The Playbook Behind $1 Billion in International Sales with Zach Selch

All right, Zach Selch, glad to have you on the show, man. I appreciate you coming in.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I saw obviously you're a founder of Global Sales Mentor.

Yep.

But you've got an extensive history in sales and helping companies grow, especially internationally through sales teams, sales training, coaching. So, you know, I just was looking at your LinkedIn profile and kind of reading a little bit about you. And I saw one of the first things I wanted to touch on is I saw that you grew up in a 29-foot trailer in Pennsylvania, rural Pennsylvania. And you went from that to, you know, you've closed over $1 billion worth of deals and revenue, 125 quarters of beating quota, and you've just become an elite sales trainer and coach. So I wanted to ask you if you could take us back to that trailer in rural Pennsylvania. How did that experience and growing up that way shape who you are today?

Well, thanks. That's a great question. Like, and that's why I sort of put it in there is I want people to understand that Not everybody goes to an Ivy League school, right? Not everybody, you know, comes from a comfortable background, and sales is a great way to get where you want to go. And and yeah, I lived in this in a trailer, and and I the I like to say it wasn't even like one of these fancy nice ones in a trailer park, right? This is like a you know trailer.

I've seen some nice ones.

Yeah, yeah, there are some nice ones out there. But but at one point, my family was really badly off, and and right down the street. there was this flea market and I was like 11, 10, 11. And I walked down the street and I asked for a job and this guy gave me a job and I realized I could sell. And I thought like, you know, there I am like 11. I'm like, you know, if I can sell, I can, like, if I can sell, and I was selling factory second cutting boards and welcome mats.

Wow.

Right? And I was like, if I can sell these, I can, you know, when I'm 10 years from now, I can sell something else, right? I can be selling machinery. For some reason, I, I was thinking about like airplanes and trains and ships. I was thinking about big, big things. I was like, yeah, if I could do this, I can, I can see the world. I can do anything I want. And that was sort of my goal from, from then. And that, and that's the thing, like, you know, if you, if you have the skills to sell, you can make money and you can do just about anything and you can get just about anywhere. And that was it. So you don't have to be a doctor or an engineer or an architect, right?

Wow. Yeah, we're going to talk about some of those sales skills that you could build. And, you know, our audience is a lot of small to medium-sized companies, founders, CEOs listening, aspiring entrepreneurs. I think regardless of where you're at, whether you're a sales rep or you're a sales leader or you're a CEO or a founder, well, those skills are—

every company needs to sell, right? And, you know, I'm a founder of my own company, but I've been one of the first employees With multiple startups, I've been the sales manager of 11 startups, and I've worked with a lot of founders. And you know, there's really—I'll tell you—there's an argument in the LinkedIn world over: Do you have to be a? You know, should the founder be a salesperson or not? And very often, you know, it turns out that I'm—I'm a sales guy, right? But there are a lot of founders. I can't—you know—I can't invent anything. I can't build anything. I don't—I have trouble. putting together IKEA furniture, right? But you have people who are really great. They've invented stuff, right? They're physicists, they're doctors, they're all sorts of things, but they don't know how to sell.

Right.

And then they kill themselves because they're like, well, I have to be the best salesperson in my startup. No, you don't. The same way I can find somebody to put together my IKEA furniture, you can find somebody to To sell for you, right? And, and that's, that's the way the world works. You don't—

Your answer to that question is no, you don't think the founder has to be good?

I don't. I really don't. And not only that, I think it's detrimental when you think that the founder has to sell. Um, you're almost damaging the company, right? Because what the founder should be doing is finding the best damn person he can to sell for him So the founder can focus on what he does well.

What if you're a 2, 3, 4, or 5-person company?

You find a fractional person, right? There's always somebody out there who can help you for, you know, the right kind of money. Now—

But don't you think it's important to learn how—

It's important to learn how—

Pitch your idea, your story, your narrative in the industry.

Yeah, but that said, I mean, look, there, you know, in today's world, we're Getting used to the idea of neurodivergent people. There are people out there who are never gonna be able to sell. There are people out there who are not that they're autistic, they're just plain damn grumpy, right? Or they're just never gonna be a good salesperson. And then they kill themselves over that because they're like, well, for my company to succeed, I have to be able to sell. That's my opinion, right? I think you can buy that skill. You can find somebody who can help you.

If you have the money to, right?

You know what? That's true. If you have the money to, and maybe what you have to do is you have to be able, but there's no reason why your company should fail if you can't figure it out, right?

I think you need to have it to a certain degree. I think you need to have enough skills to get in front of a group, to pitch your idea, to be on a sales call to close.

And I don't know that I'd argue with that. I mean, you should have those skills and there are plenty of people, again, going back to LinkedIn, there are plenty of people out there who give basic courses. Sandler, if you've ever heard of Sandler.

Yeah, I have.

Sandler does great basic courses on sales. You can pick up the basic skills. But being able to run a sales organization, being able to handle a really good pitch, all of those things, they might be things that you're just not going to be able to learn.

Right.

And you shouldn't kill yourself over that. You shouldn't say, well, we're not gonna be able to succeed because I'm not gonna be able to sell, right?

Right.

If you can make a great product, you know, and the thing is there are people out there who make fantastic products and then, you know, they think they're gonna be able to go out and do the selling and they can't, right? Or they don't understand how to set up the systems or the methodology or every, you know, every sale the company has was done by the founder. And they're, they're just not scalable because the founder is putting 20 hours a week into selling when he really needs to be putting, you know, 80 hours a week into manufacturing or into developing the next product line. Right.

Well, it's one, and I'm sure you would agree, it's one of the reasons I think the number one skill or job you can have if you wanna become an entrepreneur is sales. Yeah. Because when you jump into entrepreneurship, especially if you're by yourself, most are in the beginning. It's kind of a sales job. I mean, you've created a service or a company, whatever you've done, but you got to market and sell pretty quickly. And if you haven't had a sales background and proven skills there, it's tough because you're going to be met with a lot of rejection.

Yeah. And that's— I tell my kids, like, you know, I don't think any of my kids are really going to be in sales, but I wanted them to get basic sales skills. I wanted them to work a little bit in sales because I think you're right. It's something that you're always going to be able to use. Every company needs it. Over the years, I've had probably 10 or 12, 10, 12, 15 guys work for me who wanted to put in a 2 to 3 year shift as a regional sales manager, even though they had no— they wanted to be a CEO. They didn't— they knew they weren't going to spend their whole career as a sales guy, but they figured, you know, they were a manufacturing guy. They did some manufacturing stuff and then they wanted to do a couple of years in sales and Then they went back into being you know the ops manager for a factory, and then they went on to be the CEO of a factory. Right? But they wanted to get that skill, and that and that's a great way to invest. Yeah. If if you can plan it out and do it that way.

Mm hmm. You know. Yeah. No, I totally agree. Do you going back to your because I don't want to skip over this part—the rural Pennsylvania in the trailer. What um what did your parents do? I'm curious if you don't mind sharing.

Um so so my My dad was just not very good at holding a job, right? My dad was a little pugnacious. He was a smart guy. He had been in— he had a little bit of post-traumatic stress from the war in Korea. He also, he was raised poor. You know, he grew up— both of my parents spent time, you know, basically grew up on farms.

Right.

And my mom was, a teacher and a housewife, but she didn't really have— she didn't have a college degree. My dad spent a couple of years in college and didn't graduate, so he didn't have a degree. And he would, like, he'd get jobs that were typically— they were a little bit beyond him. He'd do really well in the interview, he'd get a job, and then he'd struggle with it and he'd get fired, and we'd end up Unemployed for you know six months or a year, we'd move around. So we spent like us, you know, it's sort of funny. Like there was this guy on LinkedIn a while ago. So I spent a lot of my time on LinkedIn. I tell a lot, right? So there was this guy a while back, and he was like, "Yeah, I was really poor as a kid. You know, if we went on vacation, we only went to Spain, and we never went." I was like, "Who would say that?" And I was like, "You have no idea." Like I, you know, like we went through periods of time when, and and I'll tell you something else, which I've never actually said on a podcast before or said in public. public before. So my dad, at one point, he was getting unemployment and he cheated. He got it— he was working under the table while he was getting unemployment and he got caught. So then we could never get any government assistance after that.

Dang.

Right? So there was a period of time, like, my— I remember going to the supermarket with my mother and she'd buy a 50-pound bag of pasta and these These, uh, like, uh, like a big barrel of margarine because that was like the cheapest thing you can get. And like, and we would have like peanut butter sandwiches and pasta and margarine for, you know, 2 months at a time. That was all we would eat because that's what we had. And, um, you know, so we, we were poor.

That's poor, right? When you're poor, you don't take vacations, right?

Like, you don't take poor— you know, I It was funny. I said to my wife at one point, like, we were buying furniture for my kids, and I laughed. I said, you know, I didn't realize you could buy a mattress until I was like 22. Because what my dad would do, he would go to a hardware store and he would buy foam, and he would cut it into shapes, and then he'd put like boards down with blocks, and that's how we slept.

Wow.

And, you know, again, it's fine. I'm not trying to cry on anybody's shoulder, but this is like, This is what poverty looks like, right? And you, you're— you live like that and you say, well, I don't necessarily want to raise my kids like this.

Yeah.

And what do you do? Well, you, you know, you go to school, you, you figure out. And for me, it worked out that I knew how, how to sell. And I'll tell you, I'll give you one story, uh, that—

Yeah, please.

Um, so I was selling this, this, uh, uh, flea market And people would come in from, uh, from, uh, Baltimore and Philadelphia to, uh, to Lancaster. And I was selling these cutting boards. And, you know, if you ever walk through a flea market, everybody's standing in their hallway and they're going, 3 for a dollar, 3 for a dollar. And I would stop people and I would say, um, hey, you know, did you just come in from on the bus from Philadelphia? And they, you know, I'm here, I'm a 10-year-old boy. And they'd be like, yeah. I said, did they stop for lunch at the Bird-in-Hand Diner? And they'd be like, Yeah, I said, wow, isn't that good food? Yeah. Did you enjoy the Amish food? Yeah. You know what's a great way to remember being in Lancaster is you could make some local food. And you know, the people at the Bird-in-Hand Diner, they're using these cutting boards. They're made locally. Wouldn't that be a great thing to remember Lancaster by? And they'd be like, yeah, that sounds great. I was like, hey, because these cutting boards, these are the same ones they're using in all the restaurants locally. They make them locally. The company's been around for 50 years. It's a great thing to take home. And because they're factory seconds, they're about a third of the price you'd buy them in a store in Philadelphia.

Yeah.

And so, I'd sell these boards. And this is 1975, 1976. I was selling $30 boards like that, right?

How did you know to do that? How did you know to frame a story around it, an emotional reference?

Pardon me for saying, fuck if I know.

Really?

I don't know. It was just natural to me.

Do you remember thinking about it? Like, how do I sell this? Because naturally, you might have thought like, here's a cutting board, but you didn't do that. No.

I was like, these people want to have a talk. They're enjoying their day. 100 guys are jumping at them and saying, 3 for a dollar, 3 for a dollar. And I was like, he doesn't want to be pounced on like that. And I'd talk to them and they'd engage with me and we'd get to talking. I'd be like, yeah, you want to take something home to remember today from, right? This is a great thing. You're going to use it for the rest of your— this is going to last you the rest of your life. Every time you use it, you're going to remember your nice day in Lancaster.

Right.

And so one day I'm standing there, my boss calls me over and there's this angry-looking guy and he has 2 cutting boards under his arm. And my boss calls me over and he says, this gentleman— and my boss is like laughing, he goes, this gentleman has a complaint. And I look and I'm scared, right? I'm 11 years old. My heart— first time anybody's ever complained about me. And the guy says, don't let him say anything. Points to me and he says to my boss, says, don't let him say anything. Goes, my wife bought one of these crazy expensive cutting boards and I came to return it and he sold me another one. And so my boss is like laughing. He goes, if he starts talking, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'll end up buying a third one. So my boss took one back, right?

That's funny.

So I just realized that I knew how to talk to people and how to get them engaged and how to get them to buy. And I've been doing the same, same thing for 50 years now.

So that would lead me to believe, based on your story, that being good at sales is something that you're born with, not taught for the most part. Would you agree with that?

I would say like anything, You can teach anybody to a certain level, and then there are skills that you're born with, right?

I agree.

Look, I'm getting old, so I'm slowing down, but I used to be a powerlifter, right? And I have friends who are marathon runners, right? So I've run 2 marathons. I will always be a slow runner, right? My friend who's run 30, 40 marathons, he's never gonna be able to bench what I can, right? He just doesn't have the muscle mass, right?

Right.

So, it's like that with sales. I think I was born or developed as a kid certain skills which somebody else might not have and might never be able to get there. On the other hand, and this is what I do, I teach people, right? So, you can teach people a lot of those skills and especially the methodology of sales.

Right.

What most people, you know, I've known sales guys who are really, really good at getting to a certain level. They can't manage people. They can't teach people because they can't even explain what they do. They can't break it down into a methodology. So going back to what I was talking about in Pennsylvania, I can tell you exactly what I'm doing. I'm doing a discovery. I am engaging you. I'm making a quick intro. I'm getting you to talk about your feelings. You're saying, hey, did you enjoy lunch?

Mm-hmm.

Do you want to have something to remember your time in Lancaster, right? So I can break that down. And one of the things that I do with my clients is I teach them, you know, I'll put together 2, like, you know, right now I'm working with clients where I'm putting together a 280-page book on their sales process, breaking down every little piece of it.

Wow.

So that they can train everybody and they can keep track of the conversion rate from one conversation to another. and they can improve that. And that you're not born with that. You have to, have to learn and you have to work on those details and you have to dig that up. So that's, you know, you can get to be sure I can sell a $30, you know, I can sell a whole bunch of $30 cutting boards, but can I sell, you know, a $2 million piece of industrial equipment? Well, that, that requires some, you know, some methodology to do that. Right.

Did you, going back to when you were that kid, Did growing up poor shape who you are in a lot of ways? And how so?

Oh yeah. Well, so I'll tell you what, like, you know, this is a funny thing, nothing to do with business. It kills me. My kids are wasteful with like, like I'll go into the kitchen and I'll see that everybody's left like 2 spoonfuls of food on their plate and I wanna kill everybody. I'm like, I would never, like, I can't believe you would, you would do this. Right? So that, that shaped me. You know, I, I try and give my kids a whole lot of stuff that I, you know, on the one hand, I want to give them stuff that I didn't get. On the other hand, I'm sort of like, well, if I— they're not tough enough, right? I'm not making them tough enough. You know?

That's the balance right there, right?

That's the balance, I guess.

I want to give them things, but if I give them everything, where's the grit? Where's the character? Where's the challenge?

And building that is really a very, very— so I made all my kids work for 2 years either in food service or retail in high school.

Wow.

Right. So one of my kids who's now, you know, in graduate school, I made them wash dishes. And, you know, 9th and 10th grade, they were washing dishes in a local restaurant.

I did that too.

Yeah. It builds character.

Yeah.

Right.

And it's humbling. Like, you're at the bottom washing dishes, you know, and hey, you got to be the best you can at it. That was my philosophy.

That was exactly it.

The best dishwasher I could, the fastest, the most cleanest, you know.

That's exactly it. Right. That's what I said to my kids. Right. And, and because all these other kids are— they're getting everything for free, right? And they, they don't have to do anything, and they're not learning.

You never learn shit when you get it for free. When something comes easy, you never learn anything.

That, that's exactly it, right? So that's, that's what I did with my kids. And so that type of thing shapes me, uh, shaped me certainly, right?

Do you think that anyone now in America could start in a trailer And work their way up to what you've gotten to?

I would like to believe you can. I would like to believe you can. I think it gets harder maybe, but you know what's actually easier? Again, I don't want to just— education is so expensive now, right? But—

Well, it depends on what kind of education you mean. University and academia, yes, but I think we've got YouTube, we've got Google ChatGPT.

That's true. Podcast now. But I'll tell you what, nowadays, everybody wants you to have a college degree to get a good job.

I think that's changing though.

It should change, right? And I don't think you need a college degree for most jobs, right?

No kidding.

But the college degree—

I'd argue it's a waste of time.

Yeah, but a college degree is $100K, $130K, something like that, right? So that's hard. On the other hand, there are ways to borrow that money. On the other hand, you have to pay it back, right? So it's hard, but I think, look, you can go into the Army and get the GI Bill, right? And that— so it's 3, 4 years of your life, but that's also— you're getting— if you're reasonably good and you go into the Army, you'll get good leadership experience.

Yeah, it's also— it's 3, 4 years, yes, but you're also probably going to enjoy the time, build relationships, gain skills, serve the country.

Exactly right. So, so I think, I think you can. I think anybody— I, I do too.

I think you 100% can. I think 100%.

Yeah, I think you can. I think you can, you can go from any level of poverty. Um, you know, there are lots of programs out there. There are good safety nets right there. You know, there's SNAP, there's, there's all sorts of things to keep kids alive. Yeah, long enough so they can, you know, they can get into school, they can get into the Army, they can leverage the GI Bill if you want to work. Now, again, it's hard to go— like, you know, I— a friend of my sister's has been doing like retail for 40 years. So she's, you know, the, the city manager for one of those, one of those clothing chains like The Gap. Not The Gap, but something like that.

Yeah.

Now, you know, so she makes reasonably good money. She, you know, she isn't like— she isn't terribly bright, right? She doesn't do real sales, like what I would consider real sales, but she's doing— she's running 50, 60, 100 retail people and she's making pretty good money right there. Jobs like that, you don't have to be selling, right? You know, computers or selling industrial machinery, right?

Yeah. No, I think— and I think not only do I think it's possible, you just have so many examples of people that have come from nothing and become something. And so the moment you start to say, well, I don't think it's possible, or maybe it— maybe some people had an easier start or because of where they are, what class they're in, what area they're in, how they grew up or whatever it might be. There's no doubt that everyone faces different challenges. I think that's— Oh, that's fair to say.

That's fair to say.

But at the same time, I look at that and go, and now what? Right? What are you going to do about it? You're going to sit and complain and you're the victim your entire life? Or you're going to say, hey, these other thousands of people have made it out of there. I can too. Oh, yeah. Well, that's empowering. You know, it really is.

And I'll tell you what, you can't compare yourself with other— you have to compare yourself with With yourself yesterday.

Definitely. Definitely.

Not somebody else. And, you know, I know people— look, I didn't, you know, again, you asked. I'm not crying about my past, right?

No, I know.

I didn't inherit it. And, you know, I didn't inherit anything.

Right.

Now, a lot of people that you meet, people, they're like, well, okay, so they have this really nice house and then they also have a summer cottage, you know, a weekend cottage.

Right.

But at one point, you know, when they were 30, They inherited a quarter of a million dollars from their grandmother. And that's really common, right? People don't talk about it.

Totally. 100%.

But a lot of people, you know, they— so somebody paid for their college. And then when they were maybe 30, you know, grandmother died. They suddenly got this infusion of a quarter of a million, half a million dollars in cash. And they— that's how they paid for their house and that's how they bought their summer house. Great. You know, that isn't me. I don't have that. My kids aren't going to have it. On the other hand, You know, I have a pretty good life, right? My kids are gonna have a pretty good life. So you can't really compare yourself with, with this. You know, there's a lot of inequality out there. I'm not a communist, right? You know, these things happen.

Yeah.

Um, but if— but also, if I had really wanted— if I— I like what I do, right?

Me too.

Um, I don't think that I would really like to have been in finance, but if I'd gone into finance at 22, I'd probably be worth 10 times as much as I am now, 100 times as much as I am now, right? But I don't know that I would have enjoyed my life as much.

Yeah.

You know? So, it's not all about— That's the trade-off too, right? Yeah, I like money, but it isn't all about money. I have money to do what I want to do. You know, I could have a nicer car, I could have a boat, you know, but, you know, I don't. And I live in a really— I really like I've made choices. I really like where I live.

You live in a nice area.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm happy with my family. I'm happy with what, you know, they're going to good schools, you know? So—

Life is good, man. That's, you know, you're doing something you love. Your family's good. You're happy.

Like, what else can you really ask for? Exactly. What else do you really, really need? And, you know, spending years doing a job you don't necessarily like—

Or building a business that you deep down hate or resent. I see that all the time from founders. It's like building, building, building. We're going to scale. We're going to sell it. We're going to sell it. Meanwhile, they neglect their family, they neglect their health, neglect their kids. You know, it's like, so you're building this thing for what? Yeah. I mean, I don't envy that. Like, yeah, maybe you do sell it one day, but you wait 10 years of your life, you hate it.

Yeah. And even worse is you get people who— whose kids don't want to go into the business and they're like, you have to. I built this for you. And which is terrible. And it's like, but I didn't ask you for that. And you know what? My kids It's an interesting discussion too. Like, none of my kids are exactly like me.

Yeah.

Right? One of them I don't really understand that well, right? But they're all doing well in their own thing. There you go. They're all happy. They're all healthy. I love them, right? And, you know, and then like one of them I'll see and I'll go, ooh, that I can see myself in what they're doing, or the other.

Yes.

And I love that.

That's cool, man.

But they're all different.

Yeah.

And that's the way it should be.

I agree.

You know, and I said to them years ago, Don't marry somebody you don't want to because you think it's going to make me happy. Don't do a career— as long as you can make a living and you're happy with your career and you're a good citizen and you're not breaking the laws and you're happy and can have a family, I don't care what you do or how you do it.

So, Zach, growing up for you then and even further into your career, what was some of the foundational advice that you got that led you to where you are now? Sales excellence and mastering your craft. You know what?

I'll tell you what I had. I had. I did not. I I wish I had better mentors, right? Which is sort of why I call my company Global Sales Mentor, right? I wish I had better mentors. I think you know I read read a few books when I was younger. That really led me towards the idea of being excellent at what I did and working hard. And, and, and like you said, like, I worked really hard at doing what I did well. And I remember at one point thinking, well, you know, in all these, you know, nobody ever says, well, this is the best salesman in the world. And, and this is where I'm leaning towards, but I should try and do this the the best way that I can.

Mm-hmm.

And, and, and so that's sort of how I tried. And I did have, like, you know, I was in the Army. I remember, um, really, like, one of the, the most influential things was the first day, um, when, when I'm, I'm sort of the, you know, doing this sort of like this intro thing where, where you're sort of testing to see if you can get into the paratroopers. And I'm doing it and this sergeant comes up to me and he leans over and he says, you have to apply for the reconnaissance unit. You're really good. And I hadn't really— that was just this little piece of encouragement. And that got me one step farther. And it was just about being— it wasn't that I was physically excellent or anything. I was just was tough and tenacious.

Yeah.

And, you know, that—

That's a lot of what it is in the military too. It really is. Your mindset and your ability to fight through it.

Your mindset and your tenaciousness. And basically, like I just said, you know, every time, like there's no sense in just, you know, slacking. So every chance I had to volunteer, like I was one of these guys who basically volunteered for everything, right? And through the military, you know, if there was a shift, you know, a mission, patrol or, you know, whatever. I was like, yep, I'm up. And, and I did all that and I did the best I could. And then, but I also realized I wasn't going to be a professional soldier. And when I got out, I found a job. And, you know, so basically it was always like, well, try and leverage what you do well.

Yeah.

Do what you can.

Yeah.

Be tenacious. Always, always take, you know, never shy away from work. Never slack. I, I've, you know, never slacked from anything over And that's pretty much where it goes. Like, that was it.

It's amazing how a small gesture or words of wisdom or just encouragement can go a long way. It's kind of a good reminder to make sure that you're doing that for others. But yeah, the fact that you remembered that decades later, it's sort of amazing.

And I think about that, and it was a very, very influential, you know, 2 sentences. It was very influential in my life. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

And someone that believed in you and said, you got something, man. Take it. Don't waste it. Yeah. Yeah. Take it. Run with it. I remember I was trying to think of that, that question in my mind of like, what would I say if someone was like, what's the best piece of advice that you got? I actually think it's interesting because I think— and I heard this on a podcast years ago, but the guy said some of your best lessons and even from your parents aren't always taught, they're caught.

Yeah.

Meaning that you catch things, whether it's I don't want to be like that, which we all have that from our parents too. And there's some things that I do want to be like that. And I think for my dad, even though he wasn't necessarily sit down and teach you wisdom and that kind of stuff, he was kind of doing his thing and working. My mom was busy too. So there wasn't a lot of like sit down and having these wisdom conversations. I don't remember. But I do remember watching them and seeing my mom and how loving she was and how she cared for people and our family and the kids and things like that. And I think I watched my dad work really hard and overcome adversities and like never complained and just like—

Yeah.

He just, even though he wasn't always in the best mood, we'll joke about that, but like, but he just fought through adversities.

Yeah. You know? Oh, and that, and that's the thing. My dad, my dad was tough and well, and my dad worked really, really hard. And, and I think, I think my dad was never meant to be like a middle-class dad. And he just, it was really, and I think that's what my mom wanted from him. And so again, I'll tell you, I'll tell you something which you may or may not have caught about my stuff. So I was on my own after I was about 15.

Yeah.

And my dad went through a lot of periods of unemployment. And then I was about 14, 15, he lost his last real job. And he wasn't that old at the time, he was about 55. And he had a couple of heart attacks and he was doing really badly. And I guess also this really tore apart his marriage with my mother. And at one point he just said to me, I remember my mother— this is going to sound like a horrible story, but it really wasn't that bad, right? Like, he came to the total end of his rope. And my mother went to her— her mother died and she went to to help her dad settle in. And she was away from home and my dad came. So, it was just him and me and he was unemployed. I had a job at the time. And he comes to me and says, I can't do anything more for you. Do you mind if I leave? And I said, you know what? That actually makes sense. And he left.

Wow.

And I was on my own. And then I basically said to my mom, stay where you are. I'm okay. You're okay. You know, like, the other kids are okay. I was the youngest kid. I was like, don't worry about me, I'm okay. And, um, and then— but I stayed on my own. And I remember when my kid— when my oldest kid was 15, and then when my younger kids was 13, I was like, holy crap, they could never survive. Right.

You look at it so differently.

Yeah, right. Wow. Right. It was like, it made perfect sense to me at the time. But I also think, like, I, I think it must have been really hard for my dad to say, I can't do anything for my family anymore.

It's tough. It's really tough.

Yeah. And he actually spent a little bit of time being homeless, and then he got a job and he was able to save some money and he was able to get on his feet again. So as a single guy, he was able to support himself for the next 30 years before he died. But he He just couldn't do well enough by his family, and I can only imagine how hard that was. And like for me, you know how it is. Well, do you have do you have kids? You know.

Yeah, I do. Two daughters.

How old are they? Nine. Okay. Yeah. So so like they can be a pain in the ass, right? And and like you know couple like when my kids were getting older and getting ready to go go to college, like you know they were just sometimes they were just a pain in the ass, right? And I love them, right? They're great kids. Yes. And at one point I'm like you know. This is just killing me, like, between trying to make a living and dealing with my kids and all this. And I'm like, but I'm, I'm not going anywhere. This is, this is what I got to do. I got to take care of them. I got to get them to the next level. I gotta— and, um, and there's, you know, that's, that's what we do, right? We do what we got to do, right?

Totally, totally. Yeah. Again, I think we learn things from our parents that we want to do differently, and we learn some things that we want to emulate. And I think that's That's just the way it goes. My one piece of advice I was getting to that I do remember someone saying, it was when I was in corporate and one of the managers, I was talking about wanting to speak up more and like lead meetings, but I was like nervous. My face would get red. I was like, I had like this confidence and belief in myself, but at the same time I was like nervous to go do it. And I remember him just telling me one day, Alex, when you remember your purpose, you'll forget your fears.

That's a great, great piece of advice.

And it just always stuck with me. And from there it was like, yeah, because I think a lot of things in life is we hold ourselves back because we're scared of, well, what if it doesn't work out? What if I speak up and I get shot down? What if I try to start the business and it fails? What if— what if I ask the girl out or the guy out and they say no? All of these things end up holding us back. And I think if we just think about why are we doing what we're doing and remember that what's on the other side of this, if it does go well and if it doesn't, I can learn from it.

Right.

But putting that in perspective is always something I go back to.

No, that's a great piece. I'll tell you something else I learned a few years ago there. So I worked at a factory. I've worked at different factories, but I worked at one factory for 12 years as the head of sales. And we had a lot of manufacturing people, about 100 manufacturing people. And the nature of manufacturing today in a lot of places can be done at a chair. You're manipulating machinery. You don't have to be a big strong guy.

Yeah, oh, for sure.

So a lot of people doing the work were essentially middle-aged women without college degrees. And I remember talking to some people in the cafeteria, and there are these women, about half of them were African American, about half of them were immigrants, no college degrees, most of them women who were in their 30s or 40s. And I'm talking to them and they're like putting their kids through college and they're really improving their lives. And this was a job You know, being a waitress is, you know, $16 an hour. They're making $35 an hour, right? And this was a great job.

Yeah.

And I thought, okay, so, you know, I'm a sales guy, but every time I sell, we have to hire more manufacturing people. So, I am creating— every year I'm creating 30, 40, 50 new manufacturing jobs with what I'm doing.

That's cool.

Each one of these jobs is maybe putting 2 new 2 kids through college.

That's incredible, man. Yeah.

Isn't that a great feeling?

That's awesome.

And when you look at it that way, you say, okay, so it's nice to have the car, it's nice to have the vacation, it's nice to have the suits, but I'm also doing this, right? I'm, I'm helping create jobs which is— which are changing lives, which those jobs wouldn't exist if it wasn't for what I was selling. And when you think about it that way, it gives you a— like, you talk about purpose. Yeah. You say, well, this is what I'm doing. I am creating manufacturing jobs.

Yeah, right. That's so cool. Let's talk a little bit about sales. Yeah. What is the state of state of sales right now? Because has it changed over the last 5, 10 years? It seems like it really has.

It really has. So, so, so going back to like sales isn't like a uniform block, everything. There are a lot of guys, a lot of— and I'll use the term guys because, because I think it's almost all guys. A lot of young guys are getting into the technical side of selling where they're not actually engaging with people and talking. So what they're doing, like a lot of sales today is, can I get more emails into inboxes and opened?

Yeah, just what prospects want.

Well, yeah. And there are people who that's what they specialize in and they're almost all like young guys. And they're working from, you know, from a basement in their pajamas, and they're— they don't necessarily have to talk to people, but that's a lot of sales. And you can make, you know, $60K to $120K like that. And there are a lot of young people doing that, and they— and, and they— like, I hate to sound dismissive, but they think they're in sales, right?

Right.

But they're never talking to anybody, and that's a big part of it. And—

By the way, that job's gone in the next year or two.

It is, because AI is going to take it over. But you get all these guys and they're really, really proud of themselves. And they're like the bro network, the sales bros. And they're like, it's really interesting. And that didn't— like you said, it didn't exist 8 years ago, 10 years ago. It won't exist in 3 years.

Yeah.

But it's a big thing right now. But there's always room for face-to-face sales. And again, going back to like, You know, LinkedIn, there are communities. Everybody talks about SaaS, software as a service, but that is just a tiny fraction of what has to be sold. But, but, but you talk to people and like, well, if you're not in SaaS, well, you're, you know, this— the elite people are in SaaS. And—

It's just like the sexy thing, like the shiny object thing.

But it goes through every, every few years.

Yeah, now it's AI, you know. Yeah.

But I'll tell you what, like, you got to sell everything. Every factory needs salespeople.

Yeah.

And not only that, I'll tell you what, if you were to drive around the Midwest and go to all these $20 million factories in Peoria and Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, they don't have good salespeople. They need salespeople, right? Because what happens is a lot of the young people in those towns, they're packing up and going to Chicago or New York or LA.

Right.

And they're doing this emailing selling, but they don't want to be the guy who gets in their pickup truck and drives around and tries to sell machinery or paper goods or manufactured goods. And so, there are lots of sales jobs out there for that kind of thing. And that, again, for a couple of thousand bucks, you can get a good course from Sandler and get the basic skills.

What do you think some of the most, like maybe for founders, CEOs listening, what are some of the, I don't wanna say like super basic skills, but what are some of the maybe immediate, you know, middle ground to advanced skills that people need to know that they don't?

Well, I'll tell you what they, they really need to know. They, they need to understand the methodology, right? Because what happens is people are very different. And people who don't sell are very often very dismissive of the concept of methodology in sales. Right? So the first thing you want to do is you want to try and understand what is actually happening. Right? You know, I say, okay, so you're identifying your lead, you're doing an intro, you're doing a discovery call, you're doing a demo, you're doing some negotiation, you're doing a proposal, you're closing. Right now, can you break those down and how do they fit into your system, into your product? Right? Maybe you do a demo, maybe you don't do a demo, and maybe you send samples with your product, right? What are— what's the— what does discovery look like? How do you identify if somebody is a prospect or not?

Let's stop there. Discovery. If you're on a meeting and let's say it's a salesperson, sales leader, founder, CEO, whatever. And they're, they're on a sales call, right? Someone booked a call with them. They're interested potentially. Where do you see kind of the biggest problems or challenges come into play with those calls? So, so I'll give you kind of where I think is the hardest part too.

So I think there, there are a couple of things here. One is, let me tell you a quick story, right? A few years ago, I'm a Marriott guy, right? So I go, I get this really good deal in Disney World for my family. I know, 4 days for $100 in a nice hotel, but we have to go hear a pitch for a timeshare.

Oh yeah.

I'm like, fine. So, I go in to hear the pitch and this guy comes up to me and goes, hey, he looks down his list. He goes, hey, you're here because you're, you know, Titanium Elite with Marriott. I go, yeah. So, how many nights a year do you spend in a hotel? I go, About 160. He goes, you want me to sign your form? I go, sure. I said, don't you want to give me a pitch? He goes, are you going to buy from me? Do you really want a timeshare? And I laughed. I said, no. He goes, yeah, I'll sign your form. He goes, I'm gonna go play some golf tomorrow. I'll get somebody who's, who's really gonna buy from me.

Wow.

He goes, nobody who's Titanium Elite ever buys a timeshare because he goes, how many free nights a year do you get? I go, 20, 22. He goes, you don't need a timeshare. He goes, when you retire, maybe you'll come back and buy from me, right? He goes, I'm going to go play some golf tomorrow. I'll be in a better, in a better position to sell.

Wow, look at that. That is a good salesperson.

I said, that's perfect. Like, he wasted like 3 minutes on me. Yeah. Qualified me. He knows I'm not going to buy. Goes play some golf, right? Tomorrow he's going to be in a fresh, you know, fresh, ready for the guy who is going to buy from him, maybe. Right. So, that ability to qualify really quickly is really important.

Hmm.

And that you get in your discovery. I'll tell you something else that I think about in discovery, which a lot of people don't. Discovery is the best place to really establish your credibility with a question. Because if I ask you a question that that your wife doesn't even know about you, about your work, you're going to say, hey, wow, Zach really understands me.

Like what? What would an example be?

So I'll tell you, there was a time when I was selling, um, essentially this tool that you would use for vaccination that you would be able to get twice as many doses out of a unit of vaccine, right? And our target were very specifically countries that were having trouble getting enough vaccine. So I knew there were— there was a small number, it was like 30, 40 countries, but I knew that they were not being given the vaccine that they asked for.

Mm-hmm.

And I knew that. But I would go and I'd talk to typically like the head of infectious diseases at the country. Right? And they would always say, "Oh no, of course we get all the vaccine we need. Why? Why do you think we wouldn't get the vaccine we need? Blah blah blah." But I would talk to the person who was in charge of vaccination, and I would say, "So you know what percent?" And I wouldn't even say, "Did you get all that?" So what percentage of the vaccine you ordered last year was delivered? And they'd say, "Ah, thirty forty percent," right? And then they'd be like. You know I'm not getting all my vaccine. I'd say, yeah. I go, you're not alone. There are about 20 other countries that didn't get all the vaccine they ordered last year. And they'd be like, my boss doesn't understand that. My husband doesn't understand that. Nobody understands that. And then we'd talk and they'd be like, wow, Zach gets me. I'd say, I can solve that problem for you. So I figured that out in that job. And then I figured if you can think those Yeah. I'll give you another example. At one point, I sold you— you ever watch in the movies or in TV shows about hospitals? They have a code blue button and you press that, right?

Yeah.

So, I used to sell those.

Wow, that's cool.

Right? So, I would say to people, I'd say, walk me through your code blue, right? And at the hospital, and they'd say, well, you know, you press this button. I say, cool, what's the next step? And they'd say, well, it goes over here. And it articulates on this desk. And then the person who's at this desk is going to start calling the people on the code blue list. I'd say, hey, that makes perfect sense. I'd say, but there's nobody at the desk, is there? And they'd go, no. I'd say, huh, that's interesting. I wonder why there's nobody at the desk. And they'd say, yeah, why isn't there anybody at the desk? And they'd walk around and they'd say, yeah, there should be somebody at the desk, but she probably just like— I go, yeah, but if there was a code blue now, she isn't here.

Right.

So we have a problem that you're not aware of, right? And I would raise it like that discussion. They'd go, holy crap, I never realized that we had this problem in our system. I'd say, yeah, but we could solve that for you because with my system, we press a button and it goes to everybody's phone, right? So you don't need that person in the middle. We can bypass that. I said, and, and I don't, don't feel bad about that. I see this every hospital I go to. It all— everybody has the same problem, right? So those type of questions, those are really powerful in the discovery call, right?

How important do you think it is too? Because I think this is one area that I'm trying to get better at. You sort of identify a pain or desire and then you kind of like get it and then you kind of go on to the next phase versus saying, hey, what happens if that doesn't get solved? Or why solve this now? Why not kick this down to the next year? And that's— so those are some powerful questions. But I think sometimes we're kind of scared to ask, like, try a little bit, you know?

Well, and part of that is I like— that's a really good question. It's like what I like to say is we want Every— you're talking to somebody else and they're dealing with 20 different things, 100 different things, right? And those things could be things at home, you know, their wife, their kids, their car, their dog, things at work, all these different things. But you only solve one of those problems.

Right.

So what you want to do is you want to identify that problem and then you want to make it worse, right? You want to make them think about, well, I really should solve that. that problem. But you don't want to say, you don't want to make it obvious, right? So, what you do want to do is you want to say, yeah, that is a problem. What would happen if you didn't solve that problem? What does it look like if we can't solve that problem for you this year? Like, how bad would that be? Now, you want to do that in a way that isn't terribly obvious. But you do want to make sure that it— I like to say like, I was having a discussion with some people in the sales business, like the sales gurus, right?

Mm-hmm.

A while back, and we were talking about our presentations. And I'd say, I don't even talk about my product until about a third of the way through. I'm saying, this is a problem, and this is why this problem is really big. And boy, this is a big problem. Wow, this is a big problem, isn't it? Oh, this is a big problem. Hey, Zach has a solution to that problem.

Let me ask you this though. What if they say, well, we're not— let's say it's marketing, right? Well, we're not really doing much marketing now, so it's not like a big problem, but I feel like we're missing out on opportunities. I just think we are.

Well, the problem isn't marketing. The problem is missed opportunities, right? The problem is, do they have like, hey Alex, do you have all the revenue you really want?

Are you growing at the rate that you'd like? Are you growing at the rate you'd like? Are you getting the leads that you'd like? Are you getting the leads that you want?

Are you getting the cash flow that you'd like?

Yeah.

Are you happy? What I do, I help people grow their international sales. And I'll say, not everybody, most people I talk to, they'll say, hey, Zach, I'm good. I'm covered in 40 countries. I don't need any help. I say, great. Is everybody producing the way you think they should? Well, you know how it is. I mean—

The answer is never yes.

Right. The answer is never yes. I said, no, I get that. I said, what most people tell me when they're doing well internationally is they say, well, I'm selling in 40, 45 countries, but about 20% of my distributors are doing all the sales and the other 80% suck. That's what I hear from a lot of people. Virtually everybody I talk to, they say, yeah, Yeah, that's pretty much the situation I have. I say, yeah, those 80%, they don't seem like they're doing a good job, right? They say, yeah. And they'll usually say, well, there's this one distributor who really doesn't do a good job for me. I said, yeah, what kind of car does he drive? They'll go, huh, he has one of those Porsche SUVs. I go, that's a $200,000 car in Singapore. He must be selling something. Right? They're like, yeah. I go, he can't really suck. He must know how to sell. He isn't selling your product. I wonder why he isn't selling your product, but he's selling something else so much that he can afford a $200,000 car, right? So that's the type of conversation I typically have with people, right?

I noticed that you— and I think this is a good trait for people trying to sell things and influence people— is you get— you're very curious. I wonder why. Huh, why is that? I wonder why. What's going on there? What do you think that is? What made you want to do this? Why would you stop doing this?

And I'll tell you what the biggest problem salespeople have is a lot of people get into sales because we like to talk, right?

And you got to shut up and listen and ask good questions.

That's, that's the thing. The biggest thing you have to control is you got to shut up, because if you're talking, you're not selling, you know. You, you, and, and, and we all struggle with We all struggle with that. I'll tell you something else, like, I'm, I'm a controlling kind of guy, right? I like to be in control, and you got to give that— you got to give that up.

Yeah, you—

And, um, I like to ask closed questions. Yes or no, Alex? Right? How many? How many, Alex? Right? And you got to ask open questions, and it kills me to ask open questions. I got to really fight with myself. I say, tell me about that. Tell me that story and just sit back and wait because what I want to do is say yes or no.

Well, I would argue that you are in control in this scenario in most cases, but maybe the prospect doesn't realize that you are in control.

Oh, yeah. I want to be very much in control.

Do you have a framework for running a call? I heard someone talk about one the other day where it was like make 3 buckets and put it previous state or past state, current state, future state. I find a lot of founders, CEOs, salespeople, we get into meetings and we don't have like a good structure. And then it's kind of like, oh, we're all over the place.

No, I have— I'm, I'm very, very structured. Like, I had a boss once say about me that Zach— like, she goes, Zach has a plan A, B, and C, right? And, and that's what I— a lot of times I work with my clients on that because They really— that's what they need is that methodology and that structure. And, um, and I've— and I don't— to be honest, I don't invent any of it, right? I, I aggregate material, I curate, I find really good systems, and I pull them together.

Yeah, right.

And so, yeah, so I, I've, you know, I, I've seen really, really good structures for those calls where you basically say, yeah, well, what would this cost you? Like, how, how painful How painful would it be to not solve that problem? What's the problem? What would happen if you didn't solve it? How painful would that be for you? And that really, those type of structures really work. But I'll go into a sales meeting with, I always carry a paper pad and a pen, even though I do so much stuff digitally, because I like to be able to to write notes, but I'll have questions written out and I'll have things I'll write on. Like, I'll write myself little notes and say, remember, remember to ask this.

Remember that in the podcast with this thing. Yeah, yeah, doodle on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because I want to, you know.

But do you have a set like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 structure or past, current, future state, or is it just kind of based on the—

Yeah. So, so typically What— with what I'm doing, like, so, so you got to keep in mind there are 2 different things here. One is, well, what do I prepare for my clients? So if, if a client is selling, uh, mining equipment, then I have to build that up for them.

Sure.

Right. But for myself, it usually comes down to, well, you know, are you, are you growing internationally the way you'd like to? Right. And what would that look like if you, if you could? Right. Because—

Current state, future state.

Couldn't— couldn't— current state, future state. What's keeping you from it? And do you— are you doing as well as you think you are? Right. Because a lot of times what my biggest— my biggest— the thing that, that limits my selling the most is people who I could probably get them 300%, 400%, I could give them 300% growth and they are happy with 10% growth. And, you know, I got to say to them, well, really, why don't you— like, why are you happy with this? You know, and, and try and push them a little bit harder.

Yeah. Yeah. What's the secret to closing a sale?

I'll tell you 2 very different parts of that. You close a sale based on stuff you did before, right? If you're asking the right discovery questions, you're prepping, you're getting it ready, you're going to close it. But then there's the tenacity of going all the way and not giving up. I've had a single $30 million purchase, Wow. And that was like, that's, that's the big one. And I don't know that I'm ever gonna beat it. Uh, but I worked on that for a long time.

That was a good commission check, huh?

Yes, yes and no, because that's also, um, like every sales guy has a story of how their company screwed them out of their commission. So that was my story. Like, I, I got, I got screwed out of half of my bonus on that one. Um, but it was still, it was a It was a very good commission. It just was half of what it should have been. And, um, totally different story.

Yeah, that's too bad.

But, um, it was a beautiful process. Like, I worked on that and I, I, I talked to all these different people in the company and I basically got them to build the specifications according to my product. So everything in the, in the deal, the only person they could buy from at the end was me, right?

Mm-hmm.

And I worked on it and worked on it and worked on it. And then the close was brutal because it was just a very— it was with a large Indian corporation. The negotiations were tough. It was just brutal to close it, but I couldn't have closed it without work I had done 2 years before. Getting ready for that, right? And, and at the end, it came down to just like the other guy saying, but you have to lower your price. And I say, but you can't buy anybody else's stuff. We are spec'd, right? Do you want to go and tell everybody that you're not buying what's spec'd? But you have to lower your prices. But we're, but we're spec'd. Go back and forth. Like, it was, it was brutal towards the end, but it was all about the work I had done before.

True or false, relationship or sales Is all about relationships?

I hate to keep doing this to you, but it's like yes and no. It's about relationships, but it's also about methodology.

Yeah.

And I like to say that a lot of people think with international sales, they're, you know, people, I'll talk to people all the time that was like, I'm dealing with the nephew of the president. So I don't need anything else. I have the right guy. I'm like, you know, there is a methodology. They have a purchasing process.

Yes.

And you can't bypass— like, just because you met somebody and he told you something, you still have to go through the purchasing process. No country is so corrupt that you're going to just because you know the right guy, right?

And they have their own interests too. So, it's not just like, hey, you're my buddy, cool, but I also need this problem solved and I don't think you're the right person to do it.

That's exactly it, right? So, you— on the other hand, nobody will buy something from somebody they don't trust.

There you go.

Right? Now, they don't have to like you. They have to trust you enough to do business with you. Now, I like to say this, like, let's say You have a bus company and you transport kids to school and you buy brake pads, right? Your entire business, your reputation, and the lives of hundreds of kids are tied up with those brake pads. So you really need to trust your supplier.

Yeah.

Okay. Let's say you are buying a brake pad for your golf cart that you use in your summer cottage. You don't care. You pop by AutoZone and you buy a brake pad because you can't go fast enough on a golf course for anybody to get killed, right?

Right.

There's zero trust involved.

Sure.

Right? So those are two like extremes. But the level of trust comes down to, well, what's, what's going to happen if, if this screws up? Is this going to destroy my business? Are people going to die?

Yeah. Right. Yeah. So we answered a couple questions. We got to a couple questions from the Founder Talk Club. Brian asked the first one, which was what foundational advice have you been given and how's it stuck with you and what have you done with it? You answered that question, Brian. Thank you for the question. And if anyone is listening right now or watching the podcast and you're not in the Founder Talk Club, I would encourage you to go to the description of the podcast, whether you're YouTube, Spotify, Apple. You will see a link to join. It's free. You can ask Ask questions like to Zach, who's on the show today. You can get questions before they come on the show. You can join the conversation behind the scenes, and you actually get access to how we make the podcast and the things that happen that you don't see on camera. So encourage you to join there. I think we had one more question come in, and let me just ask you this before we get to that one: How do you see AI impacting sales?

Oh, so I'll tell you something. My my my my kids think it's sort of ridiculous how much I use AI. And I'll tell you, I use AI a lot, but here's what I do. So if somebody reaches out to me and— or let's say I'm reaching out to people and somebody comes back and says, hey, Zach, tell me more. So what I'll do is I will pull up their company. And I will feed it into AI and I will say, well, tell me about the company. And I'll say, tell me about the business they're in. Because I deal with every industry, right? I deal with agtech, mining, construction, medtech, all sorts of things. So I'm looking at like one of my clients now sells the cleaning materials you use to clean off the lubricant off of mining grinding machines. Yes, there's some niche out there. It's a niche, right? So I was like, okay, tell me about this product. Tell me about the global market for it. Tell me what countries are, are good for this. And then tell me, like, what, what is this company missing that they, you know, this— that they should— you know, where should they be that they're not in? Based on, on them. And then it'll produce maybe 3 or 4 paragraphs, which I will turn into an email and I'll say, hey, Alex, I see you're doing pretty well in Germany, but you probably should be in Egypt. I could help you out with this. Is this worth a conversation? So I'll do that kind of thing. And it takes me, you know, 5 minutes where it would have taken me 5 hours.

Right. Just synthesizes, analyzes all the data, brings it together.

Right. But that said, like, you know, that— so that's how I use it, right? I use it to break down and synthesize data and analyze data. I use it for editing a lot. Yeah.

Help me say this better, this line better, or something I do like, shorten this up. It's too wordy.

Yeah, help shorten it up. It's good at that. It's good at that. I'll also, like, I write a lot of reports and I find, you know, you remember in school you're trying to do like the— get the paragraphs all right. That drives me nuts. So I have AI do that for me. I'll write everything up without organizing it, and then I'll say, make this into an outline format, and it'll do it for me. Stuff like that, it saves me hours and hours of time.

That's it. When you compound that over months and years too, it's— I mean, you almost got an additional part-time person or full-time employee working for you. That's the cost of nothing, basically.

Right. Now, I don't know how well it's going to do With— I mean, to be honest, yes, I, I go into ChatGPT and it's like a person, right? Yeah, it really is like a very smart person. But I don't know that it's going to be able to, to call and make, make a phone call and, and establish rapport and, and all of that. Maybe it will, you know.

Well, it's making calls, but I don't know how good they're ever going to be.

Like, right now they're not great. They might be fantastic in 2 years.

I think you still need someone. You still need the human component. Not every sale, to be honest, but the bigger complex B2B sales, they're— for at least the time being, there's going to be a human involved.

Yeah. And look, I don't know that anybody's gonna establish that kind of trust. Yeah. Because you know how frustrating— you know, remember it used to be if you needed to get somebody on a phone, you could get somebody on a phone. And now one thing, we're all so frustrated that you can't get somebody on the phone. So imagine you, you buy a piece of machinery for a million And then you can't get somebody on the phone to tell them that there's a problem. Uh, you know, would anybody be willing to do that?

You used to be able to press 0 right away and get someone. Yeah, but then they figured it all out and so like, nope, you can't even press— they're like, this is an incorrect number. It's now it's like 6 or something.

Or it'll say, we'd like to get somebody on the phone, please explain what you want.

Yeah, just a person.

I just want a person. Just a person. Yeah.

Last question from the Founder Talk Club. This one came from Justin. He said, what's the biggest mental hurdle that founders or people that are trying to sell things encounter as they're selling that holds them back from winning big deals? It's the mental hurdle.

So there is a real thing of people like just hesitating to pick up the phone, right? It's like hesitating to, you know, people freeze over that human interaction.

Why do you think that is?

I don't know. It's just that's human nature, right?

Fear of rejection, perhaps. I think that's a big one.

Fear of rejection.

If they knew everything was going to be yes, I think they'd pick up the phone, but they're worried, I'm going to get shut down.

I'm going to look like an idiot. And there's always like— and look, when you— if you run a sales team, you'll see, you know, there are 20 people, like any given day, 4 of them are really hesitant just to start calling. Now, once they start calling, they get into it, right?

Yeah.

And that's a big thing. Now, if you're the only person, if you're the founder and you have to do it, right? So, the only— like, I find the only way to really get past that is to have a good structure in place. Like Jeb Blount, I think, wrote a book called Fanatical Prospecting.

Yeah.

Right? You basically say this, I am gonna do this 2 hours every day. And I said to myself a while back, like, I go, look, if my business— and I'm a sales guy, right? But I said, if my business is going to succeed, I have to do this much prospecting. And I basically said, or, you know, or my kids aren't going to college, right? Like, I'm not— I'm gonna fail if I don't do this much prospecting. My business is going to fail.

Yeah.

And that's what you got to understand. And you got to say, okay, 9 AM or whatever, and then block it out if you need to. Yeah, I always block everything out You count time-wise and you say, this time I'm gonna pick up the phone and I'm gonna start calling.

Yeah.

I'm gonna start, you know, if you're not, maybe you're not calling, you're sending emails and you're sending LinkedIn—

Emails, content, video message, whatever it is, right? Whatever it is. That's gonna generate the business.

Yeah. Right. And you do it and that's, you gotta do it. And if you like that, you know, so we started this conversation off, should the founder be in sales or not? I don't believe the founder— when I say the founder shouldn't be the best sales guy, I believe that. But the founder has to be doing some of the sales process, which means no matter, in my opinion, no matter what business you have, if you're going to be the founder, you have to be doing this business development, this sales, this prospecting. You got to block it out. And if you don't, you're going to Like, you're gonna fail no matter how good you are, no matter how good your product is. Yeah. And if you don't do that, you're gonna fail. And you gotta understand, if, if that's not what you wanna do, don't be a founder.

That's it. Zach, thanks for coming on the show, man. This was such a great conversation.

This was a lot of fun.

Yeah. I'm really happy where it went in the beginning and we got a little bit of your story, which I think I need to maybe do a better job of with other guests. But thanks for sharing all that you shared. Where can people find you? with you, learn more about what you do?

Okay, great. So, you can find me on LinkedIn all the time. I'm the only Zach Selch on LinkedIn. My website is Global Sales Mentor. And my other website is themostinterestingsalesmanintheworld.com, right? So, you can find me either—

It's a long one but a good one.

Yeah. You can find me at either of those places or on LinkedIn. And I'll just, if you don't mind, I'll just say what I do.

Please.

I do fractional sales management for companies. And some, some of my clients are pretty big, but they don't have an international sales manager. So they get me as a fractional sales manager. But I also do planning and advising for small companies. So if you need somebody to build a go-to-market plan.

Yeah.

Or you need somebody to build you out that methodology.

Yeah.

And then I coach. So I coach CEOs and VPs in sales and I help them Build that methodology and stick to that methodology.

Wonderful. Thanks again for being on the show.

Really appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Alex. Thanks.