THE SECRET TO MAKING YOUR STRATEGY YOUR SUPERPOWER

We talk a lot about selling smart, working smart instead of just working hard. And part of that is what do you work on? How do you work on it? And in what order do you work on it? Some people call this strategy. Other people call it judgment, critical thinking. Doesn't matter what you call it. It's the same thing. What's important is that we do it. And what happens if you become really good at doing it? You don't waste time. What ends up happening a lot in sales is we get comfortable just being busy, just having a lot of meetings, a lot of conversations, a lot of proposals. But we don't get paid on volume. We get paid Only on results. So, if we get paid only on results, any time that we spend on things that don't get that result is time that we could have spent getting that result. And this is something that a lot of people don't learn because being busy can look like you're being effective from the outside. We've all had one person in our life that Spins their wheels all day long. We might notice that they're not getting anything done. They're not going anywhere. But they sure are busy cleaning, running around, doing errands. But are they accomplishing their goal? This is one of the things we're going to talk about today. Probably the most tactical thing you'll get out of this conversation. The other part is really something that I want to open your eyes to. Because I think today there's a real void in sales leadership. Not sales management, not sales admin, sales leadership. And leadership is about setting the direction, the culture of the company, the culture of the team, the culture of the process. And having it be enjoyable. It can still be challenging and enjoyable. There's no requirement about being miserable in sales to be successful. Who wants to be miserable? Don't you want to enjoy going to work? Enjoy the people you work with? And today we've got somebody who worked his way up from a rep to become a manager and a very successful manager. And one of the few people I really call a sales leader. There's a huge distinction there. And honestly, you know, I worked at 12 different companies through my career, and I met maybe 2 real sales leaders. Lots of sales admins, few sales managers, but very few sales leaders. And when you meet a sales leader, you know the difference. They're not watching the dashboard, talking about metrics and KPIs. They're talking about accomplishment, a strategy and culture of the organization, about winning a market and enjoying the process, whatever that means to you. Let's get into this interview. This is one you're going to want to save and maybe forward. to somebody who may need it? And try and pull out of what is your strategy? Because I think today the most dominant strategy is reaction. You know, do a bunch of activities and then react to what your manager's telling you to do, what your prospects and customers are telling you to do. But that's not a strategy. That's just reaction. And what's the likelihood that someone else's priority is going to satisfy your priority? Near zero. Let's get into it. I'll sum it up at the end. But before we do, have you checked out brevitypitch.com? Man, this, this product and this company is on fire. I was talking to one of the founders this week about the next release, which is coming out this month. And what's great about an early-stage startup is the development team can turn around new capability Super fast because I'm working with them and they're showing it to me and I'm like, okay, how about this? How about this? How about— this is what people really need. This is what people really want. What it does for you is it gives you the capability of practicing a conversation but doing it through AI with a real live voice, not a robot voice, not reading and then just speaking and recording. A real live voice. This is not call intelligence. That's after the game. That's postgame. That's important too. But pregame is where you— where the game is won. After the game's over, you can't go back and win it. It's over. It's before the game has begun that we really need to focus on. We just went in the wrong direction, or less effective direction. You know, the call intelligence stuff is great for the next game, doesn't do much for the current game. Brevity Pitch gets you ready for the next game so that you win it, and we only get paid when we win. Here we go.

Hey Dave, thanks for joining us today.

As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Sure, Brian. Good. Great to be here. So, you know, I've been in sales my entire career. Actually went to school for engineering and didn't go that route. So the first half of my career, I carried a bag, you know, went through the day-to-day stuff. And then last 20 years, I've been in sales leadership. Grew up in New York. I started out selling on Wall Street, which is a tough place, financial services. And then A lead came in for the US Army, so, and they had no one else in the office to do it. So I handled it, closed the deal. It was a very large deal for the Army and I got labeled a federal guy. I got sucked down to the DC area and I've been doing fed stuff ever since.

Yeah. How do you like it? You must, it's been doing it for a while.

Yeah. You know, it's another dynamic. It's, you know, first of all, the deals are bigger, which I like. The bigger deals. And then, you know, there's another element, you know, in terms of expertise, understanding how the federal government operates. That side's good. I don't always love the bureaucracy and how, you know, when stuff won't go on continuing resolution, that's not always fun. But overall, I do like it. And I really like the, you know, the big deal play. Yeah.

Cool. And what makes you a great sales guy?

You know, I think it's being a good sales guy. First of all, I mean, there's obviously a lot of different elements to it, right? I think the biggest thing is, you know, really listening well, showing empathy, putting yourself in, you know, your customer's shoes and really focusing on their problem and their challenge. And it could be It's the business challenge, but also there's a personal win. I think that's what makes a good sales guy, you know, just a lot of focus around the customer and help solve problems. Obviously, there's a lot of other elements. I mean, I found a lot of athletes are really good salespeople that like to compete. You know, they play hard and they know how to win and lose. I think those are all key elements.

And what was the impetus to go into leadership?

You know, I always gravitated to the strategic side of things. And I think that's really, frankly, one of the most least played or least valued elements in being a sales leader is really trying to create an effective strategy. So I kind of always gravitated to that, Bryan. And also always liked the idea of, I really think that teams, sales is a team sport. I really love the whole collaboration. I enjoyed it when I sold, and I really enjoy leading that aspect of it. So I think those are the key reasons. Okay.

And when you say strategy, what does that mean to you?

Strategy is, and it's particularly, I think, meaningful for being in a vertical like federal. So strategy is really trying to identify, you know, who, what business problem you're solving. If you saw my background, I worked for companies that sold a capability that could solve a lot of different problems. Now that's a good thing because you have a lot of stuff to sell and it's also an evil because unless you focus, you're nowhere.

Yeah.

And it's, that's why when I mentioned earlier, it's one of the least valued things in a sales leader is where's your best chance to win and What's the, the, what is the business problem you're gonna kind of rally around and who's the customer that you're gonna focus in on? And that is, it's really important to not only to impart that on the team, but then to get your marketing team rallying around that, partners rallying around that. Because all too often what you find is that you have sales guys selling stuff, marketing is messaging something else. sales development is, is qualm about some other thing and you have partners. And if you have good sales leadership and you could pull all that together and identify the opportunities that give you best chance to win, I think that's really important. And that's kind of, I think that's really an edge that sales leaders should focus on versus micromanaging and taking good salespeople and trying to tell them what they should be doing.

I think it is too, because that's, you know, I kind of call it judgment.

Some people call it critical thinking. It may be called strategy, but we only have a certain amount of time.

Absolutely. And it's, you know, at the end of the day, it's a numbers game is what is your highest win probability? What is the deal that you're gonna win most and select that? And what is the kind of customer And so especially with enterprise sales where there's such a lengthy sales process and quite frankly, there's an investment the company makes in pursuing a sales opportunity, you gotta pick the right one. And I think that's a lot of that is on leadership to provide that leadership and define what that is, particularly in a vertical. But I also think it does apply to a horizontal customer base as well.

Yeah, because I'm very familiar with the companies that you've worked at. And I can see certainly with one of them that it would fit really well, because if you go in and you talk about it in general, they have the same feeling. You know, the Rorschach kind of experiment where you put up the diagram, the psychiatrist puts it up and wonders what you see as a way of then determining what to work on.

Yeah, I mean, and it doesn't give Like, so the federal government is very risk-averse. So when they're looking at you and saying, am I gonna buy from you? And you're saying, well, this is kind of the first time we're gonna be doing this. We think we got a great product, but, you know, you may be your first, you know, your chances of winning are low. So I always like to think that customers like to buy from organizations that are both relevant and credible.

Yeah.

They have relevance, they understand, they understand the problem, they've done it before. They speak the language and they're credible, which means they, you know, they have, you know, references and they actually have customers say, hey, these guys have done it before. You're not the first. So being relevant and credible is really important. And when you, if you focus on those opportunities, you're much better off.

And how did you come about the particular priority or focus for your current company kind of, and how did you make sure you picked the right one or?

Yeah, you know, it was an interesting exercise and, you know, I think strategy and culture are more intertwined than people think. So, you know, listen, make it a nice place to work, you know, be a reasonable person, care about your people. Some of that is basic. So a lot of that just came down to, so when I first came on board and I guess the last 2 companies that I've been, The business was struggling and things have really, really took off when we created a strategy. So how did we do it? We looked at a lot of different elements. We just frankly looked at where have we won deals? And I said, 3 is the right number of things to focus on ideally. So let's pick, let's look at all the stuff that we sold and look at the, what are the top 3 areas that we actually have had wins to attribute to? You know, looking at pipeline, where is it? Where is our existing pipeline? And we also looked at, you know, where's the competitive landscape? If one of our competitors owns a space, you know, probably not a good idea to focus on that space. But the federal market's such a target-rich market. You don't even have— there's so many different places to pick. You just like, just avoid that one. And so the way I did it was I actually got together with the team and I made them part of the process because I was, you know, I'm the new guy in the company. You have people who've been selling here a long time. Why not listen to them? And it was very— it makes a lot easier when they're part of the solution defining it versus telling them, here's where we're going to focus. I'm the new guy and I'm a smart guy and focus on these 3 areas. That's not necessarily a great recipe. So we got together for a couple of days. We had a lot of good discussions back and forth. Where should we focus? It was a very respectful discussion. And we exited with a team saying, you know what, we're in, we're into that. And then we're off and running.

And was it accurate or did it end up being pivoted later on during the year or?

Yeah, that's a good point. Salespeople tend to change their minds. I know, shiny objects, right? I'll tell you, Brian. And so we came up with something called a thing called a 3 by 3. And we focused on a few areas. You know, one was acquisition, one was logistics, and one was manpower. Those are 3 areas. And I've been here for 5 and a half years, and those still are our 3 areas. So I think some of that's dumb luck because, but we didn't, that was really important is we didn't keep pivoting and, you know, pivoting marketing and pivoting partners and here, here's our focus today. Obviously we did deals outside these 3 areas. You know, we don't turn away business on an opportunistic basis, but like who we're really known for, those are the 3 areas that still exist. So I'm pretty proud of the fact that we weren't, we didn't do all these pivots. That could be pretty frustrating being a salesperson when that happens.

Yeah. Now I can see that as a great target, but then you gotta take those targets and prioritize those. And then you gotta kind of adapt your process to each of them, maybe segment the pre-salespeople who are really good at one particular problem domain. I'm asking.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I think you find that, you know, salespeople tend to gravitate towards money, right? Yeah. Hopefully the good ones do. some of the ones that aren't doing that, you begin to question whether if they have the right motive. But yeah, I mean, there's, it's not completely clean, you know, so some of the, some of the solutions don't have to actually fit into this like nice little buckets. They might be, but, and I, it was a 3 by 3 because for each of the domains that I established, there were 3 applications under each domain. So under acquisition, There were 3 subsections that we focused on. And you brought up a good point for like sales development. You know, a lot of times sales development tend to be more inexperienced and partners don't always understand your product. If you could kind of, you know, rally around this, okay, this is the specific area we're focusing on and you enable them and they, and you, they understand that area, they can be a lot more effective if it's just, just focus on these few areas.

Yeah.

And I'll tell you, Brian, one of the things that I think is, is really interesting is focus more on the problem, enabling folks on understanding the problem than your product.

Yeah.

And folks on that side, now I said it's more important to understand like how they, what they call things and their language and build the confidence because in many cases I find organizations will buy from the customers, from the organizations that understand their problem the best versus who's got the best mousetrap.

Well, that's it.

Because if you really study listening, the other person doesn't just want to be heard, they want to be understood.

Exactly.

And that's what I'm talking about.

The problem does. The person who understands them the best.

Yes, and understanding is not so much like what's the business challenge, but understanding that, hey, this is a— there's a lot of risk here. I'm pretty scared. I want a low-risk solution. Or, you know, this is really important for my career. And, or this is, you know, our people, we want to keep our people, we don't want to get rid of— All of those are elements that quite often when you look at normal discovery, it's all focused around the business problem. Versus what the real win is. And there's a big difference.

And did you segment the sales team based off of these particular markets or were they still kind of agency-based?

Yeah, there's still, you know, there's one sales model where there's a notion of an overlay where you have folks that have expertise in one area and I'm not a huge fan of overlays because it's usually like, you know, one person's doing the work and it's, relationships are really important. So having someone with subject matter expertise driving the sale, but doesn't really, that isn't necessarily in tune with the customer. So no, so I kept it by getting deeper. And when I added people, we actually just got deeper in the account, not necessarily by expertise, but by by the relationship. And it was very account-based versus solution-based.

Yeah. And what other part of sales leadership are you really passionate about?

So I think that, you know, the 2 things I think are quite often overlooked is, you know, one is strategy, the other one is culture. So I think if sales leaders spent more on strategy and culture, and less on micromanaging, this would be a better place for a lot of people.

I think.

I mean, I honestly think that good salespeople, you hire good salespeople, they know how to sell. And so let's talk about the other area, which is culture. And, you know, I really do think that sales culture is an absolute competitive advantage. A couple areas why it's important. It's really hard, like for me, recruiting in the DC area, federal people, it's hard. It's hard to get them to come on board. And a lot of times, you know, most folks, like we talked about, are coin-operated. They want to go to a place where they can make a lot of money. Hopefully they feel that way. But there is a notion of really working for a great team where there's a lot of talent, people get along well. If you go to SKO, you could You could have a beer, you could sit around with someone else and you could actually enjoy their company. And I think a lot of that is on the leader. And if you establish a really good culture, a culture that, that really focuses on collaboration, that focuses on team play. One of the interesting areas around building a culture is what I found is that if you could establish a really good strategy and you have a really good vision of where we're gonna sell into. That is one of the things, the best things you could do to build a culture and to build a lot of team rallying around that is like, okay, here's, we really understand it. Here's what we're focused on and it makes sense. So I think the, there's a lot of areas. I mean, there's so many different ways I have found that folks who do it well, you know, they focus on less like video calls, more face-to-face meetings. COVID's been over for a long time now. You know, there's no reason to do— we're all in the DC area. There's no reason to do a video call. And, you know, also I think recruiting carefully. So recruiting carefully, make sure you don't— even if you find a candidate that may be tremendous, but if you've got some toxic behavior, may not be the best hire. So building a sales culture, I think, helps recruit. And it also equally important, and probably more important, is retaining top talent. If folks feel part of a team, they feel really good, they have friendships, all these are really important, Brian.

And how do you characterize that to a potential candidate? Because, you know, they're looking for a good opportunity, you know, Not many sales leaders talk about culture, right? They talk about the company's hot, the product's hot, the territory's great, comp plan's delicious, all of that. But nor do you find many sales leaders who know what culture means other than pizza on Friday, right?

Yeah, you know, I think that the, you know, a lot about, I still think that people who have been in this industry, many of us have worked for organizations where it's brutal.

Yeah.

It's toxic. There are just, the leadership may not necessarily value, you know, a lot of the things that salespeople really thrive on, which is Salespeople tend to be, you know, very extroverted. They like to be part of a team. I still really believe, Brian, that, yeah, the territory is important, how many people are hitting their quota, all those important things. The comp plan is important. I can't say that culture is going to trump that. But all that being equal, you know, I do think that culture does play a big role. And, you know, when I go to a company, If I meet a bunch of people and say, you know what, I, I'm kind of like these people and I, I like who they are versus going, you know, to an organization where the culture is just very, very different.

Yeah.

Like, I, I don't typically, even if there's a great comp plan, and a lot of times I won't subscribe to that or, or take, uh, accept that, that role. Um, so I think that, that culture plays much more of a role than we think. It's not just about I agree. Yeah.

Yeah. Because, you know, if you surf LinkedIn enough and you look at enough profiles, a lot of people, 5 jobs in 5 years and you're like, something's, you know, if, if it was one person and you understand it, but if it's like 30%, there's something going on.

Yeah. And a lot of times you, it's interesting because when I interview, I interview a lot of people You know, you have that where they say, I said, you know, why did you leave? You've been in all these different companies and what was the reason? What was kind of the rationale? And they, hey, this looks like a great opportunity. And eventually you'll find with a lot of candidates who have done this a few times and say, you know what, I'm really looking for a company that I could really, you know, thrive in, that I could really, you know, I've been through enough of that. Eventually they value culture.

Yeah.

And it does not come. So here's like we talked about, I listen to a lot of your, you know, you have excellent content on the web and it's a lot about, well, too much micromanagement, you know, too much of the dashboards, you know, not enough being in front of customers, too much being in front of dashboards. And building culture takes work. Like it just doesn't, it's not all about like just—

Harder.

You know, happily It's hard. Like, so I just had, for example, a week and a half ago, I had a sales rally in the office. It took a lot of work to put together, but it was really cool. And it was the first time I did something like that. Folks thought it was great. We just had a great quarter. And, you know, it took a lot of work to put that meeting together, but it was really important to do that. There's a lot of things, there's a lot of work, there's a lot of effort that goes into building a sales culture. As well as, you know, ruthless recruiting and really making sure that your top performers, you get to know them so well that you take it— all of these things happen. And if you're spending all your time in front of the dashboards and looking at CRM and trying to tell good salespeople, great salespeople what they should be doing, and you're not planning sales rallies and you're not doing a lot of these other things, I think you're missing the boat because culture and strategy does, is, I feel way more important than focus on micromanaging salespeople.

And is this something that was new to the company or when did this kind of come into your mindset? Was it at the current company or?

Yeah.

I mean, the, are you talking specifically about the importance of culture?

Yeah. You kind of like, I've interviewed probably 200 sales leaders, never come up once.

Yeah, it's interesting.

Isn't it?

You know, yeah. And it's, you know, I think, and I see it, you know, a lot of, again, I try to, I'll answer your question, but I, you know, I try to focus on how can I help salespeople? How can I make their lives less stressful versus more stressful? But focusing on like building this, like, you know, collaboration. I think it did take time. I personally, if I look back at my career when I was an individual contributor, I really was very sensitive to harsh cultures.

Yeah.

And for some reason, Brian, I don't know, in the enterprise software space, there seems to be a prevalence of just like ruthless environments. And it never made sense to me.

I think the mindset was always, you're getting paid so well, we can treat you so bad. It's just that kind of, you're not going anywhere. You're making more than the CEO. So where are you going? So we don't have to be nice to you anymore.

Yeah. And there's a notion that also in some leadership is that like good salespeople, some, when they forget how to sell. And I really don't, I really believe that really effective salespeople, if they have a bad quarter or whatever, they lose a deal, that does happen. But, you know, to continue to support them versus putting undue pressure that if you don't close that deal, you know, putting you on plan. I mean, that's, is that a way to, is that a kind of culture that anyone wants to work in?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You don't, you don't do that to an athlete, right? You don't do that to a performer of any kind. It's like, It negates the point.

It defies logic. And it, for some reason, and I think for some reason, it seems to be more prevalent in enterprise software than elsewhere, but it seems to be, you know, very common. And, you know, when I speak to candidates and I speak very genuinely about, you know, this is a really important thing to really want to come to work and really feel good about things, it seems in a way foreign to them. Like, wow, this is something I haven't heard before. Like, Like your reaction. You have— you spoke to all the sales leaders on your show and no one has talked about how important culture is until for producing results.

Yeah. And especially in federal because you got kind of, you've got that culture and then you've got, they're always commercial companies in 99% of the cases that don't understand the government.

Right.

So they don't understand the timelines, the purchasing, the color of money, the, the calendar year, the motivations. They love the revenue, but they don't like the upfront GSA and FARs and DFARS.

And wow, it's pretty impressive. That's, that's a, that's a, yeah. So you obviously have a good understanding. Yeah. And it's, they don't understand from, and that impacts your ability to, when you're in front of a customer, to have the complete solution. But I think when we're talking about sales leadership, it's not a very comfortable place to work. Because when, if you are, say, go out and sell to the civilian patch, there's a time, if you understand the business, it takes time to build a territory.

Yeah.

And, you know, you need to offer a draw and you need to provide a quota relief and you need to do all these different things in order to make it makes sense for the candidate. And if you could give the confidence that we understand it does take time, and by the way, deals sometimes vanish because money gets pulled to support some other initiative in the government.

Absolutely.

It's— that's part of the culture is like, okay, these guys get it. They, you know, and I feel really good about, you know, the organization I'm in is DC-based. We got started out in the DOD market. And the leadership down from the founders down really understand it and that makes a difference. So it's not just me, it's folks above me that understand the sales cycle and what it takes and the right quotas and how to market and all these different elements that a candidate wants to hear. That's kind of where I want to go. I want to go to a company that really gets it.

Yeah. And How long did it take you to develop this mindset as a sales leader? Was it recent or is it really from the beginning when you were a rep?

Yeah, I wish I could say it was quick, but it did take time. And I have to say that it was one of the most underestimated— I underestimated the jump from going to an individual contributor to a sales leader. I thought it would be easier. And it took a lot longer. It took a long time. And it's also an interesting thing is, you know, as a sales leader, you know, promoting, you know, promoting your best shortstop to become the manager of the team, different skill set, right?

Very different.

And so, you know, it did take time. It definitely, and I don't know how to, you know, quantify it, but it took longer than I thought. It took years. to really understand all these things versus, hey, let's just focus on how we're gonna close this deal and ultra focus just around the deal without really looking at some of the other things we were talking about today, you know, like about culture and strategy. When I start to realize that I spend most of my time right now, if I look at my day on building strategy and culture and make this the best place to work on the Beltway.

Yeah. And one last question. Let's say somebody's been a rep 10 years and they're wondering whether they should become a leader. It isn't innate, but they, they're not sure. What would you tell them?

You know, you know, a lot of times I'd say that, you know, you like making the, you make the W-2s that you're making. In many cases, you're not gonna be able to replicate that as a leader. So I find that honestly, most good salespeople probably gonna be much happier staying in sales.

Yeah.

I really do think, I think there are some salespeople that have aspirations where leadership and this whole strategic thing that we're talking about, you know, they get a charge out of it. But I think, I mean, this also defies, you know, logic, which is, most good salespeople probably is not the right move to become a sales leader. And, you know, I think it's really a, it's really an individual, very specific salesperson that has both skill sets that in many times would make the best sales leaders.

Yeah. And have you looked or noticed a particular thing when you're talking to them where you sway them towards the leadership?

You know, a lot of times it's sales, really good sales professionals, you know, are very deal-oriented and, and they don't necessarily, again, and they like, and their idea of being the sales manager is, well, I could just like sell, I could just like take advantage or take control of the sale, which is the last thing you wanna do. You wanna do. Okay. So it's, there's some that like when they start talking about collaboration and building a team, You know, some, some people are just like really charismatic. They're great and folks wanna work for them. And those, a lot of those folks are really great because they could build a team. People wanna work for them. They, people gravitate to them. I love that, that characteristic. And I have some of those folks on my team right now. Cool.

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

Probably the best thing is, is LinkedIn. Just come to me. I love to connect with others and share stories. But I appreciate the time, Brian. It was great chatting with you.

So you could listen to this interview and ask yourself, well, you know, culture's nice, strategy's nice, but how do I apply this to me in my life, my career? Well, strategy applies to everybody in any industry in life in general. What do you spend your time on? I did a podcast a while ago about judgment, and a lot of people just don't think about it. People are like on automatic. They've got their habits in place, their routine, and they just kind of go with it. And that's okay if it's working.

I'm not—

nothing against it. But is it getting you what you really want? If it is, great. But if it isn't, why not take a step back and ask yourself, how did I spend my day? Was I really focused on the right things? I've got this territory. How do I prioritize it? And in start the conversation, get the meeting, this is a big part of it. Because when you're doing cold outbound, they don't know who you are. And you have to really utilize your time effectively. Otherwise, you're just finding interest. And if you find it, great. But if you don't find it and you keep looking, maybe it's looking for a needle in a haystack instead of pulling out a magnet or a looking glass, something that makes that needle pop out. Where's the needle most likely to be? At the top? Probably not. Probably near the bottom, closer to the bottom than the top. You see where I'm getting here? Sales, despite what people talk about, is a thinking game. It is a cerebral game. It is the smartest— and when I say smart, I don't mean book smart or school smart. I mean judgment smart. Because I used to do this example when I did start the conversation, get the meeting, uh, in, in person. I would put up 5 accounts, uh, 5 possibilities. I go, put these in order of most likely to be interested in buying your product. And people would be like, they'd do anything not to answer it. They'd ask questions. I go, no, you can't ask questions. This is all the information you have. And a lot of people just couldn't do it. So they, they'd say, I just go in alphabetical order. I go in the order that they were. Well, let's say you only have time to do one in your lifetime. And people got really frustrated because they hate making decisions. But that is exactly what judgment is. We can't contact all 7 billion people on the planet. But even if we did, that would be finding interest. We're not creating it. When we do cold outbound, we have to create it. You see where I'm going here? And what I see constantly, and I talk to sales leaders all the time, is the 50 or 100 emails a day, the 50 cold calls. I go, that's finding, that's gambling. That's buying 50 lottery tickets a day. What if you put a little bit more time into the— and let's face it, they're gonna get maybe one meeting a week. So they're doing 250 cold calls to get one meeting a week. That's, you know, less than half of a percent. That is needle in the haystack strategy. What if it was one out of 3?

Wow.

But you had to think. You had to put a little effort, a little charm. You had to develop your charm because you have to have the charm anyway, because eventually you got to talk with them. And they're not calling you, you're calling them. So you're— the onus is on you to keep this thing going, to get them curious, That turns into interest, that turns into action. Oh, inbound's a lot easier now, isn't it? But if you don't have inbound, and most of the people I talk to, yeah, they get some inbound, but they're not leads, they're contacts, you know, Gmail accounts, fake phone numbers, fake names, you know. Some Gmail account you can't translate into a real account. If you're having that problem, Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting is the course for you. If you want to learn how to win these large deals that we keep talking about, Closing the Complex Sale is the course for you. Now, other than— unlike other online courses, this is not the type of thing you just rush through and now you know it. Good luck trying to do that. You get a year-long access where you have office hours, an hour meetup every other Friday at 2 PM Eastern, but they're all recorded and put back on the course. So there's over 100 of them already in there. Imagine 100 webinars with real case studies and real hard questions and real success stories that you can leverage at your pace over a year. This is a skill. And what I encourage people is not just to learn it, but master it. Because at that mastery level, that's where your judgment and your skillset is at its peak, which is 100% aligned with your income. The reason why you're doing this. I got an email this week from somebody who was in the course. Now, this guy not only took the course, he had the mastery mindset, which is very different. He's been on the podcast. I don't want to out him without his permission, but you can go back and listen to it. He went from what I would call a commodity company, not a great job at all, Good company, but didn't have a real reputation for paying very well. And now he's at the premier company in that category. And he was nice enough— now, he was 2, 3 years ago, he was in the course, and I think he took it twice just to keep up with the office hours and the one-on-ones and to get better, to focus on mastery, not just competence.

Mastery.

He felt that his ROI was well over 200x, meaning that he made 200 times the investment that he put into the course. But if you're worried about the cost, you're in the wrong profession. You've got to worry about the opportunity cost. The opportunity cost is what you're going to make without these skills. So if you're making less than $500K, the gap between $500K and where you are now— let's say you're at $200K— that gap is $300K. Now, how are you going to fill that in? And I bet the first thing that pops into your head is get a better job. Well, that will help, but to get a better job, you have to be a better salesperson. Whoops, there goes that strategy. You picked this career, right? I bet you a lot of people go get an MBA and spend $150 grand on MBA in sales. That's helpful. You know, you learn a lot about business acumen. It looks good on a resume. It's great experience and great intellectual development. I agree with that. Takes 2 years. Will it help you sell more?

Maybe.

I've talked— interviewed a lot of MBAs. Some are really good, but most aren't. So if you're serious about your career, go to b2brevenue.com and check out the courses. You can also schedule a call. There's 2 videos on the website. There's how the courses work, and then A second one for which course is right for you. It's a good, you know, 10-15 minute video. Please watch those before you schedule a call with one of the people on the team and have questions. If the video answers all your questions, sign up. If you still want to talk to somebody, go ahead, talk to somebody. It's up to you. You got to have a level of comfort. I've been doing this a long time. I'm here to stay. This This is my passion. This is my life. This is what I love to do. And I want to help you reach your goal. Thanks for listening. If you see my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a like, a little comment, a little share. We'll see you next time.