Encore: Sales Development Podcast with David Dulaney

Hey everyone, it's Lucas, the producer of the Make It Happen podcast here. I wanted to give you the heads up that over the next few weeks, we're going to be doing something a little bit differently. We're going to be featuring some podcasts that John has been a guest on earlier this year and airing them on our podcast. We're going to start off with a sales development podcast, which John was a guest on. The sales development podcast is hosted by David Delaney and presented by TenBound. Enjoy. Hello, hello, hello, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the sales development podcast. This is a true honor for me. I have a bona fide superstar of our industry on the line. This is someone who I've begged to come and speak at our conference every year.

He's an amazing guy. Can't say enough about him. Mr. John Barrows, how are you doing today, sir? I'm doing real well. I don't know about that high lofty of praise there, but I appreciate it. I mean, honestly, dude, okay, I'm going to let go of it, but this is somebody who I learn from every day. I've learned a ton. If you haven't checked out his website, he has a ton of information about how to become a better SDR, how to become a better salesperson. There's physical items. I ordered his journal and his T-shirts and all this stuff. So I'm a big fan. I'm going to stop. John, if there's like one person down in like Antarctica in our world who has not heard of you, how did you get to starting Jay Barrows training and how did you end up as this thought leader in our industry?

Yeah, so, you know, I'll try to keep it brief, but, you know, I kind of got into sales just like everybody else, right? I kind of fell into it because it was the default profession and I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. So, you know, DeWalt Power Tools was my first one because DeWalt Power Tools is pretty cool. And, you know, I got to drive around in a Dodge Ram pickup truck, giving away free tools, which was fun. And then got into Xerox. And that's really where I got my real formal sales education, right? Learning how to sell copiers is about the definition of a commodity, let's put it that way. And I sold to the government, too, so I couldn't even negotiate on contract. My price is my price.

So I did that for a couple of years and then started a company doing outsourced IT services with a few friends of mine from high school, about 25 years old. So, you know, I didn't know what I was doing. So I took every training there was. You know, I took Stanley Miller, Hyman, Taz, Spin, all of it. And I came across this company called Basho. And it was the first company or the first training that I took that I really liked. And it was because the main reason because it was very tactical, right? It was very execution oriented. It wasn't big, long theory or process I had to follow. And so I used Basho to help grow, thrive up. We ended up being the fastest growing company in Massachusetts for a few years in a row.

Got us to about 85 employees and about 12 million in revenues. And then Staples came and bought us. Wow. I did not know any of this. This is amazing. Okay, keep going. So I sold off to Staples and then, you know, I spent about a year going through that integration and come to find out apparently I'm not a corporate guy. I don't have much of a filter, as you know, and I don't like playing politics. So after a little while, Staples offered me another position, which is a really nice way of firing me. And I was looking for a job and Basho came knocking and said, hey, you want to be a trainer? And I was like, nope, absolutely not. And they were like, why not? I said, well, because up until that point, I really, I'd never met a trainer that I'd liked, right?

Because I don't, I didn't like trainers because most sales trainers were either failed sales professionals or professional presenters. And so, you know, if you've ever been through a training where you can tell the trainer's never actually done what they're telling you what to do, or if they did it, it was like, you know, 20, 30 years ago. So I didn't want to be that guy, but they said, don't worry, you have to use these techniques to sell so you can train so you can get paid. I was like, all right, I like the whole practice, which is a pretty thing. So I joined Basho, took on some bigger accounts, brought on some bigger ones, and then to make a very long story short, they screwed it all up and I took it over.

So a new CEO came in one day, went all in on software, kind of restructured the company to focus on some tech. And then 2007 hit, and, you know, everything went south, and so one day there was about 35 of us, and he walked in one day and just fired us all on the spot. And, yeah, it's like one of those, okay, well, shit, all right, what's the transition here, like a month or two, wind down or something like that? He's like, I don't think you heard me. He's like, here's a check, here's a box, pack your shit and get out. So a little bit of a punch in the face, but after that, yeah, and for me, like, he didn't, I thought he banked up the company. But he actually fired everybody except for the developers and went all in on the software and left the training on the side of the road to die.

And, you know, for me, I've always said I'm not the smartest cat out there by any stretch, but I'm definitely an opportunist. And so I walked into his office, and I was like, hey, just out of curiosity, you know, what are you going to do with the training? And he didn't have a good answer. He's like, oh, yeah, actually, I don't know. I was like, shit, can I have it? And he was like, yeah, pretty much. So I came back, you know, put together a plan with a couple of the other senior trainers and started Kent State Partners, took it over. And then about six years ago, went off on my own with Jay Barrows. I'm now working with some of the companies like Salesforce, LinkedIn, Box, Dropbox, Google, Aptas, Okta, you know, a lot of the SaaS companies out there turning their teams on techniques, right?

On stuff that makes the same stuff that I was attracted to because it was easy, and it produced results. So having fun. And, okay, so, and there wasn't always sunshine and rainbows, you know, when you went out on your own. Like, you had to, I read your, you have a Forbes article going through, you know, the trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship. So tell us about that process. Yeah, I mean, it's not kind of, you know, entrepreneurship isn't for everybody, right? Like, you know, I, I think I knew early on that I always wanted to do my own thing, but I was, I was always too chicken to kind of do it on. Like, I'm not, I always say I'm not a risk taker, like a full blown, like, you know, give up everything, live on your parents' couch and eat ramen noodles type of guy.

I'm kind of a calculated risk taker, right? I think probably the one blessing that I have, if you will, if I was blessed with anything, it's, it's, I have a very opportunistic lens in the sense that I can usually take a look at something with, you know, a couple of very, very little data points, be able to make a decision on it, not overanalyze it. And a lot of times it's, it's done me well. So that's kind of what happened in this scenario. But yeah, when I, when they fired us, you know, I, I was for, I was more fortunate than most, I would say, because with the opportunistic lens, you know, nobody, when I looked at it, when we all got fired from Basho, you know, that was a, you know, the, the traditionalist mindset is, holy shit, I'm fired.

Now I have to go find a job. Right. But to me, I looked at it and I said, wait a minute, that guy just walked away from what used to be a $3 million business with an insane client list and customers who had already given money. Right. So like there was a product, there was a client list and there was revenue there. And so for me, I'm like, that ain't a risk. Like that's, that's opportunity. And so, but everybody else, you know, there was 10 of us, the five sales reps and five trainers, you know, the other, only two other guys saw that with me. Everybody else kind of freaked out. Cause look, now we were a hundred percent commission. There was no healthcare. There was no benefits, nothing. It was like, Hey, let's see what happens here.

And, you know, that was the first day of that first year off on my own. I made more money that first year than I had like the previous five years combined. So, you know, I think the struggle wasn't necessarily what a lot of entrepreneurs go through, which is how do you get your business off the ground? My struggle was how do I keep up? Right. So, and how do I capitalize on the opportunity and maintain the momentum? And so, you know, I, it was really a lot for me of just, you know, it's similar to what is going on right now, just would travel and all over the place trying to manage, you know, I probably actively managed 30 or 40 accounts on a regular basis. And actively prospect into 30 or 40 accounts on a regular basis while traveling, you know, 130, 40 days on the road every single year.

And now I'm managing two or three people, you know, so, you know, I think the struggle is all about, you know, with entrepreneurship is, is time management is, is, you know, where do you focus the limited resources that you have? And how do you continue to build momentum and not lose it? Right. Cause I think sales in general is about momentum when momentum is going well, everything seems to keep going well. When it starts going bad, it's, it's bad. Right. So I just have, I've been for the past, you know, now that I've been off my, I'm coming up on six years in February. So, you know, now that I've been on my own for about six years, I think that the struggle is really where is, you know, how, how to maintain that momentum and then how to continuously look for opportunity without burying yourself with, you know, you know, just, you know, just, there's only so many hours in a day, you know, shiny objects, like new, new ideas and stuff that, and cause you said you have limited time and resources, obviously.

I mean, you, you spend a lot of time in airports. Okay. So anybody who's listening to this, if you're not following John on Instagram, like every day, your head pops up and you're walking through an airport, like talking about some, something that's happening. I mean, do you, you're, you're going, you're managing accounts, you're prospecting, you're managing people. Like, how do you, how do you keep it all together without like losing your shit? Well, you know, that's a good question. You know, do you know, Tim Clark over at, over at Salesforce by any chance? I, just by email, he, he shot me down over email once. That's the only way I know him. Tim, if you're listening, call me. I want to talk to you.

And I, and I think right now he's going to be more than happy to talk because, you know, we're actually, he's jumping on my podcast a little bit later on and we're talking about mental health and, and how nobody, you know, we hear about it in society. You know, every time there's a gun, you know, shooting or something like that, the mental health issue comes up, but then nothing, you know, nobody does anything about it. And then, you know, and we're translating that into business and sales because there's so much, you know, everybody always sees the shiny object stuff, like you said, and it's, and it's, they see the, the, I guess the best analogy is the, you know, the, the iceberg, right? Like the tip of the iceberg of, of what success looks like.

Oh, look at that person. They're traveling all over the place. They're doing all that stuff. But, you know, we're all just trying to stay afloat here. Right. And, and we all got problems. We all got stresses. And I think, you know, we all deal with it in different ways. You know, I've been blessed with, with ability, I think, to, to manage stress a little bit more than most in the sense I can carry a little bit more on my shoulders without it really, really impacting me. Like it does some people, but yeah, I mean, I think the, for me, it's funny because, you know, as part of the training, I train on time management skills and it's funny. I always ask like, Oh, so, you know, who's got a problem with time management?

Oh, you know, everybody's hands go up and I'm like, you know, why, why, why is time management a problem? And, you know, inevitably it's, Oh, it's too busy. I got so much stuff to do. And I straight up call bullshit on that all the time. I'm like, I'm calling bullshit on, and then I open up my calendar and I, and I show them how I train. Usually I travel, I usually leave Monday nights and then I usually train, you know, to wherever San Francisco or whatever. And then I train Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and I usually come home off the red eye Friday morning. So really Mondays and Fridays are the days that I get my quote unquote job done. And so every single minute of every single day is usually jacked up with a meeting or something like that.

Right. And so I open up my calendar. I go, can somebody in here tell me, you know, who's busier like calendar wise, like anybody got right. And they're, you know, usually like, holy shit. I'm like, so I'm calling bullshit on your time management problems here. Your time management problems are really more related to the fact that you're just super inefficient with what you do. And you're all over the place in what you do. You know, people say, people take pride in the fact that they're a multitasker. I call bullshit on multitasking. And there's even a book on it. It's called the myth of multitasking, which talks about how that your brain can't do more than one thing at the same time. You know, it can make your body do a bunch of things at the same time, but your brain can't.

And what it's called is it's called task switching. Right. And it's just switching tasks so fast that you don't recognize it. But the problem is, is every time your brain switches a task, it loses time. And so the more tasks you do, the more time you lose. So, you know, and I go through like the day in the life of a sales rep. They wake up in the morning and, you know, some of them go work out. Good for you, whatever. And then, you know, you grab your coffee and then you sit down, you check your fantasy leagues, you know, you read a few, you know, blog posts or something like that, check the news. And then, you know, probably around nine o'clock, you start to make some phone calls and you make three, four or five phone calls and ten.

All of a sudden, somebody picks up the phone. They say, oh, you have a decent conversation. They say, send me information. And almost all reps stop everything that they're doing. They send this nice custom piece of information like it's the only one they've ever sent before in their lives. And when they hit set, they kind of feel like they did something. So they get up, stretch out a little bit, go warm up the coffee, you know, pop by the other kids. Hey, you see the game last night? That type of shit, right? Go Sox, by the way. And, you know, they get back to their desk and then it's, you know, oh, I got to send that email. I got to make a phone call. I got to talk to somebody. I got to talk to my boss.

I got to send another email. And they're literally just all over the place. And so, you know, time management, I always say, is about goal setting, prioritization and focus. You know, you ask me, how do I manage it all? Well, I know very well what my goal is, right? What I'm trying to accomplish big picture wise, you know, this year, next year, five years out. And I back into it about what I need to be doing on a daily basis. And anything that doesn't help me achieve my goals can literally piss off. You know, anything that helps me achieve my goals, I prioritize them, I get them done. So, you know, the busier I get, the more efficient I am. Okay, so this is really good. So, if you're, you know, in a kind of reaction mode where you have to get back to customers fast and they're expecting you and all this stuff, like, how do you, if you're not an executive, how do you talk to people about, hey, this is my sacred prospecting time?

This is my, you know, reply to proposal time. This is my, like, prep time. Like, how do you have that conversation? Because your manager is throwing shit on your calendar all day. There's, like, Janie's birthday party. You know, there's, like, all this stuff coming at you. And if you just start declining everything, then, you know, you're not a team player, right? Yeah, well, first of all, I want to kind of unpack what you said there as far as, you know, those of us that are interreactive and we have to respond to customers. First of all, I'm going to call bullshit on that, too. Like, too many of us, first of all, think, oh, my God, I got to get back. Like, look, we are not emergency room doctors, okay?

Like, we sell shit, okay? It is not the worst thing in the world to take, I don't know, 20 minutes to get back to somebody. And then, actually, you know, now, look, okay, I'm going to qualify that for a second. An inbound, probably the only thing I would ever say needs to be dealt with the media outside of, like, a customer fire. Like, you know, I used to sell outsourced IT services. When their network was down, it was like, okay, all hands on deck. You know, the customer is literally losing business because we are not doing our job. But that's rare in sales, right? So the only other one that I would say that sales should stop and react to, if you will, is the inbound lead, but not the inbound, like, scored bullshit lead if they downloaded the white paper.

I mean, like, literally the hand raiser. Like, the ones that said, hey, you know what? I am interested in talking about your service. Please call me, right? Because I think the stats say that if you wait more than, I don't know, an hour or something like that, the response rates drop to the floor. Or even, like, wait more than 10 minutes or something like that, right? So that's the only one where I would defer and say, okay, yeah, stop what you're doing and respond to that one. But anything else can wait. And so one of the exercises I did back when I was managing about six or seven reps at Thrive, my first company, was, you know, I went to a couple of time management courses and whatever. And I realized one of the problems was I was actually a big problem, to your point of management just dumping shit on your desk.

I was a problem from a time management standpoint for my reps. Because a lot of times what I would do is I would walk into their bullpen, right? And there was a whiteboard near their bullpen near my desk. And I'd kind of want to think things through, right? So I would send – I would be like, hey, guys, I got a question for you. And I'd really just want to hear myself talk right in front of other people. But it was like, oh, you know, I got an idea here. What do you guys think of this, right? And it would be in the middle of the day or whatever. And I guarantee you if you had a camera that looked on the bullpen after I left, you'd watch all of them, like, unravel basically and say, well, wait a minute.

What the hell are we supposed to do now? Like, okay, did he want us to do something there or whatever? And so I was a huge problem. So what I did one time was I walked in to my guy's office and I said, there's a bullpen. I said, all right, guys, you know what? I realize I'm part of the problem here. Let me make sure that we're all clear on what our priorities are here, okay? And I recommend any rep to go ask their manager for this or any manager in leadership to go do this with their team, which is talk about, okay, company-wise, what are we trying to accomplish this year, okay? We got to grow by 30%. We got to increase, you know, or decrease churn, whatever those big, big, hairy, you know, when the CEO stood up and said, this is what we got to do to be successful, okay?

Now, based on the CEO and what the vision of the company and what they need to be, now back into it, for instance, as a VP of sales and say, okay, well, now, based on that, this is what my priorities are as a VP of sales to help us as a company hit those targets. Now, you as a rep, this is what your priorities are as they align with mine, as they align with the company. And when you do that, now everybody understands what the priorities are. And what I told them was, guys, I'm going to write this up on the board, okay? Next time I walk into the office, next time I walk into your bullpen and I start talking about something, I want you all to point to that list and say, John, is it more important than that?

And if it's not, I will walk out. If it is, I will tell you. And so, you know, a couple days later, I totally forgot I did that, right? So I rolled into their bullpen. I was like, hey, guys, I got a question, right? And they all, in unison, pointed at the board. And I was like, shit. Nope. All right. I'm out, right? Because that's – we all think that we're in this, like, short-term, you know, I got to get this done. But we're really not. Like, if you don't know what your priorities are, if you don't know what your goals are, you're just pissing in the wind, basically. You know, you had said something there in your question that resonated, which is, you know, reacting, right? If you are not setting – let's put it this way.

If you are not setting goals in your life, okay, somebody else is dictating the path and you're just along for the ride. If you're setting goals and you're putting a stake in the ground and say, you know, a couple years out, this is where I want to be in my career. This is where I want to be in my life. This is what I want to do. You can drive towards that. But most people don't set goals. And so they just kind of, you know, they fumble through life and do whatever comes up. If you don't have a plan, you're going to keep fumbling through life. And, again, you're going to wake up one day and be like, shit, what did I actually accomplish? Okay. And so that's the big picture for anybody listening is you got to work that out.

I mean, that's like thing number one is what are your goals for the next five years? And then what if they walk in and their manager is – you know, they might be new to sales development, for example, and they're just trying to – they're just like dashboard jockeys. You know, they're just like refreshing to see how many calls everybody made. And they're like, well, they're not giving me any direction around this. And I'm not – I don't know how I, like, connect to what the CEO wants to do. I mean, are there, like, three or four things that you can think are the bedrock priorities for your average sales development rep that they can just figure out themselves? Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of this has to – you know, it does as a subset of the goal setting, right?

I mean, I think it has to – you have to back into what your numbers are. You know, I mean, I know we shouldn't be in this pure numbers game as it relates to sales and that, but it's a part of it, right? So I think if you need to – for instance, what is your – like as an SDR, BDR, right? Like usually the metric is how many meetings, how many qualified meetings do you set up, right? So what's your goal? Like is it 10 a month? Is it 20 a month? Is it 30 a month? Then you back into what your conversion ratios are, right? So how many calls do you need to make in order to be able to hit that number? And, you know, and then you kind of dictate, okay, on a daily basis, you know, say your manager – because, you know, you all have 50 dials a day.

Well, where does that number come from? Well, it comes from the conversion ratios. And if you don't understand what your equation is, you're just going to go and do whatever the boss says. And a lot of times that might not be the right approach. So what I would do is really look at your numbers and be analytical. You know, the biggest thing, the biggest recommendation I can make to anybody out there, you know, somebody said, John, now that you're 42, you know, if you could go back and tell your 22-year-old self something, what would it be, right? My number one answer to that was A-B split test, right? A-B split test everything you do. And I mean that, like, for instance, if you're calling CFOs in the healthcare industry, come up with two different messages to CFOs in the healthcare industry.

Make 20 phone calls with this approach, make 20 phone calls with that approach and see which one yields a higher response rate, right? Because that way you can start to really hone in on what's working and what's not. And you can really understand the conversion ratios between the stages of the sales process to figure out how to make improvements, okay? So, you know, I would look at and say, okay, you know, what do my activities need to do? And then, based on that, set daily goals of what you need to do and then block off your calendar. Another huge recommendation I have for people when it comes to time management is do things in hour chunks. Do an hour's worth of this activity, an hour's worth of that activity, an hour's worth of this activity, an hour.

Because you can learn something in an hour. You can gain momentum in an hour, right? You can test something in an hour. And, you know, I walk into organizations that have, like, call blitz days. It's like, holy shit, a call blitz day? Like, come on, really? Like, I'm sorry. There's not enough Red Bull out there to get me hyped up for a day's worth of cold calling, right? But if you tell me, like, John, let's get after it for an hour, I'll get after it for an hour, right? And so I call them power hours, for instance. And power hours aren't just making cold calls for an hour, but it's making cold calls into one very specific persona with one very specific message for an hour. So, for instance, you know, I'm going to call – my favorite way of running a call blitz is to reverse engineer a case study, right?

You look at the bottom of a case study. What was the result you drove for that client, right? That becomes your message. So we showed this company in your industry how to drive these type of results, right? So – and because now that message, that's the reason for your call. Then, because that fits a very specific persona, you can come up with two or three questions that are relevant to that persona, right? So instead of just telling me about your priorities, right, you can say, hey, you know what? We're typically working with CFOs in the healthcare industry, and they're telling us that their top priorities are X, Y, and Z. Are those yours? And then you have a story to tell. Then you have a case study, right?

So now, with that nice, tight little package, now you run a list of everybody that fits that profile in your territory. And you do your prep all at the same time. So you're not – you shouldn't, like, make a phone call, then go look for a phone number and, you know, kind of fart around that way. Like, dude, I usually do about a half-hour prep for a one-hour call blitz where I'm getting my names, I'm getting my numbers, I'm getting my message down and, you know, what my story is and what my questions are. So that when I hit the phones for that hour, all I'm doing is making phone calls, right? And I'm not, you know, sending information during that time, none of that stuff. I'm just hammering the calls, right?

And with that approach, I can probably get $20, $25 out in an hour, no problem. And that's with, like, good conversations and that type of thing. You know, people say 50 dials. Look, 50 dials is really hard to hit if you're going to sprinkle them throughout the day. But it's actually not that hard to hit at all if you do a little half-hour prep, one-hour call blitz, right? $20, $25 in an hour, you can do an hour and a half in the morning, hour and a half the afternoon. There's your 50 dials. You've got five hours left in the day to do whatever you want with. Time block it. Get the momentum. Exactly. And then where does the A-B testing come in? Do you have, like, a list of people where you say one thing at the beginning and then a list of people where you say another thing and see which one resonates more?

Absolutely. Right? So you can do this with anything, right? I mean, you know, let's take CFOs in the healthcare industry. Well, hopefully I can get a list of maybe 50 of them, right? And I'm going to come up with two different messages to CFOs in the healthcare industry based on what we do for them. And for 25 of them, I'm going to call with this message. And 25 of them, I'm going to call with that message and see which one yields a higher response rate. Or, you know, gatekeepers, right? I don't know the best way to get through a gatekeeper. I mean, for you, I know it works for me, but I'm John Barrows from Boston, Massachusetts. My approach is pretty direct and in your face. So it's probably not going to work for some people, right?

So instead of trying to do what I do, split test, right? So here's an example, right? Going after gatekeepers tomorrow in the morning when you're going after gatekeepers, be super nice, like way over the top nice, right? When the gatekeeper picks up and says, who are you calling for? I'm calling for you. I just want to brighten up your day, see how things are going, right? And then in the afternoon, be super direct, right? Who's calling? John, put me through. Where are you calling from? John, Boston, put me through and see what happens, right? I'm not saying one's better than the other. I'm just saying you'll figure it out, right? And if you have that mentality of split testing and trying things out, you make, first of all, you make this job far more interesting.

And second of all, you actually, you know, you figure out what works and what doesn't. You can get measurably better a lot faster. Are you in sales, but you're not using a sales engagement tool? Then you're probably losing out on revenue because you are not engaging with prospects at the right time, with the right cadence, and with enough persistency. You need VanillaSoft. Start your free trial today. Go to VanillaSoft.com. Yes, I follow this guy named Joe Polish, who's kind of a marketing guru guy, and he's just like, with A-B testing, you try so many different things that don't work that you're just finally left with things that do work because you were constantly doing that A-B testing. And I don't think – I think most people out there are not thinking of it that way.

They just keep trying the same thing over and over again, getting more and more frustrated. Well, and it also – I mean, talk about job satisfaction, right? If you're not a scientist in sales, this job gets pretty bland pretty fast. And I mean that. Like, it sounds the opposite, right? It's like, oh, no, you should be an artist. That's way more interesting. Wrong. Because if you're an artist and you're just doing what you're doing and you're making your calls – let's put it this way. Say you make 50 dials in a day, right? And you're just doing your job. Like, hey, you know, all right, I've got to hit my 50 dials today. And you get no meetings because you wanted to be an artist, right? Like, yeah, screw it.

I got this, right? And say – so you make 50 dials, you get no meetings. That's a very depressing day. That is a day that you walk home going, oh, Jesus, like this is brutal, right? But if you walk in and are more scientific about it and say, you know what? Instead of making 50 dials with a generic elevator pitch, I'm going to make 25 dials with this approach and 25 dials with that approach and see which one yields a high response rate. Even if you go home that day and still got no meetings, I consider that actually a pretty good day because you just figured out two approaches that don't work, right? Or you come and try a new one, right? And eventually, like you said, eventually you start to figure out what works.

There's got to be something – and this is a little bit out there. But it seems like, for me, with all the technology that we have in place and all the data that's being kicked out and how we need to be more analytical, should sales teams have somebody who's in charge of, like, the analysis of what everybody's doing? If they can afford an extra person or do we leave it to the individuals? Because, you know, if someone's, like, just out of college and they're just trying to figure out what they're doing, it seems like a lot to ask of someone. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yes and no. I mean, so – I mean, it's not – like, let's put it this way. With making cold calls with two different approaches, you know how to do that?

You know, there's a piece of paper and a thing called a pen that you can keep next to your fucking desk and write down how many calls did I make and how many referrals did I get and how many meetings did I set up. And then you can do some math that says I made 25 dials, I got 10 referrals, and I got two meetings. So, hmm, I think I can do division like I did when I was in fourth grade to figure out what my conversion ratios are. So I don't think you need to be overly, like, holy shit. The problem is that most sales reps just don't think that way. So the answer to your question is, yeah. You know, I actually think the model of sales, kind of the predictable revenue model of, you know, inbound, outbound closers, so SDR, BDR, AE, I think that that model is going to change pretty drastically.

It kind of has to because it's not customer-centric in any way, shape, or form. It's great to scale organizations because, you know, you can hire kids right out of school, put them through that, make them focus on one thing, and then develop. But it's terrible from a client experience standpoint. Like, nobody likes to get handed off five times before they actually talk to somebody who knows what they're talking about, right? So I think it's going to move towards more of a pod situation where you have, like, you know, maybe one SDR, a couple of AEs, and then the missing piece to this account-based marketing thing, in my opinion here, is that role that you talked about, right? I see a lot of people actually hiring, you know, interns to do data scrubbing and do research for the SDRs and then give them the right information because, you know, the stats say SDRs only spend 25% of their time actively selling, stuff like that.

You know, I kind of have a little bit of an issue just in general because, you know, 20 years ago when I started selling and I saw them get down here, I didn't have any fucking SDRs. I didn't have any BDRs. I didn't have any all these tools and technology and all that other shit. Like, I had a territory and I had a phone, and so I had to do all that stuff, and that's why I think this model is actually stunting the growth of sales reps quite a bit, but we are where we are. So I think the missing piece to that pod is having, like, I actually would consider it almost like a marketing, like a frontline marketing person, like right out of school who's more analytical because sales reps in general aren't very analytical, right?

Mainly because, again, we went to school for stuff like history and, you know, sociology and, you know, whatever. So we're not that analytical. So if you find somebody in marketing, what they can do is they can sit on that team and, to your point, run the analytics, look at the reporting, and give the feedback to the team about what's working and what's not, and then bring it back to the big marketing department and say, hey, this is what my team needs compared to everybody else's. And so I think that's going to be where it goes. But it still takes the reps actually tracking the activity, which is the biggest problem, right? Most reps don't even track it. But all these tools and technologies out there, it's still important for them to, like, the ideal state is when you are making a call in Salesforce, for instance, you open up that call, you define, you know, you select your approach of the approach that you would use for that call.

There's the persona or the title of the person already logged in there and the industry of the person logged in there. And then when you open up and close that activity after what, you know, you determine what the result was, and then you open up your next activity, schedule another one. But no reps ever going to do that. So you need to find some shorthand ways of at least, you know, focusing on certain things to split test. And I think you can do that old school with pen and paper more than you can do it with technology. Yeah. And so it's getting them to track what they're doing so you have something to give to the analyst so that they can tell you that you should do more of this instead of that.

But if you don't, yeah. I mean, AI is useless without the data set. Yeah. Everybody's talking about great AI, AI, AI, but if you have crappy ass data, AI is going to do nothing for you. And so I, damn it, I want to talk to you more. We'll have to put another podcast round two because I didn't even, I didn't even talk to you about, you know, some topics. Anyway, so last question on the pod structure, that's really interesting. How would that make the whole thing more customer centric? Because I agree, like you've got the SDR doing a cold call and then they set up an appointment and then the sales rep comes in and then they qualify you and then you go to the customer success. Like, how do you see the pod making it more customer centric for people?

Or is that later? Yes. No, I think it's, it's, you can make it, right? I mean, I think the, the ideal, I guess it depends on how far you're, you're asking the SDR or BDR to qualify the opportunity before it gets handed off. And also how involved marketing is, right? Because if marketing is really doing their account-based marketing job, they should be able to warm up a territory to the point where an SDR could, you know, maybe send some, you know, yeah. Be a little bit more marketing slash operations oriented than sales oriented and really run very targeted campaigns into that territory with mostly emails, but then sprinkling in some calls just to try to mix it up a little bit. But then driving the, you know, the inbound, for instance, that goes to the AE that takes it because it's, because it's been curated through that territory, right?

And no longer is it, you know, inbound, outbound stuff. It's whatever's in that territory based on the activities that's happening and that goes to that team. So, you know, I think there's a lot of, you know, a lot of kinks to be worked out here, but it inevitably, I think needs to be, there's, there's always going to be the need for somebody to, to specifically outbound, right? To, to go outbound and drive some interest and, and follow up on the marketing campaigns and those types of things. But I think, you know, you can have people owning accounts a lot earlier in the process and managing them all the way through. And then you will even evolve to the inside sales position where, you know, you actually, they close and manage the small deals, like anything under X amount of dollars where the senior AEs really take the bigger accounts and that type of thing.

So there's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of pieces to, to unravel, but, and you know, there's not a clear picture obviously of where it's going to go, but I just, I just fundamentally know. Well, and I'm watching this, this predictable revenue model break. Yeah, I agree. And, and it's, it's, it just makes me think there was a, an article that came out like five years ago about how salespeople just don't prospect. Like they don't want to prospect. They don't want to deal with all that stuff. And now because of the sales development, you know, industry, like a lot of salespeople don't feel like they have to prospect anymore, especially in the tech industry. Yeah. And it's crazy. And like Mike Weinberg has, has like created a career.

I should have him on the show. Sometimes he's created like a career, just like grabbing people by the collar and being like, you still need to prospect. You fucking, you know, I said this the other day. So I was, so yesterday I was doing a training and a bunch of real new reps, like brand new out of school type of thing. And they were all SDRs and BDRs. And I told him, I go, look, first of all, your job is the hardest job in sales period because, you know, the conversion ratios are the lowest. It's the least thanked job out there. And, you know, and it's a grind. And so, and not to mention you're, you usually have to deal with two or three AEs who all have two or three different opinions and attitudes and, and, you know, likes and dislikes.

Right. So, but prospecting, and I said, I said this to everybody, if there's one skill in sales that I would get great at, and I don't care where you are in your career, I don't care how old or experienced you are. The one skill I would, I would get great at, it's prospecting because I look, I train negotiation. I train objection handling. I train discounts, but I found one solution to pretty much every other problem at every other stage of the sales process. And it's a big fat pipeline. Yeah. Like you got a big fat pipeline. You don't have to try too hard with the rest of that shit. Like for instance, I don't discount anymore at all. I literally do not discount. Like if you want to, if you want time on my, and the reason is, is because I don't have to, because I'm booked now through January.

Right. So for instance, if you want time on my calendar, it's got to be February for the most part. And you're paying rate card and clients are like, Oh, come on, John. You know, you're twice as expensive as your close competitor. I'm like, good for them. Actually, you know what? Shit. Good for me. You know, I'm going to be raising my prices here in the next couple of months. You might want to jump on board now. I don't say that, but you know, you get the point. The point is that, you know, I want to put myself in a position where I want your business. I don't need it because if I want your business, I sell the right way. I ask the right questions. I close on your timeline, not mine, those types of things.

Right. But if I need your business, I do some shady shit. You know, I, I, I, I give you that discount at the end of the month. You didn't even ask for it just because I got to get it in or I go over your head because I'm not at power, you know, blah, blah, blah. Like that's when I need your business. But when I want it, I don't care when you close. Right. And, and it, so it just breeds a better sale. And so that's why for all those SDRs and BDRs out there listening, like don't look at this as a, I got to get through this so I can become an AE. Cause if you're ever an AE and like, think about it this, this way for a minute. Do you ever want to rely on somebody else for your success? Never. Never.

Right. And the, and, and look, as a manager, if I ever had an AE come to me and say, the reason they didn't hit their target was because they didn't get enough leads from marketing or, or their SDR, I would fire them as halfway through that sentence. And so look, I'm always going to be responsible for baking my own cake. The way I look at SDR and BDR and, and, and the inbound marketing is that's the, that's the, for me as an eight, if, if I was an AE that had those resources, I would look at that as look, I'm going to go close my own deal. I'm going to go find and close my own deals. And whatever SDRs, BDRs or inbound marketing gives to me is the icing on the cake, but I'm baking my cake. And the day that you're relying, you're relying on somebody else to, to make you successful is the day you're not going to be successful.

Totally, man. I mean, that goes throughout life. Like just take full responsibility and don't blame other people. And, and, you know, fat pipeline cures all your ills. So get out there. Literally all of them. Yeah. Like I literally, like, you know, I have clients come to me and say, well, John, what if I close by the end of the month? I'm like, I don't know. Does it help you out? And they're like, well, no, like, could we maybe get a, you know, could we get a discount? I'm like, no, absolutely not. And they're like, oh, and yeah, like it takes all of their negotiation power away. Yeah. And when I say indifference, you know, we talk about like the, the, you know, closing techniques, right? The walk away close.

Like I pull that one almost daily. Okay. Nevermind. You don't need it. That's okay. You know, you compare me against other vendors. That's cool. Well, if, if my, if the value of my stuff, if you don't see the value in it, that's one thing. But if you like my program and you're just trying to get a few dollars offered, you know, because the other one's giving it to you cheaper, then nope. Good luck. That's a completely different conversation because you, you can, like somebody told me, always have a lot of pots on the boil, you know, because then if something goes bad, it's like, I'm cool. But if you have one thing, you're, you're screwed, man. I mean, you got to do, yeah. So I love it, John.

Thank you so much. I didn't even ask you like five of the things I want to ask you about. So, uh, I got to get you back on the show, but dude, this is amazing. There's so many nuggets here. I got a whole like three pages of notes and, um, the, I'm sure that the audience will get a ton of value. So thank you. Let's have you on again. And how do we get in touch with you? If there's one person in Antarctica somewhere who doesn't know you. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I think the easiest thing is just to hit the Jay Barrows website, right? JayBarrows.com. Cause that's where you'll see, you know, the blog, the podcast, the, you know, the, the resource library, and then all the social channels, right?

Cause you can go bounce around with the resources, but you know, if anybody wants to hit me directly, probably Instagram or Snapchat, it's probably the easiest. Cause I respond to those fastest when it comes to like direct questions. And the handle there is John M as in Michael Barrows, B A R R O W S all one word. And I'm always happy to chat with anybody about sales. If, uh, just to try to elevate this profession to the level of respect it deserves. Totally, man. I would definitely, I know about Instagram, like I'm hella old. So I know about Instagram. I'm finally getting on there. I don't know about Snapchat. I don't know how it works, but maybe that's a thing for another show. My niece loves it, man.

My niece. Yeah, well, Snapchat kind of got killed. Kylie Jenner kind of ruined Snapchat, but, um, it's really a covered, recovered and Instagram stories is pretty much taking it over, but either way, you know, some people like it. So I'm there. I know my niece is on there, man. She loves it. So, okay. We'll follow John. Thanks again. And we'll see you again on the sales development podcast. All right, brother. Have a good one.