HOW TO PROSPECT INTO THE MOST DIFFICULT MARKETS IN B2B SALES AND SELLING

Hey, before we get into the interview, I want to make sure you're aware of the other podcasts I put out there. Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers. So, if you're looking for more of a daily Q&A, tips and tricks type of show, that's the show for you. Also, check out our friends over at brevitypitch.com. Brevity Pitch is an AI product that allows salespeople to practice their sales conversations without anybody eavesdropping. on you or judging you. It just lets you warm up and then develop your skills. Because we can think it, we can plan it, uh, but until we open our mouth and practice it, it's a different thing. It's like watching somebody play golf. You gotta play golf to become good at golf. That's what brevitypitch.com does for you. Tell them Brian sent you.

Here we go. Great.

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

Okay. So yeah, I've been in sales for 25 years in financial services. I work currently for a financial technology company, MBS Source. So half of my career was spent in institutional Fixed income sales and trading in trading desks at some of the banks, the regional banks and broker-dealers. The first half of my career was with wealth management, working at firms such as Charles Schwab and Citibank and Dreyfus Corporation.

And what attracted you to the sales side of it as opposed to the quant side or the trading side? Or I don't know the space very well, so my questions may seem naive.

Well, great question. I guess it's my inclination to engage with people.

Yeah.

You know, I'm more of a people person than a numbers person, though I had to work really hard at coming up to speed on the numbers side. But yeah, I guess it's connecting with people. That's the main driver.

And why'd you choose finance as— or the financial markets as opposed to another sales career? Did you fall into it or was it attraction?

It was an attraction, to be frank. Right out of college, I worked for a software company at the time, Computer Associates. You know, I started in the call center and was working my way up to an account manager. And, you know, that was the early to mid-'90s. And, you know, Wall Street was very hot and people were making a ton of money. So that attracted me. You know, that job was based out in Long Island, and I liked the action. All the action was happening in Manhattan. So I guess it was sort of the fear of missing out and curiosity.

Yeah, young guy doesn't want to be stuck out on the island, does he?

Exactly.

And how'd you get good at sales?

Oh, it took a long time. So I worked with, you know, I'd worked at different firms. I came across many different managers and peers, and I just tried to emulate the successful people. So one of my jobs, I actually worked with my brother and brother-in-law at a retail investment shop in the Pardon me, in, in the mid-2000s, mid-1990s. And he was a, a mentor of sorts on the sales side. So I was able to pick up a lot from him and he always gave me the old school books of Bernie Baruch and Zig Ziglar and guys like that. So I, I, I always wanted to improve and get to the next level for myself on the sales side because they don't teach you that stuff in college.

No, they don't.

And I don't believe anyone's a natural born salesperson. You may have attributes, But it's a learned process, and we can get into that later. You see different styles. But so it was a little coaching and picking things up. And really the thing is recognizing successful people and emulating that. And that could be, you know, that's up to you. Do you want to get to the next level? Are you going to reach out to that person? Are you going to keep searching if that person doesn't work out or doesn't want to help? Are you gonna look at somebody else? And you know, back then, the really wasn't the internet and nothing. The amount of information that we have today that you could look up at a YouTube video. So you really had to, you know, seek it out. So I was fortunate enough that people were nice enough to to lend an assistance. Like I mentioned, my brother-in-law was very helpful. And then certain I had a sales manager when I worked at Charles Schwab who very. who basically went out of his way to make sure that you had all the tools you needed as a salesperson and gave us and recommended certain people for specific sales training. So that was very, very helpful. And are you—

who do you sell to today? Is it other banks?

It's institutional investors. So it's banks and broker-dealers, like I said, the primary regional banks and broker-dealers, and also the investor community. Think of asset managers, mutual fund companies, insurance companies, State pension funds, endowments, foundations, anyone that's considered an institutional investor.

And how do they like to be connected with? I mean, I got to imagine they're not social butterflies.

Correct. So in, in fixed income, especially in the mortgage market, you're dealing with many quants, folks that are well-educated, highly intelligent, extremely logical and analytical. So the approach is different, right? You, you know, from sales, there's the 4 basic quadrants of sales: amiable, expressive, driver, and analytical. So your message is the same and how you, how you deliver that message depends on the, the personality type. So you try your best to pick up on that where they are in the quadrants.

Yeah.

And then deliver the message in that fashion.

So I got, I got to imagine most of them are analytical.

Analytical. Yes. Majority are analytical and you get a little bit of a driver, you know, the heads of the desk. Yeah. So it's one or the other where when in wealth management you have all the 4 quadrants pretty much at any given time within your client base or your prospect base.

And how do you get their attention? Because I'm sure you're not the only person contacting them.

Great question. So there's different ways. We can do it. You know, basic marketing, word of mouth. But the real why of the why is delivering, you know, the elevator pitch in a succinct way. How could you demonstrate your value prop and get an expression of interest from the client?

Right?

So to me, being I grew up in the, you know, in the industry, in the mid-'90s. It, it, I'm, I do it by phone the best. Yeah. You know, it's being pleasantly persistent and then building the rapport from there. So it's, it's kind of outreach via phone and trying to build rapport as quickly as possible.

And what was the hardest part of becoming good in this particular, because I could imagine it's an enormous amount of rejection.

It is. Oh, so there's a few lessons to learn. It's a great point. You fail fast. You know, that's our mantra here. But in general, so you have to get creative, and you have to try. You can't sit back and, and wait and let things happen. That's never going to happen. You have to go out and go for it. You need to develop a baseline. Once you understand the concept of how many calls or meetings does it take to get to the next yes or acceptance in the, in the sales stages, right? You develop your baseline and then you try to improve your baseline. So, and then it's constantly, you know, the old school term sharpening the saw. It's constantly either demonstrating or pitching or working on your sales skills, like not sitting back and say, oh, I've reached the top of the mountain, I'm good. I don't need to do anything. You have to constantly push yourself and improve and tweak and recalibrate and improve, test it. Right? So it, it's a process. It took many years. It, it was hard, you know, it was, it was hard because you need a good mentor. I've had mentors along the way, which I mentioned earlier, but that's definitely a big, big plus. If I think I didn't have those mentors, it would've taken me longer to figure out.

Yeah. And did you have a particular practice routine or—

Yes.

You did?

Yeah.

So, so regardless of where, whether I'm talking to wealth management, retail clients, or institutional clients, I try quickly to get to break up the prospect or account base into A, B, and C. Right? So the A's would be the Pareto principle, 80/20.

Yeah.

Right? Who, who are those, who are those A clients, the 20% that are gonna deliver 80% of the revenue, right? So then your B's are, you know, kind of the level below that and the C's that are, ah, they're not worth pursuing now, but maybe I can reengage if something changes with them or with the product I'm using, right? So it's coming to that conclusion as quick as possible and cultivating that. And then in addition, prospecting actively, right? And then you get on a flywheel and you take, you take what I said earlier with the baseline and you overlay it on top of that and now you have your metrics. So as an example, when I was in wealth management in particular, I knew every time I dialed the phone how much that would cost me or how much I would make each dial. Right? So that took time. I read many good books as well. Nick Murray is a— was basically putting out sales books for wealth management. And there was a couple others. I unfortunately don't remember the author's name, but a wholesaler from MFS had given me this to help get my career to the next level. So he was sort of a mentor again. And that book was extremely helpful, this ABC concept. You could call it 1-2-3, whatever you want. But that I started to apply that probably around the early 2000s.

And because that Pareto principle, because that kind of compounds, because the— you take the 20% of the A's, they generate 80% of the A revenue and it keeps going.

Yep.

And it seems like the smartest reps Get hyperfocused.

Bingo. I mean, it's a want, it's the desire of the salesperson, right? That hyperfocused, you know, you see it on the sales desks or the trading desks. 80% of the revenue comes from, you know, 5 guys. What is everyone else doing? You see that all the time. So the people that are successful are hyperfocused and then within their client base, It's that same energy and focus. Absolutely.

Yeah. And how about as far as building trust? Because I got to imagine if they don't know you, great, they don't believe you, right? Or they, they're skeptical at best.

Right. I could talk for hours about this alone. So when I mentioned the phone call earlier, the quickest way to build rapport is not an instant message or an email. It's a phone call. The more I talk to you, the quicker we can build rapport. And the analogy I make is if you had to memorize something, you could see it, you could listen to it, or you could write it down. So writing down is the best way to memorize something the quickest, really, right? Unless you have a photographic memory. So the phone call is equivalent to the writing it down. Like in, in elementary school, you took notes, or in junior high school. You wrote everything down to help you memorize it in class. So it's the same concept. So what I do aside from that, I look for the hinge in the relationship. Is there a commonality? Is the person for—

Yeah.

Someone on the West Coast, did they grow up on the East Coast? Can I connect with them? Did they play a sport? Do they have a favorite sports team? Do they have a, a passion? Do they like music? Whatever that is. You know, you gotta, you have to uncover and identify the hinge. That's, that's one part of the process. The other process is no one really cares how smart you are.

Nope.

So you, you see people fail all the time or get frustrated because they wanna sound a certain way or come across a certain way and they're worried. And, you know, not to be cliché, but people don't care what you have to say until they know you care. And that's so true. And whether you're talking institutional, you know, clients or prospects or retail in my case, in my world. So it's relating, it's being relatable. It's a relationship. Let's face it, right? You're trying to build a relationship.

And people from the outside, maybe management or just strangers to this, would think that, no, if you've got a great product, just tell them why it's great. You're laughing, right?

Yeah, we both get it, right?

It's like, but everybody has a great product.

Correct.

They wouldn't be there if they didn't think it was a great product. That's right.

You could have the best product in the world and what's it gonna do? Sit there? Who, the developers and programmers or whoever engineered, let's say a website or a portal. And, and now what?

And how about young people? Do, do they see the hinge as just old school? Waste of time?

Great question. I think some would, you know, that's a whole other topic. The, you know, yeah, I don't think they see it a waste of time. There are some very talented young folks. We have some working for us. We, you know, we've had some that worked with us. So I think they get it. I mean, it's, it's like, I think it's basic sales. And for the people that get it and want to do it, they understand that. We had a successful gentleman that worked with us, a younger, younger guy. And throughout college, he paid his way selling cars. He got it. We plopped him in here. And he was off to the races. He was fantastic because he understood that. He was the type of person that, as far as the hinge, we'd go out to meet clients, he'd have all their personal cell phone numbers in his cell phone. And he'd be, he would be texting them on our way to the office. So he got it. So they do get it. They do get it.

And how have you maintained not sounding like a salesperson? Because you don't sound like a salesperson.

So thanks for that. So, you know, people have this, you know, yeah, this misconception that everyone's a used car salesman with a 5 o'clock shadow and slicked back hair. Talking fast. From from my personal point of view and opinion, it's being authentic again. It's we go back to what I said earlier: the relatability. You have to be yourself. You have to be authentic. Why would you try to be something you're not? Just be yourself. You know, if you worry about smart, logical, smart people will understand what you're saying if it's a dialogue, not you pontificating or talking down to them or. the other way, putting them up on a pedestal and being afraid of the client. If you approach it as a win-win and a peer, you relate, it's a dialogue, you know, I think that's part of it, being authentic.

And how complex are these sales? How long do they take? How many people get involved?

It's a great, another great question. They are very complex. So if I may, Brian, the— I've sold between my retail days and my institutional days. I basically sold every financial product to every type of investor under the sun. Now, about 7 years ago, I moved into the financial technology space. And in the mortgage market in particular, we deal with mortgages and structured product. It's extremely complex. The instruments are complex. Navigating the clients and the firms are complex. So you may have someone that likes it, let's say a trader on the front lines, but they need a level of approval. And then you have to go up the chain. Then there's legal, regulatory, antitrust, anti-competition committees. I mean, so the cycle, to be frank, it could, it could, I've, I've been involved in cycles where it took 18 months. Where everyone at our level, the end user wanted to use it and the manager leader of that group wanted to use it, but it got caught up in legal. What can I do? On the other extreme, we have situations even now where we prevent— we provide a live walkthrough and demonstration of the platform and we get a trade done on the spot or we get the client to engage on the spot. So it really depends on the persona, knowing your client and how to engage them and, you know, just do a good job of listening, try to, and a good job of customer service.

And do you like this type of sale versus the dealing with the sole decision maker? They don't really, I guess you always have to talk to the people they live with and the people that the money is dependent on.

My personality type? Yeah, I enjoy, I enjoy any, and I feel like I'm confident in my ability that I can handle or pivot whatever's thrown at me. But basically what it boils down to, I'm up to the challenge. So I don't have a preference really one over the other. Well, I shouldn't say that. Obviously, if I can get someone to close on the first call, it's fun. That's the best.

It's immediate.

Yeah. You strive for that. But the challenge is always great. That's, that's the driving element for me.

Because I've seen a lot of people struggle going from a single call sale to an individual decision maker to a B2B complex sale that takes long times, many different people. Yeah. Because I gotta imagine the trader probably loves your product.

Great question. Yeah, we see that, and I've seen that throughout my career, not only where I am here, but we have folks that were traditional sales and trading professionals that were used to calling up, hey Brian, I got you looking for this bond or whatever yesterday, and we have it today at this price. What do you think? Versus a workflow solution that incorporates data trading analytics and selling that idea not only to the traders, as you mentioned, they, they would love it, but the broader organization or the decision makers there. So many people, more people than not, uh, can't make that transition.

Yeah, because you get used to a certain style and skill set and belief And then they, they hear the trader say, yeah, I want it, I need it.

I—

company can afford it, obviously, but I can't get it done. And then the sales rep has never worked inside a company, doesn't understand the purchase request process, the legal process, the sign-off process, the procurement process. And they go, I gotta find someone else. And they just keep going and starting a bunch of deals, but struggle to close them.

Yes. And that's a, that, that, that's a big, that's a big pain point. The initial dialogue or the initial engagement is very strong and then things sort of wane or fizzle out. And how do you keep that going? And really, have you, you know, you can go back to what we said earlier, Brian, have you connected? You have the relate— have you kind of built a foundation of relationship? Do you have a beachhead there, an advocate? Have you demonstrated properly the value of this platform and how it solves a pain point or an issue for the client? So that's where the disconnect is. If you don't match that up, you're never gonna— or it's gonna be much harder or longer to close that cycle, that loop.

Yeah. And then you have to become good at communicating that value up the organization for the people who don't use it. And don't understand how it works and doesn't— don't care. Yes.

Now, it's a little— it's a great point. And in our industry, so in our industry, you know, this, the New York— I love making this analogy— New York Stock Exchange now is a television studio. So my point is that went electronic. So that's kind of the sort of blueprint, Right?

Yeah.

So the next shoe to drop was corporate bonds, where you had Treasury bonds. Those trade electronically. The FX market, roughly 90% of it trades electronically. Corporate bonds, roughly 40 to 50% trade electronically. In our particular space, less than 2% trades electronically. So when we engage a firm, they're already trading in those other asset classes electronically. We need to get those folks to understand, hey, they're doing it over there in that group. It's the same thing, except it's in this space with these types of bonds. So if you can get to that person and accelerate that, then, then you're in. So there is an understanding. There may not be an immediate understanding because this, this market is— the mortgage market is still about 15 years behind the other asset classes. In digitizing. So, but once you, once you get, I think, to that level, I think they, they have an understanding. Because think about it, these, these companies spend millions of dollars on technology and infrastructure. They want to work efficiently, do more with less, streamline everything, right? Think of the old file cabinets in the old offices. Now everything's in the cloud, right? So.

Well, that's it. You watch like The Big Short and stuff. And you see them create, you know, financial instruments.

That's right.

And how do you keep track of all that stuff? You know, it just goes in the file cabinet until something goes wrong.

Right.

And then they pull it out and they go, what does this mean?

Yeah. Well, the firms like, like the electronic systems.

Yeah.

You know, flash crash. There's a, there's a digital fingerprint. There's an audit trail.

Yeah.

So it's easier from a risk and compliance standpoint to see what went wrong or who's doing what or not doing something that they, you know, um, and, and of course for the, on the traders, you could do more with less. You could multitask, you can combine what you used to do, 4 or 5 tasks into one, one, one or 2 clicks and you're doing the same thing. So.

And what skill do you wish you learned back in the mid-'90s that you have today? Golf. Yeah.

Yeah. That's, that's one.

For business or for fitness?

Oh, for business. For business. Yeah. But what skillset? That's a great question. Give me a sec to articulate this. Probably How could I say? Probably having a—I don't know if it's a skill set—being a little bit more bold. Yeah, yeah. Being a little bit more more confidence, being bold, believing in in what you're capable of. I think had I done that sooner, you know, maybe being more you know asking seeking out more mentorships. I had some good, like I mentioned, mentors along the way. Maybe seeking somebody. to, you know, get under their wing and kind of coach you up. Not that they had to do everything for you, but kind of some, a sounding board to bounce ideas off of.

And does that, the financial industry support that? Because I only know it from the movies and I had one friend who was a commodity broker, so it seemed cutthroat from what I, I see.

Well, that's funny. So I was thinking about this leading up to this call, if this was going to come up. And it's cutthroat. No one cares. I don't care what they say, what they put on the poster or what email or thing they put on LinkedIn. No one cares. It's all about, at the end of the day, it's about the money. And it's, it is cutthroat. You know, if you got fired tomorrow, someone, they're waiting in the wings to take your, your prospects or your book. They don't care. No one. I would, would even probably argue, I mean, this is so negative. I'm, I'm such a po— Optimist, but people probably root for certain people to fail so they can get their hands on their book or, you know, this person's too much of a competitor to me or they may outshine me or they're keeping pace with me. I mean, all that sort of psychology comes into it. It does. It is cutthroat. Yeah, it is.

And is there much compounding through the career as far as the relationships that you built on the customer side and I guess on the the corporate side as well? Or is it start from scratch every time?

No, no, no, no. There's a, there is a compounding. There's, you know, it's with LinkedIn now and social media, it's much different. You can leverage resources and people and relationships that you've built along the way. So yeah, it's very powerful. So you do know, There's an understanding of, of let's say a firm or a prospect at let's say at your new firm, but that's new to the firm, but you, you're very familiar with them. So it's easier for you to navigate even though you may be in a different product. Yeah. You know who to call or reach out to and people, if you've done it right and done the right thing by people and been honest and authentic, people will help you out. And I could say many times people have, you know, gone above and beyond to help me out, to introduce me to people or, um, connect me with the right folks, or to resume the trading relationship. And definitely, yeah, because I did cover low—

the financial Lower Manhattan for like 6 months, and I was always shocked that it was such a tight community. People knew each other. We go out to dinner and bars and it's like everybody knew each other.

Yeah. And some people are great at it. I mean, some people, I mean, I've worked with some incredible people and, you know, you'll be walking down the street, people give a shout out. You go to some restaurant on the other side of town, they run into people there. So yeah, so within Wall Street, within fixed income and within, let's say, corporate bonds, or in my case, mortgages, you get the circles get tighter and tighter. Yeah. So, and people, you know this from any organization, whether it's Wall Street or not, people talk.

Oh yeah.

You know, good, you know, bad news travels what, 10 times faster than good news? But people talk and yeah, people rely on each other for, in that, and we're an information game in Wall Street. It's all about the data, you know, what prices, what flow are you seeing? So yeah, people, relationships are important. I think they're extremely important, often overlooked.

And how much of your off time do you spend with the dinners, the breakfasts, the lunches, the cocktails at happy hour to kind of cultivate those relationships? Is that one night a week, 5 nights a week? Is that—

It— oh, it depends. So I'm going, if I may, Brian, I'm going to go back to pre-COVID when things were normal. So you would go out 2 to 3 times a week depending on the role. Once a week, you know, it depends on, you know, family obligations or, you know, how much of your client base is in New York. I mean, how often, if someone's like doing good business with you, maybe, you know, once a week works or once every month, every other month. It really depends. But I think in like a vendor type of role, which we are in now, I think the, The more you can get out, the better. I mean, I would say probably 3 times a week and it, yeah, it's lunches, it's conferences, it's desk visits, it's dinners, it's grabbing a drink or a coffee. Yeah, it's very important.

And is your sale kind of a beauty contest or is it disruptive? Are there like 5 people in your space and you have to—

Great. Yeah, it's a great question. So There's no one with the— it's not crowded. We are more disruptive. We like to consider ourselves an emerging technology. We're not a startup, but we are definitely disruptive and very little competition in only securitized products or mortgages. No one's doing what we're doing, combining again all 3 Data trading and analytics.

And when you're looking for a salesperson, what are the top three things you're looking for?

Oh, great grittiness, resourcefulness, fearlessness. You know, I don't care about you know age is irrelevant, school is irrelevant. Your degree is irrelevant. You know, you, you need, you need certain attributes. How much do you want to succeed? Will you do basically anything? Or are you gonna sit and wait for the phone to ring? Are you gonna go out and make things happen? Right? When you get kicked down or you thought you had a good prospect or a, a, a good client situation materialize and it didn't, you know, how do you pick yourself back up? What's that resiliency look like? Where's that resourcefulness, that resolve? Right. That's the grittiness.

Did you have that at first? Or—

Myself? Yeah. Yes. So I played competitive sports in college. I played sports growing up. And yeah, I was always— well, I played Division I, and I was short for Division I. And that can— that you know, that underdog or that always drove me to, to prove people wrong. Oh, you're too small, you're too slow, you're too this, right? So that grittiness, I mean, and that competitiveness is, it's part of me, you know, like my personality. So that was the, I, I had, my challenge was to find a way to channel that in the sales process, which I eventually cracked the code.

And how'd you do that? How'd you crack the code? Because some people, They can take it from, you know, coaches and stuff and competitors, but when they get their first hangup or their first expletive hangup, yeah, they tend to take it personally.

Well, yes. So I had to learn. That's, that's a good— I'm glad you brought that up. I worked at the Dreyfus Corporation in sort of the wealth management space. And that was my first taste. An irate client called up yelling. You know, it was kind of in my book assigned to me, and I took that call. The woman's a very nice woman. She ripped my head off. She didn't know me. I didn't really know her. But yeah, I had to deal with it. I'm a big boy now. I have to step up and like a man deal with this. And I just heard her out and listened and, you know, was empathizing again, trying to build a relationship. Listening, listening. And then, hey, we could offer this or this solution. Did you think about this? Why don't you think about it and let's have a further discussion next week and we'll take it from there. It turned out to work out for both of us. So, yeah, that's when I realized, yeah, I realized, yeah, don't take it personal. You see people get knocked down in sales and demoralized. They take it personal. You can't, you need thick skin. So I, I have a good friend of mine that's a chiropractor and he always, I forget what book he referenced, but he always said the, talked about the rhino. The rhino has thick skin, it runs fast, and it's, it's got a horn to smash, smash through obstacles. So you need to develop that. So that's maybe answers your question from earlier. I wish I would've realized that. that I had a spirit animal in the rhino earlier in my career. You have to develop that thick skin and don't take it personal. The quicker you get to a no, let's say rejection, quicker you get to that, that decision, the sooner you can move on to a better opportunity, get to your next yes. You know, that's so cliché and such an old school sales thing, but it's true. And that's, I talked about the baseline. That's part of the baseline.

Yeah. So, hey, I really appreciate your time, Rich. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

On LinkedIn, Richard McCarrick. And if anyone is interested in electronic trading data and analytics for mortgages, institutions, we're at MBSSource.com. So thank you very much, Brian.

And to become great at sales, The best way is to model somebody who already has become good at sales and to hear other people who have become great at sales and the journey that they're going through, the false beliefs, uh, the, the misnomers, the mindset issues, all of the stuff that gets in our way between where we are and the income that we want. Let's face it, we're in sales because we're money motivated, we're competitive, we want to be better every day than we were yesterday. And how do we do that? Hmm, just really, you know, read a book, listen to a podcast. That's good. Good start. I like it. But then you have to take action. And then you want both tactical and strategic ideas. You want mindset. You want strategy. You want to understand how companies buy. You want really deep content and examples, case studies, so that you can learn from other people's mistakes. That's what I'm here for. I'm here for you to learn from my mistakes. And boy, do I got a lot of them. So go to b2brevenue.com, sign up for the courses. There's 2 major ones. Start the conversation, get the meeting, fills up your pipeline, gets rid of that problem of, oh, I don't have enough leads. I don't have enough meetings. It gets those conversations started with the people you want to talk to. Now, it's not about a pitch. It's about a conversation. Now, everybody thinks of conversations when you're talking or you're online at the same time, or you're on the phone or Zoom at the same time. That's not a conversation. A conversation's when the client is talking about what they care about, what they're interested in. And that is what we call qualification, where we can sense where are they and how do we build up that curiosity into interest, into urgency to get a deal. And these are skills that we need. They're lifelong skills that we need in sales. And then how do we get a deal closed? Yes, anyone can take an order, but what if they don't know how to get it done? You got a new account where you're trying to get a big change done internally. What are the issues? If you're not planning that through, odds are it's not going to get done no matter how much your champion wants it. So winning the complex sale solves that problem for you. Why waste all your time on these false positives or these no decisions? Because they don't pay very well. They pay 0.0. What you want to do is pay a lot. So sign up today. Invest in yourself. You're the asset in sales. Quit waiting for somebody else to approve it or train you. See if you can get it expensed. That should be your first sales obstacle. Your first sales challenge is how do you get your company to pay for it? Just go down, tell your manager you want to do this. I put a little example email in the show notes right below here. Just swipe up and take a look at that. And if they won't, you got to ask yourself, why won't you? Why won't you? Why won't you? Oh, it takes time. Well, you work all day. You're working wrong all day. Why not improve that? There's the time right there. Oh, the money, Brian. It's money. Well, you make more money if you become better in sales. And Start the Conversation pays for itself the first week because you're going to get at least 2 meetings Just learning from the very basics of it. Closing the Complex Sale will pay for itself 100 times over. Students in it tell me it's the best money they ever spent because they now have control over their deals. And it doesn't end. Some give up. Some give up after they win their first deal and they think they've got enough. No, come back. Come back. Keep going. You can get even bigger deals, more deals, faster deals. That's what it's all about. Sign up today. Put the excuses away. Yeah, excuses feel good, but they're expensive. Excuse— you know what the excuses are costing you? Tens, 50, maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in lost income.

Really?

Yeah. The difference between where you are today— let's say you're making $150,000. Decent, decent income. But you know, there's other people in your industry making $300K, $400K, $500K. Well, how are you going to do that? You all think it's just about getting a better job, a better territory, a better manager. They can help. Go do that. Then what happens? It's still you there with those leads, trying to close those deals. And Do you have the game? Few people do. Everyone thinks they do. Why not prove it? The market tells you what you're worth. Accept it. Now become better. And the way to become better is to improve every day. Really make a daily routine of learning and developing because it's not at the knowledge level. You have to become unconsciously competent at these skills, which takes time, repetition, and emotion. And I show you how to do it, how I did it, how I've taught hundreds of people to do it. But you have to want to because I can't force you. A lot of people wish I could. So do I, but I can't. So sign up today. We'll see you next time.