120: Future Proofing Your Sales Career With Anita Nielsen

Thank you to our sponsors LeadIQ, Costello, SalesLoft, WorkRamp, and Dialpad for helping us produce this podcast. Head over to jbarrows.com slash blog for the highlights of this episode and explore resources you can use right away. Let's make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows. Make it happen Mondays. Hopefully you had a fantastic weekend. I actually had a great weekend. It was the first kickoff of the NFL. And my Patriots kicked the shit out of the Pittsburgh Steelers. So I'm a happy man about that. But I'm even happier to be having this conversation because I talk about this stuff a lot as far as the evolution of sales and where sales reps are going and everything like that.

And this woman actually wrote a book about it. So Anita Nielsen, you want to introduce yourself to the crew and tell her what you're up to these days? Yeah, sure. So Anita Nielsen, I am most recently, as you mentioned, author of a book called Beat the Box, How Your Humanity Can Future Proof Your Tech Sales Career. Prior to that, I've been a B2B sales consultant and sales support, direct sales for over 20 years. Don't do the math in your head. And I've really just been a friend of salespeople for a very long time. And this book is what I'm working on right now to help make sure that the message on how to beat the bots gets out there. Yeah. And I think this is, I mean, it's such a natural conversation, right?

I mean, I've seen, and first of all, thank you for all the support on social and everything as far as commenting on a lot of links. You know, and I think we share a very similar mindset here and also concern, right? I mean, I start off every single one of my presentations and I still do it, you know, death of the average sales rep. And I talk about how the average sales reps, the ones who are going through the motions, pushing play on all these cadences and making generic cold calls and asking banned questions and demos and stuff like that. They're getting erased by technology. But I think a lot of people misconstrue that because they hear a lot of statistics out there by, you know, the year 2050 or 2020, there's going to be, you know, everybody's going to be out of a job.

And I think that's bullshit because I think the above average and great sales rep, there's always going to be a place for that. So first of all, let's talk about why, what drove you to write the book? And then what were the, what are the, what are some of the main things about this book? Because what I ultimately want to get to with this conversation is what can we do? Very tactically as sales reps, what can we do today to prevent obsolescence tomorrow? Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. So I think with this book, you know, one of the main reasons I wrote it was because I would get lots of sales reps coming up to me after I did my training classes or did my coaching. And they would say things like, dude, when are you going to write a book?

Dude, you need to write a book. Right. So that was always in the back of my mind. But then what ended up happening was I met with one of the salespeople that I coached. And we actually went into a customer meeting. I'm an embedded coach. So sometimes I do ride alongs and I get to go in and sit with my customers and clients and it wasn't a great meeting. Right. So out of it and we had, you know, we're starting to talk about it, debrief and, you know, see what we could have done better, what he could have done better. And then as the drink started flowing, you know, more and more came out. So he was talking about, I call him Neil. He was talking about how, you know, for the first time in his life, he felt like his wife was going to have to go back to work as a teacher and not be able to stay home with their kids or that his kids may not be able to go to the private school that they've been going to.

And so for me, and I joke about it, but it's true. I have a wacky empathy sensor. Right. In my brain, it just starts to go haywire. Like, damn, this is this is affecting people right now. Right. Like if they can't get ahead of this, you know, he was afraid what's going to happen. Somebody else can do my job. So that's where it came from. At that point, I just realized, you know what, just do it. You got to do it. You got to write something and do your part. And so that's where the book came from. Can I ask you on that empathy? Because I think the same thing, you know, you hear all the time EQ over IQ and how important it is. And I genuinely believe it. And I've always said I'm way higher on the EQ scale than I am the IQ scale.

Like I did OK in college, but I had to work my ass off just to get like, you know, B plus, A minus type of stuff. Right. But I've always had that innate ability to like just just I feel like just read people. You know what I mean? And kind of even in a crowd of four or five, six different people, I can pick up on when somebody's feeling not part of the conversation. So I directed towards them or whatever. And it's just this is this almost like a spidey sense. I do think that there's a certain nature, nurture part of this. I think it's a lot of nature. I think a lot of us, you know, have that empathy. Can you can you teach empathy? Can you can you learn empathy? Yeah, I think that's a that's a great age old question.

And it depends on the day which side of the fence I'm on. But I think in general, I think empathy is something that's a gift. If you're born with it, that's phenomenal. And it'll just serve you well throughout your life. However, if you're not born with that gift, it doesn't mean that you can't learn how to mimic what somebody who is given that gift does. So, you know, it really boils down to being able to think about the world and the perspective of the person that you're speaking with. And as you can train yourself to listen for certain things, you can train yourself to look at body language and, you know, listen to speech patterns. If you really want to do it, there's a lot of ways to do it.

It's not easy. And so I think the people that are gifted with the empathy, it's a shame if they don't use it. And the people who don't have it, it's a shame if they don't work on it because it is going to serve them really well. Yeah, so I write, you know, my weekly blog these days, and it's really just top of mind stuff. And one of the things I've talked to Morgan a lot about on my, you know, on my team, he's, I say to him, look, don't make the mistake I made earlier in my career as a, you know, in terms of getting upset with people if they're not responding to you. First and foremost, lead with empathy, right? You have no idea what's going on on the other side. Like, again, that person's kid could be sick.

I mean, I can't tell you, it's happened to be a handful of times where I've gotten stuck in my own little world about I got to hit my targets, you told me this, and blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden, somebody straight up ghosted me, and I've gotten ornery about it. You know what I mean? And I've sent that fuck you email, basically. That's right. You know what I mean? Like, hey, asshole, you said you're going to do all this stuff, and now you ghosted me. What the fuck? Yeah. And inevitably, like, when I take that harsh, and I haven't done it in years, thank God. But, you know, inevitably, when I used to do that, it was somebody who was literally in the hospital. Somebody had just died.

And I just sit there, and I'm like, oh, my God. Like, what a jackass am I? Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm not the surgeon here. I'm not the one, you know, like, I'm a sales rep trying to get somebody to respond to me. Like, yeah. So that's why I almost, you know, small nugget here, you know, I tell people, anytime you're trying to get out to somebody that hasn't responded, you start with, I haven't heard back from you in a few days, or whatever it is. I hope everything's okay. That's right. And then go into, you know, effectively what you, but you had said, da-da-da-da-da, so I just wanted to make sure we're on the same track here, right? So, but start with that empathy, because otherwise, you know, you could get yourself in a tough spot and really, you know, offend a lot of people without really knowing it, right?

Yeah, and you're just making an assumption that, you know, that they're ghosting you. It may not even be that. Like, it may just be that there's something else going on. And by and large, I think that's what happens. So one of the things that you, I mean, you always talk about having that pipeline, right? Making sure you're getting the calls and having that big pipeline. So I think the bigger your pipeline, the less you have to stress out about those types of things. So back to your own advice, right? I think that that makes it easier to not react. But, you know, when you do react, you have to do it from a place of empathy. Yeah. So let's talk about, so with that, with a kind of a baseline of being conscious of empathy.

And if you don't have it, work on it. And by the way, for those people that don't know whether they have empathy or not, like, is it as simple as maybe asking their friends and family around them, hey, am I an empathetic person? Because I think a lot of people think they might be, but they're not, or don't even know if they are or not. Like, would that be a good step is just straight up asking people around you, like, hey, would you consider me empathetic? Yeah, absolutely. As long as, you know, you trust that they're going to be candid with you and tell you the truth. I mean, in business, though, one of the things that I love is the 360 assessments, like the benchmark assessments. And I found they've been really helpful to help people just see how other people see them.

And since they're anonymous, it makes it easier for people to give their feedback. But you got to start somewhere. So start by asking the people closest to you, see if that's something they see in you. Very cool. So let's build on that. So now, like, to the kind of the title of your book, like, you know, how to future-proof or what is it? How your humanity can future-proof your tech sales career. So where do we start, right? So we'll first of all talk about that in general as it relates as a concept. And let's talk about some specifics here about how we can start to introduce that. Yeah, sure. So do you want me to start? Yeah, yeah, please. Okay. So the book, what I try to do in there is talk about this idea that until, like you always say, robots are buying from robots, we have a chance.

There's not, we're not going to be obsolete. As sales professionals, we're not going to disappear into thin air. And, you know, that's something that's been, there's been a lot of nervous hand-wringing about it out there. By 2020, X million jobs are going to be gone because of AI and machine learning, et cetera, et cetera. It's a real fear. It's a valid fear. The challenge is that when you look at it on face value, it's scary. But behind that, the reality is that, you know, if you are a sales professional who does already look at things in complex way, like if you're looking at more complex sales, but not transactional type stuff, your opportunity to differentiate actually has gotten bigger.

And the example I love to give is, you know, how, when you are getting ready to call the airline, for example, and you get the automated bot on the phone. I mean, I'm pretty sure all of us have at one point or another said representative, agent, representative, because we. Every time, literally every time. Yeah. And I also heard, by the way, side note, that if you swear at it, like F you a few times, it'll automatically take you to an agent. So haven't tried it, but that's the rumor. That's the rumor. Yeah. I mean, that's what we do. So human beings, we want to connect. We want to talk to humans. And that hasn't changed yet. So as long as humans are buying for humans and there's room for deep thought in the buying process and having to do considerations and emotions and all those things, we have a chance.

And that's what the book is really about. Like, let's play up those things that make you human. Empathy, for example. You know, your ability to be curious. Those things that computers and bots can't do, let's focus on those. And you'll be amazed at how great you can be in your craft when you do that. Yeah. So here's, so let's talk tactically. Like, let's talk prospecting. I was at a Rate My Pitch last week, right? So Lead IQ, we got in there, did a Rate My Pitch and threw a couple of emails up there. And the whole idea, people were submitting emails and we were critiquing them. So kudos to these reps for sending in emails that were going to go up on a big screen and be shredded, right? And one of them, you know, I felt a little bad, but I was trying to get across the message.

There's empathy and then there's kind of fake empathy or there's personalization and then there's personalization that doesn't matter, right? So for instance, like to some, one of the emails was to somebody that this kid didn't know. It wasn't a relationship. And it started with, hey, how was your summer? And then it went into like, well, mine was pretty good and da, da, da, da. And now, so that, okay, lead with empathy, like, you know, that to a certain degree is you're trying to make a personal connection there. But I told the kid, I go, look, that's fake because you don't know me. And for you to come at me, the first thing that you say to me that with somebody that I've never met before is how was your summer?

Like, no, don't do that. You know, maybe reference, John, now that the summer's over, you know, da, da, da, da. I know you're probably back in the grind trying to get ready to close up the year strong here. Hopefully it was a, hopefully. And then instead of asking how was your summer, maybe I hope you had a good summer. But even as a buyer, somebody who's never, like, I look at that and I'm like, maybe as a second, third, fifth, you know, after you and I have talked and reaching out three months later, but as a first one. So what's the line of, let's talk personalization instead of empathy, because I think they translate. But what's that line of personalization when you're reaching out to people?

So I talk about there's, you know, personalization and there's being creepy. Yeah, totally. Yeah. The personalization is when you've actually taken information. So you've gone in and you've done a great discovery. You've been a much better listener than you have been a talker. You've learned a lot of things about that customer, not necessarily just in their role, but, you know, as a human, what are they trying to achieve? Are they trying to become a CEO? Are they trying to go out and get an MBA? Whatever that looks like. So you've learned them. And then now if you go back to them and say, hey, listen, I know a dean at Northwestern University. I'd love to introduce you to him. Now you've got ding, ding, ding.

Now you've got their attention. And you didn't do it to be creepy. They talked to you about it. They told you about it. Now, flip side, if you had the same scenario and you had no idea other than the fact that they liked a couple things about MBAs online and you sent a note out to them saying, hey, I know someone that I can connect you with. Right. Creepy, right? Like that over the line. So the thing that makes it creepy is when you actually haven't earned the right and you don't know the information that you need. And it's a fine line, but I think the way that I encourage reps is the more you learn about them, always take what you've learned as a guide. Don't go outside of that because if they haven't given you the information, you don't have a right to go talk about it.

Yeah, it's kind of like a very, you know, small things. I always tell reps, don't you dare when you're reaching out to somebody, be very careful with the word help, right? Be very careful with the word help. Don't ever tell me that you can help me when you don't know me. After you understand and qualify me and understand, then I want to understand how you can help me. But until then, don't you dare tell me you can help me because my defenses immediately go up when somebody says, John, I can help you with your conversion ratios. I can help you with this. And, but what you can say is, look, we've helped other people like you. You know what I mean? Like there's that transition. So, but you hit on something a little bit earlier, which you just said there, which I'm curious about how your approach here.

Because I genuinely believe that in, you know, individual motivators are something I kind of tell reps, you know, the higher you go on the food chain, as far as the decision makers, if you will, executive C levels, the more business oriented you need to be as far as future growth. The lower you get, the more personal you have to be as far as what is driving that person. Right. And so I do that by asking like, you know, hey, how do I make you look good? Right. Like if I'm, if I'm low on the, you know, throughout this process here, you know, how do ultimately I make you look good? Right. Because that puts them on my side. But, but I love the idea of trying to figure out what that person's trying to get to next.

Like they're trying to get to promoted. They're trying to get this. But how do you do that without, without it coming across as creepy? Uh, you know what I mean? Like, how do I understand? So you, Anita, like if I'm prospecting to you right now and you and I are having this conversation, I mean, I'd love to say what's next for you in your career and how can I help you get there? But that, I think that comes off across a little weird, doesn't it? Too soon. Right. So again, back to the discovery. So you get there, you earn the right. So as they start to share more, as you start to feel that trust and that comfort and you'll see it. I mean, you'll, it's something that you can feel, even if you don't have empathy, you'll be able to feel the fact that they're opening up to you more.

When that starts to happen, that's when you'll be able to ask that question. And it doesn't happen in the first meeting. Of course. It happens in the second, third, fourth meeting. But the trick is once you get to that point where you've earned the right to ask that question, if they share it with you, now you've got a customer for life. As long as you deliver on helping them on whatever they reveal to you is what they need to do, that person's going to follow you if you are trustworthy enough and you do go deliver on that. Or alternatively, if you're honest and be like, that's not something I can help with, but here's what I can help you with. Right. So, you know, authenticity, it's the whole purpose of authenticity is it's real.

Like it can't be something that you read a script. This is where I go bananas. Right. People will have this script and it's supposed to be something that makes them sound authentic. No. That's the exact opposite. Freaking script is not authentic, right? Yeah. So, yeah, so that's kind of the way I look at it. You have to earn the right and you do that by making and keeping small commitments, right? Asking the right questions, showing them that you care about them and their interests. One of the examples I like to give is, you know, if you're working with a prospect and it's like you've had the first meeting with them and then you go out online and you're looking and you see some report that looked really interesting and was pertinent to what you guys have been talking about earlier.

Well, take it, take that PDF, download it, put your little email in. Email in, go in there and use the highlight function. Highlight a couple of things and send them a note. Say, hey, after we talked, I came across this and I just highlighted a couple of the points I thought you might find interesting. Love it. I mean, that's awesome. That's what they want. It's cutting through the noise for them. Yeah. I mean, I remember, you know, this kid I was doing a training for or I was doing a call blitz and this kid came out and he's like, hey, John, I need your help with something. He's like, I just did a campaign and I didn't get any responses. And I would love to get your feedback on what you thought I could have done better.

I was like, sure. And his campaign was he sent books, like 25 books, FedEx the books to these executives, right? And I was like, all right, well, that's an expensive campaign. But I go first, my first question for you is, is was it part of a campaign or was it just did you send the book and call him up and say, did you read the book? Right. So and obviously that's what it was. Like you didn't tell a story with it, oddly enough. But the other question I had was, did you read the book? Exactly right. I'm afraid for you to tell me the answer. Obviously not. You know what I mean? He said no. And I said, I'm like, look, do you know how many books I have on my bookshelf that I haven't even cracked a binding on?

Like, I don't need some random ass sales rep writing, you know, sending me a book because there's something on sales. Like it just that actually kind of demeaned because now my wife's an environmental scientist and now I look at waste and I'm like, you just wasted a bunch of paper and a bunch of money and everything like that on something that was shot in the dark because you thought it was relevant to me. But what you said right there was the context is the key, right? It's like, why is that? Why do you think this is relevant to me? Why is that webinar important to me? Why is that case study important to me? And I do this very tactically for what I actually do is say this was and I even do this on a first call with people is towards the end.

And I've actually configured Salesforce to address this as well. I'll ask you at the end. Say you're like, you know what, John, this is a great call, but you know what? We're just not ready for your training yet. So why don't you touch base in three to six months? Typical, right? Yeah. I say, great. I need it. Hey, you know what? Look, I do a lot of kind of reading and upkeep on what's happening in this industry as far as social and, you know, artificial intelligence and all those things. Is there anything that if I come across that, whatever that topic is that you would get value out of? Like, is there anything top of mind stuff right now that you're trying to find or learn more about? And by the way, that not to do with Jay Barrows.

I'm just saying in general. And I'll preface it with social selling, artificial intelligence, those type of things. And they'll say, oh, yeah, well, you know what, John, if you come across anything on this or this or this, and then I've actually configured it into Salesforce under their contact. It says interests and there's checkboxes. That's it. And then I go into Feedly. And this is how I kind of hack the system, right? So now I go into Feedly and I follow and I create channels for all those things. And I follow all the thought leaders in those channels. And that's my morning paper. So when I read my morning paper, I'm reading things that I'm interested in, but also that my audience is interested in.

And then when I come across a kick-ass article that is relevant to that audience, I go into Salesforce, I run that list, and I send a nice little email like you just said. Hey, just read this article. Really cool. I remember you said three months ago this was something on top of your list. That's it. Right? Yeah, about them, right? Like, I think that's the part. So the person who did that book campaign, I mean, that's bananas just because of how much it cost them and how much it was. But, you know, you send out a book. The one thing you've wasted here in this equation is not just the paper. You wasted my time. Like, I opened that up and I'm looking at this going, what the hell am I supposed to do with this book?

Like, why is this here? What is this for? And by the way, I know I'm being sold. And so, you know, it's one of those things where you have to be thoughtful. If you make it about them, but genuinely, like you said, you listened and you learned their interest. And then you followed up on it, making, it's understanding them and then making and keeping the small commitments along the way. And that's how you get the trust. And trust is how you enter the realm of personalized value. A hundred percent. So I got one more example because you'll love this. And then I want to talk about how you do that at scale. Because I think if we all had our, you know, wish list, right, we would have an hour, two hours to be super personalized to every account.

But we just can't do that. So we hear personalization at scale and all that. So I want to talk to you about that. But I want to highlight one person because I think he deserves it. Do you know Scott McGregor over at Try Something New? I don't. So follow Scott McGregor over at Try Something New. He's got a book, Standing O, that he had me be a part of. But I honestly don't even remember how I got introduced to Scott. They try something new. They do recruiting. You know, so there's a million recruiting firms out there, whatever. And they all say they're special and they focus. But Scott, like, no joke. I remember back when my daughter was born, right? She was about two years old. I get a book in the mail.

So he's been following me on social and all this other stuff. And he knows I'm a huge Patriots fan. So the book was from, I forget who the author is. It wasn't Martellus Bennett. But it was a Patriot player who had written a children's book. And so this is the line of creepy versus, oh, my God, how thoughtful. Because this could have been very creepy. This could have crossed into the creepy world. But he sends me this book. And he says, John, I know your daughter's probably around two years old right now. So she's at the perfect age to be reading these type of books here. And I know Martellus Bennett or whatever. He just came out with this book. And I had him autograph it for you. Here you go.

Wow. Mind blown, right? I mean, literally. And it wasn't, I want to talk to you. I want to sell you something. It was like a genuine, holy shit thing. And it's not because, you know, now, look, if I had only talked about my daughter and being born on my Facebook page, my personal Facebook page, and he somehow found that out, I'd been like, dude, what the fuck? Yeah. You know what I mean? You're stalking me. That's weird. But I talk it on my blog. I talk it on, you know what I mean? So he used that. And to this day, Scott McGregor is the only person I ever recommend anybody when it comes to recruiting. Why would you recommend anybody else? Because he took the time to learn about you and understand what mattered to you, which then makes him matter to you.

Exactly. And I think that's, and I love that. And I think that what you said is so true. It's that thoughtful piece of it. You have to be thoughtful and you have to be deliberate about it. You can't, the line of creepy also ties back to intent. I think sometimes, you know, it's hard to translate intent when you get a package like that, but you can kind of read it in the words that they say, right? Like, you know, by the way, your daughter's this age now. I thought just that thought behind it and making it very real and matter to you, as opposed to just, Hey, I thought you might like this book. Heard you have a daughter. Yeah. But people do that. That's why we get names like slimy, sneaky, shady as sales professionals, right?

Because people are doing that out there. And there's always a hidden intent behind it. You know, and that's like that. And you're spot on with that. It's like, that's why, you know, the question I always cringe at when, when, you know, reps follow up from an inbound lead or whatever it is, Hey, I saw you download the white paper. You know, I'd like to talk to you about your 2020 priorities and how we can help achieve your goals. Like that is such a bullshit thinly veiled. Hey, I want to figure out what I can sell you. Like that's literally when you say to an, to a prospect these days, I want to understand. I understand that you think you might be genuine, but that is straight up. What I hear is you want to ask me a bunch of questions so you can figure out what the fuck you can sell me something and go from there.

And by the way, even if I don't have something, even if I don't have a need for what you're still going to probably try to cram something down my throat. That's literally what I hear. Exactly. So how can you do this at scale? Like again, going back to, you know, I run my own business. I can be very selective with who I go after. So I can be very empathetic and very personalized with my approach. Morgan doesn't have the reputation yet. So he has to do a little bit more of the grinding, but how do you suggest people, we start on this journey of, of time management as it relates to this stuff? Yeah, it's prioritization is what it boils down to, right? So you have to take a look and see how much time each week do I invest in getting personal with my customers versus how much time am I doing the grind?

And it's tough. And the challenge is that balance is different for everybody. And it kind of is a function of your role. So like we're business owners, right? So for us, our value is in how personal we can get and how much we know our customers. Sometimes when you're in B2B tech sales, for example, you don't have the luxury of getting to that level with each customer, but you do have the luxury to get at a little bit of a level with the customers, you don't have to go in cold. And in terms of scale, I don't think that personalizing happens on 500 calls or 50 calls. I don't think so either. I mean, it just doesn't. And so to not act like that is a thing would be foolish. It's not. Personalization is something that you're very deliberate about.

You target, you go after people that you know you can create a connection with, and you earn the right to get there. And what happens in that is, you know, now you've got these customers that you followed up on and you care about. Then you say you get their business. Now you do a great job for them. You don't stop. You don't run away when the ink dries. Well, the result of that then is now that customer, just like you do with Scott McGregor, that customer is going to find other people to buy from you. They will do that. That's just human nature. When you do something that means so much to somebody and you make them successful, they genuinely are going to want to go help you. And I'm lucky, blessed, you know, five years in business, all my work has been through referral.

Right. So I'm really lucky about that, but it's because people know that when I get in there, I want to know everything and I'm going to leave no stone in turn. So it's just, it's, it's, it's kind of not something you can do at scale. You can do as much as you can do as time permits, but don't underestimate the power of personalizing. Even if you're not doing it for 500 people, do it for 50 or 30. You will see a seismic change in how you do business. What are your thoughts on, on disqualifying versus qualifying? Yeah, I'm a big disqualifier. You know, I think that's so important. And so the challenge that we face as salespeople and now the more scared we get, the more desperate we get, the more the tint on our rose glasses goes up.

Right. So, you know, you have to be, you have to ask yourself the tough questions like, okay, when I call them, do they answer my call or do they put me off for two or three days? Right. So you have to ask those questions and you have to force yourself to not let that desperation make you assume that you've got a deal when there isn't one. And that's the hardest thing, right? Because we're, we're optimists. We couldn't do this job if we weren't, you know, so it's just, it's one of those things where you got to just get win fast, lose fast. It's something I learned in a cubby class ages ago. Absolutely. Win fast, lose fast. I just don't have time. My time is so precious. So it's always theirs, right?

Yeah, exactly. Theirs is too. And so I don't want to feel like I'm forcing them to spend time with me. What kind of relationship is that? Or I'm suffering them into it or I'm, you know, guilting them into it. So yeah, that's the way I look at it. Yeah. And I think, you know, the more you disqualify, you know, I think an easy way to scale to a certain degree empathy, well, not an easy, a way to potentially scale empathy is, is, you know, find the five or six other vendors in your space that don't do exactly what you do, but do something like what you do and, and develop a relation and call one of their top reps or whatever in your area and go out and grab coffee with them or whatever it is and learn a little bit about what their ICP is and what their personas are and that type of stuff.

And then when you're talking to customers, ask them the questions that disqualify as much as qualify, right? So I always ask the question like, so why does that matter? So who cares? You know, like when they look at training, right? They'll be like, well, why'd you miss it? So why, why are you looking at training right now? Well, we list our, we missed our quarter last number last year. Okay. So why training? Well, cause our reps don't have the skills. Really? Are you sure your reps don't have the skills or you just don't have the right reps? Right. Well, I don't know. We may or may not. And so, and I kind of dig down. It's like, look, you might not even have the right people on the bus here.

So throwing training at something isn't going to, so you should probably go talk to Scott McGregor, you know, that type of thing. Or like Lori Richardson, who does an assessment of the sales team. Like she has a piece of software that says, okay, here's all the players and here's the, and based on what you're selling, you do not have the right personalities to sell what you sell. Right. And when I do that, so I go around and develop relationships with a bunch of people who are kind of, you know, augment what I do, if you will, or, or our part. And I say, you know what? You're not ready for my stuff yet. You need to go talk to so-and-so. That's right. And I can't tell you that I've had like at least three or four times recently where somebody has reached out to me and said, hey, thank you.

Can we do business now? Yeah, that's exactly it. And like, they've come to me three times. Like I've had, um, I don't want to mention them. They're a huge, huge logo that everybody would know. And they keep asking me to train them. And I could probably make thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars by just saying yes and figuring it out. But I know I'm not a great fit for what they need. So I keep referring it. And this is the third time she's like, Joan, you're going to do business with us this time. You're going to do business. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm just not the right fit. But like there, there'll be a customer eventually, right? That's right. When the time is right. And when they are, when they've gotten their ducks in a row and you have to be, you have to care enough about them to know that too.

I think there's a little bit of that in there. Like, I know that if I try to sell something to someone who's not ready, I'm taking advantage of them. Totally. You know, that should make me not sleep at night. Right. And again, back to slimy, sneaky, shady, there's people that don't care about that, but the people that are going to last are the ones that do. And if that means that I'm not going to try to get a deal out of them right now, that's okay, but it will come. It'll come to me because, you know, one thing customers can't stand is when you yes them on everything. Like the way that you build trust is by saying, no, you know what, that's what you said. That's not something I'm good at, but I know so-and-so and so-and-so happy to introduce you.

Maybe even go to that meeting with them, right? Be their advocate. Be an advocate for their success. And sometimes that means you're going to be able to fill the gap. And sometimes that means you're going to help them find somebody who is. That's so, and again, I want to kind of get back to that, say that because I worry right now we're in such a short-sighted world, right? Like we're literally, it's monthly quota and I'll take it to sales, but we can take it as macroeconomic too. Right. But, you know, it's like monthly quotas, you know, the stock price goes up by three points and everybody freaks out or goes down, but, you know, and it's such a short-term thing, but your career is 30, 40, 50 years, right?

So I, you know, when I started networking, when I first got into business, I joined a group called BNI, which is Business Networking International, right? And every city has one. And it's a group of, you know, it's business professionals in all different segments. So you can't have a competitor in the room and you meet on a weekly basis. And there, and you stand up, you give you a little 30 second pitch or what you do, and then you go around and you give leads, right? And you say, Hey, Anita, I just talked to somebody who has, and it's not just, Hey, go, you know, here's a name. It's no, no, they're expecting your call. Right. And their whole philosophy was giver's game. Yep. Right. The more you give, the more you get back.

Right. And Gary V, jab, jab, jab, right hook, like all this different stuff. But how do you, if you're a 22 year old kid right now, where you're being beat over the head to make 50 dials and, you know, $50 a day or a hundred dials a day or whatever it doesn't hit your short-term numbers. How do you even look long-term when you, when you might not even make next week? Yeah, it's hard. I mean, and that's, how do you think about it? That's part of the growing up pace of it, right? Like, so you, you have to force yourself to think longer term and I think it makes it easier. So what I like to think of it is between what I was doing before. And when I got to my why there was a bunch of bridge work that I had to do, like there's work that I had to do to pay the bills, to be able to get the right to do what I want to do and then have that fulfillment.

So, you know what, tell yourself, Hey, I got to look for the long game. And these are the skills that I'm honing because ultimately I am going to get the job. That's going to let me do this. But right now I got to pay the bills. I got to get through this and whatever it takes. And it's that, whatever it takes too, right? Like the salespeople, whatever it takes to get it done, get it done. Just have high integrity, of course. But, you know, meet your numbers, do what you have to do and know that if you're looking long-term, you will get what it is that you want. You'll find that role where you'll be able to shine, but it's not the role that you're in right now. And that's okay. You know why you're doing it.

Yeah. Cool. What are some of the other kind of key things that, that as you wrote this book stood out to you that, that you want people to, to, to pay attention to in their, on their journey? Yeah. I think the biggest thing in the book, if I, you know, if I could pick something that people could take away, it would be, you know, understand your customer's emotional and rational needs. There's a, I won't go into it now, but there's a big analogy in the book and it pretty much anchors the book in terms of as a sales professional, you need to know that you have to have as table stakes, the data, the information, the product specs, the features and benefits. There's no bonus for that, right? Like that has to be there where value lives.

And where differentiation lives is understanding that person on a human to human level and emotional level. That example that I gave earlier, you know, someone does want to get an MBA. How do I help them do that? It's not, sometimes it has nothing to do with the product, but when you show that human that you're there to help them and to support them, that's where you have an opportunity to differentiate. Anything outside of that, by the way, it can be commoditized. The only thing you can't commoditize is who you are, what you stand for, and how you make that matter to your customer. And I think that's probably the biggest concept in the book that people will get a handle on. And discovery questions, of course, is a second, right?

Like we've been trying to discovery questions since sales 101. But for some reason, when we're in the heat of the moment, we turn questions that could have been an open-ended goldmine question into a closed-ended quick yes or no question. So it's discipline around that as well. Yeah, I kind of joke around. I always say this, you know, there's only one group of people on the planet that answers closed-ended questions with open-ended answers, and it's sales reps, right? We are literally the only ones when asked a yes or no question, we'll say yes, but, and then go on for the next 10 minutes or something, right? Everybody else is going to say yes or no. And so how do you, so outside of any specific discovery question, open-ended, obviously, stuff like that, are there ways you get reps to ask questions or think a little bit more intuitively about the question?

Are there some kind of, I don't want to say hacks, but some suggestions on what to do to ask better questions? Because I think no matter where we go in our careers, I don't care how experienced you get, the number one thing we can all get better at is asking better questions. Yeah, it's, yes, 100%. It's a one-two punch, ask better questions and be a better listener. And so in the book, I do go through a lot of details on the types of questions. I call them high-impact questions. These are the kind of questions where instead of asking someone, for example, you know, who reports to you? Instead of asking that, say, can you help me understand the org chart, right? Because now you've given that person an opportunity to tell you so much more than who reports them.

You've got to know who reports to them, obviously, but I'm not going to box myself in just to ask that question. I want to know more. And so I joke about it, but you want to get good at asking questions that a shrink would be jealous of, right? Like, how does that work for you? Or what do you think about that? Or how does that make you feel? That's the only tongue-in-cheek kind of joke. But, you know, that's how you got to ask the big questions that are going to get you the big answers. And when you get those answers, that's where the differentiation lives in those moments where they're telling you something that they wouldn't tell an average salesperson because you don't have time to ask and listen.

How much do you prepare your questions versus just go with the flow? And the reason I ask is because I think that a lot of people have their qualification questions where they just go one to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next, and they don't listen. Or they kind of go in and wing it and see where the conversation goes. So what's your thought process on coming up with very specific questions that you want to ask that person based on some homework that you did versus kind of maybe starting with a, like, like we did here, you know, like I'm more of a, let me start with a topic and then see where this shit goes. And I'm doing, but again, born with empathy a little bit. I can under, I listened, I think pretty well.

So what's your thought process on preparing versus going with the flow? Yeah. So I think preparation is crucial and it's hard for us as salespeople. Sometimes we like to wing it, especially when we're good, right? But prepare, no, no, not so much the questions that you want to ask, but understand what you want to learn, right? And understand what you're curious about. And then when you go in there, because you'll have read this book and kind of the thought process around asking the questions, trust that you will ask the questions in a big way that'll get you what you need. Now, the flip side of that is what I, what kills me when I see this is people will prepare and you've got these really amazing sales reps who are like diligent and have their little list of discovery questions and they go in and they start asking them and the customer feels like they're an interrogation.

Yeah, totally. They're not buying from you, dude. Like the minute you start doing something like that, they're, they're freaked out. They feel like you're interrogating them. So step away, but be natural. I think it goes back to the same thing. Go in knowing what you need to know, have the intent to help them succeed and use these big type of questions, a high impact questions to get you the answers. Yeah. So it's almost like you want to, you know, cause it's tough, right? You don't want to lead the witness. You don't want to ask leading questions or hypothetical questions, but you do want to ask questions with the result, like with the goal of, of, of a goal, right? Like, why are you asking these questions?

And I think that's the one thing that I've really done relatively recently over the past few years is really be very conscious of the reason I'm asking the question. Yes. I, I, I tell, here's a tip for people, you know, I tell people ask the question and then assume that the person that you're asking it to is going to push back on you and say, why do you need to know that? Yeah. Better answer. Better. And it better be something better than I want to sell you something. You know what I mean? So, so there's, there's gotta be some intrinsic to your point, the impact. I mean, I've, I've started to really wrap my, try to wrap my head around the impact questions like what's the impact of them doing this?

Why does it matter? Who cares? I, I mean, I literally keep asking people these days, like who cares? So what? Like, so what that that's a problem? Why is that a problem? And this goes to Sandler pain funnel, like all that shit. But really ultimately what you're trying to get down to is why does it matter that person that they're making this investment? Right. Right. And sometimes like, you know, when you're talking to a customer, you'll learn things that are just so small that somebody else could miss, but that will actually make or break your career. Right. So for example, if I'm talking to someone and I asked something like, who cares? And now they start talking about the other people in the organization who care.

Well, as they do that, you're going to get a feel for who they like, who they don't like, who they think is an idiot, who they think is an ally. And as you learn that now, you're like, okay, now I know. Well, I'll be like, Hey, you know what? Why don't you do this? If you do this with this product, it'll allow you to do X, Y, Z, which by the way, will make it easier for so-and-so to do their job. Right. So, you know, tying it back. Politics is a crazy thing. I mean, the amount of deals that died of politics, I lost track years ago. But the minute you get into that and you start to ask the questions that way, now you're able to leverage that information to help you differentiate. Yeah. I mean, that's the problem that I, you know, and I haven't read it yet.

It's on my list, but the challenger customer, you know, challenger sale, challenger customer, from what I understand, the challenger customer is really about that internal politics. Because even if somebody wants to buy your stuff, the, the complexities of them being able to buy it are almost too much for them to bear. So they're going to say, yeah, thanks, but I'm not willing to go through that shit. So you got to be the orchestrator of that. Right. Yeah, that's it. And I love that book. So challenger, the book, initial book, I thought it was interesting. I didn't necessarily see how to apply that, but the challenger customer, I think is brilliant. And because it does play on, I think they talk about it as, um, help your customer with their dysfunction.

And again, it's kind of back to the shrink thing I joke about, but you get in there and you figure out how to get all those people on the same page and you will become invaluable to them and you will be noticed and you'll be someone that they work with forever. And I love it when sales reps do that. Like I had a sales rep, um, a couple of weeks ago, she went into a big customer and a huge, like big logo. And he was with the C, the CISO of that company and she's talking to the lady and she's like, you know what? I need to understand better your, your team and et cetera, et cetera. She built a relationship. She got a meeting with that woman's team. And so now she sat with the woman's team. She asked them questions.

She learned them. Okay. So now what's in her head is so valuable to that customer because that customer is not going to get that information. Doesn't have time first of all. Um, and so that's where value lives, right? Like now, you know about the organization, you can help her. With stuff she doesn't know. And that's, I mean, then that's, you know, you're the only person they want to call then. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, you know, I love being, I love getting the phone calls from previous customers or existing customers asking me about my opinion on something that I don't do. That's right. Genuinely. It's like when the, Hey John, have you, you know, do you know anybody or have you heard about this stuff?

And obviously I'm not the expert, but for just for them to come to me and ask me that question says a lot about the, the, the relationship that we have. Right. Yeah. And the generosity, right. I think it's important that as we are salespeople, we be generous. Like it shouldn't have to be, I'm only giving because I'm getting right. It'd be like what you said, you know, someone calls you, you're not going to not take their call. You're going to talk to them and you're going to help them as much as you can. Sure. It's your time, but it's an investment that you make for that longterm. Yeah, totally. The whole, what goes around, comes around. I live my life by that. Right. Karma is a real thing. That's exactly right.

Speaking of which, so I did want to end with one question because you had mentioned it on one of the posts, like your story of why you wanted to come on here, like outside of your book, obviously. Right. But, but there was something that, you know, you said some of what you're in a fangirl and all this other stuff. So I'm just, I'm genuinely curious why. I think I've conducted myself very well. No, you've been fantastic. I'm just, I'm trying to figure it out. Yeah. My husband will be proud of me too. So it was when we write, when you write a book, right? Like the team that I work with, the editors, the coaches, they say, you know, what's your champagne moment? Like, what's the moment in time where you'll feel like I did it.

This is what I wanted. I've arrived. Mine was the on John Barrow's podcast. Stop it. Really? No, for real, for real. So I had a couple other little ones, right? Like let my dad read the introduction and the dedication, but. You know, speak it inbound. So, but that was one of them. It was like, this, this is how I'll know that I'm legit. And that what I've done. Because I think of you that way. I think of you as like the advocate for sales reps. And that's what I consider myself to be. And so to be able to be on this podcast was something I called out a year and a half ago. It was something I wanted to do. So yeah. So that's, that's what I wanted to tell you about that story. That's awesome. Well, thank you.

I'm humbled by that. Cause you know, this is, you know, sales is, I always tell people like, I'm not, I'm not a trainer, right? I'm just a sales guy training and I happen to be okay at sharing content. But you know, the, the idea of we're all in this together, trying to get better. You know, I, I like to attract those people that, that want to get better, that want to elevate as opposed to the ones that you're talking about who don't care. You know what I mean? Who are just trying to hit their numbers and don't give a shit and don't, don't care about empathy. You know, so that's to me, if you're listening to this podcast specifically, if you don't know if you're empathetic or not, you know, I, like I said, start from square one and ask people around you that you'll get direct relate.

And if they say no work on that shit, because you know, authenticity matters these days. Um, you know, really giving a shit matters these days. And, uh, and yeah, it's not the shortest path to success by any stretch of the imagination, but it's the most fulfilling. It is, it's hard work, but it's so worth it. Yeah. Awesome. And you, well, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm glad, I'm glad I could fulfill your champagne. I know, it's so exciting. I wish I knew I would have brought in some champagne. Um, but, uh, I should have thought of it. I should have like had this champagne here. Well, you say, you actually said earlier that like, as you were talking to a rep and then the drink started flowing, like I am, I'm this close to doing a, uh, either drunken sales, uh, podcast or a stoner sales podcast where we, we just started shooting the shit and see where the conversation goes.

Let, let it hit record. So literally magic happening. I love it. Thank you so, so much. I'm excited that I got to talk with you today. Love it. And so just to let everybody know where, where can they find out more information about you, about the book, about everything else? Yeah. So my website is www.ldkadvisory.com. And the book is on Amazon, beat the bots, how your humanity can future-proof your tech career. Awesome. Perfect. Well, thank you again so much for coming on board. Hopefully you enjoyed it. Have a great rest of the week. Yeah. Thank you too. And everybody out there, hopefully you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. And just like I say all the time, go out there and make somebody happy.

If you make somebody smile today, you know, I had a great day. All right. Go make it happen. Everybody have a great one. Thanks.