[Leadership] Founder-led sales, delegating, and prioritizing sales activities with David Nathan

As a founder in a business, and obviously this doesn't apply if you're doing sales for a company. But I think the mindset's important, right? The more that I can remove myself from fulfillment and day to day operations, the more that I can focus on sales and revenue generating activity. And I do think a salesperson struggles with this idea of time management. Any salesperson, they can get lost in emails, they can get lost in all sorts of things that are not actually generating sales. And as a founder you have to think that way too. Like one of my, I think one of my strongest advantages was and is that I don't consider myself a good designer, right. So I never felt like I needed to be the one designing things. So I, as quickly as I could removed myself from the fulfillment of the projects we were working on so that I could focus more on sales. And it made it easier to hire people as well because I didn't, I thought most people were better than I was when it came to design and development. So it was really easy to hire people. But if you think you're really good, it's going to be hard to hire someone to replace yourself and then you're not going to have time to do sales and then you're not going to grow.

Before we get into today's show, I wanted to tell you a little bit about what we have going on over here at Succession. So Succession is a life science sales membership that includes on demand courses to uplevel your sales skills, resources to plan and execute your sales process, a community for peer to peer networking and learning, and live workshops delivered by experts twice a month. You can get access to all of this as an individual for just $79 a month or you up level your entire sales team with courses and customized learning designed for each individual rep. Come and join us over at Succession Bio. Okay, let's dive back into the show. Welcome to another episode of the Sales DNA podcast. On today's show we have David Nathan. He is the CEO of Scalar Marketing and, and he's also on the board of samps, which is a community of sales and marketing professionals of the sciences. So you know, check them out. You know, it's a great group to be a part of. So Nick, what were some of the key takeaways you had from today's episode?

Yeah, this was really fun and I really enjoyed his take on founder led sales and how that's different but how, how you can take a mindset from that and apply to all cells and all selling for reps and the other piece I really liked and sort of I called out a little bit was that he gives a couple of examples is where it's okay to lose customers, to learn from it and sometimes you might have to as you grow. And both of those takeaways for me were particularly impactful.

Yeah, I really liked also his stories at the beginning where we had, we dove into the pricing psychology. I thought that was really cool. But yeah, lots of great stuff in this episod episode. And so what do I always say?

Let's dive right in.

Hey David, welcome to the podcast. Excited to have you here.

Hey, Harrison. Hey Nick. Thanks guys. Pleasure. Absolutely.

Good one. But I know you kind of had a story that you're trying to pull together last minute here, but we ask everybody the same one, give us a crazy or funny story that's happening in your career.

Sure. So I think so I've been thinking about this and that sometimes I wish I was, I was more funny. So I'm not gonna give you like a drop dead on the floor laughing funny story, but it is something that I think is, is real, is related to sales in general. And it was one of the first. And I actually want to give you a funny story and a crazy story. I'll do both.

Great, let's go. So.

So the funny story is early, early on when I first started Scalar, I was a one man show and I was really new to, to selling marketing services outside of a job. And I was essentially cold calling attorneys because they were the easiest people to get a hold of. I figured attorneys probably have some money and you know, they might be able to, you know, they all have pretty bad websites. A lot of them. Not all of them, A lot of them. And I was on the phone with this one guy and he had actually like, did he identified himself as a lead through an email campaign I was running and I'm on the phone with him and I was trying to sell him a website for $2,500 and he got so mad at me, he was literally screaming at me on the phone. He dropped a few F bombs. He's like, I know your type. You're just trying to take advantage of people. I can get this done for 500 bucks. I'm like, whoa, whoa. Like, I mean, if you think you can get it done for 500 bucks, go for it, by all means. And I'm not sure why you haven't already because looking at your site, clearly that that might not be the case. But I mean, look, I'm certainly not Trying to force you to do anything. I've got people that pay us as much. There's definitely people who charge more, whatever. So the point was, it was. It's like, you never know how people are going to react. And then I had another call, and this was kind of a. This was also a big step for me as well in my development as. As an entrepreneur, where I was talking to another attorney, and he had a team of maybe four or five people at the time. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to tell him $5,000, because I know that's not even really where I should be, but I'm just going to throw that out there. And he was like, yeah, that sounds good. I'm like, really? Oh, my God, that's amazing. Like he said, yeah, you know, he's like, yeah, just come meet with me in person and we'll. We'll figure out the details. Like, yeah, absolutely. No way. So it's, you know, it's, it's just funny how we can take things so personally, but ultimately you can't control how other people are going to react. And everybody's got their own perspectives. Who knows what that guy's problem was, that it very likely had nothing to do with me. I know I'm being honest and trying to do a good job for people. So it is what it is. But the crazy story. Can I tell this crazy story? Yeah, go for it. Yes. Okay. So the crazy story is just. Honestly, it's been the whole journey, and I find it crazy that somehow things just work out when you apply yourself and you, you take the steps and you. You put in the. The action. And, you know, it's not always easy. You don't always know where it's going to come from. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it's going to come ever. But somehow, I mean, I've been doing this now for seven years, and I've gone through plenty of phases where I was ready to throw in the towel, and I was like, maybe I'm just going to go look for a job, but somehow it always works out. And even if this didn't work out and I had to close the doors, something else would work out. And it's just. That's what I find crazy. It's just. It's just you have to. You have to go through it with, with that level of faith, knowing that, you know what, it might not be obvious right now, but it's going to work out. And, and it always has. And that, that, to me, Is crazy. Just being able to go through life with that level of trust and faith in the process and, and, and just taking whatever happens head on and saying, you know what, whatever this is, it's probably for the best and I'm just going to keep moving forward and see what happens.

I would, I would say as a scientist, I'd love to run that experiment somehow. Are you with that attitude and you without that attitude? So I wonder whether it's selecting for it working out based on the fact that you think it just will work out and keep going, or is actually it's true that it just works out.

Right. I think faith works much better when you have it.

I think the other thing too is like, you put yourself out there, Right. The more you put yourself out there, the more like you create your own surface area for luck. If you're, if you don't put yourself out there, you have a smaller opportunity for things to find you. Whereas if you're constantly putting yourself out there, you have a bigger surface area for where you can get lucky.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's, you know, the, the challenges that we face are also the things that drive us forward. Right.

Yeah.

You know, having a kid, for example, is a really strong motivator to go figure stuff out, you know. Yeah. Or 1 or 2 or 3 or 4. Right. So. But, you know, the more kids you have, the more successful you'll be because, you know, you just have, you're gonna have that much more pressure. But within reason, I think, you know, it's. It's the challenges that we face. As long as we're willing to take them head on, those are the things that are going to drive us forward and force us to do what we need to do to get what we need. Right.

Yeah. I'd say the thing about kids is definitely true. I would consider myself probably a 9 to fiverr until I had some kids and I'm like, man, I gotta feed these people. And suddenly I was aspirational.

Yeah.

Bottomless pit.

I mean, you got your start in sales because, you know, your first daughter.

Well, my start, you basically like, yeah.

I gotta actually, I gotta pay the bills. And so you're like, I guess I'm gonna get in sales, I guess. Might as well do it. Yeah. All right.

With my third daughter, that's why I made more money and turned out to love it.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You get the flexibility, more potential. It's in your hands. You know, whatever happens is completely in your hands at that point. For better or for worse.

I think one thing I want to come back to in your first story that I think is really interesting is this simple act of pricing, which is, and a little pricing psychology here, which is, which is you told one person $2,500 and he basically told you to kick rocks. Few other expletives, but. Right. You basically said, you know, get the heck out of here. And then you're like, okay, let me just try this with this other person, you know, $5,000. He's like, yeah, done, no questions asked.

Which means I could have probably charged more.

Yeah, right, exactly. But then you don't know that until you test it. Right? So then, you know, next time around you'd be like 6,000 or 7,000 and then see where, see where you start to get pushback and nose from. And I think this is like a good learning for sales reps out there, which is, just because you say a price to somebody one time doesn't mean that every other person is going to have that reaction to that same price that you're putting out there. And so you need to be confident with your price. And one thing that I see all the time with people is they immediately negotiate with themselves. Right. When they drop the price. So the example would be like, hey, it's $5,000. But like, you get like this, this and this. And you know, maybe we can even discount it. You know, if you get it done by this month, it's like you, you just immediately start word about the price that you just gave them. And so I always like to tell people, like, don't negotiate with yourself. Drop the price and leave it there.

Yeah. And you know what? I, maybe this is to, to a fault, my philosophy, but I'd rather, I'd rather try out a price and lose the project than regret the price that I gave and start begging. Right. And because it's not a good way to set up the relationship in the first place. And you learn. And they could have said yes, they could have said no. And I should preface this with it's not about trying to take advantage of people either. Right. We're. We're run. If you're running a business or if you're in sales, obviously it's different if you're selling a product that has a set price as well. But even within products, there's a lot of negotiation. There's package deals and things like that. But a price is arbitrary to begin with. Right. Somebody would look at a house and be like, you know, I would pay $5 million for that. House. It's in the perfect location, it's got the perfect amenities and somebody else would look at the house. I would never want to live on the beach. That sounds horrible. It's not even worth it. I wouldn't, wouldn't even pay $1,000 for that house. Like was $5 million a rip off? Well, the thousand dollar, I wouldn't pay for that house at a, at a $5 million, but the $5 million person would. Right. And so to some extent it is arbitrary and it is this, it's this interesting game, you know, and we're all playing a game. Both sides of the sales equation are playing the same game. It's like I want to sell things for as much as I can, but I also know that I have to deliver as good a service as I can. Right. And the other side saying like I need to get as good a deal as I can, but I also want to make sure that I'm getting the best service. And so if somebody's telling me something for 5k, it's probably not going to be as good as somebody who's confidently selling me something for 50k. Right.

So I think to me, and as you move up in the, I would say like the price side of the market where you're selling something for 50k that somebody else is selling for 5, people care a lot more about time in those cases. Right. So if you could say, hey, I'll deliver you the same website in half the time and it's 50k and somebody else that might do it double the time for 5K. Somebody has enough money, they'd say short because time matters more to them than that money. Right. So it's all again, you know, the value is in what people are willing to prescribe to it.

Yeah, exactly.

As long as you're not taking a premium price for a budget project product, I think you're, you're fine. If you're charging a premium price, it's got to be a decent price.

You won't get repeat customers if you do that. You won't get testimonials.

Right. So like you end up shooting yourself in the foot anyways. And so that's, that's where we have to be honest with ourselves too. Right. But that whole, you know, let's say maybe 50k to 10k, that's maybe a more reasonable, like I could see something we sell for 50k, somebody trying to sell it for 10k. Let's say we just did it for 10k. I would have to do five of those yeah. To make the same amount of money as one project, 50k. How much better service is that 50k client going to get from us? Because we're only focused on them. Right. As opposed to trying to balance five projects and five different clients and all at the same time.

So this is the challenge that people have when they discount all the time. So if you would discount the closed deals, let's say you're discounting 20%. Right. That means you, you know, whatever, you close a hundred thousand dollars and you're discounted 20k of it. So that means you have 80k. That means you have to go find another 20k somewhere else. Right. If your average deal size is 20k, that's not an extra deal you have to go find. So if you just, you know, spend a little more time negotiating or discounting less, you're going to actually be able to make up that difference a lot.

Yep, absolutely.

Yeah, I think we've met. Well, I've managed sales teams before. The same products to the same distribution of customers. Same like ideal customer. Some reps don't discount ever and some are always asking for a discount. And that tells you it's on the person selling a lot more than it is on the people buying because they're just going in there confidently showing the worth of the product as opposed to going in there thinking, what can I do to close it? I know they care about money, you.

Know, and which rep does better on average?

Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah.

This is the rep that can sell it for what it's worth.

Yeah. The customers are just as happy.

It's not that you're selling something bad.

Yeah. As long as they feel like they're getting a deal and they could still feel like they're getting a deal at list price. If you have enough value to show for that list price. Cool. So maybe what would be helpful for the audience here to get a little background on scalar, um, kind of how, how maybe how you got into it, you know, where are things at today? Kind of where you're focused. Uh, that might help give some perspective to all of this too.

Oh man. Okay. I could go, I could go really far back or like yesterday, uh, arguing.

About 2 1/2 k for a website.

And there's a lot of, there's a lot of pre before that. But yeah, so I'll, I'll tell you why I started the company. I started the company because I was at a job and I was working there for four years and I was directing sales and marketing, manufacturing company. Not in the Scientific space. To be honest, I thought the products were kind of cool. I liked them more when I started, less when I ended. Definitely got to a point where I felt like we could have been focusing a lot more on product improvement. It wasn't really the business model. So I started becoming less and less confident about the products that I was selling. I was going through a phase of learning a whole lot of new stuff at the time, just about digital marketing, marketing in general, entrepreneurship, sales, branding, you name it. Different types of projects that I'd been working on, really kind of coming into myself as well and figuring out what I was personally capable of. And I got to a point where I didn't feel like I was able to apply a lot of the things that I was learning to my job. And there was a lot of ways that that company was run by design that I felt were not ways that I would want to run a company. And I also ended up having some kids and getting to a point where I didn't think that I had the earning potential there that I needed. And I wasn't even sure how I was going to make the jump from where I was to where I ultimately knew I needed to be without, like, I didn't know how to bridge that gap. And I was applying to jobs, and it's like, it's a hard. It's hard to apply to jobs. Like, nobody was getting any job that sounded even remotely interesting I would never hear back from. Right. And that was me. I don't know, maybe other people have. Have different stories, but that was my story. So I thought, you know what, If I'm so smart, why don't I just start my own business and I'll either prove myself right or I'll prove myself wrong. And worst case scenario, I'll go back and get another job and at least I'll have the experience and maybe it'll work, and then that would be great. So I started the company. Did not have. I mean, I have a background in biology. I was a biology major in college. Worked in labs for years. Decided ultimately not to pursue a career in research, but have always had a passion for the sciences and the world and life in general. But getting my career going in business development and sales and ultimately in marketing gave me a new perspective that I could then apply to a business. And it was stuff that I was excited about. So when I first started, I didn't have a network. I didn't come from an agency background. You know, I wasn't an account representative where I was dealing with Hundreds of scientific clients. So getting into the scientific space was challenging at the time, but reaching out to attorneys and landscapers and local businesses was much easier. So that's where I started. Eventually made a number of connections in the scientific space that led me to some projects and we built up that portfolio. And maybe three years ago we felt that our portfolio was heavy enough on science that we could really go all in, in that direction and say, you know what this is, we understand it. We can create stuff that really stands out and attracts attention and help scientists and scientific companies tell a story that that's where the bulk of our marketing has been for the past few years. So what do we do now? I like to say that you know how when you go to, you find a website online and you're searching for a service or a product and you come across a website and the impression that they give off isn't necessarily great. So we fix that. Right. We want to make sure that when somebody finds you online, they know immediately that this is a trustworthy company, that this company thinks differently, that they have a really quality product or service if that's how they want to be positioned. And we make the decision really, really easy for people. Right. If they're going to find you and they're going to find somebody else, how are they making that decision? Right. They make that decision based on what they're seeing on your website. So we see the website as the foundation to everything that you do from a branding and marketing perspective. And then we branch out there, you know, making sure that marketing teams can easily maintain their websites and make all the changes they need on an ongo basis so they can move quickly. As a marketing department, we make sure that everything communicates well with each other and things are tracked properly. All of this goes through the website with a really strong focus on design and storytelling and bringing out the core essence of who a company is so that they can be as compelling as possible.

That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, you see so many poorly done websites, especially in the sciences. And so it's a much needed service that you guys are providing.

Yeah. Look how many amazing ideas die because they couldn't tell their story in a way that people wanted to listen. You know, like so many incredible startups that could literally change the world end up not making it because they can't tell their story in a way that people care. You know, whether it's investors or whether it's their customers or getting good people to work for them. It's like there's amazing companies you go to their website. Like, I wouldn't want to work there, but it's actually amazing people with an amazing service and you would never know.

Yeah.

And it's unfortunate I got a little.

Excited when you said that because we've got two kind of. Harrison and I both started succession and.

Wanted succession to be the same thing.

But similar overlap in our reasons, but slightly different. And mine was that I was interviewing for different positions and all I could see is, is companies with a major in technology that didn't have the commercial teams to survive. And it's like, all I can think with technology or service or product is never going to help the research. And therefore, the research never gets to the patient. Like, don't get me wrong, I want a job that pays me well, but that kind of pipeline and flow of work is what gets me out of bed. And I could see them. So I wanted to help more than one company.

Yeah.

And you just said.

Yeah, like, I like the variation anyways. But yeah, I mean, I feel like you can. You can. You can broaden your impact at least from an entrepreneurial perspective. Right.

Looks like you have 20 jobs instead of one job.

Yeah, well, that's. It's funny. So I was like, okay, I'm making this much. I know I need to make at least this much, and that's just to get started with my life. And maybe I'm going about this the wrong way. I'm trying to convince one company to give me this much. What if I just needed to convince 10 companies to give me this much? Maybe that would be easier sales, and I could. I could build a business off of that. And that was. That was one of the driving factors as well.

But I think the other thing, that when you build in your own company, you're building an asset that, you know, potentially one day can become sellable. So you're not. If you're at a company, you're getting salary. Yes. You're probably getting some equity in that company as well, but, you know, you're not. You know, you don't really have like, the full ownership. Like, you might, you know, when you go and then take the leap into entrepreneurship.

So.

Yep.

Either sell it or. Or it can run on its own.

Exactly.

You don't need.

I imagine when.

When you're a company, though, versus running your own thing as an entrepreneur, that that mental cycle of, I'm a failure, I'm a genius is probably a lot less like on this world of like.

Yeah, I've got it.

Oh, no, I haven't.

You mean when you're working for a company?

Yeah.

Or when you have your own company.

When you have your own company on a daily basis of I've solved it, I don't have no sold now.

Yeah, yeah.

Every day the company's going under and every day the company is going to absolutely crush it.

That's why I think I might imagine that to you. Yeah, you're literally this close to making more money and having more impact than you could have ever possibly imagined. But you're also this close to literally not paying your bills next month and you have no idea where it's going to come from. You're always hovering right on the precipice of both of those two extremes.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. So I guess one of the other, your topics that we wanted to dig into too is a little bit about founder led selling and the fact that you've got to go out, you've got your own baby that you've built, your own product, your own service, and you now have to go out and be pretty vulnerable really. Right. When you go out to the market and you're trying to then sell it, especially for the first time, even still, it can be kind of vulnerable. Right. It's, it's because it's, it's different than being at a company and you're just like, yeah, I'm selling these products. It's like, no, no, I built this thing and so like you, you must love it. Right. So it's a little bit of a different feeling.

Yeah, you better love it. Yeah. I mean, this is something that I learned at the job that I had before I started Scalar marketing was if you don't love what you're selling, you're not going to be a very good salesperson unless you're really good at being dishonest. And I'm not really good at being dishonest. Like, I can't sell something to somebody if I don't believe in what I'm selling. And I even see that within, within the context of my own journey as an entrepreneur. There are times when I believe that our bandwidth and our capabilities are stronger. And there are times that I feel like we've struggled with bandwidth and capabilities and I sell far better when I feel confident with the framework that we have built. Right. And this is just, you know, you're constantly going through that process. You're never perfect all the time. You're probably never perfect ever. Right. So you're, you're, sometimes you're doing better, sometimes you're doing Worse, sometimes your team's great and sometimes somebody leaves or whatever's going on. And I sell better a hundred percent when I feel confident in what's going on inside the business. Right.

To another podcast I guess we had on tedition, he talks about the, the shit umbrella and his job was to shield the sales team so that they could focus on what they were doing. And it doesn't mean lie, but like we said, like when you're higher up and in the organization or when you know more, you know where the bottlenecks are, you know where the challenges are. So he was talking about how shielding people from that allows them to go out and be confident and sell.

Yeah.

And you're a similar thing, but you just don't have the shield. So it actually affects you.

How to shield myself somehow shield my potential clients, I guess. Yeah, it's tricky, but it is what it is, you know, and that's, that's part of the process. But I think, you know, in terms of, in terms of founder led selling, I know you didn't ask a specific question, but it, it certainly brings to mind for me that a, as a founder in a business and obviously this doesn't apply if you're, if you're doing sales for a company, but I think the mindset's important.

Right.

The more that I can remove myself from fulfillment and day to day operations, the more that I can focus on sales and revenue generating activity. And I do think a salesperson struggles with this. Have you guys ever read Four Hour Work Week?

It's on my list by Tim Ferriss. I bought it.

It's an amazing book. It's heavy so you're probably keeping something weighted down with it, but it's an amazing book. And so I read that a couple years before I started Scalyr and that was actually a really pivotal book for me in terms of mindset and time management and lifestyle by design. These were concepts that, that, that Tim Ferriss really pioneered at the time. Like people weren't talking about laptop lifestyle really then it wasn't that common. But he mainstreamed it and all of a sudden we had people applying for jobs and wanting to work remotely. And this was pre Covid. Right. And I even tried at the time to, to ask my boss if I could work one day a week remotely. Just one day. Come on. Like I'm going to be more productive, you know, everyone's going to be happy that I'm not there breathing down their neck, you know, it was more like, let me try it. Why not? And he refused. And I remember I called in sick. There were two days I called in sick, like my third or fourth year at the company. And I went home and I went to Starbucks and I sat there and I worked all day. Anyways, one of the days I closed my biggest client ever. And the other day I just worked all day. I came home, five o' clock and I just felt amazing. I was like, why do I have to go into the office every single day, come home feeling exhausted and burnt out? When I just worked all day and I could keep working, I feel great. Like, it was just, it was refreshing. And so that was a really pivotal thing for me as well. But this idea of time management, any salesperson, they can get lost in emails, they can get lost in all sorts of things that are not actually generating sales. And as a founder, you have to think that way too. Like, one of my, I think one of my strongest advantages was and is that I don't consider myself a good designer. Right. So I never felt like I needed to be the one designing things. So I, as quickly as I could removed myself from the fulfillment of the projects we were working on so that I could focus more on sales. And it made it easier to hire people as well, because I didn't. I thought most people were better than I was when it came to design and development. So it was really easy to hire people. But if you think you're really good, it's going to be hard to hire someone to replace yourself and then you're not going to have time to do sales and then you're not going to grow.

Yeah, I mean, 100%. I mean, I think the, the same thing you mentioned on the sales side is you need to somehow remove yourself from all of the admin and overhead and sort of like the stuff that's going to take you away from being customer facing.

Yeah.

But one thing that I see is a really big challenge for a lot of sales reps is they still want to be that like, main point of contact for their, like, person. They want to be the bottleneck. Like, they want to be that bottleneck and it's not, it's not effective. So they want all communications to go through them. They want to like, you know, pass those around internally, whereas, like, it's just not an efficient way to work. And so if you want to actually spend your time going out and growing your accounts and building a territory, you need to like, put that stuff away and focus on what really matters, which is like driving revenue.

Yep. Yeah. So actually I Think the just for any sales leaders out there or founders that want their sales team to spend more time selling and their sales team are pushing back on that. I've been a rep as well. The only time I've ever pushed back on that because I hate paperwork, I hate being the bottle. Heck, I'd rather go to bed if I could talk to people, say, right, here's the thing, you go now finish it. That would be my ideal job. So I hate it. But the only time I've ever done that is when I have a lack of confidence in the follow through or the detail from someone else. So normally that comes from people not trusting the way that customers would be managed. So if you can solve that, I think a lot of reps would hand it over. It's the confidence in the handover.

So part of that is the inability to trust, right?

Yeah.

You know, and from the perspective of designers, if you're a really good designer, it's really hard to let go and let somebody else do it. Even if they're also really talented, they might do it differently than you would do it. Yeah, it's like this square.

A little bit more. Less square.

Yes. And that doesn't make it bad, it just makes it different. And if you're really confident in your ability and, you know, maybe a little bit too particular or OCD or whatever, it's really hard to let somebody else take that lead. And so when it comes to customer relations, if you really believe strongly in your ability to speak to people and make people feel good and keep them happy, then trusting somebody else to do that is going to be difficult. Right now. That person might also just not be very good. And to some extent, in order to find out whether they're good or not, you, you might have to lose a client or two as well. And that's also part of the process. And, but then you learn and then you, then you can find somebody who was better than the last person. But it's like without, without, without the risk of the loss, you can't, you can't grow and learn to trust either. So a little bit of a catch 22.

It seems to be a bit of a theme in what you say as well. So a couple of things you've said, like, about finding out your price, finding out whether you could trust the person, you have to be willing to risk that client both times. And I think that's a. Yeah, a good point you've made in a couple of different scenarios that if you don't risk it, you never Know it's almost self fulfilling prophecy if you always hold on to that, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I think life is, life is about taking risks, right? If you always play it safe, how could you possibly grow if you're always playing it safe? And then there's, there's levels within that you don't have to, you don't have to risk your house every other day. But taking risks is huge and we learn from our failures. You know, I don't think we learn when everything's going well all the time or let alone just everything's going okay. You know, we don't learn from that and eventually things are not going to be okay and we're not going to know what to do.

Yeah, this is great. I know we're coming up right on time here though. So I want to ask you one last question though, David, which is give us a sales tip that people out there can take and start using right away.

Perfect. So when I was a kid I used to love the candy sale. The like we would sell chocolate bars. I was always second place in my school. This isn't the lesson, this is just a little background story. I was always second place. And the kid who would always win, his father owned a chain of liquor stores. He would just set up boxes of candy at all of the cash registers. They had like seven liquor stores. And I could not, there was no way I could compete. It was like, franchise. How do you compete with Walmart? You can't. They will put you out of business. So every year I was second place behind that, that kid. But I would literally go house to house to house to house. I would go to the company where my father worked and I would go lab to lab to. That was kind of my science background. Lab to lab to lab to office. Office. And I would just ask people they wanted a chocolate bar and if they said yes, I would sell it to them. And if they said no, I was like, okay, cool, no worries. And I think we, we with sales it's so easy to start taking things personally, right? Oh, everyone's saying no. Well, there's probably some secret question that I'm not asking or I have to like, I have to mimic them. When they put their right hand forward, I should be putting my right hand forward and that's why I'm losing the deal. Or maybe people don't like me or I'm not cool enough or I'm not funny enough. And yeah, there's this process of refinement and we can improve our skills and we can learn to ask better questions. But ultimately, sales is not about manipulating. It's about putting a good quality product or service in front of people and finding out who wants that product or service and who doesn't. And if you don't go through the people who don't want it, you're not going to find the people that do. And I think, I like to think about sales this way. And yes, every once in a while I'll be in a sales slump. I'm like, okay, something's wrong. Like, clearly there's something wrong because we never don't close sales at this rate or even when things are going good. I also think, like, I don't know if it's something we're doing or if this just happens to be the wave that we're in. But the more personally I take it, for better or for worse, I think the worse that will ultimately be for me as a salesperson and for us as a company. We can't take too much credit when things go good, and we also can't take too much credit when things go bad. Ultimately, our job is to create the best quality service we can. And if you're working for a company, find a company where you really, really love and believe in the product. And then your job is just to put it in front of people and the people who want it. As long as you're respectable and you speak clearly and you can display what it is in a. In a nice, coherent way and your website looks really, really good. Right?

Yeah.

Then you're going to be able to sell it to the people that want it. And it's just about finding those people. That's it. You're. You're uncovering stones. That's more than that.

Let's plug up the.

I agree with all of that, but you do need all of succession sales training to be successful as well.

Sure. Like I said, it's this constant process of refinement. You do have to learn sales.

Absolutely.

Like, you can't just show up and have no CL what you're doing. Like, you have. People have to trust you. And usually being polished is a way of gaining trust. But you also, like, it's, it's funny, if someone's going to buy from you, there's almost nothing you could say to ruin it. And if they're not going to buy from you, there's almost nothing you could say to close the deal either.

Yeah.

You know, and I, I think it is important to keep that in mind, too.

There is a, There is a rule. It's like the third or third or third, which is a third of the people will buy whatever it is that you're selling. A third of them will never buy what you're selling. And then a third of them might. And that's sort of where salespeople make their money.

Yeah. If you can. If you can, like, slowly move the needle in that middle. 30%.

Yeah.

But you still have to keep the mindset of like, oh, my God, I did something wrong and now I have to backtrack and, like, you're just going to lose the deal if you start begging or desperately following up in a creepy way because you're like, I know there's something I can say right now that's going to change it, you know?

Yep. Just gotta detach from the outcomes. I think there's a guy, Josh Braun, who says it all the time guy on LinkedIn.

So I think we've said all of.

The successful reps we know are the ones that are willing to fail fast. So identify that third that are never going to buy and move on. Because the maybes and the ones that say yes deserve more time.

Yeah. It's just such an easier process and they're so much easier to work with.

Yeah, exactly.

Everybody's happier.

Well, this is great. David, thank you for coming on, sharing your story and lots of great words of wisdom.

Thanks, guys. No, this was awesome. I appreciate checking in with you guys and following what you guys are up to as well. You've got an awesome, an awesome service that you're building. So I appreciate you having me on here.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.