HOW AN UNNATURAL BECAME GREAT AT B2B SALES

A long time ago, I had this goal of learning French, a foreign language, because in a year or so I had planned a trip to Paris. Wanted to see the city, the City of Lights. So what did I do? Uh, at the— this is a long time ago. At the time, uh, this is before apps And even see— well, I think CDs were out, but I bought, uh, Pimsleur French 1, 2, and 3. And for a year and a half, pretty much every free moment, I was listening to it, practicing it, trying it. And after a year and a half, I went through all of them at least 3 or 4 times. I felt I was pretty good. I could rent French movies and with subtitles be able to understand what was going on. And you're probably thinking, well, anyone can do that. Well, try it. See how easy it is. And then there was a little surprise when I landed in Paris and went to a restaurant and, you know, everyone was greeting me in English. I guess I look like an American. And I would try— I didn't even try. I'll be honest, Brian, I didn't. It was like my tongue and my mouth, and they would look at me and just say, English, English is okay. I didn't even try. Why? Because my instincts went from way overconfident to very insecure. Now, what does this sound like? Maybe sales? Maybe. I mean, sales is not a different language literally, but there's a different structure to it. There's a different objective to it. It has a purpose. A lot of people give up that purpose and just switch to English, which is the Be a service clerk, not a salesperson. Just do what you're told. Well, if you do that, not only are you not adding any value, you're doing a disservice to the client. Because the client will do the easiest, cheapest, fastest thing, which is rarely the right thing. Or they'll do nothing, which is rarely the right thing. My point here is we get way overconfident knowing how to sell. I knew French. I couldn't speak a word of it, not conversationally. I could say the words kind of, but— and I could hear the words, and I'd do the little hash table in my head. What's that word mean in this context? And I wasn't that fast, but I didn't admit it to myself until I had to do it. And I could have rationalized, well, these people, you know, they talk very fast, they don't have the time for a newbie. And, ah, that's an excuse. But today, if you wanted to learn a foreign language, there's all kinds of apps where you can talk to it and you have that partner. Now, I wonder if— wouldn't it be great if we had that for sales, where we had to be able to really go through real-life sales situations, but comfortably, without the pressure of your manager watching or the client going to buy or not buy? Here's the secret. It exists. It's free. It's at brevitypitch.com. brevitypitch.com. Links in the show notes. Go there, get on the waiting list for Brevity Play. It's a free version of Brevity where you get to play, get to see what it's like. And if I had this, maybe that trip to France would have been a little bit more enjoyable. A little bit more French, should I say, as opposed to touristy English guy. Let's get into this interview. I think you're going to like this one. Here we go. Hey, Teresa, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Absolutely, Brian. Thanks so much for having me. I'm very humbled to be here. So, a little bit about me. I'm probably the most reluctant business development professional you've ever met. I never intended to be in sales, honestly. I can reflect now on my career and realize certain roles were prepping me for this the entire time. But yeah, I didn't set out to be in sales. I'm a biologist by trade. I ended up doing a lot of benchtop research, preeclampsia research, AIDS research early in my career, ended up as an institutional review board coordinator. And that was one of the first roles where I think some of these business development superpowers, I like to say, actually came into play. And that was thinking about that role. It was understanding the hospital's needs, understanding their liabilities and risk, then also focusing on the patients, making sure that they're protected and safe, not enticed to do research that's harmful to them. And then balancing that with 385 different investigators through— I'm here in Pittsburgh, so University of Pittsburgh as well as McGee Women's Hospital.

Mm-hmm.

And in that role, it was that listening to everyone's needs, building consensus, trying to reach a common goal. And I can reflect on that now and realize that's exactly what I'm doing every day in some sort of a business development relationship with clients. From there, ended up leading a clinical laboratory, ended up at a med device company. I was actually hired at a med device manufacturer north of Pittsburgh with zero med device experience, to be honest. And the reason is he needed a change agent. He needed someone who was a good communicator. And again, that could listen to people's needs, pull together the stakeholders, listen to what's happening with them, try to build something that is a compliant process and have it work for the organization. And from there, I met 2 women who went off and started a consulting firm, and that was the latter part of my career. And that's where I stepped into this business development role. We began a regulatory and quality consulting firm. I was the 20th hire. And, you know, being in a small company, you do everything. It doesn't matter, you know, what day, what your role is. You're just, you're there. there, and if someone needs something, you jump on the phone, you're hiring someone, you're managing someone, you're leading a project. And that's where my first opportunity to, you know, meet with clients— back then, a client would call, you'd meet them at their office, you draft an SOW. The next day, you'd show up and you'd do the billable work, and you'd be the project lead, and you'd be the doer. And over time, the CEO approached me and said, you're really good with clients, you're really good in front of them. Do you think you want to do this more? And I was like, I don't know, I guess, like, let's give it a go. And that was where my love of startup companies came from. And really, the rest history. I ended up over about a decade becoming the lead generating salesperson and, uh, really focused on developing those relationships, expanding the footprint of the company. And we grew to over 600 people in about 12 years' timeframe. So it was really incredibly exciting.

And what do you attribute this to? Do you feel that you're a natural salesperson or an extrovert, a social person, a consensus builder?

It's funny, I did my 5 Strengths, right? So my 5 Strengths are Woo, Positivity, Communication, Connectedness, all of those things. I do— I did not have a good role. I didn't really have any sales-related role models growing up, so I can't say that it was a, you know, a destiny type of thing. But I do think when you learn what it takes to be a really good salesperson and you boil it down to those kind of you know, characters, those baseline just attributes of being a person, I have those. So the willingness to learn, I'm insatiably curious, especially for me in the med device space and the med tech space. I love listening to people's stories. I know when we first started in consulting, I would meet people who— there was one gentleman in particular, his wife had passed away. So the device he created was a device that may have saved her had it existed at the time. So it was stories like that just absolutely catapulted my curiosity. And then just, I, I say this still to this day, I never felt like I was in sales. I felt like I was listening to the needs of someone else and offering a thoughtful solution. And I've, I listened to your podcast, obviously I shared with you earlier, I'm a huge, huge fan. And you talk about that a lot, right? You talk a lot about just listening to people's needs and meeting them where they are, right? It's not— so now I have a, I have a really refined and refreshed perspective of business development in general.

Yeah, because most people think it's product knowledge or industry knowledge. And the problem with sales is everything matters. It's just what your recipe is for how you do it.

Yes. No, that's absolutely true. And you're, you're right. I will say I was more successful than maybe others on my team because of my technical background. So when you can say I sat across from the FDA, I've defended my own corrective and preventive actions. I've met with notified bodies and I've had to defend our quality management system. When you can say that, I do think it builds a level of credibility. And you talk about it a lot— know, like, and trust, right? So people, clients, very quickly got to know me. They got very quickly to trust me. And fortunately, I, I'm fairly likable. I think most people— I'm not everybody's cup of tea, but most people. But you just build that level of trust and you demonstrate to them that you're empathetic to their role, you're empathetic to their struggles. And again, if I the solution that's going to help you. It's kind of like a pain reliever. If I can really alleviate your pain, let's talk. And if I'm not the right fit, I'm very quick to say, you know what, my organization's not a good fit for you, but let me introduce you to someone else. Let me find someone else to help you. And I think that just goes a long way. Yeah.

And what do you see most salespeople doing wrong?

Oh my gosh, that's a great question. Oh my, where do we, where do we begin? I think some of it is And I understand you've talked about this again multiple times, quantity versus quality. You know, let's go do the 50 dials. We gotta— we— and I understand that there's a need to show activity. I— but I am constantly talking to my clients about, please don't draft an email that you yourself would not respond to. Why would you send that email? You just said— I literally have said to people, would you respond to the email that you just emailed your 10 clients? And they go, probably not.

Mm-hmm.

I'm like, then stop the insanity, right? Stop doing that. Why would you repeat that? So I do think some of it is just we are in a culture of must-show activity versus I would much rather you show me high-quality, focused effort at building the relationship, sharing the brand, building brand awareness. And I just think all of those things end You end up exactly where you were supposed to be in terms of client engagement. But I understand there are a lot of leaders, sadly, that just force everybody into that cookie-cutter model because I don't think they know— I don't think they know otherwise. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I don't think they know otherwise, and I don't think they see the distinction between making 50 calls and having X number of engaging conversations that are mutually beneficial.

Yes, exactly. No, it's totally true.

And are you going to get that by dialing the phone more or becoming more curious about what the market cares about?

Right. What do they want? Yeah, exactly. Understand your client. Understand that that procurement leader has to demonstrate cost savings. So ask them, what do you have to do? What, what's Excuse me. What's important to your, to your leadership team? What do you have to demonstrate? And if you understand, even for a client, what does success look like to you? What at the end, 6 months from now, when this project is done and we're going to look at each other and we're going to high five, what does that look like? Ask. I, I teach a lot of my clients, be disalarmingly honest. Just be open and honest. We all know I'm in business development. I'm here to sell something. We know it. Get over it. Get past it. You know, equal business stature. I have every right to be at this table. You talked about this recently in one of your posts. I have a service that I fully believe in. If I fully believe in it, why don't I want to tell everybody? Right? So in just telling everybody and sharing that authentically and being genuine, it just— I don't know. I guess that maybe that's why it's been easy for me because I'm, I'm what I'm— what you see is what you get. This is it. I'm not here to do a bunch of smoke and mirrors. I'm not here to play some weird game. If you If you have a need, if you have a pain, and I have something that can help you, let's talk. I think it's really simple.

Right. I think you come across— my impression— very friendly, honest, and open. And I don't think you would be offended if they said, no, we don't do that.

Yeah. No. Hey, you know what? I have a fantastic provider already. Good for you. Can you tell me who it is? Because I'd love to know who my competition is, right? Or what about them is really working for you so I can learn, right? It's all about— I don't know, every day is about doing better and improving. And it is an art form. You talk about that all the time.

Yeah.

To my early days in consulting firm, we had a fantastic marketing campaign where we were regulatory and quality consulting for med device companies, and it was the art of regulatory and the science of quality. And I absolutely— right, you said it the other day on one of your podcasts. I'm like, yes, he believes! And it's so true. It is an art form. Even now, granted, I didn't didn't mean to be in business development, but here I am. Every day I know I can do something better. I can improve upon this skill set. It is a skill. It is not a cookie cutter. You know, you talked the other day about a cookbook. You know, fine, give me a cookbook, but I still need the freedom to be creative and be authentic and ask people where they are. And, um, back to that point of, you know, procurement person, what is it that you need to have happen to feel good about you in your role? And if I can help you, great. And if I'm not the right fit Just tell me. And that is great. I teach a lot about disqualifying early. Let's get out of the conversations. If they don't have money, it's fine. I wish them well. When they get money, maybe they'll call me, but otherwise let's move on. You don't have the right support. It's been a problem for 3 years. Why now? I'm very good at like pushing back. I'm going to push the client to no before I actually allow them to say yes. And I think that's how I've been able to be so efficient in my sales process.

And where'd you get that confidence though? Because most people new to sales don't have that.

Well, I just, I think it was a lot of trial and error. I think, I think I'm sure I was not this confident really on, but I think you do it enough, you fail enough, right? And you're going to learn. And I think again, later part of that career where I was really being very prolific and exceeding my numbers and killing it, it was just, I realized what was working and I kept reiterating and I kept learning. In that moment. There was lots of times I would leave a call and be like, oh my goodness, I didn't dig into the decision-making process, or oh my goodness, I didn't clarify that budget deep enough. And I know it, but I still didn't allow that to stop me. And I didn't allow that to be an issue where I didn't uncover that. I would just go back and have a second conversation. So I think some of it is take a little bit of pressure off yourself and allow yourself to just be in that moment and enjoy the process. And I think that's what freaks me out a little bit. I actually enjoy this.

Mm-hmm.

I enjoy the hunt. I enjoy the conversation. I enjoy the— I say peeling the onion. I think it's just a fascinating process.

And on the science side of sales, what do you see as your strength or your strongest characteristic?

Oh my goodness, that's a good— I am a scientist by trade. I love data, right? So I do love data. I am the person that's researching, you know, an hour or 2 hours before I meet with a client initially. I spend a lot of time I do. I spend a lot of time really trying to understand their business, and I think that's my insatiable curiosity. I think that's my— I do. I appreciate data. Data moves people. And as much as we talk about sales being emotional, when you're sitting across the room from a CEO of a company, you have to understand their business well enough to know how can your service provide value. And whether that's I'm going to reduce their risk, or I'm going to help them garner more market share, or I'm going to help them save money, you need to understand. And if you don't understand that, to me that's a science. That's not just I'm going to read your investor information. That's connecting the dots and reading the investor information, understanding your services well enough, and then building a story. And I think that's where the role back at the med device company that I mentioned when I was I was manager of CAP at internal audit. If you know anything about corrective and preventive action in any sort of space, pharmaceutical, medtech, it is about telling the story. And the goal was always to convince the notified body or the FDA inspector sitting across from you that you have control over the nonconforming trend. So that story that you've documented in that CAP is what they're going to read. And if you can tell them a story that shows control, shows You acknowledge the process, you acknowledge the problem, you've done appropriate corrective and preventive actions, they close the file and they move on. That's right. That's the risk mitigation factor. And I feel like, again, that's the storytelling that helps CEOs understand my service really will help your business. And let's talk about that.

Well, you're also connecting what you're selling with what they care about instead of it being this autonomous thing that's a commodity.

Absolutely. In the early stages of the consulting firm that I helped to grow, that was something that we talked about openly as an executive team. This is not a widget, this is not a commodity, this is a service that has tremendous value. And because of that, we were not the cheapest on the market, you know, and there was a reason for that. And I think over time, the more high-quality work we did, people connected those dots. And yes, we were not often going to be the cheapest solution. But that was okay. And there was a reason why you were going to pay more for the services we provided. And we understood that value from very, very early on. I think it's critical.

Right. And most salespeople focus on the price because they think that's the only thing— well, it's the only thing they can control, right? Without meeting and talking to people, it's easy. 5 points off. That's simple. But connecting what you sell to what they care about, Right. Because if you don't do that, then it's a thing. It's an autonomous— and okay, I got 3 options, I don't know the difference, I'll pick the cheapest, or I'll pick the middle, right?

And what differentiates you in that market? You're just like everybody else. I, I— there's multiple times I've had clients want to lead with discounts. I'm like, stop leading with a discount. Why are you doing Right? You're, you're already discounting before you get, you get to the table. Why are you doing that? Um, I've even had to train myself of that in my own business. Like, why do I—

It's natural.

Like, it just, it's right. It's the, it's the whole idea around money. And it's funny, I had a fantastic coach years ago. I was trained earlier in the time at the consulting firm on Sandler, Sandler Selling Technique. And shout out to my buddy Jim Gaffney, fantastic mentor. And he He helped me talk through the budget issues because I realized as a child we struggled with money as a family. We had been on food stamps. We had faced insecurity because my father was a steelworker and he lost his job multiple times, right? And it's funny, I didn't realize. So as an adult, those same issues around money actually were affecting me in my role as a business development professional. And he was the one that kind of called me out on my head trash. And I think, again, you mentioned before, like, what makes you successful? I think having the right people in your life at the right time to call you out. on all of your head trash and make you think differently. And I can really relate back to that moment with him. He really had me thinking differently, that where I don't lead with a discount, I know the value of the service that I have. Now, will I still discount? Potentially, if it makes sense. But I'm not going to lead with that because I firmly believe in what I'm selling.

Right. Yeah, because the other school where you never discount, well, Certain industries, it's expected, and if you don't do it, it's either rude or inappropriate or harmful. And what does everybody do? They pad the price and then they just go.

Yes, absolutely. And then you said before, you know, when you are working with that procurement person, again, if you know that they do have to show some sort of cost savings, you have to show some level of, I respect you, I understand what it is you're here to do, let's talk through this. And we all know most of the time, if you're run by a really good, you know, executive leadership team, your margins are healthy enough. You've got wiggle room. We all know that.

Right.

But it is that point of, I, I've met numerous business development professionals over the, over the years where they really do lead every time they go into a conference call, they're already discounting. And I'm like, why do you, why do you jump to that? You're really, I just think you're downplaying the significance of the value that you bring to the table. But you're right, budget is a huge discussion you have to walk through. And that's part of disqualification. If I believe my solution's at a $50,000 range and you only have $5,000 worth of budget, we need to stop the conversation. I need to wish you well, but I need to say, if you end up finding budget somewhere, let's come back and talk. But my solution is not priced in a, in a palatable place for your budget. And just call it what it is and move on.

Now, you brought up a very quick, powerful story earlier where the person invented a piece of medical equipment to save his wife. Now, most sales reps who hear storytelling, it's kind of one of those overused words in selling. They think of once upon a time instead of what you did. You very, within 2 sentences, said why he created this medical, and that got my interest.

Yes, yeah, got mine too. Got mine too. He was one of my first clients in the consulting world, and I think it was the very first time I'd ever met someone who had just that level of personal story. And you knew what drove him. And you knew that he was all in. He was— I mean, his wife passed away. So there was no saving her. But he knew altruistically, if he could bring this device to the market, he could save others. What a beautiful story. And to be part of that, gosh, that was the coolest thing ever. And you don't realize— I think that's harder to correlate when you're talking to the billion-dollar company. But those of us who have the opportunity to work with both billion-dollar companies and these small startup firms, it's the startup companies that really still give me kind of that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Like, I love being— I love this work. I love what we're doing. As if we can be part of that story. You can get the same feel when you're a billion-dollar company, but that always feels a little different. They're, they're billion-dollar companies and they're looking at market share. But if you can equate it to the personal story, we all know, let's face it, we all know family members who are using insulin now. We all know family members who have had a hip replacement. We all know that we have family members who are experiencing these medical conditions. And if somehow you can be part of a story to know that that product on the market is safe and effective, you're doing your part. So I do, I get the whole, you know, poo-pooing on the storytelling thing, but I am all in. I love a good story. I love romantic comedies. I'm all in on storytelling.

Well, the people who poo-poo it are the people who don't want to put the effort into thinking about it.

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

This is not about them.

Yeah, they're missing the point. They're missing the— again, that's a story that— I mean, that's a story from probably 14 years ago. I will never forget that person. I can still see his face sitting across the table from me and the emotion in his voice and the emotion in his eyes. And I was, I was all in. I would have bought that product if I had the money. I'm like, let's go, let's do it. That's, that's really powerful.

Because you can use story in a different way. You can have them remember their story.

Yeah.

Remember at the end of the quarter, remember that operation and this happened?

Yes. Yes. Well, and that's a great, that's a great tool. I do think you can use that as well when you're qualifying. We mentioned it before, you meet a client and in my world, maybe it's, they've had the same audit finding for 3 years and all of a sudden you get that call. Well, You know, I want a proposal. You know, okay, well, let's have a discussion first, right? And wait a second, this has been an issue for 3 years. Why now, right? Again, I'm pushing away. I'm pushing them to a no. And he goes, well, my boss just wants me to develop some quotes. Okay, well, I'm not going to give you an SOW. I'll give you a ballpark. Happy to give you a ballpark, but I'm not going to waste my team's time developing a 10-page SOW for you to lay it on your desk and spill coffee on it.

Too high.

We're not doing that. So let's talk about the ballpark. Then if they say no, it's been a repeat audit finding, and now in the med tech world, you might be facing a consent decree or a warning letter. Now I feel that pain. There's a story there. I've literally had consultant, uh, um, clients over the years when I was in consulting become extremely emotional, share with me the personal impact. I'm not seeing my kids. I'm losing sleep at night. You know, we've had a family member, uh, they had a, they had a work teammate who literally collapsed on the floor from the stress. Those are the stories. If you don't get to that level, you're not fully understanding what's happening in your client's world. And I think I'm just, to your point, you said before, I'm approachable. People can feel comfortable talking to me. I think that's been a really key differentiator for me in the industry.

Right, because you push back and you wanted to know why now, right? What happened? What's changed?

Right. Yeah. Why now? Who, who's, who's breathing down your neck? Do you— are you fearful of losing your job? Um, has it been a revolving door in your department because everybody's fed up with your system? Okay, that's tangible pain that we now can correlate to lost revenue, high risk, lost product on the market. You know, if you're doing a significant recall and you're having to go out and pay reps to go get equipment, that's a problem. And that's a problem that has a price tag. And my value is maybe a fraction of that. Let's talk. Right, exactly.

And I bet you feel, or your clients have probably told you, that you get them.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

That's our objective.

Yes. Yeah, it is. It's, it's really incredible to me that I ended up in this world, and I now feel so blessed to be here. Um, it just— it was never— as I said, I didn't have any good role models growing up. It was never my intent. But now I can really reflect and know all of those different opportunities. And then my natural skill set, it's like I, I have these superpowers that I think— I don't know, maybe they would have never manifested had I not gone through some of these different roles and, and been placed in these opportunities to grow. So it's been— I'm incredibly grateful for where I am right now. And, and I'm very, very thankful to be able to share all of this with other people.

And what do you wish you got very early in your sales career that you have now, that you could— if you could just tap somebody, that they would get it?

Oh gosh, that's a good question. I do think— I think it is the discussion around budget. Yeah, I don't think that came to me quite early enough. And people would say it, and you're like, oh, I got it, I got it, I got it. But I'm I'm not kidding. That kind of manifestation that I went through with my, my sales training coach, and when he really correlated that to— you'd hear a lot about the inner child, but I think it's real. Like, there were, there were experiences I had when I was younger that were causing me not to want to be pushy, not to want to make someone else uncomfortable talking about money.

Interesting.

Were totally, absolutely totally holding me And I really wish I had gotten that earlier because I think I, I think I could have even been farther along. But I also know, you know, a lot of people don't like to talk about money. Now I have no problem talking about it because it's, it's, it's just a number. It's, it's the story behind the number is what's important. And I wished I had— if I can teach anybody that, let's talk about that first because I think that's absolutely pivotal.

Right, because that's what you usually hear. Oh, they don't have budget, it costs too much. And it's like, do they even know what it does?

Yeah. Do they— it costs too much against what? Compared to what?

Against not buying it or buying something else.

Exactly. There's a story there, right? It's not about the money. It's never about the money. It's about— I don't know how many times I've faced clients where they go, well, I just don't like consultants. Well, you probably shouldn't be talking to me. Like, then that probably doesn't make sense. Or, Excuse me. I've had a bad experience with consulting groups, and I don't know if you're a fan of Chris Voss. Um, he's a—

Yeah.

He does a great mirroring technique, and that's a great one to use in those instances when you get people that are really passionate and they say, I, I don't like this, or I'm really— I've had a terrible experience with previous consultants. And I'll say, terrible experience? And then I stop talking, and then they just keep going. But again, what happened? I uncovered the story. I uncovered the pain. And now we can have some real conversations. Now I can say, that sounds like a terrible experience, and I'm so sorry you had that. I let's talk about not experiencing that with my company. You can't have that that conversation unless you get there. Right. Yeah.

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

Oh, thank you so much. Go to Med Device Growth Solutions. I'm also on LinkedIn, so feel free to link in with me. And thank you so much, Brian. This has been. Again, a fantastic opportunity to keep doing what you're doing. You rock star. Everybody loves your content. Don't change. I love the walking series. I love every day when I see you outside and you make me want to walk. But Pittsburgh, Western Pennsylvania weather does not contribute to a good walking schedule. There's just too much rain, but I love it. So keep doing what you're doing. Thank you.

Notice she didn't talk about motions and plays and qualification disco calls. See, I think a lot of people today are trying to make the process into a code and making it too order-taking-centric as opposed to sales-centric. Order-taking is, are they ready to order? If they are, great, congratulations. I love those.

They're easy.

Bluebirds are fantastic. Fantastic. But I doubt you can make your quota with that. So the rest we have to sell. We have to nurture. We have to build the connection with them so that we can share information honestly, openly, consistently. That's our job as salespeople. Today, I think people are just trying to have automated clerks But here's the problem. You can't— if you mandate that, you can't blame the clerks for not selling. And if you're being treated like a clerk, it doesn't matter. You still only get paid on the deals that close. So in sales, you have to be that judge of that. It's your time. It's you setting the priorities. How do you utilize your time, energy, and skill to maximize your income? And guess what? Your manager wants that. That's why the comp plan is the way it is. They may not sound like that sometimes because they need the reports and the other BS, but they sure do need that revenue above everything else. Yes, trust me on that one. At the end of the quarter, the TPS reports can wait. The revenue is what counts. But the crazy thing that happens at the end of the quarter— and I've seen a lot of end of quarters, and I hated this process. Well, first of all, unless the comp plan incentivizes end of quarter behavior, Maybe there's an issue there. Maybe the end of the quarter is more important to the company than to the rep. Well, let's, let's not divert. At the end of the quarter, what happens if you're a sales leader? And if you're a rep, this is what you need to stay away from. If you forecast it, if you commit it, you better know that it's going to close.

Because?

Your judgment is going to be judged. If it's just that you gave a proposal and your champion says it's in procurement, let me tell you, I doubt it's in procurement. You'll know it's in procurement when they contact you and want an updated quote. If it's not in procurement, it probably hasn't been approved yet. And And let me get into these moments, these sales prevention drills. There's critical moments when you give the proposals, the biggest, probably the most expensive one, that's the easiest to fix, but is overlooked by most, including managers. It's critical because the client may only Not have anything to ask for, so they ask for a proposal. The rep thinks that's a buying signal, they send it, and then nothing happens. Now, why did that happen? The rep's responsibility is to not send the quote. It's to find out what's going on there. And are you sending the quote to the right person? Do you have the technical win? Have they selected you? versus everybody else, or are they going to make it based off price? See how complicated it gets now? And if you were like, well, I don't want to push back, well, you better. Because if you just send the quote, you don't know what you have. You may have a deal, granted. A lot of times, if it's an existing account, it's very different. The deal may go through. Without a problem. Congratulations. What if it doesn't? That's the problem. Why are they gonna talk to you? Oh, they love me. Let's test it. Have them call you back. Why don't they call you back? Oh, they're busy. They're on vacation. They got higher priorities. See where I'm going here? That drill, that prevention drill Gives the rep the, the skill, the confidence, the comprehension of this trap, the proposal trap. And they get to play with it. They get to experiment. They get to see how other people do it. They get some feedback about an atomic element of the sale. Yet, these— this element, if not done well, is killing, I would say, a good 5 to 10% of every company's end of quarter because they think it's a deal. It's not a deal. It was simply a request for pricing. It may be more of a deal than I'm describing. But if it doesn't close, it's certainly not a deal this quarter. And this is probably the most egregious one that we found in analyzing millions of sales conversations using AI. I was looking for these particular moments and to see how the rep handled it because I see it in the course. Closing the complex sale all the time. And reps feel their instinct is to quote, but that can be very dangerous. Check it out, brevitypitch.com. Get on the waitlist. There's still a few spots. They're going to be doling it out systematically, so get in early. brevitypitch.com. We'll see you next time.