210: Leslie Douglas & Meg Holsinger On Navigating Their Sales Careers

What's poppin' y'all, it's James Say What Sales Buckley, and we are back with another episode of Make It Happen Mondays. We always take a moment to recognize our partners, Sales Loft, Gong, Proposify, Vidyard, and Rise. Thanks as always for everything you do for us and the Make It Happen community. Today, JBSales CRO Chris Merrill hosts to interview our newest sales trainer, Leslie Douglas, and the sensational Meg Hulsinger, our customer success director, joins the conversation as well. These three are going to discuss some experiences navigating a successful sales career, some strong opinions that shape the talented sellers that they are, and some fun off-the-wall banter that's just for good laughs.

As the JBSales team expands, we are pleased to bring you only the best sales customer success and business growth talent that the space has to offer. Start learning on your own today and invest in your own sales success with JBSales On Demand. All of our tips, techniques, certifications, and training courses, plus much more can be accessed at ondemand.jbarrows.com today. What are you waiting for? That quota is not going to hit itself. Make it happen today. That URL again, ondemand.jbarrows.com. Take it away, Chris. All right. Hello, everybody. This is Chris Merrill. I am the chief growth officer here at JBSales. I've been hanging around and working with John for about 47 years. No, seriously.

At this point, I think John and I have been working together for 22 years. I've known him since we were four. Within that, I'm really excited to be able to do a takeover of the podcast here. As you know, John lost his father a few weeks ago and just trying to give him some time and space and a good opportunity for us to bring some new voices into the podcast. Today, with me, I have Leslie and Meg. Meg, do you like Meg or Megan? At this point, it's Brenda. Okay, and we have Brenda, no, Leslie and Meg, and we're going to use this as an opportunity. Both are new trainers here at JBSales. Meg, you've been here for a year or so, a little over a year? A little over a year. And Leslie, you've been here for, I think, all of four weeks and have already actually trained.

Six weeks now. Wild. Yeah. So, let's just jump right into it. I think what I'd like to do is, Leslie, a quick background. Where do you come from? Yeah, definitely. Well, on a sunny day in February. No, I'm kidding. I think that I got into sales like most people do kind of on accident. And if you count like selling Girl Scout cookies, I guess I've been doing it a lot longer. But I've been in sales, I guess, technically, professionally for about 15 years now, mostly in the SaaS industry, selling all sorts of different kinds of fun things. And met John a couple years ago when he came to train a company that I was working for at the time. And now I'm here and it's wonderful. What was their first job selling?

What were you selling? First official job selling was with Ecolab. And I was selling industrial chemicals to hotels, hospitals, and prison systems. Sounds sexy. Pretty intense. And Meg, background, where do you come from? I come from all sorts of different places. So I have a sales background. I have a customer success background. I have a training background. A large portion of my career over the last 20 plus years was spent at a company called Predictive Index and then took a turn at a couple of different startups to build some CS organizations along the way. And then ended up at JBSales, sort of a marriage of all the things that I've done selling, CS, training. So I finally feel like everything has sort of come full circle.

And here we are. So you've been here over a year. The first, I think, week that you were actually with the team, you were brought right into the fire out in Vegas while we were filming. So that must have been an interesting week. But what were your first impressions coming on? You know, knowing that we have a big voice and you get to kind of feel everyone's reputation out on the outside, but then on the coming on the inside of it. Just give a little bit about that impression. Yeah. No, I mean, I think it was I think the circumstances were were interesting. I would say that I'm not sure I would do it any differently looking back, but I quite literally got on a plane on my first day on payroll and went to Vegas and stayed in a house with everyone and stayed in a house with everyone.

Everyone like shared a bathroom like definitely was not something I ever thought I was going to be doing. But and the only person I had actually seen in person was John. I interviewed with him. But other than that, I had seen Chris via video and Megan, our COO via video, but I hadn't actually met any of you. So I think in some ways it was it was great because I just you jumped in and you did it. I happen to be a relatively social human being and can kind of make myself fit into multiple different situations. So there we were. First impressions were interesting for me only because, you know, I had heard of John and I had heard of John Barrows, the training. But I, truth be told, wasn't like a huge fangirl.

I didn't know them well enough to have something where I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe this like, you know, I'm working for for John Barrows. Again, knew who he was, knew solid training, definitely asked around. So my impressions going in were just sort of like, how is this business run? What are they doing? And I think the number one thing that I got out of it truly day one was folks were genuine and, you know, it was real. And this was life and people were human. And I immediately knew, you know what, these are my people. My favorite feedback ever is that realizing that that real authentic. I think you have to be a little bit odd to work well within this organization. Oh, yeah. For sure.

I think that would you would be, you know, like someone in a perfect square would probably stick out. Leslie, same question, you know, short run up here. I know that even within a month, you're already training, which is crazy. But first impressions. Man, I think it's funny that there's like so many opposites with Meg, but then there's like that similarity that is the genuine everyone walks the walk. It's been such a great experience. But I, on the other hand, I'm like sitting here with my dog and, you know, my cup of tea and everything's virtual. So kind of the opposite experience of of joining in the beginning. But it's been it has been amazing. And yes, everyone is a little bit, you know, a little bit odd, but that's what makes us so much fun.

Right. Yeah. I talked to we get a lot of inbound just feedback about the training, the content, you know, the outside in we I think we're held to a pretty high regard. And on the background, I'm always running around screaming and yelling and ugly ass sausage making. So it's interesting when people get to like come come on the other side of it. I remember James the first couple of weeks that even he was here. I think he was so excited to be here in the front line. I don't think you realize what it actually takes on the back end part of it. And just like the the deer in the headlights. So you talked about tea. Let's do some rapid fire here. So I am a huge, huge fan of understanding morning routines.

And I think it's super interesting how people, you know, structure their entire life, much less how do they start their day. So just real. So first of all, Leslie, obviously, tea. Do you drink coffee at all? Yeah, I actually I have both. Both in an IV is my preference. But if you're like you have to choose one, I would choose tea. Tea. OK, in terms of coffee, though, Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts? Starbucks. I'm sorry. Don't fire me. But I am drinking Dunkin. Yeah, I think. Yeah, there you go. Meg, coffee or tea? Definitely coffee. Don't like tea. If you're going to if I'm going to drink something like that, I need like a copious amount of caffeine. So coffee all the way. And Dunk's or Starbucks?

Oh, this is tough. And I have issues with this question. So I used to be a Dunk's girl through and through. Listen, I'm born and raised in Massachusetts. I am a asshole, like 100 percent through and through. But at some point in time in my, say, mid 30s, the Dunkin Donuts started tasting like just dirty water to me. I'm not sure why. I can't believe I'm saying that. John might literally fire me. And I don't think we'll be getting a Dunkin Donuts sponsorship. No, and there goes that idea. Whoops. But I like Starbucks now, but only if I buy it in like the container that sits in my fridge. So that was a really long-winded answer. But that's where that is. So Meg, just overview, would you say you actually have a routine for the morning?

Yes, I do. And I'm a big believer in routines. I think if my routine gets mixed up, I definitely feel off. I mean, mine's a little bit different in the fact that, you know, for everyone else, we all have our, you know, our personal lives and things we have to do. My routine in the morning, obviously, is centered around children at this point, and I've got to get up and out the door. But one of the things that I have added into my routine from a business perspective that has really helped, and this was something I took directly off of John's training, was I'm a big fan of looking at like Owler now. So in my feed, like when I'm kind of running around in the house in the morning, I have my phone, I can kind of read through important kind of tidbits of information on existing clients, things that are going on in the world that I care about as it relates to our client base.

So that has definitely been something I've incorporated into my morning routine. But yes, other than the kids stuff, I'm kind of hopping on around 845 or nine. My other routine, and I know Leslie does the same thing, which is the night before. For me, the night before routine is almost more important to me for the day routine. I got to I got to do some stuff at night in order to make my day go well. Got it. Leslie, same thing routine. Totally agree. I have like three big rules for my routine. And the first one is what Meg was just saying, like plan the night before. I'm the kind like I'm going to get the coffee ready and the tea. Usually tea comes later. But then it's like I have to like I'll I still set out my clothes.

I set out my kids clothes. I set out, you know, I'm definitely about prepping the night before, not only from what's on my calendar, what do I need data wise to have good meetings, but then just also how can I set myself up for a quick morning? Because number two is like get going fast. Like if I get on my phone when I first wake up or if I have any like downtime, I look up and it's 10 o'clock in the morning and I'm like, oh, well, shoot, like what just happened, right? I have to get up, get going, like go, go, go. And then my third one is gratitude and three non-negotiables. So I have a whiteboard here right in front of me. And every day I write down like one thing that I want to focus on being thankful for.

And then three things that I will not leave my home office before I complete for the day. And I think it really kind of keeps me zeroed in and focused on like, OK, no matter what, I do love crossing something off like that feeling of just like, boop, I'll write something down so that I can cross it off. So I put three things that I'm going to do before I leave my office and go into the living room. You just made me have massive anxiety and very made me feel very sad about myself. I struggle massively with conflict because, I mean, you guys know my approach to things. I'm pretty scatterbrained. I have conflict because I want so bad to have structure. And so I try every single day to reset. So I try doing the list at night.

I try to prepare. I try in the morning to have routine that I go through for 44 years. I've been trying to do this unsuccessfully. And I think something you just said, and I came to this conclusion about a month ago, my biggest problem is the first thing I do is look at my phone. And the first thing that happens on the phone is that then there's never been a day where I wake up and that phone doesn't put me into another journey. And I can't solve it. I think I'm going crazy because I know better. I know better to look at my phone. And it's almost as if I have to have an app that restricts me from actually opening and participating. And I also have that urgency problem where I'll see somebody slack from the night before and feel that it's the first instead of first in, first out, the last in, first out type thing, which it's like, I feel like I have to reply to everything as it comes in.

And so I'm just useless when it comes to, I understand the value of routine. I think some of the people I look at that I want to emulate, that's all they ever talk about. It does not surprise me that you both talk so much about routine, but it just, from my standpoint, it's so difficult. So noted on, in terms of the few things that you guys are doing, let's get into some sales shit. So one of the things that we talk about a lot right now is I would say just the remote nature of things and the complexities that we've had. And something that's been interesting is that we're kind of settled in. We've always been a remote organization. You know, I choose to have an office and my team around me, I would probably always choose to have the office environment versus remote.

Meg, if you could choose right now, let's just, you know, do it, you know, COVID's away. We can now make choices. Would you choose to be working remote at home or would you choose to have office or a hybrid? I would choose remote at home all the way. Um, I come from a little bit of a different, um, place where I was in an office for 20 plus years, often commuting, uh, hour and a half hour and 45 minutes each way. So as much as I loved, uh, being in an office and I, I would love, I guess, the opportunity to go back into an office when I want to would be great. But yeah, if I had to choose even, even now COVID, I think, um, for me, the remote piece, it gives me so much time back to my day, um, from a commuting perspective and just being present in the work that I'm doing.

Um, I would, I would definitely say remote. I know that's that a lot of people would choose hybrid or, or go back to the office right away. I'm happy where I'm at. Yeah. Leslie. I'm a hybrid. I, um, I think that there's something magical about getting that time back in your day and being able to be more present with your family. And I mean, the fact that I don't have to double back on my commute after I dropped my daughter off at school, I'm, there is definitely some pros. Um, but I do miss the water cooler talk, so to speak, um, just being able to like, now I'm sitting here, um, on virtual meetings trying to like, okay, well, will someone log in two minutes early so that I can ask them about their personal life or, oh, I see you have a dog.

I have a dog too. Oh, you have a white shirt on. I have a white shirt somewhere in my closet. Like you're, you're trying to come up with things to small talk and make connections with people that just happen naturally in a face-to-face office environment. So I don't, it's like, I would love the hybrid, maybe even like more, a little bit more at home, but having that opportunity to like go to lunch. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I miss people. I miss an office environment. I miss the separation of church and state. I miss the delineation between, I obviously if, if I'm not working, I'm working. Um, like it's, my brain's always moving and I need that physical break. I need to know that this is my workspace and this is, this is my home space.

Um, I think I, it could, shocking when we talked about routine, I struggle with time management at home. Um, to kind of break it up. And I'm sure that there's a lot of people that think the same way I do that have that same challenge. But more than anything, um, I think that my favorite part of my day is, is creating ideating and think, you know, strategy. And I love doing that with people, but I like doing it in person. I like whiteboards. I like energy. I like, you know, like I've perfected and learned, I think we've all learned to read body language from facial expressions. Cause that's all we're offered. And like, you miss that the rest of like the energy of people. And so I was just thinking about that the other day of like, I'm going to rush back to an office as soon as I can.

And obviously we're a remote team, so it makes it a little more difficult, but even like coworking environments of just, like you said, the water cooler connecting with people, um, I'm worried about becoming a miser. One thing too, I'll say just that made me something that you just said that made me kind of think about something was, um, the training component. So I, you know, we, obviously we do, Leslie and I do training and not only are we selling every day and doing the things that we're doing, but we are also then delivering training to our clients. And so I have a huge background in standup training and, and being in front of an audience and delivering training programs to them. When I was at predictive index, I delivered thousands of management development programs and to big audiences.

And I loved that. I loved being in front of an audience. I loved walking around. I loved wearing a mic. I loved the whole thing. It was just my jam. And now here we are and I'm delivering it via zoom. And I have to be honest with you, the first couple of times I did it, I was like, are they not laughing at my jokes because they're not funny or because like, I can't really see all 36 faces on this zoom. Right? Like, so it took me a minute to kind of figure out like how to, first of all, just have confidence in myself again, just to be able to say, you know what, I, I can deliver this. It's okay. And I can still do it the way that I would normally do it. Um, but you're not getting that, like, you know, input back all the time.

And as a, as someone who loved and sort of thrives from an in-person audience, that has been a big change. Um, I also would say it requires a crap ton more energy when delivering, uh, training via zoom to engage an audience and try to get them to participate. Hey, luckily we've got some great clients that have been amazing to work with and they have talked more than I do, which is a sign of a good training sometimes. Um, but it's, it's been an adjustment for sure. Yeah. I talked to John about this a lot of like the difference of the remote versus in-person. And I think that would be my biggest fear is how do you read the audience to go faster, slower? Are they connecting? Um, my problem is, is like, if, if for some reason I could catch that like two or three people were not, I would assume everybody else isn't cause you don't have that like 360 view of a feel and the look of a room.

Um, you know, Leslie on your first, uh, training, uh, what was that last week? Uh, how did it feel delivering remote? Yeah, it's, it's definitely an adjustment, um, because you're only getting, you know, that couple of people feedback. Once you, you know, you're sharing a screen, you're only seeing a few faces and you try to expand it and you can't, you can't see everybody, but, um, completely agree. I actually built that into some of my questions for people when I knew I was making this transition who had been through virtual training. Um, and, um, it's really interesting cause I always thought like, oh, I want to go back to in person. I want to go back to in person. But, um, there's been some people who were in that same train of thought and really are loving splitting this up into different bite-sized chunks so that you can then learn something, go apply it, make it actionable.

You can, um, just make it a lot more conversational. I think there will always be people who connect with it and who have already, you know, applied some of these tips and tricks, or they're already putting this into their daily routine that you might lose to their email or to whatever, whatever else they're looking at. And I think the one thing that I've been looking for is, am I getting like one person who's connecting with me, who's going to take this and grow from it? And if you can impact at least one person, it's like, okay, you know, it's a positive feeling to move forward with. Yeah. One thing I think, uh, we talk about a lot is everybody within our organization still sells and that's from John down.

I actually don't know of anyone within our organization that doesn't have an expectation of selling even on the content and the media side, our team, myself, all the way through everybody, we're selling the on-demand product, we're selling sponsorships. So obviously on, on your side, um, you guys sell your training and, you know, within that, um, we have the benefit and we, we are full, full cycle sales. So we're prospecting for ourselves. We're moving deals through and we're getting them closed. So taking a look, I want to break up prospecting, uh, closing, and then sales management. Question for you, Meg, in prospecting, what do the best salespeople do that the others do not do? I would say, uh, try new things.

So I actually don't come from a, I would say a robust prospecting background as much as the rest of everyone does at, at JBSales. Um, my background has been more in getting the deal and closing it. So closing is sort of my thing. That's what I like to do. So I have had to kind of go back to school a little bit from a prospecting perspective and figure out how to do that. When I'm talking about it though, and, and this is sort of knowledge that I took in and try is, is try something different than what your standard approach was. For me, that was video. So I made a big switch to video using video in my prospecting, trying it at different places throughout. So, um, you know, totally trying it at the beginning and having that fail miserably, and then figuring out that you need to incorporate it later on.

And so I think if I, if I had to give advice to somebody who, you know, had been prospecting for a while, um, and wanted to continue to get better, I would say, don't get stale. Go find something different. And even if you think it's just a little bit crazy and it might be, try it. The worst that's going to happen is, you know, it's not going to work. Maybe it won't feel good. Maybe you'll get a no, but you know what? You did it and you figured something out and you moved on. So I think that would be my biggest piece of advice. Leslie, in prospecting, what do the best salespeople do that the others don't? Oh, they just do it. I think, um, the biggest thing that I see when it comes to prospecting is just that reluctance.

It's scary, right? To put yourself out there. And, uh, and I think that the best people are, are just making time for it, prioritizing it, um, making the call, just asking the questions. And once you get in the groove of things, like it gets easier, right? You, the more you do something, um, the better you become at it. So I'd say just putting yourself out there. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I thought about this and to me, it's consistency. The best people in prospecting, it's not even about the best medium. It's not about the best, you know, approach in my opinion. It's just about consistency. And to Meg's point, trying new things. And, uh, what I see a lot is, um, people complain about their results in it, but in doing so, they never talk about the lack of effort that they put in and specifically where we're sitting right now with the tech stack and sales enablement and sales automation, where it is.

Um, I think everyone is trying to find the fast path, the fast path to message writing, the fast path to finding data, the fast path to research, the fast path to, and I don't want to go down a rabbit hole at this one, personalization at scale. Um, there are no shortcuts in this. You have to put in your time. And I think that's one of the problems with, um, newer sellers coming into the space. They're walking in and, you know, sale, you have the enablements taking them, the sales training, the tools that they're using. Um, it's almost as if that they should be forced to just go back to like just the phone and a pad of paper for a while before they're even allowed to use those. You have to put like the consistency thing is I see to myself, like if, even if you have the best month and you close it, you still have to be doing that because you're going to find that gap comes up in two more months.

So interesting. I'm moving to closing. So on the closing side, Meg, what do the best salespeople do that the others don't? Oh, gosh, I love, first of all, I love closing. I don't know if that should be like on a shirt or something. Um, I, I just always enjoyed the act of closing. I, I, to be clear though, you know, there isn't the way that I talk about closing is not an actual single moment. Uh, it should be the, an attitude. It should be, um, a, a thing that something someone does from start to finish. Closing should always be on your mind. It should be on your mind in the first call that you have with them, the last call that you have with them and every call moving forward. So I would say for the, um, the, the, the, the best closers are, in my opinion, the ones that aren't afraid to be direct.

And what I mean by that, um, is, is maybe asking a question to your prospect, to your existing account that makes them just a tad bit uncomfortable, temporary state of discomfort. So whether that is something like, if I do this, will you sign the contract today? Pause. Stop. Oh, that takes a lot of guts. That takes a lot of confidence. That takes, you know, you don't know how uncomfortable is that person going to be. I have found that that usually is one of the most effective ways to get someone to answer you and to get a clear idea of a next step. Um, many times before in my career, I have, um, sat and listened to sales reps calls where it is, they just don't ask for the order. They don't ask for the business.

Um, and they simply say, okay, so why don't you go talk a little bit about that? And then, you know, if it makes sense and we can schedule another call to discuss things further and, you know, there I am trying not to scream because I would have, I would have said at that point, great. So the next step is for you to sign the statement of work. Um, here's a timeline that we're looking at. As I discussed, we'll want to get this into place. So I'm going to go ahead and send that over to you. Can I expect your signature today? Leslie, same question. In closing, what are the best salespeople do that the others don't in closing? I think my head immediately goes to two places. The first one is, um, discovery, believe it or not.

Like the, the people who I see who are doing the best job at this are really doing a great job in their initial phase of figuring out the pain, the challenge, the problem that they're solving. And they're able to weave that through into the closing and say, you know, here's what you shared with me and here's a solution and matching the two things together so that you make sure that it's relevant to the person who you're talking to and that it's going to solve an issue and need a pain point, a challenge for that person. And the other thing I think about a lot is intent and just people showing up to the call with the intention of helping and the intention of, you know, this is going to be, um, a combination of things, right?

So my intent is that I care about you and I know that this is going to be a good fit for you. And if all those things have kind of carried through the rest of the sales process, then the intent of this call for all parties should be that we're moving forward and doing business together. All right, everybody, between the two of them, Meg and Leslie have a world of experience and lessons to share. We've certainly been fortunate to have them on our team and you can learn a lot, a ton from these two experts. I need your sales stories. I've got to have those sales wins. So send them to me at james at jbarrows.com so that you can be highlighted on next week's episode. Today, I am so proud to shout out Autumn Hughes of Property Meld.

Autumn recently got her filling the funnel certification after subscribing to JB Sales On Demand and her team is not far behind her. The Property Meld team is on the fast track to sales excellence using the skills that they've picked up in JB Sales On Demand. Are you a business development manager looking for training resources for your small sales team? JB Sales is committed to helping small teams become large ones by providing world-class training for the frontline reps that drive business for their companies every day. Learn more at ondemand.jbarrows.com or reach out to me directly via email at james at jbarrows.com with any questions that you might have. Let's get back to these three in the studio and see what's next.

Over the last week, I'm a professional buyer. I buy all of our software, as you guys know. And the best transactions that I have are the ones that I, as a buyer, I actually don't feel any of the passive soft side to. It's the ones that almost create a social liability that I have to get back to them. I have to get the signature. I have to get them the answer. And they do that through Meg's method. The best salespeople I see are the ones who say, Chris, based on what we talked about, if we do this, this, and this, is there anything else preventing us from signing? And I'll have that conversation on a Thursday. And then next thing you know, it could be even Saturday morning. Hey, Chris, all those conditions are done.

Can you sign? And then they'll do that awkward pause. My social liability goes off through the roof. And it actually feels like a good transaction. On me in the closing process, what I've learned and has been very effective is when it gets down to that point is taking out all niceties, not even greetings in my email. When I get to the point of where I need to know if we're moving forward or not, and without having to worry, having something in my backpack to not worry, how do you set up a sentence on a call or a phone? It's the reason, you know, that, hey, you know, even if I'm really good friends with you, our existing customers, I'll use Devin from Gong. Hey, you know, Devin, the reason for my email is to find out, are we moving forward?

Are you going to sign today? And I won't say thank you. And I won't ask how you doing or how's the baby like, and that is a disarming as well. Specifically, if you go through the entire sales process, look, we're fun, kind, nice people. I know all of our styles. I'm sure there's great conversations and rapport building, but once you get down to it, and I think that it's respectful to have just time management. So super interesting. Sales management. This was interesting. I was really just kind of thinking this through. So in sales management, what are the best sales managers do that the others don't do? Meg? Oh, feedback. So I, if you haven't read the book Radical Candor or listened to their podcast or done anything like that, stop what you're doing and do that.

If you are any kind of manager, but particularly if you are a sales manager. So feedback is the biggest thing. I oftentimes see sales managers who were top performing sales reps get promoted into a sales management role and they have absolutely 100% zero idea what they are doing. And it's because they have no idea how to actually coach and manage sales reps. They can sell, but that is very different than actually trying to help someone do that. Feedback is where it comes down to. So now when we think of feedback, you can think of to yourself, you know, that can be positive for sure. But a lot of times it's challenging feedback. It's, hey, I listened to that call and here are the things I heard and here are the expectations of the things that I want to hear next time.

It can be very difficult to be that direct when you're managing someone. Maybe they were recently your peer, right? Maybe they were your, maybe they were your friend. That is a very, that's a very big leap to take. So my suggestion is get comfortable with feedback, put it in your head that this is actually going to help them. And more importantly, it's also going to help you. So the more uncomfortable you can make yourself, the better you're going to actually be at sales because it's going to prepare you for those uncomfortable conversations that you inevitably are going to have down the road. Leslie. Totally agree with everything Meg said. I think I would add, um, listening. I think a lot of times, um, people who are in leadership positions, especially sales leadership positions, again, it's like, um, I want to help you, right?

I was a sales manager who was guilty of this, where it's like, someone's going to come to me with an issue that they had or a situation. And I just want to jump in and help instead of really listening to what's going on. Okay. Well, what have you already tried? Asking some clarifying questions the same way you would coach them to do in a sales call can really help someone else come to their own conclusion and learn better. You know, we, we talk about it a lot. If you're actually doing it yourself, you're taking in information in a different way. And, um, I think that it took a long time to figure out that difference between, you know, people always talk about being a coach or a leader instead of a manager or a boss.

And I was like, okay, I think it really did take some intentional time and practice. Like I had a sticky note up on my wall that was like, ask another question before you just jump in. And, and we do it with our own relationships, right? How many times have your partner come home and been like talking about their day? And I immediately want to jump in and solve and fix things. Um, and I think that's in a lot of our, our nature to be fixers. And, um, and it's like, do you want me to listen? Do you want me to respond? Do you want me to help? Like what's, what are they expecting from you in that moment as well? The best sales managers I've seen or worked with had the ability to listen. I love the listen, the feedback, be very direct, which I think we all agree is one of the hardest things in this space.

Um, but to do so privately and to do so in a way that's comfortable and respectful one-on-one, but it's okay to be harsh. It's not harsh, but it's okay to be stern and direct, but the best sales managers are the ones that publicly within an organization and even to their customers take responsibility for the outcome of their team. So at the end of the day, come back in, you know, you can, you know, walk around the office throwing shit around and, um, you know, really drill and, and, and, and push on the team. But as soon as it's in internally public or to the customer, it's a sales manager that stands up and set takes full responsibility for everything that's supposed to come out of his shop.

And I think that what that does is it inspires internally for it. It helps to like bolster the why, why am I here? Yeah, I'm here to get paid. I'm here to advance. But when you have somebody that you're looking to for that guidance, but then you watch them in front, you know, in front, take the lead and, you know, bear the brunt of that. It actually drives you more to want to like heed the advice, uh, that they're taking. So, uh, super interesting. Um, Peter Thiel and zero to one has a, uh, a question that he said, the most important question that you can ask. And this is across customers, investors, hiring, um, and he, he states it as what important truth do very, do very few people agree with you on?

Um, when I talk to people, I, you know, the way I stated is what do you believe that not many other people believe as well? When it comes to sales, Megan, this might be a tough one and it can be, it can be factual. It can be, or not factual. It can be serious. It can be witty. But from that standpoint, like in the sales, what do you believe? What is, what is truth to you in sales that, that you find that most people generally have a counter view to? Yeah. So it's, um, my, this is sort of the same thing for, um, for if, in sales as it is my, my personal life. So my, one of my big beliefs is that money actually can buy you happiness. I know a lot of people don't agree with that. Um, I actually think it absolutely can, as long as you surround yourself with the right people.

So, um, equating that to sales, um, I believe commissions can be, uh, driving and they can be motivational. And I love a good quota and I love a good, um, commission check. So I, I think a lot of times in sales, we hear, it's not about the money. It's not about that. It is, it's not a hundred percent about it, but it's, you absolutely should be motivated, um, to want to make that money. And also at the same time, be motivated to help your company grow and to be motivated to help your customers succeed. I believe you can have all of that. Interesting. Leslie. In sales, um, you heard like opposites attract. I completely disagree. I think opposites don't attract, or if they do, it's a fleeting.

And I think in sales, it's, um, uh, extra apparent that we, you know, it's why, why companies like crystal knows exist, right? It's trying to mirror and, um, and show up for people in a way that's comfortable and like them. Um, and so I do not believe that opposites attract. Yeah. I, uh, Meg, I mean, I, I share the exact one that you had, which the question was what the others don't agree with you, but I, I do agree with you. Um, so many times I've worked with people or brought them on or in the hiring process, the conversation of Chris, it's, you know what, for me, it's, it's not about the money and that's alarm. That's alarming to me. And James and I have this conversation often and, um, I get it.

I, I love tribes. I love team building. Sure. But it's money can be healthy. Like it's okay to say this is my primary driver. And I learned from, uh, I think this was recently with, from Sam Parr, uh, from hustle where he, they, they talked about the same thing. And the thing that struck me was, and like you said, money doesn't buy happiness, but money can help to buy me time. And the most precious thing in my world is time. It's wealth to me or freedom is the time to make decisions of where I spend my energy. And that to me is that part. And, and just from the team structure and like what we're building, like, it's okay. I want people to be driven fiscally. Like it matters to me. Why? Because that's how this all exists.

It doesn't matter. Of course there's derivatives and values and why, you know, like the why of what we're here, but this needs to exist from an economic front. And so I think it's really interesting, you know, I think one thing though, that will kind of, um, contradict what I said to, to a point is, you know, I'm a big, and I think both of you know, this is that when, if I'm selling or we're talking to somebody and I don't think it's a good fit for the team, or I don't think we are the right fit for them, or in some cases, they're just not nice people. Um, I won't sell to them. I will stop the deal. And so what does that mean? That means that, well, I'm not going to get a commission off of it.

The company's not going to get any money off of it, but I would 50 times rather not do business with that person than sell a deal that is bad for the company. So I do think it's also kind of your moral compass, uh, and, and how strong it is, uh, to be able to say, yes, money does motivate me, but I am sure as hell not going to, to sell something that is going to make us either look bad that we can't deliver on that isn't a good fit. Or in some cases, you know, it's just icky. John's a huge believer. We talk about this a lot as a team in sharing the same ethos, right. And sharing the same kind of sets of beliefs and core values. And he has allowed me to, to do that when selling, like I've come to him many times where I've spoken to people and I've said, you know what, they just didn't treat me well, or I didn't like how they were kind of approaching this and it just didn't feel good.

And the first thing John will say is, well, then forget that we're not, we're not going to do it. And, you know, it definitely equates to money not being in the next commission check, but I would rather have that than a bad deal. Yeah. We've, John and I have shared for 21 years across five or six companies, we've always had an explicit written no asshole rule. It gives everyone within the organization the ability to walk away from any situation if they just feel as though, you know, like they just did the quality of the conversation isn't where it needs to be. And, uh, I mean, we prove that over and over here at JV sales. And a lot of times it's at the detriment of, of the, well, or what feels like it's the dollars right now, but it's pretty telling that if we're so dialed into the ethos and the type of humans we want to be, if you feel that at the first interaction, it's going to come tumbling down at some point because we're in the services business and services, it's about friction.

It's indifference, it's problems, it's how you respond to that, that matters. And I mean, COVID has proven that like our best customers are the ones that we figured it out. We worked through it and it wasn't always easy, but it was, that's how you have to respond to it. You, if at the beginning of transaction, you already feel as though that there's already indifference or friction, like it's not going to happen. It will fall apart. So a point well taken. Interesting question. We were at Rainmaker, I think two years ago, and I asked about 15 people this question and I'm going to run it when we run this, I'm going to kind of run a montage of it as well. And this is obviously because of pre-COVID.

And the question was, if you only had to use one channel, one medium for prospecting, email, phone, or social, and you could only, that's the only thing you could use for an entire year, which channel would you use and why? Meg? Email. Why? Because you can incorporate lots of different things into it. You can do voice things in it. You can put video in it. You can do all sorts of different things. Is that cheating? Did I just cheat by saying that I could use all of that? No. I think, depending on, you know, who you're selling to, there's a lot of people that don't like the phone, don't like to pick up the phone. If you're selling to a tech-based industry, you're not going to work a lot of the time to them.

They want to see email. So if I had to pick email, I think we all know that a combination is great, but email is if I had to pick where I'd go. Leslie? Email, phone, or social? It's so funny because I was going to say social for that same reason, because I can do it all right there, right? Voice, video, text. And Meg, the big one that's missing from email is I can't really research you through email. So I feel like, you know, everyone's comfortable in their own way. And I think you are going to miss a gap of people if you're just sticking in one, right? Like not everyone is going to be active on LinkedIn or social channels. But I do think that there's a lot more telling information through a social channel.

And so when I get to the right person, it will be more relevant. I can't wait to go back and take a look at what the responses were. Like I'll just enumerate them before. But my answer two years ago would be email. So I have the luxury of data and helping so many organizations build messaging and deliver via email. I can use that data to affect, you know, what my approach is. And there's a constant feedback loop for email. So you can do a large volume in a very short period of time, take that data, and that becomes your baseline. Then you're testing against it. You don't get that luxury with phone or social. You'd have to do a... I'm very thankful for, you know, tools like Gong where, you know, you can get some data out of calls, not just mine, maybe across the entire team.

But I obviously, I'd like to use data to my advantage. However, with the advent of sales enablement, sales automation, and technology and software eating, you know, the prospecting side of this business, it really has just created noise across the board. And that's technically from spam, from what inbox you land into, but more importantly, desensitize the end user. I mean, think about 10 years ago, what your mailbox looked like, or 15 years ago about direct mail. I literally remember, like, even at home growing up, my mom would walk in with, like, just the two or three inches of just different colored things. And then as a medium, it was too much noise. Everyone backed off. Well, guess what?

Direct mail's back because I don't get anything in my inbox. And so I think we're in this cycle right now where email can still be effective. However, I think that there's just so much noise and your probability of punching through is that much harder, both from a technical and then we pattern recognize. We can look at an email now and we know, we can read through it. We don't, we're subconsciously competent. We can look at it and say, I know what's going on here. John and I do this all the time. We're like, okay, because I can just back into the email header and I can be like, oh, yeah, it's sales law. And I can just like, I can figure out exactly how this thing's being sent to me. But I just think that on the social side, you have a better opportunity.

The research is right in front of you. You have content. You can provide context. You can't do it at scale. So obviously you have to find a way around that. But I will say that I've had most amount of luck punching through using social, but I think it's all time-based and everything is cyclical and video is so strong right now, but video still needs to be delivered over a medium. I love conversational marketing. I'm a big fan of what Drift has done and Dave Cancel's team there. But I do think that things work until everyone uses them and then they don't. The number one, John and I, we get asked this all the time. What's the best subject line? The best subject line is stop, go Google, best subject line 2021.

I think MailChimp actually puts out reports all the time because as soon as it's good, as soon as it works, everyone uses it, it no longer works. And so I think there's certain parts of what we do that are all time-based and taking a look at what others are doing and the rate at which that is all happening is crazy. Tech stack, analysis paralysis sets in. What do we use for our tech stack? I mean, there is a tool for everything. There's a helper app for everything. There's a Chrome extension for everything. But at the root of it, we all choose and use a certain amount of tools that I think we all rely on heavily. Leslie, what would you say your top three most important tools in your backpack are?

Oh, man, I cannot tell you how much I'm geeking out on Gong. I never had Gong in a previous life. I've read the blog for as long as it's been out, but I've never utilized it as the recording tool, being able to share, being able to analyze myself. And it's brilliant. I think that's number one. Number two. I mean, I think we got to throw Salesforce in there, right? A CRM. I mean, you got to. You got to do it. Especially for like the, you know, task-oriented kind of person. I think it's just magical how it keeps you on track. Um, and then if I was going to throw a third one in there, I have been spending a lot of time on Owler, um, not just for the, you know, I'm, I mean, I'm, there's so many different little avenues you can go down in terms of like finding like companies, um, you know, getting information and the resources that you need for specific events that are happening at those companies.

But like, I just can go down rabbit holes. That's like a two o'clock in the morning. You can't sleep kind of thing. Um, you pop up Owler and then it's like three hours later and it's time to wake up. Meg, top three tech stack. I had the same three, uh, but we, I'll, I'll, I'll give you more. So, I mean, Gong for me is life-changing. I don't know. I can't live without it. It's amazing. I love them. Um, Salesforce. Yep. Owler. Yep. Uh, I'm a big Evernote person. Um, so I love Evernote. That's where I take all my notes. You and John. Yep. Uh, I take all my notes in Evernote when I'm, when I'm on, um, a call, they're easily transferable right into Salesforce. Um, I don't even use a paid version of it.

I'm, I'm just using the regular version and it works great for me. So, um, love Evernote. Um, I also have become a, um, big fan of TweetDeck and that is all Morgan. So Morgan Ingram got me onto this. So a lot of the companies that I follow, um, are heavy in Twitter. A lot of our technical companies, um, that we follow love Twitter. And TweetDeck is just basically a way to see organized columns of tweets by lists that you're pre-sorting. So it's very cool. Um, definitely something I'm reading in the morning along with Owler. Um, and then anything that can kind of give me so, um, the, um, oh gosh, how could I forget? Um, Chili Piper. Gosh, Chili Piper. I love Chili Piper. Um, it's, I do, I don't exist without that.

Um, I find that people book more if I just give them my link. If I say, Hey, would love to chat with you to make it easier on you. Here's calendar link, click on it and find a time that works for you. And I, I get incredible response rates with that. So definitely Chili Piper, which I always want to call Chili Pepper. And I don't, it's Chili Piper. I love all the name drops here. Guess who I'm going after for sponsors after this. Yeah. Right. I just, I just, I just set up your, your, your work for the day there, Chris. Um, just real quick. I mean, uh, I live in, I mean, I would probably say that where I spent most of my time is determining and figuring out the tech stack and, um, just efficiency and automations.

But to me, the number one tool I always have is, uh, graph paper. So, uh, there isn't a day that I go through and there hasn't been for the 30 or 25 years, whatever it's been that I've been doing this. It's always been graph paper. Nothing's changed. There's been no technology advancements in it. I, in fact, somebody actually gifted, um, me, it was kind of like a, um, erasable kind of electric tablet graph paper. It still didn't cut it. There's just something about pen and paper for me that this is where my day starts and usually ends. Uh, the next one, and this has been, uh, I give this advice to anybody who ever comes to me about like where they're, you know, early in a career, how they can improve and it's, um, understanding spreadsheets.

Uh, so how to use it as a tool there. I think that I'm surprised how many people can make as far as they do, but they don't know how to use basic table structure. And, uh, at first, you know, a lot of people, oh, that's data. It's like, no, you have no idea the power of what you can do if you really understand, um, working within a spreadsheet. And the third one for me, uh, I agree with Meg. I think, uh, Leslie hit on it too, is, is a good listening tools. And I, unfortunately, when I say listening tools, there's a little bit of, uh, soup of the day of which ones are relevant and getting those ones that have better feedback about humans is better that have techno, uh, information. And then there's some at the company level.

I will say Owler has a pretty special product. Um, but I, you know, I use Google alerts. I use Feedly. Um, I would say the most reliable on my side has been, uh, Owler as we go through. Um, yeah. So, uh, one last question for you guys, um, to close this out. And this comes from, I believe John and I got into it a few times about this. Um, and the question is, is there a correct way to hang toilet paper? A million percent. Yes. Always over. Always. I don't understand this. What? I don't understand what you don't understand. I don't know. I have to just maybe just sit down and sit down at task and really think this one through. I don't, I don't even know. It's not that I believe there's one that's right or wrong.

I just, I don't know. There's just one way and we don't need to talk about another way. You hang it over like it over and it just, that's, it's silly. Like I don't understand anyone who ever would fish for toilet paper from underneath. That's insane. Well, I will just tell you this and, um, I don't know if John's ever caught it, but every time I'm over at John's house, I completely flip them all over. So I guarantee you that if I'm ever at your house, I'm going to reverse whatever direction that it's in. So are you just the kind of person who just grabs and puts it on when there's an empty roll? You just, you don't, I'll call myself out here. I still live in function. Um, uh, like the toilet paper fairy is real to me.

I don't know where it comes from or how it gets there. I know that's a very, her name is Trisha. Yeah. And she's going to kill me. She's your wife. And before you married her, I have no idea how you survived. My four year old loves to change the toilet paper roll. She thinks it's the coolest thing. She like, if you let her change the role, she's like all on board. Well, um, just closing this out, I could not be more, um, lucky and proud to be able to work with both of you. Um, I know, uh, Leslie, we're only a month in, but, um, obviously, uh, my, on the content side of the business, we're always seeking people that are both, um, willing and capable to develop out their brand. And we could not be more excited to, to jump in and start to build that out.

Um, I called 2021 of the year of Meg. Um, I feel very, very strongly, um, about Meg's ability to impact people and to do so in a fun and a entertaining way. Uh, with that, um, Meg has a course coming out. We're going to be launching and, uh, hopefully where are we? Like tomorrow, like tomorrow. I think there's actually access to it. People see it, but, um, Meg's course is on, uh, selling in customer success. Um, customer success is no longer about defending churn. Um, it is also about, uh, that it's looking as, uh, from an income and a revenue side. So, um, I think we're very early on in the days of really celebrating sales within CS. And I think everyone, uh, um, in the CS space is, um, this is going to be something.

Um, I have a feeling it's going to be very well received. So look out for that. Look out for Meg's course. We'll be slow rolling that out. I believe there's customers already have access to that, but we'll see it on demand soon. Um, and then the next one, um, is, uh, having conversations about a combined voice between Meg and Leslie and to start to develop out a podcast. So I know that we're going to go back to the nerdery and start talking about themes. What's important to you. And, um, as you know, we have this podcast with Johns and then Morgan with the one up formula that just launched. Um, really excited to be able to announce maybe early Q2, a podcast with the two of you. So, uh, thank you very much for your time.

Um, uh, anything else before we bounce Meg? No, just, uh, don't be afraid to ask the questions. Stay curious. Yeah. Leslie. Same. Um, sales is a, is a wealth of opportunity if you're, uh, willing to put in the work and go out there and get it. Yeah. Agreed. All right. Cool. Thank you very much. All right, y'all. Chris, Meg, and Leslie put on a hell of a show. There was so much fire in there. Sometimes I feel like Meg is talking directly to me. What an impact. Leslie has a way with words. Her content on LinkedIn and Instagram have always been helpful for me personally and professionally. Check her out at talking underscore with underscore Leslie. JB sales is also on Instagram. So follow us at JB sales training, all one word for daily sales tips and consistent growth content that could help take your career to the next level.

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