Red Strafstrum on being an intevert successfully selling at a trade show

Welcome to the Global Sales Mentor Podcast for conversations that drive growth.

When you are ready to grow your international sales, join the conversation with your host, Zach Selch. So welcome again to another episode of Conversations That Drive Global Sales Growth. This is Zach Selch. I am in a hotel room in Nashville today at a trade show, because sometimes I got to do what I got to do on the road. And I have a guest here, an old friend. Red Staffstrom, who is a sales guy and an introvert. And he is going to talk to us today about being an introvert sales guy at trade shows. Welcome, Red. Thank you very much for being my guest today.

Of course. I'm glad you could have time for me.

It's—

you're all over the place and taking time out of the Nashville downtown to talk to me is always impressive.

Yeah, well, I was just saying to Red before we got on that, you know, I had a couple of drinks earlier and I'm going to have a couple of drinks after this. But I took a little break so that we could do this and get it recorded and get it in the pipeline to get it out because I want to have this out in November when I'm talking about trade shows. So again, welcome, Red. You have a very interesting perspective and I know how a lot of people like to think about, you know, and it really is a very false narrative of salespeople all being at extroverts and all being all, you know, full of jokes and loving people and all of that. And I also, I'll tell you, I consider myself an introvert that presents as an extrovert. Yeah. I'm not an extroverted salesperson, although a lot of people think I am. So why don't we talk a little bit about that and about your position and what you do, and we'll talk a little bit about being an introvert at a trade show.

So for me, I've been, Kind of the hide-in-the-basement Star Wars nerd my whole life. I grew up in an inner-city area, skinny Irish kid with red hair. You could make all the jokes you want right now.

Right.

Now I just look like a rejected Game of Thrones character, for those of you guys listening. I was picked on, was kind of anxious, quiet. I'd spend a lot of time when other people were talking, reading books, became this massive nerd, video games, the whole nine. Um, I label myself as a hide-in-the-basement introvert. But in 2008, I— yes, in 2008, I graduated college and found myself in a sales role because that's what was hiring in the beginnings of the Great Recession.

And, and it's funny how a lot of people do find themselves in sales, right?

Yeah. And for me it was, I was still good at it because it was about problem solving and that's something that I've always done my whole life.

Yep.

So I would listen to everything I was being told. I really just—

Process that information and you'd solve the problem. Yeah, exactly.

And I, I believed for a long time, if you don't have a solution to a problem, you don't have the right to sell anything.

Right.

That was one of my big ideals my whole life. Another thing I believed is if you're good at sales, you can sell anything. And I was dead wrong about that. I was dead wrong about that.

Totally.

Because if I— if you don't care about it, if it doesn't align with your values, people notice that immediately. And as good as I was at putting on this extrovert costume and pretending to care about the things that I was selling. It just wasn't me. Led to a full-blown, full-blown breakdown, doing a lot of reading, a lot of analysis, and rebuilding sales from the ground up in a much more emotionally intelligent way. And what I found out is, as that introvert, as that Star Wars nerd, I had to approach things differently. I don't have the social battery To talk to 600 people a week.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something here that the best description of an introvert extrovert that I've heard, the one that I embrace, is where do you regenerate your energy from? Right? Do you regenerate your energy from talking to people or do you regenerate your energy from being alone? And that's the thing, like I'm the same type of thing. People think I'm an extrovert. I can spend time with people when I want to rest.

Yeah.

I want to be alone with a book or, you know, drink a cigar, right? I do not rest with other people, right? And that's what makes a person an introvert as far as I'm concerned, right?

And there's such a, like one of my favorite books of all time, if you're an introvert at all, I highly recommend it, is Quiet by Susan Cain. The way I've thought about it for years is it comes down to the level of stimulus that you're comfortable with. I need to be alone because that's the level of stimulus I'm comfortable with. Other people need to be running the streets of Nashville and have that constant stimuli there the whole time. Um, that's just what they want. For me, I can't do that. I can't operate at that point. Um, right. But there's such an extroverted ideal in this country. We, we, Yeah. Like idolize these big gregarious hail fellow well met types.

Right. Well, that's the thing. We think we're all cowboys, right? We, you know, everybody, everybody wants to believe that, you know, they know how to shoot a gun, they know how to sell, they know how to tell a joke. Right. And few people do. So there you go.

Very few.

Right.

And everybody thinks they have the right to know how to tell a joke and they'll actually steal jokes because of it. And they'll just regurgitate and mess up a Bill Burr joke and get fired for saying the wrong thing the wrong way.

People have to accept the fact that they're— it's okay that you're not like that, right? You have to embrace your true self.

It comes down to skills. That's what it really comes down to. And social skills, gregariousness, sales, comedy— these are things that you could learn. And saying an introvert can't do sales is like saying an introvert can't play basketball. It makes no sense. It comes down to learning the technique, doing the practice, learning what you have to do. It's just about learning the strategy and the techniques behind it.

No, I agree with you 100%. So going to the specific element of sales we're talking about now, you know, I'm gonna trade show today, right? And I'm, it's a gig that I'm doing. I'm all on my own. I literally stood in the aisle today and I approached about 400 people today. And essentially introduced myself, right? And to some people that's a nightmare. And personally, that is not, I don't get, I'm not going to say, I don't want to sound, I don't want this to sound wrong, but I don't get any enjoyment out of it. I don't do this for fun. This is my job, right? On the other hand, I can't sell without doing it. So if this is what's expected of you and you are an introvert, how do you do it, Red?

It's about prioritizing the time you could recharge. That's the biggest thing. So like for you right now, you're doing the right thing. You're recharging in a hotel room. Even when you go out later and there's going to be a ton of people around, you're going to be alone. You're going to be— Absolutely.

That's exactly it. I am perfectly comfortable sitting in a bar, listening to music with a drink by myself, not talking to anybody. I haven't, I haven't chatted with another person in a bar in probably 30 years.

Right.

I, I go to bars to sit there, listen to music, have a drink by myself. Yep.

That's like the big underrated thing that, uh, nobody else talked about with COVID is everybody wearing a mask means so much less small talk.

Yep.

That, that was one of my favorite things is like everybody had it. It's like, oh no, I can't hear a thing through this. And then the small talk just dies.

There you go. I didn't even think of that side of it, Red.

Yes. But, but that's the thing with introverts is you have to understand everybody. Like, I think it was— I want to say it was Skinner, but I probably have the wrong psychologist. Everybody needs human interaction, even to research monkeys who needed to cuddle up with a fake monkey for comfort. But the kind of interaction that introverts need versus extroverts is different. Extroverts like a puddle. They like a lot of very wide coverage of shallow interactions. How was the game last night kind of conversations? What's the weather in Nashville? I don't care. I just don't, unless there's another tornado. I don't care.

Right, right.

But introverts, we like diving in. We like that authentic curiosity to really dive down the rabbit hole and solve a problem. And that's why we can be really great at sales once we get past the initial prospecting stage.

And I'll tell you what, you don't necessarily, and I'll, I argue with the, there are some very famous people or very serious people on LinkedIn that I argue with this about. I don't necessarily think that everybody should be, should be a full cycle salesperson. You can focus if you don't, if, like I was saying to somebody the other day, I haven't cold, like I, I now for my own business, I do some cold calling.

Yeah.

I didn't do cold calling for, for years. Right.

That's part of what this is. It's about creating strategies so that you can avoid what you're not good at, what you don't like.

Right.

When you're a salesperson or a business holder, you could start a podcast.

Right.

And rather than make 50 phone calls, you press publish.

Right. Yep. That's exactly it. I gotta tell you something since you mentioned, I never get a chance to tell this story, but since you mentioned Skinner, my grandfather was Skinner's college roommate.

Really?

Yes. And when Skinner was actually making like physical lab things, My grandfather—

the Skinner box for the mice.

The Skinner, the actual Skinner box for the mice. My grandfather was really handy with his hands. He was a puppeteer and Skinner would actually go to my grandfather for help with carpentry, right? So my grandfather was actually involved in making the original Skinner boxes. Now, even better story, at my grandfather's Like my grand— my, I have a cousin who went to the same college as my grandfather, Hamilton College in upstate New York. And Skinner was speaking there once, like in the '80s or something. And my cousin went and introduced himself and Skinner said to my cousin, you know, your grandfather was the craziest man I ever met. Right. So, you know, a, a, a, so Skinner has identified my grandfather as being the craziest man he ever met. I, I, I think that's a, that's a source of pride in my family.

So, yeah. Yeah. It's a world famous psychologist or behaviorist, I guess is technically the term. Yeah.

Right. So let's talk a little bit more about strategies for a trade show specifically, because this is really good. In general for sales. Yeah. But the premise of all this is I'm talking a little bit. So say you go off, you know, I'm here by myself, right? Which is, which is fine by me. I'm, I'm covering a 4-hour-a-day trade show for 2 days. That's, you know, really small cheese for me, right? Small potatoes for me. But let's say you're going and you're at a trade show with 4 or 5 people at your, you know, standing at your booth. Thousands of people are going by every hour. What are some of the tactics and strategies that you, you talk about to survive 4 days of that and do your job well?

For me, the biggest thing is focus on the deep conversations. Like, go out of your way. Don't just be the person who hands out pamphlets all day.

Right.

Find, like, active— if you can, uh, and a lot of trade shows will do this, give you an attendees list.

Right.

Something like that. Start going through it and having those high-value conversations. Send them the message on LinkedIn. Hey, I'm here.

Right.

I think we can help you.

And if you're looking at this from that, the boss of the, what I like to call the booth captain, right?

Yes.

I'm in charge of a team. I have 5 people. Red's one of the people on my team, right? And let's say I have 20 meetings set up, but I also need somebody to stand around and just say hello to people and say, do you need some information? I'm going to put you on those 20 deep meetings that are set up. Yeah. And I'm gonna put somebody else who's an extrovert on those, hey, you know, can I give you a little information today type of thing, right?

Yeah. But even if you don't have that kind of leadership, because that's a major problem in sales in general, is the lack of identification. They think a salesperson as a salesperson is a salesperson. Right. Um, and that goes to the idea of full cycle versus SDR, AE.

Right. And that's, that's sort of what I'm trying to do is help people in that leadership position understand how they're running that booth for 5 days. Yeah. Because again, you go to a booth with a team, you know, you're probably spending $40 to $70 a minute for every minute you're at that booth.

Yes.

Right? So you think about that, right? Do you want to piss away $70 a minute For hours at a time because you don't put the right people in the right job at that booth, right?

It's the same thing with building any sales funnel. Find the people who are, who can bring people in the, you know, like generally I was somebody who could bring people in because I have the big hand movements. I'm bright orange. Like I look like a neon sign so I could bring people to me. But it wasn't necessarily my best spot.

Right.

So literally, if you've got 5 people, think of 5 stages of the funnel. Okay. Meeting.

Bingo. Exactly. Exactly. That's what I say. So I got to ask you this, Red. Have you ever stood in the middle of an aisle at a trade show and asked people if they know what they want for Christmas?

I have. I've done it. I've actually been Santa for a charity event for dogs, but that was the closest that I've been. I dyed the beard white and everything, but no. It, the, uh, trade show experience I had was very much, um, it, it was more passive. It was because we were the ones, ones running the events.

Right.

Um, I was able to really just pull people aside who were hot prospects.

Right. I'll tell you what, the beard helps sometimes. I, you know, people walk by, go, do you know, do you know what you want for Christmas? What, and what do you want for Christmas? Right. That always gets a good laugh. So yeah. So, so, and this comes down to, like you said, leadership, right? Identifying what the right, the people on your team should be doing best, right? And utilizing them for that so that you're getting the best bang for your buck for every minute you're at that trade show.

Like, understand, like, that's what I was saying exactly is not all sales is created equal. I've done cold calling, I've done car sales, I've done door-to-door. I was a stockbroker. I've done enterprise sales, I've done consulting sales, I've done all of these things. I know what my strengths and weaknesses are with each one. I know I'm not okay, pick up the phone and make 40 dials a day and just repeat my, my same voicemail message 30 times. That's not who I can be.

Right.

But what I can do is create content because I lack shame effectively, bring people in. Rather than having a call to action, having a call to conversation.

Right. And then pass it over to somebody else.

Or keep it myself and have that deeper conversation myself. But, right, the prospecting style, like there's no value in being out of your comfort zone forever. That's just stress-inducing.

But yeah, yeah.

And building your own comfort zone, right? You can do very well.

Faster, if you're pushing members of your team, if the only way they can earn is to be out of their comfort zone, you're not gonna keep them for more than a year, a year, 2 years.

Right. And that's the problem that we're having with SDRs in, uh, the SaaS world right now.

Oh yeah.

Is we, I think the average tenure of an SDR in the SaaS world is only 18 months. Yeah. Like how many tens of thousands of dollars is that costing you?

Yeah. Yeah. And even the VPs in the SaaS world are less than 18 months, right?

Yeah.

We're put in a lot, and this is something not related to trade shows, but we both have talked about this. We're doing a lot with the SaaS world. People say, well, SaaS is different than anything else. It has to have a new playbook. But then we're, but it hasn't been around long enough to see where all this stuff works. So if, if you're burning people out after 18 months or 12 months, it isn't functioning right. Right. That there's a, a fundamental flaw, but that, that's for a different, for a different day, I think.

Yeah. But again, the idea is still the same, is understand your strengths, understand your, your ideal customer profile. If you don't actually have an ideal customer profile, you should be spending every lunch during the trade show hammering that down. Yeah.

And not only that, like. I would be pretty, I can't conceive of going to a trade show without having that down. And I like to have what I call a message board, which means I want to have a briefing every morning with my team and saying, this is the ideal customer profile. This is who we're looking for. Right. And how do you identify that person, et cetera. Right.

Yeah. And like, The very next step is how do you explain your unique value perspective in one sentence?

Right.

Because that's all you get. They're walking past you. You get one sentence.

Yep.

And you need to, I don't want to say pique enough interest. Like it's not, you're, you're not trying to get them to go see the bearded lady here. Right. But you do want to be able to say, this is what we do. Say it definitively. Say it with confidence. And if it's not the right thing, you want them to keep walking, especially if they're introvert.

Oh yeah. Right. And you want, like I always say, if, if they're not my, if they're not my ideal customer profile, I want them the hell outta my booth. Right?

Yes.

Yes.

100%.

Okay. Now again, you have limited, you have limited square footage in your booth. You have limited manpower. If, if you have somebody in your booth saying, so tell me, what is it that you do? Right? Then you want them outta your booth as quickly as possible. 'Cause if they don't know what you do, they're not a customer.

Yeah, no. And you're going to come into people like, particularly the extroverts are literally coming to the trade shows to just talk to people. Like, yeah, that's, I mean, small firms, whatever it is, they've been shut off from contact forever and they just want to chat. No, those are the last people you want to bring around.

Oh yeah, definitely.

And that again, that's where your list can come in handy. If you get that list, you could comb through it on LinkedIn, see who's an actual high-quality prospect and reach out to Right.

And I like to say when I go to a trade show, if I can, I want to have all my meetings set up before the trade show, right? Because if I can identify my ideal customers, I know who's going to be there. I can reach out to them before the show. I can get those meetings set up, right? So in a perfect world, that's the way I want to do it. And for years, you know, that's the way I ran most of my shows, right?

Well, and even still, like, the, the best part of a trade show is being able to meet people face to face. Like, that's what it is. And to be able to build that trust, to look each other in the eye. I mean, as great as Zoom is, there's no—

oh yeah, yeah.

No substitute for a handshake.

Right.

So even if you're doing that and setting appointments for when you get back into the office, like, take those 10 minutes, make them feel like they're the only person at that show, and then have them schedule something, have a QR link that they could scan with their phone, whatever it is that brings them right to your Calendly.

No, that's, that's exactly right.

That's great. But really just make sure everything you're doing, it's all about efficiency. You're going to run out of battery if you're, especially if you're there for 3 or 4 or 5 days. Yeah. Think about that. Think about that before you go out at night. If you know you're going to be out of battery tomorrow, Take the time, lay in the room, watch ESPN, right? I, whatever it is, but turn off.

Right, right. And I'll tell you from a totally different perspective. I had a guy who worked for me once who was a great salesman, huge extrovert.

Mm-hmm.

And he would end up by the, by the 3rd, 4th day of a trade show, he would be Completely exhausted because every night he was spending the whole night out drinking with customers. Now, yeah, we, there was benefit to that, but what I understood after the, after probably the second or third year working with him was I didn't necessarily want him on the booth because it was better for me for him to be spending 8 hours drinking with people at night. than for him to be at the booth. And if he was gonna be tired at the booth all day, he was worthless to me. So, you know, and so if you're a good leader of your team at a trade show, you are, you are rotating the people into what, what they're good at and what they, the benefit they bring.

It's no different than positions on a basketball court or hockey or football. Like, put people in the position where they can actually function the best.

Right. I'll tell you what, I learned this years ago. I was dealing with this huge account and one of the most important people on the account was a big golfer. And I can't golf, right? And I, and there was no way that I was ever going to become good enough to golf. In time, you probably would.

I could drink in the woods. That's about my golf skill is I can drink in the woods.

Right. So I found this guy. who was on a market, somebody else's marketing team. And I traded a marketing person for him to be, to have him as my marketing guy on my team. And I didn't, all I had him do was golf with this one guy for this one account, right? And it was, it was a great thing. We ended up closing this multimillion-dollar deal and he was a big contributor of it. And I, at that time I learned Sometimes you just need somebody who can fill a spot and do something that nobody else on the team can do.

And it's tricky for salespeople to do that and to get rid of our own egos and say, I'm not the right person. I'm not a golfer. And I know that. I know I'm not going to be the person who likes 3-piece suits and, you know, designer clothes. Most of my t-shirts, most of the clothes I wear cost me less than $40, including sneakers.

Right.

Like, that's just how I am because everything gets ruined because of who I am.

Um, right.

But knowing that, I could talk to the blue collar guys all day long. Right.

And I tell that to people sometimes. You get, sometimes you get the opposite. You get somebody, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm sitting here wearing a suit, nice pair of shirt, you know, nice pair of shoes and stuff like that. And if I'm going to a factory, I'm not going in my suit, right? Because I mean, you know, people say, well, you should dress the way you like. Not you. I go to talk to some guy who's, you know, a skilled welder and he worked his way up and now he's a factory manager. And like you said, he's wearing a nice, you know, a clean t-shirt and I'm wearing a nice bespoke suit. He is not going to be able to build rapport with me. Right.

So one of my jobs recently, I sold fuel cards to trucking companies.

Yeah.

Like, should be right in my wheelhouse. But the person who owned the company insisted that I wear a suit to talk to these trucking companies. It's a half-million-dollar account. You need to wear it. And he literally sent me an email with everything to wear, with khakis, a pale blue shirt, a navy blue blazer with the brass buttons on them. Like, here I am going into a guy, his He's covered up to his forearms in power steering fluid. And I'm like, I guess I was gonna say at the yacht club.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Like a Harley-Davidson t-shirt. And meanwhile, here I am like, well, I'm sorry, but I need you to buy this so that I can fix my yacht.

Yeah, there you go. And I'll tell you what, so I'm at a nursing trade show. Right now, right? And I used to know a guy who had a collection of ties that were made by, I want to say UNICEF. They were the designs from like the UNICEF Christmas cards. So they have children's drawings on the ties. And he used to say he always wore those to nursing conferences because the nurses loved them. Because they took you down from looking very formal and they looked like, you know, they were the type of tie that a guy with kids would wear, right? So again, you want to think about how you're, what the image you're projecting on the floor is, right?

And not in absolutely 100%, not in a manipulative way at all. It's just about where you shine your spotlight on your personality. Like, Right. On this background, it's just a clean background, but you've seen me a dozen times with all my nerdery behind me.

Right.

Right. And my shield from Legend of Zelda over my, like, right over my head.

Right. Right.

Like, it's about how do you highlight the part of your personality that you think appeals to other people?

Yeah, exactly.

It's not a lie. It's like just talking about what they want to talk about. If they want to talk about sports, I'm going to be a little more sporty than I am. A Dungeons and Dragons nerd.

There, there you go. Exactly. Well, so what other— we're gonna sort of start wrapping up now because, you know, that those drinks aren't going to drink themselves out on Broadway.

Um, yes.

Uh, so what other last— first of all, before we, we talk a little bit more about you, what other tips, anything like that, do you have for people who are going to trade shows who are introverts?

The biggest thing is take the time to understand yourself, understand when you're hitting that wall. Even if it's just you need 10 minutes to go to the bathroom and watch a YouTube video, take those 10 minutes, like whatever it is.

That's a really good tip.

Yeah. Just understand that you cannot focus, you cannot function at top level for 3, 4, 5 days, 8 hours a day on your feet. Making the same first 3 sentences of a conversation over and over again. You can't do that.

That's great.

So really just understand your own battery, understand what recharges you, whether it is a night alone or a night out. Just have that. And that's a big tip, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert.

And on that is for the leadership, be sure that you are Making this available to your team. Don't make somebody feel bad. If you're bringing 6 salespeople to a show, don't say, hey, you can't spend the evening alone. If you're bringing an introvert to a trade show, you gotta take care of 'em and make sure that they're— that you are gonna get your best results out of 'em by being prepared to protect them.

Yeah.

Uh, the way they are, right?

And put people in the best position, like walk into it as if you have a team and the group success helps everybody, whether you have to play with commissions for that particular week because one person is more of an SDR than an AE or wherever it happens to be. Exactly fine. But the goal is to put the best person in the best position.

That, there you go. That's exactly right. So then before we go, Red, talk a little bit about yourself, what you do, where people can find you, and How we can give you money for your skill set.

So the biggest place to find me is on LinkedIn. It's easy. Just probably you just put Red in the search bar and I'll pop up nowadays. You could also find me at brokensalespeople.com, on YouTube, on Facebook. Really, I just do—

You have some great videos out there. I love your channel.

Yeah, it's— I just want something that stands out apart from that old Glengarry Glen Ross BS that survived for way too many years.

Right.

Really, it's all about training people how to do sales in an emotionally intelligent way that not only works for the business, but works for the employees, works for the customers. And introversion, extroversion, I see as a major part of that. I just launched a course, Sales for Introverts, and I'm just about to launch a 90-day total revenue revamp. I put way too many Rs in it for somebody from New England, but it's a 90-day revenue revamp. To teach people everything they need to know to build a revenue process from marketing to sales to customer service. 3 months, 13 weeks.

Great. Great. Fantastic. All right. Well, thanks a lot for your time. It's, I always like hanging out with you. You're a lot of fun. And, you know, I have 3 nerds at home, so I know what it's like. So anyway, always a pleasure. Thanks for your time. Uh, anything else you wanna say to people?

Dude, it's awesome. Let me know what I could do, how I could help. Just ask the question. I, I could use the ideas for content at any given time anyway, so just ask the question.

Perfect. Great. And thank you all, everybody out there for joining us for another episode of Conversations That Drive Global Sales Growth. Um, and good luck selling and keep safe. Thanks a lot, Red. Take care.

All right. You guys have a great one.