THE SECRETS TO BEING AT THE BEST IN ANY SALES SITUATION

Today we've got a really special one for you. Imagine getting into medical device sales in startups when you don't have any medical or biology background at all, and a startup where you're calling on physicians, neurosurgeons, the hardest of the hard. Now, this can be both overwhelming from a prospecting standpoint, as well as a complex sales standpoint. And how do you do it over many years, quite a few years consistently? And people often ask me, well, what should my resume look like? And if you go to Chris's LinkedIn profile, that's exactly how a sales resume should look like, with results. Rankings, named accounts that you have brought in. And this is such a critical skill because too often in sales, we have the roller coaster— great year, okay year, bad year, great year— and that cycle. And sometimes it's hard to avoid. But the people who can do it consistently, year after year, situation after situation, Because guess what? Every year the company tends to make it a little bit harder. Smaller territory, higher quota. You know the game, right? So how do you keep it going at such a high level for decades? We're going to get into that today. Also, getting away from acting like a salesperson, connecting with strangers. We're going to get into that. And then how To get your client to sell themselves. It's magic. Every episode is magic. Let's get into the interview. Are you checking out brevitypitch.com? It's the future of how to become great at sales. What we've done at brevitypitch.com is break down the sales process. Every sales process has core ingredients and put those into 5-minute drills. Where you can practice in 5 minutes, get better every day. And we got some big announcements coming up. If you want to stay current on them, go to brevitypitch.com and sign up today. They've got a free eval copy called Brevity Play where you can use it on your phone. You don't need a username or password or anything. And the webinar series. Make sure you sign up for that so that you get updated on all the product announcements and the new capabilities.

Here we go.

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

Yeah, great. Thank you. And really humbled to be here. So happy Friday. Been in sales 20-some years in various med device companies and a lot of startup companies, which is fun to be a part of. It's always, you know, fun to build something from nothing, so to speak, and it's always a challenging environment. So now I'm in a leadership role here with a startup based in Silicon Valley called Cerebell.

So you chose med device because it was, Easy.

You know, I, my background, I'm actually an English major, but I always had aspirations to go into sales, particularly med device. And I figured if I could hopefully communicate somewhat effectively and read effectively, that would translate into sales. No, I thought med device was pretty challenging. It sounded really cool being able to interface with physicians and nurses. And so, you know, work my way through various channels to get my first little entry device job and then just took it from there.

Well, most English majors go into education, don't they? Isn't that the The desire.

Yeah.

Yeah. My father ran an English department for 45 years. Oh, I see.

Yeah.

So that kind of rubbed off on me with the reading and the writing, but I didn't necessarily do well in math. And so I figured business, maybe not so much. Sales though, I really enjoyed. you know, interacting with people, having high-level conversations. And so just seemed like a natural fit.

And I got to imagine that first year was hard.

Yeah. So my first opportunity in college, I was actually given an offer to sell life insurance. And candidly, yeah, fun stuff. Candidly, I reviewed the information, tried to take the test, didn't, didn't pass multiple times. And I think part of it was I really did not enjoy the material that I was reading. So that told me something. But I had worked all throughout college bartending and waiting tables. So kind of took my tail between my legs and came back home, lived at home with my parents. thankful, you know, I have a good, really good relationship with my parents. But I bartended and waited tables 6 days a week for a year and a half, made great money, developed really good interpersonal communication skills there. But I got to the point where I was kind of thinking I need to get my act together here.

Yeah.

And essentially anyone that I connected with, I had a resume on me and I would just give it out talking to people. And ironically enough, a young gentleman who ran the delivery service for this little x-ray supplier sat down at the bar, we started talking and he said, hey, my boss is actually looking to hire his first salesperson and had a resume on me and gave it to him and Went from there.

And why startups for you?

What's that?

Why startups though? I gotta imagine startups in med device, pretty hard.

Yeah, I think, you know, the cool thing about startups is especially when you get in early, you gotta figure it out. There's no playbook and that appeals to me. Trying to figure stuff out and listening to the clinicians. They basically can tell you how to position and market the product better than a lot of times than the actual company itself, right? And so I feel that that's a really unique aspect with med device startups and the ones that I've had the privilege to be associated with, candidly, All of their products have become standard of care. You know, I, I'm not really good at a lot of things. I'm good at picking 2 things: wives. I'm still on my first one, Kim, who I'm happily married, you know, 22 years because I'm always wrong. And companies, the med device companies. And so even though it's hard, even though it's challenging building something from nothing, I think it's that much more gratifying Yeah. When you're watching your product truly change the way care is being provided and you actually had something to do with that, not only with a patient, not only within a hospital, but then within an entire health system. That's a big rush, you know, to know that you have that impact.

How about the learning curve though? You didn't, you weren't a biology major. You didn't work in a lab, but you're selling to the smartest people, most educated people, people whose time is most valuable and who probably talking to a salesperson isn't top of the list. You're not paying and you're taking their time.

Yeah, good point. It's a It's an interesting dynamic, I think. And I— you're right, because I didn't do well in biology at all. So how the heck do you do it? I think, again, it's going in and being able to have conversations that, hey, can you tell me how you think this could make a difference as it relates to the way you handle your patient? You know, look, you're the You're the doctor, you know. I'm a dummy here. Could you teach me? Could you tell me how you think? This is what I'm hearing, but can you confirm that? Or where else do you think this could be applied? And I, you know, physicians, nurses—they're naturally curious in nature, and they like to be consulted, you know, and they like to be thought partners. And so listening to them and getting their feedback, basically then they— what do they do? They start selling themselves as to where they could see this being a fit. You know, I can actually say, you know, now that I think about it, this would work well here for this patient. Huh. Yeah, that's a great point. Well, what do you think? Would you like to try it? You tell me. And then they're kind of selling you on it. I think it all comes down to Listening and asking them, you know, versus telling. That's what it comes down to.

Because most people tell; they're trying to show how amazing the device is. Yeah, for sure. Go ahead. Sorry. And there, I can't imagine doing that to a doctor, and the doctor rolls their eyes and they go, "I've been doing this a long time. I know what I'm doing. Who are you?" Getting defensive instead of open. I like how you're asking their advice.

Yeah, I think, well, first of all, I really meant that. They, ironically enough, clinicians are the best salespeople for your product, especially if you're asking them, right? They will tell you how you can position the device and how it most importantly can impact patient care. So To be fair, I was mostly telling early on, right? And while I was fortunate to have some success, not nearly, you know, the type of success that I've been fortunate to have later on. And I think it was a result of just like you said, telling versus asking, you know. And you just learn by experience getting your tail kicked in after years and then like, oh, wait a minute, it's not all about me.

Tell me about you, you know, duh.

So sales one, some people never get that.

Most, a lot of people feel uncomfortable not talking about themselves. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I, again, I think it's just based on experience that the more The longer I go, the more I listen. Well, you know, I'm more comfortable in my skin. I know what I, I know what I am and I know what I'm not. And I firmly believe that your customer, whether it's a doctor or a nurse or anyone, they can tell you more about your product. Many times than you can. It's just asking questions.

And is the hardest part getting that appointment, getting their time, getting their attention?

Yeah, I remember cold calling for me initially was the hardest part of my job. I remember at that little X-ray distributor, it was called Alpha X-ray. You know, my boss, the owner said, he gave me a crate of pamphlets and said, well, here are your products, go figure it out. And by the way, you have no existing accounts. So I had to learn how to develop a territory, market to a territory, and it was banging on doors, little medical offices. And I'll tell you, there were some times where I was sitting in my little Honda Civic and I was I was crying. I was like, this sucks.

Like, you were dropping in.

Yeah. You know, and you're, you're cold calling in front of an office where there's 15 patients waiting that are ticked off because they're, you know, behind schedule. And there you are talking to the office person. And so, you know, that's humbling. And then again, as you go through that experience, then you start to gain, you know, some little wins here and there. I don't want to say it becomes a game, but you almost start to thrive on that. And then how can I look at Brian and within 10 seconds change the way he is or she is looking at me? You know, that's a cool challenge. And so ironically, over the years, the cold calling has become my My favorite part of sales for me. And it has come, it's easier now than it was then.

Because you turn it into a game, a challenge, a—

Yeah, I think it's just, you know, again, how do you feel comfortable, right? So I'm very comfortable making fun of myself. I've got a lot of material to work with. That helps. But now you see someone you're walking up to and they're really, you know, they just got a scowl on their face and then they say, can I help you? And I just look at them and say, well, how much time do you have? You know, I got issues. Like, you know, and I, you know, I look at the watch and then just like that though, how can you break the ice? Yeah, I appreciate watching someone it's self-centered a little because I just made you laugh. That just made me feel good. And I think you legitimately laughed at that, right? So yeah, and that's fun. Like, that gives me— that makes me feel good that I just made you feel good right there, right? So it's a little bit of a philosophy that I have. It's called give, give, get, right? So give twice before you try and get something. And, you know, I've tried to maintain that philosophy and I believe that it's helped.

Well, it's the law of reciprocation and everyone tends to have it backwards. They're more than happy to give once they've received.

Right.

But it doesn't work that way.

No, it doesn't, especially when you're cold calling. Yeah. So, and I think, you know, it's just when you mentioned on the cold calling, it's just fun to be able to Walk into an environment where you're not supposed to be there. You know, you're walking into an ICU, or you're walking into an ED, and you know you've got this trauma victim over here on a stretcher yelling and screaming, and you've got this, and you got to walk right up to Brian and just be able to say, "Hey, my name is da da da. I'm going through this. I'm going through that." How do you break the ice in that thirty seconds to a minute? And I, that's a fun challenge, you know.

Yeah, it's tough. Now the bartending, I'm sure that must have helped.

No doubt. Yeah, good point. The, I will tell you that anyone that wants to get into sales, I don't care what type of sales, I think working in the restaurant industry is a phenomenal way to cut your teeth, right? So You know, bartending, waiting. At the end of the day, you got to get people on your team, right? And you're going to be dealing with people that are really needy and a lot of times want to drink because they're angry, something hasn't gone right. And you know, how do you, how do you win someone over? And dealing with a lot of challenging situations, customer-related. I think absolutely helped me as a foundation to be able to go into sales.

And what kept you in med device? Was it just home or was there something you developed a passion for medicine? Did the challenge or?

Yeah, I do appreciate the fact that we're dealing with Like you said, highly intelligent people. I, I work a lot with neurosurgeons, and I often say the only difference between God and a neurosurgeon is God is not a neurosurgeon, right? And so do I enjoy the anatomy? Not particularly. I enjoy being able to impact patient care. As a result of the neurosurgeon, you know, listening to me. What I find really cool is, holy cow, this brain surgeon, she or he, is actually listening to me during this procedure, and in some small way, I'm guiding them, you know, as it relates to how they're utilizing the device. That I find really cool. That's the thing that gets me going. The other thing is, if you're literally in the case, when do you pick the time to actually have some type of conversation? Because if it's brain surgery, there's a lot of tense moments, right? So being able to pick and choose, feeling the, you know, the reading the room, right? And when to be able to talk or not, that gets me going and that gets me excited. And I think that's why it's med device for me, sales. And fortunately, back to the companies, I've just been very fortunate to pick the right companies, the right technologies and They fundamentally are making a difference in care for patients that there is no standard of care other than just status quo. And I think that's been a big reason why I've stayed in med device.

Well, picking the right company is critical because I got to imagine like any category, there's typically 3, It always gets boiled down to like 3 companies in each category. And if you're going after startups, it probably starts at 15, right? How do you decide which of the 15 is gonna be the one that's gonna grab your attention and it's gonna go somewhere?

Yeah, no, I appreciate that question. I, we, so I'll answer it long-winded. We have a, at my current company, we have very laborious interviewing process, and it's based on what I have done to make sure that I'm picking the right company. Not only that they're right for me, but I'm right for them, right? If it's successful, it's a marriage. So how do you do that? How do you pick the right company? And in our interviewing process, we have the candidates literally go out and cold call into respective hospitals And find out about Cerebell, which is our product. You know, find out about the company. And we have a rapid EEG system, but find out about the market. Find out if what we're saying is legitimate because I'm a salesperson. So I wouldn't necessarily take my word for it. You know, even though what I'm telling you is factual, find out for yourself. You know, do your own due diligence. And so find out about the market potential. Talk to your end users. Find out if there's really a clinical need, and then if someone's utilizing the product, find out how they feel about it. That way you can make the best informed decision for you and your family. And so I've taken that approach with all these respective companies that I've picked, and it's allowed me, as a result of doing a ton of due diligence, talking to the end users. what their thoughts are on the market. It's allowed me, and again, knock wood, you know, hit my head as I say that, but it's allowed me to make the right decisions, picking the right companies.

And your track record is very impressive. How do you keep that consistency? Because most sales reps, if they're at a good company or good territory, they do well. But then there's usually a lump or a hole And then they're looking for something that's very similar. Yeah. Yours has been very consistent.

Well, I appreciate that. I'm planning on stopping after this one, Brian, so I don't—

Your track record's clean.

Yeah, try to. But, you know, and the jury's still out here. Who knows? It could go sideways. But, you know, I just, I'm fortunate to pick the right companies that allows me to be passionate, right? That's number one. Number two, I'm not a workaholic, but I am a good worker. You know, I think, and especially as I get older and my skill sets have developed a little bit more, I'm more comfortable in my skin. I feel like if I don't work hard or harder than I did in my last company, I'm Shame on me because I've got more to be able to leverage in the field every day. And I think the other thing is I have high expectations that now, to your point, the track record, anything less than what I've done for me is a loss. You know, it's failing. So Uh, try and hold myself to a high standard, which, um, but requires a lot.

Everyone kind of says that, but you did it. Very big difference. But to have repeated consistency year after year, because the company works against you, the comp plan works against you, right? They up the quota, they reduce the territory. And it's harder to be successful. How have you, what skills, what techniques, what talents have you worked on that kind of keep you going?

Yeah. Well, I am, I'm a kind of a collective effort. So to be clear, I have been very fortunate at every company that I've been at to have really special mentors and leaders. So I mean that sincerely. I've just been very fortunate to have people that have inspired me to help me do well. And I've been lucky in that respect. So I think that helps every time you transition to another company. You have someone that's better than you, multiple people that are better than you. I try and I always try at every company I go to. Who's the top person? Who are the top people in the organization? I'm the least sharpest tool in the shed. I need to go and latch on to these people. I need to invest and try and show value also to these people so they'll want to invest in me. So that's something that I do, Brian. I always try and gravitate to who are the top people. in the organization that I can learn from. And I'm always the— I'm always in the training class. I'm always the worst in the training class because it just takes me longer to learn. But after the training class, that's when the rubber kind of meets the road. And then what do you do after that? And so I think that's where I do well, not in that initial training. Because I'm fairly dense. But after that training, which is who am I gonna lean into and really learn from so I can take best practices? I think that's been a big reason why I've been fortunate to continue to have some success continually.

So you haven't rested on your laurels and you haven't been the person since you had success at one company, Sometimes it transfers, sometimes it doesn't because there's a different problem set. I think the modeling of the best people is good. But what makes a great med device salesperson? Because now you're in leadership and you've got to go pick them.

Yeah, man. So we actually have my team and I Because we have such a unique product culture and company where we're at now, it really requires a certain personality type coupled with a certain skill set. And we've actually, we had a workshop on it and we literally developed a hiring playbook for that, really encapsulating what are the top attributes and You know, the first thing I think for a top salesperson, they got to be a grinder. You know, you got to be in the field every day and in device. You know, it's the big thing. You got to be, you got to have a personality, but you have to have humble confidence and transparency. So at our company, we look for people that, yes, they carry a presence, But they know themselves well enough to say, I don't know this. You, you know this. I want to learn from you. So we're looking for that, you know, humble confidence, transparency, and people that are just willing to unequivocally put blinders on and just say, I'm all in. You know, I'm all in every day, and we don't ask people more of people more than you know than we would ask of ourselves. I think those are the top things that we look for in our people, you know, that we bring over here.

And what have you done to prevent burnout? Because working at this level of intensity for a long period of time, and you've had. long runs at companies. A lot of people do 2, 3 years. You've been very consistent through it. And it's easy to get burnt out in such a high resistance sales world.

Yeah. You know, it's a good question.

Does it go back to bartending? Yeah, right.

No, no. I mean, it's a fair question. It's What do you do here? We're very sensitive to. We hire adults here, right? So we don't we don't hire. We're not babysitters. So we're not micromanagers. We're hiring people that are high performers, where we're we're leading by example and we're coaching, and that way people have a level of autonomy. That allows them to feel that they're not being under, you know, under a thumb. And I think that a byproduct of that is lack of burnout, allowing someone to feel like, hey, this is my franchise, this is my gig. I've got someone alongside me here that's gonna guide me, coach me. But, you know, this is my business, if you will. And I think that's important, especially when you're in a super high growth startup like ours, to allow people to feel like they can fail and make decisions on their own, but also know you're walking right alongside them. So I think that's one thing. I think the second thing is when people need time, man, give them time. You know, like for me, when I'm off, I'm off. Like I don't bring my phone upstairs.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, and we're a West Coast company. I leave it there. You know, my boss who's my CEO, she's exceptional like that. You gotta be cognizant of people's personal lives. I don't, I personally never send an email. I work on weekends, but I keep my emails in drafts so I don't send them on the weekend. They might go out at 4:30 in the morning on Monday, but Yeah, I wait, you know, I think that's an important thing. That's how we, you know, we're knock wood, we haven't seen high turnover of the people that are the people we want to stay here. Yeah.

Cool. Hey, I really enjoyed this conversation, Chris. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

On LinkedIn.

That's a good place to find you.

Yeah, that's great. You know, LinkedIn's fine.

What do most sales reps do? Instead of really becoming a student of the game, they look for tips and tricks, and they move from this thing to that thing. They read one book, I'll try this, instead of coming up with a system to become better. Because I'm sure you hear this podcast, you hear these other reps, and you go, well, I wish I could do that, or that's not me. I'm just not this or that. I get it. But how do you become better? You gotta find out what's the best way to do it. How would somebody else do it? Practice it, become better every day. Ask for distinctions, hear how other people are doing it, reverse engineer it, get deep into sales. Because If you chose this profession, the way it becomes fun is directly proportionate to how much success you're having. And if you're stuck or you're not getting to the place you want to be, you got to put a little practice in. The problem with sales is, well, how do you practice? Where's the dojo? Where's the gym? Where's the fitness club for sales? It's at b2brevenue.com. How about if you could listen to tons of office hours, hearing people's questions and answers as a way of getting you to think differently, to see how the complex sale is done, how other people are doing it, what the traps are, how to prevent them, how to keep that deal moving. These are skills And the problem is we need to have them before we need them. If we have them after we need them, it's nice, but we lost the deal. Or the deal's stuck, or it slipped, or it's going away. I want to help you with that. Closing the Complex Sale is basically my research into more years than I can count of the complex sale. Doing it live, working with the most complex of sales, similar to what you heard today. But imagine selling it into a large enterprise or whatever you're trying to sell, because to make the money you want to make, to have the success you want to have, you have to stand out. You have to be able to develop these advanced skills. And everyone thinks that sales is just the talking part, the magic words. That's really, in the complex sale, a smaller part of it. It's much more about how they buy. How do you keep the deal moving? How do you break it into tinier pieces that are manageable? How do you avoid that big gap between the time you send in a proposal and they either close or don't close? And research, about 80% don't close. How do you get that to inverse where 80% does close? You can't win them all. I get that. But if you could 4x your close rate, that would do quite a bit for your lifestyle, wouldn't it? For all those things that you want out of life for you and your family and the people you care about. Would it be worth spending some time and money? If it isn't, that's okay, but admit it to yourself. Don't lie. Everyone rationalizes. Everyone contacts me telling me why they don't need the course, and then I ask them, well, how much are you making? They won't tell me, or they they give me the runaround. I love salespeople who can't answer a question. We are professional. Question answerers. If you can't answer a question, and saying I don't know is a good answer, but when you do know but you just won't want to answer it because it requires thinking, not good. Frustrates people. So look at your life and where you want to go with your career, and you can put it off, but the thing is, time goes on no matter whether you do it or not. The question is, do you want the result or not? A year from now is going to go by with the snap of the finger. You could 4x your income, or you could sit around and rationalize how good you are making less than $100K or half of what you want to make or a tenth of what you want to make. You're doing the work. Why not get paid for it? Instead of Worrying about your ego, worry about your income. Because ego and rationalizations, we think they're our friend because they make us feel comfortable, but they're keeping us from the life that we really want. You don't want to be comfortable and poor. You want to be a little uncomfortable and rich, don't you? It's up to you. It's your life. I just want to help you get that. And you've picked the right career because I can't imagine another career that doesn't require enormous amounts of free work. Education's free work, right? You go to grad school and medical school, law school, whatever it is, that's free work until you get paid. And if you look at what lawyers, they don't make What salespeople make. Some do, yeah, on the very top end, but most don't. Doctors, eh, I mean, you don't start making money until your late 20s, and then it's a grind. I know doctors, and, uh, you know, it's, it's a different life. But that's not an option for most of us anyway. The main option is Sales, or give up and be a corporate drone, or try and start your own company, which I'll tell you firsthand, it's pretty hard, and there's a lot of free work there. Business-to-business sales, it's the last bastion of capitalism. Why not be good at it? You spent, what, 4 years and way too much money on college? What'd that get you? Yeah, yeah, you can try and buy books, but the books aren't written by somebody who sold. They're written by somebody who's marketing something. What you want is somebody who's been there, done that, and helped a lot of people. It's up to you. Go to b2brevenue.com, sign up today, check out the other podcasts, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers. We'll see you next time. If you see my content fly by, I'd appreciate a little like, a little comment, a little share. Don't send me an email of why you can't do it. Don't care. It's okay. Go away. Just help out a little bit. Tell a friend then. Can you do that? Help a brother out? See you next time.