HOW THE BEST SALESPEOPLE LEAD THE DEAL VS. REACT TO IT

I was talking to a CRO this week, and we were talking about why it takes so long to learn about sales. And one of the things that we came up with was that people go through these stages. I think there are kind of 4 major stages, and I'll cover 3 of them today. The first is that We focus on the product. We learn product knowledge, features, functions, question and answer. And this is kind of what I call typically the service clerk level. There's nothing really wrong with it. And if you have strong inbound, it usually is pretty good, or you don't have much of a competitor, not many alternatives. This works great. Or if the person who's interested doesn't care about looking at the market, they just want a product to fix what they need at that moment. And this person feels good when it works. They play fetch. You need a quote? Here's one. You need another? Here's another one. And usually, We stay about 6 months to a year at this stage. And then we move on to the competitive rep. This is the person who got frustrated at the first level because they lost more deals than they would have liked to. They invested too much time and got little to nothing in return. So they had to compete. So here they really start understanding the competitive landscape. Product versus product, company versus company, price versus price. And this rep typically does pretty good because there's a lot of in-market demand and they're able to get some of the marginal deals by beating the competition. I bet— I'm speculating that most of you are probably at this stage or know at least what I'm talking about. The third stage is that you get into more of how companies buy. You're understanding that there's more than one person involved. You're understanding that even though they say they're the decision maker, they're not the economic decision maker. They may be the product decision maker or recommender, or be your coach, or maybe even your champion. In this stage, this is where most people get stuck or just become what I call the B-player trap, where they get good enough. So they kind of say, I'm good enough. I'm comfortable. I'm not going to really stress it out. I'm not going to spend time developing my skills. And in sales, developing your skills is a lot of work. This is not just reading or listening. It's doing. It's planning. Don't get comfortable with just the listening part because knowing it is helpful, but not nearly enough. It's the doing it. You know that. You can study for a presentation for a week, stand up in front of that room. It doesn't seem to come out the same way it does in your head, does it? This is what I want to talk about today. In this interview, we're kind of going through those stages and even that 4th stage, which is really what I try and show you in Closing the Complex Sale, is how companies buy, how you can manage that, and how you can drive it. Having a champion's nice, but it is Not an absolute necessity. Everyone else will tell you it is because they're order takers and they can't sell without a strong champion. I'm telling you, you can if you know what you're doing. But very few people know what they're doing because they don't know how companies buy. 99% of the people out there are still telling you react to their decision-making process. I'm telling you, they don't have a decision-making process. What's your decision-making process? Can you tell me? At your company, what's the decision-making process? Yeah, there's typically one person there who's a real, uh, maverick who gets things done, and if they want to do it, they figure it out. Well, do you think the rest of the world's any different? It's not. I saw one person doing this post about how to convince the CFO to buy your product. And I go, they're selling technology. CFO doesn't use it. Why are you talking to the CFO? Oh, because finance is in their title, so they must be in charge of the money. Well, they manage the money. They're not in charge of the money. This is how foolish sales has become. That people sit in their little echo chamber and believe their own BS, their own limiting beliefs. I gotta tell you, uh, CFOs have been involved in some of my purchases. They're not the decision maker. They're the administrator. They're the secretary. They're not power. They can be a gatekeeper. They can throw a wrench in it. And if it's in their department, they may be the decision maker, or probably are, at least on the economic side. But the rest of the company pretty much does what they want if they have budget, if they can convince the people above them. I've had CFOs on the show and I asked them, if the CEO wants to do it and you don't, Does it get done? He goes, I do what the CFO— CEO says unquestionably. And this is how crazy sales is today. Everyone is on the outside looking in because certainly for the last few years we haven't been on site. I was on site all the time because I knew when you're on premise, You're part of the tribe. You're part of their group. You can fit in as long as you don't act like a salesperson. And that's where the magic happens. It's face-to-face. Get that face-to-face if you can. If you can't, learn how companies buy. Learn how to drive that process, not react to it. And when I say drive it, I don't mean check in, hound That's kind of level 2. Get to at least level 3 because level 1, you know, that product, there's not much competitive advantage there. That's 2 or 3 weeks of training. Competitive, if you focus on that, that's probably what, 6 months? The rest takes the rest of your life to learn. To be good at it. To know it doesn't take that long, about a year. Become good at it takes a while. Let's get into this interview. I'll sum it up at the end. And if you want to become great at sales, go to b2brevenue.com. That's the letter B, the number 2, the letter B, and then my favorite word, revenue.com.

Here we go. Hey, Dale, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Hey, Brian. Just first of all, just want to thank you for having me on. It's an honor to be on your show and happy to kind of share my story and kind of go through kind of a day in the life of, you know, on a medical sales background.

Cool.

Just, I guess to start, you know, I've been in medical sales now for 7 and a half years. This has been my truly my first and only sales job that I've had. My background is athletic training. So I went to UCF, I worked my way through college and basically had various jobs. I was a caddy at a private country club, which honestly really helped kind of propel into this field. I had my own— I started my own mobile detailing business while I was in college as well.

Yeah.

And then as an athletic trainer, I finished college working as an intern for UCF football, and then I had the opportunity to actually work in the NFL. I worked for the Detroit Lions, so that was an amazing experience. But once I got out of that internship and My next steps were to kind of get back into, you know, the physical therapy world and the athletic training base. I kind of quickly figured out that I don't like ceilings. Unfortunately, you know, wherever you go into that kind of world, there's caps. And so I had friends that were like, hey, there's this thing called medical sales, software sales. And so I kind of dove into like, what would that be? And I thought it was the medical sales. I thought was a great mix of kind of what I've, what I've, what I've been doing and kind of what I would probably enjoy for the future.

So on the athletic training and the physical, it's always hourly based, right? So you're always limited by 24 hours in a day and you can only charge so much per, per hour.

Yeah, and I mean, it is absolutely a passion of mine, you know, being able to surround myself with just world-class athletes and people also in that realm of their cap. They didn't have quite a cap, right? They're based, you know, what they do on a daily, they can actually make more, right? Based on their outcomes and the output, you know, and what they do. So I was like, okay, maybe this isn't Exactly for me, but it was on my path and, you know, I'm blessed, you know, to have had that opportunity.

Did you feel like you had a natural sales personality?

And yeah, I've great parents. I was raised really well. My dad is an owner-operator of a fence company for commercial and residential fence. So Basically, he put a pair of postal diggers in my hand at 10 years old and said, "Hey, you know this is how you know your family earns money. This is kind of what we do." And then he started bringing me out on jobs, and he would say, "Hey, you know we'd go on a sales call," and he'd say, "Hey, what did you get out of that? Did you did you did you hear any kind of any yeses or nos?" And you know, so I got I got a little bit of a early introduction into it. Wasn't thinking that I was gonna end up back in that spot. But yeah, it's, it's been an awesome, awesome early introduction, you know, into this world.

But it is a whole different world, right? Because the clients don't come to you. Yeah. You gotta go find them.

Correct. Yeah, absolutely. Especially so I work for a small medical sales company. So I compete at the highest level against the largest companies in the world, you know, in the capital sales world for imaging. So every day is a dogfight. Every day is an opportunity to bring awareness to what we can offer. And we're fortunate enough to be able to offer a technology that is a little bit more crafted to specific specialties within the medical field. So I feel like I can enhance other people's, um, you know, efficiency and just in day-to-day kind of work and also within a radiation safety aspect as well. So, um, but you're right, they don't, they don't come to me. Um, I have, I have to go out and, and you have to give it that personal touch and you got to kind of bring, uh, start building that relationship.

Yeah. And how was that adjustment? Right. Because a lot of people who have never sold or really put themselves out there.

Yeah. Oh man, it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable. Yeah. You will like, you walk into a hospital and you're like, man, I'm about to go meet this doctor that I've never met before. I hope that, you know, I can kind of—

Come on, you did some physical training or physical therapy, right?

Yeah, exactly. I thought, you know, it's funny because the medical sales world's so hard to get into, you know, and I thought with my athletic training background, I would— I knew a lot of orthopedic surgeons, so I thought that maybe I could tailor into that. But I wasn't given the opportunity in that side, which I'm actually very grateful for. Ended up working with a, you know, small, fast-growing company on the imaging side now. But yeah, like you said, you just never know where where you're going to end up.

And how'd you become good?

I, I had really great mentors. You know, all I did was, I really had no idea what I was doing. But they gave me the opportunity. They just said, hey, just do your best, do it, do, go figure it out. And we're going to guide you. And I said, okay. So I would go out and I would just try to figure it out. I would come back with information and then they'd say, hey, try this, go here. But I also had a, I had a little bit of a diagram because I had a, a successful mentor, um, and she was— so I said, I'm gonna do exactly as she does, kind of step by step by step. And then once I kind of figured it out, understood the formula, then I started to be able to apply it, put a little bit my, my own twist on it. Um, and, and that's really, you know, just Just repeat, you know, and that's kind of repetition is your friend.

It is, isn't it?

Yeah.

But but it plays tricks on you sometimes, right? Because you can repeat the wrong thing, hoping that it's the right thing.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I I guess the the hardest part, right, is determining, you know, who who is serious, who You know, who's a good person to, a physician that, that's gonna be a driver for this, you know, who, who has juice. And, and once you determine that, for, for me at least, it's, it's a matter of us working together with administra— to, to go up against administration to justify the purpose of the purchase. Yeah.

And was it, The financial thing that was the primary driver, or was it success or your self-image? Because you mentioned the cap, and I get that.

I felt that.

Yeah.

I just, you know, you know, I feel like God gives me this opportunity, you know, and I just don't want to squander any of my potential. I always want to be the best version of myself and what I can do. I think money is a driver, but it's also an afterthought. It's, um, it's really about, um, enhancing the lives of others, you know? And like, I, I want to, uh, I truly wanna make other people's lives better. And I'm not a firefighter, I'm not in the military, I'm not a nurse, you know? I don't, I don't get that exact direct contact. I mean, I was an athletic trainer, so I did have that feel.

Yeah.

Um, you know, but I felt like, okay, if I can what I provide as a product to these people, if it can, if it can make them better and it can then improve patient care for better patient outcomes, I feel like I'm doing my part.

And you're competing against the big guys. How do you differentiate?

Relationship. Yeah, I think as a small player in the field, I, I have a lot more leash. I'm, I'm allowed to kind of go out and build relationships. It takes a lot of time. I travel all over the country. Um, I have a— luckily I have a really great support system and a wife at home. Um, but, um, it's a matter of just finding, you know, people, because these— everyone's just a person at the end of the day. Um, and, and If I can go to dinner with the physician, learn a little bit more about them and who they are and their background and their family life, I think that's first. And I think that kind of helps differentiate me to just saying, hey, we need this new X-ray system, you know, and then they go out and start talking to other vendors.

And it sounds like your company values that. Is that true?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, you know, value is, is God, family, and your, uh, and your home and your work. Um, and so, and in that particular order, you know, that's, that's what matters most. And if you take care of the first 2, uh, the first, that third one, you know, I think things come, uh, a lot clearer and, um, It's not easy, but it's, you know, it's fulfilling.

Well, they've been able to keep you there quite a while.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's the other— you never, especially in this field, you know, there's a lot of people that kind of move around and stuff. And I just kind of— I was, I was with them from almost the ground floor. And we've, we've rose significantly. And to be a part of something like that, you know, Feels great. Yeah. To be, to feel like you're actually doing something, making an impact versus kind of just being a number in a, on a sales team or sometimes you wonder, you know, what would it be like, you know, on the other side?

Yeah, because I mean, today it's quite common. I mean, to see people more than 2 years is unusual.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I get it, you know, because you might get a bad manager, territories change, comp plans change.

Yeah.

And the phone rings, right?

Yeah. You get an opportunity comes knocking.

And that honeymoon is pretty enticing. The problem is it's just a honeymoon.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I, I'm glad you mentioned that. I mean, I'm fortunate to see people come and go as well. And to kind of get that, you know, see that little piece of, you know, candy kind of working towards them and then watching it not be worth it on the other side, right?

Mm-hmm.

And what I've been able to experience is being, it's not just a matter of being loyal to your company, but just being focused. And if, as long as the company values are right, And you're happy, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna look for the, you know, the shiny thing over here because there's a little bit more money maybe being offered on the table. Because what I've seen actually happen is more opportunity has been dropped in my lap by staying here because other people tend to kind of rotate through. So I tend to benefit on that side, which I'm very happy to do.

Yeah. Because I try and tell reps when they, they all want career advice and they all want to change jobs. And I go, well, what makes you think it's going to be better there than it is now? For more than that one quarter. They're not hiring you to take orders. They're hiring you to build a territory from nothing.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly. And if that's what you want to do, you'll have the chance to do it.

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. I've already done that. I've built up my territory. I I don't, it's not really enticing to start, start again from scratch unless, you know, obviously it's necessary or, you know, but, um, and that's the other part too. I work in the field of endoscopy. So, um, GI, and we also have a cardiac line, uh, but I built so many wonderful relationships with people throughout the years. You know, if I tended, if I left to go somewhere else, you know, obviously I wouldn't have that interaction with these physicians and nurses and team members anymore. Um, so. I really, I really like it.

Give us a sense of the deal size. This is capital equipment, right?

Yes.

Is it tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands?

I mean, we're talking million-dollar deals.

Million dollars.

Okay.

So it's not a month-long activity. It's probably a year and a half sometimes.

Exactly. Yeah, you're spot on. So our typical sales cycle is 12 to 18 months.

You got to get it budgeted for the following year.

And, you know, yeah, and that's where it becomes— that's where it's the fun part, right? You're working with the physician and hopefully their director of the department, right, as kind of a team to kind of get the CFO, CEO on board, go through corporate approvals. And then not to mention, we have Again, we're the smaller company. They're on contract with the bigger guys. So we have to justify sole source, understand why this is a significantly better product for them to go outside of their, their scope of work and comfort zone.

You know, and how did you learn all of this? Because this is, you know, convincing the doctor that this is the best piece of equipment is one thing. Yeah, getting the hospital to finance it and purchase it is a whole nother thing.

It is, it is. I've learned patience, Ryan. I've learned to be patient. I try to be understanding. There's obviously opera, and then once it gets to a certain point in the in the process where you can then start to kind of apply pressure and and kind of. Say, okay, this is— this— it's gone this far. This is where we're at. Understanding their process is obviously key. Where are we in their process? That's what I always try to understand. Where's the budget? Where's the budget process? When are we submitting for budget? When does the budget cycle end? When, when is it up for consideration, uh, for review? And then what is the typical timeframe for acceptance?

Yeah.

And, um, and then we kind of work on that timeframe. So, and then of course every hospital is a little different. A little different. So they're not, they're not all the same. They run on, on different schedules. There's different people running them. It's, you're dealing with many different personalities. Um, so that's why it's really important to identify the physician. Um, you know, if they're serious, do they, like I said, do they have the juice? Um, do they, do they really want it? Because our time is precious.

You know, we don't, we We only have a year and a half or nothing.

Yes, I've had deals take over 4 years, you know, but it's all a matter of timing. Again, do they have a need? Is the need there yet? You know, kind of thing.

And let's talk about the juice. What does that mean to you?

The juice is the drive. You kind of know, you kind of get that feeling, right? They're like, you know, on that, maybe the initial conversation with them, uh, where you kind of spell it out. You show them the product, the, the features that are going to kind of make their life easier. And then based on their reaction, like, I gotta have this, this is something that we need, you know, those key, uh, phrases, um, and then just kind of their posture, their attitude about it, um, especially if they're like, hey, let me— do you have time? Can I introduce you to my, to my director here? You know, and then they'll interrupt their director like, hey, can you, can you meet with this guy? Or, you know, this is that's important to us. And then I, I make sure to, you know, set that upfront, um, understanding, like, hey, I can provide you with all the information, you know, to, to, to help justify this, but it, it comes on the internal, internal side, uh, for you to push this through. Um, so as long as you're willing and able to, to do that, you know, then it's going to happen. It's just a matter of when. Yeah.

And What have you learned about the juice? Because sometimes there's false juice, right?

Yes. Yeah. Yes. That's very true. I think majority of the time it's true. It's real. But there does come a time, you know, after so much time, again, these are long sales cycles. So You're gonna waste a good amount of time before you connect. You actually figure out like, okay, this guy, he's not really, not really serious. Probably 6 months or so in, you know, you'll probably figure it out.

A personal win. There must be a— what is the personal win in it for the doctor?

They want to build— they want to kind of make their staple. They want to build a program. That's, that's the key. Is building a world-class program. Yeah. And, and how do you do that? You surround yourself with, you know, high-end technology, best equipment in the space. And then what we do too is, is help with marketing. So we want to help market the physician. We want to help market the hospital. We want to let the world know, you know, this guy has all the right tools to do the best procedure. For you, you know, as the, as the patient.

So you guys have much more of a holistic view of it versus a transactional view of it?

Absolutely. It's the, the, the deal doesn't really begin. The deal begins when the system's installed.

Yeah.

It really does. That's for the next, for the life of that equipment, which is typically 10 years. Now that's my customer. I'm gonna make sure that they're happy every day, you know, and if they are not happy, we're gonna do whatever we can to correct that. And it's—

And is there a big technology adoption or is that pretty quick once they get it?

It's intuitive. It's intuitive.

Is it?

Yeah, it's, that's the best part about it. It makes it easier for them. It's It's less cumbersome. It's more efficient. It should cut down on procedure time, which then the administration likes because procedure volume should rise.

Yeah. And where do the deals usually get stuck?

I'd say they can easily get stuck with directors.

Before they get allocated, before budget gets allocated?

Yeah, it's because they're the next step. They're the key step into communicating with, you know, upper administration. So if they're not relaying over, they don't want to do the work. That's the other thing too, is like what we sell is we don't roll it in. We don't roll it into a, uh, just a procedure room. It's, it takes a whole project team. It's a construction project. So all they look at us when we walk in the door is this is more work for me, you know. So trying to make sure that they're on board, but because that's where I'd say that's where it gets stuck the most is right there.

So the doctors are the champions and trying to get the economic thing allocated because you have to have a physical facility for it, right? And there's probably power requirements and—

Exactly. Yes. We, there's room size, air conditioning, power, air conditioning. Yes. Lead-lined walls. It's the whole thing, you know, it takes, it takes months and months and months. You know, the best part is if you walk in and they already have a room kind of established, you know, and they just have an older piece of equipment, right, that needs to be replaced, then we're, then we're talking a lot simpler project.

And any secret ninja tricks to keep these deals moving? Because they must, given the year, year and a half, how do you keep the dialogue going? Because—

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would say, you know, you let it kind of let it simmer. It's a crock pot, you know, you let it simmer for a little while, and then you do your, you do your check-ins. It's, you just stay in touch with the physician, you want to maintain that relationship, you do your best to stay in touch with the administrator. And just kind of follow-ups and, you know, you get lucky. Like I said, you're dealing with people, so everybody's different. But some people are like, hey, follow up with— like, they're really positive about, you know, you following up and just saying, hey, that we're not, we're not there yet. Obviously others are bothered by, by it, but, you know, you try to, try to set the tone where you're like, okay. I know you're busy. Um, I, I just want to understand the process here. Uh, what's a good time frame to follow back up with you?

Yeah.

Um, you know, and they usually give you— they follow up in 30 days, you know, and then, then you have the clear code. They're— they know you're going to follow up. Maybe they'll have a little bit better information. But what I kind of, uh, typically see is, you know, you're, you're guiding this all the way through. Everyone's busy. This is the— this is on— this is on the back end of their mind. They have Way other more important things to do on the daily. But I just, when I follow up, I kind of, it's kind of a reminder like, hey, you know, have you checked in with administration? Do you know where this is in the process? They send a quick email and, you know, then you can get an update. It can move along one more step further, you know.

And I got to believe that the hospital's got a long list of priorities for the budget.

Absolutely.

Get this on the top.

It's a bucket of money, right? Yeah, you gotta, you gotta budget by the hospital. And it's, and it's priority. It's who's, you know, who's, who's, who's more important, who needs it more, kind of thing. And that's where the, that's where the physician comes into play, for sure. Do you do anything special on the financing side, leasing companies, or We do work with third-party leasing companies, but I will say that most hospitals do not like to lease. You know, they try to be— seems like they try to be financially responsible and they won't take out loans for their equipment.

Yeah.

Obviously some are, and, you know, it's strategy, obviously, depending on if they're for-profit, not-for-profit. You know, everyone's got their Kind of way of doing things. But you know, as far as you know, we go. I mean, we we throw out the option to lease, but I would say most of them don't care. Do not.

Yeah. And what makes a great rep in this space? Because the space has a lot of turnover, doesn't it?

Yeah, it sure does. In drive, you know, you I mean, it's drive and patience and and a and a good attitude. You know, someone who's okay with waiting for the better thing to come, you know, as far as like in, you know, in your organization, just knowing like, okay, I gotta set my pipeline. We try to tell everybody who comes in, this is a long road. You're gonna, you gotta build up your territory, you gotta build up relationships, your pipeline. But once you give it a couple years, You're gonna see a lot of things moving in there. And as long as your funnel's full, you can focus on, you know, those things that should, that should drop, you know, for you, you know, every year or so.

And how long did it take you to get before you felt like it was you, it was your thing?

Yeah, that's a good question. Say 3 years. Yeah, 3 years. I kind of felt like, okay, I understand kind of the process. I understand the The system of needs, our product itself kind of, and just in the relationships. And what happens is you finally start getting a couple of sales, right? They start to kind of come through and then you're like, okay, I got, all right, I'm more motivated. I feel, I feel good about kind of what I'm doing. Did it go to your head at all? Yeah, what's that?

Did it go to your head at all getting a couple of big deals in?

You know, at first you're like, man, this is awesome. Especially when you take, when you take it down, you know, people at a, you know, at the higher level, the bigger, the bigger companies, you're like, wow, this is, this is what it feels like to be David, you know. Um, but, um, I think we kind of quickly were like, you know what, this is a shift. This— we're, we're, we're setting a nuance, uh, for, for technology and, um, kind of quickly ramped up into becoming more of a household name, which now it's, now it's just more of It's the standard. Yeah.

And what would you tell somebody who wants to get into this space?

Someone who's just absolutely not into, say it, not into—

Well, let's say they're coming out of college, you know, that they've got the athletic thing that kind of the 1% make it and then 99% find something else to do.

Yeah. Um, well, that's what we, we really like to hire out of college, um, with people with that energy, you know. They have a lot of energy. Yeah, they have a lot of energy coming in, you know. And, um, you know, they don't know— that's the— actually, the— it's a benefit to not knowing exactly how hard it is, you know. You know, it can, it can be helpful because if you knew the daunting task that was in front of you, maybe, maybe you'd look the other way. But Yeah, just someone coming in with a, with a good energy. I, I tell people my biggest thing is I just constantly have this internal gear going. It just doesn't stop. It's a slow-moving gear. It just kind of incentivizes you. It just, it just doesn't, it just doesn't stop and it's okay. And like balances everything, but kind of always in in the forefront of your mind is you're focused, being focused on kind of what I need to do. That's kind of what I kind of express to people is something that's necessary to think that you're gonna come in and just start making money because that's sales.

Yeah, because most people get into sales, they wanna close something naturally. If that's a year and a half away, It's really hard to think that way.

It is. It sure is. And that's why it's harder. It's a lot harder for people who come from sales, you know, they've been doing sales to try and come to our world of capital. It's a hard reality. But patience.

You can't burn that relationship, right? Because you want them to pick up that phone over the year and a half. Yeah, and if you don't have something new, yeah, they stop picking up.

Yeah, my, uh, my mentor told me, um, if you have enough going on, you're not bugging them, right? So if you, if you, if you create enough opportunity, you're not bugging them every week or even every month. I got so much going on because, you know, you fill up the pipeline so, so heavy, you're like, oh man, Forgot I need to follow up with that guy. You know, I'm not, I'm not in their, in their ear, you know, all the time and, and being kind of more annoying type thing. It's like more of just, hey, following up, wanted to see where we're at. Just get a pulse.

And where do you feel this focus comes from? Is it from sports? Is it from—

Yeah. So I, I, I played, played sports in high school. I actually played at the collegiate level, played football. And yeah, it's a, it's, it's the competitiveness, but it's also, you know, my dad would always, we would finish a job and he'd say, hey, just stop and look at what you did, you know, appreciate what you did. And that instilled a lot in me, like where it's like, okay, what I'm doing I'm appreciating what I'm doing. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna see this through. So like any room that I kind of open up, you know, I try to make the most out of it. We do ribbon cuttings. We, you know, we try to make it a big deal. And we say, look at what we all did. Look at, look at, look at what everyone's effort here, because it's not just one of us. You know, we all kind of came together and made this happen. So just, just more appreciating.

Yeah, because I don't think reps do that. I think they close the quarter, the month, take a day or two off.

Yeah. I just, I don't, I feel, I don't know if it's, like I said, I haven't really worked in any other kind of worlds. So it's hard for me. I feel like I'm blessed to kind of be where I'm at. And so I don't feel that way. I I continue on, I maintain my relationships after the deal closes.

Yeah.

And just kind of just build my rapport with people. And then even in that, that's where I get a lot of, I'll get physicians actually calling me sometimes, you know, that they know one of the docs I worked with and, you know, they're interested. So yeah, it's rewarding in that way.

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

Uh, you can find me on LinkedIn, Dale Kerbeck, and, um, I work for Omega Medical Imaging.

See, I noticed this early in my career that if I didn't guide my user buyers through the process They wouldn't buy, not because they didn't want it, couldn't afford it, or didn't need it. It was because they didn't know how to do it, or they hit a hiccup and they gave up or slowed down, which meant the deal would slip. So I started getting better at guiding them through the process. And in B2B, business to business, We think it's about persuasion, that sales is persuasion. Sales is almost a— or selling's a pejorative, like it's pushing or something. No, it's guiding. It's building that rapport, that trust, understanding what they'd like to achieve, and understanding how well they understand How to get things done at their own company. I used to ask, what's your decision-making process? I gave up on that because people just made something up because they don't have one. I used to ask, the last time you purchased something, how did that work? That last time, they don't remember. Or they said, well, I send it to my manager and it just gets done. I gave up on doing that because they don't know. I've been— I've told the story— in the CEO's office at 6:30 on the last day of the quarter, and he had to call in the procurement manager, who called in the CFO, to get the piece of paper through the system before the end of the day because he didn't know. He didn't know how to get it done in his own company. He just, you know, assumes things get done. And guess what? Everyone assumes things just get done. You hit a button and something happens. That's not how it happens. It's an unnatural act to change a company. Everyone thinks that they're all set up for this. No, they're not. Try and get something bought at your company. Ask yourself, what's the decision-making process at your company? Do you even know what the administrative process is? Do you understand the political process, the budgetary process? Once you do, this is not just worthless information. This is critical information. It's critical because if you want to get it done, someone has to know how to do it. We do it all day. We're not paying attention. We're hounding. Hey, just wanted to check in, see where things were. Need any help? Any questions answered? I gave up doing that and I worked the company. I do what a lot of people do. You call up procurement, say, hey, working with your team and want to get established as a vendor. What's that process? There's usually a form to fill out. And now you're a registered vendor with procurement. You sit down with the requester and you go, do you have an online procurement system?

Huh?

What's that?

See where I'm going here? It's both not hard to learn, but you have to learn it. You have to proactively do it. You have to own it because in sales, whether we accept it or not, it's 100% our responsibility to get that order. We don't have 100% control. We have maybe 10% control, but we have a lot of influence because the user does want to buy it. But they may not even want to admit They don't know how to get it done, or getting it done, it seems to be a little bit more complex than I originally thought. This is what I teach in Closing the Complex Sale. Everyone thinks sales is pure persuasion, but we've already persuaded them. They want it. It's not whether they want the product or not. In most cases in B2B, it's How do we get this done? How do we get this approved? And the problem is they try and get it approved by just forwarding it. That doesn't tell the story. That doesn't establish the need, the want, the how can we possibly live without this. So what happens? It gets stuck. And we call this no decision. Well, what are you talking about? They can't make a decision? Well, you don't even know who is making what decision and when. So we hope it gets done. And so either you have to find a great champion or you have to learn this. Good luck finding a great champion. The great champions I don't know. Where are they all? There's not enough. There's certainly not enough. So you have to guide them, help them, instead of reacting to them. Most salespeople are waiting for somebody to ask them to do something, but no one's asking. Guide them. Closing the complex sale Is a talent.

It's a skill.

Do you want it, or do you want to hound people? Go to b2brevenue.com, check it out. And if you really want to become great at sales, grab your manager and go to brevitypitch.com. Because the more I'm learning about sales is that it's not that people don't know what to do. It's that it's not instinctual how to do it or want to do it. Because what managers aren't realizing is that reps know they should be selling the problem, not the product. I would tell you 98% of the reps are selling the product.

Why?

Because the customer wants to talk about the product. The customer does not want to talk about the problem. Do you want to talk about your problems?

No.

You want to talk about a product that solves the problem, the product that you think solves the problem. Think about your Instagram feed. That's the feed of things that you've shown curiosity about. So they now know the problem that you have, and they're showing you a bunch of products that you suspect will solve that problem. But it doesn't talk about or ask you about your problem. So you get a bunch of vitamins and gadgets and trinkets, and it makes you feel better. But did it solve the problem? This is what I call the commodity trap. You are putting yourself or letting yourself be dragged into that commodity trap. How do sales reps get better at selling the problem versus the product, they have to feel instinctually talented at it. It's gotta be an automatic reaction, muscle memory.

Uh-oh.

So you can either work on it for 5 years and get good at it, or you can do a little 5-minute drill every day. A little 5-minute quick convo to talk about the problem instead of the product. If I ask you, well, tell me about your product, what do you do? You tell them about the product, right?

Wrong!

You ask them about the problem. You start digging into that. Why don't you do that? It just doesn't feel right. You feel salesy, or you feel uncomfortable, or awkward, or Uh, difficult, right? This is it. We go with our instincts. It's innate. The only way to develop these unnatural skills is to make them your instincts through repetition, verbal repetition, not just thinking about it. You got to talk because that's what you'll be doing with the client. During those magic moments. Do you want them to work, or do you just want to send a quote? Get to level 3, and then if you take the course, you'll be at level 4. That's where all the money is. We'll see you next time.