HOW COMPOUND SELLING CAN DRIVE YOUR SALES IN B2B SELLING

We often think that every deal is unique, a totally independent, precious little thing. And part of it is, a small part of it, but most of it is really just a pattern. It looks similar, not identical, but similar to a lot of other deals. And what if we could take all these labor that we do all day and not only make it reusable but make it a little bit better each time. Several years ago, probably about 10 years ago, I kind of coined the term compound selling. And the idea was instead of starting each deal like this unique adventure, why not leverage what we've learned already? And let's think, think about it. How many demos do you do? How many first calls? How many discovery calls? How many status calls? How many negotiations and working around these typical objections? Don't you start to notice a pattern? And what if we started taking both a preventative mindset, but also a compounding mindset? Each client tends to want pretty similar things. Not identical, but similar. And what if we kept track of that and could anticipate that and build that into our process instead of what we're doing today where we're just focusing on activity? And the mistake that managers make with the activity based selling model is it that they assume that the sales rep is performing at an A-level. They also make the other assumption that the client, that their prospect that they're doing it with, is an A-level prospect. Rarely are both of those assumptions true, or the manager just wants the rep to be busy with the hope that they find something. And in B2B, that's not a great strategy because today interest finds us. The old model of prospecting has kind of been replaced by Google and word of mouth. Because when somebody wants something, they don't sit around waiting. They don't assume that, oh, maybe there's something out there in this beautiful world for me. No, they go looking for it. We're going to be talking about this today, this compounding effect. Instead of starting from scratch each time, why not build, create a flywheel, a snowball effect of all your efforts and have them compound on each other? Let's get into the interview. I'll sum it up at the end. Before we do, I want to make sure you're checking out our friends over at brevitypitch.com. I've seen the new release and I've been working with it nights and weekends, and it's upped my game quite a bit. It gives you immediate feedback. Impartial. It's AI. It's not a micromanager. It's not somebody who's not thinking and just giving you platitudes. It does a pretty good job. It states the objective and then it states how well you did against that objective, what you missed, so you can do it again and make sure you hit it if you feel it's worth it. It's a suggestion. It's not a mandate. The power of this is that we can build those compounding effects without talking to anybody. We can build up our openers, our discovery, our questions, our responses, our handling of pushback, all without having to jeopardize a deal. Some people would say, oh, you should talk to live people. And of course you should talk to live people, but you shouldn't practice on live people. Lawyers don't go into a murder case saying, let's wing it. Let's see how it goes. No, their client's life is on the line. And in sales, what's more important is online is your income. Are you going to jeopardize that? Grab your manager and go to brevitypitch.com and see how you can become a better rep every day in just a few minutes. brevitypitch.com. Here we go.

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

Well, my name is Joe Giardina. I've been in sales my whole career. As a young man, I was always a great student, pretty tenacious internal competitor. I always had the desire to learn new things and sharpen some kind of skill. And those things have always been with me. So, they've been a blessing and also the vehicle that seems to get me in the most. But, uh, somewhere in the teenage years, I think this turned into a drive to learn more about people and how they think and how decisions are made, you know, leaders, leadership type deal. And, um, just really haven't shaken that off since. Uh, by the time I got to college, this has taken most of my attention. I was a business major, luckily, um, but I didn't really know how to put this focus into learning about how people think and, you know, what career is that gonna fit into. And, you know, unfortunately, once you dig the hole of business administration, you're 3 years deep, you know, the options get limited. I didn't really have a great network. So, you know, working a lot of side-time jobs and things like that and eventually realized I was having way too much fun in college and had to get into something. Yeah, exactly. So, and took an entry-level sales job. And, um, you know, from there it was a really bare-bones start. Had to take the bus to work, uh, sometimes had to take emergency taxis which I couldn't afford. And, uh, you know, from that point on I got really lucky. I had some really great mentors, um, worked for some really great companies, got lucky, hooked up with some great startups. And I, I come to come full circle, you know, I found that unlimited source of studying people, the leadership roles, how decisions are made, all of that in sales. So I really couldn't imagine myself anywhere else.

So it sounds like you like the cerebral part of it.

Absolutely. Yes.

Yeah. More than the money or the— is that both?

That, you know, that's a trick question. I love the money. I think it comes with it, but You know, my my thought process on the cerebral part is, you know, anybody could be good at telling somebody what they should think or how they should buy. But understanding what goes into the process is the X factor. That's you know what gets the second sale, the third sale, the repeated sales thereon after. And you know when you're selling something like building materials or a product or what have you, those become. The most important aspect of the operation. You know, why? Why is this guy loyal to his vendors? Why does he go back even if they mess up? Like things like that, you learn as a young man, and then they translate into you know a little bit later on. You you kind of put the full piece together. So you know each piece of the cerebral part kind of shifts as I mature with time. But early on, it was certainly you know. the whys more so than the hows, I guess.

Yeah, the whys on their side or the whys on your side or both?

Definitely, definitely both. But in the beginning, you know, you're really— I'm really focused on the money. And I guess if you asked the 25-year-old version of me, it would be, oh, I'm only focused on what is on their side. But, you know, as you realize you're not the greatest thing ever invented and you're not the best salesperson in the world, You got to start asking those internal questions as well.

And what did you find on the why on the client side? Because you brought up the X factor. What does all that mean to you?

I think, you know, the first thing you always want to find your stride in sales, you know, like how should I sound? You know, what is it gonna, what's gonna separate me? And I think what I landed on is I need to figure out how I would want to be sold to, like, what would sound good to me? What would be the most genuine way that I would be appealed to if I was in the buyer's chair? So that was a lesson I learned really early on. And once I started asking those questions, it didn't really, you know, I don't want to say it didn't matter who I sold to. There's still challenges, but it got a little bit easier for me to understand how to sound, how to sell. And I came off a lot more genuine, more so than car salesman-y, right? Like, that's the worst fear of a salesperson is sounding like a used car salesman. Everybody gets labeled that. So how do I, how do I appeal to somebody in the most genuine way and make sure they know that I'm here to work with them through the sales process? Because it is a process, right? Like there's, there's a set of operations that go into this. How do I fit into this when that process is already fulfilled for them? You know, I'm not inventing anything new. I don't have patents. I'm here to sell a widget. I'm here to sell something they're already buying. How would I appeal or how would I be appealed to if I was in their role? And I found that that was the best way to get through that first line of questioning, that first set of cold calls, et cetera. And it was the healthiest baseline for me to set with customers and clients.

And how do they want to be approached?

I don't, I think they just don't, from a very bare bones, if I give you a one answer, one sentence answer, I just, I think they want to be treated with honesty, you know, and they want to know that you have a plan and they want to know that you have your things together because they're, they're giving you trust. They're giving you a part of their operation and they're relying on you to make sure that that part gets done. The worst thing that could happen in a buyer's perspective is they authorize a purchase of some kind and it doesn't get fulfilled the way that they envisioned it. So, you know, going back to the beginning, if I was in their chair, I want to know the plan and what I'm buying exactly, how long it's going to take, all those details and setting that expectation clear. And then along the process, whether it's a— the sale is going to show up the next day or it's a 30-day process or 60, whatever you have, Just making sure that I'm not in the dark. And I think those things could really only be learned by failing a few times and then getting that batch of humility of like, wow, I'm not doing what's best for my customer. I need to look in the mirror. How would I like to be sold to if I was them? And that's kind of how, you know, I landed on that methodology.

But I also got to imagine that sometimes they want something But you're smart enough to know that that want isn't going to satisfy the need.

Sure. You can't be afraid to tell them it's not possible or to set their expectations right again. And I think that just goes back to the honesty and having a plan and making sure you're a person who abides by those parameters when you set them. So it all comes down to, you know, I really believe the honesty in having a plan and sticking to the plan as best as you can. And that baseline is just healthy to go back to every time you have a conversation with the client or prospect. You know, here's what we said last time. Unfortunately, there was a change. You know, this is the new plan moving forward as of right now. Every time I hang up the phone with somebody, I want to make sure they feel comfortable knowing where they are. I never want to hang up the phone leaving somebody confused. Because that puts their money in jeopardy, the operation in jeopardy, and all sorts of questions start after that. And, you know, at that point, you as a salesperson, account manager, whatever, you know, you seem less valuable, right? You don't know what's going on. You need to go back. You're not prepared. So I try to eliminate those things before they happen by being prepared and having the plan. But in the event where I don't have an answer, I always default to honesty and You know, sometimes it's okay to hang up the phone and say, hey, I'll get back to you, Brian.

Yeah. What's the hardest part of your job?

I think the hardest part is sometimes, you know, you're, you're, let's say your, your means of improving something or the in-the-huddle type conversations where things aren't going right and you're losing by 30 points. Sometimes those aren't received as well as you would like them to be. And early on in my career, I wish I knew that, you know, there was an emotional aspect to being a challenger and to being somebody who, you know, wants to target the status quo and bring new ideas. And I don't think I'll ever be able to really shake that off. I'm always trying to find a new way to make money or a new way to dig up prospects or opportunities. And sometimes it just isn't well received. You know, it could be seen as a waste of time. It could be seen as something that, you know, we've always done it this way, so to speak. You know, why is Joe going right when we're going straight? And I think that for me personally is a difficult challenge because it drives me. It makes me motivated. You know, it gets me excited to go find new things, but not everybody's wired that way.

And how have you managed around that?

I think in the early on, I managed it pretty poorly, to be honest. Yeah, I will be the first to admit that I definitely was more aggressive than I should have been on certain ideas. And at a certain point, it doesn't even matter what you're saying, if you're saying it in a panic or you're You know, it's the wolf, you know, the boy who cried wolf sometimes. And you could make a lot of sense, you could have a great plan, you can have customer feedback, you can have it all. But if you're saying it in an all haphazard way, people are gonna focus on how you say something more so than what you're saying.

Yeah.

And I think that was the hardest part for me early on. And sometimes I even struggle with that now because it's You know, you're excited, you find a new idea. That's a great thing to find as a salesperson, you know, like, hey, look, there's revenue that we didn't know about, let's go get it. And, you know, it's hard to have your methodology and how you feel cast onto other people right away. It's just that connection isn't made right away.

Yeah. And who's the persona that you're selling to? What's their title?

Right now, it's, it's usually engineers and architects. I mean, building materials, you start at the specification, and then everything kind of trickles down. So every once in a while, in like a design or aesthetics-focused type role, you might have an audience with the owner. But for the most part, contractors, building materials buyers, distributors, you know, architects, engineers, contractors, that sort of thing. That's been the core focus of my salaried career. And then on the side, I've had, you know, a few startups that I've been involved in, some consultation work as well.

And I gotta believe the biggest challenge is getting them focused on value versus cost.

I think they're focused on both, but you're juggling that or your hand is on that dial, right? Like the term that no one ever wants to hear is, Joe, you're being value engineered. And that means You know, look, we like your product, but we're gonna find a better alternative or the value is gonna be filled somewhere else. And that almost always knocks down a PO, you know, significantly. So the value sometimes on a shiny product, you know, that's really aesthetics driven, the value is hard to—

Build.

Yeah, it's not there until the project is done. So the whole process of the project is more focused on nuts and bolts and commodities. And, you know, no one really cares what the building's gonna look like while it's being built. They are building a building. So, you know, sometimes in that aspect it's a little difficult. But when I'm selling a commodity product that, you know, there's a mile of it in the ceilings and it's holding lighting and things like that, the communication's a little bit easier. It's much more price and availability driven. So. Lots of competition. You know, you got to be valuable to the product or to the project in a way that's outside of the product. So it's, it's the opposite depending on what you're selling in building materials.

And what's kept you in this space?

I think it's just one of those paths that started to get, you know, paved, and I just kept going and finding success. And, you know, that's a good thing and a bad thing in some ways. It gets frustrating if you hit a rut, but I constantly default back to the— there's a lot of things that can be improved here. Like there's a lot of wasted time, there's a lot of wasted communication where if I start targeting those things, there's people on the customer end, the buyer's seat that are thinking like me. And once you find 1 or 2 of those relationships, it turns into 5 really quick and then the book starts to grow really fast. So, you know, you find that you're valuable in ways that you didn't even know about, and it gets harder to walk away from. So I love, I love going to a job site and it being just an open ground, you know, just dirt, and then coming back 6 months later and my product's getting installed, and then coming back 6 months later and it's a mall. Like, that's really cool to be a part of. And, you know, that I don't think Will ever get boring to me. So I love the aspect of construction. It's one of those things that's always going to be around. And if the construction maintenance, you know, that sort of contractor segment dries up, I think we're a much bigger problem globally. So it's a great thermometer for me. And quite frankly, you know, if I were to take a single value out of it, it's made me a better salesperson because. The, the mess-ups are so tangible, right? Like if something shows up later, if it's wrong and someone's waiting for it on a job site, any dollar you've saved them is gone right there. So the, the value of getting things right and being valuable in that way has made me a better person from an employee, you know, just salesperson perspective. So I think that's what kept me here. Good.

And what do you hope your customers say to their friends in the industry?

I mean, it's the best thing that happens to me is, Joe, I got your phone number from so-and-so, and they told me that you're the guy to talk to. That is a great day for me. So I want as much of that as possible. And if it's across contractors who may compete, that's even more of a compliment because They're potentially putting their business at risk to hook up their friend, and it it turns into a nice little powwow eventually where the conversation goes from hey, you know I could sell you this product and I could save you money and blah blah blah to how do we change the market? Like how do I set a new paradigm here? How do I make sure all of this flows down into my bucket first, and I'll create a whole alternate level playing field. Rather than all these other variables. You can't, you can't set pricing, you can't bid rig and do all that stuff, but you can provide pricing to 4 or 5 different contractors that solicit it. And maybe for those 4 or 5, they would prefer coming to Joe, who does things cleaner and faster and gets me an answer one day and, you know, sticks to his word. And I can always get Joe on the phone rather than Supply House, who, you know, they get tossed around on the phone, they can't get anybody there. So that's sort of, you know, that's spread. And I hope they have that conversation. Go buy from Joe. Sure. I love that conversation between friends. But what I really would love the next step to be is, you know, we have an opportunity to, to make things better in this segment. And Joe is a vehicle to help that happen.

Because their problem isn't getting the best price. The problem is getting all the products on the site on time and making sure everything works.

And I think additionally, when something goes wrong, they need a fixer, right? They need that guy to come in and clean up. Exactly. Yeah, I was gonna say the guy from Pulp Fiction. They need the guy to come in and clean it up and get rid of this issue because The clock is ticking. You know, if there's $100,000 worth of metal sitting on the floor of a building and 20 guys waiting to install it because they don't have the attachment, that's a problem. So, you know, I'm the type of guy that'll just take a pallet of that stuff, throw it in a van, and drive it there myself. And, you know, that those little things get you to that next level. But, you know, sometimes it's It's a it's not necessarily a material issue. It's a we need Joe. We need you to present on behalf of our company and help us out here. So you know they bring in the manufacturer for extra credibility, and credibility is everything in contracting. So you know I have no problem getting behind the sled with my customers and pushing in the same direction, whether it's a distributor or contractor or what have you. And you know if things get really messy, I have no problem throwing a glove on. And helping them carry stuff up a building. So that's the extra mile, so to speak, that I want to make sure my customers know that about me from day one. And, you know, we talked before we went live, sometimes you get a call at 9:30 at night and, you know, they need something by 5:30 in the morning. It's— It might not be possible, but I'm going to try. And even that goes a long way with them. So It's rewarding in that sense, and it's almost immediate rewarding because you feel like you're part of the job. Like, I'm not on the ladder, I'm not screwing nuts and bolts, I'm not welding anything, but I got the material there. And, you know, I helped make sure that one of these fires was put out. So I think having that part communicated from somebody to their friend before I even do it. Saves me months of relationship building, right? Like somebody's friend telling them about me gets me to maybe a year in the relationship timeline before I even pick up the phone. So that is—

The trust is transferable.

No question about it, especially in this, in this industry.

And you've made yourself the lockout. The competition doesn't have you.

Correct. So, you know, now from a selfish perspective, um, you know, your value skyrockets. You know, I can't tell you how many times people have reached out to me about things that I can't help them with, but they just want my opinion or they, they want a handoff. So now my worth goes even higher because I'm throwing alley-oops to somebody else and they need to return that favor to me. So it just, it, it swells. And it's all based on good things. It's based on honesty, integrity, and doing the right thing and bringing value to something that needs it. So it's, it's rewarding to have that immediate feedback. But the long-term referrals and the credibility from somebody who you've earned it from, that's the icing on the cake, really.

Yeah. And was this something that you grew up with? Or was it something that Somebody taught you along the way?

Um, you know, my family, always really hardworking people, blue collar, you know, some police officers, a lot of military guys. So lots of, you know, gusto, you know, and, and the toughness was, was always there. I got 3 brothers. So it was super competitive. And, you know, dare I say intense. And I think that communication with contractors comes a little bit from that. You know, my, my, one of my favorite uncles had a contracting business, um, his whole life. He passed it off to his son. So there were times where I was on a roof, there were times where I was doing, you know, odd-end jobs during the summer. Um, and then one of my other uncles worked for a large big box store where it was more, uh, you know, everyday customer residential oriented. So I think I've been kind of trained and pushed in this direction without really knowing it. And then now that I, I found myself here, I have those people to bounce things off of, and it just makes, you know, my mousetraps a little bit more effective. So yes and no, I guess. You know, I wasn't shoved in this direction. I wasn't, you know, given a hammer and a tool belt and shoved on a roof when I was 10 years old and said, this is your job. But I was climbing the ladder and doing it because I was interested and I wanted to hang out with my uncle. Um, so Yeah, I guess, I guess yes and no would be the answer to that question.

And what do you wish you learned earlier?

I, I, you know, we, we kind of touched on this earlier. Um, I wish I knew that disagreeing with the status quo or challenging it, or even like calling out a need for improvement, uh, they're not going to be received the way that, uh, they would be on a sports team or in a tight family. or close group of friends, you know, the rules of engagement are so different in business, especially the more corporate you get. So like as an intense, highly competitive person, I really underestimated the emotional response that would come from being a challenger. It definitely marks you in a way. And sometimes, you know, you could create an adversarial stance with somebody that You don't intend to create. You might not even know them, and you don't even know they exist, but they mark you as a threat because, oh, here's this guy talking about things that might make me obsolete. Or, you know, I had this idea and we're going in this direction, and there's this guy I've never even heard of making noise. You know, like sometimes those people you really need on your side to get higher in the corporate ladder and to get your goals materialized. But, you know, you get put in the threat bucket because you were having a good time or, you know, speaking freely with your customer and one of your colleagues. And it's, you know, there's really no way of learning that until you go through it a couple of times. So I wish I knew that.

Yeah, because when that book came out, you know, when it works, you have a healthy debate. When it doesn't work, you have an argument. So you gotta be careful there.

No question about it. And I, you know, I didn't, I didn't know that as a 25-year-old kid.

You know, because you, you know you're right and they just— I got to get them to see my way.

Yeah.

And it's— I'm not trying to be offensive. I'm not trying to hurt anybody's work, you know. But sometimes that can come off as offensive to somebody because they put 6 months or 8 months into their business plan and I'm walking in saying, nope, my contractor says this. You know, we should do this. And it's, I'm not even trying to contradict what they're saying. I, you know, it just, it comes off that way. So that, that was a tough lesson to learn. And, you know, I wish I knew that earlier. And conversely, sometimes people, you know, have the same idea as you and they're better at communicating it and you feel like they stole your idea, right? Like that's an emotional response that I wish I dialed back. Always hurts, but the lesson I learned there and what I wish I knew was, hey, look, if an idea is being brought up, that's a good thing. Like this is what you want, you know. So get get behind the sled and push and put your ego aside. And you know that was a little bit easier for me to learn because it's you know look the the momentum's going in that direction. But the other one of maybe the momentum isn't going in that direction.

That one.

That one was a struggle a couple of times for me and, you know, maybe not my better days.

And I gotta believe in your space, there's a lot of emotion attached to approach as well.

Yeah, because there's identity. Yeah, they're commodity products, right? So you can't make roofing shingles too sexy, right?

There's no matter how hard you try.

I tried, I tried and I thought I did pretty good. But there's, you know, at the end of the day, there's a certain technical element. And, you know, no one really cares about XYZ when their roof is leaking. They need their roof to be fixed. So in that panic, how is that decision made? And, you know, just kind of dialing back to what we talked about earlier, put yourself in the buyer's seat. You know, how do you bring value to somebody who's in a panic and with their house leaking? That's a different sale than, hey, look at these beautiful colors. Like, it's completely different conversation. And Unfortunately, you know, my struggle was it when I was selling shingles was, you know, like, I want to get that discretionary business. I want to be that default. When people need a shingle, they go straight to this company. So I targeted a lot of that. And, you know, when it comes to the colors and the aesthetics and everything like that, luckily a lot of that's similar and, and that's kind of a level playing field. So like I said, there was There's not a lot of differentiation room. So you had to find that. And then once you find that shred, you try to make it as big as possible, right? And that was the approach there. But I wish I knew, like I said, I wish I knew that bringing up some new ideas and challenging things sometimes don't go as you intend.

And when you look at your competition or look at customers, I gotta believe that, you know, within 15 minutes whether they're a good match for you and your company.

No question. You can tell by, sometimes you can tell before just by the phone call and how easy it is to get somebody to take a meeting, right? Like if somebody's flying all around and, you know, they're juggling their accounting and they're, you know, they're in issues with their car and they have all these things, like chances are they're not going to buy a premium product, right? Like they're not going to be interested in the Ferrari in the space. So yeah, I think pretty quickly in building materials you can figure it out. You know, there's galleries and portfolios and all that stuff for these companies online, which says a lot about them. But once you have the conversation, get to the decision maker, there's a few quick ways of identifying how this guy's going to buy. And Maybe that pushes you to that bucket of like, all right, this is not for me and this isn't a good fit. Or maybe it's like, I can't sell exactly the way that I should, you know, to this other guy. But for this guy, I could sell him half of what I'm intending. You know, he's not going to be a fit for the entire portfolio, but he's a great fit for one or two pieces. And those types of audibles, you got to call on the fly, right? You got to go in ready with everything, but be willing to cancel out a couple parts of your playbook as you go.

Yeah. And is it mostly inbound?

Um, well, eventually you get to the point where if specif— if you get into a great spot and it's a specification-driven building materials sale, you know, you get your name as a basis of design, which is a great situation because then you're— a lot of your sales become inbound and That your name is on the paper when everybody's soliciting pricing and putting a bid together. That's fantastic. And that's, you know, that could take 5 years. That could take—

That's all.

Yeah, who knows, right? To become the basis of design is a golden element to have. But as soon as you get there and you're the king of the mountain, there's 50 people trying to knock you off. So there's a whole other aspect of defense to play there. And As a salesperson, a lot of that's out of your— a lot of out of your control because there might be an improvement to somebody else's product. There might be availability issues. There's tons of things that come into this fray that you might get engineered out. For example, like, let's say, you know, your product has resistance against wind for X amount of miles per hour. And then a competitor comes in, theirs is X times 2. All those specifications are at risk, and a good salesperson working on the other team will just walk in and point at that one thing and say, well, if there's wind here, you know, our product is gonna do better. And those sorts of salespeople are usually the most effective when it comes to changing specs. They find what they can point on and say, this is why my product is better. This is why you need to use it on this project. And they might change, you know, one spec for one job. But if they're really good, they'll get everyone after that until somebody comes in and does the same thing against them.

Yeah.

So that, in that aspect, a lot of inbound if you can establish the perspective. But in something like a commodity sale, like, you know, maybe nuts and bolts, let's just use that. Lots of outbound activity to earn that trust we were talking about earlier so that they trust you with this constant flow. Because a contractor's— a good contractor is buying stuff every day. I mean, they have 10 job sites, 15 job sites in a metropolitan. They need product going to all these different landing spots. So, you know, that conversation we had earlier about If something shows up to a job site later, one thing is inaccurate, multiply that times 10 different jobs and, you know, 10 different crews, that's a lot of stress and pressure on an inventory guy or a buyer. So that is pure outbound to get to that opportunity. And usually the first opportunity isn't, hey, Joe, we need one box to this. It's not big and it's not easy, right?

Right.

Like it's never the easy one. It's always the worst possible scenario. Joe, I'm in the worst situation possible. Can you help me out? And that's where, you know, as a building material salesperson, you just— your availability is as long as the contractor is focused on their job.

And how many of these contractors are handing out your card to their friends?

I think a good amount, actually. And that is a little bit newer to me, probably in the last 5, 6 years, I've started to understand that aspect where prior to that, in my 20s and early career, I was just 1,000 miles an hour. I wanted to make as much money as possible. I'm gonna retire by 40, like those types of things, telling yourself that. And eventually you realize you just can't do it yourself.

Yeah.

So I just eventually started asking, right? Like, who else should I be selling to, Mr. Contractor? Once you get to that comfort zone, they're willing to help you. They, they can empathize. They understand that you're trying to do good things for your future and your family. And I was lucky enough to hit that stride at a point where I was starting to dislike sales. You know, I was starting to grind my gears a little bit and I was Burning the engine, trying so hard, you know, and, and doing it all myself. And I just started asking for help and people were like, yeah, of course I have friends. Like, yeah, I used to work with this guy at this company and he's now at this company. Go call him. Walk around to the office. Oh, Steve sent me over here. Oh, I love Steve. You know, we, we used to play golf together. Did he tell you about his whole, like, whole— it just, it just turns into such an easier conversation. And then once you get down in the business, it's like, all right, you know, this is what I could offer, and I just cut the line. So asking for that referral was a lesson that I, I didn't know, you know, early on. Um, but once I developed the courage and my self-confidence to ask for it, I, I think that became another whole network gateway for me to grow this business and Sometimes people, they don't do it. They just drop off flyers or catalogs or, you know, leave voicemails and they don't do any of that stuff.

You forgot the most important part. You earned it.

Yeah, I guess so, you know, and— Right.

Because asking for it without earning it, is that a referral or a—

Yeah, that's not the same thing. So I think, I do think that delineation is important. I'm glad you said that. Because I never felt like I deserved to ask until I earned it, right? Like, and maybe that's just a flaw in my psyche, you know, as a salesperson, you wanna be super aggressive, but I do wanna make sure that I have something here before I start replicating it, right? Like, I don't wanna throw something onto an assembly line that is faulty. So once you have that core of I could do this for 10 other people, then that's when I started asking. But you're right. Yeah, I guess you earned it.

Well, that's it because you look at it in any business is a referral business, right?

When people are new, if you want your kitchen done, right?

And your friend had a kitchen done, do you like it? Does it look good? Was it on budget, on time? What's the guy's name?

That's right. And he's— you're not gonna have that conversation before the kitchen, the first kitchen's done, right? Like, I talked to this guy.

You'll wait, right? Let me see how it comes out.

He said he's gonna do a good job. You should work with him too. You know, it's, it's, it's a much harder conversation to have at that point. But yeah, I think, I think if my contractor or my customer or distributor or specifier or whatever Is, is not willing to share my contact information, then I'm not fulfilling my end of the bargain. They should want to brag. In my eyes, I want them to feel like they should brag about working with me because that means I'm doing a great job.

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

LinkedIn, JoeyG123.

Why don't most people take a compounding effect, or most managers focus on it? That getting better, everybody thinks it's that 1% every day. Well, that's a platitude. It's not real. If you were able to become 1% better every day, we'd all be super people by now. What ends up happening, we become 1% better at a particular element, And then we forget it, don't practice it, and it slips. That's what's different between software and human beings. And this is something that people don't get, is software, once you write it, it just works, hopefully, or just does what you tell it to do identically every time. Humans, they learn something, they do it reasonably well, and then it decays. Those connections in our brain are not static. They're dynamic. And they drift away if they're not reinforced consistently, repetitively. This is why in any performance profession— debating, singing, any musical instrument, comedy, acting, all kinds of sports— What do the coaches and instructors do? Do they start with the whole performance? No, they break it down into tiny little ingredients, tiny little movements and actions, tiny little steps. And here's where the student hates it. They make it do it over and over again. Why? Because that puts the connections in our head. It Finds the distinctions. It opens our eyes to what is possible. Today we want to do this with tools. The problem is it's obvious. Let's face it, this idea of doing 16 touches on 5 channels concurrently— who is that helping? Who wants that? It makes The manager feel better. It gives the tool something to do and the vendors a reason for you to buy their worthless piece of crap. Now, if used right, it's a pretty decent tool, but do you really need it? How many deals do you need to do? What if you had raving customers like we talked about in the interview? How about if referrals were a byproduct of Every sales call. Not the begging referral, not the, hey, who else could use this? No, it's the earned referral, that unspoken referral where when that client is talking to their peer and the peer says, do you know anybody who does? Who do you use for? The first name that pops up is yours. That is an earned referral. When somebody asks you, what's the best sales podcast out there? You know what to say. I try and earn that. That's my job. We today, we look at everything that's independent and unique. It's not. Deals have patterns. And these patterns, if You put them into your head and you can predict what the process is. And too many people take the pattern of the customer leading the deal. The customer has no experience buying stuff. They always want to get the fastest, cheapest thing possible. They don't know the nuances of it. How many times have you gotten to the end of the deal and the client still can't tell you why you're different than the other guy other than price. And that's why it always goes to price, not because they're cheap, but because they don't know what else to consider other than your friendliness. Are you really understanding why they're going to appreciate your differentials? See, I learned this the hard way because When you go and visit clients, that's an enormous time and energy investment. And I didn't like wasting my time or energy because if I wasted it, I'd always say, well, why don't you just take the day off? At least you'd be refreshed. Now you're a little burnt. You didn't get anything. You didn't learn anything. You didn't help anybody. But what if you could? What if you really saw these patterns? Is this an A, B, or C? Can you tell the difference? See, today with the activity-based sales model, they're trying to take the thinking part out of sales. That's the worst part to take out. Take out do dumb things faster. Don't take out thinking. It's a thinking game. Look at all the deals that you closed last year. Add up the amount of Your effort time, your personal time. Go back, check out all the emails, and then subtract that time from the 2,000 hours that you worked. That's, you know, 50 weeks times 40 hours, 2,000 hours. I bet you worked more. I also am guessing that you probably spent less than 200 hours Closing and working on the deals that did close, start to finish. And I'm not talking calendar time where it started in January and ended in December. I'm talking about, oh, first call was a couple hours altogether in aggregate, not just live time with them planning, following up, following through, all of that. Now, I bet it was Maybe 20%. So we're talking about 400 hours. What was the other 1,600 hours spent on? Granted, you don't want to try and be perfect. You want to try and become better. But that 80% was spent on things that did not produce revenue. There's room for improvement with me, with everybody. That's what's great about a performance game. There is no perfect. Get that out of your mind. In sales, all you have to do is be good enough to get the deal. But to do that, you can't have that mindset. You have to be thinking, how do I guarantee this deal? How do I cover all my bases? How do I anticipate all the things that can go wrong? Because I don't want to waste 80% of my life on things that don't get me anything? And if you did learn something, did you write it down? Because our brains don't remember things very well, especially painful things. And our brain will avoid remembering painful things very well. Think about all the things you forgot. Are they things that you wanted to do or had to do?

Had to do.

You forget the things you had to do. That's why we have to write things down. The things we want to do, we tend to remember. We don't forget about eating. We don't forget about having a nice, uh, something to drink, taking a break, procrastinating. Have you ever forgot to procrastinate?

No.

It's built into your DNA. Now, if you want to become great at sales, Compound your efforts. Go to b2brevenue.com. Check out the courses. There's 2 major ones. Start the conversation. Get the meeting. This is how prospecting is meant to be. Person-to-person conversing. Not about you. Not about your product. About them. They don't care about you. They will. But right now, They don't. Quit assuming they do. And you understand that logic has a place in sales, but people don't buy for logical reasons. Think of all the things that you should be buying right now for logical reasons. I got a bunch, too many. But what's holding me back? It's all emotion, prioritization, hassle, Annoyance. All of these things hold me back, but logically, I need them. I bet you're in the same situation. Think it through. Think like a client, not like a salesperson. Go to B2B Revenue. Sign up today. We'll see you next time.