HOW TO HANDLE THE HARDEST TIMES IN B2B SALES AND SELLING

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Before it's showtime. Here we go. There's a lot of hard times in sales, isn't there? Or is it always smooth sailing for you?

I can give you several examples of some of the tough times I've had, and it seems to be pretty consistent no matter what industry or type of sales profession you're in. But What I've found and been thinking more about lately is that when I've had those really challenging times, those where you get punched in the mouth and you're like, what am I going to do with my life type thing? Usually that forces me to take action to do something different. And I end up learning way more and I feel becoming a better salesperson. So it's, uh, how do you react when things aren't going well? And do you do something about it as a salesperson or do you Point fingers and kind of go back to what you were doing before. So I think, although they're very painful, those tough times, whether it's something related to the company, outside of work, the economy, whatever, I think it helps make you better in the long run. You just have to see through that long-term plan to get there. So I appreciate those hard times. I prefer the good times, but it's, it's helped me for sure over the years.

Yeah, and I think people have this misnomer that your comfort zone naturally gets bigger over time, and it's just the opposite. It gets smaller and smaller unless you do something or something does something to you. And the hard times is something doing something to you, typically. And because you don't learn in your comfort zone, you repeat. And you say you get better, but that's bullshit. You're just telling yourself so you don't do anything.

Mhm.

And so you either have to want to, which is kind of what money— that's what motivates us. Competition motivates us. Um, whatever motivates you, helping people, whatever it is, you You have to connect with that and to push yourself through that hard time. Otherwise, you sit in your comfort zone and you rationalize why you're there and how you're learning, you know, X percent per day being there. Oh, congratulations. And people naturally, you know, lean towards where they're comfortable, what they like to do, what's easy, what they know how to do. But that doesn't grow us.

Definitely it doesn't. It reminds me of one of the bigger examples when I got out of my comfort zone and it ended up being a challenging time is when I decided to change industries. And I was at the point where either I was going to probably stay in the same industry the rest of my career potentially, or do something different. And I had to make that decision, which that in itself was uncomfortable and created some tough conversations, what have you. And then I went to med device, pretty confident going into it, overconfident probably. And then I quickly realized that, oh man, this is way harder than I expected. And I got humbled pretty fast because I, I realized how complicated healthcare was. And so I was feeling sorry for myself, wanted to throw in the towel, go back to where I came from. I, I thought about that many, many times. However, I figured I've already gone over here. Why, why don't I just figure it out? And I was still doing fine, but to my standards, I guess I wasn't the same level I'd been previously in the other company. So I decided I'm going to do something about it, be proactive myself. So I ended up doing a sales coaching course. I took, took your course actually, but that was out of my own pocket and that helped me elevate and understand how, how I could map out this complicated process and understand the game I was playing. So that was step number one. And then also just investing in myself. But I mean, there was a lot of painful moments throughout that time. I mean, it didn't happen overnight. It took 6, 12, 18 months to really get in the groove when I changed industries. But I forced that on myself by changing industries, which is way better to do it yourself versus have something happen to you that's tough. And then once I got there, I was like, okay, maybe I overestimated my, my ability, but I still decided to keep investing to figure it out and it all worked out. It wasn't easy, but it worked out. And I feel like if I wouldn't have went through that experience, I wouldn't be where I'm at now as far as my knowledge and being a practitioner with sales.

Yeah.

And I think we all have to make those choices and how fast we go, but we have to make the choice. Or it's thrust upon us. But either way, we have to solve it to achieve something. Because there's a reason why not everybody's number one, right? It's a competition. And I think the key is to learn kind of that sweet spot between outside your comfort zone, but not outside your capability zone. It's kind of that, um, the flow funnel or the flow state.

It's—

you need a challenge, but if the challenge is overwhelming and you don't do it, then it's too much. So you need it right where you're going to do something without going crazy or hurting yourself or having some mental breakdown and being either comfortable or even bored sometimes. Because if you look at, like, a lot of people die shortly after retirement. It's not a health thing. It's like they're, they're not— there's no challenge anymore. They need to push against something, you know, even if it's walking dogs. I'm the best dog walker on the block. That they're so conditioned that their mind says, ah, there was no point anymore.

And a lot of—

let's face it, and this is kind of more innately in men than women, probably— that survival competition thing. But we have to keep doing it. And too many reps I talk to, they just, they focus on what they don't have control over— the manager, the comp plan, the territory. You know, at a certain point, that's set for the year. or for the window of your compensation plan, you can switch companies but start all over again. And I think in your example, you survived and you thrived in that environment. A lot of people would have given up. And if you think it's too much, you probably shouldn't try. You should make a marginal step instead of like an all-in-one step. And I see a lot of managers today, they They throw new hires on the phones all day. And I'm like, are they really going to learn that way that fast?

Why not handle—

have them build lists for the other people who are on the phone or do the entry for the people on the phone or manage inbound, something that's easier where they can walk before they have to run and get a little bit of success. I'm not saying, you know, do it for 6 months, but do it for a couple of months. Get them warmed up, you know, get the osmosis of the environment around them. I think, you know, on the entry people are putting in, you know, and you see it, most people quit. Is it that they're not good or they don't like it?

How would you know?

You know, you, you don't get thrown into the water with piranha on the first day swimming. You're not going to like swimming.

It's a great point, especially for those entry-level folks. I mean, it's going to depend on the organization and what type of philosophies they have, but if they're just throwing them out to the wolves, not doing a lot of backend training, and they're just pounding the phones all day and not giving them a ton of direction, they're going to hate sales and be like, what, what, what the hell am I doing with my life type thing? And that might happen later in your career as well, but that, that can set the stage for A disaster, probably. I mean, I think you need to, you want to make sure that people understand it is hard, that there is going to be some tough times. It's not going to be, I mean, people come into sales and they think, oh, you're just going to make a ton of money and it's going to be easy and I'm just going to live the high life. I mean, it's very rare you find that, especially right out of school. So you do need to get challenged a little bit and do some harder things. And I think that sets the foundation. So there's a little bit of a balance there, but Ultimately, you do need— it's very cliché terms, but you need some type of resilience and perseverance. You can't be thinking short-term, instant gratification during sales in general, but especially when it's harder times. Because if you're just thinking about the short-term when it's tough, whether it's stuff out of your control or in your control, you're gonna quit or go back to something else. So you have to be a little bit resilient and think long-term. So whatever industry or sales job you do pick, you want to make sure you're picking one that you think you can be there for the long haul because there's going to be some ups and downs where you have a rough year or something happens out of your control. So yeah, you got to be, you got to be strategic with it, but most people just, hey, I'm going to get into sales and they get thrown into it and then, then they realize, oh shit, it's, it's actually not always roses and it's, it's hard sometimes. And I think that's where people either get into a lull or they'd probably get out of sales altogether.

Yeah. And they see somebody else either in their friend group or online who crushes it. And they think—

Especially online, especially online.

You see a lot of people crushing it. Oh, because everyone, you can be anything online, you know, and you see this person, I was 17th on the deal team and closed a $100 million deal. And I always ask myself, you know, if they were never born, would that deal have closed anyway? And usually the answer is yes. And so we see luck or being at the right company at the right time, and that does work. But what are the signals that it's the right company in the right time and you're going to get a decent territory and a decent manager? A lot of stars have to align for that to happen. So instead of trying to do that, why don't you work on you that you have control over? Your skills, your game, your ability, and ask yourself, what do I need outside of myself? Because like, I would do terrible at medical because I just can't stand hospitals. That's just a personal thing. And, you know, I made a major shift from— it's kind of like enterprise software to security. I knew nothing about security. And a lot of the reps were either security reps or hardware network guys, and they didn't know anything about enterprise architecture. And I could have wrapped myself around the axle about what I didn't know. I just leveraged what I did know, and it worked. And I think too many people put an obstacle in front of them that doesn't need to be there. You know, number one thing is my manager. It's like, okay, well, does your manager live in your house? Okay, so how do they communicate with you? Well, they call me. And you pick up, right? Why do you do that? It's my manager. Did they make an appointment?

No, you don't pick up.

Just have a set time. Oh, you can't do that.

My man—

you don't know my manager. Then they'll text me. And it's like, well, believe me, I've gone 2 weeks without talking to my manager calling me every day. And they put up with it because they want the revenue. And I just say, I'll get back to you when I can, when I can talk. I gotta focus. And that might be an extreme, but too many people let things— how many times do you hear the economy? I've heard the economy my whole life.

Through—

I remember in the '90s where, you know, everyone was getting rich on the stock market. Anybody who knew what software was could get a job. They were still complaining about the economy. Once the economy turns around, everything will get better. And it's like, well, what do you have control? You have you, your skills. A great salesperson, even in a terrible economy, a terrible company with a terrible comp plan and terrible manager, can still do well. Might not be me, might not be you, but someone can. You know, I had a guy on the show who said, you know, he asked his manager for the worst territory because he was so pissed off about his coworkers complaining that he always got the best territory. And he got some—

That's amazing.

Yeah, some crummy territory. He became number 1. Now, you don't have to do it out of spite. But you should have, you gotta have that motivation. If you can't motivate yourself, how are you gonna motivate a prospect?

Definitely. It's like me trying to time the real estate market. I've been trying to do that my whole career and I don't think I've ever cracked that code either or people Obviously get very polarized about who gets elected for president over the years. But at the end of the day, no matter who the president is, you still have to do your work and do your job and get get stuff done. So I mean, there there's overarching things I'm sure it does affect if you're a business owner or what have you. But it's more about what are you actually doing and what can you control? So that's exactly what you were talking about. Otherwise, you're just gonna gonna go in these deep dark patches if you're worried about all the stuff that you you can't control. I've been reading the Daily Stoic this year, and it's just one page. per day. It's all about focusing on what you can, can control in all these different ways. And it, it really does put things in perspective because most everything we obsess with is out of our control. And there's gonna be crappy things that happen, whether it's your manager, your company, whatever. But it's— you're gonna go down a rabbit hole if you do that. I used to be obsessed with other people's territories, similar to what your examples were, because I felt it was unfair and that I would close deals and Not, I wouldn't necessarily get all the revenue from it, which maybe is unfair. It probably is. But when you work for a big company, am I going to be able to change that? Maybe if you're at the very top and you've been there for a while and you plan your, your territories out, that's not easy to do that. But it was, am I going to change the system, the culture of a massive company? Most likely not. Uh, as much as I think I was important, not that important. So, uh, that, and that will, that will eat you up too. Like that, I remember that. Made me really stressed out. I didn't, I didn't need that extra stress worrying about stuff out of my control. But if, if you flip it back to focusing on closing the deals, making bigger deals with your best accounts, whatever it may be, that, that was better. And also the tougher times, if people are complaining about the economy, it actually, it can force you to be more effective and efficient because you don't waste as much time when all that stuff is happening. All these outside factors you can't control. It forces me at least to be more focused on revenue generating activities and not wasting time with meetings or what have you that are irrelevant or aren't gonna drive the needle. So there's some benefits even to the things that are out of your control because it forces you to be a little more tightened up from a sales standpoint.

Yeah. And if you think back, were you ever really happy in sales? I don't think It has that characteristic. I think you're, you're happy you won deals, you made money, but it's not like getting a job in marketing where it's, you love your coworkers, you work on interesting projects, you, you strategize. Okay, that's nice, but that's not sales. That's not how sales works. All the inside stuff is nice until the end of the quarter comes. And then no one cares a bit about it. They care about the, the revenue, and it's up to us to get it. And that's why we get paid commission. And I, I always had this view of it because they treat us poorly because they pay us commission. They feel they can treat us poorly because they have that control. But so we're kind of like the garbage men of the business world. It's not a great analogy.

You need to quote that for social.

Well, garbage men make a lot of money, right, for what they do. You hang on a truck and you empty a can. No skill. You can learn it in 5 minutes. Why do they get paid so much? No one wants to do it. It's cold. It's a little dangerous. You know, the truck driver's gotta move fast and he assumes you're holding on.

Okay.

So in sales, you know, they pretend to be nice. We get to eat the pizza too when everyone else is done, but we have to bring the revenue in. And, and that it's— there is that pressure, and that pressure never goes away. And I think we always want it to go away because we want it to be more like marketing was all comfy and cozy and everyone gets comped and stuff. But that's, that's why they get that and they don't get this, this being the commission. And, and think about it, what other job has variable income? Where it's tightly correlated to your capability, not your hard work, your capability. Anyone can be busy. How well you figure out how to sell. And I saw a post this morning about— because I just hate this when people, you know, complain that prospects should just tell you when they're not interested. And I'm like, are you that tone deaf that you can't tell when they're not interested? And frankly, it's not their job to tell you they're not interested. It's your job to create interest. Anyone— you're not a clerk checking them out. Oh, you had the eggs, $1.49. Milk, $3.29. You're not a cashier. You're the creator. And you're complaining about the other person who's not cooperating with you because you think hounding them is helping the process. It's kind of this narcissism that we have. And so it, it's never going to be easy. I've been doing this forever. Even when you work for yourself, it's not easy. You can give yourself a—

Probably harder.

Congratulations, you have a day off. You're just one day further away from where you want to be. Feels good though. And, and we're very close to entrepreneurship and sales. And I think the closer you get your reps to entrepreneurship, the more effective they'll be because they quit looking around and they say, well, that's a waste of time. I gotta focus on what I gotta do.

Definitely a lot of good nuggets there, but it's it's 100% true. You're you're always gonna have that pressure. You're always gonna have a little bit of that stress, and some people really thrive in that. Obviously, you're gonna have some times where it gets the best of you. But if if you think you're gonna get away from that stress or pressure, then you probably have another thing coming. So that's a good nugget for anybody listening to this. Also. I mean, this can be with a variety of different careers you have, but you also need to understand what you're good at, what your strengths are, because there's a lot of people that maybe are in sales or in some type of, type of sales role, like a more commission-focused role that aren't built for that. So maybe they're better off being more of an account manager, national account manager, maybe a leadership where they still have pressure, but not the same as a commission sales rep. So you also have to understand what you're good at and test out some things to see that part. But that's a big portion of it as well. But the more commission-focused you are, the more pressure there's going to be and the more entrepreneurial you're going to act like. And that's typically the folks that are going to be able to weather those hard times because their back's against the wall a little bit and they don't— they need to get food on the table. So they're going to make stuff happen and be effective. So it's interesting. Dynamic there. But ultimately, you have to be accountable and understand that it is gonna be tough and just weather those storms and gravitate towards it. I mean, I think a lot of salespeople enjoy— they complain about it, sort of probably where I complained about some things on this conversation, but you also enjoy that pressure. You enjoy that struggle, the process. So if you don't really like that process, then you're gonna flame out at some point with, with sales or entrepreneurship too, because you have to enjoy those ups and downs and all the times you get punched in the face because I think people complain about it, but they also kind of like it sometimes too.

Yeah, you kind of have to have that chip on the shoulder. And I think you made a great point in that if that, that stress and stuff is too overwhelming and you don't want to live with it at all, You got to make sure that you can live without the commission because everyone's trying to find the account manager order taker role that pays $250,000 to $350,000.

And I think that's not easy to find. Not easy to find.

Yeah, that's by chance more than it is by weaving your way in. It just— because every manager looks at the territories And they're thinking, okay, that rep made their number, but it was pretty much all handed to them, easy deals. They're going to take a lot of that away and split it up into 3 territories. So, and I've seen a lot of reps trying to find that job, that account manager with the kind of even-keeled, and I've thought of it and You know, I even had something like that when my company got bought, but you're not happy. You still got other frustrations, internal frustrations, trying to understand how everything works. And, you know, you get this big number and trying to make that. So I think there's a lot of people in sales that are in sales because it pays well but don't have the right mindset for it and keep blaming someone else for that. Because nobody hires an order taker. I've never seen a post that says, oh, this is pretty much just an order taker role. Everyone's looking for the hunter, the killer.

Mm-hmm.

That's why they're spending money. They can hire an admin to take the order. They want a killer. So how do you get that account manager job? You go into a big company and hide out? Well, you're not going to make much money. You can't hide out in a little company. You're just in the wrong place. And you see a lot of people who try and get into— go from marketing into sales, or a lot of people today who going from sales to marketing because they want, they like the interaction with people, but they don't like the competition and the stress and the pressure or the timing of the end of the quarter or what they call hostile work environment.

Definitely, definitely. It's, yeah, when I was climbing the ladder, I, it was more of a High, high base bonus. Uh, the more money you're gonna make was the more promotions you got type thing. So that was just the industry in consumer product goods. I, I think that's just what most of it's typically like. And it, it was okay for a period of time, but then it ended up playing the, the corporate politics. So that, to me, that wasn't as fun as the other stuff. Although, I mean, that can be stressful doing the corporate politics, but I was like, I don't, even if you make a decent amount of money, I, I didn't wanna deal with all the corporate BS and the politics and Playing nice or all the fake stuff that happens between that. I'd rather just be out in front of the customer making things happen. I mean, you always are gonna have to do a little bit of politics, but I, I shied away from that, I think, because of what you're mentioning there. But you really do have to understand yourself, I guess, and come to the realization that it's always gonna be stressful. It's always gonna be pressure, which people don't wanna admit they are. They're definitely always chasing that. It's going to be easy next year once I close all these accounts, and it's going to be just coasting around. And there could be some times like that where you hit your number by July or August and you're just planning for the next year, which is a great place to be. But, uh, those seem to be the exception, not, not the normal that we see out there, no matter what the industry is.

And to become great at sales, the best way is to model somebody who already has become good at sales and to hear other people who have become great at sales and the journey that they're going through, the false beliefs, the misnomers, the mindset issues, all of the stuff that gets in our way between where we are And the income that we want.

Let's face it, we're in sales because we're money motivated, we're competitive, we want to be better every day than we were yesterday.

And how do we do that? There's really, you know, read a book, listen to a podcast. That's good, good start. I like it. But then you have to take action. And then you want both tactical and strategic ideas. You want mindset. You want strategy. You want to understand how companies buy. You want really deep content and examples, case studies, so that you can learn from other people's mistakes. That's what I'm here for.

I'm here for you to learn from my mistakes.

And boy, do I got a lot of them. So go to b2brevenue.com, sign up for the courses. There's 2 major ones. Start the conversation, get the meeting, fills up your pipeline. Gets rid of that problem of, oh, I don't have enough leads. I don't have enough meetings. It gets those conversations started with the people you want to talk to. Now, it's not about a pitch. It's about a conversation. Now, everybody thinks of conversations when you're talking or you're online at the same time, or you're on the phone or Zoom at the same time. That's not a conversation. A conversation's when the client is talking about what they care about, what they're interested in. And that is what we call qualification, where we can sense where are they and how do we build up that curiosity into interest, into urgency to get a deal. And these are skills that we need. They're lifelong skills that we need in sales. And then how do we get a deal closed? Yes, anyone can take an order. But what if they don't know how to get it done? You get a new account. Where you're trying to get a big change done internally. What are the issues? If you're not planning that through, odds are it's not going to get done no matter how much your champion wants it. So winning the complex sale solves that problem for you. Why waste all your time on these false positives or these no decisions? Because they don't pay very well. They pay Zero point zero. What you want to do is pay a lot. So sign up today. Invest in yourself. You're the asset in sales. Quit waiting for somebody else to approve it or train you. See if you can get it expensed. That should be your first sales obstacle. Your first sales challenge is how do you get your company to pay for it? Just go down, tell your manager you want to do this. I put a little example email in the show notes right below here. Just swipe up and take a look at that. And if they won't, you got to ask yourself, why won't you? Why won't you? Oh, it takes time. Well, you work all day. You're working wrong all day. Why not improve that? There's the time right there. Oh, the money, Brian. It's money. Well, you make more money if you become better in sales. And Start the Conversation pays for itself the first week because you're going to get at least 2 meetings just learning from the very basics of it. Closing the Complex Sale will pay for itself 100 times over. Students in it tell me it's the best money they ever spent because they now have control over their deals. And it doesn't end. Some give up. Some give up after they win their first deal and they think they've got enough. No, come back, come back, keep going. You can get even bigger deals, more deals, faster deals. That's what it's all about. Sign up today. Put the excuses away. Yeah, excuses feel good, but they're expensive. Excuse— you know what the excuses are costing you? Tens, 50, maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in lost income. Really?

Yeah.

The difference between where you are today— let's say you're making $150,000, decent, decent income, but you know there's other people in your industry making $300,000, $400,000, $500,000. Well, how are you going to do that? You all think it's just about getting a better job, a better territory, a better manager. They can help. Go do that. Then what happens? It's still you there with those leads trying to close those deals. And do you have the game?

Few people do.

Everyone thinks they do. Why not prove it? The market tells you what you're worth. Accept it. Now become better. And the way to become better is to improve every day. Really make a daily routine of learning and developing because it's not at the knowledge level. You have to become unconsciously competent at these skills, which takes time, repetition, and emotion. And I show you how to do it, how I did it.

How I've taught hundreds of people to do it.

But you have to want to because I can't force you. A lot of people wish I could.

So do I, but I can't.

So sign up today.

We'll see you next time.