ARE YOU MISSING THE TRUE REASON DEALS CLOSE???

Why do deals fail to close? I'm coming to the conclusion that one of the key reasons is that we switch from the why are they buying to the what are they buying. And this is kind of natural. Clients want to do this. They want to treat us like a thing, a commodity. And that naturally goes to what? Price. But what if you keep the focus, the conversation, the point about why are they doing it and the implications and the impact of not doing it now? That's what we're going to be talking about today, as well as a lot of other things. And we do get into what he calls— the guest calls, uh, being present, which is really being Being in front of the client, not just physically, but mentally, top of mind. And I think a lot of people who will listen to this might be like, well, if that doesn't fit my sale. You're right at first, but we still can be top of mind with the client if we become great at talking about what they care about, not what we care about. Care about. Everyone knows what we care about. But how do you do that? How do you engage them? And this is really what Start the Conversation, Get the Meetings course is all about. And we had a great office hours yesterday. Make sure you listen in. When you really look at the alternatives, there's lots of ways of starting conversations and prospecting, but how effective are they? And I think that today people are getting comfortable being busy, counting the number of emails they send, the number of dials they do. Well, that's finding interest. It's not creating interest. Because today, interest finds us. People don't sit around anymore. They ask a friend, they search the internet, they take action, or they get over it and move on. So where does that leave us? We have to become good at starting conversations and getting meetings. Let's get into this interview. I think you're really going to enjoy this. It's a great sales guy, lots of good stories, and a lot of good lessons that you can apply to your particular sale today. Oh, did I tell you? Oh man, I almost forgot. brevitypitch.com gave me the access to the next release. It's coming out Q1. 2024, but I got early access. And I gotta tell you, I'm rarely blown away by sales technology products. Uh, usually they're somewhat helpful. This is big. Why? Because it's now an interactive conversation live verbally with an AI. Doesn't sound like an AI though. Doesn't sound like a robot. Sounds like a person. And the conversation naturally progresses like sales conversations go. They're very logical, picks up on what you're saying and makes you clarify it and how it's different than other things. And I gotta tell you, within a half hour, I find myself enjoying talking with Saying it is kind of degrading. It is that smart. And what I found was I was getting better. I was thinking. And it uses a different part of your brain when you start verbalizing in a conversation about what you sell. So imagine being able to have a sales conversation that's constructive, positive, Anytime you want. And then when you're done, it gives you some coaching on every statement if you'd like, grades it, gives you a little score. And I'll fall on the sword right here. My first one was a 30 out of 100. I was feeling awkward, didn't know what I was doing, giving it a shot. And by the end of the half hour, I I was up to a 70. So now I'm a C student salesperson, and which is quite humbling because that shows me I got a lot of improvement to do. And I like that. Why? Because I can do it on my own time, at my leisure, as they say, instead of with live clients. Now imagine this, because the conversations aren't canned. At all. It's not, if he says this, do this. It's really interactive. And I'll be posting some demos on the YouTube channel as well as on LinkedIn. So look for them and grab your manager and say, hey, instead of investing in spyware monitoring what I do all day, why don't we invest in something like this that'll help us sell more? Okay. You know, because most Most stuff about calls today, it's recording the call and analyzing it, and it can do that. It does it better than the ones out there. But how about if you did it before the game? You know, watching the game tape is valuable, no question about it, but pregame warming up, that's where it's at. Let's get into the interview. Hey, John, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Thanks for having me. It's always fun to talk like the old way of doing things. I feel like as we progress in our sales career, people start to look at us more as dinosaurs versus like, because back when I started doing it, right, it was the salespeople were the like the, hey, let me tell you about this solution, right? And now by the time we speak to clients, you know, like they already know about the solution or think they know, right?

Yeah.

So, yeah, so I started like out of college. I remember when I was in college, everybody wanted to go into marketing, right? And I wanted to write ads. I just thought I grew up in Chicago. I thought writing ads for like Leo Burnett would be the coolest thing in the world, right? And My junior year of college, I had a professor like pull me to the side and say like, have you ever thought about sales? And I was just like, what do you know? You know, like, and he's like, well, you know, marketing sales, right? You know, and he's like, everybody here wants to go into marketing. Nobody's gonna go into marketing. He's like, if you start really thinking about sales, you know, personality alone, you might, it might be a good path for you. So when I got out of college, I start— I was looking at sales jobs. I wasn't looking at marketing jobs. I worked for a dot-com that went bust out of Chicago pretty quickly and then cut my teeth at Morgan Stanley doing trade checking, which was not my cup of tea. And then CDW came calling in Chicago and they're like, you know, at that time CDW, don't hate me for this CDW, but it was very boiler roomy, right? In 2000, 3, 4. You know, like things like most calls for the day would get a $100 bill on your desk the next day, like that type of stuff. But what I will say is like when you're working for a place that has a structure, right? And has like some way of saying, hey, if you do this, then you get that. It is a really nice stepping stone, Right? I don't know that, I don't think salespeople reach their full maturity at a CDW. No offense, CDW, right? But, and for a lot of folks, it's the greatest job. My buddies have been there for 30 years. But for me, there was a time where it was like, all right, there's something else out there. So I started to move through instead of selling, you know, reselling technology, I started to work for manufacturers. So that started at NetApp. Went through Intel Security, which was branded back to McAfee, and that's a whole thing. And then the process of doing that, I was like, you know, I don't think I fit in at big companies, right? I can't change, I can't help, I can't solve problems. And the previous steps of my journey, I think, all got me to that point, Brian.

You know what I mean?

Like this idea of Okay, if I'm, if I'm told what I have to sell, then how do I help a client achieve their goals, right? And so that's when I started really looking at more startup. And for me, what was, what changed my life as far as how I look at startup versus, you know, Fortune 500 was, is this idea of risk, right? And I was recruited to go work for Intel Security, right? And when you look at Intel Security, I mean, risk-free, right? Like Intel, risk-free, right? But they decided they were gonna like take the old McAfee brand that they bought and bring it back. So now a place that I wouldn't sell, At CDW, I'm now working for. So we talk about risk, and I'm like, I think if you're getting a paycheck, and when you sell something, you're getting that whatever was promised to you. There's any company can say today, like, hey, John, we don't want you here, right? Like, if they can do that, and I've I've seen presidents club guys get let go the next day. Sure, I've seen it. So so there's no risk. Like, risk is all the same. So when when I started looking at that, that's where I was like, I think I can, this startup thing has some teeth, right? And so I went, I hesitantly went to work for CyberX, which we helped sell to Microsoft, which was amazing. Was the number one rep on the globe there. And then as I was leaving that and kind of laying low and letting the options pay out and all that, I was like, maybe I can do this more as like a service, right? Like, there's a lot of startups that come to me and say, hey, we really want you to come to work for us, right? And I go like, okay, hey, tell me a little bit more about it, right? And then how many customers do you have? Like, what are your focus? What are your targets? What are the problems? And they can't answer any of those questions, right? So I had this, I had this like sitting at this Michelin star restaurant in Brooklyn, right, with a startup company that was recruiting me and One, they had no idea how much money I make, right? And I say that like laughingly and I don't mean to sound, to say that even like negatively. They just thought that I would come in, work for free for 2 years, right? They barely had product, you know, and that somehow after those 2 years, fingers crossed, trusting them to build the business that, you know, you follow where I'm going here.

I do.

And so I was like, man, you guys need me, but you need me like 10 hours a week.

Right.

So that's where I started like this sales as a service idea, which literally as soon as I spun it up, I was just taking LinkedIn recruiters and I was taking the interview meeting and I was just speaking with folks about what they actually wanted. And we, I closed 2 clients in the first week, right, where we signed paper and agreed to, I mean, I wrote these flexible contracts and all that. So anyways, so what the long, long on this is that like my journey has been like super big companies, right? With structure to now, I'm, last year I was the number 1 rep in the globe for Armis, which is unicorn, well over unicorn now, over $100 million ARR, making a tough run to, you know, one of the 2 exit options, right? And I'm chasing number 1 this year. We had a newer person come in and really put up a number. So I'm still chasing that this year. But this idea of being able to work for, with clients that actually need help and actually believe that you might be able to help them is what I've turned into as a sales leader rep. Like, so I don't—

Let's dig into that and what differentiates you from, I don't know how many reps they have or But you get to get to number one, you have to be doing something different.

Yeah. And so, and anybody who's watched my LinkedIn stuff, right, knows that I'm a big— by the way, I say stuff a lot, right? I think stuff like sums it all up.

It's like content, right?

Yeah, right. But, but I think that we really underestimate presence and just like having somebody that is around. Right? And so I am, I am not pushy. I don't think you'll find a lot of like clients of mine or friends of mine that say I'm pushy. They'll say like I'm engaging and I'm around, right? And like I'm the person that brings friends together.

We're all around. Come on, man. You gotta be doing something special.

But I'm, I'm telling you the idea of like, of there's a lot of, there's a lot of reps that, you know, close one deal and then Wait, like the renewal's coming up and then we're friends again, right?

I see.

And then, so I am with or without a deal, I am present. When I was no longer with CyberX and didn't have a job, wasn't wearing a logo, like wasn't representing a technology right in the middle of COVID I was on planes to Memphis and Charlotte.

Really?

Dead serious. And I won't mention the names, right? But like Fortune 50 clients that I was making sure that I understood, they understood that what I was doing and that I understood where they were in their prospect. So when I was saying something to a company like Lycanarmus, right, which is where I eventually decided to go, I knew I could deliver, right? I knew that there was an But I'll pause there.

Yeah, let's dig into that. Because, you know, presence can sound like you show up, you know, because people hearing it are trying to match it to what they know. But you're not showing, just showing up. You're—

no.

What are you bringing?

Yeah, so I think, and Brian, this might be, this might be slightly surprising, right? But I think a lot of people think that they're there. And they're not, right? Like sending somebody an email that says, hey, how you doing? Happy holidays.

Yeah, right?

Like, I mean, when I'm— and I cover a large geo, I cover a bunch of globals for us, right? That's what I've done for a long time now is when I'm somewhere, everybody knows that I'm somewhere, right? My team knows I'm somewhere. Every client knows I'm somewhere. If I'm if I'm eating alone at the Marriott, let me explain how much I tried to not eat alone at a Marriott. Right? Like there there is this I think kind of fallacy around the idea of like yeah I was I call them all the time. That's not presence. Right? There is and I'm you know blessed or structured or whatever it is. So I'm— it's 2023, almost '24. We're 3 years past COVID. You're gonna have to keep me out of your city, right? Like, I— that's when I say presence. Tell me what's going on. Let's have a meal. If you want a glass of wine, let's have a glass of wine. But darn it, you're gonna have to say, hey, I can't catch you while you're in town, and then I'm gonna catch you the next time I'm in town. So there is, but it's, it's an effort to not only build a relationship, but to help folks who were— I don't live in Memphis, right? I don't live in Charlotte. But when I'm there, I want them, I want them to know that I'm there to see them, right? And I'm there to understand. And when you call somebody to check in and say, hey, how's it going? Nobody's gonna complain to you. Or unless you have a great relationship, right?

That's the definition of a relation is that presence. Yeah, you're using a different word for it, but it's that becoming known, liked, and trusted over a large time swath.

Yeah. And I don't mean like hit, I don't mean like till the deal closes, right? Like we have a whole—

Where's John?

Yeah. I mean, we have a, we have an entire customer success team and that's been a part of every org I've worked at. But that doesn't mean that, I mean, like, if that customer success team thinks that they're gonna be rid of me, right? Like, there's no way. And then, you know, when you're, when you've got relationships and you're vested and you know what the problem is and you're trying to solve it for a client, that allows you to be the strongest advocate for them, both in the, both in the industry as well as at your company. Right, is you don't want to know how many times I have a call with our C-suite about our Fortune 50 clients and what is wrong, what is right, who's killing it for us, like where we've got, like internally where we've got hurdles. Like, like there's, there's stuff that I don't know about everybody and there's stuff, I mean, there's stuff that I don't know about like the house I live in, right? But you can be sure that if, if like, if it matters, I'm trying to figure it out and it's not for my gain. It's so that we are in a position to help, right? And if you put yourself in a position to help, the rest of that sale and transaction and all the other stuff that sucks about this job, right? That's more organic. You're not like forcing it. It's just, hey, we now have to do business because you have solved the problem for me. I hope that makes sense.

It does. And I think it's something that people don't understand today because everyone's trying to get the deal with the minimum amount of effort and they look at it like a math equation. But it's like you can't judge what the minimum amount of effort is because you're going to undershoot 99% of the time and not get the deal. Yeah. What you're doing with the client is building enormous trust because they sense that John is fighting for them.

I, yeah, I would say like 1,000% of that, Brian. And since we've, I mean, we've, I think we've known each other on LinkedIn, but this is our first conversation. But like the fact that like you so eloquently kind of put it in that way is, you know, I'm the first to fall on the sword too, you know, like, hey, we messed that up. Let us fix it. You know, like, there's no— I was just, I was like complaining about Atlanta Airport recently, right?

Why?

It's beautiful. And I sent a note and I did a Google review about like the— they closed TSA at 9 PM. So you can't like go through TSA PreCheck post 9 PM in Atlanta Airport. It is. And everybody at that like 9, 9:30, 10 o'clock flight is somebody like me who just wants— I mean, and I know those jobs suck. Let me be clear. Like, but all I want to do is get home. And somebody who like, who, you know, Diamond on Delta, right? Like flies all the time is all of a sudden being told that we're stupid to be upset to wait in line for an hour and a half to try to get on a plane. And there's one guy pacing back and forth. And he's talking about it. And so I wrote this review that was just like, hey guys, you're Atlanta. You're not Asheville, right? You're not Wichita. You're Atlanta. And it's unacceptable, right? And I sent a note and I wrote a review. And somebody from Atlanta Airport came back and, and like reinforced my feeling about it. They reminded me that it's not their fault. It's TSA's fault. Right? And that, so the review was about the airport, not about a specific thing about the airport. You get what I mean? It was about, you can't get through security post-9 o'clock if you want to catch a flight. And instead of just saying, hey, this really stinks, we're working with TSA to fix it, they told me why I'm wrong for writing a negative review about their process. And instead of just like falling on it and fixing it, right?

Right.

So like, and I know it's bigger than that, but what I'm getting at is Somebody comes to me and says, hey, we got a problem. Okay, now it's time to go to work, Brian, right? Now it's time to go to work. Like all the stuff we've done, all the times you've trusted me, all the money we've exchanged, all, you know, all the different resources we've had, all the times we've had drinks with our wives, right? Now it's time to go to work. That's what we're here for. So I hope that makes sense. And sorry for the long analogy, but—

Well, I think a lot of people don't get it because it's work. They don't understand the side effects of it.

It is valid. It's like that old sales saying, right? Man, this job would be so great if we just didn't have these annoying customers.

Wouldn't it be easier?

And I think we were talking about this earlier. I would totally change that around. I think like when you work for a place, right? And you've got A ton of different stakeholders, internal, external. You've got big clients, right? Fortune 100, and those paper processes are difficult. They know it. We know it, right? The hardest part about this job is like working for a big firm where you have to manage the expectations of the firm. Solving the problem for the client is the absolute best thing in the world. Like it's the best because like you make yourself like part of their team, right? And then when you have to take all that work and all that time and then bring it back to like stakeholders that are looking at dollars, cents, people, effort, right? That's where the job starts to be like, that's where you need to be the strongest internal advocate for your customers, right? And that's the part. So I'd flip it around like this job would be so great if it was just me selling to you. But that's not how it works either because the team is so important. Then it's my job to communicate, coordinate, help everybody from our C-suite down understand why this is a real problem and what the price and expectations and all of that should be. So yeah, that's my—

And a lot of reps don't even think that they can do that. Because they think, well, my manager said no, or the product manager said no. Well, what does the CEO say? Well, I can't talk to the CEO. Well, you're the client's champion. Now you know how they feel when you are asking them to go to talk to their CEO to get it funded.

Right. It's, and, you know, I think that That we, you know, there's so many different sales training modules, right, Brian? There's all these different like MedPic, Medic, right? Like forget the IBM one, right? But like there's all these different things that tell you these very, very, very complex steps on how to do this job, right? And what is glossed over is one, if you are, if you are an organization that's gonna invest In like a med pic training, right? Then you better be all in. Like doing it once a year and then retraining the same thing the next year—that ain't it, right? That doesn't help anybody. But what is glossed over because there's you know what is it M E D D P I C C like there's too much. So. What I, what I peel back, especially when I'm talking to CEOs, startups, right, trying to get the message right, is the tech doesn't matter, right? Like what you did to develop tech does not matter. It's what is the problem? So what's the problem, right? And then the, my, one of my favorite questions is, well, and people who don't do this don't believe that you can do this, by the way, right? Don't believe you can ask this question. But my favorite question is like, okay, I hear that. I hear that a lot. But why does it matter? Right? So what I'm trying to do there, Bryan, is I complain about a ton of things in life, right?

Salespeople.

But is it enough to spend money on?

Right. Is it annoying or is it a problem?

Right. And so when you're in, I've been in tech for a long time. I did a bunch of, I did some other stuff on the side and with consulting, but with tech, it's like, man, I wish that worked. Okay. What? Why? Okay. Do you have funding for that? No. Can you get funding for that? And so it's like, let's focus on the big problem. Focus on the problem that either has funding or we can find funding for, right? And startups and CEOs who haven't done the communication portion of this, right? Like, don't believe that they can get on a call and say like, hey, why are you on the call? I do that almost every time. Like, and if it's a longtime customer, where I've got like the full notes and the full thing is I'll do my quick— and this is probably wrong too, Brian. I should probably just— every call should be like, hey, what are we doing today? Right?

Yeah.

But on the long-time ones, because I've got the notes and I've got to follow up, I'm like, hey, here's what I have on the agenda. Are we right? Okay. Like, what am I missing? Okay. Right. All right. Everybody hear that from, from team, you know, John? Okay, cool. Let's go. But CEOs go like, do things like this. There's no way I could have a call with, I remember I was on this call with a startup with Google, right? And I was like, have you ever asked them why they continue to take your phone call? Right? And they were like, well, we can't do that. And I was like, here, I was like, so you've had how many calls with Google? And it was like 12, no proposal yet, right? And so I was like, do you have anything to lose if you put me on this call, right? On the next call, because you're at 12, right?

Like, you want 13, 14.

But you don't know what we do, right? And I went, I don't need to. And so we get on a call. They introduced me as like, you know, a sales consultant that they've brought on. They're like, hey, we're trying to grow our business. Like, John's a friend of a friend of the family type thing, right? And so I was like, hey guys, I like, thanks for having me, right? But can you just— the one thing that I couldn't figure out, I read all the notes that James had. Paul shared all his information technically. But like, I can't figure out why we're on call 12. Can you tell me why? Like, why this is important? In 12 calls that had never been asked. And this company had no idea. They thought they were chasing one thing, but they weren't. Right?

You're playing business.

And when we got off the call, they were— it was like, it was like I was a magician. Right? Like, where'd that King of Hearts come from? But it, it, for me, that just makes sense. What are we doing today?

Well, people get into these roles. I'm the sales rep, you're the prospect. If you take the call, you must be interested, or you could be bored. We don't know why you're taking the call.

So I am— I have the benefit of working for a place that actually has real talk, right? Like Realtek. But it's expansive and we have certain clients that use it for one thing and other clients that use it for other things and other clients that think they might be clients and call us. So I don't even, if anybody wants to start a demo on my call, you're gonna be shut down, right? A discovery call and understanding the problem call is not a demo. So I start every one of those with my— one of our engineers and I go way back. And so we are constantly talking about like what we're doing in life. And I think clients get a feel for that. Like we are not— this is not a Ford Probe, right? We are not selling you a used car right now, right?

Mm-hmm.

And then I say, it's almost verbatim. And I think my clients will laugh if they're watching this, like, Hey, we get a lot of calls about a lot of things, right? I have clients that use us for tech debt. I have clients that use us for asset discovery. I have clients that use us for vulnerability management. So I would be totally remiss to have an hour of your time without knowing, like, what you're trying to accomplish today. Be quiet, please. Nobody better say a word on this side, right? And I've had like maybe 2 people that were full engineer title say like, no, just show it to me, right? And this is in 10 years. And then I always go like, oh, hey, I can't wait to show it to you. Can't wait, right? But what are you trying to see? Because like, I'm gonna— we're gonna flip open this demo, right? And we're gonna guess. So if you give me just a little, I'm not, I don't, you don't have to tell me budget, right? You don't have to tell me who your boss is, right? You don't have to tell me like what your existing tech stack is. If you give me one thing to focus on, then you can see where we go, right? And then I get an answer and we go down that path of, that's really interesting. Why is that important?

Right.

And we don't have, but it's not sales, Bryan. It's a conversation.

Right. Because most people treat it like Shark Tank. They're presenting with no problem.

Right.

And they're hoping to get investments.

Bingo.

And the sharks are just looking at it like entertainment mostly. It's 80% entertainment, 20%, you know.

Yeah. The ones that always get picked up, have you ever noticed the ones that always get picked up, they start with the problem?

Yes. How they came up with the idea. One day I was walking into the kitchen and I couldn't find this, right? So then I came up with it.

Right. Have you ever done this? And then you were just like, how do you, like, how does that, how do I not have a solution for this? Well, here it is, right? Like, and, and that's the, you know, I think that's the secret sauce in, in like in the new sale. And that's like, on the front side of it, understanding the problem and why it's a problem and how, like, is it big enough to actually get attention and funding?

Right.

And then once you're there, okay, so if I can solve this problem, right? Like, how does that look, right? When you buy solutions like this, how does it look? And then when you're going for budget, because we do a lot of creating budget, right? Where there maybe wasn't budget, but trying to find budget. So when we, you know, when we, when we talked to Brian, we heard that this problem was big enough to cost X, or this problem was big enough to get 3 people looking at it for the year, right? Like, so that's why we're here. Now, I think a lot of people like to try to sell the fact that like all these other steps keep you from negotiating. And I think that's garbage, right? Like when you get to procurement at a Fortune 100, They are judged on what the initial quote was versus what the quote is versus what they bought it for. That is almost always how they're judged. So one way or another, you're discounting somewhere, right? They don't get to go back and say, hey, it was $100 grand, but it's $100 grand and I got an engineer. It's a dollar, right? So that's where, hey, when we get to procurement, what kind of skin do they need? Right? Like, how do we make sure procurement gets a win through this, you know? And that's the stuff that I think there's this like, there's this like full like rose-colored glasses around like these big heavy trainings, right? Around like how it's—

The trainings, even like MedPic didn't come from salespeople, right? It came from sales operations forecast management people who've never met a customer.

Correct.

Because when you look at a deal at the end of the quarter, you can ask those questions.

Yeah. And then like, but I think the funniest thing is, is nowhere in MedPic does it say introduce your CEO to get the deal.

No, it doesn't.

Right?

It's just a shopping list.

But you tell me, you tell me how many orgs you get to end of quarter, end of fiscal deals, like somewhere out there where Where they go, oh, bring me in, right? So that's where I'm talking about, like, you either follow MedPic or you don't, right? It's either like, is it budgeted or is it not? Because if it's not budgeted, you can't forecast it, right? But there's guys who want you to forecast stuff that isn't budgeted. So like, you're either in or you're out. And like, I think most people should be out, right? Like, because you're not committed to it, you know? You're not committed to the model. And The model is too heavy to be committed to, in my opinion, right?

It's great for like renewals, upsells, large established markets. But if you're at a startup, it's a great checklist, like every checklist.

Well, and it's okay to, yeah. And it's okay to say like, hey, I'm missing this. Sure. It's fine. But—

The ad's misleading because The client doesn't know what their decision-making process is. We do because we've been through 100 deals and guess what? They're pretty similar.

Right. And I like the idea of, you know, I like the idea especially for like for less seasoned or just as reminders, right? Like, hey, who else inks this? Right?

Of course.

Yeah. Like that's, but this structure, I guess what I'm getting at is like, Because I deal with this quite a bit. I've previous jobs like like crazy, where you're like, well, I'm gonna boss or boss's boss is gonna commit a deal. Well, I'm not committing that deal. Well, why not? Let's not budget it. Yeah, but they we can figure out how to get it done. Who's gonna figure out how to get it done? You are, right? So it's okay to say this is best case. We're we're gonna make a move, right? But like, but anyway, so that's my diatribe on that is I think the front end of the sale is very, is the most important part by far.

Yeah, because it's almost like telephone because by the time you get to the end of the quarter, they forget why they're doing it.

Yeah.

And then Mr. Big Cheese goes, why are we doing this? And they go, I think we have a problem somewhere. It's great stuff. John's fantastic.

Yeah. And if you don't have the data up front and you're not constantly like bringing the data back, right? And it's just silly that we spend so much time Like thinking that technology is gonna sell itself, right? And there are some of those crazy use cases, you know, like a Slack, right? Who like— but here's the thing though. Here's what everybody forgets about Slack, right? Is they gave Slack away for 3 years.

Yeah.

3, gave it away. So they were operating a company for 3 years with this much revenue-ish, right? This much-ish, zero. And then the model worked because it was good tech, but they gave it 3 years and then they were going to the company and saying like, hey, by the way, you know, you've got 10,000 users using Slack. Like you've got 100,000 people. How great would it be if everybody used it? And that could be your central place of communication. Like, mind you, their pitch was better than my pitch that I just did now. But 3 years.

Yeah, because free is not really selling. No, it's giving away.

Bingo. But they got to the sale. It just took forever. Yeah, right. Armis has been delivering software for 7 years. And like, the success of Armis is crazy in 7 years. But it's because like through all the trials, tribulations, like changes and all of that, we did have tech. We had pretty good tech. that could solve a problem, right? And that's, I think, the ultimate distinguisher for me is if my name is on a place, is it gonna solve a problem? Like make it cheaper? You get what I mean? Like help consolidate. There's gotta be something that I'm gonna put my name, that I'm gonna put my brand on, right? I hope that makes sense.

Great. Hey, John, I really appreciate your time today. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

Hey, you can connect with me on— I'm 44 but feel like 80, right? So LinkedIn is my number one place for checking me out, or my Two for Tuesdays have received quite a bit of praise. It's always fun to interact with folks. So I give 2 to 3 minutes of just like random sales advice on most Tuesdays when I'm not in a Marriott or on a Delta plane. So my LinkedIn, John Fransen, is the way to get me.

I love how he kept the focus on the problem that they're solving, not just the product that they're selling. I think this is critical because if you don't do this, what ends up happening is people forget why they're buying it and they focus on what they're buying. And then they're saying, don't we have something like this in-house already? Haven't we already tried this? Or, I know somebody over there at Joe Blow Company. I think they do something like this. And all of a sudden your deal stalls. You don't want that. You got to keep the deal moving. And presence and being top of mind helps you sense what's going on there and not being single-threaded. You know, a lot of people on LinkedIn are talking about this today, and all their solutions for it are very sales-oriented. And you go, well, we are in sales, Brian. Well, the problem is if you act like you're a sales rep, you get treated like a sales rep. And I talked about this in office hours yesterday, and people don't get it. Until they feel it. How do you treat salespeople who are pestering you? One, do you trust them? Probably not. You think they're out for themselves. You think they'll say and do whatever they want to get what they want. So you feel very comfortable telling them what you want to tell them to get them to go away. You know, objections. This is what people bite objections with. The other things I got out of this interview is dealing with large deals and understanding how a company buys. You know, Medpic kept coming up. And I got to tell you, when I hear Medpic, it just screams somebody who doesn't know how to sell. Because Medpic, if you don't know the history behind it, in the '90s, it came out of Parametric Technology, PTC, up in Boston. And I worked with some of those people. And Med-Pick is nice to analyze a deal. It's essentially a shopping list, not a recipe. See, a shopping list is the ingredients that you need to make a meal. A recipe is how you make a meal. Now, if you have a shopping list and no recipe, you have a bag of groceries. You don't have a meal. You need the recipe to get the meal. So having the shopping list is nice. You make sure you get all the ingredients, but you need the utensils, you need the order, you need the timing of what goes first and how long and what gets mixed and what do you do in what order to what temperature. For For how long? See, that's the sales process. They forget the process. And they make a bunch of logic flaws. One is, what's the decision criteria? Well, that's in flux. And they will tell you what the decision criteria is, and that is exactly what the decision criteria is not. They put it up there because they think they should have it. Oh, it should be big data-enabled, AI-supportive, or run on open systems. Whatever it is, it's not why they're buying it. It's what they're buying. And the decision-making process, the paperwork process, all that stuff, it's our job to guide that, to teach them that. Otherwise, eh. They make it up, or they get it from the competitor, or they go out and Google it and get it off the internet. None of those things are to our advantage. What's to our advantage? Our product. To pick ours. And I made this mistake early in my career as well. And all of a sudden, you know, a rep in the office goes, you're just a blind leading the blind. You don't know what you're doing, and your client doesn't know what you're doing. You're doing, or what they're doing. So you're both asking each other which way to go, and neither of you have a map or a compass. And Med-PIC is neither the map nor the compass. It is a bunch— it's great if you're an operations person analyzing a forecast. But is that you? Is forecasting your problem, or is closing your problem? What we need is really a map of the terrain, a map of how deals go. And that's what Closing the Complex Sale gives you. It gives you the game board of your sale. And I got to tell you, after doing 10 years of on-site sales training, I would try and understand— I gave up after 3 years of seeing if they had a process, and I just had to elicit From them what the process needs to be by asking them, where do deals get stuck? Take me through a deal that closes and a deal that gets stuck, both new, not renewal. And I could very quickly diagnose where they're moving too fast or need to do a lot more work to prevent The deal from getting stuck. Because everyone's on the reactive side. What do you do once the deal's stuck? Oh, okay, good luck. You know, what do you do once your car is off the highway in the ditch? Well, that's a whole different problem than preventing it from getting in the ditch. See, once it's in the ditch, yes, you can get it out. But you need a tow truck. You need a lot of help. And the car is not going to look the same when you get it up off the ditch. Preventing it from going in the ditch is a lot easier, but it takes forethought. It takes thinking ahead, anticipating that the customer is going to pull you into the ditch sometimes. Sometimes they want to move fast, but they don't know what they're doing. How would they? Do you know how to get something purchased at your company? Try it. Try and get something purchased at your own company at the same dollar amount that you're selling, and you'll get a sense of what your prospects have to go through. Because we think it's just, oh, we got to win against the competition. The real competition is doing nothing. You gotta understand this. Go to b2brevenue.com. Check out Closing the Complex Sale. It'll save you 5 years of trial and error. And, you know, it might double your income. But who wants all that money? How much is too much money? Hmm. We'll see you next time. Make sure you check out the other shows, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers, and the Sales Leadership Show. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.