This is the Sales Gravy Podcast. I'm Jeb
Blunt, best selling author of Fanatical Prospecting and
Sales EQ, and I'm here to help you
open more doors, close bigger deals, and rock
your commission check.
There are 2 types of salespeople in the
world, rainmakers
and rain barrels.
Rain barrels sit around with their mouths to
the sky hoping they'll get lucky and something
will drop in.
Rainmakers take control, take action, and make their
own luck.
In this year's virtual sales kickoff, Mike Weinberg,
Mark Hunter, Anthony Anarino, and myself
dispel the myths about how opportunities are created,
what salespeople really need to do to be
successful,
and how you can control your own destiny.
On this episode, you're gonna learn the real
secrets to becoming a rainmaker,
how to maximize your income, and how to
crush your sales number. Now here's virtual sales
kickoff 2019.
This is the 2019
virtual sales kickoff,
and this is the 4th annual
virtual sales kickoff that you're joining right now.
This is about
rain barrels and rainmakers today, and it's rainmakers
versus rain barrels. And we're gonna start to
draw a contrast here. You know what we
do on this show. If you've been here
before, you know that we're going to give
you practical,
tactical, actionable insights and ideas.
You know we're gonna have a round robin
where people are gonna get to decide what
their opinions are about these things and talk
about them. We'll probably have, what I'll say
is, some little arguments that'll happen while we
do this because that's always fun.
And we're gonna talk about a number of
things that you can just put to work
right away because that's what we wanna give
you, just pure value here. So I wanna
start
by dispelling the myths
about how opportunities are created. And I'm gonna
go to Mike Weinberg first because if there's
anyone who has strong opinions about opportunity creation
you're already smiling, Mike.
It's Mike Weinberg. So dispel the myths. What
are people hearing that's not true
that's causing them to have challenges creating new
opportunities and building a pipeline?
Oh, wow.
How about 80% of what they're reading on
LinkedIn is not true?
Right? Everything from
Wackos,
telling you that you should follow the lead
of Kylie Jenner.
Right? Because she built her net worth to
a $1,000,000,000
posting selfies on Instagram.
To the nonsense
from people that claim to be international best
selling authors
telling you how dare you ever think about
annoying or interrupting a buyer, that it's much
better to have people running to you, a,
you know, a loyal tribe of followers.
It's absolutely
a mess. There are there are more myths
than you can imagine.
We all know this. Right? I mean, in
in all of our clients,
the the top producers
are laser focused on creating their own opportunities.
They take full
responsibility for filling the top of the funnel.
Anthony, you always talk about, one of the
biggest issues that's is salespeople are opportunity
starved.
Right? And the and the reason they're starved
is because they're sitting on their butt and
they're waiting, and they're commenting on LinkedIn groups,
and they're they're listening to the nonsense that
tells you it's inappropriate today
to interrupt somebody,
which drives me crazy. Because if your if
your motivation to sell is pure because you
believe you have a better outcome for them
and your prospect is probably stuck in some
suboptimal
situation,
man, it's incumbent on you to prospect to
do everything possible to get that meeting because
you can bring them value because they need
you.
I'm gonna move to to Jeb Blunt because
I know, I'm I may be doing this
in order of the strongest feelings because, you've
got the wrong book up for this. We
should have fanatical prospecting up behind you, but
but you do have strong opinions about what
opportunity creation means.
Well, let's start with Mike said myth. The
one of the greatest myths is people who
call themselves international
best selling authors.
There's enough of those out there that I'm
an international best selling author and you've written
one book and your book has full reviews
on it and it's ranked 2,700,000
on Amazon.
I'm I'm incredulous
of all of the best selling authors. It's
it's I don't even know where where to
begin. And that's just like all the people
that call themselves sales experts. If they if
you someone calls themselves a sales expert, go
check their resume, which is typically on LinkedIn.
And usually, they've had one sales job They've
one sales job. And I don't know how
in one sales job you become an expert
in sales.
Usually, that means that you sucked at your
sales job and you suck so bad that
they fired your ass, and now you have
to go be an expert in order to
try to make some sort of a living.
So you need to be careful about who
you're taking advice from to begin with. And
it's just like I I I'm you know,
I I invest my money. I don't invest
my money with a financial adviser whose finances
are a disaster. I invest my money with
financial advisers
and lawyers and accountants who who
as, you know, themselves have a high net
worth and do a really good job with
their money. I wanna spend my time and
effort with experts who are really experts. So
that's number 1. Number 2 is understanding what
a rainmaker is. So we're talking about ultra
high performance. Being a rainmaker means that you're
delivering for your company and you're delivering for
your family and yourself. So that means that
you are at the top of the ranking
report. That means that every day you're crushing
it. You're hitting your number. You have the
trust of your leadership team. You're going to
president's club. You're getting the awards. You're getting
this this. You're getting the money, and you're
taking home a ton of commissions to your
family.
And the good news is that most rainmakers,
they already know the truth. They know exactly
what it takes to fill up the pipeline,
and that requires them to consistently
every day every day every day interrupt people.
And, look, there's a ton of channels that
you can do that with. You can knock
on a door. You can send a smoke
signal. You can use the telephone. You can
use social media. It is a good medium
to use. You can use text messaging. You
can use networking. You can go to events.
You can go to trade shows. You can
do all kinds of things. But if you
look at the rainmakers in your company, the
people that are making the most money,
those folks are using all of the above
and they're doing it relentlessly.
You're getting an applause break from Mike Weinberg.
Mark Hunter. Well, he here's the whole thing.
Sales is not about customer service. Sales is
about creating
incremental
opportunities, and that means you've gotta get in
the face of people. And, you know, if
you've got the ability to help somebody, you
have the responsibility
to get in their face. You have the
responsibility to interrupt them. It's not about sitting
back. Well, let me just post something on
social media. Let me just do all this.
I'm gonna share a quick story.
My daughter was telling me that she looked
outside the window of her house
recently. Saw a neighbor's house was on fire.
Now she didn't know the neighbor. Oh oh
oh oh, I'm sorry. Well well well, let
let me connect, you know. She didn't connect
with them on Facebook and send them some
posting. No. No. No. She called 911 and
went over there and made sure those people
were out of that house.
If you have the ability to help somebody,
it is your
responsibility.
And for those who sit there and say,
oh, the telephone doesn't work. You know the
people who say that are the ones who
are afraid.
Few weeks ago, Tesla announced that they're closing
their stores, you know, and they're gonna go
online. And and I and I threw a
little piece out on social media just to
see what and and this guy where expects
is, well, I hate salespeople. I hate salespeople.
I wanna buy everything online. You know what
the dude's job was? A sales job.
Give me a break.
I I feel like at some point I
have to say,
unleash the kraken or, or angry Mark. I
mean, we're starting to get, we're getting him
close. Look. He's still catching his breath from
that.
Here's my here here's my myth.
The myth that I think that's doing the
most damage is that prospecting is something that's
passive,
reactive,
that requires you to wait, and it's someone
else's job to drive those opportunities
to your inbox
or to your phone because it's just not
gonna happen, and all of us know it's
not gonna happen. So I wanna pivot from
what people are being told that's harming them
to what do we see as best practices.
When you when you look at the salespeople
and the companies that are generating
not only the highest number of opportunities, enough
opportunities that they're able to reach goals,
but also the highest quality opportunities,
which is another category altogether. Because everyone on
this group I already know,
we all believe that there's a difference between
a target and a lead and and that
there's a huge disparity between what people think
they should be focusing their time on. So,
Jeff Blunt, if you were to to talk
about what you see, the ultra high performer
in your world, What are those companies
doing? What are the best practices that allow
them to over index on results?
Well, one of the the the keys to
over indexing of results or being a a
rainmaker is working on the right opportunities, the
right time, with the right message.
So for example, they segment their their their
prospects out. So we we look at prospect
segmentation
on really 3 different planes. So one plane
is,
high probability.
So what is the probability that right now
there's a window of opportunity
that
would give you a high probability of moving
that prospect into your pipeline?
The next segmentation is potential. So what's the
potential? So we look at high probability, medium
probability, low probability. We also look at high
potential, medium potential, low potential. So if I
have a high probability, high potential account,
that's where I wanna focus my attention because
that account is most likely to move into
my pipeline and generate
a a a big result for me. So
lots of sales, lots of commissions. And then
3rd, taking a a little page out of
your playbook is when you start segmenting your
your database, so your your entire prospect world,
so that you're you're looking at your dream
accounts, your dream clients, your dream opportunities,
your conquest accounts, your targeted accounts, and then
everything else. So I'll run through that real
quickly. So your dream accounts, you're typically gonna
have somewhere between 1025
dream accounts. These are the biggest opportunities,
the highest potential opportunities in your territory, and
everybody in your company should know about those.
So you've got marketing behind you so you
can run account based marketing against those. You
can run long term pursuit plans,
and you can you can do everything that
you you can to get in the door.
It's gonna take you a while, and you
won't sell all of them. You might sell
1 or 2 of your dream accounts a
year, but they're so big that when you
sell them, they propel you to the top
of the ranking report. Conquest accounts are typically
the deals for me, they're competitive deals. So
I wanna take deals away from my competitors
that have a long term impact on my
credibility. So if I if I if I
say, for example, Anthony, you've got an account,
and you're, you know, you're in your business
and I want that account, I'm gonna align
everything I can against that account so I
can take it from you so I can
go to other businesses
and and I can tell them, hey. I
took this account. In some cases, it's an
account in your territory that, may have a
good reputation. So if you get that from
a social proof standpoint, you're able to tell
other businesses, hey. I have this particular account
in my portfolio. Typically, you're gonna have around
50 to a 100 conquest accounts, not too
many more than that. And, again, you can
run good pursuit pursuit plans and sequences and
cadences against those. And then there's targeted prospects,
and these are the prospects that usually are
gonna be high potential, medium potential prospects. They're
gonna fit your ideal prospect profile,
and
you're gonna have a group of those prospects
that you're gonna be working against all the
time. And these are just your bread and
butter everyday prospects.
And, typically, most salespeople are gonna have somewhere
between
250 and a 1000 of those depending on
the size of your territory.
500 and less is probably the best group
to work with. And then with that group
as well, you can rank those and you
can run some cadences and pursuit plans against
some of those accounts. Others
trying to run that type of a pursuit
plan is just too much energy, too much
effort. So you begin ranking all of your
targeted prospects in a way that gets you
in front of the right ones at the
right time. And so
if you just think about what I just
said, becoming a rainmaker means that you have
to have a systematic and methodical process for
interrupting people. It's not just let's get fired
up and let's go out and knock on
every single door. You You gotta have a
plan. You have to have strategy. You gotta
be thinking about it, and you gotta be
building your messages. And then you have to
use every prospecting channel that you have at
your disposal
to get their attention, grab their attention,
and open up the door when that window
of opportunity is at its peak.
I'm gonna pass this to Mark Hunter. But
before I do, I just wanna say you
have a little, picture of a triangle.
And and what what Jeb is saying is
that you're you're starting at the top of
that triangle.
Leads are the bottom of the triangle. The
leads are at the bottom of the triangle.
So when you shift your focus and go,
well, leads gotta be easier,
yeah, probably is easier, but it probably isn't
gonna turn into anything. And let me let
me just before we we move to Mark,
say say exactly what you said. And this
is one of the when you start listening
to these morons,
on social media that are telling you not
to prospect and tell you not to cold
call, they totally don't get it. And because
if you think about prospecting, about 20% of
your prospecting is right now. It's it's engaging
prospects who have some level of familiarity with
you or your company, who you've been working
on, and there's a buying window open, and
you're trying to engage them, set an appointment,
move them into your pipeline.
About 80% of your prospecting is working on
all those leads and you're gathering qualifying information
and you're reaching into the organization. You're identifying
stakeholders. You're beginning to build familiarity. And you're
starting to use the different tools like LinkedIn,
which is a fantastic tool to connect with
these folks. But that's a huge portion of
your prospecting
is that, and some of that is a
pure cold call because at some point, you
gotta call people up and say hello to
them. They're not gonna come to you. So
when you start thinking about your prospecting at
the peak, all of those calls, all of
that effort is to set the appointment. And
then as you start moving down that prospecting
pyramid, you're looking at how can I gather
information that makes this particular prospect better, more
qualified,
or identifies a future buying window so that
I can open the door, set the appointment
at the right time? Mark, let me just
jump in before you go. I wanna pick
up on something Jeb is saying. What drives
me crazy is that the people online telling
salespeople, gullible salespeople,
that that that the the stuff they wanna
hear is that prospecting doesn't work. They make
cold calling into something that it's not.
They it's like it's like you're calling the
phone book. Like, you're being fed calls by
an auto dialer, just random people calling them
at home. What what Jeb did a great
job articulating is that we have to have
a strategic finite list
of accounts, ideal profile prospects that look and
smell like people who get value from us.
We're not calling the phone book. We've done
the research. I love when Jeb says this.
He does it all the time. You know,
researching isn't prospecting. Prospecting is prospecting. We do
the research on the front end. So so
the people that set up, you know, this
boogeyman,
that cold calling doesn't work. Well, of course,
if you're calling the phone book, it doesn't
work. But if you're calling a 100 or
200 strategically
selected accounts that look
exactly like customers who who love you and
appreciate your value. That's not the same thing.
Sorry, Mark. Go ahead. No. I I I
think you you you hit on so many
pieces there, and this is what, again, drives
me nuts.
First of all, let's let's put LinkedIn in
a box. Not everybody is on LinkedIn.
There there are segments that are on LinkedIn.
Salespeople are on LinkedIn. I've got many, many
buyers that are never on a LinkedIn. So
when these people are out there,
you know, hey. LinkedIn is where you get
all your customers. If you're selling to other
salespeople, oh, gee. I guess that's what they're
doing. I guess that's what they do. Here's
the whole piece. The whole piece is who
am I spending my time with? And and
it comes back and the whole thing is
is I gotta understand the quality of what
that prospect is. This is why I say
too many people have prospects. No. They don't
have prospects. They have suspects
because they have not qualified them to the
highest level of where they wanna spend their
time. The most valuable asset any salesperson has
is not what they sell, is not their
customers, it's their own time. And the peak
performers, the top the ones at the top
of the food chain, they get it. So
they are focused
with their time on the highest performing salespeople
who are who on on the highest performing
customers that are gonna yield the greatest opportunity
because they know that, hey, this is a
big opportunity and it fits in their timeline
now.
They're not sitting there. This is where so
many
salespeople burn themselves out prospecting.
Well, they burn themselves out prospecting 2 ways
because they spend all their time preparing
to prospect. I'm preparing.
Oh, oh, I I set aside 2 hours
to prospect. How many calls did you make?
None. Because, well, I'm I'm doing research
that,
prospecting time is customer facing time.
2nd is they wear themselves out because they
have no plan. You don't have a plan.
Guess what?
You are debt. You are DOA.
And, you know, we're calling that out, and
and we're all being point blunt blank,
full throttle. And I know, Anthony, you've got
some comments because, you know, eat their lunch.
What is eat their lunch all about? You
need to jump in. You you need to
add some comments on this.
My, my comments are the targets are just
far better than leads. And, I mean, when
jab when I first saw his triangle, it's
exactly right. And and you you start
with what's going to have the highest impact
on your result. And if you wanna know
the best practices of organizations
that we see,
certainly I see, creating
the most opportunities
and the highest quality opportunities together. So if
you're looking at those two two factors,
it's because they know who they create value
for. They know the kind of companies that
have the kind of problems that they can
solve,
and they dedicate all their time and energy
into winning those. And, you know, I continually
get this question,
when do you give up on on a
difficult prospect to win?
Like, never. You don't get paid for giving
up. You ever get a commission check? Like,
you worked really hard, but it didn't work
out for you, but we're gonna give you
some money anyway just for your effort. That's
not the way that sales works. The way
that sales works, you gotta win them. And
look, you're gonna be prospecting anyway. I mean,
what so you're like, well, this one's really
hard. They've been with this company for 10
years. It's gonna be hard to win. You're
making calls anyway. I mean, what what do
you care if it takes you Have we
all had that experience where our best accounts
took years
years to wear them down? I mean, accounts
that were multimillion dollar? I mean yes.
And that's why they are our best accounts
because it took forever. But once we captured
them, we were able to hold on to
them. Alright. Hang on. I gotta call time
out. Everybody's fired up now. I knew and
I knew when I Before you do that,
let me tell you the story because Mike
said something. So last week, I get a
text message
from Billy Henson. Billy, if you're watching this,
I'm talking about you.
Billy used to work with me back in
my days when I was at another company.
And 18 years ago, Billy and I started
pursuing this big
equipment manufacturer.
And 18 years later, he finally closed it.
And he sent me a text message to
let me know. He said, after 18 years,
we finally closed this and I wanna celebrate
with you. That's how long sometimes it takes
to get your dream account.
Did did was Billy getting paid in the
interim 18 years for his effort? He was
getting a salary for 18 years. Yeah.
But you don't want Billy was doing, though.
I I'm sure Billy was also working other
smaller customers. And and this is the whole
thing,
understanding how to feed how to feed the
food chain. Oh, Billy's a winemaker. Billy has
a Rolex on his on his arm. He's
got, like, he's got them all the way
up his arm.
He's been to every president's club since he
started with the company. Right. Because people are
the greatest salespeople in the So he's not
he's closing everything. He's selling everything he can
along the way. Right. And he needs to
work on those big opportunities that have identified
these high potential accounts in his marketplace, and
he starts focusing on So he was not
a prisoner of hope to that one deal.
He was working all kinds of accounts at
all different stages of sales cycle. And as
Mark was saying, small accounts, regular accounts. Let
let me make one point on on leads
and targets.
When Mark was talking, this this really came
to me clearly.
I think one of the biggest sins in
developing new business, because salespeople are doing the
rain barrel thing or they wait to chase
an opportunity instead of trying to create an
opportunity,
they end up late. They they're they're last
to the opportunity.
They're late to the party. And everyone always
wants to talk, I want a beautiful, warm,
perfectly qualified lead. You know what happens when
you have a perfectly qualified lead? That buyer
is way down the path. Right? Some other
your your competitors
more proactive salesperson has been in there planting
seeds, starting a relationship, shaping buying criteria.
What what I I think sometimes we're better
off with a with a a colder target,
where we go in and we play consultant
and advisor and expert, and we paint a
picture of a better future. We ask great
questions. We tell our story, and then we're
guiding them down the path to create an
opportunity versus playing some other joker's game where
now the buyer's dictating what they want and
you show up and do your dog and
pony show and do your demo. I don't
know what you think of that, but I
sometimes I think we're in a strong position.
Hang hang on. I've lost control. I'm calling
time out. I knew this I knew this
agenda was gonna get everybody going, but we
have to stop for just long enough
to say that we have sponsors, and we
wanna thank people
for for being generous enough to support us
at this endeavor. And let's start with,
our friends at outreach. Io, and we're gonna
talk about sequences at some point, here in
the future and how important they are. But,
Outreach. Io is a tremendous
platform and somebody that we admire. We admire
not only,
the fact that they sponsored us, but as
users, their their equipment, their their their software
is great.
The second one is ZoomInfo.
ZoomInfo,
if you're gonna get data, this is where
to get it. I mean and and that
is the end of the conversation. You don't
need to say anything else. That is where
to go to get data.
Another great sponsor with a a great platform
and a great offering, and we appreciate them
sponsoring this. And you can see so far
that 2 of, the sponsors
have a lot,
in common with us as it pertains to
cold outreach. So we have cold outreach sponsors
here too. And the last one is, our
friends at Connect and Sell,
And, we we love what they do, and
I will just tell you, if you don't
follow,
Chris
on on LinkedIn, you should because he continues
to put up data all the time on
just how effective cold outreach can be with
a telephone.
And, there's so much hate that follows that.
Well, you didn't do this, and then what
about this other thing? And the data is
just unassailable. You can't argue with it. So,
thank you to our sponsors. We appreciate you
helping us. Now
I'm gonna call time back in, but I'm
gonna try to be careful about this because
I lost control
of the group here with these questions.
Mark, you wanted to say something then back
to Jeffrey. Yeah.
Real real quick. Sales managers, if if you
are listening to this, and I hope you
are, you gotta understand you play a role
in creating
also incremental opportunities. I see too many sales
managers
only getting involved in the sales process, when
it comes time to close a deal. I
want you out there
having conversations,
having having dialogue because you can ask questions
that salespeople can't ask. You can walk into
an existing account
and ask question at, and you're gonna uncover
incremental opportunities with that other division they just
bought. You're you're you're gonna uncover incremental opportunities
with a company that you didn't even realize
they owned in another country.
Sales leaders, you play a role in creating
incremental opportunities. Okay. I'll get on this. Jeb
Jeb Blunt, you were sort of leaning forward,
maybe hovering off the ground a little bit.
So I just slanting into the camera so
I know you have something to say. Well,
I wanna go back to what you were
talking about our sponsors and and show you
how in real life we've become rainmakers. How
we focus on outbound effort versus the rain
barrel who has their mouth to the sky
waiting for something to drop in.
So I get a Google alert with my
name on it, and it's got, it's an
article from this big association.
And the the the number 1 or the
the association
company of the year, there's an article about
them and my name's in the article. As
I read the article, they say we've had
the best year we've ever had. And one
of the reasons why we have that best
year is we use fanatical prospecting
to help our sales team get better at
prospecting.
So I grabbed the article and immediately sat
down my sales team and says, hey. Listen.
We've got this this industry that one of
their top members, in fact, the member of
the year who got the award, there's a
picture of them getting their trophy. They use
Fanatical Prospecting. So then we went to ZoomInfo
and we went and pulled a list of
all of the businesses in that particular industry
that do more than $10,000,000
in sales. They gave us a fairly big
list. We took that list and we loaded
it into outreach.io
and we created a pursuit plan against those.
And then we went to connect and sell
and we used those those leads in connect
and sell to run an initial call campaign.
So we cold called them completely out of
the blue. But because there were some familiarity
with who we are, we just called them
up and said, hey. Your member of the
year used fanatical prospecting. Can we have a
conversation with you about how we can help
you? Most of them didn't answer the phone.
Some of them did. We left voice message
messages for the ones that didn't.
Can I cancel let let it get let
us get through the list really, really quickly?
And then we went to a pursuit plan
where we used email. We used some account
based marketing. We used some advertising against that
particular list, so that was pure marketing.
Then we used social media to get and
connect with them, and then we ran another
call campaign. And out of that call campaign
of that group of of businesses, we ended
up with 25 opportunities that are real, and
at least 10 of those are gonna close
and turn into business for us. And that
10 business is probably gonna end up being
somewhere between 250
and a half a $1,000,000 in business for
us. And our entire effort in the entire
process, when we really start to look at
it, we probably invested, I don't know, 20
hours of work in the process.
But we used all of the tools that
are out there available to us to put
together a targeted list and then turn that
targeted list into
into into qualified prospects and then turn those
qualified prospects into deals.
And I this is the difference between being
a rainmaker and a rain barrel. The rain
barrel is sitting around going well, nobody's calling
a day, and the rainmakers are out there
making it happen. And they're paying attention
to the signals in the marketplace and using
the tools that they have available for the
to to them to go in and reach
out and interrupt these strangers and start a
dialogue
that can help those those businesses
improve their their outcomes as well.
Let me, take that and pivot. And I'm
gonna go first on this one because I
wanna talk about,
the the order in which we do things
in prospecting and the sequence
or the cadence of a pursuit plan. And
then I wanna ask, you to share your
your opinions on these things. Anthony, let me
just jump in one second because I would
some people probably saw me shaking my head
while Jeb was talking.
It wasn't what Jeb was saying. I I
was literally sitting here getting pissed off
at the charlatans and the liars in our
industry because Jeb just told you an incredible
story.
How using all methods necessary, focused around prospecting
drove incredible business.
And the 4 of us know this because
we have real clients. Right? The top producers
and all of our clients are perpetually prospecting.
I've got a little SaaS client, you know,
and they do everything they can to do
inbound marketing and they go to trade shows
and they got white papers. You know what
the truth is? 80% of their freaking deals
last year were self generated by salespeople picking
up the phone and creating discovery meetings on
their own. So the so those of you
just that that don't understand why we fight
so hard online and we attack, and we're
not antisocial.
Social helps all of us. But it's the
morons lying to you. They're totally untethered from
the truth, telling you that prospecting doesn't work.
When I'm in company after company after company
and so are these guys. When we see
prospecting work, Jeff just told you a story
how it works in his own company. So
just be very careful who you listen to.
And Mark Hunter says this, Mark. I mean,
I I quote you all the time. It's
in the first chapter of my new book.
You can't take likes to the bank. And
these morons who who think they're gonna help
people write an articles every day on LinkedIn,
when you criticize these very sensitive,
weird, Nuvo experts and say, I'm not so
sure you're telling people the right thing. They
always point back to how many likes their
articles get as if that's the credibility thing.
Like, you can and, Mark, what do you
always say? You can't take? You can't take
clicks and likes to the bank. Period. Boom.
Sorry. I I had to get that out
because Jeb's story was just so on target.
I I We are rainmakers
not sitting around waiting for a rain barrel.
I I just drafted a simple agenda. I
thought it was gonna be a rousing conversation,
and I have, no idea what kind of
hell I've just unleashed,
on the VSK 2019.
But it will be entertaining for all of
you here. I'm certain.
Oh, it's believe me. It's it it's lighting
up social media.
I think that there's a a a method
that something like outreach enables.
And for me,
I I did a demo with them, and
I wrote
a a blog post about
their their picture. I actually used a picture
of their their sequence
that Outreach actually uses. So talk about people
believing what they believe. They actually use their
own product prospect.
And when they pulled the screen up, I
said, whose whose account is that? And they
said, that's our account. And I'm like, oh,
okay. It had 20,000
companies in a campaign.
18,000 of them had already gone through the
campaign, and it resulted in something like 45100
two way conversations.
But the first line was an email.
And I and the email garnered something like,
out of 18,000
emails that were sent, maybe 45 had two
way communication.
So it was a very, very small number.
But then they made a phone call next,
and 1500
people had two way communication on the the
the phone. And the first question I asked
was, why didn't you just start with a
phone call? I mean, it did so much
better as a first Volley.
And and the person giving me the demo
said, I don't know. We just always start
with an email. And and I think it's
kind of the world that we live in
right now that people think email is prospecting,
and they think that they're email prospecting. And
now we've got all of Silicon Valley who's
decided that we can automate prospecting by sending
people emails.
And on one email I got last year,
somebody said, I believe I can help your
business. Click on these links to see what
we do to help companies like yours. I
didn't reply.
A couple weeks later, I got another email,
and it had the first email pasted in
behind it to say, just wanna make sure
you didn't miss this.
And, I did miss it. I intentionally missed
it, so I missed it again by hitting
delete.
And then I got the third one
that said, you know, this is really important
and blah blah blah, and I hope you
go back and read these other two emails.
And I replied back and said,
you should read my friend, Jeb Blunt's book,
Fanatical Prospecting, because what you're doing isn't really
working for you, and you might wanna take
another approach.
And I got an email back from the
salesperson that said, I didn't even send you
any emails. That all came from our chief
marketing officer,
and I had no idea who you were
until I got your email.
And and that's that's what people actually think
prospecting is. That's what we're up against in
this conversation is that it doesn't require any
human effort.
You can just be a rain barrel and
wait until somebody clicks on one of those
links. And then if I would have clicked
on the link, they would have said I'm
an interested
lead of some kind.
But I think that you start with the
phone because the phone gives me a chance
to ask for a meeting.
And then if you say, I didn't hear
enough value in trade for what you asked
me for, I get a chance to have
another run at it. When I send an
email, you're not even there to be involved
in the conversation at all. So I think
that the email comes first,
and you leave a voice mail, and you
don't tell anybody to call you back because
they're not calling you back, but you leave
your phone number. You say, I followed it
up with an email, and then I'm gonna
try to reach out to you again next
week.
And you do that a number of weeks
in a row, and and you don't try
to automate this, and you don't expect anybody
to pick up the phone and call you
back because you're trying to get them to
give you their business. They're not trying to
hire you. So it's incumbent upon you. And
if you decide, well, I sent this and
if they wanna talk to me, I'll wait
for them to call back. There's no waiting
in sales.
There's no waiting. So for me, I think
it's phone first.
You can follow it up with voicemail and
email. You do that a few weeks in
a row, and then after that, you can
start going to LinkedIn, and you can start
trying to nurture the relationship. So I wanted
to say one thing about the myths. The
myth is that social is for selling, and
social is for nurturing. It's above the funnel.
It does a lot to shape, but you're
not asking for anybody. You're not asking anybody
for anything when you're on social. It doesn't
work that way. So I'm gonna go to,
I guess I'm going to Mark first because
he can't he can't restrain himself. I
I put the comment out in a blog
post the other day that I said social
selling is neither. It's neither social. It's neither
selling. And it believe me, it it lit
up
unbelievably. But he here's this whole thing. People
have to understand, it is the telephone. The
telephone and those who are sitting there saying
the telephone doesn't work are the people who
are afraid. I gotta share a quick story.
I had a gentleman who called me, insurance
agent. He's been in my coaching program for
a long time. His son, 21 year old
son, coming into the business.
He says, I gotta teach him how to
sell insurance over the phone.
Kid was absolutely afraid. Absolutely afraid.
Just got done coaching him. We were doing
an hour a week
and and just got done with him. And
the kid is crushing it on the telephone.
Don't tell me
that you
can't make phone calls. This is a 21
year old kid going to college part time,
crushing it on the telephone, selling insurance.
Give me a break, people.
Jeb Blunt. We're going, from left to right
on my screen.
I I hear people tell you the phone
doesn't work. And, typically,
my response is nobody answers a phone that
doesn't ring. And then they say, well, nobody
wants to be called. Right? Nobody nobody wants
to take a phone call from a call
person. That is the one of the arguments
from one of the Sherylton who says he's
an international best selling author, and nobody's read
the son of a bitch's book. Excuse my
language. We're we're giving you a pass. We're
giving you it's a it's mostly a family
friendly show, but in this, the point that
you're making, I think, you know We're emotional.
We're emotional.
So
so then so then it people say, well,
nobody wants to get a call from a
salesperson. And I say, well, no shit, Sherlock.
Nobody wants to get a call from a
salesperson. If people wanted to get a call
from salespeople, there wouldn't be salespeople. They would
all be calling you, but they're not calling
you. But the reason we have rainmakers is
they're interrupting people that don't wanna be interrupted
because you don't wanna be interrupted and I
don't wanna be interrupted. That's tough. So you
gotta have a good message when you call.
Now the this this idea that the phone
doesn't work, I'm gonna give you a a
case study
real case study out of our playbook.
And this, by the way, happened 2 weeks
ago.
1 of my trainers walked into a room
full of 90
US army recruiters. So there's 90 recruiters in
the room. These guys are calling 17 18
year olds. Okay? So the the generation that
are the native,
you know, tech people who none of them
would ever take a phone call. This is
the myth. Right? And we walked in and
my recruiter or my my trainers gives an
order. You have 15 minutes to make 15
dials and set one appointment. And, of course,
they start grousing.
Why are we calling? Nobody answers the phone.
They're you know, this is stupid. Well, why
don't we send some text messages, hang out
on Facebook? And the reason why we're there
is because all these soldiers, these recruiters, are
hanging out on Facebook.
So my trainer gives the order one more
time. 15 minutes, 15 dials, one appointment, go.
15 minutes later, this battalion
of military recruiters
had set more appointments in 15 minutes than
they had in the previous 3 weeks on
the telephone.
And we have them on film. Like, we
we we my my camera guys are there
taking a picture of them, and they're all
just they can't believe
that when they call people, they actually answer.
But the thing is this phone right here,
one more call,
is with you all the time. It is
hanging on these 17 year old's hips. They
sleep with their phones. I know my kids
sleeps with this phone. So the phone is
attached to people. So more people are answering
the phone than ever before. And, oh, by
the way, people are sending emails. And I'll
give you one more example, Anthony, from from
what you said. We have one of our
software clients, a little SaaS company,
and they were going after new accounts. And
they were pulling these lists off of ZoomInfo,
and they were doing email campaigns to them.
And it was the same thing you saw.
Like, they were getting no return. In fact,
they were sending, like, 8 emails in a
row and nothing was happening. And I just
asked the question, why aren't you just picking
up the phone and calling them? Why don't
we just call? And they said, well, we
need to warm them up. Well, after 8
emails, you've just pissed them off. I mean,
they're they're not gonna talk to you anyway
because you've, you know, you've just you've you've
spammed them.
So we took a different tact. We got
them all together, did the same thing. We
took 30 minutes, and we made 30 outbound
dials just as fast as we possibly could.
And they were amazed at how many people
they talked to, and they had a two
way conversation with. And the thing is is
the phone is it's so easy. You pick
up the phone. There's a person on the
other end. You say hello, and now you're
talking to a human. And the last time
I checked, sales is human to human. It's
people helping other people, and you can't do
that via email, and you certainly can't do
that on social media. And I don't wanna
say that there's anything wrong with social media.
I think LinkedIn is one of those tools
that is, you know, the car, the phone,
the Internet, Google, LinkedIn. I think it all
fits together, CRMs.
But for someone to tell you that the
phone doesn't work, they're lying to you. They're
lying to you because it makes them feel
uncomfortable, and they're a bunch of losers who
are unwilling to pick up the phone, interrupt
people, and make it rain.
I just, trademarked 2 more calls. I I'm
I'm gonna be even more aggressive than Jab.
I mean, one more call is good, but
2 more calls is even better. I just
trademarked 3 more calls.
Hey. Let me can I talk about voice
mail real quick?
I I just wanna I wanna pick up
on where Jeff was going and what you
guys started.
Anyone who really prospects a lot knows this.
You can be building a relationship with someone
who has not yet returned your call.
We earn a callback or we earn the
meeting with perseverance
and creativity.
Right? And if you gotta keep dripping and
dripping and dripping, and if you have good
voice tone and you drip little value nuggets
on somebody, right, good things happen. And we
all have experienced this.
You leave someone 4 or 5 good messages,
very often they actually will call you back.
And you know how they start the the
the phone call when they get back with
you? What do they say?
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry it took me so long to
respond. Thank you for your persistence.
And then who's got the leverage in that
conversation? Right? When you're good at this, it
works. But you have to put in the
effort. You have to sharpen your messaging. You
have to be creative, and you gotta stick
with it. You earn the appointment by perseverance.
Okay. Don't leave because we're going to our
final question here. What is your very,
very best single piece of advice
for making 2019 your best sales year ever?
Me? I'm limit I'm limiting you to 1.
Your best advice.
Can I split it in 2?
I don't I don't know that I can
stop you. So yes. I'll be really brief.
It's 2 things.
More strategic targeting and more time put against
those strategic targets.
Everyone wants to talk about all the crazy
nebulous and, you know, sales nerdy stuff. The
clients that I have that have transformed their
results, the people are laser focused on a
strategic finite list of accounts. They could be
prospects or they could be growable customers. There's
a whole lot of people managing territories or
books of business. They they're just doing the
milk run and they babysit and they over
serve. If you manage existing accounts, you gotta
decide which of those are growable and spend
more time working those. Stop bringing donuts to
your friends and go call on the hard
customers or the non customers. That's part 1.
And part 2 is take back your calendar
and stop starting every day in your inbox
and look into big, good corporate citizen stuff
and decorate for parties. Spend time selling. Make
a list and spend more time selling. You'll
have a great year.
You gotta get out of decorating for the
holidays.
That's best stuff. Jeb Blunt.
In in this book, Objections is right next
to me. By the way, this is coming
out of audio,
in a couple of weeks. So you wanna
check Audible and pick up this book. That
was a gratuitous book plug, Anthony.
That's my one tip. Read objections.
So,
in this book, I I tell the story
at the very beginning of the book about
a guy named Richard. This guy called me
71
times.
71 times. Now he left a lot of
those were voice mail messages.
He sent me a dozen emails. He talked
to everybody in my company. He stalked me
on LinkedIn,
but he called and called and called and
called and called. I was sitting in my
office,
just I I had one of those rare
days where I was off the road, and
the phone rang. And I picked it up,
and it was this guy. And I I
recognized his voice. And, like, he'd been so
persistent that I couldn't say to him
no. Like, I couldn't I couldn't
not not have a conversation with him. So
I said, hey, Richard. I I got a
few minutes. Why don't you tell me what
you got? Seventy one calls. The call ended
with him having my credit card in his
hands, and,
and he,
he had my business and still has my
business. So my tip for you this year,
if you wanna make it rain, is be
persistent.
One call is not enough. One touch is
not enough. One email is not enough. One
knock is not enough. You have to be
persistent. You have to be relentless. And the
one thing that I can tell you is
that people who are at the top of
these companies who buy from you, they absolutely
they absolutely respect relentless
because they want people like you on their
sales team. And when you're relentless and you're
persistent, they will do business with you.
I'm, not gonna plug my book like Jeb
or anything like that. I'm just gonna pass
it over to Mark Hunter. That's all. Well,
I'm gonna say that book objections is probably
has one of the best forwards it's ever
been written, but that's a separate that's a
separate piece. Hey. Hey. Here's the whole thing.
Some of the best advice you're ever gonna
find is in your shower. Now, Anthony, you're
excluded from this, but it's on that bottle
of shampoo
where it says rinse and repeat.
Rinse. Rinse does not mean you put the
same shampoo. For the person who sends that
email, gee, let me send this email to
you again. Let me send it to you
again. It was a stupid email. Rinse. You
put new shampoo in your hair each time.
You you rinse,
new message,
new value.
Repeat.
The greatest
opportunity you're gonna ever gonna have
is to allow
people who aren't expecting you, aren't expecting your
call,
to help them see and achieve what they
did not think was possible.
That's what being a rainmaker is all about.
Because these people are not sitting there, oh,
well, gee, I need to go find this.
That's what a rain barrel is. We're helping
people see and achieve what they did not
think was possible. That doesn't that doesn't juice
you up. If that doesn't jazz you, I'm
sorry. You shouldn't be in sales. That's why
we're in sales, because it's about helping people.
I love it. Anthony.
Alright. My best piece of advice is
have something good enough to trade
for the time that you're asking when you're
making these cold outreach. So that means get
the business acumen,
get a deep understanding,
go in as a trusted adviser, as consultative.
And I just wanna continue to push on
this idea of consultative because,
again, you have the mythmakers out there telling
people that it means that you're not high
pressure,
you're not hard sell, you ask really good
questions. That's not what it means.
Consultative means you tell people how to better
run their business and produce better results than
they're producing now, and if you don't have
the opinion as to what they should be
doing and you haven't done your homework, then
it's harder for you to get that meeting.
So do the work to have the business
acumen.
Make sure you show up with something that
somebody would gladly trade 30 minutes to hear
from you. Okay. This is the end of
VSK 2019, but don't go anywhere because this
is the after show. But Let me start,
the after show by, again, saying thank you
to
outreach.io,
our sponsor here. If you're looking at sequences,
that's the place to go. If you need
something to drop into
outreach.io,
go to our sponsor, ZoomInfo.
If you want to accelerate the time it
takes you to reach people on the phone,
then you go to connect and sell.
And, Jeb, at some point, this will be
on,
some platform where people can watch a replay.
If you need to listen to what Jeb
described so that you know how to do
this and how it works, you just go
back over this ground here because it's gonna
accelerate your results, dramatically. So the sequences work
no matter what you use, but if you're
gonna do something with a piece of software,
it's outreach dot iozoominfoconnectandsell.
Okay. And this concludes
BSK 2019.
Stay tuned for the after show.
This is the after show. Welcome to VSK
2019
behind the scenes with Mark Hunter, Jeb Blunt,
and Mike Weinberg.
Here we go.
Okay. Now it's the after show. So now
it's a free for all.
Hey. This was the best VSK yet. I
mean, guys I mean, I'll tell you what,
terrific
commentary from everybody.
Loved it.
I I credit the agenda.
I give it all to you, all to
you. You know, we look up to you,
Anthony, because you you are AI. You are
artificial intelligence before there was artificial intelligence. When
you start with the prompt that says dispel
the myths about how opportunities are created, and
and Mike Weinberg's holding up his sales truth
book cover,
there at the end of this, which I
got to see. Can I just can I
hold it up one more time? Yeah. You
can hold that one more time. So Hey.
Debunk the myths in in the subtitle.
Yeah. And you know what's interesting? And I,
Jeb actually
was referring to the same international best selling
author
that I I have a whole page in
in in the book on that person and
and his quotes because it's so
disingenuous.
More people will read that page than read
his book. Yeah. You you're right. I mean,
it's just it's,
there should be some nervous people when that
book comes out because if you've been posting
stuff on LinkedIn that's not true, there's a
very good chance that I quoted you, and
we're gonna we're gonna expose the truth.
And then we're gonna give a lot of
practical ways that people are creating opportunities and
and becoming rainmakers and top producers.
Hey. You called out Kylie Jenner really, really
quickly.
I I called Kylie Jenner out because there's
a social selling expert who decided that
she was our role model for business to
business sales.
And,
the the post on LinkedIn actually said something
to the effect.
Do you do you still not believe that
social sales social selling produces real sales?
Kylie Jenner increased her net worth to 900
bill $900,000,000
using social channels.
You think she cold called her way to
that net worth?
And I'm and I literally I mean, I
want you to think of how
how lost someone must be to write that.
Like, are you are you gonna go to
your pharmaceutical client or your defense client or
your construction company client or your dealership
that sells heavy equipment or my consulting firm
and use her. I mean, she's the example.
Her posting selfies on Instagram
is is the model we're gonna preach if
I'm a digital sales transformation company and I'm
out telling people this is I'm I'm writing
articles telling people this is what you should
do. Are you freaking kidding me? They don't
even know what Instagram is.
I get to see all of those 3
of your Instagrams, so I can tell you
it's it's not like,
Kylie Jenner, who I don't know that I
would recognize if, she was in front of
me. So
crazy stuff. But let's let's look at the
here's the problem.
The problem is that
if you are a expert let's just say
you've had one sales job in your life.
You didn't do a very good job at
that. You decided it was hard, so you
decided that, hey, I'm a be an expert.
Look. It's really easy to look like Brad
Pitt when you're texting on the Internet in
your basement. Okay? It's really easy to, you
know, hop on, you know, hop on social
media, put up a bunch of memes, get
a bunch of likes, people like you, and
you can say, you know, I'm I'm an
expert. I'm you know, this is what I
do. And then you tell everybody that what
you're doing, posting stuff on LinkedIn, getting a
lot of attention, well, that's what salespeople should
do it because that's how you're you're you
see all the attention that you're getting.
And and and and I say this because
if you think about, you know, me or
Mark or Mike or Anthony,
you know, in our small niche of sales,
we're public figures. I've written 10 books. I
get paid to go stand in front of
audiences, give speeches,
and I post things online because it creates
this aura of
expertise and people see me and people follow
me. And I use that to draw people
in so that I can go sell more
of me.
But on the back end, what you don't
see is that I have 17 people in
my company.
About 70% of those people are trainers. And
I have a sales team who the the
the other 30%
who are on the phone, banging the phone,
reaching out, calling people so that we can
get those folks booked into companies and we
can sell stuff. And
for me as an author and a public
figure in in our space, in our small
space,
social media is is important because I use
it as an advertising, as a marketing medium,
not as a specific medium. But that's it,
Jeb. It's content marketing. You're doing content marketing.
But it but the thing is is that
we have to we have to understand that
just because I'm doing that doesn't mean that,
you know You're not doing other things. Right?
Industrial
parts for a company or selling software or
doing this or doing that, that that's gonna
work for them too because it's not. I
mean, you know, there's 1 or 2 people
here and there that have, you know, sort
of made a name for themselves online.
But even those people, it doesn't work very
long. I can think of one person in
particular,
who, you know, had a you know, made
a big splash as a social selling person
who can't even keep a job because that
doesn't work anymore. It doesn't work if you
can't produce something.
So when you hear people saying that, you
have to take it in context. Yes. For
that human being, they think, wow, this is
what everybody should be doing because I'm getting
all this attention.
But that's not the reality for most salespeople
nor is the reality, and I'd love to
hear your opinion on this, of telling salespeople
they need to be blogging more, they need
to be writing more, they need to be
know. More content. Because because, like, they don't
know how to do that. And and I
know that there are marketers and companies everywhere.
They're like they're rolling over their grave every
time someone puts out content that doesn't connect
with the brand.
Do you even see the two words
social and selling
anymore in your feed at all?
I I still see it I I still
see it pop up in LinkedIn posts and
so forth, and it drives me. There's there's
3 to 5 people that continue to to
use that that that terminology,
But there's not more than that. There there's
there's no more attention being paid to it.
But it's but but you know what the
new term is? Digital selling. They're they're calling
it digital selling,
and it's because social selling didn't work. So
now let's call it digital something. Hey. Let's
shift gears a little bit because this is
the after the show. Isn't this what outbound's
all about? I mean, the 4 of us
going at it. I mean, the 4 of
us I mean, you know, we we blocked
some time for us to have kind of
the battle of the titans,
and, wow, this is gonna be huge at
outbound. But let's I don't wanna I don't
wanna wipe I don't wanna tell people
that social
media is a bad thing because it's it's
it LinkedIn is a it's a tremendous
tool.
And it there's a lot of ways that
you can use LinkedIn to create familiarity,
to, connect with people, to watch what they're
doing, to look for signals,
but it's part of a greater system. The
problem for the social sellers is they tell
you only use this. Right. Don't use this.
And then and then when they're called out
on the carpet, they go, well, I didn't
say that using the telephone isn't a good
thing. You should use a telephone, but we
need to warm everything up. And that's what
the rain barrels are doing. They're waiting for
everything to get warmed up. So there's the
perfect time when the person comes to them.
So I I wanna be clear that the
4 of us are not telling you that
that digital tools are not a good thing.
They're brilliant. They can make life so much
easier.
But you as the rainmaker,
you have to do the outreach. You have
to be outbound.
You have to go out and build your
pipeline. In fact in
fact, great transition. That's what outbound is about.
Right. And, Jeff, you, Jeff, you say this
all the time.
Every appropriate,
ethical, effective means necessary. You're the one that
always throws smoke signals in there. Right? But
let let's let's let's be clear about
the way that the argument has been made
because none of us have ever said anything
except omnichannel.
Every every single medium available to you, everything
that you can possibly do, you do it.
But the the people who have decided that
social selling is a thing
have have been very, very clear that the
phone is not one of those choices. So
you can never make cold outreach. You can
never pick up the phone. You're never to
interrupt another human being.
They said that that's what social selling meant.
For us,
we've never told anybody not to use the
tools or to use them well. I think,
in my own opinion, I think it's all
above the funnel. I think it's all nurture.
I think it's all shaping mind share. I
don't think you're asking anybody for anything, so
it's not prospecting for me. Because if I'm
truly prospecting,
I'm asking somebody for a meeting. And I'm
not asking you for a meeting on Twitter,
and I'm not asking you for a meeting
on LinkedIn.
I might nurture the relationship there. But if
I'm asking you, I'm asking you on the
phone
because that's the greatest likelihood of me being
able to gain a meeting in the first
place. So I I just wanna remember, we
didn't draw a line that said, look, you
can only use the phone, and none of
us only use the phone. We all use
the phone, and we use every other choice
too. But the fact of the matter is
when they framed it up that way, the
reason it died and the reason it's not
relevant anymore
is because it did say this is now
the only way
to prospect, and you wait for inbound leads
to come to you by talking to people
online.
And you should be if you're a field
salesperson, you should be going out and walking
in the doors. When you go to your
appointment, right, you should you should do a
t call. Look to your left, look to
your right, look behind you, and knock on
all those doors and say hello to those
folks. You know, when you're in person prospecting,
it's about what you ask. Right? When you're
on the telephone, it's about what you say,
but you should be doing that too. But
there are morons out there telling people that
you don't even have to do that anymore
because people don't care about the relationship. So
take all your field salespeople, the people that
create relationships with your customers, just take them
off the street
and we'll get a a robot to do
all the work for you. And the smart
companies are not buying into that. In fact,
the smart companies are putting more people on
the street to have human to human conversations
because that's what works. This is personal. I
I just had a vision of outbound 2020.
It's a giant Pentecostal
tent,
and Jeb is gonna come out carrying snakes
in both hands. Right? And,
exactly.
You're gonna get religion.
Hey. A real quick side note. You know,
we gotta do a shout out for millennials
because they're doing a good thing for us
in sales.
Millennials are about authenticity
and transparency.
How do I get that? By having the
relationship,
by picking up the phone and having the
conversation.
Authenticity and transparency. I'm not gonna get that
by just posting stuff on Internet and and
and waiting for things to happen. No.
Can can I shift this to outbound for
just a minute?
Okay.
I continue to get,
emails
and some tweets and some DMs on Twitter,
from people
who are trying to understand,
what happened to outbound. So,
year 1, there's 4 of us.
The this 4.
And then year 2, there's 4 of us.
And then year 3, there's 21 of us.
Is that what happened?
Is there 21 in in that neighborhood?
And the the main stage has now got,
Colleen Francis,
Victor Antonio,
Waldo Waldman,
Jeffrey Gitomer,
Andrea Waltz,
and Bob Burke. That's the main that's the
main stage over the first, 2 days with
the 4 of us. So there's 10.
10 on the main stage.
And and people
who thought, okay. That was good with 4
of us
are stunned
at the main stage.
Is this the best main stage in the
history of sales conferences?
Yes.
Without a doubt. Yeah. And we doubled and
we doubled the number of days
for the main stage and barely even increased
the price.
And it's all Yeah. It's it's the it's
the most ridiculous
value.
And it's all content driven. It's not a
pitch fest.
Content
driven. Well, that's the that's the the question
that I get from people all the time
is, is this gonna be like those other
conferences that I go to where, you know,
there's,
somebody up on the stage rambling on about
their product and it's basically a veiled commercial,
and then there are people in the, you
know, the audience pitching everybody in the audience.
And when you walk out, there's this whole
pitch about, you know, some financial instrument or
or or, you know, some something else. And,
and I just say no. The the the
reason that outbound is different is because of
that. The reason that we don't have 50
sponsors like most of the conferences do, we
make our our we are able to pay
for the the the the conference and and
make a little bit of money,
on the on the ticket sales. And and,
by the way, for everybody listening,
I think it's important to say that every
dime that the outbound is produced and it
just it's it's kind of almost of a
break in break even conference, and we do
it because we love sales. But every dime
of that has been used to build the
next year's conference and make it bigger,
rather than to put money in our pockets.
And it's not that we're not capitalist because
we are stone cold capitalists,
but it's because we made a decision to
make an investment in the sales world and
deliver real content and real training and get
rid of the pitch and and change the
the shape of sales conferences so that you
don't have to go to some place and
endure, you know, 8 hours of people throwing
commercials at you. What's, funny, I got one
email from a guy who when I sent
out an email about the no pitching rule
when we were selling tickets because we are
capitalists and we do actually sell things and
we're not ashamed by selling things
naturally,
and he said,
you just pitched me.
And I said, yes. I did. But I
didn't make you pay to come into a
room where I could pitch you. That's the
difference.
I'm pitching you. This is free for me
to pitch you here because it's an email,
but I didn't make you give me $599
to sit in a room and be pitched.
It's a very, very different model that we're
operating.
I think it was go ahead, Ward.
I had lunch the other day with a
gentleman who just went to 2 very big
events.
First word out of his mouth for both
of them, pitch fest pitch fest.
And he was asking me about outbound.
We're gonna pitch you on prospecting.
We're gonna pitch you on building a pipeline,
and we're gonna pitch you on being more
productive with your time. That's what you're gonna
get pitched on. Mike Weinberg?
Mike. Yeah. I mean, so many thoughts. Look
at the people we've invited to join us.
I mean, this is it's an it's just
an unbelievable lineup. This week is the highlight
of the year
for the 4 of us. It is so
much fun and so energizing, and
it's exhausting. Like, Anthony, you said this in
one of your emails where you're promoting the
conference.
We don't hide in the back. We're not
sitting in some green room. We are running
around the auditorium.
We're taking selfies. We're signing books. We're laughing.
We're interacting with people. I mean, it it's
it's it's absolutely crazy. I mean, it it
is so much fun. And I think one
of the best testimonials of the value that
outbound has created
are the number of people that are coming
back for the 3rd
time.
Yeah.
So Don't come back to a conference. I
mean, it it think about what that says,
to hear from the same people again because
because you didn't get value. It says it
says everything you want. And I want you
to know this year, we have more time
because we got the 2 days. I'm bringing
some fresh material that no one's ever heard
before. Right? We all have new books. So
there'll be some of the tried and true
things, but there's gonna be some brand new
content you've never heard from us before because
we wanna share with you people that are
coming, and we we're pumped.
And the other main stage speakers are pumped.
I mean, I I I tell you what,
I can't go a couple days without getting
a note from whether it be Colleen or
somebody,
saying how much they are looking forward to
it. Waldo popped me a couple notes this
week. He popped me a couple text messages.
I mean, this is the sales event. And
if you don't know who these people are,
go out and check them out on Amazon
or check them out on Google.
These people crush it. Crush it.
But I wanna I wanna get beyond the
main stage because I think one of the
things that we've we we did last year
that was incredibly successful,
we we're we've blown that out this year
are the elite sessions.
So the elite sessions are the 3rd day
to the last day,
and we're gonna have 20,
training
sessions, 90 minute training sessions with some of
the top sales trainers
in the entire world. People like Lee Sauls,
Jennifer Gluckow, Bernadette McClellan,
Jean Mignaughton,
and Sam Richter who was incredible.
And you go check Sam out. You'll you'll
you'll wanna go to his event.
The 4 of us,
and and and many, many, many more,
we're gonna have these 90 minute sessions, and
there's space in between the session. We we
did this intentionally
so that when you get done, you don't
have to go immediately to the next session.
You can stick around and have a conversation
with the trainer.
And, and if you got questions or you
wanna interact and and we see that some
of these things go a little bit longer,
we got James Muir, Larry Levine, Sherry Levitan.
I mean, all of these people coming in.
And if you get the elite session, all
of those sessions will also be recorded so
that you can later on go back and
watch them again so you have access to
it long term. So not only do you
get the 2 days of the main stage
with these amazing speakers, but you also get
a full day of sales training. And this,
by the way, is why you wanna bring
your entire team.
Your entire team can come in. You can
actually bring your, you know, your company. This
can be their sales kickoff, and you're gonna
get a breadth of sales training
and have access to it after the event
that will help your team get better in
2019. In fact, this is the key to
becoming rainmakers in 2019
is learning these skills that these great speakers
and trainers will be teaching you. Just, one
one quick thought on what you said. I
wanna be clear so people understand what you
just said,
in in a very, very practical, tactical way.
You have to choose which sessions you go
to. They're they're running at the same time.
And people last year, if we got one
complaint on the complaint card, it was like,
why did you make me choose
between seeing Jeb or seeing Shari Levitan? You
made me pick, and and there's only so
much room.
You don't have to pick. I mean, you
go to the one that you wanna go
to while you're there, but you're gonna get
to see the other ones. They're they're you're
you're gonna have access to all of them.
So you'll get to see each one of
them, and you're gonna be able to go
back over that content,
that you did see plus a few minutes.
And there's some other goodies for for those
of you that are looking at it, and
now would be the time to look at
it because the hotels
are filling up.
Elite tickets, you guys also get better seats.
There's there's preferential seating. It's it's a different
level of swag stuff. It's it's quite the
value because you're getting 3 full days
and better reserved seating.
And apparently, we're not afraid to pitch, are
we? I guess we're pitching. Right?
You know what, though? You know, also, though,
we outgrew hotels. That's why we're now in
the Georgia World Congress Center. We're in the
convention center.
I mean, you can't get bigger than that.
But I think the whole thing because we're
out in the audience all the time I
mean, we we're out there beforehand. We're out
there.
Again, it's still gonna have that very much
personable feel
all the way through. Step and repeat. Bring
bring your, your cell phone. We're taking selfies,
but you're talking to everybody. There's there's no
place to hide. We're all gonna be right
there,
hanging out with you.
But, Mike, I Well, wait a minute. I
gotta talk to Mike for a second. So
you're off.
So, Mike, there is one ticket that we
didn't talk about, one badge. The it's Oh.
Oh.
It's I'm looking for my Porsche, I think.
It's at my happy place. Go ahead, Jeb.
Go ahead. It's it's the black badge, with
a circle on it that says VIP.
It's really special.
We,
on the day before the outbound conference starts,
a a group of,
50 VIPs will be gathering at the Porsche
Experience Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Mike,
did the leg work to get this set
up because he's a Porsche
enthusiast.
He is I think his car cost
$200,000.
I'll be right I'm gonna be right back.
I got a prop to get for you.
Hang on. That's what that's what Rainmakers do,
by the way. Rainmakers buy $200,000
cars.
And
so you're gonna spend an afternoon with us,
in peak performance workshops and mastermind groups working
together, these ultra high performers of ultra high
performers. And and these are leaders and salespeople
from across the globe who are coming in.
Now there's just a handful
of food boxes available. They will be gone,
I promise you, after this webinar is over,
because they always are. As soon as the
VSK is over, all of the VIP tickets
are gone. So as soon as you see
this, you wanna go to outboundconference.com.
That's outboundconference.com
and pick up your VIP ticket. You get
an amazing swag bag. You get front row
special seating. You get a VIP lunch. You
get the VIP mastermind group and reception at
the Porsche Experience Center in Atlanta.
You get, you get special access to all
of the speakers.
And I gotta tell you, there's nothing in
the world like walking in, and you got
that black badge on, and you walk to
the front of the room, and it's all
it's all, you know,
sectioned off and nobody can get in there
except for the VIPs.
That's when your shoulder goes up, that's when
your chin goes up, and that's when you
know that you're a rainmaker
when you've achieved that level. So,
there are a handful of tickets left. I
think there are 7. 7? I saw one
yesterday.
That's so I got a call from somebody
that said we left somebody off the list.
I gotta go get another one. I I
just wanna say this. That that Porsche Experience
Center place, it's my happy place. I've been
there three times. You can go drive on
the track. There's a Porsche museum.
And, I'll just show you guys this now.
I'm going there on March 19th to pick
up my new car, and, I finally kinda
custom custom ordered exactly what I wanted. And
I'll be there for a whole day getting
driving lessons and they make a great deal.
That we're gonna have such a good time
on that on that opening day of outbound
with the VIPs,
the workshop, the setting, the museum.
Where we're having the reception is this unbelievable
area. It's just gorgeous. You can watch people
on the track. Some people may even go
out there early and actually use the
track.
Just I it's it's the best value, but
I I I think there's only 7 tickets
left, so move quickly. Move quickly.
You know, it's cool that yeah. We got
people coming from South America. I I think
I sent you guys that note, that guy
from Chile bought the ticket. We got South
America coming. We got Asia coming. We got
Australia coming. We got Europe coming.
Huge. I think we have India coming now
too. Yeah. That would be Asia. That would
be Asia. I had my outbound suit made
in Hong Kong. It's coming.
I love
it. I can't wait to see that.
I hope it's red.
No. It's, it's it's blue
and, with orange checks in it. And and
you open it up, it it's it's got
a orange interior, orange lining, and it says
one more call in really big letters on
on on the inside like a cape. Love
it. The cape. The cape.
I can't wait to see this. The dream
coat. The dream coat. I actually went and
met mister Lee who is, who is manufacturing
it. They've been sending me,
videos, little video clips on, WhatsApp,
of of them sewing all the pieces of
my suit together.
So it's been a it's been a pretty
cool thing. I got a video I'll put
up later on, on going there and, and
meeting mister Lee and picking out the fabric.
Oh, I hear about that. That sounds really
cool. Really cool.
Alright, John. Now at some point, we have
to call an end to this. People need
to get to work. We need we need
salespeople to dial up. To go start dialing
and go pick up the phone. That's right.
It's time to start dialing just like that.
Hit the buttons.
This is VSK 2019, the after show. Thank
you for staying here with us.
All of the links will be available to
you, so when you you get a note
from us, you'll have a replay if you
wanna watch the replay.
We'll send you to outreach. Io. We'll send
you to ZoomInfo. We'll send you to Connect
and Sell. We'll send you to the outbound
conference. And again, last, last call here on
VIPs. These are going fast, so,
get them while you can. And, thank you,
gentlemen, for being here, and I look forward
to seeing you in Atlanta.