The Transaction

Craig Rosenberg: [00:00:00] By the way, as we start, I do want to say, uh, John, we have something very important for you to witness, which is Matt has a clapper.

Matt Amundson: It's true.

Craig Rosenberg: please demonstrate.

Matt Amundson: All right, here

we Go.

John Barrows: Oh, like the

actual clapper. Nice. Nice, dude. I, I always wondered why that didn't take off. Like, I'm like, that is the best thing.

Matt Amundson: I mean, it's great, right? Like I, it's the lamp on my desk. If, you know, I'm laying in bed and I got to get up to turn it off. No. I actually think that the clapper is emblematic [00:01:00] of, of today and our podcast today, because

I can recall the first time I met JB, John Barrows, uh, he led a sales training at Marketo in 2012, which I thought was. Like it was the biggest game changer I've ever seen and it it wasn't magic, right? It wasn't magic tricks It wasn't like hey, if you just say this at this exact moment, you're gonna get the yes or anything like that. It was Process oriented. It was something that was repeatable. And it's one of the biggest things that I see as a misfire in sales today is like, I see salespeople make mistakes around not following up, or saying that they're going to do something and they don't do something, uh, not having a plan for how to get people's attention when they're prospecting.

And like, these are the biggest problems. That's in my opinion, and I know that this is like, this can be a lame take, but my opinion is if we just went back to the [00:02:00] way we did a lot of this work 10 years ago, a dozen years ago now, uh, we'd all be in much better shape. Like everything that you were saying 12 years ago is probably twice as true today as it was then.

John Barrows: I, and that's why I keep eating that drum, man. I, I, and because it's just like, you know, the, the, every sports, I mean, we were talking about sports before you pick any athlete, the best ones typically are the ones that do the basics and the fundamentals

consistently. And they do them better than everybody else,

right?

It's like, they still go, like, I mean, you hear all this stuff about Kobe now, right? About how he was at the gym at two o'clock in the morning. He was working out and he was doing his stuff, right? And, and that's like, you know, you have people like Allen Iverson who are like hanging out with Kobe and being like, Oh man, let's go to the club in LA.

And Kobe's like, uh, sorry, dude, it's Friday night. Uh, I got to go back to the gym. And Iverson's like, wait a minute, what dude? Like, are

you kidding me? And, and those are the ones who are just so focused on the fundamentals and we've gotten away from it. I mean, I'm

actually positioning 2010 [00:03:00] to 2022 as the golden age of sales. Because look, I'm going to say it straight up. If you got into sales, tech sales after 2010. I'm sorry, it hasn't been that hard.

Like, it just hasn't.

We've over engineered the sales process. Like, we've been able to get away with blasting out template emails, setting up calls with anybody with a pulse, asking dumbass bant questions, droning through demos, letting our SE do the majority of the work, and then offering a massive discount.

Like,

that's been sales for the past 12 years. And we've over engineered it and, and, and we haven't focused on those fundamentals. And so now these kids, and I think we have a whole, I think we have a real big problem right now because we have a whole generation of sales reps who don't really know what it's like to sell.

Matt Amundson: Mm hmm.

John Barrows: And now they're falling apart because now that sales is hard. Because you actually have to, we have real conversations, understand what value is, point solutions don't matter, money's not free anymore, ROI actually, you know what I mean, like now, reps are like, wait a minute, you don't want to drone through my demo here, you [00:04:00] don't want to respond to my canned template emails that I'm sending you, what's going on here, why, why, like, I don't get it, like, I just offered you a 50 percent discount, why wouldn't you buy this? Like, that is not sales, and, and so to your point, I think we need to go back to fundamentals, but we then need to figure out this new stuff with this

AI. Because I thought we were in trouble before AI hit, right? I, I saw the whole predictable revenue model breaking as it was, um, but then AI hit and I was like, well, okay, we don't have, there's no option anymore to be average. And, and the tagline that I heard while, and I, and I'm, I'm rubbing onto is I don't think, you know, everybody says that we're going to get, you know, sales reps are going to replace by AI. I don't, I don't agree with that. I think we're going to get replaced by sales reps who know how to use AI.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. Yeah.

John Barrows: And

unfortunately that's a very small portion.

That's going to be, that's the Pareto's rule. It's going to be 80, 20, and there's going to be 20 percent of sales reps that are just going to crush it because they're going to learn how to use these tools and become super efficient, super relevant, super thoughtful. Business acumen, the [00:05:00] whole thing. And then the other 80 percent of the reps are just going to roll up under marketing and operations and have salaried positions and probably not even last in the position in the profession.

Matt Amundson: Well, it's very interesting that you bring that up because I was just on LinkedIn and I was looking at a post that that pavilion put out Sam put out from pavilion and he was talking about, you know, 69 percent of reps are missing their numbers, but the Delta that exists between the ones that are missing and the ones that are hitting is like. 9X, right? And what that's signaling is that the top reps understand something fundamentally that other reps don't understand. Two things that he pointed to very specifically were, one, process, having a good process that they could follow. And the second one was that they could objection handle. And I think that that really speaks to the way selling is different now and that it's Way more complicated.

It's way harder than it was, you know, maybe four or five years ago, or even two years ago, and these are the people that are absolutely crushing it. So it was a [00:06:00] great place to start. Uh, Craig usually kicks us off with the big question. So I'll let Craig kick us off with the big question. Let's, let's get into it.

Craig Rosenberg: I mean, it was like, I'm just sitting here. I'm just waiting for like, I was like, that was an amazing conversation witness. Even Sam. I was like, I saw that guy jotting down notes, but yeah. So by the way, before I go, I do want to say that that was like a personal anecdote with Matt, but like with me and Barros, it's like, you know, we were starting Topo around the same time he was on his rise.

Here's here was my, I've never told him this. I would have to go into a place. Okay. They'd be like, Hey man, come, you know, and we were like process and like, we were trying to do a more strategic thing. So we were, we were never against John Barris. We were in favor of that, but I go in a meeting. Okay. So this was like, here's a perfect example.

So we're working with the execs and they're like, well, we want to loop in, let's say the SDR leader and a [00:07:00] rev ops person, whatever we get in there. And we're like talking to like Well, John Barrow says this. I just go that dude I I mean if I got to hear that and I had to just go like this I had to say well look like I just want you to know, I, I love John Barrows stuff, but please, like, let's not do that here.

Like, you know, so I, I was always like, man, this guy, he's just, he was in everything. So even people, by the way, that weren't buying stuff from you were using elements of kind of, uh, your methodology. It was, uh, so and then finally, so that one of these people were like, oh, Barris, Barris, Barris, and I'm like, okay, Take him outside and say, send me his deck.

I get the deck. I remember I sent it to some of my analysts I'm like, you guys, look at this thing. This is like easy to understand easy to use and like Meaningful, right? And like I was, you know, I, I just, so I was on the, yeah, man. So anyway that, you know, I've always [00:08:00] We just have a ton of respect of The, you know, Matt and I both, the work that you've done, the, uh, I loved when you rolled out the, the children's book on, uh, on sales.

That was so, That was touching, bro. And yeah, and, um, I remember we're on that, we're drinking on that boat, you know, like, you tell me about it and Lars was like, buy his books, dude! And I was like, I better do that. That was my biggest sale, by the way. Lars connected me with a CMO of Snowflake and she was like, Oh, we're having a sales kickoff. I'll buy like 300 of them. And I was like.

John Barrows: She's like, Yeah, just send them, send them to, and I was like, I

had a heart attack on that. I was

like, Oh yes. Cause all, cause all the money went to charity and everything.

So I

was like, Oh my God, like that was a dream. So that, that cruise right there actually validated that, that, that, that, that cruise allowed me to and my daughter to write a 25, 000 check to the world wildlife fund that year.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh man, that's awesome, man. Good for you. See, now you're making me feel bad about myself again before we even kick off. Man, [00:09:00] this

guy and

Matt Amundson: time

you wrote a check to the World Wildlife Fund, Craig, for Christ's sakes?

Craig Rosenberg: you know what? Yeah. Well, if I did, you know, 25 bucks, you know, or the roundup at Safeway, you know, whatever. Um, the, uh, but uh, but look like I, you know, so, so JB is like, he's been, Sort of in and around our lives in terms of, you know, sales and marketing for the last 11 12 years maybe 15 and we really were Very excited to talk to you because of the conversation you guys just had which is we do believe things have changed I mean look you you guys might it sounds like you guys might make the point that well Actually things didn't change we changed we got to go back but the AI thing is that sort of added element

But like Matt and I are obsessed because, uh, uh, we are at a, at a, you know, a big point in time or an epoch, as someone told me the other

Matt Amundson: Whoa,

Craig Rosenberg: Yeah. Yeah. With the [00:10:00] CH. Uh, on the go to market side. And so we're, we're dying to have John Barros and John's our guest today. And John, I'm just, you sort of started this, but like our big thing that we want to always lead with is this idea of like, What is that thing that the market thinks they're doing right, or is happening, or is a best practice, etc.

But they're actually, it's not right, they're wrong, and there's a different way that they should be looking at it. And in particular right now, we're really interested in hearing what you have to say on that. So I'm gonna lead with that and get you going, man, and let's just go from there.

John Barrows: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of directions I could go with this as far as, you know, the AI and all this other stuff. But I think the one that is more obvious to me than most as far as what's happening right now is the, in the mentality that you can work smart, you can work smart and not hard. as I get older, the more and more I feel like I sound like my dad, but. The work ethic component is what I am [00:11:00] genuinely concerned about right now. Um, because everybody thinks they can hack their way to success and there's, it's just not the case. Like, I don't know a single successful person that hasn't worked They're absolute ass off to get to where they are.

And you know, they might make it look easy on social and all that other stuff.

And I think that's where we've gotten into this Instagram world where everything looks perfect because people are producing the outcome of what happened, but they don't produce the, you know, they don't show the grind of what it took to get there. and and I, and I just worry right now that reps are looking, everybody's looking for the shortcut.

Like I can't tell you out of all the requests that I get of like questions and stuff like that, I could bundle 75 percent of them into. Silver bullet questions,

you know, do you have a template that I could use to do this? What's the perfect objection handling thing to say when somebody says this right and it's just and and there's such a culture of hacking our way to success [00:12:00] that I think we've lost the art of Hard work and what comes with that and the pride that comes with that Now, don't get me wrong. I, I'm actually, if you look at Challenger sale, right, and the different levels of challenge, you know, there's the Challenger, the hard, I've, I've come to the conclusion that I'm, I'm, a little bit of a challenger because East Coast wise, like pushing your face, I got no

problem pushing back to your crap,

but I'm the grinder. Like, I'm the grinder. I'm the hard worker. Like, I will work, I will outwork you, I promise you. I know I will. And, and I, if I didn't have that skill, I quite frankly wouldn't be here right now.

And, and I'll give you an example, and Craig, you know this. I mean, I called you up, uh,

beginning of last year. In a straight up panic. I mean, I, we, dude, I was, I mean, talk about, holy shit. I mean, I had, I had hit the euphoric state as a, as a, as an entrepreneur and a business owner. I, we were, we were generating at the end of, by the end of 2022. Uh, no, yeah, by the, by 2021 and into 2022, we were doing 6 million a year. I had 20 employees working for me.

Everything was [00:13:00] great. And I was like, finally at a level where I didn't have to be the guy. Everything was running great. Right. But man, does a good economy hide a lot of warts

and it gets you and it gets you to not pay attention to a lot of things. You get real lazy and I got lazy. I stopped paying attention.

And then because 95 percent of my clients were in SAS, literally when I tell you it fell, it, it, it fell apart. It fell apart. Like

this was worse than COVID ever was.

COVID for me, I was, I was 10 employees, our burn wasn't as high. And, and, but, and it was like a two month, like, holy shit, what's happening here.

But then it took off like a rocket ship for us. You know what I mean? Like most other SaaS companies, whereas what happened in Q1 of 2023, that was a, what? The fuck is happening right now. Right? And then you threw AI on top of that and you got SVB on top of that. And when I tell you it stopped on a dime, it stopped on a dime.

Like our 6 million went to fucking zero. And I was, I, and, and for me, you know, I've always prospected, you guys know me. I always sell, I always prospect. I, I, I [00:14:00] practice what I, what I preach here. But I like, I hadn't like hardcore prospect in a while, right? And, and I had gotten into a comfortable state of like not having to work nights and weekends anymore and that type of thing, but I was like, oh, oh. Okay. No, no, no. I don't have the option anymore. So I put my prospecting hat back on it and went to work, like work. And I ended up, you know, seven days a week working my, I ended up, I think I generated, you can see the post. If you go back to it, I ended up generating like 39 meeting or 49 meetings in, in February and 70 meetings in Q1. And that was pure just me like stuffing the top end of the funnel. Now was I able to convert all that? Absolutely not. But all that activity, all that effort, all that hard work allowed me to rebound a little bit and get back on my feet and be here today. But if I didn't have the work ethic and I didn't know how to prospect with some of those fundamentals, not a shot in hell I'd be here right now

talking to you guys.

Or I'd

be talking to you about, I'd be working for another company.

[00:15:00]

John Barrows: You know what I mean?

Craig Rosenberg: you'd be talking about what it's like working for the man, by the way, Matt, I, but JB I'll get your take on this and Sam, you can jump into, I think when, uh, when John makes a good point. Matt should clap the light off and then clap it back on as like a There you go. Okay. Back on. See, there you go.

That's validation. You guys. Thoughts on that? What do you I'm going to get that. I've got, I got to go to Amazon right now. Cause now you've inspired me to go get a

John Barrows: bunch of those. I'm going to put them all around

my house.

Craig Rosenberg: You know

Matt Amundson: best 20 bucks I've spent.

Craig Rosenberg: Oh, I mean, I don't know. Sam, if you don't have a clapper by the end of next week, I don't know what I'm going to do with you, dude.

Um, Sam, your

thoughts on the

clapper?

Sam Guertin: Uh, it's a classic.

Craig Rosenberg: I like it. Um, I was thinking about, you know, do you know Dan Walsh, you guys, you know that dude? Crazy

Matt Amundson: No. No.

Craig Rosenberg: just this crazy, he just did like sales consulting, doing all this stuff. He does those ultra marathons, like 72 miles.

And like, so I had him on a, uh, a webinar like 15 years ago. And he was on there, and [00:16:00] like, I, you know, he was like the sort of inspirational guy on there. And he's like, this is very similar, this ties everything you guys are just talking about.

And he was like, You know, he's like, I'm talking to someone and they're like, Michael Jordan, man, he worked like 8 hours a day, or Kobe, he worked like 10 hours a day, he's like, bullshit. He's like, you're mentioning the one thing you can actually do. He's like, that, he's like, that, those guys could jump, you know, from the free throw line and dunk.

I know you can't do that, but like, don't be amazed at the hard work. You can do that,

right?

Yeah, and that, you know, that's kind of the thing that's, uh That's, that you guys are talking about here and all I can think about here is like, if you got to build pipeline, uh, go build pipeline. It takes hard, it is so hard. It takes work, man. And,

John Barrows: on that. Like, you know, when I was doing all that, there was, you know, a lot of other things, people like, well, that's because of your brand. I'm like, okay. And yes, I built my brand for a very [00:17:00] specific reason so I could leverage it when I need to. Right. But if you look at the activity level, like you look at like your activity, your activity, and then you see this one, see this bar that kind of is all the way the up here that doesn't take brands that doesn't even take talent. That just takes effort. And if you're not willing to put in that effort, I don't, I don't, there's no hack I can give you

to get there.

And it's, I use the analogy too. It's like, you know, that most, um, uh, lottery winners. end up actually less like broke compared to what they were before. So if they were making X and they won the lottery and they became a millionaire, most of them are actually poorer after they win the lottery because they didn't earn that money.

Matt Amundson: right.

John Barrows: So they blow that money. And when you don't earn your success, You don't appreciate it as much

John Barrows: and it usually falls apart afterwards.

Craig Rosenberg: yeah, that's right. So, uh, two, two quick thoughts. One [00:18:00] is, uh, I think we do need to acknowledge though that, uh, brand, It's important today for the acceleration of email opens and those kinds of things. I mean, so, so brand does help. But without the hard work, you get nothing. So, no brand, no hard work, zero.

Matt Amundson: Well, everything that, everything that you guys are saying about sales needing to work hard is as true for marketing, right? And marketers have gamified marketing with demand gen programs. with SEO, with digital ads, with events and things like that. They've sort of gamified it, right? Like I can go spend money on that, on that thing and that will bring me people.

And the thing that they've avoided, and we've talked about this ad nauseum on many of these podcasts, is they've avoided brand, right? And so in a, at a time where things are more challenging to, uh, for selling. If you're not creating a brand for [00:19:00] your sales people to have as sort of their backbone for as they approach somebody, if people don't know who you are and what you do, you can't just show up and say, we do this thing.

Isn't that cool? Right? Like people are like, I need to know who you are. I need to know what your mission is. I need to understand the values of your business and who you, who you've sold to in the past and the types of companies that you support. And that's on marketing. Right? So this is not a. Hey, sales are bad because they don't follow up on emails anymore.

That's part of it, but it is a, it is a, a sort of a global failure on the GTM as a whole that's gotten us into this position and everything that's true for over engineering the sales process has been true for over engineering marketing process as well.

John Barrows: Well, they try to, the problem with marketing is they try to control the message way too much and they're too scared to let it go out of their control.

I mean, I can't tell you how many companies I work with who literally marketing creates the cadences. For the sales reps to send and [00:20:00] they don't allow the sales reps any autonomy to actually create new messaging.

They have to, and I'm like, what the is the point of that? Like, why don't you just use Marketo, Eleko, Pardot, pick one of those tools. Cause you're actually going to be able to do it better with those tools than you are with a cadence tool because then the sales reps are, because the sales reps aren't going to look at the data.

They're just going to push buttons, right? And when, when a sales rep isn't involved in creating that messaging or they're not learning about that messaging, they're literally just going to push buttons and read scripts. Whereas if you involve them and you educate them, they actually might give a shit and you give them a little bit of autonomy. And I think that's where, so I think here's where, um, I think it comes together, which is. I think the answer is, is structure, not scripts. And hear

Matt Amundson: Mm hmm.

John Barrows: Um, uh, Morgan and I used to do this keynote as a matter of fact. So I'm a Gen Xer, right? 48 years old. I was, we were like the last generation that had to figure it out. In the sense that when I was bored, My mom would literally kick me out of the house and be like, go play. I don't give a shit. Like go play, you know, don't kill [00:21:00] anybody. Don't burn anything down, you know, be home by dinner. Right. And I would have to go, you know, ride my bike, you know, three miles into the center of town and burn some shit down and have some fun, whatever now, and my daughter, and I can tell this now, my 13 year old daughter, every minute of.

Every kid's life is structured.

They go from school to this hour to this hour. Then they have soccer practice from this hour to this hour. Then they have their iPad for 30 minutes. Then they have homework for two hours. Then they have to talk, right? So literally every minute of their lives have been structured and they're taught to the test. So there's no more critical thinking. MCAS, at least here in the States, MCAS, you have to pass the MCAS. You have to pass the MCAS. We're going to teach you to the MCAS, right? So now you take that kid whose entire life has been structured for them and they've been taught to the test and you put them into the real world and you have a manager like me say, figure it out. They look at you sideways. What are you talking about? Figure it out.

Tell me what to do. And if you, and for somebody like me, it's like, you, you don't know what to do. I'm going to tell you exactly what to do. Here's a script, here's a template. And you give that kid a script or a template. They're going to push play on the template.

They're [00:22:00] going to read the script.

But if you give them structure, they can execute within that structure better than you and I ever could. Right? Because I don't know about y'all. I don't like being in structure. You put structure on me and I break it. You know what I mean? It's like, nope, there's got to be something better here.

I don't like, I like building structure. But I don't like being in it.

These kids coming up, they need structure and

they will excel within that structure better than I ever could. So the connective tissue here is to figure out how we can create a structure to allow these kids to learn along the way, but then give them the autonomy to fail, to try different things, to execute in a way that, that actually helps them learn.

And otherwise we're just, we're just going to make this exponentially worse as we go.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. So, yeah, that that was actually my question for you, which is, um, I was sort of leading on the brand thing to say, of course, the second part, and I thought that was really good. The second part, though, is like, so if you have you changed [00:23:00] anything? Like, let's just make the things I want to talk to me a prospecting, lazy discovery and demoing.

Craig Rosenberg: We'll do that second. But the first one is, The ability to build pipeline is that there's a crisis right now, right? Like the pipeline crisis is a real thing. So, um, with what you just said, so we're going to take into account hard work. We're going to take it around. Like Matt said, it's like a really great quote, which is market's got to work as hard as sale.

I love that. Uh, but like, how about approach? What, what are the key out? Like if you took the bet, the folks that are succeeding besides us. on the prospecting side today, uh, what, what are the key elements of their approach that we can learn from?

John Barrows: So, A, it's consistency, B, it's, you know, multi touch, multi threading, obviously, all the, all the stuff that y'all know, we all know, but I think it's, um, I'll probably put it into the category of the give a shit factor.

Matt Amundson: Mm.

John Barrows: Um, they give a shit. And, and it's [00:24:00] quality over quantity now. way more than it ever has been before.

I think AI, like the cadence tools were taking over the quantity game as it was. Um, and it was, it was just, it was a race to the bottom there. Now AI is, is doing it better than the cadence tools are doing, but it's still a race to the bottom in my opinion. Um, I think the only thing that really truly resonates is when you can tell somebody actually genuinely cares about your business and you're focused on it.

So ABM, like true ABM. Um, but I'll give you a quick example. You know, my, my reps, um, when they, you know, we do our demographic profile and I'd tear out our accounts and everything, and then I'd say, okay, get your top 25 list, right? And then they would come to me with their top 25 list. And I'd say, all right, before you actually start reaching out to these prospects, I need you to come back to me and tell me why you personally. Want to work with each one of them. And they're like, what do you mean? I was like, no, no, no, I need to know why you personally want to work with that company? Is it because of their values? Is it because of their mission? Is it because of their [00:25:00] leadership? Is it because, like, what connection can you make to that business? Because once you can make the connection to the business that you actually want to work and you think you can help them for whatever reason, because you know you've helped other people before. Your messaging comes across a lot more genuine. It's, it's not, you don't have to come up with a pitch. You just have to figure out how to structure your messaging.

So it comes across the right way. And that's where

a video to somebody, you know, is like a genuine video being like, Hey, Craig, man, I've been following you on LinkedIn for a while, man. And you just posted something the other day that blew my mind. And I've been thinking about it a lot because we have some stuff here that I think can really help that.

And look, I just wanted to share some info. If you, if you can do that, great. If not, man, I'd just love to talk to you. Right. Stuff like that. Like video, right? People try to be perfect on video. No, you know what's, you know, what's perfect. AI is perfect. You know what our human, you know, what is actually a superpower for us as human beings. We're not perfect. So like I screw up on voicemails. I may, I kind of throw up on myself on a video to show [00:26:00] that I'm actually a human being

and I don't templatize what I'm sending out there. Everything that I send to a client, if it isn't personalized, it's absolutely relevant.

And I think that's one thing I want to make sure that everybody listens to and writes down if they're listening to this, look, the holy grail of prospecting is personalization and relevance, right?

If you can be personalized and relevant, you tend to win the day. And obviously you got to care and it has to be the right fit. Um, but if you force me to choose between personalization or relevance, oddly enough, and you guys know me from the why you, why you nowadays and personalization, all that other stuff. Uh, I'd actually, I'll go with relevance all day long over personalization.

You know why? Just because you know I went to the University of Maryland does not buy you any points these days.

But yet I still get emails from sales reps being like, Hey John, I see you went to U Maryland. Go Terps! And then it cuts to some stupid value proposition that I have zero interest in. I'd much rather have you say, Hey John, you know, as a sales, as a, as a CEO of a sales training organization, have you made the switch [00:27:00] from on site to remote delivery and retained your revenue streams? Like, that's a very relevant question you can ask somebody like me. And guess what? You can ask 50 other CEOs of sales training organizations that same exact question. So my point is, is like, A, you gotta care and the hyper focus on quality over quantity. I think the quantity game is over, quite frankly. If you're an SMB, I don't know why you're doing prospecting as an SMB sales rep. Like, that, that almost has to be marketing, in my opinion. Because marketing can do it better.

The AI tools are better than we are, right? And unless you have a super hyper targeted list with SMB, but your ACV isn't high enough to be able to do that. So I cringe when I see SMB reps just hammering out template emails because I personally think marketing should do that way better than us. When you creep into the mid market of the enterprise, that's where real prospecting happens.

That's where quality matters. That's where having a prospectus and business acumen, learning about a company. It actually matters. I'll give you a quick, like, here's another one. [00:28:00] You know, like, so here's where the AI tools I think are coming in spades right now, not to automate, to augment.

Anybody who looks to AI to automate is a fool's errand in my opinion.

Augment, and not just on the prospect. Everybody's chasing the prospecting side with AI. I actually think that's a fool's errand. It's the business acumen side. You know how these AI tools are, my business acumen is on steroids right now. Like I found this, I don't know if you guys have been following, but I found this 10K

analyzer. It's a 10K analyzer. It's literally, you type into the chat GPT what you do. So you're like, Oh, it's sales training about it. Give me your value propositions. Then you, then you go grab a 10K. You pump it into this thing. It summarizes it within five seconds. It summarizes the key takeaways, picks out the 10K. Kip picks their key pain points, aligns your messaging about how you can help them solve it, and then crafts messaging you can use to then reach out to the client about, like, are you kidding me? That took a two to three hour process for me down to five minutes. And

[00:29:00] now I can actually sound like I know what I'm talking about. I used to

avoid 10 Ks like you read about, like talk about a snooze fest. Like I'd usually read the first paragraph of a 10 K and then the rest of it, EBITDA blah, blah, blah, the boring crap. Right? So now I can do this in five seconds. So that's how I think if you start to leverage these things to be, let all the tech do all the heavy lifting, but be the last mile. So before it goes out there, you don't just hit send when this sucker comes up with some messaging or whatever it is, but you use that to learn. And then you put your flavor on top and you humanize it. And then you hit send. Then you make the call. Then you have the meeting. Now you're cooking with gas.

Matt Amundson: No, God, I love that.

Craig Rosenberg: I, I, I felt like you could, I mean, instinctively, Matt, I'm a little disappointed that you didn't clap there. I mean, honestly, like that was, yeah. Okay. There. Excellent.

Also, the clap noise was also inspirational to John.

Similar to like a Celtics game where they're like, you know, doing things. [00:30:00] I couldn't agree more. I mean, like the, uh, the augmentation of the work that allows us to be more valuable is like, that's everything right now.

But I will tell you also, like on the On the create and send side, we're just going to keep eating ourselves alive

if it's, it's gonna, I mean, like, uh, we have to get to that point where we view AI as augmentation and you got to come [00:31:00] with that relevant message.

And what I'd say, what I took from what you're saying too, which is like, can the relevant message be personal? Not personalized, but be personal. And like, if you, if you take the 25, what you said to these folks is like, what does that company mean to you and why do you want to work with them? So if you could take that relevance and make that relevance personal, that is like, that was like, I just, I mean, like I could have, if I had a clapper, I'd be clapping like six times on that.

I

John Barrows: Well, this, here's a good, here's another example on that, that this is all design thinking too, right? So I don't know, you guys know Ashley Welsh, um, with a Welsh consulting.

So she's got the book Naked Sales and it talks about design thinking and the idea of implying, applying design thinking to sales, right?

Whereas design thinking is usually to product, right? So like Apple, right? Apple doesn't just come up with a product and say, we're smarter than you use it. They watch how we work, right? That's why the iPad was so intuitive when it first came out. And so if you apply that to sales and let's call it. [00:32:00] The personal and the connection piece. Like this is how I got Xerox, a perfect example. When I worked for, started working at Xerox, I was in public sector, right? I was 22 years old, so I had no idea what I was doing. And they put me in this territory that had five reps in three years, was absolutely shredded. Right. And so when I would go, when most of my public sector, uh, private sector reps were going to flipping copiers, I'd go into the public sector and the state and local governments and I'd be like, all right, cool.

Let's start flipping. And they'd be like, yeah, get out of here, kid. We're not even going to, we're going to see another one of you in six months. Beat it. Right. There was no relationships. And so I wasn't allowed to sell basically.

And so I was forced to do a bottom up approach where I started to actually care about the client that I was looking at.

I wasn't just trying to flip copiers. So I would go and it was one Ashburton place in Boston, Massachusetts, where they all the state and local governments were, secretary, treasury, all that other stuff. And I would just go and I would start at the top and I would walk the floors and I would shake hands, kiss babies.

And I would sit down and meet with the employees and I would see what their workflow was. And I would [00:33:00] understand what the challenges that they actually had and where their printers were and how long it had to take and all these different things. And it took me like nine months, but I, I, I, I didn't sell anything in nine months and I almost got fired, but I genuinely, by doing that approach, I started to genuinely care about helping that company become more effective. And when I did that and I started to map these plans out and I earned the right to then go to the executive and I would say, Hey, look, cause they had seen me on the floors and that type of stuff. I would bring plans with them and I say, Hey, look, I've been talking to your team. You mind if I just get 10 minutes on your calendar to show you something that I've learned? And I'd show them, I'd be like, look, your click through rates are here and your reps have to walk over here to do this. And it's super inefficient this way. And if you did copiers and digital copiers here instead of analog copiers over there, you'd actually save on your click through rates, you know, any interest in taking a look at this.

And when I did that, it was just like, it was like literally like cash and checks. Like

people are like, Oh my God, like, are you kidding me? Like you actually care about my business and trying to make me more efficient here. And you're not just trying to flip a copier. Like every other sales rep came in here was a yes, please. Right. And it was like [00:34:00] writing checks.

And so, but that taught me the give a shit factor. It was the same thing when I worked at DeWalt. When I, my first job with DeWalt, all the other reps would go straight to the foreman. And they'd try to sell the DeWalt power tool because it was better gears and all this other stuff.

And I grabbed a frigging lunch bucket. I put my hard, my, my, you know, steel toe boots on and, and my jeans, and I would just walk the construction floor. And I'd hang out with the construction guys, and I'd start drinking, you know, and I'd bring them lunch, and I'd be like, Hey, have you ever used the DEWALT drill compared to what you're using now?

No, well, hey, mind if I just, you know, let you use it? And could you beat the shit out of it here for a little bit? And I'll come back in a week, and could you tell me what's going on with this? And I'd come back in a week, they'd be like, oh man, the trigger, like, I don't get blisters anymore. And this thing actually fell off a roof, and it still works, and this thing's awesome.

And I'd be like, oh cool. Hey, would you rather have the DEWALT versus the Makita? Yeah, absolutely. Hey, Foreman, I've been talking to your team here for the past week or so, and they've been beating the crap out of my DEWALT drills here. And they're selling, they love them because they don't give them blisters anymore.

They don't break when they fall off of roofs and that type of thing. Any interest in maybe flipping drills next time? Oh, shit. Yeah. Let's do it. My team likes it. [00:35:00] Yeah. Right. So I just think it's that it's that we've, we've lost the care factor. Nobody cares anymore about the person on the other end of that phone, the other end of that line.

They just look at them as a number. They

just look at them as I got to hit my numbers. I got to do my 50 dials. I got to hit my a hundred cadences. I got to do my thing. It's like, and that is just such the wrong mentality when it comes to sales. I tell people all the time, sales is not about convincing anybody of anything. It's helping people solve problems or achieve goals.

That's it. And if you can't, if your problems aren't big enough and your goals aren't big enough, why in the world are we having this conversation?

Craig Rosenberg: Okay, you don't have to clap again, but that was clappable. Yeah. Um, we'll just call things clappable. Uh, so let's do, if you're cool with it, Matt, I just, that was really amazing. But, you know, the other sort of areas where I'd really like John's rants and, and, uh, whatnot are, is around discovery.

Matt Amundson: Oh yeah.

Craig Rosenberg: You know, these first steps of the sales process.

Let me make a comment first, which is in the old days of [00:36:00] Topo, what would happen would be sales leadership or the CEO would bring us in and say, the leads or the SDR meetings suck. Can you come in and fix it?

Now they always, I mean, like if you look at the percentages, the vast majority do. Right? That's okay.

The issue, though, there was this hidden killer, which was the discovery called down. The first steps in the sales process were the breakage point.

So, and that was the hidden killer that nobody sort of factored in. It was always to the left. It was like, well, marketing's leads are terrible. It's like, well, I'm looking at these.

These are in the ICP. So, like, let's look at what happens. When we get on the first call. So, that's why I Matt's nodding because he had to deal with that dude. Alright, but let's go with that for a sec. Just that since you reacted to that and then let's talk about what

John Barrows: I'll tell you AEs, God bless them. Um, [00:37:00] discovery and demos are actually my least favorite part of the entire sales process, quite frankly. Demos, hands down, my least favorite. You know why? Because most reps use the demo because you're late. I'm sorry. Jumping into a demo early is a lazy way of selling, period. It's not selling. You're just trying to show the product and hope to God that it lands. And that's not, let's, let's just stop that. Okay. Because most demos, this is how they go. They go, Oh, John, thanks for taking, is this still a good time? Right? Like, first of all, I got some pet peeves, right? If I pick up the phone for a scheduled call, please do not ask me, is this still a good time?

Why would you give me that out? Actually, you know what? I gotta go to the bathroom right now. Why don't we push this till two thirty? Now, what you should say is, do

we, do we have a hard stop at two o'clock? Do you know, do you, do we still have 30 minutes? Now, I do want to know that, right? But there's, is this still a good time?

Okay. We've got about a 30 minute demo here that I'd like to go through with it. If you have any questions as we go through it, just let me know. Okay. Right. And

then they go through every f ing slide like they were badged for in bootcamp and they pause intermittently and go, does that make sense? Does that make sense?

Does it, anybody ever [00:38:00] say no to that? Anybody

been like, holy shit, what you just said there blew my mind. And even if they say yes, does that tell you whether or not it made sense? No, but then they, it makes us feel good. So at the end of one of those canned piece of crap demos, we always get that nice little parting gift.

And by the way, if you ever hear this at the end of one of your demos, you know, you've done a miserable job and it's the word digest. Right? It usually sounds something like this. You know what, John? I'm gonna need a little time to digest what you just told me right there. Why don't we circle back in a couple of weeks?

We'll take it from there. Does that sound fair? If you hear that, stop and apologize to the person that you just wasted their time. It is our job to help them digest the information. If we, if they walk out of the conversation more confused than they were walking in, you've done a terrible job. But man, they feel good about it because we got our badge from bootcamp. And by the way, that's management's fault. I'm not saying it's a rep's fault because we

badge them on that shit. We don't teach them how to have a conversation. We teach them how to run through the deck. So, and so that's, demos are terrible. Discovery? What do you mean, discovery? Like, I love, I love companies who think discovery is a stage. [00:39:00] Like, oh, we're at the discovery stage. What, do you stop asking questions? Like, what are you doing? Okay. And it's like, ban, it's medic, it's all this dumb shit, right? So you have to check off all these stupid boxes. As opposed to just having a conversation and trying to understand what the problem is. Um, I actually had a really cool podcast.

You know who you guys should have on is Beck Holland. Beck Holland is

doing some insane

Matt Amundson: We were just talking about her

John Barrows: Oh, dude, she's doing some great

stuff with discovery because what her, her whole thesis is, is I, as a business owner, I don't need to know what I already know. I don't need to, I don't need you to discover what my problem is.

I know what my problem is. What I need you as a sales rep is to discover what I don't know. What the hidden problems are. So, you know, Craig, you just said it, right? Like I'm going to come to you and say, hell, we got a prospecting problem, man. Our leads are weak. The reps are suck and whatever it is. And a lot of, a lot of sales reps who sell sales training are going to jump right on that.

Oh, let me show you. We could definitely give you a [00:40:00] better prospecting, but shouldn't you just take a step back and be like, Hey, how do you know it's, it's, it's the, it's the SDR problem? Well, the leads are crap. My AE team is telling me. Well, define crap for me. And, and, and if it is a clear ICP that meets this criteria and gets handed off to your AE, um, can, can we maybe just look at the discovery first to make sure it's not that problem?

Cause I think sometimes it's this problem and, and let me peel back the layer here, or a lot of clients are like, Oh, I need better, I need better prospecting. I need my emails, my, my team to write better emails. Well, why, and I'll, this, this is a talk track for me. I'll be like, okay, well, how do you know training is going to solve that? Well, I was looking through some of the emails that my resume. Oh, they're terrible. Okay. Um, well, have you look back up a little bit? Do you know what your deliverability rates are by the way, for your emails? Do you actually know what, like, forget about your response rates here for a second, because I know that's what you're, you're, you're harping on here. Have you analyzed your deliverability rates? Well, [00:41:00] what do you mean? Well, I, I just want to know how many emails are actually getting through here because I could teach your reps how to write the greatest emails on the planet. But if they're not getting through. Then, or, hey, do you know that your reps, are your reps coachable? What do you mean? Well, have you run an analysis of like, have you done any like surveys or anything like that to find out if your reps are actually coachable and willing to, and open to training because I, cause I I'll tell you right now, I've done a ton of training and it's been great, but maybe only 10 percent of the team is actually coachable. And so do you, do you know if you have the right people on the bus? And if you can do that, if you can uncover hidden things, then you get your competition so far out of the way, it's not even a question.

And then you create urgency. People at reps talk all the time about creating urgency. You can't. You can't as a sales rep create urgency.

What you can do is you can uncover it and you can drive it. And the way you do that is by uncovering hidden needs and aligning with [00:42:00] priorities. This is why at the end of the day, when your CEO stood up in the beginning of the year and said, this is what we got to do to be successful this year. If I cannot tie my solution to one or two of those things, good luck selling anything of significance. And so that's why we have to have better business acumen so that we can ask business oriented questions and understand the market. Instead of just asking dumbass bant or dumbass medic questions and going through the motions and then flipping to a demo. Which is terrible anyways. So that flow is broken and it, and it, you know, until reps start giving a shit.

And Karen, I mean, how many of you guys happens to me all the time I get on a call and I'll do like real, the SDR might actually do some decent discovery with me. And I'll say, yeah, this is what my need is, dah, dah, dah, dah. And then I'll get on the call. And sometimes I'm not a good lead for anybody cause I'm only one or two.

I'm only two people anymore. Right. But I have some decent influence in my market, right? So a

lot of the sales tools that are out there, if I like that tool, I'll tell the world about it. You guys have seen me do it, right? I built companies before by referring them [00:43:00] business for crying out loud. And so there's a very specific example where I got on a call.

It was supposed to be a partner call where this. AE was gonna, and I told the SDR all the details. I'm like, look, I could end up making it rain for you guys, but this isn't a sales pitch. So make sure your AE knows that. And the AE did the, yeah. Hey, so John, thanks for your time today, man. So yeah. So I'd like to talk to you about, you know, some of the things we can do for you.

And, and I was like, hold on. Could, I'm like, pause for a second. Um, could, sorry, I got to ask, do you have any idea what I do? And do you have any idea who I am? And I'm not asking this because I'm important. I'm not, I'm like, do you have, did you even look at my fucking website? And you could tell the kid was like, uh, yeah.

And he's doing the whole, like dragging my website over, like trying to pretend like he's not, he's like, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh no, you know, we look, and this is the telltale sign when nobody knows what you're talking about. Like that you haven't done any researches. Well, you know, cause I've done this before, by the way.

Is well, you know, I know what's on your website, but I'd much rather hear from you kind of some of the details about what you do, right? [00:44:00] That's the, that's the cop out of, of I had done no research. And so I was like, are you kidding me? I'm like, kid, are you serious? You got on this call. I'm like, I, I had, I was crystal clear with what I was, what this call was about and the fact that you did zero research on me before you got on this call, you are absolutely wasting my time and so now.

I'm getting off this call and I ended the conversation and I will never use that brand. I will never use that tool for that exact reason. Do

Matt Amundson: Yep. I mean, uh, I think that, that, you know, this just goes all the way back to what we started on, you know, it's, do you do research? Do you do the little things and do you do it consistently every single time? And it's just, uh, whether it's, Hey, I know my 25 target accounts and I have. In my head, how I want to work with them.

Or it's, hey, you know what? Something came inbound from outside of my 25 accounts. And this call is like tomorrow at 3. And I'm going to spend some time. Maybe I'll run some information through [00:45:00] ChatGPT if I don't know the category. I'm just going to go learn it real fast. So I can show up and be like, yeah, totally understand the category.

I know the players. I know some of the challenges that you guys are dealing with. And that is so much better than You know what, John? Tell me why we're on this call.

I don't want to be cross examined when I'm thinking about buying software.

John Barrows: if

I'm not getting value out of the conversation, the conversation, that's what the day here's the with AI. Here's something that everybody can do right now. And this will show you how much trouble we're in. Go into ChatGBT or Perplexity. Act as a potential customer for your business and ask it questions. You will see that you will get more value out of asking ChatGBT about your business. And then you compare that to what a sales rep experience is. This is why Gartner came out with a report that like, on average, and I think this is even worse, is on average, uh, 43 percent of B2B buyers want a rep free experience.

They do not want a sales rep involved in the sales process

because they don't get any value [00:46:00] from a sales rep.

Matt Amundson: It feels like part of the tax of buying a solution is that you have to go through the process. Yeah.

Sorry, the way, I, uh, no, no, I was, I, I just wish that you would latch onto the, to like, you don't have to clap every time, but you could say like, that was a Clippable comment or something. I gotta do it. I mean, it's, it's a brand, it's a new brand thing. No, I, and by the way, uh, again, wrapping around, like with AI tools, you can prepare for calls,

Craig Rosenberg: uh, better than ever before.

And that includes, just for everyone, young reps, uh, that's for me. Now, I mean, generally speaking, I can look at a website and look at a guy's LinkedIn and be pretty prepared for the call just because I've been around. But, like, I've been playing, too, and it's so helpful. I mean, you can

John Barrows: there's a tool called like calendar prep. ai or something like that, where literally it just feeds your account. Like it goes into your calendar. It actually [00:47:00] uploads the day before your meeting. It gives whatever criteria you want to put in there. As far as how you want to prep, like background of the person, social feeds, anything like that, like priorities of the business, it'll literally do it all for you. And all you have to do is connect it to your calendar. And so you just open up the calendar and there's everything right there. And like literally two minutes before the call, you can just skim through that. And you'll be right up to speed with what you need to have a conversation about.

It is not rocket science now.

Craig Rosenberg: But, I will say, so, if you took this, you know, early part of the comment, uh, this commentary, which is like, the reps That skew younger, who are the future of sales. You know, getting them to the point of being able to understand a business is actually really hard. I was the worst sales rep. Like, I would be like, but you know, thankfully back then, you could ask extremely tactical discovery.

How many lines of code are you doing per day? How many bugs have you found? You know, I just think about my old days there. So there's this thing too, which [00:48:00] is on the organization. You know, it's funny, I forget, like, there was a whole thing on this business acumen stuff, but like, we gotta train them up. It's not easy. It's not intuitive. You come out of, I mean, I imagine, I just think about when I came out of college. And then I think about when I was five years in after college. I was still sort of learning it well. I hit some epiphany state, and I still don't know how, where I could understand a business. Uh, in seconds or minutes, let's call it, right?

The, uh, that, that took time. I think on the organizational side, going back on this tactical discovery versus strategic discovery and the ability to tie strategic objectives uh, to pain to your solution. That's actually really hard.

John Barrows: it is.

Well, and I think that comes with experience. You know, I

think that just, there's a certain, there's a certain level that experience just. You can't teach. You got

to go through. You got to get your teeth kicked in every once in a while. You got to have a CEO punch you right in the mouth and say, Hey, tell me what you know about me before you get started here.

Like happened to me. You know what I mean? That's happened to me early in [00:49:00] my career. I was ready for my pitch. And the CEO is, Hey, before you get started here, John, tell us what you know about us. And I had no idea. And, and I felt that, you know what? And I felt how embarrassing that was. I the conversation was pointless after that.

And so I was like, Oh my God, I got to prepare. You know what

I mean? So I think there's certain about where you have to get, go through that,

but I think we can expedite it, but I think it's incumbent upon us as, as the more senior leadership and those types of things to figure out ways to do that. And it's easy.

You

can incorporate your customers, let the reps talk to an actual customer that they're about to call in, you know, that, that they're about to run a cadence to from a, like if you're, if you prospect into CROs and you're creating a CRO cadence, well, Hey. Why don't you get a CRO to talk to the reps for a little bit and have 'em ask 'em a few questions.

Hey, what's a day in the life look like? You know, what, when's the last time you did, you know, responded to a prospecting thing? Why did you respond to it? So they can

see the person that they're about to execute a cadence to,

and now they can have stories and everything like that that they can pull from.

So

Matt Amundson: I'm very

fortunate.

I, I work with an incredible sales [00:50:00] leader. And one of the changes, one of the big changes that he made to the way we, we start our, our, our process is he's, he has the rep start every call with Here's what I think I know about your company,

John Barrows: I know it.

I love that.

Yep. Because it's, it's, it's human to say, this is what I think I know.

Matt Amundson: Cause I've done some research and this is what I can see, but like, help me fill in the blanks here or tell me where I'm wrong. And that's so much better of a place to start. Then, uh, walk me through your tech stack. Yeah. What,

John Barrows: Yeah.

Matt Amundson: you up

at

John Barrows: business. What keeps you

up at night? My

daughter. Next question.

Stop. Right?

Here's a simple example. If you're going to sell to CROs in manufacturing, quick tip, Google, CROs, manufacturing priorities challenges 2024. Go into chat

GPT

and ask it. And then when you, instead of saying, Hey, tell me about your priorities. Say, hey, you know what? We're dealing with CROs in manufacturing and they're telling us that in 2024 the top priorities are X, Y, and Z. Are those yours? [00:51:00] Even if they're not, the fact that you show you know their world a little bit tends to open up the conversation because you either get a no, but, or a yes, and.

And

then you get the conversation flow there. You don't have to know the details. You just have to know enough. Read a job, like, here's another one. Uh, CRO manufacturing. Go on to Indeed. Look at a job description. of a CRO in manufacturing. Look at all those KPIs that they're being held accountable to.

John Barrows: Those are all things that you can ask about. Those are all things that you know that that's what they're being held accountable to on a day to day basis. Have some empathy for them.

Craig Rosenberg: That's awesome. By the way, I've got a question as the oldest guy on this call after John revealed his age. Um, are we being cranky old men right now? I'm kidding. He's from Boston, so I understand. Like

John Barrows: Oh, no. A hundred

percent. We are,

but it's valid just like our fathers and parents were right in a lot of ways. Um, when, and it took us this long to remember that they were right. You know what I mean? When we were kids, we were good. [00:52:00] Shut up, old man, whatever.

And now I look back, I'm like, a lot of the stuff that my dad was telling me, it was actually a spot on.

It's the same thing. The same. We're wrong about a lot of stuff.

Here's, here's one thing that I will put out there. It is not their fault.

Matt Amundson: Agreed. It is not their fault. It

John Barrows: is our fault. Because if you think of the trophy generation, everybody's pisses on the trophy.

Oh, kid wants a trophy. Well, who gave 'em the trophies? Everybody pisses on these kids who are like, oh, there's overengineered. The who gave 'em the tech who was gro, who are the VCs who gave 'em the money and said, grow at all costs, doesn't matter. Top line revenue was the would. Who gives a shit about profitability?

Go, go, go, go, go. Who? Who did that? Was that the 22-year-old kid? Abso absolutely not.

That was the 45-year-old kid who had the money, who was being greedy shit and trying not to, and trying to over-engineer the process and gave him all these tools.

It was our fault.

So now we gotta figure out how to fix it.

Matt Amundson: Yeah. I mean,

I, I, you know, I love my time at Marketo, but I will say like Marketo created a lot of problems because [00:53:00] it shifted marketers out of the creative mindset into a programmatic, systematic mindset that valued scale over creativity and engagement, right? Like it was just like, Hey, give them the thing with the little link and then they'll click that and you'll be able to track that and you'll push it back into Salesforce.

And that's how we measure how successful you are. Not, yeah. Did I launch a program that people were like, dude, that was sick. That was sick.

Craig Rosenberg: Awesome. Alright, we're at the top, fellas. That was awesome. We gotta let John go slang. Yeah. so that, that was great, man. That's exactly what we'd hoped for. And, uh, I, I hope that, like, it was fun for you. As well as potentially, if you do get a clapper, please share on social. Matt

John Barrows: I'll, I'll, I'll give you guys the credit for it. You should change the podcast to the Clapper podcast. Like

something like That That might sound a little weird

Craig Rosenberg: that's

It's a, yeah, I know. I, I did think about that for a

John Barrows: I didn't want the clap. I like the clapper, not the

Craig Rosenberg: right, right. Let's, there could be some clar, there could should be some [00:54:00] brand clarification. We might turn them out on there, but,

um, awesome guys. Love it.