HOW TO SELL LIKE A HUMAN

Do you live in a world filled with corporate data? Are you plagued by siloed apartments? Are your lackluster growth strategies demolishing your chances for success? Are you held captive by the evil menace Lord Lack, lack of time, lack of strategy, and lack of the most important and powerful tool in your superhero tool belt knowledge. Never fear, Hub Heroes. Get ready to don your cape and mask, move into a action and become the Hub hero your organization needs. Tune in each week to join the League of Extraordinary Inbound Heroes as we help you educate, empower and execute Hub Heroes. It's time to unite and activate your powers. Before we begin, we need to disclose that both Devin and Max are currently employed by HubSpot at the time of this episode's recording. This podcast is in no way affiliated with or produced by HubSpot, and the thoughts and opinions expressed by Devin and Match during the show are that of their own and in no way represent those of their employer.

Oh yeah, and I'll tell you what, I can't wait to get those thoughts today, because today we are talking about why selling like a human is the best sales strategy. And listen, I think it's safe to say that for a lot of our listeners that are out there listening to the podcast, that their primary focus for this year is to meet, meet, and hopefully excel, exceed their sales targets. As a business owner, myself, Max, Devin, Zach, I can tell you that my own revenue targets for 2023, like, I'm trying to achieve those, I'm trying to exceed those. So I get the listeners that are like, how can we sell more? However, in a rush to hit those numbers, many organizations I think can miss what great selling actually looks like because you can be great at the thing that right now you might be sitting there thinking, well, I'm not that. Which we'll talk about. We'll get into that deeper. You need the tools, of course. HubSpot Sales Hub affords you with pipeline management, playbooks, sequences and more. Plus video tools like Vidyard. Oh, Zach might have some things to say about that. Or loom to bring video into your sales process, which, by the way, somebody might be listening and be like, zach, what? We'll get to the fact that Liz abandoned us in a minute and who's on as a special guest. But there you have to have documented tactics and strategies that you can use to make your sales team, like, more effective throughout your sales process. Right? And we've talked about Sales Hub before. You should go check out the episode. Kyle Jepsen, Much like the marketing Hub is only effective and powerful as you. You, you know, have the thought of strategy that you develop as humans. George. Sales is the same way.

George, can we address something at the top, did you say?

Let's. Let's address it.

Vidyard.

Oh, Vidyard.

Vidyard.

Got him.

Vidyard.

No, it's Vidyad.

Vidyard.

Video God.

Well, well, we should probably address that. But. But let's address this too, since we're addressing things. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm doing the intro today because Liz, as you guessed, she has abandoned us this week. I guess she's flying somewhere to do something cool or something crazy. Sheesh. What the heck? But. But we do have a special guest because as soon as I knew that we had a fourth slot open and I knew that we were talking about being human and selling like a human and sales strategies, my brain went to only the man, the myth, Zack Basner from Impact Brand and Design. Zach, why don't you give just a hello to the audience and maybe let them know kind of what you do day in and day out and why you're on the show with us.

First of all, y', all, I am hyped to be here in the presence of y'.

All.

I have the fortune at Impact to work with many of our clients as a digital sales and marketing coach, work with about 75 or more companies at any given time. They're working with our various coaches and trainers to bring their sales and marketing in house. In other words, never being reliant on an outsourced marketing agency. We, of course, use the framework they ask, you answer. We train sales teams, marketing teams, leadership teams. It's a wonderful thing. And I'm just. I'm really stoked to be here.

I am glad that you're here too, because conversations are. Are going to be good. Max, Devin, Zach, are you guys ready to dig deep and talk about why selling like a human is your pathway to profitability and how to do it well?

Oh, absolutely. I have my grumpy old man pants on today.

We're in trouble. He's already starting. We're in trouble. So, gentlemen, when we talk about selling like a human, what the heck do we even mean by that when we tell people, hey, you need to sell like a human?

There's that saying that y' all probably heard this before. Only marketers and robots say we need to sound more human. I think you could apply that to sales as well, right?

Oh, yeah. 100.

At least with the LinkedIn messages that I've been Getting and can apply that.

Yep.

LinkedIn and his grumpy pants. Yep.

We're here.

Max, what are your thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, I think for me it's all about just try to have a genuine conversation with someone and not read a script. I can't tell you how many discovery calls I've sit through that have gone straight into a pitch deck and just heard the same pitch over and over and over again. And I can just know that the salesperson doesn't know what any of it even means when they're saying it. Coming up with these just, like, empty questions that people don't even do anything with the answers, and they don't even know why they're asking it. And it's just because a lot of folks just, like, work off of a script and they're there to hit a quota. They're not there to have a, you know, genuine conversation with the person across the zoom from them. Right. So, you know, when it comes to selling like a human, I think it's a mix of truly understanding what it is you're actually selling and then trying to genuinely have a conversation with the other person to see if they actually have any problems that your thing solves for. Right. Versus just pitching them on something. But I've never gone through any formal sales training. Right. I only ever just sold in the way that I felt comfortable selling. Right. And I was never comfortable doing the whole cold calling, pitching, you know, reading off a script. I could just never do that. Right. I always leaned on really understanding what it was I was selling and genuinely seeing if the other people actually had some kind of need for it. Right. And actually caring about that conversation. But I know not everybody does it that way.

Devon or Zach, thoughts on selling like a human?

Selling like a human, for me, is basically, first and foremost talking to a person and knowing a little bit about them. And not some superficial knowledge like job title, but having at least some inkling of an idea of whether or not they're even remotely a good fit for what you do. Like, for instance, my job at HubSpot, there is a lot of video editing involved, and I am very proficient in Premiere and After Effects. So what I don't need is someone reaching out to me about video production. I do video production, and no, I don't need help with it. And if I did, we have an entire media team at HubSpot whose only job is video production. So the very first step is prospecting and doing just a smidge, a little due diligence or on whether or Not. It's good fit. And I'm not even. I'm not even going to bother to dignify the people who send me emails asking me if I want data on people who use HubSpot like that. Oh, my God. Like, I can see who uses HubSpot.

Yeah, but what if it's like, really. What if it's like a really good data though, you know?

No, my. My blood pressure is going up just talking about this. This. I. I despise cold calling and cold emails because it's been ruined for me by people who are just completely just. Yeah, that's. That's the first step in not selling like a human is going. Is treating me like you're going door to door like Avon.

No, I don't snap. Are you Avon or am weighing your way in digital sales right now? My gosh, that's kind of scary. And Devin, you might want to, like, light some sage in a candle for your grumpy pants. You really are on point today, my man. Holy.

Like, listen, as soon as we said selling like a human, the first place my mind went to is everyone who doesn't and how they all seem to find me.

Yeah.

So, Zach, what are your thoughts on this selling like a human and maybe even diving into a little bit of the importance of understanding, like, what this means for somebody in their organization?

Well, yeah, so I think the first step is that we have to recognize that for a lot of the. The prospects and customers that we talk with, they actually don't see us as human. Right. Which might be the initial problem we're dealing with. And a good example of this is, is for any of us that have ever been in a retail environment before, so let's say you go to the electronics store, the hardware store, you're standing there looking at that rack of all of your options, and that nice person comes up to you. They're wearing that bright polo or that bright apron. They seemingly a nice person, and they say something pretty innocent to you. They say, hey, can I help you? What's our first response in that moment when they ask us this innocent question, like, can I help you? What do we say?

The Heisman. I give them the Heisman.

Right. It's like just looking, just browsing, just browsing. I'll come find you if I need you. And then you can never find them when you need them. What is going on in retail? You'll ever notice that. But the reason we do that is, like, the defenses are up. At some point in the past, we've been Manipulated or pressured or we just didn't feel comfortable with what was happening. So we said okay, you know what my way of dealing with this is, I'm just going to tell them to go away so I don't have to deal with that. And the question is, is like that those defenses that go up for us in retail environments, it's just a snapshot, it's just a picture of how many of our prospects and customers feel about us and our sales teams before they've met. They don't see them as a human, they see them as a, as this threat that's, that's moving towards them versus something that they want to move towards.

Right.

They don't actually want to back away.

Yeah.

And see it's funny because the undertone that I hear when I listen to all three of you talk about this is really the, to me, I'll kind of say the success point of selling like a human is to realize that it's actually not selling, it's serving, it's relationship, it's conversations, it's remembering that you're looking at the people on the other side of the screen, the phone as human.

Right.

And if you have this human centric approach and you really try to do this problem solving and serving, then selling becomes easy because it's the thing that they trust, it's the thing that they want, it's not the thing that they're trying to heisman or get away from. And so when they're closer to you, the conversations become easier. Here's the thing though, what I, what I want to dive into and I'm really curious about this one can have thoughts but want more thoughts for the community to be able to kind of chew on. When you think about the person who can focus on that they are humans, they're not just a number. The person who focuses on serving and problem solving and adding value. What are the soft skills look like for, for somebody like that in a sales team?

Listening is like for me it's like the most important thing. But like there's listening and then there's active listening and genuine listening. I've just, I've just seen too many like half assed responses and non addressing of people's actual questions or concerns that you know, I can tell it's still a, it's still a huge problem. I think a lot of folks just like ask questions to check a box versus ask questions to like actually get good information to then deliver like an appropriate response. So I think listening is probably like one of the Most important, active listening specifically is probably one of the most important soft skills you can have as a salesperson.

For me, it's the ability to connect and empathy. Those two kind of go hand in hand. If you are treating me like a doll sign, I'll know it's one of the biggest turnoffs. And I've talked about it on this podcast before, on how a certain salesperson at a certain accounting company treated me just like a dollar sign and then used intentionally misleading phrasing to try and collect my money. And it was just, it was so disingenuous and he didn't actually care about what was going on with. For me, all the times that I've been successful as a salesperson, it's because I have been able to genuinely connect and empathize with the challenges that this person's facing. And if you really care about the person that you're talking to, if you really care about the human on the other side, your conversation won't just be structured around the problem that you solve. You won't have blinders on about whatever it is that you're offering. What will happen is that you'll get a view of the bigger picture and understand whether or not your solution can fit in with their problems. Or you might have come in trying to sell one thing and figure out that it's something entirely different altogether. When I worked at Altel, and that's kind of dating myself in the sales program, we were talking about consultative selling, where we're going to engage. I'm going to spend the first five minutes of the call listening to this moment talk about how disorganized her life is and how hard it is even though she's a stay at home mom, to keep up with the kids schedules. And then everybody's going through their text messages and what I'm doing is I'm listening to everything that's going on in her life and then seeing how I could help with that. Like when I was doing it, smartphones were brand new. The only smartphones that were out were the BlackBerry and this brick that ran on Windows Mobile. And yeah, that used to be an operating system. And the thing is, is that when I was listening to us, it's like we coined the phra stay home CEO because they're, they're having the same problems that these CEOs are having as far as managing, delegating and time management. It can be all solved, mostly solved with a phone that caters to it. Now. They all do that. But had I not been listening I just would have tried to sell her a Motorola razor and given her an unlimited plan for 150amonth and then have her churn three months later.

Yeah, it's interesting because I. A couple of things come to mind. And Zach, I'm going to come over to you because I want to know your thoughts here in a minute on selling like a human in soft skills. But Devon, with you and what you said, I was like, man, even a level above that is the ability to understand you might have something that's a non fit and be human enough to say, this is not a good fit for you. Like you, you should probably check out A, B or C because it's not me, baby. Like, I'm not the one. You know, we're not going to do you right versus just closing them and hoping for the best on a bad solution. So, Zach, when you think about selling like a human and soft skills, where does your mind go?

Yeah. By the way, I love what Devin said. I find that like the most elite salespeople, they care more than they're expected to.

Right.

And you can you feel that? Right. The. I don't always understand the difference between a hard skill and a soft skill, but I'm gonna say a skill that the best salespeople had that really connect with people is actually one that you don't hear a lot, which is just leadership. And you said service early earlier, which I think is good, but I only think it's half of the equation because the problem with saying we want to be a servant is like, well, we're, we're. We're allowing the buyer to lead us versus really what we want in a great sales or buying process is that we're being led. Now there's right and wrong ways to do that, of course, but I think servant leadership is actually a really important skill to have as a great salesperson that does the things like Max and Devin said, we always want to be in a position where we're the ones that are leading them, teaching them, guiding them, versus putting them in a position where they have to lead us. And the way this shows up, you can often tell like they're only moving us through the process. Like we have to ask the questions like, so what's next? What am I not asking here? What do I need to do next? If they're asking us things like that, we're not leading as well as we probably could be leading. What I like to say is you need to be thinking like a teacher thinks the teacher. And if we all thought about a teacher or a mentor or somebody who is special to us in our life, there are certain things that they did that made them that way, really influential. It was the way that they cared about us, like you said. Right. The way that they listened, like you said. But also they helped us avoid making mistakes. They helped us arrive at conclusions ourselves. There's a lot of self discovery involved, therefore a lot of ownership on our part, never trying to make themselves look great. George, an example of this, as you said, being willing to say when something's not a good fit, that is so important. And when we work with sales teams on this, I actually find that they can quickly learn how to say when something's not a good fit. The weird part is how hard it is to get them to make a recommendation to just come out and say, this is what you should do. We've had these situations before too, where you might even ask the person, so what do you think I should do? And they come back and say, well, I mean, based on everything we've talked about, what are you leaning towards? Sometimes we got to be that leader that says, you know what, George, we've talked a lot about this, about this, this and this problem. I think it's really clear, man, this, this is the right thing for you.

I love that. And, and it's interesting because I'm going to reposition a future question. It used to say, what is serving as a sales rep look like? But I love this idea of servant leadership. And so what is serving slash leading as a sales rep look like? We're going to get to that in a minute. But I do want to talk about a couple of things that I think are really important if you're, if you're truly going to lean into selling like a human. And I think it kind of goes off the little bit of a backbone of like, think like a teacher. Because by the way, I think, Max, that's why you've made companies thousands upon thousands of dollars. Devin, I think that's why you've made companies thousands and thousands of dollars. And I think that's why George B. Thomas LLC continues to be more than I ever thought it would be, is because we come at the sales process from the mindset of a teacher. But I also know this group of guys sitting here. And there's two things that I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, and that is one, coming from a place of abundance instead of a place of lack. Right. If a salesperson is coming from a place of lack, they're going to be more likely to do things that would be deemed black hat or shady versus if you're coming from a place of abundance, you're going to take the higher road. You're going to take the road that is the right leadership, the right direction to go down. And so when I talk about abundance, I also think about this positivity matrix, right? This idea of I have a positive mindset, a positive frame of mind that, you know, we are going to be able to work things out, we are going to be able to fix your problems. Here are the solutions. And so again, abundance and positivity. When we're thinking about helping humans through this journey of fixing a problem or reaching their aspirational moment in life, right. I think is. Is tied into this. Let's dive into this leading portion of this. When we think of leading through a sales rep's eyes or a sales rep leading and serving, what in God's name does that actually look like?

So I think there's. There's leading and then there is misleading. Right? We don't want to mislead anybody. And unfortunately you see that a lot, especially in SaaS sales. And I guess, like, you know, I never thought of it when you bring up that interesting perspective, Zach, of leading, I guess I never kind of thought of it that way. But now when I, like, think back to how, like, I sell. Yeah, maintaining control of the conversation and maintaining control of the entire process is really, really important. But also like ensuring that like even something as simple as just like leading the conversations to make sure they're going to the proper outcomes. So like when you're doing like a discovery call, you want to make sure you're keeping people on track and staying on subject, but really getting to the place where you truly understand the problems and leading the conversation in a way where it kind of gets us there versus letting a customer kind of steamroll it with what they want to see or this and that and just kind of like doing what they want to do, maybe in some situations, like, they'll easily lay out all their actual problems. Right. But if you don't stay in charge of that conversation, it's going to be hard for you to check all the boxes you need to know you need to do in order to ensure that this is actually a proper fit. And it's worth everyone's time to have that conversation. I think also depending on the role that you're in, because you can lead in different ways. Like me as a solutions engineer, I'm generally not leading the discovery questions. But what I am there is, what I am doing is being sort of like an extra layer of support for that salesperson. And oftentimes when I don't see them asking the right questions or I see them asking a question but maybe not pushing a little, like, pushing a little harder to know that they truly understand it or getting to the point of it, I'll kind of. I'll. I'll get in there and I'll kind of try to fix the or right the ship and make sure we're pushing when it's needed and not when it's not, or going down any paths that we shouldn't be. So I think you can lead in different ways, depending on, like, are you leading that sales process or are you actually supporting that sales conversation, whatever it may be, But I'm interested in everybody else's take on it.

Well, I was going to build on. On what you said too, on digging deeper and really understanding core problems and issues. A good example of this is if you went to Dr. And you said, my hip is really hurting me. I think I need hip surgery. And he said to you, cool, we'll get you scheduled for next week. That wouldn't be a very good doctor. There's probably some more discovery that needs to be happening there.

Yet.

You see a lot of people, that's the way they operate. People run up, say, oh, I know exactly what my problem is. I know exactly what I need to do, but it's actually not what they need to do. And you're. You're likely setting them up for failure. Very relevant, Max, in what you're doing too. Right. We need to make sure people get the right solutions so they actually stay with us and they see the results and.

Yeah.

And things like that. But yeah, this. This concept of leading, too. In the book the Jolt Effect, if y' all read that, it's from the authors of the Challenger sale. They talk about dealing with indecision and how much this plagues sales reps today. In fact, what they did is they went and they analyzed like something like 1.7 million sales calls. They fed it through AI and all this stuff, and which, by the way, 10 years ago, never would have been had had the access to do a study like this. I mean, 1.7 sales interactions, like that's unheard of. But we can do it now because everyone's recording their stuff and we have the data. So they fed all this stuff through algorithms or whatnot. And the discoveries that they found was. Were pretty amazing, even with Elite sellers, people who are really good. If they can't deal with indecision, they're not doing very well in the bulk of what the indecision is, is people's fear of errors of commission versus errors of omission. Meaning we're more afraid that we're going to make, that we could buy the wrong thing. We can make a mistake and especially in B2B, look bad in front of our, our leaders or our team. We're more afraid of that than not making a decision at all and therefore losing out on something. Fear of making the wrong decision greater than not making a decision on something that could work. And this is what causes so much indecision in sales. And you could be talking with a prospect forever and they just never make a decision. That's when leadership is really important. Right? Because it's like, look, this is the, you know, here's the recommendation. We know what we need to do. You're going to do it or not. But we can't keep like just talking in circles.

I'm seeing that a lot today. Like, I'm involved in like lots of deals where we like go through the whole entire process. We have like really, really great conversations. And then, you know, it's a perfect fit. It's all good to go. And then people just fall off the face of the planet. Right. And you can tell they're just like too scared to re engage the conversation because they know all their boxes have been checked. All their, It's a, it's a good fit. All they need to do now is just make the decision. Yes. And you know, we hear back a month later, oh, you know, leadership kind of stepped in and decided this wasn't a priority, which is their kind of way, I feel of saying like, you know, it got too freaky to make a decision. Right. And it's happening a lot these days too.

And they could be totally dissatisfied with the status quo. That's the whole interesting part about this indecision stuff, right? We could have done a great job doing the discovery, whatever. We have the problem figured out. We have, we have a solution that is clearly going to fix the problem and be better for them. They're not satisfied with the status quo yet. They still won't make the freaking decision. You could be the most trustworthy person in the world, have a great relationship, have the perfect thing, and they just don't get off the fence. That's why really, salespeople today need to be very, very good at leading and dealing with that indecision.

Man, I love this so much. And a, we're going to put a link to the book in the show notes. So if you're not getting the show notes, make sure that you have signed up for those. It's funny because when I start to go down the trail. And again, part of when I love when Liz is gone, not that I love when Liz is gone. Oh my God, I'll reap the wrath when she gets back if I say that. But one of the things that I love is it gives me a chance to like, actually stop and kind of listen to what, you know, you guys are sharing and, and then unpack in my brain what that means to me. And so there's a couple of things where, Max, you use the word push, like, like push to get the information that you need. Keep digging, keep asking, like, question, question, question. Like you. You've got to really push to go further than what you might even sometimes be comfortable with, because that's when you're going to get to the magic moment. Zach, you then in yours, you talked about giving advice and, and sometimes that people, they are just not willing to step out and give the advice past what the kind of conversation might typically go to, AKA maybe the script that they're kind of running with. And so they don't know where to, you know, jot off to the left or to the right. And to that, what I would say is like, yes, you have to push to get the data so that you can get the proper advice and then just have the frickin give them the words that they need to hear and run with it. Like that's what needs to happen. Just, you know, do it, do it. Because here's the thing where I really go with this, is that if you look at the book by Simon Sinek, leaders eat last, right? Or if you look at Ian Altman, same side selling. The problem is so many times it's like an us versus them versus a no, we're gonna work together mentality. And so if you think about leaders that they serve, and if you think about it, same side selling and you kind of marry those together, it's not that it's a war that you're trying to close things. It's like, no, we're actually working together to try to be a catalyst for what you're trying to do in life, business, that is what we start to get some magical moments about selling like a human.

Yeah.

And I got something.

Yeah, Devin.

Okay, Devin's. Devin's ready his grumpy pants. He says let's go.

Yeah. Well, these are. These are actually. This is a happy pants story. This. That approach is quite literally how I became a HubSpot customer in the first place. Shout out to James Stone and Andrew Farnoli, who, when I first met them, this was in 2015 at a grow with HubSpot event. And I was sold. I was. I bought in hook. Like, hook, line, and sinker. I drank the orange Kool Aid, like, immediately. But what they did is they saw the problem, saw the indecision in leadership, and both educated and helped me create a presentation and a plan so I could take it in a 2C suite to get approval. Now, what they could have done is left me to my own devices. But what they did is not only did they turn me into a champion, but they empowered me and helped me go into this room of decision makers and do something I had never done before. It was just trying to convince somebody to spend $12,000 a year on a product that they weren't even sure that they needed. But I knew that we did, and they. They could have just, like, you know, moved on and, oh, is it going to close? Not going to close. Oh, well, whatever. But it was like they were personally invested in my success, and I was more than just commission to them. And that's why I still love James Stone to death to this day. Like, last time I saw him, we were hanging out in Puerto Rico. Small flex, but, you know, we were. We was just reminiscing about just the path that we've taken to get to where we are and how it all started with a salesperson who acted like a good, decent human being.

Yeah. Buyer enablement's huge, right? Like, yeah, you got to remember, it's like. Like, you as a sales rep, it's not just on you to convince the other person to buy something. Like, you gotta remember, they've gotta convince other people generally, and that can be super stressful. Maybe they don't have the best relationship with those folks. Maybe those folks don't necessarily have a ton of trust in that person that they're making the right decision or, you know, they know what's best for the company. Right. So, like, they need to be armed with, you know, the resources they need to do to sell it internally just as much as you're trying to sell it to them. Them. That's huge.

So I have to rewind, and, Zach, I want to see if you have any final thoughts on what we're talking about here before I jump to the next question. But I Have to rewind to Devin's statement, because listeners. Listeners. Yes, I'm talking to you directly. I want you to think back the last time that you can say about a sales rep, and you would say these words, I love him.

To this day, any of my customers that I've had, I would say, say that about me.

Yeah, your customers. But your customers would say that. Yeah, everyone loves Max. We get it. Max, sit down, relax. Take a break. Holy crap. So just. It's not, you know, so here's the thing. I'm talking to the listeners right now, and I can tell you that probably a 90 to 95% of them are like, I've never said that about a sales rep. And if you're a sales rep listening, this, that's a great goal. I want my customers at the end of the day to say, man, I love that guy to this day. Zach, what are your thoughts?

Yeah, I would add to that, too, is if they can say, you know, they. They were indispensable to this process or indispensable to my buying decision. In other words, even if they went and bought something else, I couldn't have bought this thing if it weren't for that person over there really getting me pointed in the right direction.

Right.

Being willing to tell me the things that I was not thinking about, properly teaching me really, how this buying process should be evaluated. To Max's earlier thing, helping me learn how to sell my team this thing that we're buying, right. And how to best be the, like, the buying leader internally, I think it's incredible if somebody can say that this person was indisputable, dispensable to me.

So let's get down to the. The tactical. The day in, day out, when you think about what this person does, you know, when they're trying to sell like a human, which, by the way, I'm not even talking about the sales team, just blow everybody out the water. As a marketer, you're selling. As a sales rep, you're selling. As a service professional, you're selling. So if you have a mindset that you want to sell like a human, what are the activities and approaches that Max, either you use or have used historically, or Devin or Zach, that you teach, like, here's activities and approaches, that if you're gonna have this servant, you know, leadership, sales, human mentality, you need to prioritize doing these things in your day.

I think the right research is definitely, like, important. You know what I mean? I mean, I just feel like today is like, the last thing you want to be doing is just like getting a list of people and just blasting them through your email and you know, just hoping something catches. Like if you want to go fishing, go do it on the weekends. Like it's just not, not, you know, it's, it's not, it's not super effective and I think you're just going to burn yourself out. I also got to think like sales burnout is like a real thing too, you know what I mean? And I think when we talk about these like human selling approaches where instead of just reading off a script, instead of just like, you know, doing all these like super high volume things that burn you out or you know, maybe maybe talking about a product you don't really know so much about or believe in, you got to remember like approaching these conversations in a more human way, I think is just a much better way to just like enjoy your job too. Like I get that like, you know, we're talking about salespeople and there's quota and there's commission and it's all about money. But like, you got to remember like just your, your mental health and your well being are just as important as well. And I think there's better ways to sell to actually make it a little bit more of an enjoyable occupation than it is just doing like the high volume stuff, right? But in terms of like day to day stuff, I think doing a little bit of extra research on the folks you're reaching out to is super important. Coming up with like different questions for people that you want to ask, you know, and making sure that those questions aren't just like generic, check the box questions. Like these are questions where you know the answer is like fundamentally helpful for you to lead a good conversation, right? So you know, you're just not droning on asking the same shit over and over and over again just so you can slug your way through the conversation. I don't want to go down the cold calling route. I think that's like, I think do a little bit more research, have questions that actually mean something to you and you know, break, break out of that script a little bit. It, if you can, if you have.

The flexibility to, I'd say all of that plus develop a network. It's cold calling is getting harder and harder every day. Technology is making it harder, people are making it harder, people doing the cold calling are making it harder on the other people doing the cold calling. But one of the reasons why I kind of focused on building my professional network in 2016 was because that I knew that opportunities aren't just in rooms that you walk into. Opportunities exist in rooms that you're already in. And so you can do the whole mastermind thing. You can do the once a month networking groups or all those different things, but however you get it done, LinkedIn, trade shows, the more people you know, the more opportunities where you can interact with the guy that knows a guy or the guy that needs something from another guy, and you can be a part of that conversation. Conversation. So that is kind of going back to the cornerstone of humanity is connection, is if you connect with more people, then more opportunities will come your way. I love working at HubSpot, but I also know that based on my network, if I ever decided to leave HubSpot, I wouldn't have to wait long before I worked somewhere else.

I would say role play a lot more than you do today. It's an activity you should start doing now. That seems be to. That's counter to what we're talking about.

Sales.

Role play.

Sales. Role plays.

Sales. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not. Not the fun. Not.

Well, you know, who am I? Who am I to say what you can and can't do?

Let's just spit iced tea all over my.

Oh, my God, I'm dying over here.

But yes, thank you.

Devin, put your happy pants back on. Not your grumpy pants. Come on, Zach.

The funny thing is the real deal.

Holy.

He's the one without the fire in the background. I figured that would come out of one of y'.

All. Brown chicken took the pants off completely.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking. I wasn't gonna say it, but I.

Was thinking, what did I get Grumpy pants to? Happy pants. No pants. Sorry, Zach.

Well, welcome to the club, brother. Welcome to the club.

Prepared.

What were we talking about? Roleplace. Right. So sales.

Sales.

Roleplace. Okay, I got it. So sales, Roleplace. This. This seems, by the way, counterintuitive to what we're talking about, because when you think about, like, selling like a human, it means you're just there, right? You're just present. You're just. Just you're doing your thing. I actually firmly believe, and I've witnessed this, that the reps that aren't practicing on customers, but practicing on, you know, with each other in a controlled environment are going to show up more present when they're with customers. I've seen where reps that learn how to become more performative. Not fake and inauthentic or engineered or manipulating, but performative in the sense that how can they Best show up in a call and serve their audience the best. They're way better in role playing. It seems to be a bit of a, of a, of a lost art for so many teams. They just kind of let it slide. Well, it's uncomfortable and it doesn't feel real, so we're just not going to do it. Let me tell you, you will to what Max was saying, your mental health will be better once you start doing some more role plays. You're getting more comfortable, you're more present with the people you're. You're working with. I mean, it's incredible. But you can start doing that today. It's something that a lot of teams need to do a lot more of.

One thing that you kind of inspired me to also say too, and this is something that I'll do for a lot of sales reps. So if, if, if you are a sales rep and you can find someone who knows your product really well or someone who's very experienced in selling your products and you're recording your calls on something like a gong or a forget what the other one chorus or whatever they're called, find someone who's willing to review those calls for you, send them over, get feedback, refine your sound bite, see where you're just straight up lying to people because you don't have the right information. Get, get feedback on, like how you can position things better. I do that all the time for sales reps. And there's always little things that they can pull out of it that'll help them out. And also just make sure it's like, hey, when you're saying this, it's genuine. When you're saying this, it's, you know, incorrect. And you can fix those things every little time. Every call has a million little opportunities in there for you to ensure that, like you're either giving the correct information so you can be confident about using that sound bite in the future, right? Or telling you the stuff that you can stay away from so you don't fall over again, you know, or create other problems for yourself. So, you know, send those calls to people if they're willing to listen to them.

I love this idea because too, I don't know how many sales reps actually take the time to watch their own game tape, to actually watch what they said, how they said it, how the people interacted, how the joke landed or didn't land, how the data made them, you know, eyes widen or mouth kind of drop when they said something like watching your own game tape and, and honing your craft. All of a sudden it's coming to my brain of like, are most sales reps going at this as a conveyor mentality where like as much as I can get through in as little amount of time, or are they honing their craft to become absolutely amazing that every time they step, step up the stage it's like a standing ovation? Right? There's a big difference in mindsets right there. So many good pieces that I, that I've pulled out of those sections. We'll maybe use those for like our closing thoughts because I do want to make sure we have time to talk about how people who are selling like humans, again, whether it's service, sales, marketing and they get in a, a selling situation, how they should be looking at technology around video content. Like how, how should we be embracing this into this selling like a human conversation.

I love the idea of using video, but again, it's easy to do the cookie cutter thing. Like just because you're holding up a dry erase board with my name on it doesn't make it a custom interaction. What makes it a true interaction is, wait for it, an interaction. Like if you, if you find that you can have, you know, a conversation or even if you see that we have some sort of similar. If you say anything about Deadpool in a prospecting email, at the very least I'm gonna hear you out. If, if you, if you have something that relates to me that brings me in, that will make me interact with you, especially in video in a format where I don't have to sit and read, or it's not interruptive, where I actually have to talk to you, that's going to go a long way with me personally. But there's a fine line between interacting and pandering. If you hold up Spider man, you and I will not talk. I'm sorry, that's just not going to happen because I know that you weren't really paying attention. And the other thing is to use technology to increase the quality, quality of your leads, not necessarily the quantity of your leads. Don't try and stretch your bandwidth to the limit after you've adopted a new technology. Instead use that technology to find good fits and not cherry pick, but to find good fits that you can work with or at least areas of opportunity that you can improve the quality of interaction that you have with a person.

I think there's some really interesting stuff with like that happens psychologically too when you use video to maybe do like an initial reach out or in your prospecting or like whatever One I think there's that element of like, oh, wow, they actually like took an extra step. And maybe that might compel someone to be like, all right, you went through all this, like, maybe I'm a little bit more compelled to actually like hear you out, you know, depending on, you know, how creative and how personal you actually got with the video. And was it not just something read off a script? Right. The other thing too, right, you're giving someone like sort of a preview of how pleasant you are to interact with.

With.

Right. That's really hard to put across on like a prospecting email. Right. But like, if you're showing that, like, hey, I'm kind of like a fun, easy going person that's like not that difficult to talk to. I'm not hard pitching you. I'm not that. And that person might be a little bit more comfortable having a conversation with you versus just immediately hitting you with just the you're a salesperson used car salesman archetypes that I just don't want to talk to. I think there's like also just like small, slight, sort of like psychological sort of like advances or advantages that you might get using video to kind of do a prospecting or do your prospecting motion rather than just like another cold email. Right. They know you didn't put any effort into that. They know that all that stuff got filled in through some, you know, template that you were using and, you know, that was kind of it. So, like, I don't really feel like I owe you anything there. Right. Whereas, like, if you thoughtfully go through my website, tell me what you're curious about. Be honest with, like, yeah, I'm a sales guy. I sell stuff. This is what we sell. Right. I'm not trying to hide that, that. Right. But you look like someone who might, you know, benefit from it. I have some questions. Here you go. When you're being upfront and honest about that, I think that goes a long way through video where it's a much tougher to do through email. I mean, it doesn't stand out either. Right. So use video.

It's a very advanced level of communication you're talking about here too, Max. Like, that can't be overstated, that psychological thing that's happening. In fact, I haven't talked about this in a long time. But, but we used to talk about with sales teams all the time. If you've read Pitch anything by Oren Claf, he talks about the, the way that the brain works and something called the crocodile brain. Crocodile brain. Brain being the Part of our brain that, that filters out a huge part of messaging and everything we see around us, right? But it looks for things that are new, novel, high contrast, easy to understand. If you get past the crocodile brain, you get to the midbrain which translates social situations, right? Hierarchy. Is this a threat? Is this a 3 year old? Is this a cop? Then the other part of the brain is the neocortex. That's where the facts and the decision making is being made. So what we think when we send a video, we think they're watching that thing. We're getting just a bunch of facts and information and we're building credibility and whatever that stuff is not happening. So long as that video doesn't pique some sort of curiosity. It's not something novel. It's not high contrast and easy to understand. It's not something that I immediately need to deal with. With. And then the social cues like Devin, like you said, just you writing my name on a dry erase board and maybe saying some things about me doesn't show me that you're worth my time. Okay. In fact, this can come across very needy. You do it the wrong way, it comes across as needy. And it's like, I don't want to spend time with this person. They need me. I want to spend time with people who I need, right. And can help me. And then we can get to that neocortex and feedbacks and things like that. But Max, what you're saying really resonated with me. We often don't think about those, those, those very important psychological things that are happening with every communication. And our ability to translate all that information and communicate that is best done through video, right? It's like there's no argument now at this point.

I love this. Time flies. When we're having fun listeners, we are going to have the books pitch anything that Zach mentioned. Also the jolt effect even have listed in here to sell as human on unreceptive. Anyway, Ian Altman, same side selling. There's going to be a lot of links to books in this episode. Okay? So make sure you head over to the show notes for sure to get those and dig in a little bit deeper. Gentlemen, I want to get your kind of final thoughts. And then we do have a special, special thing that we're gonna end the episode with today because usually Liz has some. Yes, Liz, we're talking to you. If you're listening to this right now, Liz usually has some type of special poem or haiku that usually like does something to one of us on the show. So she's not here. So we got something special that we're going to do. But first, before we get there, closing thoughts. I'll go ahead and start and then we can just do a round robin on this. If I think about this episode, there's a couple things I want to pull that I love. Max, I love that you said don't hide the fact that you're a sales rep. Like, don't hide who you are. Just be you and be kind of the best you you can be at it. I love Devin that you mentioned your network. Ladies and gentlemen, referrals is a real thing, man. If you want to get out of the lack mentality and get to the abundance mentality, working on your network and referrals is going to be something that'll help you get there. Zach, I love that you mentioned role playing in a sales way before Devin says anything again, because practice in my mind makes perfect and then I have to end with Max, you saying and because I think if you think about what I just said with all of those items, you start to make your occupation enjoyable. And when you enjoy what you do, when you can go to play instead of going to work, you just show up in a different way. Gentlemen, what are your final thoughts on this episode?

Build your network authentically. Not with the goal of trying to sell something. Be genuine in your interactions when you're building your network and understand the peoples and the challenges with the out the. Without the mindset of I'm here to sell you something or solve your problem and if I can't, then you know, the interaction isn't worth nothing. No, you want to build your network authentically and genuinely care about the people you're talking to and take your sales hat off and just be human for a second and just talk.

Yeah, make last little bit that I'll say. And I kind of wanted to say it earlier and I didn't find a good way to kind of sneak it in. There is making someone perceive that you are on their side of the table and then there is actually being on their side of the table. It is. It is a much more pleasant experience to sell to someone when you are actually on their side of the table versus you just trying to convince them that you are and playing this, you know, mental deception game. So yeah, just. Just keep that in mind.

It's a lot harder to sell today than it's ever been. It's harder to earn trust. And even once you have the trust, it's still hard to close sales. But Think about the fundamentals, all right? If you're dealing with defensiveness, if you're dealing with indecision, these are things that can be dealt with. You just need to take up your mantle as a salesperson. Say, I'm going to have to deal with these things. It's not on my prospect, it's not on my boss, it's not on our, not on our website to do. It's on me to deal with those things. And I can be a great leader and I can control many things. It's not just externally happening to me. I'm sometimes what is causing these things. So great self awareness, great situational awareness will make you into a more human, like salesperson person.

Not only is this, I think some good selling like a human advice, there might be some just good life advice along the way in this episode. Now, Devin, do you have your radio announcer voice or your Barry White or baritone or bass voice ready, my man?

Oh, absolutely. So, as George mentioned, normally Liz closes us out with a poem. And I. I didn't want to be inconsistent, So I asked ChatGPT to write a poem in the style of Edgar Allan Poe about Liz Abandonees. And here it goes. Once upon a midnight dreary as we worked on our show, so cheery Liz, our co host, did suddenly flee Leaving us alone without any plea. Oh, how we did mourn and weep for her departure oh, so deep her absence left us in despair with empty seats and vacant air the raven perched upon the door Mocking us with nevermore Reminding us of Liz's goodbye and how she left us here to die. Our show now seems so bleak and gray With Liz's absence on display the void she left will never be filled and we are left here unfulfilled. Oh, Liz, why did you leave us so? Was it something we did not know? We beg and plead please come back to stay and nevermore shall you stray away. But alas, our cries go unheard as Liz, like a specter has blurred Leaving us to our sorrow and woe forevermore to suffer and go.

Wow.

Well done. Well done, Chat.

GPT does it again.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, it's that time. Get back to work because these guys, well, we got meetings and stuff to do and we gotta go sell like humans. So we're out of here. Okay, Hub Heroes, we've reached the end of another episode. Will Lord Lack continue to loom over the community, or will we be able to defeat him in the the next episode of the Hub Heroes podcast, Make sure you tune in and find out in the next episode. Make sure you head over to thehubheroes.com to get the latest episodes and become part of the League of Heroes. FYI, if you're part of the League of Heroes, you'll get the show notes right in your inbox and they come with some hidden power up potential as well. Make sure you share this podcast with a friend, leave a review if you like what you're listening to, and use the hashtag hubberospodcast on any of the socials and let us know what strategy conversation you'd like to listen into next. Until next time, when we meet and combine our forces, remember to be a happy, helpful, humble human. And of course, always be looking for a way to be someone's her.