164: Human Selling: Finding True Discovery & Connection with Belkins' Brian Hicks

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of The Sales Collective. To learn more about them, click over to top1.fm/tsc for The Sales Collective.

0:19 Scott Ingram: 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.

0:35 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Brian Hicks. Brian is the top seller and team leader as VP of Sales at Belkins, and I originally became aware of Brian because he has an amazing article that he wrote for Sales Hacker titled I Survived a Mass Shooting. It Changed the Way I Sell. So we've got a lot to talk about. Welcome to the show, Brian.

0:56 Brian Hicks: Thanks so much, Scott. I'm really happy to be here. Thanks for letting me be part of your platform and communicate with your listeners.

1:02 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we had a great Great first conversation, so I've been really looking forward to digging into all of this with you. But let's kick things off like we always do with some immediate value and talk about the top three things that you believe have contributed the most to your success as a sales professional. Oh, and real quick before we do that, we will have a link to that Sales Hacker article and a ton of great show notes for you at top1.fm/164. Or we're going to give Brian his own page, top1.fm/brian-hicks. All right, Brian, hit me with those top 3.

1:38 Brian Hicks: Awesome. So in a nutshell, I have 3, and then I also have just kind of one little bonus that I'd like to share. The first one is my why. I put why in all quotes if you were writing it down. I think it's, you know, recognizing and keeping top of mind the reason that we are working, the reason that we are trying, the, you know, what's making us put one step in front of the other is what really keeps me where I'm at and, and kind of drives me. And for me, that's my mom. If I refer to her on this interview as Mama, she's my mama. I'm a mama's boy. You know, she raised me working 2 jobs, going to school part-time, and somehow in the time that she spent with me ingrained in me that regardless of your circumstances, you can truly achieve anything that you want so long as you're willing to put in the work. And so everything that I do is really a testament and an homage to my mom and my family. You know, my effort at the end of the day, you know, when they put me 6 feet under, is that hopefully I leave people that are proud of me, that I've been able to impact in a positive way. And really that why to me is really what fuels my drive, my competitive nature, my passion for helping others, and the internal demand that I have on myself to give my best every single day. And to strive for my full potential, even though I accept that I'm never gonna reach my full potential. You know, second place is nothing to shake a stick at, but unless you're the lead dog, then the view never changes. You know, that's the biggest thing for me. The second point would probably be a thoughtful and systematized process and sales journey. I didn't realize how important this was until I got into the more mature years of my sales career. But man, having a map, having a roadmap, not a talk track. So don't mistake what I'm saying. I'm not saying having a script that you follow, but I'm saying having a roadmap of where your prospect is right now and where you want to get them to. And then knowing systematically what needs to happen in order for that journey to be mutually beneficial is so important for a sales executive to have in front of them. You could be the best salesperson in the world. Literally. But if you don't have a thoughtful and a systematized sales journey and a follow-up process, I mean, you might not fail, but you're not going to close as much as you would like, and you're not going to be as successful as you could be. Plan the work and work the plan, baby. You know, I think that it doesn't matter what you're selling either. You could be selling services, you could be selling products, you could be selling software, hardware. It doesn't matter. If you have or you can build a process that will enable you, you're going to drive success Brian gave me the perfect opening here to quickly tell you about The Sales Collective.

4:22 Scott Ingram: The Sales Collective is a sales transformation company, and they help organizations who are looking to transform their go-to-market motion put exactly these types of processes in place. They also help AEs transform themselves by pinpointing gaps in their own skill sets and processes. To learn more, just click over to top1.fm/tsc. Again, That's top1.fm/tsc for The Sales Collective. And now back to the rest of my conversation with Brian, completely uninterrupted.

4:55 Brian Hicks: And then third, this is a really big one, an environment and a culture that fosters and supports individuality, openness, honesty, realistic expectations. We can put an asterisk there and we can touch on that later, and integrity, and one that really relishes in great performance. You know, at the end of the day, I somehow, I think I barely made it into the millennial generation. And I know that, you know, that group of people and every group underneath of them really strive to be part of something that is greater than themselves. You know, if we were doing it by ourselves and could achieve it, then we would probably do that. But the feeling of being part of an organization that propels faster, stronger, greater, because everybody's rowing the same direction, it really truly enables you to be successful. And the 4th one, the kind of bonus that really allowed me to get to the place that I'm at, is just the, you know, I'm the sum of ingredients that I've allowed to come into my life and that I've chosen to come into my life, as well as, you know, the circumstances and things that may have happened to me and how I responded to those things. But the mentors and the guides that I've had along my way, I would never be at the place that I'm at. I would never have the knowledge and the guidance and insight without having you know, a slew of people that looked at me at a younger age and said, hey, I see a little sparkle in your eye, get under my wing, let me show you the ropes. Whether it's a new book recommendation, a 30-minute role play to go through my sales pitch, or even a hard conversation to dissect one of my calls that I failed on, you know, my ingredients from far and wide are across the globe, and I attribute my success to them.

6:35 Scott Ingram: Brilliant, brilliant. I love this idea of you're the sum of the ingredients. And the fun part of this is I know that you are now going to inform the ingredients for a lot of people who are going to listen to this. So opportunity to pay it forward, opportunity for it to come full circle. Lots of things we'll dig into. I'm going to absolutely dissect your systematized process and your sales journey for sure. It sounds like when you talk about your why and your mom, that that also informs your work ethic, that she kind of instilled that into you. Is that true? Is that accurate? Like, what does that look like?

7:11 Brian Hicks: Yeah, absolutely. Whether it was intentional or not intentional, when you don't get to spend as much time with someone that you love and care about, you appreciate the time that you do spend. But you really, you know, at the time, you know, when I was younger, all I cared about was that, you know, I only got to see mom for an hour and a half tonight, or she only got to come home for dinner. But now that I'm older and I can look back and see all of the work that went into keeping me, you know, with a roof over my head and keeping food on the table, and providing, I have a much different appreciation. I think everybody that's listening, we can all agree that, you know, as you start to mature and grow and you become an adult and then you start adulting yourself, you can look back at those scenarios and realize that, wow, you know, as a kid, like even now we're all our own main character in our story, but at least now we can look back and go, wow, like all the hard work that they took and that they put in to keeping us where we are and keeping me safe. So yeah, it wakes me up in the morning. It's what, you know, keeps my calendar open 12 hours a day to take business calls. I do not stop. I mean, it's all thanks to her and another subsidiary group of people, I'm sure.

8:18 Scott Ingram: That's, that's awesome. Interestingly, I think there's actually like a parenting lesson in that, right? Because sometimes it's less the direct time that you spent, it's less like what you say and what you tell your kids and more what you show them, right? Like your mom showed you, this is what it means to work hard and do all of this stuff. You know, one of the things that's going on in my life right now My wife and I are huge, you know, fitness, health fanatics, and we don't talk a lot to our girls about that. Like, it's just what we do. It's what we live. And now the coolest part of my Tuesday and Thursday mornings is both of my daughters wake up at 5:00 AM to go to the gym with me at 5:30 in the morning. And we're all kind of in this thing together. So it started with my youngest daughter and then my oldest is like, can I start coming with you guys? So it's so cool to see that stuff. Like carry forward. It's not like I said to them, "Oh, you need to work out. It's really important. You have to do this." No, no. Like we just lived it, and then it rubbed off.

9:14 Brian Hicks: I love that. It's so cool. Action drives presence, and presence drives passion. And so by them seeing those actions, it'd be funny to ask them, but it could have very easily just been, "Well, I want to spend more time with mom and dad." Like all right, fine. Let's go with them. Next thing you know, they're enjoying themselves. They're finding passion in it. That's really cool to hear. Thanks for sharing that.

9:34 Scott Ingram: Yeah, totally, totally. So the last thing I'll make sure that we come back to because those who've been listening to. This for a while know that I have been absolutely obsessed with the whole sales culture thing. And there were a couple of things that jumped out at me in your article. You mentioned it as one of your top contributors. But before we do all that, let's get into a little bit of context. Talk about your role a little bit and maybe answer it in the same way that we talked about, because again, folks who listen to the show regularly know that I only talk to top-performing individual contributors. So my first question for you was, wait a minute, why is your title VP? Are you selling? So Talk to us about your role. Talk to us about Belkins. Just kind of orient us.

10:11 Brian Hicks: Yeah, absolutely. No, and it's a good observation. So my official title is VP of Sales at Belkins, but I'm a quota-carrying… you could even say it's a slightly inflated title. I was the first US-based sales rep that Belkins hired. And when things started going well and we realized this was going to be a really great partnership, we needed a face of the business that could go and do conferences. But there's something just not quite as compelling when you see sales executive at the keynote. And so what we did was we built a strategy to improve and increase the sales team in the US. My responsibilities first and foremost are to drive new business for the company. I carry the biggest quota on our team. That's my primary responsibility. And then also I have a team of 5 people that I'm responsible for as well, that I also take accountability for their ability to drive sales. And so I work with them one-on-one as a team to do trainings, to share knowledge, share insight, work through sales calls. And that's really the scope of what my role is. You know, first and foremost, it's, you know, driving sales myself. And then also included in that, making sure that the team has all of the tools necessary to succeed. If they need something, I'm here for them. And so working through that with them.

11:26 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. And then who is Belkins? What do you guys do?

11:28 Brian Hicks: Yeah. So Belkins, we were founded in 2017 and we are a top-of-funnel pipeline development agency. We're in a very, very competitive space. What we do… Belkins was created with sales in mind for companies that either don't have their internal resources, they don't have the bandwidth, or they don't have the knowledge on how to go out and drive business through outbound prospecting. So we are an outsourced B2B appointment setting partner for our clients to help them drive sales by us delivering meetings through our cold prospecting strategy. There are a million companies on this planet that to do what Belkins does. I worked for one of them before finding Belkins, but I can truly say that this company is in a league of their own. They do right by their clients. I almost didn't even believe that this model would work from my previous experience, but Belkins has proved differently. That's what we do.

12:27 Scott Ingram: Awesome. I'm gonna come back to that because we had a fascinating conversation about this because I in general agree with you that I have very, very, very rarely seen sort of the outsourced prospecting model actually work, right? Everybody wants for it to work. They're willing to pay for it to try. Like, I just don't see that come through. But before we talk about that, put your results in perspective for us because you've made a dent.

12:53 Brian Hicks: Yeah, yeah. No, I did a little bit of math. It was actually a great exercise that this brought up, just going back and looking at the last 2 and a half years that I've been with Belkins. And I analyzed some numbers just to kind of see, you know, where I stack up in terms of sales cycle. And we'll talk about that a little bit, but basically in the past 2 and a half years, I've driven 159 new clients to Belkins, a total of 2 point… just over $2.2 million in contract value and a total of just over $5.8 million in accumulated revenue from clients that I've driven. That is the closest person on our team to that is coming in around $1.5 million in sales. To give you an idea on kind of where I'm at on the leaderboard, my sales cycle is right at 70.5 days as an average. It's a little bit longer this year. I'm sure your listeners are probably going, you know, rolling their eyes and going, you tell me. You know, in 2022, I delivered 57 new clients to Belkins, just over one a week on average. Last year, I grew that number to 76 new clients delivered. It was just over 1.5 new clients a week. And this year, currently I'm at 26 new clients delivered. So, you know, obviously I'm feeling the squeeze, but I'm not stopping. So that's kind of how I stack up in terms of numbers.

14:13 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. And before we get to your transition to Belkins, which is a fascinating story, let's talk about your origin story. Like where did this all start? How did you get into sales in the first place?

14:22 Brian Hicks: It's a good question. So born and raised in North Indiana, very, very humble beginnings. Didn't have much to our name. I, you know, the first house that I remember was a 10-foot wide by 50-foot long single-wide trailer. And then maybe around 13, we upgraded, you know, moving on up to double-wide. And so, you know, very humble beginnings. I knew in school when I was in high school that we didn't have the finances to do college. I never planned or even entertained the idea of trying to go to college right out of school. And so sales to me came naturally. My first, very first job was the Baby Depot in Burlington Coat Factory. My godparents' son got me a part-time job there when I was 16, and I was working selling baby department items… breast pumps, strollers, cribs, dressers, car seats. And one day before I graduated, a couple of ladies came in and they were looking for coats, which was a different department outside my purview, but nobody was there to help them. And so I decided that I was going to help them. And so I stepped over and gave them a hand. And then eventually, after about 20 minutes of them trying on coats, they looked at me and said, we're not actually looking for coats. And I said, oh, well, I was really confused. And they said, we're actually looking for employees. We're looking for salespeople. We're out recruiting right now, and you've done a fantastic job. And they were the store manager and the assistant store manager of a Kay Jewelers in the mall about 5 minutes down the road selling jewelry. And so the first step for me was jewelry. It didn't matter to me what I was selling. I knew that I wanted to make as much money as possible. That was the goal given my skill set. And I knew that sales… and sales has still been proven to be true I knew that sales was probably my best route and it aligned well with me because I loved talking to people. I love persuading people. I loved winning. Closing deals felt good. And so that's what happened. I transitioned and I took a role there. And really the rest is history. My past is extremely diverse. If you look at my LinkedIn history, you guys are all welcome to check out my LinkedIn. I have every experience listed except the Baby Depot, I think. But you can see that I was in Diamonds for 10 years, and then I transitioned out of B2C sales into B2B sales. I took a huge step back compensation-wise. I was making a ton of cash slinging rocks, as I like to say. I was the youngest store manager that had ever been hired with the largest privately owned jeweler in the world in Kansas City. I moved away from my family to run that store, and we turned that store from $5 million annually to doing $8 million annually over the course of 3 years, which is a feather in my cap that I always kind of reflect on. But, you know, it was a diverse experience going through all of these different types of sales, I would say. And then eventually I've landed here. It's, uh, it's kind of nuts. I've worked for companies that had 200,000 employees. When I started with Belkins, I think we had, I don't know, 75 or 85 people. Now we have 315. So it's been an interesting ride for sure.

17:33 Scott Ingram: Very cool. Very cool. I love the guerrilla recruiting story that was involved there in Burlington. In fact, it reminds me of one of the greatest compliments and the best ways to hear no is like, dude, we don't want to buy what you're selling, but you're awesome. Can we hire you? That's the best thing. And that sounds like that's kind of what happened.

17:53 Brian Hicks: Absolutely.

17:54 Scott Ingram: So good. Let's talk about the transition to Belkins because I think there's some really interesting lessons in that. Maybe some additional kind of fuel for the fire too. To do well for them as you did that. So tell that story.

18:06 Brian Hicks: Yeah, I came to Belkins. I don't know, you could say a lover scorned. You could say I had vengeance in my heart. But let me back up, you know, maybe about a year before that, I was carrying a bag and I was traveling about 3 to 4 weeks a month working for a large IT distribution company named Cinex. And I loved working for Cinex. Shout out to the Cinex family in Calhoun. I was a business development manager. I had a set list of accounts. I was responsible for a book of business around $90 million. In the cybersecurity space. And I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in Chicago and, uh, I was making client visits and I got an email from a headhunter that it was an opportunity that had always kind of, I'd always been curious about, which was the 100% pure commission sales role. And it was for a competitor of Belkins, for a company named Science. And Science was the number one B2B Legion company in the world at the time. And they offered me a role to come on board and to work for them as a sales executive under a model that was 100% commission. And it was big lofty promises of, you know, making a ton of money. And I thought, you know, I've always been curious about this, but I've never actually taken the leap. So I did. It was quite the experience. You know, I'll fast forward just because I know we don't have all night to talk about this, but through about 9 months, COVID happened and the team at Science told us all… they had an all-hands, we had about 550 employees… they told us all that the company was solid, there was nothing to fear, and everything would be just fine. There's nothing to worry about. And 2 weeks later, I had a meeting come up on my calendar with the CEO, and at the time his title was VP of Sales, and they informed me that they were releasing me due to performance, which was really fascinating. When I requested documentation or any type of evidence that my performance was bad. I wanted to see it and they had nothing. The VP of sales had nothing to say. And the CEO, you could have picked his jaw up from the sidewalk because he was blindsided almost as much as I was blindsided because he expected that for this type of termination, they would have some type of response to me. And that ensued. I had a call. The CEO called me and offered basically for me to take a sum of money and to be noted that I resigned instead of was terminated if I would sign a gag order that would prevent me from speaking about this to anyone. So this is the first time that I'm actually publicly talking about it, but that's what happened. And I said, absolutely not. And then I thought to myself, what am I going to do? What do I want to do now? I really, after 9 months there, had dealt with so many client complaints, people mad at me because I promised them something that we weren't delivering. That I didn't think that the B2B outsourced prospecting model even was viable. I thought it was just a bunch of scammers that were stealing people's money, and it really blew me away that people continued sinking money into this method. I didn't think people were that optimistic, but I took some time for myself. I took about 6 months and I did some freelance work and some consulting work for other companies, and I came to the place where I thought, you know, if that model works It's really perfect for me because I loved talking to different founders and thought leaders that have their own companies from different walks of life and different industries. And so I started doing some research about different companies to see if I believed anybody's model was viable, if it would actually work. And the first thing that I noticed was that Science's number 1 competitor, the number 2 on Clutch and on G2, was Belkins. So I got my super sleuth skills on and I dug up who the founders of the Belkins were. I found Michael Maximoff and Vladislav Podoliako, and I took my resume and I reached out to both of them separately. And I said, hello, here's who I am. Here's my resume. My name is Brian Hicks. I used to work for Science. You let me know if you want me to work for them, or if you want me to come and work for you guys. The rest is really history. We negotiated over the course of a period of time, you know, maybe 4 months to come to an agreement that we really felt good about. And the goal was that if things went well, I'd come out to Ukraine, I'd meet the team, which is where most of the delivery team was at the time. We'd really, you know, make this thing happen. My goal, little did they know until we got to the point where I was getting ready to sign, was that I wanted to see them eclipse Sience. My goal was to take them to the top spot that Sience had. We started the partnership, things went really well. I was insanely impressed with the team and the work ethic and the accountability. Just the fact that these 2 men want to do right by people. They don't want to hold people to contracts if the service isn't working. It blew me away. But man, my confidence started to build about what I was selling and I started getting more passionate and more passionate about working for this organization and being in partnership with them. Flew out to Ukraine on what a trip was supposed to be 3 weeks. It wound up lasting 8 weeks and I've been out there 2 other times since. And about 18 months ago, maybe 24 months ago, Science took a step down because Belkins was named number 1 B2B Legion company in the world. That was a moment where I cracked open a bottle of whiskey and put my feet up on the counter and I said, okay, we did it. What's next?

23:25 Scott Ingram: That is awesome. I mean, what a great story. I'm glad you're ungagged and you didn't sign that piece of paper and could kind of tell us the realities of what's happened. Because I think so many of us have been through, you know, those kinds of situations, right? Where you get let go for some crazy reason that oftentimes can't be backed up and You know, just, it's part of the life of being in sales. There's 2 things in that though that I want to talk about. One is the due diligence process that you did, because my understanding was kind of going into this, you weren't going to go down this route in this industry if you couldn't find a company that could actually deliver. Talk about that. And I think that'll give us a good transition to start to talk about the culture pieces as well.

24:10 Brian Hicks: Absolutely. Yeah. I love Michael Maximoff because he had many calls with me during our interview stage because it wasn't me. And this is something that I want to share with everyone because the dynamic with interviews is wrong. The dynamic is somebody, an interviewer sitting on one side of the table with a clipboard going, all right, impress me. Tell me why we should hire you. And that dynamic is absolutely, it's effed. I'll say that I interviewed him way more than he interviewed me because there was no way in hell that I was going to go down this path again where I was sold a dream and a bill of goods and completely lied to and deceived. And so I asked him questions specific to their delivery. One of the biggest differentiators between Belkins and Science is that at Science, their sales executives are making $280,000, $300,000 a year because they pay them like kings to close business, but their churn rate is insanely high because they paying their delivery team pennies on the dollar compared to Belkins, where I was taking quite a haircut to come work for Belkins. But when I realized and found that they invested that money into the delivery team, so they had higher, more talented people, people that have a different work ethic from a different education background with different history, it all started to connect and make sense. If I hadn't really dove into it and dissected their model, and also if Michael wasn't willing to give me the keys to the city and really open up the books and the plans because they're a private company. He didn't have to tell me anything. But when that starts to happen, it really… I knew I had an 85% confidence level that Belkins was different before I even started working here. I just needed that 15% to be confirmed. And the only way that was going to happen was through experience, was through working with them. Going to science, I didn't care. I didn't care about any of it. I didn't ask him any of those questions. I only cared about the numbers they were throwing at me. So no, the due diligence piece definitely was a difference maker for me. And if you're listening to this and you're evaluating other companies, you're looking at companies, listen, I know when you get in that spot, especially if you don't have a job and you're freaking out and you really need to get something, but trust me when I say that it's there, it's going to happen. Take your time, evaluate them, come with questions. Don't come and do a dog and pony show and get put in a position where you're Trying to convince them. You vet them, and if they're the right fit for you, you'll be happier, way happier in the long run.

26:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah, you know, it's so interesting. I had a conversation just a couple of hours ago with a woman who was referred to me by somebody in the Sales Success Community. Just came out of a sales leadership position, is kind of looking for her next thing. And you know, we're having a conversation with this, and I picked up pretty quickly that she's hungry, right? She's the primary breadwinner, is really intent on landing, but at the same time is looking for some good stability, right? She's been working with a lot of startups and, you know, all of that stuff. She's looking for this stability. And I just, I sensed this disconnect, right, between what she wants and frankly kind of her level of desperation, right? With like, look, I need to land something. I need to take care of my family. And I told her, and I asked if I could share some unsolicited advice before I shared this, but I said, you need to figure out how to get yourself in a position whether it's through some consulting or some contracts or something so that you have your baseline financial needs met and you can be in a position to be picky. Yeah, because I mean, and I've got plenty of my own stories of being in those types of situations and you just take what comes because, you know, you got to feed the family, right? You got to pay the mortgage. You got to take care of what you've got to take care of. But you often get put into a situation where you don't do any of that due diligence. And, you know, some period of time later, probably sooner rather than later, you're hating life. So, you know, just food for thought more broadly, right? I know there's a lot of folks right now, right, that are in challenging positions. Figure something out that maybe it's short-term, maybe it's fractional work, right? And that was one of the conversations we had, right? She's a sales leader. She's got startups that are interested in her, I'm like, go do fractional work with them. Yeah. You know, give yourself that bridge so that you can take your time and find the perfect thing where you can work for 10 years and grow and be super fulfilled and super satisfied. And it sounds like, how were you able to be in the position to do that? Because you took your time.

28:37 Brian Hicks: Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I'm glad that she talked to you. I'm so grateful that you shared that advice with her because it, it's just extremely poignant and I'm not ignorant to think that everybody will be in the perfect position for themselves and that everybody's gonna be, you know, in the happiest role and that they're gonna always love their job. If you love it too much, they wouldn't call it work. And, you know, I'm not ignorant to that. And I recognize that there's certain, you know, necessities that we have to be able to provide for, but there's a lot that comes along with knowing your worth and understanding that, you know, the dichotomy between companies and employees, the paradigm is shifting. People are recognizing their worth more and more every day. It, you know, we no longer will for a company that treats us like a number. And the more people that won't do that will continue to change the environment, the atmosphere. And I'm not talking from like a we need a revolution mindset. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that you know what you bring. Don't overestimate what you can deliver. Don't underestimate what you can deliver. Look at the numbers and look at the facts and look at what you're going to drive to an organization and demand certain standards. It's just like with anything else, with a relationship, you set boundaries. You have to do the same thing with employers. And listen, I get it. If you have to settle on something that's not quite your fit, the one thing I would tell you is do not get complacent because you found something that's a 5 out of 10, but it's paying the bills and find yourself there 2 years down the road. Take it if you have to take it, but get to work finding that perfect fit because yeah, things have to get done and there's a cost to not having a job, but there's also a cost to being in something that's mentally and physically draining to you because you're not happy and you're going to be a much better mom, a much better dad, a much better sister, a much better brother if you're happy when you wake up and you have to work and you're not just waiting for Friday to come so you can tie one off with the friends or the boys or the girls. When you wake up and realize that your life is mostly spent working, then you'll take more care on who you're working for and who you're working with, and you'll be grateful that you did.

30:37 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Let's talk about the culture piece because I'm curious if you knew how important kind of the culture and leadership component was going into Belkins, or if it was through that experience of being inside of a great culture that you recognized how big of a deal it was.

30:53 Brian Hicks: Yeah, the answer is yes. So I knew after leaving science that there was no way I was going to allow myself to align with leaders that can look me in the face and lie to me. And I was going to vet them as hard as I could to see any red flags, to see if there's anything that I can notice that just doesn't sit well, doesn't rub me right. And so there's a piece of that that I went into there, you know, kudos to them because I was damaged goods when they got me, whether they realized that or not. I was hurt, I was pissed, I was angry, I was upset, and I was mad at myself. I was mad at myself for even giving them 9 months of my life. And so there's one piece of that there that I was like, nope, it's going to be really important for me. Leadership will be really important because the leadership of a company is what really dictates and impacts the culture. Then When I came on board and I started getting exposure with Michael and Vlad and I started working with them and I started working with our heads of delivery to spin up during the training, then I started, you know, taking prospects through our sales journey. And to get a prospect through the sales journey at Belkins, it doesn't just require you. It's not a standalone role. I need help from researchers to evaluate the potential market that we might be targeting for them. I need help from account managers to help me align with additional clients that we might need to use as references for the current prospects so they can hear from someone else's mouth what their experience was to work with us. And man, when I started engaging with the entire team, it was so clear to me that everybody's drinking the Kool-Aid here, that this is… we are somehow in a bubble of really hardworking, motivated, inspired people that all want to take this company to the moon, and they're not going to stop at any cost to do Because they're all passionate about it. And so the true realization happened when I started getting my reps, right? When you get in the game and you start playing with your teammates and they start passing you the ball and finding fast breaks and finding opportunities for you to score, and they're selfless and they want you to win because when the tide comes up, everybody's ship rises. And so the true realization was later on, but I knew that it was a requirement for me in the very beginning.

32:58 Scott Ingram: Awesome, awesome, awesome. And so validating with a lot of the things that I've kind of been digging into from a culture perspective. And one of the those pieces, just to emphasize what you said, is a company with a great sales culture, sales is the culture, right? It's not just a sales team. It's not something that they do. It's something that everybody does, right? So you're talking about like, I've got researchers, I've got account managers, I've got other people that we're working together to win this sale and it's everybody's job. That's one of those things. The clue to me, what stood out to me in your Sales Hacker article was the shout out that you gave to your CEO. Hang on, one last question. I'm gonna, I'm gonna come back because I don't want to miss it because we've talked about a lot of the career stuff. So just to put a bow on the career conversation, if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you know now, is there anything that you would have done differently or is there a different approach that you would have taken to your career?

33:54 Brian Hicks: I don't think so, Scott. I've thought about that before talking to you a lot. Like, what would I do differently? But it sounds cliché. But it's really true that everything that you go through gets you to where you wind up. And if I had done something differently, then who knows where I would be at? You know, who knows what would have happened to me if I, you know, I want to say sometimes I wish that I came from a higher class family that had more money in the bank. But honestly, my mom instilled in us just so much love because we didn't have a lot of things. And so, you know, I wouldn't be the same person that I am right now. So I would have to say no. And I'm sorry, guys, that I don't have a better answer for you. I know that's a cliché answer, but it's just, it's really true. I appreciate every struggle, every failure, every mistake. Everything that I've gone through up until this point has really gotten me to where I am right now, and I'm the happiest that I've ever been in my life. And so I can't say I would change a thing.

34:46 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it certainly is the most common answer, and you know, I think the reality of it is we all… I mean, there is no right, there is no wrong. It's really just what you you make of the situations that you're in and how you carry every one of those lessons forward. Do you actually learn the lessons, or do you have to go back and learn them again, right?

35:05 Brian Hicks: Yeah, exactly.

35:07 Scott Ingram: So let's get into… I mentioned Michael and kind of your shout out in the article. And are you cool talking about kind of the whole shooting situation? I know you wrote about it, but that's different than talking about it.

35:18 Brian Hicks: Absolutely. I took some time and I did the work before I posted that article, before I wrote it. And I wrote it with the knowledge that I, you know, that it's going to be a topic. And so I'm absolutely, you know, there's no holds barred on this interview. You can ask me anything that you'd like and I'll talk to it.

35:33 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. So walk us through that. Like what happened?

35:35 Brian Hicks: Yeah. So I had just gotten back to the States the past 2 and a half years. Like most of you, I've been working from my laptop and I've taken advantage of that. So the last 2 and a half years, I've spent more than 6 months a year traveling Europe. And just experiencing different countries, different cultures, and working while I've been doing it. And I just gotten back and my family is in Indiana, like I mentioned. So my routine is usually when I get back after a long trip, I will stop in Indiana to visit with my family for, you know, I'll get a, I won't buy a return ticket back to Denver. I'll just come here. And then when it feels right to leave, I'll go back to Denver to my home and my office, and then I'll just pick life back up there. And so that's what I had done. I'd been here for 2 weeks and it was 2 years ago. And my friends, my childhood friends were throwing a Juneteenth party. It was a Juneteenth get-together. They were having it at a brewery and I'm not gonna miss an opportunity to hang out with my childhood homies and my friends. You know, we're still close and I'm very proud that we've kept our relationship so strong. And so I was absolutely not gonna miss this opportunity. It was in Granger, Indiana at a brewery that was newly built. In a very nice area, very nice part of town. I was excited to go there. So we go, fast forward the night, we're having a blast. There's so many blasts from the past that I got to spend time with and talk to and just connect with. And it's really interesting, I was standing outside telling one of my childhood best friends goodbye because he had brought his girlfriend with him, and I was talking with them, and he said, all right, he said, we're about to go, because I never stay to closing just because nothing good usually happens when the place is closing up. And so I'm out of here. And I said, okay. So I left him and I went back inside. I was with my friend Brandon who put the event on. I heard pops. And the initial first pop that I heard, I thought that ignorantly and silly, I thought that somebody had popped a bottle of champagne. I thought, oh, we're really going, we're getting after it. And then pretty rapidly after that, I heard a series of more shots. And I don't know, you know, to be frank, it happened really fast. And when the whole situation had concluded, I thought, man, there must have been 30 shots fired. But then I found out later that there were 80 to 100 rounds that were actually discharged. So I'm not sure exactly what clusters or how many in each cluster, but it was enough to happen over a period of time where I saw people running and I kind of stood frozen in time just for a split second at what was happening in front of me. It was absolute chaos. And I'm looking at friends running and I'm looking… one of my friends actually was frozen just like me. People are running into the brewery because the shooting started outside of the brewery, but close. Everybody's running inside. And by the time I grabbed my friend and drug him inside and looked around to find a place to hide, all of the places to hide were filled with people. People were hiding underneath tables, underneath chairs. There was a stage. People were crammed underneath this stage. We ran and we went into the kitchen, the kitchen of the brewery. I went to the kitchen, people were stacked on top of each other, and the shooting continued. I'm talking absolute fear consumed me. The shooting got loud and I heard a shattered window in the brewery, and I knew that the shooting was coming inside. And I looked out the kitchen door, it was one of those like doors that goes both ways and it has a little bitty window And I looked out and I saw a flash with another boom, and I knew that this shooting was happening right here and it was coming inside the kitchen. And so I reached for the closest thing I could find, which was a meat tenderizer. So you can imagine me holding a meat tenderizer, hiding right next to the door with this thought that if this guy or person that's shooting, if they come in here, I'm just fighting. I'm gonna fight. And at that moment, there was about a 30-second window of no shots. And I yelled, and a couple more people in the kitchen yelled, get out of here, go! And there was an exit door in the back of the kitchen. And man, it was the fastest… it was like turning the lights on with the bugs in the bathroom and they scatter. I mean, everybody was gone so fast. By the time I looked back, I was the only one in the kitchen. And I started to run. I slipped on the tile, busted my hind end. And then I started to run again, and this thought came over my mind that, Brian, if you get shot in the back, then your mother and your family will know that you were shot running away. And so I turned around and I faced the kitchen door, and then I fast, in a rapid, quick manner, scooted my feet back toward the exit door so at least I wouldn't get shot in the back if I was going to get shot. And once I opened that door and I felt the air hit my skin, I turned around And I ran as hard as I possibly could to a neighboring hotel. I believe it was a Marriott where the lobby was full of people. We were there for about 5 to 10 minutes before police sirens were heard. I think the total experience probably lasted 15 to 20 minutes. It happened all really fast. I got back to the scene after the police came. I went back to the scene to see if my friends were okay. Um, one of my friends ran into the brewery covered from head to toe in blood. And the initial thought was we have to… like, I thought she was shot. And so we're checking her and just found that it was somebody else's blood. With further exploration, one of our mutual friends, Victor, was laying outside the brewery with multiple gunshot wounds, one to the head. Unfortunately, he didn't make it. The other, I believe, 6+ people that were shot were taken to the hospital with their friends. Their friends put them in the car and rushed them to the hospital. The ambulances didn't quite get there fast, and so those people needed help. Yeah, that's the full situation. Let me stop there and just give you an opportunity if you have any questions specifically, and then I'll kind of go into… if it makes sense, I'll go into kind of what happened with my mindset and how that impacted business, and then how Michael had a really big part to play.

41:27 Scott Ingram: Yeah, man, that is intense. I mean, honestly, I don't want to like dwell on those details. I mean, you lost a friend. I can't even imagine. Just the thoughts running through your head. The fact that you turned around to make sure you didn't get shot in the back is something. And I'm just sitting here thinking, wait a minute, I'm all for a good story, but the show is Sales Success Stories. But the reality is like you really did somehow turn that situation into a sales success story. So talk about that. Like what changed for you?

41:55 Brian Hicks: Yeah. So think about, let me set the stage for you a little bit. The sales executive that I was, the salesperson that I was up until this point, Was, you know, I think I told you that the reason I got into sales was to make a bunch of money. That was my driving force. I just wanted more than what I had when I was a kid. I wanted to be able to provide more. I wanted to take my mom on trips and this sales career had enabled me to do it. I still was a top performer even before this happened. Don't get me wrong, but sales to me had always been a means to an end. It was always the vehicle that provided me with money in my bank account so I could go on a trip or so I could give an experience or go to a concert or, you know, buy a nice car or do something like that. And everything really changed after this happened. So once I went through this experience, the first thing that happened I didn't see coming, but it happened and I recognize it now. And that's that I had really lost all my motivation. Now, I don't know why. I haven't spent a lot of time digging into material or research to figure out if this is like a phenomenon that is diagnosed. But all I know is, is that I went back to Denver and my friend, one of my really close girlfriends, her name's Amanda. She wanted me to come stay with her. She just wanted me to be there. She wanted to know that I was okay after this and she wanted me to be in her house. And so I had been living out of a suitcase for the past 4 months. And so that was fine with me. I was like, well, I'll just bring my suitcase to your house and stay in your guest room. And that's fine. And so I did that, but I had no motivation. For whatever reason, my fervor and my desire and passion for life had started to kind of dwindle. And what that equated to was that, you know, my calendar… nothing changed from Belkin's perspective. My calendar was still full of meetings. I just wasn't meeting on them. I wasn't going to the calls. I would catch one out of every few calls, and I didn't make excuses to people. I didn't email people back. I didn't do follow-ups and tell people, hey, we need to move this. I just stopped showing up. I stopped showing up for myself. I stopped showing up for my company. I had 1,300 missed text messages on my cell phone because I stopped replying to people. It was just a really, really weird feeling that I can't even describe. It has to be likened to like depression or something, but my drive was gone. My motivation was gone. Michael, the co-founder at Belkins, He reached out to me and he asked me, you know, how I was. And then I decided to share with him this experience that happened, and I told him what happened, and I just said, hey, I'm just trying to figure it out, right? Like salespeople, how many of you… everybody raise your hands if you're listening to this and your response to everything is, we'll figure it out, I'll figure it out. Oh, you're missing your quota? I'll figure it out. Oh, you didn't do this follow-up? I'll get it figured out. Oh, this person has a problem? Yeah, I'll figure it out. We are the primary problem solvers. We'll fix it, we'll fix it. And so that's what I told him. But he didn't just let it sit at that. He didn't just put the onus of the situation on me. What he said was, Brian, listen, I want you to be okay. I want you to be okay. And I know that you're not. I want to help you. And I want you to know that I support you and that this is past… this is greater than Belkins. This is greater than driving money to the business. This is about you. And your health and making sure you're all right. And it was honestly, it was the first moment since this had happened that I had a moment of humanity where I kind of felt some emotion, you know, where I kind of felt like, wow, he's being real with me. Like an owner of a company. How many of you have worked for companies where they didn't give a hoot about you? That you're just, what is the adage? You're just as good as your last sale. Like a lot of companies, a lot of them, not all of them, but a lot of companies. They don't care about the employees, but man, it did something. Don't get me wrong. I didn't feel all warm and fuzzy. I just felt like I'm talking to another human who actually cares about me more than the business. And it just so happens to be the founder of this company that he bootstrapped and he wants me to be okay. So let me, I care about him and let me entertain his thoughts here. And so what he said was, I want you to take some time. I want you to, you know, let's start with a month, but we'll do more than that if you need. I don't care how long it takes. And I want you to commit to me that you'll try to find somebody that you feel like you can trust, that's a professional that you can talk to, to just try to start getting some progress and coping and working through this. There's no expectations here. I just want you to be okay. And I said, okay, I'll look into it. So I did. I talked to a couple of friends that I really trusted, and one person recommended a specific, a very formal, educated, by-the-book, modern medicine type psychologist to talk with me. And then another colleague of mine who I had known from a previous experience, she stopped practicing modern medicine, you know, maybe a decade and a half ago. She's much more of like the, I don't know how you would describe it, but if you're listening, the witchy woo-woo, like very spiritual. Connect with the universe and, you know, be grateful for the alignment that you feel kind of therapist. And I thought, you know what, I'm gonna talk to both of them and see, you know, what path I should go. And through the interview and talking with them, I decided that I would use the more practical therapist and I would talk to her twice a week. And then I would talk to the more spiritual and her name is Numa. I would talk to Numa once a week and we would work through this. And then if I needed to talk to them more than I would, but I'm gonna start out hard in the paint. I'm gonna go 3 times a week. I'm gonna see if there's anything possible to work through this. And it was nuts. It's just, it was so crazy how just starting to peel back some of the layers… and honestly, I didn't know where to start. I didn't even know what was wrong with me. How do you fix a car if you can't diagnose the problem? How do you do it? I don't know. But these 2 women were incredible for me. One of them did a special therapy I believe it's called EMDR therapy, and it's a specialized type of therapy where they use a specific method of… it basically moves your eyes in a specific way while you process traumatic memories. So they have a desensitization and reprocessing where they attract your attention to a specific thing, and then they move that point of vision and you follow up with your eyes while they work through this trauma with you. And these memories, and it helps you heal from trauma or from other distressing life experiences. And it worked wonders. It was amazing how in one week I had gotten to a place where I didn't even know my head from a hole in the ground, but I just felt guilty because I wasn't able to help more people. And I was so… I felt so horrible, to a place where I accepted that things happen and that there's only so much control that you have, and that, you know, you still had a positive impact by helping people get to safety. And then in another week It was a completely reborn feeling of you can turn this into a positive. Like, there's, you know, I didn't subscribe to the thought… you might talk to people that are, you know, very everything happens for a reason, and they're very, you know, I never subscribed to that thought. It wasn't that. It wasn't like I found this new purpose because I had this new lease on life necessarily, but somehow the acknowledgment that my life was impermanent, my life was temporary, definitely helped me turn a corner during the therapy for that first month that I'll be damned if I'm gonna waste another day. I'll be damned if I'm gonna go into another sales call and just go through the motions. Hey, tell me about your business. What are the problems that you're dealing with? Why is that a challenge? Feature, benefit, close, temp check. Feature, benefit, close, temp check. I'm not gonna do it because it wasn't rewarding. Yeah, I got money in my bank account, but I'm spending way more than 50 hours a week doing this, and I wanted my life to be meaningful, and that happened. Over the course of one month, I was able to turn that corner. Michael supported me, checked in with me every single day just to see if I was up, just to see how my day was going. They completely paid… the company completely paid over… I mean, these two charged… I think one of them charged $245 an hour and the other one was like $150 an hour. And I went 3 times a week and they paid for all of it, no questions asked. And when I decided that I wanted to come back I had to convince him. I didn't, you know, he was like, listen, are you sure? This feels soon. Even when I talked to people, they were like, man, that's fast. But it just worked. And I put in the plan. I put in the work to make it happen, man. I came out of it and I approached my sales completely differently from that moment.

50:30 Scott Ingram: Dude, I mean, it's an amazing story on so many levels. Again, what spoke to me, right, when I read your article and you didn't go into nearly the depth, right, as you talked about Michael and just the level of support that he provided, but you gave that call out and I kind of read between the lines of how big that was. And to me, I mean, that's the ultimate sales culture, right? It's a human-first approach, right? Like all this other stuff, like sales conversations and pipeline and forecast and numbers, numbers, numbers, like that's irrelevant if the human behind it all like isn't well. And my own experience, I mean, again, those who've been listening, man, I've been going through it myself for like a year. And I certainly don't have the kind of trigger that you do. In fact, I can't entirely explain like all of the origination, but I certainly got to those points where I was like, I just don't care.

51:29 Brian Hicks: Yeah.

51:29 Scott Ingram: I don't want to do anything. None of this matters. Like, what the hell is the point of this? That's kind of the darkest. I mean, fortunately, that was as dark as I got. So, you know, there's certainly many, many lower levels than that. But, you know, I sought out some professional help. What's interesting, and I'll be talking about this a lot, I'm going to do a full session at this year's summit about this because I said that I would. And, and it was, I wanted to document this journey. I wanted to kind of capture what was going on and my lessons learned because I know you and I are the only people going through some stuff, right? Yours was very triggered, but I mean, I'm sure there was underlying stuff beyond just, you know, this particular ultra-traumatic event, right? And so it's the thing that sort of causes you to go through this. What I actually found was I just couldn't, and I didn't try hard enough, honestly, but in the conversation that I had with the professional therapist, I almost immediately realized like this person is never going to understand me. Like they very quickly and accurately diagnosed that you're like, you're not clinically depressed, you're okay, but you are burnt out. But they were never going to be able to serve me because they did not understand what it's like and what it means to be a high achiever.

52:48 Brian Hicks: Yeah, it's real.

52:49 Scott Ingram: And so you're listening to this podcast, like I'm sure that resonates. I'm like, okay, this guy is like, you know, perfectly happy with his 37.5-hour week and what… and his fishing. I'm like, okay, yeah, you are never going to be able to get inside my head. And I actually found my way out through this community. Like, I started talking to my friends who I… most of whom I've met through this freaking podcast and through the summits, and they It was just the sharing the little stories, just like you're doing, right? It was just sharing like that example, that aha. And these folks, they know me and they're like, Scott, I know this about you. Have you thought about this? Have you done that? It was just like these little completely random nuggets that changed everything, right? So, I mean, at the end of the day, whether it's professional help or you've got like a really great network and community and whatever else, Man, do you have to lean into that. But my opening point was, it is just so rare and so awesome to find that kind of culture and that type of leadership who… I mean, if you think about it from Michael's perspective, I mean, he's got to be freaking out. Like, here's my number one guy who's driving this shop, and I'm just gonna say, dude, like, you are more important than all of that. Like, that, that is leadership.

54:15 Brian Hicks: Yeah, Scott, let me take it one step further and just share something that I didn't share in my article. Well, I think I may have shared this. They compensated me as if I had never left. So they basically prorated the commission that I was making from the previous months and they paid me out as if I was hitting my quota. And I believe it was like 137% of quota. They paid me out the same amount, even though I didn't work any for the entire month. And Michael, the co-founder of our company, personally owned my pipeline. He reached out to everyone in my pipeline and did every piece of follow-up himself to make sure that my prospects were taken care of, that he could come back to me and say, there's no problem. Don't get me wrong, he had help. You know, we had a BDR team that was helping reschedule calls for new prospects that I hadn't talked to yet, things like that. But Michael personally, if I had talked to somebody, Michael did follow up with them. It's funny, I closed a deal 2 months ago that was from over 2 years ago during this time where Michael had done the follow-up and I finally got them closed. Don't get me wrong, it's not traditional, but I just stayed in front of them. I kept following up and finally got them bagged. And I went back and looked at the communication thread and I saw June 2021, and I saw a message from Michael that was, hey, Brian had to take an unexpected absence, and so I'm gonna follow up with you and handle this conversation from here. And I was just like, man, like he owned my whole pipeline. He did everything on my behalf. And so that's just, I mean, just shows you the kind of person that he is and the kind of leader that he is.

55:47 Scott Ingram: Love. Oh my God. So good. So good. So now let's talk about like, what's the result? So what's the difference between Brian before and Brian after?

55:57 Brian Hicks: Yeah. The best way to word it is that it's kind of interesting. I've been saying like, I don't work to live, but I live to work because my work is my life. It's, and I know it might sound crazy to some, but my sales calls now are not the typical, I don't see dollar signs when I talk to people. My approach is that I wanna connect with people and I wanna have a meaningful experience with people. If I'm gonna spend, you know, our time is the one thing that we cannot get back. And if I'm going to spend my time with you, then we're going to connect. We're going to learn about each other. We're going to grow from this conversation. My sales pitch has shifted completely from one of features and benefits and persuasion and closing to one of guidance and discussion and true discovery and of sharing and of dialogue and interest and curiosity. Some of it is, you know, it's interesting because, you know, it lends… I'm reading a book right now called To Sell Is Human. And one of the things that I read in that book is that when the sellers know more than the buyers, then buyer beware. And it all makes so much sense to me now when I go back and I look at how I was selling previously and how I would pressure. I mean, I could close. I mean, I'm a closer. Don't get me wrong. I'd go out, hunt it down, kill it. Drag it home, cook it, and eat it. That is what I do. But man, my motive and my motivation previously was so different where I just had dollar signs in my mind. I had commission breath where I was pressuring and I was using tactics. Don't get me wrong, they worked, but they weren't meaningful. You know, I could sell anything even if I didn't believe in it. Now it's completely different because I care about the people that I'm talking to and I want to know who they are and I want to know their story. I want to know what brought them to what position they're in. Why do they like doing what they do? What are the challenges? Why are they having those challenges? And if at the end of the day, if Belkins isn't the right fit for them, I just tell them. I just tell them. I say, hey, listen, everything that you're describing makes complete sense and I understand it, but we're not the best fit for you. And this is why. Knowingly, like legitimately turn down business because I know that they can probably figure it out in a better way or a more cost-effective way. This transparency that I have with prospects… I talked to a lady yesterday who just looked at me. I looked at her and I said, listen, I said, you guys are charging $40 a month per user. Unless Belkins was able to drive clients to you at 1,000 users This isn't going to make sense for you. We charge, we are not cheap. There's a high human touch element to what we do. And I just, I don't want to oversell what we're going to drive. I want us to be realistic about this. And she just looked at me. She goes, Brian, thank you so much. She goes, I just talked to a different guy with a different company in your space. And he just promised me the world and we're the best and we're the cheapest. And she goes, it is so refreshing. To just talk to somebody that's real, somebody who doesn't have their best interests at heart, somebody who really wants to understand what I'm going through and what I'm dealing with. And that paradigm shift for me has changed everything. Now when I follow up, it's because I know that I've talked to them and I said, hey, I'm going to follow up with you every once a week. I'm going to check in with you if I haven't heard from you. If you change your mind or if this isn't a good fit or you want to Do something else. I trust that you're going to make the best decision for your business that you can, and I support you. So if I follow up with you and you've made that decision, just don't worry about it. Just let me know because I'm going to keep following up with you unless you tell me not to. And I laugh and I tell them it's not because I want to pester you. Somebody says, hey, I really want to work with you guys, but I'm going to go on vacation for the next 2 weeks. Oh, well then I'll just put a tickle in my calendar. I'll check in with you in 2 and a half weeks to give you a little bit of time to settle in once you get back. Hey, where are you going? Oh, I'm, I'm going to Indonesia. Oh wow, why'd you pick Indonesia? And they start to realize that this guy isn't just trying to sell me. When people get on a sales call, they're already defensive because the seller knows more than the buyer. That's why most buyers do so much of their research themselves. That's why we're so self-educated. We have this self-educate mindset where we have to do as much research as possible before we agree to take a meeting, because the dynamic on the meeting is going to be They're gonna try to sell me, and nobody wants to get sold. People don't buy because they understand you. They buy because you understand them. And when you open up your approach and you start looking at them as humans and you start treating them as humans, and then you start having some of these conversations and you realize that you've been on the phone for 20 minutes and you haven't even pitched, but damn, it's been a great conversation, and wow, this has been incredible. Man, the world has changed for me. I will never go back. I will never change this approach. I approach every sales call with the mindset that I'm going to leave knowing more about them than they know about me. And I approach everyone that way with an open mind and with a very curious and inquisitive nature to learn. Not everybody approaches a call with that openness, and that's okay too. And listen, I'm emotionally intelligent. I can follow their lead if they come with a clipboard and they just Need me to check boxes, but you better believe that I'm going to say to them, hey, hey, listen, I can see that you've probably talked to 15 other companies that do this right now, right? Yes, you're my 15th call. How's it gone? It sounds like you've really dialed it in on exactly what you want to know. It feels like, it feels like you just got a checkboard and you need to just tick the boxes. Am I right? Yes, I just need to know how much you guys charge. Okay, well, hey, listen, how about this? If the call goes perfectly, you're going to walk away with our pricing, right? Yep, that's what I want. Okay, well, we got 30 minutes. Would you mind doing it my way and letting me take you through my sales journey and my process? And I promise you that by the time we get off the phone, I will answer all of those questions. I will make sure that every single box you have is ticked, and it'll probably be a little more fun when I do it instead of you just asking me the questions and me just giving you the answers 95% of the time. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, sure. Next thing you know, now we're talking, now we're having a connection. And so, you know, that's really what type of impact it's had in my sales. Listen, my sales cycle has gotten longer. You know, the average sales cycle is about 65 days at the Belkins, 60 to 65 days. I closed at 70 and a half days. I think I told you guys my talk time. I used to talk 65% of the time. Now I talk about 40% of the time. I'm trying to get it even lower because I'm trying to use different tactics and skills that I'm reading about. To just keep the conversation moving because I know that they have a lot to share. But I'm closing 14 to 17% of every person that I talk to, and I'm closing more, I'm closing bigger, and I'm having more meaningful interaction. I'm so much happier when I close my laptop. If I've just taken 10 new business calls in a day, I'm so much happier because I'm not thinking about that next check. I'm thinking about Bill at Acme Logistics that I just talked to, whose wife is getting ready to pop because she's 8 and a half months pregnant and he's… it's his 3rd baby on the way and he's just waiting for that phone call. And the next time that I see an article about a new baby product, I'm going to shoot it over to him because, Bill, I saw this and it made me think of you. I hope baby and wife are good. Now I'm a human and now I'm having meaningful interaction. Now my job is my life. It's who I am. And so that's really the biggest difference.

1:03:46 Scott Ingram: Love it. And you totally answered my next question was really just about sort of the experience, right? And the results before and after. But one thing that jumped out at me, I'm really interested in kind of the specifics of your experience with the number of people that ghosted you or went dark before versus after.

1:04:04 Brian Hicks: I don't know how I would calculate that because I don't, I guess I do have a way to see. I don't know.

1:04:09 Scott Ingram: Um, once you post this, if I just need the anecdotes, I don't need the actual stats.

1:04:13 Brian Hicks: Yeah. Okay. I can figure it out. I've got that Close Lost reason that says went silent, but I can tell you that it is dramatically different. I very, very rarely get ghosted. The messages that come back to me if people take a long time to respond is, Brian, I appreciate your follow-up. I'm so sorry that it took me this long to get back to you. Hey, we went another route. Or, you know, yes, we want to pick this up. It's just taking a little bit longer. People are coming back to me with such a human response. It's no more this screw that sales guy. I don't want to reply to him. If people book follow-up calls with me, they never no-show. And I mean never. People show up if they book a second meeting. If I have a sales call with them and reach out to them, I bet my reply rate is greater than 75 or 80%. It's insane because they feel connected. It's no longer this… I'm no longer that sales guy. I'm Brian, the guy that they talked to, and he was really awesome. And I owe him. Like, they feel a weird sense of almost ownership, or, you know, they don't want to… it puts me in a different category because they don't… they'll feel guilty if the guy that I talked to, Brian, if he reaches out to me, like, I need to let him know. I need to just let him know what's happening. Hey, you know, this is the situation. This is what's up. I'm sorry, but the decision was above my head. Hey, listen, you know what my response is every time I get a, hey, we're not interested, or hey, we're going a different route? Hey, That's okay. I'm still really glad that I had an opportunity to meet you and to learn more about your business. And listen, I wish you all the best. That's it. I still, I reply to them.

1:05:50 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. It's awesome. You know, it's funny. I had, I had a conversation here. This is pretty recent, maybe last week. I think I know who it was. And this is an ongoing conversation, but I mean, this guy was super cool because he says to me, he's like, hey, I want to figure out how to make this work. Work for you. You know, I know the timing's important and I want to make sure that you get something out of this and this, that, and the other thing. And I'm like, dude, I so appreciate that you're thinking about me in this relationship, but I'm like, don't even worry about that. I'm like, that is all irrelevant. What matters is you getting this result and your timeline. Like, don't worry about the end of my month, the end of my quarter. Like, that doesn't matter. I said this, we were on Zoom, and this guy's entire dynamic changed. I mean, there was like a visual Like somebody swiped and changed the screen and this guy just completely relaxed and changed. And that's the difference. You know, when you are genuinely like, look, I'm, I'm here for you. This isn't BS. Like, I'm not saying these things to you to manipulate you and close you, right? You know, then it becomes real. It becomes fun. Like you're building real relationships.

1:06:52 Brian Hicks: Yeah. No, you're 100% right. When you… it's tough. It's tough sometimes because depending on what industry you're in and depending on what kind of business practices your competitors have, You know, one bad apple can really spoil the bunch, and that's why our buyers are very defensive and they come guarded. But man, if you can cross that divide from becoming a, you know, being viewed as a salesperson to being viewed as a trusted consultant or a friend, you know, all things being equal, people want to do business with their friends. If you think about this and you're in the market for a software and one of your friends works at the company that has that same software, that software that you want, Who's the first person you're gonna call? You're gonna call your friend. And so if you can build that rapport in a way where you can get into that friend category almost, the rest is history.

1:07:37 Scott Ingram: Yeah. In some ways, I think it's breaking out of the roles. Like, it's as simple as that, right? Because when you go into that conversation, it's like, okay, I'm the buyer. I'm supposed to act in this way. I'm supposed to ask these things. I'm supposed… I need to defend myself in these other ways. And the seller is in their seller role and they're going to say these stupid things for these stupid reasons. But if you can just break that dynamic, it changes the game. Like, let's set all that garbage aside. Like, how about we think about this like I'm your partner and let's just figure this out together and set the roles aside?

1:08:11 Brian Hicks: Yeah, absolutely. You're 100% right.

1:08:14 Scott Ingram: So Brian, the process is always really important and really interesting for me. Break down kind of how you think about the sales journey that you're creating and And what is your sales process?

1:08:25 Brian Hicks: Yeah, absolutely. Really quick. I just did the, I went through our CRM and I crunched some numbers just to give you the, I wanted to give you some stats. So the first half of the year, cuz that shooting happened in June, the first half of the year I had 79 went radio silent and closed lost. The second half of the same year I had 15.

1:08:48 Scott Ingram: Holy crud. That's almost 5x, right? 5x.

1:08:52 Brian Hicks: Yeah, yeah, literally. Yeah, all of… listen, all of 2022, the entire year, I had 20.

1:09:02 Scott Ingram: Wow.

1:09:02 Brian Hicks: 20 out of 500 sales calls, you know, roughly 500. You know, I did the math. I've had 1,100… well, no, I've had 1,140 conversations. So let's call it 400, 350 conversations. That's insane. That's incredible.

1:09:17 Scott Ingram: I mean, who can claim that?

1:09:19 Brian Hicks: I mean, yeah, that's staggering.

1:09:21 Scott Ingram: If your ghosting ratio or percentage is that low, you are doing something right. But I also, just to call it out, right? Because it's worth going back and listening to the way you were setting it up, right? Kind of the upfront contract that you were creating in the way that you told them and set the expectations around, here's how I'm going to follow up. Here's what you can expect of me. You're building trust in doing that, especially when you execute against what you said you're going to do. But just giving them that out, right? The way that you're like, I'm gonna give you permission. Like, whatever you decide is cool, but just tell me. Yeah.

1:09:56 Brian Hicks: The crazy thing is, is like, I actually mean it. Like, I legitimately mean it. I'm sure there are some salespeople that are listening to this right now that are thinking, he can't mean that. Like, the worst thing for me to hear is, you know, when I've got somebody in the final stages of the sales journey reach out to me and go, hey, we went another route. I just want to throw my computer out the window. Listen, Listen, I get it, but you're doing the right thing and the business is gonna come. So I mean it when I say that. I mean every word of it. But you're right, I tell them, hey, I'm gonna follow up with you weekly, and is that an okay cadence with you? Yeah, that's fine. Okay, listen, I'm gonna keep following up until you tell me not to. So I care about this journey and what we've discussed, and so until you tell me that something is different, I'm gonna keep us on track. Okay? Yeah. Yeah, that definitely, that's staggering. I'd never looked at that number. Thanks for calling it out. It's, uh, it's mind-blowing to see.

1:10:46 Scott Ingram: Yeah, man. Well, so what is the process? What is the journey?

1:10:49 Brian Hicks: Yeah. So with Belkin, so every sales journey is different and it varies depending on the product, depending on the service that you're providing, depending on your target market. You know, there's a different sales journey and a different sales cycle for bigger organizations because there's a lot more bureaucracy in the decision-making process. For Belkins, I'll share it for Belkins. So for Belkins, we have several different stages of our sales journey. The first stage doesn't really have as much to do with me, which is the appointment has been scheduled. So I don't do any of my own prospecting. You know, that would be pretty crazy if I did, because, you know, the same service that we provide to clients, we provide for ourselves. Like, we're drinking our own champagne. I've got a team of BDRs that are the best BDRs in the business. Shout out to the BDR team at Belkins. They're driving 350 to 400 deals created every month. They are absolute machines. So first stage is appointment has been scheduled. So for me, that means that our BDR team has received an inbound lead or they've driven an outbound lead, and that lead is qualified, that business is qualified, the title of the person on that call is qualified to talk to me. Which will vary depending on the company. So, you know, smaller companies, I'm usually dealing with founders, owners, CEOs, presidents. The bigger the company, the more it can get into CMO, Director of Business Development, VP of Business Development, VP of Sales, sometimes even operations titles I might talk to. But those are the decision makers for us, and then it can slightly vary. Once the appointment is scheduled, the appointment has to be had, and then the deal transitions to the next step in the sales journey, which is was on demo. It means that I've done a discovery call. So for me, that discovery call is really the foundation of identifying their needs, their problems, their challenges, learning about their processes, and just really understanding the person that I'm talking to and the company that I'm talking with and understanding, you know, them as a whole, as well as, you know, the granular details around what brought them to us. So my sales call starts the same way almost every single time. Almost probably 95% of the time I start my call with, hey Scott, thanks for taking the time to chat with me. My name is Brian Hicks and I'm the VP of Sales here at Belkins. You know, I took some time to look up Sales Success and to understand a little bit about your business and what it is that you guys are doing. So, you know, I can go about this call a couple of different ways. So I'd like to give you the options. I can jump in first and give you the full story of Belkins and what we do and the different services that we provide. And you can ask questions around what's most relevant for you. Or depending on whether it was an outbound-driven lead or an inbound-driven lead, I might say, or if it was outbound, I'll say, or, you know, if there was something specific about our outreach that made you want to take this call, you can take the lead first and give me a little bit of context on, you know, what it was that made you want to talk with me. And, you know, if this call goes perfectly, what the outcome would be, and then I can frame the conversation up around that. If it's an inbound-driven lead, I'll say, or, you know, a lot of times when people come to us, there's something specific that they're looking for. And so if you want, you can take the lead first and just build a little context around what that is. And, you know, if this call goes well, what you'd love to walk away with, and then we'll frame things up from that point. That opener has worked wonders for me. I actually learned that opener about a year and a half, 2 years ago because I used to start out without giving them an option. I used to start out and say, you know, why don't you tell me what brought you to me? You know, why are you talking to me? Basically, what, you know, what about our message did you like? Or what, you know, why'd you come to us? And I had a prospect go, why do you start your call like Everybody starts the call the same. He was like, all you guys in this legion, you guys say it the same way. Everybody does the same thing. And he goes, you know what would sound different and better? And I go, no, no, what? And he goes, if you gave me an option, let me at least think I got a little control. And I was like, oh, this is good. Okay, tell me more. And then he gave me that pitch. He was like, give me the option. He was like, don't be scared if I don't want to give you the keys to the city right out of the gate and I want you to pitch first, even though you don't know what you're actually pitching. He was like, figure out a creative way to get me talking to you if that's what I tell you. You go first. And I was like, ooh, okay. I said, all right, let's do that then. And so I said, I'm gonna go first. And he goes, all right, let's try it. And so I went first and we role-played. It was a prospect and we role-played, we worked through it. And then I've crafted that sales, that initial opener and the way to take that talk track depending on what they say, you know, through hundreds of calls. But that initial call, that discovery call for the sales journey for me, If that call goes perfectly, it's to get them from stage 1 to stage 2. I do not sell Belkins to them on that first call. I sell the next step. One reason is because when you try to sell your service on that first call and they might need some time to digest it, it's overwhelming. You can't eat… how do you eat an elephant, right? One bite at a time. And so what I do is I give it to them in little doses and I sell the value of the second call. For Belkins, the second call is, is that if this call has gone well enough and I feel like you're aligned with us and I feel like we're aligned with you and the pricing isn't an issue and you have budget and you have need and your target market is in our wheelhouse and I feel good about progressing, then we're going to do a little more due diligence. You're going to do some homework and we're going to work through your ideal client profile together where we map out who your target market is. Once I have that, I'm going to submit it over to my research team and I'm going to ask them to run a little analysis to see what the total addressable market is with that landscape to see how many businesses exist based on who you've expressed interest in talking to. Then I'm going to ask them to build a sample list of companies and contacts that match that profile that we've built together. So then we can review that and you can say, these are exactly the types of people we would love to have meetings with, or no, you guys missed the mark and this is how you missed the mark. Then we'll evaluate the current and previous work that we've done. You know, Belkins has done just over 1,200 unique campaigns. And so we're going to look at that work to see what our outcomes are, what are our deliverables, because everybody sells a cookie-cutter solution in this outsourced B2B lead gen world except Belkins. We give you a thoughtful estimate based on what we've driven in the past. You know, if you've done a lot of these campaigns, you should be able to give people an expectation on what 3 months of working with you would look like. And so that's the next step of my sales journey. So the first step is High-level identification, truly listening, asking true discovery-built questions that are designed to uncover their needs and to uncover really why they're talking to you, what their role is, what drives them. And then if there's alignment, you sell the next step. And then that next step is to then get into the weeds and build a framework a little bit more. If the ICP has come back and the research team has given me positive feedback, I can look at the work that we've done because I have access to all of our campaigns. And I can see social proof and I can see use cases and references, and I can talk to my delivery team and say, hey, here's the project that I'm thinking about taking on. What do you guys think? And they come back with 10 out of 10 stars and they're going, go, go, go. Then the follow-up to that call is a proposal. And I'll set the stage from the beginning. Listen, if this call goes well enough, the next step is for us to do this. We're going to go through your ICP. On the ICP call, I'll tell them this is the goal. I want to make sure we're aligned. I'm going to show you a sample list of contacts. And if this call goes well enough and we feel that we're aligned here, then the next step is I'll build a proposal and I'll send it over to you to review. It's going to outline the scope of work. It's going to outline what Belkins will commit to in terms of expectations and outcomes. And then I'll put the ball in your court and I'll give you a week to review it. If I don't hear back from you in a week, I'm going to check in with you and see how everything is going. So if the call goes well, now they know before we start that call that if If, you know, hypothetically, if they were scared or they didn't want to buy, they could just come up with reasons why the call didn't go well. But they know that if they give me buying signals and confirming affirmation that this call has gone well, then the next logical step for us is to go to proposal. So that's the next step. Once a proposal is sent, a lot of times the follow-up from that point is done all digitally via email, but sometimes we have follow-up calls. But The proposal is mapped out very clearly. This is what we're gonna do. This is the scope of work. This is how much it's gonna cost. This is what the investment looks like. This is what the commitment looks like. And once you give me the green light on this proposal, I'm gonna build an M&A and a contract, and I'm gonna send it over to you. And then I'm gonna poise the team to get the onboarding started so we can launch this partnership. It is a very clear and designed sales journey that will be the closer of a deal The closure of a partnership or contract will be the logical conclusion of our experiences and of our discussion up until that point. It will be the logical next step to send a contract and get it signed.

1:19:43 Scott Ingram: Solid. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. Great, great process. I appreciate all of the detail. At any given point, how many of those conversations are you managing? Like, what is your… I guess the easiest way to think about that is like, what is your active pipeline look like?

1:19:58 Brian Hicks: Yeah, 40 to 50 a month, 40 to 50 new. So let me correct that. 40 to 50 new business calls a month are added to my pipeline. And then if I look at my pipeline right now, for example, I have active in my pipeline. I have 17 appointments scheduled. I have 24 discovery calls that have been had. I have 12 ICP trials. So I have 12 calls that have moved from the discovery to the ICP. They've completed the ICP. I'm just waiting to have that call. I have 11 in what is stage highly qualified, which means that I've sent them a proposal. And then I have 4 in contract sent, which means that I've built a formal contract. They have it in their hands. It's either at their legal team's department where they're reviewing redlines. And that's what my pipeline looks like currently. And just one little note, every single deal in my pipeline has a future task created in it for follow-up. Every single deal. There's not one deal that doesn't have a future task for when I will follow up with that prospect to do a temp check, to send them a specific message with specific content. Every single deal in my pipeline, always, 100% of the time, never fails, will have a task for future follow-up. That way I can stay on track of all of these deals because 40 to 50 new business calls in addition to an active pipeline is a lot to manage.

1:21:19 Scott Ingram: Nice. Let's talk tech and tools for a minute, because what our friend who's listening to this doesn't know is that we're not editing out pauses for you to go and look up data somehow. It's actually surprising me because I'm not going on at length asking you most of these questions and you're coming up with stats. So kind of talk about like, what is kind of the set of tools that you're using to run this process and run your life? Feel free to go a little bit broader with that.

1:21:48 Brian Hicks: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. So the tools that are enabling all this, so the first one is HubSpot, you know, big shout out to HubSpot. The user interface is extremely straightforward, very simple. Literally my, you know, if I had a 9-month-old or 9-year-old nephew, he could hop on HubSpot and figure it out probably. I love the ability to access pipeline, access everybody's pipeline, my pipeline, filter deals based on any criterion you could possibly imagine. And I can see everything. I've created dashboards that allow me to see everyone's pipeline in real time and see my pipeline as well. So HubSpot's first and foremost the automation of tasks. I can technically automate all of those follow-ups as well that I have tasks for. I could create sequences of follow-up, but every deal that I have is nuanced and I don't follow up with them all. You know, I might, you know, 70% of them or 60% of them might say, yeah, a week is fine. But then there might be some that go, no, actually, can you give me 2 weeks before you follow up? Yeah, absolutely. I'll set my task for 2 weeks. And so Oh, and also the other thing I failed to mention, I have 82 deals in need time. Need time is a deal or prospect that has expressed interest in working with me but has also requested specific follow-up greater than 45 days out. So if they say follow up with me in 2 months, I then put them in need time so I don't forecast on that deal, but then I put a task for 45 days or whenever they ask me to reach out to them, and there's 82 in there. Right now. Now, outside of that, I use Slack for internal communications. You all are, I'm sure, extremely familiar with Slack. I use PandaDoc, shout out PandaDoc, for contracts so that I build all contracts in PandaDoc. We use Trello to do some project management around the ideal client profile. Google is my friend in terms of just sharing docs, building training material, building, if I have to, you know, if I have that that big enterprise-sized company that needs me to build a presentation for them specifically, I use Pitch. We use… what else do we use? We've got a lot of them. There's a lot of different tools that we leverage.

1:23:50 Scott Ingram: I only care about the ones that are most important and impactful for you.

1:23:54 Brian Hicks: Yeah, the biggest one when it comes to my daily is Belkins developed a software called Folderly, and Folderly is really the secret sauce that has enabled Belkins' success. It's a deliverability platform platform that ensures that the messages that you send go into the inbox of the recipients. We launched it as its own business 2 and a half years ago. We don't sell it to competitors of ours because it's the secret sauce that really enables our campaigns to be successful. But I use it with my mailbox. So if I send messages, I know that they're going directly into the inbox. But yeah, that really, with Folderly, that sums up pretty much all of the tools that I use in terms of, you know, executing the sales journey and doing follow-up and things like Nice.

1:24:36 Scott Ingram: Nice. I want to take a super abrupt left turn because you dropped a thread for me a little while back that I want to pick up. So, you know, we're going into extra innings with this conversation, but I'm enjoying it too much. You talked about just kind of living the digital native lifestyle, right? You're living all over Europe and living out of a suitcase. Just give me the highlights from that, like lessons learned. What were your favorite places? What would you recommend to other people that want to to try out that route?

1:25:03 Brian Hicks: Oh man, the digital nomad lifestyle was very intimidating to me at first when I thought about it, but I'd always wanted to. I'd always thought, you know, you talk to those people like, oh, I'd love to travel around the country and I'd love to just be… have that opportunity. And, and I thought, like, it hit me in a moment where I had just ended a relationship. My… unfortunately, this sounds… I, I just realized this sounds like a bad country or good country song. I just ended a relationship My last English bulldog had passed away and I was looking around. Now you get the joke. Now I was looking around and I was like, man, I've got nothing tying me to Denver. I'm pretty much as free as a bird as I want to be right now. And so maybe I'll just give it a shot. And I took my first trip and it was really a business trip. It was that first trip to Ukraine to see the team and meet everyone face to face. And like I said, it was initially going to be 3 weeks and I wound up making it last 8 weeks. And I traveled around the country and I thought the objections or the fears and uncertainties and doubts that I had built up in my head is that logistically it'll be tough and it'll be so expensive. And, you know, you've got to be careful. These countries are dangerous. Oh my gosh, if I couldn't have been more wrong. Yeah. Then fast forward 2 weeks after getting back to the States, I'm in a shooting. That's ironic. Um, but yeah, I mean, my best advice to anybody that's considering this is take a trip. Just, I know it sounds scary, but just plan your flight, plan to be at an Airbnb, or plan your stay for, you know, a couple of weeks at your destination first. And it doesn't all have to be mapped out. Travel is way more accessible in a lot of these areas and countries than what it is here in America. It is much less expensive than what you expect. And you can do a lot of this on the fly. It doesn't have to be a completely fully blown mapped out plan for it to work. Best places. I mean, I love Italy. I've spent, I probably spent a year in Italy in the last 2 and a half years. No joke. Rome is incredible. If you're into history, I mean, just standing in the same area that the gladiators fought or that Caesar was assassinated, seeing the Last Supper. That Da Vinci painted in real life and being in the same room of the painting. I think Italy probably… it's really mind-blowing. That said, for everyone that, you know, I know this is going to sound crazy, but Kyiv, Ukraine is the best-kept secret in Eastern Europe for sure. It is incredible. The people are amazing. Obviously, you know, I don't endorse going there right now. I actually… I went back there in December of last year because we still have some team members there and I wanted to go spend some time with them. So So I kind of took some risk and, you know, in the middle of this conflict and went back to see them. But, you know, once this thing… once this conflict finally subsides and they find some type of a peaceful resolution and you're able to travel there, I would put Kyiv on the top of your list. You will not be disappointed. Poland… Warsaw is really beautiful and incredible. There's a lot to see out there. I know, I mean, it's tough because everybody loves Rome, but Rome was just mind-blowing. It was so incredible. You can do so much. You know, everything's relatively close.

1:28:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:28:14 Brian Hicks: And the food, just trust me, the food is out of this world. I go for the food.

1:28:20 Scott Ingram: So good. So my design team is in that part of the world, and it's always interesting to kind of compare and try and, you know, just share how different the scale is. I mean, I live in the middle of Texas. I have to drive like an entire day to get to another state. If you overlay Texas on Europe, that's like six countries that I would have visited for for me to drive through East Texas.

1:28:47 Brian Hicks: Yeah, it's so crazy.

1:28:49 Scott Ingram: It's wildly different. It's so cool to be able to get that kind of perspective, like all of it, right? The food, the culture, just the difference is fantastic. And you know, just the way the world is anymore. Gosh, like most of us are in a position to kind of. Do that now, you know, like the hardest part for me is girls in high school. Like that's a little more stationary, but man, the opportunities to just get out and travel and experience and do all this stuff is amazing. And I love that you got the opportunity to really take advantage of it. What's next? Do you have something on your bucket list or something planned?

1:29:21 Brian Hicks: Yeah. So that's an interesting question. So I actually, on that very first trip, I met a girl in Ukraine who I connected with and we kind of stayed in touch. I didn't know where, you know, if it was going to go anywhere, where would go. But very recently I got her a visa to come to America. And so she arrived here July 4th, and we don't know how long she's going to stay, but we've dated seriously for the last year. She lived in Italy, which also lended well because I spent a lot of my time there. So she's here in America now. I don't know how long this period is going to be, but I definitely have Southern Europe along the coast. I want to go to Montenegro. I want to spend time in Greece. I want to go to Croatia. That kind of, that area right there is definitely the next on my list. I also, I want to go back to Istanbul. If you haven't been to Istanbul, oh my goodness, it is amazing. But I didn't spend a lot of time there when I went last time. And so I want to go back there as well. But yeah, I mean, listen, if you're in a spot where you can do this and you're able to just take a leap, go out there. It's not as crazy as you think. Like, even do it solo, you know. I thought that would be the scariest part. People are kind. They're not mean. They don't have any ill will in most cases. Like, all of these fears you're building up in your head, just like I did, just take a leap and do it.

1:30:37 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's awesome. You know, Greece and Croatia is so high on my list. That was actually the last trip that we had booked pre-pandemic that completely came apart. Yeah, we haven't put that one back on the schedule, but man, I can't wait. We had some great Airbnbs picked out too. So anyway, we'll get back to it. All right, back to our regularly scheduled programming. Thanks for taking that detour with me, super fun. I always like to dig into in excruciating granular detail just the way that you structure your day. So the way I like to ask this is, your alarm clock goes off, tell me what time that happened. I want a pretty detailed blow-by-blow until your head hits the pillow again.

1:31:17 Brian Hicks: Yeah, absolutely. My alarm clock goes off right around 8 o'clock in the morning. Sometimes I'm up before it, but usually I'm up by, I'm up by 8. And it depends on the day, right? Like, I'm a human. I'm not David Goggins. I'm not a machine. I'm not the guy that's going to be like, this is my regimen, this is what I do every day, I follow this like clockwork, I am the law. I hit snooze. Listen, sometimes I hit snooze. I fly by the seat of my pants on a lot of things, and then a lot of things I try to have discipline and plan the work and work the plan on. When it comes to my workdays though, I really do thoughtfully build my schedule and I build my plan based on what's on my calendar. So, you know, like I mentioned earlier, I keep my calendar open from 9 AM till 10 PM Eastern time right now because I'm in Indiana with my family. And that time, what that means is that anybody can book a call for me during that time frame from 9 AM to 10 PM, 13 hours, anybody can book a call. And sometimes that means that I have 13 hours of sales calls. This last Monday was one of those days where I had 14 calls booked and some of them were back to back. And so the day before, I'll plan what I'm going to do and how I'm going to approach my next day. My alarm will always go off an hour and a half to 2 hours before my first call is supposed to be had. And then that, you know, immediately my routine, I have a couple of things that I do. So one of the things I have a, I don't know if you'd call it an anecdote or an adage that I was told. I'm sure he didn't think of it. He was probably told it too. But one of my mentors propositioned me when I was having a bad day. I was just, I wasn't closing deals. I had had a rough month. I was pissed. I was mad at the world. And I had just started the day and he was like, man, what's wrong with you? What's with your attitude? And I was like, I'm just shitty. I'm just not happy right now. And he he pulled me aside and he was like, listen, I got a question for you. And I said, okay. And he said, if I offered you $10 million right now, I'll give you $10 million, but if you accept it, you will not wake up tomorrow, what would you say? And I stood there and I Thought, man, I could do a lot with $10 million, but I've only got, you know, 12 hours left in the day. I won't wake up tomorrow. I guess I could give it to my friends and family, but I wouldn't even be able to enjoy watching them use it or spend it or invest it. I looked at him and I said, I'd have to tell you no. And he said, so what you're telling me is, is that just you waking up tomorrow, just you opening your eyes tomorrow is worth more to you than $10 million. And I mean, listen, I think about that anecdote, whatever you want to call it, that little story. I think about it every morning, every single morning, because I'm not a morning person. I don't like mornings. If I could set my alarm clock, if I could set my calendar to being available at, you know, noon and then being available till midnight, I would rather do that that because I hate mornings. But I tell myself that every single morning. I remind myself, listen, this day is worth more than $10 million to you, so make the best of this day. What you do, do it with intention, do it with passion, do it with authenticity. And I put myself through that in the morning. And I have a process of affirmations where I will tell myself… right now my affirmations are, you are good, You are honest. You do right by people. You are more than enough. Now go prove it. That's what I tell myself. That's what I've been telling myself for the last few months. And then I also will text. I usually, and it's a random, it's kind of a random order, but I'll text like 2 to 5 people in my life, just a good morning message, a reason that I love them or one of my favorite things about them, or, you know, why I'm happy that they're in my life. I'll just wake them up with that in the morning. And that really sums up kind of my internal routine before I start working. And then when I sit down and I open up that laptop, usually with a cup of coffee in hand, I will evaluate my day. So I go through my calls, I look at what I have prepared for the day, and then I start doing manual prep on everyone that I'm going to talk to. Manual prep, meaning I go in and look at the call, I go into the deal record, and I look at how that call was driven to us. Was it an inbound lead? Was it an outbound lead? I look at who am I talking to? Who is the company? Open up their website. I open up their LinkedIn. I open up the individual's LinkedIn and I start doing some prep work to see what their story is. Everything that I can learn about them before actually talking to them. I look for anything that might be inspiring or anything that might be, you know, worth calling out. If I could start that call in a different way, you know, from the onset and say, hey, listen, I saw that you just got promoted to CMO 2 months ago. Man, congratulations. You've been with the company for 4 years. Like, how do you feel? Do you like it? Like, if I can open up that call with something like that, it always lands better with me and it's more meaningful. And it also gives them an opportunity to stop for a second and go, man, I did get promoted 2 months ago. And so I learn as much as I can about them. If it's a startup, I go to Crunchbase to see if they have funding. How much funding do they have? Who are their investors? Then I look up the investors and what types of projects they invest in. I look and see if they're just the cutthroat Silicon Valley investors or if they actually are passionate about helping the projects that they invest in go to market and get to market and succeed, or is it just an exit strategy? I do as much prep as I possibly can about the calls that I'm going to be taking before I actually start the calls. The last call that I prep is the first call that I take, and then I do refreshers. I have a built-in buffer in my calendar of 15 minutes between calls. So in most cases, not every case, but in most cases, my team and my scheduler will not book me back to back. It'll book me a call, 15-minute buffer, another call. So I'll always have a little buffer to go back through my notes. And I'm taking notes and I'm doing it manually that way because I feel like I retain the information better. But I'm going back to my notes and I'm refreshing myself before I talk to that next person. And then depending on when the day ends, right? So I have within that, you can imagine I have several follow-up tasks that I have to complete. I live in the Tasks to Do tab of HubSpot so I can see what tasks do I have to do today. I can check, did I miss any from yesterday? Usually I don't with the help of a sales support assistant that I have named Lyra. Shout out to Lyra, you're amazing. And I make sure that my day is closed when I'm done. You know, usually if I get off a call and the call goes well enough, I've got probably 15 to 20 minutes of work to do to take notes and translate my notes into the deal record. Update the stage on that deal, highlight a priority of that deal, and then I'll of course set my follow-up for that person. Whenever I do a discovery call, they can expect an email from me with a summary of what we've discussed within 5 to 10 minutes of us talking, and I give them my word that they'll have it. And so I immediately get to work and build all of that and get it all done. And then once that last call is had and I'm done and I shut this laptop, then it depends on where I'm at in the world. If I'm in Rome, I'm leaving and I'm going to see something, or I'm taking a walk. I try to get outside as much as I can. I believe in the power of vitamin D and getting a little fresh air and, you know, getting under the sun, even if it's just for 10 minutes and just going out and walking, you know, walking around the block. I'll do it. If I'm home in Indiana, I walk out, I see my mama on the, at the table and I give her a hug and kiss her head and I tell her that I love her. And I tell her that I'm done with work today and see if what we're eating, if she's cooking or if I need to order food, go and see my brother who lives right next door. I'm the only one in my family that moved away from home. My sister lives half a block away. And so I'll go and spend time with them. If I'm in Denver, it all depends on what's on the menu in terms of, you know, spending time with friends or going to the park and having some alone time. Like I mentioned, I'm not the traditional, like, I have everything planned. I really do listen to my body and I listen to my mind, and sometimes I'm feeling company and sometimes I'm not feeling company. So I account for that by usually not making a lot of plans in advance unless it's necessary. But I listen to myself, and if I feel like I need a walk or I need to go to the park I want to go and have a happy hour pizza and a couple drinks and meet some new people, I'll do that. But yeah, my life is very intentional, and, and I want to make sure that I listen and that I do things that I can be proud of when I go lay my head down at night. I want to feel accomplished, and I want to feel like I've left the world a better place than what it was before I started my day. And so, you know, that might sound a little heavy to some, but that could just be as simple as opening the door for someone or looking at someone and asking them how they're doing, but actually meaning it. And so yeah, that's my, you know, from eyes open to eyes closed.

1:40:03 Scott Ingram: Nice. What time are you typically closing your eyes?

1:40:05 Brian Hicks: Uh, 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock in the morning. There you go.

1:40:08 Scott Ingram: There you go. Any other habits, routines, processes that you have that are just kind of central to the way that you live and operate?

1:40:17 Brian Hicks: Yeah, absolutely. So I have a couple of colleagues of mine that I regularly speak with. One of my best friends is named Alex Moore. He's a partner at a VC firm called 8VC. He lives in Austin. We check in with each other very regularly about life and about business. It's important to have, like you mentioned earlier, Scott, it doesn't surprise me that your therapy really came from your association and from your community versus professionals. The reason that it worked for me is because they had a specific problem to solve. You know, they can't solve your problem because they don't know how to fix that, but other sales professionals can help. And Alex has really been my guiding light in a lot of scenarios. We met Actually, a crazy story. We met in Las Vegas through mutual friends on a party mission and became the best of friends. And now we've been so much for each other… confidants, associates, colleagues, guiders for each other. And then I have a couple other colleagues that I check in with on a weekly basis. I'm always reading 2 to 3 different books right now. Those books are… well, one book specifically that I read every single year that I started a little bit later this year is called Never Split the Difference, and it's by Chris Voss. It's about negotiating tactics and different tactics. If you know Chris, it's about, you know, he was one of the top hostage negotiators within the FBI, and he takes those tactics that he used and he puts them into the real world and helps you understand from a sales perspective how you can leverage some of those really awesome kind of interesting tactics. I read that book every year since it came out. I have another book called Memories, Dreams, and Reflections by Carl Jung. That I'm reading that is a really long read. It's more about theology and philosophy. And then another book by Daniel Pink that I'm reading called To Sell Is Human. I'm almost about halfway through that book, and I would recommend that book. That's… Never Split the Difference is definitely recommended. I read it every year just to remember kind of to stop when people say something and to, you know, we… our immediate reaction is just to respond, but he really helps you kind of keep things in focus and realize that there's value to stopping and listening and then kind of rehashing and summarizing what people tell you. Value for you and value for them. And then also To Sell Is Human is one that, you know, I'm halfway through. I think I can endorse it. And that, you know, I'm always reading 3 books at a time. I'm running 3 of them. And when I get done with one, I put another one in its place. And so that's something that has been constant, very constant for me. The only other practice that I I think is something that I do, and I don't know a lot of reps that do this, but I would highly, highly recommend it. It's going to be awkward for you at first, but I listen to 3 pitches a week of myself. I go back, I record all my calls, and so I go back and I listen to 3 pitches. I'll pick… sometimes I pick them at random, sometimes I'll look at, you know, once I get an email from somebody that says, hey, we decided to go with a competitor of yours, Nothing you did wrong. And whatever the case, it's fine. Once I get that message, I might go back to that pitch and I'll listen to it. And I just listen to myself and I listen to my calls. I listen to 3 calls a week, usually from the previous week or the previous few weeks, just so I can hear how I'm presenting the product, how I'm presenting myself. I can hold myself accountable to, you know, am I staying true to my values and true to what I believe, or did I lose sight? You know, sometimes I lose sight too. You know, when you're talking to 10 to 12 new business calls a day, Sometimes it's like, all right, what do you want? You know, I get it. I'm not perfect. So I want to keep myself humble and I want to keep myself focused on what my mission is, which is that angle of authenticity and that element of being real and genuine and building real connections with people. And recording your pitches and listening to them has severely helped me with my future presentations because I get to hear myself. I hear how many times I go, um, Or I hear how many times I go, but, or I hear how many times somebody says something and I just immediately give them a response because I was just waiting to pounce on that question instead of stopping and acknowledging that they said something valuable and then asking them to give me more detail or asking them to expound on it. It really helps me. So I would recommend that.

1:44:21 Scott Ingram: Hey, Brian, on that point, how do you pick which 3 calls you're going to listen to?

1:44:26 Brian Hicks: Yeah, so usually it's the failed ones. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, usually it's the ones that, you know, somebody emails and goes, hey, we've evaluated your solution and we really appreciate your time, but we're not gonna move. We're gonna go with somebody else. I mean, if somebody says we're gonna make a decision on this in 6 months, that's okay. But when somebody says we're gonna buy from somebody else, I truly… if I took them through the sales journey, then it means that I think Belkins is the best fit for them. So that's the first thing I have to acknowledge. I'm not selling Belkins to people if I don't think that it's the perfect perfect solution for their needs. So if I get them to the contract and they come back to me and say, hey, we're gonna go with somebody else, I feel like I have failed them because they're going to go with somebody who is inferior to us, somebody who won't deliver on their promises. Like, I know, don't get me wrong, they're a comp… not all companies are bad. I just am so afraid they're gonna buy from a science-type company where they're going to be upset, they're going to waste $17,000 or $15,000 or $20,000 Working with a con, 3 months of their life working with a company that's not going to do right by them. And so I feel like I failed them. So I want to go back and listen and see what did I miss? Did I, you know, did they tell me, is there something I could have picked up on? Is there something that I could have red flagged that would have told me, hey, you should have stopped and acknowledged this more and spent more time building value around this part of your process? So that's usually what I use as the indicator and which ones I listen to.

1:45:54 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Brian, do you have a process for circling back and checking on with those that make another decision? Because I would guess that most of these contracts aren't… they're not super long-term, right? It's not like they're locked in for a year or 2 and like, oh my God, that's lost. Do you circle back and kind of see how it's actually going for them?

1:46:10 Brian Hicks: Yeah, you better believe it. You better believe it. And I even will tell them. So when somebody says, hey, we're going to go with somebody else, I'll reach back out with the follow-up and I'll say, I really appreciate the transparency. I hope that everything goes perfectly and I wish you nothing But the best, or I wish you all the best. I don't like saying negatives, so I won't say I wish you nothing. I'll say I wish you all the best. If it's okay with you, I'm gonna set a reminder just to check in in two and a half to three months to see how things are going. If things haven't gone how we are hoping that they go, then maybe you'd like to revisit the conversation with me then. If things are going well, you can just let me know. I'll give you a high five for being the gravy train, or however you want to word it. And absolutely, I'll set a reminder for myself. I'll still put them in close lost. Because, you know, I didn't get that deal closed. That way, you know, if they come back to us as a lead, they can go to anybody within the team. I don't want to, you know, keep them necessarily from, you know, being with somebody, you know, finding a different rep, because maybe a new rep would be able to close them when I couldn't. But yeah, absolutely. I'll check back in, you know, 2 and a half, 3 months. Hey, this is Brian. I'm checking in with you just like I promised that I would. How have things been going with the company that you decided to work with? You know, let's see. I'll say like, send me a a thumbs up if things are going amazingly, a thumbs down if things are horrible and you don't want to talk to anybody in B2B Legion, or click here to book a call so we can talk about getting things back on track. And that'll be a link to my calendar. I try to be as human as possible, you know, in my follow-ups. If people don't respond to me, my like final follow-up is the subject line is, is it something I said? And I'll say, hey, listen, I've reached out to you probably 20 times knowing how persistent that I am, but I can't even count them. Either you're not interested, you've quit and moved on and they forgot to make a note on your email, so you're still receiving these messages, or you've fallen and you need me to call help. This is my last try. If you don't respond, I'm still not going to message you again, so don't feel like you need to let me know. But if you get this and you like to let me know, I'm here. And so, you know, that's… I keep my word. I definitely do follow up. You wouldn't be surprised There are a lot of companies that don't deliver and people come back to us and they're like, hey, yeah, we just wasted 3 months of our life and we'd like to talk to you guys again.

1:48:20 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Again, I'm familiar with your space. I imagine that happens a fair amount.

1:48:24 Brian Hicks: A lot.

1:48:26 Scott Ingram: So you front ran my information diet question and I love the books. Is there anything else that you are consuming? Like, are, are you listening to podcasts? Are you watching videos? Like any place else that you're going to contribute to your ingredients?

1:48:40 Brian Hicks: Yeah, good question. So I'm consuming content from Josh Braun. If anybody knows Josh Braun, he's a sales development expert, leader, very human, very genuine. I met him and Becc Holland and Scott Barker at an event called Flip the Script in Denver. It was really cool. They were just, I mean, so real. And so I've always followed Josh since then. He puts out really great content and it's usually, I mean, he does have a couple of products that he's built, but it's not, he doesn't usually solicit it necessarily. He really He gives a lot of valuable content. I listen to Tim Ferriss. I really like listening to his podcast. I also listen to Jay Shetty for all the in-touch spiritual people out there. I get a lot from Jay just about being intentional and about being kind and just understanding that, you know, the things happen and it's about you, the way you react, and that life is, you know, life and circumstances is like water. It's about, you know, water is powerful, but where do you position that water? What do you purpose it for? And so those are, you know, 3 of the people that I like to listen to. I stay away from, I'm not throwing any shade, but I stay away from like the Grant Cardones of the world. I just feel like that content is so, it's regurgitated food from the same dudes just saying the same stuff to each other, repackaging it and putting it back out to try to make their brands and businesses bigger. Not that you can't get good stuff from them, but But when people start saying like, if you ever say, I'm just trying to follow up with you, I'll smack you because that's the worst opener. I don't subscribe to that type of stuff. Listen, you can say whatever you want if you're being real and being genuine. There are some no-nos in sales, but you usually find out pretty quickly which ones those things are. And so I'm all about building a process and being genuine and unique and authentic and trying things out. Test them out, test out different approaches, see what works for you. And, you know, just be memorable. Don't do what everybody else tells you to do and says. Will all look the same and sound the same.

1:50:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, I'm with you on all that. And so you say you don't subscribe to that. What do you subscribe to? Like, is there a particular sales philosophy you've adopted, or maybe you have your own?

1:50:46 Brian Hicks: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So the biggest thing for me that helps guide me when I'm having conversations is I always approach the discussion, a sales call, with the goal of learning more about them during that call than what they've learned about me. I try to walk away having more knowledge about them and their business than what they have about me and my business. It's not that it's like a game or a competition, but if you have that mindset and that focus, you're asking a lot more questions, you're giving them an opportunity to share, and you're really kind of positioning yourself in a different category than what they're viewing other sales executives. Because every other sales executive is thinking about how can I get your money. That's what they're all thinking about, and they're asking questions that will help them get their money. So if you're not doing that, then you're differentiating yourself. And so if I had a sales philosophy, it would just be, be genuine, be real, do right by people, and make an impact that you can be proud of. You know, do something that isn't just driven for the money. And it's amazing because it's like What's that phrase? It's like when you want nothing, you have everything. Listen, it wasn't until I stopped trying to close business so I could make a ton of money that I actually started closing more business and making more money. It's when my mindset shifted that I started closing more people at bigger deals and then started making even more money. And it's interesting now because now the money is not the goal. And so it's kind of an interesting mindset shift, but I approach every call like that. You know, try to learn more about them than they know about you. If, you know, at the end of the day, if you walk away having learned something, if they walk away feeling positive and feeling like you've impacted their life in a special way, then it doesn't matter whether they do business with you or buy from you or not. The business will come if you approach things like that.

1:52:34 Scott Ingram: Nice, nice. I want to do a quick cross-promotional plug here because I'm very bad at letting people know about some of the other resources we have available. You mentioned that you annually read Chris Voss's book. We've actually got a really cool series going on the Daily Sales Tips podcast. So every Wednesday is a tip in a series right now called Start with No that is coming from Jim Camp of Camp Negotiations. And Chris Voss got what he got and the system he developed after going through Camp Negotiations. So they're kind of the originator in a lot of space. I'm super excited about kind of the collaboration. We're doing with them, so I'd encourage you to check out that series. It's been I don't know like two hours at this point, so I'll plug the show notes page with all the links to all the stuff, some great quotes, all the great things that Brian's talking about. So again, top1.fm/brian-hicks or top1.fm/164, which is this episode number. Hey, I actually know it for once. That's where you'll find all of those details. Brian, you also mentioned two Daniel Pink books. I'm wondering if you have also read his book. Book Drive.

1:53:43 Brian Hicks: Yes, yes, Drive is a great book. Absolutely. I like the way he writes. I think that that's probably what keeps me… I mean, don't get me wrong, he's got great insight, but I think the way that he writes is really aligned with the way that I consume knowledge. And yeah, Drive is an incredible book as well.

1:53:58 Scott Ingram: Perfect. So talk to me about just like, what is it that motivates and drives you? How do you think about that?

1:54:05 Brian Hicks: I believe you can't motivate people. I don't believe people can be motivated by anything other than themselves. I don't know if that's true, I don't know if I'm right, guys. Listen, if you're listening to this, I'm not speaking on this as an expert. I'm just saying that's what my belief is. I believe that our true motivation has to come from ourselves. And my drive… and, you know, we can be inspired by other people, but I think that inspiration is what really helps us motivate ourselves to achieve and to become and to grow and to develop. My motivation is to I will win. At the end of the day, I will win. Now the difference is that before, winning to me was just always being number one and always closing more and closing the most and making a ton. Now to me, winning is different. Winning to me now… don't get me wrong, if it still goes hand in hand, I still want to be number one. I do believe that, you know, in life losers focus on winners and winners focus on winning. And I will always have an attitude of winning in my life. I will always be competitive. I will always want you to do well, but not quite as well as I do. That's just bred in me and my nature. I will help you, but from a superior position with my hand down to get you up. That's my mindset. But now my mindset is different, where the victory is really in your ability to create impact. And an impact is not just to your pocketbook. It's really impact to other people, impact, you know, whatever you're selling. If it's a solution that solves a problem, it's your ability to take people's headaches away. It's your ability to simplify their life with your product or with your service, whatever it is. If you're giving out haircuts, it's your ability to take a mop and craft a masterpiece. And so, you know, my drive is, it really is summarized in my desire to win, my desire to create impact, my desire to leave a legacy that I can be proud of that, you know, I don't have any kids, but if I did have them, I would want, you know, I could imagine that day when somebody comes along and goes, you know, your dad was one of my sales leaders and man, he was a man of integrity. Wow, he was one of my favorite people to work with. I know when we die, I don't know what happens to us when we die, but I heard Keanu Reeves say that, you know, when we die, a lot of people will miss us. And I just hope that I have, I've made a ton of positive memories with people and I've created a really solid impact on the world and the people that I've worked with and talked with and interacted with on a one-on-one basis. That's really my driving force.

1:56:39 Scott Ingram: Brilliant, dude. So Brian, speaking of impact, you know, like I just called out on myself earlier, I don't always do a great job of being a self-promotional kind of guy. I've got some mentors that are kind of pushing me in in this area. And the area where I work the hardest to create the most impact is very focused on 2 particular days in Austin every year, and that is in our Sales Success Summit. This year it's happening October 16th and 17th. The only people that you will find on the stage at that event are the people who have been on this podcast. So people like Brian, people that are playing at this level, sharing their insights. I have committed for the first time in a few years to getting back on my own stage. The first time I talked about my productivity process, because most people wonder how in the heck it is that I manage a multimillion-dollar quota, perform at the top of my own day job leaderboard, and produce these podcasts and the event and all, and work with the community and all the other stuff that we do. So actually, if you want to go check that out, if you go to top1.fm, this will be in the show notes also. If you go to top1.fm/bq4p, I think is what it is. Again, check the show notes for the exact link. That is the most recent version that I've done on my productivity process. But this year, I'm going to be talking about defunkification and just my own journey through getting through the burnout process. And at this point, I am absolutely claiming victory. I finally broke 3 just, just a couple of weeks ago and have been on absolute fire. So I'm super excited about sharing that story. And Brian just shared with me in a little sidebar he will be there, so you'll have an opportunity to meet Brian among many other people that have contributed to this podcast who are part of this community. And it is a next-level deal. One other link that we'll put in the show notes In addition to Brian's Sales Hacker article, I will share the breakdown, the recap that came from Sales Hacker attending last year's summit and what they had to say about it. It was really, really a special event, and my job is to continue to raise the bar every year, and I've got some things in store. So Brian, I can't wait to meet you in person. That's gonna be a blast.

1:58:59 Brian Hicks: Yeah, me too. I really appreciate that invitation, and I'm looking forward to being there and to immersing myself in the community, and hopefully meeting all of you and being able to spend some time with you and chat and connect. So thank you so much for the invitation. It's an honor.

1:59:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. So we were just talking about beliefs, and I would love to know if there's something that you believe that the average or typical or traditional sales rep would think is crazy.

1:59:23 Brian Hicks: Something that I believe that the average or typical rep… to you it might not sound like it's crazy, but My follow-up process is pretty nuts. I've actually written an article about this. It was my first article on Sales Hacker about how systematized the follow-up process is and how I will follow up until they tell me not to follow up. And I mean it. But I found in an article on HubSpot that the average sales rep follows up one time and that's it. And so that tells me that sales reps might think that my process is crazy, But there's proof in that process. And so I think, you know, it's not as sexy to say, but the follow-up process that I have is probably viewed as nuts by others. I mean, I send out… when you talk about activities, if you wanted to talk about numbers and activities, for instance, I've sent out, you know, in the past week, in this past week, I've sent out 407 email communications. That's, you know, intro follow-ups as well as just follow-ups. And so, you know, my follow-up process is relentless, but it is professional. And I think on paper it looks nuts, you know, when you think about it, because I don't…

2:00:39 Scott Ingram: Brian, now I need context. So is that the last full week or is that so far this week? Because we're recording this on a Wednesday.

2:00:46 Brian Hicks: Yeah, it's the last rolling 7 days. So technically it doesn't count. I don't work on weekends. I don't do anything unless it's like really compelling and I can't help it and I have to reach out to a prospect because something, you know, I saw something on a shelf or I saw a shirt that reminded me of them. But yeah, that's a rolling 7 days. So don't count Saturday and Sunday, but Wednesday to Wednesday. So 5 days.

2:01:05 Scott Ingram: Very nice. Very nice. What about the flip side? Is there something that the typical sales professional believes that you think is crazy?

2:01:13 Brian Hicks: If I consider myself the typical sales rep before, you know, in the previous life, I would say that thinking that you can can excel and reach your full potential on talent alone is insane. You know, not having a specific plan and map and process to execute on, your talent won't do it. It won't do it all. Also, I think that, you know, you know, I was raised on Glengarry Glen Ross and Boiler Room and all those sales, you know, the sales design movies where you talk people into stuff just so you can get rich. But, you know, I think it's crazy to approach sales calls with money on your mind nowadays. I think that a lot of sales reps do that. A lot of sales reps, I could sell ice to an Eskimo. I could sell a ketchup popsicle to a lady in a white dress. Okay. Kudos. Good job. But what is it all for? At the end of the day, you've just, you've oversold to 30% of the people that you've sold to that probably don't need half of what you sold them. Is that something to be proud of? I think that's crazy.

2:02:12 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. It's very possible that we have already talked about this thing, but I want to ask the question anyway. And that is like, what have been either the most important decisions you've made or the lessons you had to learn to really get to where you are today?

2:02:30 Brian Hicks: Yeah, I mean, that's a really interesting question. I think that, you know, for me, it's… I've had some awesome experiences. I've worked for some incredible people and organizations. And I've had, you know, people work for people more so than anything. They don't work for companies. And so it's not really the people that I also always think, it's not really the companies I always think about. It's the individuals that I really can't forget. But the failures are really, and I don't know if it's a, if it's a curse, but the failures are really what I focus on the most because that's really, if done right, your failure will change you so much. It'll train you. You so much, and it'll give you so much on how to ensure that doesn't happen again. It's really the conflict and the failure is where the opportunity lies. If everything was just going well, then you would never fix anything because nothing was broken. And so, you know, even though I talked about that experience with my previous employer about how absolutely devastating it was and how it really took the wind out of my sails for a second and made me question this industry as a whole, it's my greatest failure. It's my greatest failure because it's what led me to finding Belkins and finding Michael. And so, you know, it's an interesting question. I think that if it all boiled down, I take the successes with the failures, but the failures are the greatest. The greatest failure up to date was definitely me working for the folks that I worked for before I came to Belkins because I learned so much, even though I will never work with them again. I will never, I mean, I mean, it's interesting. The guy that blindsided me, the VP of sales called me and had the audacity to tell me that he hoped that we could be in each other's lives somehow. Like literally, like so delusional. I will never talk to them again, but it was the greatest learning experience for me professionally. It definitely helped me grow up and it helped me look in the mirror and recognize like, listen, like I don't believe I'm the best. I'll never believe that I'm the best. I'll never believe I'm at the top, that I'm the top person in my game. I'll never believe it. I'll never want to have, you know, a pedestal or credit or a trophy that says that I'm the best. If I do well, it'll come from someone else. It'll come from somebody else giving me an accomplishment or some type of recognition. But man, coming to Belkins was the best decision that I've made in my professional life so far. I've had many opportunities to leave this company for way more money. And the loyalty that I have for them is second to none. And we're really building something amazing. And I hope that the same for all of your listeners. I hope that they are listening to this feeling grateful about who they work with, if they work with somebody that's amazing, or listening to this going, you know what, I deserve that too. And I'm going to start intentionally trying to find it because they would be right.

2:05:16 Scott Ingram: Yes. Yes. That is becoming such a focus of mine. Right, is helping people find that place, right? Like find themselves, right? Because there's so much of your story that is about self-reflection, self-discovery, and understanding who you are and how you do best by being you, right? But there's also this element of that only works if you're in the right place that allows you to be that, where you have the level of belief belief that you have in what you're selling. Yeah, I want to help more people find that because too many people don't have it. You're like, yeah, the money is good, but oh my God, I'm like selling my soul every day.

2:05:59 Brian Hicks: Exactly, exactly.

2:06:01 Scott Ingram: My soul is not for sale.

2:06:03 Brian Hicks: Yeah, 100%. Mine isn't either. If you ask my mother, she'll tell you it's already been bought and paid for.

2:06:10 Scott Ingram: So Brian, what advice do you have for somebody that is just starting out in their sales career today and they want to go down the path of good, right? They're gonna follow the path of sales success. They're not gonna listen to that other GC guy that you mentioned, because that is definitely the wrong path. They're not gonna be led by Boiler Room and these other, these other movies that make you think sales is something completely different than what it really is when practiced at a professional level. What advice do you give them?

2:06:38 Brian Hicks: Yeah, that's big. If you're just starting out in sales and you really, you love the concept of sales, but you're looking at around you and you see that the people at the top don't represent methods that you feel like you can support and get behind, then I would suggest a couple of things. The first one is I'm a big believer in learning from the top. So I would still, if I were you, I would set up some time to talk to the people at the top to see why they're at the top and how they're at the top. I can promise you that even if they're dirtbags, there's something that they can tell you and something they can share with you that if you're just starting out will be valuable AF. It will be so valuable for you to learn from the people that are doing what you want to be doing. It's no secret that if you, you know, what do they say? You're the median of the 5 closest friends that you have and spend time with, that you're the median of that group. Same thing with sales. Top performers hang out with top performers. Winners hang out with winners. You don't see many winners hanging out in the loser circle. And so that said, there's a balance. And so take from them what you can get from them and then make your own process that you can be proud of. You know, consume as much knowledge as you can retain. You know, the human brain can retain like 3 or 4 topics at once, I believe. And be a student. You know, obviously when you're just starting out, there's no use in having a chip on your shoulder or having some type of, you know, I don't recommend going into an organization and trying to change the world or change things around them, but you don't have to sell your soul to be successful. And I'm evidence of that. I believe Scott's evidence of that. You can do things in the right way and you can do things differently. And you, there are people out there that just want you to get from point A to point closed, and you can take your own vehicle. You can build your own path on how to do it. They just care about the outcome. And you can do it and you can have more fun doing it. And then eventually you'll make more doing it than the people that are doing it now. So that's the advice I would give you. Be a student, focus on the basics first, which are needs, pain points, features, benefits, chat questions. Do not be afraid to… this is one of the best lessons I learned when I first got in sales. Do not be afraid to ask for business. If you have built the sales journey and you've taken them through the sales journey, You lose if you don't ask for the business. Look at them in the face and say, okay, so we've been talking for however long you've been talking, and when we started talking, you said this is what you need. This is what I presented. You've confirmed that this is what you need and this is what you want. So would you like to go ahead and confirm that this is what we're doing? Should I send you a contract for signature? Don't be afraid to ask for business. When they say yes, okay, great, I'm gonna send you that contract right now. When should I expect to have your signature? And then I'll just set a follow-up for the day after to tickle you and kind of nudge this to the top of your inbox just in case you don't get it signed by then. I just want to make sure I keep us on track to your timeline. Do not be afraid to ask for business and plan your follow-up accordingly. Don't be afraid to reach out to them if they haven't kept their end of the bargain, if they haven't done what they said. Listen, they're not lying to you. Life happens. People get in their own way. Things come up. It's our job to keep this in front of them. People will not get upset with you for following up. So those are the pieces of advice. That was kind of like drinking from a fire hose, so I apologize. But, you know, if I think back to when I was first starting in sales, I definitely wish I had learned the don't be afraid to ask for the business first, because I lost a lot of business because I just… people walk away from me without asking them.

2:10:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna give you one more opportunity, but you triggered me, and this might be a little bit premature, but I don't think so. I'm about a third of the way through a And I talked to these guys a couple of years ago while they were still working on it. So the book is called The Unsold Mindset: Redefining What It Means to Sell. And it is a really good… so far, like I said, I'm a third of the way through, so I'm hopeful that it maintains the through line and the alignment. But I think it's a really good articulation of just a lot of the lessons and the things that I have heard here talking to now you know, over 150 top performers, right? There are definitely some things to be gleaned. There's some commonalities. There are some approaches that are common to top performers. And the biggest of those, and one of the things this book really highlights and does such a great job of, is all of these top performers like Brian have found a way to be themselves and sell like themselves, right? There's this level of authenticity and realness, and it's not this thing that comes out of a book, and it's not Stepping into that role and pretending to be something you're not, like that doesn't work. So really enjoying that book. I may talk a little bit more about it. I'll probably sync back up with the authors once I get to the other side of it. So stay tuned. Maybe I'll get them on the Daily Sales Tips. But Brian, let's continue kind of the advice thread because I want to look at it from one other angle. So we talked about kind of the advice that you have for somebody that's just getting started. What about for that person that's stuck, right? Like, either, you know, they're into their career and either they're performing at a good level, like, I'm making my number, I'm doing fine, like, I've gotten to a level of good but I haven't yet found great, or they're in that burnout, I'm just, I can't figure this out stage. Like, what advice do you have for them?

2:12:02 Brian Hicks: Yeah, it's a good one. You know, my first advice would be to diagnose what it really is. You know, do some soul searching. And think about, you know, what it really is. Are you burnt out? You know, when you got into sales and, you know, think back to when you first loved it and when you first were passionate about it, what were the reasons? You know, what did you love about sales and what's changed? You know, what's been different? Is it the repetition? Is it the turn and burn? Is it the fact that you got a monthly quota and at the 30th, you know, the beginning of the 1st, you have to start that all over again from square one and climb that mountain again? And then once you get to the top of that mountain at the end of the month, you got to start all over and climb it again. What is it, you know, what is it specifically that is making you feel this way? And, you know, sometimes in order to do that, you might need to actually go climb a mountain. Like, I know that sounds crazy, but spend some time with yourself, spend some time by yourself, get away from the job for a second, take a trip, you know, take a weekend, spend some time by yourself and do some soul searching to see how you feel being away from the gig. Can you imagine? Sales is the love of my life. I can never imagine my life without being in some type of sales capacity because I love humans and I love people and I'm passionate about it. More passionate now than I've ever been, which is crazy because I've been doing this for 20 years. But look inside and diagnose what's changed. And if you're really not happy because it's sales, or are you just selling a shitty product, are you just working for a shitty company, or, or you got shitty leaders, like, you know, you decide. But diagnose it, dive into it, just like you would a prospect that called you with a need. Just like you would discover with them and ask them about their challenges and why they're having those challenges. Do the same thing for yourself. And then once you decide, that's your ability to take action. If it's something about the product, if it's burnout, listen, take a week if you're able to take a week. If you can't take a week, take some days, restrict your calendar, take some steps to find that loving feeling back. If you get to the end of that, you know, soul searching and discovery and you find that you're just not in love with sales anymore, you know, they just… the sales industry and the sales function just isn't as attractive as it used to be, and you just can't… you don't feel that fuzzy in love feeling anymore, then do something different. I know it's scary. I can't imagine how scary it would be. It would be really scary to me having built a career on sales and, you know, for 20 years and trying to think about, you know, being a carpenter. I think I couldn't even make a lamp or a stand or a chair. But listen, I want you to be happy. And if it's not sales for a specific reason, then figure out what it is and do that. But if you look at it and if you look at the diagnosis and you find that it's the product or it's the company, now you have to change that because that can be it. Or if it's the people you work with, listen, you can't expect companies to change because you're not happier because they don't align with you. You can't expect people around you to change because you don't appreciate the way that they do certain things. So, you know, don't try to change the world from within. It's not… it's probably not going to happen. You can probably set some boundaries and do some things that will give yourself a little bit of breathing room. But I would probably start searching and I would… what I would do is I would start with my network, with the people that I love and I consider trusted friends and confidants the most. People who are happy, that are talking highly about what they do, that you see them and they're always smiling. I would talk to them, see what their story is and see what they're doing differently. And then I would start networking and seeing, you know, what opportunities are out there and what you might be interested in. Start from square one. But at the end of the day, you deserve to be happy. So, you know, you deserve to feel adequate and to feel accomplished. And if you're not happy, then you're doing the industry, you're doing your prospects a disservice too. You're not giving them your best either. And so it's just better for everyone, just like me. When I went through that experience and Michael said, listen, I just want you to be happy and healthy. He never said it, but I knew that, you know, a happy Brian is the best Brian because I'm closing most of the, you know, I'm closing a lot of deals. But yeah, I mean, all in all, on the whole, being happy will make you better and it'll make everybody else better around you. And so the faster that you get back to there, the better off life is going to be for you. But don't take another night. Don't sleep another night if you're absolutely unhappy. Take some… do put a list together. And promise yourself that every day you're going to do something towards getting happier, to getting yourself back in love with sales if that's what the role, if that's what the description of what you need to do is, or you're going to get yourself back in love with your industry or back in love with your company or back in love with your product. Start having conversations with your leaders, but commit to doing something, one thing, at least one thing every single day. Jerry Seinfeld, when he was a comedian, well, he's still a comic, but he said when he was starting out as a comic, he he made it a goal to write a joke every day. One day, every single day, he would write at least one joke. That was his goal, and that's what he did. Sometimes he would write several, but there wouldn't be a day that went by where he wouldn't at least write one. And so at least do something, whether it's an activity, whether it's a search, whether it's a conversation, but be intentional about it because you deserve it.

2:17:11 Scott Ingram: Happy Brian is the best Brian. I love that, man. There's so many good nuggets in there. The thing for key, you know, that I think finally allowed me to break through was that time away piece. I saw the 4th of July was in the middle of a week, right? It was on a Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm like, okay, well, that whole week is shot. Half the people are going to take the first half of the week off, half the people are going to take the second week off. I'm gonna take the whole week off. Yeah, the greatest part about that… so 9 days, right? You, you add the weekends onto that stretch, right? I had 9 full days off. We took a really short vacation in that, right? We went down to the Gulf Coast for just a couple of days, which is great because the way that my family vacations is not relaxing. It's, it's very action-packed. It is. There's not a lot of white space in our schedule in the way that we do our vacations. So the fact that most of that time was just kind of hanging around home and I really unplugged, right? I was really clear, like, look, I'm not going to respond to emails. I'm just not freaking here. I'm going to unplug from this. And that allowed me that space that I needed to finally come back to like, what's the why? Like, what's really behind this? What really drives me? And reflecting back on so many of those conversations that I had had with my network, and I realized, wait, this is the thing, like this network and this community that is so impactful and, you know, really working harder on bringing the best of the best together is an amazing thing, right? To draw that inspiration, to find these stories, to just have those real connections, right? It's one thing to listen to a podcast. That's awesome. You can get ideas from that. It's a whole different thing to actually have a conversation with Brian and for Brian to say, man, Scott, have you thought about this? Why aren't you doing that? Have you talked to this person? You know, like, can I introduce you? You know, like, can I help you get on this right path to be at the company in That you really deserve, that you're worthy of.

2:19:11 Brian Hicks: Yeah, that's really incredible. You're hitting the nail on the head. I heard a quote, and it was like it might come from like a relationship social media page that I follow or something that said, "In order to truly love yourself, one must be alone." It falls true when really trying to look deep within. So it's really you're on point. You're hitting the nail right on the head. I think, Scott, and it's awesome.

2:19:31 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. Well, so speaking of all of that and being together at the summit, what's the thing that you want to know? About top sellers in other organizations?

2:19:41 Brian Hicks: Yeah, it's a good question. I had a conversation recently with a gentleman that's kind of building out his network and his following, and he's trying to build out a… he's basically you however many years ago, you know, 165 episodes ago, you know, he's starting out. We had a conversation kind of related to this topic. And, you know, I think I would be curious around specifically their main sources of guidance. I love learning from individuals who who've been there or are where I want to be. But I think that as you climb, the air gets rarer. And so when you get up here to a certain level, you have less mentorship and less guidance one-on-one. There's less support. You're kind of on your own in a way a lot of times. And so I think, you know, if I were talking to people that, you know, are in that top 1%, I would really be curious to see like how they keep themselves learning. Don't get me wrong, I'm my own motivator. I listen, I'm a student, I study, I teach myself a lot. But man, it's nice to have somebody that's like, oh yeah, I remember when I was in that spot. Scott, this is what I do and this is how I would deal with that. So that would be really meaningful. I also, you know, I'm always curious around like the worst advice that they were given when they were coming up in sales or, you know, I want to hear the story of like, what's the lesson that you learned from the worst leader that you had or the lesson that you learned from the biggest deal that you messed up or the failure that you had because of… and that goes along with, you know, it probably doesn't surprise you because my failures are what I focus on in terms of not like punishing myself, but just learning and teaching myself And so I see a lot of value in that.

2:21:10 Scott Ingram: I'll bite, man. What's the worst advice you've ever been given?

2:21:13 Brian Hicks: Oh man, fake it till you make it, probably. I mean, it's the worst and the best advice, but depending on what you're doing, it might be good advice for somebody that's in a really entry-level general value proposition company that doesn't have a very complex offering. But man, you can only fake it so much before you look like a fool. Be a student until you can actually make it and then fake it. If you have to fake it, make it a limited amount of time Because that advice has put me in some pretty embarrassing spots trying to fake a conversation that I couldn't really have, or, you know, portray myself as an expert on something that I couldn't really speak to and then wound up looking like an idiot. So I don't know, I'd probably say that's probably one of the worst pieces of advice I've been given.

2:21:53 Scott Ingram: That's funny. I hear that, right? Because if you think about it, what that is is a suggestion to be 100% inauthentic.

2:22:00 Brian Hicks: Absolutely.

2:22:01 Scott Ingram: And honestly, Man, I love the I'm not there yet new spot. And you can lean into that and just say, man, I'm new, I'm trying to learn, can you help me?

2:22:13 Brian Hicks: Yeah.

2:22:13 Scott Ingram: And people want to.

2:22:15 Brian Hicks: Yeah, that's exactly… you're hitting the nail so on the head here because everybody has been in that spot. Everybody's been learning a new skill, learning a new language, starting out for, you know, a job for the first time and going through training. People are compassionate. It's much better than to just go, hey, I'm a couple days into this, or I'm a couple weeks into it. I had a new hire recently that I told him, I said, hey, listen, I'm going to introduce you on this call and you can lead the call. And I'll just say, hey, listen, this person's brand new. They just started with us and I'd like to observe them leading this call if that's okay with you. I'll still be here to ask questions. And they were like, yeah, but I don't want you to tell them that I'm brand new. I'd like to just position, I'd like to position the company and pitch that. And I'm like, okay. I mean, yeah, that's okay. I'm still going to be here. So I guess it's fine. Fine. But it's like, why are you worried about that? People will appreciate that.

2:23:02 Scott Ingram: Yeah, they'll give you feedback. If I'm on the other end of that, I want to know that you're new because I'm going to be so much more forgiving. I'm going to want to help you along the way, right?

2:23:09 Brian Hicks: Like, exactly.

2:23:10 Scott Ingram: Your boss is here. I'm not going to let you look bad.

2:23:13 Brian Hicks: Yeah. And most people think like that. Most people are like that. They're not hard to work with, or they're not going to have a scorecard out like, yes, you failed, you know? Yeah, it's crazy.

2:23:22 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

2:23:23 Brian Hicks: Yeah.

2:23:23 Scott Ingram: So wild, dude. This has been so much fun. I love that you love the Tim Ferriss podcast because my favorite Compliment is I'm the Tim Ferriss of sales, and with the way that this one's going to clock in, we're getting up there into that length of episode. But I do want to wrap it up, and I mean we have covered so so so much. I want to leave with something actionable. So what would you challenge our friend who's listening to do over the course of let's say the next week, maybe the next two weeks before there's a new sales success stories episode? What would you challenge them to act? Actually do to improve themselves and improve their results?

2:24:00 Brian Hicks: I would challenge all of you to, if you have the ability, to take 3 calls from last week or the week before, if you know, or even a few weeks before, if you know that that call didn't equal a sale, you didn't close the deal, take the recording from that initial discovery and any follow-up calls that you had, put them together. Listen to them, analyzing the calls as if you would… if you could imagine yourself being the best salesperson in the whole world analyzing an inferior salesperson sales call to open up dialogue areas they can improve. Write down your notes. Write them down as you listen to the call. Listen to the call and watch the time bar. And if the prospect says, we really need XYZ, at minute 4.03, and you go, okay, good to know, yeah, what we do, and you gloss over it, then write down on your notepad, 4.03, prospect mentions specific need, I glossed over it. Take notes as if you're a professor, as if you're the professor of sales, and analyze 3 calls. Analyze 3 calls a week for the next 2 weeks, and I promise you, you will get better.

2:25:17 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. Love it. Such a great idea. So actionable. Hopefully you've got a tool to help you record those calls and make that happen. I'm gonna issue my own challenge too. And that is, if you're here, if you have enjoyed listening to this as much as I have enjoyed having this conversation with Brian, do us both a favor. Go to top1summit.com, the number 1, T-O-P, the number 1 summit.com. And sign up to join us. If you get value from these conversations and this podcast, the summit is a whole different level. It's one thing to listen; it's one thing to consume. It's another thing to be a part of it and a part of the conversations and to build this type of network, right? To support you with mentors, with door openers, and people that are going to help you navigate your career and climb to a higher level. Level because the air is rarefied, right? We, we call it the Summit for a reason, right? There's not a lot of people that play at this level, and it's exactly why I built it. So if you're there and you're already performing at that level, you know there's another notch, and we want to help you find that. And if you're inspired and you want to get to the top someday and you're willing to put in the work and you're willing to be yourself, man, we want you to be a part of this with us. So come check it out. Come get involved in the community. Brian, seriously, man, this has been so amazing. Thank you for taking an inordinate amount of time with me to share this story and to share just so many great insights that I know are going to be incredible ingredients for those that listen, for them to make their own recipe of greatness. I appreciate you.

2:26:56 Brian Hicks: Yeah, Scott. Hey, listen, our time is the one thing we can never get back, and I am so grateful That you've spent the last three hours of your life with me chatting through this with me. It's been a real honor to be part of what you're doing. So thank you so much for having me. And if you've been listening, especially if you've been listening to this point, thank you for listening and for helping support the community that he's built and giving a platform for people to help improve everyone and to help everyone grow. It's been my pleasure. 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.