IF YOU BUILT THIS SUPERPOWER THERE WILL BE NOTHING THAT CAN STOP YOU

Just a couple of episodes ago, I was asking myself, or asking you, do you know anybody who went to a great school, who was academically talented and still went into sales? Well, we've got a guest today, went to a great school, did well, went into TV and journalism and did well there. But it didn't satisfy him enough. He started to see what the salespeople were doing and how they were living. And he got excited by that. And being a cameraman and being a reporter isn't exactly a safe way to live. So, he got into sales and developed a superpower and a superpower that we really haven't talked about on any of the episodes. That being creativity. And creativity, we really don't think about. No one really talks about in sales that much. And if we do, it's only in the gimmicky way of getting someone's attention, but not really about engaging the person, connecting with them, building out a story of how what you are doing and what they're doing Can co-create a solution. We're going to dig into this today. And you may say to yourself, well, Brian, I'm not creative. That's not my thing. That's okay. Uh, I don't think any of us are naturally born creative, but we can develop that skill much like curiosity, much like all the other skills and superpowers that I've shared with you on the podcast from other great salespeople. And how do you do it? You just start and you build and you give yourself permission to not be great at it for a while. And you just kind of develop it a little bit at a time, kind of grade yourself and ask yourself, how could I have been more creative? Just a little bit, not 100 times more, but just a tiny little percentage. And then kind of distinguish how well you are at being creative. Because we have to be creative not only to get people's attention but to get the deal done, to find out how we differentiate ourselves, how to make what we're selling urgent, not just a good idea. Well, everything that we sell is a good idea, but very few of it is urgent. The why now part of the sale always is one of the hardest pieces.

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

Oh, well, thank you. Thank you for having me, Brian. You know, a little background. I don't know anyone in sales. Maybe you do. But whoever woke up one morning and said, I just got to go out and be a salesperson. Yeah, I'm gonna give up every other—

does it?

No, no. When I was, when I was a kid, I will tell this story. I think I can, I can handle the blowback a little bit. But my mother says that when I was a child, I wanted to be a singer astronaut. I obviously didn't hit that mark. But, you know, there's a great book called The Accidental Salesperson. And I think that's kind of who I am.

Yeah.

Went to college, I was gonna be a filmmaker. So, hey, I'm gonna be the next Steven Spielberg. Now imagine right then and there, you're in sales anyway, because if you're gonna sell a movie or a script, you've got to sell it. Got a degree in filmmaking, went on to manage a band. Try, try selling something as ambiguous as music, right? It's a very defined audience. Went from there to getting into local television media. Did that for a number of years, ran around with a camera on my shoulder, you know, all the big stories, asked a lot of questions, and then landed myself in media sales. And the rest is kind of history in a way from there. But I never thought I'd be in sales. Except if you ask all the people around me in my life, like, oh, we knew you'd be there.

Really?

And it's just been a fabulous, fabulous adventure going from, you know, not thinking I'd ever be something to being something that, you know, I've been in sales a fair amount of time now. I've evolved my career, got out of media, pivoted— another mountain to climb— been in technology for about the past 6, almost 7 years, and finally landed in a place now where It brings together all those different pieces as I'm in edtech selling a platform that has to do with mentoring and bringing students and alumni together. And that's really a passion of mine. So not every day that happens.

Well, I mean, that is kind of a little different twist.

You know, I saw a pattern, you know, where you went to a great school, you know, and the curiosity of a journalist fits very well to sales. Probably storytelling and the enjoyment of being around people.

Yeah, it's— it— you have to stop, I think, because what is it? Ferris Bueller had that line in the movie, life's too fast. Life's too fast, right? He's a philosopher. Life's too fast. You got to sit back and take a look. And especially in today's world where we're bombarded Literally around the clock. I mean, we were setting up here and I couldn't stop the messages. You'd think you'd turn them all off and they're still coming at you. So, you know, take a look back when all those other people took a look around me and said, we know where you're going to go. You have to stop yourself sometime and say, hey, how do I put the pieces of this puzzle together? And wait a minute, they fit in a certain way. And I agree with you. I mean, I think some of the greatest salespeople I've met are waiters and waitresses who understand that I have to upsell. I mean, there's a reason they ask you if you want dessert. Would you like another cup of coffee? Um, there's, you know, people in media. I have told them for years, when this is over, when this period of your life is over, you know how to ask questions. And that's— if you can easily do that, you can succeed in sales beyond your wildest dreams.

How about as far as like the drive? I mean, because Clearly the skills are there, but there's that kind of have to win, hate to lose.

Yeah, it's, it's, that's an interesting, uh, interesting question because I was never one of those kids who was involved in sports. I, I wasn't something I had a lot of access to. I was in band and art and theater when I was growing up. And when I did get into sales, it always interested me how everyone wants to make sports analogies all the time. There are— I mean, you've probably heard the stories about these sales floors where, you know, hey, we're going to do a sales blitz and we're going to blast, you know, collegiate music for an hour. And I'm thinking, I can't even relate to that. Like, just leave me alone and quiet in my own thought. Let me make some calls and I'd be successful. Right. But what I realized at the end of the day is I'm not in competition with anybody other than myself. I just want to do better tomorrow than I did today and it doesn't have to be anything huge. Like, everybody wants to climb a mountain, I think. Well, if I can just— I'm sorry!

Well, the music and the drama have the same thing as the sports in a way because you have a coach, you have an instructor and you get feedback and you learn that How to get better, right? It's not knowledge, it's how well you did it, which maps to the filming as well. Anyone can capture it, but how well do you do it?

Absolutely. It's, it's not just because we have— everyone has a, uh, has, you know, has a video camera these days, right? Doesn't mean they're a filmmaker.

Yeah, it doesn't make you Spielberg, right?

Doesn't make you Spielberg. Absolutely. Um, You know, it's interesting that when you look at the analogy, I don't know if you've been— I look for things in media and conversations that can give me a little gem of some sales knowledge and what you're talking about, if you've watched Ted Lasso, the show on Apple TV Plus.

Apple TV.

I don't know about you but I got halfway through the series and I'm like, this is a program about selling and sales leadership. Plain and simple. And yeah, that's comedy, that's soccer, but there were so many things that happened in there that I'm like, these are all great sales lessons. And I think some of the best salespeople find those lessons as they're going along. You can, you can go through life with blinders on, or you can go ahead and, and take a look at life as an open canvas and find where those little Tiny gems lie, but you've got to be open. You've got to have your ears open. You have to have your eyes open, which is the next greatest quality, I think, in a salesperson. Ask great questions, but then just let them talk!

Yeah! Because I think too many people find a set of platitudes and it gets them through the day.

Yeah!

As opposed to finding great distinctions And trying to get a little bit better every day. Well, how long did it take before you got comfortable?

Selling? In sales? You know, it's interesting.

I—

so when I got into selling, one of my motivators and again, I compete with myself. I was a TV news photog and I realized I wanted to get out of that. I mean, it's a brutal, no pun intended, it's a brutal business. I mean, physically, back then we had 35-pound cameras.

In the morning, huge cameras.

You're being shot at, you're being chased, you're being pushed around. I mean, it's a rugged career. It in and of itself is a sport. But the thing that drove me the most was the local sales manager of a TV station telling— or not the general sales manager telling the local sales manager that I had met, he's just a TV photog. He'll never succeed in sales. So, we're not going to look at him. And I'm like, oh, now you're in trouble.

Oh boy. Told you what you couldn't do.

Oh yeah. That's the— if there's one thing that people should never do with me is tell me what I can't do, because then I'm going to go do it 10 times better than they're scratching their head going, how did he do it? So I just applied to all the other TV stations, started using some really great networking. In my very first conversation, you know, I picked up a phone. We have an emergency.

Sorry about that.

No, not a problem. Picked up the phone, called the TV station in town and asked for the local— who was the local sales manager? Next thing you know, that person picks up the phone and it is the local sales manager. Like, when does that happen? And then we started talking like, you're not— you don't live in Texas, do you? You're not from Texas? Oh no, I moved from Syracuse. I'm like, really? What station? Oh, We started putting the pieces together and the next thing you know, I ended up pivoting my career. You know, they took a very calculated risk knowing that someone who could think about images, tell stories, could help customers make commercials and they got the payoff. So I went into doing that, but then I got another book, Robert Jewell's Customer-Centered Selling.

Okay!

And in my opinion, he's kind of like the Neil Young of selling, right? Neil Young was the grandfather of grunge. I mean, that was the IBM, you know, that's what pivoted IBM to greatness was saying, we're not selling photocopiers and printing machines anymore. And I just took those principles and applied them to media and it was literally like a rocket and it just took off. Everything clicked in. And then my, my, my, my first interaction with someone who would become a great mentor, Jason Jennings. He had this set of sales tapes back when we had, you know, you go in the conference room, you put in a VHS. So he, he, he had great success in the radio business, the youngest radio owner in the country at one time. And he made this series of tapes. And the very first one is the one I remember most. Very short, maybe 5 minutes. The rest were like half an hour, 45 minutes. The title was Find a Parade and Lead It, and that was the solidification of everything I needed to know— how to stand out in a crowd.

Okay!

And the idea was only your parents— if you're in the marching band, only your parents are going to know if you're 3rd trombone, but everyone remembers The drum major at the front of the line and that was it for me! How can I just continue to be the drum major in our career?

And what did that mean to you? Lead instead of follow or?

Lead instead of follow but, you know, be different!

Yeah!

Like, I don't do vanilla well! Anyone will tell you, I'm consistently inconsistent! One day I will go in this direction, another day I'll go in this direction. My patterns may be the same, but how can I find a way to do something different and succeed at something today? Because tomorrow I've got to succeed at something. And it's kind of been my mantra through life is if you do the same thing over and over and over again expecting different results, what are you going to get? So, if today I failed something, tomorrow I have to make it better and if today I succeed at something, how can I help use that to succeed at something else the next day the better? And those are the things that drive me so that when I get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say, what are you going to do today that's going to make a difference? Maybe it's leading something, maybe it's changing something and at the end of the day going, did I do it? And that's all the competition I need!

And what were you selling?

Were you selling advertising?

Right! At the time, I was selling broadcast and digital advertising.

Yeah!

Not easy!

So, I— no, no! And it's different than enterprise selling because you go in by yourself, you're meeting a business owner and you have to listen to what have they been doing and then think about the change that's going to connect with people. So that the idea that I could sit there and go, how about we write a commercial together? And they'd be like, what do you mean? I was like, yeah, right now. Let's talk about, you know, 3 or 4 things that differentiate you from all your competitors. And I would do this thing back when, you know, we wore watches that had, you know, mechanical hands. I'd say, give me a minute. I put my watch on the table and go, okay, I'm starting. Okay, write it down. I'm like, hey, this is a rough draft, but what if we said this? And when you saw their eyes light up and they had the buy-in because they participated in the process, that was the magic! Like, that's when you knew, you had that feeling, oh, I'm gonna walk away with this and we're gonna have a win-win! And it just, it was so energizing for me because at that point, I could take this new passion that I had, which was professional problem solving. Some people call it sales and I could take the creativity creative background that I had from film school and being a kind of a hack musician, like I'm good enough but I'm not, you know, never gonna be—

Make a living.

No, it's not gonna put food on the table but I could take those and bring them together and create something really special and that satisfied me for a lot of years. I went into sales leadership in that industry because I got to a point where I wanted to help other people try to find their spark So that they can go in and be different. I would send out— I had another mentor of mine, Sandra Coyle. She printed out these huge business card looking postcards. She goes, hey, send these to your clients! Well, it got to a point where my competition would walk into my prospects or clients and on bulletin boards next to their desk would be these huge business cards. How intimidating is that? Yeah, but I was able to lead the way in really using that resource and tool to make things— people think differently, think a little bit bigger.

Do something instead of just talking about your listenership or your demographics or your domination in the marketplace. You're talking about helping them get more business.

Yeah, I, you know, I— another great I talk a lot about mentors because the truth is, I would not be here if it wasn't for great mentors. I have— I've had some fantastic human beings in my life who've provided me with some of the greatest nuggets possible. So, so that's going to come up probably a lot in our conversation. But I think it's important because you look at in today's world, a mentor is not someone you follow on TikTok.

That's not a mentor.

That's not a mentor. Not a mentor, not in my opinion at least. And it's hard because we live in a society of this immediate gratification. Being a mentee is hard. You have to have a desire. You have to go out and find someone that's going to help fit into changing your perspective in your world so that you can create change with yourself. And then once you become a good mentee, evolving to become a mentor. So, You know, I had another mentor who was in marketing and advertising. He'd go in, he would teach people to go into an advertiser and don't look at the main product they sell. Look at the loss leader over there. Find a way to take that loss leader and turn that into the sales gold for that customer. Whereas everyone else would tell them, go, hey, you want to sell another bed? How about those hypoallergenic pillows? Why don't you give one of those away? As a loss leader to getting someone to buy the bed. So you gotta wide eyes, not have blinders on and look around and that, and that goes to, you know, whether you're doing media sales or in technology. It really doesn't matter for any product, you have to look big, have a bigger scope than your competition. That, that is one way that I think you can win is seeing more than your competition does.

And what was that switch like into technology sales? Because that's a different world completely.

Absolutely. The interesting thing that I found was everyone in technology sales was kind of like that sales manager who said I could never be anything other than a TV news photographer. So you know what that, you know what that did to me? That just energized me more. And I was, I was I was hell-bent on getting in. I'd seen the evolution of the media business and, you know, they're doing more with less these days. So, there are a lot of people displaced. So, instead of being behind the curve, I'm like, I'm gonna get out while I can!

You know?

I applied probably to 120-some-odd companies. Started to use my network of influence. I'm a big believer that the people that you either went to college with, or went to the same alma mater. You have a kinship. Maybe they can help you. I'd go out to those people at businesses. Hey, can you help me get into this, this role? Please send me the referral link. Maybe you'll get some money, right? And finally, when I landed in my first technology company, it was because I connected with a number of alumni who walked me through the process and helped me. And at the end of the day, Getting into that company was the most rewarding thing because everyone else had said, well, you've never sold technology. And my feeling was, if you believe that it's your product that will sell your company, fire all your salespeople and just put the products on the shelf and let people run away with them. Let them check out at the door. So, the hard part was the pivot. Once I got in there, that was a whole new world. I was able to take all that other experience and say, what if we did things a little differently? And then, oh my God, the magic started!

Yeah!

Literally, I found some new mentors. You know, I had to take a step back. I started going to inside sales. I began to say, why are we calling into these people when I think these people will lose their job if they don't have our technology? They may not say yes to being— they may not have the buying power, but they're the ones who have the need. We started calling other people, doors started opening, conversations started happening. So, it really— it wasn't the pivot into technology and understanding that selling wasn't difficult. It was how can I apply what I know in the past and then get in there? And once I was in, that's when it started to take off.

And how long did that take?

Probably about a good 6 months.

Yeah.

I got close with a few companies, but I— the one that I landed at, uh, really was— put me in a great position because the product I was selling actually mattered so much to CMOs that I was able to open my network up of, well, let's talk to this CMO because if this doesn't work on Black Friday, come Monday they have to fix it and it's going to cost a lot of money. So it really, it really I got in the right place.

And like the creativity, is that what excited you or?

You know, the creativity, it— I think we all need to be creative in sales.

Well, I think we all should be, right?

Right. I mean, well, we all should be. We all should find something to energize, to be able to do something different. But for me to be— me being creative is You know, seeing how— and you've done videos on the emails, the emails, the emails. Oh, how can I write a different email? And sometimes I had to get to a point where I'm just going to see what kind of subject line will get some attention. I've tried, is your hair on fire? If you have to solve a problem and your hair's on fire and you do it now, let's talk. Believe it or not, sometimes it got me a— it got a— Yes, I need, I need to solve for this now. Sometimes got, hey, take me off your list, but it got a response. I think any response is better than a, you know, sitting at the bottom of the pile. So you've, you know, being creative, I've been able to help and mentor other salespeople in my roles in technology, get people to think a little differently. I think spur a lot of brainstorming.

Yeah, I think too many people are just following You know, someone else, and it turns into a cheap copy of somebody else.

Well, everyone's got a system, everyone's got a plan, and, and a lot of people are good at following.

Yeah, it's easy.

Never been my strong point. It's never been my strong point.

It takes the, the onus off of you, and if it doesn't work, you blame the, the leader, right?

Well, well, and I take accountability myself. I've brought— I come up with ideas every single day. Some of them are great, some of them are just crazy, but I'm willing to take the responsibility if it doesn't work. And again, if we do what we've always done, we're going to get what we've always got. And who wants that? You know, I think people— a lot of people are afraid sometimes to put themselves out there. I'd rather fail repetitively and win a few times than be arrogant enough to think I can succeed constantly.

So, in the call reluctance, none of that?

No, I've never had call reluctance. I've never had email reluctance. And I'm not afraid to put myself out there because what's the worst that can happen? They say no. Somebody doesn't listen to me. I signed up for this. Yeah, we signed up for— we clinically— and salespeople are clinically insane. We signed up for a life of people telling us no, go away. Yet every human being, their nature is to want to be embraced.

It is. Yeah, it's a lot of counter-intuitiveness.

Very counterintuitive, which is great in my opinion, because I don't— you know, if you said to me, hey, you know, fine, you know, you're outside the box, find where'd your box go? I couldn't find my box in a room. I don't know. But, but I don't know if I'm unique in this, but I don't know fear. And I say that honestly. You know, I didn't when I was younger. And when we're young, when we're really young, and I think this is why young salespeople, when they start up early in their career, you don't know fear yet, really. You know, it becomes this thing that we accumulate over time but I was going back about 10, 12 years ago, I was in a really horrible car wreck to the point where maybe I shouldn't be here today and from then on, I'm like, I just don't know fear because what could be worse than what I just experienced? Someone saying no? And I'm willing to try anything once. If it works, great! If it doesn't work, we just try and manipulate a little bit to make it work. I also think that's why I'm— I've never really been one— I mean, I know of my wins and successes but what I really remember are the losses. Yeah! I can tell you about a million losses, a ton of failures and all of them have really good learning stories but the successes? Either I didn't learn anything to get to that success because I already had it in me Or I just kept moving forward because you can't, you can't, you can't just sit on your laurels of yesterday. Right.

You can't let it drag you down, but you better learn from it if it was within your control. Because even if you paid the— you paid the tuition, get the lesson, right? Right.

Well, even if it's not, even if it's not in your control, because there are a lot of things we can't control.

A lot.

It was a great lesson I got from a sales leader once is, you know, you can only control the things that you have control over, right? But regardless, I think that if you, if you go back and analyze when it didn't work, and I'm not sure how many salespeople really stop to take this moment. I've been a lot of organizations, they just, you know, they go from one failure to the next to the next, and they never do the analysis.

Well, that's it!

You know, is it the wrong person? Is it the wrong company? Is it the wrong time? Did you do it in the wrong way? Was it too fast, too slow?

I had a sale a couple years ago. I think it's about a year or 2 years ago now. You think you got it in the bag. You think you got the right relationships. They've already bought a ton of stuff from your company, so why wouldn't they buy more? You go through the process, you're feeling pretty good. You're hearing, you're hearing all the right things and eventually, we got a really hard no and they went with a competitor. Come to find out in the end, we had overestimated a relationship.

Yeah!

Well, we couldn't control the value of that relationship with that decision maker, but we could have done our— a better job at delving into that. And that was the one small yet large thing that we just felt, ah, you know, they're a book club together, but it's book club. Little did we know. So without doing the analysis to go back and figure out from now on, when I look at that playing field, I need more knowledge in those relationships. Where do they really stand? Not what I'm thinking or my team believes. We've got to get some more knowledge behind that. We have to, we have to go a little deeper. So you learn a lesson. But if you don't stop and look backward, how are you going to succeed moving forward?

Yeah. Because sales is a lot like playing any video game or chess where once you've made the The move is made.

Cat's out of the bag. Yeah, the barn doors are wide open.

Right? The thinking goes before the move, not just afterwards.

Yeah.

And it's really a preparation profession.

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. If you go into anything, you know, there's that— what is it, the 1,000-hour— is it the 1,000-hour theory? 10,000-hour? 10,000-hour theory. You have to make an investment in yourself and the behaviors and actions for the way you get ready to do something or anything. If you have a chance of success, I— the only thing I would ever beat myself up over is, did I do a good enough job there? Because I'm pretty confident I— once I get there, You know, I can dance, I can move, I can put on the show, but did I do what I needed to do to earn the right at that table? That's, to me, that's the big part.

And what do you see as far as the difference between that top best salespeople, the top 1%, and kind of just solid players?

Is there one thing?

I—

maybe, maybe you've seen this too. What's— what I think is the trait of the people who in that— that don't focus on their success are the people who focus on the outcomes more.

Yeah!

Here's a quick story. I'm sitting in my manager's office and the general sales manager comes in And they just laid out the new comp plan to everyone. You know where this is going. Oh, my day! And, and, and the first thing they ask is, hey, what do you think about that comp plan? That's a great comp plan, isn't it? I'm like, that's a comp plan. Oh no, you're all this opportunity. It's just, it's another comp plan. I can't count on my fingers and toes how many I've had. I go, I'm really not focused on the comp plan. He's like, what do you mean? And then now, of course, he's upset that I have not given him all these platitudes that he wants.

All the excitement.

All the excitement. I go, you have me here to focus on every single day moving the ball down the field. The only thing that I rely on is if you live up to your commitment to give me what you just said you would. But if I focus on that and you've seen this, people spend their money before they ever make it and then they never make it. Love the eye roll. Then, then, then why should I focus on the comp plan? And, and I think that that's one of the things where people get big-eyed. They focus on that bigger— I'm gonna buy the boat, I'm gonna buy the house, my W-2 is gonna look great. You gotta focus on the little things that move you forward every single day because the comp plan is gonna be over there when you arrive. People focus on the smallest percentage of the selling process too much. The 1% at the end. That 1% at the end is you getting paid. When you lose sight of that 99%, there's a lot of distractions. That's where you don't reach that 1%. So I think that's an issue with kind of the middle to lower tier people who are struggling for success. because maybe they have someone in their organization who runs around showing them their W-2s, right?

Yeah!

Well, it's like, it's like, let's be honest, the people who make the huge W-2s are kind of like the people who win American Idol. A million people try out but only 1 or 2 people get to the, you know, they win, right? So, so I think focusing on the things that you can have an effect on on a daily basis. Forget about the comp plan. It will be there. They may change it a million ways. You may not even understand how it works. You just know you have to do X, Y, and Z.

You have to close deals.

Right! You got to close deals. You know, now we've, now we've gotten to the point where it used to be just closing a deal. Now it's, you got to close a deal in 17 different categories, you know, and one of them has to be on a day that doesn't end in a Y. So, so, so focus on the things you can control. Your actions, behaviors, your attitude. That's a hard one, especially, especially in the last year or so. I'll be honest, I've had bad days. I'm sure you have too. There have been days where, you know, I mentioned a mentor earlier on, Jason Jennings, not due to COVID but during COVID I lost him. He passed away suddenly and he meant a lot to me and that affected my attitude for probably a good 3 weeks. Because I would think about the lessons I'd learned from him and I put those lessons to use almost every day. So I kept having that callback. We can control our attitudes, we can control our behaviors, we control the focus and time we put into work. And if you're one of those people who can get your job done in 3 hours a day and you're a $100 an hour employee, More power to you! But just keep, keep the focus amongst the distractions we have in the world these days. I think that's the one thing that people can do. You're gonna see incremental change.

That's good!

Because those are the things that you can control and change. I don't know about you, I got a question for you. COVID moved us all to the home. Well, if you weren't already selling from home, Do you think it— do you think that being at home has been better for salespeople to focus or worse?

I think it's an individual thing. I, you know, there was no change for me.

Right.

So it's hard for me to answer that. I think most people struggled with it at first. Did it affect you as far as your, you know, because if you're a face-to-face person, then you're a fish out of water.

Yes. Yes. So look, I mean, we're talking, we're talking, you know, miles away from each other, but I'd rather be sitting down with a cup of coffee in a room with you.

You don't get— because this is appointment conversation. Yeah, coffee, dinner, that's gone. The happy hours, the breakfasts.

Well, and I think too, I think when you put someone in a specific place at a certain time, not a make it to a Zoom meeting, Right! It's— you get a better read and they're in a better place to give you the truth.

They open up!

Because here, oh Brian, there's the UPS guy at the door! Oh, I gotta go! I gotta go for a minute, I'll be right back! Well, you could, you know, you can walk away from a camera for a moment because you need a second to breathe. It's hard to walk out of a conference room 15 times in a call just because you have to go to the men's room!

Right! And when you meet somebody for happy hour, It's not for 30 minutes. It's, you know, it's not for 4 hours, but it's, it's not a fixed appointment.

Yeah.

And yeah, I love, I love going to happy hours. I used to, when I first got in the business, again, finding that parade and leading it. I was in San Antonio. And, you know, I called one of the local Chamber of Commerce. I'm like, well, I would imagine a lot of those small businesses show up there. It's not easy running a small business. Maybe they just want a cocktail at the end of the day, you know. And in all my years selling in San Antonio, other than one person who became a great friend of mine, I never saw another media rep show up at a happy hour for the Chamber of Commerce. But what did that lead to? They found out that I could teach people about marketing. So I said, well, would you like someone to talk about being different? I mean, I don't need to sell my product and I've never sold a product in my opinion. I sell the solution that you need to solve your problems, right? Like the idea of salesperson, accountants, and these titles. I'd rather just be chief problem solver.

That's a great mentality.

And I went ahead, I went and started doing these seminars on being different. Lo and behold, people come up to me and, hey, can we meet this week? I want to learn more about being different. Tell me how we can get the message out there. So, I just— I wasn't selling. I'm on this podcast with you because I love selling but, you know, I hate the idea of selling. Why should we— why is selling the focus of something when it's solving those problems? And just having communication, relationships, trust, those things. Get rid of that idea of selling.

I think that's, that's the best point.

Yeah.

Hey, I really appreciate your time today, Scott.

Where can people go to connect and follow you?

They can find me on LinkedIn. I've got a— I keep pretty active there. I'm on Twitter and also scottsaldinger.com. So you can, you can reach me just about any of those places. Uh, even Google me and you'll find a few pages on me. So I, I, I, I'm not— I can't hide. You can find me.

The thing about being creative is it becomes fun. It gets us out of our grind, out of our routine, out of our silly cadence, and it can become our own cadence of creative ways of connecting with people and not acting Like a salesperson. I think if one thing has been consistent among all these interviews with great salespeople is they do not act like a salesperson. Because if you do, you'll get treated like one. When somebody approaches you as a salesperson, you react like a client. Uh, can I help you? Oh, just looking. Uh, it's automatic. Talking to a salesperson isn't something that we naturally want to do. Talking to a friendly, nice person, somebody who is fun or even funny, is a lot of fun to do that. We enjoy it. We laugh. We think differently. We bring down our ice, our shell. We come out of it and we start sharing. I talk a lot about this partner-in-crime type relationship that we have with our client. And again, it's not about committing a crime. It's about getting away with something, getting something unnaturally done, done. Because both, on both sides of it, it's really not natural. It's natural to take an order. Most companies are set up for taking orders. And when you try and do something creative internally, again, it's kind of outside of the— the normal path, and sometimes it ruffles feathers. Sometimes it has to be sold internally. That's what the client is going through all the time. No one's really assigned to buy stuff except procurement, but then they're told what to buy. Salespeople don't sell to procurement. Salespeople interact with procurement. We sell to clients, to users, to economic buyers within the And creativity is one of the ways that you can distinguish yourself. It's one of the ways that you can engage and connect with people. And it is a learned skill. And it takes some calories. It takes some reps to become good at it. But I think what's worked for me in the past is just write a list. Pretend that you could do anything. Because if you start with, What if I had a magic wand? Or what if I had 3 wishes? Something that gets all the limits out of your way. Because the natural thing is, oh, I can't do it because my manager won't let me. We have no flexibility. And all of those things are true until somebody needs an order. And then all of a sudden, they don't really seem to be holding up. Do you ever notice, like, the last couple weeks of the quarter, the company seems very flexible? And I used to— I kind of knew how companies worked. So if you wait to the right time to present it internally, all of a sudden great things happen. And if you know how your clients work, then you can work that leverage. Winning the Complex Sale, what it does is I define for you exactly how companies buy. And people go, what do you mean? We present, we propose, they buy. Well, they might, but depending on what you're selling, they most likely will not. How many did that? Out of how many proposals did you send out? How many of them came back as purchase orders? Or came back as purchase orders for what was on the proposal? Not cut this item, cut this item, give me a big discount. That is the game that we're playing. And the margins of winning just one more deal pays for the course. But you have to ask yourself, am I the right person? Do I want to become better at sales? Or do you just want the tip and trick? If you just want the tips and tricks, go listen to the Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers podcast. There I give the tips and tricks. They're free. Go listen to that. But if you want to win the large complex sale, It's more than tips and tricks. You have to have a strategy and a process. Otherwise, you just fall into the traps one after another. And then you're like, well, what's the tip and the trick to get out of these traps? Well, getting out of the trap is a whole lot harder than getting into it. We're not MacGyver. You might get excited by being MacGyver once in a while, and you may be successful at it, but it's not a skill. scalable model. To scale it, you have to understand the game that you're playing and become better and better at it. So if, if you're willing to dedicate, you know, an hour a week, a little bit of money, one lunch or one dinner a month— not a day or a week, but a month— and you're willing to do some of the work, attend the office hours or at least listen to them, participate in the one-on-ones or at least listen to them, You don't even have to talk to anybody if you don't want to, but if you do, you have that opportunity so that you can spend a whole year. Don't rush through it. Take your time. Enjoy it. Savor it. Imagine more time with me. What could be more fun than that? And becoming better and making more money. So the Start the Conversation course, basically, if you get 2 meetings that you wouldn't have gotten without the course, it pays for itself. 2 meetings in a year. I bet you're gonna— after 3 months, you'll be getting 2 additional meetings per day if you apply it, if you do it, if you practice it, if you take feedback. You'll get— yeah, you know, people get their calendars full. My calendar is full, and I have people with zero sales experience doing it. Zero. Not one day, nor do they make a single cold call, nor do they stick in some crazy cadence that doesn't work. It's all very friendly, nice, and organic. And my calendar is full at least 3 weeks in advance. You can see my calendar link on the website, b2brevenue.com. If you have questions and you can't get on the 15-minute call list, just email it to me. Uh, the email's in the show notes. Uh, there's a frequently asked questions video on the YouTube channel, on my LinkedIn profile, in the show notes as well. Uh, show notes, you just swipe on it, swipe up, you can see it. Uh, there's also an email template in there on how to get your manager to pay for it, but don't rely on that. You know, if you can, great. If you can't, invest in yourself. You know, you get One marginal deal? I bet you'll get 3 or 4 a quarter. Okay, so that's what, 12 deals a year? What are 12 additional deals worth to you?

Hmm.

$100K, $200K? It's up to you. It really is up to you. Your company will force you to go through training, but you're not gonna apply it. You're gonna do what your manager tells you, and if it doesn't work, they're gonna blame you because you didn't do it right. So your paycheck is up to you. And I had this conversation about that the base salary is what blinds you from what you need to see. It's comfortable. It's nice. I had a huge base salary at one job and it was a trap because every other job I looked at, I go, that's a low base. But the upside was probably higher, but it was a trap. You know, it's kind of like a union job where you get a little bit more, And all these benefits and stuff, which is good. But that means you're going to be stuck at that job the rest of your life because everything else at the beginning won't be as good. Think about the commissions. Think about the back end of that comp plan. That's where the fun is. And now is the time. The economic boom that we're going to have in the next couple of years is going to be— that magical word— unprecedented. Unprecedented.

So take advantage of it.

It might not happen again because we're probably going to have a downturn after that.

Who knows?

I'm not an economist. I'm a sales guy. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Check out the other podcasts, Sales Leadership Show, B2B Revenue, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers. If you see my stuff on LinkedIn, I'd really appreciate a like, comment, or share. Tell a friend about the show.