THE SECRETS TO WHAT CLIENTS WANT FROM A GREAT SALESPERSON IN B2B SALES

What is the one mistake that pretty much we all do at the beginning of our sales career? Some of us get out of it pretty quick. It's sounding and acting like a salesperson. Now, why is this bad? Well, people treat you the way you behave. And why do we do this? Because we naturally feel Inauthentic being in the sales role. But how do we get authentic at it? We've got to get confident. Not too confident. Confident enough to relax, to connect with another human being, to be both trustworthy, to earn trust, and to Convey that to the other person by showing more interest in what they want to accomplish than what we want to accomplish. This is counterintuitive. What do we want to do? We want the order. We want the next step. We want progression with the deal. But is that the way to get it? So much of what goes on in sales today is self-inflicted. We ask ourselves, why does our manager want activity? Because they don't know quality? Because they assume activity equals outcome? Yeah, that's what we run into when we don't understand what we're doing. When we don't understand what we're doing, we behave like we do. We act like we do. So we assume we should act like a salesperson if we're going to sell. The easiest and fastest thing to get better results in sales is to stop doing that. Get comfortable with selling. And how do you get comfortable with anything?

Exposure.

Exposure. We do it. They call it exposure therapy. If you want to learn a foreign language, Immersion. Get into it. Move to that location. Move to that neighborhood. Live with people who only speak that language. Burn the boats. Force yourself to do that. Well, some of us don't want to force, but a little daily activity around it. Catch yourself. Listen to yourself. Hear that voice. Like right now, I got my podcast voice on because my regular voice would put you to sleep. So I put on a more exciting, interesting podcast voice. But that's for you, not for me. It's to communicate a message in the way that you want to hear it, not the way I want to say it. Conversations are very different. You'll hear my interview voice. That's very different. Now, how do we become more authentic? It really is the same way we become anything. We do it, we get a distinction, we do it again. Call it practice, call it warming up, call it whatever you want. But if we don't do it, we're cold, we're choppy, we're inauthentic. Which doesn't start off a conversation very well because in sales, it's those conversations that make the difference. They're the highest leverage point. They're the point to connect with other people. Email's nice, but, you know, we assume it's auto-generated today, that there's no authenticity, no sincerity. No human connection through email. It's that voice, the interaction. And that's why salespeople for years would go on site. The simple fact of showing up became a give, became a reason to meet with the person. A call, ah, shows effort, a whole lot more than email, but a whole lot less Than showing up. We're going to get into these details today, but what AI has been able to give us is really 2 things in sales: the ability to do even more dumb things faster, or to be able to practice those conversations, get used to those conversations, get them to feel organic and natural. We can try our different voices, but we can also try our different questions, try different approaches, get warmed up, get used to it, have it feel authentic. And this is a key distinction. And people say, well, that's great for new salespeople, but it's great for all of us.

Why?

Because sales has this dangerous component. Where we start to feel better than we are. I did a poll recently on LinkedIn and I asked people to guess what their IQ was. And of course, 90% of them was well above average. It's because salespeople, they take the confidence thing a little too far in the wrong situations and not far enough. In the right situations, because it's hard, it's painful. Sales is one of those jobs where we're outside of our comfort zone 80% of the time. It gets exhausting. So what do we do? We come up with motions and plays to take the thinking out of it, to be able to do it automatically. But if those motions and plays Have that canned, inauthentic, robotic voice with the uptones. It doesn't feel authentic. Let's get into this interview. I'll sum it up at the end. Grab your manager, go check out brevitypitch.com. I, I had one rep say to me this week, well, this is good for new reps, but you know, once you know what you're doing, I'm Okay. What do we know about sales? It's not the knowing. It's the how well you're doing. We all try and avoid that performance ingredient of sales because if we face it, then we have to own it. The thing is, if we don't face it, we still own it. We just don't recognize it. How do you change it if you don't recognize it? What ends up happening? It's the downward cycle. You do less and less, you tell yourself you're better and better, you do less and less, you become worse and worse, but you keep telling yourself you're better and better, and it's something else. The problem is it isn't. Check out brevitypitch.com. Here we go. Hey, Greg, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Well, hey there. Good morning. Yeah, so my name is Greg Peicher. I'm the global VP of sales for Aria Cybersecurity Solutions. I've been in the field of sales for quite some time. Started out as an engineer back in the day in radar and DOD applications, and found myself asked to be in sales. Said that you'd be pretty good at it. I said no way. I'm never going to do this. And here I am after about thirty. 5 years, I'm still doing it.

Yeah. What was that first year like going from engineering into sales?

So the— good question, because it was, um, it was a transition. It was— they called it marketing, field marketing. So it was a technical, uh, type of a dive. You'd sat in meetings with the technical people, the, the real propeller heads, but then you started talking about the commercial aspects. So it was a, a nice transition. It wasn't just You know, bang, you're out there just trying to hit numbers right away.

Yeah. And did you like it at first?

Yeah, it was great. So I was educated as an engineer and really dove into the technologies, but I was born a sales guy. So I'm a people person. I like the interactions with people trying to figure out what they're trying to do and how do we work together. Yeah. So Sales really suits me very well, but I like the engineering aspect because it differentiates me in that sales environment as well.

Yeah. And did any of the engineering transfer other than the product knowledge and the problem solving?

Well, that's the main thing is everything that we do really is about problem solving. So having the math background and having the discipline from engineering that goes along with the people and the behavioral aspects is really valuable. So, yeah, absolutely. There's— we're all connected, you know, top to bottom, you know, side to side to side. We're all connected. And the more we know and the better processes we have, the more effective we're going to be.

Well, I had a similar experience, more on the software side than on the double E electrical engineering side. But what I, what I learned was I didn't know the business side of it as well. You know, how do you get the, you know, what the engineers want purchased, funded? Right. Was that new to you or did that come natural?

Well, well, yeah, you know, you, you start off as an engineer and you're problem solving. And then I was in the software side, so I was also— I always have been software. Yeah. So the conceptual side of it, there was never anything physical there. So we're, we're always making stuff up, you know. Um, I, I would say that, um—

The, the business, the, you know, the engineers select you or they select your competitor. How do you get the administrative side done? Get the funding, get the approvals?

Yeah, that was all like magic, right? I had no idea how any of that stuff went on.

Yeah.

And learning the business aspect, because I was always so steeped in the technical, you know, the physics and the math that, all right, well, how does the business actually work? And we have our own preconceived notions of how it should be done as engineers, but it's not, not at all, you know? So yeah, that was probably, That probably took me, as I transitioned into sales, probably took me the longest period of time to get that was probably five or six years to really get that down. And how do people buy? What are the politics behind buying? What's what's your product? The size of your company versus the size of the project. Will they buy from your size company? I've always come from smaller companies, so trying to play with the eight hundred pound gorillas is not probably the best way to go. You're going to get squashed. They won't buy from you. You've got a partner. There's all kinds of things in there that you've got to think about. Yeah.

Did somebody teach you that or was it just trial and error?

So I've always worked for smaller companies. So companies that were in the, you know, 10 to 20 people. And so I would come in and I actually had to figure out the company I worked for for 20 years. I had to figure out the processes along with a really talented team of A small team, but just a handful of people, of how to place the product in the market. What's the strategy to market, go-to-market strategy, through what partners? How do you get your product positioned within resellers that you're going to get mindshare? There's a whole lot of things to do. So all that was figured out over time, a lot of trial and error. I came from a company that was never invested in. We had to recreate ourselves every year. So I also had to figure out how to diversify geographically and vertical market-wise on what was hot and what was not so that we could maintain our, our, uh, our balance of funds coming in every year.

And what kept you there?

Great question.

So it sounds like a hard job.

Um, oh, it was. I got to tell you this, where I came from, it was a supremely difficult Uh, setup from all angles. But what I loved about it was the team of people that I was working with were really talented, way underappreciated, way underappreciated, but really good people. We would talk at all hours of the day and night together because we cared about our customers, and we— and our customers knew that we cared. And so it was, it was much more like, um, an extension of family. And quite frankly, I have one life. My life includes work and fun, and it's all intermingled and it's all great. And I have fun at work and I have fun doing my personal things. And I really don't have a time where I segment between the two because I love it all. Yeah, that's a great place to be.

It is a great place because most salespeople, it's, you know, it's financially driven or competitively driven. And they love their customers, but the company, you know, it's kind of a love-hate relationship in some cases.

Yeah. And I get that too, because you've got, and that's why the reason why I love your podcast is you, it's brutal.

It's the truth.

Oh, it is. It is such the truth. And I have to laugh. And, you know, the bottom line is everybody at the top, who doesn't have the experience in the evolution of sales and how it works. They just demand and they beat on the table and they talk about numbers and KPIs and it's all a bunch of, brutally honest, it's nonsense.

It's nonsense.

And so when you try to go to the board, the guys at the board and say, look, take it easy here. This is, this is a process, and you talked about a process a couple weeks ago. Uh, there is a process for how things work naturally. So I, I live on a farm and I get a chance to see nature, how, how plants grow, how animals grow. You don't go to harvest like now. You have to plan. There's a lot of hard work.

The plant doesn't care.

You gotta have some luck along the way because of weather conditions and all that. And there's so much, so many parallels between the natural world and selling. And I understand the methodology that you're trying to make the best decisions you can, but there's a point where you overshoot your, or you get over your skis on the data, and then guys start manufacturing the information and it means nothing, right? And so, I guess that's one of the things that I love about being in leadership is knowing full well what matters and what doesn't. And being able to strongly articulate to those above me who are looking for results to say, take it easy. It's a plan. It's a, it's a 4-quarter ballgame here. We're in the first quarter. This is what we're doing. We have to size up our defense. We have to size up the dynamics on the field. And from there, we can see the opportunities and we have to use our team to see those opportunities and empower them to do that for us to get the data so that we can get you what you want. But you got to, you got to trust us and that we're missing a lot of that today. It's, you know, hire some young guy, teach him, teach him some silly process, have him do stupid activities and hope you win, you know.

Right. And they do that because they see You know, a big successful company doing it, but you're not a big successful company yet.

Well, but think about what a big successful company is. They've already built their, their bases. They have their reputation and it's all they're doing now is harvesting. Yes. And, you know, here's the other thing too, is you never get fired by, by picking the ones that are the, the, the common players, the, the, you know, the old SAPs, the IBMs. You don't, you don't lose by picking them. You don't, you don't get fired for doing that. So the innovators in business pick the old guys for the old reasons. Actually, the non-innovators. The innovators are looking for something different in the market that's going to change the game.

Right.

And that's where you, you have to be an evangelist. You have to, you have to believe, and you have to be willing to, um, understand the fears of the people that you're selling to And I, for years, I had a joke with my president of our company that I'm not in sales, I'm a conceptual choreographer. And all I do is take and understand the thoughts that my prospect has and rearrange them in a way that they can see how our solution makes their world better. And that's really all we're trying to do in sales is make the world better. Yeah, and in my mind, okay, right.

And as a leader, do you get that, still have that frustration internally, or does that take up a lot of your time, kind of selling?

You mean from the— less over time, um, once they get to know you. Mainly I say less because I have probably more of a backbone to stand firm and say, look, I, I under— listen, I understand your, your concern here, but are you— have you considered this, this, and this? And, you know, you hired me to do a job. You got to trust me to go through the process. So I, I'm much more into the mode of instead of getting worked up over somebody challenging me, I accept that they are going to challenge me and it's okay. I'm an open book. I'm transparent. Now, if you want to challenge me, spend the time to listen to what the answer is. Don't, don't just, you know, demand, bang on the table and point to the numbers. You have to understand the circumstance.

And what keeps you in sales?

What else is there?

Farming?

I mean, oh, oh, listen, you don't want to go there. If you knew what farmers had to do, it's the hardest job on the planet. Listen, I mean, there's, there's, there's something there. There's— it's not me, okay? I get bored quick. So what I am is—

You're right.

I'm an innovator and I'm an entrepreneur, straight up. So I built my farm from scratch. I have a wedding venue that I run on it. I build the business, I show it, and then I hand it off to somebody else to run it and operate it. I don't want to do all that stuff. I'm not a maintenance guy.

Yeah.

I hate maintenance. What I do is design things so that there is no maintenance or as little maintenance as possible. And then I, you know, like even with my own family, I don't tell them what to do. I ask them what would they like to do, and I try to provide an environment for them to have an opportunity within that to do what they want to do to make them happy. I'm not the guy that's going to sit behind a desk all day. That's why I broke out into sales in the first place. I travel around the world all the time. So I'm out next week over in the Middle East, and then I'll be in Southeast Asia. I love it. I get to see the world. I get to see all the problems. I get to see— I get to meet really great people everywhere and connect. And that's what I love about the world is connecting in it. And actually, I spend a lot more time than most people think Talking about the person I'm with's problems and then helping them find a solution that it doesn't have anything to do with me, but it builds credibility so that when they need what I have, it's not even a question. They just come. Yeah. So you have to share.

And what do you look for in a salesperson? Because I'm sure you've hired some good ones.

Oh my goodness. So my ideal candidate is a a college athlete. And the reason why I love athletes, and I was at one point in my career an athlete, and the beautiful thing about athletes is they go to practice without any expectation of a result other than a personal feeling of getting better. They have no expectations of making the team. They have to perform to make the team. Once you make the team, then you have to earn the spot to be a starting player. That doesn't guarantee your team's going to win. Now you got a whole another level of, of teamwork to actually have the team win. And then if you're going to win the championship, you have to be exceptional at what you do. And that means that all of the interactions with your team, if you want to build a championship team, Everyone on your team has to police their own and they have to be coachable. And I think you talked about that in one of your, your podcasts or your snippets. Being able to take criticism and not take it personally and look at it being, you know, metal on metal sharpening you, sharpening the saw. That's a unique individual. Because we've got lots of people that want to go to their safe spaces today. And I'll tell you what, I just, I don't have a whole lot of time for victimization or feeling the victim.

Which is kind of the opposite of coachability, isn't it?

Yeah. Yeah.

It's like the world's got to work my way. Otherwise, I'm not happy.

Yeah. So, I've had great success with Actually, what's funny is I don't use headhunters or recruiters. I find people I know and I look for certain traits in them and then I can coach them to do. So I've hired some young folks out of college with no experience that were working in an auto insurance capacity in an office, pulled them out, put them in a high-tech world, showed them how to do it, great coachability. And all of a sudden, now these guys are directors of technology companies, which to me, that is probably the coolest thing for me is to take a young guy, nurture them, and then they move up. It just shows that you've, you've really farmed them well, taught them well.

Give me some feedback on this because I've kind of had this epiphany that why sales is so hard to learn is that most of it's counterintuitive, or almost all of it's counterintuitive. Listening's counterintuitive. Trying empathy is counterintuitive.

Well, yeah, fundamentally what's counterintuitive is people are thinking about themselves and selling—

That's intuitive.

Selfishness is the thing that you, um, that you try to avoid if you can. So I, I kind of wax back to, uh, the reason why I didn't want to get into sales at first, and I thought that sales was horrible, was because of watching that Glengarry Glen Ross movie.

Yeah.

Uh, with Alec Baldwin. You know, it was, it was offensive. It was, it was a kind of a repulsive thing that all we're working for is to move a piece of crap Into somebody's hands so you can get riches. Yeah, and so you're kind of waxing back to the question. I personally have learned that if if I can take myself out of the equation, and I am working on connecting my vendor's intent of their product, the manufacturer I work for, and And look at the customer and look what they're really needing. And I can take myself out of the idea that I'm going to make commissions or I'm going to make riches out of this. And I just purely do it for the, the point of providing value to the world through the customer, because that's what we do.

Yeah.

We— what we do is sales. We're the most important people on the planet. We walk into a place and we say, allow me to introduce myself. I'd like to tell you about this product. You don't really do that, but what you're there to do is to say, hey, look, you know, Johnny, we got this product here that can save you X, Y, and Z. Your bottom line can go down. You can go to market at a lower consumer cost, provide a better value to your customers, get more market share, and provide something better to the world. Okay, so I go to a lot of poverty-stricken places where manufacturing is, and I see this. And the bottom line is if we as salespeople can provide a better way, not thinking about our own riches, we make the world better. I, and that might be, that might be like thinking way too deep about it, but honestly, I don't, I don't personally need anything with this.

Um, and, and plus, in business-to-business sales, you're not going to trick anybody into buying anything. No, no, it's just, it's not a one-meeting close. Yeah, but it's a journey.

Yeah, so I find myself in that trying to empathize with them. Okay, what, what's your problem? Is your problem that you can't see financially how this works? Oh, no problem, I'll build your ROI calculator. I'll show you exactly where the ROI is and how you can go to your management and explain this. Or I can show you based upon competitive products the piece that we do that they don't do, or the methodology that we have that they don't have, that's going to reap you either lower cost of ownership in labor or whatever. But usually it's— it always rolls back to some financial gain or some savings as it applies to the operation with your equipment or what have you. And you have to not just sell your product and it's— and what it does, you have to have awareness of your environment around you. It's no different than playing on the field, playing on a football field, and you're a running back and you're looking at the holes in front of you. You just gotta— you gotta be aware of your surroundings. And that's where the athlete thing comes in, the work ethic and all of that.

And was that football coaching experience helpful as a sales leader?

Uh, actually, I was more of a basketball guy.

But basketball— I'm sorry.

And I'm like, I'm the king of metaphors. So I can, I can give you a farming metaphor, I can give you a sports metaphor. So growing up, I played all kinds of sports. So individual sports, team sports, invaluable. Um, also Just, uh, the management. So given that I was growing up in the '70s, okay, the management of those teams were guys from World War II that had no, no time for, for any kind of wimpy kind of behavior. No victim mentality. So, you know, we weren't allowed to go there. And so they, they always taught us to have that stiff upper lip. And just suck it up. And, you know, we didn't have a safe spot. We, you know, you wanted to be in or you're out back then. And, and so, yeah, I think that's sales. You know, you're either in or you're out. You don't, you don't get a chance to go, oh, but, you know, Jeepers, you know, it's not fair.

Well— You're right.

It's not. Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. Now the question is, are you okay with that?

It's not gonna change.

Right? Yeah, it won't. And so all of the activists out there that want to change the world for work-life harmony, let me tell you, this is what I tell my folks. Work-life balance. No work, no life. Balance. Here's your balance. I'm not saying don't have fun, but you have to prioritize. Yeah, what you're doing.

And I think personal responsibility has been kind of lost as well. It's kind of—

Accountability.

Yes. Yeah. How do I spread it to everybody but me?

Yeah.

And I think in sales, how do you learn unless you own it?

Yeah. And you know what? One of my lines has been, if you don't think that I'm the guy for the job, fire me, please. If you don't have the gazoonas to say that I'm I'm in it, and if you don't see I fit and I'm out, fine, fire me. But in the meantime, I'm going to do what I know to do. And you have to have some confidence, not arrogance, confidence. And competence builds confidence. You don't have to be arrogant with that. And a lot of people misunderstand that being confident is not being arrogant. Weak people think that confidence is arrogance.

And what do you wish you knew back that first 2 or 3 years in sales that you know now?

Let's see. I think, I think, um, I wish I knew what sales really was. I wish I— again, I think what's really important, mentoring is really important. I've taken that really personally for the people that are on my team, is spending the time to mentor them. So having— I didn't have a vision or a view. I came from a very humble family with no sales. It was all blue-collar stuff, you know. So I actually started roofing when I was younger.

Okay.

So when you have that mindset, I couldn't see What what the whole thing was about. But I think the other thing too that I'm a very transparent guy, open. I'm not really concerned because because I've been through the sporting and I've I've you know you don't have a place to hide when you're on the court. You know you make a mistake you gotta go okay. So what I didn't realize was that sometimes your management will. steal your rewards. They're your— they'll steal your rewards by taking credit for the things that you do and will hide you. Um, I saw some of that early on in my career, and you got to get away from that. And, uh, so I, I didn't know the playing field, just like, um, just like I didn't know the business part of it early on.

Yeah.

Uh, I didn't, I didn't really know the politics of what people that The armchair quarterbacks that are managing things that don't really know how it works, but they control it. I didn't really understand that level as much as I do now.

And what do you find harder, leadership or sales?

Um, I think that if I were to run by myself, sales would be simple. Sales would be a vacation for me. I get my bag, I go out. Where are we going today? Let's go talk to this person. No problem. I connect and just, you know, the leadership aspect that we deal with with different personalities. Actually, I have a coach that I that I've used recently. I'll plug him, Mac Arrington. He's an outstanding coach. He's he's He allows me to see things that I couldn't see before when it comes to behavioral sides of folks. So I'm an engineer. I'm not a, you know, a—

Psychologist.

A sociologist or that kind of thing, right? But I get it, right? So we do, we did assessments for everybody on our team to determine where do they fit on the spectrum of, are they an entrepreneurial sales guy or are they a managerial person? And that kind of allows us to determine, how do we figure out how to make these folks happy? Where do we put them in the organization and how they work? That's difficult. Because again, what someone thinks of themselves and what they, what they believe they are versus what they really are are 2 different things. And, you know, sometimes you have to get real blunt. I'm, I'm a straight shooter guy, but there's a point where you just— it's difficult. It's more difficult in management. And then, you know, if you're talking about the leadership side of it, most of the folks at the company I'm working with right now have been outstanding, excellent people. We're just trying to figure out how to, how to manage the messaging back and forth. That's, that's difficult. Yeah, more difficult. Being in sales is, I think, it's more straightforward than, than being in management and leadership. But I like, I like where I am right now. I couldn't ask for a better position or work with some better people. I'm working with great people right now. So it gets me excited.

Have you found it challenging to— because in sales leadership, You know, the challenge sometimes is you want to treat everybody the same, but they're all different.

I don't treat everyone the same.

You don't?

Okay. And no, you can't. And if someone wants to call you out on that, I don't have a large organization. Again, I've got, you know, You know, a handful of people out there and there are differences. And so we set— what I typically do, we'll separate them by role, different aspects of the selling organization. And when we start getting larger, yeah, you've got to get more standardized. I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

Yeah.

But I, you know, again, people are people. So every sale's different. Every— even a sale within the same company is different from, from one moment in time to another, just like people are different. And, and like you said in, in a past, um, podcast, that we're selling, we're working with people, and people are different. And so to, to standardize is to disregard the human nature of what we do, and sales is human. It's just, it's just baseline human. That's what I love about it. There are not many people that have the ability to switch it up and be dynamic within their conversations from one moment to the next. It drives my kids nuts, by the way, that I can switch gears like instantaneous. And, um, but that's, that's, I think, what makes, makes me different.

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

Great question. So I work at Aries Cybersecurity Solutions. Email me at greg.pysher@ariescybersecuritysolutions.com. And I'm on LinkedIn, just Greg Pysher. Just look for the big bald guy.

We constantly are seeing performance backgrounds in great salespeople. I think it's because it takes so long to get that distinction, the distinction between knowing how to play the game versus how well you play the game. It's why golf is a great analogy. Cooking is a great analogy. Debating, uh, comedy, all of these things. Try and find those distinctions. What we are— our subconscious tries to protect us by telling us that since we know it, we're good at it. But that doesn't matter, and it's not true. Knowing it is helpful at best. It's how well we do it. And that how well is what we have control over. We have control over the conversations, the interactions, the leading of the prospect through the process. But we got to know what the process is. It's not presentation, demo, propose, negotiate, close. That, that's what the clerk view of the world. We've got to take the view of the client. What do they have to do? Do they even know what they have to do? This is what I learned early in my career because I was selling to engineers. And I remember other reps telling me, Brian, they don't know how to buy. I go, how can they not know how to buy? That's their job. No, no, it's not. Their job is to do their job, which is building stuff. My job is to help them buy. And when I started doing that, I took the assumption that they didn't know what they're doing, and I found out I was right. And people fight this, and they end up Reacting to what the prospect wants to do solely. Now, you got to take into account for what they want to do because it may be right. It may be the best next step, but usually it's not. Usually it's most times too fast. And what ends up happening if you do something too fast? You skip over something. And then someone else figures it out later. You know how that works? We keep hoping that no one notices, but they usually notice. And then we end up having to go back and do it again. But now they open the competition up again, and now we've got to start all over. This is what happens if you don't understand How companies buy. And a lot of times you don't need to, or you don't think you need to, and it dies to no decision, which isn't really no decision. It's like no one knows what they're doing, but nobody puts that in the CRM. You can't put down, I'm clueless, I don't know what I'm doing. And managers, uh, are they helpful here?

No.

Managers are great when deals look like the best deals. Existing customers buying more. But that's not what most of us are doing. Most of us are going into the mismatches. Not an ideal customer, but it fits. They have money. They have a need. Our product fulfills that need. There's no logical reason not to buy. But you have to still get it done administratively, politically, legally. And it's those dirty details that if you don't know what you're doing on the other side, this is what they do. And this is what I found. They forward the quote to their manager and they assume their manager's gonna just get it done. Or they forward the quote to procurement and procurement goes, this is not how it works. And they just ignore it or reply back and say, this is not how it works. You got to learn how it works. And those are the easy things to fix. The hard things to fix are really connecting and engaging with that other person so that you can get the rapport to find out what the truth is. And if we don't ask and we don't push a little and we don't connect with them, They tell us things we want to hear, not the things we need to hear. The things we want to hear, we're telling ourselves. The things we need to hear, it takes a deep level of rapport with them to pull that out. Now, how do you learn how to sell?

A book?

Good luck. You know, even if you study the book, you study it like every day, you need to talk to people. You need to see how other people are doing it. You need to understand what has to get done versus what's nice to get done. This is what I teach, and I give you a system, a system that's yours, that you built based off of How your sale goes. And we tend not to see it because we think we can memorize it. You can't. I can't. No one can. So what do you have to do? You have to get it out of your head and onto either paper or screen, something where you can see it. Something that when your feelings, you know, those things that tell you, Oh, the deal should— it's a no-brainer. But where is it? Where do you think it is and where it is are 2 different things. What makes you think it's there? Well, they told me. They told you, or did you test it? Because when they say it's in procurement, that typically means it's not in procurement. If it's in procurement, ask them who And procurement is working on it. What is the purchase request number? And then when they fall apart, you now know where it isn't. Where it is, is in someone's inbox who doesn't understand what it is and why you need it and where is it on the priority list.

Uh-oh.

This is the details of selling. This is why deals slip. This is why deals stall or die. Wouldn't you like to have a system? That's what I teach in Closing the Complex Sale. So if you want to get great at sales, not good, because good isn't good enough anymore. Good is a B player, and there's too many of them and not enough great jobs for them. A players, there's always A job. I love when people tell me they're an A-player but they're out of a job. I've never seen an A-player out of work. Why? Because managers are calling them, former employees are calling them, headhunters are calling them because everyone wants them because there's so few of them. Now, when I say A-player, I don't mean someone who shows up And does what they're told. That's a B player. An A player is in the top 1 to 3%. So you can judge for yourself. You can tell yourself you're an A player. That doesn't increase your income. It usually reduces it. Or you can have the W-2, the income of an A player. That's where the fun is. And that's where the excitement is. Do you want that, or do you just want to be busy and distracted? Because everyone else is selling busy and distracted. I'm selling how to be better. The way to become better is understand the game in more detail, have a strategy for the game, understand the cause and effects of the game, or You can be played. You're either a player or you're being played. Which are you? Go to b2brevenue.com, sign up today. We'll see you next time. If you see my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a little like, a little comment, a little share. We'll see you next time.