WHAT EMOTION IS NEEDED TO CLOSE THE HARDEST DEALS IN B2B SALES

Today I probably have a guest who has the most unusual background, and certainly the most unusual as what people would presume would never work in sales. Today's guest was a former pastor. Now, when you think of salespeople, too often and unfortunately, people think of Kind of the opposite of a pastor, but there's a lot in common. There's a lot of similarities and there's a lot of transferable skills, and we're going to get into it. And I think the key thing you're going to get out of this, or one of the key things, is that the perception of salespeople is almost the opposite of what great B2B salespeople are. And become. Because people naturally think of sales as like selfish, fast-talking, manipulative, but that doesn't work in business-to-business. It may work in business-to-consumer. I don't even think it works there anymore though, but it's more forgivable there because you only have to deal with that person for a transaction. Looking for a car or a TV, you want more help than they're giving, but you did your own research and it's not that complex. But in business-to-business, it's just the opposite. You need and want to interact with that person over a long period of time— months, several months, maybe even more than a year in some cases. So, the character of a great salesperson has to be super high, has to be ethical, because the presumption of what a salesperson is before they meet us is not very high. We have to really get people to understand the level of integrity that it takes to be a successful enterprise salesperson. Let's get into this interview. I think you're going to enjoy it. It's a great guy, a really interesting story, and at minimum you're going to get how do you transfer from one profession like being a pastor to a technology salesperson. That's a pretty big change, a big leap. There's a lot of lessons that could be in there for us all. Let's get into the interview. Before we do, I want you to make sure you're checking out our friends over at brevitypitch.com. This is using AI to become your role-play partner. Remember when you first got into sales, you wanted to practice, and maybe you had somebody next to you that would. But as you progress in your career, practice tends to be the first thing that we skip. We say we know it, we've done it a million times. But let me ask you this. After a weekend, that first sales conversation on Monday, how does it go? Are you kind of tripping over yourself? Of course you are. You're human. Yes, you know what to say, but you have to say it. It has to go from your brain to your mouth. And a lot, even though that's not very far, we have to reignite All those brain circuitry. And the best way to do it is to practice. Get a little feedback. Hear yourself. Get some feedback from the AI. Hear in many different situations. Easy to difficult. Friendly to aggressive. That's what Brevity Pitch can do for you. It's super powerful. I've tried it. I love the idea because it fits into my view of sales as a skill, and it's how well you do it, not just that you do it. So check it out, have your manager pay for it, get a demo today. It's super easy to set up and use, and tell them Brian sent you. Link is in the show notes, but it's brevitypitch, all one word, .com. Here we go.

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

Sure. So my name is Kurt Folk. I currently work for a company called Qlik, which is a software company specializing in end-to-end data. That's data integration and data analytics. And then some interesting background on myself is I've only really been in sales for the last 5 years. Before that, I was a full-time pastor in ministry. So I've Listen to the podcast on procurement to sales. And even before I was a pastor, I was also in procurement. So I run this interesting gamut of things that I've seen and done. And now here I am, 5 years in sales and enjoying every moment of it.

Well, you're the first pastor on the phone.

Yes.

So there's got to be a story behind it.

Come on. Well, the quick take when people ask me is, well, how do you— and I was like, well, I sold Jesus for, you know, 8 years. So now I just, and I just sell software. And that makes people laugh and uncomfortable all at the same time. And I love to sit in that space. So yeah, yeah.

Well, they're both kind of faith-based professions, right? You have to have faith in your product and what you're doing.

It's, that's, that's very true. And I had looked at like, part of the role into ministry was I was very focused on the music end of the, of that aspect. I led music at church and all that stuff. But was seeing the problems that people had and figuring out how I could learn what I needed to study to kind of help people work to solve some of those problems. So that's the same approach that I really take to software sales and sales in general, which is a good point about, you know, solving problems and having faith is like, hey, this is a product I need to believe in, right? And I need to see how it solves people's problems so that when I can actually approach it that way and say, hey, you have this problem, I think we can help. It makes it for me much easier to sell than just trying to jam another thing down people's throats or another software that they don't really need. There's a problem, we have a potential solution, and then it becomes about kind of forming that relationship and showing them that we can do what we're saying we're doing.

But what was the impetus to go from a career that most would imagine would be orthogonal to sales? Not economically driven.

Right? No, no, no, no.

Or maybe it was the kids. Was it the kids?

No. Well, so yeah, so I have 3, I have 3 kids, a 4th on the way. And really, you know, getting deep, I— the way that pastoring works, and it doesn't always have to work like this, but a lot of it does, is you work a normal day, but the people that you are ministering to and working with, they're working a normal day. So you actually need to spend the time after they're working to spend time with them. So now all of a sudden you're putting in an exorbitant amount of hours when you're not at home with your family, and that's when meetings happen and all that different stuff. So the, the impetus for moving out of pastoral ministry was like, I was exhausted, I was burnt out, I had young children. Um, economically, like, we were struggling with that many kids. We owned a house and all this stuff, but I had school debt and all that stuff, and it was like, this is just This is hard for a manner, all manner of reasons. And there's other things to go into too, but I was just worn out and tired. And the change came in a very specific conversation that I had with a friend sitting down in Philadelphia in Reading Terminal Market. I was talking about making this career change and what was I gonna do? And I didn't know. And he said like, well, you've been in procurement. He's like, but you sitting at a desk, like crunching numbers and moving things around doesn't seem to make sense. But you interacting with people, talking to people, listening to people, giving ideas back to them. He's like, in sales, that makes complete sense. He's like, the other one, it's where you landed, but I don't think it's where you were supposed to land ultimately. And I took that conversation. I was like, he's right. And then started thinking back through my mom when I was young, be like, man, you could sell anything, right? You know, as a smart smart aleck little kid, but my father-in-law being in sales for the last 40 years too and always said like, I think you could have a career in sales. So it was all the culmination of how do I increase my earning potential? How do I find something where I get to talk, interact, build rapport and build trust with people and then find something to believe in? And that kind of led me to the sales role or a sales role.

Do you now feel that sales is your calling?

Great question. It depends on the day. Where we are in the quarter. Where we are in the quarter, right? Certain days it does not feel like a calling. But no, for it is a unique ability of where I sit in this space uniquely, where I am extremely administratively minded and somewhat Type A. And yet I have this music background too, that you have to be creative. So sales has given me this unique spot to sit in to take some of the administration stuff that you have to have in sales to be able to move to get things done. But then figure out how do I want to package this? How do I want to prospect? How do I want to reach out creatively? How do I want to create videos for LinkedIn that really allow that creative side to kind of come in and shine? And in the last 6 months, I've really worked on building kind of LinkedIn content around that that has really put me in this beautiful place that I'm like, I'm accessing this creative side and I get to do this. I'm accessing this administrative administrative side and I get to do this. I'm getting to sell. I'm watching myself build trust and rapport with people. And it's exciting when you move deals ahead and then when you land deals that it has moved into this, like, this is what I am supposed to do with my life right now and I'm enjoying it.

Yeah, because I always thought and noticed that the salespeople who felt like it was their calling, that it was more than a job, That they just enjoyed it for whatever reason, different motives, that those people really could excel, probably in any profession when you look at it as a calling versus an occupation.

True. Yeah. An occupation you show up for, right?

You do what you're told.

When it's a calling or something, it's something you look forward to. It's something that you look forward to the challenges that are going to be thrown your way. And some of that, I think, is occupation, but some of that's just mindset of the individual too. Like when we realize that challenges are thrown at our way not to just aggravate us, but they actually make us better and become better people. If you can have that viewpoint and if you're having an okay day and those things happen, right, then you can tackle those to say like, what am I gonna learn through this and get out of this that makes me a better person, makes me a better salesperson, and makes me a better account manager to actually help my current customers and my future customers?

And have there been any conflicts with either your beliefs, your character? Because sales is viewed not in the highest esteem by people who don't understand it.

True. Very good point. So I'm gonna— I'll put somebody on notice here. Larry Levine, right? Larry Levine wrote a book called Selling from the Heart.

Yeah.

And I found that not right away, but I found that a little bit into this, this selling thing. And I read it and I was like, this is, this is the piece that I've been missing where I had felt there was some tension sometimes. It was like, how do I create long-term customers? And realizing that what I do with my customers now, you never know when 5, 8, 10 years from now you end up finding them again or selling them again. So building the right relationship, not being crummy and sleazy in sales, is actually beneficial. And I have found that I tend to lean into being overly honest with people where maybe I get more in trouble with my management than I ever do with the customer because I just try to be upfront like, hey, this is gonna make me more money, but it doesn't make sense for you. Hey, I could sell you these professional services, but I think you're gonna do a lot better with one of our partners. on a cost ratio, what their knowledge is and all that different stuff, which doesn't help Click now or help my job now, but ultimately helps build the trust into whatever, when I come back to them for something else or when they come to me, there's a trust built there that like I've earned, right? It doesn't just happen. And I'm, I am frankly tired of sleazy salespeople. I can tell when they call me and I just hate it.

Yeah, but in B2B, do you ever really see it? Successful salespeople, not, you know, people trying to get a meeting, trying to push in. Honestly, I never saw it in B2B. I saw it in B2C.

Like what? Have I seen sleazy customers in the midst of that? No, not customers or not sleazy salespeople.

And sleazy is kind of a real pejorative word for it, but people who don't care about the customer and just want what they want?

I've seen some.

Have you?

And they don't generally. And then that comes down to company culture too, right? Like if it's not, if the company culture pushes that, then you're gonna be successful and do it. If the company's like, that's not what we're about, then you won't do it. Our, my current company has an extremely high retention rate on customers, which is really good. So people that are trying to do that, it's, they're not gonna last long. They'll go somewhere else. So I see it from time to time. But the other thing that I generally think about in building trust and relationships is like, I can't do everything myself, right? Is you have to know when to give pieces up to other people and let them do their job. But in that too, we also need to trust those people and we need to build trust with those people. So I figured out how to take the people that help me Figure out why this quote isn't working or have to reorganize this thing in a way that makes sense. Like, I've built a relationship with them. Sometimes it involves like, hey, let me take you out for a few beers, that when I reach out to them and say, hey, I'm having this struggle, they jump on it right away because I've built a relationship and a friendship with them and they're like, he's one of the good ones, right? And there's that tension too in sales sometimes that's like, this person works for me and I just need them to do what I need them to do so I can get this quote out so I can make this money so I can make the company profitable. But like, then it just, I hate that. Like, I want to be able to realize everybody's a human and we're all working hard. We all have our own crap that we're dealing with and we all have our own struggles and managers. So like, how do I make their job a little easier? How do I be nice? How do I appreciate them and all the people that help me get stuff done? Because I can't, I can't redline, right? I can't do all that stuff. So I need those people. So it's about building relationships. With customers, but it's also about building relationships internally too.

What's been the hardest part over the last 5 years as far as adjusting and becoming great at sales?

Yeah, I think, well, I'll go back even further. I think there was a time and period in my life where I don't think that sales would have worked well because I was not great at receiving feedback or I might have been, I might have looked like I was great at receiving feedback, But I wasn't actually great at actually doing it or taking it right away. So that, you know, that I made a decision when I made to sales. And I remember making this decision in my mind, like, if I don't understand something, I need to ask right away, not pretend I understand and nod and have that snowball into some giant disaster 6 months from now, but do that now. So I think that early when I started, that was the hardest part of making a switch of me that was the guy who used to just go, yep, yep, I get that. Even if I didn't, I was like, I'll probably figure it out. No, like, I needed to be upfront and honest with that to start so that I could really understand. So that was like one of the harder parts was making that switch in my mind. And then I think, honestly, I think one of the hardest parts is figuring out how to turn your brain off sometimes. So that you actually are rested, refueled, and you're not burning out in this job too, because sales is constant. There's always more you could be doing to prospect, to find leads, to score leads. There's always more you can do to be driving a deal ahead. But at some point you need to rest. So figuring out how to turn that off or figuring out how, if you get that idea while you're out walking with your kids, to quick take the note. set a reminder to look at that note the next morning and move on. And that's been the hardest time, is figuring out that work-life balance, because there's always more that you could be doing. There's always a number to hit. There's always a bigger number to hit, even if you've hit your goal, because you could just make more money. There's always that. So how do you find that work-life balance and create a healthy environment for you and your family so that you get to enjoy The fruits of your labor.

Now, on the feedback side, how far did you take the musician thing? Was that— did you get to perform in front of audiences, or was it just self-enjoyment? Or—

So for back in college days, I performed in front of some small audiences and did some small open mics and all that stuff. And then when you move into church, right, if you move into kind of evangelical church, there's this whole worship ministry music movement thing. So really, every Sunday I was in front of people, like trying to not be in front of people because it's this weird balance of pride versus church and all this different stuff. But I was leading music, uh, every— almost every Sunday at, uh, the church that I was pastoring at. So that's kind of as far. And, you know, I'm— don't look me up on iTunes. That's— I'll say it's just old.

Where I was going with that was, didn't you get a ton of feedback there, both from the other musicians and the audience?

Yes, yeah, there was feedback back and forth about how to improve and all that different stuff. And in my wonderful youth, it was like, they don't know the kind of artist I'm trying to be, you know, right?

You kind of always have, if you're that type of person, they don't get me yet.

They don't get me. And like, then maybe in a few days, I'd be like, maybe they're not wrong. But it took 4 to 5 days. And that's That's not a great timeline to actually improve oneself, let alone move that into marriage. That doesn't work so well either. So you have to figure out how to take feedback and go back and forth and be malleable and teachable.

And have you been— I take it you've improved that, the ability to take it, apply it. And in sales, the best really learn to crave it and appreciate it as what it is. It's a gift.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that's been one of the things that I've been pushing into in the last 3 months is going back to customers, recently closed customers, customers I've been working with for a while and say, hey, give me feedback on me. Like, what, how could I improve my outreach to you? How often is too much? When we did this sale, what worked well? What did you really like about me? What do you think I could have done better? Like, in doing that, Right after the close of something and doing it a few months after, like have I stayed in touch enough? Like has this been clear communication after? And that's not always fun. And even trying to do it with the people I lose, and they think it's really weird because like what? Yeah, but we we don't really want to talk to you anymore because we told you no. But it's like this is how I improve myself and become better to was it me? Was it how I? pushed or kind of showed our value. Where did I miss, right? And that's— those are the hardest to get, but those are the most valuable to get if you can dig into why you lost the deal. And sometimes it's not on me, sometimes it's the product or the price, but I think a lot of times if I'm doing my job right and trying to be better, those things become minimal and I can just continue to improve how I approach things.

And I don't know your space that well, but what I do know about it is it's hypercompetitive. Is that your perception as well?

Yes. So I sat on the analytics side of the business for the last 3 years. Things have changed where now we're selling all of it. But that analytics space is hypercompetitive. There's— it's oversaturated. There's so many big competitors out there, the elephants in the room like a Microsoft and a Salesforce Tableau. And then there are smaller ones too that have their niches and all that different things. So it's hypercompetitive and I had to learn when I lost the deal and lost it to somebody to say, what could I have done better? How do I learn more about that product, that other product and our product so that I can position what we do or do differently really well?

Yeah. And what do you think your strongest sales characteristic is?

I think my strongest sales characteristic is I do seem to build trust and rapport really quickly. I find the first 5 minutes of a phone call while people are still logging in crucial to my success. Can I get people laughing? Can I get them to share something personal if I share something personal to level the playing field and be like, this isn't this weird sales relationship. This is— I'm sitting in my— I'm sitting in my office at home. You're sitting in your office at home, or maybe your office there. We're all humans. We all had a struggle with a child earlier this morning. Like, we're real. And that just sets the stage to, I think, have a more open and honest conversation to get into the meat of what needs to happen and to build that trust. And I've been told by a few times where there's been struggles and I get a phone call with one specific person, I just break it down for them. Here's what I'm about. Here's what I'm trying to do, whether you pick us or not. You know, I don't care. I want you to have the right solution. And the feedback's come back like, I believed you. And I'm like, well, it's true. If you buy the wrong solution and it frustrates you, you're gonna leave. And then that doesn't make any of us look good. So like, let's get you the right solution. I hope and think it's mine, but if it isn't, let's high five and part ways. And I think just being able to be okay with losing deals has helped too. Like, I just wanna build that trust and rapport. And I want to figure out how to just hit the mark on those things.

And what's your view on competitiveness?

In as much as what?

Most salespeople are competitive. They want to win. If you win, you get rewarded. If you lose, you tend not to get rewarded.

Right. Yeah. So, I mean, I, I think there's always the initial part of you in sales, at least I think that when you find out it's competitive and you find out who it is, there's like, there's the deep sigh. You'd love it if they just loved you and only you. But then it's like, okay, it's then switching that into not giving up and switching it into like, okay, it's time to refresh myself about what I know, what I need to know about my competitor and how to make sure that we're positioning How I'm positioning myself as a salesperson, how I'm positioning our solution as different and making sure that I'm laying the groundwork for things that I know that we do better or we do that the other company doesn't do. And then that becomes an exciting phase to kind of really see, did I do a good job of convincing them of that? Yeah.

And do you get emotionally attached to deals?

Oh, I want to find the sales rep who doesn't and have a long conversation about them. And they're probably emotionally unattached to a lot of other things in life too. But, but yeah, you put blood, sweat, and tears into these things and it's hard. I worked on one this spring and summer, traveled down to this location, you know, 3 and a half, 4 hours twice, really got in good. We had an amazing demo. We had people whispering in our ear, you guys are the tool this this is it. We couldn't believe it. They, they got— they totally got what made us stand apart from our other competitors. And 2 weeks later, we're like, hey, sorry, we went with this other competitor we knew we were up against. And then even the like, hey, we loved you, all this different stuff. And it was like, it was just crushing. Um, and then you go through the like, what could I have done better? How could I have laid this? What, what was I going on? What are the takes? But yeah, it's crushing when you lose those things, when you spend that much time and put hopes in that. And when you generally start to figure out the, you know, potential commission you're gonna make in your head and know that it's disappeared, that stings too.

And did the past your time help you read people? Because I'm sure you run into almost the identical situation where people are talking, but what they're saying is different than what's going on in their head.

Yeah, I would say that I have. I would like to think I've gotten better at reading people. I would say that that is not easy on Zoom. It's much easier in person.

Yeah.

And it's impossible when they don't have their video on, which is I generally I generally ask for that, which is why this customer that I that I lost, like we pushed, we want to be in person, we want to be in person so that we can read the room. And on the few those we've done, it's It completely changes everything, just how you can read people. So it's gotten good to kind of— I've gotten better at reading kind of these people or making sure that I also have people with me scattered throughout the room that can help read the room as well about where we need to take things. I still have a lot to improve on and learn, but don't we all?

And what do you wish you did 5 years ago that you're doing today? In sales?

Yeah, I wish that I, well, let me put it this way. When I started in sales, I was working for a large IT reseller that had thousands and thousands and thousands of SKUs and you could only know a little bit about a lot. So one of the positions when I wanted to change and I moved into the company that I'm at now, I knew that it was a smaller profile because I really wanted to get to know those products well. And I don't think I knew that at the start, but that is something that like I wish I'd known is like focus on a smaller group of products, know them well, know your competition well, know how to speak, you know, very well about these things, lay potential traps about competitors and do that. And I just I didn't know that at the start. I didn't know that that was where I needed to sit and that's how my mind worked to be able to really do well. And looking back, I see it now. I've always done better when I know a subgroup of things and have a couple things to focus on. I can really dig in. When it's like trying to grab at all these different things, it just becomes overwhelming and you depend on a lot of other people to know a lot more than you, and that isn't easy. Too. I gotta, I gotta know my stuff. So let me summarize that because I rambled a bit. There you go.

That's fine.

So, I mean, you asked the question, I'll pause. So I think what I learned is for my style, and I think people need to ask themselves this, like, am I okay with knowing a little bit about a lot of things? Or am I going to do better digging into certain things or a certain product set and knowing it really well to build my confidence in sales and to go after that. And I think that sometimes we don't do enough self-reflection on the type of salesperson that we want to be or the type of person we are to get to that. And I learned that in my first position in moving into this one, that that is where I was gonna be able to sink my teeth in. So that's what I wish I would've known at the start, 'cause I think I would've had a faster uptick in how I was learning to sell and how I was going to get better and how I was going to get more at-bats.

And I'm sure you have observed a lot of salespeople in the last 5 years. What do you think separates the very best from the rest?

I do think, and going back to your thing, I think in B2B, I think it is the salesperson who doesn't have plans on just climbing the ladder from next company to the next company to make more money, is humble enough to say like, there are things I need to learn and I want to find the right management and the right mentors to really build into that and know that eventually it will probably come time for me to move on, but I'm gonna really enjoy what I have now to do that. And I think just remaining humble and ever coachable And always learning more about your product. Like, yay, great, I hit my quota for the year halfway through. There's still way more that I can learn so that the next couple that come up, I can do an even better job getting them. And that goes back to like never, I think summing up, never being satisfied with what you know, always seeking to know more, become a better version of yourself.

And how do you do that daily? Do you have a particular routine or system? Or is it just books and podcasts? Or what?

This, this is where the Type A personality mashes with the creative. And I fight, I fight systems constantly. Here's what my day should look like. And I hate being told I have to fit into a rhythm. I hate it. But I have found that if I do some sort of reading in the morning articles, if I do my training in the morning, my brain retains all of that information. And I can grow from there. Doing it every morning is the constant fight, but listening to podcasts like yours, there's others out there about how to think about selling and what's happening with content creation and what's happening with marketing and doing all that if it's an area I want to grow in. And then continually looking for new trainings or taking certifications for what I sell to try to just get better at understanding it so that I can speak confidently about it.

And do you use a lot of analogies either between music and sales or being a pastor and sales just to kind of correlate in your brain about what to do and how to be good at it? Or is it a whole new field?

It's a, it's a whole new field. I mean, I generally go to car analogies or sports analogies, and I'm not a car guy or a sports guy, but just almost everybody I can understand one of those. But I think what I pull from that time as a pastor is realizing, like, people are— we talked about earlier, people are telling you one thing, but underlying is another thing. And how do you keep asking open-ended questions to really pick at and get to the bottom of it so that you're really finding out the truth of what's going on? Or are you just, quote, fodder? Um, or are you just that? And that's been a key to kind of saying like, you're telling me this, but I'm going to keep going to make sure that really is the crux of the situation if you're really looking for something that I have to offer.

Well, because I've never been on the pastor side, but I've been on the sales side, right? It's not that they're misleading you or being deceptive. They don't know.

Correct. Correct.

Yeah, I gotta assume that they're like that on the on the pasture side. That they've got an issue, a challenge, and they they think it's someone else. Typically, right?

Exactly. If only this person fixed this change, I'd be fine. Right, and I've I've learned to as people kind of give you kind of what's going on, I take copious notes, and I'm kind of reflecting that in my head, and I'll go. So okay, let me summarize in my own words what you said, and sometimes it's a little more rough around the edges. edges, but it cuts to the heart of the problem. They go, that's it. I'm like, okay, good. Now that we know that that is it and I did hear you well with a little bit more to it, let's keep digging into that piece because like I sarcastically added this piece on, but it seems to have resonated with you. Tell me about management's view on this. Are they actually concerned about this or are you pushing this thing forward and you're on your own? Because we can help you if you're on your own, but we need to know where all the players sit so that we can actually make you the champion in this thing. And when, when we land this thing, everybody's high-fiving you that great job bringing so-and-so in. I said, how do we make you look like a success?

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

Sure. So there's 2 things going on. You can find me on LinkedIn, Kurt Focht. It's spelled with a K and then my last name is F as in Frank, O-C-H-T. Also on YouTube, I started something a couple of months ago called KPIs, which is Kurt's People Interviews. And since I'm in the data space, I thought it was pretty clever. So Usually there's a new video posted on YouTube or LinkedIn every week, so I'd love a subscription or follow there to kind of learn about what's going on in the data field. And I'm just starting to interview some salespeople about their best tips and tricks, much like you, Brian.

See, you never thought there were so many similarities between becoming a pastor and becoming a great salesperson. It does take— both jobs take a lot of empathy. And that's a critical advanced skill in sales. And it takes a lifetime to develop because you have to be comfortable in your own skin to begin with, a little bit of confidence. Then you have to become curious about how the world works and what are all the pieces that are involved and what are the implications and the Consequences if you change one of those elements. And you have to have faith. Not that type of faith. In sales, you have to have faith in your product, your skills, uh, the reading of the account, uh, your reading of people and what's really going on. Remember, the words that are being said are just an expression of what the person wants you to know. It's not the whole shebang, as they say. So we have to read through body language, the words, the tonality, their tempo, their pace, their questions, their facial expressions, all of these things that we have to become good at. And this is why sales really needs to be a calling. Sorry for the pun or the overuse of the pastor thing here, but what I mean by calling is that it's something that you feel you were meant to do, that you enjoy. And I think I had the I had the calling of it, but not— I had such low skills, meaning that I didn't— I wasn't a good communicator. I wasn't somebody who people naturally liked. I was somebody who liked to work with people, but I wasn't good at it. I had to become good at it. And that requires self-awareness of What are the areas? What's the mindset? How do you regulate your emotions and your focus? It's a lot. I get it. But the thing is, ignoring it doesn't get it better. It gets it worse. You have to proactively, consistently develop these skills. Listening to a podcast is great. Uh, working with brevity, pitch, is get it— getting your mouth moving where there's no downside. And that's what I like about doing it with software versus doing it with people. When you do it with people, uh, they get annoyed, you get annoyed at their reaction, uh, if they're not getting anything out of it, they're not really into it. Well, software doesn't do that. Software doesn't get tired, doesn't have an ego, doesn't get annoyed. That's why it's fun to do it that way. And you get better without anyone else having to put any effort into it. And imagine if we were our own coach. And in some ways, we have to be today in sales. Most people can't afford A coach, a lot of money, a lot of time, but you can do it crowdsourced. And that's what I try to do with the courses. We had a fantastic one-on-one yesterday. I went through an exact account and case study where somebody wanted to get into the account. And, you know, within the hour on office hours, I showed exactly what I would do, how I would do it. I'm not saying it's perfect. Not saying anyone else couldn't do it better, but it's a systematic way where mere mortals with marginal sales talent can become really good. And that's what you want. You want to learn from someone else's mistakes. And you want to learn from someone who's done it, not someone who just studies it. I did it for a long time. And it has been my passion. I do it 7 days a week, 365 days a year, no vacations. That's my flaw. I've got issues. I need to improve life balance. But you can take advantage of that because in the courses you have all the office hours for the last 5 years, all the one-on-ones, more content than you could consume. So you can pick and choose, and it becomes your sales coach in a pocket. It has an app so you can listen to it on your smartphone when you have time. Go for a walk, listen to an Office Hours. Wake up in the morning, listen to someone else's one-on-one. Hear how other people had a struggle and then solved it. Because can you think of a more powerful skill than being able to get a conversation started with whoever you wanted to. It's not instantaneous. It's not push a button and they're talking to you. It takes a couple steps, of course, but it's pretty predictable, pretty consistent. And that's what you want, because sending spam all day, it's consistently failure. Cold calling, If it's the only chance you have, great. But is it really the most effective? How many people pick up? You get a lot of practice leaving voicemail. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying there might be a more effective way. And how about if you knew how companies buy? And this is something that's really hit me in the last week or so, is that in a lot of cases Our instincts are our enemy in sales. It is our own desire for the outcome that clouds our judgment of where we are and what we need to do. So what do we do? Kind of panic and do the wrong things. Let me show you where you are in the deal and how to keep the deal moving. That's winning the complex sale. Check out these courses at b2brevenue.com. Here's how they work. You can pay all at once or you can pay over 12 monthly payments, but it's not a membership. It's not like you join for 1 month. It's a 12-month commitment. If that's not what you want, don't do it.

You'll be disappointed.

So really take a year. And people will say, well, I'll wait I'll wait and do it next year. Well, fine, but that doesn't— where does that get you by waiting? You've got to invest now in yourself. Time is not your friend because what those people never end up taking it, or the people who say, well, how much is all of them? There's no bundling. There's no discounting. It is what it is. If it doesn't work for you, I totally understand. But I have to set it up some way and some way that works for the most number of people that I want to have in the course. People who are self-motivated because you need that because I'm not calling you up every day and, you know, hounding you like your manager. It's up to you. You have to initiate that action. You have to listen to it. You have to do the exercises. You have to ask for feedback. You need to engage and ask questions. That's how people learn. It's, you know, the days of sitting in a room and just smiling and nodding, you may learn that way, but when you engage, when you really become curious and pull out answers, that's when you really learn, isn't it? Because sales knowledge is one element, it's execution is most of it. But you have to know what to execute against, not just know about your product. Go to b2brevenue.com, check them out. If you think they're a good match for you, there's 2 videos there you can watch how the course works. Um, you can see the actual learning management system And the other one is Which Course Is Right for You, which just goes into great detail on each course, how they work, who's a great match for it. And I know you're thinking, will this work in my industry? Yes, if you're in business-to-business complex sale and you sell to people, it works. I've done it all over the world. Every culture, we're all pretty much mammals at the very core. We don't want to accept that, but that's the truth. We'll see you next time. Make sure you're checking out the other shows, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers, The Sales Leadership Show, and we'll see you next time.