HOW TO PLAY THE WHOLE GAME OF B2B ENTERPRISE SALES AND WIN

Boy, I got a great one for you today. This one kind of surprised me because at first glance at his LinkedIn profile, I thought the topics would be how to stay out of the commodity trap, how to build trust, differentiation, avoid pricing. But boy, was I surprised. And I think you're going to like this a lot as well. It's got a great story. Somebody who grew up in Germany, Came here for college with a learning disability, got into sales, worked his way up, and is selling something that I know is hard. Why do I know it's hard? I kind of cut my teeth in college in this space, and boy, is it hard. Granted, that was a long time ago. But imagine selling a system Basically boxing, packaging for products. A new way of doing it, a more effective way of doing it, something that's more environmentally aware of doing it. Now, the natural way would be, who is in charge of this at the company? Is it shipping and receiving? Is it manufacturing? Is it product development? Is it marketing? Oh boy, it's all of them. And how do you get them to change? And how do you stay out of the commodity trap and get away from just pricing? We're going to talk about all of that in this episode. So no matter what you're selling in B2B, you're going to enjoy this because he takes a top-down approach, totally counterintuitive. And he really focuses on the connection between the people And he brings out what I've been trying to get across all the time. Because everybody in sales thinks it's what you say. It's part of it. But it's not the most important part of it. It's getting the other person to talk. Showing interest in them. Talking about them. So, you might think these are old-school tactics. No, they're what works and what continues to work. And after the call, how do you do what I call a postmortem or a call review? And that call review early in my career was probably where I learned the most. I, I was working with reps that had 25, 30 years of experience, and to hear them analyze a call afterwards I was like, boy, I didn't see that. I didn't notice that. Oh, that's what you were looking for? Those are critical because that's where you learn instead of just trying to get as many calls a day in. Volume is secondary to success. Let's get into this interview. I think you're really going to enjoy it. I'll sum it up at the end and what I learned from it and what you could apply Today. But wait a second, before we get into it, do you ever imagine, ever wish you had a sales buddy? You know, somebody to talk over deals, practice with, uh, test you on acronyms or industry knowledge, do a little Q&A? See, I've been talking about brevity pitch as simply a role play. Uh, product where it's incredibly interactive. I saw the new release yesterday. Um, it is magical. You can basically put in someone's LinkedIn profile and have a practice call with them, or you can, let's say, put in a company URL and it will analyze it and ask you a bunch of questions about it. Wouldn't that be great? See, what we think we learn a lot when we just sit and think and read, and that's a little bit. It's doing it. It's interacting. It's using our whole brain, getting our mouths to move because we are professional communicators. So go to brevitypitch.com.

Check it out.

Bring your manager. This is— I I think something that's going to really increase people's effectiveness and capability, which means you're going to make more money. Finally, a sales tech product that helps us make money instead of administrate losses. brevitypitch.com. Here we go. Hey, Sascha, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Hey, Brian, thanks for having me today. I don't know, background on myself. I'm originally from Germany. I came to the US right around when I was, I don't know, 20 years old or so. And out of necessity, went into sales and kind of always loved it.

Did you make a trip to Canada on the way? I sense a little Canadian accent there.

Or am I way off?

Nope, came straight to Texas and went into the horse country here and learned all about Quarter Horses.

And what brought you to the US?

It's an interesting story. So I have dyslexia. I had dyslexia growing up and the universities in Germany, they're free, which is great, but they're also really kind of tough to get into, especially if you don't have quite the grades.

So that's kind of long words, right?

Yes, very long words. And especially back then, there were no programs for that. And I really wanted to achieve something and, you know, not become a baker or a tradesman. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I had a little bit higher aspirations.

And did you learn English in Germany?

Yeah, I mean, in the school system, right? I Wasn't very good. I'm like, if you would go back to my, uh, my first English teachers, they would never believe that I'm now in the US and that I actually been reasonably successful over here. So.

And how did you get into sales?

How old or how? How?

What was the mechanism or the impetus?

I had to pay for college.

Unlike in Germany.

Yeah, unlike in Germany. Exactly. And it was quite expensive over here. And so I had to figure out, okay, what, what, what can I do? And the neat thing is, it was so— I, my mom got me into horses in Germany a little bit. And so there is quite a following in Germany for people that ride Western horses, and they buy Wrangler cowboy cut jeans, and they have hats. So I decided to export all these things to Germany and sell them to the, basically, the Western stores that sold that. And that's how I got into like just business entrepreneurship and selling things. And then it was kind of cool, you know, the other guys worked at McDonald's at the college and I went, loaded up my little pickup truck, went to these companies and exported cowboy shirts, you know.

And do you have that kind of adventure gene?

I think so. I always Wanted to do something and I love it. And if I love something, I'm all in and I'm all after it.

Yeah. And you've had a great run at your current company.

Yeah, it's a great company. The company's Packsize. We do on-demand packaging technology. I started there in 2010. We were a small organization. People thought we were crazy with what we're doing. And now we're kind of the status quo. I mean, you name the top 10 online retailers, We're we're on their list. Either we're already working with them, or we're we have projects slotted with them. And it's it basically makes a perfectly tight fitting box on the fly for online orders. So we all probably know that dilemma and what that could do.

Is it a hard sell?

It's here is because I have I have so many people I recruit to, or you know, or that that. you know, want to join the company. And if you look at it and think it'd be the easiest sell on the planet, I mean, you'd be like, people are stupid not to do this. And once you get into it, it's a little bit more complex, right? I mean, you're touching a lot of things. Um, in the grand scheme of things, I think now we're, we're become so big and the status that the complexity of the project is still there, but I think it's, it's, it's a much easier in because we're known, known, liked, and trusted, right? So sure helps.

And what was it like when you started there?

It was frustrating because it was, I thought, wow, this is the coolest product, the coolest technology. I'm not quite as great as everything is now, but it was, people didn't see the need, right? I would like to have this right size box. There weren't dimensional shipping charges. I don't know how familiar you are with kind of those topics, but You know, now you pay kind of how big the package is. And so that weren't real big issues back then. And that has changed and sustainability has changed. And so we had a lot of tailwinds over the years as things kept changing.

And who's the point of entry at a customer site?

Ideally, the higher the better. And as always, you gotta have somebody that sees that vision because we're changing a lot of things, how things are done. I mean, you're touching marketing, you're touching the shipping person that has everything, everybody, and you're messing their sandbox because the guy that runs logistics maybe already has figured out for the next 3 years how he's gonna make his bonus by renegotiating UPS and renegotiating UPS and FedEx. And now you're messing up this entire world by changing the follow every box. And so I see an interesting dynamic sometimes in companies once you're kind of down the line.

And what have you learned along the way as far as getting these deals started, keeping them going, getting them closed?

I think you, it's a true profession, right? I like to think of sales almost like being a surgeon. And I know that maybe sounds a little bit over the top and overcomplicated. But you gotta know your stuff. There's a reason people in sales get paid well. It's not because it's easy, and it's because it's really complex. So I think you just need to understand and have a good process flow and the ability to adapt to organizations, because some organizations, they don't do very well at— they don't know how to adopt this kind of technology and implement it and make a good decision around it. So you literally gotta take everybody by the hand a little bit. And mentor them, I think, through that process and having an awareness about how to do that.

And what is the thing that you're bringing that they appreciate? Because it does touch everybody and everybody's got different motives and rewards. So you gotta talk to each person differently, I assume.

Yes, I think you need to understand the overall mission of the organization. That's why I like to start as high as possible. Right? And like, if you, if you have access through board members or the C-suite, I think you have a big plus because they have a certain vision they want to accomplish. Often, once you have those interviews and conversations there, if you get there and you're lucky enough to have them, that story may change quite a bit once you go talk to different people in the organization. Says, yeah, Bob always wanted this, but like, this is the reality we're dealing with here.

Right.

And then you've got to really just bring them together and meet everybody where they are. And what served me quite well, or what I liked over the years, and now I'm the guy with the gray hair, right, um, is taking, you know, maybe middle-level managers or even directors. And the privilege we have as salespeople, and I think we underestimate that, we get to look into these companies pretty deep every single day. Which is awesome. I love that because I get to see a lot of things, learn a lot of things, and so I can bring a lot of wisdom to a client. And even building that rapport with that management team and those senior stakeholders, I think you can mentor them. And I think once they kind of trust, trust you to like, what's the next step for your career within this organization? And how can we make sure this project actually really accomplishes that to get you to the next level? And then we have a gift that keeps on giving. On, okay, what's the— and once people see that you really have them at the center of it, you build some great champions, I think.

Is this something that you developed over the time there or is this something that somebody taught you or you observed?

I think a lot of it is observation. I would have to say Packsize has been fantastic at spending I think a good amount of money on training the sales team. And I've been very impressed very early in the game. When I started, I think we had 30 people. This is 14 years ago, right? And that's not sales. That was the entire company. It's 30 people. And but they made a very significant investment in sales training. And that was the first time I really had structured sales training. It was a— it was Mastering the Complex Sale was like a Thick book and they'd done that for us. And it was fascinating to me because I thought I kind of knew something, but I didn't.

And are you surprised today when you talk to other salespeople who don't understand it?

Not anymore. I mean, just because we kind of always think that and then we have some success. Before I came to Packsize, I was running international sales for 6, 7 years for a company, right? And it was successful. Every year, a strong year-over-year growth and you kind of think you're good. And then until you learn you're not, you're just maybe lucky or you have a good product.

And when you first started there, did you just try and go and talk to shipping and receiving or product managers or?

Yes. So I did, I did it all and I appreciate that. I mean, not that I loved it. But I would, yeah, sometimes I would go into industrial parks and look for the big UPS trailers. And yeah, it sucks. It's not glorious, but it helped me because I figured out the game. I figured I spent time with them. I took them to lunch. I figured out what's their issue. Eventually, kind of with what we do, we learned we really got to get higher up in the organization because we're touching so many things that involves it. And the the shipping manager just doesn't have the pull to get it even get you there, right? I mean, they're just afraid to even take you up. It's like, I gotta talk to your leader. You gotta take me there. It's like, and they just it's not the right. I think it's so critical the angle you enter a company. So when I look back all these deals is what is that story and what is that that angle you you penetrate initially the company and But bedside manners, are you doing that? And I found that if you go in quite high, maybe the board, and you really are respectful and you, you just navigate it well, I think that's deeply appreciated.

Yeah. And what makes you good at this? I mean, because you seem to be, you really study the game. You had that surgeon analogy.

I think so. But, and I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure it out, right? And I'm, I think I'm good. I'm, I think there's people that are way better than me. And what I try to do is figure out why are they way better and what do they do different? And I think that's the—

Yeah.

If I look who is really successful in our organization or outside our organization, if I see sales leaders that are just, or individual contributors that are really killing it, they never stop. They're always, okay, what's— what is somebody else doing better? Where am I missing it? And, and one thing that I like to do with, with my team, or when we're out, is to debrief after these meetings.

Yeah.

Because— and I was shocked that many people didn't really do that. And, and it's like, okay, what went well? What could have gone better? Where do we really need to improve on? And I think it helps. It helps me even so I'm often the most senior guy in that conversation. But it really helps me to recap it too. It's just, man, I messed up on that.

Yeah, because a lot of people just glaze over that. They can't separate the performance from the performer. Yeah.

And I think, I don't know, maybe it's laziness sometimes. It's just wanting to move on and The next one. That's what it is, right?

And what part or what sales characteristic do you feel is your strongest?

I think building the rapport with the customer, this trust that way you can They just trust, they tell you, they give you the bad news. They don't just ghost you. Still happens every once in a while to the best of us, I think.

Yeah.

But building that rapport and the customer really knowing that you really have their best interest. And I think once you can really bring that across, I think you have something special. And the answer may be no, but 6 months from now, or people move, right? I've been in this long enough now. I get a lot of business because people move. They, you know, it wasn't a fit there. They call me and said, man, that engagement was awesome. I get that very regularly that they, even so, for whatever reason, we didn't go this direction. We really appreciate the engagement, the professionalism. And I think that's awesome. That's an awesome compliment.

And how do you do that? Because a lot of people think it's talking about sports or weather.

I think, I think it goes back to what I mentioned earlier, is this taking the client, the customer by the hand as a trusted advisor, right? This, this classic trusted advisor role for not just the business, which, I mean, that's what we got to do, but for them personally. How would this— because any project or anything getting signed, somebody has somewhat their interest in mind in it. Either they want a promotion, they want to keep their job, whatever it is, right? And really understanding that well. And then by taking that even 2 or 3 steps further and say, hey, what's the next step for you there? Or hey, let me introduce you to XYZ. I think you guys really are a good match. And I think not a lot of salespeople maybe go that extra step to really build that connection.

I think they only want to do it once they get the order.

But the customer feels it. It's transactional, right?

Yes.

So now it's a— and now you have this, and I catch myself sometimes doing that as well, particularly when I don't like necessarily where I'm sitting with my numbers at a certain point. So the, the, if I'm way past my numbers, like my quota or things need to be, I way relax. way more and it becomes, but once it gets tight, right? It's like, man, that quarter, we've got that deal pushed and that's sometimes when we get more transactional, or at least that's what I, and it shows up very quickly. Yeah.

I mean, it's just a different part of your brain takes over. It's like necessity versus, you know, cerebral analysis of the deal. And how did you kind of discover the top-down approach? Did somebody, was that from training or was it from a peer or was it just frustrated trying to do it bottom up?

Yeah, I tell you, there was quite a bit of frustration in that process because, you know, I think I always enjoyed networking for some reason. Actually, I enjoyed it, right? I'm an extrovert. My wife is an introvert. And so it's seeing these differences, but I always enjoyed networking, helping people, having conversations, learning something, deep curiosity. And I think I had the ability at some point to really connect with these senior stakeholders. And at a whatever networking event, you know, wherever, figure out where they're at and then not have a pushy approach to it, to just build that conversation first. And this is what we do. And if timing is right, Would love to talk to the right people and on your side. And as soon as they know you're not going to be the bull in the china shop, because they've all been, all of these people been been burnt by letting a sales guy in that ruined for all the rest of us, right?

Like letting a stray dog in the house, right? Dog's so cute.

Yeah, that is you know.

And for the people listening, what do senior executives want to talk about?

Usually themselves or their goals for their organization. It's not boxes. They have zero interest about like, you know, feeds and speeds or, you know, why. So you gotta find the balance, right? And I have it so many times I show up to these meetings. It's like, oh yeah, I put your presentation on this. And I, I'm like, so like, hey, we're kind of— we're not really this kind of presentation company. It's a little controversial too, but like, I sometimes go to these meetings and all these people, and I, I sure that I have something so not totally awkward. I just want to have a conversation and understand what's going on and why do you guys even considering this. And, and then we can look at my sexy machines and all. I think people like that. It's really refreshing because they're so used to All right, now we sit through this presentation and no action.

And so I don't love that because it is awkward for a few minutes because they're expecting to just sit back, a little entertainment, a little education, and then tell you we'll be in touch, right?

And I think that's where the difference is between the guys that actually, you know, lock their FaceTime and And it's like, oh yeah, we had the meeting, went through the motion. And if you look like a salesperson, I think the one thing is if you look and look and talk and quack like a salesperson, you can treat it like one. Yes. And, and so I always try to just like, okay, how can I look absolutely the opposite of being a salesperson? And I think that, that, that's when I get the best traction.

Yeah, I always felt the best compliment I could get after a meeting is I'd be there with an engineer and they go, who's the salesperson?

Yeah. Yeah.

Because let's face it, you know, boxes are probably not the top of the CEO's priority list when you meet them.

It's not. And that's where we have to, it's even the smallest spend bucket usually in the distribution center, right? I'm like, it's, but Hey, your $10 million logistics spend, let's maybe have a conversation about that or about your parent company in Germany that deeply cares about CO2 emissions. And with our technology, we can reduce that by 30%, 40%. And now all of a sudden, it's like the board just like grilled him 4 times that he's behind on his numbers and they may be kicked out of some of these mutual funds. So that's why having these conversations, understand these CEOs, he is worried about that he maybe, if it's a public company, if he doesn't meet some of these CO2 objectives, there is certain funds, especially in Europe, that retirement funds that says, hey, companies that don't meet this, we're going to kick them out of our funds. And now we're talking about the stock price being, and once you can talk that language versus convincing the guy at the shipping dock that, you know, your box is better, So I think it's that secret sauce that you can have both conversations, right? You can have that conversation on a board level and the guy goes, man, this guy kind of knows his stuff, right? And the shipping guy goes, man, he knows his stuff. He knows what I have to deal with. And once you can herd all them together, then I think you got a winning proposition.

Now, when most people hear extrovert, they don't hear great listener. Great communicator. They kind of maybe the life of the party. What's your view of an extrovert?

Well, I think unfortunately I had to learn that listening part quite a bit. That was a long lesson and it took quite a while. I mean, even for the organization itself. So we had a lot of like Arbinger training and things like that to really, but if you want to be good, And have a good sales guy and have success in sales, you gotta be a good listener. You, that's the secret sauce. And well, so—

I mean, our primal need is to be understood and we're not gonna be understood by hearing somebody else tell us about a product.

That's it. And that, I think once I understood that, things really flowed and changed. So, and I, and I think there's still many salespeople that don't understand that.

No, it's like I've got to get my 4 points in, otherwise I'm not gonna get the deal.

Yeah.

Now, was the company supportive of this strategy or did they say, well, let's give it a week or 2 and see how it works?

No, I think that the, The company has been wonderful. I think this is one I'm fortunate to be part of. I think one of the best run sales organizations, I think, in the country, because I see, I know other salespeople. How we support the salespeople and leadership is supporting the sales team at PacSize is phenomenal. And we get that when we onboard new salespeople. They go like, wow, because I think they understood it. They understood it from When I started 14 years ago, this tiny company, and they wrote a check, I think over $100,000 for sales training that year. And yeah, and then it's like, okay, wow. And they understood that that pays the dividends. If you have a top-notch sales team that goes to market, that's the ticket. And so I've been very blessed here.

So you had the great conversation with the C-suite or the board? How do you keep the deal moving?

You, not always easy because it gets derailed, right? Or you go all the way through. And so you try to, I think you keep the finger on the pulse on what's going on, how are things shifting? You check in because sometimes I think what happens is they already took a turn somewhere else, different initiative, different— oh, and M&A is coming up, or— and you're still in your deal thinking to get it done, and that thing has already just like—

Yep.

So I think just staying up with the stakeholders and asking the questions, hey, are we still on track? And if not, always make it easy to give them, give them an out. We call it something like going for the no. So, like, going for the no is, hey, maybe right now is not the right time for this right now. All of a sudden they're like, these people are perfectly willing to go somewhere else. I think that's the key is to make it very easy for them to say, no, it's not the right time. Instead of you wasting countless hours and dollars flying to places that you don't need to visit.

And in these deals, who typically is the decision maker or the champion, the person who says we've got to do this? Not that, because I think everyone would think it's a good idea, but there's a big space between good idea and deal.

That is, that is right. It's different. It's different drivers with different companies. I mean, you can say kind of department, it's the COO is is at some point they get it. Sometimes purchasing is driving it, right? We always are like, oh, purchasing, we don't want to go there. We don't. And sometimes purchasing, depending on what industry or so, is sometimes the easiest run for me because I get the right person there. They say, well, I have a $10 million budget on this line item and I think I can reduce that by 20% like that. So you're gonna get the meeting maybe, right? So, or probably you're gonna get the meeting. And if they're the right guy, they can push you because they usually purchase has been there for a while. They don't usually tend to move around as quickly.

It's a life or job.

So, and if you can get them, if I had some great large organizations with plants all over the US where I made a great connection there, great trust, then we ran the numbers. Then I said, hey, let's, the numbers are really awesome, right? Let's dial them back even just a little bit, right? And so I'm the one dialing these deals back, right? And then clockwork, they would buy a new company and like the ink is dry, I'm on a plane with exact their numbers, right? I don't be guessing and bidding. They're like, we like this guy, we trust him. Can you fly out? We just bought that company, figure it out. And that's where you want to be, right? Ultimately.

And what do you wish you learned 13 years ago that You really have nailed today.

I don't know if I have nailed, but I think, listen, I'm still a student, truly listening.

Yeah.

Listening.

It's hard, isn't it?

It sure is.

It is. It is, you know, especially when your income, all this effort, you want to talk.

Yep. And I'm trying as good as I can. I have to remind myself, it's like, okay, it's, you gotta take it in and what else could this mean? And then once you start doing that for a while, you become a little bit calmer. And I learned great things from that.

And how did you develop the patience to stick with these long, large deals within large companies.

I think it's a very good point because it is mind-blowing sometimes. I look at some of these deals and they're like sometimes 2 years, 3 years sales cycles, which you think, I mean, you know, and when you talk, you sit in these great meetings and then going through like deals shouldn't take 3 years, but sometimes they do.

Change, you're selling change mostly.

Yeah, and, but, and sometimes they go super quick. I'm like, for us, and sometimes they take forever, and then you're almost there, and then the darn thing falls off the wagon again, and you gotta— that what got me to stick with it is that I've been now long enough here, and there's a great thing to be said if you're in an organization long enough that you see things come back around. So if you leave a great, awesome engagement you know, liked and trusted, right? So you may have had a run, turned into a dry run, didn't work. But the stakeholders have like, you know, really respected the process, the insights you brought. Often you get a chance the second time around, said, hey, we really appreciate you sticking with us. And that's what gets me there because I know, well, maybe not this year, but next year there's a good chance that this thing's gonna come around.

And I'm sensing that Your prospects want to talk with you, not just have to talk with you.

That's the— yes, I think by the nature of the product we developed and the marketing effort around it, the competitors that have implemented this, so it becomes a much easier conversation. Still not super easy.

Right.

But it's at the right level. It's like, here's what we do, right? We reduce CO2, we reduce your packaging, we reduce the shipping. You're going to get the elevator pitch. And if you build the rapport there and really listen to what they really want to accomplish, because it's probably— they're not even thinking about shipping costs. When they're not thinking about shipping costs or whatever, then you keep talking about that, you're done. So Figure out what they want to do and how you help them to get there.

Yeah. And what advice do you give to reps that come to you? Because I'm sure they they look at you and you're you know thirteen years you got a track record it probably looks easy to you and it's probably they're saying well it's because of your network or some other characteristic.

I I I love working because every time I mentor somebody or work with them, I learn something too, like just out of these debriefs, right? Because now I really do it. It's okay, I gotta mentor this person or, um, I think it's taking a clear seat on the customer side of the table, I think, or at least really getting that in their head because most junior sales guys are so on their side. I gotta make numbers, I'm behind, I gotta do this. Oh, we were supposed to present this new product, this new software that we just launched. And, you know, whoever launches this gets this extra whatever, gets their name on the board, or— and they're all in their head on all their stuff. It's like, okay. And having these debriefs on, so what do you think? What do you think the customer wanted to get out of the meeting? What do you think they got out of the meeting? What do you think they may didn't get out of the meeting they would have wished they got? Oh, you know, this I think that that's the biggest secret sauce, right? This listening we just talked about and getting them to really see the customer.

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

LinkedIn. I think it's the greatest platform. Love it. And so just look me up on LinkedIn. Be glad to connect.

So you thought you had a hard sell, huh? That's pretty hard, isn't it? But do you do a postmortem? You know, after that call? And what I teach in the course is, you know, how do you prepare for a call? Because we all think just because we've been doing it a million times that, oh, we got this down. That's your intuition talking. And your intuition in sales is usually wrong. Most of the time. And you're not going to really know it until you review it and think through it. Have a checklist of some kind. Have a flow. I know you've done it a million times, but pretty much every meeting, every sales call I've been on, I'm like, oh man, I wish I remembered to do this. And I know that if I prepare, I always do a lot better. The more I prepare, the better I do. And then after the call, you have that lesson and you think you're going to remember it next time. That's your intuition, and your intuition's wrong. You, you'll remember most of it, but winging it with your income is dangerous. It feels good and you can rationalize it away. But the money's not in the bank. Maybe do you want to rationalize that away? We're in a profession that requires a lot of preparation, a lot of process— ours, their process, our process. And if we don't really have a system, we tend to just go with our instincts, and our instincts are usually Way off. We do what the client wants instead of what we should do. We give too much without getting anything in back. And then when we want something, they'll give us the runaround. I talked about this in office hours yesterday. And if you have a system, you work the system because each call you kind of learn something new, don't you? A little deeper lesson, something you may already have known, but there's a distinction. These postmortems become your way of becoming better. And what I really liked about what he said was thinking like the client, kind of the next level of empathy, compassion, and mind reading, because that's the level we want. We want to be able to put ourselves in their place, feel what they're feeling, but we don't do that very often. What do we do? We do what serves us, what makes us feel better in the moment instead of in the long run. Because in the moment, we can rationalize anything away, but in the long run, if we don't get the deal, it was just labor. Maybe it was practice at best, but we really need to focus on closing the deals because if we don't close it, we don't get paid. So I really enjoyed that interview because I, I never would have thought of selling this top-down. Honestly, that, that, that would have eluded me. What I did like is he was talking about what they care about. Wasn't talking about the product, the features and benefits. He was getting to understand what drives them, what they care about, showing interest and empathy and compassion for what they're up against, keeping the process moving, touching all those departments that are affected. And there are a lot of them. And you're selling something that's not inexpensive. So, this is one I think you should save and listen to a few times, as well as some of the other episodes. I keep as many up there as the podcast players allow me, so I would definitely listen to them. They're also kept on YouTube if you'd like to watch YouTube and see the facial reactions. But imagine his story about coming over From Germany to go to college with a learning disability and then getting into sales in Texas. I covered Texas at one time. Great people, very straightforward. I found them, you know, I liked working with that. I like that model as opposed to a lot of other places in the country. People are nice. But they don't tell you the truth, or they're harsh and really hard to get time with. You really have to battle to get their attention. So what do you want to do with your career? Do you want to continue playing the game that you're playing? Because I think too many people today are treating sales and B2B like it's B2C. What do I mean by that? They're sending their ad in, their love letter, their little relevant and personalized email, and you know how well it works. And if it works good enough, stick with it. I never try to persuade people away from something that works. But if it's not working, you're not making the income you want, it comes down to starting conversations and getting meetings. And in the office hours yesterday, There were several people who were like, the only thing that's been working is what you teach in the other course. We were talking about closing the complex sale. And once you're in an account, you still have to network, prospect into the account because not everyone's gonna be behind what you're doing because it affects them. And people tend not to like change. And especially change that wasn't their idea. So you have to start a conversation with them. And when I talk with reps and I watch reps, especially on LinkedIn, because I love watching what other people do, and what I've noticed is most of them are at big brands. And I'm wondering, is it them or is it the brand? Now, I only worked for a big brand company once, and it was through an acquisition. And there were a lot of people there that were very successful, and little to none of it had to do with them, meaning that anybody would have been successful given that account at that time. Not that they weren't good people. You know, they were probably B, B+ players. But they shined because they got into the right role at the right time. And that's good if you can do it, but there were a sea of other people there that were equally as good that weren't doing half as well. And this is the old territory, uh, timing, and talent model. Well, You can either become really good at trying to find the territory and the timing. I've seen a lot of people try that. I was never really good at it. I was always too early. And I hated kissing up. I was usually just the opposite. I kind of ignored all of that stuff. So I had to rely on talent. But the good thing about talent is you have 100% control over it. Timing is a judgment call. You may be too early, you may be too late. Most people are too late. They, they try and get into a particular market once it becomes hot, but by the time everyone knows about it, it's now cooling off. Or if you're too early, you better have talent, because when you're too early, you get no inbound. There's no category established. People don't know what you're talking about. The problem is latent. It's not active. So you've got to do a whole lot more work. If you focus on your talent, no matter where you are, you have the talent. You own it.

You—

no one can take it away from you. Territory and timing, those are things you should be aware of. You should try and get better. You know, because what territory is really about, you know, managing your manager, and timing is your judgment on a particular opportunity at that time.

Good luck with that.

If you become good at that, yeah, great, but there's no real science to that. That's really a lot of things that are outside your control. And I've tried to, you know, attach my wagon to someone else's rocket, and they've made bad judgment calls, and there I was. So I never really had much success with that. If you do, congratulations. The best thing is, if your talent is high enough, people come looking for you. You get inbound on your career. So this is why focusing on your talent is so critical. And I see just too many empty suits regurgitating stuff and trying to take credit for what the company did for them. And now they're out on their own and they're not having any success because there's no talent there. It's just replication. Of someone else's talent. Building up your own talent is understanding the game, understanding the ingredients of the game and why it works and why other things don't work. And this is what I teach in the course. Most of it's counterintuitive because if it was intuitive, everyone would be good at it. And because what's everybody doing today? Sending their spam all day and hoping someone's interested. And everyone's become a spamologist. Let's analyze that spam. Good luck with that. Why not take a step back and understand how people make a decision? How people want to be approached by a stranger? This is how I came up with the course. Because when I went out on my own, I had nothing. It was me, me, a laptop, and a cell phone. Go to it, Brian. What, you know, you've been prospecting for 25 years. You were pretty good at it. And, you know, I got some from networking, but then 6 months later, I had nothing left. And yeah, I got some repeat business, some off the Some off of this and that, but not enough to keep me busy and make the money I wanted. I had to prospect. And I tried the usual, you know, cold calling and emailing, and it didn't— it was not worth the time. And I go, well, what, what do I always do? I break it down into tiny little steps. I used empathy. I said, put myself in the person's place. I go, what would they Want to engage with a stranger about? And it was them. Okay, I now know it's about them. How do I break it down again? And over the years, this course has become more popular than the core thing that I've been known for— closing the complex sale. And everybody thinks they know that as well. Well, that I studied for 25 years. I made my life's purpose being able to dissect that like an engineer and document it and put the ingredients and then simplify it so that anyone can learn it and keep track of it. The problem is everyone thinks they can do it in their head. I've never met a person yet that can. Some people, you know, after 5 or 10 years develop charisma or something that really gets them the results they want, business acumen, or some do. Very few. I'm talking like 1%. The rest rely on territory and timing. Don't be that person. That's the person that— that's the bat boy on the Yankees, meaning that They just happen to be there. The water boy, you know, they could be the same water boy at any other team. There's no particular talent. It's timing, getting the job, and territory, the winning team. Good luck with that. What do you have control over? Your talent. And you should focus on it because once you start that journey, you'll start to understand that This is what it's all about. Everyone thinks it's about just hard work. That's a part of it. The talent requires the change in yourself to take those emotions and separate it from the performance, what you do. If the performance is bad, it doesn't mean you're bad. It means the performance is bad.

That's okay.

You make it better. Doesn't mean that you're now a better person. You're the same person. Performance is better. But to understand why something works and why it doesn't and how to win the game, put your ego aside. Your ego in sales can kill you. It can help you too, but it can really get in your way of learning. You know, the know-it-all. And the know-it-all is the trap that most of us fall into 2 or 3 years into sales. We get a little comfortable. We like that level of confidence. But it's much more confident to be curious about what you do not know, because that is a sea of opportunity. And even if you've been doing this for 100 years, you probably know At best, 60, 70% of what's out there. When a deal fails to close, do you even know? I don't know. You have, you have a speculation, you have some evidence, but most likely you're believing what you want to believe. You're confirming something that makes you feel comfortable. Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting, and Winning the Complex Sale. Now, here's the beauty of it. The, the core material is great, but it's just the start. Have one-on-ones. They're on a first-come, first-served basis, and we cover pretty much every possible business-to-business market. How do we learn? We learn from others' mistakes. That's what a genius does. If you have to make them yourself, well, it's going to be a long road. Why not learn from others? Office hours every other Friday. You never miss them. I record them. I put them back in the course. You can watch them as many times as you want. The learning management system has a smartphone app, so if you like to work out, Go for walks, hang out. You can play office hours or one-on-one at your leisure, as many times as you want. You have access for a year. Do not think about this as a course— I took it. No, you continue to take it. And guess who learns the most out of it? Me. And I put it back in the course. Not one Office Hours has been a repeat in 5 years. So we're talking about over 120-some now. New topics, new distinctions. That's how deep sales is. You can ignore it, but that doesn't mean it's not there. Become a student of the game. Invest a year of your life in into really digging into sales and see how much you can learn and how much better you can become. And guess what the outcome is? Money, right? That's why we're here, folks. Go to b2brevenue.com, check them out right now. Uh, check out the other podcast, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers. And if you see my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a little like, a little comment, a little share. You can check me out on YouTube at Brian Burns Sales on YouTube. We'll see you next time.