HOW TO GET TO THE ROOT OF WHY PEOPLE BUY AND HOW TO DRIVE IT

In sales, we typically get there for one of two reasons. One, we exhibit the personality for sales and someone tends to pull us into it or suggest it for us. Maybe we're extroverted and easy to get along with, life of the party, likable. That's all good. Or we are money motivated and the other roles within the company have a fixed income. It might be a great income, might have little increases, but it doesn't excite us. We're money motivated. And which one are you? Here's the problem. If you get pulled into sales because you're likable or an extrovert, you still have to learn sales. And if people tell you that it's innate, well, certain things are clearly, I mean, I think introverted and extroverted are rooted in innate characteristics. If your parents were introverted, most likely you'll be introverted. Doesn't mean you can't change. It just means what comes naturally to you, your instincts. And here's the thing about sales. It is so deep and broad. We tend to just glaze over it, give ourselves the credit, the benefit of the doubt that we'll be good at it because we naturally bond with people. But there's still a process. There's still steps that have to be taken, hard questions to be asked. Do we do it? The feedback that I get from most reps is it doesn't feel authentic. It doesn't feel natural. It's not instinctual. How could it be? There's no real reason why it would be. We have to build it up. It reminds me of my story about getting into cross-country as a freshman in high school. Now, I grew up being pretty fast, runner. And I think every kid is pretty fast at running. But it was something that came Innately to me, naturally to me. So, when I got into high school, I wanted to try out for a sport, and cross-country was kind of the natural one. It's running. It's just labor. It's— I hate to say there's much of a talent to it. There's this— there's certainly building up and tenacity and innate or inner skills that you have to develop. Well, this is the lesson I learned. So, it starts in the fall when the school starts, but they have double sessions for 2 weeks before school starts. And they give you a training program that you're supposed to do all summer. Run every other day at minimum, build up to 5 miles. Well, guess what I did all summer? How many times did I go running in those 3 months?

0. Twice.

Now, what was going on in my head? I was probably thinking, I'm a pretty good runner. This will come naturally to me. I'll do okay once the— and they were double sessions, a morning session and an afternoon session, 2.5 miles each. And guess what happened? First day of school, I could barely walk up the stairs. I was— I mean, my legs were so tight. It's because I didn't do the work. I knew I should do the work. I knew why I should do the work, but it was painful. So I didn't want to do the work. And this is what happens to us in sales. We tell ourselves these stories to save ourselves from doing The work. And then we're kind of surprised that we don't get the results of the work. And this is why sales— you have to do the work or you're just going to fall into the B-player trap. Because how many of us are going to be honest with ourselves and say, I didn't prepare, I didn't think through, I didn't ask the right questions, it didn't feel natural?

Why?

Because I didn't do the work. We know we didn't do the work, but we don't want to hear that internally either. So we say, ah, we blame the customer, the, the market, the economy, the company, the product. But that only builds the trap deeper and broader. It doesn't pull us out of the trap. That is the trap. And in sales, Most of us are in the trap and we don't even know it. And we just keep building deeper and deeper into it. Don't get into the trap. If you're in it, get out of it because it doesn't get better. It gets worse because you get better and better at those excuses, those rationalizations, those explanations that you tell yourself that are lies. You know they're lies. But they feel good. They're the candy of sales reinforcement. But what does work?

Practice.

Thinking, planning— those are all things that go into being great at sales. Thinking about what the other person is going to go through. One of the best exercises I've ever done is before a meeting, an important call, Not every call, but important ones. I would profile what I think they're going to talk about and why, and plan through how am I going to respond to it? How do I get the next meeting? Those are the skills that separate good salespeople from okay salespeople. But it's work. And we tell ourselves, I've done this for n number of years.

So have I.

Doesn't matter. You still have to do it. Why? Because you're not in that right mind state. You wish you were. You tell yourself you are, but you're not. And this is where Brevity Pitch comes in. What we're doing now is building up these daily drills, the critical ingredients of their particular sale, those hard questions, the price versus value conversation. How good are you at that? The next meeting, getting it on the calendar, not just, ah, we'll think about it and give me a call in 2 weeks. That's not a meeting. That's a catch-me-later type thing. Yeah, I'll see you next time. It's a brush-off. It's not a commitment. We think it's a commitment because we want it to be a commitment. Doing those daily drills, think about how much better you would get at these tough parts. How do you compare against your competition? Great question, right? Now, do you pounce on it or do you probe for, well, tell me more about what you'd like to accomplish? See, we walk right into the commodity trap. The commodity trap is you're selling a thing, you're a vendor, You're a service clerk. Why do we fall into it? Because we're comfortable with it. Not because it's effective. Not because it's ineffective. It's the death of the sale. Ah, can you send me a proposal?

What do you do?

Send them a proposal? That's when the deal dies. See, great selling is having a backbone and being likable. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Let's get into it. And if you see my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a little like, a little comment, a little share.

Here we go.

Hey Tracy, thanks for joining us today.

As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Fantastic. Well, thanks for having me on today, Bryan. A little background on myself. I've been in the wonderful world of sales for the last 30, 35 years, I guess. 35 years. Um, got into it a little bit accidentally many moons ago. I'm sure we can certainly talk more about that. Um, live here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I'm currently working as a partner, a founding partner, vice president of sales for Asgard Cybersecurity, headquartered here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Um, and just glad to get a chance to talk with you today. Look forward to hearing all the questions and thoughts and see what we can talk about.

Yeah, well, let's start off with what Got you into sales? I'm sure you could have done a lot of things with the psychology degree, but why'd you choose sales?

I didn't. I so didn't. It was an accidental, pretty funny story, actually. Many moons ago when I was graduating with my undergraduate and I was like, you know, I'm gonna be a counselor and I'm gonna help people and all that. And then I got to a place in time where I figured out that there's not really good money to be made there unless you go pretty far in education. So I went through a little bit of a depression and a little bit of what am I gonna do now? And I went to a temporary staffing company, um, and found myself of all places being put as a temp in a, um, a pediatrics office, which was hilarious because I'm not a big kid person. Um, and so I— but I really hit it off with the woman who, who was running the staffing company. And one day she said, here, I want you to take the stack of business cards and I want you to go down to that medical complex. I want you to go to every single office in there, leave this card and get the office manager's card, and then come back. Which I thought was a weird thing. But so that was— I started in sales. I didn't know that that was sales, but ended up working with that woman for 10 years and having a very, very fun run. And she taught me all kinds of stuff. Great mentor.

And what do you like about it?

You know, I think it's because it's just not the same thing every day. And it gives me a chance to— I really like people. You know, it's funny, I was listening to one of your podcasts not very long back, as a matter of fact, and my superpower is that I really like People. I'm fascinated by people. I'm interested in people. And I think just being able to get out and meet new people and figure out what is it that you're trying to get accomplished and how can maybe I help you to do that. And I found that that works for any, any type of sale that I've been in the whole time that I've been in this career. Yeah, same thing applies.

But how'd you get good at it then?

How did I get good at it? Well, I'll tell you some amazing mentors. There's— I wouldn't— funny enough, I wouldn't say that even present day that I'm— I don't know if I would say I'm good at it, but I think I'm better at it than I was when I started. I was really, really blessed to have some great mentors along the way. I asked a lot of questions. I was willing to do things that terrified me. I'm still willing to do things that terrify me. People say, well, after all these years, I mean, this has got to be easy to you now. And it's like, nope. It's not, you can always say something dumb, make the wrong move, whatever. But I think I just got good at it because I had a couple of folks that I worked for that really were willing to answer my questions and be patient with me and help guide me. And everywhere that I've been, I've made a point of finding people that are better than me at whatever it was and getting in sync with them and asking a lot of questions. So I'm always a work in progress, I think, as all of the good salespeople are.

Yeah, and you had quite a run at one company, didn't you? They kept you there for quite a while.

Yeah, I was, uh, that's about 14 years. I think we're probably talking about W Energy Software. Yeah.

But how'd they keep you? Because sales, you see a lot of 1-year, 2-year, 3-year type motions. You don't see many 14 years.

Yeah, it was a, um, It was a real interesting run. I kind of— I find myself accidentally getting into these great opportunities, I think, because I'm always very open to whatever those opportunities might be. I was working at a place, and as the company was launching, I was actually the second employee there, and it spun out from underneath of another technology company. And it was the oil and gas industry, software industry, neither of which I had ever really worked in. But I said, I just need to understand what we're trying to solve. And so I figured that out and I worked really closely with the CEO and I was really, I think, a foundational part of building that company and got to a certain place in the market where we went from, you know, being kind of that total startup situation really to it was time to hand the batons off to the next row of people. But I think being so embedded with my client base and with the overall management team for such a long time, it was, it was hard to part ways. So I was there for quite a while.

Cool.

And what did— what surprised you about sales? Because I'm guessing you're an extrovert. Is that reasonable?

Um, I would— that's fair. Yeah.

It's not a stretch, right?

That's not a stretch. My friends will tell you they always hear me coming before they see me. I'm like, hey.

Well, extroverts get pulled into sales a lot. But sometimes they have to learn a lot because they have to learn the process and asking questions and understanding the situation. Was that hard for you, or?

Um, it kind of was, I think, figuring out how to really tune in and hone my ability to really listen. Because you, I think earlier on I was excited.

Yeah.

I do get really excited about what I do. I'm passionate about it and I wanna tell everybody about it. But I think some of the early lessons I had to learn was, well, first you need to understand who are you talking to? Why do they wanna talk to you? And what is it that they're trying to solve and how is it that you're gonna help them? So I've, it took me a while to kind of dial back my overzealous personality, um, and really get into kind of early listening mode and discovery mode before we start getting into selling mode.

Yeah. And how about as far as kind of decision-making players, where they fit in, diagnosing what's really going on versus what they're saying? Was that something you, you picked up quickly, or—

Um, I wouldn't say quickly, but I think trying to figure out the whole the cast of characters and how— what are the— what are the— what's the decision-making progress? I think I was early on, I thought, well, there's got to be a process for this. I mean, I guess most places do this kind of the same way, um, but, but they don't. And, and I think not only figuring out what each individual company, how they're approaching things, but then who are the players and what is the personal win for them?

Yeah.

And trying to get to the heart of that matter, because I, I've learned there's been a lot of sales in the past that I've not won. And I thought, but we We had all the right stuff. We, I don't, and then, you know, come to find out you would uncover that there was some personal bias or that by buying that service or product or whatever, you were gonna maybe put someone out of a job or so trying to really kind of understand the entire landscape in a holistic way and how to navigate it with each individual account because it's not the same everywhere.

It's not. And people don't tell you either.

Overtly.

What's your personal win?

Right, exactly. It's like, how can I make you a hero today?

Yeah. So you kind of got to ferret it out indirectly.

Yes, exactly right.

Did you run into a lot of those situations where it was like a nice-to-have versus a must-have?

As far as what I was selling, was it a nice-to-have?

Or they viewed it that way.

Yeah, I think it can be viewed that way. I think a lot of, like, with the software, it was a, it was a must-have. But almost everybody, there was an incumbent in almost every situation. So there weren't a lot of greenfield opportunities. So it was like you were always having to figure out how is changing from what they have today to what I have, how is that really benefiting them and going through that process? And it wasn't always Very rarely was it about the cost. It rarely is, actually. A lot of people are like, oh, I'm sorry, shoot, can I just give you a discount then? And it's like, no, that's what they're trying to figure out is how does this affect their world, their ongoing job? They're 3 years away from retirement. Is that gonna disrupt everything about what they're trying to do? Is status quo maybe better for them regardless of how much better your widget is? Just, yeah, like trying to— the nice to have versus must have. Everybody needed it. But everybody had some version of it at that point in time. Yeah.

And was that— did that turn into a superpower, knowing or understanding what the personal wins are?

Sorry about that. I think so. I do think so. I think because I'm pretty in tune with getting to know the people, I think I'm good at gaining the trust of the people that I'm dealing with. And if you don't understand what's motivating people, then you're not going to be able to help them. And so I think really, like, just being genuinely curious about human beings. Who are they? Why does, you know, why are we— I've frequently said in meetings, why did you agree to meet with me today? I don't think that's a bad question to ask somebody, because sometimes understanding the answer to that helps you get that kind of to that superpower. So yeah, I would say so.

Yeah. And what do you see as kind of a differentiator between the best reps and just okay reps? I don't know if you've led or you've worked with a lot of salespeople, but—

Both. The answer to that is both, Brian. I've actually been a sales leader, a sales manager, individual contributor, sometimes all at the same time, depending on the size of the company. I've been in a lot of those small startups and every expert, including yourself, I'm sure would say, you can't really be all those things effectively in long term. That's true. But I think the ability to just kind of make connections, I think the get away from the mentality of if you dial the phone enough times, something's bound to work. And so I think when leading and when operating, it's like I make probably less outbound phone calls and maybe have less meetings in terms of actual numbers. But I think they're more meaningful. I'm more— I'm prepared for them. I understand who's the audience, what's the situation. I've read up on their company. So where I might make, you know, 15 calls in a day and get 3 meetings, I've had counterparts and people that worked for me that, well, I made 100 phone calls a day. I can't figure out why I'm not getting any meetings. I'm like, well, because you sound like a salesperson. And so that's— I mean, I think it's a differentiator. I think there's got to be a level of sincerity that people are picking up from you.

Yeah, because when you say sound like a salesperson, what does that mean to you?

I think our— gosh, our profession, Brian, gets such a bad rap. And I have conversations with people about it all the time. It's like sometimes I don't even want to have sales in my title. But I think it's just, you know, that there's that smarmy, you know, all about your own self, insincere, greedy, and not caring about what you're looking for, untrustworthy. You know, those things are kind of things that are associated with our profession. And unfortunately, there's enough bad people out there doing the wrong things that it makes it hard for the rest of us that are trying to do it the right way. So the first thing we're having to do is tear down these walls of, you can have a conversation with me, you can trust me, what have you, right?

I mean, so I think that Let me turn the recorders on, right? Yep. What I was asking was, how long did it take to come to the conclusion of the quality, focusing on the right people, talking to them about what they care about versus just trying to find somebody who might already be interested?

That was a fairly early lesson for me, I think. Once I started really associating, because I like to win. I mean, I like to be, you know, whether it's the number one salesperson or whatever, whatever. But I started figuring out that I could work really, really, really hard and just not get the results I was looking for. And then I literally started asking people after not getting some sales, you know, how did I— how did it go in the direction that you went with or what have you? But I just started figuring out that the quality of what we were talking about and the real preparation of getting to that meeting and being able to say, you know, I know that when you spoke at this conference and whatever, whatever, or I know that your company just closed this, blah, blah. And they were like, oh, okay, so you actually did some homework before you got here. And then suddenly I've got more credibility and they're more willing to kind of open up. So I figured out that kind of quality over quantity was pretty important, probably back in my 30s. That was one of the earlier lessons I learned.

Yeah. And how about as far as dealing with different people within the company, the customer's company, not just the end user, but the economic people, the legal people, the purchasing people?

That is a super fun process. I've dealt with— I feel like I should be an attorney after all of the legal folks that I had to deal with. I was really blessed to be able to get to see the whole picture. I think at the last company I worked with because we were small enough that I was— I needed to go prospecting. I needed to find the people. I needed to qualify them. I needed to schedule the meetings. I needed to get the demos scheduled, you know, and then I had to get the whole contract put together, you know, negotiating all the commercial terms, etc. And then I had to work pretty closely with procurement and legal to get it through that entire process. I mean, and I can say this because I think everyone understands it and it's not a secret. I've contracted with ExxonMobil before, so I feel like I earned my stripes because their legal department was bigger than my whole company.

And what have you found leadership not to understand about sales in your experience?

So many things. I think understanding how how mental it is.

Yes.

Because I literally cannot be effective if I am being browbeaten or having a terrible day. I think the, hey, let's have a Monday morning meeting and let's talk about how horrible everything is and then go knock them dead. It's like, nope, it doesn't. It just doesn't work like that. And so I think trying to get leadership, I've had some really good ones and some really bad ones. You get to this place in the careers at age where we've got gray hair. You've worked with great ones and not great ones. But I think the ones that really understood, you know, listen, if you need to call me on the carpet for something or whatever, whatever, please make it at the end of the day because I've really got to— it's my job to get up and be excited and motivated and whatever every single day. But you can't have an operations meeting and tell us that we're doing a completely horrid job and then tell us to go do— So I think that's probably one of the biggest things that is hard for the non-sales side of leadership to understand.

Because it is kind of an emotional job, right? You have to present yourself. You're representing the company, the product, everything. You're the face.

Yeah, absolutely right.

And when you're hiring salespeople, what do you look for?

I very much look for, for attitude. attitude and personality. I can train a lot of things with people that I'm looking to, that I'm going to add to my team. I cannot train you to be a nice person. I can't train you to be naturally curious. And so I'll take a less experienced person that's highly motivated with some of those qualities that are more X factor over, you know, I'll take that combination of things over that, you know, highly experienced person every single time.

And what mistakes have you made in hiring? Because I think a lot of leaders want to hear, I mean, because they don't, don't really have a process in hiring. They hire people they like, people who they get along with, people who they want to have a beer with, but that's not necessarily a great salesperson.

I think hiring for sales is the hardest job ever. I spent a lot of time as a recruiter in my younger days of my many different pieces of my career. But salespeople by design are here to tell you how amazing they are because they're salespeople. And so I think mistakes I've made is I've bought into some people's BS more than once.

Yeah.

I think doing the— and I can't think of the term for the type of an interview, but that more behavioral interview. Tell me about a situation where And, you know, getting those kinds of— and if there's real stories out there, and if you can get to the heart of some of those things, and if people are willing to be sincere, like, why did you fail at your last job? What was your— you know, people have to be sincere, and you have to kind of dig past that really fancy resume and all of the sales speak, because people are going to throw some stats at you, and it's going to sound great. But it doesn't mean that you can actually sell. And I think the other thing too, the bigger mistake is expecting people to adjust into a different culture that just doesn't match. You know, when I'm in this, you know, Asgard is a fairly smallish company right now.

Right.

So I was looking at candidates that were coming from like Dell. That's just not— it's not going to work. I need somebody who can understand that you might have to do 7 or 8 things that are not exactly part of your territory or your job or what have you. But you still have to do those things. And if you're looking for a very buttoned-up process, you're probably not going to find them with this small boutique firm where I am right now. So I need to stay away from that kind of candidate and look at the candidates that are more from companies that are of a similar ilk, I think is a good rule of thumb too.

And what would you say is your dominant driving emotion for sales?

I, um, so problem solving, I think. I, I genuinely like to figure out how is what I have going to help you fix something that is a problem for you right now. Um, I, I don't understand the oil and gas industry in great depth. I'm not a software engineer. Now here I am in cybersecurity, not a cybersecurity expert. Um, But I know that from a business standpoint, there's stuff that you're trying to solve. I need to figure out who within the organization cares about it and how it's almost like a puzzle. It's like putting this puzzle together where you, and you get all done and you feel like, man, I really affected a cool change for that organization. That feels good. I enjoy that.

Yeah, a lot of people bring that up. And where does that come from? Do you know? As far as like your background or your education or I do think it's partly—

I'm an only child, so I've been very curious, and I've always been hanging around people that are older and wiser and smarter than me, literally from the time I was little. But I think, too, that my desire to get into the field of psychology when I was younger was driven by a desire to help people and maybe a bit of a desire to help my own self. But I think there's a self-validation that comes from Solving a problem or what have you. But I feel like I've always been naturally curious and to get to the heart of a matter and kind of solve it because sometimes you're trying to help a person, they're not positive what all their motivations are. So sometimes you're kind of peeling some of that back together.

Face it sometimes, especially probably with what you're selling now, cybersecurity. It's like you gotta buy something to prevent something that might happen.

That's exactly right. I mean, it is literally one of the most challenging sales that I think I've ever done because it's almost— I mean, I liken it to, like, I don't know, maybe like life insurance, or it's like, you know, you need it, but it's like, when do you want to have that conversation? There's never a great time to go, yeah, let me go ahead and look at all your stuff and tell you how vulnerable your house is to people that are trying to break into it because people prefer to not look at that in general.

Yeah, it's not just latent pain, it's very latent.

Exactly right. And if you don't do anything, like yesterday was fine at my company, today's fine at my company, why would I give you money to do something that isn't necessarily going to make it any different tomorrow? So yeah, you're exactly right.

But the problem solving, then I always ask, like, why didn't you get into like customer success versus sales?

Well, that's a good question. I feel like I like to start the conversation.

Proactively.

You know, I've got a really, really dear friend. My best friend in the whole wide world is the most amazing customer success representative you would ever— but she would not walk up and talk to a stranger for any amount of money. At a party, at a business function, she's like, oh my God, you freak me out the way you just walk into any room anywhere and just start talking to people. It's weird. So I like to start those processes, and I like to find those things and look for them and find them and get things going. And then once it's up and running, it's not like I don't care anymore, but I'm kind of like, let somebody else go ahead and handle the care and feeding of it. I'm ready to go look for the next new thing that I can affect a change on.

Yeah, you're proactive, and your friends are reactive.

Yes.

And you probably We talked extrovert. She's probably an introvert, I'm guessing.

Very much so. Yeah.

Have you seen many introverts be successful selling in your experience?

Yes, I think it kind of just depends on maybe industry and so on and so forth because the audience that you're dealing with at any given company is different. I've got a friend that sells software to the transportation industry. So she's talking to a lot of, you know, kind of pre-blue-collar folks, whatever, whatever. Um, whereas somebody over here that's selling pharmaceuticals, directly dealing with, you know, physicians, neurosurgeons, people that are a completely different ilk. Um, so I think they can absolutely be successful because also the introverts can— are good at listening. They can ask good questions and listen, which is a huge skill. So I think it, it doesn't by any means count them out of being successful in that role.

And what do you wish you learned at 24 that you know today? What did those mentors teach you that saved you years of trial and error?

Wow. The best piece of advice I ever got. Well, there's been a few of them, but there was a CEO that I worked for back when I was literally 24 and I was calling on like physician office managers and so forth. And we were getting into larger and larger healthcare types of organizations selling staffing services. And he sat me down one day and he was a rather salty fellow. Terrifying was the word. You know, I look back on it very fondly now, but he scared me to death back when I was that young. And he, he was like, why are you wasting my time and yours? In a harsh meeting we had one day. And I said, I don't—

I—

and he said, why do you keep calling on all these low level managers and middle managers. He goes, why are you not calling on executives? Those are the people that can make decisions, that can write checks. And I said, well, what do you want me to just call vice presidents? And he said, yes, that's what I want you to do. And so we ended up having a— we sat down and we actually had a drink and we talked about it one evening. And he said, the people, the executives at the company, they already know they're important. He said, they don't need to beat up on, you know, salespeople or other people or whatever to prove their importance or their value to the company. He said they've already gotten past all that. He said you're going after people who enjoy locking the door in your face. He said go after the executives and tell them that you think you can solve something that matters to them. They'll listen to you, and they're probably going to be nicer to you than any of these middle managers. And I took that to heart, and it was literally life-changing. To this day, I will call C-level people all day long. It's so true what he said.

So you're a top-down seller? Is that true?

I mean, I really am. It kind of just depends on the situation. But a lot of times, if you can get to a person like the CFOs that— like right now, I talk to a lot of CFOs because they're trying to mitigate risk for their company, and part of that is understanding their cybersecurity posture. So yeah.

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

You can find me on LinkedIn. It's Tracy Radi, R-A-D-I. I'm at Asgard Cybersecurity. And that's Asgard as in Thor. Yes, exactly. But yeah, I would absolutely love to— any follow-up questions, anything I can do to help. I'm so grateful to get a chance to talk with you, Brian. I've been following you. I think you're fantastic. And I really appreciate you giving me some time today.

What I've been learning about interviewing these great sales reps is they take their time. They really want to understand the other person. They're not focused on just the product. Focusing on the product walks you into the commodity trap. Focusing on them keeps you out of it, keeps you focused on the real problem that you're trying to solve, not convincing them that you're just the best product. Because if they don't want to solve the problem, knowing that you're the best product is nice but not enough. So why don't you study sales? See, too many of us just want to be rich. It's a good goal, but how do you get there? Do you get there by just spinning in circles? Your manager would probably tell you, yeah, that's how you do it. I did a video this week on quantity is your enemy, and a lot of people didn't get it. What we do as humans is we like to be distracted. Most of life is just one big distraction. It feels good to be distracted.

Distracted.

We're not pressured. We are busy. We feel like we're being effective, but we're just distracted. Distraction and feeling effective have the exact identical brain imprint. They feel the same. That's why everyone does it. As soon as you start to hear more, you got to ask yourself, am I distracting myself? Or is this really more revenue? Because it's not a numbers game. Everybody wants to believe it's a numbers game because that distracts them. That gives them comfort when they're busy. I'm one step closer to closing. No, you're not. One has nothing to do with the other. We want to believe that. Because it serves us. See, sales is so misunderstood because the people who talk about it have never done it. One sales expert got mad at me because I pointed out he hasn't prospected in 30 years. He got mad at me. Sorry, it's the truth, is it not? He hasn't sold in 30 years. He gives his workshop to sales managers to beat up their reps, but that's not prospecting. You know, he wrote a book, get some people inbound. That's fine. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying that here he is touting how to do it and he doesn't do it. I do it every day. I do it for fun. I don't cold call. I don't cold email. That's for people who do not know how to sell. If you didn't know how to sell, what would you do? Hey, you want to buy my stuff? That's the first thing. You beg. Smart people find the side door of life. The front door is crowded. Everyone's there. The back door, you don't know them, anybody there. You only have a handful of them. Everyone's got a side door. And guess what it is? You'll find out when you take— start the conversation, get the meeting. Now, a lot of people just want the numbers. I want something I can put into my cadence machine and hit a button and go back to sleep, Brian. I don't want to really do anything. I don't want to connect and talk to people. If that's true, sales might not be for you. Because that's all it is. See, what we got to do is understand what the other person's going through. They're not even aware of you, never mind want to talk to you or curious about you. You're interested in them because they have money. Well, we can't start there. We have to start where they are. We have to build that up. And how do you build it up? Cold calling and emailing? No, everything but that. You start where they are and you build up a know, like, and trust relationship. Everyone agrees with that, and everyone thinks doing that is cold calling them and maybe asking how they've been. That's not rapport. That's an opener. What we have to do is understand how people want to converse with a stranger, because that's what you are to them. They may not be a stranger to you because you did your due diligence, but to them you are a stranger, and you have to start there. And just because you want to move faster, that doesn't mean they will. They want to move slower when you move faster. Immediately they want to move you out. So when you think of sales as a numbers game, you're only going to do stupid things. Why? Because why would you do something smart if it's a numbers game? A numbers game is gambling. It's a game of chance. Is your sale a game of chance? If it is, you don't know how to sell. Pinpoint, target. There's 7 billion people out there. You can't call all of them. Why are you calling this person versus this one? People want to turn their brain off because it's hard to think all day, but it's much more effective when you do, because being busy just makes you tired and poor. It doesn't make you rich. Being smart does. Learn how to sell, not just be busy. Go to b2brevenue.com. There's 2 major courses there. Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting teaches you how to start a conversation with a complete stranger that turns into a business discussion. It is magic when you become good at it. Knowing it does you no good. Absolutely no good. Why? Because you've got to apply it and become good at it. I break it into micro skills so that they're autonomous and easy to understand. But everyone's instincts point them right in the opposite direction. Our instincts do not help us in sales. Our instincts are what's in the way in sales. Our instincts are to take an order. Please, if you have orders to take, Take them. But then when you're done taking them, come back and we'll, we'll talk about how to sell. That's where the money is. That's where the differentiation is. That's where the gold is. Not in being busy. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Check out the other show, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers, Sales Leadership Show. Go check out brevitypitch.com. It's the future of sales. The way to become better at anything is repetition with improvement to build up your confidence. And how do you do it in sales? brevitypitch.com. We'll see you next time.