HOW TO STAY HYPER-FOCUSED AND CRUSH YOUR GOAL IN B2B SALES AND SELLING

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. In sales, what type of mindset should you have? Chaotic or hyperfocused, or does it matter?

Hyperfocused sounds much better than chaotic, but I think the reality of sales with how the days and weeks typically happen, that a lot of us tend to get that more chaotic mindset. So for example, example, you have a plan for the day, you have a plan for the week, and then all of a sudden you get a fire drill from a customer, or you have some internal meetings that pop up and derail your schedule. So I think depending on what type of situation you're in and what type of sales you're doing, it's easy to fall into that chaotic mindset where everything seems a little frantic and you— everything becomes a priority, your mind's racing more, and you know, you're thinking like, did I send that to that customer? Did I follow up with this? And then next thing you know, that can just cause you to be very ineffective and probably create a lot of stress and burnout. So I think a lot of salespeople have that chaotic mindset and are trying to probably break through that. But I think sales just sets us up for a chaotic mindset based off how the profession is.

Yeah, I think some people don't feel comfortable unless they are in that chaos. And some sales might fit it, but most don't. And what's the most common thing that we see in the prospecting space? I don't have time to do what works. I have to find somebody who's interested and wants to buy now. Well, what's the likelihood of you finding that person before they find you?

Wait, negative, negative percent?

But they don't think like that because their desperation trumps their intelligence. Desperation will hijack your brain in a second. It's survival, right? If you think, oh, I'm going to get fired, or my boss is going to yell at me, and just the craziness. And let's face it, for the last 10 years, the focus has gone from performance to activity. Because now we have dashboards. And I watched this video this morning, how to coach your team. I go, and she brings up one of these sales estrangement devices, and it goes, I can see their activities, and if they're 30 activities behind, it's dangerous. I go, you're not coaching, you're micromanaging. And guess what? They can make all those things say whatever they want to, and you believe them. So who's the fool? So this is the culture we've created. And man, what does a manager want to see? The person who's kind of hyper-focused, methodical, has got a plan, thought it through. Or the chaotic person who's calling and emailing all at the same time, getting another call. Oh wait, I got that LinkedIn message I gotta reply to. Which one do they want?

Unfortunately, to your point, I think the— they want the latter because they, they think that that's actually gonna get stuff done or that they're a go-getter, that they're working hard, that they're doing all these different activities, and eventually that's gonna lead To results. So yeah, the culture, the sales culture from probably the top down, we can throw some blame at them because they have the pressure with the numbers because they have this activity stuff that happened. It does. I think there are probably a lot of salespeople that don't want to be like that, but then they get this pressure from above and they don't know any better. So they think it's the right way to do it. And then a year later, they're like, wait a minute, this, these, this isn't really working. And people are maybe calling that out more these days. I'm not sure. But there's definitely something there with like the culture and the top-down has— it's not completely fair to the salespeople that they're doing that because they're getting told to do that and they're getting pressure, pressure, and they're doing a lot of unnatural things that they probably normally wouldn't. But that's gonna take a while to fix that because to your point, the last 10 years have been building that up, which is gonna make it, make it really challenging to reverse it.

And just think about What is a great salesperson? It's people who sell. It comes down to that. Does it really matter how they sell?

Yeah.

I was on this early, uh, sales trip with my VP, and he goes, wait till you meet Marlise. She is a dynamo. She is just a killer. Hadn't met her, had heard about her, had talked to Okay, I'm gonna learn. Well, of course she comes in, she's talking about this deal. I need you on this call. What should I do with this? Can you meet me at 6:00 AM tomorrow? We need a conference call. And what was interesting, as soon as my boss left the room, she just relaxed. It was an act. She just relaxed, took off her shoes and go, good, that bullshit's over with. It was a total act. She knew what he wanted to see. So instead of working really hard, why don't you do a 15-minute sprint in front of your manager to prove how hard you work? Because we didn't have dashboards then. With dashboards, I bet she has some VA hitting the keys 24/7 now. It's evidence of work. It's not the results of work. We get paid for one and we get managed to another.

That's smart. That's very clever from her. She was definitely thinking, thinking ahead of her time, that's for sure. Uh, and that's, that's a good one to use. And I, yeah, with, with that approach or with The dashboard approach is everything's a priority. So it's, you know, calling people, it's sending the email cadences, it's doing this, doing, doing an internal meeting. It's nothing really is prioritized and, and they're not really focused, but it feels good and, and the CRM looks great, the dashboard looks great, but is it gonna get that end result of actually closing a deal? So I, I know for me, the sooner I realized What was really effective with getting to the next step, getting deals closed. Like, that's where I try to spend the majority of my time. I'm forced even more to do that now. But the more you can cut out the rest of it, whether it's internal stuff or the water cooler conversations that aren't going to get you anywhere, I think that can really help. So prioritizing is a big one. And then also, like, what environment are you putting yourself in? Because We've had all this back and forth with work from home or you have to go to the office. It's a little bit mixed as far as what, what the deal is now. But if I'm in a chaotic environment, just for me, where I'm around a bunch of people, although it's good to be social and get to know people, if you're trying to climb the ladder or something, that's a little bit different. But if you're just trying to be an individual contributor, close deals, make good money, how much being with other people or being at an office is going to help you get there, or is it just internal stuff to pat each other on the back and act like things are going great and all that? So you got to be social, you got to be friendly, all that type of stuff. But I've, especially the last 2 years, because I've been mainly working remote from home and make my schedule completely. If I'm not in a certain environment, I got, you know, time blocks. I got music that I want to have playing. I, I put my phone down so I don't see any notifications. I mean, I, all these little things that keep stacking up. And that helps me focus way better. But if you're not doing stuff like that, and there's a lot of, you got kids, you got dogs, you got all that, totally get it. So I know people that will rent out an office because they, it's nothing personal to their spouse, but they can't get stuff done at home. And they, they go there at least for certain times during the day to actually be more productive and, and focused. So I don't know how many salespeople are thinking like that, but I, I think you have to these days. Otherwise you can just waste so much time.

You can, and it feels like you're being effective. And a lot of people do it because it feels like it being effective. And then everyone tells me it's, you know, quality versus quantity. Well, who needs quantity in sales? What is quantity? Do you get paid on quantity?

No.

Um, do you get awards on quantity? You have the most pipeline. That award has never been given, only to marketing people. Most calls, no one— everyone cares before something counts, but after something counts, no one cares. And that's why everyone makes it up, and everybody knows you just make it up. So then if you're making it up, then it's just work. To pretend to work. There's no quantity in sales. It's either quality prospecting, quality pipeline, or quality revenue.

Nobody—

accounting doesn't kick it back and go that I need more of these. We can't book this. I need stuff that's not as good as this, but more of it. There's no quantity. Why do we do quantity? Because we don't know how to get quality. 1,000 leads sounds better than 10, but is it better? Who knows? It's up to us to judge them, to determine, and to prioritize them. And if you look at your calendar and it's packed You probably have an issue and you can't answer the question, what's the next deal that will close off the top of your head without looking in the CRM? Why don't you know? That's what you get paid on. That's what you're working towards. Or are you just doing a bunch of stuff hoping something comes through? Is that selling?

Probably not. Maybe they have a higher base or something and they need to look at the— because the comp plan can dictate some of that too. If you have a high base, you might not— you can get away with it more. But if you're truly wanting to be in sales, you need to get in more of a commission type environment because that's where you can bet on yourself the most. A couple other things just with the word chaotic mindset, because this is what I'm guilty of for sure, is that I'm very perfectionist. In nature. And I think that creates a lot of chaos in my own head because I can't let go of things. I pay attention to too many details on random stuff that shouldn't really be a big deal. So I, I've had to get better at, because I have that perfectionist nature, it's, I'm not gonna fully be able to change that, but just not putting certain things on my to-do list. So like, I, if it goes on my to-do list, it's gonna be something that's revenue generating or helping me in some other area. And then there's like that, that parking lot list. I think, I don't know where I took that term from. It might've been like the Eisenhower Matrix, but I, I have a, another list that I don't look at very much. That's just like, if I can ever get to it at some point, great. At least I have it written down somewhere, but then it doesn't go on my main list. So I've had to get better at really focusing on the stuff that matters and, and not worrying about those other little things that pop in my head, which does create a little bit of chaos and also just overdoing it too. So I, Compared to most salespeople, probably not true, but I, I can overprepare sometimes. So what I found is that now I have really good templates before my meetings and I have, instead of spending 30 minutes, maybe I spend more like 10 or 15 because I have the same template. I don't have to look up as much. It's like boom, boom, boom. That's how I get ready for a meeting. And then as you progress to more complex meetings, you have to dive a little bit deeper. But that's helped me versus just recreating the wheel every time and trying to find out every little detail about that person, especially for first calls. So I have like this template that's helped me out a lot and that saves a ton of time. And then, you know, where can I cut out the low-value things, administrative stuff that every salesperson typically hates, whether it's expense reports or CRM, whatever it may be? Can you outsource that or just not prioritize it as much? Uh, that, that's something too. So that, that perfectionist nature has hurt my mindset at times, but I'm trying to improve it.

Let's talk about that. What have ever done perfect?

Touché.

Why do you think you tell yourself that? My perfectionist nature. Why do you tell yourself that? Do it on purpose. Maybe you did it 3 times.

You tell me. I need a little therapy session with my chaotic mindset.

Well, what I found is It's a rationalization for why you're not focused on what you know you should be focused on. When I hear it, I, I know that person can't make a decision because they're a perfectionist. Until the answer's perfect, which it'll never be. It's kind of, kind of holding this little card That you don't have to play. It feels good, right?

Is it?

Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's true. I mean, it's, it's, it's like, so for that virtual assistant thing, the, the way I had to wrap my head around it is, okay, if I, if they're doing those lower value tasks that I shouldn't be spending my time doing, even if they do it at 70% of the rate that maybe I would do it, it's a win, right? Because they're, because I don't have to deal with it and they're doing it. So that, that's how I have to start looking at things. And, and yeah, it's, it's a good point. I, I am pretty, Decisive. I just do probably more prep than I need to, to make the decision. So it's definitely, it's a good perspective for sure. It's, I guess, an excuse.

Excuse to not make the decision or to help yourself make the decision?

I'm doing it to help myself make the decision.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. Okay.

Just think about that, right? Because what do indecisive people say? No one says I'm indecisive. I did a poll on LinkedIn just to pull this out to prove that there are people who can't make— I'm not saying you can't make a decision. I'm saying it just kind of, it feels good. Yeah. That if you were given an obvious decision that's yes or no, can you make that decision? Yes or no? A lot of people put comments. I would need more facts. I said it's obvious. It's obvious. Well, you say it's obvious. Well, it's my poll. They're coming up. With their own hurdles to put in front of themselves. And we do this, right? And chaos is a great reason not to make a decision. Being busy is a great reason not to make a decision. That's why I usually ask, like, what's the next deal to close? Or when's that deal going to close? Then you get a story, you don't get a date. Because they haven't thought about it. Thinking about it would be a good use of time. If it's closable, you want to close it. How do we close it? But it feels good to have a demo because that, that gives me quantity. But is it a good demo? How many times do you hear, well, it's probably worth a meeting. That's a reasonably high bar, I would think, wouldn't you? A half hour of your time, an hour of your time.

Should be. Yeah, it should be.

But a lot of people do it. Oh, you gotta drive coffee? I got a friend of mine, he'll drive to meet a stranger for coffee, spend half a day doing it. 100% give on his side. No, nothing in return other than a distraction. And we like some distractions, right? When, when it's Joey's birthday and there's cake in the cafeteria— cake, Coco, cake, Coco, cake.

Definitely. Well, that's a great perspective on the perfectionist stuff. I'll have to, uh, use that for myself for sure. And the other thing too that I know for sure causes chaos with people is when you— the highs of winning a deal versus the lows of losing a deal. That, that can wreak havoc on people's mindset for sure. Either you get— you win a couple deals, then you get overconfident, maybe complacent. You're not doing the stuff that you want to or that you should be doing, and that can eventually catch up to you. But if you lose a deal, for sure that can put you in a downward spiral for, for weeks, months even. It can, you know, push people out of the profession depending on the situation. So that, that gets really tough to manage. And I know that certainly causes a lot of chaos because you start doubting yourself when you lose deals. You start second-guessing like, man, should I be in sales? Or all these different things can start running through your head. I think most people That's just natural for that to happen. And then, but you got to snap out of it. You got to address it and let go of the emotions or whatever it is. And then you got to get back on, you know, doing the stuff that you need to do. So the highs and lows of the deals, I think, really affect people's chaotic mindset for sure.

Yeah, because, you know, especially when you look at pipeline, you start thinking, if I close all of this, You know, what kind of summer house can I get? That's pretty hard not to think that, right? To put a big smile on your face. And it's kind of good a little bit to motivate you, to give you a reason to work harder on it. But if you just think it's going to happen, you're probably going to be disappointed. And, and when's the real awakening time during the quarter? Is it during your QBR, or is it at like 7 PM on the last day of the quarter when you finally realize it's not closing and that only you and your champion thought it was? Wasn't approved. It's not in procurement. It's essentially a wish. But you believed what you heard. You didn't expand any further and you believed it. Why? Because you wanted to. It served you and then it hurts a lot, right? Oh yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a roller coaster. I mean, it's, there's certain things if I do lose a deal, I have like a template now of Some things that I will do, like I'll just give myself some time. I will go work out, go, you know, take, take a day off, whatever it may be. Then I'll try to assess what happened. You know, where did, where did I make a mistake or accountability side? Like where did, did, did it go off the rails and how can I prevent that from happening again? And then, and write it down somewhere. Like you have to document this stuff. Otherwise you're going to keep making the same mistakes naturally because we get busy with all the different stuff salespeople are doing. So I have a, Process. Not that I'm trying to lose a ton of deals, but none of us are going to be— to our point, none of us are going to be perfect. So you're going to lose some stuff. So you have to be ready for it. And then not playing the pipeline game. I'm fortunate now. I don't have to deal with that as much, but not playing that game or at least knowing, okay, what game are you playing internally with the pipeline? And then what is your reality? And at least balancing those things. I think that can help a ton. But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of pressure. I think the pressure, going back to earlier, The company is putting pressure on you, your manager is putting pressure on you to do the activities, do all that stuff. You got these deals that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but that pressure of just sales in general and hitting the quota, making it happen, I mean, it's performance that can cause a lot of chaos too. Because if, if you're not performing or if that pressure gets to you, which it gets to everybody at some point, then you You know, a lot of things can go through your head and I think that makes people either get burnt out or they just need a reset or they just can't get back in the swing of things. But that I see that happen pretty often with, with salespeople.

Yeah, because when your manager, they care about the number. Everybody thinks they either love you or hate you. They could care less about you. They care about the number. That, that they might even say the number instead of your name sometimes. And I think a lot of people, when a manager gives a suggestion or coaching, they may take it the wrong way or, or make it gospel instead of a suggestion. And the number one complaint is what? Managers, right? I could sell so much better if I didn't have a manager. And I felt that way a lot of my life too. Because you have a plan, you got your week scheduled, and why aren't you doing this? And it's like, don't— I'll tell you later, right? Oh, your pipeline needs to be updated, you know, because everybody else would put big round numbers just to keep— okay, I'll put big round numbers, you know, and you log in, you, you fix that. But if you let it beat you down, or your manager doesn't like you, or they like somebody else better, or my territory sucks, or My SE sucks. It's up to you to fix that. And every— how does everyone fix it? They go get another job somewhere else where the manager knows even less about you. They give you crummier territory, but it's new and new feels good, doesn't it?

It does.

Yeah. 90-day honeymoon, maybe a base and a draw.

It's comfort. You, you're, you get back in that, that comfort zone if you do something like that. And, and new does feel good for sure. I think you really have to, and this is the hard part, you have to unlearn some of those bad habits. So my example, whatever reason I say that I'm a perfectionist, like I need to unlearn some of that. Yeah. I mean, the—

Self-conscious about it.

No, it's all good. Uh, bad routines that you have, like if you procrastinate a ton, if you get too complacent because you went to that new situation. So it's, you, you do have to think like, how do you unlearn? I think you have to unlearn some of those bad habits that are probably natural for you, and that's gonna help get rid of that chaotic mindset a little bit. But you have to figure out what they are for you specifically and then really focus on that. It's not easy to change your habits, obviously. So I think a lot of it is, some of it's self-inflicted too. There's a lot of outside forces that do it, but I think a lot of it is self-inflicted where you get in your own head and create that chaos and You have to figure out what is triggering that or, or where's it coming from and then you can start trying to fix it. But then a lot of people just get sucked back into, to the vortex of activities and doing stuff and you don't ever really address it and then it's just the same cycle over and over again. Yeah.

What's helped me is, you know, the, I don't write in a journal, but I do it into Otter on my smartphone. And I'll say, and I always ask, what did I do yesterday? How did I spend my time? And I ask myself, was that a distraction or was it an action towards a goal? A lot of it was a distraction, right? You get into an argument on LinkedIn or some post pisses you off, or you get some request in InMail, or somebody's commenting on something that's stupid that bugs you. It's the stories you tell yourself that are killing your productivity because those stories always make us the hero, right? If you listen to 2 people's stories, both seem reasonable, right?

Mm-hmm.

And you can look at the video. What really happened? Well, that's what I thought happened. That's what I wanted to happen. That's what I wish happened.

That's so good, the stories that you're actually telling yourself, because we all want to be the hero in the super movie saving the day like Arnold Schwarzenegger or whatever. You know, you start off in the gutter and then you come back and you save the world type thing. And we all tell ourselves those stories or we make stuff up that isn't the reality, but it sounds better in our heads. So yeah, that's a great one is we got to not tell ourselves those stories because that's probably what's creating that mirage or creating some of that chaos.

Yeah, Ted Bundy killed 30, 40, 50 women. It wasn't his fault. Playboy magazine made him do it. Who's the hero? I'm a victim, right?

Mhm.

What— who's the guy in New York? The dog told them to do it. Now, did the dog tell him to do it? No, he heard it in his mind. He couldn't face what he did, so he had to create an excuse, making him the victim, not the villain. Now, do you think he— Ted Bundy really believed that?

I doubt it, but who knows with somebody like that.

It's just an extreme, but in sales, do you hear why you lost? Oh, I single-threaded. Has anyone ever said that? No, no, no. What do they do? They tell a story, right?

The economy, the election.

Yeah, he was this close to getting it. I love the this close. He presented to the board. But the board has some other issue they have to address first. You think that's real? Sounds good though, doesn't it? And if you tell yourself enough, you believe it. I think what we have to do in sales is live in reality because reality hits us every day. Even bigger deals, more deals, faster deals. That's what it's all about. Sign up today. Put the excuses away. Excuses feel good, but they're expensive. Excuse—you know what the excuses are costing you? Tens, fifty, maybe 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.