HOW THIS REP WENT FROM PROCUREMENT TO CRUSHING IT IN B2B SALES AND SELLING

Some of us started off in sales, but a lot of us move into sales. And today's guest comes from the lovely Department of Procurement. So we're going to have some interesting topics to dig into. But if you listen to people and how they transitioned from a— procurement's almost the opposite of sales, isn't it?

Yeah.

Into sales. And the motivation behind it and the journey of how to develop the skills. And this is the critical part because I— when we develop the skills, we tend to get a little too comfortable. And after a few years, we get the skill, the confidence, the charisma, the charm in front of our clients. And then we make the mistake of thinking that when we're not in front of the client, that our deals are just as charming and charismatic as we are. And they may be, but we need to be a little insecure about our deals, just a little, to see if we can find the holes, find the things that could go wrong that most likely will go wrong because the complex sale is one trap right after another, and it's all about preparation because the repair is near impossible. Let's get into this interview. At the end, I'll sum it up. And if you happen to be in the courses, make sure you're checking out the office hours. And I did an interesting video yesterday on what I call love letters. You know, the emails that we send and we say, love 15 minutes of your time, love to give you a demo, love to hear what's going on. And it's not just the word love. Granted, it's kind of overused, diminished. And the feedback I got was, what else can we do? You can start a conversation and get a meeting. And I don't mean to be elusive. I mean to Share that it's a skill. It's not just a script. Today, everybody thinks selling is a subject line, a call to action, a cold call opener. Those are just tiny elements of it. And if you're using those things, you're probably at the wrong level of sales. The level you need to be is what you hear the guests on the show. They use their network. They know how to start a conversation without a pitch. Yes, they still use email, and yes, they still use the phone and social and every other channel, but it's how they do it. It's a talent that you can develop, and it's all about empathy, not sympathy.

Empathy.

Empathy. Thinking like the other person. Not thinking like a salesperson thinking like the other person. Like a normal person thinking like the other person. Because if you think like a salesperson, we got so much pressure on us that we naturally don't think like a client. We think like a salesperson and we need the order. And that clouds our judgment. And makes us do more dumb things faster. So if you want to develop this skill of how to start a conversation and get a meeting so that you no longer have to send cold emails and do cold calls— yes, you still have to use the phone and email, but you use it in a way that's organic and natural, not salesy. Everybody who sends those cold emails, Thinks there's value in there. But how many reply? Clearly the client didn't think there was any value to it. So it doesn't matter what we think. It matters what the recipient thinks. And this is a skill. It's a talent. And once you learn it, you're unstoppable. Go to b2brevenue.com. Sign up now. Here we go.

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

Yeah, thank you. So of course, my name is Craig Hodges, and I appreciate the opportunity to join today. Thank you so much, Brian. As far as background, I've been in sales for, I'm guessing, well over 20 years. Maybe not well over, but over 20 years. And I started out like you, a little different than most salespeople. I didn't get a BDR job out of college like a lot of folks did, and I wasn't involved in the sales area at all. In fact, my, my father was though. He was a longtime salesperson. And so I always thought, well, that, that's a good career to have, but I wanted to get into business. And so I started out as a purchasing agent. And so I did that for probably about 6 years, uh, sitting on, on one side of the desk and interviewing salespeople all the time. And after a while, what happened was Your performance didn't match what your pay was.

It doesn't, has no correlation whatsoever.

No, it's not correlated. So I'm saving the company millions of dollars and I'm getting, you know, just part of the, part of the, I guess we'll call it the group's budget. I would get a little bit of the raise, maybe, you know, a percent more than everybody else, which, you know, it wasn't enough. So after seeing these salespeople come across the desk over and over again, sitting on their side and talking to them, I thought, you know, I can do that. And I had a— I always put it— I had like a plaque that would sit on the side of the salespeople, let them know what I'm looking for. And so since I had that, I thought, well, I'm just gonna go jump on the other side of the desk and do that.

How'd that go?

Ah, yeah. So basically it was a culture shock, to say the least. Right. And so the first thing I did was call on one of my good suppliers, and I knew they had a need for what I was selling, and I had given them a great opportunity, one that they're still 20-some years later exercising today. And they had absolutely no desire to buy from me. I was like, what?

It's me.

It's me. Yeah. Don't you know who I am? Yeah, who I was. Yeah. And so that, that was my first, uh, introduction into sales. I thought I'd get something under my belt really quick and it just didn't go how I wanted. So, you know, you gotta adjust and you gotta, you gotta put in the work. And that's what I did.

So the motive was economic at first, or was it economic and future upside?

The motivation was essentially economic. And so, you know, when you're on one side of the desk, you're getting paid a salary to do your job, maybe a small performance bonus, and you're doing better than everybody else in the group. But in sales, you find out right away how you're doing and you get instant feedback from the market, as painful as that may be and how awesome it'll be too, right? So that's why I got into sales, just because You know, the customers, when you deal with them directly, are voting you up or down, whereas management, even in sales management, subjective, right? I mean, but it's really, it's really the customer. So that's what I like.

Yeah. And how long did it take you to get your groove in sales?

How long did it take my groove? I would, I would say to hit the groove, it was probably, I'm probably a slow learner, right? So I'd say it's probably 3 years. And then once I hit my groove, I was rolling. And year after year, I was the number one salesperson year after year after year after year.

Well, let's dig into that.

How did you do that? So essentially, I modeled myself after what I wanted to see as a salesman, right? And so empathy, I had that plaque that I talked about on the side of my desk and I have it sitting right here. And, and I would always— the first thing on the list is, you know, have the, the buyer, right, which is of course the customer's interest at heart, right? You need to be able to go to bat for them within your firm. That was like the number one thing. And so I always carried that forward, making sure that I understood, or that the customer understood, that my job is to make you look good. And the reason for that was, was, you know, as a purchasing agent, You make decisions all day long, right? And, and, you know, if everything goes right, that's your job.

Yeah.

It's when things go wrong. Now, why did you make that decision? And of course, in, in this world, especially in the software world, you know, everything's not gonna go right. Just isn't gonna happen.

It's not.

And so now you have to find out, do you have a good supplier or a bad supplier? That's when you find out. If everything goes right, you never know. But if something goes wrong, now you know. So I always wanted to work for a good supplier. And that's, you know, that's what I call them today still, suppliers.

But suppliers, vendors.

Yeah, vendors. Oh yeah, that's a nasty word, right? A vendor.

Now I gotta believe, you know, because I did a short stint in procurement as well, it wasn't very formal. There was 2 of us, so it was really just administration. But you, you understood how companies get things done administratively.

Yep.

Did that help you in sales? It still does.

Yeah, it absolutely still does. And so it's one of those things where you do it day in, day out for years. You, you know, like for example, I would bring in consultants to help with certain activities because I didn't know the full business. So I'd hire a consultant and let them assist me through that. And of course, you're putting on committees, right? Which of course Now, I mean, you see a lot of buying happening even today with committees. Now you got to deal with these multiple personalities on it, on the committee. You got to make sure that, you know, you're dealing with an analyst, but you're hearing the people in the group saying, hey, this analyst has got really the keys of the deal, so you better make sure you pay attention to the analyst. And those kind of things sitting on the inside, I would understand. And what helps you and what helps me in sales is I can tell where I'm at in the deal. I can tell if I'm doing okay. I can tell if I have problems. I can tell who I should focus on, all because of that experience sitting on the other side of the desk and watching it, answering those questions, and most importantly, listening.

Yeah. And so getting to number 1, that must— clearly must have been a goal. You brought it up, so you clearly value that.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So what's behind that?

Yeah, what's behind getting to be number one? Well, you have to do, you have to do the homework on the organization you're, you're looking to go after. You have to send the emails, which of course back then there wasn't emails, right? You didn't have that. But you have today, you have to send the emails, you got to reach out on LinkedIn, you got to do all those things that are out there, but it has to be a quality lead as well. And quality comes with building relationship, making sure that that prospect understands that you have their interests at heart and that you understand what they're trying to solve. Not what I'm selling, what are they trying to solve. And so that, that's really the key. And what I would always do, you know, from, from when that— I used to sell recording Right. And so telephone recording for contact centers. And so having conversations. So if you have it, you're just gonna use it in the office, right? Listening to those conversations that you would have on the phone really provides an objective analysis of what you're doing. And people hate it. Oh geez, they hate listening to their calls. And the reason is that you hear all your flaws. You're always your worst, your worst critiquer is you.

Yep.

And so in order to improve yourself, you know, I listen to those calls. And by listening to them, you also hear the things that weren't said in the conversation or that you didn't hear. Because look, you and I are talking and I'm thinking hard, but there's things that aren't being— that are being said that I'm not hearing because I'm trying to get to the next thing. I'm trying to get over what do I have to say next. And so by listening to that, you pick up on those things, and that's really Oftentimes where you identify what are they really looking for.

And what question is going through your mind to find out what they're really looking for?

Oh, that's all dancing on the site, right? And so sales is a process. And as you're going through the sales motion, you're asking questions, right? But as you review the meeting, you're thinking, okay, I'm, I'm following a process here. I'm, I'm looking at my medic process, for example. What holes have I yet to fill in that knowledge? And so as you get your next meeting, before you prep, you make sure that, hey, these are the 3 things that I want to get accomplished in this next meeting. I need to know this, this, and this. And I don't want to make it too much because I don't want to make it too obvious. But for me, anytime I'm meeting with a customer, I'm trying to move that ball forward a little bit. So it's not like it's— it's more like a feel during the meeting than it's planning after the meeting to fill in the gaps.

Yeah.

And what do you think is your strongest selling characteristic?

Listening for sure. That's 100% is understanding what the customer wants to buy and then strategize, making strategic decisions on getting to that result is really, is really what I'm good at. I would say that, of course, negotiating I'm very good at as well. I mean, I can think of a couple of times where I've had— I can tell when I've sold the deal. I know when I've sold the deal. And so now when it comes time to redline and negotiate price and those things, I know how hard I can push. And so like, I remember being on a call. This is when COVID first happened and really no one in the company had closed any deals yet with the lockdown. So everybody's really anxious, a lot of pressure to get something done, right? And I knew, but I knew, I knew I sold this deal. It was already sold. All the competition was eliminated. I was working with the CIO, I'm sorry, the CFO and the ultimate decision maker. And so they made a mistake already telling me. So now everybody in the team, internal team is on the call and I think I had like 8 people on the call, which from an account executive standpoint, when you're in this stage, I would rather have less people than more people, but it was chock-full of people. And we had the old pregnant pause, and I'm sure you're familiar with the pregnant pause where the customer says, hey, Craig, you— I need to sharpen your pencil. Yeah, you, you need to, you need to move on the price. And, and, you know, and I said, you know, Mr. Customer, I went back, I researched it, I talked to everybody, I pushed it up, and man, I am at where I am at. It's there's nothing I can do. And then it was a pause just like that, but this was 11 seconds long, which, you know, in a conversation, 11 seconds is a whole lot of time. And finally he said, uh, well, I had to ask. Game over, right?

Well, I think a lot of people, and it depends on the customer and what you're selling, think that the CFO is the economic decision maker. It's like, yeah, maybe the administrative decision maker, not the economic decision maker. Yeah, he was—

we were, we were in T's and C's and he was signing it.

And so he was giving it, he was, you know, and beating up a salesperson is, it's a great way to start the day, isn't it?

Yeah, why not? Yeah, that's, that was actually sport, right?

Yeah, get $10K, $20K, $50K off. Look at me.

Exactly. But he— but they'd already let the cat out of the bag.

So yeah. Give us some insight or ideas of how you kind of knew. Did they tell you we're going with you? Or did they kind of just not— kind of, you knew no one, they weren't looking at anyone else any longer?

Yeah, I mean, basically through asking questions. You know, you can read into the answers. And so you ask a question, you don't hear a direct answer. And another meeting, you ask another question, you don't get the direct answer. But you know, between these 2 questions, the answer is there. And so there always is some assumption you need to make.

Yeah.

Right. But that's where being on the other side of the table gives me the confidence to make that decision. This is where we're at. We're in good shape. There's nobody else. Let's go ahead and get our best margin that we can out of this deal.

But that's it because clients typically won't overtly tell you.

No.

We've eliminated everybody else and it's going to be you. So really give it to us.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's not going to happen. I mean, I guess in a perfect world it would, but you and I don't live there.

Yeah.

You can tell. You can tell. I mean, how active are they with responding to you, right? If you call them and they're right back on the spot with you, Like, okay, I'm feeling good about this. You know, are we having a Friday night after 6 conversation? Boy, I'm feeling really good now, right? So it's just those indications that you pick up during the sales process and you just throughout the process, you're always trying to affirm where you're at in that process. Where am I at?

Yeah, you ask them, you know, do you have any consultants to help you implement this?

Well, we always had our implementation consultants. You know, so we had those internally and that's what we would, we would push. Certainly, you know, when we were working on other deals with RFPs and, and they have their, you know, Big 3 accounting firms helping them, right? That's a whole, whole nother, a whole nother challenge to that. But yeah.

And what do you think or what skill have you developed as a salesperson over the years that really separates you from number 2 and 3?

Again, I'll go back to listening. Understanding what the customer is going to be buying is critical.

Now, let's dig into that because typically they don't know, right? They need something to do something. Some way.

Yes.

And they want it to work fast and soon and be not too expensive as to not ruffle feathers.

So again, you know, you have your, your, your basically your committee and you're looking for what each person is trying to, to solve for. So the analyst is looking for it easy to use and the, you know, the, the economic buyer is looking for it to be of a given price and Everybody has their own. I guess we'll just call every everybody has their own stake in this and what they want to do, and you have to balance all of that and come up with a solution that you feel is going to fit that. And so through collaboration internally, right, working with your your your solutions engineers, your management, you can put together a package and a pitch. to suit those points.

So, but you were at the high end, you were not at the low end, so you had to earn that margin.

Well, certainly, yes, you had to earn a margin. Yeah. And again, it's, it's all about positioning the product and the value of the product. And so, you know, that, that goes all the way back to preparation of the call. Right? And so in the data and analytics space, you're looking for some common metrics that they're measuring. You're looking for what— maybe there's some machine learning that's gonna decrease the amount of customer churn, right? Those are the kind of things that you're looking for within there to justify the sale. And so that's all part of that internal collaboration. And selling that higher end of product or higher end software.

And in those committees, you know, everyone's got an opinion, but some opinions matter more than others.

Yeah.

It's not a democracy.

It never is a democracy. And I can think back to my, my purchasing days when, you know, I, I would basically have the committee and then, great, those are great opinions, but we're going this way. That's happened for sure.

Yeah. And I remember those committee meetings, but then there's always, you know, and maybe your space was a little bit different, like the chief architect was always the pretty much the decision maker. Yeah.

Well, the, you know, when purchasing, you know, I had different commodities. Technology was one, but there was a whole host of other commodities. So it just depended on what was being bought and how that's, that that decision got made. Some of them I didn't have as much influence, but others I had ultimate influence.

Yeah.

And so again, you're right, trying to understand that in the buying committee is, is extremely important.

And what were you listening to that would tell you that it was going your way versus low-cost provider way that, that you— or portfolio? Because Although you guys were big, you probably didn't reach the level of the portfolio company like Oracle, Salesforce, IBM, HP type company.

Again, it would come back to selling that specific thing that they were looking to solve for. What are they trying to solve? And quite frankly, you know, a lot of competition, you know, we'll just call it throw up and show up. They don't pay attention to the details that need to be paid attention to throughout the sales process. So they have their pitch down and they're gonna go on their pitch and they're gonna put up their PowerPoint and they're gonna say, hey, these are the great things about our company and why you should buy it. And, you know, the customer doesn't care about your company. They couldn't care less about your company. They're trying to solve their problem. So you gotta focus on them.

Yeah. And were you best with the executives or better with the technical people?

Or certainly, uh, I mean, since I sold in the technical space for a long time, I've always been good with the technical folks. That's always been something that, uh, that I've excelled at. Um, but oftentimes, you know, when you deal with the executives, you know, you can bring in, uh, your, you know, your, your sales superiors, your VP, and do a VP-to-VP discussion, right? Bring in higher authority, make it sure those connections get made so that it's all part of quarterbacking the, the opportunity, right? I need executive alignment here. Let's make some internal connections and let's, let's get those 2 together to talk.

Yeah. And how did you get the understanding of all this technology? Because you sold very deep and broad stuff. It wasn't brochure type stuff. It was really deep stuff.

Yeah. And so basically, you know, if I look at here on my list of stuff, Class A salesperson, right? That's what it says here. And it goes down to technical education. And so you have to take time to learn it on your own. I've always been very good at being able to visualize how things work. That's just one of my natural abilities. And so being able to visualize how things work helps you in the sales process a lot because now you can explain it to your prospect. This is how it's going to work. This is how this messaging works.

This is how we're going to make a $300,000 60-degree view of your customer.

Yeah.

And were you able to go it alone, or did you require a sales engineer in most calls, or?

Well, I'll say back in, back in the earlier days, there, there you were, but I was working with a smaller company, so you were it.

So you had no choice.

Yeah, you just get out there and you do it from A to Z. Um, but as you, as you grow into the enterprise space, you know, you're getting a lot of extra support. You're getting support from the manufacturer first. They, they started Having solution engineers on the calls, and then as you start working for enterprise like like Tibco, they have the support to help you through the deal. They have the subject matter experts to help you through the opportunity. So it just again, it's a quarterbacking thing. Where do I have my gaps? Where do I need to fill them? And you just pull those people in and collaborate and make the deal.

And some people are big deal, big elephant hunters. Some people are lots of medium deals, and some people are. Transactional, lots of, lots of activity, activity, activity. Where do you fit on that spectrum?

I would, I would say that the other 2, meaning the higher-end deal, the elephant hunting, and then you have to mix in the medium-sized deals because if you don't, your numbers are not going to look very good quarter to quarter. Yeah, right. And so, you know, we see a lot of transactional people and being in the In the enterprise space, you would actually— I oftentimes saw people where they would press the customer to the point where they didn't want to talk to you anymore. And so that was the last AE, the new AE's in here and the first thing you hear out of their mouth is, don't go above my head. What? Where did that come from? Well, you get a lot of pressure put on these account executives and they will happily burn a relationship.

Yeah. And how did you repair that?

Time. Yeah, right. And so you gotta get full. So for example, with some of these larger customers, they'll have weekly meetings and support meetings. Attend the meetings, be with them there, right? The other, you know, some account executives will feel like, well, I don't wanna give up my account executive status by being at this lowly meeting. Well, there's something to that, right? Okay, that's great. But from my perspective, anytime FaceTime I get with a, with a customer or prospect, that's— I want to be there, right? So that way I get— yeah, that's, that's me. Yeah.

And let's say, because a lot of people are very comfortable either talking to the user of the product or the pure economics of how the product impacts the company. Sounds like you've been able to do both.

Yeah, absolutely. And again, when you can think about being back to when you're purchasing, right, you are the executive. You are, at least I was, I was, I had all the authority with my commodities, period. And so, and also back in, you know, I was also in the military where I was an infantry officer. And so I get it. I've been at that level. I understand that level. And so I try to make things quick and concise when I'm working with those folks. But I've also, you know, I've been Joe Snuffy the Trooper, right? So I understand that as well.

And did the military experience help in sales?

Oh yeah, a lot. And so yeah, sales is not comfortable.

It's not.

If anything, it's not comfortable.

Right.

And so what the military teaches you real early on is, I don't care if you're comfortable. Right? Who does that? They don't. I mean, if you've ever ridden— and I had a friend of mine, and he went on drill weekend with me. Great. You want to come? I said, hey, you know, you want to ride the bus? You want to ride in the Humvee? And he says, man, I want the full experience. I want to ride in the Humvee. I'm like, well, it's going to be raining. Well, he didn't get it. So 3 hours later, riding in a Humvee when it's raining is you might as well be outside.

Yeah.

So he was soaked on the way up there. And so they don't care about you being comfortable. And so that prepared me well for being in sales because you have to just get out in front of people and you have to talk to them. As uncomfortable as you may feel at the moment, just jump in and it'll be fine.

So it handled all those stress levels that you typically feel in sales. It was nothing compared to someone yelling in your face at 6 in the morning.

I had, I had one instance where we had a maneuver and, uh, it was, you know, I never got deployed. So just keep that in mind. So it was just a maneuver and it was like 45 degrees. You're trying to determine what uniform am I going to wear? Am I going to wear my Winters, or am I going to wear my summers? Well, I wore my summers, and I, on the way up to the objective, I split my pants from my right knee to my left, um, I guess we'll just call it belt loop. Well, you can imagine being in infantry, you go commando. So I don't know if I need to tell people what commando is, but you can imagine what commando is. So it's cold.

If you know Seinfeld.

Yeah, yeah, if you know Seinfeld. So anyway, I'm split from stem to stern. Right. And again, you know, it's not that big a deal. It's all guys. All right. So anyway, what do you think the battalion commander notices? Who do you think has to give the briefing in front of 600 soldiers?

Okay. There goes the—

On a cold day. I'm impressing nobody. Yeah. But everybody had a good laugh at my expense. So it, you know, there's nothing that bad that's going to happen to you in sales.

Well, because a lot of people say, well, military people can be good, but they're, they need to be told what to do.

And I'm like, no, no, that's not— No. I mean, this, it depends on the army, right? But here in the United States, we're very, uh, mission focused and a mission, a mission is not given step by step. It's, right. Take that hill, which is a lot like sales. Make that sale. Yeah. Figure it out. Figure it out. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's up to you. Let's get her done.

And what skill do you wish you had learned that first 3 years in sales that you never learned?

The rejection was difficult to learn. It was a challenge, right? And understanding— it took me a little bit to understand that this is an annuity business. You're going to make the sale to some— the same person, you might lose it once, But, but you're, you're, you exit with class, you exit with understanding, you get a good after-action review, which is basically a summation of what happened on this deal from them, and you, you carry it forward. And then when you run into them again, they have a good feeling about you. You might be selling the same product, you might be selling a different product, but they have a good feeling about you. You know, I worked with Craig in the past and this is a great deal. So, you know, some of those early losses You know, I could have handled them better.

Yeah. And what was the tipping point after the three years? Was it you had a big deal that gave you the self-confidence that put all that stuff away, or you know, you just you just I I would say I wouldn't say it was a big deal that put that stuff away.

I would say it was just the the totality of of what had gone on over the past three years that just gives you enough experience in order to. to pick it up and move it down the road.

Yeah.

And why did you choose to stay as an individual contributor?

I, I have gone— I've been up in management a couple of times. One of the times, it was basically— I would say every time I didn't stay up there, it was because I did not, I did not believe in what my supervisor was telling me to do, right? And so, and as an individual contributor, if you're bringing in the numbers, no one's going to really argue too much with with what you're doing and how you're doing it. But if you are, if you're, you know, in management and, you know, the management feels that the account executives need to make 600 calls in a month, then guess what? Yeah, guess what? You know, that those are the marching orders.

Get the uniform on.

Yeah, put the uniform on. Yeah, yeah, you know the deal.

Put the winters on this time.

Yeah, exactly. Believe me, that was a lesson learned. Put the winters on. Cool.

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

Uh, they can come to my, my LinkedIn profile, Craig B. Hodges. Yeah, absolutely.

Haven't you noticed that, you know, and I was just really thinking about this, uh, over the last couple of weeks, all these great salespeople that, you know, we've recruited to be on the show None of them are talking about subject lines, even cold call openers, call to actions, demos. They're talking about the bigger things: the connecting with another human being, understanding what they're going through, really getting into their heads, guiding them through this journey, this Change that's going on. We're all trained on the product or how to give a quote, and that works if there's warm inbound. We all got that. We do really well with that. It doesn't honestly take a whole lot to do that until it gets really competitive. What, what really takes sales talent is taking what they want and turning it into what they need. What they want is something inexpensive, little change, easy. What they need might be very expensive, lots of change, and transformative. Which are you going to sell them? If you want to sell to them the latter one, it takes a lot more skill. And that's why they pay us commission. It's not so we show up on time. That's the base salary. They pay us the commission to get the deals that normally would not naturally happen. And cold outbound is all of that. Because today, why would people convert to be traditional inbound? That they kind of stalk vendors. They check out the website, they look at reviews, they Google it, they go on YouTube, they see a demo, they hear what other customers are saying, and from that they come to some conclusion in their head. And guess how accurate that is? I would say not very. I remember you know, when websites started coming out, people would just go to each website and make a judgment off of the website. There wasn't much else out there, so people would just guess based off of how pretty the website was. So everybody was in competition to have prettier websites. And then now we got review sites, and now we've got YouTube where people talk about So now we're going off of other people's opinions. But when there's big dollars, career-changing decisions, they want to play with the product. They want to get their hands on it and get used to it. We need to understand how to differentiate, how to connect our product with the outcome that they want. This is winning the complex sale. And some are easier than others. Getting an additional deal out of an existing account, pretty easy, relatively. Getting into a new account where people there don't understand the problem, the solution, and they assume that they can do it with something in-house or their go-to vendor, Whoever that is. And that becomes a completely different sell. And it's up to us to keep that ball moving, not just service them. Everybody's good at the service. Oh, you'd like an extended demo? Yes, happy to do that. Extended eval? Yes, I'm on it. A quote? I'll get you 4. Everybody's good at that part. But that's servicing a deal. That's not selling or closing. A deal. And there's a lot of talk today about, oh, the customer closes the deal. Well, we got to teach the customer how to close the deal. They don't know. They all think they know until they try. And sales is a lot of that, where it looks really easy until you try it, and then it becomes, oh, I guess this is a skill. Go to b2brevenue.com. Make the decision that you're going to do sales right, that you're going to be successful at it, that you're going to invest your time, a little bit of money, and a little bit of energy to become a whole lot better, to understand it instead of guessing. Most people today are guessing. It's up to you. We'll see you next time. Make sure you're checking out the other shows, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers. The Sales Leadership Show. And if you see my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a little like, a little comment, a little share. We'll see you next time.