132: The Art of Closing A Deal With Danny Read

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 with Make It Happen Mondays. Hopefully you all had a fantastic weekend. I am here with a very special guest because this guest actually won an award that I was part of, I guess, evaluating from a deal standpoint. Danny Reed over at G2. Danny, want to say hi to everybody, let you know where you're coming from? Hey, everybody. I am coming from Chicago, born and raised here. It's where G2 is headquartered and super, super excited to be on the podcast with you, John.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for coming on, man. I think we had some fun a little while back at Dreamforce. And this was one of those things where Chili Piper, which I got to give them a lot of credit. First of all, we use Chili Piper, so thanks for them for providing such a kick-ass service. But they did one of the first AE of the Year Awards, which was all about a deal. And the whole process was you guys had to submit a deal. And the evaluation was how much did you involve the, what was it, like how creative were you with the customer, right? That was one criteria. And then the other was how much did you involve your team, right? Yep. Give or take. And we, I was like me, Kevin Dorsey, and a few others where we evaluated based on certain criteria of, I think they had like over 100 submissions.

And it got down to the top 10 that we were actually able to evaluate. And of those top 10, you were the one who won it. And it was 10 grand on the spot, which was not a bad little, not a bad little award at the end of the year there, right? Not at all. Yeah. I had to make a joke of it because they gave you the big giant check and they handed it to you. We take all the pictures and later we went out to celebrate after, obviously. And I was like, I need to find an ATM and get a picture of me trying to cash this check. And so I got that. So I was happy with everything. But yeah, it was an amazing event. And yeah, I think we had the top 10 reps that were after the criteria got voted down. There was 10 reps that were at that party that they threw downtown in San Francisco during the week of Dreamforce.

So it was nuts. Yeah. And I love the story here. So that's what we're going to get into today for everybody listening is we're going to kind of recap that story of how Danny got that deal. Because for me, you know, a lot of my learning comes from learning from other people and how they did things. And so, and I think also, like we talked about in the prep here, it's like, you know, to give a tip or a technique or something like that. Okay. You can kind of, you can be, Hey, do this. But a lot of people from my perspective, at least the way I learn is through stories and understanding how other people attack certain problems. So that's what we're going to do here. So Danny, why don't you just give us a little background on, on the deal itself first?

Like, who was it? What did you do? I don't know if you can name the name here, but I don't know if that's okay with them. But you don't have to, but, but if you could just kind of give us. Give us some context here and then we'll start diving into the details. Yeah. And before we do that too, you just mentioned something, which is how you learn through other people and their stories. And, you know, we, I think we ended up at the same party, like three times during the dream force weekend. But the first one you came to was ours at the battery. And I went right up to you and I was like, you were pretty instrumental to me. And when I started selling and learning a lot of the ropes there, um, the few things that like our tagline stuck in my head are, you know, the reason for my call is I start every single cold call with that.

And it adds to the confidence, everything else, right. Never say touch base, never say checking in, get away from the average things that every rep does and differentiate yourself a little bit. Um, you have the summary email, you have the focus on the 20% of the conversation that matters, not the whole, let me show you my big fancy deck that my marketing team made for me. All that stuff was things that I really took to heart and I think brought to G2 as, as sort of my style copying from you and, and a couple other people. But, um, a big reason I think I I've had success in my career is because of people like you that put out that free content that helps the community so much. So I was never going to come on here and not thank you for that first and foremost.

Um, but, uh, happy to, yeah, happy to dive into the deal a little bit. Um, so when they first announced it, uh, I had, I was like, okay, I'm going to apply to this. I think, I think I'm going to apply to this. And then I had a friend reach out and like tag me on the post that says, Hey, you need to apply. So I was like, okay, all right, I'm doing this. Um, and so I was like, I thought there was going to be hundreds, if not thousands of submissions. And I'm, I'm reading through the criteria and the criteria is just two things. It's, it's how helpful were you to that buyer? And it's how, uh, how did you incorporate teamwork throughout the sales process? So I'm racking my brain for any deal that I had that could stand up to, you know, these other hundred submissions, like how am I going to be different?

Right. And I think, um, I, I knew that there was going to be like somebody who's going to submit that big honking, you know, million dollar deal with an enterprise company. And it's just like how the, you know, I'm, I'm not selling to enterprise yet. You know, I'm more mid-market focus. So how do I compete against that? And so it came down to, you have to tell a story. You have to tell a great story about, uh, a deal that had multiple layers to it that had multiple impacts. And I was fortunate enough to have one of those in my back pocket. The company's name is, is metadata. So they're like a terminus demand-based competitor and ABM tool. If anybody knows anything about G2, you'll see how those two things kind of coexist, um, in terms of we provide intent data, stuff like that.

So, um, it was just a very good customer for my use case. And so how I went about this whole process was first, it was like, okay, I know I need to tell a story. So what are the elements to my story? The first needs to be, how did the deal start? So the actual deal started through a intro from another rep where they had already met with us. And then they said, no. And then I was like, there's no reason why this company should not be working with us. I need to, I need to, you know, do my due diligence here. So I went to the rep that introduced me into it. I asked her for all the details about how the sales process went. I listened to the old calls for how those two interacted with one another.

And then I had to figure out what the value prop was for first. Why should you speak to me again? Um, and then second, what, you know, what am I actually going to sell you when we, when we get on, on a call? And so that was how the kind of the introduction standpoint went. I reached out with X value prop of G2 fits into ABM. Here's how we could potentially do a partnership in the future. Here's all the ways we could work together. Let me ask you real quick. Let me ask you, why did they, why did they say no? Was it just a no decision? Was it, do you know the reasons why they said no in the first place? They said no in the first place and they said budget, but, um, you know, who knows what that actually means sometimes.

Yeah. Um, so it may have been a timing thing, may have been a budget thing, but they ended up saying no in January, which is our end of Q4. And then I started re-engaging them about two months later in March when the accountant had transitioned to me from that other rep. So they said no for budget or timing or whatever it was. And who was the original point of contact that was trying to be sold? And was it the same person that you sold that you went back after? It was the same person. So it was, uh, Gil is their CEO. So same guy that they were selling to before. Okay. So it was their CEO. So this is, this wasn't like you weren't below the power line. You weren't at, so this, the, the previous rep had the deal was at power.

Everything was good. And then it just fell off for budgetary reasons or whatever. So you went back after, cause I like, and the reason I asked that obviously is because a lot of times the reason that we lose to budget or no decision is because we're dealing with the people that can't really make those decisions on budget. And so it kind of dies because they're almost too chicken shit to go up to the top. Whereas this one, you were at the top. So this was, this was the guy, Gil, who, who wrote the check and said no. And so you came back after him. And when you came back after him, was it like very tactically, like, what did you say? Did you have the rep intro you, or did you just reach out with a new message?

Cause that, cause that's a lost op, right? A lot of us, I mean, we're dealing with that right now. I'm, I'm having Morgan and James now look at all the lost ops and try to re-engage with them. Cause we have a few new things to talk about these days, like moving into 2020, we got some new stuff. And I always say, you don't want to just reach out to somebody and say, Hey, touching base, checking in, seeing how you're doing, like you said earlier, you want to come back at them with a reason, whether something has changed on their end or something has changed on your end. So what was your tactically, like, what did you say in that email to that guy? So, um, very specifically G2 is a data provider.

And so G2 sells ABM data. You guys are a client. You're using that to see who's shopping for a sales training company. They wanted to buy all of our data and sort of resell it as part of their solution. And when we said no to that, that's not our model. We're not Bombora. That's not what we do. They were like, okay, kind of see you later a little bit. And then it sounds like with the old rep, they, um, just, she was very passive through the whole thing. And it was very clear they would be a customer eventually, um, because of what they did and because of the alignment. So I think it was mostly just reframing, you know, why we should talk and what the specific value is to you for, I get, you want to take all this stuff and make it, you know, client facing and all that.

But let's actually get to the crux of how this is going to help you specifically in your deals, your pipeline, your processes, um, and realign from there. And that's how we started the conversation. Okay, cool. So we agreed to, he agreed to the call. Yep. Great to the call. And then we run the sales process. Um, now this was pretty unorthodox cause he already knew us. He had already been through a pitch or he knew all this stuff, right? Andy's a seasoned vet, seasoned CMO knows how this stuff goes. So I, you know, I get right into it. Like what did we do wrong last time? And what are you focused on for this year? What are your goals and objectives? So you didn't, and that's important by the way, because just for everybody else out there, I talk a lot about sophisticated buyers and unsophisticated buyers, right?

The unsophisticated buyers are the ones you do have to walk through the sales process, right? You have to, you know, qualify them, show them the demo. Cause they've never bought something like this before. They don't know what the fuck they're looking at. Right. But with a sophisticated buyer, like somebody who already knows their shit is probably already senior stuff. And you know, we all hear by the time somebody comes to us, 60 to 70% of the way through the sales process, they were already like 90, they were almost a hundred percent with you. So if you had done the, Hey, let's requalify, let me re-show you the guy would have gotten off the phone in 10 minutes. Right. So you came right at it being like, all right, so basically what'd we fuck up on last time?

And what are you now trying to do for the future? Right. That was your main focus on that call. Exactly. So, and that's such an important distinction for selling based on who you have on the call. Um, ideally if it's a bigger company, you're talking to a C level or even a VP, you should already have conversations with their lower levels to understand what their pains are. That way you can come to that meeting with exact things to talk about that hit on their pain points that you're speaking their language. Right. That's how you get big, big deals done with, um, bigger accounts. This account was more of a small business account. So going to the CEO, wasn't the same sort of, uh, larger deal process that somebody might follow.

So yes, when we got on the call, it's right to it. It's Frank, it's, it's asking, what did we do wrong last time? What was the hesitation? What, you know, why did you say no? Okay. What are you focused on for this year? And I am already coming, you know, keep in mind, I already know, I think how all this is going to play out, but you need to hear it from their perspective first. They need to say it. And then when they say it, you can then paint it back in the same words that they're using to you. Right. I mean, and you, you may be wrong. I may be wrong in how I assumed we could help them this year. And then as I get that information, then we can keep going forward. It's actually there. That's the question.

I'm the word we've actually implemented in all of our sales processes is even if it's an existing, like a new client who's never talked to us before. And we have that initial call call that second call. The first question you should ask everybody is what's changed. So what's changed, even if it was a week ago, even if it was two weeks ago, what's changed since our last conversation, the amount of insight that people are giving us in that that specific question is bananas. People are like, oh, well, you know, actually, it's interesting you ask that question because we just got a new leadership. We just got new this. We got and I was like, well, well, well, holy shit, which means you either have a huge opportunity at a higher level or you got to you got to resell this thing because with somebody new on board or whatever.

Right. So so you found out kind of what had changed, even though you kind of knew. Was there any surprises in that, that was a major shift in what you had already walked in with? No, it was a lot of it was centered around. They wanted to do that macro buy of all the data, stuff like that. Same thing. So didn't didn't uncover any new information, really. We did eventually get to what the pain point was and their pain point was validation. They are competing against bigger people like people with that that have way more money, more employees, more customers. So they needed a way to stand out. And so that came down to third party validation, value prop of G2, right? So it's like, OK, you just center the deal around this.

But I also know that they already partner with other intent providers like Bombora, like all these other folks. I'm like, this has to be part of this, too. So as we went through the sales process, I kept in mind, all right, validation is what you need. Gave them examples of other high growth tech companies that are in the space that are using G2 content, different styles, whether that's advertising or what have you, show them customer examples throughout the process for how this could impact them and sort of the strategies that they could implement by using their customers, their reviews, their ranking on G2 to give themselves a bit of credibility, a bit of validation as a small business. So that was fine.

Was there any? Sorry to keep interrupting. Was there any like when this when you're talking to the CEO, was there any quantifiable impact that they were there? They were assessing to this in the sense that they knew that because they weren't being validated, that they were losing out on this opportunity. Or was this a we're just going up against the big boys here and we know that we're getting our asses kicked and we need to be validated. And it was a little bit more of a softer, like a not a specific quantifiable impact there. That was that segment of the deal was definitely less quantifiable. It was, I know my pain. I need validation. I need a way to stand out in the market. And I see this as a potential solution to that.

So that piece of it was very less quantitative. But the other side of it with, you know, we sell different things here. And what I was trying to sell them was our intent data package data about who's shopping in different areas. And their tool was literally built to take that data and retarget and do all these things. Or so it's like, this is a no brainer. What's what's going on? So as we went through it, that's when we hit more of the quantitative aspect of how does this turn into ROI? How much data are you giving me? Yada, yada, yada. And they were spending quite a bit of money for a small business on this. So they're like, you know, the deal got dragged out because it's a big commitment from them.

It's a lot of budget. And so we did go down that path a little bit of how does this pay for itself at the end of the day? Can you give me very specific criteria of the data on these companies that I know I want to target? So a lot of the sales process was going back and finding the data that they needed, that they were asking for, giving it to them on a silver platter of what they were looking for. So from that aspect, straightforward, but it's still involved the same, like, what's your cost per acquisition? How much data does this give me? What does that data convert into the whole regeneration flow? Well, so what's your strategy here on giving away that type of information? Because that's the, because we, you know, you've seen our negotiations, it gives and gets and that type of stuff.

And you quantify it, right? And you never want to give something away without getting something in return. And it sounds like you were doing a lot of legwork here to show them, you know, it's almost like you could see a demo, but then there's a customized demo with your data in it, right? A demo of the product in a general sense is pretty easy to give away. Once I start customizing shit, and I think the trap that a lot of reps fall into is they just keep doing what the customer's asking from them. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. Let me go get that. And then they bring their engineering resources in, they bring the, you know, and they spend a lot of time going through ROI calculators and that type of stuff.

And they end up just giving it to the customer throughout the whole process. What was your strategy? Or what were some of the things that you got along the way for this, whether perceived or actual really valuable content, right? Because there's another piece to this equation, which is sometimes something that is relatively easy for us to give away, we should be putting more weight to it, at least in some way, like a discount. I'll give you an easy example is like a discount, like a discount, at least, you know, you know, five, 10%, something like that. For most reps, that's almost like, yeah, no problem. Like they almost sometimes put it in a proposal without the client even asking for it, for crying out loud, right?

But we should put a discount pretty heavy to give away. We should get at least something in return for it. So what were some of the things that you looked for along the way, as you were giving them this like very customized, very tailored information, what were some of the things that you were getting that you were looking at saying, okay, these are signals that they're in this with me, their engagement back to me, that's always going to be a big one, right? They are constantly answering my emails late at night, getting back to me in a timely manner. It's very clear that they care about this. So a lot of it is establishing timeline for when does this need to get done and why? And then when they tell you that why you can hold them accountable by that date.

It's like, Hey, if we get past this date, you said this, this, and this is going to happen. So, you know, honestly, this is one of the hardest part of sales is holding people to timelines. It's, it's their buy. It's not your buy, right? So I'm in terms of personalizing a lot of the data. I'm very fortunate to work for a two-sided marketplace where almost anything I send to somebody is already relevant to them. Hey, it's, this is your profile. This is your data in your profile. Let me share some insights on how you can take advantage of this. So, and that way from a sales aspect, I'm very spoiled because it's, it can be very easy to personalize everything given what our platform is. And it is actually the same thing in the way that we sell because we naturally reward people that move faster with us.

Meaning there's a component on our site where if you are the first people to sign up in a category, you're going to get more data than anybody else that signs up after you on a specific package. Okay. So that, the, the, um, urgency is a little built into the product in a way. And so that helps us a lot with a lot of this stuff, but I don't have a magic answer for, you know, how to hold somebody accountable to the timeline. A lot of it is, um, you know, they need to tell you when they need to move and they need to tell you the impact that it's going to make. And then that's how you can, you need to use their words against them essentially, or rather with them, like what's the goal, where are we going?

Um, you know, you tend to think of sales as like, uh, um, me against them type thing. And it really need to, um, mentally say, this is the challenge we're taking on together. Um, and figure out what that data is, what the impact is and follow the sales process. Yeah, I mean, the more you can put yourself in their shoes about what their problem is and what they're trying to solve, like the empathy part of sales, I think is missing in a lot of cases where it's like, seriously, like day in the life of that person, what are they dealing with? And what are the challenges there versus what you're trying to close? Right. I mean, somebody asked me a while back, you know, John, you know, how hard can you push, right?

How, how, like at the end of the month or whatever, how hard can you push a client to get closed? And I said, well, it's in direct proportion to how much of it is in their best interest versus your best interest, right? If it's in their best interest, because they got to close by a certain date or a time at whatever it is, then yeah, you can, you can, and you should push as hard as you want. Um, if it's in your best interest, cause you just got to close the end of the month or a quarter or something like that, you're just a jackass sales rep. So, right. So, but, but in, when, when I say the gets right, like those defined next steps, I think that's a critical get, no matter where you are, the sales process is to get that defined next step.

Right. So for instance, did you, uh, like when they asked you to put together some of this data, were there meetings set up and scheduled so you could review it with them? Or did you just attach it to an email and send it to them and say, well, let me know what you think. In the beginning it was, okay, I'm going to send you this and we're going to reconnect and talk about it on this date. And then as we got further into past our like fifth or sixth meeting, it was sending them info and we're in constant communication back and forth. There's no need for this segmented meeting process. Like I'm calling the guy at nine 30 at night sometimes and we're, we're working through stuff. So it was, uh, very much after we established a bit of trust in our relationship, it was texting, it was all that stuff.

Um, so I think for the first like three, four, you, you do need to establish those critical marks. And then once you've built that relationship with the clients, um, you can kind of go back to, okay, here's what I need right now because of X, Y, Z, then you can send them the data that gets you to, um, uh, what goal they're trying to accomplish. And I know if I text him or call him, he's going to answer the phone. Um, so in the beginning, yes, later on, not so much. Who else, who else is involved in this and who else did you get involved in this on the customer side, even though they were a small business and you're talking to the CEO, was there anybody else involved? Yeah. So this was, uh, you know, this was a hallmark of the, um, or a hallmark, a, uh, a big component of the actual, um, award was the teamwork aspect.

And so I, I kind of highlighted in this graphic that I made a lot of the people we worked with throughout on their side, he kept pulling in people from his team to make sure they were all good with it. And that included their, their sales rep, their COO, their customer success manager on exactly how they should go about getting reviews and working with them. Um, but from my side who I pulled in was throughout the process, um, sharing each detail with my manager, of course, and, and looking for his feedback on what I can do differently or where we might be at with the deal. The next part was bringing in my director of partnerships and seeing how we could both work together in the future to establish a, some sort of strategic partnership.

There was, there was some sort of room for it there. We didn't have it clearly defined just yet, but getting her on a call with him. And now, now you're now, you know, the second that I start talking to his seller, some people on his team and I'm setting him up, talk to our team with partnerships, like you're making this deal so strong because there's so many different areas of communication that are now sparking. It's not just me and him. Who's the typical blocker in your, in your sale? Like, cause there's always that one person. Like if you're selling to business and it, like, you know, the general state of sometimes we got the business guy, you know, person or woman or whatever, it's like all bought in.

And then it is like, fuck you. Right. Is there, is there a typical, like when you walk into deals being like, I know I got to get like another example for me is, uh, VPs of sales and enablement, right? So trainers and VPs of sales, I can usually get a VP of sales to stuff training down anybody's throat, right? Like a VP of sales, I can get them all hot and bothered about training, whatever. And then they'll stuff it down and we're doing this. But if I don't engage with enablement and I, and enablement doesn't feel like they're part of the process, I might get in there for one opportunity. But as soon as they, I get in there, they'll figure out any way to cut my throat after that because they don't feel like they were part of this.

So is there somebody on your side that you feel like from a G2 standpoint that you look at and say, you, we, we got to make sure that we, these people are involved so that this thing doesn't blow up at the end. Cause there's always that person that comes into the end and throws the fucking monkey wrench into everything, right? Is there somebody like that on your side? It's, it's for us, it's involving sales in the process. So we sell it to the marketing team. We sell it to a CMO, a director of marketing, VP, what have you. So as soon as we get that salesperson, whether it's an AE or their VP involved, and we show them like G2 is, you know, the, the, both the good and bad thing is G2 impacts every layer of the organization.

It helps the CEO talk about the successes of their customers and where they rank in the market. It helps a marketer truly identify who's in market right now. And who should I be going after in terms of my spend, my, my advertising, my, my nurture campaigns. But then when you get a seller on the phone and I talked to a seller about G2 and I'm like, Hey, you know, how hard is it for you to get customer feedback? And how important is it to your sales cycle? It's like very, and it's very hard. Um, so I was like, okay, here's how we're going to deliver you a ton of different customer content and references that you can use throughout your selling process, whether that's outbound for getting a meeting, whether it's in a proposal stage.

As soon as I have their buy-in, they will hold marketing accountable to get that done because they want it. So if you can get sales involved throughout that, it helps our case a lot. Um, but you asked me originally, who's the blocker? The blocker is usually like a marketing specialist, a very low level. The higher up said, Oh, go talk to this person. They're going to look at it for me. Make sure it's good. They come on the call. What's the price. What's the price. What's the price. And I'm just like, Nope, now this is going to work. Tell me what you, you know, what's your role. What do you care about? And then you work it from there. So I was going to say, how do you deal with that? Right. Cause I think that's a massive problem that most sales reps face.

I don't think I know is that they, they get delegated, you know, they might send a really good email to a C level executive. The C level is, yeah, go check this out. And that underlying, if you will, immediately jumps to price. So how you personally, Danny, how have you done it where you've appeased that person, given them what they were looking for in some way, shape or form, but also, you know, this is that unsophisticated buyer that we were talking about earlier. Like, how do you do that without, with, in, in a tactful way? You can use it to qualify people out, which is what I do most often. So like, if it's a company, I don't think spends a lot on marketing or I get that sense. I'm like, I give them a range and I tell them it's, you know, I'd probably give them the high end of the range that way.

If they say no, it's like, great. I don't want to waste my time. But if it's a company and I know that they have to spend for this and I know they have other things, then I usually try to think, I try to paint a picture of what a success story would look like with us, but I try to base that off what their role is specifically. If I talk to demand gen, I know their goal is leads, but how do they quantify those goals? And then how does this solution speak to how it helps them? Once I can get them on board with that, then it's like, okay, I don't want to give you pricing yet because there's these other areas that this is going to impact too. And if they give you pricing and they don't know anything about it, it's all going to fall apart and you're not going to get what you want, which is what we just talked about.

And so once I try to make them the people that champion it, and usually what I'll say a lot of times at the end of calls is, how can I help you push this forward? If I can get to that point where I can ask them that question, we're in a good spot. Yeah, I think that's the key there is that you got to get that. Because again, I've seen deals fall apart when executives are all bought in, but there's that one person because a lot of it is job security too, right? I mean, there are people who are in organizations and they literally build in job security and make the role more complex than it needs to be and have them be the only part. Like when I used to sell IT services, inevitably we would sell to the SMB market and inevitably there'd be that one single IT person in that organization that was the IT administrator.

And some of them were progressive and realized, I need some help here. I don't know what I'm talking about. And I need a team, so great. But that was like less than 10%. The other 90% were, nope, this is mine. I got all the answers here because they knew when we came in and we uncovered, like we would do a network health assessment and those types of things, we lifted the covers up and we'd be like, holy shit, like what is this rat's nest here? Like what the fuck? And that person would now be out of a job. And that's in HR. There's a lot of companies I work with that, you know, HR, they go after the HR director or the manager. And it's like, dude, that's my job. Like why, you're telling me that that solution that you're bringing to the table is my job.

So same, same in your place, right? In some cases. And I think a big way to start to do that in your deals is what I ask on every call. Anytime I talk to somebody, this is big for marketers, sales, it's obvious what the answer is, but how are you measured? Like what is the number you have to report to this month or this quarter? What does that look like? And how important is that to you for your job security or whatever it might be? You have to earn the right to ask some of those questions eventually. But if you can get those answers, you now have the way to help that person. And you know what? You may find out that you can't help that person and it's best to move on. But trying to get to that point and that crux is hugely important.

Do you, you said it earlier, do you disqualify more than you qualify or do you qualify more than you disqualify? That's a tough one for us because, and maybe it's not, maybe I'm just not doing my job effectively, but it's like we get a lot of people that just come talk to us because G2s, we have a really great brand now after we hired Benici and everybody's like, what is this? I just, I just want to know more about this. And, you know, there's some argument to say that should be an SDR's job. Maybe that's an AE's job. You know, if you get to a pain point, then it becomes a sales cycle. So a lot of, a lot of our conversations are, are qualifying and disqualifying. So I'd say it's probably around 50, 50 in terms of most of the meetings that I run.

Um, and you just, I can't imagine how much of your stuff comes from inbound versus outbound. Um, it depends on the roles here right now where I'm at, we do get quite a bit of inbound because we own like, uh, 4,000 accounts between four of us or something. So there's always people reaching out. Um, so I'd say it's also probably about 50, 50 at the moment. Okay. Cause I, cause I was going to say like, I think with a lot of the, like for me, at least a lot of the inbound stuff is disqualifying, right? Because we've already, they've already filled out some forms there that kind of give me a sense of what they look like. And then, and if it's not like, oh, that's a home run right there. And I can, you know, that type of thing.

My, my first inclination is like, why, why, you know, why do you want to do this? Why do you want to do it with us? Those types of things. And really find all the reasons why they shouldn't be working with us so that I can get those out of the way early. And then if those are all out of the way and they're still willing to talk to me and it still looks like a good opportunity, then I know I'm in, I'm in charge of the sales cycle. Whereas if I don't do that and I just try to qualify them to see if they look like a duck, smell like a duck. Eventually those non, those things that really don't qualify them are going to come out and bite me in the ass. Yep. Cause you're going to spend all your time on those and then they're going to come through on the last month and they're not going to sign and all that time is garbage.

It's out the window. So yeah, it's a big thing. But yeah, inbound, um, I try to just get a sense of where they're at in terms of their marketing, um, sophistication, if you will, like what are they doing now? What are they spending money on? Does this seem like it would be a good fit for us or not? And if it's not, I just straight up say, Hey, I don't think you're a good fit for this right now. And here's why do you agree? And it's like, yes. Okay. Let's end this 15 minutes early. Yeah. And the amount of credibility, how many of those in your career? Cause you've been there for four years. How many of those, I mean, you probably don't have the exact number, but have a lot of those come back to you?

I've definitely had some come back. Um, I will, I have gotten referrals before from people that are like, Hey, I know about G2. You should go talk to them. You're at a good stage or whatnot. So a hundred percent, like if you, if you treat people with that respect of, I don't want to waste your time. Here's what I know. And here's what I know about you. If I don't think it makes sense, like it's that much more likely you're going to get a deal or in, you know, an influence deal or a referral deal, whatever it might be later on. So. How much do you think experience, uh, drives that in the, in like your personal experience, right? Cause I think younger sales reps, they qualify everything. Cause they're looking for any, you know, anything to, to close, right?

Cause they don't know what they don't know. And then once you get more experienced in your career, you're like, okay, I'm done wasting my time on this shit. Like where, where, where do you think you made that you personally at G2 made that shift of, I now know what I'm talking about. I out, I know now what really, really is a good deal, not just what looks like a good deal, but what's an actual good customer. And so now I'm going to take that more proactive approach to qualifying. Was there, could you kind of pinpoint a time in your experience with G2 where that happened for you? A year, a year after I started selling. So I did a year in our SMB role and it's just churn and burn meetings, like grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, find anything you can get.

And I did well and I hit my number and I did all those things. But then at the end of it, I'm just like, I wasn't left with very many good relationships to the people that I sold to. And I was like, that's, that's, that's a problem for my long-term career. So I made it more of a conscious decision in my second year to not be so, not be like a bulldog, if you will, on calls and just like qualify out and don't show any empathy and all that stuff. Made it more of a point, even if it meant I needed to spend more time on calls that wasn't going to result in dollars, to make sure I was treating people with empathy and really asking and truly caring about some of their problems. Because I know in the 10, 20, 30 year scope of my career, that will pay dividends.

And if it doesn't, I'll at least be happier while I do it. And I'm not just sitting here trying to fucking, you know, go after all the money and then you're left with nothing. Right. So it's like, I, I think I was fortunate enough to learn that after a year and, and I've developed some really good relationships this year from who I've talked to. Cause that's the thing people don't take for, or they take for granted is like the people that you get access to and the people you get to talk to as a seller, like people that are much more experienced than you that have amazing careers. If you do a good job for them, you know, like most people don't. So if you stand out and you can be that rep that does in a couple of years or a couple of months after you can develop relationships with them, that's like, that's what it's all about in my opinion.

Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I mean, I think that. But you got to hit your number, right? You got to hit your number. I agree. And that's why my struggle is always with the organizations, not necessarily the reps. Cause I think the organizations drive that bad behavior of monthly quota stuff, but there is a point where, and I think it just does come with experience where you just kind of click over and you realize quantity over quality is the answer. And yeah, it might hurt a little while, a little bit, uh, to make that transition. And you might miss your quota for a couple of months in a row. But once that engine starts moving in the right direction, not only in your short-term career, but your long-term career pays itself, I mean, over tenfold, right?

Yeah. Um, and I think you, you know, that, that give a shit. It's funny that you brought it up because Morgan came to me like, uh, about a year in, about a year into, to doing what he was doing with me. And probably a little bit earlier, right? Cause he wasn't, he hadn't really hit his groove yet. And, um, you know, and we were doing the cadences, we were doing all the prospecting stuff that we, you know, he was following the training and, uh, he's like, you know, John, I'm just not getting the results I would expect after all the work we put into the messaging and all this other stuff. Like, I'm just not, I don't know. I expect better results from this. And I was like, well, I'll tell you when you're going to get better results, Morgan.

And he was like, when? And I go, when you start giving a shit. And he was like, excuse me? I was like, look, I know you give a shit about working here. I know you give a shit about your career. I know you give a shit about all that stuff. I can see the effort that you put in, but until you start genuinely giving a shit about the person that you're reaching out to and looking them at, not as a lead, not as a fucking name on a list, but as a person who's working at a company that has challenges that we can potentially support and help, right? That's when your results start to change drastically. And it's odd because you'd think that, oh, I just got to do more of this activity. But if you do less activity and give a shit more, it ends up being a far, and you said it also, not only will you get better results long-term, but you'll just enjoy this way more than if you're just running through numbers, right?

Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And it's like, it's one, I think one takeaway that people, um, in order to get yourself in that head space, like take time. I had to do this for a while until it really set in is every time before a call, maybe 10 minutes before that call, I would get done with my prep. And then I'd sit there for 10 minutes and I would just, um, sit there and think about how can, you know, now that I've done the prep and I think I know this person, what can I do to make their life easier? And if I can show any little bit of that on the call, that's going to make me, it's going to make us connect a little bit more. If I'm really genuinely in the interest of helping you, that comes across in my voice, that comes across in my tone, that comes across in all of the, you know, intangible, if you will, communication factors.

And when you're talking to somebody, um, your mentality for how you think about someone will reflect in your language and how you work with them. So it's important to make sure you're up here mentally. Um, you know what your goal is and you know, it's intentional. And so you, cause when did you figure that out? Right. Cause you graduated what in 2005, 14, 15, something like that? 15. Yeah. 15. And so G2 has been for the, like the majority of your career, right? I mean, you had a couple of positions before that, but I mean, for the past, almost since you were out, right? Definitely my, like my only SaaS or, or true selling experience before that, it was a lot of internships, a lot of work out of school and stuff like that.

Was it advice that you got experience or something else that, that helped you make that transition of giving a shit? It was really that sinking feeling at the end of the year that I didn't really have a lot of great relationships from the people I talked to all year. Okay. Um, that didn't sit well with me. And I was like, I, if I, I'm not going to be happy if I do this, if I just keep, you know, I hit my number. Great. I have more money to make account. Great. But, um, if I'm, if I'm truly not connecting with the people I'm spending all my time with, yeah, it's, it's draining on your head. Um, uh, and just on your, your mental health really. So that's how I figured that out. I love it. What would you, cause I think this is where we could, it's almost like with this conversation, I want to come out with like, uh, if you, if you took your list of customers from last year and you did this, which ones would respond.

Right. So the easy answer is like, if I emailed one of my clients just to say, Hey, would love to just catch up with you. See how things are going 15 minutes, that type of thing. Would you respond? But is there, is there, is there, my exact, the thing that got me there is I was getting bravado reviews and LinkedIn recommendations and I'm going through the lists and I'm like, who would do this for me based on our conversations? And it was like, not as big as I would have liked. And so that was really the trigger that got me thinking about all that stuff. Cool. So it's, it's almost like I'm going to, I'm going to think about this a little bit more. It's like, what's the question that you should ask yourself at the end of the year to say, am I in that, that, so I don't get that sinking.

I mean, if you get that sinking feeling, I think you're walking into it going, yeah, if you're listening to this podcast right now and you're already thinking, shit, I don't have any real relationships with my customers. So I'm in trouble. There's that sinking feeling, but it's almost like we could go through the whole year with blinders on, not really thinking about that. And it's almost like at the end of the year, you want to ask yourself, if I called this client right now, would they pick up the phone? You know what I mean? Would they want to talk to me other than, you know, the contract renewal or something that they need from me? But would they, and would they be open to a conversation or would they grab coffee with me?

If I, if I was, you know, a dream force with them, that type of thing. Like that's, that's kind of my litmus test is, is that if I'm a dream force and they'll take a, they'll take coffee with me out of all the chaos that is dream force, right? I'm there. It's a week. It's all my customers. It's all my partners, everybody else. If I can reach out to that C-level executive and say, Hey, can we just catch up for 10 minutes while I'm out and dream for us? Just want to talk to you about a few things. If they say yes to that, then I know I've done a pretty good job at showing value because that means they value their time with me. Right? Yep. And I had, it paid back for me recently too, where, or I got a call from a prospect I sold a couple of months ago and she called me and she's like, Hey, you know, this person got fired.

I just took on all the responsibility and I don't know what I'm doing. Can you help me? I have these questions. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. And once I had that, I was like, fuck, okay, this is so much better than like me just selling that, you know? So yeah, it, it pays dividends down the road. It really does. Let's, let's talk about some of the hurdles. Were there any like major hurdles with this one? Um, I mean, budget obviously probably came back to the equation, but what else, um, what were some of the kind of, Oh shit, like where, or, or did you think that like, I got this throughout or were there like, Oh, red flag. Yeah. The, um, the biggest was the budget one. And it was that the fact that they really didn't have any of that money right now.

Um, and so they needed, they were, um, they were trying to think about what I can say. Um, so they were bootstrapped and they were getting more money, but, um, they were trying Um, so they didn't have the budget to pay for it right now. So they asked for a special deal to pay for some of it now, pay for some of it at this point and pay for a lot of it later. And we didn't have any of that built into our, it wasn't going to happen if it went through standard process. So, um, I was fortunate enough that I didn't have to do this work myself, that their CEO Gil reached out to ours for a conversation about those two among peers and how they run their business and Godard, our CEO is very, um, active in the tech community.

So they had a conversation. And then from that conversation, I got the green light from my CEO and my CFO to grant them this special provision in their contract that made it able for them to sign. Um, so that process really played itself out for me. It didn't do too much work, but that was like a month and a half process of where the deal was halted because they didn't have the money to pay for it. And we had to get around that. So, so teamwork there on your side and their side, getting creative with a customer. And I guess, well, that, that was, was that the main area where you got creative with a customer, helping them out with their data, showing their things, but also getting a little bit creative on the financing.

Yes, a hundred percent. So he reached out that he was going to talk to our CEO and I was like, okay, so I said, I called my CEO and I prepped him for that meeting about all the different ways we can work with this company, why they would make a good customer. And eventually why would they, they would make a good partner later. Um, and so all of that led into an approval from, from Godard's end to approve a special provision for them. Nice. Um, and so ultimately, and so on your end, you had, again, who were the people on your end you had involved? Uh, there's literally 25 total. Um, Holy shit. 25 people. Wow. From, from both sides, not just, uh, not just 25 from my side, but there was a lot of people involved throughout this.

Um, and so that was something that I detailed in the application of it took a village, literally. To, to, to move this and get it done. Nice. Who do you think was the most influential on your, on your side, right? Who helped out the most? Most. Um, I mean, Godard is the one that made it possible. So I'd have to say him, but from a strategic standpoint, it was probably Brittany, our director of partnerships who we had several conversations about how they would fit into our partner strategy and what that could look like in the future. And once you, you know, that's a tricky one because it's like, well, they may not sign if they don't get this partnership that also benefits them. You're getting into that gift forget, you know?

Um, so that was, we had to work around that a little bit, but, um, Brittany is, is amazing at her job. So bringing her into any deal will, will help you. But, um, she was probably the most influential throughout. Yeah. That's always a trick. Like I've seen a lot of people in these days, like, oh yeah, well, we'll buy your product if you buy ours basically. Right. So it's like, oh shit, you know, and that, that's always an awkward one for me to, to deal with. It's like, uh, I don't know your stuff and I don't necessarily like it, but you know, we'll see. Um, cool. So, so ultimately how'd you close this thing out? I mean, was there, and, and I'm going to ask this question with context here. Um, cause a lot of people talk about closing, right?

Uh, and, and closing just happens if you do all the right things versus you had to close them. Where, where did this one fall on that? And how did you ultimately get that person to sign on that dotted line? It was very much no closing needed at the end, no persuasion to get that, you know, extra buy-in from them to me of getting them to close. It was, uh, it was just the alignment of everything from the past five months of value. Here's what you're getting out of this. Here's the future of how we work together. Here's the special provision you were granted. All the boxes are checked time to sign. Nice. Did they play any games at the end with like, uh, yo, could you add this last feature or did procurement come in and say, well, you know, instead of three years, two years, they tried and I just shut it down.

And it's like, you, you know, at that point you've invested five months into this. So have I, if you're going to ruin all that time that you've spent and a very, you know, meaningless request to this contract at the very last day, you're full of shit and you're just trying to get whatever you can get. Right. So you have to know a point where you can push back, um, and just say, this is what we've agreed to. Are you ready to go? And that's where, then I go back to that. Like, if you know you're the right solution, right. And you've done, you've put in the work and they've put it. I think the key here is I think so many reps feel like the amount of effort they've put in is what the, the leverage is.

That is exactly the opposite. It's how much time they, the, the customer has put time in. Cause the more time they put invested. And I use the easy example here, like, uh, you know, cars, right? You could walk into the lot and say, I'm, I want to buy that car, period. Let's make this easy. That's the price I want. I'll buy it. Good. They'll, you know, they'll go through, but then they sit you down and they're like, okay, great. So, uh, we'll be right with you. And all of a sudden finance comes in. All of a sudden the options come out. All of a sudden, three hours later, like you could have signed the fucking car and bought that car right now and walked out within 10 minutes, but they drag it out because they want you to invest more time in it because the more time you've invested in it, the more shit you're probably going to try to add, but they can get you to add to it so that they can write vice versa.

The more time you waste a sales reps time, right? The, the, usually the bigger discount they'll give because now I've, I've spent six months on this fucking deal, man. So fine. Fuck it. Here's another 5% off. Let's just get this done. And that's the leverage that they pull on us. But I love the way you approached it here saying like, look, no, like they call it nibbling. I've learned this from a procurement. Uh, I think it's a, uh, uh, negotiations, ninja podcast. They call it nibbling where procurement will come in literally right at the end and say, well, instead of three, I want to, or instead of, you know, 50 licenses, I want 40 licenses, but, but we're good to go if you just do that. And then you could just say, no, fuck off.

Right. Um, and like, even if you are prepared to settle at that, say no anyway, like, okay, they're going to walk away, reach out back out to them in a week. Say, all right, we can get it done. If that was truly a marker that you needed to get this done, let's do it. Or whenever time frame you deem appropriate. But, um, it's the same thing as anchoring. Just say no the first time, see if it's actually a deal breaker and keep going. Don't be too scared that they're never going to call you back. Cause if you're, if you're that scared at that point, then you don't really have any legs to sit on for this deal anyway. Nope. No, you don't. If you, if you, if you're not like, and that's where discounting happens, right?

If you're not confident that you have the best solution, if you are, if you're not confident in your pricing itself, right, then you're going to have to give away a discount because it's just inherent as part of your approach. Whereas if you just, if you've got the confidence knowing that your shit is good and it's the right fit and it will make a difference, you hold that line as hard as you can. Exactly. You need to get them to tell you what that difference is. And then it's so much easier to hold that, uh, you know, say, this is what we talked about. And so how important is that to you? Does it, does this extra 5% matter really at the end of the day, if this is going to influence a hundred thousand million dollars in pipeline, whatever it might be.

And I'll literally say that to people like, Hey, do you think this is going to be successful and you bought it? Are you really going to let this die for two grand when you think it's going to source you a hundred K, 200 K, 300 K, whatever it might be. I have that. And I say, look, especially when they push back. Well, you know what, John, at the end of the day, this is too expensive. You could be like, well, hold on a second. I'm confused. You had told me all that quantifiable stuff. Like if you don't do this, you're going to miss out on these marks or this revenue or whatever it is. And now you're saying my price is too high to hit that macro goal of yours. Like I'm a little confused here with what you're talking about, because if you really think that shaving off a thousand bucks off the top of this thing or $2,000, either, either look, I didn't do a good enough job selling you on the value of my solution here, or I'm missing something.

What is it? Right? Yep. A hundred percent. Cool, man. Well, look, I think we dove into this deal. We could talk about, I love talking deals specifically, because I, like I said, I learn a lot more of talking deals than sharing any tips or anything like that. I guess what was the biggest, to wrap it up, what was the biggest learning takeaway that you had from this deal and why it stuck out for you to use for, uh, for the submission of this one? The amount of people that were involved in it and really just the impact it had on both businesses. And that was really the storyline of what I wanted to share and why I thought it had a, it had a leg to stand on against somebody else's. Um, and really I think what put it over the line was I hired my best friend to do a whole design job with this.

And I was told later that I was the only one that actually custom designed my application into a PDF. The way that Chili Piper did it was you just put in, um, um, they asked the question and then you just put in answers and texts to those questions. And they tell you literally to submit a word doc. And I called, uh, Scott and I was like, can I submit like a decked out like PDF? He's like, yeah, I normally wouldn't even ask for permission to just do it, but I didn't want to get like disqualified or something. Um, and so I think the way I stood out and the way I differentiated myself was doing that. And I ended up paying my buddy a thousand dollars out of the 10 grand prize for doing this. And that really, I think, I think what I had was, was good.

And it definitely had a leg to stand on. I don't know if I still would have won after I heard some of the other deals that some of the other reps that submitted were pretty, pretty massive. Um, I don't know if this would have, this would have won if I didn't go that extra mile and figure out how can I be different than somebody else? Um, and so I think that's what maybe when it, um, but your question was, um, learning lessons from the deal. Um, I was still around the point where I was kind of, uh, being a bulldog on calls and I wasn't building those relationships. I think this is just the one that are my personality and the CEO's personality really meshed together really well. And it was just kind of a natural connection.

Um, and ever since I sold them the deal, we've been on a texting basis and we're still friends and we still say what's up. So I think at the end of that, realizing that I did everything correctly and, you know, I got the big deal I was hoping for and all that, but the relationships I still have with those people. Um, and that I can call him on a whim right now and he'll pick up and he'll answer any question I have and, and vice versa. That was, um, I think probably the beginning point of what I ended up realizing a little bit later in the year, which is building relationships is, is the most important thing. Absolutely. Love it, man. And I think you said something else in there right before that, that last one, which was just, you did some, you know, even in your submission of this deal, you did something different.

And I think that's just what I implore every rep to try to think about is like how forget about your product and service for a minute here. Like, how can you be different? How can you be different than every other rep that's showing up, asking the same bullshit band questions, giving the same bullshit presentation for 30 slides and 30, you know what I mean? And, and sending the bullshit, same bullshit presentation and going through the motions there. So, you know, if you can just do something different to stand out. And I, and I do believe that all products and services are somewhat commoditized and at least in the mind of the consumer, uh, in a lot of ways, the way that you can and should differentiate is through the sales process is how, is how professional you are and how prepared you are at managing that sales process.

It makes all the difference in the world. Yeah. One, one actionable tip I would give to anybody that I talk to my, my fellow AEs about a lot is, um, preparation for the call is the easiest way to be successful. And so the way that you frame that to them actually is very important where what I've done recently is I will, I do 30 minutes of prep. If it's a big call, I might do more. And I'm looking at first, um, their LinkedIn profile. I look at their job description. What metrics do they have in there? What are they responsible for? How many years have they worked at their current company? What are their past jobs? Are they experienced in this field? Are they new to this field? Where did they start their career?

I just internalize all of these things. And this also makes for good openers on calls too, where if you look at where they went to school, what they major in, do they have an MBA, go Google their name, look at their, look at their, um, public socials, find out some of their hobbies and their interests and see if they produce any content. Take all that. You're going to have something to talk about in the very first 10 seconds of the call besides the fucking weather outside, right? Ask a good question that opens up and makes you a human being to them. Not a robot that you're talking to. Step number one, step number two, after that is after you've done the prep of look at their website, look at the, um, social media that they have, what type of content are they putting out?

This is for me, what I sell the marketers is what I look at, right? Um, look about the things that they care about and anything public that they have. You shouldn't go into a call asking them how long they've worked there or where they're located or anything else. All shit you can do yourself. But then after that, you share what you did for prep and you, you can, you can size it into 30 to 60 minutes. Hey, I know we have, you know, this was the reason for the call. Here's what I've done. Here's what I've looked at. It sounds like you're in this position and you have these problems, but then let them tell you where you're wrong because then you've, you've at least done the work to say, okay, this person is committed to helping me.

They've already invested time into me before I've even spoken to them. Now let them tell you, here's what's actually going on. Here's what we need to know. And that's an easy way to earn trust very early on. So you can ask better questions throughout the sales process. So I would say that is my biggest actionable tip that I never see a lot of AEs doing on, on calls. And it drives me nuts whenever somebody tries to pitch me something. So just drives right in and it goes back to the give a shit factor, right? I mean, just, you know, I even tell people, I don't let them guess that I did, that I prepared. I actually tell them, I go, Hey, real quick, before we get started here, you know, as I was preparing for this meeting, I was on your website, I looked through your LinkedIn profile and I noticed whatever talking to me about, you know what I mean?

So, and again, to your point, instead of whether the fucking game or whatever, you're actually small talking with a reason you're, you're small talking with a purpose. And the goal there is to get them excited and talking about stuff that they should be excited talking about, which is them. Right. 100%. Um, you know, if you see, they get an MBA, do you think an MBA is still worth it in today's age? What did you experience before? Just like very basic stuff, but you can create questions out of it and try to make sure that you are actually interested in their answers. Don't just ask them random questions you don't care about. But anyway, yeah. Well, that, and that goes back to the authenticity piece of this is too, right?

Don't say, I mean, look, fine. You know, the fishermen, like, oh, I see you're a fisherman. Uh, look, if you are a legit fisherman, you know what I mean? And you go out on the, you go fly fishing in fucking Denver or something like that. And you're crazy about it. And you walk into somebody's office or you get a zoom info, zoom session like this. And there's a big old fish, you know, guys holding a huge fish in his hands. Like, fine, comment on it. Cause that can be authentic. Right. But don't bullshit. And, and say you're a fisherman when you've fished once in your life. Right. So. Yep. Authenticity. A hundred percent. Awesome, man. Well, Danny, I've been really appreciate, uh, again, the story, first of all, the feedback.

Thank you for that. I'm glad that the content's helping, but hopefully, and hopefully you just paid it forward here with this podcast for a lot of other people who could learn from some of the things that you did in this step. So any last words, anything that you want to say to the audience or where they can find you or G2 crowd or anything like that? Yeah. Um, so I'll, I'll end with a quick story, which is when I was, um, in community college, I wanted to major in sport management and I had no idea what the hell I was doing. Um, and I kind of told a couple of my classmates about it. And one of them offered for me to speak to an AE at the Phoenix suns back when I was in school, I was like, yeah, I want to talk to him.

And I got on the phone with him and he's like, guess what, buddy? Like your education doesn't mean shit. You need to go work for free right now. And you need to get as much free experience as you can possibly get just to stand a chance in the job market. That doesn't even guarantee you anything. And I had no idea about any of that, um, about any of the business world or anything like that. So after that call, I went on to do three, four internships throughout school, use that experience to get my first job now at G2. But without that call, I don't know where I'm at. So one big thing I love doing now is doing that mentorship program with bravado of talking to new sellers that come into the industry just to pay that piece back forward.

Cause I know how helpful it was for me. So if you're a new AE or a new rep at a, at a new company, please call me. I'll be happy to help you. Um, my number is 847-833-1185, or you can follow me on LinkedIn, uh, which is where I'm most active on, on socials, but, um, very passionate about giving back to the community and using some of the stuff I've, I've learned to help out others. And, um, I actually, that's how I connected with Richard Harris was Richard put out his number and asked for a sales tip. And that's the first time I called him and he's turned into a friend of mine now too. So, um, please give me a call. I'd be happy to help. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Danny. I really appreciate it.

And everybody out there, hopefully you got some, as much value out of this as I did, you know, be genuinely curious, give a shit, be authentic, do your, do way more quality over quantity. If you can, I understand that some of us are in a position where we can't, but the more you can, the better off you're going to be long-term in this career, right? 100%. Thanks for having me, John. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. Just like I say all the time, everybody, if you don't do anything else today, but make somebody happy, please go do that. Uh, cause no matter how bad your day went, if you will put a smile on somebody's face, you know, you had a good day, so make it a great week, everybody. And let's make it happen as usual.

Have a good one. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.