WHY SALES MASTERY NEEDS TO BECOME YOUR MINDSET IN B2B SALES AND SELLING

Today's guest is very interesting.

I think you're going to get a lot out of this interview.

It's mostly focused on mindset, a little bit of skill set, a little bit of strategy. But if you really pay attention, the key lesson I think, and yours might be different, is to have this mastery mindset. In previous episodes, I've called it being a student of the game. I'm kind of evolving it. From my own experience, my own studying of it, to really more think of it as mastery. Because mastery in and of itself becomes its own motivation. Now, when I say mastery, I'm not talking about being a master salesperson, like it's a destination or a quality level like A-player. That's based off of skill and outcome. Mastery is more about understanding the game, loving the game, learning about the game, practicing the game, and enjoying it. Now, imagine if you had that. It's not a destination. It's a mindset, an attitude, a perspective. And when you have it, it becomes enjoyable. Because you're not just trying to learn the next tip or trick to get to the next level and go to sleep. And I think today the whole focus is on tips and tricks. And that doesn't get you much further, nor does it become fun. Because no matter how good the tip or trick is, it's going to work, what, 20% of the time, 50% of the time? And you probably don't understand why it works. Or it only works on dumb people. This is what people don't understand is the fast tips and tricks tend to only work on dumb people. So that may work well if dumb people buy your product, but most likely it's smart people who buy your product. And hence the tip or trick won't work.

Like, let me give you an example.

Cold calling is great because it's direct, instant, and you get somebody live. The bad part is who picks up the phone today? People who either have to or people who aren't smart enough to check the caller ID.

Now, that—

this is my opinion, and if cold calling works for you, keep it up. I did it for years. Became pretty good at it, but then found smarter, more effective ways. So when you're listening to this, ask yourself, does mastery motivate you? Does it create the passion for you? Now, again, it's about learning. It's about curiosity. It's about wonderment. Talking to other people who are passionate about sales. There's a bunch of us out there. Building up your little tribe, people who also want to become great at sales. And this is really what I'm trying to do with the courses is dig in. Now, you got to think, I've been posting in the courses office hours and one-on-ones now for 6 years. There's a lot of them in there. And people say, well, you know, you keep coming up with these ideas for office hours, 120, 130 of them. I always have great ideas, great case studies, great distinctions, examples. And a lot of people just, ah, they listen to it like a podcast. Other people dig in. What do you mean about that? When would it work? When would it wouldn't work? Why does it work? When would it fail? All of these little distinctions, and then they apply it to their game. And those people do really well. Knowing it, it helps. It's good. But practicing it, integrating it into your sales process. Do you have a sales process?

Do you?

So this is one that you probably want to save, listen to a couple times, and see how you can apply this mindset. And Don't let anybody else stop you from it if this is what you want to do, because it really helps you become better at sales as opposed to just grinding, doing something that isn't working more and more often in the hopes that it does work using what I call sales logic. If it doesn't work, do twice as many. The do dumb things faster model. Also, this is somebody who's succeeded at many different companies in very difficult areas. He's not in a major city, as you'll learn in the interview.

Before we get into the interview though, have you checked out brevitypitch.com?

Now, what I've learned in the last 3 months, I made one of my new mini habits of doing an audio journal. I use otter.ai on my smartphone, and instead of trying to write down things, I just turn it on and I speak into it, and it takes voice to text. So essentially, I have the text and the audio. What I've learned is if I engage my mouth, not just think about things, but articulate them and turn them into English and then record them, It's a whole new level of learning, and this is what Brevity Pitch does for you. It gives you the chance to interact with an AI that has a real human voice and at the level of tonality that you want to practice on new case, new instances, new objections, new pushbacks, new Questions gets you to think on your feet before you're playing the game. So if you talk about mastery, imagine that you could do that as often as you want it. Maybe 5 minutes before an important call, you do it to see how, how ready you are. Or maybe you do it first thing in the morning. Mastery. That's where the money is. That's where the fun is. Let's get into the interview. I'll sum it up at the end. If you're interested in the courses, check us out at b2brevenue.com.

Here we go. Hey Joe, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Well, I'm originally from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, which is the other end of Canada. Went to university and have a Bachelor of Science with a major in chemistry. I actually took an extra year. I was looking at maybe taking pharmacology. And I quickly learned that I hated lab work, but I loved the content. And I thought, you know, being 23 or so, what could I do where I can use my brain and my big mouth? So, I said, I'll go into sales. So, I started out in pharmaceutical sales and, you know, really learned a lot in that. I did well. Certainly did love the content. It was like a sponge, you know, anything I could get, I could, I absorbed. Eventually I, I got in a position where the company moved, moved, was, was acquired and I moved on and actually moved to Alberta. And once I got to Alberta, I started out in the filtration business, then moved into industrial services, some environmental stuff. Most recently I was working in chemical distribution, but it's all been in sales and primarily for the last 20 years or so it's been in industrial sales.

Yeah. And what do you like about it?

Well, having a chemistry degree, you know, it's like a big lab, you know, if you're at a gas plant or an energy, you know, a power plant or even a pulp mill, it's like a big lab. And so I like how things work in that, not that I'm a technical oriented person per se, but I certainly like how it all works together. But from the— on the sales side of things, I like where I can bring value to people. I think I learned that from my parents. My parents were servants in our community, and I'm actually one of 5 boys. And so they demonstrated how to get out there, how to get in the public and help your fellow man. And I have that servant attitude in terms of my job.

And getting a chemistry degree, clearly you're academically very smart. It's a tough major.

It is. I actually wanted to be a marine biologist, but I realized biology required so much study and memorizing and that, and where understanding things was, you know, it was where chemistry kind of fit into me. But yeah, certainly I'm quick at picking up technical aspects of things and that, but I'm more a social person. I love people. And, you know, I think that's where I can bring a lot to the sales role.

And have you found many corollaries between chemistry and sales at all?

You know, the way things fit together, even in a lab, you know, this part and this part creates this part. And, you know, in sales, you got— you start out with something, you want to add to it, and in the end, it becomes something something different. But certainly I'm very process focused in my sales job because, you know, it's going through the steps. Like I work for one big company and they're very revenue driven, you know, gotta feed the beast.

Welcome.

Exactly. And I would say, okay, I understand you want revenue, but how am I gonna get the revenue? And so that's where I have to go back to the start and say, okay, first I have to find someone that wants what we have, you know, whether it's a service or a product, you have to start there and then get out in front of them and find out what their needs are, you know, find out what's not working for them that they're currently using, or even if it is working, maybe there's a way to improve upon it.

That's it.

And a lot of people just want the outcome and forget the process.

Exactly. And, you know, it's like I equate to golf a lot with people. I say, you know, you want to put the ball in the hole. That's the goal. But, you know, are you making a good rotation? And not that I'm a great golfer, but I understand that there's certain steps and the pros don't focus on putting the ball in the hole. They, they focus on, you know, making a good turn, making impact, being square in that. And it's all those steps that create the result. You know, like revenue doesn't come from itself. It's all these steps. Have you found out customers found out what they needed? found a way to solve that and then they'll give you money.

That's it. And I think a lot of people just think it's finding the right person, but it's like, it's more than that.

Well, it really is. You know, it's doing some research. Like one of, you know, you would kind of send me a question, you know, what do I wish I'd learned earlier in my career? Well, I wish I'd known that while companies will teach you about their products and they'll teach you about where their products work, they don't teach you about the customers that are using those products. They don't teach you about the industries they're working in. So it involves a lot of self-study. And I've worked, you know, like I said, primarily in the energy industry and the industrial industry, but all of those companies have different processes and that no one really teaches you that. So it involves independent study. It's like they talk about with athletes, you know, it's not during the season that you improve, it's during the off-season. So for me, it would involve, you know, sitting at my computer at night, you know, reading about companies that are making a move they're going to drill wells, what kind of services they're going to need, and understanding that. And no one ever, you know, we've had a lot of people hired over the years that didn't understand what our customer's business was. They just understood we want to sell this service to them. Well, why?

Well, that's it. People have the retail mindset where people are prequalified, come into our store. And we help them pick which product they want.

Exactly.

Business to business is very different. We're going out into their little world and trying to show why they need this.

Exactly. And, and most, 9 times out of 10, they think they already have what they need.

Of course.

Yeah. You know, they certainly don't want to talk to a salespeople.

No, I've always had this distinction between sales being part art, part science. And I always used cooking as a great analogy because cooking is chemistry.

Yes.

It's ingredients mixed, heated, and you get an outcome.

I was just talking to a friend of mine yesterday about this coming up. And he said, he said, well, you can use my idea about, you know, really sales is kind of like the special, you know, seasoning on top, you know, all the other ingredients ingredients are there, but we bring the extra, you know, we bring that taste to it and that by fleshing it all out, but you have to put it all together in the right package. Yeah.

And on the sales side, do you consider yourself more artist or scientist?

More artist in the sense that, you know, I'll tell you one of the things I found during COVID when we were shut down for, you know, a few months sitting in this situation here, Is my creativity was disappearing because, you know, when you, when you're sitting at your, you know, desk at home and you gotta call people and that, you're doing activity, activity, activity. And, and, and that not any point was I looking up at the ceiling thinking about a situation that I'm trying to solve. But if I have to drive an hour to get to a customer, I've got that opportunity for creativity and thinking about, you know, what I'm gonna talk to them about, what their needs are, you know, how I can get get inside there and help them. And that creative aspect is really, you know, something that I found was missing when I was shut down because of COVID Because you have to think, you know, you can have strategies, you can have, you know, all the steps you need, you can have the features and benefits. But if you don't have the ability to think about how you can make that work for the customer, how that relates to the customer in a creative way, Then you're— for me, I'd be hooped.

I bet your sales skills went down during COVID instead of up because, well, you know, practice.

One of the things I said, because it's funny, I'd been at the job I was at for 2 months when they sent us home. So I hadn't met all my customers then. And I said, you know, it's too bad we can't meet because I'm much more charming in person. Because, you know, all I had was over the phone. And really, when you're over the phone, you have price. You know, price is all you have over the phone. You know, you can talk about things and that, but to, to have people visualize what you're trying to, trying to do or trying to, how you're trying to help them, it's very limited over the phone. And, you know, when you're in front of them, like, I'm a big advocate, like, in person, you know, this is fine even, but, you know, you got to be sitting with people, you know, that way you can see their body language, you can see, you know, what, what they're doing. I once had a customer, I followed up on a job we'd done. And I said, you know, how did everything go? And he said, it was great. He said, much better than the last time. And I said, much better than the last time? He said, well, the last time it seemed like your crew had nothing else to go to in terms of their next job, so they made it last longer. And, you know, and I said, well, you know, that's really not our style. I said, but let me follow up. And so what I did was I followed up and I found out that there had been another service provider on site that we were waiting for before we could start our stuff. And he, he wasn't aware of that, but his perception was our guys were kind of dogging it the first time, but they were a lot better this time. But, you know, just by going back and finding out that information and catching that comment of much better this time, I was able to, you know, reassure him that here's what happened and, you know, strengthen that relationship. Because, you know, the fortune really is in the follow-up with customers, whether it's, you know, an initial meeting you're trying to give value and you follow up, or after the job is You want to make sure that they were satisfied with it.

And I love your point about having that drive from one location, that downtime, essentially the windshield time.

Yes.

Because I always enjoyed that. Mine was more flying and a lot of times, but you know, you get that hour and a half, couple hours on the plane with nothing really interesting to do. So you strategize.

Exactly. One of the things I do too is I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I remember my When I first started in my career years ago, I had cassettes of Zig Ziglar and he talked about that university on wheels. And, you know, so that's one of the things I started doing and I still do to this day is I, you know, I subscribe to Audible and I listen to a lot of audiobooks and they're all nerdy, geeky sales books. They're not, you know, dramas or, you know, murder mysteries and that.

Mysteries.

But it's, you know, things to kind of sharpen my axe. And one of the challenges though is, you know, someone will say something in a book you're listened to. And for the next half hour, you're thinking about that, how it can relate to your job, how you can use it. And you realize you've missed the last half hour of the recording because you've been so focused on the thought process. So now you have to figure out, well, where was I? I have to rewind.

And I think that opportunity and that skill has been overlooked today because everybody's focused on efficiency instead of effectiveness.

Absolutely. You know, it doesn't get enough credence in terms of how important that is. You know, we want to get things, you know, get them in the hopper, find out their needs, you know, do it, do a SWOT analysis and get them out the door and make sure, did they buy? You got to be closing all the time. You got to be, you know, well, no, you have to go in and you have to show that you're giving value to the customer. You know, you have to be someone that they want to sit with and talk with. And, you know, the first time you show up, you say, they say, Oh great, a salesman. You know, the second time you show up, they say, oh, it's that salesman from, you know, XYZ. And the third time they might say, oh, it's Joe from that company. And the fourth time, you know, and that's really lost. You know, a lot of people think that sales should be an instantaneous thing. Working in a— with service companies, they're very operationally focused. You know, they get called, they go to a job, the job's done. And, but, but then the sales process, it takes time. You know, I've often found this, there's a, there's a stat sheet about sales that 48% of the salespeople only show up once. And, you know, 85% of customers don't buy till the 5th to the 12th call. Well, there's a gap in there. If you keep showing up and keep bringing value, you know, there, you're gonna find out. Now, when you talk to operations and you say it could take the salesman, you you know, 1 to 2 years to really get up to speed. They, what do you mean? You know, and I say, look, it took you about 8 months before you finally believed in him. How long do you think? And you work with him, you're colleagues.

Oh, yeah.

How long do you think it's gonna take for a customer to believe in a salesman, to trust a salesman, to think that they're gonna be able to provide what you need? It takes time. And, you know, I think a lot of companies in this quick instantaneous, you know, world we live in forget that, that sales is a process and the process includes regular touchpoints and getting to know customers and know what their needs are and showing that you can bring value. And a lot of times it's you bringing the value. A lot of companies seem to think, well, because it has this name on it, they're gonna buy from us anyway. No, that's not what happens.

It's because of the individuals that are out there in front And do you have a particular way that you handle those 3 or 4 calls?

Bringing value. And the first time, obviously I'm selling Joe, you know, I'm going in there selling Joe, but I'm not in there, you know, saying, you know, how's the weather? Or, you know, I might try and see some things, but I've usually done some research. I've found out some stuff about them beforehand. Might know maybe some common friends we have, you know, within the industry. LinkedIn I found has been a great tool for leveraging someone else's credibility and, you know, finding those touchpoints. But then as you go along, you find out as their needs, you know, sometimes it's just bringing some information to them the second time. You know, you said this and that and here's what I was able to find out. And over time as you keep, you know, bringing value, you know, you start getting value back. A lot of times, you know, I've had situations where Can you follow up with that customer on this point? And I said, yes, I will, but it's gonna be not till next week because I have to go see them next week and I'm supposed to be doing something for them to, you know, give them some information. And I can't be asking them for information before I've done my part because it's a process. And, you know, it's like sitting in front of a fireplace and saying, you know, if you threw some heat, I'd put some wood on. You know, it doesn't work that way. It's, you know, it's the law of, law of nature is that you've gotta put in the effort. You know, it's like when you're trying to, I think Zig Ziglar said about priming the well, you know, you gotta put some water in first before you, and pump it before you get any result out. But a lot of times we want the result before we put in any effort in.

Yeah. And is this something that you kind of knew from your chemistry background that there's a process and the You know, 'cause chemistry is taking different elements and putting them in together in a certain order and maybe adding heat or cold to them to, to change their state.

Well, and that is part of it. You need, sometimes you need a catalyst too, something that, you know, that, that, that naturally is gonna create that reaction between those different things. And, and for me, I actually listened to one of your videos last night about about, you know, people being self-motivated. You know, you've got to have fire in your belly. You've got to have this innate, you know, drive to move forward and to try and, you know, whether it's getting the sale or whether it's getting in front of the customer, you've got to have a drive. You can't, you know, if you hire salespeople that have no ambition to get out there and get in front of people and make things happen, you're not You're gonna get what you get. Yeah.

And, and what's your drive? Is it success? Is it competition? Is it—

It's competition. I mean, you know, everyone always says, well, it's money. Well, of course it's money, but, but, but, but, but it, it's about getting better all the time for me too. I, I, I have some, you know, fellow sales friends that I talk to and we always say, you know, I could be so much better. You know, I, and we, we share, but, but yet people think, oh wow, you're amazing. You know, look what you're doing that. But I think I sometimes worry that, is it because average is now the new excellent? You know, because, you know, what used to be, you know, the standard in, in even in terms of sales where everyone was out there, they were self-motivated, they're in front of customers all the time. They wanted to get the sale. They wanted to, you know, not just meet their budget, but crush their budget. They want, they wanna be the best. They, and they wanna beat their colleague too. And They want to beat the competition. You know, I've tried to instill in my most recent job, but we need to compete, be competing. I know we're competing with the competition, but we need to be competing with each other too, that we're all elevating. You know, the old rising tide raises all ships, you know, but it's such a, you know, non-confrontational, almost benign, you know, well, we don't want to do that because, you know, if we You know, we don't want other people feeling like they're failing. Well, it's not failing if you're learning in the process. You know, you're never failing as long as you learn something. And maybe all you learned is that that guy's out there working harder than you are. I, you know, I've found that the harder I work, the luckier I get too.

Well, it's one of the key motives for people is mastery. And, you know, I've called it, you know, mastering the game. It's not a destination, it's a process. And it becomes exciting because—

It does. In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about, you know, the 10,000-hour rule, the Beatles, you know, in Germany, and they got their 10,000 hours in. And I remember looking, you know, when I read that book years ago, looking at my sales career, And, you know, kind of figuring, well, if I did this much, you know, every day, so many hours in that, I'm actually right in that moment now where I've got my 10,000 hours in. But it's the mastery part and it's continually to get better. And whether it's, you know, listening to an audiobook or a podcast where someone says one thing, you know, you could listen to the whole thing and it's like, well, I don't really agree with that. But they say one thing that could make the difference. in your next sale. And, but you always have to be improving and getting better. And like, I mean, you know, I'm no spring chicken anymore, but I still have fire in my belly. I'm actually just transitioning to a new job on Monday. I left the position I was at. I had an offer that I really couldn't refuse. And I am just fired up right now because I think it's an exciting opportunity in a company that's been, you know, around for a while. They've done well. But maybe their drive has gone down a bit and they've been kind of resting on their laurels. They want to step up their game and they want to get to that next level. And I think we always have to be trying to do that because there's no maintaining, you know, we don't want to maintain business because it's like in the oil patch, they say they drill a well and it starts out really well, but it starts going down, you know, unless they drill another well. You've always got to be, you know, priming the pump and getting better because, you know, the force of gravity just makes things go down all the time. So you've always got to be pushing up and pushing up.

Yeah, because I think today a lot of salespeople are looking for the tip or the trick just to get the next outcome instead of a mastery mindset, trying to understand it and have passion for it.

Well, you know, in my very, my very first job was, like I said, I was in pharmaceutical sales. And my manager after about a year or two said, you know, Joe, your biggest strength is also your biggest weakness. And that's your enthusiasm. He said, because, you know, being enthusiastic is really good in that, but sometimes it can be, you know, a little bit too much. Like my wife often says, look, sometimes too much Joe is too much Joe. But the thing is, you know, you have to realize your audience too. Like, you know, I was dealing with, you know, respirologists and internal medicine doctors that were very educated and, you know, and they didn't want me sitting on their lap, that's for sure. But I was just so excited about what I had to share and bringing value to them. I thought I could help them. And that's been my kind of my goal throughout my career is helping people, helping customers. You know, Zig Ziglar says, you know, you'll get what you want in this world if you help enough people. Well, you know, that's the first time I read that. I thought, oh my God, you know, that's so simple, you know, because no one else cares what you want anyway, but they care about what they want.

Yes.

You know, and if you can find their pain points, if you can find, you know, what's not working for them and solve that, you'll get reimbursed for it. You know, eventually you'll get reimbursed more than you ever expected. But it's because you've put the effort in on the front end.

And what were some of the early lessons in sales that have really helped your career?

You've got to be a self-starter. You've got to, you know, you've got, like I said, taking the initiative to learn about the industry. Like, I, I've actually, you know, probably had 5 main jobs in my career. And at no point though did I go back to the same industry. Or the same, you know, I'll never compete against myself. Like, you know, when I was in the industrial services business, I was, you know, selling hydrovac services and vac truck services and chemical cleaning. Well, I would never go to a company that did that because I didn't want to sell against myself. Because how can you go in and say, you know, I've got the best product, the best service, the best team, and then show up 2 weeks later, I'm with a much better company now. You know, I just couldn't do that. But in all those times, I've— it involved learning, it involves self-study, independent thinking and studying. And, you know, I, I think a lot of people think it's, you know, I, I need some home-life balance. I, you know, I, I really need, you know, in the evenings I, I turn off my phone. I, I don't look— work on my laptop and that. Well, that's fine if you just want to be average, but if you want to be the best in the business, you know, the best at what you do, then you've always got to be sharpening your axe, learning new things, you know, finding out more information, having coffee with, you know, your friends that are in similar industries where you can leverage their knowledge but also even their relationships. And, you know, that was one of the things that COVID also, I found, impacted was my ability to network with people. Like, I have, you know, these friends that I've worked with and I really respect their knowledge and their friendship in that. And COVID kind of shut all that down. You didn't go for lunch. You didn't go for coffee and that. And it made me appreciate, though, the value in that. But you've got to be curious too. You've got to be curious and wonder, how does that work or why? And that actually was just brought to my attention as I transitioned to this new role. The guy I was working with, the recruiter, said, I really love how curious you are, Joe. And I never really thought about that before. But you know, that's true. Like, because my wife will be, you know, doing something and I'll ask her a question and then she'll answer me and I'll say, why? You know, like a little kid, why? But it's because, you know, I want to know, I want to understand. And you've got to have that, you know. And I don't think anything I do is innate skills that I have that no one else can have. But what I do think is that I focus. There's that list, the 10 things that require no talent. whatsoever. You know what, when I look at that, you know, be on time, make an effort, you know, being passionate. Well, you can fake being passionate until you become passionate. It's like marriage, though, you know, you know, to say you're passionate about your wife 24 hours a day, maybe not. But you know what, you make that decision. I know, I know. I think it's the— was The 7 Habits, or what was Stephen Covey's book?

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Yes. Yeah. He talked about, you know, the guy guy was saying, well, I don't really love my wife anymore, you know. And he said, well, love her. What do you mean? Well, love her. Like, love is not a feeling. It's an action. You know, you do things to show someone that you care. You know, that's how you create passion. That's how you create energy. You know, be coachable. Like, I certainly know I don't know everything. And I'm willing to take advice and knowledge and information from anyone that can share it if it helps me be a better A better salesperson, a better husband.

And how do you feel about the know-it-alls in sales? Because I'm sure you've run into a lot of them. I call it the B-player trap. People who get a certain level of skill, they're comfortable, but they're like the oil well. The amount of oil every year goes down.

Well, you know, to be satisfied with your own knowledge and opinions is the ultimate in ignorance. You know, because there's always other people that have knowledge that can help you, you know. And, you know, but part of it for me is to love people and to love learning from people. Like, I think sometimes you ask people, you know, what's your superpower? And you know what mine is? I'm genuine and I'm genuinely interested about people. And, you know, I'm not fake. I really want to help people. I really want to know about them. I want to know how I can, how I can make, you know, whether it's their, their, their gas plant work better or whether it's, you know, their refractory system work better. I'm a servant and I want to help people. And being genuine, I think, in sales is really important because like I said, the people that already know everything about everything and can't be taught anything, You know, they're, like you said, they're, they're not gonna succeed because their level of, of even credibility is gonna continue to go down.

And where does the curiosity come from? Was it something you always had as a child or is it something you developed?

I think so. You know, I, I've, I've got my, this is my Avengers cup my wife bought me because I'm a child. But, but it's— Peter Parker was trying to figure out how to make spiderweb in the lab. And so I wanted a chemistry set, you know, and I always say that's probably how I ended up getting into chemistry eventually is because I was curious about how it worked, you know, I wanted to understand it. Being one of 5 boys, you know, we were just a curious bunch that, you know, we were out finding adventure all the time. There's only about 6 and a half years between the 5 of us. So, wow, you know, so, so you had to be curious and you had to be interested in things, um, when you come from a group that big. Yeah, great.

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

Well, probably the best way is on LinkedIn. So it'd be Joe Doyle, um, but it's N. Joe Doyle, um, would be the profile.

But that would be the best way to Now, the thing about mastery is nobody is going to tell you about this. Your manager is not going to tell you. Your company, your sales enablement, they're going to tell you how the product works, how it's different, the features and the benefits, how it's different than the competition, best practices. But is that enough?

No.

Hmm, when you're taking an order, it might be enough. But those marginal deals, the hard deals, the deals that aren't layups, that's where you need the help. And if you're not ready, you don't get a second chance. Sales is a prevention profession, meaning you've got to be ready before it happens, the unexpected.

I used to have this manager that goes, expect the unexpected.

And I go, if I expect the unexpected, then it's not unexpected. He was the worst manager I ever had. But the point is that we always get curveballs in sales, and if we're not ready for them, then we're not going to do well with And this is where mastery is critical because everybody in sales thinks that they can recover from these curveballs. Sometimes you can, a lot of times you can't. And this is your income we're talking about, the reason you're doing this. I know you love helping people and everything, but the Peace Corps doesn't pay well. Sales pays really well. So we want to become really good at it. And the way to become good at it is, you know, you can memorize a bunch of stuff or you can become really passionate about it and model somebody who's already done it. Somebody who can condense it down into a manageable amount of knowledge and thinking because sales is probably 90% counterintuitive. Now, the people on LinkedIn, the kindergarten teachers that are out there teaching cold calling who have never made a cold call, they're copying other people's stuff. They're saying conventional logic. Conventional logic is 9 women can have a baby in 1 month. Well, that's conventional logic. It doesn't work. But But to somebody who doesn't understand how it works, it makes sense. But it doesn't work. And conventional logic— this is what we hear internally with people who haven't sold. If you ever worked for a sales manager who's never sold, you know how much of a nightmare it is because they use conventional logic. Here's another example of conventional logic. You know, the idiots that put out those activity spreadsheets Another person who's never really sold. If you can figure out how many emails and phone calls you need to make to make your number. No, it doesn't work that way. Sales is an effectiveness profession, not an efficiency. Efficiency is focusing on activity. Effectiveness is focusing on outcomes. Now, a talented salesperson could make one call a day. The number of calls in the big picture is irrelevant. Yes, you have to make calls. This is where managers get screwed up. They're like, well, you have to have some activity. Yes, you do. But it's a matrix. Meaning, if you have high quality, You don't need high quantity. And if you have high quantity, it's really hard to have high quality. They are not completely mutually exclusive, but they're not correlated. And managers don't get this because they love to see people busy. Activity appears Like work, but doesn't mean it's effective. I've been fighting this my whole career, and what I learned is ignore my manager. I'm going to do what works for me. I'm not going to fix my manager. I'm not going to change their mind, but I can't make my number working the way they want me to work. And this was pretty much at least at half the company. As soon as they came out with, uh, send us the number of meetings you had per week, everyone just made it up. And you get the little brown-noser who puts down, you know, 10 times more than everybody else who doesn't sell anything. And they, they're held up at each weekly call. Oh, look, Jerry's got 100 meetings. It's like, oh, congratulations, Jerry. Oh, you're the best. and then 6 months later they get put on a plan because they're not selling anything. How many times have I seen that? How many times have you seen it? The, the idiot leaderboards that they put up. And the problem today is this is being taught as the norm, and it does work if it's simple, easy transactions where the product is well known, the market's well established, And you're taking orders. And the real danger is now those people become the managers at the new companies that don't have those ingredients, where the product isn't well known, the market isn't established, and there's no orders to take. So what do they do? They go through about 3 rounds of salespeople before they figure out that this model isn't going to work. And that manager tends to leave, and they end up probably landing at another, you know, company that's in the tornado. And I worked for that person, and they ended up doing okay, but they did— they were a disaster in the hard sale and the complex sale. They were great at administrating the easy sale, but really, is that a talent? Is that hard? Is that your situation? What we need is a way of learning and mastering sales instead of just being busy. If you want to master sales, go to b2brevenue.com. Check out the courses. Sign up today. This is how they work. It's really simple. They're online, video-based. You consume it at your pace. I've got 2 videos on the website. Please watch them. Don't just send an email to me, hey, how's it work? That's why I did the videos. Answers 99% of the questions. And if you still have a question after that, typically the answer is no. But if you need to ask, go ahead. You can schedule a call with somebody on the team. team to talk through it. But there's no discounting. If you're a manager and you want your team on it, sign them up. There's no bundling. There's no management counsel. And the reason is an online course requires the person to be self-motivated. I'm not calling you up in the morning and say, hey, come on, you got to go to office hours. Time for a one-on-one. No. Now, I assume you're an adult, you're self-motivated, and you want to make a lot of money.

Is that you?

Sign up today. Thanks for listening. Tell a friend about the show. And if you see my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a like, a little comment, a little share, and check out our friends at brevitypitch.com. Thanks, Dustin.