IS SALES REALLY FOR YOU? | Episode 1 with Meny Hoffman & Pinchus Shiff

Welcome to the Let's Talk Business podcast, a project of the PEX Group. Gain valuable, actionable [music] ideas from the world's top business leaders to help you take the next step in your business journey. And now, here is your host, Manny Hoffman. >> So, if you're listening to the Let's Talk Business podcast, you know that we're here to deliver nononsense advice. And we do that by bringing experts and people with expertise running real businesses and ultimately experts in their profession. Now we're doing a little bit something a little bit different and this is directly a request by some of you listeners that we should take topics and dive deeper so you could follow through and see if this topic is something that talks to you and even if you are in this industry you could take some of this knowledge and actually apply it immediately to your business. So our first topic we'll be discussing is sales. Sales is something which is the lifeblood of every business regardless if you're a sales person or you're a business owner. Everything needs sales to an extent. So for that for this episode and for the series of episodes, it's going to be more than one episode. We actually call down Pinashef. He's the co-founder of Friday. He's been in sales his whole career. He's doing sales every single day and he's also managing a sales team. And because of that, I feel that he's in the trenches, which is always something I always admire because you could bring up experts that have been in the trenches and now they're retired, which you learn a lot from the experience. Or you could speak to people that are actually in the trenches and actually doing this on a daily basis. So the information could come out raw, exactly as it is, no sugar coating. So with that, we are going to do those episodes in topics. So if this is the first one you're listening, this is going to be dedicated for one topic and keep on following the next couple of weeks. For every week we will cover another topic, everything related to sales. Penas, thank you so much for being with us. I think this is amazing that we get to do this in live. Most of my podcast listeners always ask me like why don't you do live podcast? I say there, you know, there's a certain amount of time in your day you have to push in everything. The only way I was able to make it work the last couple of years is the mic in my office in front of my same computer. Sometimes I get on a Zoom call and people say, "Oh, this is the same scenery I'm seeing on the podcast." He says, "Exactly. It's my office. It's the same mic that I'm using for my Zoom calls, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams meeting. The same thing we doing the podcast. This time we're doing it a little different because I want to be able to dive deeper and I want to build a stronger human interaction with you as we go through the topics because guess what sales has a lot of psychology has a lot of psychology that the salesperson needs to have and understand themselves understand the customer we'll go into a lot of the topics but the same time it's it's something that that is not for everyone and even for the people there is I find in sales a lot of people quit too early because they didn't just they just weren't prepared at what they signed up for and they could have been phenomenal sales people down the road. It was missing a lack of understanding of what they're getting into and what the sales process needs to look like and so on and so forth. So for today we'll speak about one topic and and I'll also give you a chance to initiate the conversation. But today's topic is choosing sales. Is this career right for me? I meet with people almost on a daily basis. you probably do the same. People say, "I need my first job or I I'm looking to do something differently. Is sales for me?" So, we'll touch that topic. I have a bunch of questions I want to ask you and let's have a conversation about that. And also, I want to try to see if we could still squeeze into this episode a little bit about choosing the industry, choosing a niche, is it a difference, the type of person you are, what you sell. We'll try to cover as much as we can. So for our listeners before we dive into the conversation is why this topic is important because so many times I see salespeople starting off and if only they would understand as we said before what the sales career really means or at the same time they could be phenomenal salespeople but they're not in the right industry or they didn't choose the right products they want to sell and they basically decide to quit. Sometimes they could just change an industry, change a the niched products that they're selling and ultimately they're great salespeople. Sometimes they're just not meant for sales. So with that, first of all, thank you for being here with us. I know you're giving away some valuable time. This is not a one minute conversation. We're going to go into a couple of those episodes which will take some time, but we're doing it just to support uh you know, Claus with the the proper content so they could achieve growth as well. Miss Disha, >> thank you for having me. Sure. >> This is completely different from last time. I believe we had an episode around two or three years ago. >> Is it >> on the Let's Talk uh business. I was a half a year into the Friday journey. >> U we covered a lot. It was more about me. >> I really like that we're doing this together. When you called me, I I look, let's talk business. Business is great. I think the blood of business is sales. If there's no sales, there's nothing. When you have enough sales and other problems, of course, every business will have its own challenges, but when there's enough sales, you'll be able to fix the problems 100%. This episode of the Let's Talk Business podcast is sponsored by Flow Digital and Pipe Drive. Sales is the lifeblood of every business. No sales means no revenue and no business. So, if you are a business owner or in sales, you already know how important it is to have a proper CRM. A good CRM helps you manage your sales process and keeps leads from falling through the cracks and makes sure you have the proper reporting so you could analyze what's happening every single day. If the CRM is too complicated or not set set up properly, the team just won't use it. When that happens, leads get lost, follow get missed, and ultimately deals stall. That's where Piperive comes in. Pip Drive is an easytouse CRM designed to make tracking and sales process simple. You can see your pipeline at a glance, move deals forward, and make sure you never miss a follow-up. And with built-in AI, get insights to help you close more deals. But that's not all. Easy to use doesn't always mean efficient. That's where Flow Digital steps in. I'm personally a Flow Digital client that helped me set up the pipe drive at PEX. Speaking from personal experience, I could attest they're the best in the business at setting up CRM and automating the sales workflow. As one of the top Pipe Drive experts, Flow Digital builds automation and AI powered workflows that handle the busy work. Pipe Drive becomes one of your most powerful tools for your salespeople. As a listener to the show, you can sign up for a free Pipe Drive trial at flow.digital/LTB digitalb where you'll get a 45day trial of pipe drive plus you'll be able to get a 45minute consultation to get your CRM set up the right way. Once again that's flow.digital/ltb. So you get the best of both worlds. You get the easiest CRM out there which is pipe drive and you get flow digital to help you set it up. Remember, your business and your sales team will always thank you for setting the right system so they could focus on closing more sales. So, Pinas is something that I've shared many times with people when I sit oneonone and I think it's it's great to to start off with that and then we'll move into the details of sales. Every business has five pillars. There's value creation, which is your product. So, every business has to have a product at the top. Then you have marketing is letting people know about the product. Then you have sales in order to close those sales that come in from marketing. Then you have value delivery which is the operation. And then you have finance. Every business no matter who is listening to this, if you have a business or you're going to plan to open a business has those five pillars. Nobody's exempt of all of the five pillars. However, what your core focus is, what you're focusing more than others will depend which industry you are or where you are in your journey. For instance, you're in the tech business to a certain extent. A lot of companies know that if I'm in the tech business, I have to have an investor to invest in my company because I need to gain market share. My product needs to be in a certain amount of hands in order I should be able to actually build the product. So, you might not look at finance at that moment. I don't have to make money the first year or two or whatever your plan is. But you still have to have a product. You still have to do marketing and sales in order to get it. >> Yep. >> Now, some people will say, "I didn't perfect my operation. My product is not there. so I can go out and do more marketing or sales. But nobody's exempt of knowing that those five pillars exist in a business. And I like to say if you h if you don't have a product, obviously you don't have nothing. If you have a good product and you don't market it, it's basically a flop. If you market it and you don't close sales, you're losing a lot of money in the in those marketing dollars. If you don't have the proper product to deliver, you're a scam. You take people's money and you're not delivering. And if you don't have proper finance, eventually you're going to close. Beautiful. >> So today's topic and again we will cover with other guests eventually other of those other pillars of business. Today we're going to dive into sales. Okay. So I want to start off very loosely just on as a as a overall topic is you have seen sales people you have spoken to sales people. Who is sales for? Who is sales? Is there are people that sales enough for them? >> So first of all I love the way you describe the five pillars and it's so so true. I think every business has their own personal mix. let's call it. And some companies have to start with marketing, some with sales, some with product, some with delivery. Every company is different. If you have enough sales, you'll have other challenges to solve. And you still have to solve these challenges, but you have enough clients and enough money to actually go and solve it. Who sales is for and who sales is not for. And it's the question we get every single day, especially from beginners or people that have been in a job for two, three, four years. They're looking to start their jump start their career or looking for a serious career in life. and they want to know is sales for me. Personally, I believe every single person can become a great salesperson. Some people just have to work extremely hard to get there. And if you're good at finance, don't waste 10 years to perfecting your sales career. You'll be ai good at finance in 12 months. So, who should consider going into sales right away? If you have people skills, and that's the first thing, and I'll I interview a lot of potential salespeople and I constantly hire and train more people. There's a couple of things that I look for in a salesperson. Number one is definitely people skills. I'm not an ABA therapy center. I can't develop I mean there are special places where you develop people's skills. >> Sure. >> I don't have the time and capacity to do that. And I don't think people without any people skills should waste two, three, four years unless it's a very big priority of them and they have to find a company that's ready to work with them. So number one is people skills. You have to be good with people. Now what does that mean in Shiva? People always say this guy is a born salesperson. This guy is a natural salesperson. I don't think it ever exists. No one is born a salesperson or a sale with sales skills. You could be born with great people skills. Some people call manipulation skills sales skills. I disagree with that. I've never manipulated anyone to do anything. But no one is born a salesperson. Now sales, let's divide it. There's people skills, which is awesome. Reading people, understanding to people. There's this book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And I always ask because the book finishes, if you have it, if you implement this naturally, good. If not, you can't fake it. So I'm like, who's this book for? >> If you have it, you're natural. You don't need the book. And if you don't have it, there's no point of reading. But definitely putting focus into it. Meaning you can have good people skills and just tuning it and fine-tuning it more and more. You can develop skills. So a first that I look for is people skills. If you have people skills, the next step I would look for, how motivated and hungry are you? Meaning you need to have a reason why you want to succeed in sales. Sales is the toughest job. And I sometimes describe it as eating glass and steel without teeth. And say it again. >> Eating glass and steel without teeth. It's extremely tough. And people think that it becomes easier. I don't think so. I think for example, once you're a year in, you can get easily 10 clients a month. But you want to go from 10 to 30 and becomes hard again to go from 30 to 50 or the more clients you have in your pool, you need you have different challenges to figure out. Sales is always going to be tough. So you need to have a strong enough reason why you want this. Either success. I've met a sales guy who said he wants to learn a half a day. sit with his family every day for four hours. He's in sales. He works from 9 till 1 every single day. He's so motivated to earn a living just about to cover everything he needs. He has his own house just to cover. He's so motivated that he literally works four hours and he really hustles that four hours to make it work for him. And good for him. I mean, money is not the only motivator that exists. Most people think sales is directly related to money. There's much more than that impact. So, either time, family time, freedom. I think a lot of people open businesses because because they want freedom and a lot of people uh go into sales because they want freedom that not realizing that you don't have freedom at all. Similar to a business owner, yes, you can take an hour or two hours or a day off, but ultimately you have different complications and different things that tie you down. So, you have a you need to have a strong enough reason why you want to make it in sales. Number three, how resilient are you? Because you're going to get punched in the face. And if you're not resilient, if you can't build resilience, you're out. The next thing I look for is coachability. But that's usually when I hire beginners. Some people don't need to be that coachable. But if you're not coachable, you're not ready to learn from your own mistakes. And I've listened to my own cold calls for hours. And believe me, it's extremely painful. But I was able to listen it to to it myself and coach myself how to be better next time. So that's the four things I look for in a great salesperson. And that's how people know if they should go into sales. >> It's great what you're saying. I just want to um just give you um one of my points on on the last thing you said about coachability is the the the the sales people that are the most successful is they learn more from those sales that they didn't close than from the sales that they did close. And if you're not a coachable by by trade, forget about your sales manager, forget even you're working for yourself. You know you're you you don't take the moment to learn from that experience you cannot improve for the next sale. >> Sure. >> So so coachability for our listeners coachability is not just because I work for a company that has m a sales manager and I have to you know meet my quota and and those people will hold me accountable and I need to be able to have those conver tough conversations. Coachability could be you yourself learning from what you just did from this experience and so on and so forth. So that that's that's a very important point. >> I'll tell I'll tell you even more than that. Okay. If you only enjoy the pleasure at the end of the pain, you'll hate sales. And I learned to really enjoy the process. So, while I'm on the phone call, and most salespeople are anxious, nervous, in pain waiting for the sales to close, I literally enjoy the process. And I would sit on the call, take a deep breath before, ask my questions, and see if the client is a good fit, if they're not a good fit, and just enjoy the process. And the same when I work in a partnership, which can take sometimes a month, two months, enjoying the process. It's like playing checkers. It's like playing chess. You You enjoy the game or do you only enjoy to win? If you play to win, you don't enjoy the game. You're sitting anxiously the entire game trying to win versus some people just enjoy the game. Sales is a game, business is a game. You need to learn to enjoy the game. Such an important point um is because um on this point comes in the concept of time. If you only want to win and you don't want to enjoy the game, you quit before you have time to win. So Midame you you're already quitting because and not enjoying what I'm doing every single day. But if you feel that you're getting closer to your goal and you're enjoying the process, ultimately you're enjoying yourself. Uh I want to get to another point, very important point. I probably 80% of listeners to this episode are probably thinking the same, which is introvert versus extrovert. You mentioned before Yeshiva, the born salesperson. we know who the person is sitting at the coffee and and sch smoozing and and running the show so to speak. I've seen successful sales people are introverts and then there's extroverts that are successful or vice versa. What's your take on it? >> So I remember when I went into sales I saw this very outspoken guy and I said this is a good salesperson and then I met some introvert life insurance agent who makes millions. So I'm like introverted. Then I see the the guy that always follows up. Then I see the guy that never follows up. I realized there's something every single salesperson that's became successful has something else that made them successful. But there's always a why. There's always a reason why. I believe introverts and extroverts can both be great salespeople. And the reason is very simple. An extrovert will always connect more with extroverts. Introverts connect with introverts. And as long as the population has enough introverts, you have enough people to connect with. However, the way I see it, some industries require you to be an extrovert in order to be extremely successful. So in some industries, for example, life insurance, financial services, being an introvert will actually give you an advantage. Why? Because you need a ton of trust and people get to trust people who are quieter, reserved, and when it comes to sharing information with you. For example, some uh industries require you to share their your financial information, personal information, health information, and being extroverted. People like I don't I don't want to spill the beans for someone who has so many friends, someone outgoing. I know many people that are not interested in doing business with me, and that's totally okay. They feel like I like to deal with a reserved guy that doesn't know anyone because they think they have something to hide or whichever reason it is. That's totally okay. But there's enough space both for an introvert and for an extrovert to be extremely successful in sales. That's not something I would cons like here. I'm actually hire in the process of hiring a guy that's really introverted. I'm going to see how it works out of my >> Yeah. By the way, for people always ask me like, you know, you was with me now for half an hour, for an hour, whatever it is. What am I introvert or extrovert? I say us the way we are are the way we we grow up even if you're introvert you're a damaged introvert because there's there's we have this drive that even like technically according to your skills you need to be this most uh um quiet person most of us even if you're a quiet person you have friends you connect to people you out there you have a network you might not be this biggest network but you could definitely be successful and I think I I I'll just um elaborate what you just said is um that not only on the trust factor um but as the first point you mentioned that you that you glanced over it is that the world is busy with the world has so many introverts and so many extroverts and those people naturally connect to people like them. So as a company you want to you want to have both types of salespeople. um the same we in PEX we have an account managers we have these more introvert account managers and we have these you know more extrovert why because when I speak to a client I know this person this client will need that type of liaison in a company as account manager because they'll connect just not forget about selling just they'll connect to that person better so it's a great point so I I I think that people have it wrong when it comes to introvert versus extrovert I think many people that consider themselves extroverted or introverted the concept is Not if you're outgoing, if you have friends. >> I always see extra I the way to really see if someone's an introvert and extrovert, find them after a business trade show, after a full day. >> And if they're extremely exhausted, they're introverted usually. And if they're extremely hyper or high, >> they're usually extroverted. And sometimes >> they go to the after party. They go to the after party, you know, >> and sometimes I've seen people who are great connectors, they're so public, outgoing, and everything. It just drains their energy. It doesn't mean that you're have to be shy or quiet or reserved. >> 100%. So I want to ask you um speaking about this this topic, we spoke about what type of talent you're looking for. So let's say you have this perfect guy. You met him at Schul, somebody made the referral, whatever it is, he has the talent. Sometimes we see they start off and they're just not successful. Now sometimes it's just out of our control. We don't know why. Sometimes the writing's on the wall. You know why it's not it's not working out. What are the couple of things that you know cross your mind like why would somebody having the talent and still not be successful in sales? >> I have to be very careful how I answer this because some people might just quit. I think it takes time to become successful especially depending on the route you're taking. If you're taking partnerships for an example, it can take you up to a year to become successful. Are you selling a small business product or an enterprise product? What is the sales cycle usually in your company? Is it a a week, a month, a half a year, sometimes two years? So it's really hard. Time will solve a lot of things. The only question for you is are you putting in the work? Do you have a path? Do you have a plan and a vision? And are you executing this every single day? I >> I just want to share with you a story. I think uh stories just people connect to stories and this is a story that I myself was was um astonished by the results of what happened. I had a guy that came to me that he's looking for the first career and he feels that I'm a born salesperson. He started sales in the construction industry which is brutally hard. There's a lot of compet there's a lot of competition on the same services going after and he started off and the guy the company offered him salary plus commission obviously draw but uh um but in terms of a certain amount of time that they're going to draw him give him a salary. This guy was so upset he kept on coming to me literally every few weeks like I can't anymore. I'm not I'm not closing any sales. So I kept kept on asking him closing a sale is the outcome. What is the input you're doing? Are you meeting new people? Yes. Are you speaking to people? Yes. >> Are they the right people? >> The right people. So all of those things matched up according to what he told me. And but he wasn't closing. He wasn't closing. Wasn't closing. >> And he and he told me like whenever I met with him says, "What's the problem? You just started like three months, four months, whatever it is." He told me I have a sales a sales manager and I just kind of look him in the eye. I have my the owner of the company keeps on going, you know, passing by in the hallway. He's asking me, "No, you closed already something." And I can't look him in the eye. He gives me a paycheck every single week and I didn't bring in a single sale. And by the way, this is a real story. You know, some some people think always this this these these stories don't happen. It's a real story. Um and then so I sat with him at one point in this in this into this journey and and then I asked him once I said by the way if you quit this job or he stops giving you a paycheck are you able to to live for the next the next four five weeks he says absolutely I have savings I just want so I said you know what I want to do this exercise with you because I keep on hearing the same thing again and again and again of what's in your head said, "I want to do the following. Go into your sales manager tomorrow. Tell him exactly the script." Tell him that I'm planning to quit. I'm not sure if this industry is for me, but I want to give it another shot for one month. I want you should not give me a paycheck for the next month. I should be free on my own to do what I need to do. I don't have to give you reports every day what I who how many cold calls I did and I I want to see how things will work. After a month, I'll make my final decision if I want to stay with the company or move on. Guess what? Six months passed since the story, he's the top performer in this company. >> Wow. >> Now the what the what the moral of the story is that you could have the right person something they have certain blockage. In this case, I was able to pinpoint with this guy not being able to face the sales manager and the boss because he's getting that paycheck >> all day long. >> So he wasn't able to focus on the price. he wasn't able to focus on what he needs to focus in which means closing sales because this was like just in like he was so anxious to close that he wasn't focusing on closing u but so so what I'm trying to say based on what you're saying so for our listeners is that you could have the skill but if you don't have the proper process to be able to look every single week am I putting the input am I doing the prop proper input then you could say it's justifiable where I'm up to it doesn't it's not reason to quit >> I want elaborate on that and we'll open a topic. I know that this is a can of worms and people will hate or love it. Okay, >> I've seen this video by some great sales expert saying that you can't expect someone to work for a company and do sales without a paycheck. My personal belief is if you take a paycheck from the company, the chances of you becoming successful go down to goes down to 50%. I tried it with two sales people giving them a paycheck plus commission. It didn't work. We changed our structure. Commission only. People are just motivated, happier, and it just works. And this is to everyone going into sales and they're like, I want to get a base pay, a draw against commission. I promise you, it's not in your favor. Two reasons. Number one, the company when they invest in you, after a few weeks or a few months, they see no results. They just let you go because they can't afford to lose so much money. I've had a salesperson that I recently tried to give a paycheck and then after less than three months, while I've seen people that takes them six months to become successful, I let them go. Why? Because every single week that passed by, I felt like I'm bleeding money. So the chances of someone taking a paycheck will go down for two reasons. Number one, there's a blockage, there's something magical happens when you work in commission only. The same as when you open a business, and I've seen many people, they open a business and all of a sudden they they get a work ethic. They start really producing, working hard, and they become rich and wealthy. You know why? Because in their brain, the brain just connected the dots that your work will make you money. And obviously it's it's Hashem that gives you the money. But the you have to put in your effort and that's why you get the results. So therefore, if you go into sales, negotiate the best commission deal that you can get. Obviously, if you can afford to live and and you want to know something, I went into debt when I started out in sales. It's very very normal. The same most business owners went into debt to open their business or lived off savings. You have to make a realistic plan and sometimes Hashem just switches everything. But in the end of the game, you take the risk. You connect directly working with making money. You start putting in the effort. One of the sheet I just listened to mentioned something extremely profound. He said the work of a yeet is to put in so much effort in business that he can really believe that his work produced the results and then believe that Hashem did it. >> And I I think most sales people I meet can't even uh claim that their work produced the results. They put in so little effort. And it's a mindset. Hey, what am I doing for my company? What the victim mindset sometimes blocks us. I need to get a paycheck. Why? Because I have to pay my bills. I can't do this for my boss because I'm not getting paid. You know, I built a website for a company without getting paid. I wanted the experience. Number take yourself. For me, it's pinch LLC, Manny Hoffman LLC, you LLC or in corporate and start building yourself up. Don't take every dollar. Don't be a taker. Hey, what am I gaining? You know, you can either stay stuck and this is for people who are stuck in companies that don't, let's say the company doesn't provide you with marketing. You know, I became a graphic designer while I was in sales. This was what I had to do in order to become successful. And today, I I still do graphics for my company. Do whatever it takes to become successful. Become just take ownership. Start building your own life. Your sales directly results in you making money. More sales, more money, more clients, more success. learn, watch videos. There's so much of information available online. I learned tremendously just on YouTube. There's so much so much content available, so many good books to read. Never split the difference. Changed me forever. The way I I >> so I I would love to later maybe we'll dive in the philosophy of what is sales, how does a sale work, what closes a sale. But for now, if you're in a position where you're doubting if you should go into sales or not, let's be very very practical. Number one, do you have people skills? Great people skills. Do you enjoy talking to people? Next one. Do you enjoy helping people? >> Because I always tell you want to take a job as customer support. If you don't enjoy talking to people, you'll dread your job every single day. If you don't enjoy people, you'll hate sales. Do you enjoy people? Do you want to make an impact? Do you want to help people? Because if you're going to take, >> you're going to feel like someone that steals. You're going to feel guilty after every sale. You'll be so demotivated. You'll hate your job. I think helping people and the way Hashem created this world that and and this is clearly written that he created people should be poor and rich to give people the ability to help other people and this is how I don't know understand why but this is how he created the world he wants people to help other people while making money while not making money and if you can really get to enjoy a place where you enjoy your job and really help people every single day you know what motivates me I simplify payroll every single day for another 10 15 people I'm high on that. It it so if you're ready to take risk, ready to give it your all, ready to take ownership, you're ready to bleed for 12 months to go through really hard work in order to become something that you're not to become that person you're not yet, then sales is for you, take it. And if something goes wrong, for example, you feel like you're putting in the effort, like many just like you just shared this story. If you put in all the effort, you're doing everything right, and something doesn't work, talk to someone that has experience. It's a tiny switch. I just said that's crazy. Okay, I'm on the way home from work. This guy calls me and he said, "I'm about to quit my sales job." And my friend told me before I quit, I got to call Perf. I said, "Okay, what can I do for you?" So, he's been there a year, worked hard, hustled, did everything right. He's just not making money, not closing. So, I started asking questions. Who is your boss? Which product are you selling? Which industry are you in? Do you can do you even like what you're doing? It's like it's a product like every product. Did your boss do sales before starting this company? He's like, no, my boss never did sales. He's an operator. Do you have other salespeople? No. Who helps when you have a sales question? Like, I tried to figure it out. I said, look, from my end, you can quit sales today. Do me one favor. We're going to try this one more time for six months. Are you okay? And this is the very very clear instructions for him specifically. Find a boss that did sales before. >> Go into a company that has minimum one more salesperson because this guy really needed support. find a product that you can connect and relate to. He calls me back a couple of months later. He just closed he made $50,000 on his first deal and he made over $200,000 in his first year and he still calls me every time he closes some big deal like thank you just closed XYZ. So there's a switch you need to find. If you put in the effort, if you put in the work, you should become successful. Hashem's help. You just got to find the switch. >> You know, I I I shared a story before. I'll share another story uh to the contrary. business owner called us that he wants to create marketing material. Um why? Because his sales team, he has a salesperson. They're not successful and they claim that there's not enough marketing material. I met with that guy because I told him, "Let me meet with a sales guy. I want to know what type of material he wants." And he obviously opened up. He says, you know, I'm doing this for a year and a half. I'm not doing any sales. It's not working. Blah blah blah. Okay. >> He's blaming it on the marketing material. and we're working on on a couple of of of of ideas what we could do. I told him that I'm not sure that's exactly the the path. Couple of weeks later, I I worked with another company and this wasn't the packaging supply as a space. Couple of weeks later, I worked with a new company opening up and they need packaging supply and I thought to myself, this guy a few weeks ago, he said he doesn't have any leads and it's not closing anything. Let me give him this is mama a a a a hot lead. I call up this guy and he says, "What exactly does he need?" And I told him, "I need this, he needs that, and that." He says, "I think he should call Uline. Uline is very great customer service. They they don't have a minimum. They could start ordering and then he could ramp up his his packaging needs as needed. Our company will be will be a whole process till he signs up until he buys from us." And I'm shocked. And I say, "Why didn't you tell me this a few weeks ago when we met?" He says, "What do you mean? Why didn't you tell me that this is how you respond when hotly speaks to you? And and it took a minute till till he grasp what I just said, but for me this was a a huge huge eye openener. Sometimes you're just you're not motivated enough about the company, not the industry and everything you're doing. And therefore, that's that switch that you're mentioning. >> If you're not passionate about what you do, if you don't buy your own product, why would anyone buy it from you? So, >> exactly. So, so that was like like here he's speaking about doing marketing material and here he gets a hot lead and and he >> he's not confident as an own product. >> Yeah. So, this episode was for our salespeople. This was just to get a little bit into the mindset of what it takes to be a good salesperson. The next episode we will dive in more speaking about finding the right industry you want to be what type of environment you want to be small company new company company with many salespeople niche what's the difference of selling high ticket items low ticket items and we could talk about more about that up until then I hope this was valuable for you keep in mind if you need more information about the podcast you could always go to pxgroup.commpodcast or you could look at any of the platforms that have host the podcast and search for Let's Talk Business. We hope you enjoy it. Stay tuned for the next episode. This episode of the Let's Talk Business podcast is sponsored by Flow Digital and Pipe Drive. Sales is the lifeblood of every business. No sales means no revenue and no business. So, if you are a business owner or in sales, you already know how important it is to have a proper CRM. A good CRM helps you manage your sales process and keeps leads from falling through the cracks and makes sure you have the proper reporting so you could analyze what's happening every single day. If the CRM is too complicated or not set set up properly, the team just won't use it. When that happens, leads get lost, follow get missed, and ultimately deals stall. That's where Pipe Drive comes in. Pipe Drive is an easytouse CRM designed to make tracking and sales process simple. You can see your pipeline at a glance, move deals forward, and make sure you never miss a follow-up. And with built-in AI, get insights to help you close more deals. But that's not all. Easy to use doesn't always mean efficient. That's where Flow Digital steps in. I'm personally a Flow Digital client that helped me set up the pipe drive at PEX. Speaking from personal experience, I could attest they're the best in the business at setting up CRM and automating the sales workflow. As one of the top Pipe Drive experts, Flow Digital builds automation and AI powered workflows that handle the busy work. Piperive becomes one of your most powerful tools for your salespeople. As a listener to the show, you can sign up for a free Pipe Drive trial at flow.digitalb digitalb where you'll get a 45day trial of pipe drive plus you'll be able to get a 45minute consultation to get your CRM set up the right way. Once again that's flow.digital/ltb. So you get the best of both worlds. You get the easiest CRM out there which is pipe drive and you get flow digital to help you set it up. Remember, your business and your sales team will always thank you for setting the right system so they could focus on closing more sales. And that's a wrap for today's episode of the Let's Look Business podcast. I hope you enjoyed the practical nononsense advice that our guest shared. If you found value in listening, I would be so grateful if you could share the episode with your friends and if you could give the show a fivestar rating on Apple Podcast or wherever platform you listen. [music] Subscribe to the show and get notified every time we publish a new episode. The Let's Talk Business Podcast is a PEX Group original production. Until next time, make it a great day.