HOW TO IDENTIFY A REAL DEAL FROM FAKE

Today we got a great one. In the complex sale, we make a natural mistake, one that is a clear trap in that we misunderstand it. We try and apply the books, the courses, the simple sales strategy to the larger complex sale. And what ends up happening, we fall right into the trap every time. We assume we label these people and economic buyer, user buyer, But we don't really have a system to solve this problem. And today, this rep grew up in the jewelry business in New York City. So he had good interpersonal skills, good understanding and reading people. But then when you would try and apply that to the larger complex sale, He has a natural curiosity. He loves the complexity. He likes solving that problem. He's genuinely curious and interested in the other person. And this is really what you need because few, if anybody, really teaches this. Few, if anybody, really knows it. It was the challenge that I had when I started in it. You pick up all the books, even the ones that are focused on the complex sale. It gives you a lot of titles and names for people and blue sheets and checklists of the elements of a sale. But that— but you're still on a treasure hunt. You're going from clue to clue. And what I wanted to do was have a treasure map. I wanted to know where I was and what I should be doing next. And to have this requires forethought instead of reacting, uh, prevention of getting into the traps, because once you're in, it's hard as hell. That's why it's called a trap. Once you fall in the quicksand, it's quick and it goes very fast and you get stuck. So The Complex Sale couldn't have been titled better. And I was talking to a friend the other day about it. I go, I've got this great market in that nobody really teaches what I teach. A few companies have any approach or even appreciation for it. And then my friend said, well, what's your problem then? I go, they don't know what they don't know. And I don't mean to sound like Rumsfeld there, But if you think that the checklist is enough, and the challenge becomes that the managers think it is because they only work on the best of the best. They get pulled in at the very last moment for discount, for executive meetings. So they think it works. It's a false positive. And when it doesn't work, they think it's the rep's fault. Sound familiar? Instead of teaching the reps how these deals work and kind of forcing a prevention mindset instead of an order-taking, assuming that it's going to go well mindset, is that eureka moment. And I've been able to get this through to some leaders, but most don't want to hear it. It's too much work. Brian, you know, I don't, I don't believe you. Really? Or you don't want to believe me? There's a big difference between not believing and not wanting to believe. Our confirmation bias will always trip us up. We don't want to believe we're in the trap until we can't get out. We will deny it until that last possible moment called the end of the quarter or the end of the year. And no deal is here. And then the first day of the next quarter, you're like, where's my deal? Uh, we want to start all over again. Or things have been shuffled around, or they reveal what's really going on. Ah, the executive didn't buy into your idea. So listen to this episode and be curious about this. Get out of your comfort zone. Your comfort zone is the most deadly of traps because you won't even start looking for the traps until it's too late. Your comfort zone is your enemy, not your friend. And now's kind of the time to do it before you're in that trap. Uh, why don't we get into the interview? I'll sum it up at the end. If you're in the courses, make sure you're checking out the one-on-ones. They're becoming really good. Really concise. The office hours are fantastic, getting a lot of success stories, a lot of distinctions, a lot of different tools that people are using, how they're outsourcing their lead generation. All the courses can be found at b2brevenue.com. Get in before the price goes up. Here we go.

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

Sure, Brian, pleasure to be here. My name is Paul Lesser. I live in Westchester County, New York, 25 miles north of Midtown Manhattan with my wife, 2 teenage daughters, and our dog. Have a wonderful family life here. I got my, my start in sales. My dad was a jewelry retailer. And I grew up working in the jewelry store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as a young teen. Worked in the store all the way up through graduating college when I decided at that time that I really did not want a life of a retailer.

Yeah.

And had a fraternity brother who was working for AT&T selling phone systems, and I asked him if he can help me get a job at AT&T and There I was 3 weeks after graduating college, uh, selling phone systems or working for AT&T.

Well, that jewelry business, I mean, because jewelry is highly negotiable, right?

Yeah, jewelry is highly negotiable. I started really as a 13-year-old. It was more just watching and, um, gift wrapping and working the register, but that experience working in the jewelry store, watching that face-to-face interaction and negotiation, um, was invaluable and part of my DNA.

Well, that's it, because if you don't have that type of experience, you don't really understand how the world works.

Yeah, you know, I, I agree. It's also very interesting because the customers come to you.

Yeah.

They walk, they walk into the store and they have a need immediately upon walking into the store. And the, the negotiation is face-to-face, where what I do today in corporate sales, it's a lot of prospecting and a lot of defining the need. And it's, it's not a lot of face-to-face, especially at the beginning of the sales process.

Yeah.

And, but both are pretty still emotional decisions. I think jewelry is much more of an emotional decision.

Yeah, I agree. But they are similar in the fact that, you know, there's still a want, there's still a need, there's still a gap, there's still a quote unquote problem to be solved. So that's why in a lot of sense, I go back to my heritage of working in the jewelry store when I'm out there negotiating You know, 7-figure deals.

Yeah, I think it's a great training. You know, I sold shoes in high school. And it was good because it wasn't just ladies' shoes. And it wasn't just men's shoes. It was both. And it's great experience. You know, some people want to negotiate the price. And, you know, shoes is not as negotiable as jewelry.

Yeah, that is, that is, that is very true. I mean, I remember as I got older in the jewelry business, and I was actually doing some selling, you know, having to call my dad over and say, hey, Dad, you know, is actually— I called him Ronnie in the store, never call him Dad in the store, you know, you know. And, um, yeah, and, um, we would make decisions and we would negotiate together. It was, it was, it was a lot of fun, precious father-son moments as well.

That is cool. And what did you like about B2B sales?

So what I really liked about B2B sales first and foremost was the fact that, um, I, I really made the decision that I wanted to spend time with my children and I wanted to be at their ball games and I wanted to be at their concerts. And my father wasn't because he was working crazy hours in retail.

So that's—

So I, I really enjoyed the hours of, of B2B. And I also enjoyed when I started my career with AT&T, the whole cold calling methodology, and that initial sales training that I got at AT&T as a 21-year-old out of college.

And did you have any call reluctance?

Yeah, I think even to this day, honestly, there's a little—

You're human.

Reluctance. Exactly, exactly. But I think I learned very, very quickly not to take it personally. My first day at AT&T, they put about 12 of us in a little horseshoe. And they gave us a phone and a headset and a list of people to call. And I was prospecting literally 8 hours a day for the field sales team, generating leads for them. And it was a wonderful experience. You dealt with a lot of rejection. But as a young Salesman uncovering a lead and having to engage with the AE who was in the field selling and say, hey, I got a lead for you. Um, that part of it to me was really exciting.

Yeah.

So it was a team sale.

It was, it was a team sale. A lot of times the field salesperson would take the cold caller so to speak, myself out into the field on particular opportunities that I had uncovered myself. So it was a great way of learning. And then the other part that I really enjoyed was AT&T flew us out to Cincinnati. I spent about 9 weeks in Cincinnati doing some really structured sales training, and some of that training I still use today.

And have you covered other geographies other than New York Metro?

Yeah, interestingly enough, I really do during my career have not been focused on geography. I also have not been really focused on vertical markets. I work for a company today, Nectar Services Corp. We're about 100 people, and if you uncover an opportunity, regardless of where it is, as long as another sales rep is not attached to it in CRM, It's your opportunity to work. Wow.

So kind of an open territory.

It, it's an open territory. I think you need to be focused and still put a plan together and still, you know, have those 10 or 15 accounts and put a prospecting plan in place. But yes, in essence, as long as it's not in CRM, I could go ahead and see if I can, uh, create an opportunity for myself.

And when did you make the transition into enterprise sales from kind of that inside setting appointments to outside closing big deals?

Yeah, so I graduated from the prospecting. And I became an outside sales rep for AT&T. And the way that AT&T was structured at the time was, you know, you sold any organization within a certain territory at that time, I did have a territory between 0 and 40 phones. If somebody had 41 phones, it went to the person who sold between 41 and 80. And if you had 81, you sold— so you get my point, right?

Big company joy.

Yeah, big company joy. But what I did learn from that experience is I enjoyed the bigger sales, not necessarily because they were bigger commissions, they were just more complex. And There were more people involved in them. It took more thought and preparation, and I really enjoyed that.

And where does that come from, given that you started in retail, which was transactional? They probably— if they left the store that day, they probably didn't buy.

I would agree with that, yes.

To enterprise, where they don't buy on the first visit.

Yeah, I, you know, I think, you know, it's interesting because a part of me is very patient and a part of me is not very patient. Clearly in my business life, I need to be much more patient. You know, I've done a lot of reading on the art of sales and the art of complex selling, and I, I just really fell in love with it. I just really enjoyed the challenge. And that's why for me right now, the bigger the better. I love those 7-figure deals. And listen, I've also worked through a place where a lot of it used to be CapEx perpetual, and now we're in an OpEx subscription world. So That's been a learning experience as well. Yeah.

And do you focus solely or exclusively on 7-figure or larger?

No, no. I mean, I sell into the Fortune 500 space. I would say that my average deal is probably around $400,000 in total contract value over, over a 3-year term selling, selling software. I've sold some some 7-figure deals, those are, you know, 12 to 18 months sale cycles. So, you know, if you use a baseball analogy, you definitely need some singles and doubles in there, because if those 12 to 18 month deals don't close, you still need to have enough in the top of your funnel to make your number.

And as far as like the passion for that, where does that come from? You know, are you a chess player? Do you just like to think ahead? Or do you— you know, because there are strategic people that, you know, but most people are circadian. Every day, you know, you get up, you work, you eat, you sleep.

Yeah, I, I would say that I'm an average chess player. Um, I think it comes from my competitiveness.

Okay.

Which started from, you know, my days of being an athlete. I enjoy beating the competition. I have a ton of respect for my competitors, and a lot of my competitors are very viable and have solid solutions. I think it comes from that. I think it also comes from being able to sell my unique value. And I think most importantly for me, you know, coming from a world where I used to sell features and solutions, now I'm selling outcomes. And when your mind flips from a solution feature sale to selling an outcome, um, I just enjoy that. I just have passion for that. And, you know, just another piece of the puzzle, Brian, is you get to know your, your, your prospects who might soon become your customers. And I care about them. I want them to be successful. And if they can be successful and I can help them be successful, to me, it's a win-win.

And was this an epiphany that you had along your career, or was it always this way? Because a lot of reps, once they do a big deal, then they fall in love with it. They get that confidence that they figure it out. But until then, they're like, I'll take the medium and small deals.

I, I wouldn't say it was an epiphany for me. I think for me it was the more complex sales being more challenging, taking more brainpower.

Yeah.

Um, I thoroughly enjoyed doing the discovery process and asking those open-ended questions and potentially even, even finding problems during discovery that a customer or a prospect didn't even know that they had. I think it's the complexity of it. And another piece with Brian is, you know, I also consider my sales career a hobby as much as I consider it to be my career. So to use that chess analogy, you know, chess might be a hobby, fishing might be a hobby, not that I don't have hobbies, but I really view it as a hobby and it's a wonderful thing. It served me quite well.

Would you characterize it as a passion also?

Definitely a passion as well. And listen, at the end of the day, you want to help your customer. You want them to, you know, reach their outcomes. You want to fill those gaps. When you get that commission check and it's a nice number, it's, it's, it's wonderful. It's— that's, that's a wonderful thing as well. And, you know, the larger the deals, usually the larger the commission checks.

Yeah. So being money motivated helped along the process?

I, I think money motivated helped, but it's— I'm not solely money motivated. I think when you help your clients achieve a goal or achieve an outcome, the commission is a byproduct of that.

And who do you typically, or who do you feel most comfortable talking to? Is it Executive? Is it user? Is it on the economic side or the technical side?

So I've done a lot of studying and I've had a lot of conversations with procurement, and I thoroughly enjoy the procurement conversation, which usually comes at the end of the sales cycle. I enjoy the conversation. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why, Brian, because if you— if there are 12 to 15 people in the business, the users who are sold on your product and they want your product and you've done a good enough job of justifying it to them, negotiating with procurement becomes easier because the business is putting pressure on procurement saying, hey, let's get this done, we want this solution. So I find those negotiations to be really intriguing. And, and I enjoy the discovery process as well. And one of the things that I learned early on in my career is just because somebody doesn't have an impressive title, just because somebody might be lower on an org chart than others, doesn't mean that they're incredibly influential on the decision. Same for somebody who might have a VP title. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're respected within the organization and have power.

Mm-hmm.

So I enjoy that whole power shift and understanding who has influence and power within an organization.

And do you— have you developed a sense for that?

I think so. I don't take, I don't take it for granted. Um, I try to find, and I think it's incumbent to find, a champion within your account. I would say just about every, if not every, large deal that I've sold, I had a champion who would give me some inside information regarding who I should be communicating with, making some introductions, letting me know who people are, talking to me about the buying process and how the technical decisions get made as well. So I think it's incumbent to have a champion within the account that's going to help drive your message internally as well.

And what I found with large complex sales is you have to have a, what I call a good BS meter, because your time is all you have. And you can only work on so many deals within that window of time. So you have to be able to judge both the people and the deal.

What's the saying? The saying is, Win slow, lose fast. You need to know quickly. One of the determining factors for me is if I'm working with a prospect and I'm doing a discovery, for example, and let's say there's 4 people on the discovery call and we move on to the next phase, which might be a live demonstration specific to what you learned during the discovery, the pain points and the gaps. If those people are not introducing you to other people within the organization as time goes on, and if, if, if 4 people don't become 8, don't become 12 quickly, and if you're also not communicating with other lines of business besides the line of business that you were originally introduced to, it's probably time to have some tough conversations and potentially cut cord and find another.

Yeah, because a lot of times they want you to go steady with them, meaning don't go rooting around the company, they'll get it done.

That's true. A lot of times they want you— yes, a lot of times they want you to go steady with them. A lot of times they're, they're using you, and I don't mean this in a bad way, business is business. They're using you to Get a lower price from someone else, from someone else that they really want to buy from. Sometimes they want to learn about feature functionality that you have that maybe they can go back to the company they want to buy from and say, hey, you need to develop this for me if we're going to do further business together. So you need to be able to root that out quickly.

And what is the, the most challenging part of these deals?

Wow. I think the most challenging part of the deals is just understanding exactly where you are in the deal. And that's where I lean on colleagues, mentors, leadership within my organization where we can actually sit down, And lay out the org chart, where I am in the sales process, who I've spoken to, and maybe come to a collaborative decision on where we are. I think that's the most difficult thing for me. Sometimes you get off a very positive demonstration where you've nailed it, but perhaps you didn't and you don't know.

Right.

And that's where, by the way, that champion within the organization comes in, because that person, if you find that person, will give you honest feedback.

Right. Yeah, because I always, when you could do a face-to-face call, that walk out to the parking lot was—

I love— that is such a great point. That is such—

I could almost tell if they were going to buy if the champion walked out to the parking lot with me. If they just wave goodbye at the reception desk.

Yeah. And, and you know something, another is when you leave the conference room, if on the way out they're introducing you to people in cubicles as you're walking towards the door, that's another huge— um, yeah, I, I agree. I agree. So, you know, some of it, it's interesting. Some of it is, is, is certainly sales, right? Certain— some of it is, but some of it is The personality of it and just the shape and form that the sale takes and those subtle things, an introduction, a handshake, eye-to-eye contact, you see somebody taking notes, those are very important indicators.

Yeah. And people tend to ignore those, but you're like, I'm always looking for an asset test, something to determine, you know, is this an A, deal, or is it a B deal, or is it a phony deal? Are you just column fodder?

So let me learn from you a bit. What are some of those acid tests that you would look for?

A lot of them. You know, are they asking for a next step versus you have to suggest the next step?

Absolutely. Yeah.

You know, are they raising your weakest point and your competitor's strongest point?

Exactly.

Are they buying into your strongest point?

Yeah, I think your point about asking for next steps and, um, just getting a feel for their— if you have to ask for next steps, what's their—

Yeah, reactions.

Right, right.

Oh, we'll get back to you or whatever.

Yeah, and, and I also find, you know, interestingly enough in my sales, and I'm very cognizant of my company's money and resources and, um, pre-COVID, I'm very cognizant about travel and travel expenses and hotels. But there is a point in time where it does make sense to have a meal together. Well, and learn about people and learn about their families and have that sort of talk about the kids and talk about the dog and talk about potentially the house they're building. And I find that if you don't have that conversation during a complex sale, your chance of closing the deal is diminished. And again, it's being respectful of your company's resources, but there is a time and a place for it.

If as often as you can, because— and that the other acid test is, do they want to talk with you?

Yeah, yeah, agreed, agreed. But I've also, I've also learned this, Brian, that, you know, you know, I can have the greatest solution, I can have the greatest marketing message, I can have tremendous rapport with somebody. If they don't have problems that I can fix, if there's not a point A and a point B, And if I can't help them get from point A to point B, it doesn't matter how many dinners we have.

It doesn't. And there are false champions.

Agreed.

The people who want to hear about the kids and want to talk about their house, but love a nice steak dinner, but, you know, can't get anything done.

I think, you know, when it's real. Right.

Much like in that jewelry store when the guy's balking at engagement ring, the fiancée kind of knows what's going on.

Right. And, and here's an example, back to the jewelry store. If the person really wants to learn about diamonds and really wants to learn about the quality of the diamond, the size of the diamond, the way that it's cut, your chances of closing the deal are a lot better. If somebody's just coming in and they're picking up rings and looking at them and asking how much the price is.

Yeah, so yeah, yeah, kind of that transfer of ownership where they're visualizing the outcome.

Absolutely.

And they're absolutely pulling you into it and help me out, teach me the difference.

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, and I think another piece of it also is, uh, back to something you'd said before, is like, you know, I'm really, I'm really a people person. I love meeting people, talking to people. And, you know, in the jewelry store, it was more one-on-one, two-on-one. In this complex sale that I'm in, you know, you're meeting 14, 15, sometimes upwards of 20 people. And if you have something of value, you get to know them. And that's, that's, that's a lot of fun. And listen, I mean, I've had a lot of opportunities that did not turn into closed business, but there are people that I still keep in touch with and I learned from, and I've created some relationships. there. So there is something to be gained even if the deal isn't closed, although of course that is the ultimate objective.

And what would you say is your weakness that you wish you could really get better at?

Wow. Um, I am not the most patient, and in these long sales cycles, you really need to be patient. I've learned in my corporate world that there's a process, that you need to stick to the process. For example, finish the discovery before you start providing a live demonstration. Don't all of a sudden during this discovery find out that you can fill a need and stop doing the discovery and go into a demo. Um, so I've had to teach myself to be much more patient, and, um, I think I am because I have to. It's the only way to close these kinds of deals.

And have you found a particular way of doing that?

I, I think it's following a process, and that's really the way that I've done it, is if you don't skip steps in the process, and you understand that not only is there a technical sale to be won, a lot of customers don't know how to transact business within their own organizations.

Mm-hmm.

So sometimes you have to walk them through how they can go about getting the deal closed, and then there's also the technical sale. So you have to win a couple of small sales in order to win the larger sale, and that takes time and patience.

And that's it. And I try and convey this because larger deals are just one big trap after another, and they're so easy to fall into. It's like whoever's buying that jewelry versus whoever's getting that jewelry I agree. Right? Because the person who's getting the jewelry is very excited.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

The person paying for the jewelry is a little cautious.

It's actually best when the person who's buying the jewelry is there with the person who it's being bought for. That's That's an indicator that you have a good chance of closing the deal.

And when do you get the sense, or do you have your own asset test to determine when to walk away or deprioritize?

Um, I can't say it's something specifically. I would say at this stage of my career, it's something that is just sort of a natural feeling that I get. When I do feel that way, I do ask some tough questions sometimes, like, can you please introduce me to X? I'd love to meet some other folks within your organization. So I think there's a time and a place, and for me it's more instinctual.

Yeah.

That you have at that time start asking some tough questions to really understand where you are in the sales process. And tough questions aren't tough questions unless you're not dancing the same dance with the prospect.

And have you ever like gone through the whole thing and it doesn't happen?

Yeah, I mean, there are times where it could many reasons. It could be a, a change in leadership, um, delaying a potential opportunity. It could be— I've had— I've been in positions where you're getting to the end of a sales cycle only to find out that a customer is going to be bought or going to be sold. So yes, there are definitely times where you get to the end of the sales cycle, you have that deal forecasted to close, and sometimes it doesn't. But I think that's why it's important that these sales be team sales. So your leadership, your mentors, the people within your organization who you're forecasting the deal know exactly where you are in the deal.

And they're not emotionally attached, as emotionally attached as you are.

They're not as emotionally attached to the deal, but they are consistently asking when it's going to close, especially towards the end of a quarter.

Yeah.

And customers don't generally care all that much about end of quarter. They're on their own timeframe.

Yeah.

So, you know, I, you know, personally, I don't like those questions. Can we pull this? What do we have to do to pull this deal in before the end of the quarter? That is not, to me, a way of, um, and of What I would say is a lot of times is I put my prospect's hat on. I view the deal from their perspective. Their perspective isn't, we need to get this deal done by March 31st.

But I, and I've always found talking through a deal with a colleague, they tend to see what the blatant thing that's missing because they're detached. And that they don't have a dog in the hunt.

You know, it's interesting. Early in my career, I used to put together an org chart, and on the org chart, I used to list whether the person had influence or power or was a decision maker. And if they had influence or power, their level of influence or power. And then I would sit down with colleagues, and we would actually have a conversation about each person. And sometimes in conversations, I was wrong in believing that somebody might have been a little bit more influential than I was. And that's why you're right, when there's somebody you can talk to who's not emotionally involved in the deal, that's a huge, huge help. And that's why these deals are team deals.

Yeah.

Cool.

Hey, Paul, I really appreciate your time today.

Where can people go to connect and follow you?

So, Paul Lesser, you can find me on LinkedIn. I love talking sales, so if you ever just want to ping me, send me a LinkedIn InMail and have a sales conversation, I'd be happy to chat.

So why do we need to learn all this stuff, Bryan? Why can't we just wing it? Why can't we just respond and be a good order taker and talk with the decision maker and Negotiate a great discount to force them to buy sooner. Because you're wasting all your time. All that time you spend on a deal that does not close. You think you're getting paid because you get a base salary. Hmm, nice, but not enough. And your manager's gonna blame you no matter what. So either learn Learn how to lead the complex sale. Everybody is sending a proposal in and following up, checking in, touching base. Oh, I'm going to bring you value. Let me send you a case study. Let me bring you some content. Let me give you some insights. How's that working for you? Oh, they didn't get it. It's their fault they didn't buy. Companies want to buy. The number one thing that I saw during kickoffs was all of these good deals stalled. They didn't order. They still wanted it. They needed it. They can afford it. It's not money. We always say it's money. Oh, they didn't have budget, or, you know, we lost political momentum. Yeah, you lost. And that's the harsh truth. The brutal truth about it is if you lose, you lost that commission. Make that commission one of those rows in your forecast. That's how much that lesson cost you. And those traps, most of them are preventable. Not all. You can't win every deal, but you should be able to judge when you're losing, when it's slowing down. When it is at risk and how you can get it back on track. The default is not to buy. Not because they don't have money. Not because they don't need it. Not because they don't want it. Because they can't get it done. It's hard to get change done within a company. Think about your own company. How often does it change? How many ridiculous things do you have At your own company, how many things should be fixed?

A lot.

Most. How many things do get fixed? And why? It's not logical. It's not economic. It's mostly political. It's mostly administratively. We have to think about these things before they go awry. And they are definitely gonna go awry if you don't keep it on track. The people in the course that get the most out of it get it out of their head. You can't keep it all in there. Uh, it's not about intelligence. It's about being a mammal. We can keep 3 to 7 things in our head, and it's closer to 3. Sometimes it's Closer to 1. And if it's not there, we tend to forget about it, let it slip, uh, put it off till tomorrow. And then our deals slide, our deal goes awry. And that time that you spent on it— look at the first date, that first call you had with them. Think of all that time. And then we all get comfortable when we open our CRM in the morning and we see this list of deals, but how many are going to close? Stay focused on the ones most likely to close in the order they are most likely to close. Now, I get a lot of pushback from, oh, that's Captain Obvious. And I go, I bet you don't do it because it's hard to do. It's unnatural. It's, it's scary to focus only on the deals that are gonna close in that order. Then you get to the deals that might close. I'm not saying you don't work on the might closes. I just say you work on them in the right order. And we get distracted. Oh, you know, we complain about the company meetings, but we attend. And then we sit there and then we complain we don't have enough time to sell. Well, managers and leaders, they think you're going to sell After hours and on the weekends, and that you work every waking moment, and that you don't have a family or interests or need to sleep. They honestly think that way because it serves them. They're not because it's— they're evil people. It's just that they don't have to do the deals, so they assume that you can figure it out on your own. But if you look at the time that we spend on kickoffs and QBRs and account reviews and enablement. And a lot of it's needed to a certain extent, but it shouldn't be more than 10% of our time. Most reps are telling me it's half their time. And then you add in another 20, 30% of admin, keeping the CRM up to date and all the horseshit along with that. And you don't have any time to sell. But the thing is, Can you change management? Hmm, maybe you can influence them a little bit, but you can change yourself. Blocking out your time, focusing on the most important things, not falling into these traps. What if you could increase your win rate, maybe double it, triple it, then increase the deal size, double it, triple it? What would happen to your income? It just doesn't double. It goes up a lot more. Think about your accelerators and your comp plan. You know, finance got smart about the comp plan. A lot of companies, they don't even pay on the first 20, 30% because they think that's going to happen anyway. And congratulations, you got to work for free. So it's all backend loaded after you make your quota, which they didn't anticipate only half the people making. The comp plans are cooked against us. So we have to take control over our territories, our deals, our process. We have to invest in ourselves. Trust me, you know, I, I get calls about these courses all the time, and most of the time I don't even respond to companies because I know what they're looking for. They want entertainment. They don't want, you know, People really sharing what really works because it's scary. That, that sounds like work. But if you, you get the choice, win the deal or lose the deal, that, that's all it is. You know, no decision is a loss. There's zero commission on it. You know, couch it in whatever term you'd like, but it's your income. I think the base salary You know, it keeps getting high enough and people can live off of it. The problem is you get comfortable. You become a good little soldier at the company, and they like it because they have control over you. You like it because you can live off of it. But you didn't get into sales to squeak by. If you did, it's the wrong place. Because all those squeaking-by B players, uh, they're the first ones to get let go.

Every—

I did a great survey, uh, where almost 70% of the sales reps rated themselves an A. Um, so, well, even if you look at a normal distribution curve, it should have been about 10% were A's. Well, that means that there's about 50-60% of sales reps are fooling themselves. And that— guess what that is? That's a classic trap. A lot of the B players admitted that they, they can learn a lot more. They want to stay hungry. They don't want to think of themselves as an A player because they might get comfortable. I bet a lot of those people rated themselves an A weren't making quota. I'm not judging. I don't know these people. I'm just helping you, the listener. Sell more because you're listening to this podcast to make more money, to be more successful, to keep your time focused on what is working today. You got a lot of choices in podcasts. A lot of people out there who have never sold, failed at selling, uh, only were sales development reps. You know, I, I see their stuff, it's 10, 20 years old. It's better than most stuff out there, but it's still It's not new or effective. They don't understand how a complex sale works, really works, and how to control it and lead it. It's hard, even when you've been doing it your whole life. It's like playing chess. You think, yes, you know how to play chess, but do you win? I've been playing chess since I was in first grade. It's still hard. You still have to practice and warm up and think really hard and deep. But if you want to win, that's what you have to do. Go to b2brevenue.com, check out the courses. I really appreciate the people who like, comment, and share my content on LinkedIn. All the videos are on YouTube. You can search Brutal Truth or Brian Burns Sales on YouTube. Check them out there. Uh, if you know somebody who'd be great on the show, let me know. Uh, send me a little InMail. If I don't reply, send it again. I tend to get busy. I like helping reps out. We'll see you next time.