HOW TO SELL SMARTER AND WIN THE ENTERPRISE SALE

In sales, we almost naturally fall into the commodity trap.

What are we selling?

How is it better than every other product out there that does something similar? Our competitors. How's it better than not having it at all? And this is the commodity trap. It's something that we have to address, but we have to Get past. We have to get to the why. Why are they going to buy it? What is that emotion? What is that need? What are the economics behind that? Because this is the cause of no decision, or one of the main ingredients of no decision, is that eventually somebody pushes back and says, well, why don't we wait? A quarter, a year, a lifetime, and all of a sudden our deal dies. And then we look back and they go, well, they seem to really like it, like us, want it, but why didn't they buy it? They looked at it as a nice-to-have, not a must-have. So how do we get around that, Brian? We've got to get to the why. Why is the need? What happens if they don't do it? Get them to feel that. See, everyone thinks that people go from unaware of a solution to needing it. No, they do just the opposite. They get curious and they want to be educated, but then they start to rationalize and fall into denial. Well, we don't really need it. It would mean change. We'd have to do some more work. And all of a sudden, your beautiful deal slowly dies. That's what we're going to be talking about today in the interview. Here's a person who has mastered this, really focuses on that first call and how to build up that why and understand what the client is going through and how his product can help them instead of getting into the speeds and feeds, the features, the, the bake-off. I get it, we have to do that. We can't just ignore it, but we have to also get to the real why behind their— the reason for doing all of this. What does it really solve? What do they get out of it? What are they trying to achieve? Because humans, the natural first step is denial. It's not acceptance. Once you learn that— and the problem is companies don't teach this. They teach how to walk right into that commodity trap. And how do they get out of it? Oh, give them more case studies, more specs, more this, more that. That's all the what. What they're buying. The geniuses, the best, the mavericks, the A-players, they focus on the why are they going to buy. Let's get into the interview. I think you're going to enjoy this. I teach this in Closing the Complex Sale, and I think you'll really enjoy that course at b2brevenue.com. Also, go to my YouTube channel, just search Brian Burns Sales on YouTube. And you'll see it. I did a video last week on my demo of how I use Brevity Pitch to warm up and practice my sales conversations. Even though the word pitch is in the name of the company, Brevity Pitch, it's really a conversation. Pitch is kind of what everyone thinks sales is about, but it's an interactive conversation. You'll see it I can ask it qualification questions. I can have an interactive conversation with them. I ask it how well I'm doing. It closes me. It pushes back. It challenges me. Why is this important? Well, the better we get at our conversations, the more we sell. And how do we get better? Practice. The same with everything. Whether it's a piano, baseball, it doesn't matter. Whatever we want to get better at, we have to practice. And you can do it with real customers, but it's very expensive. Why not do it with an AI? And you can see it's a real voice. You don't feel like you're talking to a machine. You feel like you're talking to a real person. And I happen to just find myself sitting down with it and practicing. Because I enjoy doing it. I try different things. I see how the AI reacts to it because it reacts the way most people would react, because that's what it does. It's pattern matching. Check it out at brevitypitch.com. See my demo at— on the YouTube channel, Brian Burns Sales. Here we go. Okay.

Hey, Eric, thanks for joining us today. As we're getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Well, hey, thanks, Brian. Thanks for allowing me this opportunity. Yeah, I've kind of got a sordid history that I'll walk you through. I hope some of these things actually attributed to where I've had my success and where I've gotten to at this point. So first of all, I'll start it off. I have a degree in computer science and I think that technical background helped. From there, I actually went and played lead guitar in a band for 6 nights a week for 3 years. Yeah, that was interesting. And I think that also helped, I think, in terms of opening me up and allowing me to interact with people better. And then from there, I got into the technology space. So everything from large companies, small companies, infrastructure applications, opening up new markets. And so that kind of led me to, by the way, I also did, I was in leadership positions at one point. I actually had a $100 million business that I was running with about 200 people in my organization. And, but most recently I've been working as a contributor. So I've worked for the last 5 years for a company called Atlassian where I actually helped open up the federal space for them.

Well, so it sounds like you have a diverse interest base. Is that true?

You would say that. Again, I think that's all, it all contributed. You know, when I, when I look around at some of the things that I think that make me unique, I think every, every part of my experience and whether it was the technology side or the size of company or even just living through the changes that we've all gone through over the past couple of decades, right? When you think about, you know, early on people would hide behind voicemail and then email came along and then the, you know, the web with all of the information that was available, all those changes and the ability to be, I think, to be able to adapt to that and embrace those kinds of things, I think were really important.

And what was that first year in sales like, given that you didn't have the background? I guess, you know, standing up in front of an audience certainly gives you that confidence, I guess, some.

Yeah, it did. Absolutely. 100%. Yeah. In fact, I was the leader in the band, the manager in the band as well, in terms of dealing with the money, dealing with the club owners. But yes, which was all quite fun, by the way. We could tell stories about that at some later date. But no, I think, I think that that aspect of working with not only the band itself, because you're working with a bunch of different diverse personalities in the band, you're working with different club owners, you're interacting with the crowd. I think all those things helped me in terms of just being comfortable as myself, if you will, and having a presence to be going on stand Now, my first sales job though, I worked for NCR at the time. And so they had training classes. So I went through, I don't know, like 20 weeks worth of boot camp training in order to learn some of the basics of selling, which some of that stuff might still apply, but perhaps not a lot.

And what do you think character or makes you a great salesperson?

Yeah, it's a good question. You know, it's funny because I, when I was thinking about this, I had 2 people that recommended that you and I speak. And so I actually went and asked them because I have my own feelings as well about what I thought was important. I also got their feedback. So, you know, when I look at it, I mean, there's things that I would say, you know, such as I've been, I've sold applications, I've sold infrastructure. So I have a very broad understanding of how all the different pieces fit. So when you think about, you know, especially in the public sector space, you know, I hear clients tell me that, you know, if you don't understand my mission and understand my data strategy, because we're in the data management space, then don't talk to me. You're just basically, you know, you're not providing any value and I'm not gonna engage with you. One of my early companies that I worked with, I remember I had a good relationship with the CIO and the CIO said to me, you know, we would get the teams together and then he and I would just go out and actually go to music stores and play guitar and jam together. And he said to me, you know, Eric, you know, your team comes in here and sells me utensils. I don't need utensils. I need you to link that to value. And so I kind of, you know, that's one of the key things that both I view as a strength of mine as well as I've gotten feedback from my team members is one is I have a way that I can take our technology and can't, as you know, technology companies have a tendency to just want to sell technology and bits and bytes don't mean anything in terms of an outcome. So how do you simplify that, which I think is one of my strengths? How do you take advantage of, again, my technical background, but put it in terms that the business people want to understand and can use that to create a positive outcome? So I think that's one of my key strengths. If I, you know, if I look at some of my notes here, one of the things they tell me is I prepare well. You know, I do think it's very important to work with my, especially my pre-sales, Martha, who had recommended me, working with her to make sure that we're prepped properly for the call or even prepping if we're doing a presentation for a client and we have sponsorship already, working with that initial sponsor to say, before we go in and present to your executives, what exactly do you want us to present? What's going to resonate? What's going to drive a positive outcome? So all those basic kind of things, preparation, embracing people. I just think fundamentally, you know, what you see, Brian, what you're getting today is what I do on a sales call. I try and be me.

Well, what I heard that was, I think, really key there is you're the translator between the technology and the outcome value that the client wants. And the bigger the organization, the less likely they are to try and bridge that on their own.

Yeah, 100% true. You know, I remember when I was, you know, I've sold infrastructure a lot. And I used to say to my sales teams, I said, you know, infrastructure is not a technology that lights up a green or red light on a CFO's desk. But if we don't make that linkage, We're failing. And it goes back to that utensil conversation I had with the CIO in the past.

Yeah, I sold mostly infrastructure as well, components internal to an application as opposed to the big application. And once you get past the user, everyone else is like, I don't know, what does it do again? Say it slower.

Like that's gonna make a difference.

Right.

So you had to come up with an analogy or a story or have them understand what happens if you don't have Yeah, 100%.

Yeah. And it's funny because, you know, I know one of the other people that recommended you and I speak on mentoring, he's one of the new sales reps in our company. And, you know, he kind of said the same thing. You know, you have a way of simplifying things and relating that, you know, to, again, the outcome that we're looking for for that particular agency. And, you know, when we talk about it, you know, one of the things I tried to impress on him, I've had him go through some training with me where we're very proud of the fact that our platform is easily operated by a non-technical person. That's one of our strengths. Well, what better way to demonstrate that than to have a salesperson be able to do a basic demo, right? So I would, it would shock you even though we make that one of our mandatories for all our salespeople, how many people don't do that or don't do that well. They just show up and do a demo, but they don't drive home the experience, you know, where did we relate this in somewhere else? And so I said to John, I said, John, You don't— you haven't lived through the experiences I have, but make them yours. Take my examples that I use when I do a presentation or a demo and make that yours, because that's going to drive home the point for that particular prospect.

That's it. And I gotta share that most sales reps aren't armed with this. It's up to them to figure this out. Sales enablement tells you what the product does, right? Why it's better.

Right, right. I agree. And, you know, and I have to say this, you know, when I came into this thing, you know, I thought about, you know, all the different webinars that I've listened to where, you know, where you've brought up these— not webinars, but the, you know, the conversations that you've had with other folks. And I don't know that I've got any realizations that you haven't already covered. You know, it's almost more about figure out what you not shouldn't do. What are the things that you shouldn't do? You know, it goes back to, you know, let's do this stupid shit where we're overdoing— Stop the stupid stuff first. Exactly. So I'm like, you know, I, and I talk about this because I've seen people come in at one of the sales reps we hired. Another story here. He came in and he had 5,000 contacts in the database. And basically he said, sent out an email and said, hi, I'm from XYZ company. How do you like me so far? Now I know it wasn't that short and sweet, but come on, who's gonna respond to that? The 3 people that responded said, don't contact me again. You know, so that's not the way to go about it. Just doing that over and over again doesn't move the needle for us.

Now, in the music side, I think it helps build that skill because you have to anticipate the audience's reaction to what you're playing.

That's true.

As opposed to just playing and hope somebody enjoys it.

Well, yeah, and there's a couple other elements to that too. 100% agree with that. But there's a couple other elements as well. So things such as, you know, there's a structure in music and even in computer science, you know, I think you have a technical background as well. That structure helps Kind of look for patterns that repeat, you know. So again, it's up to us to make those technical patterns, if you will, become more business-friendly or business-like. But having to recognize those patterns and look for that, you know, the learning a song as a guitar player, you know, I had to, you know, spend hours in some cases repeating it, trying to get better at it. All those things that, again, looking for that pattern, but then practicing it and putting it in play, I think were the key things that I think I apply now as part of my sales job.

Because, you know, working large deals, it is pattern matching because I think reps make the mistake in asking the client how they make decisions. Does anyone know how they make a decision?

This is— I've heard you talk about this many times. I will tell you a story. I was doing a deal with one of the major financial institutions in the Northeast and it was coming up on our end of year. So we go in with the sales, my sales guy and the president of my company. And of course, we set up the president of the company to basically position that, you know, after we get through the pleasantries, you know, we'd like to try and get this deal done faster. So in the room is the high-level executive and his 3 lieutenants. And when we asked him what it would take to get it done, he looked at my sales guy and said, what would it take to get the deal done in my organization? Because we have a better view from the outside looking in than they ever had. So that just drives that point home again, too. Yeah, it's up to us to try and help them understand what a buying process looks like.

Right. Because think of one of those lieutenants trying to figure out how to get this done politically, administratively, legally.

They don't see all the pieces of it. We see it from outside looking in. They may have never been through it before, which is also scary. And of course, in the federal government, as you know, I know you've done some federal stuff as well, too, that whole process could be slightly different. In some respects, it's actually better because in many cases, we have to honor the contract vehicles that are already in place. You know, I've had legal people try and tell me they want to negotiate FARs and DARS. I'm like, good luck with that.

Right.

Come back to me in a year. And regardless, we're still gonna have to accept everything. So it takes— it's a bit of a learning there. So there's some aspects of selling to the federal government that are a little bit easier. But of course, there's the other side of the coin too, where it's a bit more difficult because they don't really make anything. You know, right.

And they don't, they don't go to procurement school and procurement is usually in a different city. And you mentioned like they can buy it, but they need a contract vehicle and commercial people don't know what that is. Is that a bicycle or an automobile or a plane?

Right? Right.

Like why? And it's like, it doesn't really matter, but they need it. So now you gotta get this other person involved and they gotta get something for doing it. Meanwhile, your customer, if you leave it to them, they're gonna hunt and peck and most likely give up and find an easy way.

And that goes again, when I asked some of my team members, what are some of the things that make me perhaps different is that, you know, from a sales perspective or effective from a sales perspective, it's that curiosity on everything. You know, it's, you just gotta keep asking questions. You know, I go back to what you've said countless times on your sessions, which is, yeah, you gotta build rapport with the customer. The first meeting should be about, you know, show up and throw up. I've seen that, you know, too often and that just doesn't work. So get to know somebody, but also just listen for those clues where you can ask a good question, maybe volunteer a little bit. Don't make it sound like an inquisition. You know, I've had reps do that where it's just, you know, I, the playbook says ask these 30 questions and at 15 through, you see that the customer is not acknowledging them anymore because, you know, you're just interrogating me. This is not Perry Mason. You know, I'm showing you my age at this point. But anyway, you know, this is not an inquisition, but be able to have that curiosity, really want to go out and learn, learn about them, learn about what motivates them, and then ask them the questions that they need to ask of themselves and of their organization to help us potentially do something positive together.

Yeah. And what part of the sales process is your strongest?

I think certainly building rapport. I think I can get to know people pretty quickly. And I know if I just act as myself, I try and make it fun. But if I act as myself and just ask a lot of questions, so I think that That initial qualifying and preparation are probably the 2 biggest things that I would say are my key strengths.

Because you want that person to get focused on that business value.

What type of questions do you ask to sense out what value do they want to get and what's important?

Yeah, that's, yeah, 100%. And it's, you know, this is what's interesting about the federal government is, you know, you can go to, you can spend 5 minutes doing research because they all have a mission. and they spell out what they're looking for.

Yeah.

And sometimes it's multi-years and it may be a little bit out of date, but there's some nuggets you can pull out of that. And then there's also, in our case, because we're in the data space, there's a data strategy document. So you pull that up, you spend literally 5 or 10 minutes. It doesn't take long. You spend a few minutes, you pull out a couple nuggets, maybe 3 or 4 things, and that they're trying to accomplish and how we might relate to that. And then try from there, depending upon what those nuggets are, call out what a question, if you will, or call out the information that you're looking for.

And how about as far as like keeping the deal moving? Because that's a big challenge in public sector because they've got infinite priorities, finite budget and time.

This is a tough one. I don't know that I have the good answer on this one, Brian. You know, I think the best answer is have a lot of deals going because in the government, money can be yanked at any time. It could be reappropriated at any time. You know, COVID came along. Here's another example. There were a couple of deals that I worked on, literally 2, where I believe I won the business in about the first 90+ days, but it took 15 additional months to get the PO. This is when the customer wanted us. We stayed in contact, but they just didn't have any budget allocated. COVID came along, priorities changed, budget was pulled, all of those kinds of things. So the only answer, you know, I've made my numbers the last several years in a row, but the only way I've been able to do that is just to have a a lot of stuff going on. So recognize the things that are going to take time where frankly you could stand on your head and there's nothing you can do to pull it forward. And the others that you can move pretty quickly, and we've seen that happen, work those, but have a combination or enough things going that you can make your number.

And when the younger reps come to you, what do you typically advise them to do?

Yeah, great question. So yeah, that's a couple things, but one is obviously, you know, Don't just show up and throw up. That's a given one. You know, when you do a presentation or a demo, make sure you use examples. But the first piece of it is just really to go in and have that first call where it's not— we're going to do a qualification call. Let's just get to know each other. Let's get to know, let's do the research. Let's get to know what my solution might at least have the opportunity to solve from either a mission or a data strategy perspective. So focus on those key areas and And don't try and share 100% of what we do. Share 2 or 3 things that make sense, that align with that mission and that data strategy. And then from there, we can talk about other things in terms of skill set, in terms of, you know, can you do an initial presentation to drive that home? And how do you tie it back to the things we just discussed? How do you do a demo that ties back to those initial things that we discussed? And then from there, you know, they come to me with things, you know, and this is just from a process standpoint. You know, when it comes time to learn the systems internally, I can help in that regard. That's not really what this is about. It was more about, you know, how do we work with that client to make sure that that rep is putting our best foot forward so we have the better chance of winning?

And I think a lot of people struggle with that first call because they feel like if they're not talking, that they're not doing their job.

100%. Yeah, I agree with that. Agree with that.

You know, how do you get the right question? You know, it's like, how do I do rapport? You know, it's like, it's not jumping jacks. It's kind of an interpersonal thing.

For sure, for sure. Yeah, I mean, some of it's just being comfortable in yourself. And again, again, Brian, I've been on the planet a long time, so, you know, I, you know, I've been through enough that I'm comfortable going into any situation, even if the customer is going to yell at me. Again, they can't kill me, so if they're going to yell at me, hey, there's an issue, I'm going to go help them solve that. But I'm comfortable enough that I'm, you know, relaxed enough that I can sit in front of a prospect or on a call with a prospect and Just listen to them, ask some questions, gather some information. Yes, volunteer some things to reinforce that not only I'm listening, but also understanding how what they're telling me might link to my solution. Again, lighting up that red or green light on a CFO's desk. I recognize CFO and government are a little different, but from my commercial experience, being able to make that linkage. So just being relaxed and being comfortable and having a good conversation, I think, is really, really important.

Right. I think a lot of people might misinterpret it like you're talking about the Redskins or the weather, but it's not that you're talking about. It can be, but you want to get it onto the business issues, but not respond to every statement with what your product does and how it solves it.

Yeah, 100%, 100% spot on. Again, you know, really in the end, do they care what our product does? No, they care how it solves their problem. So you've got to make that linkage. And this is another mistake I see with young people is that there are some of our earlier salespeople where they will start with the left-hand side of the top of the screen and want to show everything about the product all the way down to the right-hand part of the screen. You know, I've even seen some of our technical people want to do that, but that's not what it's all about. That's where the preparation comes in. Understand what we can align with and demonstrate those 2 or 3 things that make sense. Now, in the end, they may ask a bunch of other questions where you have to dig technically, but that's a different conversation. That's not that first conversation, second conversation, a third conversation. That may be the fourth or fifth down the road where they're actually showing tremendous interest and they want to know, do we scale? Can we connect to all the things they need to connect to? Do we have all the capabilities that all the different stakeholders in the organization want? But that's a different conversation down the road.

Right. Because that first meeting is like the first date. You're not meeting the parents, you know, right? You're not bringing You know, your friends and enemies to show all the issues. It's a chat. It's getting to know each other. It's understanding what you're looking for, what you've tried before, what you like and dislike.

Yeah.

And this is where I think, you know, technology companies, we all have a tendency because especially, you know, we're not public at this point, but whether you're not public or public, we're all driven by quarterly numbers. And, you know, sometimes we have a tendency to want to rush deals and pull deals in. And then sometimes that's possible. But to do that, forsaking that relationship is really not gonna get you to the finish line. If anything, it might alienate them and delay the transaction even more. And I've seen that happen in the past. So, you know, it's really kind of understanding at what pace, how can I push this customer? But at the same time, it doesn't have to sound like it's being pushed. It's providing that value to the customer, making them understand how they can help drive a process internally as opposed to just me trying to demand to get it done because, you know, my end of quarter is coming up.

And I don't know your space at all, so forgive my ignorance, but I gotta believe that in the big data space that there's a lot of alternatives.

Absolutely. Well, let's put it this way. There's several key competitors and we know what they do. And just as in any technology, I'm sure you've seen this in the past, there's probably 100 websites that say the same thing, but they all do different stuff. Yeah, but they're all different. You know, they may do different aspects of it. Because, you know, this is an analogy I use in the data management space. I said, you know, every vendor thinks that they're the center of the universe. And of course, we at Elation, we are the center of the universe. But in the end, we're just, we do 2 galaxies really, really well out of all the galaxies that are there. Now you may need 10, 12, 15 galaxies to solve your problem. And that's where, again, even working with the federal government, you know, as you know, we always end up working with systems integrators and those integrators can bring those other pieces to bear. So even though we think we solve a great problem, we're still part of a bigger picture in solving overall solution for the prospect. And therefore we have to embrace these other technologies. So how we fit into that is really kind of a key element as well that we have to stress.

And when did you learn about like the public sector morass? Because you got the system integrators who are usually the users, owners of the big contracts, very influential. Then you got the government who kind of manages the contractors, but also do some stuff on their own. And then you got procurement, either a contract vehicle or you gotta get it through the system. It's a lot.

It is. It is. Yeah. No, it's, early in my career, I sold to a combination of commercial customers and government customers. So I had some experience then. But when I worked for some of the large companies I worked for, you know, like the IBMs of the world and those kinds of companies. And, you know, it's, it, I was selling financial services there. So I had kind of left my public sector or federal experience behind for, you know, a decade plus or so. And so when I joined Atlassian, they actually wanted me to look at a commercial territory, which I did. I did a couple of initial commercial deals, which is a, you know, has, there's some commonality in terms of certainly the solution, but of course, with the different spaces, it's different selling to a commercial company than it is to the government. So I frankly had to relearn some of that government stuff again. So, you know, everything from, you know, things like the certifications, the security aspects, those different elements that come to bear, let alone what you brought up in terms of contract vehicles, working with systems integrators. Do you work with the big ones? Do you work with the mid-tier ones? Do you work with the small little VARs that might be able to do one transaction? Are they just a reseller and not an integrator? Are they a combination? All of those different elements. I can tell you, Brian, it's in one of the major accounts that I'm working with, I've probably talked with 60 different integrators of various sizes from the very large all the way down to the very small.

Yeah. But you came back to federal.

I know. There was an opportunity. I liked it.

What do you like about it? Is it the size? Is it the complexity? Is it the—

Well, it was opportunistic at the time, being candid. You know, when I joined the company, we had no federal customers, but I very early got onto one that I knew was gonna be a major 7-figure-a-year customer. So I embraced that. And And 8 months into the job, the leader at the time asked me, you know, what do you want to basically be when you grow up? And of course, I always kid, ask my wife, I'm never going to grow up. So let's get that out of the way. But, you know, pick commercial, pick federal. I decided to pick federal because I thought that's where the opportunity was going to be. And it's worked out really well. I've made my numbers ever since with that.

Well, it has much more of a snowballing effect than commercial, you know, because if you close like a Fortune 50 company, you know, using that name will affect some other companies, but only really the people in the same space.

Mm-hmm.

In federal, you get into one agency and all of a sudden the next agency falls and the next one. You know, I found you get into Intel and then all of a sudden DOD falls, then civilian, then DHS. has a kingpin type strategy.

100% true. You know, if you look at some of these agencies that I'm doing business with, they might have, you know, 20 to 30 different enclaves. And every one of those, even though I'm taking advantage of the first one I sold, is a separate sales cycle. So yes, from that perspective. And then, you know, when you talk about a major agency, they may be part of a parent agency that has 20 other or 10 other major agencies inside that organization. So every one of those could capitalize on it. You could have that snowball effect. taking place. And so I think we're at the point now where we're starting to see some of that. But, you know, it takes time, Brian. You know, federal takes a long time to get that thing going.

And how did you get management to understand that? Because unless someone's done it, I remember my manager going into NSA with me. First thing he asked them is, what do you do? And they go, we can't tell you. It's enormous.

Good luck.

And then after the meeting, he comes out in the parking lot. He goes, I don't know how you do this all day.

Well, you know, it is a learning curve for an organization.

Because he was question, question, question, and they're like, uh, no.

Where, where is that site? It's site alpha, beta, right?

So you got to kind of talk, you know, gingerly.

Yes.

Without asking questions, but you know what they do. So you kind of say, okay, here's the problem that other people have. But how do you convince your management that this is big, but it takes time?

Yeah. So I was lucky. I mean, early, I would say the company hadn't done much federal business, but my leadership, the people I reported to had some experience in that regard and understood the different motions between commercial and federal. So that helped quite a bit. But we did have to go through, you know, you know, simple things like, you know, are you gonna get an order form signed or a purchase order from the customer, right? You know, yes, they will sign an order form. It's gonna reference terms and conditions that typically we can't change as far as NDARS or flow terms and conditions we can't change. So they're not gonna sign our MSA, but we can do things internally to be compatible and make sure that they reference the right things internally we need to process the order. So that was a little bit of a learning curve. We're well past that now. But early on, again, I wrote— one of my early attorneys I was working with wanted to look up every one of the flow terms and conditions that referenced the FARs and DARS. And the conversation we had was, hey, have at it, but, you know, when you call me in 6 months after you've done all your research and recommend and give me 7,000 red lines, none of it's going to change anyway. So this is the way it works, and we're just going to have to understand that, you know, the protections are in place for us in regard. And frankly, if the government ever did anything where, you know, they stepped out of line, we're gonna make money based on suing? Yeah, what are you gonna do anyway? Yeah, I mean, you can't do anything about it anyway, or you sue them, which doesn't lead to any positive outcomes either. But it was— there was a little bit of training there, but I was lucky to have leadership early on that was, uh, that was cognizant of this stuff and had done both commercial and federal.

And how do you stay even-keeled, if you do, through these long sales cycles?

I do. I, I mean, it's funny, but with the, the Presales engineer who recommended that we chatted, Martha, she even said to me, she goes, I don't think I ever see you get upset. You know, of course I get, you know, to the point that I want to push things forward and want them to happen faster. We've all got those pressures. But, you know, it's just, there's just some things that you can control and some things you can't. So what can I control? I can control how many more opportunities that I'm working on so that I can hopefully be immune to some of the cycles that I have to go through on the federal side.

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

Oh, hey, well, Brian, thank you for your time today. I appreciate this conversation. Easiest way is Eric Amster on LinkedIn and check me out there and happy to link up with anybody.

See, most of us, we really become product specialists and that's okay. It's good to know about the product.

That's not bad.

It's great. But we need a lot more than that because unless they're buying for the second time or they're well-educated and a previous user maybe at a different company, it's just an option. See, we view it like they're gonna buy something, and maybe they will, but maybe they're just curious. Which is a very different state. And if you're unaware of the difference between curious and interested, well, we're all curious about certain things. Maybe you like a car and it drives by. First question is, what model is that? Isn't that what goes through your head? Oh, that's the new Ferrari or the new whatever. Second question is, guess what? What's it cost? Now, salespeople think that that's a buying signal. It can be. It can also be just curiosity because we're curious creatures. Now, as a salesperson, we got to take that curiosity and turn it into interest. And that's a skill. Everybody wants the tip and trick. Well, skills are much more important. Because you own a skill. A tip or a trick is just that. Works sometimes, doesn't work other times. You don't know why. A skill, you know why, and you know how to handle it. Take your game to the next level. You got into sales for a reason. Most likely the reason was economical, competitive, Variety. But you want to stay in sales, you want to thrive in sales. To do that, you have to become better at sales. And I think people misunderstand the difference between becoming better at sales and just becoming confident.

They're two different things.

You can become very confident and not know a thing about sales or be good at it. And you can be insecure and nervous Nelly But still be good at selling. But it's good to have both at the right amount of time in the right amount. This is what I teach in my courses, is exactly what I've learned over my career in sales. And it's evolved because I used to be the pitchy guy, the cold call junkie, the email spammer. But then it doesn't work. So I evolved and I broke it down into a system. I go, how did 2 strangers meet and become business partners? Well, it's not a subject line or a call to action, and it's not show me you know me. Oh God, really? This is what passes for sales today? No, it's a step-by-step process of becoming known, liked, and trusted. But how do you do that?

It's a skill.

It's not a hack. It's not an email. It's not a cadence. Let me show you how to do it. It's game-changing because all of a sudden now you can go from complete stranger to having a conversation within a week or so. Isn't that— because that's really what you want to do. If you just want to qualify them, are they already in market and interested?

That's it.

Send them your spam. Go ahead. Touch them 16 times. See how that works. Or you could do something a little bit smarter.

Smarter.

Isn't that a great idea? Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting is a game changer because it allows you a strategy and a skill set to get into almost any account. Not everybody. Not everybody's open-minded. Or wants to communicate. That's okay. It's a big world out there. But you need to develop that skill. And better spam is not the answer. Better cold calling probably isn't the answer. Because it takes about 5 years to become really good at cold calling. Imagine doing that all day for 5 years.

Ah.

They built There's a net on the Golden Gate Bridge for a reason. It's all cold callers up there. Guys, it's not that bad. Come here. I got a better way. Don't jump. Come start the conversation. Get the meeting. Honest, it works. Now, how about when you get those meetings and people say, I don't know what course to pick? Well, you have one of two problems. Either you don't have enough opportunities or your opportunities aren't closing. Well, Closing the Complex Sale solves that problem. Why not understand how companies buy? Everybody thinks it's, give a great presentation, a beautiful demo, and then a supportive evaluation, and then it closes naturally. Maybe. But what if it isn't? If that works, is that really selling or is that service? Selling's getting the people that you know need this to get them to know they need this and get them to buy it. What a great skill that would be, wouldn't it? Then you wouldn't be reliant on inbound. You wouldn't be reliant on your golden territory that you're just managing, farming, servicing. If you got that, Enjoy it. It will not last. Someone's going to figure it out quickly. The world out there, and the reason they hire salespeople, is to create revenue. I teach you how to do that, how to take a deal and own it, drive it, add direction, momentum, and control to it. Anyone can service it. Anybody. Go to b2brevenue.com. Check out the courses. There's 2 videos there, how they work. Online training has office hours every other Friday for an hour live with me. It's always with me, whether you like that or not. They're all recorded and put back in the course. So, oh, that time doesn't work for me. Hey, it's recorded and put in the course. You can submit your questions ahead of time. And you get a whole year. So enjoy it. Study it. Practice it. Participate. Don't just audit it. Life and sales is not an auditing class. I'll just sit here and play with my phone and hopefully something will interest me. Well, that's not how it works. You have to participate. You have to think through And apply it to your deals. It's your pocketbook. Let's make it as full as possible. Now's the time to do it. Everybody's, oh, when's the best time? Now. What, you think waiting a year is going to help? No, you just threw a year out.

If you—

if this could make another $50K or $100K for you a year, you just wasted $50K or $100K. Hey, watch that SL class just drive by and wave at it. That's what I could have had.

Bye.

Oh, can I get a ride? No? Okay. Check it out. Also, check out my other shows, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers, and The Sales Leadership Show. I actually love sales leaders. There's only a few great ones But they're well worth talking to, and that's what I do. I've got a great one coming out this week. Uh, he came on the show, I met him on LinkedIn, and we talked about what it's like to be a CRO. You might be interested in that. Thanks for listening. If you see my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a little like, a little comment, a little share.

We'll see you next time.