HOW THIS REP WENT FROM SELLING COPIERS TO CRUSHING IT IN ENTERPRISE SALES

Got another great one for you today. Got a guy who rose through the sales ranks, started off selling copiers, and did an amazing job at it. And he shares his story behind it, also his system, his mindset, and how he took his natural capabilities that kind of fit into sales. I think I I'd characterize it as a confidence, a competitiveness, and a desire, and put it together and built a sales career. And he'll share it with you. And he's got a very interesting analogy that he talks about when we talk about empathy. I'll let him steal all the thunder for that since it's his. But before we get into it, I want you to mark your calendar. I'm not sure when you're listening to this, but on Friday, September— I think it's 12th, right? We're going to be doing a webinar with Brevity Pitch, and the world of sales will never be the same after this. What we've done with technology and crowdsourcing And sales. We put those 3 things together so that people in a few minutes a day can collaborate with each other to become better at selling. Not spamming, selling. And I think you're really going to like it. So go to brevitypitch.com, sign up for that webinar. If you're listening to this after September 12th, 2025. Ah, just go there. Maybe you already know about this, but if you haven't, you want to be there for the event because how we learn, that osmosis of being around great salespeople 24/7, that's the way to learn. But how do you do that? Now you can. Let's get into the interview. This is a great one. Uh, Great personality, great experience, and I think he has a lot to share for everybody.

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

So I've been selling for over 25 years, almost exclusively in the IT arena. I did— my first job actually was selling copiers for Icon Office Solutions back in the mid-'90s. Never intended really to be a salesperson. When I was in college, had no idea what I wanted to do. My objective in college was to graduate. And when I finally graduated, my dad, who is a salesperson, said, why don't you try sales? I did hear as I was growing up that I was a natural salesperson, and I kind of took that as an insult. I was like, what am I, a scammer or something like that? And, you know, so I did go ahead and started interviewing for some sales jobs and got that job selling copiers and frankly just repeated what he told me to say during an interview. worked. So that's kind of where I started in sales. And then from there, eventually moved into, you know, IT sales where I've spent most of my career and frankly, you know, merged some passion I have for IT with the competitiveness of sales and just trying to win.

And what do you think your friends were intending by saying, you would, you would be a natural salesperson. What do you think was behind that?

I think that when I have passion for something, I, I tend to, you know, want to bring people with me, or I try to convince them that, that my way is the best way. I'm very sure of myself when I, when I feel like I have the facts, so I'll, I'll represent it. And, and I guess, you know, naturally I highlight, uh, you know, different, you know, positive, you know, features of, of whatever it is that I was trying to you know, I guess champion at that particular time. Even in my regular life, if it was from, you know, uh, the Yankees, which I'm, you know, passionate for with my friends when I was younger, and selling them all the reasons why the Yankees are going to win, or, uh, you know, or just even, you know, walking into a restaurant and getting the, the table that I wanted, um, I was— I had no problem in being the person who stepped up. Again, I didn't know those were, were traits that, um, might relate or be positive, you know, traits for sales at the time. But other people did see that, I guess.

But would you characterize that as extroversion?

Or, you know? Yeah, I mean, I gotta say, I have moments of being extra— being an extrovert. I wouldn't consider myself necessarily an extrovert. There's many times where I just want to sit in the background. But my personality definitely lends itself to being an extrovert. And to quote my wife, it's hard for me to be quiet. My Even when I'm reserved, it's loud somehow. So, yes, I'm kind of a wave of personality.

Yeah. And IT, I mean, you got from copiers, which is kind of commodity. It's kind of like the definition of a commodity, right? It's everyone into IT where it's very nuanced. And how'd you get passion for that though? Because that's not the Yankees.

So first of all, uh, you know, in selling copiers, I was trained by a very good salesperson, but he was a traditional salesperson, somebody that might have been from a different time. Uh, but he did teach me some very good habits. And to be successful in selling copiers, you must, uh, you know, do the ditch digging part of the job, which is cold calling, right? Reaching out to people. And at the beginning, I was pretty terrible at it. Uh, but I got better, I got better, and I learned little things that ended up translating and being the foundation of the muscles that I've used throughout my career when it comes to, you know, recruiting people or just trying to do anything, that initial muscle, definitely something that was very important. So I feel fortunate that I came from that area. I was very competitive. I did cold call closes, which was, you know, looking back on it is an insane thing. I can't believe I even did that. I walked in with a fax machine basically in my trunk and sold it that day. You know, but again, these were all things that this manager taught me to do. Now that was, you know, very tactical selling, very small selling. But again, some of those muscles translated to IT. I grew up liking IT, right? So I had my Commodore 64 and played games, and I had, you know, connected to, uh, what were bulletin board systems before there was internet. Um, you know, so I definitely liked IT. I had another side that was a little sporty as well, so those kind of things clashed sometimes. But, um, you know, when I got back into, you know, in the sales, I kind of bumped into, uh, uh, Citrix Systems, which was in my territory for copiers and cold-called the buildings, kind of snuck in and bumped into somebody that I used to hang out with at bars and kind of threw it out there. Anything's open, I'm interested. And they were a growing company and kind of fell into it. But I mean, immediately fit right into their culture and the system and at that point in my career, the way I was learning.

And where'd you get the confidence to do that?

Because that's either confidence or I mean, again, I, you know, I chalk it back up to, you know, the copier sales. You had to be bold. We, you know, we were definitely micromanaged. I had, again, a very good manager. But in the morning we would come in and he would do some training and talk about our day. And at the end we had to come back and we'd talk about our day and review it, what we did wrong, getting kicked out of buildings, you know, all the whole thing. Right. And they were fun stories. And you hear other people's stories and you take those and you get better. So it was just what I was— I was in that mode all the time. You kind of get it. You almost turn it on. And today, even cold calling, a lot of times when you get into it, the next thing you know, it's 3 hours later. You get lost in it, right? Um, you know, almost like playing video games. You turn around and you can't believe it's been 3 or 4 hours in doing it. And, you know, so, you know, after all said and done, you know, being bold, it was just— it's just part of the job. It's part of what you need to do. So, you know, I didn't necessarily love cold calling, but I was like, well, this is what we need to do to be successful. This is You know, part of the job, but there is payoff if you do it right.

And to do it right, did you turn it into a game, or did you use some type— because you must have become good at it.

Yeah, I mean, again, I'll, I'll, uh, I'll pause again on the, on the copier days before we kind of get into this more, I guess, uh, um, dynamic selling. Uh, but yeah, I mean, at the beginning it was a numbers game, and I gotta say it's still a numbers game, and it's the way I, I teach people. You didn't necessarily have to be good, you just had to know your numbers. So I used to have a card in my hand, it would be like stuck in my hand, and I'd mark 50 a day. That was what my boss had told me to do. And frankly, I said frankly again, you know, most of the time I'd walk in and I'd give a couple of basic pitches and they didn't work most of the time. But if you did that 50 times, you usually got somebody said, yeah, I'm actually interested, or I have my contract up, or my copier doesn't work. What do you have? So at least an interest, right? As I got better at it, I got You know, became more dynamic in getting in the door. I realized all I needed to do was get back to that copier and see how many copies it was, what it was, and kind of talk to a couple people. So I'd walk in and, and my, my best pitch I ever had over there, it got me through the door, was, I'm here to inspect your copier.

Who are you?

I'm the copier guy. Right back over there. And I would just hang out by the copier with my little notebook and I'd start asking, hey, how is it working? You know, who are you? I'm the copier guy. And then people would start telling me and tell me very You know, I hate this. It does that. And eventually, like, the office manager would come by and, you know, he would say, hey, you know, who are you? I'd be like, I'm the copier guy. He's like, you're not my copier guy. And my little joke back, and this is what I said almost every time, was, well, he's not doing a very good job because I gotta say, your team is not happy with what's happening here. What if I could get you a brand new copier for what you're paying now? And again, it's a cheesy sales technique, but again, this is when I'm 26 years old. Got me in the door and my numbers went from 50 to like 20, you know, so 1 out of 20 and I became better. And then my, as my pipeline grew, I actually, you know, did pretty well and did it for 3 years until I got into something that was more real selling. But again, those, those muscles I think translated throughout my entire career and I am very fortunate that I had that foundational part of my sales career.

And, but how do they apply to, you're doing large strategic deals mostly, right?

So again, you know, I talk about the muscles of following up and cold calling, right? So following up, I consider— I call them the rules of follow-up. And, you know, they're, they're, you know, you can't— I want to call 100 times until I get my answer, but that's not socially acceptable in the business world. So you cannot do that, right? So, you know, there's, there's ways of following up and there's different— even today we have so many contact methods through LinkedIn, email, text. You know, phone call, right? Maybe nobody picks up the phone. Sometimes people do pick up the phone. It's crazy, right? But you could do that over a period of time and follow up multiple times throughout a couple of week period and through different methods that makes it not annoying. But, you know, so when I talk about some of the things I did at that point, it's the same methods. You still got to get into that mode. It's this— I feel like I'm cold calling again and it's the follow-up, right? Same thing when I go and recruit new reps. I go on LinkedIn, I have a whole method. I'm like, So I go through, I go, I have LinkedIn, I have some other ways I do it, but, you know, I go through all those methods and then I have follow-ups to them and they're very, it's the same message. I copy and paste, copy and paste. I change the name a little bit. Seems, you know, personable because it is personable for the one person, just multiplied, you know, to X amount of times until I get a pipeline of people of what I need to do. And it's the same thing and it's the same results. And, you know, as I, Do it, I become better at it and my numbers increase and I can actually target better reps because my message has increased or has become, you know, more finite.

Yeah. What I see a lot when people transition from kind of either a B2C or a point sale or transactional sale to a complex sale where there's many decision makers and layers of authority involved, They kind of get overwhelmed. They're like, I'm great with Jerry, but I'm not great with Jerry's boss or Jerry's CFO or Jerry's board members. And Jerry's not good with them either.

So. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. So, no, it's a good point. Right. And again, that is much different selling than what I did, you know, my first 3 years. So, yeah, I mean, You know, some elements of faking it till you're making it. However, you know, that's just a term, right? You're in a position where you don't have experience in doing what you're doing, and that's why you use your mentors, use the people around you, be coachable, right? So I'll give an example. Early in my career when I went into the field and I was in the federal arena and I lived in Florida, by the way, so I traveled all over the place doing federal stuff. I got a meeting with a high-up individual in Department of Interior. I was really nervous. I didn't know what to do. I never really met with a CIO of a guy who handles 100,000 people and crazy missions. And I, you know, I went to my EVP and I asked him, you know, I'm nervous, I don't know what to do. And he goes, he's just a person, right? What does he need, right? Go through his strategic initiatives, which in the federal government everything's published, read through it. And when you go there, make some notes, come back to me. Um, he, he ended up going to the meeting with me and he handled it, uh, and I got to see it. And I did see that it's just a regular— I was like, I could do that, right? It's just a regular meeting, you know. My EVP was great, but he didn't do anything that special. I got the same things that I would have needed out of any other meeting. But anyway, I did all that pre-work and I learned if you do the pre-work and you're prepared, you know, you walk in, you're a lot more comfortable in talking to them because you know what they want, right? You know, I can quote them and I do. I love quoting CIOs and say, you said, how are you doing that?

Yeah.

You know, things like that. So you get in a productive conversation because you're You're relating. But again, I was taught that by mentors, and I listened. I was coachable.

And what skill do you wish you had in that first IT job that you didn't have?

So, you know, it's interesting, you know, when I listen to some of your other, you know, some of the podcasts, I'm listening to these individuals, and they've all had almost what I would say perfect careers, you know, President's Club every year, success every single time. And I'm like, Man, I'm like, I'm hearing everything they do. I do everything the same way or similar, right? And maybe in my technique, but I haven't had that perfect career, right? I've made mistakes, right? And, you know, I've hopped around a little bit more than I would've liked. I spent 13 years at that Citrix job and then, you know, had 2, 3-year stints. I'm very happy with what I'm doing right now. I hope to have a long-term here. Company happened to be acquired by a larger company. We'll see. You know, those are things I can't control. To answer your actual question is number one, at the beginning of my career, I felt like I couldn't miss. I mean, at that first job, I mean, I was at President's Club every single night, made a lot of money. I moved up the line. I had relationships with the CEO of our company on down. I went through the good times, bad times here. I loved it. I have friends today from that day. Made me a little cocky, right? Made me very, very confident. I left, and you know I probably shouldn't have left. Not at that time. I would have, you know, probably moved up a lot further if I'd wanted to. I was certainly positioned to do that, and I did well at that next job, right? And the next one. But the next one, the third one, which was also a very large company, I made circle of excellence and hated every waking second of it. So, you know, that was the first time in my career that I realized that. Culture does mean something. And so again, to answer your question, I was confident. You know, I wish I was a little more humble. And I also— the grass was not greener on any other side. When you're in the position and you're doing well, maximize it. There's no reason to switch. It's not better. Like, you know, they're just different logos, right? So I was in a place where I was making Circle of Excellence, made more money I ever made in my entire life. And I quit the day after I got the big check, right? Without another job right away. So, because I, I, and my kids cheered because I was that miserable during every second of it. I did well and hated it, right? So I just didn't fit. Please.

When you say you didn't fit, it didn't match your personality or the corporate culture didn't match or?

I mean, again, I was successful there, but I, my little joke there was as I was walking around, I didn't, I wasn't a bull in a china shop, but as I walked by, everything shook. Right? They like the, you know, they were very collaborative. And I learned a lot about collaboration, how to work with the team, how to, you know, not win alone, not lose alone, that you got to really use your team. That was the good things about that job. However, you couldn't just make a phone call and fix a problem. They wanted you to have 7 meetings. And there was times where I would be on meetings, and I'd be on a conversation and everybody's talking about it. I'm like, I'd stop and be like, I already fixed this. And then I tell them what I do and they're like, Robert, like, oh, you know, you need to do this. And then I'm like, but I did it the right way. And, you know, or presenting and everybody had to have their slide in there. And a lot of times I'm like, guys, I'm the slide, right? I'm the slide. I'm like, this is just to highlight what I'm going to say that I promise, right? But no. And so now I have 50 slides and I'm like, I have 40 minutes. I'm like, you know, I mean, it was all those type being on calls while coaching baseball and things that I needed to be on when you know, they didn't trust my answers. It was just a lot of wasted time. It wasn't efficient, and I just didn't enjoy it. And I had 8 managers in 3 years there. So the last manager did not like me. I was not her particular cup of tea. Very, very talented person. So that made it even worse, and we clashed. So, you know, that was a lot of things, right? But I learned a lot at that job, and I also learned at every position that I've ever had. I got to say, I'm happy that I've done all those things because if you don't take something from them and improve, I consider myself a much more polished person and calm, more calm business person because of everything I've been through through my career, my imperfect career.

And are you a people manager today?

I am.

How do you like that transition? Because that's even more than just going from copiers to IT. It's now dealing with managing the cats.

Yeah. So it's interesting in my career, I, you know, at Citrix, I would also manage people there as well, you know, move, evolve to it. But I've been off and on managing people. I've kind of like been a player, manager, player. I really like meeting with customers and having those conversations and asking the questions. I kind of hate sitting on the bench. It drives me insane. I'm like, team, get me to do something, you know, who do you want me to reach out to? And it's a game for me now, right? Because it's not my job's not relying on it. So it's more fun almost. So to answer your question is, you know, I try to apply my philosophies to to my team, but I want them to do it in their way. You know, their philosophies, right? You know, trusting a process. You know, being results-oriented. Research, plan, and execute. There's all things behind all these things. I put words to it. You know, activity equals results. It's an old adage, but. There is something there, right? Out hustling your people, you know, but do it in your way. I'm like, I go this way, you can take the dirt highway. I don't care as long as we get there. One of my reps now, you know, while I'm listening, I start writing down all the things that he's missing. And by the end, I mean, there's nothing. I'm making like IT jokes by the end. He always nails every single thing, but he does it in this more slower. I'm always like, and But I'm patient. He's great, right? I trust every— I know his meetings are fantastic, different style, and I love it, right? So my point is that, you know, I try to manage people like I want to be managed. I want to— I try to hire adults with energy, right? So I want to trust my team. I'm here to fanatically support my team. They're my customer. I ask them to fanatically support their customers, right? I do the same thing with my team. So when they ask, I'm here to support them. I try to solve problems, and if we have a problem, right, meaning performance or whatever, I try to be clear and concise and, you know, lay out what you need to do. And if you don't do it, there's only so much I can coach you, right? Um, I've learned a lot from some of my management here about how to do some of those things. So I have good mentors again, uh, for some of the things that I'm not as sharp on. But I've often— I've, I've managed people throughout the career, so I like it and I hate it at the same time.

Was it hard moving into management? Because you don't come across as the type of guy who wants to be a manager.

So, you know, again, you know, my big personality comes out in different ways and I can apply my passion in different ways. So, yeah, I mean, transitioning there, I did it when I was at a job where I was, you know, very comfortable, that first job where I did it for 13 years. And I can, you know, I was half an SE there, that type of thing, right? I can whiteboard anything. And I did new hire trainings. So it was easy because I knew the job so well. I knew what the moves were, right? I mean, you do this, you do that. I knew how to be efficient, but it also helped me become a manager because, again, the little pieces where I was like, hey, I was like trying to do this. I go to the people, my people, my mentors, and I try to be coachable. I'm always learning. I'm in my 50s now, but I still learn something all the time. There's people that, you know, I'd like, hey, I'm in this particular place, I'm playing checkers, you're playing chess. Teach me, right? Please.

The super hard part, though, I got to imagine, was you relinquishing that control during the call to somebody else who's doing it a little different.

Yes. And that's where I have patience and I have to talk to myself sometimes. And, you know, and again, one of the things that I think makes me successful is I'm very self-aware. I am an overtalker. In meetings with customers, I tend to be more reserved, but, you know, amongst my peers, I overtalk. As I'm talking, sometimes I'm telling myself to be quiet, so I'm at least not saying the next thing. There's nothing else in my mind, right? And that helps me stop. But being self-aware as I'm, you know, in meetings, you know, I'm saying to myself, I'm like, this is not my meeting. And I say it to myself a lot, patience. I'll write down the things that I want to talk about.

Good.

Sometimes I never get there. And a lot of it's just me providing feedback to my, to my individual afterwards. And sometimes it's just great job, right? You know, awesome, right? Didn't think of that. I learned something from you. One of my reps is better at this than I am, and I learned something from her all the time. And I then I want to spread it. That's my job is now saying everybody do it like her.

And what's your motive? What, what gets you up? What keeps you going? What keeps you in this versus doing something else?

I mean, uh, I, I have a lot of energy. I have a lot of passion. I need to be doing something. I can't just do nothing. Um, this, this job is, you know, very well suited for me because I'm competitive. Uh, keeps, you know, I like winning. I like walking into a meeting and, you know, at this point these meetings, I've done a lot of them and you know what I'm talking about, Brian. You walk into a meeting a lot of times in 5 or 10 minutes, you, you know the answers to most of the questions and you try to get there and navigate around. And using those techniques and trying to put yourself in a position to win. I love doing that. And I also, I got to say, now being a manager, I love watching people grow and I love inspiring people. My passion can be very, you know, it spreads, right?

It's contagious.

And I got to say, it can be contagious, right? But I got to say, my negative passion, and that's happened when I've quit jobs, 3 people quit with me, right? I mean, so I can be negatively contagious as well. And that's because the passion would be negative. But I do enjoy watching people grow and be better. And, and some of the people that I've managed in the, you know, in the past, past my career, or, you know, be successful or just like not surprised. I just, I enjoy that very much. And that makes me, that makes me feel good.

And when you're recruiting, what do you look for?

I said it earlier, I look for adults with energy. Right. And I got to say, we have a pretty good interview style here. It's not just me, there's other people. So even if I love you, there's got— we all have to come to— I'm not— we don't need to fight for anybody, right? We all need to be in agreement. So there's sometimes I don't see something and my manager will, or one of my reps will, who I'll interview. And I was ready to hire somebody and one of the individuals on my team said, that guy's a creep, don't hire him. And I was like, I didn't see what they were seeing. And I'm like, you know, something not worth even risking it. I don't want to bring that in, a cancer my team potentially, right?

Yeah.

Um, so, you know, what do I look for? I look for adults with energy. I look for people that, as I ask questions, end up saying some of my words or going to some of my philosophies and, you know, are thoughtful and research, plan, and execute. Um, you know, those types of things. And as I ask them questions about our company, that they did a little homework maybe on me, maybe on my company, and that shows me what they've done. I'm not expecting them to know our products. And then lastly, I want them I'll ask them a lot of what they're representing at that point, and I want them to be good at that, right? Show me what you're doing. I'd like to see a presentation on what you're selling today, not my stuff, right? And that, that's a good representation of, of that individual, um, as we, uh, you know, go through that interview process.

And you used the word adults. I'm sure that didn't just come up. I think, did you have experience hiring people who weren't adults?

Yeah, yeah, you know that, you know, you have to deal with, you know, nonsense, you know, that I like people that, you know, I have a part where my individual— I call my little team meeting the circle of trust. I have fun with some of the names. I use movie stuff too. Just because it's fun. I don't know. And I apply everything back into what we're doing. But yeah, housekeeping, right? Do your expenses on time. I don't want to have it. You know, this is just—

it's easy.

Right? It's easy. Take the stupid notes in Salesforce or Clari or whatever you're using at that. I mean, just do it. We ask for like 3 things in there. It takes you like 10 minutes a week. Do it, right? Do it on time, right? You know, stupid things like that drive me insane. I don't want to have those conversations. That's where you're an adult. It's not about age. It's about being an adult. I could have done that stuff at 27 years old, right? 25 years old. Someone told me to do it. I would have acted like an adult. I wouldn't— trust me, I was not an adult at 25. But, um, you know, I'm just looking for people that are serious about their jobs, you know, want to spend time on it or invested in it. I'm not talking about, you know, being a workaholic. I'm talking about doing your job, doing it the right way, staying on top of things. And then the rest of it is how good a salesperson you are. How do you see this? How do you do that? Um, and that, that part is, you know, different, but You know, I think the adult piece is just doing the basics and knowing the basics.

For the reps that are listening and they want to be visible to managers like yourself, how do they do that?

That's interesting. So, you know, as you look at the background of my career, again, I've had one or two more stops than I'd like. So I've done interviewing myself and I like to try to be, you know, I try, I try to stand out. So, you know, I'm looking for someone to stand out, be better than I expect you to be. I would always have a PowerPoint ready. So someone asked me a question and I'm not presenting a PowerPoint, but I have a visual now while I'm saying the words, I'm answering their question. I'm like, oh, that's funny. I covered that in the slide. You mind if I show you something I prepared? Bring up the slide and then I'm showing 12 other things that I'm not going to talk about, but now they're seeing as I'm presenting. So I love— that's a When I coach people on interviewing, I tell them, have something ready, have your resume ready, have references ready. Someone asks you, hey, but bring it up, bring up all my awards, right? Have that behind you when you're videoing. It's stupid, but do it. I mean, you have the awards, you know, they're worth something. They're up on a shelf somewhere. I don't know. Right. You know, I like the money that was associated with the awards. My point is to stand out. Don't be the regular person. I've asked questions. My company's being acquired and it's been a year of Being under all kinds of review, and as we were interviewing people, I had asked them like, "What do you think about?" You know, and asked about the comp about that other company, and they had no idea we were being acquired. I'm like, "What are we doing here?" Yeah, right. What are we doing here? Right. You know, do do do some work, right? So stand out a little bit. Stand out a little bit. Try to try to be different than the regular person. I follow up.

And you, you've worked at some big, very successful companies and probably have observed great salespeople. What separated the very best from the middle of the pack?

I, I keep going. I'm gonna say it again. The research part of the plan and execute, right? Planning and executing is a lot of it. You're taking the moves that the company gives you and you're making them your own and what works. Well, how do you apply it to your customer? Doing the homework. Right? Especially when you first start. But you know, I gotta say, one of the companies, I mean, I was surrounded by A+ players and I was always impressed by every time we had anything, they brought a PowerPoint, they brought data, they brought information that was indisputable. And it, you know, it was very, it was, it was impressive. And I tried to take some of those things out of there. And anytime I wanted to make sure I had a good meeting, I had things ready. You know, when I meet with Customers, I again, I do business with the federal government again. I had a little gap in between while my kids were growing up. I didn't want to travel, but now I'm back there. You know, everything is out there, so I can read a lot about that person or about their mission. I'm walking in knowing a lot. I talk about their programs. I talk about how their money is allocated. You know, so those are the things that I think that make you really. You know, stand out again. You know, is doing the homework. And and again, for me, it makes me comfortable in a meeting. Coming to this, I I listen to nonstop. I've been listening to your podcast for the last 24 hours. You know, through my bike riding, in my car, and I've enjoyed. I gotta say, I listened to a couple we've had in the past, and I've seen some of your little videos. But being you know made me feel comfortable. Like oh, this is just talking about what I know. Yeah. Hopefully I'm doing that properly here. I don't know. But that's. You know, being prepared or, you know, I have, I have a bunch of stuff around me while I'm talking to you to remind me of some of my words too. So I have cheat sheets around me while I'm talking to you.

Well, that's it, because in sales, there's not a lot of ways to practice, but preparation is probably the best practice.

Yeah.

Especially the federal government, because you know what they want to talk about, their projects, their career. their future.

Exactly. You know, and yeah, they've, you know, the big bosses usually have some articles about them. You know, I got to say, you know, the first big meeting I ever got with someone at USDA, I read an article about how they were taking their service centers. USDA had 1,600 service centers and they were combining them into the major data centers, which was Kansas City, Fort Collins, St. Louis, and Somewhere in Maryland. I can't remember the name of it or where in Maryland. Silver Spring, maybe. Anyways, it was this VP or C-level person over at USDA. The great thing about USDA is they have this phone directory. I looked up her name, I called her, she picked up the phone. And I said, listen, I just read this article. I think we can help you. She's like, how? And I sort of got a meeting and That actually, that spawned many projects at USDA, that reading that article and just doing that. I was surprised it worked. It was 101, right? But it worked.

It wasn't about the product. It was about what she wants to accomplish.

That's it. Right. And my product, you know, my product was perfect for what they needed to do for redeploying those applications out to the users, which is, and management of them in the major data centers. Right? So we really had the best product for that and it was great. I had such confidence in what I was doing and it worked, right? So anyways, that's one of the success stories when it comes to that piece. Please. Cool.

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

LinkedIn, you know, that's where I'm at is LinkedIn and the people that know me certainly know how to reach out to me. So I appreciate this very much. Thank you, Brian. Um, I thank you for what you do.

You kind of got to like that empathetic narcissism. I think that's the right mix. I think it reminds me a lot of the Ivy League Street Fighter, where it's this contrasting mindset that you have to keep balanced because you do want to be empathetic. You need to be empathetic. You will not see what you need to see if you're not Empathetic. But if you're just empathetic, you will not guide the conversation in the direction it needs to go for the client and for us. Because if it's not a match in B2B, it's a waste of time. It's not like B2C where you can kind of pressure people into closing. That doesn't happen in B2B. There's too many people. There's too many time gaps. There's Too much distance between them. And the default in B2B is not to buy. So what we have to do is be empathetic for what the person is going through, what they need, even though they don't know they need it. The 2 major things that people make the mistake about in B2B is they think the client knows what they're doing and knows how to get it done. They don't know any of that. That's why that MedPick thing doesn't work, because you're asking the client for their decision criteria and they don't know. It's anything from the prettiest website to what makes me feel good in the moment. Okay, but that changes. What's the decision-making process? Ah, no, they don't know it. That's our job. See, when a sales process tells you to do the wrong thing, it might be the wrong process. If you want to know the right process and how companies really buy, buy somebody who's done it, not managed it, not just going through the QBRs. I read these books from sales managers and they talk about the QBR like it's an epiphany. Hey guys, QBR is theater. It is not an epiphany. It's not strategic. It's not helpful. It's nice. I get it. Managers like to do it. It's good to talk to your reps. But if you really want to know what's going on, go on a sales call with them. Sit down with them. Do a pre-call planning. Do a post-call postmortem. And listen, not judge. See, you really need to understand how companies buy and how you can guide them through that process. Now, that's one of my courses called Closing the Complex Sale. If you want to be great at complex selling, you got to know what you're doing. And guess what? The people on LinkedIn Ah, not so much. Most of them are at unicorns where it's order-taking. They're the best clerk among the other clerks. Oh, they came out of sales? Salesforce's number 1 sales rep? Oh really? Were they number 10 on the deal? Oh please, give me a break. That's not selling. That's, that's being on the right school bus. That's being the bat boy on the Yankees. You didn't play, you were just on the bus. Go to b2brevenue.com, check out the courses, and the one that seems to really connect with people is Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. I had a great one-on-one with somebody in the course, and he goes, I wish someone could just give me the permission not to do all these dumb things all day. Because he was doing them all— the spamming, the cold calling— and he got one deal. It wasn't a good deal. Kind of wishes he didn't get that deal. High maintenance client. And I go, well, the good deals, how'd they come about? Well, you know, we, we got to know each other. We, we talked over things. It was, it was a lot of work, but it was worth it. But that's B2B. That's how it works. I know we all want it to work like send spam, get order, but that doesn't seem to work now, does it? If it does, stick with it. If it doesn't, learn how to start a conversation, get a meeting, and invest in yourself. Come on, how much did you pay for that frickin' college degree? Where'd that get you? Got you the first job, maybe. 4 years of partying. It was fun. Good memories. How's it paying? We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening.