182: Resilience, Trust, and the Journey to Sales Mastery with Brian McCann

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you uninterrupted by our future sponsors. We're actually working on bringing on some new, highly relevant and meaningful sponsors to support the show and next year's Sales Success Summit. If that's you or somebody you know, go to top1.fm/sponsors. Also, a quick note about this episode. While my audio editor is absolutely amazing, shout out to Eamon, this final cut might feel just a little bit disjointed because Brian lives right next to an elevated train line in Chicago, and we had to edit out several dozen trains going by. So maybe you won't even notice, but if things feel just a little bit wonky, that's why. This episode brought to you by the Blue Line.

0:49 Scott Ingram: Scott, you are a legend. That was so good. You are now on the Blue Line train to O'Hare. 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.

1:24 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Brian McCann. Brian is the top recruiter at Scott Humphrey. Welcome to the show, Brian.

1:32 Brian McCann: Hey, Scott, how you doing?

1:33 Scott Ingram: I am doing really, really well. And I'm so excited to dig into this with you and really break away from the tech sales rut that I often find myself in. And you kind of called that out yourself. So I appreciate you reaching out and, and also for joining us at this year's Sales Success Summit. We're coming off just the back of that. So appreciate you being there.

1:50 Brian McCann: Yeah, Scott, it was great. You know, I've been following your podcast and listening to a lot of good people and it was just fun to see and meet the speakers. Like that was my favorite part and Going up to Shannon and Alex Smith and Jack, and I'm not gonna shout out all of them, but they were all wonderful and very giving of their knowledge. There wasn't much ego and it was so wonderfully, it was kind of like the bigger the star, the lower the ego. And it was kind of, that was cool. And I resonated with that. And it was just kind of like what I was speaking about with you just like 5 minutes ago is everyone felt high. We were all kind of hungover in between the days. So it was great.

2:27 Scott Ingram: Yep. And to be clear, what preceded that conversation is Brian and I are… Brian for sure is all the way sober. I'm mostly sober with occasional intentional lapses because I just kind of doing it for health reasons. But again, still felt like high during the day, but long nights, a lot of work for me. So felt hungover the next day even though I wasn't drinking.

2:47 Brian McCann: Oh, absolutely. It's funny, I told you I'm sober. I think one of the reasons I chose to be sober is to hold on to those natural highs and really focus on those. And especially at the Sales Success Summit, I'm like, this is a great reminder to why I chose to not drink. And that's my choice. I would never judge anybody else. That's just, that was just the right thing for me because I knew I was going to be high anyway. You know, it delivered for sure.

3:13 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. Well, let's jump in like we always do, immediate value. Let's talk about the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success as a recruiter.

3:22 Brian McCann: Yeah, thanks for asking. For me, the first one I would say is constant direct communication. Just kind of in my journey, it's been, I used to, when I first started recruiting, I've been in construction recruitment for 4 years and I used to kind of dance around things and I was so afraid to say things really directly. Like I was going to ruin a candidate relationship if I told them that they're asking for too much money, or I was going to ruin a client relationship if I told them that they're wanting too much experience for not enough money. And those are just examples, but learning to be direct. And that's been kind of the key, I think, to my success is building that trust by being direct. And that's not only candidates and clients, but that's teammates too. And that just helps with business development strategy. I know that I can speak directly and build that rapport quickly. So I have no problem reaching out to a client, a prospective client, 6 different ways within 10 minutes. I know that I can build a relationship fast just by being honest and being direct. I would say attitude. I coached CrossFit for 8 years from 2016, and I'm taking a break from it right now. I resigned earlier this year and really learned how to be with people and be very positive. And I think it's always just kind of the way I've been is very uplifting, and I think it causes a waterfall effect with people around me, teammates. I manage a team right now, and it helps them to kind of be more positive and lift themselves up, and then that helps create more opportunities for them and creates more opportunities for the whole team as well. The last thing I would say is kind of coming from my wrestling background, is resilience. I wrestled for 11 years, wrestled all the way through college, and I wasn't recruited. I loved wrestling. I was decent coming out of high school, but I knew I just wanted to wrestle. And I wrestled at St. John's… shout out… up in Minnesota, Division III school. And I developed a really good relationship with failure. I don't think I scored a point in the practice room for 4 months. A lot of black eyes, bloody lips, but I really believed that I could get up and score and get better. And that really helped me with sales and getting rejected on a BD call or having a bad closing call or candidate call. I'm able to pick myself up very quickly, which I did in the wrestling room literally multiple times. And it kind of helped me to love the day-to-day, love to train and the day-to-day efforts versus just being results hungry.

5:44 Scott Ingram: I've never wrestled, but having been around a good number of wrestlers, that seems like it's the ultimate gritty sport. I mean, the people who have that background Just they work. And I don't know, there is no end to the suffering that they can endure. It's really an impressive thing. So I'm sure that that's contributed a lot to just your mindset and your overall approach. I mean, you called it resilience. I think that's a great word.

6:08 Brian McCann: I mean, you nailed it. Like gritty, tough. I think about wrestling all the time and I was like, Brian, don't overspeak on wrestling in the podcast, but it's such a base for me. I went unrecruited, kind of walked onto the team and then graduated as team captain. But it was mainly because for me, I was like, can I be one of these guys? And then it became, can I be a leader on this team? And then it became, can I qualify for nationals? Can I do all this stuff? And was that gritty, tough kind of resilience of what you're talking about. But then it really grew into, I have no problem failing. Failure kind of wakes me up a little bit. It gets me into that flow state. So it's been a great transitioning over to sales for sure.

6:49 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. That's awesome. Let's contextualize. Talk about what is your role exactly?

6:54 Brian McCann: My role at Scott Humphrey is I manage the Texas team. We recruit in every major city. So Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, San Antonio. I'm out of Chicago. So it was kind of funny going to the summit in Austin. I was able to go see some clients. It was kind of perfect for me. It's full desk. So we work with candidates and clients, and now I'm in a leadership role as well. So working on a team and You know, for me, I'm always trying to… I don't want to say preach, but coach my consultants on it's all the same. The way we treat each other is the way we treat our candidates, is the way we treat our clients. And if you develop good relationships within the company, that will span everywhere else. It will make you money. And that's why I think about the day-to-day efforts versus the results. If I'm thinking day-to-day, I'm thinking relationships throughout my business and with my candidates and clients. And the revenue just shows up. And that's always my approach. If you tell me to run through a wall, I will. I had to learn to look for doors in the wall that I could just open and walk through. But I'm very focused on a relationship-first mindset with everyone, but also working smart while you're doing that as well.

8:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And then put your results in perspective for us. I mean, what has it taken to get to number 1? And it also sounds like you're kind of in a player-coach role at this point, right?

8:12 Brian McCann: Correct. Yeah. As always, you kind of have a choice if you want to be a people manager or an individual contributor. I wanted to be an individual contributor for my first year at the business. It wasn't my plan to be a team manager. I kind of thought about it, talked to my director about it, and just kind of decided to take it on. So I am in charge of productivity per head in our team, but my results so far this year, just over $400,000 in revenue for myself, and that's my first full year in the business. I've been I've been with the business for just about a year and a half, but as far as for a whole calendar year where the commissions reset in January, $400,000. So my goal is $500,000. I'm well on my way right now. But for me, it was just a proud point to get to number 1. I don't want to say fast, but within my first full year in the business, just to get in there and do it. And for me, it was just the hustle. It was learning the market, learning from candidates and clients about the market and being able to kind of study certain cities and GCs within those cities and be able to kind of put puzzle pieces together and then lead others to do that as well. But that comes with a lot of curiosity and again, a lot of resilience, a lot of failure. That's what was very special to me and has helped me get to my results.

9:26 Scott Ingram: I'm personally curious about, are you finding some markets hotter than others? I mean, I live in Austin, I've been here for the last 20 years, but I'm noticing we go through these waves of cranes, that we can see in the skyline. And I feel like we are in another absolute building phase in Austin. There's a lot of stuff going up. So do you see there's a lot more Austin going on or there's a lot more Dallas going on? Like, how do the regions pop up for you?

9:51 Brian McCann: Yeah, it's a good question. The first thing that comes to mind is Dallas. I mean, we just call it DFW and it always bothers me because when you look on a map, it's Fort Worth, Dallas from left to right. And I wish that it was just the other way around. But yeah, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth are kind of the main popping markets. San Antonio is a little bit less. We always look at it in 2 kind of different sectors. We do ground-up construction, nothing really civil like roads or tunnels or bridges, no wastewater treatment plants, all ground-up commercial or multifamily construction. Those 3 major cities, they're all in a building mode right now, every single one of them. The only thing that's really not happening is multifamily. Interest rates have been really high. So it's been tough for owners to get that kind of funding for projects to start multifamily. It's starting to go down. So we'll see where that kind of trends. But I keep hearing from clients to survive until 2025 for multifamily. But yeah, really all of them are popping. But we've seen probably most of our success within Austin and Houston. But we know that as the team gets bigger, there's a huge market in Dallas-Fort Worth as well.

10:59 Scott Ingram: Nice. Super interesting. Well, let's go back to the very beginning. And I want to hear your origin story. How'd you get into sales in the first place?

11:09 Brian McCann: I always laugh with this one because out of college I loved fitness. I love training and I love doing CrossFit and wrestling as well. So I'm like, I'm going to be a full-time CrossFit trainer. So I jumped right into that. And I did that for about 6, 7 months until I decided like, okay, this is the most fun job in the world. And I still believe that, but there's no money. Well, that's why I continued even when I got a full-time job. But there was a member at my gym who kind of approached me and was like, you ever think about a sales role? And at that point I really was. And I asked him, yes, I am. What do you do? And he goes, we sell industrial laundry equipment. And I said, okay. Like, it was so hard for me to wrap my head around. Do I really want to sell that? He took me out for coffee and just told me about it. And then he was like, it's not about the product. It's about me training you and all that stuff. So. That's kind of what I sold. If you've ever seen like Breaking Bad, they go downstairs in that industrial laundry and they tilt the machine forward. Those are the machines that I was selling. Kind of a crazy product, but that was a good base for me because, I mean, no joke, we were literally instructed. And by we, I mean I was the only sales rep. You know, maybe I think we had one other at the time. I was the only one just kind of, hey, go into a hotel, walk right past the front desk, find their laundry machines, take pictures of them, and then go to the… and then find the chief engineer and tell them the issues about the machine. And I mean, it was… talk about just guts going past the front desk and the amount of fear that I had, but learning that the success that I was able to get just by risking and realizing that it was just okay, even though maybe it's not the best thing to be doing, but it's something I'm instructed to do. And just kind of learning to be fearless as well. And then, yeah, and that was kind of my start in sales. And then COVID hit, and then I got into recruitment with my last company and ended up leaving that firm and then now with Scott Humphrey. But origin story again always starts with wrestling. But I think learning to be fearless in that first job of mine with the commercial, you know, not the most attractive job by any means, but I learned a really valuable skill emotionally, if you will. You're going to be okay no matter what. Just go for it.

13:25 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Well, now that you've seen and experienced a little bit more, if you could restart that journey now, would you take a different approach?

13:33 Brian McCann: Oh gosh, I don't think so. I like to use the term wonderfully messy, and I think my origin story in sales was wonderfully messy. That was how I describe it for me, because you learn things, right? You learn like, okay, I don't want to be selling laundry equipment for the rest of my life, but I learned this skill and I get to take that with me. It's kind of like you grab it and you put it in your bag and you take it with you. And then I wanted to have a company with better training. That was my next company. And then I put that in my bag and then decided to leave that company and then had this at Scott Humphrey where I'm empowered to be more myself and bring out my own style. And I put that in my bag again. It really starts from my career as an athlete before that and all I took from that. So you kind of add things. I'm using that term. I don't know where it came from, Scott, but, you know, putting things into my bag as I go, but not carrying the things that I wish I would have done better or differently. I think about regrets a lot, and I have a ton of regrets, but they're almost all I wish I had done different versus I wish I had done more or done at all. I don't love those regrets because it's like you're just waiting for every pitch to go by hoping you get walked. But I'd rather swing and strike out swinging 10 times. You're trying to get better.

14:50 Scott Ingram: So yeah, love it, love it. What are you most proud of?

14:53 Brian McCann: Gosh, what comes to mind actually, Scott, is how I got here. That's not what I'm most proud of, but kind of the resilience and kind of just swinging to see what I can get and being so okay with the failure. But I remember I reached out to you and I was like, hey, love to be on your podcast. And like, hey, come to the summit. And I got there and it didn't even become about the podcast. I remember telling my girlfriend, I'm like, I don't even care about being on the podcast. It's a great perk if it happens, but The learns and things I get along the way are just the thing about it. So I think the thing I'm most proud of is learning that skill, and I think it's really helped me be successful pretty quickly here at Scott Humphrey and get to number one as fast as I have. I think that's something for me to be really proud of as well.

15:41 Scott Ingram: Nice. What about the flip side? What do you struggle with the most? What challenges you?

15:46 Brian McCann: I think what challenges me is sometimes I get. Too focused on being number one. I think I'm very competitive. Again, goes back to being an athlete, but sometimes I look at the leaderboard in my company and I'm like, you got to stay number one or else it doesn't matter. And that's what I struggle with. Sometimes my ego gets in the way and I'm getting a lot better at noticing when that happens, getting support from my family and friends and even people within my business, and then getting back to loving the training again. And I think that is something that's a cycle in my life and it will be forever. Like noticing when my ego gets in the way and then rolling right back into what makes Brian great, which is the relationships, the loving, the caring, the listening, learning, and conversations like this.

16:34 Scott Ingram: Nice. Nice. I think it's super interesting because I'm also kind of ridiculously competitive. Finding the right balance, like how do you be healthy competitive? So that it's not damaging or you're going too far when this doesn't really matter?

16:48 Brian McCann: Yeah, Scott, you're asking a question that I ask myself every day. Like, I don't know yet. I think a healthy competitive… I mean, I know for me, I fight. You know what's weird? I think about this all the time. It's like the less I focus on the thing that I want, the more of a chance I'll get it. And if I want to be number one, I need to focus on the things that make me me and being a great listener and learning and loving the day-to-day. But when I'm focused on just being number one, I am stressed out. I am stressed out. My favorite match ever that I wrestled was a match I lost in college. I think it was like 16 to 10. It was a crazy score, but I was constantly moving, constantly attacking, just trying things. And I was just like almost being kind of an acrobat, just rolling around seeing what happens and scoring and getting scored on, but more so just again kind of swinging, right? Just doing the best I can. And that's when I compete the best. That's my healthy competitive. When I focus too much on winning, I might win, but I won't really get much out of it. I won't really win internally. Yeah, I think that's kind of healthy competitive for me at least.

18:00 Scott Ingram: Is it fair to say really focusing on being number one at the inputs the things that you know are going to get you there. Because if you perform in those areas, you know, the outcome is going to be there.

18:12 Brian McCann: That's the tough part, Scott, is like just trusting that the outcome will show up. That's the part that I'm like, you always hear the best athletes like, just focus on this, focus on this, focus on… and the results take care of themselves. Winning and losing take care of itself. I'm like, I have such a hard time trusting that sometimes. But yeah, focusing on those inputs. And I think Alex talked about this in his talk at the summit of like being your number one, number one listener, number one, whatever it is for you. And I think you're most likely to be number one on the leaderboard and be the most fulfilled.

18:45 Scott Ingram: I mean, it's such an interesting… I think we're all sort of continuing to process everything we learned at the summit. And I think that is one of those things. There was a lot of talk about sustainable success. I mean, it was really just a lot of thinking about how do we reframe this? And it really was like, you almost can't focus on it's all about being at the top of the leaderboard and being number one. It's no, no, no. I need to be great at a bunch of other things, and then that takes care of itself. And then obviously there was also just a lot of talk about one of the other things we need to be great about is taking care of ourselves. We got to be healthy physically. We've got to be healthy mentally in order to be great at the inputs so that we can be great at the end of the day.

19:26 Brian McCann: That's so well said. I think the self-care piece, I think it was what Brandon spoke about with the 10-3-2-1 rule and kind of taking care of yourself before you're going to bed and the things you need to be doing. But it's kind of like you got to take care of yourself to get those inputs, and you got to get those inputs to get the output, get the outcome, kind of what you said. But for me, the biggest thing for self-care is getting support. That's kind of the biggest thing. And the crux to my ability to take care of myself is calling people and being able to kind of see myself through others and how they're talking to me. Because sometimes the way I think about myself is just completely off. I'll think like, oh, maybe I'm not really that good, or maybe I shouldn't be in the position that I'm in, or maybe I got lucky, or whatever. And when I call my family and my friends and just my overall supporters, or even internally in my business, and to kind of just talk to them, even if it's just kind of like a ball of shame or something, and have them respond back to me, I'm like, oh, you're responding as if you love and care and respect me. Okay. And then I get to see myself through them, and it's like, gosh, I just need that. That's me every day. I do make calls to people because I need that kind of background. And I think that's what's helped me kind of be successful so quickly here is getting that support every day, just so I'm not letting myself get into a hole.

20:45 Scott Ingram: That is super interesting. So let's go deeper into that and pull apart your whole day. My favorite part is walk us through kind of a day in the life. Your alarm clock goes off. Tell me when that happens. And I want pretty detailed blow-by-blow until your head hits the pillow again.

21:00 Brian McCann: That's great. Yeah. I think for me, when I'm waking up, it's anywhere between 5 and 6:30, and I go for a morning walk every single morning. I'm so hard on myself about it because I told myself I would get a streak of like 365 days, but things happen.

21:16 Scott Ingram: And you live in Chicago.

21:17 Brian McCann: And I live in Chicago. Yeah, absolutely.

21:20 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

21:21 Brian McCann: So obviously there's things you got to watch out for and it's cold. But yeah, that is something I learned too, especially working from home. It's something that I really need. So I use the Strava app. I try to get 5 miles every morning, which takes about an hour and a half. I do that. I feed our cat, make some coffee for myself and my partner, and then get on my way. And then I listen to, it's called the Success Hotline. It's Dr. Rob Gilbert. He's on the East Coast, and it's the number that you call and it's a voicemail every single day. It's different. I listen to that. It's my first thing. I listen to NPR News Daily. But yeah, I do the Success Hotline, then NPR News Daily, just a 4-minute kind of run-through of the biggest things that happened kind of in the day before. And then I listen to a podcast. I go anywhere between Sales Success Stories as well as one of my favorite ones is How to Take Over the World by Ben Wilson. I think you'd really like it, Scott. I think the way you and Ben Wilson talk are very, very similar. You guys are very, very curious individuals. But he talks about very kind of impressive icons in history, no matter what country, what side of wars or whatever. It's a pretty cool one. And then I listen to a lot of Flo Wrestling Radio, a lot of different stuff, but I do kind of experiment with different podcasts and I always try to do something on my walk that get me outta my comfort zone a little bit, maybe have me hear something that I could be doing a lot better that, or people that may, might be jealous of or something like that. And then, yeah, from there. So I start my day anywhere from 8 to 8:30. We have our team meetings every morning at 9:00 AM. And then, gosh, I mean, like you've heard on every single one of your episodes, the day's completely different as far as candidates and clients and processes. As I've gotten more a bigger bulk of business, I've been able to do less and less on the candidate side and more so just handling processes, handling processes and coaching my consultants on how to do that. But when I have the time, I do speak to candidates, talk to 'em about what they want in their job search and send 'em to my clients. And then I do a lot of client visits. I try to see 'em in person, but if not, I always try to get video. And if not, I always try to just get 'em live and get 'em live as many times as possible. Multiple times a week is ideal. Once a week, fine. I try to get some set up meetings and stuff like that. But yeah, a lot of it's admin stuff as well. But, and I'm still working on prioritizing as I get kind of higher up and knowing what to do for myself and as an individual contributor and my team and handling a P&L. So it always changes, but I think I kind of like that chaos, if you will. And then towards the end of the day, it always changes, but I always gotta make sure I'm thinking about dinner and either ready to make it or ready to get the stuff in order for my partner to make it. So that's always on my mind, making sure that she knows I'm thinking about what we need to do. And then we try to get an hour to relax, whether that's… sometimes I play video games, sometimes I'm just… I'll even sit down and write just to get some thoughts out on paper. I'll make a phone call to a family or friend just to get my mind off. But usually it's just speaking to my girlfriend Emily and just chatting and just getting things out. We just try to get some relaxing time before We hit the hay, which is usually around 10, and try to get 8 hours and then up for my walk in the morning.

24:36 Scott Ingram: Nice. I'm super curious about the chaos. If I heard you right, it sounds like you're focusing a little bit more on kind of the sales and client side and you're handing more of the recruiting side to your team. Is that kind of accurate?

24:51 Brian McCann: Yes. Okay.

24:52 Scott Ingram: I mean, you've got 1,000 things going on. I mean, that's a lot. I mean, you got all the client stuff. You're involved with your team, obviously, as they're doing the fulfillment work. How are you staying on top of and just organizing that chaos?

25:06 Brian McCann: Well, the first thought is, I don't know if I am, you know, and of course I'm able to, but it never really feels like it's totally under control or like 100% on top of it. But I think it goes back to sometimes I actually stop and I will look away from my screen and I will just take 5 deep breaths.

25:26 Scott Ingram: And we'll do that right now.

25:27 Brian McCann: Now. Good, Scott, you're getting into it. Here we go.

25:35 Scott Ingram: Oh my God.

25:35 Brian McCann: Oh, it's great. I appreciate you being a good sport about it. I didn't know it would be… it'd be picking up the, the train. Yeah, but I'll even just look away and take 5 deep breaths to get my mind back to where it needs to be. And a lot of times I'm such an advocate of getting support and being upfront and vulnerable. Of course, you don't want to like spill your guts out every day, but But I do ask for help on prioritization. Hey, I got this, this, this, and this going on. And I call my director who's actually here in Chicago, which is great. And I'm just like, hey, I don't know what to do next here. We got a lot of things going on. They all seem high priority. And he always refocuses me back on what's closest to the money, what's closer to revenue right away, and then what's the next level? What's the next closest to money? Okay, what's the next closest to money? And also being comfortable with I may and likely will not get to everything that I want in a day. And I need to be okay with that because a lot of times I'm not, and then I'll push myself too hard and then it's tough to kind of get back up and do it again. That's the crux of it for me.

26:33 Scott Ingram: That's a really interesting idea. I've never really considered the idea of using other people to help you with your prioritization. Like, okay, I've got 5 things. They all seem kind of equal to me, or here's how I'm ranking them. Does that seem right to you? That's sort of a fascinating way to approach that because Because to your point, I mean, we're never going to get everything done. You have to prioritize, you have to pick and choose, and there's some things that just aren't going to get done.

26:58 Brian McCann: That's so right. And a lot of it is practicing forgiving myself. It's like, dude, being a top contributor, getting the success that I have and that I want doesn't mean doing things perfectly. And I just wake up every day and I remind myself I need support always. And it helps me when I'm high on something, I'm feeling good, or when I'm low, I'm always thinking about getting support so I can see myself accurately through others. And that is just the absolute crux of it for me.

27:26 Scott Ingram: Nice. Well, let's finish talking about that because I'm curious, and maybe it is just kind of as you need it throughout the day, but in addition to that, what are the other habits and routines that are kind of core to the way that you operate on a daily, weekly basis?

27:39 Brian McCann: Yeah, I think as far as habits and routines during the day, I try to It used to be a lot more just work focus, just work, just work, just work. But sometimes I'm actually more productive in my work when I'm doing things that are also in my mind. Now, am I gonna take an hour to clean my kitchen? No, I'm sure my partner would love that, but it's more so what are some things that are just kind of on my mind? Things about my car, thinking about dinner. Like I said earlier, while I was in Austin at the summit, there was a friend of mine that I haven't spoken to in almost, you know, maybe over a year who called me and was just struggling and telling me the situations going on in his life. And I told him, you need to get support. And I'm glad and I commend you for doing that. But just today, I just texted him, just checking up on him, seeing how he's doing. And in the past, I think I would've been, no, you gotta be only work. But that actually helped me almost, I don't wanna say soften, but maybe soften. Like just, hey, work isn't everything. You gotta take care of yourself outside. And I was thinking about him. Right? I was thinking about him and I knew if I were him, I would want me to check up on me, right? So I think about how I can take care of myself always, and it's not just work. And I think I try to take that even with my consultants and my candidates and clients. I've even started telling clients, oh, I didn't know we had this past Monday off. There's a couple of my clients on Tuesday. Did you guys have Monday off? They're like, no, we didn't. I'm like, you wouldn't believe it. I kind of had a surprise day off on Monday. Even though it's kind of like I'm a little kid telling a story, I didn't really care. It was just like, I don't have to be a certain mode at work and then a certain mode outside. It's all me. That's what I really try to tell my consultants is one of my consultants today was like, I'm afraid this client's going to forget about me. They don't have any needs right now. I said, why don't you tell them that? I'm afraid you're going to forget about me. How can I make sure you don't forget about me? I mean, what are we editing so much for? Just be that self. Yeah. I try to keep the self-care and support always happening, not at certain times.

29:50 Scott Ingram: It's so interesting. I wanna go back to what you said earlier and just make sure I understood it right. Cuz it's sort of an interesting concept. So it sounds like you'll take a break to deal with something that is just weighing on you. Like this is nagging me in the back of my head. I'm just gonna do it and then it can't bother me anymore. And then I'll be more productive after that. Did I hear that right?

30:10 Brian McCann: It's more so like people talk about work-life balance. Yeah, but it's really work-life integration. People say like, oh, I'm balancing this and I'm balancing this and I'm balancing this. And there's a lot of things going on in everyone's life. I don't doubt at all that people have a lot of things going on, and I'm one of those people as well. But when I approach it as all of these things are me versus I have to do all of these things, I kind of decided that it's all me versus I gotta set a time and blah, blah, blah. And to your point, I definitely am more productive afterwards because it's almost like I've given my mind almost like extra oxygen, if you will. You just get somewhere else and you come back and it's almost like, wow, my self-worth is not my job. I get to be with my friend for a second and notice that I have a lot of things going on outside of it. I'm making work my life. I'm in trouble. It ain't the best me.

31:11 Scott Ingram: It's so interesting. I mean, I've talked plenty in previous iterations and we'll link some of this up in the show notes if you haven't heard me talk about my productivity process and some of that stuff. So if you go to top1.fm/this episode number, because once again, I've forgotten what it is, or top1.fm/brian-mccann. So M-C-C-A-N-N. When I do my morning prioritization process, so first it's kind of a triage. I get everything out, like here's all the stuff in my world that needs to get done. I don't differentiate between, well, this is a work thing, this is a sales success thing, this is a family thing. To me, it's just one big pile of stuff that needs to get done and I'll prioritize accordingly. Obviously, my day job gets a higher weighting and kind of higher priority, if you will. But to your point, like if there's something core that has to happen, 'Cause my daughter's gotta be somewhere in the middle of the day. I mean, fortunately she drives herself most of the time, so that's less of an issue these days. But when there are critical family things or health things or whatever else, yeah, that gets in there and, and I'll work it in. So it's really interesting kind of your approach, but what really struck me was the idea of if I get this off of my plate, then I get to remove psychic stress and get back to now I can focus better.

32:28 Brian McCann: Yeah, totally, totally. And I actually love that you said you have a lot going on, Scott. I mean, you got your, with how much ownership you take in this with the Sales Success Media and the podcast and the summit and your full-time job and your family. It is a lot. I mean, it is a lot and it's really cool. And I think you are a testament. This is not the Scott Show, but it is the Scott Show, right? But I do wanna kind of shout you out too, because that is a really good example of somebody that it's all me, it's all Scott. And I think when I'm a father, I'm married and have that too. Like that's the approach that I want to have. But yeah, it does take kind of that psychological stress up.

33:08 Scott Ingram: I think originally, before we started down this particular rabbit hole, we were talking about just kind of other habits and routines. Is there anything else that is just really core to the way you operate?

33:20 Brian McCann: The main thing is, I mean, a lot of it's kind of repeated, but getting support. I will make a point, even when I'm feeling good, I will call and get support because I want to get something out so I can get something back in from people's responses, even if they're just like, like, that sounds great, man. You know, like, good. And I need to get moving again. I was a CrossFit trainer for a long time. I wrestled for 11 years. I'm a very high-energy person. And the thing about being high energy is you gotta get it out, you gotta use it. So I need to move, whether that's just walking or a workout or whatever. And I need to get outside. I usually try to get that with my morning walks, just kind of get outside and get moving. And I would just say other things are being very open and curious to learning more things about myself. I'm like, I just picked up piano and I love to sing. You know, like I never did this in my career. I did a lot of improv comedy, which I still do, and sketch comedy as well, but I always had a love for music and I just haven't done much with it. And not that I need to be like a star performer or anything, but it's another way for me to really be with myself. And yeah, sometimes I always tell myself like, oh, work is meditation for me, but I need to get that mindfulness. And I'm really protective of my own mind and getting into kind of ruts or holes in my mind. And things like walking, playing piano, getting support, those are all ways that I can just kind of get back into reality. Because my mind is very powerful. It can say some mean things and it can say some positive things. And I'm very aware of that. And I think that helps me a lot.

35:05 Scott Ingram: Nice. Nice. I always like to ask about the information diet. I feel like we touched on it a little bit, right? You're making the hotline call, you got the NPR thing going, you're listening to podcasts. Is there anything that we missed in that?

35:15 Brian McCann: That's kind of like my information diet is all in the morning. I love kind of just, ooh, what podcasts can I listen to? What things can I get? But yeah, those 3 podcasts I mentioned, I do listen to. I think it's the Recruitment Mentors Podcast as well. That's a good one as well. And I think just my information, like what I learned about today, I do try to get my information. If someone mentions something, like I asked my friend about this microphone and what he uses it for, and he showed me he's got an audition for a commercial and he showed me the room and the setup that he has and he put the padded walls and I'm like, what does that do? And it was very curious. And I think my information diet is always, is there something else I can learn? Not like, will this help me in recruitment? But it's just like always learning is just relaxation for me.

36:03 Scott Ingram: Awesome. What about kind of the tools and apps and just the tech side of the way that you're functioning? What are you using?

36:09 Brian McCann: Yeah, Strava. It's definitely an app that I use. But as far as recruitment and a lot of the things that we use, we do use… I mean, our CRM is Bullhorn, which is a Salesforce product. And ZoomInfo, which is a masterful product. It's helped me a lot with BD and business development. Really just if I know there's a job at a company and they're hiring for something, there's 10 people I can call and I will call until I get a conversation with somebody. And ZoomInfo is a great tool. LinkedIn, LinkedIn Recruiter. We do use something called Woo, which is within Bullhorn, which is kind of like, it's a very easy tool that I believe is kind of AI focused. That is, it pulls candidates that are really specific to a job based on the job description. Description and using the keywords in there. We use that as well. And Indeed. I don't think there's anything else for me. Of course, things like Spotify, but of course we all use stuff like that.

37:03 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

37:03 Brian McCann: For me, I'm trying to, I heard Mark Cuban saying it's like there's 2 types of people, people that are AI focused and not AI focused. And if you're not AI focused, then you're behind. I took that to heart. I mean, I'm learning a lot about AI and I'm starting to listen more about how we can use that. And there's a big function on LinkedIn Recruiter that you can use. And learning how to train a certain AI to do something. And that's something I'm a lot more focused on now is the AI functions within the platforms that we have.

37:31 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I think that's a great approach. Also fun to hear you mention Bullhorn, obviously very industry specific. I actually saw something about the summit I posted about. I think the, their head of sales liked it and I went back and I looked and I went, years ago I interviewed their number one top seller. He's since moved on. So I was kind of looking back and going, Is Yella still there? But that was a long time ago. That was one of the OG episodes for sure. What about… I'm curious about this. I think you've probably hinted at it, but I wonder if you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy. What is that?

38:04 Brian McCann: It's making sure that I get a conversation, and it's not a matter of, oh, I'm just trying to get to the right person. The sales philosophy for me is I will get to the right person. And it's not to be like crass, it's that we have too many tools to not get to the right person. That is the way that it is. We will get to the right person no matter what we have to do. And the philosophy really starts with, once I'm on the phone with you, you will understand the trust and the care and the honesty and the authenticity. And authenticity is kind of a buzzword, but being myself and being direct with people there will be trust built there. And even if it's as small of a win as we have no needs, call me back and have a great day. Most people look at that as, well, I didn't get a client on, I didn't get a new client. They didn't want… they don't have any needs. But for me, that's such a win at the very least because they now remember Brian and I just make sure to stay in front of that. So the sales philosophy is more so I will get to the right person and then the trust and care and rapport based on the situational knowledge of doing all those calls that you can practice once you have those conversations. So it's like situational awareness of practicing those calls until, you know, once you talk to somebody, you will get a win out of it.

39:26 Scott Ingram: To me, what you just described, it's more than the philosophy, it's the mindset going into that situation going, I will get in touch, I will have a conversation with this person. That's probably the most important ingredient. And then it's just, yeah, I've got tons of tools at my disposal to make that happen. There's lots of channels. There's lots of ways that I can reach them, but it's going to happen.

39:49 Brian McCann: Yeah, absolutely. It's not a matter of… there's so many people like, I'm just trying to get to the right person. I'm trying to… and it's like, try to straighten your arm. You either do it or you don't. That's the mindset piece of what you're talking about. And I think to get more into the, like, if there's a philosophy, it's that my genuine care and positive attitude will be appreciated even at the lowest level. We don't have any needs. Thanks, Brian. Have a good day. I'll take it as long as I get to the right person and I let them know I care, and then I'm going to work really hard for them. And I think that's the philosophy, is the kind of the emotional intelligence of being direct, being caring, being trusting, and putting in a ton of effort.

40:29 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Love it. Let's talk kind of the motivation drive side of that. What drives you?

40:36 Brian McCann: I've gotten this question a lot through my business recently, and I think for me, it's kind of focusing back on that kind of loving to fail thing. I think it actually kind of fires me up to make a mistake and then move on from it. And I think what drives me is getting better and better, even though that's kind of a means to no end. I love the idea of, you hear like with athletes, get 1% better every day. And I love that. I always think about it like, Brian, are you loving to train right now? Back to wrestling, like, no one trained harder than me. I loved, I loved to wrestle, I loved to lift, and I loved to run. But that was all a choice. I didn't love that when I first started. That was a choice. And I knew that I had to develop a really good relationship with pain because I wasn't talented. I played defensive line in football as well at like 5'6 in high school And that was not a good recipe for a defensive lineman. But I knew that I was going to be at the bottom of every pile. I was probably going to get hurt and not feel the best, but I needed to develop a good relationship with pain. And I think knowing that I can get better no matter where I stand just made me feel really good. And I think the second piece of kind of what drives me is my partner, Emily, just recently… shout out to her… um, doctor of veterinary medicine. She just graduated a couple months ago. I mean, it was some, not financial pressure, but kind of, right? We needed to make sure that my goal was to be able to pay for her travel and her lodging as she goes through her clinical year this past year and travel with her, with our cat and everything, and really enjoy life and explore the cities we were in. We were in Boise, we were in Utah, we were in Arizona, we were in DC, Nashville for all these different vet practices and, or vet clinics, I should say, or hospitals. And I wanted to make it that we didn't even have to think about money. And that was a big driving factor for me, which kind of what I said of like, I will get to the right person. It was, I had the same mindset, like it will be that way. We won't have to worry about money at all, even though she's obviously spending money on her education and I'm making money, but I got to support both of us and our travel and our lodging. That was a big motivator for me of we're not even thinking about it because we know that Brian's going to make enough for both of us. I think that was a big one for me.

42:55 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Is there something you believe, Brian, that the average or typical recruiter would think is crazy?

43:03 Brian McCann: Situational awareness. When you're on a call, you need to fail. And it's not failure's okay. It's okay to fail or make sure you pick yourself up after you fail. It's you have to fail. Failure needs to happen and it needs to happen a lot. In order to get successful. And with failure comes situational awareness of conversations with candidates, with clients, with teammates that, you know, from there, oh my gosh, I've been here before and I learned this, and now I have these tools to continue. And my situational awareness on calls with candidates and clients is very good because I made more calls than anybody in my last company and the company before, and likely this company too. Because I know the situational awareness and what it gets me. I mean, what people will tell me just because I'm just digging for more and caring. And it's not that I know what to do all the time. I think I'm wonderfully vulnerable even when I don't know what to do. But failure is a must. I was watching a podcast recently. It was a big-time wrestler at UNI, University of Northern Iowa, and he had a poster in the back or a little thing in the back of his room that said, love to fail. And I think failure and just missing something or making mistakes sometimes is very taboo, especially when you're junior, because it's all about getting credit. But that needs to happen. I'd much rather have someone that swings and swings and fails and just keeps learning versus someone who, like I said before, kind of waits for the pitches to go by and hope they get walked to get to first base.

44:40 Scott Ingram: Nice. So, so fascinating. What about the flip side? Is there something that the typical recruiter believes that you think is crazy?

44:49 Brian McCann: Gosh, the first thing that comes to mind is, man, nothing closes in December. It's a tough one. People are going to get their start dates in January. Don't trust anything to close in December. And that just kills me. That absolutely eats me up inside. I don't want to hear anybody say that. I think I had one of my best months in December, and it was just because of a mindset. I was just like, I want more revenue, so I'm just going to get it. Everybody around me was like, ah, it's just tough to close though. Even people like higher up, like, yeah, it's a tougher one. Wait till January. And, and I get it. Candidates are most likely to start their job in the new year after the holidays and all that stuff. But I hate to hear that because again, it goes back to mindset. If you give yourself an out, you will perform at the level that you're saying the likelihood of the deals will come through. So if you're saying the likelihood is low, your effort will be low and the results will be low. If the likelihood is low, great, be aware of it. But how about I'm going to go as hard as I can anyway and see what happens, then change my perspective? That's just one thing recently that's… we're towards the end of the year and I hear that all the time.

46:01 Scott Ingram: So believe you can or believe you can't. Either way, you're right.

46:05 Brian McCann: Absolutely. You will be your own fortune teller. I promise you will absolutely tell your own future and you will be right.

46:12 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I forgot to ask earlier about your favorite success story, but first I want to ask, being the fan of failure that you are, what's your favorite failure?

46:26 Brian McCann: Gosh, there's so many, Scott. Yeah, I think my most kind of important failure… gosh, I mean, it's not really a failure. Again, there are a lot in sales, but I think it was, you know, I was on the desk one time in my last job and I was I was so afraid to tell this candidate. He was looking for a lot of money and he had very little experience, and I was so afraid to tell him, you're not going to get a job if you look for so much money. And I was so afraid. And this was such a turning point in my career when I learned how to be direct. And then from there, I was able to jump off. And I had a director on the call with me, and she was just saying, we're not done with the call yet, because I was like, Hey, I think I'm done. She's like, we're not done with this. And I'm like, come on, can we just be done? But I was so afraid to be direct with this person. And then the call ended and then we kind of had a pep talk, me and this person within my business, and kind of coached me up on being direct. And you need to in order to get kind of deals across. And basically we called the candidate back and that was kind of the first time I remember. It's not that long ago. It was like 3-ish years ago. Where I just said to him, you will not get a job. And he kind of pushed back and said, yeah, I will. My friends make this much or whatever. And I just held firm with him like, it's not going to happen. And I'm concerned that you will not get a job. And I'm telling you that upfront because I care and I want to make sure that you get the job that you're looking for. And I'm just telling you from commercial knowledge. So that failure was, again, a director was on with me and it was so embarrassing to have her say, You are not finished with this call. But she was calling out a habit of mine that was like just avoiding this tough conversation. But I really needed her to hear that. That was a very important failure for me. That's my favorite failure. And it turned me on the direction that I've kind of built on from there.

48:25 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. What happened in that particular situation?

48:28 Brian McCann: Like with the deal?

48:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah.

48:31 Brian McCann: I remember we weren't able to close a deal with a specific candidate. He did bring his compensation expectations down. So the battle was kind of won. Again, not being results-focused being kind of my number one in that regard. I got so much better in that, but we weren't able to close a deal with him, unfortunately. But I just walked away with, oh my gosh, I have this new thing where if I'm scared to tell somebody something, it's probably the thing I got to tell them. It's the truth that they need to hear.

49:03 Scott Ingram: Oh, that's so good. That's so good. All right, we're this far into a show called Sales Success Stories. Maybe we should talk about a successful sale. What's your favorite sale?

49:12 Brian McCann: My favorite kind of success or sale or whatever, it happened recently. And this kind of goes in along the lines of, I gave you kind of the start of that favorite failure, and this is kind of not the end, right? Because I hope to continue to get better and all that stuff. But I had a client client who was working with me exclusively had a lot of roles that she was looking to fill, and I had my whole team on it. We got about 20, 25 candidates over, you know, and it was a very high amount of possible revenue for us, signed at a very high fee percentage. They ended up interviewing 5. They brought 4 to final interviews, and we're like, great, we got this. They told us that we were the only resource for their search, so we're like, great. And then they We're going to offer 2 out of these 4 people, basically telling us like, you're going to close 2 deals with us because these candidates have nothing else going on. And so we go through and they end up passing on every single one. And I remember being so hurt. I couldn't believe all the work we put in and kind of what we were promised, just kind of going back to my team and saying, okay, remember how we said we were going to close and all the time we we put into this, we were going to close 2 deals. My team was really upset. So it was kind of up to me to have a very direct conversation with this hiring manager. And I said to her, I just said, so what happened? And she told me, you know, just kind of decided to pass and it just ended up not being the right fit. And I really just said, so there's a mismatch here because if we're your only resource and you need to hire people for the projects that you And you didn't hire anybody. What is that? And what is the mismatch that we need to kind of address here? And she was just like, well, I guess there is a mismatch with our director. He's kind of doing this and that. So I just said, listen, there is a mismatch within your business that needs to be taken care of where you're putting all this effort and taking all this time to interview and you're not hiring anybody. And again, I want to save your time. You guys are interviewing, the candidates are interviewing, we're spending our time with this and no one really got success out of I'm just being direct with you. I want to make sure that your process is as sound and you guys are getting out of what you were putting into it. She said, yeah, you're right. Goes back to her director and I get a call a couple days later. And again, I was afraid to say all that. I didn't know how that was going to go. And she calls me a couple days later and says, here's what we're going to do. We spoke to the director. I had relayed your feedback, Brian. As soon as I did, a bunch of people, she said about 8 to 10 people across the business said, Hallelujah, we need to change our process. We are constantly interviewing and not hiring. We need to do something differently. So Brian, what we decided to do, since your feedback was taken well, we're going to recall all the candidates that you sent to us. We're going to offer 2 of those candidates that we said we were going to. We're going to reoffer them. We're going to just recall the whole thing based on your feedback. That ended up being like a $30,000 fee for us. Ended up closing a deal. Kind of again, this is after they're passing on the candidates. Just with a direct conversation and being afraid of that failure, afraid of making a mistake or afraid of ruining the client relationship. I had to be very direct and build that trust. And they came back and we were able to gain some pretty serious revenue with a very good client. And I think even earn more trust with that conversation.

52:34 Scott Ingram: Well, that worked out well. I'm glad I asked you about the failure first. You set yourself up quite well for this success. Way to bring it home. Right now, I'm curious about You're working with people on their careers all day long. And while they may not be in sales, I mean, it's certainly a different industry. I wonder what advice would you give to somebody that's early in their career on the sales side? What do you tell them?

52:57 Brian McCann: Yeah, I think my main piece of advice would be to go out and take a lot of swings. Again, do the very best you can and make sure You are getting support in and outside of work, but also you don't need to hit a home run. In fact, I keep going back to like baseball terminology, but you just don't need to be an amazing… I've seen people that are amazing when they first start right out of college and then they kind of just dip down. It doesn't matter how you do earlier on. It just matters what you learn and you want to be the number one learner. And the tough part when you're junior and you are kind of coming up is that you can't really quantify that. Like, I'm the number one learner, and that's tough because you want to have that credit, and you'll get it. But the learning and the taking things in and being ultra curious and not focusing on the status or the money even when you're starting, it's common. And you need to play the long game, not the short credit, money, status, title game.

54:03 Scott Ingram: Game.

54:04 Brian McCann: That was a lot of words.

54:06 Scott Ingram: Love it, love it, love it. So let's keep that going. Imagine that person is now a few years into their sales journey. They haven't found it yet. They're okay, Brian, I listened to you, I'm the number one learner, I'm playing the long game, but I'm not where I wanted to be. What do you tell them then?

54:24 Brian McCann: Yeah, I would commend them for being so honest, number one, about I am not where I want to You know, the people I trust most in the world is people that say that. People that say, hey, I'm not where I want to be. I'm hurting right now. I want to be doing better. Damn, that's a great person to be around. I totally trust you. You're going to be honest about when you're in trouble. So I think that's a really good thing to start. But number 2, I would say I'd want to know more about what things aren't working, and I'd want to know very clearly what their strengths are, but even more clearly what their weaknesses are. Best athletes I know, best sales representatives, best managers, best directors, what have you, they are very aware of what their weaknesses are and they're hyper-focused on the things that they can do to improve. My boss said to me recently, he said he got a question… I'm shouting myself out here… he got a question about me and said, just what makes Brian good? And he was just kind of relaying this to me. He said, Brian doesn't feel that he's owed anything. I'm thinking about myself. I'm like, okay, like, I didn't really, like, you know, think about that for myself. Yeah, because I'm always thinking about the things that I want to get better at. Not like, oh, I need to be better, like I'm bad. It's no, I have some strengths, but life kind of dies for me if I'm not thinking about the things I want to get better at and kind of the other life that's out there for me, if you will. Skill with the things I can get better at, the perspectives that I can change for myself.

55:53 Scott Ingram: What's the thing that you're working on getting better at right now?

55:57 Brian McCann: Tracking metrics.

55:59 Scott Ingram: Did Matt Du Pont get in your head?

56:03 Brian McCann: Dude, that guy… I was able to sit next to him and he's a wonderful human. And the things that he said, I was like, I don't even think I'll be able to even learn those things that he's talking about, even if I a year on it. It was so complicated. But I think he was a really good representation of everyone has a different style, but we can all take… again, put it in the bag… things to take from his style that I can put in my bag. I will never be Matt Du Pont. That is just not me. I need to be better at tracking those things and using templates and coaching up my consultants on how to do that. That was important for me to get is that I don't need to be Matt, but I need to be a little bit of Matt to get better. And I think tracking numbers is good. Just with my work with emotional intelligence and getting support like I've talked about and personal growth and stuff like that, I'm good on the emotional side and I can speak and understand what my consultants are going through, my candidates and my clients, and I'm a good coach. But sometimes I can try to overextend that strength and not dig into numbers and data that could really back up my claims from an emotional side. So I think it's a really good strength to have. But again, I'm not getting better from not focusing on the things that I'm not so good at yet, which is tracking metrics and understanding what that data can mean to replicate good results or get away from bad results.

57:29 Scott Ingram: Great example. Great example. So you're a fan of the podcast. You were just at the summit. What are the things you're trying to learn from the top sellers in other organizations? Even if they are in tech sales.

57:40 Brian McCann: Yeah, yeah. I want to learn the things that I'm not doing, and I want to learn the things that I am doing. Matt's a good example. Those are a lot of things that I am not doing, and that was a wake-up of, again, I don't need to be him, but these are some things that can really save me a lot of time. But also, I kind of talked about Alex earlier, and he mentioned being your number one. And what I was really struggling with going into the summit was the goal of being number one and staying number one and kind of just being that overly not healthy competitive. And he was talking about having objectives and not goals because goals are kind of like it's always at the end. And once you get there, it's like, okay, I always think about the loving to train. That's when I wrestled the best. That's when I was the best teammate, the best leader, the best captain, the best friend. When I was loving the day-to-day, I was loving to train. That was something that I really needed to hear for me at that time to kind of get back into a relationship with the self that I have of like, dude, what about the uplifting CrossFit coach? What about the resilient wrestler? What about the good friend that checks up on his friends, see how he's doing? What about the partner I am to Emily? What about those just things that make Brian Brian? Brian, the Brian that talks about being sober and how it's the right choice for me. And I'll never preach it because it's mine. That's my journey, right? Yeah. I wanted to learn the things that I'm doing and really the things that I'm not. And I really wanted to talk to those people. And I made a point, like I asked Leon and I'm like, dude, you didn't mention… you mentioned so many times that your clients love to work with you and they always request to work with you. But why? What makes you so easy to work with. I pushed him a little bit. Like, I was like, what is it, man? He paused a bit and I just said, listen, I'll say this. I would never assume you are as wealthy as you are because he is the most unassuming human and he's so nice and he's asking, very curious about me in our conversation. Never acts like someone that you would think is super… I don't know about how wealthy he is, but he obviously does really well. And he's like, I think it's because of what you just said, Brian. It's always about the other person. It's always about my client. It's never about me. And the way that he said it and how kind of like very welcoming and soft. And I was like, dude, yes, I relate to him. It's tough to say the things that really work for you. I wanted to hear him say it. And I think I just loved having those individual conversations too, after getting takeaways from their talks.

1:00:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, great stuff. So we covered a ton of ground. Is there something I didn't ask or something we didn't talk about that you were hoping that we would get into before we wrap this up?

1:00:30 Brian McCann: Yeah, I think more along the lines of… this is what I coach. It was that same client that I had that story with, the one where they kind of, you know, with the recalling the candidates and stuff like that. And I told her that I had other clients as well. I mean, she knows that. And I just said What makes you guys so good at interviewing? Tell me your interview process. How are you interviewing? Because I've interviewed some people internally with my company and I'm like, I don't even know how to interview. Right? And I'm like, that's a problem. If I'm a recruiter, I need to be able to coach clients on how to interview. And I think that's not really talked about a lot in recruitment is, yeah, we set up the interviews, but we want to be like, or at least I want to be the best partner I can and be the best coach I can to my clients of how to do interviews. I just got a lot of insight from her on that, and I won't go into too much detail, but I think it's really important from a recruiter headhunter perspective to be able to coach clients on having effective interviews and not just leaving it to them because interviewing is not easy. It is very, very inquisitive. You need to be really on point. You need to have a process, but don't follow it too hard. You need to ask situational questions to get to your main concerns about people you've hired in the past or whatever. And I would say also, again, from the recruitment side of candidates, It hurts me when I hear candidates say, or anybody interviewing, anybody, even friends, I think it went really well. I think they liked me. It needs to be about you and what the company can offer you. Because if you're approaching it as, I want to make sure they like me, you're already sacrificing a lot of yourself. It needs to be, I'm already enough to begin with. I would like this interview to go well, kind of like focusing on being your number one and not not the results, right? The input versus the outcome. Going into an interview and be like, I'm really excited to learn about what this company can provide for me, and I have questions prepared because this is what I learned from my last job and I don't want to make that mistake again. So I can tell them about that. I can tell them about that and say, this is where this question is coming from. What's your guys' pipeline look like for the rest of the year? What about a recession? It actually makes you more attractive as a candidate when you can stand on your own 2 feet and advocate for yourself Versus I'm here to make sure you guys like me, because they can just sniff that out. Totally being on your own side makes you a way better candidate versus trying to get others to like you.

1:02:51 Scott Ingram: Man, it's such an interesting idea if you start with what's the mindset, what's the philosophy going in. And I think that's so key, is to your point, like, I'm worthy. So that's not really the question. It's, is this going to be right for me? I mean, the thing I always think about from an interviewing perspective, right? Because I work with tons of sellers who are, hey, I'm trying to land this job, whatever it is. I think the effort, the due diligence is on us. And I put together a whole set of resources around this. If folks go to top1.fm/DD, so DD for due diligence, I've over time kind of assembled a bunch of this stuff. But the way I think about it is if even a small organization, 100 employees, is bringing me on. I'm 1% of that organization, but this job is going to be 100% of my working life. So that's very asymmetric. It's really on me to make sure and do all of the work to figure out, is this the right thing? Is this the right place for me? Am I going to be successful here? Am I going to enjoy the journey?

1:04:00 Brian McCann: Yeah, that's so well said. Just the way you spoke about that, it's like, okay, this is a good candidate. Someone who knows or even doesn't know what they want, but they learn through the interview what they want. But also just, I'm prepared, I know what questions I want to ask, and I don't need to tell you that I'm valuable. I know that I am, and you're going to hear it by the way that I speak. I spoke to someone recently, it's like she's in a legal job and she was changing jobs and she made… I can say this, no one knows who she is, but she was making $155,000 in her last job. But she's like, I'm hoping to make the same, but I'd like to make a lot more. I'm like, what's your ideal number? He's like, $175,000. It's like, when they ask me, what should I say? I say, say $175,000. Let them speak, give them the space, but say $175,000 with ultimate conviction and truth in your heart and mind. $175,000 base salary. And then let them speak because the way that you say things is actually worth money. That's kind of what you said is like, this job is 100% of my working life, so I need to be very clear. About what I want and what's going to work for me, not the other way around.

1:05:11 Scott Ingram: That was such a good quote. You said the way that you say things is worth money. That's a good line. Any other final thoughts before we try and figure out how to make this actionable?

1:05:20 Brian McCann: I just really appreciate the opportunity and again, connecting with you and kind of shooting the invite out for the summit and how much I got out of that and the connections I got out of it as well. I mean, really just thank you for the opportunity and I really enjoyed this. I'm looking forward to staying connected with you and everybody within the society. And I got a couple one-on-ones with a couple of those, those characters from the summit. So I'm looking forward to connecting with them as well.

1:05:43 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. Brilliant. The last thing I like to do is again, try to make this actionable. So what would you challenge our listener to do over the course of the next week or 2 to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:05:56 Brian McCann: Yeah, I really practice. I'm an emotional intelligence guy, personal growth guy. I think about it a lot and I I think every day reach out to somebody, even if it's your mom, even if it's your friend, and just tell them a small thing that maybe is a little uncomfortable or just not ideal for you in your job. Or hey, like, I got this freaking squeaky door and I have tried this on it, I've tried, you know, whatever, just something. The things that we create in our head can blow up so big, but getting support and sharing something, no matter how embarrassing or whatever, just weird, and having somebody respond, you're going to learn a lot about yourself and you're going to learn about how you think and sometimes how we can take ourselves out of reality. I know it's not much to do directly with sales, but it really is because when you're totally in tune with yourself, you can totally understand what's going on with somebody else as you're talking to know him, and you're going to connect with clients better. In my case, candidates too, teammates, leaders, getting support and being honest about what's going on at your job or whatever, and then learning about how you think versus how they respond to you and all that.

1:07:12 Scott Ingram: Nice. Brian, this has been a ton of fun, blue line and all. Thanks for taking the time to chat with me.

1:07:17 Brian McCann: Absolutely, Scott. It was a pleasure. Hail to the blue line. Absolutely.

1:07:22 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening.

1:07:24 Brian McCann: 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.