#334 Keenan - The Two-Step Sale System That Closes Anyone

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Guest: Keenan
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Asalesguy


(00:00) Why AI Is Flooding Sales With Garbage
(03:20) Why More Volume Means Fewer Sales
(04:05) Volume Fails Without a Strong Message
(05:42) The Right Way to Personalise First Touch
(08:06) Multi-Channel Outreach & SMS Boundaries
(09:36) Ghosting, Follow-Up & When to Persist
(11:09) Working an Account From the Bottom Up
(15:04) Quantifying the Gap (Most Reps Get This Wrong)
(17:20) Personal vs Business Drivers in B2B
(19:26) Building a Thesis for Cold Outreach
(22:31) It's Not the Pain — It's the Problem
(24:36) The Shower Analogy: Root Cause, Problem, Impact
(25:45) Make Prospects Reflect to Create Change
(29:53) Levels of Awareness & Selling vs Serving
(31:21) Inbound DMs & Content-Led Outreach
(42:17) Why Selling Is Actually Simple
(43:18) How Cold Leads Still Close (Find the Problem)
(45:13) Ramping Reps With Systems & Coaching
(47:31) Nurture Over Nature: The Manager as Linchpin
(52:50) Behaviors vs Results: Who to Keep, Who to Cut
(54:42) The Four Types of Sales Orgs & the New Book
(57:17) Why Discounting Deals Is Killing Your Business

Transcript

AI Floods The Market

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What are you seeing as the main changes that's happening in the sales space over the past 24 months?

SPEAKER_03 0:06

Clearly, unequivocally, AI. There's nothing competing with it.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

How is that affecting like traditional sales or prospecting more specifically?

SPEAKER_03 0:14

Salespeople are not very good anymore. Like, they don't really aren't very good at the job of selling. It's just more garbage, garbage, garbage, garbage. And so now rather than slowing down and fixing the problem, what have we done? We've amped it up with AI now. It's just trying to find a dial that just allows me to quote unquote scale more, more, more, more. So at the end of the day, I should say selling is simple. Two steps. Does the person have a problem that you can solve and that they want to solve it and they'll want to change? If they agree that they want to change, that's half the sale. The second half the sale is who do they change to?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

What are you seeing as the main changes that's happening in the sales space over the past 24 months?

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Oh, I mean, the main changes is clearly unequivocally AI. I mean, that's that's hit hands down. There's nothing competing with it. AI.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

How is that affecting like traditional sales or prospecting more specifically?

SPEAKER_03 1:10

I mean, I think there's there's two ways that it's affecting it. At the macro level, it's just more shit in, more shit out. Like they're just if we pay attention to what sales has been doing for the past 20 years, 15 years, it's just trying to find a dial that just allows me to quote unquote scale more, more, more, more. So, you know, when I started in sales, you had salespeople, and we had to literally sit down, and we I talked about in the book, and we had the yellow pages where I worked for the chamber of comments, had lists, you had these lists or these leads, and you just sit and call them, and people would pick up the phone. Even if you couldn't close everything, people would actually pick up the phone. Well, then you know, tech came out, and in the you know, email came out, so people started using email. And then once email came out, you had things like sales law, sales loft and outreach, and they just allowed you to build cadences. Now think about that. When I uh when I was doing before all of that, you'd send an email and you might send another one, you might send another one, but it would be disjointed, and you might only send one or two, and you'd make some calls, and that's about it, right? Well, when you now got a machine and you've got SD, and they're hiring these whole machines, these whole engines, you want to have a bunch of SDRs, you load them up into outreach and and sales loft. We've, I think we've 12x, I think the number is 12x or something like that. The number of of um emails and outreaches to customers times some ridiculous amount of more salespeople. So basically just flooded the market. And what they didn't do is really get any better at actually like actually the job. Salespeople are not very good anymore. Like they don't really aren't very good at the job of selling, it's just more garbage, garbage, garbage, garbage. And so now rather than slowing down and fixing the problem, what have we done? We've amped it up with AI now. Now AI is gonna run it, and AI is gonna do it. Now it's gonna be 24-7, right? Just 24-7. Now, out of the gate, it's not working. SDR still closed more deals than AI. SDR is still better at it, so it's not really working, and it's just making the it's saturating the inbox and saturating the voicemails and LI of of buyers, and they're they're fed up, they're just fed up.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah, man. Like it's kind of just fucking obvious though, right? Like, isn't it's kind of obvious how if you get a message and you're not a Potato, you realize that that's obviously AI, or it's a sequence. Like, because even if you go back three years ago from our first podcast, sequences that are non-personalized, would you ever respond to it? No. And I'm seeing this with like SMS now as well, like automated SMSs. So it's kind of like if you have any bit of a brain cell, you would realize that that would not work, especially at scale. So the skill of sales is going down, and then the actual the the uh touch points, the touch point mapping is going way up. So the volume going way up. And is there any scenario where that's effective? Like is a cold email?

Why Volume Fails Without Message

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Is there any effect any scenario?

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Nope. Nope, nope, it's all about the message. Look, if you can nail a good message, volume can help you, right? Like anything else. If you got a really, really good message, then if you can get it to more people, that's good to know. But no, just just thinking you pull the volume meth or the scale lever is gonna change things, it's not. And they just don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Are we referring to like the first message too? So this is the first touch point trying to get in there, trying to get into a company, get into an account.

SPEAKER_03 4:38

When you say, Am I referring to help me understand?

SPEAKER_00 4:40

When you're talking about the volume, um, and you're talking about trying to get like trying to ramp the volume on the front end, is this really as like your first touch point when you're interacting with a company or interacting with a with a champion stakeholder?

SPEAKER_03 4:53

Yeah. I mean, I when I say volume, it's it's I'm asking the question, how many emails or how many calls are you trying to make in a day, right? And if you're trying to get out 60, 70, 80, 90 emails, there's no way those emails can be um have any value. There's just no way. Right? Because this is just it's too many people with too many different problems. So you have to sanitize it so it makes some sense to everybody, right? You're better off to focus on 15 or 20 and make them really, really good to make sure they're really, really good customers uh or ICPs and have really, really good targeted messages that really, really address problems they have, maybe even reference a what we call symptom or a or a catalyst that you know about that could get their attention, you're better off to do that than you are to just spray and pray.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

How do you approach that now? Uh where your teams do you approach that from like maybe doing Loom videos, um doing audits? Like, what is our first touch point that you would recommend?

SPEAKER_03 5:53

I think that just depends on who you're going after, what you sell, etc. You know, I really like uh Gail Dupree is doing some fun stuff on the that top of the funnel piece. He's doing a lot of cool stuff, but being really creative on what you send them, how you get them to pay attention. Um so is um Stu Heinek. Heinekee always messed up his name. Sorry, Stu. Uh, you know, they've always been really, really, really creative in doing things that get people's attention. Um but I again I I don't think there's a there's not a silver bullet for how you do it. I mean if you're gonna be really creative and send something different, well, that takes time, that takes work. So you better hope you have a really high conversion. If you don't have the time to wait, you need to get to people faster, then you can have a lower conversion, but then you need volume. I mean, it's a pretty simple XY axis, right? It's either high volume and and um uh low conversion or it's low conversion, but high volume or low volume and high conversion, yeah, mixing it all up, but you know where I'm going, right? So you just have to ask what works best for you, what can you afford, what's your time timeline, etc. So it's just really yeah, I'll leave it at that.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

So what we've been trying to do here, uh, because it's let's say B2B, we're trying to target other companies, and we at a simple term, we've um a competitor to Calendly, to keep it very simple, on the front end. So what we've tried to do is almost funnel hack people, send them Loom videos, see their innovative, like their lack of availability on their calendar, so lack of white space, and then sh educate them

Better First Touch Personalisation

SPEAKER_00 7:32

on why that's a problem. It's like, hey, you're missing out on revenue here. You're here's a Loom video on what you could be missing out. And it's funny because we get responses from people who think that they want to book a call, so their response is like, oh fuck, like I didn't realize I didn't have that space. You might even realize yourself, right? You're going skiing or whatever, and then you look at your calendar, like, oh shit, I actually don't have spots in my calendar. So it's it's not like this you need to reinvent the wheel, you just need to actually like look at the problem that you're solving, it sounds like, and just being able to amplify that in their context window.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

Yes, I couldn't have said it better. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

How do you think about um multiple touch points? So, like, let's say we are trying to like target an account. Are you still you're sort of super personalized and you're super detailed on one account, but are we still trying to hit like LinkedIn, Instagram, email, SMS, voice on 100%.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

I don't know SMS. I don't like SMS until you've established a relationship. Now I might work with some things, but yeah, especially B2B. No CRO, at least in my world, though, like, or if you're uh an oncologist and you sell medical supplies, whatever, they've never met you before, once you showing up in their text. Tell you that right now. They don't want you. Okay. Now, once you've gotten a hold of them or you've talked or they've given you the number or something, that's a different story. Right? I sell the text all the time with with prospects who have already engaged, who's given me their number, etc., but not until they give it to me.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Nope. I want to ask you about how you go from making the sale in formal to informal. So like building that relationship and maybe transitioning then to SMS or in my world, it could be WhatsApp. Have you found that to be effective to be able to like have a first call with someone and then be able to build that relationship even on a secondary platform?

SPEAKER_03 9:16

100%. Yeah, that's what I was saying. I this people I'm that are still prospects that I'm using WhatsApp or or um text, but that's not until after the relationship was built. That's not after we've had a first call, it's until after we understand the problem and we're going through the process and navigating whether or not they should buy, but it's cold, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

What's your what's your advice for people when they're coming up against that wall? So they've sent the first message, it's not well, maybe they are getting a response, but then it gets to the point of real resistance, there's no responses. Like, how do we know when a lead is dead, or how do we know that we should be pushing it harder?

SPEAKER_03 9:53

I always I always like pushing

Multi-Channel Outreach And SMS Boundaries

SPEAKER_03 9:55

harder till someone says no. I'm a big fan of that, right? So I believe that it's the job of the prospect to say no. They're grown-ass adults, right? So if I don't want someone bothering me, if I don't want to buy, I need to tell them. So I operate that same way. I'm gonna keep pestering, I'm gonna keep hitting you, I'm gonna do it respectfully, I'm gonna offer different angles, I'm gonna say this and that, and I'm even gonna give you a chance to get out. I sent one the other day. I said, you know, my 30 years is telling me I'm being ghosted. This guy was always responsive, always. And we were working, and all of a sudden, poof, just out of nowhere. He's nowhere to be found. I can't get him back. I got his his his uh cell number, I call him and text him. So finally I just said, Look, my man, my 30 years tell me I'm being ghosted. And I get it, no problem, shit happens, but don't just I I just don't let me out here. Like, don't leave me hanging out here. If if you've gone a different direction, something's changed, just tell me. Right? Like, I I just I don't know, I'm just directing this to do it their own way, but I just keep going until they say no.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Would you then put them into like a cycle and come back still 90 days later when they haven't changed?

SPEAKER_03 11:00

100%. It depends, it depends on the on the person, the relationship, the size of the the company, but yes, this one for sure, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Um, you mentioned about the ICP. I think this is interesting because like there's there's two sides to this equation, I guess, for you as well, where it's like, okay, there's a company, is that company qualified? So are they going to be able to work with us? And then of the company, the people that were hitting in that company, so within the account, are they the great great fit? So going through gap prospecting, you have that that two by two matrix, right? Which is fantastic. And I think this actually gave me a lot of clarity too. So it's the power, power in organization, and also the power in like decision making, right? So information, ideal fit, not a fit, referrals. How do you think about working an account? So from like the low-level foot soldiers all the way up into the champion. Like, how do you think about that if you're dealing with someone who's just like a foot soldier in the beginning?

SPEAKER_03 11:59

Well, one of the things I okay, so if you read gap selling, we talk about in gap processing as well. We talk about the problem identification chart, right? What we talk about is what problems, impacts, and root causes do your buyers and customers have that you solve, right? And so root causes are broken processor tools, okay? They are um, you know, if my pen stops working, that's a broken tool. Um, if my keyboard, you know, that's a broken tool. If um if it takes me too long to to get payroll out, that's a broken process. Okay. Your lower level people, I hate using that word, but your your your ICs, your people in the dirt, people doing the job every day, they see the root causes. Like they they're in the root cause world. So they're great to lead in your messaging about the root causes. You know, does your keyboard always stop working right in the middle

Ghosting Follow-Up And When To Persist

SPEAKER_03 12:55

of the afternoon, right? Or does your broadband go out right in the middle of a Zoom call that could be a big deal? Like that's a root, that's a root cause that the users, right? The users, the end user is experiencing. They may not always understand the downstream, downstream big enterprise business problem, but they understand that impact. So if you get them to start talking about those broken um processes or tools, you can then start asking them. So, because that happens, how is that affecting the overall org? Do you know? Are you the only one who experiences it going out? And have other people lost the deals. If you had to guess how many deals were lost, how many sales reps? Oh, yeah, there's 45 sales. Oh, yeah, all the time. I'm sure we lose two or three deals a week. Whoa. So then you take that, and now that's what the executives care about. And they may not even know. You take that and you're like, Do you guys realize because this internet is going out, you've got reps losing one to two deals a week across all 40 reps? That's 80 deals a week. And I understand your average deal size 5,000, 80 times 5,000 is 400,000. You realize that's happening? Had no idea. Now I'm talking to the executive.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

How do you how do you get from the again the low-level people to the champion or even just the next the next run up? I guess that the hesitation, just for context, that we have is getting in with a sales rep initially, set or closer, they have a shit ton of pain, the manifestation of all the upstream issues that have come down and the shits fall on their plate. But then they're reluctant to bring it to their sales manager, they're reluctant to bring it to their head of sales.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

If they're not a decision maker, I do it myself. Right? Like, I don't have any problem going, quote unquote, around a sales rep because the sales rep can't make any decisions. They have zero in they've basically zero influence in the buying process. No director manager said, Oh, my salesperson said no. I mean, they're too low level. If it's someone in the buying process and is perceived as the champion, is it perceived as the key buyer, that becomes a little more tricky. I like to use the data that I learned to ask, should we bring this person in? Right. So, based on what you told me, does it seem to make sense that we get so-and-so involved so we get their view on the size of the problem, etc.? So I like to use the data to get me to where I want to go.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

What I love about gap selling, I know everything goes back to gap selling at the end of the day, is about quantifying the gap. And I think when I when I observe, when I observe reps, especially business owners, because business owners in my world are doing this selling, they are totally miscalculating the gap, which means they're not even quantifying the gap. I mean that there is there is no calculation. So the way that you just discussed there about the duration of it, how do you think about that problem when you're when you're speaking from business owner to business owner or business owner to the to the decision maker about creating that gap, but then also looking at in that in that actual scenario, how much of a significance it has on their life?

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Why would it be different? I guess I'd I'd pose the question back to you. Why would it be different?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Well, I guess it's not different, but I think the biggest challenge uh I observe is that a lot of people look at it just from like a business context that, oh, okay, I'm just losing money here, but they don't quantify how it impacts their personal life. So I always talk about health, wealth, and relationships, interaction. And it was what you taught me many years ago was about how does that business impact manifest in their life. I actually have a story about this for you, actually. Is that is that I was working one of my clients for a very long period of time, great guy, they're doing a 10-15 million a year uh recruitment business. When I first spoke to him, it was a one hour and a half sales call. And after one hour and 25 minutes, I had quantified that he wanted to produce all this content to grow his to grow the the content. That was it. That was it. It was very hard to find out the issue. After one hour and 25 minutes, I said to him, Okay, you do have all these professional goals. What is the personal goal that you want to actually achieve? And he was like, Oh, I want to become an author and I want to get on stage. And I was like, Okay, that's the fucking thing. Like, that's the thing that he actually wants. He doesn't give a shit about the other stuff. And then I was like, Okay, dude, if you want to become that speaker and achieve all those personal goals, you need to fucking record this content, right? And he's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then eventually he was able to jump in it. But if it wasn't for that, binding that together, I would have lost that. That was three and a half years ago, and he's still with me to this day. So I find that a lot of people, business owners or sales reps, don't even think about that context. The part the personal side.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

So look, I think when you're talking to an owner in a small business, it's just him or one or two people and it's the owner, that's a good way to go. When you're talking B2B companies that have, you know, 20 to 30, 50, 100 salespeople or more, no, because you can't sell on the personal motivations of that person. Right. So you can't push that business case. So if someone says, Oh, the truth is, I want to get promoted, right? Or I want to be the CEO or I want this, and that's why I want to make all this happen. That's fine and dandy. But when it comes time to write the check, and I have to get four or five other people who are multi-threaded on this thing to be like, you know, why are we doing this? Well, because we got to get John promoted. They couldn't give a shit. I'm saying, like, they could not care. So I am not a huge fan of the personal drivers when it's inside an organization. Those will take care of themselves. Individuals, yes, I get it.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

I guess is there a world whereby the personal goals of that champion is enough for him to selfishly push it. Now he's not going to say it overtly, like, I want to get promoted, but it's like, hey, John, if you want to get fucking promoted, like let's get this over the line. He's like, all right, let's go.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Yeah, 100%. But it doesn't come up too often. There's this, it's almost understood, right? If they

Working Accounts With Root Causes

SPEAKER_03 18:30

see the problem, they know they're not doing the job, or they need to do more, they see an opportunity to grow, they see an opportunity to do better, it's implied, and they move it forward anyways. That's never the that's never the last reason. Oh, if you don't do it, you're not gonna get promoted. That's the cost of an action. No, bro, you told me that you're missing number by 10%. You told me that you haven't grown by 20% like you're supposed to, and this is happening. That's that's enough right there.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Okay, so when we look at like that current state and going very detailed into it, and you're going through the quantitative numbers, how do you um how do you usually articulate the consequences of them staying stuck? So like the return on inertia, the cost of inaction, would you would you literally present that in terms of like let's say uh a presentation, a guide, a framework? Like how do we do this so that they can actually realize their problem?

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Are we talking from an outbound perspective? We're talking about gap selling.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Uh well, I guess when we go from let's let's start with outbound. Actually, that's actually a fantastic place to do it because it's harder, right? It's harder when they're not responding. If they're not getting the responses, this is the feedback my reps actually have. Is like, how the fuck am I gonna be able to quantify this gap if they're just not responding?

SPEAKER_03 19:44

So you have to have a you have to have a thesis, right? You have to have a thesis. You got to ask yourself, what do I think this customer is dealing with now? That's why you got to do the problem identification chart. Why do I think it's gonna be happening? Right? So, what is the problem I think they're having? Why do I think it's happening? And what could be the impact? And then you that's your thesis, and and then you have to deliver the thesis in a way that does two things. One that drives intrigue, right? We talk we call it the two sales in the book, right? What are the two sales? First sales intrigue. Can you create enough intrigue that that person stops and says, Oh, I want to read this, or stops and says, Okay, fine, I'll give you your 30 seconds or your 45 seconds, whatever it is you're asking for, right? So you gotta drive intrigue. In intrigue, we talk in the whole book about how you do that. There's a science behind it by what's called the OFC and the ACC, the orbital frontal cortex and triggering the uh interior cingular cortex, and how it responds to trends, how it responds to um um uh the unexpected. I in hindsight, when I was done with the book, I was mad that I didn't bring in Malcolm Gladwell and blink. He he talked a lot about this and blink, but just not in this way. So I wish I'd brought some of that into the conversation. But, anyways, it's how are you creating that blink? How are you getting them to react? Once you get the intrigue and they say, Oh, I gotta read this, I need to see what's going on, I need to let this person keep talking, then you have to create enough interest to get them to agree to the meeting. Right? And in both cases, what people don't understand, it's no different than gap slang, it's just on a micro scale. It's about creating value, it's the cost of inaction versus cost of action. Does that person feel when they see the the subject line of your email or your first 10 seconds or five seconds you call them, do they feel themselves consciously or subconsciously? I can't afford to miss this call. This could be this could be good. I can't afford to miss it. Right, and and it happens so quickly, but that's what you want to get them to do. Today I was just before I got on this call, I got into my LinkedIn, I saw this um graphic, and it said something about oh man, something about change and show this guy in the middle of a super crowd, and it was all of these people around him, and he was right in the middle. Oh, it's it's about everybody being wrong. And I was like, oh, this sounds interesting because I'm in the space of you know, basically what I Do is I tell everybody they're doing it wrong and they need to change the way they do it. And I wanted to read it, and I wanted to read it because instantly I felt if I don't look at this now and I lose it, I might not be able to find it later. And it could give me some help on how I want to position things. And then my damn page refreshed and I lost it. I spent like 10 minutes trying to find it if I'm not worth the investment anymore. But that's literally what it did. It triggered me to think I can't afford intrigue. I'm intrigued. I need to give this 30 seconds to a minute of my time to see if it's worth doing anything else with. So those are what you got to do in the that's what you gotta do.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

Are you leaning more into pain there versus the the future state?

SPEAKER_03 22:36

Oh, 100% the problem. It's not the pain, it's the problem. People mess that up. It's not pain, it's problem. Pain sits everywhere. Pain can be a root cause, pain could be a problem, pain could be an impact. You can't go pain. Because that's what happens with Sandler's pain funnel. People got stuck and they found like one piece of pain. Oh, we do everything manual. Manual. Oh, that's bad. We can fix that. And you start talking about it. You never found out how that process is actually creating a problem inside the org.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

So can you double top on that? The definition separation between the two?

SPEAKER_03 23:08

So uh pain can be anywhere, right? Any discomfort is pain. Well, we did what we've done is we said we're gonna dissect pain into three elements. One is the root cause. Root cause a broken processor tool. So one I've used recently, it's a dumb one, but people seem to make sense. You ever been in a shower with a tub and it doesn't drain very fast as you take in the shower, the water starts to not go down fast to start making it like a pool or a puddle, right? And it's around your ankles. That's a broken process. That's a pain to some degree. People don't like it, it's a pain in the ass, right? But not everybody gets out and fixes it right away, do they? No, no, you it starts to happen and little by little. It's it's it that's a root cause. The business problem is it gets to a point where it's doing something to them they don't like. It's getting close to the top, and so now they're like, I gotta take shorter showers, this shit could overflow, or it's getting to the point where it feels dirty, right? Because now it's a lot of water, maybe above your ankles, and it just feels gross. So there's your there's your um problem that you're gonna like I gotta fix this. And then the impact is it is either leaving a ring around the tub and I gotta clean it every time, and I hate that, or I don't feel clean when I get out, or or or or right? And so those three separate things have to come together collectively. You can't sell on just one. You gotta sell on all three. Here's the in here's the broken process of tool, here's how it affects me, and I don't like it, and here's the impact if I don't solve it.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

And then what's the what's the reason to make the jump in that example? So let's go through that. What why would I need to? What forces me to change from my state of inertia?

SPEAKER_03 24:45

That's personal. In some cases, it could be it feels gross when I get out of the tub. So I mean, sorry, when I get out of the shower, I said you took a whole shower, and now my ankles are in water, or just above my ankles, shins are in water. That's all the soap and grime and dirt. And after I'm like, I don't like this. This is gross, right? Or it could be every time you take a shower, you come back and you see a ring around the tub after it finally drains, and you got to go in and clean it every time. Or if you don't, it just feels gross because now your tub's got a ring around it 24-7. You see what I'm saying? So eventually, somewhere in there for each person, it's different. Look, for some people, it could be I don't give a fuck about the ring, I don't give a shit about feeling dirty, but man, this is getting to the point now where it clogs so bad that it's about to overflow. And now I can't now it's overflowing and I gotta clean it. And if I don't clean it, now it's gonna get into the into the wood and the rot. You see what I'm saying? Everybody has their own definition, but all of them, when they finally decide to change, they've changed, they finally got to a point that says I don't like this anymore. But it's never because, ever because the clog

Make Prospects Reflect To Create Change

SPEAKER_03 25:45

doesn't go down fast enough. Ever.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Yeah, isn't that really interesting how people's problems are almost like personal to them, like obviously, but it's like a manifestation, like everyone can experience things differently, and then there's a different reason why that person's like, okay, fuck, I must change now at this point. It's not like a universal thing. I think that's where it comes into a bit of a challenge where like your solution, your tech solution or whatever is multifactorial, like it solves different problems at different at different points. But that's what I mean, is like when you're selling to that person, the reps will kind of trip trip themselves up because they're it's like a mind fuck. They're like, why doesn't this why isn't this a one size fits all? And then as yeah, does that make sense? They're they're like, okay, I can't force this solution in this specific way because they're not realizing that okay, this manifestation of the problem shows up in different people's lives in different ways, effectively.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

Yes, but but they're all measurable and calculable. So what you're thinking about is how do I convince the person to change? I want you to flip the script. It should be how do I get this person to reflect?

SPEAKER_01 26:53

That's the key.

SPEAKER_03 26:54

If I write gap signing over one chapter, I'm going to build out big time that's not in there, is how do I get this person to reflect? Gap signing is not about telling people something, it's asking questions in a way to get the person who's in there right now and it doesn't feel they need to change. Be like, how how many times a week do you take a shower? I mean, a day do you take a shower a week? Well, I take two showers a day. So let me ask you this question. So when you take your first shower in the morning, does it fill does it does it not drain fast enough? Yes. Okay, so then when you get out, the tub has how much water in it?

unknown 27:26

Right?

SPEAKER_03 27:26

No, make the give me a number. Like, you know, six inches, great. So when you come back tonight, it's drained. Yes, yes. But what is there a ring around the tub? Yes. So now you get into a dirty tub and you take another shower, right? Yes. And it does the same thing, yes. Okay, so do you clean that tub every single time it happens? No. So when do you clean the tub? Well, I it gets on my nerves at three or four days, so I have to clean it every three or four days. Now, what about if you have a guest coming? I have to clean it every single time I know a guest is coming. So you're cleaning your tub when most people clean their tub maybe once every couple of weeks. You got to do this several times a week. Yes. Does that bother you enough? I can't stand it. Okay, well, I can fix after 200 bucks. I'm making this shit up, right? $200 come. Another person, $200, no way. So now I can say, all right, so what you're telling me is you'd rather do this for the next six months than spend $200. Well, now that you put it that way, do you see what I'm doing? I'm not telling them anything, I'm just taking their current environment and forcing them to reflect through it and process the fact is this bugging me enough that I want to change? And then let's just say, nah, it's still not $200. Let me ask this question Do you live alone? I'm gonna make it harder. Yes. Okay, do you ever take baths? No, not too often. All right, once a month? Yeah, maybe once a month. When you have to go take the bath, do you have to clean it? That's right. They didn't think about that, right? It's like fuck, yes. I can't just take a bath. So there's been times I've come home from the gym, I'm super tired, I just want to relax in a bathtub, and I can't. I gotta bring out the Clorax, I gotta get on my hands and knees and scrub the crap out of it, or I can't take the bath. I never thought about that. Okay, now that you think that, now, okay, maybe I need to get this resolved. And then watch what I do here. Then they say, nope, I don't want to do any of this. Okay, great. Let me ask you one more question. Has it been getting worse? Yes. So what you're saying is after every shower, it gets a little higher and a little higher and a little higher. Yes. So even if you don't solve this today, at some point this could be up to your knees in a shower. And then I could ask, how long does it take to drain? Well, it usually goes down about 20 minutes. Has that been getting worse? Yes. Used to be down right away. So what I'm hearing is it's getting more and more and more clogged. So eventually it's going to be completely clogged and you're gonna have to deal with it. Okay. Right? Do you see what I'm doing? I'm just asking questions to get them to reflect. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

And the thing is here, it's it's kind of like marking levels of awareness. People are just totally fucking head in the sand, they're they're problem unaware. Like they're trying, they're trying to be unaware. Like my observation of this a lot of times is they might know that there's an issue, but it's head in the sand. They want to almost hide that there is an issue. And it's your questions through discovery to be to realize that, hey, they are problem aware, solution unaware, and then it goes from solution unaware to solution aware. I think it's just an interesting observation, right? Because people will generally try to downplay their their pitfalls, which is natural, including myself. And then in this example, they don't realize that they even have an issue until you start questioning them.

SPEAKER_03 30:34

And it's look in most cases, over time, people start to really appreciate like, wait a minute, wait a minute. And then they get excited, like, thank you, because I never thought about that. That's right, and now all of a sudden $200 is nothing. Come out and fix this, please.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

That's the biggest thing, right? When I guess, and this one I want to ask you about is when you kind of go from a salesperson to a trusted advisor from selling to serving, that's when your prospects are like super fucking appreciative of what you do.

SPEAKER_03 30:57

But you gotta remember, you you this was about gap, well, it doesn't have to be, but this is about gap prospecting, right? You you've got to understand how you can build value with these people who don't know you in seconds, seconds, milliseconds, I would argue, right? How do you get someone to stop and be like, oh snap? Yes, I need I I

Inbound DMs And Content-Led Outreach

SPEAKER_03 31:20

I need to dig into this.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Hmm. How do you how do you think about this changes when it's inbound? So in the online coaching space, a lot of leads actually might be inbound, they could be colder, but they're inbound, like they might be following the page or come interaction. How do you think about that when they've come inbound and you're trying to connect with them?

SPEAKER_03 31:38

So am I connecting with them on the phone?

SPEAKER_00 31:40

No, no, let's say like uh DM, Messenger, LinkedIn, Instagram, sort of.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

So they reach they reach out to you.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Uh maybe might they might have interacted with content, for instance.

SPEAKER_03 31:48

Ah, got it. Okay, okay. So which they're very different. Which one do you want me to address?

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Let's do like interacting with content, uh, connect with you on LinkedIn, the basics that that's very common in in my space, more particularly as well.

SPEAKER_03 32:00

Okay, so if they interacted with content, I use the content that they interacted with, and then I asked them based on this, can I assume you're struggling with XYZ problem? If so, I'd love to tell help me understand a little more what you're dealing with, and let me see if I can help.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

What if it's like person development? So let's say it's like um mindset, self-sabotage, all this kind of stuff. Can you go as direct as that? This is a question I often get from clients.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Of course, why can't you? They literally doubt what would they have downloaded? Let's say it's self-sabotage, what would they have downloaded?

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Let's say they interacted with a post on that, like it was around like self-sabotage as an entrepreneur or whatever, and then you're going semi, semi-outbound, I guess, because you're connected with them on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

Okay, okay. You just changed, you you shifted. So if someone commented on a post, that's outbound. Hands down. So if someone commented on a post and you want to go talk to them and try to sell them, you can and you could say, I noticed you commented on XYZ post. I'd love to understand what got your attention, what is it you liked? I mean, I'd look at the comment and see what they said, and I'd see what triggers or hints or symptoms of catalysts are suggested in that. Because this is, I mean, it has to be very um personal, not personalized, it's very personal. If someone's someone said, Oh, I've been struggling with this for a while, then I might say, Um, all right, I understand the community city have been struggling with this for a while. I'd love to talk to you a little bit more about that. Can you walk me through it? So I'm gonna drag that out, right? That's different than if they downloaded uh uh 10 steps on how to be more confident. Then in that case, I'm like, hey, thanks for downing like this. Mostly when people download download this, they've been struggling with building confidence, and there are two or three areas they struggle the most. Do either one of these sound familiar too enough? So I'd love to talk to you. I like to take the content as the transition into what I think the problem is.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Yeah, 100%. How do you um okay? So let's say in that in that conversation there, so you you're finding out, well, you're identifying the problem, then you're going into the pain, then you're personalizing it from there. Root cause problem in chat. And you're doing this true chat, yeah?

SPEAKER_03 34:00

Because the root cause is what you fix. You can't fix anything if you don't understand the root cause. If you tell me you're you got this dope ass convertible sitting in your yard and and and you never drive it because it's broken, and I say, I can fix it, but I don't know why it's broken. Is it the engine? Is it the transmission? Is it the drivetrain? Is it the brakes? Is it you know what I'm saying? Like if I don't know what it is, how do I fix it? So the person that said, What do you mean it's broken? Tell me. You might say, Well, it's just been sitting around, I can't start it. Okay, so is it a starter issue? Is it a uh a battery issue? Is it a um, what do you call those things? An alternator issue, right? Or is it actually like the pistons are frozen in place and I I can fix a battery, I can fix an alternator, I can't redo an engine. That's you know what I'm saying? I can't help you.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

So let's stick with the personal development example. I think it's just very good for this example because people, again, let's just go back to what we discussed previously about people being problem fucking unaware or head in the sand, right? Just that kind of attitude where they want to like escape slash avoid the problem. If I'm asking you, Kenan, tell me about your fucking self-sabotaging habits of drinking and taking drugs all the time on LinkedIn, how do you get that prospect to open up? Yeah, like as in if you if that's the content, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 35:19

You have to okay, you you you can't do this in in a vacuum. You gotta when you ask this question, you didn't preface it for your listeners that you believe they have uh a self-sabotage or uh what type of problem do you think they have? Self-sabotage?

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Yeah, this is this is really common people I work with, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:35

Self-sabotage. What are two or three what are two or three root causes or symptoms that someone experiences who is self-sabotaging?

SPEAKER_00 35:45

So the the root cause, you mean the underlying issue as to why that's happening? So, like let's say like lack of confidence, um, lack of confidence.

SPEAKER_03 35:55

Um think about their life.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Uh like maybe like a repeated, repeated destructive habit or some shit, you know what I mean, since they were like young.

SPEAKER_03 36:04

Because self-sabotage to me to me isn't necessarily a bad habit. So I might ask a question like, do you find that you when you start things, you never really finish them out of fear that you can't get them down or you're not good enough? Do you ever find yourself looking at other people and being envious because they're getting stuff done and you don't think you can? So you don't even start. See what I'm doing? Reflective. I understand what creates self-sabotage, not the high-level cheesy stuff, but the real deep stuff. And then I ask them, are they experiencing any of that? And the minute they say yes, they have no choice but to say, I should talk to this guy. Right? I don't even know the space, but give me 15 minutes in that space, and I can already tell you, I'm gonna know exactly what the clinical elements of self-sabotage are. I'm gonna know how they manifest themselves with people, I'm gonna know why they happen, and I'm gonna start painting a picture to ask them, does this sound familiar? Does that sound familiar? Right? To get them talking. Again, notice the key word here, my man, is reflective. I'm constantly trying to get people to reflect.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

What do you do in this instance if they're unresponsive or not open?

SPEAKER_03 37:12

Well, I mean, I that's what we talked about earlier. I I keep looking for other ways to connect with them. So I might, it just depends, it really depends. It could be um if I have evidence that this person really, really has the problem and and their head in the sand, then I might um look for studies that say the impact of it. Or I might look for things as people who've gotten out and said, look, I don't know if this is you and you haven't gotten back to me, but there's people who've who've gotten through this and this is what they've experienced. And if this is you and this is where you want to go, let's talk. So I I'm just I'm trying to give them avenues, right, to connect. And at some point in time, depending on the size of the deal, whatever, I'm like, okay, I'm not time to people. I can't help people who don't want to help themselves.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

And from there, so we've identified that issue and we know that we can help them, we've connected with them. How do you generally transition then into pitching the call?

SPEAKER_03 38:01

Well, I got to get them to admit the problem first. And that's what if they admit the problem, then the call is easy, right? Literally, if if they say, Yep, I have this problem and this sounds so familiar, this sucks, then you say, All right, I'm really excited to hear that. That's what we do here, right? And I'd love 35 minutes to walk you through how we help people in these situations, get a better understanding of how it's impacting you. And this is what I always say: see or determine if we are the person, company, whatever that can help you. I never make an assumption that we can.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

Yeah, that's kind of like the NEPQ, like start, like the start of every call, which is like today's to understand if we can help you, and if we can help you, we'll suggest a solution. If not, we won't even talk about it. Uh, I'd love to kind of get into some of the the semantics about how you guys kind of book calls, the frequency, the no-shows, how you work about throughout that process. Like, are you do do you think a lot about how fast you get them on the phone, how you get them ramped up

Lower No-Shows By Selling The Problem

SPEAKER_00 39:05

of uh how warm they are on the call beforehand? Is that something that you you work on?

SPEAKER_02 39:11

No, no. I mean, no, I think that's a lot of overkill. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Really? So for your industries, do you struggle with like show-up rates, getting people on the phone, or is that not necessarily a big issue?

SPEAKER_03 39:26

Uh it is an issue, but it's not an industry issue, it's it's a selling approach issue. So, yeah, we find a lot of clients who are currently doing outbound and stuff like that that have horrible show-up rates. And I can already tell you what that the reason is. They don't haven't found a problem and they strong arm the person. Like, well, just meet me, just meet with that. I don't need to, well, I just can you meet with my rep or we can do this for you. And the person finally says, Okay, I'll take it. And they they just said that to get the person off the phone. So what we don't see high uh no-show rates is when they have to have a problem associated with that meeting, a definable problem. So uh let's just say you sell um oh, in my world, let's just say you sell um digital advertising. I don't freaking know. And you're an SDI for digital advertising. If you can't deliver that meeting with a note that basically says XYZ company has seen an increase in their customer acquisition cost of 15%, right? Andor they this customer or this person has um seen a substantial decline in their ad dollars, return on ad dollars, right? Potential problem. They want to talk about fixing it, then they're not allowed to book the meeting. So when you force the rep to actually, or the SDR to actually understand and identify a problem, get the buyer to say they have that problem, whether they define it or not, then that's a that the what's the word I'm looking for? The no-show rate is much, much, much lower because the person knows they're coming to try to solve that problem.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

Yeah, man, I I have a crazy story for you on this. It's like uh in my world, like a two-call close is very common for cold traffic. So you run ads to like a V to like a video, and on the second call, the second call is really necessary because the first call is mainly like problem and pain. And the way I think about it is the second call then is personalization and sorry, process and price. Okay, but there's a huge drop-off between call one and call two in general, and the reason being is the guys on call one, when they when they're pitching call two, they're saying, Okay, we'll talk about like next steps on that call. So then the call is booked in 72 hours in advance, and it's next steps call, it's called like a fucking closing call, and obviously that person doesn't show up to get to get their cash taken from them. So the shift that was made was call one was to find out the problem, call two was to give you a personalized roadmap on solving such problem, and that just like that just fucking dramatically like I mean tripled the show-up rate of call two, which then obviously improved close rate, and it's like this is the same thing that we're talking about, but it's how it's positioned, yeah. And similarly when it comes to call one, basically, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:17

Look, in the in the end of the world, at the end of the day, I should say, selling is simple. Two steps does the person have a problem that you can solve and that they want to solve it and they'll want to change. If they agree that they want to change, that's half the sale. The second half the sale is who do they change to? It's that simple. So what you just described in a very short sale is it's easy to do that quickly. You're selling an enterprise, you know, piece of software or whatever that costs $100,000, $500,000, a million dollars. Nobody can say, yep, I have a problem big enough to spend a million dollars on in one call, right? They just can't. And there's all those other people that have to agree with them and blah, blah, blah. So that takes longer, but the but the frame is exactly the same. At some point in time, the buyer or buyer say, yep, we all agree. This problem's too big. We have to change. We got to do something else. Then the second half of the sale is what do we change to? What's the best deal? Who is the greatest probability of closing it for us? Who do we trust? Right? They're separate. They're separate, and you got to treat them separately.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Do you give any consideration to how cold the leads are, like how little they know about you or your organization? Does that change to nope?

SPEAKER_03 43:26

Find the problem. I will say the same thing over and over. Find the problem. Because watch this. If I talk to somebody that I don't think knows anything about sales training and knows nothing about us, nothing. And they're trying to sell me something, but within two minutes of asking me questions, it's clear that they know my space and they know what they're talking about. They have my credibility. Just like that. Right? Just like that. Let's just say I'm uh we get stranded on a desert island with a plane crash, and it's like Hundred people out there, right? No doctors. So we're all freaking out. But then there's one guy, he's not a doctor. One of us gets hurt and he starts asking questions. You know, uh, do you have high blood pressure? Do you have a history of this? Are you allergic to this? Um, you know, I don't know, just ask all these questions and make this guy knows what he's talking about. He's not a doctor, but I trust him, right? So all of a sudden he becomes the island's doctor because he he understands the space, whether he has the credential or not or whatever. Do you see what I'm saying? He may not have been someone in the beginning I would have trusted, but based on his questions, which he you cannot ask questions without some level of demonstrated knowledge. You can't do it. Right? How many questions could you ask around uh what do you call it? Um mechanical engineering. Fucking zero. Zero. Zero. So not only could I tell you nothing about mechanical engineering, but I couldn't even begin to ask questions around mechanical engineering because I don't know what I don't know. Do you see what I'm saying? So the point is, I don't care about any of that. I just want to ask questions to understand, and that's their job. The more questions you ask, the better you know the space, you build credibility.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

I want to ask you uh a different question around ramping reps,

Ramping Reps With Systems And Coaching

SPEAKER_00 45:18

all that kind of just. What's the best way in your world to ramp a rep in terms of product knowledge, in terms of IQ, in terms of getting on the phones or getting on the outbound messages? How do you think about that problem?

SPEAKER_03 45:33

On ramp is a systems problem. When you have a hard time getting people ramped up, it's not an onboarding process problem, it's a systems problem. And it's because you don't recognize that learning and performance are two separate things. So you need to build a system that one identifies what information and what skill set do these reps need to be uh world-class reps. Okay. Then you need to train them in that. Then you need to assess their absorption of the training, then you need to be able to assess their um uh ability to do the train, to do what you taught them. Can they do it? So your your entire process of system, first and foremost, is to one identify everything they need to know, build training and inputs that teach them that, then have uh processes that assess their absorption of that, and then three, their ability to actually do it. Okay, apply it. Once that's done, you have to have a system that allows, then forces them to use it in action, and then you have processes that evaluate how they do it in action, both passive and active. So active is you watch them and you tell them what to do. Passive is you build processes that they can't execute if they don't know how to do it. So I'd make this up. It might say you have to send a lead across with uh with um the problem, impact, and root cause to the rep. Well, if they don't know how to get the problem, impact, root cause, they can't execute that. So that's a like see what I'm saying. So that's a passive reinforcement that gives you notification they don't know what they're doing. So whatever you taught them didn't sink in. And that's what we call the opportunity layer. So we break it out skills layer, opportunity layer. So if you you can teach them in the skills layer, but you need to carry that to the opportunity layer and assess are they doing it? And here's the crazy part. Now you need a feedback loop. So you have to build all of that. Then when you see the rep can't do it, you send them back to the training and go through it all over again.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

How frequently do you meet with the reps, like on a one-to-one basis, as like a sales leader, sales manager, like how much in the like how much of his in nature, how much of it is in nurture?

SPEAKER_03 47:41

Oh, it's 90% uh nurture. Like you, you, you're no matter how smart someone is, it's practice. Take the best, most talented football player in the world, right? You get him on the pros. If he's not nurtured all day long, he will never be as good as everybody else. Right? His runway may be a little shorter, but still, it's nurture, nurture, nurture all the way. So that's what I just I think what I just shared is you got to build a nurture engine. Right? A whole nurture. Everybody just wants to think training is here's this run. So yeah, the manager's a linchpin. So whether you use, you know, that tool I shared with you, AI Keenan, it's brilliant for doing it. It's role play, reps can watch, it's scoring and all that stuff, or the manager has to meet with a rep at least two times a week to look at that stuff. But notice too, you asked about what does the rep do with that person. Notice how I built it. There has to be ways for you to see in action if that person is doing what you taught them. That is doesn't always necessarily mean you have to meet with the rep then. But once you learn that, you have to meet with the rep. Yeah, let me show you something. Let me show you this, let me show you that. You're not doing this, you're not doing that.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

Yeah, because I guess the way that we're running it for Aura now, so that that's kind of more on a tech sales side, similar to your world, is we have STRs, daily stand-ups, daily review messaging, and then they're coming with like you did this, so what they did yesterday, what the plan did today, the biggest bottlenecks. And then we're basically like QAing uh QA basically problem solving from there.

SPEAKER_03 49:11

Are you QAing outcomes or are you QA ing behaviors?

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Well, inputs, input variables first. So could tell me that I'm retarded, but but the way I think about it is like activity level first, top down, when they're when they're ramping, okay? So we get on the on Voix Consulting, it was taking 21 days to get people on messages. But on Aura, I'm actually getting them on messages in 10 days, and then they're on low volume, so let's say 10 to 20 messages a day. We're reviewing them like crazy, and I want to see that their inputs are pretty solid. The output then is like the the conversation flow, and then we'll review though that conversation flow. And I'm not I'm not measuring outcome yet. I don't give a shit about that, and then I want to guess kind of get reps, like literally reps done. So then after like 30 days, they're at an activity level that's like respectable, let's just say like 50 touch points a day, and then I'm looking then at a conversion metric anywhere between one to five percent of booked meetings. So, what that would mean is if I fucking hit 100 people that day, I'm booking anywhere from one to five meetings in that day, and I'm only letting outcome come into play from day 30 to day 90, and by 90, they should be at peak outcome, which is five percent. Now, five percent is ambitious to be fair, but three percent, three percent is still fucking solid, and that's for board my businesses. That's the way I think about it. But no, I'm not saying that's 100% accurate, but I'm saying that's just the way we do it.

SPEAKER_03 50:37

If you call the inputs the behaviors, you're doing it the right way, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

And it's just like, you know, they're not sending out purely stupid shit, but it's like we do we we do want that input variable going up, which is like personalization, of course, uh going, as I said, like funnel hacking, loom videoing, breakdowns, and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_03 50:55

Yeah. I mean, what I would do is I would write down or I'd be clear that every single new person coming on board knows what good looks like and knows what the behaviors are and knows what they're supposed to be doing. It's not the it's not the the mediums, the the loom video, whatever, it's not that. It's I want to focus on what are they saying. So my world, everything is product product centric. So what I look for is did their emails target a real problem? Was it was it um written in a way that was intriguing? Was it did it create interest once the once the person read it? Um, did it tie to real real root causes, right? And let's just say that's the case, then I'm like, okay, then when they sent the lead over to the to the rep, or if it's the rep who did it themselves in Salesforce, do I see that information and is that bid information good? Then on the next phase, when they move to the next stage, is there more bid information? Did they define the size of the problem now? Did they get the root cause? I mean the um the future state. Um, is the cost of inaction clearly defined? And if yes, okay, then the next one becomes all right, as they get to forecasting, are the five C's there? Do I believe the customer feels in control? Do I believe the customer is the confidence this could work? Do I believe that the customer um uh uh clarity control? Oh my god, I'm forgetting them. Does I get these five C's? Are those all there? And it's as I go through this, when I see something start to break down, I go back. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. You forecast some with only one C. Why in the world would you do that? Now it's breaking down, right? So I don't let it break down. So it's a very standard set of things, usually information and behaviors that I that I want everybody to do, that everybody understands has to do it relatively the same way or capture the same things. And then I just look for it breaks down in the process and I execute the feedback loops to go back and make sure they know what to do, how to do it and practice it.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

How long do you give people like reps? How long do you give reps to to get up to that highest quality in terms of outcomes? Like, do you give them like a 60-day window, a 90-day window? Like, when when should you cut? When should you keep?

SPEAKER_03 53:05

It's a behaviors um results thing to me. So you ever see the four quadrant box bait behaviors versus results?

SPEAKER_01 53:14

No.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

Okay, so the X Access, think of behaviors. Are they doing the things that we want them to do? They have the right attitude, are they team players? Are they working hard? Are they asking for help? Are they engaged? Like you know when someone is demonstrating all the right behaviors, right? And then the bottom one is results. Are they getting them and are they not? If someone is, you I want everybody ideally in the top right box, getting all the results, demonstrating all the behaviors. The bottom right box, results, is I they're getting the results, but not demonstrating the behaviors. Think the think sports athletes were a pain in the ass, like they're really, really good, but no one wants to work with them. I I give those people 30 days to change the behaviors, or I get them out results or not. Why? Because behaviors is a choice. You can either do it or not do it. Right. It's so I'm asking you to get your shit together, even though you have the results and you don't, I look at that as insubordination. You're choosing not to work within the culture of the organization. So I'm not gonna put up with that. On the other side, though, you have the person who's doing everything right and they're just not getting the results. Depending on the person, I'm either giving them more time or recognize it's just not the right job for them, and I'm gonna tell them that and either try to find another job in the company or be like, look, I think you should try something else. You're doing everything right, it's just not who you are, or I give them more time, they're gonna get there, they're doing everything right, they're gonna get there, I give them a little more time. So that's a one-on-one basis. And obviously, the bottom left box, no behaviors, no results, I get rid of them immediately.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. I've seen I've seen that too, to be honest, in our reps. Like they're just in the wrong role at that time, and they're they're basically doing the wrong thing

Four Sales Organisations And The New Book

SPEAKER_00 54:42

inside the company. Yeah, that's awesome, man. Cool, dude. And lastly, before we finish up, uh, so talk tell me about the new book. Like, why what's the driver for creating a new book? And what are you seeing being different in the industry now going in for 2026?

SPEAKER_03 54:58

So it dawned on me that not many sales organizations have systems, it's very reactive. Um, we actually identify in the new book four types of orgs. We have the compounding org, which is the one that works brilliantly, but then you have the heroic org. They're the ones who every quarter is a struggle. They're asking people to discount to pull deals in. They're the ones that say, Oh, I can't talk to you this week. It's the end of the month or it's the end of the quarter, right? There's there's it's just frantic. It's everybody's pushing it and trying to make it happen. Then there's the random org, and it's where sales enablement and sales leaders are constantly just dumping new things in. Let's try this training, or we got this new uh uh this new playbook, and we have this new tool, and it's just random, random acts of stuff. They're just do, but it's never connected, they don't know what they're trying to move. So, and then there's the peacock, brilliantly structured, brilliantly structured, great methodology, um, excellent playbooks, everything's great, but you're not moving the number. Why? Because it's not connected, they haven't um built the underlying system to make it work, right? So everybody's one of those four types, and uh, I recognize that 99% are not compounding, so that the whole business is the whole um function of sales is is broken. Now, most people won't admit it. That's the crazy part, and that's going to be our challenge. Most people will not admit it. It's particularly a lot of people are heroics, so they make the number, right? They just don't understand the cost of making that number over and over and over. I've done this before and I have to go back and look, but just back at the napkin, we burn hundreds of billions of dollars across every sales org in the country, if not the world, giving discounts to get a deal in in Q1 over Q2 in 2025 over 2026. That's not selling, man. You know what I'm saying? But everybody celebrates it. And so uh I wrote the book to try to solve that problem. And the other one is we spend billions and billions of dollars on, I told you this before we recorded, billions and billions and billions of dollars in sales enablement, billions of dollars and billions of dollars in tools over the last 12 to 15 years. It's exponentially grown up the amount of money and investment we've made in the sales org to only watch every single metric in sales go the wrong direction. We're broken, so I want to fix it.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

I think we we've definitely fallen ourselves into the heroic uh quadrant because like we we can rip we can rip some fucking hilarious deals at the end of the month, but it does have a cost, right? And it's like the the net the net difference of that is we would make more money if we didn't push for that deal in that moment on a long enough time horizon. And I'm I'm actually even experiencing that now because we run events as well, man. We run in-person events, and um I'm seeing that with some of the deals because like it's like a standard price, but we include it as part of our consulting or whatever, and it's like there there is like it's called cannibalization from software, right? That it's the gap between how much money you're making, how much money you could be making because you've wrongly or incorrectly positioned your pricing.

SPEAKER_03 58:11

I always I always like to say I get it, I get it, it doesn't make sense, but I get it why they do it, particularly public companies, but it's still very short-sighted. But I always like to say, how is a dollar on October on September 30th worth less on October 1st? It's not. How is a dollar worth more on December 31st than it is on January 1st? It's not it's not. So give me the dollar the next day. Sorry, give me the dollar and if I even if I was a publicly traded company, I'd get I don't care. Hit my stock this month. I don't care. Fine. I missed, I missed our our our revenue projections by you know, our earnings per share, whatever by I'm making up a two percent or what it's probably whatever point tenth of a percent, and our earnings are off by you know 90, 90 million dollars. Fine. Next month, I didn't give that discount, I'll have that deal, so I didn't give 20% away. I didn't buy a quarter at 20%, and I'll exceed it and it'll go right back up. And it'll over time I will win. Over time I will win.

SPEAKER_00 59:22

So in our world, this is done on monthly because it's monthly revenue is managed because it's fucking stupid. That's the reason why. It's because it it it's it's it's super short-sighted, right? So it's like how much money is the business making per month? And I don't agree with this, but I'm gonna say that's like the lingo of the market, and that's where people push for big numbers and then they get a massive rip back the next month.

SPEAKER_03 59:48

Makes no sense. Take it a week later, it's still coming. And what we've also learned too is when when you don't force people into decision, you don't lose deals you shouldn't have lost. So not only do you make discounts, you end up losing deals.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:00

Hmm, yeah, man. So so much, so much there as it is. Let's do a turrow podcast and a new book. Send it to me when it's out, or I'll buy it when it's out, should I say, and we'll group it on that, man. All right, dude, you're an absolute legend. I want to say a master, master thank you. Let me stop reporting here, but yeah, huge, huge thank you for everything, man. You're an absolute legend.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:18

Thank you, baby.