163: Relationships Over Transactions: How Fringe's Carl Sajous is Changing the Game in Sales

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Vidyard. Check out their brand new AI sales script generator at top1.fm/vai for video AI. You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Carl Sajous, who until very recently was the lead account executive at Fringe. And with the departure of our friend DeJuan Brown to an incredible new opportunity, Carl is now leading the sales team at Fringe. Welcome to the show, Carl.

0:53 Carl Sajous: Thanks for having me, Scott.

0:54 Scott Ingram: So really looking forward to jumping into this, obviously kind of extended member of the family, given that you work side by side with Jack Wilson, that you worked with DeJuan. They both spoke incredibly highly of you. So fired up about this conversation. And we'll start things off like we always do with some immediate value. And I want to talk about the 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success as the top AE there at Fringe.

1:20 Carl Sajous: For sure. Yeah. And I appreciate you paying the invoice that I sent over to those guys for saying those great words. But the 3 things that I think, you know, are pivotal to my success Is number one is really extreme follow-up without shame. I really double down on that and make sure that every opportunity until told no is still active. And second, I would say is playing from behind from a mentality perspective, always feeling like needing to score the last couple baskets to win the game and go on a nice little run. And then the third is 100% authenticity, kind of just being who I am through and through in every sales cycle, speaking to anybody that I speak with. So I would say those are the 3 things that Beautiful.

1:56 Scott Ingram: Let's talk about each of those a little bit more. I mean, well, I love all of them, but so the extreme follow-up piece, like what does that actually look like? What is that experience if I'm your prospect?

2:06 Carl Sajous: Yeah, for sure. I mean, when I send out emails after an opportunity, after having a demo and we send a follow-up with some quality content and we just kind of have drip campaigns. Now there's cadences where we'll have a drip campaign and submit some different information for them, but then that even means sending them videos and maybe it's calling them on the phone depending on where they are, showing up to their office with a particular gift. Understanding and remembering when their birthday is and maybe sending them a note. And so, there's multiple different touchpoints. I tend to be a very open book on my meetings. And so, like, we have commonalities when we leave that call. And so, again, I mentioned their birthday, potentially it's my birthday, maybe it's somebody, a child's birthday or something like that. I'll make sure I stay in touch so that I can create opportunity to continue to follow up. And I was saying it earlier, but like, until someone tells me no, and they're like, hey, this opportunity is just, it's just not working, or we're not going to move forward now or something like that. I continue following up because I think there's truly value in what we provide. And I'll just continue to follow up until we make sure that that gets met.

3:06 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So it sounds like, I mean, I think what drives great follow-up like that is it has to come from a place of belief, right? Like, I know this is actually going to help you. I'm not just being annoying. Like, you need to do this. And it sounds like you have that belief from a solution perspective.

3:22 Carl Sajous: That's right. Yeah. So I'm first generation born in the US and both sides of my family are from Haiti. And so my dad growing up was just like, hey, if you're going to put your name on something, make sure you see it through and you're very intentional about it. And so my sales process is all about a belief in what I'm selling. And I actually don't consider it sales when it gets to that level. It's really just extreme understanding and listening and solving problems that they have. And so I really believe in the solutions that we provide here at Fringe, and I would never have signed my name on the dotted line if I didn't feel that. And so through my interview process, I want to make sure that that's something I believe in. But once I do, and once I lock in, that's what it's all about is really just coaching on the things that I believe in this organization.

4:06 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. Brilliant. And I'm hoping that you're going to set me up perfectly here. When you're sending these video messages, what tool are you using to do that?

4:13 Carl Sajous: We use Vidyard for that.

4:14 Scott Ingram: Beautiful. Beautiful. You got to love a perfect organic setup to mention a sponsor. Vidyard has been a longtime supporter of this podcast and the Sales Success Community. And hopefully, like Carl, you're already using their tools to quickly create videos and see when your prospects and clients are watching them. Now they've got something brand new for you, an AI sales script generator that you can get to at top1.fm/vai. On that page, they've also got some great prompts to help you improve your prospecting, your follow-ups, and progressing your deals. top1.fm/vai. So that brings us to this playing from behind mentality. What is that exactly?

4:58 Carl Sajous: Yeah, it's a mentality that, you know, that you're handicapped when you start the game, that you're playing from behind numerically, right? I draw off a lot of examples from sports. And so it's, you know, starting the second half behind and what can we do to really exemplify that we can do above and beyond what the other team, what the other company, what your other organization can do. I think it kind of just goes back to my background and my upbringing, right? You know, being Haitian immigrants, there's not a lot of resources available. And I think that's just kind of what I carry through with me on a daily basis. I'm very close with my family. And with that in mind, I kind of use that in the sense as well, where, you know, I think that the other product might look better at first, or the other salesperson might be doing this to kind of get them to move forward. And so what can I do to go above and beyond that? What am I reading and listening to when my other competitors are sleeping? Right. And so it's really creating this mentality where I feel like I always have to do more because somebody is already doing something that I might not be doing.

5:55 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. We'll come back to the, what you're reading and listening to and when your competitors are sleeping, but talk about the authenticity piece. How does that show up?

6:02 Carl Sajous: Authenticity really shows up in just kind of how I approach who I am as a person and also what I bring to the table from a business perspective. I mean, in order to truly believe in a particular product and believe in the mission that I'm driving, I really need to believe in that and make sure that that's something that is a part of who I am. And so whether that's, you know, being completely honest in the sales process and some of our deficiencies, some of the things we might need to work on, but being transparent about that, being forthcoming and honest about a lot of the things that we're doing, things that are on the roadmap, whatever the case might be, just really coming to this table as a whole human, really, I feel like the buyer feels that from the other end of the table. And I feel like when I come to the table as authentic as possible, that just makes the transaction a secondary thought.

6:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, there's so much good stuff in that. And one of my favorite definitions of sales, I'm pretty sure it comes from Anthony Iannarino, and he says that, you know, sales is a transference of belief. And so I'm curious about… you mentioned, you know, kind of the work that you did in the interview process. Talk more about kind of that due diligence as you were coming into Fringe to make sure, like, is this something that I believe in, that I'm willing to put my name and my stamp of approval on this? How did you do that vetting?

7:13 Carl Sajous: Yeah, that's a good question. It actually started in the pandemic in my backyard, actually. The CEO of Fringe was a friend of mine, or is a friend of mine, and he came over and was just telling me about the company and what the mission was and what they were looking to do, which is providing lifestyle benefits. For organizations and allowing the employees to select their own perks and benefits within this marketplace. And I just thought it was brilliant. I thought that there was a lot of value. It takes the administration and the responsibility off of the company to administer these perks and benefits. And they do so in a very, very equitable way by providing different use cases and funding for these accounts for employees. And so I loved the mission, but I also knew who Jordan was as a person. And so I trusted in him in creating this company, and that's something that I believed in. And so the people behind the organization, as well as the solutions that we provide, I kind of felt like they went hand in hand and I was able to be myself again, kind of going back to the authenticity piece. Jordan knew me for over 10 years. So when I decided to sign the dotted line, I didn't have to show up as anybody other than who I was, which was freeing for me. And so I was able to come in day one and just kind of be myself and do my own thing. And I thought that that was rare. And so with that, with the product-market fit, I felt like was a great marriage for me.

8:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You know, you validated something for me that I've been thinking about a lot in terms of doing due diligence around not just finding the right product that you can believe in, but finding the right sales culture, right, that you can fit into and be supported. And I've basically come to the conclusion that even if you have an absolutely incredible senior sales leader, If that sales leader doesn't have the support and the buy-in in this type of rep-first, team-first, person-first type of approach from the CEO, from the C-level, it won't work. And so you basically have to qualify, does the CEO believe in sales, right? Or do they see it… because I see this a lot… do they see it as a necessary evil, right? Like, yeah, we have to have salespeople, this sucks, right? And a lot of times I find that with founders or CEOs that come from a product background or they come from a finance background, right? And if you see sales as a math problem, that's kind of problematic for the humans that work on that sales team, you know what I mean?

9:31 Carl Sajous: That's right.

9:32 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So talk about just your results, your role. I mean, obviously you had a massive impact there. There was a reason why you were recently elevated. Give us some context there. Put that all in perspective for us.

9:46 Carl Sajous: Yeah, started with Fringe in November of 2020 and quickly, you know, exemplified that I could sell. I ramped very quickly and hit over $100,000 in my first few months at the organization. And then of course, ending at the year, you know, back end of a year going into 2021, again exemplifying that I can, you know, sell. And then going into 2022 is when I really like knocked the COVID off the ball, hitting over quota and really being the one, the only one on the team to do so. And then from then went into a senior AE position where I went upmarket and worked on other deals still within this year, as well as ultimately going to lead account executive once we made some internal shifts and some hires. And then now on the director of sales leading the team, but still having a practitioner role to where I'm still involved with doing some upmarket opportunities and talking to certain companies at different levels. And so it's been an interesting journey, a lot of ebbs and flows, you know, and it's being a remote-first organization. Half the team is in town here in Richmond, Virginia. And the other half of the team is remote. And so navigating that and being able to tap in as a team has been a really awesome shift and navigating the marketplace has been awesome as well.

10:53 Scott Ingram: So that is absolutely great stuff. And I want to hear about like, what's your origin story? How did you get into sales in the first place?

11:01 Carl Sajous: Yeah, good question. So it was one of those things that again, it was more relationship building and building that EQ value in the day-to-day lives of folks. I was working at a property insurance company, Travelers Insurance, and it was just doing just normal adjusting, property adjusting in 2009. Mind when I graduated from college, but I quickly was able to go into an organization called Northwestern Mutual, which is a financial planning firm, which is what really kickstarted my selling career, so to speak. And I was able to run my own financial planning practice successfully for 3 years. That's where I met the CEO Jordan at Fringe. You know, I qualified for all the President's Club trips and the 100 Lives Clubs and all the annual clubs, and I kind of scratched that itch from a selling perspective. But I went back to manage a catastrophe team for a property insurance company. Then again, wanting to go back and scratch that itch, I went to a company called MV where I was the director of business development for them. And really it was a selling process from a transit, first transit contracts. It was just a different selling angle because at the time at Northwestern, it was more day-to-day sales and the transactions happened and the sales cycles were so much shorter. And at MV, the sales cycles were elongated to 2, 3, 4 years at sometimes. And so the idea was, what can I do to cultivate relationships? More longstanding as opposed to really building transactions. And that's where I felt like the relationship building really levitated me to a different level from my professional career because I started to double down even further on the deeper meaning of the relationship, not what drove me to the transaction in the short term. And so that role was amazing. I had an amazing mentor, Gary Coles, who has coached me on a lot of different things. And from there is where Jordan, again, the CEO of Fringe, reached out to me from his experience with me at Northwestern Mutual, where he also qualified for a lot of the same things that I did as well.

12:48 Scott Ingram: Okay. So Jordan was a seller at Northwestern Mutual.

12:51 Carl Sajous: He was. Yeah.

12:52 Scott Ingram: Got it. Got it. See, I knew it. I'm telling you, you've got to find an executive leader who comes from like a sales, marketing, customer success background. Like that is one of the primary ingredients. Not to say that they're all that way, that that's where sales culture starts. But I would say it's much more likely if they come from that background, they understand, right? Like what it's like. Like to be dealing with the data today that we deal with. And not to say that somebody that comes from a finance background, a product background, can't create a great sales culture, but yeah, the odds are way more in your favor if you've got somebody that's carried a bag, right?

13:26 Carl Sajous: That's true. And one of the other co-founders, Jason, actually was at Northwestern as well. So we've… I've known 2 of the co-founders at Fringe for over 10 years. But also, you know, you mentioned, you know, product-led organizations and things like that. We have some founders who've been sellers in that capacity at Northwestern, but we also have some like Andrew who works on the product team, Chris and Isaiah, who also did other, other angles of their careers. And now they're bringing that to the table as the co-founders of the organization. So we kind of got a nice mix of different backgrounds that found the organization, which is exciting.

13:59 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

13:59 Carl Sajous: Yeah.

14:00 Scott Ingram: Are there things that carry through from a kind of the Northwestern way into the way that you guys sell?

14:06 Carl Sajous: I would say so, right? I mean, I think, you know, the discipline at Northwestern is this like 10-4-2 mentality where it's like, you know, you've reached out to 10 prospects, you have the 4 meetings, you have the 2 closes kinds of mentality. And it's really just a big numbers game and being very disciplined and going above and beyond what the average person would do. And so the reason why a lot of financial advisors fail in their careers is because they just don't do the things every single day that sometimes don't look like they're bearing any fruit, but you're just planting the seeds. And that's what we're doing here, right? I always tell people there's no rush on forever. You know, we're going to be here for a long time. And so I want to make sure that you make the right decision. We're not going to rush to make a decision just to quickly do a transaction. And when I just kind of take that pressure off and let that air out of the balloon, we really just talk about what is this impact going to make, not only short-term, but midterm and long-term for you and your organization. That's what is the differentiator as it relates to some of those offerings that we're giving.

15:04 Scott Ingram: All right. I want to talk more about this because I think that there's something in that approach that just builds so much trust because you're making it about them, right? This isn't about my timeline and the end of my month and the end of my quarter. It's about your goals and what you're trying to do and your timeline. Right. And I think like just letting that breathe, I think it changes the seller-buyer dynamic. Is that fair to say, right? It's like, look, because that really shows that like, I'm here for you and we're just gonna work this out together and it doesn't matter what month you buy in. So talk more about that in your approach. Like, is that an idea that you introduce? Is it just kind of a philosophical thing that underlies the whole approach? Like, where did that come from?

15:49 Carl Sajous: Yeah, I think it's just kind of underlying, kind of undertow to the whole thing, right? I think in my discovery, is really where I make the sale. I know that's cliché in sales, but like really and truly is I need to know what's making them tick. What is the compelling event? What is the value this is going to bring? How can they sell this to the executive leadership team? What are they prioritizing? And so on and so forth. So that's a lot of research that I'm doing on the front end. What's driving the company? How are they making money? Who are their partners? And so once I get a lot of that information, I know the value and the connection that my marketplace can have on their issues and the problems that we're looking at to solve. And so I'm in no rush to solve that for you. Like, I'm gonna lay it out and I'm, we're gonna talk about how it's going to provide value and what the impact you're going to see. And, you know, it sometimes takes a little bit longer as a sales cycle to really get them to understand certain things. But I don't try to, you know, force feed 'em around that, right? As just walking them through a methodical process around what's really providing value. And getting them through that process of sharing that with the rest of the executive leadership team to make that decision.

16:55 Scott Ingram: It's interesting. This is a story that goes way, way back in my career, kind of my early days with Eloqua, and I was working on a really significant account. I won't share the name, but folks would know this company. And the story was I came into the account later, but kind of got to know the CMO after the fact, after they'd been with us for a while. But there was kind of this legendary story in the way that the implementation went, because we send our consultants out that we're doing the implementation. And this is again, a big, like Fortune 100 company. And usually in these types of scenarios, we show up and there's a massive conference room full of people that are going to be a part of this project. Well, in this particular instance, the team rolls in and it's the CMO and his right-hand person. The end. And everybody's kind of like, wait, what's going on here? And so I built a relationship with the CMO afterwards, and I'm asking him, I'm like, okay, there's… so there's this story about you guys. I'm like, why was that the approach? And he said, you know, the problem kind of culturally and even politically that we have is if I decide, hey, this is going to be this big initiative that we take down, and I try and push it on people, people will reject it and we won't get the adoption that we need to get to the result that we're trying to get to. So he said instead we decided to take a pull approach. So we're going to implement this ourselves, I'm going to work on it, and we're going to work on these couple of little use cases, and I'm going to allow the other divisions and the other geographies and the other parts of the business to come to me and beg for it and ask for it, right? That's how we're going to drive the adoption. And they were massively successful. And I think about that story a lot in sales and the difference between the push and the pull, right? And so often, you know, as an industry, there's so much pushing, but it works so much better if you pull, if you lead them and allow them to come to you.

19:00 Carl Sajous: Yeah. You know, a foreign concept. Like I always tell people, you know, Success a lot of times on calls is the unit of measure that I use just to keep it fun and light for myself is if I could see them at a happy hour 20 minutes from now, are they going to like come put their arm around me and buy me a drink? Or are they going to look at me, turn and run the other way? Right.

19:21 Scott Ingram: Oops, wrong bar.

19:23 Carl Sajous: Right, exactly. Like, oh my gosh, look at the time. It's time for dinner. Right. But most of the time, and that's the goal of mine really, is to picture, right? Them after this call, like, hey, we just talked about a lot of things that are problems for your organization and some ways we might be able to solve those. But like, would you want to just go grab a beer? Like, if I can see that playing out, I can see success. And a foreign concept could be like, if you are pushing for that quota or you are looking at the end of the fiscal year or whatever the calendar year is, it's not far-fetched for you to then say, hey, Tom, like, We've gone through a lot of iterations of this and like, I'm really pushing for something. Is there a scenario where you could actually, you know, get something in place that we might be able to kind of edit later, but something that we can put in place that can provide this level of value and then we can revisit it as time goes on? It can be something that would impact your company a lot. So like in a way, Tom's helping that goal and you're being super vulnerable with someone who ultimately became a friend through the sales journey. But when it's about the transaction from the very beginning, somebody is less likely to appeal to that and acquiesce to that ask. And so I just rely heavily on relationship and pouring into something that's true and to something that's meaningful to them.

20:38 Scott Ingram: What's really funny about that story, because I have a very, very similar approach and I think I've shared this before in the past, which is like this envision us both having a drink together kind of a concept. And what I like to do, and this is usually not discovery call, but as we're sort of getting deeper into things and I'm kind of developing my champion or my executive, I asked them, I said, look, imagine that we are together a year from now and we're celebrating and we're raising a glass together to celebrate what we accomplished. And I asked them sort of 2 things in that idea. Like, one is what specifically did we do? Like, what was the outcome? What was the biggest win that we accomplished? The other thing I like to ask, just to kind of expose the unforeseen, is what is the biggest challenge we had to overcome? And just to get them thinking about those things in advance, because again, it's all about them, right? But I also want them to imagine I'm actually buying them a drink at some point in the future.

21:33 Carl Sajous: That's right. No, that's awesome.

21:35 Scott Ingram: It's a fun, fun exercise. So your career started kind of insurance, financial planning, like a lot of, you know, kind of business consumer type sales. If you could start your sales journey over knowing everything that you know now, would you have done anything differently or would you take a different approach if you got set free today?

21:55 Carl Sajous: Wow, that's a good question. I mean, I think they say hindsight's 20/20. I'd like to quickly look back and think that I went about it well. I think one of the things that I could have done better was really take more risks and go like, you know, getting, you know, $115K a quota is great. You know, $150K a quota is great. But like, could I have done $200,000, $250,000, $500,000? Like, you know what I mean? Like really pushing. And so, it's a gift and a curse, right? Like part of my personality and my sales cycle and my journey is to be very just relaxed and welcoming and warm from a sales perspective. But in that, there is an opportunity to not be as aggressive as I could be to push myself a lot further. And so, if there's one thing that's probably a common thread that I've, you know, slowly kind of worked my way out of is really just being a little bit more on the push side to really just drive action and really reach the full potential that I think that I could reach.

22:51 Scott Ingram: It sounds like you're describing pushing yourself, not the client, right? To kind of connect this to our earlier conversation.

22:57 Carl Sajous: That's right.

22:57 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and when you say like take more risks, what kinds of risks? Like what do you mean by that?

23:04 Carl Sajous: Yeah, I mean, I think because in my mind, part of my process is being again, very, very methodical and very, very relaxed. And sometimes it's pushing the client in a little bit more, you know, and creating the compelling event for them that they might not see, but push them towards that. Being a little bit more aggressive in nature is one of the ways that I feel like I take risks as well as sacrificing a portion of the deal to get the result of getting them to sign on. And so there's a few ways that, you know, taking the risk in terms of deviating from what is successful for me is a huge risk. But depending on sales cycle, depending on where they are in the year, and things like that and the compelling events, I will be able to push or pull where necessary.

23:43 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You said something that sounded very contradictory to me, and I'd love for you to explain it because it's maybe not necessarily so, but you said you're very methodical and relaxed. I think those sound like 2 different sides of a coin. How do you think about those 2 things? How do those go together?

23:59 Carl Sajous: One's more mental, I'd say, right? Where the methodical piece is like thinking 5, 6, 7, 20 steps ahead if I can, right? That goes into pre-call research, that goes into discovery, that goes into the front end end of any kind of interaction. But the relaxed is just the nature in which is my personality, right? Like, I am thinking about those things and I am thinking about the result and the sale itself, but my demeanor and my approach is not to mirror that, right? My demeanor and approach is still to be very, very relaxed. And I think that's very welcoming. And I think that's part of my success too, where because I am so authentic and transparent about where I am in the sales process, You know, I feel like that allows me to be able to just be relaxed and welcome in kind of all the prospects that end up becoming customers.

24:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah. We'll see if we end up touching on that again, because I feel like that's an area when we talk about kind of your sales philosophy and your style and some of those things, if that comes back, or maybe there's a little bit of a different angle. But I want to talk about here, you know, the show's called Sales Success Stories. I would love to hear a story of maybe it's a favorite deal, a big win. Maybe it was your favorite failure where you fell on your face and you're like, man, I had to lose in this way. Way in order to evolve in this other way. What's your favorite sales story?

25:16 Carl Sajous: My favorite sales story, you know, is one where we still didn't close the deal, but the relationship allowed me to subsequently close multiple deals. And so investing in that relationship allowed me to get introduced into different organizations and then ended up closing those. I'll omit the name of the company, but we went through this 20-month sales cycle here in SaaS, right here at Fringe. And that's a pretty long sales cycle as it relates to, you know, the lifestyle benefits space. That's a pretty long sales cycle. And there are a lot of different iterations and a lot of different aspects of the journey, adding in legal and those sorts of things. And really at the, you know, 25th hour, right, it just didn't happen. But we were so invested and we were such in a close relationship as a way to alleviate the pain of losing that particular deal because of a decision that just happened at a level above my prospect, she felt like to make it right by me, she recommended 3 other people at very large organizations as well, and they ended up becoming customers. And so it's one of those things that, you know, there's a statement like, man, I can't win for losing, right? But this is an opportunity for me to not necessarily emphasize the result. I wasn't able to get… close that deal, that initial result. But my goal was, again, to see if she was going to reach her arm around me at a bar and She did so, so much that she was able to refer me and that tripled what my original deal would have been with that organization initially. So I'd say that's probably my most recent and probably my favorite.

26:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's awesome. And you answered my next question, which would have been, well, like, was the net result bigger than had you actually won the deal, right? It was you built that relationship, you'd showed enough value, your ultimate outcome was 3x. And I would imagine You said something great. I don't remember it exactly about something about there's like no expiration on forever. I'm sure you'll get that original one back at some point, right?

27:08 Carl Sajous: Yeah, there's no rush on forever. I say it all the time, you know? And so you will circle back and get that original one. You're absolutely right. But there's no rush on that. You know what I mean? Like we're now at a level where like she's invested in a lot of ways, right? From her relationship equity perspective, she referred 3 people that she built strong relationships with away from she and I's relationship. And so she put that on the line to refer them to me. And so now, you know, we're locked in in a way where if we end up making it happen at the company she's at now, then great. But I will guarantee if she were to go to another organization, you know, we'd be right there behind her trying to get it implemented.

27:46 Scott Ingram: So yeah. And you've also got kind of like this built-in surround strategy, right? Because now you can check in with them in a year and say, okay, so how's that program that you bought going? Because I can show you what 3 of your peers are actually experiencing because they implemented us. And maybe it's time to make the right decision.

28:03 Carl Sajous: That's right. Yeah. I mean, the proof is always in the pudding, right? So you got to give them some opportunities. And that's another thing in terms of follow-up, right? Like if I know that an organization said no, or not right now for a particular thing, I almost like file that away. I compartmentalize that. And I look through that often. I really do. I put it in a file. And I actually look through what are the reasons why they say no or not right now. And so then I continuously read those so that when something happens or we add a new feature or we add a new partnership, I'm like, I just saw that. Where do I need to follow up on that on? And hey, like, this was an issue that you needed solved. This is a problem that you were looking to solve. I have the solution for you now. And it wasn't about like, hey, here's the transaction. Let me go ahead and win this for you. It was really like, hey, there's a problem and I have the solution. And that's one of the things that kind of I always just look back on is a deal's never over until it's like way, way over, right? Like they're done. They say absolutely not and they go on. But a not right now is not no.

29:04 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. So good. I mean, obviously reinforces the extreme follow-up kind of concept. The other thing that it has me thinking about, which I've been thinking about a lot, is what are the impacts going to be with the just exponential capability evolution of AI that we're gonna see. And the conclusion I keep coming to is relationships are about the only thing that's gonna be left. And if you think about that in the context of what you just did, how hard would you have had to work to try to break into those 3 accounts that you closed where the door was thrown open and you were the hero because that introduction was able to be made? And there's no AI that's going to be doing that.

29:47 Carl Sajous: That's right. Yeah. I mean, it's the people, you know, it's the, you know, who can refer you in. Your network is your net worth. You know, it's like, it's huge. And to your point, AI is amazing. And it has, I mean, we're just scratching the surface for its functionality, but you're absolutely right. There is no discount for that human interaction and that introduction, you know, that is very, very meaningful.

30:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. So, Carl, you've had a lot of consistent success over the course of your sales career in these different sales roles. What are you most proud of?

30:18 Carl Sajous: I'm most proud of delivering what I always set out to deliver. And at the beginning, and what I mean by that is that anytime I sign on the dotted line for a company, it's like we're now in partnership and they have certain expectations of me and I have expectations of them, right? And so I'm most proud of like not shifting or changing who I am, who I was throughout this journey in all these different industries, right? We're talking financial services, mass transportation, public transportation, SaaS sales, insurance. And so, like, in each of those careers, I've never changed who I've been. I mean, I'm very, very proud of remaining true to that and again, being authentic the whole way through.

30:58 Scott Ingram: Love that. So, talk about, because I have to imagine this is a big part of your process, what do you do after you close the deal? Deal?

31:05 Carl Sajous: Like outside of like closing my laptop and jumping up and down?

31:08 Scott Ingram: No. Well, not just that, but I'm thinking more just in the context of, you know, what are you doing with the client? Like what is the continuation of that relationship as you're probably handing off that account to somebody else in your organization to now implement, now deliver, now to build this and execute?

31:25 Carl Sajous: That's right. You know, in other roles, I always felt this angst of handing off a signed deal, a customer to another team, just because I pour so much into the front end. Like, I just am unsure if that next team is going to meet that same level of white glove service, so to speak. But here at Fringe, and this is a very great testament to who they are, internally we say like CS, which are my initials, CS loves CS, customer success. But it's because they're so amazing at the care that they meet all of the customers with. It's a Frinship is what we actually call it. And so when I hand over, you know, a prospect into a customer to the customer success team, it's just a very seamless transition that I have a deep appreciation for because what that does, it allows me to just focus in on this period of time. Like I can focus on this relationship that we're building right now. And after we pass it on, the relationship doesn't need to change. It's just that it's, it just shifts a little bit to where on a day-to-day basis, there's a meeting with the CS team. But with me, it's more high level, just checking in just to see how things are going because we're friends now, right? It's less of in about the transaction. Hopefully you're still doing well. If you need anything, let me know. But again, as a friend, the follow-up again continues even after the sale's complete.

32:42 Scott Ingram: Yeah, the friendship. I love it. Yeah, that's solid. So what about the flip side? Like, what's the biggest challenge? Like, where do you struggle in just day-to-day selling?

32:53 Carl Sajous: It's navigating the unknown, you know, the macroeconomy, how people perceive it, how they plan for it, how they are approaching it. You know, that's unknown. And I think in a lot of the calls that we're having, the prospect on the other end of the call sometimes doesn't even know what the result of the conversation is going to be, right? Sometimes they're just… there's a need that needs to be filled. And right now, in this moment in time, they're looking to fill it, but something tomorrow can significantly shift. Shift, the ability to implement what you all are talking about. And so I think it's the unknown right now. It's hard to project out into the future. A lot of companies are like very strict on the spend and they're scrutinizing the budgets that much more. And so it's a lot more difficult to project, you know, in the next 12, 18, 24 months what that's going to look like. So they're making more short-term decisions as opposed to things that are more longstanding. And so I'd say that that's the most difficult because you can't effectively plan for that in advance, right? You have to have your tools, so to speak, but you have to adapt and you have to see what's working, what's not, what industry trends are saying in each respective industry. What are they saying in the lifestyle benefits space? And just being abreast as to what's happening, what's going on and adapting to that.

34:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how else are you just working to break through that? Because I think that just in broadly the conversations I'm having there are like 2 dynamics going on. One is just the personal dynamics. I've been sharing my own story here recently. Like I'm just, I've personally been sort of struggling and kind of in a funk, right? So there's that through line seems to be resonating a lot. I'm having a lot of really interesting conversations around that. I'm not alone. But the other one is to your point, kind of this just weird fricking macro thing that we're in and the way that people are reacting and what they're doing with budgets. What they're doing with their teams, especially… we may go deeper on this, but you're selling something that is mostly a nice-to-have, but it really depends on like, how do you treat and value your people? Which is something that again, I've been thinking about a lot from a cultural standpoint. And, you know, went on a pretty recent rant on Daily Sales Tips about like illegitimate layoffs. There's a lot of people who at one point have said, We're people over profits, and yet they're profitable, and yet they're laying off double-digit percentages of their staff. And I'm like, you know what, if your business is not at risk and you're doing that, that's garbage, right? So in that context, right, like in that second challenge of, man, just the macro environment is definitely challenging right now, how are you working through that? How are you coaching your team through kind of overcoming that stuff?

35:37 Carl Sajous: Yeah, it's really digging deeper into the true value and the true result they're looking for. I think in the past when there's budgets, I think, you know, we cut corners, right? When there's budgets, you have the money, you have the slight need, you're like, hey, let's just pay for the problem and just get it over with. But now when everything's scrutinized, you actually have to evaluate the value, the merit of the problem, how big of a problem, quantifying the financial impact of that problem. And all of those things. And so it requires an additional layer of questioning around not just the finances around it, but truly after we get through this, after the dust settles, like we're on the other end of this, like what are you going to be happy that we just did? And I think there are a lot of products, and this is not just specific to this industry. There are a lot of products that in theory check off all the boxes, right? In theory. But when you really start to break them down as it relates to the true value of those actual things, the use of those things might actually hinder the result of what they're looking to do. And so, you know, the differentiation is because we've truly uncovered what their true need is, not the one that like will check off a box, but when they look and think about the decision 6 months down the road, 12 months down the road, they're not having to circle back and make another decision. Because the first one that they made was going to kind of expire. And so the idea is really uncovering the true need by asking an additional layer of questions to get the true need and then tying the current, the now, near, and far need and multithreading that solution into what they're looking to do.

37:12 Scott Ingram: It's interesting when you first started talking about the way that people are thinking about and reacting to macroeconomic conditions. My first thought was, dang, you know, how do you get people to change the way that they're thinking? But it sounds like to some degree you're actually doing that. You're trying to get them to imagine yourself in this future state, right? And what did you get from making the decisions that you made here, right? And how is that different between making this decision to work with us, maybe making no decision, Right, and not doing anything, or making a decision with a competitor. But again, thinking through like, what are the realities of that? How does that actually manifest? I think that's powerful in terms of, again, just getting them to reframe and getting out of this current state. I feel like there's a lot of scared and stuck, or the way I've described it is if you're in a chair and you lean back really far, to that, like, right where you're on the edge where you're like, oh my God, I might fall back and I'm just gonna be flat on my back, or I might tip back and forth and it'll be all fine. But in that moment, you just clench, you freeze, and nothing happens. And we gotta like break through the nothing happens.

38:29 Carl Sajous: That's right. Yeah. I mean, people ask about competitors all the time, and rather than talking about them, really the biggest competitor is the status quo. Because, you know, what is the cost of action? And what is the cost of inaction? And again, by asking the multiple layers of questions around like, okay, let's walk these scenarios through. You know, I want to be a resource in this space in general, not just for this transaction, but for you all as an organization. Right. And so if that means that it's not us, that's fine. You're making the wrong decision. But I still want to make sure that, you know, we're being a resource to you. And so if by not doing anything, here's the cost of inaction, maybe it's turnover, Maybe it's disgruntled employees, maybe it's financial impact cuz you have to hire another employee to solve a certain problem. The cost of action could be solving some of that, automating a lot of that. The cost of going to another organization could be that a certain X because you're missing out on certain things. And so it's really walking them through those scenarios on like, what is the true value of the spend? Because there are certain things that are net new costs, right? But then there are things that are just net neutral. And that's my favorite, right? Where you're going in and there are new net new costs for a program, but because you're providing so much value on the back end of that, it's actually a net neutral cost. There's no cost or maybe even some cost savings to the organization because the value that you're providing exceeds what they were actually paying on the end for what they were actually doing in the first place. So that's one of the things I want to focus on.

39:55 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, that was very clear as you were talking through that is just the value of You've got to do the extra work. You have to help them build the business case. You have to help them quantify and articulate the justification, not just for themselves, but as they're selling this upstream and across stakeholder groups and all the rest of it, right?

40:15 Carl Sajous: Yeah. Usually the sale has to happen 3 separate times, right? Well, 4 times to the person you're speaking to, to the people below them, to the people on their level, and then to the people above them, right? How can they sell at each of those levels? And it's a different sale. And depending on your sales cycle or the length of the call, those 4 things can happen at the same time. And so again, how can you uncover value and multithread and show at each level, speaking to each persona, the value of that product? And it's very difficult to do that if you don't know them, right? And you get to know them by asking them questions on the meeting, but get to know them on the front end too, right? Where it's doing the research, listening to their earnings calls. It's doing the work in anticipation of that meeting in the first place. And what got you here isn't what's going to get you there fast there. But the thing is, what gets you here, you want to make sure you double down on that and make sure that that's not a leaking faucet in your process.

41:07 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So you mentioned multithreading. What is your approach in general to making those connections and to get multithreaded?

41:13 Carl Sajous: Yeah, I mean, multithreaded on a personal level, it's like personal and partner, right? So I want to multithread personally through the transaction that we're going through, as well as a thread that we can tie together. Maybe it's birthdays, maybe it's a city that they like, a sports team, something that I can always refer back to if something else happens. Hey, you love Serena Williams. Did you know she's pregnant? Oh, like, you know, hey, you love soccer. Did you know Messi just signed with Miami FC? Right? So just tying in something that's specific. But then typically in our current sales cycle in lifestyle benefits, there's a broker who's involved in this benefit space. And so we want to make sure that we just tap in with the broker to make sure that they're bought into the solution that we're trying to make for their client. And so we multi-thread that sale on that backend as well to make sure that, you know, there's a lot of alignment in the value that we're providing. Again, there's solutions that check off a certain box, but if you truly understand what they're looking to solve for, those secondary conversations and the multi-threading allow for that access to have the ability to have those multiple conversations. And so that's how we typically leverage that.

42:18 Scott Ingram: Nice. Nice. So I want to switch gears altogether and get into just your routines and the day in the life. And so the way I always like to ask this is, your alarm clock goes off, tell me what time that happened. I want like the blow-by-blow through a pretty typical day until your head hits the pillow.

42:35 Carl Sajous: Yeah, you know, the sleep experts… I'll preface this by saying the sleep experts are not gonna like this. You know, first, I don't have an alarm. I'll either wake up just naturally, and if I do that without anybody interrupting the sleep, then that's usually around 6:30 without an alarm. There are times though that my daughters jump in on my tummy while I'm asleep, and that could be, you know, on the worst days, 5:30, 6 o'clock. And then once I get up, I really just make them breakfast. That's like a routine of mine, you know, of course, after doing the things, right? Go downstairs and make them breakfast every morning just to kind of start their day, talk to them, see how they're doing, see how they're coming into the day. That's kind of my compass for all things. It's my moral compass. It's my financial compass. It's my heart compass. It's everything to me. So that's an important part to how I start my day. And then I'm up and at 'em right away. Like, I don't eat breakfast. I'm just up and at 'em and I'm ready to go. And I'm usually up and working at, you know, the moment I open my eyes really, right? Like Slack is available, email's available. I'm one of those folks who I can turn it off in my mind, but I don't like turning off the device, like literally, just because, you know, if a family member needs me at 3 in the morning, feel free to reach out. If a prospect is thinking about something at 9 PM and they're in the office late themselves, hit me up. And so I really want to make sure that I'm available. And I think one of my favorite athletes, one of his distinguishing qualities is he's available to his team and rarely misses games. And that's happened for 20 years in a row. And so, you know, I like to be available. By doing so, you know, I find that I lock in as soon as I wake up, but then, you know, I'm opening Slack on my computer and, you know, logging into my screens at, you know, probably 8, 8:30, and then I'm just going all day. I don't eat breakfast usually. I usually don't eat lunch. It's probably like something in passing. So like, not only are the sleep experts gonna hate this, but the nutritionists are gonna hate this as well. My lunch is very, very brief, very, very quick. It might be some fruit, a quick smoothie or something, right? That's like just to make sure that I'm alive. And then I just go until about 5 on the dot, really, sometimes a little bit more than that. And after 5, I immediately go back to the girls. So I have a 7-year-old and a 3-year-old who actually have the same birthday, 4 years apart. That was not planned or anything like that. And so the moment my workday ends, I go to pour into them because as awesome as I feel like I can be as a seller, I am nothing as a seller if I feel like my relationship with them is fractured or crumbled in any kind of way. And so again, I start my day with them and throughout the workday I'll check in, but as soon as I'm done with the day, I go right back there. And then there's the whole dinner thing. And getting them ready for bed and reading and brushing their teeth and all that. And then I usually go back downstairs and open it back up. You know what I mean? And I do my follow-up and I reach out to folks. I make some videos. I, you know, using Vidyard and doing all those things as it relates to the workday, following up on Slack and setting myself up for the next day. Even if I don't have a lot to do, just kind of that's in the past on a to-do list, I still like to set up my day to feel like I'm going into the day tomorrow successful. And then, you know, it's watching the game, it's eating, you know, a little late night snack with my wife or just talking or dreaming about a trip I want to take. KD, you know, I know KD, you know, just got that new house, you know, and that's aspirational. That's very inspirational. And so I'm dreaming about that sometimes as well. So I usually go to bed. I told someone today, it's actually very rare for me to be asleep before midnight. Like if I go to bed before midnight, I am not feeling well or I'm like extremely bored or something like that. Right. I'm usually on average going to sleep around 1:30 is usually the time that I go to bed. And again, it's this mentality of thinking that like, man, people are doing things when I'm asleep, right? Like people are getting better. People are making the connections. People are answering the emails. And like, if it's that 1%, right? Maybe somebody had a question at like 11:59 and they were also on a deadline and they reached out and I was able to, because I was just awake, right? Was able to just respond and solve that need. Maybe that 1%, maybe that 1 minute that I I made that response was the difference between me and somebody else, or my company and somebody else's company, because they might be so similar that, you know, those small percentage points are the difference. And so, you know, I try to leverage my ability to stay up and operate on a little bit of sleep to my advantage as much as I can.

46:57 Scott Ingram: What's really funny, part of what I heard in that is you can't stand the idea of somebody getting better than you while you're sleeping.

47:03 Carl Sajous: That's right. Yeah, that's why I don't sleep. Yeah. So, and some of it is true. Right? And then I think actually a lot of it is true. There are amazing sales folks, a lot of them on the Sales Success Stories podcast, right? Like, they're making amazing, amazing work and doing amazing things. That's just what, you know, is in my mind to get my… keep myself motivated and keep myself going. A lot of times, if you don't challenge the mind, it can kind of get very, very stagnant, very monotonous, and you just kind of get in this, you know, this day-to-day mundane kind of approach. And so I just draw small pieces of inspiration in that way. So I like do those little challenges like Kobe would, right? Where he's like, man, somebody might have untied my shoes. So I'm just going to score 60 on them just because they're trying to disrespect me in front of somebody or something like that. Like just make up something, right? And so for me, it's like, man, if I'm asleep, that means somebody in California is awake. I'm in the East Coast. Maybe if I don't wake up, somebody in the West Coast who does wake up before me was able to get that response to the email before I did. It or something like that. And so again, that's one of my differentiating factors I feel like is always kind of being available. And thankfully, thanks to my family and just thanks to my ability to just lock in with my family when I kind of shut the computer, I'm able to do that. I recognize that not everybody is able to do that. I have an amazing wife who's able to fill the gap where needed, and I help fill the gap where she needs. And I think it would just work well that way.

48:29 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. So good. And you hinted at it earlier, and I've been holding my tongue wanting to get to the information diet. So talk to me about what are you reading? What are you listening to? What are you watching? And when does that happen?

48:41 Carl Sajous: Yeah, you know, it usually happens, you know, in that evening time. I have a slot on my calendar on Mondays at 4:30 actually for the 30 Minutes to Presidents Club podcast. So I try to listen to that as much as possible. Again, amazing dynamic sellers on there, people who just have great perspectives and great insights on how they approach the sale and different tools that they're using to do so. Of course, the Sales Success Stories is one that I was introduced to by Jack and DeJuan, and again, same thing, right? An amazing array of stories. But outside of that, you know, I read Gap Selling by Keenan and things like that, but it's not a heavy, heavy dose, right? I do, you know, in passing throughout the day, things that are like happening in the HR space and trends that I'm seeing, but I'm looking at that from Um, not a trend for the solution per se, but a trend of the problem. And so, like, I approach the information that I'm gathering just from a broader scope. And outside of that, it's a lot of relationship-building things. I watch things like Survivor, so that's one of my favorite shows. But I don't do a ton of TV outside of sports. It's really just, you know, a couple podcasts here and there and just, you know, a couple books here and there as well.

49:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, love it. Any other kind of go-to habits or routines that fall into that mix?

49:53 Carl Sajous: No, I tend to, you know, 12 Week Year was a book that I read and that I try to subscribe to. And I try to, you know, be very, very diligent on the concept of the 12 Week Year is where you break down 12 months of the year and break them down into 12-week increments. And then the 13th week of every quarter, that's a rest week or a charging week or, you know, relaxing week or a planning week or whatever the case might be. So the 12 weeks in each quarter, represent. You want to pack in as much as you can in those 12 weeks representing 12 months. And then that 13th week is again for relaxation or planning and what have you. So I try to subscribe to that every once in a while, you know, but I tend to also lock in and not take the necessary vacations that I feel like I need to. But I tend to take the 13th week, like, and I look at every quarter and look at the 13th week and I say, let me grab a weekend to where, like, I'm not gonna do anything work-related, or I'm not gonna do anything on LinkedIn, or I'm not going to do anything like business related. I'm just going to be this weekend, right? So it might not be a full week in that time period, but I try to take a couple of days here and there to recharge. But I feel like I operate on less, right? I think that by taking time to do one thing, it takes time away from another thing. And I feel like they're very binary in that way. And so I try to be intentional about what I'm doing all the time to make sure that I'm providing value in every scenario.

51:14 Scott Ingram: And it sounds like, I mean, that's kind of your information consumption approach as well. Like, look, I'm going to take in some very, very high-quality inputs, but not a lot of them because that just makes things confusing.

51:25 Carl Sajous: Yeah, I tend to keep it simple. I feel like everyone has their way, right? Their secret sauce. And what works for 25 other sellers I know might not work for me because of my background, because of my journey to sales, because of the current position I hold or whatever the case might be. And because of that, there are gems. There's a filter that I just use, right, as I'm just going through information. If it piques interest or it's a little something that I just never heard before, an approach, right, might not even again be the solution, but even the approach to problem solving and that piques interest, then I'll again file that away and I just go revisit that. But I'm not heavily into consumption because I feel like I want to make sure that what I consume I can apply. And so I'm very intentional about consuming it and being able to go back and applying it. And I try to apply it in real time as opposed to not being able to do so.

52:15 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. Does that carry over to kind of the technology that runs your lives? Like, what are the kind of the tools and apps that you use to operate your day-to-day, to operate your business? Like, what's in that mix?

52:28 Carl Sajous: Yeah, I'm an Apple guy, so I like the blue bubbles on the texts, you know. But, you know, MacBook Pro, MacBook personal computer, MacBook, you know, here at Fringe got a 24-inch monitor as well, just kind of part of my setup. I had a standing to be able to, you know, stand up, sit down throughout the day. I have a, you know, iPhone that I actually just upgraded. I had an iPhone 7 Plus, believe it or not, and I now have the iPhone 14, which is cool. But I'm an Apple guy just because of the ease as well as just the connectivity to just everyone, you know, when you're on Wi-Fi, things like that as well. But then outside of that, like, I don't have any iPads or anything like that. I have a MacBook Pro again that I use for personal use, and that's really it. I only have like one TV in my home. I don't have like multiple boxes or anything like that. Again, less is more because I'm able to lock in on things and be very intentional and deliberate about them, as opposed to amassing a lot of things and not being able to juggle all of them. I mean, I feel like keeping it simple is kind of how I've been able to live my life up to this point.

53:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So kind of a minimalist approach, like an intentional minimalist kind of a thing.

53:28 Carl Sajous: That's right. Yeah. And the only other time that I've amassed a lot of things was sneakers. I'm actually a huge sneakerhead. I used to be at least. And at one point in time, I had over 120 pairs of sneakers and shoes. And that was a lot of things, but the idea behind that was to go ahead and sell them. So it was, you know, again, intentional and deliberate about, you know, selling those things. And even if I wore them, keeping them in condition to be able to sell them aftermarket and things like that, which is really cool too.

53:52 Scott Ingram: It's so funny that you mentioned the sneaker connection. Way back in the day, I interviewed a guy named Phil Terrill who was a rock star at Microsoft, and he built a company called SoleSafe to ensure sneaker connections. I was like, hey, there's just nothing out there. Like, I've got tons and tons of money invested in this collection. I can't be the only one. And he built that whole thing. So that's amazing. Wild, the different paths that people end up on. But thanks for making me think of Phil. That was a fun connection.

54:22 Carl Sajous: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it started with the love of the sneakers and not being able to get them because my parents were not buying them. And then once I became an adult and was able to buy them, I obviously had a love for them, but I wanted to make sure that that was an investment and I was able to make, you know, profit off of that. So I would buy them and buy multiple different pairs and things like that. But even now with the bots and all that, I was just like, you know what, let me exit the game. You know, to be able to… they just sell out the moment that they get released. It's just unbelievable. People are buying them before they even get released. I'm like, how did you even do that? How'd you jump in the back of the truck? I don't get it. Right. So I gracefully bowed out. There you go.

54:54 Scott Ingram: There you go. Like, if you don't have advantage, you know, it's time to walk away. Right.

54:58 Carl Sajous: That's right. That's right.

55:00 Scott Ingram: So we hinted at this before, and now I'll officially ask the question, which is, do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

55:09 Carl Sajous: I don't think so. And the reason why is because I truly believe in relationships, solving problems, and doing so with the transaction the last thing in mind. Right. And so I consider my process to not be salesy. In a way, I feel like that's my competitive advantage. In a room full of 5 sellers, I'm not going to be similar to them for a lot of different reasons. And I used to feel badly about that, right? It took me a while to say, like, I need to create similarities between us, right? Where they might be setting the bar. And so there was a lot of work that needed to happen to make sure that I no longer looked at things that way. And also somebody used to tell me, you know, people don't buy on similarities. They actually buy on differences. So in a room full of sameness, what can you do to really differentiate yourself? And so, you know, that's when I again began to pour into kind of who I am and things like that and what makes me different. So I don't necessarily subscribe to one particular sales philosophy. I think, you know, it's more so about building relationships and just truly solving a problem for a friend who just so happens to work at another company that you might just be doing business with, right? But, you know, at the end of the day, I'm just helping a friend out. And, you know, hopefully they feel that through the sales process.

56:25 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. Usually my follow-up to that question is, okay, so against that philosophy or against that approach, like, what is your style? But your style kind of is your philosophy. Is that fair?

56:36 Carl Sajous: That's a great way to look at it.

56:37 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's so spot on. And I mean, you've really touched on what I think is probably the most important theme of these, you know, I don't know what this is, 160 60 interviews like this that I've done, and you even called it out. It's… you've just got to find the version of you that works, right? And early in my sales career, like, I really struggled with the idea of being a salesperson. Like, I almost found that offensive. I wanted to call myself a consultant. I wanted to be something else. And it took me a long time to realize, wait, this is what a sales professional is. Mm-hmm, right? It's somebody who actually does this. And to your point, like, you just… it is authentic at its core. Like, you have to do it your way because it won't work somebody else's way.

57:24 Carl Sajous: That's right. Yeah, I mean, I can't… there's no way, as much practice and practice and years and years of practice, I could never do what you do on the podcast stage, right? Because you do it the way that you do it. You bring such a great quality to it. We're all flawed human beings, right? But we all bring something special to the table. And that's what I always try to tap into. And from a leadership perspective, that's always where I start, the posture of which I start from. We're all here to do a job and that's great, right? We can always get to that. But what does that mean for you? What does the paycheck mean to you? Why are you even here? What are you opening your computer for? When you're sharing things on calls, do you truly mean that? What is the connection? Those are the things that I really, really care about because again, the result will happen. The transaction will take place when all of the other things are taken care of. And I really pour into what does it mean for that person as a person and the impact that it can make on their lives. And then I go from there.

58:24 Scott Ingram: You know, keep going on that because it's so funny that you mentioned leadership in this moment, because I was just going to ask you about, you know, as you've made this transition into this new role, Like, how are you thinking about leadership? How are you approaching this completely different dynamic?

58:40 Carl Sajous: Yeah, you know, similarly to, you know, prospects and customers, if after we interact 20 minutes later I can say, hey, do you want to go grab a beer? And they put their arm around my shoulder and they say yes, that's the posture of which I try to lead from. You know, I am a people guy first and foremost. Like, I am a player coach. I love the players, not the franchises. So my favorite players are not the Chicago Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan. I mean, they are… it's Michael Jordan, right? I don't like the Lakers today. I just like LeBron. I mean, yes, I might have to cheer for his teammates every once in a while. And some people might have just turned off the podcast because I mentioned LeBron. But it's not about the franchise. It's more about the player. I fell in love with the Yankees because of Derek Jeter, not because of anything else. And so I try to be a player coach in that way where when they think about their role and the impact that they can make on the organization, I think about it from a personality perspective. I'm in a personnel perspective and what they can get out of it and how I can pour into them as a human. And then the output will be the output.

59:40 Scott Ingram: Love the player as applied to your team. That's next level, man. I love that.

59:44 Carl Sajous: Appreciate that. Yeah, it tends to rock the boat. Like, I understand people who are fans of certain teams because they live there. I recognize that and that's cool. But like, I'm not too far from Washington, D.C., and we got Dallas Cowboys fans out here. Like, it's a weird thing, right? Like, your team is right here. And how do you like the Dallas Cowboys? But it's again, it's the players. Maybe it's Troy Aikman, maybe it's Emmitt Smith. You don't like… usually you don't like a franchise or the GM of a franchise, right? You like them because either the colors of their jerseys or, you know, a relationship that you might have, or again, the player. And, you know, you think about those players moving, franchise-moving players, right? I think of like a franchise like the Spurs who've been successful for decades. But there are foundational members of that organization that have just shifted them significantly. You think of David Robinson and Tim Duncan, things like that. So I try to be that and be that steady force and that foundational piece to any organization, but specifically as I'm leading this team, that I can be that for them where they can look at me to being that model for them to approach their role.

1:00:48 Scott Ingram: I can't help but to chuckle. If you are a Cowboys fan, of which I am one, you don't like the Cowboys because of their owner. Owner. Just saying.

1:00:56 Carl Sajous: Hey man, he… yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:01:00 Scott Ingram: Although here's the one thing I can say about Jerry, right? If you want to talk about playing the game, the Cowboys can't win playoff games to save their lives for decades. Maybe not quite decades, but like a really long time. But they win the revenue game every year by a mile, by a mile. So he's certainly good at the game that he does play. I just wish he would play a different game a little bit better and maybe get out of the of his players.

1:01:24 Carl Sajous: That's fair.

1:01:24 Scott Ingram: I digress.

1:01:25 Carl Sajous: That's fair. No, that's fair. That's fair. They always have the talent. I mean, even this year they're gonna have the guys, you know, so let's see what they do.

1:01:31 Scott Ingram: But you have to have both ingredients. You can't just have the greatest players. Those great players have to figure out how to play as a team.

1:01:39 Carl Sajous: That's right. And that's why I love players turned coaches, because they recognize that dynamic and how they need to galvanize the relationship and how they need to work together to achieve the common goal. And so a lot Like, if you're a practitioner and you know how to do it, it's better in my opinion to be able to tell someone else how to do it because you've experienced it yourself.

1:01:59 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. We could keep going on this thread forever, but I won't alienate the non-sportsball fans. Let's talk a little bit about just kind of like motivation and drive. Like, how do you think about that? And again, I'll extend this to kind of your team, like not just for yourself, but how do you think about that on behalf of your team and what is it Yeah, for my team, I try to discovery them, you know, again, what makes you tick?

1:02:23 Carl Sajous: What's important to you? What stage of life are you in? What are you looking to accomplish? And what can we do to help you get there? It's not necessarily the name on the front of the jersey. And my team, when they hear this, they're gonna be like, he's been saying this so much. It's not the name on the front of the jersey. I'm always concerned with the name on the back because the name on the back of the jersey cares for the name of the front. If they take care of the bag. And so I discovery them and want to know what is making them tick and what's important to them, because what's important for me is my background. I'm one generation removed. I'm one sibling away from growing up my whole life in Haiti. And I recognize that and I carry that every single day. I'm proud of my family and my parents and also proud of their tough shoulders to be able to step on and kind of see it further. And so that's my motivation, man. Like, there are people in Haiti who are literally eating mud pies. And there are also people on the other end that are complaining that the Wi-Fi is not connecting, right? So it's like, you put it in perspective. I'm like, okay, like, am I going to complain or make a big deal about certain things that in the grand scheme aren't as big? And that's the frame of mind that I go in. Now, I'm not saying that I don't get frustrated if the Wi-Fi is not connecting. I'm not saying that I get pissed off if my, you know, my text my iMessage won't slide through. I might get pissed off about that as well, or when Instagram is down. But mainly it's coming from a frame of reference that it's always something… there's always something bigger than me. And that motivates me because it could easily be different. And at any moment beyond today, it could also be just as different, right? And so it's really being in the now, being in the present, being grateful for where I am and pouring into the people around me and the people who interact with me. To impact them in that way too, because tomorrow everything can change. And you know, we got to be grateful for now.

1:04:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. Such good stuff, and so interesting that you brought it because again, just another not in a broad strokes type of sense, but another theme that I have seen is there are a lot of folks who've been on this show that have an immigrant story, right? And kind of that first generation. And I think what I mean, you tell me if this kind of resonates. I think it tends to be kind of two dynamic. Things. One is there's like a little bit of a chip on the shoulder, right? Like, hey, I didn't have all the stuff you had growing up, but I'll show you. But it's also just the recognition of sacrifices were made on your behalf, right? And you have to… there's a little bit of an obligation to like, I need to show my parents and my family that it was worth it. Like, we're gonna make something of this and we're gonna start to build like some generational difference and growth, right? Do those sound right? Did I miss anything in that? Because again, I think it's an unrecognized thing. I mean, this is something that DeJuan now is his new life. But, you know, there's too many people with these stories that get looked over. I'm like, oh my God, you are missing the biggest opportunity on the planet because nothing will stop this individual. Like, even though they don't have the pedigree or the background that you think you want, they're going to figure it out.

1:05:25 Carl Sajous: That's right.

1:05:26 Scott Ingram: They're going to find success.

1:05:28 Carl Sajous: Yeah. And I mean, again, like being able to stand on my parents' shoulders, right? Thankfully for me, I come from a level of privilege that I don't have and I didn't have to experience that, that my parents had to when they were children and their peers and family members of mine who are still there. Right. So I recognize that, but that's through and through what it is, understanding the sacrifice and wanting to do right by them. I have a huge family, cousins who are doing amazing things. And I just want to do right by them too. Like, I always try to say that I try to have a voice for the voiceless. And there are a lot of people, a lot of just individuals who just don't have the platform to speak on certain things or just have the know-how. I try to, through my hard work and hopefully through some results and just the way that I approach work and my life, that I can help speak for them because they help motivate me. But yeah, that's kind of the core and the essence of who I am and how I approach Yeah.

1:06:20 Scott Ingram: Carl, is there something you believe that the average or typical sales rep would think is crazy?

1:06:27 Carl Sajous: I mean, I think, you know, salespeople come from that like posture, from that persona, right? Like this, like, hey, like I'm in sales, I'm, you know, sales bro. Shout out to the sales bros. I don't know. I don't think that there's anything that I believe that they would think is crazy. I mean, I believe in the hard work. I believe in the essence of, you know, just being in sales through and through. I just don't believe in the aggressive nature of the role. I truly believe in just like the consultative approach to the sales process. I don't think the aggression gets the job done. And even if it gets the transaction, you know, completed, that can be short-term, right? And so the net gain long-term is minimal. And so I don't subscribe to the aggression, like the aggressive sales approach or the aggressive sales style, respecting boundaries, right? Like if somebody is like, hey, like, please don't call me or something like that. Like, I'm not going to like call them from a blocked number. You know what I mean? It's, you know, if they say, hey, like, you know, reach out to me in 3 weeks, unless there's like a compelling reason to follow up, then I will respect that and say like, hey, to honor you in that 3 weeks, because I take your word, like, here I am in 3 weeks kind of thing. So, and some people might say like, nah, but the sales cycle, you got to follow up sooner and you got to reach out and give them reasons and content and one-pagers and all that. And I just disagree, you know what I mean? And I think there's 20 different ways you can approach it. And I think there are a lot of people who are successful because it matches their personality. And I think it goes back to what I meant at the very beginning, which is being truly authentic. If you are who you are and being aggressive and being that like Type A personality is who you are, then that might work for you. It won't come off kind of in a certain way because that's ultimately who you are. And people will take that positively or negatively, right? But personally, that's not my style, so I don't necessarily subscribe to that. I don't think that that's the way, or that's been the way that I've seen success around me.

1:08:21 Scott Ingram: Yeah, for me, it comes back to both that relationship concept and that referral concept. I sort of think about, like, would somebody that I sold to be willing to subject a friend to that same experience? And to your point, if that was really aggressive and really uncomfortable. Yeah, I'm not going to put my good friend through that. Maybe an enemy, maybe somebody I don't care for very much, right? But, right, I'm not gonna put a friend through that. It's like, look, it's just not worth it. Maybe it's the best product, but man, just call somebody else. Maybe you'll walk into a better seller. Versus if I delivered a great experience, and just like your story earlier, maybe they didn't even buy, but it was like, you know what, working with Carl was great. So even if it's not the right solution for you, it's worth the time and the interaction. And I trust, you know, our relationship, and I trust Carl is going to take care of you.

1:09:16 Carl Sajous: That's right. Yeah, absolutely right. You know, and that's the goal… doing right by the referral. I've been so fortunate in my career that a large percentage of my success has come from just pure referrals. Like, of course there's outbound and there's cadences and videos from Vidyard and all the things that we all the time, but the best conversations, the best transactions, the best sales processes have been with direct referrals. And I know that's again cliché, but because that's part of my process, that's also the largest part of my success, you know, and I value that so much. You know, I think there's people who reach out, they're like, hey, I don't even know if you're still here, but you're the first person I thought of about X, or your experience, our experience was so positively, I wanted to kind of run this by you. What do you think? And it might be a competitor, but they're still running it by me to get my opinion. Because if I say go with it, then they'll go with it. Or if I say, you know what, I really truly think that Fringe is the better solution, then they're going to go with Fringe, right? I love that because they found so much value in our interaction that, you know, they felt like they can reach back out at any time.

1:10:26 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I think we've so lost sight of the value of that, right? There's been so much emphasis the last last, I mean, really decade on like scaling the outbound motion, right? And it's all about sequences and cadences, and we have to just pummel people to death because it's the only way to break through. Well, what if we just had somebody that introduced us and walked us right in the front door? So much easier. Do you have like, is there a referral process that you have? Is this part of your approach?

1:10:57 Carl Sajous: Yeah, it is. You know, it's on my template when I'm going through my discovery calls and my demos when other people come in, and it's at the beginning, and it's Also at the end. And so if they decide to move forward and we kind of continue to have… we'd go through implementation and things like that. And I circle back with them afterwards. You were talking about like what happens after the sale. When I circle back with them, one of the things I will ask is, hey, like, this was a great experience. Thanks so much, et cetera, et cetera. Who do you know? Who else who can benefit from this experience? You saw it from beginning to end, right? Like, what do you think? Who else in your circle? What other HR professionals, et cetera? Etc. CPOs can benefit from this. And even on the back end of them saying they don't want to move forward, I want to ask, I want to ask, right? Like, what was it? Was it me, right? Do I need to improve? You know, we're not all… we're, again, we're all flawed human beings. So do I need to improve, or is it a product thing? If it is, then that's fine. I need to know that so I can galvanize and help the product team, right? And we can share that information. Again, I like to build relationships through and through, so they don't recognize that request or the ask from a posture of, hey, product team, get this, get this. It's just like, hey, like, what can we do to help get this built? Because this is going to yield a certain result or whatever the case might be. And so that's how I typically go about it.

1:12:11 Scott Ingram: You said it was front end and back end. You talked about the back end. What's your front end setup like? What is that piece for referrals on the front end?

1:12:18 Carl Sajous: So it's at the end of the discovery, right? So it's like, hey, we uncovered a lot of problems that you've kind of talked about. I know you might belong to a few groups. You might have friends in the space who might be experiencing a lot of the similar things. So today it's turnover, right? It's burned out employees, it's retention issues, et cetera. And so, you know, who else do you know who kind of might need to have a conversation, right? Because that's all it was. It wasn't like a heavy discovery call, like in the traditional sense, right? It was just a conversation just to get to know each other and your situation. Who else could benefit from a similar conversation to uncover some of the things that they might need solved? And so I do it again on that front end and then also on the back end, even with closed lost. I want to know, again, why they didn't move forward. But then even though they're not going forward for a particular reason with that fit for their organization, that doesn't mean that they can't reach out to somebody else that they know because of the experience and their circumstance might be different.

1:13:13 Scott Ingram: And I love this idea of, you know, asking the losses because your story again illustrated this perfectly is like there's this feeling of obligation. There's this feeling of guilt. It's like you did everything right, but for whatever a reason, right? We made a different decision. Hopefully you're getting some insights on why that was, and maybe there's something you can improve or something that can improve in the product. But then to capitalize on that, like, that relationship that you built on that investment, and they're like, hey, you're actually helping them feel better. Because otherwise it's like, well, I kind of just screwed Carl. I, you know, I had him invest like 20 hours in me and I just told him no at the end of all Yeah, no, that's true.

1:13:54 Carl Sajous: Right. And that's the reality, right? The opportunity cost that could be on a win or a loss. Right. And I want to make sure that even if it's a loss in the moment for that transaction, that doesn't mean it's a macro… it's a loss in the micro. It doesn't mean it's a macro loss. And I think leveraging my relationships and having the conversations the way I approach them, then I think, you know, I can still get that win, you know, that 3 times over in some cases. Yeah, yeah.

1:14:19 Scott Ingram: So great. I mean, in some ways this is like not quite as eye-opening because when Lynn Powers brought this idea of the way that she will follow up her losses and basically capitalize on most organizations drop the ball to some degree in that handoff from sales to implementation or service or CS or whatever it is, and the way that she stays engaged, I'm like, oh my gosh, like that's such a gap. It's such a chink in the armor for so many organizations. Is to capitalize on that. But this similarly, right, is just such a powerful thing. Like, you've made this investment, you have that relationship, and it really does… it literally serves them. It gives them an opportunity to like, oh sweet, like now I don't have to feel bad about this relationship that I built with Carl that he got nothing out of, and he deserves more than that. And so yeah, let me throw him a bone.

1:15:10 Carl Sajous: That's right. Yeah, you're spot on. And I think, you know, us salespeople sometimes after the sale will drop off the face of the earth. Again, we've talked it today. That's not my process. But because of that, just because a loss happened today, again, we're thinking long-term. So how are they doing, right? 5 months in, 6 months in, the renewal's gonna come back around, right? And so what did that experience… did they deliver on the things that I told you they wouldn't on the front end and you went with them anyway, right? And here I am still providing advice and support and trying to solve the problems. And so it's still, even if it's a loss now, it's still checking in with them them to see what the result of that program has been. And if it's positive, then great, like no skin off your back, like you're good. But if there's a chink in the armor and you're able to say, oh gosh, you know, that was something that you felt like was an issue before you went with them, I think there could be another way to approach that problem. They might be thinking about it again and then you can win it the second time around. And so the follow-up is forever, you know what I mean? The follow-up is forever until you tell me like flat out no. Or, you know, go, you know, somewhere else, then I'm going to continue to follow up because I truly believe in the solutions that we provide.

1:16:16 Scott Ingram: What's interesting to me is like the tie back to your time in insurance is the standard approach there is I'm going to ask you about your X date, like when do you expire, and I'm only going to talk to you like in those windows when that decision is at play. But how much can you differentiate yourself if you're willing to have conversations and and just help them outside of those windows. Because now it's not just about me. It's not, oh cool, we're in that 30-day window where your renewal's next month. I'm talking to you 6 months, and yeah, I know there's nothing that's going to change right now. It's cool. I'm just here to help you.

1:16:49 Carl Sajous: That's right. And I will say this too, to the people who I've met with that I haven't followed up with. There are people that, like, I wouldn't want them to put their arm around me if we were to meet at a bar 20 minutes after our meeting, right? Just because of their approach to it. They might have in, I'm going to be professional through and through. But they might have not been, and because of that, my follow-up might be very selective too. And being able to own that and being confident and comfortable with that… and so I factor that piece into it as well, where I look at both the positives and the negatives and play both of those, man.

1:17:21 Scott Ingram: Okay, so that is so good. I actually have… if I heard you right, you're being selective. Like, you're not going to follow up with everybody because if there just wasn't this connection, if like, I don't like you Like, it's not worth it. So I'm not going to call you back.

1:17:35 Carl Sajous: You're absolutely right. Like, the angst of me having to pick up the phone or send the email with the fear of what the response is going to be. Again, if we can't interact, if we can't meet each other halfway, go 100%, give 100% and take 100%, then, you know, I don't think that I'm the right person for them. Right. And I'm self-aware enough to know that I'm not going to be able to deliver the best me if they're not going to be able to meet me halfway or meet me 100% of the way. And so, you know, I recognize that and I, you know, will say like, hey, this might not be the best solution for you. You might want to go here, or I might not be the right person for you, but this solution is good. Go ahead and still go, you know, with somebody else here because of the solution. So I'm very careful of that.

1:18:19 Scott Ingram: What's funny is I actually had a potential sponsor reach out to me and they're like, hey, you know, we'd be interested in sponsoring some of this stuff that you're doing, you know, we're actively recruiting, we're actively hiring. And I was like, oh my gosh, this is perfect. Like, this is literally the types of sponsors I'm looking to bring on, right? Because it's one thing, and I mean, no disrespect to some of the great sales technologies and the tools that we have and have had as sponsors on the show, but I'm like, it's so much more impactful if I can help you connect with an organization where you can build a career, where you're going to get that support. So I'm like, oh, this is amazing. This is perfect. This is exactly the type of sponsorship I want. Well, before I reached back out, I did a little bit of due diligence and I looked them up on RepView and I looked them up on Indeed. And I can't tell you how much satisfaction I got from writing the email. It was like basically, hey, this is, you know, we do do a handful of these types of partnerships. We're really selective. We're really about finding like great sales cultures to partner with. And I'm like, based on the research I did and the ratings and the reviews that I saw on these Sorry, I just don't think there's an opportunity for us.

1:19:22 Carl Sajous: Yeah, I love it.

1:19:23 Scott Ingram: It's so gratifying, like being able to hold to your principles on that thing, right? And again, I think that I've had a lot of conversations on the show about qualifying, right? About doing a lot of upfront work in the discovery and recognizing early if there's no there there, there's no reason for either of us to invest a whole bunch of time in this if you're not going to get the value out of our solution. But I also like this angle, and it's come up a few times, of if there's just not a fit between us, if we're not going to enjoy doing business together, why are we hurting each other in this way? Like, that's just suffering. I'm not going to enjoy this. You're not going to enjoy this. You know what? Like, let's just not do this.

1:20:04 Carl Sajous: That's right.

1:20:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:20:05 Carl Sajous: And I think it's coming from a scarcity mentality when it's done the opposite way. So from an abundance perspective, it's like, hey, like, I'm not going to fit a square peg through a round hole. Like, it won't benefit any one of us. Us. So let's just move away from that and find the next one. And again, you're able to do that when you come from an abundance mentality. Now, we know in sales world, quotas come up, quarters are here, you know, we got to reach the numbers. And so like, it's tough when you are trying to achieve a certain goal to come from that abundance mentality perspective. But I think the buyer, especially these days, everything in a buyer's world is a transaction. The phone they have, the cars they drive, what desks they have, what social media they log into. Like, everything is a transaction for the buyer today. So they go through all of these transactions throughout their day. And so what can your process do to really streamline that for them and make it a little bit easier for them?

1:21:01 Scott Ingram: And so, yeah, yeah, greatness, greatness. Carl, what advice would you give to somebody that is just starting out in sales? Today?

1:21:10 Carl Sajous: Finding out what they want to get out of sales, because you can get a lot of things like impact, you know, you can get a lot of money, financial gain could be big, you know, it could be growth, right? Professional growth where you're scaling companies from startup to IPO. You know, there's just… but knowing why you're in it and what you want to get out of it will allow that individual to be true to who they are and find who they are within their processes. Because every company is different, you're gonna be selling multiple different products and things like that. But if you can find the common thread for what drives and motivates you as a person, you can apply that to any product or service, as long as you are coming to the table authentically. So I would say find that.

1:21:51 Scott Ingram: What about somebody that is further into their career, right? And maybe they're, you know, like, they're making the numbers, they're doing okay, but they haven't found like that next gear that is great. Like, what do you tell them to find that next level?

1:22:04 Carl Sajous: Ask themselves why. You know, in the past, in other careers, like for me, it was the fear of like risking, you know, of going for that extra mile on that deal or pushing someone further or going outside of my comfort zone. And so it's like the first thing is looking inwardly and saying like, well, why is that? Like, is it… are you compromising, you know, professional and family? Is it like, you know, hey, you're not dedicating enough time to the craft? Maybe your fear of failing, right, of going that next But I think it's like trying to find internally what is driving you. And again, finding that same example for the new rep breaking into sales, it's like finding the reason why you're there and sometimes assessing that, right? People renew vows sometimes and things like that, right? You commit, but there's sometimes you just need to go back and check back in into finding your why and the reason why you're doing the things that you're doing and why you're doing it with the company you're doing, selling the things that you're selling. And if you can't really answer those things, then it, it might be a need for a change, right? Or a need for a break, right? We talked about The 12-Week Year and taking that 13th week to break. Maybe that's what's needed. But I think to really motivate, you gotta tap into what the why is and then tie in the results to what that why is.

1:23:11 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. So you were the top seller at Fringe. What would you wanna know about the top sellers in other organizations?

1:23:20 Carl Sajous: How they're breaking into some of the larger organizations, Fortune 100, so to speak, if they're coming in. So this is more so for the sellers who don't represent a large company like a Microsoft and things like that, because that name precedes them, but what they're doing to get that company or themselves kind of on the map. Is it a lot of the blocking and tackling that takes place, or is it something different that's a secret sauce, so to speak, that's allowing them to kind of create that interest at that level from other sellers. And then also the other thing that I'd like to know is like how other sellers are maximizing their personal time and also their professional time. I know there are some reps who just clock in and clock out and don't do the extra hours outside of 5 o'clock, but don't compromise family time and, you know, get President's Club and do the whole nine. And I think that is, that's a special skill to do that. And I'd love to know how people are being able to prioritize both their personal life and family life and their professional life.

1:24:21 Scott Ingram: Yeah, you know, that's an interesting question I've sort of been asking myself. Again, I've been sharing bits and pieces of kind of this journey as I've, you know, sought some additional help and started to talk to a counselor. And he asked me, he said, you know, well, like, what do you do for yourself? Like, what do you do to fulfill yourself? And I struggled so hard. I'm like, well, I mean, there's things, and for me, it's, you know, I mean, my family, like you, is a big piece. And I think most of what I've done is I've tried to turn the other things that are kind of work, like this podcast and the community and all of that stuff, it's work, but it's also super fulfilling. So I'm like, I don't know, I work more for fun.

1:25:01 Carl Sajous: Yeah, right.

1:25:02 Scott Ingram: And so I don't know if there's an element of, I'm like, is that cheating? Can I make that work more? Do I need lean harder into like that why, right? Because there's an impact element to that. There's a super fulfilling component of that. I mean, I had a conversation today with somebody who's been a part of the community for a long time, and he literally said to me, he said, look, had I not found this show, had I not discovered Sales Success Stories, had I not gotten involved in the community and started coming to the summits and plugging in, he's like, I would have failed in sales. I wouldn't have figured it out. But because of this, I figured it out. I'm on this great path and I have this great career and I make many multiples of the income that I made before. I'm like, holy crud. Right? Like that is so super gratifying. Right? So it's, again, I just share that because I'm wanting to share a little bit more of this journey and I don't have all the answers. Right. I'm still struggling with kind of what you asked, like, what's the stuff that you do for you? I'm like, oh, Uh, I got nothing. Sorry.

1:26:04 Carl Sajous: I'm actually glad you didn't spin that question back to me because I would have had the exact same response. Like, so thank you. Appreciate that.

1:26:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, let me spin the other question back though. Like, what are you guys doing to break into the big enterprise, the big Fortune 100 accounts? Like, what are you finding that's working?

1:26:19 Carl Sajous: Yeah. Drawing off those differences instead of the similarities, right? In our lifestyle benefits space, there's a lot of keywords, a lot of fun words that people are throwing out. But there's a lot of sameness in that. And a lot of the similar approaches on how they're solving that same problem, but data and research shows something different. And our marketplace is actually set up in a way that allows for employee happiness and creates more productivity from an employee perspective because of the curation and things like that, that our marketplace has and our true partnerships with the brands that are on our marketplace. And so, you know, a lot of times they're making those decisions at multiple different levels. There's multiple different stakeholders and multiple different departments at scale that are approaching this topic in different ways. So right now it's really, you know, being more strategic. We've done a great job at this, but being more strategic about, you know, maybe going in the side door, going in the garage door for some of these organizations, as opposed to that jam-packed front door, because everybody else is trying to do the same thing with the same message. And it's like, hey, look at me, look at me. Here's what I'm doing. Here's what I'm doing. But hey, we got introduced maybe through the garage door. And while everybody's making that noise over there because they think that's the differentiator, here's actually what differentiates us and provides value to you in a very meaningful way. Let's just talk about that. And then that's what's been the difference so far. But, you know, so far doesn't mean we stop there. We want to continue. So we got to keep it rolling.

1:27:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You know, you've got me thinking about the language, right? And there's so much sameness both in the way that we tend to position ourselves against similar companies in the same space to where, like, if you stripped off the brands and said, who's this message from? I would bet that a lot of times you couldn't tell.

1:28:08 Carl Sajous: That's right.

1:28:08 Scott Ingram: Beyond that, I think as sales professionals, like, we kind of sound the same. We say a lot of the same things. We use a lot of the same language, right? So how How can you change that, right? Like, where can you draw additional inspiration? Maybe it's from consulting. Maybe it's from like other areas where we don't sound so like, okay, let's talk about next steps and let's talk about, you know, like just all the stuff, right? Can we find some new words that make us not sound the same?

1:28:40 Carl Sajous: Yeah. You know, I think that's kind of going back to like things that I read and podcasts I listen to. I try not to overconsume. Because when that happens, like we are all saying the same things, right? As opposed to figuring out the perspective of the buyer, of the listener, how does it sound from their angle, from their perspective? And so again, in a sea full of sameness, what is that differentiator? What is that secret sauce that we have, our approach, our language, you know, our approach that will have us standing out?

1:29:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You know, something I'm thinking, this is like a really good AI kind of a use case. Where it's not good to sound the same as your competitors. It's really good to sound the same as your prospect, right? So if you're using a lot of the same words… so I'm just, again, I'm inventing technologies here, but I'm imagining a tool that goes and scrapes your social profiles and gives me a word cloud, right? And I get words like forever. I get words like, you know, I mean, I… what if we were to transcribe this whole conversation and word cloud the things that you said and I started saying those words back to you, right? Or I take the words, the phrases, the language that your company uses to talk about yourselves and use that language, right? Like, this is about you. It's not about me. I don't need to tell you my stuff. But if I can reflect your stuff, that's like super powerful, right?

1:30:02 Carl Sajous: Scott, in terms of providing value, I think we just made ourselves multi, multi, multi-millionaires. I think that's a brilliant idea and this is the episode that fostered that. But I agree. Agree with you. Again, what commonalities can you create and make someone feel comfortable? And if you understand the way that they speak, like for example, there's an organization that doesn't call their employees employees. They call them team members or associates or partners. Do you know that? If you go in and you call them team members right off the bat, they're like, oh, he knows, or she knows, right? They know what they're talking about. And so the idea is really understanding who the buyer truly is and speaking their language and providing them the solution, but not in your way, is providing the solution in the way that's palatable for them and speaking their language and their company's language as well.

1:30:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So if you build the tech, hit Carl and I up. You owe us 10%. That's a fact.

1:30:54 Carl Sajous: That is a fact. And look, for sure, and I'll have my people call your people and we'll get it figured out.

1:30:57 Scott Ingram: Beautiful. Carl, we've covered a ton of ground. I've really, really enjoyed this conversation. Is there anything that we didn't touch on that you hoped we would.

1:31:05 Carl Sajous: No, I think we did cover a lot. I appreciate the opportunity and you taking the time to let myself and other sellers just share their story and what's making them successful, what's making them tick. And we're in a community of itself, right, as a unit, right, as sellers. And so what can we do to help each other out? And I appreciate the opportunity to do that.

1:31:22 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, thanks for giving back and taking your time. And I always try and make this actionable at the end, so we're going to give our listeners a challenge, something that they can do over the course? I mean, you said this yourself, like, it's what can I immediately put into action? So what would you recommend our listeners put into action right now to really get true value from having listened to us talk for a long time?

1:31:45 Carl Sajous: I feel like I have 2. One is more personal, right, where it's looking into your why and why you're sitting in the seat, what you're trying to get out of the position that you're sitting in, what your end goal is, and things like that. It'll kind of create a true north for you if you haven't done that already. But the more practical one is going back into your CRM and looking back at the last 30, 60, 90 days and creating cadences to follow back up with those people. That could be 30, 60, 90 days because they're closed lost all completely, or it's 30, 60, 90 because they just dropped off, you know, the face of the earth and you need to follow back up with them. But creating a 30, 60, 90-day plan with those, and what would end up happening is after the 90 days they roll off, and then those opportunities that are in your current pipeline line would then go into that 30, 60, 90-day plan automatically. So it's something that you can implement today and something that you can kind of keep track of as well.

1:32:35 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. So we've got the why, and I'm going to call it the quiet cadence. So create a cadence for the quiet stuff that has kind of fallen off recently. Carl, thanks so much, man. I appreciate you.

1:32:46 Carl Sajous: I appreciate you. Thanks so much.

1:32:49 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode, and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community, powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.