THE SECRET TO BUILDING TRUST WITH C-LEVEL EXECS

When I first started doing sales training in person, I was always kind of astonished that people didn't find it that enlightening at first. But then, uh, one of the managers says, well, what you're doing is showing how the magic trick works versus showing the magic trick first. And I go, yeah, but it's hard to show the magic trick In that context. And that moment stuck with me for quite a while. So I keep trying to show the magic trick, or at least give the context of it before you show how the trick works. Because if you show how the trick works without having that suspense and mystery up front, people just say, oh yeah, I knew that. Yeah, that, that's logical. And I watched this on, um, CuriosityStream. It's one of those streaming services. Uh, I tried it out. I, I love history and mystery and, uh, factual TV, so you don't feel as guilty watching TV compared to watching reality or whatever stuff on Netflix. But one of the things was on magic. And how magic works. And there is, you know, a slight trick to it, but there's really no magic, meaning that everyone can do it if they practice it enough, if they understand how it works from the receiver's end of it, and understand that it's performance. And I think The magic trick performance analogy is more effective than the typical performance analogy that I give because a lot of people hear that and they think, oh, singing and dancing. No, no, no. It's how well you sell. And although selling isn't a trick, and I hate that word because it assumes that if you learn a trick, then all of a sudden sales become simple. I don't think it ever becomes simple. I think you start to learn more and more about it, and the more you learn about it, the more you learn that you have to learn even more about it. But it becomes enticing because you do become better at it. And in this little show that they had about the magic trick, It seems like a really great card trick where this person's able to read or guess the card that the other person had picked. And it's basically using a little diversion, a little humor. But isn't that all interpersonal connections? Is that when you're able to control or direct the other person's focus, It becomes like magic. And what I try and do in the courses is show how the trick works. And a lot of people go, well, it's different than what I do now. And I go, yeah, but everyone's doing what you're doing now. Everybody's got a value prop, an elevator pitch, a magic cadence, uh, some brilliant insight. But is it getting you the meetings, the conversations that you want? Hmm, really, is it? If it is, congratulations, keep going with it. I would never want to change anybody's behavior unless they wanted to get better. But who really wants to get better? Today's interview is a great person. I think you're going to relate to him because like most of us in sales, were kind of, you know, I hate to use the word misfit, but for some reason we got into sales. Typically, it's because we didn't fit in other places, or the places that we fit in didn't pay as well as sales. And having interviewed and met hundreds, now thousands of salespeople, a certain pattern emerges. Where the best salespeople just, they think different. They didn't fit into the square hole with the round peg. They kind of wanted some variety in their day. They wanted to interact with people. They wanted to solve mysteries. Nobody's really come on and said, oh, I just want to work harder, or I'm just a naturally gifted person with people. That tends to raise a little bit because managers look for people who are people people. Makes sense. But that's just the start. And that's where we're starting today with this interview. But where it goes is really good. And I got a lot out of this. Certainly a— I hate to use the word trick, but a strategy that can be enormously effective. I'll sum it up at the end if you didn't pick it up during the interview.

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

Thanks, Brian. Appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, my name is Joey Russo, born and raised in San Diego, California. Grew up skateboarding, bodyboarding, and, you know, just always had people telling me that I had the gift of gab. Right? So early stages, I wanted to follow in my grandfather's footsteps. He was at Top Gun in San Diego. But as I grew older and I just realized that, you know, sales is something that just speaks to me. I like helping people solve problems and You know, just, it's something that not everyone can do. It's not something that everyone can, can be trained to do. But, uh, around age 14, my aunt started, uh, dating a guy, now my uncle, that was a partner in a technology company, a fellow surfer. So he used to drive 30 minutes inland to pick me up. and drive me all the way back to the beach, surf for a few hours, take me home. And so he started coaching me and saying, man, you're just a very natural conversationalist. And so he started kind of grooming me and we made a deal that he wasn't going to hand me a technology position. So I had to find my way into and get a couple years under my belt, prove myself basically. And then he would help me or, you know, refer me into a position, and that essentially all those steps happened.

And do you find a lot of analogies between surfing and selling?

Um, yes and no. I would say that surfing in hindsight— so step back, I now reside in Nashville, Tennessee. So I'm about 6 and a half hours From the closest place in the world. Yeah, yeah, there's not much. Uh, it's flat today, but, uh, as it was yesterday. Yeah. Um, but in hindsight, it's, it's one of the most selfish sports in, in— because you sit out there, it could be 30 minutes between sets, and you're, you're fighting, you know, sometimes hopefully only 5, 10 guys, but sometimes there's 40, 50 people in the water. all jockeying for that, that way, that one of 5, 6 waves, right? So that competition aspect, absolutely, you know, and, and making sure you're, you're fit, you know, you're in your, um, what's that word, like your ability is there that when that time comes, boom, you know, it's your wave.

Yeah, because I gotta believe, you know, when you're riding a wave, it's a lot like riding a deal. You can't really predict everything, but you've kind of got to like use your history, your experience of how you rid previous waves to ride this one in.

Absolutely. And it also down to equipment. So if you translate that, it's, it's your strategy, right? And, you know, do I have the right fins on? Is, is this the right board for the conditions? Right. And so, absolutely.

And a lot of people do get into sales because somebody says, oh, they're a people person or the gift of gab, which It's a good signal. It's a good indicator, right? Did it translate well for you or were there a lot of hiccups along the way?

It did. I think another— so after I graduated, you know, I served tables while I was going to school and I honestly believe that that is one of the biggest things that helps because, you know, your customer doesn't care that the ice machine is broken or that you had to walk to the other side of the restaurant to get their, you know, soda refilled. They just want their food.

Soda.

Yeah, right. And, you know, the cook quit, whatever, mid-shift, whatever. They just care that what they ordered is hot or cold, right? And on time. So having— being able to keep all of that hidden And put that smile on, uh, in front of the client is, is key. And so that—

Well, that's it, because I've noticed, you know, because everyone talks about sports and how that translates to sales, but not enough people talk about how hospitality translates to being a great salesperson. Because like what you described, you're in the middle, you didn't cause the problem. But your job is to make it look like there is no problem.

Exactly.

Because telling the client about all the problems in the back office doesn't correct the problem.

No, no, you're right.

It makes it worse.

It absolutely makes it worse because then it's like, especially if you're talking, you know, 6, 7-figure deals, they're like, wait, I mean, what am I—

There's an issue?

Yeah, what am I— you want me to entrust In, in, uh, in us. Yeah, yeah. It's, uh—

And what got you out of San Diego? What, you didn't like the weather?

The weather's terrible. I don't know what other people say. No, I just, you know, quality, cost of living.

Cost of living.

Yeah.

And taxes, politics, all that fun stuff, right? I, I was looking for, uh— also, my wife is from the, from the Midwest. And so she just felt like the education that she— the public education that she received out of California, we weren't getting the same for our, for our children.

Yeah.

And was sales a natural thing? Did you like it immediately? Or did it take a while to adjust?

Good question. I think, well, it's funny, maybe a step back into how I got into sales. So my girlfriend, now wife at the time, so we've been together since we were 19 years old, and her dad was a sales manager for the local radio station. And so he said, why don't you come in? There's a sales aptitude test that I give all of my potential candidates, you know, why don't you take it? So I took it, and at the time I scored the highest out of anyone that he had ever Interviewed, right? So he took that into his boss and said, hey, you know, I'd like to hire this guy. And he said, no way, he's too young. And so a little age discrimination there.

Right.

But he said, fine, I'll tap into my network. And he helped me land my first sales job in the powersports industry. So I was selling motorcycles, ATVs, watercraft. And so at a young age, still going to school, you know, it was fun. I sold fun.

Yeah.

But it was 100% commission. So, you know, first sales job. So when you say hiccups, yeah, I mean, I, that natural conversation piece, I was able to get people to warm up very quickly. And, you know, I was successful at that role. But when my wife, when we found out, now married, you know, found out that we were having our first child, you know, I needed something a little bit more stable, right? Um, that and 2000— this was around 2005, 2006. And in hindsight, you know, the crash of '08 that everyone talks about, that actually impacted the powersports industry before, 2 years before. And it, you know, when I— the day I resigned and cleaned out my desk, you know, I had a stack of deals that were about an inch thick. Well, a deal was 3 pieces of— 3, maybe 5 pieces of paper. So think about the hundreds, thousands of dollars in commission that, that, you know, we just couldn't get banks to buy the deals.

Oh, banks.

The banks shut off the funds. So they saw it come, in my opinion, they saw it coming 2 years before the actual crash.

Because I gotta believe that those are the most risky of—

100%. You can hide a bike, any, you know, there's no repossessing it.

There's no collateral.

Exactly. I mean, we're talking high 700, 800 scores.

Not getting it.

Not getting it.

Yeah.

And so what was it like then getting into technology sales?

Yeah, um, so I resigned my, my parents' neighbor. I lived at home for— or they lived across the street from us for about 14 years. And, um, so my buddy Jeff ended up, uh, starting at a company in physical IT distribution. So think everything in a data center, the racks, the cooling, fiber optic cable, all that physical security as well. So he helped me land an entry-level position in sales support.

Yeah.

Did my 2 years. So went knocking on my uncle's door and sure enough, he got me an interview with his software company based out of Orange County. So I went to work there and it unfortunately didn't work out. The management and I, it didn't click. But I worked on a floor with other teams and the camaraderie between those teams, and I was friends with the VPs and the managers, But unfortunately, my remote manager and I, it didn't really work out. And so it was really tough. One of the hardest things I've had to do was go back to my uncle and tell him like, hey man, I, I, I gotta tap out.

Yeah.

But, um, was that a style thing or was it just a view on sales?

Yeah, it was a style, uh, uh, manage— management through fear. When I'm seeing—

Intimidation.

Yeah, like it was, it was intimidating. And, um, the other managers on my floor were all just laid back and all their guys did— I mean, everyone was crushing it, you know. So, but timely, my previous manager at the distribution company called me and said, hey, there's a position open on the inside like, so a promotion from where I was. And I said, yes, let's go. So I went this company back to the other company, did that for about 2 years, and then went back under one of the other managers that I used to work side by side with. And that, that's when it— my, my career really took off.

And what type of manager do you work best under?

Or with? Well, so at that time, I worked for a gentleman that was actually a year younger than me, but he had started in tech right out of college. So he worked his way up faster than I did. And just autonomy. Micromanagement to me and me do not mix.

I don't think it does with any performance type of function.

It's fair.

Right? Because if you're making, you know, you're assembling a car, micromanagement might work. Right? But if you're creating something, you're— it's a creative process, a collaborative, it's an interpersonal skill. Micromanaging that doesn't really add any value.

You're right. You're right. And I think in if I go back in time, if, if the younger me, the early inside guy me, could know that, take a step back and say, okay, boss, like, check his boxes, but do my thing, be right, my— the results would have been significantly higher.

Well, and this is what micromanagers don't get, is that the people are just checking the boxes. not doing the things that you think they're doing. They're not idiots. They know what you're looking at.

Exactly.

And you're telling them what they're looking at. So of course they go, okay, you want a brown suit? It's now brown. Right now I get to do my job.

Right?

Yeah. And it's crazy because everyone talks about, oh, well, revenue is a lagging indicator. So they try and find leading indicators. But as soon as you tell people that's what they're looking at, They now show you what you want to see.

You're right!

Instead of doing what you think they're doing.

Spot on!

And how dumb can you be not to see that?

You know, I haven't been at that level to know what the stress is and, you know, what's weighing on them. But I do— I've— been on the other side of the knee-jerk reactions and the decisions of, you know, well, just offer them, you know, end of the quarter. And it's like, hey boss, you know, this— I'm sorry, I did everything I can, totally out of my hands, this deal's not coming in, but it's not dead. But it's not— oh, we'll just offer them a discount. And if— and I, I would do that early in my career. Well, guess what? That just cost us revenue that I knew was coming But once you give that, once you give that price break, how you—

you can't—

really hard to get it back. Exactly, exactly right.

Because it most likely will still not close, but then they'll show you the quote from last quarter.

Oh yeah, they forgot the first quote. That was— yeah, right, right. Oh, I just have this one.

So yeah, and plus in B2B It's not that person's money. It's the company's money.

Exactly.

So do they really care if it's 10% less this month than next month?

No.

It's still the same amount of work, if not more for them, because now they have to go and push and push to do something that's right for the company that doesn't have any material impact to them.

Fair.

I think the only times, and it's been just in my last role, is when that deal pushes that it impacts their personal project deadline. Yes, that things, things move when they do things.

Yeah, they do it on their timeline. Right. Which you can influence. It's not that you can't, it's just that you have to first realize that.

100%.

So what were some of the key either learning points or epiphanies that you had along the way on the B2B enterprise side?

Well, I think in my first role with it being like tangible products, so I'm selling physical IT. I mean, I spent more of my time just customer service and chasing missing pieces, pallets, or this misshipped, wrong PO, you know, just all this busy work. But I will tell you that that helped me organize and prepare for the enterprise where, you know, I sell air now, right? It's software. But it's all those other pieces behind the scenes that have— you have to check those boxes to get deals done.

Well, let's talk about it because you're selling, um, really insurance today, essentially.

It's a great way to look at it. Absolutely.

And, and a lot of people— everyone wants to buy insurance after their car's in an accident.

Right.

Oh yeah.

But before, it's just an expense, right? Everyone knows you should have it, you need to have it, but it's expensive.

You're right.

How do you get people interested and keep that interest moving?

Yeah, that's, that's a good question. So I'm, I'm about a month into my new role here with Minerva Labs, but I mean, it is so timely That, you know, it's what's scary, honestly, to take a step back, is that companies are spending millions, their increased budget, their increase, they're increasing their budget on that insurance, on the antivirus, the endpoint protection. But last year, every 11 seconds, companies were hit with ransom attacks. $20 billion in ransomware payouts last year. So how is it that they're spending and it's not working? So with this solution, we actually prevent ransom attacks at a different— at a level below all of the other endpoint solutions on the market.

And Who is the person that you typically contact? Because everyone chases the CISO, right? But they're kind of overwhelmed.

It's like, yeah.

So that's— I just had this conversation with my brother the other day. But I've had the most success in targeting the enterprise architects. Because if— and the way I envision it is they're the ones with the crystal ball. They might have a direct— a directive straight from the CTO, the CISO, or they're in meetings cross-functionally, right? And that they have a pulse on everything that's coming 12 to 18 months from now. So, and that's time that times up with my previous sales cycles, 12 to 18 months to close a deal. So Um, that's, that's who I target. Now, since I moved here and I put down the, the boards, um, picked up the golf clubs, right?

Yeah.

And I'll tell you, it's one of the most humbling 2 years of my life, right? Got the best, latest and greatest driver. You get all your stuff and you take, you know, and you're practicing and you get on the course and you just Hit one into the woods or whatever, right? And it's being able to come back from that and like settle back in. Okay, that, that shot doesn't exist. That, that's the past, you know? And that's kind of like, you know, the at-bats, right? Not getting to the seesaw or getting blown off 50 times a day for that one, you know? And then you stone one in there to a foot and tap in for birdie, right? That golf, you know, my wife and I recently joined a golf club. And I found that, you know, randomly being paired with either a member or a member and a guest, that, you know, I've just in the last month, you know, 4 hours with a CEO in like a— with— you can't get that. Anywhere, right? It's priceless.

And that's what people say, those days are over, but I don't think so.

I would say they were, and COVID helped bring people back to wanting to be outside. Yeah, tired of— no offense, but the video calls and the phone call, right? Yeah, I gotta— I want some fresh air.

So some fresh air. I want to talk to somebody.

Yeah, shake someone's hand, you know, with some sanitizer, whatever.

Well, let's go back to the, the architect, because ironically enough, when I sold security, that's who I sold it to. And everyone in the company told me I was wasting my time. And I go, well, the CISO doesn't really understand this yet. Because I was selling to a future problem, not a current problem. The network people don't care about this because they got stacks and stacks of what they think I do, but they don't, and they don't care. That architect has time on their hands. They are the person that goes to the conferences, that writes the blogs, that talks to other people, that doesn't have as much line responsibility that other people do.

You're spot on.

But it's highly respected, is high. And they got there because they are a natural champion. A natural kind of maverick, kind of somebody a little outside of the do what I do, what I'm told. And that's it.

You're spot on. Yeah. Some— did you find that it was difficult to get to them? Or what— how, how did you— what, what was your angle of, well, cracking that?

It took me, it took me a little bit of time, and it was crazy because I went from selling pure infrastructure software to selling a network device, a hardware security in the DMZ. I never— I had no idea what a DMZ was. I thought it was something out of Vietnam.

That's right.

Camo face. And the company was a startup and it came highly recommended, but it was the 3rd round of salespeople they had hired, which is really a red flag. Yeah, it's tough. You know, they, they hired security people first, then network people. I was the first software guy they hired.

Interesting.

And I had no rapport with CISOs. I had zero rapport with network people, but I knew the software people. And so I had some contacts, but what I did was I go, what do they buy before they buy me? And they bought this piece of middleware. At the time it was BEA that got bought by Oracle. So I befriended the BEA reps and I go, when you close your big deal, could you introduce me to the architect there? Not before, but after you close that big deal.

That's a great strategy.

And they had this user group meeting. I go, happy to present and fund any of those events you want. I bought the pizza, rented the room, got the beer, you know, a couple hundred bucks. And I talk about, okay, once you go outside the DMZ, you lose all your security. All that beautiful code that you wrote is now open, and who knows what they're going to do to it. Wow.

Yeah.

And then they all lit up and they go, they don't want their reputation at risk because they, they did something not knowing what this thing that could happen will happen because they're not security people, right? But they care about security because downtime is— that's the ROI. It's, it's the downtime, the ransom, the The, the intangible long-term costs.

Exactly. Well, and, and brand, right? Brand, all that damage to the reputation. Exactly.

Yeah. And it's like when somebody reads a resume or a LinkedIn profile from some big ransomware attack and go, and you want to work here?

Right. Yeah, you can't manage your data. Like, how are you going to bring that with us?

Exactly. And how do you keep the deal moving now? Because the architects are great, but that's not their budget. Or is it? No.

So typically what it is, is they, they have a directive from either CTO or CISO, or, you know, or it's a collective. And then they go through and it's, there's multiple In the most painful processes, it's RFI, so then RFP, then proof of concept, right? So it's a very long drawn-out process, but it's not their budget from what— from my experience. It's a director level, it's a VP level, and depending on what you're— who you're selling into, like my previous life, you know, it was, it was sensitive data detection. So finding, getting organizations to open, to unlock all the doors and let us in to go find their baby, their most sensitive, the PI, the PHI, you know. And so you think about each platform. Now we're talking, oh, well, they have Oracle, they have Microsoft, they have AWS, and Azure, and that's just— that would be easy. But you're talking, you know, 10, 15 platforms. You got to get buy-in from each one of those department heads, DBAs, right? And then InfoSec. Then you add privacy in the mix, right, with like GDPR, CCPA, and all the different state, uh, uh, privacy regulations.

Right.

Now legal's involved too. And they're buying, they have budget, and they're buying software for what I experienced the first time, for most of them. Challenging.

And what do you feel is your superpower, your strongest sales characteristic?

Well, I feel like, well, I learned early, my first software role, was selling to DBAs. Well, I'm not technical, right? So they'd sniff me out in 2 seconds, like, you're just a sales guy, like, stop. So then I, I went forward with that. Hey, I'm just the sales guy, but I am the face. I'm the quarterback of my company to my customers or prospects. And so it's my strategy is to be 1 to 2 steps ahead at every turn, whether during those long 12-month cycles, you know, getting to procurement early. And Pete, you know, I forget it was a man who was, but, you know, someone was saying, well, why do you waste your time filling out new vendor onboarding packets when you haven't been awarded the deal yet? Well, they're pretty much copy and paste.

Yeah.

So why not take an hour, 2 hours, tee it up? But also, I feel like it's, it's like I put that in the ether, right? I put that in the universe, like I'm getting this deal. It's that conviction. And, you know, I think, listen to Rob Dyrdek quite a bit, but, you know, it's that magic layer that, that it's real. I mean, I'm sitting here talking to you because of it.

Well, you're preempting the objection by telling the people that you're just a sales rep. Yeah, it's to take it away. And with the— you're also assuming the sale by getting the vendor information set up, and people will naturally go with the momentum.

Exactly. And so how much easier is it To say, okay, you awarded the deal. Okay, great. Well, I already talked to Bob in procurement, and I already— so I can— is it okay if I just go ahead and submit the packet? Wait, the packet's done? Yeah, I've had it done for months. Like, you know, it— I can't tell you how many times my previous clients would say, man, that was the most painless process. Like, it was such an easy You know, from the paperwork side, I mean, software, software, we're gonna have our hiccups here and there, but just make it as painless as possible.

That's really good.

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

Absolutely. You can find me on LinkedIn, Joey Russo, Minerva Labs, or check us out. It's minerva-labs.com. And God forbid if anyone experiences a breach or you're, you know, under attack, Click the Why Minerva button at the top left, big red button on the right, fill out the form, and that'll put you in contact with our incident response team. And just for— since 2014, not a single Minerva customer or someone under attack has ever paid a penny in ransomware or in ransom.

What a great guy, huh? Does he remind you of yourself? Maybe that background sounds a little familiar. Don't you all wish that you had kind of that mentor, somebody to help you along that first step in your career? If you had that, pay them back because that is such an enormous favor. I think too often people just take it for granted. And it's this weird dynamic that I've seen that if you help people early in their career, they kind of want to prove their independence from you as opposed to show gratitude for you. But the person who did it would like a little bit of gratitude. I've helped a lot of people early in their career and sometimes they are very grateful. Other times they just kind of want to prove that they didn't need you. And that's okay. It's part of that, you know, growing up part. I probably did it myself as well. What I got out of that interview was that personal responsibility and growth and kind of thinking outside of the box. And I think one of the big problems we have today is in-the-box selling, which is kind of dominant. People copying each other. The problem is they're copying people that aren't Exactly in the same situation. And sales is one of those things that it's kind of unique to you and what you're doing and coming up with a unique way of doing it to connect with the other person on the other end and everybody within that decision path. And the word magic keeps coming up because what is magic? Magic is simply something that looks amazing because you don't understand how to do it. Once you know how to do it, then it just becomes a skill that you have to practice. You have to get the timing right, the coordination, the confidence, uh, the eye contact with your audience, and to get the diversion working just at the right time. In sales, there's a lot of that. There's a lot of timing. There's a lot of focusing the customer on what they want. Because in the large complex sale, it's hard for so many reasons. And people try and say, well, it's not rocket science. And it's like, okay, yeah, we're not putting rockets on the moon or Mars, but it's more complex than chess. I don't think anyone would argue that. Not the simple sale, not the one-on-one simple transaction, but the business-to-business where you're selling to a company, many different decision makers, many different touch points, large gaps of time in between contact and conversations, many different alternatives. Because what ends up happening is the client becomes focused on different things at different times. And when we're talking to them, they're focused on us. And we assume that that will sustain over time. But it doesn't. It changes immediately after we end the call. They move on to the next thing. And all of a sudden, that becomes the focus. And if that's with a competitor, all of a sudden, the focus has changed. The large complex sale has a lot of things that look like magic. Having them like you, having them want to talk with you, having them pick your product, how to get them away from commoditization. And today we're doing things smarter, but we're also falling into traps, meaning that if we have a product-led growth or a free demo or eval or proof of concept, situation, what do people want to do? Yeah, I'll just play with it. I'll figure it out. And this is nothing new. I've been facing this my whole career. It's like, oh yeah, just give us a license and we'll figure it out. But they don't. Why? Have you picked up a new piece of software, hardware, toy of some kind, technology, and intuitive, you know, for the first— the key things, maybe. Maybe you then go on YouTube and you see how it's done. Then you practice with it a little bit. But you tend to only get into it about 5-10%. And that's the problem for us as salespeople because they don't want to see the differentiation. They assume if they can't do it immediately in a day or two and with a half hour here, a half hour there, that it doesn't do it, as opposed to they don't know how it does it. That's our job. And it's not becoming easier. It's becoming a little bit harder. So we have to anticipate these things and see if there's ways of preventing it because If we don't, we're relying on them completely, and it's not their job to buy. It's our job to sell. And what ends up happening is they go with whatever they intuitively like. But is that fair? Meaning that, have they really tried it? Even your— like, if you took a test drive of a car. Especially if you haven't been in a modern— I mean, like a new car in 5 or 10 years, because you don't buy a new car every year. Maybe you do. But all the electronics are different. The key is different. The heads-up dash is different. It takes a little bit of adjustment. When I used to travel all the time, I'd get into rent-a-cars, and you get that 5 minutes of, okay, where's the directional? How do I turn the radio on? How do I get the AC to work? And that's a car. That's meant to be intuitive, meant to be able to just sit in and immediately drive. But when somebody's using your product for the first time, there's a big adjustment. All of these things we have to think through. And develop. And that's what I teach in The Complex Sale, is these elements so that you can control it more, have more of a handle on it, more direction and momentum. Like the magician. Is it magic? Well, from the outside looking in, it is. You know, my manager used to call me the magician at the end of the quarter. Little did he know, all I did was manage his perception of my pipeline. Because if I had it opened and completely honest, it wouldn't look like magic. Because I was having similar struggles as everybody else, but I managed my time and my pipeline differently than everybody else. I didn't fall into the last week of the quarter trap. I spread it out and I did it off of the client's deadlines, not mine. I knew what mine was. I wanted to work off the client's. And when you were crushing your number mid-quarter, you have a lot more slack, should I say, to do other things. It gives you much more control over your time and focus. Now, what I got out of that interview— did you hear what he did with procurement? I mean, that's brilliant because we typically push that off to the last minute. And the point isn't just to have it in place in time. The point is to build a connection with the procurement people so that when you need the purchase order moving through, they know who you are. You've already worked together on things. You're already set up in their system. And it's almost like a little trial close on the procurement side. Now, you got to understand, procurement doesn't decide which product. They administrate the purchase. Everyone— a lot of people think that they're the decision maker. And they may be on certain repeat commodities. But not on new product selections, not on big, you know, changes in the company. They may get involved on the administrative side of it, not on the product selection side of it, because they definitely think it's a commodity. Anybody who's not using the product won't really understand the differences between the products. And guess what? Everybody makes them look the same. Go to your competitor's website. I bet it looks pretty much identical to yours and all of the other competitors. Same words, sometimes same colors, same value prop, all of that. And guess what? The customer really doesn't look that familiar. I remember one of my engineers that I worked with. We were I was interviewing at this other company and I told him, you know, because I was pretty unhappy where I was. And he goes, well, they're not the leader in that space. This other company is. And I go, what makes you think that? And he goes, well, look at their website. And I go, okay, they've got a better website, but they all say the same thing. And that company that he thought was the best was one of the worst and never really developed in the category. Yet the one that I ended up going to won the category, and he came with me. But his mind changed as soon as he started using the product. This perception of what we see, how the trick works, can change, and it's our job to change it, not theirs. Clients will do what's in Their short-term best interests. What we have to do is what's right for them in the long term. Not the evaluation phase, the implementation phase. That's where the magic happens. That's where we have the most value. Now, it takes a skill because you have to build this up from the very beginning so that they want to hear your advice, your direction. Instead of you at the end trying to drag them towards your product, what you want to do is at the beginning lead them to your product. Because in sales, the second prize commission is zero. Third prize commission is zero. The only one who gets paid in sales is the first place. The winner. Everyone else loses. And you say, well, well, they didn't lose, they learned. What'd you learn? Tell me. Most people, when I ask them what they learned, I learned that I hate to lose. Oh, you didn't know that? Why don't you think about that before you go into the deal? And when I say lose, you lost all that time. Not just the commission, but the time. The time that could have been put into winning the deal or working on a deal that was winnable. Because that deal was probably winnable, but the timing of your influence wasn't there. Closing the complex sale will give you the insight into how companies buy, not just how to sell. Yes, you've been taught how to sell, but how's it working? This metaphor that I've been going through for the last couple months about getting into shape and then how that applies to becoming great at sales. I'll give you some examples. First, you think it's going to take a month to 3 months to lose a ton of weight. Uh, you could probably lose about a pound a week.

Safely.

But that's only about 10 pounds in 3 months, 10, 12 pounds. And but, but then you find out, well, that's not nearly enough because you still, you feel a little blubber, a little roll around the waist, a little shortness of breath. Then you have to get in physical shape, athletic, you know, build up your exercise capacity. And you think that should only take 2 or 3 months. And if you're 20, it probably does. But if you're over 30, it's going to take a while. And then you find out, well, consistency. Yeah, okay, I do it pretty much, you know, 5 days a week. And all of a sudden, you know, the fall comes and then winter comes. And if you're a morning person, that's where you work out, mornings become very unpleasant. In the winter, the sun doesn't come up till noon. It's freezing out and you've got work to do. So you wake up, it's cold, the bed's warm. Uh, it's not like summer where you wake up, the sun's been out for an hour, it's nice and warm out, beautiful time to be out and get some fresh air. Ah, not so much in the winter. So it takes the consistency stuff, it really gets a big interrupt. So then you have this down cycle, and then the spring comes, and then, okay, things start to return to more pleasant, but then gets too hot. My point here is that when you get into shape, what you find out is how long it takes, and it's harder than you thought, and you find out you were in worse shape than you thought. Now, when you want to become better at sales, we work ourselves into this comfort zone where we're doing okay. But is okay good enough? And then, and then you think like a B player in the B player trap is that the only way to get better is to get a better territory, a better manager, a better product, a better comp plan.

Okay.

Um, do you have much control over that? All of that means moving to another company typically. But, you know, if you've done this before, believe me, I've done it a lot. You move to a new company and it's typically 6 to 9 months ramp, also which means not much money coming in. Also, they tend not to give you the best territory because they don't know you. They give the existing customers and great leads to the existing reps. And you come in and you're supposed to bring business with you. And isn't that nice of you? For that, you know, crummy little base, you're supposed to bring in millions of dollars with you. And you very quickly find out, well, this company is a lot like the last company, and this manager is a lot like the last manager, and this comp plan is a lot like the last comp plan. So what is your real solution here? The magic in your sales career becomes when you can do what others cannot do. That's what the A-player and above the A-player— and what happens in that case is managers will do everything they can to keep you from leaving. You will get paid unruly amounts of money, and other companies will do whatever it takes to attract you. That's a very different state. Then you're in the power seat instead of in the passenger seat. But you have to get there. And it also— you have to do it consistently so that people don't think it's just luck, that it's the territory, or that it's, you know, just chance, or the brand of the company, that it's you, that you can do it. That's where the magic is in your career. Let's get there, because being a B-player is not fun in sales. Because there's too many of you. The C players, you know, you know who they are. They'll do anything to stay at the company because they know that trying to get another job is going to be hard. And they're typically a C player because they're either lazy, burnt out, or, you know, really shouldn't be in sales. They're only in sales because of the upside. And they've been hiding. So the B players, which is Pretty much like 60%, 70% of the people out there. Managers kind of think, ah, they're kind of order takers, good Boy Scouts. They do what they're told. They update the CRM. But at the end of the quarter, they're not bringing in the big deals. They're not bringing in the marginal deals. They rely on the A-players for that. And if you've ever been a sales manager, you know what I'm saying here. There's the go-to people, the people whose deals have the highest probability of closing, and they turn out to be bigger than they anticipated, come in sooner than anticipated. Those are the people that you want to be, because guess what? Your manager will give you the best territory, the best engineers, the best comp plan. That's when you're in the power seat. You probably haven't seen this yet, But if you have, you know it's true. Go to b2brevenue.com, sign up today. Get rid of the excuses. They're the same excuses you use for not getting into shape. Oh, you know, I only need to lose 10 pounds, and this is only another cracker, only another brownie. You're kidding yourself. You know you are, but you won't admit it. And most people won't admit it till they walk by a mirror. You know, a glass mirror or something and say— and you'll say, well, who's that chubby boy?

That's me!

Oh, oh smokes! And then you'll go through the cycle. Oh, it'll only take a month or two to get into shape. You see where I'm going here. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Tell a friend about the show. Check out the other podcasts.