112: Transparency in Sales with Todd Caponi

Thank you to our partners, SalesLoft, LeadIQ, and Costello for helping us put this one on. Find all our upcoming events at jbarrows.com slash events. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows. Make it happen Monday. Hope you all had a fantastic weekend. I am super excited to have this guest on my podcast because I've been dying to read his book. But as most people know, I always kind of say I'm not necessarily a reader. You know, I like to experience things a little bit more. But I have committed to him that I will read this book. But I'm actually going to use this as an opportunity to learn about what's in this book because I've heard so many incredible things about it. And I have such a high level of respect for this gentleman.

So, Todd Capone, you want to introduce yourself to everybody here and say hi and where are you coming from? Yeah, thank you, John. It is awesome to be here coming from the northwest suburbs of Chicago. But, yeah, I'd spent the last year and a half writing and now going out yapping about the book. But before that, spent three and a half years building the revenue capacity of Chicago's power reviews from the ground up. And then before that, spent three and a half years on the leadership team over at ExactTarget through their IPO and their eventual exit to Salesforce for a little over $2.5 billion back in 2013. So, it's been a good run and now I'm living the dream with the book. Love it. So, talk to me a little bit, man.

Because, I mean, it's really interesting to me that you've had such success doing what you were doing. You had a great exit. Then you started, you built this company in Chicago. It was kicking ass. And then you decided to just say, fuck it, I'm writing a book. And so, you left what was, what I got to imagine was a pretty legit job, doing really well, super successful. And to take, how many months did you take off to write this thing? Well, it's been about 18 months since I left. So, it was a good six months of solid writing, editing, proofing, all that crap. And look, you know, a little sneak peek. You know, I've written a book. And people are asking me, right, like, what are you going to write a book?

And I'm like, look, I don't read. So, like, it would be a little bit hypocritical for me to write a book. And, you know, what the fuck am I going to write about? So, I actually decided to write a children's book, which kind of fits my style, big pictures, colors, and all that other stuff about sales and, you know, foundational stuff here. But it is not, like, it is not easy to write a book. And so, first of all, I wanted to ask you, like, why write a book? There's different reasons that people do it. A lot of people, and you and I have actually had this conversation because I know a ton of people who write a book just to write a book because they want to get on the circuit. They want to get paid more, right?

And you have to have that little validation of, yeah, I wrote a fucking book, and I'm a bestseller because I was on Amazon for, like, three seconds, and I was on the top of the list, and I took a screenshot of it, you know, and all of a sudden there. And I think that's just disingenuous for people to do that, right, because they're just – I think most books are 90% fluff anyways. So, why put you through – why did you decide to write this book? And talk to people about the title of the book itself. Yeah, so it's called The Transparency Sale, if you haven't seen it. If you think it sucks, at least it looks beautiful. The designers put this – it's got a transparent cover, which is super cool. I wish that was my idea.

But to get to your question, I had a revelation about what I would refer to as kind of a non-obvious evolution that was happening in the world of selling, where everybody's talking about AI and how that's going to change the whole world. And I think we're still a few years away from that. Yeah, I agree. But, you know, as the chief revenue officer of Power Reviews – and you're right, Deloitte actually called it Chicago's fastest-growing tech company from 2014 to 2017. So, we were going. Yeah. But we did – we partnered with Northwestern University here in Chicago on a study that looked at, all right, when you're selling to a buyer and you're selling through your website. So, your website is acting as the salesperson.

Yeah. How do consumers act? And so, in this study, they looked at review scores. That's what Power Reviews did. We helped retailers and brands collect and display ratings and reviews on their websites. Okay. So, you know, you're on Crocs, you're on Vineyard Vines or Jet, you're looking at a product, you look at the reviews. That was Power Reviews. That was the engine behind that. What they found changed my life, which is weird, like when you talk about leaving and going to write a book, is it showed that 96% of us are looking at reviews before we make a purchase. Oh, yeah. And so, yeah, we all do it, especially if it's medium to high consideration and something we haven't bought before. Well, like, I'm sorry, real quick, like the one thing that blew me, like G2 Crowd, right?

Yes. Like, I trained them recently. Did you know that G2 Crowd is the top 250th most trafficked website on the internet? It's amazing. I mean, that proliferation of reviews and everything we do and buy and experience, we've always associated with B2C, with I'm going to buy a hotel or I'm going to go buy a pair of shoes. But now it is exploding its way in the B2B and changing the way that we buy, changing the way that we research. But that piece that blew me away, there was two things. It showed that 82% of us look for the negative reviews first. Yep, I do that. So, you go through and you're just like, fives, that's all bullshit. Where's one that is not bullshit? Like, that really matters. And when the review score is a 4.2 to a 4.5, those products actually sell at a higher rate than ones that have an average review score of a 5.

So, a 4.2 sells better than a 5. Because they just don't believe the 5? Well, yeah, that led me into the brain science around why that happens. And, you know, as a CRO, I had 61 people on my team at the time. You know, the office with like the glass wall. So, I'm looking out and I'm like, I've been teaching these people to sell as though we're perfect. And basically, we hide the flaws and hope that the buyer doesn't find out. What if we flip that and we fed the consumer's brain, the buyer in B2B, with the negative first? They're looking for it first. Let's lead with it. I love it. Let's, instead of positioning ourselves as a 5, let's call ourselves, as Tyra Banks would call it, flawsome. You know, to embrace our flaws.

But no, we're still awesome. I'm not telling anybody to go out there and go, hey, this is why we suck. Right, yeah. But, you know, what would happen? The first time I tried it was with Calvin Klein up in New York. And the New York buyer, in the best way possible, who was very, like, let's get to the point. I talked to your competitors. Talking to you. How are you better than them? I decided to flip the script and start with how they're better than us. They were working on something that is not even on our roadmap. And the results were magic. Like, literally, he kicked everybody out of his office 15 minutes later, showed me his actual line item budget with ratings and view software and the dollar amount.

And they bought two weeks later in what normally should have been a six-month sales cycle. Like, all right, wait. I think that there's something here. And so I kept trying it, kept researching. I partnered with a neuroscientist at DePaul University here to, because I'm not a neuroscientist. I'm not that smart. Just to validate all this stuff. And I was like, I need to write a book on this. These ideas need to get out. That it's no longer acceptable to hide our flaws and expect to get away with it. But the brain science also tells us that when we lead with our flaws, regardless of the proliferation of reviews, it speed cycles, increases win rates, helps us qualify deals in faster, helps us qualify deals out faster.

We're going to lose anyway, and makes it incredibly hard on our competitors to compete against us. And that's what really started the ball. Well, this is like the whole, and I'm sure you know, I think I actually might have even heard you use this analogy, but the whole eight mile with Eminem. Yes. And when he's doing his rap battle, and he's the only white kid in this whole thing, and he's poor and all this other stuff, and instead of just going after the other guy, he legit shits on himself. He's like, I know what you're about to say, and he just goes, I'm poor, and rips everything away from his competitor. And then when his competitor gets up to rap, like he's like, I got nothing to say. Exactly.

Exactly. So let me ask you this, though. Like, I've been struggling with this for a little while, which is, and this happened, and I might have even told you this last time we met over at Sales Assembly, which was, you know Kevin Dorsey? Yep, yep. Right. So Kevin, I'm tight with you. I'm a big fan of his, right? Both of us, we went to Sales Lobster Rainmaker, right? And we both spoke. And usually, I'm sure that it's the same with you. When you speak, right, up on stage, and you get off and people come talk to you, right? I don't know about you, but my goal, my hope is that what they say is, hey, John, man, what you set up there really got me thinking. I really liked it. And oh, by the way, I love the way you delivered it, right?

I love your style. But it leads with content, backs up with style, right? But what happened on this one, and it was noticeable, was, and Kevin and I had the exact same experience. When we got off stage, the feedback was almost all about how real we were, about authenticity, and about, man, I just love how you just talk like no bullshit, whatever it was. And look, I get that a lot. You know, like that's, people like the podcast because it's not overproduced. I don't sit here and pretend like I'm selling shit. You know what I mean? It's like, fuck, I don't know what I'm talking about. But let's talk to some people that do, right? Yeah. But can you help me understand, and I want to talk a little bit kind of stoner discussion around society, but also then related to here in business.

But why do you think we're in, why do you think authenticity is such now, like I think, a competitive advantage? Like, that you're not full of shit, the fact that you're not full of shit should not be a competitive advantage these days, but it is. Yeah, I mean, as I dug into the brain science around all of this, one of the things I stumbled on, which was another counterintuitive thing to me, and I'll start with what the counterintuitive thing is, and then I'll answer your question. It's this idea that we as human beings make all of our decisions based on feeling and emotion, and we only use logic to back it up. Like, logic is only used to back up a feeling or emotion, and when we lead with logic, we lead with ROI, we lead with data, it's actually polarizing to an audience.

You've got to lead up to it. And so I was like, all right, feelings. Are we talking about love and hate, or like, what are feelings? And I stumbled across, there's this neuroscientist, his name is Dr. David Rock, and he has this thing called the SCARF model. And it's basically the five feelings that drive decision-making. And I was like, wow, goldmine. And so SCARF, the S is status, so we make all of our decisions based on, we want validation, we want feedback, we want recognition. The C is certainty, and this answers your question here, is that we're looking for predictability. We're looking for realness. That's why we look for the negative first. We're trying to predict what our experience is going to be like in every circumstance.

The A is autonomy, which is we're looking for things that are not going to take control from us. We're looking to maintain control. The R is relatedness, which is the mission, the society, like, how am I fitting in? How does this make the world a better place, and how does this make me a part of it? A group. And then the F is fairness, meaning are the resources that I'm putting in, in terms of time and dollars, equating to the result that I expect to get back. That certainty, though, that realism, we've just entered this era where you can't hide anything. And when you lead with it, you lead with being real, you're actually creating a predictable environment for people to actually absorb what you're saying.

And the reason I say that is when we lead with logic and we lead with, I'm a tough guy, then we've got a barrier that goes up that resists being influenced. It's like a limbic filter. And when you break that down by being real or being honest or buying authentic, then everything else goes right through the filter. So, okay. But then why does everybody try so hard to be perfect? Because, like, and so let's, like, you know, let's take the Instagram and the Facebook world, right? Like, I have friends, no shit, that if you saw them on Instagram and Facebook, you would think they lived legitimately the perfect life. You know what I mean? It's like, oh, the family picture with the dog and the fuck, you know, all that shit.

And I know for a fact that they are a train wreck of a person. Their family, they absolutely argue every day of their lives. But that's what they're putting out there. Yeah. And that's what's getting the likes and that's what's getting the shares and the, oh, wow, you have such a beautiful family. So, why, first of all, why do we try so hard to be perfect and then why do others who know perfection is impossible support that? That's a great question. I do not have the answer to that. Like, I look at these places like Ikea, for example. You know, like, Ikea has been the number one furniture retailer in the world for eight years in a row, right? And it's amazing to me that another furniture retailer hasn't figured out how to crush them.

Like, it's a shitty experience. Like, you go in. Horrible experience. There's no salesperson around. So, you got to write down the code or take a picture of it because you're going to the warehouse yourself to put it on a cart that doesn't have brakes, to jam it in the back of your hatchback, to drive home with an injury or two. And then you open the box and that's when the fun begins where there's 150 parts and no words on the instructions, right? But they keep kicking everybody's ass because they embrace it. They tell the world, we're not going to be good at these things, so we can be great at giving you modern Scandinavian design furniture that you didn't pay a whole lot for. So, when we look at the environments where the winners are actually winning, it's the ones that just don't hide the fact that they've got flaws so they can be really good at what's important.

I think on a societal level, I think we've just all been taught that, hey, perfection sells. Perfection is what wins. People aren't interested in my troubles. They're interested in how awesome I am. And I don't know why it happens. I think that we're going to just enter an era because of something you said where that guy that presents himself as perfect and you were like, I know 100% for a fact that that's bullshit. We all do, right? So, I think at some point it's going to break down, but I don't have the answer to that one. Well, you know, I think a lot of it has to do with how, again, the psychology around how we act and Facebook and Instagram and how they genuinely dictate what we feel based on what we see.

And one of the more encouraging things I've seen recently is actually, I don't know if you saw it, but Instagram. And I think Facebook's doing the same thing, but they're going to hide the likes. I love that. Hide the number of likes, which I think is absolutely brilliant because you've got poor kids out there right now who post a picture, like literally like kids, you know, like 15, 16 years old. Yeah, I've got a stepdaughter doing it. They post a picture, and if they don't get, you know, 50 likes in the first 10 minutes, they take it down because they're embarrassed that that post didn't get, right? And I think that's just such a horrific thing to feel stress about, right? Well, imagine if there was a thumbs down button or a star rating on your post.

Oh, my God. You would be crushed by that. Oh, there would be. I mean, there would be, I would talk about like, you know, yeah, depression and shit like that. It would lead to a lot more of that. So, so let's, so I love the transparency. I mean, I've always said my biggest strength has always been that I'm about as transparent as it gets. Like, I suck at lying. I've never been a good liar. Like, you could read it on my face before it even comes out of my mouth that I'm about to lie to you. And, you know, and that, that, that's kind of put me at a disadvantage in some cases, right? Because like, when I got in trouble by my parents, I'm like, yep, they knew I was doing it. But I think it's always been something, and it's always made my life a lot easier too.

Because like, I, you know, I don't know if you remember the, the, the, the, the song when you were a kid, right? You tell one lie, it leads to another. And you tell a few lies. Oh, brother, you're in trouble. You know that one? Right? It's complicated to lie, right? It's easy to tell the truth. So, so let's, let's expand on that, right? So we got the transparency sale here, which is flipping the scripts, right? Where we go in and we talk about our flaws. It's not necessarily shitting on ourselves and saying we suck, but we, we, we disqualify more than we qualify. We talk about what we're not good at, but what we're great at, right? So what are some of the other, the things in the book that help us connect with the client, help us get that point of view so that you can be more effective in selling?

Because I really do think this is an important topic. And I think a lot of people are scared about it. Oh, yeah. They're scared to tell somebody that they're not good at something. So how can, what are some of the other things that you've been able to uncover from the neuroscience or what you've been seeing out there? Well, yeah. I mean, I think the other piece is Gartner just came out with a study. It came out after the book came out. But I wish it came out before so I could have referenced it. Where if you look at a buyer and, you know, obviously we're in a consensus buying world. We all know that. But when you look at a buyer's time when they spend it on a particular evaluation, as it turns out, according to Gartner, only 39% of their time is spent either talking to their internal buying group, you, or your competitor.

The other 61% of the time is spent doing other stuff. And what that other stuff is are the things that they don't get from you, the seller. And that's checking references, back-channeling you. You mentioned G2 Crowd. There's, you know, in the tech world, there's Trust Radius that just took a round last week. There's Glassdoor that's got a billion-dollar evaluation that I know buyers that go out and look to see, hey, I'm not just buying your product or your service. I'm buying you, your people. I want to understand what your culture is like. So to answer your question, the first thing I think you need to do yourself and do with your marketing team, because marketing team's got to help you with this messaging, is go out there and act like a buyer and say, all right, what, if I was buying from me, what would I find when I go out there and search?

What are the pros and the cons? What are the consistent negative things that you're going to find? That's the elephant in the room. If it's true, then you better do something about it. If it's not true, address it from the beginning. Say, hey, listen, we haven't been this great in this thing. When you go out and you do your research, you're going to find it. Here's what we're doing to address it. And you start with that, it's disarming, it's honest. And then when they go out and check and find that it matches up, they don't have to do more homework. And that 61% starts to shrink and your sales cycle speed up. So that's a big one. Go out there and act like a buyer and figure out what you're going to find when you go look, because that's happening.

So it's funny, you know, I train techniques, right? And, you know, there's a closing technique that's one of my favorites, which is the walkaway clothes, right? Which is the genuine, not the bullshit walkaway clothes, whatever. But it's like, okay, no, at this point, it doesn't look like we're a good fit here. I really appreciate it. There's some major psychology around that, right? I mean, this is why I tell reps all the time that I think the most important skill you could hone in on as a sales professional is prospecting, right? Because one, I found one solution to every other problem at every other stage of the sales process, and it's a big, fat pipeline. You know what I mean? Like, you've got a big, fat pipeline.

You don't have to worry too much about discounting, you know, end of the month, like negotiation, shit like that. Because I want to put myself in a position where I want your business, I don't need it. Exactly. Right? And when that happens, like, I haven't discounted in, I can't tell you how long, because I don't need to. Right. And just the confidence alone to have the conversation with you saying, hey, Todd, you know, I appreciate it. Here's what my offering is. It looks like it's a pretty good fit. And then you say, well, John, I need a 20% off. I'd be like, well, sorry. It doesn't look like we're a good fit anymore. And you're like, wait, what? I'm like, no, no, it's okay. Like, if you want a cheaper solution from somebody else, and you think somebody else can do it better than I can, by all means, go beat them up for pricing.

But I'm good. Right? And literally, I'm going to take my toys and go home. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, I want those toys. Right? There's some psychology around. It's the same thing, I think, with reversing the cycle of, you know, it was an interesting thing I heard where talking about, oh, wow, who does this? Oh, Gong was talking about this, which I thought was interesting, where they said, obviously, you never talk shit about your competition, right? But you try to use your competition's strengths against them. And an interesting point that they made was like McDonald's and Burger King. So McDonald's back in the 80s or whatever was crushing it, right? Everything. And they had Ronald McDonald's and they had the toys and the ball pits and all that other shit, right?

And Burger King was trying to catch up, but they were just having a hard time coming close. And so instead of sitting there saying, we're better than McDonald's, what they did was they used McDonald's strength against them. They said, look, if you want a kid's meal, if you have kids and you want a fun kid's experience and you want clowns and weird shit like that, then go to McDonald's. Like, that's what they're great at. You know what I mean? But if you want a grown-up meal, right? And the whole psyche around that one was not only grown-ups, but also the kids that didn't want to be kids anymore. You know what I mean? Like, you and I both have kids. Like, there's a certain point where a kid gets to an age, it's like, I don't want the little kid shit anymore.

I want the big girl stuff. I want the big boy stuff. Yeah. So it hooked into those, and then it got Burger King to leapfrog up to pretty damn close. Yeah. So how do you practice that? Let's talk about – let's get super tactical here. Do you have any, like, ideas on, like, let's talk cold call and intro qualification call and intro meeting? Like, on a cold call, like, I know it's tough because we literally have seconds, but I think it's a little bit more apparent in, like, a qualification call and a deep dive. So anything that you can kind of sprinkle in there that would be ideas for reps to try out, you know, as they try to figure this shit out? Yeah. Well, it's funny. There's a lot there. I think the – you know, to talk about the walk-away position at the end, I can't tell you the number of times where we received an RFP as an organization, and we looked at it, we send it back, and we say, hey, listen, this doesn't look like it's set up for us, so we're going to walk away.

And they just come grab and, no, no, no, we picked you for a reason. And, like, all of a sudden that kind of opens things up. So I think that's a huge one. The second thing you mentioned is never having to negotiate. And when they ask for 20% off, you're like, hey, not for us. I'll tell you, there's some real big psychology around that. I've got a whole chapter on something called transparent negotiating, which is changing the way that a lot of people think about negotiating, where historically – I know I was taught to negotiate as though I'm releasing hostages, right? Where you're looking at eye twitches and tells, and you've got to trade your negotiation. At the end of the cycle, when you've built trust up, and they said, yes, we want to move forward with you.

And you're like, all right, yes, time to negotiate. Let's put on the goggles and the earplugs, and let's erode trust and talk about starting an extreme position and giving you the illusion that you have control. And, I mean, there's a simple way to get rid of that, which is to negotiate transparently. And we can talk more about that one because I think it's a game changer. On the prospecting side – Well, no, fuck the prospecting side. Let's talk that. Well, all right. Let's talk about it. If you've got a point there, because I do want to get back to that negotiation. Well, either one. Like the negotiation. Yeah, let's do that. I'll give you the 30-second negotiation skills class. I was in a negotiation years ago, and I had just gone through all this training, and I always thought it was bullshit.

Like, it works. Like, there's a guy that – Chris Voss has got an amazing book. Like, it is – I've had him on the podcast. He's brilliant. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely amazing. In a SaaS deal, I just thought, hey, listen. I had a customer that was a million-and-a-half-dollar deal, and they brought six procurement people to beat my ass because I was the VP of sales that had flown down to Houston for this meeting. And my rep hadn't even set me up for this. Like, we walked in, and I was like, what the hell is this? I went up to the whiteboard, and I said, hey, listen, I know where this is going. I know what you're about to ask me. So can I just tell you what we care about as an organization? And I wrote four things on the whiteboard.

Volume – so the more stuff you buy from us, product, services, the better it is for us, the more we're willing to pay you in the form of a discount for that. The second one is the timing of cash. We like money, so the faster you pay us, the better it is for us, the more that can be reflected in a discount. The third is the length of commitment. So we want you to commit forever. The longer you commit, the better for us. And the fourth is the timing of the deal because forecasting our business is a core tenet of our ability to do anything. And if you can help me forecast, we'll pay you for that too. And they immediately went, fascinating, we need 30% off. Like, all right, well, there might be a path to get there.

And we used all four. We didn't ping pong. We're like, hey, can we commit to more? You've got divisions that haven't committed here. Commit to more divisions. We'll pay you for that. Pay us faster. Commit longer. And let's rally around the date when you think you'll get this done. If you hold to it, I'll pay you in the form of a discount of 5% for that. Not only did the deal close where I showed them a path to 30% and they chose 15, which is a faster cash. They're going to pay a whole three-year deal up front and rally around the end of September. But there are some things that happen along the way that I kind of hold up in the book. But when renewals come up, you find that your customers start renewing their own deals too.

Yeah, oh yeah. All of a sudden, they start. And it's built on trust. They don't question anything. I've built that into my training and my speaking too. Or if you come to me, I'll give you my pricing. You can pick it. It's based on time away from home, how big the audience is, how long you need me to talk. And that's basically it. There's a core to it. And you can figure out, roll your own deal. I do that a lot too. And I tell reps, take the word discount out of your vocabulary. Don't take discounting, I get it, whatever. We're not all in a position where we don't have to. But change the word to creativity and flexibility. So when somebody early on says, well, that's a little bit more expensive than I was, you know, is there any opportunity for discounts or whatever?

Say, look, I'm happy. We can definitely get creative. We have some flexibility. Usually, that comes in the form of longer-term contracts and larger-sized deals. So when we get to that point, as long as we're in agreement that we're in the range here, when we get to that point, we can talk flexibility. And that happens to me a lot too. I say I don't discount, but I do. But I discount on the stuff that I know I can discount on. And one of the things I will not discount is my time. Because what I tell people is, look, a day of my time is a day of my time. A day away from my daughter is a day away from my daughter. And I should charge 1,000 times more than what I'm charging right now to be away from my daughter as much as I am.

You know what I mean? So I should actually be raising my prices on my daily rate. Now, that said, if you want to bundle in some online stuff and some remote support and those type of things, the rate card on that is this. That's where we can get creative. But don't ask me to give you a discount on this because it's just not happening. Right? Well, yeah, I've always been an advocate for using the term pay you in the form of a discount, especially when we're at the bigger deals where we're dealing with procurement because that's the language they use. When we say paying you in the form of a discount, we're flipping the script that, hey, I'm not a charity. If I give you dollars, all they're ending up is in your bonus and I'm at the bottom line of your organization.

I got to get something in return. And it just kind of flips the script. But I love the way that you word that. Like, I think that's awesome. And so that's been incredibly valuable. And as soon as the customer asks for things like, you know, a lot of your listeners probably have to deal with termination for convenience. And like that becomes super easy to overcome. And it's not, no, it's not our policy. It becomes, yeah, but you're not going to like it. Right. Because it represents no commitment. And so we'd have to change from our annual pricing to our month-to-month, which is 30% to 35% higher. If you want that and it's worth that to your organization, I'll gladly work on the proposal. But you have protections for warranty and termination for cause if we do suck.

Right. So you really need it. And it just goes away. Yeah. Like, my favorite one is end of quarter when you've rallied around, hey, we're going to get this deal done here by the end of August. And we're paying you in the form of a discount to help me forecast. And they call you and they're like, John, will you hold the price till Monday? I know it's September 3rd. They're on a long Labor Day weekend. They're not going to be able to get this thing done. But it'll be the first thing on their desk. Instead of saying yes or no, I advocate for playing that certainty card and saying, I don't know. What I do know is if you sign it here in August, that 5% exists. And let's talk about September and September.

Because the once you say yes, your deal just slipped to September. But once you said no, you've eroded trust. And in many cases, they have to go through a whole new approval process. Create the uncertainty. It drives them crazy. And when September comes around and they haven't signed, which actually turns out to be rare, you can deal with it then. Never say yes or no at the time. Play the certainty card. And again, all four of those levers together, when you play them right, you'll end up with more predictable deals that have tremendous value over what you would have done if you were just in the charity game. I love that. And I hope people listen to that as far as what you did on that whiteboard with the, here's the four levers we can pull.

And I understand what you're trying to get to. So let's figure out how we can both, you know, get to the point that we want where we feel comfortable about this. And those four levers, I would argue, are the same in any technology company. I agree. They're probably the same in your comp plan. You know, how big the deals are. You probably get paid faster when your company gets paid faster. You probably get paid more when they commit longer. And you probably have a quarterly or a monthly quota that you're trying to hit. And maybe there's some kind of little forecast bogey that you've got in there, too, for being accurate there. You play those levers right. It helps the company. It helps the customer roll their own deals.

And it helps you hit your target. Yeah. Now, do you advocate, just out of curiosity, like going back to transparency with negotiations, like margins, you know, like there's a lot. Like when people start negotiating, right, like really starting to heavy with me on pricing, there's been times where I've looked at them and I'd say, look, do you think I just made up my price, right? And they're like, excuse me? I'm like, let me ask you, what happens when your reps drop by 50%? When you built your company, is there like R&D involved? Is there commissions involved? Is there customer support involved in all those other things? Or is it just a number that you just made up? Because, you know, because I think part of me wants to like do that math equation on the board that says, look, let me tell you how much it costs me to do business with you.

And then if you don't agree that my margin should be at a certain level, then I'm not going to be a viable business to be here in the future. So how, I guess, I guess my question is, is like how transparent should you be? Like what's the limit of transparency here? Well, I believe that transparency begets transparency, meaning when we lead with transparency, the whole discussion becomes easier. From the first conversation that you have with a customer all the way to the point where you're negotiating the deal. And what I've found is when I first got started doing this, so the book came out, I had no preconceived notions as to what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. But it's turned into a speaking and training business.

And my first customers were like, how much do you charge? And I was just like, blah. Yeah. Just threw out a number. It, I found very quickly that the way I was delivering it was, I lacked confidence. And that second that I did that, it was their inkling and it was subconscious on their behalf that they're like, pound. Now I walk in and I'm just like, hey, listen, here's my pricing model. Here's the levers. Roll your own deal. And if this doesn't work, like, again, to your point about when you've got a full pipeline, that makes a big difference and it helps you with your confidence. Like for me, things are flying right now, right? So I can go in and go, listen, if this doesn't work for you, the only thing I have in inventory to sell is my time, right?

It's, and like, to your point about being away from your daughter, same way with my kids, I've got a limited number of inventory and I've got to maximize the value of that while I can. And so deliver it with confidence and that transparency need goes away. Well, I think that it's funny because I tell kids all the time, like one of the things that, you know, I love sales for a lot of reasons. I think one of my favorite things is you can literally practice sales everywhere you go, like everywhere you go. Like when I, and people have heard me say this plenty of times, when I go to a, when I go to a hotel, the first thing I do is I ask, hey, what's your occupancy rate? Just out of curiosity. And they'll say, excuse me?

I'm like, you know, do you, you know, you guys filled up tonight? And they'll be like, well, no. I go, cool. So you got some suites going on upstairs that are going unused and stuff like that. And they'll be like, yeah, I'll be great. Could you just mean a favor and put me in one of those? Right. And, and it's an awkward question, right? Cause it's like, and they'll usually say, uh, sure, Mr. Barrows, that'll be an extra 150. And I'll be like, whoa, hold still. I'm sorry. I didn't want to pay for it. You have unused rooms going upstairs that, that I, you know, I'm only in town for a night. I could, I could go over there next time. You know what I mean? Like, and then inevitably, and like, what's the reason I do that is not because I give a shit about the upgrade.

Right. The reason I do that is to build my confidence, to ask seemingly awkward questions in harmless situations. So when it means asking money to put, you know, asking the hard question to put money in my pocket, I'm that much more confident in delivering it. And, and the other analogy I have here is, and you have kids and how old are your kids again? Six and eight. So then I've got a stepdaughter who's 14. So right in the heart of teenagers, I'm actually going to send you, uh, I want your address after this. Cause I want to, I can't wait. Yeah. Um, but one of the other things I always, I always, when I'm doing my trainings, I'll ask who in here has kids, right? Whatever your reaction to a kid makes all the difference in the world.

Right. So my daughter, she's eight now, but like, say she's three or four and she's running around the house. Right. And all of a sudden she smashes into something and hurts herself. There's two reactions you can have. One of them is my wife's reaction, which is she goes over, she swoops her up. She puts her on her shoulder. She gives her a big hug. And what does my daughter do? And she starts crying and like, oh, like, and all of a sudden it's, it's, you know, snuggles and cookies and ice cream and everything. Right. Now when I'm around and my daughter's running around the house and smashes into something, I'm like, nice. You know what I mean? Or sick. Exactly. And she kind of gets up and you can tell like that hurt.

Right. She's giving you that look like, holy shit. Like, Ooh, but she's looking at me and I'm like, nice work. That's good work. And she's like, okay, apparently it didn't hurt. It's the same thing with pricing. It cracks me up with pricing when a rep, when, when say something's $10,000. Okay. And when, when, when you're asked, what is the price? The answer should be $10,000. Right. And I should then wait for you to say, holy shit, that's way more expensive than I was expecting. And now I'll deal with the objection. But when you ask 90% of reps, how much something is, it's never $10,000. It's always, well, it's 10,000, but it really depends on da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Right. Now my new, I might've been your, I might've been talking to your competition.

I heard 20,000, I heard 30,000 and I heard 10 from you. And I was like, holy shit, that's actually pretty reasonable. But as soon as the word, but comes out of your mouth, I ain't paying 10 grand anymore. Right. You know what I mean? Exactly. Exactly. So how do you give reps confidence? So here's, here's a question for you as it relates to that. Big five pipeline gives you confidence. I, I fundamentally do not believe in the fake it till you make it mentality. I, I, cause that goes against transparency. Yes. So how does a kid who's constantly getting beaten up on price, um, how do they build that confidence to, to, to, to not falter when it comes to when they're presenting, when they do feel like their shit's expensive?

Yeah. I mean, it's, um, it's basically, it was funny when I took over at power reviews, there was seven reps there at the time, um, that my CEO had from a previous business. Long story. They were all really young. Yeah. And so the first thing I did is I got them in the conference room. I taught them the four levers and then I taught them the language to use when they first deliver pricing, how it should look in the proposal. And then when the negotiation event happens, because obviously negotiations, a process that begins from the first conversation that you have, um, you know, how do you play each one of those? And it's basically just giving them the language that the, but becomes get rid of that.

And it becomes the four levers. So, Hey, listen, our pricing is $10,000 and it's based on the, on this X amount of volume you paying annually upfront. You're committing to two years and us getting this thing signed in a timely manner. And like those become your levers that becomes your butt. So if you're not confident in it, you can throw those things out there. And all of a sudden your customers will know that if they're going to negotiate, those are the four ways they're going to do it. That whatever came after your butt goes out there. And all of a sudden these, these reps, I, it was funny cause we were in an open floor plan. Right. And so one of the reps, two days later was on the phone.

And as he's delivering the pricing thing, he snaps. So we all look at him. He's like, listen, listen, listen. And then he delivered it like a mania. Like it was awesome. Nice. And, um, he was like, then we were all kind of soft clapping. And then, um, apparently the customer asked for termination for convenience. And so he snapped again and then he, he gets on the phone and he's just like, you can have it, but you're not going to like it. We're just like, Oh dude, you, you didn't deliver that quite right. But, but, you know, suddenly you just give them a framework. Nobody's teaching a simple framework for how you deliver the pricing and how you negotiate. And I'm hoping that, I mean, literally, uh, this used to be called at exact target, the Todd Capone's famous 20 minute negotiation skills class.

Cause it should take that long to get it and to be able to deliver it and deliver it with confidence. I love it. And I think a lot of that is, is, I mean, you hit on something that I, I strive for, which is a framework, not exactly what to say, not because the way you're going to deliver that is going to be different than the way I deliver that. But here's the structure of how you should negotiate and set the stage for ultimately what you're trying to accomplish. Absolutely. Do you go in with options? So, so I've always kind of, one of the things I've, I, I talk to kids about is, is make sure, you know, you walk away line, right? Make sure, you know, you walk away line. But the problem with that is, is that it's not necessarily one thing, right?

So if you watch shark tank, yeah, it'd be one thing. If it was like 50, they wanted a 20% and you know, you wanted to give them 20% for $200,000. They wanted 50%. Your walk away line was 30% and fuck off. Right. So see you later. But it's another thing when they start talking about, well, what if we structured the deal like this, where it was a certain amount of debt and it did this and it did that, and then you got this and I got this, right? So that, I think that's what like really good negotiators on the client side who come up with these really creative, right? Should you as a sales rep walk in with kind of what, two, three, four options of, of, of what you would agree to? And then if it goes past any of those, then you walk away type of stuff, like how, how would you coach somebody or does your framework pretty much address that with those four levers?

I feel like the framework kind of attacks that, that, Hey, this is what it's based on. These are the four things that move either way. And if you want to push a lever, for example, we're asking you to pay annually and you want to pay quarterly. Well, you can do it, but the pricing needs to change. And so that creative finance person or creative buyer, if they're going to be pushing these levers, if you've got that framework, your pricing can change based on it. As long as you're confident, you hold to it. And you don't, again, when I say ping pong, I've, I've heard people that will negotiate based on volume and they're like, well, that's not going to work. All right. Well, there's timing of cash.

And then you go back and forth. Oh, well, what about length of commitment? You got to put them all out there and that becomes the ability for the buyer or the procurement person to get creative and your framework, you know, sets it all up. Like giving options. I don't know. Like I, when I think about, I think about my kids, like the more options you have, the harder it is to buy, in my opinion. Like I remember taking my kids to Toys R Us as they were going out of business. And they were like, couldn't, like they were so excited pulling into the parking lot on the way home. They were literally each had a toy on their lap and they were both crying. And it was like this fear of missing out thing where they wanted everything.

They had too many options. My wife finally was just like, you're either getting this or this. And like, otherwise we're going to be here forever. They picked one and then they felt like they missed out on something on the way home. I don't know. I just like be prescriptive, be the buyer Sherpa, right? Well, I, and I couldn't agree with that more in the sense that that's where, that's where the buyer has confidence in you as a seller. Yes. Because if you're like anything and everything, I mean, I, I, I tell a story about my backyard. Like the first time we were trying, like we bought our house and we had our backyard was empty. Right. So we were looking to, you know, build a little kitchen and all that other stuff.

And, and I remember the woman that was working with us, she said she could do everything. She was like, I was like, oh, well, we want a patio. And she's like, oh yeah, I can do that. I was like, okay. And I was like, I think we want to like an outdoor kitchen. Oh, I can do that. I'm like, okay. So you're a Mason too. Oh, and we want this pergola thing, you know? And she's like, oh, I can do that. And I'm like, okay, so you're also a carpenter. Interesting. And what she did was she sent me down to the brickyard and she said, go pick out, go pick out the tiles. And I'm like, okay. And have you ever been to a brickyard with like tile stone? No, but I'm thinking I had the same story buying carpet for my basement.

Right. So I mean, just rows and rows of tiles and shit like that. And I don't know. I'm not a geologist. I have no idea. So I wander the halls and I'm like, uh, okay, I guess this. Right. And then I guess, and I felt so uncomfortable with the whole process. Cause I'm not the expert at this. And I had, thankfully I had a buddy who's a Mason and he's like, and I was like, could you look at what she's proposing here? And he was like, no, no, no. Oh my God, don't do that. He goes, go talk to my guys over here. He's like, they're a little bit more expensive, but they'll walk you through the process. And I remember walking in and this guy was like, all right, what do you want to build? And I was like, well, I kind of want this.

He's like, okay, uh, patio. He was like, here's the three choices. You can have that one, that one, or that one. And this is why you would have that one. This is why you would have that one. And that was, and this one's this price. And he's like, I was like, oh, that he's like, now you want to build a kitchen. All right. What's the countertop? You have this or this. And I was like that, what do you want to build that or that? And I ended up spending probably twice as much money as I would have spent otherwise. But I was so comfortable making that decision. Cause they, it was blatantly obvious that they were experts in this field. And that's what I think we have to do for our clients. And that's kind of challenger sale ask, right?

Exactly. You make this decision once a year. I help people make this every day. Let me show you where they make bad decisions and good decisions, right? Exactly. That's awesome. Yeah. So I think that the confidence of, so to circle back on just the options, don't give too many because then it's analysis paralysis and it unravels, right? You think you might be doing them a favor by giving them a thousand options. That's actually doing them a disservice and probably going to lose you the deal. 100%. 100%. Yeah. So one more topic, cause I like, I could talk about this forever with you is, is like, so let's talk about that qualification. Okay. So forget about prospecting for a second. Cause I think that's too nuanced.

I think now I have that call set up with a client. They've kind of agreed that, you know, looks like a duck smells like a duck. We're in the right range here of your offering. How do you literally disarm somebody up front in a qualification call? Well, I think that, um, in your positioning, you know, again, when you go out and you own what, uh, your flaws are and what they're going to find when they look because of this proliferation of reviews and feedback and everything, um, especially in the B2B world, I, I believe it's happening much more in the qualification than it is in your prospecting. Like, I don't think you prospect and go, here's how we suck. Like I, um, my, my prospecting advice is very simple.

Um, and then, you know, first of all, go to Jay Barrows, uh, you know, cause I'm like, I don't teach prospecting, but what I do want people to understand is as a, uh, the person that's a buyer that you're prospecting into gets higher in their career, the volume of calls and emails they get goes, grows exponentially. Like it's two X for every promotion. Um, I used to get a hundred to 150 emails per day. And I just, I want to encourage everybody to understand that the number of emails you get as a sales rep every day is by no means the number of emails that the CRO gets. If you start, like you've got to empathize with that, like, please. And I mentioned you in the book, John, around context, because that context is what matters.

Right. Uh, but the second piece of that is you've got to think beyond the subject line. Like I was always taught that the subject line is what gets opened in your emails. Every email, the user interface I have on my phone, Gmail outlook has a preview of 10 words. Are you optimizing for that? And my argument is almost nobody is optimizing for those first 10 words. If you start with I or we, you're going to get an instant delete. It could be, you could be offering me a million dollars for free. I'm never going to open your email if it starts with I and we. So you've got to be personalized and valuable with context in those first 10 words and empathize with the fact that these executives you're prospecting into are getting 150 emails a day.

You've got to stand out because we can't open all of them. We love you. I know you're offering value, but you just can't. Um, so that's like, that's the, my prospecting advice and kind of the end of it, uh, with the qualification, like, I think that's when you, you own up to, um, and I'll give you a kind of a crazy idea or crazy, um, analogy, but I always refer to this as being, uh, kind of how things happen in reality makeover TV shows where in a reality makeover TV show, think like queer eye or restaurant impossible or biggest loser. It's not like, like in biggest loser, they were going down the street going, you need to be on the show. Those people raised their hand and very similar in a selling environment.

The customer is inviting you in. Yeah. And, um, and so when you walk in, there's a couple of things that happen. Um, you know, one of them, there's a whole disarming that happens in, in queer eye, for example, where these guys, they have a little connection. They talk about like, Hey, why did you bring us in here? What do you think are the problems? They become themselves. They become very true to themselves and the show they're running around. They're trying to close. This participant is immediately like, all right, I know who these guys are. And then they immediately go into, Hey, did you realize that this little problem that you had is actually worse than you thought it was? Um, like this guy, Tom Jackson, on the first episode of queer eye, he's got like rosacea.

He wears red clothes and he doesn't use any lotion on his skin. Right. And so these guys immediately were like, Hey, the red clothes you're wearing is making that look brighter. And the soap you're using is actually exacerbating the problem. Did you realize that? He's like, no, no. And then there was another problem with his lazy boy and another problem with the redneck margaritas that he drank out on his patio, which are, uh, it's a tequila and Mountain Dew. Um, like what that's doing to his health. Like all of a sudden this guy is all in right. In every reality makeover show, they start with a problem. They quickly recognize that the problem is worse than they thought it was. They're connected to these people that are bringing them through the journey through the way they disarm themselves.

And they're all in. And at the end of the episodes, uh, they're crying and they have done, and that's what you want buyers to do, right? Exactly what you want buyers to do. They recognize they have a problem. They've invited you in. You disarm by being honest, but being authentic, by being transparent, you teach them a little bit about their current state that maybe it's worse than they thought it was back it up with logic and emotion and feeling and reward. And they're in with you and they'll go on the journey. And that's how you build that Sherpa type environment. And I think, uh, you know, it's interesting. Uh, I tell reps, you know, outside of prospecting, one of the things we can all get better at throughout our entire career and how senior you are is asking better questions.

Because the type of questions you ask, you don't have to tell somebody they have a problem. If you tell somebody they have a problem, they're going to push you away. Right. Like for instance, I always tell reps when you're making cold calls, don't you dare tell me you can help me do shit. You don't know that yet, right? We can help you fix your problems. You don't know me yet. So my, my defenses immediately go up when I hear a sales rep saying they can help me. Now, what they can say though, is they've helped other people like me, right. And help me associate with that stuff. And they can ask me some questions to uncover like, holy shit, it's a little worse than I thought it was. Right. And then give an opinion of where things are going and get me to go, oh shit.

All right. Maybe. All right. Cool. Yes. And I, I go back to some of that gong data. It's funny. People use case studies. Um, I think they misuse case studies, right. Because we all focus on the outcome, right. We all focus on, Hey, look at how beautiful it can be. But unless I relate to the before, I'm never going to relate to the after. 100%. Make that beautiful example of, if you go to like the company who does this, the best is, um, uh, alcohol, alcoholics anonymous. When they say, look, when you go to alcoholics anonymous, my website, you don't see, Hey, I'm 12 years sober and I have a great family now and I'm successful in my career. You don't see that. You see somebody sitting up there saying it started with one drink.

And then I was going to the bar every day after work. And then I was missing my kids basketball games. And then I was doing this and it's like, it smacks you. And it's like, shit, man, that's me. And I, and this kind of goes back to the Chris Voss thing, which is interesting in negotiations, right? You never want somebody to say you're right. You want somebody to say that's right. Yeah. Cause if you can articulate somebody's problem better than they can, you got them. Yeah. Right. So somebody is having a hard time. And usually most people are like, unless they are very succinct, like, nope, we know we have this problem. We have to fix it. Most people, like you said, understand they have a problem.

They might not understand the extent or the real severity of that problem. And, and usually they have a hard time articulating what it is. So after you ask a few questions and then you kind of rephrase it back to them. So let me show, I heard you right. This is kind of where you guys are. And if you can get them to say that's right, you're in. Yeah. Yeah. You can paint that picture of where you're going to take them, but you got to get them here first, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's funny though. I, I think if your technology is a consumer facing, meaning like an exact target, we were selling one-to-one marketing, like email marketing, go to a company's website. Even if you're at the low end, you're doing high velocity deals, go to their website, sign up for their emails, see the first email that you get, um, uh, you know, go and put something in a shopping cart and then leave and see what happens at power reviews.

We'd go and look at the review display and, and just take a, and we give each rep five things that they would look for. And in their cold calls and their first calls, they would say, Hey, listen, um, you've got a great environment. Like I've interacted with you. Like it's like to be a consumer. I had a couple of suggestions for you. Can we start there? And like, you frame it as a positive, as coaching, as consulting, and they're like, yeah, free consulting. And all of a sudden you're in. So if you've got that advantage of being a technology that you can actually see how it's working for them, you've got an opportunity to be more of a consultant and lead with that, uh, versus needing to ask a bunch of questions.

Well, so if you heard about this, you said design thinking, yeah, right. Design, right. So there's, uh, Ashley who, um, Somersault Innovations, they actually do design thinking and sales. And that's really, it's like the true empathetic sale in the sense that they say, look, if you want to sell to Walmart, go to Walmart, walk the floors, sign up for their newsletter, buy a product, go through the self checkout, see how, what coupons you get, right. Uh, talk to the employees, that type of shit. And then build, uh, a kind of a, a hypothesis about, Hey, here's what I know about you based on my experience. And here's how I think we can make it better. Right. And if you really genuinely are able to do that now, we kind of, we slimmed that way down from a prospecting standpoint to say, just go to their fucking website and see if you can find something that you can make a connection to, like three things to look for.

Right. Right. Exactly. Like you said, like I tell people, I'll pick five things that, you know, your company can add value to. Yeah. And these are the triggers that, you know, but, but real things, you know, like they, they, they, you know, their signup page on their website or their content on their website shitty, or, you know, they're, you know, whatever they're growing really fast. So they just went, whatever those things are, and then come up with your message around those about how you can help with that and then start making your outwards. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that just makes you smarter, makes you a better seller, makes you an asset to the person you're prospecting into. Awesome, man.

Well, let's look, I'm definitely going to read this book, but I would like to have more conversations with you about this. Let's do this just so that everybody can kind of follow you. Cause I love what you're doing. Um, and I love where you're going with this, tell people about how they can find out more about you, uh, where they can find the book, all that other stuff. I mean, Amazon's the obvious one, but again, it's the transparency sale. And then, and, and what can you help with? Like, what are you doing now? Like with those keynotes and those things, like where do you fit? What's your product market fit? Yeah, that's a great question. So yeah, uh, book is available anywhere books are sold.

Um, I, if you, uh, need some help going to sleep at night, the sultry sounds of Todd Caponi narrating his own audio book on every, so I actually narrated my own, which is nice experience. Uh, like that could be another conversation all in its own, right? Um, but yeah, I mean, uh, transparency sale.com I've got a blog that I do there, but I think more of the content I've been putting out has been on LinkedIn. I just found that that's much more engaging. Um, so follow me on LinkedIn or, um, you know, connect with me there and at least put a little, give me an understanding as to why you're connecting. I see you posting about that all the time. The people that give you a connection request, you hit accept it.

And then they're like, here's why I'm awesome for your company and your big team. I'm like, I'm doing this on my own now. Right. Um, so there's that, um, as far as the, the talks and the training, um, there's really a couple of things I've been doing. And, uh, number one is obviously I'm trying to spread the good word of transparency. Uh, when I give a talk, it's usually 15 minutes of philosophy and then it's getting into the details. How do you apply it to prospecting, presenting, um, positioning, negotiating, even customer success and marketing. Um, so lots of that around the talks that I give the training, the specific workshops have been around, how do you implement this in an organization?

So how do you figure it out? How do you get your messaging? Right. The second one is this presentation choreography, which is follows a reality makeover TV shows. So it's fun, but it, uh, not only it, it spends more time teaching you how to tell your customer how great they can be instead of how great you are. And then the third one that I spend a lot of time on, and again, it's an hour and a half class. It's not two and a half days is this transparent negotiation, figure out your levers, help you implement it, get the language right, address the eight or nine things that come up in every negotiation. And we customize those to yours because every company gets little different ones. And so I'm just doing a lot of yapping, a lot of nonsense sharing and, uh, doing a lot of training too.

So yeah, transparency sale.com is the way to go. Love it. Yeah. I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say nonsense, man. Thank you. And, and like I said, you know, I think I, like I said, I think it's sad that authenticity is a competitive advantage these days, but shit, man, if that's what I got, that's what I got. And, and I, and I hope, I hope more people, uh, jump on that train. Well, the train's coming. I mean, it's, we've entered this era where the brain science tells us that we need to do it now, but the proliferation of reviews and feedback are telling us that that train's coming anyway. And I think now is the time to embrace it. Yeah. You're not gonna be able to hide from it. Exactly. I mean, with the amount of insight that people have these days and how quickly they can find out information about stuff.

If you're, if you're a douchebag, you're a douchebag. Exactly. The whole world will know it. All right. Well, Todd, this has been awesome talking to you. I really appreciate it. Hopefully you all got some value out of this, um, like I did. And, uh, like I say, always, um, you know, if you do nothing else today, go out there and make somebody happy. Go make somebody smile. Cause even if you had a shitty day, if you can make somebody smile, you had a great day. So thanks Todd. And thanks everybody for listening and make it a great day. All right. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.