HOW TO SELL CHANGE AS WELL AS YOUR PRODUCT IN B2B SALES AND SELLING

One theme keeps repeating itself in a lot of these interviews of great salespeople, and that is they've had some type of performance activity earlier in their life. Doesn't mean you can't sell if you don't have it. It just helps because it becomes a metaphor and a mindset as you go through sales. Too often, if you don't have the performance mindset, you have the knowledge mindset where you either know it or don't know it. Now imagine applying that in music. Everybody knows the song. Doesn't mean you can play it. Doesn't mean you can play it well. And that's the distinction— how well you play it versus can you play it. Now, Music has a different characteristic as well, and it's something that kind of surprised me. It was kind of a— to say it's an epiphany would be foolish. It was just a duh type moment for me. When I run, I've always listened to podcasts. Why? Because I felt, hey, I'll use this time to learn something, to expand my perspective. To understand how other people are doing things. And it pays off. It works. That's true. Nothing wrong with it. But it doesn't really motivate you. It doesn't ignite kind of that primal energy within me, or within you, within anyone. What I did recently is I switched to music on my workout, my run. Especially on the last half of it. I still do the podcast to warm up because I don't want to go crazy, but my time was substantially reduced, meaning that I was running a lot faster. And I tried a lot of different things— running coach, weight training— and it all helped. Nothing wrong with it, but it didn't have that, uh, big of an impact. And the simple thing of switching from audio podcasts to music, you know, an inspirational type playlist had an enormous impact. Now that can work for us in sales. If you need a little confidence, a little energy, music's a great place to go because it cuts through You know, thinking. This podcast, I'm thinking. The good part is it distracts me. I don't think about the pain or the darkness, or, you know, I just start it and I've got a good hour ahead of me and I don't feel like doing it. I just keep going. I'm distracted. The music distracts me but motivates me. It really fires me up. There's other ways to do it. You can do it through competition. All kinds of ways. But music, it's enjoyable. And what we're going to talk about today is kind of how that correlates to sales and how this sales rep has been able to connect with other people. Now, when you have the performance mindset, sales makes a lot of sense. Because you're used to it. You're used to a lot of things don't work. There's no perfect in sales. It's really binary in most cases. You either get the order or you don't get the order. Yeah, you can get a bigger order, you get it faster with less headaches, all good. But as long as you get the order, it's a good thing. Let's get into this interview. And you know what else? I need to share with you. Musicians practice, right? Athletes practice. Bartenders, they work a lot. So there's plenty of practice in there in an 8-hour shift. But what distinguishes the successful ones, the great ones, is how well they do it. Same is true with sales. Ask yourself, do I have that performance mindset or am I focused on the knowledge mindset where you say, I know that? Doesn't matter that you know it. Or what I used to hear from other reps is, I did that. Yes, you did something like that, but it wasn't exactly that. And the tiny little distinctions— because when you see somebody do something poorly, play a song, perform, uh, tell a joke, whatever it is, sometimes you can't tell What was wrong with it? Timing was a little off. Volume was a little off. Same is true with sales. We gotta keep practicing. And how do you do that? Well, most people do it on live customers. Now imagine going to a concert where you anticipate a perfect performance and the person's winging it. You wouldn't feel very good. You'd want your money back. Or a comedian comes out after a rough night and didn't warm up and is kind of— the timing's off. Not good, right?

With—

how do we practice in sales? Brevity Pitch has solved this problem because it's realistic. It's not a robot. It's a realistic voice with realistic questions, with realistic Objections and pushback. It's engaging in real time, no latency. This is how we're going to have to practice in the future. And you cannot like to practice. Few people do. There's no surprise there. Professional athletes, most of them tell you they hate practice. Some love it, but most, it's like, come on, I've been playing basketball my whole life. Do I really need to practice? Yes, the best do. The best don't just grind through the game. They grind through the practice because they know the practice wins the game. Same is true with sales. Same is true with every performance profession. Grab your manager, go check out brevitypitch.com. It is game-changing. And if you're a manager, well, my reps won't do that. Really? They won't do that? You hired salespeople who don't want to become better salespeople? Then you probably hired the wrong salespeople. One guy on LinkedIn told me this is the same thing as a TPS report. And I go, well, a TPS report is a waste of time. Practicing makes you better. Practicing increases your likelihood of winning. And not wanting to do it, you really— it's really ego, isn't it? And I get the little apprehension at first. It's new, it's different. But boy, when you start getting used to it, it's gold. Let's get into the interview. I'll sum it up at the end.

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

Hey, Brian, happy to be here. Thank you for having me. So I started in sales pretty, at a pretty young age, I would say. I actually went to college for music, did not graduate. But then I moved to Nashville to pursue a music career further and in the process got a job selling life insurance. So that was an experience, kind of a— that's a tough thing to sell, kind of morbid.

Yeah.

But yeah, so that opened my eyes to the world of sales, the skill, how valuable it is. And then from there, at about the age of 20, 19 or so, I Moved to Pennsylvania and started at a company called FSIP Electronics. And so what we do is we sell forklift parts. So whether it be anything on the forklift, so it could be the charger, the electronic control, and then also like industrial battery testing and reconditioning machines. And that's like the high-ticket item that we demo and we sell. So I focused on that. But yeah, so I started as a technician, learned the technical side of it, and they gave me a shot in sales and put up some numbers and it kind of went from there. So.

Well, let's start with the music. What was the instrument and why college versus just—

Well, yeah, I never thought I would get into college, honestly. I was Did not have good grades in high school whatsoever. Barely, barely graduated. But my primary instrument is drum set, and then I do play a little bit of keys. And yeah, so I applied to this school thinking, you know, there's no way I'll get in. This is like a, you know, the top school, and ended up getting an audition and got in.

So, and did any of the music practice or mindset or whatever transfer into sales, or was it don't know, didn't matter?

Well, I mean, I guess if you, if you look at it in, in sales and that's kind of an art, I don't know if that's going too far, but kind of perfecting your craft in that way. So.

Well, there's certainly rehearsal.

Correct. Yeah.

And when you're playing, you have to put yourself in the audience's seat, right? Just—

yes.

Otherwise you're playing for yourself.

Yeah. So you don't, you know, if you're playing in an ensemble and all you hear is yourself, you're doing something wrong. So yeah, there's a— exactly. You want to, you know, you want to add to the song. You don't want to just be noise, you know, noise. Exactly. So yeah, I can play all these notes, but it might not, it might not be best for the song.

And a conversation is kind of a rhythm, right? There's questions and answers, there's pauses and clarifications.

Yeah.

So I think music and sales have a lot of corollaries that people don't really appreciate. And there seems to be a lot of people in sales with musical Yeah, no, I've noticed that too.

But yeah, there are a lot of similarities, especially the rehearsal part. I didn't really think about that. If you have a presentation of some sort or being able to improvise, that's a huge one. Yeah.

So even the mindset of quality, because not every musician or song or performance is equal, right?

That's true. Yep.

And the nuances are pretty subtle sometimes.

Yeah. Being able to pick up on those little nuances and add in those little, we call them ghost notes or little things that add to the music that the listener might not even notice, but they definitely, it adds to the whole song.

And what do you like about sales?

I would say I like the ability to kind of choose your own path, I guess, or, or determine, you know, how successful you want to be. I also, I enjoy the fact that it's applicable in most other aspects of life. I read, also read Chris Voss. I don't know if you know his negotiation book, and he compared it to like putting your kids to bed as a negotiation as well. And so you can use these same tactics to convince them that now is bedtime. And so stuff like that, and it's a valuable skill to have in all aspects of life.

So, and what part of it is your strongest? characteristic? What part of the sales process are you the best at?

Yeah, some people are better openers, some people are better closers. I would— I like to think I'm a decent opener, but I would say my skill set is in the closing aspect of it. At first it was not when I first started. I've had a lot to learn. Getting to the point of purchase order and invoice, you know, getting to the point of getting paid. That was harder than I expected it to be at first. So I've grown a lot there and it's grown to be probably what I most enjoy about the sales process.

What do you do differently than others?

Well, you mean in terms of closing or—

Yeah. I mean, you're good at it, or you feel you're good at it?

Yeah. So a lot of it is, there are especially business to business, you know, much different than business to consumer. There's a lot of dynamics going on at the company. People that you may have not even met before that have a say that totally blindside you. So I've learned from experience in that aspect and being proactive about that, figuring out who really does have the say here. And I also say, and part of this came from your book, the technical user when doing a demo, how valuable they are. to the process. I mean, they're— I tell my reps, teach my reps that it seems like at first that guy you don't really have to worry about. He's not the guy that set up the demo. They just kind of put you with him to get it done or whatever. But that guy can sell to his boss better than, than you can sell to his boss.

So if he's the user, his opinion might matter.

Exactly. The boss is going to say, hey, should, should we buy this? And he's either going to say, you know, no, it's worthless, or No, this thing is awesome. So he has a lot of say, I've learned, and that definitely helps in the closing process because all the, all the decision maker needs to do is ask his, ask his technical user, his technician, and if it, if it is aligned with what I'm saying, then everything's good. So.

Because who usually goes against you, either slows it down or doesn't want to buy your particular solution or favors a different way of doing it? Is that role, a typical position in your sale?

Correct. The technical user, in, in my industry at least, is typically someone that can hold up the sale. The product itself is, it's a battery reconditioning machine. And so for decades, these people have been doing it manually. And this product automates the whole entire process for them. So there's an aspect of it, it's kind of taking their job a little bit. And, you know, nobody knows more about batteries than I do. So I don't like this product. I don't like this guy. Dealing with that whole dynamic can be tough with the technical user. So they at least need, they at least need to be okay. I've found—

Neutral.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Neutral.

And have you become skilled at that, either neutralizing them or pulling them onto your side? Because that is a classic, you know, disruptor sale. You're disrupting somebody's lifestyle workflow regardless of how much better it is for the company.

Yeah. And they go home, they tell their wife, you know, this guy, this kid came in and tried to sell me this product. And yeah, I think, I like to think I've gotten better at it. The, at first I found myself getting into kind of an argument with this guy almost, or I'm saying something he doesn't agree with and we're going back and forth. But now I've learned to, a lot of these guys are much older than me and that's okay. And they've been doing this for longer. I've learned to kind of humble myself and let them teach me. Maybe I don't even agree with what they're teaching me, but to just to be curious and ask them questions, they actually find a lot of like that gains their trust a lot when you're just able to learn from them. They, they like that.

And is it really taking their job or is it just really a different way to do their job?

No, no, it's not. It's a different way to do their job. But of course, when I come in, they see it as, yeah, change, big change. But when we come in, at first it may seem like, oh, we're trying to, you know, steal your job. And but no, somebody still needs to run the unit. Somebody needs to analyze the reports, send them off, set the tests up. So yeah, it's just big change. They're not used to being on a computer all day, things like that.

And at first, did you try and— sounds like you tried to reason with them that this is a logically better way of doing, which it is, but it doesn't mean that they're going to go with it, right? They're emotionally attached to 20 years of doing it their way.

Yeah, I'm trying to change their mind that my way is better than your way at first, but, and now it's more of a, let me learn more about your way and see how my way can Augmented, maybe complement, or yeah, just totally imitate your way and you're setting it up, you're doing all of it. So getting them involved in, in that adds value as well.

Well, I think this is one of the things that people don't understand about top-down selling. They think that top-down is great because Mr. Big Cheese is going to tell the little peons what to do. But that doesn't really happen today. Mr. Beachy just wants things to work.

Yeah. And they don't want to make their people angry.

Right.

Especially, I don't know what he does, but it must be important. Yeah. Sometimes, yeah, selling top-up is, we do both. Yes. Sometimes that technical user has worked at a place before that had this machine and they work at a new place now and they're trying to sell their boss. And so all we have to do is Get that guy on the phone and try to convince him as well. But then yeah, the other way is, is top down. And that's where you're, you have that tension with the technical user.

And who becomes the champion of this sale? What's their—

You mean like their title? Typically, operations directors, operations people. Most times the CEO has to sign off on it. Sure. Or it's probably something like that.

Right?

Correct. And, but yeah, mostly the operations manager is, is the champion that sends it upstairs. So.

And what's in it for them?

Why do they want it?

Well, so depending on who I'm Talking to, obviously you have to change your, your pitch, what's valuable about the machine. So if I'm talking about the— if I'm talking to the operations manager, you're going to save a lot of money in battery expenses. The batteries are going to last longer, you're gonna have to replace them less. So spending millions of dollars less on batteries, and that's a win for him, and he can You can celebrate that and brag about that internally. But if you're selling to the service guy or the technician even, and you're not having to babysit this battery every 15 minutes and you're not having to write down cell voltages on a dirty piece of paper every 15, 30 minutes. So how can it make whoever I'm talking to's life easier because the technician, the service guy, he doesn't care if the company saves money. He doesn't see the— yeah, he doesn't see the checkbook or anything like that. So he's— he just cares about throughput. How can it make— how's it going to make my life better? Yeah.

And what slows down the deal other than the naysayer? Is it just trying to get the money allocated, trying to make it a priority? Because I can see this, it makes logical sense, but the timing just might not be right.

Yeah. A lot of the holdups are just urgency. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, but we already have a process and we're profitable. So, okay, you know, just kind of creating that urgency is kind of challenging sometimes.

Yeah.

But that, and it gets stuck up top again, maybe with someone I've never talked to before and I wasn't aware about that had a say. So now I kind of need to start all over again with this guy and get his contact information and try to get him on the phone. 12 tries later, get him on the phone. He's like, all right, I'll think about it. But I've already traveled to their state. I've done the demo. It's all there in their hands. And so stuff like that can Can hold it up for sure.

Yeah. Have you found any way of keeping the deal moving, create urgency when there isn't enough?

So I like to use competition. Our industry, material handling, so forklifts and pallet jacks, things like that, is somewhat competitive. And if they find out that I'm doing a demo or talking to the company down the street about this, that typically, you know, puts a little pep in their step because they don't want to be behind the ball. So that's a strategy that we found success with, especially when you're there in person. They always ask you, are you going to go see, you You're going to— who you're going to go see next. And I already know, I've already researched who their biggest competitor is. And I'm like, oh, you know, just heading over there. They're interested in this and this.

I hear they're on fire.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And what sales characteristic do you wish you were better at?

Hmm. Sometimes when I lose, I don't like losing. Um, but when I lose, I'll take it pretty personal, you know?

Mm-hmm.

And I'll let it stick with me for an evening or two. Um, and I wish I could just shake that off and, and keep moving forward better than I do. I would say I've gotten better at that over the past 5 years or so, but, um, it's still something that gets me if I get You know, a really big account that would be pretty impressive to say we have as a customer, and it falls through because of something that is or isn't out of my control. Yeah, it's, it's tough to not take that personal.

And what, what affects you negatively? Is it the beating yourself up? Is it just getting depressed? Is it kind of wondering what you could have done better?

Or— Yeah, I guess it's a little bit of beating myself up. And then also a little bit of, man, if I could start that all over again, I would have said this differently, or I would have made this feature way more clear from the beginning, or I would have gotten in contact with this person when I was there in person and met him. So yeah, that, and that Exactly. Beating myself up, I would say.

Do you think it's something you either said or didn't say, or is it something you didn't do that you should have done?

Both.

Because I think everyone in sales puts everything on what they say.

Yeah.

And I'm like, well, isn't it something you didn't do or someone you didn't talk to or somebody that you kind of Skated with that you should have really worked on? Were you overconfident or underconfident? Were you?

Exactly. Yeah, it's a lot of times it's something you didn't do. A guy you, you knew about, but you, you underestimated. And yeah, maybe I should have tried to bond more with him or find some common ground. In something unrelated to work. Yeah. So exactly what you said, it's more so stuff that I didn't do. Very rarely am I beating myself up for how I said something or, you know, what I didn't say.

Are you able to boil it down to a thing, or is it the timing wasn't right? Because there's certain things that you do have control over, right? Who you meet, what you do with them. Next meetings and stuff. And then there's stuff that you don't, right? You get these even-keeled accounts that are laggards, and they like a paper process. They like Joe doing it by hand, or they don't care. There's no active pain.

Makes perfect sense.

Makes economic sense. No one's arguing with you, but no one's buying either.

Mhm.

Do you see that a lot?

Yeah, I mean, they have the money to do it. That's my market to do it. That's my ideal customer profile. Yeah. So yeah, completely qualified customer. And they just, they like, they're stuck in their ways of doing things. And so yeah, like I said, finding competitors is important. The things that could be out of your control though would be, and this is really specific to our industry, but maybe their power in their building isn't suitable. Maybe they don't have the volume. They wouldn't be qualified if they don't have the volume to support something like this. Or the the general battery knowledge to support something like this. Things like that are kind of out of our control.

Because that kind of needs to be built into your qualification model, right? Because even though they're— let's say it's inbound, but it's a laggard building that probably doesn't support the power. The guy's retiring in 6 months, the owner.

Yep. Yep.

So it's kind of like, well, they're interested, but they're not going to buy. It's just the dynamics there aren't lined up.

Or they have blueprints for a new building, so they can't buy until they have a new building. But the new buildings, they didn't even break ground, and it's, yeah, it's 3, 4, 5 years out. And so that's kind of their excuse. And so yeah, I always tell my reps too, and myself, that when you get Uh, an objection like that, there's something to keep digging because there's another concern there that you don't— he doesn't want to say, maybe he doesn't want to offend you or, or something like that. So just straight up asking, you know, what are the— I know everything sounds good. We're waiting on the building. I was, you know, what are the concerns that you have at this point?

Yeah.

When you usually can get a lot out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we're thinking, yeah, 2035.

Yeah. And when you moved into leadership, how was that for you?

Was that a natural progression or was it awkward?

That's a good question, actually. I find fulfillment in closing deals and just worrying about myself and the number that I would put up. And so very awkward for me to move into a more of a managerial position and now being responsible for how other people do. And, you know, I, if one of their deals is stuck, I, every part of my being wants to just call the guy directly and, you know, get in there.

Yeah.

But they're not, you know, that's not going to help anyone. I mean, it would, it would help Some, but in the long term, it's not going to help anyone get better. So yeah, part of me, and I still do a lot of direct selling, but part of me misses that being the only responsibility is, you know, how many units did you sell this month or what was the dollar amount this month or quarter? So yeah, it's definitely a little strange.

And what mystifies you about salespeople?

That—

because when you become a manager, you know, you start to see other people's deals. They look easy, don't they? Because they're not yours. You're not in them. You're not emotionally attached to them. You have— you're not vested.

Yeah. You can see— so you mean like their personality traits or something like that?

Well, either they're like, um, way too optimistic about it Or trying to beat a dead cat, you know, that they're trying to get life out of something that there's no life in.

Yeah, exactly. Usually I'd say a good salesperson, they know, to the average person getting out of a meeting, it might seem like that went great. But a good salesperson, you ask them, how do you think that went? And they're like, man, I don't think it went well. This guy had that look on his face and So that, that's always interesting that they're always socially aware. I think most salespeople have good social skills. They don't necessarily have to be an extrovert. I'm not an extrovert. I have to flip the switch in the morning when I come in and, you know, relax at night. But yeah, they're always socially aware and then sometimes even The good ones aren't the most organized people. So that's always interesting.

But yeah, they didn't become salespeople because they were great administrators.

No, no, no. Especially you're out on the road that, you know, you have to follow up on the same email 7 times. Yeah. Like I'll say, I'll do that. I'll do that, you know. But yeah, they're focused on the deal. So they're not Yeah.

And what characteristic would you encourage salespeople to learn the most about, even if they're good at it today?

I would say the ability to custom tailor your pitch to whoever you're talking to at the company. That is a very valuable skill to have, even if, like you said, even if you're already decent at it, being able to just read people and without them telling you, knowing, kind of having a good guess or sense of what their say might be in the deal or what their real role is at the company, even though their title is technician or something, and being able to— On the fly, adjust to that.

Yeah, because I think that reading people and that customizing your pitch to them requires you to think like them.

Yeah.

Which forces you to think. Yeah, and it puts—

get yourself in their shoes. Okay, what does this guy do all day?

Right.

Who does he report to? What kind of KPIs do you think he has? Yeah.

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

LinkedIn. My name is Dustin Love. That's a, that's a good place. So yeah, D-U-S-T-I-N L-O-V-E. And the company is FSIP Electronics. So yeah, no, I appreciate you having me on today. Definitely, definitely fun. Was looking forward to it.

What metaphor do you have for sales? I'm sure there's something in your life that is on the performance side versus just the knowledge side. It might be cooking. It might be conversations with friends. It might be entertaining. Whatever it is that really you enjoy doing, that there is a Art form, a performance form, a subjective form to it. See, the subjectiveness is what makes sales hard because everyone's got a different opinion. It's subjective. What you think is great selling and what other people think is great selling may differ. It's like personality. Some people like outgoing, People. Some people like quiet people. See, in sales, what we end up doing instead of the practice and the work, we just tell ourselves we're good. It's so much easier. The problem is our opinion doesn't pay very well unless you're buying from yourself, and then it's a net zero. What matters is the market. Our clients, how well we connect and engage with them, get them focused on what we're talking about, and actually lead the sale. We had this fantastic office hours yesterday in closing the complex sale where I've got a couple of reps who are doing 7-figure deals and they're their own coach. Yes, the customer's interested, but the customer's, um, Timeline or energy level is kind of wait and see, or we'll do this when something goes wrong, when we have to do it, versus prevention and wanting to do it before something goes wrong. Sound familiar? And a lot of people say that this is not possible. And I think those people just don't believe it's possible. There's even one sales methodology that says you have to have a champion to win. And, well, yeah, there's a loose definition of champion. Yes, you have to have somebody on the other side that wants your product, that has the problem, wants to get it solved. But often that person isn't in a position of economic and political power within the account. They are just trying to get their job done. And they may be naive enough to assume that the company will do whatever it takes to help them get their job done. Where the company's view is typically, you figure it out. In those cases, we can become their champion. In Closing the Complex Sale, that's what I teach. It's not to become your own champion. That's kind of at the highest level. But to really understand the game you're playing, the song you're singing. Because that's the first step. A musician has The sheet of music in front of them. Somebody has described exactly how the song goes. In athletics, there's a field or some kind of game board. There's rules, there's referees, there's opponents, there's players. Players can do certain things and can't do other things. It's kind of strict. In sales, It's still a game. And if you don't understand the players— you understand the objective, get an order, I get that. But do you understand all the traps? Do you know the commodity trap? The big deal trap? The I'm the decision maker trap? The oh, they do anything they want for me trap? And guess how I learned this? Did someone teach me? Not really. A lot of people helped, but I became a student of that game. And to understand how to win it— you can't win everyone, but to win the most of them is you have to understand the game. The game that most people are playing today is reactive. The customer's in charge. They know what they're doing. If we do this, they'll buy. That's not how it works. It might work that way once in a while, but most of them, they want our product. The company can afford the product. They need it, but they don't buy it. And they don't buy a lot of stuff they need. It may be priorities.

Yeah, maybe.

Or it might be not enough reasons. The right reasons for the right people at the right time in the right way, with all the backup work to justify it, then they can make a decision. And if you lead it, you're more likely to get the order. If they lead it, a lot less likely to get the order. So ask yourself this question: why are you in sales? Why not get into marketing or customer success? I know the answer. It's money. It's freedom. It's what I like to do and what I'm good at. That's why. And if you're there because of that, you only get the money if you close the deal, if you win the deal, if you get into the account. And I know your prospecting isn't working. I hear it all day. That's the problem, one of the problems I solve. People aren't picking up the phone.

Get it.

They're overwhelmed with spam. I am. But there's smarter ways of connecting and engaging with people. And it doesn't start with a pitch. It doesn't start with a value proposition. It doesn't start with a brilliant insight. Sorry. It can't. Those things can all be Valuable at the right time. But until the other person has some curiosity that's been built into interest, they don't care the same way you don't care when you receive it. But what's the magic? The magic is being that human being, that connection you have with another person. That's why they hired salespeople. They can put all the frequently asked questions on the website with a beautiful demo and a self-generating proposal, and it doesn't work. Works for Amazon, but that's consumer products. The person's already made their decision. They've already built up their own curiosity, and it's about price and availability. That's not the B2B world. The B2B world is quite the opposite. People have a problem, they think they know how to solve it with your product or some other product or internally, but they don't know how to get it done politically. I suffer for this most of my career because I sold to technical people, software engineers, who had Zero budget authority, enormous egos and arrogance and assumptions that the company will give them whatever they need. And they don't. And when they don't, they don't share that information with the salesperson. We just keep wondering and hoping that our deal comes through. If you want to become great at sales, make the money that you can make closing the complex sales for you. If you need to build a pipeline and your spam isn't working and you've tried the AI spam generators— oh, they're fantastic, they can do more spam than ever— doesn't work, but you can be busy. Now imagine a musician who's busy but their music doesn't sound good. Hmm. Sales is really The busyness gets you to the end of the quarter, but then management doesn't care how busy you are. They want results. And they'll bust you on busyness up until they find out there's no results. Then they focus on results. The person who gets the results, they're like, hey, if you were busier, you'd get more results. Maybe. But the thing you should be busiest about in sales is thinking. And that's what I teach you how to do. You got to think about the game you're playing. And what most people do is just have a delusion. And in the delusion, much like what you get with AI when it comes back with some answer that's off the wall, makes no sense— hallucination, I think they call it— that's what we do. At the end of the quarter, we hallucinate for what went wrong. What went wrong was you didn't guide the deal through to closure. You didn't know what to do and your client didn't know what to do. And the number of times I've gone into an account where they knew how to get something done, it was either very small company or somebody there has been there for a long time and has done it before. 90% of the time, people just assume it was easy, the way salespeople do. And everything is easy until you try it. Try and play the piano if it's not your instrument. Anyone can appear to play the piano. Anyone can tell themselves they're great at playing the piano, but it's the audience.

That matters.

We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Tell a friend about the show.