201: John Krause: How "You'll Never Sell There" Became a Major Account Win

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Nooks. Nooks is the agent workspace for intelligent outbound. For more, just go to nooks.ai.

0:17 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.

0:28 Scott Ingram: Here's your host, Scott.

0:32 Scott Ingram: Ingram.

0:33 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is John Krause. John is the top sales performer at Promess, where he's recently stepped into a player coach role as he continues to fully transition into a sales manager role. Welcome to the show, John.

0:47 John Krause: Hi, Scott. How are you?

0:49 Scott Ingram: I'm really good. I'm really good. I am so looking forward to this conversation. You have got a very interesting backstory, so let's get right into it. But I always like to start with some immediate value for our listeners. So Let's first talk about the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success in sales.

1:08 John Krause: Yeah, great question. You kind of prepped me for this and I thought of several things and I decided to narrow it down to 3. 3 that I picked was learning from people that have done this before, being told that I can't do it, using that as a motivator. And then third is what I've Trademarked, we'll say, is using every opportunity to create another opportunity. Those are 3 things that come to mind.

1:35 Scott Ingram: Super clean. The first one is why we're here. So now we get to learn from you because now you've done this before and you have found success. I'm guessing that we'll, as we dig a little bit deeper into the context, we'll understand what it means when you're told that you can't do it. But tell me a little bit more about the every opportunity creates another opportunity. What is that? How does that show up?

1:57 John Krause: Whatever you're selling, at some point you're talking to an individual, you're doing an onsite meeting, you're doing an in-person visit, you're doing a demo, whatever that is. Typically there's more people involved that can take you down different avenues to further sales. Oftentimes companies that you're selling to buy tons of your product. They're just in different areas of the company. How do you get to those people? You can use that opportunity to get there. You can use it as a catapult to get there. Referrals are one of the most powerful tools in the industry. We just don't ask. And it's all about asking that, what you might call an uncomfortable question and making it a very normal question. So in my meetings over the years, I have hounded people and hounded people about using every opportunity to create another opportunity. Because once you get in, that's your ticket. You can go anywhere you want. And it's all about using that to your advantage.

3:00 Scott Ingram: Love that. In the spirit of immediate value, let's not bury this and come back to it. How do you ask? How do you make that normal?

3:07 John Krause: It's a great question. I like to, what I'll call, live life with my customers. So I like to be very non-transactional. I would prefer to I would prefer to be comfortable having lunch with a customer. I would prefer to be comfortable praying for a customer if they're going through a particular life circumstance. And when you come from that perspective of, hey, I'm some guy, you're some guy or gal, we can be friends, it brings the relationship to a different level that makes any question you ask okay. But when you come from a transactional sales process where you want to order something, here you go, here's a part number, this is how much it costs. There's no opening to be able to do that.

3:56 Scott Ingram: Having the human authentic relationship. But what is the question? Where does the ask… how are you opening the door?

4:02 John Krause: Great question. Maybe we're in a facility, we're having success. Maybe it's even before success. You say, hey, I really think that I can help this company. Who else should I be talking to? It can be as simple as that. It can be, so you're pursuing purchasing this. Who else is going to be involved in the purchasing process? Maybe it can be, is there other facilities that use this type of equipment? Maybe it can be, I'm here. All I know is you. Can I meet your boss? People love to show off what they are doing to their boss. They love it. They love it. If you provide enough value that what you are going to walk them through could possibly get them promoted, right? Because that's the perspective you can take by making this choice. I can get you promoted. They want to show you off to their boss, right? You go to their boss, you go up, you can now go more vertical, and then you can go down throughout the organization. So when you understand that, When you understand why they would want to, it changes the game.

5:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great stuff. All right, this is going to be a ton of fun, but let's contextualize now. So talk about what is your role? What is Promess? How did you get to number one? Before we get into John's background, let me show off this episode's sponsor, Nooks, the platform who can help you scale your own who else should be buying from you. Nooks lets you leverage their intelligent outbound approach that combines their AI dialer, their powerful signals and intelligence engine, along with their AI sequencing capability to help you build consistent pipeline. As they like to say, fewer tools, more pipeline. Check them out at nooks.ai. And now back to John and his background.

5:51 John Krause: Yeah, my role right now, sales manager as well as individual contributor. So sales manager plus individual contributor, lots of stress but tons of fun. Promess is a manufacturing equipment supplier. Specializing in servo presses. So in the manufacturing realm, there's lots of tools that are used in manufacturing. We specialize in a particular tool called a servo press.

6:18 Scott Ingram: So, John, can you put your results in perspective for us and just kind of quantify what has it taken to get to number 1?

6:24 John Krause: I think it takes resourcefulness. You have to figure it out for yourself. You have to know who's not doing business with you and who could possibly use the type of equipment that you need. But you have to figure that out by learning from other people, seeing what they've done and why they've done it, seeing where you've been successful in the past. You take all those into account, you add it into an equation, and that's who you go after. Once you figure out who to go after, you just go after them. 9 times out of 10, a sale is won because you call someone at the right time. It's not because you said the right thing. It's not because your price was the lowest. It's never because your price is the lowest. It's because you called them at the right time when they were having an issue or they were purchasing your type of equipment. And that's really all it takes. Sometimes we can complicate sales significantly.

7:20 Scott Ingram: Sometimes?

7:21 John Krause: Sometimes, sometimes. I think it's definitely an art, but we can definitely overcomplicate it.

7:27 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What about the science side? What do you measure? What do you think about from a quantified perspective?

7:32 John Krause: Yeah, we look at quotes. So we'll look at quotes as a leading metric as to what business might look like in the next 6 months. Typically, we'll have about a year to a 6-month sales cycle. So what we're quoting now, we'll probably get business with in the future. Is our hit rates always the same? No, they're not. But if we're having low quoting numbers, that can mean that business might be low in the next 6 months. It's also a good way to measure how you're doing. We also look at what we call face-to-face meetings. So are you staying in front of customers? That's a good metric to use. We also use what's called micro-commitments, something that my previous… my manager had put in place. It's taking a customer down a journey. And having several meetings with them throughout that process, continuing to show value, continuing to share value, and staying on top of what this opportunity might be. Because we know that throughout a process, the competition's coming in. You have other people that are saying, oh, you should use this other type of equipment. And so you have to stay top of mind, continuing to share value at all times.

8:47 Scott Ingram: Awesome. What's your origin story and how'd you get into sales in the first place?

8:51 John Krause: Yeah, years ago I started at Promess writing software. I think I spoke too much down on the software team. I think of software, a lot of introverts. So they moved me out of software. They put me in engineering and we had an open position one year and I was brought into a room and said, all right, John, you're going to do sales. And I said, okay, great, let's do it. And it's history from there. I liked it. I think that it was a challenge for me, which is what drives me. Challenges truly drive me. It was a particular region that had a lot of growth potential. So I saw it as an easy place to take it to the, take it to the sky, basically. There was no limit. So yeah, here I am. Over the years, I transitioned into different roles. I took over different people's roles as they retired and so forth. And then last May, I was approached and asked if I would take on the sales management role. And again, I think that it's way harder than an individual contributor, significantly harder. You're not trying to win deals, you're trying to manage people now. And that's an art and science in and of itself. That is challenging and it drives me to be better at what I do.

10:09 Scott Ingram: That's really cool. Talk about, I think there's a lot of people that listen to the show and every now and then some of us think about going down that route. Although I have confirmed this with AI, I now kind of check in every now and then. I'm like, hey, who coined the term intentional individual contributor? And I'm pretty proud of that. I am that. But talk about kind of what that manager experience is like and maybe how it's different than what you thought it would be going in.

10:35 John Krause: Yeah, I thought that I could go in and change people, tell them how to sell because of how I sold, and that's the wrong approach. The truth is that there's lots of people that have very good ways of selling, and it's about using their strengths to their advantage and helping them showcase those and use those. Letting them make the decision themselves is Very important. I've been caught in the here, I'll do it for you type of trap. That doesn't help anyone. Just makes me more busy. So yeah.

11:10 Scott Ingram: I love your mindset. I wish more sales managers would learn that a little bit faster.

11:14 John Krause: Thanks, Scott.

11:16 Scott Ingram: I think when we… I've had many conversations, a lot of times they're not recorded, about the challenging bosses. And it's almost always that type of a situation where it's somebody who was very successful. Trying to get everybody on their team to do it their way. And it's not a good recipe. It's very uncomfortable for everybody.

11:32 John Krause: It isn't. It makes people uncomfortable. It makes them not… these people are grown adults. I'm not their parent. They were born, raised, and designed a very particular way. Some people are good at talking. Some people are good at whatever, right? How do we use that to our advantage? Putting them in positions So that those shine, right? Not changing them, but putting them in positions so those shine.

11:59 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. Love it. So now you've got all this background in sales. If you could go back and start over, what, if anything, would you do differently?

12:09 John Krause: I wouldn't have traveled so much. I think early on in my career, I traveled a tremendous amount. Early on in my marriage, That was challenging for my marriage. I also found that a lot of it was unnecessary. So what I mean, if so, it was pre-COVID, it was pre-COVID. So the virtual meeting was significantly different than it is now. So we had some of that to deal with. But I think that I wasn't very good at what I'll call qualifying opportunities prior to a visit. I would just take all visits and go. And my trap was my territory was very close to home. So I'm in Michigan, my territory was Ohio. You can get to Ohio in maximum 5 hours all the way to southern Ohio. The problem with that is you go 5 hours down, you have a couple meetings. Now what do you do? Do you stay the night or do you drive home? You could drive home. That ends up for a really long day. So you come home cranky or you're just on the road a whole bunch. So being better about maybe time management with my calendar would definitely be something that I would change.

13:22 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great insight. The show is called Sales Success Stories. I feel like we should tell the story of a successful sale or maybe even just an epic fail that you learned a lot from. What's your favorite sales story?

13:36 John Krause: So the one that comes to mind is I had just taken over a new region. Someone had retired and I was offered a new region. I was being trained in this region. It was a salesperson that had been here since basically day one, 1984, and he was going to teach me how to do it. We got a particular opportunity from a company that has a… had a very big logo, but they traditionally had never bought from us. And I was told that I would never be able to sell from them, sell to them. Never. Don't even waste your time. I took that as a challenge. I'll tell you what, I sold a bunch there and I'm very proud of it. I kept our margins. I didn't go into price. I developed deep relationships and it took several years to do. It took meeting lots of different people, going in through different avenues of the company. But I took that, you can't do it, into You bet I'll do that. And I thought it was a lot of fun.

14:34 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. I love it. What a great story. And I usually follow that kind of asking about what you're most proud of. Is it that, or is it something else?

14:43 John Krause: What am I most proud of? I would say the net new business that I've been able to get at some of these, what we'll call untouchable companies. One of my strengths as an individual contributor was my hunting capability. Going into an account that we know buys our type of equipment, needs our type of equipment, but they haven't, and going in there and showing your value and eventually convincing them to buy. I've done that with several companies. I think that's my strength, probably what I'm most proud of.

15:17 Scott Ingram: What's your process there? How do you actually make that happen?

15:20 John Krause: My process starts with you have to find someone You just have to find someone to talk to. Once you get that one person, you have your in. Oftentimes that person is not the person that's going to buy. They're not even close to that person that's going to buy, but they're going to get you in. And the reality is we have to understand that there's going to be lots of people in the sales process that we'll simply just call… they're just ways of getting us to other people. That's their only role. That's their only role. So using that, we also have to understand that while these companies are large and huge, there's really only a small set of people that actually buy what we're selling. And once you find those people, the game's easy. It's just so easy.

16:09 Scott Ingram: So good. So good. Now we have to go on a little bit of an emotional roller coaster because this is a sales show and that's what we do. So we've talked about what you're proud of and what's been great. What are the low points? What do you find to be the biggest challenge? What do you continue to struggle with?

16:25 John Krause: Interesting. I think about low points. I was just talking to one of my guys this morning, and I remember multiple times early on in my sales career, going to my boss, going to my president and saying, I don't think I'm going to hit quota. I'm really concerned. I just want to let you know, because I don't want to put our company in a position where we're going to not hit our mark for the year several times. And what I came to realize is that there's highs and lows, there's ups and downs. And I have some new people on my team that haven't experienced that yet. So sharing that with them is a great reminder. But unfortunately, sometimes you just have to experience it to realize it.

17:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I think that is probably the hardest part of sales is just that emotional journey. And I don't know that there is a way that you can talk to somebody and prepare them for it, right? It really comes with, you've got to ride the roller coaster a whole bunch of times to realize, okay, the highs are never as high as they seem and they never last. And the lows are never as low as they seem and they never last. And actually, this is a really great point. I should have done this so much earlier. I owe a shout out to our friend Jeff Bajorek, who got us connected. Jeff's been a huge fan and friend of the podcast for many years. Great friend. And he talked… this is years ago, but he's always got great sayings and great thoughts. Just this idea of kind of swagger in sales, because part of what I think about as you're riding the roller coaster, especially when you're at those lower points, is not to lose confidence in yourself and your process, right? Sometimes it's like just things aren't going your way. It's just the way the world is. Sometimes they aren't. It's not a reflection reflection on who you are or your skill set or any of those things. I think a lot of times you have to work through it and it comes with experience. And I think it's a lesson we have to learn a lot of times before you really, I don't know, maybe get used to it is the best way it ultimately resolves. I don't know that it ever gets easier or anything else.

18:27 John Krause: It doesn't. I think one of the things that helps is we have to remember that they're not saying no to you. They're just saying no to the offer. When we take it personal, It gets really emotional real fast and it just takes us down a not good place.

18:42 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Love that. Let's talk about, I love to understand people's routines and just the way that they operate. The way I love to ask this question is your alarm clock goes off. Tell me what time that happens and then just give us kind of a blow-by-blow, walk us through a typical day until your head hits the pillow again.

19:02 John Krause: Yeah. So alarm goes off at 5. Wake up, read the Bible, eat oatmeal every day with a scoop of peanut butter. I have gone through years where I add honey to it. I cut the honey for whatever reason. I'm gonna be a little bit more healthy.

19:17 Scott Ingram: Yeah, your heart must be in great shape.

19:19 John Krause: Recently I've added the honey back just a couple weeks ago. So oatmeal, peanut butter, honey with a cup of coffee. Go to the gym, usually leave the gym at, oh, I don't know, 7:00, 7:30, something like that, then go to the office. I'm in a unique spot where I live 8 minutes from the office, so it's great. Go to the office, I turn all the lights on in the, in the building everywhere because I want to be there before the team comes in and I want to make sure that they remember or they know that we are open and we are ready to go. I don't want this 30-minute, I'm going to sit around and chat. We are open and we are ready to go. What I, what I, and then I just get into the daily workflow, which is one-on-ones, meetings with customers, joining calls with current salespeople. And then I stay till, oh, I don't know, 5, 5:30, 6 o'clock, go home to 3 kids that grab me by the leg and run around and tickle me and onto that part of life, which is wonderful.

20:30 Scott Ingram: That's amazing. How old are your kids? What's the mix?

20:32 John Krause: Yeah, 7, 5, and 1 with a 4th one on the way. And I thought 3 was crazy. 4 is insane. I think we could… let's see, we have a minivan so we could fit 5 in the minivan, I think. Once we get to 6, you have to buy one of those large cargo transit vans. My wife always says, let's have one at a time. Let's avoid the 2 at a times.

21:00 Scott Ingram: Wow. Wow. You set the bar and the quota really high.

21:05 John Krause: We got married.

21:06 Scott Ingram: This is ambitious, John.

21:08 John Krause: We were dating, and one of the conversations that you have when you're dating is how many kids you want to have, right? You want to be somewhat aligned. And so we had talked about 3 or 4. And cool, 3 or 4 sounds fine. We had our second child and she goes, I want to be done. I'm like, what do you mean? We had this agreement where we were going to have 3 or 4. Now that we had 3, she wanted to have 4.

21:33 Scott Ingram: Wow. What kind of crazy switch got flipped there? Although part of my theory is, especially I think for parents, probably for the moms even more, but there must be some type of psychological wiring where the first… I don't know how long it is… the first 6 months, 8 months, a year, whatever it is, gets completely repressed because otherwise we would never do this again. But as humans, we do it again.

21:57 John Krause: It is miserable having an infant in the house. It is so horrible. You get no sleep. Everybody's mad at each other because you're not getting any sleep. Cranky. It's just total chaos. And then you decide to do it again. Yeah.

22:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Again, there is a switch. There is some wiring. This is built into us that we just don't actually accurately remember how bad it is. I will tell you though, man, don't blink. My youngest daughter, I've got 2 daughters. My youngest just graduated high school.

22:25 John Krause: Wow.

22:25 Scott Ingram: And it is beyond me how it is that I have quote unquote adult children at this point. Just absolutely blows my mind because it was minutes ago that they were 1 and 4 and 7.

22:38 John Krause: Yeah. Time does go by fast, doesn't it?

22:40 Scott Ingram: It goes really fast.

22:41 John Krause: It really does. It really does. How many kids did you want to have?

22:45 Scott Ingram: I hit my quota, and that is one where I was not looking to overachieve.

22:50 John Krause: Oh, that's cool.

22:53 Scott Ingram: That's a good number. It's a good number. Let's keep going on the just routine perspective. Are there other kind of core habits and things? We talked about the Bible, we talked about oatmeal, we talked about time with your family, which is amazing. What else goes in there?

23:09 John Krause: Yeah. Yeah. What else goes in there? I touched on it earlier. I'm a big fan of living life with customers. So whether it's like the cliché, like playing golf with customers, whether it's going out to lunch, whether it's just calling them to say, hey, goes a long way. You talked about Jeff Bajorc a little bit earlier, and Jeff is a wonderful friend and I've got to experience his sales process and he's good at what he does, man. He's something else. And I've learned so much from him about just the little ways that he talks to me just by asking questions, getting me to come to conclusions without saying anything. And yeah, it's just, I'm a constant learner, constant learner, always trying to find somebody that's doing what I'm doing because why wouldn't I want to learn from them? I think that people like to mentor. I love to be mentored too, but you have to ask. You have to make that awkward. I noticed what you're doing is really good. Can you teach me that? People love that, but we don't ask. We don't ask. You mentioned it earlier. It's, I'm all about the awkward question. All about it. All about it. They, for years, actually, they had a It's still there. It's called the John Krause Bingo. It's this big, like, plaque, we'll call it piece of paper on the wall that has all these sheets and it's a big giant grid. And every time I would say something awkward to a customer, they'd fill it in.

24:43 Scott Ingram: Like with the quote? Yeah.

24:45 John Krause: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Tons of stuff. Not like anything like totally off the wall, but if someone's getting married, if someone's having a kid, if someone's like, whatever, let's talk about it. Like, why not? I got kids. They're hard. How's your kid going? What are the challenges? Right. And you do that in an open office environment where they can only hear my side. You get some pretty good laughs, pretty good laughs. So I'm all about the awkward questions and building that relationship.

25:14 Scott Ingram: Oh my gosh. That is so good. Okay. So here's what we're going to do. I am so bad about getting people back to the website. They got to get on the newsletter list so that I can talk with them. And I'm building a whole new system to help with this. But here's what I want to add to your show notes. So if folks go to top1.fm/john-krause or top1.fm/201, which will be the episode number… hey, I actually know what it is for once… will you find me? I want the 3 best quotes from the John Krause bingo sheet.

25:45 John Krause: Yes.

25:45 Scott Ingram: And we're going to put them in there.

25:46 John Krause: Yes, you got it. I will give them to you.

25:48 Scott Ingram: That will be super fun. I'm excited to read them myself.

25:51 John Krause: Let me make a note here. Yeah.

25:53 Scott Ingram: So you talk about learning from people that are doing well. How are you finding that? And then what is the rest of your information diet? What are you reading? What are you listening to? What are you watching? When does all of that stuff happen?

26:04 John Krause: I'm a big fan of Anthony Iannarino, Mike Weinberg, those types of people. Read lots of their stuff. We also read them as a team. We've read lots of those books as a team. My particular realm that I'm in, manufacturing equipment, oftentimes has a third-party that will purchase our equipment that goes to this big automotive company. Someone buys my equipment, they buy robots, they buy all kinds of stuff. They integrate it into a big manufacturing assembly line, and then they provide it to a car manufacturer. That team, that company has a large sales team around them, but they're talking to big, big car manufacturers as well. Oftentimes those people are highly technical. Those people are well-seasoned. They've been there for a while. Finding those people, talking to them, going out to lunch with them, you name it. There's lots of referrals that you can have within that network. Hey, I'm successful here. I heard you want to be successful there. Let me share a contact with you. In that realm, I'm a big fan of Giving first before receiving. You give first, they will always give back. Always. Yeah. So one of the… we'll have to figure out how we transition this so I can get my ums out of there. But let's see, I'm trying to think if I should say this. I think I can say this. So there's someone that has been mentoring me over the years, and I found out he was going after this particular company. And he knew that we had done business with that company. So I gave him some names on the phone just the other day, and he knew that I was looking to add to our sales team, add to our sales team. I didn't really know who yet at the time. I just… he just knew I was looking to add for 2027, 2028, just growth reasons. Got off the phone that night. He said, hey, I know you're trying to add to the team. Here's a bunch of resumes. Just sends me a whole bunch of resumes. I didn't ask nothing. He just sent them over to me. It's… there's something, there's something to the giving first that people forget about. They get into this selfish mindset where I need first.

28:27 Scott Ingram: Love that. That is a huge thing that I'm leaning into as we get ready to come together for this year's Sales Success Summit. There's a few things that are colliding As I think about the way that the world is evolving right now. And I have always been very relationship referral-centric in the way that I work. And I think that one, outbound is getting harder and harder and it's not going to start to get easier. We're not going to turn a corner. The AI is going to be there and it's just creating so much noise across every channel. And I really believe, I'm not saying it's dead. I will not go there. There are still parts of it that work and some people do it really well. But I think that what has always worked over all time is when we have a real relationship. Now, maybe not all time, but if I can text somebody, that's a channel that is much slower to be polluted and somebody opening that door for you to somebody else, right? That relational, it's how we connected. We connected because Jeff said, hey, let's get John on the show. And he started, I, we probably started a text conversation, right? It was just the 3 of us. Right. And that's how it works. And as I think about the future of sales success and what we're doing together, this has always been such a pay it forward, give to get a community because we're all literally paying it forward. You're spending hours with me to share your wisdom, to inspire other people so that they can learn from somebody that's doing it well. And what I have found in my career is maybe a little bit different than what you described, because I've not found that, oh, if you give first, they'll always give. Maybe in the Midwest. Maybe it's always in Michigan, but what I have found is some people are just wired for it. It's in their DNA. And the way that I always think about it is if somebody has referred me once, they are 10, 20, I don't know, 50 times more likely to do it again versus anybody else. So I really strive to take care of those people. And as I think about us continuing to build this community of top performers, that is the DNA that I'm looking for. We are able to help each other so much more in that way and leaning in the direction of kind of a connect the connectors type of a realm, right? So as we think about our own networks and those who have created the most opportunities for us, those are the people we need to bring in the doors. Yeah. So Scott Weiss is basically a neighbor of mine, lives a couple of miles from me here in Austin. And He has actually been running this kind of go-to network. I don't even know what to call it, right? He's got a number of clients and has just kind of been on this soapbox for a good number of years that is just really well aligned to this. So he's agreed, hey, I'm going to get involved in the summit this year. We're going to bring some of these clients. We're going to bring a lot of these top referrers together so that we really do have the connectors dynamic because those are my people, right? Those are the people I want to hang out with. We've got a lot of value that we can add to them and they've got a lot of value that they can bring to us. Anyway, we'll come back to that. I've got some things for you as we part, but just wanted to share that a little bit more broadly with the audience as this year's event is evolving. There's a whole bunch of pieces that I'm super excited about as, because I have to do better than last year again for the 9th time. And I love that challenge. It is so much fun. So anyway, I digress. If you want to learn more about the summit again, go to top1.fm, go to top1summit.com. They both get you to the same place within a click or 2. So the flip side that I'm really interested in, and my gosh, is this part of the world evolving quickly. I've always asked about the tools and the apps that that you're using. What is that? How are you thinking about the technology support side of your world these days?

32:11 John Krause: Yeah, so do you want to go down the AI route, or what are we thinking here?

32:16 Scott Ingram: All of it, let's go.

32:17 John Krause: Yeah, one of the things that's been top of mind to me is AI note-taking and what its use is and how do you use it. There's so many things that are… there's so many different channels that are available for that. And I think that's a very practical, easy tool to implement now. I can be more present for my conversation with you, have something else take notes for me. That makes a ton of sense. I think there's other things like ZoomInfo that our team has used significantly with finding prospects and leads and so forth, database of sorts. Outside of that, There's other AI tools, but we haven't adopted any of them yet. We've played around with them. We've used some of the AI tools to look at our PowerPoints and polish them and give you feedback and ideas and so forth. They're kind of weird. It's kind of weird, right? Wow. The robots are taking over the world. It really is weird. And there's also a lot of noise there too, though. So. One of the realities is we stated in the beginning is that I make sales because I get to know my customer and I'm there for them and I live life a little bit more. So we don't want to lose that portion, but there's definitely ways to polish your offering, we'll say, a little bit.

33:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I'm going to climb on a little soapbox here and this may become a recurring theme in what I talk about because I've been really just thinking about this and leaning into this a lot. The way I think about it right now Is it's what you want is the AI mullet. And what I mean by that is you want to be the human in front supported by a lot of AI, because where I think people are getting frustrated, and honestly, I'm getting really frustrated, is when it's the AI in front. Somebody reached out to me and I have a good relationship with this person. Like I like them. So I still said yes to what they were asking for, but I was almost a little bit offended In clearly the email they sent me was AI generated. Clearly the landing page that they had that was supporting the story that they were trying to tell was Claude generated. Like, you know it when you see it. I think our radar is really tuned. The way that I'm thinking about this twofold, it's more than that, but let's keep this simple for now on my little soapbox idea, is what I have found in this show through all these interviews is exactly what you found as a good manager. Is the people who are the most successful in sales have figured out what their own strengths and superpowers are, and they lean really hard into them. And sometimes they're weird. Sounds like yours is just asking super awkward questions. Amazing. But if you lean too hard into AI, you sound like everybody else that's leaning too hard into AI and you lose your own superpower. So the way that I'm thinking about it is These tools are amazing. I actually think for the same reason, call recording is actually maybe the very best example of this because that's how I use it. It is my AI mullet. That having a tool that is taking way better notes than I ever did so that I can be 100% present in the conversation and don't have to worry about, oh, I got to write that down and now I missed the next thing that you said. That's what I mean. And I think there's so much opportunity in that. And I'm actually thinking about going back to, I need to figure out what year like resonates most with people, but I think, I don't know, like 1997, I'm just going to use spellcheck and I'm going to turn off all that, like Google, it's underlining things and setting off bells and whistles. I'm like, no, I care enough to write you an email, not to have some bot do it. Right. I really think that this idea, the more that we can lean into our humanity and really connect with each other. But again, yeah, I've got call recording going. Yeah, I used AI to do a ton of research and prep and help me figure out what is going to be the most relevant stuff for us to talk about in the conversation. Yeah, we should be doing all of that stuff. It's an amazing tool. Don't ignore it. But we've got an opportunity to be, I think, more human because of it if we do it right.

36:37 John Krause: It's a great point. It's fascinating how you can tell when something's AI-generated.

36:42 Scott Ingram: Oh, And it's like a 6th sense. And like I said, I think we're also at the beginning of the backlash is starting to get really real. I saw something just the other day that said AI is, I don't know how they asked the question, but it was like less respected or less liked or had worse sentiment than Congress or something. I'm like, my God, that is a really low bar. But I think what it is, it's not the power, it's not the tools, it's the slop. It's the everybody's using this garbage and we've just lost. It's when I don't get to see humans anymore, I'm like, okay, I don't want to read what the robot wrote. Like, I prompt enough of that myself. I don't need to read what resulted from your prompt.

37:20 John Krause: Oftentimes in sales, you're looking for that differentiator. How can I be different? I guess not using AI is different.

37:28 Scott Ingram: I think it's going to be…

37:29 John Krause: it's different.

37:30 Scott Ingram: I absolutely do. And again, don't get me wrong. I still think there's a prioritization. Here's the other thing, maybe one of the most surprising things. And it's so funny that here we are coming back to it after I've been doing this podcast almost 10 years. I thought going in, I've always been in tech. I love technology. I thought coming into this podcast that I would find people who had figured out how to use technology so well that they were massively outperforming from a sales perspective. I found the exact opposite. The most common toolset I found was, Scott, I use my calendar. I use my notebook. I use email. Very simple. And I think if you lean too hard into the technology, there's so many tools and so much distraction. What I'm challenging myself with right now is, can I use AI to consolidate it into one view so that I'm limiting the number? Because I'm not going to stop. It's really good. I like it a lot. But how do you harness the power in a way that isn't just, I'm distracted all the time and I'm not getting anything really productive done. It's a fascinating time right now.

38:46 John Krause: I agree. I agree. There's a lot of distractions out there that might be useful, but I think it strays us away from what we have to do, which is sell to our customers. And we still have a quota to be held accountable to. That feeds our entire company. So there's families in our company that rely on my job, right? And when you understand the importance of that, boy, oh boy, does that put a different perspective on what you do.

39:20 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I love that. I love that framing. So good. Let's talk about… you mentioned Anthony Iannarino and Mark Hunter, and I know you didn't say Mark Hunter. Mike Weinberg.

39:31 John Krause: Mike Weinberg. Yeah, but Mark Hunter is a good one too.

39:34 Scott Ingram: Okay, cool. We got them all in there. All good guys. Do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

39:40 John Krause: As a team, we'd probably go down the fanatical prospecting from Jeb Blount. I think would be very common in our office. I personally like Mike Weinberg, I think, the best. I just like the way he describes things. Anthony gets very scientific very fast, and I get lost at times. Stuff's still good. In particular, I like Mike Weinberg's… I think it's New Manager Simplified, or I don't know what it's called.

40:07 Scott Ingram: I know exactly what you're talking about. We will have it accurate and linked in the show notes.

40:11 John Krause: Okay.

40:12 Scott Ingram: top1.fm/201. I got you.

40:15 John Krause: That was super helpful. Me and my manager went through it together and we'd read a couple chapters, meet, read a couple chapters, meet, read a couple chapters, meet. It was wonderful to talk to him about that. We grew together in our relationship. And also I just learned a ton, learned a ton. And yeah, that's what comes to mind to me. Cool.

40:37 Scott Ingram: Cool. So in those philosophies, how would you describe your style?

40:43 John Krause: My style? Doing all the small things right. Doing the things that are in your control. There's lots of things that are outside of our control that we try and control. And then building the foundation out. So if you have a strong foundation, you can go a long ways. If you have a weak foundation, it's going to crumble pretty fast. In our organization, I started theme of the years, themes of the year. I started themes of the year. This year is foundation and that in particular, back to the basics. So focus, focusing on the small things. Let's not get lost in everything that sales has to bring and trying to fix all these, well, good things, but very advanced things. Let's focus on the small things. So the, I'm going to have my meeting with my customer. I'm going to focus on being responsive. I'm going to focus on being a fanatical prospector. Those little things that we oftentimes forget. I don't know what next year's theme is. I've actually been thinking about that. But, uh, we'll see.

41:51 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. You answered the first question, which is like some examples of what are the small things, but what do you see as being the most core kind of foundational fundamental things?

42:02 John Krause: The 3 foundational characteristics that we're focusing on this year in 2026 is being a trusted advisor, being a fanatical prospector, and having what I'll dub as grit. Very foundational, very Mike Weinberg, Jeb Blount-ish, we'll call it. And there's also a throwback to the Detroit Lions that are very big, obviously, here in Michigan. They're known as having grit. We particularly chose grit so that it would be relatable to the people on the team. So it wasn't just me throwing 2 ideas that these authors have And saying, these are 2 foundational characteristics. Your Detroit Lions that you love are trademarked as having grit. Our team's going to have that too. And it's been fun. It's been fun. There's lots of losses, right? There's lots of losses. There's lots of hurts. There's lots of aches in sales. What happens after those happen? Do you stand up and continue or what do you do? And that's what's a… that's what differentiates you and a high performer.

43:14 Scott Ingram: So good. Love it. Love it. So, John, related to that, what motivates you? How do you think about motivation and drive?

43:21 John Krause: What motivates me in sales? We have to take the perspective that what we can do can potentially promote someone. When we have that perspective, it changes the why and the how that I do it. It changes the confidence that I have when I go into a cold call or a prospective meeting or whatever, right? What I can do can promote you. That's a different position that motivates me. It adds a different level to how I do it, why I do it. I think it's a ton of fun. Yeah.

43:57 Scott Ingram: Yeah. We're wired very similarly in that. The way I always think about it is I want to change the trajectory of somebody's career and I want to do that for my customers. That gets me way more excited than commission checks. Again, don't get me wrong, I love to be paid. But that is such a huge driver for me. It's what I want for the people listening to this podcast to get. I want the trajectory of your career to change in a good way. Let's be very clear. Let's bend this curve up. It's what I want to do in the summit. It's what I want us to do for each other, because that's everything. And to your point, that impacts our families and impacts many people around us, oftentimes many families.

44:36 John Krause: Yeah. And your potential customers can feel that. They can see that and they can see that you're different, which is really what you're looking for. You're looking for that differentiator. Yeah.

44:46 Scott Ingram: Yeah. It's the opposite of commission breath, right? It's, I want you to be successful breath, which smells a lot better.

44:52 John Krause: Now, there are some cases where we can fall into the, I had a bad quarter, numbers are low, now I'm desperate. That's something also to guard yourself against because we can get into that, ooh, I need it. I need this sale. And then your customer starts to feel that. That's not a good place to be in.

45:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah, 100%. John, is there something you believe that the average or typical sales professional would think is crazy?

45:19 John Krause: I think sometimes people think that it takes more than it does. I've had so many times where I've asked customers why they've bought from me. These are monster logos, like the largest companies in the world. You'd be like, wow, it's a big company. You're selling to them. Good for you. And the reason was because I was the only person that called them. And 9 times out of 10, sometimes that's all it takes. It really is. I would say that some people don't believe that or trust that.

45:53 Scott Ingram: What about the flip side? Is there something about kind of the sales dogma, like this is what everybody says about sales, you're like, no, actually, I think that's wrong?

46:01 John Krause: Oh, that you're sleazy and you get the car salesman deal. It's not like that at all. I think it's a ton of fun. I think it's one of the most fulfilling careers in the world. You know, you think of like doctors and like things like that where you get to save people's lives. Sales is awesome. It is so fun and competitive. When I look for new employees, I like people that played sports. I like people that have a competitive attitude. That is so important.

46:34 Scott Ingram: Yeah, good stuff, good stuff. Let's lean into some of the lessons learned. Was there a decision that you made, or just like a core lesson you learned, that changed your own trajectory?

46:46 John Krause: Changed my own trajectory? A decision that I made? Probably saying yes to sales. I was not going to be in sales here. That was not my That's not where I thought I was going to go. I thought I was going to go into… I was either going to continue writing software or I might go in the engineering department. I thought that might be the case. I never thought sales. I never thought I could do sales. I studied finance. It's… yeah, but saying yes and trusting and kind of jumping off the cliff to an extent was the best decision I've ever made, ever made.

47:22 Scott Ingram: And maybe it's what you just said, but I'm curious if you could go back and talk to your, I'm guessing, early 20s self who couldn't conceive of sales as a path. What would you tell that kid about why you need to seriously look at sales? And hey, hold that thought because the next question I typically ask is, what advice would you give to somebody that's just starting out in their sales career? So I don't know if those are 2 different things and a good evolution, or if we're just leaning too hard into one. Where it's the same answer?

47:53 John Krause: I think if I were to go back and talk to myself, I would tell him… I would tell me that you're going to be in a position of leadership, that people look up to you because of the choices and the things that you do. Pay attention to what you do because people are watching. And I've been at times, I'll say, I don't know, maybe not aware of like how much people actually watch me or other people and how much of an impact that is. So just always being on your game, even when it's not a customer, right? Because as much as we're pouring into our customers, we're pouring into our colleagues next to us that are below us and above us, all of them, all the above. Even the people at the grocery store you are pouring into. Also give yourself some grace. Give yourself some grace because you're going to mess up a lot and the world keeps turning. It just keeps… it does. Yeah.

48:57 Scott Ingram: This is a huge epiphany I had a number of years ago, and especially as an individual contributor, the idea that sales is leadership. And it's a concept, an idea that takes some real unpacking and I won't do it for anybody. It's something that you just have to really think about for yourself, but To what you described, there are so many dynamics and elements to that concept, and you don't need direct reports for it to be true.

49:24 John Krause: No, no, not at all. Not at all. Leaders aren't assigned. They're… they just gravitate. They just become leaders themselves, right? A true leader doesn't have a title at all.

49:37 Scott Ingram: Amazing. Related vein, but maybe a little bit of a different answer. If you were talking to somebody that's just very early in their sales career, what would you tell them? What's the advice?

49:48 John Krause: I would be excited for them. I love… so we talked about it earlier, having people mentor me. I love mentoring other people. I love it. I think sales is so exciting. I would tell them that what you are doing is fun and exciting. You're going to lose a lot and you're going to win a ton. And the job that you have is the most important at the entire company. It just is. Without you, they don't exist. Keep that perspective, but also keep a humble perspective at the same time. I would tell them to learn from the people above them whenever they can. Don't think that you can do it all by yourself, because the reality is there's an entire team around you. It's not just you. And when we get into the, I'm going to handle everything because I can do everything and I don't trust anyone else to handle it for me. Guess what? You're the person that answers all the questions for the next 15 years. Right. And yeah, we can cut the questions out of there, but yeah. So you can figure out how to seam this together, but in our neighborhood, we, we have lots of people that'll knock on the door and sell us pest control and all kinds of stuff. I love to hear their pitch. I think it's great. I can learn from their pitch. I'm like, wow, that was a pretty good little pitch you just sold me. And I think I look at those people, I try to give them… we don't give them our business, which is unfortunate, but that's fine. I try to give them confidence though in what they're doing because it takes a lot of nerve to knock on someone's door and try and pitch something. I think it's a little easier to go in and call someone that's in a corporate environment and sell them something. That's, I think that's a little easier.

51:34 Scott Ingram: What about somebody that is a little further into their career and they're doing okay, but they haven't found the switch to get from good to great? What do you tell them?

51:45 John Krause: I would advise them or guide them down using the gifts that they have and putting the spotlight on those gifts. If you're really good in front of a customer, let's make sure that we get you in front of customers. That's the goal. If you're really good technically, let's get you in front of technical conversations. If you're the best email drafter in the world, boy, we're going to send some emails. And highlighting those and putting them in a position to, to help them be the most successful that they can.

52:18 Scott Ingram: Great callout. Great callout. So I know you're wired this way. What are the things that you want to learn from the top sellers in other organizations?

52:26 John Krause: What mistakes you made. Tell me what the mistakes that you made are. What'd you learn from it? Tell me why you did it that way. Tell me how you did this particular awesome thing that you did as well. I think there's lots of good ways to sell. I sell a particular way. Other people might sell another particular way. I'm a huge fan of always trying to be better. Always with anything that I'm doing.

52:54 Scott Ingram: So how do you answer that, John? What are the mistakes that you make?

52:58 John Krause: What are the mistakes that I've made? I guess we'll focus on the management side. Going and try and fix people, change the way that they sell is a huge mistake that I've made. Not quite early in my management career. So not taking the things that they're good at and helping them shine those right now. I'm learning that, and it's good. It's good. My team's on board with that. They understand that we're trying to fix that and so forth. As far as the individual contributor goes, what are the mistakes that I've made? Being the only person that's behind a sale. One of the… there's a book called Good to Great. You mentioned it earlier, Good to Great, actually. So you must have read the book. There's a concept called the Hedgehog Concept. It's what makes each company. What is a company's hedgehog characteristic? For the listeners out there that haven't read the book, hedgehog is the best at curling up in a ball and surviving. That's what they're good at. They're the best in the world at it. So what are you best at? Promess in particularly has the best service and support in the world, period. Our competition will say that. Everybody says that. That's what differentiates us. It's the white glove treatment. So if I go into a sales process, I sell equipment and so forth. My numbers are good, but nobody sees this team that's around me. What is our hedgehog concept? I'm missing something. I'm missing something, right? Understanding what that is and then using it to your advantage. I've started to learn over the years.

54:33 Scott Ingram: So good. So good. And like anything, like learning is not a one-time thing. Sometimes we have to be beat over the head dozens of times before we properly learn a lesson. I know I have bumps all over my head.

54:45 John Krause: Yeah, yeah. I have a sticky note actually that sits right under my computer. It says, be patient and let things play out. I think that I can have a tendency at times to go too fast with anything, right? Anything… golf game, whatever. Yeah, just being patient fixes a lot of things in life. It really does.

55:05 Scott Ingram: I had a leader tell me many times At a time in my career, I was acutely suffering from a very similar approach. Sometimes you have to go slow to go fast.

55:18 John Krause: Yes.

55:18 Scott Ingram: It took me a really long time to get that. You can hear it. You could be told the things, but sometimes, again, beat over the head a lot of times, like, oh, I totally get it now.

55:30 John Krause: Yeah. It's actually a big thing that we've talked about in our organization as a sales team. Is slowing down the sales process. We get these customers that need something very quickly, and the problems that arise when that happens is you end up making a lot of mistakes, which actually ends up taking longer and it costs more money. So we have to be diligent about slowing down the process for them because the reality is the product that I sell every week, but my customer only buys a couple times a year. They don't know how this thing works. I have to be the trusted advisor that helps them understand what that process looks like. And sometimes, most of the time, it's slower than what they think.

56:16 Scott Ingram: Oh, amazing. John, this has been a blast. We've covered a ton of ground. Was there anything that you were hoping that we would talk about that we didn't actually get to?

56:27 John Krause: Yeah. One of the things that comes to mind is I love golf. There's some philosophies in golf that I think apply to, that apply to sales. 2 of them that come to mind. One is feel versus real. On the golf swing, you're going to do something that feels like I'm doing something, but in reality you're not. And it's that Tiger Woods talks about it. It's that feel versus real thing. What is it that you think that you're doing in sales but you're actually not, right? And that's where the outside perspective, someone helping you look at you, making yourself vulnerable, can help significantly. The second one is aim small, miss small. Aim small, miss small. So you're out playing golf and you're teeing off, you're trying to hit the fairway. If you just… I'm going to try and hit in the fairway… that's a recipe for disaster. What you have to do is you have to pick a very particular spot in a very particular spot of the fairway. We'll say 2 inches by 2 inches. You do that and mathematically you will be more accurate. In sales, we have these large territories based on… it kind of depends, I guess, on how your organization is set up. But you can have these large territories where you can have tons of people to sell to. Are you aiming small enough? Are you aiming small enough? Because there's lots of business out there, tons of business out there. If you aim too big, you're going to miss. You're going to spread yourself too thin. If you make that smaller, you're going to be more accurate. Those are 2 things that come to mind to me.

58:01 Scott Ingram: Just to be clear, you're not saying aim for a smaller number. Talk that through just a little bit more.

58:06 John Krause: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would go down the account selection route, account selection route. So we talk about like, how many accounts should you go after? People will say, I got like 500 accounts. That's too big. That's way too big. 100, that's too many, right? Pick 10, pick 15. I'm going to target these because I think that what they do needs me, right? You're going to have other things that take you away from that, and you're going to get other sales from other places that you don't expect. But you make that target list smaller, you will be more successful. You will focus. Yep. Aim small, miss small.

58:45 Scott Ingram: I love it. I love it. So we've talked about a lot of good stuff. I've enjoyed this a lot, but how do we make it actionable? What would you challenge our listener to actually do over the course of the next 1, maybe 2 weeks to improve themselves, improve their results?

58:59 John Krause: Yeah. Remember the impact that you can have on your customers. Future, no matter what you do. No matter what you do is important.

59:07 Scott Ingram: With that, John, thank you so much. Appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us. Been a pleasure getting to know you.

59:13 John Krause: Thanks, Scott. 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.