HOW THIS REP KILLED IT IN THE TOUGHEST MARKET EVER

Imagine this. Imagine selling into the hospitality space, essentially hotels, and you just get this territory. You're a brand new rep, just moved up from sales development rep. Now you're an AE. Now you get the chance to close big deals all by yourself. Ah, but this crazy little pandemic comes around. And slows down everything. And in the hospitals— not hospital, but hotel space— pretty much stops it. And that's kind of the situation our guest today came to the course with me at. And I remember it crystal clear because it was right that big month when no one knew what was going on. He started scheduling one-on-ones. And, you know, so I did my typical analysis. Where does the deal stall? What's working? What's not working? What's the feedback you're getting? And we put together a plan. And I didn't really have that much confidence given the situation that it would be insanely effective, but it was. And I think we get a lot out of this lesson today. First is people are always buying. I know there's lots of— everyone's got a reason why not to, But there are the people who do need what you sell. And the timing most likely will not be perfect. But how do you create that urgency? How do you get those deals going, moving, not stalling, approved, purchased? Instead of playing this vendor game, tell me what it does. How much does it cost? How much does it cost? How much does it cost? How much does it cost? How much does it cost? Oh, it costs too much. I'll never call you again. And that's kind of that— we fall into that trap where we're viewed as a commodity instead of what we're really doing for our client.

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

Hey, Brian. Yeah, thanks for having me. Um, yeah, I feel like I'm pretty typical of what a lot of people that you interview. I actually didn't start out in sales and didn't think that I wanted to do sales initially. Imagine that. Started, I kind of went to college, didn't really graduate, kind of same like you, you know, did the night school thing and then got a tech support job at a startup.

Oh.

Hated that. And then Found my way as an SDR, and then kind of been working ever since in sales.

And did you like it at first?

No, yes, and no. It was incredibly difficult. It was, believe it or not, I would say more difficult than tech support. You know, doing cold calls. And I think the hardest thing was just sort of trying to Like not having any sort of roadmap or like kind of a structure as to, okay, if you do these things, this is what will happen. You know, and throughout my life, there's not really a lot that's like that, you know, in school, it's pretty straightforward. You have a syllabus. So I think that's what's really interesting about sales is it's very like, it's kind of like entrepreneurship in that you really don't have any guidance. It's just figure it out.

Well, all you have to do is work harder. Yeah, you know, I hear that's what I hear works.

Well, it's funny because, so I was an SDR and then I ended up, you know, I did pretty well, got promoted quickly. I think they really liked me at my company and I'm still at that company actually and it's a wonderful place. But Kind of the first year of sales being a true kind of quota-carrying rep, I kind of— that was my mindset was just work hard, just work hard. And, you know, it didn't work.

And that's one thing about sales that a lot of people don't talk about. Because the answer is always just do more of it instead of figuring out a smarter way of doing it.

Yeah.

Um, and what was it about college you didn't like? Was it just that it wasn't your bag?

Yeah, I, I didn't like— I just never really was big into school. Maybe I was a bit of a procrastinator, kind of disorganized. Um, you know, didn't— was very terrible, like very terrible at, you know, turning in, turning in papers on time and doing that sort of thing. It just, it was very anxiety-inducing for me. I liked to be able to kind of explore and learn on my own. That was always, I would say, even as a child, something that I had as a strength and something that you talk a lot about. And early on when I heard it from you on one of your podcasts, I think it was the kind of Brutal Truth About Sales and Selling or the— no, it was actually the Questions podcast. You mentioned curiosity as a strategy and strength, and that resonated with me a lot because I've always been a very curious person. Never— not necessarily a rule follower, but very curious.

And that's good because that's a hard skill to learn if you don't have it already.

Yeah.

And in sales, it's like nobody teaches you or even wants you to be curious. It's all about the transaction and listen to me, hear about me and my product and how great it is. How long did it take before you became comfortable in sales?

Gosh. Well, it probably took me at least a year to get comfortable with the kind of day-to-day aspects of selling or sort of just like the demo and the pitch and talking to different people and being comfortable with uncomfortable situations. That probably took me about a year. But what was interesting was it kind of simultaneously, like at the same time, I started to get better because I was focusing less on the activity and a lot less on kind of the quantity strategy, the hardworking strategy. And I was like, well, how can I be more effective? And actually part of that was, you know, listening to a lot of what you said, joining the course, which if anybody who's listening to this, Absolutely do it. I mean, if you want to make a lot of money, if you want to do well, listen to the course. Brian did not tell me to say this. This is just my personal experience. Just understanding how sales works and what happens when you understand how it works is all of a sudden you have less stress.

Yeah, because that's it. Because a lot of it is you don't know where you are. You know where you want to go, but you don't know how to get there and you don't know why you're not there already.

Right, right. Um, and I think the coolest thing has been not just learning for myself, and, and, and I've kind of went— so when I started with your course, Brian, I was at the bottom. It was— I was selling hotel software in the middle of COVID I remember. Yeah, you remember.

On the other side, I was like, how can I help this guy? I'm like, I don't know if I could do that, right? Because it was like But it worked, right?

I mean, it worked so well. It was kind of incredible. I mean, it took about a month, right? I remember just the first month, it was consistency. It was just listening to all of the office hours. It was going through and mapping my process, thinking about my sale. And, you know, I threw up a goose egg the first month that that I kind of started with your course, um, and it was, it was tough, right? But I, but I felt like I was getting close. And then that second month, I mean, this was incredible. I, I, I sold software to a hotel that was closed, and this wasn't even like the kind of hotel that typically buys because I was employing the strategies that we talked about. And it was once it closed, I remember I immediately messaged you on LinkedIn. I was like, Brian, I just closed, I just closed this deal. I can't believe it happened.

And then all of a sudden I was just And this was, if I remember right, it was right around March, April of 2020, right?

Yeah. And that was when— that was— yeah, sorry.

Peak. It was like the world's ending. And you were— I guess you still are selling marketing software to hotels.

Yes, yes, exactly, exactly.

And I was like, you know, as the teacher, I'm like, why is it the people only join who are selling the hardest of the hard?

I know, right? I know. Why can't we get any order takers?

Yeah, wait, those are easy to help.

Yeah.

And well, yeah, well, what did you try before the course? Because I'm sure the company had a process that they, they believed in. You had a good product there. It works, you know, during normal times there's a need for it, right?

Yeah, I would say so. Before that, before the course, what I really tried was, gosh, I mean, I did try to pick my colleagues' brains. And what I found was it, when I would sit there and interview my colleagues that were the highest performing reps and ask them sort of post facto, you know, okay, how do you sell? What did you do well? You know, there was a lot of truisms and platitudes.

Platitudes.

Right? And it wasn't very helpful for me.

What do you do with that?

Right?

It made me more frustrated. And I was just like, okay, let me just— what, be more— bring insights? You know, it's like—

Listen better?

Or, you know, say this.

Yeah.

But to the— to kind of the other side of that, and to really— and to the credit of my colleagues, what I found was Listening to their calls is when I started to learn actually what works.

Yeah.

And what did you hear in the calls?

I heard— so the first thing I did was I would go through because we use like Gong, right? The call software. I would listen and I would try to understand, okay, what was the customer saying? What were they asking? Why were they asking it? Like, what was the intention? And then how did the rep respond?

Yes.

And that, that is gold because everybody's talking about the inside or what to say. It's what the customer is asking, right? How do they perceive this?

Yeah.

What, what turns them on? What do they like? Absolutely.

Absolutely. And, um, you know, I— and I think that was, that was important. Um, But what's so incredible, Brian, and this is something, you know, again, I know, you know, to kind of go back to the course and sort of my ultimate takeaway, and I think what's the most fantastic thing about sales is once you get it and you understand the META framework, what you realize is the deals that other reps say, oh, you have no shot, you can't do it, all of a sudden you can close these deals. And it's incredible because those deals, kind of the marginal deals, those are the ones that I find you can charge a way higher premium. You can actually make more money for the company, these marginal complex deals. And that was something that was really incredible. And now what I do is, I mean, a lot of the stuff that I've learned with you, I even implement with my team. It actually took a long time because I've been trying to help my team. It didn't catch on early on at all. But now, especially when you start crushing it, you start hitting President's Club because then the following year, the way the story goes, it was 2020. I mean, it was early COVID. It was the end of the world. I was trying to cold call hotels while they were closed and their life was ending to sell them marketing software, which is insane. But kind of, I ended up really rebounding towards the end of the year and then made President's Club the following year. And now this year, I'm already on track to blow it out. And so now people are listening and asking me and I'm just kind of implement— I'm just giving them a lot of what I've learned with you actually. One of the most impactful things that is very small, but instead of asking the really annoying question of any questions.

Yeah, that's a real great question.

Yeah.

What do you do now?

Right.

Nope.

Asking, what is your reaction to this? Every single time I've asked that, I've gotten an answer.

Yeah.

And for the people who don't know, when you say, what do you think? Or what am I missing? Or any other questions, it almost gets a stimulus response.

Yep.

Like hitting your knee with the hammer at the doctor's office. It's like, it's like going into a retail store. And it's like, can I help you? Yeah, naturally, just looking, right?

Yeah, exactly, just looking, right? Right.

What's your reaction gets into what's, what's really going on, because it's a feeling, it's an emotion, it's not a lot, it's not even logic yet, right?

Yeah, right.

And what do people usually say?

Gosh, um, I mean, it ranges from— but, but it ranges, right? I mean, typically it's You'll get everything from, on the one end, you'll get the kind of honest, like, oh, this is great, but, and then all of a sudden they start telling you the reasons why this might not work out. And that's what you need to hear. That's what you want to know.

That's your competition.

Right. It's the competition. And on the other end, you'll get, you know, if you did a good enough job of sort of understanding what they care about, why they're talking to you, and then kind of positioning the product towards what they care about, they're like, this is incredible. And I've seen, I've seen now customers who are almost more excited to get to buy my marketing software than I am. And that's magic. That is magical. It's such an incredible feeling when your customers are more excited than you are even. And you're getting—

A lot of people would look at this as not that complex of a sale. But it really is, isn't it?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, and I— okay, this is something else that I think is, is, is, is difficult to navigate because our company has grown a lot. Uh, we've made some acquisitions, and as we've gotten bigger and we have private equity companies that are, that are now kind of managing the show, um, they want, they want to make it sort of, as you would put it, the, um, conveyor belt Factory, factory, revenue factory. Yeah, revenue factory. And that's sort of their view. But what they don't understand is that all, every, no one sale is the same. But having a framework of, well, next steps, reasons to continue the conversation, you know, who else can say no? looking at your deals in those terms. Um, it's— it is, I think, like your analogy that you've said before was just, you know, you're— you want to— you don't want to ask them what's the appropriate next step. You want to get— you want to tell them this is how we are going to get this done, essentially.

Yeah. The analogy I use a lot is being a concierge or a guide, because you know what the next step should be.

Yes.

Why not kind of lead them towards that?

Yeah.

Because they don't know what the next step is. Typically it's, I want to think about it.

Right.

Which, you know, yes, you should allow some time to think about it, but we need to do something.

Right. We need to get your, get your IT team involved, get, get your, your operations folks, you know, who's your, you know, your direct report, you know, who Does that person matter? Are they just kind of— is that a red herring? Is this a non-issue? Absolutely. I think a lot of— I think that we expect people to, like you always say, know how to buy. But that's something I've talked to a lot of my reps, a lot of the other reps, because I'm still a quota-carrying rep. But, you know, I really want to help my team. I really care about my team. And What I tell them is like, okay, if— how do you purchase something for our company? Like, I asked them that question. They have no idea. They're like, no idea.

Who does? Yeah.

Okay. I send it to my VP, I guess. But well, is that how you do it? You know?

And that's what they end up doing. They send it to their boss who never heard of this.

Yeah.

And there's no context. No prioritization, no due diligence, no story behind it, why we're doing this, why now, why not with someone else, what's the problem we're trying to solve.

Yeah.

And, you know, because I was thinking the other day, it's like when I buy a car, how do I buy it? I don't buy a car like anyone else buys a car, right? I search the internet, I drive by the dealership 5 or 10 times when it's not open, I go look at them. And then when the pressures of my existing car breaks down, then I explore. But is that a decision-making process? No, it's like whatever feels comfortable at the time.

Right, right.

But if you— we've been through these deals and we know what it takes to get it done. And it's not just forwarding a proposal. That, that's the key to not getting it done.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, where'd your motivation come from? Because I mean, you did this with your own money and your own time.

Yeah.

Your own motive, and you did the work.

Yeah.

You didn't like audit the course, you took the course.

Yeah, did the Map to Money. Um, the motivation came from just a desire. I guess on the one hand, it's— it was a desire. I really wanted to make a lot of money. I really wanted to, to, to be successful. But I think it was sort of forced because I wasn't the cookie-cutter person who could kind of take the traditional employment route. I wasn't. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to get the degree, get the entry-level job at a white-collar entry-level job and work your way up for 20 years. I always kind of broke the rules. I was the kid getting kicked out of class all the time for arguing with the teacher. But I was also very, you know, I thought that I had a lot of intellectual ability as well. And so I wanted to find something that allowed me to make a lot of money and maximize my strengths. And when I, you know, when I realized that sales was the ability to, was that opportunity for me, it sort of was like, I'm just passionate about this profession and everything that entails sales, sort of like I think how you are about sales.

Well, that's it, because a lot of us end up in sales, you know, because we don't fit into like school.

Exactly.

Whether we don't have the attention span or we don't think the way the books and school teaches us and wants us to think.

Yep.

Or we just can't sit still and we need variety during the distractions during the day.

Yes.

But doesn't mean we're not smart or ambitious or capable of doing a lot.

Right, right. And yeah, sorry, go.

What was it like after you made that President's Club that year? What did that feel like?

Um, it felt very validating. It felt actually more motivating. It was like, okay, I've I've mapped it out. I've kind of built, you know, I've built the algorithm. I have the rough draft of the algorithm. Now let's tune it in and let's get to the next level. It was just like a, to me it was a stepping stone. It was a really exciting development, but I, it was by no means was I satisfied. It was just, okay, now I have it all. I have it all. I have my process. How can we get to the next level? And so, you know, one of the things that I really pride I had took a lot of pride in was, you know, we had another rep who he just hit every single month and it was the most incredible thing. And I strived towards that and I was like, and I was grinding and I was trying, that was my goal, hit every month. But then I realized, I was like, I don't know if this is the right goal for me to be focused on.

Yeah.

And so I reprioritized and I said, what if I can bring in the highest value deals for kind of my tier, my territory. Deals that were like double or triple what everyone else was doing to the same type of accounts. And so that was what I focused on. I was like, how can I do that? And now it's almost a norm. It's just kind of my— it's just what I'm doing. And I'm going after— I'm finding ways to go after these more complex deals and make a lot of money for the company. And everybody loved that.

And that's it, because a lot of people, certainly early in sales, think sales is kind of like a personality trait as opposed to, you know, a profession where you understand how companies change, why they would change, and how to help them change.

Yes.

Um, but you don't seem that analytical. But you seem a good match between the analytical and the personality. Is that accurate or?

That's interesting you say that. I would, I think that when it comes to sort of the empathy, you know, I don't think I was born with the most empathy. I think I was always a little bit more just kind of focused on what I cared about and didn't really worry about other things, you know.

Anyone else cares about.

Yeah, just to be honest. But I think kind of gaining that outward mindset, because I've always— gaining that outward mindset and that empathy and that emotional intelligence and pairing it with just the ability to understand the way people operate and kind of apply my own sort of curiosity about the world. I think that that combination together is what is pretty exciting because there's a benefit to having that analytical skills, but I think sort of the cost—

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think the cost is oftentimes people are not— don't have the ability or kind of aren't focused on what other people are thinking and feeling.

And it's so critical in the enterprise sale because you've got to put together your strategy based off of how they're going to receive it.

Yes.

And was there a particular moment or epiphany where— because clearly you had the natural curiosity, to argue with teachers, which is good.

Yeah.

But how do you take that curiosity, which is the first step to empathy? Was there an epiphany? Because I seem to remember one during one of our one-on-ones that stuck with me that I thought was the breakthrough. You may not have, but—

Yeah, I mean, I probably was. You know, there's so much kind of running through my head at that time and Still, I'm always kind of just stacking things up and in my own mind, I would say, I would say I really think that first deal that I got in early COVID was a breakthrough. It was the breakthrough because it showed me that sales is not a numbers game, that it's about what you do.

Yes.

And was it that one where it went to the board and they approved it, if I remember?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And for the people listening, this— that was like April, right? That was a month after the shutdown, and your customers were basically— had nothing coming in, right?

They were closed, you know.

And you're selling them marketing software.

Right. And it's like, yeah, not, not, it wasn't, it wasn't ideal. But I think it's, it's, that's the incredible thing of when you get it, when you under— when you pair all of the different components of what it means to be sort of that, that seller. And I think, I think something else that really was impactful for me too was from your book that The Maverick Mindset that I have on audiobook and I listen to it probably once a month was just sort of coming up with the idea of what a maverick is, like conceptualizing the maverick and how that's different from the A player and the B player and the C player and sort of giving me something to strive towards. Like I wanted to be the maverick, you know, and it's a moving target. It's not like I'm there and it's set. And I think that's what's baked into that. It's a moving target. You consistently move towards that. But having something to strive towards and having a lot of pride in selling and understanding that you're, like you said, it's not just the personality thing. It's really just oftentimes, sometimes I feel like I'm the one who's out of the loop with my team. I feel like I'm sort of the one who's least personable out of my team, believe it or not.

Well, the personality thing can be misinterpret it. Not everybody likes the gregarious, outgoing life of the party.

Absolutely.

And I think you naturally have maverick-type characteristics, like the arguing with the teacher, not fitting in to the natural progression of, you know, high school, college, whatever, that gets you thinking outside of the box. Because I gotta believe if you, if you continued kind of doing what you were told, that you wouldn't have made President's Club.

No way. There's no chance. Um, because I, I had tried that and it didn't work.

And, and that's one of the key things that I saw when I got into sales, that the people that were doing unbelievable stuff were not following You know, some book step-by-step process.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that they— something drove them and they didn't—

they don't—

when I say break the rules, they don't— I don't mean laws. I mean they, they kind of don't let the rules rule them.

Exactly.

They think, well, what if I had anything I could do? What would I do?

Yeah.

So you can start thinking through what's going to get this deal going, right? Because you hear too many reps, oh, my manager wouldn't let me do that. I can't do that. I can't do this. I can't do— well, okay, but what can you do?

Yeah, right. What can you do? Um, I don't know, create commercial insights? I mean—

Well, that's it, because they hear that on LinkedIn or YouTube, and there's nothing wrong with it.

No, of course not.

Right. But it's like, it's like coming up with great questions.

Yeah.

Or a great cold call opener.

Yeah.

Okay, thanks. Great subject line.

Right.

Tips and tricks, love them. But they don't close deals.

No, no, it's sort of the— it is understanding the framework. It's understanding that it's the totality. It's sort of like there isn't one thing. I mean, there's many. It's like I say, I like with— I think sales and life as well are just It's just a series of Venn diagrams where overlapping, and you gotta understand that. And look, and when you look at your deals, understand that it's sort of like you need to do, like when you don't make your number, it's on you, it's not on anyone else. So you need to do what you need to do to get to your number.

Yeah.

Within reason and all laws and all that, right?

And too many people get comfortable because the excuses and the rationalizations of why you don't feel good, right? But they don't get you anywhere. They get you probably backwards because now you think you did an A job or a B job when it doesn't matter. You didn't get the deal.

Doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter.

And I think, um, there's— maybe this is just my company, um, because my company is a— it's a pretty a pretty special place. It really means a lot to me, just the people. I have very close relationships with all the people from the exec team all the way down, just very close relationships. And I think maybe it's conscious, maybe they talk about it behind closed doors, or maybe it's sort of an unconscious understanding. But the way I see the rules is like, they're sort of like If you get the guidelines, the suggestions, strong suggestions. Yeah, strong suggestions. But ultimately, I think they— I get this sense that they almost want me to break the rules.

You know, everybody loves a surprise and everybody hates a disappointment. And when you give a big surprise, it's amazing what's forgiven.

Totally.

Cool.

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

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn, Angelo Valle. You can find me, Valle is my last name. I reshare a lot of your stuff, Brian. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. So anybody who's interested in sales, please connect with me. I'd love to chat with you.

What I was thinking about today during my run Was what's this guy going to be like 10, 20, 30 years from now? When you find out how to do this, how to close large complex sales when you're in your 20s and thinking about none of that hunting and pecking tips and tricks strategy or, oh, I read this book. Let's try this. Let's sell with insights. Yeah. Okay. Or let's find the— oh, where's the gap between where you are and where you want to be? Okay, we can help you. Congratulations, you've got interest. You do not have urgency. You do not have a deal. In the complex sale, what we forget is it's all work if we don't get a deal. It's all free work if we don't get the deal. So Are all these elements of sales important? Yeah, they are. Honestly, they are. I make fun of them only because people think that's all there is to sales. There's a lot of great things. A lot of— I like tips and tricks. I have nothing against them. I only want to emphasize to you they're not enough. And if you get on the tips and tricks treadmill, You never get off because there's never enough of them to put your game together. Imagine if a lawyer told you, you know, hey, you know, I know you're on trial for murder and you're gonna probably hit the electric chair if I don't get you off, and I know you're innocent, but I'm gonna go look for some tips and tricks to get you off. You'd be like, ah, get me another lawyer. Don't you know what you're doing? Don't you understand the whole game? And how to win it?

Uh...

Now, you might be asking yourself, what was this guy doing before he took the course? He was doing exactly what 99% of the people out there are doing. It wasn't like he didn't get the company system. The problem was he did get the company system. And it wasn't the company's fault nor his manager. They were doing what they believed Is good selling. And it is if you're in a pull market where people want your product, need your product, have urgency all created on their own. Maybe you're in that big brand. And I love these million-dollar salespeople I see. You ever notice they're always at some big-ass brand? You know, where they're like the 5th person on the team. And believe me, my company got acquired by one of those big brands. And what you end up learning is the deals kind of would happen anyway. Yeah, you can make them bigger and faster. And the good— I liked it. It was fun. Honestly, I didn't— you know, it was kind of annoying, but I was able to do huge big deals because you had a big company. Somebody had already done The, you know, penetrate the account from 30 years ago. So you are upselling and cross-selling, uh, into these accounts. Well, if you have that, congratulations. Uh, if it's the deal still stalling, you may want to learn about this. And I get hit up on people all the time, uh, in email, on LinkedIn. It's like, oh, I should take the course, but I'm busy. What, busy losing deals? Hey, think about the time. The time you can never buy. But what you can do is skip the time of trial and error and first understand the game you're playing. Understand where you are in the game. And if you feel lost, if you feel like you don't understand where you are, that's even more of a reason to get into the course. And you'll be in there with people with 2 or 3 years experience or 20 or 30 years experience. Because honestly, if I was working for someone else and had to do these deals, I'd be in the course anyway because I want to talk about my deals. A lot of it is just getting it out of your head so that you can think about it Without the blinders of the emotion that you need this deal. This is your profession. Really, it honestly is. And if you want to make the most of it, because if you don't, it's not a good profession. It's really a great profession when you really work at it both hard and smart and understand what you're up against. It's not just likability. And empathy and curiosity, they're all great ingredients, but you've got to understand how companies buy, how these decisions get made, and see the world through their eyes. Then things start to make sense. Then you start to get the epiphanies. You start to see what has worked for other people. Because if you hear a case like today's interview where somebody with little experience Lots of ambition, open-minded, willing to do the work, but needed help understanding where he was and why they would buy. Now, I was thinking of 2 other people that were in the course at the same exact time. One just moved into B2B, and he was selling pacemaker tracking software. And of course, hard to get into hospitals during the pandemic. And hard to sell something that wasn't mission critical. You could think of it as nice to have. He was crushing it. We put together a system that allowed him to prioritize his deals on the likelihood of closing and understand how to tip the deal from interest into action. And he crushed it. Another person who was also on the podcast, A couple of weeks ago, Dustin, you know, here's a guy who moved from selling construction equipment into Home Depot to selling medical equipment into hospitals. Something he'd never done, something I'd never done, but we were able to get him to the top in 1 year. Now, what does it take? It does take a little bit of work. It does take, you know, listening to the one-on-ones, showing up for the one-on-ones, coming to office hours, sharing your deals, being a little vulnerable, asking for help, asking for feedback, asking for ideas, listening into others. And here's the beauty of this course. All these people's one-on-ones are in the course. So you can go in there and hear The deal progressions from the initial ones where we're both kind of wondering if this is even possible, never mind how to do it, all the way to the high fives when the deals are closed. And honestly, that's why I do it, because seeing this type of progress with young or anybody who's highly motivated, curious, Willing to do the work, willing to be a little bit vulnerable, ask for help, push me, push the group to learn these things, and then see the outcome. I mean, that, that's it, man. That's, that's why we do it. Now, our natural mammal brain tells us, well, I gotta work with somebody who is, uh, exactly like me— my gender, my generation, My location, my industry. But if I've learned anything about the complex sale, you know, the exact industry and product, it has its nuances. It does. I will never say that they're all the same, but there are natural elements to it. And the reason they stall are almost identical. And the reasons they close also have a similar pattern. And once you understand that and accept it, a lot of us just fight it. We fight it our whole career. Once you understand it, accept it, and then start to play it to win, it's a beautiful thing. Check it out, b2brevenue.com. If you take the course and you're in the B2B large complex sale, it's game-changing. It is a minimum 25 to 50 to 100% Income increase if you do it, but only you can do it. No one can do it for you. Check it out, set up a call, watch the videos. I've got 2 of them. One is an overview of how the courses work, and then the other one drills deep into which one's the right one for you and what you get out of it. Both of the links are in the show notes below, right here on your smartphone where you're listening. They're also on YouTube, right on the channel page. Just go there, just search Brian Burns Sales on YouTube. Also on my LinkedIn profile, also on the website. So everywhere you find me, you'll find those videos. Take a look, a couple looks maybe, and ask yourself, do you want it? And do you want it how bad? And are you willing to do it? No one else out there is teaching this. There's no other course where you can listen to the one-on-ones from the day the person started to the course to the day the person made President's Club.

There's nothing out there like that.

You know what else is out there? It's a bunch of people who have 5 years of sales experience and had some success, and now they copy someone else's stuff and they say the right words, but they don't understand how things get done. And okay, you can copy their tips and tricks, and it might— you might get the 5 or 10% increase, but I bet you've already done that. What do you do after that? And if, if you want to save money, you're in the wrong freaking career. We're in the money-making career, not the money-saving career. Go work for the government if you want to save money. Go be a teacher, have summers off, and make $30K a year. It's up to you. Nothing against teachers. I learned a little bit from them. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Tell a friend about the show. If you see it fly by on LinkedIn, give it a little like, a little comment, a little share. Check out Sales Questions Podcast. We'll see you next time.

I was just going to give a bit of a testimonial, if that's all right, just to kick it off. Just—

Only if it's positive.

No, it is positive. It was a— yeah, just because I started the course, I think, in June of last year, 2021. I got a few more months left of access, which is good. But I feel like it's been a transformative experience in my own personal and professional life. I was able to go from a period of a low sales slump in the middle of last year, in the summer and early fall, and then really was able to then come back and exceed my target by the end of the, by the end of the 4th quarter. And so the only other thing I would say is that it's also really differentiated me amongst people on the sales team in terms of focus and clarity of what's important. And now I feel really good about what I'm doing in terms of the approach of reaching out to customers and having those conversations and being focused, as opposed to just doing a lot of the other busy work on the side, like organizing resources and doing business analytics and all this other stuff. And so it's really been a noticeable difference with our executive team at my company. And so I just want to thank you for the content and for these opportunities. And so I hope that helps. If there's anybody new, it's— I'm a work in progress, but it's getting better. Good. Yeah.

And you're selling pretty hard stuff.