Jeffrey Gitomer: The King of Sales

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 this conversation, you know, a lot of people have said earlier that I'm the godfather of sales, and I don't know if I agree with that, but if there is a godfather of sales, this gentleman is it, and his name is Jeffrey Gittimer. He has written 13 books. He is the self-proclaimed king of sales, and he's also from Philly and has a background in New York as well, so we took an East Coast approach to this one and went after it, and talked a lot about how sales have changed over the years.

You know, he has a unique perspective. We both grew up without technology in a lot of ways in sales, and so we talked about how the new remote world has changed everything. But one of the things you'll hear me pushing a lot on, Jeffrey, on this one is about the ideal state of sales versus the reality of sales, and I kept trying to bring him back down to reality because he talks a lot about, you know, selling to the CEO and not having to prospect, and I said, that's all great, and that's all well and good, but how does that relate to the average sales professional? So you're going to hear a little bit of back and forth between us about how we agreed on some stuff, but definitely disagreed on others, and I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I do.

Enjoy. 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. You know, I wanted to kind of start off. I'd love to, you know, just dive into some of the shit that you're seeing from, you know, I know you did something recently where you brought a bunch of people down and talked about how things have changed, you know, with COVID in the remote world and how we're all now living in it, and would just love to hear from your perspective what's changed and what hasn't, and then dive into some stuff that you think is bullshit these days, and then see where it goes from there, if that's cool.

I'm, my dad once told me that if bullshit was cement, I would be the New Jersey turnpike. So I've always considered myself a kind of a I can bullshit, but I also recognize when I'm getting it. I have a good meter. You know, if you're, if you're Philly and New York and New Jersey, your meter is always on. I mean, literally, it's just always on. Yep. I'm right there with you. People ask me, I moved to Charlotte like 35 years ago. Yep. And people say, well, what's the difference between Charlotte and Philly? I said, well, in Charlotte, when they wave at you, they use all their fingers. Yep. Definitely up in the middle. And that, that basically describes it. Yep. And here in the Northeast, there's only one.

Yeah, but I cut my teeth selling in New York City. So I'm pretty seasoned with respect to having to make my point within a minute. Yep. And I think that that that circumstance still prevails. The difference is now that half of them are face to face and half of them are virtual. Yep. And, um, and the other half, by the way, are on, on your phone. Yeah. So there's three hands. Um, and you're good. No, you go. No, I was going to ask that that's actually something I wanted to bring up with you, which is, um, I want to talk about how things have changed, but I also want to talk about the, what you and I benefited from early in our careers, as far as the face-to-face component, right? Like, you know, you got a few more gray beards than I do, but we were both where before technology really hit.

And so networking events and meeting people face-to-face and literally like just learning how to engage with people. What happened there was when, so for instance, I don't know about you, but when LinkedIn came out, it was a very natural thing for me to migrate from like how I networked and built relationships in person. Cause I learned that to LinkedIn and do that in a very authentic way. Now, when? Oh, I was, I was super early adopter. I was like, I was member, uh, 30,142. So I was, I was one of their top. And I guess the first 15,000 were ghost accounts anyways, cause they had to pretend like they actually had people on the platform. So I, I mean, I just didn't accept when somebody sent it to me and, and I didn't think anything of it.

And then I just started building and building and building and building. And that's how I'm up to about 400 Gs at this point. I went in kicking and screaming because I didn't, I felt like you lost the human touch, but I started in 2008. Um, I have like 30,000, almost 30,000 connections, because you can only have 30,000. I accept most people. I'm about to go out and call, uh, a thousand people that don't have many connections that just wanted to do something. Yeah. Yeah. So I can accept more people. Uh, but, but I have like 60,000 people that follow me because they can't connect. Right. Um, so I have a good social media platform, but all that does is provide credibility so that someone will take my call when I call them.

Yeah. It helps. Or, or, and even more important, John, they'll call me. Yeah. That's the key because they know me. Yep. Um, I didn't reach out to you to do a podcast. I, I don't reach out to anybody and I don't, I've never made a sales call in 2,500 speeches because I have books and blogs and posts and columns and a website and all the, and I give speeches and people somehow find me. Yep. But I did that before it mattered. Mm-hmm. You know, when I, if I was in a newspaper, that's the only place I could have been. Right. I mean, you know, you had one shot, one choice. Yep. So I don't want to say I'm a pioneer. Uh, what's the difference between a pioneer and an old fucker? And the answer is it hardly matters.

Not much. I was going to say it doesn't matter either, but so with that though, what do you think? I'll give you another example of it doesn't matter. You're in a hotel and you're in the shower and you have a choice of either shampoo or conditioner. It doesn't matter. Yeah. For neither of us. Right. What do you, so how do, how do kids get that these days? Like, cause my fear right now is in this remote world that we're all moving into for, especially from a sales standpoint, the lack of that personal connection, the lack of, um, so a, I want to talk to you about what, what your thoughts are on it and B how to address it with this younger generation that didn't have the benefit of the lack of technology that we had.

Somehow they think an email will work. Right. So I'm writing a book for millennials called pick up the fucking phone, which I think will work. Yeah. But the challenge is that they have to post before they have to build their reputation before they make a call. And if you call me, I'm going to Google you. It's plain and simple. I'm going to Google you and you can't stop me. Right. And, and I'm going to look you up on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to search for you to see who am I dealing with? So if that person has a sales job and they think it's about sending out an email and getting their script exactly right and putting three bullet points in there so you can possibly get a response, that guy's going to die.

Yeah. Or that woman is going to die and they're not going to die like death. They're going to die from lack of income. Well, how do you balance that right now with what's going on with the constant push for activities? Right. Cause I, cause I think the, what I always struggle with is I live in the world of, well, I, my mentality is, is how things should be. Okay. To your point, building your reputation, having business acumen, understanding relationships. Okay. But the reality is, for instance, we deal with kids who are, you know, being forced to send out these cadences, 50 dials a day and a hundred activities. And so how do you balance that outside of the, the obvious answer of quit and find a company that actually gives a shit?

Um, how do you deal with that, that, that dynamic right there of the downward pressure of VCs who are forcing these kids to do this and turning them into robots and the reality of needing to develop deeper relationships and business acumen and, and, and your personal brand? They're willing to hire and fire. And when you find people that are willing to hire and fire, then that's not a good place for you to work. Yep. Just plain and simple. It's not a good place for you to work. Um, I will say, and we'll, we'll talk about this later, but I'm going to make this statement and we'll come back to it. Cold call is a lousy place to make a sale, but it's a great place to learn how to sell. I was actually going to bring this up.

You said cold calling is bullshit or like, I think actually there was a quote that you have, which is you're breaking, you're breaking the law. If you're cold calling, you had a video that said you're literally breaking the law. And I wanted to be like, dude, what are you talking about? Like, isn't that the way you cut your teeth in sales and learn? Kind of, kind of. I made targeted calls. Okay. I knew who I wanted to call and I called on them either face to face or on the phone because I didn't want to just go, hi, my name's Jeffrey. You don't know me. Please don't hang up. And you know, I'm, that's as much time as you get in New York. Oh yeah. That's as much time as you get in Philadelphia.

So, okay, so let's talk about the thing that there's, there are words that bug the shit out of you. And one of them is onboarding. Yep. And what it means is that you go through this bullshit of who we are and what we do and how are you supposed to act? And we're just, okay. So if I was going to onboard a team of people, the first thing I would do is spend 10 minutes with them and say, listen, I'm going to help you earn money. That's my job. You're here to earn money, but I'm going to make you likable and successful. Cause if I can make you those two things, you can quit here tomorrow, go someplace else and get a great job. Cool. So the first thing we're going to do for the first week is we're going to visit customers who love us and talk about why they bought from us.

And every day you're going to sit down and learn about our product and learn about our service. You're going to take notes. And at the end of the day, I'm going to spend 20 minutes with you and you're going to recap what you learned. And I'm going to tweak it just a little bit. At the end of a week, you'll have visited 10 customers, half a day each, and you're going to now know why people buy and how they use what it is that we sell. No classroom, no, no nothing. You got 50 bucks a day to go buy somebody lunch when you're there, or maybe a hundred and thank them for their, for their thing. So now you got a couple hundred bucks in your pocket and you're, you're going to take somebody out for lunch and you're going to sit down and learn from them way better than learning from your learning department or the training department or the other people that can't, you know, they wear those little dingles on their shoes and they think they're good.

Meanwhile, they're threatened by people like us who come in and want to fix things or change things or make things better because they don't want to upset the apple cart. They have a job, they're making a hundred grand. They're happy. They're, you know, leave me alone. Okay. You could fire every training department in two seconds and replace them with customers. And you'd have a way better sales team in a heartbeat. Just actually, I'm just calling it out there. No, I, I have this, my onboarding is, um, I have three weeks. They don't learn anything about the training. They don't learn anything about the quote unquote product. They, two things. One is I give them my top 10 customers and they have to do research on them and deconstruct them to figure out why there are top 10 customers.

And then they have to go talk to them. And then I give them the three main personas we go after. And I say, you have to go out and interview these three personas and figure out what these people care about and go do research on them and come back to me with a book report effectively that says, here's what, here's where we fit. Here's why people like us. Here's the personas. Here's their challenges. And then I show them the training about how to actually implement that. Yeah. Perfect. Um, so we agree on that. Yeah. Um, so there's two things we agree on. We agree on baldness is good and train someplace else. Yep. Um, the, the, there's a bigger challenge though. And the bigger challenge is, um, I, I use dub as a, as a video send out thing, dub.com/gittimer.

Okay. Don't pretend they like me and I'll call you. Okay, cool. Um, you put in the chat or whatever you want to do, but dub.com/gittimer. Uh, I found this one video channel that's actually good. And the software is amazing. It's easy. And they have a money button at the bottom of the video. Okay. The money button is click here to respond. And you don't need the software. You don't need anything. Yeah. Somebody send you a video. And this last month, John, I did $350,000 in billing because of video. Nice. Because I use the video to go with my proposal and people bought. Yep. Not, you know, I, I'd like to have a dollar for every dollar's worth of proposal that people send out that doesn't get purchased.

Yeah. I'd be a billionaire in a day. Oh, in a 10 minutes. But the challenge is the salesperson feels like if they put together this formulated thing that the customer is going to call them back and they're not gonna. By the way, there's one thing I don't put in my proposals. I don't put a price in. Yeah, I knew it. Yeah, no price. So if you want, if you, if you really want me to go, Hey, there wasn't a price in there. Right. I wanted to talk to you about it. Let's talk it through. I want to make sure we're a fit budget, compatibility, you know, all the other crap that goes with it. And then if you want me, you, you buy me. I'm not cheap. I'm not inexpensive, but I'm valuable. If you want my value, then you pay.

And if you don't, plenty of shitty guys out there. I can give you their names and numbers. See, and I keep, and I, and look, I do something similar, but I keep pushing on the fact that, for instance, you and I are in a pretty enviable position in, in a lot of ways, right? We sell ourselves in, in so many ways. And I know everybody else kind of does too, but we literally sell ourselves, right? So we can sit there and say, Hey, I'm worth it. I'm valuable. But I, I just keep thinking of that 25 year old kid who's in a software company who's trying to make a buck, who's trying, you know, and does kind of believe that their solution is a good one, right? So they're not the douchey sales rep Wolf of wall street type of stuff.

They're the ones who kind of care. They believe their solution does the right thing, but they don't have the luxury that you and I have of, you know, 20 plus years of experience and the ability to basically do what we want to do and say what we want to say to these people. So how do you translate that to these, those type of people? When you're at, and I should send you a bill for this, but I'm not gonna, when you're, when you're at the other person's place of business, when they start to tell you why they bought, you film it. When they start to tell you why they like you, you film it. Now you're going to leave with 10 or 20 testimonial videos that you can use to build your own belief system.

These guys go out there and they're timid and they're tentative and they have no balls to be able to make a call because as soon as somebody gives them a pushback, they want to go cry or they need a safe space. There is a safe space. It's in a gutter between 51st and 52nd street, just off of third, third Avenue in New York city. You share the space with a big rat, but you know, that's part of the deal. And I'm, I'm challenging the salesperson that while they're there, make a friend and say, Hey, would you mind saying that again? So I can stick it on my phone and get a lesson. What you're getting is a testimonial. So now I leave with understanding information and testimonials. I'm ready to go.

My opening question to a new customer would be, would you like to know why our 10 biggest customers do business with us? Actually, yeah, I would. Because I'm, I swear I'm not as good as my customers are. They're my voice. They need to be right. So how do you, um, on that note, right? They're your voice. Customer testimonials are fantastic. Um, do you think they've gotten a little bit overplayed though, in, in today's world, as far as metrics, like, Oh, we showed this client how to increase whatever by 32%. And no, I don't want the guy to say, I want the customer to say, yeah. If the guy says it, it's bragging when the customer says that it's proof. So I don't want 32%. I don't, I give one shit about percentages or I made up my number by 119%.

I don't care. The number was given to you by someone who pulled it out of their ass. You know, we're going to, we're going to go up in sales 11.5% this year. Really? Where'd that number come from? Uh, well, we, we pulled it out of our ass. So go ahead. You know, and I, and I made president's club way to go. Good for you. Way to go. Yeah. How do you deal with the ROI conversation? Like, so when a client, cause it literally this, and the reason I bring this up is because the client just did this to me about like less than a half an hour before we got on this call, he asked for ROI numbers. And I just, I just kind of laughed, but I want to hear your, like if a customer, like if I'm buying from you right now and I say, all right, you know, I got, I got to, you know, we got a prospecting stuff and we have trouble with our messaging here.

So what are some results you've been able to drive for other companies? Like what's some ROI I could expect from your training? What would your response to that? Can I please talk to your daddy? Because you don't understand the word value. You're only looking for a nickel or a dime. And what, what does it cost? Do you want ROI? Tell me what it costs you to lose one sales guy and rehire that person and, and lose their pipeline. What does that cost? Or do you just bury that? So if you want a person who can bring results, you don't want a number. You want a human being and you want someone that can inspire so that somebody else has intention to take action, not motivate and have a goal. Motivation and goals are bullshit.

Inspiration and, and intention. Give me that guy every day. Let's unpack every single day. Let's unpack that. Cause I got this whole track on motivation versus inspiration. I, I, and I might be mixing up the words here, but I think motivation is an internal thing and inspiration is an external thing. How do you explain the difference between motivation and inspiration? Um, I might be motivated to go to a ball game because it's kind of cool, but I'm not going to be inspired to go to a ball game. I might be inspired to help a customer really get what they want to get. I'm going to help their sales team. I'm going to help. And that inspiration was given to me by a high school teacher, a college professor, a coach.

Somebody gave me a mentor, gave me that inspiration, a father and, or a mother. And that's what you, that's how you, that's not going to motivate you. Come on, son. You gotta, you know, you gotta, that's bullshit. I want to be inspired with a, with What? Oh, you there. I want to be inspired with a lesson. I want to be inspired with some kind of understanding that I have about how I can move forward. So how do you keep that though? Like, so there's, there's something about that, that initially, and I use the Tony Robbins here as a quick example with Tony Robbins, right? Like Tony Robbins has, you know, he used to have it where you used to run across the coals, right? And you get these, you got, you're standing there and you're like, okay, I'm not, these coals are ridiculous.

I'm not going to do this. But then you get Tony's big head yelling at you. You got 50,000 people around screaming your name and you run across those coals and you're like, holy shit, I did it. Tony Robbins is a genius, right? But the next week it, when those coals are still there and Tony's big head isn't yelling at you and you don't have 50,000 people screaming your name, are, are you still going to walk across those coals? And the answer to most people is no. So how do you retain that? Did you ever go to universal studios? Yeah. Cause you're a Harry Potter fan. Okay. And you go on Hagrid's motorcycle ride. That's badass. One fucking time. That's it. I'm not going to do it again. Yeah. I've been there.

I've done that. And I bought the t-shirt. Yeah. And I went with my, at the time, 12 year old daughter who's Harry Potter'd up the butt. Yeah. And we, you know, I went with my wife, Jen, and we just had a great time. We had a great time. I'm done with that. I was motivated to go, not inspired to go. When, when I go into a customer's place and I see an opportunity, that's inspiration. Okay. I want to make sure that I can take advantage of that opportunity in their favor. Yep. Here's what I can do. Here's how you win. Here's what I can do. Here's how you win. Well, how much is this going to cost? It's free. If I do it, isn't it? Isn't it? I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's, uh, $500,000 cash right now.

Yeah. No checks, but I, it's, it's, is this a money issue or is this an achievement issue? What do you want? Because I'm, you know, if, if you want something that's out of a box someplace, go get it, I'm customized. So everything I do is customized. So with that, let's talk about a few sales methodologies here, right? You got, and I'm broad strokes here. You got solution selling where you ask questions and you give, you know, what the client's asking for. And then you got challenger sale where you're like, Hey, this is, this is what you do. Where are you on the scale of, of telling people what they, what you know, and what they need versus asking them questions about what they need and proposing a solution?

Where do you fall on that spectrum? I am not a system selling guy. I know. I think the challenger sale is a wonderful thing to me. It's fucking bullshit. No 26 year old kid is going to come into my office and try to tell me which end is up. Yep. That's number one. Number two, I don't find the pain. My pain is none of your business. Unless I want to tell you. So if I hear you start to get down that road, the first thing I do is say, listen, I'm sure you're a nice guy. Go back and talk to your daddy and tell him it didn't work. I'd rather find the pleasure. Wouldn't you? Who are your favorite sports teams? Where'd you go to college? What kind of car do you drive? Where'd you take your last vacation?

What are your kids' names? Where do they play? What do they do? A hundred percent. But the, what, how do you marry that with, how do you marry that with the mentality or the data and the statistics that talk about people are, what is it? Four times more likely to avoid pain than they are to achieve gain, right? There's like plenty of statistics out there that talk. I don't argue with that statistic. I argue with the way you approach it. If you go in and that's your MO, you're going to lose. You're going to lose to somebody that goes in, builds a little bit of rapport. And there are two kinds of rapport. One is kind of, you like bowling, way to go. And you know, I bowled once and you know, or there's shared values.

And the shared value is we understand sports from the way it used to be. That's a shared value. And we may be Philly, Boston, but even that is a shared value. True. And I think that, I think that there's an ability for anybody to understand the difference between trying to find something in common and trying to find something that you're deep into. You know, I'm deep into Bugs Bunny. I'm deep into reading books. I have 11,000 books in my library. And, and I'm a writer and I'm a traveler. I traveled to Paris since 1967. So I'm, I know what I like to do. And when I find somebody that has a similar interest, I'm on it and they love 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. All of their training tips, techniques, tactics, and takeaways can be yours for $1 a day. $365 for the year gets you annual access to everything, including our private Slack channel for members only, which you get access to all of us directly a hundred percent of the time, 24 hours a day. And then at the same time, you're going to get access to our biweekly ask me anything sessions where you can bring real deals to the table and get the help that you need where you need it.

This is very, very important. Sales reps that invest in themselves are often found at the tops of their leaderboards. Join us today and get the help you need to become the seller that you deserve to be. That URL one more time is joinjbsales.com. Let's get back to the show with JB and our guests for this week. How do you uncover the pleasure versus the pain? And, and when you come in from an approach standpoint, it's, I know it's about rapport and it's about the homework you do beforehand. Do you feel like you have to come with a perspective of something or do you, do you ease into the conversation after rapport building? And do you rapport build, and do you report, I'm sorry, and do you rapport build with purpose?

Like, like there's the, Hey, you're a fisherman and I'm a fisherman. I don't give a fuck, but like, Hey, I'm rapport building because Hey, you're Philly. I'm Boston. I'm doing that to see if you and I tell me about the biggest fish you ever caught. That's rapport. And, and, or tell me about the best vacation you ever took or tell me about the best book you've ever read. And everyone knows their best thing. Everyone does. So I'm going to start there and I'm going to, then I might go, Hey, uh, before we get too deep into Bugs Bunny, how many of your sales guys last year didn't make their goal? And they'll go, um, probably about half. I go, wow. Um, so what's the deal this year? How are you going to get that half from where they are to where they weren't?

And you go, you know, that's a real good question. Nobody ever asked me that before. So that's, I'm going to ease into it in a way where it's conversational, not salesy. And you know, well, 75% of our customers, you meet their goals. Fuck you, dude, go away. I don't, I don't care about that. I don't care what I'm from. I'm from Philly, New York. We don't care if the guy next to us drops dead. We only want what's in this for us. So I'm going to say, look, uh, Bob, I have an assessment. My assessment sells for 99 bucks. Let me assess your 22 salespeople and I'll do a group assessment, not just an individual one. So you can, we can sit down and talk about who they are and what they can do. Because you may know, you may think, you know, who, who Ralph is, but Ralph may beat his wife or have his job up on monster under a, under an assumed name.

So let's find out who's what, then we can start fair enough. I'm a fair enough guy. Those are, that's my clothes. Fair enough. I'm going to give you a new house and a car in Beverly Hills with no payments. Fair enough. Uh, yeah, that's fair. So I just want to make it. So the other person feels comfortable to say yes and move forward. Or say no. Right. I mean, how much do you disqualify? How much do you disqualify versus qualify? Um, because people call me, John, very few are disqualified. Okay. The only time, the only time they're disqualified is, Oh my gosh, that's way past our budget. I guess more for you knowing that they're a fit. Cause I, I've actually flipped it and I try to disqual, I try to all to ask you all the questions like eventually through the, through the conversation of why.

Yeah, no, I don't, I don't have a motive like that. I'm not, um, I don't challenge the person to back down with what we would refer to as a negative sale or a negative question. Um, I just, you know, I want to say, when's the date? How many people are going to be there? Besides my fee, can we get everybody a book or some kind of thing? And then what's going to happen when I'm done and they want more? So I have an, let's do, let's just do the online attitude course and, and, and, uh, um, an assessment. We'll know where they are and we'll know how they're feeling. And I'll tell you, um, it doesn't work all the time, but when it works, it works. And I think that's what the salesperson is looking for.

It's something that works. Um, they want to have something that they can hang their hat on to say, okay, I did it. Now, if the person is young, if I was a 25 year old sales guy working for a software company or some kind of data thing, I wouldn't sell on my own and I'd go out with somebody else. I'd have my boss come with me and say, Hey, I need your help. I got a big one on the line. And I, one guy can't reel it in. Well, especially, I mean, look, team-based selling, I think is, is almost imperative now because of the team-based buying. Um, how do you deal with that? How do you do? Hold on a minute. Team-based buying is bullshit. If I have a relationship with the CEO. Okay. Uh, I'm going to challenge that.

When the CEO comes downstairs to the team meeting and says, Hey, we're going with Gittemer. Gittemer, okay, boss. And that's it. That's it. I don't know. I I'm going to call bullshit on that one a little bit. If I... I've seen it too many, I've seen it too many times. Don't get me wrong. I think on the majority of the time, absolutely. But the CEO rarely knows tactically at the ground level, depending on the size of the organization, what an individual team needs, what a group needs. And so, you know, if I came to, I'll give you an example. Like for me, if I were to come down to my team who are very, very good operators and, and know exactly what each one of their teams needs. And I said, we're doing this.

They'd be like, no, because we, um, we have a, uh, a decision tree that we go through as far as criteria. So if I tried to buck that system, they would be like, sorry, man, like we know what our priorities are and we'll take your vote into consideration. But I think the larger the organization, the further you get away from the downwind needs. And therefore it's hard to say, yeah, we'll do that. Yeah. But the CEO has weight that other people do not have and maybe he'll drag somebody else with him or her and that person has weight. So I'm, I try to get to the main guy as much as I can, because I know that I'm going to win more often than not. If five people are going to sit around a table and try to talk about which end is up and they all have agendas and they all have fears and they all want to look good and they all want to have their own agenda met.

But I'm like, but I, again, let's talk reality versus, you know, the ideal state, which is, I mean, how many sales reps do you think are able to get to a CEO, develop that rapport, have the right credibility to be able to get the, the CEO to champion? The ones, the ones who post things that the CEO might read, the ones who send the CEO a book in advance saying, I really like this. I got you a signed copy of it. Thought you might like it. The ones that are thinking about value versus sale. So let's look at this from the perspective of the kid who sends an email every day needs to ditch that process and start to post every day on tick tock, Instagram, website, somewhere to where they can gain following.

Yep. I mean, that's no personal brand. I think personal brand is everything right now. That's what I, that's what I did when there was no brand. Now you can go anywhere and have a brand in nine seconds, nine seconds, Instagram, YouTube, just wake up and pontificate instead of wake up and send five emails to people that don't like you. What do you suggest to people who are on that journey of brand building and saying, I don't know how to start and what should I post? So what, I got my answers to this one, but what are your answers to, because you, you, you see it across the board, not just the younger generation, but the, especially the older generation. It's like, ah, this fucking social media shit.

Like, how do I even get started? Especially if you're not like a thought leader in the industry. Uh, how, how do you suggest people start on that journey? Um, I didn't become a thought leader in my industry, on my first day, but I did write down my thoughts. And so if you do that, you're going to win, but they're not even writing down their thoughts. They're, they're just looking for some Vulcan mind meld or some kind of magic potion that will catapult them to the top without the work. So the answer is work. And in the meantime, maybe you have to cold call in the meantime, maybe you have to do other things that, you know, you're not happy with, but don't lose sight of what you're really trying to do based on the activities that you have to do that are sort of forced on you.

What about the person that gets into a new industry? Like, you know, here's an example, help me with the tactical piece on this. Um, I just moved from whatever industry into cyber security. I'm now going after CIOs and cyber security. I don't know shit about shit when it comes to cyber security, other than what my company get put me through their dumb bootcamp about. And I need to start building my brand in that industry, or I, you know, I have a, I haven't been building my brand in other industries, so I can't even transfer it over here and make that transfer. So what do I, how do I start in that scenario? Mr. Jones, when something happens and you have a data breach, who's the first person that you call?

And I'm going to wait, I'm going to wait for that answer. I said, that's great. Let me put my cell phone number on the back of this business card. I want to be the second person that you call. Now I've just made an impact statement that says, I have self-confidence. I know my stuff works. You can call whoever you want internally, maybe two people internally. But if I'm going to talk about cyber security, I have to be the guy. If I'm not the guy, not going to happen. Second question I'm going to ask that guy is, um, just, I ask everybody this question, Mr. Jones. And I just wondered if you wouldn't mind helping with an answer so I can put it into my data bank. How much is your data worth? And John, they're going to have no idea.

So I love those questions. But again, going back to building my brand though, like what am I sharing on social? What am I posting about this stuff? Is it from those conversations? It's the same question. What's your data worth? Yeah. Well, who do you call when your house is on fire? Like I've done, um, an insurance company, very big insurance company that did, uh, insures churches and synagogues. And I said, when the church is on fire, who do you call? And is that the, that the only one you'd call the fire department? Okay, great. Then who do you call? Here's my, here's my cell phone number. I want you to call me. Because I need to, you can't do this by yourself. The place is burning down. You need someone that's going to really take action on your behalf immediately.

Same with data breach. Seconds can mean millions. So you have to understand their industry. You have to be able to poke at them from their perspective. But the question leads to the engagement. Not the statement. We're the best company. Our customers love us. I'm like... Nobody cares. Go away. So I think you're in line with me as far as it, you know, moving forward, especially, it doesn't matter what you sell. It matters how you sell in so many ways. So with that, and well, A, is that, are you, are you, do you agree with that statement? Yeah. Okay. I want to ask rather than tell. Perfect. So what's changed? I mean, there's a lot of things that haven't changed with sales. Some of the fundamentals right over the years, nothing, you know, there's, there's things that are just absolute fundamentals.

What has, has in your, in your experience now with as many years that you sold with these past two years in this virtual world, what fundamentally has changed about sales outside of the medium that we use to communicate? Well, the one thing the pandemic has done is taught you who your friends are. That's true. They've stayed your friends. Mm hmm. And you, they may have had a relative that passed on, or they may have just run out of toilet paper, but whatever it is, something in the middle, they need to hear your voice. They need to go, you know, Ralph, how's it going? Mary, how's it going? And the empathy that you can provide to them authenticates your friendship. And I don't want to know. I don't want to know what can I do.

That's not a good thing. How can I help is a better way of saying it. Yeah. Is there one thing that you can charge me with that I can help you with? It's one thing. You know, you want me to like deliver lunch on Wednesday? You know, just tell me, because I'm, I'm COVID free. I don't, I'm totally fine. I'm, I'm in the old fucker group. So I protect myself pretty well. There's been turmoil because people didn't know how to react. They didn't know how to do things that they, they turned to fear. And depending on whether you believe what you hear or not, the fear can become intense. But all of a sudden it's over and there's onto some new thing now. And you don't even hear about it anymore. I mean, maybe it'll come back, who knows what's going to happen.

But the bottom line was, it shows you that it was really up to you to be the example or set the standard for what was going down. Not be the follower, be the believer, be the, you know, be the, the weak link. And so for me, I always took a position of strength and say, listen, I call my top customer and say, look, you're going through this shit right now. I'm here to help you. Just tell me what you need. I'm here to serve, period. If I have to send you a bill, I'll let you know in advance. Fair enough. Yeah, that's fair enough. And so, you know, I call my friends. So I'm going to go back to that statement because I, we didn't quite get to it yet. All things being equal, people do want to do business with their friends.

All things being not quite so equal, people still want to do business with their friends. And I can ask anybody, name me your top 10 customers. Are they also your friends? And they're like, most of them. Yeah. Good. Make them all your friends and they'll stay loyal. I don't want a satisfied customer. I want a loyal customer. Because some customers piss and moan all day long and they still place orders. All right. Well, how do you balance that? Let's challenge that a little one on the value piece, right? There's the whole thing of like and trust. I think it's bullshit that you have to like somebody. I think it's important that you have to trust somebody with them. I want them to like you. What's that?

The guy who says your customer doesn't have to like you, but they have to trust you. Really? Tell me the people that you trust, but you don't like. Make a little list of them. And the answer is nobody's on that fucking list. And so, you know, look at the people that you trust in your life. You either like them or you love them or both. So what about the value piece of this? Let's add where I was going with this is there's plenty of people I like, but then there's other people that bring more value to the conversation than who I like. Okay. So what's more important? No argument, but value has to be perceived by the customer. Or it is not value. Sure. Agreed. If you have a value prop, it's probably worthless.

Oh, 100%. So just take value proposition is bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Total bullshit. Okay. So what can I give you that proves I am providing value for you? Because it's not value. It's perceived value. If you think it's valuable and the customer doesn't think it's valuable, it ain't valuable. So here's the example. I have, I had a financial, I had a financial advisor, right? And this guy would, you know, we'd go golfing, whatever. He was actually my wife's friend's partner, right? So they literally, like my wife grew up with this woman and her business partner is the guy that runs my finances. Right. And he, you know, every year, he'd maybe take me out golf and take me out to lunch, whatever. And then once a year, he'd show me all these charts and graphs.

And I would look at him and be like, I don't, do we make money or did we lose money? Fucking make money more next year. Okay. Now, on the other hand, this other kid who was my insurance guy, right? He would every, all the time be at like throwing ideas at me about investments and stuff that I couldn't do with him. He didn't have the ability to do it. Okay. And I liked this guy a lot more than I liked the other. So I liked my financial advisor more than I liked my insurance guy. But eventually I was getting so much value out of this kid that he was bringing me ideas. And I would bring those ideas to my, my financial advisor. I'd be like, Hey, can we do this? And then one day my financial advisor went through the motions again.

And he was like, Hey, you know, can we get together and review? And I'm like, yeah, sure. And at the end I let him do it. And I said, Hey, I just want to let you know I'm moving all my money over to this guy because now that guy was in a position to invest. So because I was getting so much value out of him with no real long-term, this kid didn't know he was going to join a new firm that could do, you know, other stuff. But I was, I was getting more value out of him, even though I didn't like him nearly as much as I liked the other guy. So where's, so that to me is the value that he was bringing to me was far outpaced the value of our friendship and our relationship on the other side. So I would tell the kid, say, listen, you could double your revenue if people would just like you.

So I'm going to charge you 25 grand as a fee, and I'm going to share with you how to become likable. We train people how to become likable. Get all his commissions back and train them how to, you know, be friendly. It doesn't, it costs no extra money to be friendly. Tell that to an airline employee. Don't get me started. But John, the bottom line is, if you transfer your business to this guy, and you don't really like him that well, another guy is going to come along with the same set of credentials that you do like, and he's out. But doesn't that base, isn't that based on the frequency of interaction in my relationship with you? Like I, I a hundred percent agree with you. If you and I are like every, on a weekly basis, we're getting together, we're talking about shit and like you are literally helping my business.

But I look at my financial advisor and I don't know, a couple of times a year we get together and I, you know, I make sure that any updates or anything like that. So in that type of relationship, and when, and if we think of the macro of most sales relationships now, most again, like ideal versus reality here is most of them are, I don't want to say transactional, but I talked to you a few times a year. So, so how do we marry that with, with this? Okay. I'll give you an idea. First of all, your financial advisor, the guy that had all your money and lost it is a total schmuck. He didn't lose it. He didn't lose it. He was just not adding the value that I was looking for. Well, let's put it this way.

He's vulnerable. But if he would just have said, John, every, we're going to get together seriously once a year, but every month I'm going to send you the best idea that I've got. I'm going to send it to all my customers, but I'm going to make sure that you get the idea so that you can potentially put it into action. So at the end of the year, you're going to have 12 ideas, but I'm going to save the best one for when we get together. So now that the guy is living off of his revenue rather than living off of his customer. Big difference. And I just, that's why I hope I actually think that, you know, the predictable revenue model that Salesforce, you know, the segmentation of roles and that type of thing.

I think that was great for organizations. I'm right there with you. I think that was great for organizations to scale their sales teams internally, but I think it's a horrible customer centric model. It does not like nobody wants to be passed off 15 times. So I do genuinely believe we're going back to full cycle sales, which is going to allow for deeper relationships, more frequent relationships with people. But we're in a transition phase right now where, you know, another five years or so, maybe. But it's still a pretty transactional world, especially in the SaaS tech world. People are happy to get together these days. They're just happy to be in a room with other people. And I've done probably, I don't know, 25 events since you could get out.

And every single person who's there is happy to be there. Yeah. So it's going to go back that way because people are seeking camaraderie. And so are your customers. They're seeking that kind of interaction. But if you don't have and don't tell me you can add value. Don't tell me that you're that you're your value is reliant upon you doing business with me. I want you to be a value first person. John, I got this idea. I think it's working for me. Try it out. Thanks. Call you later. Bye. It's funny. I have all these little nuggets that I give to people. And whether it's a software or like a tool that I've come across or something like that, that is like, I'll almost always ask a question. I'll be like, hey, Jeffrey, real quick.

Do your, you know, do your reps have a problem with ghosting? Just out of curiosity, getting ghosted too much. Yeah. And it's almost always, yeah, I go for the obvious. Yeah. We have that problem. And I have like a blog post that I'll send them. I'm like, hey, whether we do business or not, check this thing out because this will help you stop getting ghosted. Right. And every fucking time. Stop. Yep. Whether we do business or not. Yeah. I just called somebody on that last week. I'm really good buddies with Anthony in arena. We click a really good guy, smart writer, everything. Here's a woman who goes, whether we do business or not. And I called her out of it. I said, why are you making that a caveat?

Why don't you just give me the fucking idea and not, and not put a caveat to it. Fair enough. Oh, cause you're trying to manipulate me. So I look at every statement that someone makes and I look at the authenticity of it. And I look at the sincerity of it. I don't get the authenticity or I don't get this, whether we do business or not. Why isn't that authentic? Because you're inferring the fact that you may not do business with me. Yeah. I don't assume. I assume everyone's going to do business with me. And I've assumed that for the last 40 years. And so far, I'm pretty right. So I'm looking at this from a standpoint of like, hey, I got an idea. You like it? Run with it. Yeah. Bye. That's it.

That's it. I don't put a caveat to it. Whether you buy for, or like, hey, I got this idea. Can you give me a hundred bucks? That's not bad to me. How do I know the idea is going to work? Like, dude, here's the fucking idea. Go have fun. Call me if you want more. So think about how you position the transfer of the message. And, you know, people from the Northeast like us, we have agendas. We wake up in the morning with a fucking agenda. We've had them since we were seven. Whether it was going out on a date on the weekend, or buying liquor underage, or smoking dope, or whatever. We've had agendas since college. And then you get your business card printed, and then it's a whole other set of agendas.

But the bottom line is, you can't be too smart. Just be yourself. And so I've always looked at this from a standpoint, my dad was a person who connected people. That was his whole, you know, he knew a real estate guy. He knew another guy that had a bunch of land. He put them together. And he never said, you know, if I do this deal, can I get like 3%? But people would always give him a percentage. And most of the time, more than he would ask for. So he taught me to just give without any measurement. Because if you get paid back by that guy, that's fine. But if you don't, then the world pays you back. And the world will pay you back times 10. I'm a big believer in karma, what goes around comes around, that type of thing.

So be careful of the language that you transfer to the other person, so they get the real John Barrows. Because he's a good guy and he's a smart guy. And he doesn't have to rely on the techniques that he learned back when he was talking to people about their fucking wallet. Remember the old days when you're cold calling and you're trying to get this guy to do this or set an appointment or, you know, something. And somewhere, you've lost the real John who was in the aisle of the grocery store with his mom wanting a candy bar and willing to take corporal punishment to get it. Yeah, I don't think anybody's ever accused me of not being authentic as far as my intentions. So I dropped that. I'm throwing at you.

Just be careful of your words, record them and listen to them. Oh, I do all the time. I've tried my best, and I don't mean to, you know, give you shit in any way. I'm just telling you what I perceive. But I look at this from a standpoint of I don't have a motive when I start with somebody. I may have a goal, but not a motive. And I want to know what their motive is to buy. That's what I want more than anything. Because my, you know, my, my registered trademark statement, people don't like to be sold, but they love to buy. That's the agenda. Like you don't say, honey, let's go get sold a car. You say, honey, let's go buy a car. And if you walk into my dealership, I want to find out why you're there.

I mean, I'm assuming it's not to get dinner. I'm assuming it's to, you know, to get a car. But, John, pick out the car you think is the coolest in the whole dealership, and let's go take it for a ride. And we'll talk about it. That's what I would do. Not, are you looking to buy a new car today? Did you want to lease or buy today? You ever trade in today? You ever budget today? Go away. All right. Go away. What's one more thing you're calling bullshit on these days that might ruffle some feathers? I'm curious from you. Well, we can do cold calling on another whole subject all by itself. But the thing that bothers the shit out of me is someone who spends an hour trying to figure out what the subject line should be.

This is what I've learned so far. And I learned this from the guy who founded Dub. 3% of salespeople have mastered video. The rest have not. Or think they're too ugly or think they're too fat or think they're too stupid or think that they're just reluctant to do it for one reason or another. Or they just don't have anything to say. So I now have a 97% strategic or sales advantage by using video instead of an email. Why wouldn't you go study that? So salespeople are not studying the next thing. They're trying to get back to the way it was. And the way it was is never going to happen. It's over. It's totally over. I mean, Zoom was an option. Now, it's a necessity. Video was an option. Now, it's a necessity.

And half the sales calls are going to be made virtually. Half of them. At least, yeah. Are you talking about Ruben, too? The CEO of a dub? Yeah. By the way, he's the one who connected us again. He was like, hey, Jeffrey, you should be on John's podcast. So I just remembered that. But yeah. I think you're right. I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. Ruben's a good guy. And he has no patience. But he's a good guy. Do you have patience? No. You? Depends on what it is. But it's limited at best when it comes to bullshit. I don't stand on line. At all. Yeah. No, I don't lean lines. I don't lean lines. I can't do it. That's actually. If I'm at a Broadway show, I either want to sit in the front row and I'm a VIP or I don't want to go.

Same with flying. Same with, you know, in a restaurant. I don't want to. So I know the restaurant owner and I call him up and I say, I'll be there. Just have my table written. I'm next. I don't have time. I'm, you know, I'm 76. I have no time. Time is my enemy. When did you, on that note, when did you start to realize that? Has that always been for you? Or is that the older you get, the more you realize how precious time is and how much of an enemy it is for you? Is that something you've grown into or is that something you've always believed? I would tell you that about 25 years ago, I realized that you either spend time, invest time or waste time. And like Netflix to me is a waste of time. Spending time is something that you do because, you know, let me just ride around a little longer and just see what's out there.

Fine. Investing time is with your family. It's with reading. It's with learning. It's with writing. The things that you do, the five things that you do that are in your core values. So I'm an investor of time. And when I realized that a long time ago, that's why I have 17 books and the other guy does not. The other guy's going to write a book, but doesn't have the first chapter written yet because he needs Netflix on Thursday night at nine o'clock when some stupid ass thing is on. I don't, I don't watch that anymore. Or you hit your snooze button. I was watching your clip on snooze and, you know, you hit your snooze button, you get those extra five minutes. Why do you need those extra five minutes, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Seriously. So, um, but I have a 13 year old daughter, even though I should not. And she's Emma Chamberlain, you know, the triplets that live in Boston, the three kids, the Soprano brothers or something. They start with us. Yeah. They're funny. Yeah. So I'll watch with my kid and we'll, you know, we'll shit around or stranger things. Yeah. Stranger things. My daughter's into that. I got an 11 year old daughter and she loves stranger things right now. So dad, did you read the next Harry Potter book? Yeah. Okay. I'm reading it. Okay, fine. Yeah. And, but it's pretty well written actually. Yeah. So I don't mind, I don't mind a well-written book, but she is an avid fricking reader.

I just have to get her from fiction to nonfiction and we'll be fine. Change the world. But she's, you know, boy meets girl, falls in love, gets jilted, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Um, but that's okay. At least she's reading. I didn't read when I was 13. I avoided it like the plague. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. But she knows I'm a writer and she knows I'm a student and you know, she introduces me when I, when I have a video of her introducing me so that the customer does not have to introduce me. There you go. Love it. It's killer. I was going to say, talk about rapport building. There's a right out of the gate. Boom. Boom. Awesome. Um, I go the mile to build instant rapport lately. I've been playing, um, ACDC.

It's a long way to the top when you want to rock and roll. Yeah. Love that. Okay. So people love that song and I turn it down. I go, you know, anything you want, you know why the song is so amazing. And the answer is when they recorded the song, it was one of their first songs recorded. They were broke. They added one thing to the band that differentiated them from every other person, every other rock and roller in the world. They put bagpipes in the production and no one had done that before. And it killed. And everybody started to talk about them because they added something that no one else added. They had lead bagpipes. Interesting. I didn't know that. So go back and look at, um, find the video where they're riding through the city and want to like a cart playing.

Um, it's a long way to the top. And when I do that, the audience comes in and they're bouncing. But then when I explain it, I've made them really think about what it is that's going on. And I go, what are you doing that nobody else is doing? Nice. And I'm going to give you the two word answer to that. Not enough. And so now I got them bopping, thinking, smiling, you know, the whole nine yards. And I'm like the biggest Angus Young fan on the planet. Uh, you know, he's five foot two, which most people don't know. They're actually Australian, which most people don't know. I knew that. And, uh, um, but I'm a rock and roller. I grew up in the fifties. I grew up in the sixties. I smoked pounds of dope to whatever.

And my, my, my line is Bill Clinton said he never inhaled. I never exhaled. I'm right there with you, my friend. I'm right there with you. But when you can tell that to an audience, you become authentic. Yeah, exactly. When you break down that barrier of you being perfect and everything else. Yeah, I am. Believe me. Yeah. I'm Philly. I am not perfect. We lose everything to everyone all the time. Well, you took one from us. So you took one from us. And we, cause you deserved it. On that note, on that note, I brought my hat just to pay some homage. Yes, indeed. And for those of you who are listening on the podcast, it's, uh, in case you don't know his name, it's a Gittemer, G I T O M E R. Look him up on LinkedIn.

Look him up on, uh, Tik TOK. He's on Instagram. He's everywhere. So, uh, and he is, you know, some people have called me the godfather of sales. I don't hold a candle to Mr. Gittemer as far as being the godfather here. So I appreciate your time, my friend. Uh, and I hope everybody enjoyed the conversation. It's a pleasure. And we'll look forward to doing it again. Definitely. And, uh, everybody hope you enjoyed it. There's one other thing that I would like. Yeah. Um, when people come to our site, there's a challenge, a free challenge. I think it's gittemertraining.com or something. I'm not a hundred percent positive. I'll send it to you. You can post it up. Okay. Um, but I, it's a 22 day challenge where I give a value lesson every single day.

Cool. And it's, it's pretty cool. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Love it. Awesome. We'll definitely check that out. Uh, I might even take it myself. Um, so, uh, yeah, I mean, look, you're already the smartest guy in the world. Maybe I can help you by making you just this much more smarter. Shit, man. If I was the smartest guy in the world, I don't know. I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here. See, when you're from Boston, there's a fine line between smart and smart ass. Yeah. There's, there's. And so you have to learn the difference and then you can win. Oh, I know that it's ego and confidence, my friend. There is a fine line between the two. And, uh, I balanced that line away. But you invented, you invented and reinvented lobster.

So I have every bit of respect for it. Love it. Awesome. Well, everybody, I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did here. Go check out Jeffrey's page. And, uh, like I always say at the end of my podcast here, go out there and make somebody smile today, everybody. Cause no matter how bad your day went, if you go out there and make somebody smile, you know, you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that these days. 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.

And it includes membership in our on-demand platform with weekly AMAs. So you can go to jbarrows.com slash open to check out the details. Thanks again and have a great day.