HOW TO STAY AT AN UNSTOPPABLE STATE THE WHOLE QUARTER

Hey, before we get into the interview, I want to make sure you're aware of our other podcasts, the Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers show, which is a very quick, under 5 minutes in most cases, sometimes just a few minutes where I answer your questions. You can just send me any question to my LinkedIn profile, Brian G. Burns, and I'll put it in the queue to answer. Also, the Sales Leadership Show. If you're looking to get into sales leadership or you want to hear from the world's best sales leaders, that's where I interview them. Check it out, the Sales Leadership Show. Also at b2brevenue.com, you can learn all about all the courses. Links are in the show notes below, as well as our link to our partners over at brevitypitch.com, the fastest, easiest way to become great at sales and practice.

Before it's showtime, here we go. Is energy important in sales? Do you gotta feel you got you got some juice, or do you?

How do you do it? Well, I'm naturally a little more introverted, so I've had to. Really learned to maximize my energy, control my energy, because in sales, let's just be honest. I mean, if you're prospecting, if you're going after new business, you have all these ups and downs. I mean, it can— there's a lot of roller coasters of emotions and energy that comes with that, and some can be more draining than others. So I think the more I've progressed in my career, I've had to understand myself more and what gives me energy, what takes energy out of me, and then how do I focus that to maximize it best when I'm in front of the customer, when I have legit opportunities. So that's a realization I've came up out of the last few years. And I think most people are just focused on busy, more numbers, getting things done versus how is their energy affecting that. So I'm an adapted extrovert is what I try to do, but I can only do that for 3 or 4 hours out of the day. So I have to pick, pick my battles of when can I have the best energy? Is it a time thing? Is it the type of meeting? Is it the focus? And that's just stuff I've been trying to dissect the last couple of years.

Yeah. And I think people make the mistake of being able to go through the grind by detaching and not caring, hitting the buttons, reading the scripts, treating everything like it's equal. And I think it's another side effect of the focus going from performance to activity. And I think one of the things that happens is the people who move up fast are usually at the unicorns, and they think it's all because of them. Might be, might not be. And then they go to a startup and they use the same activity model. Instead of the performance model. And also, if you don't train yourself like an athlete, right, you don't get a good night's sleep because there's 2 parts of energy. There's physical, how you feel, and then there's mental. You know, introvert, extrovert, there's energy. But if you don't get a good night's sleep, And you only use sugar and caffeine to, you know, jumpstart the engine. Jumpstart and maintaining are 2 different things, right? Getting a push to start the car is different from pushing the car all the way to the airport, right? It's just an expensive luggage carrier if you're pushing it there. And a lot of people do just the opposite. They say, I'm under pressure. This is the worst time to go to sleep. The first thing that gets cut is sleep, right? The second thing is a good diet. The third thing is exercise. All the things that create physical energy in the long run. And people have that badge of honor. You know, I've been on the road for 3 weeks straight. You know, haven't had a home-cooked meal or a good night's sleep in 3 weeks.

And, and sales typically is not the healthiest profession from that standpoint. So it's, there's a lot of energy draining activities that, that come with sales. And, and I've certainly been there with what you were talking about, where you're traveling most weeks, you're taking customers out during the week, going to fancy dinners and appetizers, drinks. you know, going out on the weekends when I was younger. And it's just, you're, you're burning the candle on a lot of ends, which you can get away with earlier in your career, but then it, it will start catching up to you for sure. So yeah, that, that is another big part of energy is like your, your physical, uh, movement and, and things you're doing. So I, I've tried to be pretty consistent with just, just basic things like drink, drinking water throughout the day, like staying hydrated, uh, doing my morning routine in the morning. I don't work out in the morning, but I work out mid-afternoon or like lunch mid-afternoon because it's a good break for me. And then I get recharged going into a few more hours in, in the afternoon. And stuff like breathwork. I, I started doing breathwork a lot more before I present or I have a podcast or something that I'm doing because I, I think that helps reduce my nerves and makes me feel— gives me more energy. So, I, I think people underestimate how much all that stuff helps you perform better in sales when you're in front of the customer, because it is a performance profession. And I need— if you want to close those deals, you need Brian or Dustin to be at their A-level if it's a harder, more competitive opportunity. So how do you take all these other things and instead of just doing busywork in between, maybe you take a 15-minute walk and do that, or you do some pushups and take like a 10-minute break and don't think about work. So I've— all that stuff has added up. I mean, you don't want to do all that at once, but you need to pick— start with one thing that can help you. So it could just be walking for 15 minutes, 20 minutes. Get that started into a routine, and then you'll, you'll see for sure. I mean, there's so many studies out there about people that work out and how much it helps them outside of, uh, just that physical part, but at, at work can be You know, if you look good, you feel good. I think it was like a Deion Sanders thing. He is like, if you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you perform good. If you perform good, you get paid good. And that, it's true though. It's like, yeah, if you invest in yourself.

And people say, well, I don't like, I'm not an athlete and stuff. Well, everyone sleeps, right? And we all know the difference between a great night's sleep and a bad night's sleep. And, you know, 4 years ago, I, I started wearing an Oura ring, and you become conscious of cause and effect. Oh, I had a couple of beers with dinner last night. Oh, my heart was a couple beats a minute higher, and my sleep sucked. It's like, okay, cut that out. Oh, my sleep is better. And you, you wake up and you know how well you're going to perform that day by your sleep score. And a lot of people think, you know, like running at lunch or taking a walk at lunch is a waste of time, but it's a net positive in energy. You know, because I used to run at lunch and my boss would go, it's kind of cutting into the workday. I go, still an hour, but they thought it was kind of a waste of time. But the rest of the afternoon, I'm going. And if I run in the morning, I got plenty of energy the whole day. But people think it's a negative. But also losing weight, huge energy. Let's say you're carrying around 10 pounds. I bought, um, some of that sportswear that's weighted and it's only like a pound and a half. You wear it all day and tell me you won't— you don't notice it. You notice it. Now think 10 pounds. And I've got a weight vest that I, I do the stairs on that goes from 10 to 30. You notice 10.

Yeah.

You couldn't wear a 10-pound weight vest all day. If you can, you're probably in great shape. So most of us can lose 10 pounds, right?

Mm-hmm.

Net energy, huge. And if you see somebody with 30 pounds, 40 pounds, they gotta carry that around all day. They're used to it and they don't notice it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't wear on them. So the physical part is probably as close to innate as we get. It's, it's something that we don't notice, but it has a huge impact on us.

Yeah, I would say, I mean, if you look at the physical part and then the other side, I mean, the physical, I don't know if they're even or what, but it's the physical parts of the huge Time of it. The other thing for me is I was terrible about taking breaks. So you're talking about some of the stuff we were mentioning. So I would just never take breaks. I would just go nonstop throughout the day. And I still, I, I have to put these in my calendar or have notes like reminders, cuz I just naturally wanna just keep going and I won't stop. So there's, uh, the Pomodoro method's pretty famous and basically it says do 25 minutes on one task and take a 5-minute break. 25 minutes, 5-minute break, but you can make it your own a little bit. So I end up doing like 50 minutes on one task because I get more in that flow state and I'm more focused and I start hitting a groove and then I take a 10-minute break. And then, and on that 10-minute break, I'm not trying to look at work. I'm not trying to look at LinkedIn. I'm just doing some other stuff, making coffee or cleaning something, whatever, just some, a distraction just to relax and take a break. And then I go back into it. So there's There's the physical side's huge. Also taking breaks, which is part of that. That's, that's been one that's really helped me. It's pretty simple to implement. And, and then you start going into your actual day and what, what drains the energy out of you. So I did a time audit and I basically listed what gave me energy. So I was excited about doing for whatever reason, what took energy away from me. So it was exhausting. Maybe it's a difficult customer or some type of prospecting that I didn't want to do. And then the last part is, does it bring in revenue or impact revenue or the business in some positive way? And doing that for everything you do in a day can, can be pretty eye-opening to see what's giving you energy and is it affecting revenue in some, some way. Because I, I was talking to a friend recently and she's a consultant and she has to go after a lot of new opportunities, new business, cold calling, all that type of stuff. And She has lost all of her energy. She's very outgoing, like a rainmaker personality, but she's lost all of her energy because she's spending so much time chasing deals that don't end up closing. And she gets to 5, 6 meetings and then it doesn't close. And then she's just exhausted from chasing all this stuff and it's not always closing. So it's also outside of the physical part, which is huge. It's also dissecting what you're focused on too, which is going to fluctuate your energy in a pretty significant way.

Yeah, because if you're focusing on unwinnable deals or you're focusing on the people who are willing to talk to you versus the people who are qualified to buy your product, I think everyone's comfortable with who they can speak with. And when I was a sales engineer, this used to frustrate the hell out of me. You know, if I got up at 4 in the morning to go fly somewhere and it's really just a meet and greet, there's no need, there's no requirement, there's no project. I go, couldn't we just do this some other time when it's more convenient? No, they had somebody who was willing to meet with us. But is it qualified? Do they have the problem you solve? Are they curious about solving it, or do they just want to learn? It's very different. And a lot of people, especially extroverts, get comfortable with the people who are willing to talk to us, and they turn into a lot of Barney meetings. You know, I love you, you love me. Everyone's happy, but nobody's exchanging money for product, right? And it's usually the first thing I see with people's pipelines. And pipeline is another pacifier for salespeople. It feels great to have a great pipeline, doesn't it?

Oh yeah, you got those big 6-figure, 7-figure deals and you're talking about it on the calls and you look like, oh man, he's gonna have an awesome year.

Yeah, and they always slip and slip and Then they turn into a small deal. And pipeline's an opinion. My view on the deal might be different than yours. You might think it's $100K. I might think it's $10K or the opposite. Who's right? Feels better, doesn't it?

It does. It does.

Let's make it a million so we can get our manager off our back, right? Gotta have pipeline, pipeline coverage. It's just another pacifier to feel comfortable losing. But as far as energy, think about what brings you energy. Is it prospecting? But it's probably prospecting with people you know, like, and trust, right? And who will talk to you but are qualified.

Yeah, I mean, I, I, I looked at a few things and prospecting. So luckily I've been able to turn what I do on LinkedIn, which is that, that know, like, and trust process, which learned from you. I've turned that into a routine where essentially if I don't, I try to do it for an hour every day, Monday through Friday. And if I don't, I feel like I missed out on something. So I'm not always perfect, but I, I try to do that. And from a LinkedIn standpoint, as long as I don't go past that hour mark, it, it, it's energy. It gives me energy because I know I'm being productive. But if I start aimlessly scrolling on LinkedIn and I get sucked into the vortex and I let it drag on more, or I do more messages than I wanted to, which sometimes I have that OCD to do that, then I start getting a little— it wears me out. It's like, it's just mind-numbing if you do it too much. So. Prospecting can be tough because if you're depending on the type of prospecting, like, so if I was doing, I'm just naturally don't want to do cold calls because I don't think it's very effective and it's probably not my strength anyway. But if I was doing that for an hour, I mean, I would be, I, I wouldn't want to talk to anybody the rest, rest of the day if I was forced to do that. So I think the type of prospecting can, can definitely influence you. And then having guardrails too, it's like, if I'm going to do it for an hour, I'm going to do it for an hour and I'm going to stop like when that buzzer goes off on my alarm and then I'm going to move on to my next thing that I had. planned out for the day. So, uh, also being in front of the customer, for me, first off, you got to prioritize the deals that we were just talking about. So which ones are likely to succeed and doing the meetings for those that are, you think are winnable deals. But I can't, I couldn't do 8 meetings in a day and be at my A level. It's just impossible. And I, I've heard you talk about this many times because of me being an introvert and some other reasons. So. If I have 3 or 4 meetings in a day, Tuesday through Thursday is the days where I try to have most of the meetings like that. That's reasonable for me. And I spread them out a little bit. So I'd take a break in between and I can regroup. Then I can bring the A level of Dustin to those meetings. But I have many times, and I still sometimes fall into this where I look at my day and I'm just exhausted looking at my day because there's a meeting. And then it's just, it's hard for me to stay focused and stay at my top level. And then the last thing with that. And I think you're pretty good at this, is stacking stuff together. So I think especially with what I do now, like if I'm gonna be talking to customers, so let's say, you know, potential B2B clients, I wanna have those in the same day somehow. So if I have, you know, there's similar type of deals I'm working on, there's similar outcomes that they're trying to achieve. If I can get those back to back to back somehow on that day, That way my brain's thinking the same way and I don't have to shift to something completely different. So I've, I've really been trying to focus on that and it's, it's hard to just say no and like push things out further to, to make sure it's on the day that you want. But that's something I've really noticed lately too, is if I have to shift to different things like admin, prospecting, B2B meeting, customer facing, presenting, like I, I start losing my energy for sure.

Yeah, I mean, time chunking so that you can condition your body and your brain to do the same things. And I used to, you know, schedule my week out, and I always had meetings at the same exact times. And, and reps still bug me about it. They know if they want to have a call with me, they pick those times. Why? Because that— those were the times where there was energy on the customer side. Every idiot in the world has 9 o'clock meetings. Dumbest thing in the world. Why? They're just coming in. They want to get their coffee, toast their bagel, say hi to everybody. Hey, did you watch the program last night? And there goes half your time for the meeting. And their brain isn't working yet. They're kind of You don't know how they slept, but at 10 o'clock you've got a warmed up, focused person. And people say, well, you could have 2 meetings in the morning. I go, I only get paid on what I close. And every manager was always saying, more activity, more activity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you pay me for activity, I'll be as busy as can be. When you pay me on commission, I'm going to be very focused on deals that can close. And they go, why aren't you working on this one? I go, that's probably next quarter. They're way too optimistic, or they're, they're not going to buy us no matter what we do. We're just column fodder for them.

I think you're being pessimistic. Probably they're like, oh, come on, you can make that happen.

And I always turn it over to them. You can, you can have it. They never take it. They don't want to waste their time. They want to waste your time. And has any sales manager ever said, I think you're working too hard, I think you need to be more focused?

No.

Oh, Dustin's making 2,000 calls a day. He's a machine. How many people is he talking to? How many people are proceeding, progressing?

Yeah.

And then plus, the other thing that is going to happen is that person, if let's say they are a workhorse and you can do that type of activity and, and be somewhat successful, it's pro— it's not perfect, but you can probably hit some numbers if, if you're just, you know, nonstop, nonstop. Because, uh, there was a point in my career where I, I was like that, where I was just, it was back-to-back meetings all day and all this different stuff. And you can be able to maintain that for a little bit of time if you're ambitious and you're, you're a good salesperson, etc., and get away with some of the activity stuff because of other things that help you or the company, whatever. But eventually you're, you're going to get tired, like the person is going to get tired, and you're going to start not having as much energy, and you're not— and you're going to start realizing all the stuff that we're talking about. So it's The sooner you can realize that, the better. And then it's just gonna give you so much more free time to do other things. So it could be free time to work out and do the stuff like we were talking about earlier. It could be free time to spend with your family or do vacations and not work more than 50 hours a week or whatever. So it, it ultimately is gonna free up more time for you. You just have to look at it a little bit differently. So instead of Putting in that random meeting for 30 minutes that isn't going to go anywhere, but it's a friend that you want to talk to. Use that time to prepare a little bit more for the meeting that's actually going to close and impact your quarter and spend more time being strategic of what, what curveballs are they going to ask and how do I respond to it, that type of thing. So it's, it's hard to sometimes shift your mindset because it feels good to have a stacked calendar and everything in there because it looks, it looks great and everyone's patting you on the back about it. But I've got to the point where that doesn't excite me. And I have a lot of skin in the game with what I do now, but it doesn't excite me to see 7 meetings in a day. I want like 3 or 4 that I know are really good that I can prepare for and not be overwhelmed throughout it. And, you know, 10 years ago, I thought a little bit differently and I could maybe have— did have more energy, but now I'm just trying to really focus where it matters.

Yeah. And I have the unfortunate awareness that a lot of the people that I knew coming up have passed away in their 50s.

Geez.

And you can say, well, they had, you know, but it wasn't really cancer or something, but there's got to be a correlation there. If you're under stress for 25 years, running really hard, supplementing it with chemicals, legal and illegal, and you got a big family, everyone's got to go to private school, everybody's got braces and needs a car and needs a vacation and wants to go to the school trip, that wears on you and it compounds. And you can burn the candle at both ends only so long until it meets. And you don't want that. You want to live a long, healthy life. And when you realize it and you do the math, that busyness doesn't increase revenue, it decreases revenue. And I've coached a CEO. He was having 4 to 6 meetings a day and it wasn't closing. I go, try 3. How many can you do at an A level and have a good night's sleep and have a life? Because you will naturally focus on what is closable because it's a focus game. It's not a numbers game. It feels good to be a numbers game because you think every no is one step closer to a yes, and all the other mindless, unproven platitudes that we say in sales. The more you make, the more you make. Well, no, no, not really.

For sure. And then another thing too that obviously All we hear about is AI these days. But on, on the bright side of that, if some of those mind-numbing tasks that drive me crazy too are more administrative related or, you know, data or whatever it is. So if I can find tools that help me not spend as much time doing admin, that's great for me. And that's something I've had to shift from too, because I'm used to just doing it myself and I'm not good at delegating and I just want to get it done. But If you can find some tools that really help you not do the low value, low dollar amount task and whether it's a virtual assistant or all these AI tools that can help with that part. Now, I'm not talking about the closing deals part, but the part where it's just, you know, preparation for meetings or follow-up or research or lists that you're building. I mean, you can find a lot of people that can help with that type of stuff or it's an AI tool of some sort, uh, the notes from a meeting with, with AI tools so I don't have to write everything down. Like all this stuff will start adding up because I looked at my week and I, I had about somewhere between 10 and 15 hours I was doing on admin stuff, which was, it had to be done. It was things I needed to do, but it's just sucking the life out of me. And I could use those 10 hours to either take more breaks, work out, or have 3 or 4 other meetings that are really successful. So that, that's another one too that I don't think a lot of people are doing, or maybe it's getting more mainstream with AI, but I think that, that stuff can really help too with your energy.

Yeah, because recording calls is pretty much free. Transcribing them is pretty much free. And the first thing I say when somebody has a call is, is this being recorded? Record this. Why? Because you don't have to take notes. They don't have to take notes. And a week later, if you want to know what you really said or what they really said, You can find out. And I, I record everything.

Why?

You just hit a button. There's no downside. You know, it's not like before where disk space or recording was expensive. It's all free now. So you don't have to take notes. You might want to. That's fine. But when you focus, see, focus takes intellectual work, and that's why people don't like to, because it takes choice and it takes judgment. And people, well, what if I choose the wrong thing? You're already choosing the wrong thing by being busy. At least by focusing, you have the opportunity to choose the right thing. And, you know, people, how do you develop good judgment? Okay, compare 2 deals. Look at your pipeline. Which one's going to close first? And I always tell people, pick a close date, not one that works for you, but the real close date. Why? Because you have to think to do it. Everyone puts the last day of the month or last day of the quarter. That doesn't help anybody. If you know you have a 12-week sales cycle, you could put 12 weeks from that date. But think about it. Is this a big company that wants to move slow? Is it a small company that wants to move fast? Am I talking to the economic decision maker? Are they 3 levels below that? Think through the deal. Why does everybody let the customer drive the sales process? It's easier. I don't have to think. What would you like to do next? They don't know. If you don't know and they don't know, anything would work. And 99% of people are like, what would you like to do next? There's a whole sales process that asks the customer what their decision-making process is. They don't know. What's your decision-making criteria? You've got to change it. It's cost. That's what it is. Because they don't know the difference. And you're in the commodity trap and you're locking the door so you stay there. Thinking is a little bit of work, but it pays off a lot.

There's no doubt. I, I've made it a habit of planning my week out pretty consistently. And I, I have a chart that tells me by day, like what I, what type of activity I should be doing and the time. So it's like time blocked. And then that way when I'm planning my week, I, I know roughly what each day is going to look like. And then I do the same thing for a day, which is more specific. And I don't, so I, I do the thinking on the front end. So then when I get to the day, I don't have to think as much about what I'm doing because it's all right there in front of me and I already prioritized it. So that's another good one that, that really helps me with my energy.

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 hundreds of thousands of dollars. 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 $300,000, $400,000, $500,000. 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.