Two gives for every ask

Yeah. So I'm, you know, CEO founder now about, you know, 3 months in, took the dive into my own company. Prior to that, I've helped scale and develop sales development teams, was a VP of sales, sales development leader. Been about 15 years, 16 years in the game. Uh, so it's been quite some time, right?

Uh, love cold calling. That's my number one thing. But, you know, jumping into SD Lab about 3 months ago, uh, as a founder now and really just helping founders and other orgs deploy their motion, their outbound motion in a way that's successful, scalable with the right tech, the empowerment to their people and the right processes, right?

Too many people don't know what they're doing. They're good at what they do.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and what their solution might be or their product. But they don't understand how to go to market. So that's where I come in to assist and help them get, you know, out there to the market much faster and more scalable for them in revenue.

Awesome. And that kind of brings us quite nicely onto our topic today, which is all about outbound. So Tom, where do you wanna, where do we start? Maybe, you know, how do you think about outbound? Like, how do you think about the things that, let's maybe start at a high level, like what does an organization need to do When they're thinking about building a high-performing outbound function?

The thing is, is the messaging, what you're going to market with and the intention, right? There's different stages of your business. Sometimes you have to look at brand awareness, just getting the market warmed up to you. You might be brand new. They don't even know who you are. And so your messaging might be way different than somebody who's 2 years in the game creating their motion.

Right? So you have to really focus on your messaging. You have to understand who your actual ideal customer is, right? I think it's all about the foundation. There is a science to outbound and then there's an art to it, but you can't unlock the art until you get those bearings down, right? And that's your ideal customer profile, understanding your market, making sure you have product market fit, right?

There's a difference between product market interest, which is what some folks are saying nowadays, right? Versus product market fit. And so those are the things you wanna look at, right? Is how are you going to market to solve problems? How are you positioning that? You know, days of just asking for a meeting in every email or every call are gone right now.

People don't need that. So you gotta determine what stage you are in your go-to-market. What's the end goal? What are you trying to drive? Um, and then focus on who you're actually gonna reach out because the number one thing is that I'm watching happen is founders are bringing in that first hire with no process, no tech, no nothing.

Um, and they're expecting them to solve all those problems for them, right? And build everything out. And it's like, hey, you've been doing this for, you know, the last 6 months to a year. You should know these workings and have this stuff established. So when that person comes in, They can hit the ground running.

Otherwise, you're not gonna get a real successful outbound engine up for 6 months to a year because you have to do so much stuff. Um, where, that's where I come in, right? That's where companies need to focus on tightening down their processes. Are they, are they legit? Are they less friction? Um, and then what's the messaging?

What do you want to go out with and, uh, help your first hire, whether it's a player or coach, you know, understand that? What are they actually going to market for? So you could develop that demand, right? There's always that debate on marketing and sales. You know, marketing is your demand gen. Marketing is to just get the demand up there, get people wanting to know about your company, familiarize with you.

And then your lead gen is your outbound motion that's actually transferring that, you know, transferring that brand awareness into actual leads and business and pipeline on that backend, right? So you gotta make sure those 2 funnels are working. Before you even bring that person in or at least have some structure to them to get that ROI.

So outbound's changed a lot, man. It's way different than what it used to be.

So that's a great start and there's a lot to unpack there. I think I'm gonna start kind of where you finished actually, which is expecting a sales rep to build your process for you. It's unrealistic, right? And I'm so glad you called that out because we see that a lot is you know, founders hiring a, you know, often quite a junior sales resource or a couple of junior sales resources and saying, all right, figure it out.

And, you know, if you as the founder can't figure it out for yourself and build that roadmap for someone to follow, then you're setting them up for success. I'm really glad you called that out.

Yeah.

And then you talked a little bit about messaging there and you know, figuring out firstly identifying who your customer is and then figuring out how do you speak to them in the right way. So I'd like to unpack the messaging a little bit more. Let's assume that someone's figured out their ICP and that they have product market fit.

Talk to me around messaging. How are people doing it wrong? Like how are people talking about their solution in the wrong way?

The common stuff, right? They feature benefit dump. They're most of the time it's a technical founder, right? That really knows their product, knows it very well and gets caught in the weeds and in the passion of it talking to another prospect, right? And they get way in these weeds or talking about their pride and joy of what they developed, all the little nitty gritty when that's not what anybody cares about, right?

It's a vehicle, but it's not, you know, the be-all. What we wanna understand. And so get back into your question is, you know, you see a lot of people feature benefiting dumping, making it all about them going out to market to talk about me, me, me, what my product can do. And they're just missing a big chunk of, of messaging, which is storytelling, sharing exactly how you're helping folks in your industry, maybe sharing your story of why you even created the tool in the first place, right?

Like, what was it that inspired you? Talk about that. Talk about the journey there. And how you got to product market fit and why the tool is, you know, what it's doing as an impact versus, hey, here's some features, benefits, this is what we do because nobody cares. Nobody cares. But when you could sell off a story or the way you helped a client, right?

Like, and what they got out of it, that resonates and that gets people to take action. So it's a big break. It's a big disconnect in the way people are messaging. Every email is a call to action. Every email, every call has some type of endgame, which is get a meeting, right? Or close a deal.

And people are not nurturing and building relationships in a sales process. They are scheming and ploying and acting and driving all these ROI kind of driven factors because this is where leadership is and companies are. And they don't enable people to be relationship builders. And that's what you need to be doing in your messaging, whether it's cold call script or it's in your email.

Show them how to be the hero in their story. Reach out to them with a genuine relevancy with your research. You know, hey Alex, I've seen you post about your outbound motion recently and you're really having a hard time getting those connects on the phone. What is it about the call that's causing the hiccup for the team?

And dive into that, right? And then bring in how you're helping somebody else overcome that. Well, Alex, let me talk about John. John came to me with the same thing last week, and when we actually got in the lab and looked at it, It wasn't the closing of the call. It was actually the opener.

When they got somebody on a call, it was going really well, but the opener wasn't working. They were not getting enough convos. Would you be interested to learn how to, you know, fix that? Right. And understand how to do that? Yeah, I would love that. And now you're, you know, you're going and you're being real.

So it, it's just a lot in the messaging game where people are all about them, the hard goals. They, they're asking for a call to action in every single email. Hey, what are your thoughts on this? Hey, you know, do you wanna take a meeting? Do you have 15 minutes to chat on this?

Don't do all of that. Send some gifts, send some things that just build a relationship. Hey Alex, I saw this, another founder showed me this, um, and I thought it was really relevant to what you and I discussed on the phone last week. Check it out. Talk to you soon.

Wow.

Super easy, right? Um, and build that story about your product and the problem and the goals of where they want to go. And honestly, the cost of inaction. The big thing right now to get yourself recession-proof is switch the mindset from a need or from a nice to have to a need. Too many people are neat, you know, nice to haves.

How do you convey that urgency and that need that, Alex, the cost of you not doing something outweighs you telling me you don't want, you know, that you would like to go, like, make it to where them not taking action is super silly, right? Like, all right, Alex, like, if you don't wanna make the move, like, I'm, I'm telling you how we can get you a million in revenue within the next 12 weeks, right?

Like, what would a million do for you? Hmm.

Okay.

Well, in your current situation, you said your cold calls or your connect rates are really low. What happens in 6 months if those numbers stay the same? Well, I have to lay off at least 3 people. Okay. And what did we discuss would be the ROI if you did move forward in this?

Well, you told me you'd bring me about $1 million in revenue, right? And what would that million do for the business? Keep 2 people on and probably bring in another, right? Why don't we get a call on the books for next Thursday and I'll show you exactly how to do that, right? And they're like, oh yeah, no brainer.

Interesting. I want to pick up on something else you said there as you talked about don't finish every message, every email, every touchpoint with a call to action. Give as well. Can you expand on that? I get, because I think, you know, when I'm coaching reps, I talk about this too, is like give first.

But I think sometimes people struggle and don't understand what giving value actually looks like in an email format, for example, you know, that they struggle to conceptualize it. So can you give some examples of like what giving value actually looks like in, in the outbound, in an outbound or email context?

Yeah. So it's a couple different ways. It's the traditional ways of using like, you know, a PDF that might be of a resource for them. You know, you look at inviting them to a webinar. It's things that move them along further than when they last talked to you, right? So A give to me or something of value is something that's not gonna break my bank, but is easy for me to give back to my community of ICP.

So I work with founders and early stage leaders. So all of my gives are something that can be a resource to them that like builds trust and credibility with them. So, hey Alex, you know, I just wanted to reach out and drop this, you know, uh, ebook that I found that helps you improve your cold calls.

You know, uh, in a way that they're being opened, the way your reps are opening the, uh, script. Hope you like it. A few other founders have said it's been super beneficial. I would recommend checking out page 2. There's a section based on our last conversation that I think would be super relevant.

Talk to you soon.

Right.

That's it. That's my give. The next time I follow up, they, if I connect with them, might be like, d*mn, Tom, you know that guide you sent me? Um, I tried 2 of those things with my reps and you were absolutely right. It changed the game for us. It was a real increase in, in their connect rates.

Thanks for that. Hey, no problem. You know, there's a lot of different ways we could pull these levers. That's why I've been reaching out is I wanted to see if we could, you know, talk a little bit further on, you know, making this a scalable thing and help you. And now there's trust in there, right?

To where now they're super, super more willing. So what I'll do is, you know, another one I do is like casual reading for your downtime. So I'll meet with customers and say, you know, hey Alex, checking in on both, you know, customers and the community this week to offer any way that we normally can help.

I was just talking with John, um, and what some resources they were really digging into right now. Here's what they recommended. Book 1, you know, article 2, you know, this or that. If you're like the rest of us and are looking for a bit, bit of more direction right now, you know, hopefully this is of help.

Yeah.

And it's just resources, right? Or I recently spoke with a new customer, you know, Alex over at so-and-so about what they've been reading lately. They said they've been a lot of emphasis on professional development and some materials to get her more familiar with, you know, XYZ value prop, right? I'd ask if she'd share her list.

Here are suggestions for FIRE. She's in a similar position to you. Here's what she thought would be a great benefit. And I hyperlink like a general thought leadership article, a company blog, a podcast, maybe a fun article. And then I end with, you know, what are you reading right now? I'd love to chat and pick up something new.

So it's just building a foundation with them and being of value to where It's not always about you. It's not always to take from people. Everybody is taking from everybody and assuming everybody owes somebody something, and that's how their messaging and their outreach is coming. No, nobody owes you crap, right? You are disruption.

You are coming out of nowhere. And so you have to build trust and credibility. And so I do about 2 gives for every ask, right? I'm dropping 2 things. I try to, you know, I tell people and like, if you're promoting a webinar or you want somebody to see a PDF, Don't just push it to them, maybe ask.

So what I do is, hey Alex, I got a webinar coming up this Thursday for founders just like you. Uh, you know, ideally I think it would be a great value to you because we're gonna be talking specifically about the cold call struggle. I thought that would be right up your alley. Do you mind if I send you that reg link?

And that's my email versus, hey everybody, we're having a webinar. Let me throw that out to 500 people and hope y'all register. Right? And now you're getting spam, you're delivering high hyperlinks, all this stuff. Break it into 2 pieces. May I send that to you, Alex? Ask for permission. Alex, you mind if I send over that link to you?

You're gonna come back and be like, I would really enjoy that, Tom. Thanks for asking. Send you the link, you register. I come back in a couple days. Alex, what'd you think about that webinar? What really stuck out to you? I really enjoyed, you know, that cold calling section. Hope you saw what I was hoping you to see, which is XYZ.

What were your thoughts?

Yeah. Yeah.

And now we're conversating, right? Versus let me send out 100 emails to invite everybody to my event and just drop that link and hope that I pick up a few people. But instead, be specific on why you're reaching out with that webinar invite, why it might be up the alley of that person.

That's where buyer persona comes in, right? Because then you can, hey, other founders like you, Alex, are really digging this web series we're doing specifically XYZ this. May I send that over to you?

Mm-hmm.

You're gonna like that. It's not, you know, spammy. It's nice. You ask permission. Um, and then you're like, yeah, sure. Now you've got 5 replies that say yes and you've got a good conversation going. So, you know, that's, that's where gives come in. That's where value comes in. And if you can pick up what I was saying in all of that is it's all based on prior conversations.

It's all bringing value in the eye of the beholder. Alex's value, right? Alex's value right now is she's struggling with opening a cold call. So I'm bringing everything that might resonate with that to continue to drive that point home, or maybe something that would become a bigger problem once we were to solve their opening their calls, right?

Maybe there's something else that comes from that because what SDRs don't realize and people in the trenches is you are very fortunate. Your whole job is to talk to your ICP on a daily basis. You know their world better than most of them know their world, right?

Yeah.

I'm talking to 34, I'm talking to 10, 15 founders a week when they're not talking to each other. They're all in their own silos, but I'm getting to talk to all 15. that now I can come to them and be like, hey Alex, I was just talking to Martin and you're not gonna believe what he dropped on me.

He was showing me this cool thing, this tool that I think would be right up your alley and you're probably dealing with the, you know, like the rest of us founders are.

Yeah.

Check it out. That's my email, right? Because we're amped up with all of being in the world of our ICP and our personas that we can be that value for them and it drives those points home that we know is their pain. And that's where that qualifying comes in and that discovery.

Yeah, I think that's a really important realization that not enough SDRs or sales folks in general really appreciate. They speak to so many of this one or maybe a couple of different personas, so they know a lot. And if they're listening, they're actually picking up things from every conversation with potential customers that can then be used in other conversations.

In the future ones.

But, but I don't feel like enough reps actually appreciate that or actively go looking for those little, like, morsels of knowledge that they can then drop and the little stories they can pick up and add to conversations. Like, it's something that, you know, I really started, I guess, training myself to do. It was probably too late in my sales career, really.

I wish I'd done it sooner, but, you know, I started doing it. You know, later on as a rep and it was so powerful. It's just dropping those stories because it's like instant relatability to the person you're speaking to and credibility as well.

So it's real trust, credibility, right? It means that you do, you know your job. You're not just calling a number down a list. You are very intentional. You actually, that's why I tell SDRs and founders and people to build and create And, and prospect for things that you actually enjoy. And what I mean by that is like my whole career, I really love SEO.

I love the internet. I love the backend. I was part of that generation, right? And so anything that does with digital marketing or SEO, I can sell that all day long because I'm in those circles regardless. I'm already in that ICP. I'm already living there. So me going to the go-to-market for somebody in that messaging, I'm in, I'm tapped into the matrix.

Let's do it. Right? Because that's where I love to live. So I always tell SDRs and people, you know, when you're looking for your next home or your next job to, to be out there in the trenches, find the trenches you enjoy to be in because the trenches are hard. So find what actually just natively fires you up.

You know, some of my friends are really into cybersecurity, so I'm trying to find them SDR roles in cybersecurity because regardless, they could talk about that all day long.

Mm-hmm.

Um, versus going and working for like a, a calendar tool, which they don't really find passionate. So they're just gonna struggle, right? SDRs are, that's a skill, but that's not who you are. You should be every day aiming to be your persona, be your ICP, understand it, learn it. Like I said, just conversate on a self, on a cold call.

Maybe it's not gonna land in a meeting, but at least learn something.

Mm-hmm.

Hey, I understand that this isn't a priority right now for you, Alex. You know, just so I can better understand this world because I love it, right? What are you focused on? What is that priority that's really driving home for 2023? Just asking around, you know, so I can get better understanding of, you know, my relevancy here.

Well, Tom, if you ask me, like, I need to work on my website. And who knows, whatever that answer might be, might be something else you offer and it opens up a whole new can and you're like, well, sh*t, Alex, I actually do that too. I didn't know you were looking for that.

So we're a full platform and we do have that. I thought this was priority for you, but we could help you there. I did that with my digital marketing space with my last company I scaled. It would just be asking them what their priorities were. And we did SEO, schema, website building, you know, all of it to where they just tell me something and I'd be like, oh, we do that, you know, and you can make a full platform play.

Yeah.

So it's just knowing their world, bringing in, hey Alex, do you follow John in the, the, you know, the prospecting space? Oh no, I didn't. Oh, you should totally check him out. I love his content. He's always putting out good stuff, you know, give him a follow. Maybe just send that in an email, right?

Or on the cold call. But learn from these folks that you get the privilege to talk to every single day over and over. You're hearing what's not working, what is working, what are their priorities, what are their pains. If you're actually naturally curious and truly invested in these conversations, too many reps are just burning and pulling.

They're just, they're just having calls and ripping through them, just completely a blur. But if you actually slow down and engage with every connect, Because let's be real, a connect in cold calling is very limited. So if you get one, why not use it to your advantage, right? Do something with it. Um, try to get anything from that person, right?

A referral, uh, maybe something that they're challenged with right now. Hey, any good books you're reading? We're moving into 2023. I got a big book goal. Is there a book I should be picking up on, uh, that maybe in the space would really help me get better? Yeah, actually I just picked up blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Okay, great. I'm gonna take note of that. Now that's an email I can write to my other 50 personas, right? And say, hey, have you guys checked out this book? Really just got put on my radar. I think it's a great fit for y'all. Right now you're giving. So, you know, that's, that's where people feel people in outbound right now are just not, they're, they're, they're ripping and turning.

They're too consumed with numbers and they're forgetting that at the end of the day, there's a person on that other line, um, with goals, with an identity. With purpose, um, and just trying to thrive and survive just as much in their job as you are. Um, so how can you be of value outside of like the only value an SDR can bring is booking a meeting for you to talk to somebody else?

Come on.

Yes.

It can't be the only value you can bring is you're trying to get a meeting for somebody else. You're not even getting the meeting for you. You're getting it for like, come on. Like you're on those trenches, help your marketing team. Help your RevOps team, help your engine run smoothly because you are that frontline, right?

Like, and even as a founder, like there's no failing. I'm taking hundreds of calls, demos weekly with everybody. They're not all going great, but I am learning and refining my messaging and my product fit every single pitch, every single call to where I'm this close to like getting it nailed down, right? But that's because I'm not losing, I'm learning.

Um, and I'm finding out what's working. The more reps I can get in, the better I'm gonna understand my market, what they like to hear. What are those wow statements, right? My favorite thing to tell anybody is build like a golden nugget sheet, like a one-pager of all the things that like create that wow moment for your prospects, right?

Like those customer stories, those little nuggets you drop. What are those wow statements that you've seen work? Go talk to your CS team. What really helps? Oh, it's when we tell 'em that we drive, you know, 300x in this part, right? Or, you know, it's because we saved them this amount of time and they were able to do this.

All these little things that way while you're on the call, you have 'em at your disposal, you can just drop 'em, right? And that'll help position that stronger for the prospect to get those click moments.

There's some, I really like how you use the word privilege when you talk about a rep connecting with someone on the phone, like, It is a privilege, but, you know, and I haven't heard someone use that word before, but I really like it. And, you know, the, um, it's, you're absolutely right. It's harder and harder to get connects.

So it should be treated as a privilege and it should not just be a, hey, I'm getting on the phone to talk about the features of my product because that's not good enough.

Um, you waited 2 hours to get that connect and that's what you're gonna do with it?

You know what I mean?

Like, think about it. You took a minute to get to that connect and that's what you're doing with it?

That's right. So, you know, and I think this is sometimes one of the mistakes that, you know, folks in sales, broadly speaking, not just SDRs, but make is that they become product and feature junkies and they spend all their time learning about the product. Yet actually, they'd be better served knowing a little bit about the product and the problems the product solves and actually then just deep diving into their customer's world.

And showing up with a genuine curiosity on every call and every meeting, that'll get them so much further than knowing the ins and outs of the product.

So yeah, I really like that analogy. My favorite analogy that I help SDRs really overcome that paralysis, it's not a perfect analogy. There's some holes to it, but I always explain it as, you know, the SDR Uh, the person calling and prospecting is the nurse or the, the front office desk, right? You go and break your knee, right?

You hurt your knee. You're gonna call the front office of your doctor's office, right? Mm-hmm. You're gonna talk to the office manager or the assistant there before you even get to that doctor, correct? All they focus on is what's your pain, how intensified is it, and then what's our action plan to solve that?

How soon can we get you in? Is, and then what are the action plans?

Mm-hmm.

That's the same thing an SDR needs to be driving home, right? Is discover the problem. How big of a problem is that? And what's the next step to solve that problem? How urgent is it? Hey Alex, it sounds like this isn't really top of priority for you. Maybe we can book this after the new year.

That's okay, right? Maybe sometimes you call your doctor and they're like, hey Alex, you're all right. You don't need to be rushing here tomorrow. But you know, if over the next few weeks you can get in, it would be really great to talk to you because yeah, we need to tackle your knee.

It's, you know, rest it right now. It's, it's gonna be okay for a bit, but I do need to get you in. Awesome. Oh crap, Alex, you need to be in here tomorrow. This is a pretty urgent problem. Like you, yeah, you should come in because XYZ left unhandled is gonna end up with these problems.

Seen it play out more times than not. Come on in, doctor can see you. What's your schedule like? You got tomorrow afternoon? Great. Come in, knee problem, doctor's gonna take care of you. We'll see you at 4 o'clock. That's how the SDR kind of AE relationship works. The way in my mind is an SDR is there to sell the meeting.

Not the products, the features, the, the outcome, like sell the meeting. Why is it important to sit down with you and actually review your product for 30 minutes, right? And find out this problem. Because you're not just gonna go to the doctor on a willy-nilly, right? You're gonna go to the doctor when it's truly a problem and you need to go, right?

So then you allocate that 30 minutes on your schedule to what? Go see the doctor who's now gonna talk to you and be like, Alex, I saw you talk to Jill. She said you had a knee problem. It's pretty swollen. Can I see it? You know, why don't you open it up? Let me see what's going on.

And now that doctor's gonna dive in. What were you doing? What were you doing around the time to make this happen? Right? How long has it been happening? Scale of 1 to 10, what's the pain? Okay, cool. Now here's your action plan. And you're like, sh*t, I can't afford that. Or yes, I can make that move.

Right?

Mm-hmm.

That's the relationship between that SDR, AE. The SDRs don't need to be getting into all those weeds, all that noise. There's a time and place. But the reality is, is discover the pain. How big of a pain is it for this person? And what can we do as far as securing next steps to get them in front of the doctor to diagnose that problem deeper and actually come up with a resolution?

That's the idea.

Yeah.

Right. Where you don't have a nurse going on the phone for an hour with you, giving you any recommend— the nurse won't even give you recommendations. That's your problem more often than not, right? They're like, I can't diagnose that. That's not my job.

Right?

I don't have that part. Uh, but what I can tell you is based on other founders I've talked to, yeah, your knee's a problem. You need to get it fixed. Uh, so that's how I've always coached it to help people get out of those weeds because they feel like they have to answer all these questions and do all this song and dance to get somebody.

Sell why carving 30 minutes even makes sense in the first place. Like, yeah, what's the pain? How important is it? And really what's the pain, the, the inaction of doing so, right? What's, what's that look like? Because right now nobody, like I said, you have to create urgency and be a need to have, not a nice to have.

And way too many reps are positioning themselves as nice to have, right? With their ROI and all these things. I wanna hear the nitty gritty of a company that changed from this tool to this tool. And if they hadn't, it would've cost them $2 million, right?

And hurt them.

Mm-hmm. But because they transitioned, they recovered $2 million and now they scaled 3 more reps. And they're able to offer a personal development budget to their reps now for empowerment and they're killing it. Well, I want that for my org. Let me talk to you, right? I wanna do that. Not, you know, hey, we have this cool feature that lets you, you know, schedule this, you know, or do this.

I don't care. So that, that's, you know, that's my analogy. That's my way to overcome that. And, and, and, you know, in your messaging, just talk about problems, in action in doing so? What's the return? That's why you gotta know your customers, man. Go talk to your CS team, go get in there with them, go learn.

I say this all the time, it's a hot take, but I think customer success reps can outsell, you know, a sales org more often than not because they can actually talk to prospects better than the actual salesperson could more often than not, right? Because they know the world, they can sell and actually tell a story and say, hey, Alex, I understand the hesitation.

I just talked to Michael over here and he had the same concern. Here's how we helped him, right? And here's what the outcome looked like. All I wanna do is help you do the same. Do you have 30 minutes on Tuesday to kind of chat it up? And, you know, it seems like you're right on the same parallel kind of path he was prior to our conversation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll take a look at it. Yeah, let me see that. That sounds really great. I could use that, right?

I like your analogy, Tom. I think it's a good one. I think it's a helpful one for SDRs to kind of understand where they fit in. And I really like a lot of the philosophies and how you think about and how you teach outbound. Last question I wanted to ask you is, and this is one we ask everyone when they come on the show, is knowing everything you know today, Go back to your first ever day, first job in sales, first day in sales.

Like, what's the one thing that you wish you'd known then that would have really moved the needle for you?

That people are people and I could stop acting. I acted a lot when I first got in. I lived a part. I tried to, you know, navigate every conversation, every script. Do it exactly as I was told, right? And, and try to stay in this acting lane of being this professional on the phone that when I finally realized that people are people and to just conversate with folks and, and help them understand, you know, the, what you're trying to help them with, that changed the game for me.

And I wish I could have taken this back 16 years ago and, and, and stopped wasting 4 or 5 years of my life burning and being burnt out and frustrated. When all I had to do was, was have this mindset now. Because if I could go back to some of those jobs, dude, I'd be, uh, I mean, I was good at them, uh, but I would be 20% X, right?

Like I would be killing it, um, if I had this mentality now. Um, because it was hard back then, you know, I had to, you don't know when you first start out in, in SDR.

No.

And, uh, yeah, I, I think just being more authentic, being more real, selling through stories, um, and helping pull on that emotional feel with people. Would've been a game changer for me versus being that feature benefit dumper, that ROI conversationer. Hey, let me help you and all about me, um, and the company where, man, I wish I could just had talked to folks and had that natural curiosity just a little bit deeper.

Um, because now every conversation, all I wanna do is learn.

Mm-hmm.

Help me learn, like teach me, you know, what do you got going on in your world? You know, how can I help? Um, and it's changed the game, right? People want to talk with me.

I think it's a very good, very good lesson for salespeople at all levels of their career really is just appreciating that people are people and start connecting with the human rather than, I think you talked about acting, you know, acting, you know, putting on a front. So I think that's really good advice.

Tom, I've enjoyed this conversation. I really like how you think about sales and, you know, philosophically as well. And I think a lot of what you've talked about today is very, very helpful for folks at all stages of their sales career, actually. Where can people find you if they want to connect with you?

Where's the best place?

LinkedIn by far. I started my journey there 2 years ago. That's where I live and breathe. I'm on the other platforms. I have some folks kind of prospecting me over there. It's kind of fun, but LinkedIn is where you can find me. That's where I'm Creating content daily. I'm dropping tips like this, trying to get people to understand this way and think through this way, because the faster you can get there, the faster you're going to succeed and have a long, healthy, fun career, right?

Where you're enjoying what you're doing versus what most of us are have have went through. So LinkedIn kick me over there. The thesdlab.com is my actual site. So. Feel free to come by there, chat with me there. But yeah, LinkedIn's where you can find me if you have questions, concerns, you want to dive deeper into some of this episode, you know, feel free to reach out to me over there.

Awesome, Tom. Thank you so much and chat with you soon.

Talk to you soon.