THE SECRETS TO GETTING THE TECHNICAL SALE IN ENTERPRISE B2B SALES

We've all heard of the 80/20 rule, Pareto's principle, and it's good sales math. And it— I'm sure you're familiar with it. 20% of your clients will generate 80% of your revenue. 20% of your time will generate 80% of the results. And it's a good rule. It is found in nature. It repeats itself, and we all know it. But do we apply it? Do we really look at an action, an activity, a meeting, and ask, is this one of the 20 that generates the 80, or is this one of the 80 that generates nothing? And in sales, that's the, the choice. Now, I like The 80/20 rule. But what I like better is Price's Law, which is even more focused. Price's Law takes— let me think if I remember— half of the results are generated by the square root of the number of actions or the amount of time. I'll give you an example. If you take the square root of the number of hours you work in a year— let's take 2,000 just as a nice round number— 50 weeks times 40 hours equals 2,000 hours. The square root of that is about 45, if my math is okay. That means 45 hours in a year will generate half of Your results, your revenue. Now, people misinterpret this thinking, well, all I need to do now is find the other 45 hours. It doesn't work that way. The point of it is, much like Pareto's principle, is that a highly focused person focused on the things that will get you the results will be insanely effective. And guess what the opposite of this is? The opposite is treating every hour, every meeting, every prospect as equal. Making the 50 calls, the 100 emails. And then, of course, the wise manager will say, well, how do you know which ones are which? True. Good question. Judgment. Judgment will tell you. If you have good judgment, you'll know. If you have bad judgment, you'll think you know, but you'll be wrong. So this is why judgment is so critical to learn in sales. Why am I telling you all this? Because you may not know, have the judgment of what will be a Price's Law action hour or meeting, but you certainly know what Won't be. What won't be is wasting time. What won't be is scrolling the internet. What won't be is water cooler talk and complaining and blaming and not taking responsibility. Oh no, here he goes again. So it's up to you. I don't make this stuff up. This is The laws of nature. This is where math can apply to the chaos of sales. This is where math and sales have a union, have a connection. It isn't the bullshit spreadsheet that everybody sends out about the number of activities. Know your numbers. They're wrong. Those are the wrong numbers. Your conversion rates, your win rates. Those are all made-up numbers. Those are all made up in your little head. Pipeline. Anyone can make a pipeline. It's an administrative process. It's not a sales process. Real pipeline is a sales process. CRM pipeline is an administrative process. What we want to do in sales Is leverage. And what is most likely going to be the leverage of your time? Practicing, getting better, finding little distinctions. And I looked at what were the Price's Law hours for me last year. All of them were about connecting with a new prospect, a new client, coming up with Epiphanies or new ways of looking at sales so that my point was communicated. Those were the things that really took me and my business far beyond just the labor. It wasn't the grinding. You know, it might have been some of the side effects of the grinding, and I grind. You know, I, I didn't work 2,000 hours. I worked Closer to 3,500, maybe, maybe close to 4,000. I hate to say I like working, so it's not like a grind, but you would think that it wouldn't take much time, but it does. And maybe if I sat down and I focused and looked just for those epiphanies, just for those right people to connect— oh. Where's he going with this? That focus is critical. Sales is a focus game. If I can convince you of anything that will change your life in sales, it is that. If you can make it a focus game versus a busy game, the busy gets you a good feeling, but it doesn't get you revenue. Sitting down and thinking and prioritizing, And this more than anything in my courses has popped up over and over again. People naturally migrate to busy because it feels like success. And there can be some good side effects of it. I'm not saying it's a total waste of time. What I'm saying is what's more effective is the focus. Focus is harder. Focus makes you eliminate things. Makes you compare things, makes you think. But those are all good things to do. They may hurt a little at first, but they pay off big. And you know what pays off the biggest in sales is practice, is reps, is taking feedback. And how do you do that in a positive, reinforced way on your own where you don't Need someone else. This is where brevity pitch comes in. The ability to sit down and do realistic human verbal meetings, conversations, all kinds, not just cold calling, not just the simple surface objection handling, real deep conversation. And this is capable Today. And once you start working with it, and you have to, you know, there's a little change. You have to, you know, start it, get used to it, like everything. And most salespeople will fight it at first, but that's okay. Just try it. And I didn't fight it at first. It feels a little awkward, but then you get into it. And all of a sudden, your skills become much better. You go, oh yeah, I didn't pick up on that at first. I didn't have the excitement that I should. I didn't have the engagement that I should. I didn't have that control over the call that I wanted. And it allows you to play, you know, to have that kind of recess, like that childhood Playing with your skill to see how it works and to have fun with it. Don't fight it. Have fun with it and make money. Because when you look at what will be one of those precious 45 hours, it'll be developing that skill, having those epiphanies. Because I know you're thinking, oh, I've been doing this for n number of years. Don't, don't rely on that, because if you've been doing it n number of years and you're not doing something new, taking one skill and doing it over and over again until it really is second nature to you, and you might—

It already is.

Really? You're gonna play that game? Look at your paycheck. And here's the thing with sales. We have to build the skill up long before it's needed. Because when we need it, it has to be innate. It has to be muscle memory. It can't be that conscious thought, we don't have time. Because at that point, you're going to go with your instincts. You're not gonna go with analytical thought. And to have that instinct be polished, you have to do it over and over again in certain types of situations. You can't just rely on the number of years. That's a cop-out. That's a lie that only you believe. And don't buy into it. Check it out at brevitypitch.com. Here we go. Hey, Mark, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

We're very happy to be here, Brian. Um, I've been in sales and pre-sales longer than I'd like to admit, over 20 years. I began my career at some well-known companies. I was a developer and a project manager at Deloitte and KPMG. And good times, exciting times. But after a little bit of burnout, I essentially, I essentially was working, you know, marathon weeks. We'd have a half day off on the weekend. So I get to get on the train and do 6 hours of laundry.

Yeah.

Turn around. And a savvy recruiter, I wish I had the guy's name. If I did, I'd send him a fruit basket every year. He helped me pivot and educate me on what is a sales engineer. So I did that career pivot around 1999. And I learned a lot because I joined a small startup called Segway Software, which is no longer an individual entity. They were sold to Borland, which was then turned around and sold to Micro Focus and then HP. So I don't know where they are today. But I got the unique experience of selling during the dot-com boom and the dot-com bust. And I learned very early how to pivot. We were selling, you know, appointments, multiple appointments a week running around Manhattan to startups selling load testing software to make sure that their websites ran and their applications hummed. Well, then the boom happened, the boom happened, then the bust.

Yeah.

And when the bust happened, I'm at a trade show and I meet a gentleman who runs a VC. I said, let me ask you a question. He says, what do you do? And of course, discovery. I said, before I tell you that, let me ask you a question. What do you do, sir? Oh, I'm a VC. I buy portfolio companies. I stuff them in my portfolio, hold them for 5 years. I got it. So you give a company $5, $10, $20 million and you tell them to spend it without a whole lot of governance. So marketing and tchotchkes and the bouncy balls and the light-up toys. Yeah. And the people you're talking to are kids with funny haircuts and lots of piercings, but they're smart. Yeah. And maybe they buy a Super Bowl ad, but $1 million for 30 seconds. Well, if they buy a Super Bowl ad, and this has happened, and I had case studies in my mind, if they buy an ad and they spend— 2-minute ad, maybe $4 million. What if they haven't tested that website? They've now spent $4 million to make the public crash their website and hurt their brand. Yep. That's a good thing. Wouldn't it be a good idea to test the website first? So, you know, that environment and that economic shift taught me how to pivot during a sales call. When meeting a new prospect, applying new use cases, learned a lot early on. But to jump forward, after Segway, just a whole laundry list of companies, big and small, in the governance, risk, and compliance space where I worked both in pre-sales and also carrying a bag in sales. I actually worked for a company called Recall for a few years. They compete with Iron Mountain and eventually were bought by Iron Mountain. And that was exciting because back then it was a commodity sale. You're selling storage of tapes.

Yeah.

Price per square foot or price per tape. Um, we were also competing against a company that had an underground facility. So we learned when the other company is influencing the deal, When you should cut bait early, learned a lot of neat things. But to wrap it up, after several years as an SE and SE leader and sales leader, you know, I've got most of the awards you're supposed to get. You know, there's a revenue award, there's process innovation, there's product innovation. But it's been a fun ride because because of that recognition, it's given me opportunities to influence the sales process. It's given me opportunities. To lead a sales enablement team, to lead a go-to-market strategy team. So it's really been a fun ride and I'm really, really happy to be here today.

And why didn't you either hop into sales or head back to development? What kept you in this space?

I turned from, long story short, I turned from development and project management To sales engineering, to sales, and then back to sales engineering. Yeah, I felt at the time that I had a passion for helping people and solving problems, but to me, the freedom of an SE with the diverse challenges, um, I guess what scared me, Brian, was going to the sales kickoff and watching my best—

Oh, the truth.

watching my reps get their butts kicked in front of me over the forecast. So I'm like, do I want to do that? So yes, I'll still help people, but then I'll be in the spotlight and under the whip. And I felt that, you know, I wanted a breakaway session for my team. I don't need to see my teammate get beat up. Yeah, I decided I didn't.

That's it. I mean, people see the good side of the dark side, but they don't see the bad side.

Right, right.

And I got to imagine you probably like to be treated like a human being as well as opposed to—

Yeah, you can be treated or mistreated in either role, but I've seen some pretty tough deal reviews.

But, you know, the great thing about being in pre-sales is you're valued very highly in the company because the reps compete for you.

Yes, yes. And once the reps start competing for you, you are very special. Yeah. If, you know, if, if you've got 3 enterprise reps and they all want you and you're not available, yes, you become very special very quickly. Yeah.

And why did you like working with clients? What got— what did you get out of that?

If I reflect kind of like on who I am inherently, I come from a long line of teachers. My mom, my grandma, and others were teachers. And in pre-sales, we have a saying: if you teach them how to use the product, you failed. We're not teaching them. It's not a class, right? But that passion for helping people solve difficult problems or even learning what is the real problem they're trying to solve?

Yeah.

Is something I enjoy. By the time I went to college, I started with music but then transitioned to psychology. And so the psychology of why people make decisions, what scares them, what motivates them, that I found was very, very interesting to me. And so I'm a big fan of some of the thought leaders like, you know, Simon Sinek and others that prove We think we're logical creatures, but when it comes to a big decision, we go with our gut or our feeling and then we manipulate or use data to justify what we think feels right.

Yeah. And are you often surprised that people overlook that when we're selling like logical stuff like technology? We're like, why aren't they getting it? Why don't they get it?

Right, right. I've given them all the numbers, darn it. When you, when you have that argument, you really need to go watch the Golden Circle for like, you know, Simon Sinek's Golden Circle for like the 10th time and listen and really listen. And then you need to change both your message and your approach not to scare them. One of my favorite things that I do on my own is I swear that every deck. I hate decks, but they start out with about the company. Big mistake. Then they go in, then they go into the problems that you have, then they go into the solution. What's the last thing on the deck? Questions. A slide with a question mark. Do you have any questions? Well, from a psychological perspective, don't ever end with questions. Okay? If you end with questions, all they're gonna remember are the doubts they have in their head. Even if you gave them a great answer. So, um, you do the questions absolutely in the middle or near the end. And then, like a lawyer, you do your summation. Okay, we've talked about these wonderful benefits and the ROI for customers like you, and your rollout date is April 15th, and this is what bad things will happen if that date is missed. To meet that date, here's the steps we need. And you wrap it up and you find agreement and you end on that high note. That's, that's generally the idea.

Yeah. And how do you like to work, let's say, a, a presentation demo with a rep? Let's say you fly in, it's on-site. What's your style? Do you let the rep Do what he wants and just sit there and answer questions? You, if he says, why don't you take this one and show them the demo, call me in if they have any questions.

I'm really glad you asked that question because I've worked with a number of VCs that had very draconian policies, everything from expenses to how you present. Some of the things I still do because they worked. Some of them were ludicrous. You know, I once got dinged because I didn't use a flip chart. Well, it didn't call for a flip chart, so don't ding me internally if I didn't use a flip chart. Here's what did work. One of the techniques, and interesting story. Oftentimes you're holding a pen, you're gesturing, or there's a pen near you. And rather than interrupting each other, if the question is ambiguous right down the middle, and we don't know whose side of the fence it falls on, you either pick up your pen or you drop your pen. And that signals to your partner, I would like to take this question. Unfortunately, one time I was in a key account meeting. We unloaded the bus, you know, the biggest deal the company was going to do. The CEO was there, the CFO, the CT, all the C people were there. And I was there, senior salespeople. And a really meaty question came along, and I kid you not, 6 people dropped their pen at the same time. And the customer looked around the room like, what on earth just happened?

Well, I used to have that signal too, but more when my Se was talking too much. Yeah, he was from New York, and he would just go and go and go. And he goes, well, give me a signal when I go too much or too fast. And I just touch my ear. Which meant slow down and let me take it for a second.

Okay. So my question to you is, which ear today is longer than the other?

Well, and I think it's important to have those signals.

Yeah. Yeah.

Especially when, you know, it's one thing if you work with the same person every day for 3 years. You get your mojo going. But if you fly in, you haven't worked with the rep before, you have different styles.

Yes.

It's good to kind of get that mojo.

Yeah. I personally, you know, I subscribe to— and I don't know who said it first. I've heard it on a plumbing website where they, they talk about customer success. They say the old adage that early is on time, on time is late, late is unacceptable. I've heard that over and over. And it's drilled into me. So when I fly in, I'm probably at the customer's door an hour early. There's gonna be traffic, trains are not gonna show up on time, whatever it is. If it is a bet the business type of an enterprise deal, I've booked that conference room an hour to 90 minutes early to check out every technology, every back in the projector days when nothing plugged in, right? Yeah, absolutely. So there's— I always make that time, especially with an unfamiliar rep, if not a dry run the day before. If that doesn't happen and it's a busy week, uh, coffee and, you know, talk through the roles, who does what, you know. Can't— you can't trip.

And I'm sure you've worked with great reps, okay reps, and not so okay reps. What made the great reps great in your mind, in your experience?

Top one, I'm sure you'd agree, is an innate curiosity for the customer, for how things work. Then I always say that most problems in life and business can be solved with effective communication. So I'm going to, under communication, I'm going to talk about the active listening that everyone always talks about, understanding the psychology. I had a great mentor one time who rejected a candidate that I wanted to approve on our team. And I said, well, why? He was technically brilliant. He was personable. His presentation was buttoned up. What did I miss? And he says, well, when I asked him a few questions, and I don't know if you picked up on it, and in hindsight, I did not. Not. When I asked him a question that required a brief answer, he gave me a long answer. When I asked a question that required a long answer, he gave me a brief answer. And there's an art to it, and you really need to understand that art and peeling back the layers when it's appropriate. So, so he didn't, he didn't get through. And one of my other mentors always said, in terms of going a layer deeper, because you can't workflow discovery I mean, you can only go so far. That being said, he said, as long as you're always thinking— and I'm using my quote fingers now— the question behind the question.

Yes.

So you get asked the question, you think, who is the stakeholder asking that? What does he truly mean? Is there a reason I might need to clarify it? And if you always have that tune playing on recording on repeat in your head, you're probably going to be pretty effective in the sales calls and in the discovery.

Well, getting the question behind the question, because nobody asks the real question, right? Like, how long has your company been in business? They don't care how long your company's been in business. They care about, are you going out of business, right? That's what they care about.

And it's ironic you said that because back to that corporate intro that no one wants to see, okay, there's, there's, it's a trap. And don't get caught in that trap because first, you're not building any empathy out of the gate. And second, there's almost no right answer about your company that's not going to alienate someone. Here's an example. We're a startup, and because we're a startup, you don't have a long queue for customer success. You can talk to the VP and then the CEO any day of the week. Wonderful. You'll be out of business in 6 months.

Yeah, right.

You just scared them. We are a global company with 50,000 employees in 100 offices worldwide and thousands of customers. Great. My $2 million deal, I'll be like a bronze account that can't get anybody on the phone. So there's really no value there.

And how I gotta believe, and I noticed when I was both a pre-sales and a salesperson, that the sales, the pre-sales people had a very good judgment on whether the deal would close. Yeah, sometimes better than the salesperson.

It happens. Yeah.

Because they could sense whether the technical people really needed it or not.

Yeah. They're also in the seat, the hot seat, whether it's 1 hour or 6 hours with the audience looking right at them. And they can see all the nonverbal. One of my coworkers, not a mentor, but someone I felt was an unofficial mentor, would tell this tired old joke at the beginning of every demo. His name was Art, and he was a great guy. Everyone loved Art. And Art would say— people would say, well, you know, hey, my name is Mark Winey, and I've got this many years experience, and the reason I'm a subject matter expert is XYZ, and they'd go on for like a minute. Okay, it's a lot of time. He would say, my name is Art, and a little bit about me, my favorite color is blue, and I like long walks on the beach. That was it. That was it. Now you're laughing now. And I said to him, after observing like his 4th, 5th demo, why do you tell the same tired old joke? And he says, first of all, it's new to every new client. Okay. But there's a reason behind my madness. He says, the reason I tell a dad joke is slipping it in there at the beginning. I'm looking for teeth. I said, teeth? What do you mean? He says, how broadly are they smiling? If they're really broadly smiling and showing teeth, I know I can leverage humor in my demo. If I'm getting a confused, bored, or stern look, it will be buttoned up.

Mm-hmm.

For the rest of the afternoon.

Smart.

I said, what a great way to quietly read your audience from out of the gate.

And did you do proof of concepts as well? Was that a big part of your role?

Yes, we did. And at times, some companies Our win rates would go up with the POC and others, they would go down and you had to know which system you were operating in.

Well, what type of product would it go down and why? You don't need to name the company or anything.

Well, I sold a lot of enterprise software and oftentimes it would go down for one of two reasons. Either A, they wanted to go very, very deep into a use case, and we were either unwilling or unable to fully configure it. Yeah. Um, or B, going deep would just expose all the warts and hidden landmines and things that were inherently buggy in the product. Why can't I do it this way? Why does it have to be 12 clicks instead of 2? So those are you know, the 2 reasons, a product-based reason or an expectation-based reason. So we control what we can control.

Yeah.

And what we would try to do is, you know, think back to the early days of software. SAP would sell multimillion-dollar deals on— I never worked there, but I've watched them sell multimillion-dollar deals on screenshots, PowerPoint screenshots, because it was too expensive to build out a POC.

Yeah.

So that being said, we would kind of leverage it, a play from that playbook, and we would say, have them sign a document. This is not user acceptance testing. This is not your production system. You will be given sample data and you will be told exactly what to put in the search box and what to search for, because if you put in the wrong thing, you'll get zero results. Because we know the sample data. Yeah. So we're going to give you specific steps to follow and your out-of-the-box— your system will not be out of the box. It'll be out of the box for 90 days, then UAT, and then we will capture the configuration requests and we'll talk about that. So by having that aha moment and level setting, we began to see some success, some more success with POCs.

That's good because, you know, today it's almost impossible to do it without a proof of concept, isn't it? In most sales, some type of trial that—

Yeah, you know, whether it's a freemium version. I mean, I'm— I haven't updated LinkedIn just yet, but I'm working with a startup coming out of stealth, and that's one of the key arguments. It's like, you know, we've got 5 whale customers out of the gate and we're doing great. Now we're gonna enter a new market or a new use case. What do we do? Well, you know, you might be giving it away for 90 days or 60 days or even 30 days for that trial.

Yeah.

And if you like it, then I'll keep the license active and you'll get an invoice. And if you don't like it, I'll turn it off. Yeah, people absolutely want to touch it because in this market, you know, inflation rates have bounced up and down and everything else is uncertain and we might have a great hurricane season and energy prices can go up, whatever that uncertainty is. Nobody wants to make a mistake, so they want as much hands-on as possible and they want as much quantifiable ROI as possible to back it up. Yeah, same industry, same use case. Um, so it's, it's a tough environment, but your point is absolutely on point.

Yeah, I mean, also from a sales standpoint, if you don't have a proof of concept, you kind of run out of things to talk about, right? You know, how many presentations, how many referral calls, how many case studies, how many executive briefings can you give before they want to see it work.

Yeah, absolutely. And the dynamic has shifted because specific to pre-sales, there's a lot more demo automation, custom self-service demos. You know who all the players are, and I'm not going to promote anyone, but there's more and more every day. So customers might have already seen a trade show level demo Yeah. Or even one of those demo tools providing them, and you know how they work, they, you fill out a questionnaire and it gives you, based on your criteria, it stitches together an 8-minute demo that feels a little bit configured. So by the time they get to you, they might be ready for a POC.

Right. Because, you know, part of it's proving that the product does what they want, but the other part is getting them comfortable with the product.

Exactly. And there's that fine line between user acceptance testing and POC. And a lot of startups, they come in with this concept that we're gonna do a whole bunch of POCs and we're gonna deliver what they want and they do all this custom work, but they realize the technology debt, painting themselves into a corner with all these very unique installations. So they finally get to a level of maturity where they're confident to push back on the customer and say, hey, we've, we've done this more than a few times, and this is the right way to do it. We're going to enforce 90 days inside the box. You need to absolutely understand where the corners are before you put in a change request. And the difference is amazing. I've personally watched the change request list go from 60 items when they wanted to do it custom versus, you know, why don't you try it for 90 days and then we'll revisit this list? 60 items suddenly becomes 10 or 8.

Right, because it kind of comes down to how do I like it? Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

How does it feel? That word feel. That's right. That's the emotion word, not the logic word.

That's what sells both from, from a passion perspective, that transfer of passion.

Yes.

As well as the UAT perspective.

And I gotta believe that personal connection that the pre-salesperson has with the person doing the proof of concept is critical.

It is. Unfortunately, so far, we, we generally aren't given the same expense accounts, uh, like liberties. No one's ever asked for my credit card. You know, like, we go out as a team and it always seems to be the sales guy that takes the check.

That's got the card.

I've, I've really been an advocate for Presales having its own budget for 2 reasons. Number one, a sales kickoff, a large portion of it does not apply to presales. Yes, we want to understand the mission, where the company is going, product innovation, and get aligned. Don't make us suffer through the whipping and beating. Oh, sorry, the deal reviews.

QBR.

Yeah, don't make us suffer through that. Let us have a breakout room or even another another city to go meet in so we can share demos and messaging and what works. Because subconsciously, over time, it changes. You react to other humans and they react to you. The second reason I'd advocate for its own budget separate from sales or pre-approved underneath sales is just getting training, just getting outside. And I know and have worked with a number of vendors, large and small, who focus on pre-sales expertise and what does a compelling demo look like. I actually did a podcast for, uh, oh, Two Pre-Sales in a Pod, and, uh, it was just— it just went through, uh, transfer and ownership, but there was a delay. But I put up my, uh, my reasons for, um, like a compelling demo on a few podcasts. Well, actually, that, that one was more about selling yourself. But then it was We the Sales Engineers, where I, I took a guy who has a podcast, who trains other SEs, and is confident about his methodology, watched his demo, and I critiqued it according to methodologies that I've used— multiple, multiple methodologies— things that I've seen that have worked and not worked over the years. And I gave him a score of like, I don't know, 6 out of 10 or something like that. And, uh, he was very coachable. But, you know, there's always reasons to grow. And if I'm pronouncing it correctly, uh, kaizen, you know, continuous improvement.

Yes.

If you want that in pre-sales, you need training. And sort of as a parting thought, um, for pre-sales training, I don't have the study on my screen in front of me, but I could send it to you. Harvard Business Review did a study quite a few years ago that said presales is not only essential to closing the deal, but it cycles the— with proper presales will cycle the deal 20% faster and actually increase the closing rate by like 12 to 15% as well. So there are measurable advantages to upskilling your presales team.

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

Yeah, I'm, I'm very easy to find on LinkedIn because my name isn't that common. It's Mark with a K. The last name is Winey. It's wine like the drink, and then you add a Y at the end. And the name is inside my URL, so come find me and I'm happy to chat.

What I liked was that little test that he did right before the the presentation to kind of see how much fun he could have with the audience. Those little tells, micro-commitments, and how he had a little pain story to justify why they needed the product. Bring the person into the situation where they would feel that pain, and then the solution.

Arises.

Now, as salespeople, we're so brainwashed about the product that we run into the commodity trap. The commodity trap is when you start talking about the product. Why is it a trap? Because once you make it about the product, it's not about the problem. And without the problem, It's just an option. If you talk about the problem, the person has to solve the problem. That's how our little brains work. The more you talk about the problem, the implications of it, the symptoms of it, the effects of it, the unintended consequences of it, that's when you get the need for the solution. A solution with no need is not a solution. It's an It's very different. And since we're so brainwashed as salespeople, we're not brainwashed as prospects. That's who we really need to be brainwashed like, because then we'd understand what they're thinking. And this is the type of stuff that I teach in the courses— Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting, and Closing the Complex Sale. I teach you to think like the prospect. Because if you think like a salesperson, you're going to hear something very different than if you think like a prospect. A prospect typically wants your product. And often we get near the end of the sales process and they love the product. They have to have it. They need it really bad. But they don't buy it. Is it because of your champion? Rarely. Almost— it's because of them in the sense that they don't know how to get it done. It's not their fault in the sense that they are not convinced that the product is fantastic, that their life would be better with it. And obviously anyone can tell if the company can afford it or not. And then we believe the BS— politics, priority, whatever. Oh, they've got a preference. Usually, it's the economic buyer views the problem very differently or doesn't even think there's a problem. And that's one of the many infinite number of things that can go wrong in the large complex sale. But if we don't close it, We don't get paid. And a lot of reps are just happy to participate. It feels good to participate. It's like success without the money. Let's get the success with the money. That's what closing the complex sale is about. And everyone feels comfortable until that last day of the quarter. And that's when we find out— that's when the real litmus test is. Is it a deal or no deal? And usually it's no deal for an infinite number of reasons that are preventable, that are surfaceable before the end of the quarter. And you can sit there and work yourself into a frenzy of comfort, but the end of the quarter has always come. And it always will. We know time's going to go on, so we can either figure this out now or learn how to live with the consequences of our work not getting compensated for. It's up to you. And the other course, Starting the Conversation: Get the Meeting— this is the lost art of connecting with a stranger. Opening up a conversation in a baby step manner, not in an enticement. Tell them how great you are and how silly you would be not to work with you. How's that working? Less and less every day. It's getting so bad that the spam isn't even deliverable anymore. I, I've noticed even on my Uh, in mail. I have to now go to my spam folder because even my good stuff is being put in my spam folder for the first time ever. You know, that used to happen like once a year. Now it's like once a day. Great stuff that I've opened before that's real is now going in the spam folder. I think that email is you know, tipping to the point where there's so much spam that it's hard to manage. If the good stuff's going in there, imagine what the okay stuff is doing. Wouldn't you like to be able to open up a conversation with people that you want to talk to? And here's the secret: they don't want to talk about you. They don't want to talk about your product. Definitely don't want to talk about your company, so you got to find something else to talk about. I teach you how to do that, and I know you think you're doing it already, but you're not. Think again. Everybody thinks they're great already. You know why? Because it's easier to think you're great than to become great. The only difference is it doesn't pay the same. You still get paid the way you are, and this is the The ego reset that we need in life, then I tell myself every day, the market tells me how good I am. If I think I'm great but the market isn't telling me that, I'm not great. I'm sorry. That's the game we're playing. The market tells us. What's the market telling you? Are you making the kind of money you want to? I'm not. I want to make more. So I know how the— I have to get better at the market. I have to get better convincing you that I know how to do this, show you how that I know how to do this, show the results that other people are getting. And I invest in this.

I—

there's office hours every week, every week for me, every other week per course. And I record all of them. I record everything. It's put back in the course. So right now there's 150 hours, individual office hours, that have been recorded and put in the course. That means you'd have to listen to 3 of them a week of the past ones. That's how much great content. Now, do you have to listen to all of them? Of course not. You listen to the ones that you're curious about, the ones that are closest to the challenge that you're facing, the ones that'll answer the questions that you have. And then listen to some more to connect with other people. And there's been people in the courses that have found jobs with each other, that have prospected with each other, that have built relationships with each other to learn from each other. And that's what it's all about. It's kind of community. And by forcing myself to come up with something every week on Office Hours has made me, I think, a pretty good coach, you know, because I've been doing this online for 6 years and another 6 years before this on-site, and before this, full-time sales rep for 30 years. So there's a lot of polish in there. And what really pushes me is the different use cases that everybody has. And that's why there's so much of it. The nuances in every industry of each persona and each salesperson and where they are in their own development. So if you really want to become great at sales, go to b2brevenue.com. Right now and sign up. We'll see you there. Thanks for listening.