HOW THIS SALESPERSON MAKES SALES FUN AND EFFECTIVE IN B2B SALES

Too often in sales, when we know the definition of the word, or we hear the word, the buzzword, like relationships and value and all this stuff that we hear, but do we really apply it? Do we understand it internally and really get it? Really kind of make it part of us? Because today everyone says the right things, but not everyone's doing the right things. Because let's take the word relationship. I think everybody talks about it, everybody values it, everybody wants it, but do they know what it is? It's not our viewpoint, it's the client's viewpoint that matters. Are we interested in them as a person, or are we just interested in them relative to what we get— the transaction, the sale? People sense that, and it comes through very clearly. So if your sole connection with that client is about the transaction, they will only talk to you about the transaction. But we need more than that. We need context within the account. What are they doing today? How do they change? Who has real power? What are the priorities? What's more important than the thing that you're selling? Why do they need it? What happens if they don't have it? We have to have deep, meaningful conversations with them. And it has to feel and be organic. Otherwise, it kind of feels like an interrogation or a checklist.

Checklist.

Yeah, a lot of people are selling with a checklist today. It's not bad to have a checklist. It's bad to sound like you have a checklist. I have checklists. The key is to Get so used to these questions, thinking through them, practicing them, that they feel and sound organic, not like a qualification question. Everyone loves a qualification call, except for the person on the client side. They don't like qualification calls. They want help. And they want somebody who has their best interest in mind, which is what initiates trust. Too many people think trust is just reliability and knowledge. That's part of it.

It's good.

It's not bad.

It's just incomplete.

The trust that you want is them feeling that you've got their back. Doesn't that feel good when you know someone has your back? What does that mean? That means when it's inconvenient for them to help you, they still help you. They proactively help you. They're concerned about you. They trust you and they're considerate of you. That's nice, isn't it? But that doesn't happen automatically. Automatically, it's just the opposite. You want my money. You want my time. You want my attention. Why should I give it to you? It's up to us to earn it. And we don't earn it with personalization and relevance. That's marketing. In sales, we have to connect with them as a human being. That's why we have salespeople. Anybody can put a website up with their products, their pricing, and a buy button. But it doesn't work. Why? Because the client, especially in B2B, they don't know what they really need. They have a problem and they want the quickest, easiest way to solve that problem.

Okay.

But typically what I found is if you don't really connect with them, they buy the cheapest, easiest thing. It doesn't work. Then they start again or they forget it or they do something else. But you didn't sell anything. You didn't really get much out of that, did you? Today's interview, we're going to be talking about this, the relationship part, and also the emotion that you have as a salesperson when you're selling or when you're prospecting. Just ask you, what is that emotion? Is it dread? Is it neediness? Is it desperation? Or is it curiosity?

Curiosity.

Is it a puzzle you're trying to solve? A mystery? An adventure? Those sound better. They sound more resourceful. Because today everyone thinks that selling is just cold calling or cold emailing. Well, no, no, that's not it. Not it at all. I don't do either of those. I use email. I use the phone. I use social, I use all this stuff, but I don't go and pitch because I know what that's like to be on the other end of it. You don't start with the pitch. The time for the pitch is when they ask, but you have to earn the right to get them curious enough to ask. And the revelation that I'm coming to with teaching sales is that Everyone's comfortable with the knowledge. Everyone grasps the knowledge. It's the application of the knowledge that doesn't feel organic to people. How could it? It's new, it's different, it's counterintuitive, doesn't feel very good. I had this conversation with the CEO of Brevite this week. He goes, Brian, You know, I could do the price versus value conversation every day and never get it right or get it perfect or get it fantastic. And I go, I've been doing this longer than you've been alive. And I feel the same way because how often do you have the price versus value conversation? It might be once a week, or I'm talking about really getting them. To focus on the value. And it's a skill, and it does not feel organic at first, but when you get okay at it, it feels much better.

Why?

Because the client wants to just know the price so they can put you in the commodity trap. We want to know where's the value that's going to justify this price, right? That's what we want to know. That's what we want them focused on. That's a skill. That's a talent. It is something that requires repetition, and that's how we get good at everything, isn't it? Think of every sport, every hobby. How did you get good at it? You know, Malcolm Gladwell, the 10,000-hour thing. But the 10,000 hours isn't just doing it. It isn't just practicing it. It is doing it with deliberate practice, meaning that you know what you're going to do. You do it, you take feedback on it, and then you do it again. That's how we learn every sport, every physical, mental motion. That's how our brains work. We connect those synapse in our brain. It's not visible. We barely understand how it works, but that is how it works. And this is why brevity is so critical. brevitypitch.com allows us to have the closest thing to a realistic conversation as possible. A human-sounding voice, a human-sounding pace, organic questions that are not canned. Each call is completely different. And as a sales leader, you've got to ask yourself, do I understand sales? Is sales a performance profession or is it just activity? And certainly for the last 15 years, since the advent of the CRM and tools, too many people think it's just an activity, but it's not. If it was just an activity, the busiest person would sell the most. Is that true? I've never seen that. Never. I remember this rep, he had— he'd open up his laptop, he would be tracking 50, 75 opportunities. And he'd be busy. And my manager loved him. Every manager loves that rep, right? You know, they work 80 hours a week. They've got the spreadsheets and looking like they're rocket scientists there. But then at the end of the quarter, what do they close? They're probably in the middle of the pack. They worked probably like 2 or 3 reps, but they're in the middle of the pack because it's not just an activity. It's a skill. It's a talent. It's an ability that requires Practice, practice, practice.

That's how—

repetitions. And what we're doing at Brevity is we're coming up with drills so that you can get all of this stuff in a really tiny bit of time, like under 15 minutes a day. The price-to-value conversation, the multi-threading conversation, the alternatives conversation— these are advanced Topics in sales that require comfort on the salesperson's side to sound organic and natural so that the person on the prospect side doesn't feel like they're in the sales trap. If you want to become great at sales, you have to practice these skills. And I'm not— I'm sure you're saying to yourself, oh, I've been doing this all these number of years.

Okay.

Are you making the money you want? That gap is filled by skills, isn't it? What else could it be?

Activity? No.

Go to brevitypitch.com. Check it out. Let's get into the interview.

Hey, Brian. Thanks for joining us today. Where are you getting started? Give us a little background on yourself.

How are you? Good. So, David, it's Brian Bugey. I'm currently the head of North America at Safe UEM. We're a UEM startup out of Toronto. Been in mobile industry for 13, 14 years or something like that now. Been in sales when I realized that actually my whole life between coaching soccer, running my own academy and training programs and all that fun stuff, I realized I was actually in sales before it and actually got a funny way into sales. I actually started in accounting as an intern. And just networked my way around the office. Yeah, it wasn't meant for me, but yeah, you know, networked my way around, got into some project management and then eventually into sales.

But why sales?

They said I'd be— they didn't actually tell me it was sales, you know, when I started. So I just did what I was supposed to be doing and then it kind of evolved and I was like, yeah, I'm actually good at this and I enjoy it and, you know, that sort of thing. So Yeah, it just kind of happened. It's something I enjoy.

But what you like about it?

Oh, the thrill, you know, the hunt, the solving a problem, negotiation, of course, I think that's everybody's favorite part. Yeah, just, you know, helping to enable companies to do different things, you know, depending on what their strategy is with different technology and market. You know, like I said, I've been around mobile tech my entire career. So I've, you know, services or software, hardware, security, you know, whatever it is, you know, it's kind of been fun to do just because the mobile ecosystem is changing yesterday at that speed.

Right.

So it's been fun and it's a journey just to kind of see the different tech evolved. I mean, I remember when I started in sales, I was selling BES 10 upgrades and I watched the demise of BlackBerrys in the enterprise and watched Apple and Samsung take over, you know, and, and the likes of MDM kind of evolved. So, uh, yeah, it's, it's just a fun space. Uh, love being in it, just love being around people, uh, for the most part.

And who do you typically sell to? Is it development teams?

Um, so depending on what I've been in, uh, usually into IT. Um, when I was selling security, it was into developers because we were looking at, you know, application security at the code level. Um, you know, and pen testing through that, making sure there was no vulnerabilities before they published to the appropriate stores. But a lot of times it's IT just either enhancing production, you know, in the warehouse, for example, you know, time, you know, reducing cycles, or, you know, just helping make their life easier. I mean, you know this just as well as I do and everybody that's going to be listening to this is IT is inundated with 1,000 tasks a day and they have to try to prioritize. So if we can make one part of that easier, it allows them to do something else. Regardless of what, you know, company I'm at, it just, you know, it helps, you know, to help with that. So yeah.

And what does it take to be successful in that market?

That's a good question. It takes a variety of things, right? For me, a lot of it's been networking over my career, maintaining good relationships. You know, I've had some success with email campaigns, cold calling. Happens, you know, it's, it's one of those things you do. But LinkedIn, I think, is probably one of the most powerful tools, attending trade shows, joining associations, things of that nature, getting to people who are actually looking at the solution. And, you know, it's not always the easiest thing and tends to cost money to do, but when you get in there and you can bring value, there's a big return on that, you know, going forward.

How about technical acumen? I mean, because it's a technical space, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's one thing I learned pretty quickly early on in my career. I mean, I was 23, 24 years old selling MDM to C-suite and, you know, senior VPs. And I realized when they got me on the phone, if I didn't know what I was talking about, I was gonna be walked right out the door very quickly. They're like, who is this kid trying to sell me a technical solution? So, you know, my wife always says she hates the phrase, but, you know, I knew enough to be dangerous before I needed to bring in an engineer. Like, I could usually get through the first call. depending on what was going on and who I was meeting with. But understanding that, know your product. I mean, I think that's the most important in any sales thing is know it, you know, to a level of, you know, some technical acumen, you know, as much as you're able to learn because whoever you're talking to is gonna value that a lot more than being like, hey, let's schedule another meeting. Let me bring someone in who can answer these questions for you. Like, if you're doing that on the first call, you're in trouble. You know, at least be able to answer the basic and don't repeat things that are on the website or in a white paper. that you've published or things like that because anybody can read it. Just, just answer a couple of questions.

Because I've seen that a lot because I sold into IT my whole career and I saw a lot of reps who never wanted to learn anything about the product. They had an SE.

Yeah.

And I'm like, okay, but wouldn't you like to not have to go on a double date every time?

Right. And I think that's the important thing. And plus your SEs are gonna, you know, appreciate that a lot more than bringing them into a call to answer basic questions that you should know about whatever it is you're selling.

Mm-hmm.

You know, even if you're selling nuts and bolts, like, know, know whatever it is you need to know so you don't have to bring in an engineer, you know, to, to do that for you. And they'll appreciate a lot more because otherwise they're just gonna be like, here we go again, you know, just wasting my time to answer basic questions, right? You know, so, you know, and I think customers, in my opinion, appreciate that a lot more than just being the sales guy, right? You know, I think a lot of it's about becoming a trusted advisor. You know, and figuring out how your solution, whatever it may be, fits into what their overall goals are. I've been with many clients that, you know, they're working on a project and it has nothing to do with me, but I'm like, yeah, I've worked in that space. You know, here's a couple vendors or, you know, other hardware players to look at or whatever it may be. You know, we've got some people on our team with those experiences. So if you want to get the people aligned, we'll help, you know, kind of answer some questions for you without having to get on a bunch of sales calls, right? And do that. And it's very appreciative and they may not buy today, But 3, 6 months, maybe a year later, whatever it is, they're gonna come back and be like, hey, I appreciate what you did for us. We're ready for you now. Bring us the solution.

And why do people fail in this space? Because it's, there's a lot of turnover in the mobile space.

A lot of people, well, there's a lot of vendors, there's a lot of— Yeah, I mean, it's a crowded space. You know, mobile is a commodity regardless of where you are now. And I think people fail just because It, they look at it too much about numbers and it's like, all right, I have to sell more devices. I have to sell more software. I have to sell more licenses than everything else. And then they hire people to try to churn numbers up. You know, I'm sending 10,000 emails a week. I'm making 500 phone calls. I'm using an automated dialer so I can do 2,000 phone calls in a week, you know, whatever it may be. And those things are great, but they lose the human touch. Where we are in the space now, especially after COVID, is people want to know you're human. And they want to interact with you. And I think the most important thing is when you get on that call is just have a relationship with that person, ask them questions. You know, I still talk to some of my former customers, you know, years later. And I remember during COVID I was, you know, both my wife and I were working at home. We had our first kid, he was 7 months old, and I'm literally wearing him in my Baby Bjorn while he's sleeping. And I'm on camera with, you know, my clients. And it got to the point where They were like, we're not allowed to start a call until your kid shows up, if he's awake.

Right.

And so you build this personal relationship with them and advise them on different things and things like that. And once they know you're human and not just trying to hit your commission, things change, right? And they appreciate a lot more what you're saying and they'll sit there and understand and digest and then maybe set up a recurring meeting with you to talk more and bring in the appropriate stakeholders. But I just think person, The personability has lost too much in sales and we're just trying to turn numbers over and meet KPIs. And it's like, yeah, meeting those things is great, but what is it doing?

Nothing. It's reducing revenue.

Exactly. Exactly. All those things are good, right? To automate.

Not really. Yeah.

But let your reps spend the time engaging, right?

You know?

Well, they hire salespeople.

Right. Why do they hire people?

Gotta fill a seat, right?

No, no, because to connect with the client.

Well, yes, yes.

They just have a website and anyone can send emails. That's not a talent.

Of course. No, it's not. Marketing spits out the, you know, the material for you to put in your system and automate it. That's great if you want those as KPIs. It's great for awareness, but you don't want your sales People spending time doing that. You want them spending time talking to, you know, the people they've set meetings with, whoever they've connected with on LinkedIn or attending a, you know, a trade show or whatever it is, right? Connecting. Let the other stuff for brand awareness be automated.

Yeah, that's ads.

Yeah, let it be automated. Let your sales reps, well, people, because reps just hit KPIs, right? That's all they're there for. Let your salespeople do the job that you hired them to do. You hired them for a specific reason and I think That's lost.

Well, what do you think your dominant emotion is that drives you in sales?

Uh, a really great question. I think it's a mix of things. Uh, the uncertainty, I think that can be exciting. Um, you know, from the aspect of, you know, you have an idea of how something is gonna go and guess what? It's never gonna go that way. You know, you're gonna get the bluebirds and the once in a lifetime that goes the way you wanted it to. Um, and so there's, there's like this thrill and nervousness around that first call, right? Regardless of how big the company is, it could be a mom-and-pop shop down the store or it could be a Fortune 10 company.

The mystery of it, the adventure.

Exactly. Um, sales is an adventure. It's a journey, right? You start with a call or email or whatever it is and then There's 17 million steps that could happen in between.

Well, I mean, that's a really positive emotion.

Yeah, it is.

Competitiveness could be— is also a positive, but it can flip into a negative sometimes.

Right. I agree. I mean, I played some sports in college, you know, as a college athlete. And, you know, you hear the athletes are the best sales reps and everything else. And there is a lot of truth to that. And there's a lot of truth to everybody wanting to be in that competitive space, but it's how far they let it go. Do they become overcompetitive? And then you can look at brand reputation, personal damage, you know, to that. It takes over their life, consumes them, those sorts of things that turns into a negative thing is, yeah, everybody wants to be the best, right? That's what we're all here for, right? We want to compete, but don't let it become unhealthy.

Yeah. But how do you keep the adventure on track? Because, you know, an unwinnable deal can be just as adventurous as a winnable deal.

Yeah, yeah. That comes with experience, I think, and having the right management or mentors or people on the team that kind of help you recognize like, look, this is going nowhere. They're just being nice. And that was really hard to learn early on in my career, like, but they're still talking to me and it's like, Yeah, but they're really not going to buy. I'm like, oh, I'm going to go get it.

Right.

I think you got to fail first. Just don't fail on all of it because if you fail on all of it, there's always something winnable in there. But understanding the difference is difficult. It is really, really difficult.

It is.

And especially when you want to have the 4x pipeline and everything else because you're trying to keep your job and all those other things. It's like, I'd rather have a real pipeline from you than you showing me 100 deals that aren't going to close.

Yeah, you know, because I think people look at quantity versus quality.

No, quantity is the opposite of quality.

Correct.

And what quantity do you get paid on in sales?

Exactly.

We get paid on quality, the clothes, the very best.

Right, exactly. Uh, that's lost. It's lost.

It's very lost. Because what does everybody say why they're not doing something? They're busy, right? They need no time.

Yeah. Well, the customer's gone dark. I haven't talked to them in a month and it's like, well, that might be a sign. Might be.

Signal-based sales management.

Yeah, exactly. It's like, yeah. Now unless they've sent you an email and said, hey, look, you know, we're busy. We have the solution. We're testing it. Like, you know, we, you know, something else came up, you know, Let's set a meeting for a month in the future or whatever. Then you're like, all right, cool. You're good. Right. But too often it's like, yeah, I can't get ahold of the customer. Like they've, they've had the demo for 90 days and it's like, you go and you look and they haven't logged in or they haven't given you any results. And it's like, yeah, you know, try to ask for the equipment back if you can. Um, but yeah, close lost it, move on. When they come on, when they come back, then we can reengage with them, but don't. Don't show me a million-dollar deal just for the sake of saving your pipeline.

Right, because that judgment skill of what's winnable and what's not winnable within your lifetime or within your window of caring, right? That's a critical skill, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. It is. And it's hard to accept it, especially as a rep. Like early on, just be like, yeah, we're not gonna get this. Like you're wasting your time. But like, then as I got into management and everything else, and I had a really, really great mentor, still good friend of mine as well too, you know, Charlie, and he really understood where my strengths were as a sales rep and then helped guide me into being successful in those scales, right? And I think that's lost in a lot of leaders today.

Yes.

Is really built that not only you want your reps and People to build relationships with the customer, but you need to have some sort of personal relationship with them because what motivates me and what motivates you are going to be 2 very different things. And if you want KPIs, fine, you can have them automated, but let the reps understand where they thrive. I had this guy that worked for me, um, had this crazy knack for being able to get people on the phone. I don't know how he did it, uh, but it was incredible no matter what. Like if he didn't have the phone number, he'd find their website, get through the company directory, and somehow he'd always get people on the And like, was his skill, like he was really, really good at that. Great. Let's enable that. Like, how do we give this person more of that? You know, I've had other reps that are really, really good at LinkedIn. Do I want them focused on sending 1,000 emails a week? No, I wanna automate that process for them and I want them to spend their time prospecting on LinkedIn, right? Understanding where people's strengths are is great, especially when you're trying to build and looking for hunters to get into things. It's like, Yeah, everybody can do everything, but what are they good at? Don't hire someone that's a farmer, right? If they're a great account manager, bring them in as like customer success or someone to take over after the initial deal's done because they have a skill to network and grow something, right? And understanding those dynamics, you can put together this really powerful team that works together well, and nobody's getting into this competitive, this is my deal, this is that. It's like, we're all gonna win here. And It just takes time to figure that out. I was a terrible manager when I started. Yeah, yeah, absolutely awful. I also started right as COVID happened and everybody's pipeline vaporized. But, you know, I learned a lot in that, what not to do, right? And even my wife was like, yeah, you just need to take a step back. I'm like, okay, cool. I did. And she's like, and she was talking to me. I'm like, oh yeah, you know.

And what did you not like when About sales managers that you had worked with in the past? Because that's usually one of the motives to become a sales leader, right?

Yeah. I think it was just too much focused on when is the deal gonna close? And I say that because I think a lot of smaller companies focus solely on that because they're trying to grow, right? You know, I've intentionally never worked for a large company. I've always, I started with a small company. I think it was like employee 400 something, right? Now they're, you know, a big, now massive company now, but there's just something fun about the agility of a smaller company, right? And everybody gets to be involved in everything. It isn't like, all right, you're in sales, go do sales. You're in marketing, go do marketing. There's no silos. There's collaboration and things of that. But I think in the smaller growth companies and things like that, as everybody wants to grow and make more money, right? We want the company to be more valuable. We get into this cycle of thinking that, and that pressure then goes down to the reps and they stop focusing on what they do well. And everybody gets talking about the numbers instead of actually talking about the people and the opportunities. And where is our actual ICP? Are we just chasing anything and everything, or have we really thought about where we fit in and then focusing on that vertical? And, you know, that is lost a lot of times in small companies. It's like, I need to hit $100 million in revenue next year so we can get a better valuation. We're trying to sell or we're trying to attract more money. And it's like, those things are great, but Putting the pressure with unrealistic expectations and not the right focus is never going to get you there.

Well, what you described is really becoming a student of the game. It's like dissect your game.

Right, right.

And reverse engineer it instead of just trying to do more dumb things faster.

Right, exactly. You know, what do they say? Grow or die. You know, and—

But remember what growing is.

Yeah, learn and retain to grow or you're gonna die.

Yeah.

You know, and it's, you know, there's all these methodologies, right? But they work in practice as a theory on how to execute, but they don't take the personal approach into things. You know, it's like, yes, do I have budget? Do I have a process? Do I have these things? Yes, great. I have all those. It's a good framework, but you know, it's like trying to work off a script. Unless you're in a call center, like a script, a script, just— No, no.

Every recipe has ingredients.

Right. Do you follow those ingredients? No.

Yeah. You can't like interrogate somebody. It's got to become organic.

Exactly. Exactly. And, um, you know, you just see it too often. It's, it's just, it just happens, right? You know, look at the people who've been in industry for a while and been with the same company. Why are they still there? Well, because they have relationships with the customers they have and they know how to cultivate them and cross-sell or whatever it is. And they've probably had those customers for a very, very long time. And there's a reason for that, you know? Yeah. Think about it.

And why do you think leadership doesn't get this?

I think we've become too numbers-driven as a society. Yeah. You know, I think, yeah, on one of your LinkedIn posts, It might have been the other week, is, you know, the quickest way to kill sales, which is, you know, a dying art, is to just, hey, here's KPIs, hit them. And I think that's what everybody's focused on now. Oh, we got to do this to get my share price up, or we got to do this to get a valuation or whatever it is. And it's like, yeah, but how do we get there? You're not reverse engineering your goal.

But why don't they do that with any other department? Why don't they count keystrokes for the engineers? It's the same setting, right?

Yeah, you would think that, but no, it doesn't work that way because without sales you don't have a company, right?

Because they don't understand sales.

Exactly. Some of the best, some of the best leaders I've had at the executive level were former sales reps. Yeah, because they understand how important they are to a company with customer feedback, obviously growth and things like that. But sales reps are your best source of knowledge on what your customers What?

Right. And you give them a comp plan. They're money motivated. What makes you think they wouldn't do the right thing to create the money?

Yeah, it's like, hey, why aren't you sending 1,000 emails a week?

And it's like, well, I mean, tell them to do something that reduces their money and you wonder why they won't do it.

Right.

Or they leave. You know, too many times, you know, you see people leaving and, you know, whether you've worked with them as a partner or directly with them and they're phenomenal sales reps. And then they leave a company after 6 months and you're like, well, what happened? And it's like, yeah, it just really wasn't right for me. And I'm like, yeah, it wasn't a good match. Sales is like dating, just like anything else.

A lot of salespeople like your motive, the adventure.

Yeah.

How much adventure is hitting the dial button 50 times a day?

I mean, it's—

Oh, I don't miss those days. I don't. You know, when I started, uh, I was making 200 to 300 phone calls a day and you get a voicemail every single time. Right. And I remember the first time a call went through and I'm pretty sure it was like the CTO at Delta Airlines. And this was like 12, 13 years ago. And he answered the phone and I was like, because you get in this habit of nobody answering. And I was like, and he was like, hello. I'm like, yeah, hi, you know, this is Brian with, you know, so-and-so. And he goes, okay, yeah, what can I do for you? And I was like, I don't know. I don't know. Let me tell you.

Can I leave a voicemail?

Yeah, go back. You know, you get stunned, you know, and it's like, yeah, doing those things didn't do anything, right? And especially, you know, a lot of companies go through reseller markets now. It's a big market. It's great. They bring a lot of value. I've worked with some resellers, but as an OEM, Maintaining relationships with them, not just saying, hey, I've got the better product at a better price. But if you don't build a relationship with them and understand how they work, you're never gonna be like, hey, look, I'll give you an extra 10%. Like, let's stop nickel and diming the margins, right? If everybody wants to make money, everybody's gonna nickel and dime everybody, right? Because they want the best, the best, the best. But you have to have a relationship with that person or they're never going to sell your product. Never.

What does relationship mean to you?

To me, it's actually knowing somebody, right? Knowing, you know, a lot of times, like, if they have family, right? It's finding something you can relate to them with. You know, whether it's sports, you know, you watch football on Monday nights or Sundays or whatever, it's, you know, yard work. It could be anything. Like, what are some of their hobbies? And I think that's a great starting point because then you don't get on the call and be like, hey, Brian, so how's the weather today? Right? It's like, hey, Brian, how are your kids today? You know, how's your wife? You know, how's that project you were working on? Yeah, what they care about, right? Anybody can talk about the weather, right? You know, that's what you do when the first call to a customer is like, oh yeah, hey, where are you guys based? Oh, we're based so-and-so. Okay, you know, what's it like there? Cool.

See, outside of sales, people view that as BS, schmoozing.

Right. Great. If you want to schmooze, go to a happy hour, buy them dinner, give them swag and all this other stuff. But the schmoozing part of it is obviously, you go to a booth, you get your bag, you get all your goodies. But if you don't know who the person is or try to relate with them on something, you're never going to be successful because it's always going to be talking about the deal. Right.

Transaction. Yeah.

And it's like, yeah, we are transactional, but You know, why do you buy what you buy at the store?

Well, without the relationship, why would they talk to you?

They won't.

Unless they—

or they'll just do it to inter— yeah, they have to, right? To entertain you.

Create a quote, question about the product, competitive issue.

Exactly.

But they may not call you. They may get on the website or get on YouTube and search it out or ask some friend.

Right. And the deal goes to someone else and you don't know why.

Exactly. Yeah, and it's just don't be transactional. Like, the worst is when you don't have a relationship with your partners or your reps on bringing value and understanding them as a company and as an individual, and their customer comes to them asking for your product, right? Well, now they have to talk to you, and if you don't have a relationship, it's literally going to be a one-way street. They're gonna ask for an updated quote, you're gonna send it to them, And that's gonna be the last time you probably hear from them unless you need to revise it again or they send you the purchase order.

That's a transaction.

What did you gain from that? Great, you got a sale. It doesn't matter how big it is because down the line they are now never going to pitch your product.

Yeah.

They're never gonna bring it to any of their other customers unless they come to them.

Well, what do you wish you learned the first year in sales that you know now?

Patience. Patience. I mean, I've been thinking a lot about, you know, some of these things lately, you know, starting with another company and really kind of growing things is sales is like growing grass. When you plant it, you can water it, you can give it all the sunlight you need, but if you don't have patience, it's never gonna grow. Like, give it the time it needs to mature.

Don't dig it up and look for progress.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I go out every day and look at stuff because my 4-year-old and I go out and, you know, he helps me plant and, you know, you know, put the grass seed down. So he wants to see if it's growing every day. That's different than, you know, well, I put the seed down, it says in 7 days it'll start growing. It's day 8 and I don't see anything. It's like, well, that's—

Whoa, you know, reps moving 100 miles an hour, the client's probably moving 5 miles an hour, right?

There are more of you than there are of them.

Yeah.

You know, and they have 1,000 things to do. And I think too many people like just get into the transaction side of it. And that's where I think that relationship with your customers, once you're in the doors, understand where you fit in their puzzle, their timeline and everything else, and then understand everything else they're doing. Because even if you may not be able to solve that problem, somebody you work with or knowledge you have you can give to them. And guess what? If you do that, it might speed up their other projects and they get to come back to you sooner. And that's important. Sales takes time. Yeah.

Understanding that whole context.

Yeah. And, you know, when a deal goes sideways, I think it's important. I love to do the postmortem of a deal, especially if it's a bigger one, right? You know, you could talk to them for a couple months, whatever it may be, and then they end up choosing somebody else and you sit down and you go, why? Well, we get defensive as sales reps and going, well, I did everything right, blah, blah, blah. And then when you actually sit back and think about it, it's like, look, you're not in trouble. I'm not firing you for losing this deal, but let's learn from it. Did you ask these questions? Did you understand this? Did you know that? Where did you fit in the bigger picture? And when that happens a couple of times, you as a rep, and it's happened to me, go, Oh, and they have an aha moment and then you see their win rates change, right? And things like that. So give it time, you know, let them nurture, you know, if you hire good people with a lot of experience, there's a reason they're good and they've stayed in sales for as long as they have and not switched. Enable them to do that and then understand.

Well, that's it. Think about it. If you didn't do the postmortem and you went with your hallucination of what you think went wrong, Right.

Then you change your whole marketing strategy and rebrand, right?

You know, and you certainly don't fix the other thing.

No, exactly right. Losing one deal is not the end of the world. Losing every deal, then you have a problem.

Well, the analogy I always use that worked on me was put the commission, face it, write it down, and then say, that's the tuition you paid for the lesson. Now tell me what the lesson was.

Oh, that's a good one. I like that. That's great.

Because if you think the lesson is, uh, they didn't listen to me, or they— some cousin's brother— well, that's okay, but you should— when could you have recognized that, right?

That's— yeah, exactly.

Because it's not about beating up. It's the same as soccer, right? If, if somebody doesn't pass the ball and they want all the glory or something, and then they lose it or go off bounds, Yeah, it's a— we accept that in sports better, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, you know, you make a good point there. It's like we want, you know, we always say athletes are the best salespeople, right? But then we put them in an environment that's not a team sport.

It's not a team sport and it's 8 hours a day, right?

Are you going to be selling 8 hours a day? No, no.

But you're playing 10, 20 games a day, right?

Or parts of the game. Yeah, you've got a week in between games, right? You've got some practice in the middle, right? You know, those sorts of things. Think of sales that way, you know, is do I want my reps on the phone for 8 hours a day? Absolutely not. They're going to be exhausted by that 3rd hour. They're already tired. They're mentally tired. And if somebody answers or they have a meeting, they're not focused in the way that they need to be. to be successful in that opportunity that they have. And, and that's, that's a problem. Break it up. Encourage them to have a life in the middle of the day. Go have lunch, go for a walk, break it up. Yeah, great.

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

Uh, yeah, LinkedIn is the best, best place, um, you know, for to find me. Uh, Brian Boudier, I'm the head of SAFe UEM, uh, you know, for North America. Uh, find me there. Best way to connect with me. Please don't send anything to my personal inbox. I think that's the email address I have up there because it'll probably get lost. I think my phone number is there. Encourage anybody that wants to reach out, reach out. You know, love connecting and growing a network.

I was watching this video and this interview on YouTube about Jerry Seinfeld, and he shared something that really applies to us in sales. Comedy is a lot like sales, isn't it? They, they have an hour, basically, their, their skit, their gig, their set. They call it a set of jokes and stories and observations. And what he shared was that after COVID, he had a really, really hard time getting back on the stage doing standup. And the interviewer said, oh, well, you need a little warm-up? He goes, no, no, no.

This was big.

Even though he had been doing stand-up for 40 years and it was his sole profession, something that he had done, practiced, loved doing, his passion, his purpose in life, that this 2-year gap Really put the wrench in his skills, in his game. And he was sharing the story. He goes, no, no, no, this wasn't just a warm-up. This was almost a relearning of it. And that's the thing about us humans. See, we have this knowledge mindset that— does Jerry know the jokes? Jerry knows the jokes. Jerry's a funny, funny man. But can Jerry deliver the jokes the way Jerry wants to and the way the audience expects? Not after 2 years. He has to redevelop those skills. Now, it's not going to take a long time, but it's much more than a warm-up. Now, think about that in sales because we have a weird performance job. There's very few performance jobs where you do it 8, 10 hours a day.

Why?

It's both mentally and emotionally tiring. And this is kind of part of the problem in sales, because then what do we do? We can't go deep 8 hours a day. You know, imagine studying for your math test for 8 hours a day. It's inconceivable. Or writing for 8 hours a day. Or playing any game. Maybe playing a game for 8 hours a day is possible. But our brains, the way they work is that they need consistent practice. Now, most of your selling is pretty consistent. You have prospecting stuff, first calls, demos, presentation, negotiations. But that's when the deal naturally happens. The easy deals. The bluebirds, the inbound.

Those are easy, relatively.

But how about the marginal things? And here's the secret about sales. That's where all the money is. Because anyone, almost anyone, can close the easy deals. It's the harder and harder deals, the bigger and bigger deals, the ones that are more and more complex that separate the people who are really going to excel And make the money in sales versus those who aren't. Now, my primary motive was probably competitiveness, um, and then probably income, which income meant to me independence, meaning I didn't have to do something that someone else wanted me to do that I didn't want to do. I liked independence, and the money gave me that, gave me options, options I wouldn't have had without the money. Now, on prospecting, does that really help? No, you have to have a different mindset. You have to make it a game, an adventure, a mystery. And then when you— why is that fun? Because it's a little bit of fun playing with It's a little bit of fun coming up with more creative ways of doing it instead of sending the same email all the day long and being surprised why you don't get anything back. That's how I came up with Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. It was my own prospecting need when I started my company. I did the usual. I had a little bit of inbound. Uh, traditional prospecting, cold calling, and cold emailing did okay, but it was not the kind of ROI I would like from my time and effort. And then I started breaking it down, and I spent about a year doing this. And what ended up happening was quite ironic, is that when I close a deal and they be— I had the system down I had a quarterly system with the VPs of sales, and I knew exactly what they were going through pretty much every week of the quarter because I had been through it myself. And I built this up. And what ended up happening when I was teaching them how to close the complex sale, all of the high— the managers would say, Brian, this is great, but we're not— we don't have enough deals. How do we get more deals? And of course, everyone's doing the same stupid cold calling and cold emailing. Well, most of the products that these people were selling needed a conversation. A cold call is not a conversation. A cold call is really trying to build a conversation, trying to start a conversation with somebody who doesn't want to talk to you. And I go, that's the problem with cold calling. So how do I get them to want To talk with me. Oh boy, that's when I found the gold. I took it from— I had more business than I could stand, and that's why I don't do on-site training. I have some of the people that I've trained to do that because I had so much inbound or so much repeat business, so much referral business, so much Easy business. I could essentially just— since they knew me, they liked me, and they trusted me. And this is all long before LinkedIn videos, long before the podcast took off. This is back when the podcast had less than 1,000 listeners, you know, 1/100th of what it is today. So yeah, I got some from that, but that I couldn't That wasn't enough to keep me happy. What I needed was a system to be able to just start a conversation with a VP or a CRO when I wanted to about them that would convert into a conversation about the problem that they have that I can solve. And it became organic and natural. It took me a long time to not pounce. Not pitch, not propose, because that's what came— it still comes to me instinctually. I have to stop myself from doing that still. Do you have to stop yourself from doing that? What if you really studied prospecting, got into it, instead of just take the little tips and tricks until they burn out? And you move on to the next one.

What if you did that?

I call that, you know, a student of the game. Because I, I'd say probably 90% of sales reps, if they find something that works, they take it and they'll just do it, hit the gas until it doesn't work for them, or they get burnt out, or it's not enticing enough for them, not the client, and they move on. That's kind of a hack, a B player. The A players really dig in and build a system that's repeatable, and they understand why it's repeatable. And what you'll find is that becoming a student of the game becomes its own reward because understanding sales is rare. Anyone can take an order, but I don't, I don't see many salespeople out there today. You know, there's a lot of great clerks and cooperative smiley faces with delightful personalities, but are they applying it to outbound, or do they just rely on their friendliness, their smile? Smile only goes so far. Let's really learn how sales works. If you're interested, go to b2brevenue.com. Check out the courses. There's 2 major ones: Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. This will fill up your pipeline, fill up your calendar in an organic, natural way that feels good. You will enjoy selling again. The other course is Closing the Complex Sale. This takes it from that first meeting, that first What you would classically think of as a discovery call, all the way through to closure. Who needs this? Anybody in the complex sale. Complex sale is reasonably large dollar amount. You need more than one person's approval within the customer base. There's lots of calls. It's not just, you know, is this the right product? Cash or credit card. That's not a complex sale. That's a transactional sale. A complex sale that has— you're selling to a company, there's lots of people involved, you may not know who they are. And typically, certainly on the cold outbound, the default is 80% don't close, at least not on the first attempt. A lot of them will close eventually because The need will arise and the urgency will arise. But if it closes a year from now, it may not be in your territory. I teach you how companies buy and how to control that process. Is that worth your time?

If it isn't, maybe you shouldn't be in sales.

That's it.

Appreciate you listening. 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.