ARE YOU LEARNING OR UNLEARNING - HOW TO BECOME THE SMARTEST SALES REP

In sales, as in life, there are so many things that happen that we don't understand. We don't see it happen. We don't understand why it happened or why it didn't happen. And our mammal brain fills in the reason why it happened or didn't happen. Some call this luck, good or bad. Some come up with excuses, reasons, blame. You ever heard of blame? People blame everybody but what it is. And this is just part of life and we all face it. But how we think about it can really affect how good we become at sales. Let me explain. If you think some— There's this thing out there that you don't have control over that's working either for or against you, you tend to think differently. As opposed to leaving just a little gap, a little smidge, maybe 1%, maybe even 5% of, well, maybe I don't know. And maybe I will never know. But maybe I can be curious about it. Which is more empowering? Attributing it to something like fate or luck, superstition, uh, whatever it is. It really doesn't matter what you call it, but you're assigning it so that you can put it into this category in your head and become comfortable. But the best salespeople Learn to live with that discomfort, that mystery. It keeps their brain working. And why do you want your brain working? Because if you give it the wrong answer and it becomes comfortable, is that learning or unlearning? Unlearning is believing in a falsehood and going through the assumption that it's true. through your life.

Hmm.

If it works for you, great. But what if it's not working for you? And in sales, it can really not work for you. I was working with this rep last week and she was trying to get this interview with a CEO and I was trying to help her and she just wanted the outcome so bad. And kept on coming, oh, he needs to talk to me. I can do this, this, and this. And I'm like, okay, chill a little. You got to understand that they're not even looking yet. You're a possibility in the future. You got to build up a relationship with the person so they want to talk with you. I don't want to do that. That's kissing butt. That's kissing up. I don't want to be that type of person. Well, do you want to be a hound? That's what you're doing now. You're just pushing with no value. Oh no, no, no. I just, I want them to know I'm aggressive. I think they got that. What we have to do in sales is see the world through someone else's eyes. You gotta be real curious to do that. You gotta be real confident to do that. Let's get into this discussion with Dustin today. We're going to be talking about luck And the things that we don't completely understand in sales, because there's a lot of them. And we kind of want to be a little comfortable with it and a little uncomfortable with it. And this is one of the paradoxes of sales. I get it. It's contradictory. But if you just say it's this or that and move on with your life, you're not learning. You may be unlearning.

Here we go. So, luck in sales. Are you feeling lucky, Dustin?

I've been feeling lucky sometimes, not all the time, but yeah, it's definitely an interesting topic. I think kind of this idea of putting yourself in situations where you can succeed and do well and kind of surrounding yourself with the right people. I think eventually you can kind of create your own luck. And I think also just not worrying about stuff that's outside of your control and really focusing on what you can make an impact on. So easier said than done, but I think you can kind of create some of your own luck if you keep putting yourself in those right positions over the years in sales.

Yeah, you can definitely do that. And I think, you know, that they say that is luck and that preparation Where preparation and opportunity meet, I guess is the saying, which is true. But then you start a company and all of a sudden the rep next to you gets a million-dollar bluebird. What do you call that?

I guess some might call that a little bit of bad luck, right? Right place, right time, bad luck. But yeah, I mean, it's, and I think that goes to where where you can't worry about the things that are outside of your control because that's going to definitely happen. And there's going to be situations where you're like, man, did that person really work hard to get that deal? Or did that— did they deserve that? But then, then you're kind of playing that whole worrying about other people more than your own stuff. And I think that's where you can get kind of in tough situations. But there's no doubt that's painful when things like that happen, or if someone else gets a promotion, or—

Yeah.

Your territory seemingly isn't as fair compared to others. We, I've been there many, many times, but I think when I kept obsessing with that stuff, it made me not perform as well and not do my thing. So I think if you can just focus on what you can control, that, that can help too.

Yeah. Because if you got, if you believe in positive luck or good luck, you gotta believe in negative or bad luck. And I think if, if you look at the psychology behind it, you know, B.F. Skinner had that Skinner box and what he found was that pigeons would create superstitions if the stimulus and response changed. And mammals are terrible at this because we understand if we send an email, we get a reply. It works. We send an email, we don't get a reply. We— what do we start doing? I did this with somebody I know yesterday, and they were like, Well, maybe it went in the spam folder or maybe it bounced and we, you didn't notice it. It's the he's not that into you situation where people start creating all of these superstitions, stories, fairy tales about it. And isn't luck fit right into that? That's bad luck, right?

Yeah, no, I mean, you're, you're right. I think it's just how you kind of look at it. The, the glass half full, glass half empty type. Situation, and I you know you're pretty similar probably as well. But I if you have that giving mentality and you're helping customers, you're helping people on your team, you're trying to put the customer and others first. Of course, at some point you want some things to come back around. But I think if you do that sometimes without expectations, just routinely throughout your life and in sales, eventually it usually does come back around. And then also helping other people. You know, when you, when you make it, send them the elevator back down. I think that's just good karma to me. I think eventually it does. I mean, I have that story where I, the first promotion I got when I was in power tools, this guy kind of helped me out. He gave me a chance, ended up having a great career at that company for almost 9 years. And then when I moved industries to med device, that same guy happened to be working in med device and he liked me from 10 years prior and he helped me get a job in med device. So there are, there's some things that you don't plan for that I think if you, if you have that giving mentality, it does. create more opportunities for luck. And then I think it's just how you look at it when a bad situation comes up, because believe me, that happens daily with what I'm doing now, having, having my own thing. So I think you just have to kind of put it in perspective a little bit. And I try to have that giving mentality as much as I can.

Yeah, because I think a lot of salespeople have that problem. If it isn't stimulus response, then they don't believe it. So that's why they keep looking for the silver bullet. What is always going to work if I do it? And we're not in an hourly role. We're in random responses. And then when you say it's random, they go, well, so you have no control over it. I go, no, you have some control over it. Who you talk to, how you talk to them, when you talk to them, what do you talk to them about? That's all under your control. How they react to it. And how they're gonna do anything with it weeks and months later, you have some influence. And if it goes your way, is that good luck? Oh, that's skill. And if they go against you, oh, that's bad luck. And, and this is especially in the complex sale, and this is why it's, it's filled with superstition, folklore stories. hypothesis, platitudes, is because there's no clear and scientifically proven way of everything happening. Have you ever known twins in your life? Twin siblings when you're growing up?

A, a couple, yeah, growing up. Yep. Yeah.

Well, in Boston, there's notorious twins. One was Whitey Bulger. America's most wanted head of the Wilta Winter Hill Gang in Southie. So he was the mob boss. His brother was the president of university, Boston University. And then I think he became a governor of the state. They were twins. Wow. Wow. So, so imagine how the parents feel.

That's, that's going to be a tough one. That's going to be a tough one.

Imagine Thanksgiving at the Bulger household.

At the jail, probably.

Right. You get Secret Service and thugs hanging out, bringing turkey and stuff. So my point there is, did the parents think, oh, with Whitey, bad luck with I forget the other guy's name. Good luck. Same parents, same DNA, you know, from day one, almost identical DNA.

That's a great story. I, you know, I grew up with a lot of privilege, a lot of opportunities. I had, you know, great upbringing and all that. But I hear a lot of people talk sometimes about if, if you came from a tough environment growing up, you didn't get a lot of opportunities. the world was kind of against you. You didn't have a lot of things going for you for whatever reason, whether that be financially or just the family upbringing. But if, if there's ever been anybody in that same situation that's had success and got out of it and made things happen, that means that it is possible to, to kind of do that. So I think it just made me think of that as well as a lot of times you might blame your situation and you have bad luck, but if there's other people that have been in that situation and have thrived and been successful and done things, then you don't really have an excuse, right? There's a way that you can do that. And I know a lot of people get put in bad circumstances, but I think it's the same thing in sales, right? It's if it's been done before, if you've seen other people be successful, there is a way to get kind of through that. So I think that's kind of creating your own luck too, is other people have done it. So why can't I versus just blaming your circumstances and all that type of stuff.

And I think you also have to Ask yourself, how do I use this? How do I take luck or chance or things I don't understand and have it work for me?

Yeah.

You know, putting all the things in the right place that you mentioned is good, but you got to ask yourself, self, you know, do I feel lucky? Am I A lucky person. Now, does that bring up great resources in your mind? If it does, say that to yourself. Fine. Now, Adam Carolla does just the opposite. I don't know if you— who he is, a comedian, podcaster.

Yep.

He goes, I'm unlucky. He tells himself, I'm unlucky. But that helps him because now he takes 100% responsibility for everything. He doesn't anticipate either good luck or bad luck. He thinks it's 100% about what he does. Now, from the outside looking in, I think the guy's pretty lucky. He grew up in North Hollywood, okay? He's surrounded by show business. He wanted to get into show business. He could go to a radio station where Jimmy Kimmel was one of the radio broadcasts, taught him how to box. Now, what part of that is luck? He did all that. Well, if he grew up in Wichita and went down to the radio station and taught somebody to box, do you think that would have really helped his career much?

No. Yeah. Accountability. That's a big one. I mean, if you don't have the accountability, then it's It's gonna be tough to talk about this one way or the other. And then I think he, he probably had some opportunities, took some risks. I think you also need to take some risks if you want to get lucky. You're gonna have to take some risks. You're never gonna break through if you don't put yourself out there a little bit and, and take some of those, get outta your comfort zone. I mean, whether it's trying a new industry or taking that new role as a sales manager or, or calling on the C-suite, people are always scared to do that. So I think you also have to take risks, and that tends to— you're gonna make some mistakes, but that also can present more quote-unquote lucky opportunities if you're taking risks. Once you— and then you gotta— once you get that chance, right, you only— there's only so many times you're gonna get those at-bats for a situation with Adam Corolla. So you gotta take advantage of it. Same thing in sales. If you get that whale account and you're almost there, I mean, that could be a game changer for your whole career, but you might have to do some things that are uncomfortable. To make it happen.

Yeah. And if, if you don't use it, if you say, oh, I'm just unlucky, and you use that to make yourself feel comfortable, is that helping you? No, no, no. You know, because it doesn't— it makes you, in the immediate instant, it makes you feel more comfortable. It's like blaming somebody else. Somebody that doesn't exist, Mr. Luck over there. And, or because you hear it all the time. I hear it from, you know, every sales rep. Like, oh, I'm too young, I'm too old, I'm this, I'm that, you know. And I just, I don't want to hear it. It's like, do you realize that might have 1% to do with what it is? Maybe in some cases, but you holding on to it isn't helping you. It's like dragging around a rock through your whole life and blaming the rock for why you're late. Just let go of the rock and all of a sudden own it. And whether you think you're lucky or you're not. Well, who knows? Ask yourself, and you don't have control over it. So like you said at the beginning, what do you have control over? Who you talk to, how you talk to them, what do you talk to them about? What next steps? All of that you have control over and you can become better and better at it.

Yep. And that rock example, I mean, you're just going to be bitter. You're going to be resentful. You're going to be mad at the world. And you'll, if you never change, it's just going to wear you down over the years. So I know you've probably met people like that. And when you see them, it's just not something you'd want to strive, strive to be like. And another thing too is, I mean, a lot of it is also preparation. I think, I mean, if you're prepared and if you do your research, the reason I say that is picking the right industry sometimes can increase the chances of your luck in sales. If you look, look at industries that are Growing and thriving, because I've been in both. Uh, you know, I was in a power tool company that was crushing it the whole decade I was there. So I was able to get a lot more opportunities because they were growing every year by 20 plus percent. Was in healthcare. It's debatable on that one, but healthcare never goes away regardless of the economy. So it's kind of recession-proof in a way. And then I know if you, if you go to startups and you find that unicorn, which is not easy to do, but I guess the other thing too is you're going to get a lot more chances if you pick the right industry, pick the right role that kind of matches up with you. And then you won't have to be fighting this whole bad luck syndrome we're talking about because you'll get way more chances if you, if you pick the right role and opportunity.

Well, well, that's it because I talk to a lot of friends who have kids that are going to college and I'm always steering them into, you know, learn how to program, especially if they enjoy it. And if I had one friend whose, whose kid went to school to program, But he was a programmer before he went to school. I told him, skip school. Just, if you really have this as a passion, go to school at night.

I did it.

No one will, no one knows when you get the degree whether it was at night. Oh, is this a daytime degree or nighttime? No one cares.

Yeah.

And if you have a passion, believe me, you can get a job as a coder and see what develops. Take courses in other things that you're interested in. Because there is such a backwind, a sucking sound in the market needing these people that it's naturally going to happen. And that's why I said go into B2B sales. Why? Because, okay, you go into retail sales, you make $30K. You go to B2B sales, if you suck, you make $120K. If you're okay, you make $250K. In a couple years, if you're good, you're making a half a million, right? You can't make that out of medical school. I have friends who are doctors that haven't made that yet. You know, they're still filling out insurance forms, trying to get paid, trying to pay off their medical degrees. And getting your butt into the right place at the right time is half the struggle. You know, because I did nothing but startups and it's like I picked the right one sometimes, 1 out of 3. The other 2, it's like, ah, I could have worked 80 hours a week, but it might have made 10% more. But if you hit the right one, you could be, you know, a turtle, a monkey, and still do really well. And there were a lot of turtles and monkeys there that did very well. But that is a skill in and of itself, because to get into those things, you typically have to know somebody and they have to like you like you did at your first job. And they want to give you a chance because they know you and they don't know someone else. And you're cooperative, you smile and nod and you do what you're told and you don't give them your pain in the butt. And now, is that luck?

That's probably more, more initiative to get you more chances for that look. So I think that's sort of the theme I, I think about is you gotta take that initiative and do that. And, and with, with those cases, you really have to network and put yourself out there at all times if you want to get more opportunities such as that. So personal branding, doing things on LinkedIn, I mean, going to associations, networking, kind of being proactive versus reactive. I think Fortune kind of favors the bold with that standpoint, and you have to talk to strangers, go to events, keep keep your brand going when when those opportunities do come up because they're not easy to find. And I've made mistakes as well where it was the the wave had already peaked and it was crashing down when I got there, and that's not that's not fun either. So but yeah, if if you take the initiative and do all the things we're talking about, eventually you're probably going to get get some shots. You just but when those come up, you have to. kind of be accountable and make a decision quickly to take advantage of it. Otherwise, it could pass you by and there might not be many chances to work for a unicorn or when that company's really blowing up.

Yeah. And I think the worst thing you can do is just attribute good fortune or bad fortune to this thing you call luck simply because you don't understand what the The real events were. And you don't have to— and I think the key is not to try and understand all the events, but be open to them, be curious about them. I did this survey on LinkedIn last week because I hate when people say, I either win or I learn, because I know they didn't learn anything. It's really, I either win or I remember, is what they say. They should be saying. But that doesn't feel good, does it?

Yeah.

That, that, that kind of says, that means I forgot something. And you probably knew it, but you didn't know it at the right time in the right way, because all the answers that I got were not advanced things. A lot of them were, oh, rapport is not a relationship, or I didn't know price was that important to them, or they didn't see the value. Oh, I was only talking to one person. All these things that were really kind of rookie knowledge base. It wasn't this exotic judo move of sales that they weren't aware of at the last minute that the CFO needs to see this form in this order. It wasn't any of that. It was the simplest, most vanilla mistakes that we all make. So it wasn't that they didn't know, because if I asked them, did you not know this before it happened? They couldn't really say, no, I didn't know that.

Of course I knew it.

Oh, you don't know price is an element of a sale or that people ghost you after you give them a proposal? Or the timing is important, or it might not be their top priority just because it's yours.

Yeah. I mean, hey, accountability with deals getting closed and then a lot of, to your point with this survey, they're gonna blame it on bad luck, but really they made mistakes and they weren't prepared probably the right way and they weren't keeping track of it. So What did you do wrong and how can you improve? So I guess from a learning standpoint, that's good, but they're probably doing that over and over again. So it's not, but yeah, I mean, people are probably blaming a lot of things for bad luck when in reality they just didn't do their homework and they didn't have the right process and they didn't prepare in advance. And that's probably what you see with a lot of sales folks out there. And then, I mean, stuff's gonna happen. Nothing's ever gonna work 100% of the time. So There, there always is gonna be a little bit of things out of your control with, with deals especially. But if you have the accountability and don't blame the customer, you know, what could I have done better? Again, that's just gonna make you better and then hopefully improve and win more deals in the future and create some, some positive momentum.

Because that, if there was one theme through the whole responses, it was not my fault. They kind of tricked me.

Yeah.

They didn't trick you. You bought into their frame of the world and you heard and saw what you wanted to see because it serves you. And you didn't see the things that you should have saw, not because you didn't know them, you didn't want to see them. You know, and this is a kind of a theme that I'm looking at because I always seem to forget the things I don't want to do. I never seem to forget the things I do want to do. I've never forgotten to go to happy hour, but I have forgotten to, you know, do my journal in the morning. I have forgotten to, oh, I should have worked out by now. That's our brain. Our brain is a pain avoidance machine. But some of the pain that we should see, we don't want to see and we don't see. And then to justify it, we've got to point outside of ourselves because it's pain to say, I screwed up. But when do you learn? Because they didn't learn, they remembered. And, but they thought they learned. So you think they're gonna repeat that?

Most likely.

Yeah.

Most likely. Yeah. And, and it can be tough. I mean, the, the happy years, especially with what I do now because it's my own thing and there's a lot more riding on it, I would say compared to before when you work for a company, it can be tough. I mean, you, you hear things you want to hear and then, although I don't want to convey this to customers, a lot of times there is a lot of pressure. To get this done because it's, there's a lot riding on it when it's your own business type thing. So try to balance that and not have too much happy years, but also prepare the right way because it does mean a lot. That's not easy at all. So I totally have made some mistakes there as far as the happier side with, with doing my own thing now. But at the end of the day, even when something fell through, at first you want to blame that customer, but it's also okay. Hey, what? What did I mess up? What did I do wrong? And I, I, if you look at it like that, then eventually you'll, you'll keep getting better. But yeah, it's easy to have those happy years and I, but you have to have the accountability with yourself. And when we were talking about accountability, you have to, don't lie to yourself about the pain of what happened. Right. And I think everyone lies to themselves at first and then that's why they're telling themselves they had bad luck. You know, they're just making it up in their head.

Well, that's exactly what they're doing. They're lying to themselves. Because it feels good.

Yeah.

Right? Because the lie takes away the pain. It's not my fault. I have bad luck. Well, does that pay well? See, the lessons you're learning working for yourself, because now it's attached. Now you can't blame the manager. You can, but it doesn't do you any good, right?

Yeah.

Does the bank account really, when you work for somebody, you still have your base salary, right?

Yeah.

All you care about is covering up internally for your image, but now you have a hole in the bank account.

Correct.

Your burn rate and the cash flow isn't flowing. So blaming somebody else doesn't have the relief that it used to have.

Yeah. There's not, there's less people to blame, first off.

So less people.

Yeah.

And the person who should take the blame is gonna get it one way or another.

Yeah. But I mean, you gotta kind of embrace the setbacks. I mean, if you keep dwelling on all the issues or mistakes, you're just gonna drive yourself crazy. So I think you just gotta kind of focus on the path, not the obstacle, and keep creating those opportunities. I mean, the more opportunities Eventually you're gonna kind of, kind of break through. So yeah, I think there, there is a lot of accountability side to the, the whole luck conversation because I think everyone's lying to themselves. But if you can own up to it, and then, and then when you're on commission or what I'm doing now, I mean, you have to prioritize the right way. You can't, I mean, your time is way more precious compared to when you have a big salary plus commission. I mean, so you have to prioritize your time with things that are gonna give you more opportunities and, and make you luckier, I guess. So I think prioritizing your time and Getting in front of the right people and not wasting it with pointless meetings is something too that's been a nice— I don't want to say nice, but it's been a realization for me doing this is I'm way more sensitive with my time in meetings because I don't have a choice. Like, your back's against the wall a little bit more. So it's that also helps me be more accountable and blame myself if I made a mistake.

So Because I think it's one of the key things between like the A player and the B player. The A player almost takes too much responsibility for it.

Yeah.

Because they know that doesn't matter whose fault it is, they didn't get paid.

Exactly. Yeah.

The B player kind of wants to feel okay. You know, the sun comes up tomorrow type of attitude. Which, you know, psychologically might be healthier, but not from a quota standpoint, not from a revenue standpoint. So which excites you more, feeling like you're lucky or feeling like you're unlucky?

I mean, I'm definitely hard on myself, kind of what you just said there with the A players. So I guess I, that's a great, that's a tough question. I, I don't like saying that I embrace the unlucky because that seems too negative to me.

Yeah.

It makes me just feel pessimistic. So I think that's, you gotta have some humility there and it's not just all about you type thing. So I think I, I think I just want to create my own luck, right? And put myself in the positions, all the stuff that we talked about, and eventually that should pay off in one way or the other. I mean, I've had many things when I started my new thing now, that have just came back around from years ago, relationships that I built up with people all over the place that are now helping me out, that want to help, that have been feeding me opportunities. So I think, I think creating your own luck is how I look at it. And yeah, I have bad days. I have stuff that happens that's out of my control. It's irritating, but I think you just have that giving mentality, like I said at the beginning, and eventually it should give you more opportunities, but you gotta take advantage of it when they come. You can't just Sit around. You gotta, you gotta do something about it.

Well, that's it because I, I feel the same way because a lot of people were, were giving me crap when I started doing the videos on LinkedIn, even though I'd been doing it on YouTube for 5 years before that. No one said anything because they didn't see them. They go, well, how do you get paid for that? Seems like it takes up a lot of time. Eh, it's an hour a day, whatever. And I go, well, I'm not trying to get paid for it. I'm trying to build up awareness. Of me, my message and the podcast. And what I was looking for is the opportunity and the preparation to hit. Because if you happen, because I happened to have hit it at LinkedIn at the right time, but I, the preparation started 10 years before. I didn't know LinkedIn was—

Nope. Nobody knows that part, right?

Nobody knows that part. And I didn't know LinkedIn was gonna come out with it. I didn't think of comedy then. I was thinking about sales tips and stuff. But if I had given up or looked to just get the reward immediately, I would've not done it. And I see people all the time, they put 2 or 3 videos out, they get nothing, they stop. Well, you know, there's no preparation. The opportunity's there for everybody. So the preparation might be a year or 2, and then people just blank out. You're kidding me. I'm not doing anything for a year at risk. Well, a year's going to pass no matter what. So I think if you take the preparation and opportunity, how can you be prepared for that next opportunity that you see? It's going to be technology, company, job opportunity, deal.

I think this discussion goes much further than just luck because we use luck to explain both good things and bad things that happen to us. But there's a lot of things that happen to us in deals that we don't understand, that we can't predict, that we can't really analyze. And just maybe for a day or a week, just hold this in your mind and say, okay, I may not totally understand this, but maybe not totally attribute it to something like politics or timing or change or resources or cost or politics. These catch-all categories for when things don't go your way. Now, is there a way to prevent that? That way, maybe you can. Some of them you can. Some of them you do have control over. Some you don't. But you have more than one deal to work on. You can prioritize. You can go deeper in the deals that are more likely to close. You can have this little signal, oh, politics plays a role when you have more than one person. So I better think through that on my next deal. This is where the complex sale gets its name, the complexity. Because when you have more than one person involved, when you have the company's money versus the person that you're talking to's money, and we're talking to people who don't have full decision-making control over the deal, We need to help them, guide them through the process, but also not completely believe them at face value. We can believe that they think it's the truth, but is it the truth within the constraints of the company? They may say, oh, this is already approved. All I need to do is pick the right vendor. It's just a checkbox. Don't you worry. And then it dies and they don't call you back. Well, that's what they believed, but they were wrong. They're not experienced at this.

That's our job.

And we tend to just kind of fall into those traps. And then what do we attribute? Is that bad luck?

Is it politics?

Is it price? Is it priority?

Hmm.

You can make an argument for any one of those things. And I think the stronger you make the argument for any one of them, the less likely you are to see the other things and how to prevent this in the future or be able to read it better. Do you notice that your manager, they're pretty good at reading deals? Because their life, their income is based off of being able to analyze a deal, hopefully. And it changes during the quarter. They're very optimistic at the end of the quarter when they need it, when they want it, because their little brain is craving it. Think through this. And this was kind of a tipping point in my career because I saw a lot of people, the know-it-alls, you know them, they're the first to come up for the answer and it's never their fault. You ever notice that?

Never.

They've never made a mistake. Never, not once. Now, do you think they're learning? Are they getting better every day or a little bit worse? Hmm. If they can't read the situation well, how are they going to handle it well? Now, you can develop these judgment skills over the years, or you can learn it from somebody else, somebody who's been through it a couple thousand times. This is where Closing the Complex Sale can really help. And I got to tell you how unique this course is. I was listening to a podcast the other day about 2 goofballs that have never sold. They've— yet they have the nerve to get onto the internet and tell us how to sell to the C-suite. And what they were saying was so naive, so rookie-ish. That they didn't even understand the decision-making process in a company because they've never sold to companies. They had jobs somewhere and then they got into sales training, but they never really experienced the deep dive into how companies make decisions. They weren't on site. They weren't struggling every quarter. I was. That's how I learned it. It wasn't through a book or a workshop. It was through real-world experience. And I cared about winning. And you can learn from that experience, or you can come up with a bunch of platitudes and guessing and wondering. But wouldn't you rather have somebody who's been through it a couple thousand times? Not that I know each one. And when I do a one-on-one with people, I always leave a little bit, that 1 to 10% of, I'm not positive, but I'm leaning this way. What do you think? Whether it's politics, timing, change, whatever is in the way, because the client isn't going to tell you the full story because they don't know it, because their emotions are blinding their full story. Their beliefs, they're just like us. So instead, let's get away from the blind leading the blind. Have a plan, a system, an understanding of how the complex sale works. Don't be listening to people who have never done it. There's also somebody out there teaching cold calling, and you look at their LinkedIn profile, they've never made a cold call in their life. So, they take somebody else's stuff and they reword it and rehash it and present it like it's new. But the difference between real-world experience and academic experience is depth and understanding, context. When you've done it a few thousand times, tens of thousands of times, it becomes part of your identity, your DNA. And you start to really understand the nuance of it instead of the platitude of it. Get serious about your career. You're doing this for a reason. Don't you want to be good at it? Why not condense 5 or 10 years of experience down to 1? Go to b2brevenue.com right now. Sign up before the prices go up. Let's, let's work together. Let's get this to be the best year ever in your career financially, sign up today.

We'll see you next time.