WHO IS RIGHT FOR B2B SALES AND SELLING AND WHO IS NOT A MATCH

Hey, before we get into the interview, I want to make sure you're aware of our other podcasts, the Sales Questions, Brutally Honest Answers show, which is a very quick, under 5 minutes in most cases, sometimes just a few minutes where I answer your questions. You can just send me any question to my LinkedIn profile, Brian G. Burns, and I'll put it in the queue to answer. Also, the Sales Leadership Show. If you're looking to get into sales leadership or you want to hear from the world's best sales leaders, that's where I interview them. Check it out, the Sales Leadership Show. Also at b2brevenue.com, you can learn all about all the courses. Links are in the show notes below, as well as our link to our partners over at brevitypitch.com, the fastest, easiest way to become great at sales and practice. Before it's showtime, here we go.

We've covered some of the downsides of being in sales, a few of them. Are there any upsides?

I was thinking there's got to be a few. We do talk a lot about the challenges of sales and how it can be stressful at times, but at the same time, there's also a lot of people in sales, a lot of people that stay in sales for a long time and do really well in their careers. So there are a lot of advantages. Advantages to being in sales, and you can build a great career and life being in sales. And I did a poll recently about what was people's favorite part of working in sales, and it was interesting to see the feedback. There's obviously some cliché ones out there, but for me, I think although I'm stubborn about it sometimes, I tend to really enjoy the process. I enjoy the journey, the Competitiveness of trying to get things done. Although there's a lot of ups and downs and turmoil in between, I enjoy that, the process, the journey, the day-to-day to get to that final outcome. So it's a great topic though, because I think we want to get more people in sales and there are a lot of great things about it.

Yeah. I mean, I was kind of a reluctant person getting into it. But from a financial standpoint, you know, I saw no downside. You know, I found out the sales rep's base was my target income, and she was making another whole bunch on top of that, which is equal to the base. So it was 2x. And I looked at what she did and I go, I can figure that part out. Got into it. And what I loved was the financial control over my career. As a developer, in pretty much any other role, what do you have? A year-end raise, maybe a bonus, maybe some equity, maybe. And no matter how much you contribute, you know, here I was a developer building the product, the product that we sold. By myself during my summer and then going out and selling it, and the person who closes the deal makes more on it than I did. And, and today that's not the same. Developers get paid a lot more. But let's compare it to marketing or services that don't get that much of a bonus, and it shows, doesn't it? I had a manager once who said Give me someone's comp plan and I can tell you what they'll do all day. And I was like rolling my eyes. I was a kid at the time, and I— it stuck with me because it was damn true. Because people go with incentives. And granted, money-motivated people are drawn to sales, and they should be, but it can't be just the money. Because the people where it's just the money, other things go wrong. They don't get along with either other people, customers, or internally because they're just in it for the money. What I've seen in the interviews, a lot of people like the adventure, the variety, getting up every day and doing something a little bit different. That's something I didn't like about it. I liked being a developer, going in at the same time. I remember Monday mornings where I could just sit at my desk and nobody bothered me. I had no meetings on Monday and I could just get into the zone and write code all day long. You can't do that in sales.

Definitely not.

Not a minute goes by without the phone or the email or social, some fire drill.

A lot of, a lot of fire drills. So my, mine sort of happened by accident as well. I, I did Cutco, the classic Cutco story, right out of high school my senior year. And I, I was more introverted, but I would say I'm somewhat of an adapted, adapted extrovert where I can flip the switch in certain situations and social settings, whatever it may be. But I was more introverted in general, but Somehow I saw a newspaper ad and I didn't know what it was. It was very vague about what it was. And I went to this interview. It was a group interview, very awkward. And there's 10 or 12 young kids there. And for some reason I could flip the switch and answer the questions in a crowded room. So I don't know if it's that performance that I gravitated towards or because I wasn't around people that I knew that I was able to do that, but ended up doing Cutco that summer and did pretty well. I think made 7 or 8 grand during the summer going into college, which Uh, I basically, all my friends' parents from football and wrestling have a set of Cutco knives and I think they still work. So the good thing about Cutco is that they, they do last quite some time. So that, that's how I got, got into sales. And then it happened again on accident out of college because out of college it's easy to go into an entry-level marketing or sales role. So I had friends that worked for Milwaukee Tool, went by there at the career fair. One thing led to another and I ended up working there for almost a decade, but I, So it's funny how you actually get into sales because it usually happens by accident. Most people I talked to, and it certainly did for me, but I think the— what you were talking about, that freedom and autonomy, I really love having the freedom to be my own boss. In some cases, obviously, the more commission-focused your job, the more you're going to have that freedom where you really treat it like your own business, that salespreneur, and you can make decisions and not— because I do better. I'm a lot more self-sufficient where I can, I just think I know how to get stuff done and I'm, I'm gonna act and execute. I don't necessarily need someone over top of me babysitting me to tell me which way to go. I need guidance, obviously, but I'm, I'm very autonomous and I like having that, that freedom and entrepreneurial mindset. It, it, it eventually led me to being more entrepreneurial, being in sales. So I, I think That freedom and autonomy has been a big one for me. And of course, financials. I think you can have an impact on your path way more in sales because you can eat what you kill. You can make more money if you do better. And there's really nothing else like that where you can increase based off your, your individual performance. So, uh, the freedom and autonomy are at the top of the list. Money's definitely up there. But to your point, if you're just money motivated or worried about titles and all that type of stuff, Eventually that's going to catch up to you and you're not going to last very long because it's just not going to be sustainable if all you care about is the money.

Yeah. And I see a lot of people who like the adventure that, you know, each deal is kind of like a little adventure. You get to meet new people, learn about what they're doing, compete against alternatives, and hopefully walk away with a deal. That's kind of exciting, the competitive part to it. Um, and a lot of people don't like the internal politics, don't really care about Janie's birthdays on Thursday and we're going to have a little cake in the cafeteria and sing to her. Some people love that. I didn't care about that.

I was going to say, I think that was definitely— you're talking about yourself there.

Yeah. Where's Dustin?

Is he going to sing happy birthday to me?

No.

If you care about that stuff, maybe sales isn't for you. Or if you don't like a little pressure— some people thrive on deadlines, some people need deadlines. A lot of deadlines in sales. Some people like seeing through the, the smoke and mirrors that other people throw up and trying to determine what will really happen. I think some of the people who don't like sales or don't like deadlines, don't like to be measured, don't like to be compared, don't like to be judged. But hey, you make twice as much. That's what I shake my head when I see a sales rep go into marketing and I don't have to hear another word. I know what they're going to look like in a year. I know what they're going to do. They're the make-the-pretty salespeople. They don't feel comfortable in the unstructuredness of sales. They like the polish of spending a month on a video or having a font selection meeting, sweating over the colors on a post. They're in the right department. That person would not do well in sales. You know, sales is kind of a, you know, a Band-Aid and bubble gum department, right? It's the whatever gets it from one point to another. No, there's no style points in sales. There's style points in pretty much every other department, certainly in marketing, engineering.

Sales.

Does anybody really care how it got done? Anything from a Bluebird to a MacGyver dunk. Nobody cares. No, nobody cares. And does a salesperson really care? No.

So as long as we're getting paid.

Yeah, I, I think the people who end up in sales who don't do well You know, they tend to fall into the can't do anything else, but they look and act like a salesperson— reasonably attractive, smile, and can talk. That's a pretty low bar. But a lot of those people, since they look and sound like a salesperson to non-salespeople, they'll get sales jobs. And we see that all the time. Look who runs for political office. Is it the ugly ducklings? No, it's tall guys who mostly— and that's innate in us, right? As tribal creatures, who do we want to follow? The biggest, strongest guy, right? Because that's in the savanna. That's who survived. It wasn't a short, paunchy guy who was great with numbers.

Right.

That guy isn't going to keep us alive. And so if you're wondering if sales is right for you, does those things turn you on? The autonomy, money motivated, competing. If it doesn't, it might not be the right thing. And there's plenty of jobs in services marketing. I think people get into the trap of they build up their lifestyle to the economics of sales, but their personality doesn't grow with it. And they may be an introvert who just doesn't like people or doesn't want to be around people, which is okay, but you have to be around people in sales a little bit. You know, I hated to travel, but I traveled every week.

Did I get used to it? I guess.

I don't travel now.

They don't have to.

So there's trade-offs in there.

Definitely. I mean, I— so I'm an only child, so I typically— I said earlier, I'm very self-sufficient, and I like my alone time. I like my solitude, probably too much, and I've gotten better at that. So when I have a full day of talking to people, meetings, or traveling, it's exhausting for me, and then I just need to I don't want to talk to people. So it's like my family and friends, they're— I feel bad because then I have to— I'm exhausted from talking to people because it takes more effort for me and I just want to shut it down and do my own thing. So I have to be aware of that and like, what, you know, what balance can I do there? The other thing is, uh, depending on what you're selling, if you're solving a big problem, if you're helping people, I did med device, uh, some of that passion, I mean, about your company, about the product, the service, or how you're impacting. I think a lot of people gravitate to that and some might be more fluff than others. But if you can find something that you really enjoy solving that problem, maybe used to be on the technical side like yourself and you want to be more on the other side selling it, whatever the case is, if you can find that passion in addition to the other stuff, I think you end up doing really well in sales and you can stay in a certain industry for a long time. And I keep going back to, for some reason, I enjoy just that, that before and after. So it's in the short term, there are a lot of fire drills. There's a lot of urgent things. There's a lot of stress. There's a lot of competition and you have to be able to pivot and react in the short term to address all that. But then the long term, you have to be patient. You have to have that vision. You have to want to see the outcome of whatever you're selling, but you can see That transformation potentially with, with the customer of whatever you're selling. So I like seeing that from start to finish and feeling that you made an impact potentially and seeing it all the way through. So that, that goes back to what type of sales are you doing? I mean, because some, some can be more account manager roles where you are with the customer for a long time. Some can be you're just straight new business and you hand it off to someone. So you have to also, based off The good parts, you have to understand which are actually relevant to that type of sales role because people just have this blanket of all sales is the same. But some of these things we're talking about can depend on the type of role you have too. And you, you have to be aware of that as far as your strengths and what are the good parts of sales.

Yeah. And you have to kind of be comfortable with the hired gun nature of it. Where— and one of the things I didn't like is I like to build things, I like to compound things. And there's some of that in selling, but you have to create it. Company doesn't create that for you. So if you want to compound your skills, that's up to you. Your territory, hmm, you have to do a lot of work there. And what's very different about sales, you get that reset every year. You have to become comfortable with that. A lot of people can't. You know, it's like when your rent gets upped every year, you get a little agitated because now you're paying more for the same thing. It just, it doesn't— okay, I'm giving more, but am I getting more? No, no. It's the inverse in sales. Okay, my quota's up, my base didn't move, my earnings target didn't move. I'm no mathematician, but this doesn't seem like it's better, right? But it might be, you know. But that doesn't happen to any other department. Oh, marketing, you got to generate more leads this year. They just cut and paste the Gmail accounts and Salesforce and they're done. Engineering, oh, just try and build something, right? Try and get something deliverable to us. Sales, now you gotta sell twice as much. You gotta be comfortable with that. And the compounding can be on your income, you know, because you've got a lot more disposable income. Where most people in their 20s and 30s don't have any disposable income. And I remember getting my first, you know, 5-figure check and my first 6-figure check when I didn't make 6 figures the year before. It blows your mind to see one check like that and have that drop into your bank account. You hit the refresh and it sees that. That's pretty motivating. Don't get that in any other department.

Oh yeah, definitely. That's a big one there. And I've— maybe the only thing comparable to it is stuff on Wall Street with traders. I was watching some shows recently like Billions, and I don't know if any of those numbers are actually true, but that's probably maybe one thing that might be comparable. But That, that's a huge one.

Yeah.

When you get, get those big paydays or you close the deal, that, that's, that's massive. The other thing that I was thinking about as you were talking is it, it forces you to be very uncomfortable. It forces you to do a lot of challenging, hard things. And you can see that translate to other parts of your life if you stick it out for a long period of time, because every year is a reset. Every year can be daunting. You have to go, you have to have a lot of tough conversations with yourself, with the customers, with your internal employees. And that forces you to get better outside of work, from my perspective at least, because you're, you're, you're doing something hard at work and that makes other stuff outside of life easier for you. It also, it forces you to at least think and consider about having more of a growth mindset versus other areas, because a lot of, a lot of times in sales you can't hide. So if you're not hitting your numbers, I mean, there's a leaderboard. So people are going to know you're not hitting your numbers, whatever the excuse is. So you have to, it forces you to shift your mindset to try to get better, try to improve. So doing the hard things and mindset, I didn't realize when I first got into sales that that would help me. But looking back now, it's like, I don't think I'd be where I'm at if I wouldn't have been in sales because it helped me just keep getting better from a mindset and Doing challenging things perspective.

Yeah, because a lot of other departments, it's totally subjective. You know, it's hard to write code. It's hard to get leads. Everyone nods. Yep, sure it is. Uh, it's hard to get revenue. Well, too bad. Go get revenue. We need revenue. We can't survive without revenue. And I think what it's helped me with is understanding how the world really works. You know, because we go to school and we're taught to sit in a row, do what you're told, and if you pass the test, you get a grade and you move up. Sales isn't like that. Sales is like you got to accomplish something. Can't just copy off the person next to you. You got to do something. You got to understand people's real motives. You got to understand that not everybody tells the whole complete truth. that you need to hear. They tell you what they want you to hear so you do what they want you to do, or that some cushy version of the truth. So it's true, but it's not complete. And how do you get good judgment? You got to get hurt a lot to show how bad your judgment is. So that you When you keep track of your deals and you say, oh, I think it's going to close on this date and it closes 3 months later, there's 3 months of lessons there. Did you learn them or are you just going to repeat them again? So I think if you really want a life lesson on how to get things done, how to change people's minds, how to get companies to change how they do things, sales is a great way to do it. And just to get enormous exposure out there to meet people.

It's very true. I mean, I, it, it forced me into it, not forced me into, but I saw the future and I wanted to invest in a personal brand and I'm no Not up to your level by any means, but I have about, I think, 10,000 followers or so on LinkedIn. If I wouldn't be in sales or entrepreneurial type situation, I mean, there's no way I would be doing something like that, most likely, especially with, with my background. So I, it, it, and all the stuff that you said that, that helps you with life for sure. But also, if you can get really good at sales and you like it, you enjoy it, there's always going to be demand for that person, that really good sales person, like gal or guy, if you can get to that level, I don't want to say it's going to be easy for you to get a job, but you can get a pretty good job at an elite company if you've proven it for a long period of time. So I like going all in with whatever you're pursuing, but you can certainly have a lot of options if you're good at sales. So it makes you very marketable in a variety of roles because if you can crush it in sales, you can probably Do a lot of other stuff that would help a business, even if it wasn't directly sales related. So, because you just have to figure it out, to your point, there is no, uh, there is no other people you can blame in sales. It's, it's on you. So you're going to have that go-getter mentality most likely. So people want to be around those folks. You don't find as many of those folks as you would like to. And I think it can really help you long term. So if you take a sabbatical for a year, you're doing great. You can come back and probably find a job if you've crushed it for a long time and know what you're doing.

Yeah, because essentially you are a leader with nobody reporting to you. Prospects don't report to you. Internal people don't report to you. You have to kind of, uh, motivate them to help you. Get to know them, get to understand what they want. How can you help them so they'll help you? I think it's great leadership training. I think it's great You know, corporate training in general, and you get to do it on someone else's dime. You know, because today everybody wants to do something online, and a few people can make money doing that, but most won't. Why not do it on someone else's dime, build up those skills? That's the good part of the big Juicy base salary. The bad part is you have to do what they tell you to.

And to become great at sales, the best way is to model somebody who already has become good at sales and to hear other people who have become great at sales and the journey that they're going through, the false beliefs, uh, the The misnomers, the mindset issues, all of this stuff that gets in our way between where we are and the income that we want. Let's face it, we're in sales because we're money motivated, we're competitive, we want to be better every day than we were yesterday. And how do we do that? Um, just really, you know, read a book, uh, listen to a podcast. That's good, good start. I like it. But then you have to take action. And then you want both tactical and strategic ideas. You want mindset. You want strategy. You want to understand how companies buy. You want really deep content and examples, case studies, so that you can learn from other people's mistakes.

That's what I'm here for. I'm here for you to learn from my mistakes.

And boy, do I got a lot of them. So go to b2brevenue.com, sign up for the courses. There's 2 major ones. Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting fills up your pipeline, gets rid of that problem of, oh, I don't have enough leads. I don't have enough meetings. It gets those conversations started with the people you want to talk to. Now, it's not about a pitch. It's about a conversation. Now, everybody thinks of conversations when you're talking or you're online at the same time, or you're on the phone or Zoom at the same time. That's not a conversation. A conversation's when the client is talking about what they care about, what they're interested in. And that is what we call qualification, where we can sense where are they and how do we build up that curiosity into interest into urgency. To get a deal. And these are skills that we need. They're lifelong skills that we need in sales. And then how do we get a deal closed? Yes, anyone can take an order. But what if they don't know how to get it done? You get a new account where you're trying to get a big change done internally. What are the issues? If you're not planning that through, odds are it's not going to get done no matter how much your champion wants it. So Winning the Complex Sale solves that problem for you. Why waste all your time on these false positives or these no decisions? Because they don't pay very well. They pay 0.0. What you want to do is pay a lot. So sign up today. Invest in yourself. You're the asset in sales. Quit waiting for somebody else to approve it or train you. See if you can get it expensed. That should be your first sales obstacle. Your first sales challenge is how do you get your company to pay for it? Just go down, tell your manager you want to do this. I put a little example email in the show notes right below here. Just swipe up and take a look at that. And if they won't, you got to ask yourself, why won't you? Why won't you? Oh, it takes time. Well, you work all day. You're working wrong all day. Why not improve that? There's the time right there. Oh, the money, Brian. It's money. Well, you make more money if you become better in sales. And Start the Conversation pays for itself the first week because you're going to get at least 2 meetings just learning from the very basics of it. Closing the Complex Sale will pay for itself 100 times over. Students in it tell me it's the best money they ever spent because they now have control over their deals. And it doesn't end.

Some give up.

Some give up after they win their first deal and they think they've got enough. No, come back. Come back. Keep going. You can get even bigger deals, more deals, faster deals. That's what it's all about. Sign up today. Put the excuses away. Yeah, excuses feel good, but they're expensive. Excuse— you know what the excuses are costing you? Tens, 50, maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in lost income. Really?

Yeah.

The difference between where you are today— let's say you're making $150,000.

Decent, decent income.

But you know, there's other people in your industry making $300K, $400K, $500K. Well, how are you going to do that? You all think it's just about getting a better job, a better territory, a better manager. They can help. Go do that. Then what happens? It's still you there with those leads, trying to close those deals. And Do you have the game?

Few people do.

Everyone thinks they do. Why not prove it? The market tells you what you're worth.

Accept it.

Now become better. And the way to become better is to improve every day. Really make a daily routine of learning and developing because it's not At the knowledge level. You have to become unconsciously competent at these skills, which takes time, repetition, and emotion.

And I show you how to do it, how I did it, how I've taught hundreds of people to do it.

But you have to want to because I can't force you.

A lot of people wish I could.

So do I, but I can't.

So sign up today. We'll see you next time.