WHAT THE BEST SALESPEOPLE DO DIFFERENTLY TODAY

There really is no other profession like sales, especially when we do it for a company, when we're selling for a company, especially in business-to-business. And I had this kind of epiphany right before I started this recording because this week I had some bizarre interactions with some sales leaders. And I asked myself, Imagine starting your career working for somebody who doesn't even understand the game that they're playing, but they think they do. That's the worst situation possible. Why? Because if you have these rules about how the game works, but it doesn't apply to the game that you're playing, you're playing the wrong game. Now, today there's all kinds of things that people call frameworks or methodologies. But when you really look at them, they're not frameworks or methodologies. They're kind of checklists that were developed in the '90s, not by salespeople, by sales operations people, people who manage the forecast. And not for a struggling company. But a market-dominant company. Essentially, they were ranking the likelihood of an order closing. And was this checklist helpful? Very helpful. Is this checklist the way to sell? Ah, no. And I get into this debate quite often with sales leaders, and I kind of shake my head. I go, why are you so attached to this and not open-minded and discussing it. They're rationalizing why this checklist of things that a deal should have. And, but, and I, and I go, do you realize this checklist is 100% outside the client looking in, not from the client's perspective and what they need to do?

Oh.

This is why I empathize with salespeople today, because when your leader, your manager is trying to tell you this is how the game's played, but the game isn't played that way and you lose, guess who they blame?

You.

They don't blame their system, their checklist. They blame the poor rep who obeyed the silly-ass checklist. And let's face it, the checklist, it's completely subjective. So, it's not a fact. It's not a GPS on how the deal gets done. And it's just comical to talk to sales leaders this way because they get there because they want to leverage the most popular thing out there so they sound like they know what they're doing. And that's nice. But that doesn't really sell. To win any game, you have to understand how it's played. We all know the objective, but it's like we have blindfolds on, not seeing how companies really buy. And we think that our clients have this structured, documented, trained process for selecting partners and vendors and changing the company. It's just the opposite. Companies are set up not to spend money, not to buy stuff. Buying stuff and changing the company internally, the client company, is an unnatural act. And I think we're losing that today because we're not on-prem. We're not face-to-face anymore. So we don't get to see some of these dynamics that are happening within the company, the facial expressions, the groans, the—

The eye rolls.

The real metal of how change takes place within a company. We think if it just has an ROI and it's well documented and it makes logical sense and the value pile is really high and there's a new way of doing things, that the company will naturally do it.

Mm-mm.

Eventually they may, but we're talking about our lifetime. We're talking about our comp plan year, not the 5 years from now. So I empathize with you. And this is this problem that I'm trying to solve with Closing the Complex Sale. Because when I first started teaching it, I'd always go in and I'd ask them to kind of draw out their sales process. And just at the highest level. Now, for somebody who's been in sales and thinks strategically and understands the game they're playing, This should be pretty simple. But what they ended up drawing out was what they had in the CRM, which is basically prospect, discovery call, demo, proposal, close, negotiate, close. And they'll have little different names for it, but that's kind of their view of the game they're playing. The client is very different. They're like, oh, let's see what's going on out there. Oh, this is cool. Oh, it'd be nice to have this. Oh, we could really be different if we had it. Oh, wait a second. Do you know how to buy anything?

No.

And this is what we don't understand. We think that when we talk to clients and they, they like it, they need it, they want it, the company can afford it, that it would naturally happen.

Hmm.

But it doesn't. Today, I got a great sales leader, not like the ones that I'm talking about in this intro. The ones I talk about in this intro, uh, they tend to get into leadership for the things that aren't really that important. They look like a sales leader, they act and sound like a sales leader, but there's not much behind that. Today we got the full suit, not the empty suit. Let's get into the interview. I think you're really going to like this guy.

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

Thanks for having me, Brian. A little background on myself. Let's see, I'm 43 years old, been in sales for 23 years. Grew up in Northeastern Ohio and grew up in family business, family-owned Italian restaurants and Grew up learning how to deal with all kinds of people and raised by first-generation family. And my grandfather raised me on some core values that are centered around respect, trust, pride, loyalty, integrity, accountability. And those things carried me through my early years into Ohio University where I went to school. And got a communications degree. And we were one of the top sales schools in the country, so got a sales certification and moved to Columbus, Ohio, and have been, you know, been in enterprise sales and management roles for the last 23 years. And got a wonderful family, wife Stephanie and daughter Ava. She'll be 17, and Nico's going to be 5, and Isadora is going to be 7. So we got a full house of kids and athletes and You know, the clock, the clock just keeps rolling.

Lots of reasons to sell, right?

That's right. That's right.

Well, tell us about that restaurant. I take it you worked there as a youngster?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. My, my grandfather. So my grandparents, my family's from Italy. My grandparents came over before the— probably around late Roaring '20s, right?

Yep.

And, um, you know, they were tool and die makers in the factories, and grandfather did what he did best, which was cook. So, um, you know, he owned restaurants all throughout his, uh, his lifetime. And I don't remember being at his restaurants, but my Uncle Junior learned from my grandfather, and, uh, my Uncle Junior, um, uh, owned several restaurants that I grew up working at. And I'll tell you what, I learned that the world doesn't revolve around me at an early age.

That's a good lesson to learn early.

Yeah. And that's, I think I learned like, it had a lot of influence on me and like, just getting dirty and working. Grit, having some grit, right?

And did you do a lot of different roles? Busboy, dishwasher, waiter, everything, whatever was needed?

I came in as a busboy. I'm like, by the way, I was like 14, 15 years old, so a long time ago. Yeah, so I was young working in the restaurant and, uh, came in as a busboy. And at the end of the night, like, well, you're gonna go in the kitchen, do dishes. I'm like, what do you mean I'm gonna do dishes? I'm a busboy. No, you work for the family. You're gonna go do dishes. And, uh, I was like, huh, that's interesting. And it was a wake-up call. So I did everything from, I started bussing tables, doing dishes. It was an Italian steakhouse, 200-person restaurant lounge, 600-person ballroom, 200-person VIP room, steakhouse, pot, all that stuff.

Wow.

So was a runner. I'm carrying those big steel trays with Sticks things with double pork chops on them. You can hear it sizzle. Even through the, you know, you're weaving through the restaurant at, you know, 15 years old trying to save up money for a car when I turned 16. And, um, you know, all my aunts worked there. It was all— it was, um, it was a fun place to work. We worked hard. And then, you know, you graduated up into like doing banquets. I got to be upstairs in the kitchen while my uncle's cooking 300 scrod and strip steaks for a high school banquet or a wedding and got into that, you know, got working on the line, started cutting meats, like doing all that stuff, right? So just really got a good understanding of operations. I didn't know it then, but I got a really good understanding of like all the gears are required to make this thing work. And if you're not—

And you're not working for Red Lobster or some Ruth's Chris, some chain or franchise. It's your family.

This is like Aunt Jean, Aunt Dolly, Aunt— like everybody yelling at me.

They have— they'll have the X-ray machine. They know what's going on in your head.

That's right. That's right. And it became like, you know, I worked there, I mean, on and off, right, for 8 years, right? So I was, you know, out of college, right? I come home over spring break and they're not hiring, but they're like, Michael, you got a shift. Come on. Right? So, um, you know, it became like home. So when I come home from college, my friends would, you know, come over and we'd spend time there when I wasn't working there and just hang out. And, um, you know, when you got— when you got a lot of history there, it just becomes kind of, you know, it's part of you, right? So, um, that was a really good experience, like, early on.

Well, that's great foundation. And I saw you had a couple of, you know, the traditional tough sales jobs.

Oh yeah.

And now enterprise. How did you make that switch? Because, you know, working for a big company, it can become— yeah, kind of like a trap almost, in that it pays pretty well, you become pretty good. How do you get to that next level?

So, um, in an effort to not— we only have 30 minutes, right? But it's a story, right?

You want to hear about the story?

So when I was at Ohio University we had an organization called the— it's now called the Ralph and Lucy Shea Sales Center. And I was brought up, and this is back in the '90s, right? Under Dr. Hersey's SPIN Selling, right? That's what we learned in school. Hersey was aligned with the university, and I was in the sales center. And what I figured out real quick is that in life, like, opportunities are everywhere, but you have to go make something out of it, right? Like, my daughter's looking at colleges right now, and I'm like, Ava, there's opportunities everywhere, but you got to go do something with it to create your opportunity. So I was in the center, and I realized the value of, like, mentors and all these wonderful mentors. And I won this award called the Fair Unfair Advantage Award. And I had an advantage. It was a fair advantage, but it was unfair. I had that advantage, but I went out and got it. Right? So, what I figured out quickly is I did an internship at Cintas Corporation. Okay? Great company.

Right? I know.

Great company. But I learned what a love them and leave them sales model was. So, their sales model was go out, get new business, and that's what you do all day long. And then your service sales representatives pick up ongoing expansion. And I was like, I'm a relationship guy. That doesn't sit with me. So through the sales center, a guy named Bob Axeline, I went and worked for him the next summer in Marlborough, Massachusetts. 12 employees, spoke 20 languages, technology business. And I learned real quick, I don't want to work for a small company. So I made a decision. I want to go somewhere big with the best training in the world because I understood the value of underlying, like, like sales training that is pumped into your bloodstream and it becomes you. So I went to Xerox Corporation when they were arguably one of the most relevant sales organizations anywhere in the world.

Yeah.

And, you know, I had the pleasure of learning under Anne Mulcahy, who was the CEO at the time, who was phenomenal. So I went to the Xerox School of Sales Training and that decision, right? My first experience at a university was the best decision I ever made because Xerox gave me this foundational methodology and process. They call this thing the buyer-focused wheel of selling.

Yep.

The first 50% of the wheel, you don't even talk about you, right? You fact-find, you validate, you magnify, right? You see if somebody wants to do something about pain. If they do, you help them set criteria, right? Usually their criteria is price, And you want to get here. So how do you flip the script, get them to focus on outcomes, right? So like, I really like— I got really good experience calling on state, local, federal government, public sector operations, moved into a specialist role, right? So you had to learn to lead and deliver results through others without having authority. So think of it as a co-prime, like you have this product stack, but you have to drive sales execution through 10 or 15 salespeople in a multi-geo region. How do you do that? Because you can't do everything yourself. So I learned how to be a leader without authority to deliver results so that when I had authority, you didn't need authority to lead, right? And that's a learned skill set. So that then put me in an opportunity to go into enterprise software with BEA Systems.

Yep.

And that's when I learned The role I took out of school into Xerox was the only advertised sales position I've ever had in my life. The BEA thing, I like— the job was created for me. We got bought by Oracle. I went to Oracle for 3 years and I was in a co-prime role and I was like, this isn't me. I'm a relationship guy. So I went to Cisco Systems and that's where all that experience went to the next level and they gave me the 4 worst enterprise accounts, said, good luck, go figure it out. That's when I learned to sell through a channel. I'd never sold through a channel, always sold direct. Spent 7, 8 years there as a global, working for our global enterprise group. And that's really where a ton of maturation occurred on the just from a global perspective. And I got tired. I got tired. And I ended up making a career move 4 years ago to leave the big company world, leave the Fortune 100, and go work for a small startup out of Boston. So right now, I work for a company called Markforged. We R&D engineer and manufacture closed-loop 3D printing solution that's redefining manufacturing and solving a lot of the supply chain challenges you see today, right? Providing the ability to print at point of need versus traditional legacy processes. And it's fun building something.

Physical. Yeah.

Physical. Yeah.

After dealing with software for a number of years, right?

Yep.

What would you attribute your success to?

Um, there's— that's a, it's a pretty open question.

Um, well, you know, the knee-jerk reaction is hard work, but everybody— most people work hard. And then relationships, but then most people have pretty good relationships. It's typically— yeah, somebody really double downs on something.

All right. I doubled down on a couple things. So I have this thing called the mantra. Everybody at Markforged, if you're on my team, I created this mantra as an outcome of just like I had to— like when I moved into this leadership role, I was like, I got to find a way to create something so simple that no matter what situation anyone's in, like you just tie to the mantra. These are our core themes. This is how we do business. So it's the mantra, right? And what the mantra is, it defines how we operate. The mantra is 3 things. You're empowered, you're accountable, and you're customer-focused, right? So everything we do as an organization is customer-first, customer-focused, because if your customers aren't happy, you're not selling anything. And if you're not selling anything, you have shareholder impact. So take care of your customers and take care of your workforce, because if your workforce isn't happy, your customers aren't happy, and your shareholders aren't happy. The second thing is, my boss for 7 years at Cisco, one of the greatest people I've ever met in my entire life, he used to have a t-shirt hanging behind his desk. It was a blue t-shirt, had white writing on it, and said, hope is not a strategy. So I would always walk into his office, we'd be strategizing something, And he asked me a question, I'd be like, because hope is not a strategy. He'd say, yeah. So I brought this in, as I said, look, hope is not a strategy. If it's not on paper, it's not real. So if you're not documenting your sales process with your customer and constantly playing back, you and I both know 80% of the gig, half the time as an advocate, is selling internally. Where's your pitch? Because somebody different enters the room, and if you're not ready, aim, fire, you're wasting time. So the second part of the mantra is hope is not a strategy. If it's not on paper, it's not real. The third thing is have a plan, work your plan, and execute. My first manager of sales operations, Gina Smith at Xerox Corporation, said that to me at an early age. She said, have a plan, work your plan, and execute. If you want to be the king, wear the crown. Let the organization know what you want to do, what you want to aspire to be. Don't do it in an egotistical way, but have a plan. Work your plan and go, right? So like, you know, I, I don't— as you hear those things, like, that's what I lean into is like the mantra, and that's how I operate. And it's, um, it's done well for me because any situation I can— I enter on a daily basis.

Yeah, core principles, right? And would you say that the opposite, opposite of that does not work? If you don't have a plan and you wing it, which a lot of— most salespeople wing it, right? They're like MacGyver. Throw me into a situation, I'll tell you how I get out of it.

Yeah, I think, um, I think that to be in that 1% where you're at Club every single year for your entire career, um, that doesn't— luck is not involved there. Now, could it happen once? Yeah, an old VP had said, Mike, career growth and development is about performance, luck, sponsorship, and timing. You need 3 of the 4. I kind of buy into that. You do, right? Sometimes you have—

Right, because you only have control over— you don't have control over luck. You only have control over yourself and what you do.

That's right. Building sponsorship. So I think that there are people in sales roles that on paper have huge success year 1, but they get that shark tooth performance, right? So I don't consider those results skill, right?

Like, you have timing, good luck, good— yeah. Got a good account.

Sure, sure.

And why did you just choose to go into leadership?

So this has happened to me in 2 companies. When I was at Xerox, I realized— and by the way, greatest training, leadership development ever. I believe it's the core of why I've been successful in my career. There is a difference between management and leadership.

Big difference.

So you said, why'd you go into leadership? Brian, I've been in leadership my whole career.

You wanted to?

I want to lead. So at Cisco, I had 2 large global accounts. I was in a client exec type role, but I wasn't manager of people. I was manager of a business campaign across the globe, 7,000 locations with stakeholders and constituents all over the planet.

Yeah.

Because I learned how to lead without authority. I was a company leader. I was a leader with the customer, and I was able to lead teams internally and externally to push the customer's agenda forward. So there's a difference between leadership and management. You say, why'd you get into leadership? Because I think critical mass, if you can take the we, not me approach and get the village behind you, that's how you get stuff done anyway. I can't do everything. I need my product. You got to have people from product. You got to have marketing. You got to have support and technical services and senior sponsorship. So if you can't do that, it's kind of hard to succeed on your, on your own, right? And I think that, um, I think that's something a lot of people miss.

They do. And especially when you went to— I take it Xerox was a matrix organization the way Oracle is.

Yep.

And I got exposed to that too, and it's kind of weird because you're like, who's this person? Why are they hitting me up?

Yep!

How do I get this person to do this if they don't work for me?

Right!

That's persuasion, right? And it's leadership. It's like, you're doing it for your own best interest. Let me explain why.

Yep! Yep! Absolutely! I wouldn't— I don't know if it's— look, persuasion, I think, has a negative connotation. Can be, yeah! But I would say if— so to go back to the original question, I think that Success is also built on one who seeks diversity of opinion, one who's a curious listener and information seeker. And if you can build consensus and be decisive and be an effective communicator, people follow. Like, you get common goals and you collaborate internally with your partner community, with your customer. Like, and this, the momentum just goes, right?

As opposed to being a know-it-all.

Yeah. Um, and you know, look, I'm, um, I'm big on EQ and emotional intelligence and self-awareness, right? I love to teach that. Um, you know, I've gone through that in the last 12 months where I was, um, there was a, there was a, um, But a 3-month window where I was the biggest tree in the forest casting a shadow because I had the answers. But what I've learned is sometimes you have to take a back seat and maybe ask questions to help draw the answers out. And, you know, I've been doing this for 23 years, and sometimes we have to reteach ourselves those skill sets, especially in a small company where you're moving fast. And, you know, we need to make decisions and go. So I think what I've actually found is slowing down, taking a nap, going to work out, like, I'm more productive, as crazy as that sounds. I had to reteach— I had to teach myself that again this past year, right? Like—

Well, it's especially in sales. We feel like if we're moving, We're being effective, right? That's not necessarily true because certainly what you're selling, it's much more of a cerebral activity than it is a backbreaking activity.

Yeah, yeah.

Thinking through why the other person would care and want to be a customer.

That's right. Like, our— not only our industry, but our tech stack We haven't crossed the chasm yet. We're in a push market.

Right.

I can tell you, I've closed $100 million deals that were— I'm not going to say they're easy, they're 5-year sales campaigns, but equally as challenging to do a $100K deal in the space we're in now.

Yeah, definitely.

The world doesn't know what they don't know. And to do something that's truly transformational in a legacy industry that's smokestacked and It's just been spamming stuff out for, you know, 100 years. It's, it's really hard.

Um, what was that adjustment like? Because you go through, you know, 2 huge or 3 huge brand names where they may not know what you do at the company, but they know what the company does, right? Very different. Then you go to this new space that's physical product, smokestack, Customers, new idea.

Yeah. For— I think like for me, I knew exactly what I needed in my life. Personal impacts work, work impacts personal, right? So like, I wanted to build something. I wanted to take all this experience and I didn't know I wanted this at the time, but I dumb luck found it. What it means to be part of a mission-based organization with founders, it's so crazy cool. Never experienced this before. And once you get a sip of that wine, you're like, I'll take the whole bottle, sir. Please, I'll have another glass. Because it's Now it's like you get up every morning, I can't wait to go to work. I get up every morning, I'm like, all right, here, we're going to get this today. Because it's like you're building to get to the next step, to take a $50 million company to a $100 million company, $100 million company to $200 million, to $200 million to a billion-dollar company. That's the thing we're on. So it's to build, it's to earn while you're doing it. So to have ownership and stake Right? Like into what you're building and also to grow. Grow something, grow as a professional, like teach people. Like, there aren't a lot of people that can leave the global enterprise, like you said, because it's so good. It's so good, but it's—

Well, you know it, right? And if you're effective at it, it's like, Maybe you'd go to another one, Salesforce or AWS or whoever.

That's exactly where I was talking to both of them when I was looking at— Of course you were. Why would you not? But here's the thing. Here's what I learned. If I'm as good as I think I am about taking care of customers and helping them achieve their hopes, dreams, and goals, right? Um, I'll be fine. I'm gonna have to take a little step back to take a step forward. Um, but you got to be willing to take that step. And what this has taught me is that, um, I'm willing to— I'm so open to risk because there is no downside. There's no downside.

Yeah, none. Why not like a startup, you know, like a series A, B, somewhat enterprise, but not super enterprise where you could maybe run North America or—

Yeah. So I don't have that answer. I don't know. But what I can tell you is, I got to be careful here. So I was with my financial services customer in San Jose, with John Chambers at Cisco in his boardroom, and the CEO asked him, hey, what's the next 10 things that are going to change the way the world lives, plays, works, and learns? The 6th or 7th thing John shared with the CEO and his leadership team was, he started talking about 3D printing. Now, this is back in like— this would've been in like maybe 2017. So John says that, and I'm like, he goes, you know, I think the conversation went something like, imagine if you will, when you come down in the morning for breakfast, you print this pill that is like optimized for your body and fills you up, and it ensures optimal performance of you for the day. Is it going to taste good?

Nah.

But over time, it'll keep getting better and better and better and better, because we're on that whole like IOE, IoT conversation, right?

Yeah.

That is the only thing that stuck in my head that day. Again, dumb luck stuff, right? So I leave that executive briefing, start looking at career opportunities, talking to an old VP I worked for at Salesforce, talking to Amazon. It's the natural move, right? And I was just like, let's just— it feels the same.

More of the same.

I got to shake this up. So I get a call from a recruiter on the West Coast and she says, hey, I got this thing, got that thing. She goes, I got this 3D printing thing. She's like, but it's nowhere near what you're doing. And I was like, 3D printing? I was like, tell me more about that. I remember John's talking about it. I was like, tell me more about that. And she names the guy who's this chief revenue officer. And I'm like, wait a minute. Like, da da da. He like lives in Columbus, Ohio, like 2 miles up the road from me. She's like, yeah, do you know him? And I'm like, yeah, I worked at Cisco with him. I didn't know he was over there. Now I went to college with him. So he and I go to lunch 2 miles from our house. He puts a metal brake lever on the bar. I said, what are you doing? He's like, changing the world, changing the supply chain, improving time to market for manufacturers, improving the world's supply chain, helping manufacturers be more efficient, take costs out of the business. And he puts something physical, like you said, been selling stuff in the data center, that I don't touch hardware, software, professional services for 20 years.

Oh.

Now I'm back to like old school Xerox, like business concern, feature advantage. I'm like, you know what, let's simplify the life. And I touched this thing and it's metal. I'm like, you printed that? He's like, yeah, it's 17-4 stainless steel. It's like got a honeycomb infill. It's, it's, it's lighter weight, but it still performs like a traditional cast part. And I'm like, Tell me more. He's like, Mike, I would— we would never hire anybody with your background because you don't fit the mold.

All right, steep learning curve.

I got hooked. I got hooked. And it was just this odd thing that happened. It was the executive briefing, the 3D printing thing. She said something, I knew somebody, and it was just like, all right, I'm gonna roll the dice. And I went there to build something, and, um, and it just happened. And it's been It's been— my experience here has been the most fun, the most rewarding. I love what I do. I love our team. Like, is it hard? It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do. There are no— you know, you, you, you for— you know, you work for the big company, you're like, oh well, that's messed up, or that's messed up. No, it's not. No, it's not. Like, this stuff's not built Like, you're building the stuff, you're writing the business requirements, and you're like, it's— you're, you're, you're doing 20 different jobs, right? And I think, um, I think differently now, and it actually helps me with customers because I understand even more, right? Like, how— like, like, do you look— technology, like, you can buy technology from anyone, plug it in the wall. And you're going to get green blinky lights. But if you don't have the people and the process nailed around the technology, the tech doesn't matter. It's the people and the process.

Is the building your motive? Is that what lights your fire?

I think it's— there's a lot of things that light my fire, Brian. I think For me, it's changed a little bit. When I came here, it was very intentional to build, to earn, and to grow. Now I've achieved those things exactly how I wanted to achieve them. Now the role that I'm in, I'm building something even bigger that can have 2x impact with many zeros if we do this thing right. So now it's like, okay, we built this, but if we could scale something, This could be huge, right? So it's, it's still the same, but it's a different context. And—

It comes back to like the family restaurant, because like if you're building something big at an Oracle or an IBM, it's like it's not yours, right? You're kind of— you're a passenger on the rocket ship.

That's right.

But if you're kind of one of the engineers on the rocket ship, and you designed it and you're, you're there every day. The emotional attachment is so much more solid. That's what gets people about startups is that, you know, seeing the company picture every year go from, you know, 5 to 50 to 500 to—

That's that connection piece I'd mentioned, like with our co-founders. Um, being like connected, like at the core, like this like spiritual mission bait. Like, like it— I can't explain it because I've never gone through this before, right?

Right.

Because most of the big companies, you're a resource. You're not a person. You're not, you know, you're just a resource. You're plug and play. You're part of the matrix. It all kind of works. It's good. Been there. It's fun. But when you're at a startup, you're building it. If something doesn't work, it's like the restaurant. You figure out how to fix it.

Oh yeah. And you're working with people that are absolutely the most brilliant people I've ever met in my entire life. And now I'm the old guy, right? I'm the old guy, right? All the stories. So for the first 2 and a half years here, we're on the road 5 days a week.

Yeah.

In every single city you've never heard of in the United States, just road warrior, hotel oatmeal, and going to the next place the next day. And, um, it's the best time I've ever had my entire life, just going through that and figuring stuff out. Like, we don't have this, let's go build this so like the next wave of people don't have to build this because we've already seen it all, right? So like being part of that, figuring the puzzle out, and Like that, that's, that's been kind of cool. It's been kind of neat.

It is. Hey, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to connect and follow you and learn more about your company?

Yeah, you can reach out for company www.markforged.com and you can find me on LinkedIn, Mike Cady, C-A-D-Y. Feel free to reach out at any time.

It's always interesting that when you see somebody's childhood and how they grew up, and especially those developing years, The teenage years where we start to have those correlations between effort and reward, of teamwork, of understanding the world through someone else's perspective. And as Mike said, finding out that the world doesn't revolve around me, that epiphany needs to happen very early in life. And unfortunately, it doesn't. But we have control over it. We can redesign our life, our perspective, our mindset to be what is most useful for us. But what I heard from Mike was that these early lessons of hard work, teamwork, effort and reward, and especially doing it at a family business, because a family business You can't let your family down. Your family knows all your tricks. They know all your little gimmicks of getting out of work and trying to enjoy your life. So, you can't get away with murder the way you can with total strangers because they're family. They know you. They know it all. And if you build up off of that into a career, and then his desire to find mentors. Now, this is something that is hard to do. I get it. And when I hear it, the last thing you want to do is make it any kind of formality. You can have just what I call observational mentors. Have somebody who's maybe 5 years, 10 years ahead of you in your chosen field and basically mirror them, observe them. See what worked, what didn't work. Try and dig into why, what the cause and effect was. What were some of the alternatives? How they play the game of sales. How do they view it? Now, this is where we get in trouble a little bit in sales because the progression of how we represent our sale in our head kind of starts off with platitudes. And this is where managers don't really do a good service for their reps because you can take the platitude and okay, it turns into somewhat of a skill. What do we all hear? 2 ears and 1 mouth, use it appropriately. Okay, thank you. Okay, listening is good, but that is really a characteristic of playing the game. It's not playing— I mean, it's better than talking, Over people, but it's not going to get the deal done. You may be more liked than you were before. So you move on from platitudes to things like the checklist, which I talked about in the intro. And then all of a sudden you think that's the whole game. No, no, no. That's a forecaster's view of the game, not how the game is won. This is why sales leaders who only focus on the most likely Which they kind of should for a while, but not completely. Because if they focus only on the most likely, they think the whole world looks like those deals. And they can't understand why reps— their deals aren't looking like the best deals. Because they're not going to have just the best deals. They're going to have the marginal deals. They're going to have the hard-to-win deals, the stretch deals, not just the easy repeat deals and the inbound deals. Those are easy, and congratulations, you have them. The people who really do well in the large complex sale are the people who understand how companies buy. They understand the traps that they're faced with. We had a great one-on-one yesterday, somebody new to the course and had the classic challenge of, hey, they seem really interested, I get the technical I send the proposal in and then nothing happens and they ghost me. Well, does that sound familiar? That's the default. That's not the exception. How do you prevent that? Well, you got to have a system. You got to understand what you're doing and why it's being ghosted and how to prevent it. And we all want the shortcut. Brian, give me the tip, the trick, the secret. Well, the secret is to play the whole game, not just react to what you're requested to do. And I know it's hard not to. Somebody wants a proposal. Boy, we can get that to them really quickly. But that usually stalls the deal. It doesn't accelerate the deal. You're basically saying, hey, we're a commodity and this is what it costs. And guess what? Commodities, eh, we'll get to it when we get to it. If you really want to take your game to the next level, you have to own it. Clearly, you have some kind of judgment of the company that you work for and their training and the development that they give you.

And, you know, it is what it is.

Okay, so you either can go along with it, and sometimes under false pretenses, Or you can find somebody who's done it for, say, 30 years who can kind of guide you through how companies buy, how to develop your system. This is not about selling someone else's way. This is about selling your way to win your deals. Check the courses out at b2brevenue.com. I've got a couple of videos that answer probably 90% of the Make sure you watch those. It's both an overview on how the courses work and, you know, how to log in and where it is and how it's organized and what form— they're all on video and you have 100% access. Answers all of those. And then there's one that answers the which course is right for me, which is the most popular question. If those videos don't answer all your questions, you can email me or schedule a call with one of our team members who can answer any additional questions. Please make them additional. It's not a, hey, I want to learn more about the courses. If you want to learn more about the courses, just quickly watch the videos. Faster for you and me. If you do schedule that call, show up.

Okay?

The first test in sales is showing up. And trust me, it is more than 50% of the role. I can give you many examples of that. And we always want to look for the short tips and tricks. Here's the tip: show up. For you, for the customers, for anything you commit to. Show up on time, prepared, have a plan, have questions, have an agenda. Sorry, I have to remind some people of that, but that's just the beginning there.

That's it.

Hey, I really appreciate everybody who likes, comments, and shares my content, who tells a friend about the show. Check out the other podcasts, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers, The Sales Leadership Show, and the B2B Revenue Leadership Podcast.

Here we go.

I was just going to give a bit of a testimonial, if that's all right, just to kick it off. Just—

Only if it's positive.

No, it is positive. It was a— yeah, just because I started the course, I think, in June of last year, 2021. I got a few more months left of access, which is good. But I feel like it's been a transformative experience in my own personal and professional life. I was able to go from a period of a low sales slump in the middle of last year in the summer and early fall, and then really was able to then come back and exceed my target by the end of the, by the end of the 4th quarter. And so the only other thing I would say is that it's also really differentiated me amongst people on the sales team in terms of focus and clarity of what's important. And now I feel really good about what I'm doing in terms of the approach of reaching out to customers and having those conversations and being focused as opposed to just doing a lot of the other busywork on the side, like organizing resources and doing business analytics and all this other stuff. And so it's really been a noticeable difference with our executive team at my company. And so I just want to thank you for the content and for these opportunities. And so I hope that helps if there's anybody new. It's— I'm a work in progress, but it's getting better.

Good.

Yeah.

And you're selling pretty hard stuff.