24: ADP Sales Pro, David Weiss, on Generating 2-3X Results by Taking a Scientific Approach with a Strong Sales Methodology

0:08 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram.

0:26 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of ViewedIt. Boost your email response rates and book more meetings with video by downloading ViewedIt by Vidyard at top1.fm/v, or go to any page on top1.fm and click on their ad. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is David Weiss. David was the number 1 seller in his division last year at 220% of plan in the global enterprise sales division at ADP in their elite quota carrier group, which basically means that he didn't have the quota of a mere mortal. Welcome to the show, David.

1:02 David Weiss: Thanks, Scott. Good to be here.

1:04 Scott Ingram: So the way we got connected, connected is actually a kind of funny story that I wanted to share real quick. It was a fan of the show and a friend of yours, Andy Racic, who introduced us and suggested that I have you on as a guest. The irony here is that Andy is fairly new to ADP, and in his first couple of weeks on the job, he was catching up with his VP, who's also a big podcast listener, and Andy told him about this show and mentions me. At that point, Greg says, Wait a minute, Scott Ingram? Like, he used to work here. So, I once worked for ADP about 10 years ago, and Andy apparently overlaps with some of the territory I once covered, and even said he occasionally runs across my name in Salesforce. So, anyway, fun story. I digress a bit, just broke my own rule about jumping right into some solid value in the first few minutes. So, David, without any further ado, what are the top 3 things that you believe have allowed you to get to the top of the sales leaderboard?

2:00 David Weiss: Sure, I'd say the first one is, you know, I'm a true student of sales, and I can elaborate on that, and I'm sure we'll talk about it. The other one would be I take what I do very seriously. I feel like, you know, it's almost a sport or a science, and I'm gonna talk a lot about, you know, my… the science behind selling and the methodologies I use. And for me, it's a lot about, you know, practice makes perfect, and you gotta really be willing and want to be the best And really, I call it win the game, but to me that means things like, you know, doing a lot of role-playing, doing a lot of practicing, doing a lot of studying, reading a lot about, you know, the sport, the game you're trying to play, and being the best at it. And then taking those things and executing on them in the highest degree you possibly can. So I can elaborate on any of that, but those would be my top 3.

2:46 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, let's elaborate on each one. So you started with just being a student of sales. What does that mean, and how do you approach being a student?

2:57 David Weiss: Yeah, so what that means to me is, you know, never stop learning. You know, if a shark stops swimming, it dies. So for me, my thought there is, you know, read as much as you can, learn as much as you can. There's some, you know, early on in my sales career, there's a lot of different, you know, methodologies I've picked up, whether it's SPIN Selling or Miller Heiman or Challenger or, you know, one I'll get into called MEDDIC or, you know, books on sales negotiation. You know, I relate it back to if you want to be great at anything, you have to become a student of that thing and really understand, you know, what makes people amazing at what that thing is and be able to break it down and re-engineer it in your own way. And that to me is what being a student of sales is all about.

3:39 Scott Ingram: And is it mostly reading? I mean, is that the primary source of information or where else are you getting that information?

3:46 David Weiss: Yeah, it's definitely not just reading. I mean, reading is a component, but you know, there's, there's things like mentorship. And I'll talk about that. There's things like, you know, being in and choosing the sales organizations you work for that have great sales training. There are things like, you know, just getting out there and just, you know, practicing the things you've learned and failing and failing quick and tweaking and not making the same mistakes twice. So there's a… I'd say there's a lot that goes into being a student of sales, but if you're gonna, you know, dedicate your life to the practice of something, Um, you know, do it right.

4:20 Scott Ingram: Yeah, nice. And, and we'll come back to a number of those things. I'm particularly interested in the mentor side of things. But you, your second thing was, uh, treating it as a sport and a science. What do you mean by that?

4:34 David Weiss: Yeah, so, you know, if you were going to be a chemist or you were going to, you know, learn to play the game of golf, let's, let's use that as an easy example. You know, you'd be constantly practicing your swing, you'd be constantly breaking down you know, each mechanic and piece of your swing. You would be finding, you know, great coaches to work with. You'd be playing the game constantly. There, you know, there would be so many things that you would do to become a good golfer, then you dedicate your life to it. I view sales the same way. It's something I take seriously. So I practice it and I, you know, I treat it like a sport I want to be amazing at, or like a science that I want to, you know, learn to be you know, great at. It's that type of, I guess, dedication and will to be the best.

5:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah, and your last point was practice. So what does the practice look like for you sort of on a daily or weekly basis?

5:30 David Weiss: So I would say if I was gonna look at daily and weekly, I would say that's doing my job and taking it seriously and learning from the things I say and do and breaking down, you know, doing almost like a mental review after each call. To say, all right, what did I like about the things I said? What were some of the things I could say better? How'd the client react to the things I said? You know, and taking some, you know, personal accountability to think through those things. I would say on a much, you know, bigger level, practice came a lot in my, you know, earlier career where it was, you know, having good mentors, having role-playing a lot, you know, spending time with, other great salespeople, watching what they do and then trying to figure out a way to replicate it myself and reverse engineer it and making it my own. Uh, so things like that.

6:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, and you've mentioned twice now kind of the mentor piece. So let's talk about that. Before I finish asking David this question about mentors, I want to thank ViewedIt by Vidyard for being our exclusive sponsor of this episode. Thanks to them, you're going to get to listen to the next 90 minutes of this conversation completely uninterrupted. So I hope you'll take 3 minutes to help me thank them by going to top1.fm/v to download their free Chrome plugin so you can try it out. ViewedIt allows you to easily create personalized videos that with the click of a button, you can include in your emails to really stand out. You'll even get an email back letting you know when and how much of your video the recipient has watched. If you're not already on our mailing list, you can see some of the ViewedIt videos that I'm creating to send along with our new episode announcements. Just head over to top1.fm/v. Get on the mailing list and then click on the ad for ViewedIt by Vidyard to get it for yourself. Now back to my interview with David Weiss. How are you going about seeking mentors and building those relationships?

7:25 David Weiss: Yeah. So one practice I've had at every organization I've been part of, and let me just back up. I'll say I've probably gotten really lucky. Um, I've found some, some great people that have either hired me or that I found and followed. I've been very lucky there. And so finding mentors is… we… I think you probably hear it a lot, but it's not always the easiest thing. So I'll say I'm very blessed. I feel very lucky. How I often go about it is finding people who are great at what they do and trying to add value to them while also getting as much value from them as I can. So it's maybe when you first join organizations, that's often the easiest time. You know, asking your boss who the best people are and asking to shadow them and buying them lunch or take, or, you know, cup of coffee and, you know, seeing if they'd let you join on sales calls or at least picking their brain and building those relationships to a point where, you know, they're willing to answer your questions and willing to, you know, take you on calls and, you know, learn from them. I've also been really fortunate even, you know, today at ADP, but also previous organizations like CareerBuilder that I worked for and Monster and others that, You know, I had great bosses that, you know, took me under their wing and, you know, I soaked up like a sponge. You know, I've, I've, I've tried to humble myself as much as I can to be coachable and willing to learn from others and ask a lot of questions and, you know, just put myself out there to learn.

8:56 Scott Ingram: And how big of a criteria is that for you when you're looking at a new role, a new opportunity, the leader that you would be working for?

9:05 David Weiss: One of the, one of the top for a new opportunity, one of the, one of the most important things. You know, I get approached a lot by people and organizations, and I'd say one of the things that has made me, I guess, you know, if you can create your own destiny or create your own luck, you know, I've evaluated the people and the companies that I've chose to work for, you know, very closely. And I'll talk about this later on in our conversation, but You know, I've, I've made, I've made mistakes very early on in my career about the companies I chose to work for. And I learned from that mistake really quick. And that's where a lot of the strong evaluation came from.

9:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And what is that evaluation process like? How are you qualifying? Is this going to be a great person for me to work for that's going to support me and help me grow?

9:53 David Weiss: You know, it's, it's a lot of stuff personally and professionally. I mean, there are some pieces of it around, you know, have you mentored other people or what are your, styles when it comes to how you manage and lead people. And it's things like their selling methodologies and how they approach business and, you know, how they handle difficult conversations and difficult situations that come up and how they are as far as, you know, hands-on or hands-off in the field. I mean, what I, what I try and do is break down the sales processes that I have lived in and ask how they handle you know, each step of the process and when challenges come up in those pieces of the process, uh, but also, you know, from a personal perspective, see if there's, um, you know, a strong connection there.

10:40 Scott Ingram: Nice. So let's talk a little bit about your role today. I think most folks are probably familiar with, with ADP. I mean, it's even more impressive that you're at the top of that organization. Huge, huge sales organization, lots of great training, but tell us about your role and kind of how you got to number one.

10:59 David Weiss: Yeah, so my role is within the Talent Acquisition Solutions division of ADP, and within that division I'm part of Global Enterprise Sales. So I'm considered essentially an overlay of about 20 other sales reps at ADP that are very, very good, have, you know, large territories, and I'm, you know, the subject matter expert they kind of tag in, if you will, to speak with executives about talent acquisition, the marketplace, and how our solutions can impact them. So, you know, how I got to the top of that organization, I mean, it's, that's a big question, Scott. I think we're gonna, you know, get into that a lot around my sales methodology, and I'm gonna review that. It's, I take a very scientific approach to sales. And it's, it's something that is teachable, is learnable, uh, that anyone could do. And I can pretty much guarantee the, you know, cause I've seen it personally, you know, results being 2 to 3x, whatever they are today by following, you know, a subset of these methodologies.

12:12 Scott Ingram: Well, that's a pretty damn good teaser. Well, and so put the, put a couple of things into context for us. One, um, just, quantify your results for us a little bit more beyond kind of the 220% and talk to us about what is this… what does it mean to be part of the Elite Quota Carrier group at ADP?

12:31 David Weiss: Yeah, so the, the 220% was, you know, I had a million-dollar quota, um, sold $2.2 million. Uh, so, you know, very proud of that result. A lot of hard work went into it. Uh, and, you know, even happier that it was part of kind of that Elite Quota group. So that Elite Quota group, it's It's a title that ADP gives to, you know, their top performers, and it often comes with a higher quota, but also some, you know, kickers and incentives if you achieve that quota, like, you know, making it President's Club a little bit better and things like that. So it's a special category. They just built it a couple years ago. Um, you know, I would say it's, it's definitely designed to, uh, give people that are top performers a little bit of added incentive to keep driving the number.

13:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And then your role is a little bit unique, although not uncommon, in that it is kind of an overlay type of opportunity. How specifically are you maximizing that type of role?

13:36 David Weiss: Yeah. So, you know, there, I'm considered a channel partner. So I, like I mentioned, I've got 20 what are called district sales managers that I, you know, get to work with. And, you know, ADP has expectations of, you know, probably 60 to 70% of new opportunities coming from that group. And then the other 30 or so percent coming from my own efforts. And I'm personally the type of person that doesn't like giving up control of my financial and personal professional future in the hands of other people. So I've kind of found a way through the methodologies we'll talk about to kind of flip that. So today, about 70% of what I do is very much hunting, and then the other 30% is through, you know, the efforts of the folks I work with. And that seems to actually work really well for me.

14:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah, excellent. So obviously, we've got a lot to get to, but let's go back to the beginning and just tell us a bit about your origin story and how you got into sales and the journey you've been through to date?

14:42 David Weiss: Yeah, so I started selling when, uh, in high school when, um, modems were still dial-up, and I was building and selling computers, uh, for a company called Speed PC. And I was in high school, my parents, uh, you know, essentially said, hey, if you want anything from us, you need to get out there and start working. So I had an affinity for technology, so I found a local company right by my house, and they were nice enough to give me a job. I started building computers, and they were like, hey, you're actually kind of personable for a techie. I was like, oh, that's cool. They were like, how about you try and sell some stuff? I'm like, all right, let's see where this goes. I started doing that. New customers that would walk in, I'd take orders and talk to them about what they're looking to do and build. You know, was pretty good at that. So then they moved me on to actually going to people's houses and actually setting these things up and hooking up their networks and all that fun stuff. So that's how I got into sales. Then I went to college, went to RIT, got a degree in psychology and marketing. And after college, I decided, all right, well, you know, I don't want to get my PhD. So What else could I do? And I thought, you know, sales would be something that I've done in the past, so might as well give that a try. And kind of the rest was history.

16:08 Scott Ingram: Nice. And what were those steps between, kind of the buildup to ADP? Because you've been in a variety of different roles.

16:15 David Weiss: Yeah, so I, right after college, joined an organization called Keyence. I was there for a very short period of time. This is probably one of the early lessons I learned as far as, you know, picking the right organization. Nothing wrong with Keyence, but But they were very much an engineering-focused sales organization, not a sales training development organization. So, you know, they… I didn't necessarily learn everything I needed to do to be what I consider super successful in sales. So when I left there, I sought out how to essentially find a better company for me at the time. And that's when I found Aramark. And I was at Aramark for about 3 years, you know, worked my way up to a top performer there. Uh, left there to go to CareerBuilder. Um, from CareerBuilder, I took a leadership role, uh, at a company called Hearst, uh, which was, um, selling essentially, uh, digital advertising. Uh, and then from there, Monster, and then from there, uh, ADP.

17:15 Scott Ingram: Nice. And again, you've gone back and forth a little bit between leadership roles and individual contributor roles. How do you think about and evaluate those different opportunities? And if I'm not mistaken, you just, uh, transitioned back again. Into a leadership role there at ADP?

17:30 David Weiss: Yeah, so I mean, I've got some, you know, pretty big long-term goals around, you know, hopefully becoming a Chief Sales Officer. That's ultimately what I want to do. In order to do that, you know, you need to have a proven track record both as an individual contributor and as a leader. So I've tried to, you know, impact organizations I work for as much as possible and, you know, help them in the areas where, you know, they thought I would be the best fit and where I raised my hand for. So, you know, when I was a career builder in Aramark, individual contributor, And then Monster and Hearst, I was in leadership roles and then started ADP as an individual contributor. And to your point, just moved back into ADP for leadership.

18:10 Scott Ingram: So I'm curious, if you were to start over or if you could make any adjustments along that path knowing what you know now, what, what might you do?

18:22 David Weiss: I consider myself pretty lucky, Scott. I I don't feel like I've stayed at any place too long. I feel like I've learned a lot in all the places I've been. I feel like I've really impacted positively the clients I've gotten to work with and the companies I've worked for. I'm very happy with where I'm at right now. I'm very happy with kind of the trajectory that I feel like my career is going. So I honestly wouldn't change a thing. I would say I definitely made some mistakes early on. Uh, and, you know, Keyence, as I mentioned earlier, was one of them. Uh, but from that point on, I feel like I've been really careful to evaluate opportunities. So I, uh, I'm, I'm pretty happy. I honestly, I wouldn't change a thing.

19:09 Scott Ingram: Cool. And from a… I'll ask this question 2 ways and you can answer it whichever way you want. So from a challenge perspective, was there, a time that was particularly challenging for you through that career, or if you want to just talk about maybe the biggest challenge that you see for yourself in sales today.

19:30 David Weiss: Yeah, no, I'll tell the Keyence story a little bit. I mean, they're a company that sold sensors for factory automation, so I was a sales engineer. So they taught me absolutely everything about manufacturing. And about lasers and sensors and how to position them on high-speed manufacturing lines to, you know, do a bunch of different cool things within a manufacturing environment. What they didn't teach is sales, and they didn't teach time and territory management, and they didn't teach any sales methodologies or science behind sales. So when I joined that organization, they essentially gave me all of New York State. And I was living in Rochester at the time, and their regional headquarters was in New Jersey, and they required their salespeople to be in the office Mondays and Fridays in New Jersey, and I lived in Rochester, and then in New York State the rest of the time. So, and mind you, no sales training, no time and territory management training. When they, when I got out of kind of their sales engineering bootcamp, they said, okay, you know, literally here's the bag, go. And you can imagine, you know, a guy right out of college, first sales career, traveling back and forth, you know, 400 miles. It was, by the way, it was the winter. So I was having to fly and/or drive from Rochester to New Jersey in the winter. So I, you know, slept in JFK's airport multiple times. I got stuck in the snow more times I can count. And then the whole rest of the time I was kind of chasing my tail, trying to sell this new solution all over New York State. And it was just, it was just a lot. And I got burnt out really, really, really quick. So after about 4 months, I said, you know, this is not fun. And I thought sales was supposed to be fun. And this is just, I'm not having it. So I left. And at that point I said, all right, I've made a mistake. I made a career mistake. I didn't ask the right questions. I took a job that I thought was gonna pay well. How do I not make this mistake before? And I landed on, my next move needs to be the right one. I need to pick the right sales organization to work for. So I started researching sales organizations and actually came across an industry trade website, magazine, etc., called Selling Power. And Scott, have you ever heard of Selling Power?

22:12 Scott Ingram: I have. I haven't seen it in a little while, but absolutely.

22:15 David Weiss: Okay, so Selling Power every single year releases their list of the top 50 sales organizations to work for, and they did this back then. So, and I think they still do. ADP, I believe, made it last year. And so I said, okay, well, this is my list. And I applied to every single company on the list.

22:35 Scott Ingram: All 50?

22:37 David Weiss: And I got an interview at Aramark. And so I said, all right, my number one qualifier for my next opportunity is that they're a good sales organization and I learn how to sell. So I joined Aramark and I spent 3, almost 4 years there. And I, to this day, I give Aramark credit giving me some of the fundamentals of of sales. And they, they approached it very methodically, very scientifically. They taught me that sales really was a science and opened my mind to becoming the student of sales that I say, or feel like I've now become. Um, so I credit them a lot. So that, that's kind of, you know, where I started and, you know, how I started learning all this, all this stuff. That's my origin story.

23:22 Scott Ingram: Well, that's, and that's really interesting. You know, I think there's fewer and fewer organizations like that where you can get just super high quality, sales training. And back in the, back in the day before us, you know, it was IBM and Xerox were sort of the gold standard. That's where you went to learn to be the best in sales. And, you know, I think you've probably named 2 of the better organizations that still to this day invest heavily in that training, ADP being one, Aramark being another. There's, there's probably others out there. And I'd love to hear feedback from the audience in terms of who you think today is still doing a really great job of this. Um, but let's, let's flip the script a little bit because now I'm becoming impatient. I can't wait to, to kind of dig into the sales process and sales methodology stuff. And why don't I just kind of set you loose? I know, I know you've got a lot to share on that front, so I'll let you kind of present that or package that however you want.

24:18 David Weiss: Sure. So big question, right? Um, I'll try and, I'll try and go down the list very high level and then I'll circle back. So, One of the first ones is account profiling. For me, anytime I get a new book of business, I spend a lot of time account profiling. So, you know, say I got a book of business of 1,000 accounts, hypothetically. I would go to every single website of all 1,000 accounts, and I would look at what they did, how they did it, how they made money, how they aligned to, you know, whatever companies I was working for, best fit accounts. And I would do my best to narrow it down to the 10% of accounts that have the 90% chance of being the most successful when it comes to them being successful with our solution and us being successful working with them to, you know, come to a deal. From that point, I would then find out who the vetoes are within all those organizations, very, very important top officers, often your CXOs, or, you know, your economic buyers, true decision makers. And I would, you know, find those people and have them be part of my profiling. From there, I would use a pretty dialed-in methodology when it comes to prospecting. So those are things like I still do handwritten notes. Those are things like social profiling now and social messaging. Those are things like doing a lot of emails. I, and I'll talk about this and things that I honestly think are crazy that salespeople still do. I don't pick up the phone as much. I'll tell you, earlier in my career, that was a very different story. And I think it kind of depends on who you're selling to. But what I've found is Vito doesn't answer the phone as much. Vito needs to be sold to in slightly different ways. So I've tried to find a way when I'm talking to those specific groups to target them in the ways they like to be communicated with. But I'd say phone still is relevant and certain aspects of sales. From there, I use Challenger sales methodology, as I think most people do, for conversations. They've… CB also released a new version of, or an updated version of Challenger called Consensus Selling, that talks about multiple buyers and talks about when people get involved in the decision process and things like that. I use that for consensus selling. I use Miller Heiman for my account strategy. I use MEDDPICC for my deal management, and then I use the 7 Immutable Laws of Sales Negotiation for my negotiation process. And then I kind of layer all of that on top with Corporate Visions training around power messaging, power positioning, things along those lines. So when I talk about being a student of sales, it… I've kind of learned all of these methodologies along the way and found ways to kind of tie them all together to come up with a sales process that, in my opinion, drives the best results for me, but also my clients.

27:20 Scott Ingram: Well, and that's really interesting. I think that has been certainly one of the themes of the show, that there very rarely is, oh, I use this one and only methodology and that, you know, I just apply it out of the book. I think it's much more common that it is this conglomeration of many methodologies that you have learned and personalized and taken on over the years. What's interesting about what you just shared is it It sounds like you have taken kind of the best piece of each for a specific step of the sales process. Is that a fair…

27:54 David Weiss: Yeah, no, that's, that's exactly right.

27:56 Scott Ingram: So let me start with, I mean, there's so much there. Um, and, and we'll probably do a fair amount of unpacking, but what was most intriguing to me, I mean, first you talked about just being really intentional or sort of the territory management. You're doing the profiling, you're figuring out, okay, what am I going to put my energy to and where am I going to focus? And then once that's done and you've got your Vitos identified, I'll see if… I think this is the original title of the book because the question is actually, if you're not picking up the phone as much anymore, how are you getting to Vito today?

28:31 David Weiss: Selling to Vito.

28:32 Scott Ingram: Selling to Vito.

28:33 David Weiss: Selling to Vito. So how I sell to Vito, 2 things. I do a lot of mailers. So these are things, FedEx envelopes with handwritten notes in them and/or a note that I personally signed that I print out around business implications of the solution I'm trying to talk to them about and how I directly can feel it can help their business generate or protect revenue. Everything I talk about, I see myself as a business person talking to another business person about their business. It's not about my solution. It's about the impact that I can have on their business through my solution. So it starts with a lot of understanding their key motives, motivators, their key drivers. And most of the industries out there have, you know, KPIs or things like that that they're trying to impact. You, if they're large organizations, they'll have annual reports and that's, you know, a godsend because it's pretty much written all out there what they're trying to do for their investors. And I take a lot of that and I message it very, very clearly again, all around business impact, business case improvement to them. And I send them, you know, a package. I often include, you know, a $5 gift card, like, you know, let's have a cup of coffee on me or something like that to get their attention. And then I'll, I do a minimum of 8 to 10 touches. And those are often emails. Those are often additional, you know, handwritten notes. And those are often social media. LinkedIn, emails, or connections and reach-outs. Phone calls are occasionally used. If in those cases, I'm not trying to… they all have some degree of executive assistant, so I'm not trying to get past that person. Frankly, those people I honestly believe are my friends, and frankly, they are probably the most important person to the executive I'm trying to talk to because they manage that person's lives. So I'm trying to work with them and ask them how this person likes to be communicated with and explaining what I've done and the business impact I think it can have, and, you know, asking for their support and their help. So, you know, it's, it's that, that is used probably the least amount, but I, I do find it effective, you know, time and again. And then the other thing I do, and this is not the first step, this is after, you know, numerous touches, is I'll, you know, put it… I'll use Outlook and I'll put an invite on their calendar, uh, even if they haven't responded, with a simple note of why I'm trying to reach out. And again, all about their business and the implications we can have to help them all about them, uh, and put time on their calendar. And the response rate from that, after, you know, I've already done all these other touches, is pretty high.

31:17 Scott Ingram: Well, what do you, what do you think your… after running that type of campaign, what do you think your success rate is?

31:23 David Weiss: So I can tell you right now, uh, I get a… if I were to do 100, I get a 15 to 20% acceptance rate, and I get a 40-plus percent response rate. And then the response could be not interested, not right now. Thanks, but no thanks. You know, what have you, but I'll be, I'm able to set about one meeting a week and I run these things quarterly, uh, with Vitos, with CXOs.

31:50 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And let's, let's use that because I know that part of your philosophy and your thinking of this like a sport is you're tracking a lot of your own stats. So what, what are kind of those key metrics for yourself that you're paying the most attention to?

32:08 David Weiss: Do you mean while prospecting or across the whole…

32:11 Scott Ingram: Well, yeah, across the board. Like what, what are the stats that you're tracking?

32:15 David Weiss: So I track… interesting. Okay. So I do track number of things sent to response rate, open rate. That's what I use mostly for prospecting. But then as far as like, My, my, uh, sales. I don't actually know other stats that you may be looking for there. Give me, give me an example.

32:41 Scott Ingram: Well, you obviously know your conversion to meeting, conversion to response rate. And I know that you've got kind of other, other stats that you're tracking just to understand your own basically performance as, as a seller, lower than obviously kind of the, what is my revenue contribution, right? We all know what that number is, like everybody's tracking that, but what are you tracking below that to know that you're moving in the right direction?

33:09 David Weiss: All right, so here's what I'll tell you. I don't do as much of that as I did in my past because of the types of people I'm selling to. I mean, I'm trying to generate you know, potentially one new meeting a week with an executive. So, you know, as far as a lot of those metrics, I don't track them as much anymore, and I'll be honest with that. When it comes to my past though, when I would, for instance, I'll give you Aramark. Aramark was much higher volume. You were setting 16 appointments a week at that point. So when I was at Aramark, you know, I was tracking, I know I needed to make roughly 200 dials a week to net myself roughly 100 responses a week, um, from that… or sorry, 100 contacts a week, yes or no. From there, you know, converting roughly about 10% of those, uh, 10 of them into new meetings, and then getting the rest of my meetings by doing tea calls, uh, where, you know, the person I met with, I would go to their neighbors and across the street. So I did a lot more metric-type tracking back then. These days, what I'm basically just tracking is you know, how many, how many, um, either emails or, uh, invites or things like that did I send? You know, what type of percentage response am I getting from those? And then almost everything else is more from a deal management perspective. So like, I've got a board in my office that's, uh, first-time visits, uh, analysis stage, demo stage, alignment stage, late stage, and contract. Those are the steps. And what I'm always looking for in those steps is essentially a, um, almost like a diagonal line where I always have a lot of first-time visits. Then the next shorter bucket is analysis. Next shorter is demo alignment, late-stage contract, as things fall out in between. And I'm judging the health of my pipeline by making sure that this is not a lopsided, um, or incorrectly balanced pipeline. So I do a lot of tracking as it comes to that. And then there's also things like how long things are in each stage, and then using the, the MEDDPICC methodology, which I can talk about, to do a lot of my deal qualification and gap analysis to understand what real next steps need to look like.

35:29 Scott Ingram: Got it. So really all about… and that's what I was looking for. I, I think there's 2 things there, right? One is you are really looking at what is the overall health of my pipeline, and I'm guessing the result of that is you don't have the peaks and valleys that a lot of folks have where they're heavy prospecting, then they've got a lot of deals in the pipe, they're working the deals, they close the deals, and then they thud the next quarter because they've got nothing in their pipe.

35:52 David Weiss: Yep, that's absolutely true. Um, you know, one of the things I focus on every single week is prospecting, and I, I task manage myself like you wouldn't believe. Uh, I currently work from home. If I didn't task manage myself, I'd probably be out golfing. Um, so you know, I'll put my prospecting time, my client follow-up time, all my meeting times, everything I'm gonna do, I have in my Outlook calendar. So, and I treat all of those things, and I think this has been important, I treat all of them like they are client meetings. So if I have on there prospect from, you know, noon to 1 on Monday, it's, I am prospecting noon to 1 on Monday. My everything else is not important at that time, no matter what it is, just like if I was in a client meeting, just stop my client meeting to respond to an email or to do something else. You know, I treat the things on my calendar and I take them seriously and I block those times off accordingly.

36:51 Scott Ingram: So walk us through that picture. How much of your week is in those prospecting blocks? I mean, quantify that as best you can.

36:59 David Weiss: Yeah, sure. So, you know, I take a minimum of probably 3 to 4 hours a week and prospecting and follow-up. You could probably call it almost maybe an hour a day, maybe just slightly less. And if I'm not as busy, which, you know, occasionally happens, then I increase that number. I hold myself accountable to a consistent methodology when it comes to doing these things. I do every single week. I feel like that's really important to avoid those peaks and valleys. In the weeks that I'm not as busy, I step that up because clearly I need more to do.

37:37 Scott Ingram: Nice. So let's, let's first talk in a little bit more detail about the specifics of how you're structuring your days, how you're structuring your weeks. And then I want to come back and dig a little bit more into the steps of your process and MEDDPICC, which I'm not as, as familiar with. So walk us, walk us through however you want to take it, whether like day by day or the week overall, and then looking at the day like to the, to the level of detail where like I want to know what time you wake up.

38:05 David Weiss: All right, so I typically wake up at about 7 AM. I've got a 3-year-old. There's no option about except to wake up about 7 AM because I've got an alarm clock called my son yelling daddy. So I wake up at 7. I typically stop around 5 o'clock to go pick up my son and cook the family dinner. And then, you know, after dinner, my son's down, I'll often pick things back up and, you know, finish off any sort of emails and One of the things I always do before the end of every day is look at my day tomorrow and say, all right, what do I have on the, on the docket tomorrow to make sure I've prepped and I'm ready for the next day? So the in-between those hours though, it could be a lot of different things. I'll tell you Mondays and Fridays, no matter what, I'm in the office. There are rare occasions, but Mondays and Fridays I'm in my home office. Those are my, you know, dedicated follow-up days, administrative task days, things like that. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I try and be focused on client meetings. And this is… this has evolved throughout my career, I'll tell you. And this kind of probably depends on what you're doing. If you're a work-from-home sales guy talking to executives, doing high-level sales, you know, your day may look closer to that. If you're… when I was, you know, pounding the pavement, you know, driving 30,000 to 40,000 miles a year working for Aramark and that type of what I'd call more transactional, less strategic type selling. I was, you know, in the car, you know, driving around my territory, knocking on doors, making tons of phone calls, you know, setting as many appointments as I can, you know, trying to get referrals. I mean, there was, there was a lot that went into it that was, you know, more more high-production, high-activity driven versus, um, you know, more strategic, targeted driven than in the world I live in today. So I think it does depend a little bit on, on what you're doing, but that's, you know, often how I structure things.

40:07 Scott Ingram: And walk us through, I mean, what does maybe a typical Tuesday or Wednesday look like then in terms of, of the blocks and when you're with clients? And is, is any prospecting happen? How does that all kind of fall in?

40:19 David Weiss: Yeah, so, you know, I, I try and structure things as repeatable as possible, but I often find things don't always, you know, follow life's plan that way. So, you know, I, I have, you know, every week, um, different one-on-ones with the different, uh, DSMs that I support. So those can be throughout the whole week. Uh, I structure and put, you know, client meetings, uh, again, you know, Tuesday through Thursday typically in there. And then, you know, I will fill in those blocks with other activities like prospecting and follow-up and whatnot. So it's probably not as super structured as you're looking for. My, my, I manage myself to getting it all done. And at the end of the week, if it's not all done, then I'm not stopping that week or that day until the things I said needed to get done are done. I hold myself accountable to the end result. I don't necessarily hold myself accountable to the individual hour or the individual day when it comes to that level of repeatability. It will be, you know, if it's on my calendar, it's gonna get done at that time. That's the accountability factor. And if it doesn't, then it's, it will, it needs to get done. But I don't know if I necessarily have the level of structure that you may be asking.

41:39 Scott Ingram: Yeah, no, I think that makes sense. So when, at what point are you defining, and maybe it's in your evening, 'cause you said you're kind of looking at it ahead, making sure that you're prepped, So when are you defining this is what's going to get done this day?

41:52 David Weiss: Uh, typically that's the previous week. So, you know, I'm, I'm, we're coming up to Friday, uh, today's Thursday. So, you know, I'll look at my calendar next week because typically I book my calendar a week to 2 weeks out at all times. So my client meetings are a week to 2 weeks out. My travels are a week to 2 weeks out. Um, a lot of my one-on-ones and administrative tasks are just recurring appointments. So those are fairly well mapped out. So I, I, for the most part, going into every week, plus or minus, you know, things that come up, know what I'm gonna be doing that week. And I look at that week and I say, okay, here are my gaps in my calendar that currently no one's booked or I haven't booked. So these are the times I'm gonna do these things and these are the things that need to get accomplished. And I review my board that I mentioned earlier with the different stages, and I review my close plans and my deal plans and my gaps within those deals. And I'm like, okay, these are the things I need to accomplish next week based on what occurred this week, and I plug time in my calendar wherever it's free.

42:52 Scott Ingram: Cool. So let's go back, because you just talked about the gaps and some of the things that you're reviewing. Let's go a little bit deeper into the sales process, and in particular, I sort of want to deliver on the promise that we suggested earlier on, that if you follow this, you've got the ability to deliver 2 to 3 times results.

43:11 David Weiss: Yep, so I'll go through each piece of it. I think we all know the importance of Challenger. Teach, tailor, take control, lead with impact, you know, own the conversation, make sure it's with, you know, executives that are qualified. You know, one of the things I spend a lot of time, and this may be different than a lot of salespeople, but I will not travel for a deal that I do not feel is a qualified opportunity. So that means, you know, I'm speaking to an executive and there's, you know, clear alignment around ways we can help and that there's a business case there and, you know, things like that. I take a very consultative approach to that. The other piece of that is, you know, once we're actually in the deal cycle, using a methodology called MEDDPICC. And, you know, MEDDPICC is spelled M-E-D-D-P-I-C-C. The M stands for metrics. So metrics are essentially your business case. So have you spoken to someone and quantified the challenge they're having? Not that they have a pain, but what the pain actually means to their business. I am a firm believer that everyone that works at an organization either generates revenue, enables someone else to generate revenue, or somebody there protects revenue. So for me, what I'm trying to do is quantify, since I deal in talent acquisition people strategy, I'm trying to understand, you know, those types of, you know, positions and how people fit into those buckets and how those buckets impact the business. I think regardless of what you're selling, if you're selling a solution to a problem, you know, there's some downstream implication that problem is having, and it can often be quantified to a number if you ask the right questions. And the whole idea within the M in metrics and business case within MEDDPICC is, have we put our finger on what that business case is and what those metrics are and how we can impact the organization? If you haven't, that's a, that's a gap within, you know, what I consider my sales process. The next one is the E, which stands for economic buyer. That's your veto. Have you identified that person? Are you meeting with that person? Have you identified the personal and professional wins for that person? Are you completely aligned with that person on the business case and all the metrics and all the end results that your solution will have? If you haven't, if you don't know who's actually signing the agreement and you haven't identified, you know, all of those things, that to me is a gap in the sales process. The next one is what their decision process is. So who are they evaluating? How many people are they evaluating? How long is the evaluation gonna take place? Who all is involved in that evaluation? You know, it's, it's all the things, it's every piece that the client's process is dictating that you need to find out. And again, if you don't know it, it's a gap. Next one's the other D in there is decision criteria. This to me is essentially a client's wishlist. What are they, what are they really looking for feature functionality from a solution? And, you know, how well does your solution align to that? Next one is the paper process. This is super important when you get into the prospect or the proposal contracting and also the commit stage within your business where you're doing your forecasts. Do you actually know who's signing, when they're signing, the steps in their legal process, Uh, you know, do you know if that person is, uh, on vacation for the next week to 2 weeks? Uh, believe it or not, it happens all the time. I'm sure you've seen it. Uh, you know, have you really dialed in what that legal process is and how long the last solution that they signed that's similar to yours, how long that took and the roadblocks and the challenges that it, that you may now need to overcome. And do you know the red lines and the objections you're going to get and, you know, have procurement or the CFO or legal you know, spoken to you yet and given you any of those objections, 'cause you know what, they're gonna come at some point. So, you know, those are, those are ways that, you know, I, I, the paper process is really, really, really important when you come to, when it comes down to forecasting, if that's dialed in, you could tell within a day, you know, if, uh, if an opportunity is gonna close or not, um, you know, have you really identified pain? That's, that's the I, uh, identify pain. So, That to me is, you know, outside of the business case, which is, you know, the end result. Have you kind of identified the high-level reasons behind the change? Next one is, do you have a coach within the organization? And a coach is someone that will, you know, tell you, for lack of a better word, inside information about how well you're doing and provide you and give you access to people. And when things stall or things go slow or something unexpected happens, you know, they'll help you connect the dots and be real with you. And the last one is competition. That's the last C. Do you actually… do you know who you're competing against? Do you know your strengths and weaknesses versus them? And have you been able to articulate those to the client? All of those steps in that process that makes up MEDDIC have red, yellow, green, you know, attached to them. And to me, I'm not comfortable with a deal until they're all green. And when they're all green, I can… I probably have a 90-plus percent close ratio, and I would bet, you know, most of your listeners would as well, because there's a lot there. That's pretty much the whole sales process there when it comes to things you need to have to be confident in an opportunity you're working.

48:50 Scott Ingram: And what's, what's the origin of MEDDIC? Where'd you, where'd you pick that up?

48:54 David Weiss: So I credit 2 companies. One of them is Monster. Monster rolled out a version of this called MEDDIC, essentially MEDDPICC without the paper process. And I was using that for a little bit there, and they trained all their sales leaders to train all their salespeople on it. And then the… well, it really picked up with my boss right now, Gregory Donovan, really great guy. You know, we're probably one of the better salespeople I've ever worked with. One of my, I consider mentors, friends. He's really, really good at what he does. And, you know, he drove… when he came to the business about 2 years ago, he brought this back up and really started driving it with his team, and it's been wildly successful. So I've seen it, you know, work very, very well across multiple organizations.

49:45 Scott Ingram: Nice. And then how does that map to the stages that you described on your whiteboard earlier?

49:52 David Weiss: Yeah, so stages on my whiteboard, again, first-time visit, so those are brand new appointments. Analysis stage, I start with analysis. So to me, during the analysis stage, that's where I'm finding out metrics. That's when I'm finding out decision process, decision criteria, pain. That's where I'm also trying to, you know, identify coaches and who I'm competing against, and I'm making sure I'm selling to the economic buyer, things like that. Next stage is demo, so presenting the solution. And to me, this is It starts with presenting the business case. Here's what I've learned. Here's the financial implications I believe I can have for your business. Here's how my solution aligns to what you're trying to achieve. And Scott, I'll tell you, this is a stage where I walk away if there isn't that level of alignment. And that's actually the next step is alignment. So once we do the demo, once we review all of that information and, you know, we, we show how our solution can map to their pain and the implications of it, if we're not walking away with the client at that stage saying, we agree, let's explore this more, we're pretty close. If we don't have alignment, that's where I will often walk away from an opportunity or just let the client know, hey, you know, my job as a consultant, I've gone in, we've evaluated, we've presented what we think we can help, and we're not aligned with the end result here. So let's not, you know, spend any more time on it together, 'cause I'm sure there are other people out there who can help you with this. I frankly believe we're not the best fit. And that saves, you know, I get a lot of respect from clients from that. And, you know, it saves me a lot of time. And frankly, it's a win-win for the client and, you know, my organization. Then the next step is late stage. By late stage, almost all of these should be green. We should have alignment and understanding of all of the things within the MEDDIC process. Any gap I have within MEDDIC, I'm trying to take from red to yellow to green. And then late stage is also when we start presenting contracts and making sure that, you know, we are understanding any sort of legal red lines where I'm starting to anticipate that they're gonna expect, you know, some sort of change or concession or what have you to what we've proposed. And then once we get, once we're kind of in alignment there around the contract and that we're on the same page, you know, everything matches up. My last stage is contracting. Um, you know, once you get to contracting, essentially it should be a done deal, but then you have, you know, things that can come up and it can sometimes sit there for a while if you don't know the paper process. So that's where, you know, paper process comes within late stage and contracting.

52:41 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And then you said that you won't travel basically on spec. So at what point would you typically go on site to see a client, and how much green… I mean, what, what are you using to determine whether or not that's qualified?

52:58 David Weiss: Yeah, so what I'm looking for is, uh, it's often right around the demo stage, and what I'm looking for is economic buyer, what I'm looking for is metrics, and what I'm looking for is clear pain. If we can solve a problem and there's a business case for it, and I can have a conversation about the problem that we can solve and the implications on it with a Vito, CXO, what have you, the person that could actually sign or the, you know, the person making, you know, ultimately the ultimate decision, I will get on, I will get in the car, I'll get in a plane, I will travel to, you know, the other side of the world at that point. But if we don't know the problem we're solving and if we don't have a business case to solve it, and we don't have this person making the decision that we're actually presenting to, I often won't travel. I'll do it virtually until we're at that stage.

53:54 Scott Ingram: Nice. That's brilliant. Now, how would you describe your style and just the way that you execute this process?

54:02 David Weiss: Yeah, so I'm a firm believer of challenge or sail. You know, I think I followed it and was taught on it from when it first came out. So I consider myself a challenger. I mean, teach, tailor, take control. My style within Challenger is, you know, I see myself kind of as a facilitator, as a consultant. I don't even necessarily call myself a salesperson all the time anymore. It's, you know, my… I feel like my job is to speak to executives or speak to people about the business challenges that they're having, try to understand the implications of those business challenges on their bottom line, And then align my company's solution to them. And if it's a fit, great. If it's not, that's okay too. Let's walk away as fast as possible because you… we're both busy people and we have other things to do. So that's how I'd consider my style.

55:02 Scott Ingram: Love it. What motivates you and how do you think about motivation in general?

55:09 David Weiss: So motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Things that motivate me, there's a lot of, I have a lot of, you know, personal desire and life goals. I honestly love sales. I love the game. I have a strong desire to be, you know, one of the best at it in the organizations I am lucky enough to work for and work with. So there's a lot of, you know, a lot of care that I have there. Uh, the other, you know, more probably extrinsic motivation is of course around financial freedom, uh, and kind of the ability to, uh, do what I want with my life and be able to spend time with my family. You know, I, I had, um, 2 parents who worked exceptionally hard. They both rose to, uh, very, uh, high levels within their careers, um, you know, senior executives. And, you know, I can tell you that one of the things, when they look back on their lives, they said, you know what, I wish we had more time to do stuff together. We, you know, I was very successful professionally, but, you know, personally, my professional life took a lot from us. And I've had that conversation with them, and, you know, I have made some decisions in my life to make sure that, you know, I am there for my family. And I have tried to position my… what I do and, you know, my future goals to make sure that there's a very healthy balance within my life. And that's important to me and that motivates me.

56:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, talk about… you sent me a really nice note with sort of a bonus point when I asked you for your top 3. Talk about how you think about goals and just your approach to that in general.

56:57 David Weiss: Yeah, so I take a very much start with why, you know, what do I really want in life and why do I want it and work my way backwards. And this is, these are, I'm talking big, you know, lifelong goals and I'm talking, you know, 5-year goals and 1-year goals and heck, it could be a 1-week goal. And the why or the end results you're trying to get, you know, can really shape how you do it and what you do. So Simon Sinek, I don't know if you have ever watched Simon Sinek's Start With Why.

57:29 Scott Ingram: Oh yeah, absolutely. I think that's… if you're listening to this and you haven't watched that yet, like, that's required. That's required watching as part of this show. So if you've not done that yet, like, hit pause, go watch that, and then you're allowed to resume as a fan of this show.

57:42 David Weiss: I couldn't agree more. Simon is a brilliant person. He's a very positive impact on the world. So love the guy. Anyways, So I try and look at, you know, what are those things and then work backwards in what I need to do to achieve them. So for instance, if I want to hit, you know, I want to make a certain amount of money this year and whatever that amount of money is means that I need to be a certain percentage of plan. In order to be a certain percentage of plan, I need to sell a certain amount of deals. In order to sell a certain amount of deals, I need to have a certain number of appointments and opportunity or a number of opportunities. In order to have a certain number of opportunities that pan out, I need a certain number of appointments. In order to have a number of appointments, I need to have a certain number of outreaches and, you know, how all that fits together. And I look at that and I say, okay, here's what I need to do to accomplish that goal. And it doesn't necessarily need to be hitting goal. It could be, you know, I want to lose 10 pounds. All right. So if I want to lose 10 pounds, you know, here's what I need to do this week, this month to… from a diet and exercise perspective and work my way backwards. And plan it out and then go do it and hold myself accountable to it. So that's, that's how I often kind of look at these things. Yeah.

59:02 Scott Ingram: Now, David, what's your why?

59:03 David Weiss: I think it, I think it does go back to what motivates me. I really want to not only be very successful in my career and like I mentioned, you know, at some point be a chief sales officer and have, you know, Um, you know, really great impacts on organizations and the clients I work with. Uh, you know, I, I wanna be able to sell something I believe in and that, you know, impacts the world. That's why I, I'm in talent acquisition. I think, you know, it's really, really special what I'm able to do with companies. And, you know, if people are their most important asset and I'm able to help them, you know, impact people, I'm also able to help the people that choose to work for them and get, and, and they get jobs and they can have more prosperous lives. So I, I feel kind of special about that. I think it's a really neat industry to work in. And then the other piece of it again is around the financial and personal freedom to live the life I want at the level I want to live it and still be able to see my son grow and be with my wife and have a good family life and those things. I think that's very important. We all work really, really hard. And at the end of the day, if you can't also enjoy the fruits of the labor, what's the point of the labor? So that's always been my thought.

1:00:20 Scott Ingram: Yeah, good thought. Good thought. So we've talked about sort of a number of the habits and routines so far, just in terms of the way that you are reviewing your week and planning your next day. Are there other kind of core habits, routines, rituals that are central to this? Process and your success?

1:00:39 David Weiss: I don't know. I start every day, I drink a really big cup of coffee, read the news, look at my board, determine what I need to do and how I need to do it, and then go do it. I would say I try and take a disciplined approach about things and achieve the things that I said I would do and work hard to accomplish that.

1:01:03 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What about your information diet? Obviously, as a student of sales, this one's particularly interesting to me. What are you reading, listening to, watching, and what are you deciding what you're going to, you know, invest that time and energy in? Yeah.

1:01:18 David Weiss: So there's a lot I've read over the years, uh, but right now, like in front of me, I'll look at my desk. I've got, uh, The Sandler Rules. I'm starting to brush up on Sandler selling. So I've got the 49 Timeless Selling Principles and How to Apply Them. Um, I've also got a book called Drive. Which talks about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. And then I've got The One Minute Manager, because having recently gotten back into leadership, I wanted to brush up on some of the leadership skills. So those are the 3 books I'm kind of jumping between right now. And then I just… it was about 6 months ago, and I've read things in between, but one of the standouts was The 7 Immutable Laws of Sales Negotiation. And that one's really interesting. You know, I, through just being in sales for, you know, 10 years plus, I had adopted some of them, but there's… that one's a standout for me because it talks about things like not negotiating until you know you're number one. So if you're not even starting a negotiate… a contract negotiation unless you are the client's number one choice, because you can't negotiate to be the best. That just involves price concessions, and that ultimately hurts the business. Have a business plan. Then we've talked about, you know, business cases a lot. It talks about plan on getting squeezed, plan on that you're going to be asked for something and try to anticipate what those things are and leave them in purposely so you aren't, you know, at bare minimum by the time you get to that point. Um, talks about finding non-monetary trade-ups, and that's… that was really interesting to me because it talks about how to actually build those within your own organization. Definitely recommend the book. Uh, one of the things, uh, you know, we started doing is looking at, you know, what can we provide to our clients that are of value to them that don't impact, uh, fully our revenue and our margins. Um, because at the end of the day, we are… the business is a, you know, public company, and we need to think about our shareholders too. Um, never give… and then one of the biggest ones, never give without getting. If someone asks you for something and you're willing to give it to them, that's fine, but you have to get something in return. And that can be, you know, signature dates, that can be access, that can be information, it can be a lot of different things. But, you know, don't give without getting. Give to get. And the last one is, if things aren't panning out, walk away. So, you know, there's a… that was a great book, great read, solidified some of my own beliefs and taught me a few things. So if you guys haven't read it, that's a really good one as well.

1:03:58 Scott Ingram: Good. So obviously Big reader, lots of books. That sounds like a pretty good set there. Is there anything that you listen to regularly or watch?

1:04:08 David Weiss: So I'm a huge fan of the LinkedIn newsfeed. Unfortunately, that takes probably more time away than I'll care to admit. But there's often things that come up there that are very relevant that I either listen to or read. There's industry trade journals and websites. One of them for me is ERE. That's kind of the industry trade journal for talent acquisition. I like to check that out a couple times a week, see what's new there. And then I'm a huge fan of decompressing throughout my day, and believe it or not, it's probably not the best time economically, but I decompress by watching the news. And there's a lot of things going on in the world right now that are tough, but I like to stay up to date there. So that's kind of a morning and night routine for me.

1:04:54 Scott Ingram: There you go. What about tools and apps? What drives your day and supports a lot of this stuff?

1:05:00 David Weiss: So I'm… I don't think I'm groundbreaking here. LinkedIn, unequivocal, need it. Outlook, I'm task managed, it manages my entire day. The other 2, very old school, Post-it notes. Scott, I love Post-it notes. I will put so many to-do lists and people I need to talk to or, you know, actions I need to take. I love Post-it notes. And then a whiteboard. Um, you know, I have salesforce.com. I'm a fan of Salesforce. Don't get any of this wrong, but I am a big fan of the old school, big old whiteboard with all of my accounts and my deal stages on it. Because when I'm, you know, sit down for my day and I fire up my computer and I got all these emails and Lync messages and LinkedIn and all these things, it's very comforting to not have to open one more app or one more website or thing. I can literally just rotate my chair and I see my board and I'm like, that's what I need to do today. I need to make sure one of these things progresses in its stage. And it's, it's, um, it's a nice comforting, you know, focus type, uh, thing that I do every morning.

1:06:06 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And now how often are you updating that whiteboard? Is it an all the time thing or do you have a certain time that you're, you're kind of bringing it up to speed on a, on a daily or how does that work?

1:06:16 David Weiss: So I try and do it in real time, but we all know how our days can get away from us. So at the, at the very least, um, at the end of every week, week. Um, I take time on, you know, late Fridays to, to do that, but I try and do it in real time.

1:06:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah, love that. Now, David, one of the things… we don't have to figure this all out right now, uh, but I want to work with you and figure out what can we offer as, as an example. And maybe it's, obviously without all of the confidential details, like a picture of your whiteboard or some of the sales planning documents that, that you use. I'd love to include that in our Sales Success Community. So, David and I will figure that out afterwards, but you can find whatever goodies we come up with to put in there. All you have to do to join that free community is go to top1.fm and get on the mailing list, and you'll get an invite right away. Or if you're in the US, you can text 44… I'm sorry, you can text TOP1 to 444999. Those are the 2 ways to get in. So, we'll figure out something fun there. Now, David, you already kind of hinted at one of these, and maybe there's more than one thing, but what is it that you believe that the average seller thinks is crazy?

1:07:26 David Weiss: So I think we've covered some of it, but just to, just to reiterate, the amount of time I spend before I travel on qualifying an opportunity. I'll tell you, Scott, I wasn't always this, I guess, maniacal about how I approached that. Back in the day, you called me, I'll be there, you know, give me 5 minutes. And I'll find a way to get to you. But I think as I progressed through my sales career and, you know, time became more valuable and the people I was speaking to, you know, became at a higher level and the deal size grew, the fanatical deal qualification became more and more important to me. So that, that may be a little bit different. I'd say the, the whole thought around, you know, how I structure, you know, I, I still believe in handwritten notes and I still believe, uh, in FedEx packages and I, I still believe in coming up with ways, um, through those methods to kind of cut through the noise. Uh, I'll tell you, I, I do believe that getting to Vito and staying at Vito is possible. Uh, I think it's, it's not as hard as some people may make it out to be if you can And, you know, again, lead with the value to their organization, with the business case, with the why. And then the last piece is, you know, I'm happy to walk away. I mean, if there's not clear alignment between both organizations, it just, this may not make sense, and that's okay. And I think, you know, I still, you know, see salespeople that try and, save the deal or fight for the deal or try and win unwinnable deals or spend their time on deals that have low to no probability of closing. And I'm not saying that off the cuff, based on deal qualification and based on MEDDIC, if everything's in the red, probably not gonna close, why are we spending so much time on it? So those are probably, they should fit into that bucket.

1:09:34 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And again, something we've probably touched on a little bit, maybe there's one that stands out as far as the most important decisions you've made or lessons you've had to learn to really get this foundation and the groundwork for where you are today.

1:09:48 David Weiss: So I think some of the most important decisions I've made is, you know, fail quick, fail often, learn from it, work for great organizations. Work, find and work for, you know, great people and great mentors. Um, don't just chase the money, sell and do what you believe in. And that's always been really important to me. I mean, I, I get folks reaching out all the time and this is not an ego thing. It's, it's just reality. Um, asking, you know, me to sell for them. And, you know, it's a lot of… I'm not saying I don't believe in what they're selling. I'm sure they're in business for a reason. It's a great product. But, you know, at the end of the day, I need to be passionate and excited that the things that the company I'm selling for brings to the table really can impact the companies that I'm working with and for. You know, I believe that selling for the best organizations that do anything and selling for organizations that really, you know, impact our clients, that to me is just so, so, so important. So, um, you know, that those are probably up there with the most important decisions I've made.

1:11:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And I wonder if you've got that in, and maybe not those ones, but if you've got a particular favorite sales story that you like to tell, and I'm most interested in like, what's, what's the lesson from that? Like, what did you take away from just a fun story?

1:11:21 David Weiss: So great question, Scott. You know, when I first started in my sales career, I was definitely what I consider more of a relationship seller. So, you know, I'd work really hard to build relationships with, you know, different organizations and different things. I was actually, it was when I was at Aramark, and this happened a lot when I was at Aramark. You know, I'd be working with these companies and Aramark did a lot of different things, but one of the main things they did was uniform and facility service. So I was selling floor mats and bar towels and cooks' uniforms and uniforms in general to lots of different organizations in Rochester, New York. And one of the, you know, like I said, would love to build relationships with people and things along those lines. And what started happening was, you know, through the course of normal sales, I'd lose deals. And I would lose deals with these companies that I would sometimes frequent personally, like bars and restaurants. And there was one sushi place in Rochester, New York that was my girlfriend at the time, soon-to-be fiancée, soon-to-be wife, her absolute favorite restaurant, loved it. We'd probably go, you know, once a week, maybe more. And while I was there, I, you know, started working with their general manager and building a relationship over time. And, you know, I was really excited and had a, you know, pretty sizable opportunity with them and yada yada. And they chose to not buy from me. I took that personally as a, as a young salesperson might, and I chose to never go there again. So my wife no longer got to go to her favorite sushi place because I lost a deal. I feel like I've grown a lot since then. I've learned a lot about business since then, but, you know, I actually hearken back to that every once in a while when I think about relationships within sales and putting so much weight on them that they can kind of impact you. So that's just interesting.

1:13:26 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I'm wondering if you ever sold uniforms to the good folks at Dinosaur Barbecue.

1:13:31 David Weiss: So I did. They were not a client. I absolutely tried, but I will give a major shout out to Dinosaur Barbecue. If your listeners have never been, It's a place in Rochester and they also have locations. They started out in Syracuse and Brooklyn and it is the best barbecue I've ever eaten in my life and I'm in Texas, so I think that probably says a lot.

1:13:56 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, I was just going to say that I was going to make a very, very guilty admission here because I discovered Dinosaur in Syracuse where my wife's family was when we first met. They're now here with me in Austin, but it's almost embarrassing. Embarrassing for me to say as an Austinite that my favorite barbecue in the world is in upstate New York at Dinosaur Barbecue, and it's a biker bar. I mean, it is, it is an experience. You got to go do it if you're ever in upstate New York and you don't check out Dinosaur Barbecue, you are doing yourself a disservice. So David, how did you get from Rochester to Houston?

1:14:31 David Weiss: So my wife got her PhD at the University of Houston. She's from New York. We met when she was on her postdoc in New York. I was still living there. We hit it off, you know, we really great relationship. It was in the middle of winter, in the middle of an ice storm in Rochester.

1:14:54 Scott Ingram: Now, this isn't a hard decision, is it?

1:14:56 David Weiss: No, no. My wife said to me, you know, hey, have you ever thought about Houston? As you know, I went to grad school or I went to school there. I'd love to maybe go back. And I told her at the time, her name's Erin, I said, Erin, I'm from Boston, I went to school in New York, I'm a New Englander, I don't wear cowboy boots, I don't wear cowboy hats, I don't carry a gun, I do not drive a pickup truck, and I don't know what an oil rig is, and I have no intention of ever, you know, being on one or driving past one. And she laughed. And she said I was crazy and said, it's the middle of winter, let's just go. So I said, okay, fine. So we came down and visited and she, knowing me and how much I love food, she decided to take me to some of the amazing Tex-Mex restaurants in Houston and give me a bunch of margaritas and fajitas and all that fun stuff and warm weather. And it was about 3 months later when we left Rochester and moved to Houston. And I have never looked back. I will never shovel snow again. I will play golf as much as I can all year round, and it makes me a very happy person to think about that.

1:16:10 Scott Ingram: Wined and dined and sold on Houston.

1:16:13 David Weiss: She is a better salesperson than me. She closed that deal like in an hour.

1:16:19 Scott Ingram: Now, let's be fair, that is not a hard sale at all.

1:16:23 David Weiss: No, it wasn't hard at all.

1:16:26 Scott Ingram: So this is the… what I like to think of sort of the soapbox session. So I'm going to get out your little box that you can stand on and just let you kind of dispense advice here a little bit, starting with, you know, what would you suggest to somebody that's just getting started out in either a brand new sales career or maybe they're starting a new position?

1:16:49 David Weiss: Sales is a science. There are so many great books and methodologies and ways to approach it. I am often amazed at how many salespeople I still even talk to, and, you know, ADP is a hotbed of amazing sales culture and training and people. So it's typically outside of ADP, I'll say that, that people don't have dialed-in methodologies. You know, if I ask them, how do you sell? What is… what have you adopted as your methodology? The most common answer I'll get is Challenger, and I almost won't get any other depth besides that. And don't get me wrong, Challenger is amazing. It's part of the fundamentals of how I handle executive conversations, but there's so much more out there. I would say, you know, open your mind, go find those things and adopt those things and make those things your own, because it can just drastically improve you know, your personal professional life as well as your clients. I mean, there's just so much there.

1:17:56 Scott Ingram: Um, well, David, let me interrupt you there, right? So what is that the responsibility of the individual seller to go pull that all together? And that'll create a follow-up question for me. Or do they just need to make sure that they're going to work for an organization that has the right foundation and can actually articulate what their freaking sales process is?

1:18:23 David Weiss: I would honestly say both. If you're lucky enough to work, you know, at a top 50 organization to sell for, or with an organization that has, you know, built and discovered and created a great sales process, you know, that's awesome. But I've met very few organizations that have it all. They typically have chosen to focus on a singular methodology and dived into it headfirst. And one of the things I've even, you know, worked with ADP, a great sales organization, on is how to, you know, expand that footprint even a little bit more. ADP is big on Challenger and Consensus, but, you know, they're recently starting to adopt the laws, the semi-minimal laws of sales negotiation. They're recently starting to adopt, you know, MEDDPICC and things like that. You know, it is about a very well-rounded scientific approach and methodology to all of it. And it is, in my opinion, you know, the responsibility of the person. At the end of the day, if you're gonna choose sales as your lifelong career, make the most out of that choice and take ownership to accomplish, you know, your goals and then do that through, you know, executing on these things. It can be taught, it can be learned. And Scott, I'll tell you, man, this in my opinion is the differentiator between people that are, you know, good at sales and great at sales and are, you know, the best, is how much of different methodologies they work into their, you know, processes and how well they execute on them.

1:20:05 Scott Ingram: And what is I think if you're starting that journey, there's just this overwhelming sense of overwhelm, right? There's so much out there. There's so many books. There's so many methodologies. I mean, there will be dozens of new sales books this year and new ideas. So how do you go about assembling that process and that methodology for yourself and choose from this sea of options?

1:20:35 David Weiss: Yeah, and you know, man, that can be really tough. And I don't wanna say that everything I've said today is the end-all be-all. It's what works for me. And I've read a lot of them, and the ones that I've chosen and kind of worked into, I've mentioned today, and I definitely feel like they're worth a read. But I'm sure there's stuff out there I don't know. I'd love to learn it. But I would, I would probably start with, you know, the most common. I talked to some of the best folks that are both sales trainers as well as employees at, you know, whatever organization you're at and see what methodologies they subscribe to and adopt those, 'cause there are different, you know, methodologies that probably are better fits for different organizations. But what I'll tell you is, in my opinion, there's, you know, some really strong foundations things like, you know, Neil Rackham's SPIN Selling, or Sandler, or Challenger, or Miller Heiman and Acclivus. And, you know, MEDDIC, I'd say, is fairly new, but, you know, definitely out there. So, you know, I would, I would, you know, focus on some of those really good core ones, and then maybe do your own research to, you know, find others that are a fit. Amazon's a a great place to go to see what, you know, are top-rated or bestsellers or have the most stars from other salespeople. I check that out every once in a while as well. I mean, there's, um, there's a lot out there, but, you know, there's definitely some, some core ones that you can find.

1:22:08 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. And I'll do a little bit of consolidation here, you know, now that we're a little over 20 episodes in. The most common mentions by the folks who are all top sellers on this show, uh, have absolutely been Challenger and Sandler, and then it starts to kind of spread out after that. David, is there, is there a resource to go learn about the ins and outs of MEDDIC?

1:22:33 David Weiss: Uh, you can actually Google it and it will, it will break it down, but I do have a, um, a PowerPoint on it I'd be happy to share.

1:22:40 Scott Ingram: There we go. See, more stuff for the Sales Success Community. So top1.fm people. All right. Uh, let's see, where are we? Um, so we talked about that's for somebody who's new into sales. What about somebody who's further into their career? So they are more established, they've got things figured out, they're doing okay, you know, maybe they're, they're making quota or they're making President's Club, but they're not at the top, right? They're… they've not broken into that, that kind of elite, uh, quota group. What advice would you give to them to take it to the next level?

1:23:14 David Weiss: I'll give them the exact same advice I give myself. You can always be better. And if you take an honest evaluation of what you're doing, how you're doing it, why you're doing it, and really break yourself down. Scott, I try and do this every couple of years because, you know, you can, you can have a really good run and all of a sudden you're like, man, this was a bad month or this was a bad quarter, bad year. Why? And I think we've all been there. I think we've all, you know, got to a point where we've been, you know, made a ton of money and things were great. You're like, you know what, I don't need to do this anymore. And then you're like, oh yes, I do. So it's taking that, you know, honest evaluation of yourself and saying, all right, here are the steps in my process. I'm such a pro… I'm a real process-driven person. I believe in it. So I go back to the process and I say, all right, You know, do I not have enough new meetings? Okay, so maybe I need to prospect more and I need to find or develop or improve my methodology for that. Am I not getting enough qualified opportunities to the, to the demo phase? Okay, so I need to work on, you know, my analysis questions and, you know, building better business cases and, you know, leading with, you know, impact and understanding, you know, the pain. I need to maybe do a better job there. If I'm not getting past the demo phase, well, maybe I need to work on my presentation skills, or, you know, maybe I need to brush up more on the business case and presenting and making sure it has better alignment. You know, if I'm not getting past my alignment phase, all right, maybe I need to look at my analysis phase again. And if I'm losing a lot of things at late stage or contracting, okay, so what happened earlier in my process? Did I not build that strong enough business case, or did I not, you know, make sure I qualified the deal, or was I not working with the right people and, you know, have my coaches or my economic buyers or technical buyers identified. I mean, I, again, sales is a science, and with any science, you can, you should be able to, you know, manipulate and break apart that puzzle and break it down and then rebuild it and say, where were my gaps? I mean, take a hard evaluation, hard look at that. I can almost guarantee, you know, some of them will, you'll find something, some that can be improved. And then, you know, go find the best people that are doing that thing or that piece of the process or a book or a podcast or, you know, ask someone that's doing a great job at something. And then whatever you find, be consistent with it. That's one of the biggest things. I mean, me personally, you know, I try and be as consistent as I can for at least a set period of time, you know, whether that's a couple months or, you know, however long it takes to, you know, get good at the change and make sure the change is working. And then if it's not, find another one. Um, you know, I think those are really important to kind of diagnose yourself.

1:26:16 Scott Ingram: Well, okay, so if sales is a science, is there a, is there a unified theory of sales, right? Is, is there one formula, at least at sort of a core fundamental level, that applies? Or do you sort of have to create your own formula depending on your solution and your territory and your… I mean, does it change every time?

1:26:39 David Weiss: So I honestly believe there's a code. I honestly believe there is a formula, a best way, but then I also believe you need to tweak it and adapt it to fit your organization and your style. But I think there's core fundamentals, just like there are core fundamentals with most sciences that, you know, lead to the highest percentage of positive outcome. Now, just because you do all the right things doesn't mean you get the right result. It's all about probability in my mind and saying, all right, I need to do all of these things in the exact right way, and that increases my likelihood of creating a positive match between the client that I'm trying to help and the business I'm trying to generate revenue for and match those 2 together and And by doing it right, each step that you do correctly and execute on well increases that probability of the fit. That's kind of how I look at it. Now, like I said, you may need to adapt it based on your company, but I think there's a lot of core principles here.

1:27:48 Scott Ingram: Well, and here's my challenge and my perspective, right? Because in some ways, like, this show is my science experiment. You know, I wanted to go and figure out basically what is the formula? Right? What, what is the way that is going to guarantee you that you're going to be maybe not the very best, but, but really, really good and top of the leaderboard? And it is a struggle for me. Um, it's, it's an interesting thing that I get to do. And a lot of times I'll go be a guest on another show and I get to talk about this, which is always a lot of fun. And it's looking for those common themes. Teams. And I would say at this point, there's, there's almost more beyond, beyond the basics. Like, there's absolutely some core fundamental things. Like, if you're gonna slack off and like, you're never gonna be at the top if you're not working hard and being pretty organized and having a strong approach and using some of these things. But beyond that, I feel like what I see is people having a really strong sense of self-awareness and knowing who they are and applying their skills and their unique attributes and just sort of maximizing that. And that's all over the board because, I mean, a lot of folks have called out specifically like, I'm an introvert, right? I'm not going to be the one that's super outgoing. And they tend to be much more process-oriented and they sort of make up for it in the, in the detail and the strategy and the approach. So where, where's that commonality? Like, what's, what's the formula that we can all take, at least as the… I guess it's my favorite word these days… like, at least as that foundation?

1:29:41 David Weiss: I'm not claiming to have all the answers. What?

1:29:44 Scott Ingram: Dude, that's why you're here.

1:29:48 David Weiss: Here's, here's what I'll tell you. Look at your process, look at every step of your process, and then say, what is the best way to execute on each piece of the process? Like, for instance, you mentioned Challenger as the common theme, but I've read Challenger, I've taught people Challenger. Challenger is great, but Challenger is very much focused just on executive conver… or just on conversations, how to manage a a sales call, you know, how to teach, tailor, take control, create uncomfortable situations and tension. You know, it's very much about the conversation and how you approach that conversation. But conversations, you know, although incredibly important in sales and very much a differentiator, are only a piece of the puzzle. You know, there are a lot of other steps within the sales process beyond that, you know, conversation. And I don't know if there's been a real good synthesis of all the different steps in a sales process dialed into a singular methodology. And I think that's where there's a lot of gaps, because everyone's latched on to Challenger, and I'm sure it's impacted a lot of organizations in a lot of positive ways, but I feel like there's a lot more to this. So I do feel like there's…

1:31:16 Scott Ingram: yeah, like Challenger doesn't apply if you're not having a conversation in the first place.

1:31:20 David Weiss: Right, right, exactly. And then it doesn't apply when you get into contract negotiation, and it does to a point, but it doesn't, it doesn't cover all the buckets, and it doesn't list it, it doesn't break down the process exactly how, you know, what you need to talk to people about, and it doesn't break down, you know, a solid analysis that leads to a business case. It doesn't. So, you know, I think there's, there's a lot of steps within a perfectly run sales process. And what I tell anyone is, whatever your sales process is, look at it, look at it really hard. Look at every single step that makes up from start to end of implementation to go-live to client retention. I mean, full lifecycle, break it all down. What are every single pieces that influence it, and how does your organization develop the best methodology for every single piece? You know, I feel like I have done a decent job in my career looking and approaching sales that way and helping organizations think about it that way, and then developing, you know, how to impact each of those little buckets. But I don't think there's been a really great job or movement within sales to, to do that. I think we've all focused a lot on these individual methodologies. I don't think anyone's ever actually brought it together well.

1:32:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah, no, I think that's a really, really good insight because you're right, there's, there's so many pieces of this. The reality is if somebody did pull that all together, that would be a very long book because there's, there's just so many steps in so many phases. And I think we're also starting to become more aware, certainly in my world, right? I mean, I work with, I work with marketing a lot of times is looking at the full customer lifecycle, right? Not just first call to close. Like in my book, like that's, that's the beginning of the relationship. So how do we get to renewals and upsells and referrals and advocacy and all of these other, these other things, which there's another 800 pages.

1:33:23 David Weiss: Yeah. And retention. Long-term retention.

1:33:25 Scott Ingram: Exactly.

1:33:26 David Weiss: Yep. That's where so many organizations fail is around long-term retention. They keep the client for the 3-year sales cycle. Then, you know, the next shiny thing comes along and they lose to their competitor because they weren't doing certain things during the client lifecycle to make sure they were aware of all the things that they could do with whatever the client was innovating, coming up with next. I mean, there's… I see, I've seen that a lot.

1:33:50 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. And the cost of that is huge with us all being in these more sort of SaaS or subscription-type models where, man, if you lose a client in the first few years, you're basically upside down on that deal.

1:34:04 David Weiss: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the long-term value is in retention if done right. Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.

1:34:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So, David, if you were in my shoes, if I were wearing shoes, what question would you want to ask the folks that I interview, folks like yourself?

1:34:20 David Weiss: I'd love to learn from them, you know, kind of their, their process, very similar to things I've been saying. You know, I'd love to learn from them, you know, what their best practices are in each, each stage of the process. Again, I'm a big… I'll say it again… scientific approach to sales.

1:34:40 Scott Ingram: So you just, you want to know their formula?

1:34:42 David Weiss: I want to know their formula. Formula. Yeah, maybe it makes my formula better. Maybe I can help them with their formula. Maybe together we can come up with a combined better formula. I don't know. Um, but I, I'd love to get their thoughts on this concept.

1:34:54 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Now, if you, if you were on the other side, right, if, if you didn't know you and you didn't know your formula, is there anything that you haven't shared yet about kind of the details of, of your approach that you would want to know?

1:35:08 David Weiss: I don't think Yeah, no, I honestly believe we've covered it. Yeah.

1:35:13 Scott Ingram: Okay, so who is the most successful salesperson you know personally?

1:35:18 David Weiss: So I'll tell you right now, I took an ego play here for about 10 seconds when I was first thinking about that question. I was like, answer me. No, I have honestly gotten a chance to work with some great people. I'll tell you, and I'll give a few shoutouts. I mean, early on my career, there's a gentleman by the name of Rob Kravaridis who was one of my mentors at CareerBuilder and brought me to Hearst. And, you know, we… I worked for him, I was a leader under him, sold a lot with him, really great guy, learned a ton. I'm working with a gentleman by the name of Gregory Donovan right now who is absolutely phenomenal, great leader, great mentor as well. You know, we… I've had a lot of successes, but I am very thankful for you know, the people I get to work with, the organizations I've worked with. ADP, again, one of the best sales cultures I've had a chance to work with. So, you know, there's a lot of great salespeople here that have taught me a lot, and I, you know, hopefully have, you know, shared some best practices with them that have helped them as well. So, you know, I couldn't say more about some of the companies I've worked with and the people I've gotten a chance to work for. And that would be one of the things I'd stress as well is, you know, find those good companies, find those good people, latch on to them, stay there as long as you can, as long as, you know, it's benefiting, you know, both parties. Yeah.

1:36:38 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, and to echo just the ADP piece, I mean, I had a really great experience there. It really is such a strong, positive sales culture for the, for the most part, and just a great place to go and learn. I think particularly early in your, in your career to sort of build that type of foundation. I certainly benefit a lot from the couple of years that I spent there, which also was, was pretty early in my career. So before, before we… I ask kind of the final wrap-up question, is there anything that we left in the chamber that you wanted to kind of get out and share? Because I know you did a fair amount of prep for this conversation, so I want to make sure we covered everything that you had.

1:37:19 David Weiss: No, Scott, I mean, I've really enjoyed the conversation. I really appreciate you having me on. I think we've covered all of it, but if there's anything that comes out of this, we'd be happy to do a follow-up and support it. I think it's a great forum.

1:37:34 Scott Ingram: Love it. Perfect. All right. So that brings us to the last question, and this is where we try and make this actionable. So for those listening, we release new episodes every 2 weeks. So I finally settled on, oh, it probably makes sense to ask for a challenge that would last about 2 weeks. So you've got something that you can actively do and work on before the next episode comes out, and you've got a new challenge to work on. So David, what would you challenge the listener to do right now over the course of the next 2 weeks to improve themselves and improve their own sales results?

1:38:05 David Weiss: So I would say think about your sales process, and I'm turning into a broken record here, and Scott, I apologize. You know, think about your sales process, break those steps down, look at how you're executing on each individual step of the process, and then, you know, take a hard look and make some decisions. You know, do I need to block more consistent time to prospect? Do I need to work on the questions I ask and how I'm doing analysis? Am I building business cases? And am I building them with the right people, with the right data? Data and, you know, presenting them at the right times to the right people? How are my presentation skills going? And do I need to brush up on that? You know, am I, am I doing a proper alignment or am I just, as soon as I find pain, presenting a proposal and asking if, you know, the pricing looks good? I mean, you know, break those things down, look at every step and look at how you're doing it and, you know, find areas that you can improve and then seek out people that can help help you improve them. Um, I, I'm saying this from personal experience. It's exactly how I've approached it throughout my career, and I, I feel like, uh, those things have, you know, continued to help me to improve, and I will continue to do them because I think that's the, the best way to always get better at anything.

1:39:22 Scott Ingram: Perfect. David, this has been incredible. I know that we are going to have maybe the richest set of, uh, of notes related to this episode because there's a lot of resources, and when I will call out and have links to all of the books and all the different methodologies that David has talked about. I don't know what episode this will be when we launch it. So if you go to top1.fm/weiss, W-E-I-S-S, it'll absolutely be there. That'll get you straight there. And of course, once you're there, you can sign up for the newsletter, which will get you the invite to the Sales Success Community, where all of the good stuff happens and all the secret, uh, uber goodies that David is going to come up with for us, uh, will be. So thank you so much for joining us, David. I really appreciate your time and everybody who spent the time with us to listen to this thing all the way through. I think it's, uh, it's been super valuable.

1:40:14 David Weiss: Thank you, Scott. Appreciate you having me on. Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode and And for an invitation to our Sales Success Community, powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.