WHAT WORKING SMARTER LOOKS LIKE AND HOW YOU CAN DO IT TOO

If you were to ask most salespeople, what's the key to prospecting? Most people would say, ah, it's coming up with that right pitch, that right approach to get the person interested and go from completely unknowing about the problem to now interested in this. That magic pitch, a better pitch. That's what we'd all say, isn't it? Your pitch must be wrong. Your messaging, your sales-ready messaging is not strong enough. You need the why now and the why you and all that. And that might find interest. But in sales, we got to be smarter than finding interest because we're in a predicament now because interest tends to find us. And if you think of the number of people in your territory that are in active pain, you think it's probably what, 5%, 10%?

Hmm.

Think again. It's probably near 1/10 of 1%, maybe. That's why it's so hard today. Today's guest has a very different approach. It's not about finding a better pitch. It's about connecting with the other person. Oh, I know you've heard that a million times. It's all about relationships. Well, okay, let's boil that down though. Let's bring it down to something that's tangible. It's how well you connect with that other person. And there's a sequence to it. I hate to use the word cadence because everybody thinks that's the pitch better, pitch more, put it to the top of the inbox. How's that working for you? Not many people are telling me it's working effectively. That's why I started the Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting course. But today's guest isn't an athlete. Started out as a comedian, which fits really well into the model of sales because it's about connecting with your audience. It's about understanding what they will find funny and entertaining. It's about engaging with them. Now, comedy is different in that it's, you know, unidirectional, right? You're not having a conversation with the audience. It's a monologue. You're the one talking, they're listening, but yet they're the ones judging how funny it is. Now, today's guest came to us from a previous guest, which I'm finding out is a great source Of fantastic salespeople. And to give you some idea of the vetting that we put into, I've got a full-time person both recruiting, reference checking, and vetting the guests that come on the show. And only the best make it. Why? It's not because I'm trying to be exclusive. It's because I'm trying to bring you a vision. Of what sales can be. Because we think it's all the, you know, chest-pounding, commission-oriented, cash-ish-driven folks that you might see on LinkedIn. But most of these people are just down-to-earth humans connecting with other humans. And that sounds fluffy. I get it. But if you can understand the sequence of how the other person gets to know, like, and trust a stranger, that's where the magic happens. Because when you hear this conversation today, it's not really about features and benefits or outcomes even. It's about helping each other. That sounds fluffy again. But if you can, just for a second, get out of the pressure that you have to make your numbers and ask yourself, is there a smarter way of doing this? Because if you really look at how you spend your time over a quarter, a month, a year, in sales, we're wasting— maybe not waste is the right word, but we're spending it. 80%, 90% on things we do not get paid for. So there is a big gap there to work smarter. Let's get into this interview. This is one of my favorites. Um, maybe because I like comedy, maybe because I sold security at one time, or maybe I just love talking to great salespeople.

Hey, Michael.

Thanks for joining us today.

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

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Brian, for having me. As, as I was saying, I love your podcasts. I've been watching them for years, and you're probably the most fit person in IT with all the miles you walk. But, yeah, my name is Michael Pavia. I've been in the industry coming up on 30 years here, focused heavily on security. I've been doing it a while. I tried to be a comedian for a few years back in the '90s, and Couldn't cut it, so I figured the next best thing was professional sales.

Yeah. How far did you get with the comedy?

Did it about a year and a half. I had a lot of interesting experiences. I won't say it was fun for the most part because almost every place I was working was literally in a Chinese restaurant.

Yeah.

You know, it was a zero dollar cover or a two dollar cover, and most people really were there just to drink and do scorpion bowls. So they weren't listening to me, and it was it was an experience. But glad I did it. Check the box.

Did you make it to what Ding Ho? Was that the big place up in Boston? It was a few places.

It was yeah. Jens Walk had Laugh Lines. That was in Framingham on Route 9. I did the Boston Comedy Vault once and that was a really good show, but they also charged a lot to get in there so people were actually paying attention, you know. But every other place was in a Chinese restaurant and it was humbling.

Yeah, because it's really not the primary reason they're there, right?

They're not. They're there to have scorpion bowls and hang out with their buddies.

How'd you get into sales? Was it just the natural thing after that, or was somebody in the audience saw something?

No, no. So I was actually already in sales at the time. So I started off, I went to Bridgewater State College. I started selling Cutco cutlery. So I was convincing total strangers to let me in the house with a bag of knives. You need a strong sales pitch for that. So that's how the career sales started 29 years ago.

And a lot of people come out of Cutco.

Yeah, it's a really good company. It's a great way to cut your teeth in sales. I mean, again, door-to-door is a little challenging, not that it's door-to-door, it's, you know, warm referrals, etc. But it's a great product. It's made in America. I still have, you know, right beyond me here in the kitchen, I got, you know, $2,000 worth of cutlery sitting there. It's not knives, by the way, Brian, it's cutlery. There's a difference.

Sorry.

But yeah, started a great, great program. I was actually there for 4 years. I opened up my own office, did the district manager thing for a while, and then And then got into regular sales in the IT world. Started off American Power Conversion, entry level, you know, like a lot of people working their way up SDR and then just took off from there.

And what you like about it other than the money or was it just the money or?

What do I like about sales?

Yeah.

Yeah, the money certainly helps. The money definitely helps. I like working with people. I mean, I'm not really a desk job guy. You know, people always say, you know, the Going back to the Ottawa War, know your strengths and know your weaknesses. Administration is definitely a weakness of mine. I'm not a big fan of it. So just the ability to interact with people. I mean, it's obviously very challenging, but it's super rewarding when you're able to solve a legitimate problem that a customer has. So just all of it, you know, getting out, traveling a little bit. I like golf. I'm not very good. It started out as a drinking problem and turned into a golf problem.

Long walk.

Right. But yeah, just a lot of components of it, you know, just the whole psychological thing and working with people. I hate when people say I'm a people person, so I'll, I'll skip that. But, um, just a lot better than a desk job and I've just enjoyed it. And, you know, if I can't be a comedian or an actor, I think it's the next, next best thing for me.

Well, it seems to be a big driver for a lot of people is that variety, because sitting at the desk every day, uh, it wears on a lot of people.

Yeah. You know, it definitely does. And these last couple of years have been obviously different and interesting because everything's been over Zoom, which has been challenging. And obviously it's still, you know, you're able to do it. But at the end of the day, you know, being able to get out and build relationships, you know, if someone's gonna spend a lot of money and, you know, my product right now is a high-ticket item, you know, they really wanna know the person because at the end of the day, people buy from people they like, right? And people they trust. So, you know, it's nice that we're starting to get back to normal here a little bit.

So you've been focused on security for a while now, huh?

Yeah, well over a decade. Wow.

You must like it.

I do. I do. You know, it's one of those areas that it's, you know, certainly at the top of the mind for, you know, when you're talking to CIOs or CEOs, you know, it's security, big data, and cloud. You know, digital transformation obviously is certainly a part of that. So it's relevant. You know, sadly, I wish it wasn't so relevant, but there's a lot of of bad people out there, nation states and actors. And, and there's a lot people have to do today. You know, you see it just at a personal level, not that that's what I focus on, but, you know, especially with the corporations, we work with some of the, some of the largest companies you can imagine and, you know, fill in the blank with the, the major banks and credit card companies, etcetera. And a lot of time, they're the, they're the tip of the arrow. They're the, they're the true zero days that are being targeted by, you know, the, the Chinas or the Ukraines or or Russia or whatever, or whatever else. So it's, it's become an important line, you know, for them to, to focus on and anything I can do to, to help secure their company. You know, at the end of the day, it's also, you know, national security, you know, whether we're working with governments or, or just Fortune 500 enterprises. You know, I was raised by my grandfather who's a World War II veteran. I wasn't in the military, but I did receive some military beatings. So I felt like I was.

Some unique military training.

Absolutely. He was a World War II veteran in the European campaign. But, you know, I definitely grew grew up with that. You know, he was a World War II veteran, grew up during the Depression, and I, you know, still, to this day, love the country. You know, we certainly have our problems, and I never talk politics because I think most of them are complete crooks regardless of which side they're on. Sorry if you're a politician and you're listening. But, but, yeah, and I love the country and anything I can do to help, you know, whether it's just securing our infrastructure and helping enterprise clients, you know, not lose critical data or proprietary information is certainly rewarding. You know, I'm not saving lives like a doctor is, but It's definitely, definitely rewarding for me to do that.

And you get the whole field to yourself too, because there's no other players in security, are there?

Like 4,500 other companies.

That's all.

That's it. Just, just another 4,500.

Is mindshare the hardest part of the sales, trying to differentiate and distinguish and communicate?

Yeah, it's a great question. Certainly that's part of it. So I'm in a unique area. We do threat intelligence platforms. We really only have a couple competitors, a couple good companies we compete with. We are the world leader at Anomali, is the company I work for right now. So at the end of the day, it's trying to align different business units because it's not just one, you know, it's not just a cyber threat intelligence. It's not just a security analyst. It's not just the security operations center. It's a lot of different things that come together. So just helping people understand the value we can provide, helping them understand, you know, especially today with all the threat data that's out there, It's not a nice to have. It really is a need to have because there's so much information out there that's available. What do you focus on?

Right.

You know, I, I always talk about the Target breach. You know, in 2014, they were the, the poster children for breaches, even though they weren't the biggest breach. They certainly took the most flak. They were actually notified the morning they were breached. Unfortunately, Brian, they got 5,000 other email alerts that one morning. So what do you do when you get 5,000 emails in one morning before 8 AM? Ignore them all, delete them all, right? Next. So, so that's what we do. We help people disseminate that and, and focus really just on what's important to their company. So I think most people get that. At the end of the day, it's trying to justify the value because it's not an inexpensive item. Like a lot of good security tools, it, you know, it starts at 6 figures and, and certainly goes up a lot higher. But, yeah, there's a lot of challenges, but I think people understand the need. It's just, you know, helping them understand that the value of what we're providing is, is a lot greater than the amount of cash that they're And what makes a great rep in this space? Oh, that's a great question. You know, there's really no silver bullet. I know I've been asked that question a lot of times on interviews over the years. I wish there was a silver bullet, but then again, maybe I'm glad there's not because there's not many people out there that they really can do it. So it's a combination of everything. It's experience, it's empathy, it's doing the right thing, it's having a high moral compass, it's understanding not only your product, but also the space, the current challenges that, you know, the modern-day CISO is up against and CIOs. Just really being able to articulate the value, understanding what the analysts are doing, you know, again, always knowing your target audience, right? In my— if I'm talking to an analyst, I realize that they're in the weeds, you know, and they're sifting through thousands of lines of codes and threats and data on a regular basis. If I can help you know, we may automate some of that or alleviate some of the low-level processes that, that our product can do with automation and, and better alerting and, and, and better machine learning. I won't say artificial intelligence. I hate when everyone says that. It's just machine learning. It's very, very important, but it's not artificial intelligence. But if I can help people with that and make their work-life balance easier, to me, that's a win. When I'm talking to the CISOs, if I can explain that we're gonna integrate with your security tools, And validate all the strategic decisions you put in place and the tools and the millions of dollars you spent, just really knowing what's important to each person you're talking to and helping them understand that. Because I think most salespeople, especially in the beginning, and I was certainly guilty of this, you know, 20+ years ago, you go in there and you just become a walking brochure and you just puke up your information. And that's great, but you haven't really spoken to the customer about their specific needs. So Just understanding that and knowing what's important to each person that you're speaking with and trying to tie that together.

And I've got a lot of listeners who are in the security space and everybody wants that meeting with the CISO. And the ironic thing is I get so many CISOs on LinkedIn connecting with me, thanking me for teaching salespeople how to approach executives.

Absolutely. Yeah. Because I mean, I've had a couple of CISOs say to me, you know, some of them don't even look at external emails.

Nothing.

They get so many hundreds, if not thousands of emails a day, they only answer internal emails. And I would ask people like, well, how do you, how do you get in touch with people? Like, if I really want to get in touch with them, one of my leaders will make an introduction or they've got my cell phone number. You know, they're really doing the me too. I know what other people are doing in the industry. And that's why I think CISO forums are so important. You know, and the ability to get out and network to find out what they're doing and relate with them and understand what is important.

And that's it because most reps or junior reps are trying to take the I know something you don't know approach, which I think annoys the hell out of somebody who's been doing this 20, 30 years.

Yeah.

Full day, all day long.

It's very true. And I doubt there's anything I know that a CISO doesn't know. And if there is, there's one thing maybe. Specifically about my product only because they haven't looked at it. But, you know, there's a lot of challenges out there. And at the end of the day, I wanna be able to provide something to the customer before ever asking for anything. And I think that's super important. And, you know, whether it's just helping them make a connection, helping, whether it's helping them understand, you know, something new in the industry or a trend that maybe other clients are doing, but I wanna be able to provide value before I ever ask them to, to give me a dime. And I think that's really important.

And given that you didn't have a security background from school or technology or as a technician, how'd you learn all this stuff? Because it is a world in and of itself.

Yeah. It definitely is. Part of it is I'm a little bit of a geek. There's a geek who lives inside me. So I do always love to learn. I wasn't the best student in high school and college. I didn't have a lot of direction, just wanted to have fun like a lot of college kids. Right? I wanted to play football. Which I did make the team, but I was basically a tackle dummy at Division Three. But you know, as as I get older, I really like to learn. And it's funny whenever my wife can't sleep, she just turns to me at the end of the night and says, "Well, tell me about your day." Boom! She's out.

Tell me about those threats.

Right? I just I love to learn. So when I started getting into it, you know, maybe back in the 2007, 8, or 9 area. it was starting to become more relevant. And obviously, landscapes changed so much. You know, we were doing it, the company I was at, we were doing security assessments and it was one of the hotter topics. So I just obviously wanted to learn better, wanted to hone my craft. I'm definitely not an engineer, but as a sales professional, if I can answer a question 1 or 2 levels down, Yeah. I think it just builds that much more credibility with me and the customer knowing that, you know, a lot of people do tend to exaggerate in sales. But if I'm answering a specific question, You know, technically, you know, it makes them trust me that much more. And again, I know when not to get over my skis and hand it off to my engineer or my architect. That's, that's very important. But I just love to learn. So any reading, any external seminars, webinars, anything I get, you know, even on sales, right? I've been doing this 29 years. There's still a lot I can learn. Right? And that's one of the reasons I love your podcast there. Not only are they entertaining, they're also educational.

I think Yeah, people, you know, go through like the Dunning-Kruger effect and then they get to the realization that they're never going to know it all.

Never. Absolutely. And as soon as you think you know everything, you become the dumbest person in the room, right?

You're in that terrible trap.

Yeah.

And I think when you sell highly technical or very specific deep products, if you can't hold at least a half-hour conversation, You don't have to be the answer man, but you can discuss the issues and the implications of them without getting tripped up or feeling, you know, out of your ballpark.

Absolutely. And that's why it's important to know what's going on in the industry, whether or not it's relevant to my specific product, you know, to be able to share that. And at the end of the day, right, also saying to a customer, hey, that's a great question and I understand the situation. We can't help you with that, but I would love to make an introduction because I know someone over here that might be able to help you. Right. And it's just, it's that intelligent conversations. It's really building a relationship and networking. And, you know, I think that's what any true sales professional to really be, to, you know, to excel at their position needs to be able to do that.

And you've been proactive with these forums and groups for CISOs or?

Yeah, I try to be, you know, whenever marketing allows me to spend the money. But I know there's a lot of other ones like actually my friend Neil Saltman, who you've actually interviewed him maybe a year or two ago. He does a lot of CISO forums and I try to get to those as well and helping him build those out, you know, where we can offer them a place where they can share information with their other colleagues without providing a sales pitch, just to be there to listen and to learn and to help other people make connections. As I mentioned before, giving them something before you're asking for anything in return.

Yeah. I used to do the thing with like user groups and they were insanely effective as long as you didn't turn it into a trade show that it was really there to learn. And to hear how other people are doing things.

Absolutely.

Because let's face it, at their level, you know how many people can really talk their language?

Not many.

Not many.

Not many.

And they are looking for new stuff and better stuff and different ways of doing it because their tenure is not that long.

Yeah, real short with the CISO, unfortunately. Yeah, which is good and bad, right? Because when they if you do make that relationship with them and they jump to another. another company, hopefully that's an info, yeah, but hopefully there's another position available for them and they didn't have that, that poster child, you know, front of Wall Street Journal breach incident. So.

And have you seen any analogies from the comedy world translate well into the sales world?

Definitely. I mean, I think if, you know, when you're presenting, if you can, obviously one of the hardest things is keeping people entertained. And engaged, especially over Zoom. That's why I do like to have the camera on so I can see that they're not multitasking.

There's someone there.

Yeah, right. They're actually paying attention. They're not, you know, reading Archie Comics or whatever the case is. I just dated myself with that. But, but yeah, no, just being able to present, being able to communicate effectively, you know, articulately. I am from Boston, so sometimes I do need a translator when I say kaa or pak, but I try to enunciate, but just, you know, making it relevant but also making it entertaining. Whenever I do public speaking, which I've done a tremendous amount, I do like to open with a quick joke just to get it started, you know, to loosen them up because at the end of the day, people are pretty tired of PowerPoints and all that other stuff. And when I do present, I try to keep it to 2 or 3 slides and again, make it relevant. So yeah, this, it's, it was great training to do the stand-up comedy prior to getting into a professional sales career.

And that's it because then you have that, I want to talk with Michael. Attitude instead of I either have to, right? Or I don't have to.

Right.

There's that. I want to.

Absolutely. And when I do take customers out golfing or, or whatever, most of the time I'm pretty entertaining. So it's not that, oh, I've got another dinner I have to go to or whatever. So try to make it interesting in real life, you know? I mean, work is important, but, you know, it's not in the top 3. So if, if I can relate with people on a personal level, it's, it just makes it that much more enjoyable, not only for them, but also for me.

And what do you see people doing wrong in your field?

Oh, everything.

A lot, right?

Yeah. I mean, I've certainly made my share of mistakes. And I think really most sales professionals will tell you they've learned most from their mistakes, not so much from their successes. I mean, obviously you can learn from successes, but I've definitely made a lot of mistakes. And, you know, going back to what I briefly mentioned, Really understanding what the customer is interested in, not just going in there and puking up all this product information. You know, the features are fine, but people really wanna know what the benefits are like. What's in it for me? How is this gonna make my life easier, my work faster, maybe streamline some of the processes that I hate today? If you can take them out of the way for me so I can focus more on higher level things. That's one of the things I say all the time. If we can take those low-level 1 and 2 processes out of the way and help you focus on things that truly need human intervention, truly need an expert like yourself, you know, Mr. or Mrs. Analyst or VP or CISO, that's a win, right? So really understanding what is important to the customer, not going in with preconceived notions. I see that all the time. And, you know, and I used to drink the Kool-Aid, you know, back in the day, I thought, you know, I've got such a great solution, everyone needs this. There's really nothing out there that everyone needs. There's not that silver bullet product. You know, it's always defense in depth. You know, you don't, you don't buy my product and say, well, I'm gonna get rid of the edge firewalls. You know, it's, you need everything. So really understanding what's important to the customer, what their goals are. And again, depending on which level you're speaking to, is really, really important. And I see a lot of people don't take that approach. They're like, well, they're gonna love my product. You know, they've heard that from everybody. So that's probably the biggest problem I see. And then the second biggest problem, which maybe is the first biggest problem, is people focus on their own needs. And not on the customer. You know, if you really wanna be successful, you need to focus on others. And whether that's as a sales professional or as a manager, focus on others. I actually, ironically enough, I read one of your posts today. It said, I'm paraphrasing here, but you should clap for your friends when they get promoted or reach their dreams, even if it, you know, beat yours, you know, to the punch or transcended yours. And it's really true to be able to be happy for other people. You know, when they achieve success, whether it's someone that you're managing, and I've done a lot of management over the years, or a customer helping them achieve their goals, even if it's pointing them to a different product that isn't yours, and there's only a finite amount of budget. So even though I don't have a lot of competitors directly, we're still competing for the same security budget, but really helping people focusing on their success. Ultimately, that's gonna get you the most success long term, and that shouldn't be your goal, but really trying to do the right thing because, you know, life is short and You know, I think most people don't focus on themselves. I'm sorry, most people don't focus on others. They focus on themselves. That was certainly me in the 20s. You know, I just wanted to get ahead and wanted to make a name for myself. And not that I was unethical, but, you know, if you weren't there to help me out, let's, you know, move on.

Next.

You know, not the best attitude.

And where do the deals get stuck? Because I got to imagine that it's probably reasonably easy to get their attention and some interest. But that's a long way from an order.

Yeah. It definitely is. So I, I'm unique in the sense, in the situation I'm in right now, I've been at my company for about 3 years, and, and it is the world leader in threat intelligence platforms, and it's, it's the best by a long shot. And we've got some, some really, really large names that you can imagine that you see on TV all the time and, and some of the world leaders. So once I get people's attention, whether they're the analysts or the managers or directors or VPs or even the CISOs, Usually it's— I don't want to say it's an easy conversation, but it's a lot easier than, than most things I've ever sold in my life. So once they understand the value and if we can establish that there was a budget or is a budget, or if we can help them maybe alleviate something else that they have to create an additional budget that's going to help them, you know, with their goals. Again, no matter what level you're at, it's been reasonably easy most of the time where I get stuck is legal. Which is, you know, the bane of my existence, you know, just trying to get an MSA done. I had like one customer and obviously it'll remain nameless, but the lawyer came back after weeks and weeks of redlining back and forth and said, you can't use proprietary, you can use confidential. I was like, all right, are you just trying to increase your billable hours? I wasn't really sure, right? But that's honestly the toughest part of my job right now is really legal. And it's only because I've got such a world-class product. And a great team supporting me.

And it doesn't get stuck with the other priorities because in security that you get nothing but priorities. It's not even like software development. There's a million uses for the money and time.

But definitely is. Occasionally it does happen. I guess if it does get stuck, that would be it. Like, what are they gonna prioritize first? But again, I'm very fortunate that people understand the value and the relevance of threat data. And the fact that there's so much out there, people a lot of times get paralyzed and don't know where to start, where we, we cut through all the crap. And, you know, with our machine learning and our confidence rating and everything that we do, plus we've got the world's largest repository of threat data. We just aggregated one place. I, I think a lot of times people see the priority, the priority of what we do, and they do prioritize that ahead of a lot of other things. Every now and then someone will say, well, I need to do You know, something else first, but it's few and far between in the current position I'm at. Yeah.

And what part of the sales process are you best at? Some people are great at getting in, some people are great at the executives, some are great with legal, some people—

Definitely not legal. Definitely not legal. I'd probably say presenting, you know, understanding, asking enough questions. And before I get to slide 1, I'm asking them questions about what's important to them. What are they trying to accomplish? Really trying to understand, you know, how I can bring value to them in their day-to-day life or tactical or strategic level. So once I understand that, really tailoring the pitch and, and because I know my product inside and out, it's pretty easy for me to pivot even during a presentation, even though I'm, I'm using the same 3 slides all the time to be able to, you know, talk to them. Again, I'm not reading the slides and that's a big pet peeve. I can't stand when people do that. But being able to speak about the story behind the slides relevant to them. So I think I do a really good job of presenting and articulating the value to the appropriate audience when I'm speaking to them.

Because I sold security, my biggest problem at the beginning was differentiation because they made the mistake of putting the word firewall in the product description, which means even this is a while ago, even back then, It meant a lot of different things from Barracuda to Cisco and they had 17 of them.

Right.

They were, last thing we needed is another one.

Right.

So you had to either, I had, I came up with an analogy that just took my sales and skyrocketed because I could tell a little analogy and then they got it.

Absolutely. And that's huge, Brian. I mean, being able to tell a story.

Yeah.

Right? Not just reading the features and benefits.

That is it.

Yeah, exactly. How is this gonna impact you? Why is this important to you? Here's a real-life example. We really don't have a problem with differentiation. Every now and then people think we're a feed, you know, like a Sixgill or a Flashpoint or an Intel Force everyone. Every now and then I'll have to explain that. But for the most part, people understand the platform ingesting everything. So, but certainly in the past, that's very important to understand what's different about you and everyone else. So differentiating us between you know, our other 2 or 3 competitors that are out there, obviously very important, you know, why are they gonna give me their money over, over the competitors?

And was there a particular skill, technique, mindset, epiphany that you had in your career that really got you to the next level?

Another great question. Yeah, definitely. It's, I think it was actually something I read on LinkedIn, like, 10 or so years ago, maybe even a year, which just means I'm getting old. Yeah, I'm sure it was actually longer than that. And it was just a little meme. It said, you know, someone's going through, or rather everyone's going through a struggle today that, you know, absolutely nothing about.

Yeah.

And, you know, in my 20s, I really didn't think that. And even if you told me that, I probably wouldn't have cared. You know, I just, I don't have a big family. It was, you know, me and my brother growing up and And, um, again, I, I wished everyone well, but at the end of the day, if you weren't helping me out, I'm just gonna blow by you. Um, a pretty crappy attitude, you know, just to be, to be that immature. And, you know, I think the dumbest people in the world are, are 20-year-olds. And I'll definitely lump myself in that, in that time when I was there because you just, you don't understand real life. You know, you, you're just starting working. You know, you don't understand. You really probably haven't been through that many tragedies in life. Right. And, and, you know, maybe you have, but maybe you haven't. You know, certainly in your 30s, you see it more. And by the time you hit 40, you know, you've gone through broken relationships or, you know, whether on a personal or romantic level or family level or tragedies or, or health problems or people that have gone through real serious stuff, stuff that's just way more important than work. So just, you know, just really having that, that understanding, that realization that everyone's going through something that's way more important than anything you could ever talk about at work. And trying to be very empathetic and understanding to people. Knowing that when someone's being rude to you, it's probably not related to me. Right. And it's probably nothing I said. And listen, sometimes it is. Maybe sometimes I said something incorrectly. Certainly happens. I'm far from perfect. But most of the time, you know, maybe there's something else going on at home or, or personally or health-wise. And, you know, not jumping to conclusions and, you know, again, maybe sometimes, you know, pivoting from my sales pitch to say, hey, is everything okay? You know, and just trying to relate at a human level. And I've got some amazing relationships with customers that I've been working with for years that, you know, hey, something's not okay and I'm taking a leave in a couple of weeks because I'm going into the hospital for XYZ and just pause in everything you're doing because at that point it's not really important. And, you know, if you're trying to make a sale and someone's telling you they're going through cancer or something else, you know, shame on you. You really need to stop and reevaluate what is important because life is short. So just really understanding that, you know, again, work is very important, but it doesn't cracked the top 3 and trying to, trying to relate with people, trying to be a good person and trying to help people out more than just work related has really been big because, you know, again, I'm not trying to do it to develop great relationships so I can sell more. That is a side effect, which is nice, but really just trying to relate with people. And if I can help people, you know, with, with something that's personal, you know, I'd love to be able to do that. Not that I have all the answers, I clearly don't, but I've definitely been through a lot in my my 49 years here. And if I can help people out, I'd love to be able to do that. And it made life a lot more enjoyable and make work a lot easier too. So that was, that was kind of the epiphany 15 or so years ago.

Well, just seeing that, that meme and having that question or that statement gets you curious about what they're going through. And when they share that, you're now at this whole nother level with them. Yeah, you're not at the security level, right? The personal level. And boy, do they want to tell you. Yeah, anyone.

Absolutely. You know, and sometimes again, and I don't have the answers for everything, obviously, but sometimes looking for answers. Yeah, just, just listening is huge. That's, that's something I learned in the beginning of my marriage almost 20 years ago. You know, you have to solve every problem sometimes. Just shut up and listen. Just trying to solve the problem is only gonna make it worse sometimes. If I could even solve it. Right?

Right.

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

Oh, I appreciate that, Brian. Yeah. Pleasure, pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for the invite. I'm definitely on LinkedIn. I work for Anomaly. I live in the Northeast here covering all of New England and New York. So if I can help anyone with threat intelligence or threat intelligence platforms, But even more than that, as to what I was saying, if you have any questions about security, if I can make an introduction to other cyber execs or CISOs, I'd love to be able to help you out. But LinkedIn's probably the best way to get in touch with me. I mean, I'm on there every day. So if I can help anyone in any way, please let me know.

Yeah, trying to develop that perfect pitch. Good luck with that strategy. But that's what everyone takes. And when companies and managers call me in and they say, hey, will you come in and do Start the Conversation course for us all together. I show it to them and they kind of like look at me like a dog watching TV where they nod their head and they're confused and they're like, how about the messaging? Can you work with us on our messaging? And usually it looks okay. There's tweaks, you know, and spices for it. You can make it a little bit better or a little bit more More punchy or a little bit more engaging. Yeah, you can do that. But is that going to get you much? Is that going to double your inbound or double your meetings? No, maybe 5, 10%. But if you want to double it, triple it, quadruple it, have your week full of meetings, what you want is people who want to talk with you. Now, the trick there is they want to talk about themselves, what they're up against, what they care about, what's important to them. But eventually, like one person in the course, I had a one-on-one this week and he said, boy, does this work. And you were right. After a half hour of them talking about themselves, they did ask about me. The magic moment. Now, you might say, oh, I have to listen to half an hour? Maybe. Maybe it's 5 minutes. Maybe it's 1 minute. Maybe it's an hour. I don't know. But the moment of magic happens when they ask about you. And then that's the perfect time to talk about you. Until then, until there's interest, curiosity about you and what you do and how you can help, why would you talk? Because you ever heard somebody talking about themselves What does it sound like? They make fun of it on TV.

Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah.

Because that's what's going on in their head. They're like, "I have no curiosity or interest," and all I hear is wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah. That's what your cold call sounds like.

Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah.

I make fun, but that's the reality. So why bother? Why not be smart? Sales is so much more about being smart. People think it's just labor, and there is a lot of labor to it, but the smartest people surface to the top. We'd like to think it's the hardest worker, but look around at your company. Is it the smartest or just the grinder? If you have a simpler sale, a single-call sale or a low-dollar or well-known problem and product or replacement or something, yeah, maybe it's the grinder that wins. Most of the stuff I've sold, I looked around at the awards dinner that you have in January or the first month of the next year. And the correlation I saw was smart, And there's also the lucky person or the person who's related to the VP, but you don't have control over that. You do have control over your skill, your ability, your actions, your choices, your thoughts, your approach. There you go. And one thing that really sits or stands out completely, having taught this course to individuals who are paying for themselves, Is that the entrepreneurs excel much more than the reps. And the reps with the higher bases don't even join the course. Why? Because he's got a big juicy base. If you have a $150,000, $200,000 base, are you really— you want to make $500,000, but you're living on $200,000. Everyone's happy. Everyone's smiling. Oh, wait a second! There's a recession coming, Brian. Holy smoke! No one told me about this. There's a recession coming. Uh oh, Congo. You know what happens to that big base? Hmm. Can we get away with two people for that one person? Uh oh, recession coming. And what is? What does the C player and the B players do during a recession? Hunker down, scared, little babies. Me, me, me. Oh no, I'm gonna get less money. I'm gonna have to work harder. The A players step up and they go, uh-oh, I gotta get better. Getting better is so smart because once you get better at sales, It's easy to maintain it. You know, you can lose it, of course, but all that work, much like getting into shape, all that labor you put in, it's 1/10 to maintain it. And then all of a sudden, now you're getting deals. Because what's going to really separate out the great salespeople from the okay salespeople in a recession is skill. Not labor. Sorry. I mean, labor can be replaced by virtual assistants and technology today. You can pay somebody peanuts to be the grinder. So, you know, and trust me, I've got a lot of grinders on my payroll. And okay, thank you. I'm not gonna grind. I'm gonna use my brain. The days of using my back are over. I'll work. I work a lot, 80 hours a week, but it's enjoyable and profitable. So what do you want to do with your career? You want to wait 10, 20 years to become good at sales? Okay, that'll cost you about $2 million in opportunity cost. Well, as long as it's not coming out of my pocket, I don't care. Okay, yep, there you go. See player. Boop boop boop boop boop boop boop. Back of the line. Bye. Okay, get out of the way. Thank you. Thanks for coming. See you later. Stand over there. Okay, bye. Or you can say, look, I know how sales runs, and here's how many recessions have I been through. You know, my best year ever was in one of the recessions. And it, I mean, it came and it went so fast I didn't notice because I was busy working on big deals. There's always big deals. There's always people buying. They may not come to you. It may not be easy, but it's there. And before you know it, the recession's over and everybody's like, woo-hoo, low interest rates again. Look at this. Lots of jobs. Lots of people buying. Okay, but you have to understand how companies buy. You have to understand how to start conversations and turn them into meetings. These are skills, not knowledge. You can read all the books and have the knowledge, but until you do it— much like with Michael today and his comedy— comedy is all about skill. You can go and copy Chris Rock's jokes, Kevin Hart's jokes. Go listen to them. Go listen, write them down, and go perform them in front of somebody who hasn't heard them. And you know what's going to happen? You'll fall flat. One or two people might find it funny. Why? It's the delivery and the timing and the rapport that you have with the audience. And the expectations that you've built up with them. Sound like sales? Pretty much. Now, too many of us are sitting back and thinking it's the subject line. Oh God. Yeah. Everybody. So what do you do in this situation? How do I get them interested in buying my stuff? It's called selling. It's called building a conversation with them. It's a step-by-step process that we want to skip the first five steps, and you can. But it fall—this is what it sounds like: wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Go listen to somebody else's pitch. What are you doing in your head? Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. Now imagine that—that's what your audience is listening to all day long, and they can't wait. To hang up. And when they do hang up, you're like, oh, that's rude. Well, so is annoying the hell out of them. Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting is that course that'll fill your pipeline. But it's a skill, meaning that watching the videos is 10% of it. The other 80 and 90% is trying it, getting some feedback. And having the belief that you can figure this out. Because much like getting on stage in front of an audience, you have to have the confidence, the belief, the timing, the patience, the consistency to get the reaction that you want. Time is an element. Effort's an element. Practice is an element. Sorry, but much like getting into shape, the personal trainer and the coach can show you how, but if they do the exercise, they get in shape, not you. So if you want to get in shape, you still have to do the exercise. You still have to do the reps. You still have to do the work. It can be the smartest way to do it, Or the most effective way, but you still gotta do it. Go to b2brevenue.com, sign up today. Quit wasting your time. You wanna spend $2 million over the next 10, 20 years trying to get good at this? Or you wanna spend a few hundred dollars and get good at it now? So the courses, both courses work the same way, meaning you have access to it for a year. You can pay all at once in one payment, or you can pay in 12 monthly payments. But it's not a membership, meaning that you're committed to that 12 months. And if you don't pay all 12, something bad happens. So don't, don't try and weasel out of it. But understand that's what it is. Okay, you may not like it. If you don't like it, don't do it. What you get access to is the instructions, the lessons, also the office hours, which is an hour meetup every other Friday live, but it's recorded. So all the previous ones for the last 4+ years are also recorded and in the course. Now, do I curate each one of these for each student? No, I don't. It's up to you to take the course and pick and choose the things out of the office hours and the one-on-ones that fit what you're facing. You have to do the work. You have to do the reps. It's not a done-for-you course. There's lots of I did it for people in the course, but you are still responsible for doing the reps. Does it work? Uh, it still works better than anything else I've ever seen, and I still spend a lot of time looking for something better. And it's the best stuff that I've developed over my career in sales, which is probably longer than most of you have been alive. So yeah, that's my opinion. But you can judge for yourself. Closing the Complex Sale is infinitely the best course on winning the complex sale, period. How do I know? I spent 25, 30 years doing very large deals. I was the number one rep at 5 different companies. And I am, I am not that classic salesperson. You may find me funny and entertaining, but that, that's come out in the last 10 years. Before that, it was pretty much a geeky engineer trying to be a salesperson. I didn't play golf. I wasn't very entertaining at steak dinners, but I figured it out. I was money motivated, success motivated, competitive. And I hated wasting time. And I wanted to do it smarter because I tried the 80 hours a week. And the first year I did, I worked every waking hour. I don't— count it the way you want. And guess what? After 6 months, I got sick. I was a young guy in pretty good shape, but I just stressed myself out. And then I said to myself, you know, I want to make the money. I want to do this. I've got to find a smarter way. So I had to, you know, evolve my personality, extend my comfort zone, and really own that it was up to me to do it. The problem was, you know, there were a couple of books out there, but they were pretty abstract. You know what they are. Took the courses, but they were pretty academic. There wasn't a roadmap. So I go, well, how would a software engineer do this? I've been developing software for a while. There's a process to it. There's— you draw it out, you break it down. How do you learn any magic trick? You slow it down frame by frame. And all of a sudden, I started to really get some success. And then I started to build it. And then I started to sell both externally and internally, changing the company to get them to give me the resources to get these huge deals. And it worked. Now, people will come up with any rationalization possible not to change. You got to change that because otherwise you'll be the same person 30, 40 years from now as you are today. If you want to become somebody different, you gotta get a little bit comfortable with getting out of that rationalization. You know, every heavy person rationalizes why they can't lose weight. Every lazy person rationalizes why they can't Work harder. Okay. Do you believe it? Part of it's true, but it doesn't mean it can't get better. It's up to you. Make the move. b2brevenue.com. Thanks for listening. Tell a friend about the show. We'll see you next time.