MMS #107 - From Doorsteps to Digital: Leveraging Offline Skills for Online Success with Jeff Kirchick

[00:00:01] Welcome to Mastering Modern Selling, relationships, social and AI in the buyer-centric age. Join host Brandon Lee, founder of Fistbump, alongside Microsoft's number one social seller Carson V Heady, and Tom Burton, author of The Revenue Zone and co-founder of LeadSmart, as we explore the strategies and stories behind successful executives and sales professionals.

[00:00:24] Dive into business growth, personal development, and the pursuit of excellence with industry leaders. Whether you're a seasoned executive or an aspiring leader, this podcast is your backstage pass to today's business landscape. This is Mastering Modern Selling, brought to you by Fistbump.

[00:00:50] Okay, welcome back. Episode number 107, Mastering Modern Selling. Brandon, good to see you. Carson, good to have you back.

[00:01:00] And we have yet another awesome guest, Jeff Kerchick. Jeff, welcome.

[00:01:05] Jeff Kerchick, welcome.

[00:01:05] Jeff Kerchick, Thank you for having me. I think I graduated from just doing one-on-one sessions with Carson, and now I get the full gang here.

[00:01:12] So this is exciting.

[00:01:14] Jeff Kerchick, Carson's in minor leagues when he's on his own. Now you're in the big leagues with all of us.

[00:01:18] Jeff Kerchick, That's what I was telling him. I was like, you know, this is the big time. So we need to, you know, get Jeff in front of more people. And so this is the way to do it.

[00:01:28] Well, Jeff, good to have you. You know, I've just gotten to know you a little bit recently and just, you know, looking at your career so far, you seem like a relatively young guy, but it looks like you've had a hell of a career already.

[00:01:41] So yeah, or maybe I'm just faking it till I make it, you know, we'll find out over the next hour.

[00:01:46] He wears it well. See, he's just, he's aged really well, despite all the experiences. And I, we were, we were counting this the other day. Like we've known each other for like, I think three or four years now. And just, you know, it's, it's incredible to watch like the journey and also everything that's changed in sales over the last few years. I feel like we've explored a bunch of topics. And I think there's a lot to tap into of Jeff's wealth of knowledge. So yeah, I'm excited about today.

[00:02:12] Thank you. Thank you.

[00:02:13] Thank you.

[00:02:13] All right, Jeff, Jeff, you don't have enough gray for all the startups that you've been in.

[00:02:17] Right. I mean, I'm sure it's coming soon. Yeah.

[00:02:19] You know, I kind of joke to people if they've ever seen the show Silicon Valley, that's kind of what my life has been like, except probably not as funny many of the times. So yeah, I think the gray will come pretty soon.

[00:02:32] All right. Well, Hey, I wanted to brand and do a quick shout out to fist bumps again for sponsoring us today.

[00:02:39] I'm taking care of all of our production stuff, getting things organized, making this happen.

[00:02:44] So thank you. I know you have some pretty cool new stuff coming in fist bump or some new offerings that we're going to have to get into here soon.

[00:02:53] Especially if you're, if you're doing trade shows, fist bump has got some pretty amazing things that are coming out for, for trade show stuff.

[00:03:01] Thanks. Thanks for that, Tom and Alec and Noor on our team who do a lot of the backend stuff and the rest of the team, they they're doing an awesome job.

[00:03:09] Thank you guys.

[00:03:10] And I also wanted to invite anybody who's listening live. Let us know where you're from.

[00:03:14] Hopefully you're not in Florida and staying somewhat dry, but let us know you're here.

[00:03:20] And Jeff, let's jump in. Love to kind of start with a little bit of your, you're talking a little through your background, kind of how you got into sales.

[00:03:28] And I know you have an interesting story. And then as Carson said, yeah, then we'll, we'll start beating up on you.

[00:03:34] Sure. Yeah. I can't wait. Yeah. Look, I, I didn't really know what I wanted to do when I grew up.

[00:03:39] I think I wanted to be a professional athlete for most of the time when I was a kid.

[00:03:43] And then that dream slowly evaporated when I never got that growth spurt that I was hoping for.

[00:03:50] And you know, I was very lucky. I got to go to a great school. I went to Princeton for my undergrad.

[00:03:56] But I think I was different than a lot of the kids I went to school with, because I think a lot of the kids at Princeton or, you know, they came out of the womb knowing that they wanted to do a certain thing, you know, be a doctor or a lawyer.

[00:04:06] And I mean, I guess I did too. I just, it just wasn't something that was going to work. Right.

[00:04:09] So I think a lot of the kids there had a plan. They were going to go work in Wall Street or consulting or go to law school or medical school.

[00:04:16] I didn't really know what I wanted to do. And I looked at a lot of different things. I looked at teaching. I looked at jobs and sports.

[00:04:23] I had worked for the Boston Red Sox in high school and a little bit of college and stuff like that. So I had a little bit of interest in that.

[00:04:29] But I remember what I saw, there was a tech startup in Boston. This company actually I worked for a few years and it ended up being acquired for several hundred million dollars many years later after I had left.

[00:04:39] But the job description said, the harder you work, the more money you'll make. And I remember when I read that line, I got really excited and it wasn't actually just the money.

[00:04:50] I mean, let's be honest, we all we all want to make money. Anyone who tells you that they don't care about money, they don't value it, is lying to you.

[00:04:57] But it was actually not about them. It wasn't just about the money. It was about the autonomy. It was about the idea that I was in control of my own fate.

[00:05:04] I like the idea that the that I that there was literally a direct correlation between my effort and my earnings and what I could do with my life.

[00:05:14] It's not to say I'm not a team player. I like working on teams, but I also like the idea that I'm in control.

[00:05:18] And that's not necessarily up to others if I'm going to have success or not.

[00:05:22] And I think that's why I liked wrestling. I was I wrestled in high school and parts of college.

[00:05:26] I had some success. I had some failures, but I loved wrestling as a sport because it was up to me.

[00:05:31] You know, if you sucked at it, you sucked. You know, you could be a bad player on a good team and still win.

[00:05:37] So I liked I liked that. I've always liked that. Just like having the idea of the ball in my hands.

[00:05:43] So that's how I got into sales and the rest is history.

[00:05:48] So like like most of us, we you got into sales accidentally and then fell in love with it.

[00:05:53] I think so. Yeah. I mean, I think like the thing about it that I probably didn't anticipate right away, but I think is true for all of you guys.

[00:06:03] I've been following your content and and I've obviously spoken with Carson a bunch of times is the relationships.

[00:06:09] You know, I think one other thing about me is I'm a very empathetic person.

[00:06:12] I really I kind of wear my heart on my sleeve for better or for worse.

[00:06:17] And I care about other people and I care about making other people happy and trying to do right by them.

[00:06:23] And so I think sales, it has a kind of a misconception about what it is.

[00:06:29] But at the end of the day, we're really trying to help people.

[00:06:30] And I think the thing I really started to enjoy was like seeing that I was actually solving problems for people and that they were excited about a solution that I could give them.

[00:06:39] And as my career went on, I started getting into bigger and more complex types of solutions that I could offer and therefore bigger and greater impact that I could deliver to somebody.

[00:06:47] So those relationships that you build, I mean, I'm still friends with clients of mine from years ago.

[00:06:53] I still follow them on Facebook and Instagram.

[00:06:55] We talk to each other, help each other out with different things.

[00:06:58] So to me, it's like almost another way of just having another network.

[00:07:02] You know, you have like your friends and your family, but you also have your customers and your clients. Right.

[00:07:07] So I think that's something it was accidental.

[00:07:09] You're right, Brandon.

[00:07:10] But then as I got into it, it's like you kind of get hooked because you get these awesome relationships that you get out of it.

[00:07:16] Yeah. If I want to ask you about authentic selling, you know, obviously one of the things I like about you, many things is, you know, you're you're just you're an everyday seller.

[00:07:28] Like I like to think of myself as, but you've also complimented your brand with some, you know, some of your passions.

[00:07:36] I don't think you're afraid to put your perspective out there.

[00:07:40] But to your point, you're very welcoming of other people's perspectives and your virtual platform and whatnot.

[00:07:45] Like you wrote a book years ago around authentic selling and a lot's changed, frankly, in sales since that book came out.

[00:07:53] I'd love to hear more about the impetus for writing the book.

[00:07:56] But also, what does authentic selling mean today?

[00:07:59] Sure. Well, I think first, thank you, Carson.

[00:08:02] Appreciate that.

[00:08:03] I mean, to your point, I think first and foremost, people need to live their lives honestly.

[00:08:08] I think that's the most important thing, whether you're a success or failure by anyone else's standard.

[00:08:13] If you can live in your life honestly, I think that that you will always feel good about it in the end.

[00:08:19] And we live in an era, I think, where sometimes it's hard for people to really say what they feel about something and they're worried about what their perception will be.

[00:08:26] And to me, you know, I just don't think that's a sound really dramatic.

[00:08:30] I just don't think life's worth living if that's how we live it.

[00:08:32] I think people need to live in an authentic and honest way to feel good about themselves and what they do.

[00:08:38] You know, the book came about during COVID.

[00:08:41] There was maybe two sides to this whole thing.

[00:08:43] First was a very practical perspective, which is, hey, four years ago, I was predicting that AI was going to come into the world of sales.

[00:08:51] Now, it's so ubiquitous today that that probably doesn't feel like much of a prediction.

[00:08:55] But four years ago, there actually really wasn't much AI in the world of sales.

[00:08:59] And you might remember, like, you know, Andrew Yang was running for president.

[00:09:02] He was talking about, you know, truck drivers being automated away and stuff like that.

[00:09:07] And everyone thought it was going to be blue collar jobs that got automated.

[00:09:10] But I actually felt, no, it's actually white collar jobs.

[00:09:13] I mean, even legal agreements now, to some degree, there's like AI tools that are going to automate away lawyers and lawyers make a lot of money.

[00:09:20] So I was kind of saying, hey, look, salespeople like you better be paying attention here, because if you want to survive in a world of AI,

[00:09:29] AI is going to commoditize a lot of things that will commoditize process because the machine can ingest process.

[00:09:34] What will help you stand out from the pack is leaning into what makes you human.

[00:09:39] And that is authenticity.

[00:09:41] And that's building a, you know, being an honest, presenting an honest version of yourself to a customer.

[00:09:46] It doesn't mean they have to like you.

[00:09:47] It just means that they have to believe you.

[00:09:49] And there's a very important distinction in those two things.

[00:09:53] The second thing, Carson, was COVID was a really divisive time.

[00:09:58] We live in divisive times.

[00:10:00] There's an election coming up in 30 days.

[00:10:02] But even despite that, I would still say that COVID was more divisive than where we are today with an election 30 days away.

[00:10:09] And we won't talk about politics, but I'll just say that like, you know, during COVID, everyone was on each other's throats.

[00:10:14] There was all this racial tension, all this bad stuff was going on.

[00:10:18] And I couldn't help but notice my friends calling each other names, you know, like you're a bigot or you're a snowflake or this or that thing.

[00:10:26] And as a salesperson, I'm sitting here and I'm observing this and I'm thinking, how does anyone think that speaking to other people this way will ever convince other people that their ideas are better ideas?

[00:10:39] And what I felt was that we're all salespeople at the end of the day, we're all trying to, you know, kind of win a war of ideas, let's say, amongst our friends, family.

[00:10:50] We want certain people to do things.

[00:10:52] And so how can everyday people learn basic sales principles that will help them navigate life better?

[00:11:00] You know, to help them negotiate better with other people who don't see things the same way, because that's true with our customers.

[00:11:06] You know, our customers have a way of doing things.

[00:11:09] We're often disrupting that by offering them a different solution in a different process.

[00:11:13] We're challenging them.

[00:11:14] The way you win is not to tell the customer that they're stupid.

[00:11:18] You wouldn't call them a name.

[00:11:19] You wouldn't say, hey, Mr. Customer, you're stupid. Buy my product.

[00:11:23] That will never work. Right.

[00:11:25] But if it's their idea, if it's the customer's idea that you offer a good solution, then, yeah, they'll do it all day.

[00:11:32] And so how do you make it their idea?

[00:11:35] And so that's something that I thought was really important just for like any person.

[00:11:38] It's not even a book for salespeople.

[00:11:39] It's a book for anyone to pick up and say, you know, how can I navigate everyday conversations better?

[00:11:47] And, you know, think about the way salespeople do it, which is leaning with empathy, leaning with questions, discovery, seeking to understand, not making assumptions, being open minded to the idea you might be wrong.

[00:12:00] You know, how many times have we had a customer that should not buy our solution?

[00:12:04] Right. There's plenty of times where that happens. So that was the premise of the book.

[00:12:09] Love it.

[00:12:10] Hey, Jeff. You know, you've obviously spent most of your career in the tech space.

[00:12:15] You know, it sounds like working for a number of venture funded high growth companies.

[00:12:19] Let's face it, right? The authentic selling aspect of things is not always the go to market strategy for tech companies and venture funded companies.

[00:12:29] How have you been able to incorporate that working in this world?

[00:12:33] And, you know, have you run into friction with management and other things?

[00:12:38] And or have they looked at that or have some of the people you worked with, but man, even in this growth of all cost era, this is a more better way to get results using more of these authentic techniques.

[00:12:49] Yeah, it's a fantastic question. So I would say that it's really important to allow frameworks to be frameworks and nothing more.

[00:13:00] And I'll explain what I mean by that. So, you know, Tom, like your question is, you know, growth at all costs.

[00:13:07] People have a certain way of doing things. Does it ever, you know, does it ever, you know, go in conflict with with my philosophy?

[00:13:16] And I don't think that you should automate or tell someone what to say on a call.

[00:13:20] You know, if you're telling someone I need you to find out who the decision maker is, I need you to find out what's their budget, how soon they want to move forward.

[00:13:28] To me, that is, you know, that's not you're just telling someone what to say.

[00:13:33] Like you can you could have a robot do that. There's no point in having a human being.

[00:13:38] There's no point in having a human being perform that action.

[00:13:41] However, if you have a framework. So, for example, in my discovery call, what do I want to accomplish generally in my discovery call?

[00:13:47] There are certain outcomes that make it productive or not. Right.

[00:13:50] Maybe there's qualification that I need to understand fundamentally whether or not we can even service the customer. Right.

[00:13:56] That's a framework. Right. And you can build a framework about what are the outcomes that matter, but allow the salesperson to get there in whatever way they please.

[00:14:04] Now, you can guide them. You can tell them, here's a list of some discovery questions that I think are good things that have worked for us that have gotten us to the outcome that we want.

[00:14:12] But at the end of the day, everyone has their own style.

[00:14:14] And the reason you want different human beings on your team is because they're human beings like, you know, no one wants.

[00:14:19] I mean, look, we've all faced this before. We've all gotten on a sales call where we know they're rattling off a list of questions and it's because their manager told them to do it.

[00:14:27] It's not the way that they would have interacted. We just met that person at a bar, grab a beer with them.

[00:14:31] It's not the way they would talk to us and it turns us off instantly. And so that's not what we want.

[00:14:37] We want them to have a framework for what they want to accomplish. The same is true for my cold outbound.

[00:14:41] I have a framework that I teach SDRs. I say, if you do these three things, it'll work.

[00:14:46] And the framework is, you know, you have this like compelling opener, you have a value proposition, you have a closer.

[00:14:51] And it's a little more than that, but you get the idea. There's a certain way that I think it works.

[00:14:55] But as long as they follow the framework, I don't care what they say. They can talk about Star Wars in the email for all I care.

[00:15:00] I don't really care what the content is of the email, whatever grabs the attention of the buyer.

[00:15:05] But I want them to follow a framework that's optimized for success. If I can prove that there's a framework that will optimize our plan or our ability, our yield, really, then let's do that.

[00:15:16] But give people creative liberty to be themselves within that.

[00:15:20] And I think where a lot of people struggle is they implement too much.

[00:15:26] You know, MedPIC is a great example of a framework, MEDIC, for enterprise qualification, right?

[00:15:32] But it's not a process. You don't go into a call and say, who's the economic buyer? What are the decision criteria?

[00:15:38] No one does that, right? The buyer would be turned off. So that's the way I look at it.

[00:15:44] So just to kind of tie that together, it sounds like if you incorporate a lot of your authentic selling techniques or philosophy into that framework, that can then inherently permeate through the organization, regardless of the personal style that the person may have as they go forward.

[00:16:01] So is that kind of the right strategy?

[00:16:05] I think so, yeah. And I think part of that, you know, if you're being authentic too, is like, again, it will sound counterintuitive, but I often will lead off right away with all the stuff that we're not good at.

[00:16:14] And there's a guy, I know you guys may have even had him on your show. I don't know. Todd Capone wrote a book called The Transparency Sale.

[00:16:20] And he's, you know, one of these thought leaders in our space. He's really done some really great work.

[00:16:25] And I remember I interviewed him for a podcast maybe a couple of years ago.

[00:16:28] He told me a story about he went into a big meeting and the first thing he did was talk about how he couldn't do certain things the competitor could do and how he asked, is this a requirement?

[00:16:37] Because if it is, I'll just get up and leave. And they said, no, we might be able to work around it, but like, tell us a little bit more.

[00:16:43] Like they actually piqued their interest in the fact that he was honest right away.

[00:16:47] What it did is it made them believe everything else he had to say. And so that's what I want to create room for.

[00:16:52] Like if you over litigate what someone needs to do in the meeting, they don't have room to be honest and like lead with that level of transparency and honesty that actually will engender more trust with the buyer.

[00:17:03] So that's why I don't want to put too much of like, like a leash really on the people that are, that are in the role.

[00:17:11] Hey, Jeff, I have a question around that leash concept too. So you've, you've worked with a lot of funded startups where there's very definitive goals that they have to hit and turn a fun and all that type of stuff.

[00:17:23] Um, how does that balance work? I, everything you're saying, I, I agree. We, you know, people have got to own their own style, but that, that takes time, that takes training, that takes patience, that takes effort.

[00:17:37] And that's counterintuitive to the hurry up and hit your numbers. How, how does that work with your team when you've got this hurry up and you got the, but now I want you to work this and own it and craft, you know, get better at your craft.

[00:17:53] Sure. It's a great question. So my gut, Brandon, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this as well.

[00:17:59] I mean, my, my intuition on this is that most of the time, the coaching that people need is to release themselves from the fact they're in a sales conversation.

[00:18:10] Like they need to free their mind. I don't mean to sound Zen because I'm probably like one of the most anxious people you'll ever meet.

[00:18:15] It's like, I'd be a total hypocrite. But the, the, the reality is, is that if you can really, if you are sincerely there to help you, you, you, you act differently.

[00:18:27] And so when I'm coaching, what I will often notice, like if I'm, to answer your question directly, I look at calls in Gong and I give feedback in Gong and that's how I coach people.

[00:18:36] Right. I think that's like the simplest thing. You have some call, I'm not like a Gong, you know, spokesperson.

[00:18:42] You can use any tool you want, but you know, some recording tool where you can actually look at the calls and flag certain things that are going on and be able to give feedback, I think is great.

[00:18:50] But what like 99% of the feedback that I find is that there's an inclination to pitch or to sell and not to like really seek to understand and ask why and ask why and ask why and ask why over and over again, to really get to the source of truth and really understand what are the personal stakes for this individual.

[00:19:09] Because if that individual that I'm coaching was, let's say it was their best friend and their best friend was crying on their shoulder because they had a problem.

[00:19:17] They wouldn't sell them on an idea. They would hear them out. They would say, tell me more, tell me more. Right.

[00:19:23] And so that's what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get them to understand.

[00:19:28] This is sound really cheesy, but I really mean this, that we are like specks of duck dust in the universe.

[00:19:32] We don't know why we're here. There's life before the sales call.

[00:19:35] There's life after the sales call. And in the end, it's going to be meaningless.

[00:19:39] And whether it goes south or not, it's like, it doesn't matter.

[00:19:42] And in the grand scheme of things, people need to release themselves because we put so much pressure and so much impetus and so much weight on this thing.

[00:19:52] That's right in front of us. And it doesn't matter. I mean, it obviously matters to some degree, but like the more that we can treat it like it's a real conversation.

[00:20:00] We really want to just help. And if it doesn't work out, it's okay.

[00:20:03] The more that we can actually get into the mindset that allows us to have a better conversation with that customer.

[00:20:09] So that's what I'm usually seeing when I'm coaching. I'm in Gong. I'm finding like, you know, instead of asking a question, we start pitching.

[00:20:15] We get excited when they say something we like. So we try to go off of it.

[00:20:20] But that's the thing. But what are your thoughts? I'd be curious.

[00:20:25] What do you see in this space?

[00:20:27] Yeah, you know, I mean, I think I agree with you.

[00:20:29] And I think, you know, you said you don't want to come off Zen, but I think there is some Zen-like qualities that we want to portray.

[00:20:35] I think that, you know, when I had a big call center, we spent a lot of time helping people own their conversation.

[00:20:43] It's what we talked about. How do you own your conversation?

[00:20:46] And the same concept. We had frameworks of things.

[00:20:48] We had goals for different calls.

[00:20:50] But how they got to the goal needed to be something they owned.

[00:20:54] It had to be their path.

[00:20:56] And I think there's, I agree with you, I think there's got to be a calmness around sales.

[00:21:02] You know, I was on a call this morning with Brent Tillman.

[00:21:05] And I think about Brent.

[00:21:07] I think about Anthony and Reno.

[00:21:09] I think about Jeb.

[00:21:10] And we all, there's always these conversations around go slow to move fast.

[00:21:15] Take your time to go faster.

[00:21:17] I mean, there's different versions of it.

[00:21:19] But I think that that's a big part of it.

[00:21:21] And we lost Jeff at his WeWork location.

[00:21:25] My answer sucks so bad that Jeff said, I'm tapped out.

[00:21:29] I'm done.

[00:21:31] I'm done with these guys.

[00:21:33] Carson, why don't you jump in?

[00:21:35] I'm going to make a segue there.

[00:21:36] Yeah, no, actually, it's funny.

[00:21:38] I'm currently reading First Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham.

[00:21:43] It's very similar to what Jeff was just articulating in that we've got to get away from this cookie cutter approach.

[00:21:49] I think there's an element of time and experience and wisdom that kind of puts me in this position of, you know, it's almost an enviable position of being able to look at some of these conversations that we take so seriously.

[00:22:03] Are there these situations that we put so much pressure on or these calls that I look at where we have 20 people from a team on?

[00:22:11] And I'm thinking to myself, like, how much are we paying for this conversation about this one little probably inconsequential thing in the grand scheme of things?

[00:22:19] And it's just it's almost ridiculous.

[00:22:21] We've got to do a better job of taking a balcony view, of taking a step back, looking at the totality of the situation and, you know, and leading our teams better, coaching them better.

[00:22:31] One of the other things, too, Jeff, that I've always kind of felt the kindred spirit with you on is, you know, you're a player coach.

[00:22:37] You know, you do a lot of coaching, but you're actually out there living it and doing it.

[00:22:40] And, you know, at the pulse of what's happening in the business, I have a lot of curiosity right now about how other people with a sales mindset think about and leverage AI.

[00:22:52] And I'd love to hear, you know, how are you integrating in AI into your strategy?

[00:22:56] How are you seeing it? How are you coaching it?

[00:22:58] You mentioned Gong and I love actually you were one of the people that kind of showed me how you were leveraging Gong.

[00:23:04] And I had a big takeaway from it.

[00:23:06] It reminds me of when I was in a call center and how painstaking it was to actually get recordings and go through and and, you know, make notes on them.

[00:23:14] And now, like so much of this is at our fingertips.

[00:23:18] And that was actually the very basis of I know on this show, we talk a lot about the book The Jolt Effect by Matt Dixon and Ted McKenna, where they went in and did a lot of research on calls.

[00:23:29] I think there's so much value in being able to pinpoint specific things that were said in calls, give real time coaching in calls.

[00:23:35] But how are you leveraging AI as a leader, as a seller?

[00:23:39] How are you seeing it being effectively leveraged?

[00:23:42] And what are some gotchas and some aha moments for you around AI and sales right now?

[00:23:47] Yeah, I have very strong opinions on this one.

[00:23:49] So I will throw them out.

[00:23:52] I think there's two use cases for AI and sales that are going to be clear breadwinners.

[00:23:58] And I think there's use cases that everyone's talking about and that are very buzzworthy right now that will ultimately fail.

[00:24:04] And I'll explain what those are.

[00:24:06] So the number one biggest opportunity, and again, I don't get kickbacks from Gong or any of these people, but maybe I should because I tout them all the time.

[00:24:16] But conversational AI, so let's face it, your conversations are all the data.

[00:24:24] It's everything.

[00:24:25] It's everything that's happening with the customer.

[00:24:27] Product wants to understand what's going on in that.

[00:24:30] Operations wants to know.

[00:24:32] Our CMO, our chief marketing officer, asked me, what are your best calls?

[00:24:37] He ran a chat GPT thing on it, and he found the best buzzwords for paid search.

[00:24:41] What are the things that they're saying in the call so that he can run paid search on that, right?

[00:24:45] There's a massive opportunity.

[00:24:47] The treasure trove of information, even if we can map that to closed one deals and what happened in those calls, and can we get coaching now along the way based on what we know is happening in all the deals?

[00:24:57] Can we go into the CRM and say, hey, on your closed one deals, you normally engage this stakeholder by now, but you haven't done that yet.

[00:25:04] So that's a red flag, right?

[00:25:06] By the way, that doesn't even exist yet.

[00:25:08] So that's an idea that someone should take and run with because there's a big opportunity for not real-time coaching, but more just general deal coaching using real data, what's going on in your calls, the stakeholders, right?

[00:25:20] We can map that to ZoomInfo or these data providers.

[00:25:23] We know who they are, where they sit in the org chart.

[00:25:25] So there's a massive opportunity for conversational AI to really increase yield for sales teams because all the data lives in the calls, right?

[00:25:36] As long as we agree that phone calls are still going to remain the medium through which people have most of these conversations, then that's a huge opportunity.

[00:25:42] We're only at the tip of the ice.

[00:25:44] It's already very cool what they're doing, but it's not even close to what it can be.

[00:25:47] So that's number one.

[00:25:49] Number two, and this addresses your question, Carson, like what have I been doing?

[00:25:53] There's a lot of tools right now that can leverage AI to do all the dirty work in your research for prospecting, finding you best fit customers at the right time.

[00:26:04] I can give it filters.

[00:26:05] I can give it my CRM data.

[00:26:07] ZoomInfo co-pilot, this new tool, it's really awesome.

[00:26:10] I can feed it all my data and it will tee up all the accounts that I should be reaching out to based on certain signals that I care about, like if they're searching for my solution, who I should contact.

[00:26:22] Like the contact data for them, it will even tee up like a basic message that I can edit before I send.

[00:26:28] So the thing that's really difficult about high touch outreach is all the effort involved in everything before you even send the email.

[00:26:36] You know, the email is actually the easiest part.

[00:26:38] The hard part is figuring out who's the best person to reach out to right now, why, and how can I get a good message to them?

[00:26:45] AI can automate that now.

[00:26:46] That's a huge opportunity because now sellers can be human.

[00:26:50] They have time.

[00:26:51] They have time to actually write an authentic, bold, great message because AI has automated away the low value activity.

[00:26:59] Now, what's everyone in our industry talking about that is going to go down?

[00:27:05] AI SDRs and automated outreach.

[00:27:11] There are tools out there that will write the email for you.

[00:27:14] They claim to personalize the messages for you.

[00:27:16] Guess what?

[00:27:17] I call bullshit on all this and I'll tell you why.

[00:27:22] Personalization is an observation.

[00:27:23] That's really what it means.

[00:27:24] It's, hey, Brandon, I noticed you run this podcast.

[00:27:27] Or, hey, Carson, I noticed you work at Microsoft or you live in St. Louis.

[00:27:31] That's not interesting.

[00:27:32] You already know that about yourself.

[00:27:34] And the other problem is that if everyone is doing it, right, so let's say that everyone starts leveraging the AI tools.

[00:27:43] Now, what once felt like a really personalized email actually now looks like spam because it's been commoditized.

[00:27:50] Now, if your time somehow increased, then I would think differently.

[00:27:56] But the reality is we have limited time in our lives.

[00:28:00] We all die at some point.

[00:28:01] So we don't have more time.

[00:28:03] And that's a finite variable.

[00:28:04] So the outreach has been elevated and commoditized, but the buyer still has a finite level of time.

[00:28:11] So what that leads to is you need to have a different approach.

[00:28:14] The different approach is shared values.

[00:28:16] Shared values between me and the buyer.

[00:28:19] Something that connects us in a human way.

[00:28:21] A shared experience.

[00:28:24] Some shared thought, right?

[00:28:25] Anything that makes us connected.

[00:28:28] AI doesn't have a soul.

[00:28:30] It doesn't have experience.

[00:28:31] AI never went to a football game, right?

[00:28:34] It didn't go to a certain alma mater.

[00:28:36] AI didn't, you know, write a book, right?

[00:28:38] I had an AI thought thing email me about my book.

[00:28:42] And it said, I loved your book.

[00:28:43] You know, I'd love to book a meeting with you.

[00:28:45] And I said, what was your favorite chapter?

[00:28:47] And it responded some mealy mouth thing about how it loved authenticity and sales.

[00:28:53] You didn't read, clearly you didn't read the book.

[00:28:56] You're not real, right?

[00:28:57] And like, I'm not an idiot.

[00:28:59] Most people aren't idiots, right?

[00:29:00] They know when they see something that it's not really the person.

[00:29:03] So yeah, is this all the rage right now?

[00:29:05] I'm not going to name names, but are there some tools right now that are buzzworthy?

[00:29:08] And they're like, oh, we'll write your emails for you.

[00:29:10] Yeah.

[00:29:10] And they might get meetings now.

[00:29:11] Don't get me wrong.

[00:29:12] Like some of these companies might actually be working as we speak.

[00:29:14] Like they might have really good results today.

[00:29:16] What I'm saying is they won't have good results in 10 years.

[00:29:19] In 10 years from now, they'll be-

[00:29:20] Or three months.

[00:29:21] Three months from now, right?

[00:29:22] When this stuff becomes so commonplace.

[00:29:24] I mean, I was on a presentation this week about AI and healthcare.

[00:29:28] And it's like, you know, the presentation we gave a month ago is obsolete.

[00:29:32] I completely agree with you.

[00:29:33] It's going to become so commonplace.

[00:29:35] And what I think is amazing is the ability to leverage AI, like in the middle of a sales call.

[00:29:40] I was on with an executive the other day, and I'm literally punching in, like,

[00:29:44] give me some use cases that I could leverage with this customer based on what they just said about blank.

[00:29:48] And I mean, my team thought I was a brilliant genius because I just like was able to weave it naturally into the talk track.

[00:29:56] And I think that's what great sellers are going to be able to do is create that type of opportunity.

[00:30:01] Bob, you made a great comment in the chat too.

[00:30:03] Sellers can do something with their newly found time, but will they?

[00:30:07] Wow, that's a million dollar question.

[00:30:10] Tom, I wanted to kick it back to you too.

[00:30:11] I know you had a comment.

[00:30:13] No, but let's hit Bob's question.

[00:30:15] Well, actually, I do have a comment and then I'll go into there.

[00:30:18] You know, we were just talking about, right, the automated SDRs or whatever.

[00:30:23] Think about even today when you're going on LinkedIn or you're looking at something, what are we constantly looking at?

[00:30:29] Is that real or is it, I'm going to date myself, or is it Memorex, right?

[00:30:33] Remember that?

[00:30:33] Is it real or is it something that's automated that's there?

[00:30:38] I think that our, and I'll just speak for myself, but I understand your guys' take.

[00:30:42] I think our mindset is now we're going to assume everything is AI generated unless we're proven otherwise, right?

[00:30:50] Because there's so much of it, right?

[00:30:52] We want to be proven that what we're actually seeing isn't AI generated.

[00:30:56] And so I think that, you know, Jeff, to your point, it may be working now, but I think that all those automated things are just going to cause people to put up more barriers, more, you know, stops not doing the phone calls, not answering the phone.

[00:31:10] Or even if they do answer the phone, not willing to have a conversation because they're going to believe that it's somebody automated on the other side.

[00:31:18] Tom, I think you nailed that.

[00:31:20] And Jeff, you nailed what Jeff was saying.

[00:31:25] You know, the human sniff test is never going to go away.

[00:31:28] The human spam filter.

[00:31:30] And I do believe now we're getting more and more that we assume AI unless proven otherwise.

[00:31:36] And I love Carson all the time.

[00:31:39] You talk about how you use AI.

[00:31:40] And I know you've done it on the show before because we'll be talking about something that we can see you kind of typing some things.

[00:31:45] And all of a sudden you come up with something brilliant.

[00:31:47] And you're brilliant because you use it, right?

[00:31:51] You're using the tool.

[00:31:52] Remember those dad jokes that you used to come up with?

[00:31:54] Oh, gosh.

[00:31:55] But you just did it a few weeks ago where I look and I can see you typing.

[00:31:59] I'm like, oh, Carson's going to come up with something good.

[00:32:01] Because you're leveraging this powerful tool in the right way.

[00:32:07] You didn't leverage this powerful tool and then say, oh, Jeff, I see you went to Princeton.

[00:32:11] We all know that.

[00:32:12] We all looked at his profile.

[00:32:14] I mean, and I think that the going slow to move fast is more important now than ever.

[00:32:21] And what that means is let the AI do the efficiency tool for you, but then take your time to do it only, Jeff, as you said, only what humans can do.

[00:32:32] And if you do that, then we do start to stand out and rise above the noise.

[00:32:37] Yeah.

[00:32:37] And by the way, Brandon, I want to add something.

[00:32:38] The Princeton thing, it's funny because I had someone, I had a recruiter.

[00:32:42] I think it was a recruiter or somebody like something like that reached out to me and mentioned, like, saw you went to Princeton.

[00:32:48] I bet you love doing the reunions and going to the P raid, which is this, you know, it's like a thing that happens at reunions every year down there.

[00:32:55] And then like the next paragraph was like, anyway, I'm here at like this recruiting company and I want to see if like, you know, we can work with you.

[00:33:03] And I'm like thinking, I'm like, what's the point of even bringing up the Princeton thing?

[00:33:08] Like it has nothing to do with what you're selling me.

[00:33:10] Like you have to at least tie those two things together in some way if you're going to make that roll off the tongue.

[00:33:15] And actually one of the best outreaches I got was from a young woman many years ago.

[00:33:19] I actually gave this example in my book, but I'm a big Boston Bruins fan.

[00:33:23] And I think she probably found that on like my Twitter profile or something.

[00:33:26] And the subject line was like a team full of Posternox, David Posternox, like the best player on the Bruins.

[00:33:32] And she worked at, yeah, anyway, she reached out to me and she's like, do you want a team full of David Posternox?

[00:33:39] You know, here we like try to help level up your team by doing, you know, X, Y, and Z.

[00:33:42] It's like she made the hockey analogy actually like relevant to what she was selling and it was cute and funny.

[00:33:46] And so that caught my attention.

[00:33:48] I liked the idea, but she actually tied it into like, it was relevant.

[00:33:51] She made the personalization and the shared experience.

[00:33:55] You know, she was a hockey fan.

[00:33:56] She said she was from San Jose.

[00:33:57] She liked the Sharks or whatever.

[00:33:58] Um, so that is like a much better example of how she got me to take the meeting.

[00:34:04] Right.

[00:34:04] Because I, it opened me up.

[00:34:06] And so that's, that's what people lose.

[00:34:09] They just like, they, they just think if they say, Hey, I noticed you're from St.

[00:34:12] Louis, Carson, like let's, let's meet so I can sell you my thing.

[00:34:15] You know, it doesn't make sense.

[00:34:17] You know, I haven't mentioned this for a while on the show, but it, the, it's still true today.

[00:34:22] Even more so I put in the bottom of my about section on LinkedIn, it's public.

[00:34:27] And I'm a CEO of a company.

[00:34:28] People pitch slap me all the time.

[00:34:30] I get emails all the time for stuff.

[00:34:32] But in the bottom of my about section, if you bring up red wines from Oregon, Manchester

[00:34:38] United or hiking, I will respond to you.

[00:34:43] Even if I'm not interested in your product or service.

[00:34:46] They don't know what I had one message.

[00:34:49] The guy sent me goes, Hey, I read your about, I'm not trying to sell you anything, but I'm

[00:34:54] a Manchester United fan too.

[00:34:55] And just wanted to send you a quick message.

[00:34:58] And we chatted a little bit.

[00:34:59] He had nothing to tell me.

[00:34:59] It was the one time somebody actually used that.

[00:35:02] And I put it there just to see like, who's doing their homework.

[00:35:07] And it's been, gosh, Tom, what two years since I've had that on there now.

[00:35:11] Yeah.

[00:35:12] And I'm really surprised that hasn't shown up in some AI scraping things, you know, that

[00:35:16] yeah, that hasn't happened.

[00:35:18] But hey, let's go back and hit Bob's question though, about, you know, if sellers have new

[00:35:25] found time with AI, will they really take advantage of it or?

[00:35:30] The best will.

[00:35:32] Yeah.

[00:35:33] I think the, you know, look, the high value activity is from my perspective, the high value

[00:35:38] activity is putting together some sort of assets that help the customer grasp how they

[00:35:43] get going.

[00:35:44] You know, most of the time you lose deals is inertia.

[00:35:47] It's a fear of making a bad decision.

[00:35:50] They don't understand what, how much time and effort it's going to take.

[00:35:53] How soon will they realize value?

[00:35:55] You know, you can show them a demo all day.

[00:35:57] There's a lot of things that are simple to do, but putting together like a real solid

[00:36:01] asset that really walks them through a solid onboarding plan or some acknowledgement of

[00:36:05] what success criteria would look like in a relationship together.

[00:36:08] It's hard to do that constantly.

[00:36:09] If you have a lot of leads that you need to work on, you have more free time and you

[00:36:13] can focus your energy on actually what I would consider to be like value add to the

[00:36:18] customer because no one likes the just circling back message.

[00:36:21] I'm just circling back to see if you've made a decision or whatever.

[00:36:24] Or like, you know, we're going to have a regroup next week or whatever.

[00:36:28] It needs to be something that they're excited about.

[00:36:30] I'm going to show you how we're going to get you started.

[00:36:33] I'm going to show you what's involved to get you set up.

[00:36:36] If we have time to do that, that's really what we should be doing with our time.

[00:36:39] Right.

[00:36:40] Helping the customer understand how easy it is to get going.

[00:36:44] So Carson, what do you think?

[00:36:45] Well, I think the real question too, is also like what, what will sales cultures allow

[00:36:52] in that regard?

[00:36:53] Because here's the thing, time will always expand or collapse based on the playing field.

[00:36:59] You know, case in point, you know, I used to be in an environment where I went into the

[00:37:03] office every single day.

[00:37:04] There was a commute built into that.

[00:37:06] There were a lot of face-to-face meetings.

[00:37:08] Now I live in a world where my entire team is scattered across the U.S.

[00:37:12] My customers are scattered all throughout North America.

[00:37:15] I'm traveling, but I'm most days sitting right here back to back to back to back to

[00:37:20] back to no breaks.

[00:37:21] So I have the capability to quote unquote on paper, do more than I was doing five, six

[00:37:26] years ago.

[00:37:27] But is it necessarily more productive?

[00:37:30] I think there's some, you know, there's some subjective ways that we look at some of those

[00:37:35] elements.

[00:37:35] But to that point, like I think the smart sellers are going to look at, okay, to Jeff's point,

[00:37:42] like where can I look at some of these opportunities to automate?

[00:37:47] Where can I look at some of these opportunities to leverage AI where I can be more effective

[00:37:53] in certain areas?

[00:37:54] Right now, and I've shared this on the show before, I'm using AI a ton to create more time

[00:37:59] and to prospect more effectively.

[00:38:03] You know, going out and like Jeff said, I can do the research, I can do the homework,

[00:38:06] I can create the message, I can add my personal touch to it.

[00:38:10] I can send a lot of messages to a lot of executives in minutes flat and get responses and turn

[00:38:16] those into meetings.

[00:38:17] So there are ways that we can absolutely do it.

[00:38:20] But once, to Brandon's point, three months from now where that becomes more and more

[00:38:25] commonplace, guess what?

[00:38:27] We're in a sales environment.

[00:38:28] We're going to up the ante.

[00:38:29] The expectations are going to continue to be higher and higher and higher.

[00:38:34] So once every seller is on the same playing field again, what's that new bar look like?

[00:38:39] So I think right now we have almost this limited window as sellers where we can get ahead of

[00:38:44] the curve and make ourselves more effective than all of our competition, which is great.

[00:38:49] But know that in six months, everybody's going to be caught up to you no matter how far ahead

[00:38:55] of the pack you are.

[00:38:56] So you've got to continue to look for that big way.

[00:38:59] And that's why I tell sellers now, look for all the ways that you can leverage these amazing

[00:39:03] tools that are at your fingertips to make you better, to automate the administrative stuff

[00:39:09] maybe that you're not as strong at or don't want to do so that you can free up your time

[00:39:13] to really double down on your strengths as a salesperson.

[00:39:15] Yeah.

[00:39:16] And I think, Carson, I think also the strength of the salesperson is the human.

[00:39:23] And I think we need to emphasize more.

[00:39:25] And maybe it's a bit of soft skills, but it's creating that time for salespeople to,

[00:39:31] Jeff, you talked about this early on about knowing yourself, about having your own plan.

[00:39:36] Like, yeah, you can have, hey, here's a three-step framework or here's questions you want to get

[00:39:40] answered or at least information you want out of a discovery call or this call or that call.

[00:39:46] But the more we can help our team get comfortable with who they are, knowing their style, knowing

[00:39:53] their strengths.

[00:39:54] Christy talks about this, knowing their strengths, knowing their weaknesses, playing into both

[00:39:59] of those, the better they're going to be.

[00:40:02] They're more productive and more effective they're going to be.

[00:40:05] But it seems to me like so often we rush through those things and then we get to, here's the

[00:40:12] script.

[00:40:12] Here's what you need to do.

[00:40:14] Here's the amount of numbers.

[00:40:15] And it's so counterintuitive to effectiveness.

[00:40:18] I mean, we have authors and speakers of like massive caliber of people that come on here

[00:40:25] and they all talk about, you got to slow down.

[00:40:28] You got to do the right things.

[00:40:29] You have to add your humanity.

[00:40:30] You have to do your research.

[00:40:32] And we hear it over and over and over again.

[00:40:35] And then we talk with so many producers and they're like, yeah, I don't have time to do

[00:40:39] that because I have to do this.

[00:40:40] I have to do that.

[00:40:41] I got to fill in the CRM.

[00:40:42] I got to do this.

[00:40:43] It's just so counterintuitive that what we know becomes effective and works gets devalued

[00:40:50] when it comes to time and where leadership manages people.

[00:40:54] Or am I crazy?

[00:40:56] No.

[00:40:56] And I love like this has come up a couple of times, but this whole slow down to speed

[00:41:00] up mantra, I really like that's one of my favorite expressions in sales because and I

[00:41:06] wrote a blog about this maybe a couple months ago.

[00:41:08] But I really think that if you teach people a sales process as a linear process, you're

[00:41:13] making a big mistake because the reason is because their inclination is always to push

[00:41:19] ahead in the process.

[00:41:21] But sometimes to your point, you need to slow down to speed up.

[00:41:24] Sometimes you need to go backwards, take one step backwards to take two steps forward.

[00:41:29] What's a great example of this?

[00:41:30] Actually, I'll tell you a mistake I made just to highlight it, make it really clear.

[00:41:34] A mistake I made at my last company is I had a major bank that I was selling to.

[00:41:38] I got happy years.

[00:41:40] They said they wanted to do a pilot.

[00:41:42] And I said, that's wonderful.

[00:41:43] That's exactly what I wanted to hear.

[00:41:45] Let's sign you up and do a pilot.

[00:41:46] Well, why was that a mistake?

[00:41:48] Because I was piloting with a really subpart team.

[00:41:53] It was the wrong team at the wrong time.

[00:41:55] What I should have been doing was doing more discovery to figure out where we should run

[00:41:58] that pilot, what they wanted to accomplish with that pilot, when it was the right time.

[00:42:02] Because the team that we piloted with was in the middle of an implementation with another

[00:42:06] vendor.

[00:42:07] The last thing they wanted to do was pilot with us.

[00:42:09] In fact, they were really pissed off with management that management had like voisted

[00:42:13] this pilot on them because we had never done the dirty work we needed to do to turn

[00:42:16] them into champions to get them on our side.

[00:42:19] And so that was a scenario where I made a mistake.

[00:42:22] I heard something I wanted to hear.

[00:42:24] And because I thought the process was linear, I wanted to forge ahead.

[00:42:27] What I should have done was said, it's great you want to do a pilot, but let's take a step

[00:42:32] backward.

[00:42:33] I don't think we should pilot with this team.

[00:42:34] They're already in the middle of an implementation.

[00:42:36] I don't think they're sufficiently bought in.

[00:42:38] I don't want to spend my time and energy on a pilot if they're going to blow it up and

[00:42:42] it's going to be a waste of all our time and make us look like schmucks.

[00:42:44] So what I should have done was like, hey, introduce me to another line of business.

[00:42:49] Help me find where we should run this pilot.

[00:42:51] Right.

[00:42:52] That's slow down to speed up.

[00:42:54] And salespeople aren't taught this.

[00:42:55] They're taught to just convert from stage to stage.

[00:42:58] That's how they're measured.

[00:42:59] They're measured on their conversion across states.

[00:43:01] Right.

[00:43:01] So that's the incentives are not aligned.

[00:43:04] So that's I think I love that point.

[00:43:07] I think it's really important for people to hammer that one home.

[00:43:10] Tom, you got to bring up Bob's, Bob's Navy SEAL quote.

[00:43:13] So I hadn't heard that before.

[00:43:16] Yeah, that's pretty cool.

[00:43:17] Slow is smooth.

[00:43:18] Smooth is fast.

[00:43:21] Yeah, that's so good.

[00:43:22] You're acting right.

[00:43:23] You know?

[00:43:24] Yeah.

[00:43:24] I mean, look, I wasted a bunch of time with this customer.

[00:43:26] It was bad for everyone.

[00:43:27] It was bad for customer success.

[00:43:28] It was bad for product.

[00:43:29] It was bad for everybody.

[00:43:30] So.

[00:43:31] Yeah, Jeff, as you were saying that, I don't know if you guys saw me over here twitching.

[00:43:34] I was going through all the memories of the times that I did similar things like

[00:43:38] you.

[00:43:38] I heard what I wanted.

[00:43:39] We closed the deal.

[00:43:40] We get in there and everything sucked.

[00:43:41] It didn't work.

[00:43:42] It didn't go well.

[00:43:43] And then you lost the bigger opportunity and you start to ruin your reputation.

[00:43:49] Yeah.

[00:43:50] Yeah.

[00:43:50] So I have a question, maybe for all of us, a question here related to that.

[00:43:54] You know, Jeff, you were just talking about, right?

[00:43:56] How we're, how we measure sales results, right?

[00:43:59] Is it moving through the pipeline?

[00:44:01] What stage is it in?

[00:44:03] All that kind of stuff, which is honestly very, yes anyway, but it's still how we do it.

[00:44:08] Do you think that with AI and just with a different viewpoint on how sales needs to be done, that

[00:44:15] that's ever going to change?

[00:44:17] Do you think from a management or even, you know, looking at, I mean, talk about, you know,

[00:44:21] if you go to a VC board meeting and you have a board member, what are they going to ask

[00:44:25] you?

[00:44:25] Show me your pipeline.

[00:44:26] What are stages are people in?

[00:44:27] What are the high intent opportunities?

[00:44:29] All of those types of things.

[00:44:31] Do you think that from a management perspective is ever going to go away?

[00:44:34] It's a great question.

[00:44:35] I have to think about that one.

[00:44:37] I don't know if I have a strong, I mean, my gut tells me no, because I think that, I mean,

[00:44:43] if I was going to bring this down to the most basic level, I just think human beings, we're

[00:44:47] self-interested, we're selfish.

[00:44:49] We want what's going to make our lives better and cause us the least amount of pain and suffering

[00:44:55] in the world and make us as happy as possible.

[00:44:57] So if I'm an investor, I don't know if I care about people and process as much as I care about raw yield.

[00:45:08] What's the yield?

[00:45:09] And then maybe what I'm thinking about is, can I automate some of this so that I can make my ratios look better of my magic number,

[00:45:21] like my spend versus my output, right?

[00:45:24] So I'm inclined to say no.

[00:45:26] I don't think it goes away because I think human nature is what it is.

[00:45:29] We are what we are.

[00:45:30] I'm not trying to be dark here, but I'm just...

[00:45:32] Oh, I think that's exactly the point, though.

[00:45:34] Right?

[00:45:34] But how do you adapt, right?

[00:45:36] If we're going to change our process and how we operate, how do we adapt to the KPIs and the ways that we report and track and manage that if the two are potentially at odds?

[00:45:46] I think that's a challenge we're going to have to figure out.

[00:45:50] Yeah.

[00:45:50] I think that at the end of the day, there's decisions that leaders need to make and pressure that doesn't necessarily go downstream from that.

[00:45:59] So, for example, we want our velocity to be as good as possible, as fast as possible, right?

[00:46:06] Like the faster we can close deals, the better, objectively, right?

[00:46:09] As long as it doesn't happen at the expense of conversion, right?

[00:46:15] But in the end, if you blend all these things together, if I blend my conversion, my velocity, my ACV, I have a yield and I have a yield within an expected amount of time.

[00:46:28] And you can always either optimize or not optimize that.

[00:46:31] And the thing is, is that the optimization of that might still involve slow down to speed up.

[00:46:37] Like the end result might be that it actually is better for you to go backwards in order to go forwards, right?

[00:46:45] And so I think that that's what we need to be doing as sales leaders is like we need to be measuring these things that we understand what actually does create the best yield.

[00:46:54] And then, Tom, to answer your question, like the honest answer is that we are beholden to our stakeholders.

[00:47:00] We are sorry, our shareholders.

[00:47:01] Right.

[00:47:02] So that is our job.

[00:47:03] Like our job is to find out what generates the best yield.

[00:47:06] I guess I just happen to think that the best yield is aligned with a more authentic philosophy.

[00:47:10] I think that if people are a little more measured, they might not get the deals quickly.

[00:47:15] Maybe it takes an extra month or two, but the end result results in more revenue.

[00:47:20] I think as long as people are in charge of the process, it's going to be flawed.

[00:47:24] And I think the problem is there's no malice intended per se.

[00:47:29] But I mean, in infusing a sales culture, creating and nurturing a sales culture starts at the top.

[00:47:36] And it comes down to transparency and trust.

[00:47:38] And it's, you know, if these metrics matter, you're going to get the best results by helping your teams understand why they matter so much and working together on shoring up a process to yield the outcome that you're wanting.

[00:47:51] But that's not what happens.

[00:47:52] The practical reality is some executive who's been out of the field for 20 years sees a report and starts messaging the field or the managers and starts coming down on them for this widget or that widget.

[00:48:04] And it just doesn't work.

[00:48:06] And it should be.

[00:48:08] I mean, there's enough data.

[00:48:09] There's enough stories that we've heard on this show where going slow moves you faster.

[00:48:15] The data should be there.

[00:48:17] I guess what I heard you just say, Carson, is it's usually somebody higher up that looks at a spreadsheet of data and then makes decisions.

[00:48:24] And the decisions just go downhill and everybody's got to adapt.

[00:48:30] Yeah, they're not informed or they're not involved in the day-to-day process.

[00:48:36] But what I really like, Jeff, I think that by looking at the yield, if you want to call it that, right, which is a function of several things, as you pointed out, ACV, velocity, right, sales.

[00:48:49] If you look at it from that perspective, at the end of the day, that's what a stakeholder wants to see, whether it's a manager or an investor or a board member or whatever.

[00:48:59] So if I can work back from that and even if I have a different process for getting there, I can communicate it in the terms of which they will appreciate and understand, I think we're there.

[00:49:10] And I've been to more board meetings than I care to talk about where it wasn't talked about, what are you doing to create the yield?

[00:49:17] It was all talking about, well, what are you doing to create the pipeline and what stage?

[00:49:21] And let me see your opportunities and all of that, which doesn't really tell you at all any prediction on how your yield is going to be on the other end.

[00:49:30] 100%.

[00:49:30] Yeah, I mean, yield is really the bottom line of what everyone wants.

[00:49:34] And look, these other metrics matter because you want to be efficient.

[00:49:37] Conversion rate is essentially a metric of your efficiency more than anything.

[00:49:43] It's like, how many does it take for me to knock one down?

[00:49:46] Is that type of thing.

[00:49:48] But maybe it's good to only knock down one in 10 if the one that you get is massive and you're just being somewhat targeted.

[00:49:57] At the end of the day, the yield is what everyone should care about.

[00:50:01] And so maybe people say, oh, I wish we could close these faster.

[00:50:04] Well, at what expense?

[00:50:05] You know, what happens?

[00:50:07] Maybe we can get it done in six months instead of nine.

[00:50:09] But what happens to conversion in ACV?

[00:50:12] And then what is the yield at that point?

[00:50:13] Right.

[00:50:14] So it's all a function.

[00:50:15] It's all math.

[00:50:15] I mean, I'm not a math guy.

[00:50:16] But even if you go one step further and call it high quality yield, because in the tech world, especially now more than ever, the emphasis on net revenue retention, getting the right customers, reducing churn is higher than ever.

[00:50:31] So if you get a crappy yield at a low quality yield, that may show something now.

[00:50:37] But your net revenue retention or your expansion opportunity.

[00:50:40] Yeah.

[00:50:41] You go back to Jeff's story about the pilot program.

[00:50:44] Right.

[00:50:44] Exactly.

[00:50:45] Yeah, exactly.

[00:50:45] And like I'm kind of stealing this because this is more this isn't my idea, but winning by design.

[00:50:54] Brandon, every time you talk and then he just goes away.

[00:50:57] Something you've said.

[00:51:00] I don't smell through the to the microphone here, do I?

[00:51:04] Yeah, you guys, I'm always fascinated by this conversation.

[00:51:07] It seems like every four or five episodes, we end up coming back to the same the same topic in different ways.

[00:51:15] Welcome back, Jeff.

[00:51:17] Sorry.

[00:51:18] I don't know what keeps happening.

[00:51:19] Every time I open my mouth, I get kicked off.

[00:51:25] That was a little prophetic there, I think.

[00:51:28] Hey, Brandon, before we wrap up here, I know you wanted to talk a little bit about LinkedIn and how LinkedIn fits into.

[00:51:36] Yeah, sure.

[00:51:37] I mean, Jeff, you do a great job on LinkedIn, but I mean, you've written a book called Authentic Selling.

[00:51:43] I'm always curious, like how do you recommend or how do you be authentic in this digital social, whether it's publishing content, it's commenting, it's sending direct messages.

[00:51:53] What's your strategy and what do you recommend for people?

[00:51:57] Yeah, I don't know if I'm the one people should take advice from because I think there's things that work that are proven to work that I don't necessarily do in terms of engagement, which is like, you know, commenting and liking a lot of things and engaging.

[00:52:09] It's not that I don't find it valuable.

[00:52:11] It's just I don't know.

[00:52:13] I was never that.

[00:52:15] I'm just not that type, I guess.

[00:52:16] I just for me, it's more about what I put forward.

[00:52:21] I want it to be real.

[00:52:23] And so I think there's a lot of people who follow like a formula.

[00:52:26] I kind of joked about this in my book, but sometimes people write these dramatic LinkedIn posts where, you know, they make a new paragraph for every sentence.

[00:52:33] And it's like, you know, once I was a paper boy when I was a kid and, you know, next paragraph, like I made 25 cents an hour.

[00:52:41] And then like by the end, you find out that this person's a millionaire and you should follow them for more tips or whatever.

[00:52:46] Like that to me, I just can't stand that shit.

[00:52:48] It just bothers me.

[00:52:49] But the algorithm loves it.

[00:52:50] The algorithm loves it.

[00:52:51] I'm like, this is why I'm not the right person to take advice from because my end game.

[00:52:55] But you are because what you're doing, you're successful.

[00:52:59] It's working.

[00:53:00] And I think, look, I agree.

[00:53:02] I think there's a lot of experts out there that have formulas and they go and they train and they have their data and people buy into it.

[00:53:10] But I think it also goes back to what we've been talking about with each individual person's got to have their own style.

[00:53:17] And if they're following someone else's formula, it's going to be disingenuous and it won't work.

[00:53:22] And they may not know why.

[00:53:23] Because like I followed the formula.

[00:53:24] I did exactly what you said.

[00:53:26] Well, but it's not you.

[00:53:28] That's not the right way for you to do it.

[00:53:31] Yeah.

[00:53:32] I think maybe something I do that I'm more willing to do than a lot of folks might be just vulnerability.

[00:53:38] I'm very willing to share embarrassing things or mistakes that I've made in my career.

[00:53:44] And this is counter to a lot of people's intuition.

[00:53:49] But like people really appreciate the underdog.

[00:53:52] They appreciate the person who's accountable.

[00:53:54] And owns up to their mistakes.

[00:53:55] No one likes the person who just brags about how great they are or the person who wins all the time.

[00:54:01] It's not relatable for them.

[00:54:04] And so, I mean, even the other day, I shared something just very personal for me that was hard for me that I was dealing with.

[00:54:10] And it had nothing to do with sales.

[00:54:11] It just had something to do with stuff that was going on in the world that was troubling for me personally.

[00:54:18] And, you know, that's just how I felt.

[00:54:21] You know, I wanted to share it.

[00:54:23] And so I think that that's I don't do it because I want people to sympathize with me or anything.

[00:54:29] It's just like I just think it's important.

[00:54:31] I want to be an advocate for this thing that I was talking about.

[00:54:34] And that's all it was.

[00:54:36] And so I just think that, again, it's about authenticity.

[00:54:38] It's about just being honest about what you want to say and not just feeling like, oh, I got to do this to, like, feed the algorithm or whatever.

[00:54:46] I think, you know, that's why I love talking with Carson, because we don't do when we come up with topics.

[00:54:52] We don't try to figure out, like, oh, what's going to get the most hits or the most reaction.

[00:54:56] It's like, hey, what are you feeling like today?

[00:54:58] That's literally how every conversation starts.

[00:55:00] Like, what's on your mind today?

[00:55:01] What do you want to talk about?

[00:55:01] I appreciate that because we are both, we're alike.

[00:55:05] We just want to share something that's top of mind.

[00:55:07] And that's all that's all the agenda is.

[00:55:10] Well, you can tell we had a perfectly scripted agenda for our show today and we followed it to the T.

[00:55:16] Exactly.

[00:55:16] That's a good example.

[00:55:17] I mean, yeah, you had some bullets, but we jammed on all sorts of stuff.

[00:55:21] Yeah.

[00:55:22] And I just want to emphasize, I think, that what you said is spot on using your style.

[00:55:28] And I think if the Zig Ziglar's of the world are right, which, of course, they are.

[00:55:34] Things like people don't care how much you know until they know that you care.

[00:55:38] When you do a post like the one that you're mentioning, Carson, you do things like that.

[00:55:43] You share about, hey, when I was a young salesperson, here's one of the big mistakes I made and I learned.

[00:55:48] You know, I talk about, hey, yeah, I'm a startup guy.

[00:55:51] Let me tell you about my failures.

[00:55:52] Let me talk about the $2 million we lost in this startup or whatever.

[00:55:55] I think that helps people see us as human and it lowers that wall when they're getting, you know, we talked about the human sniff test and all these messages coming at them.

[00:56:07] When we can just be more human and I think share what you felt, share what you observe, share what you've experienced.

[00:56:15] I think we start to get through that sniff test as, wow, this is somebody who's real.

[00:56:20] This is somebody who's communicating from the heart.

[00:56:23] Whatever term we want to use, there's just that authenticity out there.

[00:56:28] And it lowers the barrier when we do reach out to people that they're like, yeah, I'm going to talk to that guy.

[00:56:33] You know, I see you everywhere.

[00:56:34] I feel like I already know you.

[00:56:35] I think is the least utilized way of selling because when you make that call and I love it when I'll send a message to somebody and they go, oh, yeah, totally.

[00:56:46] Let's let's get on a call.

[00:56:48] I feel like I already know you because of all your LinkedIn stuff.

[00:56:50] Like that's a huge win just by being ourselves, not following some expert's formula on when to post and how to post and when to use emojis.

[00:57:00] And you can apply authenticity in literally every element of sales, not just how you interact with your customers, but even with your colleagues and teams.

[00:57:08] I was on a postmortem for a deal we lost very recently and it was a hard fought loss.

[00:57:14] We wanted the deal.

[00:57:15] We needed the deal.

[00:57:17] But, you know, I came in and it was literally like, hey, you know, look, team, let's look at this.

[00:57:21] In hindsight, is there anything we know the glaring weakness that we had here?

[00:57:26] In hindsight, was there anything that we could have or should have done differently?

[00:57:29] No, like you did great work.

[00:57:31] You did great work.

[00:57:32] There was all of these things were done right.

[00:57:34] We know this one glaring weakness.

[00:57:35] Let's work on this element so that we don't face this piece again.

[00:57:39] Let's learn from that experience and that mistake.

[00:57:42] It's not about coming in and, you know, getting upset with any of these folks for things that were out of our control.

[00:57:48] You know, be on that, own that experience and that relationship.

[00:57:52] And I think being human, even in those situations that we face every day in sales, will be investments in relationships, but also will gain experience that will make us better going forward.

[00:58:03] I mean, I tell people that all the time.

[00:58:05] Half the reason that I'm valuable to my team is because I've been there and I've had every gotcha or aha moment or lost deal situation that they may possibly run into.

[00:58:15] So I can help them see around corners better when it happens to them.

[00:58:19] You know, that reminds me, Darren McKee, who we all know.

[00:58:22] Darren had a post, I think, earlier this week, last week, where somebody criticized him because he always has his hat on backwards.

[00:58:30] He's like, you know, you probably could have sold a lot more if you if you took that stupid hat on.

[00:58:34] Yeah. And it's like Darren's I think Darren is sold more because Darren is so authentically himself.

[00:58:40] And part of that is, is his hat's on backwards.

[00:58:42] He stands out. People remember him as the backwards hat guy.

[00:58:46] And when you talk to him like, man, this guy knows his shit and he's just being himself.

[00:58:50] And he draws a lot of people to him.

[00:58:53] I mean, I look like a slob in half of my videos with Carson.

[00:58:56] So I try to do the same exact thing.

[00:58:59] And we come as we are, you know, Jeff's got his cat crawling across the keyboard.

[00:59:03] But hey, it works.

[00:59:05] And that's what I think is amazing about today as a seller and as a sales leader is you can literally invite everybody into your home every day.

[00:59:14] You know, you can comment on somebody's backdrop or, you know, their artwork in the background or, you know, some of the things that they have on their wall.

[00:59:23] And there's, you know, I saw somebody the other day that and I am not a Patriots fan.

[00:59:29] I know Jeff is, but I was talking to somebody the other day that had some Tom Brady stuff back there.

[00:59:33] And I commented and, you know, it started a dialogue.

[00:59:36] And I think that's a way that you can not only show up authentically every day with colleagues, with customers,

[00:59:43] but it's a great way to infuse authenticity into your day to day.

[00:59:50] All right.

[00:59:53] Jeff told us he's going to sue WeWork for the Wi-Fi.

[00:59:55] Yeah.

[00:59:57] Do a class action on our behalf.

[00:59:59] It looks like you've thrown it again.

[01:00:01] Hey, before we go, can we put Fenella's quote up there?

[01:00:05] Yeah, I was going to read that.

[01:00:06] Yeah, I was going to read that.

[01:00:07] Great one.

[01:00:07] Yeah.

[01:00:08] She's here in Atlanta.

[01:00:09] We haven't met in person yet.

[01:00:11] But, Fenella, congratulations.

[01:00:15] That's so good.

[01:00:16] You know, and it doesn't work with everybody because there's a lot of people that don't comment,

[01:00:21] but there's a lot of people that don't publish, so you can't go to your prospects and comment

[01:00:25] because they don't actually publish.

[01:00:27] But when they're publishing, I mean, think about anyone out there that's published.

[01:00:31] Isn't the greatest thing in the world when you publish something and somebody comes along

[01:00:34] and comments and gives you that little bit of affirmation?

[01:00:37] I think it's amazing.

[01:00:38] Like, I legitimately got a meeting this week with the CEO of a major prospect because of my

[01:00:44] posts that I was making about leadership and culture.

[01:00:48] And I've talked before on this show about, you know, Brandon's commenting strategy, how

[01:00:52] it helped me get from a COO who got promoted to CEO.

[01:00:56] And I commented on their post for six months, got a meeting the day they became CEO.

[01:01:00] Like, it's just, it's amazing.

[01:01:01] It works.

[01:01:02] And it's everybody to the point of this show, you got to find your own style and what works

[01:01:06] well for you.

[01:01:07] But there's no silver bullet.

[01:01:08] Like, it's a sum of the parts.

[01:01:10] Social is absolutely a platform and an element by which it can create relationships that you

[01:01:16] didn't already have.

[01:01:17] Use it.

[01:01:18] And you don't know.

[01:01:19] I mean, I think that's the key.

[01:01:21] And Fenella, you're right.

[01:01:22] We do got to meet.

[01:01:23] We live in the same city.

[01:01:24] This is ridiculous.

[01:01:25] And I want to see videos from you over the next couple of days.

[01:01:30] But, you know, there's stories.

[01:01:31] I had one a couple of weeks ago and it was a direct message on LinkedIn.

[01:01:35] I had direct messaged this person almost two years ago asking for a meeting and they ignored

[01:01:43] me.

[01:01:43] But I kept commenting.

[01:01:44] And then I get a direct message from them for me out of the blue going, hey, I've been

[01:01:49] really enjoying your show and watching and seeing your post.

[01:01:54] Learning a lot from you.

[01:01:55] Can we schedule time to talk?

[01:01:57] Right.

[01:01:57] So when they're ready, we're still there.

[01:02:01] And that's a little bit of the go for it.

[01:02:02] I think if I kept pounding away at that guy trying to get the meeting, it would have been

[01:02:06] gone and never would have heard from him again.

[01:02:07] Even when the opportunity came up, I probably wouldn't have been high on the list because

[01:02:13] that would have been annoying.

[01:02:14] And I think that's the thing that we talk a lot about, just the consistency.

[01:02:18] The consistency, whether it's a show, it's publishing, it's combinations of our posts,

[01:02:22] our comments, our shows.

[01:02:23] Just that familiarity is so important in lowering those barriers and staying top of mind.

[01:02:32] Jeff, are you back?

[01:02:34] I think so.

[01:02:35] I mean, for now.

[01:02:36] Okay, good.

[01:02:36] Well, hey, we wanted to thank you.

[01:02:38] Really good conversation today.

[01:02:40] Really good stuff.

[01:02:41] Jeff, I assume your book's on Amazon.

[01:02:43] Any other place people should go look or find out?

[01:02:46] Yeah, I think Amazon is the spot.

[01:02:48] Yeah.

[01:02:49] Okay, great.

[01:02:51] And Brandon Carson, any final words before we wrap up?

[01:02:55] And let us know what you win from WeWork on that lawsuit.

[01:02:58] Yeah.

[01:02:59] It can help us offset some of these costs.

[01:03:02] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:03:03] I will.

[01:03:03] I think the final word for me is authenticity rules the day.

[01:03:07] Yeah.

[01:03:08] And I would say the summary, Jeff, that you made me think of too, is getting back to,

[01:03:12] you know, we have to know ourselves to lead ourselves.

[01:03:15] And if we're a sales producer and we have rules and steps and things that we follow,

[01:03:22] knowing ourself well enough that we add our own personal touch to things so that it's more

[01:03:27] natural because people feel it.

[01:03:29] If we're doing something that's not natural, they feel it.

[01:03:33] So knowing ourselves to create our own style and trusting that process.

[01:03:39] I think my biggest takeaway from today is I made a note on this, is what you were talking

[01:03:44] about, Jeff, with yield.

[01:03:45] And if you start there, right, if you start with the end in mind and then you reverse engineer

[01:03:50] backwards to look at how the most effective and efficiently of creating that yield, I do

[01:03:55] think you'll start to see some changes on how we do things and the authenticity.

[01:04:00] Because at the end of the day, that's what we care about in business.

[01:04:04] So thank you again.

[01:04:05] Great stuff.

[01:04:06] We'll have you back.

[01:04:07] We definitely want to continue to follow your journey.

[01:04:10] Carson, we missed you the last couple of weeks, so we didn't know how to wrap up.

[01:04:14] Brandon and I would just kind of sit here and go, thanks, everyone.

[01:04:16] And then we just, you know, we were just kind of, I don't know.

[01:04:19] I feel like I've been everywhere.

[01:04:21] It was in Arizona and California.

[01:04:22] Next week, I'm going to Seattle.

[01:04:24] So anyway, until next time, happy modern selling.

[01:04:31] Thanks, everyone.

[01:04:38] Thank you for joining us today on Mastering Modern Selling.

[01:04:41] If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe for more insights.

[01:04:45] Connect with us on social media and leave a review to help us improve.

[01:04:49] Stay tuned for our next episode where we will continue to uncover modern strategies

[01:04:53] shaping today's business landscape.

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[01:05:00] Mastering modern revenue creation with Fistbump, where relationships, social, and AI meet

[01:05:05] in the buyer-centric age.