100: Jeff Hoffman, Friend, Mentor, Founder of Hoffman

Thank you to our partner, LeadIQ, for giving out 100 leads, including direct dials to our listeners. Head to jbarrows.com slash leadIQ to get yours. Make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows with Make It Happen Mondays. Hopefully, y'all had a fantastic weekend. I did. It was actually a little too fantastic, a little bit too much drinking, but enjoyed my Bruins from the Stanley Cup playoffs. So anyways, I am extremely excited because for a bunch of reasons. One is this is our 100th episode of Make It Happen Mondays. So I'm super proud that we got to this point. And as our 100th, I wanted to bring on an extremely special guest. And this at first was a boss of mine and then colleague and now has become a very good friend and mentor of mine.

I would like to introduce my audience to the wonderful and talented Mr. Jeff Hoffman. What's going on, brother? How are you, brother? Good to talk to you, John. I'm doing great, man. First of all, tell everybody, because we're going to get into a little bit of the background here, but what's going on these days for you? What are you doing over at MJ Hoffman and Associates? Yeah, yeah. Kind of like you at Hoffman where we're booming like most is right now with this booming economy, but with so much going on, particularly in the world of sales, firms like yours and mine, the phone rings a lot these days. So we've been traveling around the world, doing sessions, doing workshops, and helping doing some consulting with some of our clients on better, more effective ways to organize and marshal their sales, their sales folks.

So kind of traversing across the world, pretty much like yourself. Yeah. Yeah. It's actually amazing that you and I can actually find time to even do this podcast. Every time we try to schedule a drink or something, we're like, yep, sorry, I got to go. I know it. No, I agree. I'm also, although exhausted, pretty excited about our Bruins win. I also, to your audience, I live in Boston as well. So yeah, pretty, pretty thrilled about that game one win last night. Love it. And so one of the things that if the audience doesn't know, you know, they should, because I reference you quite a bit, but you know, this is, I mean, I owe a lot to you. I know you inadvertently, you know, you didn't do this for my sake directly, but I was the benefactor of what you had created at Basho.

And, you know, I had taken the training when I had done my first startup and I was so impressed. I liked it so much that after I sold that startup, I ended up joining you guys and your team, not because I wanted to be a trainer, but you had that interesting model of, you know, the trainers had to sell, right? So actually, why was that important to you? Just on a point right there. It was important for me early on, you know, when I was a sales leader and I used to kind of be stuck purchasing a lot of these trainings for my reps. I was often pretty surprised at the lack of sales skills among the very people that we were going to put in front of our teams. So it was important to me that if we're going to be, if I was going to build something of importance, I would rather wait on growth if it meant waiting to find guys like you, John, where it was like, you know, you had the ability to captivate an audience and to share techniques with an audience at the same time, have that street credibility that only comes from years of really doing this.

I mean, most people can teach, I think, concepts out of a book, but then once you go to Q&A, if these things aren't real, you'll be snuffed out pretty, pretty quickly. So it was important to me. And I know it seems to be kind of a legacy with you and what you've built. Yeah, I mean, your spot. I couldn't agree more. I mean, I think the whole, the concept of if you would just come to me and said, John, you're going to be a trainer and that's all you do, right? Where you just got to stand up and deliver your presentation and I didn't have to sell, I almost guarantee I wouldn't have taken the job, right? Because my passion is sales and I just happen to be all right at delivering it to people. And I think that practitioner thing, like there's too many people that I'm finding right now in our industry because, you know, most sales reps are either failed sales professionals, professional presenters, right?

Because it's so much easier to tell people how to do this stuff than it is to actually do it. Yeah, that's right. And my thinking was I'd rather have someone who is a dedicated, passionate, professional at sales who had some curiosities about teaching and education rather than the inverse. I didn't want someone who was passionate about education, although that's wonderful, with some curiosities about sales. That wasn't really the mix I was looking for. And how do you, how do you yourself, I've always been curious, I mean, I try to stay up to date with as many things as possible just because I still sell. How do you stay sharp and not get lazy, like, and not be that trainer that's, yeah, you know what?

Yeah, that sounds great, Jeff, but you know, when was the last time you did that? How do you stay sharp? Sounds good in 1999, right? For, you know, for me, it can't be any easier. We don't, just like you, practice what I preach. I mean, we still have a pretty small company here and I'm still actively engaged in the sales before the funnel world of our firm, not just the after one. I think the only way, and I think it's true with you too, is the only way I stay current is to consistently sell in 2019 like everybody else is. So, you know, I have to relearn social, I have to relearn video, I have to relearn AI. I have to relearn the new, the new roles of my buyers. I have to stay fresh on how to find compelling events and triggers.

I mean, I have to do the same things for survival that all of our, our entire world has to do. And I think that's what kind of keeps us current and fresh. And I, I think people appreciate it. Yeah. And I think that's the thing. One of the things I love most about training itself in general is it's kind of that stopping it's that forcing function to stop and at least pay attention and take a look at what you're doing and ask yourself, is it still working? You know, cause I don't think enough, I don't think it's frustrating. So let's talk, I want to back, I want to get to this kind of where we are today in that evolution of sales. I'd love your perspective, but I want to back up a little bit. Cause I talk a lot about the science and the art of selling, right.

And how I believe the sales should be a lot more scientific than artistic because the science lays the foundation for the art form to be that much more effective. And ultimately I genuinely believe everybody's in sales. You know, I kind of tell the story of my sister who's a social worker and all these different things. And she used to hate sales professional. And I told her one time, I was like, Nancy, you realize you're in sales, right? And she's like, well, no. And she's like, yeah, well, I'm like, I'm like, she's like, how, how am I in sales? I'm like, you just got a job, right? Right. And she's like, she's gotten a job recently. And she's like, yeah. I go, did they hire you off your resume?

She's like, excuse me? I go, did you, did you submit your resume and did they call you up and say, welcome aboard? Or did you have to interview? And she's like, I had an interview. I said, well, congratulations, you're in sales, right? So, and I'm, you know, you're pretty good because you got hired. So, so I think fundamentally all of us are, are, are born. Um, you know, sales is, is a, it's not just a profession. It's a mindset in my way, but I do believe that there are some people that are, that are born with a stronger knack of selling and communicating with people. And I, and I put you in that category. Like there's, I say there's probably 5% of our population in sales that just have it right.

And my uncle's one of them, you're one of them. So could you kind of, first of all, talk me through, like, you know, I didn't realize I wanted to be in sales or even sales was a thing until I got out of college. You realized really early on and, and could you talk us through that, like that realization, but also your thought process on science art and, and, and people who say I'm not a sales rep versus the people who are like, I'm going to, you know what I mean? Could you walk me through that? I mean, for me, my, first of all, as far as the attraction for me, you know, I, I discovered it very early. Both of my grandfathers rest in peace were both salesmen. They were very different kinds of salesmen.

They sold different kinds of things in very different ways, but as luck would have it, they were both influential on my life being my grandpa's and they both did this for a living. And I would spend my summers in New York with either of them and would, would see them, would follow them around when I was little, when they were on, on sales calls. So I had a pretty early exposure to this and it was never weird to me. It was always just that was what my grandpas did for a living. And I, and I remember so many things, but one of the things that really stuck out for me early that got me attracted to it was I remember my, uh, one of my grandfathers sold paper, wholesale paper, uh, in, uh, flushing in Queens, New York and Brooklyn, New York in the fifties, sixties and seventies.

And he was, he would sell like napkins and, and, and, and plastic cutlery and, and tablecloths, things like that. And, um, he was a root salesman. So he had like on Monday, he was on these streets and on Tuesday he was on these streets. And one day it was a deli and one day it was a grocer and one day it was a butcher. And he would just do this methodical kind of, you know, root sales job where every Tuesday, every other Tuesday, you could be sure he was at this particular German deli or whatever it was. Anyway, one of these, um, uh, places, um, he, uh, he got the guy, he like threw us out. He yelled at my grandfather and said, you come in here during the lunch rush, get the hell out of here.

And really threw us out. And it was pretty traumatic. I was like seven, you know, crying. I thought it was pretty horrible. My grandfather kind of dusted us off. He's like, ah, whatever we, and we would go back there every two weeks. He would always throw us out. And it was always horribly emotional for me. I hated going. I couldn't understand why my grandfather would put up with it, but he, it didn't seem to phase him. And one day after a couple of these visits, I'm like, why do you just don't go? And he said that he goes, uh, I had a customer just like him and I didn't go after months. I was tired of the abuse. I didn't go after months. And the day I didn't go, guess what? He called my boss and says, where's Herb?

I want to put an order in. And it was like his, his way of sharing this with me was that this was an element of this was just a numbers game that you just had to put up with the relentless kind of, um, uh, objections from people and not let it affect your personal self-confidence. If it affects your self-confidence, you're screwed, but it never affected him. And it, and all the great stuff about sales that I know you talk about a lot. Um, and I share with you as far as what it, the kind of lifestyle it affords for people in our profession, if you're good at it, how, how at the end of the day, we really do help people. We do help companies. Our, my, my job is to figure out what you want and see if it lines up with what I want, see if we can do something like that.

That's generally how I look at this. So people leave, you know, better than when they started. I get to meet all kinds of people. It's a wonderful profession, but you have to have that requisite either understanding or emotional, understanding that there is a ton of rejection required to get to the good stuff. And I was lucky that I got exposed to it early enough where it didn't bug me. That's awesome, man. And I think that's why, you know, sales, I'm finally starting to see, and I know you do a lot of work with Harvard and, um, MIT Sloan, right? You do? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you do a lot of education there. And I know you're, you know, it's starting to warm my heart that you're finally starting to see sales as a perfection.

Yeah. You know, there's very, here's the bottom line. If you're listening to this podcast, you know, your podcast, John, you say 5% really you've experienced to really get it. Well, there's another number that's interesting. I would argue all the folks listening to your podcast are in a very rare group. You're, if you're listening to this right now, you are not an average sales person. Average sales person is not doing that kind of investment in themselves that you clearly are. And unfortunately the world encounters the uneducated rep more than us. So the joke I always say is when you have a sales call or a cold call or an email, whatever it is, you're inheriting the ghosts of failed sales reps past every single relationship.

So understanding that and, and seeing it because of the low barrier to entry in sales that's lived for so long, but seeing organizational, uh, seeing MBA programs, seeing a bar being raised, an expectation of salespeople to learn better technique and hold their companies accountable and hold trainers accountable. Those are all contributing to the shift that will happen. You know, 50 years ago, if you were an MBA student and you wanted to focus on marketing, you could take one class. That would probably be it. 2019, you can get an entire degree in marketing. Sales hasn't done that leap yet, but I'm confident that someday it will. And this is the kind of things that we both are into that help elevate it.

Yeah. It's, I mean, again, it's, it's such an important skill to have that it's, it's kind of depressing that why do you think it hasn't, you know, do you think most people have the mentality and why it's not educated? Do you think it's because most people, the perception is that, Oh, you either have to have it or you don't. And it's not. I mean, I think there's two misconceptions. I think that, well, certainly one you said, I think there's that misconception that you're born a salesperson. Now, I don't know. I mean, you certainly, you can be born with the requisite skills to be a great carpenter. You get born with the requisite skills to be great nurse. So sure. You'd be born with the requisite skills to be great salesperson, but we don't spend our, our society doesn't just make decisions upon birth and what people are going to be.

Sales like carpentry, nursing, and everything else can be taught and learned. So is there a certain special something that sets the Michael Jordans from everyone else? Well, of course, but that's kind of irrelevant. Can anyone learn the skills to be successful at sales? If they want to learn them, absolutely they can. And we certainly know tens of thousands of people who do that, who do that every day. So here's another one. Why do you think, why do you, I'm going to kind of go back on something you said as far as the masses, right? Because the people who are listening are into self-improvement, but there's also something about being into self-improvement and then doing something about it. But I, I had a group that I was training last year and it was, you know, about 200 people in the room and some kid and said, Hey John, you know, you do all these trainings for all these SaaS companies out there.

What, like, how are we going to be any different if we're going to, if we're all using the same exact approaches, like how are we going to differentiate ourselves? And my direct answer was, uh, 10, 60, 30. And he, and he was like, excuse me. I go, look, 10% of you in this room, what I say, run with it and execute and, and really excel. 60% of you are going to do something different because they're easy and it makes sense. 30% of you ain't going to do shit different and you're just going to go back to doing whatever the hell you're doing. So that's how I can do SaaS company there is out there. So I know one of your favorite people and, and, you know, is, is Tony Robbins, right? Sure. Sure. Big fan of Tony Robbins.

But why, I mean, I think you and I have a very similar mentality on, on training, which is I'm here to show you the tools and the techniques and the structure. And then you're, I'm, I'm not going to then babysit you day two to walk you through exactly how to do it. Like you should be able to take what you and I deliver to people and then go and execute with it. But why do you think so many people still go to Tony Robbins' sessions and don't change anything about themselves? You know, um, I think the big reason that I've experienced, um, is that you mentioned Tony Robbins, he has this line, he says, he talks about the Latin derivation of the word decision is to cut off from. And it's an important idea when you think about what decisions are, it's, it's less about doing and more about eliminating other opportunities or other choices.

I am no longer going to do X. And that kind of forces your change. But in my opinion, I think this is the reason why there are two ways, there are two pathways that we all have to, um, explore to master something, whether that's cooking an egg or whether that's closing a sale or anything else you can think of. It requires the mastery of the brain. You have to understand it. And it requires the mastery of the hand. You have to be able to do it. That's pretty normal. That's like how we learn things. We learn through the hand. We learn through the brain. We learn through instruction. We learn through repetition. Here's the challenge for all the people listening and you and I, there's something that everybody does from the age of five until the age of either 18 or 22.

And they do it every day. They do it for multiple things. And it is an active part of their life from a little, little toddler all the way through college, high school or college. And what is that thing? That thing is practice. Children practice all the time. They practice Spanish. They practice soccer. They practice piano. When you think about what practicing is, it's the opportunity for the brain to shut off and the hand to explore the mastery and the learning. That's why we do practicing with open books. That's why we do practicing without taking score. That's why we do scrimmages. That's why we work through the sheet music. That's why we do read-throughs if you're in plays or musicals. And we do this all the time.

It's an expected part of a first grader, third grader, fifth grader, eighth grader, 12th graders day is time dedicated to practicing. And then we graduate high school or college. And guess what? Practicing is over. Most adults in our society don't have any time in their calendar, day, week, month, or year dedicated to the practice of something that they want to get good at that they're currently not good at. And I believe it is that societal shift away from practicing that makes sales training and things like it not as sticky as some would hope. So that's why it must include till elements. You must, if you're going to invest, if you're going to a self-help or a self-improvement program, or you're going to one of our workshops, one of your workshops, John, and I say this to people who attend, wanting to come is great and showing up is great and deciding to do these things is great.

But the question I always ask is, where are you dedicating the practice time to practice the techniques you were just exposed to in this class? Because if you think you're going to learn it because someone's going to say it to you, your head's going to nod and you can all of a sudden magically execute, well, you won't. And when you won't execute, you'll feel frustrated and you'll be angry at yourself and you'll abandon what you learned. Incorporate practice is what separates the truly great effective people in the world from everybody else. That's my opinion. I love that. So how do you encourage reps outside of our trainings and the stuff that we do with live application, which I think is extremely important.

And again, something that is really what attracted me to the training in the first place of instead of like heavy role play, it was no, here's how to send an email. Now light up your laptops, pick an account and fire off that email. Right. So we did it in class, which to me, I'm much more of an active learner in the sense that, you know, I, me reading it in a book, you know, and taking a test, I'll fail it almost a time, but if you, you know, I'll do it. And so I guess, how do you, how do you ask reps or best reps, uh, practice on a daily basis? Sure. So practicing is hard. It was hard when we were kids. It's hard when you're, it's certainly hard when you don't need to stop doing it. So let's think about what practice when we were kids had in common, when it was successful.

First, it was probably had elements of scrimmaging and fun baked in. It can't always be drudgery. It's got to have some level of fun too. The idea is that the, I'm practicing something with the hopes of applying it at a real time. You know, when you take piano lessons and you're practicing your piano, you know, you have a recital in two weeks. So you know, when you have to demonstrate it. So you're practicing for that execution. Seems to be true in sales. It's one thing to learn a prospecting technique. Nothing. I learned a closing technique, negotiation technique, but why don't you apply it with a goal in mind? Hey, I've got a big deal that I've got to close this quarter. I am going to practice.

We'll talk about what that means maybe in a moment. I'm going to practice negotiation with the hopes of trying it for real at that real deal at the end of the quarter. If you have a real finish line to what you're practicing for the event, your practice gets more intense. So I think that would be something. Another thing to do is whether you're taking self-improvement or you're doing different types of exploration and different ideas, every, everyone who practices needs a coach, get a coach. Now, sometimes you might be lucky. It might be a colleague. It might be someone who's into the same stuff you're in. Maybe it's formally the coach in the program that you signed up for. And maybe you just have to go out and assign one and say, look, I'm learning these techniques and you're a smart sales guy and I need some help.

I need someone to keep me honest. I need someone to check in with me, make sure I'm doing my practicing. I need someone to critique my technique. And are those people easy to find? No, but changing behavior isn't easy either. But I think having a coach is another important element of it as well. And then the third element I'd add is celebrate the small victory. You know, learning behavioral changes is hard. You want to change your life. You want to change things that you're doing. You want to replace bad habits with good ones. It's not enough to have a goal that you're focusing on and having a coach and practicing the hand part. You also have to kind of, you have to consider, Hey, what are the little wins along the way?

If I want to lose 40 pounds and the only time I'm going to do high fives is when I lose the 40th, that's a long, long year, man. I mean, you should have little markers that say, look, I just went down a belt size. Hey, I just, you know, I just was able to do this move at yoga. Hey, cool. Like get the wins in there so you can be your own cheerleader because it's hard to find cheerleaders in practice when you're trying new things. So those three things I think can help. I love that. And those small things, those small wins build momentum too, right? I mean, you always talked about coaching with like C reps, right? You got your A, B and C reps, you got your C reps. Well, a lot of times your C reps are C reps because they're, they're just used to losing, right?

So you just got to get them track and focused on small little wins, short term stuff. So you can build to that success. So. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I agree. And it's like, and, and, and look at it, if you don't beat yourself up when you play the note wrong, when you're practicing your violin for the concerto, in fact, you getting the note wrong is an opportunity to work on it. So make sure you take the same application when you're practicing a sales technique or a, or some kind of new business or some new improvement technique. You're trying, I don't know, new language. You're trying a new way of interacting with your boss. You're trying a new way of expressing yourself, a new way of asking for what you want at work.

I don't know, whatever you're trying, you know, give yourself the break that when you're practicing, you're going to suck at it. Like that's the whole purpose of it. But when we take practice out of our daily lives, we forget that practicing is not judgment. And if we bring judgment to practicing, you won't do it. Yeah, no, that's huge. And, and actually another kind of small nuance that I recommend to reps is practice. I mean, I, I think you're spot on as far as practice. I never loved role play in a, in a training scenario, but where I love role play is where, to your point, I got a meeting tomorrow with this big account and I'm going to sit down with you, my boss and say, all right, Jeff, here's a scenario.

I'm going in tomorrow. Here's my goals for this meeting. Here's the scenario. I want you to be my main point of contact. I'm going to be me. And I'm going to try to get to your point. Right. And just role play that out a little bit and see what happens. We're not looking to, we're not going to replicate the experience that you'll have at this call. We're not trying to, but look at, there are a half dozen pretty obvious objections we hear at virtually every sales stage. And if you're a seasoned rep, you know what they are. So why wouldn't you, do you want to handle the objection for the first time live on the phone or in front of the customer? Or do you want to role play with a buddy for a couple of minutes, just to practice, get the words out of your mouth the way you want to get them.

Yep. Absolutely. So you had said something about a coach. I think a coach is important to try to keep you on track. That's why probably the best shape I ever been in my life is when I had a personal trainer, right. And the guy helped me. Totally believe it. And, and, you know, and again, helped me, first of all, recognize the small wins too, and make the incremental improvements. Same thing with coaches from a sales standpoint. And, you know, a lot of us aren't, aren't fortunate enough to have a real good coach that we work with, right. Manager or anything like that. But can you talk to me about the difference between how you look at coaches and, and, and mentors, right? Cause I, I consider you like one of my mentors, right?

I appreciate that. And I'm, I'm, I'm honored to be that for you too. And I have some as well. I have, I have one as well. I get it. Um, you know, I look at the differences. This, a coach is going to help you with a skill, but, but, but a mentor is going to help you with a mission. Gotcha. So, so there are different people in our lives and we ask, we look for different people. I think finding a coach is hard, but I think it's easily accomplished if you're focused. Finding a mentor is less hard because I would imagine everybody listening to this call or listening to this podcast rather knows people in their lives they would wish would mentor them. Like mentors usually appear. Um, but, and you know, a coach, a coach, what a coach gets out of the relationship is also different than what a mentor gets out of the relationship.

But if mentor gets out of the relationship, generally they get to explore their own missions during the mentorship. You know, they're getting something out of it. That's deeply fulfilling to them as well. You know, sharing and paying it forward. It's so important to people that we hold high regards of mentors. Um, but anyone can be a coach and don't feel like you need that special mentor to get started. I mean, it can be, your coach doesn't have to be even as gifted as you at sales. If they're just willing to do some inspection and hold you accountable to what you're working on. So from, so from a mentorship standpoint, I think a lot of people, and I'm sure you get asked this a lot, like, Hey, will you be my mentor?

Then that's such a broad statement. And I think people are searching a little bit too much for the wrong thing. Um, because I think that what they're saying is I want, I want you like basically one-on-one coaching slash mentoring. Tell me what to do. And I also think you have a fool's errand by trying to attach yourself to one mentor. I think you, you should look for multiple different mentors and things that you're looking to, for, for, to find improvement. So if you're a kid out there right now, who's going to email you, who's going to email me and say, John, could you be my mentor? Uh, you know, for the hundred of them that we get on a monthly basis, like how could they be looking at it and how should they approach people with this so that it's not the, uh, sorry kid, I don't have any time for this.

I got too many other things going on right now. And everybody asked me to be the mentor. So, right. So I would recommend and do what I, and I take the same medicine is the people that you admire, people you think can share with you or think people can guide you or, or what I always do. And I know you do it is like, I tend to try to model certainly professionally. I try to model myself after people that I respect. I try to just kind of copy what they do. So first step is ask them to be a coach and don't make it a formal request in the coach part, make it a formal request in the technique. So like, uh, John, I know I've never met you before, but I've been attending your seminars and I've been listening to your podcast for the, for this year.

And there's so many things that you share that I really have employed and started to do and have a question for you. Um, and then ask a specific question about one of your techniques and how to do it in my world. And if you engage with me in that way, then you've, I've already won. I've got some really incredible coaching advice around a task. And the reason why that's an easier entry point is for people like me and John and others who get asked to do this. Someone asked me for a specific question, a sales technique, I can probably bang out an answer in a few seconds, but to agree to have some kind of formal coaching mentor relationship with someone I probably don't even know. I might have, I'd be to have a hard time even reading that email.

I mean, you wouldn't ask a complete stranger to be your girlfriend. So don't ask them to be your mentor, but you can say, Hey, would you like something to drink? And that's kind of a good start. So, so get some good advice on things you need help with. And if it doesn't go anywhere, at least you learn some stuff. What will happen is the relationship should blossom organically before you start thinking about mentorships. Like let that organically grow. You and I have known each other a long time, John. And that, that's what's that, that helps make our relationship richer. If we don't know each other, it doesn't mean we can't start a relationship, but we're not going to start on square 10, you know?

So be patient with people. But if you just ask, I don't, I know you, I know me, I know people in the industry, you ask us specific questions. We're going to answer them because that's what we do. We like doing it. And that's an easy way to get in front of us or get our time. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I mean, anytime somebody asks me a direct, it's kind of like in sales, right? Like the more specific you are with what you're asking for from the client, the more, the better the results you're going to get. It's the same thing in asking for mentors or anything like that. You'd be super vague and, and, and, and I have to now think about it. You know what I mean? Whereas if you asked me a question about something specific, I got you.

Yeah. You say this a lot with your students and the reps and managers, and I say something similar. I always envision the physical surrounding of whoever I'm calling or emailing. And whenever I'm calling or emailing someone, my assumption is that they are in the back of a very bumpy Uber late to the airport and feverishly scrolling through a bunch of messages from their boss, direct reports, investors, media, employees, and staff members. And somehow my message, which although is critical to me is irrelevant to them. And I have to somehow pierce this veil of deep distraction to get my attention, to get their attention. And I know that you and I have found that the only way to really do that is to be quick and direct and concise and ask for what you want.

You just might get it. But when we ask for these platitudes, so we ask for things that are very loose because we're worried about being too forward. Well, I just skip over that email because I got six others I got to read before. And especially when it comes to executives, right? I mean, I know all of us have limited time, but when it comes to negatives and getting their attention, it's like literally second. Yeah. So with that transition of, uh, cause I think that it's a nice transition to how, how you see sales evolving right now, because I'm watching things. I, I, obviously I think the fundamentals of sales don't change. Right. And I don't think they ever have. It's about people. So it's always going to kind of be about people.

So I think that's, that's right. But there's a lot that is changing, right? With all the technology, the intelligence, the social selling, those types of things. So what are some of the major things that you've seen in your career and income from an evolution of sales? And what would you see has changed the most? Two things in the last 15 years are staggering in the, in the evolution of sales. And they're also true in other, other, other industries. But one, I think it's probably pervasive for everybody and one specific to sales. The one pervasive for everybody is social. Um, and where social hasn't really found root in sales in the right way yet. I find the majority of people in sales, they tend to use social media as a prospecting tool or either for finding triggers or for building some kind of credibility and starting the relationship.

I know people have had success with that. I think the social has a better home in the middle of the deal, but regardless, the reason why it's dramatically changed sales is not the access points given us. The reason why it's dramatically changed sales is the buyer now has alternative avenues to self-educate and not only about our product, but also about our customers and hell, even about you as a person. It doesn't take me long to Google any rep that calls me and see where they are on Instagram and see where they are on Facebook and see where they are on Twitter or LinkedIn. And I get to know all about you too. So the ability for the customer to self-consume before we ever get in front of them, that is dramatically different, which means we're not really starting sales processes on square one anymore.

That, that prospect's already done some homework and that prospect also may have done the wrong homework. They may have learned things incorrectly. They may be confused. And unfortunately for us, it doesn't matter. Whatever they believe, they believe. So our, the idea that we can just walk into a room unannounced and get started, well, those days are long over. So social is a big one. Yeah. So, so, so pause on that for a second. Cause timing, I just wrote this blog post last week called timings, everything right. Timing. Yeah. Um, I mean, shit, I use, I use Basho all the time. Like the stuff that you came up with, with Basho open and Basho sell, as far as the technology for Basho that we were doing, I still, to this day believe that if those two tools came out to this today, they'd still beat 95% of what the tools are in the marketplace, but the market just wasn't ready for it.

Right. And, and, um, like timing and sales, like I, that's why I used to make 400 dials a week because it almost didn't matter what I sold said when I was selling outsourced IT services, as long as I said computers and made enough calls, I would trip over somebody that had a, had a problem. Right. So a lot of this is timing. So how much do you think that a sales rep, cause that's where the essence of the why you, why you now comes in from, right? That email, which is why am I reaching out to you and why am I reaching out to you right now? And if you can answer those two questions appropriately, you should have a pretty good chance of getting a response, but how much do you think we as sales professionals can influence somebody whose mind is not on, I need this right now.

It's on some other priority. How much influence can we have on that? Well, given how we asked the question, ultimately we can have tremendous influence if we understand how urgency and leverage works. The goal is not to get the prospect to reprioritize their world and include us in it because of something clever we say or a clever connection we make. It's about understanding what's important to the customer independent of us and even independent of our solution. And then explaining how our solution product or service will help make their existing urgency more relaxed. So that's why we talk about those triggers and compelling events so much. It's like, if you, if I know something is important to you, John, something super important to you, that's time sensitive, like the end of June, then my job as a sales rep is to connect the thing I know is important to you with what we do.

If I'm incapable of doing that, then I got to call you in July. But if I am able to do it, that'll be the reason for my call now. And that's, that is why the timeliness is so key. But if we're going out there thinking we have a special sentence that talks about our value proposition in a way that has people abandon their existing priorities to chase ours, I think that's ludicrous. And I don't think anybody buys that way. And so I just, I want to make sure that I heard that right. Cause I, cause this is the way I presented as well, which is, you know, at the end of the day, if you cannot connect that, you know, I kind of in a very broad sense, when I say create, you know, I reps talk about creating urgency and how, how hard that is.

Right. Um, and I say the only way you can genuinely create quote unquote urgency without manufacturing with discounts and that type of crap is, uh, is, is aligning with my priorities. Like when your CEO stood up in the beginning of the year and said, these are the things that we got to accomplish this year. If I can't tie my solution, one or two of those good, good selling anything. Right. A hundred percent. And it's the same thing with individual priorities. So whatever your priority is, whatever you were being held accountable to, if, if I can, I'm not to your point, I'm not going to be able to replace your priority with mine, but you might not know that what my solution is can help you achieve your priorities faster.

And that's my goal as a sales rep is to show you like, you know, quick examples here. When somebody says they don't, you know, when we're dealing with like a, say an analytics tool, like any of one of the million other BI right. And somebody calls, co-calls somebody and says, uh, look, I don't have time for this. I'm super busy. It's like, well, hold on a second. How much time are you spending, sifting through spreadsheets to get that report to your boss by the end of the month so that you can actually have a job. Right. I'm going to tell you not to talk to me because I have an analytics tool that can actually save you that time. So that's a way to connect your priority with something that you might not know.

Is that, am I in the right ballpark with that? A hundred percent. You got it. You got it. And I like the way you phrased that too. It's not about them replacing a priority. Although the persuasive techniques that we need in sales, we're not persuading them to buy. We're persuading them that there is a real connection between what we're providing them and their existing priorities in solving them. That, that's the persuasion. I'm not trying to convince you to buy a BMW. I'm trying to convince you that buying this BMW is going to satisfy things that you really want satisfied. I like it. All right. Cool. I interrupted. Social is one that you said has changed fundamentally. And what was the other one?

The other one is really real, is really more specific to sales. And, and, and I'm, I know just from the number of folks who download your podcast, listen to us, uh, the law, the large number of folks and inside BDR SDR roles that these, these are roles that 10 years ago didn't even exist. Well, inside did, but certainly not at the SDR BDR role, not the way it does today. And now it, it, it, it makes up the majority of reps by role in many of our clients and many organizations. What has happened really since the first.com explosion in the late nineties. And then ultimately with the big tech boom that, that, that happened in the mid two thousands and continues today is that at least an enterprise and mid market sales, and at least with technology or sales that touch technology, our buyers are getting more and more used to going deeper into the sales process without meeting a rep, doing it virtually entirely on the phone or remotely or through email, even to there, you're seeing more and more opportunities.

Now, five digits, five, you know, $10,000 sales, $100,000 sales held a million dollars of sales where, where the rep has never even met the customer face to face. I know folks are listening to that now going, Oh yeah, well I got a bunch of those. Well, if you remember 15 years ago, that was impossible. That would, that was truly an impossible idea that someone would invest that much money without meeting the sales rep. Now that is provided for ultimately great opportunity for us in our industry, because what it means is if the buyer's appetite allows us to do more and more of the sales work either remotely or, or inside, it means we can handle more and more deals per rep, which is a wonderful metric.

But it does mean that our sales skills have to be even more surgical because we don't have the opportunity to do, to do others. And fluff it up with the relationship side of the house, right? Because I think a lot of, historically, a lot of people relied on the pure relationship. Forget about the sales skills in any way, shape or form. It was, if I took you out to golf enough times and went out to steak dinners and we drank enough beers together, regardless of my skill, that my sales skills didn't even need to be there. I just had to be your boy. Right. Whereas now, those days are over, man. The national account rep, that's a dinosaur. Those, those, they're going the way the dodo bird, the idea of the, of the, uh, you know, the four and a half hour golf round and the two and a half hour four martini dinner.

Yeah, it happens. And yeah, you and I have had to do them, but they, those are anomalies now. That's not a typical day in the sales world today. No. And I, and I think that, you know, there are certain laggard industries where it's still real, but I, to your point, I think it's, it's definitely the going away to the dodo bird. Um, and, and, and you brought up the kind of the, the new model here of sales and inside. Cause I think I was right on the cusp. Like I actually created predictable revenue before it was predictable revenue at my company, because I just fundamentally, I kept hiring and firing sales reps and asking them to do everything and they would fail miserably. Right. Cause, and, and with the predictable revenue, the segmentation of roles, the inbound, then the outbound setting cold calls and setting up, you know, the account manager and so on.

I think that's been great for scale and growth of sales organizations specifically in the tech space. Right. Cause I think it allows you to breed your own internal sales reps, but, and I, and I'm interested in your opinion on this. I S I think it's actually significantly stunted the growth of full, well-rounded sales professionals. Oh, without a doubt, without a doubt. And you, you started the podcast asking how things were going for us. And I think that's why this opportunity for us and, and why there's such an appetite for your podcast, frankly, is that with this growth, with these number of people entering the industry with less experience and with these greater demands on our skillset, there's a huge vacuum now of need to have these skills and have the ability to sell transfer to this new generation.

So I completely agree with you. Yeah. Because I mean, before, I mean the, the bad thing about when you and I were growing up in sales was you either like, here's your territory, here's your quota, good luck. And you either sink or swim and, and, and, and it was yours is yours to win or lose. And so I think the bad part about that was a lot of people got into sales, got out really, really fast because they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is not for me. I can't do all this stuff. Um, so that was the bad news. The good news is, is those that, uh, those of us that stayed and figured it out became super well rounded in a very, very short period of time. Whereas I see sales reps and again, good and a bad thing.

You know, you spend two years doing an inbound role, then you go outbound, then you, you know, then you go from outbound to selling SMB, you know, full cycle inside sales. And then eventually after seven, eight, nine, 10 years, you get to that quote unquote enterprise sales rep. Is that a good thing or a bad thing from your perspective that, that we're segmenting roles out there, allowing for scale, but potentially stunting growth of sales reps? Um, I don't have a problem with the idea of dividing conquer, particularly if it's a more effective way, particularly if the customer is being satisfied, particularly if the, if the sales are there. Um, but your dangers are right. Um, I think what happens, there's two things that's kind of getting in our way.

Uh, one is if we have loosely defined roles, it's very hard to align the appropriate skills to each role. So I, it's not that the rep has to be good at every element of sales. They have to be good at the elements of sales that's required for their job. And there needs to be the opportunity for them to move to the right when needed. So when I, whatever I caution clients on this kind of dividing conquer approach, there has to be the ability for the, for any rep to advance a deal as far as they can without an arbitrary handoff. See, if the BDR has a live person on the phone and they're building the relationship and they're doing all the right things, and that BDR normally flips that deal over to another rep, but in this particular opportunity, it makes the most sense for that BDR to close the deal themselves.

Well, that needs to be encouraged in your comp plans. That needs to be encouraged in how you're organizing your, your folks. But if you arbitrarily force a handoff saying, look, after you prequalify, you have to move that deal to another rep, regardless of interest. Then I think the customer hurts. I think the rep hurts. I think the process that's hurts. I think the shareholders hurt. So I think that that's a, that's, that's an element that's a, that's important. And the other thing that gets in our way, frankly, are sales managers. You know, we, we, we, we tend to moan a lot about, um, reps that maybe don't have the requisite ability or people in the wrong roles. The last time I checked, typical sales managers would rather quote unquote, keep a chair warm at a rep who's at 50% or lower than, than go through the trouble of finding new reps.

I say this all the time to managers. If you don't like the quality of the sales folks on your team, then find new ones. Because the notion that, um, the sales manager is just going to inherit greatness. I mean, most of us learn through the, you talk about mentors and coaches for you and I, those mentors and coaches were, were, were former bosses, former managers. Those are the ones who took time with us, who shared with us, who were patient with us. If you're not willing to be that for the next generation of reps, knowing full well that some other manager did that for you, well, that's how this industry will die. It won't be because of technology and it won't be because of social. It'll be because managers are not paying it forward by making sure that they're being equal coaches and mentors to their reps.

Yeah. And this actually kind of circles us back to that art science that most companies do is they, they promote the best sales rep to be managers. And a lot of times that best sales rep is, you know, you call it the consciously incompetent, or I'm sorry, the unconsciously competent rep who just is just knows how to do what they do. And then you put them in the position to be your manager, which is not something they're great at from a skillset standpoint. Now you're told, okay, go train those other people how to do what you do. And because they don't have a process around it and they don't have a system because they just do, it's hard for them to translate that knowledge. And therefore they become deal chasers.

Exactly. Exactly. And so I think that so much what we're talking about today about mentoring and talking about the change in role of sales, you know, when I find that when we as an industry look a little closer, not toward the rep, but to the frontline manager, I think we're more likely to find opportunities to create the industry we can be proud of. Yeah. I love it. All right. Two more questions. One is, um, you have this whole idea around social value and in maintaining that throughout the sales process. Could you explain that? And then I got some questions for you. Cause there's, I think there's one area where you and I disagree a little bit on this and I just want to value and the importance of it.

Yeah. So the concept we have a social value, not really a sales expression, really more about people. The notion is this, that although we have relationships that we build organically and we have relationships that are built from formal roles, you have a relationship with your boss, you have a relationship with your teacher, you have a relationship with a cop, you have a relationship with a doctor. Some rules are already established, other rules you build as you go. And we kind of ebb and flow out of relationships this way as people, but there's this element of individual confidence. I like to call social value that's independent of any relationship that you could be deferential as a student to a teacher where the teacher has more authority and power, but you could have higher social value than the teacher, even though you have less authority.

What does social value mean? Well, literally we define it as popularity. And that's kind of got a funny definition, that word, but literally meaning if you have more social value than I do, John, it means that more people know you in your world than know me in mine, that you're in greater demand in your world than I am in my own world. And if you're not around in your world, that absence is more noticed than if I'm not around in my world. When we compare each other to our requisite, to our our own environments, you're more quote unquote popular than me. And what does that mean? It means that you could command a peer relationship with me, even if I have more power and authority than you. And in my opinion, uh, social value is one of the most critical things to have in sales.

I know you're a CTO. I know you're smarter than me. I know you're more powerful than me. And I know you have more influence than me. And I know the sale will happen because you'll say yes or no. So you are the boss, but more people know me than know you brother. And more people want to talk to me than want to talk to you brother. And when, and when I don't return a phone call, people freak out, which is not always the same with you. Now I'm not saying these things to you. This is true. And you're going to feel that popularity when I meet you, you're still going to have all the authority and power and juice because you're the CTO, but you, I might be able to command more attention and direction and closes with that high social value.

If I lose social value because of the role of salespeople, for most people, salespeople are so lower than power that if I don't have social value, I'm not left with a lot of places to navigate. So that's our concept. And we, in our programs, try to show different ways that you can exhibit it. Well, that's what I was going to ask. Cause I think that's, I mean, you know, Jeff Hoffman, right? Like I could easily see you being able to walk into that room, you know, regardless of CFO from Deutsche Bank or, you know, whatever. It's like, I don't give a shit. You know, I put my pants on just because that's you and me. It's the same thing. Like now after 23 years of doing this, I have the confidence because I've been doing it for so long that I'm the expert and everybody talks about thought and all that stuff.

Like it takes a while to get to that point in your career. How does sales early in their career build that social value, if you will, to make the client, it's kind of, it's like that walkaway. It's the power of the walkaway close, right? It's as simple as sticking to your closes and not answering them for the customer. You know, it's, it's a difference in saying, um, great, John, I'm looking forward to seeing you at three o'clock on Thursday. I'll send out a meeting request. Have a great day versus saying, Hey John, I'm really looking forward to seeing you next Thursday in front of your computer. Yes. I just sent you a meeting request. Can you hit accept and we're done? Yes. That, that, that other alternative, you're going to, the customer is not going to hang up on the phone on you after they agreed for a meeting because you wanted to hit a meeting request.

But by asking for the meeting request, the way I did, I'm commanding you to, to, to commit to what you said you were going to do. I keep my social value high when I'm worried about, you know, getting no's, even when they wouldn't even be appropriate, it shows that I'm afraid. It shows that I'm fearful and it shows that I'm reluctant and that's low social value. There's a lot of ways we can do it without being aggressive, without being the smartest guy in the room. And it always, always starts with the same thing. What do you want? And ask for it directly, simply, and wait for an answer. That's so much of sales and such an easy thing. People mess up. So there's one thing that's, that, that, and I remember you had said this, cause this is right in line.

And, and I've been trying to think through, cause it's been very successful for me and the people that I train on, but I think you disagree because of the social value thing. And it's, and it's something that's, uh, one of our least favorite people. Um, it's probably the only thing I've ever, I, I actually took from him. Um, I know exactly, no, you know, exactly. Uh, it's, it's this idea of the summary email in the sense it aligns with active listening and it aligns with holding customers accountable. And for those listeners that don't know, my whole approach is this, you and I have a conversation today. Uh, as soon as we get off this phone, like if I'm selling to you right now, uh, have a good conversation.

As soon as we get off, your boss comes in, changes your priorities. My competition comes in, talks to you about something different. So two weeks later, you don't really remember this conversation. So what I do is I say, Hey Jeff, thanks so much for your time. Uh, some next steps action. I have to get it, you know, before I go ahead and do all that though, I'm going to summarize what I was able to gain, gain from our conversation today. I'm going to send it over to you in a quick email. Could you do me a favor and just email me back to let me know if it's all accurate. And if I missed anything in there, what I do is I put, you know, the five or six key gets like on the scorecard, the give, get right.

The score, the, the gets your current situations is timelines, this priorities of this, you know, whatever, right. The stuff that's, that you said that I can now hold you accountable for. And I send it over to you and I get a response back. Um, I only get a response back about 25% of the time, but my close ratios on the ones that are the 25% or 90% versus the ones that when I don't get it back is around 60%. And I felt, I found it to be an extremely structured, good way of holding people accountable without being an asshole. Um, and, and showing social listening and all that other stuff. But I know you, you, you disagree to a certain degree because of this social value concept. Could you explain to me like, I want to make sure I give the proper umbrella to it is the way you described it is, is great.

And, and you know, this, I mean, look, we're, we're just a couple of guys who sell for a living. So we have different ways of doing things. And, and I think that's, that's powerful. Right. Um, the, and, and I always say what people have tools that are different than mine, but they're working for them. You keep using them. And what you just described, I think in the hands of a mature, sophisticated rep, I think it is a, a good tool. Here are my issues with it. My issues with it are two. First, I think customers and you do too are smart. So when I send the call back or the summary email, it's going to be laden with the opportunities that the prospect has admitted are there for us or there for me.

And when I put it on paper and say, Hey, I just want to make sure I got all this right. Can you tell me yes or no? I worry that I'm giving the customer opportunity to decide not to share things with me. Because when I share things with Jeff, he sticks it in a, in a summary email and makes me either sign or acknowledge it. And it makes me feel like I'm being almost like you're catching, trying to catch me in saying things. I'm not saying that all people would respond to that, but I'm saying that that's one little element. The other element I don't like about it is a social value element. And the social value element I have is this. I don't write summary emails because I don't have time to. I don't have time to write summary emails.

I just don't. I don't. I had a meeting. I closed it. They're going to do it or not do it. I'm on to the next meeting. So I never want to do sales activity that make it look like I'm less busy than my customer because I'm not. So what the, what I do is a little different than yours, but I love the approach. What I do a little different is instead of sending the summary email, I send the summary email, but it's really short and I make a huge mistake. Like I'll say, I know you said this, I know you said that, but for the life of me, John, I can't read my notes. I don't know what the hell you said here. And so my question back to you is not, did I get it? Did I miss anything? Or is it right? Or do you agree?

I'm sending it back to you saying, John, where did I screw up? And then if you do weigh in with the, oh yeah, we're not doing this in quarter two, we're doing in quarter four. I still get the same. I scratch the same itch you're trying to scratch. I get that response. I get that nice buy-in. I get all the things you want. Anybody can say, well, you look like you missed something. Hey man, they always think we missed something. So just that's okay. I'd rather do that than the other. I'm just such a crazed, crazed rep when it comes to never wanting to appear like I'm not busy. No, I mean, and I, and I think that's why I tell everybody, no matter how skilled you get, how experienced you get in your career in sales, the number one thing I think you should, you could and should get great at is prospecting because prospecting solves a lot of problems, right?

I mean, negotiation, discounting, all that stuff becomes a lot better and easier with a big fat pipeline. And you made the point of, you know, if we just, if we separate and conquer, you know, the reps, is there a danger that the rep won't learn the full gamut of sales skills? Such a good point. Prospecting is one of the rare ones that kind of forces you to do a lot of different salesy stuff when you do it. So I think it gives you the, you get more, the more a rep prospect, the better they get at other elements of selling. Absolutely. Awesome, man. Well, this is, this has been fantastic as usual. I think. Yeah, what a great, I'm so glad we could do this. Thanks for inviting me on. I feel honored at the centennial mark.

It's quite an, it's quite an achievement there, John. Very nice. No, I appreciate it, man. Like I said, I got a, I owe a lot to you for allowing me to take, take my career in this direction and, and be having a blast. And to your point earlier, kind of pay it forward a little bit with the, with the audience here. So in the interest of paying it forward, talk about your situation. Like what, what do you want? How can reps find out more about you? I know you've got a ton of public workshops that you're doing that I recommend go to. Well, thank you. Thanks for the, thanks for giving me the commercial, but yeah, you can, all our stuff you can find on sell Hoffman. That's two Fs.com. We've got a variety of workshops throughout the country.

We also, also have our podcast series, which we'd love to have you on as well, John. And we kind of, you know, we try to answer different sales questions and have some fun with, you know, some different ways of approach and you can find that also under either Hoffman or your sales MBA podcast, wherever you download your podcast series, easy to find. And don't be bashful. We're on all the social media sites as well, either MJ Hoffman or your sales MBA. So thanks for the plug. Yeah, no, of course. And anybody listening to this, go check out, if you like this podcast, you're going to love Jeff's, um, you know, most of the stuff that I've learned, uh, it stems from, you know, my experience in sales, obviously, but I think, you know, Jeff has, has a great way of, of, uh, consolidating the information into tangible things that, that you can execute on, which is what I've always appreciated about, uh, your content, Jeff.

And, and, you know, outside of just personal friendship and relationship, I just really appreciate everything you've done for me and, uh, hopefully you can pay it forward to everybody else out there. That's listening. Well, you know, what you do every day is so, is so admirable and, uh, I'm thrilled to be a part of your life personally and professionally. And, um, yeah, I can't thank you enough for inviting me on and, uh, you know, holding the torch alongside me as we, we elevate sales to the place it belongs. Got to get to that respect level. So people start looking at it as something that's like, yes, I want to be in sales, not, eh, let me see what sales is all about. Right. Exactly. Awesome, man.

All right. Well, uh, listen, everybody, thank you so much for listening again, 100th episode. Uh, we wouldn't have been able to get here without everybody listening listening to this and giving feedback. So as I always say, you know, go out there and make somebody smile today. If you did nothing else today, but made somebody smile, you had a good day. So have a great week and, uh, make it happen. And thanks again, Jeff. Appreciate everything you do. Bye. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Bye. Bye.