WHAT WORKS FOR THIS GREAT SALESPERSON TO WIN HUGE DEALS

In sales, there's 2 major mindsets and different ends of a spectrum. At one end, there's the tips and tricks mindset. What do I need to do, or what is the least I need to do to get the next milestone that I want? And at first, they may— this may seem fine. And when you're just starting in sales, it is fine. It's okay. But what ends up happening is each milestone becomes unique, meaning that you're not learning from the last time. You're not preventing little bad things from happening— ghosting, uh, not now, no decision. Now, at the other end of the spectrum, it's just the opposite. It's the person who looks at sales as being a student of the game. They study the game. They analyze the game. They're passionate about it. They learn more and more. And the more they learn, the more they find out how little they know about it. This person, more like a maverick, where they really are passionate about it. They dig deep. And broad. And they don't just want the next milestone. They want to become better and better at sales, a student of the game. Now, we see this in life all the time. We have friends who will do as little as possible to maintain the friendship, workers who will do as little as possible not to get fired, as opposed to the people who will do whatever it takes to get promoted, get the bonus, get the next role, the, the— The next great territory, whatever it is. We see this all the time. And take the rationalizations out of it. Which one do you think is going to be more successful? And when I train salespeople, I get this all the time where they take a little bit of the course because they get a little bit of success. And then I see other people who Engulf in the course. They sign up for the course. They do the one-on-ones, the office hours. They ask the questions. They come with case studies. They really want to become great at sales. Guess which one's going to become great at sales? If you stick at the tips and tricks, the minimal viable effort to get to the next level, you're never really going to be happy with it. You're doing As little as possible. And when you don't get the great results, you blame the tip or trick instead of yourself. This is kind of what we're going to get into today with this interview. Got a great sales rep, and what's unique here is he's not putting on the professional facade that a lot of guests do. And I get it, that this is going out to well over 100,000 people. Now, so it's not a tiny podcast. This is probably one of the biggest business podcasts out there, even though it's a niche podcast. So they want to put out a very professional persona. And this gentleman is professional, but he's open and honest and casual about it. A lot of camping analogies and flying commercial analogies. And A lot of humor in it because humor breaks the ice. I think you're going to enjoy this guest. It certainly is an, at minimum, an entertaining, uh, interview, but I think you're going to get a lot out of it as far as what it takes to become great at sales. And it doesn't have to be that grind and grit that everybody talks about. It can be fun and playful even at times, as long as you You're really focused on the end objective of closing closable deals. Let's get into the interview. Before we do, have you checked out brevitypitch.com yet? This product is so cool. Every time I use it, play with it, watch other people do it, I'm amazed. I see how they are evolving the product daily. Uh, young startup, really Molding the product to fit the market and their customer base. But what do we have in sales? We want to become better. We can think in our head about it. We can rehearse in our mind about it. But until we open our mouth and really say it, because that's what it is, sales is a communication profession, and to hear our voice back and Even when I do my little walk and talk videos, I've been doing them for over a decade now. You can see them on YouTube even before LinkedIn had them. Boy, did that was great feedback because not only was it audio, it was visual. And it was with, you know, iPhone technology 10 years ago. They didn't have image stabilization or, you know, facial recognition and all of those things that have made the videos much easier to do. So you had to both concentrate on holding the camera still while I'm walking and try and share some great sales ideas with you. But with the feedback that I got, uh, from just seeing myself made me such a better presenter, made me such a better podcaster because you get to understand how it sounds and to more Put the better inflection on it, better timing, all of those things. And none of those things happen until you really talk. And there's no better way than your feedback from yourself. And then you could share it with somebody else, get their feedback, and become better. Because today people think to make more money in sales, you got to find another, another job. That may work. But what always works is becoming better at sales. And the way to become better at sales is to do it. But you don't want to do it with deals that could be at risk. You want to do it off the field. Practice. But there's no real clean way to do it. Brevity Pitch does it with you. And without any of that judgment or people making fun of you or laughing at you or Remember the little, okay, ringy ringy, and your manager picks up, hey, and you go through the role play and it just doesn't feel organic or natural. Brevity pitches solve that. Let's get into the interview. I'll sum up the interview at the end and give you an update on the courses.

Here we go.

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

Yeah. So I'm Josh Safford. I work for Smartsheet now. Been in software for almost 30 years. I started out as a programmer and taught myself everything so that I could kind of figure it out. You know, when you're a nerd, you go to Silicon Valley just like a movie star goes to Hollywood, right? And so here I am. And, you know, I was a doc writer and then I started teaching classes and I taught a class one day to a sales engineering manager. And he said, you'd be great in sales. And that was 23 years ago. And I was a sales engineer and then I wanted to be one of those salespeople, you know, I'd sit in the meetings and think, wow, that guy's making all the money and he's not doing any of the work. I'm doing the demos and he's not doing any of the work. I wanna be that. And so I became that 16 years ago. I started carrying a bag and boy, that was some of the most difficult transitional years of my life. I figured after 16 years, I'm really starting to finally get it. You know, you be the judge. That's how I ended up here.

So, well, I have an almost identical background to that, so I can empathize with you. What was that first year like when you go from pre-salesperson where you're valued, people respect you, you're not getting comped that well, to all of a sudden carrying a quota and no one values you unless you sell something?

That was miserable. It was the toughest year of my career. I, I went into it just like a bull in a china shop. You know, people throw playbooks at you and they tell you, everyone's telling you, do this, do that, don't do this, don't do that. You could have done this differently. And, you know, I knew that it was gonna take time to get to it, but just so many mistakes and public mistakes. You get that freezing feeling down your backbone. What did I just say? Oh my goodness. And just, you know, you just, you come out of that first year getting punched in the face so many times, you kind of develop calluses. And that's really the key. It was just a very difficult, callous building year.

And other than grinding, what worked for you to kind of learn how to sell? Because you were doing enterprise all along. Is that correct?

I started, so I was doing big giant accounts as a sales consultant, but I took over an SMB territory.

Oh boy.

And yeah, and it was like, here, here's 350 accounts at Oracle selling CRM On Demand, which is Oracle's competitor against Salesforce. This is in 2007. You can imagine what that was like. But I had the curiosity from the training we got as sales consultants and Oracle, when they built us up, they were really careful to make us curious and also ask the question, so what? I'm not just showing features and functions. There's a business value behind it. So somewhere I still have that in me and I would just kind of default to what are we trying to solve here? I'm not gonna show you product because I'm not a sales consultant anymore, but I still need to know what's your issue? What, What was really just conversational tone was what got me through those years. And I'm still friends with some people that I met in those early days.

Yeah. And when did you get your groove with sales?

Oh boy. I'd say I got my groove in sales about after 6 years, after 6 years of carrying a bag, 6 years of carrying a bag. I feel like it takes 2 years in a sales role to get to the point where you can just be fluid and feel it without having to stop and think like learning a new language, you know, I mean, you don't have, you can't stop and think and translate from English into French. You gotta just switch to French. That takes 2 years just for any new company. But for me, just to get to that point where it took 2 years, took me 6 years. It was, it's a tough ride. It's not easy.

It's not. And did you have a particular epiphany or did somebody kind of take you under their wing or was there a big deal that gave you the confidence?

There was a big deal that gave me the confidence. There was a point where I finally said, look, enough of your playbooks. Stop telling me what to do. Anyone who knows me out there and described me as quirky because I do it my way and my way starts with getting to know you. No solution has ever been solved. No problem has ever been solved with a bunch of 30-minute meetings. It's not possible. And just being able to have me just leave me alone and let me do what I need to do and having the freedom that I had in this one case allowed me to build the team that I needed and take the approach that I needed and backchannel as I needed and break out of these norms that we've kind of been accustomed to, which was really mind-blowing for a lot of people. People Really, people low on the chain. Why are you taking me so seriously? So because you're the ultimate stakeholder. How can I talk to the vice president if somebody under the vice president can't explain to that vice president why the VP would talk to me? And same thing to the VPs. It's like, you know, as high as you are, I've had, I've had C-level executives say, I'm gonna sign your deal, but I gotta know, like, how does this work? How is this gonna work? You actually wanna see it? Yes, I wanna see it. I'm a C-level executive at a technology company. Show me. A screen, show me anything that you can show me. And that breaks every rule in the book. But when an executive asks to see something, you show them what they need to see.

Yeah. So how would you characterize your process?

It's a foundational process. There's a lot of discovery and thinking going on when I take over a territory. I can't just show up and say, here's the plan. So I go in and I just listen and ask a lot of questions. There's no meeting too long or boring or low level. That I'm not gonna take. I'm gonna take every meeting and just try to fill up my head, develop a visual landscape of, of course, the people are what make all this work. Who are the people? And I look at every, all available information, both internally and externally to try to understand without oversupposing what people's motivations are. And then, you know, I'm still doing this. I'm in the 3rd month here at Smartsheet and I still, I don't have a comprehensive plan yet because I'm still assembling all of my materials, the mortar, the cinder block, the paint, everything. I'm still assembling it all. And then when I look at it, I can say, okay, this is the kind of house that I can build. And that's, for me, that's a 3-month process.

Yeah. But it's hard to find a company patient to wait 3 months for progress, isn't it?

You treat yourself. Yeah, you have to. You know, they hired me here to do this crazy job. I have 3 accounts and they're already existing and I'm supposed to grow these accounts and you have to be crazy. You have to have a wild hair to do that. And so I have to go and ask for what I need, even if it's nonstandard and I have to make a business case for it. Just like my executives have to make a business case to get budget to buy what I'm selling. I have to make a business case and say, I'm gonna do things differently, but here's why. And this is what you hired me to do. So it's not just go in, follow a playbook. This is the kind of thing that we all do that works for a run rate business. But each one of my accounts is, it's like you, Brian, you're a different person. I'm not gonna talk to you the same way I talk to my wife. I'm not gonna talk to my kids the same way I talk to, to you. Individualism, that's the key because people want authenticity and they wanna know that you're thinking about them.

And what do you see wrong with sales today? Because sales kind of certainly over the last 10 years and definitely over the last 5 years. I think it's just gone off the rails.

If I hear another thing about the perfect email subject, I've got— or I'm gonna watch these guys on the internet and here's an email, here's a giant email and we'll put the camera on this guy and in 30 seconds he'll redo it. Like, it's— that's not— people are not opening, you know what I mean? Right? Like this stuff happens. So the idea that there's some magic formula out there We're trying to, we're trying to make it formulaic. We're trying to take an art and turn it into a science. So, you know, every Monday, every Monday night at 7, I go out and take out the garbage. Okay, great. I know that it's easy. But, you know, when I'm camping, garbage is like another thing. I have to manage it and think about it. And I'm gonna have to carry it on my back for 4 days because you got to pack out what you pack in. So I have to think a little bit differently about that situation out in the dusty, as we call it. I'm a big camper. And so you have to make it up as you go along. No, you have to understand the playbook and then close the playbook and learn how to fly the plane without having to flip to page— how do I put the landing gear down? Go to page 55. No, it's up here. Click.

Well, I like the camping analogy. Is good because camping requires preparation because there's no stores out in the woods, right? There's no Amazon Prime in the woods. No, no.

Thank God. Yeah.

So do you find a lot of analogies between camping and sales?

You know, I'll tell you the best analogy for that is I can, I can make up an analogy that has to do with commercial aviation for anything. Yeah, we're all in this together. There's 2 people flying, one person flying the plane, but there's a copilot. There's people in the back. Okay, there's a team of people in the back, there's customers in the back. We're literally all in this together. Okay.

No choice.

The captain can get up and serve coffee. But then the people are going to look at each other and say, what kind of airline is this? Right? You know, the flight attendant can save lives. You don't usually see them doing that. So the the best analogy is this is the kind of salesperson I want to be. I was on a flight once, back of the plane, back in the '80s. You still smoke cigarettes in the back of a TWA 747, talking with this random guy. We're just talking, and we hit turbulence, and we got both got cups in our hands drinking. I was drinking. a drink. He had a hot coffee.

Oh boy.

While we were talking, the back of the plane went like this and I watched the cup of coffee go up in the air and go right towards him. I just went like that and I caught it. I looked at him and he looked at me and we were connected now for the rest of that flight. Otherwise, I would have just been this guy. I barely knew him but my hand instinctively went out. He knew exactly who I was at that moment. Now, that's the kind of salesperson I want to be.

Which builds trust because you cared more about him.

And I didn't have to think about what's the right thing to do.

It was instinctive.

It was instinctive. People say to me, I'm gonna have a conversation with this person. Oh, be careful. Be careful of what? Well, don't give them too much information. Don't be too transparent. You're sharing— I've had, I've had VPs say, why are you sharing a lot of these really secret details about, you know, how we operate with the client? Like, They're moving in with us. We're getting married. They need to know what this is going to be like. Don't tell them this. Don't tell them that. They're telling me everything about their business so that I can help them. I'm supposed to clam up about mine?

Yeah.

So these are examples of how, yes, I've certainly been, you could say, a challenge to manage. And it's paid off.

Let's talk about that challenge to manage because I've experienced that as well. And most great salespeople are because the easy people to manage are the people who come in, do what they're told and somehow sell something.

Yeah.

And I always found it's like, I don't know how they sell something when they spend their whole day doing what they're told.

Yeah. Yeah.

How have you managed up?

Well, like I said earlier, I manage up by always making sure that there's a justification behind it. So if I'm not going to follow your playbook exactly, or if I'm going to suggest an edit to the playbook, I'm not just going to stand up and say, you got to change this because I want you to. I have to make a case for it. And I've learned to ask— well, I've learned 2 things. I've learned To say in a way, I think I understand how you feel, not to be over-assumptive, but I've been in this position before, manager VP, and you might be thinking this and I understand why you're thinking that. Let me assure you that there's a method to my madness and here's a proposal how we should modify that. And I think that's justifiable. I don't think I should just go off and do what I need to do and people look at me and they're like, what's he doing? Oh, trust me. Because management has to make sure that I am doing the right thing. And I'm not— I need to be managed. I have to have a person to discuss things with and try ideas out with before I go live and, you know, like this. But at the same time, if you, if you stifle my instincts and my creativity, then you've, you've, you've, you've stifled me, you've, you've, you've made me inefficient, I can't do what I need to do. And I do battle against How many of these internal calls do I have to join? Right? Your heart's in the right place.

Yeah.

A lot of those are good. But not all of them are necessary.

Yeah. Well, let's dig into the creativity. I'm sensing that's your superpower.

That— 2 superpowers: creativity, and I I cannot lose. I cannot fail. And this job, every day I'll get a phone call and it'll be my prospect, my customer who's got a deal in the pipeline. And I immediately freeze when I look at my phone because it's gonna be bad news. I mean, after all these years, I'm like horrified. And so everyone I work with, I said, when you call me during the deal signature time, tell me everything's cool. The first thing you have to say is everything's cool because I just assume, you know, bad news, right? So I absolutely get up every time, like how many deals have we had that were dead? And then you hit the defibrillator on the thing and it comes back and again the next day. You just, if you say, okay, it's done, it's over, we're done, no deal would close. There's always blockers and to get through those blockers, you have to be creative. There's nowhere to fix this. Camping. I'm out in the woods, or even on the airplane. I don't have anything to fix this. I have dental floss. Will that work? Dental floss, by the way, is magic when you're traveling. You can use it for a million different things. When you're in the air, you're camping, dental floss. I didn't think you could use it that way. I was just thinking, well, what do I have that's like string to tie that thing back up? Creativity.

Yeah. And what typically have you seen Those blockers? Because I think a lot of people early in sales assume if the champion wants it, the company buys it.

People don't understand. It's, for me, getting a deal done is like the miracle of childbirth or again, the miracle of commercial aviation. The fact that you can get 450 people in the air for 12 hours safely and feed them and they can watch movies. I mean, it's a miracle. It's truly a miracle. And there's millions of parts on a plane. Well, there's millions of parts in a sales cycle and that champion wants it. But I bet you that that champion's never bought what I'm selling before and they have no idea what they're getting into.

Despite what they tell you.

And I gotta test them and you have to test your champions. And have you done this before? I've done this before. Have you really done this before? Do you wanna, let me review this contract with you before we send it to purchasing. Do you realize What you're actually going to be on the hook here. Oh, oh, well, when I see it actually in the order form, you know, it's just been talk up until now. And now this is real. There's a signature block on this thing. Aye, aye, aye. That's, that's the kind of transparency you need. And that's the kind of creativity you need to have is I got to solve this problem. And I got to test my champion. I got to find a way to do it. You should never show the order form to somebody before you go. What? There's that's what's who made up that rule?

And the hate losing part, where's that come from?

I've invested so much of my time, but that's nothing because all these people who support me, right? Like I ride on the shoulders of my team, right? My inside sales reps, my CSM, sales engineers, the people in finance, everybody. Okay. They need this because they've spent their time on this. And I've had people look at me and say, we have to get this. Like, you could see it in their eyes. Jobs are on the line. We need this multimillion-dollar deal so that we can keep this consulting team going. I mean, the amount of pressure— again, back to that, the captain on an airplane, can you imagine what she's feeling? Somewhere in her mind, she knows that she's got this thing and all the people and their families in the back. Imagine that responsibility. Now, I don't mean to say that it's a life or death thing. It's just a job. It's just software. But you still, you owe it to the people who've invested.

Well, that's the first time somebody's really shared that perspective. Most people, it's like, I hate to lose. You know, for me, it was kind of what you started with. I put so much time and energy into it. I'm not going to lose. Because of the, you know, the lost investment of my own time. But the team behind you sounds like you've managed people before.

You know, I've never had a direct management job. I'm one of these folks who's kind of a dinosaur who made a decision a long time ago that I'm gonna be an individual contributor. And I experimented with it. I didn't want it because as much as I love people, I can't spend my time with just a lot of these personnel issues, but I get the best of both worlds because I do have a matrix organization. I have dotted line to my team. So I lead my team, but I'm not an HR manager. So I kind of have the best of both worlds there. And believe me, there's a lot of psychology in it. There's interpersonal relationships that have to be managed and nobody gets a holistic view, you know, This is one thing I've learned is that every departmental manager, they know everybody on their team. Everybody on their team does the same thing. The sales engineers are on one team, consulting is on one team, salespeople are on one team. But I'm the only person who can look all across them and watch how do the sales engineers hand off the projects to the consultants? How does finance work with services when there's an issue, you know, with milestone billing on an SOW? I'm the only one who gets to watch these interdepartmental relationships. Who else can have management authority and responsibility over cross-functional teams like that? I love that. I love it.

Without having the headaches of people looking for their review, arguing about holiday time off and—

Yeah, exactly. It's truly the best of both worlds. It's benefiting from the power that you can get from when you, you know, 1 1 3 with teams until you get a team that's so big that you have a diminishing, you know, marginal return. But being at the cross-functional, the cross-pollination is magical. I have a new solution architect, we call them over here, solution engineer on our team. And she's been with the company for years as a consultant. And so she comes over with this consulting mindset and I, you know, I kind of did that when I got into sales engineering. And I warned her, you know, you come over as a consultant, it's a different job. Sales engineering is different than consulting, right? Being an instructor like I was is different than selling. And so I was able to help her based on my personal experience. This is what I went through back in 2000. Don't fall into the trap that I did. And she teaches me about how to work with her and the services person that's coming in because she used to be a services person. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. It's just so eye-opening. Every day is so eye-opening. Every day is a new day in sales.

And what part of the sales process do you feel you're the best at?

Oh boy.

You know, some people are great at getting the meeting. Some people are great at the presentation. Others are, you know, work in the org. Some are working the financials, doing the business side of it. Some people love, I'm assuming maybe you still love the technology side of it.

Yeah, this is the first company I've worked at where everybody has to certify on the product. Even Mark Mader, our CEO, posted on the internal Slack channel that he certified himself the other day on the product. And I use it. I built a travel app to manage our European vacation in Smartsheet. So this is the first time in my career that I really believe in the product that I use. It actually is game-changing and I'm I'm excited about it. My— I'm best at establishing the strategy. My number one job, my number one job is to establish a strategy, not make it up. I have to work with everybody to come up with it. But if you ask me, what do I do besides being the ultimate facilitator? It's probably what I'm best at is facilitating, is establishing a strategy by bringing in the input and then helping manage the team towards that strategy. The thing that I absolutely do, I think, better than maybe anyone else. I mean, you know, your results may vary out there on the internet, but finding champions, motivating champions, gaining their trust, I can't do it. There's me and there's the champion. Not me and the executive sponsor. Okay? Not me and the power users. There's me and there's the champion. And every deal I have done, I've had— it's cell phone conversations. It's 24/7. People call me while they're jogging because that's when they talk. And I'm talking and we're talking like you and I are talking right now. Like, like I would talk to you if we met on the airplane next to each other. I don't have a slide deck. Hello, what's your name? My name is Brian. Here, let's go to slide 2, Brian.

Let's go through who's born.

Flight attendant coming by. What would, what would you, if, if wants alcoholic drink, go to slide 4. You know, that's not how conversations work.

Well, I mean, because today you don't see much strategy. Or process, or it's the company's process. It's discovery call, presentation, demo, propose, negotiate, close.

But that's not how anyone buys.

No, no, that's my selfish— that's a necessary thing. I need to have that on my side because we have to be able to monitor our pipeline. I totally get it, you know, and also these directors that are multiple layers above me and vice presidents, they can't I have to be seen as a science, not an art. So somewhere I have to rationalize myself into a scientific analysis. And so my job is to translate this art that you and I are having right now into actionable items. That's, that's what this has to do up here is map the very fluid, always changing, always evolving relationship map, and still be able to map it into my very rigid, you know, forecasting, for example. And that's valid. I mean, that's, that's my primary thing, right? That's what I have to do. So the trick is, how do you not let the infrastructure that you have to interlock with at your company, how do you divorce yourself from that when you're in front of the customer? You know, you're gonna have to go back and update your opportunity and there's medic questions. Okay. But I'm not gonna go like with my medic questions, I'm gonna have my little list right here and be like, okay, tell me about—

Your decision-making process.

Yeah. Who is the decision maker?

Please stand up.

Please stand up. If they have that conversation and I do have to rationalize it back into the CRM system. So I say to anybody out there, if you want to be successful, understand you're going to log everything somewhere. That's how you know what you're doing right. And that's very valid. But do not let that inform your strategy in the field. Translate those things down into that system. Take all this enablement with another playbook. This playbook has 53 slides and 2 in 8-point font. Okay, that's not a playbook. That's like a play tome. That's like a play Warren Peace. Okay, I need like a pamphlet that I can look at. So the other thing I say is, take all the enablement that's given to you. All right, and then pick out the 5 pages that you need. Thanks, guys. The million pages. What a generous offer. I'll take these 5. Okay, that's— that takes time and planning. And, and you don't necessarily know which 5 pages you're going to need. You might take these 5 and hand them back. And it's like playing poker. I'll put 3 down, pick up another couple, you know, I like these cards better. I'm going to play these cards now. And you start learning, these are the cards that I like to play. I know what to do. You know, I can make a straight flush out of this. I've done this before.

And when you're thinking about the strategy, do you visualize it or do you have the airplane analogy of where it is or can you see exactly how it'll play out?

Yeah, I'm visual. I'm very visual. I don't react to just words. And when there's words on a slide, I have to interrupt you and say, okay, here's how I see it. And I use my hands. Something's going from here to here. Like I just, I, because words can be misinterpreted.

Sure. Different.

What is the word pipeline? We just had an internal call pipeline. Well, pipeline means different things to different people. Real estate industry pipeline's different from my enterprise sales pipeline. Different word, different meaning, same word. So, you know, a picture you can't argue with and I visualize the people. And I visualize the problem. So, I mean, I actually visualize people copying and pasting stuff. We eliminate a lot of that, you know, not to go into Smartsheet, but we eliminate a lot of this manual processing. And I physically imagine somebody on a Friday can't pick up the kid, go to Little League practice because they're doing this brainless, like absolute soul-killing work that should be automated so they can go do bigger things. I visualize that. And then when I actually meet that person, They know that at my heart, they can feel it because they know that I visualized it.

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

Hey, I'm on LinkedIn. Josh Safran, S-A-F-F-R-E-N. Like to stay on LinkedIn, keep it there. I'm in a few other places, but you know, I don't look at that stuff anymore.

If I've learned anything about interviewing great salespeople is that There is no one formula. There's no one style that is best. All styles can work. We need to be a little bit of a chameleon to connect with clients. But what has been consistent is that there's a system, a process, a strategy, and we don't talk enough about strategy. And certainly, if you were to have landed on planet Earth this year, And looked at what people think selling is, as Josh said in the interview, talking about the perfect subject line. That is so far from what real selling is that people are just lost today. And I think one of the things— and what happened, uh, early in my career is that you would people who would come from a big successful company, and the small startup or early-stage company would think since that person was at the successful company that they caused the success of the company. And they would come in and they would be great account managers but not great salespeople. They couldn't create new deals. They could manage existing ones. It's a different skill for a different situation. And what's happening today, I think, is people are coming from those big successful companies and using their do dumb things faster strategy because it works when you're, you know, what Geoffrey Moore says, in the tornado, meaning that there's so much demand, so much— the category's been developed, the product's been developed, The need and the demand for the product's already been developed, and the salespeople are just basically you know those bears up in Alaska with the fish falling into their mouths. You know the fish jump up, the salmon jumps up, and the the big bear opens his mouth and eats the salmon. That's not selling; that's order taking. That same that bear did not hunt or fish for that.

Salmon.

It basically just sat there and opened its mouth while 50 salmon flew past its head and one lands in the mouth. People think that's selling or fishing, but it may not be for what you and I are doing. Most of us are out there trying to start conversations, to get meetings, to win deals, and that is a skill. And you can try the tips and tricks approach But you're never going to be happy because each case is a little bit different. Yet people are very similar. Why not work at that psychological level, that mammal level, and in a step-by-step process build up a know, like, and trust relationship with them? And you can't do that with spam or cold calling. You have to do it with a system that's Doesn't— so you don't act like a salesperson. You know what that means. You get them all day. Look through your inbox. The only ones that are even vaguely interested are the ones that hit on something that you are currently thinking about. I'm a business owner. I am thinking about probably 3 to 5 things at a time that I need or I may want Or want to investigate. And if I happen to get a good email about that, I might click on something. I probably still am not going to start a conversation with them. I need a little bit of warmup.

That's all.

And I show you how to do that warmup. Now we're getting to the time of the year where you need to close deals as well. But do you understand how the deals work? Now, this is another case of when the person from the tornado comes in, they think they've got enough pipeline that the orders— some will go through, some won't, and they don't know why or how, and it's just luck to them. Well, is that your case? If it is, you're fine. If it isn't, you need to understand how to control the deal. What if your champion's not that strong? What if your coach leaves? How do you prevent those traps? You know what happens when you send a proposal in. All of a sudden they ghost you. Do you understand why? Do you understand how to prevent that? Do you understand that your champion may tell you they're the sole decision maker? Wait, I'll tell you what, that deal you might as well not even forecast, that that deal is not closing. Or might close for a little bit, or maybe next quarter. Or after you start the deal yet again next quarter with an extended eval and all that BS. And think about all the time you've invested in it, that deal, and you got nothing. And people say, worry about the cost of the course. Courses are not expensive. One's the cost of a lunch, one's the cost of a dinner per month. But the ROI is I don't know, 100 times that, 1,000 times that. But you have to put the effort in. I can't just put it in your brain and you automatically walk away. It's training. I'm sure most of you are still paying off college loans. You gladly pay that, that got you what, the crummy job? Why not make a little investment in something that'll make you a lot of money for the rest of your life? Become a student of the game. And I don't say that just to keep listeners or make it seem more difficult than it is. Yes, anyone can take an order. Anybody can be the bear with their mouth open. But few can go out there and fish when the salmon aren't on the run once a year. Now those bears— have you read about bears? It's Fat Bear Week. They have to eat like 90 pounds of salmon a day before they go hibernate. Because it's a long, cold winter and they— I don't know where they go. The den, cave. I don't know where they go. I'm not a bear guy, but that's what happens. In sales, we have to eat every day. We have to go find those salmon. If they're falling in your mouth, you're probably not listening to a sales podcast. You're probably nice, fat, and happy. Why not listen to Joe Rogan instead of Brian Burns? You're here because you can't find any salmon. I teach you how to keep the few salmon that you have in your mouth instead of swimming away. Sign up today. Make it part of your routine. And people ask, well, how long does it take? Well, it takes the rest of your life to become great at it. And don't you want to become better and better every day at it? Because the better at sales you are, The more money you make. You've got to own that. Quit looking for it outside of that. Yes, there are better industries. There'll always be better jobs, better managers, better territories. But once you've switched enough and you still haven't got the results you want, then it might be becoming a better salesperson because there is no perfect. There is no cap. On your sales talent, no matter how great you are. Check out the courses at b2brevenue.com. Thanks for listening. Tell a friend about the show. And if you see my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a little like, a little comment, a little share. We'll see you soon.