THE FASTEST WAY TO INCREASE YOUR NET WORTH IN B2B SALES

When I interview great salespeople, there's clearly one thing that they do better than most salespeople. And today is another one of those cases. Each rep has found a superpower, and this rep's superpower is ability to network. And today we have tools, capabilities that we haven't had before. When I got into sales way back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, all we had was paper. We had books. And there were some electronic services, but they were insanely expensive. And everyone knew your network was your net worth. And I had friends who were connectors. And if you've ever read Malcolm Gladwell's book, The Tipping Point, one of the key personas is the connector, somebody who knows a lot of people, who can introduce a lot of people who tends to be the center of a social network. And today, we all can be that. We all can be a connector. And but it's counterintuitive. Like most things in sales, it's counterintuitive. Meaning that we tend to do it when we need it, when we want it, when we're out of a job, when we need to get into an account. When we need help. And then we're begging instead of exchanging, instead of compounding. What we're doing is asking for help, trying to explain what we're trying to do, and we're pitching. And the thing is, everyone's sick to death about pitching. In sales, we have to be putting these deposits, these gives, all along the route. So that when we come back and we need them, people know who we are and want to help us. In Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting, I teach people how to do this at scale. In 2003, LinkedIn came out and I saw the potential. As a sales rep, I was like, finally, there's going to be an online Rolodex database.

Nice.

network of business people where they work. And at first it was, ah, just about resumes and getting jobs and hiring people. And it was almost a red flag if you were on LinkedIn, because if your manager saw you on LinkedIn, they assumed you were disgruntled and looking for a new job. Today it's much different. The internet has become a 365 day, 24-hour trade show. You may not view it that way. You look for the things you want. You're a taker. You take what you want and you don't give.

I get it.

That, that's the nature of humans. But become a connector. If you become a connector in your space, in your demographic, and you may say, well, my people aren't on LinkedIn. Well, sooner or later they're going to be on the internet. In some way. It doesn't have to be LinkedIn. It could be some other network. Or what do they look for? What do they read? What do they listen to? What do they watch? If you can be there, you can be that resource. And is this hard? Like everything in sales, it's hard. But once you learn it, once you build off of either your system or someone else's system, It becomes pretty easy. Let's get into the interview. I'll sum it up at the end and give you some ideas, and I'll talk a little bit about my journey and how it's worked for me and how it can work for you.

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

Yeah, thanks a lot, Brian. Honored to be here. Really appreciate you reaching out and putting me on the podcast. Um, I guess I have to start out with saying that I've been married to my wife for 16 years, best friend, high school sweethearts. We've got 2 kids, 12 and 14. Really, really fell in love with her, started building a relationship with her, built our faith together, which gave me the confidence to go and pursue all the things that I've done over the past 15, 20 years. So started out at University of Detroit, got my mechanical engineering degree. So believe it or not, engineer by degree, and then moved into automotive, which was awesome as a young professional. learning the technical space and how to navigate really tough leadership, I would say. But then springboarding into sales and then eventually moving into sales leadership. I led a sales team for a division in North America for a Fortune 200 for 3 years. And then through a long-winded 300 videos later LinkedIn Ryan from Detroit brand, landed myself in technology. And that's where I've been at for the past 3 years. And it's just been—

And why sales?

Oh man, I love people, right? The common theme for me throughout, even when it was engineering, but wanting to really get into sales is problem solving, solution selling, getting into a partnership with, with the company that's sitting across the table, the camera, the phone, and being able to align our values and really go at it together to solve problems for people and ultimately big companies, which is thrilling.

Talk to us about the challenges of going from engineering, which is very structured, very known. People are just the opposite.

For sure. What's interesting is, and I look up and thank God, but there's been a few times in my life I've made a decision that seemed to be a little ahead of my time. There's a little bit of wisdom in those decisions, and I can pick them out a few times in my life. One of them was going into engineering school. I really didn't want to be an engineer, believe it or not. I wanted to be a better business leader. I wanted to be an entrepreneur, had a wedding photography business in high school into college, paid my way through college, had lots of different jobs and things and businesses, small businesses. So being an engineer gave me the technical foundation that I felt if I'm in the running versus maybe someone that went to business school, not that I would be better than them, but I'd have a different type of experience and skillset that if I could still work with executives and leaders and really win people over based on authenticity, then that foundation would maybe springboard me or, or give me a leg up. So when I was in engineering, I wanted to be customer-facing. I wanted to be in front of people. I wanted to be in the room with the leadership making, making the decisions, and I wanted to be a part of that. So I always even treated engineering like sales and then like mentorship as well. So It was, it was a weird transition, but it actually worked out great.

Sounds like you're probably an extrovert by nature. Is that—

I would, I would say so. Anyone that knows me, friends and family would say absolutely. But like I said, man of faith. So I spend a lot of quiet time, right? A lot of when I'm running, working out, music in my ears. It's me. It's a kind of an audience of one, if you will. So I'm an extrovert, I think. But, you know, believe it or not, this has been a little bit learned for me as I've kind of gotten in front of the camera instead of behind it over the past few years.

And you went into some— you're currently in some pretty high technology sales that have nothing to do with mechanical engineering.

Yeah.

How'd you learn all that stuff?

You know, I think, I think people don't give themselves enough credit. I think we have a ton of value intrinsically. And I think people sort of make decisions out of fear versus, you know, stepping out a lot. So I think for me, Like I said, my wife's a big part of the foundation, my faith, but it's been a journey of adventure and entrepreneurship for me. Every opportunity, every new job, I feel like you've got something to give that no one else has, that you're uniquely suited to do that. So for me, it's a place of confidence. I know what I know, but I know what I don't know. And the things I don't know, I'm going to try to learn quickly. And education's one way, but I think people need to give themselves more credit and get into those jobs and get the experience, get their hands dirty. Which is the way I did it. I'll also say what was interesting is after doing a ton of LinkedIn video, which I love, and I love your videos, by the way, which is— I think we have a common theme there. I attracted some folks to come to me and offer some opportunities, which is what I was hoping for in the long run as my long-term strategy. But one of the gentlemen that I spoke with, I was trying to help another friend out with a startup, just pro bono. And 20 minutes on the phone, because he knew my brand, he said, look, I'm from the Midwest. He was based out of San Francisco. He said, you are uniquely suited to do this role. We need people like you to sell in the Midwest. And I said, I've waited for technology to converge with the Detroit scene my whole life because this is home for me. And it happened. And we could talk about the successes, but it's been such a blessing because I've had a lot of good momentum and good team around me to help build those things out. And it's just continue to push us forward.

And how did you learn about like the large complex sale? Because from the outside looking in, people look at sales as all the same. It's personality, it's likability, it's gift of gab. But in a large enterprise sale, there's a whole lot more than that.

Oh, for sure. Um, again, I think it's underrated. If I'm being honest, I'm a little— I'm very transparent on that and make myself vulnerable. But I think people who have been practitioners in the business, right? I had a team of 4, right? And I had responsibility for the business in North America where I had to produce a sales plan for a 5-year plan, long range, and annual. So in order to do that, it's not spreadsheets. It's people. You have to get in. You have to understand where you're going. And I think that carries over very well into technology. And I think A lot of technology leaders need to think about that. I think there's practitioners out there. For instance, when I get on a call with a supply chain leader or even a finance leader, even though my background's not finance, I worked with and alongside controllers of businesses that were responsible for $500 million, and I'm a $25 to $50 million entity of that. I think that foundation and that skillset carries over to allow you to put yourself in their shoes. Our conversations start off with sort of like what you and I talked about, just getting to know each other, but also, hey, I kind of know where you're— I've been in your shoes. I know where you're going. Here's some problems I've seen and here's some customers that I've shared experiences with. Is this your experience based on where you sit? So you do your homework. But if you can get that relationship built on trust, authenticity going, they'll open up to you because they trust you. And then you can build a partnership versus trying to be transactional, which is the name of the game for me.

Yeah.

And what do you see most people doing wrong today?

I think it's all well-intended. I think, again, I think it comes down to confidence. I think people get into technology, which was an eye-opener for me. When I first started really in the tech space several years ago, I was like a kid in a candy store, right? And then the onboarding programs were amazing because the attention to detail was so great compared to what I had been used to, which is, here's your laptop, here's your account. Go talk to Ford or Chrysler or GM and figure it out. They're very well structured, but I think where people are missing out is they take that playbook and they take it, they want to regurgitate it versus making it their own. So I think people really need to find out how to get creative in that space and make it their own, make it coming from their point of view and their voice to the customer versus a corporate structured playbook. message, if you will. Yeah.

And what do you see as kind of your strongest suit in sales?

Well, I would say this is probably situational awareness, make it based on feedback, right? I like a lot of feedback and data points, but I think it's building quick trust with customers. You have to follow through, right? So when I get on calls with customers, and this is feedback I've heard from customers, this is feedback people have left on LinkedIn, this is my whole, you know, the circle of feedback that comes. I think it has to do with, I'm going to build authenticity. I'm going to tell you what we can do for you together, big picture vision, break it down and say, here's how we're going to get there if you'll allow me. And then, oh, by the way, don't just take my word for it. Let me prove it to you. And I think those results in the end and trying to squeeze that into a little bit shorter cycle than what the typical enterprise play is, we can get there faster. I can bring the best resources. I think they trust me. Then typically, there's a really good relationship that builds out over time that ends up spanning across different executive teams and that type of thing because they see the results and they come back to me and say, hey, you're doing a good job for our company. I always lift those other people up on the other side to say, hey, these are the heroes. We're just providing the resource to get there.

Yeah. I think a lot of people rely too much on the logic of it. It makes business sense. It's the future. But that's good and helpful, but is that enough to get them to take action to change?

Yeah, I, I— no, I'm with you. Um, I, I think, you know, it's a little bit of a bold statement, but I don't really think people are buying software. I think they're, they're, they're buying from people they trust. And I know there's big debates on that, right, depending on where you sit, whether you're mid-market, commercial, or enterprise, but Reality is I've got good customer champions who have become good friends at the executive level, where I remember a conversation with one individual who was the CIO of a company. We had lots of conversations and there was a true relationship being built. He said, I think it is probably time to bring some executives in to have some higher-level conversations. You've been doing a great job supporting us, but there's some things we're doing globally that you've been supporting, because I was a global lead there. He's like, but it's probably good for you and me to do that. And I said, well, let me enter— let you know, I'm going to California for an event. There's a couple people that I think would be good, but let me go interview them based on what I see in the company, what we've built here, and let me make sure we pick the right people. And I think those relationships go a long way versus just grabbing the CEO or grabbing the CRO and pulling them in. It's, it's truly advocating for the customer within the walls of your company.

Yeah, because I think, you know, we use the word like relationship and people think, oh, it's somebody I want to go to a ball game with. No, it's somebody that you've built up trust with. Trust being showing more interest in them than in yourself.

Absolutely. And I agree.

Yeah. And everyone thinks it's just logic. Well, almost everything makes logical sense to buy, but they're not going to buy it.

you wouldn't be a product that's in— yeah, that's had success, right?

Right.

And you're, you're selling into kind of brick-and-mortar, old-fashioned industrial space, I assume. It's Detroit, right?

Yeah, it's, it's, it's both. I mean, we— this, you know, I work for Alteryx, which is, uh, our— what we're trying to help democratize analytics for lots of leaders, right? Because there's a ton of data, and we could get into that if you'd like. But what it comes down to is We do work cross-regionally. So I have a lot of older, big legacy companies, but I've also got some smaller companies as well that are more forward-facing in the technology space. So we span across it. Some of our biggest customers would be maybe some of the software we're using right now or some of the things we use every day. So it goes across all different lines of business, all different verticals for sure.

And who's typically the entry point? Who has the problem that you solve?

The big debate.

You don't know?

No, no, the typical executives. And again, we've got awesome leadership where I'm at, which is why I'm here, period, to carry the legacy of what's been built before me. But I would say in general, as a generalized statement, executives want big strategic salespeople to sell to executives. So that's, you know, we always are going after that, building the relationships across through LinkedIn, through referrals, things like that. But I would say that's where we're different. We can really help the analyst, right? Whether it's a supply chain analyst, finance, tax, even HR, sales, we can go across the enterprise. We're a true platform that does a lot of great things that gives people their time back, but also helps enhance the data. So I'll talk to anyone at the company that's willing to listen. Built lots of relationships where we've taken an analyst who sees a vision, doesn't know how to get there. We've been there before. Hey, we'll give you the resources, we'll support you. Let's talk about your use cases. Let's talk about your outcomes that you're trying to get to. What success looks like for you. And then an analyst would go and sell to their manager, which would sell to their director. So we've entered there. I've also got great relationships at a director VP level, so we can go in there as well. And then it becomes more of an initiative down. So We can go anywhere with our solution, which is really thrilling.

But I got to imagine that they're already using something and there's a million other ways to skin this cat.

Sure. It's true. It's true. I mean, analytics is a pretty crowded space. Once we get in and have the conversation and are able to show it, not just the typical demo, but actually give an overview, and they can feel it and smell it and see it, they realize it's different. They realize it can cover a lot of ground for them and things that they weren't really seeing before and they had to piece together. So it is unique in that way, I would say for sure. And our customers never have seen this, to be honest, anywhere, whether it was automotive, even entrepreneurship and into tech sales, but our customers truly will open up on a first call sometimes. If there is a customer, I'm obviously working strategic, so mostly customers, but there are customers that will just gush over our product and over our platform and our community that's been built. So that makes it a little easier to have the conversation for sure.

How did you become fluent in this? Because you're talking to analysts, you've never been an analyst probably. I've never been an analyst. Yeah, you got to learn their language, what they care about, and be able to answer their questions and differentiate. Because I'm sure as soon as you say a keyword, you know, data warehouse, data analytics, triggers a bunch of images in their heads of competitors, alternatives, and getting the job done somehow, some way today.

Sure. Now, a big conversation piece is time. Even though they're doing it, even though there's legacy systems there, what often happens is that they're forced to use those systems and they're forced to put their data into a box that was already built.

Yeah.

And what we say is, hey, we'll help you design the box, the sphere, whatever shape you want, whatever you want to put wheels on it, you want to put rockets on the back, we'll help you build it. But oh, don't take our word for it. We'll get into this with you. So that's how we carry it through because we'll bring technical resources on and we'll build with them for a few hours or for a week and they can trial it. And then they really get a sense of what it can do for them. But the initial conversation is, again, it's building quick trust, being authentic and saying, hey, I haven't worked in your position, but I've worked adjacent to your position. And I was working in this leadership role where The controller I worked with had analysts on the team. Here's some of the things that we saw that were problematic that really caused people like you a lot of pain. Is this the case for you? Tell me about it. Typically, when you can get deep with them and identify some of those areas, they open up because they want to talk about the pain. People don't like to really bottle it up. It's like, well, glad you asked. Let me tell you what I'm going through. Then we just align the outcome or the solution, whether it's a quick win, not from a transactional standpoint, but a quick win from a value perspective. We align that quickly, help them sort of get to the next level, and then also continue to climb that leadership level. Then again, we can supplement it with business cases, value cases, value engineering team, things like that to really help them stand out from an executive standpoint. What skill or ability do you wish you had either more of, Yeah, I think, you know, I've had opportunities within companies, especially in leadership prior to tech, where the company would offer me— you know, I had one instance when I was leading a company, as soon as I got in, they're like, we'll pay for your executive MBA, go get it, right?

Like, go.

But it was a change management situation where I needed to really dig into the business. And I was super thankful and very, very— a lot of gratitude for it, for that open door. I said, I need a little time. We got some things to fix. So I don't know that I would actually go back to college to get something like that, but having a foundational business and finance background or supplement or minor maybe in college while I'm building up my quiver, if you will, that could be beneficial. So everything now is self-learned when you start talking about finance and tax situations, but that's something I think you could build muscle memory in that would help out. any salesperson for sure. The other thing I would say is I would've started networking earlier. I went back into my old university and became an adjunct professor to help young engineers and co-ops. You know, I think we had 60 or 70 kids, like start to build out their resume, build out their LinkedIn. Like this was the whole conversation that I got asked by one of my old professors who became a dean. And that was, this was about 5, 6 years ago. And I said, first things first, go build a LinkedIn profile. No, you don't think it's cool. it's not Snapchat or TikTok. Go build it and then connect with me. And I co-instructed with another buddy of mine who sells here as well, who we built automotive together, then moved to tech together, who's often in my videos also, by the way. I call him #DJAJ and he hates it. So I had to throw it out there. But I told him, I said, we're hiring managers. At the time, we both worked for different companies and we led teams. You connect with us and you're our students and you're passionate, we will do everything we can to help you. And I wish I would've known that earlier and I could have built that network out earlier because I think it was around 2017 when I was in leadership that I was like, if I ever want to get into tech or get outside of this sphere of influence, I need to build a network. I need to build those relationships that sales teaches you to build. And that's how I jumped into LinkedIn video. The Ryan from Detroit brand was sort of shown to the world and that's kind of how I built that. That, uh, that network. So I would do that much sooner, and I would advise anybody, even if they don't get it, like, jump in and start building the network early, early, early.

And this is because networking is essentially prospecting without a transaction, right? Love it.

I love it.

It's just becoming known, liked, and trusted at scale without having, you know, The get, the ask. Yeah, established yet.

The pressure of the ask too.

Um, right.

What I've noticed is, you know, and this is the truth, you can, you could vet this out, but anyone in LinkedIn that reaches out that wants help, right? I know it's busy. We're busy, you know, working with executives, working with leaders every day. We're busy. I have family, I coach, right? Do a lot of things, lots of, lots of things outside of work as well. But Anyone that reached out for me on LinkedIn for the past 5, 6 years since I've been active, it's like, I'll help you. Let's find a way to help you. If it's information, if it's a little bit of guidance, if it's putting you in the right place with the right person to have the conversation, let's talk through what success looks like for you. And truly, there's zero, zero in it for me other than I get to shut down the laptop, walk away, look up and say, thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to have this. And then I hope they get something out of it. And if I see— you start to see all over LinkedIn and all over the companies you're in, because I talk to everybody, you start to see things start to pop off and people find success. And there's such a joy in that. And in reality, it will eventually— that goodwill will pay off. That's not why you do it, but you're 100% right. People miss that because they're so focused on their number, their quota, their comp check, whatever. I don't think about that stuff. It's like, do the right things for customers, for people. It will all pay off in the end. I think people can feel it even when you're trying to be authentic, but then all of a sudden there's this weird little ask in there and they're like, we knew it was coming. There's never a gotcha moment with me, with customers or with people. It just doesn't happen.

Well, that's it because a lot of us will take a week and go to a trade show where our company doesn't have a booth. And we'll spend breakfast, lunch, and dinner trying to network, but we won't spend 5 minutes a day online in a 24/7, 365 trade show called LinkedIn and the internet.

It's true.

And everybody's like, well, I'll go on there when I need a job.

Yeah, it doesn't work like that. It's too late. It's absolutely too late. And there's 50 people that want that job, right? And even if you have some influence in the— not in the decision-making yet, although I've been a hiring manager and will be, I'm sure, in the future. But it comes down to, are you the right fit? Do they know you? Are you a known entity? We've talked about this before. One of my buddies and then another guy on LinkedIn who's been pretty big and built and sold a company, we almost built something else together a while ago. He literally got on LinkedIn when he was in a position making very little money out of college and said, I don't want this life. And just never asked anyone anything, just literally reached out, built connections with hiring managers in the field that he wanted to be in, or recruiters. And eventually someone came to him based on the way he wrote on LinkedIn, again, never making an ask. And eventually it was a million-dollar investment to go and buy some sandwich shops that they wanted him to have equity in and run based on his leadership style. And that was simply because he was his authentic self and took the time to go and make himself known to other people and add value to their posts and their comments and things like that. And I can't stress it enough, people still aren't doing it. And it blows me away. Well, the amount— the lack of, you know, attention on that.

The thing is, it's always worked.

The medium has changed.

Yes, good point.

You know, because one of the things I did as a rep is I would always call headhunters back. Oh, sure. Clowns.

Sure.

And I see if I could help them. I go, I'm not in market right now. What are you looking for?

Bingo.

And I go, well, I'm not sure if they're open. Give them a call.

Tell them I gave you my name.

It's awesome, man.

And all of a sudden we became friendly. I hate to use the words friends because we never socialized or anything, but we could talk and share experiences and industry updates. You know, just a couple weeks ago, my old boss— I hadn't talked to him in 20 years— he goes, you're well connected, uh, I'm looking for another job. I go, I have no idea what you do now, right? He told me, and I go, okay, let me put some feelers out. You know, in 3 days I get him connected to this Slack group, and there's 3 people looking for somebody like him. I don't know if there's a good match or not, but—

Awesome.

His network's now expanded. It took 5 minutes of my time.

Kind of going back, you were asking earlier about foundational principles. What would you do different? What do you think you do well? We were in an automotive setting selling, for all intents and purposes, 50-cent car parts, right? No shame in my game on that. But we took a 50-cent car part company and division in North America, me and a colleague and a bunch of support team. There was more than 2 of us, but there were really only at one point, 2 salespeople for $50 million in business. And we built it from $20 to $50 over 6 or 7 years with a lot of support. Like I mentioned, we're a team, but we became advisors in reality to all 30 to 40 companies we supported and sold to, including some of the big OEMs in automotive, the big names. And the reason was exactly your point. We would help them. So Anytime they would hire, they'd call us off record. We'd grab a coffee and they'd be like, I got these 3 people. What's the scoop? And we'd be careful. We would never do anything dishonorable, but they were looking for trusted advisorship. And I would say, back to what you just did, it's exactly where my heart is and where it's been from day one that I've carried through to this gig, to what we're doing here. I think this is a place I want to build a career at, for sure. Based on lots of amazing things we're doing. But, um, but yeah, it's, it's the same motion and it gets the same outcome.

Right, because people think today, you know, make 50 dials and 100 emails is the way to prospect. Insanely ineffective. Yeah, you could spend 1/10 the time online connecting up through the people you already know, asking them Who do they know that is in this space?

Absolutely. I've had executives tell me that.

Don't cold call me.

Yeah, don't cold call me. If you really like— and again, executive friends, I'm like, hey, I actually— I've done some things for the companies where I would just bring an executive leader in who I was close with and had done a lot for and with. It's like, can you just spend 30 minutes with some of these AEs, these account execs? Just open mic, let them ask questions. We don't get to do this a lot. always in a sales cycle. This will be no pressure. They've been really helpful in that. One of the comments that one of the gentlemen made was, he was a supply chain leader, he said, spend the time to find out who knows me. Don't reach out cold to me because I'm like, who are you? Find someone who knows me and ask them to introduce you. If they do that, I'll talk to you. If you don't do that, I won't, unless you catch me on the phone somehow, and then I get upset. So again, one small sidestep or little additional supplemental info, and I think people miss it because they're so like, go, go, go, go, go. They never give themselves time to think and really bake these ideas out. And I feel like there is an opportunity for all of us to be creative within these roles and not be operational only. I think operational excellence is important, have to have a cadence. You have to have a structure, especially when you're leading a team. But man, the creativity is where people flourish. And back in automotive, and I'll do it the same here, everyone goes to lunch. You take some customers to lunch and it wasn't like a shtick, but we get done with lunch and I'd say, you guys want to go grab ice cream? And again, at the time I was a little younger, had some obvious guys and gals that were older and they'd look at me like, Are you serious? I'm like, yeah, I want ice cream. You want to go get some ice cream? And like, it's an extra 10 minutes, right?

Yeah.

But like, I'm like, yeah, I want some ice cream. And then we'd go get ice cream and they'd be like kids, man. It's like, who doesn't want to have fun and not think about the pressures of work and life? And I just think there's so many of those small opportunities that many of us miss out on because we're running too fast or we're, we're too tunnel visioned.

Yeah, we put our sales voice on and we read the script and the value prop. And the sales-ready messaging. And it sounds like a commercial.

Totally.

It is a commercial.

Exactly, exactly. Same thing with slides, I think, is another whole comment. But yeah.

And when people talk about relationship, it's getting to that point where you can get ice cream together, where you're humans. You sell something, you solve problems, I've got problems. Is there a union between them?

Sure.

Great.

If there isn't, let's stay in touch. There might be someday.

Yeah. And I would add, even if you're an individual contributor, I would add that it's as important to do that, if not more, internally, right? Even if you don't have direct responsibility to lead teams, you can't just say, I can't talk to you. I'm not— I'm focused on my job. Like, you have to build up the team around you, the culture around you. You have to continue to add to that. if you really want to build the rocket ship that everyone says they want to build. And I think it's so important. And, uh, I take any phone call that people want to throw at me. And I've had people like, oh, it's Q4. I'm like, I get it. I got deals to close, no doubt. But I got 20 minutes for you. Like, let's talk what's on your mind. You know, it goes a long way.

Cool.

Hey, Ryan, appreciate your time today. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

Best place is linkedin.com/RyanFromDetroit. You know, you can search Ryan from Detroit, uh, anywhere on LinkedIn. You'll find the hashtag, you'll find the video posts, you'll find the leadership, you know, discussions and sales tips. So probably best place, DM me there, hit me up. We can talk, have some conversations.

What I see today is too many people are playing the 2003, 2004 playbook instead of the 2021 playbook. And the 2021 playbook Nobody publishes, certainly not public, because even if you read it, you'd probably be like, well, when do I get paid? Everybody's looking at transactions, not transformations, not compounding. It's so— I do this, I get this. And the problem with that is there's only so many situations where that will work. Inbound, it'll work. People who are in market, it'll work. I get it. But you can either spend your time trying to find that, react to it, or create it. Because there's probably half hour to an hour a day of work with that inbound. But you have then 23 other hours that you could be creating it. Connecting with people, engaging with them about them, about helping them. If you look at all the stuff that's on social networks, it's mostly still pitch, pitch, pitch. Here, look how great I am. Humble brags. And instead of helping people get what they want, everybody else is also on there for a reason. It might be just entertainment. It might be to build their network, or they just need help, or they're looking to learn. What is their motive to be online, on the internet? And you can come up with all kinds of excuses why it doesn't work. I would start by reading Gladwell's Outliers. It's a well-written book. Uh, it's a writer's view of how networks work and how marketing and sales works. So it's kind of not really a sales book by any means, but it teaches you how big things can happen when you get a tipping point in your market, in your territory, when you become the go-to person on that topic or interest. And I've tried to do that as far as business-to-business complex sale. And, you know, LinkedIn is clearly the place for me. That's where the most B2B salespeople hang out. And yeah, you know, some people like it, some people don't, and that's okay. I'm not trying to get everybody. I'm trying to get the people who appreciate that. Anybody can take an order. Anybody can manage an account. Anybody can be in service.

Very few can sell.

And I'm trying to teach those people who want to learn how to do the large complex sale, how to get meetings and conversations started with the most difficult of situations. And the people in the course know this because nobody joins the course who has it easy. Who has inbound, who has leads coming in, or has already figured out some magical email or a cold call pitch. If that's working for you, you're probably not joining the course. Why? There's no pain. Brian, I'm all set. I get it. That's okay. But there are certain people who are like, no, I want to scale this. I want to be a connector. I want to be the center of my marketplace. I want to be the go-to person, and I want it to be so effective that the idea of me leaving the company would be heartbreaking to them. And I've seen this before. Most people just, you know, they hang out, they do what they're told, they try and do as little as possible to make as much as possible. The problem is That algorithm, you tend to have to do more and more just to stay even. That's the nature of the game. So, if you want to learn how to do this at scale using technology, using all kinds of ways of doing it, then you join the course. Become good at it. This is a skill. It's not a test. It's not a list of tools. It's not a list of subject lines. We all look, how do we do the least possible to make the most? Eh, how do we do what needs to be done to get that conversation that we want? We all think it's a pitch. We all think it's a value prop or insight. Eh, how's it working for you? You can keep looking for it and people do. Okay, tell me how I can get 15 minutes of their time. Okay, is that a give or a take? Sounds like a take. You think it's a give because it's your job. But remember, it's our job to sell. It's not their job to buy. And they are assuming they don't need it. When you hear a commercial, what's going on in your mind? You're pretty much saying why I don't need this instead of why I do. Or maybe you're curious and you want to investigate just because it's fun and learn about it and then come up with why you don't need it now. What we want to do is build conversations. In the good old days, it was your network, and today it is as well. But do you just have connections? And lists and contacts, or do you have people who trust you, who will talk to you, who you have helped, who owe you a favor? These loose connections, uh, can become insanely powerful. You can become that connector in your market space so that when you need a job, you just ask. When you want something, You can just ask instead of begging and pitching and cajoling people and assuming that, yeah, they're going to want to do that.

But do they?

Networking, it's, it's a skill.

I think we all should be better at it.

Too many of us aren't. We're just constantly me, me, me, and everybody else feels that a mile away. Develop this skill to the extent that it works for you. You don't have to have parties anymore. I had a great friend who was a connector, and she would have parties. She put a lot of effort into it. And I looked at that and I go, wow, that's powerful. But that wasn't me. That wasn't my style. I wasn't going to be the party guy. But I can do it online. I can do it at scale. I can do the one-to-many instead of the one-to-one. Make this one of your superpowers. It becomes the best marketing you can have. Word of mouth is the best marketing. Use your words in other people's mouths to get the word out. If you don't know how, check out Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. I teach it at scale. I teach you exactly how I can do it, how I've taught other people to do it in the toughest of markets, selling to lawyers, being the first salesperson in, starting a— being the solopreneur trying to sell a product. They're all in the course. And if you're in the course, don't stick with just the knowledge. Listen to the one-on-ones. They're the very last chapter. Listen to the office hours. There's 4 years of them. The very— the second to last chapter. Pick the topics that you care about. Come to office hours with the questions. If you can't get a one-on-one, send me a video and I'll include it in the next office hours, or I'll respond to it and make it a video one-on-one. It's up to you. You can sit back and wait. until someone anoints you the connector, or you can go out and make it happen for you. It's your career. Take action now and get the benefit for the rest of your career instead of sitting back waiting for a new company, a new territory, a new product. Good luck with that strategy. I know a lot of people that waited 20 years for that and it never happened. You've got to take action. This is all proactive stuff. Anybody can sit back and take an inbound call. And I hear it all the time. Once we get engaged with them, we do really well. Well, okay. How many of those do you get a month? Well, one a quarter, two a quarter, maybe. Go create it. Creating is unlimited. Inbound is insanely limited. You know what it is. How do you affect it? Become that connector. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Make sure you check out the other podcasts: Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers, Sales Leadership Show, and the B2B Revenue Leadership. If you see my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a little like, a little comment, a little share.

Here's some excerpts from a one-on-one that I did with one of the students in Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. Now, this person really embraced the course after a while. It took a couple of one-on-ones for him to try each step. He kind of fought it, tried to make it work within his current model, and that really didn't have this type of success. And then after he started, he started to get meetings. He started to get conversations. He started to get all the things that I was telling him about. And he started to get excited about it. He started to see the results that I tell you about where his week was full of meetings.

Now, I'll let you hear this out.

I deleted out kind of the specifics of the steps and the tools and the approach, but they're all in the course. If you're already in it, Please listen to the full one-on-ones.

When you hear the success that people are having, it's not just the steps.

It's the matching of the steps with the appropriate actions and pacing. And then you get people asking to talk with you, which is the goal, which is the fun. So let's listen to it and I'll sum it up at the end and give you kind of an idea and recommendation if you want to take advantage.

And it's crazy. This week, this week I'm full of meetings. I was like, what's happening? And like, I— what I did was I baked in like, I just— I'm very generic. And people are like, oh, like, like, tell me more about you. Like immediately. I have like 3, 4 meetings. Like I already had 2 this, and, and based on the, on the, on the parameters that you suggested for me, like, oh, go after these bigger companies, X amount of employees. So then by the time I'm talking to them, I already know that, okay, they, they typically have budget. I mean, assuming LinkedIn is correct with the employee size, some of it was, was off, but it's like, okay, there's still like a deal. It can, it can still happen. Yeah. And, but yeah, I was like, whoa, this is— I limited to like 30 connections a day. So then that way it's not like, it doesn't go crazy. 'Cause I remember one of the reps, they're doing about 30 a day. Like I said, like this week, like 4 or 5 meetings and they're good meetings, you know, and it's just conversations. Like I say, it's not about like pitching, but it's about working them up to that point where it's like, okay, Yeah, we do need to advertise.

So after teaching this for quite a while, here's the steps that you should take. Take the course once, quickly through it. Find both one-on-ones and office hours that speak to the persona that you want to talk with, whether it be the CEO, the CMO, CRO, developer, marketer, whoever it is that you want to talk to. Because we break it down in gory detail. We break down the persona and what they care about. And then try each step. Try it with your friends. Try it with your coworkers and start to see the results. Now, most people will fight me on it. They'll spend the first month, 2 months, uh, trying to make the system fit into their pitchy email and cold calls. And it works a little But it works a whole lot better when you apply it because each step and each pause in between each step has been designed over time to be very effective. And then when you start to see the results, all of a sudden people are replying, people are asking you, people are wanting to talk with you, want to understand what you do. It's almost turning cold outbound into warm Inbound. Now, are they in market? No, no, they're not.

But they're a little curious.

And it's up to us. And I show you in the course, how do you build off of that? Instead of us telling everybody how great we are and hoping they can understand why they need us. And instead of them arguing about why they don't need us. Because until you have active pain, Everyone's in denial. Think about going to the doctor. Okay, you kind of know you need an operation, but you're like, "Can I get a prescription?" And the doctor's like, "He has to ease you, or she has to ease you into the process." Well, let's take an x-ray. Let's see what we're working with here.

Oh, can I? How about just a shot? Can I just get a shot till the next time I come in?

Then he flips the x-ray up on the light, and he. Ah, that's what we're dealing with. That doesn't heal on its own. You have to have surgery for that. He has to build up to that. Until we build up that latent pain into active pain and properly diagnose it and get people to think about what happens if they don't have that operation, they're going to avoid it at all costs.

Cost.

That's why the cold pitch doesn't work. You're just igniting the denial. You're not igniting interest or curiosity. It's just denial. So check out the course, start the conversation, get the meeting. It's all at b2brevenue.com. There's an overview video in the show notes, on my YouTube channel, and on my LinkedIn profile. Pretty much everywhere I am, as well as the website b2brevenue.com. Check it out if this is what you need. You know, this student, zero sales experience, but really, you know, just gobbled up this. And the people who gobble it up the fastest and the best are people who try it and get success. It has nothing to do with knowledge. It's like learning how to do a sit-up doesn't give you a 6-pack. You have to do the sit-ups.

They're not fun at first, but then you get used to them and you start to like appreciating them.

And then you start to get the connection between how you look and what you do. And so you start doing the things that make you look better. This is what we have.

It's not just knowledge.

It is applying it. Taking feedback, polishing it up, and applying the system to your clients.