HOW TO BUILD THE CONNECTION WITH YOUR CHAMPION IN B2B SALES

One of the big mistakes that people in sales talk about is trusted advisor, or I have a great relationship with a champion. But do we really know what that means? On the trusted advisor, do they trust you? Meaning, do they feel you have their interest above your own, that selling the product isn't the top priority. It's helping them solve a particular problem. And if you can't, you help them find somebody who can. Seems a little counterintuitive, but it actually has an amazing effect. They often become more interested. And why? Why can't you help me? The other part is the relationship. Now, this people don't really understand because every salesperson, 100%, thinks they have great relationships. But it doesn't matter what we think. It matters what they think. And the simple litmus test for that is, do they want to talk with you? Do they reply to you? Do they take your calls? Do they cooperate? And not only just cooperate, divulge, maybe even say things that they shouldn't. I always characterize this relationship as partner in crime. Not crime in a pejorative sense, but that relationship that you have with somebody where you're both trying to fight for the good fight, get what really needs to be done at the company, despite the company's resistance to it. Not proactive resistance, but just passive resistance. And that was the type of relationship that I always wanted because I knew if I had it, I would know how real the deal is. If you don't have it, you may not be in the lead. Your competitor might have that relationship with the client. And how do you build it? It's helping them. It's about them. And this is what salespeople don't get. They think it's about logic, that it's about how great the product fits the particular problem. But we all have that. We all have problems that a product could really help— a new car, a new house, a new TV, whatever it is. But yet, What gets in the way? Everyone thinks it's money. I think money's like a distant— it's usually change. In B2B, it's resistance. It's change within the company, ruffled feathers from different departments, cooperation between political rivals within the account. It seems illogical, but we're dealing with people. Remember, and people pretend to be logical and they're 98% emotional. What is the personal win in it for me is what they're thinking. This is the topic of today's interview. I think you're really going to enjoy it. Before we get into it, have you checked out the courses? We had great office hours yesterday. So if you're in the course, please stay current with the office hours if you can't attend. Put your question or case study in the community to make sure I cover it during the office hours. I'm doing live case studies where we look at profiles and try and find what's a great way to get a meeting and a conversation started with these people. And it's not about spam and email. It's not about the channel either, because you're probably thinking, oh, he's talking about social selling. No, I'm not. You know, you can use the phone, you can use email, you can use social, you can use carrier pigeon if you want. The channel is irrelevant. It's the way you build that communication with them. So check out the courses at b2brevenue.com. Also, huge progress is being made at brevitypitch.com. What they are doing today is now you can interactively talk with an AI. Verbally with a real voice that, that's essentially— it sounds like a human.

You keep—

after a few minutes, you can't tell the difference. And the feedback that I'm getting from the listeners who have purchased it is amazing. They're telling me, thank you for letting me know about this, because now what they're able to do is build up their sales conversational skills technical business acumen, all without having to have somebody else practice with you. And I know you think you can do it in your head. Think again. Notice what happens the first time you open your mouth on a Monday morning. We are professional communicators and we need a way of practicing and not practicing on live prospects. That's the most expensive way to practice. So take your manager, go to brevitypitch.com. They're really talking to teams right now, uh, given the stage the company's at. So bring your manager, brevitypitch.com.

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

Sure, sure. Thanks, Bryan. So background on myself, I've been in some form of selling or another for about 18, 19 years, 15 of which are in the technology space.

Yep. And why sales for you?

Why sales for me? I love, I love working with people. I really do. I enjoy getting to know people. There's something that I think I've been able to do across all my positions and even the different types of sales that I've been in where I really enjoy providing value to folks and helping them, right? If there, if there's a problem and I believe I have a solution that can help them, well, I'd like to work with them on that project.

Yeah, but you could have been in support though. There's gotta be a motivation to get into sales. Was it financial? Was it competitive?

Was it—

You hit on, I mean, both of those I'll say are true, but you hit number 2 is super important for me. The competitive nature of sales is is something that really drives me. I come from an athletic background and just always being challenged and driven to perform at a top level is something that's always, always been a big part of who I am. And, you know, so I look at sales teams, there's the collaborative team nature of it, but then there is the individual, right? The kind of the one-on-one relationships that I enjoy to win. And I think a lot of salespeople enjoy that. That type of environment.

Yeah. And who do you typically sell to? Is it technical people? Is it line of business?

So throughout my career, it's probably been split down the middle. You know, I'd say the last 7 or 8 years or so has been technical. So data security folks, data security executives in the C-suite who are really tasked with data privacy initiatives and making sure that they're being responsible and compliant with data.

Yeah. And how did you learn how to become great at sales? Was it just trial and error? Was it a mentor?

Well, I think, yeah, well, probably a little bit of both. You know, I think anyone would say trial and error has been a big part of their career. If you're not trying and failing, you're probably not advancing and you're definitely not improving, right? So there has been a lot of trial and error. I do give a lot of credit to my Oracle experience. The first 5 years or so of my technology sales career was at Oracle, and the foundation they provided me, I believe, is second to none. Their training regimen, their constant reinforcement, even the baseline foundations that they infused in our sales process. So there was kind of like my ABCs of technology selling and really relationship building in general, you know, and I really thank them for that. It was quite a springboard to work with those folks at Oracle.

Yeah. And that's a pretty competitive crowd.

Very. My name's Greg Smith. Someone about 10 feet near me, his name was Greg Smith. Yeah, he sold into the Tennessee Valley Authority and I sold into the state of Tennessee. So it's a very big, very, very, very big organization. I think there are actually 6 or 7 Greg Smiths in the whole business. So it's a very large competitive organization. Learned that pretty quickly. But we had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun and met some seriously impressive people there.

Did you do the serial killer thing and have a middle name so that you could tell the difference? Or—

The way they had us do it, our middle initial was always in our email signature. And of course, it was in our email address because you had to, had to make sure we were identifying ourselves somehow.

I had an office next to a guy named Brian Burke. So it was Brian Burns, Brian Burke, and my manager would yell, Brian, get in here. We both run out of office.

Both your heads pop out.

Yeah, felt like a kid. What do you think is your strongest selling characteristic?

You know, for me, it ties into relationship building. And I think this might be something that maybe not a lot of people would look at as something that's super important in selling. But for me, I think it's empathy and it's empathy on the buyer side, learning what pain they're going through, what problem are they trying to solve, then getting to know the individual, you know, whether he or she is, is their job on the line to find a solution? Are they trying to earn a promotion? I love learning all the nitty-gritty details about the people I'm working with. What's driving the project? You know, for me, that's massive.

Yeah. And a lot of reps don't get to that point.

Yeah. And I'd argue that maybe a lot of them aren't coached enough to learn that it's okay to show a little empathy, you know, and I think if you're providing value throughout the process and you're also truly getting to know the people you're selling to, and by the way, not everyone wants to Lets you get in super close and really get to know them, and that's okay. And it's all about getting to know people and what they're going through and how they like to be communicated with, in my opinion, right? We all have different communication styles. But, you know, empathy doesn't mean you have to get to know them on a super personal level. It could just be, could just be professional, right? Business. I also think the, you know, as a sales leader, I think showing empathy towards your team. Is very important. And that's been something that's been a big part of the teams that I've been fortunate to run. I like to get to know the folks on my team, whether it's professionally or personally, maybe some things they're going through, what got them into sales, what's driving them. Is there something going on in their personal life where they might need a quick timeout? I mean, all of those things. And again, I'm a big believer in folks who let you know how they want to be communicated with. But for me, I think empathy and understanding is a big part of what I do. And that comes back to some mentors from my Oracle days and in my Box experience. To me, the best leaders have shown that they not only understand what people are going through, whether it's folks they're managing or folks they're trying to sell to, but they'll also get out there and do it with you. And that's To me, working for folks like that and then trying to emulate that style has been something that I've really, really worked hard on. You're not just treating everyone the same and not just hard charging towards that quota, which we all have and we have to deliver on, you know.

But that's it. And I think that's something that a lot of reps don't get, that your quota doesn't increase demand.

Right, right.

It increases your demand, not their demand.

Right. Well, I think there's a lot of different ways to get to a quota. I really believe that, you know, and, you know, you touched on something there. It's, for me, it's, and then maybe I'll hearken back to something I said about wanting to help or solve problems or selling a solution versus selling a product. And not to get, I guess this might get into a bit of kind of a sales process, but the earlier you can find out if you can't help someone, Great. It's, and I sincerely mean that, you know, to be someone who is a professional, upfront, honest, clear communicator, of course you need to know the ROI your product holds in it. And if you understand what the folks are going through on the buyer side, if you can't help them, oh my gosh, tell them early in the sales process because there's enough folks out there you can probably help. And let's focus on them to get to that quota, right? So that's something that Again, mentors have, you know, some really good mentors have allowed me to not just pitch product, to not just focus on every single deal, but have allowed me to become selective in the opportunities that we are going to work because I really believe that there's a lot of different ways to get to your quota.

Yeah, because I think to become empathetic, you have to have a certain kind of confidence. You have to be confident, you're comfortable in your own skin.

You do. I know that my style is not everyone's style. I think some folks might scratch their head when they look at the way I've either sold myself or run my teams. But for me, you know, early career, I tried to be what I thought a salesperson should be and I realized the results came when I started to be myself.

Right.

I'm probably not the first person who's told you that, but I thought I had to be this certain person in order to close a deal and move on to the next. And yeah, just listen, some people can be that. And, but I guess the moral of the story there is be yourself, like know who you are, right? And probably just outside of sales too. But things will, nice things will gravitate towards you when you're comfortable in your own skin. And like you said, and you have that level of confidence.

Yeah, because acting like a salesperson does come intuitively. Acting like yourself doesn't come intuitively. You have to kind of relax.

That's a big part of it. That's a, that's a huge part of it, right? You're, you know, kind of whether you're going to an office or you're on customer site, it's almost as if we're trained to be someone. And by the way, I'm not talking about being unprofessional or letting certain things slack. By all means, there's a way to still be professional, provide value, but also be yourself. And that ties into the relationship-driven nature of why I like what I do. There's ways to make sure you're ensuring your company's gonna be successful. Quotas, rep retention, customer growth, all of that. There's also ways to ensure that your personal career development and kind of maybe personal development outside of work is going okay too, right? Growing as a person, growing as a professional, that's all allowed in my opinion. Everybody, everybody's entitled to win if you do it the right way.

Yeah, because we're kind of taught to sell logically, that people buy the product for logical reasons.

Right.

Yeah. But if that was true, we'd all drive Toyota Camrys, wouldn't we?

You know, that's exactly right.

Safe, you know, inexpensive car. That's logical.

Yeah. Or just the brand name that everyone knows, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. And there's—

people don't buy logically, do they?

No, they don't. They absolutely don't. I think everyone's— everyone is themselves as an individual, right? And they understand their preferences. I think they understand their organization's preferences. And I also, I believe that people like to kind of put their thumbprint, their stamp on something too, right? And if that makes them stand out or if that makes them Maybe start to work with the vendor that no one's heard of. It's okay, right? There's enough— there's a lot of folks out there who really want to make sure they put their uniqueness on a project, right? Like you said, and not just buy from the big vendors. Nothing against them, by the way, right? I've already mentioned how fond I am of them. But I think that comes back to the relationship and understanding the person you're working with, whether it's on the buyer side or internally.

Yeah. And how about on the sales process? You got the great relationship, but there's a lot of people within a company.

Yeah.

And you probably sold stuff that wasn't inexpensive.

Yeah. No, I've different stops in my career. I've had an average deal size of $20K and most recently I've had an average deal size of near $1 million, right? So those are very different sales processes, very different types of selling is required in each of those different scenarios. But, you know, like you said, there's a lot of folks involved in a buying decision. And I guess so far I've talked a lot about working with that maybe one individual who you're really trying to get to know. And that to me is that person ends up hopefully becoming your champion. And so when you're selling to a champion, you're building them up, you're basically doing whatever you can to make them a salesperson that'll sell internally on your behalf. But that's, that's a really good point that you mentioned. There's often 8 to 12 other folks involved at minimum sometimes, right? That's probably even before you get to procurement in my world, at least. So yeah, you need to understand who's gonna be involved. You need to understand what's important to them, right? When I'm talking to technical executives and then I'm talking to a CFO or folks in financial planning and analysis, their cares or really kind of key initiatives or key thoughts on a solution are very different. At the end of the day, they want to protect their company and make sure their company makes the right decision. But, you know, they care about very different things. And that's when that communication style in being able, in terms of can you adapt, can you communicate with different types of folks? Because my gosh, in a 12 to 15 person kind of stakeholder process, Like you already said, they're not all driving the Toyota Camry. They probably have 15 different types of cars and they probably all have 15 different things they're gonna do after the meeting. Point is they're very different. You need to kind of have that relatability to a lot of different personality types.

Yeah, because a lot of sales reps do really good on that first call, kind of the presentation, the demo, and great with proposals.

Yeah. Well, that's—

CFO doesn't wanna see a demo, right?

No. And that's the, that's kind of the fun part. That's the, let me tell you about my company solution. I think we can help. This is who I am. A lot of salespeople like to introduce themselves. They like getting to know people. The CFO or the head of compliance, they don't, they don't care about that. And you need to figure out how to figure out what they care about and make sure you're delivering on that as well, because you're not gonna get the the win, right? If you're not catering to all those requirements and personalities.

And what did you learn going from, you know, smaller deals, $20K to the 6 figures and above? Because that's really where a lot of people stall in their career. They're great with the champion, but if there isn't a big brand under the champion's arm, it may not get done.

So, you know, a few things moving from a more transactional, less than 60-day sales cycle to a 12 to 15-month sales cycle, 7 figures, right? A few things, you know, one's kind of nuts and bolts in my opinion. You need more pipeline, you need more qualified opportunities. But what does that really mean? It really means that the sales cycle is going to take a long time and that's okay. There's certain things you can do along the way to speed it up, but you're not likely to move it from 15 months to 4 months. So you need more qualified opportunities in the pipeline, but I think what it really boils down to is a level of persistence, and I think salespeople sometimes are wondering if their persistence becomes nagging, right? And I think there's a whole— we could probably do a whole conversation on proper follow-up and when not to feel like you're nagging someone, because I know a lot of salespeople worry about that, and I know a lot of people perceive salespeople as Is that type who's simply just chasing them down for an update? You know, so for me, it's about that consistency in your outreach to the accounts. It's totally— and I think a lot of it starts up front, understanding their process. You know, if I know my process is generally 12 to 15 months, let me see if the prospect has anything to say about that. What if it's gonna be 24? What if they're waiting for funding? What if it's an emergency and there's gonna be— it's a 6-month transaction. So, You need to learn those things up front. But for me, it's again more in the pipeline, more qualified opportunities. So a lot of kind of aggressive prospecting, you know, at the top, in the top of the funnel, working to find more opportunities. But then once you have the qualified opportunities, you gotta stay on 'em. You have to stay on 'em and you have to be comfortable with 3 or 4 weeks going by without a real update. And for me, I think that was probably the hardest part. Learning to be okay with letting 3 or 4 weeks go by without a significant update. I'm not talking a touchpoint. I'm not talking a text or an email or a quick chat. I'm talking about major progress, right? Because in the transactional less than 60-day sales cycle, if a month goes by, you don't have a deal.

Well, in general, when it's $20K, it doesn't have to go very high to get approved.

Right. That's exactly right.

When it's 7 figures, it's got to go very high.

It's probably a board meeting about it. And the board meets once a quarter, once a month. So you need to know all of those things.

And I think that's a great point because a lot of reps don't know what to do without it being a proposal, a negotiation, or an extended eval or technical, you know, sale. Have you come up with, and I think it goes back to your point about the relationship, they gotta want to talk to you, not just have to talk to you.

Correct.

How do you keep them wanting to talk to you?

Well, it all comes back to, I think, some of the early conversation about ensuring we're gonna provide an ROI. And if I like to tell organizations that if I don't think I can help, then I'll be very upfront about that and we're gonna move along. So if I've done a proper job in some of the earlier stages, and they trust me, they think maybe they don't have to know, but if they think my solution can help, well, I think they're gonna be more inclined to pick up the phone when I call or respond to an email. One of the things that I wish I had learned earlier in my career, and I think about it every time I use that word that I just used, nag or chase for an update, is a tenet of equal business stature.

Yeah.

This was taught to me by one of my career mentors. And for what that means to me is, is not putting the prospect or buyer side on a higher pedestal than you, right? Because if you look at yourself as inferior or you're hoping for a deal or you're chasing or you're just, just checking in, we've all written that email. What value are you really providing?

It's negative, right?

It's a bill. Right. And this is something that I had to— I was uncomfortable with it at first because I always thought the salesperson was down here and we're hopeful for a deal and we're going to chase that buyer. Once someone kind of shined that, the light bulb went off, made the light bulb go off for me that it's okay to put yourself on level playing ground with the buyer. I was like, oh my God, we're professionals here. I'm going to communicate what I do, how I'm going to do it, and then they're going to— the buyer is going to say the same thing. And next thing you know, we're 2 professionals working on a project together. I'm not the sales guy and he or she's not the buyer. We're trying to work on a project together, right? So for me, if my outreach or communication is providing value and it's on the same playing level throughout, I think they're gonna be more inclined to respond. I really do. And that's a big one for me is getting on the same plane as the buying side.

Because if you don't, you're really servicing the deal. You're not leading the deal.

Well, you're not, you're not, you're, if you're just servicing a deal, you're going away from value selling. You're going away from that trusted advisor, which in my opinion, and you probably picked that up based on my style, being the trusted advisor is where you want to land, in my opinion, as a salesperson. It doesn't mean you're gonna win every deal. That's not what I'm saying. I don't win every deal I'm in. But if folks look at you as a knowledgeable professional whose job is to bring a solution to an organization that looks like theirs, they're gonna trust you. They're gonna trust you. And again, there might be a reason why you don't win the deal later, later down the road. But if folks trust you and you're providing them value and you're educating them in the space, they're gonna wanna meet with you, or they're at least going to understand why you're reaching out and that you're not just chasing them for an update.

Yeah. And you'll hear what is closer to the truth versus, you know, just putting you on the back burner to waste your time.

Yeah, we have to— we're gonna have an internal debrief and get back to you, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's in procurement.

Yeah, let me— I'll go check with procurement. And, you know, their organization's 20,000 people and they've never met the people in procurement. And yeah, so we've all got that one.

And now, how do you— we talked about the trust. Now, the trusted advisor thing, I think it's a little bit wishful thinking in a lot of cases because the trust I see.

Yep.

But they know the advice is a little self-serving. How do you keep it so that they believe you?

I think really, I think it's incumbent on good salespeople to articulate the competitive landscape. And I think if you're very honest about where your company or solution sits, whether it's in a magic quadrant or if you're a lesser-known solution or brand and there's no quadrant, it's, it's up to you to educate them on the other providers in the space. And no company's perfect, no solution's perfect. And if you're able to show folks where you're strong, where maybe you're not strong, I think that goes a long way. Right? Because how many salespeople like to talk about where their company or product may have a shortcoming? And again, if any of my former bosses ever see this, they're probably gonna say, what's he been saying? But what I mean by that is it's about that candor and saying, I know, I believe we can help. Here are the other players in the space. I'm sure you're working with some of them. They're really strong here. I think this functionality might be a little new to market. I don't know if I would go down that road if I were you. And here's where we're super strong. Oh, by the way, here we're kind of middle of the road, but it's a tactic that's worked for me and I've always had a very tight relationship with my product marketing folks. We would build assets if they didn't already exist that would be able to articulate kind of where we stood in the competitive landscape. And for me, again, that's that kind of advisory or educational piece that I'd like to provide folks on the buying side. It's designed to earn trust. And again, if you know as a seller, if your solution can really help, it kind of just, it really bolsters that argument.

Because in B2B, they're gonna figure it out.

Right.

Right? They don't just walk down to procurement after the presentation and say, get me 4, right?

There's an evaluation, there's reference calls, You know, you can't hide anything, right? No, they're, they're going to work with consultants. They're going to do their own research. It's, it's like any communication. If they're like, why hope something kind of— why try to avoid something that's eventually going to become uncovered anyway, right? Lay your cards on the table, right? Again, they have plenty of smart people on their side of the house that are absolutely going to figure out whether you're overpriced, underpriced, whether your solution really works, whether it doesn't, whether your deployment times that you promised are real or not. They can— there's so many resources out there for folks to actually get to the truth. Why not surface it yourself and, and kind of earn that trust and help the people on the buying side, right? Help them, save them time.

Right. Because when you put it on the table, you can talk it through.

Correct.

If you handle it like an objection, they might believe you, they may not, but the competitor is doing the same thing.

Yeah. Well, the good ones. Yeah, for sure. I mean, and I think as a salesperson, whether it's true or not, you have to believe that there's a very good salesperson at your competitor working against you. Again, it's not always the case, but that's a mindset. Then maybe that's my competitive or athletic background coming out. But I always envision these scenarios and I just kind of envision this man or woman selling against me that is so good and they're doing the same thing and they're up at night after their kids go to bed and they're putting together this presentation that's gonna give them a leg up. Well, you know what? I'm gonna do that too, right? That's the kind of mentality I'd like to get in.

And this is a big difference between B2C and B2B is that It's not those talking points that win the deal. It's that journey you take them on that wins the deal, showing them the implications of not buying your product, getting them used to it, emotionally attached to it, teaching them how to integrate it and get it done administratively and financially and legally within the company.

Yeah, no, I completely agree with that. And I think In today's world, right? Whether we wanna call it modern selling or how folks are currently buying, a lot of folks can go on a website and buy something, right? They can do it. They can absolutely do it. And I'm not saying they can go spend $1 million and download and purchase the product and there's no need for enterprise salespeople. That's not what I'm saying at all. I think a lot of vendors now are evaluating the sales process as a reflection on the company itself, not just the product, because I think they do. There's so much. Literature and content out there where they already know a lot about your product before they speak with you. They wanna get to know your team, right? Because if we're gonna start this journey together, and hopefully it's a multi-year deal, and so they're thinking about it the same way. Are you responsive? Are you professional? Do you meet deadlines? What is your organization like? Is there a fire drill in a sales process or a proof of concept? They're gonna gauge how you respond as a team, not just if the product responds. Right? So for me, that's a bit of an evolution from my Oracle days and kind of my early career days when it was more product-driven. I think now that it's more, I think, I mean, on the buyer side, they just, they have a bit more leverage or at least information, right? And so they're evaluating not just product, but they're evaluating teams and companies, like truthfully, and that's been a change. That's been a change I've seen over the last 15 years.

And I talked to a lot of product-led companies where, you know, they give away like Box did, probably they had probably a free version, very limited.

Yeah.

But the money is getting the enterprise to use it.

Yeah.

Yeah. The couple people using it, but you want thousands to use it. That's a journey.

That is a journey. And there's something to be said about Even if it's a free account, or say you, you're a sales rep where there's an account where there's 80 free users and they don't have any paid licenses, there's something to be said about how you treat, treat that account, right? And if you can treat them just as you would treat the account that's already paying you 6, 7 figures, that's what they, they care a lot about that. And I think that takes a lot of discipline as a salesperson, by the way. Because now you're not just chasing the money, you're not just farming. Now you're getting to that hunting, creative, strategic mode that a lot of us like to get into. It's like, great, I know my ABC accounts already and I have all these, these maybe Ds and Es. I like to segment my accounts. Am I serious? Can you tell? I'm like, well, I already know that the As and Bs will do this and my— if my quota is $5 million, then the As and Bs will get me to $2.5, maybe But how am I gonna— now what's my gap to goal? And then I think it's about looking at those accounts that are pretty green, but where there's a little activity and they're gonna measure from day 1 how you treat them. If you just reach out to them to try to convert them, right? We've all seen those, we've all gotten those emails. Oh, you, you're a free user of X. Did you even know that? Would you be interested in setting up a meeting? It's like, no, no, I wouldn't. I know what you wanna do. You wanna convert my company to an enterprise account. So Even that first interaction to me is really important, right? If you come in and say, how's the service going? Just super curious. I work at XYZ company. I cover this region. You happen to be in it. I saw you're using the software. Can I learn from you? What do you like? What don't you like?

All right?

And that's an ideal scenario. And if— but if you come in that way versus, do you have time for a conversation to learn more about the product? It's Wait, now you're pushing, right? You're not pulling.

Yeah. And you're thinking like a client is thinking. Yeah. Yep. And what do you wish you learned when you first got into sales that you know today?

That's, you know, a lot. You know, one of the big ones is that equal or mutual business stature. But maybe let's kind of take like a sub-bullet on that overarching theme. it's okay to tell a prospect no, that you're not a good fit.

Yeah.

And I'm sure you've heard folks say that to you. I'm sure you've, I'm sure you've, after thorough qualification, I'm sure you've walked away from deals. But as an early career salesperson, oh my gosh, that's like the last thing you ever think you should do. It's probably the last thing you will do, right? Because you don't have that experience, you don't have that confidence. Because all you're worried about is your quota, your activity, what your manager's gonna think, what his manager's gonna think, what her manager— like, you just uplevel it. I know all the scenarios, and you become almost kind of paralyzed by just the deal itself. And you don't realize that there were signals early on in the deal where they were never going to buy from you. You just missed them, right? Or even worse, you might have known a month or two into the engagement that they're probably not a fit, And then you just get into the cycle of hope and despair.

You never know.

So for me, it's trust your gut. And what I mean by that is if you've built the right relationship, if you're that value-added consultative salesperson and you're listening to the pain points on the buyer side and you're saying, you know, I don't know if I can completely help here, maybe a little bit, But I don't know. I don't know. If you feel that as a salesperson, I, salespeople listening to this will know what that actual physical feeling feels like. Tell them you don't think they're a fit. And there's, that can go a few different ways too, right? They can say, thank you so much for your, for your, for your candor. We appreciate the directness. Can you elaborate? Or next thing you know, they could come up with a scenario where maybe they just want to change the project a little bit. All right. They could also say, great, you know, thank you so much. You just saved us 9 months, hang up the phone. But you know what? If there's a project that they know you could help with down the road, I think they're more likely to reach out to you down the road. And I think a lot of what we do as salespeople, and we touched on it earlier, is increasing the likelihood of a response, right? That's— and I think there's things we can always do in a sales process to again, bring up the percentage chances of folks getting back to us. So for me, walking away from a deal when I know my company or solution isn't a good fit, I think that holds a lot of water and I don't think there's enough of that, whether it's B2B or even B2C, you know, in all kind of sales relationships, there aren't enough salespeople properly qualifying upfront and then being confident enough to walk away from a deal.

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

On LinkedIn, Greg Smith. I'll send out the— I'll send out the proper link for you because I'm guessing there's a few Greg Smiths out there. But if you search Greg Smith and go-to-market, my profile should come up. But thank you very much for the time today, Brian.

And I think a lot of salespeople Confuse trustworthiness with trust. I think most of us are trustworthy. We're reliable, we're dependable, we follow up, we follow through with what we promise.

Sure.

That's not the kind of trust that we're talking about. The kind of trust is getting the other person to know that you have their back. That you care about them independent of the transaction, that the transaction is a distant second to the connection that you're building with them. And if you think transactionally, sales and certainly B2B sales is going to be a real struggle for you because it's not a transaction, it's a transformation. Especially the bigger deals, when you're doing something that's over, let's say, $50K, the company has to go through a lot of contortions to bring a new vendor in, to spend that type of money, and to allocate budget that wasn't previously allocated. And to do that, somebody's got to really want it, even more than the salesperson. And that's what that Champion is. You get coaches, people to give you information, to guide you, to help you position the product and who to talk to and what they care about. But if, if there isn't a champion, it's really hard. I've done episodes where we talk about how to be your own champion, and that's possible, but that's very advanced skill. You got to ask yourself, where do you want to take your career in sales? Because I see this stuff on LinkedIn and the comments that people put on my post and how hard it is to find great salespeople to be on the show so I can show you an example of what's possible. That people today have kind of gone into this really bad rabbit hole of activity. Based selling and insist on that is the way to go. Well, that's not selling, that's gambling. How many— do this little experiment. Look at the number of deals you close in a month, quarter, or a year.

Okay.

And then, you know, go through your email and your calendar and guesstimate how much real time Meaning like how much of your time, not worrying about the deal, but actually working, you know, scheduling the calls, executing the calls, following through on the calls, preparing things, soup to nuts in aggregate for those closed meetings? I bet it's less than 10% of your time. That means 90% of your time was spent on things that didn't generate revenue. Maybe they will in the future. I get it. And you don't want it to be purely on the deals that close, but you'd also got to look at that time and say, how much of this time was just no ROI? You weren't weeding through to try and find the gold. You were essentially distracted by things like activities that don't generate revenue. Or don't generate future revenue. That's what we do. And I get it. Internally, we've got all this BS admin to do, which is growing rapidly. You got to learn how to use new tools, new technology, attend meetings, training, all that. That's good. I'm not trying to degrade that. But what I am trying to point out Is that everyone's focused on trying to find interest, not create interest. See, interest finds us. People don't sit around waiting for an email or a phone call from a sales rep. They go and solve a problem. So there's this opportunity of latent pain. Now, I also did this experiment on office hours about a month ago. Where I asked people, how many, how many people you think are in market today, right now, to buy a new car? The answers were in the low percentages, 5 to 10% of people. I did the math, and it's less than 1/10 of 1% today in market for a car. Not this year in market for a car? Because remember, you got to hit them at the right time with this current activity-based model because it doesn't create interest. You think it does. It doesn't. Ask yourself how many emails created interest. They may have hit on something that you've been thinking about. Okay, there's some of that. But that is still a long road to get a sale. So if less than 1%, a fraction of 1%, is in market for your particular product, and that's, that's that you have a category that people even understand and know about. Most of us don't have that. We're at startups where it's like, what? It does what? Who needs that? What? I don't have that problem. This is why you really need to start the conversation and get a meeting. Doesn't mean they don't want it. Doesn't mean they don't need it. Doesn't mean that they don't have the pain. If they have the pain that you solve but are unaware of it, we call it latent pain that can be activated rather simply. And plus, Most of us need a conversation to articulate what we do. It can't be done in an ad. You know, because— and go ahead and try, look through your stream on Instagram or LinkedIn. It's like, do you even get what they do from the ad? What problem do they solve from the ad?

No.

You get some pretty colors that marketing came up with, some buzzwords that don't really mean anything. AI, distributed, disruptive, digitally enabled. Okay, so maybe you get some curiosity out of that. What we need to do today is start conversations to get Now, the other course, Winning the Complex Sale, nobody teaches this because at your company, your manager probably was an order taker or an account manager. They were not— they were managing things. They were servicing the account, kind of like what we talk in the interview about. We should not be in service. We should serve but not be in service. There's a big distinction because if you're in serve— if you're serving them, they ask for something, you get them something. If you're serving them, if they ask for something, you get what you want and they get what they want and you collaborate. But you have to be prepared for it. And this is the big trap that we fall into in sales because we only learn as fast as we want to. And we're all a little bit delusional, including me. We're delusional that we believe that we know about 80-90% of what's going on. The reality is we know about 10% of what's going on, but our brain won't let us admit it. Until we have to. That's what happens at the end of the quarter, the end of the year. That's really unlocking reality instead of just recording calls. Reality is what people do. Everything else is opinion. What we have to do is how do we create the reality that we want that turns into an order? And Closing the Complex Sale gives you that approach. And what's great now in the courses, when I have people in both of them, during the office hours, they're always raving about the success they're having with the other course, which is a great cross-selling thing for me. But when you see the transformation of people going from activity to skill-based selling, Is magical because we only get paid on the deals we close. Everything else is maybe for future, or maybe it's for education. But remember, an education is when you learn something, not when you repeat mistakes and remember something, because you're probably going to repeat them again. And when I have somebody in the office hours who's been selling for Close to 30 years, really light up with the success that they're having understanding this complex sale, you know, from somebody who's been studying it my whole life because I wanted to get paid for my work. Especially when you travel, believe me, you want to get paid for your work. The number of 4 AM wake-up calls that I've gotten to get to somewhere for a 10 o'clock meeting, I want that deal to close because I'd rather stay in bed or go for a run. If you're serious about sales and you want to become better, take the journey with me. This is why the course is a year-long process. It's not go and watch the videos and, and try and confirm to yourself, I know something like that. That's not the objective. The objective is to learn the difference and then apply it, share it with the community, see how other people are doing it, get feedback, find out the distinctions. Because everyone thinks they're at like that 80 to 90%, including me.

I thought—

I used to think that. The problem is, when do you want to find out? Before the end of the quarter or after the end of the quarter? And we're all paying ourselves what I call emotional commission instead of financial commission. Emotional commission— emotional commission is telling yourself you're great at sales. Happy ears, assuming, hoping a deal is going to close, telling yourself how good of an execution you did on the sales process. But that makes you feel good. It does. But it doesn't pay because if the deal doesn't close, you don't get paid. You don't get the financial commission. You're fooling Right. And you have to wake up to that. That's the number one thing. Your emotional commission is in the way of your financial commission. Because the courses are not expensive. You know, one is the price of a lunch per month, and the other one's the price of a dinner per month.

Okay?

If you're in B2B sales, you can all afford it. And if someone's been in sales for 30 years and signed up for more than 1 year, that's because they're getting something out of it. They're getting more money, financial commission. Everyone else is living off of emotional commission, rationalization, defense mechanisms. We all do it, including me. Including me. When I made the decision that I only cared about financial commission, that's when things change. That's when you start to become honest with yourself, real with yourself, instead of fooling yourself. Because when you fool yourself, you become a fool. And what I want you to do is become rich. That's the question you got to ask yourself. Which do you want to be, a fool or rich? If you're listening to a sales podcast, I assume you want to become rich. Go to b2brevenue.com, sign up today. We'll see you next time.