HOW TO DEVELOP YOUR FUNCTIONAL CURIOSITY TO WIN MORE DEALS

Today's interview is going to be really interesting. I want you to ask yourself when you're listening to this, is curiosity something that you can learn? I put that poll out on LinkedIn and the results were very— half the people said you can learn it. The other half said, no, it has to be innate and born into you. And I'm like, well, come on, you can learn any skill, can't you? I'm going to sum it up at the end. And I'm going to give you some exercises that'll help you develop your curiosity because curiosity in sales is critical because it's the first step to empathy. You can't really be empathetic thinking the way someone else thinks unless you're curious about how they think. So let's get into the interview. I think you're really going to like this. But make sure you listen to the end. And if you really want to learn how to do this, Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting is really focused on this, focused on thinking like your prospect so you know how to start a conversation with them. Here we go.

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

All right, good morning, Brian. Thanks for having me on, on the podcast. Uh, give you a quick background. So my name is, is Mike Currie, and I'm the general manager of desktop printing at Nexa3D. And, uh, I live up here in Boston, you know, a growing family. And I guess my beginnings, I guess I started off my career as, as an engineer. Uh, actually, I was ROTC in the Air Force, and sort of the first 10 years I was, I was in the defense industrial complex, if you will. And, um, really kind of cut my teeth engineering then. And I kind of like said to myself, okay, I've been in this industry for a long time. Can I cut it commercially? Because when you're in the defense industry, the price of a life is priceless. So they give you tons of resources, but you're never really sure like, okay, does this hack it in the real world? So after about 10 years of that, I made the switch over to business and jumped in as a technical consultant helping out a sales team. And from there, the career just kind of on moving and trying new opportunities and ultimately landed into sales management, and that's kind of where I'm at now. Not kind of, but that is where I'm at now with Nexa3D, and it's been a, it's been a wild ride along the way.

Well, how does a guy go from, you know, this great technical education and even a master's degree at MIT, from MIT, into sales?

So you, you've done my bio, great. Well, I think it really was this idea— well, first off, MIT has a great tradition of entrepreneurship and bringing ideas out of the lab and into the commercial space. And I think I took part in an energy pitch-off contest, if you will, when I was a grad student. And so I've always kind of had a bug towards a commercial outcome. But really it was just sort of this internal nagging of, hey, could you do this? Could you put yourself out in front of a customer and let the customer vote with their dollars and say, if the product you're bringing is correct and right for the market, then they're going to respond with a sale and have that immediate feedback. So I think I was kind of craving that actual commercial feedback if I was up to the task, and that's kind of how it started.

And how long did it take before you felt comfortable in sales? Like it was your thing? Because it's just the opposite of engineering.

Yeah, yeah. It took, I think, quite a bit of time. I actually was a little afraid to talk to people, if I'm honest, of all walks of life. So what actually the thing that really helped me, I think I was on the airplane flying over to Asia to start this new job. And I, you know, read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People for the first time. And he's like, look, you can learn something from everyone no matter who they are. And I was like, okay, that's it right there. That's the thing that will get me over any kind of hesitancy to talk to a non-technical person. And I think that was the mindset shift that I needed.

Yeah.

Because, you know, you're walking in these circles of isolation and you're, you know, when you're in business, you're talking to everybody and everybody is a potential relationship and a potential door opener for something else. And I think that was, that really helped me make the shift. And then, yeah, so having the mental shift is one thing and then doing it is the next. So just, you know, kind of diving in and I think when I jumped into sales, I also started overseas in Singapore with Oracle. And I think, you know, not only was it just a career shift, it was a life shift and everything was brand new. So You know, there wasn't really anything old that I could hang on to, so I just had to jump in.

I think people make that mistake when they first get into sales, that they have to do the talking versus the asking.

Correct. Yeah, you, you don't learn anything if you're the one doing all the talking, right? There's no opportunity to, to learn something new. So yeah, you have to step back and actively listen, and it's really hard. I think active listening is really hard to do. You know, because everyone has that voice inside their head of— and their own curse of knowledge about something, and you have to really kind of check that to focus on the other person.

And was there a pivot point that took you from okay at sales to really good at sales?

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd say— Does that happen? I'm not sure I want to say I'm good at sales. I think people who I know listening to this podcast might be like, okay, that might be joking. Uh, you know, I think it's, it's, it's more about, uh, you know, your sales obviously is like a batting average. You're not gonna win everything. So you, you know, it's, it's how well you, you, you respond and adjust. You, everyone's gonna get wins and everyone's gonna get, gonna get losses, but it's, it's how you stay in the game, which I think in the long run determines like how well someone's success, how, how successful someone is and, you know, how they deal with that. Um, but I think, I think a successful career is, is someone who can be consistent and hang in there and, and keep on learning from the times when they, when they don't get the win and, and, you know, don't take the win too seriously when they do get it.

And then you moved into sales leadership. What was the motivation there? Sure.

I, I think that what I— I think the thing which, uh, this was probably coming from, um, my technical background and kind of like the analytics of when you're in sales leadership, you have a lot, you know, you have your metrics that you're trying to address, you have your market you're trying to address. I think it felt like I could bring some of those analytical skills to bear in addition to the social skills to bear. And it just felt like that was a sweet spot for me because, you know, I many times I was looking at new product introduction or, you know, bringing a new sales team to bring a new product to market. So it was never you know, inheriting something that, that, that was existing. It was like, okay, how do you figure it out? So for me, it always has to have some element of problem solving as well as selling. And that's kind of what, what, you know, drew me to sales management. I would say that, you know, without that problem solving component, I may not have been drawn to it. So I've been drawn to those specific instances where that was a big critical ingredient of it.

Because that seems to be very consistent among great salespeople. They view it as a puzzle, a problem to solve, or they view it as a competition where it was more like, probably more like the Oracle thing, Oracle against whoever, or HubSpot against whoever.

Yeah, there's definitely the competitive aspect is there too. I think for me, the problem solving and hacking the system aspect is there first. And then the competitive nature to win comes like right after that, at least for me and my makeup.

And where'd you get that, that competitiveness? The military or?

You know, maybe it's, you know, I'm not the world's greatest athlete, but I kind of see myself, I don't know, I think that I've I don't know where the juice, the drive comes from, but I'm not a world-class athlete, but when I'm in an intramural sporting event, I always want to do my best and I always want to win. I might be on a 5K or rowing and I say to myself, okay, Mike, you're not an Olympian, but this is your Olympics right now, and just push myself to do as good as I can. And I think that's That's more of a personal drive than say, like, I want to, I want to win to get the championship, if you will.

Yeah.

And how about the drive to go from big company to small, innovative startup?

Yeah, I, you know, what's, what's great about the big companies is that, you know, starting off, they endow you with all kinds of support mechanisms, you know, you know, learning tools and development tools. and all these accoutrements to give you a great experience. So I would always say it's great to start in a larger company to get all that training and be with all that training. And then the point becomes where you're like, okay, there's a lot of resources here, but then it's like, this is an aircraft carrier. To make any moves within this, you either have to find a niche within that or you have to get really good at playing politics. And that to me was not as prevalent in, say, smaller companies. And typically the smaller companies are also newer, looking to bring that new product to market. And so as I've kind of gone smaller, I felt like I could see a bigger portion of the of the space that we're trying to achieve. And it just felt like I could do more than, than work within the confines of a large company, which just has its— which will just, it'll just move slower, be more stable, but it'll move slower. So seeking out that faster pace, I guess.

Yeah. And when you look to hire salespeople, what do you look for?

Great question. So, you know, hiring salespeople, I would say, is not an easy task. And I, you know, I've done well sometimes, and I I've missed other times. When I look back at, at what has really done well, I think, you know, if you're selling a technical product, you know, the person has to want to understand and get— the salesperson has to want to understand and get really close to the product they're selling to be able to have enough credibility just to experience it and sell it. So one thing, the salesperson has to really be geeked out about the product. Maybe I shouldn't say geeked out. The person has to be really excited about the product that they're selling and see its potential, as opposed to like, hey, this is a widget that I'm selling today. I found that if I can find someone that really is critical to that, understands that technology and likes it and wants to tinker with it, it means that they're going to be more curious about how the client would use that widget and how they would, you know, use it to further their goals. So by being curious about themselves, they're gonna be curious about how someone else is using it. And I think that curiosity, in my experience, is kind of what drives some of the opportunity because, you know, if you're not curious, it's very easy to disqualify a lead because it doesn't fit a particular playbook. But if you're curious, you could actually have this conversation that opens up other unexpected areas of conversation. And now all of a sudden you have like, okay, maybe it's a 20% fit here and then an 8% fit here. And before you know it, you've got enough of a fit across a few different use cases that like, okay, now it makes sense. But if you're looking for like that, you know, square peg or round hole— round peg, round hole qualification, you know, it may not be immediately obvious. So curiosity. And then finally, I think the one thing that I've seen is consistency and just the ability, the energy to kind of keep on doing it day in, day out. Sales has a lot of aspects to it that are rote. You have to keep on doing certain things to make sure you're there when the opportunity presents itself. And there are tools to help that out with, but it's still like you have to put the effort in. You can't assume that you're going to get the outcome without the effort. So those are the two— not the two things, but the few things that I'm looking at for a salesperson.

Because a lot of managers wouldn't put that up very high. They put the curiosity, but not the passion about the product because they think, oh, there's a sales engineer for that. But I tend to agree with you, especially in the startup phase.

Well, that's a great question. It's a great point. So I think when I was in, you know, some, some organizations have a really great support structure of subject matter experts. And then, you know, you could argue that you have the salesperson has takes more of the relationship role and then pulls in the right resource when you have them. So yeah, I at earlier in my career at Oracle, we had sales. I was that's where I started. I was a sales engineer, and at HubSpot I ran the sales engineering organization. But we were always trying to find what the right ratio was. So like in small business, we were running like 20 sales reps to 1 sales engineer. Or, you know, in enterprise space at HubSpot, we were running like 5 to 1. So we, we were trying to always run very lean on sales engineering. And as a result, maybe this is, maybe this is a cause and effect situation, but as a result, you know, I'm looking for a salesperson to carry on more of that conversation.

Because I think if you can't, what are you really doing? Certainly at the startup phase, if they know what it does— like, people know what HubSpot does, right? Okay, but the person who's buying it wants to know, how's it different than the 500 other ways of solving that problem?

Mm-hmm.

And if the salesperson doesn't know that, other than reading something or scheduling a meeting to show you Right.

Yeah, that's exactly how I feel about that. I've come to that conclusion myself. So in this new role at Nexat 3D, I'm building out the sales team. And, you know, I would like to sit— have them sit lower in the funnel and have a lot of great proof points on the product marketing side and, you know, let the, let the client customer absorb all that information. And then when they do get in front of a salesperson, the salesperson can then take that even further. You know, if all they can do is like, you know, point back to the documents that they've already read, then, you know, they're— that's, that's, that's not— that's something that could be a, uh, an automated aspect in the future. So the rep has to really start to, to be a sharp implement, um, when it comes to that practice. So that's how I'm thinking about it.

Yeah, because That's what I always thought was one of my competitive advantages was that I could talk to the engineers. I could hold a lot of meetings by myself.

Mm-hmm.

And have it be technical, but not bitsy-bitsy, just kind of comparing what the issues and implications are. And when I saw other reps who could really just introduce the sales engineer, and then close for the next step at the end of the meeting, I didn't find much value there unless it was a big deal, well along, they already are going to buy something, whether it's you or someone else.

Yeah, I, I think that also is sort of like the arc of a salesperson. In the beginning, maybe they need more of that support, and then when you're well-versed in your product and you become that subject matter expert Then you're almost bringing in the sales engineer in strategically to be another persona in your deal, or someone that, you know, a lot of times I've been on many calls where like the rep says, you know, I said the exact same thing the sales engineer said, but because the sales engineer said it, the client believed it. So there's some like positional stuff too there that, you know, is just happens to be, you know, unfortunately that, that was the case in some of these situations.

Yeah, and on the bad side, you go into the 4-legged sales call, and the smart people will go, okay, so who's the salesperson? Because they don't want to listen to that person. And, you know, because I tried to do— I did do the presentation about the technology, and I'd have the sales engineer to back me up and, and give the deep dive demo.

Mm-hmm.

But I didn't— I wanted them to have some level of confidence that I knew the market.

Right? Yeah.

Because, you know, especially today, we're, you know, we've got the, the SDR-AE model. And everyone's pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch. And everyone thinks that it's— you're in a certain state, we say these things. It's robotic versus interpersonal.

You know, I didn't know if you're gonna bring up the BDR thing. So I'm struggling personally with the BDR role and where it fits into the process. I'm not, you know, I've seen a bunch of different flavors of it. And, you know, I've also been on the receiving end of the BDR where the BDR gets me on a meeting, and then the BDR vanishes into thin air, and then someone else shows up on the call.

And I started all over again, tell me about yourself.

And so I think that this, you know, this, this, this, the BDR role is tough. I've also seen BDR roles that kind of get co-opted to become assistants of AEs. And I've also seen the other one where the BDR starts to get really good at selling, and then the AE says, well, don't sell so much because— don't get so far down the funnel because then I don't have any value, which is probably a signal that the BDR should be an AE. But there's that handoff process, I think, still— we still need to work on as an industry and as a profession.

And I'm sure you've met a lot of great salespeople? What were the distinctions between the very best and kind of that middle pack?

Sure. Well, I think the, the one that stands out to me the most, I think, is people who are just constant question askers and curious, and also you know, just, just want to have as many conversations as possible and learn as much. And then they're able to take, link one conversation with one individual, maybe over here, and then link that to the other person over here. And like, they, they, they give themselves credibility in doing that. I've seen that really successfully done by a sales rep in the government space where, you know, he would take one These conversations take a long time to develop because the industry moves slow, but by conversation, by conversation, he's able to put together a whole picture of how this is changing the dynamic in the government space. But it took a long time and it took linking, having many conversations, asking extra questions, and then linking what he learned into the next thing. So that was one of the things that was the most successful. And then the other one, you know, I've seen very successful people have, just have a big motor, just be able to, you know, when, when someone else, you know, when that, when that email comes in or that lead comes in, you know, do you wait to respond to it tomorrow? Or do you, you know, send a quick email now saying, hey, I got your email. Thanks for, you know, thanks for inquiring. You know, I'm, I'm right now, I'm, it's overtime, but I'll get back to you as soon as possible. And just kind of keeping that customer excited and keeping that person's expectation going so that there's no like drop-off of that. They're nurturing that person all the way to the very end and not letting any kind of drop-off happen. So those are the 2 traits that I've seen that have been really successful.

And on the curiosity side, Do you think it's something that's teachable, or is it either there or it's not there?

Great question. I, so I think that I've used the term before, functional curiosity. As opposed to dysfunctional? No, no, no, no, no. As opposed to just innate curiosity, because I think that You know, the salesperson also has an objective and a goal that they're trying to achieve. So I guess there comes a point of— there comes an inflection point where curiosity actually, as a salesperson, can slow you down. If you know you're just super curious, then you're on the phone call for 2 hours with the client and, you know, you learned a lot, but you're not buying. Right, right. So there has to be some like limit to the curiosity. So I've called that like functional curiosity. Curiosity enough, enough to know where that— where you're shaping that conversation and how you're going to use it for that to achieve your objective. So I think that aspect is probably— it has to be taught, you know, like you want to be curious to an extent, but you don't want it to derail your entire sales process across all of your leads and opportunities.

Because I think a lot of people look at it as weakness versus a strength, meaning I know what they want. Well, how do you know what they want? As opposed to, I'm curious, I need to learn, what am I missing in my deal? Why are they going to buy? Why now? Why from me? What is going to happen next? I think too many people look at it as that's a weakness. I'm all-knowing, all-seeing. Almost arrogant in a way.

Yeah, I see your point. I think that, well, those questions you're asking are, I would say, like, you know, in some degree kind of functional curiosity questions to make sure, like, you know how much more resource you want to expend on this this, this, this, this opportunity, you know, and, you know, there's some— as they commit more, you want to, you want to commit more yourself. So I guess there's those questions I think, you know, are helping you almost as a, a way to organize and time manage your schedule and how much effort you're going to put into someone, I think is— And that's important too, because, you know, it's— there's the rest of the, the job which is making sure that you're pulling a full funnel through. My current role, I'm the head, you know, running a desktop printer organization. I ran another desktop printer organization before, and you're talking sub-$10,000 deal sizes. So like, you know, to get your quota, you're talking you need to close 30 deals a month, then you need to probably be juggling 50 to 60 deals a month. So you really have to like, like that curiosity and, and prioritization is really important.

Well, in your sale, I got to imagine that there's a big difference between them buying it as a toy to play with or them buying it as something that's going to get them further in their career. Because it's not just a desktop printer, it's a 3D printer, right? Very different. It's not, you're not printing out resumes and reports and stuff.

Right. It's not a commodity tool.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, it does. It's still in that infancy where it's providing actual leverage to the business if done properly. Yeah, I'm sure there'll be a— there's definitely a future for us where these things become so built into the workflow that they're more commoditized and you just push a button and things happen. But right now it's really a business leverage tool.

And what, what would you consider your superpower as a salesperson? If there was one skill that you really— I got this one. I may not have others, but I've got this one.

Oh, geez. Well, you didn't ask me that question in the prep. So let me, let me, let me— you saved it for last. For me, I think, you know, not to be cliché about this, but I think drawing back on My my engineering background. I think that product and market trends, as well as understanding like how something in the product is going to actually net itself out in in the in the actual benefit for the client. I I I I would like to say that that might be a superpower I have in the sense that I can kind of see. very easily how a certain aspect or gap or deficiency in their product or the market can be filled with something. And luckily, if I can work closely with the engineering team, and I think that's part of why smaller teams and smaller companies benefit myself, is that I can get very intimate with the engineering team and being able to say like, hey, here's how this is going to impact the you know, the actual selling of this aspect of this printer. Like, here's the technical definition, and but boiling it down, like, it's going to mean we can have this much more addressable opportunity. And I, you know, I think that engineering itself may not just like see it from that lens, and they need to be shown that. So that's my superpower.

And that's a great one because engineering tends to build what's fun to build. Because that's what we're engineering.

Or never finish it because they're trying to create this perfect one, a new one, or the perfect article. And, you know, I've heard, you know, I've heard some folks say, okay, it's got to be 10x better. Like, well, you know, maybe not 10x better.

2 or 3 would cut it.

Yeah, just enough to differentiate. And, you know, there's definitely that push and pull.

Cool.

Hey, appreciate your time today, Michael. Where can people go to connect and follow you? Great.

So obviously I'm on LinkedIn under Michael Curry, um, and the company is Nexa3D. And just to plug that real quickly here, so we are, we are, we just launched a new desktop business unit. And so, you know, we're looking to spin up a customer team here in North America, which includes both sales and services. And so what I'm really trying to do is break down as many silos as I can in the customer team and almost kind of create like a pod-like atmosphere. And the idea of selling from experience and selling from curiosity, and you need to know both sides, not just the presale, you need to know the post-sale, and how do you have a team that is fluent in both those dialogues. And that's what I'll be doing over the next months to years.

I love interviewing smart salespeople. Now, let's talk about how do you become more curious? What works for me is I ask myself, what do I wish I knew about this prospect, client, deal, whatever it is? Ask yourself that. And ask yourself, if I had a magic wand, what would I want to understand? It breaks you out of your comfort zone. Because, you know, not being curious, being ambivalent to it, is basically sitting in your comfort zone. Curiosity is a way of getting out of the comfort zone that shouldn't really produce any anxiety. See, too many of us, we start getting curious and then we get anxious instead of getting curious and getting excited, trying to unravel that Now, probably the last 30% of the people I've interviewed have positioned the sale as a puzzle versus this challenge or this game. Because when you view it as a puzzle, it's more like fun. It gets you wondering about how other people are thinking, how they do their job today. Why are they doing it the way they're doing it? How long have they been there? What brought them there? Start asking yourself these questions. It gets you curious about the situation. And empathy is so critical in sales because how can you really sell if you don't understand what the other person's going through? You're making them come to you and understanding what your product does, and they have to map it to how they would use it and what they would get out of it. By being curious, then you easily can become empathetic to what they're going through. And all of a sudden, what you're saying will fit right into what they want to hear. And it's, it's not easy to be empathetic. Empathetic is kind of the most advanced of selling skills. Too many people talk about what you say instead of what you ask and what— how you think about the opportunity. When something stalls or they're not interested, it takes empathy to understand why. They may not be able to articulate it, put it into words. But if you're empathetic and you ask yourself, what would I do if I was them? Why does this not have as much excitement or value as you believe it should? Getting curious about how to best spend your time, who to prospect with, why they would be interested or why they may not be interested. It gets you enabled to understand why what you're doing is either working Or not working. Make curiosity your superpower. Start slow, make it fun. Don't feel like you're dumb if you don't know. I think that's really what prevents us from being curious. Because in school, what we're taught, we either know something or we don't. Instead of we know a little bit, but we'd like to know more.

More.

That's what curiosity is about. It's about learning more. So go to b2brevenue.com and check out the courses. I've got a video on them in the show notes where you can watch the video about how they work and how they're different, what you get with them— office hours, one-on-ones, a year-long access. You can pay all at once or in 12 monthly payments. It's not a subscription though. It's a payment plan. And for that year, you get 100% access to it. Every one-on-one's been recorded and put in the course. Every office hour has been recorded and put in the course. So you get to participate and hear how other people are solving these problems, getting meetings with the hardest people in the world, closing large, huge deals. Because that's why we're here. Become great at sales. Become curious about how you can become better. b2brevenue.com, check it out. Appreciate everybody who supports the show by telling a friend about it. If you see my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a little thumbs up, a little like, a little comment, a little share would be greatly appreciated. If you're on YouTube, go check out the podcast and the comedy and the sales tips on on the YouTube channel.

We'll see you next time.

Here's some excerpts from a one-on-one that I did with one of the students in Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting course. Now, this person really embraced the course after a while. It took a couple of one-on-ones for him to try each step. He kind of fought it, tried to make it work within his current model. And that really didn't have this type of success. And then after he started, he started to get meetings. He started to get conversations. He started to get all the things that I was telling him about. And he started to get excited about it. He started to see the results that I tell you about where his week was full of meetings. Now, I'll let you hear this out. I deleted out kind of the specifics of the steps and the tools and the approach, but they're all in the course. If you're already in it, please listen to the full one-on-ones. When you hear the success that people are having, it's not just the steps. It's the matching of the steps with the appropriate Actions and pacing. And then you get people asking to talk with you, which is the goal, which is the fun. So let's listen to it and I'll sum it up at the end and give you kind of an idea and recommendation if you want to take advantage of this.

And it's crazy. This week, this week I'm full of meetings. I was like, what's happening? And like, I, what I did was I baked in like, I just, I'm very generic and people are like, oh, like, like, tell me more about you. Like immediately I have like 3, 4 meetings. Like I already had 2 of those. And, and based on the, on the, on the parameters that you suggested for me, like, oh, go after these bigger companies. X amount of employees. So then by the time I'm talking to them, I already know that, okay, they, they typically have budget. I mean, assuming LinkedIn is correct with the employee size, some of it was, it was off, but it's like, okay, there's still like a deal. It can, it can still happen. And, um, but yeah, I was like, whoa, this is— I like, I limited to like 30 connections a day. So then that way it's not like, it doesn't go crazy. Because I remember one of the reps. So do about 30 a day. Uh, like I said, like this week, like 4 or 5 meetings, and, and, and, and they're good meetings, you know. And it's just conversations, like say it's not about like pitching, but it's about working them up to that point where it's like, okay, yeah, we do need to advertise.

So after teaching this for quite a while, here's the steps that you should take. Take the course Once quickly through it. Find both one-on-ones and office hours that speak to the persona that you want to talk with, whether it be the CEO, the CMO, CRO, developer, marketer, whoever it is that you want to talk to, because we break it down in gory detail. We break down the persona and what they care about. And then try each step. Try it with your friends. Try it with your coworkers and start to see the results. Now, most people will fight me on it. They'll spend the first month, 2 months, uh, trying to make the system fit into their pitchy email and cold calls. And it works a little better, but it works a whole lot better when you apply it because each step and each pause in between each step has been designed over time to be very effective. And then when you start to see the results, all of a sudden people are replying, people are asking you, people are wanting to talk with you, want to understand what you do. It's almost turning cold outbound into warm inbound. Now, are they in market? No, no, they're not. But they're a little curious, and it's up to us. And I show you in the course how do you build off of that Instead of us telling everybody how great we are and hoping they can understand why they need us. And instead of them arguing about why they don't need us. Because until you have active pain, everyone's in denial. Think about going to the doctor. Okay, you kind of know you need an operation, but you're like, can I get a prescription? And the doctor's like, he has to ease you, or she has to ease you into the process. Well, let's take an x-ray. Let's see what we're working with here. Oh, can I—

how about just a shot?

Can I just get a shot till the next time I come in? Then he flips the x-ray up on the light and he points to something. He goes, that's what we're dealing with. That doesn't heal on its own. You have to have surgery for that. He has to build up To that. Until we build up that latent pain into active pain and properly diagnose it and get people to think about what happens if they don't have that operation, they're going to avoid it at all costs. That's why the cold pitch doesn't work. You're just igniting the denial. You're not igniting interest or curiosity. It's just denial. So check out the course, start the conversation, get the meeting. It's all at b2brevenue.com. There's an overview video in the show notes on my YouTube channel and on my LinkedIn profile, pretty much everywhere I am, as well as the website b2brevenue.com. Check it out if this is what you need. You know, this student, zero sales experience, but really, you know, just gobbled up this. And the people who gobble it up the fastest and the best are people who try it and get success. It has nothing to do with knowledge. It's like learning how to do a sit-up doesn't give you a 6-pack. You have to do the sit-ups. They're not fun at first. But then you get used to them and you start to like appreciating them. And then you start to get the connection between how you look and what you do. And so you start doing the things that make you look better. This is what we have. It's not just knowledge. It is applying it, taking feedback, polishing it up, and applying the system to your clients.