HOW TO MASTER THE SKILLS OF B2B SELLING

What is the fastest way of becoming great at anything? I think most people would tell you it is to learn from people who are already great at it, who already have the skill and the outcomes that you want and did it through a systematic way, not through luck, not through birthright, not by chance, but Did it, who have developed these skills through time and through hard-learned lessons that they can then articulate. Because that's the hard part, certainly about sales. Because I interview salespeople, I talk to salespeople all the time. And the great ones, it's hard to get to the distinctions. And that's what I'm trying to do. with these interviews is get the best salespeople in the world nominated by the people who work with them because they admire them. They are trying to emulate their abilities, skills, and outcomes. And but the hard part is, so what is the distinction? Because these people are not instructors. They're not trainers, they're not coaches, they're practicing professionals. And this is kind of obvious at first, meaning that yes, model people who are already great at it. But how do you know why they're great at it? If you ask them, most likely you get platitudes. You get work hard, build relationships, add value. Just read any of the comments on my post on LinkedIn. It's all reactions, keyword-based, uh, nothing really new or anything you can take away. You know, that word value keeps coming up, but no one can articulate what it is because nobody wants to think. Everybody just wants to give what they think is value, which is really a take from what they really want. Today's interview is one that you better save. Put it on your smartphone, wherever you listen to the podcast, bookmark it, uh, push it aside. This is the type of interview that I want to listen to because the distinctions are well articulated. We get into the exact steps And it's not so much formulaic as it is style, but it's something you can learn. You know, it's based off of a lot of the stuff that you've heard before. So, you know, you might say, oh, that's obvious, but are you doing it? Are you implementing it? Everything is obvious after you You're shown how it works. You ever watch a magic trick? You know, it looks mysterious. What makes it magic is you do not know how it works. Once somebody shows you how it works, then it loses its illusion. It no longer seems like magic. But then you try it and you're like, well, it doesn't exactly look like magic now, does it? Maybe after you try it 100 times, it starts to look like magic. 1,000 times, it gets kind of magical. These skills— and today we're going to be talking about a lot of curiosity, a lot of alignment, a lot of reading the other person. And the natural reaction is to say, oh, emotional intelligence. Well, labeling it is one thing, emulating it is another, executing it is where the money is. And the distinctions that are going to get you where you want aren't just knowing it, aren't doing it. It's doing it well. What does well look like? What does A, what does excellence look like? Is it written down or is it in your head? If it's in your head, it's in the wrong place. Our head is not a good place to keep these things. It takes years for it to get into our subconscious. It's not like driving, where it might be just a month or so before you start to feel that it's in the subconsciously competent level. When you're in front of somebody, there's a trick that goes on in our brains. We are trying to think both with our prefrontal cortex and feeling with our reptilian brain At the same time. And guess what happens? We choke. We stumble. We tend to either go to our autonomic system and robotically respond or just go through our pattern, which sounds a lot like a sales rep, right? Really listen to this episode because I'm not trying to sell you anything here. This is 100% a give. Meaning that when I find, you know, not only great salespeople, but great salespeople who can well articulate what is working for them, that's where the magic is. You know, the hard work, the give value, the be the trusted advisor, bring insights— that doesn't really tell you anything. You've heard that before. And they're all elements, they're ingredients in your recipe of sales success. But how you cook it, how you mix the ingredients, how you process it and present it, that's where the magic is. And here is somebody that got nominated by co-workers, and I connected with because I really could have, you know, I see how he's successful. There's no doubt about it. And One of the key distinctions you're going to sense is this doesn't sound like a sales rep. Meaning that when we think of a sales rep, we think of the person that's bubbly and nice personality and everything and likable. And he's all of that, but he understands how companies change. He understands both what the customer is going through. And what he has to do to get the deal done instead of the checking in, uh, trying just to find the next step, going through some checklist to make sure you have the ingredients of a good deal, but not the outcome of a good deal. A lot of us have the ingredients, but the outcome, much like cooking, Comes out very different. And let's get into it. I don't want to give you too much. I want the interview to speak for itself. Make sure you're checking out our friends over at Covideo. And, you know, video email is one of those magical ingredients that we can use today to show people something about themselves. And how we can work together. Not about you, not about us, about them. Selling is about our clients. We just happen to be the person that's the concierge, the deal Sherpa, to guide them to where they want to be. Hopefully we know where to go and how to get there, but they want to get there and we want them to get there. And video Is part of it. It's showing them. Text, you know, how much time do you give an email? Just ask yourself. You know, I look at this, I look, who's it from first? Subject line, I know it's clickbait. And then the content, is this a give or a take? 99% of the time it's a take. And, you know, I don't know them. Why would I want to give to them? Check it out. Hey, Jeff, welcome to the show. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Brian. So, you know, my name is Jeff Piaseczek, and first off, you know, honored to be a part of the podcast. I'm a big fan. You know, I had been nominated a few times from colleagues in the past on LinkedIn when you requested, you know, some interviews with sales folks and Um, that's when I started checking out— I finally gave in. And that's really when I started looking at your LinkedIn content and then your podcast and some of your YouTube videos. And, you know, again, I love it. It's great for anybody in B2B sales. So, you know, there's, there's so much truth in the, in that hilarious content you provide. But, um, I've been in, I've been in enterprise sales for 21 years, actually started my career with IBM Global Services in the late '90s, to date myself there, actually implementing in the services side, which gave me— for a couple of years, I wasn't that good at it, but it gave me a really good perspective, you know, starting off on that side and really working with folks. And we were doing at the time e-commerce sites and kind of the infancy of that with large retailers, and it taught me a lot. I think it was really good training for my career the next 20 or so years because I was really young, you know, 22, 23, 24 years old, and I'm in the room with executives really learning how to position value. And I don't think I would have— definitely know I wouldn't have gotten in any other way, right? I think they were expecting the technology and what we were talking about to come from younger folks at the time, and it was, it was great, you know, it was, it was a really good, uh, you know, lessons those years to learn. And then I, you know, transitioned over into You know, into the enterprise sales role about 20, you know, for the last 20 years after that.

And I did the same thing, but more on— I was the pizza, long-haired, ride-the-bike-to-school developer.

Oh, really? Okay.

And the only one willing to go out with the salespeople on site.

Right, right, right.

And then I always thought I was the highest paid person in the company because I was so productive and useful.

And right, right.

Oh, and I find out their base salary was more than what I was making.

Oh, I thought they loved me. I'm like, these guys are taking me to Morton's for lunch, you know. I'm like, these guys love me, right? And I'm like, I am so important, this is so great. And, you know, then I get to real— then later in life you start to look back and you realize when I— oh, and not that they were using me, but they were utilizing me and leveraging me Because my unsullied, some would say naive perspective, was pure, you know, the value in it and the enthusiasm for the projects that we were delivering, right? And so good for them doing that, but I was in the same situation. I thought I was, you know, this is the life, this is great, you know.

How was that transition to go from— plus you went from being highly valued to only being valued for what you produce.

Absolutely. So it was a difficult transition. And one of the things I realized was, you know, just, I was used to people calling me back or getting back to me.

Yeah, you know, they're so rude.

Right, 'cause I was on that, you know, value, you know, I was delivering and I was working on that side of it. And so learning about all of the things that took me to get into that room, which again, I was naive to, I was just like, oh, you call somebody, You set up a meeting, it's good to go, and you speak. Those were the things that you really had to figure out. How will I provide value? How will I get somebody to want to work with me from a sales perspective? And again, it comes to that part of it, of more of a really understanding what they want to do and learning and appreciating. And one thing that's never left is that curiosity and that passion to learn. I've been lucky enough to work across all kinds of industries in my career, and I just enjoy learning about it, right? And so I think that helps, but that was the biggest thing of going from someone on this side of it that never really had to schedule meetings and always had people get back to them to, okay, now I've got to figure out how I can create these things and make it so.

And how about the other part of sales? The, you know, getting the decision through the organization as in conjunction with the paper, having it not stall, start over, be marginalized.

Yeah, you know, that's a huge part of, you know, what— of what you learn and, you know, in walking through it. And I think part of— and of course, there's, you know, I think there's 2 sides of it, right? I always say to be successful in this, There's the kind of the below the line, which is more of that's the process. The framework, the tactics, and those things that you use, the artifacts, which is kind of table stakes, and you need to do that. But then it's the above the line selling, which is more of the performance, the deal creativity, the problem solving, the mindset. And I like to really look at it from taking an empathetic approach because You really want to solve their problem, which is to say, understanding where they're coming from. So when you're a— I found when you're a strategic partner, which is what I do with organizations, those processes are still there and you want to map them out and understand them, but when you're working together, it's not just you calling them asking where it is in the process flow, right? This is more of—

That's not valuable.

That's not value-add. You're working together. Yes, you want to map out and understand it. We use MedPic and other different things to understand that. But really, when you've proven yourself as someone who's going to help them derive value and you're going to work together and people will see that passion and they want to work with people that will be able to— they can achieve their initiatives, right? Not just you, but your team, and you've shown they can go the extra mile. I think that helps out with all of those other things downstream because you're working it together. It didn't just become, I'm trying to do this, it's we're trying to do this, right? And that has been a big lesson for me in my career is not only demonstrate value, but demonstrate empathy and understand the challenges and work together because I'm looking for long-term strategic relationships and partnerships, not doing a deal and walking away, right?

Well, let's talk about that because I think everyone says strategic partnership.

Yeah.

But what does it mean in your world?

Sure. So, you know, we talk about, for example, like champions. Do you have a champion? That's all great, but are you championing them within your organization? Are you putting, you know, yourself on the line to say this for this partner, right? Are you going to bat for them? You know, there's, you know, ensuring that you're really working with them and doing it on the timelines that make sense for them, not your quarterly timelines, right? And by the way, selecting the right projects and understanding where you're the most value-add, you've got to have an honest discussion. We all have differentiators in our platforms and so forth, but We're not good for everything. So where do you best fit to achieve these objectives, right? So it's really treating them as not being short-sighted, being more strategic. And it's those areas where I think you can— honest conversations, people respect that, right? And those are some of the areas where you can really show that value. And then putting together, here's how we're going to actually achieve this ROI. Here's how we're going to work together. What's important to you? What's important to your organization? Those things come across when every meeting and interaction you have, you're bringing something to the table, not just asking for things, right? And a partnership forms. And then based on your success, it becomes more and more strategic as you prove yourself within that organization, right? A lot of times when we start off, we've got a flashlight in the dark, right? We don't win these large organizations, right? At best, maybe a match. Right, maybe a match. in a dark room and trying to understand and figure out. But the more conversations you have, the more connections, the more areas where you can say, yes, this makes sense for us, no, this doesn't, they'll respect that. That's where you connect the dots and you start working together and then earning your way to other areas as you traverse the business and you work to provide value. I've always looked at it as investigatory Detective-type work. One of my mentors had a great saying. He says, when your mother says she loves you, get a second source.

Second opinion.

Which is to say, always be multi-thread, always get other folks' perspectives and put together understanding all of those, because you're going to learn every time and hopefully provide some provision. I think that's a big part of it as well. I think people underestimate the amount of detective work that you need to do to be successful in this job and putting things together. It's not just reading annual reports. It's having real conversations and really understanding what's important to folks in different lines of business and throughout the IT organization.

How did you become good or comfortable talking with such a broad number of people in different roles?

Yep. It's just time, right? The more that you have confidence With, with the platform or with what you're selling, the more that you understand where it's the most effective, you know, the specific areas, and the more you've seen it before, it becomes more natural and easier. And the more that you get folks to open up and, and really, you know, have that true curiosity and that true, you know, I really want to understand, it just becomes easier. It's not some pressured sale tactic or something. It's more of Let's see if we can work together. I respect your time, you respect mine. And you just, you know, if you have that curiosity and you do your homework before you show up, those things come more naturally. And you're confident because it's okay that you don't know everything. You're never gonna know everything about their business that they know.

Hmm.

But if you can learn about the areas you can help them and come prepared, those people are more, you know, forthcoming with information I've found. And then just the more that you do it, and I've been fortunate enough to work for, you know, organizations and selling, you know, platforms or applications of service, that cross all kinds of industries. And so you get, you know, you just learn about them, um, you know, you know, over time as well. So that helps with the experience. But the curiosity, the genuine interest, I think is critical.

And was that something you always had, the curiosity?

Yeah, it was. It's just, it's interesting to me how companies do things, right? Like, like the real way of, you know what I mean, really understanding How do they bring products to market? What is really the way that they're generating revenue here? What is their— especially in today's world, right, where so many companies are innovating and so many companies are transforming. It's fascinating to me. And what's great too is you connect with people. I always say, you know, when you find someone that has that fire on their side—

Yeah.

And you hitch your wagons together and you can do some really interesting things. I will take that passion and that interest above a title, above, you know, anything, because that's really where I think that we can kind of hitch our wagons together and make things happen within an organization. Because we're— what we're doing is we're driving change. Some of it is very disruptive of how they're doing things before. So you need to be able to, you know, to do that with somebody. But I've always had that curiosity for sure. It's just interesting to me. Right, how business works and how companies do things and their history and where they're going and so forth.

And how do you, or how can you tell when a prospect's worth spending that time? What's the difference in your mind between like an A and a B?

Yeah, no, it's a great question because it's not just how they look on paper, obviously, because it's, some are great and it's okay to say now is not the time, right? You don't want to run all these enterprise sales plays. when you're not there yet, it's gotta line up. And so to me, it's, you know, it's first of all, it's activity and interaction. And when they're really giving you the information to help you succeed, and it's not, they're not being cagey about it or things like, it's more of, hey, we've got this. And again, over time, you've gotta get in there and discover and understand and have those, you know, again, like I said, turn some lights on in some rooms. So if you have that access and you're learning more and it makes sense going together, you can start to just kind of feel that this is a real initiative, it's a funded initiative, you understand how it was, you know, how it started, you know, what it's tied to in terms of revenues and hard numbers, and then it's the momentum of which this is going. And it doesn't— again, it's not on your timeframe, it's on theirs. But if you're continually on the flip side, you know, you can be presenting the best arguments or putting the best business cases together, you can have your whiz-bang ROI calculations, It doesn't matter if they're not providing the feedback and it's not yours together, right? That's the difference, is really the interaction and them owning it and then moving it forward with you in that partnership. So, and then of course there's different things that you look at in terms of does this make sense from an organization standpoint, their spending, those things, but it really comes down to the people interaction of it and their true desire. You know, it's got to be a two-way street.

You know, and I'm sure you've been exposed to a lot of different types of salespeople in your career.

Yes.

What separates the very best from the okay?

So I think it's a couple of things, you know, and it's, first of all, there's, you know, you gotta— there's a, you know, if there's a drive, then there's like a grit to it, you know, and that's kind of a a component that you've got to get up and you've got to, you know, as some people say, pack your own lunch, right? You've got to be able to make things happen and go out there. You can't rely— the people that start saying, oh, none of these MQLs are coming in.

These leads suck.

These leads are, you know, where's the Glengarry Raids, whatever. It's like, like, that's kind of, you know, you've got to do it. You've got to have the mentality that that's all icing on the cake. I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do it myself. The other piece I think that's important is really, you know, process is important and having a framework and those things matter in terms of having the right assets and artifacts that you need to help progress through the sales cycle. So doing those parts again are important, but again, the most important to me is that problem-solving mindset of We're going to figure this out together. I understand where you're coming from. I have empathy. That's why, you know, EI is so much more of a predictor of success than IQ or EQ, I'm sorry, is so much more of a predictor. It's that management, that problem-solving, those areas I find folks are really, really good. It's funny because sometimes when they get into sales, they stop doing those things for some reason, then they try to become Very like the process takes over and it's like, think about it like any other relationship that you have. Think about it from an empathetic point of view. Think about it from a relationship point of view, right? You should be seeing these signs like, and that's where you can kind of open it up a bit and problem solve and do those things. And so those are the folks that I see that are much more people that have EQ and apply those things. They're the most successful in this type of complex B2B software sales, right?

Yeah, because that EQ and that— when I heard the word together, and I always characterize that champion, the person with the fire, as partner in crime.

Yeah, that's good.

Because not— you're not committing a crime. You're trying to accomplish something that is hard to do, right, together. And if you act like a salesperson, you get treated like one. Yep. Well, we'll let you know if we have any questions.

Right, right, right, right.

Not exactly the open dialogue you want.

I've heard people say like, oh, I really presented what I wanted to. I'm like, oh, well, that's great that you did.

Congratulations.

Congratulations. You, you did that presentation that you can mark that. Check that activity. But there's no questions, there's no follow-up. So what do you think you've achieved there besides checking a box with your activity metrics?

And you must get that feel when the deal is going to progress.

There's definitely a feeling. You're texting with the team, you're working together, like you're just, you're both, you're providing each other updates, you're getting your resources ready to go. It's all those, and there will be bumps and there will be challenges, but that's okay because There's no reason to panic. You will figure this out because you both teams inevitably, you and your partner in crime or partners in crime, want to get to the fun, interesting stuff, which is actually delivering these things for them.

Getting the outcomes.

Or whatever. Get it to the outcomes that you've laid out. The other stuff is there, but you know what? It's sometimes some of the hardest with some of these larger G2K or Fortune 500s, those harder negotiations or getting started, I call it getting the plane off the ground, that really— you've been in the, you know, on the, you know, together in the fire, right? You've been together in the trenches.

Yeah.

And that pays dividends. And that's even better when you get going, right? Because I like to start with a really good land where you can then go from there and you can start, you know, doing the things that you need to do and from adoption rates and so forth. And those experiences, when you've gone battle in the trenches together, you know, you and your partners in crime, that and your team from your side, that's great. That's a great way to start off a partnership. That's going to be, you know, over the course of several years and continue on when I'm gone, or I've passed it on to someone who's going to manage that more tightly. But, and so those are the signs that you get. It's like any sign, Brian, as you know, like you just know if you've got a, a two-way street with a relationship, right? Like, you know, if it's a beneficial relationship, or if you're just the one that—

Doing all the work.

Doing all the work. I don't know why people don't apply the common sense Is that more common sense to—

Well, I think people put the company face on. Yeah, this is my job. This is their job. Their job's to buy. My job's to sell.

Right.

But no one's job is to buy.

No, no one's job is to buy. You're exactly right.

And we've, we hold, you know, we use our sales voice. Hey, it's Brian. How's it going today?

Right, right, right.

Which turns everybody off. We follow What marketing and our manager tells us: present, demo, propose, negotiate, close. But no deal has ever worked that way in history.

Never, never.

And we, we don't want to be vulnerable. We don't want to hear the answers that we don't want to hear.

Right.

Oh, we got a new boss. He doesn't like anything. That's not a no. That's an obstacle. And we don't want to do anything unless we get a reward. And there's a long time between doing work and getting a reward.

Right. Yep. You're absolutely right. And it's, you know, it's not about the activity, those things, a deal never works that way, right? That's just kind of a framework. There is, this is a partnership. And I always say that you're in the trust business. I mean, it's It's cliché, but it's true. When you're really in it to help an organization, when you're really in it to help them achieve and deliver on their initiatives, 'cause again, I mean, listen, it's not this is all altruistic. You know the endgame when they are successful, because it makes everything so much easier. Renewals, upgrades, all of those things are there if you can deliver. And they look at you more, I would argue more than the platform, right? Everyone's got their different—

Absolutely. Other products.

And they look at you and your team and they say, are these people going to go to bat for me? Are these people going to work the extra time over the weekend, or some weekend, to get this thing done when we've got to go live? Are these people ones that I can trust and I can bring forward in front of our leadership? Right? Everybody understands technology. People that work in technology know there are going to be challenges and issues. That's just what it is. But how do you handle those things? And is this someone who's gonna just close this deal and turn away and go do something else, or are they gonna be there with me for this, for the, for the long term here and help me achieve on that? That is such a factor, you know, I believe in people making decisions on who they go with, um, above and beyond a lot of times these feature functions, right?

And what motivated the people to recommend you for the show?

Well, I know—

What did you do to them?

Well, they— I know a couple folks said, you know, they thought we'd have a really good conversation because I do, you know, in, in our QBRs or meetings, I, I— and they'll have me present it, different things, and, you know, boot camps and these type of things that we have for on-sales. I really do enjoy in understanding kind of the— this just— I'm a sales, you know, the, the mindset and what in all of these kinds of discussions. And, you know, and they, and they just thought we'd have a good discussion because they know the honest things that you say I will bring up. Not as funny, not as funny as you do it, but—

That's a big bar to hurdle.

I will, I will get down to the facts though. The point of like, this stuff is all good, but guys, here's how really these things happen and how they get done. Um, and try to, try to give my own brand of honesty, right? my own brand of it internally when we have these discussions, like for example, the champion discussion, like, you know, teach us how, you know, give us a session on champions. That's fine, but I think it's more important to understand the first question you need to be asking yourself is why would this person put their, you know, behind on the line for you? If you can't answer that question, where do you get off trying to test them on where they're gonna take you, right?

Right.

And are you going to champion them internally? Like I mentioned before, like, So these are the kind of things, the ways that I look at it from a different approach. A lot of times you'll see every, as you know, everything is from the company's perspective or this.

Right.

It's like, guys, flip that around and think about it from their perspective, even if you just wanna do it from, you know, more of a, you know, cognitive empathy approach, but still understand that, right? And because it's gonna get you a lot further. So I think some of those reasons that I'm, Pretty, you know, I'm not afraid to talk about those things. So like you guys, we'd have a really good discussion. So I definitely appreciate it.

Well, it's really hard to have cognitive empathy because you got a number over your head, you got pressure on you, you're— most people are over their head in technology and business issues and acumen. And then to take time aside and say, well, how are they thinking? How do they view this? What does this mean to them?

Right. You're absolutely right. But what I always have done, this isn't a transaction-type business, right? This is longer term. So yes, people can say, Jeff, it's easier for you to do it. You know, you've hit your number, you know, every quarter and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, probably a dozen President's Clubs, all of these things. But I started somewhere too, right? And I've looked at the longer game. going to do this, and it does pay off. It just makes everything much easier and more straightforward. You know what, I've always— so you're right, I totally can appreciate and under— listen, I've started at 4 companies, you know, I've worked for 4 companies, so I've started that sales journey at 4 companies over 21 years. So I get it, I know what it's like to start off and you gotta figure it out and you've got that number over your head. But I really believe in what we do That pays off in spades down the line, 100%, to take the time to do that. You don't have to do it with everybody. That's why time organization is so important. And where the number one thing you've got going against you is the amount of time, because it's just— you don't have that.

You can't change it.

You can't change it.

You can't buy another month.

I wish I could. If I can buy another day sometimes. So, you've So that's a big part of it as well, Brian, because you make a great point. All this sounds great, but you've got to also be able to qualify quickly and be okay to say, this is me, this is not the right time to go down the motion with these folks. I see too many people going down, going down the path and taking a long time to come in second, third, or the dreaded no decision, right? So it's like that time that was wasted there on 5 of these things that never really panned out. You could have spent on a couple and you've really gotten in there and understanding it after you've qualified them out. So that's where the time part of it is so important because we pulled in so many different directions and we've gotta— you've gotta, you know, manage that to your, you know, to the best that you can, right? There's only— it's a limited resource, unfortunately.

And when these reps come to you for advice, what's the typical topic that Seems to be either the solution or the problem.

Sure. It depends kind of where they are. So if they're starting out, right, we have this mentorship program that we do. It's about, you know, more usually about, you know, just figuring things out at first, right? But it's about, you know, a lot of times it's pipeline generation, right? Where do we go? Where are some good places to kind of start? And so I think that's part of it. And, you know, again, it's You've got to be able to— I don't do this, believe in this, you know, spray and pray methodology. It's about understanding. It's not a number thing, right? It's, it's, it's very specific and it's your network, right? Getting, getting in from, from other folks that you've again done right by. That's why it's so important, um, to be referred in or understanding their challenges and being much more specific. And so, and it's qual— it's more qualified good organizations to go after that you truly believe that you can help, right? I always say that if I'm doing my job well, and because I believe that we're going to help this organization, we can help them in multiple ways of what they're doing, it should be in— it should be such a place that we provide the information and so much backup that it's almost negligent for them not to take a real look at it, right? Because it's just— I call it an arguable argument. It's right there in front of them. we've done everything and it's— and we know that we're a good fit, so let's see if we're going to go and take this evaluation, this, this partnership together. So I call it an evaluation partnership plan. If not, that's fine, let's, let's move over here. So I think those are some common things of getting started, and then it's how do you grow accounts, right, when you get in. And it's some of this exact same things that we're talking about— landing correctly, being able to earn your way across the business to different units, you know, don't You know, you've got to really do your work. You've got to— it doesn't matter what you put on a piece of paper, right? Did you deliver? Did you deliver the goods? Because if you did, then you'll be— you'll earn your way to the next place and the next place in that organization, right? And so I talk about the ability to really have to be not only the sales process, but what's being the quarterback of that account as you're taking them live and they're deriving value. I'm not leaving until all of that is done, you know, for multiple years sometimes, right? And that part I think people don't think about as much. They— some don't. They want to sell and walk on. That's not how I, how I do things, and I don't think it's the true way to succeed these days in what we do. You've got to be able to— I'm not talking about just being some, you know, we have a whole another group for, for that, for longer term. But when we have it for a year or so or a couple of years, You've really got to make sure that those customers are successful and do whatever it takes internally and externally and for your partner network to do so. That's super important. I don't think a lot of people think about that that come into this, right?

And do you find many reps don't understand that the complex sale is both complex and it's much more of a cerebral game than it is a charm and personality game?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, so I always try to explain it like, you know, just think of it as this is chess, right? This is strategic. This isn't, you know, it's a— this is not checkers, right? And you— and it's not reactionary, it's not short-term. And that's what you have to really understand. And it's, it's from, from opportunity to opportunity, you've got to see it in a bigger picture.

And you can't just run and do this and do this and wait till they yell at you.

Yeah, because they don't want to say no, right? In what relationship That's not a relationship, right? If the one party is just running around doing what the other—

Work, and the other person wants—

Doing all the work. Think about that for a second. I'm like, put yourself in like a regular, like a relationship, right, with like a partner. Is that any kind of a healthy relationship? Do you think that they would respect that? So, you know, that's it. Thinking about it and thinking about it more strategically and thinking about it as chess, not checkers. And then really What getting like that goes back to what I was talking about before about having the detective work in discovery, right? Everybody's got different goals and objectives. A lot of them will go up to specific things, but understanding where this where does this person want to go personally with their career, right? Where do they want to go? What's the next move for them? What's what's what how impactful is this to the next thing that this company is doing on that level to their to their boss? So understanding all of those things will make you a much better partner. And it's not running around trying to do, you know, jumping, you know—

Do more dumb things faster.

Yeah, doing more dumb things to build up some activity metrics, right? Cool.

Hey, this has been a fantastic conversation. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

Yeah, no, you can just find me on LinkedIn, you know, Jeffrey Piszczek. You can see the name there. And yeah, I'm looking forward to— again, I really appreciate it, Brian. It's a great conversation. I'll be continuing to follow you and laughing and reusing some of your content because it's great.

Have you noticed all these great sales leaders? They're not talking about, oh, I can present my value proposition better. I bring great insights. Those are tiny little ingredients in their formula of success. Most of them are able to have conversations about what the client cares about and to have them focused, aligning their product with the things that the client wants to do. And not just 15-minute conversations, consistent conversations over long periods of time. And how do you do that? Well, you know, it's not about the product. It's not features and functions and capabilities. And I've got another interview coming up where that was the distinction that the rep found between the 7-figure reps, people making over $1 million a year, and the people who were just getting by crushing their quota, is that they focused on the client and were able to talk to them. Now this, I'm not talking about MBA-type conversations, pulling out the financials and analyzing their annual report and 10-Ks and all that. And frankly, I've never read a 10-K. But I'm very curious. I'm very interested in them. And I bet a lot of the people I sold to never read their 10-K either. It might fit your space. I'm not judging. I'm just telling. I'm just sharing. Building those conversations has a structure. It has a process. It has, you know, a step-by-step approach. It doesn't feel like a process. It doesn't feel like an interrogation. It feels like a natural conversation between people who are aligned on a mission, a purpose, a reason to improve the business that happens to also benefit them. And they understand how companies make decisions. Companies don't like to buy products, don't like to spend money, but they do like to fix things. They do like to be more competitive. They do like to automate things. And have you heard the word digital disruption? The 2 words, I guess. I think they're the most overused words now. I think we keep picking up these keywords and all of a sudden they lose their meaning and almost become annoying after a while. What we have to do is have long-form conversations with our clients about them. If you keep it about the product, you're a commodity. Oh, but I'm different. We're faster. We're better. We're more cloud-enabled. Congratulations. Do they get that? How will they get that? Won't it take time? How long did it take you to get used to your new car, all the features and functions of it? Ah, you probably bought it by how it looks, how it makes you feel, and you bought it for the people that you either like the best, closest to you, Or was most convenient. How do you build these conversations? That's Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. It's not just about getting into accounts, it's staying in accounts. Because I include the Questions That Sell course with it, which gives you exactly how to take them from unaware to urgency. It doesn't happen overnight. There's step-by-steps they have— people have to go through. And how do you build questions to get them there? Statements won't get them there. Statements usually cause people to argue with you. You could have the most benign statement in the world and someone's going to argue with you. Trust me, from somebody who posts a lot of stuff on social, people will argue with anything. Questions get people thinking. Questions get that brain turned on. Questions are the mind control tool that we have to use. And conversations are what sell. Demos, helpful presentations, helpful ingredients, but we focus way too much on it. Insights at best are going to create curiosity, maybe interest. No one runs down to procurement after you gave them an insight. What we have to do is start modeling professional B2B sales. This is where the money is. The money is not in transactional sales. The money is not getting somebody to sit through a demo. The money is changing how companies do business and buying big deals, buying transformation, buying change, buying innovation. Taking the business and their careers to another level. And it takes time, but you have to become better at it. Being the order taker, the B player, that's no fun. You're not happy, the company's not happy. It turns into what I know called a stalemate, meaning that both people are unhappy. And guess who always wins? The B player. Uh, 99% of the time, the company wins. They move you out, they marginalize you, and all of a sudden a B player gets a C territory and you become a B-minus player. And in sales, your career is going on a spiral either up or down. And once it starts going down, gravity takes over and the inertia. And it becomes harder and harder and you become more and more burnt out. Sound familiar? To slow that down and reverse it, it takes a little bit of effort because there's inertia behind it. And the same is true on the way up, but it's harder on the way up because you have gravity working against you. And what I'm trying to do with the podcast is Share with you through other people's careers of what will get you on that upward trajectory. And, you know, everybody's about the hustle and the grind, and that's an ingredient. But have you noticed all these guests, they all work hard, but I don't think they were 80-hour people. I see a lot of 80-hour people who want to be on the show, but I'm not sure that brings anything to the show. We all know we have to work hard. That's a given. And I think activity is overstated, and that's why I downplay it. You have to be active, but activity alone just gets you tired. It just gets you doing dumb things faster. And that's the mistake that I see most leaders taking. Today is they just think do more of what doesn't work will get you something that will work just by chance, and it might. But wouldn't you like to have a little bit more control and predictability over it? Understand the game you're playing instead of just swinging a bat hoping somebody throws a baseball at it. In sales, it is a profession. First, you got to understand the game you're You have to have that knowledge. Then you do have to be active. You have to take action. Then you have to understand the outcome. Was the outcome changeable? Did I have any control, influence, direction, momentum, and control over it? Or does it just happen? Or did, did it something outside of my control? See, this is the trick about sales, is that when we get a bad outcome, We think we did something bad. And you might have, or it might not have been the right time, the right person. You might not have had the right ingredients. Uh, things change on the customer side as well. So we can't automatically think that we did something bad. We may not have done it perfectly or better, and we can learn from it. Uh, or did we just work on the wrong account?

See that?

This is the hard part about sales, is that everybody wants something that works 100% of the time. That's the silver bullet, and we never find it. No one ever has. When I talk with hundreds of the best salespeople in the world, they still lose deals. I lose deals. And it's supposed to hurt. And it's good that it hurts, because that's how you learn. You don't learn if it was pleasurable. The wins reinforce what we know. The losses get us thinking, get us curious, get us interested in what we can do better. And that is the mindset, because there is no perfect sales process. There is no perfect presentation, demo, conversation. There's good ones. There's better. There's even better. And there's bad ones, but there's no perfect one. We're interacting with people. If you have a kid, what's a perfect parent? You know, sometimes the kid, no matter what you do, is gonna mess up. And sometimes you do bad things and the kid still turns out fantastic. We have to still try. We still have to understand what is good and great and move towards it. And emulate it and get ourselves thinking and evaluating it, preferably before we do it. Winning the complex sale helps you first understand the game you're playing. 99% of the people don't. The number one thing that I found when I went into clients, when I did on-site training, was getting people to articulate how the customer buys was You know, a good week prep. Nobody could really articulate it. There was a lot of platitudes and, you know, magic and MacGyver-type thinking. Oh, we just did this and something great happened, or we gave a discount and that expedited it. Well, but what's going on on their side? How do we not fall into those traps? Because the complex sale— It's just a series of traps. We all walk into them. We're all taught to walk into them. And once we're in them, they're really hard to get out of. And we kind of— and if we do get out of them or we move on to the next one, we don't want to remember it because it was so painful. Check out the courses at b2brevenue.com and ask yourself, how much are you willing to pay In lost deals, lost income, lost commissions, loss of lifestyle, loss of time. Money you can make up, time you can't. How long are you going to give it before you become great at sales? Because they're not just courses, it's not just content, it's conversations, it's deal reviews, it's strategy, it's distinctions. It's examples. There is no other library of this many examples in the world. I've been doing this 3 years online. There's 3 years of office hours, 3 years of one-on-ones, and you can participate in all of them, consuming it at your pace. Dedicate a year to become great at these skills. And what will you get if you become great at it? Well, you know what the great people in your industry make. Do you want to be that, or you just want to hang out? See, the B players are always going to get squeezed out. Look at your comp plan. You know, the accountants and the CFO, they figured out how to pay as little as possible for taking an order and a lot more for generating an order, creating revenue. That's what they all want. They don't hire salespeople to manage demand. They hire salespeople to create it and capture it. And have you noticed how ineffective B2B marketing has become? I talk to B2B marketers all day long. Um, the good ones go and start their own agency, and everybody else kind of works for somebody, copies the same playbook. And if you look on LinkedIn and you see the type of audience I've built compared to companies with 20, 50 times as many people and money, hmm, it's not people and money, it's know-how. Being able to create and capture the demand and build demand in your Your space is your asset. You are the means of production. And what's crazy in the course is I can tell the questions and the energy between the people who work for themselves, and I can almost guess their base salary. High base salary, ah, take their time, participate, ask questions, uh, stay at the knowledge level, the awareness. The people who no base salary dig in.

Why?

Because they have to. They have to get the results. But that's— you can choose to have that mindset. You don't have to give up your base salary. The beauty of B2B sales is you get a great base salary and unlimited upside. And you can create that upside. For today, this year and for the future. The tools that we have today are amazing. You can build audiences, you can build your marketplace, you can build your network online, and it can compound and become a snowball. That's exciting. Hey, if you'd like a different format of podcast, I've got a couple of other shows that I want to make you aware aware of. The Sales Questions Brutally Honest Answers Show is that tactical, actionable daily sales podcast if you like that format. Uh, this podcast clearly is interviewing the best salespeople in the world. Uh, Sales Leadership Show is people who've sold become leaders and what's a great sales leader do differently than a mediocre one. It's— I encourage you to hear it out. Also, if you're looking for a job, great sales leaders on that show, all hiring. So check out that and the B2B Revenue Leadership Show, because when you start to understand the bigger puzzle, you can then leverage the inside game at your company, which I know is a lot of work, Brian. But I'm here to help. Also, if you could do me a favor, tell somebody about the show, uh, like, comment, and share my content on LinkedIn. I appreciate that so much. I store all the video interviews on the YouTube channel. You can just search Brian Burns Sales on YouTube. I also do my daily comedy stuff up there, and I'm doing those skits with multiple characters within company. I have so much fun doing that, and it's all based off of real-life experience, and I'm trying to make it better for all of us. If you've noticed my content on LinkedIn, the focus is really to fix sales for us, for salespeople, so we can sell more. We'll see you next time.