THE SECRET TO MANAGING YOUR #1 RESOURCE

Do you ever feel like you're selling a commodity? Well, at first, all our prospects think you are.

Why?

It gives them their power. They have confirmation bias. They believe the world, uh, is formed in a certain way. That viewpoint, they call it a frame, like a picture frame. They don't see the whole world. They just see what's inside That frame. And they think it's— that it is the whole world, and it is to them at that time. Now, let's take the opposite of a commodity, something that's completely unique. Uh, one in, let's say, just 7 billion, just for mathematical, uh, viewpoint. And you sold one unique thing out of that 7 billion. And we all do it. We're selling ourselves, not in the sense of we're great, but we are unique to them. People buy from people. Now, we all buy things and we all make these decisions, and it's usually based off of what's the route of least resistance. What— who do we like to work with? Who do we believe has our best interest in mind? And too many of us, we get locked into our client's frame instead of getting our clients to look at the world through our frame. Breaking their frame of the world, that assumption, that level of comfort that they understand that world, Using the things have changed line, which all of a sudden puts a crack in the frame. My— maybe my frame is too narrow. It's too limiting. So we're going to talk about that today in the interview. Uh, this is a great rep, uh, came highly recommended. And after hearing his story, his approach, try and take these lessons. You're probably in a different space. You probably take a different approach, but we're all selling things that can be viewed as a commodity. But we're also selling something that is 100% unique. And that is the difference. And you can be that difference. The other big element of this interview that I get out of it is something that I've really learned a lot about this year, and it's about time management. How do we use our time? And it's really all we have. Our life is finite, unfortunately, and our time is certainly one of the few zero-sum games that we have. Once we use an hour, it's gone. We can't get it back. We can't buy another one. Neither can our clients. So how we use that time is so critical. And too often other people feel very comfortable wasting our time, but very uncomfortable if someone wastes theirs, because time is the closest thing that we have to money. Money is really just an exchange of time and value. And if we If we sit in the default of time, we're reactive. We are reactive creatures. We only hunt when we're hungry. We only sleep when we're tired. And that primal brain of ours, which runs pretty much 90% of our decisions, if we don't intervene, kind of takes over. And it serves us very well in the short term, but very poorly— In the long term because the primal brain was really designed for a creature that didn't live past 30. And some of us might have been past that right now. Maybe not me, but others. And the key to time is not to think in the— just in the present, to be able to manage your time in the present, but to be able to anticipate the future. And I've shared before, one of the great hacks that I've come up with is having a, a year-at-a-glance calendar on my wall in my office and studio. And what I've done is I put 2 years, the past 2 years' calendars on the floor in my studio, and I start to look for patterns. And I look at it, yeah, once a week. And I used to just like open it just for that first week of the year and compare them and try and anticipate the patterns of the year. Because in January, when you look at that calendar, it looks like, oh man, what a great amount of time. But boy, does it go by fast. And if you don't think ahead, you're not going to really plan those vacations. You're not going to anticipate Things, you're not going to be able to lead your clients through a particular process. And dealing with salespeople pretty much all day, every day, very few people are good at managing their time. I can give you tons of examples. People don't add things to their calendar. They don't look at their calendar until that morning for that day. People don't think Even a day ahead, never mind a week or a month. I had that hack that will help you with this about without looking at a calendar, your watch, or your phone, ask yourself, what's today's date? Not the day, but the date. What, what that number? And ask yourself, and do try this like once a day or so, and see where you are. I'm usually a day off, maybe 2 days off. And it all of a sudden kind of forces you to think about that number and where you are in time. It slips away very quickly. And since the complex sale is so dependent on thinking ahead that if we don't do that, We're going to be reacting to what's happening. So let's get into the interview. I didn't mean to go on too long here, but I wanted to kind of give you some perspective.

Hey Travis, welcome to the show. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

So I've been in medical devices for 14 years now. Wow. Spent most of my time in the GI world. I've done a lot of startup companies as well as the big gorillas in the room, if you want to call them. So yeah, that's kind of where I've been, uh, in my sales career.

That's a hard sale, isn't it?

It's a very hard sale. Capital sales, it's not easy, especially in today's climate. Um, no one has money. Um, you know, you walk through the, uh, the palaces of the big hospitals with the nice marble floors, but they can't afford the new equipment. And, uh, especially these times of COVID It's tough. It's tough for everybody, and I understand that. So it's a tough sell.

So have you figured a way around that, or—

Creating the need. I know that sounds cliché. I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true. If you can create that need, then that's how you get around those obstacles, in my opinion.

And how do you do that?

Understand what the customer wants and needs. You can't just go in and say, hey, your scope's 10 years old. Time to buy a new one. Well, maybe they don't need a new scope. What is their— I hate saying pain point because that just sounds like it's a—

Cliché.

Yeah, it's a cliché pain thing, but you need to find out what is it that they need. Maybe they don't need the whole upgrade for the entire hospital. Maybe it's, hey, you know what, we need new interventional scopes. So then you create that need. And then once those new interventional scopes come in the hospital, it turns into, well, you know what, we have new interventional scopes, we probably need our you know, the scopes for the other lab as well.

And I'm sorry, so it's an in-person sale?

Oh yeah, everything's face-to-face. Yeah, with the N95, of course.

Yeah, but they're still willing to meet you?

Oh well, um, they are, and that comes with relationship building. Um, not everyone can just walk into a lab, but, you know, being in the territory, you know, 14 years and creating that trust. I'm part of the team, you know, I'm not just the rep. You know, I also, if they, you know, something happens and they need help, that's why I'm in my car right now. You go and you help them out. Like, hey, you know, gosh, we're not getting an image on our monitor. 9 times out of 10, it's a cable that they can just go screw in the back. But when I show up, you know— It's a good reason to talk. Yeah, exactly.

So you don't turn them down.

Never. Nope.

So you're on the road a lot?

Every day. And that's why I'm gray here as well. Yeah. And bald.

Well, they don't have any traffic in Atlanta, do they?

Oh, never, never. No, it's just 8 lanes. But yeah, but no, it's, um, I never say no, you know. And if I can't be there today, I'll be there tomorrow. Um, always. And it doesn't matter how little the issue is. It doesn't matter if it's one of my accounts that has 15 rooms of equipment or it's a mom-and-pop that has one room. I'm gonna go and I'm gonna help them.

And what do you think separates you from less successful salespeople?

What I just said. There's a lot of people that— a lot of people overcomplicate this job. They want to think bigger than the room and, oh well, if your cabling's out, just go— no, show your face and It's, man, you know, a perfect example is today. There's a little account I'm working on and, you know, they're one of the last— they don't— they haven't joined a big private equity firm. They haven't. They're just a little, little tiny husband and wife that run this little lab. And when they spend money, it means something to them.

Yeah.

And, um, and I know that. Now, a lot of guys would be like, yeah, it's not worth my time. I'm not going to make money. And what I'm going to make, you know, X dollars and I'm not going to make it again for another 5 years, they'll figure it out. Not me! Not me! And what separates me is that doctor also goes to the hospital across the street and that hospital has a lot of money and when they need something, who's he going to call first? The guy that helps him across the street for nothing and that does separate me!

Yeah! It's kind of like you build up an ecosystem.

100%! Absolutely!

It's not just one. Autonomous client.

And it's a small world, the medical device. It's a small world. And if you get the rep of the guy that doesn't do stuff or the gal that doesn't do stuff, people know and they talk. And these doctors all talk.

That's it. Because people think it's like a committee, but it's more like a loose federation of people in the industry, birds of a feather.

Absolutely, man. And, and we all know reps. I— there's reps out there that I see in the field and I'm like, oh, here comes you know who. And you see them once a year when you need something. And, you know, it's— and the doctors know that, and they roll their eyes and they joke. And, you know, we're sales guys, and a lot of people, you know, even my wife will make fun of us like, oh, you're a sales guy. But people don't realize what we go through on a daily basis. They think we just smile, shake hands, and get a lot of money. And that's not it at all.

Yeah.

You know, we get beat up more. I mean, we get that one win every couple months, and that sets us for the next couple months. And then you stress out and you, you know, every year it's like, you had a great year last year. Yeah, but down to zero this year, back at it. And, you know, and, and my doctors appreciate that for me, the people that I work with, because they know how hard it is. And, um, and they'll ask me, hey, do you need anything? You know, I don't— I can call in favors if I need it. And that's a great place to be.

Right. And I think people always talk about relationships, but they're not willing to make the investment. It's transactional. That's not a relationship, that's a transaction.

You hit the nail on the head. It's funny, um, the company I work for, um, it used to not be direct reps, it used to be distributors, which nothing against distributors, but they've got 5 different products they're trying to bring out. And it's once you sell it, thank you, see you again, see you later, I gotta move on to the next. And it's not their fault, it's just the business they're in. And then my company figured out, well, maybe that's why we're not growing. Yeah, duh. So why don't we invest into direct people and let them grow our name and our brand? And that's what's happened to us. I mean, our company has exceeded numbers 3 years in a row now since they went to that system, which is fantastic.

Yeah, because everyone would like it to work the way it does in the boardroom, but it never does. It's like Do this number of calls, this number of demos, this number of quotes.

You know, it's when I first got into sales out of college, I worked for a really tiny farm— I mean, when I mean small pharmaceutical company, I used to go to pharmacies and beg for them to put my stuff on their shelf. And it was, you have to make 10 calls a day and get 10 signatures this day. Well, what does that mean? What if I just went to one place and had a great meeting and That doctor wrote my script, but that's how I— but I was like, this just doesn't make sense. And it doesn't matter how many demos you do, it's, it's all about, like we talked in the beginning, creating that need and finding out who— you know, maybe someone doesn't need something now, but you still got to go see them. You still got to create that because at some point they're going to need it.

That's it. And if you show up, just say, hey, just check out the equipment, not here to pitch anything.

Listen, there's places, um, when I first started I went to a competitive account because it was close to my house, and all I wanted to do was watch procedures and understand what the doctor was doing. And I never talked business. I was like, I'm not here to sell you. And that doctor, you know, who shall remain nameless, would say, look, I'm— the other stuff's better. It is what it is. Hey, that's great. Just teach me. I want to know what you're— so I learned anatomy through him, and, and we forged that bond. Well, fast forward 10 years, got all this business now because Our product got better. And he remembered that time where I just wanted to learn and I wasn't there to just sell him. But when he needed something, he gave me a shot. And that's what you got to do. You just, you can't just be the, what can I get you today? No, it's, how can I help you? You know, maybe I can call the other rep if you need something because I'm here.

Right. And do you get any pushback from management about this style?

Not really. No, I, you know, it's, uh, Your numbers talk for themselves, right? So if I didn't have sales, then I'd probably push back. But, um, it works. It works. And, you know, I think, um, you know, I've been in my career for some time now. I think the handholding is gone. It's more of— and my manager is phenomenal— and it's more of, what can I do for you today? How can I help you? You're out in the field. Is there a quote I can do for you from the house? Is there— You know, something I need to fight behind the scenes. That's what I need help with management, and that's what they do, which is fantastic. I need additional discount. Let me fight that battle for you. Great.

And what keeps you in this space? Because I'm sure you've gotten offers or opportunities.

Lunacy. Lunacy. You know, no, I, um, I, I, I enjoy it, man. I, I love, um, you know, walking into working with the doctors I love helping people. And honestly, when my scopes can benefit someone, man, that's a pretty cool feeling. It really is. And when I did my startup, we would find buried cancer. And that was so cool, like to be like, man, look what we found that could have not been found before. I love it. You know, I really truly do. I enjoy what I do.

And is that what motivates you is kind of helping people or? Applying technology to solving health problems?

Um, of course, you know, that's part of it. We're in sales, so of course money motivates, right? You want to— and that's— you'd be lying if you said it didn't. So that's part of it. But yeah, helping people is a huge part. You know what, my daughter, um, when she tells people— she, when she was little, she would tell people I'm a doctor, which I'm not. But it was cool when she had pride saying, well, my dad goes and helps people every day. which is pretty sweet, man. It's fun. And when I pick her up from school and I have my scrub bottoms on, it's like my daughter has pride in what I do, you know? And that's— it's motivating to see my family be able to, you know, create the life we live. And, um, they respect what I do, and so do my, you know, you know, friends, you know. They think what I do is pretty cool, so I, I like it.

Well, it's good because, you know, the why, the mission, the purpose If you're not aligned with that, then it's a job versus, uh, you know, maybe a calling is too strong of a word for what it is, but—

It's a good career and I enjoy what I do. It's, it's not a job, right? You know, we've had jobs before where, oh, I gotta wake up and make the donuts.

That's not it, man.

And one of the cool things about what I do is every day is different. It's something different every single day. Like, again, in my car because I got a call, I need help this morning. I went and did it. That didn't happen yesterday, you know, and tomorrow's going to be different too. And whatever's on my calendar, that doesn't mean anything. It's, it's all gonna change, and I like that. I really do. Being able to think on your feet and make quick, uh, decisions, I guess. It's, it's, it's fun.

Yeah, you're not an office guy.

Oh no, no, no, no, no. No, that's, uh, you know, I've, I've been offered management positions before in my career, and I, I'm not ready for it. I like carrying a bag. It's fun.

Yeah.

And I don't want to deal with— I don't want to deal with 8 of me.

I meant more just the stationary desk jockey type thing.

No, that's— that would never work for me.

But how do you stay productive? Because being on the road, just the, the You know, point-to-point stuff takes focus and concentration and—

There's an office day. You got to have office days where you do sit down there and, you know, I had a former manager that used to call me the email machine because it was a joke because I would copy on every email. And that's one thing that I do that's probably neurotic, but I copy my— blind copy myself in every email I send and I put it in a little folder. So when I go back to that folder, I can be like, okay, what did we talk about last time? What did I say last time I sent an email to this customer and what did they respond to? And I know that sounds silly, but for me, it's, it's great. That's the way I do it, man.

Well, everyone says, well, what CRM do you use? And I go, 90% of the time I use my calendar and my email.

That's it. That's all I do.

How do you keep track of it? I go, I flag them. I search for their name.

I'm the same exact way. I go into my little search bar and I go, okay, what did we talk about last time? And yes, do I have Salesforce? We have Salesforce. Everyone has Salesforce. It's, you know, it's, it's good to keep track of quotes. It's good for my numbers and planning. I get it. But I'm not going to log a call every— because it's easier to go to my email on my phone. Oh, what did I talk about last time? Right.

You know, if your company wants to spy on you, they have access to it, right?

Have at it.

Go nuts.

I have nothing to hide.

I just never understood that. It's like, Why copy it from your inbox into your CRM?

You know, it's— here's the deal, and I get it. Companies spend a lot of money on Salesforce. And you got to use it. I get it. And again, when it comes to tracking numbers, makes all the sense in the world. Quotes, forecasting, absolutely. But when it comes to my daily communication, no, I can't. I'm not going to do it here, here, and here. I do it on my email. I have a day, I'll send out a ton of emails, I'll get my responses, and that's how I plan my activities for the week.

Do you ever use your camera roll as a CRM too? Take a picture of the building where you are at that time, where you had lunch?

So no, but now you got me on something. Remember here? That's pretty cool.

You get in the habit of like, take a picture of your odometer when you leave in the morning and when you come back at night for your mileage.

Well, I have to do that anyways because now we have— we company cars, we have to report it. So like yesterday was 342 miles, you know.

Wow.

Oh yeah, well, 2 different parts of the state. I had to go to one part and the other part, and I usually don't like to do that because it seems like a lot of waste of time in the windshield. But, um, yesterday it made sense. It made sense to do it, so I did it. Usually I pick a pocket of Atlanta and that's where I'm going to focus my day. And do that and go from there. And that's how I do my emails. I, all right, well, I've got these 6 places right next to each other. Let's focus on what we need to do at each place.

And are you good driving and making calls, or do you, is that too much?

Thank God for Apple CarPlay. It's no, no, no plug, sorry, but it's great. It's great, man. Um, I'm able to talk and do it and do what I need to do. And I, that's where I get a lot of my You know, like I talked about my manager, I'll call him, hey, I just met with so-and-so. Here's what I have to do next. If you're not busy, can you do it for me? And he'll do it. He'll be like, hey, I got it, man. He sits and he calls the control center, and he'll knock it out for me. He'll go into Salesforce and adjust the quote and send it over. And then I can flip it on instead of me having to pull over, get into the laptop, do all this. So—

And most medical people are morning people, right?

Oh, yeah.

They usually have first operations at 6 AM or something, right?

Yep, 6:30 this morning we were up and at it. Well, and that's what's funny too. So my buyer's like, man, it's 3 o'clock, what are you doing? I've been up since 6. I'm gonna pick the kids up, we're good. But that also— and you know what's funny, that's different regionally. Like up in the Northeast, a lot of my counterparts, they're working till 7, 8, 9 o'clock at night doing procedures. Down south, now they want to get home for their supper. And they, you know, look different.

Well, well, that's it. And if you can do that, because that allows you the rest of the day to do other stuff.

Well, and you got to have the work-life balance. Again, cliché, but it's true, man. And I truly enjoy being able to pick my kid up from school and play with my son and still get out and work in the morning. It's, it's, that's a big part of it, man. You can't put a price tag on that stuff.

And when you see other reps in your space, what do you see them doing wrong? What do you—

Overcomplicating, overcomplicating the process. They want to outsmart the room and they want to use big words and, oh, I'm a sales consultant. Look, man, relax. You know, and, but people want to do that. They want to overcomplicate things. I'm not that smart, so I can't overcomplicate things. But some people, they just— I don't know what it is, and they get bogged down in spreadsheets. And, you know, they're trying to do the, the shell game to make— I'm like, just be honest.

Yeah.

And like, I don't— when I go into deals with customers, when I know what I think, you know, I ask them, where do we need to be? Just tell me where you need to be. You know, it's kind of like when I go to, um, do anything that I need to do around the house. We just did a A renovation of my house. Here's where I want to be. Tell me if you can get there. If you can get there, let's work with each other. If you can't, let's move on. But sales, a lot of salespeople just want to overcomplicate that entire process, man.

Well, they're looking for the magic words, you know, the hand motion that will trick the customer into signing now.

Just don't do it. Like, what do I got to do to put you in this radiator today? Yeah. So that's what I see other reps do, and I just, I let them do it, like let them fall over themselves, and then, you know, come in and just, I can help you if we want to work together, let's do it.

Well, that's it.

I got a lot of clients who are like in the advertising business, and they get into that pitch and compete in the beauty contest, and they don't know how to control the process. I go, do some work for them pro bono.

Yeah. Throw it out there.

Engage with them on it.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, man. And, you know, kind of like what we do, that's one thing about medical which is different, right? Because we're regulated, so you can't really— here, try this for free— because you get a lot of trouble, which is— I don't know if you— I'm sure you know that, but it's, it's just different. But a demo is free. Like, hey, let me just show you what we can do, right?

Get your feedback.

Yeah. Hey, if this, if these scopes work for you, when you're ready, call me. Call me. I'm here for you, man.

Because I got to imagine that market is curious about the newest advances.

Always. Always.

Because they compete, right?

Who's got the shiniest toy today? Right.

I mean, like I talked to a guy who sells dentist supplies and dentists just love their dentist toys.

Oh, look at this cool x-ray machine all the way around your mouth.

And, and he gets meetings just to talk about what's new.

Yep.

Even though he knows that they can't afford it or they're not ready yet or they're just building their practice, but they all know each other.

Oh, it's the same in our world. And you know, with what I do, there's 3 major companies, and the 3 major companies just Who can get to where first? And like the next big thing for us is artificial intelligence. Who can get there first? Well, we're there. So all the doctors want to hear about it and they all want to get their hands on it. It's it's fun. Like and you just hey, just want to show you what's going on in Europe because they do stuff first. Check this out. It's coming. Coming.

So the the AI on like X-ray analysis and stuff.

Um, it's more of literally when you go and do a. procedure with the scope in it, the camera will see something. Let's say it's a polyp, and the camera will say, that polyp's okay, you can leave it. Or it'll say, you need to take that polyp— oh, it's pretty awesome. Or it'll say, hey, you need to take that polyp out, it could be cancerous. So the doctor's scoping, he'd be like, well, what should we do here? Oh, we can move on, which can make procedures more efficient, faster. Pretty cool.

And what turns doctors on? Is it avoiding malpractice, or is it being able to get more business, or—

It depends. So you have, um, you've got your private practice physicians that, um, they just want— they compete. It's just like what we do. They're selling their service. Why am I better than the doctor down the street, right? And it's all about making sure that they're having— malpractice, these guys are good at what they do, man. They really are and they— it's just doing the best procedures they can and having a good reputation. And I think that's their thing is they want to make sure that when someone goes, I went and saw Dr. So-and-so, they can refer to someone else. It's just like a sales guy, right? They want to make sure that people think highly of them.

And I'm sure like the new reps ask for help. What do they typically ask for?

How do you— what do you do? How are you— what do you do?

Can I get your script?

You know, that's exactly right. It's, it's, you know, whenever we have calls, you, you say it's so easy. Well, what are you doing? And then it goes back to what you and I were just talking about. Don't overcomplicate things because once you start overcomplicating, you're gonna get yourself in a whole world of trouble. So it's, it's always, how do you do it? What, you know, like, I had this doctor complain about this with the scope. What do you say? I go, well, Why was he complaining about it? Was it anatomy of a patient? Was it the wrong scope for that case? You know, what was it? And that's creating that need, finding out, asking those right questions, not just say, well, the scope stinks. Well, why? What was it that you didn't like? Well, it wasn't stiff enough. Well, we probably should have used a different scope.

And is it your curiosity that thinks— is that first step to engage in that conversation?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's always— it's not just like, so how'd the scope do? Well, it's fine. Why was it fine? Tell me about it. Tell me what made this scope work for you. And if it didn't work, tell me why so I can figure out what we can do different next time.

And when you're interviewing reps, I don't know if you do that or not, what do you look for?

Um, someone that I don't have to light a fire. Because there's, there's a lot of reps where they could be as smart as can be, but are they going to get out at 6:30 in the morning and drive 342 miles today? Or are they going to be the rep that, I have nothing going on, so I'm just going to chill? Like, people that are self-motivated.

Yeah.

You know, and, um, it's funny, I, I joke around with people with this, but, you know, I was a bartender in college and I worked at the Boys and Girls Club during the day because I was just motivated. Like, what am I gonna do You know, I didn't. And those are the people that are fun to work with, right? Like, they might not have all the experience in the world. And I hate people saying, oh, I can't get into medical because I never worked there. Well, if you're motivated, then get out there and get the job. That's how I got into it. Well, that's it.

When I do talk to medical reps, they go, well, I don't have an MD or a biology degree, or I don't want to have to get my master's. And I'm like, Do you really think you need that? Isn't there enough stuff on YouTube?

I have a communications degree, okay? You know, interpersonal communications was my degree, um, and I just like talking with people. I like being around people. That's what I'm good at. I'm not, I'm not an accountant. I can't crunch numbers. I can't, I don't like it. I don't like sitting at a desk. I like interacting with people and solving problems. That's what I like to do. And that's why I feel like I'm successful in my job.

And do you think that bartending experience helped?

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Hey, you're, you're listening to problems, man.

You're reading people, right?

When do they want another drink?

Are they hungry?

Do they want to talk? Do they just want to be left alone? Yeah, 100%. And that's the same with you walk into a doctor's office and you can see the look on like, man, we're past Exactly. Today's not the day to sit here and talk about stuff, or we're slow. Hey, you know, they've had a rough day. Let's go in there and make them laugh. So absolutely.

And did you have that empathy, that curiosity before becoming a bartender?

I've always been that way, man. I was, uh, you know, I grew up with a single mom with a, um, younger brother, much younger than me, and it was always— I guess I always had the I'm a people pleaser. You know, I want to make sure everyone's happy. I want, I, you know, I don't like sad. I don't like, you know, and that could also be a fault, right? You just please people all the time. What about yourself? But yeah.

Well, that's hard because, you know, because you do have a good service mentality. The problem with that in sales is you have to also sell something. Right.

That's right.

You just can't ask for the business, right? Because you're not in service solely, you're in sales that by servicing.

Well, it's funny because, um, you know, the deal I'm working on now that I was at this morning, it's— you're absolutely right, it's one of those, uh, you know, we've been going doing this dance for a couple months now, so we got to end this dance. What are we going to do? And I had to have that conversation. I was like, listen, I, I I truly enjoy helping you and I truly enjoy what we're doing, but what's the next step? We have to make the next step. And, you know, I don't want to sound pushy, but now's the time. And they appreciate it. Hey, you know what? You're right. You got to ask for the business. And some people, a lot of newer reps, you know, they want to build that relationship and then they're afraid to ask because they feel like they're going to offend. You're not offending.

Well, right, because it's expensive.

It's a big Step, there's risk. How do you get them focused on that? Like, why now versus 6 months or a year from now?

Um, it depends on the situation, right? So, um, why now? Well, that's when you got to get your sales hat on and be like, well, right now it's the last quarter of our fiscal year. So why now? Because I can order you— I can get you deals now that I can't get you in 6 months.

Okay.

Or that's a big one, right? Or why now? Well, because I can finance this equipment now at a lower rate than I can in 6 months. Why now? Well, your scopes are going to keep breaking and you're going to keep dumping all this service money into it that you're going to get rid of in 6 months. So this is why we do it now.

And what worked on you when you were remodeling your house? Because it's the same type of thing. You kick the can down the street for another year or so.

What was it? My wife said, I want to do it. I said, okay, no. Yeah. So, um, what worked on me is, um, the follow-up, um, on the people that I talked to. And the contractor that I chose was giving me different solutions. Hey, I know you want to do this, but I could do this and then add this over here because you're saving that money. And I was like, wow, I don't— because I don't know how to do that contracting stuff. But they were offering me ways to better the, the bathroom, because that's what we remodeled, by saving me money. Which was fantastic. So that's why I went with them. They gave me solutions instead of just doing everything I wanted. Well, instead of doing that, let's do this instead, and then I can do that. Perfect.

Kind of walk you through the alternatives.

That's right. That's right.

Because usually the remodeling, it's not the materials a lot of times, it's the labor. And some things are easy to do and some things you care about and a lot of things you don't.

Yeah. Like, and that, that's exactly right. Well, I can make this 7 feet tall or 6 and a half. I don't care. Just make it look. So yeah, I agree.

Cool.

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

I'm on LinkedIn, you know, check me out at Travis Luther. I don't do the Facebook, sorry, I just don't do it. I'm that guy. But LinkedIn, I'm very active on LinkedIn. And, you know, if anyone has questions about medical devices or sales or all, I'm very responsive. If it's just like a, hey, Who do I get an interview with? I can direct you to websites. So, please just check me out.

So, what can you take out of this interview? The 2 things: how can you differentiate yourself as a salesperson? Now, a lot of people think it's service. But service is part of it. What do your clients want? Are you really empathizing with them? Not just sympathizing, but empathizing with what they're going through, getting into their world, thinking like them. Because one of the characteristics of great salespeople is they tend to have come from their client's perspective. That was one of my first sales jobs. I had been a user of the product, and then I went out and sold it, which gave me a unique vantage point. But I also had to learn the sales skills. But I could talk with other people because I knew what they were going through. Are you looking into that? And it doesn't have to be that. It could be whatever works for you. Why are your clients going to see you differently? And I see too often people are training salespeople to act like salespeople. I think that's the worst way to act ever. I worked retail in high school and I'd see other people acting like salespeople and you get the, can I help you, just looking, you know, dance. Instead of, I would just approach people and break the ice with them talking about something that I think they would care about. And then they would ask, well, do you work here? What I found about that was they didn't view me as a salesperson. Uh, you know, in one job you had to wear a suit, so it was a little bit apparent, or a name tag. But when you act like a salesperson, you will get treated that way. And we all have that sales voice when we do the sales presentation. Uh, we, you know, we Pound our chest or do the professional talk or the uptick in our voice and the excitement. And but just, is that serving us or are we just doing it for ourselves, what we think a salesperson should be? And I think one of the biggest compliments you can get when you're talking with a client is, are you in sales or are you One of the technical people or one of the people who are helping me? Because they don't view sales as helping them. They view service engineers as helping them. But if they do view you as helping them, they will open. They open up and communicate with you and share. So I think finding whatever that is in your space, will be incredibly valuable. Because when I talk to just users or users, customers, and they say, well, I've thought about getting into sales because maybe they want to have control over their income or their time, but it'd have to be about something I'm passionate about. And that's one of the ways. Be passionate about the industry, the product, the problem that you solve. And it also seems to come out in the salespeople. Interviewed a great guy yesterday who just was passionate about selling and sales. And so am I. I mean, when I got out of working for other people, you know, I still wanted to sell. I wasn't burnt out about selling. I was burnt out about what I hear from most of the reps. You know, the CRM was becoming dominant. Activities were more important than accomplishments. The operations people were running sales instead of salespeople. And I just got sick of it. And you get to a certain point in your career where you start working for people who are less experienced than you and really don't know what they're doing. So that's kind of demotivating. And if you don't have to work, you've got enough money not to have to work, then The financial thing doesn't have the impact that it used to. So you kind of go out on your own, but I still wanted to sell. I still wanted to talk with salespeople. And I think that comes through because it's pretty much what I do all day. I work harder now than I did when I worked for other people. So whatever that passion is, and it doesn't have to be innate, it can be something that you develop. You know, no one, you know, is born being passionate about prospecting or the complex sale. It develops. I think you start doing something and then you become good at it. And this is what I'm learning and teaching the courses. I try to get people to success as soon as possible, because when you're learning something new, the natural thing is your primal brain's going, this doesn't work. This is uncomfortable. I'm not getting dopamine. I'm not getting a reward. So I try and get students to get success as fast as possible. And that has been an epiphany for me in teaching the course because as soon as they start to see success, they do it again, get more success. Then they're willing to experiment, get more success. As opposed to what managers are doing is pound the phones, have failure, This mentality is what's killing sales. You know, make 50 calls, get 3 connects and 1 meeting a week. Now that from the primal brain is nothing but fear and pain. And that's why there's so much burnout in the prospecting today, because that worked in the '90s and it's gone down diminishing returns ever since. We've got email and social, but everyone is pitching. No one is connecting and conversing. Nobody's really helping and building a rapport with people because clients, they do want to talk. And if you hear the people in the course, I'm going to start putting together a string of the success stories and putting it at the end of the podcast. When you hear other people, that's what we want. Now, it's not people like throwing purchase orders at you. But it is people wanting to talk with you and coming up with a system that's repeatable so you know every morning what to do. Now, the other thing I got out of this is here's a busy guy. When you have to travel to your clients, it sounds nice to be out of the office, but it's insanely time-consuming. And, you know, especially like when I did it, it was Driving was probably 20% of it, but there was a lot of flying to places. And that— talk about time-consuming. When you're up at 4 in the morning to get a 7 AM flight and to have a 10 AM meeting and then have another meeting at 2, by the time you hit the sack at night, you're pretty dead. And if any of those meetings aren't well planned and thought out. And it's hard to think ahead, you know, when you're booking out 3 days of meetings in a row. Being able to manage your time— if you can manage your time, I think— and that is something that you don't need a course on. You just need a little bit of discipline and building a habit and thinking ahead, because it is not natural and it doesn't come with age. I interview CEOs and even people who have admins to manage their time. Terrible. Absolutely pathetic. I had this one VP, 5 back and forths. Everything was given. You know, it's just, I've got a system here. You know, everything was, all the questions were answered. I have to re-answer them because they didn't read it. They need it spoon-fed to them. They didn't do all the things they were supposed to and add the calendar invite to their calendar. What time is it? I lost this. Okay, they can't keep track of their email. And guess how well that person's going to manage their— they're 100% reactive. Now, they might be busy, busy, busy, but they're not effective, effective, effective. What you have control over is your time. And you might say, well, my manager drags me into all this stuff. My number one hack when I was a rep is no matter when my manager— because they were terrible at managing their time. It'd be like, oh, we've got this account review next Tuesday. Oh, really? Do you want me to cancel this really important meeting that's revenue generating? Oh, no, no, no. When can we do this? Can I get back to you? You delay it, delay it, delay it, and then you end up doing it on the phone.

I was the master at managing my manager.

You know, and it takes a little bit of time, and if you're in the home office, it's not as easy. But, and when you're in the home office, make sure you have earbuds in, and, you know, always point to your earbuds when people come by like you're talking to somebody, because the natural thing is we get distracted and all that time gets wasted. And we think we can make up for it in the sprint at the end of the quarter or the end of the month, but time goes by, it's so fast. And I had this one VP of sales, he had this roller coaster way of managing the quarter. First month of the quarter, nothing got done. Meetings, bullshit, all this stuff, distractions, QBRs, whatever. The middle month, Start to go out, start building deals. And then the last month was all panic. But that panic causes cortisol to go through our body, which, you know, tends to get you— get a cold, or you get sick, or you get burnt out, and you get a bunch of bad habits in your life to try and compensate for that stress. And then you end up trying to repair from it. That roller coaster and that emotional regularity is something that we all have to do in sales. The highs have to be smoothed off. The lows have to be picked up. So really look at your time and be— try and be conscious of it. What day is it? What's going on next tomorrow, the rest of the week? And then become good at managing out the next week. One of my hacks that a lot of people— no one, very few people have adopted is plan out meetings 3 weeks ahead. Of course, you want to meet with buying customers as soon as possible. I get that. But there's a lot of meetings that we have, conversations, catching up, touching base, whatever it is. But if it's on the calendar, the likelihood of it happening goes up dramatically. If it's not on the calendar, we're chasing. We're following what we're like, hey, can you get 5 minutes, whatever. But if you have things on your calendar 3 weeks ahead, it worked so well for me because everyone was always scrambling and I had time and meetings set. And if you do it rolling forward, people will tend to accept those meetings. And you try and have it on the The low priority days in your industry, whatever they are, for those meetings, I was able to utilize my time so much better than everybody else. Almost, I'd say, all the reps that I met were always scrambling that week, spending Monday and Tuesday trying to get stuff booked, Wednesday, Thursday trying to execute, and Friday cleaning up. And then it had the same crazy pattern all the time instead of a well-thought-out strategic view of your time. Now trust me, I'm far from perfect and I'm still working on it a lot. You know, the summer still trips me up, uh, the, you know, the Q4 always goes by in the blink of an eye, uh, you know, Q1 is just always jammed, you know. So we're all Works in progress. So it's not a destination. It is kind of a process. But in the complex sale, you have to become good at it. Make sure you're checking out the Sales Leadership Show. I've got a lot of great sales leaders on there. I've been thinking of posting them on this feed because they're so good. And I don't know, please just give it a shot. See if the topic spurs curiosity. Great interviews. Because they're all reps. I don't interview people who haven't been reps. And when you see why they go into leadership, and they might be the right leader for you. Great people to connect with. Hey, we'll see you next time. Make sure you're also checking out the Sales Questions Show, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers, and the B2B Revenue Leadership Show. Tell a friend about the podcast. And if you see my stuff flying by on LinkedIn, in. Give it a little like, a little comment, a little share. Also got a YouTube channel if you like to watch videos. I store them all up there. If you're looking for them, you can just search Brian Burns Sales on YouTube. We'll see you next time.