Founding AE at 30 Minutes To President’s Club, Alex Murphy

Speaker A: You know, authenticity is a crazy thing in sales. And one thing that we observe, and I have done this myself, when we're teaching cold calling, one of the things that we talk about is tonality and how not to sound like a salesperson. And the funny part is that, you know, a lot of us in a corporate environment, we start to adopt this different voice and tonality, and we do things and say things in a way that we would just never do with people in our everyday personal life. That if our families or moms and dad or children saw and heard some of these things, they'd be like, who is that person? We just transform into a different human being. And the reason I bring this up is the guest today, Alex Murphy. He's the founding account executive at 30 minutes to President's Club. What I really admire about Alex is that he does the exact opposite. In fact, it's literally one of his core values as a human is being his full, authentic self. And it's something he's very intentional about, which. Which I love. Um, before we get into this, my name is Jason. I'm CEO at Outbound Squad. You're listening to the Outbound Squad podcast. We're all about helping you turn complete strangers into paying customers. So outbound pipeline generation is the thing that we focus on. And if you have a team of account executives, let's say, and you're trying to move up market, be more outbound, rely less on inbound, maybe reduce reliance on SDRs, BDRs, that sort of stuff, you're definitely in the right place. And if you're running a BDR SDR team, you're definitely in the right place as well. So I got a chance to meet up with Alex in person. This is for the second time. I actually meet him at Dreamforce, uh, last year. And, uh, he's much taller than I thought he would be. And he's very funny. Like, he's one of the most hilarious people I've ever met. And we got a chance to meet up in Austin a few weeks ago when I was there meeting, uh, with clients, doing podcast interviews. So I had him in studio. So definitely, if you, uh, subscribe to us on YouTube, go check it out. Outbound Squad. Alex Murphy should get you there. But, um, it's a great interview. We talked about how to show up authentically. Um, he used to work in the White House, so he actually had an experience meeting Obama, which was really cool. Um, he became a teacher. You know, he got into sales in a very unorthodox, very uncommon way. Um, we talked about personal brand and how he does that. We ran through his entire Cold call approach and process and it's just really, really great. We talked about other pipe gem plays that they do at 30 minutes to President's Club. There's just a bunch of really awesome stuff there. So you're really going to enjoy this one. Before we get to it, I got two things for you. One of them is free. We have an Outbound masterclass. I went in studio, spent around six hours recording it. It's our very best stuff. So if you like our LinkedIn content, you like this podcast, the course is packaged up really nicely to help you with really tactical ways to build pipeline through your outbound. It's cold calling, cold email targeting, LinkedIn, all of that kind of good stuff. It's free at outbound squad.com masterclass so outbound squad.com masterclass the other thing, if you're listening to this episode and you're like, hey, you know, I would love the folks at Outbound Squad to help us implement some of these things. We've worked with some great brands like Shopify, Zoom, Rippling Gong, iHeartMedia and startups, you know, building out their first SDR teams and everywhere in between. And our promise is that we'll help you increase qualified pipeline by 20% or more within 90 days. We build playbooks, we train you, we coach the managers so that you know how to reinforce it and you walk away with an outbound methodology and common language you can use across the entire org that consistently generates pipelines. So if that's something that's interesting to you, just shoot me an email directly. Jasonutboundsquad.com Would be happy to chat with you, Jason. Outboundsquad.com all right, let's get to the interview. It's good to jam with you, man. Um, I think that, like, one of the things that really, um, stands out to me about you is besides, I get so annoyed when you post on LinkedIn because I'm like, give me some of the engagement love on my posts.

Speaker B: You know, I like, am I not engaging with your stuff enough?

Speaker A: No, not you. I'm like, this guy. Like, your content's great, man. Um, like the, the thing that you and the, and why I think you fit in so well with the 30 NPC gang is it's not just like, here is the tactic and like the dry step by step process on how to open a call or make a cold call or send a cold email or whatever, it's Scott like, it's got personality. And like in. In the AI world, they call it taste.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Like, you have a lot of nuanced takes around stuff and, like, a lot of really good taste in, like, how you package the thing and talk about it and how you share the stories. Like, your personality really comes out through your content.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I haven't seen you run a sales call. I would imagine the experiences is the same where. How can I inject as much of myself into this as possible so that we're having fun or whatever. But where does that. Where does that come from for you? And was that natural in sales for you to just bring your authentic self into it? Is that something you've had to learn? Like, where does that come from for you?

Speaker B: First of all, thank you.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Incredibly kind. Game recognized game because I feel similarly about you. And I do think it's why, like, the first time I Met Nick Sigelski, 30 minutes of President's Club, immediate chemistry. I was interviewing for like a fractional BDR job because I was doing a. I was doing like a high volume bdr. And then I got promoted to ae, but, like, really, like, filling my own pipe, whatever. And within two minutes of getting on a call with him, it was like, oh, yeah, okay.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Right on. And we're both from, like, we're like almost exactly the same age. I'm from Binghamton, New York. He's from Rochester, New York.

Speaker A: Oh, yes. You guys are both from New York City, New York.

Speaker B: But, like, it's like, it's like western New York. It might as well be Michigan, honestly, like, the way it feels out there, you know, Like, I grew up in a town of 2500 people.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, wow.

Speaker B: Moved to Austin when I was 17.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And have been here in Texas ever since. The town, like, the high school that I started at, that just my senior year of high school when we moved, had a thousand more students at it than the town that I grew up in. Of entire population of the town. And so it was just like, like, oh, my crazy culture shock. But there's like, Ben, I feel like I've lived a hundred lives. I feel like I have just. There's something about the adventure of the new thing that. Yeah, it. It's, um. I'm. It's a roundabout way of answering your question, but I feel like the authenticity, it's a value that I intentionally strive for. And also something that I feel like my experiences have. Have created. And so, like, I have. So it's chicken and egg. I don't really know, but like, there's, there's this. I really need to look this up because I quote it all the time and I may be just fabricating it entirely. I don't think I am. But if, if somebody, if one of the, the Outbound squad heroes out there could let us know. Is this real? Um, but I heard this account of this end of life care nurse. So her whole gig for her whole career was like being with people right at the end of their lives. And she heard a lot of people processing, you know, their like reflections on that. And there's a common thought that like, the big regret people have is I worked too much and I didn't like, spend enough time with my family.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And she did hear that. But her number one regret was not that. It was people saying, like, I just did not live my authentic life. I didn't do the stuff that I knew was right for me. For whatever reason. Expectations from other people or society or a limiting belief or a fault, fear of being myself. And people get to the end of their life and they're like, that's. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what happens after we die. There's some good guesses floating around. This might be, this might be it, brother. And like, uh, oh my God, I, I spent it doing something that wasn't authentic to me. And so, uh, you know, I've like been in a rock band, I've worked at the White House in the Obama, um, administration. I've been a public school teacher, I have been on a reality TV show. I have worked in a bunch of tech jobs. I've been fired, I've been put on a pip. I've been promoted. I've done the LinkedIn content creator thing. Like, yeah, that a post go viral. I've like had all these different experiences and it's also a lot of work. And we were talking about this a minute ago, but like, I've invested a lot in like therapy and my own like, work of, of being. My getting sober, you know, was a big part of my journey of just like, okay, this like takes work. There's some intentionality behind it, but it's like my number one value. When I, when I'm thinking of meditating in the morning, whatever, it's like I am, um, living as m best as I possibly can. My authentic truth.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And that comes out. So like, that's like the big, big, big picture. But it trickles into my day to day work as well. Like it trickles into my sales calls. It trickles into my outbound when I'm making a cold call. Like, yeah, I'm putting a lot of energy into making sure, as best as I can that like, I'm the same Alex in this conversation as I am at work, as I am in a customer call, as I am at the grocery store, as I am when I'm with my daughter. Like, I'm trying to be the same guy in all those situations as a personal value. But I do think that that has like, allowed me to be a successful seller as well, because people, uh, pick up on that, like, totally. We, we as a species have like these really finely tuned BS detectors because, you know, if you go back to like pre modern era, like, to survive, we had to work as a group. So the most valuable skill you can possibly have is understanding is this person good for my group or not? Like, do I trust them? Are they going to be a producer? Are they lying to me? Are they a spy? Like, what's, what' with this? And like, that's like really, really hardwired stuff. Deep.

Speaker A: Totally.

Speaker B: People know it and they know it from like the second they pick up a cold call. So like my even my cold call opener is informed by this. So it gets, gets to that like really nitty gritty, which I know, you know, your audience probably didn't tune in to hear me talk about my philosophy, uh, of life and death, but like, it does like show up in the actual sales work too. So that's about a nine minute answer to your very direct question.

Speaker A: This is why we edit and do all of that kind of stuff. So we'll probably cut that down to about 15 seconds. Uh, so there's so much to unpack there because, you know, like in therapy, one thing that I've been working on more prominently this year is I really started looking at like, one thing I've really struggled with is making guy friends in person. I have a lot of friends, especially that I've met through the industry, like, um, Armand, Nick. I'm good friends with those guys. Jeff Bajor, There's a bunch of guys in the industry. None of them live near where I live. I don't get to hang out with them on a regular basis. And what I unpacked with my therapist, really at the, at the root of that was me not feeling like I can contribute value to someone as just a friend. Um, that there has to be some other thing that I bring to the equation professionally, bro, where I've basically put most of my self esteem in my life into My accomplishments in being a top performer, being a business owner, being someone who makes good money, um, being recognized at Outbound Squad for whatever. So that's been really hard. Um, and the reason I think this is really relevant to sales is that you mentioned cold calling. One of the first things that we talk about with tonality is this idea of corporate speak and customer service voice. And it's. The question I ask is, does anyone here feel like sometimes you turn into a different human being when you're on the phone or on a sales call and everyone raises their hand and it's the hey, Alex, you're talking like you. That's not you.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And I think there's a lot of risk and probably mostly perceived risk in showing up as yourself. And it's fucking hard enough to do in your personal life, let alone when money is on the line and like your reputation at a company, et cetera. What are your thoughts on like that kind of piece on. And what has your journey been? And being more comfortable, like having that level of vulnerability in like just being yourself and being okay with that and not taking it. And maybe you do take it personally sometimes when things don't go well because it's. The other aspect of it is like if I get rejected, does that mean there's something wrong with me?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Even. Yeah. What are your, what are your thoughts on that?

Speaker B: I'm um, meeting with my therapist to discuss this very topic in about two hours. So we're on the same.

Speaker A: Did you do the mid. The midday therapy sessions?

Speaker B: Oh yeah. And let me tell you what, that's on my calendar. Everybody at work knows when I'm meeting with my therapist and I know when they're meeting with all their therapists. So if you're not working in an environment like that, get out. Go find a better spot. Man. We, we. This is a real shit, okay? Because in sales, like, it's exactly right. All that deep stuff like maybe, uh, every job is hard until, you know, it looks easy until you have to go do it. So like, I don't want to treat us as like we're special or different or something. For me, at least in sales it's like.

Speaker A: Yeah, you are different though.

Speaker B: Well, I mean, again, you know, meet with the therapist and about, you know, what's that hour 59 now to talk about that exact thing. Uh, but like, couple thoughts. First of all, being your authentic self in the sales contact, you're not going to get worse on the phone by just being yourself. You're not going to get Worse. Like so that's, that's one thing. Like it's not, uh, whatever I'm performance I'm at if there's a fear that like if I just show up as Alex, the same guy that I'm with my buddies playing Baldur's Gate online because they all live in different places too. Right. Like, can that guy show up at 6am and be with his daughter? Same guy. And then at 10am start ripping some cold calls and be the same guy?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And like that's not, that has not natural for me at all. Like I'm with you 100%. Like I deeply attach value to contribution and that shows up at work. Of course.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Sales is tricky because you got to like a literal leaderboard, like you can literally quantify how good of a job you're doing. Y. Which is tough. Um, and also, you know, approval junkies, like I won't speak for you. I'll label myself that way though. Like that also is appealing in sales because it's like, oh, I can get approval based on my performance. So it's, it's like a double edged sword. But like the work that I have done on the internal stuff is that exact thing of like, I don't need to contribute to be. My presence is valuable.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I am, I am a unique. Like I am a set of clothing that the universe put on itself for a brief period of time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: That's valuable. Yeah. Regardless of what I produce. And like uh, we're, we're going to dinner later with a group of people.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: That is maybe the most. An unstructured social gathering with people I don't know super well is maybe the most anxiety inducing thing that I can experience in my life. Really? Yes, yes. You really, you really put me through my paces. But I'm going to show up because it's work. Like yeah. Uh, again, therapist and I'll be discussing in about hour 57 now. But like we're going to like it is real because there's no um, there's no structure. There's no like, hey, here's my, like, here's my artifact that I'm putting out and like I can kind of hide behind this. So even with friends, like I oftentimes I'm most comfortable if we're playing a game. Like I, I'm a dungeon master for Dungeons and Dragons. That's really nice because we're bonding, we're hanging out. But there's like a thing that I have uh, created and provided in this space.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I've I've contributed something to this gathering.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So I'm good. Okay. All right. I contributed something. Like, so that's the, that's the person. I mean, that shows up in sales constantly.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But dude goes to the other big mindset thing for me, especially with Outbound. But the whole sales cycle is like the concept of an offering, which has been very, very helpful because like the first time I missed quota, it's my first AE gig. I was like devastated. I was, uh, uh, it was my first month off ramp. I had this one big deal that I had self sourced. I, I kid you not. I stayed on a zoom call with this woman for three hours while she tried to chase down the various decision makers to get a signature that day. Because it was end of the month. Whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And like, I'll never do that again, first of all, because that was like putting way too much emotional weight into that deal. And when it didn't work, which like, of course, of course it didn't work. If I'm doing that, something else is broken. Um, devastating. And the shift that I've had to have is like, I am just here to offer something that is helpful to some people. This is what it is. Um, um, I, I, I, I'm happy to give you a perspective on why I think it might be good for you. Take it or don't.

Speaker A: Like, yeah.

Speaker B: And, and literally not with anger. Take it or don't screw you. Like literally. Take it or don't.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I'm going to keep holding this offering out to people and like some of them will, will take me up on it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And you know, that's easier said than done because my income rides on it. Like the bills ride on it. Like, so there's like a lot riding on it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But that's why it helps to like zoom out to be like, hold on. Authentic Alex. Same everywhere. If this crashes and burns tomorrow, I'll be okay. Like, I'll find a way to be okay.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because I'm me and I'll figure that out. So like, let me just put that over here and like put it in a box. My wife's a therapist, so she's constantly talking about just like, uh, can you just like take that and like imagine

Speaker A: is this you're meeting with in an

Speaker B: hour and 50 minutes. Yeah. Super healthy. She's also my therapist. She has me on a really strict regimen of like pills and supplements actually right now. So like my hair is falling out and stuff, but not super healthy and good. But she talks all the time, by the way, ultimate life hack. Marry a marriage therapist. Uh, because all day long she's in rooms with couples where the guy is an asshole. Yeah. And then she comes home to me and I'm, I'm all right, I look great by comparison. Her marriage usually looks great by comparison. But like, she talks about, put it away. Like, take that thing, whatever that nagging thing is. Can you just put it away? So it's a little mental exercise I do before I get on the phones, especially because that's where like shows up. It's like, all right, that part of myself, that voice that's like, you gotta get the meeting, you have to book the meeting. Your, Your income relies on that. Can I just like, like physically put that in my backpack for the, for this dial session? And just here's my offering. Take, uh, it or don't.

Speaker A: Yeah. So are you familiar with the CBT triangle? The cognitive behavioral therapy triangle?

Speaker B: Vaguely. So I feel like, I'm sure I've seen it, but no talk.

Speaker A: So basically it's a triangle where there's a relationship between your thoughts and your feelings. Or, sorry, your thoughts, your emotions and your feelings and then your behavior.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And what the triangle is supposed to show is that, um, our feelings and emotions can influence our behavior and vice versa.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Right. So if we feel anxiety, they. That can make us, you know, start to do stuff like this and like, twitch and like do all that other kind of stuff. Um, if we go do something that is stressful on us, that could make us feel anxiety and then there's like our thoughts and the internal narrative and the dialogue and all of that kind of stuff. I've always really thought about a lot of this stuff. When I was taught that through that triangle where the part that you have the least control over is your feelings and emotions and like being able to like really accept that. And then it sounds like for you what you found effective is like the thoughts, the narrative piece of the triangle, like how you talk through or validate or whatever it is that you're doing there is really helpful.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, so let's talk about. I think of the word confidence. When you're sharing your stuff, there's like this confidence. And I think you actually were talking about swagger in a LinkedIn post too, which. I love that word. Um, one of the things that's been really big for me in my career, I was just at a dinner yesterday, one of the guys that was there, John Jensen, jj, What's up, man? He was the strat, an Enterprise. BDR leader at gong. So GONG was like, the first client that I closed that I was really nervous to do the delivery on.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: Because it's gong.

Speaker B: Don't screw it up.

Speaker A: Yeah, don't screw it up. It's a great logo. Um, he had been following our content for a long time, so there was some pressure there. And it's Gong. Like, if there's any sales team that's gonna do things at a really high level, it's gonna be them. Right. So I had all of this internal thing going on. Right.

Speaker B: Damn. Yeah. Um. It's a gauntlet. Yes.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a gaunlet.

Speaker B: Put that in the sizzle reel, folks. That's earmarked, that one. All right. Editing team. Yeah. Very good.

Speaker A: So one of the things that I was experiencing at that time was this, like, this confidence piece where I was like, I was not fully confident that, like, I knew I could, was gonna do a good job, but I wasn't like, fully confident in my ability to do that. And one of the things that really helped me at that time, for whatever reason, Anthony Ian Areno, who's been like a mentor of mine over the years, uh, written four, five, six sales books by this time. I got to know him through an intro, and he was just like, dude, I really like your content. Like, you have a lot of great things to say. And like, I just, dude, keep up the good work. And for whatever reason you talked about validation, for whatever reason, that really clicked with me because I really respect his work and stuff professionally. And that was like, when I think of confidence and like that bucket and how do I become more confident? To me, that's one of the things is I think it's. And I think it's okay. I've come to the grips with it. I think it's okay to have external validation be one of those pillars. I don't think you should over index in it, but external validation from people that you really care about, whose opinions that you value. That was really big for me. Um, experience and like, doing the thing and proving it to yourself, that's a really big, you know, confidence thing. Right. Um, the internal dialogue and how you talk about it, that's a really big confidence thing. Your preparation, there's all of these things that go into confidence and how you show up. And if I was to add one more, like, really tactical thing, a big thing for me too, has been just financially. I don't worry when we. We try to keep a 12 month cash Runway on top of any of our Retirement investments of just, like, that's just there in the business. It's six months of cash. So there's never, like, we can have a bad quarter or two. And I'm not really freaking out.

Speaker B: Huge, man.

Speaker A: And I think the confidence thing, uh, to just kind of bring that full circle is like, when you have that and when you're able to show up and not really need anything from that person and the interaction and you're okay with them saying no m or being a jerk to you, or saying that they don't want your service or that they don't really see the value in it. Not being phased by that is. It's an easy thing for us to talk to, uh, talk about, but it's. It's not an easy place to get to, I don't think. You know what I mean?

Speaker B: The concept and the execution are like different animals.

Speaker A: And for me, still, it goes like this, you know? Um, yeah. So I just wanted your kind of commentary on. And maybe confidence is not the word to use. Whatever word you use for that. How do you think about. And I love the backpack thing. Like, take this out. Like, how do you show up? Because we're going to talk about cold calling and pipe gen, and we're going to talk about some of the sales call stuff. Like, how do you do that? You got a cold call block coming up in five minutes. Like, how do you mentally prep and get yourself in that mindset where you can just show up and be yourself, you know?

Speaker B: Yeah. It varies day by day. Honestly, like, it doesn't look the same every day from anytime I've tried to get into, like, a meditation practice or whatever, it has to look different because if it's one set thing every day, I just get. I get bored. So it looks different every day.

Speaker A: Do you mind me asking, do you have adhd?

Speaker B: This has been the. This has been the question of the last 12 months for me. I do not have an ADHD diagnosis, which some might say is an oversight. So probably, uh, probably, you know, but we move.

Speaker A: Someone in my family is dealing with this and going through it, and I ask because of the. Needing a lot of stimulation and new things.

Speaker B: Uh-huh.

Speaker A: This is, like, for someone that I'm learning with adhd, because this is. Someone in my family is like, that's an excruciating experience for someone to have to do a routine thing that is kind of boring and mundane.

Speaker B: Yeah. And then I decided to do a job where I have to cold call every day. Yeah. So, yeah, man. Like. Like, literally yeah, like, it is. It is. Um, there's a couple of things that I have learned that help with executing that where it's not just the concept. Because the concept is anybody can listen to this right now and go, like, yeah, that's right. It's different from, like, in an hour. Am I still operating on that or has it, uh, gone away? That's two. Two totally different things. So one of it is it takes. Took. Has taken a long time. Like, it's been years and years and years of working through this stuff with professionals to get it and with family and trusted people. But there's a couple, like, things that click for me. When you were talking about the triangle, one of my. My tools is when I want to. Something. I crossed my fingers. So I got four things that I wanted to remember, and I just attached the little. So I'm gonna unpack these right quick.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Again, I don't have an ADHD diagnosis, but, uh, this is something. When I've got a lot going on up here, it helps me to keep it all in place. So one of the tools on that cognitive behavioral triangle is move a muscle. Change of thought.

Speaker A: Uh, okay.

Speaker B: So helpful if I'm stuck in a. Especially when someone's a jerk to me because, like, that's still bother. It still elevates.

Speaker A: It doesn't feel good.

Speaker B: I mean, yeah, I can say all day long, I'm, uh, part of the job. Let it roll off your back, which is true. But, like, it bothers me. Like, someone has been aggressively rude to me. You know, I'm gonna feel it. And so move a muscle. Change of thought has been so helpful. Like, literally move any muscle. Walk outside, change environment. Move, like, do up. Do, like, 1. Push up anything to just. Yeah, change it up. Um, that's been really helpful. And the other thing has been, like, feelings are just information. They're not instructions. I can feel something. It is not an instruction to go act on that right now. And so in sales, it's an emotional roller coaster. It's a lot like you've. You've basically signed up. I have signed up to have people's assessment of my value proposition determine the money I make. Yeah, that's intense. And so, like, there's going to be, you know, I mean, you know, it's like, when it hits, it's like, wow. Like that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You booked that meeting. I mean, I've booked, I don't know, a thousand outbound meetings a month. Who knows what the number is still? Oh, my God, I get so fired up when someone's like, I'll talk to you still, like, it just feels good.

Speaker A: Feels great.

Speaker B: And when that contract comes through, I mean, that's even. That's even better. It's like, oh, my God. Like, I'm, um. Actually, I think the booking, the meeting still gets me more excited, interestingly enough.

Speaker A: It's so much harder.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You think about the success rate on a cold call, if you're really good, it's like 15%.

Speaker B: Good point. Yeah, it's a good point.

Speaker A: The win rate.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, you want to be 20, 25, 30%. So it's the. And the failure feels so much more intense on a cold call. That's it for me, I think, at least. Yeah.

Speaker B: Accurate. Well, um, thank you for. There you go. I now understand why that feels better. Because it is harder. It takes longer. Yeah. Um, the other thing that was on my mind is like, your question around, like, confidence. There's a difference, I think, between confidence and delusion. We're in, you know, we sell, but we're also in this, like, LinkedIn creator sort of space.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And there's a lot of just like, delusional, like, stuff that people say where it's like, you. You really do think you're God's gift to the world.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: At least from where I'm sitting, that's what it feels like when I'm reading somebody's content. Not you, but this, whoever it is. Like, wow, you. You really do believe that you are the best that ever to ever do it. And I just have gotten kicked in the mouth enough times to know that that's not true for me.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I just know it well.

Speaker A: And also you start to pick up on things where it's like, okay, there's a certain Persona that people put on.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: You've gotten to experience this at 30 minutes of President's Club because you guys have, you know, the biggest sales podcast out there. So you're interviewing all of these people and you get to interact with them outside of these settings. And some of it is just, hey, this is what it takes to get the. Or here's what they've determined at least that it takes to get the engagement that they want.

Speaker B: Yeah. And this is something I learned directly from Nick and Armand, which is there is a huge. And this, by the way, if, even if, you know, a seller is not doing any kind of content creation, but they're just selling, it's true there too. There is a huge difference between attention and reputation.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Wildly different things. There's a Huge difference between like brand your personal brand at work or in the public space or whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And like people just look at me, look at me. If I wanted to go get people looking at me tomorrow, I would start, I would, I would post. Um, I've never met a.

Speaker A: Don't people kind of gasp when they see you in public though?

Speaker B: Anyways, I mean, I mean I am just wildly famous, so that's why I assume, you know. Yeah, no, it's weird because it feels like I am known in the tiniest niche on planet Earth. Really easy for something to go to your head to be like. Because yes, we are statistically, objectively the Most listened to B2B sales podcast in the world. Yeah, great. I go to parties and people are like, so what do you do? I'm like, oh, I work for a, uh, biggest B2B sales podcast in the world. And they're like, oh, what is it? Maybe I've heard of it. I'm like 30 minutes to President's club. They're like, nope, I don't know what that is. Is it, is it like, uh, is it like good hang with Amy Poehler? Is it like that? I'm like kinda minus about, I don't know, a million listens an episode. But yeah, it's, it's, it's like, you know, so like that to me is silly. I think people put that on. It's an old Mr. Rogers quote. He was talking to a kid and this kid had a big sword, you know, like three or four year old kid. And he just like leaned over to him and he was just like, hey, you know, you're strong on the inside too. And the interviewer, uh, that was hanging with him that day was like, why did you say that to him? And he's like, well, when someone walks around with that big sword, like it means they usually, it means they don't feel like they're strong on the inside, so they got to project that on the outside. And so at my best, this is not a hundred percent of the time, but at my best, when I see somebody like that or somebody is rude to me in the sales process or whatever, if I can like approach that with a little compassion and just go like, uh, that's what that person believes they need to do externally to solve whatever's going on in here.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I've been there and it's a nightmare. So I like legitimately, I, I feel for them. And, and that's not 100 of the time. Like half the time I'm like, you know this guy. Yeah. Literally, like, what an ass. You know, but like, and, and also, like, I'll oftentimes have both thoughts. That's my knee jerk. And then it's like, all right, hold on. Yeah, I've trained for this. What's. What's in his cup? That when it got bumped and it spilled out, it was like, nasty smelling.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Whatever that thing is, you know, like it's this thing of like, you know, someone bumps into you and you spill your coffee. You didn't spill your coffee because they bumped into you. You spilled coffee because coffee is what was in your cup.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And like, so whatever's in my cup when I'm not in this setting and I'm not in a sales cycle, that's what's going to come out when life bumps me. Because it will.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And so it's worth it to just fill that with the good stuff as much as possible. What I read, what I take in. I'm not on Instagram or TikTok because it just was feeding me and, um, nastiness constantly. And so it's like, I, I don't want that anymore. Like, I want to read the best books in the world. Like, I want to read, like, I want to commune with somebody who took the time and then the care to like, take what was going on up here and in here and put it on paper. Yeah. I want to like have a conversation with that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And. And with people. Like, I want to meet and be with people where it's like we're, we're giving good stuff to each other so that my cup is full of good stuff. Because when life smacks me, that's gonna spill out. And so for the spilling stuff that's really unpleasant, like, that's what's in their cup. That sucks for them, dude.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What must the inside. I get emotional talking about what must the inside of your mind be. Like on a day to day basis, if a call from a stranger is going to make you cuss me out, what must the inside of your brain. I am sorry that that's what you're living with. Yeah. And like, that helps. And then they're rude to me and I feel mad and I move a muscle and I change a thought and I try to get back into that thought pattern and I try to get back into like, uh, okay, so the, the warm up for a cold call block or for a sales call. Uh, the warm up for my day or I was doing it in the car outside is like, I have a Particular song that I like that I listen to for me.

Speaker A: What's the song?

Speaker B: It's called Marigold by Pine Grove. It's. They have an album called Marigold. It's the last song. It's instrumental. It is, you know, on my, uh, Spotify wrapped. It's like, like blows out all the other songs. It's like, why you really, you are, you are the top listener of this song. Because I just put it on. It's about six minutes, so I'll do two. Usually for me, chakra meditation is really helpful.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But it, whatever, like, again, it needs to look different. But it's like I just kind of breathe and feel my body and just like focus on like, all right, what are my intentions? I start up here with my crown chakra. Like, okay, what's my intention? I try to breathe into that part of me. My intentions are three things. And it's not like, work specific that, uh, every day. My intentions are I am deeply bonded with my family and my community.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I am living my authenticity truth.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I am leaving this place better than I found it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Those are the three things I'm thinking. And so that's like the habit building. Weight, uh, training. I'm in the gym, I'm filling my cup with the good stuff. That's, uh, that then we get in the sales process and that's what's going to come out. I don't have to spend too much energy before a call block being like, all right, here's what's going on. I'm making an offering because I'm doing that work outside of the, the routine of the day to day. Because again, I have potentially a diagnosis that could be beneficial to me that, like, makes it tricky to stop between tasks and take a nice ordered structure to my. I'm like, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Which, like, if I can stop fighting that and just like ride that stallion, then that's great. I can go really far. Um, and so, like, I gotta, like, for me, it's important to do a lot of this internal stuff outside and then process it with, with my therapist and process it with people that I trust and love who are wiser than me. Mentorship is so important.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, yeah, man. And then, and then when someone picks up the phone, the first word out of my mouth usually. I mean, what I have been told is like, my tonality is like my sales superpower, especially with outbound. And it's true in emails too. In my written communication, apparently it's showing up on LinkedIn which is very cool.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, it's like, hello. Hey, Jason, how's your afternoon going? How you doing? How you doing today? Like, I'm genuinely like, Jason picked up the phone. Uh, how you doing, partner? And like, there are. My own team has, like, a slightly different approach that they advocate where you come straight in with a context so that they know what you're calling about. For me, what feels authentic is like, Jason, how you doing this afternoon? Yeah. And I smile while I say it. Sometimes I have to do the work to like, put that on and choose it because not every day is a great day, you know, but like, it's easier to do when I've been doing the prep work in the background. And then you say, what? Yeah, hi, who is this? This is alex from, uh, 30 minutes to President's Club. Listen, it's. It is 100 a cold call, I promise. I'm calling you specifically because some folks on your team are following our stuff. But I don't like, it is a cold call. So if you want to hang up, I totally get it. Do you have 30 seconds? Yeah, that's. That is how I would say literally. Does it pass the mom test?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: If I said it to my mom, and this is my favorite outbound test for a bunch of reasons. If I said it to my mom, would she be like, sound weird right now? Yeah.

Speaker A: Who is that person?

Speaker B: What is this thing like? Or would she be like, I don't know the words that you're saying to my mom? My mother's a very smart woman. A published author. Like, she. She's a published author and didn't go to college because she had kids young. She's a badass, by the way. That's a separate topic. She's great, but like, she doesn't know B2B Sass. She doesn't know tax. She doesn't know the training space. So am I using words that would be like, I don't know what you're saying. If I am, I need to change my pitch because, like, uh, it's gonna wash over people's brains and stuff. So, like, this stuff, um, it matters for. It matters so much more for the stuff, like, outside of my day to day job. But it matters in there too. Because if I'm trying to be an authentic person through and through, then I gotta do it all the way every. Every place I operate or as best I can. I mean, tonight I'm gonna be a nervous wreck. So, you know, you can give me a hug. Have I brought something of Value to these people. Do I have my cards in order? Do they like me?

Speaker A: So let's. First off, I love the cup analogy.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, the.

Speaker B: It's not mine. Yeah, game changer. For me.

Speaker A: The Buddhist thing that I've really latched, uh, onto is just like me. When I see something happen or I experience something, it's like, oh, just like me. Alex is, you know, he can have a bad day and take it out on other people sometimes. You know, I love that.

Speaker B: Beautiful.

Speaker A: So we got to talk about cold calling though, because people are probably like, dude, give me some fucking tactics that I can use.

Speaker B: Tactics is like, get your shit together, right? Yeah. Get your life together. Just like me, bro. Get your shit together. Okay. And then you worry about your cold email. AI, uh, whatever. Like let's get. Get yourself right first.

Speaker A: So your opener. I love data, but the way that we extract these really large data sets, it's not like a human is listening to the nuance in each of these conversations. It's not the same nuance that you would get from, let's say, our purview where we're working with a client. We listen to a lot of recordings and the best cold caller I've ever worked with, Lindsay, she doesn't live in Austin, she lives in Texas somewhere. But she's like, you're telling me not to ask how their day is going and that feels rude to me.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: That doesn't feel like, like me. And every single call it was, hey, Alex, it's Lindsay. How's your day gone, dude? And what you shared was something similar to that. But I, I want to dissect your opener a bit. Not to be like, hey, everyone listening to this, go use that. I want to just talk about like why you use that for you and why it works for you. And there are some things I think that we can extract around. Hey, does this feel authentic to me? There are certain elements in there of uh. Like I may. I have m. Some sort of acknowledgment around the fact that I am calling you out of the blue or randomly or that it's a cold call. There is a permission based ask in there. There are certain core fundamentals at play. But yes, let's dissect that opener and then how you cold call because this is, this is one of your superpowers, man.

Speaker B: Dude. So yes, I think there's like levels, there's scaffolding to how we learn this stuff. It is totally appropriate, I think in my experience, to start with just repeating a script that Somebody else wrote. Yeah, that's a great place to start. It's better than just marbles in your mouth. You know, you're not. No one's, no one's having a good conversation if you can't even get your words straight. So totally fine to start with that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then, and then to your point, understand why, what's the actual thing we're trying to accomplish here? And then you can start to do like, Alex's version of that. And then you can fine tune that. And as you do Alex's version, you'll start to get away from some of that, like, data backed best practice. And then you get back to it and you. Yeah, you know, it's, it's a cycle. And so, yeah, the. For me, if I'm going to do 200 dials a week, which I'm a full cycle AE, I still sell. I still am trying to do 200 hours a week. I miss it most weeks. But it's a good goal to, to aim for.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, I gotta pick something that I can say 200 times a week and not sound like somebody different. Because again, in that first 10 seconds or whatever, the thing that I have to overcome and Nick and Armand are exactly right about this and they write about it in their book, is the telemarketer stigma.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I have got to overcome. This is another telemarketer. Why did I pick this up? I thought it was my doctor. I gotta get over that. For me, the best way to get over that is stalk like me, not a telemarketer. And like, so that's, that's the very open, hey, Jason, how you doing this afternoon? Like, and it's nice because I don't have to, like, get in my head about, all right, what's the perfect thing? I say, okay, great, like, I can just get into it. Then inevitably they. I, I never get hung up on when I. I never get hung up on. I get hung up on all the time. If I start with like, hey, I noticed that, uh, Ashley and Jameson on your team have downloaded our cold calling guide. This is Alex from 30 minutes to President's Club. Do you have a second for me to tell you why I'm. I'm hung up on before I even get through that, because I sound like a telemarketer, that was me trying to apply somebody else's script in a way that wasn't quite right for me. So what I do now is I open with this because it feels right. I've met really badass cold callers who, like, just as people super direct and do not mind just putting it on you.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So they open the call very differently. Yeah, I had, uh, a guy come on the show, Kate Hinkle, you know, great young seller, and he was like, yeah, my opener is, um, hey, Jason, I'm trying to book a meeting with you. Works great for him. It works great for him because it's a pattern interrupt. People go, you know, so, yeah, that's the first thing they always respond with. Yeah, I'm doing okay. Who's calling? Some version of that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then I tell them, yeah, hey, listen, this is Alex. You caught me. It's a cold call. Okay. Uh, and by the way, this is not an exact script because it sounds different every time, but I know the beats. I got to hit, like, this is totally a cold call. I am calling you specifically because you got some mention the signal for us, it's usually like, you've got some people on your team that are downloading our content. Um, so I wanted to chat with you about that for a second, but I know I'm calling you out of the blue. Do you have a second, or would you like to hang up the phone? Normally, the response to that is either super busy right now. Sorry, I can't, or, okay, go ahead.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Neither of those, by the way, is the end of the call. So there's a way to do both. Um, and we've cold called together before, by the way, so I learned some of this from you. Who knows where it all came from? But, um, you know, if they say, yeah, what? Sure, hit me, then I'm going in with like, all right, cool. Well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna pitch the problem and then ask you for another round of permission. Okay. And so it's. Yeah, so listen, Jason, um, and Nick on your team both downloaded our negotiation masterclass. Uh, and so normally when I see that, it's like the team is looking for some, like, tactical guidance on that. We have an enablement training program that I thought might be of interest because it. It's like 30 NPC free stuff, but it's way more structured and deep, and we help you build playbooks that are for you that you just keep forever. So I was going to tell you about that, but, like, before, I just keep going. I don't even know. Is that even on your radar at all? Yeah, and I'm, like, validating. Is this even a conversation you want now? You know what it is. So you know, I'm a person, not a telemarketer. Great. Check one. Clear. You know I'm calling you because of something specific to your business.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: All right. I know you, Sam McKenna. Show me you know me. Yeah, Classic. Great. Think about it all the time. I've cleared that gate. I know something about this person's business. Here's the problem I think you might be having, which is, uh, that I'm insinuating a little bit like you may be. Have. There's maybe a gap in your training right now because your reps are coming to download stuff from us. Okay. Then if you say yeah. Oh, usually at that point now I'm going to get some info back. It's going to be like, uh, it's going to be like a. Oh yeah, you know what, we actually are like long time winning by design customers. And like we've been with them for five years. I don't think we're going to change. At which point, like now I have some pretty good information and I can handle that. Um, but usually that's where I'm starting to get info. And like we've, we've now started a conversation and I book meetings 0% of the time when we haven't started a conversation first. Yeah. 100% of the meetings I've ever booked in my entire life on the phone started with a conversation. So I have to earn that before I can like start pitching my thing. Um, so that's the mindset shift. How that actually sounds for me is what I just said. But it sounds different for each person.

Speaker A: Yeah. So one of the things that I want to point out that's super, super important, there is like everything about this approach and we teach something very similar, is you're meeting them in their world.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: It's like if this is the buyer's world and this is our world and what we're selling, we're saying, hey, you know what? We're not going to try to say, hey, look at us, like we're really cool. Come over here and check out our thing. It's like, let's go meet them first in their world. And all of the context is added to the conversation through the language in which they talk about their problem. So that's the whole idea behind the problem proposition, which I love. Um, the other idea around starting a conversation, I always thought of it like a treadmill, where at the gym there's these rows of treadmills and your buyer's running on the treadmill and you don't want to just be standing there talking to them. You want to Hop on the treadmill next to them and like get up to their speed. Right. And just. And you have some back and forth, you know, dialogue.

Speaker B: Love that.

Speaker A: So how do you think about handling the objection? So when someone says gives you some sort of objection at the very top.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: After you're open or that's, you know, I'm busy, I'm heading into a meeting or whatever. How do you, how do you like to handle that one?

Speaker B: Two kinds of objections, huh? There's the brush off, I don't want to talk to you right now, objection. And then there's the I know why you're calling and who you are, and I'm. I don't think it makes sense for me to, to take a meeting with you. So the two different kind of objections. Yeah, the brush off, which would be like, I'm super busy right now. Now I am still gonna try to clear the next gate of like, I know something about your business and like, here's why I'm calling you.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Because I think there's a decent chance that then we may actually have a conversation. Because sometimes the brush off is like, legitimately, I cannot speak to you right now.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I am late to do something very important or whatever.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Most of the time it's like, I'm in the middle of something, man.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You know, so my answer to that is like, dude, totally get it. I, uh, I. And then I'll just slip in my thing real quick. Totally get it. Yet some people downloading our content on your team. So I thought our enablement thing might be right for you. I can call you back or I can like leave you alone forever. Your call.

Speaker A: And then what do they say?

Speaker B: That is when it starts to get fun. Because now we're dancing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, oftentimes it's like, oh yeah, man. Okay. And like, I don't know, like, I don't know. I don't haven't looked at my data recently. But like, sometimes we will start a legit conversation right there because I've overcome without being a jerk, I've. I have said totally fine, I can leave. Sometimes they're like, yeah, thanks, you know, great. Okay, cool. That sucks. That feels bad. Like this person rejected me. I usually go move a muscle. Change of thought at that point. But like sometimes that happens. But sometimes it's like, oh yeah, man. Um, yeah, maybe we can talk about it later or like send me an email. And then like, I'm basically just gonna keep trying to have a conversation with you until you explicitly tell me to go away. Um, and there's a way to do that without being a jerk or being aggressive or abrasive.

Speaker A: And there's like, if you. There are certain data points that are super compelling in this, and it's less about the specific verbiage and it's more about, hey, statistically, the longer the call lasts, the more likely they are to book a meeting and to show up to that meeting. Right. Um, I think the psychology also behind the brush off, we call it an instinctive objection.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Which is really borrowed from Daniel Kahneman's thinking fast and slow. I don't know if you've read that or not familiar with it.

Speaker B: Keep referring it to me. I got to read it.

Speaker A: I'll be honest, I haven't read it, but I'm very familiar with.

Speaker B: There are books like that legit, where it's like, I don't really need to read.

Speaker A: It's like the key idea that I don't need to spend because I'm a slow reader. 4 hours, 5 hours, 12 hours. However long it takes to read a book is system one and system two thinking. Yeah, system one, the instinctive. That's, um, I'm driving and I'm commuting into work and to the office in the morning. And I didn't. I don't remember a single thing about the commute. I just was in autopilot. That is the mode that people are typically in when they answer the phone from an unknown number. System two is this calculated thinking. It's. I saw a car swerve in front of me. Now I'm like, engaged. I am thinking, right. And that's the mode that we want to get the prospect into. And that shallow objection or that instinctive objection by handling it the way you do there is like, you're really getting them to be like, hey, they probably didn't really hear what you said. You said it. And like they, they, uh, heard it, I guess, but they were not listening. Yeah, maybe

Speaker B: like, I want to get

Speaker A: that you're jogging the memory again. Okay, Exactly. Um, okay, so let's say that you, uh, problem proposition, you talk about, and some of it relates. What's. What's your goal there in the middle of the call? Are you trying to have a little bit more of like, light discovery around that, or are you just like immediately going to ask for the meeting? Like, what, what does the rest of the call typically look like for you?

Speaker B: This has changed. Once I became an AE and started taking my own meetings when I was a bdr, we didn't have to work the deal. Oh, yeah, dude, can you show up? Because I got comped. Not on stage two. Qualified pipeline. I got comped on. Did they show up at all? So I'm literally just trying to get. This is the glory days for BDRs, dude. Well, before I got there, it was literally, if you got a meeting on the calendar, you got paid, which is nuts. Like, that is. That is if you're. If you're getting comped that way as a bdr, eat it up. That is beautiful. Because it's a bad idea if you're running an org. I would recommend that. But like, uh, uh, even then, though, actually my goal when I was a BDR was like, I want to do more discovery as an ae. I actually don't feel like I need to do that much if I'm gonna then hand this off to somebody as a bdr, I want to make sure it's legit. Because, like, for me, yes, I get paid if they show up. But, like, my own brand suffers if I'm setting crap meetings over and over again. I'd like to, like, have a reputation as, like, giving good notes to the aee, setting them up for success. Because I also got paid on a portion of it was closed one deals. I'd like the AE to be able to put their best foot forward. Yeah. Um, and so in that situation, I might do a little more discovery as an ae. When I'm taking the call, I really am trying to get in and out pretty quick on these dials. Like, but it depends. Like, I. I booked two yesterday on the phone and one was somebody where I said, Alex from 30 minutes to President's club. Does that name ring a bell? And she was like, oh, I love you guys.

Speaker A: Yeah, great.

Speaker B: I don't need it. Like, I feel strong that there's enough here. I think you're going to show up to this meeting. I think we're going to have a productive discussion because you know what we're all about already, so I'm not gonna be having to catch you up to speed.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: The other was a guy who was like, like, sort of like, I. No, I'm sorry, I don't know. I don't know what that is. So I had to do a little more education. That was a longer conversation. M of like, well, okay, yeah, so we're number one B2B sales podcast. We also have a bunch of sales content. Your team actually has been downloading it. You have, like, there. And like, I'll come in with some Specific names and numbers. And I'll do a little name drop and I'll do a little number drop. It's like 25 people at your org, you know, following us on LinkedIn. And I saw, I saw Dan, you know, downloaded our executive selling the other day. So, um, yeah, you know, I'm happy to tell you a little bit more about what we do if, if that sounds worth another minute of your time. And, and you know, he was like, yeah, okay, go ahead, shoot. And it's like, well, you know, basically, you know, and then I just like, quick, quick, quick, rattle mom friendly language. My mom would totally understand what I'm selling if I, if I did it this way. And uh, and then, yeah, you know, actually does kind of sound interesting, you know, and then he's hitting me with all the other stuff that I'm gonna have to deal with later of like, I'm pretty far from the buying committee. I don't. It's hard for me to get budget on this kind of. He's hitting me with that stuff. But like, I'll deal with that when I deal with it. Let's take it one thing at a time, so. No problem, man. Yeah, why don't we do this? Two lines I love. Let's chat about this when I'm not calling you out of the blue.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Which is kind of my, like in my sort of standard cold call package. It's like, that's the, that's the meeting booking line is like. Yeah. So anyway, we have this thing. Blah, blah, blah. Any, any, any way you want to spend a few minutes learning about that when I'm not calling you out of the blue. Yeah, great. Um, I just keep coming back to that over and over again until they say no.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and then the other thing, which I learned from you when we did that live cold calling thing in San Francisco.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Worst case, uh, this is the, this is the other beautiful thing. This is like where they Selling the meeting, say when they talk about it. I guess when I talk about selling the meeting, this is what I mean. Like, worst case, I can kind of show you what we have, and then you kind of have a sense of like, maybe some, some of the free stuff that your reps are accessing. There's some of that stuff that you might just want to end up sharing with a team. So worst case, I can tell you about that.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Now, there's a reason, irrespective of buying something from me, there's a reason for them to show up. There's some value that can look like a bunch of different things depending on who it is. But this is your whole thing about make an offer in a cold email, make an offer. Worst case, I can share how customer A and B, you know, kind of thought about the pros and cons here. Uh, and so that's also really, really helpful.

Speaker A: So two questions. One, how much did you have to pay these people to agree to take a meeting with you?

Speaker B: They each requested a pound of my own flesh, and I negotiated them down using Todd Lovers. Four levers of negotiating course, coming from 30 minutes to President's club soon, I negotiated them down to three fourths of a pound of flesh. There we go.

Speaker A: Um, but for real, um, once you get the agreement on a meeting, how do you set up the meeting? Um, I want to go through the nuances of how you find a time that works and the language that you use around that. Um, do you ask them to accept the calendar invite live on the call? Do you tell them there's going to be a confirmation thing? Like, that part, I feel is, like, this is where meetings. You can see the difference between a rep that has like a 60% share rate versus an 80% show rate with just some of the little things on how they secure next steps.

Speaker B: Two thoughts on that. One is if I legitimately do not believe that this is the right fit for them based on something they say in the call, I don't book the meeting. Uh, easier said than done. Especially as a bdr, I didn't do this as much because I was like, well, maybe they show up and I do get paid on that. That's what. That's what it is to be a bdr as an ae, it's like, I. If I have to, like, I'm good at getting someone to say yes to me, that means I can get false yeses. I can get people to go, yeah, sure, all right, that's fine. Yeah, throw a dart on for second week of July.

Speaker A: I didn't think about that. It's like a false positive.

Speaker B: It is. It's like that. You know, now I'm gonna go put that in my CRM as a meeting book that I'm gonna have to answer to why they didn't show up. I don't want to do that. So, like, that's the first thing is always be disqualifying. Always be disqualifying. And I'm always disqualifying every stage, every check, right? So, like, if they've given me my goal with a substantive, uh, you know, so that that type two thinking, objection. My goal is not always to overcome that. It's like, hear it and legitimately decide in my head, like, is it worth pursuing this? The guy that says, yeah, we've been with a competitor for five years and our CRO is best buddies with the guy who runs that training. I'm like, yeah, well, you don't need our thing.

Speaker A: This is a really good point I want to double click on because that's going to come out in your tonality and approach. That's you thinking about the fit.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's. Here's my. It goes back to this, this body. Here's my offer. Uh, if, If I were holding a big fish at the fish market. Here's my offer. Oh, you have a. Two sushi rolls already. Yeah, you don't need this beautiful fish that I, by the way, went and spent energy to go catch and bring into the market so I can offer it to the people who may want to have it and then maybe they'll come back and tell their friends to come back. I'm not trying to pedal this to the first person who will pick it up from me. Yeah, gotta have a little self worth. Like, you know, like, all right, cool. This isn. That's fine, man. And you're right, it relaxes me a lot. And people pick up on that. I think, uh, it relaxes them and it actually makes them more receptive to whatever the thing is that I'm, I'm selling. So that's the, like, the first part to the meeting show piece. But then if I've done that, like, internal calculation and I've figured out like, I think this is like a real one.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Then yes, I want to send that invite. If I've gotten to the point in the conversation where they've agreed to meet with me, we've discussed my issue, we've talked about their team. I have earned the right at that point to demand another 60 seconds of their time to send them a calendar invite and make sure it gets on their calendar. I used to feel insecure about this. Oh, I'm keeping them. Um, they already talked to me for five minutes. Whatever. They, they're. They're big boy, big girl, big kid. They can, yeah, they can hang up the phone if they need to hang up the phone. It's not my job to take care of them in that moment. It's my job to get my meeting. So at that point, it's just like, cool, man. Well, uh, I don't ask, I just say I actually have a bunch of time tomorrow afternoon. And I want this thing. I want this meeting as soon after the call as possible. If it's today, that's great. Actually, this, um, might be crazy, but at 4pm Eastern today. And I'm always trying to do it in their time zone. That's another little thing, but it shows. It gives a little clue as to what the sales cycle is going to be like. I'm going to be thinking about you and going out of my way to be courteous to you. So I want to be doing it in your time zone.

Speaker A: This is such a little thing. Reducing that friction and complexity. It's like. Like when I see people try to schedule meetings from a response to a cold email where the buyer says yes, and I'm like, you're not even going to take the time to translate the times you suggest into their time zone?

Speaker B: Why would I. Why would I spend my time, uh, talking to you? Why would I spend my money and my budget buying something for you? It goes back to the big stuff, shows up in the little stuff. If you're telling me that's how you operate. Yeah, let me give you my budget. I'm going to go to my VP and say, hey, we should take a bet on these. Hell no. So for me, it's like, that's, that's, that's basic stuff of like, all right, cool. Actually, tomorrow afternoon is pretty open. Um, and then I'll leave. Tomorrow afternoon is no good for me. Oh, yeah, no problem. No problem. How about Friday? I think there's pressure to book the first available slot, even if it's not good for me. I've felt that a lot. Like, yeah, uh, ooh, that's during my prospecting block tomorrow morning. But he said it's available. I'll just book it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: That is a subtle degradation of my own self worth that I no longer engage in. Yeah, my prospecting is valuable. Yeah. That's where I make my money. Actually. I don't make it in negotiation. I make it in the prospecting block. Yeah, that's valuable. My time with my daughter, like that is you. You better give me a really good reason to shift that around to take a meeting. Uh, like, so there's stuff where it's like that. Like, I'm gonna hold my calendar if it means we schedule to next Tuesday. So what? Real deals are not fragile. So if this thing falls apart because we did it on next Tuesday instead of tomorrow Thursday, fine. Like, okay, yeah, I'm not gonna sweat over that. Cause it means this was not a Big enough problem for them to want to solve. Anyway. Um, and so I do it there. We find a time. I send the invite. My language around. That is, if you don't mind. Just checking, make sure it comes through. Sometimes it gets caught in m. The spam filter, which is true.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So it's just like, okay, cool. I just sent that and it's. It's Jason at Outbound Squad. Right on. Cool. That should be coming through any second. Ad you mind just, like, making sure it came through okay. Because sometimes these get caught in this band. Great. Cool. I, uh, see you have it. Awesome. Um, you know, if you accept that, it'll just help me know that we're. We're on for that time. I'm gonna drop an agenda for the call into that invite. So you'll see that a little bit later today and then. Yeah, uh, we're looking forward to chatting with you tomorrow afternoon. That's great. Last piece. Depending on the vibe. If they're like, okay, I gotta go, I end it right there. No problem. But I've heard you say this, and it's great. If I'm getting the. If I'm getting the feeling that, like, I can. I can get away with one more question, I will ask. Hey, just out of curiosity, what's, like, the most important thing that you need to understand coming out of that call tomorrow? Yeah, and that's like, that really locks in the show rate. Because now I know, and I'm gonna. Whatever they say, I'm getting them thinking about it. I've. Like I said, I've lived many lives. I, uh, spent some serious time going door to door canvassing for political campaigns. So, uh, Texas, Texas 2018, Texas Senate race. I was knocking on doors all the time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And they would. They would train us on, like, your job is not to convince. Convince people to vote for our candidate?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: If they're not voting for them, they're not voting for them. Don't sweat that. You need to get them thinking about their plan to get to the polls. So what is your plan? Which polling station are you going to? When are you gonna go? I want you to actually start to imagine that world because that's going to make it way more likely, uh, that you remember this. It becomes part of your thinking about how you're going to spend your day tomorrow. When I send my agenda email, that's another touch of like, here's what I want to talk about with you. Um, so I'm just, like, laying breadcrumbs. And then if they do Tell me something important. What they say is second. Uh, in terms of importance, the most important thing is I've gotten them to think about it. Cool. Great. That's a win. And I'm gonna remember it and I'm gonna put it in the invite, I'm gonna put it in the email, and I'm gonna put it in every single communication we have until we meet. I'm gonna mention that thing that you just said, whatever it is.

Speaker A: Yep. I love that. Another pro tip for those that are listening or watching is I always like to make the title of the event if they mention some sort of priority or something that's important to them. So for us it might be, uh, 3x pipeline coverage. That's going to literally be the title of the calendar event. 3x pipeline coverage. Uh, intro with outbound squad and XYZ company. Drop it into the agenda. Like that stuff makes a huge difference, especially through the sales process. Because when someone's looking at their calendar at all the meetings that they could cancel that day.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: When they see something that is related to a top priority, that's, that's kind of hard to cancel or say no to or whatever.

Speaker B: Stealing that. And this is also why I put the agenda in there.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: Because it makes it easy to add people I don't have to like if I want to, uh, oh, I want to invite my, my boss or I want to invite my colleague or whatever.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: It's much easier to like that person's going to immediately know what we're talking about and why.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: Which also really helps them show up too. So that like you're starting that multi threading thing real early.

Speaker A: Yes. I love it. Okay, so we don't have a ton of time to do like a full on Discovery masterclass. Um, but I am curious how you think about discovery from the point of view of I sourced this through a cold call and it's someone that's maybe less familiar with 30 minutes to President's Club versus this one came inbound.

Speaker B: Yeah. This is one of those areas where there's a perfect way to do it and there's the way that I have enough time and capacity for on a day to day basis. And those are not the same. And that bugs me. We've talked about this before. It's possible to endlessly tweak every single thing I do throughout the sales cycle.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: If I do that, I'm never gonna get any work done. Yeah. So I'll tell you the real of what I do. Like the actual what I Do is I put the agenda in the, in the calendar invite. They should have a good sense of like what it is. If I feel like they really did not know anything about us, I will also include a link to like in that, in that agenda. I'll just be like, hey, here's like, here's a little more about us. If you want to take a look beforehand. No sweat either way. At times I've sent uh, like a video. Here's a, here's a two minute video, quick overview. Something to just kind of get them, get them up to speed so that we're not spending a bunch of time in that call of just like factual, what is this who are we kind of thing. Um, first question I ask in an outbound meeting is just like, so you probably get. We'll have a little chit chat. I usually come in with something specific to their business that I notice. I'll take a quick scan through their LinkedIn, like, y' all just got back from Barcelona. P Club. That's awesome. How was it? Whatever. Um, can you backtrack real quick?

Speaker A: What are you looking for in the

Speaker B: prep M for a discovery call? First. First call. I don't do a ton of prep, to be honest with you.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: And for me it's because like my superpower as a seller, this goes back to knowing my authentic self. My superpower is not being the most well researched person. My superpower is like, you are going to feel good talking to me. We are going to have a good bond. And so that's probably an excuse for not doing as much research as I can. But like, again, there's perfect and there's real. I could spend 20 minutes researching. I could make a bunch of cold calls in that time too. Like I'm gonna probably pick the cold calls, honestly. And so for me, like the minimum viable disco prep is what does their business do? Like literally, what are they, what are they selling? What do they sell to? That's non negotiable. The times when I've missed that and I've had to ask somebody is like embarrassing. Yeah. Um, so that's clear. And then usually in that first disco call, I'll try to get a sense of like, where do they sit in their org? Like what's their org chart look like? I'm normally doing that during, before I even start prospecting, so I don't have to do a bunch more work. I'll just look back at my notes. All right, cool. They got 200 sellers and they're like the director of Enablement. They've got a VP and they've got some direct reports, and I kind of like have that going in, so I just need a rough estimate of that. Um, so I'm going in with those things. And then the questions that I'm asking are not, not super, super tailored because I think of discovery as diagnosis and prescription. Think about it. We, we, uh, Armand and I constantly in our team are having this conversation of like, we are doctors. Our job is not to sell something to somebody. Our job is to diagnose a problem.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then prescribe a solution to that problem. And if they decide not to take their two pills and call us in the morning, like, whatever. That's. That's up to them. Like, here's a prescription for that. The prescription might be us and it might not be. I actually literally referred somebody deep in a sales cycle to you yesterday. Oh, yeah, I'll tell you about that more. We're on Mike. But, like, there's like a legit, like, oh, you don't want us. You want J. You want Jason Bay. Like, let me talk. Like, let me give you. So anyway, that's a bit of a side note, but my point is the discovery questions that I need to diagnose are kind of the same for everybody. First thing out of my mouth is like, Jason, you probably get a bunch of cold calls and outreach and stuff. Like, why did you decide to take this call? So I just want to get. Land me in this situation. What, uh, what is it? Sometimes the answer is like, well, you just had a really good outfit. Outreach. Sometimes the answer is, you know, like, I, I, we've got a lot of fans of yours and so thought it would be worth a call. Sometimes it's like, we are in need of a training on this skill area because we're dying. Like, you'll get, you'll kind of immediately. I have a pretty good sense of not only this person's energy, so I can, to use your analogy, get on the treadmill at the same speed as them, but also, like, when I kind of know where we sit. And so from there I'm just trying to diagnose, like, cool. Like, what's the problem? People will situation you to death if you, if you let them. They'll talk about their org chart and their structure and like, I need to know what skill gaps are causing problems for your team right now.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: What is it? Is it outbound? Is it discovery? Is it negotiation? Is it multi thread? What's. What's the issue? And then I want to dig on that a little bit. Okay. Like specifically what, what's, what's, like why, why does this matter? Like so for me, my discovery checklist is extremely short to and simple. I'm looking for three things. Do they have a problem? That's checkbox number one. I, when I first was doing this, I don't do it anymore because it's memorized at this point. But I used to write it down, this little checklist before every discovery call. Do they have a problem? Do they have a problem that we can solve? Do they have a problem worth solving? Yeah, literally problem worth solving that we can solve. If I got check, check, check, I got all I need in that first 30 minute call. And so the problem usually is some kind of skill area. Is it worth solving? AKA do your bosses care about this? Is there some business impact attached to it? If we don't solve this, is there a, uh, what, what's wrong? What's going to happen as a negative effect? I'm trying to gauge like, yeah, is it a problem? Is it a prioritized problem at the high level? Because I know I'm going to need those executives to agree that it's a big problem in order to sell anything to you. And then the last thing is, can we solve it? It. And that gets a little bit of that is me going like, I think we can solve it. But then I'm going to flip around and I'm going to say, well, here's how our program works. I think it might be a fit for y', all, but let's go through it and I'll do like a five to eight minute quick rattle, very high level. Like, here's what we do. Now you tell me, I think this would work. I at least think it's worth validating for reasons A, B or C. Based on what we said in that demo, I'm going to try to tie it back to. Armand calls it the pimp my ride demo, which is, you know, pimp my ride, right? Like people would come into to west, uh, coast customs and they'd say, here's my car, by the way, I like fish. And exhibit would be like, radical, brother. And then they would put an aquarium back in this guy's car. They would put, they would put a whole ass aquarium in the back of his car. And then the person will come back in and say, well, hey, you said you like fish. So we put fish in the back of your car so you can look at fish while you drive. Yeah, right. And like, that's my Demo. That's. That's Armand's amazing demo framework of like. Okay, well you said you're having cold email issues, so here's how we help with your cold email issues because you said that's important. And here's how we solve it. I'm tying it like it's not theoretical. Here's how our program works. No, here's how your team would use this if you did it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Here's exactly what this would look like for you. And so trying to make it real, trying to help them imagine themselves at the polling place casting their ballot. Like I want them to get into that mindset.

Speaker A: So it sounds like there's a very similar approach to how you will approach a first time meeting, regardless of inbound or outbound.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: It's really more about the buyer and where they are at and less about how you sourced. Yeah, I think that's a really important piece of context.

Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Because like inbound, outbound, two different channels to get you into the same river. So now we're in the river together with inbound. The only major difference I will take is I will ask, like, why did you reach out to us instead of why'd you take my call? Yeah, why'd you reach out to us? I have some thoughts. I'm happy to share a point of view, but I just like to lay it on my brother. Like, yeah, you don't need to. Some people advocate, people I really respect and trust, I know this works for them and could work for others, is you come with a strong point of view, you give a quick rattle.

Speaker A: I'm more in that camp.

Speaker B: Like, here's what I think.

Speaker A: It depends on who you're talking to also.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: I.

Speaker B: Tell me about this because I, I'm willing to change my mind on it.

Speaker A: I mean if, if I'm speaking with a VP plus especially in sales or a CRO, for the first time, I, I don't ask them why they took the call.

Speaker B: Call. Oh, okay.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, um, I know why they're on the call. Um, to me, what I want to do, it's a little bit different. It's more like I want to establish credibility right away.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So if I'm selling to a company that, where they, you know, have a thousand reps and they want to do a big rollout and they're similar to iHeartMedia, I say, hey, we recently did this thing with iHeartMedia. From my understanding and the conversations with your team, here's what I had picked up here's what I want to talk about today with you and the team. What do you want to add to that? What do you want to get that's a little different? Um, yeah, but that would be the exception.

Speaker B: Uh, I'm glad you mentioned it because 100% agree. The why'd you take the call? Is first call only. Yeah. Like once we're in a deal cycle and I've talked to your director and they've looped you in 100. If I come in and go, oh, you know, you're vice president. This is our fourth call, this sales cycle. Why'd you take the call? Like, that's a bad look for me. I'm glad you pointed that out. Yeah, that's exactly right. Um,

Speaker A: okay, so let's, let's shift gears. Um. Oh, man, we could talk so much about. We'll have to just have to do another episode, bro. Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, that is the solution in it.

Speaker A: So I feel like we had some really good stuff around mindset tonality and the mental preparation around cold calling. We got really tactical with the cold calling. Objection. Handling. We talked about that first part of the discovery process. Now all, uh, we got time left for is a couple of fun rapid fire questions.

Speaker B: Oh, okay. Let's do this. I'm here for this.

Speaker A: So these are softballs, bro. So, um, how do you leverage AI in your day to day? And it doesn't have to be work related necessarily.

Speaker B: The more I use AI, the less I use it, the more I try to use it, the more I realize I could just do this shit myself. Really? Yeah.

Speaker A: I can't tell if you're fucking with me or not.

Speaker B: I'm serious. I'm serious. I use it for, um. Jen Allen Knuth has an awesome problem prompter framework which we teach in our course on executive selling and multi threading. That I do do use. That's a, that's a pre written prompt of like, here's, uh, like I, I have a call coming up with whatever company give me their problem and it'll rattle. Like, here's what's going on with the business. So that's like a quick brief. That's kind of how I do the quick preps. Okay, so that's that. Honestly, man, I used to, I've, I've tinkered with AI, doing everything from helping me prioritize accounts, finding the right signals.

Speaker A: Agents though, or are you just doing the prompting?

Speaker B: I'm just doing the prompting. I could do the agent thing. I could do it. But like, do you guys have Clot

Speaker A: or what do you.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And uh, by the way, like, I have done a full like end to end AI powered prospecting process that like legitimately netted me four to six meetings a week. We just made a video about this. We're going to drop a video on this in the not too distant future. It can work. What I find for me though is like the better I understand. It's like you ever heard like if you can't explain an idea simply, you probably don't understand it well enough yourself.

Speaker A: This is something I learned teaching.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. It's like if you can't explain it in simple language, you don't understand it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, if I can't find accounts and reach out to them very simply, I don't understand my process well enough for me. Like if I should be able to identify. Here's the magic bullet, here's the, here's the number one signal. If this is true, my odds of booking a meeting are good. It's the signal I'm going to mention, I'm going to mention it the same way every time. I'm going to send a good old fashioned formatted email. It's going to have a somewhat generic problem. It's going to have a personalized P.S. i'm going to rip off a bunch of those every week. And like the AI era that kind of has taken a little bit of a stigma because it's like we should be, you know, we have the tools, we should be more relevant and more personalized and like there's some personalization and some relevance. But for me it's like, yeah, but that's working.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's interesting. We'll have to come back to that one. I have a bunch of ideas for

Speaker B: you with AI, I'm sure. Um, here's the thing is like agents

Speaker A: though, you really have to use like build out agents and do like Claude cowork. You really gotta use that and build skills and things like that. The prompting back and forth is not going to be great for a lot of things. Things, it's going to be much slower.

Speaker B: I've done like very detailed MDs in a Claude project which I think approximates how an agent would do it. But I'm still like, hey, run my problem prompter. Let's run the outbound sequence. Okay, cool. Here's 10 accounts for you is basically like I, I, I don't know if that's different from what an agent would do.

Speaker A: Uh, yes, that's, that's very similar. I mean like do we talk about discovery. I haven't written a follow up email myself. I still, I read pen. I use that analogy. Red pen versus black pen. I read pen, the email. Um, um, the second call. We build Nate. Ah, Nasrallah style. Two page business case. Oh yeah, it's got business case and proposal on it. I don't write that from scratch. You know, that's like. We have a skill that helps with um, that it pulls the transcripts. It gets that going. And again, it's like 80%, 90% dialed in. That's something that would take me an hour to do.

Speaker B: Great point. I use it for my recaps. I'm glad you brought that up. Definitely the business case. I actually find me writing it is a helpful exercise. Yeah. But I'm writing it off a template. I'm not starting from zero. And I use Nate as Ra's template as well.

Speaker A: Yeah, Nate's the man.

Speaker B: Love you. Nate.

Speaker A: Talked about him a couple times today so far. Um, how do you like to decompress after a long day or a work week?

Speaker B: Well, I pretty much immediately go from work to dad, so that's not dec. That's actually harder. I'm switching gears into. My daughter's 19 months old, so it's toddler dad. It's hardcore. Like I'm, I'm getting home as quick as I can. I'm, I'm logging out at like 5:30 at the latest. But like, I'm not leaving my wife hanging, you know, with solo mom duty. So that's until about 8, 8:30, whatever. Depending on how well she sleeps, which, God love us, she does not, does not sleep very well. But like, so my decompression, I got like, I got like an hour at best. And honestly my brain doesn't work at the end of the day. So I'll exercise, I'll run, throw the weighted vest on, take a run outside, I'll push her in the stroller. Uh, try to make that like a something for her as well. Um, so that is sometimes what's happening. We are watching Love island right now. Uh, which is just delightful. It's just great. And like, you know, she's a, she's a therapist and like, it's super fun to. I mean she's, she's, she's really good about shutting off her therapy brain because that stuff will stay with you, but it's really fun to deconstruct the like. Yeah, I just think she doesn't really have enough confidence in herself, you know? Like, I think she's Letting him talk to her. This somebody hurt her. What do you think's going on there? Like, uh, we just have so much fun. Like uh, sort of this like fake dressed up thing, whatever it is. But like my real decompression time is in the morning. Like I wake up at about 5am kind of naturally. Man. I'm building my own little app totally unrelated to GTM sales, any of that stuff. I'm building the book app. Cause I just love books so much and I feel like the current book, it's a little vibe coding. It's a lot of. Yeah, dude, it's a lot of that stuff. It'll probably end up being useless. But it's fun. Uh, it's fun to do and like I believe in it. And so like, like that's just like a project that's totally unrelated to work.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: That I. It's like a hobbyist thing. I can just tinker on that. So it's that or it's reading. Sipping a coffee. Reading a book. Like uh, in the morning, first thing in the morning. That's. I love that dude. Yeah, that's my time.

Speaker A: I look forward to coffee in the morning. Dude, I love it.

Speaker B: That first sip. First couple sips. Nothing like it.

Speaker A: Oh, that's so good. Um, last question. If you were a first time account executive all over again, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give yourself

Speaker B: that's so good. You know what? It goes back to something that you mentioned and we didn't talk about enough. Get a uh, savings. Get a good. It took me a long time to get here. Some from my own choices, some just cause it's expensive to live right now. But like uh, get a savings. Like I have a nice healthy cushion.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: I had a monster Q4 big fat commission check. Put. Put all of that into. This is the emergency fund. Do not touch. This is the Alex missed quota, uh, bucket. Uh, and like I have since missed quota a couple times, matter of fact. And uh, I'm not sweating it, I'm not freaking out. It's not fun. I don't love it. I don't like pulling money out of that. But it's way better than what it used to be. Which is I'm like actually panicking because I have no idea how I'm going to pay my mortgage.

Speaker A: Like exactly.

Speaker B: And that whole, this whole thing we keep talking about being authentic, being relaxed. I have an offering. Take it or leave it. Whatever happens, I'm okay. Is possible way harder if I actually can't pay my bills. Without closing a certain number of deals in this month. That is a nightmare scenario. So literally, that's it. Like, building that as quick as possible as. As able. There's, you know, it's the first job I've ever done where I'm making, like, real money.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And I used to feel bad about that, but I'm like, I'm actually buying financial peace for myself and my family.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Oh, my God, that feels good. It's. I'm not used to it. I grew up. I've been broke forever. My wife and I've been married 10 years, and we've been broke for nine of them.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great for you, man.

Speaker B: It's good to be like, all right, we're just like, we got a little cushion, so that's huge. As soon as possible. Getting something like that together has been massively helpful.

Speaker A: I love that, dude.

Speaker B: Love that.

Speaker A: Um, this was awesome, bro. We definitely need to do a good one.

Speaker B: So sick.

Speaker A: Uh, we need to do another one, right?

Speaker B: I would say we've done about 10 of what we could talk about and have a good conversation about.

Speaker A: Oh, yeah. There's so much that we can weave in with the psychology. Psychology and, like, all of that kind of stuff that I think is hyper relevant.

Speaker B: Big time.

Speaker A: Hyper relevant. Hyper relevance.

Speaker B: Um, yeah, I'm triggered right now, so just give me my template, man. I'm gonna slot in that stuff and send those emails.

Speaker A: Um, so before we take off, where can people go to connect with you?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: You post a lot of great content that I would encourage everyone to go check out. And then 30, uh, minutes to Prisons Club. What are you guys up to? What can people check out? I don't know if you guys are hiring stuff for any kind of roles or anything right now, but let us. Let us know.

Speaker B: Yeah, man. So I'm. I'm now co Host of the 30 minutes, the President's Club podcast, which is so cool. Yeah, I've loved it for a long time. To be hosting is great. So, like, you can get that anywhere. You get a podcast. That's a great spot to just get. Like, it's very different from this covering, from, like, a different angle. Super tactical. Like, 30 minutes. Learn something you can use tomorrow, whatever. Um, and then, like, yeah, just like, uh, we are. We are. Our big thing right now is we've got this enablement program. We've taken all the best stuff from six years of doing this podcast.

Speaker A: We have a course in there, too, on cold email.

Speaker B: Your course is awesome. Uh, you got the cold email course, cold calling negotiation, executive selling and multi threading, discovery sales leadership, I think. Well, you know what, I'm not going to say what the next courses are not allowed to, but there's some good stuff coming down the pipe. Um, and so, like, you know, for. If anybody who's like, feels like a team, their team needs it, that's great. But like, yeah, just hit me on LinkedIn because I won't shut up about that either. So you'll see it all there, you know. Alex Murphy on LinkedIn and come on by, man, we got a fun little crew going over there.