THE SECRET TO OWNING YOUR SUCCESS AND CREATING IT IN B2B SALES

I've talked a lot about salespreneur, this idea of thinking like an entrepreneur, even though you work for a company and you're a W-2 employee. Why is this so critical? Because it empowers you. It keeps the focus on ourselves, our responsibility for selling to— for us, not for the company. Yeah, the company benefits from it also, but we are salespreneurs whether we admit it or accept it or not. And we— you probably won't realize this until the first time the company has a reduction in force or a territory change that isn't exactly advantageous for us. And all of a sudden we wake up and we're like, well, wait a second, I was the good little employee and now— I'm the boss. I'm all on my own. So it's a couple of things. It's believing that it's our responsibility to sell regardless of the number of leads we get, how bad the territory is, how little our manager's time they have to help us. It's ours. And if you ignore this, And you have the employee mindset. You're like, I'll smile and nod, attend all the meetings, fill in the CRM all nice and pretty. And then you get treated poorly or you just don't make money. Let's face it, if money isn't a motivator, maybe sales isn't the right place for you. There's plenty of jobs in marketing and customer success and service if you've got that mindset. But most of us got into sales because we wanted that Autonomy, that control over our income. And we have to take the responsibility for it because it's ours whether we take it or not. So why not take it and be realistic about the game you're playing instead of the blame game? That, that loser mindset that I constantly hear, and this is how it goes. People cause the problem, meaning that they don't take responsibility for their number. They complain about the problem— revenue's down, I'm not happy, I'm not making the money. They blame someone else for the problem— comp plan, manager, company. And the thing is, the blame game feels good, right? Because you take the blame off of your back. And put it onto someone else's, metaphorically. But the real issue is it doesn't change your income. The only thing that changes your income is more sales. And most people today think that's all about being at the right place at the right time. That's an element. You can't argue with it. But you are where you are. Is it the right place? Is it the right time? It's the only place and the only time you have right now. So you're going to make the best of it. Keep trying to find a better place and a better time. You should be open to it, but you can't continually search for it because in sales, there's the ramp time that we forget about. There's that 6 to 9 months of pipeline building, skill building, relationship building that we have to do. What if you did that all the time and you thought like an entrepreneur? Now, this is not putting down people who work for other people. I did it my whole life, and I'm glad I did it, because if I tried to go out on my own early, it would have been a dismal failure. I needed to wait till I was ready, technology was ready, The market was ready, and I even did it too early when I did it. I did it probably 5 years earlier than I should have. But boy, did I learn a lot because I had to. When you go out on your own and you don't have anything— company brand name, a product, a service, reputation, any of that stuff— and you have to build it from scratch, boy. You learn how important it is to have that. Today's guest went through this journey. He's both a great guy, great storyteller, but connect with his journey and see how you can apply it to yours. And if you adopt the salespreneur mindset, your income will go up. You'll feel more in control. And I see it in my courses all the time because about 20% are entrepreneurs of some kind or another. And boy, they seem to grasp onto the course a lot harder and more determined than the people who are employees. Guess why? It's their money. It's their time. It's their income. They want to maximize it. That's why they did it. And I like that. As the instructor, it's hard to instruct if people don't Engage and participate. A lot of people like to hang back, and I get that for a while, but dig in because part of learning is talking and asking questions and making it as relevant to your situation as possible so that you connect with it. Let's get into this interview. I'll sum it up at the end. Oh, have you checked out brevitypitch.com yet? This is the future. This is the future of sales coaching. I'm working closely with these folks on the next release, but even the current release will blow you away. Basically, you can interact with an AI in an interactive discussion to practice your sales calls. Why does this matter? How else do you do it?

Real people?

That's really expensive, both in opportunity costs that if you mess up and the deal goes south, there goes your commission. Or if you're trying to do it with a coworker, we've all tried that, haven't we? It becomes a little silly, a little— it's hard to first coordinate the calendar. You know, the person listening probably wants to make fun of you or is paying attention to their email or not really engaging or wants to come up with a really tough objection. And all of a sudden, it's just not that engaging. Brevity Pitch solves all that and gives you the ability to practice selling in a way that is reinforcing, playful, and enjoyable. Check it out at brevitypitch.com. Here we go. Hey Frank, thanks for joining us today.

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

Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having me. So Frank Zito, I'm an account executive for Mini Street. And, you know, my story, you know, everyone who comes on here tells you, well, my story is a little different. And I'm gonna do the same thing. So it all started, you know, when I was 6 and left at the circus. No. You know, for me, it was my senior year of high school. And actually, it was my junior year of high school, my football coach. So I was captain of the team, right? Captain of football and the baseball team. The football coach said, look, we need you to do the play. And I said, oh, pass play, run play? No, the school play. Coach, no, please, please don't make me do this. He said, look, you're captain. They think we're a bunch of, you know, heathens, and you got to do the play. And that's that. And my mom dragged me to the audition kicking and screaming. And the play was Guys and Dolls.

Oh, boy.

And oh, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. And, you know, I did the play, and I loved it. And then I did more plays. And then I joined speech team. And then I started taking voice lessons. And, you know, had to deal with everybody on my team razzing me for doing that. And At the end of my high school career, I had the opportunity to play football, football scholarship to Division II school, or take an acting scholarship. And I took the acting scholarship. So it's what I studied for 4 years. I studied at the Moscow Art Theater abroad for a year, and did that professionally for about 6 years. And so from acting and waiting tables and auditioning and being rejected constantly, you see where I'm going with this. My path to sales, and my uncle has been in the beauty industry for 30 years, and he said to me, "Hey, we're opening up a Paul Mitchell Cosmetology School, and you'd be great. You know what? What are you gonna do? Acting thing forever? Come on, come work with me in the school." I was 24. I'm 40 now. I was 24 at the time, and I said, "Paul Mitchell, was that the shampoo guy? I don't know about that." All right, let me see, what do I have to lose? And I did that. And that was my first kind of step into sales. So I was with the schools for about 6 years and I grew in the organization to a director of sales. I helped train over 100 admissions people, for-profit school, you know, and from there in 2014, I kind of hit the ceiling in my career. And I said to my wife, who's a hairdresser, who I met while I worked in the schools, And as that happens, I'm a hairdresser as well. And I said, let's just open up our own salon. Let's just— let's do the entrepreneurial thing. Let's just do it. What do we have to lose? And she looked at me and said, our house, everything. And I said, look, we don't have kids yet. Let's take a chance. So we did. We partnered with a couple who I consider mentors of mine, who very business savvy. He was Kurt and Kathy Stolting. He was a CEO of many large organizations. And Kathy worked for McDonald's Corporation in accounting, finance, commercial development, real estate development. So we kind of married their business skills and, you know, our knowledge of the beauty industry, and we launched our own startup. So we opened 4 locations in 12 months, blow dry salons in the Chicagoland area, and, you know, positive cash flowing in 6 months, launched our franchise program. 4 years later, October of 2019, and a few months later COVID hit. And so now my wife and I had our first baby March 24th, 2020, built our first house. Things were good. And yeah, COVID hit. So I looked at my wife and I said, you know, all these years our family who've been telling us, you know, your eggs are in one basket, you know, that's, you know, be careful, kind of came to fruition. And I looked at her and said, I'm looking at the P&L and it does not make sense for us to both be in this. So you stay in the salons, I'll jump back into sales and go from there. And I was interviewing a lot and look, I don't have ERP on my resume. And so a friend of mine worked at Rimini Street and he said, look, you don't have ERP, you don't have software or anything that on your resume. I know you can do this, but you're going to have to start entry-level. Now I'm 37 years old. You know, you're gonna have to take an SDR position. And it's like, there's no way I could come on. That's crazy. Look at, look at all I've done. And I've done this and I've, you know, I've moved mountains. And I sucked it up. And, and I did that. I took an SDR position. And at least with Rimini, I was the number one SDR in Namer in terms of meetings. I had 37 meetings my first year. VP and above. I was number 4 globally out of like 50 SDRs. Then they moved me to an ISR position a few months later. I did the same thing there. And I finally said to them, look, you guys are sleeping on me, put me in the field, give me your worst territory. And they did.

Very cooperative.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I said, and let's see what I can do. And And that's kind of where I am today with, with Remini. So that's a bit of my, my journey.

Yeah. Let's go back to the acting because there's an enormous number of salespeople who come from the performing arts, music, debating, acting, comedy.

Yeah, it's, you know, I heard this on, I think, another podcast you had, somebody talked about, you know, Being a good listener, right? And I know that's a good quality to have, but what does that actually mean, right? And I think there's a difference between, you know, hearing someone and, you know, I think from a sales standpoint, a lot of times we hear, we listen for what we can sell into, right? We're trying to listen for pain.

We want to hear.

Yeah, exactly. Oh gosh, you know, we're spending too much money. Well, we can help with that. You know, we were down on resources, we can backfill for you. And as opposed to leaning in, being an active listener, leaning in. And I think the key here is, and this is what I got from my acting, is having a point of view about it. Right? We talked about being curious. But having a point of view about something, whether it aligns or not with who you're talking to, I think that's the key. I think that's the difference. And I think it helps break down some of the barriers of being the, you know, the sales guy or salesgirl that's coming to a call to do their pitch. Right? I mean, I hear it a lot and I did it early on in my career is, you know, you start talking about the weather on a call like, oh, how's the weather by you? And even if you're genuine about it, I always laugh about this. Even if you're genuine and it's just like, oh gosh, I'm gonna it immediately, and it's somewhere inside of them, just, oh, sales guy. I'm talking to a sales guy when, you know, so needless to say, I don't talk about the weather anymore. I try not to.

Well, let's dig into that. When you say have a point of view, can you give us an example?

Yeah, sure. So I think having a point of view about something, it's, it's where it kind of hits you from an emotional standpoint. So for example, if somebody says to me, You know, I think I'm just gonna do nothing. I think that's the safest play. You know, I won't say have a point of a negative point of view. I'm not a dummy. I'm not gonna say, well, that's ridiculous. You know, but I'd have a point of view of, and tying it to empathy, which, you know, it's super important, but it's having a point of view of like, look, I get that. And I understand the risk. Look, you guys had 2 cybersecurity attacks this year. So making a move, you know, I totally get that. And to be honest, I don't know that I'd make the move in your shoe. But here's what I do know. And right, but, but I think having a point of view and having an emotion to allow empathy to come through so you can align with them, right? It's like, it's empathizing with them. And then Kind of expanding their point of view, their point of view, and then, you know, aligning with them, right? So that's kind of how I look at that. But anyways, I think too often sales folks come to calls, they have their deck, they have their talk track. And when you do, it's like an actor with a script. It's the same thing. And You know, when I was acting, I'd have actors on stage who just weren't in the moment. They weren't living truthfully. And I knew it, you know, they'd have a prop somewhere, and they knew just where to grab that prop. And it was just programmatical. And maybe I would move that prop a certain night to throw them off a little to get something real from them. You know, the stage manager would have a talk with me about that. But I would do that. And I see the same thing with, with salespeople, right? And I just think ditch the script, ditch the PowerPoint and just have a real conversation. And that's where I've found a lot of success in my time here.

Why do you think people don't do it? Is it laziness? Or is it they just fear?

It's fear. I really think. And look, you can make an argument. Yeah, if it's laziness, like, well, this is how I've always done it. Right. But I think that's fear-based. And I think knowledge conquers fear. And I think You know, you said it right. A lot of salespeople come from the acting space, or, gosh, when I was taking improv classes at Second City, I remember sales guys being in there. They'd show up in their suits, and I'm sitting there like, what is this guy doing? And the fear of getting up in front of people and being vulnerable—

Being judged.

Yeah, being judged, being vulnerable. I really think that's what it is. It's— we all have defense mechanisms. And part of, you know, when I was in acting school is, is breaking down a lot of that. So breaking it down in yourself, but being able to break it down in others and picking up on the little behaviors. And I see that. So I know when someone's engaged, when I'm talking with them, I know when I don't have a deal, I don't have to ask, you know, is this real? I know. And I can adjust accordingly in the cycle.

Because when you talk off script, you have to ignite your prefrontal cortex. You can't go off your subconscious mind.

Correct. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think too, it ties into the fear, but it also ties into an ego thing. And I see that a lot with especially seasoned reps. That's, that's, you know, and that's important, right? You got to have a healthy balance of ego, I think. But I think they don't go off script because if they get caught in a spot— not caught, but, you know, they're in a situation where they're uncomfortable, or they— what do I do? You know, malfunction, malfunction. They don't want to be in that position. So I think that ego can be a little dangerous as well.

Yeah, because ego tends to get in the way a lot of times. Yeah.

Well, yeah. And look, for some folks at work, you know, that lone wolf mentality.

Yeah.

Hey, if it can help too, it can help too. It can absolutely help. You know, there's, there's no one way to do what we do. For me, that's— it's never been my approach. I'm more of a, let's, you know, let's rally the troops and engage the cavalry and darken the skies with, you know, our team. But, you know, that's, that works some of the time, and sometimes it doesn't.

And what was that first year like going from B2C to B2B?

Yeah, you know, it's funny you bring that up. I think about being in the salon trying to sell a $100 membership to a customer to then having conversations with companies who are, you know, $40 to $50 billion in revenue, C-suite folks. And, you know, I think the thing of it is A lot of the people who came into our salons were those people, are those people. And, you know, title aside, they're just people. You just have to know how to communicate with them. Right. And I think that's where I run into trouble. I'm Italian and Greek, so I like to talk a lot and I'm a storyteller. But boy, the C-suite, it's just give me bullet points. I don't need all the fluff, right? But yeah, for me, it was humbling for sure. It was a step back into the rejection of, I wrote a really great customized email. I put my heart into that. I talked about a restaurant that I saw they posted on their LinkedIn that I go to and they didn't respond to me.

How dare they?

How rude.

Yes.

Yes. And it did take me back to the days of when I was auditioning and acting, and you don't even hear anything. And it's not even about your talent. It's you're too short. You're too this, you're too ethnic. You look like my ex-boyfriend's brother. And that's why you didn't get the part. So I dealt with that. But I think the success I had, just as an SDR, I just, in my outreach, tried to have real conversations. Right? I mean, Brian, if you looked at your phone and I guess anybody listening, if they looked at their phone and pulled up their Yahoo or their Hotmail and they'd see a lot of the junk that comes in, the junk email, you know, just from looking at the subject line or looking at who it's from, you know, I'm not even gonna open that. I'm just gonna delete that. So I worked really hard at crafting good subject lines and having good content in my emails that were real. And then I can connect with someone on a human level versus here's my pitch with all my bullet points and bolded words and I'm strategically gonna put this word at the front of the sentence. And because Gartner says I get a 20% higher response rate and if I do 18 touches in 30 days, I'll get somebody to respond because Gartner said so. And I always joke, yeah, the response is leave me alone.

You know, so yeah, I think what the acting teaches people is that it's all emotion. Yes, acting is not logic, right? It's emotion.

Correct. Yeah, that's exactly right. And, and I will say, because you bring up a good point, just like in bowling, speed kills, you know, emotion kills As well, sometimes. I think it's important to have emotional intelligence. But it's one of the things I've learned here is, you know, not to sound like Elsa, but let it go. And sometimes you need to be able to take a step back and say, okay, maybe not today's business, but it could be tomorrow's business. And taking things personally, you have the ego thing. you know, that can be dangerous. So, you know, that's an important skill to have, I think.

And how have you liked it on the outside, having a territory regardless of—

Yeah, it's great. You know, well, so it's a good point, right? You know, I joke about this, about how I said, you know, give me your worst territory. But it's just like in acting, there's, there's no small parts, there's just small actors. And I will say that about territory. Because when you, if you look at a territory on paper and you see maybe other reps who came in and couldn't do anything with it, so you're hearing everybody else say, oh, that's a tough one. That's not a great deal, man. You might want to reconsider. You should ask for other accounts. I took it more of a challenge to say maybe I could be the first rep to make my territory pop. And I will say in the territories that I'm in, That's exactly the case that there's, I think the folks in any company when they look at a territory and they think, oh, there's not a lot here. I think that's a gross, usually a gross assumption. There's always whether it's business to win or relationships, because those relationships when they're at a company, especially at the C-suite, they're there 2, 3 years and then they're on to the next. So if I can create a relationship with someone, a genuine relationship, how can I help you? And they go somewhere else and maybe there is business there for me. There is an opportunity for a partnership. It's the long game. And that's how I kind of embrace being in the territory, you know, time and territory. Yeah, that does matter. Absolutely. But I'm starting to see that now that I've been in the territory here for about a year and a half, things are starting to— when people said, no way, absolutely not, stop calling me, how dare you, what a misrepresentation you have of our little, you know, city of or county of, because I read their financials and, you know, maybe called that out like, hey, it looks like you guys need some cost savings. And now I go to dinner with these people. And text and how are the kids? And I think that human aspect is important. It's just hard for us, I think, as sales folks because, you know, as you talk about it, it's like, you know, what's in your pipeline? What, you know, where's— when are you getting this done? When are we closing this? And I get that. I've been on the ops side, I've been on the business side. So I get P&L and I know that's important. But the long game, it absolutely matters. You know, I talk about that, you know, today's traffic is tomorrow's business. So the traffic you have, whether it's emails, phone calls, relationship building, that's gonna pay off in the long run.

And how about the shift in the mindset between, because you were retail essentially, right?

Yeah, essentially. Yeah. Yeah.

Where people come to you.

Correct.

You don't go do cold outreach in the street, right? Yeah. Yeah. They come in the store.

Uh-huh. Yes.

Business to business where probably at least in your territory, there's not much warm inbound.

Correct. Correct. Yeah. So, you know, for me, especially coming, you know, off of COVID you know, I started at Rimini in 2021. So that was still, things were heightened. And with, you know, work from home, I find, and look, you'll talk to 10 other reps that say, no, no, I get people on the phone all the time. I wasn't, I wasn't getting people on the phone. And if I did catch them on the phone or on their cell, it was, yeah, yeah, yeah, send me an email, I'm driving. So the success I had was predominantly email. It was predominantly LinkedIn. LinkedIn is really my, for me, it was my source of truth. So I can connect the dots and tell a story. Who knows who, who came from where, What role were they in? What are they interested in? What are they commenting on other people's posts? And I hate to sound like a, you know, a total creeper, like I'm hiding in their bushes, like, oh, wow, they eat steak for dinner. But doing some of that background helps craft a real, a real message where there's something in it for them. But you're right, it was having to go out. You know, when you talk about activity, That was, that was challenging in the beginning because it's like, wow, I feel like I've made 80 calls today and I've made like 14. Yeah, exactly.

It's 10 o'clock.

Yeah. Oh, you know, it's, and it's my own fault. You know, the office in the house we built was supposed to be the office, then we had our daughter, now that's the playroom. So I've been delegated to the basement where there's no window. And so I'm in the dark in this dungeon. And, you know, it's 8, 9 o'clock at night, my wife Like bringing me dinner over my shoulder.

Yeah.

So it's, I don't always believe in burnout. I think you just kind of have to realign the strategy and connect that to your passion. And, but yeah, activity matters. I mean, if you're not, if you're not touching people, what are you doing? Because in this business, people will not come to you. I can't rely on inside sales and not because we don't have a strong team. That's maybe more of my lone wolf mentality. Like, you guys do your thing, we'll have our conversations, we'll strategize. These are the people I want you to go after. These are the accounts, but this is what I'm focused on and I'm gonna do my thing. And if I get something from them, a conversation, I look at it as icing on the cake, right? So yeah.

And how about the longer, you know, because in retail, I did retail, it's either buy or they don't buy or maybe they'll buy next time.

Yeah, exactly.

In business to business, it's like even if they say they're gonna buy, you don't know if they're gonna buy until they do buy and you've got this long arduous gauntlet that you have to go through.

Absolutely. And there's so, depending on what industry you're in, there's so many layers to the cycle in terms of who you're talking to, right? You know, we, I sell into the CIO, Right? Because we're selling support, technology support. And oftentimes it's not even the CIO's decision. It's influence, right?

Yes.

That I gotta go to the CFO. I have to go to the CFO. Now we gotta bring them in. And now we have a steering committee that we need to do. Oh, we can't forget about procurement. Looks like this has to go to RFP. And, you know, so it's, yes, it is an emotional roller coaster. But I think one of my mentors, he's actually my VP of sales guy, I just prayed. He said to me, don't be a roller coaster, be a train. And I think that's real important. It's one of the things that I'm picking up on in my time here is to be a train because I've had people tell me, yep, it's— this is all but done. And, you know, deal doesn't get done. So it's not done until the ink's dry, right?

Well, that's it. Because the people who say, oh, it's all but done, Don't have control.

Yes. Yes.

Right.

They have influence.

That's right. Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. So it's, it's kind of funny. Uh, I had a call and yeah, I had a cycle and, uh, it was yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then it was, oh, we didn't make the RFP deadline. I guess this has to go to RFP. And it was all these things. And then we went to RFP and allowed a competitor to come in and we didn't win the business after 4 months of yes, it's you guys. Well, then on the next call that I had with a totally different prospect, you know, it was like, so do you guys have an RFP deadline? What is that? You know, because I was just so on tilt, on edge just to understand. But I think, you know, understanding the elements of their process, and I don't wanna say their buying process because the people who own the buying process sometimes They don't even know. They don't know what it is. Yeah, they don't even know what it is. You know, what's your—

yeah, what's your decision criteria?

Decision criteria? There you go. They look at you like, what? I mean, what do you mean? And it's just, it's a weird thing. And yeah, that's so funny then. Okay. Yeah.

Well, that's it. I used to ask that question all the time until no one ever gave me a real answer.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

What was that like learning all that?

That must have been overwhelming.

Oh, for sure. Because, you know, on one hand, it's like, okay, I have to get a deal done. And I know the gymnastics internally of things I need to do to negotiate things and move things along and get legal to get this done for me quickly and XYZ. But then to understand, well, now I got to understand all their processes and complexities and who's who in the zoo. And now who do I have to win over? Right? Or now who's saying no? Who's this person that wasn't part? Oh, new leadership. You know, new objectives in the business. So yeah, it's, it can be overwhelming for sure. But I think if you go into it expecting all that, it's not as jarring. And that's what I've started to do. I don't want to say talk is cheap, but just stay the course, anticipate things that could pop up. How can I lose this deal? What could happen?

Ask the hard questions.

It's ask the hard questions and the powerful questions. And I try to reverse engineer and really work backwards. You know, when I say like, I think I'll get that close in 2 months, I tack another 2 months onto that.

Smart.

So yeah.

And what do you think separates you from most reps that you've seen?

Yeah, so I think a couple of things. I think my background as an entrepreneur allows me to have that entrepreneurial spirit. The things that kept me up at night, payroll, even in our small $2 million business, payroll, resources, P&L, marketing, budget, uh, are the same things that keep these folks up at night. It's just a different scale.

Different scale.

Uh, it's a different scale. There's, yeah, different complexities. Um, but the thing that keeps you up at night, the thing that makes your heart sink into your stomach, That's the same. And so I think I'm able to connect on that and have it resonate more. Now, look, I don't get on calls with CIOs of $30 billion companies saying, I'm Frank the hairdresser Solano, and I'm gonna sell you software support. No, not at all. But it allows me to have the real conversation. So I think that's the first thing. I think the other thing Is is having a servant's heart, and you know, having a servant's heart—that's just there's layers to that. You know, integrity, doing the things you know other people just aren't willing to do. And and and I know, and you know we talk about the grind. You know salespeople—it's like oh I worked so hard today. You should see how many look at my fingers, how many emails I sent. But it's like we started a company from scratch. You know, it's 40 employees, and we know how to grind that out. As an actor, I know how to grind that out. When I lived in California for a year in Venice Beach, selling salt rocks on the beach to make ends meet, I know innately what the grind is. And so I think as a sales rep, look, you have some sales reps that they're— they just have a ton of relationships and they're relationship sellers and that's what they do. You have other reps that, you know, they feel like at the stage of the game that they're in, they shouldn't have to prospect. And I think I've— oh yeah, and I think I've redefined the art of prospecting just a smidge because it's worked for me. And, you know, that was the funny thing in terms of negotiating my way into the territory. You know, I joke about the, you know, give me your, you know, untouched territory or worst territory. But I said, look, you know, you guys are hiring a lot of folks that the hunt is gone. You know, it just is. And it's what if you, you know, they come from big companies where leads just fall into their lap?

Oh, yeah. They have existing accounts, they upsell. Yeah, yeah.

It's a different game. It's a totally different world. And I just think, especially in what we do, you know, competing against Oracle and SAP for the support business, you have to get out there, you have to roll up your sleeves, you have to show that you're hungry. And I think that's the difference. And the third thing, because there's a third thing, I play nice. And I don't just mean with customers. I don't mean the nice guy thing. I mean, internally, I think a lot of reps don't understand the power of being nice. And, you know, when you're trying to get things done internally, we talk about how hard it is to sell a deal. You know how hard it is to sell it internally? You know, it's like, hey, Frank, it's end of the quarter. I don't think I can pump that NDA out to you. You know, but, and I hear that from the other reps like, oh, legal's not working fast enough for me or, this isn't happening. And, uh, and it's like, really? Because I, I got it in like a half hour. And it's not to be pretentious. It's not to be, how can I leverage? It's just being nice to people because you don't know what's going on in their day. Um, and if you can just make them, uh, have a 10% shift in their outlook just because of what you've done for them, whether it's a high five or, hey, great job in that presentation. Thanks for showing up for me. Thanks for getting me this proposal on time. That gets overlooked, Brian. And I think especially because we're not in the— and I know it's so like, some people might hear that, like, okay, oh, you want a pat on the back? Oh, geez. That's not what I mean. And I am 40. And I am a millennial. I just made the cutoff. But it does, it does go a long way. You have no idea.

Well, hey, this has been a great conversation, Frank. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

Yeah. So, you can find me on LinkedIn, Frank Zito. I'm at Rimini Street. And yeah, and I'm based in Chicago. So, anybody out there who is in the Naperville area, feel free to drop me a line. Happy to get a cup of coffee with you and spend some time.

So, how can you tell if you have the salespreneur mindset? I think you know. But if you don't, just ask yourself, when something goes wrong, who do you blame? Do you blame yourself? Do you blame the client? Do you blame your boss? The number one comment I get on pretty much every post I do on LinkedIn is, tell this person about this, meaning that I don't need to hear this, someone else needs to hear this. Well, They're right. Someone else does need to hear it, but you need to hear it as well. And what I found, even during the pandemic, people were still blaming their boss for why they couldn't do what they wanted to do. And I'm like, well, wait a second, you're working remotely. How does your boss know what you're doing? You're telling them or you're showing them. Show them. What they want to see and do what you need to do. And I don't mean this in the malicious sense. I mean this in the constructive sense. If you think there's a better way, you should try it. Maybe you'll find out it isn't a better way, and maybe you'll find out it is a better way. That's what I did my whole career. And it was what I learned early Was that if I did what I was told and it didn't work, I didn't get paid. So if I did what I wanted to do and it didn't work, I didn't get paid. But if I did what I wanted to do and it did work, I got paid. See, the logic there is regardless of what you do, you own the outcome in sales. You can try and blame somebody else and deflect it, and that feels good for a few minutes, but it doesn't solve the problem. We've all had those people in our lives who, no matter what happens, it's someone else's fault. And there's a little bit of truth to it. There is. But does it help you? Doesn't it— doesn't that just erase the need to learn from it, write it down? Come up with a way of preventing it in the future. And this is what drove me in my career, was that first, I hated wasting time. The idea of flying somewhere, preparing for a deal, working it all day and night, and then to find out it's either not qualified or they already picked somebody else or somebody misled me. Or I misled myself. I was ruthless with my time because I quickly realized, boy, time flies. And that quarter went by really quickly. And if you were busy but not effective, you didn't get paid very well. You had your manager off your back because I was the guy a lot of times that didn't look as busy. I would have my calendar. It was pretty structured. I would travel every other week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The following week, I would prospect and fill up the following week. So, it was like a week on the field, a week off the field. And my manager goes, why aren't you traveling that week? He's like, I've got to schedule meetings. I've got to do this. Oh, you should be able to do that on the road. Now, I listened to them once in a while, but what I found was I did both in-person stuff week, and then I did my prospecting week, and my calendar would be this Swiss cheese with all these holes in it, people rescheduling. There was no system to it. I had to come up with my own system that both worked for me and worked for clients. Now, I got a lot of pushback on that, but I didn't care, honestly, because I wasn't there for my base salary. And this is the question that separates entrepreneurs or salespreneurs from employees. Employees love their base salary. And trust me, I did love my base salary. And at one time I had a huge base salary and I loved it a lot. And it was a trap. And I realized now that it kind of limited my career instead of excelling, accelerating it, because at that time I could have done so much better if I didn't care about my base salary and kept focus on the upside. Lesson learned. You can learn from me if you'd like. And I had gone back to the employee mindset instead of the salespreneur mindset. And it cost me a lot, even though I felt wealthy because I had a huge base salary. If you care a lot about your base salary versus your target income and your commission, you might be thinking like an employee. And it might be worth considering thinking like a salespreneur. I'm not saying find a job with a lower base salary. I'm saying focus more on that upside and what you can contribute to that upside, because that is where the gold is. Because when you do get into those accelerators above your quota, at least to me, that was like the flow state. As soon as I hit my number, between then and the end of the year, it was just game on. And that's the feeling of a salespreneur. That is the mindset of a salespreneur, and that's the striving you want to get it. Now, you may think, well, that's not easy to do. It's not easy, I agree. But when you can do it, and you need to focus on doing it— and I'm sure you start every year, like in January, thinking— and I did too, every year, 25 years— this quote is unattainable. I don't know what they're thinking. I gotta start looking for another job. Now, you either gotta go with that thought or buckle down and saying, look, I've done it before, I'll do it again. It always seems daunting at the beginning of the year, but somehow by January or by December 31st, you're cooking. And it always seems to work out. It did for me, most cases. And that's where the excitement is. It isn't with the big base salary, even though it felt really cushy. I thought it was going to be really cushy, but it was kind of a trap. Meaning, like a lot of union jobs are traps for people in their 20s, um, where you get a great union job or a job with the government with a big pension, and it seems like a great idea at the time. And when you're 50 or 60, it's great, you get a pension, but it's limiting. It's a trap. You have so much more potential. And if you're listening to a sales podcast, you're at least motivated to get better. And I say take a little chance, especially when you're young. You know, if you're older and you're a little burnt out or something, I get it. But when you're young and you're ambitious and you got time ahead of you, hit for the fence because this is the time to do it. You may not get it. I get that part. But you tried and it felt good. And honestly, I don't remember other than that one company, that base salary. The rest, it was just noise. It was that— those accelerators. I still remember one, I hit my number so early in the year, so I had like 6 months of accelerators and I was just unstoppable. And then I said, well, what would it be like if I was like this all the time? And this is what I like about working for myself. I decide how much I want to make and I figure out how to do it. You can kind of do that as a sales rep, especially today with the technology and the techniques and the labor arbitrage that you get. There's so many ways of doing it and people are still— oh, it's either cold calling or spamming. No, there's so many more ways than that. And yes, you can still use email and the phone without it being robocalls and spamming. I'll teach you how. Get excited about sales. Get excited about your career. Go to b2brevenue.com. Learn from the best. Leave the rest behind. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Check out the other shows. And if you see my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a little like, a little comment, a little share. Thanks for listening.