HOW TO WIN MORE DEALS IN TODAY'S MARKET

Got a great one for you today. I think you're really going to enjoy this because when you talk with a sales rep who's been selling for quite a while, maybe even longer than some of us have been alive, but has a fresh, crisp view of it. And I'll even kind of give you a little teaser where he says, I've learned more in the last 2 years than I have in the previous N number of years. This I aligned with as well because so have I. I think we tend to get comfortable too early in our career and kind of say, oh, we know how to sell. Well, that's like saying you know how to play a game. That's just the beginning. That's not the end. It's just the start. Let's get into this. Please listen to the outro of this. because there's a keen distinction that I got from this that I've kind of built up, and it got a lot of controversy on LinkedIn when I posted it, but I wanna explain it in more detail in the outro. Hey, Scott, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Sure, thanks for having me, Brian. I live in the DC area. I grew up outside of Boston, And came here after college and have been in sales and technology sales for too long to mention. Let's just say when I got involved with technology, it wasn't even called technology. So yeah, I've been fortunate and love the DC area. And it's been a great place.

Yeah.

And you've been at some pretty successful companies.

Yeah, some of those companies have worked out despite my best efforts. So yeah, I've been very fortunate. I've had a really, uh, a nice run at some really special places.

And how'd you work your way up to enterprise sales?

Uh, you know, the old-fashioned way, really, I guess. You know, my first job out of school was, uh, basically door-to-door selling. Back when we started, actually, it was called telemarketing before I did outside sales. Um, after college, my dad looked at me and said, you clearly have no discernible skills, so I guess you're going to be a salesperson. And, uh, You know, I started my career first making phone calls trying to sell long-distance telephone service, and back when MCI and those companies were competing with Ma Bell. And then that turned into an outside sales job where it literally was cold calling. And then, you know, as you get a little bit more seasoned and you realize there's more money in selling larger deals, you want to get into that side of the business.

And did you see that firsthand, or did a recruiter get you to think that way, or was it coworkers?

You know, it was— I was fortunate at my first job to spend 10 years at that company. So I had developed a lot of really strong relationships with people who maybe were a little bit further ahead in their careers. So my initial track was sales to then maybe move into sales management. Then as I got older, and I saw the challenges that went with being a sales manager, it finally occurred to me that maybe getting into larger account sales was an opportunity. So it wasn't so much a recruiter as more just being observant as to what was going on and And what drove you?

Was it the challenge? Was it the income? Was it—

So yes to both. I mean, certainly, it's not hard to see that if you're selling to larger customers, the revenue they bring in is going to be larger, which means you pay more. You know, one of the things I always look at is if I was going to be a waiter, I think I'd prefer to be a waiter at a Morton's than a waiter at an Applebee's because the checks are bigger and 20% of a bigger number is more money for me. So it was certainly the money, but it's also the challenge. You know, I enjoy the complexity and the chess game, if you will, of working with large organizations, because for small transactional sales, it's really a one-to-one. You're selling to a person who can buy. This is so much more intricate than that. And that's frankly where it gets interesting, right?

And you've done both commercial and federal?

I have, yeah. In fact, I started out commercial, and then being in DC, it occurred to me that if you want to have a long career and a nice stable way to make a living, that probably selling to the federal government is a good place to be. And I really enjoyed that, learned a lot. But in this most recent role that I'm in, our company has done very well in the federal space. And there was— we weren't running out of people to sell, but there was an opportunity to maybe take on some other large accounts. And so the timing worked out, and that's been great. It's been very refreshing to have some non-government sales. It's a very different animal, but a lot of fun.

And that's it, because if the company already has a federal group, and they've kind of understood— somebody there, you know, fights the internal battle of timeframes, expectations, reliability of deals. Issues, resellers, all of that stuff.

Yeah.

Have you been the first federal person anywhere?

No, I have not. Someone I respect a great deal who's been in federal sales for 30 years told me a long time ago that you never want to be the first guy in, you want to be the third guy.

Third guy. Yeah.

I don't know if you've heard that as well. You know, the first guy does all the spade and shovel work. And then the second guy is the guy who starts to get some things going once all the certifications in place. And then the third guy is the guy who makes all the money. So I like that guy.

Yeah, that is because, you know, the first guy might leave before it happens. The second guy typically gets canned because—

That's right.

Because it doesn't happen fast enough.

Yeah, companies aren't as patient, right? Yeah. So, you know, timing— look, like everything else in life, timing in sales is very important. I think the thing that I've learned as I've gotten older and more experienced is to recognize the timing, and to try to take advantage of it personally and professionally.

And how did you learn the intricacies of the large complex sale?

Some of it was, I was fortunate enough early on, I had done some sales training and the organization wanted to do, do you remember Strategic Selling, that line of books, Miller Heiman? So I was able to get certified in that very early on. So I think that gave me a structure for the idea that it's not a you selling to one person, but how to look at an organization and really break down all the influencers and how you're being assessed and all of that. And then some of it, frankly, is just hard knocks, right? You know, you do it enough. And if you take the time to look and say, what made me successful this time versus where am I failing? You know, you just learn. And like everybody else, I've worked for some what I consider to be brilliant sales minds. And I've been doing this a long time, but I've probably about 5 years ago, when I joined my current company, I started working for a guy who may be the single greatest sales strategist I've ever met. And I learned so much from him that it's made an exponential difference.

Well, let's dig into that. What were some of the examples? Because usually great salespeople aren't great at communicating why they're great.

Yeah, much like in, in sports, right? The best athletes aren't necessarily the best managers or coaches. This guy, well, he Well, part of what makes him great is he is a great communicator. But some of the key elements that he really got me to do was to— he had a couple of key phrases, which is sometimes you have to slow down to speed up.

Yes.

So it gave— which I took to mean, always take the time to step back and take a look at what you're doing, almost like a chessboard, as opposed to just being the guy on the board.

Look at the whole board.

And don't be in such a hurry all the time. You know, one of the things in sales that's been ingrained in me is, you know, create a sense of urgency, right? And always try to keep that going. But sometimes you need to step back and say, where are we? And let's do that. And then the other thing that he really brought to my mind when it came to enterprise sales is to take this wide view, even a wider view than you think, and to build— another phrase was a coalition of the willing, right? That get as many people nodding their head yes, that this is something they want to do, or you're someone that they want to work with, or whatever it is, So when you run into the folks who aren't going to work with you, or who are perhaps in the camp of your competitor, when they go into a meeting, or they go into a room, they're outnumbered by, you know, maybe it's just 6 to 5, but you'd rather be on the 6 than the 5.

Because a lot of reps get comfortable with that one person.

Well, and that actually what you just said is probably what he taught me the most. I think we all suffer as salespeople We get rejected so much that when we get happy years, right? Somebody tells us something, we're just running around, yay, they like me, right? Even though it has nothing to do with—

No value.

Right. How'd it go? It went great. It was a great meeting. He liked my watch. And it's— and even though I was experienced enough to not accept that, what he got me to understand even better was don't just be happy with 3 people who seem to be buying in. Keep at it. Go find 5, go find 10. And every time, if you keep looking for that, you're also going to find the people who aren't, which is a great selling opportunity, because now you can begin to eliminate the naysayers or the folks who aren't on board. So building that coalition of the willing and being paranoid at the same time is something I finally, I think, got deep in my soul. And it's been— I mean, it's been the— the last 6 years have been like nothing I've ever experienced. Yeah.

And how long did it take you to— did you fight it at first, or did you embrace it at first?

Uh, no, I didn't. One thing that I've always prided myself on is to be open-minded. I, I know I don't have all the answers. Um, I mean, look, you know, as you get older, you see— tend to think, oh, here's how I do things. But, um, the people I've always looked up to are the ones who it seems like they're so curious. They're con— and you talk a lot about being curious with your customers, right? It's also being curious about your own skill set. Like, what is it these other people are doing? And the more open-minded you are to that, the more you can make it part of what you are. So I think that's what helped is, number one, I trusted these people very much. I had a relationship where I knew they were looking out for my best interests, but I embraced it early on. And I said, you know what, it doesn't matter whether I think it's a good idea. Let's try it. Let's see what happens. And they're not always right, but I learned so much. And then it becomes part of who you are and your own selling style.

And that curiosity is so important in sales. Because—

I think it's everything. I mean, that's, you know, when I recently read one of what you, you had in one of your LinkedIn posts about curiosity. I think, you know, you know, in initial selling, what do they talk about, right?

They—

excuse me, forgot I had a landline. Um, they always talk about Ask questions, you know, understand your customer. But that's not really what you're getting at with curiosity. It's about the genuineness, right? Of really just trying to understand why they want to do something, or what's the point in doing this, and who they are as people.

Yeah, because sometimes they don't even know yet.

Yes. And it gets them to think through, right, why they really want to do this, or what their personal gain Right? And I think if you can get people to connect with you, because, because they think you're genuinely interested, and you're asking them things that maybe someone hasn't, now that connection can be a foundation for moving forward with them on an opportunity.

It's kind of like co-developing the solution versus presenting a solution.

So, so you're really good with words, because I wouldn't have come up with that. But when you said it, it really resonated, right? It's like we're building the model together. And it makes all the difference because then it's theirs, right? It's not your solution.

And that's it. Because then I was thinking, what's the opposite of curious? It's like, it might be indifference. That's what I just Google it. It says like indifference. But I think in selling, it goes even further to like confirmation bias.

Absolutely. And that's Which leads me to, I think, one of the mistakes that I see a lot in some younger folks, and I try to mentor a lot of the people I work with if they're interested, is they think it's about the product. And it's not about the product. You know, my engineer who's brilliant, who had never been a sales engineer until he started working with me, he said to me at one point, we've been working together a couple of years, he says, you know, I never realized it's about 5% product and it's 95% people. And I think once you get it, you need to understand your product, and you need to understand its advantages and how it compares to your competition and all that. But that's not the selling. Yeah, it's really connecting with the people and understanding and being curious as to what is in it for them and what do they care about.

That's it. And if you're not curious, you're assuming you know, which is the—

Yeah, that's death. That is death, right? Because I guarantee you, you may be right half the time, but the other half, You just lost the deal.

Right. And the other person doesn't— wants to develop a solution, but sometimes doesn't know how.

Well, that's— and that's— isn't that our job as salespersons is to help them use your tool to solve their problem? Right. And so if you're not curious, number one, you won't really understand the depth of what the problem is. If you're not curious, you might not help them further understand the depth of what the problem, or to see it slightly differently, in which case then now you can position what you do to the core of what they need, as opposed to it's got this feature, it's got this benefit, it's at this price. And, you know, anybody can do that, right?

And I always thought that federal, or even state and local, is a great training ground for salespeople, because so much of it is how do you get it done administratively?

Yeah, so that definitely teaches you the contractual side of things, right? The one thing that I— people often ask me, what's the difference between selling federally versus selling commercially? And the thing I would say is on the federal side, you can have the perfect solution to a huge problem and still nothing will happen because it comes down to was it budgeted for, what's the process, how long will all of that take? Conversely, on the Fed, on the commercial side, if you can be compelling enough and it's solving a big enough problem, they will find a way to make that happen. Now, of course, the flip side to that is no commercial customer that I've ever worked with comes to me on September 29th and said, hey, we just found $10 million, will you help me spend it? So, you know, there's give and takes, right?

Well, that's it. And you've got the motive is different, right?

Entirely.

Yeah. Federal is much more career politics. How does it play into their career?

Yeah, and, and understanding the relationships of the people there. And yes, so it's not just does your product solve their problem in a way that's unique or interesting, it's, and how does it help them maneuver through their organization? And where does it fit relative to the other things that they may be responsible for? Because there's a lot of gives and takes in federal sales between the people.

And timelines, because they can talk in years. Commercial never talks in years, rarely.

Yeah, I mean, if your sales cycle on the commercial side is a 9 to 12 month cycle, then on the commercial— on the federal side, that same sale is 12 to 24. And you know that based on the federal government, if you've never sold to that agency before, It's at least 18 months because just in terms of them budgeting for it. And I'm talking about a sizable sale. I'm not saying they might not buy a small proof of concept type of opportunity, but yeah, it's, and that's a different, you got to get accustomed to that, right? Is those long sales cycles.

And what do you see the younger people who come to you, the stuff, you know, they ask you questions, but there's really, you want to kind of You know, expedite this, right? Answer in the— because they want to do it fast.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I think going down to sometimes you got to slow down to speed up. I think they don't often understand the problem that the customer has. They weren't curious enough, right? They've heard a couple of things. It sounded like the stuff they read about what our product solves. And then they're just— they're single stream. Let's just do that. Let's just do that. And you got to have 3, 4, 5 reasons why they need to buy your product, even though the customer told you all I care about is this, go find 4 other things, right? And, and I feel like people get— again, it comes down to the sales personality, is we so like good news. And we so want to believe that this has a chance that we close ourselves off to, well, what happens if it's a dead end? Take your time, find 6 routes to the same destination, and you're apt to get there. And so I think that's the biggest thing is they just haven't opened their eyes to building a coalition of the willing, being very, very curious about what you're really solving. And then having— and this is something I talk about all the time— taking a position, having the passion about what you know about what you do and what you know about your product or that industry to influence the customer so they get it. So they say, I see it. You're this is a vision. And now I understand what possible can be. I think, you know, that's sort of the last missing piece. But that comes sometimes with this experience.

And you're selling something that's pretty difficult, I'm guessing.

Yeah, well, I'm in cybersecurity, right? So it's difficult because everyone has a different level of technical understanding. But at the same time, the advantage is it's not like anybody is saying out there, oh, cybersecurity, we got it covered. No, no, thanks, right? Especially these days. But, but our job is to take complex things and make them simple. Not dumb it down, but make what it is they're going to do for them very understandable and very simple so they can go repeat it to 10 other people in their organization and they all get it. That's our job.

Because a lot of people— I sold in that space as well— they have confirmation bias as well. Otherwise, they go crazy in some cases.

Yes. Look, they could spend every day, all day talking to vendors that just do what I do, right? Let alone the other parts of technology. And then I don't work today for the 600-pound gorilla in the space. So there's a lot of bias towards known vendors, you know, that old statement, no one ever got fired for choosing IBM, right? So, and there's a lot of good reasons why they want to stick with what is known, some of which is They are certified in a particular technology. That's where their livelihood comes from. So I can potentially be a threat to that by saying, well, suddenly all this knowledge, if you go with me, there's not much value in that. So we've— you've got to be thinking in those terms as well when you're selling to these people, make them comfortable. It's not a risk to you personally. It's the opposite.

And, and how have you learned that space? Because you're not a CISO yourself.

Yeah.

Probably don't want to spend your nights studying cybersecurity regulations.

No, I probably don't. So I guess the good thing is, since my job is to explain things in a simple way, I'm very simple, right? So when I learned about technology, I started out networking and then moved into cyber when it was still reasonably new. I had a decent enough foundation to understand what some of the key elements are of cybersecurity. And then I naturally need to translate those into things I can understand. And fortunately, when I do that, now I have the script, if you will, for what to say to people. And I also try to stay within a level of focus. There's so much we could learn, and any industry is this way, is I need to be an expert as much as I can in what we do and what that market is. There's 87 parts of cyber. I I can't possibly know that. I need to know what we do and where that fits.

Especially in your market, which has its own language as well.

And that's probably the hardest part for when people are looking to break into it. You're right, it's the, you know, the shorthand that you have. And then you add government sales, which has its own shorthand. Yeah. Um, initials for everything, right? Uh, yeah, that takes a while. But again, once you're in it, and once you get that shorthand, now you're part of the It's like, you know, you're showing your little membership card every time you throw out an acronym or a phrase. They go, okay, this guy gets it. He's been doing this for a while.

And I'm sure you could spend your day on many different things. How do you prioritize your deals and your focus?

So, again, this goes back to being fortunate enough to have learned fundamentals very early on. So, very simple for me. If you think of the funnel, Right? The first thing I'm going to do every day is to make sure I'm impacting the things that are at the bottom of the funnel that are about to happen. So that's where I start there. Then assuming there's time, then I go to the top of the funnel and make sure I'm putting new stuff in to keep that going. And then what I find is, if you're relieving the pressure down the bottom of the funnel, closing business, and you're putting a lot of pressure on the top, the stuff in the middle happens, you know, yes, you have to work and you have to move it along. But That's sort of how I look at every day. What am I doing? And some days, look, I'm not as good at it as others. Some days I'm doing a lot of, you know, giving my boss— I love when you do your sales manager stuff, you know, calling back, is he an admin or is he a leader? That whole thing, right? But my bosses have been great about that, which I have to say. No. So that's how I break down my day. What's going to close? What do I need to do to get things that are in that part of the process to close? And then put new stuff in the top.

And how do you judge those deals that you feel are going to close?

That comes to the paranoia part where you ask yourself the hard questions. What— and it starts with not what do I know, it's what do I don't know? What could possibly go wrong? If I was competing with Scott, what would I be doing? And then if I don't have answers to those things, or if I say, oh no, they could be doing this, That's a base I don't have covered. Let's go cover that. So asking yourself, what don't I know constantly? And that's what I mean about being— I have one boss who used to say, we've got to be very healthily paranoid.

Well, that's a key point, especially in enterprise or large deals, because as soon as your competitor gets the sense that they're losing, what would Scott do?

Yeah, right. And that's exactly it. I think I would pull out all the stops, right? My CEO come in, you know, I'd be If I could, I'd fly them to Hawaii, right? So assume they're doing all those things well. Now, the good news is they're not. Generally speaking, you know, one of my favorite lines is most people are average because by definition of average, that's where most people are.

Yeah.

So if you're willing to work hard, you're willing to think in terms of what would I do, leave— don't leave any detail, any stone unturned, you're going to out-hustle a lot of people and win just on that. But don't ever assume that they're average. Assume you're dealing with their best rep. And in large enterprise sales, generally speaking, they don't put their new or weak reps on really important customers. So I feel like if I was a baseball player, that I'm going up against New York Yankees constantly, right? That the best of the best is coming after me. So I've got to be at my best.

And what's your strategy there? Is it to prepare your client about what your competitor is going to do? Is it to do or block them from doing that?

So the answer is yes to both of those things. I think it starts with just preparation in general, understanding the customer. And certainly you want to get their mindset as to what the problem is and what's— what are the elements of that problem that align best with what your competitive advantages are. If you don't, and this is part of the assessment process, if you're looking at this and despite all your efforts, you realize that they're not seeing it this way and they're not seeing this thing this way, and basically all I have is the product differentiators, then that helps you be realistic with your management. Just say, when they say, hey, is this a commit deal for next quarter? What do you think? Say, here's where I'm weak. And that's where you can also get some feedback. Maybe there are some things that you're not doing that'll help. But yeah, it's that constant assessment. But yeah, you certainly try to move the customer in a way that accentuates the positives, right?

And but when you're competing against a gorilla, whoever it is, they've got longstanding relationships within the account, and they can end-run the up-and-comer.

And how do you block that? They can, but their weaknesses there, they tend to not be as flexible. Big companies don't move as quickly. Big companies sometimes aren't as innovative. And, you know, I have worked at some large companies. I worked at Cisco. And, you know, one of the disadvantages of being the incumbent is they also know all your blemishes, right? So I'm new, I get to paint this rosy world of what life is going to be like when you work with Scott, right? And like any other relationship, you know, at some point at the end of the day, you know, my hair isn't combed, and, you know, maybe I need to shave. You don't know that until you get to know the person very much. So it's the same way with the incumbent. And so you can understand, and again, preparation, if you know what some of their incumbent weaknesses are, slow to develop, not innovative, or they don't integrate new products that they buy into the existing set so well, you can use that to your advantage.

And when do you know that the deal isn't going to happen? Because I'm sure Certainly in the federal space, you get a lot of people moving around, contractors. You get the, the new champion who comes in and goes, Scott, I really want your stuff.

Yeah. So when do you know it's not going to happen? So that's interesting. I am better at knowing when it is going to happen. You know, I get that spidey sense, the tingle where you all of a sudden see all the pins go down. And you say, yep, this is go, this is happening. And I guess because of that, until I get that feeling, which it's a lot of pins, it's not just 2 or 3, I'm always assuming it's not going to happen, which keeps me motivated to make sure what didn't I think of, what should we be doing today that we didn't do yesterday. But clearly, if you don't, if you can't answer some fundamental questions about why they would choose you, Then the deal's likely not going to go your way, or at least you need to go find those things out. If you can't on your own understand what the argument is for choosing your technology, or— and if it's based on your technology only, that's not good enough.

Well, well, that's typically what happens. You get the technical win where they love your stuff, your stuff does it, solves the problem better, but they're blocking you Or not supporting you with the economic side.

That's correct. That happens all the time. And in government, actually, I think that happens more in government than anywhere else. Because it's just easier to do business with the folks they've already been giving contracts to.

Right, they've got paper in place, they've got infrastructure, training, all the—

But knowing that, it's our job, you know, to very early in the sales process begin attacking that, right? So, and getting the customer— one of the things that I've learned over the years that really, I think, surprises me that people don't do sometimes is they're not just open with their customer. I say to some people sometimes, like, it's not a surprise to your prospect that you're trying to sell him something. Like, don't try to hide behind cute, clever words, or not talking about that one day you're going to want them to buy your product. They understand why you're there. You're not in the friend-making business, right?

Right.

So talk to them about it. You know, it's okay early on to say, assuming my technology was to meet your requirements, what are the other parts of the process? Who else should we be meeting with? So that way, when you do decide that Scott was the smartest guy you ever met, and boy, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread, we're not lost to that part of the process. And I think you find that people will share that with you if you ask it in an open and appropriate time. Right.

And it's a huge red flag if they either don't know or don't want to do that.

I would say that's— yes, that's one of those flares that they shot up that says, I'm probably not going to buy from you. Right.

Because a lot of people want to learn about your stuff, but don't.

And yeah, and, you know, and in this day and age, right, people, when— because they're not going into the office as much, you know, having a calendar that looks like it's filled up with things is one of the ways perhaps they're being judged as to whether they're being productive.

Yeah, because, you know, a lot of market studies, and—

That's right.

But that might be just busywork.

It could be. Now, I will probably— one of my faults is I'm a big believer in building evangelists within an organization. And so if they're— if I can get in front of somebody, figuratively or literally, to talk about what we do and to hear what they do, Regardless of their title, regardless of their space, if it's somewhat related potentially to what I'm going to want to do, I will spend the time doing that. Now, I won't spend 4 hours doing a demo necessarily, but I want to understand because you never know who you're going to talk to that's going to go to a meeting 3 days later and say, look, this isn't my gig, but I just had this call about this company and they do X, Y, and Z. You might want to talk to them. So I probably sometimes spend maybe a little too much time on maybe some people who might be kicking the tires. But I'm aware that they're potentially kicking tires. And I don't think it's— it's not an opportunity yet. It's a suspect, not a prospect, right?

And, and judging those people as far as who has real juice versus who has curiosity?

Yeah, that's knowing people, right? I mean, because if you want to know who has juice, ask them what other things— what's their, you know, what technology did they bring in that they're the most proud of? And what is it that it was about that tech? And How did that go down? You know, when it was so successful, did you get promoted? Did, you know, your boss— is that what that award's for? Like, what happened? And if— yeah, so I think if you look around them, so to speak, look around the office figuratively, see who they are, what they're doing. But I also, I never dismiss anybody, you know.

Right.

It's the— I'm not saying I spend time meeting with all of them, but everyone could potentially have a role. And the more people I can get who are going to If ever asked in a meeting somewhere in the hallway, that if my company's name came up, they thought, Scott was a nice guy and he spent some time with me, I know a little bit, I'm going to say something nice. I think it's worth it. Because at the end of the day, I got to see these people. And one day when it's sold, and I remember this happened once, we sold this giant deal at a very large federal agency. And one of the first guys we met with had nothing to do with that purchase. And we probably, we met with him maybe once or twice and he turned us on to somebody else. Well, we are there doing the implementation, and we're walking through the hall, and there he was. And I'm like, hey! And he stopped, and I almost had to reintroduce myself. And I said— I reminded him of our discussion. I said, well, guess what? Your agency is now going to be deploying this. And I said, you know, it really started with you. You should have seen the smile on his face. And isn't that why we do this, right?

Yeah.

I mean, like, I get goosebumps thinking about it now. It was fun. You know, you feel like you're actually making a difference.

Well, that brings up my final point is like, what keeps you— because you've been doing it a while, and people who do it a while tend to get burnt out or jaded.

Yeah. So, yeah, jaded a little bit. You know what? I feel like I'm always learning, you know? And so, I think you get burned out if you do the same thing over and over. I'm not doing the same. I'm not selling the same way today that I was 2 years ago, even, right? I'm using a lot of the same things, but we're selling, and it's the same product, by the way, but we're selling, I'm selling differently. I'm using things I've learned. So that keeps it fresh. And the other thing is, I am the type of person, I focus on the positives. You know, once you get a customer, there's going to be problems, things aren't going to go well in the sales process. We always say large deals will die 1,000 deaths. I don't focus on that. When something happens where I go, oh boy, we're in trouble now, my brain says selling time, right? Because I don't know if you were a big football fan growing up, but there was a great quarterback for the old Washington football team named Sonny Jurgensen. And during the '60s, that team was horrible. They would probably go like 3-11 back in the old days. But they could score points like no one. And he said this, he said, we never lost a game, we just ran out of time. And that's how I always look at it. Just keep selling, keep selling, keep selling. It's never over. And so that's how that keeps me motivated.

Well, the good part about sales is you still have another quarter.

Yeah. And today, maybe these guys will buy next quarter or next year. So Treat them positively, make them glad they know you, and never lose touch. And what perhaps was a loss can become a giant sale 2 years down the road. Great.

Hey, this has been a great conversation, Scott. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

Well, you can go on LinkedIn, Scott Morrison, or you can— well, I don't need to give out my personal email. LinkedIn would be the best place. Right after they read your posts, just do a search for Scott Morrison, you'll find me.

So we talked about curiosity in the interview. Now, I also mentioned what the opposite of curiosity is, because sometimes when we talk about the opposite, we understand the definition of the word. So when you think of curiosity, I bet 9 out of 10 you say, I'm a pretty curious person. But When you see something new, do you want to investigate it? Do you want to understand and dig into it deeper? Or do you naturally just respond to it in the context of what you already understand, which is the automatic element of it? We have to be proactive to be curious. And curiosity is the first step in empathy. It's the first step in showing interest. It's the first step in trying to understand the other person. And the opposite of it, yeah, by definition is indifference or disinterest. That's the definition. But that doesn't help us from a sales standpoint. I think you go on the continuum even further opposite of it. Is confirmation bias. Now, confirmation bias is when we see something new, we associate it with something that's old, something that we already know. This is why we watch news that is aligned with our beliefs about how the world works. This is our comfort zone, and We need it to stay alive because if we were uncomfortable all the time, we'd be exhausted, scared. But there's a slight different way of looking at that uncomfortableness. You can look at it as excitement. Anxiety is kind of a negative, pejorative word for that uncomfortableness. Excitement is a positive word for that same feeling. Now, we naturally— our primitive brain wants us to be safe, and safe is confirmation bias. But we in sales, if we're not curious, we're thinking about ourselves. If we are curious, we're open To thinking about how the other person thinks. Now, a lot of people say, oh, you're either born curious or you're not. It's a skill. Everything is a skill. I think too many of us, you know, take this I'm born this way as— and I think it's just a cop-out. Yes, it's easier. Yes, it takes calories and work. To become curious, to become interested and empathetic about the other person. But if you've been listening to the podcast and listening to great salespeople, aren't they all curious? A lot of people's superpower is being interested in the other person. But how can you be interested in them if you're not curious about them? That curiosity is that first tingle to open our minds. Now, I did a post about this on LinkedIn, and a lot of people got upset about it, and a lot of people just misinterpreted it because they were on their confirmation bias. And some of the signals of you being in your confirmation bias is if you say, oh, that reminds me of Now, that's natural. That's not unusual. Every time we hear something new, we try and automatically relate it to what we already know. My point is, go with that and say, how is this different? What don't I know? What do I wish I knew? If I could read that person's mind, what do I think they are thinking? If I was them, what would I be doing? Confirmation bias is the death of salespeople. It's happy ears. It's hearing what you want to hear, not what is meant. Maybe what is being said, but not what is being meant. We live in this comfortableness until the end of the quarter when we are shocked at the uncomfortableness about it, when we're shocked that somebody isn't doing what we thought they would do. Maybe they said they'd do it, maybe they hoped they would do it, but we didn't know what they had to go through to do it. Curiosity gets you growing, and if you can try and make it exciting, Versus anxious. Try and look at it like— look at a roller coaster. Now, there's 2 types of people in the world. There's probably not nobody really in the middle on this. Roller coasters— they either love roller coasters because they look at it as excitement. A horror movie, it's being scared without having any risk. You're in a movie theater. Nothing's going to happen. A roller coaster. Yeah, something could go wrong maybe one out of a million times, but it's controlled anxiety. Most of our lives is controlled anxiety or excitement. It's your choice how you look at it. If you don't approach it, you're going to be blind to what's going on in the real world because sales is an empathetic game. Now, I'm a big chess player and I have a chess coach. And the constant thing he's asking me, he goes, if you were me, what move would you make? It's thinking ahead. It forces you to be curious about what is going to happen next. Too often we say things like, it reminds me of, Oh, that's a good reminder. I get these comments all the time. And the bad part of it is, you like, you put out your work and people poo-poo it or don't really listen to it, or they read the title, or they, they, they say some snide thing. It's just their reaction. They're not thinking, they're reacting. When the doctor hits your knee with that little rubber hammer and you kick, You're not thinking about kicking. Your body is reacting. He's testing how well your nerve is connected to your brain. It's not a conscious thing. It's subconscious. Sales is a conscious activity. It is something that we have to proactively do and think about. Too many of us get so comfortable with our cadence button, our follow-up auto dialer, that we forget about thinking, about empathizing, about conversing, about engaging with the other person. Curiosity is that first step. Confirmation bias is the trap we get comfortable with.

When—

if you start hearing things like, I know, it reminds me, Good reminder. This sounds like— That's okay, but don't end there. Don't be comfortable there. Like some of the comments were, well, how about when a client says it? Then you have to ask questions more about it. So how's it different? Because when we're presenting or pitching to somebody, That's their natural reaction, is to take the words that we're saying, they're mapping it to what they already know. And that's what an analogy is. But you've got to then build off of it. We're the Netflix of— okay, so they know what Netflix is, but now it's in the same— in a different context. We're the HBO of— We're the Yankees of— analogies can be good because you are building off that confirmation bias into a new vision, but you got to keep going because you got to understand what does that mean in the new context. I sold security for a bunch of years, and the danger with selling security— I got tons of people in the course with this— is that It's a bunch of acronyms, keywords, and the definition of those keywords and acronyms expands over time. It means different things. It encompasses different things. But if you're in security and you don't have a little bit of confirmation bias, you go crazy because so many things can go wrong. You'd spend all your money on security. We have to build off of what people know into new things. And in sales, it is so critical because when I hear that confirmation bias— and it's, that's the, the know-it-all B-player trap— we get comfortable. We're 80% of our number and the rest is bad luck, timing, territory, Everything but us. But the money is at over 100%. To get over 100%, you've got to be better, better than your competition, better than your coworkers. And how do you get there? You got to be curious. You got to turn it from anxiety to excitement. That's where the gold is. And if you want to become great at sales, how do you do it? You got to get out of that rut. Rut, hear how great people are doing it, come up with a system. And that's what my courses are all about. If you're in them, make sure you're checking out the office hours. They're, they're really turning into gold. Lots of case studies, lots of examples, lots of variations, and they're all recorded and put back in the course. So there's like 3 years of them, tons of content, tons of examples. So you get to consume it, but it's structured. It's not like a podcast where it's an interview about somebody's particular skills and viewpoints on sales. It's a structured system, a step-by-step way that is customized to what you are doing. And you get to, you know, 25, 30 years in one year. It's the dojo You see how I did that? I built an analogy. Everyone knows what's going to the gym, but you don't go to the gym once. And when you go just once, you come back, you're sore. You get no real improvement. Your muscles are tired. Something hurts. But if you go for a couple of months, you start to notice some tone, muscle tone, weight loss. You start to feel better. You can climb the stairs a lot easier. You start looking better in the mirror. You go for a year and you're a new person. That's what the courses are about because our skills are much like our physical body. We have to practice. We have to learn. We have to see how other people are doing it, take a little feedback, a little repetition, and we become great at it. But we have to know what great looks like. great is and how is it different. How is a B different than an A? Go to b2brevenue.com. Take your game to the next level. Join the gym, the dojo, the Netflix, and become better. This Netflix makes you rich instead of poor. We'll see you there. Make sure you're checking out the other podcasts: B2B Revenue Leadership, Sales Leadership Show, and the Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers. If you like video, these are all put up on my YouTube channel. Just search Brian Burns Sales on YouTube and you'll— it'll come right up. You'll see my smiling face. All the funny videos are up there, so you can just search for them. There's a little magnifying glass on the right-hand corner. Just search the topic. It'll come right up. And we'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Tell a friend about the show.

Better, and especially post-COVID, you got to be very creative in healthcare, that's for sure.

Yeah.

And, you know, for people who are wondering if it's right for them, what would you tell them?

Yeah, I mean, I think you kind of need to get over your own ego a little bit. I mean, a lot of people think they're really, really good at sales and they probably are in some rights, but at the same time, like, I think you've mentioned it before, like professionals in whatever industry or athletics, whatever, you know, they're always getting better, they're practicing, they're continuing to improve. And, you know, I know beforehand I didn't necessarily think of sales like that as much, but kind of taking your course and doing that, like, even if I'm ranked at, you know, the very top 1%, I really should be doing stuff to get better. And of course, a lot of companies will provide great stuff, but you really kind of need stuff outside of work, whether that be mentors or classes like yourself. So yeah, I think regardless of how good you've been doing, I think you don't want to get complacent and you want to keep getting better. It's just my opinion.

And, you know, as far as, you know, getting better, do you see it as kind of a destination or a journey?

No, it's definitely a journey because I think most people in sales are competitive. And, you know, even though that once they win a deal, they want to keep moving forward. So I don't see it as a final destination. I feel like it's something really you should be doing throughout your career, I guess, until you retire, hopefully sooner than later when you retire. But yeah, I think no matter if you're a sales rep or an executive vice president, you should be doing some type of coaching or training. And this kind of— I was doing a fair amount of stuff, but it was more company-driven things in the past. So I think expanding outside of that— I mean, nothing wrong with doing it within your company too, but expanding outside of that and getting different opinions, I feel like is a good thing.

And how much time per week did it take you?

Yeah, I had certain moments where I was binging some of your content quite a bit. The actual courses, like, I wanted to be sitting down, you know, at home, able to write down notes and put stuff in Word documents, just kind of how I was doing it. So I would say I probably knocked out the Complex Sale course in 6 weeks or so. I went after it pretty good. And then throughout that and afterwards, I would, you know, listen to the one-on-ones. I would listen to your every 2-week calls, kind of the open sessions. And I binge that a lot when I'm driving because I travel a lot for work. So I listen to those quite often and I don't necessarily have to take notes on it, but it's just good to get those real-life examples from other people. But yeah, the course took about 6 weeks or so, but that was just the pace I did it at. I mean, the nice thing about it is that you can, can do it at your own pace, you know, throughout, you know, even a 12-month period, I guess, if you want to.

So.