Latest / I Used To Be Crap At Sales / How To Be The Most Effective Sales Leader | EP12 | Bryan Mulry

Transcript

How To Be The Most Effective Sales Leader | EP12 | Bryan Mulry · I Used To Be Crap At Sales

0:00
Mark Ackers: Welcome to the podcast. Here's a sneak peek of
0:02
what's coming up in today's episode. Brian, did you used to
0:05
be crap at sales?
0:06
Bryan Mulry: Yes, 100% at the beginning of every new chapter
0:10
in my sales career, I have been bad at that chapter and then
0:13
quickly stopped being bad at it
0:15
Mark Ackers: on a scale of one to 10. When you think about your
0:17
crappist, how crap were you?
0:19
Unknown: Oh, we're talking like sending 700 word mass emails to
0:25
1000 people at a time. We're talking hanging up on someone
0:29
when they pick up the phone, doing a cold call and then
0:31
blaming it on technical troubles in an email after them. Like
0:34
we're talking, not asking people for the money when they were
0:37
ready to hand over money. We're talking pretty bad at the
0:39
beginning, I'd had this wonderful two months long
0:41
training about Google Cloud. As far as I was concerned, I knew
0:44
everything about Google Cloud. I was 2122 years of age. I knew
0:47
nothing, right? There were people who had been working on
0:50
cloud computing longer than I was alive.
0:52
Mark Ackers: In today's episode, I want to use your sales
0:56
coaching brain to pick apart what sales leaders that you've
1:00
met Google at sales loft, and people that you've spoken with
1:03
to understand what made them so good. What do the best sellers
1:07
do, and what don't they do, and what are the winning habits talk
1:10
to you about at Google, the sales leadership team that you
1:14
got to experience. What did the best managers have in terms of
1:18
traits and habit my
1:19
Unknown: manager, as SDR manager, he
1:21
Mark Ackers: knew 100% what's the one thing that you do
1:25
consistently as a coach to really help reps level up.
1:29
There's a lot
1:29
Unknown: of limiting beliefs the reps don't know they have. And
1:32
they will come to a coaching session with someone like
1:34
myself, and they'll say it out loud, and I'll go, hang on,
1:38
what? Where did that come from? What are we talking about here?
1:41
And my job is to pull them back into reality.
1:47
Mark Ackers: Hello and welcome to the I used to be crap at
1:50
sales podcast. My name is Mark Akers. I'm the co founder and
1:53
Head of Sales here at my sales coach. And we called the podcast
1:56
that because it's true, and all of our guests say the same. And
2:00
today I'm joined by a man with a very interesting background,
2:04
someone who went from selling suits for six euros and a half
2:08
an hour at the age of 15 to making over 100,000 pounds in
2:13
sales. This person is a former SDR at Google, SDR and then
2:17
account manager for sales loft. They are now self employed sales
2:21
coach and my sales coach coach today on the podcast. It's Brian
2:26
Murray, Brian, welcome. Great to have you with us. How you
2:29
feeling?
2:30
Unknown: Hello, I'm feeling great. I'm really glad that
2:33
we're getting to do this absolutely
2:35
Mark Ackers: in today's episode, I want to use your sales
2:38
coaching brain to pick apart what sales leaders that you've
2:43
met, Google, sales loft and people that you've spoken with
2:46
to understand what made them so good. I want to also understand
2:50
about sellers. You know, what do the best sellers do, and what
2:54
don't they do, and what are the winning habits, so to speak,
2:57
that's what we're going to get into today. But before all of
3:01
that, we always start with a yes. No question, Brian, did you
3:04
used to be crap at sales? Yes, 100% what point of your career
3:09
rushed to the front of your mind? What
3:11
Unknown: really kicked into my brain there was actually the
3:13
beginning of each role in each new chapter. At the beginning of
3:18
every new chapter in my sales career, I have been bad at that
3:21
chapter and then quickly stopped being bad at it. But yeah, I've
3:26
been crap at sales multiple times, and I will be again on
3:30
Mark Ackers: a scale of one to 10 when you think about your
3:32
crappist, how crap were you? Oh,
3:34
Unknown: we're talking like sending 700 word mass emails to
3:41
1000 people at a time. We're talking, hanging up on someone
3:44
when they pick up the phone, doing a cold call, and then
3:48
blaming it on technical troubles in an email after them, like
3:51
we're talking, not asking people for the money when they were
3:53
ready to hand over money. We're we're talking pretty bad luck.
3:56
Share
3:56
Mark Ackers: with us your biggest howler in sales. One
4:00
Unknown: of my biggest haulers is actually pretty interesting
4:02
one, working in sales loft as an account manager. I had a list of
4:07
people who were not going to renew with us, and burnt people
4:10
who were very unhappy with us. They unfortunately got a message
4:14
asking for more money and asking, you know, hey, we've
4:17
built these wonderful new new features. I think they'll be
4:19
wonderful for your team. Let's, let's speak about them. And I
4:23
got a lot of angry messages back. Though I had, I had one
4:26
job send the right message to the right person, and
4:30
unfortunately, in a moment of tiredness, I sent it to about 50
4:34
of our least happy customers.
4:37
Mark Ackers: So bright. What were the repercussions of that?
4:39
There's
4:39
Unknown: obviously that emotional moment when you get
4:41
that first email back. Go back going, you know, I've already
4:44
told you I'm going to cancel, or, you know, I've already told
4:47
you that I don't want to use this product, or I don't already
4:50
told you that I'm not doing this. And you get that first
4:53
messages back and you go, Oh, no, I can't believe I did that.
4:55
Your start goes into the pit of your stomach, but, yeah. The
5:00
repercussions were that, I guess if I had wanted to try and
5:03
salvage any of those customers, all the goodwill was gone.
5:07
Mark Ackers: I'm guessing you learned from that, though,
5:09
right? That was a learning moment. And speaking of
5:12
learning, let's talk about where you learn to sell. So it feels
5:17
like I need to go to when you were 15 years old, selling suits
5:22
you. You say, this was your first sales job. This is where
5:25
you learn that sales should be a conversation between two people,
5:29
and at some point that conversation money changes
5:31
hands. How did you learn that in that role? That
5:35
Unknown: was a really interesting one. It gave me my
5:38
foundation for what real selling is, even though I wasn't on
5:43
commission, I was a retail assistant. I was this young, 15
5:45
year old guy who knew how to help people find the right
5:49
clothes. In the eyes of the business, I shouldn't have been
5:51
anything more than a guy who knows how to operate a till and
5:54
hang clothes on a job, right? I actually started quote, unquote,
5:58
selling out of almost pure boredom. In that place, there
6:01
were three layers. I was in the basement. And, you know, if
6:03
people don't come down to the basement, I had no one to talk
6:06
to. So what happened is I just start chatting with people. You
6:08
know, someone would be over in suits, and would be over with
6:10
the with the jeans, we over the shirts. And I just go, you know,
6:13
have you an event coming up? Or, you know, those suits are great
6:16
for weddings and things like that. And I just start chatting
6:18
with people. And after about a year and a half or two years of
6:22
doing this, and I was, you know, I was in school at the time, so
6:24
just weekend work, I started to turn it into a game. My greatest
6:29
achievement, as far as I'm concerned, it was a dude came in
6:31
for socks and left with a full new suit, three pairs of jeans,
6:37
three four shirts, a new pair of shoes. And he just came in. He
6:41
came in wanting socks for a specific thing, and then ended
6:44
up with a lot of others. And I sort of turned it into a game
6:46
of, all right, well, let's see what people need. Let's see why
6:50
they're coming in here and actually looking for clothes.
6:53
And that's, that's where it really sort of began, of just
6:56
having conversations with people.
6:58
Mark Ackers: And was that all self taught? Like, would you
7:00
just try to learn from every conversation? Or do you have
7:03
someone in store that was older than
7:05
Unknown: you? So I did that completely myself, but it was
7:08
more so, yeah, again, it wasn't. There were no benefits to me
7:12
doing this. I could have been on my phone the whole time, and I
7:14
would have been paid the exact same amount and got the exact
7:17
same amount of reward from it. But I, I've always enjoyed just
7:20
talking to people. I've always enjoyed sort of having these
7:22
conversations and just striking up conversations with people and
7:25
seeing what comes from them. And I found very early on that if I
7:29
put pressure on myself to quote, unquote, sell something or have
7:32
someone buy something, and I put pressure on the outcome, then I
7:35
would make a total mess of it. But if I just wanted to chat
7:38
with people, then that usually sort of ended up having a good
7:41
time for
7:41
Mark Ackers: both of us. So that's interesting. The game
7:43
wasn't to sell. No,
7:45
Unknown: the game was just to have a conversation, and then at
7:47
certain points I would introduce new things and see if, see if
7:51
people would have would add to their interest or not. Yeah, it
7:56
was just a really interesting sort of start to it. But I, at
7:58
the time, I wouldn't have considered a sales whereas now,
8:01
now I would understand
8:03
Mark Ackers: that. And I think what's interesting though, is it
8:05
feels at a very young age, you learn, what I think takes
8:08
sellers far too long to learn, is disconnecting from the
8:12
outcome, and that's probably because you you weren't paid if
8:15
they bought anything. It was just a game. But I'm guessing
8:18
that being able to disconnect from the outcome is something
8:20
you took with you into your first sales job. And it looks
8:23
like in between there, there's a little bit of a marketing role
8:26
with media, HQ, but your first real sales job, to me, looks
8:30
like was an SDR with Google. Well, it's
8:33
Unknown: funny. There's a bit of a gap in there,
8:36
and it's really interesting. I was a chugger for a little
8:40
while, a charity mugger, for anyone who doesn't know that
8:43
word, you most people on the street that are wave at uni
8:45
going, Hey, can I have your bank account details? That was me. I
8:47
did it for a summer, and I would consider that to be one of the
8:51
best sales trainings I've ever had, even though it was one of
8:53
the worst and most toxic environments I've ever been in
8:57
in my life. That one was 100% commission sales, that one was
9:00
standing at the street and waving at people, and that's
9:03
where sort of numbers and the law of averages really gets
9:06
hammered in. It was interesting where, you know, as far as we
9:09
were concerned, 100 waves was eight stops. Oh, sorry, it was
9:13
10 stops. Of those 10 stops, you'd get eight conversations.
9:15
Of those eight conversations, you get five closes, and of
9:18
those five closes, you get one sale. So it was one of those
9:20
things where you had to know your numbers, and you'd people
9:23
talk about it with door knocking, but I knew that if I
9:25
had spent six hours in a shopping center in the middle of
9:29
Ireland waving at people, and I'd wave at 300 people and not a
9:33
single person had stopped, I had to believe, in my heart of
9:36
hearts, that the next three people that I wave at, just true
9:40
through law of averages would be the ones that would stop, um,
9:43
and there was a bunch of different elements that added to
9:46
that. I would learned a lot about what good sales management
9:48
is by learning what awful sales management is. And then I
9:52
learned a lot about sort of myself and how I work in high
9:54
pressure environments through through that as well. That was
9:58
kind of a sales environment. That then projected me into
10:02
deciding that I wanted to go into sales and SDR for Google,
10:06
because it was a much better environment for
10:09
Mark Ackers: I can imagine. I would love to pick your brains
10:12
on being a chugger. That's not a phrase I've ever heard of
10:15
before. But let's remain true to the mission this podcast, and
10:20
let's focus on on later stages in your career. But yeah, I'm
10:24
sure there's loads you could talk about, and loads of funny
10:26
stories, I'm sure as well. So we took the job as an SDR with
10:31
Google. Just tell us about that, right? Google is one of those
10:35
companies that everyone just thinks must be fun to work
10:38
there, right? They've got the slides, the bean bags, the table
10:41
tennis, the whatever, fun chairs and all this stuff. What's it
10:45
like, being what must be, you know, a young man getting that
10:49
job at Google, going from working in a clothes shop, being
10:53
a chugger, using your phrase, to working at Google. What was that
10:56
like?
10:57
Unknown: Well, you know, what's funny, I never saw bean bags,
10:59
the slides or anything like that, because I started in July
11:03
2020,
11:05
we were all locked down,
11:08
so I had the glamor and glitz of working from a Chromebook In my
11:16
bedroom. So that was sort of the extent to which the glam of of
11:25
Google Cloud came in, um, however, the experience that I
11:30
had there, what it was like, it was actually really, really
11:33
interesting, because you'd think that a massive corporation like
11:37
Google would have everything nailed down, and it's just like
11:41
every other sales org, you know, we still have problems with
11:44
sales apps. You still have problems with updating your CRM.
11:47
You still have problems with, you know, Product Market Fit and
11:51
messaging and targets and accounts and commissions and
11:55
everything. It has the exact same challenges. And I think the
11:59
way they do that is they keep everything small. So I was on a
12:02
team of about 20 SDRs targeting the globe. However, in that I
12:08
was broken up into a smaller team after a little while. And
12:11
at the beginning, I started selling enterprise, and then I,
12:13
later on, I started selling SMB, but they kept it in quite small,
12:18
siloed teams to keep that startup culture and that startup
12:22
feel throughout the massive organization. That's kind of the
12:27
way that it felt. That's what it was like while I was in there.
12:30
Mark Ackers: Would that surprise people? Some of it maybe not
12:33
like the CRM universal problem, but having that product market
12:38
fit, I think, would surprise people. Talk to me about the
12:42
SDRs that you work with when you joined. You've obviously said at
12:45
the start of the podcast, every job you took you initially were
12:49
crap at it, and you progressed. But when you reflect back on
12:53
that SDR team, were you on par? Were they elite? How did that
12:58
team compare to to yourself?
13:01
Unknown: We were normal sellers. We were just regular people. You
13:04
go out, you make your calls, you send your emails, you do your
13:07
LinkedIn steps, and you come up with tactics and plans and
13:11
messaging, and then you send them out to people. And it's
13:14
funny, I actually think selling for Google Cloud was really
13:19
difficult, and some people would say, Hal, you're Google. Reason
13:22
being is, my prospects knew more about Google Cloud than I ever
13:27
could. There were three players in that space, AWS, Azure and
13:33
GCP, so it's Amazon, Microsoft and Google. I would reach out to
13:38
a CTO about a specific problem, and they'd go, yeah, all of my
13:43
engineers already know about that. They're using this to do
13:46
it. Your product is crap because of this. You know, Google Cloud
13:50
doesn't fix that problem. For me, they knew more about it than
13:54
I did, so a big part of my job was either re educating people
13:58
or finding the right people with the right messaging. It was a
14:01
lot of testing, but that was a strange environment, and that
14:04
you think you know, everyone wants to talk to Google. They
14:07
don't, if they know exactly what you do better than you do,
14:10
Mark Ackers: and I think that's really interesting. One of the
14:12
things that I talk regularly about when it comes to the
14:15
challenges SDR face is they're reaching out to people that they
14:19
just don't understand, right? Right, like, unless you're going
14:22
to tell me otherwise, I'm guessing you've not really got a
14:25
clue at this point in your career what a CTO goes to work
14:29
for, the challenges they face, the problems that are going to
14:31
resonate, what they moan about, the pain of not being on your
14:36
platform and product and and you don't speak their language, and
14:39
when you're spending someone that thinks they know everything
14:43
that can be really difficult. So who enabled you as an SDR and as
14:49
an SDR function at Google, who helped you level up and combat
14:53
that?
14:53
Unknown: There was a couple of people in that. So there were
14:56
obviously the internal ones. There were people who'd been
14:58
around for a little bit longer. Were the actual ladies in Google
15:01
Cloud who obviously had been there longer and knew more about
15:04
it. Them bringing me on calls really helped me understand how
15:07
much I didn't know. Obviously there was enablement people
15:11
internally, a guy called Ludwig Hofmeister, which is an
15:13
incredible sales enablement leader based in Ireland, despite
15:19
his very German name. However, that actually, at that point in
15:24
my career, I actually discovered John Barrows sales and for
15:27
anyone who doesn't know him, he's an American sales trainer,
15:29
and he puts out a lot of content. And I was kind of
15:31
looking at it going, Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting.
15:34
That's interesting. I connected with a dude called James Buckley
15:37
who used to work, or still works with John Barrows. James is this
15:40
American trainer. And we just got chatting, and then all of a
15:43
sudden James was introducing me to new ways of thinking and new
15:45
ways of doing that were very brilliant. They were very me and
15:48
how I operate. They were very authentic. And I had to lean
15:52
into the fact that I didn't know as much as the CTOs, and my
15:55
messaging changed from I know everything to I know a lot about
16:00
this one thing that you probably don't know about, let me educate
16:04
you. Let me help you. Let me let me challenge you on this. Or
16:07
while you know way more about the technical specs, here's what
16:09
everybody else is doing. Can I show you how this could benefit
16:13
you as well? And it became a really interesting sort of way
16:17
of leaning into my incompetence or not knowing what I was doing.
16:21
Have you come across the Dunning Kruger effect
16:25
Mark Ackers: I have? But why don't you tell it for those that
16:27
are listening? Okay,
16:29
Unknown: it's very, very simple.
16:32
At the very beginning of learning about a topic, after
16:36
you get about, you know about 10% of the material, your
16:39
confidence is super high. You're like, I put 20 hours into this
16:42
thing. I know so much about it. And then you put 56789, 10, more
16:48
hours into it, and you realize you know nothing. And what
16:52
happens is you go into what's known as the valley of despair,
16:55
where you go, I will never know everything that I need to know.
16:59
And the more time and energy and effort you put into that topic,
17:03
that task, that skill, you go way back up in your confidence
17:08
levels, but it takes a lot longer, and you go from sort of
17:11
unconscious incompetence, where you think you know a lot, but
17:15
you actually don't, to conscious competence, where you know All
17:19
of the things that you should know, plus, plus what you don't
17:23
know and what I what I ended up doing as an as an as an SDR is
17:28
at the beginning I'd had this wonderful two months long
17:31
training about Google Cloud. As far as I was concerned, I knew
17:33
everything about Google Cloud. Was 19 years of age. Oh no, I
17:37
wasn't. I was 2122 years of age, I knew nothing, right? There
17:43
were people who had been working on cloud computing longer than I
17:46
was alive that I was trying to sell to. But after, after a
17:51
while and listening to people and understanding just how much
17:54
I didn't know, I realized, all right, I'm now going to lean
17:58
into my actual role here, which is connecting people, making a
18:02
connection, putting messages in front of people working hard.
18:06
That's my value here, not my knowledge.
18:08
Mark Ackers: And that's a great sound bite. Hello. I'm Mark the
18:11
host of the I used to be crap at sales podcast. Thank you for
18:13
listening. We called the podcast that because it's true and all
18:16
of our guests say the same. As a sales leader, you would have
18:19
been crap ourselves once, no doubt, but that changed, and now
18:22
you're responsible for a team. It's your job to help that team
18:25
get to where you need to get them to, but also it's your job
18:27
to develop and grow them as sales professionals. Here's the
18:30
problem, you don't have the time. You are too busy with
18:33
other competing priorities, and I get it, but that doesn't mean
18:36
your sales team should miss out. It doesn't mean they shouldn't
18:38
fulfill that potential and grow that's where we come in. If
18:41
you'd be curious to hear about how we're working with
18:43
organizations providing their team with expert coaching on a
18:47
one to one basis, get in touch. Be happy to have a conversation.
18:51
What I love about how you explain that is it? It could be
18:53
coupled very nicely to, I think the challenge we also face as
18:57
sellers and as humans is this desire to give away information,
19:03
to show how smart we are. You know, it's, it's, it's like the
19:08
little professor in us. And I think one of the things you see
19:11
when people start a role is because they don't know they ask
19:14
loads of questions. But when they get to sort of six, 912,
19:18
months into the role, they think they know the answers. So their
19:21
discoveries come more about giving information than
19:24
gathering information because they want to showcase. Look, I
19:27
know I know this. I'm an expert in this. You will trust me. But
19:31
actually, what you've got to do is you've got to get over that
19:33
hump and get to a place where you've got the knowledge, but
19:36
you act like a novice, and you continue to discover. And then
19:40
only when it becomes really the right time do you share the
19:43
information. It couples really nicely with with your theory, in
19:46
my opinion,
19:47
Unknown: that actually comes from a place of almost
19:49
insecurity. It's like, I need to prove that I know about this.
19:54
Instead of actually knowing about it, there's a there's a
19:58
big level to it, where people go. Go. It's almost like
20:00
imposter syndrome, where they go, if I don't show in my
20:03
questions, then I know exactly what they're talking about. Then
20:07
they'll think, x, y, z, and when you get to a point where you
20:12
realize nobody's thinking about you, that then can help get
20:17
through that hump that we're talking about
20:19
Mark Ackers: absolutely and that is a little bit like what you
20:22
spoke about earlier on. You're reaching out to CTOs that have
20:25
been doing this longer than you've been alive. And imposter
20:28
syndrome is just something that affects everybody from SDR all
20:32
the way up to the very top of the chain. Right? Everyone has a
20:35
level of imposter syndrome, but it's something that's hard to
20:38
self diagnose. It's hard to admit. It's even harder to get
20:41
coaching on that, and it can affect people so much in their
20:45
sales conversations because they don't believe that their
20:48
prospect will see them at the same level. One of the things I
20:52
always say to people when they start working with me is, even
20:55
after a day, you know more than 99.99% of the world about this
21:01
company, because you've had eight hours here, right? And
21:04
it's about giving them that confidence. Let's talk about
21:07
your manager at Google. Then talk to me about, well, not just
21:13
specifically Google, I suppose, because you were speaking to
21:17
other managers in the business as well, right? Like you would
21:19
have met other sales leaders, but rather than Yeah, focus on
21:23
the one person. Talk to me about at Google, the sales leadership
21:26
team that you got to experience. What did the best managers have
21:31
in terms of traits and habits, because you've alluded to
21:35
learning about bad practice in an earlier role. Talk to me
21:39
about what traits and habits good managers have from your
21:41
experience at Google. In Google,
21:43
Unknown: there was a couple of different levels, but every
21:49
single manager knew their role in that almost hierarchy. My
21:54
manager, as SDR manager, he knew 100% his job was to look after
21:59
me and make sure that I as his rep was fine, emotionally,
22:05
physically and hitting target. All of those were key to him,
22:08
especially during a pandemic. Right above him, he that manager
22:13
knew that he needed to make sure that all the SDR managers were
22:17
fine, that they were all working well, but they were able to
22:20
produce their results, and then above them, they actually had to
22:23
look at overall org structure. And it's funny, knowing this
22:26
from an SDR level, I knew my manager, knew exactly his role,
22:29
who supported him, and how he was supported, and knew how that
22:32
rolls up the chain. And because it was so clearly defined, not
22:35
in rigid senses, but in a secure sense, he knew exactly where his
22:40
boundaries were here, where his responsibilities were, and that
22:43
allowed him to then be creative within those walls. As far as
22:47
I'm concerned, when the walls are blurred or when the
22:49
obstacles are blurred, you there's no room for creativity.
22:51
Creativity is wonderful in a box. You just have to know where
22:54
the box is. So my manager knew exactly what he needed to get
22:59
out of me, and then he focused properly on two things. I was at
23:03
the beginning of my SDR career. We focused very much on numbers,
23:07
not on output, but on the numbers that actually mattered.
23:10
He shared with me the difference between, you know, your vanity
23:13
metrics of KPIs plus the ones that actually mattered, and then
23:16
how they filtered into the overall org. And we also focused
23:20
on numbers of other performers and top, top sellers and top
23:22
performers. He gave me something very, very tangible to do, and
23:27
now looking back, it was because he wanted me to get my reps in.
23:30
He wanted to make me to make sure that I was getting 1000
23:35
calls in, you know, a year or 1000 emails. Because the more he
23:41
knew, the more I did it, the better I was going to become. So
23:46
throughout that, he focused very much on where I was at in my
23:50
career, not where he wanted me to be. That was key. And then it
23:56
was funny, because we're a sales where we were sales role, he
23:59
actually took the pressure off on the results side, not more.
24:04
So he took the thread away. He was like, if things start to go
24:08
south, here's the process. And he did this very early in my
24:11
career. He was like, here's the process. You're not going to get
24:13
a knock on the door one day and be told you're out. Here's what
24:15
the process is for and why it is the way it is and how it works.
24:20
And that removed the anxiety from me, not the anxiety of
24:23
selling that, but that didn't leave for years, but the anxiety
24:29
of, if I'm bad at this, I will be let go. I was almost like I
24:33
was given permission to be bad at it at the beginning. And that
24:37
was really key. So it was a couple of different elements to
24:40
it, and that he was secure in himself and knew where his
24:43
boundaries were. I knew where my boundaries were. I knew the
24:45
worst case scenario. I knew the best case scenario, and he gave
24:49
me something very clear to focus on, which was, here are the
24:52
numbers that we need to look at. At the beginning of your career.
24:55
That was key for me.
24:56
Mark Ackers: Sounds like he just knew how to create an
24:57
environment where you felt comfortable. All to do what was
25:01
being asked of you and be successful. About the pressure.
25:04
What did your one to ones typically look like? Then my
25:07
Unknown: one to ones were manager one to ones. They were
25:09
not coaching one to ones. They were number run throughs. Here's
25:12
what other people are doing. Maybe show me an email or two,
25:15
but it was every center will know this. You get in, you talk
25:17
about your numbers, you talk about what, what's going well
25:19
and why it's cost going badly. You're asked a couple of
25:21
questions. You don't really have any follow ups to do afterwards.
25:25
It's quote, unquote check ins. Are you doing? Okay? What are
25:29
your numbers like? Okay, when you change that number, make
25:32
more calls, make more emails, do these things, etc. It's nothing
25:36
it's nothing crazy. The coaching element was led by somebody
25:40
else. So he just, he just did the standard manager stuff.
25:43
Mark Ackers: How did that make you feel?
25:44
Unknown: Pretty fine. I was happy with that at the time. I
25:46
didn't know what I was missing. Okay, I did feel a little quote,
25:50
unquote scrutinized at the time, but that's kinda, that's part of
25:54
the job. That's part of the role. You know, it was more
25:56
being held accountable to the right things. I don't have any
25:59
sort of really positive or negatives to say, with that sort
26:03
of management style, it suited what he needed to do and it
26:06
suited what I needed. Kind of at the time, I would never take
26:10
that management style now, given you know, the journey I've been
26:14
on so
26:14
Mark Ackers: you said you didn't know you missing out on, looking
26:17
back now, with your coaching hat on, what were you missing out on
26:20
questions,
26:21
Unknown: not answers? I would say something along the lines
26:24
of, I'm not getting enough call connects. And the response would
26:27
be, here's how you fix that. That's a manager hat. Or we need
26:32
to get your call connect rates up. We're going to focus on
26:35
these numbers and hits, hey, this is how we're going to focus
26:37
on those numbers. A coaching hat is very different. The A if
26:40
someone comes to me and says, I need to get my call connects up,
26:42
I start asking questions. And that's what coaches will do.
26:45
Coaches will ask questions like, Who you're calling, when are you
26:47
calling? Them, what numbers are you using? And they will try and
26:51
gain a much deeper understanding. And then what I
26:55
would have liked was for him to ask me questions, whereby the
26:59
direction of the questions helped me to come to my own
27:01
conclusion. Easiest way to describe this is, at the
27:03
beginning, I would tell Nathan, every single time, I'm bad at
27:06
cold calling, because all I was getting was non Connect. I
27:11
wasn't really connecting with people. Turns out CTOs don't
27:14
pick up numbers who knew. And as because I wasn't getting enough
27:18
reps, and I was like, I'm bad at cold calling. And as a manager,
27:20
he'd go, No, you're not. Here's how we boost your Connect
27:23
rights. As a coach, you have to ask the question, why are you
27:27
bad at cold calling? And you get down to making the other person
27:31
realize that the reality is that they're not talking to enough
27:35
people because of call connect rates, not that they're bad at
27:38
calling. And I would have enjoyed a little bit more of
27:41
that sort of paradigm breaking at the time. Breaking earlier on
27:43
in my career.
27:44
Mark Ackers: Here's the thing, that's how most one to ones go.
27:47
Most managers don't coach. Why do you think that is
27:51
Unknown: they don't know any better? Um, you know, they were,
27:55
they were managed in a certain way, so they'll get mad. Don't
27:57
matter someone else in a certain way. But also, their managers
28:00
are asking them about about numbers and results and things
28:04
like that. So if the CRO is asking the VP of sales, asking
28:07
the sales directors, asking the SDR leaders, asking the SDRs and
28:10
its numbers all the way down, what else you gonna get when I
28:13
was in, when I was an account manager, at least at the
28:15
beginning, most of my one on ones were just deal reviews.
28:17
What's happening this deal? What's happening this deal?
28:19
Something this deal? What's happening this deal? Do you have
28:21
next steps? Yes. Yes. Deal? Do you have next steps? Yes, yes,
28:24
yes. Okay, cool. Update the CRM, please. You know that was most
28:28
of those sessions we then had to dedicate time to coaching, and
28:33
sometimes, sometimes it happened and sometimes they didn't. But
28:35
you know, the manager one on ones where someone was about was
28:38
going to ask them what I was doing, those answers were always
28:42
given, whereas the coaching ones now they weren't always
28:45
fulfilled, at least at the beginning of my time as an AM,
28:47
Mark Ackers: and that is where the challenge lies. The manager
28:50
using the one to one to fulfill their agenda and their goals for
28:54
what they need to provide up, rather than making it about the
28:57
individual, you talk about how your journey has shown you a
29:02
different way. Let's get into that SalesLoft, you took another
29:07
SDR role at SalesLoft at the time. What was the appeal?
29:12
Unknown: SalesLoft had the best sellers in the world selling a
29:15
technology that I loved. I got to a place in Google Cloud. So
29:20
Google Cloud bought sales left as a tool to use, and I was the
29:24
EMEA guinea pig for that. So I was spending half my days
29:26
teaching people how to use sales left, and half my days teaching
29:29
people, you know, cold calling and selling for for Google
29:32
Cloud. And at that point, I was quite good at in Google Cloud, I
29:34
was the top there's a story about me hitting q2 target in
29:37
four days with my my second last quarter there. So I had a lot of
29:43
time on my hands to fulfill with this. And I kind of looked up
29:48
for a second, and I saw the AES that had years of experience in
29:53
Google Cloud, and I could see myself on a track earning 100k a
29:58
year, 24 years of age. Working for Google, living in Dublin,
30:02
selling Google Cloud to small businesses. You know, really,
30:05
really cool work, but it would have required me to care about
30:10
CTOs, CIOs and their problems. And I went, I don't know, I
30:15
spent half my days talking about this really cool tech. And then
30:17
when I looked at the business, it was full of some of the best
30:20
sellers, the best sales leadership, the best sales
30:22
thought leadership, the best sales culture. I'd come across
30:25
given the opportunity to move to London, and I went, you know
30:28
what I want to get in there. So then I did that. I applied for
30:33
sales and after and got in there, and
30:35
Mark Ackers: it feels like you had huge success there. I
30:37
noticed in your LinkedIn, it said you were the second highest
30:40
performing SDR in your region, Callum McKenzie and yeah, shout
30:45
out to Callum McKenzie for for being number one. Um, what was
30:49
Callum doing differently to you? That
30:51
Unknown: man is a workhorse. That man is nothing but
30:54
consistent. Callum just gets it done. So
30:58
Mark Ackers: I was going to push you on that, because when I ask
31:01
sales leaders, what do their top performers do differently? And
31:04
they say, Oh, they work harder, or they're a workhorse, I'm sure
31:07
they are. But there are traits and habits that are different,
31:11
and it feels like you've just touched upon it there as well.
31:15
So Callum would just continually ask for help, seek feedback and
31:19
use that, I'm guessing. What about in his conversations? What
31:24
was he doing differently there, when he was reaching out and
31:27
booking meetings as an SDR, was he doing anything different with
31:30
his outreach? To you very
31:32
Unknown: little we'd always share things across teams. In
31:35
his continuous work on himself was consistent. So I
31:40
Mark Ackers: get he was working on himself. I get that he was
31:43
seeking feedback. I get that he worked maybe just that, just a
31:46
little bit harder and maybe more focused and didn't maybe veer
31:51
off the track to try new things. But I'm curious in his actual
31:55
conversations, was he doing anything differently with
31:59
prospects?
32:00
Unknown: The conversations that we were, we were having, would
32:02
have been quite similar, maybe 1% to 5% different. It was the
32:09
it was the the other work that I think made the made the
32:11
difference
32:12
Mark Ackers: talking about people that weren't as
32:14
successful as you and and Callum in the role, what mistakes are
32:18
they making that could have been avoided.
32:20
Unknown: There is a set way of doing the SDR role, or a role in
32:26
your organization, and what everyone will do is they'll tell
32:29
you go and copy the top performer. Okay, so let's say
32:33
you do that. You go in, you take exactly the top performer is
32:37
doing, and you copy it. If that is all you do, you will be a
32:42
middle of the middle of the rail performer. Because what people
32:48
would do is they'd set one way of doing things and then
32:52
consistently repeat that one way of doing it, regardless as to
32:55
whether it was working or not, or getting them the results. Are
32:58
they not it was the quote, unquote, right way of doing it,
33:00
and they were looking for the right way of doing it.
33:03
Unfortunately, with sales, there's no right way of doing
33:05
things. Everything is relative. Everything is relative to the
33:08
situation that you're in. The markets. Change the person in
33:11
front of you, change their mood has changed from the last time
33:14
you talked to them. Everything is consistently changing, and
33:17
you as a seller need to be able to maneuver that and watch out
33:23
for that, and be ready for that. Rather than going, Hey, I've put
33:26
the right ingredients in and I've put it in the right
33:29
process. Why am I not getting the results? Sales isn't like
33:32
that. And people like to think of it as, you know, people like
33:34
to think of it as that, especially because we were
33:36
working with a product that sort of processified the outbound
33:39
process. It was, you know, it was almost conducive to having a
33:45
mechanized or a process driven methodology of, if I just put
33:49
more inputs in, I'll get more outputs. But that that gets you
33:53
a baseline, the extra bits of becoming a top performing
33:56
seller. You need a bit of creativity. You need a big extra
33:59
ways of doing things. You need consistent, continuous
34:01
improvement. That's, that's the difference that it makes between
34:06
someone who becomes a middle of the road performer and someone
34:10
who, who, I guess, yeah, gets bored too quickly to stay, to
34:16
stay a middle of the road performer. It
34:18
Mark Ackers: feels like it sounds loft is where you really
34:20
flourished and developed as a sales professional. Talk about
34:24
the manager that you had there and the impact they had on your
34:27
development. So I had three
34:29
Unknown: managers in sales left.
34:31
I had one as an SDR, and then I had two as an account manager.
34:35
What was really consistent was their care and attention for me
34:39
and my personal growth and my personal professional
34:42
development that was above and beyond anything I'd ever seen.
34:46
They really taught me the difference between a manager and
34:49
a leader. Managers focus on numbers, leaders focus on
34:52
trajectory
34:55
and just growth in general.
34:58
And I. What I really learned was that a great leader can manage a
35:05
team quite well, but a great manager isn't a good leader, and
35:08
we can spend a long time chatting about the differences
35:10
between the two, but what they did quite differently was find
35:14
opportunities for me proactively, or point out things
35:18
I didn't know, be able to tell me exactly what other reps were
35:24
doing that was and wasn't working, and proactively provide
35:26
that information to me so I could add it into my mix and
35:31
force me to take breaks. That was key for every single one of
35:35
my managers forced me to take breaks I didn't take a proper
35:39
break in sales loft for 10 months. A reason being was
35:44
because for my first five, six months, I was on the Enterprise
35:48
team, and then I was like, Yeah, I'll take an I'll take a new
35:52
I'll take a break when the new year begins. And then all of a
35:55
sudden, I was kicked to a new team, and I went, Well, I can't
35:58
change now. So spent a couple months almost completely burned
36:01
myself out, went on holidays for two weeks, came back, hit my
36:04
target in about a week and a half, and they're proactively
36:09
making sure that it doesn't matter what Brian thinks. If
36:14
Brian thinks what he's doing is okay, I'm gonna push him to look
36:18
after himself. That was key for me, a guest
36:20
Mark Ackers: I recently had on the on the podcast, spoke about
36:24
that. Spoke about managers identifying burnout, encouraging
36:28
people to use their holidays and actually not just have, like one
36:31
day off. It's like, take a break, take a week off, take two
36:34
weeks off, and you speak about experiencing burnout. What are
36:38
the early signs to look for in someone burning out.
36:43
Unknown: You're on autopilot.
36:45
You're working on autopilot. You're going to work because
36:49
work is the next best thing to do. You your calendar is
36:52
dictating everything in your life, and you're just following
36:55
that. You're up. You're living life on autopilot. As a lot of
36:57
people will feel that they live in life on autopilot, and that's
36:59
fine. You might not necessarily be burned out, but in the sales
37:03
role, if there is no creativity, if there is no new way of doing
37:08
things, if there are no choices in your day, if it's okay, I'm
37:12
gonna get in. I'm gonna answer my emails. I'm gonna answer my
37:16
slacks. I'm gonna do these meetings, and then I'm gonna do
37:18
x, y, z, and then I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna do this
37:20
thing. I might go to the gym. You might go to the gym. You
37:22
might be doing all the right things, but if you're not
37:25
actually making any choices, including in your day, that I
37:27
think is a first step medically, you lose touch with your
37:30
emotions. You start to dissociate. I'm a well
37:33
therapized individual now at this point, after having burnt
37:36
out twice, so I have now able to spot it way quicker with my
37:41
connection to emotions. But for anyone who isn't, if you find
37:43
that you're on autopilot and haven't taken a break in a long
37:46
time, check just see at that point. Oh, and if the thought of
37:50
taking a break scares you, they're probably burned out. If
37:54
the idea of, oh, wow, I can't take a week off, not because of,
37:59
you know, extranuting circumstances, because I but
38:02
because I don't know what that's like, then you've been living in
38:06
the matrix too long.
38:07
Mark Ackers: So as a coach, how do you spot burnout in an
38:11
individual before they spot it themselves? You you speak about
38:14
being proactive. As a great leader, how do you proactively
38:18
spot burnout in someone else?
38:20
Unknown: They have absolutely no emotions when they're speaking
38:23
about the problem that they're coming to you with. Nobody goes
38:27
to a coach without having some kind of problem in their head,
38:29
or at least our jobs as coaches is to pull problems out of
38:32
people. So even if they come in and go, I'm fine, my job is to
38:35
help find areas of improvement. And if I can't attach that to
38:38
any kind of emotion whatsoever, that's a red flag for me. If
38:43
someone is telling me, you know, I'm not hitting my target, and I
38:46
go, how does that make you feel? And they go, Well, I'm not
38:49
hitting my target. Like, hang on, how does that make you feel?
38:54
And if they can't verbalize any kind of emotion whatsoever, I'm
38:59
I'm red flags are going off in my head. And I'm going all
39:01
right, where am I finding you? What's going on here? There's
39:03
additional things, and I'm starting to talk about life and
39:06
family and situations and things like that, which can make some
39:09
people relatively uncomfortable, because, you know, you come to
39:12
me for cold calling, email writing, just getting better as
39:14
a seller, and all of a sudden I'm talking about your dad. It's
39:17
not even that. It's all linked. It's all imperative to each
39:20
other. Do you know the worst sales days I've had have been
39:23
after fights at my girlfriend, but not realizing that I was
39:27
walking into work with that energy. No wonder they weren't
39:30
enjoying my cold calls. I was still angry about the
39:33
conversation I had with my girlfriend. I was angry on the
39:36
phone. Um, so that is how I spotted as a coach, I try and
39:40
attach it to some kind of emotion. And most people are
39:43
able to verbalize an emotion, even if they're not, you know,
39:46
Zen and monk like you're able to verbalize some kind of emotion.
39:49
That's what's key to me.
39:51
Mark Ackers: And let's talk about now the people that you've
39:54
had that you would speak to, right? So your boss is at
39:57
Google, at sounds loft, and you spoke really high. In particular
40:00
about sales loft hiring the best sales leaders and sales talent.
40:04
No doubt they didn't suffer any falls at Google as well from a
40:08
leadership point of view. Indeed, let's imagine you were
40:11
tasked with creating the perfect sales leader. What habits and
40:17
traits do they have? What do they care about where do they
40:21
spend their time?
40:22
Unknown: A manager is someone
40:26
who internally cares deeply about the data, and externally,
40:32
could not care less. It's such a strange sentence, but what I
40:37
mean by that is they themselves need to be on top of the machine
40:43
that they're running, every element of it, know, every cog,
40:47
every spoke, every single element of that. And then when
40:53
it comes to working with their reps, they shouldn't even talk
40:57
about numbers. They should go way deeper into the person who
41:01
they are, what they're getting on with, what they do and don't
41:05
even like finding, creating in their environment that works
41:09
best for them. Metea shaper, who now runs her own business and
41:14
was an incredible SDR for sales out on the doc market, didn't
41:19
call call because she booked all of her meetings through
41:22
LinkedIn. And then there were some people who just co called
41:26
in sales lot and booked all the meetings through that and did
41:28
never, never did a single thing on LinkedIn and being able to
41:34
find the right thing for your reps rather than telling them
41:39
what the right thing is. That's what the manager should be. But
41:42
they themselves should know every single element of the
41:44
data, the KPIs, how it marks, how it moves, everything like
41:47
that. But I, as a rep shouldn't know that you care about your
41:51
numbers at all, because when you are only numbers focused, I'm
41:54
only numbers focused, and that's going to lead to bad behaviors.
41:57
Mark Ackers: And how does your answer change? And if I said
41:59
sales leader, leaders
42:01
Unknown: are all about empowerment. So with them, it's
42:05
almost like a folly. Sharp is one of the best people in this
42:10
space where what he does is he goes, All right, is the entire
42:13
sales org happy? If it is, I know that if the targets are
42:18
realistic, they're gonna hit it. Now, obviously he's way more
42:21
detailed than that, but a leadership in a role is very
42:26
much about empowerment rather than enablement. Managers job
42:29
should be to take all the obstacles out of the way and
42:31
just let you run. A leader's job should be to point you in the
42:35
right direction and make fill you up with energy juice. If I
42:37
were to create a leader, what they do all day, every day, is
42:42
speak to reps, customers, things like that, and focus deeply on
42:48
the human element and the human level. And then they should be
42:52
solving problems on, how do I make the humans happier and
42:57
better? Not the machine, but everybody in that machine that I
43:02
think is the difference between a leader, some
43:04
Mark Ackers: great answers there. I've really enjoyed
43:07
listening to you there, Brian explain what a great manager
43:10
comprises of and a great leader, and the analogies and stories as
43:14
well. Let's come with some closing questions to bring us
43:19
towards the end of the podcast. I'm keen, as a sales coach that
43:23
you are to get your take on this. How often should a sales
43:28
rep receive one to one coaching from their manager?
43:31
Unknown: My standard is once a week, right? And it's dedicated
43:34
coaching time, not manager time. It's dedicated upskilling things
43:38
like that, right? That's that's a standard answer. Some managers
43:41
shouldn't coach and some reps should not be coached by their
43:44
managers. Reps will need continuous development and
43:47
someone they can speak with about the coaching element. But
43:50
the whole point of a coach is to ask questions and guide people
43:54
to answering their own questions. A manager's job, in
43:58
some cases, is to give answers, and a coach's job is not to give
44:01
answers. So how often it should be happening? Happening is, you
44:05
know, as often as needed, at the very beginning of a career,
44:08
perhaps mainly coaching, every 123, days. Whereas, you know, if
44:11
you've had 30 years in sales, you're actually going to
44:13
probably shy away from a coach because you might not even want
44:16
to
44:16
Mark Ackers: be called out. Talk to me more about that. What?
44:18
What is your experience of the average manager and their
44:22
coaching ability.
44:23
Unknown: This comes from not my experience as a coach E but my
44:28
experience of selling to sales managers and sales leaders.
44:33
Typically the route is, you were a wonderful rep, so let's put
44:38
you in charge of a bunch of other reps, and then you can
44:40
just, you know, create a bunch more use right? That's the
44:43
standard track for for managers. And someone goes, Wait, I can
44:47
make money off somebody else's deals and earn a commission on
44:49
their percentage as well as my own. Yeah, sure, I'll do that.
44:52
I'll just tell them what I did, and then they get numbers
44:56
focused, and the skills that helped them really excel as a
44:58
rep are the exact. Opposite skills that help them as a
45:01
manager. Harvard Business Review did deals on did did work on
45:06
this. Years ago, I studied, I learned about this in college.
45:09
Number one skill of a of a sales manager is listening. That is
45:15
not necessarily, although it should be, but that is not
45:18
necessarily the number one skill of a top performing sales rep.
45:20
The idea is that most managers are results focused and results
45:27
oriented. From a numbers perspective, coaches are growth
45:30
focused and progression focused. So they're not necessarily
45:36
always focused on numbers. They're they're focused on, I
45:40
guess expanding the human being that's in front of them. And
45:43
those are not always the same, and they should they shouldn't
45:46
have to be. You know, sometimes, if you need a hardcore numbers
45:49
driven manager that can instill fear in a bunch of junior reps,
45:52
and that's what your business is built on,
45:56
they're not going to be a good coach, and that's on purpose. I
45:59
Mark Ackers: couldn't agree more. But therein lies the
46:01
challenge, because we spoke about this earlier on, you feed
46:03
up as a manager, and therefore you have your own goals, your
46:06
own objectives. You've got your own reports to put together, and
46:11
it's almost an impossible task to be a manager and a coach,
46:16
because you have your own agenda. You have things that you
46:19
need that team to do, and that might not align to their growth
46:23
needs, and therein lies, lies the challenge. And that's why we
46:27
have people like you and my sales coach to be that external
46:30
person that isn't connected to the goals, isn't connected to
46:33
the to the company, number and visiting and you can spend your
46:36
time what you're very good at not being connected to the
46:39
outcome. This is about being connected to the individual and
46:43
their needs. What's the one thing that you do consistently
46:48
as a coach to really help reps level up?
46:53
Unknown: Every rep has a stupid idea in their head that I need
46:56
to squash. And it's not the same one, but it is every rep has
47:02
this limiting belief, or a limiting belief, or just
47:05
something in their head that they believe about themselves
47:08
that is not reality. If you say I'm bad at cold calling, or I'm
47:15
not a good salesperson, or even something as innocuous as I
47:21
shouldn't be here, or I'm the worst person on this team.
47:23
There's a lot of limiting beliefs the reps don't know they
47:26
have. And they will come to a coaching session with someone
47:28
like myself, and they'll say it out loud, and I'll go, Hang on.
47:32
What? Where did that come from? What are we talking about here?
47:35
And my job is to pull them back into reality and go, hang on.
47:39
You're telling me that because you missed target last month,
47:42
and you're working really hard, but you're selling to the French
47:46
market, and they're all gone in August, that you're a bad rep.
47:51
And they're like, Huh? I'm like, Yeah, that's what you're telling
47:54
me that is sort of key for me as a coach, is pulling these
47:58
limiting beliefs and just pulling these these things that
48:00
people just take for granted about themselves, all day, every
48:03
day, and then all of a sudden they speak in front of someone
48:05
like me, and I go, what? And I get to break those beliefs.
48:09
That's that's a big part of my job.
48:12
Mark Ackers: I see that all the time. One of the things that we
48:15
do at my sales coach is we provide assessments that assess
48:18
individuals and actually compares them to 2.4 million
48:23
other sales professionals. And one of the competencies it looks
48:26
at is self, self limiting beliefs, but actually supportive
48:30
beliefs. And one of the things that we see is in low to mid
48:35
performers is their supportive belief is low. And what that
48:38
means is they let what they think be true, become true,
48:42
right? So they think I'm a bad cold caller. They take that into
48:46
their work, and they don't do it. They shy away from it. And I
48:49
think this all ties back to that self limiting belief, that
48:52
imposter syndrome, that anxiety that turns into reluctance, that
48:57
turns into what is a real killer in sales or procrastination, not
49:00
doing anything, focusing on other tasks.
49:03
Unknown: Oh, man, I remember being busy for two hours a day
49:05
filling info at the CRM
49:07
Mark Ackers: exactly that. I'm going to end it with one final
49:11
question, cool. What's the best piece of advice a sales leader
49:15
has ever given you?
49:16
Unknown: It's not about you,
49:19
simple as that. It's not about me, but that works across every
49:22
other area of sales. Do what I mean, had a good day. Great, not
49:26
about you. Had a bad day. Great not about you. Someone hangs up
49:30
on you, and you know, I've been told some awful things. I'm
49:33
calling cold calls that have nothing to do with me. I was
49:36
just the wrong play, wrong place, the right time. My
49:38
messaging. Soon as I'm talking about me and what I do and how I
49:41
work, I'm in the wrong place, because it's not about me, it's
49:44
about them and their pains. When bad things have happened in
49:49
sales, it's not been about me when great things have happened
49:51
in sales, it's not been about me. This idea of it's not about
49:56
you, really puts things into perspective. You're still in
49:59
control. No, you're still in charge, still your
50:02
responsibility. But when you realize that the world of sales,
50:08
it's not about you, it's about everything and everybody else,
50:13
you start focusing on everything and everybody else, instead of
50:16
focusing on yourself.
50:17
Mark Ackers: It's a great answer. The only thing I'd add
50:18
to that, as you said, it's across sounds. I think that's
50:21
across life. I think if you can put it's not about you at the
50:26
front of your mind, and engage other people like the
50:29
conversations you have, what you learn like just be interesting
50:33
other people to be interesting. It's one of the worst habits you
50:37
can see in someone is when you start talking and they try,
50:40
they're trying to connect with you, but they make it about
50:43
them, right? It's like, oh, yeah, that's happened to me. And
50:45
all of a sudden you're hearing their story. And it comes back
50:48
down to what we said early on, those insecurities that need to
50:51
be like that, that little professor, where you want to
50:54
connect with that person, and the only way, you know, do that
50:56
is to talk about the same thing, but make it about you, because
51:00
that's where you're comfortable. I think that is one of the
51:02
things that you have to break in sales, and you do that by
51:05
learning it. So I think whoever gave you that advice really knew
51:09
what they're doing, and I'm sure stood up with shed. Think
51:12
whoever gave you that advice really knew what they're doing,
51:15
and I'm sure stood up with shed. Can I
51:17
Unknown: give you a second free one? Please? Second free one.
51:20
And this was given, I can't remember the exact context, but
51:24
it switched my brain when it came to sort of like internal
51:27
promotions and things like that, or just how I worked. Everyone
51:30
will tell you, it's not about what you know. It's about who
51:32
you know. That's incorrect. It's about who knows you. It's very
51:37
different. It's not about who you know in your sort of
51:39
corporate ladder or internal stuff. It's about who knows you,
51:42
so making sure that you're in front of the right person with
51:45
the right message at the right time, and that the internal
51:47
conversations are being had about you, that's key. So don't,
51:50
don't think about it as you know. It's not about what I
51:54
know. It's about who I know. Doesn't matter who you know.
51:56
It's about who knows you and Associates you with that
51:59
specific thing that's going to be key for quote, brand
52:02
building. But internal brand is what got me my my promotions in
52:05
sales left and in Google, and what got me from Google to sales
52:08
loft, and then what got me from sales left to going out on my
52:11
own. So make sure that when you're focusing all this stuff,
52:15
it's about who knows you as well, really,
52:17
Mark Ackers: please. You added that Brian, that was, that was
52:19
really, really interesting. Um, that does bring us to the end of
52:22
the podcast. Even what you just said there, I can ask so many
52:25
questions about that, but mindful of time, where can
52:30
listeners find more about you and connect with you, what tell
52:33
us more about what you're
52:35
Unknown: doing today? So you're gonna look you're gonna find me
52:37
on LinkedIn. That's the number one place to find me. I'm gonna
52:39
ask you a request of you, though, when you find me on
52:44
LinkedIn, if you've come for me from this podcast, or if we're
52:46
already connected, just drop me a message on LinkedIn that says,
52:49
you know, hey, saw you on that podcast. Loved it, hated it.
52:52
Hated your accent, hated your background, whatever. Why are
52:54
your face covered in spots? Those kinds of things, right?
52:56
And the reason that I say that is not for my benefit, it's,
53:00
it's for yours. What I say this on every webinar I do, if, let's
53:04
say, in a year's time, you reach out to me needing help with
53:06
something, and I scroll up and I see that we've already spoken
53:10
briefly about the podcast that I did, and I've got really
53:12
positive associations with this podcast, then I'll go, oh yeah,
53:15
cool. I'll help that person, rather than the dozens of people
53:18
who will reach out and go, Hey, Brian, can I have 10 minutes of
53:20
your time to pick your brain about X problem? And about X
53:23
problem? I will be more likely to help. And I would recommend
53:26
you do this with every single person that you listen to on a
53:29
podcast or or a webinar or a live event or anything like
53:32
that. Just send them a quick message when you're connecting,
53:34
saying, I saw I found you on X thing because it will benefit
53:37
you and it benefits us as well, because people we love to know
53:39
where, where and how people come from, come to us. You.