164: Jason Bay On Cold Calling Strategy

What's poppin' y'all? Thanks for joining us for another episode of Make It Happen Mondays with your host, Jon Barrows. This episode is brought to you by our partners, Sales Loft, Gong, Vanilla Soft, Vidyard, Proposify, Owler, Sendoso Out of the Box, and Zoom Info. Today we're talking to Jason Bay of Blissful Prospecting, and he's going to talk about understanding our prospects, reframing our goals, question stacking, which is really interesting, and he's going to give us his thoughts on empathy, which is a huge topic these days. Also, we're going to cover what to do when a prospect opens your email but doesn't respond. Really excited about this one. Don't forget to check us out at ondemand.jbarrows.com to invest in your own sales skills and professional development.

And now, let's give it up for Jon and Jason, and as always, make it happen. Good afternoon, everybody. This is Jon Barrows. Make It Happen Mondays. Hopefully you had a fantastic weekend. I am super excited about this conversation because, first of all, I just did an awesome virtual roadshow with this gentleman, and he is a little bit more on the ground floor than I am with this, so I'm hoping to learn something on this. Jason Bay over at Blissful Prospecting. How are you, my friend? I'm doing good, dude. This is round two for us, so I'm looking forward to it, man. Yeah, this is round two. That's right. That's right. We have very few two-time podcasters, so you're in a small group here. Jason, talk to me a little bit about, so just in case the audience doesn't know, walk me through kind of what you're doing, like how you got to where you are right now and what you're doing right now, because it's going to provide some really good context for this conversation around cold calling.

I've always sort of been the cold outreach person. So, I'm 31. At 18, my first sales job was going door-to-door selling house painting services. So, I got into sales sort of accidentally, and there's a long story there, but I ended up selling like $100,000 for the paint jobs, dude, over the summer and made like 27 grand, which was, I was like addicted to sales, and that also led to a bunch of other bad financial habits and getting into credit card debt. Don't give an 18-year-old 27,000 bucks, dude. Terrible idea. Yeah. So, that was really good, and we got most of our business going door-to-door. So, I did a lot of that myself and then also trained people on how to do it. You know, it was kind of funny because there's, I think it's actually harder to go door-to-door and cold call for business-to-consumer stuff than B2B, because you can't research people.

Yep. And I had to quickly get over the need for validation from other people, and I think that's a really big reason why, you know, we're going to talk about call reluctance today, but I think that's a real big reason why people are call reluctant, because they need this like approval from this person, and when I was going door-to-door, you do that in person. So, you kind of get over that part, like very, very quickly. Yeah. But I worked with that company, College Works Painting, for 7 years. So, I was a sales manager with them, and then I was a VP of sales, and then I was like a director of marketing, actually. And one thing I did there that they never had was start an outbound call center.

So, I got to work in like a call center environment. The way that we started it was, we had 5 people sitting at Cubes, and they had to dial manually, like through landlines, off a spreadsheet, on a piece of paper. So, we grew that into 15 reps. And then, so this is like 2013, 2014. That's when I left, and I started consulting and helping other companies with like kind of marketing and sales. And that's how I learned how to do B2B outbound. So, I had to actually do it for myself. And the way that we started Blissful Prospecting was I started getting clients, and the clients that sold B2B were like, oh, that was a cool email you sent me. Can you just do that for me? And this is actually the last time we did an interview together.

We were sending email campaigns on behalf of companies and running LinkedIn campaigns. And that's really fucking hard work, man, writing sequences for people. And it just, we weren't actually able to get as good of results for people, actually. And the reason for that is, you know, they know their prospects better than I do. And I would interview some of their customers and stuff. But they just know that stuff way better. And for me, what we've really made a transition into in the last like year and a half is like, how do we like train and coach around the framework for a good message? And, you know, empower people that are already selling and already have people that are prospecting, but just not getting great results or don't feel good about how they're doing it.

And that's how we sort of ended up where we're at today. Yeah, I talk a lot about that a lot. There's, you know, scripts, which I can't stand. And then there's, hey, you know, good luck, like make it up on your own. The middle ground of structure, I've given them a framework to follow, but put their own information in. That's where I've done the same thing. Because I mean, back 10, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, when I was training this stuff, it was very specific around one very specific email technique, right? The why you, why you now email. And it worked really, really well. And I could write one for you, anybody. And I was usually getting a 20% response rate, but then, you know, marketing automation slammed and, you know, all these cadence tools and the market got flooded.

And so teach them how to fish as opposed to giving them the fish kind of became the structure there that we're working with and seeing a lot better results because that way they can iterate and test and try new things as opposed to just keep hammering away on the same shit, right? So with that, let's talk about cold calling, right? Because I don't know about you, but now in COVID time, I mean, I saw some stats from from HubSpot about, you know, March showed like how the volume of email went through the roof, response rates went through the floor. That email or phone, same thing, that phone calls went through the roof, response rate, connect rates, right? Which was the prevailing issue that I found even before COVID was it wasn't that phone was ineffective.

It was just getting somebody on the phone was almost damn near impossible. And so with that, and that was pre COVID. Now COVID hits and everybody goes home. I talked to a lot of executives, none of them had their office line forwarded to their cell phone and they maybe check email one, you know, check their voicemail once a month, once a week, something like that. And so now I'm getting a ton of reps saying, why the fuck should I even call? Because A, I don't have direct dial numbers. I don't have cell phone numbers, so I can't get direct to them. B, you know, nobody picks up. C, you know, if I leave a message, it doesn't matter. So why the hell am I doing this? So let me, what's your answer of why cold calling in today's environment is still worth the time.

And then we'll talk about how to do it to make it sure it's worth your time. But why, why, what's your justification now for somebody who's like, dude, I've made a hundred calls today. I got like three gatekeepers maybe, and I didn't get through to anybody. And I literally spent all day and I didn't get one thing done. Like I didn't get a response. Like, what do you say to that kid? Yeah. I mean, it's a good question and a totally understandable frustration, right? I mean, you block hours out of your day and you don't get ahold of anyone. It's freaking frustrating, right? So there's a couple of things that I would, I would say in terms of how to approach that. I think that the, I only prospect top down, and that's the only way that I do it is call into VPs and C levels is kind of disappearing, right?

Now you're like that information is harder to get. I mean, I don't know about you, but like, even I got an email, you know, a small company we run from zoom info saying, are you sure you want your information in here? You know, so people can opt out of giving their direct lines away. So we're having to deal a lot more with assistants and that becomes, that's a whole nother skillset, right? Dealing with a gatekeeper assistant, getting someone to actually help you instead of looking at them as someone I have to go around or through or to trick or whatever. So there's definitely some stuff that you can do there. There's some intel that you can grab too. So if I learn a little bit more about this person's schedule or what they're working on or what might be important to them, that's going to make that email a hell of a lot better.

That's going to make that LinkedIn video. I know you guys talk a lot about video and audio. That's going to make that message a little smarter. You know? Um, the other thing that I would say too is bottoms up, like, dude, call the people that are going to be using the product then and get like a good idea of the problems that they're having. And then maybe talk to that person's manager. Guess what? That email is going to look really good when you can throw some names in there of people that you talk to, some insights that you got and some problems you think they might be having and give them a reason why it would actually make sense to talk. And that's the thing I was talking about with a VP or C levels.

Like, dude, even if you got this person over the phone, they're not going to do a 30 minute demo with you, man. And just, and they're not gonna be like, Oh, John, cool. So walk me through your product. They're going to be like, what research have you done on me? How do you know? Like, what are the use cases you see here? What are the problems you think that I have? This might be able to fix. Like, they're not going to spend time doing discovery with you to the level that a manager or a director would for you to get the information to provide the context. Like when I've tried to do sales calls like that, I, they basically five minutes into the call, a VP of sales is going to be like, dude, so like, how the fuck is this going to help me, man?

You know, I think that's a challenge too, is in today's, I mean, I think you would the with the top down approach. Look, I've always said that BDR, SDR job is the hardest job in sales, right? To get to find that needle in the haystack, right? And that type of thing. And also, you're not an industry expert at 22, 23, 24 years old. You don't, I'm sorry, you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. And so when you call me and I'm a, I'm a C level, I'm a VP, I'm, I'm all about value. Like if you can bring value to me and, and however that it comes, right? Get me to think about something, share with me something I haven't heard of before, whatever it is, I'll listen. Okay. But if you're going to ask me piece of shit, bant questions, and then, and then give me very limited data or insight into what your product is and tell me that I have to now go talk to somebody else who knows what they're talking about.

Like, I'm going to get off this phone so damn quick that, that it's going to make your head spin. And so I love, because we've been doing the same thing as far as re-looking at the value or the approach of SDRs. Instead of top down and trying to smash your head up against a wall against people who really do not want to talk to you and are really hard to come by, go bottom up, gain insights. Because insights right now are like, look, a meeting with an executive that's in the buying, that's in the zone to buy, that's obviously the, the, you know, the holy grail there. But the secondary thing is to gather insights, into what's happening in that business. So you can, to your point, have better conversations up there when you do have that conversation.

So how is it being leveraged for you right now? Is it, is it phone heavy? Like, do you, are you balancing email, phone, and social when you're doing your outreach right now? And are you looking at phones slightly differently as part of that contact strategy compared to six months ago? Hmm. Compared to six months ago. Or pre-COVID, let's say pre-COVID. Yeah. I mean, the approach hasn't really changed. I think that what you get from the channels has definitely changed, man, because the contact rates are definitely lower. But in terms of sequencing, dude, I've always found just following best practices provided from sales loft, outreach, vanilla soft. I mean, they all kind of tell you generically the same information with sequences and cadences, 12 to 15 touches over 30 to 45 days, two to seven days apart, two to three channels, right?

They all kind of generically tell you the same. And that's what I've always used as a good starting foundation. The one thing though, that I would say that I've seen, because what we make a really big focus on our podcast is interviewing like reps, like that are actually prospecting. I'll tell you 80% of them use this like triple touch combo prospecting kind of thing. And it's when I reach out to someone for the first time, I'm going to go to John's LinkedIn profile. I'm going to do my research or whatever. I'm going to call him and then I'm going to leave a voicemail. I'm going to send an email. So this is another little trick I got from Sam Crew. God, I'm forgetting his company name. Can't give him credit on that.

But the subject line, and I've used this sort of randomly, but this is like 60, 70% open rate is, hey, John, just left a voicemail. That's the subject line. And then the voicemail is, and Morgan talks about this a lot, right? These low friction voicemails. Hey, I'm going to leave a voicemail and say, hey, no need to call me back, man. I'm going to send you an email that says, hey, John, just left a voicemail. And they do send a LinkedIn connection request. And I always think about, I think you've talked about, you know, sort of design thinking with prospecting quite a bit. But what I always do when I'm training is I take out my phone and it's like, what's the experience like for the person on the receiving end of that?

They're going to get like dinged like four or five times right there. That is what I've seen work extremely well. That's been a tactic for a while though. I mean, as long as combo prospecting has been, it's been kind of a commercial tactic, but sequencing using the normal best practices, and then that triple touch, triple threat combo prospecting like that I've seen work really well. And then just being willing to leave a voicemail, you know, and leaving a good voicemail is the trick, but you got to still leave them. Don't, don't not leave them because people aren't picking up. And I think that's where, so I have a, I agree best practices, but we're using phone a little bit different. And you actually said it where before COVID, it was a lot of me leaving you a voicemail as part of a sequence, but it was like my second or third touch, but it was an independent touch that had value.

Right? So I would go on your website. I would do research. I would send you an email. I would then connect with you on LinkedIn. And then I would make a phone call. Hey, Jason, the reason I'm calling is blah, blah, blah. Call me back. 617-529. Right? That type of thing. But it was kind of like this. It was a, a, you know, an ask. There was a call to action there, like, which was, and it wasn't a hard, it wasn't a soft one. It wasn't, Hey, you know, I left you a voice, you know, I sent you an email. It was more, Jason, I want you to call me back type of thing. And that was the hope that you would actually call me back. Now COVID hits, we're using phone, still leaving voicemails, but doing what you just said there, which is actually pointing them back to something else we did.

So if I send you a LinkedIn video two or three days later, I've never been like a, a reference, a failed attempt guy. Like, Hey, Jason, I've called you five times in the past. I'm just trying to call you again because I didn't care the first five times. Why would I care now? Not to be needy or anything, but you haven't returned my call. Exactly. I need, I need. But, but the, the, the way we're using it now is I'll send, you know, I'll go on your website, send an email, make a phone call, send you a video or whatever. And then a few days later, I'll call you and say, Hey, Jason, you know, a couple of days ago, I sent you a LinkedIn video. Uh, this is what it was about. You know, no need to call me back here, but if you could do me a favor and go check out that LinkedIn video and just get back to me one way or the other, let me know if you're interested in that.

I'd really appreciate it. And the idea here is they're the likelihood of them calling you back is not high, but they might just might listen to the voicemail and get prompted to go back and say, let me go see what that was. Right. And then, because what we're doing, we ran a couple of cadences here, same exact cadence to the same exact personas. The one, one of them we called left voicemails and the other one we called and didn't leave voicemails. And we got a 13% higher response rate on the one that we did leave voicemails on, but it wasn't callbacks. It was emails back. And that's where I think this, this multi-threaded, multi-touch, we, we almost have to become more marketers these days as sales reps and play the impression game where we hit them on LinkedIn.

We like their comment. We send them a voice, you know, we leave a voicemail, we send them an email. So all these different touches, all of a sudden there's that familiarity factor there of something. And when they're ready, now they can reach out to us however they want. So are you following the same, like, like kind of touch, like a impression game with your approaches? Yeah. So a couple of comments there. Uh, okay. Has anyone ever gotten a higher callback rate on voicemails? I hear people say 80% of people calling back. I'm like, bullshit, dude. Like I want to see a zoom call of you recording voicemails and leaving it with people. And then I want to see a zoom call again when they fucking call you back.

Like there's just no way eight out of 10 people are calling you back. Like it's probably always been like a less than 5% of people call you back. Um, so I, I just come back to design thinking, man. Like, this is what you're talking about. Like, what's the user experience like? And when you get, when you talk to a rep and like really get them to like, think about what's it like receiving this stuff. And, and if you want to do omni-channel multi-channel experience, does it feel like a multi-channel experience to the prospect? Because again, if you think about a really busy executive who's getting dozens of calls on a weekly basis and getting over a hundred cold outreaches per week, when you send a one-off email on a Tuesday, and then you call and they have a voicemail on a Thursday, and then a connection request on Friday on LinkedIn, they can't see that all three of those things are connected.

You kind of have to do that for them. And you start just adding, like, this is where the automation and email just got way out of control because you can tell when people were creating sequences, you could tell that they created a sequence. Because it didn't quite sound like someone sending a one-off email. And by the way, I think that's the biggest hack for sequences is create them one email at a time, like send them all out manually the first time, and then take what you manually created, then turn it into a sequence. But my point there is that there's subtle nuance to the voicemail when you mentioned the connection request you sent or the video you sent. There's subtle nuance in the email when you mentioned the audio message that you left them with some little nugget in it.

That little tiny stuff is like, oh, this is a human. Like, I'm going to invest this little bit of effort into checking this out because this person invested effort. And you start getting those little things that affect the reply rates in your sequences. And it's amazing, man. You know, I, you know me, I've been talking about personalization for years, right? Like all personalized and all this other shit. And a lot of times I feel like, oh, man, people are sick of hearing my shit, right? Everybody gets it, personalization, whatever. No one does it though. No. And that's my point. Like, I, I don't know if you saw that post that I did when I came back from vacation, but I had 2000. So I, for two weeks, I did not check my emails.

First time in my entire business career. I did not. That was a nightmare coming back to that, dude. I knew it was going to be, but I, but whatever. It was nice for those two weeks. Came back, there was 2000. So there's 2040 emails in my inbox. Okay. And so I was like, all right, got to clean these up. And so I decided to put them in buckets, right? To say, okay, what, what, you know, LinkedIn requests. And, you know, I got these many. And, and so marketing emails and sales emails. So out of the 2040 sales, out of the 2040 emails that I got 78, which I was, I was a low number 78 were sale, what I would consider sales emails. And, you know, asking me to buy a meeting or whatever it is. Uh, zero of them were personalized.

Yeah. LinkedIn, 356 LinkedIn invitations, messages, whatever. Seven of them personalized, seven of 356 and two used video. I, I like, it blew me away. So like, as, as much as everybody bitches and complains about how hard it is to break through these days, it's actually not that hard. If you give a shit, like if you actually give a shit and empathize with the person to your point, putting yourself in the experience of the user, the buyer, right. To say, or the prospect to say, how would this come across to me? And, and how would I like to be approached with this? And so let, let's hit on how do we, let's start with how to, I want to get into some very specific tactics to, to, on this stuff, but I do want to talk about that reluctance to confidence, right?

Cause I think so many reps right now are just scared shitless being on the phone, mainly because they don't have a good approach. They, they feel like it's a waste of time. They walk in with a negative attitude about it. And so that's perpetual and it just kind of builds on itself. So how do you take somebody who's just like, man, I'm being asked to do this. I hate doing this. I'm not good on the phones. Like what are some of the steps that you need to take short term to be able to start building some confidence and, and, and getting yourself in the right mindset that phone is a still a viable part of what you do? Yeah. So I think you got to do a couple of things. So I think the fear there is, I think a lot of people know that they're 23 years old and they're reaching out to a 50, 60 year old person and they feel like they have nothing to offer.

So it's almost like I, you remember when you're, you're like a little kid and you wanted to talk to the adults and they didn't want to fucking talk to you, dude, because you like, we're talking about stupid stuff, right? It's almost like you bring, get back to childhood there. And I feel like a lot of other people get put on the spot. And that's where a lot of the fear, uh, and call reluctance comes from. And I think there's a, there's a couple of really practical things that you can do. I call it drinking the company Kool-Aid. So like really ask yourself, like, are you drinking the company Kool-Aid? So for example, I'm working with these reps at this bootcamp and I'm like, dude, you guys have amazing case studies.

Like the best, these look like these are written by salespeople. It like elaborates the problem. Like there's literally quotes in here that you can use in your emails. That's how good they are. No, I hadn't really taken a look at those Jason. Well, why not dude? Like that is going to think about how good you're going to feel when you know that your product gets really good results for your customers. And that I'm going to pause for a second. Cause I truly believe that if you do not believe in what you are selling, you're not going to be successful doing it. And you're, by the way, you're a douchebag sales rep. If you're just out there trying to get, you know, trying to sell just because you're trying to get a commission check, you're the jackass that gives the rest of us a bad name.

So first of all, go, go stop. But if you don't believe in it, go find, go find a way to believe in it. Cause that transfer of enthusiasm comes through on the phone. And if you don't believe in it, that comes through as well. And you, the great point there, I tell everybody, like if I were to start at a business, like if I were to start as a new rep at a company, I wouldn't give a shit about the spec sheets. I wouldn't give a shit about the data sheets or the features and functions of what I sold. I would grab every case study that I had in the company. I would read them all and I would learn how to tell those stories and I would go ask the AEs, Hey, walk me through this. What was the problem?

What's going on here? So I just understand the use cases. And then I could easily tell those stories. Right? So perfect. As far as like tactical, like how do you build confidence? First of all, a believe in what you sell, B start reading some case studies, start understanding the difference that your solution makes so you can go to have those conversations. So what else? Yeah. And then you have these stories with the case studies. Cause I think that's another underrated element of selling. And dude, I, this has took me a while to learn. Cause I don't, I was not a very good storyteller until I met, and I don't think like I'm an awesome storyteller, but from a sales context, I can do it until I met my wife, Sarah.

Yeah. We've been married now for three years. It's last July. Yeah. And she's, she comes from New York. Right. And she's also Korean. So like Korean culture is very much like you give each other shit. You're always telling stories. I didn't grow up like that, man. I was kind of quiet and shy and all that other stuff. So having stories about successful stuff, like this just allows you to pull this stuff up when it's relevant to talk during a cold call. Oh, by the way. Oh yeah. Someone I was talking to our, someone we just wrote a case study about was experiencing that same thing. Like, you're just going to feel like you can like vibe with a person a little bit more, you know? Um, so drink the company Kool-Aid in that regard.

The other part too, is if you have to do this on your own time, you should be talking to people in customer success, or if you sell a service, whoever's fulfilling the service and actually interacts with the clients. Hey, tell me about how we're helping these people right now. You know, um, the other thing too, and not every company has the ability or allows the reps to do this, but if you can interview, uh, customers, so like an AE probably would be able to do something like this. If you could interview a customer and Kevin Dorsey has a really good customer interview framework that I like, cause it's not so product focused. Like I don't like jobs to be done at all. I think it's too complicated, but he's got this really good framework and just one of the questions.

Um, and this is one thing I'm doing with a consulting client right now. Cause I always like to interview their customers to get a better idea of, of what they're doing. And I just asked like, Hey, what are the, like, how is your life better since you started working with them? And like, it makes me confident. Like I want to go sell their shit after that. Cause they've gotten such good results for these customers. They're like, yeah, they always answer when I you're like little stuff like that. I think 80% of prospecting is your confidence. Cause it comes out in your tone and it's like, you don't need magic words and templates. If you're very confident and you are, you know, you're not, you know, being selfish and just talking about yourself the entire time, you know?

So I think those are some practical things. And then the, the less practical thing, that's more of a mindset, uh, thing with reluctance is, and I learned this, you know, just through therapy is like your need for validation from people that you don't even fucking know that don't even know you, like you got to get over that. And you got to really think about the point is not to like rejection. Like you are human. So you don't like rejection, right? That you're never going to like rejection. So what you have to understand though, is that because we don't like rejection, that makes us crave validation from other people. And we just need to be aware of that. We just need to be aware that we're going to crave validation from people and you don't need your products, uh, your prospects validation.

Like you don't need them to like you. No, that's why like, that's their choice a lot. Keenan says this a lot. People buy from people. They're like, that's not true. Like they buy from people they trust, they respect. They don't have to, I don't necessarily have to like you. It's nice. If I like you, that helps no question about it, but I don't need to like you in order to buy your shit. You know what I mean? There's plenty of people that I bought from that. I'm like, that kinds of, that kid's a douche. Like I would never actually hang out with that kid, but you know what I mean? Like that, but I would, you know, but they had a good product. They brought me through a good process. They answered my questions.

They got me to think about it. You know what I mean? And, and they seem like they knew what the hell they were talking about. Right? So that validation I think is critical. And also to, to, to, to realize that it's just not personal. Like, I don't understand. I get it. Psychology wise, none of us like rejection, but at the end of the day, like it ain't personal. Like that, and you don't know what that person's going through on the other end of that phone. Yep. So if they rip you apart and whatever it is, it's maybe because they're getting a fight with their wife that, you know what I mean? Or their boss is ripping them apart or whatever it, or COVID's really affecting them, those types of things.

And to take you, I mean, that's why you kind of go back to that, putting you, you centric into this whole mess, right? It's about me. It's not about you, right? It's about them. And, and if they say no, fuck it, go, there's a million other phone calls that you can make right now. And you just got to keep kind of moving through that and understanding that you're looking for the person that is a fit, not the person that's not, this is not about convincing people. I always tell people this all the time. Sales is not about convincing anybody of anything. Okay. Sales about helping people solve problems or achieve goals. That's it. And if you have, if your problems are big enough and your goals are big enough, then we should have a conversation.

But if they're not, I'm going to move on. So that mentality is critical. And walking in with that mentality, because how many times have you seen a sales rep walk into a call blitz with a negative mentality and then have a shitty call, shitty call blitz? Happens every time. Every time. Yeah. I mean, the, the validation thing, like, I think you need to be like a bull. Like you can only fuck it up. Like this is the way that I look at it. Right. And this is assuming you have a good product and like all that other stuff. Right. But yeah, I think this is so important because like, you need to like, understand that this person, like you didn't cause them to feel that way. People are in charge of their own feelings.

So if you get pissed right now, John, I didn't cause that. Right. You know what I mean? It's like, you're your own person. You don't make people feel stuff and people don't make you feel stuff. So if that person's having a bad day, like, I love your example. Like, that's what I always ask people when someone says you cold call and they're like, Oh, not interested, dude. Why? Another cold call. Well, why would they respond that way? Let's just think about that. They might be having a bad day. They thought you were someone else. Maybe one of the people that they're managing are not doing well. Maybe it's whatever it is, but there's so many things. When you start to think user experience, design thinking, like, what are they experiencing on the other end?

Instead of thinking about how it makes you feel when someone rejects you, like focus on like what they're thinking and like why they might say something like that and what they're feeling, where they're coming from. And I know that we're kind of venturing into woo-woo territory almost, but this is psychology. Like this is like empathy. It's thinking about the other person's point of view. It's validating. And if you can come in and not need anything from the person and be like, dude, sounds like, dude, sounds like you had a long day, man. And I could, I could totally understand why getting a cold call from someone like me would be the last thing that you want to do, but Hey, would it be a bad idea?

You have to use a little Chris Foss-esque question there. If I took 30 seconds or so, I just tell you why I'm calling and you let me know if you want to keep chatting. You know, like that approach is exactly like permission-based opening, whatever you want to call it. It's like non-assumptive. I am empathizing with you. True empathy. I am talking to how I think that you are feeling based on like your tone and your response. I'm validating you and letting you know, Hey, I could totally understand why you would feel that way. And it's, it's, it's okay for you to feel that way. And then I could make an offer, you know, and I know we're kind of segwaying into some other stuff, but I think it was a good kind of, uh, transition into like some more of the tactical stuff where you can take the psychology.

That's the other fucking thing. I can't stand around. There's just so much psychology out there. No practical how to actually use it. Yeah, exactly. Thanks. You know, you know, cool. Great. Get a good mindset. What do I do about that? Yeah. But I did one piece on that psychology wise, you know, I used to fall into the trap that, that cold calling was an interruption, right? It's interrupting you. Okay. So it's kind of like, uh, that's where like, Hey, I'm sorry to bother you. Like those types of things come from because you've like, I felt for a long time that cold calling was an interruption, but I've, I've changed my opinion on that pretty drastically. It's not an interruption. You chose to pick up the phone.

Yep. Like this didn't just, this isn't like, I don't know. I mean, you're probably too young, but like the next tell days where it was like the walkie talkie thing. Like I used to have my first job in like 2000, right? I worked over DeWalt and I had these next tell things that were, they were cell phones, but they were like, you could actually like straight go into somebody like, like if you were on a job site, you could hear, Hey John, what's up? You there? Right. And I didn't, I didn't press like accept or anything. Like it just automatically said that. So you'd be in a meeting, like a nightmare. Oh, total nightmare. Right. You'd be in a meeting and I'd get like, Hey, fuck back. What's going on?

I'd be like, Jesus Christ, dude, shut the fuck up. Like that's an interruption. Okay. Yeah. But when I pick up my phone and I see a number that I don't recognize, I'm making a conscious choice to answer that. Yep. I can say no to that. Right. And most people know if the name is not in your phone, it, you know, it's not somebody, you know, and that's why I call bullshit on anybody. Oh, I thought you were going to be somebody else. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. You just, you just, you just, you picked it up. You realized it was a sales rep and you didn't want to talk to me. Right. But it's not an interruption. You chose that. So this framework, this mentality of believe in what you sell, it's not an interruption.

I provide a really high quality service for really good customers that, and by the way, you fit that profile. That's why I'm calling you. I don't know whether you need this or not, but you fit a profile of other people that we've serviced and seen some really cool results with. And I'm just calling to see if it's worth five minutes of your time to have a conversation about it. Yep. So let's talk tactically. Let's, let's start. Cause I want to just rapid fire your thoughts and we can give people some tips and ideas on this shit. Yeah. So gatekeepers, you said earlier something important and I know you talk about this. You've stopped calling them gatekeepers. What do you call them now? Again, this is the framework of a mentality here.

You don't, they're not gatekeepers anymore to you. What, what do you call them? I mean, this is borrowed from Art Sobchik who wrote a book called Smart Calling. Great book. But essentially he's like a gatekeeper implies that they're there to stop you. And it's really dehumanizing. I think to think of them as a gatekeeper, they're an assistant and an assistant's job is to filter what comes in and out so they can protect the person they're an assistant for their productivity right in their time. So let's get the person to help us is, is the mentality. And dude, this is not rocket science. If you come in and instead of, uh, demanding and treating this person like a lower, like, Hey John, uh, Jason with blissful prospecting, I'm calling cause I need to talk to your VP of sales.

Uh, Bob. Yeah. Put me through to him. This is how people talk to assistants, man. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, come on? Like you've never had to like ask someone to like for a favor, you know? So I think coming in and being like, Hey, this is an assistant and I'm just going to simply ask for help. And if I come in, I always like to say lead with curiosity that fix all the tonality stuff. I think people focus way too much on tonality. Of course, you don't want to be like, ah, use like upticks. You don't want to sound like coming in, like super just like fired up and stuff. But if you come in with some curiosity and yeah, Hey John, Jason was blissful prospecting. Um, Hey, you know, I know this might be kind of a weird request, but I was hoping you might be able to get me someone's extension.

Cause I've been sending them a bunch of emails and they've been opening them. Is that something you think you might be able to help out with? Who? Uh, what's this one regarding? Oh, Hey, you know, like I said, probably a totally kind of a weird random request to get from me. And you probably don't know who I am. I was calling Bob because, and that's where you do your research that you always talk about. Right. Uh, I found this particular thing. Uh, typically people like him are having problems like this. And I thought I had something that might be helpful. Again, he's opening a lot of emails and I'm not really sure what to do. You might have a better idea on how I can get ahold of him, but I was thinking it might be cool to get ahold of him directly on his cell or with his extension.

Cause I don't have his cell phone number. Is that something you think you could help with? Like that approach works extremely well, uh, where you can come in and it's not about, again, I don't, I wasn't talking off a script. Um, there it's, let's come in and not be assumptive. Let's ask the person for help and let's allow them to opt in to helping me. Let's explain the reason why I'm calling. Let's just be really upfront about the fact that I know someone's opening my emails, but they're not responding. Um, another line, this guy, Jordan Greek, he's a rep at a company called knock that, uh, he's in one of our bootcamps. And he says, Hey, I was putting in a courtesy call to see if they didn't have any questions because they've been opening up my emails a lot.

I'm sure they have some questions by now. All right, cool. That works really well. And I think that that help factor, like, look, those people, those assistants are in those positions because they'd like to help people. Like that's why they gravitate towards executive assistants, office managers, because inherently they are, they, that is what gets them going. You know what I mean? Like, so, so by even using the word help, you're actually putting them in a position to do what they like to do. And so my usually, but, but I think the key factor here, my, at least my experience, like, look, trying to get around gatekeepers. Look, the only thing you can do to get around a gatekeeper is call early, call late.

Okay. But as far as when you, when you're like any trick to get through a gatekeeper is just, they've heard it before. Don't be, don't, don't diminish yourself or them by trying some stupid trick to get through them. Right. But the, the thing that I found has the most success is having a reason, letting them know why you're calling and ideally based on research. Right. So usually I'll say something like this. I'll, I'll come right in with, hi, is Jason there? Right. Oh, who's calling? Well, this is John with JB sales. And actually, you know what? Maybe you can help me. Do you got, do you have a, do you have a minute? Right. So maybe you can help me. Do you have a minute? So I asked for permission.

Sure. What can I help you with? Well, look, I've been doing a little bit of research on Jason. I know that you guys are actually doing some cool, really cool things in these areas. As a matter of fact, I saw that he just did this on LinkedIn and I'm, the reason I'm calling is because we're working with a lot of other people like him to help him drive these type of results using our training. And I just thought it'd be worth a few minutes of his time. Like, what's the best way to get a few minutes on his calendar? Yep. Right. That, and I leave it open at like open ended, like, Hey, so, so maybe you can, you know, what's the best way to get a few minutes on his calendar, have that conversation.

And they're like, well, you know, he's, you know, and then we can talk about objection handling and those types of things, but there's, well, you know, he's busy right now. Well, well, you know what, maybe you can help me then instead of talking to him, is there somebody else who would be a better fit to have this conversation with? Or could you maybe give me a little bit of insights here? Cause I don't want to waste his time if this really isn't something is that he's interested in, but you know, would you mind if I asked maybe you a few questions? Like, are you guys doing sales training here? Do you have a, you know, and I actually comb information out of them because I find that they're way more willing to give up information to protect that person's calendar instead of letting us through to, to potentially do that?

Because you, you said something that was important that it, by calling them gatekeepers that like people, I mean, I still look at gatekeeper. Okay. But their gates are meant to be open. They're meant to be filtered there. If they were actual, if it was their job to keep us out 100%, they'd be called wallkeepers. They're called gatekeepers for a reason, right? But you got to give them a reason of why you're having, and show value that that person's going to get value out of that conversation. Cause if they, if they don't think that that person's going to get value out of your conversation, there ain't no way they're going to let you through. Right. Yeah. So I think it's giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Like they're, for some reason we think assistants are really down or something, you know, most of them are pretty smart people if they're an assistant for an executive. And I don't know, I just want to point out to get like, your tone is very non-assumptive. It's like, can you help? Like, is that something you're cool with? There's a constant permission based, you know, questioning in there. And that's just the way to go. You know, you did a couple of things that there that we essentially teach around asking for permission, asking for that person, like for advice on like, what might be important to this person, getting some intel on things they might know about that their department is focused on.

I mean, these people have a wealth of information. Um, you'd be really surprised. And if you don't ask and, and it, the funny part is, this is a pattern interrupt what we're doing right now, even though it doesn't seem that crazy, because it's, it's like the opposite experience that they have talking with, with most people. Um, so yeah, I, I love all that, man. Yeah. The, the pattern and the pattern interrupt is critical. Like I've been thinking a lot about that. Like, how do you break that pattern? Because as soon as they hear that typical, it's almost like this Pavlov dog, like, Oh, sales rep, how do I get off the phone? That type of stuff. And, and, and then they're not listening. But if you break that pattern and you get them to engage and you kind of play this back and forth, now you can, I don't want to say control the conversation more, but you have more control of the conversation.

Whereas if you don't, they control the conversation, they control how they react. Yep. So let's now go to, all right, we, we, we somehow found, uh, a direct dial number for the executive that we want to talk to. Right. And let's make some bold assumptions here that I did a little bit of homework. I have a reason. Like there's, there's, you know, I saw something that you did or whatever it is. I believe in my product. I think my product can help based on some very preliminary information here. So I call you, I pick up the phone, Jason, you call me, I pick up the phone. Hey, John Barrows, like talk to me super tactically on legitimately. What are the first words that come out of your mouth when you, when I pick up that phone and say, Hey, this is John Barrows.

So I want to do a couple of things real quick. I want to remove the surprise. So I don't know. There's different schools of thought on this, man, because I know you guys like it when the person asks you for your name, right? I like to, maybe that's just Morgan that talks about that. I do that. Yeah. Okay. I like to introduce myself in the company just to get that out of the way off the top. And then I always use a permission-based opener always. And I can give you some different variations of stuff that, uh, we use and teach. And I've heard other people talk about, uh, that we've interviewed, uh, reps that are, that are really fun. So it's, um, Hey John, Jason with Bullsful Prospecting here, dude, I know I'm totally probably catchy in the middle of something here, but do you have like just a sec?

I could tell you why I'm calling and you let me know if you want to keep chatting. Cool. Yep. I like that. Uh, another variation of permission-based that, uh, Adam Beaton over at lead IQ uses is something along the lines of, uh, Hey, I know I'm catching you in the middle of something here, but I just would love to make your day with a cold call. If I could get 30 seconds, you know? So like, if you can just kind of have some fun with it, um, you could do the 30 seconds, the 27 seconds, like whatever the fuck you want to use, you know, like just find something that you like, but there needs to be a permission-based element in it. And then the only caveat, we talked about this on the other webinar that we did is the, how have you been?

I will do that. If the person sounds friendly, if they sound friendly and there doesn't sound like they're trying to immediately get me off the phone, I'll do that at the very top. Hey, Jason was Bullsful Prospecting. How you been? And that, but there's a nuance there and that's gong data stuff, right? There's the nuance not, Hey, how you doing today? Right. It's how have you been? And there is that again, pattern interrupt because it's kind of, I've tried it and it's weird. It works, but it's weird because it's like you start with, hi, this is John Barrows from JB sales. So upfront you realize you don't know, well, you probably don't know me. Right. So it's like, Oh, I don't know this person, but then you shift into how have you been?

Then it's like this, wait a minute. Like my friends asked me how I've been, you know what I mean? Like I don't usually get asked that. So you can, you can literally tell somebody's brain kind of fucking breaks when you do that. Cause they're like, I usually get, well, um, fine. How are you? You know what I'd be? And then, Oh, great. You know, real quick. The reason I'm calling is right. So you do, we do a little bit of, um, Hey, thanks for taking my call. You got a couple of minutes. So right out of the gate, again, pattern interrupt. Hey Jason, thanks for taking my call. Do you got a couple of minutes? And usually what happens there is, well, not really, but who is this? What do you want now?

Well, this is John. And now I'm going to be real quick with this. Well, this is John with JB sales. And actually the reason I'm calling is, you know, we're either working with other VPs like you and dah, dah, dah, dah. And I just wanted to see, and then I give you one out. And I just want to see if I could just get about 10 to 15 minutes on your calendar. Just have a quick conversation, see if it's worth taking a deeper dive. Is that cool? Yeah. And if I do that right, if I, Hey, thanks for taking my call. Do you have a few moments? Not really. Who is this? What do you want? This is John bears, JB sales. And the reason I'm calling is because keep that tight. And then you end with your call to action of, and I was just wondering, you know, what's the best way to get a few minutes on your calendar, have that conversation and see, and there's the upfront contract and see if it's worth taking a deeper dive.

Right. And that's all, cause that's all I'm selling. I'm selling this, this brief call to see if it makes sense to take a deeper dive. And then if you get the, okay, well you caught me now, what do you want? What do you want to talk about? Look, I know you weren't expecting my call here, man. So I'll be brief. I got like four or five quick questions about your sales team and what you're doing right now from a prospecting standpoint. After that, I'll share with you some of the pieces of our solution that I think might make a difference. And then from there, you can tell me whether it makes sense to go to the next step. Is that cool? Now you frame the conversation. Now I come with question, question, question.

Cool. Tailor my pitch. Don't give you the whole bullshit thing, but the parts of it that are most relevant. And then say, is that worth it? That flow right there usually gets the engagement going. I've tightened it up. I've set accurate expectations and it kind of, and it, and it, and it's not pushy, right? I get a good, pretty decent response when somebody actually picks up that phone when they do that. All right. What's happening, you guys. I hope you're enjoying the show. Don't forget to send me your sales wins at James at jbarrows.com. Today, we are highlighting Kelvin Vaughn, who sent us a video about gaining not only job offers, but also creating more opportunities for his own consulting business after jumping into JB sales.

Way to go, Kelvin. You're the man. Keep making it happen. Yeah. I like that. I think there's two schools of thought here too. Um, you ask for the meeting in your, as part of your intro. Um, I think that, okay. So with that, what I find is, is I'm curious what, what you find with this. What I find is if someone takes the meeting there, the show rate is much lower than if I get to ask them three to five questions and do like very tiny light discovery. Um, and I just get more objections off the top, which might be intentional, right? Some people like to get the objections and the engagement at the top. So like I said, I think there's two schools of thought there around asking for the meeting at the top.

The thing that I, the reason I've defaulted to that is because I give you the out going back to it, this, like you can get off the phone with me right now if you want to tell me tomorrow at three o'clock. Okay. Then I have to make sure that that meeting, you know what that meeting is about, but I will say if I do it correctly, 80% of the time they say, well, you caught me now. What do you want to talk about? Okay. And so, so it actually is the meeting, but it's a default to let you know you can get off the phone with me right now if you want, right? Like literally I'm, I know you weren't expecting my call. So, you know, I'm going to be brief here, a few questions and, or like, I'm sorry, uh, you know, and the reason for my call today is, and I was just wondering what's the best way to get a few minutes on your account to have that conversation.

Yeah. Right. 20% of the time they'll see tomorrow at three o'clock, whatever, send me a meeting invite. Yes. A lot of those get canceled, but the way I don't get them canceled is I'm going to send you an email right after that. Jason, thank you so much for taking the call, man. I really appreciate it. Looking forward. I'm going to send you a meeting invitation right after. Here's a preview of some of the things that we've done and what we do. Uh, if this isn't a fit, tell me now, you know what I mean? You can cancel the meeting now. Um, but here's kind of a brief agenda of usually how these calls go, you know, talk about some of your initiatives, some of those things I can share with you this.

And then after that, let me know what else you want to talk about. Right. So if I, if I do appropriate prep for that meeting to let you know what it's about and have an agenda for it, my show rates are at least 50% there. Um, but if I don't, yeah, it's, that's a blow off. Oh yeah. Yeah. Call me next week at three o'clock on Tuesday. It's like, oh fuck yourself. Right. But, um, but for the most part I, I get them to say, all right, let's talk now. Right. So that's why I've ended up doing it because I, cause I want to give you one out. I also, my also other call to action is, Hey Jason, you know, the reason I'm calling is dah, dah, dah, dah. And I was just wondering, you know, who on your team is the best person to have that conversation with?

Yeah. And you could say Sarah, why Sarah? Oh, she's our director of demand gen. Oh, cool. Do me. Could you, any chance you could forward, you pass me through now? Hey, Sarah, Jason told me to talk to you. Got the call ready to go. Yeah. I, like I said, I think there's two schools of thought. I like that approach. It clearly works. Um, I think there's, I think it depends on what you're selling and who you're selling it to. I think that if, if what you're selling is either fairly, uh, new from a product standpoint where people might be unfamiliar with what it is and the problems that it solves, I find that's good to ask questions. And then the other thing is I find if your value prop is somewhat, um, like too good to be true kind of thing.

So I'll give you an example. Like we're working with this, uh, consulting company right now that sells these like cost saving services. So they'll essentially go in, it doesn't cost the company any money, but they find like ways to save a ton of money. It's like 50%. They take 50% of the savings. Yeah. It's bananas. But you know what? People are like too good to be true. No way. Yeah. So, so the way that, uh, I'm working with them on the calls right now is they'll still do permission-based opener. Yeah. And people usually kind of chuckle. Yeah. Jason, what's up? Well, Hey, the reason for my call, I got that line from you. Love that line. Perfect way to open. Uh, you do the personalization. Hey, reason for my call.

So let's say they're working with commercial, uh, um, uh, commercial, uh, real estate, excuse me. Um, companies. Hey, the reason for my call is I was on your guys' website. Notice that you guys managed 250 listings here in the little rock area. And what we oftentimes find is when people are managing that amount of listings, usually three to four vendors they're working with on waste. And I don't know if this has happened to you at all recently, but what I've been hearing from a lot of CFOs is that what will sometimes happen throughout the week is that the vendors like completely forget to pick up the trash and you end up having to actually get involved with that. Um, and like I said, you guys are probably doing a really good job here, but is it cool if I ask you just a few questions to see like, if this is even going to be relevant for you?

So like, I like to go pretty problem centric and that doesn't always work, right? There might not always be this big glaring problem, but if you sell something like that, where, you know, you're going to talk about something they're likely encountering, I like doing that second permission-based kind of opener after I do personalization, have some empathy, which is the problem. And then I might get to share like results, like how we would help with that if it gets to that. And then I like to go straight into my questions. So, Hey, like I said, most companies are doing this or most people are, are experiencing this. Like, how are you guys dealing with that right now? Does that ever happen to you?

And I start light with the questions and, and do what I call question stacking, where I'm going to build the problem into the question and then ask around those problems and then go easy to answer questions at the top and then, you know, work my way down and get something that's a little more detailed, you know, from them. I think that's another approach that you could use if you want to do a little more discovery. It's all about that call to action, right? And we've been playing around with the same thing, like the impact questions, getting somebody to think, right? So what I, what I'll do is in lieu of like historically, it's been, Hey, what's the best way to get, you know, a few minutes on your calendar, whatever.

Past year, we've been doing something similar to that, where it's like, Hey, Jason, thanks for taking my call. You got a couple of minutes. Not really. Who is this? What do you want? It's John with JB sales. And, um, you know, the reason I'm calling is, you know, we're working with a lot of other VPs of sales like you who, who right now, whose main priority is helping their, keeping their reps motivated and engaged now that everybody's working from home. And I was just wondering, like, what are some of the things you're doing right now to keep your reps motivated and engaged? So I, I literally like value prop specific to the persona on a pain point that most other women face and then card cut immediately to an open-ended question that is relevant to that, to see if I can get you to just engage in the conversation.

And usually what happens there, at least, you know, real world shit is it gets them to stop and go, wait a minute, what is this about again? And now they're listening. Yep. You know what I mean? Because I asked a very thoughtful, very targeted question based on that persona. And they were probably tuning out as I was doing it. But as soon as I asked that question and put them on the spot to answer it, now they're like, oh fuck. Um, I'm, I'm sorry. Could you say like, what, what's this about again? And now I can actually take my time with my value proposition and, and actually have a real, like real value proposition, right? As opposed to just speeding through it and trying to get you to do something for me.

I'm now I have you listening and that's what I'm really trying to do at the end of the day. I'm trying to pattern interrupt. I'm trying to get you to fucking stop for two fucking seconds and listen to me, which leads me to, to my question for you, which is say you cold call somebody, they pick up and they say, oh, uh, I'm, I'm in a meeting right now, which is total horse shit, right. Or I'm walking into a meeting or I'm sorry. Like, you know, this is a good time. Like, what do you do in that specific scenario where somebody says I'm in a meeting right now, which you know is bullshit. I mean, I kind of lump that into, uh, you know, now's not a good time. I'm busy, not interested. I kind of lump all of those together.

So the way that, um, we teach this is it's the empathy based objection handling. So it's empathize, validate, offer, Evo. So I, I, I don't like this mentality of like all prospects are lying, even though, you know, that they're giving you a bullshit answer. That one I'm calling bullshit on because you're the rudest fucking person on the planet that just picks up random phone calls in the middle of meetings or you picked up the phone, you realize it was a sales rep. So that one, I don't believe they're all liars, but I think that specific objection, because, and by the way, I've used it plenty of times, so I'm lying. Um, but that's a lie. So I don't believe all of them are lying, but that's a lie.

And I know it is. Yeah. And yeah, it absolutely is bullshit. And I think that what we can't fight that with is like, we can't be confrontational and I'm not saying you're doing this, obviously, but like as, as a rep, we can't be confrontational and be like, you know, I call bullshit. Yeah. You know, like that's your first thinking, your tone's going to be off. You're going to be argumentative. So it's, um, so the empathize piece is you can do all kinds of different variations with this, but again, no magic words. Hey, John, dude, sounds like I caught you right in the middle of something. You're about to run off to a meeting, uh, validate. Hey, I could totally see why now wouldn't be a great call to get a great time to get a cold call, right?

Empathize validate. I'm trying to disarm the person primarily there because this is not really like an objection that I can work with. This is just a, an excuse. And then I can offer. So the offer, again, there's lots of different variations. You can ask the question. I do like the no oriented questions. Would it be a bad idea? I don't like the, would it be crazy? Sounds a little weird to me, but if you can use that and it works for you, good, but it's like, I'm going to do a permission-based opener again. Hey, John, yeah, totally here. It sounds like I caught you right in the middle of something here. You're about to run to a meeting and I could totally see why now wouldn't be a good time to take a cold call, but you know what?

Uh, just so I don't keep calling you here, uh, while you're running into meetings, uh, would it be a bad idea if I just took 30 seconds right now to tell you why I'm calling? And then you can decide if like going to that meeting, man, is, is worth it. Uh, more than talking to me. There you go. Cool. You know, and again, no magic words, but if you kind of follow that framework up, like really think about if someone was truly running into a meeting, they'd probably be kind of stressed and frazzled, right? And just talk to that. Yep. I I've tried. So I have a, uh, I take the empathy out of that. I go real quick with, Hey, I'm walking into a meeting right now. Hey, look, uh, Jason, I got two questions that need two minutes of your time.

At the end of that, you can tell me to go away if you want. Is that cool? Yeah. And sometimes I'll get, no, I'm running into that meeting. Call me later. Okay, cool. But other times I'll usually get, and this is why I know the objection is bullshit because usually when I say that, look, I got two questions. I need two minutes. That's it. Right. I get, all right, what now I have to come strong with those two, two questions. Those two questions have to be so pointed and so good that it gets you to think for a second. And, and then look, all right, based on that, Jason, it doesn't look like, you know, you're a good fit for us. So good luck with your meeting, man. You know, we do sales training, but it doesn't look like you're, you're in the range for what we do or, Hey, what you just said there, based on that, we're working with a lot of other companies who have that exact problem.

And all I really wanted to do is find a time to schedule 10, 15 minutes with you just so we can dig into the details there, see if it's worth taking a deeper dive. What's the best way to make that happen. Right. So I, again, permission based, like we don't have to have this conversation right now, but I just wanted two minutes right before you go into that meeting. And a lot of times it gets the, all right, why. Right. Cause I think going back to quantifying what you're asking for makes a difference too. Oh yeah. Right. Cause if I say I want to meet, I don't even like the word meeting by the way. Yeah. The word meeting, nobody like, nobody has any good feelings about meetings. Right. I mean, there's actually a book called death by meeting for crying out loud.

Right. Yeah. So, so when you say, I want to meet with you effectively, what you're saying is, Hey, I want to take an hour of your time, flush it down the toilet. And you're probably going to want to back at the end. Right. So that's even, that's even like this meeting. That's a ton of time. And it's usually a waste. But if I just say two minutes, five minutes, like something like that, to your point, 27, right. Seven minutes, something like whatever it is, quantify it. Cause it helps. I have three questions for you. I have two questions that something like that. Cause now expectations are clear. Right. Now don't be the jackass sales rep that says, I only want two minutes of your time and then try to take 15 minutes of it.

Cause then I get pissed. But if you are genuine with what you're asking for and you're specific, usually people are like, all right, fine. What do you want to talk about? Well, I, okay. So one thing you said there, I think that's really important to note is that, and this is what I'm working with reps. I, I always ask them, what do you think the other person is thinking? And they'll usually say something like what you said. I don't want to take a meeting and just flush all this time down the point. Well, what if you just said that? What if you just said, well, Hey, the reason why I'm asking is the last thing I want to do is take 30 minutes of your time that you'll just never get back and waste both of each other's time.

So I totally get why now maybe it wouldn't be the best time to dig in and do that. But if it's cool with you, can I just ask you a couple of questions? It'll take two minutes. And you let me know if meeting at a later time, if it makes sense. Cool. And just be totally transparent with exactly what you think that they are thinking. It, it has this disarming effect where people are like, okay, this motherfucker respects my time. Well, that you call, I call that from an objection handling standpoint, the preemptive strike where you know the objection is coming. Yeah. You just use it before they do. So on a cold call, it would be sound, Hey, I know you weren't expecting my call. So I'll be brief, right?

You literally take it away from them being able to say, Hey, I wasn't expecting your call. I don't have time for this. I know you weren't expecting my call. So I'm going to be super brief here. Look, I don't want to waste your time with a demo and a deep dive discovery here. If you have no interest in what, if you, if there's absolutely no need. So I just really want 30 seconds to see if I could ask you a few questions, see if it's even worth taking that deeper dive and that whole respect of their time, understanding their position, empathizing with usually gets people to say to your point, all right, this kid isn't totally full of shit. Let me see what, let me see what this conversation's about.

Right. Yeah. Well, dude, it just brings me back to like, I mean, how many social situations have you been in where you're like, this person doesn't realize you're dominating the entire conversation. Read the room, pal. And it's like, come on, you know, but one thing I, I think that seems to resonate with reps when I talk to them is like, you got to show you're going to be a good hang. Like if I spend 30 minutes with you, am I going to at least enjoy the conversation because I feel like you did your research, you're engaging me, you're asking smart questions and you're trying, no one's expecting you to be an expert. Well, and also there, I think there has to be, especially if we're, I think with everybody, but I think especially with executives, there's got to be some semblance of value that I'm going to get out of this.

Exactly. I have, because I wrote a post a while ago called time to value, right? Executives, the reason that they jump in on reps, like a piece of shit demo, like with kids who are like running through a crappy demo to an executive, usually the way it works is they try to do a bunch of discovery stuff and then show the, and then hold off on showing the demo until they discover everything. Right. And you got four questions you can ask an executive before an executive is going to be like, all right, could you just show me the fucking demo, please? Like, and what they're saying there is like, where, when am I going to get mine? You know what I mean? Like, when am I going to get my value? And the way that, and this goes back to like thought leaders and whatever, and I'm a 22 year old kid calling up an executive, the key, I think the way that you can show value is not by how smart you are, not by all your product knowledge.

They don't give a shit about that stuff. If you can get them to think slightly differently, which means if I can ask you a question, Jason, that gets you to pause for two fucking seconds. Now I kind of see value in you because all of a sudden, if you hit me with like, Hey John, how do you keep in your reps motivated and engaged as you're as now they're all working from home? And I go, well, you know what I mean? And it makes me think about it for a second. Yeah. That's why I'm calling you Jason, because you know what, that that's one of the main challenges we're seeing VPs having right now. You know, SDRs used to be in a bullpen and, and, uh, you know, it was a shitty job, but at least they had camaraderie and stuff like that to help each other out.

But now they're all working from home. And now that SDR is getting their ass handed to them by themselves in their own apartment. And it's real hard to keep them motivated and engaged as we go through that. And that's why I'm calling you, man. Right. That type of stuff, like, all right, I'll like, if you get me to think, and that's why I think questioning skills, problem oriented, like Keenan shit, right. Problem oriented stuff. If you can master that really pointed question to the persona you're reaching out to, you have a chance at getting somebody to stop for a second and see value in having that conversation with you. Yeah. And this is, I love that. So this is actually something we call the philosophy is teach, don't take, you know, it's like, don't be in the business of taking people's time.

Like you got to teach them something. And that can be really hard. Like when you're young, you didn't have a lot of experience. One thing that, um, we've had some reps do with a very high amount of success is to get a small zoom call together with like half a dozen of their best clients. And don't just ask them about how you can prospect to them better, help them brainstorm with each other. And we did this with, we used to work with quite a bit of nonprofits and then COVID kind of hit them hard, but we would help them prospect for partnerships with like big companies like Reddit and like, you know, big companies. And I organized this call and I got them on a call together. I said, Hey, I'm just going to kind of ask questions to facilitate.

Um, but you guys do your thing. Like, what do you want to know about each other? And they started asking all kinds of questions about like partnerships and how they structure things and how they reach out to people. I'm like, Oh, wow. I just spent an hour of my time. I have like three or four insights that I could share with other nonprofits and say, Hey, you know, a challenge that I'm hearing right now, a lot of, you know, development teams that nonprofits are having is like, dude, companies are like getting tight with COVID and they are having trouble getting them to see the value and actually like going in on a partnership and giving them money. Yeah. Oh yeah. Is that something? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, Hey, I'd love to share with you like two or three things that, uh, we learned just doing some calls with our clients around what they're doing to actually get these meetings and get the pipeline rolling still. And I'd love to share that with you. You know, like if you can lead with that, and I think it's the, it's actually easier to do that during COVID than not, because you, you kind of know what people are thinking. Todd Caponi has been talking about that a lot. It's like, dude, we can read our prospects minds, but the motivation thing, it's like, yeah, which I'd love to share with you, like what other SaaS companies we're working with are doing right now to motivate their teams. There's like a couple of things I think you'll find really helpful.

It's like, I'm going to get something from that meeting. Um, you're going to like the credibility factor kind of disappears when you can bring in insights and people are like, Oh cool. Jason knows, he knows what he's talking about. He at least knows what their clients are doing. And again, like I didn't come up with that information. Like your clients have all of this information. Your best insights are with your customers. And if you're an SDR, talk to your AE, listen to their gong or whatever call recording tools you're using. What problems are people bringing up? Like what are the aha moments that the AE has with the client? Um, customer success calls. Most of those are recorded. Listen to some of those.

Like what are the, again, the aha moments. Hey, I'd love to share with you how our customers are doing this. And you got the words right there. Like they're just there for you to like literally almost copy and paste into your talk tracks and your emails and all that other stuff. Absolutely, man. And I think it just goes back to get like, you know, a full circle here, like empathy, right? Like empathy isn't, you know, Hey, I hope you and your family are doing well. Like that's like, that's fucking brutal. Empathy is legitimately putting yourself in somebody else's shoes and trying to understand their day to day. Right. And we can do that through talking to existing customers, which I do the same thing.

I recommend my clients get a panel of their, who are the personas that you go after? Like if it's VPs of sales, get your top three VPs of sales in the target audience that you go to, put them up on a zoom and ask them a bunch of questions about, Hey, how have your priorities changed? What's different now? How, what value do you get out of our services now? What couldn't you live without? What part of our shit do you not like? You know what I mean? Like those types of things. So you can gain all that, but also like you said it right now in COVID time, there's so much information out there. Everybody's talking, everybody is talking. And so all you got to do is figure out how to filter the information on the people and the personas that you go after.

So for instance, you know, if you sell CI, if you sell to CIOs in, you know, healthcare, literally Google CIOs, healthcare priorities, challenges, 2020 COVID-19, read a few fucking articles, join a LinkedIn group of those people, listen, not to troll for leads, but to listen. I mean, you and I are both part of modern sales pros. Like if you ever want to know what a VP of sales is having challenged with join modern sales pros because you see email after email after, Hey, anybody have any ideas on this or this or this or this? And you could start to see trends there and start to be like, Hey, when I call you persona, Jason CIO healthcare, Hey Jason, you know what? We've been talking to a lot of CIOs or what we're hearing is today in today's environment, the top three things that are, that they're really on their mind are X, Y, and Z.

Are those some of the same challenges that you're faced with right now, as opposed to doing some dumb, lazy shit, like tell me about your business or tell me about your priorities. And that's never going to get you anywhere. Right. But if you have context around that and know a little bit, I disagree when people say that sales reps need to be the product expert. I actually vehemently disagree with that. You don't have time for that. You don't have time. And that's why we have sales engineers, right? You need to be the quarterback. You need to know enough to be able to ask the right questions and bring the right people in to connect the dots. That's it. Right. I actually think the more, you know, the harder it is to sell because you have so much, that's why I can't stand companies that do onboarding and they stuff product knowledge down reps throats for five straight weeks.

And then they give them a little bit of cold calling or, you know, email templates and say, giddy up. Yeah. When a rep comes out of that scenario, the only thing they have in their head is product knowledge. So that's what they're going to talk about. It's a curse of knowledge, right? It's, I have all of this knowledge and I assume that the people I'm reaching out to, cause I've never sold before, they must know this. Yeah. And you know, one of the things I've been talking about too, cause I get asked this question on podcasts where people like, well, what's, what's missing in sales training right now? And like, in terms of how the companies are doing it. And do you know, I think, yeah, people are doing too much product knowledge and all this other stuff, but empathy as a skill, dude, I'm telling you, like when we do this and do these trainings, people are like, Oh, that's what empathy and sales means.

That's what that means. And I know that I'm not, it makes me feel like less of a piece of shit for having to go through therapy to learn like actual true empathy because I'm not alone. Most salespeople. And I don't, you can't say, Oh, women are better at this than men. I think both men and women struggle in sales with this. And I include myself in that group with like, really, do you actually understand what empathy is in terms of like, I need to think about the other person and not think about myself that that is a skill that has to become a habit. Yeah. Like it's not going to happen overnight when someone rejects you. And then you think like, Oh God, like, what did I do? Instead of thinking about, Oh, where's that person coming from?

How's John's day going right now? Like that's a habit. Like you have to practice that to make it a habit. Yeah. I mean, I like Morgan had a great example of that when he first joined my, you know, my team. Um, he had never seen an executive's calendar before. Oh yeah. I heard this. Yeah. And, and, and, and as soon as he, cause I, you know, we share calendars and like legit within like the first couple of weeks he reached out to me and was like, dude, what the fuck? He's like, he's like, is, is this what most CEOs calendars look like? I'm like, yeah, Morgan. I go, this is why I call you for five minutes, but at two 35, because I'm running into another meeting or I can't talk to you until six 30 at night, or I have to have a phone call with you on the, you know, drive in at 7.00 AM because my day is so insanely packed with meetings and partners and this and that, and the other thing.

And as soon as he saw my calendar, he was like, holy shit, this is why it's so hard to get on an executive's calendar. I'm like, yeah, man. And until you really understand that you don't, you can't empathize, right? You can't empathize with somebody. If you've never been that busy, if you've never run that company, if you've never run a division, it's impossible for you to understand unless you see a little bit behind that curtain. And so going back to empathy, like the, then we'll finish up here soon, but leverage your own resources, right? Yeah. I used to like, I used to have reps come to me all the time and say, Hey John, I'm having a hard time getting through gatekeepers. Like any guy, any ideas, tips on how to get through gatekeepers?

And I'd be like, yeah, you know, I got a few. I go, hold on a second though. And I would open my door and I would yell down the hallway. Hey, Shelly. Yeah, John. Hey, Shelly, are you a gatekeeper? Yeah, John. Like Shelly, do you have sales reps that call you every day and try to get through to me? Yeah, John. Do you let some through and others know? Yep. Okay. Hey, would you mind talking to my sales rep here about what you go through on a day-to-day basis so they can learn what's the right approach? Sure, John, no problem. They would take the fucking Shelly out to lunch. They would talk to Shelly about her fucking day, you know, about like, Oh, what do you do? And what, you know, what, what do you hate?

What do you love? You know, that type of stuff. And then all of a sudden they were getting through gatekeepers. You know what I mean? Or like, Hey John, I can't, the CFOs, man, I'm having a brutal time talking to CFOs. Calvin, you a CFO? Yes, John. Calvin, do you got sales reps selling you shit? Yes, John. Would you mind talking to my sales rep about how to sell to a CFO? Sure, John. Like why? And I will tell you, anybody listening to this right now, if you want to all of a sudden become the favorite rep at your company, and, and I don't care how large, large your organization is, go knock on your CFO. If you sell to CFOs, go knock on your CFOs door and say, Hey, I know you're probably really busy, but, and next time you're grabbing lunch or something, would you mind if I just tagged along and ask you a few questions about how to like what CFOs go through on a day-to-day basis or what CIOs go through?

If you do that, okay, if some 22 year old kid came knocking on my door as a CEO and said, Hey John, first of all, I just love working here. I just want to let you know, I'm trying to do my best possible to, you know, to be successful here. And I'm having a really hard time getting through to CEOs. Would you mind, you know, one day, whenever you have five minutes, just for me to pick your brain about how, what, what a day in a life of a CEO looks like, do you know how many executives would literally stop and say, fuck yeah. You know what I mean? Like you kid, you know what I mean? Yes. And then they'll go tell your VP of sales. That's the kid you should pay attention to. That kid gives a shit and I, and I'm willing to help that kid out.

Yeah. So one last thought on this that I think is really important. We might've talked about this on the virtual tour and on there, this concept of, of like, um, like people kind of fall into these patterns of what they think the rules are, you know, like tight and loose domains. So I think as a sales rep, what might feel really uncomfortable, you might be fresh out of college or so is to be that young person at a company that's like completely taking charge and like going over the top, like with how proactive they are with their learning. Yeah. Cause I was always kind of shy. That was my kind of things. I don't want to ruffle feathers. I want people to think that I had new kid on the block cause like things are the shit.

But if you can get over that and just feel like, you know, this feeling of insecurity that I have around like being too much out there and being too proactive and potentially bugging people about stuff. And, and this is actually that that's the opportunity to be a little selfish and be like, you know what, if, if I don't figure this out, I, I might not have a job in three months or six months, you know, and really take that upon yourself and like, get rid of all of these little rules that you have in your head. Cause they're just totally made up. There's no rule book for how a rep should interact with other people at their company. Like, dude, just take that upon yourself and just be polite and just ask people for time, please.

And thank you. Like it's not rocket science. Yeah. And, and, and, and, and, and I had to learn this, that once you reach a certain level in your career, you actually want to transfer your knowledge to other people. You know what I mean? Like that's what gives you satisfaction. I remember when I got fired from Staples, you know, and I, and I went to, I, after I got fired, I like, after I kind of sat and thought about it and really digested it, I went back to the guy and I said, Hey, you know, for my own personal professional development, would you mind if I got about an hour of your time to understand what happened to me? So I, so I don't make the same mistakes. Right. And this guy, he ran a $12 billion part of Staples.

Okay. When I showed, he was like, absolutely. First of all, he said, John scheduled with my assistant. So I was like, Oh shit. Okay, cool. When I, no joke. When I got to his office, I showed up at his office. I'm still a little nervous. You know, I'm, I mean, I'm kind of 28 years old or something like that. Did you have hair at the time or no hair? Nope, no hair. I've been involved for a long time. And, uh, and I remember walking in being like, all right, like, let's see how this goes. Right. And he opens the door and he goes, John Barrows, get in here. And I'm like, Oh my God, this is going to be a disaster. And he goes, before you even start, I want to let you know that you reaching out to me to ask me for feedback on what happened to you this past year tells me more about you than I knew in the year working with you.

One of my favorite things to do is mentor young leaders. I, and so for you asking me for this feedback, he's like, you have an hour of my time. I will answer any question that you have and I will be as open and honest with you as you are. And I said, Jay, I got 10 questions for you here. If you can be as open and honest as you want, you don't have to answer them. If you don't want to, he goes, Nope, I will answer every single one of them. What questions do you have? And when I tell you that that hour was my MBA in an hour, I got an MBA. Cause I, I, all of a sudden he told me all these perceptions and what was real and what was happening on the backend and all this other stuff. And I was like, Holy shit.

I had no idea about any of that stuff. And I just walked out of there and it was literally the greatest hour I've spent in business in my entire career. And so that idea of the, of just taking your ego out and being eager, eager to learn. If there's leaders out there that aren't going to be open to that and respectful for that and, and appreciate that as long as you do it respectfully, you don't want to just waste their time. So how'd you get to where you are in your career? Like that's fucking dumb. But if you just, but if you do your homework, just like a prospect and you ask for that feedback, man, you will learn more than you will ever learn in any book and any training you'll ever take.

Oh, I love that, dude. That's a powerful story, man. It's like, you totally just like let go of like, if this person judges me and like, is on, like, that's kind of what I want is for you to judge me right now. It's like, Whoa, what came to mind, dude? What do you think of John Barrows? Right. I totally did. And by the way, just to put a bow on that one, fast forward, I got, I got the opportunity to work for Jack Welsh, like GE Jack Welsh. He was starting his online MBA program. Right. So I got the chance to be his VP of sales. And I went down and did the interview with Jack and Susie. I had to give a, um, reference. He was checking references. Guess who I gave him as a reference? Oh, that's cool.

The guy who fired me, the guy who fired me from Staples. And you know what fucking Jay Baitler said to Jack Welsh when Jack called him to ask, Hey, should I hire John? Jay Baitler says to Jack Welsh, if you don't hire John Barrows, you're a fucking moron. Literally verbatim. You're a fucking moron. If you don't hire John Barrows. And I got to work with Jack and Susie Welsh for three months. It was absolutely incredible. And it was all because I was eager to learn. I I've never had, I don't know, it's because I'm from Boston or whatever. It just, I'm born with it. I've always been that person that as soon as I come into a company, I'm like, I want to learn. I want to learn. Tell me, tell me, tell me like, can I sit with you?

Can I have lunch with you? I need to, I want to interview as many successful people as I can. Cause I want to figure out how you got to where you are and what, like what characteristics those things are. So I've always been kind of annoying in that regard because like I come in like a ball of fire and I'm like, I believe in this company. I want to succeed both for us and for me. And so I need to learn as much as I possibly can, as fast as I possibly can. How can I skip a few steps here? But for people, so for people that don't have that innate in them, just realize that once you hit a certain level of your career, a huge part of the satisfaction of what you do is transferring that knowledge to other people.

And if they actually work for you and it's going to benefit you, cause it's going to make your stock price go up cause they sell more all the better. So get off of that like reluctance. And it kind of, like I said, fell circle here, man comes from reluctance to confidence. Yep. You can build it pretty, pretty easy by believing in what you do, asking the right questions, giving a shit, having empathy, having a reason, all those things. Yeah. And yeah, to bring that full circle. I, I, I love that dude. It's, it's not about the magic tricks and the templates and the right words. And I know we talked about call intros, but dude, there's a lot of ways you can intro a cold call that work really, really well.

But so much of this is just like framework and mindset, you know? And I don't know. I think we talked about some pretty practical stuff today. That's always my thing is just like, okay, psychology. Awesome. That works great. Uh, but that was a study on brats, dude. What the fuck does it have to do with how I'm going to make cold calls here? You know, or like the person teaching it doesn't prospect. That's the other thing that our space is rampant with. And that's a conversation for another time. It's like, okay, you're kind of telling, cause I consume the content too. You know, it's like, have you made a call like in the last couple of years now? I mean, like that's the question I tell everybody.

So when I, we'll finish with this when I, and I re I recommend everybody do this. Okay. If you're ever in a training, this is what I do. I usually, but when we did face to face, I would sit front row and I would let the fucking trainer do their little intros about, Oh, you know, blah, blah, blah. And about 15 minutes in, after they started their intro, I'd, I'd raise my hand and I'd be like, Oh yeah. What are you, what can I have? I'd be like, Hey, could you do me a favor? Could you give me an example of the last time you, you applied whatever you're about to teach us here in a real world situation? And what was the result? Nine out of 10 trainers, no shit. We'll sit there and go, well, I've been working with my customers to no, no, no, no, no.

When was the last time you actually did what you're about to tell me? And if you can get, and look, I don't even like, say you're Sandler and you do the upfront contract. You could tell me you busted out the upfront contract last week and some guy kicked you out of his fucking office and said, get the hell out of here. That's dumb. As long as you tell me that you've actually tried it in the past six months, I'll sit here and listen to you. But if you haven't done this job, man, please don't tell me how to do this job. Don't tell me how to do it. Sales is one of those ones where you can't bullshit a bullshitter. And in sales, you can sniff it out pretty damn fast. So look, I understand there's certain techniques and stuff like that that are somewhat universal, but I really have a hard time listening to anybody that, that doesn't do the job and isn't doing it now because the way it is now compared to the way it was, it's just different.

It's crazy. It's just different. So awesome. Well, look, I think we could fucking talk for three hours about cold calling just by itself, but talk to me about what you're working on right now, where people can find out more information. And what are some of the things I know you got the roadshow come still going, you got a few more people. So talk to me about, or tell the audience where they can find out more information about what you're working on. Yeah. I mean, we got a ton of free content out there. So that virtual tour, I would definitely check out at tour.blissfulprospecting.com. And what we tried to do there was not just be another virtual summit, but do it live, spread them out. We got 42 speakers.

And then, you know, John, you were one of them. Of course, Morgan's coming up. Actually, he's the very last talk, I believe. And what we really want to do is focus on prospecting. Because I think that's where people are like that. And I would say negotiation, people are having the toughest time with right now. So it's cold, cold calling, cold emailing, et cetera, like highly, highly tactical stuff that you can use to land meetings. So I checked that out. That's free. And then LinkedIn. So I post content every day on LinkedIn. And it's linkedin.com slash in slash Jason D as in David Bay. And I post every day there. So more tips and things like that. And all that stuff that you can find videos, posts, pictures, templates, all kinds of different examples of stuff that's working and what's not working.

Awesome. Awesome, man. Well, look, I hope everybody got as much value out of this as I did. New ideas got you to think a little bit, some tactical shit, some kind of mindset stuff to look at the end of the day, you know, empathy matters, but real empathy matters, not bullshit, not fake empathy, right? And the give a shit factor is real. If you give a shit, it does come through, right? So Jason, thanks a lot for sticking with me on this. I know we went a little bit long on it, but I think it was worth it. So everybody else, thanks for listening as always. And like I always say on my podcast here, look, even if you're having a shitty day, go make somebody smile today. Cause if you made somebody smile, you know, you had a good day and this world needs a lot more of it.

So thank you, Jason. Thank you everybody for listening. We'll see you on the flip side. All right, guys. I hope you enjoyed the show. Our world-class training is available for you at on-demand.jbarrows.com. Please join us on Facebook by searching, make it happen with JB sales. We would love to hear from you. And if this was helpful or inspiring for you in any way, don't forget to smash that subscribe button to get more episodes every week. Let's make it happen together, guys. See you next time.