Selling is like tracking serial killers

Speaker A: So a true champion has both the willingness, the desire and the capability to help move that deal. Often people define a champion as basically your point of contact.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Someone you reached that has the problem and seems interested and has a, uh, some desire, but you shouldn't really think of them as a champion. And the danger of thinking them a champion if they don't really have the capability and you haven't tested them as a salesperson, you kind of have to test their ability is that you don't have a true champion. You've got someone that's really a, uh, point of contact. So, yeah, I think that term has gotten lost in space.

Speaker B: You're listening to the Sales Today podcast and I'm your host, Fred Koepstake. On this podcast, we explore how sales professionals can develop a modern approach to winning business, the application of virtual selling techniques, how to create meaningful business relationships, and much more. Why not take our free collaborative selling scorecard to see how your sales approach suits today's environment. You'll find a link in the show notes. And welcome to this episode of the Sales Today podcast where I'm delighted to be joined by Tom Stearns. Tom is a go to market consultant. He's also the author a book called Graphic Sales, which has to be probably the most literal title for a book I've ever seen because it's actually a graphic book, isn't it? Um, I was gonna say comic book, but that would.

Speaker A: No, I mean, yeah, it really is. Here's the weird thing, Fred. It took us a year to get that title. The most obvious title, it was Christmas Morning and I actually was like, I have a partner that we wrote it with, Peter Clary. And. And I kind of came. We had all these other titles and I was like, how about Graphic Sales? He's like, I think I said that eight months ago, dummy.

Speaker B: I bet all the other ones were so clever and everything. You ever try to be too clever people? It's just graphic sales, isn't it?

Speaker A: Yeah, just graphic sales. Yeah. Because it's embedded with comics.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: There's comics all throughout it.

Speaker B: Absolutely love it. Absolutely love it. And I mean you. That. That's kind of playbook. It's heavy on the prospecting piece, isn't it? It's heavy on getting into con. Mean the rest of sales don't really count if you can't do that bit, I suppose.

Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. There's another book someday on the other half, but yeah, this will bring you right up to. You've got the meeting. You're in the meeting. It's, uh, it's a playbook on how to build a playbook up to that point. So it's not closing, it's not negotiation. It's prospecting.

Speaker B: Is, I mean, is that, is that something that. I mean, the other thing we were chatting just before I hit record about, you know, you worked a number of different companies and with them, um, is that the thing that you're finding that people find the hardest?

Speaker A: No, not necessarily. I mean, it's always. It's probably the, the, it is probably the hardest because it's the grind. It's. It takes a lot of discipline and there's a lot of noise out there. Um, but that said, I also work with a lot of closers. I work with full cycle and all that. And there's a lot of, a lot of challenges in that too. I mean, um, I think there's a lot of overconfidence, frankly. Fred, once you get to be an AE, a lot of these AES think they know what they're doing, but they're transactional, if you will. They're not going deep and wide. And so I think there's more confidence in the closing, but I think it's, it's equally hard. And it, it needs a lot of focus too. Like all the sales, I think, needs a lot of help.

Speaker B: That's funny. I mean, again, before I hit record, I was just saying, I've just been doing a webinar and I, uh, was talking about Dunning Kruger in that where, you know, the whole sort of confidence is very, very high, but the competence isn't really. And it's kind of. They don't know what they don't know. So it's like, yeah, I'm really into all this sort of stuff. Yes, that one, isn't it?

Speaker A: Yeah, I find that a lot. I used to, I used to go in with like, you know, these guys are seasoned vets. They should, they know what they're doing. And I don't mean to be definitely not insulting because some are really amazing, but I find that there's not enough training really. And there is, ah, an overconfidence and they don't know what they don't know. It's like, whoa, you didn't learn anything on that discovery call. You just, you pitched the product. What is it? What would they use it for? They never told you. That kind of stuff is just. Blows my mind sometimes.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So, um, I mean, some, some people who, listening to this, might not recognize some of the language you're using. So I talk to a lot of uh, engineering companies where they are full cycle salespeople. So an SDR is making the appointments, the AE is kind of running it. If you're listening and you're putting technical sales. Yeah, that's kind of, that kind of tech sales is like you're doing a lot on you. They're in charge of everything.

Speaker A: Yes, right. Apologies if I use some vernacular that's a little too localized.

Speaker B: No, not, not at all, not at all. Because a lot of the concepts are similar and the concept. So yeah, we, I thought we could talk about the prospecting piece. But something I noticed that you do talk about a lot is the sort of the whole, the decision makers, the influencers. This when you're getting into a, you know, more complex sale. So complex, more people, more sophisticated product, got more working parts, it's going to take longer. That's where stuff tends to get lost a little bit, isn't it?

Speaker A: Absolutely. Um, I find that, you know, a lot of folks that are selling are uh, focusing only on one person. Right. And they, they're, they maybe even build a great relationship with that individual and they think they have a champion. A champion by definition is kind of misunderstood, Fred. And I don't know if I'm using language.

Speaker B: No, no, no, no. I wanna, I wait to define what you think the champion is how you thought a champion.

Speaker A: Yeah, I define a champion as someone that, that wants to champion the solution with you to the end. So they have a desire, but they're also capable of doing it. And by that I mean that they're capable of working with the rest of the company helping move it through the process that they'll go to bat, that they'll build a business case. So a true champion has both the willingness, the desire and the capability to help move that deal. Often people define a champion as basically your point of contact.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Someone you reached that has the problem and seems interested and has a uh, some desire but you shouldn't really think of them as a champion. And the danger of thinking them a champion if they don't really have the capability and you haven't tested them as a salesperson, you kind of have to test their ability is that um, you don't have a, a true champion. You've got someone that's really a point of contact. So yeah, I think that term has gotten lost in, in space. I think maybe challenger sale defined champion the proper way that booked the challenger sale, if I recall. And it's kind of gotten oversimplified. So a lot of the teams I work with, actually, Fred, we will, we will test the champion. Right. If you have a deal at a certain stage, sometimes it's called stage three in some enterprises I work with is that leadership will ask this. The head of sales will ask the salesperson, have you identified if your point of contact has ever closed a deal before? Of the size and complexity of what we're doing that how many have they done? What are the steps that they've identified that they'll need to go through, I. E. Procurement, other departments need to be involved in? Bless it. Do they know all the steps? Are they willing to do discovery, help, invite those people into the conversation if they're not already in. And do they really, do they have a deadline or a timeline of when they, they know that they, the company needs this in place and why? And if they can't, if the salesperson doesn't know those things, then they'll either be challenged to go back to talk to their perceived champion to understand if can. And if they don't, they're like, that's okay. We still had potentially a deal, but we're going to leave it in an earlier stage in our sales process and you're going to need to like, continue to find other influencers, other people over time, and you're going to need to coach your point of contact into the role that they need to be. So it's basically trying to be realistic. You know, it's. Instead of just assuming that person that likes your product can get it to the finish line, it's. There's a process for testing and understanding if they actually can, will want to and when those kind of things can,

Speaker B: will want to and when. Yeah, it's that capability piece, isn't it? It's not just they like you, they like your product, you get on well, they'll talk to you. Yeah, yeah, right. Literally they'll talk to me. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Um, yeah, because, yeah, I think that's, I think, I think that's where a lot of people will, will trip up and particularly if I'm thinking of technical sale, so the engineering world where the salesperson might be an engineer, they will be very comfortable talking to their engineer and probably about a technical operational engineering type issue that isn't going to drive it through the organization where some of those functions like procurement and finance and maybe marketing and operations and production and senior people within who are looking for different stuff are involved and this kind of blinkered or very narrow approach, you've got good contact yeah. Well done. But they probably don't really understand how they buy stuff either.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Really, the technical folks, it's kind of sometimes a, uh, stretch of your skill set. Like if you're. If you're a technical seller, um, you have to recognize your weaknesses and try to develop some of those skills. Same goes for anyone else. The old relationship seller, Fred, I mean, you. You' familiar with that. Hey, the guy that can talk to anybody. You know, historically, people would think, hey, the relationship seller is a great seller. And it's like, not in my experience. I mean, they can be, but the skill that they're good at is really connecting with people. Um, they're not necessarily methodical or project managers or very disciplined. So the skill that, uh, someone that's great at building a relationship needs to develop is how do I build a process? How do I help my point of contact bring in other people that I can get to know, like, build that relationship with others in a disciplined and repeatable fashion. That's my experience of like, a relationship seller is kind of good, but they don't have all the skills. A technical seller, you know, sometimes I prefer it. Right. Because technical people, technical sellers are disciplined. They know their product, they're experts, and they have a lot of credibility. But their weakness and skill set is wanting to go and help the person find other people. You go and find other people, too, that need to be involved in mapping the other. So building that sort of relationship muscle where I'm going to talk, I need to talk to a lot of other people in the organization. That's a different skill set. How do you, uh. My daughter's. My daughter's an introvert. And she's. She's like this, right? You know, she's. She has to do a lot of, um, in her job, a lot of public, or she has to speak to a lot of people. And she doesn't love that. She's more on, uh, a technical, more expert. So I coach her on methodologies to be like, look, just get the. All you need to do, Amber, is get the other person talking. Come in with three or four questions. People love to talk. They love to talk about themselves. When you're running an event, just ask them a question and then just shut up, right? And they'll go on for 20 minutes and your event will be over before you know it.

Speaker B: That's funny, because while you were talking, I made a note here of technical seller and kind of the sort of the.

Speaker A: The sort of the.

Speaker B: The nugget of advice I often say to them, just say less. They try to. They'll often try to impress people. It's like I, I need. Because if they've not been trained in sales, I need to impress people. So I need to give them so much detail, so much information. I need to prove to them that I know what I'm doing. So I'm going to, like, show off about how expert I am, which doesn't always sit well with another expert anyway. But also, it's like, I don't need all that info. Well, actually, maybe they do want that M info. But then you go, uh, let me introduce you to my md. Let me introduce you to the finance director, right? Let me tell you about how this product. No, don't. How long does it take to pay for itself?

Speaker A: Well, I love that, Fred. You just jogged my memory too. You know, I worked with Lenovo for years and one of the things that we, we mapped Personas and tried to understand our. And a lot of who the Lenovo sellers are selling to are, are, uh, the heads, right? And the Personas that the marketing developed is that, yeah, they're this. They want to be the smartest person in the room. Usually are. They know their business, they're very technical, right? So if you go in as an expert and you talk a lot, then they're not being heard and they think they know more than you. So, yeah, just ask a question, shut up and listen to what they tell you. And then, and then add, help them seem. Be smarter, right? Give them a piece of information about the technology that they may not know, but you won't know that until you let them talk long enough and reveal where their gap in knowledge is. And then now you're an advisor, you're a consultant, and you're not threatening what they already know. So, yeah, a lot of that psychology of, like, how to deal with different types of people, I find you could

Speaker B: probably see me giggling here a little bit when you're talking about the head of IT because you're talking about my mate, she's a VP now. And, uh, I talked about sales the other day. He says, I just hate it when sales people come in and try to impress me. When they try and show off. Yeah, because they're gonna have to be right on point because if I sense there's anything that they say that's wrong, I'll pull them up on it.

Speaker A: Yes, yes, I see, I see. With Lenovo, I saw that every single day shut down by the. The smarter. And they were you. They know they were. They're Talking about.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think someone tried to. I uh, can't remember what he was telling me the day someone said he was going to go to prison because his licenses were wrong or something.

Speaker A: And like.

Speaker B: But anyway, no, it's, it's funny, isn't it? But the, the. Pretty much every salesperson there will be strong in a certain area. And like I say from sometimes that technical one, that uh, that strength, it's a blessing and a curse, isn't it? It's like you, you've got that brilliant technical knowledge, that ability to solve stuff, that thing you' in and sort stuff fast. But we don't always need that straight away step back and kind of look at so that gap can be filled. You know, the relationship sellers like. Right, yeah, enough of the jokes and the sort of the funnies and the donuts and everything. Get into something a bit more meaty here. There's usually something we can do to make everybody more rounded. Um, what. So there's a couple of things you've said which I want to pick up on. So you sort of talk about mapping, mapping the influencers. I mean that's something that you would, you would get people to do, literally draw organization charts and capture bits of information about each person and then sit back and go, oh, uh, uh, don't know anything about that. All right, yeah, no drama, we'll find out.

Speaker A: Is that big part exactly. The, the analogy I like to give Fred when we're, when I'm working with teams on this is that. Do you remember like in those crime dramas where they're tracking the serial killer and on the wall like a map of red lines and all the, all the clues are leading back and they show the relationships. I'm like, that's your job. If you're selling a complex sale is that. And I like a whiteboard, I like a, like a piece of paper. It's harder to do. We're all digital. Right. But find a way. And the CRM doesn't help this because it's not visual. Uh, and so sometimes we'll use PowerPoint or, or just a piece of paper. But yeah, it's like let's draw a CSI map. You know, crime scene investigators. Like this person has the title we think is responsible. But typically these departments might be do who do we know over there? Do they know that? Who are they connected to on LinkedIn? Like, like that kind of investigation work I find is like interesting. It makes the job more interesting, but it's really important. Selling myself into Lenovo Enterprise every year Someone else in a different country, I might get a gig over there. So the. I would have friends on the inside give me an org chart. Like it changed every year. And I was always trying to map who was. And, you know, who held the budget because it was never sales. But I worked for sales marketing. Uh, you're doing any technical seller. That's what you got to do. You got to piece it together. And you visual math, your visual learner. Like, yeah, draw a piece of paper. Who do we know? Who do. We don't know? What do we know about them? I'm sorry, you got me excited. I'm talking too much.

Speaker B: M. No, it's great. And I've come up with a title for this podcast, which is a Selling is like tracking Serial Killers.

Speaker A: Perfect.

Speaker B: Yes. I don't know how good that is for SEO, but it's amusing me. Yes. No. Well. Well, if it's sad, I'm sad as well because I'm excited by it. But I think people get. What I see is people often get. They'll get. They'll get it conceptually. They'll. They'll get it physically to a degree. And you just touched on it earlier. I want to come back to it where they'll then say yes, but I can't go above that person. And you can pretty much guarantee who that person is. Yeah, it's the person that's the champion, which isn't the champion, but it's the one who's like them. They get on really well with. They don't upset the little mate. But it's like, you know, that they have to because it ain't going higher. And this. Their mate doesn't know how to talk to the others about stuff. Yeah.

Speaker A: So I've got multiple strategies for that situation.

Speaker B: We've got plenty of time. Tom.

Speaker A: I'd say strategy one is really starts at the prospecting part. So my book is about prospecting. So the. The first thing you want to do is you know initially. Right. How many people are in the organization and can you reach out to three to five to seven at the beginning? You don't know some people. You might say these people are influencers. These people are decision makers. This person holds a budget. Right. Do a little bit of your account mapping at the beginning. Like try to do that map based on what's online titles and then reach out to all of them. One of the reasons that is important is that later when you do get in and the person that you are dealing with maybe doesn't want to involve others. You might have reached one of those other people that pointed you to that person. You, uh, might have connected on LinkedIn. You might have known something. But you also can bring those names to the conversation, like, oh, over time, I had reached out to Betty and Gina in this department. Are they involved? So you can kind of work with your champion because you had some prior engagement, because prospecting takes a long time.

Speaker B: So that.

Speaker A: That's one. Once you're in there, though, often the. Like, you said that your perceived ch. Perceived champion is a gatekeeper. This strategy, which. M. Uh, Marcus. We mentioned it before we started. Marcus Kalki, he and I talk a lot about this particular is how do you. This is the. Goes back to testing the champion, is that you have to work with your person, your champ, your champion to. If, uh, they don't understand the process is. You need to teach them the process and the value of these other people that. Hey, Bill, you sound like you're into this. It's, uh, we do this all the time. It's never going to get over the finish line if we don't start to involve these other people. And here's. Here's how it should be done. And then there's a couple of strategies in that. It's like, hey, let. Do you know what? Gina in finance, what was the last deal you did with her?

Speaker B: Yeah. What.

Speaker A: What does she care about? What's her number thing? So you're doing discovery through your champion on the person, and in that conversation, you're starting to arm them with what they're up against, because it'll be like, oh, yeah, last time we did a deal, she just. She's got to get a discount. Right? That's. What if she doesn't get you to give us a discount or any vendor a discount, then she doesn't feel like she's doing her job. Right. So now you might have helped them identify a blocker away. And now we know, and now we're gonna. We're gonna help arm that person. So you're. You're teaching your champion to do discovery, to map their buyers. So that. That's sort of my favorite method is like, to involve them in it and the value of that because, uh, yeah, I've worked with a lot of companies that are selling to middle managers that really have no power, and the deals always go dark. And that's partly because strategy number two is. Is working with your perceived champion to really map the value of those other people, show them why and why they need to get involved, and then to help Them. Hey, why don't I run that call? You don't. You don't want to present that some other. This is just a tactic, Fred. But recording videos about stuff and sending them to your champion so they can just forward it. This. This works all the time. I've got a client right now, this woman, Mariah. I'm like. Because I send videos to. I. I use video all the time. So she's. She used video to send to her buyer, saw that the email was open like six times. She. That person had passed it on to the rest of the organization, and the deal that had been dark for six months suddenly woke up because that her video was the explanation that got sent to the rest of the buying committee that she couldn't get access to. So that's a tactic, but a powerful one. So those are some of the things in stage two. If you really hit a brick wall where they're just. You can't talk to anyone. I'm going to handle everything. Stay out of it. Then. Then you may not have a champion. And sort of. I don't like the third option, but the third option is, what do you have to lose?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: If this really. If this drags on and you've got evidence that it's not going anywhere, then what happens? Now can I tell you one more story? I know I'm m going on here.

Speaker B: No, this way. Here for.

Speaker A: Okay, so this happened to me. So go back 15, 20 years ago. I was a marketing director of communications at a company, and we were looking for a vendor that would do explainer videos. Do you remember those little illustrated videos back in the late 2000?

Speaker B: The little hand drawing it?

Speaker A: Yes, exactly. That was the rage. Right? And we needed that for our product. And I own that project. I look at a vendor and he talks to me. I think I look at him like they're not right for us. So I eliminate him. I'm, um, looking at other vendors. That same vendor had ahead of time been multithreading. He had reached out to the VP of sales, reached out to the CEO. So the, the CEO had gotten a call from him. It may have been before or after I shut him down. Probably after. If he's in this situation. CEO liked him. CEO told the vp, you should look at these guys. VP came to me and I said, hey, I already looked at them, and they're not right for us. He's like, dave, the CEO thinks they are. Why don't you take another look? I did. And you know what? I was wrong. Fred, this guy Saul Saul Ives. I think we ended up choosing his solution. We became friends, still friends to this day. I brought him into other companies. So I was that guy. I was that middle manager that said no. And this guy went over my head. And, uh, I think I'm a big enough person to know when I'm wrong. And I was wrong. And we had a great relationship. So don't always be afraid of that. If you're working with a true, honest individual and, and you know, they. Comes back to them, like me, maybe know, then it might work out anyways. But really, what do you have to lose?

Speaker B: Yeah. Because what, what, what you're saying as you're talking through those. Thank you for sort of sharing those, those, those different, the different approaches is. I think it's the mindset as to what you're actually doing here. And one of the things I found is that when we talk about sales process, you're automatically thinking about things you can do to people for your own benefit.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Whereas if you think, well, no, it's buying process is what we should be caring about here. And we're here as decision support. We want them to make the best decision. For them to be able to make a decision, those people have to be involved. I know this because I've sold this a number of times. They've not actually ever bought one of these things. I'm in the best position to do this. Position yourself as that. Then those tactics that you're talking about come easier. Don't they come easier for you personally, but also the champion or not champion or the influencers or the contacts. Get it as to why you're saying do stuff like this.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well put, Fred. I'm glad you interjected with that because, yeah, it's all about them. We're not just trying to win the deal. I think any, any, uh, any time along that journey, if we as a salesperson discover that, hey, we're not a right, right solution for them, we should tell them and we should walk away. We always have their best interest in heart. So if we go in with that mindset, in that attitude. Yeah. This is.

Speaker B: You're.

Speaker A: You're going to need to involve these people at some point and I can help you through that journey. So it's less painful because we do this all the time.

Speaker B: Yeah. To do that though, we have to be comfortable in speaking to those other people. But if we're only wrapped up in our own little thing of yes, I'll talk to my technical mate, because I'm technical. God, I was as frightened as him talking to finance directors and operations managers and stuff. They're different level. No, we've got to understand what their issues are, the problems, the stuff that they can benefit from. Because our solution covers all those areas.

Speaker A: Yeah, and I think that's partly. That's training that's on your organization is that, um. And if you don't have the training that every one of those roles has a different set of objectives, has a different mindset, a different success metric for themselves and, and a different personality. I'm, um, sure you've experienced this. Someone in finance has the kind of personality, the technical folks, the person in, in hr and it's as a salesperson, our job is to understand their world. So as the seller, your job is to be like, hey, what's different about hr? They're going to be involved in the, in this process at some point. Or procurement. What is procurement? You know, what kind of people work in procurement, things like that, understand your buyers or learn their language, all that kind of stuff which I think is fun. Right. Makes you a better human. You're empathetic, you're trying to understand people. And it's the same in sales. What do they care about and how do I relate to them and understand their needs in this process?

Speaker B: Yeah, but you're right. I think it is on companies quite often, I think, and I don't really get it why such big companies fall for this. They get obsessed with themselves, they get obsessed with their own story, they get obsessed with their product. They'll drag people in for product training on a regular basis, but not problem training. And it's the problem training, the problem that people we speak to, that's what we should be experts in, not the fact it's got a new blue button which does something that actually nobody cares about. But we developed it because we could. It's. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Ah, I don't get it why big companies don't see this.

Speaker A: Yeah. It isn't remarkable. Isn't it? I see it too. A lot of the big companies, the first two weeks of training are like product and pitch and all of us. And what when I have had influence usually in the smaller companies, is that I, I convinced them the first two weeks, we're not going to talk about the product. We're not going to talk, we're not going to demo the product. You're going to spend two weeks learning about your, your customers world, what they care about, their problems. And in a vacuum, outside of how we solve those IMMERSE people in that and then that sets a precedent that like, oh, they trained me on the buyer for two weeks before I even learned about our company mission statement. What is it? Why? Oh, it's because. Yeah, they're what matters first.

Speaker B: Oh yeah. It's obvious. Even if they don't think that consciously. And of course if you just had two weeks product training. That's what I'm going to talk about, isn't it? And I kind of like that. That is the. In some ways obviously to talk about what sounds people doing it talk about. No, we know it's not. And so there is a bit of a counterintuitive, bit of a sort of reframe as to what actually works. But um. Oh, awesome.

Speaker A: Yeah, awesome. That's the first chapter in our book, by the way, Fred. Like is it deliberately or all about. We built the book in the order you should train prospectors and it's ICP and then Personas. It follows the BluePR. I think of how people should be onboarded, trained and how you should think, frankly. So, yeah, brilliant.

Speaker B: Remind us what that's called.

Speaker A: Graphic sales and tell us how it is.

Speaker B: It's graphic. Yeah, it's.

Speaker A: Yeah. The book is. Every chapter starts with a comic, like a two to three page comic, which is funny. Beautifully illustrated by an artist named Eli Stone. Uh, he's amazing. Peter and I write the stories. They're true stories. And they're usually the what not to do. So we, we hook you with like, here's how not to do your ideal customer profile, here's how not to cold call kind of thing.

Speaker B: And they might or might not be autobiographical.

Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, they're. Oh yeah, they're all our stories. Some are about us, uh, some are about people we worked with. And Peter, my partner who wrote a Peter Clary, he's got an endless supply. So yeah, they start that way and then, then, then it's like what to. To do. And it's very tactical, it's very blueprint and, and there's jokes everywhere. So the uh, we made this thing to be funny, to move, to be beautiful and to be very practical. So yeah, it's part comic book. We call it graphic sales. It's half graphic novel, half sales book kind of thing.

Speaker B: Brilliant. We'll pop a little link to that in uh, in the show notes so people can find that straight away. And then where can people find you? What's the best place to contact you?

Speaker A: You can either Find me on LinkedIn or my website is just my last name. Sterns. S, T E A R N S IO Cool.

Speaker B: We will pop that one in as well. So Tom, thanks so much for coming along, sharing some stuff. Good, good tactical stuff that people like to take that, that stuff away. And look, if you do reach out to Tom, say that you heard him speak to me here. And yeah, Tom, thank you so much for coming along and sharing so much.

Speaker A: Fred, my pleasure. Great talking to you. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker B: Thank you for listening to the Sales Today podcast with me, your host, Fred Koepstake. I hope you've enjoyed what you heard today. If you did, please get in touch and hit subscribe. And remember, you can take the Collaborative Selling Scorecard for free to check out how your sales approach works in today's environment. You'll find it in the show notes.