HOW TO STAY OUT OF THE REP ZONE - THE PLACE DEALS DIE

Sometimes the things that make us great in sales, we have to either unlearn or they're counterintuitive. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. I call it the rep zone, meaning we start to talk like a sales rep, act like a sales rep, show our interest as paramount, uh, be that corporate voice, uh, the uptones, the, the faked enthusiasm. The talking about business like we have business acumen. And it can come off as cold and fake. And it puts us into this zone of being a rep. And, you know, a lot of us are trained to do it. We hear our managers do it. But what breaks through that? What builds trust? It's talking to people like people, talking about what they care about, talking about commonalities and building from there. We're going to be talking about this and how it makes a great rep different. Because too many of us, we read off the scripts, we have our value proposition, we have our elevator pitch, and we have our call to action, and we send out our spam and our cadences, and we make our metrics, but we're not selling. We're not connecting with another human being. We're not starting conversations and getting meetings. Sound familiar? Some of this we're never taught as human beings in general. We are on our devices most of the day. We work through email. We think in transactions, not transformations. Sales is transformations. We have to build a know, like, and trust relationship with a stranger. And that is the worst way to do that is to act like a salesperson. The very worst way to do that. Think of who you would like to talk to least. Hmm. Who do you want knocking at your front door? Who do you want ringing your phone? Who do you want filling up your email? Answer the question yourself. Let's get into this conversation. Before we do, a couple things. Make sure you're checking out our friends over at Covideo. Video is changing the world, and if you're not becoming at least good at it, you're going to be left behind. And it's permeating every device, every application, and email— Covideo is killing it. And they show you how to do it, not just give you the tools to do it. Go to covideo.com right now. Tell them you heard about it on the podcast. Also, if you're in the courses already, make sure you're— if you can't attend the office hours, catch up with them. The most recent ones are at the bottom of the chapter. I store all of them in there. You never miss a single one. We had a great one yesterday, and it's great to hear other people. sharing their success stories, their challenges, their case studies, and we talk it over for an hour every other Friday. The calendar's in the very first chapter called Office Hours with the link. I think it's one of the best parts of the course because you get to participate, you get a check-in point every 2 weeks, and if you can't make it, you can just listen to it like a podcast or catch up on the weekend. Here we go with the interview.

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

Of course, very excited to be here, Brian. Been a big fan of yours for, for a long time. Um, so excited to speak with you and, and the audience. Um, Tyler McGrath, I'm on the senior strategic team at Samsara. We're an IoT company based here in the Bay Area, really fast-growing company. Of course, a lot of fun also comes with a lot of headaches, especially in sales. But, you know, if you're, if you're in sales, you might as well sell the most expensive stuff. So, you know, that's, that's a good part for sure.

So you guys are at the high end when you say expensive?

Yeah, we're definitely a premium product, which has its advantages but also disadvantages. You know, when you walk into any room, you know, you're going to be the most expensive product, but also the most fun car to drive off the lot, you know, when it works well.

And who do you sell to?

Who's the persona that you're after?

Yeah, it's a wide range. Um, so we could get anyone from, you know, fleet or safety managers. We work with a lot of, uh, you know, trucking companies, transportation. We also do site security, so you can get directors of IT, you know, COOs. And of course, you want to get to the CEO for the sign-on-the-dotter line.

And do you get much inbound as far as demand?

Um, yeah, we do have an inbound engine. Um, we've got about 25,000 customers now. So what's really exciting is when we release new product lines, um, you know, you can double dip, uh, into current accounts. Um, you know, I've heard some stat, I don't know if it's true, it's 7 times easier to sell to a current customer than it is net new. So it is nice to have the innovation of new product lines, makes your job as a salesperson a lot easier.

Well, what's the hardest part of it?

That's a great question. It's competitive. It's a very competitive marketplace. You know, we really consolidate 5 or 6 different technology providers into one platform. So you really need to know the landscape of what you're going up against, you know, what's working, what's not working. And these are large, you know, enterprise-sized deals. So, you know, they take a year or more, and, you know, time kills all deals. So you really need to stay You know, relevant, continue with value prop. It's, you know, most things you run into there.

Now, it sounds a lot more complex than like Glassdoor.

Yes, very different than Glassdoor, that's for sure. And I was working for the San Diego Padres before that, selling season tickets, a little bit more complex there. I wouldn't say it's easier, but selling, you know, selling season tickets in America's greatest city for the time when they were like the worst team in baseball wasn't So it wasn't too easy, but yeah, very different than the HR space. HR is a great space. It is primed still for disruption, but I like to sell a physical product, and that's advice that I would give to anyone. You need to be able to hold it in your hands. It can still be tech, it can still be software, but when you can actually have a physical product to deploy, to install, it makes you a lot stickier as a provider. Which makes you harder to replace.

Because you need them to take action, something that they can test drive.

Exactly. It's kind of like Apple, you know, you go, you have the product in your hand, you open the box, it's the buying experience. And when you're installing, you know, 30-minute to an hour installs in 500 trucks, you really don't want to have to do that again. It's not just a flip of a switch to a new software. You know, these trucks go all over the country. You don't want to have to get them back.

And how was that transition from like— I mean, because HR, it's pretty well understood— to trucking, which I'm sure you didn't have any understanding of at all?

Zero, zero understanding. It's a fascinating industry, and I think it became even more prevalent here during the pandemic, right? you take for granted when you order a toothbrush on Amazon and it gets there in 24 hours, right? There is so much that goes on behind the scenes there that really is fascinating, especially with like, you know, the Suez Canal blockage that happened this year. You know, we've got, you know, massive container ships that are just stuck in the Long Beach and the Houston harbors. You know, it is one global trade and, you know, we're playing a part in that, but as a consumer, You know, you want stuff right then and there. You order a Lyft or an Uber, it's there in 5 minutes. You order a toothbrush, it's, it's there in 24 hours. But there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes, and truck drivers play a big part in that. You know, they sacrifice, you know, their family time, you know, a more normal life in order to provide that. And I really enjoy giving them a service that makes their life easier.

And you've done really well there. What, what do you attribute that to? Other than natural skill and talent?

Yeah, I think that only takes us so far. You know, sales is a— it's a roller coaster. You really have highs and you really have lows. And to be in it, I think, as long as we have, Brian, you really need to keep an even keel and you need to obsess about your customers. You know, if they text you late on a Friday, they need something done, it's mission critical for their business. And if you're able to get them that, You know, there's a lot of loyalty out there still. And, you know, if you bend over backwards and you give them the customer support post-sale, I mean, the most powerful thing in my business is referrals.

Yeah.

It's so much easier to walk into an account when, you know, the COO, the CEO is kind of handholding you on a personal email or a phone call, or maybe take everyone out to lunch. And you gotta treat people right to get to that place. And so it's kind of like a snowball. You push a snowball off the top of a mountaintop, it's really slow build. Some of them fizzle out. like most people do in sales, but eventually get to a point where that snowball is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And your work is hitting, is getting your quota really for you, where your people are.

Yeah, the kind of a compounding thing that a lot of reps don't think about, they're more transactional, you know, hunt, shoot, kill, eat, hunt, shoot, kill, eat, right? Which maybe Glassdoor was more like that, but you had a big brand name there. Has your brand been recognized yet? Is it a leader? I don't know the space at all.

Yeah, no, it actually is a leader. It's a fascinating company. It's actually the 2nd fastest growing company in all the United States. I started— actually North America. I started about 4 years ago. I was like 150 employees and now we're over 2,000, multiple countries. So really exciting. It's a huge help from having a really strong marketing team. I know sales and marketing don't always get along, but we Need to come closer together, guys. But it is very powerful when you don't have to spend the first 10 minutes of a phone call explaining who you are. They've seen you at a roadshow, they've had a friend that's using you, they've seen your truck, you know, driving down the road. So that is very helpful.

And have they figured that out on the marketing side? Because I got to imagine, you know, that that demographic, that persona is not exactly on Facebook and Instagram all day, right? Getting to them is probably a mystery, right?

It's a, it's a great point. Um, so in this space, you've got really two sides. You've got owner operators where you are an individual and you own maybe one truck, and then you're, you know, a FedEx or a UPS and you've got hundreds of thousands of trucks. We focus more on the UPSs and the FedExes that control large amounts of assets. So those people are on LinkedIn and Facebook and Instagram for the most part. So it's actually not too different, but you really need to get driver buy-in. And that's the part of, of my job that is the most difficult, where you've got guys that are driving 12 hours a day, but you need to train them on how to use your, your application. Because if the drivers don't like it, it doesn't matter how awesome your technology is, no one up top is going to buy it because the drivers are the lifeblood of any organization.

And what's in it for them?

What's their win personally?

Yeah, so there's something called the ELD mandate, electronic logging device mandate. Basically it says, you know, a truck driver can only drive so many hours throughout the week or day. That was actually suspended during COVID kind of in an emergency. We needed stuff now. But for the driver, you know, these guys are working hard, they just want to drive. So giving them an easy application to use that gets them back to doing what they do best is the business that we're in.

And how have you evolved there? Because, you know, very complex sale, long timeframe. What were the first deals like?

Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. Um, I think it comes down to aligning yourself with a mission-critical product, a need-to-have, not a nice-to-have. And I think a lot of sales reps, especially earlier in their career, really want to take the first thing, the quick promotion out of SDR into AE, right? Um, you know, the quick accelerated growth you hear from recruiters and, you know, that might all be well and good, but learning the basics is very, very important.

Yeah.

But also learning the basics at a company that who you're selling to can't operate their business without you. And that's what I learned moving from the HR space and, you know, the season ticket space, very much, you know, nice to have.

Nice to have, luxury.

The first time there's an economic downturn, people aren't going to baseball games and people aren't hiring, right? But trucks are still moving. So think about and ask yourself those questions when you are applying and looking to your next sales role.

So then the next thing is, since you're at the top end of the market, how do you separate yourself and justify that delta?

Questions. Yeah, you gotta ask questions. You know, the value is there, but if you're just feature pointing, those are pennies on the dollar. You need to align yourself with mission business critical attributes. So, you know, one easier to use feature that you could please breeze through that a COO might think, hey, that's cool, but what does that mean for my business? Hey, this feature means that you can upload fuel receipts within seconds and you can get these people paid faster, you know, less than the downtime, and that could be $80,000 a month for how much you guys spend in fuel, right? Now my product that's 8% more than the next guy is, is nothing.

And who makes the product selection? Not the economic one, but the product. Is it the truck drivers?

Is it the Yeah, the truck drivers have influence, um, but you've got this mid-tier management at these operations.

Operations.

Yeah, fascinating, uh, side of any business. These people, in my opinion, work harder than, than anyone. They're the ones that make the company run, the day-to-day operations, right? They're not eye in the sky thinking about what's next, which is very important, but they're the ones, you know, getting product out the door. They're the ones making the paychecks. They're the ones that have the pulse with, you know, employee, you know, morale. So these people have their hands in every bucket. And so getting them on board is, is a huge momentum boost when you get up to the C-level. When you've got a driver on board, you've got mid-level management on board, this is kind of that big snowball coming right at you. You can't say no.

But then it gets to finance and to CEO, and they're like, Didn't you check the other options?

Of course. Absolutely. Those are all really good questions to ask during your discovery. If you get to the end and the CEO isn't aware of the project and you didn't know that, you've already failed.

And the CEO is the clear economic—

or can they get overturned by like the operations guy go, look, No, you know, the most powerful person that I've seen, and usually the smartest guy in the room that everyone listens to, is the director of IT, right? This could all seem like the best idea in the world, and then your director of IT says, hey, this doesn't work on our network, and you're back to square one.

Because they're kind of a naysayer, they're not really a user.

Um, yeah, yeah, they're not really a day-to-day user, I'd say, but they're responsible to make sure that all technology is working within the business. And so if you're introducing this foreign object that's going to mess up their flow, you know, no one really else understands what the director of IT does, especially at the C-level. Most don't have a technical background, and so they're most often the smartest person in the room.

And but can they switch, or they probably can't decide to go/no-go with the technology, but they can point in a different vendor.

Yes, great point. So if you get the buy-in from the driver and then you get the buy-in from the mid-level management and get the buy-in from, you know, the C-level executive, but the director of IT says, hey, this doesn't scale with our business, you're back to square one. So it's definitely a big box that you need to check. You don't run into it as often, but it is kind of like this— the nuclear launch codes, you know, if they pull those, you're Your deal that should have taken 8 months is now 18 months.

And given that it's a high dollar amount, I got to imagine that your competitors want the deal just as bad as you do, right?

Yeah, you're going up against the best of every company, which is exciting. You know, when you get to dollar amounts of this size, you know, you're not walking into, you know, first or second year experience. Yeah, that'd be great if that happened. If anyone's listening, go for it.

You're not going to win just because you followed up more often. It has to be some strategic difference there.

Exactly.

What have you learned along that way where maybe at the first couple of deals you didn't cover some bases or you got—

Yeah. What I've really started to do is bring the buyer along with me. So I like to create, actually share documents with— after our first kind of deep discovery calls, list everything that's been important to them, you know, have like a satisfied, not satisfied, or in progress kind of, you know, bar that will highlight in red, yellow, or green. And so when we get to the end of evaluation, especially during negotiation, I've got everything that their team has ever said. They've probably even forgotten half of this stuff.

Yeah.

When we present to the board, I've got everyone's name attached to it, links, buy-in, quotes from drivers, quotes from mid-level management, and Now they're a part of the process. And so when you get to a board or to a C-level, you can really turn to them and have them sell the technology for you, and you're just kind of there to answer questions. And that is such a much stronger place to be in when you've got a company internally selling the product for you, as opposed to you, you know, kind of pushing the cart up the hill.

And how do you make sure that your competitor isn't doing a better job than Yeah.

I mean, you really can't. You can do the best that you can, in my opinion, on every deal. You really need to qualify, which I think is the most important part of the sales process, especially at deal sizes of this large. You're going to need to be in— this is your life. This is your career. You're investing hours into this business. And if there really isn't an open project or C-level buy-in prior to you jumping in, You got to go to the next one.

Is it just a science experiment then, or is it just like a market study, or, uh, just to stay busy, I guess, you know?

Right.

And that's, that's the worst part when you're spinning your wheels.

And have you seen reps go down that path?

It happens to everybody, you know. I'm not immune to it. You get the happy ears when you're on the phone. Oh, they love the product, the technology was great. There's no budget, no one knows he's looking at this, this is his 3rd day on the job, right? You get the happy years and, you know, you open the opportunity, your manager loves you, and, you know, you're just going to disappoint them even more, you know, 6 months down the line.

Well, that's it. I, I hear, you know, managers focusing on meetings and stuff, and it's like, eh, it's like, how many dials did you get in this week?

Did you send an email?

Right.

We're not in the dating business, we're in the closing business.

Absolutely.

And what are those questions? You mentioned a couple of them. Is there budget? Are they doing this by themselves? Is there some kind of initiative from the top down? Is there some kind of compliance thing that kicks in?

Absolutely. So a lot of these things, you legally have to have a product like ours, which is another great point when you're looking at your next sales job. You know, is there— are there other forces at play here? They're going to buy you or somebody else. They're not going to not do anything. They legally can't. Right? That's a huge barrier. So questions I like to ask is, you know, is this an approved project, right? Does C-level know about this? Does the board know about this? And a lot of times, is there an investment company on the side that isn't a part of your day-to-day leadership that will be invested in this? Do you guys have a current technology in place? How much time do you have left on your current contract? Great. You've gotten to the finish line and they've got 2 more years and they can't wait to sign up with you in 2 years, right? Great, thanks. I'm an idiot. Um, great questions to ask. Um, you know, do they have the time to install, right? Do you, do you need to bring third-party installers in there? That's a big part of it. Once you buy the technology, that's, that's day one. You got to get it in all the trucks, right? Um, so yeah, and there's a ton more, but it's when you become more conversational with it, when it's not like, hey, I'm putting my sales hat on now, I'm going to ask you all these questions. It's a conversation. It doesn't have to be a discovery for 15 minutes at the beginning, and then you demo in the middle and you close at the end. They're people at the end of the day, they're just like you, talk to them.

Right.

And how do you stay away from that, who you are, what you do, how's it work, what's it cost? Is it that conversation? Is it that you design these questions to engage and determine where they are?

Yeah, um, it does start with the conversation, um, and, you know, rapport, rapport, rapport, right? But when someone asks you in the beginning of every conversation, even when you're passing somebody in the hallway, hey, how you doing today, right? What does everybody say?

Good, how are you?

I'm good, how are you? I'm good, how are you?

I go back and forth, right?

Exactly. They're giving you a window right there to say whatever you want. You know, I played bad. I threw my back out last night. Someone asked me how you— I'm doing terrible today, Frank. I haven't been in the gym for 18 months. I laced the shoes up for the first time and now I'm a 40-year-old man. My back is totally out. Like, man, do you play any sports? Boom. And now you're talking about something, anything else besides the technology that you're trying to sell. And now 15 minutes down the line, you know his kids' names. He's got 2 dogs. He plays lacrosse. And, uh, you know, his lawn is dying, right? And, and now you're friends.

Well, well, that's it, because the best people I've seen do that have something that's very relevant to everybody. I had somebody who said, you know, their response was always, can't be that bad, I had a croissant and a great cup of coffee this morning. Now everybody eats breakfast, right?

Yeah.

And, you know, most people like coffee, like Danish, hate Danish, but everyone eats.

Yeah, and they get an opinion on it.

Yeah, and they eat it for a reason. Only thing available, something they love. And all of a sudden, now you take it from rep-client to people-people.

Exactly. And that's— that sounds so easy, but why does everyone forget to do it?

Well, I think we become a rep, so we think we have to act like a rep, which is the worst thing you can act like. Because who wants to talk to a sales rep?

I don't. I hate it when salespeople call me.

Yeah, but everyone likes to talk to a friend. Yeah, to like a peer, somebody in the same space. Yeah, right, who know you're an expert in this space. And they're all curious about how it works, why you exist and why you're more expensive than something else.

Yeah.

And something I've noticed most recently is I think a lot of salespeople are trying, they're pulling you, right? They're pulling you in the direction that they want you to go in. And there's a lot of really talented salespeople that make a lot of money that do that. But what's the first reaction that you have when someone pulls you towards them?

You back away.

Yeah, like, hey dude, like, what are you doing? But if so, if you push someone away from you, what's their first reaction?

No, why, why?

They're also just naturally, like, if you're out in the street, you push somebody, they're going to lean forward. Like, what's— I don't want to fall back, right? So in sales, I think it needs to be a little bit more push than what I've been seeing and less pull, right? If you really want to be, you know, a consultant sale, right? You can tell people no, right? If it's a smaller thing, hey, maybe you can point them in another direction, right? You're going to build some trust. Maybe we're not the best fit for you right now. Maybe they are, maybe they're not. But as soon as you tell someone they can't have it, kind of like the mean girls, you can't sit with us, they're going to lean in even more, which I've found to be really, really powerful.

It is, you know, the takeaway or the neg, whatever you call it, it says I'm not desperate.

Exactly.

And it builds trust because you're showing their interest is higher than yours. You know, what they really need is more important than what I need to sell.

Yeah. And then there's a— do you know who Key and Peele is? They're 2 comedians on Comedy Central.

Yeah, sure.

Okay, so they do this really amazing skit.

The cold call one?

The cold call skit. And I'm like, that is it. That is, you know, of course you don't say those exact words, but that is the feeling that you can have with people. I want to buy 10 deluxe delivery, you know, packages vacation-wise. And like, that's what I think we can, we can get to more. And it's, it's an ever-evolving process.

And what do you see your kind of either your peers or people new in the space doing wrong? Is it the talking about the product and not the problem? Is it Not qualifying?

No, that's, that's a good question. Um, I think, I think qualifying, number one, is the most important thing to do in sales. And especially when you're first starting out, most people start as like an inbound or outbound ADR, SDR, and, you know, every company has a different name for it. And you're really measured on metrics, only metrics, not quality of conversation. You get a qualified op that counts to your 5 for the I'm like, wait, hold on a second, but this deal closed for $20K, but the next guy's deal closed for $500K. Why are we— why is that the same? I don't get that because we're measured on how much revenue we bring in.

Right.

I don't understand why we're teaching people something totally backwards. Then all of a sudden they're a closing rep and the whole world's changed, right? I think they're— the reorganization of the ADR, BDR, SDR world, Could have could have big impacts on on training, and when people are calling in, you know the C level. They know you're a first year sales rep. You can just tell, right? You're you're not bringing any value to the conversation with a cold call, right? It's as opposed to hey, I'm calling from Samsara, and we sell sensors that go in your trucks. Do you have any need for sensors? As opposed to hey Frank, you know I'm actually working with Bob down the street. We helped him with X Y and Z. They saved X on accidents. You know just just curious. I was actually in the area. I can stop by next week, you know, do you want to grab lunch? That's a friend.

Yeah.

Right?

And those things have to almost be unlearned because most of the people are coming out of school where they came out of partying and they had to talk to strangers all day. And now they're taught to read a script.

Yeah.

That makes them feel creepy. People on the other end don't like it, and they're measured by how often they do dumb things.

You nailed it. You nailed it.

A recipe for success.

Yeah, you know, you're going to President's Club, to the moon.

And it is.

That's why I always saw and do see sales as counterintuitive. Like your example, one deal is $5 million and one's $50K. They're not equal deals.

No. Why are we— why are SDRs being incentivized like they are equal?

Right. And, you know, and I see it coming all the way down from the VCs all the way down because they all use conventional logic. You know, it's like, okay, if you— if the pizza takes 30 minutes at 300 degrees, if you turn it up to 600 degrees, can it be done in 15 minutes?

You know, pizza for everybody.

Yeah, can you get 3 women to have a kid in 3 months? No, no, certain things, there's a nature to it and it's an intelligent process. It's not just activity.

Yeah, and that's a failure of, you know, the last generation of sales leadership. You know, maybe that worked more when you could hammer out 150 dials and there wasn't mass email and all these insight and analytics. Is that a leadership— to me, that's a leadership problem.

It's a leadership problem. Yeah, because, you know, they buy these tools, they, they look at the people, the unicorns in the tornado. Yeah, but are you a unicorn in the tornado? Probably not. You're probably a little sheep out in this little barren field trying to find something to eat. Yeah. But how about burnout? How have you handled that?

Yeah, that— this is— this has been difficult. Um, you know, you're working in your apartment, uh, you mean your penthouse, your penthouse apartment. You know, I'm in— I'm in the Bay Area, so I'm paying for a penthouse. Uh, unfortunately, um, it's been difficult. It has. And, you know, as you go through your career, you know, and you take a sick day and you're really not that sick, you just want to be at home. And I can answer emails from my And that, that's just the grass is greener on the other side. But as a salesperson, I think kind of inherently we are social people for, for the most part.

Yeah.

And we need the energy of the office because as we talked about that roller coaster earlier, you know, it's the— it's your teammates, it's the, you know, the guy on the other, you know, block of desks over there that you're buddies with that can bring you out of, of the down. The, the getting out of the down when you're just working from home, especially during the pandemic, was, you know, going on, you know, Apple News or something and reading that the world's ending, right? There was—

That's the down.

I'm like, well, how does this get any better from here? But I did miss the office. I really did. I missed the camaraderie of the office. I missed the Friday happy hours. And I think when it's you're all in this together, especially in sales, it's really, really important. Um, and so managing burnout, I mean, I was reading that, you know, more people are leaving the workforce now or changing jobs than ever. I'm like, guys, The grass isn't greener. You're going to find yourself in another position doing the same exact thing. That's more of an introspective thing than it is, I personally think, a job thing.

How have you kept it from not bottoming out? Because—

I got a dog. No, I— the dog is great, but you got to appreciate the small wins. And it's cliché, you learn it when you're an SDR and But it's true. I go for a walk, you know, after my morning calls every day, very similar to you. You have to appreciate the smaller things because if you're treating sales as a lifelong profession, every time you close a deal, you're just starting the next one, right? It can feel like Groundhog Day, but you really need to celebrate those. Life is too short.

And did you go— for you, I take it was like office fun to home alone?

No, I was more, uh, you know, office grind to after office fun, you know, gym, and then, you know, weekend warrior.

Okay. Yeah, because certainly people, you know, who had that and now it's gone Yeah, it's a big contrast.

It's huge. Yeah.

Any advice for people out there who are kind of at that middle level, kind of you 5 years ago?

Yeah, um, ask yourself this question, and always ask yourself this question when you're in sales. If you close a deal and you're not excited about it, doesn't give you that little kind of kid butterfly feelings, then get out. You know, it's not your thing, and that's okay. There's plenty of things to do. But if you still get that burning, you, you're fired up, you love the thrill— I almost like the chase more than the actual close. Um, but if you don't get that butterfly feeling on a big meeting, you're not nervous, or you, you jump up, high-five a buddy when you close a deal, it's time to move on.

Yeah, cool. Hey, where can people find you on LinkedIn?

Yeah, Tyler McGrath on LinkedIn. I'm out here in the Bay Area working at Samsara, fantastic company. We're definitely hiring. Brian, you have amazing content and always keep going on your long walks because that seems to be where you do your best thinking. I gotta get a dog. Get a dog. Golden retriever is the best.

Sales is one of those crazy careers where at the end of the month, quarter, a year, You get one of two things. You get commission checks, bonuses, or you get a bunch of excuses, explanations of why it didn't happen. Blame everybody. But the, the difference is one is useful and the other is covering up what you should have done. Sales is a performance profession. To get better at it, You have to not only practice but be conscious of the distinctions between how well you did and how well you could have done. These distinctions are tiny. Sometimes you can't see them. You have to see them in other people. Other people have to see them in you. And they're, they're so minute sometimes that You just forget it. It's like, well, it's no big deal. And it's no big deal if you win the deal. It's a huge deal if you lose the deal. And to become successful in sales, there's 2 main skills you need. One is building conversations with strangers that turn into business discussions. It's not about making friends. It's about building rapport and having open, trustworthy communication. And the worst way to do that is to sound like a sales rep, pretty much to read that script or hit that damn cadence button. My career has been made in the last couple years repairing the BS that's out there in the sales world. Yes, it works if you're in the tornado. The tornado is basically where there's already demand. You're basically taking orders and processing demand. And if that's where you are, great, it does work. But most of us aren't in that. That's the, the top 1%, and they don't pay their salespeople very well anyway because it's just a machine. They act like a machine, they think like a machine. Most of us are trying to sell something where there's latent pain, where people have the problem that you solve, but they don't know it. So I teach you how to get that conversation started, how to build it up and turn it into a business discussion. I call it Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. We had a fantastic office hours just yesterday. I shared a success story that spanned the course where we were able to get a multi-seven-figure deal approved. Through basically building a relationship with people who approve it above the CEO on the board. And how do you do that? You're not going to do that through a cold call or a pitch or spam. You have to build a conversation. And that's how— if you ever watch a great CEO do it, they don't act like salespeople. And how do you teach this? You got to break it down into tiny tiny bite-sized pieces, practice. And when you hear the success that other people are having— this is not this autonomous course where you, you're on your own. You get one-on-ones, 30-minute Zoom calls with me, and office hours. We're going on 3 and a half years of them stored in there. Tons of case studies, examples Q&A, pushback, and tools and techniques, trial and error, when you can hear people from all kinds of industries. And usually the hardest— people don't join this course because it's easy. They join the course because they're kind of at the end of the rope. They're tired, or they're smart. They're going, I don't want to spend a year Of rejection. I want to learn the smartest way of doing it, not the dumbest, and then just grind it through with your KPIs. A lot of first-year SDRs are in this. A lot of entrepreneurs are in it. A lot of senior salespeople who want to have to prospect, because if your pipeline is full, if your network is hot, everything seems to flow. When you come in Monday morning or the first hour of the morning and you look at the screen and you don't know where to start and nobody's replying to you and there's no messages on your phone and you got to start cold, wouldn't you like to start with a system that works where you can share it with other people, get feedback on these distinctions to become better? Go to b2brevenue.com. The only excuse is you're lazy and cheap, and if that's it, give up because sales is not going to be your bag. You're just going to, you know, okay, you keep trying. You know, I hear the people all the time, and I'm just— I don't even, I don't even try and convince them anymore because it's like, you'll come back, or You'll figure out sales isn't for you. Sales is fun when you're successful. It's exciting when you're successful. You get fired up when you know something works and you just execute it. When you're doing what you're told at the office and you know it doesn't work, it doesn't feel good to do more of it. So go to b2brevenue.com, check out, start the conversation, get the meeting. Watch the video. It's on my YouTube channel, my LinkedIn profile. It's on the website b2brevenue.com. Just hit the training tab. You can search for my name on LinkedIn. It's in the show notes of the podcast. There's just no excuse. You get a year, a year to become great at prospecting and winning the complex sale. Time's not waiting for anybody. Time is not your friend in sales. Time goes by faster than we anticipate, and the lost money we can never get back. We can't get back the deals that we lost. They're gone. We can only win the new deals, and we have to use our brain. Sales, you know, everyone talks about hard work. If you're good at it, it's fun. If you're not good at it, it's a grind. Let's get good at it. Go to b2brevenue.com. Tell a friend about the show. Make sure you're checking out the Sales Questions Brutally Honest Answers Show, the Sales Leadership Show, and the B2B Revenue Leadership Show. All the stuff is stored on the YouTube channel as well. You can just search Brian Burns Sales on YouTube. You come right up. You'll see my videos there, tons of them, and we'll see you next time. Sales has changed. You've got to update your game. You've got to practice. And for less than the cost of your cable, you can do it every month. Cost isn't the issue. A lot of people, oh, I don't have budget.

That's like bullshit.

You've got the money, you just don't have the energy. You don't have the commitment. You don't have the backbone. You want to like listen to a, you know, a podcast, which is helpful. I try and make it as resourceful as possible, but it's not as curated step-by-step process of a deal. No one would listen to that. It's not entertaining enough. That's why it has to be a course. I have to take you through step by step and then give you tons of case studies No one would listen to a case study if I put it up on iTunes. Yes, it's not as entertaining, but it is infinitely more valuable because you get to hear those account reviews that you miss. And they're not like a manager asking you. It's like a colleague talking through it, trying to figure out what the next best step is. What are the lessons learned? How to prevent it from happening again? How to get those deals done? That's what the objective is. How to keep that calendar full of new conversations that turn into meetings. Start the conversation, get the meeting. Check it out at b2brevenue.com. Uh, the video overview is in the show notes right below. It's also on The homepage of the YouTube channel, as well as a link on the website, b2brevenue.com. Just hit the training tab. Um, where else is it, Brian? It's on my LinkedIn profile. I keep it everywhere, trying to make it simple for you. I really appreciate you listening. Tell a friend about the show, but get serious about your career. Time is waiting for nobody. Everybody's like, when should I start? You should start a year ago. The next best time is today because time waits for nobody. We'll see you there. b2brevenue.com.