HOW WATCHING NETFLIX CAN HELP CLOSE MORE DEAL IN B2B SALES

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Before it's showtime. Here we go. Hey, did you see that documentary on Netflix about the hitchhiker with the hatchet?

I did. I did. I watched it in the last week or so. It's pretty, pretty crazy. I almost forgot about it because it was like 10 years ago, but it was a pretty wild documentary. It was definitely entertaining though, that's for sure.

Yeah, let me give some background for the audience. About 10 years ago, this kind of road rage incident was happening, and this guy named Kai Lawrence, I believe is his name, full name, was walking by and broke it up with his hatchet. He hit the guy over the head to stop the road rage because this guy was about to kill somebody. And the viral video of the discussion that he had with the reporter who showed up blew up on the internet. And then this cascade of actions happened. And Netflix just recently did a documentary about it. If you want to see it and don't want to know the, the details, you can skip this part and listen to it after you watch it. But What I found interesting about it was that nobody was really talking about him as a person. Everyone was thinking about how they could use him to advance themselves. And I think it has a lot of correlations and metaphors for what we see in deals. Did you see any of that in the show or?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, everyone in that show was all about how can they monetize Kai, how can they get him on the Jimmy Kimmel Show, all the, you know, some reality TV show like the Kardashians. Everyone was just trying to like make money off it outside of maybe one person that I recall from that, that show. So like they got so blinded by the opportunity to make money and the viralness of it that they weren't paying attention to the actual person and probably the real Problem that was going on, which I think happens a ton in sales, especially from a sales rep side. Also probably from a customer side too. But as a sales rep, you want to close that deal so bad that you just completely stop listening to the customer. You're not focused on the problem. All you're focused on is what you want and closing that deal and having, making that money. And then you just, you're not paying attention to anything that the customer cares about because you get so ingrained and like, closing the deal and making it happen?

Yeah, I mean, he was a very likable person. He was the type of person that, you know, was kind of the life of the party, sometimes a surfer dude type person. But he was homeless. And it didn't take me long. I was probably 10, 20 minutes into the show. And I go, this guy's got mental illness, that this is not a mentally stable person. Something's going on here. It's not that he's just a stoner surfer, which he kind of presents himself as. And when they had gave him a contract, I forget whether it'd be on the Kimball Show or something else, he signed it with hieroglyphics. And I'm like, these people are taking advantage of this guy. Nobody's saying, is this right? Should we really be doing this? Or are we just using this person? And it just, as long as it served them, they didn't care. They just wanted to monetize him and use him to promote themselves. And what I learned from it is like, this is what's happening in pretty much every deal. People are seeing things the way they want to see them. He was kind of a Rorschach, you know, those ink blots that psychiatrists show you. You know, what do you see here? So the producer saw, you know, a great guest for the Kimball Show. The other one saw, oh, we could really turn him into a reality star or something, or we could get great ratings if we had an interview with him. Nobody's thinking, is this the right use of this person? And that kind of made me think it's like, we're seeing what we want to see instead of what's there.

No, it's a great correlation. And yeah, there was certainly nobody really in his best interest in that show outside of maybe one original guy that seemed to somewhat be on his side to help him out, but it just was like a downward spiral. And then his personality and all the issues that he had obviously went down a bad path eventually later in the show. We won't ruin it for everybody, but, and yeah, it's true. It's like you get, you want what's in your own best interest and you're not thinking from a customer standpoint. You're not thinking about what it's like to be in their shoes, like what they're really feeling, what their issues are. You're more just worried about your company, your profit, your bank account. your company's ego, whatever it may be. And I, it comes, it came up multiple times throughout my career where I realized I was doing that potentially. And actually sometimes I think I was, I was pretty good at putting myself in my customer's shoes and even my company would be like, dude, you gotta worry more about the company than you do the customer. So I've had it, it's came up multiple times in a variety of ways over the years.

Yeah. And certainly in sales, Eventually it surfaces. You can kind of ignore it for a while, but you know, like if you've ever seen somebody do a bad deal, sell a product that the customer misinterprets or that you're going to cancel and hope they don't figure it out eventually, or it doesn't do what they think it does. But it's the end of the quarter and they want it anyway, and you're like, well, we can figure it out after next quarter. Yeah, but, but also, if you go into a meeting and you're presenting something, you've got to understand how the other person is interpreting that. And I think that the show really showed that. But what they didn't show, they really didn't talk about his mental illness at all. And I'm no psychiatrist, but it didn't take long for me to— this guy is not well. And they're interviewing his mother and she's explaining what he was like as a kid. And then you listen to him and he was talking about all this abuse and trauma. And stuff, and it was like it didn't really match. That's paranoia, right? It's like creating something. And he even came up with a reason how he knew the victim that he hit with the hatchet to break up the fight. That had no basis, he was just making it up.

Yeah, it was wild. And yeah, that's a great point. They didn't really talk about the mental illness at all, and it seemed to be pretty obvious. And there were just some weird things with like the family upbringing. But yeah, it's like you're, those like white lies or maybe even more egregious. There are unfortunately some bad examples in sales where you kind of skirt some things under the rug and just kind of let it go. And you know, the customer is never gonna know, or it might come up a few months from now, but you don't bring it up because you wanna close that deal. That's not good either. I mean, that's, that's not where you wanna be. And I think Obviously being honest and truthful and trying to keep it real with them is gonna pay off in the long term. But there is, I've definitely seen those examples too where people will just, you know, are borderline like ethic, ethical, unethical, like doing some stuff to get it, get a deal closed and, and just to hit the numbers. And they know that the customer's so big or something, they're never even gonna realize whatever you did. And it's like kind of like a white lie type thing. I don't know.

Or, or it's just, Kind of goes to judgment. It's like, is this the right thing for us to be doing? Okay, we're going to recruit a homeless person to be in a reality show. Okay, so where does he go after you film? And how do you get him back the next day? And do you think somebody who's transient, who grew up in Canada, is now in— Los Angeles, then he's in New York. Is he gonna show up consistently or is he just the hot thing for the moment that everyone cares about and it ups ratings and when it doesn't work, we just move on?

Yeah, they're thinking short-term transactional. They're not thinking about the long-term or really what was going on. They were just trying to make that quick 10 minutes of fame and blow up like the Kardashians or whatever. And, you know, he was getting tens of millions of YouTube hits and all that. So they were just trying to take advantage of it, but they weren't thinking long term and like the reality of the situation of like, how do we actually make this happen? They were just like, go figure it out, get him, you know?

Yeah. And I think we get a lot of this, like when you get an inbound lead and the person's selling you more than you're selling them, you know, they're telling you, oh, you know, you don't have to do an, a proof of concept. I, I've used your product somewhere else. What I need is an enterprise license, but give us 50 points off. Send me a quote. I'll get it done this week. Does that deal ever close?

No, never.

No. And I remember a real case that just sticks in my craw from a long time ago where we had one of those. And he had a big title at a tiny company. He was new there and my boss liked this guy and it was in my territory. And I'm like, this isn't qualified. And he goes, you're too pessimistic, Burns. You're just, you're overlooking the obvious. I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna fight it a lot.

Nope.

Because it did sound way too good. They're not testing the product. It's not a great match yet. This person's looking for this enterprise license. And my boss gets his boss to come down. So now I've got, you know, my VP, my regional manager, and me all wasting our time at this account. And the VP was new and he was a real hard-ass. And I'm like, this isn't the type of guy you want to bring into a flaky account. He's going to see right through it. And he didn't, he didn't see through it. He bought into it. And last day of the quarter, we're, we're on site and the guy finally admits there's no deal here. We're pushing, pushing, doing everything. And the VP's on the phone. As soon as he hears there's no deal, he hangs up. And I'm like, someone's gonna, someone's gonna pay for this. And even my manager was like, oh, we'll get it next quarter. I go, there's nothing here. This is, you're seeing what you wanna see, not what's there.

Yeah, they were blind to the problems of the deal and they weren't paying attention to the roadblocks or all the issues. I guess you were. So you were smart at the time, but you couldn't do anything about it because it was VPs and all these people involved. Yeah, they weren't, they were, they were so blinded by the reality of this guy and his title and knowing him or whatever that they just didn't pay attention to those things and they started skipping steps, right? That, and you start skipping steps and you think it's gonna work and then it rarely, if ever, does work that way.

Yeah. I, I was talking to my boss on the way out. I go, have we ever closed a deal without a proof of concept? Certainly not a deal this size. Yeah, we've closed tiny little deals. And he goes, I guess not, but he seemed like he loved us and everything. And I go, so, you know, and it was this goat rodeo, a good week or two of time on it that I was not, not bought into. And the guy just had, you know, because I read people, you know, you know, you, you have a little bullshit. We all have a bullshit meter.

Yeah.

And like with Kai, it didn't take me— the hieroglyphics on the contract, I would be like, take a, you know, let's drop him by a halfway house. Okay, he's not going to be a reality star. Somehow they got him to show up for Kimball. Remember how the police showed up the first time and took him in because the police wanted him to, because he was the only eyewitness to what happened. And they're trying to convict the guy he hit so they can get him off the street. And did they care about Kai after they got him to testify? No, no, no. Should they have cared about him?

Definitely.

Definitely.

Yeah.

If you watch the ending.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah, that was a, it was a wild show. And it's, there's a lot of correlations. What about on the customer side? Do you think there's a time where maybe the customer can take advantage of the salespeople, like maybe a new rep coming in and they kind of beat them up or they, you know, just, you know, they beat them up on price. Like they just give them the runaround on purpose just to mess with them. I feel like sometimes maybe the customer can mess with the sales rep a little bit sometimes too.

Yeah. And some of it's malicious, but most of it's just misunderstanding. Let's say you ask who's the decision maker. You know what everyone says?

Me.

I am. Don't ask that question to someone you know isn't the decision maker. If you don't know how a company makes a decision, you need a class that I've heard about. So of course they're going to say, I am. Who approves this? I do. Can you get this done?

Of course.

But they don't know what they're saying. They're saying, I make the decision whether I evaluate it. That's what they're thinking. And everyone thinks it's their responsibility to interpret this appropriately. Because with a mentally well person who signs a contract, they read the contract, they have a lawyer read the contract, they talk up that contract with other people. Is this the right thing for me? They don't sit in a rental car and write hieroglyphics on it. And also, customers see what they want to see about your product. And some of that's good, but some of it's bad. And a lot of us walk into the commodity trap using, you know, like keywords. I talk a lot about the security job that I had. They called it a firewall, which is the worst name in the world we could have called We could have called it copier and it would've been more effective because, oh, we got a copier, we got a printer, we've got 100 firewalls, we don't need another one. They're triggers. They don't know what it does or what it is. They think they do. So when I got away from that word, my deals skyrocketed. I talked about the problem that it solves that they're unaware of. And then they were like, oh, this is hardware? I go, yeah, but it just fits in the DMZ. We'll show you how it works. You want it to be hardware for these reasons. And they didn't even know it was hardware until we did the proof of concept. I talked about once you put this outside the firewall, these things happen. And software engineers didn't know that. Security people knew that, but they're not involved. They're not designing the architecture. They're protecting the DMZ.

Just a few words can change, change the perspective. And, you know, that's, that's a big, big deal. And that commodity trap can be tough. And I definitely know many times where you fall into that trap and you kind of the customer just sees something instantly because you say certain words. So that, that's a good point of like trying to change up your wording to try to get out of that commodity trap and get them to see what you really wanna, wanna show them versus lip service or buzzwords in the industry and things of that nature.

Yeah, because we're naturally trying to confirm something or build new information off of existing information. And that's not a perfect model when you're talking about something new. You have to kind of still build off of what they already know but not fall into what they think it is and what they already have. And this is what a lot of salespeople get stuck with because they think what they're selling needs to be talked about. It's about what it is How it works, why it's better. And the customer's thinking, I have something, I'm happy with it. I don't need another.

Yeah, the last thing they want is more features and benefits and a 35-page PowerPoint deck. They'd rather talk about the problems it solves and speak in their language of what, what they care about to make a big difference. So yeah, the whole features and benefits trap is never a good one. And that's pretty much majority of what companies tell you to do is put that through PowerPoint together, tell your story about how long the company's been around and all the different deals and customers you work with. Logos. Yeah, there you go. The logo slide is key and the timeline of events. So, and then people's eyes are just rolling back, most likely not paying attention, especially on like Teams or Zoom. There's no way they're paying attention at all. They're on their phone texting or sending emails to other people.

Yeah, because most of the stuff I sold, it took a good 40 minutes before the lights went on. And, you know, typically it was whiteboarding that did it. You drew what they're doing today, and then you drew what it could be and why they want to switch. And you had to do it slowly because people either didn't want to switch, didn't want to see a weakness, didn't want To open their mind, or they just wanted to be educated. And that's what we're doing as salespeople. We're trying to enter their world and have them view their world in a new way.

I like the whiteboarding session. That's a great idea, especially for technical stuff like security. I haven't really done that as much, but that's a, that's a good one. And then the other thing too is that going back to Kai, it's like, People weren't listening to him, like the way he was talking, like obviously there's something off, right? So they weren't listening. And I think that happens a lot too, where maybe you do ask some good questions or whatever, but you're still thinking about what you want to say, where you want to direct the conversation. You're not listening to the customer too. I think that happens a ton as well, where you're truly just not listening. And, and that can be a big one too that kind of derails, and you're still just trying to go to the path that you want to go to, not actually hearing what they're saying.

Yeah.

And I think a lot of people who were observing the, the viral video, you know, because there wasn't enough in that to really make you think this person's got issues. He just seemed like a surfer dude, a stoner, right?

Mm-hmm.

So it's fun. You make memes out of it, you share it with your friends, you know, that this, this crazy guy saved someone's life. He's a hero. It's one of those schmaltzy videos you'll see on LinkedIn. And it served them, and that's okay. But then the taking it and trying to exploit it to the nth degree was just so wrong, and it wasn't effective because it took forever to get him on just that, what, 2-minute Kimmel piece to try and get him to show up, get in the car. And it was like, that was a lot of work for such a short little piece.

It was, it was. Yeah. He, Kimmel probably didn't care because it was his whole team doing it for him. But yeah, I mean, they, they spent weeks just trying to find him because he was doing that drifter surfer lifestyle. So it was, it was pretty, pretty crazy for sure.

And, you know, may— maybe this, I shouldn't bring this up, but I mean, I think that the same thing was happening with Kanye in that people heard the antisemitic hatred that he was saying and they took it as fact. Nobody was saying, this guy is a known bipolar person, clearly off his meds. And what does everybody do? Everyone wants to interview him. Everyone's given him a platform. To hurt himself. And all of a sudden it raises all these things and it's like, how about a little timeout here, folks? You know, if somebody is outside your house drunk, yelling hatred and stuff, what do you say? He's going to walk away. He'll be fine. He'll sleep it off. But when somebody's on a big podcast or on the news, saying hurtful, hateful things that, that don't really make sense and isn't consistent with his personality, people are triggered instead of saying this guy needs help.

Yeah, I guess it's like an ego thing, a fame, and that those situations of fame thing, like getting your, you know, getting that interview, the 15 minutes of fame, like going, going, going viral. Same thing as like trying to close a deal, right? It's like you, You're thinking about yourself in that short-term win and money or whatever it is, fame, I guess, prestige, probably a lot of narcissism. So yeah, it's a, it's a great correlation to sales and like trying to close the deal with, with not the best intentions for sure.

Yeah.

Or, or trying to take something that really isn't real and, and just use it to your advantage without really thinking it through long term. And I think people, certainly in sales, you've really gotta have these little litmus tests of, is this a real deal? And we see it with jobs when we're switching jobs because everybody's in love and everything's great. And look at this, this is the perfect thing, once in a lifetime. How many times have you heard that? Once in a lifetime opportunity.

Oh yeah, I've taken one of those. It didn't work out. So I know exactly what you're talking about. That's a good one too, where you get so blinded by whatever the stuff they're telling you and then you hear all these stories. Oh, you can make 7 figures. I mean, I lived and breathed that one fairly recently, so I totally, and I fell into that trap of probably thinking more short-term. I wasn't planning on it being short-term, but that's ended up how it worked out.

Yeah. And, you know, certainly back in the dot-com thing, I mean, everyone was making millions off equity. So every time there was a startup that would give you equity, people were going from one place to another. No one's really thinking about, you know, what's the likelihood of that really happening?

Yeah, it was like point— what, 0.1% of those companies actually made it through?

Yeah. And people were upending their lives, relocating, giving up great jobs to go to this job. And, you know, wasn't really what it turned out to be. And I think we're naturally, we hear and see things that we want to hear and see versus what's being shown.

Very true. Very true, especially in sales, but in life in general as well. You, you hear what you want to hear and you just kind of get those happy ears and get blinded by the reality of what's going on.

And to become great at sales, the best way is to model somebody who already has become good at sales and to hear other people who have become great at sales. And the journey that they're going through, the false beliefs, the misnomers, the mindset issues, all of this stuff that gets in our way between where we are and the income that we want. Let's face it, we're in sales because we're money motivated, we're competitive, we want to be better every day than we were yesterday. And how do we do that? Um, just really, you know, read a book, uh, listen to a podcast. That's good, good start, I like it. But then you have to take action, and then you want both tactical and strategic ideas. You want mindset, you want strategy, you want to understand how companies buy, you want really deep content and examples Case studies so that you can learn from other people's mistakes.

That's what I'm here for.

I'm here for you to learn from my mistakes. And boy, do I got a lot of them. So go to b2brevenue.com, sign up for the courses. There's 2 major ones. Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting fills up your pipeline, gets rid of that problem of, oh, I don't have enough leads. I don't have enough meetings. It gets those conversations started with the people you want to talk to. Now, it's not about a pitch. It's about a conversation. Now, everybody thinks of conversations when you're talking or you're online at the same time or you're on the phone or Zoom at the same time. That's not a conversation. A conversation's when the client is talking about what they care about, what they're interested in. And that is What we call qualification, where we can sense where are they and how do we build up that curiosity into interest, into urgency to get a deal. And these are skills that we need. They're lifelong skills that we need in sales. And then how do we get a deal closed? Yes, anyone can take an order, but what if they don't know how to get it done? You get a new account. Where you're trying to get a big change done internally. What are the issues? If you're not planning that through, odds are it's not going to get done no matter how much your champion wants it. So winning the complex sale solves that problem for you. Why waste all your time on these false positives or these no decisions? Because they don't pay very well. They pay Zero point zero. What you want to do is pay a lot. So sign up today. Invest in yourself. You're the asset in sales. Quit waiting for somebody else to approve it or train you. See if you can get it expensed. That should be your first sales obstacle. Your first sales challenge is how do you get your company to pay for it? Just go down, tell your manager you want to do this. I put a little example email in the show notes right below here. Just swipe up and take a look at that. And if they won't, you got to ask yourself, why won't you? Why won't you? Oh, it takes time. Well, you work all day. You're working wrong all day. Why not improve that? There's the time right there. Oh, the money, Brian. It's money. Well, you make more money if you become better in sales. And Start the Conversation pays for itself the first week because you're going to get at least 2 meetings just learning from the very basics of it. Closing the Complex Sale will pay for itself 100 times over. Students in it tell me it's the best money they ever spent because they now have control over their deals. And it doesn't end. Some give up. Some give up after they win their first deal and they think they've got enough. No, come back. Come back. Keep going. You can get even bigger deals, more deals, faster deals. That's what it's all about. Sign up today. Put the excuses away.

Yeah.

Excuses feel good, but they're expensive. Excuse— you know what the excuses are costing you? Tens, 50, maybe a 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, $400K, $500K. 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.

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