HOW TO BECOME GREAT AT B2B ENTERPRISE SALES NOW

We talk a lot about the difference between the employee mindset and the entrepreneurial mindset. And today we've got a great example of it and how it impacts how you look at sales, how you take responsibility or deflect responsibility, and how you become great at anything. Because when you own it, When you know that it's not up to anybody else but you. Yeah, there are people who can help, but that's up to them. Not much control over that. You can ask, you can prod, you can pay, and they will probably help, but it's still up to you. Because what does the employee say when something goes wrong? I did everything right. I did everything I was supposed to. What does an entrepreneur say when things don't work? I gotta figure this out. I gotta try something else. What did I do wrong? What could I have done better? It's a huge difference. And unless you were raised with it, you may not even know about it. You may think you have it. Well, do you take responsibility? Do you own it? Is it— are you knowledgeable about it being up to you, or do you deflect it? Do you judge yourself off of how you feel or how well you perform? And we're going to be talking a lot about the classic traps that we as reps go through, the emotional ones. We've been talking a lot about how to connect with that emotion inside of you that will drive you. And you can connect with it too much sometimes, and it can drive you too far, too fast. So you have to regulate it like every emotion. Even if you're even-keeled, that is helpful sometimes and harmful others. And this is what makes sales so hard. And today, most people are just numbing themselves, playing with their outbound tools, becoming go-to-market engineers. I love that title. Spam has gotten so complicated that now we need a GTM engineer to send it. Or maybe you could learn how to sell. Oh no, that involves rejection and effort. And extending ourselves. Can't I just play with a toy? You can, but it doesn't work. That's why the toys get more and more complicated that you need an engineer to use them. Look, I love technology. I'm probably the biggest advocate of sales technology. I love it. But some of it Is masking the real problem. The real problem is people don't know how to sell. They don't know how to become known, liked, and trusted in their market. We're going to get into all of this. A great guest, and I think you'll relate to them because he's early in his career. Um, I think he has an innate— this is my judgment— an innate ability to stay calm and confident. Without becoming cocky. A lot of salespeople get really anxious. I think anxious is the most common thing. They get a little hyper. They get a little scared. They tend to panic. We need a little bit of confidence there, but not too much. Now, also, while you're listening to this, ask yourself, what if Jay, our guest today, had brevitypitch.com, meaning he could get up and practice his sales, practice his problem areas. Is he talking about the problem or the product too much? Is he caving into the commodity trap? All of these things that we run into. Is he overconfident or underconfident? You can practice this today. If you're a sales manager and you're not checking out brevitypitch.com, uh, how are you going to make your number this year? How do you get your reps up to speed? How do you get them to really understand these advanced skills? Because what we've done is we've broken down the sale Into these advanced skills and allow reps to practice them. Because it's not about knowledge. Most people know about these advanced skills. Problem versus product. It's probably the most common thing out there. Everybody posts a little meme, sell the problem, not the product. How many people do it? Maybe 1%. What if your reps could do it? And all of a sudden, the deals don't go to no decision anymore. If you're a manager, remember what it was like the last day of the quarter when the deals didn't come in, the best deals didn't come in, and you don't know why. This is why. It's because the rep fell into the commodity trap, wouldn't admit it, and now all of a sudden the deal's dead. Everyone pays for it. Nobody understands what caused it. Nobody wants to take action to prevent it from happening again. This will prevent it from happening again. If you go check it out, you can see it both on their YouTube page— search Brevity AI— or my YouTube page. Brian Burns Sales. I put up a couple of the webinars that we've done on sales performance because sales is a performance profession. It's not a GTM engineering position. That's for people who want to sell you a tool. This is increasing revenue. It's up to you. Do you want to play with a toy or do you want to increase revenue?

brevitypitch.com.

Here we go. I'll sum it up at the end. Hey, Jay, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Yeah, Brian, appreciate you having me. Um, yeah, so Jay Garside. Um, Brian, come from a family of entrepreneurs. My dad, grandfather, uncle, every father figure I've grown up with, they've either started their own company or bought into an existing infrastructure. So I always grew up in the weeds, you know, seeing the inputs, the work ethic that went into that, and then some of the success that came out of that. And I would say all of them always told me, Jay, if you want to be a successful entrepreneur and you want to make a lot of money, you got to get good at sales. And I really took that to heart. Definitely lit a fire under me at a young age. So all throughout high school, college, had all kinds of sales internships. Um, just a natural communicator. Post-grad, I went to school out in Boulder, Colorado at CU. Go Buffs. Um, And I took a gig with a company, Fortune 500 company. They sold building materials in the commodity space, but also did some supply chain consulting in tandem with that. And they had an opportunity. It was an untapped market, uh, in the tri-state area. Like, hey, Jay, we've nothing to lose. Here I am, an ignorant college kid, just graduated, just want to make a name for myself, had a lot of hustle. Went out there, Brian, and Within the first year and a half, grew that book from $0 to $7 million. Out of 250 account executives, I was number 10. I basically just built that book from scratch and I wasn't doing anything insane. I was just being myself, following up relentlessly, being authentic, being genuine. And I got to the point where at that year and a half mark where I felt like I was getting a little complacent, getting stagnant, and I wanted to understand a bit more of a strategic sale, consultative. understanding selling to C-suites. Um, and I had some buddies that were doing really well in software sales. They're like, hey Jay, you know, if there's appetite in your end to get into it, I think you'd do really well. And so I started interviewing around, looking around. I wanted to sell into sales folks. I wanted to sell into marketing folks, areas of the business that drove revenue, drove demand. That's, that's my personality. That's where I, I felt like I would do really well. So I got into selling go-to-market technology at another Fortune 500 beast. Within the first 3 months, fastest promoted rep, highest ACV, highest win rate, made a top-performing club that year as well. Year and a half mark came around again. My VP of sales, who I loved, he actually got headhunted to a new gig. He brought me with him and here I am at this company. We're an early growth stage B2B SaaS company based out of the UK. I'm brought on to spearhead go-to-market in the US. In the enterprise space specifically, we're going upmarket, increasing our ACV. So I'm building out that motion as we speak, but a lot of fun. And that's a little bit about my background right now.

Yeah. What I took away from that, which I think is key, is that entrepreneurial mindset. I think too many people in sales today have an employee mindset.

Right. Right.

Where's my leads?

Right. Where are they?

I don't see him.

My calendar, it's, it's not, not quite filled yet.

And can you describe the difference there? Because if you don't grow up with it, how do you learn it?

It's, it's a mindset shift, I guess, but it's, it's almost like you got to take matters in your own hands. You got to create the outcomes that you want. Certainly there's going to be icing on the cake when you get a referral, you know, when you have someone that's book and top of funnel for you, and it's always great, and you want to have that in tandem, in parity with it. But if you're doing the inputs you need to build pipeline, to drum up opportunities, and being thoughtful about it, and you're consistent with it every single day, I mean, that's where you see reps be from— go from here to just absolutely smashing their number out of the water consistently.

And what was it like going from a commodity sale where it's mostly about service, relationship, follow-through, trust to a B2B strategic sale where you have to, you don't have any of that.

I mean, it's a little bit more transactional and, you know, you're building relationships on Zoom calls, right? Like every relationship I've built over the past 5 years has been on Zoom. So it is tough to get that human-to-human type interaction. It was tough right off the rip. I will say like within the first month working and pivoting to that, It's embarrassing to see some of my first calls. Like, oh my God, I was so bad. So bad. But I had a good leadership in place. They believed in me. And that's kind of what kept the fire underneath me to, to keep going and, and keep progressing. And eventually I got outta my head and, and really started making some stuff happen. But I was putting in the work every fricking day. Talk tracks in the morning, you know. On the toilet outside of this, when I get out of the shower, right? My fiancée's like, Jay, what are you doing? It's like, hey, let me do my thing. This is how I get in presentation mode. This is how I'm learning it. But just those little inputs consistently every single day is kind of how I was able to make that pivot early on.

And what drives you? What's the key emotion there?

So look, like, Part of what keeps me up at night is the idea of getting complacent, getting stagnant, feeling like I'm not always progressing. And for me, it's not about money. Like, money's, money's great, right? Like, the money comes with it, but I want to feel like I'm always challenging myself. And when I feel like I'm at a point where I'm getting a little bit stagnant and I'm there, I need to do something different. And so there's always ways to be getting better, always ways to be constantly learning. So I'm always looking at Other reps, what are they doing? What's working for them? You know, market, like what trends are going on in my my customers? What should I be cognizant of coming in with a point of view? Like I'm always trying to just get that much better. So I would say that's a big piece to it.

And but most reps kind of fall into the B player trap. They they get you know they make club and then they assume it's an entitlement that. You know, it's because of their DNA or their— they've been tapped by the sales gods.

Right, right.

They just sit back.

They sit back. And if you're not constantly learning and constantly pushing yourself to get better every single day, you're gonna get walked on. Like, there's hungry guys I see, you know, right out of school come in and just absolutely smash it out of the water. People like, whoa, where'd this guy come from? It's like, Look, he's not doing anything insane. He's just putting in the reps every single day and you're not, right? And you are not.

And why do you think people don't?

It's easy, right? Like you think you got it. You understand your product, you understand the value you drive, the outcomes it drives. You understand the pain points it solves. You're good to go, right?

Like, where's the order?

Right, right. Let's get the order. I mean, we're all guilty of it, but it's just, it's the consistency and it's, it's the itch to just constantly want to learn more and be the best. For me, I don't, I can't stand to lose. I, I expect, like, when I close a big deal, I don't, I don't really feel anything. I don't really celebrate. I expect that out of me because of how hard I work. I would say seeing someone beat me, on that dashboard, that kills me. That freaking kills me. That lights a fire under me every single— and I wear that on my, on my shoulders pretty, pretty big.

You hate to lose more than you love to win.

Oh my God, it drives me bananas. It drives me bananas. Yeah.

Where's that come from?

I don't know. Hockey growing up, soccer growing up. Obviously an athlete in some, you know, But I've just always been wired that way. I really have. I just remember at an early age, and just even if I were to win, you know, tournaments or, um, you know, hardest worker, you know, growing up in, in, in the hockey realm, like, expected that. But if someone beat me, we lost.

Yeah.

How can we get better, guys? You know, that's not going to happen next year.

And what keeps you in sales?

You know what? Um, it is entrepreneurial, right? Like, I like how you're, um, yeah, you're kind of in charge of your own outcomes, which I like. Uh, I'm responsible for my own pipeline. I'm responsible for my drumming up my own opportunities. I would say just really kind of being that IC, that individual contributor, is really what keeps me into sales. I'm not a corporate guy. I can't stand being told what to do. Drives me up the wall. Um, I've got a great relationship with my VP, great leadership over here, um, in place at the company I'm at right now. But yeah.

And what do you think separates the very best reps that you've met competed against, observed from the, the middle of the pack?

Well, for one, the, the cons— the consistent itch to always improve, right? Like always looking for some— for ways to just get that much better. But in tandem with that, I can't tell you how many times I've jumped off, I brought on a client and they're like, Jay, your follow-up was absolutely impeccable. Like, and Even if it took a year long to close them and it was the smallest deal in the world, if I knew good and well that we had great product fit with that company, we had a solution that I know good and well they would love, it would fit in, it would complement what they're trying to get to, I would not let go of them. I would not. I would stay in their ear consistently, persistently, but in a very thoughtful and methodical way. Handwritten notes. gifts to the office, right? Hey, it's hard to drive, you know, revenue on an empty stomach. Here's a thing of Jimmy John's, you know, whatever it is, just staying in front of them, right? And I just got so many, you know, compliments, you know, post-sale of like, Jay, you know, really happy and thankful that you followed through the way you did and it changed our business. So you have to believe in your product though.

True. And how do you keep The roller coaster from going too deep. It's not all—

What do you mean by that?

Well, there's ups and downs, right? You come into the office, someone might have told you to, you know, don't ever send me an email again. So you're down, you get a cup of coffee, you're back at it. There's this constant up and down, and it's really hard for a lot of people to manage that.

I get slapped on the wrist a lot. Like, I am— I'm— my, uh, my personality, I'm, I'm very tenacious, I'm aggressive, uh, in my follow-through, and it's, it's slapped me on the wrist quite a bit for sure throughout my career. As I've matured as a seller, um, I would say I'm trying to hone in on that for sure, but it's, it's hard mentally. It really is. And I think that If you know you're consistently doing, nothing's changed, right? You're consistently doing, you're learning, you're following through, you're being thoughtful with how you're reaching out, you're making sure you're multi-threaded in every deal, you're not being lazy on your pipeline, you're going through it, how can you move deals forward every single day? I think, look, outcomes are going to follow. Some months are out of your control. You can't force people to buy. But you can be consistent. You can continuously do what you know you got to do. And the second that slips away from you, that's a problem, right? That's when it's a problem. Yeah.

A lot of people get lazy, skip steps, you know, feel comfortable with the champion and the deal.

Yeah.

They said it was going to close.

Right.

It's in procurement.

We gave them a contract. We're good to go. Any minute now. It should be fine. Any minute, right? It should be coming in. No, it's constantly doing your homework, right? It's constantly unpacking what could go wrong in this deal.

Yeah.

Where else could you go deeper, wider? Who else needs to see it? You know, just understanding the buying process, right? Like, just because you understand the fit, where the problem is, how you guys can help it, how big is the problem? How company-wide is it? Do they have budget to solve this? Is it worth solving for? Like, you got to do all this. And just because your champion has this problem, is that being talked about in the boardroom? Is it? Right? Like—

Anybody else care about it?

Yeah. Is it just, just you and I? Are we just, just talking about it? Or— you know, it's, it's like, you really, really need to dig, dig, and dig. Um, and that's also where having a good leader, um, in place that's, you know, being relentless about unpacking your, your opportunities with you as well and helping you come up with, with strategy and solutions to move deals forward.

Well, you raised the perfect question. You know, what can go wrong? Right? Because it's lots of stuff we're going to go wrong in a deal.

Oh yeah.

Lots of stuff. And if you're ignoring it, you're not really facing it until it happens, and it's usually too late.

Correct. So, I mean, like, what could go wrong? Manager doesn't know about it. Manager doesn't know about it. Again, it's just one guy that thought it was interesting, took it, and thinks they have budget. It could be all kinds of things. You just not being threaded enough, not going deep enough, not asking the right questions, not understanding like the actual business impact, where it shows up on the balance sheet. Like, where does this problem show up there?

Mm-hmm.

So when you're talking to his boss, her boss, whoever it is, you can really understand. It's like, look, like, this is what we came up with. This is my understanding of the business. And you can really drive the value, uh, from that respect.

And I like the idea that you followed your VP. What did that VP do for you as a leader that you appreciated?

So I mentioned early on, I was probably the worst rep that first month, first month and a half when I first started software sales. And he believed in me. There were some managers that were like, dude, this guy's gotta go. I don't think he's gonna make it. And I always just kept going. I kept practicing. I kept listening to other reps, like kept trying. And he believed in me. He stuck it with me and that's what kept me going. And with that, you know, once I started to really take off is when him and I started to hit it off and we'd get time every other day and, um, unpack my calls. We do call coaching sessions. So he got me excited about sales and, um, you know, the itch to be the best. And, you know, even when I, I didn't have a month that when I was there where I didn't blow a quote out of the water, like not one month after I missed that first month and a half. And that was a big part because I knew he was, he was on my side, he was in my corner. And he was with me even when I was in the trenches and in a dark place.

That's it. Most managers would do the opposite. They put you on a plan.

I've had, I've had bad managers. I've had And it's, it's tough. It's tough. It's, it's honestly, if you've got a bad manager, you gotta go. That's, it's, I couldn't sell for someone that I didn't actually respect.

And describe a bad manager for the people who may not have had one yet.

Um, it's coming. You'll get it sooner or later. Yeah, sooner or later. He's coming. Someone that's, uh, they don't really know what they're talking about. Like, do they really? When they're going over— yeah, when they're going over your pipeline, like, do they really know what they're talking about? When you bring them on a call with a customer, how are they holding themselves? Are they just a know-it-all? Are they talking, taking up the whole time? Are they letting the customer talk? Because if they're talking the whole time, I'm sitting there and I'm like, I want to just kill myself right now. And I'm sure the customer feels the same way. And that's one manager I brought on a bunch of calls. And this was prior to this VP I had where same thing, he would just talk and talk and talk and talk. And I'm like, well, I don't know why we lost that deal, Jay. We shipped. I know exactly.

We had all the information we needed.

Yeah, it's like, actually, I know exactly where the red flag came. I would've, Ghosted us too.

So, and it sounds like you apply a little bit of humor and brevity to your follow-up.

Absolutely. And this actually took me a while to figure out. So this is something I wish I figured out early on is be authentic, be yourself. You're not selling anything. You're not selling anything. You are literally understanding If they have a problem, is the problem worth solving for? Can you help them solve that problem? If you can help them solve that problem, what does it look like post-sales-wise? Implementation. What's it gonna cost? Where's that money gonna come from? And then going from there. So I think really just breaking it down simplified like that into the sales stages there, but also again, As I got comfortable smiling, talking to them, dude, how are you? What do the kiddos do?

You don't put on the sales voice.

There's no sales voice anymore. It's like when I first started out, I thought I had to like bring out this, this guy. Yeah, this act. I always thought that. And it's, it's so genuine now where people sense that and Yeah, it's when you're talking to someone that's reading off a script or doing— you can sense that from a mile away. But when you're being yourself, you're leaning into it. Yeah, that's what sells.

Your bad manager on that call, is he being authentic? No, he's being—

Absolutely not. Yeah. Yeah. He needs to know it all, right? Like, that's, that's not it.

So yeah, he didn't keep that beginner's mindset that you have, always wanting to learn. He gets comfortable in what he knows and assumes he knows everything.

Everything, right? He's there, he's like, I'm here, I'm an RSM now.

And what were some of the key sales skills that you learned that kind of took your game to the next level?

Obviously the powers when you're asking the questions. Um, for one, I would say asking, like, really focusing on the outcomes that your service, your product drives rather than features, functions. And early on, it's easy when you're first starting out to understand like, oh, you know, this is where we're different than the competitor and our feature is this and our feature is that. But it's more like, no, like these are the reasons why you might actually wanna go with our competitor. And just bringing up, you know, that early on, it establishes credibility right off the rip because—

Yeah.

You know, right? Like, yeah, trust. Exactly. Like we're not for everyone. Here's some of the reasons why you might not move forward with us. I think Starting off calls like that, especially if you know they're using a competitor. I think, uh, it's, it's something that changed my game quite a bit. Coming in with a point of view, Brian. Um, right. And just getting them to open up. It's like, no, no, no, Jay, that's not at all what we're focused on. But like, okay, great. Tell me what you are. What's top of mind? And then you got it going and then the rapport is there and it's smooth sailing. So I think when I started to really be consultative and strategic in that respect, And then when you get other decision makers on a call, other stakeholders, hey Brian, like, you know, what part of this got you excited? You know, how are you kind of thinking about this offering right now? Getting them to sell for you and then you don't have to do anything. It's like, all right, this is what he wants to focus on. Yeah. And then you kind of get their focus moving forward, but it's, it's falling on your sword, that unspoken level of humility.

Yeah.

Humility needs to come in. Um, but yeah, I would say that those few.

And what triggered that change? Was it just getting used to it, getting confident from your success? Did somebody show you?

Getting confident for sure, but some of these big companies that I worked at, um, there was a couple of guys at this previous company that I worked at where They were putting up insane numbers and I would listen to every single one of their calls every single day. I would start out, this is gonna sound aggressive and a bit psychotic, but I would be at the office from 5:00 AM, not kidding, after I already went to the gym to 6:00 listening to the calls. And I would just hear how they're, I mean, how, how are they selling what they're selling? Like, how are they putting up these numbers? And I would mimic and I would just write down their talk tracks and write down the questions they're asking. And from that, that's how I got— I'm still not, I wouldn't consider myself good. I'm still learning and always, you know, student of the game. But for me to sit here and tell you I'm a hell of a lot better than I was, absolutely. And that's from that listening.

And did it seem counterintuitive when you first heard it? You're like, that's nothing special. He's not telling them about the features. Right.

You know what I noticed? What I picked up from it was the authenticity. That's what I really gravitated towards. And I was like, dude, they're literally leaning into their personality. And that's me. That's how I was raised. I was raised super old school. And when I heard some of the top reps, they're not salesy. They're just being genuine. And when I started to make note of that and writing down some of their talk tracks, I was like, I should totally just stop with the talk tracks and just be Jay. Just be Jay. You know everything, Jay. You don't need to— you've got it. You've got enough information where you can iterate off of it and just lean into yourself, lean into your personality more. And when I really started to do that, that's when I took off. That's when my career took off. Um, and that's when I started putting up some ridiculous numbers.

And that's a little bit of a balancing act too, right? You got to know when to do it, how to do it, how not to do it sometimes.

Oh my God, yeah. I— believe me, I've lost so many deals where I'm gonna look back and like, I would not have— I would have hung up the call. I mean, I would have ended that Zoom call, you know. Um, but you're always learning. Go back to your calls, listen to it. How are you sounding? But yeah, I'm always, I'm always just trying to understand, A, ways to improve, and B, how can I be more authentic? Because again, that's what sells.

And what skill do you wish you were better at that would take your game to the next level?

I wish I was better at Negotiation has always been, um, because it's like you get, you get to the finish line, you're so excited, you know they're gonna get a lot out of this product, this platform, this offering, whatever you're selling. You're right there and you know it's really going to change their business. And for them to sit there and make an ask, you know, it, it is— of course, every bit of you is like, Yeah, we can do that. But like, no, right? Like, no, it's like, hey, is that— does that make sense for our business? Are they going to be a profitable customer? Right? So I would say I'm always trying to get better at negotiating. That's, that's something that I'm really focusing on moving forward and understand the levers to pull, when to pull them. And when you got to take something on the chin and move on to the next one.

And who's the persona you're selling to now?

I sell into directors of sales, directors of recruiting, VPs, C-suites. But yeah, still very much go-to-market technology.

Hard to get a hold of people.

It is. You got to take a multi-pronged approach. Everyone's inundated with emails. Everyone's inundated with LinkedIn connects and InMails. So you can't just rely on those channels anymore. It's very much Pick up the phone, but then when you pick up the phone, is it spam? Right? So you've got they gotta have some level of familiarity with you, and I've had a lot of success. A lot of my SDRs have had success with the the gifting, right? Sending a case of Monster Energy. Hey, team could use some energy. Team at sort team at XYZ company, you know, can help you with that. You know, whatever energizes the sales floor. Whatever you want to say in that message, but. Being creative, being a little bit thoughtful in your outbound approach, um, in tandem with some handwritten notes. Yeah, we're having some, some success there for sure. Right.

Hey Jay, where can people go to follow you and connect with you?

LinkedIn for sure. Um, Jay Garside. Um, I would say my phone number as well. Shoot me a text, uh, 269-203-5477, and my email, james.w.garside@gmail.com.

Now Jay's found his emotion that drives him— competitiveness. He hates losing. Now, I don't know many people who like losing, but a lot of people are comfortable losing. Gotta change that. Gotta get a little uncomfortable. Don't want to hate it too much and go crazy, But you got to hate it, especially if you're in sales and you want to stay in sales. I think too many people take the approach of, I just want to learn enough to get the next step on this next deal. And that's good enough for the next deal, but what of the deal after that? Because there's always going to be another deal. This is the loser's view Of learning about sales. Jay's got it right. You learn a little bit, you apply it, you learn a little bit more, you dig in, and all of a sudden that curiosity becomes one of the drivers. I'll tell you a story about one of the first sales managers I had. Talk about a bad mindset. He told me, you know, at this stage of my career— he was an older guy— Probably in, in his 50s. I was in my early 20s at the time. He could have been 40, you know. You know, when you're early 20s, anybody over 35 is an elderly senior citizen. The point being is he would come into work and he goes, I want to find a job where I can get the most amount of money with the least amount of effort. And I thought to myself, certainly at that time, I go, I just want to make the most amount of money. I don't mind working hard. I don't mind working long hours, crazy hours, but I want to make the money. Guess what happened to him? He used to come in and read the paper in the morning, the old-fashioned newspaper, the physical paper, and I'd be like, God. And of course, I didn't learn anything from him because it was all about Order-taking. And he had probably some success early in his career, and he was just coasting, waiting for something to happen to him instead of him making something happen. Now, that mindset is probably the worst mindset because nobody hires you to do as little as possible so they can pay you the most amount of money. They hire you, us, so that you sell something, that you do something that would not happen unless you made it happen. Isn't that nice? Not taking orders, not processing orders, not answering customers' questions. Creating interest, creating curiosity, creating urgency. These are all skills. Nobody talks about them on LinkedIn. It's all about that first spam to get a reply. Oh, I got a reply. Do you have an order? No. We have forgotten what we're doing out here. We're connecting, engaging with strangers. We're helping them solve problems, some problems that they may not even be aware of. They feel it. We all have problems that we're unaware of. We're all going to retire. Do you have enough savings?

Huh? Huh?

We're all decaying. Are you doing anything to prevent that or delay it?

Huh?

Huh? This is one of the downsides of being a mammal, is that we live for the moment. Not the future. We have to use that prefrontal cortex to think about the future and do something about it. But what always blocks us from doing that is our little instincts that tell us, hey, I'm hungry, I'm tired, I'm lazy, I want to do as little as possible and make the most amount of money. That strategy didn't get him very far. And, but my strategy of working my butt off kind of— I made a lot of money, but my physical health suffered. So you got to find a balance there, some kind of control, just like your emotional regulation. Now listen to what Jay had done. He studied the best, and the best weren't doing What he was doing. So he changed. He became more authentic. And what we mean by authentic is that what we're saying and doing feels natural to us. But advanced sales skills like pushing back, debating a little bit, um, holding back. What the client wants to get what we want, understanding human nature, seeing through smokescreens. For instance, who's the decision maker? You ask that question, everyone I've ever asked that question to says, I am, 100% of the time. Then you need to qualify it. Who makes the economic decision to sign the purchase request that goes to procurement? They'll still say, I am. They know they're not, but they think they are. See, we have to know how to sell because our clients don't. We think they do because they act like they do. And we think we do because we act like we think we do. But do you? Oh, what do you mean? I send a proposal in and a month or so later it comes out from procurement.

Sometimes.

But what happens when it doesn't? Why didn't it? Oh, that went to no decision. Oh, did they check the no decision box? No, they don't know how to get it done. And it usually takes people a month or 2 in my course Closing the Complex Sale to understand that. And let me give you another example of like Somebody got onto one of my company pages and, tell me more about the courses. And I'm like, well, is this really the place? Did you go to my website?

No.

How can you sell? This is the way to do it? You just like send a note to somebody? Hey, how do I do this? How do I get you to buy? Every time everyone has this question. How do I go from 0 to 100 without doing anything? That's the silver bullet approach to sales. Like they're missing that one little silver bullet. They know everything else. Just tell them how to get a meeting and how to close a deal. I've got everything else out of sales. Just tell me those 2 things, Brian, and I'm all set. Well, it's not a one-line answer. It takes some skill development. You have to understand the problem first. Everyone's using logic. If logic worked, everyone would be loaded today. We'd all be billionaires. We think the client knows what they're doing. Very rarely. Now, if they are already a customer and you're buying more, sure, they get it. But if it's new and it requires change, uh-oh, not happening. Now, also think about what Jay said about managers, because this is critical, both if you are a manager or if you want to get into management. Most sales managers get into sales management, some because they're burnt out selling. The most dangerous kind, and that was me. Was thinking, if I can only get 10 people to sell like me, I'll be even richer. And what you find out is everybody sells a little different, and they should because they're different. Doesn't mean it doesn't work. It means it's different. And trying to change somebody who doesn't want to change, that's the opposite of Of authentic. And also what he said about having his back. Do you have your rep's back? Do you feel like your manager has your back? Meaning that not only do they trust you, you trust them, and they want the best for you even when you're not performing at your best or getting the results they want. Or do they just do carrot and stick? Do this, you get a bonus. Do this, or you get fired. Carrot or stick. How does that feel? A little transactional, doesn't it? Oh, you still feel like an employee when you're on a PIP, performance improvement plan? Do you really feel like you're an entrepreneur? That's why you want to have an entrepreneurial mindset. One, you'll understand it, what's going on. Two, you know what your options are. Either impress your manager or go find somebody who knows what they're doing. And I think today everyone's going to find someone else. To really be successful in sales, you've got to have a track record. You've got to have some momentum at the company. Sure, not every company is going to work out or every role. I get it. I had to change jobs a lot too. But you don't want to do it all the time. If you really want to become great at sales, go to b2brevenue.com. Sign up for one of the courses. Either Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting or Closing the Complex Sale. 2025 will be the last year I'll have live one-on-ones or office hours. So they're going to end in December of 2025. Now, some people, the past ones are fine. They are good. They're all evergreen, meaning that they're all relevant. You know, sales, some things about sales change. Most of it stays the same. People. They change a little bit, what channel they care about, how fast they move, but most of the things are pretty consistent. Have your friends changed how they like to talk to each other and talk to you? Oh, they went from live phone to text. Okay, we get that, but they still want at least equal amount of reach out. They don't want to chase you. They want you to kind of participate, right? The other course is Winning the Complex Sale. This is what it's all about, about preventing no decision, keeping the deals moving, direction, momentum, and control. These are hard skills to learn. They're counterintuitive, meaning that your intuition is working against you. And that's the hardest part of learning this. I try and show people, give people examples, but you can't audit the Course. You've got to participate in the Course. You've got to apply it. You can't watch a game of golf on TV and then hit a hole-in-one. The watching is interesting, but the doing Is what makes the difference. And that's why I love brevitypitch.com. It's the doing. And, and instead, we originally started with long calls, 30-minute calls. That was too much. You can still do them, but now what we did is we— let's break it down into the most high-impact skills and just have people do it once for 5 minutes a day. And after 3 to 5 days, reps love it. Why? Because there's an immediate payback. They get comfortable pushing back, asking the hard questions, leading the call, closing for the next step, getting it on the calendar. It's not easy to do. It's very simple to cave. Instead of close. Which are you? Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.