HOW TO MAKE THIS SUPERPOWER YOUR SECRET WEAPON

I got to tell you, I am so appreciative to be able to speak with great salespeople. And I put an enormous amount of resources into getting the best possible guests for this show. We have a full-time booker and 2 people to support that person to vet out the very best B2B salespeople in the world to come onto the show and share with us their journey. How they went from accidental salespeople to great salespeople. And that's what we have for you today. Somebody who went to school to become a speech therapist, was raised by a schoolteacher, but happened to be success motivated, money motivated, and enjoyed working with people. And a common theme that we see with salespeople is they don't want to sit at a desk all day. They want some variety. They want a little change. They want to get rewarded for their effort. Simple, natural things that most human beings want. I think you're going to enjoy this conversation today. This is probably what you would think of as somebody you classically would like to talk with. That's somebody who knows how to build a conversation with somebody, somebody who knows how to show appreciation. And what other people are looking for when they're talking with a salesperson. We know what they're not looking for. They're not looking for a commercial. They're not looking for pressure. They're not looking for, you know, all those things that we're taught— gimmicks, classic pitches, upfront contracts, anything that makes you sound like a salesperson. typically is not what anybody wants to hear. It works in the transactional sale when people come to you. But it doesn't work when we go to people. Now, I want to thank everybody for listening to the show. If you enjoy it, please tell somebody about it. If you see my content fly by on LinkedIn, give it a little like, a little comment, a little share. Hey, Jason, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Yeah, thank you, Brian. It's a pleasure being here. And again, I certainly appreciate getting the opportunity to speak with you, and I'm a big fan. And so this is a pure pleasure. And also, thank you very much for your team to get me on here. I know Bree did a great job getting me here too, as well. So thank you very much. So, so I am— yeah, so just kind of back up. I actually worked in this world for a long time. Within sales. I am— or worked in Silicon Valley for quite a few years. I've done about 5 different startups. And with that said, I actually have accumulated a lot of interesting experiences, needless to say. So today I'd like to kind of walk through some of those experiences with you, and hopefully there might be something that some folks can grab onto that might be beneficial. Sure.

Well, give us a sense of why startups. What do you like about them? Why do they fit your personality?

I love startups because it's a natural fit for me because I really enjoy having just that ability to work naturally with the founder. I like working with sometimes the board members, the VCs. I like working with the different salespeople. I like that sense of adventure. And more importantly, I really enjoy getting a chance to do something new. And sometimes, you know, sometimes as you get purchased, you know, you move on to the next, you know, the next big thing. But I really do enjoy getting a chance to build something and then, you know, say goodbye to your child and then move on to the next one. And it's been a great experience. So.

But they're also challenging in that you typically don't have brand recognition. The marketing engine hasn't warmed up yet, to say the least. You're kind of on your own to build it from scratch.

No, absolutely. Matter of fact, I always say, you know, in a startup, you don't have marketing, you don't have inside sales. They give you a ball of twine and some water and they throw you in the desert and they say, you know, go for it. You know, and so it's— and that's how I like it. I really enjoy that. So marketing's a luxury, inside sales is a luxury. You know, as I started to move forward to companies that developed, there were some situations where now that we have a marketing department more than we have an inside sales group, it takes away from the fact that as an individual contributor, marketing is— and inside sales is more of a quota buster than a quota maker. So I'm responsible for my own world, you know, as we know, and it's important to be able to generate that and be able to control your own destiny from that angle. And that's what I really like about startups is that you really have that ability to work with all these different contributors and whether, again, whether it be a VC or CEO or an SC or whomever it is, you're all on the same team, you're on the same table, and then you can actually build from that.

But it's also scary because you don't have any customers typically. You have to start from scratch. You have to build off of your network. What's your approach to get started?

So, you know, it's really interesting. I have a different approach. I have a way— one of the benefits that I have is that I try to— and I'll kind of step back for a moment. So my background is I had a speech communication degree from Colorado State University, which is—

Natural progression.

Natural. You know, this is— it goes into a story, actually, which is a great, again, a great university. But what happened was in the mid-'90s, I got to Silicon Valley and no one hired somebody with a speech communication degree at all. And so I was trying to figure out a way, how can I socially engineer this? that I can get into these companies. And so what I did was I learned everything I could in the Valley. I went to Intel's museum. I went to Sand Hill and sat in the coffee shop and waited for the VCs to come out and talk to them. I went to the Pepper Tree and sat in and listened to what people had to say. I did everything I could to try to absorb myself within the Valley. Then I came up with more of a social engineering strategy in the mid-20s. So I basically said, you know what? I'm going to become a headhunter. So I became a headhunter in order to socially engineer myself to get into these large companies because once you got in, then you get that seal of approval and then you're, you know, you have your ticket, you punch that ticket, and then you go from there. It's kind of a long answer to a short question. But once I had that blessing, I was able to get in and I, that's where I started doing all my startups. But what was interesting was once I got into the real world, I looked at different ways of communicating to all the different executives. And I did that by learning how or what they had to say when I was trying to get into that world. Meaning that, you know, emotional intelligence and all these different attributes that I had, or I learned, I should say, really helped me along. And again, kind of going back into it, Daniel Goleman on the emotional intelligence side, when he wrote that book in the mid-'90s, people didn't really know what that was. And where I was coming from was that's how I sold, was I sold by understanding what people needed. So it wasn't just like, I'm just going to do a bunch of marketing. You know, to your point, it's like, what do you do without marketing? What do you do without business development? You have to take it on your own shoulders to go out and be successful, you know. And so, and that's what I really did. And matter of fact, he presented here in Santa Barbara Last night at an event, and he was talking about self-awareness and, you know, basically motivation, empathy, and all these wonderful things that I really took to heart, you know. And that's something that I really tried to understand. And, and there's other motivational factors that I've done in my life that I try to look at. Matter of fact, going back to college, I look at the way people— Aristotle used to say ethos, pathos, and logos. If you have a, you know, if you're ethical and you're logical and you're passionate, you will be a good orator. Well, I applied that to sales. So when you're talking to people, you have to have that way about you. Can't just be, you know, I'm kind of going off on a tangent, but you can't necessarily go off and, or you can't really depend on somebody. You have to like interact with people and talk with them. So.

Well, that usually takes about 10 to 15 years of sales experience to come to.

True.

How did you come to it so fast?

Was Was it the speech? Well, you know, it's just being a nerd. I really enjoy how people interact and talk. And more importantly, I come from a very wonderful community in Santa Barbara County and Santa Ynez and Santa Barbara. And my mom's a teacher and we're a very close-knit community. And so how we interact with one another really comes down to saying thank you and trying to get people to just, you know, just be themselves, you know, and that's something that was very valuable to me. You know, it's— I have another story, but basically one of the things that I learned was as I got into this business, I realized that people really hid behind a lot of the spreadsheets and they hid behind LinkedIn and sending out 1,000 different messages, but they didn't interact with the people themselves, you know? And I think with the whole thing with the COVID you interact like this. And so this is— I'm in my killer zone right now because for the last year, I've had a great year because this is how I learned how to to grow up is on a cell phone, or not cell phone, but a telephone.

Yeah.

And how to interact with those people, you know. So that worked out well. But, you know, it's— I have a— but going back to a story that I had, when I talked to decision makers, I talked to somebody who was a Fortune 50 company and he was a CISO. And we talked and we got through everything. And I— but he basically introduced me to his team, his legal team, his procurement team. And what's interesting is that I always interacted, no matter if I was 22 years old, if I was, you know, 40-something years old, in, uh, where I would interact with them with their permission and say, hey, this is what's going on, this is what we're doing, and by the way, I'm going to keep you updated. Now what's interesting about that is that I closed a pretty big deal because I was interacting with him and I was giving everybody updates. at the very end of the quarter, it was more of a team effort where everybody got together and we were excited. It's 11 o'clock at night, you know, everybody's going to get this thing done. And then you fast forward to RSA and I'm at the booth of this one company and lo and behold, the legal people come in and the procurement people walk into— and this is after we closed the deal— and they gave me a big hug and they're, you know, they're saying congrats, you know, this was so great. And my boss looks at me and And they're like, well, was that the decision maker? And I go, no, that was procurement and that was legal. And they're like, well— and they didn't get it. And they're like, well, why, why are they hugging you? And I'm like, because I had that relationship. And lo and behold, like 2 years— a year later, I got the chance to interact and work with those people. But what was interesting was, and this is actually some good advice for folks that are moving forward, you should always, always— I don't care if it's just you know, meeting somebody on the street like I met in Silicon Valley in the early days, or you're closing a big deal, you write a personal note and you say, thank you very much for meeting me, in your own handwriting, and you send it to them. And they look at that and they go, what is this? It's actually a note. It is something that you wrote, but you send it to procurement and you send it to legal because you know what, those people— and the assistant who helped you get there because That's important. And when you understand that, that was key. But you also have to have that sell with sincerity side. So you have to be that honest, good person from the heart because it is transparent and you can't be— you can't fake that. That's all part of trying to— the joy of sales, right? So that's all part of it. So it's a longer answer to your question.

Well, I got to tell you, because about 2 and a half years ago, I switched the show from interviewing mostly experts, authors, to interviewing day-to-day reps.

Yeah.

And one of the key distinctions between the very, very best was just that.

Oh, yeah.

Was that handwritten note. And I was like, this is so old school, you know, but I go, how do I feel? I appreciate it.

Yeah.

I remember those people.

Yeah. And you know what? A lot of those people will still have that note today in their desk.

Yeah.

They will have that note in their desk today. And matter of fact, I closed a deal about a year ago and I wrote a note to this person and it was a pretty big deal. And they actually reached out to me about 3 months ago and they go, I still have your note. in their desk. And, and again, nobody does that thing. No one, no one does that because they don't want to take the extra time to do that. And it kind of goes into that whole idea where, you know, if you're going to be reaching out to somebody, and it kind of goes under the process, um, you know, you look at a territory and you subdivide it, you know. And my mom's a teacher, so she said to me, she goes, you know, this is her favorite quote. She says, you know, how do you eat an elephant? She's like, you start with the tail first, right? So, and that's really the idea of a territory. You have to start with understanding that region first.

That region.

And then that tail, and then you can actually peel it off from there. But you also have to understand the partners and the channel partners. And I've been blessed with an incredible company where I'm in right now as well with Team Kemery. But I also have had the best SEs, sales engineers, ever.

Yes.

And they, and you stay in your swim lane in the sense that when you go off and you tackle a territory, you don't wanna be the guy, at least the account rep, who is trying to control what an SE is doing. You know, it's your job is to do what you do and they don't control what you do. So when you're talking to a client, a client doesn't wanna hear from the sales rep. They really don't. So you need to parlay that back and forth. as you're trying to close a deal. And so many sales reps have egos into it where they say, you know what, I'm going to control everything. And the account just laughs at them and goes, oh my gosh, let me just focus on the sales engineer.

Well, that distinction of what real control is.

Yeah.

Because when you relinquish, like you did with the procurement, legal, you didn't try and control them. No, you tried to help them, which is controlling the deal, not the people.

Yes. But, but you said something that was really important though, is helping. And you said this, and I've watched you before when you mentioned this a couple times, you ask people for help. You ask for help, and you take your ego and you throw it to the side, right? And you ask for help. And it doesn't matter if it's legal or, or procurement or the decision maker. You ask for help. And if you're sincere about it, like you are, just say, hey, you know, help me through this. You know, you don't, you know, you take— you sound like a salesperson, you throw it out the window. And you're just like you're having a conversation with somebody and say, hey, by the way, can you help me with this?

I mean, you will get treated the way you act.

Yes.

If you act like you're part of their team, you'll get treated like you're part of their team. Yeah.

And you get a card out of it too. But I do have a funny story I'll tell you at the end. But I do have a funny story from a social engineering perspective. Not necessarily related to that.

Well, we'll share some of these other epiphanies. Because, you know, learning that outward mindset takes a while, which is the emotional intelligence. But I think it goes a lot beyond his work, because it's really putting yourself in the other person's place.

Yes.

What are they facing? Not just what they're feeling. What are they up against?

That's a great segue. So, you know, I think when I first got into this business back in the day, I bought the coffee mug, I bought the t-shirt. I was ready to go and then they got sold. And I bought the coffee mug, I bought the t-shirt, and then they got sold. So I have a whole like stack of like things that got sold. And you know what? They, like you said, the decision makers, What are going— what's going through their head? What's going through their head is, um, it's, it's really interesting. Uh, some of my best friends have become, uh, who are my clients are now my friends, um, and really senior folks. And one of the things that's interesting is that when I talk to them privately, you know, we talk through, you know, their job insecurities, their, their house insecurities, their boss insecurities, you name it. But they also ask for Hey, can you get me a job here? Or do you know somebody here? And I think it's interesting because I think too many people don't realize that these people have— there's blood and there's skin and there's a lot of pulsating things relating to these individuals, that it's not a number. So kind of going back to kind of my, you know, small sub-regional ideas, if you can break it down into rather than carpet bombing, And look at individuals as individuals and find out where they went to school, what their background is, especially even before a phone call. That— and not sound like you're a sales guy, but really, because I love sales and I love people. So it's like, I love to find out about your background. You know, I'd love to find out the fact of the neighborhood that you're walking in when everybody says that they know what you're doing. I'd love to find out. Those type of things are really cool, you know, and but people don't take the time to do that.

Right.

And that's it. But once you develop that relationship, you have that secret handshake with that person for a long time, but you have to be sincere. And that's the hard part is that you don't want to be just like that everyday salesperson. You really want to actually help them in their career because they're going to call you up and they're going to end up at another company, as you know. Or another company or another company. But you know who they take with you along the way because you're friends?

Friends.

Yourself, their network. Now, did you learn that as a headhunter? Because that is a critical skill and we all have careers.

Yeah. Yeah. No, no. I, the heading, the headhunting stuff was just out of practicality.

Brutal.

And it was, I mean, and God bless them. They worked very hard. It's just, but I just, I was the only one on a side note at Colorado. So Colorado State, the way they were set up was, and again, early '90s, was they would bring in people from IBM and other people and they would sit in and they would talk about, you know, this is how sales should be, or this is what technology is and this and that. And they would raise their hand. So I'll never forget right before I graduated, they brought in a senior person from IBM, this one lady, super nice person. And she said, okay, so how many people out of— there's 60 people in the room. She's like, how many people want to make $20,000? You know, a lot of people raised their hand. They're like, oh, how many people want to make $30,000? And she goes through the whole thing. And then she's like, how many people want to make $80,000 to $100,000 their first year? And again, this is early '90s. And I'm like the only one to raise my hand.

Okay.

And I said, and she's like, well, and then she used that as an example. So she's like, well, why is that? And I go, because I want to get into high-tech sales. You know?

You knew that back then?

I knew that back then. And I just felt like that was something that was going in that direction. Now I have stories in the early years where I was fearless, and I still am, where I'll call anybody. And, you know, I did talk to the guys from Google back in the day or, you know, Apple or Jerry Yang. I actually got a framed copy of a— it said, say goodbye to the mall, and he's surfing on a surfboard. It said to me, it was— he signed it. It's on my wall in my office. But it's because back in the day was the Wild West.

Yeah.

It was the Wild West of technology. And you could do that. But a lot of people forget their hunting skills, right? So they forget how to hunt in the sense of how to be sincere, how to talk to people, how to interact. How to get in and talk with somebody and not sound like a sales guy, but just simply, hey, by the way, I'm in your neighborhood. This is what I'm doing. Would love to get a chance to talk with you. But from a sincere perspective, and you know what? Guess what? If you're not interested, you don't call them every week and you don't bug them every week. You let them know that, you know, you're lucky, you know, with all due respect, you're lucky that I called you. I'm in your area. Would love to talk to me. That's great. But you have to have that confidence. And I think too many people get desperate or their managers tell them, Call, call, call, call, call. And then they just— and these people just turn it off, you know? Right.

Because I think people are starting to learn that that doesn't work.

No, they don't. But you know what, though? I think going back to the COVID and the Zoom calls like we are right now is teaching a younger generation how to interact face to face versus— and it's a blessing versus back in the day where they, again, they just fell into this whole cycle of I'm just gonna LinkedIn, LinkedIn, or just send a bunch of emails, but they forget that hunting skill.

Well, also in the socialization today, people don't talk on the phone. No, they text. Yes. So it's this asynchronous communication.

Yeah.

You know, when you and I grew up, you wanted to ask a girl out, you couldn't text her, you had to get on the phone. At least when I grew up. No, no, I know you had to get the smoke signals out and, you know, kill a bear.

You did, you did, you really did until you get the— yeah, it's— you had to go in the closet and take the phone and talk to somebody. Yeah, you know, it's, it's like, but, but, but that's, but that's the, that's the neat thing is I think that's why I've had such a good year this year is that I learned that back in the day. And so when I do presentations, for example, I don't, I don't give PowerPoint presentations. I really don't. I give maybe, I tell people on the, like, like how you and I are talking, I say, listen, I'm going to talk to you for 6 minutes, maybe 7 minutes, and you can actually clock me. I'm not going to give a PowerPoint presentation. And then we're going to walk through a demo. And I have, you know, I'm blessed with great engineers. They'll come in and say, okay, we're going to walk through this. And you just see this sigh of relief. We're like, oh, thank God, you know, we're not, Doing a PowerPoint presentation, you know.

Well, that's it. Because if that's what you're gonna do, record it, put it on YouTube and point people to it.

Yeah, yeah.

We do this because it's interactive.

Yes, yes, yes. And that, and that's, well, and I think a lot of people hide behind PowerPoint presentations, or, you know, they want to record a conversation, or they want to record this and then record, and then they want to analyze and analyze and You know, it's my favorite analogy is if somebody analyzes you too much, it's like asking a baseball player, do you breathe in or breathe out when you hit a baseball? And they're like so concentrated, do I breathe in, that they just miss it, right?

Right.

So that's what I feel like with sales is that you can't overanalyze it, but you have to be, just be yourself and just talk through things and You know, share things and have a great product and great support group and have an ethical company and all these wonderful things that makes you successful. But again, there's not a lot of companies— there's some companies that aren't like that. It's just what you can do to make yourself different. And I think, you know, as long as you can be— do something different, like reach out even on a telephone call, I know it's difficult, but if there's a way to do it, and when you talk, when you get them on the phone, Or her on the phone, you want to make sure that you you know there's a reason why you call. So you don't you know you don't call by saying hi I'm I'm so and so and this is the name of the company that I'm with and this is what I do and all that stuff. You say you give them a reason why you're calling. So you call you say hey I'm going to be in your area meeting with these people. I'd love to get a chance to meet with you and I call it a pregnant pause. And then they pause and they go ah so who are you again? And you're like oh I'm sorry let me back up. I'm with this company. This is what I do. These are the people I'm going to meet with. Love to meet with you. And then sometimes it's a second pregnant pause. But the reason why I do that is they don't have the time to listen to my whole spiel. And if they're interested, they know that I'm calling for a reason. They know the dates, they know the times. They're smart people. They'll ask us what I do, and then they can make that decision. But if you go with the other way, Some, they'll just be like, click. So, so it's important. Yeah. But that's old school. That's old school phone.

Well, it all comes down to, do they want to talk with you or they have to talk with you?

Yeah, yeah. No, it's—

They currently don't have to talk to you. So you have to work on the want to talk with you.

Exactly. But you're also, you're also, I read an article when you call somebody, If you give them two or three options, I will be there on Tuesday or Thursday from eight in the morning to eleven on Tuesday and then three to four on Thursday. You give them options, right? So they right away they're going, okay, I understand. I have options. I'm making the decision if I want to see you. But you're not just calling saying, hey, oh by the way, I'm going to send you some information, which which just oh finally somebody's going to give me some information. Oh my gosh! Thank you for calling.

So I can I have no information here.

Exactly. But they're getting 40 to 50 phone calls. As you know, you said it, 40, 50 phone calls a day. And it's just like, oh God, can you, you know, can you do something? Why should I meet with you? You know, and if you give them a reason up front why you're going to meet, where you're going to be and what you're doing and who you're going to see. And by the way, this is what I do. That is so different than if you lead with the other side, you know, and I think a lot of people don't do that.

Typically, that's it. I had somebody in my course this week who got 5 meetings in 1 day.

Oh, yeah.

And, and I'll have— I'll talk to other very experienced reps. I can't get a meeting after 5 days. And I go, what are you doing? And they show me and it's like, it's a commercial. When do you turn the TV on saying, I hope there's a good commercial on tonight?

Yeah.

Is there any new commercials on?

Oh my gosh, I got this commercial on.

I wish Netflix had More commercials. I'm gonna go on iTunes and I hope they put some more commercials in the movies. No one does that.

That's exactly it. Yeah, no one ever. And that's the thing is like, I look at competitors or people that I've worked in the past and, and God bless them, they're great guys. And I know women who I know really well. And it's just like, and it's kind of fun because you get to kind of play off of what they do and how you can do it. And that's all part of sales, which is great. And they'd probably do the same thing with me, but it's really, it's the fact is if you can get, like I tell people, if you can get that appointment, that face-to-face appointment, we're done. You know, your job is not to close somebody on the phone. Your job is to get me in front of somebody, period. You know, and if you can do that, I got the rest. I tell my Insight Sales folks that all day long and they're great too, but it's just like you sit there and they're in, That's what I like to do, but I'm kind of weird because I like cold calling.

So now, when I'm sure you get exposed to a lot of different reps, what do you see most of them doing wrong, kind of in that, you know, 5 to 10 year period? You know, the first 5 years, everybody's— it's awkward, it's painful, it's scary.

Yeah, no, it's a great question. I think not necessarily now, but I think back in the day, I would see reps get lazy where they rely on marketing or they rely on business development or they rely on your inside sales reps and they point fingers at them because they're not getting appointments. And the reality, like I said, is you control your own destiny, right? So it's really important for you to control your own patch, your own business, you know, in essence, you know, your own partnerships, your own channel partnerships, you know, you develop that. That's really critical. And it's not that they're not good. It's just, I think what happens is over time they get kind of lazy, you know, or they get kind of, they get complacent. And in some cases, some companies are so good that they never have to worry about doing anything. So it's like hunting in a game preserve, right? So you're sitting there, you know.

I mean, you've been at some, you know, good brand names, but you've been at some startups too. I mean, early, early stage.

Yeah. No, you're right. I think, again, I think the thing about it is networking is really critical. And, you know, what I tell people all the time is when you're starting a business, the people that know the most about your subregion or your region are your partners, are your channel partners.

Mm-hmm.

It's important to develop those relationships because they're going to be some of your biggest advocates, and they're going to also have eyes and ears into your accounts. So if you can talk with them about what you're doing and be on the same page, I think that's really important. And in addition to that, if I do get access to a customer, for example, I always ask them like, do you want to go direct or do you have a channel partner that you want to work with? And I always kind of encourage the channel partner because it allows me to kind of break away and allow other business to happen. And we build that relationship and I think that's really critical.

Now, how do you handle the downside of sales, the rejection, the not winning?

You know, it's everybody has, I mean, it's every, you're gonna have bad days, you're gonna have bad weeks, you're gonna have bad quarters. That's just the way sales is. It's just the way life is. I think You know, you can't dwell about it. You have to, you know, you, I think you've mentioned it as well. It's like you go outside, throw water in your face, go for a walk, take a day off. I mean, you're allowed to do that. I mean, sales is extremely difficult. And so allow yourself or give yourself permission to be able to do something else, you know, for the most part, you know.

But how about the dark winters in Santa Barbara when things I think it rains 2 or 3 days there.

There's no winters in Santa Barbara. We don't have winters in Santa Barbara. It's always beautiful. It's always beautiful.

What's that white thing in the sky?

It's always unicorns and it's always pretty. It's, yeah, it's honestly, it is a great place to live and great people. It's just, but when I guess when you go into your point about bad sales days, I, you know, it's a great question. I don't— I mean, I think you just have to kind of really do a lot of self-reflecting, you know, and talk to your friends. And really, I think the best advice I could say is some of my closest friends are the people that I've worked with through the years in all these different companies. And, you know, you just pick up the phone and say, hey, I'm having a hard day. What do you think? You know, you make yourself vulnerable. It's like, hey, and they're, you know, guess what? They're going to say Yeah, I've had days like that. And so you need to work on this or work on that. And you just change it up. You just mix it up a little bit. And then you find maybe a different way of solving that problem. But you have to, you have to get that support from other people. And you have to do that self-reflection. But you don't want to kill yourself and beat yourself over the head because most people do that. And that's not right.

And being a startup guy, when you look at a new startup, What kind of acid tests do you pick? Because there's a lot of them.

Oh my gosh. It's kind of a gut feel. Okay. So I'll tell you about— I'm laughing because this happened about a year ago, 2 years ago, and it happened 3 times. So I would get these recruiters that would call me and they would say, I have this great company and it's funded and it's, you know, XYZ, and these are the people and this is what we do. And I'd be like, oh, okay. And then it's like the second interview, they'd be like, hey, can you do me a favor and print out your leads and then pull them up to the camera and show me your leads? And I'm like, what? And these are funded big companies. And I'm like, okay, well, that's an acid test. I'm like, I will not—

That's not a good one.

I will not work for— I'm not working for you. And so, so one of the things is that when companies ask you, at least at this stage in life, and they go, hey, give me— who do you know? You know, when I hire you, who do you know? Who can you bring to the table? That's, that's something that I don't like because for a couple of reasons. Number one is that they're asking right away. Number two is in order to go to a startup company, I need to know what you do. I need to learn how to, to hunt your animal. I need to understand what's going on. And then as a compliment later on, if I feel it's appropriate, these individuals who are my friends, I will then introduce them to you.

Yeah.

But I never want to just, you know, say this is my list and this is what I'm doing. You know, there's a sense of pride to saying, you know what, these people are people I've known through the years. I really care about them. I'm not going to expose them to some random startup company. But going back to the startup that I'm in recently, what I love about this company is the mission statement. And I'm not going to give you a whole commercial on them, but they were the nicest group of people I've ever met in my entire life. And I went in and I looked at them and the way they treated me and how nice they were and polite. I was just, I'm like, God, they were the nicest group of people I've ever met. So I actually said, I'm like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be here. I'm gonna join in. And it is, it's been wonderful. So it's just a gut feeling. It's just if people treat you correctly and nice, that's, that's the best thing. You do look at the VCs, you look at those type of things, you look at the marketplace, you can do your homework and find out if it's saturated. In security, it is in some cases. It's very saturated. It's very saturated. You go to RSA and you've got like, what, 4,000 people or something? And it's like, and so it's, You know, you find that our CEO said, you know, find the company that has a deep and wide moat, you know, and that's— and fortunately, that's where we are. But it's— I think it just comes down to the people, the mission statement, the efficacy of it. And with that said, if you're successful with it, the rest, you know, my mom always says, if you're happy, the money will follow. And I'm very happy here. So anyways. Cool.

Hey, Jason, really appreciate your time. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

I— you can go on LinkedIn.

Or down at the Starbucks in Santa Barbara.

Yeah, you can. But I do, I do have one funny story if you want to hear it. I don't know if we have time, but I think it's kind of funny.

Hit us up.

Okay. You ready for it?

Yeah.

Okay. So, so one thing, talking about social engineering, I was trying to get into this movie studio meeting with the CISO, and he was kind of like, yes, I like you, I don't like you, I like you, but I like you, but I don't like you. So what I did was I went down to see him, and I brought a bottle of wine from Santa Barbara. And he, you know, kept saying no, no, no. And then I get to the front desk, and I tell the front desk person I'm here to see Mr. Jones or whoever it was. And he goes, okay, I'll call him up. So Mr. Jones, he's like, oh, Jason's here. And he goes, well, I don't have time, whatever. And he goes, well, he has a bottle of wine. And he goes, well, just go ahead and leave it. He's like, I can't leave it here because it's a perishable thing. And so Mr. Jones comes down, gets the wine, sees me, I close the deal a month later. So it has to do with social engineering. So no doesn't necessarily mean no, but I wanted to tell you that because I thought it was funny. There's other ways of trying to find a way to skin a cat.

That's a great one.

Yeah, it was great. It was a pleasure talking to you, Brian. So thank you.

I hope you enjoyed that conversation. Jason's a great guy. And you may think, oh, he's a natural salesperson. But I bet he wasn't when he started in sales. I bet he had the same kind of apprehension, awkwardness that we all did. He had to build up that skill. He had to think like other people, the people he's talking to. He had to build up the meaning of rejection, that rejection isn't personal, it isn't permanent, it's temporary, and it's not about you. It's about the situation. And to understand that giving part takes people a long time. Because everyone's willing to give if they receive. But in sales, we're the ones that we give and give and give and eventually receive. And that's hard. It's counterintuitive, but it does work because everyone else, our clients, are the same way. They don't— they're willing to give, but only if they know they're going to get. But if they get first, then it's natural. It's a flow. And this is what we're seeing in Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. It's a step-by-step process that I've developed over the last 10 years to solve the problem that we're all facing today. I'll give you an example. I put out a poll last week on LinkedIn and I said, how many qualified leads— and qualified was defined by the person person in the poll, whatever that definition is for you. You know, for me, it's somebody who's in market, has the problem that I solve, and is curious about learning more about it. They're not looking for pricing yet, or they're not going to make a decision immediately, but they, they're curious. So you have some hook to put a conversation on. It's not somebody who just wants the ebook or just wants free content or just wants free education and has no curiosity, no pain, no recognition of the problem, and doesn't really want to talk to you. That's, you know, that might be somebody who's looking for a job. It might be a competitor. Who knows? Well, my point here is that 68% were at zero. That means that, you know, 3 quarters of us are not getting any inbound qualified leads. And the problem with unqualified leads, people who aren't a match— I'm not people— not saying people who haven't been contacted yet and haven't been investigated. I mean, you do it and they're not interested, they're not in market. They were looking for the free Apple Watch at the webinar. They, they had nothing better to do. They gave some crappy email address. For whatever reason. Now they're just work. Not only are they not a lead, they're a waste of time. And this is what's happened in B2B marketing over the last 10 years, is that everyone's been rewarded on leads since the beginning of time. But the problem is, uh, marketing can very quickly turn that up by giving a big offer That is not connected to the problem that the company solves. And there's one particular client that I've had that does this. And I go, you realize you're just making your sales reps busy following up on people who have no interest in your product. We don't need contacts anymore. They're all visible. We have the thing called the internet. It's been around for 20 years. We can find the people that should have the problem that we solve, but we want to find the ones who are further along in the decision process, further aware of the problem that we solve. It can be latent, but we still need to surface the people who have the latent problem that we solve and are open to talking. Now, marketing It's broken, okay? And I work with marketers pretty much more than salespeople today, and trust me, they don't have a clue. They're still living 20 years ago, copying each other, uh, missing the point whenever possible, and thinking they know it all because they've done it forever. Well, okay, fine. Just look at, look at what they produce. You know, because I deal with the reps at the companies and they're like, ah, you know, it's just so broken. My point here is if you're not getting something from marketing, that means you have to go do it. You have to find latent pain and turn it into active pain, or find active pain. To do that, what's everyone doing? The same stupid thing. Pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch. But you're at the interest stage. They're not. So it's a mismatch. That's why it doesn't work. So you just try and come up with a better pitch. It doesn't matter. That doesn't move them to interest. They're still not there. You have to get them there, and it's not going to be by a pitch. If that's your situation, which is pretty much 70-80% of the people out there, Check out Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. If you're in the course already, check out the most recent one-on-ones. There's a case study there where somebody did exactly what I've been doing in the course. Took them a while, you know, because everyone fights me at the beginning, and got 5 meetings in 1 day. And no cold calls, no cold emails. Well, how did he do it? Being human in a step-by-step way, thinking about the other person. And we talk exactly about what he did. Go watch it. It's— I'm going to put, uh, the pieces of it, edit out the, the elements of the course, and put it on the end of this— not this one, but probably the, the next podcast I put out. Now, I've been doing this for 10 years, and it works. It takes some creativity. It takes some process. It takes some polish. And it takes some confidence that it does work. And when you get it, when you've— the switch flips, then all of a sudden your calendar is full. And that's where we want to be. The second problem I solve is winning the complex sale. Now, I'm recording this at the end of a quarter. Take a look at your forecast at the beginning of the quarter. Take a little screenshot of it. So you can save it and then look at it the first week of the, the next quarter. What really closed? And this was an epiphany I had not early enough in my career that I was wasting more than half of my time on deals that either weren't closable or they were too optimistic or I was too optimistic or I didn't know how to get it Through the system. So guess what I did? I studied it. I reversed engineered it. And then I focused on the ones that could close and lead them through that process, not react to what they want to do. Because when you react, you go from trap to trap to trap thinking that you have something. You're reacting to what people who don't know what to do want to do. It's the blind leading the blind, and nobody teaches this because so few people know it. And when you go through 11 startups the way I did, no one teaches you. So you better figure it out, or you're going to be wasting not half your time, all of your time. So go to b2brevenue.com, check out the courses. If you're interested in Questions and answers, the Sales Questions Brutally Honest Answers podcast is the show for you. Check out the B2B Revenue Leadership Show. I've got some great guests on that show as well as the Sales Leadership Show. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening.

Better, and especially post-COVID, you got to be very creative in healthcare, that's for sure.

And, you know, for people who are wondering if it's right for them, what would you tell them?

Yeah, I mean, I think you, you kind of need to get over your own ego a little bit. I mean, a lot of people think they're really, really good at sales, and they probably are in some rights, but at the same time, like, I think you've mentioned it before, like, professionals in whatever industry or athletics, whatever, you know, they're always getting better. They're practicing, they're continuing to improve. And, you know, I know beforehand I didn't necessarily think of sales like that as much, but kind of taking your course and doing that, like, even if I'm ranked at, you know, the very top 1%, I really should be doing stuff to get better. And of course, a lot of companies will provide great stuff, but you really kind of need stuff outside of work, whether that be mentors or classes like yourself. So yeah, I think regardless of how good you've been doing, I think you don't want to get complacent and you want to keep getting better. It's just my opinion.

And, you know, as far as You know, getting better, do you see it as kind of a destination or a journey?

No, it's definitely a journey because I, I think most people in sales are competitive and, you know, even though that once they win a deal, they want to keep moving forward. So I don't see it as a final destination. I feel like it's something really you should be doing throughout your career, um, I guess until you retire, hopefully sooner than later when you retire, but Yeah, I think no matter if you're a sales rep or an executive vice president, you should be doing some type of coaching or training. And this kind of— I was doing a fair amount of stuff, but it was more company-driven things in the past. So I think expanding outside of that— I mean, nothing wrong with doing it within your company too, but expanding outside of that and getting different opinions, I feel like is a good thing, perspectives.

And how much time per week did it take you?

Yeah, I had certain moments where I was binging some of your content quite a bit. The actual courses, like, I wanted to be sitting down, you know, at home, able to write down notes and put stuff in Word documents, just kind of how I was doing it. So I would say I probably knocked out the Complex Sale course in 6 weeks or so. Um, I went after it pretty good. And then throughout that and afterwards, I would, you know, listen to the one-on-ones. I would listen to your every 2-week calls, kind of the open sessions. And I binge that a lot when I'm driving because I travel a lot for work. So I listen to those quite often and I don't necessarily have to take notes on it, but it's just good to get those, those real-life examples from other people. But yeah, the course took about 6 weeks or so, but that was just the pace I did it at. I mean, the nice thing about it is that you can can do it at your own pace, you know, throughout, you know, even a 12-month period, I guess, if you want to.

So.