HOW TO DEVELOP THE #1 DIFFERENTIATOR OF GREAT SALESPEOPLE

If you listen to the Sales Leadership Podcast, the 2 things that come up when they're looking for great salespeople can be boiled down to will and skill. Now, of course, there's a lot more to it than that. Uh, the will is that drive, that chip on the shoulder. And help me out here, do you know a single salesperson who went through kind of the prep school, Ivy League school, the people who were really smart, the National Honor Society people that we knew in high school, the people that were intellectually gifted where they fit into school and they excelled in academia that went into sales? Now, I was thinking about that this week. I go, I can't think of one. And then yesterday I was out on my run and I go, well, I heard this interview of this person who got a scholarship into, you know, one of the best prep schools in New England and then got a scholarship into an Ivy League college and then went into sales. But she did have a chip on her shoulder. And what was ironic about it, I guess it drove her. Because she was kind of playing a little bit of victim mentality. And I'm like, how could you be a victim when you went to arguably the best prep school and the best college? And but that chip drives us. So if you know of somebody who happens to fit into it, I hope you— I articulated it enough that You know that person. They finish in the top 5% of the course. The people that are typically venture capitalists, management consultants, they fit into society. Where salespeople, let's face it, how did we get into sales? It was kind of because we were money motivated or we didn't have something natural. That we fell into. Today's interview, I think you're going to find that will and skill. And this person that I'm interviewing has the most common degree I'm finding in salespeople. It seems to be psychology, which kind of shows a curiosity and an empathy in the other person. And people tend to find with that minor or that major in undergrad that You can't really find a great job when you get out because everything requires an advanced degree. But it also shows an interest in working with people. And the other things you're going to find in here are the classic, you know, hate to lose, love to win, some mix of that. Now, I've got a little story about that. I posted a survey on LinkedIn yesterday. Which one drives you the most? Now, I try and make my questions as articulate as possible because I hate wishy-washy clarification depends answers. And I got to tell you, if you're ever interviewing for a sales job and you can't answer a question clearly, You're not going to get that job. Customers hate salespeople who can't answer questions, who give the depends. Now, there's ways of doing it. I'll get onto that at the end of the show. But what I found was it doesn't matter which one motivates you, winning or hate losing. I don't think it does. I think what really matters is which one will get you out of your comfort zone To take action, to be preventative, to do the things that are not easy to do at the time they're not easy to do them. Because sales can be really fun and much more controlled and predictable when you do those things when they should be done, not after the deal's in the ditch. And what I found interesting, the breakdown was pretty much even. You can still go on my profile and see it. I think there was more of a I think, uh, probably 5-point leaning towards love to win. But I think social kind of encourages that optimistic snowflake-type mentality. But the real question is, what motivates you? Ask yourself that. Really think about it. What will not just excite you, give you that dopamine hit, but what will get you to do Something. Get to do the hard things. Get to prepare. Get to write things down. Get to do the preparation and the anticipation, the empathy, the things that get you out of your comfort zone. Everyone can sit in their little comfort zone and say, yeah, I love this, or I hate that. But until you do something, that, that real will, that You know, I hate the word hustle because it just pushes you in the wrong direction sometimes. But to take action, to care. Now, because in the managers, I can't imagine a sales manager hiring somebody who's like that, even-keeled. And we're going to talk about this today as well, because you can't be too emotionally into it. And I'll sum that up at the end too, because this is a regulator, because in sales, If we become too attached to it at the wrong time, it'll drive us crazy. Hey, Steph, welcome to the show. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. So I, I'm in sales, have been in sales since I graduated college. You know, it's funny, I was an athlete all my life, even through college. And I thought I wanted to be a sports psychologist. Yeah. And then I learned how much school that that took. And so I kept the psychology, but added business to it. And I thought, well, psychology, you know, you understand people and might as well just kind of go in with the business and go through that. And sales seemed like a good job to have, to kind of bring in all of the things that I loved, which was competing. Working with people, understanding people, and solving problems. So right out of the gate at 22, I started an outside sales job and literally got thrown into— it was baptism by fire. I was speaking with chief marketing officers and people that I had no business speaking with, but I have loved it. And here I am, you know, 13 years later, still doing it.

And what do you like about it?

I like that you, number one, you get to work with all different types of personalities. And sometimes that's good. Sometimes that's good. Um, but it enables you to like really be agile and adjust. And I like that. Um, winning people over is Fun. And I like that it's— you can be an individual contributor while still contributing and impacting a team and be something that's bigger than yourself, which goes back to sports. And it allowed me to stay competitive and still make the type of impacts and fill the buckets that I needed to be filled. As an adult. So that's why I like it. I like talking with people and solving problems. So, and it's nice. It's also nice to be paid and rewarded for your hard work. Yeah.

What sport did you play?

I played softball in college.

Okay, so team sport.

Yep.

What position?

I played outfield. Okay. You know, the other good translation from a sport like baseball or softball is that, you know, a good batting average is .300, which means you would have failed 7 times out of 10. So it's a good sport to teach you a lot of resilience and tenacity and grit, uh, which has served me really well in, in sales.

Well, especially an outfielder, you kind of— it's like inbound, right? When you get inbound, you better get it, right?

Yeah, yeah. I also, you know, it's, you know, you think about hitting. Hitting too. Hitting is a big thing. But yeah, it's— and yeah, there's a lot of parallels between, between the two.

And, and when you were up to bat, if, if you had the same experience I did where people support— half the people are supporting you and the other half are, uh, jabbing you. Did you have that?

Like the fans?

Yeah.

Oh yeah, that fueled me. I loved that. Yeah. Did you like that?

Well, I was a pitcher, so I had half the people somewhat supporting me and the other half trying to get me off balance.

Yeah.

And I didn't play in college, but I played in— when I was a kid, even before high school. So when you've never been under that type of pressure, everyone's staring at you and some people are supporting you and a lot of people are yelling at you.

Yep. Yep. It's from a mental toughness standpoint, it takes a lot. And you got to be good at it.

Yeah. So you've got to focus and try and get that ball in that strike zone fast enough so that the other person doesn't hit it.

Yep.

And if it goes wrong, you're the point person.

Yeah. It's a lot of pressure as a pitcher.

It's a lot of pressure. And you also have the most common degree I've found in salespeople.

Psychology.

Yeah. Well, I think it shows curiosity.

I think, you know, people with psych degrees, and I've learned, you know, as I've gotten more into this, that oftentimes we lead with empathy and we have a high level of EQ, which serves us very well. And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, when I got into sales, I was, you know, I had a— I got a lot of really great advice from really successful people. But one of the things that I always leaned on was, how do I want to be treated? I don't want to be somebody pushing something on me. I don't want somebody talking about something that's not relevant to a problem that I have, you know. So I leaned on that quite a bit, and it is Amazing. People want to, want to be treated like a human. They want to be understood. Uh, they want to be heard and listened to. So I am not surprised at all that there's many of us people who studied psychology that are in there and have found success.

Because like, what other courses teach you that people are different, that we're, and people are not going through the same thing, have different backgrounds, and view the world differently.

Yes.

You don't get that in history or math or poli sci or a lot of—

You really don't. I, I think everybody should take at least one psychology course or a few, especially where we're at now. You know, it's like, we need to It's good to just take a step back and understand people's points of view and what's challenging them, or, you know, walking in somebody else's shoes. It will never hurt you to do that.

And was it a natural transition getting into sales or was it—

Yeah, it was. Like I said, there was a lot of things that I enjoyed about sports. And I was seeking those same things out in a job, and sales, you know, filled a lot of those buckets that I was looking for. So it was pretty natural. My dad was in sales, so I knew about it, but I don't think I really understood sales. You know, like you graduate and you're like, sure, I'll get into sales. I can make a base and I can make commission, but you really don't know about it until you get in it.

Yeah, because no other job really has that type of pressure.

No. And, you know, I think it's one of those things where, at least for me, I— while baptism by fire is not great for everybody, it's the best way to learn. And some of those things just are really hard to teach, you know, like the grit and the resiliency You know, people can obviously take courses or learn it, but it helps you a lot to come from experiences that get you there quicker.

Yeah. Because it's not just knowing it. You've had to have had a coach, team players, team members, pressure, winning and losing.

Yep.

And those things you can't learn in a book. No.

And you're not going to really learn them in a, you know, a 30-day training program.

Right. Because I don't think people get out of sales because, you know, they don't like talking to people. They don't like the rejection. They don't like the pressure at the end of the quarter.

Yeah.

I don't like losing.

Right. Right. I hate losing more than I like winning.

How do you?

What do you think?

Oh God, yeah. You know, the winning's nice, but the losing is so painful.

So painful. But you do learn a lot from the loss, which I think is which hopefully, which is important to keep in mind. I think for you know people earlier in their. Careers, because I think about, you know, I was 22, 23 talking to, you know, a lot of trust was placed in me when I first started out, which was wonderful, but it forced me to fail fast and learn quickly, and I am forever grateful for that opportunity, but I think what can be lost if you don't take the time to think about it is Learning from those losses. If you don't have the mindset to do that, you will get burnt out. You won't learn anything. And it'll be, I think, harder to find— it'll take longer to find success if you cannot take a step back and say, okay, what did we learn here? What things do I need to tweak to get better or change so that I can be successful the next time?

That's it, because there is kind of a fine line between learned helplessness where you don't— you can't do anything because there's risk of messing up.

Yeah.

And then there's, oh, which is a clear lesson. You gave a proposal to the wrong person. You believed what they said versus testing what they're saying.

Yep.

You underestimated how long it was going to take.

Yes.

Any of those sound familiar?

Yes. Just not even asking the questions, you know, just—

Not preparing before you go into the call.

Yep. Yeah.

And how did you either remember those things or build them into your, your style?

So I think I had, you know, again, I failed fast and quick, and I had to figure out what Was what were the people who were winning? I think that's the other important thing. What are the people that are winning? What are they doing that's different than what I'm doing? And I remember one of the first onsite meetings that I went to when I first started out, and I thought this guy was just amazing. And he was amazing because he listened and then he was able to relate their challenges back to another customer that we had had.

Yeah.

How they were using the platform, what they were doing, and then the outcomes. And after that, I said, I need more client stories because that was so impactful in that meeting. And so I sat down with our customer success team and I said, I need whatever client meetings that you have, please invite me. I need to learn about them. And/or can you tell me more about this stuff? Because, you know, we didn't— again, we didn't— I didn't have any training. There was no formal process to share any of this stuff. So I just had to be gritty about it and kind of navigate my way through it and learn from my peers at the same time. Thankfully, we were a very collaborative group, so we were able to share a lot of these things together, or, hey, I did this and this did not work, so Don't do that. Or here's what I'm doing. Let's try this. So it was a lot of trial and error, to be honest with you, and then seeking out high performers and figuring out what they were doing differently that I should be adopting.

That is critical. And too many people think it's, oh, they're just charming, or, oh, they've got 10 years on me. Or they're a natural. But when you pull down, like, what exactly did they say? How did they say it? In what context did they say it?

Yeah.

Because it's— although it's like a sport in its competitiveness and its repetition, it doesn't have the structure so much as the sports.

Yep, you're right.

Because in softball you have the practices.

Yep.

Right? Hit the ball, catch. Hit the ball, catch. Hit the ball, catch. And you had that repetition. It was very confined.

And here your practice a lot of times are live. Live. Yeah. So—

and people don't think they have to warm up. They don't think that they have to—

yes.

But like when I pitched, you You know, there was that warm-up. The coach would say, go warm up.

Yep.

I know how to throw a ball. You got to get the arm warm. You got to get your mindset. You got to get focused.

Yes. You're so right. You're so right. You know, it's, you know, it's, you know, anytime you start a new job, you're unfortunately, you're probably not going to be that great right out of the gate. That was really hard for me as I was transitioning jobs, you know, like going from the time you leave, hopefully you're An expert and then you transition and you're like, oh crap, now I'm, you know, I'm a, I'm the person on the bench now. And I'm trying to figure out how to sell this thing and be really good at it. Um, there's nothing I don't, I don't know. I don't think any sort of role-playing can really prepare you for the live event, which is different than the sport.

Yeah.

Like you said, which is kind of why I like to just get— throw me in. I know that, hey, this isn't going to be my top performance, but at least I'm learning and I'm getting some live experiences. At the same time, I'm sitting and observing other people who are really good at this. And I think those 2 things combined, at least for me, that's how I learn best and to be better.

And did you kind of document what they were doing, or were you— how did you, like, would you analyze them like a psychiatrist?

Yes, yes. I would be like, okay, you know, what does this person do that's good? Well, I've noticed that they perk up a little bit, like the audience perks up a little bit when client stories are coming in, or You know, one thing that I just naturally do because it makes me feel more comfortable that I also knew— noticed that other people were doing is that they would spend the first couple minutes not even talking about business, but trying to get to know the other person.

Yeah.

Again, that comes really naturally for me, but it also makes me feel more comfortable, less nervous than diving into business. And so yeah, I just would observe some of these things and then I would apply it in my own way. I think the worst thing that people can do is, hey Brian, you say this thing this way like this all the time, I'm going to do exactly what you do. And that's not authentic and people pick up on that.

Right, because you're kind of acting.

Yeah.

And it typically doesn't feel authentic to you or to them.

Yeah. Yeah. So going kind of going back to the empathy and the EQ, I think people just really appreciate authenticity. And, you know, it was funny because not too long ago I was in a meeting and I'm— we changed from Zoom to Teams and I had no idea what I was doing in Teams. And, you know, I was like, you guys, I'm so sorry. There was, you know, 20 people on the other line. And I was like, I am so sorry.

I—

this is the first time I'm using Teams to present. And I just had to own it. Like, hey guys, I'm sorry. And people just— while I used to beat myself up for stuff like that, now it just makes you human. And I think people just really appreciate that.

And you came highly recommended. What do you think motivated the people to nominate you?

I think that, you know, it's interesting. I place a lot of emphasis, at the end of the day, it's, I think why I got— came nominated is because I, it's not about me. And that is true for my teammates who work with me and the clients that I work with. I always want to do what's best for my teammates and the people that I work with. And so, you know, the people that nominated me, one of them is, you know, outside sale. The other, the other guy that nominated me has been my inside sales rep at 2 different companies, and he would follow me anywhere. And You know, I think it just goes back to support. And I think that they can see authenticity. They can see support. They see that, you know, it's, it's, again, it's a team. I'm here for them just as much as they're here for me. And we win together. And when you come from athletics, you get that. And, you know, I have lifelong relationships with a lot of people that I sold to and even some that didn't end up buying. Um, and I think it's because they trust me. I have been authentic. I tell them the truth, you know, it's like, yeah, our product doesn't do that. And I'm not going to lie to you and say that it does. So I just, I think it boils down to a lot of things. I get to know people, I care about them, I want what's best for them. And at the end of the day, again, for the client, if I don't make as much money, but I'm doing what's right by the client, they see that and they will return. They will come back to me.

Yeah.

And I, that's Probably why I was nominated.

Because it's a hard mix, because you need to be emotionally connected to win, but you can't be too focused on just winning.

Yeah.

So it's that— because when people look at it as a transaction, everyone feels it.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, the thing that I take a lot of pride in is in my sales process, I do a lot of discovery, a lot. And again, at the end of the day, it's not about me.

Right.

If, if I come in pushing my product and it is not relevant at all to their needs, they're going to say like, I don't want to work with her.

It always comes up anyway.

Yes.

Why, why wait till you're 3 months into the deal for them to realize it's not a fit?

Right. Yeah. It's like, let's qualify this and let's make sure that it's qualified on things that, you know, we can, we can solidly deliver on. Um, and if it's not, be truthful. Um, Because at the end of the day, it's not good for the company either. Again, so I have like my little sales team, but I, I'm also supported by a ton of other people and I want to set them up for success because I want the company to be successful. Um, so thankfully to this point, I have had no clients that I've brought on that have been unhappy, uh, with what they've gotten because I've been pretty transparent about everything.

And a lot of people look at qualification of whether they can afford it or that they're in power, but I think what you're talking about is, is it the right match?

Yeah.

Do they have the problem that you solve and do they care about it enough to take the action to solve it?

Yep, yep. And sometimes that's, yeah, we have that need now, Or can I create a need, or do they even realize they have a need? And in that case, then you bring in client stories, you know, hey, I've been hearing this from other people. Is this something they— again, they don't know what they don't know. So it's my job to qualify it, say, is this going to be a match for us? And then it's my job too, if they don't have any problems, is there something I can uncover that they may not know is a problem for them today? And it's not me— yes, I'm asking the questions, but I'm also bringing in examples of other people who are similar or like them that are experiencing some of these things that will be an aha moment for them to say, gosh, yeah, I didn't even think about that.

And I also think that people underestimate the power of your coworkers' knowledge. Too many people go to the water cooler view of it. Let's complain about the comp plan, the territory, instead of what's working for you.

Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, it's, it's fascinating because I, again, this could go back to sport, but there, you can always get better, you know, like, you know, no one's perfect. Nobody's perfect. So while yes, I've been successful, there are always things that I can improve on. And you know, if Joe is, you know, he had a great quarter. What is he doing? Maybe we're doing similar things, but maybe there's something in there that I can adopt. So I am constantly asking for feedback and constantly asking these top performers. other top performers, what are you doing? What can I adopt? Because I want to get better. And I think as soon as you think that you're the best is probably the time that you start going down.

You stop looking.

Yeah.

Because, you know, too many people say, well, Joe's got a better territory. Well, that might be true. But there might be a lot more to it than that. Why is his deals bigger?

Yeah.

Or he won where I didn't think he had a chance of winning.

Yep.

How about competing against your competitors? What's your mindset there?

Oh, there, you know, it's funny. You know, I've been in a space where there's pretty consistent competition there. But I think really knowing the challenges or the things that they can't deliver on has been Big for me. So again, I'm sure like lots of good salespeople, you know your competition pretty well. So you knew, you know how and what to ask to get them down this path so that you can fill in your solution to the answers that they gave you to say, okay, yeah, you're telling me that X, Y, and Z. But I'm leading them down this by questions that I'm asking because I know the weaknesses of the other companies.

Yes.

And then I'm filling in, hey, this is what our clients are doing, or this is what we can do. But still, at the end of the day, it's about them. It's not me pitching a commercial about my product. It's me truly trying to understand what they're up against or how they're using things and knowing in the back of my mind, here's a pretty consistent theme. I know where we beat the competition.

And when a rep comes to you for help, where do you start?

Um, so help in like, hey, I'm struggling on something, or—

Yeah. You know, what would you do in this case? It's the question I usually hear, or they feel like nothing works, or they're burnt out.

Yeah. So it is funny because, you know, having the psych degree, I do get a lot of people coming to me. Um, generally my first question is, what have you tried?

Good question. Yeah.

And, or what do you think? Because I think at Some point people just start to question themselves. You know, maybe they're going through a slump and they're starting to— their confidence is slipping. So trying to figure out, okay, what have they been doing that has not worked or has worked? Maybe we just need to revisit some of the things that you were doing before. Um, so those are generally the questions that I ask first. And then I'll talk about, here's what I did in that situation. But generally, I think it's important to try to get them to figure it out.

Right.

Um, it's way better if they can come up with their own solution rather than having somebody tell them.

Right. Because, but a lot of people want, don't want the ownership.

Right.

Because if it doesn't work, it's like, Steph didn't know what she's talking about.

Yeah. And I'm happy again, I'm happy to give advice, but I think that if you can challenge them a little bit, like, yeah, what have you tried so far? Yeah. You know, like you're here for a reason. Let's figure this out together. Um, I think that, that, that's worked well. Of course, when people are at their wit's end, they're like, nothing's working. Just tell me what I should be doing.

Right.

You know, you kind of, you need to kind of figure that out a little bit, like what emotional state are they in right now? And are you just going to make them more mad by asking them questions back? But most of the time it's like confidence. So I'll ask them that. And then, you know, I've found that probably another reason why I was nominated for this is You know, I'm, I'm the cheerleader too. You know, it's, I think it's sales is a really hard job. If it was easy, everybody would do it.

Yeah.

And so I think, you know, having good teammates to cheer you on or help you work through the valleys of sales, I think is important. And again, it goes back to the camaraderie and the team feeling that I have. You know, going into battle with all of these people. So—

And how do you keep up and not, and not get on the roller coaster of great day, bad day, great day, bad day?

So, so at the beginning I had mentioned, you know, I got some really good advice from some really great salespeople. And some of the early advice that I had gotten was you cannot get too high and you cannot get too low. And that repeats in my head on those bad days or during those bad times, because inevitably everybody has them. Um, and I don't get too high because again, it's funny, you know, okay, I closed this big deal. Well, crap, now I've got to fill that in my pipeline with something else. So then you're on to the next thing. Um, and that's probably not uncommon with a lot of sales salespeople, you know, it's like, great, I got that win, but shoot, now I've got to replace that in my pipeline. So on to the next thing. But that's probably the best advice that I've gotten is, hey, you can't get too high and you can't get too low because there's going to be some low points, but it'll always come back up as long as you work hard.

And it's good to kind of have that emotional regularity.

Yeah.

Because it's super easy to get too high.

Yeah.

And it's pretty, pretty easy to get too low too.

But yeah, I would say it's probably easier to get too low than too high, at least for me.

But if you kind of keep that in mind, you'll put the brakes on it and realize it's temporary.

Yep. It's always temporary. And I think, you know, hard work, the other thing that I, you know, I think is always good that I learned again in sport is hard work always pays off. And we're, we're pretty, you know, we want this instant gratification all the time now. Um, but it's, it's never gonna work. The timing is never gonna work like we want it. But if you just keep clipping away, pick up that phone, do that email, right? It will work out. You just gotta get through those rough patches.

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

I'm on LinkedIn for Steph Dembestie. That's probably the best place to catch me. Happy to chit-chat with anybody, but this was, this was wonderful. Kind of all over the place, Brian, but I appreciate it.

Now look around when you see other great salespeople. Do they have that emotional connection to a deal? And is it the, the right amount? Uh, we talked about that roller coaster, and I think we're naturally, uh, affected by that. We have ups and downs. And for me, it was always a challenge because, you know, I hated losing. I love winning. And I'm doing this because I want to win and I want to make the money. I want to be successful. There's a lot of other things that we can do that don't pay as well. They have a lot of even-keeledness to them and just hanging out. But we're in sales. We're kind of the athletes. And I don't want to overuse the word athlete because it doesn't— you don't have to be an athlete because you always get the person who mismatches And says, well, I never played sports. Well, you don't have to play sports, but sales— to confine it, to understand it, I use a game analogy. Now, a game can be a physical sport, it can be a mental sport, it can be a computer game, uh, it doesn't matter. The point is that we're playing whether you admit it or not. Uh, you're going to win or lose whether you Admit it or not, your denial does not change the inevitability of it. It just shows who you are. Now, what we want to do is find those things that intrinsically motivate us, meaning that we don't have to do anything other than recognize them. So if it is winning, we need to keep focused on that. If it's hating losing, we gotta prevent that. Now people get all wrapped around, and if you focus on the negative, negative will happen. Oh, but if you focus on the positive— oh, who cares? Because if you don't win, the commission's zero. That's the point. How do you win at this game? You have to understand the game you're playing. You can't just have it sit in your head thinking, since I've been doing this for X number of years, I know it. Well, can you visualize a game of chess? Probably not. It takes years to get to that point. And that's just an 8 by 8 game with 16 pieces on each side. If you can't visualize that, the complex sale is probably—

Impossible.

An order of magnitude, a 10x more complex than chess. So you thinking you can have it in your head is the number one misnomer because you're playing a game of reaction, meaning you're waiting for something to happen and you're reacting. You're waiting and seeing what's going to happen, and you're in the trap long before you realize you're even In it, and then you're wondering, how do I get out of it? If you're in Winning the Complex Sale, we had a great office hours yesterday talking about these traps. How do— what are they? How do you prevent them? And how do you come up with your system to not get into them? They're too easy. They're enticing. Why does a mousetrap work? There's the bait that is so yummy. Every mouse is hungry, sees that yummy piece of cheese. It's too easy. And when it is too easy, it is not a good thing. Now, so I think you should take 2 lessons out of this episode at a minimum. One is find that motive. Are you competitive? Leverage it. If you love winning, leverage it. If you hate losing, leverage it. Remind yourself, use it instead of external artificial caffeine or sugar to get you excited and motivated to get out of that comfort zone. Because if you're in the comfort zone, you're probably already in the trap and it's too late. What we need to do is prevent falling into that trap. Crap. I did like 13 kickoff meetings this year. 100% of them were about they like us, they can afford us, we win the business or the technical sale, uh, it makes economic sense, they love the ROI, but they still don't buy. That is a loss. You can rationalize it any way you want to sleep well at night, but you wasted your time. You worked for Zero. Now, on your weekend, would you go out and work for zero? I mean, real zero, not like you're helping somebody or you're mowing someone's lawn. I mean, like, go out and do something and get no benefit. Yeah, if you work for a company, you get your base salary, but that base salary is a trap too. It gives you that level of security thinking that If I just show up, I still get paid something. And you do, but the company wants the result. They don't want to just have you show up. They say they do, but they want that revenue. And if they don't get it, they find somebody else who does. I don't mean to be harsh. I mean to be sincere and honest and brutally truthful to help you see the game that you're playing. Most of us are playing a game that we have no idea. We, we do what we're told, we get enabled, we get trained. And what my course does, I tell you the reality of how companies buy. How do you keep the deal moving? And how do you win it? And how do you win it back if somebody stole it from you? Because you either win or you lose in sales. There's no participation trophy. That's your base salary, I guess, but it disappears as soon as you don't win enough. So you're in this game to win, and you better love winning and hate losing. Whichever one motivates you the most, leverage it. There's no right or wrong as long as you win. So find that, show it to yourself every day. Nourish it. If it's something else, embrace that. It doesn't have to be just those things. I had a manager once who, you know, was looking to fund a charity. That was his driver. That was his motive, his why, his mission. But he focused on that. And that's okay. Whatever gets you going, whatever lights you up, That gets you excited at the right level. This emotional regularity is critical. You cannot be too high and you cannot get too low. Being able to keep it in check is good. But also you gotta think if you're too even-keeled, even-keeled meaning you're too regulated, you're not gonna get excited and you're not gonna get fearful. And you're not going to see and do the things that you need to, to win the deal.

What do I—

bringing it back to athletes, but what do they all do before the game? They work themselves up into a state. And this state management, this mind state management is critical. I worked with a pre-salesperson once who wanted to ask, do you think I'd make a good salesperson? And I go, Not really.

Why?

I go, well, you're so even-keeled. When we win or we lost, he didn't— he cared about the money, but he didn't want to get emotionally attached to it. He goes, you get all worked up. You get all up in your head about these deals. And I go, well, if I didn't, I wouldn't do the things it takes to win. Uh, and different ways of looking at life. But I think he did, did really well in a pre-sales position. Uh, but in a sales position, you're constantly having to extend yourself, doing unnatural business things— ethical but a little bit, uh, aggressive sometimes, a little bit smart and creative. Because we have these drivers. Look at any successful person. And this is another thing I was thinking last week when I'm on YouTube. Today with the internet, we can basically look at somebody's whole life within a few minutes. Pick somebody who you think you'd like to emulate or has the life that you admire, and you can look at You know, 30, 40, 50 years of their life in a few minutes. Look for the key distinctions, the drivers, the epiphanies that they had. Because when I interview these great salespeople, that's what I'm looking for so that you can understand and save years. Because too many of us, we just kind of drone on. But sales is not that type of job. You might be able to skate by, but you're not going to have that fun. The fun is at that top 1 to 5%. Misery's at the bottom 20%. And that mediocrity in the middle should be uncomfortable, uncomfortable enough to drive you to do better. And when you have that success and it kicks in, so Go look at anybody's life, both on the positive and the negative. Watch documentaries on HBO and Showtime. They've got a lot of them about very successful people. Look where they went south when they went off the rails and why and how could they have prevented that. And look what kicked them over. got them to the next level, got them back on track and focused on the things. And how can you leverage that? Now, nowadays, have you noticed that sales has changed? The classic prospecting process isn't working that way. What it turns out to be is we're trying to find interest and demand by just writing emails randomly emailing and calling people because the pitch and the commercials, that's all it's gonna do. Instead of finding the people who should be interested and curious and have demand for what we do and build it up, sell, we're ignoring that because we look at that as taking too long. Finding the 1% takes a long time. Developing the 1% takes a long time. can be systematic and fun. Start the conversation, get the meeting. It's a game changer. Now, why are the courses a year long? Because it's a skill. It takes a while to develop it. It takes a while to make the shift because you have to fight me at first. That's the first step. And I'm trying to work around that because it's like any change, the first is denial. Everyone kind of sits, oh, that won't work. Okay. It won't work if you don't do it. That's— you're right there. But if you do it and you break it down into tiny steps and you understand the game you're playing, what do we do? We typically go random. We either come up with our script and we just do it over and over and over again, and we happen to stumble upon somebody who's in market. We're the tow truck that drives around all night looking for the car that's already pulled over while we pass cars that are working fine. What you have to be in sales is have to have your process. That's the skill of the will and the skill. That skill is the hard part. We think it's the will. The will, you can really ferret out pretty quickly. Look, look around in your day. What gets you excited? Also, are you checking out the Sales Leadership Show? When you find people who are managing multiple reps, you get to see and understand what they care about. Go check that out. We'll see you next time. Tell a friend about the show, will you? Check out the YouTube channel. Make sure you're listening to Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers, and the B2B Revenue Leadership Show.