WHAT THE BEST SALESPEOPLE DO DIFFERENTLY

When we're in sales for quite a while, we tend to think that, hey, we know what we're doing. We've got this down. We don't need to practice or prepare. Let's see how it goes. And what I find with the great salespeople, it's just the opposite. The longer they're in sales, the more time they spend preparing, the more time they plan and do research about the account, think it through, come up with a solution, anticipate Obstacles, understand the people that we're talking to and what they care about. That's what we're going to be talking about today. And when you've been in sales for quite a while, you tend to think that's all gone. The good part is, you know what to work on. You know what is most likely going to happen, and you can kind of anticipate them and hopefully prevent bad things from happening. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode. I did. And some of the things that you should get out of it— I'll sum it up at the end. I don't want to be a spoiler here because it's so good to hear this and see it work and to see other salespeople admire it. Because the people that you hear on the show have come highly recommended by their peers, people who have worked with them and have seen their success and who have helped Hey, Jacqueline, thanks for joining us today.

As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Hi, Brian. Yes, so I'm here in the UK. I'm based in London, and I've been in sales. I guess the real answer is I've probably been in sales since I was a little child because my parents have a retail store. And so really from early years, I was sort of in the store and helping with sales behind the counter. But I mean, my real sales career started after I finished university. I went to read.co.uk, an online recruitment advertising company, and then went into software sales. I saw all those job adverts about software sales and I thought, I really want to get into that industry, and worked for a company called Navex Global, which is a leader in ethics and compliance software. And then did a little stint as well in the Middle East working for a company there. But I think the most, you know, my most recent career move over to Oracle into sort of HR technology is something that I'm just really excited about. It's the latest sort of step in my career. And yeah, lots of learnings along the way, which hopefully we can chat about today.

Yeah, because I got to think selling to HR would be pretty hard. Am I right or wrong?

Or do you know, I've always done that though, because recruitment is selling to recruitment and HR. With ethics and compliance, it was more of the people ethics rather than the reg, you know, some of the regulatory, but it was a lot around sort of the people behaviors and culture. So HR were often involved. And it's not easy to sell it to anyone these days, right?

It's pretty hard all around.

Yeah.

And let's talk about that journey. And, you know, retail is one thing, people come to you. B2B is harder because, you know, they've got their full-time job and we're kind of a side thing in a lot of cases. What's been working for you?

I think the journey that I've taken, which has been a really purposeful journey for me, I've really thought about every next step in my career. At the beginning, I kind of just fell into, okay, great, I've got this sales job, and I wasn't really aware of all the different types of directions you could go in sales, the different types of sales jobs. What the reason I've gone the way that I have is because I've really looked for sales that— sales roles that need that strategic thinking, and you really have to get inside not only the individual contact's head, but understand the business, understand the consumers that they're selling to, or the businesses that they're selling to, the risks, the, you know, so there's a lot to think about, which I really like.

And how do you go about that? Do you do a lot of research? Or what's your process?

Yeah, I think I am one of those people that it's sort of innate with me that I would I like to know the facts. I like to research. I like to learn. And so I, again, that's why I thought this type of sales would be beneficial for me because it's the sort of thing I like to do. Um, there also has a, you know, there's a flip side to that, right? You, I can often get, that's one of the, the risks is kind of learning too much and overthinking.

Um, digging too deep in the wrong area.

So there's always that risk.

How have you managed that?

Or have you?

Yeah, it's something that I've— it's been up and down, especially when I've gone to a new role. Because there are, I think for a lot of people, when you move into a new industry, a new company, you want to get over that imposter syndrome. So you want to learn a lot, you You— and so curbing that back a little bit, one of the things I'll often do is I'll practice. So I'll do— if I've got a deal I'm working on, I do usually do extensive research, but I make sure there's a gap between, let's say, the meeting or the demo. I'm going to have a gap where I can just let it settle in for a day or two. I'm going to have another little briefing before the meeting, but I'll also practice before the meeting. So I'll practice some of the pitch or practice some of the questions that we might have to discuss. And I think, especially when it comes to difficult conversations, so the kind of inspiring ones and motivating ones are the easier ones for most people. But for me especially, I know that I, I'm not someone who likes to give bad news or the confrontation is difficult. So when I know I have meetings like that, I remember I had one last year with a It was with a customer who we had to talk through some difficult contractual misunderstandings. I videoed myself having that conversation because I wanted to make sure that the words— I was very purposeful with the words I chose, and that also my kind of facial expression and gestures matched the sort of emotion I wanted to give off.

And was it effective?

It was, it was, it was. And I think some of my colleagues were surprised to see that element of me because, you know, they're used to seeing me in those inspirational meetings where I'm sort of high energy. And yeah, less— it was great for me. It was great. It did result in a positive outcome in the end, which was great. But it was, it was a surprise to some people, I think.

And a lot of people don't really think that way. A lot of people, let's see how it goes. They assume they've been doing it for so many years that it'll just naturally happen.

Yet— Yeah.

So many other professions aren't that way, right? There's always practice and rehearsal and getting feedback and game tapes and Yes.

Yeah, I think, and I think it depends on the— and one of the revelations that has happened to me in really in the past sort of year or two is understanding how I am as a person, like how I behave and react and preparing for those situations because I am not best at just seeing how it goes. Some people can do that really well, completely admire it. You know, I need— I know that that would be a vulnerability for me. So I do need to prepare. I do need to sometimes rehearse and practice.

And was that something that you had in your childhood or in college, either in the debating team or drama team or sports where you had rehearsal, feedback, improvement?

Yes, I think I've had this— I do consider myself quite creative, whilst I don't think of myself as necessarily spontaneous and off the cuff. I do have a creative and artistic side. And like, from a young age, I studied dance. And, but we'd always rehearse, and I studied ballet, which is really quite a technical type of dance, right? And I realized, and I remember I went to a competition once where We were— one of the categories was improv. And I was just terrible, terrible at it. It was, it was, it was, it was, you know, I was embarrassed. It was, it did not go well. And it was a life lesson for me. I am not, I'm not made for that.

But there is a lot of, I mean, sales, a lot of calls turn into like improv, right? Because we rehearse what we know and what we anticipate. But then that stranger comes into the meeting or some new event happens or some competitive thing pops up.

Yeah, I think, and I'm not, I don't believe in scripted sales. You know, I definitely, you know, if I'm gonna have a, if I'm gonna do a demo or if I'm gonna cold call someone, I'm not gonna have a script there to read, but I'm gonna make sure that I know some key points. And that it's, it's almost like a safety net for me. So even if I don't use those, it's, I guess it's one of those things that for me personally, I need that as a comfort to know that I can, I can, I can do my best job.

Give us a sense of like, how many deals do you do a year? Is it like enterprise sales, I assume?

Where it's— Yep. So Oh, not even that, I would say.

Uh-oh.

Yeah, we're talking now at— because they are enterprise-wide, often HR technology companies will really try not to replace it less than 5 years, and ideally longer if they can. So we would be looking at You know, 4 or 5 deals a year. Yeah, yeah. Um, so it's—

They're pretty important.

They are, they are. And that's why I was talking about getting to know not only the, the customer, the individual contact, the business, um, their world is really important.

But plus, I assume you're in a matrix where you're not the only person from the company conversing with the company. The client.

Exactly. I mean, for anyone who's listening who knows Oracle, it is a giant of an organization. And one of the things I was actually hoping to talk about today was, I think, something I've learned in, in the past few years is really the importance of being a salesperson for yourself, selling yourself in a way, you know, that personal brand, that credibility. so that people in the organization will help you, so that people will advocate for you, champion for you. So that's something that's really important to me as an individual as well, a sales individual.

And how do you do that? Because I participated in that at one time in my career. And there's like the end of the year, the enterprise license agreement, and everyone's trying to get their stuff on it. Everyone's trying to get introduced to the executive, and and I'm sure you have like account managers and then you know specialists and all these other areas, and everybody's got their own agenda.

Yes, yeah. Um, I think you know one of the things that I'll do is I'll reach out proactively. So don't just reach out to your yeah. It's so it's it's. I mean, it's so transparent, right? And remember who's helped you out. When someone's helped you out, remember it. And to a point, I'll make a list. I'll make a list of, right, you know, this person did X for me at this time. I'm going to remember that person so I can pay them back. But yeah, be proactive. I think that often helps people to open up a bit. Not everyone is going to, but— It'll be more successful than I think you would believe at first.

You work well in that environment, or do you thrive in it?

Some people thrive in it.

Well, at Oracle, I'm only 4 months in, so we're waiting to see the—

Well, let's see some results.

Yeah, the fruits of that. I think it worked really well for me at my previous organization because we You know, there was my immediate team, but actually reaching out to people beyond my team. And we had— it was mostly colleagues in the US as well. So reaching out to people across, working in different geographies, different teams, different products. I think there's always something you can learn from people in the business as well. And that's, you know, that's something that I always try and do in my career, not only to, as I said, to be Hopefully build a network where they champion for you and advocate for you. But you can learn so much. And that's one of the things that I'm doing now at Oracle. Because in every organization, there's something you should be proud of where you're working. You should. And if you're not, there's probably other questions you should ask there. But every time in my career, I felt like I've been at the top of— in the top company that there is in that field. I'm selling their product. I believe in it. And so I should be speaking to the top people there, the brightest people at that organization.

And what differentiated you? Or maybe like, be easier to ask, like, how did you come about this strategy? Because most salespeople are kind of lone wolves. They've got their number, they're hyper-focused. They have to be, and they tend to work as a team only when they need to versus before, in that preparation phase instead of that scramble and recovery phase.

I would say the— one of the elements that brought me to this is you've got— I want to enjoy my job. Yeah, I want to enjoy my job, and I'm in my personal life, I'm not a lone wolf. I wouldn't say I'm a social butterfly, but I do enjoy connecting with people, meeting different people, talking, learning. And so it made sense to be thoughtful about that in my career, making sure that I was proactive about doing that. And yeah, as I say, I enjoy it. I think this is another thing that has probably come to me a little bit later. in my career where when I first started, I used to think that work is work and your home life is your home life. Work's not supposed to be that fun. It's supposed to, you know—

Work?

Yeah, you know, it's supposed to provide you with an income and food on the table. And I think as I've gotten older and more mature, I guess, I don't know which way it is, but Life's, you know, life's kind of too short to— we spend so much time working. We have to find some enjoyment out of it. And especially now, most of us are working from home. That, you know, distinguishing between those 2 worlds is an even finer line. So yeah, I just want to enjoy my job as well. I want to work with people I enjoy.

And what were some of the epiphanies that you learned along the way? Because you're doing kind of the hardest of the hard, large enterprise sales, and EMEA, where you've got multiple cultures, styles, personalities, languages?

A couple of things really, because now I'm an individual contributor at the moment. In my last role, I was looking after a team. So I would definitely say one of the things that was an epiphany for me is looking after a team was realizing that You know, you don't have to treat everyone fairly. Well, not fairly, the same.

Equally.

The same, not fairly. No, the reason I said fairly is because that's actually something that is, in terms of my core personality, it's difficult for me to not treat people equally because I have this— I kind of get, you know, I don't like things being unfair. So it was about unpicking that and learning, as I said before, learning what my core personality is like and how that reflects in my job. So learning that not everyone had to be treated the same. And I could spend, actually, I probably should spend 80% of my time with my top 20% of performers rather than the other way around. So that was definitely one of the epiphanies I had as a manager. And that came from reading First Break All the Rules by Gallup. So I read that book and that kind of brought that one. And the second one, I mean, there's been several other ones earlier in the career, but I think most recently I did a short course on Process Communication Model. I'm not sure if you've come across that before, Brian, PCM.

No.

No, it's— I'll just briefly explain it. It could be categorized as one of those sort of personality tests, like Myers-Briggs, that type of thing. But it actually goes much more thorough into the breakdown of your layers of your personality, but also teaches you on how to recognize the layers of someone else's personality. Because we're not all just one thing, right? We're not all just a, you know, a red or a green or whatever colors they are. We're all a blend. So trying to work out the layers of different people's personalities and the triggers that will turn it into an uncomfortable conversation or have a customer ghost you. How do you identify those triggers quickly and sort of turn the conversation or communication into your favor in a positive way again?

So was that a real pivot point in your ability to— I mean, because when you're a leader, you're right, because all the reps have different styles, different experience levels, different motive levels.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it's incredibly useful as a leader. I think it's also incredibly useful for your own self-awareness. I've mentioned a couple of times in this conversation about how I realized that's part of my kind of DNA as a— in my personality. Um, but the other thing is, I think it is really helpful in the sales process because we— I'm sure a lot of like you know, a lot of organizations will give their salespeople guidance on, you know, the CIO's persona is this, the CFO's persona is this. I think those are really useful guides, but of course, not every CIO or CFO or HRD are the same. You know, they— we all have our personalities. And so being able to layer the personality element into it really, you know, and even to the sense that— It should, if you can understand the preference in which people prefer for their communication, it's going to tailor whether you do PowerPoint or an Excel spreadsheet, or if you do a 2-line email versus a, you know, 20 lines and a picture in it, or, you know, those sorts of things should be able to help you.

And how have you kind of read somebody? Because I guess the first step is to try and determine what personality type they are. Is that true?

It is. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we're very fortunate as salespeople that LinkedIn is a great tool for us in many ways. But if you have someone that, that does have an active profile on LinkedIn, well, if they don't, that also says a lot. But what you can do on LinkedIn is look at the types of comments they've made on other people's posts. Do they say things like, I love this, you know, does it show that they're quite reactive? Do they, you know, do they say things like, tell me how, you know, tell me how you got to this place, or, you know, are they quite directive in it? You can read a lot into the types of language that people use. And once you learn it, like I could, I'm still in the learning process, I've only done a short course on it. But it's really helpful to help you understand people's drivers and motivators that are not just typical of their job persona.

Because too many of us think everyone else thinks identically to the way we think.

Yes, it is. And it's really hard to adapt to—

It's the hardest.

Because I think— I'll give you an example. Some people, Really like, you know, one in PCM, Process Communication Model, one of the, one of the persona types talks about people who like to do, be active, to be doing engagement. And so I, you know, one of the things that the course told me is that, well, you, you could try breaking the ice with like a joke. And I thought, a joke? I cannot speak to this customer with it. I'm not funny, one. I can't tell jokes. Also, this person, you know, is of reasonable seniority in this, I think it was a finance organization. I was like, I'm not going to do this. And then I had this thought just before the meeting. I thought, oh, I'd recently learned something where they'd said, I was watching an online course about negotiation. And they talked about when you're learning something new, sometimes it's really uncomfortable at first. And so— It always is. I know listeners, Listeners won't be able to see my hands at the moment, but if you if you hold your left hand out with your your index finger out, and then and you just just your index finger out and your right hand with your thumb up, and then switch it, and then switch it. And then if you do it really quick, unless you've practiced that, that's actually really uncomfortable. But after a while, it becomes it becomes you know much easier. And and so I used that in part of the meeting, and it was bizarre. It just opened that person up. And it felt, it was unusual for me, because I'd never done anything like that. But I think those are the sorts of things it can teach you.

So, I take it you're naturally curious, or?

I am, I am, yeah. I was an annoying kid as a child.

Why?

Why? But that is definitely one of the attributes that sort of drives me, and I think has helped me in my career.

And this curiosity about personality types and psychology, essentially.

Yes.

Is that self-motivated? Or was it something that the company exposed you to?

Or? It was a self-motivated one. My, I mean, the company I was at had done a discovery insights, like a personality test. But I didn't just want to know about me. I wanted to know about others.

Yeah.

So And so I, I came across this, this model, Process Communication Model, through my sister-in-law. And yeah, and then did about 8 hours on this course and, and then just took it from there.

And clearly it's helpful.

It is. I would recommend it to anyone who's sort of curious, wants to understand people, wants to understand themselves better. I think it's a really useful tool.

And how was that transition from rep to leader? Because that's usually hard at first. It's like the fingers.

Yes, yes. I think the— that's where the point I said earlier about how I do have this element where I want, I, you know, my baseline is that I do want to be nice to people and To be— Or free drinks. Yeah, and to be fair and equal and, you know, equal time to each person. So that transition from salesperson to leader, it was a big learning curve on some of that. And it was also a big, one of the biggest jumps I think from anyone going from rep to leader is it's tough in terms of you have to, you're relying on other people's success to earn money. And that is really hard for a lot of salespeople because we're often control freaks or we want to kind of hold on to everything. So that's really hard. But I think when you, when you, when you do get it, the reward is amazing. Not, you know, the feeling of, oh my God, I've helped someone go from, you know, A to B or A to Z even. And I remember there's a really good example last year where I worked with one of my team members who was relatively new. So had only— I was trying to practice that 80/20, right? Not spending too much time with him, just letting him get his feet. And, you know, and so he hadn't done any huge deals actually. He'd sort of done some smaller ones, more transactional, around sort of $10,000. And then we said, let's work together on a deal. We'll just shadow it end to end and we'll talk about each step. So you can tell me what you think you should do, what we're going to do. I'll coach you through it and we'll debrief on each step. And it was at the end of the year, which was convenient to hit his target because he did a $120K deal. And to go from just doing sort of $10Ks and then to Go to like a $120K deal. It was, you know, I couldn't have felt more proud.

And how were you able to get them on your side? Because the natural reaction when you become a manager is to kind of tell versus show, or help, or discuss.

Well, I'm probably the opposite, Brian, actually. My default is to ask first. Okay, how did you get to that conclusion? Or show me. And I had a manager at the time who was really helpful, actually, in that they were a little, you know, we had different management styles. And I think it's fantastic if you could be around and learn from people who are different from you. And I probably needed to do more telling, actually, in some circumstances. But I do think to your original question there about getting people on side, as whether you're a sales manager or a sales rep, the trust element is so important. And especially now for sales leaders, we're often— well, some people may have been managing remotely anyway. For sales reps, I think especially in the— you know, I looked at, I think Gartner's report said you know, 60% of a SaaS deal or SaaS sales cycle, the buyer's done online. So you have to be— to create that trust in that small amount of time that's left in the sales cycle.

Yeah.

You know, and as a manager, obviously, you have to get your people to do that and to build that trust. So being open, being proactive, kind of extending that hand first, I think is always a good way to get people to trust you.

And how about as far as hiring? Do you look for that curiosity?

Oh, hiring is such a— I feel that's like a complete world of study in itself. I have been on a real journey with hiring because it's difficult, right? I mentioned earlier about how understanding people, whether it's, you know, hiring someone to be on your sales team or whether you're a going in to see a customer, trying to make that judgment in a small window of time is so difficult. It's really difficult to do. Very few people can, I think, judge that really well. And I'm definitely trying to learn more in that sense. But I definitely look for curiosity. I want to know, what have you learned? What do you do to expand your— And I don't just want to hear about Oh, I've read this sales book, or you know it's I think it's really important to be people buy. This is a classic: people buy from people, right? They don't want to just know Jacqueline as a salesperson or Brian as a they want to know oh great Jacqueline's really interested in you know you know ballet or science or she cooks on the weekend or she's been learning. French in her spare time. Not all of that is true, by the way. But, you know, they want people to be interesting, to be knowledgeable. So, yeah, so just keep learning.

Because that curiosity is kind of like the first step to empathy. You can't have empathy without curiosity.

Yes, no, I completely agree. I completely agree. And I think that's one of the things that really distinguishes Salespeople, how well they can empathize.

And how you have— it's hard to come up with great questions unless you're curious.

Exactly.

Why listen unless you're curious?

And people can tell, right, if you're genuine or if it is a rehearsed thing. That's what I was talking about.

Rehearsed yourself. Some canned question.

I know.

And then their eyes dart off onto something else.

Yeah.

And what advice would you have for salespeople who are kind of in the B level right now to get to the A level?

So, you know, I think about self-awareness is one. Really try and break it down. What are your strengths? What are your interests? What are your motivators? And make sure that you're aligned to the the right type of company, the right industry, the right type of buyers, so that you can really excel because you'll shine your best if you put yourself in the best environment. And you'll also be, you'll enjoy it more. And people will, if you were to compare one person A with person B with a similar skillset, but one of them just seems to enjoy their job more, you'll probably buy from them. So, I would say go through that exercise. I did that before I just did my recent move to Oracle and I'm extremely happy. Cool.

And where can people go to follow you and connect with you?

So I'm on LinkedIn. That's my main go-to at the moment. I am going to look at Twitter as well, and also Clubhouse. I've seen you on Clubhouse, Brian. So I need to join that club. But yeah, have a look at me on LinkedIn. It's just Jacqueline Ryan. I'm at Oracle. And I would be happy to get in touch.

And what I hear from most salespeople is they say, what do you think of this sales approach or that methodology? And, you know, an approach is better than no approach. A methodology is better than no methodology. But I think we all have to play the whole game of sales, not just what we say, but what we do. And, you know, I hear people all the time, well, I took this training, and I go, well, it's good. There's nothing wrong with it. It's just incomplete. And if you're dealing with an incomplete model of the world, then you're not playing the whole game. And it's okay for a start. Like Jacqueline talked about this personality approach, and I did some research on it after the The conversation. And I think it's a good start. It gets you thinking, gets you curious about how other people think, and gets you over the first hump, which is that not everyone thinks like we do or thinks like they should think. They think the way they do, and we have to be a chameleon with them. We have to adapt to them. They're not going to adapt to us. You know, they might if they have to. Selling is so much more than processing an order. If you're in the world where you can just process orders and make your number, congratulations, and stick with it because it, it won't last for long. When I see people in those jobs, congratulations, enjoy it. It's a very short ride. Most of us, we're We have to create orders. We have to make things happen. And to do that, it's not just what you say. It's not the magic questions or statements or insights. Yeah, they're helpful. But did you lose a deal because of what you didn't say?

No.

In the complex sale, you lose deals because the deal loses momentum. They decide not to do anything. Or they decide to go with the smallest thing possible. Or they do it in-house. Or they outsource it. They go route of least resistance. And how do you change that? You have to control the sales process. You have to guide it. You have to lead it. And to do that, you have to know what it is. It's not all the platitudes. Relationships— oh, don't even get me going on platitudes. To do the big deals, you have to understand how they get done, and nobody else really teaches this. I look around, most people are just teaching what worked 20 years ago, uh, crazy emails and, you know, stupid little openers, little tactics. They're all good, they're okay, but are they going to get you to the level that you want, to an A-player?

No.

They're not. Not at all. You have to put in that preparation, that passion for being curious. Now, what I said in the interview, that curiosity is that first step if you were to develop any skill, because once you're curious, then you can start to be empathetic. You can start to be interested in the other person. You can start Wondering what they would do. Curiosity is that first step. You can't be empathetic without being curious. You can't be interested without being curious first. It's the precursor. It's step one. Got to develop that. And how do you become great at sales? You know, the old days, we used to hang around and talk through deals. Do postmortems with each other. Tell war stories. Give anecdotes. Ask what if. What would you do? Talk through these things, and that helps, but you have to have a framework first. You have to understand the game board. How does a deal naturally progress? People don't teach you this. And how do you keep it going? What are the traps that will kill a deal, delay a deal, minimize a deal, and how do you prevent it? Not just repair it. Everyone's on repair. Deal repairman's very busy, not very effective. Deal prevention is where the energy should be put. Go to b2brevenue.com. And who's a perfect fit? You know, for start the conversation, get the meeting, anytime getting conversations started is important. Too many people just can't wait to talk about them and what they do. No one cares. No one turns on the TV to hear a commercial. No one turns on the radio to hear a commercial. People avoid commercials. What you're saying is a commercial. You don't think it is. You think it's your elevator pitch. And there's a time for it, and you should have one, but you shouldn't lead with it because no one cares. You got to get them to care. You got to get them curious and interested. And how do you do that? You got to build rapport first. And how do you do that? I give you a step-by-step way of doing it with hundreds of case studies. You know, I think there's probably 75 hours of office hours in there now. You have to immerse yourself in that process. And, you know, I tend not to pat myself on the back, but having taught this online for 3 years now, I've become pretty good at it and pretty good at helping people with it. And I do it all day long. I still do it. I have a passion for being able to break the ice with strangers and get conversations started. Because it's the first step in selling. Nobody cares who you are and what you do until you have rapport with them. You have a know, like, and trust relationship. That's the only thing that most sales trainers agree on. Some people will say, oh, well, them liking you isn't important. Well, in certain cases, if the need is so high, they don't care who you are. They'll buy it no matter what. You go into the emergency room, you don't care about the politics of the doctor, you just want to stop bleeding. But most of our clients aren't bleeding. Most of them have latent pain. Our whole market is that latent pain. Pain that people are sensing but not feeling. And You know, you ever have like just a little twinge without really knowing what's the cause? You know, maybe a little headache or knee hurts or ankle and you're not really sure. You don't pay much attention to it until you can't walk or you can't really concentrate because it hurts. It's that latent pain that we need to sell to. That's where the gold is. The active pain comes to us. They know how to find us. It's the latent pain that we have to go find. That's the gold mine. That is the eureka, uh, holy grail of sales. If you can stir that up and get people focused on solving the problem that you solve, then you've got gold. I did a survey on LinkedIn and people finally kind of focused like on the top salespeople. They said about 5%. Now, it depended on how I asked it. If I asked it based off of quota, people don't believe in quota anymore. It's so over-assigned and arbitrary that it has no correlation with really performance, as it should. I think that they call it a goal. A goal is to be achieved. But, you know, people are just trying to use it as a way of attracting people with outrageous OTEs, on-target earnings. And to do that, they just screw you on the back end of it. But great salespeople— managers will do anything to get great salespeople. When I was a sales manager trying to find A-players, attract them, it's brutal because they're all happy where they are. Become that A-player. That's where the fun is. That's where the money is. That's where you want to be. Until then, you're kind of working off of fear instead of desire. And desire is so much more fun. Fear is kind of agitating. It can get you going, gets you going pretty good. But desire, that's where you want it to be. Whatever you want out of life, to be able to create it, creating the opportunity that you want to be given. I got some troll on LinkedIn that says, ah, that's just a platitude.

No, no.

Well, guess what? You can sit around waiting for that opportunity to be discovered. I remember a friend in high school, I want to be discovered. Yeah, sure, why not? But what's your likelihood of being discovered? Uh, near zero. Unless you have some inordinate innate talent, likelihood of being discovered is near zero. Creating That opportunity for yourself, building it up yourself where you have control over it, where you can become better every day. You know why companies do these sales trainings of 2 days? And I used to be the guy who did it. And people would like it. But I knew they'd call me 2 months later and they were back in their old habits. Because 2 days isn't enough. You don't learn karate or jiu-jitsu in 2 days. You don't learn how to play the guitar in 2 days. You don't learn how to cook or act or play any kind of musical instrument or even become great at any sport in 2 days. It takes a long time. It takes repetition. It takes feedback. It takes modification. And more repetition. And you have to understand the distinctions between good and great and being able to reflect on those things. It's not knowing. It's not a quiz. Your customer doesn't give you a test, and if you pass it, you get a deal. You know, you think that's what it is with those RFPs, but that's not. It is a performance. It's how well you do it. Not like singing and dancing performance, but But how well you connect, like today with Jacqueline, how she prepares for a sales call, how she's concerned and curious about the personality of the person that she's talking to. What is her likelihood of being able to connect with that person versus somebody who wings it? It's probably 100x. And you can say, oh, that's over-preparation. You know, one thing that I always said When I was a rep, I never came out of a meeting feeling like I overprepared on the right things. I overprepared on something that wasn't important, but usually there was something that I just overlooked, something that came out of left field, something I didn't anticipate. And I had this engineer that would never prepare for anything. I always had to like sit down with him. Let's go through the demo once. I've done it 100 times. And then it didn't work in front of people. And the difference is getting a deal and not getting a deal. We're not paid by the hour. We're paid for results. Okay. Enough of me. Make sure you're checking out the other podcasts, Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers, The Sales Leadership Show, The B2B Revenue Leadership Show, and check out the stuff on the YouTube channel as well as if you see my stuff on LinkedIn, give it a little like, a little comment, a little share.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Better. And especially post-COVID, you got to be very creative in healthcare, that's for sure.

Yeah.

And, you know, for people who are wondering if it's right for them, what would you tell them?

Yeah, I mean, I think you, you kind of need to get over your own ego a little bit. I mean, a lot of people think they're really, really good at sales and they probably are in some rights, but at the same time, like, I think you've mentioned it before, like professionals in whatever industry or athletics, whatever, you know, they're always getting better, they're practicing, they're continuing to improve. And, you know, I know beforehand I didn't necessarily think of sales like that as much, but kind of taking your course and doing that, like even if I'm ranked at, you know, the very top 1%, I really should be doing stuff to get better. And of course, a lot of companies will provide great stuff, but you really kind of need stuff outside of work, whether that be mentors or classes like yourself. So yeah, I think regardless of how good you've been doing, I think you don't want to get complacent and you want to keep getting better. It's just my opinion.

And, you know, as far as You know, getting better, do you see it as kind of a destination or a journey?

No, it's definitely a journey because I, I think most people in sales are competitive and, you know, even though that once they win a deal, they want to keep moving forward. So I don't see it as a final destination. I feel like it's something really you should be doing throughout your career, I guess, until you retire, hopefully sooner than later when you retire, but Yeah, I think no matter if you're a sales rep or an executive vice president, you should be doing some type of coaching or training. And this kind of— I was doing a fair amount of stuff, but it was more company-driven things in the past. So I think expanding outside of that— I mean, nothing wrong with doing it within your company too, but expanding outside of that and getting different opinions, I feel like is a good thing, perspectives.

And how much time per week did it take you?

Yeah, I had certain moments where I was binging some of your content quite a bit. The actual courses, like, I wanted to be sitting down, you know, at home, able to write down notes and put stuff in Word documents, just kind of how I was doing it. So I would say I probably knocked out the Complex Sale course in 6 weeks or so. Um, I went after it pretty good. And then throughout that and afterwards, I would, you know, listen to the one-on-ones. I would listen to your every 2-week calls, kind of the open sessions. And I binge that a lot when I'm driving because I travel a lot for work. So I listen to those quite often and I don't necessarily have to take notes on it, but it's just good to get those, those real-life examples from other people. But yeah, the course took about 6 weeks or so, but that was just the pace I did it at. I mean, the nice thing about it is that you can You can do it at your own pace, you know, throughout, you know, even a 12-month period, I guess, if you want to. So.