#193: Why "Getting a "No" Just Means It's Time to Turn Up the Heat In B2B Sales
Ryan: Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
This
Luigi: Growth Forum Production,
this is the Skalable Growth Podcast.
I'm your host, Luigi Preston, and
each week we will go on a journey.
A journey that will inspire you.
Motivate you and help you
be the very best you can be.
Our focus will be on mindset,
tactics, and the strategies that
will enable you to create more
opportunities and win more deals.
Welcome to another episode of
the Skalable Growth Podcast.
Now, if you're a long time
listener, I just wanna say thanks.
Thanks for always supporting our show.
Thanks for always showing up, um, and
helping us produce this content because we
produced this content to help you be the
very best SAS professionals you can be.
And if you're a first
time listener, welcome.
We hope you take away some insight, some
learning, and some education when it
comes to executing the sales process.
And we hope this episode allows you to
get that little bit extra in what you're
trying to achieve and hope you come back
because we, we put this content together
for sales professionals, for people that
are looking to up their game in, in sales.
So, and now that it's 2023, can
you believe the year has ticked.
There was incredible opportunities
in front of us, but you know what?
Even though it's 2023, we might have
had a couple of days off for Christmas
and TR celebrating the new year.
Just because the year ticked over
doesn't mean that miraculously,
all the challenges that we were
experiencing in 2022 are gone.
The reality is a lot of those
challenges do carry over.
Now it is the start of the year
for some, it's a new calendar year.
It's a new, um, financial year for others.
It's a new quarter and many people
did struggle in the back end of 2022.
Now, if you haven't already done
your sales plan or if you haven't
already redone sort of your metrics
for this quarter, I would recommend
and advocate strongly to go back and
actually do that planning process.
With anything in sales, our ability
to achieve success is driven by the
activity that we drive in our role.
Now, I know many will argue
that sales has changed.
It's not as numbers game, et cetera, but
doesn't matter how you kind of cut it.
When you look at your sales plan, there
are key activity metrics you need to
fulfill in order to achieve your target.
Now we'll break down.
Some of these things.
I'm gonna share some pretty cool
tools over the next couple of weeks,
um, that'll help you in this process.
But this week's guest, it's a pretty
important topic because as inbound
has declined, we've seen that a lot of
the data showed that inbound inquiries
did decline, um, later in 2022.
As a sales professional, you can't
be relying on anybody else to drive
your own sales opportunities, your
pipeline, you've gotta be able to
self-generate your own pipeline.
Our guest this week, Ryan Reza.
He's a practitioner.
Ryan executes the concepts that he
talks about every single day, and he's
gonna break down how you can actually
generate more activity from your outreach.
But he's also gonna bring a different
perspective on your outreach process
and what happens when you might.
Not get the best response from
somebody and how you can use that
intel to then plan your next steps.
And this is important because you don't
wanna just be burning through your tam,
your total addressable market or, or your
account, you know, your account list.
You might have a small account list
given depending on what you sell.
But this particular episode will
form part of a couple of episodes
around driving more pipeline.
Now, next month in February, we.
The Growth Forum community, which
I'm so excited to be launching.
And as part of the launch we are gonna
be offering for the first 90 days,
we've got a killer prospecting program
that has helped so many salespeople
already achieve some incredible results.
Now, this particular prospecting program,
if you join our wait list and if you do,
jump onto the community and check it.
You'll be able to get access to
this prospecting program along
with a whole bunch of other
different programs, by the way.
So depending on what type of role you're
in, there's gonna be so much content
and so much value in that community.
Jump into the show notes, click
the link, get you at the site.
Put your details in for the wait list.
Because in February, that
particular program goes live.
It's an amazing online program.
It covers things around how to target
your market, how to build the right
mindset, how to develop the right
narrative, build your outreach cadence,
video prospecting, cold email, cold
calling, a whole range of things, right?
And.
If you jump onto the wait list, you'll
be able to access it for free, which
is usually a couple of thousand bucks.
So we're trying to jam a lot of
value into the community for people
that join the wait list, and I'll
continue to drive that message.
Each week.
I'll be doing posts on LinkedIn about it
as well as a whole bunch of other things.
Just getting back to this episode,
we cannot allow the market.
To determine our success, and we
cannot rely on other people to
drive our own outbound activity.
We, as sales professionals need
to maintain control, and we do
that by driving our own outbound.
Grab a pen, grab a paper,
um, wherever you, whatever,
wherever you take your notes.
This is gonna be an incredible
episode that's gonna help you turn
2023 into your biggest year yet.
Ryan: Welcome to the show, Ryan.
I'm super excited to.
Like, thank you so much for, for
allowing me to brace your presence.
Like, uh, I'm a big fan.
Honestly, I've been following
you for a long time.
Uh, I, I've seen you around the sphere
and, you know, um, I think we've made
some comments back and forth, but like
the fact that you invited me in, I'm,
I'm, I'm blessed to hear I'm being here.
I'm, I'm excited to be here.
Thank you for joining,
allowing me to join your Nah,
Luigi: thanks man.
I, and just for our listeners, I had
to actually tell Ryan, can you stop
talking for a moment so I can hit record?
Because we were talking about some
really cool stuff and I thought, you
know what, we're gonna, we're gonna
miss this, you know, soon as I'm
gonna miss some incredible content.
So, mate, I wanna say
thanks for coming on.
I'm, I'm really pumped because like you.
You look at my content, I
actually, um, enjoy your content.
I enjoy the whiteboard videos that
you put out there and, and some of the
other pieces of content that really gets
me thinking a little bit differently
about Topper Funnel and, you know,
progression and all that sort of stuff.
So excited to talk about, you
know, how sellers can have more
conversations so they can have more
opportunities in their pipeline.
But before we get started, Could you
just share with our listeners a bit more
about how did you start in this space?
Um, you know, and yeah.
What's brought you
Ryan: to where you're at today?
Yeah, so, so I have a very different,
um, background than most in our industry.
Like, I ha I actually study
math and engineering in college.
Uh, so.
You know, most people in sales
are like, , what is this like math
person doing in, uh, in sales?
And, um, it's not that I was
like, like a, a mass savan.
Um, I probably is, I'm more on the,
uh, like sales side of that, besides
the fact that I have that degree.
Like I like to talk to
people and things like that.
So it's not like I was just like this math
dude that can't communicate with people.
But, but that's my background.
I have a math degree.
I think about things in a math
context and, um, a lot of the, the,
the things that I do now is all.
What I call the math of sales.
And to kick this off, you talked about
like my approach to, you know, at
the end of the day, um, if you're in
a sales role, my, my North Star has
always been, if I'm not in a sales
meeting, a scheduled interaction with
my next best customer, like the, the
next, the next thing I needed to do
is get into my next best conversation.
So how do I have a system and a process?
To get to that.
Right?
Like that's it.
So if I'm not in a scheduled
interaction, how do I get to my
next unscheduled interaction?
Mm-hmm.
. So again, that's my math brain thinking.
Right.
So it's a process.
Yeah.
Around how do you get there.
So, so that's me in a nutshell.
I have a math degree.
Um, . Um, I come from a white
trash background, so I'm not, uh,
privileged or anything like that.
I work hard and I, I do a lot of
work, so, uh, my parents are janitors.
My brother and sister are prisoners
and stuff like that, but we don't need
to, like, if you want to go find that,
you can go listen to other podcasts.
Uh, what I do now, what I do now is I
try to help people, um, kind of figure
out, go to market in a really efficient
way, thinking about the numbers.
Yeah.
And, uh, , uh, where a lot of people
think that sales is not a numbers game.
It really still is a numbers game.
Mm-hmm.
, but maybe not the same numbers
that they're thinking about.
Right?
Yeah.
And what I mean by that is like, it's not
about, like more, it's about smarter more.
And so when people's like, oh,
it's about quality versus quantity.
Well, of course of course,
it's about quality, but.
Quantity.
So it's like n no one intelligent
is ever gonna like, just like
ram their head against the wall
doing dumb activities, right?
So let's talk about smart activities
and um, so that's, that's kind of the
lens I bring to this table, which is
again, if I'm not in a sales meeting.
with somebody I wanna do
business with, how do I get to
my next best sales conversation?
So, um, I just ranted for a minute and
I might have lost a few people , but
like, you can ring me, bring me back.
But that's where I'm at.
Like, it's about numbers,
it's about, um, uh, process.
It's about, um, the idea that,
uh, we have, uh, an idea that
if we're not meeting with.
We're trying to meet with somebody
that we think we wanna meet with.
So let's just set that as a table stake.
Yeah.
Like we're all talking
from that same lens.
Mm-hmm.
. And then jump into what
we're gonna talk about next.
Cuz that's really helpful.
A lot of people try to challenge things
that I say where it's like, yeah, no shit.
Like let's go back to what I just said.
Like we're all living in that realm of
if I'm not meeting with someone I want
to meet with and or I'm not trying to
progress towards someone I want to meet.
Okay, so now that we understand that,
let's talk about Yeah, what's next?
And that's the br, that's the
brainchild that I bring to the
equation, which is, it's still
numbers, it's all of that, right?
Does that make sense?
I don't know if I'm
Luigi: losing it.
Absolutely.
And No, no, no, no.
You and I, I'm, I'm online.
I'm, I'm, I'm absolutely
aligned with this, right?
Because I think.
You know, I get the pleasure and I get
the privilege of coaching, you know,
hundreds of sales reps every, every
month from different organizations
and and sales professionals.
But one of the things that I see often
is so many sellers unfortunately,
have hope as their sales plan.
Right?
And there's no real understanding of
metrics and it's kind of like, you know,
yeah, I kind of know my conversions.
And for me, that's, you know, red flag.
Because fundamentally, if you, and, and
again, I've heard all these gurus say,
sales is not a numbers game anymore,
but I'm like, but hang on a second.
Regardless which way you wanna look at it.
There's numbers there and
yeah, the, the, for me, there's
three stages of the funnel.
There's the top, there's the
middle, there's the bottom right,
and things are going from the top.
They're progressing.
Unfortunately, whether you like it or not,
there's, there's actually numbers that are
happening and so you've either gotta be
aware of what are those numbers and what
do you need to do during each stage to
effectively get your target, and how much
coverage do you actually need to have?
I know we're going deeper than
sort of top of funnel, but
Ryan: No, but like, like hold on.
I, I know you, I know, I know
you said about whiteboard.
Can, can you see this here?
And is this gonna even be a
like, like a relevant thing?
Yeah.
If I did this, I don't
know if you can see that.
Is
Luigi: that like not there?
So we, the triangle, I'm, I'm
talking I guess through this, right?
Yeah,
Ryan: yeah, yeah.
Buyer's pyramid chat homes.
Do you know this concept?
Yeah.
Chat homes, buyer experi.
So we can definitely see it.
. No, but three 3% is buying now.
Yep.
7% is open to it.
And then you've got like
90%, that's everything else.
Let's just talk about the 10% over here.
Yeah, the 10% that, um, that, that,
that is like the, the world that we
live in, if we're selling and every
time someone's going through a, uh,
uh, a pipeline forecast, , you would
imagine that we're living in that 10%.
Everybody who is like either buying or
open to it, but the reality is mm-hmm.
, um, we're so far off, we're
so far off of perspective.
So, and again, you don't need
to have this in the background.
We can just talk through
that for a second.
Because if I just want one
deal at 3%, that means I have
to have 33 opportunities.
Yeah.
If, if 3% of my market is buying right
now and, and you believe in that concept.
Do you know the book, ultimate
Sales Machine by, uh, Chol?
Have you heard that or, yeah.
Yeah.
And just for a list.
His pyramid.
Luigi: Yep.
Yeah, so, so he's got a great book.
He talks about this.
Go ahead.
No, no, I was just gonna say, I was
just saying for our listeners, cuz
you wrote, you know, something on
the,
Luigi: on your whiteboard,
which is awesome.
But, um, for those that can't watch
this, right, but, you know, she
homes, Chet Home has got some a, a
great model and absolutely that 3%.
At any given time is
probably out there looking.
Um, 10%, I think you said is,
is, is, is there's a possibility
for them to buy, right?
Well,
Ryan: so, so 3% of buy
now, uh, 7% is open to it.
So 10% is probably like, yeah.
The, the, like, if we're
selling, we're there.
So, uh, but if, if I have a perfect list
of everybody who's buying right now,
and I'm a seller, that in a market, any
given market, so 3% is buying right.
. What does that mean?
If I want one deal, Hmm.
That means I have to have 33 active
opportunities that are Yeah, perfect.
Yeah.
and the reality and, and,
and , you say, yeah, boom, boom.
Your mind just got blown, right?
Because you're like, well, shoot,
we're always kind of guessing, right?
We're always kind of like thinking
that, um, You know, maybe you're
a good fit, maybe you're not.
I had a hy I, I had a hypothesis,
but I can't guess that I'm not,
I wish I, I, I wish I could like,
you know, wave my magic wand or,
you know, suck the thumb and guess.
But if I'm a world class closer
and I can close everyone who's
buying right now to get one buying,
now I need 33 that are yeah.
Active in my pipeline at any given.
. How many sellers do you, how many
sellers do you know right now that
have 33 really solid, ex perfect fit
people in their pipeline right now?
The reality is, is
Luigi: very low right now.
Right?
Like, um, at the moment we know that,
you know, there's a big pipeline
deficiency gap for a lot of organizations.
They're struggling to not just
fill the pipeline but actually
have quality opportunity pipeline.
And we talk about coverage, like we
need coverage as a sales professional.
We need coverage because we know
the fact of what you just said.
There's only a portion of people that are
gonna be buying at any given time, right?
Yep.
And if we don't have that coverage,
what happens is we've just got a lot
of risk associated with our pipeline.
So I think this is a great way to
frame up our conversation today, right?
Because you're talking about certain
things that you know, intent, and this
is where your expertise comes into it.
So can you share with us a
little bit about if I'm a
seller listening to this going.
, Ryan, you've just blown my mind.
You've just made me realize that my actual
pipeline's really, really unhealthy.
I haven't got enough opportunities.
It's, it's why I'm on that roller
coaster ride of one minute, I'm up.
Next minute I'm down.
. Um, how do you go about really
structuring your kind of outreach plan
so that you can have more conversations?
on a daily basis.
Yeah.
And it,
Ryan: and, and, and it all
starts with that conversation.
So you, you, the first thing you have
to note is that if you can reframe
your, your entire, uh, mindset
around meetings or deals or whatever,
it's about daily conversations.
That's the only thing that matters.
So if you can get there as your starting.
. Everything I'm gonna talk about next
is gonna make a lot of sense because
again, going back to the numbers I
scribbled on the board where you may
or may not see this right now, is that
if you want, if you're perfect, you're
perfect in any given market right now and
you're gonna close the yield right now.
You have to have 33.
Ready to go that are perfect
fit in order for you to be like
really crushing your market.
Yeah.
Most people look at me and be
like, you're, you're nuts, Ryan.
That's not true because I close
one out of five or I close.
Yeah, okay.
That means you're not trying hard enough.
I'm saying market dominance in any given
market right now, total addressable
market is that 3% are buying now.
7% are open.
, so on and so forth.
So if you take it from that lens and
you start to look ahead around like,
how do I predictably scalably cost
effectively market into my industry?
Then the only thing that
matters is daily conversations.
Because what you start to learn from
a conversation is where you're at.
Are you buying now?
Are you open to it?
Are you not interested?
Are you, you know, so on and so forth.
And, um, through that conversation, You're
able to gather information necessary
around what's my next best action, which
is where you said, Hey, stop, Brian.
We're gonna rec record, right?
Like right now, most people
don't think in that lens, right?
They're making calls, they're sending
emails, they're doing whatever they have.
They have no idea around.
This interaction that we're having
right now is not about right now.
It's about the next best.
sales is about the next
best action, right?
A pro, uh, like we're
here, we're going there.
Um, and right now if we're in a sales
process, we're probably not buying now.
So what's the next best action?
And when it comes to cold outreach and
prospecting and this continuous process
here, the, the number one thing that
matters the most is daily conversations.
And then within those
conversations is the next best.
, the next ion could be a yes.
Mm-hmm.
, let's go forward.
We're gonna buy.
Now.
It could be a, no, not
me, for whatever reason.
It could be a, not me, somebody else
with an organization or referral.
It could be a not now follow up.
All of those, inf, all of that
information that we're getting right
now in that conversation is vital to
our next best action within an account.
Yes.
I was targeting your organization.
I believed at some point you not, you
as a person, your organization could
benefit from what I have to offer.
And so, again, even the nos for
most people, they like, you know,
they, they, they stop prospecting
an account when it's actually just
the individual, not the company.
So you target companies,
you sell the people.
Yeah.
And you follow this
methodology around, yes.
No, not me, not now.
Mm.
A next best action.
And I think I'm talking really fast and
probably not necessarily connecting a
lot of dots right now, but hopefully
No, no, no, but, but I'm just
Luigi: gonna, I just wanna jump
in cuz this, this is actually
really important, right?
Because what you've hit upon is sometimes
when we hear the no, we are like, okay,
I mark that as closed, lost, I put
it into another column and I move on.
And what you are referring to is
saying, well, hang on a second,
what does the No actually.
And let's, let's think about
what's the next action.
Because you're right.
If you've done your ICP and you're
really clear about, hang on, this is the
problem that these companies often have,
and if I know that this company's got
this particular problem, just because
they've rejected my first approach, it
doesn't mean the problem's going away.
Right?
And potentially the problem could
be getting bigger and bigger.
So what you are actually saying, . It's
not about putting it into closed loss.
It's about thinking, okay, well
what's the next action that needs to
happen within this account in order to
progress it to the next conversation?
So I'm actually really, I, I think
that's very important for many to
many to hear because, you know, so
many just burn through the data.
Like we've got an endless pool
of data today and we're just
burning through data, data, data.
But we're not actually taking
any of that, that insight.
That we are learning about the data
to say, well, actually, there's not
data about the opportunities and
going, okay, well this is the path
that I thought it was gonna go, but
now we've gotta go down this path.
So talk to us a bit more about this.
Ryan: Well, so there's two parts to that.
Like, so there's the reaction to
you, you individually, Colleen.
Yeah.
And, and then, um, my organization calling
those two different things as well.
So , how good are you about.
, um, objectively gathering that
information, not like putting subjectively
subjectivity into that, that mix, right?
So, um, like the factual evidence
versus the like feelings and the
emotional evidence to what was said.
Um, that's a big, that's a big
and very important piece of that.
And then, um, . Ultimately, at the end
of the day, how big of a problem in
the industry is this thing that you
are reaching out about is and, and
then how do you like resolve that?
And at the end of the day, it
goes right back to conviction.
So how much conviction do I have
to actually make that happen?
So I'll give you a great
example of this right now.
Like literally this morning, um,
we had, we have a partnership
with a company called Sales Cast.
We're doing live outbound.
For their team.
They do podcasting and content for, um,
founders that wanna like, love Mitchell.
You know him.
Are you, you, you are, are
they are, are you guys?
Uh, nah, we big fans of
Luigi: Colin.
Colin's a big fan of ours,
Ryan: man.
So like, we're all perfect, you know?
Yeah.
So, so, you know, Colin,
Colin was on our show today.
We're making calls for Colin to
other sales leaders that want
to be on podcast, whatever.
Um, he was calling live today, a
hundred percent of Alici called with
people who told the first person.
. Pretty interesting, right?
Yeah.
No.
Within the last, less than a.
and he slammed through the first
few calls and they were kind of
rough, like you did expect, right?
Someone just said no.
Mm.
The other day it's probably a no again.
But by the fifth call he had
a really good conversation.
He booked an appointment.
Um, bang.
One outta a five is pretty good, right?
Yeah.
Like 20% conversion on a
cold calls pretty damn good.
On nose ahead of notes,
but yeah, he's pretty good.
You know what the difference is?
Like he had originally, uh, researched
to list in the first place of companies,
people within those companies that ought
to be interested in what they offer.
The list is a strategy and he, yeah.
As a founder of that business, is
now following up with someone who
said no after he initiated that
list in the first place, saying.
. Yeah.
It's weird because I thought that
you would've been a good fit.
You spoke with my person, you said,
no, I'm here now in this conversation.
What's happening now?
Yeah.
So you see how the paradigm
shifts around context and timing.
Luigi: Yeah.
And sorry, I, I just wanna jump in there
cause this is actually really, I think
this is a really cool conversation right?
. So you had, he had a list of people
that were, were, were basically
said, no, someone else, not him.
He's gone back to that list, right?
Yeah, that's right.
So someone else in his team targeted,
you know, a set account persona,
whichever one you wanna call it.
Then he's gone back in and do you mind
actually sharing, because you, you just,
you know, shared a quick little script.
Can you actually share that?
What was.
Kind of value narrative that he led with
to get them engaged in a conversation.
And how did he also, let's go
back to the, let's go ahead.
I was just gonna say now, how did he also
kind of, um, when the objection came up?
Or did the objection come up?
I spoke to one of your
team members last week.
Why are you calling
Ryan: me again?
Yeah.
So let's go right back to the, the
intent again, what we were talking
about to get to that point, which
was like, um, if we, if we have.
Solid process around these are
people we think we can help.
This is a message that
we're gonna deliver.
And, um, there's two different things
that are happening right now actually.
There's, there's a, a, a
pretty simple equation.
It's target message, channel, timing,
and that's also a little bit more
complex around like who I am, who I
be to over that and, and who you are.
But in any case, this is
a list of people that he.
could benefit from what they do.
We called them, uh, they said no.
He follows up and says, Hey,
we've never spoken before.
Can I get a minute?
Mm-hmm.
. Okay.
Yeah.
Got a minute.
Perfect.
You actually spoke to someone
on my team within stated
timeframe, let's say last week.
Yep.
And I'm looking at the notes right now
and I had a couple questions for you.
Have a minute.
Boom.
Now into the conversation again.
So the funny thing is the remainder of
that conversation is still the exact
same framework we've delivered before
It's that typically we're working with
companies who have these things, they
already have content, they're trying
to accelerate it, or maybe they.
They, um, they have an audience, but they
need content or they're just trying to
figure out content for the first time.
Let me pause there and figure out
does any of that resonate with you?
So, if you're like a, a business
leader thinking about podcasting
or content integration, those three
things would resonate with you, right?
Yeah.
Likely.
I don't know.
So he just revisited
that exact same thing.
Mm.
. It just so happened that for
this particular one, um, and,
and others told him no again,
that's fine, then we all get that.
But this particular one just went right
through the process and, um, that this
particular one that he booked with,
Um, was another sales trainer respected
the approach, respected the idea, like
getting more feedback after the pact.
It's like good, best
practices around follow up.
And lo and behold, who knows
what will result from it.
Um, it wasn't even a, uh, a fact
that he's gonna even try to sell
anything in that first conversation.
It was just like, I think that if
you're gonna do this, I have some things
that I can offer in this next meeting.
That conviction.
is what resulted in that conversion.
But what we don't see in all of
this is that right there, right?
Mm-hmm.
. What we're all doing right now is that
you have a problem I think I can solve.
Mm-hmm.
. Now, most often you have junior
people trying to solve that.
What happens when the senior person.
actually says, no, seriously,
you have a problem.
I think I can help with you see the
dynamic change that happens there.
Yeah.
But
Luigi: I think, you know, no, I,
man, there's so many things here
we could, we could break down.
Right.
But just going back to Colin, you
know, I, I actually really like that
approach because he's taking it.
He's, he's, he's, he's bringing
the reason why he is ringing.
So again, he's saying, this is why I'm
calling because he spoke to x it, you
know, it did, we didn't move forward.
But I do believe that's a
good reason for us to chat.
And he's, and he's structured that narrat.
got them engaged and he's book one from
five, which is actually pretty cool.
Right.
So I think for me, um, for me that's
something that for many of us that
are getting, you know, rejection or
we're getting some sort of barriers
from people we're calling, it
should give us the motivation to go,
well, what did I learn from that?
And how do I go back, maybe
alter the str, alter the
narrative and reengage with them.
Yes.
I think that's the first part.
Yes.
Also, the second part that you
talked about, , you're right.
Actually saying, Hey, this is
what I think a problem that
you, you could be faced with.
Now, if we, again, and I've gotta go
back to this for, for, for, for my
listeners, and you've, you've heard me
talk about this before, if you've done
your homework on the ICP and you've
actually spent time really understanding
the industry, because we know that 89% of
senior decision makers expect you to know
their industry and know their problems.
Right.
If you're actually reaching out to them
and you've done the research and said,
you know, these are some of the problems
that are happening in your sector, right?
And you've done that research,
then there's a good chance
that value hypothesis is a
legitimate hypothesis, right?
You're saying, Hey, here's a problem.
We've got a value hypothesis,
we think's important to you.
Do you want to chat?
Right?
But as you know, and, and I wanna
talk, we're gonna ask you in a
moment, Ryan, but because we are
interrupting people sometimes
they don't truly hear our message.
when we are first calling, and I think
this is an important topic, right?
So what can sellers do to interrupt
their pattern of thought so they can
actually hear what we've got to say?
Huge,
Ryan: huge, huge, huge
point right now, right?
Mm-hmm.
. So more often than not,
they're not hearing you.
So when you call.
and you say, Hey, this is Ryan.
Have I caught you at a bad time?
Whatever your intro is,
and you'll say, sure.
And you goose verbal dial,
you pitch slap, right?
Yeah.
, they're not here, they're
still not hearing you.
Right?
Yeah.
Because the majority of the market
is not, um, they're actually
conditioned to like, okay, salesperson.
Mm-hmm.
. , uh, and then they give you
the, the, the beast mode, stiff
arm, um, towns and ward law.
And I, and I publish his content
often, and I, this is a big, uh,
system that I subscribe to now.
He has a methodology that breaks that
pattern up to get to the magic words,
and it doesn't happen often, often.
I actually have a.
I, I have, uh, I'm the four times
worth cool caller on the planet at the
moment, cuz in the last year, like I've
had somebody tell me that live , um,
the, the real, the reality is like,
it's not gonna work for everybody,
but it works more often than not.
And so here's what you do.
You know, you, we call and we say, hey.
Pattern interrupt.
Most people understand that.
Or, um, um, intro, um, um, uh,
we're gonna, we're gonna have
a permission based opener.
Okay.
You gave me permission now.
My permission right now is not to pitch.
My permission right now is actually to,
to actually still consider this pattern
interrupt cuz you're not listening yet.
And so what this might sound like is
like, Hey Luigi, this is Ryan Reiser.
You weren't expecting my call today.
This is the first time I reached.
You mind if I take a half a minute, I can
share exactly why I called you and you
can let me know if it's relevant or not.
You're gonna say something like, sure.
Whatever.
Perfect.
Hey, Luigi.
Honestly, the only reason why I was
reaching out today was to see if it
would even make sense for us to set up a
further conversation between my company.
How's your schedule look, you
know, next Thursday or Friday,
how like maybe 10 or 11?
I still haven't said anything
about what I have to say.
You're gonna.
, you're gonna go, wait, I'm sorry.
Like, what the fuck, what's his
Luigi: call about?
Ryan: Exactly.
To your point, you, you just asked, how
do you, how do you get people to listen?
That's how you do it.
You have to, you have to break the
pattern, and you have to get them to this
point where they, they're actually asking
a question with the intent of listening
and not just looking to push you off.
And even then, . Even then,
more often than not, they're
still not listening . So, okay.
To the point of what we just said with
Colin, it's still about the follow up.
So yeah, the results we have with
cold calling where most people
like are a little bit worried
about it cuz it doesn't feel right.
Okay.
Let's use the chat homes buyer pyramid.
Let's say 10% is really good, really good.
Um, success rate, meaning you're getting
everyone who's buying now and open.
, um, well, when we follow up, we now
can revisit with, Hey, we spoke before.
You're revisiting that you're
gonna get to the next, you actually
might be able to open that up to
like 20 or 30% conversion rate.
Yeah.
But you're still getting a no.
Even when you're like on
a follow up, which took a
couple kicks in teeth already.
Yeah.
You're still being told
seven outta 10 times.
No.
So when you asked me that
question like how do I, how do I.
somehow put magic around
getting more yeses.
You can't, right?
Yeah.
What, what most sellers need to understand
is that you're gonna get no more than
yes, but like what did you learn?
What did you learn between
the yes and the no?
And is it worth that follow up or not?
That's where the money's made.
Yeah.
Let me restate that for a second.
Right.
If I'm good in one, I get one outta 10.
. Okay.
So most people might give up on
that and just go one outta 10, one
outta 10, one outta 10, but what?
But if I'm really great, I follow up and
I get two more out of that 10, yeah, I
get three out of 10 on that same list
that I already put that work in too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
My connect rates higher, so,
so, so, but, but I'm still
losing more often than not, and.
, do you have the chops?
Can you take those teeth kicks?
Can you do that?
That's the winning zone.
That's the winning zone.
But again,
Luigi: I think the big takeaway for
me from this conversation, Ryan, and
you know, when I think back to some
of the best, the biggest deals that
I've put together in my career, right?
There was always the early stages of
the process always had some form of.
Right.
And it because, but because I knew
of the opportunity and I, I knew
the fact that we were a good fit
and I knew there was a problem.
I didn't allow that, no.
To kind of stop my pursuit.
I just said, okay, what do I do next?
And I've just had this
massive ahha, right?
And so I think, and again, for
many sellers, like you've just
said it, one at 10, 10%, but you've
gone, well, hang on one outta 10.
I learned from the nine three outta.
bang.
Like that is an incredibly
different metric.
That's 10% to 30% huge change, right?
And all you're doing is learning
from the first, you know, the first
batch to then go back to that batch
and get more from that batch, right?
So you kind of, I think
that's a great strategy.
But in order to do that, you've gotta
have that growth mindset mentality.
You've gotta actually have that
mentality of, well, a, what did I.
and you're right.
Like I think it's important to get
that information from them because
sometimes, and it's ao, okay, I
say this to sellers all the time,
like sometimes it's okay to move.
If you hear from, I get this sometimes,
mate, we'd love to talk to you, but
we've just gone down the path of
Korn Ferry, we're doing Miller Hyman.
You know, this is gonna be
a 12 month rollout for us.
We literally cannot even think about
anything else for the next 12 months.
That's ao.
Okay, mate.
But I am actually going to take
a note of this and I'm gonna put
you in my relationship funnel,
and I am gonna follow you up, man.
But I'm gonna give you different pieces
of content so that you can start thinking.
And as you start progressing through
that journey, you are gonna think
of me and I'm still gonna be calling
you just in a different way, right?
That's right.
So for me,
Ryan: that's, that's the winning zone.
That's the winning zone.
But most people don't do that.
, they, they're, they're, they're
always searching that 10%.
They're always searching that 10%.
Yes.
That's it.
And
Luigi: that's the short, that's
the short term mentality.
Right.
And again, for me, that's the whole,
I'm only focusing on the now and
I'm not focusing on the tomorrow.
Right.
Because, and it, and, and, and
that's a dangerous place to get to.
And I've been there, I've been there
where you're kind of, you're hunting for.
And I've always said, I should
never be hunting for today, man.
Like I've gotta be planning
my pipeline in 3, 6, 9 months.
I've actually gotta be forward thinking
going, what are the opportunities
that I need to be focusing on today?
Cuz I know my sales cycle is, you know,
two to four months or two to six months.
So I've gotta be doing the hard work now.
Otherwise, future Luigi is fucked.
Right.
Because that's right, that's,
that's exactly sitting there
going, man, I've got nothing.
Yeah.
So
Ryan: actually that's exactly.
That That's exactly right.
And when it comes down to the,
the fundamentals that we're
talking about right now, um,
one, most people don't do it.
Two, like, like.
You still can't even handle those.
We call them Cowabunga.
Internally, it's kind of a funny,
like, you know, zap the fence, right?
Like the, you know, you might have
seen some of the guns that we produce
with the, the, the meme around the
Australian guy that like, holds the
fence, like, ah, you know, Cowabunga baby.
Um, most people can't handle that
shockwave, they can't handle that.
Um, and then more importantly, they're
not gathering the information necessary
to determine if it's worth that or.
. So that's important too.
Okay, so even within the three
that you're following up with,
there's still seven others.
Within those seven others.
If you did a good job originally, let's go
back to Collins use case that we just had.
He presented a list to us that
said, Hey, these are all people
that have been on podcasts.
They're founders of companies.
They're either already owned their
podcasts or they're podcasting.
These are really good fits.
. Yeah.
A hundred percent of that list
is someone he wants to talk to.
Yeah.
Now, when we talk to them, we already know
the data says one outta 10, not a problem.
Now he's following up, he's getting
the other two or three out of 10.
Phenomenal.
But what about the other seven outta 10?
What do you keep doing?
You can't give up on that.
But the list is the strategy.
So in the beginning you have to.
Confidence that you're putting in the
inputs of these are people that you
actually might be able to serve and why?
Yeah, that's, yeah.
Another like, yeah, I don't know.
That could be a whole
nother episode, right?
Like people can't site, that's it.
They can't quite get that
because garbage in, garbage out.
And then once I have you in the
follow up becomes so much easier.
Right?
Mm.
And let me just give you, this will
be like, we can land this maybe on the
plane with your show, but um, if I'm cold
calling, this is my secret sauce, right?
If I'm cold calling someone
cold, the average connect
rate's 5%, let's say, right?
Yeah.
One outta 20 picks up.
But if I know you pick up, which is
no different than if you pick up.
If you don't, that's the, that's
the thing that no one understands.
But if you pick up, you pick up.
If you don't, you don't.
So if I just call people who pick
up my connect rate's, not 5%,
it's actually something like 25%.
Yeah.
So I don't have to make
20 dials to pick up.
I only have to make four.
So compound that into everything
we just said in this episode.
and now you have magic.
That's how you get there.
You have to have thick skin, you have to
be able to be resilient, but over time,
it's not so much about how hard it is to
get a conversation, which is what most
people spend the majority of their life.
Thinking, cold calling is about,
they think cold calling is, no one
picks up and I get kicked in the
teeth once everyone in the blue moon.
But the future of cold calling is,
I've actually developed a list of
everyone I know I'll help at some point.
Now my world is about helping
them understand is timing.
Right?
Yeah.
And how do I help them, like you said,
change that conversation along the way.
Yeah.
Because once I know you pick
up and you're in my channel
and I know they can help you.
I'm gonna have a conversation
often, so I no longer worry.
Will you pick up?
It's about what do I say and then
how do I serve you and how do I
take you to that next best action.
Going back, right back to
what we said in the beginning.
Yeah.
It's about the next best action ever.
Absolutely.
And,
Luigi: and I think this is a
great way, like, and, and, and
unfortunately, you know, I could, we
talk about this shit for hours, so.
You know, I really appreciate
you, you, you, you coming on Ryan.
But, but just to wrap it up, and I
think this is something for most of us
to really give consideration to write
what Ryan's saying is, especially if
you're a seller listening to this and
you've got a, you've got a, a, um, a set.
Amount of accounts that
you can prospect into.
You've only got a, a set territory.
You might be SMB versus mid-market.
This is actually even more important
because, you know, I work with, for
example, I'm coaching some seller.
They've only got way more important.
Ryan: Yeah, way more
Luigi: important.
They've only got 50, you know, a
hundred accounts that they can engage
into, into their, into their area, and
you just can't burn through them all.
You've actually gotta be considered with
your approach and go, okay, when I do get.
pushback, what does that now mean for me?
And what is that next step?
So this has been an awesome episode,
and I just wanna say before we wrap up,
Ryan, obviously I, you are on LinkedIn,
you've got some YouTube videos out there.
You know, where is the best place for
our listeners to find and engage you
and, and to keep following your content?
Yeah, if,
Ryan: if you find me on, uh,
LinkedIn, you'll be able to
like, get into the vortex.
I think most people, uh, just
find me on, uh, on LinkedIn.
Um, I got a YouTube channel as
well through Rice Consulting, which
we're growing and I think some
really fun, fun content in there.
And there's some really educational
content, so follow out along the way.
But, uh, uh, yeah, if you really wanna
get in touch with me, then call me.
My, my, my cell phone
number is (415) 994-0110.
That's the best way to do it, but
you have to call me, um, you know,
don't email me and stuff like that.
Just call me and we'll talk.
That's it.
So this is everything.
Just make
Luigi: sure you put the plus one, you
put the plus one for the us for us.
Cuz they are, you know,
they're always number one.
So put the plus one man.
Ryan: Hilarious.
Luigi: Hilarious.
Well, Ryan, man, thanks
for jumping on the show.
Thanks for the content you create,
man, like a, a again for me.
Um, you know, I know what
it's, what it's like creating.
and trying to help sellers and trying
to help elevate our profession.
So thanks for what you
do for our community.
Thanks for jumping on the podcast and
we can't wait to have you back again.
Yeah, thanks
Ryan: for having me, man.
This is awesome.