Donald C. Kelly : Just Two Sales Guys Talking

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us. And Donald C. Kelly is one of those people. He's the founder and the chief sales evangelist at The Sales Evangelist. In this conversation, this is really just two sales guys talking to each other about the industry and what's going on and where we're headed. And we start with his background in Jamaica and how he came to America and used sales to really build his career and how he got into it. And he's got a really interesting background that marries a lot up with what I've done in my career.

For instance, he sold copiers or he sold software to the copier industry, to state and local governments, and so did I. We talk about what we learned from those experiences. He also picked up a book called Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard, and we talk about the impact that had on both of our lives. He's an adjunct professor at Brigham and Young University. So he teaches in universities, which is really important these days to help try to introduce sales to people before they get out of college and teach them on how to do it the right way. And that's where we took this conversation is, in our opinions, how is sales done right? And how do we combat the negative perception? And how do you approach sales with the right mindset?

So we talked about misconceptions. We talked about breaking the norms. We talked about being hungry, all of that. So I really hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. What's happening, make it happen, family. Big shout out to our partners today, Gong, Vidyard, and Chili Piper. Gong's data is more than valuable. It's cornerstone in any organization looking to collect the data that's going to tell them where they can improve and where they need to spend their time making changes. Vidyard makes it easy for people to use videos anywhere. No matter whether you're sending videos in email or on social media, posting them somewhere, or sending them in a DM, Vidyard has got you covered.

Our friends at Chili Piper are so much fun to be around. They make it easy for people to get on your calendar. And every sales rep has got to have this function locked in. It's one of the most important things we can do as a seller. How can I get you on my calendar easily? Chili Piper can make that happen for you. Be sure that you're checking out all these great tools. And now let's pass it over to John to find out who's joining him today. See you soon, everybody. All right. I am here with the chief sales evangelist, Donald Kelly. How are you, brother? How are you doing? Man, I can't complain, man. Life is good. I'm excited. I mean, the fact that I'm here chilling with John, I'm like, come on, man.

It's a good day. We're talking sales, having fun, right? Same thing, man. I think I feel very blessed in the sense that, you know, I get to do what I love and share knowledge with people who are usually a real blast to talk to, right? I mean, being able to sell sales to salespeople is, I never really thought about that in my career early, but man, it's pretty rewarding when you do it right, right? I was talking to, yeah, I was talking to this kid. He is in one of the classes, like just, he's a college student and just new to sales, like this idea. He did a lot of B2C. And then he's like, so what exactly do you do? And I explained to him just like that. He's like, whoa, whoa, there's an avenue to sell sales to salespeople.

I'm like, yeah, bro. Sometimes like you're battling ninjas because they're trying to do ninja tricks. But you know, you have good conversations and you share stuff with them. And it was just a whole different world to him. Yeah. And it's, it's tough though, because it is, you know, and I want to get into this as far as the noise that's out there with sales and content and everything else. Cause there's a lot of people that have kind of, you know, they always say, if you can't do it, teach it. Right. So there's a lot of sales consultants out there who are, who are teaching it, but you look at their history and their background, they've never really done it, which is definitely concerning to me.

But I mean, you're still out there grinding every day, right? You're still selling your stuff, right? A hundred percent. That's one of the reasons I was late. There you go. I will never argue with that, man. Like I would say that like when I'm doing trainings, like if somebody has to take out, you know, get out of the room for whatever, cause it's a sale, like they're trying to close something. I'm like, go do it. I'm like, that's the whole point of this is to help you close deals. If you're about to go close a deal, go close it. So yeah. Hey, let's talk for the people that don't know you, Donald, give us a little background on you about how you got here. And there's a few things in your background that I want to, I want to highlight, but why don't you give us your little journey here?

So I'm going to come from Jamaica and I'm on a picnic. When I was nine, my family moved here to the States in South Florida and just kind of grew up around selling. And I didn't know it was selling. Just the way of life, the way culture is built in Jamaica. So I was that little kid hustling the candy at school and singing lollipops or whatever I could get my hands on. Then I loved that idea so much. I started playing around it with it in like my middle school and high school days. And then posted, I went to college and my friends were like, you should think about sales. And that's where I really kind of got the formal thing in sales. And I did the dish network for the first gig over the phone, getting social and all that stuff.

And then after that, I went into, did some, what do you call it? Timeshare. No, man, you were a timeshare sales? Oh, shit. I was the inside sales guy. So we would call and give those Kohl's gift cards, Home Depot, Best Buy gift cards and get them to go. And we would prep them though, John, like hit you up and, you know, at dinnertime and like, Hey, so you're like, I don't want to get sold. Like, listen, go there. Don't tell them you can't afford it because they'll figure out a way. Just tell them it's not in my plans at this point. I gotta, I gotta send you this, probably the most popular blog post I've ever done in my entire life. It's called 10 lessons, 11 lessons learned from getting drunk in Vegas and accidentally buying a timeshare.

Cause I knew what was happening. Like they had, so actually there's a cause on that. I've, you know, I talk a lot about the science and the art of sales, right? And, and it's obviously a balance. I think it's a little bit more of a, there should be more of a science than an art, but the, the man, that industry, the timeshare industry has scienced out sales to the nth degree. I mean, there is, there's no wiggle room there. They know exactly when you say this, do that. When you do this, say that. And it is, it is masterful, but it also is a negative because there's this book out there called getting to yes. Have you ever read the negotiations book, getting to yes? Yeah, I've heard of it. I've not read negotiating to yes.

And the concept though, is like, you just get a bunch of yeses right along the way and they're preconditioned. And that's basically what the, the timeshare industry is based on. And the problem with that is, and that, you know, you marry that with Chris Voss, never split the difference and how you should hunt for the no. Whereas like, if you're doing yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It's like this uncomfortable thing. Like, yeah, okay. Yeah. Then you're right. And then it's like, but then there's so much buyer's remorse because, and you said this before, you don't like it in sales when you have to convince somebody like these are, I think you had four biggest misconceptions about selling. You even wrote about these in your book, right?

About convincing people. Could you talk about that a little bit? Yeah. It's like, when you, when you look at it in sales, like Jeffrey said it, um, get them or one of the first people I had brought on in a pod podcast back in the days, he said, people love to buy, but they hate to be sold. And I think he borrowed it from somebody like a Zig or whatnot, but it's so true. Like I, and I don't, everyone knows when they're being sold or being coerced or being tricked into something. But if you can empower me to buy, I mean, I'll buy all day and come back to the consumer side. Like right now, I don't much know, but I, it's three o'clock. I bet you there's an Amazon package going to my house because my wife, Ford, is that she loves to buy?

Like she, she just in our nature, human beings love to get things. But if you're making me feel or trick me into doing it, I don't want to do that. And that's when the, you know, obviously great sellers come around because those people are going to educate you enough. Go back to what you're saying with that. Chris, like Chris Voss, like you're, you're educating someone enough in that process that it makes sense to them. And they're persuading themselves to buy rather than me tricking you or persuading you to buy. And when I first got into involved in sales, the first movie I saw in sales, well, not one of the first, but one of the, it was in high school. I don't know how to show this in high school, but it was Boiler Room.

I know it. Yeah, I know it well. And I thought that's what sales was, John, because I was thinking like, all right, cool. Look at those guys getting all this money and that's what they're doing. They're tricking these people. And it was manipulation and con artists, you know, being a con artist. And anyway, so that's the, the attitude that I saw and you see still prevalent and especially in the timeshare world, rather than educating me enough that I make a buying decision that's going to be in my best interest. And for which you're going to get compensated, you know? Well, and it's, I love, because again, it's helping people buy, right? And getting it to, it's almost like Inception, you know, movie Inception, right?

Where they put that idea deep down and then let it, you know, cultivate to be yours. You know, look, I don't want to spend 20 years down, you know, a hundred years down there or anything like that, but I do want to kind of plant that seed. And that's where I actually make the analogy these days with challenge your sale, right? So challenge your sale, like the whole concept, either, you know, one side of it lead with insights, but the other side is, is challenge people. And the mentality is, look, you make this decision once a year. I help people make it every day. Let me show you where people make good decisions and bad decisions. But I'll tell you right now, man, even at like, even at my 46 years of being in the game for about 26, 27 years at this point, challenging, like legit challenging somebody and like telling them you're wrong, that doesn't really usually work all that well.

But if you, if you ask questions to get them to think about it a little different and it ends up being their idea, then that's how I challenge, right? I challenge by asking questions that get you to pause and think for a minute and go, huh, I haven't thought about it that way. Cause if I get you to do that, I got you, right? That's like, and I don't, that's the money question. That should be your next book, John. I didn't think about it that way. Like, as soon as you could make somebody say that, like it is game changer. And then when people do that to me, I'm just like, huh? Like, you know, right now I battled the whole idea of the EV. I'm like, do we really need an EV? Do we really need an EV electric vehicle?

And then now I'm just like, why did I have, why was I so against it? And, or not just against it, but thought it was just like, yeah, I'm a big Tesla dude. And, you know, I love, you know, the Tesla idea, but I was just like, yeah. But then it was somebody who challenged me and I was like, holy crap. I didn't think about it that way. I was like, there's not enough charging stations or blah, blah, blah. And then they asked, shared some insights and I was like, holy moly. The people probably said the same thing about gas. There's not enough gas stations or whatnot. Anyways. Well, I think that's, that's why I think a master from a sales standpoint is when you can make analogies to people that make, that help it make sense to them in their, in their kind of worlds.

Right. So a lot of people, I try to make those analogies. Well, how would, you know, what about if like last time you bought an iPhone, you know, whatever that would be that is their day to day life and get them to make that connection to what we're selling. Like, it's like, oh, okay. All right. That's a different way of looking at it. And I think that's the challenge is, is waking people up a little bit, right? Cause so many people are so hyper-focused on whatever's in front of them and they're trying to do what they do. I genuinely believe it's our job to wake people up a little bit by asking them those questions, not by telling them how smart we are or how great the, you know, it could be, but just being curious.

Yeah. Have you, you said you grew up kind of, I can, I can see where I've been to Jamaica a few times. I can see. Yeah. Trust me. I'm a big fan. Um, but, uh, you hustles there, right? I mean, there's no question about it. What about curiosity from your perspective? Like, were you, uh, were you a curious kid? And the question I ask a lot of people is, can you teach genuine curiosity or are you born with it? I think some people are gifted with it. Um, I do believe that you can teach the idea of curiosity, uh, as well, because I, I feel, so let's go back to, to answer the first part of the question. Like, you know, did I, you know, how do we have that? And so forth. Um, growing up as a kid, I had, um, I don't know, like my brother and I were all the one to finish, like taking things apart, like breaking stuff that we weren't supposed to, or, you know, finding stuff around the neighborhood and trying to make our own little go-kart and just trying to make things happen.

And I think where that curiosity came was from not like just not having it. It's kind of like the desperation idea. It was like, how can we make this ourselves? Like, and that notion kept following, you know, we, we followed with, and I think the idea with salespeople or with anyone these days, can you teach that idea of curiosity, just like the why idea or go deeper? I think it, you definitely can. We've been programmed, however, not to have that curiosity because we're just programmed to just like go with the nature or go with what's there, or this is just the way it is. And I think your culture or your, your upbringing also impact that as well. Like, did your parents allow you or foster, give us foster the opportunity for you to be able to, you know, ask for the questions or, or go deeper that, or, you know, and sometimes in a Jamaican culture too, they'll tell you like, you know, Whitney, shut up, man, go see them.

Like, but, but, you know, but we, we just had this when we, especially when we came here to the United States and we saw that the difference between, you know, what we had and, you know, what was normal. Like, we're like, crap, we don't have much. Let's figure out a way to make things happen ourselves. And that, that notion of what we saw in Jamaica, how people just made it happen, came with us. In a sales scenario or in an education scenario, I think it's just helping people to understand the deeper reasonings behind a question that you can help them to teach that curiosity. And I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We do a lot of the, the, the Socratic method or, you know, as practice or exercise in our programs, like, you know, let's, let's go by, let's go deeper or, you know, Toyota's five, why concept, like just play with it and entertain them.

And once we can help them to start doing that and teach them to do it in their day-to-day life, it's becomes a natural part of their, their, you know, the way that they sell. So I think it can be taught. Yeah. I think, I think it can be taught, but only if you care. So I think that's the problem, right? If you don't give a shit, like you're not going to be curious, but if you genuinely care, now you, you're curious. So it's like, if we, if we talk about personas, for instance, most reps get the persona card and they memorize it and they call VPs of whatever, and they give them their pitch. But if you actually think about it for a second, you go and you Google, what do these people do on a day-to-day basis?

You actually, you know, talk to a few of them about what a day in a life looks like. You read a few job descriptions and you think about it from that perspective and read a few blog posts. Well, now all of a sudden it's like, okay, I actually care about understanding and learning a little bit more about you. And that comes through, right? I mean, that curiosity, when you can show that you're genuinely curious about somebody, right? I mean, the doors open up all over the place because they're going to want to tell you more information because they feel, I mean, that's all, it's all about them, right? Like you're, you're talking about them all day long and they, they will open up more and more and more.

So I do think that you can train, you can teach it, but I can't, I don't think you can teach people to care. Yeah. That's the, that's the difference. Yeah. And I, bro, I'm just like, amen. I don't want to be just like a yes man, but I'm just going to be a yes on that. Um, for sure. The, um, the curiosity side and is just, is, is, is hyper important. And I love what you talked about. We tell them like the job descriptions. Um, some people look at it and like the, the, the typical salespeople go with their process of like, I'm going to help you make money or help you save money in their pitch. Like that's what it is. But if you look at the job description, oftentimes it's like, what is it that I'm responsible for?

Like, can you help me with something? I think where you go back with that curiosity is like reading that stuff and understanding and, and coming with the genuine love and care. Um, it's going to, you know, it will show through, but yeah, it's the curiosity part. If you, if you ain't got it, if you ain't got a desire, it ain't going to happen. We always tell people like this, you know, say, say, they'll say, why, you know, why should we do anything with you? You know, we have these sellers who've been selling for a while and I'm like, listen, don't put them in a program. Like if they don't have a desire, it doesn't matter what I teach them. They're not going to apply it. So that was probably one of the hardest things that I had to come to a realization with here with this, when I started doing this training was, you know, I took this training and it had such an impact on me that I would, cause it was real.

It was, it was not like a trick. It wasn't, it was real stuff and it helped. Right. And so when I, when I had the chance to do this training back in the day at Basho, you know, when I was training people, if there was 30 people in the room and if you were in the back of the room and you were on your iPhone or you weren't paying attention, I'd be like, yo, Donald, eyes up, man, eyes up, like pay attention here. And, and I realized that you can't teach people if they don't want to be taught. Right. Like you literally, so I, now I talk and you'll probably, you'll appreciate this. You know, some, uh, I was doing a training and, uh, somebody asked me, Hey John, you know, you, um, you train all our, our competitors.

Right. And so how, if you train all of our competitors on the same content, how are we going to differentiate? Like, how are we going to stand out? And I said, 10, 60, 30. And he was like, what? And now with my dude, this is in front of like two, 300 people, right down in North Carolina. And they're a lot nicer than we are up here in Boston. Right. So, uh, I don't think they were ready for the in your face response. Cause I was, and he was like, what do you mean? 10, 60, 30. I go 10% of you in this room are going to take what I tell you and you're going to run with it because you, that's just who you are. And you're going to excel. 60% of you in the room are going to do something different. Cause it's easy and it makes sense.

And 30% of you in this room ain't going to do shit different. So the question isn't what, how many people can I train? The question is what percentage do you want to be in? And I'd like this real hush came over the crowd and they were like, Ooh. And I was like, I'm like, I'm just trying to be real with you here. Like, I guarantee you some of you will walk home and won't even think another thing about what I just said up here and came into today's training thinking, Oh, here's another training. And you're on your iPhone the entire time. You're probably checking your emails and you just wasted your day. Right. And that's just is what it is. And ain't nothing I can do for those people out there.

It's like somebody who needs help. Right. Like if you have a friend who's an alcoholic, you can't help your friend who's an alcoholic unless they come to the conclusion that they need help. Right. It's the same thing with people who care. Right. Like if you don't care, I don't know what to do with you. Right. Yeah. Oh man. I love that. 10, 60, 90. Yeah. 10, 60, 30, 10, 60, 30. Talk to me about, um, you were in copier sales, right? Advanced processing and imaging. Is that, was that a copier sales or like printer sales? It wasn't actually the equipment. We did the software. So it was a document management company, but we did partner with the copier, uh, folks. So there were the solution that we sold.

They, well, I did get, I didn't get a job at a copier sale. Um, and I always like Ray, I tell you the story about this Ray figure. I think I'll say his last name, Ray down in South Florida. I went to this job interview, John, um, I doing manage it before that and, um, was trying to get more into, you know, a new gig. And one of my friends went to work copier and I went in and he was like talking to me and talking to me, you know, just like two minutes. I drove to Boca. So it was like 30 minutes from my house, 20 minutes. And then he was like, ask two questions. I can't much remember what it was, but he was like, yeah, you're not going to make it. Um, yes, you know, go ahead and leave. And I was like, it didn't say exactly that harsh, but it was pretty harsh.

He was like, yeah, you're not going to make it. Um, but thanks not for coming down. So I didn't make it out of a showroom. And I was like, man, I'm so glad. So the next block over, um, that's where one of my other friends, somebody from a networking event told me about, they're like, check out the software company. And I work when I checked it out and did great. And it was one of those things that just was like very, very, the people I met and the Avenue put me on helped to shape where I went, but it was, um, it was, uh, we did, uh, document management specifically for city county governments in K-12. A lot of them had those old AS 400s, or they have like a pile of paper and they're trying to come into the next generation, uh, 21st century.

So we, our software helped to put their stuff in electronic filing cabinets. Um, so yeah, that was, yeah, that was similar. Like I sold the state and local government, but I sold copiers. Right. And I always say, man, if you want to get your teeth cut in sales, go, go, go sell copiers. Cause I mean, talk about the definition of commodity, right? It's like, Oh, 45 pages a minute over 42 pages a minute. Ooh, but it scans the email. Yeah. But something stood out though, uh, in your description of that is that you created raving fans. Yeah. Is that the raving fans book? Ken Blanchard? A hundred percent. That's one of the first, our CEO loves Ken. Um, and he was like, you know, we gotta, you gotta read the raging raving fans or everyone literally in a company, when you came in, they would get a copy of raving fans.

So I got it, I read it and I drank the Kool-Aid. Right. And I was like, this is so true. It makes so much sense. Um, and then just kind of went on with that idea. So every interaction we had with our clients and potential clients, we just thought about how can we make them the best situation and, you know, selling to government, it's a small niche, right? Your city counter governments, your market share is only so big. Right. Um, and we focus on K-12 a lot and also in the cities. So with this notion, it's like, when we get someone, how can we keep them forever? Because government people don't like to switch. So you're with them. Like, what are we going to do to keep them going? Cause John is here for the next 30 years, that pension plan ain't moving.

He ain't going anywhere. Might retire a little bit early, but probably not. Not if he wants a hundred percent of that pension. Nope. And he's, uh, you know, you're a CIO now over that district, like, come on, ain't moving. So raving fans was a big philosophy that we followed. Yeah. We, we actually did that at my first time. So I sold it services to right after Xerox. And, um, we, I read that book and, and I was like, all right, I like this. And the whole concept of know who you are, know what your customer expects of you and then do 1% better. Right. Yeah. Every day. So one of my whole guiding principles is 1%, but we used to actually give out raving fan awards internally and externally. So we would say, uh, we would once a month and I would be the one standing up in the group.

And we had this little email box where if you saw somebody doing something special, you would just put it in there and then we would vote on it. And it was an internal raving fans, which is who internally here helped somebody else out went above and beyond. And then externally, like customer feedback saying, Hey, you went above and beyond. And we would give out little, just, you know, gift cards every month, but it kept that mentality of how can you go that extra mile for somebody? How can you do that just a little bit more than, than the average person would. And it's amazing how the little things matter. I mean, you don't have to do that much. It goes back to caring. Um, but you don't have to do that much to really create raving fans in this world these days.

I think it's just often overlooked, right. Um, just like the small things. Um, and, and, you know, go back into back in the days, like people would do like the, the birthday cards or things like that. Um, you know, you share things like this with people nowadays and they get like, it's like what, or, you know, the way that we see it right now, it's like LinkedIn with some of the birthday things, you know, you can automatically push a button and say happy birthday. But think about if I got a text from somebody or even just like a, a personalized message on that. Uh, sometimes I go silly with it too. You know, people who I know. So I'll start singing to them with like a video message, like happy birthday too, you know, but it's like, you know, just a little special thing, but it's those small gestures that let you know that I care for you or that I'm here for you, or I did this personally for you.

Um, and those are great and people like them because the bar is so low these days. It's so low. I really do wish I would, I really wish LinkedIn would shut off the birthday notification because I, you know, I, I get probably two to 300 emails on a weekly basis on, on average. Right. But on my birthday, apparently everybody on LinkedIn knows me. Right. And it's, and so I, now I have to go through 7,000 emails and just delete all and whatever. And I'm just like, these are so disingenuous. You know what I mean? It's, it's almost, we go back to like fake personalization versus, you know, actual personalization. And the fake personalization is, I think is worse than no personalization at all. Like if you personally, if you, if you fake personalize it, cause you find, replace, send, or you, you know, you send that automated message, man, like I, I actually look at you in more of a negative than a positive in so many ways.

Right. This is why I love it. When I get the Donald C, like hi, Donald C that I know. Like bro, you try to personalize that. Yeah. And then the letters, here's the other part too. When the, the, they, they use Gmail and they do it like the, the subject, my name is like font size, like two times bigger than the body. Yeah. Yeah. Stop it. What's up everybody. I know you're enjoying this conversation. John does a great job with genuine curiosity on these episodes and our guests consistently bring the heat. We want to take a moment here and let you know that you've got an opportunity, an opportunity to become better than you were yesterday. And you can do so by gaining access to all of JB sales content.

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Let's get back to the show with JB and our guest for this week. I was on a podcast recently with a woman who called herself the queen of automation and I, and I challenged her. I'm like, all right, we're going to get on this podcast. We're going to have a conversation here because I think automation is turning reps into robots. And I think it's taking away the, what's special about sales. And, and to me, until, until robots buy from robots, right? I think when, once robots start buying stuff, I think we're in trouble. But as long as there's a person on the other end of that phone or the end of that call or whatever it is, like we still got a chance, but we got to figure out that human element and figure out how to stop this automation and just dumbing everybody down to the least path of resistance.

I'm sure you face this all the time. People asking you, Hey, what's the silver bullet basically, right? Like, what's that perfect template that I can use to get that? And there just isn't any. And I don't know how to break that mentality because I think I see it getting worse. And you, let me ask you this, as far as like, cause you, you're an adjunct professor at, um, was it Brigham and Young university? So, so you see it there. I mean, finally sales is becoming an educated profession, right? Where you can actually get your degree in sales, but are you seeing, um, at that level, right? How are you seeing sales evolve? Um, and what are you seeing in the universities right now? That's either giving you hope or making you concerned for the profession itself in the future.

Yeah. I mean, the hope side was like what you said at the top is that it's actually happening. Um, it's my alma mater and, uh, they were developing their program and they said, you know, you want to teach? And I was like, they're like, yeah, you can't afford me. So I was like, I do want to pretend it's like one of my training classes. I'll just do one class a semester, help you out. And it's good. It's like an hour and hour and a half, whatever. But the, what I've seen with it though, is that a lot of the students, they don't know what they don't know. And this is why I like it because they're coming in and we could shape them or mold them in the right way, rather than, you know, jumping out and going with some of the bad habits that that's, you know, that's prevalent.

Um, I think, uh, some of the universities are still doing backwards stuff from like, you know, selling like eighties type practices, but you know, at least they're, they're listening and they're trying, um, with the, in relations to this whole automation fad and the, the ideas behind that, I don't think they don't know anything about that. Um, per se, the student side and the university professors, the ones that I've interacted with, they're open to this notion of like, you know, what can be taught better? My buddy and I, he's, uh, over to, uh, BYU's, uh, sales program, and we partnered with Stukin and created a digital sales textbook that's utilized. So there it's great. They're using our stuff.

So it's awesome, but they're not there. They love the idea. When we mentioned something about customizing or mentioned about like a structuring, uh, an effective email to a prospect where it's personalized towards that individual, towards the needs of that person, they light up because I just don't feel that they've known that. And it's just given them an opportunity to, to recognize something like this is the way you're supposed to do it now transfer out in the Silicon slopes. Cause a lot of the students from BYU or from that, you know, that Wasat front, um, Utah, California, they end up in Silicon Valley or they end up in Silicon slopes. Like in Salt Lake is just like booming. Right. So with that, they're, they're jumping into these companies and it's just like a machine.

These companies have them going in as a BDR. So, you know, we're using XYZ product, XYZ outreach product, and just put these emails in marketing creates the template. Just don't mess with them and you send them out. And I think that's where the bad habits are forming. And that comes from what we saw. And I love Aaron, but you know, Aaron Ross with the predictable revenue concept, which revolutionized the industry, but then people just figure if that's the way in VCs, if this is the way we want to evolve and hyper growth, then let's just mimic that. But there's a better way you and I both know that it's just not, it's going to, you're not going to see the high numbers. And one last thing on that, one of the companies that I worked in, I remember Mike dude came into the company and he was like blazing, John, he was doing like 150 activities a day.

And the CEO at the time loved it. He was like, Oh man, look at Mike. Mike is doing so many great activities. I was topping on maybe like at 40, you know, on a good day, it went behind my back 45, because you're doing some, you know, meaningful outreach. And then, um, what came to realize was a lot of Mike's activities were just kind of like the robot. He would just send these random emails and he would call and hang up, call and hang up. So the numbers look good in Salesforce, but it didn't matriculate after a couple of weeks. And that was a perfect example. And when I first saw that, I was like, never am I going to go into that full automation route because I know what that is missing. And I mean, is there some level that you can have assistance with, but I feel when you go to that full extreme, that's where the issues happen.

And that's where I see what a lot of these BDRs who were going in, going into companies. So we're trying to prevent that early on to say, here's a better way, um, through university. And we're fortunate. We are in about 30 universities. They're using the content right now. So it's cool. Nice. Very cool. Yeah. I think it's trying to just get to your point, like get them early. That's why, I mean, that's why I wrote my, my children's book, right. I want to be in sales when I grow up because I like trying to change that perception. Cause no kid says that no kid says I want to be in sales when I grow up. Right. And it's always the default profession. And the way I look at it is it's not really like the, our profession has a bad name for, for very valid reasons.

And, and yeah, right. And here's, but here's the scenario, right? Most kids, they'll go to school. Like, unless you know, you want to be a doctor, you want to be a lawyer, then good for you. Right. But, but most kids go and they don't know what they want to be. And so they pick a major cause they think it's okay. Right. And then they get out of school and they realize, Ooh, either I don't want to do this or B I can't make enough money doing this. So let me see if I can, I heard sales. You can make some money. I'm pretty good with people and low barrier to entry. Let me try it out. And what happens is you take this kid who is usually a pretty ethical, you know, decent kid. And you put them in a situation where they get a quota and a territory and very little training or guidance and get told, look, if you don't hit your quota, if you don't hit your numbers, you ain't going to eat and you'll probably get fired in the next few months.

You take a normal kid and put them in that scenario and they will do abnormal things. You know, they will, they will lie, cheat and steal their way to hit their numbers. And so it puts them on that wrong track. And so kind of trying to get them early and educate them on what it's really about. I mean, your point of the activities, I mean, I'll say I was training monster.com one time. This was in the heyday when monster, when monster was killing it. Right. And I remember walking around, I was doing call coaching and I'm walking around all these cubicles and I'm noticing all these phone numbers. Like there's all these, a list of phone numbers up on every single rep's cube. And I was like, Oh, okay.

I thought those are just internal numbers, whatever. And, uh, but then I started paying attention and all the numbers were different. Like the numbers on this kid's desk were different than the number on that kid's desk. And I'm like, huh. And I finally asked, I was like, Hey, what are these numbers? Why do you guys have all these phone numbers up here? And they were like, Oh, those are a dead dial numbers. And I was like, what? And they were like, well, we got to hit 75 dials a day. And so, you know, towards the end of the day, if we haven't hit our numbers, we just ripped through those numbers just to make sure that we hit our numbers. So we don't go, don't get yelled at by our bosses. And I was like, what?

No way. And then I even, I even approached the managers with it. I was like, do y'all know that your reps just make dead dial calls just to hit the number. They're not actually actually making real calls here. And they're like, Oh yeah, we know, but we know that the activity is going to produce something. I'm just like, Oh, dear Lord. I'm like, you are, you are everything about this makes my skin crawl. I'm like, it really does. I don't even know what to say. I'm like, I don't even know what to say at this point. And that brings up a really good point though, John, like, you know, the issue comes back down and especially with venture backed companies is like, you have VCs who want dollars and then you have leaders in their executive meetings that are just focused on let's hit the numbers and it's not kind of getting down to that, you know, to the, to the, to the pool.

Like how do we change that part? Like, you know what I mean? I don't know. I mean, I've been, I've been struggling with this a lot because, you know, I I've been screaming at VCs to stop it. Like, just stop it. Let us breathe for a minute. But something that concerned me a long time ago, um, and this was during kind of, I don't like politics in general, but Hillary, I watched an interview with her back in the day and she had said that she had interviewed or there was an interview with like 50 of the top CEOs of the top companies in the world. And they were asked, Hey, if you could make a decision today that you knew was good for the company, right? And it would benefit everybody in the next five years, like the business, everything, right?

But it was going to, but that decision was going to knock. And this was the quote, one penny off of your stock price today. Would you do it? 50 out of 50 said no, because they, what they said was, if I made that decision, I wouldn't see five years. I wouldn't make it five years. I'd get fired. So like we're in this short-term gratification. I don't know if there's a way out of it, especially in the SAS tech world. Right. I think, you know, the rest of the world I think is, is relatively normal in a lot of ways. Um, but in the SAS and the tech world and the VCs, it's just, they got to see their 10X returns. They got to see their 20X returns and it doesn't matter how they get them. And you know, the fact that most companies are massively unprofitable, even though they're worth $50 billion or something like that makes no sense to me.

I'm like, I'm not an economist or anything, but I like, I, like I know basic math and, and I've been in business long enough and I just don't fundamentally understand how you can be a $50 billion company and still not be profitable. Like it just doesn't make any sense to me. No, no, no. I don't know what my accounting, I wasn't the smartest man in the class, smartest kid in that accounting class, but I definitely knew, you know, you got to have some dollars. One was more than two was more than one. So, I mean, I know how to read a P and L and that doesn't make any sense to me, you know? So, so how do you think we do it? I mean, I think you're, you and I are both trying to do what we can, but are we one of those like against the tide, you know, the tide's always coming and there ain't nothing you can do to stop it.

Like I look at, I look at the, the, the, you know, you go boiler room, right? I look at the, uh, Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross and boiler room and Wolf of Wall Street and, and like the, the likes of Grant Cardone and those people who look, I, you know, some of his contents probably decent, but man, his morals and his ethics, I, I have, so I am so far away from where those are, but he's legitimately 10 X or shit, a hundred X you and I. So how do you, I mean, is it really a backup education thing early stage before they get to that point so that they don't, they make the decision to go in a different direction? I mean, I think it's, uh, the, the, the sad and the beautiful part about sales is that it is the oldest profession like that, you know, that we can probably go back and think about, like it is so amazing.

And that's the greatest, great thing about it. And that's also the bad thing about it because it's been around for so long and people have done it crappy way for so long. It's been customized in the zeitgeist that this it's okay that you don't need it. And I'm, I'm really excited. Like, you know, when I saw big name companies, uh, schools came in the game, like probably say like 10, 15 years ago when Harvard started really having like sales programs and like, you know, Wharton and some of these other schools, like really in the graduate programs, at least playing and acknowledging sales. It was like, cool, this is great. I think we're a long way off from where it's going to be like the norm to see sales, just like, you know, general accounting practices.

But I think we're, we're excelling towards that. And, uh, I think they're, they were making the change and the stride. And I think those are some of the things that's going to help us to, to, you know, you know, make that even better is by like, is just continual education, continual going to the mass. And this is, people ask me, what am I going to, you know, you're at what amount of episodes, whatever number we're at right now, when you stop, I'm like, whenever it gets boring and it's still fun. So I'm going to keep doing it. And if there's a way I can help educate sellers, then by all means, and, you know, go back to the, the lure, the money side of it also is always, always going to be an issue because you, you see people go back to like Grant, um, you know, Grant has some very motivational type things to get people all pumped up for dollars or whatnot, you get them all excited.

And some of the stories will get you pumped up, but then you go into like the way of doing things that practice, like, you know, I'm just like, dude, that's really unethical. That's not great. And go back to the way Grant got to where he's at too. So one, he has a, the sexy message grabs people and they get pulled into that. But then two, during the recession, the last one, 2008, that's when he really got a big hype because he pushed his books and he was everywhere. So I stole some things from him from the playbook. Like, okay, so if I see that he's tried to be this everywhere idea, how can we then with a good message, a better message, get there? And, I don't know, I think for folks like you and I and others are out there who have these podcasts and these medium build an audience, I think we'll make the long-term impact.

Um, and yeah, we won't get that maybe got the, we won't get the jet tomorrow, but And it's, and it's that, that's the allure, right? The, the jets and those types of things. But I think that's the, the false promises, if you will, because you know, I, I tell people all the time, like success is what, whatever your definition is, it's not money. You know, I'm a big Gary Vaynerchuk fan. Right. And he's like, look, if you make $50,000 a year and you're happy, you win. Period. Right. Like it, but if you make $10 million a year and you're a miserable piece of crap, then you lose. Like I know plenty of people who make millions of dollars and they're just miserable people. I'd much rather be, you know, 50 G's coming home, see my kid, take them to the little league and those types of things.

Right. I mean that, you know, so happiness is really the ultimate goal. And if, and I believe that if you look at sales the right way, um, it can be the greatest profession in the world when done right. Right. Because it provides opportunity. You help people solve problems. You don't try to convince people of stuff you saw, you know, you help other people achieve their goals. And it's just one of those things that I think obviously makes the world go round, but it can have such a positive impact if we break down those negative stereotypes. So here's the question with that too. You see your podcast, I'm over here asking the questions. I said, shut up, Donald. I read a book a few years ago. Um, this idea around it, I forgot what the exact name was something, a sales machine or whatnot.

Um, and then some, I think Katie, Kevin Darcy brought it up recently. And then one of my clients, she brought this up as well. So it sounds like what we're going around to is that is the money. So why don't we cut commissions? So here's a, here's a part to it. And I, I'm on the camp. I like to make my earnings. I like to make the money. And then if you, if, so it's, is it the, the lure? So go back to this idea. And again, this is an extreme idea. You give them a high base or give them a decent money, but then I, you're, you're rewarding everyone at the same level for the work that it may not get. And then you have the other notion. It's like, well, the commission is what given people on ethical practices.

And so, I mean, it could be a temporary fix, but then you get another problem in the long run, right? Well, here's, I mean, I look, my first, um, my first company thrive networks, the IT services company. I actually implemented predictable revenue that the structure of predictable revenue way before predictable revenue came out because I realized that like I was hiring, I was a, I was a VP of sales and I had, you know, six reps reporting me and I would hire full cycle sales reps. And my, because I was a player coach, my coaching was keep up. You know what I mean? Like my management style was keep up, like pay attention. Right. And they failed because they couldn't do all the things consistently.

And so I was like, wait, this is crazy. We got to take a step back. I'm like, well, there's a different way of doing this. Let's, let's break down the sales process. We got opening process and closing. You got to find the client. You got to meet with the client. You got to close the client. And I asked myself, I'm like, what part of this process do I like the most? And for me, it was the middle part, right? I really, really liked developing rapport, you know, all that stuff. Could I prospect? Yeah. But I did. I love it. No. Could I close? Of course. But was I a hardcore closer? No. Right. And now at the time, our CEO was a hardcore closer, right? So we had the closer, we had the middle and we needed prospecting.

So we hired a director of business development. And then he managed about four or five channels to drive meetings. One of them was outside, was, was outbound selling. And what we did with, there was actually an article in 19, 2000, no, sorry, 2001 in ink magazine. My little dumb ass at 24 years old is an ink magazine. And it was, it was, the title was kill the commission because what we did was we created a team oriented, uh, goals. Now everybody had their individual ones. So they got comped for whatever. But what would happen was at the end of the quarter, if the team hit a revenue target, everybody got a bump. If the team hit the number, like the meeting target, everybody got a bump. So it prevented people from just going into their own hole because they said, well, wait a minute, if I help out just get those extra three meetings that, you know, Jim didn't get, then all of us are going to get a bump and I'll get an even bigger bump because of my piece there.

So I think there's a balance. I don't think it's all base. I don't think it's all salary. I also think it's where you are in your career, as far as stages of your career and what we're enticing you to do. Because let's put it this way. Like I, the reason I got into sales is because, and out of marketing was because I didn't like the idea. I I've always kind of like you were saying, like, I'm not the smartest cat, right? Like I drank my way through four years of college, state school, university of Maryland type of thing. And so I knew I was never going to outsmart somebody, but I knew I could outwork people. And what, what happened to me was when I got into marketing, I was like, well, wait a minute.

So we're going to have the same, like that person over there who barely gets by, whatever it is. We're both getting paid the same amount. We're both going to get a, a promotion at the same time, potentially. Like that doesn't make any sense to me. I'm like, the harder I work, the more money I should get paid. You know, like going, let's go to universities. I think, I think tenure is one of the worst possible things out there. So, so, so hold still, just because you've been here long enough means you get a, like, you just get an automatic payment. Like, give me a fuck, like, or your merit raised. Like the people say, well, I got my like 5% merit raise. Well, were you 5% better this year than you were last year?

Well, yeah, I'll give you a 5% raise. But if it's just because you've, you've waited out 365 days, that doesn't mean I'm going to give you more money. It doesn't make, so that never made any sense to me. So I think if we just go pure commission, uh, you know, pure base, I think you're going to get, you're, you're going to lose the, the people that drive the sale. Right. But that's, it's the education. It's the balance of educating them how to do it right and putting commission and just getting out the bad players, which I think there's too many of them right now. Unfortunately, bro, this is so good. So good. I mean, look, we're trying to solve, you know, all the problems in sales here, right?

But, but realistically, man, I mean, look, you could solve world hunger if we sold it the right way. It's just like, it's the same thing. I believe in capitalism, right? I believe capitalism, uh, in theory is a great thing, but in practice it's terrible. It's terrible. Like the rich get richer and they don't put it back into the society. Like if capitalism worked the way it should is like, yes, the rich let them do what they want, but then they trickle down economics, all that stuff. And everybody knows that doesn't work. It's the same thing with sales. It's like, if you, if you just give people commissions and you want them to just go out there, yeah, they should be good team players, good stewards do it the right way, but they're just going to go get their money.

Right. If that's what you're going to push them towards. And especially if the VCs are stuffing it down their throats and everything else. So I don't, I don't know what the answer is other than to keep out in conversations like this and keep trying to, you know, hopefully get that kid who's, who's thinking about being in sales to listen to it and say, huh? All right. I don't have to be Wolf of wall street. I don't have to be boiler room. I don't have to be that. I can be a good person and make a good living doing good things. I love what you shared with the idea of that, you know, coming home with a kid, like for me, John, like the legacy part is important, right? You know, like when it's all said I done money, my sales training used to say money's not the most important thing, but it's right up there with oxygen.

I'm like, all right, you got some, you got some good point there, um, Bernie. But, uh, the notion that was like, I want when, when it's all said and done, I want Caleb or, you know, wherever many kids we have in the future, whatnot, be like, you know, yeah, my dad was a good guy. Um, and this is why, and you know, my, for my wife to be able to say it was a great husband and this is why, like those, those things, if we can have my great grandkids to be able to hear that and to, to see that and to see that, you know, we, we put them on a trajectory, a good path, then it's great. I mean, I'd want to give them all the advantages, you know, that it can get and some money can help with that. But I, more importantly, I want to be able to have that legacy.

I want to be able to, I want to leave the earth knowing that I did my part, um, that I did good to help our Kelly line in some way, progress in the right way. No, I think, I mean, look, I kind of always say that on, if you, you know, in the sports analogy of, you know, when you're on the field, the plus minus, you know what I mean? Like, are you a plus or a minus? Right. My whole thing is at the end of the day, I just want to be a plus. I just want to, I just want to add more than I took away from this life. And, and if that helps a few people along the way, if I can do that by all means, and then I'm, then I'm going to do it. So look, what else, uh, anything else that is on your mind? You got, we're talking about your book here for a second.

First of all, you got to tell me about this. What the hell is the title all about, man? Sell like a mango. What the hell is sell like a mango all about? Sell like a mango. So go back to Jamaica, right? So I remember when, like, as a kid, you're trying to hustle and make money. Our family had a little, you know, like a little TN, a little shop next to the house. Right. And, um, we, that's how, you know, you work, you know, you work in there. So I got used to that. And my aunt would come to the States and buy stuff and take it back and sell it. I knew the guy that rode around and did the peanuts. He would sell peanuts. And then you'd go to the market and you see like all these people selling like the same type of clothes and the same fruit and product.

And as a kid, you just think, oh, they just got 10 mango people or like five different vegetable fruit people. So it's all cool. Um, but as I got older and I came in and went into the software sales game and started doing, you know, just like B2B sales in college. And I was like, hold on, how did people make money in Jamaica do that stuff? And then as I analyzed it, it wasn't, I mean, obviously some did better than other, but it's like, think about it. The product that they're selling is the same fruit. The fruit in Jamaica, it's not like it's coming from like Indonesia or, you know, Belize. It's like the fruit that's growing in some tree in somebody's backyard. It's like the same region, the same area, but what makes one mango seller different than another?

Like what made one more successful than the other? So it's definitely not a product. And when I sold software or you sold managed IT services, it's like, I mean, to be honest, like some of the stuff that we did, it wasn't much different than our competitors. So price was kind of relevant. So it's like, what is it going to make them make that change? And it comes down to the seller and what the seller did. So we, and I was working my book coach, we started, uh, I remember I was trying to sell, and this is, uh, um, the folks over at scratch pad, they sent me this. This is like a little Lego set with like, you know, uh, it's like a guy's ninja bike. And the reason is because I wanted to buy this little ninja bike in Jamaica when I was like, uh, I think it was like five or six.

And, uh, the people across the street had a bigger store than we did, and they had cool toys. So I started picking the mangoes from the tree and putting them down and trying to sell them and cookies. I didn't make enough money to do it because, and that's what goes the whole story behind the book is like, I was trying to sell mangoes, but I wasn't doing it right. I saw other people doing it. So I figured it was going to be easy to sell mangoes, but I sucked at it. And it wasn't until you apply the principles of the proper principles of selling that you could do that. So a new, sell it like a mango, whatever you sell, whether it's software, whether it's a house, whether it's a car, most of our clients are in B2B space, sell it like a mango.

Um, and it's a new seller's guide to closing ordeal. So that's that. Look, that goes right in line with my whole philosophy of it. It literally doesn't matter what you sell. It has, it matters how you sell. Right. I mean, that's it. Like you could have two people selling the exact same. That's why like the, you know, engineers, founders always scare me a little bit. And I, and I always caution sales reps when they go out looking for jobs, just be careful if you're going to go work for an engineering led company, because if they look at sales as a, as kind of a necessary evil and they're like, you know, Oh yeah, whatever. But they think the product is the best run, run away because they're, because you're going to get in this feature function game.

And guess what? Somebody else tomorrow is going to come out with a better product with a better feature and a better function. And, and you're going to play that game and, and you have to have support from the top, from a sales standpoint that sales drives everything. And because if you don't, you're, I mean, look, I, there's very few companies that I've seen fail because it's not the right product market fit or, you know, the product wasn't good or whatever it is. The mode, the majority of the reason that companies fail is because they can't figure out how to sell what they have. And so that's why I think sales, this profession, right? I do, I'm a little nervous about the automation and how it's, I think it's going to erase a large portion of our population or not erase them, but, but really just fundamentally change the role going back to your point of like salaried positions, right?

I think a lot of the SDRs and the BDRs right now are going to end up being salaried roles under marketing and operations. Um, but that leaves the, the, the, the really good sales reps. I mean, there's going to be a need for them like nobody else, because they're the ones who are going to be able to make the connections. They're going to be the ones who aren't going through the automated process. They're going to be the ones who can still develop relationships and get people to trust them. And that is, that is gold right there. If you can get to that level. Money in the bank, bro. Man. Ooh, good stuff. All right. Well, look, uh, look, tell, uh, tell everybody how they can find out. Yeah. So two things.

Um, if you want to go on any platform, you can always hit me up there. Donald C. Kelly, the C is there. It stands for Cecil. So now y'all know, um, um, but Donald C. Kelly, but if you want to go and check out our podcast, check out what we do, go to the sales evangelist.com and we have a free resource tab, tons of stuff there so you can play and have fun. And, uh, yeah, cool to connect with you. Tell me that you, you heard me here kicking it with John and, uh, tell us why you don't want, you want to have your commission. There you go. And go out and get that book to sell it like a mango. Cause, uh, uh, I guarantee stuff in there is going to tell, give you a different perspective on things about how to sell, not what to sell.

Right. Awesome. Well, look, I appreciate you coming on board here, man. I appreciate the time and the knowledge and what you're doing. Thank you. I appreciate the time. Absolutely. And everybody else out there, I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. As I always say, go out there and make somebody smile today. Cause no matter how bad your day you think is going, if you make somebody smile, you know, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that. So thank you all for listening. I'll see you on the other side. Thank you so much for your time today and listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did with your support and our incredible guests.

We're one of the top sales podcasts in the industry with over a million downloads. And I can't thank you enough to keep the momentum going. If you could go to your favorite podcast platform and leave us a five-star review, I would greatly appreciate it. In return. I will answer any question that you have on Instagram. Hit me up there at John M as in Michael Barrows with a video question or a DM, and I will get right back to you. I promise. And last but not least, if you're looking for training, I'm adjusting my training approach this year, and I'm actually going to be delivering training to the masses. I'll be delivering live training the first and second week of every single month with our two marquee courses, filling the funnel and driving a close to anybody who wants to join.

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