HOW THIS REP HAS PROSPECTS CALLING HIM TO BUY

Well, today's interview is going to be a little bit different, and it might be a stretch for some people. But if you start listening to it and you think, oh, this is just an old-school sales interview, fast forward to the last 20 minutes, then you'll get it. Because today's guest has made understanding his industry Uh, his clients his competitive advantage. He digs in deeper than probably anybody I've ever interviewed, and you won't sense that till close to the end of the interview. So don't discount this. And your industry might be a little bit different, but this curiosity, this desire to become a student at least of the industry, has separated himself from all the competition. Will it work in your industry? I don't know. It's up to you. But what it does is it gives you something to talk to your market about and with, which is critical and overlooked. Because when you talk about the product, you're in the commodity trap. You got to talk about their situation, their problems, what they're facing, what they care about. But how do you do that? Well, it's not intuitive. It's counterintuitive. So, somebody's got to kind of show you, or you can spend 15 years figuring it out. Start the conversation, get the meeting solves this problem. Check that out. Before we get into the interview, I want to ask yourself something. If there was a sales simulator, would you use it? Meaning just you bring up an app and you start talking to it, asking it questions, just like every sales call. Just pretend it's— you're on the phone or on Zoom. Do you think that would help you become better at sales? Let me ask you a question. How could it not? And why do we have simulators in pretty much every industry? Uh, car racing, plane flying, spaceships, weather— everything's got a simulator of some sort. They do it so that you don't have to use real time and real money to train, to become better, to get the reps in. And Because a lot of people have already figured out that it's not just knowing how to talk. It's how to talk well. How to ask great questions. How to build rapport. How to get the client to focus on what you want them to focus on. Those are great skills. They didn't teach you that in high school. Certainly didn't teach you that in college. And what's your company teaching you? Commodity trap. So it's up to us to figure this out. Brevity Pitch has got it today. Interactive, live, real-time, customized interactive talking with an AI. Sounds like a human being. You can make the person sound any way you want. The demo that I show on LinkedIn and on YouTube is of the CEO of Microsoft. So if you wanted to practice calling him, you can do that. Or you can point it to anything, any website, any LinkedIn profile, and basically it'll read it in and come up with customized questions for you. What I found in teaching sales is that people get comfortable. They get to a certain level of skill and they get comfortable. The problem is that comfort doesn't stay static. It doesn't grow. It shrinks. We have to constantly be pushing at that comfort zone. Otherwise it shrinks. We got to push at it just to stay at the same level. Never mind get better. Don't you want to get better? Because when you get better in sales, you make more. When you get better at everything else, you get a big trophy. In sales, you get a check. I'd rather a check. Here we go with the interview. I'll sum it up at the end. Hey, Matthew, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Brian, thank you so much. You're so gracious. I've, I've had to, uh, cancel on you a couple times because I I literally have gone out and had to put out some fires in oil and gas. And I am— background, I'm a walking hay bale from northwest Oklahoma, Okene, Oklahoma. We, you know, we knew farming, ranching, oil and gas, picking up rattlesnakes and showing them to tourists. So I really didn't understand that, you know, when you go out and meet people in the world, they Uh, had never done that. They, they never had, uh, you know, grabbed a rattlesnake and showed it to tourists before. So you're talking with— oh, come on. Yeah, I thought that was, I thought that was a normal part of everyday occurrence for most.

Is that how you get a job?

Yeah, like, hey, let me see your snake skills, and like, can you wrestle tornadoes? You know, we're— again, I'm a walking hay bale from Northwest Oklahoma, and I've been, uh, Man, God's been so good to me and, and I just, I can't believe the amount of opportunities I've had in this world just by grace of God, truly.

Cool.

Now, now I'm in oil and gas. I've been in oil and gas for 20, 20 years. And the, the, I used to be an operations manager. I was a terrible operations manager. I wasn't really great on my people. I've had a really strong work ethic my whole life and For those that couldn't keep up with me, I really disregarded them, you know, early on. And I, I regret some of my early on mistakes. And at one point I had called the CEO of the company and said, hey, I've gotta, I've gotta get out of this. I'm, I'm, I'm not happy. And he goes, oh, you're not going anywhere. We're gonna put you in sales.

It was a promotion.

I didn't know that at the time. I thought I was going to the— I really, I reeled from it. I was like, oh, I don't wanna go to the dark side.

And what was your view of sales at the time?

I really didn't know the value that they had to keep the doors open. I was oblivious to really the hard work, you know, Everybody on the outside of sales sees the glamour times, you know, they, they see the, the travel, they see the, the dinners and the lunches and the breakfast, you know, and, and you don't know all the work it takes behind their job to, you know, put themselves out there to shake a hand, to build a relationship. And to get a friend and a customer all in one, and then hopefully you keep them for life, you know, and if, even if you don't keep that, you know, customer for life, you'll probably keep the friend for life if, you know, if you're a genuine person.

And that first year, what was that like? What'd you like about it? What was frustrating? What'd you learn?

The first year was a huge learning curve and Finding out that it's a lot of work just to get a meeting with anyone for the first time. And you're, you know, you quickly realize, for me, I've always, and I remember from a young age going with my grandfather to a table in a little diner early in the morning and sitting around older, wiser men than me and listening to them and learning. And so I've, I've, I've been fortunate to have that. I will— why reinvent the wheel? Go stand on the shoulder of giants. And a lot of guys that were older, wiser, stronger than me already had a ton of relationships with all the people I needed to see. And they just took me under their wing. They said, hey, you know, why don't you just come with me, do what I do? And I steal every last little shred of smart, wise things that older than me guys do all the time and incorporate it into, you know, how I approach the world. Like, I'm not smart enough to do it on my own and come up with something cool. So I'm going to carbon copy the better people out there. So when I, when I see you and your, I mean, let's just call it a platform at this point, you've, you know, you've created a world of, you know, genuinely helping people. You pay attention and you're like, man, that's, that's wise advice. And then you have so many peers come in and give their own, you know, stories. So I love it.

And what were some of the things that they taught you that were different than what your Instincts were?

Your instinct is like, pick up the phone and go, like, you walk in with a business card, you know, and you go, hey, right away, like, hey, my name's Matt and here's my company and here's what I want to sell you.

It's amazing. It's better than anybody.

And like, oh my gosh. Yeah. Let me, we're better than anybody else that does this. And they're like, who are you? Why are you in my face and talking? You just, you just come in and overwhelm somebody and, and putting your card in your face, and then you're following up with like every day like, hey, uh, you, you met me, you got my card, when, when are you gonna use me? You know, it's like, like, uh, or you could be a real human being and genuine and just like, I'm, I'm honored to meet you, what's your story? And let Let them get to know them. And, and one of the first things that somebody told me, and it, and it just stuck, and it's, and it's so true, is networking is not about you getting your product out there and you getting something else into someone's hands. It's truly about hearing someone, listening, empathizing, and seeing if you might be able to help them. You know, but just knowing them and then you'll be ready to be a salesman at some point with them if they ever need you.

And why is it that it takes so long to learn that? Because most people, it takes a lifetime to learn that.

Yeah. And we all struggle with that. And even, you know, seasoned guys like us, we slip sometimes back into Very human habits. You know, maybe it's because we're not focusing, you know, or whatever. But it's just, it's not, I don't think it's really natural. I think, you know, good salespeople, business development, it's a real skill you have to develop and concentrate on and go, hey, we're all, I think every human being probably has a little bit of narcissistic tendencies because we're all locked up in here in this tiny little brain of ours. Trying to survive. And you may not know that they don't know anything about you at all. So, you know, it's, it's truly all, it always goes back to relationships and, and you're, uh, like I, you put out something not too long ago. It's like your smile is your logo, your personality, and you are your business card. And I don't, I don't know if you wrote it, but you know, I remember it on one of your feeds and I was like, That's, that's very true.

Yeah. And in your market, who are you selling to? Who's the, the user? Who's the decision maker? What are the economics behind the deals?

Well, oil and gas is a very expensive endeavor to get to. So, you know, if you go meet a young drilling engineer, say outside, you know, just fresh out of college, and he's got millions of dollars at his disposal that he's got to be responsible for, And he has a procurement department and managers and meetings every day. I mean, oftentimes they don't even want to take the risk of using something that someone else hasn't done before.

Yeah.

And you really, you know, in our, I think in any transaction, but you know, it always comes down to this guy really knows me and he cares about me and he does not want to ever put me in this cubicle at risk, nor, you know, his company logo. So I trust him enough to give him an opportunity with his service or equipment and know that he's my— he's, he's not just a vendor, but he's my teammate. And, and My ultimate satisfaction is watching that success happen and being there to cheer together on what we do. Because this is a— everything in oil and gas is, hey, there's investors, there's a guy behind those investors going out to put products and services in place to go drill wells and then complete 'em and produce 'em and get the end product downline. So he's having to make so many decisions. He really does have to rely on his team of vendors to truly care about the project. And it might, it might just be one project. It might just be a one-off. Lots of my friends may only go out and do one project, you know, a year. Some of them have follow-up work where it's going to be, you know, years in the making, but you don't. You don't settle for, well, I'll just throw whatever at them, you know.

And how do you get them that comfortable with you? How do you prove that to them?

I've always liked to introduce them to other customers that have had successes, you know, and say, hey, I can sit here, you know, when, you know, we've had a We've had a great lunch, dinner, whatever. You know, we've met in their building, um, and we've got a great relationship. And if you ever want to talk about, you know, work or something you need, you know I'm here, you know what I do, and I'd be happy to talk to you about it. And, and when they do call, say, do not take my word for it anymore. You know me, don't trust me. Here's a, here's a guy that's worked with me for a long, long time. Uh, can I get you the results? Do you want to talk to him? Do you guys want to meet up together and, and discuss, uh, all my, uh, successes or flaws? Because that's the other thing too, like, do not ever be afraid to beg them to tell you all the things that you could do better, or that your company could do better, or your service, or your equipment. Like— Please browbeat this and break it. Please break everything I do so that I can be better.

Yeah.

And it's free counseling.

What motivates you as a salesperson?

Those relationships now. I mean, it's, it's, it's—

But you could have got them in services, right?

Yeah.

Why?

Yeah.

Without all the stress.

I, I, there, there might be a little stress sometimes. Yeah. The, the ups and downs of our industry or any industry. Yeah. There's, there's the lulls where you're like, have I done, have I done everything wrong? I know I have. And I've, I mean, if, if I've done it wrong, you know, if there's something to do wrong, I have definitely done it. Lots of, lots of times probably. And, and you get the same results, uh, from the time you did it wrong. There's not going to be good results.

And I got to imagine that market, because I, I did sell into oil and gas, but not in the field operations, but in the, the geology pieces.

Yep.

The geology analysis.

Software, data analysis.

Yeah. And very straight shooters, but tough crowds. Oh yeah.

Well, they were out there licking rocks, you know, for many years and now they're stuck inside a cubicle licking rocks. And all my geology friends are watching this, you know who you are. Oh yeah.

I got a big geology crush.

It's fine. They're going to see this. There's, there's probably 50,000 of my friends after this that I'll share this with and they'll be like, You just gotta poke fun at us. I'm like, look, at the end of the day, you point to a piece of ground over there and you tell the engineers that there's some oil over there.

Something under there.

Great info.

But I gotta believe that you are naturally gonna be viewed as a commodity. Is that true? Or is that my lack of understanding?

Now? Yeah. Now I think, I think our industry is really, come a long way into realizing that we, we all need to do a much better job of networking in the way we— you and I describe it as, how can I, how can I help you? Not how can you help me?

Yeah.

This is a team. Our energy independence, you know, in America depends on that. Sharing knowledge and information. You know, at the end of the day, our whole product, which is oil and gas and resources to create reliable and abundant energy, that's our industry product. You know, we, we were competing for so long, who's the best drilling guys and who's, you know, and there wasn't really a lot of knowledge shared. Everybody was competing so much. And now we have a lot of different advocacy and educational groups where we all get together and see papers from one another and we see, you know, their successes and their failures and we share that so we can as a whole industry bring abundant energy to the, you know, to our own nation, but also, you know, globally.

Yeah. And what do most salespeople don't understand in your space?

I think the networking aspect, you cannot just sit there and make a phone call. I mean, and LinkedIn has been invaluable for everyone. At least you have, you know, it's LinkedIn's a little bit like those little memory cards you had as a kid. You know, you can see somebody's name, face, what they do, where they work, and that's great. You know, and you can reach out to 'em. You can make that warm, soft, you know, opening, say, hey, If you ever have any time, I'd like to pick your brain and, you know, see, you know, what you do, who you're about. That's it. You know, leave it at that, you know, and hit 'em up again sometime. But at least you have a, get a warm opening with someone. How, and there's so many, you know, easy ways to do it. Drop by an office and, and leave a, leave a coffee for somebody, you know, say, hey, just thinking about you today. When, if you ever get time, give me a ring. I'd like to pick your brain.

Yeah.

Because that's what it is. I, I wanna meet people now to find out their problems and what they see, you know, our industry doing. What, you know, what's the coolest thing they've seen out there that I don't have that I'm interested in? You know, every, everybody I talk to is like, hey, have you seen this yet? Have you seen this yet? You know, what, what's coming? Our world changes so quickly and innovation happens so rapidly. I'm a nerd. I want to know it all and see it all. And for me, I think just breaking out of your silo, you know, get out of your bubble, do things that are uncomfortable, you know, getting up and speaking in front of groups, going to groups and shaking hands and saying, hey, Uh, glad you came. What's your name? You know, I'm so glad you're here. You know, what's your background? Where are you from? Where did you grow up?

Because you use the word networking versus prospecting, and I think the word networking is closer to what prospecting should be versus prospecting is kind of trying to find the gold underneath the dirt.

Yep.

Where networking is trying to build something from nothing.

My early career, I'm going to go grab a guy and shake him and see what falls out of his pockets. Like, are you going to buy my stuff? No? Okay, see you later. And now it's funny, you know, I mean, I remember meeting young drilling engineers and, or completion or production and, you know, like, Those kids had nothing to offer me at the time. They were not decision makers, but it didn't matter. I was just happy that they were in our industry and I wanted to be some kind of funnel, whether they worked at an operator or a vendor, and said, hey, can I crowbar you into this conference? Because at some point I see the ups and downs of our industry and I know that you feel safe in this cubicle right now, but that logo Sometimes comes in and lays off entire floors of staff. And if you happen to be one of those and you don't know anyone, how am I going to get your resume into the next company over's hands? Because that's who I am. I'm going to— if you're out of work, I want to get you employed back into making reliable energy so when I'm old, my lights stay on.

See, I bet 99% of the salespeople have no clue why they would ever do that.

Where maybe they're missing out.

You got a friend for life, right?

Yeah. I mean, I'm never gonna retire. My wife is annoyed by that, but there'll never be a time where I'm like, I'm done. Let's go to the beach. Like, nope, I'm, I wanna hang out and do these things. Every industry has conferences and events, but there's Whatever you're doing out there, you know, regardless of, you know, your industry that you are in sales for, there's probably some kind of group that you should get into to be involved with. Yeah.

And groups that your customers are part of.

Yep. And go help them volunteer. You know, if you don't have, if you, if your company doesn't have the money to, you know, sponsor the event and put your logo all over it, who cares? Just call them up and say, hey, I'd just like to be here to help.

Yeah.

If I have to man the front desk, that's a great thing. If you're young in sales and there is a group like that, beg and plead to go be at that registration desk. And that way you don't get a choice. You're shaking every hand that walks in that door and seeing their face and saying, hey, I'm so glad you're here at the conference, or, you know, this event or this meeting, or, you know, this prayer group or breakfast, whatever it is. You get to, you know, look them in the eye and, and they get to see your smile and you get to see theirs. And it, it might take 20 times for them to recognize you. It might take 1,000 times for them to remember your name and 100,000 times before they remember your company and what you sell. That's okay. It might take years in development, but At the end of the day, all, all that stuff, it's just a matter of— but I've, I've built a reputation, uh, and, um, and rapport with people that will last your lifetime. It's neat to, you know, like, you can go anywhere now, Brian, and people will go, man, I know that guy from somewhere.

It's the power of being known.

It's uncomfortable at first. It's, it's odd that the podcast and me sometimes— I had a guy, um, I was sitting at lunch with him, I— an older, an older guy who's one of my mentors that I go out and get mentors, by the way, everybody needs one, and take them to lunch, you know, pay, pay them for their, uh, time and their, uh, brainpower to tell you what you do wrong in life. But He, uh, I was talking to him. I said, man, this podcast of mine has grown quite a bit, and it's really weird for me to go, uh, to places and people recognize me. And, and I wasn't, I wasn't being as gracious as I should have been for that effort. But he, he— I go, I don't, you know, it's really hard to listen to my voice and see my own face. I'm, you know, you know, the, uh, imposter syndrome, if you will.

Yeah.

And it makes you uncomfortable. And, and he goes, well, how about if you quit that thing? I'll punch you in the face. And I go, what? He goes, you, you need to get out of your own head. He goes, that's a heck of an ego, kid. He goes, because you've developed a platform where, yeah, you gotta remember that the person you're sticking that mic in front of has never done that before. They've never been on camera. They've never had a microphone. And so you're sitting there with an ego worried about what you look like and sound like and, you know, oh, it bothers you. He goes, you need to not ever think about that again. And remember that now you have a neat thing that they can do to promote themselves and their company and, and help them grow. So remember, he goes, it's, it's now, you know, a blessing for you to do that for somebody and don't quit it. Or I'll be upset with you. And I was like, I was humbled. I didn't even stop thinking about doing anything to help people after that. It's a mission at some point.

And going back to your first year in sales, what do you wish you learned back then that you know now?

Probably the, probably the getting out more and going to more things with more people.

Yeah.

You know, instead of just beating down doors and phones and emails and real— and at some point you realize like there's a guy in a cubicle that just got my email and is he gonna answer it? Absolutely not. He's got 300 internal emails from his bosses and superiors wanting to know about forecasting for next year and he's doing an Excel spreadsheet. And just miserable. So my—

That's my target market.

Yeah, that's, that's the guy like, oh yeah, sure, I'm gonna get right back to you, Matt, with y'all. So, you know, hopefully you'll see that. And don't, don't bombard them with, you know, your, your customers or your— I, I call everybody my friendstomer. And there's no point in that. Just You know, send them an invite to something cool that you know of that's gonna go happen and say, hey, I'll be here at this time. Everybody'd love to see you break out today if you get a chance, you know, and just keep that kind of stuff up. You know, be a friend, not a salesman.

Yeah.

That's that, you know, get comfortable with not worrying about not selling them something. You need to be their friend and worry about— that's a human being on the other side of you first. They're not your— they are, yes, you want to be there to help them when they need you, but they're not going to need you if you're not their friend.

And what skill do you wish you had or wish you were much better?

Well, that's tough because there's lots of skills I wish I could develop right now.

I mean, I gotta believe business acumen in your space is pretty critical.

Yeah, I wish I knew more about, and that's why I've broken out of my silo so much and I don't, I don't want to know just about drilling. I don't want to know just about completion. It's really knowing your entire industry, you know, what every person does. You know, what is that guy in that shop? I'm in Midland, Texas right now. I had to— I got to come down here and, you know, there's— so I'd love— I want to know everything about the drilling rig and what the drilling engineer does and what the guy on the rig floor does. But what does the drilling manager do? What's the COO do of that company? And when they pass it off to the completion guys, you know, what does that pump truck do with that frac sand? Where does the frac sand come from? I mean, on and on and on. I want to know every single finger of how this whole chain works. You know, what does it take to get energy from the ground and get it to that, you know, plug in your house, in your car, you know, and, and then do that for yourself, you know, be, um, curious, be active in learning.

Yeah.

Everything you possibly can.

Yeah.

I, I am so— I, I'm, I'm a geek now about everything. I'm like, I get on rabbit holes, but There's, don't, don't waste your time on, on this earth. You know, it's, it's finite. 50 years old now. I used to have, you know, I still have this many goals, but I have this much time. That's a lot. It's all that fits in this window. I'm like, how big is this? You know?

It's your goal window.

My goals are this big.

Your Overton window.

Yeah. But my, my time here might be left to here, so I still want to do all those things. I just now have to figure out, you know, more efficient ways to still do all those neat things.

Yeah.

And, um, your health is absolutely important, so I do a lot of, you know, funny hippie things to keep myself in shape. As soon as you possibly can, get up in the morning and go ground yourself. Put your bare feet on the earth. Jump in cold plunge pools as often as you can. Do all the Joe Rogan pills. Get your hands on them. Alpha Brain. You know, I just, you know, he fascinates me because, you know, whether you like him or not out there, but that guy has enough money where he wants to live forever. He's gonna try. To find a way. So I'm just, I'll steal his ideas on how to do it. I don't have to do the research. I'll just see if it makes sense.

Well, I mean, he's got the same level of curiosity that you have.

And you too.

That's critical in sales. Very curious guy.

Look at all the things you find out there to help salespeople that you're so gracious to put on your own feed. That's, you know, not your original content. Yeah. But it's like, hey, I think this might help somebody today. And you just, you, you take the time to send it out there to people. You know, and thank you for doing that. I would, I wouldn't have seen so many people to follow and read, uh, without, you know, you putting it out there. 'Cause I was busy over here trying to figure out how I scale.

You're putting out a fire.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like, hey, by the way, we're having a, and we, I can't even call it in our industry with our MSAs these days where we've, uh, we changed a lot of nomenclature really quickly. So fires are now thermal incipient events. Excellent.

Someone got paid to come up with that.

We've changed its pronouns.

That was politically correct.

I'm doing it. Yeah, we're doing our best to stay within the realms of the world right now in our, in our industry. Whoa.

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

I'm on, I'm on every platform. LinkedIn's super, you know, helpful these days to everyone. And I truly, if I can help someone, please reach out to me. I'm easy to get ahold of. And I just, I want to bless others, you know, like you do. My favorite thing to do is take people under my wing and crowbar them into getting them steps ahead of where I was, you know, early on.

See, when he talks about learning how everything works, it's not because he needs to know how it works. He's curious how it works, and that curiosity drives him. And A lot of people just assume it works, don't care, and that's okay too. But when you have the curiosity, what you end up learning is not just how it works. You learn all this other stuff which spurs more curiosity. And you may say, well, that, that's a never-ending spiral. But it's a spiral that helps you make more money, to be more successful, to have more things to speak with your prospects about. Now, everyone today is so focused on the transaction, but in B2B, the transaction only happens when you do all the other stuff. And there's so many things that can go wrong that you got to understand and anticipate those. That's winning the complex sale. If you want to win it. And we had a great office hours yesterday, and we talked about a lot of things that I know are not taught anywhere else, that I didn't really learn till this year. And I learn them— how? People in the course, they come to me with a problem, a challenge in their sales process and situations. And I go, well, okay, I'd never run into this before. I think this might help you. And if it does, we put it in the course because all these sales have nuances, little twists, depending on how mature the product is, the client is, but we still want to close it. And that's where the magic happens. So go to b2brevenue.com and ask yourself this question. Do you want to be a student of the game or do you just want to be another salesperson? Because what we're doing today to sales isn't that good.

Yeah.

How did it turn into spam? This great profession? I don't know. In B2B Revenue, we teach you how to build up these organic conversations. You don't have to send out hundreds of spam messages every day because if you approach people the right way— and I'm not talking about personalization or relevance or triggers, those are all helpful, but I don't know, I think you read an email because it's personalized and relevant and has a trigger. But do you care about the person? Are you curious about them? Do you have any reciprocation that you feel obligated to, to do from an email spam when you know it's machine generated? I don't, but maybe you do. But there's a way to do that without pitching, because as soon as you start talking like a salesperson, You, you walk yourself right into a trap, the commodity trap. And once you're there, you can't get out because now they view you— it's like the friend's trap if you've been in a relationship before. They view you differently. You have to start on the right foot as a peer, and I show you how to do that. Go to b2brevenue.com and decide what type of career you want to have in sales. We'll see you next time.