HOW THIS A-PLAYER CREATES INTEREST WHEN THERE IS NONE

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

Hey, Brian, it's great to talk to you. I have been in sales since 1994, I was a basketball coach. I was going to be convinced I was going to be a Division 1 basketball coach. Um, met a girl, um, married her, doesn't know whether basketball's blown up or stuffed, and, uh, figured out how did I had to go get a real job.

Yeah.

And, uh, ended up getting— sold forklifts. Sold windows and doors for a great company. And then, and then I was hired in '97 by Pfizer and in Scranton, Pennsylvania, home of the TV show The Office, not too far from where I grew up and was fascinated by healthcare and how doctors made decisions. And boy, was I a— I mean, Pfizer trained you. It was the best training I've ever had. And I was still a big, a big dumb animal, but managed to learn enough and then wanted to get into med device. Met a bunch of orthopedic surgeons and thought they were just the coolest people on the planet. Big hammer swingers, funny athletes, ex-athletes, and, uh, wanted to get into med device. So this is in 2005. 5 after doing pharma and biotech for a little company that got big and went to work for a startup sales agency for a startup spine company. It's very well known now, Globus Medical. They're either the 2nd or 3rd largest spine implant company in the world. And when we started selling their product, I think they'd done $7 million total business. And So I was a spine rep in, in the operating room for 10 years and, um, loved it. But Globus got so big. Um, I had a really nice territory, was, was doing really well, um, and was miserable. Um, and my wife said to me, you have a problem with authority. I'm 44 years old.

A salesperson not following directions.

I, I say this not to you. I'll, I will say this to everybody else. You're talking to the wrong Copeland. You should be talking to my wife. She is the single best salesperson I have ever known. And she, she's also looking at me and saying, you've hit where you have this really nice territory, you've great customers, you got to where you should be happy and you're miserable. And, and she said, you have a problem with authority. And I seriously, Brian, I'm 44 years old. And I'm like, oh my gosh, she's right. I had no idea, no clue, right? Um, and we went and started in another startup in med device, but not in spine implants. And, um, I always joke, like, did a couple things that have, that have been mildly successful and, and, uh, moderately successful in some cases, and a couple that— I'm going to steal a line from Steve Blank— that has a crater, a crater So deep it's iridium-lined, right? And 10 years later, through fits and starts, we have developed our small company and it's getting bigger and we've acquired some things and, um, and it's fascinating and it's the path of most resistance. Um, yeah, yeah, it's— I stole that from somebody too. I don't have an original thought. I, um, but I like that one. Uh, yeah, it's I stole it from somebody, I guarantee. Uh, and, um, but you know, everybody figures it out at some point. You figure out what you're, what you're good at. You figure out how you sell, and you, I think you figure out how customers accept it and buy it. And, um, and I love the operating room, and I love perioperative services, which is everything in and around perioperative Everything around the operating room, and I love it. And so I'm constantly looking for things. I just saw two more this morning that solve problems in the perioperative setting that I know they exist because I stand there. I know those folks, and I know the pain they're in. And and we just try to bring those products to them. And so it's a lot of small, innovative companies, some that. End up being great, and some that end up being really good, and some that you know you you kiss some you kiss some frogs. But it's it's the single best thing for me about selling in healthcare is when somebody turns you a clinical doctor nurse somebody and says hey thanks that helped right and it's better than any bonus check it's better than any commission. And and and that's why I do it. And and so, I still have a problem with authority. But boy, it's fun. You know, it's fun. And that that feedback is what drives me. So, you know, is any? And I don't think everybody's like that. It's just I figured it out at some point for me. It's personal for me.

Now, the, the authority thing, is it like you don't like to be micromanaged, don't like to be told what to do? Don't— you're kind of a maverick, you like your— the wide open fields, or what does that mean?

Uh, I, I guess, I don't know. Um, yeah, I don't like to be told what to do by—

do it.

Yeah. And that's bad. Like, at some point you're supposed to grow up And Brian, you, based on your, what you talk about, you have probably had this happen to you where somebody says, hey, Brian, we have to put these, we have to implement these processes in place, right? Got to do this for Salesforce. And you're smart enough to sit there and go, yeah, if I were them, I might consider doing that. And they say this thing that they think compliments you. And because it's a compliment, but it infuriates you. Or at least it infuriates me and it's stupid. It's my own problem. They'll say, but you know what? This, we don't do this because of guys like you. You, this, we don't, when we say we have problems with our reps and our, this doesn't really mean, we don't mean you. And I'm like, then why are you making me do it? And all it does is anger me. And like, It's a personal problem, but it's a response I have. And I'm thinking like, you're going to put these systems in place and you spend all this time telling some of us how good we are. And then you put a process in place for everyone and then tell us we don't need it, but they need verbal. Then why are you giving it to me?

Right?

Well, we can't do it. If we don't do it for you, we can't do it for everybody. Why not?

Yeah.

That's our policy. Our policy. I love that. Yeah. And I learned this. And like, how many times have you been here somewhere and they're like, hey, this is our policy. And I'll, and this will tell you what kind of knucklehead I am. I'll say like, well, I, I too have a policy. And, and then my wife steps in and says, hey, you know what? We'll take that hotel room. We're okay. Right.

Or whatever.

Come here. But, but, um, but yeah. And so that's why I love the startup. Because especially the really good ones, the really humble ones, um, because they're shot out of a cannon, but they know they don't know everything. And we all go out and learn it, and it's fascinating, right? And you don't make as much— you don't make as much money as you might if you stayed at a big company. And that's— but, you know, currency comes in several different formulas or formats. It's not always money. And I don't know if I love everything I do all the time or I don't, I know I don't hate it, but I know this, it churns me, it bugs me, it wakes me up in the middle of the night, it drives me, it matters. And that's, I think there's a lot of us like that.

There's a lot. You know, and it seems highly correlated with the best salespeople because They don't want to spend their time doing something that makes no logical sense and adds no value to their game.

Yeah. And I love, I love the post you put up because so many times I find myself nodding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now sometimes I'm like, oh no, I get, I get, I get why sometimes somebody wants you to use a CRM for this. I get it. And you know, of course, I'm reasonable. But when it becomes— when you become addicted to the process, the art— I mean, everybody who writes has a process, but they don't pump out the same product, but they make themselves sit down every day and write or whatever it is, or paint. And I'm not suggesting I'm an artist. But There is a— there is an element of that to it that you— it's much harder to put into a box.

Yeah.

And I think you crystallize that when you talk, when you have your walk-through-the-neighborhood talk. You have said it so much better than I have that I'm always appreciative of it because I feel like you, you know, there are kindred spirits out there and I'm finding them, you know. And you're— I definitely think you're one of them. So.

The other thing that came across immediately when I was looking at your profile is like, how does an English major, former basketball coach learn all this medical device stuff?

What helps, like my training at Pfizer. So I tell this to everybody. So everything's Latin, right? So they'll say, hey Brian, listen, we've seen your x-rays and you're gonna need a bilateral total Knee arthroplasty, and you're sitting there going, "What's that?" And I lean in and whisper, "Hey, Bri, here's what they're gonna do. You need a total knee on both sides. That's the bilateral arthroplasty means that's the name of the, but it's all Latin. Pfizer trained us in all this Latin. Like they we literally went to the which by the way can you can see from my English background major makes sense, but they're like Perry around, you know, like. Anti against, and they explained this stuff so well that I could say like a retro list thesis.

Yep.

And it's harder to learn how to say it than it is to know what it means.

Yeah.

And when you dedicate yourself to a little bit of that, my one friend Chris Cole, great sales rep. He had a joke. We spend a lot of time trying to sound way smarter than we are, and to do it, you got to use the language of the of the customer. So, um, uh, um, it's— you sit and soak in it, and you listen to lectures, and you practice it in your car, and you describe it to yourself until you can say it. Because you know what you're talking about, but you don't sound like you know what you talk about. And that's— that was a struggle. And when we've— when we hired new reps, they, like, they would say, oh yeah, the patient has a slipped In their spine, a slipped disc, right? And I could put up an X-ray or an MRI in front of you and you'd go, oh yeah, slipped disc. I'd say, yeah, you're absolutely right. And you'll actually hear surgeons describe it that way. But if you say that to a surgeon, they're going to look at you like, does he or she really know what I'm talking about? And do I really want them in my room? Because I'm sort of relying on them in some instances. And so you had to learn how to say, oh, that's a grade 2 spondylolisthesis.

Right?

And, and you look at the guy next to you and the guy's like, hey, nice job. Thanks. I practiced in the car for 10 hours trying not to say that. And, uh, that's— I, I can't stand biology. Can't stand chemistry. Not— can't do engineering. Don't know a bending moment. I don't know any of that stuff. But, um, when you learn what people are taught, when it means something, you can just, you can just back apply the terminology, but you can figure it out. And the other part is some of these customers are such great teachers. I learned more biomechanical engineering in the operating room on the blue drape where an attending surgeon would be teaching a resident on the patient on the blue room on the table, right at 3 in the morning. And I'd lean in and say, Wait a minute, explain that to me again. They say, oh yeah, this is the cantilever effect. And I'd say, wow. And I'd go write it down and go, okay, I got a little bit smarter today. I sound a little bit better. So it was, it was fascinating. But thank goodness for Pfizer because they taught me how to read all of that because otherwise it literally is another language.

Well, you know, when you study English that deeply, it's your major, your brain What you did is you leveraged the way your brain already was trained.

Yeah. Yeah. I would, I'd be careful about how hard I studied in college. I majored in a couple things. Yeah. I'm not sure how much of it was, uh, yeah, it's funny cuz I've had, you know, my, my friends from college, my teammates, my ba— basketball players, fraternity brothers, they'll, they'll be sitting there like, I'm 29 years old at that point. And they're like, seriously, doctors listen to you. And I'm like, yeah, I mean, to what extent? They're like, what do you know? What are you even talking about? And I'm like, I don't know. I just listen to the experts. But it's a credibility thing and it's the same in all sales. Like you could be selling software, you could be selling airplanes.

Well, it's—

Right?

Well, it's a little bit different because, you know, here are the most educated people out there, right? If you sell to a software engineer, it's like, yeah, you gotta know this stuff, right? But it's not, it's not in a pristine operating room. You didn't have to, you know, earning your right to get into that operating room is very different than earning your right to get into that conference room.

Yeah. It's hard for me to talk because I haven't done that. I don't ever wanna be in an operating room. And, you know, it's, this is the one part we, We— that business attracts a lot of athletes, and I, I've heard you talk about it. And here's the, the interesting thing is most of the time, if you've done your job right and you've earned the right, that the surgeon has said, I'm going to use your product for this, as opposed to pharma where they prescribe your drug and you're not there, or as opposed to selling software and you help them get started, but you're not there all the time.

Yeah.

One of the great things and one of the difficulties about implant-specific sales is you're there for the case. And if something goes wrong, you're standing there, right? And they turn to you. And my, my one friend, Mike Melchione, who's another great salesperson, turned to me and said, Cope, like, you're literally in the headlight. Because I tell people, it's like a quarterback. Like, the surgeon turns towards you and goes, okay, Now what? And it's usually because your instrument broke or something, right? And you've been kibitzing with the circulating nurse in the back, and all of a sudden the whole temperature of the room just changed. And I tell people, the surgeon stares at you and they wear a headlight, and their headlight is on you. The circulator, the neuromonitoring, anesthesia, the scrub nurse, the resident, um, and anybody else in the room all turns and looks at you. Right? And they're like— and so that is the one element that I think is fascinating, and it takes a long time. And, and, um, and the OR is very accepting if you don't know something, but you better be honest because there's somebody open in front of them, right? So like, that's the funny part about it, that is, um, it doesn't, it doesn't happen as much as some of these cool med device reps want to act like. But it does happen, and you know, do you panic or not? And and you're trained hard to not panic. You're trained to say, if you don't know, say right there, I don't know. I'm going to step out. I'm calling somebody who does, and that's and everybody's had to do it. Everybody's made that call, and everybody's. Taken that call. So that's a little bit— it is a little bit different that way, you know. But the vast majority of it is, is making sure you, you do your so much work behind the scenes that you don't have that. If it happens, it is purely force majeure. It is not you just, whatever, right? So it's— that's the fascinating part about it. Well, at least to me.

So much different than like you know industrial sales like forklifts. You know what's the hardest part of med device sales? Is it getting that relationship established with the doctor?

Yeah, and it obviously depends. There's different med device stuff. But let's talk about what the what people think is really cool, which are the implant people for better or worse. It's really hard to earn their trust, as it should be, and it takes time. And I thought I was a pretty— I started in med device late. I'd been in— I've been a Pfizer rep for 4 years. I'd been at a startup that went— got big at Cephalon for 5 years. So I'm 36 and I'd coached for a couple of years, right? So I get into med device. Most people get into med device 27, 28 years old. I'm in at 36. I got a 1-year-old at home. And I, again, I have an unbelievable wife who lets me take a step back to go do what I think I want to do. I knew I was a pretty good sales rep and I couldn't sell anything for a year. We were a startup. I worked for guys who were established. They weren't great trainers. I learned a lot from them, but they didn't— the training was Catch as catch can. Figure it out yourself. Yeah, right. And that serves many purposes, and it also makes it harder. And I remember like a year and a half into it, I was like, I think— hold it, hold it— I think I got it. And I learned it from a couple other guys who were good, a couple of the girls that were good at national sales meetings. And I'm banging my head against the wall, but I'm buying drinks for like, hey, Tell me how you do this. Tell me how you do this. And you, you know, bad artists borrow, good artists steal. I just steal what they would do and pay attention and learn. And I remember the first guy who called me for something, first surgeon, paged pager, right? That's how long ago it was. New Year's Day, I'm getting ready to tee off on the golf course. It's like 40 degrees at 11 in the morning, and my pager goes off, and I'm like, huh. I call this— I call the number back, and it's the surgeon. And Brian, he says, hey, Coop, um, I need your stuff tomorrow. Stryker, my competitor who he was using, just fired the rep yesterday, New Year's Eve. You're up. Hung up. Like, hmm, okay. Took my stuff to the hospital that night. We did our first case the next day. And it was one of those where you set yourself up to be in the batter— everybody wants to be in a batter's box. But what so many people in this business do is say, hey, listen, Dr. Burns, look, I know you're happy using them. You could do those cases with your eyes closed. But I have something that's a little bit different in a more difficult to treat patient, or I have something that's a little bit In this type of procedure that they don't have or don't do very well, and and um. But I learned this was to say to them at all times, um. But understand, like I I'd love to get in the batter's box, but I just want to be in the on deck circle with you, right? And it was very, and surgeons like that. And and then I added something. I started to learn. And I would say, listen, Dr. Burns, I get it. You know, you're happy. Those guys do a great job. If I were you, I'd keep using them, you know, but understand that I bring these things to you because your business is very important to me and I would love to earn it. And I, and I would say to you guys, I'm going to walk out and grab that doorknob and close the door. And I hope if nothing else, you think, you know what, I appreciate that he wants my business because I don't want you wondering. I'd like to earn your business. And I found so many surgeons, so many customers appreciated that. And I just didn't, I learned it. It wasn't something, oh, you know, intuitive. I'm such a natural. Not at all. I learned it and then it just started to come.

But even doing that, That statement of letting them off the hook. Tell them you're in good hands, you know, but there are some fringe cases. If you're ever curious about that, we should talk.

Yeah. Well, who wants to have some rep come in and go, hey, the choice you made.

But everyone does it.

Everyone slams the competitor and wants to close.

I was guilty of that for a long time. Because you just, you either pay attention to somebody who's really smart. Yeah. But I used to go in, I was complimenting my longtime friend Chris Cole the other day. We were both Pfizer reps, towns next door and very similar to each other. Get along thick as thieves. And I used to say like, I'm selling Zyrtec, right? Everybody knows about allergy stuff. They know Claritin, they know Zyrtec. I'm selling Zyrtec, works better. Faster, stronger than Claritin. Claritin is the dominant number one and always would be, but we're chipping away at it. So I'd come into Dr. Burns, I'm like, listen, Dr. Burns, I know you use Claritin. I wouldn't even be— I wouldn't even be respectful enough to say, and I would too, or you should, it's a great product. Big dumb cope would say, let me give you 3 reasons Zyrtec's better, right? And some of them would listen Some would be like, yeah, whatever. And some it worked, right? And it was funny and I didn't take it too seriously. I'd be like, so, you know, whatever. Like, and I try to make them laugh because you'd have 30 seconds at the— and I, I'm in a meeting with my buddy Chris Cole and I, and Chris Cole's saying to people, he's like, oh yeah, I go in and talk to all these people. They all use Clarton. I just tell them, hey, it's a great product, but you know how every once in a while it just doesn't work for everybody and they come in and like, oh, I'd like to try something else. Maybe consider Zyrtec. It's really good. It works faster, stronger, longer. I sat there and I'm like, why don't I do what he says? Why don't I do that? Right? And you could see the little Beavis and Butt-Head light bulbs start to flicker over my head. I learned. And, uh, and I learned and I started to realize over the years, I don't want somebody coming to me saying, hey, that car you bought is stupid. You should have bought mine.

Right. There's no active pain.

Right. As a matter of fact, now I'm gonna argue with you. Right? Exactly.

That's what people do.

Yes.

That's not an objection.

That's an argument.

You know, you learn through taking constant feedback, good or bad. And that's, I just always stress to the people who talk to me about wanting to get into sales, any kind, or how do you do it? And it's, it's, it's, you get older and you get smarter and you start to realize if I do this my way that I believe is correct, it will work. My batting average goes up and it's doing the right thing. And then, and then as you get really older, you start to realize, hey, how about I work backwards? How about I figure out what problems we have, people have, my customers have? And how can I solve it? And let's learn all about that. And then if they know they have it, I think I can help, but I'll be very humble about it. And if they don't know they have the problem, but I do, they know I'm going to agitate it a little bit. I'm going to get them to talk about it. And I'm going to talk about it because I know other people like, like no surgeon, no director of perioperative services, no Brian Burns wants somebody coming to you going, hey, Brian, I know you use that. I'm pretty sure you have this problem. You're like, no, I don't. Right? Right. Yeah. So big dummy learned at some point, how about we talk about the other people? Like, hey, Brian, you probably don't have this problem. But other people who do these awesome podcasts have told me they have this problem, right? They say they're trying to do this or whatever. And I look over and Brian is nodding and I'm like, oh, Maybe you have the same ones. These guys complain about this, and what do you do? And then, and then you start talking, and I'm like, oh, huh, so tell me more about that. Does it slow you down? Does it cost you money? How much? And I don't always make the sale, but I at least know they have the problem, and I think I might be able to help. And now I'm doing the right thing. This is where sales, I think, is A noble cause, if done appropriately, is you're solving problems. That's the best part of the job. The money follows. And don't you like? Don't you get sick, Brian? I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on relationships because everybody's like, oh, it's all about relationships. And so people get into the advice and like, oh, you must. You know, you probably play golf with your guys, or you. I'm like. Well, half the customers I had when I was really cranking, I didn't, I knew their kids' names, but like I wasn't playing golf with them. Well, I wasn't drinking beers with them.

Because when you say it's all about relationships, what comes to mind is the golf, the dinners. It's not the trust. It's not the knowledge, the, like you did with that doctor about the symptoms. You didn't go to the direct problem. You went around the problem. Yeah. 99% of the cases, that's fine. But there's that 1% where this happens. Have you ever seen that?

And they're, and they're already nodding. And you know what I hope they're thinking? I— God knows I can't read anybody's mind. Um, I think they're thinking, huh, this guy sounds like he's, he's seen some things. He sounds like he knows what— maybe he knows what he's talking about. And you have some credibility. And it does not mean, you know, how many people do you think, Brian, who aren't in sales are like, oh, he's a people person and Coke, you probably just swing a watch in front of him and hypnotize him and persuade him. And I'm like, if I did that, I'd have a whole jacket full of watches. It does not work. It's not what it does.

Right.

And yeah, that's why I love listening to your stuff. Because you hear so many people talking and so many of the themes are the same regardless of what field they're in, what they're selling.

And do you think it helped you getting into it later in life where you kind of were more mature? You already had a kid, which is really something that really tips people's empathy. Just be, oh, you're either born with empathy or not. Well, Meet any parent, you become empathetic pretty quick.

There are varying degrees of empathy. I think it probably, it probably did. Um, yeah, I think it did. I think, you know, you learn from the experiences. Basketball was, um, you know, I— the old joke is I played Division III basketball. Why? Because there wasn't a Division IV. But I stole that, stole that from my buddy Joe Trainor, football player. But you start to realize, like, people who you trust and you've been around say, now, if you cope, you can do this, right? And people will listen to you because of the traits that made you a good teammate or good in the locker room or whatever. Um, so, because I wasn't sure. I remember I'm a basketball coach and I'm like, how am I— what am I going to say to these people? And somebody said, well, did you recruit kids? I'm like, you're darn right I did. We needed 3 players every year. We stink and we're all fired. They're like, is recruiting sales? And I was like, yeah, I guess it is. I had no idea. You just never Well, so yeah, I think it helped because I had some experience that was different and it, and it, um, it was interesting to people, you know.

Well, I mean, you probably had the natural personality for it, but you also had kind of the curiosity to learn from other people. See, a lot of people get into sales and they'd say, oh, my way is the best way and the only way.

Hmm.

And that's that.

And so that's what you run into in your travels, is that's—

Well, people get very sensitive to taking feedback because they think the deal is them, their identity. It's instead of the deal is separate from me.

So look, we all have feelings, right? I used to always joke when I was trying to get these jobs without a whole lot of sales experience. I would say, look, you want to coach people. And well, you know, it's funny, Brian. I tell young people, hey, you want to know what hiring managers look for? And they're like, yeah. I'm like, go talk to some of them. Go ask them.

Yeah.

Like, don't go and sell yourself to them. Ask them, what do you people look for? Right? And 1 out of 50 does it and that person gets a job. Every time, every time. And, and I'm like, how are you gonna know what they're looking for? You think they're looking for certain things. They're not. They're looking for other things. And I would sit there and say to people like, look, you wanna— I'm new. I've never done med device sales. But you need somebody. You wanna coach somebody. Well, first of all, as a coach. Second of all, I've been screamed at by people in the crowd, called the worst names, basically wearing my underwear in front of my family. Like, what are you going to say to me that's going to be worse than that dude from Franklin and Marshall? They're like, you think it hurt my feelings? Come on, I need to be coached because I plan on being good at this.

I didn't think about that, but that is perfect sales preparation training.

I've had my own coaches say stuff at me in front of my parents. You know, you're like, Listen, that guy says he loves me and just chewed me out in front of all my friends and my parents and family. There's nothing you can say to me, Brian, that's going to hurt my feelings. There's nothing. I've had bloody instruments thrown at me. You really think you're going to hurt my feelings? I don't have any. Like, I don't have any anymore. I just need to get better, right? That's it. And, uh, I'm shocked that more people don't have that kind of Well, most people haven't had that experience of being yelled at. Yeah, right. Maybe if you're not very good, you'd get more of it. So that's what I had.

Yeah, because that's— I always say, you know, sales is a performance profession. It's how well you do it, not just that you do it or you know how to do it. Much like basketball, right? You can play basketball your whole life, doesn't mean you're good.

That's true. That's true.

Takes them what, an hour to learn how to play basketball, the rules? Okay, you dribble, you throw it in the hole, right? Then you run the other end and you block them from throwing it in the hole.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it is interesting. I've heard you talk about athletes in sales and how there's a subset that sort of, it appeals to them partly because I think we're also used to benchmarking. Either against your teammate or against your competitor, or yeah, and and you're used to there's depth charts, and there's like the eye in the sky doesn't lie, as the guys in the NFL say. And so you're you're sort of used to used to coach giving you feedback that you you better take, right?

And you have to suppress your own impression of yourself to someone else.

Right.

Because if you say, oh, I'm not running fast enough, they go, this is as fast as I can run. No, no, you can run faster.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny. Everybody needs a coach, right? And including me. And I have them in my life. I wouldn't sit there and necessarily say, hello, Brian, let me introduce you to my coach. Right. Right. But you serve that part of that role. Some of the people I work with, Um, I, I value what they tell me. And while I may not like it, and I might— again, I have a problem with authority. Um, I don't have a problem with people who I think are really good giving me feedback. So like, um, that's every— if you don't have coaches, if you don't have somebody looking at you objectively and talking to you in an objective fashion, I guess you get stale. Unless you're, unless you're one of these people who is just so hyper— and there are, they exist— who are so hyper analytical, I guess.

Yeah, you know, the people that record their calls, they listen to their calls, they ask somebody else to listen to their calls, they practice, and they understand that it's a performance. Yeah, it's not, it's not that, oh, Mark is good or bad. It's like, okay, this performance was an A, this one was an A-, this one is a B+ or whatever. Yeah. And try and find the distinctions to win the deal.

And you have to be, you have to be a hard critic on yourself. Like, you know, deep down inside, when you get through your ego, you know, if you threw an airball, or you know, if you hit it, like, you know, because, you know, we maybe ignore those signals, but we know. And, and That's, but that's, that's interesting that, you know, it's funny. Here's one thing Pfizer did that you might resist, but I'll tell you it was helpful this way. You had to make 10 calls a day. And my boss was like, yeah, well, we're gonna make 12. And I'll never forget, he would say 6 by 12, 12 by 6, right? So you had to go make these calls. And what it got was a A lot of repetitions. So I'm going to come and present my Zyrtec presentation to Brian in 30 seconds, 12 times a day. So you know it has to be prepared, it has to be good. And what you get is a lot of feedback fast. You get— and you start to quickly correct what works and what doesn't, because sometimes the coaches are your customers, right? Or sometimes it's the audience who's Throwing fruit at you or applauding, and that really helped us get good fast. And boy, they were really—they were excellent because they had such a military DNA in a good way. Like it was very disciplined, very organized, very professional, and it was—it has—it will affect me for the rest of my life in a positive way, even though. I left them after four years. That's the best single best training I've ever, I've ever had. It got me other jobs. People like, oh, you're Pfizer trained. Oh, well, we come on in for an interview. So, yeah, that's that's interesting. That's why I like your stuff. I find your stuff to be like an assistant coach talking in my ear, reminding me of things I know, teaching me better ways to do some other things, and I appreciate that. I mean, I I I think you litter the world with please and thank you, and I'm thanking you on the airway here. You can. You can cut it out if you want. But I think it's important because I've had reps of ours follow you. I've suggested people who want to get into the sales business to follow you because I think just to follow you, that's not even doing anything else with you. It's just to learn from you. So your fireside chat walks, I think, really help a lot of people, myself included. So thanks. And I appreciate you being on the show today.

Where can people go to connect and follow you?

You can— our website is 3T, number 3, letter T, medsurg.com. Or you can email me at— I'll give my personal because it's just easier— mcope67@gmail.com. And, you know, I try to pay it back. Lots of people have helped me through the years. So we try to help others when they're trying to figure some things out. So I, I, I, uh, you have a big audience. I should be careful about what I offer, but I do try to offer— I do try to help people as much as I can while I'm out doing my job every day. Because, uh, you know, um, if you're not doing that, what do you— what's, what's the, what's the benefit you're doing to everybody else? It's just about you. So thanks, man. I really appreciate it. I'm honored that somebody would even nominate me to be on this. Hopefully, uh, hopefully that was mildly intriguing, interesting, and, uh, I just want to thank you. I think what you do is a, is a really, really a good thing and helpful, and I hope people pay you a ton of money for it. So.

Did you see how he didn't go direct and try and compete against the existing product? What he tries to do is use symptom questions. Find out what are the things that his product does that are unique. The lockouts, the things that the competitor doesn't do. It doesn't fit every situation. It may not be better all the time, but in certain situations it is. And that creates curiosity. That creates a conversation. It's If you try and push that your product is better and the other person has no curiosity, that's not a sales conversation. That's an argument. And then people get into argument handling, also known as objection handling, and then it just makes the argument more and more heated and the other person becomes numb. They don't want to talk about it any further, and they will do anything to avoid it with you. Now, how can you learn this, applying it to your own product? That's what Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting is all about. This is what I teach you to do, from finding a complete stranger all the way up to having a conversation and getting a meeting with them. Does it work 100% of the time? Nothing does with People. But, you know, I'm hearing a lot of great feedback in office hours. We had one yesterday, and the people who are in the course are just cheering on because they're getting conversations started with people. They're talking to people instead of pitching. When you pitch, you're doing exactly what Mark is saying in this interview. You're You're asking for an argument or you're asking to get ghosted or blocked or unsubscribed. That's not our objective. Our objective is to have a conversation that creates interest, that builds a deal step by step, brick by brick. It's very different than warm inbound. Warm inbound, they've already kind of admitted Admit it or have active pain. They're investigating what's out there. They're at least curious. You know, they're maybe downloading content or trying to get the AirPods. We got to do better, folks. We got to sell better. And what I see on LinkedIn is not selling, it's spamming. It's telesalespeople who have failed. Coming on LinkedIn trying to tell you how if you copy what they did, you'll have the same failure that they've had. One guy's even talking about how he got fired. Oh yeah, that's what I want to learn how to do. Yeah, now he's moved back to live in his parents' basement. Great. Yeah, yeah, you're my mentor. Oh God, what has happened to My glorious profession. Selling is so much fun and so challenging and interesting when you really become a student of the game. If you try and be the tip and trickster, first of all, you're never going to find enough tips and tricks to crush it. So you're going to have to find a better company because that, that isn't going to get you there. And is that fun? Yeah, you get a little dopamine hit when you hit a new— oh, quick question. Oh, I love that one. Oh, just bumping it to the top. Oh, genius. Oh, how about 18 touches? How about 1,800? Oh, really? That's how you want to spend your life? I want to spend my life talking to people, helping people, developing deals. Finding people who have the problem that I solve and helping them solve it. That's what sales is. It's not trickery. It's not manipulation. It's conversing with people who have a problem that you can help them with. If they don't have that problem or they don't want to admit, you got to find out a way of getting them to admit it. Get that— stir up that latent pain like Mark did in the interview. Now, I hope you, you stuck through to this point. If you didn't, well, you're not hearing this, so no sense telling you anything. Now, look at where you are this year, how far you've gotten, and how far you want to get to make your goal. If you're not going to make it, Closing the Complex Sale is the course for you. Prospecting is important, but once we get something that will at least talk to us, We need to get that deal through the system, through their system, not ours. And I even heard this sales expert say, well, when— here's how you prevent, uh, no decision. Find out if it's a need or a want. And it's like, it's not the champion who goes to no decision, it's the company. He doesn't even get it. Here he is, a sales expert, and he doesn't understand this.

Yes.

God. And this is how naive salespeople are. So if you're in the complex sale, you've got to be a student of the game because it is complex and it's nothing but full of traps. If a sales expert doesn't even understand it, so naive. And he said he might be an expert because he says he is, but he's never sold a complex sale. He sold a simple sale, simple little transaction. Eh, who cares? If that's your thing, you know, if it's under $5K or $10K, and it might not be worth it. I don't know. It's up to you. Is it worth becoming great at what you do? You're listening to a podcast. I got to assume it is. I hope it is. Go to B2BRevenue.com, check out the courses. This is how they work. It's real simple. I've got 2 videos on both the YouTube channel and on the website, and just watch the first one that tells you how the courses work to make sure that's the way you like to work or can work or will work. They're online videos. You consume them when you want to. You start when you want to. You consume as much of them as you want to. As many times as you want to. And but there's 2 services that come with it. There's office hours, a meetup every other Friday. I know you're thinking, how can I make this an objection? I'm busy on Friday. It doesn't care. We record them. You can submit your question ahead of time. Nothing is ever ignored. And they're all recorded and put back into the course so you never miss something. So if you're in Australia, I know you're all You Aussies are like, "Hold a minute, brook. It's two in the morning. I can't show up there." It's recorded and put back in the course. Send me your questions ahead of time. Nothing is missed. It's a living course. Nothing's perfect. Sorry. Also, you have access to it for a year. You can renew if you want. It doesn't auto renew. You can pay monthly in 12 monthly payments, but it's not a membership. So you can't like sign up for 2 months and then, hey, yeah, sales isn't my bag. No, it's a commitment. You bought something. You can't, you can't buy Netflix and watch one show and then cancel. Well, you can, but you have to pay for the whole month. With mine, you have to pay for the whole year. If you don't like that, don't sign up. And all of the past one-on-ones and office hours have been recorded and put back in the course, so you can eavesdrop in on these and study them like a student of the game. This does not exist any other place. There is over 100 hours of this stuff. The instructions aren't that much, but the case studies That's how you learn. And what I heard this week is a sales rep said to me, it's like so nice to hear other sales reps talk about deals without judging each other. Supporting each other is what we do. Not— there's no perfect in sales. There's no 10.0. You either win the deal or you don't. Yeah, sure, you can get it faster or bigger, but winning it is pretty good. Decide to win. Go to b2brevenue.com right now and sign up. We'll see you there.