Buying Has Changed, Sales Hasn't; Now What? Feat. Chris Stilwell [HubHeroes, Video EP59]

That's right, Devin, you're on your own. You're on your own. As per my man on an island.

That's what's up.

I would. I would throw him a preserver. I would be there for you, Devin.

You would throw him a preserver. I'm not sure what you would throw me after what happened before we started recording today. I don't know, George.

I just gave you the answer today. He gets a. He gets a, like, life vest. You get shade.

What did I do? Nice.

You didn't do anything. It's just called entertainment. Ladies and gentlemen, no Lizzes were impacted in the filming of this podcast.

Yeah, just wait until you get my therapy bill, all right? Then we'll talk about who's dealing with harm.

George, we end up on an island. She's going to vote to eat you first, just so you know.

Yeah, I'm out of here.

Wow, this is turning violence.

So that was, like, crazy. Like, I don't even know how we went from, like, vest and shade to, like, cannibalism in.

We haven't even seen our guest yet, but I can see our guest going, like, so this is what I said yes to. I'm thrilled to be here. This is great. We are all thriving.

Yeah, we'll settle down.

Love posters at the bargain bin of home goods. We're doing fine, Max. How you doing, bud? Do you have your steering wheel? Oh, do you need a nap?

Give that guy a blankie.

Holy crap.

It's because I'm cold. When I. When I get super, super cold, I yawn. That's all.

You work for a company that. Their logo's a popsicle, bro. Like, it's probably always cold where you're.

Can't throw you a parka.

Blanket.

I'm just.

All right. All right, guys.

Rain us in, Liz.

Reign us in.

Yeah, I'm working on it. I'm working on it.

All right.

You know what? Flawless segue. Hey, Chris. How you doing, buddy? Welcome to Hub Heroes.

Thanks.

I am so excited. So we have my friend Chris Stillwell here today from the still. The Stillwell Sales Group. Right. So you do sales training and growth consulting for sales organizations and sales teams.

Yeah, tssg, the Stillwell specialist group, actually, we try to elevate it above sales and create specialists. No one wants to deal with a salesperson.

Yeah, true.

I'm already liking where this is going.

This is going to be a super, super fun episode. Because if you spent any length of time in the inbound marketing space, the ideas that buyers have changed how they make their decisions to make purchases. That's not brand new information, right? This is the foundation upon which the entire inbound methodology has been developed for more than a decade. Still, still though, as marketing and sales teams work to align more closely together and business owners look at their more old school sales teams to modernize their processes and platforms, and there's still kind of a problem. While there are certainly tons of forward thinking and progressive sales reps and teams and leaders out there, there are still sales organizations that are struggling or resisting to adopt necessary changes. To be fair, this is one of my favorite things about a conversation Chris and I had earlier this week. U.S. marketers and business leaders aren't exactly as empathetic or understanding as we need to be about why this might be the case. Because I think sometimes it's really easy to just flat out point our fingers at sales and go, you are the problem, you are the only problem. And that's just not at all what the case is. So, for example, many years ago when I was working at Impact, which is an elite partner agency with HubSpot, I was a content strategist on the marketing team. My boss came to me one day and said, liz, you've genuinely been doing such a good job on the marketing team, I now want you to go be the dedicated sales content strategist. And because I am Princess Tact and have a very I don't have a filter between my brain and my mouth. I just blurted out, am I being punished? And I I felt like all of the fun stuff that I had been doing was now going away and I was going to be sent to sad sales island where nothing was going to be fun and everything was going to be sad. But it ended up being the most transformative year of my career because I learned firsthand how sales teams are looked upon as profit centers and relied upon as a company's revenue producers. But they are often left to fend for themselves with scores of broken promises, limited resources, and a distinct lack of understanding from other teams that they're supposed to be working with. Which is why, Chris, I am so glad you're here. I hope you guys don't mind, I want to go ahead and jump in with a question for Chris because you gave a talk earlier this week at a sales seminar and you opened with buying has changed, Sales hasn't. Why is that? What does that mean?

Well, you know, the easiest way to put it is it hasn't needed to. You know, the thing is, is the tried and true sales methods that were invented. You know, hundreds of years ago have worked astonishingly well forever because the technology behind selling hasn't really been updated. The issue is with the advent now of the Internet, right, which we all now adjusted to, I'm sure most guys and gals in our age group didn't grow up with it, but grew up into it and are now adapting with it and learning it, right? We're the only generation that's ever going to be able to say that. So that's changed. Then of course, Amazon comes along, completely revolutionizes the way that everyone buys. I mean, enough to, you know, permeate even like the largest retailers, Walmart, Target, they just try to be a copy of Amazon, but in a store form now and then, you know, we had COVID 19, which basically took every traditional sales process and maybe old school salesperson and flipped it on their head and said, hey, now you have to learn how to sell to somebody over Zoom and you can't go into their house anymore and you can't even have a conference. You can't, you know, you just have to figure out how to be good at the structure and the substance. And I think because of that things have changed so rapidly now. Sales is left behind. I mean, 80% of a buying decision is made due to the marketing, right? I mean, how often would you say that in the past used to exist, you know, So I think the way we need to realistically look at it is marketing has updated, technology is updated, businesses have updated, but people are still using, you know, wind friends and influence people sales strategies, you know, like carpet baggers and, you know, hard closes and you know, focusing on logic when you're trying to sell to people, it's just not going to work anymore. So I think if people get the idea that the rest of the technology behind this arena has updated, let's update the sales. We're going to start having better results now.

George, I saw you head nodding and getting kind of excited as I was going through the intro and listening to Chris there. What are some of your initial reactions as we're going into this discussion? What are you excited to learn today?

Well, I mean I'm, I'm excited to learn things like, well, how can the sales professionals start to make the change? What mindset should they be inserting into their brain? Like what are the new best practices based on the technology? Things like that is, is where, immediately where my brain is going. But it's funny because the thing that is just like basically slapping me, you know, right in the front of the cranium. Is I. I'm. I'm sitting here listening to Chris, by the way, great voice.

And. And.

And I'm right. I mean, could I marry my life? Like, I'm trying to figure out if he should be, like, a marvel Char, like, next to the rock on the next Fast and Furious movie. I'm just trying to figure it out.

But the next Fast and Furious movie, you know what my answer will always be?

You know, I'm telling you. Yeah, but. But the brain is like, I have this company that I help, and. And I won't. I. I won't say what company. I won't say what sales rep. But, like, the amount of sales acronyms that they make it a point to say during our meetings, like, you know, watch. That's the pants. You know, because the bat is. The bed is the batchiest. And I'm like, oh, God, just help me.

Can we get that on a shirt, please?

Yeah, I did put it on a half acronyms. I'm like, dude, lose the acronyms. Like, like, you. You. Anyway, that's like. I'm laughing about it, but I'm like, I know that if there is a human that I'm engaging with in the inbound space.

What you're engaging with, George?

Human.

Oh.

Oh. Oh, God.

That I'm engaging with in the inbound space.

I know.

How many companies haven't even heard about or thought about inbound? And how many companies have to be in this, like, ABC Bant. 1, 2, 3. You know, whatever it is. Like, gee, money. Anyway, well, let's.

Let's dig into some of this here, because. So before we get to this idea of what the change should look like, Chris, I'd love to hear from you. What are some of the reasons you're seeing sales teams either failing or outright resisting the necessary changes that need to occur?

Oh, wow. I mean, first of all, it comes down to ego, right? The sad part about being a successful salesperson is you have to have the same type of mentality that a successful athlete has, where you're on a team, but you're also yourself, right? So it doesn't matter, like, what type of organization you're a part of, you still have to be your own star. So in a lot of organizations, people want to be an individual snowflake. They want to be the best that they can be. They want to have their own techniques, their own strategies. Charlie does it his way. Danny does it his way. Mark's been doing it for 17 years this way. So when you say that somebody's been Doing something for a certain amount of time. And now you try to tell that person, you know, hey, now, this thing might be outdated. Let's try something new. You're going to run into ego in resistance right away way because you're basically shattering what someone's reality is and trying to break it down and restructure it, you know? So I think that's one of the biggest holdups you run into with people wanting to approach, say, something that's not bant or disc or something else that was created 50 years ago when we're talking about working with customers whose average age is probably 35 to 45, you know, so I think. I think looking at a realistic perspective from sales teams and saying, like, when are you going to update what you're doing? If you haven't updated it is the best way to approach this situation.

You know, it's interesting, Liz, my. My brain is going in a direction that I did not think you would go in this episode based on what Chris just shared. Because the word fear came to mind. And, like, if I'm a sales rep and I'm. I'm working on commission and for the last 17 years, I'll just be Mark, right? For the last 17 years, I've been able to feed my family based on repeatable process that I can now do in my sleep. If I think about changing the immediate place that my brain goes as well, what if I don't make as much, AKA fear? And my worry is that an understanding of humans is that so many humans aren't willing to punch fear in the face, push through it for change, and maybe Mark actually doubles his income over the next two to six months.

Well, I mean, that's. That's the thing, right? Is I was talking to Liz about this specifically. Let's say that I come to marketing and I'm a business leader, right? And I come to the marketing department and say, hey, guys, we're gonna put into place a new software in a new marketing process over the next 18 months, and we're gonna take out what we've previously done, throw it away, and embrace this new change. You're all gonna look at me and go, that might suck, but at least my paycheck's not gonna change next week, right? Now think if you're a salesperson and you're getting paid eighty or a hundred percent on commission, and some young guy comes in and says, hey, I know you've been making $150,000 a year for the last 15 years, I got a better way of doing this, and we're gonna switch it to my way with a bunch of new technology you don't understand, and I'm telling you, you'll make more money. Is he really going to believe me or is he going to think I'm trying to force him out by embracing technologies he's probably not going to want to be a part of with strategies that he's probably not going to want to get involved with. Yeah, right.

See you later.

Yeah, well, the thing that even goes a little bit more deeply with that too, if I'm recalling that conversation, Chris, is what I found fascinating is that even when you have sales teams though, that understand they need to change, they're not always self aware enough about what actually needs to change. Yeah, talk to me about that.

Yeah, I mean, you got to be realistic. If you, if you tell somebody you have to change. Okay, but like, what do I have to change? Right? And like, how do I change it? And if I do change it, what do I do then? Right? So you have to be realistic that, that when you're saying to salespeople like, yeah, we want to change, you get the thing that George just said. You think somebody's going to show up with a four letter acronym and tell you this new method that's all of a sudden gonna sell stuff to people. The problem is that the substantial amount of sales training that exists is tactical training. Right? So it's like how to close better or how to build rapport or how to present your product better, but it's not a process. How to make a better process, how to start with a greeting to a customer, how to bring them through a series of questions that figures out what they're actually looking for. How to flip the sale back around, engage the customer so that they understand it's about them, not about you. Having things like that is what updates a sales process and makes it make sense now as compared to in the past, you had to focus 100% on product. So.

First of all, there was a thumbs up bubble that just happened on Chris's screen. Did anybody else do that? I'm like, what the freak is that? Somebody just did that in the audience. I think maybe that's like a. I.

Think that was the audience. I appreciate that.

Holy crap, we got our first hub heroes. Thumbs up from an.

And by the way, it wasn't to any of us, it was to a guest. We got to step it up, guys.

I. I'm fine with that. But here's the thing. So this might be the podcast where we have said the word change more in, like, one podcast than we ever have. And I'm super curious. I want a poll like the rest of us sitting here. Devin, when. If somebody was to come up with you, Max, I'm gonna ask you the same thing. And Liz, if somebody comes up and you says, hey, buddy, we're gonna change some stuff, what's your initial gut response?

For me, honestly, excitement.

I like it. Yeah.

I. My life has revolved around change and being at the. The cutting edge of things. And so I. I am of the mindset and the personality type that change is good as long as it's thought out and there's a methodology and we're not just nuking things and switching it up for the sake of doing it.

The.

The kind of change that I'm a fan of is. Is change that has a why behind it, not change for the sake of change. I also am not a fan of sweeping change before people understand the lay of the land. Like, if someone just comes into an organization and says, hey, this is how we're gonna do things now, screw how you've been doing things. I don't know how you've been doing things. I don't care how you've been doing things we're gonna do. Now, that I'm also not a fan of, because that just means that there's too much rigidity in their thinking and they're not open to adapting using the best practices that may or may not be in place.

So.

But the short answer is I love change. If you're not changing, you're.

You're.

You're stagnant.

Max theory. I love that too.

Yeah, I mean, I. So, you know, I did a good amount of, you know, selling at Apple, and I was in a sales role by tail end of my time at HubSpot. And, you know, so I've gone through this, right? I mean, and I have a lot of. I do have a lot of, you know, in. In between those times, I was. I was trying to, you know, get salespeople to adopt HubSpot as well, like when I was working as an implementation specialist and stuff. So, like, I have a lot of empathy for sales folks not wanting to change what they're doing because, like, the fact of the matter is, it's like selling is already so hard, right? Like, you're literally trying to get people to give you money, which is, like a difficult thing. You know what I mean? Like, that's hard. And, you know, a lot of times when someone would come up to Me, especially when I was in my role at Apple, and they'd be like, all right, we're going to change this process. It was never, like, something that was, like, benefiting my ability to sell. It was always something that was benefiting someone else's ability to see how well I'm already doing my job. Right. Or. Or, you know, someone who, like, didn't understand what it was like to do my job thinking they're inserting something that's going to be better when they haven't even gotten on the phone and, like, tried to sell anything. Right? So it's like, you got to, like, whenever. What. What I would do whenever I was trying to drive adoption with sales reps, because there'd be. I probably been on hundreds of calls with salespeople that got HubSpot CRM and they got their whole, you know, the sales manager or the marketing people brought the sales team in, and they're all sitting with me on the zoom. Like, why the. Why the. Am I here? Right? And I have to be the one to convince them. Like, guys, listen, I know this is like a new system and everything, but, like, there is stuff that can make your life easier. And I would have to, like, do a lot of legwork to be like, so are you guys doing this? Is this a pain in the ass? No. Is this a pain in the ass? No. Is this a pain in the ass? Yes. Okay, let me show you this thing that's gonna make it less of a pain in the ass. So you can see why this is important for you, not just your boss who wants to keep track of what you're doing. Right. So for me, it was like, you have to figure out what's actually making the seller's life easier because sellers will always look for a leg up. Right. But oftentimes new technology is never presented that way or purchased with that being the intent. Right. So it always makes it really, really tough to change what a sales rep is doing, because they know it works so far if they've been successful in that role. Right. So I don't know. It was a bit of a ramble, but, like, that's kind of what's in my head.

Yeah. And as much as I love that ramble, I still don't know if you love or hate change. Like, if I came over and said, buddy, we're going to change everything, that. The way that we do it in your organization or in your house, if your gut response would be we or.

Oh, you know, change is good if it benefits you.

Okay.

That's you know what I mean? If it doesn't, you know, then, then you're gonna, you're gonna push back on it. Yeah. By the way. Hold on, hold on. I, I, I, I disappeared for a second. I just have to show everybody.

There you go.

This is balloons and normals together, however. So anyway, it's a.

Don't get me started on why I don't like band. It's. We could do a whole episode.

We'll bring you back. We love belugas and narwhals together, though. That's the thing.

Oh, absolutely. They're delicious, from what I've heard. Absolutely.

Yeah. Oh, here we go again. Oh, my God.

Too soon. Oh, okay. Good, good. All right. I didn't know if you guys recently had a friend lose a whale or something like that.

Well, I mean, I was not hugged enough by belugas as a child, but that's also why I'm averse to change. So, George, did you want me to weigh in about my thoughts?

Because I'm, it's funny, because I feel like I'm getting the Hub heroes correct answers. Because I hate freaking change. No, that's like, come on.

Of course I don't like it. I don't like it, but don't move.

My, Like, I want my stuff to be where I left it. Like, don't come clean my office. I liked it just the way it was. Like, but, but as far as organizations, I'm like, if we can make more money or we can have more time, maybe I'll embrace change.

Embrace the messy. Now, my feeling on change is this. I don't. When people come to me with organizational change, at least historically speaking, I know exactly how Max feels. I was never in a sales role, but often when people are bringing in change, the change management strategy, the way by which they are communicating the change, talking about the change, it fails. And often you'll end up in scenarios where it's like, max, how many times were people coming in to ask you to change your sales process so someone could claim credit for part of a sale?

Oh, my God.

You know what I mean? Like, like that's, you know, it's stuff like that. I think there was a running joke for a little while, though. It Impact. Bob Ruffalo, who runs Impact, we used to joke, like, tell Liz a big piece of news and let her sit with it for 12 hours before you ask for her response. Because my knee jerk reaction is, no. Why? I don't want to. I don't get it. I don't understand it now. Usually when I get to the other side of the change in one.

Change.

When it's done in a meaningful way where people are engaged in the process. Like if you're going to change a sales process, have you talked to people in sales or is the first time they're hearing about the change when you're telling them that it's happening? Like, that's where I start getting really tripped up. Because if there is, like, let's say you're making a massive change to the sales process, right? It. Have you gone to people in sales, ask them what was wrong, ask them for their feedback, ask them what they think the solution should look like. Stuff like that.

Most times not they've read a book or they saw a speaker on stage, came back to the organization and blew stuff up.

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, Liz, in the last position I had before I started my company, we had a marketing company come in. And that's exactly what they did, is they. They said, hey, guys, I know this business has been running for a hundred years and you guys make $50 million, but we're coming in, we're changing everything. And we were just like, oh, okay. But we don't even know you. You don't even know what we do. And all they would do is just simply tell us things they were going to change and then never actually be able to change them. At one point, it's actually really interesting because we were having issues with our fulfillment with the installs in the field. And the lady was in the meeting and this terrible, terrible marketing woman. And I said, how haven't you guys fixed the install issues they have in the field? And she said, chris, we don't do installs. I've never done installs. I wouldn't be able to help them with that. My response was, oh, that's interesting, because you've been quite involved with the sales process. And this is coming from a person who doesn't know how to sell. She knows how to market, which makes her think she knows how to sell. But when you're doing what George said, which is actually sitting across the table from somebody and asking them for money, that's not marketing. That's tough to do. And you have to have a process and you have to be able to do it. So I believe, just like understanding Max's point was the best point, which is this, if you don't know how to sell what I'm selling, don't tell me I should be doing it differently. Get on the phone, bang out some Sales and show me that you should be doing it differently. I mean, that's why I started my company. I've been selling for 20 years and I've been making so many business owners so much money for so long that I was like, how long am I going to keep funneling this up to other people before maybe some of it stops at me? You know what I mean? The problem with commission is, you know, the percent you're getting, which means the other percent is going to somebody else.

You know, so question from the audience, from you, because it is related to this. So Saleem asked a great question. Let's say you have an organization that sees a need for a change because the process is, quote, not working, but the reps don't feel like the process is broken. So how do you approach that?

That's actually very consistent. That's a huge lack of self awareness. So what this comes down to is this is actually having your own statistics in your head, right? So if I ask somebody, what's your closing percentage? That's a question that asks consistently in sales. And it's a thing marketers want to know all the time, right? You guys need to know what these teams are closing at because you want to judge how good leads are and where they're coming from. And you know, maybe the Google leads close at a higher percentage than the, you know, than the Facebook leads or whatever it comes down to. Well, when you have salespeople who think they're doing good, all it comes down to is look at their paycheck. If you got salespeople who aren't making 250 or $300,000 a year, they're not doing good. Because at any job, with the current climate that we have right now in America, with the ability to sell products that you can, with the skill sets that exist out there, you could easily be making middle to high six figures working 40 hours a week with a good sales job. The problem is people just don't think that's an opportunity. So when you have a team of people who are all used to making 70 or 80 thousand dollars a year on commission, they think they're crushing it. At 40% closing rates, their sales cycles are three or four weeks. They think things are going great. The thing is, they don't realize there's an opportunity for things to be better. Because exactly what these other guys are saying. They feel like if somebody like me comes in and says, guys, I can make your closing percentages go up and your sales cycles go down, they think, yeah, but how Much extra work am I going to have to do now, Right?

Yeah. Like, speaking of extra work there, it reminds me of a conversation you were and I were having about, you know, marketing leads or business leaders coming in saying, well, we want to, quote, unquote, fix your process. And meanwhile, then you end up with sales reps who are struggling because thanks a lot for all these changes that have now reduced my amount of time to sell or you exactly created more work for me. How does that happen?

It happens consistently is because the thing is, it's like, this is. So to be a good salesperson, again, you have to have that athlete mentality. You have to have that Tom Brady, Michael Jordan mentality of, I am going to get out there and I am going to, like, just kick ass and crush. Right? Does that. Does everybody get where I'm coming from with that? Does that seem toxic or does that make sense?

I mean, other than you use Tom Brady, I'm good.

You know, other than that.

Yeah, come on. He's the go. He's the goat.

Yeah.

So, I mean, realistically, what it comes down to is to have that personality and have that way of thinking and to, To. To have that thought process kind of causes you to be egotistical and not be able to see the light the right way.

One of the things that I've found has worked for me in the past when I'm implementing change that affects commission is I will take just one person and implement that change with one person.

Great.

And let that person be the bunny that leads the other dogs to the finish line. Because when I'm dealing with egos, and this was. This was something I found a lot when I was younger, not so much now that I'm in my 40s, but when I was trying to implement change when I was like, in my 20s or early 30s, people just look at me like, ah, you don't know what you're talking about. You're just a kid. I'm like, all right. And sometimes I had to be that dude myself, where I was just, okay, you do it your way. I'm going to do it this way that I know is going to work better and watch what happens. And then destruction, mayhem, and people will just w. How.

What.

What just happened?

And.

And so sweeping change may not always be the answer when. When change management, especially in a sales org, is in place. Because the problem with dealing with these people who are used to operating on a certain level, they think that they're elite championship people when they're really in the AAA's and it's like, okay, like Wolf of Wall street, when he walks in and just instantly crushes a sale. And these guys don't even make that kind of money in a month. And he does it on one call. And so it's like, all right, we're. I'm just going to show you. I'm not even going to tell you. I'm just going to show you. And then when you come to me and ask me how it's done, now it's time for a company wide change management and building up from there.

And that makes sense though, right? Because if you have the right organization, you have the right process built, you could take that process and kind of drop it into any different sales structure. And kind of, that's what he's kind of showing with the Wolf of Wall street was like, hey, you know, we were doing these, these, I was doing other sales like this. Why can't I treat. Use the same structure for these penny stocks, right? And that's how I think about it in the way I think is so funny. And like if, if you talk to the average salesperson and I'm not trying to dig at people, guys, I'm a sales guy, been selling for 20 years. It's what I love to do. It's who I work with. But if you talk to the average guy and say, could you just write your process down for me? It's going to be a hard no. They're going to tell you, my hand's broken. I got carpal tunnel. I don't know how to use that kind of pen. I'm not used to that paper. I, I've actually got to go. I, I peed my pants. They're going to give you like every excuse possible to not have to write their process down because they don't have one, man. Yeah, you know what I mean? Think about it. 90% of us got into sales because we were dropouts and losers. We, we weren't going to go to college. We needed to learn how to do something. And they said, look, you can't actually change the oil yourself, but you could probably get somebody to buy a card to change oil. Oh, okay, I probably could do that. What do you, what do you need to teach me? Like, well, we're going to teach you on the job. Look, there's not a lot of jobs where you're going to become an expert if you're learning on the job. And that's what's so crazy about salespeople is like, if I said to you Hey, I want to hire you as a salesperson. What's your sales structure? Could you explain to me how you go through a sale? Most people can't, they just can't. But if I turn to marketers, right, And I said, could you take me through how you'd build a basic marketing campaign for a small to medium sized business with a budget of $200,000 a year? You'd be able to give me a quick rundown of. Oh, yeah, first thing we do, this second thing, we'd put this into play, we'd link up their SEO. And so that's a process, right? And if I go to a guy in the field who say install stuff and I say, hey man, you're going to build this website for us, right? How are you going to do it? He's not going to go, I just do it. He's going to tell me step by step. Oh, you know, first thing I do is register the domains, pull this stuff up. So that's where sales has the biggest problem, right. Is those egos I was telling you about, Liz. They don't want to develop a process, they don't want to write it down, they don't want to look at it and say, how can I analyze this? One of the biggest things I see is the three biggest objections people run into, right? And for most industries, it's the same type of thing. It's like, let me talk to my spouse, right? Or let me talk to my business partner if it's B2B. Right? And then the second one is I need some time to think about it, right? People tell you they need some time to think about it. And what's the third biggest one? It's price, right? But we know that none of those three things are actual real objections. We understand that those are surface level basic objections that people are going to tell you because you haven't done a good enough job at getting them to understand the value behind your product and that they should move forward with it today, right? So what you'd say to a normal person is, will you keep getting those three objections? Chris, what have you done during your sales pitch to work in pre handling of each one of those objections so that on the next call you go to, you can't run into one of those three. Most people are going to tell you, well, you can't do that. It's just not possible. I mean, some people just need to think about it and other people really want to talk to their spouse and maybe the price is too high. No, just Be better, learn, develop. Right. That will make you better. It's the difference between having a script and no script is the difference between going to a standup comedy show or an improv comedy show. I mean, improv comedy shows. Okay, but you don't usually see them taped and put on Netflix. Right. It's because it's hard to watch. People don't really like it. So if you have a process and you have a script and you refine it to get the result you're looking for, you'll be a better salesperson. It's just not something a lot of people want to do.

Yeah.

It's so interesting because. And now this is gonna be quick, Max. And you can go. But, like, yeah, as I hear you saying that, Chris, it's like, it's easy to practice a process.

Yes.

It's not easy to practice. Just like, the ether. Like, you can't practice the ether.

You can't.

Yeah.

The phrasing that every sale is different is because you allow every sale to be different. That's what it comes down to. That's like a doctor saying every surgery is different. Well, yeah, but I. I mean, because I. I'm a different person, the other person, but I still have kidneys, you know, like, it's. It's. If you don't have a method for something, it's going to be different every time. So instead of. It's so funny because everything in sales is everyone else's fault. Well, the company didn't give me a process, like, all right, cool, man. Well, you should make one up, then. You should own that. Right? Like, you should take that on yourself to. To. To. To make it so every time I'm out there, it's an experiment, and I'm doing it the same way every time. And I'm trying to figure out what my results are. If your closing percent do every sale differently, what are we even talking percentages for? Right? I mean, if. When it comes down to salespeople, they're like athletes, you have to look at statistics, and you have to be real with them. If somebody's batting percentage drops off, you can't keep starting them because you like them. The team's not going to win that way.

O, Max, what do you got?

I think. Yeah, I mean, I'm resonating a lot with the, you know, salespeople. Don't want to do that bit that you were talking about because, like, I definitely didn't want to. Like, I. You know, I often say, like, I'm. I was. I was you know, when I was at Apple and I was at HubSpot, like, it was. I was a great salesperson, but I never considered myself a good one at all. Right. Like, I'm. I'm fully convinced that the only reason I was able to perform the way I did is because I truly loved and believed in the products and I didn't feel like I was lying to sell something. Right. It was always. And, like, that's, you know, I don't know how other people who, like, I'm interested in getting your thoughts on this, honestly, because there's. And because maybe this is just something that works for me. Like, I think it's really tough to be a good salesperson if you don't actually care about what you're selling and who you're selling it to. Right? Like, and I'm sure this. Yeah, like, it's in. I'm sure people can deploy different methods and skills and stuff to do it, but I think it's really hard to enjoy it, especially if you have, like, a conscience. Right. Like, for me, it was always super easy selling HubSpot because, like, I know how cool this thing is and how great it is and how. How much it can actually help you. Right. And for me, it was a very easy, genuine converse. I never did scripts or, like, had needed frameworks or anything. It was so easy because I actually understood what the hell I was selling, that I could have a genuine conversation with someone and tell them, yeah, it's gonna help you, or, no, this isn't a good fit for you. And I don't want to create a bad customer for my CS friends down the line. So I'm gonna move on to someone who I know is a good fit because there's billions of them out there, right? And, like, so it's easy for me to do that, right? Because I really, really understood what I was selling. So I could cut my losses where I know it's not going to be, like, worth going down that path with someone and go to someone that is. And I knew there were more of them out there, right? But, like, I could. You couldn't drop me in a. And mind you, I had, like, tenured, longest, most successful sales reps at HubSpot telling me, if you were in ae, you'd be the best salesperson HubSpot's ever had. And I would go, probably not, right? But, like, I've had multiple people tell me that, and it's only because I knew the product so well and I could have genuine conversations about it. I Didn't have to bullshit people. And I could actually get people super stoked on it. Right? But you couldn't go drop me out of Salesforce or another SaaS company and expect me to do the same thing. That's the thing. I did not do not possess any of the skills that could. It could be like, okay, cool, go sell me. You know, go sell this. No. Nope. If I don't know what it is, I don't. I don't love it. I can't do it, dude. Like, I. I can't. So I'm weird. I'm really weird. Like, I can sell the ass out of HubSpot and Apple products because I love a man. But, like, you put me in for trying to sell me this pen. I mean, I don't know. Am I really into that pen? If I'm not, I'm probably not going to try to sell it to you, bro. Like, I can't do it.

I don't think you're weird, though. I don't. I don't think you're weird.

I want to hear what Chris has to say about this.

Yeah, well, look at it this way, right? What you just described there is basically every. What we like to call entrepreneur, but really every small business owner in America is like, hey, I really like flowers. I'm gonna. I can talk about flowers. So I'm blue in the face. I'm gonna open up a shop selling people flowers, right? So then you could sell your own product and be good. The issue is most people don't have the luxury that you do of getting to sell the product that they love. They have to have a damn job, right? So, like, for me, like, I used to sell.

That's why I'm really careful about giving any kind of sales advice, because it doesn't. My. My experience, I think, is so. I don't want to say I'm unique, but, like, no, it's. It's very. You know, it's. It's. It's. It's different than what a salesperson is going to experience selling another product. Right. It's. It's very different from that. Yeah.

So. So if you look at me, I look at it in a way of growth in scaling organizations. That's what my business does, Right. What we do is we help you grow. One of the things like Liz was saying that we can do is sales training, but really, what's more important is the process, right? Because you don't have the luxury of going out and finding employees who necessarily love your product. Right? Like, I'm. I'm in a. I'm in a good position now because I own a company where I get to sell myself, and I'm narcissistic as hell. So it works great, right? Like, I can just talk about me till the end of the. You know, I just flex a little bit and tell them a little sob story. It's me. You know, people love me. Like, so I could talk really big about myself, but I've actually found that now I've lost my ability to kind of sell other things to people that I'm not as passionate about. Right. But the thing is, I have a great process. So even if you heard me sell to, you know, for one of my clients, whether it's it or staffing or generators or in home services, you would think, wow, cool. Chris really loves this thing. Like, just. Just for instance, I. I happened to win a sales award last year for Generac, and it was a pretty big deal. I didn't expect it to happen. It was huge for me, and it's what made me quit my job and create this company. Right? But what's. What's funny about it is one of the guys I was talking to at the conference, he comes up to me and he's talking to me about an install that he's doing, and he's telling me, oh, and we sold this size job and this size line and all this stuff. And I'm standing there staring at him. He goes, man, you look like you don't have any idea what I'm talking about. And I said, oh, yeah, bro, I have. I have no idea what you're talking about. And he's like, oh, wait, I thought. I thought you were the guy who sold the generators and won the award. I said, oh, yeah, I can sell them. I don't know how they work. I don't know how to install them. I. I don't know anything about the parts. I don't even know the skus. I just know that they keep the power on. If your power goes out so your family doesn't lose. Lose the food in the fridge, and grandma's ventilator isn't turned off. And the guy's laughing. He's going, how do you. How are you able to sell these and you don't even know anything about them? I go, because I'm not selling the product. I'm selling a process. Right? You could place anything in the process. As long as the process is done correctly, it's going to work well.

And I think, too, like, my Brain is like ready to explode over here, Liz. Like, I know. Excited to see what happens, like, for, for everybody that's kind of paid attention to hub heroes over the last, what, 50 plus episodes. They know that for me, it's all about the humans and.

Yes.

And so when I go into this, I, I would, I would never have, by the way, classified myself as a salesperson, but owning my own business has proven that. Dang gone. I'm pretty good at what you would call a salesperson, except the problem is I'm not actually really selling anything. I'm so focused on the human and I'm focused on the problem and I'm focused on the process that the humans need to create.

Right.

And because I'm passionate about the human, I understand the problem that they're facing and I've done enough research to understand a process that can solve it. I can almost sell anything, which is why I can talk about why you should do podcasting for your business, why video is the actual way to go for one to one sales, why you can do lead generation with like, like, and you can just go in all these different directions. Because it has dink to do with HubSpot. Other than HubSpot is the tool that allows us to do all the things that we know we can do.

Oh, absolutely. People ask me all the time when I'm selling to them. They go, well, why should I buy HubSpot? I had somebody say it to me the other day. They go, we're looking at salesforce, but why should I buy HubSpot? I go, I don't care if you buy HubSpot or not. It's working with me. Oh, I do is. Well, yeah, for sure. But if I first I got to be detached. Right. I can't be attached to that sale. But like I said, I go, what you're actually buying is working with me. Said, I don't sell salesforce. So you have to make the decision whether you want to work with me and my products, which I could change in six months. You're still going to stay with me though, you know. Yeah. And that's what it comes down to is having that process and making someone understand the product isn't important. It's the solution you're looking for that's important. It's the result that you want to get that's important. Right. And you guys have been talking a lot about emotion. I just want to bring this up. You know, Harvard did a business study in, of course it was on, you know, corporate selling. But we Try to extrapolate that out because B2C studies are really hard to do based upon specific customers. Buying decision based upon logic. Right. So based upon facts, figures, money. That's how 30% of people made a buying decision. But the other 70% made a buying decision based upon emotion. Right? So, so what you guys are talking about here is you're emotionally invested in HubSpot, you're emotionally invested in success of other customers, you're emotionally invested. So that emotion is coming across the customer and they're actually feeling that from you and they're getting emotional, which is triggering the buying process. Right. And if you want to get modern, you want to understand the difference between old school sales processes and new sales processes. Old school sales processes focus on the product. They focus on features, benefits, feedback, what your neighbors were doing, what other people had had success. If you want to do a new school sales process like ours, for instance, it focuses on, on the emotional behavior people have. It focuses on getting people to trigger and work the way that emotions work. Because these days people have all the information on the product that they need in the palm of their hand. So if you think you're going to sit down and tell them some fact or figure or show them something about HubSpot that they haven't seen before and that's going to make them buy, you're crazy. You have to get somebody to understand what is this product going to do to impact my life in the future? And moreover, what if I don't move forward with this today? What if I kick this can down the road six, seven, eight weeks and I run into the same issues I've been having because I didn't make this decision, how is that going to affect me? And if a salesperson is able to elicit those emotions for me, then I'm going to say yes, I'm going to go forward. I'm going to make a move to do it. But if I just like the product and like the price, it's not necessarily enough to get me to, to want to buy or to buy now.

So, so here's the thing. When I hear you say that, Chris, if I'm a SVP or like head of sales, the immediate question I walk in after listening to this episode and ask my sales reps is around, how much do they care? Because if I don't care, I'm not evoking any emotion. Love it, like none. Like you. You have to be able to tie into that to do what you're saying in this new, modern sales like process.

Yeah. Or at least have to fake it.

Yeah. George, do you qualify? Care about what?

Well, I think the human to care.

About the person they're selling to and.

I think the hurdle that they're trying to get over or the aspirational goal they're trying to reach. And that, that for me, by the way, is the trifecta that I'm always paying attention to. Anytime that I'm talking to somebody is who's, who' human. Where are they stuck and where are they trying to get to? And inside that, I'm going to find the magic tools, mindsets, best, best practices, strategies to like, lay down in that specific moment. Like, that's my triangle of specificity, if you will, that I'm always paying attention to.

So the cool thing is, George, if you can develop a process good enough, not saying that you don't right now, right? And let's say that you look at your average call right now, right? For instance, and you say, you know what? I talk to these customers, I'm passionate, they love me, I love them. I'm on the phone with them for an hour and a half and I close them. That's great. Awesome. Now you say all of a sudden, hey, man, I want to make more money next month, right? Like, I don't, I don't like how much money I made this month. I want to make more money next month. So it takes me an hour and a half to close a person, which means that if I schedule two more calls each day, I can work an extra, I don't know, 12, 15 hours a week. So each month I'm working an extra 60 hours a week, but I'm going to make more money. But what if you could dial that process down, that takes you an hour and a half to get that emotional commitment from the customer to 20 minutes, right? So now you can get that same reaction that you were eliciting with an hour and a half conversation or a two hour conversation that you had to go through this whole thing to get all this emotion out of this person and connect with them and get them to buy from you. If you could boil that down to less questions and make it maybe 20 minutes now you could sell to three customers an hour as compared to three customers a day. And now you're doing what you said you want to do, which is you said you care about humans and you want to help people. So right now, by not having a good sales process, George, you're actually hurting your customers because you're not offering all of them your service. At the level they could be buying it from you because you haven't decided that you think, hey, these people like me. It's emotion. Could I do a little better maybe? And that's the way I like people.

To think about it.

The fact that we basically now need to have Chris back like once a month for sales therapy because the amount of feelings that we've been working through today. I want to end today's conversation, actually, Chris, by asking you a question I asked you a few days ago in front of an audience because I think it is the answer that you gave was so critically important. So the question I asked was this. Let's say you have a sales organization that is head nodding along with Chris. They're like, I get it. I freaking love this. You're absolutely right. Process is great. Scripting is like all of these different things. You're right. We haven't changed in the way that we need to change. How do, well meaning change seeking sales organizations still fail. What are the mistakes that they're making in an effort, in an attempt to affect change that are avoidable?

The. The biggest one is not enabling your team with the tools necessary to get the job done. If you had guys who were doing deliveries and you, you bought them a cart, said, we're going to deliver on the cart, guys. You got a bike in the front of it. You're going to pedal it down the road. And somebody said, hey, you could just buy a truck and make that delivery easier. But you went, whoa, there's a little bit of an overhead investment. We can't do that. We don't want to buy a truck. That's the same way that people look at sales organizations. It's ridiculous. They won't buy that truck. They won't make the investment into the better technology to make the job easier for their staff. So what happens is you run into sales organizations that say like, yeah, we want to do scripts, we want to do playbooks. We would love to have better communication with the customers. We wish we could send emails explaining our products to them. We wish we could do video tutorials. And I wish I had a list of how to follow up with people, but we're using Excel spreadsheets. Yeah. So what are you doing? You've invested in a new fleet of trucks for your, for your delivery guys, but you won't get a CRM for your sales team. What it comes down to is if you're not enabling your salespeople by putting the modern technology and the modern training into place, then they're never going to be successful in, in a modern arena. So if you want to walk the walk instead of just talking to talk and get better sales and you want to have be serious about your business, put the technology into place that's going to allow your people to have time back in their day to focus on income producing activities and building revenue for your business.

I love that, George. Max, Devin, you know, I'm not even going to bother saying one thing, George, because you never follow directions, but bless your heart, I love you so much. What's the most important thing you guys are walking away with from today's conversation? I'd love to hear from it, you guys.

Max, I think I had one more question I wanted to ask Chris.

You do? Okay, wait.

Yeah, go ahead.

So it's, it was in. And maybe this is like kind of, I think the thing that I. And maybe this is a piece of advice I'll, I will give because I think it's relevant to anything. Even if you're not selling HubSpot or whatever it was that I was, you know, that I sold. I think a universally important thing to do is whenever you're having sales conversations with folks, you should always try to make it and not try to make it look like this, but actually make it like this. Where it's not a negotiation for money. Where I'm on one side of the table and you're on the other side. It's more so we're sitting on the same side of the table looking at the same problem and trying to figure it out together. That's at least how I tried to always genuinely approach things. Right. And I think there is a difference between genuinely approaching it that way and having that be your internal mindset of how can I sit next to them on the table and look at the problem together and attack it together. Right. And say this is what I bring to the table. This is what you bring and this is how we put it together and solve that problem versus I think it's very different than that actually doing that versus creating a perception of that's how it is. Right. So I think it's important for the salesperson to like be able to genuinely do that in their own head. Right. You know, versus make it look that way. But I don't know if you have thoughts on that, Chris.

Of course, I mean what it comes down to is that's process, right? So, so realistically the easiest way to explain it is if you were teaching somebody to play an instrument, right? And you said, okay, I want you to do these chords here and that. You taught them all the chords. That's great. Now there might be a spot inside that. That song where you could do your own little riff for your own little thing, but the rest of the time, I need you to do the chords because that's what makes the song sound good. It should be the same thing with the sales process. What you're saying is absolutely right. I want to sit down on the same side of the table, but I need to have a process that works for it, and then I can throw in my little emotional stuff here or there to get them on my side. But whether it's sitting across the table, on the same side of the table, or in a different room, you have to have a process that works to do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love that. George, Devin, what are your big takeaways from today? Because, by the way, Chris, we're definitely having you come back. We. We clearly have lots of sales questions that we want to talk to you about.

Great. Don't worry. I literally have nothing going on, so I'm good.

Nothing going on. It's fine. Yeah, you know, I'll just come running down the hall. He and I work at the same co. Working space. Come on. We have more sales questions for you.

There you go.

Wait, Same side selling Is what I just said a thing?

Yeah, dude. Ian Altman, He's a buddy, wrote the book Same side selling. Literally, the words that were coming out of your mouth, I'm like, he doesn't know.

It's second generation. It's second generation selling. It's good selling. Yeah, it's. That's. It's definitely good selling. Yeah, for sure.

I don't read books on Chris, dude.

Guys, I. I swear I'm not paying my wife to do that. That is not like, a thing I even know. I. I just was afraid that. I was afraid that was the end. You guys, like, hey, here's balloons. We'll see you. We're gonna do another podcast after this.

No, no, no, seriously, people just really like you and they don't like us. This is so hurtful and disappointing.

Oh, wow. Here, Can I give you guys balloons? Is it possible for me to do that? I'll throw some and balloons out there.

Wait, is it. Is it hand gestures? Is that what they're saying?

No, I don't think so. Anyway. Okay, let's rain this in now. So here. Here's like. So. Okay, I'm gonna go because, Devon, I know you still need to go, and I know I want to Be cognizant of Chris's time for me. Liz, I am going to keep it to one thing. Yes, this. This episode has proven to me the importance of understanding the people that you're serving. Connecting their head to their heart. Because when you can connect the head to the heart, you get to the wallet. Now, notice I mentioned wallet last. You're literally taking care of the human first and then, then you'll reap the rewards out of that after.

Devin Change management sucks.

That's it.

That's the post. Management is not fun.

Mine is. Is not as simple, but it's, it's a simple one. If you are the marketing leader, the business leader, the whomever who isn't in sales looking to effect change from within sales, look at yourself in the mirror and ask who you're really trying to help. Are you trying to help yourself? Are you trying to help sales? If the answer is the latter, are you going to talk to them about the change you've already decided going to happen? You have a large problem. You need to go back a few steps and involve sales in the decision making process to affect change within that organization. What I feel I'm walking away from today feeling a lot of empathy for sales teams who are asked to do so much, to literally carry companies on their back. But they are under resourced. They are often they, they don't even bother asking for training because companies won't give it to them. They won't give them the tool. They're like here, I know you wanted HubSpot but did you? How about an abacus? That'll be fine. Like, you know, like it's like they're asked to work in the stone ages, right? And then we wonder why they're so prickly. We wonder why they don't trust us. We wonder why when we're like what's your process? They're like, why do you want to know? My hamster has an IRS audit. I gotta go. Like, we wonder why they run from us. We wonder why they don't want to tell us anything. But Chris, before we let you go for today, how can people find you and get in touch with you if they have questions or want to know anything?

Oh well. So the company is tssg. It's the Stillwell specialist group. And you can get us at we are tssg.com or follow us on social media at we are tssg. And you'll see my wonderful little corgi kite. He's my buddy, he's our mascot. He is on the website and he is not for sale. But if you have a good enough pitch, he might be.

He might be willing to jump ship.

Dang. Now. Yeah. So check us out for sure. You know, the company's great. We just got today gold status with HubSpot. We've only been on HubSpot partner for six months, so that might be a record. We'll see. And there's just more down the pipeline. And, you know, we're just growing and really just helping people try to expand their business, create more jobs and create more money for hard working entrepreneurs and individuals who are busting their ass to get this country running again.

I love it. Well, everybody out there listening. Thank you for joining us and we will talk to you all next week. Look at that. Only two minutes over. We did it, guys. Good job.

Victory.

Awesome. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it.