How Top SDRs Use Tonality to Book More Meetings | James Buckley

Remember? I don't know. I mean, I remember last time you told me it was 50, and then I thought, you know, by now it must be 70.

So, so here's the thing is that I, I stopped getting on the scale about 2 months ago, and the mirror is what I'm using as my gauge right now. So I never wanted to be a small fella, you know, like, I like being a big dude, you know. So for me, you know, I wanted to be healthier. I just wanted to be big in a different way. And that's, that's exactly how it went down. So I'm starting to slow down on the weight loss, and it's actually going in the other direction. But I'm starting to see more definition. You know, the, the muscles themselves are starting to grow. So they're, they're starting to poke out, if you will, right? Abs are made in the gym, but they are revealed in the kitchen is how it's been explained to me. So that's sort of the diet and exercise balance that I've dialed in here.

Yeah, very hard to understand. The concept, but once you do, you're like, yeah, I'm gonna skip, I'm gonna skip the gym and it'd be okay.

It's just math. Yeah, absolutely.

We'll give it a couple of minutes while everybody's joining in. So I, so far I can see about 10 people here.

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, this is gonna be a lot of fun. I prepared a lot for this because I think that I've met enough people that have taught me things about tonality. Oh my God, dude, you make me cry. You crack me up.

Yeah, that's gonna be— that's, that's your current version, right? Or that's— you think that's like—

Yeah, if you don't send that to me, if you don't send that to me so that I can tag you and give you credit for that, we're not friends anymore, dude. By the way, I have never— since this, since you gave me this, I've never taken it off, man.

That's amazing. I mean, I, I told you a story, right? I, I always Debated whether I should get that, but I think I need to track my steps more, and I don't think so. It does track steps.

Legal. It does indeed track steps right now.

Oh, it does?

It does track steps right now. I am currently 8.8 miles in this morning.

Wow, man, you're making us jealous.

Oh, 17,000 steps already. I go for 20. That's my number every day. It's 10 miles.

That's awesome.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll take that 70 pounds down though. Thank you very much.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I know, I mean, we don't, we don't have that much to lose, but at the same time, I think you would always have a big achievement. You know, you can always brag about, I lost 70 pounds. We can't, we can never say that.

That's true, man. This is the, this is the, the one that I took this morning. Right here. So you can really kind of see how the difference is.

Are you sharing something? Sorry.

Oh, yeah. I thought I was. There it is.

No, no, wait a minute. Let me stop sharing.

There we go. You see it now?

Oh yeah. Oh my God.

Yeah, it's a huge difference, man. But honestly, like, the thing that matters most to me is like my knees and my ankles really thank me. You know, I remember I went to a doctor's appointment once and the doctor was— I was like, oh, my feet, they hurt sometimes when I walk or when I stretch my foot out. And he was like, oh, it's a lot of weight on those feet. And I was like, oh, Thanks. Yeah. All right. So you guys could probably already tell my tones move around quite a bit. I'm very high energy. But I'll, I'll give it to you, man. How do you want to kick things off? You let me know. I'm ready to go whenever you are.

Yeah. Thank you everybody for joining in. I see people are just piling up right now. I see about 18 people. So it's gonna go up to 30 for sure. Now, thank you everybody for joining in. Thank you, James, for doing this session. This is something which I've been thinking of doing it on my own, but I think I couldn't find anybody better than you. And then I saw, you know, Sell Better and like, why not? For everybody who did not know James, James and I know each other for 8 years. James was my first mentor I reached out to. He's still one of the only people I know who will not say no even if I reach out to him at 1 AM. He's the fastest person who will respond to me on LinkedIn. And see, I already wrote 70 pounds. So yeah, that's gonna be true in probably a month. All right. And I think last thing which I wanna, you know, talk about is every time I meet James, I think I wanna become a better person. I don't know what he does, how he does that. There is something about him. So I— and that's something which he does not reveal as a secret. But yeah, well, hopefully someday I will know that. Now, for everyone, you know, the reason we are talking about Tonality, I believe, you know, when I listen to so many calls, hundreds of hundreds of calls, I believe everybody's sounding the same because I personally feel they're so focused on the script. And tonality is one thing which I believe because it does not get a lot of traction, nobody talks about it. Not many people even know, you know, how to even operate on the tonality. And that's one thing you cannot really copy paste from ChatGPT. That's what exactly I feel. So James, over to you. This is a quick agenda, but if you have anything else you want to add, the floor is completely yours now.

Oh, thank you. So first of all, thank you for such a warm welcome. I appreciate that. I'm gonna talk about a lot of different types of tonality through this session. You're probably gonna hear yourself in a lot of the examples that I give that I will label as less than awesome. It's okay. Know that it takes a long time to get good at these types of Skills. It is a skill, believe it or not, to know when to adjust your tones. And you might have noticed that just since I've started speaking, my tone has become a little more controlled. I've lowered my voice a little. It's a little calmer. I'm speaking a little slower. And sometimes I'll kick the gas in because I have a lot to get through in a very short amount of time. So recognize the skill set as I move through this. When you put a question in the chat or in the Q&A or wherever you might throw a question, And I slow things down so that I can answer that question. Rahul, if you don't mind, would you pull that screen up one more time so that I can take a look at your agenda and make sure that we start with that first one? Opener inflection. So this is a throwback to, and we could talk about all of these. I want to make sure that we cover every single one of them. But the opener is a throwback to Chet Holmes, The Ultimate Sales Machine, late '90s, early 2000s. There's a YouTube video. of him describing this. And by the way, feel free if you would like to turn your cameras on. I am no stranger to video. So nobody is telling you you have to stay invisible this entire time. I like body language just as important as tones, right? Yes. Thank you. Hello, humans. Nice to see everyone. Okay. So here's the tip from Chet Holmes. Chet Holmes, world-renowned sales trainer. Rest in peace. He died many years ago. His children inherited his sales training organization. And he talks about this upward and downward inflection. Anybody want to volunteer and give me their opener? Any brave soul in the room that wants to unmute themselves and say their opener for me? Time, a little time.

Come on, people.

If there's no brave soul, it's okay. All right. So here's the way that most people deliver an opener. We might be asking— oh, go ahead, Prashant. Thank you, you brave soul. Go for it, buddy. What's your opener? If you were calling me, I would answer and I would say hello, and you would say what?

Hey, hi James, this is Prashant, uh, Prashant from Keka. I wonder if you could just help me out for a moment.

Okay, that's very monotone. I like that actually. It's better than I typically hear, and the reason is because you don't have What most sellers have, which is the upward inflection. So that might sound something like this. Hi, can I speak with James, please? Put a 1 in the chat if you're in this room and you have a habit of using an upward inflection. I did this for years and I never understood why it was like 1 out of every 20, 30 calls that I would get somebody that actually wanted to Talk to me. So I learned from Chet that the downward inflection is the one that gives us a sense of authority or even a sense of control of the conversation. So instead of saying, can I speak with James, please? You would say, James, please. Do you feel the difference in those 2 things? Even though they're exactly the same words, you feel differently when I say them to you. James, please. I'm on my heels. I'm kind of annoying, maybe. And you're like, I'll put you through to his voicemail. But if you go, James, please, that is business. One moment, I'll put you through. Like, there's a little bit of a different tonality in that downward inflection. Now, there is a place for that upward inflection. Anyone want to guess where it belongs? Where would you use an upward inflection and it actually impacts the buyer, the listener in a more profound way, in a more positive way? In a discovery question, of course.

I was about to say that. I should have said that.

Dude, trust your guts, you guys.

No, I was actually giving everybody a chance. I'm like, okay, somebody's gonna say it, then you say it.

Yeah, this is very interactive. That's what I like about these types of things. They're a lot of fun. And they're meant to be interactive, right? When you ask a question, and this is the flow you want to get into, make a statement, ask a question, make a statement, ask a question. So let's do the opener. James, please. This is James. James, the reason I called you is because folks like you typically struggle with X. They use my Y to get Z. How are you handling that right now? That upward inflection when I ask the question. That's a social cue for him to answer. The tonality of it is like an instinct that we're born with to answer the question that's just been asked. So you have to use those tones interchangeably very well as you move through your calls and recognize the downward inflection comes when they answer. The upward inflection comes when I ask a question. If you get good at this, It's really hard for them to hang up on you once they agree to talk to you for even a moment. Everyone understand the upward and downward inflection and the opener and where it's used? If not, say something so we can go deeper. I'll give everyone a moment.

James, I wrote.

Yes, hello, Monica. Thank you.

Hi, James.

You don't understand fully?

Yeah, I'm very new to this, so I don't get it.

Okay, that's all right. So here is what I'm saying, Monica. If you were gonna call me, how would you open the call? Let's say you call me and I answer. What's the first thing you're gonna say?

Hi, James, this is Monica calling from DavinBox.

And then you pause.

Yes. Then I'll use my permission-based opener. Do you— I know you might be busy, but do you— can I get 30 seconds? I'll be quick.

Okay. This is a very scripted opener, and I'm sure somebody handed this to you and you worked on it really hard, right? Let me ask you a question, Monica. When you talk to your friends, do you talk like that?

No.

Casual conversation is going to get you casual answers to discovery questions that help you close a deal. So here's my suggestion, Monica. Say this to me this time. Can I speak with James, please? And say it with authority. Can I speak with James, please? Downward inflection, really hard. Go ahead. Hit me with it.

Can I speak with James, please?

No, no. See, you had an upward inflection in your voice. This is very hard to dial in. Start higher and come low with it. Can I speak with James, please? Say it like that. Go.

Can I speak with James, please?

Oh, so much better. You see that? If you go high first and come low at the end of that, it's much more authoritative in your tonality. So a gatekeeper, I assume you hit a lot of gatekeepers, Monica.

Uh, I haven't come across yet. I'm still not ready.

But, but when you dial, do you dial and immediately get to the person you're trying to dial, or do you often get somebody that answers the phone and puts you through to their voicemail?

I don't get your question, James.

James, she's, she's very new to, uh, the game right now. She hasn't had a chance to dial.

That's okay. Okay. Occasionally, um, what happens is you're dialing a phone number and you think you're dialing a phone number to get to Rahul, but really the person that guards Rahul's time, that's the person that you get. When you use this downward inflection, these people are often a little more mentally stimulated to put you through to that person of importance because Your tone suggests a position of authority. Here's my suggestion, Monica. You're going to get a lot of suggestions for openers as you move through this career. Say them in the mirror. Stand up, look in the mirror, and deliver them over and over and over. And look at your body language. Listen to the tones of your voice. Does it feel like you, Monica? Does it sound the way you sound when you talk to your parents, your sisters? Your brothers, your family. If it doesn't, don't say it like that.

Yeah, it's a different bait. I like that.

Um, you know, it took me a long time to get my tonality to match my prospect, and that's about mirroring, and we'll talk about that here in just a moment. Before, after we do like some, some question stuff. There's probably some cultural things about asking questions that make sense too that I've learned recently that have gotten me into trouble. So I'm happy to share those I messed up experiences. Trust me, I'm not the answer person. I'm more like, hey, this is my problem and here's how I solved it person.

Okay.

Any questions more about the opener, about the downward inflection, the upward inflection before we move forward? And Monica, you are brand new. We are new friends. Don't worry. I have so much value for you. So If it's a lot coming at you, just take a deep breath. This is going to be like drinking from a fire hose for the next 6 months of your life.

All right. I have 2 questions. I have one statement and one question. One statement, I think based on how you are teaching, I believe that you could do a very good impression of Trump. You should try it. Okay. You're almost there. Okay. My next question is, would these openers and, you know, would these tonality kind of change based on your persona? For example, If I'm speaking to a CEO, I mean, in my head, and especially all the 20, 25-year-olds we have, you know, they might have this impression, oh my God, you know, I'm gonna speak to somebody who has like probably 20 years of experience. What kind of tonality should I carry? I already have so many emotions going on in my head. So if I'm speaking to a director of sales who might be more open to letting me make mistakes versus somebody like a CEO who would probably hang up the second, you know, they hear a mistake. So this is— What would be good?

Such a good question. And, uh, I think it would be very inappropriate to do a Trump impression. Um, I would tell you that the, the best thing that you could do probably would be to know your prospect regardless of their title. So here's a good way to figure out what tone you should use if you're about to dial someone's phone number. And this only takes me about 5 minutes, maybe less. Go to their LinkedIn profile. Look at their profile picture. What does it look like? Do they look like this? If they do, I hope that you're gonna approach them with a very serious, very businesslike tone. Or do they look like me? It doesn't matter what you say to me. I'm gonna have a good time with you because that's my personality. Next stop, scroll down and look at their About page on their LinkedIn. Usually what you're looking for here is what is their love language. Do they talk in, in terms of like data or numbers or percentages? Your tones and your words need to line up with that mentality because that's how they think. And then finally, the last stop, and this is the one that sometimes is a little questionable You want to look at their job description. Did they, did they type that out and it lists in bullets all the things that they care about? That's going to give you a good idea of the tonality that you need to approach them with, because once you see that, you kind of can get the vibe in the room. If he's that person that cares about these 5 things, you know, that's a serious tone you can take and it's relevant to them. But here's the catch. Make sure that you swap on over to the company's LinkedIn page and compare the job description with the company's job description, the company's about page. Many decision makers, specifically decision makers, will get a job as a VP of sales or a, you know, senior consultant, whatever, for a company, and then they just copy and paste that company's LinkedIn about page over to their job description. So you want to be Be conscious that people do that because that's not very useful for you for tonality. But if they've gone through the trouble of like actually bulleting out the things they care about, tonality is probably the least of your need. You already have so much to work with. It's more about relevance than tones at that point, right? So that's my quick like 3 to 5 minute view to try to like figure out Who am I about to talk with and what tone is going to be acceptable? The profile picture, believe it or not, is usually your best indicator. It's way cooler for me than—

Everybody's using ChatGPT now. How would you even judge?

ChatGPT and tonality are like fire and ice right now because it can give you a lot of information about tones and what they do psychologically. And I'll go through some of that stuff today because I have a ChatGPT ready to go on tonality, because let's use AI every day because that's what it's here for. But when you think about how you're going to learn how to say something, ChatGPT becomes kind of useless. And that's why I said to Monica earlier, like, use a mirror. Most of the time when you're on a Zoom call There's a tendency to forget that your face is being seen when you are zoned out and just sort of there on screen. It's very frustrating for anyone on the other side. The tonality carries over. So the same thing happens when you try to learn how to use your tones from ChatGPT. I would say you have a better opportunity going to YouTube and finding a tonality coach. There are tonality coaches out there. Kevin Hopp is a great person that does cold call shows and stuff all the time, and he talks about tonality. Ronen Pissar— both those guys have been guests on my show Sell Better, and those guys talk about tonality better than a lot of folks that I know. And you can learn a lot from people that create content around tone. Go follow the hashtag tonality. and watch all the tone stuff that starts showing up in your feed. You will learn incredible things. ChatGPT is a great resource for the text, but if you want to get good at delivery, well, that's on you. Great question. I want to talk a little bit.

Go ahead.

What's that?

No, I was just saying thank you. I think I have one more question, but please continue.

No, ask the other question. We have plenty of time here and I like your talking points.

No, I think so. I was kind of agreeing with you when you said, you know, the profile will tell you a lot. So not everybody, first of all, has worked on their About section, but the people who have, that will give you a lot. For example, if you go to my profile, you would see I always use a story format, and that goes really well with my personality type as well. So I think in terms of stories, I talk in terms of stories, I talk in terms of, you know, language which is expressive. So I think if anybody goes to my profile, they will get to know that this is— I like big ideas. Right? And so you have to talk big ideas with me. Similarly for other people, as long as they've worked on their profile, of course.

There is a product out there called Crystal Knows.

I don't know if you're familiar.

Yeah, of course. Crystal Knows. I don't know if everybody else in the room knows about this.

They are. They all have taken a personality test using Crystal Knows.

Crystal Knows. Crystal Knows is definitely one of those that'll give you some great insights. Let's talk a little bit about discovery questions because I feel like there are 2 types and it helps SDRs that are cold calling to know when to use which. There are surface-level discovery questions, and I call these qualifier questions. And then there's deeper discovery questions that aid in deal momentum. Typically, when SDRs are cold calling, they're asking— if they get a chance to ask anything at all, they're asking qualifier questions. And then once the qualification questions are done, They move them forward to the next stage, which is typically a demo, and that's performed by an account executive who then takes over the deal and becomes the closer of that deal. That is the standard process. But here's where SDRs tend to struggle. Culturally, there are some tone differences that often get missed when you're asking questions. I have a tendency to make a statement and ask a question, and I've gotten so efficient at this process that sometimes my prospect will miss my question because it's too fast after my statement. I have a great example that I do all the time, and it's like the easiest thing to miss that I even asked a question. So I say things to people like, normally when people get leads, they have to wait for a while before they see the list because it's being curated. I'd imagine you've had that problem. Now, that's a question, but they don't know it, notice it. They don't recognize it as a question for several reasons. One, I was talking too long in my statement and my question ran right afterwards. There was no pause. Number 2, you guys might have noticed my downward inflection habit kicked in, and he didn't— they didn't feel that upward inflection when you ask a question. So they didn't pick up on the fact. So it's very important that when you're using that pattern of make a statement, ask a question, you recognize there's a pause and a difference in tone when you deliver the question. Everybody clear on that particular complication that we get into trouble with? And this happens commonly with folks dialing into other countries. Are you all international sellers here? I know I am.

90%, 95% of them are perfect.

Yeah, I dial a lot of countries and I forget sometimes because I'm getting into my flow that I speak very quickly. And if I don't separate my words— anybody ever learn a foreign language? English is the hardest language on earth to learn. The hardest. And it's because we have so many tonalities, connotations, conjunctions. So many other languages have contributed to the birth of new words in our language. So soon, so fast. I'm a big philology fan, right? The, the origins of words, all of these things are very interesting to me. And when we don't deliver them with the right tones, they can have the wrong meanings. We could rub people the wrong way. They could miss something that's important. People tend to zone out in discovery calls if they're taking a call. Anybody had somebody like tone in and tone out on a call? You've— you're talking to them and they're engaging with you, but you can tell they're very distracted.

Yeah.

How effective do you think you're being on that call? I mean, the chances of them even remembering that they scheduled that meeting 3 days from now with you are pretty slim. Those are the ones that no-show, right?

I think I'm able to recognize that. I'm so sorry. Please tell me.

No, no, no.

No, I'm saying that, you know, I think I've caught myself. I mean, it just happened today. There was a call and I was not interested and I could catch myself that my tone is not the usual one which I usually have and I'm excited to speak with people. And while I understand not everybody would be able to catch it, but it's easier to spot these mistakes in others than you can do for yourself.

It is. It is. Everybody, it's easy to like point outward and be like, I can change this and I can change that. It's much harder to point inward and be like, what can I change?

Right.

And once we realize that we have this ability to affect the way that people respond to us with our tones, we can use that to our advantage in exponentially valuable ways. We haven't even talked about voice notes on LinkedIn, but I can tell you that it has one of the highest response rates for me and the highest meeting booking rates for me, because when I come in to your LinkedIn DMs, the energy is infectious. I'm upbeat. I'm very energetic. I'm usually walking. There's birds tweeting behind me on my farm out here. Like, it's an experience for people and they like that, right? Those tones are what lands me great opportunities. And y'all can use the tones in the same way. It's all about the vibe you put out. We'll talk more about that in a moment.

I agree 5,000%. I think my highest success rate comes from videos after, you know, of course we had to catch up. And, and of course, from VoiceNote. VoiceNote has been working for me since 2019. You know, it's a 6-year—

I don't think enough people leverage it. And I'll tell you, I don't talk about this publicly on purpose. It's, it's real. So there, there is a hack that I give to people that makes sense. So here's a real statistic. Blank connection requests have a 41% higher acceptance rate than customized connection requests on LinkedIn. You have to be a first-degree connection in order to send a voice note using the mobile app. So send blank connection requests to your prospects. They'll accept them 41% more than they will that copy and paste message that you're sending for the last 6 months. Once they do, You have the green light to then send them a real voice message that you made right there on the spot for them contextually. This has the highest reply rate and the highest success rate of almost any channel right now. And it's because it's a play on their curiosity and your tone, your playful tone, your high-energy tone, your value-driven tones. The whatever tone you choose to use, that's what makes it effective. Yes, it's a channel that's underleveraged, so it's unique. It's a standout. It's a pattern interrupt. All those things are true. But what we say, that's what lands us the response. And let's be real, that's, that's what we're all after. We're after a pulse on the other side of the call, a pulse on the other side of the LinkedIn profile. Show me you're alive out there. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Okay. One more thing on question delivery. If you're going to ask a question, that curiosity is portrayed by the upward inflection. We talked about that when we talked about the opener. That's where it belongs. Make sure that you absolutely become an expert at delivering that upward inflection every time you ask a question. Does everyone understand? Great. All right. So I want to talk a little bit about mirroring. How much time do we have left? Yes.

15 minutes.

Awesome. There are 2 types of mirroring I'm going to teach you here. The first one is know the location of where you're calling so that you can adjust your approach. When I call California, I speak a little bit slower. But when I call New York, I talk real fast. Hey, what's up? I'm looking for Larry. Is he in right now? I know the region and how they speak to one another, and I adjust my approach accordingly so that I feel more like one of them. That's just something that we should do naturally as salespeople. There's a second kind of mirroring, and it's objection-handling mirroring. Somebody might say to you, oh, you know what? I'm not the right person to talk to about that. Oh, you're not the right person? Very stoic, and we'll get to stoicism in a moment. Oh, you're not the right person, and then shut up. That mirroring strategy is from Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference. This man was an FBI terrorist negotiator. You're not going to have a better teacher. That book, incredible. Go pick it up. It'll change your life. Oh, you're not the right person, and then they have to say No, you want to talk to this person, and now you got your name. But you could have been like, oh well, thanks for your time, and hung up. But if you mirror that back with that monotone voice, they're going to fill that gap in for you. Big win. Okay, notice the monotone there. That's the stoicism approach. So stoicism is this idea that when we remove the emotional component from our delivery, it has the desired effect or the natural effect, one or the other. And it's because we're not influencing the response we're getting. I'm very high energy, so it's hard for people to say no to me when I get them excited about working with me, right? But that's not a stoic approach. A stoic approach is more like someone like Jed Marley who gets on a call and says, so this is the way our program works. We have 6 shows over 90 days. We guarantee 3,600 leads plus. It's usually closer to 5,000. It's $24,000. And how does that sit with you?

I hear him every week, so I can vouch for it. That's how it sounds.

It's a very stoic approach. But you know what? When he removes that emotion, the data and the numbers and the ROI calculator buyers They love that because it's so factually driven in conversation that they don't feel pressure to buy. So notice the difference that we've— I've given you like 3 different tonalities that you can work with. The authoritative downward inflection, which you can use all the time throughout your conversations. The upward inflection when you're curious. You need that upward inflection when you ask a question. And then this stoic approach of being able to deliver your value proposition with almost no emotion shown. All of these tones have a place in your sales cycle. Knowing when and where to use them, that is per industry, per buyer persona, and maybe even a little bit per your comfort level. So it works different for everybody. Okay, we've covered a lot. I have a little bit of time left and I know we love live Q&A. Rahul, I will shut up and I will let all of your people ask me a million questions.

Yep, I'm gonna shut up too and let everybody ask it. If nobody asks, then I will catch up.

Okay.

Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pick people. I think it's easier because I know everybody. So, I want you to ask a question.

I mean, I'm a little— it's a fan moment for me right now in front of JB. So I have one question. So when you say you drop notes on LinkedIn, voice notes, how long are those typically? And how How do you use the tonality there? How do you do the opener? Let's say we are talking to a cold reach out. It's not warm at all. So you don't know the other person. So if you could just give me a voice. Absolutely.

I have loads of examples, but it's pretty much the same every time. So here's my voice note after they accept my connection request, my blank connection request. What's up, Courtney? Thanks so much for accepting me into your network. Hey, I'm curious. I didn't put anything in my connection request. So what was it about me that made you comfortable accepting me into your network? We'll talk soon. Have a great day.

Wow.

Yeah, that was smooth.

Well, I've done it about a million times, right?

Yeah.

Once you get it and you start to use it, and you'll notice that it's that none of that is about like my product, my service, the reason I'm reaching out. That's 100% like I'm human. And you should talk to me because I'm not a robot.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I mean, anybody would reply to those, those kind of messages.

It has a, it has a very high reply rate, and usually it forces them— what you'll notice is that if you go to people that viewed my profile, it forces them to go view your profile and learn something about you.

James, that means you, you never, uh, uh, add product at all in your pitch, like for the initial message, or let's say the second message that you're reaching out to the prospect. You obviously have an agenda, you have an intention that you're reaching out to, say if I'm reaching out to James. So somewhere you have to bring in that product. So how smoothly do you—

That doesn't happen in the message that earns you the meeting. It happens at the meeting. Our problem as SDRs is that we believe we have to deliver a value proposition and earn interest in order to get a meeting. No, we have to get the interest in a meeting so that we can deliver the value proposition properly. And that's, that's as simple as we can make it. Keep in mind, our job is to talk to strangers. Unfortunately, that's our buyer's job too. It sucks for them because they're not interested in talking to strangers. We are very interested in talking to strangers.

Yeah.

Because that's where new opportunities come from. So my approach is always the same. What's up? Thanks for connecting. Hey, I didn't put anything in my connection request, so why accept me, right? I know that's always a huge risk. We'll talk soon. I say, we'll talk soon. I say, I'll follow up. I say, talk to you tomorrow. I say, chat later, right? I say everything except bye. Because every time I touch this human, I need them to know I'm coming back. Until we talk, you literally have to say, don't ever talk to me, before I will stop reaching out to you. No and never talk to me again do not mean the same thing.

I remember you taught me this for the emails too.

It's true.

And we started using it and so Amazing results.

Yeah, I think I once I sent like I think it was like I have a friend that sent like 37 emails on 37 Wednesdays to this prospect, and the prospect responded was like, "Are you ever gonna go away?" And he was like, "Not now." You just responded. You're there. You're alive, man.

Great.

So they ended up having a really great candid conversation about dodging salespeople and whatnot, but he ended up buying from him. 37 emails, 37 Wednesdays. This is the mentality we all have to develop. It's not about this one call, this one tonality, this one conversation, this one email, this one touch. It's about a contact strategy overall. One of my sessions is titled Hard to Ignore because, man, I am hard to ignore.

Who would want to ignore you?

Nobody can. I mean, it's some fan moment. I'm telling you all. I've been following James for a while, for a few years.

Thank you for your question.

And also, I just wanted to take a moment and tell you thanks for giving me one year free subscription to JB Sales. Of course, you won't remember. This was back in 2021 that you gave me a Christmas present.

I do, I do remember that. I was giving that stuff away like crazy. It was, you know, that was a good moment for everybody. We were like, just, you know, does anybody want this? It was resource-oriented. That was a good moment for me. So I'm glad that you were one of the ones that got a hold of that. That's great.

Thank you.

Awesome. One final question. One more question.

I wanted to ask James that what, what are your thoughts on probably asking the opener questions in terms of the confused tonality and the, for example, the questions when we ask about the pain points, the tonality would be more of concerned one.

Okay, so confusing tonalities and concerned tonalities. Are kind of tricky, and I never promote tricky behavior in salespeople. What I will say is that if you are actually confused, you won't have to work on that tone. It'll come across very naturally. The other thing is that placing people in a position to have to re-explain something makes them want to back away from the call. Right? If you're not on their level, they already feel like they're wasting their time. So I'm confused. Comes later in the funnel, not early in the funnel. I'm confused should be something an account executive says when they back out of the agreement that they had verbally. Wait, I'm confused. You said you needed to launch by this date. Is that different now? That's the confused tonality, right? As far as concern goes, this is the one SDRs get to use. Because if I say something like, how many leads would you say you guys are pulling in organically every month? And they go, uh, realistically, probably like 10 to 15. I can go, wow, shouldn't that be like in the hundreds? That's very concerning. And I call it out. And that tone is the one I need them to agree with. The game, the game is not to have them appear You know, oh, thank you for being concerned. They're not going to do that. What you need is agreement from them. 15 leads a month. That's very concerning, don't you think? And you need them to be like, yeah, I sure would like that to be in the 300 or 400 range. Well, aren't you glad that we're talking? Right. So SDRs get to use concerned, but only when it lines up and they say something that's like outrageous. You can't fake it. You can't force concern. But if it's— if a number that you ask for is like way lower than you expect, then you can be like, man, isn't that— isn't that scary for you guys? Like, that's your concern moment. And you need that. The whole point of you being concerned is to get agreement. Because once they agree, man, that's your green light. Okay. Let me tell you why I think we should have a deeper conversation about X. And now you get to become the subject matter expert out of your concern. Yeah. Great question.

Thank you, Teams. Awesome. I think we are right on time. We have 3 minutes left. I don't know if there's—

Okay, wait.

I have things. I have one more thing I want to give to everybody before they leave. I brought this one link for everybody that's in the room. This is all the upcoming Sell Better shows. You don't have to come to the live ones. We do send out all the recordings. You can preregister for all of them right here. We have a lot of great shows coming up for SDRs. So please, by all means, jump right into that. And if you need help finding all the other free resources on my website, by all means, reach out to me. I'm happy to send you a video of how to get to that stuff.

Awesome. Yeah, I'm gonna show this. I mean, I, I'm already signed up for all the shows. I just kind of—

Well, I don't doubt that for a minute, buddy. You were like a big fan.

I am, I am, I am already signed up for the agent. I have my bet with Maruti that I'm gonna win the $2,500. And I, I've not missed a single session. So I'm creating something killer. You just wait, wait and watch.

Well, listen, I want everyone in the room to know that you are my audience. You're the person that I impact the most. It's an honor to be a resource for SDRs that actually do the job in the trenches every single day. My job will never be a leadership role. It will always be to be a resource for people like you. So by all means, hit me in the DMs, reach out if you need anything, shoot me an email, text me. I am ridiculously responsive, as Rahul mentioned earlier. So no fear in like, am I bothering James? I have a resource for you guaranteed for whatever you're struggling with.

Thank you so much, James. Could not have asked for a better host.

You got it, brother. We'll do it again sometime soon on another topic, I hope.

Yeah, absolutely we will.

Okay, man, have a great day.

Have a good one. Bye. Thanks, everyone.

Bye, James.

Thanks, thanks. Bye-bye.