh, so, uh, again, like I talked about, small wins along the way. You don't have to just manage to the final result, but, uh, too many focus on, um, just the KPIs. Just KPIs. They, they— and, and whether they're doing it on purpose or not, they get stuck in the weeds, uh, and, and, and then honestly you're creating an environment where, uh, either it's wrong or the team will probably adjust and figure out what they need to do to get around it, off their back.

Yeah.

Um, so I think, I think a lot of, uh, sales— and the other thing is that I think a lot of, uh, sales folks don't know how to explain what they do well, right? So early stage managers do not they can benefit from, and I'm not, again, I'm no longer in the coaching game, but a lot of them could benefit from some sales management coaching because they don't know how to explain, how to create a framework for other people to do it. You know?

When did you decide or feel the passion for sales leadership versus just selling?

I think it was when at my older company, when we were doing sales coaching, when we made the shift over to sales coaching, I got up in front of room and started explaining what I do. You talk about the performance, I'm pretty good at it. Uh, so it's the, you know, making fun of myself, it's the telling the story, it's stuff like that. And I, I fed— I, I feed off the energy of others. It excites me. So nothing is more exciting than seeing other people get ex— I mean, I've— my favorite things in the world used to be I would get like the email from somebody who I don't know, I, I talked to twice in my life, who said, hey, I just wanted to reach out. this thing that you talked about. You probably get, let's call it fan mail. For me, some of them, yeah, but I wasn't, but I wasn't an influencer. I was just a guy.

Yeah.

Who, um, so, so I think, I think my passion for coaching went there when I started to see the excitement in others.

And what do you find the hardest part about being a sales leader?

I think it's, uh, managing expectations.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's, it's the, the fine line between, yeah, we're gonna go, to, guys, you're gonna create a situation that's gonna create a cycle of negativity, and this cycle could, could stick with us for the next months. Do you want 6 months of negativity? Because this, this decision might get you there. Um, so I would say probably that. I think a lot of— not everybody— there's a lot of turn in sales, so not everybody cares that there's a lot of turn in sales. I do.

Yeah, because the, the, the building up, the hiring, that's a huge time sink.

So, so much time, so much effort, and it's hard to find great people. I mean, a lot of people end up in sales by accident. I I don't know how you did. I was by accident, right?

Is there any other way?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But like, like my father was not a salesperson. My mother was not a salesperson. You know, I— it's not like I had any reason to become a salesperson. I ended up a salesperson, and— but I loved it.

Yeah, cool. Hey, this has been a lot of fun, Max. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

Uh, my LinkedIn is, uh, absolutely— I don't know what it is, but if you just, you know, uh, look up Max Nierenberg is probably LinkedIn.

That's what it is.

Yeah.

Our website, commit.us. Definitely check us out there. I'm not so cool to be on Twitter and Instagram and all the other stuff, so I'm pretty boring from that perspective. But thank you for the time, Brian. I really do appreciate it. And keep up the good work. I think what you do is awesome. You have a lot of people out there who root for you, and I'm one of them.

Now, there were a couple of things we talked about after the interview. But I'll get to that in a second. What I heard was that wanting coaching, wanting feedback, and maybe coaching's overused now. How about just talking about a deal, talking about strategy, talking about process, sharing what you did, asking for feedback, asking how someone else may have done it? What are the implications of doing it this way or that way? Strategizing, postmortems, pre-call planning. These are things that we used to do quite a bit because we didn't have like the volume of deals. So, we had to go deep. I mean, today, maybe if you've got a low-cost product, it doesn't require that. But in B2B, business-to-business, we tend to not have that many deals to be overwhelmed with. So, we have to go out. And kind of create them and build them. And to do that, how well we do it matters. Sales is a performance profession. It requires how well you do it, not just can you do it or did you do it. It's how well you do it. Think of every human relationship. is performance. It's how well you're communicating, how well you're listening, how well you're understanding. And there's no perfect in it. I know you, you're perfect, but you're the only one in the world. There's no perfect person and there's no perfect way of doing something with somebody. In sales, it's that performance. So what we have to do is learn how to become better at it and set that mind trigger to becoming better at it. And that's really what I'm trying to teach in Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting, the course at b2brevenue.com, where you learn how to start where someone else is and build them up to where you need them to be. And it's not the pitch. Selling is communication. It's asking questions. It's listening. It's learning. It's understanding. It's focusing the other person on what you want them to focus on. Becoming better at sales is a 24/7 job because if we're not pushing ourselves to be conscious of what we're doing and how to become better at it, We're winging it and kind of reacting to how and what is happening. And then we get into this trap of rationalizing why it's okay and why it's good enough and why it's anything but our fault. And we go down this spiral until all of a sudden we don't know why we're not getting the results that we should. Everybody wants the The quick fix, the trigger, the gimmick, but that the gimmicks only get you a tiny little step. It doesn't get you a deal. It may get you some attention, some curiosity, but you need a conversation in business-to-business. Learning how to build that conversation is the difference between the A and the B player. Which one are you? Go to b2brevenue.com right now. Sign up for the course, start the conversation, get the meeting. For probably the next month, I'll include the Questions That Sell course. So once you sign up, just send me an email and I'll get you a coupon code for that. Don't assume it knows your coupon code. It doesn't. So sign up for winning or closing the complex sale or start the conversation, get the meeting, and I'll throw that course in for free. How's that sound? Generous, isn't it? Also, make sure you're checking out our friends over at Scratchpad. Fastest, easiest, simplest way to get your stuff into Salesforce and your manager off your back.

Check it out.

Tell a friend about the show and make sure you're checking out the other podcasts, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers, the B2B Revenue Leadership Show, Sales Leadership. And if you've seen my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a like, a little comment, a little share. Also, if you're on YouTube, you can search for me there. Just my name. That's it. We'll see you next time.

I was just going to give a bit of a testimonial, if that's all right, just to kick it off.

Only if it's positive.

No, it is positive. It was a— yeah, just because I started the course, I think in June of last year, 2021. I got a few more months left of access, which is good. But I feel like it's been a transformative experience in my own personal and professional life. I was able to go from a period of a low sales slump in the middle of last year in the summer and early fall, and then really was able to then come back and exceed my target by the end of the, by the end of the 4th quarter. And so the only other thing I would say is that it's also really differentiated me amongst people on the sales team in terms of focus and clarity of what's important. And now I feel really good about what I'm doing in terms of the approach of reaching out to customers and having those conversations and being focused as opposed to just Doing a lot of the other busy work on the side, like organizing resources and doing business analytics and all this other stuff. And so it's really been a noticeable difference with our executive team at my company. And so I just want to thank you for the content and for these opportunities. And so I hope that helps if there's anybody new. It's— I'm a work in progress, but it's getting better. Good.

Yeah. And you're selling pretty hard stuff.