HOW TO DEVELOP THE #1 SUPERPOWER OF THE BEST SALESPEOPLE

Today, we've got another great guest, another great sales rep, and kind of his superpower or something he feels he's pretty good at is understanding what the client's going through, that empathy and compassion. Now, we hear this a lot in sales and I talk about it a lot, but why don't I give you a little analogy so that we're all on the same page, that we're all thinking about it in the same Context. Because I kind of had a great example over the weekend. I use this trail near my house several times a week as a pedestrian, and it's a beautiful trail. It goes through the woods, but then it crosses this 2-way road, and a kind of busy 2-way road, a curvy 2-way road, A slightly hilly 2-lane road. And the trail is typically very busy. And when I'm on the trail, a car comes, they don't really tend to behave. They kind of— I've got the right-of-way. I'm a pedestrian. And I have lights and reflectors on and typically my iPhone on a Selfie stick that I use as a flashlight and, uh, for podcasts and music. So very visible, very, very visible, and it's annoying. So from my perspective, they're not paying attention. It's obvious I'm a pedestrian.

You yield.

I shouldn't have to like stop or wave, right? We're all on the same page. Now, over the weekend, I took that road as a driver, so I was like on the other side of it, and I'm going, I wonder why this road is so problematic, because it's not just me. There's been several cyclists that have been hit. It's been a big uproar in town about this intersection and What to do about it. So it's not unusual for pedestrians and cyclists to get annoyed with this. So I'm driving up this road and I'm obviously noticing like, man, there's a lot of reflectors, a lot of signs, a lot of lines on the road, more like 10 times more than your normal road. And I'm coming up where the crossing is, where I cross. And I go, no wonder. I mean, people are coming essentially out of a tree, out of the woods, onto this cross— what they think is a crosswalk, but there's 2 lanes of what would normally be pretty fast traffic regardless of the speed limit. And as the driver, you're like, what is this? This is not a road on this side and not a road on this side. Lots of pedestrian-type signs. Too many, too many signs. You can't comprehend all of them. Maybe if you are going 10 miles an hour and you're a good reader and you're paying 100% attention and you're anticipating something. But if you're just, hey, I'm just trying to get to where I'm going, it's a lot. My point here is that from both angles, the person's right. And if we don't use compassion and empathy, we won't understand what the other person is going through. So now when I'm crossing that intersection as a pedestrian, I'm like, yeah, cut the driver a little slack. They may not have taken this road before. And And me coming out of the woods is not an anticipated element regardless of how many lights I have on. And if I'm the driver, be like— because now I've taken it a couple times, I'm like, I really go slow because you don't know who's coming out of the woods on a bike. And it was those incompetent bikes. That's the guy who got hit there. Because now he's low. It's one of those bikes you sit back on and you pedal forward. You don't anticipate that as a driver. This is what we need in sales. We need to be thinking about what that client is going through. How do they view this? And what blocks us from that? What blinds us from that is our own self-interest. What we're thinking about is, it's obvious, the product will do what you want. You'll get a huge ROI. Let's do this thing. It's a no-brainer. But what are they thinking? Oh boy, how do I get this through my boss? My boss doesn't think this is a problem. My boss thinks it's me. Or I tried to get things— something done before and the company just doesn't want to do things. Or I don't know how to get it done. Not once has a client ever told me, I do not know how to get it done, in words. 98% of them told me in actions. But I had to be empathetic and compassionate to see what they're up against. Try and get something done at your company. Try it. Go ahead.

Think about it.

You don't even have to do it. Just Think about it. Not just your boss, your boss's boss, and maybe even the CEO would have to approve this. Would that be easy? Would that be something you'd look forward to? Would that be something you'd want somebody nudging you about 3 times a week? Probably not. See, this empathy and compassion, we think it's innate. No, it's learned. It also requires you to be proactive because you have to break through your own self-interest to think about someone else who may have a counter-view of your self-interest. And what most reps do, most people do, they rationalize why their view is the right view. As the pedestrian, it's obvious I've got the right-of-way. Look at me, you're supposed to stop. As the driver, it's like, I'm not expecting people to fly out of the woods and cross this street. It's a nice, beautiful windy road with lots of distractions, and if I don't pay real good attention, I'm not going to see the pedestrian. I need to be empathetic that, hey, people are going to come flying out of that woods at 5, 10 miles an hour, not anticipating me coming through. See, if we can do this— and this is not just nice to have, because if you can do it, all of a sudden things Makes sense to you. You understand the resistance. You understand the delays. You understand the details that need to get done. But you have to want to understand it, and that's the hard part because it's not going to happen automatically. Let's get into this interview. And if you want to practice this, you can certainly watch any debate and don't pick a side. What you want to do is take both people's side and say like, okay, this person's right.

How do—

why do they feel that way? Why are they so adamant about it? And why does the other person feel the opposite way? And why are they so adamant? There's plenty of choices to watch there. And it'll help you develop that skill. Now, a lot of you saying, well, oh, that's a lot of work. Well, think of the alternative: not understanding what your client's going through and being frustrated with that. Use that frustration as the driver to do that learning. And the best way to learn how to sell is to do it. But doing it can be expensive. You might fail. That's lost opportunity cost. No one pays attention to it, but it's your highest expense. If you paid attention to it, you'd have to do something about it. We don't want to do that. brevitypitch.com. You got to check it out. It is an AI voice An AI client, essentially lifelike, customized to your particular sale, where you can practice whole conversations or partial conversations, what we call drills. And what drills do is let you practice preventing you falling into the trap. Now, it might be like an empathy trap where you're not getting what the client is sending out. Because the client doesn't just say, hey, it's really hard to get stuff done here. They don't say it directly. They hint at it, or you see it on their face or in their hesitation. It's our job to dig into that, and we got to be comfortable doing that. Those are hard questions to ask. They're not hard in the sense of what to ask. They're hard in the sense of having the courage and the timing to ask in the moment where it is critical. Because an hour later, you can't ask. It's out of context. It has no meaning. You have that moment. And those moments in the sale may not come again. Go to brevitypitch.com. They've got a free version called Brevity Play. It's right on your phone. It's fantastic. It'll send you a little text. All you have to do is reply back. It'll tell you, confirm that you're accepting, you want to play, and then it'll give you a bunch of role plays— job interview, product knowledge, cold call if you want to do that— and then it'll call you. You start talking. Imagine having this When I was a little sales rep, when I was a little BDR, I would have played with it all day. Why? It builds up that confidence. It builds up those reps. It builds up that skill. Let's get into the interview and I'll sum it up at the end.

Hey, Joey, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Sure, Brian, and thanks for, thanks for having me. Um, you know, I'm a salesperson with, you know, 15 years of experience. I've been in and out of a couple different industries but always kind of found my home in, in the marketing space. Um, and that's kind of where I am today, the, the data and marketing intent space.

Yeah, you didn't start out in sales though, did you? How'd you end up here?

Yeah, I think everybody kind of like falls into it one way or the other. I actually started a DJ company with one of my best friends when I was 16 years old. And I really fell in love with sales in general just because, well, when you're a business owner, you are the top salesperson. You're always selling your brand one way or the other. I was at a small liberal arts college, you being, having lived in Massachusetts, I was at Stonehill. And we had just so many great companies that came in. I think it was like my junior year, and this is after like the '08 crash. So everybody's just like running at jobs.

Anything.

Yeah. And the only jobs that were available really were sales because people are looking— they're not looking for a cost center. They're looking for somebody that can drive revenue and help their company. And so I just felt like that was my home. I got a job offer my junior year and So, after that, it was just sales ever since. And I never really looked back after that.

And was it natural for you? Was it an extension of your personality or was it a big shift?

You know, I think that's a great question. I think for everybody, it's a little bit different, but I always got the— and I'm sure a lot of salespeople got this as well too, but they got the whole like, You have the gift of gab. And I always took that as, as a compliment. Some people may take it differently, but I look at it as an opportunity to like make friends with new people. I'm an extrovert. I'm an outgoing person. Like being able to meet new people every day has, has always been fun for me. And I always find that like my clients end up being friends of mine. I feel like those are always the best relationships. And so, yeah, I think it came. Pretty natural to me. So yeah, that's a great question. I haven't been asked that one before.

Well, it's surprising that I think I've interviewed more introverts than extroverts. But yet anybody who is an extrovert, people who don't understand sales or don't understand sales, thinks an extrovert is a natural for sales. And part of it is. You know, the liking to talk to strangers and stuff. Did you— was it ever an obstacle as far as—

I wouldn't say so. And honestly, I've seen— I was at Medallia for a little bit. It's a customer experience company. And I met quite a few very successful salespeople that are introverts. And I think their superpower is they're great listeners. They're just impeccable listeners. And they do a much better job of somebody like me with the gift of gab who wants to, who wants to talk and potentially talk about themselves. So they just do such a great job of listening, and they may hear something that the introvert doesn't hear. And that's what makes them so powerful in their, in their approach is that they can hear things that other people can't hear. So I think that that's a pretty interesting thing that you picked up on. I think most people probably think that introverts are always salespeople, but I, I do believe that there's a strong case to be made for the introvert side of the house where individuals are, are able to kind of like slow down and, and truly hear out like what the customer needs and their problems and so on and so forth.

And, you know, the first few years, what did you find hard that you now kind of got under your belt?

Yeah.

I would say that one of the hardest ones was there's this like illusion. Of course, like my neighbor happens to have like a truck that comes into their driveway. So forgive me for the background noise. There's a, there's this like illusion of discovery. You've seen like every sales video, every sales movie, like whatever it happens to be. There's always something that's like, it's all about discovery, like find the pain. But I think too many reps, they get bogged down in discovery, and I did as well too. And they think that asking the questions means that they're going to get to whatever the need is. But I find that if I ask the right questions, that I can be deserving of the answers, not necessarily deserving of identifying or fixing or realizing their pain. So. Like oftentimes I feel like when I first came in, I had this sheet of questions. I had like 15, 20 questions. And I would have to go through like each and every one of those questions on a phone call. And you sound scripted, you sound insincere.

Yep.

You don't really sound like you know what you're talking about. But when you get to that point where you truly take interest in what's going on with them, That's when you get to it. So that, that was the hardest part for me because I'm like, I'm asking all the right questions, but I'm, I'm not. I'm asking self-serving questions. I'm asking things that are good for me, not necessarily good.

Right.

I think everybody gets caught up in that and they're like, everybody.

Yeah.

Right. The question is, are you missing what I sell?

Yes, exactly. Yeah. But I think the language piece is important. Like, Brian, like, you've been doing this so long. That you literally speak a language that nobody else speaks, or that other people hope that they can speak. It's like Spanish, right? Like, you can try and learn in a classroom, or you can go to Spain and— or Mexico or whatever it happens to be, and you can immerse yourself in language. You just need more and more repetitions of that and like get rid of the script or the little, you know, booklet that you're carrying around with you with common phrases.

Yeah, because I mean, you bring up a great point because your intent— you may ask the same question, but with your intent being different, might get a much more valuable answer.

Yep, definitely.

You're using care and interest and compassion to find out what they're going through.

Yes. Yeah. And I think empathy is— empathy is a tough one as well too, when we actually like look at what it is, like when you're trying to help that person. We think that empathy is sometimes like warmth, but it's actually just— I think it's more like precision. And we can sometimes confuse empathy with being nice, but like real empathy is actually like diagnosing whatever the pain and the pressure instead of just like nodding along. So yeah, I think that there's certain levels to salespeople that like the longer that you do it, The more that like the traditional stuff that you would potentially read in a book kind of like fizzles out the window, and you start to hear more of what the customer needs and less about what you're trying to do and more about what they need to be. And like when you can almost like turn the table, like when you're sitting on one side of the table and the customer's on the other, and when you can truly like get up and sit on the other side of the table and be like, okay, how do we figure this out together? That's when I feel like. Good stuff starts to happen. That's when, like, the goals start to actually move over, uh, into the finish line. But when you're a new rep, you, like, those areas are kind of—

Right.

Yeah, far in the future.

Right. Because using your language analogy, you're too concerned about how you sound that it interferes with what you say and how you say it.

Big time. Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't agree with you more. Like, you're thinking more about, like, the delivery and And not thinking about what the actual goal of that particular meeting was.

What do you think separates you from like your competitors from a sales style point of view?

Oh God. I mean, there's some very good salespeople out there and I've had the opportunity to work for many of them. I mean, the people that started Intensify, they're, you know, some of the best salespeople that I've ever met. And what makes them great salespeople is that they're not salespeople. And so that's actually one of the areas that I feel like I've taken with me is that I like to think I'm not actually a salesperson. I was literally going back and forth with an old client of mine who I haven't worked with in like, you know, 5, 6 years. And we were just chatting about, you know, the Celtics and the Timberwolves and all that kind of stuff. And I would consider him a great friend and I— there's many areas where I actually like look up to him and I learn from him. And I think when you get to that stage, it's less about feature function and more about this is somebody that I can trust. And trust is, you know, it takes years to build and it can take seconds to destroy. And so that's where I would say if there's something that I do differently than some of the other competitors that are in my market, It's that like I actually become a part of their team, and I do that for all my accounts. Like no matter who they are, even if they're people that are just really, really difficult to get along with, if you will. Like they just don't match.

I get along with in Boston.

I'm trying to be political here. Like they're just not my favorite people. I still like to think that like I'm a member of their team, and they look at me like somebody as a member of their team, and I'm somebody that can help them. And so. Oftentimes, it's funny, I get questions that aren't even in my space. So they'll say, hey, you know, we're actually looking for a tool that actually does X, Y, and Z. I'm like, actually, you know, I know somebody who knows somebody, and like, I'll try and get— like, I'm almost sometimes the bottleneck of when somebody has a problem with something, they'll call me up and be like, hey, I got this. It has nothing to do with what we sell. In fact, we can't help them at all. But I may know somebody who knows somebody, and it's that referral game. And that's kind of where sales comes in. Like the longer that you're in the sales game, the more that referral game comes into, comes into play. And people will ask you and ask them to help you with different things that may not be your job, but that's just more or less like a pat on your back to show them that like, yeah, like I trust you. Like you're somebody that I know will have somebody else. And I know that if they're friends with you, then I can be friends with them and they can help me.

Good. And give us a sense of your sale. You know, how long does it take? How many people get involved on the client side? Dollar range? Is it competitive or is it renewals?

Is it—

Yeah, it's all over the place. Intensify is a really interesting company and I would say I'm super fortunate to be here. We were ranked number 1 for strength of offering in Forrester, which is, you know, if you're in the tech space, it's like being number 1 on the Gartner Magic Quadrant, right? And so, Being able to have that is, is you're certainly like selling downhill because you're not trying to beat everybody up. Everybody's trying to beat you up. But we have a couple different areas from a marketing standpoint. We have like a data product like most software companies do, and then we have an execution side of the house. So things like digital display and content syndication and bank qualified leads. So we help marketers to be able to identify who's in market for their solution. but also be able to get in touch with them and to convert them into opted-in leads and then to be able to build pipeline later on. So there isn't a company out there that doesn't want to grow their pipeline. So just about anybody can be a customer of ours. But, you know, on the software side, it can take, you know, a year in order for a customer to, to, you know, sign on the dotted line and, you know, go through the Ts and Cs and all the NDAs and all that fun stuff. But from like the execution side, we make it easier for them. So sometimes those can be 10 days, they could be 10 months. Deal sizes range anywhere from like $100 grand to, you know, $1 million or so, and everywhere in between. And it depends on like the customer, if they're, you know, an SMB organization, they're probably not going to be spending, you know, $10 million. But if you're a large enterprise company, and you're trying to beat out your next competitor, or whatever it is, like, yeah, it is a game of dollars. And to be able to be in more places than one, and to be able to identify like who's truly in market and who cares about your solution, so that there's no wasted efforts. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of where we're at today. That's always been the space that I've been in. I've been super lucky to be in it and some awesome people.

So you sell to the marketing department, right?

Yeah, marketing and data, which is like 2 different personas. I would say like my persona, my fit, I'm more of like marketer to marketer.

Really?

Data is more like engineering and whatnot, which And like operations, which I feel like my persona fits, but maybe not as well as on the marketing side. Like marketers are creative, they're energetic. Data people can sometimes be, you know, incredibly blunt and down to business, which you could probably tell just by talking to me a little bit more likely.

You know, what I found about— noticed about marketing people is attention spanned. You don't get stickiness with them. They're all excited and then they meet someone else and they're all excited about that. Now they're all excited about 15 things and you're like, where are we?

Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. I will say I have seen on the data side, like if you're in the data space, you're typically pretty passionate about it and you gotta be super bright to do it too. These are not like the C+ students. These are like the A+ PhDs and so on. So they can get just as excited. And I nerd out too every once in a while. But yeah, no, I agree with you. Like, especially over a dinner, you get a bunch of marketers in a room, couple glasses of wine, and then all of a sudden it's like you're thinking about ideas that you didn't think about before and different ways to reverse engineer products and solutions. And maybe I'll sunset this and I'll add this into there. And those are always fun. I love those. I'm a foodie at heart.

Yeah.

So like this job is is a good fit for me. I think most salespeople are, honestly.

And what's the hardest part of it? Is it keeping the deal moving with momentum and differentiation? Because marketing also has a million options.

Yeah, yeah.

I—

this space is the marketing space in general. There's so many different providers and they all have like little small niches along the way. So differentiating yourself can be really hard. I would say that that's the hardest piece. Is being like the different person in the room because a lot of us have similar message. So if we have similar messaging, then it's really difficult for a customer to be able to identify like who's who. That's kind of where it goes back to what you were asking before is like what makes you different. And so it's like, okay, if all is the same and everybody has the exact same product, which isn't necessarily true, but maybe to the customer it may appear that way. So if everything's the same and the truth, like Okay, well then who would I want to work with? Who would I want to work with over the other person? And you just want to try and be—

yeah, who do I trust?

What do I believe? Like, who's got the— who's got my trust? Like, who's gonna sit on the other side of the table with me and like actually try and work this thing out and figure out the solution for it? But yeah, it's a tough space. Like, marketing is not for the faint of heart. It's not like you're, I don't know, you're the only concrete provider in In that particular region and people have to use you. Like they could use anybody else if they really wanted to. They wouldn't get great results, but they could use them.

Yeah. And I think one of the points about a relationship-focused sale is that you get the most amount of time with them.

Yep.

To change their point of view.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that goes back to what you were saying before is like, is this like a renewal sale and so on and so forth? It is like you can do like a 3-month campaign, just like you You could do a 12-month campaign. And I think if you're a salesperson that really likes to build relationships, and this is what I would tell to like anybody that's going into sales, especially like when I do work at, you know, these different chapters that I'm involved in and you're kind of like giving back to, you know, the younger generation is like, if you are a relationship person, find a sale that you can be in some sort of like ongoing relationship with somebody. Whereas a lot of like the software sales nowadays, You can help them to buy whatever solution is that they want, but then you're passing it off to like customer success. You never talk to that person ever again, and then you're going to the next thing. And so for those people who want to be more transactional, it's a great fit for them. But for somebody like me, like if I can work with somebody that I really like for the next like 5 years and know everything about them and things that they care about and their kids and home life and all that fun stuff, well then I'd much rather do that. And so that's where you can kind of like create a really nice relationship, but also be able to help them to get to wherever they're going. And you become that trusted advisor. And I do have my hot take on the trusted advisor because they always— Let's hear that. Yeah, I mean, you knew it was coming. When you're 22, 23, 24 years old, it's really hard to be a trusted advisor because at the end of the day, like most buyers, they actually don't need a trusted advisor. They just want somebody that's going to help to reduce Like the frisk, the friction and the risk, or like the problem that they have, or like whatever that happens to be. And so I do feel like we we're all trying to be like be a trusted advisor, be a trusted advisor. But you also have to stay in your lane too. Like if you're just fresh out of school, I'm sorry. Like you can't do that ten thousand hours of being in the space forever. Like there's times where I mentioned, you know, I was actually on the phone with a customer yesterday. And her name seems super familiar. And I was like, hey, did you work at this company? She's like, yeah, I did. I said, did you work with this company? She goes, yeah, I did. I said, I think we, I think we worked together. And of course, you know, my 23-year-old BDR that happens to be on the call at the same time is probably thinking, well, Joey, tell me about the Civil War. This was so long ago. You know, it's just like, you can't— it takes a long time to be able to build trust, and you do need some time in the industry in order to do that. So just be mindful of, of those areas. Don't try and be something that you're not. Like, don't try and be the expert if you've only been doing it for a year. Like, don't try and be the expert if, if you're brand new to a company, but like, find other areas that you can be impactful to that person.

Yeah, and I think your point about the transactional versus relationship or enterprise deal Where's all the money? It's not on the transactional side, the $99 a month side. Sure, it's on the, you know, $99K a month side.

That was my, that was my first job in college. Sold credit card processing to like pizza shops and all that kind of stuff. That's a, that's a grind. 400 dials a day. I would also say this, if like you want the hot take, like If you're thinking about going into sales, like, pick a really hard job that makes you make a billion phone calls a day because most people are afraid of the phone. They are. Whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, you don't know what's gonna be on the other end of that phone. That person could, could like really give you the business when, when you give them a call. But like, you know, making $400, I literally would have to make $400 before I could go home. And I think it would be like sometimes like 6 o'clock at night, you know, 7 o'clock at night. before you make that 400th dial. And it was an auto dialer too. I don't even know if that's legal anymore, but like, you know, 2008 I think is when I was doing auto dialing. And that was, that was really tough. But I'll tell you one thing, I'm certainly not afraid of the phone. Like picking that thing up and, you know, calling anybody, like that's not a problem. And it just, it trains you so that you could just talk to anybody.

Yeah. What thing do you wish you knew 10 years ago or when you started that you really, you've nailed and you just see the younger people, 23, 24, getting it wrong? You know, we talked about, you know, not listening and—

Yeah, I think my hot take, buyers want, they want confidence, not consensus.

Really?

So yeah, I think when you get into a room, and again, when I came out of school, 22 years old, I remember booking my first trip down to New York City. I had so much confidence. I thought I was the best. Really?

A salesperson overconfident?

Yeah, I just thought I was the best. And I booked so many meetings and I went down there all by myself. I'd never been to New York City before in my life, and I'm walking into these meetings and I realized really quickly that although I was like progressing things along, I had no idea what I was doing. Zero idea. And what I found is that like the fact that you can carry yourself with confidence, they had no idea how old I was outside of the fact that they would look at my face and there was no grays or anything along those lines, and I had a much better hairline. Um, but they didn't really know how old I was. I mean, this was like when LinkedIn was first getting started too. So think about it then, they couldn't really look me up. I couldn't look them up. So that confidence, they're like, if this guy's confident in what he's selling, he's passionate about what he's selling, I should be too. And the consensus side of it is like, oftentimes we just agree because we think that we should agree, but in all reality, like, It is a little bit of like the Challenger, although I don't love the Challenger sale. Like, I don't love the fact that it was a book based upon, you know, a CEB study that happened and—

It didn't happen. Made up.

Yeah, it's not for me, but I do think that they want more confidence and not consensus. The confidence side of it is you believe in your product, you believe that it does the right thing, you have conviction, you have passion around it. And I think if you truly believe that, like you believe it in your core, the customer will believe it too. And they're going to get a better outcome over it because they're not going to go into it with like, oh, this guy doesn't really seem like he knows what he's talking about, or like he's kind of sketchy around this area of the product. Like if you truly believe and you landed at a company where you believe in the solution, the confidence side of the house is most important. It is hard to do that though when you're first getting out of school. Not everybody has the, the modesty that I have. Well, I have less of it now than I did, but still.

Well, you got it through exposure, which took away the fear of their impression of you.

Exactly.

You know, a couple hundred hangups a day will get over that.

My God, yes. I couldn't agree with you more. And Brian, I gotta ask you, how did you get involved?

And I—

you've answered it in some of your other podcasts before, but I, I do feel like It's important for, you know, if people only get a clip here or there, like, how did you get into where you are today? You have the biggest following. You have so many salespeople that watch your content, learn from it, and have a great successful business. How did it all start?

On the sales side? Yeah, I was, I was an engineer living in your town and I saw Uh, the salespeople. I was driving a Subaru, they were driving Porsches. They left at 5, I left at 8:30, 9 at night.

Yeah.

I delivered something, didn't get anything. They delivered something, they could pick checks. Well, that was my motive.

Yeah.

How I did it, you know, I, I studied it like I studied everything, you know, and I took notes, took feedback. Cried in my car. I did all the stuff that we all go through, right? But I had the want. Yeah, I wanted to make money. I didn't want anyone else to tell me how much I was worth.

That's fantastic. I love that.

Because as an engineer, at least at that time, you got paid a salary and that was it, whether you killed it Or you slept.

And I saw salespeople killing it. Yeah.

Do you ever feel like you kind of alluded to like the, the ups and the downs, you know, the crying in the car and whatnot? Do you feel like today's generation, the, you know, 22 to 25 to 26-year-olds, give up a little bit too early? from the sales side now than perhaps—

It's hard. It's really hard. And believe me, if you ask me, do you want— would you do it all over again? I would not want to do it all over. It was painful. Yeah, you know, but how else can you make the money? You know, how else can you control your career? You know, today there's many more options than there were when I came up, but B2B sales is still the last bastion of capitalism.

Yeah.

You know, where any mojo can come in and really work, take feedback, adapt, like your immersion analogy.

Yeah.

Right?

Because I did the immersion once. It was painful as hell. Fell on my face.

Ripping the Band-Aid off for sure. Or all the Band-Aids. Yeah.

And, you know, the generational thing, I guess, you know, let's face it, if you grew up in the Depression, you had the whole world against you, right? So you had to push through. Grew up during World War II, you know, you went through some stuff.

Exactly.

You know, here, you know, people were couched a lot easier, but I think they still want the same things, right? They want control, autonomy with their lives and their careers. And you can work for yourself eventually, but you got to have money to work for yourself.

Big time. Yeah, I think it's the easiest way to, to have some level of, of freedom. I, I would also say this too, being able to— so I think I've hit like 48 states or something like that. I think I'm still missing like a couple, like Alaska and Wyoming. Yeah, I mean, like B2B sales, it, it takes you everywhere. Um, and, uh, I actually had one of my, um, my reps actually ask me about this not too long ago, and he's like, how do I connect with people? Because when you hop on the phone, you ask them where you're from, and they'll say San Jose, and you'll name 3 or 4 restaurants that you've been to in the area. Because I'm a foodie, and that's kind of like what I do. He's like, how do I, how do I do that? And I was like, that comes with time and to actually be there and like get yourself on the road, meet new people and see new cultures. And, uh, like, that's, that's an area that I feel like B2B sales really gives you. And there aren't many— I mean, maybe consulting and whatnot— there aren't many jobs that get you on the road like that where you get to meet people and build cool relationships and really understand individuals and see the country. I wouldn't say see the world because they're certainly not sending me to the Amalfi Coast, which I'm working on getting that territory next. That's next on my list.

And I think the problem today is I think people look at it, they just have to find the right job as opposed to they have to become the right person.

Agreed, agreed. And finding the right job is difficult and trying to align that, and sometimes you're gonna hit the wrong ones. Um, it's not even on my, my LinkedIn, but I was at a job for, for 2 weeks. I got in there, it was white walls, gray carpet, and I was like, oh my God, I, I hate this. Like, this is— this place is just not for me. And sometimes it's, it's not a fit, and that's okay. But the sooner you identify that it's not a fit and you can move to the thing that you you do love, oh my God. I mean, after, after that company, I got a call, um, by one of the co-founders of this company, Mike, um, and super smart guy. And he was like, hey, we're, we're building this, like, this is what we got thus far, do you want to come over? And the longest stint I've ever spent was, was at that company, um, a company called PreeLytics. And I was there for like 5+ years. And that's like, that's a place that I feel home. Intensify is— was built by the same same founders, that's a place that I feel home. So I love your point. I think it just, it hits home with so many people that they're working jobs that they maybe don't like. Finding the thing that works for you, it's okay to give up on it even though you've been there for a while or you've been there for 2 weeks. Like if it's not a fit, it's not a fit. But you gotta go there every day. And if you're gonna make that hour commute like you were doing, you wanna be doing something that you like.

Yeah, and I think your career strategy of what I call the mafia strategy, where you're connected to these underbosses who go to different companies and they call Joey up. Hey, Joey, you want to come over here and make some money?

I mean, they founded those companies.

So, I don't know if they're underbosses. Maybe they're the boss.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mark, Mike, all those guys.

Yeah. Yeah.

Super smart guys. Yeah. But yeah, we, I've had a decent journey there for sure. And things happen in life and being able to kind of hurdle the bad things that happen is, Is super important. And some days you're crying in your car and other days you get upgraded to first class.

Buying a new one.

Yeah, and the new one. Yeah. And other days you get upgraded to first class on your flight from SFO to BOS and you're like, you know what? Life isn't that bad.

So cool.

Hey, thanks for joining us today.

Where can people go to connect and follow you?

I mean, they can find me on LinkedIn. That's, that's the best place. And you want to put my, my name in the caption below? Joey D'Agostino. I think it's Joey R. D'Agostino, um, backslash after the LinkedIn.

See, today I think a lot of people Look at sales as having a perfect personalized and relevant email. That may be enough. If it works, congratulations. If it's not working, then what do people do? Robocalls, outsourcing. If that works, keep doing it. What I found to work, especially in B2B where there's a— you need to do a finite number of deals, you're not doing Hundreds and thousands of deals where you're doing, you know, 20, 30, 40 deals a year. You get some inbound, you get some upsell, you get some, uh, through your networking. What if you could start a conversation? Not a sales pitch, not a cold call, a conversation with somebody about them, their favorite topic. And you had control over how to do that, a step-by-step process that anyone can follow unless you have the pitch mindset. Anyone could. I've taught this to college students. I've taught this to entrepreneurs, and usually people who haven't been inundated with the desperation of being a salesperson do much better because they They understand that empathetic thing, what the client is going through and why it works. People who are in the sales mindset, that numbers game bullshit where volume is the solution for everything. The problem is we can't get more volume of time. We can get more volume of contacts. Not leads, contacts. Leads have some kind of belief in intent or belief in qualification. Contacts just have the ability to contact them. Here's the secret to sales. It's a focus game. The busier I see people, the less likely I see them making their number. The person who's sitting down and thinking through What to do, they're going to make their number. Why? Because it's focus. It's empathy and compassion, understanding what that other person's going through so you have something to talk about. And I show in the course how you build this up. This is called Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. Now, the number one obstacle in the course is that desperation, because people feel like, if I don't get the meeting, It's not working. Well, you're not going to get 80% of the deals you work on. Does that mean it's not worth doing? You have to talk with people to get them curious and interested. You can email them, and I tell people, if you think that your spam email works better, do it first. Wait 2 or 3 weeks, they're going to forget about you, then try this. And the effectiveness is so much higher, and it focuses you on what they care about. A lot of the exercises are the elements to create that empathy and compassion, the ingredients, the baby steps to get it. So if you want to fill up your pipeline, go to b2b revenue.com. The letter B, the number 2, the letter B, revenue— my favorite word— .com. Check out the courses, see what you think. If it's not on the website, I probably don't do it. You can schedule a call. There's a link right on the website. Please read the website because I sell it this way. I don't sell it the way you think I do. This is the empathy thing, okay guys? Just because you want it to be— like, you can pay 2 ways: all at once or in 12 monthly payments. They're payments, not a membership. I know you want to make it a membership because that serves you. That's not how I sell it. If you don't want the monthly payments, buy it all at once or don't buy it at all. Okay, don't expect me to change for you. I don't expect you to change for me. If that's not a good deal, I get it. I'm okay with that. I'm not okay with people taking up my time because they didn't read what they bought. Okay, and you read it, you know, you just don't want to remember it. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening.