E45: 5 Steps to Customer Intimacy and Lifelong Relationships with Brad Perriott

So I sort of went in there and polished myself up and went in all prim and proper. And I did that in that meeting and I followed suit for about 6 months after that. What I found was that I was getting nowhere. I sold nothing. I don't know, feeling intimate with me or vice versa. It was because I wasn't being authentic. I wasn't being who I needed to be. So the minute that I realized that, and it was a great leader who said, look, just be yourself. Go into that meeting, be authentic. That guy from the Northern Beaches who some people don't understand what you're saying some of the time. Be honest, show a willingness to help. That the back half of that year in my— I think I'm lying. I think it was my second year. I just flunked my whole first year of sales. It was my second year that I started to be authentic and to be successful.

Well, welcome to this week's episode. And My guest today is Brad Perriette. I invited Brad to this conversation because I came across his name as somebody who had a very significant career with New Relic, Dell prior to that, and then he's currently the country manager and AVP at SentinelOne. And he's known to a number of people that I know. And I also saw his blog and the fact that he was an NRL editor. So, I wanted to get in touch with this really interesting person. So, Brad, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thanks, Pri. It's my pleasure. It's great to be on the show. I've listened to other episodes and enjoyed them. So, you're definitely an uplifting and inspiring sort of dude. So, thanks for having us on.

All right. So, jumping right off, you know, one of the things that stood out to me was punk rock when I got to know you, and I wouldn't have picked that up first. So, tell me a little bit more about your backstory and some of the music and media influences.

Oh, look, that's a fun fact. You're jumping straight into that. But I mean, I played in a punk rock band growing up. Look, we were good, but not great, if I'm honest. And the guys are going to hate me for saying that. So I've always, my number one value pre has been achievement and going over and above and hopefully doing better than the next guy. So I created my own music management label. It was called Pez Music Management. I had no idea what I was doing and I created an email alias. I started to write great emails, speak in a deep voice. And before I knew it, I was negotiating with Chugg Entertainment, one of the biggest promoters in Australia. We were supporting all the big punk rock acts that came out of the US. And I suppose the main takeaway for me out of that was a lot of us get imposter syndrome and say, oh, I feel like I'm faking it until I make it. Well, I was properly faking it, got myself up in the world of music and a pretty average band played with some pretty exciting artists. So yes, thank you for bringing that up. And you told me you were going to do that. So look, this was a CD.

Oh, that is so cool.

For kids out there, they won't remember that. It was 20 years ago we had CDs and we even had a shirt. We were called No Joel because our first guitarist Joel was not fantastic. So we had to exit him from the band and that was our we got the name Nojol.

That is so good. I love it.

Thanks for bringing that up, Preet. I appreciate it.

And that's so great. Like, I mean, you're just, you know, punching above your weight and you're talking about faking, you know, faking it until, you know, you make it. And that's amazing.

Look, I think it feels like the theme of my career. I've never been the smartest guy in the room. And if I am, I feel like I'm in the wrong room, if I'm honest. But achievement, grit, determination, I'm uber competitive, which my wife tells me is a good thing and also a bad thing because I want to win at everything. So now that I'm a father with 2 young boys, I'm trying to teach them that winning is great, but losing and losing well is just as important. Just not in the world of business. If we're in a head-to-head battle for a sale pre, Losing is not good enough most of the time, but hey, I'm joking. We strive for success and do the best that we can with what we're given.

That's so true. Now, also NRL editor. And so tell me a little bit more about that as well. How did that come about?

Yeah, look, I loved writing. So I started at university doing a media degree, ended up exiting with a Bachelor of Business because I felt that There wasn't enough work out there for, in the media vertical, but always loved writing. It was my passion and I loved the NRL. I was a Bears fan until they got exited from the competition in '99. They're actually coming back, but they'll be in Perth. So I'm going to remain a Manly fan, but had a lot of people in rugby league who I knew. And I was able to sort of get a job there writing some satire and a bit of comedy around some of the NRL matches that got picked up. It got published. So that was, uh, yeah, it was, it was good for me as a burgeoning writer to get some published articles on, on the web.

That's amazing. And going forward, you know, your Instagram, uh, Wandering Eyes, tell me about that.

Look, we were going to do a round-the-world trip in 2020 with the kids and we started a website and I started doing some blogs around being a dad, being a good dad. being a bad dad. We've all been through those stages where we feel like we're owning it and then we get brought back down to earth by something that the kids do. But, uh, so I started writing some humorous sort of articles there that I was putting up on a website. They got picked up by Kidspot and Mamma Mia and got a few published articles there again. And I thought, look, I'm sort of onto something here because I think all of us as parents, we talk about faking it until we make it. There's no training, there's no credentials. We just sort of The kids there and we all dive in and I just started documenting some of those funny stories. So that was the reason for the website. It sort of doubled as a travel blog there as well. It was a lot of fun. I've kind of left it there and I haven't updated it for some time. So you remind me it's a project that I've got to get back to. It's funny though, I've left it there on LinkedIn and anyone I interview, when they Google me, they do research, it's the first thing that they bring up and it kind of shows that That human element, we all want to get to know each other. They jump in there, see photos of me and the family, and do a bit of reading, and it generally breaks the ice when you're speaking to someone that you don't know.

Absolutely. I'm so glad you mentioned that because, you know, humans deal with humans, and at a time when AI and everything is exponentially growing, people actually want A genuine connection more than ever before. I mean, personally, like yourself, I started as a quota-carrying— well, I've been a quota-carrying rep for a good 5, 7 years, then leading teams.

I miss it. Best job on the planet. Individual contributor bag, bunch of accounts. Anyway, I interrupt. My apologies.

I love what you said because On my first day, this was late '90s, first day, my sales manager comes out and meets me in the lobby. And he said, Pri, welcome to the best job you've ever had and the worst job you've ever had. It just depends how your quarter is going, right? And there we have it.

It's true. It's true.

But what I was saying is that being a rep, then a sales leader, and then a recruiter, nothing is more— what do you call it? to reps who just are maybe a suit or a logo or a business card that you just can't get to know the person, you know, and they're just doing their job, or whether it's, uh, you're engaging as a customer and they're just not interested in you. They just want you to sign the renewal or send the order. So tell me a little bit more about this human-based connection and— You know, you talk about customer intimacy.

Oh, look, it's something I've banked my career on. I think being intimate with your customers is just like you want to be in your home life with your friends and your family. And if you can get to that point with your clients, then I think you're being successful. And I always lean on a bit of a case study here, if I may. I mean, Adidas came into the sports shoe market in 1949 and took it by storm. And A little challenger brand came in 1971 by the name of Nike and overtook and just, excuse the pun, they ran past Adidas there. How did they do that? They redefined value for their customers. It wasn't just a sports shoe they were putting on their foot anymore. It meant something. It was a status symbol. It was iconic. And they redefined value to the point where I still feel like 50 years on, Adidas are running in their shadows and trying to catch up to them. So for me, that's just a powerful story of how customer intimacy can really create a competitive advantage for you and a connection with your customers. If I may, I looked it up on the web before this chat. So the web definition of customer intimacy is very wordy. It's building long-term relationships by deeply understanding and meeting specific customer needs and value drivers. Put that to the side. I mean, my definition is just giving your customers a good buying experience. Everything from the first coffee you have with them through to when you're doing your discovery through to potentially a heated negotiation that hopefully you close all the way out to post-sales is customer intimacy. It's synonymous with a good buying experience. And I think that we spoke about a diverse background at the, at the top of this discussion and Having rich experiences, I've traveled a lot, almost to 40 countries. My wife tells me she's traveled to more, but having rich experiences, like things like travel and integrating into different cultures and having a curious nature are all great supporting tools to help you to relate to different people across different walks of life so that you can hopefully create that customer intimacy with a whole different range of Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.

And, you know, sometimes we start with the negative to appreciate the positive, otherwise they sound like jargon. But, you know, like I said, you know, whether it's a deal where the rep's not interested in you, whether it's even, uh, you know, one of the things I told you about my first job, my first sales manager, uh, my, my first leadership job, um, my, uh, APAC VP told me, he said, you help me get what I want and I will help you get what you want. And that was again famous words that have just resonated with me. And I'm like, you know what? You didn't need to say it, but that's exactly how I want to work. I want to help you get what you want. And true, when I help my reps get what they want, I get what I want. And that's with customers as well. So let's keep moving. So tell me, more about customer intimacy and how do you see it?

Look, it's all about long-term relationships. How do you create a customer relationship where they're going to procure or purchase from you time and time again? Doesn't matter what logo's on your polo or on your business card. How do you do that? And for me, it's quite a few simple things, Pri. I mean, the key to long-term relationships is being authentic. I'll tell a story now. My first QuotaCarrying gig, First time I was account executive, I was mid to late 20s and I started to get all these senior level meetings. And I'm, I've grown up on the Northern Beaches. I've got the ochre accent. I love my surfing. And I thought, do you know what? This is not going to resonate with the CIO that I'm meeting. So I sort of went in there and polished myself up and went in all prim and proper. And I did that in that meeting and I followed suit for about 6 months after that. What I found was that I was getting nowhere. I sold nothing. No one was, I don't know, feeling intimate with me or vice versa. It was because I wasn't being authentic. I wasn't being who I needed to be. So the minute that I realized that, and it was a great leader who said, look, just be yourself. Go into that meeting, be authentic, be that guy from the Northern Beaches who some people don't understand what you're saying some of the time. Be honest, show a willingness to help. That the back half of that year in my, I think I'm lying. I think it was my second year. I just flunked my whole first year of sales. It was my second year that I started to be authentic and to be successful. And I've got a story. I mean, and you've gotta be willing to help customers. Another story that is, you gotta be willing to help customers when there's nothing in it for you. I was running a media and entertainment organization, became really friendly with a senior procurement officer. And I sat down with coffee for her one day. She became a fantastic sponsor and still is a great friend today. And I could tell she wasn't herself. She was fidgeting. She was clearly stressed out over something. And it turned out that she'd oversubscribed to some colo space, some data center colocation racks with another provider. I knew an executive there as a close friend, picked up the phone, explained the situation. Anyway, they did the right thing. As a gesture of good faith and they reduced that commitment. I promise there was no quid pro quo in that, but it was just me going, I really respect and like this individual. She is struggling. I think there's a way that I can help. It's not a lot of skin off my nose, but it's going to mean a lot to her. And sure enough, that was about a decade ago, Pri, and we still transact business. We still catch up personally. So those sorts of little things I think make you stand out and create.

So true. So true. And people talk about being a trusted advisor. I think it's very hard to be a trusted advisor in truth if you don't have intimacy and curiosity. So I know you've got a structure for us and we'll actually put that on the screen. But Walk us through your how to create customer intimacy process. That'll be amazing.

Yeah, look, this can double as a sales process for account executives trying to be successful. And look, a lot of it's based off of this, the qualified sales leader. I grew up with a lot of—

So John McMahon, the qualified sales leader. Fantastic.

Grew up doing a lot of command of the message at EMC. I remember we got taken off to SCO. It was in Orlando. It was the Gaylord, the hotel was called. Anyway, I digress. But there was a guy named John Kaplan that ran a sales leader, qualified sales leader session. And we were all jet-lagged. We maybe had a few too many sherbets the night before. And he was dragging sales reps up in front of their peers across the globe. There was like 1,500 people in this room. It was terrifying, but it made me learn some of the qualified sales leader antics. And I've sort of taken those. those with me. I've used some of that methodology and framework to help my account executives and sales managers over the years to build lasting human connections because a lot I could see were becoming sales robots. They were hitting their numbers, they were being fantastic as sales achievers, but they weren't creating those long-lasting relationships or if that individual moved on, they could continue to do business with them in other organizations. So Yeah, very willing to share the framework here, Pri, if you'd like. So the first one is customer segmentation. You can't build an intimate relationship with a customer that does not have an addressable market for your product or service or capability and does not have a propensity to spend with you. So as long as there's an addressable market and a propensity to spend with you, Then I think you move on to the next phase. It's almost like the old X and Y axes or the magic quadrants. Look at the top right, make sure you tick those 2 boxes and you're off and running. So then it's about planning. If you don't plan, you plan to fail. We've all heard it, but I'm really big on developing account plans early before you've met the customer, reading the annual reports, doing all the stuff. You can use Perplexity on the web now. You can use all sorts of AI tools to get ahead of the competition and to understand your customer. On the back of that, you should be creating a really detailed call plan that you're taking into the customer meetings to do your discovery, to ask really fantastic, curious questions. Pound the street, come up with that call plan, do it customer by customer that sits in the quadrant where you believe there is a high addressable opportunity and a propensity to spend with you, and you'll be off to the races. That was successful for me in 2004. And 21 years on, Pri, I believe it's very important.

Yeah, no, that's really good because, you know, I love 2x2 matrixes because anything that gets you from chaos to clarity is a, you know, a rep who's clear about how they're going to spend their week is a strong and powerful rep. A rep who isn't sure what to do, who to call, and wants to call everyone and no one is an ineffective rep. So yeah, That's great.

So true.

Let's keep moving. Yep.

Let's get moving. So we move on from segmentation and then you want to take some of these target customers on a journey. So go deep and wide, that core plan that I mentioned, do discovery with coaches, champions, economic buyers, grab the cleaner if you can, anyone inside that organization, see everyone, go horizontal across businesses, go vertical inside those business units where opportunities exist. Most organizations have multiple IT shops. So you speak about sellers. One thing that gets me a little bit cranky, Pri, is when they hear one no and they sort of walk out the door onto the next account and qualify out. There's multiple IT shops in most of our enterprise customers in Australia. And then when you do grab onto an opportunity, elevate the conversation. What do I mean by that? Where are you getting traction when you are getting traction? Elevate the conversation. When you're getting traction inside a business unit, bring in your executives to peer with their executives. That executive peering early in the piece is so important. If they're an install-based customer, and my account execs get tired of hearing this, go and run a quarterly business review. Get to know their business, their executives, share your company strategy, learn about their company strategy. If they're an install, if they're not an install-based customer and they're a net new logo, Little bit harder to do QBRs, but still work on a way to get that executive peering in place because I promise you during the negotiation phase when things get a little bit prickly, having multiple layers and levels to call into is going to help you to close in a way that retains and cultivates customer intimacy. So know all those decision makers, understand the purchasing process in detail, and then I think you're setting yourself up for a good run at qualifying an opportunity.

Yeah, that's fantastic. That is so good. And I really like the fact that you talk about elevating the conversation and what you said earlier, because again, another one of my managers, maybe they didn't realize at the time if I looked blank that I was actually listening, but, you know, was unless you've had 3 nos from one account, Don't even come back and talk to me and said that they said no. But it just made me look a little further and wider and get to know a few more people.

So it's funny you mentioned that blank face. I've got a sort of resting angry face and people sometimes say to us, look, Brad, why are you upset or agitated there? And I'm as happy as, you know, so you've got to make sure that you understand your flaws and also your strengths and work with those. Yeah.

Oh, that's good. All right. So qualifying the opportunity, what happens next?

Yeah. So you've done your research. It's now time to come back to home base and qualify your total addressable market or opportunities across your customers. Book a med pick. Again, that's a qualified sales leader term. A deal review, TAS, whatever methodology you use, book it. Good AEs will book a deal review on themselves. It's very, very rare that they do it. But I've just said it so many times to them, Pri, it is not an inspection. They're ways to test and improve your value proposition, ensure you've uncovered all the pain points that the customer has, and agree on the fit that your solution has. What problems are you solving? And generally those problems fit into 4 categories. Are you helping the customer to decrease costs? Are you helping them to decrease risk? Are you helping them to increase productivity? Are you helping them to increase revenue? If you can grab onto one, a few, or all of those, you're in a really good spot. You're not just selling on feature, function, and benefit. And generally what falls out of those deal reviews, once you think that you've got a great opportunity and you're solving some real business challenges, is a swarm meeting. I call it a swarm meeting. It's basically a deal review with your team. To cover and address the gaps in your strategy. Each and every week, you should be sitting down and swarming with your internal virtual team to make sure that you are plugging those holes. You've got a rolling agenda, you're capturing those action items, and you're progressing your chances within that bid. Of all your internal meetings, I would argue that the Monday morning is an account executive with their virtual team talking about their opportunities, Allocating actions across the gaps they have in their different deals that they're running is the most important. And again, strong sellers, now we're moving on. We've done a deal review, we're filling the gaps. You should be back in with your client now running a business value assessment early in the sales cycle, as early as you can with your champion. So you're understanding the costs that your solution's taking out, the cost it's mitigating. I don't know how it's helping to protect revenue leakage or decrease the customer's risk profile, the same 4 metrics that I mentioned before. And by creating this business value assessment with and on behalf of your champion, you're helping them to build their board review documents so that they can get a project spun up, resources allocated, and ultimately budget attributed to this pain point that they've got that you're trying to solve. So they're kind of the crux of, I suppose, qualifying the opportunity or the third point there in my little spinning wheel.

Yeah, no, that's brilliant. I mean, you know, like you said, for me, my first 9 months in my territory were not very good. I really was questioning my life choices of becoming an account executive and getting into sales. But, you know, I got offered to go to sales training and it just made meant 2 days of paid training and sitting in a hotel and not being out prospecting. So, I said yes. But long story short, I got taught a sales process which changed my life. I made club in year 2 and year 3 and never looked back. So, the value of education and frameworks is incredible. And one of the things which I took away was The greater the value, the lower the resistance to the investment. My job is to maximize and pack value, and then all resistance will reduce to that. So thank you. That was really good.

And it's becoming harder in this day and age. It's a highly competitive environment out there. The macroeconomic environment is difficult. We've got the Trump economics. You've got the FX rate in Australia, which is still around that 0.65. So yes, you do need to lean into value. Customers aren't just buying your product because it's got fantastic features. I feel like when I started in the industry that they were doing that. So yeah, times have definitely changed.

And then it goes back to, you know, how well do you know your customer and how well does, you know, if your customer truly believes that you, then you know them better than your competition. That's really your competitive advantage. So I think what you're just teaching us here is critical. So, okay, buyer-focused proposal, what's next?

Yeah, so now look, you've segmented your business, you've taken your customer on a bit of a journey and you've qualified internally. You're ready to create a buyer-focused sales experience, or as I call it, a good buying experience. And And for me, this is the most important part of customer intimacy. Over time, people do not remember what you said to them, but they will remember how you make them feel. And it is so important. And I had to learn that the hard way when I was a young seller. I went in and I was pitching hard and I was talking 90% of the time. And I realized that when I was asking more curious discovery questions, making them feel good, making them sort of, I don't know, identify issues that they didn't know that they had, I'd get the return meeting more so than when I was talking a lot. Anyway, I digress. In the heat of trying to close business, this is where the AE can get a bit hot under the collar. It's always been that dichotomy. How do you keep and cultivate customer intimacy and deliver the business on time? You've told your manager who's told his manager who knows the CEO's reported to the street that this 7-figure deal is gonna come in. How do you deliver that on time? Without putting too much pressure onto your customer. And the way that I go about it is threefold. So a curated proposal is important. Even if they ask for a quote, give them a proposal, tell a story, put references in there, show them everything that you need and that you know. The amount of times I've written an amazing executive summary that I reckon might not have been read, it pains me to think about it, but still it was a good use of time pre. Say no. So this is going to sound like a real strange one, but if you've built respect with the decision makers, you'll earn even more if you say no when you get to the negotiation phase and you push back at them at the right time. So what do I mean? You're going to reach a juncture where they want more resource, more discount, more, more, more. And it is actually damaging if they keep saying jump and you say how high. So An example here might be, I don't know, Pree, ask me for 10% more discount on the deal.

Brad, I want 10% off this. Yeah.

When we practiced, that sounded much better, but yeah, mate. Anyway, it sounded very off the cuff, but look, Pree, I appreciate you asking for that, but look, I simply can't do it. As promised, I've given you my best offer. It's going to be hard to go back to my CFO again, but look, You're a valued customer. We've got a good relationship. If this will secure your business, you've got my commitment that I will go and ask for you. And that they're trying to throw the ball in your court. You're throwing it back into their court. I can't stress how important the trial close is in the process of building customer intimacy. As I said, saying yes can hurt you. They'll also lose respect for you if you say yes and keep giving them more and more and more discount and they realize that you were holding back on them. So believe it or not, saying no is an important part of customer intimacy. And then the collaborative close, I already really covered this. We want to deliver the deal on time. We want to do it in a way where the customer feels fantastic about the purchase. We all walk away, everyone's happy. The best way to do that is the executive peering all the way back in The QBR customer segmentation phase. If you have connected your executives with theirs early and they've built a relationship, you can get in there and be multi-threaded, pick up the phone, speak to a whole bunch of different stakeholders in the decision-making process to get it over the line, explain why it's important to us and how it's going to benefit them. Too often pre-reps are single-threaded and they're hammering the one person on the last day of the quarter trying to get the PO in. I can't tell you, it still feels like that's our One of the major flaws that we see in the sales force today.

Absolutely. And I've, like so many reps who will listen to this, all leaders will have one painful memory or more where they were single-threaded and the person left or something changed and it came crashing down.

Or you got the deal and you just burnt your champion forever. They'll never purchase from you again. They moved from Westpac to CBA. Suddenly you're locked out of that account. So it's It's so critical.

So true. So true. And then finally, what's next here?

So delighting your customer, this should be the easy stuff, the final pillar to keep the intimacy going after the deal is closed. Great AEs, they're relentless in doing this, but they find a balance. I've had AEs that just service their customers so well and they care about them so much that they forget to do some net new selling. You've got to Strike that balance in these accounts. The first one there is easy. You've made commitments during the sales process. You said what you're going to do. Now do what you're going to say. If you've committed to something, to resources, to training, to whatever it is, and you get the deal done and walk away, that's a really quick way to— what do they say? It takes forever to build trust. It's like a mountain and you can sort of lose it overnight. So don't do that. Deliver on the promises you've made to Your champions and evangelists across the account. The next one is an important one for me and probably one out of this whole matrix that I feel most reps miss out on the most, and that's continuously measuring value. It's a trick the best AEs use. What does it mean? You gotta keep reinforcing value after you've closed the deal. In QBRs, in coffee discussions, you gotta remind them just how fantastic and effective your solution is. How is it helping them to decrease cost and risk, increase revenue and productivity? Put the metrics in front of them, keep reminding them. I can tell you if you don't do that and your solution is humming along, customers will forget why they're paying the bill. You'll get to renewal and they'll churn as a customer or they'll have post-buyer's remorse. I bought a Subaru, I should have bought a Toyota, you know, but when I see the advertisement keep flashing up on the television, I know that I've Made the right investment. And the last one is just being there in their time of need. We're selling IT here. It's always going to break. Reasonable customers realize that. And you can turn a really, really bad situation into something that cultivates even more customer experience than you could have even imagined by overservicing them, answering the phone at 9 PM at night, escalating off to the US, making sure that any support issues, outages, whatever, are handled in a fantastic fashion. You can turn a bad situation into something that makes your relationship even stronger. Last one, mate, is just rinse and repeat. Keep doing all those things. You will be a fantastic seller. You will cultivate customer intimacy. You'll give your customers a good buying experience. You'll deliver your sales on time every time to your organization, in my humble opinion.

Yeah, this is gold. And, you know, I wish I had this at an early stage. And there are things that we learn along the way. And so tell me 2 quick questions before we wrap up. Number one, how do leaders embed this, you know, like a bit of a playbook? Because think about it, if your reps are executing this day in, day out at an 8, 9, or 10 out of 10, they're going to be unstoppable.

Yeah, look, I mean, that's a good question. We should brainstorm together as previous sales leaders. It's tough and I haven't cracked the code. I mean, one-on-ones is the best way to keep doing that. You need an organization that values training and enablement and continues to invest in that. If you don't put something into practice, what is it? Within 2 to 3 to 4 weeks, it sort of goes in one ear and out the other. So, You need to help your sellers to learn and retain this stuff. The best way is to keep reinforcing in one-on-ones to whether they like it or not, to make them pitch to each other on sales meetings, on sales calls, to run QBRs where they've got to stand up in front of their peers and do a value pitch or talk about some of the the things here you're seeing in the flywheel. I don't think I've cracked the code, Pri. I think that it's just reinforcement and you've got to be a relentless sales leader who knows how to do that and execute on it. I mean, mate, I'll ask you the question. Tell me, I've come up with the methodology. How do I make sure all my sales teams are doing this relentlessly day in and day out?

On this one, I'll have to say it as someone who sees teams You know, succeed. I'll, you know, I've seen some teams. I'll give you an example. I think ServiceNow is one of the, you know, one of the greatest scale-up stories in Australia that I've seen from 2016 to 2023. It was just amazing. And I think that from intake, you know, selecting the right people who want to learn, who are curious, who want— the point is you could have the best process and if they They don't want to learn the process. You've got uncoachable people. So intake and selection is so critical because so often then the sales manager inherits someone that they've got to overinvest. There's difference between investing and overinvesting because the person you're coaching has a will issue. It's not a skill issue. They're just not as curious. They just don't want to be better. They're not listening to podcasts, learning books, or shadowing reps, or eavesdropping because they want to be better. If you don't have those people, it's really hard. So, you know, with people, people is the hardest thing is to— so I think intake is really important. And number 2 is to just continue to— I think you've absolutely nailed it on the head that, you know, reinforcement. So a sales leader who's reinforcing, um, and coaching through the deal is most likely to want to build that, you know, the John Wooden legend stories of these master coaches, you know, after they lost the championship and he said, gentlemen, this is a ball. You know, let's start at the basics.

Well, you're spot on. And I remember seeing Jim Collins live, a pretty inspirational sales leader type. And his number one was get A-players on the bus. And that is the hardest because there's so many smart organizations out there that you're competing with for top talent. And once they get entrenched and they're doing their quotas and they're being looked after, it's very hard to move them away, especially in this economic climate that we're in. But yes, good guidance from you as well, Pri.

No worries. Well, one last one. What advice would you give to someone who just wants to go beyond the transactions and build something that lasts, real relationships?

Well, look, it's probably a summary of everything I've said. It's not what you do that says who you are. The way you do it is who you are. We can all go on the same journey, but we're going to do it differently. That defines you. So giving your customers a good buying experience, or if they're a prospect, making them feel that when they're in their personal, in your personal company that they're the most important person in the room, that will build respect. Put the phone down, actively listen and engage. Believe it or not, that'll put you ahead of 80% of the other sellers in the market. The amount of times I sit down and salespeople are getting distracted by their phone and this and that, and straight away the customer goes, okay, so I'm not the most important person in the room. So I think that attentiveness is really important. It'll carve out your brand. It'll build your network. It'll make you successful over the long term. And a couple of others, if I may, I mean, learn from people who you look up to who do this well. Also learn from real-world experiences. I had some horror sales calls when I was younger. I'm still not perfect today. I still have some bad points in use. You've got to keep learning from the good and the bad. Take all you can from that and from your mentors and coaches, and that'll make you a better, more humble sort of person. I've had epic leaders and mentors over the years, and I feel like I've just taken a little bit from each of them along the way. Not everything, because they had their own things that worked for them that wouldn't work for me. I always ask for feedback from these coaches. It can be confronting because they'll be honest with you, but that's important. And then look, mate, the final one for me, my secret weapon across my whole career, I'm going to share it here with everyone, is consistency. It's not sexy, it's not awesome, but I will get out of bed every day, no matter if I've had a good sleep and the kids have kept me up, a bad sleep, sorry, they kept me up, a good sleep, if I'm tired, if I'm this or I'm that, and I will be relentless and I will be consistent in the way that I engage my teams and my customers. And if you're not the smartest guy in the room, which I've generally suffered from, and if I am, I'm in the wrong room, demonstrating the right behaviors that build customer intimacy repeated time and time again, it's gonna help you to foster meaningful long-term relationships that will stand the test of time. So be consistent.

That's amazing. Yeah, look, I know for a certain fact that there are so many people who are gonna listen to this and find this really useful. And, you know, I think that you've got a terrific philosophy for, you know, a win-win outcome. So thank you, Brad. I appreciate you so much. And I just have to say from, you know, we know people who've spoken highly of you to me, but every conversation that we've had, I'll say this at a time when AI is just going off, actually, after the age of artificial intelligence will be the age of authenticity. And you're authentic. You are yourself. And I think that, you know what, you got to be yourself because then you don't have to make excuses for anything else. And people actually get to know the real you. And I think that most importantly, customers, team members, colleagues, people like and trust people who are authentic. So thank you again.

Well, I said at the top of the podcast, you're a fantastic guy. Very humbling. Look, thank you, Pri. It's been nice to be on the show. And I I look forward to continuing to get to know you over the years. So thanks for having us.

Thank you.