108: James 'Say What Sales' Buckley

Thank you to our partner, Costello, for help making us produce Make It Happen Mondays and our webinar and workshop series. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrowsley, Make It Happen Mondays, and I am happy to invite for a second time here my very good friend, James Buckley. Say what, Sales? What's going on, my friend? How the hell are you? Let's make this happen, man. I am so excited to be back on the show. You've got to be one of my favorite brands out there from a personal brand perspective. So being able to talk about this is really special for me. And likewise, man, I think this is one of those things where we've kind of watched each other grow up a little bit, our personal brands.

And I think that we're going to have this conversation. But actually, before we get into that, though, you're wearing the shirt. Talk to me a little bit about, because I remember when you came on here, man, you dropped a bomb on me that I was not expecting. Yeah. As far as your personal background and that type of shit. And first of all, I feel blessed that you felt comfortable enough having that conversation with me. But I think, but it's led to some pretty cool shit. So before we even get into any business at all, let's talk about the important stuff, which is what you're doing right now with Uncrush. Talk to us a little bit about that and the podcast and everything else. Absolutely. So on the podcast, on the on the on the show that I came on, you had asked me, I remember the question very clearly.

You said, how do you stay so positive? And you and I are friends. So I've always felt really comfortable talking to you. And I don't know what possessed me to say it. But I said, man, I could be dead right now. And you were like, what? Tell me a little bit about that. Really quick. I said that, you know, if you flashback 10, you know, even even I'm going to say 15 years ago to be safe. If you flashback 15 years, I was living in Miami with a major cocaine problem in it. And it nearly killed me. I was constantly doing it. I was selling it so I could do it for free. It was it was all my life. I couldn't stop it. It was just consistent every day. I had an accident at work and I went to a hospital and they did an x-ray and showed my heart in my chest.

It was about this big. And he said, that is your heart. And at any moment, it could rupture and you could die. And there's nothing that anyone in this building could do to save you. You'd be dead in about eight seconds. Jesus Christ. That next the very next day, I rented a truck, packed everything I owned on it and moved to Tennessee. And it was the best thing I ever did. I've been off of cocaine now for 13 years. Awesome. And I went back to college and got a degree and really turned my life around. So when you asked me that, because you and I have the relationship we do, I was very comfortable telling you about it and just completely lost sight of the fact that the world would see this. Yeah, you get like 30,000, 40,000 downloads on a monthly basis.

Yeah, totally. So that happened. And one of the people that saw it, listened to it, was Tim Clark of Salesforce. And him and I immediately connected right away. And he was like, your story was touching. And it really made a lot of sense to me. And it's part of what I've been thinking about is this uncrushed kind of mentality. And uncrushed, the concept of uncrushed is that we're constantly telling people to crush their goals and crush their day and go out there and crush it, whatever it is. And in reality, that pressure, it's really crushing us. It's what's forcing us to feel that pressure and that stress. So we're talking to people that are uncrushed. We are not daunted by our afflictions, our addictions, our trials, our turmoil, our personal struggles.

We're not daunted by this. We deal with it every day and we come to work and we perform. We are uncrushed. We are not phased by the difficulty that life brings our way and professionalism and business brings our way. We aspire regardless. So we're talking to people, uncrushed is uncrushed.org. Check it out. The podcast is about other people and their struggles and the things that they've learned about overcoming adversity and making it through the hard times in life. So we had Jenny Gaither on there of SoulCycle and the Movement Foundation talking about what it is for women to be comfortable in their bodies and not submit to what society thinks they should do or look like and being proud of who they are.

And then we've also had Tiffany Bova of Salesforce, author of Growth IQ, on that podcast to talk about what burnout means in the sales world, in the business world in general. So that's been a really important project for us because these are things that all of us deal with. It's universal in business that we feel stress, anxiety, pressure, lose sleep over deals, right? Oh, shit, that $150,000 op is scheduled to be signed tomorrow. I hope that they don't cancel. Oh, my God, I planned this Hawaiian vacation for my family now, and if it doesn't close, I'm fucked, right? That whole mentality is very real in the business world today. Highlighting it puts people in a very relatable sense. To know they're not alone in that type of struggle is very important.

I get lots of messages, lots of emails, lots of texts. James, I saw your podcast. I loved it. I feel the same way. Can we talk? Absolutely, right? And the 10-minute, 20-minute conversations I have with people since I started hosting Uncrushed and since I started talking to people about these problems, all of them end with them saying, I never looked at it that way. Thank you for the help. This changes everything. I feel so good when I talk to you. And for me, that's a win. I don't even have to attach a monetary value to that to say it makes me feel good. I couldn't agree with more, man. I think what you guys are doing is fantastic. Tim, because I connected with him early on that. And first of all, I don't think you guys could be a better fit to run that show.

And just get the conversation out there. You know what I mean? I think not enough of us have the conversation about, like, I think we're in this, like, Instagram, like, fake world where everybody's posting how fucking cool they are and how baller and this and that and the other thing. And really, like, there's tons of people I know, and really, like, there's tons of people I know that I know them personally. And if you looked at them on Facebook and their family on Instagram, they look like they got the perfect fucking life, man. And you know they're a straight train wreck, right? And I think we just need to be posting more of the train wreck shit. You know what I mean? I mean, that's why, for me, like, Instagram and Instagram stories and specifically Snapchat, that's a way for me to be straight raw.

You know what I mean? Like, this is what the fuck is going on right now. And this is what's in my head. I don't necessarily want, like, some of that straight raw stuff to be too out there, but there's definitely an avenue for it. I think there's a way to talk about it that helps people. I think there's a way to present it that doesn't come off unprofessional. And I think that's the teeter-totter that we all kind of ride when we want to talk about things that are bothering us in life and business and career. We teeter-totter on this element of complaint. Yeah. Like, stop complaining. Well, it's easy to label something a complaint when you don't want to do anything about it. True. Absolutely true, man.

Cool. Well, look, again, love what you're doing. Keep doing it. If you're not, by the way, if you're listening to this, go check out on crush.org. And if you know somebody who, if you or yourself or you know somebody who's struggling, send them James' way. Having that conversation is a healthy thing. And having it out loud is a helpful thing, too. Absolutely. So with that, let's chat now because I think that ties into kind of the conversation, the elevated conversation I have with you here based on the last one, which was the personal branding stuff. Yep. Because I think a lot of what you've done led you to have the podcast with me. And, you know, as far as your personal brands, and then that led to where you are now.

And I think you've done a masterful job at being James Buckley while still representing an organization, while still holding the organization in a similar vein, right? And thriving business and results for those businesses as well. And it kind of like, and this is something I've been thinking about a lot, which is, I personally think that the next wave of marketing, if you will, if you really want to stay relevant in today's world as a business, it's no longer the corporate brand. I mean, the corporate brand, you have to make sure that you're, you know, you're holding yourself at a high regard and you're doing the right things and socially and all that other stuff. But I genuinely believe, and I'm watching it happen, where it's an individual within the organization that represents the brands.

Yep. And I'm not talking like influencers, right? Like, like influencers, I mean, influencers internally, like, I know there's a lot of brands who are trying to associate themselves with external influencers. Yes. Right. But I'm talking to somebody inside the organization and, and having that, it's a risk, but I think the reward is, is far outweighs the risk. And so talk me through, like, how do you, what do you think, first of all, at a, at a high level here, right? And I'm going to use a couple of examples just to preface this. You know, we had talked about this, like gong and chorus. Okay. Both prop, both, uh, solutions, great solutions. Great. But from a perception standpoint, gong is like out there, like is, is, is leading the charge in my humble opinion.

And sorry, everybody who's, you know, chorus fans out there. I know you're probably going to be pissed at me, whatever, but because of Chris Orlip, right? Chris Orlip is putting out kick-ass podcast, like, uh, content blogs and those types of things. Same thing with drift, right? If you got drift, you got a bunch of chat bots out there, you know, just a little bit better, you know, argue, whatever, but because of DC and DG and what they're doing. So talk to me about what you think of, about the kind of the future of personal brands within corporate brands and the importance of that. So my opinion remains that as a sales professional, if you're not developing a personal brand, you're probably focused on metrics.

That tends to be the common thing for me is you have two types of salespeople. You have people that want to be different, want to stand out, want to create content, want to be more than just a brain that does sales. And then you have the other salesperson that's a metric hitter. Oh, I have to make 200 calls today. I hit them by noon. Oh, I have to send 60 emails. I hit them by one. You know, I use all my technology and I hit all my KPIs. But at the end of the month, that person comes back and goes, hey, where's your demos? And they go, oh, I don't know. I hit all your metrics though. Right? This is a metric maker. That's the thing that those people do. And there's a lot to be said for that. If they're good at it and they hit the metric and they see results, hey, man, keep doing you.

Right? But some of us have a little bit different of an approach. We want to be the face of an organization. We want to be a person that somebody knows about our organization because they follow me. Can't tell you how many people came to me and were like, oh, Serious Insight. Yeah, James Buckley works for them. Right? I follow James on LinkedIn. I see all his stuff, great stuff. I love the stuff he puts out. How do I get in touch with him? Right? Like people, hey, I met this person at a show and they asked me about you. So here's their card. And you'd call them and say, hey, I heard you met my friend at a show. And they'd be like, oh, my God, James is calling me. And you kind of feel like that celebrity thing going.

Right? That is because they've positioned themselves to be an authority figure in the space they're working in. And for me, that's the true sign of a personal brand that is successful. Okay. So for me, I started Say What Sales after I came up with this thought of what our sales cycles tend to look like. So like I went through Google. You can go to Google. If you're out there listening, go to Google right now. Select images. And then type in sales funnel. There are millions of them. And they're all different. And they all have this kind of like huge, intricate web of things that are coming in through the funnel. And the little segments have like little. But in reality, I find that the one that works the best is very easy.

It's very simple. And that sucks to say when you have an audience of salespeople that are like, man, sales is really hard. That's true. It is hard. But if you look at your sales cycle, what you really have are six basic steps. We just complicate it with all our expectations and our biases and the things that we think are going to happen that don't, we end up let down because they don't, right? But in reality, your sales cycle only has six steps. Content is the road to connection. That connection should lead to a conversation. Once you have that conversation, it's a chance to build a relationship. Some people will call this trust. They're one in the same. If you've done a good job with that, you should have no problem asking for an opportunity.

And the law of averages says the more opportunities we have, the more sales we make. Let's really break that down and use an example from yesterday. Morgan posted Complimentay, which I think is brilliant. He highlighted me as someone to compliment. I love Morgan to death. I think that's fantastic. In the time he posted that, which I believe was yesterday evening, to right now, I have 80 people that have reached out on LinkedIn to connect. That means that throughout the week, I will have 80 conversations, of which 50 will turn out to be relationships. Of those relationships, 25 to 30 will be opportunities. And of those opportunities, 15 will be sales. So that's a real world example why content is the road to connection and it all leads to the end of your sales cycle.

And you label this as the universal sales cycle. It is. It's universal. You can rinse, lather, repeat. You can do it all the time. If you're a daily content person, then every day you should have new connections, new conversations, new relationships, new opportunities, and new sales. If you're a once a week person, like if you have a giant following like yourself, you could probably put a video out once a week and you get thousands of likes, comments, shares. All those people are people that have their own networks. Anyone you're not currently connected to is a new connection, a new conversation, a new relationship, a new opportunity, and a new sale, potentially. So how do you, so, because I think a lot of people, like they don't, they struggle with their personal brand, right?

And I, well, let's talk like there's organizations that struggle allowing reps to build their personal brands. Because I think they're a little bit more of the old school mentality of, hey, marketing owns our brand. We don't want you out there. And I think that's a huge mistake for organizations. Absolutely. So how does the organization balance that, right? With the marketing brand and personal brands, right? Because going back to that, that position, I actually think that there's a role that's going to start to show itself more and more, which is the chief evangelist role. I think there's going to be a role where it's going to be somebody that reports to the board or the C-level exec, you know, some sort of CEO or something like that, where it's the chief evangelist.

And their job is to get out there and get their personal, put their personal brand with their brand and champion that, right? But how do you balance that, right? Because there's a risk in that is if you're a business and I say, all right, James, I want you to come on board here and, you know, and then you start and you got your brand and you're building and everybody's loving James Buckley. And it's like, but you're associated with me. Now I'm kind of a little bit of a, like a little handcuffs here as an organization, aren't I? Because you could, you could literally leave. And now there goes a huge portion of, of our brand, if you will. So, so how do you balance that as a business? And do you just say, fuck it, like, like, let's, let's let it happen and take that risk and treat our people really well.

And hopefully they stay or, and from there also, how do you balance that as an individual with the job that you have to do? So those metrics that you talk about, right? We're all, a lot of us are being held to those metrics, not necessarily that we're metrics people, it's just, we're being held to those metrics. So we have to hit them before we get fired. So let's talk to two separate ones. Let's talk the, the business and how, what, what, how do you approach it to allow the personal brands that's going to help overall brand, but without it taking over your brand and putting you at risk? So, so I look at this in two ways from the business perspective. If you're concerned, if, first of all, if you're hiring somebody that already has an established personal brand, recognize that they have that brand before you hire them and ask them how they plan to use it to your advantage, because that's going to be a good starting point for them coming in to know that what their goal is, is to benefit the company that they're about to work for using their brand, leveraging their brand.

If you're hiring someone that doesn't have a brand and they begin to build one and they gather momentum and they start to be come this, you know, thought leader in the space or just an influencer in general, the choice that the business has, the leaders in the business has is to either embrace this and endorse it and help them build it so that they will stay or deny it, denounce it, claim that you don't support it and watch that brand walk out the door. That's as simple as it gets. And I hate to put it in those terms, but businesses choose whether or not to support their employees every single day. And if an employee is a hungry individual like myself, I'm not going to be shackled to your business if you don't want me to be.

I certainly don't have to be. That's not something that's a thing. So I had no problem continuing to build my brand, even when I was confronted with somebody saying, I don't think this is valuable for us. I think it's great for you, but I don't think it's valuable for us. I very politely disagreed and continued to do what I did. And lo and behold, I hit my numbers all the time. In the end, if you look at it from, let's look at it from the other perspective, right? In the end, it's up to the person to decide how they're going to build that brand. If they're going to build it so that it's complementary to a company, that brand is going to lose some of its potency because it's siloed to that company.

If it's going to be a big macro brand like sales, right? Then, okay, you probably have a lot of audience there. How is the business? How are you going to approach the business and say, hey, this is working for me? How can we capitalize on it bigger, better, stronger, faster? For a trust perspective, from a trust perspective, in order for that relationship to be healthy, both parties, the business and the personal brand, have to be on the same page. If they're not on the same page, one will always feel like the other is not doing the right thing. And when it comes to balance, it's literally about time management. I don't take calls about say what sales from eight to five. Gotcha. I do those from five to seven, from five to eight, from Saturdays.

I do those calls. I do those consulting calls outside of my business hours. And that's how I manage it until I was hired by Ringlead, which basically said, come be say what sales with us. I wanted that. I needed them to support that. And it's one of the driving factors that brought me to them, was the fact that they wanted say what sales. They wanted to give me a producer. They wanted to give me a studio. Grant Green is one of the most talented producers that I've ever seen. And had I not built that personal brand, I wouldn't have met him. And all this great content we're putting together wouldn't be out there right now. So all of it led me to decide what I wanted to do with my brand. And that was very empowering for me.

So let me ask you this. I think what I'm constantly thinking about, like when I talk about brand building and those type of things, like when I, I never thought about it up until like I started to go off on my own. And it was actually a real struggle for me because I, you know, I went from my first company Thrive to being bought by Staples to then getting fired from that and starting at Basho. And then Basho, I went to Kensei Partners. And then when I split from my business partner, I was very like, I need to, like, I need to start another company, right? I need to come up with some name. I was like Kaizen, you know, same Japanese thing, whatever it is. And my boy, Chris, who you've been hanging out with today and yesterday, he was very adamant about, no, you need to brand yourself.

Like, like, start, like making Jay Barrows and put your fucking ugly mug up on the white, because this is, this industry, sales, is very, very, like split in the sense of sales training. It's content, but it's also the person that delivers it. So you need to brand yourself. And it was one of the best decisions I've made going down that path for me. Great advice. Now, let's talk about that kid who's selling security services. Yeah. Okay. Because you and I, I think it, like, we talk like, oh, no fucking problem. Get out there and start sharing tips and this type of thing. But like, because we sell to sales, you've always sold sales solutions to sales professionals for the most part. Well, not always, but like for a large portion of your career.

Sure. Sales solutions to the sales audience. So I think it is easy. I don't want to say easy. It's a lot easier for somebody like you and me, who are our sales reps. Like, we sell, like, sales to sales professionals. Yeah. It couldn't be easier for me to spew off what I'm passionate about and share tips and build my personal brands because I live it. What if you're that SDR, two years in, selling to CISOs, some managed service security solution that hopefully you believe in. Hopefully you feel that it does, you know. That's a buy-in. Right? You got to have the buy-in. And I say this all the time that I genuinely believe the number one thing to be successful in sales is a belief in what you do.

Right? Don't believe in what you do. Go find something else to do because you're just the jackass sales rep if you don't. All right? Fine. So let's check off the box that says the kid at least believes in the company. Might not think that the solution is the coolest thing out there. And they're sitting there saying, yeah, James, John, great idea. Build my fucking brand. What do I do? Start, you know, yelling out there about CISOs. And I'm so smart. I don't know shit about technology. I'm 22-year-olds out of school. I didn't go to school to be a tech. I'm trying to build my brand. The fuck should I do? Like, what would you do if you were now, like, looking back on it? You're 23 years old. It's your first job in sales.

You're an SDR selling technical solutions to a technical buyer. And you're listening to this saying, yeah, okay. Sounds like fantastic. Who gives a shit about what I have to say? You know what I mean? What would you give that advice to? So I actually have two pieces of advice for that kid. The first one is document your journey in video format and put it out there for the world to see. And you're going to find sales leaders like you, like me, like Kenan, like Richard Harris, like Trish Bertuzzi, like Barbara Giamanko. We jump on those and we give our opinions because we find them to be valuable for our communities. That is an open door. If you're documenting that journey and saying, here's what I'm stuck on.

Lots of people. Yeah. Let's talk about that. Like when you say document the journey, because I, because I got like Snapchat for me was, was new. Like Gary Vee said, Snapchat for business and all. I'm like, what? And so I'm like, all right, apparently. And I, and I literally lit up Snapchat and I wrote a blog about it. And I was like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing on Snapchat, but apparently I'm supposed to be on Snapchat. So you guys want to follow along. Let's watch a 42 year old man figure out how to work Snapchat. Right. But that, but again, that was easy for me. I'm like, I don't know. Hey, do this and do that. And here's a nugget. Here's a tip. So what do you suggest, what, what is, what does document your journey mean as it relates to the technical journey of learning about sales, selling to technical solutions, technical people?

What does, what does that mean? Like what's, what would be a video that you would post out there? Yeah. Yeah. So everything that you do can be documented in multiple ways. I, for me, I have a mixture of video and writing, video and writing. If I'm, if I'm on both of those platforms constantly, and I'm always putting my experiences out there, people that are behind me in that experience are also doing a good job learning from that. So I think that the documentation of your journey puts two groups of people in front of you, creating your brand in the process of doing so puts two people in front of you, two types of people, people that are where you want to be, which is great because you can always learn from them and people that want to be where you are.

And if you're riding that fence throughout your career, you will always be profitable, taking from both parties and learning at the same time. So when I say document, I mean, maybe you do a video and say, here's what I'm stuck on. And then the next day you write an article about your experience from the day prior. So I don't think that it's a limited type of documentation. I do preach an omnipresence. If you're building a brand, you've got to be on all the platforms. You know, you want somebody's 11 year old daughter going home and saying to their dad, who's a business professional, I follow this guy, James Buckley. And here's what he said. And that dad follows you and says, my daughter follows you.

And you go, yeah, I'm shooting for a younger target audience. And now you have a relationship with dad and that could be an opportunity depending on what their business is. Doesn't that get a little overwhelming though? Like, like, cause I, cause I get that question. I'm sure you get this a lot where it's like, Hey, there's Instagram, there's Snapchat, there's feet late LinkedIn. There's all these different, like, where do I start? And telling them like, like omnipresence, like, okay, do I just do one thing and put it on buffer and blast it out to everybody? Or like, and I, and by the way, I disagree with that approach. Yeah. That's a bad approach. Yeah. What I just said there. But like, I mean, it seems a little overwhelming when you start, when you start talking about being omnipresent in all these different channels.

So feeling overwhelmed is a choice. Always. Okay. People don't think it is, but it is often a choice. We've all felt overwhelmed in the past, but if you choose to manage it in a timely fashion that is less stressful, it will be less overwhelming. So while you don't, you don't have to, if you're creating a calendar for your content, for example, and you have something every day, the last thing you want to do is feel stressed out about that content. Right. You want that content to be easily shared, fun almost. Right. Yep. I have a laundry list of stuff to share. That's never been shared every day. I get up and I thumb through it all and I go, what am I going to share today? Right. It's fun for me.

You have to make it fun. And that's a choice. My mom used to say all the time, James, we all make choices in life. And as a teenage drug addict skipping school and fucking their life up for all intents and purposes, that was a very frustrating thing to hear. But in business, I say it all the time. As an adult, I say it all the time. And when we feel overwhelmed, it's really, it's a conscious effort to step back and say, how can I alleviate the stress? How can I manage this better? Your brand is not any different than that. You go through your life every day managing your time. Manage your brand the same way. Right. I don't have to share everything once a day. I don't have to do that. I can do once a week this month.

You know, I cannot share anything for 30 days and I still get hella traction on the stuff I shared 30 days ago. So here's something. With that, do you subscribe to following what other people are doing that's been successful? So, so mirroring what others are doing, or do you suggest just doing whatever the fuck you want to do? And you know what, like, like what makes you feel good? You know what I mean? Because there's a little bit of like, hey, been there, done that. That person's gotten to that level. So let me mirror them. Yeah. There's kind of the me too world of like, you know, it's like, okay, everybody's doing the same shit. Everybody's saying the same shit on Instagram. Everybody, you know what I mean?

So it's kind of gets watered out, but you know, it helps you build whatever versus I'm just going to be me. And I'm just going to put out what I think is valuable on whatever platforms I feel like whenever I feel like it. That's right. Which one, which, which, which do you subscribe to more? So when it comes to consuming other people's content, I'm probably a minimalist. I would say that because my life goal, thank you, Aunt Jean, if you're out there, my life goal is to think an original thought. Nice. I like that. That is very difficult to do. You just say there ain't no original. There's not very many original thoughts out there these days. I'm still working on it. But if that's, if that's your goal, then what you know is that other people out there that are successful have ways.

And I want to take those ways and think to myself, how can I make that my own? How can I take that and do something different with it? So to your point, you said at Rainmaker that you really liked the idea of playing Spotify music from somebody else's playlist. When you do your outreach, when you send a video, when you have that thing playing, when you're talking to them, I really thought that was beautiful. I thought that was perfect for me. So now I'm looking at people and the types of music that they post about, and I'm engaging in that type of conversation before. And sometimes I'll send them like a new release or a new song from that band or that rapper. And that has opened a lot of great conversations for me.

So I don't necessarily, I took what you said there and I made it my own. I didn't, I didn't just start going through people's Spotify lists and picking songs and sending videos with the song playing. Ha ha, I know you like the song. Instead, I'd say things like, yeah, I see you're a big fan of Drake. I like Drake as well. What's the album of choice for you? And then I'd send them, you know, something that maybe they hadn't heard, something that he did with someone else. Lord knows, right? You could find all kinds of stuff out there to make an impact when it comes to music. But when you said play something from their Spotify list, I immediately wrote down, start using music. Yeah. Start using music.

That was all I wrote down. Start using music. Jay Barrett's. And I took it back and I shared it with the whole team. And I was like, we need to start doing this. So that's, you know, hip hop and sales and everything else. I've got all kinds of stuff going now that are, that's music centric. It's a big macro that you want to attach to. It makes people feel good. That's, that's taking something that you've learned from someone else and making it your own, personalizing it so that you feel attached to it. That's not the same as saying, hey, John does this, so I'm going to do it too. Are you a big, this is side but related, so bear with me here. Are you a big history buff? Yeah. I love it. Learning from history.

That's right. I love it. So you do. Okay. See, I'm not, I, I, my, my, my least favorite class in college, in high school and all the way through is history. I have a bad memory and I think it's for a reason because I don't care about what happened in the past. I'm only focused on what's going on in the future. So for me, I've like, and it started to, I've started to blaze my own, like just do what I've, whatever I've always felt like was the right thing to do. Thankfully, I have a strong moral compass that my parents, you know, instilled in me and all that other stuff. But I still mirror what other people are doing to learn, like Gary Vee. I mean, obviously, I, you know, I, you and I are both fans of Gary Vee.

I'm, I'm, I mean, he's done something that is, that is, I mean, I don't want to buy the Jets. I don't know who would, uh, that's a fucking shit. But anyways, fuck them. Anyways. Um, but, uh, oh, sidebar on this one. I saw like Gary Vee's top five, uh, I don't know if you've seen this video, but his top five favorite, uh, clapbacks where somebody has tried to talk shit to him and he's just absolutely annihilated him. And literally three out of the five are Patriots fans up and trying to give him shit in a conference. And him just absolutely burying them. Of course. And he didn't like me, by the way, when we, when we went to the 4D session, I sat in front of him as like, when we got around to ask questions, he literally looks at me and he goes, you're the fucking Patriots fan, aren't you?

I'm like, yes, I am my friend. Yes, I am. He was like, yeah, you suck. I'm like, yep. Anyways. So I, you know, I just, I like, how much do you learn from history? Like how much do you actually look back at what has made other people successful and how much does that dictate? Nate, what you do moving forward? Yeah, this is a great question. And I'll use something that happened to me in history to, to, to circle back to it. So I used to be a door to door residential salesperson for Orkin pest control. The purest form of sales, in my opinion. That's right. What do I do at selling is the purest form of just straight up ass kicking, grinding, selling. So I absolutely love it. Pounding the pavement, knocking on doors.

That was my, you know, about for about a year. So what I learned about personal branding slash branding in general, when I was with Orkin was that, first of all, the company has been around since 1901. That's no joke. 40,000 employees, big company. And I started banging on doors. When you are 6'2", 280, you are not getting into the house with Bertha behind the door, who's 87 years old, right? And her husband is at work. That's not happening. You're not going to do the free inspection that day. So I was very discouraged. I was knocking on all these doors. Nobody was letting me in. Housewives everywhere. They're like, no, not interested. Get off my property. I'll put a bullet in you. Had a couple of dogs kicked on me.

You know, there were some pretty downtrodden days, as it would be for a door to door residential salesperson. So one day I was having a particularly rough day. And I went to a local grocery store in the area that I was in. And I pulled in in the Orkin truck, and I went in, and I got my sandwich from the deli. And I came back out, and I put the tailgate down, and I just sat there and ate my sandwich, just kind of in my sorrows, right? But in the time it took me to eat my sandwich, I had six women approach me. Hey, can I ask you a question about ants? Hey, can I ask you a question about bees? I have bees outside. Ladybugs that are all over this window, and we've sprayed and sprayed, and they don't go anywhere.

Well, you can't kill ladybugs with pesticides, but that's a different conversation. Right? So what I learned in that moment was stop knocking on doors. Start going where the groups of people are, and let them recognize the brand and come to me with their problem. Because Orkin has a very recognizable one. Absolutely, yeah. Right? The red Orkin right there, the mustache, the hard hat, the white shirt, the khakis. It's all there. All I had to do was find a new grocery store to sit at every day for the next three months and let people ask me questions. And, you know, I made more sales doing that than I did knocking on doors, walking around sweating. That makes sense. So from a branding perspective, historically, what I learned was one day, if I'm a brand as recognizable as Orkin, I won't have to try so hard to create interest and intrigue.

So when I started Say What Sales, that story really stuck with me. And I started to create consistent content that was sales tips and best practices and things that were working for me every day. Conversation pieces and concepts that maybe you hadn't thought of before because they were kind of unique. And I thought of it last night while I was laying in bed at 1130. Right? Yeah. It happens that way. It's like, you know, wake up and write it all down and, you know, hit my phone and set a reminder to do the video. So I learned from history, but I also try and learn from the potential future that's in front of me. What I also knew was that this particular experience taught me that I could do this better than what I was doing.

I liked Orkin and I liked knocking on doors and talking to people, but it wasn't for me. I could do something bigger, better, stronger, you know, without, without that brand with, you know, just being myself. You know, it's funny you bring it up because most people would probably not believe this, but like, I'm not a natural extrovert. Like I'm, I, when I first started, like, so Chris, uh, he started our first company, right? Thrive Networks. And I vividly remember him being like, Hey dude. And my CEO at the time who was, you know, we were 25. Um, and he goes, Hey, uh, I want you to, you're, I'm the VP of sales and marketing. So now, and we have no money. And thankfully I had no responsibilities or kids or any of that stuff.

So I could just bleed work. Right. Yeah. And he was like, you know, I want you to go to networking events. I want you to go to networking events. And I, and like, that's a way that, that we can drum up business. Right. And I was like, okay, fine. I've never been to a networking event before. I never tried one before. And I remember showing up to a bar in Boston and I get downstairs, I pay my 10 bucks. I put my name tag on and I grabbed my beer and I look around this room and there's all these people in these little huddles. Like there's all these groups of people clicks. Yeah. Right. Clicks. And I'm looking around like, the fuck am I supposed to do here? Right. And so, and I kind of sat there like waiting for somebody to come talk to me and nobody did because they were all in their clicks.

Yeah. So I kind of was like, after like three or four beers later, I finally was just like, all right. And I just started butting into conversations and I was like, Hey, you know, nice to meet you. What do you do? You know, the basic of, of networking. And I remember I like, I still feel uncomfortable going to events and, and having to introduce myself to people I don't know. So what I consciously or subconsciously have done throughout my career is I've done the same thing that you just talked about there, which is, I just decided to be really good at what I did and, and treat everybody who I did engage with as like, they were the only person that I would ever talk to and made them feel good and started building my own personal brand.

So now people come to me. And so now when I go to an event like Rainmaker or something like that, I don't have to, I don't have to be an extrovert. I just have to sit there and, and have people come to me and talk to me. And that's a much more comfortable position for me than me being like, all right, John, you have to go meet 15 people today and you have to go butt into all these random ass conversations. It's the same thing with cold calling. Like I did cold calling because I had to, it's not because I was. Great at it. It's not because it's because I just, I, and I, and everything about it hurt me calling some random ass person and giving them a pitch. And so I've, I've built my brand to the point where I still do make calls.

I still do send emails. I still prospect, but a lot of my shit now at this point, because I've been so focused on building my brand, the way I wanted to build it based on quality, based on, you know, value and all that other shit that now the people that I've attracted are now attracted to what I put out there. And so, so it's now, now that kind of turned into this snowball effect where it's now just starting to really build and build and build, which is fantastic. Right. I would agree. I, I, I think that the momentum that you want to build exists. You just have to find your way to it. So, so for me, I, I get a lot of calls from people that are like, I love what you're doing. I love the Say What Sales brand.

I've been following you for a while. Uh, original Say What Sales, you know, like I, I like that. I think that's great. But it's funny to me when people say things like, how can I get started? I want to do what you're doing and here's what I want to do it, how I want to do it. And I'm like, that's great. Why aren't you doing it? And they never have an answer. No answer for that question. It's almost a rhetorical one because they feel like, I don't, I don't have an answer. Like that's literally what they say. I don't have an answer. Well, if your answer is, I don't have a studio, lots of people create content that don't have a studio. I got one of these. Hello. Right. I, I, yeah, my, my first two years was me holding my phone out like this.

Likewise. Yeah. Yeah. So your Instagram stories are a great example, sitting in the airports, talking about your trip and where you've been and what you were talking about. And here's a concept you might want to think about, you know, those are great stories. Those are great ways to create content. So to your point, a lot of it is coming at you now. That's 90% of a salesperson that doesn't have a personal brands battle is getting someone to want to talk to them. Right. Without a personal brand that stands on its own. It is self-sustaining. You will never get people that want to talk to you when you call them cold. I call people cold. And they, the first thing out of their mouth is James Buckley is calling me.

What can I do for you? Yeah. Like how crazy is that? To think that a salesperson is calling somebody and they're asking me, what can I do for you? That is the strangest paradoxical thought process. But the brand did that for me. Say what sales did that for me. And I think that's, and I think you just kind of nailed why, why people should, if you build their brand and, and start it today, start it tomorrow, like start it today and do it however, because if you're out there right now, struggling in sales, if you're a metric driven, know your equation. I got to make my 50 dials and I'm, my conversion ratios are 2% and I'm struggling to hit my numbers. Like if you are that sales rep, right, there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't start immediately getting yourself out there on social, telling your story, reading articles that are relevant to your audience and then sharing them out there.

That's the other thing I want to make sure that people understand here is you don't have to be, I mean, you have a great personality and, and, and, you know, for you to be on, on, um, video and stuff like that, Morgan, same thing. Um, you know, some people are better at writing that type of stuff, but you don't actually have to be the content creator. You just have to be the content curator, right? Like you just have to read articles from other people and thought leaders and those types of things, but put your flavor on top of them when you share them out. And that's where I think my ultimate advice and what I talk about in trainings is for anybody like Gen Xers and above, right? Like who are looking at this brand building shit going, God, great.

You know, yet another thing I got to do to be successful in sales, but also kids being like, what the hell do I know? What do I have to share out there? If you focus on educating yourself first, right? So, so have the lens beyond, I want to learn something. I want to learn something about my industry. I want to learn something about the people that I reach out to the personas, the trends and those types of things. If you put that lens on, and then when you read something, when you watch a video, when you, you know, around that stuff and you learn something and only when you learn something, that's when you share it out there and you put your context on top of it and you say, you know what? I read a really interesting article here about James, about this universal sales cycle, about social selling and that type of stuff.

I really thought it was interesting and this is why, this is the stage I'm at in my brand building and I think this is how I can apply that. Boom. Now, because I don't know about you, I mean, I use easy example here, like say you're connected to me. So, you know, you and I are one connected, right? And Morgan isn't connected to me, but he's connected to you. Okay. And I write a blog and it's a pain in the ass to write a blog, right? I mean, I've been writing a blog, a weekly blog for the past six years and I'm straight up running out of shit to say, right? So, so it takes a while, right? Like it takes an hour, hour and a half to put something together and then we SEO it, then we put it on the blog and all that.

Like it was like three to four hours into writing a decent blog post. Sure. So I do that. Now you read it. Okay. And you like it. You, you think it's valuable. So then you take it and you share it out there, right? With your little flavor on top of it. And then Morgan reads my article. Cause you shared it. All right. Who does Morgan think? I, I would say that he would thank both of us. Well, he's going to, he, he, I might get another follower, but he's going to thank you for sharing it. I would think so for me, if it was me, I would immediately thank the person that shared it, obviously. Yep. But then I, if I was Morgan, I would go to you and I would say, John, I just read this great article.

Yep. And I really appreciate your thoughts. It's changed the way I'm doing my job. And I think that's, and that's you, but on the macro, let's think about this on the macro level. Yeah. If, if say you don't, you know, you and I are connected. I don't even know who Morgan is, whatever I post that out there at a macro level on average, who gets thanked more Morgan or me? Yeah. The person that shared for sure. All day long. Yeah. That's what my point is. Like to your point, like you take it to the next level from a social brand building standpoint, you actually engage with the person that wrote that because now you're tying into them and you're helping that's helping you build your brand. But I think on average, 90% of the time when a piece of content gets shared, the person who shared it is the one, not the person who created it.

So you can actually tie into thought leaders in your industry. Oh yeah. Reading their shit, sharing their stuff, commenting on their stuff, and you can ride that coattail until you build your own. I have been quite fortunate to be connected with folks like you and Morgan, folks like Kenan, folks like Trish Bertuzzi, you know, there's just Richard Harris, Larry Levine. I mean, like I've got a laundry list of people that are considered authorities in the sales space that value my opinion. That's an extremely humbling thing. You know, and when that starts happening, people really do tend to look at you different and they tend to respond to you different. And I mean, I still have just as many coaching opportunities with bad outreach, right?

People still send me canned messages. I still ask them, is this an automated message? Yep. I do that all the time. But when people come to me and say things like, hey, Morgan suggested that I connect with you or John Barrows said I should follow you. Those people, they expect value from me. They want to see why someone would say that. So once you've gotten to a point in your brand building where that stuff starts happening, it's important to keep going. It's like you said, you've been doing this blog for six years and you're straight up running out of shit to talk about, but you still come up with it, don't you? Yeah. Don't put it out there because it still impacts people. People still reach out and say, thanks, John, this helped me.

If they didn't, you wouldn't do it. You know, it's interesting. So one more point on the tell your journey thing. So for forever, I was trying to come up with the tip, the standard like blog, right? Like here's one topic, here's a stream of content, you know, here's what I think about this topic and learn it, right? And it would go on my website and that type of stuff. And because I started, I was cashing it. I got to be honest, about three or four months ago, if there was four posts on a monthly basis, at least two of them were repurposed black, like I would, I just wouldn't have time. Right. So I look back like three years, I'd find a decent post. I'd repurpose it a little bit and I'd fire it off there.

And I just could tell I was cashing. I was just checking it in. You know what I mean? I was just like, yeah, whatever. And then Chris and I had this conversation of like, I said, look, I just don't enjoy going back to, I don't enjoy this anymore. Right. It's a struggle for me. I don't like it. So therefore the quality of the product was, and my audience was noticing it. Like I was starting to get people give me like, Hey, John, man, look, I appreciate your stuff, but you posted this three years ago, you posted this four years ago. And it's like, yeah, sorry. But, and so what I started doing was I just, I just started writing text format of my journey. So now my, my weekly post that goes out is a collection of what I did the week before and things that come, came up in just general conversations and ideas.

So now all I do is when I'm, when I'm traveling, I just like, I'm like, that's kind of interesting. That happened. Holy shit. That sucked. Oh, that was cool. And I just keep those little library of like just little snippets of what happened to me throughout the month. And usually it's stuff that I put on my Instagram and Snapchat and those types of things. But then on Mondays, I just write, I'm like, yeah, last week had a kick-ass week. Ooh, this happened. I got kicked in the teeth by a client and this is what happened right there. And I, and I'm, I'm more documenting my journey now than I was with the blog posts before. And the feedback has been off the charts. Like people have been like, dude, I love the new format.

I love the new approach. And so it just kind of reinforces what you've said about telling the journey and, and, and people are more interested in that than you professing how smart you are about a certain thing. You know what I mean? Yeah, I do. I tell new sales reps when they come in, turn your phone on and tell the world you've got this job. Yeah. Tell them what you're expecting from it. Tell them what you hope will happen. Find that support that you're looking for. What you'll find is that inside all that support lies your following. Yeah. And that, and that's like, you know, I think people think it's too saturated. I think a lot of people I come across think it's a little too saturated now.

Well, what am I going to say? That type of stuff. It's not like the amount, I think, you know, the, I, you probably know the numbers better than I do, but I think there's something like of the people that create original content and put it out there on LinkedIn and something like that. It's like 2% of people actually create original content. Everybody else is either repurposing it or commenting on it. Sharing. Yeah. So, so let's talk, let's talk about it because, because so saturation has to be something that is like one of those concepts in my mind. Everybody says that. And what they're saying in that moment when they say, oh, it's just too saturated is I don't want to. Yeah. I'm afraid. It's an excuse.

It's a straight up excuse. Absolutely. It's one of many, many excuses that people give. So if it's that saturated, why is it that people can get a good, strong start? We see this all the time. They get a good, strong start. They make a list, right? They have maybe 10 videos, maybe 10 concepts, maybe 10 things. Maybe you see them once a week for 10 weeks, but after that, gone. Just like that, right? And it's because that lack of consistency, that part of it is what builds a brand. If you're that person that wants to build a brand, but you've only thought two videos ahead or 10 videos ahead, what you're not building a brand. What you want to do is make a statement. You want to stir the pot. That's what you want to do.

And there's a lot of people out there that are really good at that. If you want to build a brand though, like you know, consistency and presence is everything. Every video that I have, almost every video ends with hashtag say what sales. If you're a salesperson, we're the same person. And as a result, that phrase is very well known now. People yell that shit to me at shows, which is crazy, right? But it's a brand now. It's a thing that exists on a plane that I never imagined it would. I really just wanted to help salespeople. I wanted to document my journey. Well, and I think that's the last point that I'll make, which is I agree with you about consistency, but I think the most important thing about brands and to be successful in building yours is authenticity.

Because if you're trying to be someone else, people will see right through that. Oh, yeah. If you're somebody on, if you're a different person on LinkedIn than you are on Facebook, people will figure that out. Oh, sure. If you're this really gregarious, passionate person, and then somebody meets you at a conference and you're a dick, you know what I mean? There's plenty of people I know, and you and I both know. Oh, yeah. People that look like they're awesome and they're super nice and all that other stuff, and they're sharing really good stuff. And then you meet them and they're a complete raging asshole. Yep. Those are people I've stopped following. Those are the people that I roll my eyes at when I see them out there these days.

And most people do, because you and I could have a conversation. I can list 10 people that you and I both know that are not authentic with their approach. I think we would have the same list. Awesome. Well, look, like I always say, with you, man, I think you and I, and we're going to continue this conversation over drinks a little bit later, because you're in my town here, Boston. So we'll be meeting up for dinner and talking shit. But look, with what you're doing right now, with Uncrushed and with Ringlead and everything else, what do you want people to know here, finishing up, about how they can connect or why they should connect or any of that stuff? Yeah. So I want to talk life shit, man.

I'm over the career stuff. If you want to talk about your career stuff, that's probably going to be 10 minutes of the conversation. How does it relate to your life overall? That's where real happiness lies. Success does not have a definition. It only has a shape that we create in our minds. So what's it look like to you and how can I help you get there? That's the conversation I want to have. Let's talk about it. I give my sellout everywhere. So call me on my cell, 305-632-6005. And if you're a Salesforce admin specifically, I want to talk about how you manage your data, because that is the crux of every sale that's ever been made. And I have so much to say about that. Yeah, I love it, man. Cool.

Well, as always, it's been a pleasure, James. Love watching your journey. Always following it, man. Thank you, my friend. Love the support that you show us, myself and Morgan. And yeah, so let's continue this conversation over some drinks, man. I'll see you later tonight, brother. Absolutely. All right, everybody. Hopefully you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. And as I always say, go make somebody happy today, right? If you did nothing else today but make somebody smile, you had a good day. All right? There's not enough out there right now. So just go open the door for somebody, you know, buy somebody coffee that's not expecting it. Pay for somebody and for whatever it is, just make them smile.

All right? Because that stuff's infectious. All right, everybody. Have a great week and let's make it happen. Later. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time. We'll see you next time.