You may have heard the term “post-pandemic” bandied about in recent months, but there’s nothing “post” about the COVID pandemic yet: We’re still in the thick of it. It’s not all downside, though, as James Thornburg, Enterprise IT Strategist at Bridgepointe Technologies, and our Market Dominance Guys, Chris Beall and Corey Frank will tell you. In their third conversation together, they talk about the upside of the pandemic as it concerns sales. Because what is “post” for most salespeople is that bone-wearying business air travel, and the time-waste of business lunches, and the tedium and expense of that daily commute to and from the company office or to and from the offices of business prospects. The combination of cold calling by phone and discovery meetings by Zoom has made a new and successful world for salespeople, one that doesn’t require leaving home. Yes, you’ve heard of attempts to return sales to the pre-pandemic days, but as Chris predicts in this episode of Market Dominance Guys, “There Is No Going Back.” About Our GuestJames Thornburg is the Enterprise IT Strategist at Bridgepointe Technologies, which offers a service that helps design IT and telecom projects for their clients and includes selecting the right supplier at the right price with no extra cost to their customers. Full episode transcript below: Corey Frank (00:47): Welcome to another episode of the Market Dominance Guys with Corey Frank and the sage of sales, Chris Beall with all things market dominance. I'd be curious to see from a CEO perspective, because a lot of us we've talked certainly several times now about the change in organizations when they're moving remotely and the role in sales, where I have to be around you ... As you say, my three pound brain has to be around in a vicinity of somebody else with a three pound brain and particularly in sales with the collaboration, and the energy, and the activity tracking. But I'm curious, it would be interesting to explore what that does to the CEO as well, when his whole entire organization is virtual now. Right? You're used to it certainly at ConnectAndSell, you guys have had a head start, but for a lot of CEOs, they're used to having this security blanket of a staff around them to kind of go from meeting to meeting, to meeting, to have this echo chamber, as we called it, of feedback flowing up. And now I wonder if CEOs actually have more time on their hands. And so there's even less of an excuse not to make these type of discovery calls or customer calls to fill those gaps. Chris Beall (02:08): Well, they certainly have more time that they're not traveling. I can speak as, maybe I traveled an unusual amount, but I don't think so. I was on the road in business 108 days last year. So, that's a lot of time. Now you could say it's productive of time to read, time to talk to people. I met random people here and there and not a small number of deals get made. I have a certain propensity for picking up deals in bars, so to speak, but still that's a lot of time. Think of each trip, there's the half an hour to an hour to get to the airport. There's an hour and a half to go through all the junk at the airport. There's the occasional missed flight. There's the four hours plus to get to the other end. There's the Uber, there's this, there's that. That's all waste. That's all pure waste. So, that time has been freed up. By the way, that money's freed up too. So in our company, $40,000 a month of travel is freed up.  Corey Frank (02:08): That's right.  Chris Beall (03:05): $40,000 a month's a lot of money to find ... Talk about change found in the couch cushions, "Oh look, there's 40 grand. I wonder if we could get something with it." Corey Frank (03:13): That's right.  Chris Beall (03:16): "Let's put it away for a few minutes and then think about that in 10." Right? Corey Frank (03:19): Right. Chris Beall (03:20): So, the time is certainly there and yes, I think one of the things is, there's an egalitarianism of a good kind that shows up in these Zoom meetings. Zoom flattens the meeting. The meeting's no longer in my office, but one thing I always hated when I moved, so to speak up, I never could figure out why they call it up, in organizations, is get the big office. And I hated the big office. I've always hated the big office. I remember I had a big office at a big-ish company I worked at. Not big by anybody's standards to think, a company had been a billion dollar a year, a company that had kind of moved into being under secular pressure from the internet of $350,000,000 year company. I was hired as the head of innovation. They gave me this big, big office, big corner office on the eighth floor, overlooking, like a cornfield or something. I'm pretty sure I went in there six times during the year I worked there. And one of them was on the very last day when we sat around drinking some Chinese whiskey, because I had all-Chinese team. The most wonderful team I've ever had in my life. And they were very kind. So that was one time. So five times to do anything else, but I refused to hold a meeting in there because why do I want to encourage people to lie to me? And that's a terrible thing, the hardest thing to get is the truth. And you might get it at lunch. You might get it at somebody else's desk, but you're not going to get it on your own turf in that big office. So now nobody has the big office anymore. So maybe there's a little more truth flowing around. There is also who talks. You want your introverts to dominate the conversation over time. They're the most thoughtful people in your company. Corey Frank (05:09): Okay. Right. Chris Beall (05:10): They're also your best sales people. So your introverts actually didn't like it in the rah, rah, sales floor that you were running. So your best sales people tend to be introverts, your best sales people are really [inaudible 00:05:21] all that banging of the gong, and high fiving and all that stuff, they'll go along with it. But, they have to go relax and get rest afterwards, because that stuff hurts when you're an introvert. It really does. It's like, "Oh man, I have to do that." And yet introverts tend to make the very best sales people. And on your staff, they tend to have the most thoughtful observations. After all they have thinking time, they're introverts. Right? Corey Frank (05:49): Yes. Chris Beall (05:49): They get their energy from what's going on inside. So, I think that flattening, I'll call it the Zoom flattening that's occurred, is a good thing in that everybody tends to get to speak. They're all in the same office. It's also in each person's home, which has got an interesting intimacy. Some folks complained, "Oh, the kids walked behind. I had to take a moment." But, that's the good stuff. That's the human stuff. That's where we soften up with regard to each other sufficiently to maybe tell our own little truth or to listen to somebody a little bit differently, because until we're empathetic, we're not much. And it's hard not to be empathetic with somebody, who's got the same problems that you have, the problems of home. In the big office, I don't have any problems. You come into my office, we hold the staff meeting, you sit there, and you sit there and you sit there. The pecking order is established by all of that. We go in a certain order. The important stuff is first, the dog meets stuff is at the end, and if we run out of time, you don't get to talk. Whoever you happen to be [inaudible 00:06:58] probably the introvert, who had the most valuable thing to say. Corey Frank (07:01): That's right. Chris Beall (07:01): So, I think we've gotten a lot of good, not just in the raw productivity, the produce score is measuring, and that Microsoft is measuring in the Microsoft workplace analytics. They measure definite productivity increase in meaningful activity from work from home. That's at the individual level, nobody has come up yet and measured what's happening at the sociocultural level with regard to what I'll call the Zoom egalitarianism or the Zoom flattening. I am going to make a prediction that when somebody does this work, they're going to find out that introverts are making a bigger contribution than they used to, and a bigger contribution than the extroverts. Chris Beall (09:20): My big question is when are these chickens going to start to lay again? It's bothering me. Every night, I go to bed thinking, "What's with Thornburg's hens?" James Thornberg (09:27): No, it's tough. It really is. Chris Beall (09:29): It is. This is the hard part about agriculture. James Thornberg (09:34): I still have a bunch of meat in the freezer, so that's holding us up. I saw a bacon and whatnot. Chris Beall (09:39): That's good. Well, Helen and I were talking about pigs last night, because I once had a piece of software that the Hormel guys used to do a reverse bill of materials on a pig. Bills of materials normally used to bring things together and manufacture them. But we had this software that was so flexible you could run the bill of materials upside down, and you could take pig and you could manufacture parts out of the pig. And I'll never forget going to the Hormel plant and saying, "So how does this really work?" And they said, "Well, comprehensively", I said, "What does that mean?" And they said, "Well, everything but the squeal." I said, "Okay, everything, but the squeal, that's good." So I told that to Helen last night, and she moved to the other side of the bed. James Thornberg (10:24): She's now a vegan. Yes.  Chris Beall (10:27): She just got further away. It's like, you want to say stuff like everything but the squeal? It's okay, but I'm going to have a moment here. Corey Frank (10:35): So James, what kind of spread do you have over there? James Thornberg (10:37): I have 23 acres. Corey Frank (10:39): 23 acres. And then what kind of animals? James Thornberg (10:43): Acres. I mean a lot of it is pasture, so it was an old horse farm. It was a pretty big deal back in the day, that the estate was, they had a lot of Arabians and then they would have shows. And if you come to the property we have, it used to be the announcer's booth. It looks almost like a lookout, basically a little kid's fort, or something. The kids use it as a fort now, but the announcer used to be up in there, and then when they would bring out the horses, there was a big kraal and everything. Corey Frank (11:06): Oh nice. James Thornberg (11:07): So, it was a pretty big deal back in the day with the Arabians. And so I have a lot of horse pasture with horse fencing that 50 years ago was probably beautiful. I mean, it would be 150 grand probably to fence this place. It's a little run down, so I've been repairing it. Corey Frank (11:24): Is there a name of this estate? Do you call it- James Thornberg (11:25): Thornborough Farm. Corey Frank (11:26): Thornborough Farm? James Thornberg (11:27): Yeah. Thorn borough farm. I went kind of back to my history. If you have English heritage, you can track your family back pretty easily. And so, I was able to track my family all the way back into the 1300, and I grew up with not a lot of money and it was always kind of a funny thing in the family, on my dad's side, where some of the people in the family ... A lot of people are estranged from one another, but they said that we were royalty, that Thornburg came from royalty. And there's some truth to that. They were Knights of the Shire. So when the reformation happened and everything, they were Catholics and they basically, they all ended up converting and becoming Quakers. Basically they took all their land. So, traditionally my family is Thorn borough. And then when they came to the US, they changed it to Thornburg with an H at the end and then some took it with just the G. Corey Frank (12:20): Interesting. James Thornberg (12:21): Yeah. Corey Frank (12:21): So truly you are derived from Rontos. You are in essence the king once removed. James Thornberg (12:27): Exactly. Corey Frank (12:29): Of cool calling. I love that name- Chris Beall (12:30): And raising chickens can be a royal pain. I've done it. It's royalty all the way around. James Thornberg (12:35): Yes. I enjoy it. I'm getting more into the kind of the butchering side and getting into that and we'll see kind of where that leads me. Corey Frank (12:44): And what's the biggest city closest to you? James Thornberg (12:47): What's that? Corey Frank (12:47): What's the biggest city closest to you? James Thornberg (12:49): Biggest city would be Kalamazoo, I'm in between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. Corey Frank (12:54): Okay. James Thornberg (12:56): Kalamazoo is probably only, it might be 70,000 I think. And then Grand rapids is probably maybe half a million somewhere around there. So, I was working for single path. I wanted to get out of Chicago. They said, "Go ahead." And I was a little bit concerned because there's not a lot of businesses around here, and up until the pandemic, some people were adverse to doing business with somebody that wasn't local, that completely changed with the pandemic. So it fell into exactly what I was doing, which is just on the phones. And so it's amazing to me how much I can get done with making the dials in the morning, and then running all these meetings in the afternoon. The thought of even going to a meeting, now is so unproductive to me, the thought of it. Chris Beall (13:42): It is, isn't I?. It's like folks ask me to lunch all the time. Chris, you can attest this. People have no idea how expensive it is to go to lunch. Virtually, if I were to ask somebody to go to lunch, it's not like it was in the days. It's just, you don't have time for that.  It's the meet of the day. You think about the flow state that's interrupted. You think about the non-productive time, their back, the small talk for first 15, 20 minutes. All that stuff that just gets in the way that distractions. And I wonder if that's changing even more so since the pandemic. What do you think? Corey Frank (14:17): I think it's massive. That's a great story, James. We got to edit that one into a little thing. Because we did a whole episode, back in April of 2020, on the death of the commute, and the injection of what I still think is about a trillion dollars a year into the economy, terms of the time and flexibility. Like you're doing your business James in a way that would've been possible, but somewhat challenging before the pandemic. And then now it's in the absolute mainstream that this is how we do business. And people who think we're going back, they all flunked math. James Thornberg (14:55): Yeah. It's huge. I don't have it in front of me, but I think I've closed deals in like 20 different states since I started. Never would've happened before. Corey Frank (15:02): Yeah. Chris Beall (15:03): I haven't traveled on business since March. Well, we went to one conference. So, Helen and I went to a conference in Texas and spoke, and got one big opportunity out of it. Really big, huge and a great friendship. So, that was interesting. That's the only business travel I've done since March 12th of 2020. Corey Frank (15:26): Wow. Chris Beall (15:26): And we do business all over the world, personally, I close deals everywhere. James Thornberg (15:31): Yeah. Chris Beall (15:33): When people bitch about Zoom fatigue and all that. I think, "How much did you used to travel? You want to see some fatigue? Go through an airport."  Corey Frank (16:27): Oh, look at Mark Hunter. All Mark Hunter's videos were done in the airport. Remember that? James Thornberg (16:31): Yeah, they are. Chris Beall (16:31): Yeah.  James Thornberg (16:32): I never traveled. I mean, I only traveled to a commute to drive to somebody's business in Chicago in the suburbs. That's it. Chris Beall (16:40): Yeah. But now you reach out to the world. Right? So I was on the road because the nature of every business I've ever done an average of 107 days a year for most of the past 42 years. And sometimes more than that, for four years, it was commuting from Denver area, from Boulder out to the Bay Area. Every Monday, back Friday. I did that every week for 52 weeks in a row for four years. This is pretty nice to be able to just talk to people. Corey Frank (17:14): Yeah. Went to the next room. James, do you do zoom presentations or do you do phone calls on your illumination discovery? James Thornberg (17:21): I do all zoom. Corey Frank (17:23): You do all zoom? James Thornberg (17:23): Yeah.  Corey Frank (17:23): So, you cold call them and then they have a chance to actually see you, talk with you, see the nuances of your nonverbal communication, et cetera? James Thornberg (17:33): Yeah.  Corey Frank (17:33): Interesting. James Thornberg (17:33): I run the 30 minute meetings, typically it's on zoom. I always have my video on, they may or may not. It just depends on the individual. Corey Frank (17:40): Yeah.  Chris Beall (17:42): It's an amazing world that we've been pushed into. I think what we learned is we had the tech to do it for a long time, but we didn't have ... Like the old fax machine problem, it takes two to tango. And suddenly everybody was two. So it's interesting. And there's all this talk about going back. There is no going back. I mean it's crazy. It's like saying, "Well, let's go back and ride horses instead of cars." So like, "It sounds good, I like horses just ain't going to happen." James Thornberg (18:13): Yeah. A lot of people are trying to introduce the hybrid. Chris Beall (18:17): Yeah.  James Thornberg (18:17): Where people are in and out, or who needs to be at the office will be at the office. We'll see Chris Beall (18:22): The math on that is impossible. It's just crazy. In fact, a number of people ... There was a company that the company that I'd know pretty well, they gave up going back to the office. They were kind of doing it in a hybrid fashion, but it's like, "I don't know who is going to be there." So if I don't know, who's going to be there, then this is like, "Well, you got to be there when I'm going to be there." And then somebody will change their plans, because they're used to the flexibility. It's like, "Oh, you stood me up?" "I stood you guys up today for 30 minutes, and all I had to do was commute from that room over there, into this room. And I didn't even stop for the traditional bottle of McAllen. So I could actually be calm enough to have this event here." James Thornberg (19:03): Let me ask you guys this question. Are we good on the podcast? Did it turn out all right? It's all bad, because I kind of got distracted when Corey was asking me for my words of wisdom. Corey Frank (19:12): It was better. That's classic Market Dominance Guys. Chris Beall (19:18): Yeah. Because it just started out ... Like you James, I would just call Chris, on the road or when I'm stuck. Chris is famous for saying that the best business breakthroughs that are worth a damn are when you are stuck, not when you are in flow. And too often you get too cocky in flow to work in the business versus on the business. And so we said, let's just put it on the zoom and take some notes, and just one thing led to another and then the pandemic happened and we shifted ... Because it's interesting. Think about if the pandemic happened five years previous, how do people communicate? Okay. You have a really crappy version of WebEx.  James Thornberg (20:02): You're right.  Chris Beall (20:04): Maybe a couple of download iLink players where you have an agent in the ... Let's say it was 10 years previous- Corey Frank (20:11): That's really the key. [crosstalk 00:20:14] before this zoom product existed, I know because I blew it. Five years ago. I was sitting there, in a room, with Dave Berman and he is showing me this thing by walking into the next room and saying, "This works on mobile from in there to here." And by the way, we both turned off our wifi. And here we are having this meeting. And he says, "I want you to integrate this into ConnectAndSell." And they were customers and he was a customer. And I'm like five years ago, we're running in the hard version of second gear, 8,000 RPMs. It's not going very fast, but the motor's screaming, no cash, no gas in the tank, I'm trying to do deals to make the company go forward. So, I'm trying to get a deal with them and my imagination shrunk to the size of a pea pod, and I couldn't figure out really ... I walked out of that meeting going, "There has to be some way to do this. I love this product. There's got to be some way to do it. Oh, now I got to get a deal with the guy." How hard would it have been for me to open my mind and go, "You know when you set a meeting in ConnectAndSell, it'd be really cool." If it actually defaulted to being in this zoom thing and sent an invitation out of zoom to everybody. Well, I would've made us an extra a hundred million bucks, but totally missed it. So we had the tech, but we didn't have ... And we even had the zeitgeist, it would've worked. Right?  Chris Beall (21:44): Yeah.  Corey Frank (21:44): It would've worked. We wouldn't have had these vaccines, the mRNA technology was not even remotely close. It was nowhere close. Chris Beall (21:55): I mean you had clip media 10 years ago, I mean, that's the default tool to communicate via email. Corey Frank (22:04): Yeah.  Chris Beall (22:04): But it's really sobering to think that if this thing would've happened 10, 15 years ago, what would it would've done to our country? What would it have done to the economy? What would've it done to business, homes, et cetera, without technology like this? Corey Frank (22:21): This was hard enough. I mean, the fact is we have a cell service, mobile that has been the other big deal. Because it's not just what we do at our homes, it's the fact that we can get texted with that SOS, or the fact that I can run the rest of my business life around my personal life, not just on a computer, but also on a mobile device that really works. It's that combination that's making this work. I think if my math was right. I think it's a trillion dollars a year into the economy. Chris Beall (22:55): You have to look at that. I think we missed a zero or an item there, but it was close, or something like that. Corey Frank (23:00): But I think we missed some categories too. We were doing a simple cost savings on the commute and time freed up for the individuals. I think we missed the big synergy plays that are going on. And if you want to see where the money went, look at the stock market. Everybody predicted we were going to get a crash. We didn't get a crash. We got the opposite. And that's where the money ... The value always goes somewhere. It went into stock market and you're watching it and it's like, "Look at that thing."  Chris Beall (23:26): Yeah, and Bitcoin and NFTs. Corey Frank (23:26): Or Bitcoin. 

There’s a decided difference between the purpose of a cold call and that of a discovery call. During a discovery call, marketing language, also known as “selling your product or service,” is entirely appropriate. But if you foolishly use marketing language during your first conversation with a prospect — well, that, my podcast friends, is the cold-call kiss of death. Join these three successful cold-callers as they discuss the components of each type of call and warn you away from the two biggest cold-calling mistakes. James Thornburg, Enterprise IT Strategist at Bridgepointe Technologies, continues his conversation with our Market Dominance Guys, Chris Beall and Corey Frank, in order to provide you with some guidance about this important difference. Listen in to borrow from the best as these three professional salespeople lend you their expertise on this Market Dominance Guys’ episode, “The Cold-Call Kiss of Death.” About Our Guest James Thornburg is the Enterprise IT Strategist at Bridgepointe Technologies, which offers a service that helps design IT and telecom projects for their clients and includes selecting the right supplier at the right price with no extra cost to their customers. Catch his previous episode here:  Is Cold Calling a Form of Slapstick? Full episode transcript below: Corey Frank (01:30): Give us a little insight into what happens after the cold call. Somebody says, "Yeah, I'll take the meeting." Walk us through that sales. Do you use a methodology? Are you a Sandler guy? Are you a pitch anything guy? Corey Frank (01:42): Are you a question-based selling? How does your demeanor change on the fact find end of discovery, the illumination, because they showed up for this meeting, differently from the top of funnel, the cold call? James Thornberg (01:57): So the next step is a 30-minute call. And so we have that 30-minute call with a client and it's to really kind of introduce them to the concept. hey, do you see value in what we do and how we can help you buy technology? James Thornberg (02:10): And then if they do, we walk them through the areas that we focus on. And while we're doing that, we're doing some discovery to identify if there's a possibility of a project in the future. James Thornberg (02:21): So we're poking around a little bit, trying to find out, hey is there something that's coming up? And then based on, hey, yeah, you can help us out, we identify an area and then the next step would be a deeper technical conversation in regards to their scope and then their requirements. James Thornberg (02:36): And then based on that conversation, we align them with who we think the top two or three suppliers are and [inaudible 00:02:43] that process. Corey Frank (02:44): Do you use a methodology or is it true empathetic kind of discovery solution sell? What do you take from the cold call, your persona, your style, and use in the discovery or the illumination stage? James Thornberg (02:59): Well, our process, I mean, it's very relationship-driven because we're not doing the selling. We are streamlining that process to help them save time. And because the reality is, let's just say you have a project that you're working on. James Thornberg (03:15): You have three vendors that you're working with. You're meeting with a direct sales rep. I mean, their job is to sell you their stuff, may or may not be the best fit. And so when customers go and they reach out to these vendors directly, they have to sift through the noise, fact or fiction, and who's the best fit. James Thornberg (03:30): Where we step into that is we say, hey, meet with us first. We'll do some discovery, get an idea of your requirements. And then based on that, we'll make some recommendations. And then we facilitate that process and get them the information that they need so they're in a better position to make an informed IT decision. James Thornberg (03:46): So the process isn't like your typical sales process. We're following a certain methodology. I mean, we do have steps in the process that we follow, but it's not a traditional sales approach because we're not direct salespeople in a sense. Corey Frank (04:03): Got it. What's more fun for you? Do you have a balance of how often you do cold calls? How often you do discovery? And do you yearn for doing one over the other? James Thornberg (04:14): I'm enjoying it all to be frank. Right now, I have a great process. I make calls maybe like an hour, an hour and a half a day, typically four or five days a week. Pretty much every day anywhere between 9:00 and 11:00. James Thornberg (04:29): And then in the afternoon, it's dedicated to meetings. And depending on the day I may be running two or seven different meetings. They might be net new meetings. They may be follow-ups, things of that new nature. James Thornberg (04:42): And then what people don't get to see, and it's kind of hard to understand, is there's a whole world of selling and working deals behind the scenes with the different providers in terms of registration and things of that nature, competitors. James Thornberg (04:59): I mean, it's a knife fight. And what people don't realize about this business is that these deals don't always go through the front door traditionally like how people expect them to be. I mean, there's a lot of maneuvering on opportunities to get things done. Corey Frank (05:13): How about from a metrics perspective, James? I think Chris, at any given time, you give him seven seconds notice he'll pull up the data and the stats for his team and know within the first hour of the day, if they're off or who needs help on the intro, who needs help on tonality. Corey Frank (05:30): Do you look at, as kind of the proprietor of your own practice there, do you look at the stats at that level of tactical detail of how you're doing in one day or the other and dial to connect or dialed a meeting, or if you're getting your butt kicked in the intro, maybe it's a tonality thing and I should probably change it up? Corey Frank (05:50): How do you use math of the data to kind of alter or calibrate your sales process? James Thornberg (05:55): I do have a general idea in terms of what my numbers look like. I don't get overly concerned about, hey, you know what? My conversions are down this month. I just think it's a trend. I mean, you look at last week for me, I set five meetings like an hour and a half. James Thornberg (06:10): Never happened before. This week, I'm at one meeting, probably 20 conversations. So it's not horrible, but not great. And so it just flows. It flows and some days I'm better than others. I can feel it. James Thornberg (06:23): You just know the conversations or I'm catching the right people. But I have a good idea in terms of my conversions. I mean, well, Data Connect's kind of irrelevant I guess right now, but Data Connect was trending at probably close to 3.5%. James Thornberg (06:34): But my conversions on my conversations are right around 10. Out 10 people I talk to I'm converting one of those. Corey Frank (06:46): And that's probably different than when you first started, right? I mean, you probably did start at 10%, so. James Thornberg (06:51): I was at 5% and then I was converting around 10% on my follow-ups. And so now I have more follow-ups. I think I've gotten a little bit better. So my conversions are up a little bit, but it's been sitting around the 10%. Corey Frank (07:05): What do you see, Chris, from data overall? Obviously that CO ConnectAndSell, you kind of sit on top of the mountain and see millions and millions of calls every single month. What do you see as far as trends from dial to connect and conversion rate? Corey Frank (07:20): If I'm an average rep and I'm just getting in the game and I work on James team and I have a minimal amount of training, what's my conversion rate? What should I expect from a dial-to-connect rate? Corey Frank (07:31): What are some of the best practices you're seeing just from administering so many dials and being in charge of so many tens of thousands of conversations? Chris Beall (07:41): Yeah, there's not a lot of big trends. It's more individuated. When it all backed down from conversions from conversation to meeting conversions, for folks who are just starting out, the big issue is well, they tend not to know what to say. Chris Beall (07:58): They tend to make the two classic mistakes. There are two huge mistakes you can make in a cold call. One is using marketing language and marketing language will drive people to say, we're set. And that's the most common outcome from any conversation. Chris Beall (08:11): Cold conversation is you get we're set. And that just means you over telegraphed what it is that you do in a way that insults that person and basically implies they weren't doing their job. Why didn't you know about this? Chris Beall (08:24): You were waiting for a salesperson to call and tell you how to do your job. Most people don't take to that well. And so that's pretty classic. And then the other one that you see among new reps and among people who've been doing it for a while is we're great. Chris Beall (08:43): We're great. We're fantastic. We help companies like Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and whoever do X, Y, and Z. And it's like, yeah, my daddy's stronger than your daddy. Got it, we're in the third-grade playground. Chris Beall (08:57): And you get psychological reactants to your grade. If you can avoid both of those, you can actually do pretty well in cold calling saying almost anything as long as you insist on the meeting. Chris Beall (09:08): It's kind of funny, but given that it's a bit of a high wire act for people who are learning. And that's actually, I think, value of training and consulting around this, is the message consulting and then training. Chris Beall (09:20): It's not so much. There's the tonality, there's all this stuff to learn how to do, but there are these two mistakes that eat up 95% of all conversations. Which are, yeah, you tell them what business you're in, and they say we're set. Chris Beall (09:34): Or you tell them that they're an idiot because you're great and they're not. And you just avoid those and life's pretty easy. 5% is kind of an okay journeyman cold conversion rate. Masters, Cheryl can go into any industry. Chris Beall (09:57): She went into commercial real estate. Knows nothing about commercial real estate, converts it 35% out of the box just because she's knows... First of all, she truly believes in the value of the meeting, truly believes in it. Insists on it. Chris Beall (10:13): This isn't a game. This meeting's really important for you. And by the way, she means it when she says thinking back, I can't think of one person who's ever told me it was a waste of their time to meet with Henry. Chris Beall (10:28): What are you going to say? All you're asking for is their time. I can't think of one person who said it was a waste of their time. That's pretty good. That's a testimonial that doesn't insult. It's very, very simple. Chris Beall (10:41): So it's that kind of thing. The numbers can be up in the 30s, 40s, 50s, up in Scott Webb territory up in the 70s. It does require that you be prepared to hold the meeting that you offered rather than some other meeting. Chris Beall (10:58): And it's an unstable thing. And I don't think it's so much in the cold calling. We can teach lots of people to cold call if they've got a good personality, decent personality, like other people, want good things. Chris Beall (11:07): Most important thing, you have to want something good for the other person. You actually have to want something good for them inside yourself, right? It has to be part of who you are when you... This is, I think, more important than personality is I'll call it kind of ethical stance. Chris Beall (11:23): In the general case, do you want something good to happen for another person even if you've just met them? Some people do. Some people don't. It's like some puppies approach you and lick your hands. Some puppies cower back in corner and are afraid you're going to do something bad to them. Chris Beall (11:41): Every one of us is one of those kinds of puppies at birth. And some people manage to make a transition to the other kind of puppy, the friendly ones, but some people kind of stay in that fearful state and can't come out and play. Chris Beall (11:54): Because nobody's going to come and play with you if you don't come out and play. I mean, why would they? That's dumb, right? So I think it has a lot more to do with that than technique. And what people can expect from dial to connect is dial to connect doesn't really change very much. Chris Beall (12:09): If your lists are fantastic and you take great care of them and your market's big enough that new folks are coming into it about as fast as you're having conversations, which cause them to leave, your dial to connect is going to sit in the 20s. Chris Beall (12:23): Your follow-up dial-to-connect will sit in the teens, which is because those are people who answer the phone. And your reschedule, which is the ultimate, is going to become your primary weapon over time. Corey Frank (12:35): That's right. Chris Beall (12:36): That conversation. Hey, I see we had something on the calendar, right? I think of how flustered I was coming in here apologizing to you guys. Calling Thornberg, God, I'm so sorry, I was half an hour late for this recording session. I felt like shit. You had me. [inaudible 00:12:52] Corey Frank (12:51): We had the moral authority frame as our friend Oren talks about. Chris Beall (12:55): Yeah, exactly. So I think that's where the game is really played. It's not where people think it is. It's not in the mechanics. It's not in the numbers per se. I hate to say it like this, it sounds crazy, but it's kind of in your soul. James Thornberg (13:11): I like to say that you've got to have heart and if you have heart, then it comes across. People can tell that you can care. And if you're making these calls and you don't have it, then it's going to come off you're a crazy person. [inaudible 00:13:25]. You're a crazy person. Corey Frank (13:29): Yeah, you're dead inside, right? It's a single one-way reach. I mean, have to be willing to be vulnerable to expect somebody to reciprocate in their vulnerability to establish trust, right? Corey Frank (13:43): Chris, you talk a lot about that. But I think your stats that you're talking about, Chris and James even gets your opinion on this, if I'm an average two, three years out of school, I've had a couple of gigs. Corey Frank (13:53): I like to think I'm a sales guy or girl, and I'm at 5%. And I got this Cheryl girl sitting next to me and she's doing seven X what I'm doing at conversion rate. And let's say, you have your sales manager. Corey Frank (14:10): What is sales manager's kind of fundamentally missing? Because seems today in the industry, it's well, let's just keep hiring a bunch of Corey's not realizing, wait a minute. If you use some curl and approach, if you use some OMG, if you use some... Certainly you're a big fan of how you interview and the questions to ask. Corey Frank (14:28): Spend a little bit more time on that, finding more people- people, people with heart, you're going to get a return, but of seven X. Let alone if I'm sitting next to Scott where he's going to do 10 to 12X what I'm doing on a given day in a given week, in a given quarter, that's just staggering. Corey Frank (14:46): That sometimes us, we as sales leaders, we're focusing on the wrong thing sometimes if those conversion rates that drive conversations are so disparate. Chris Beall (14:55): The spread is big. It's big. I don't know, James, your thoughts. You're one guy. So you don't deal with the spread. You deal with yourself. James Thornberg (15:04): Well, but I mean, I have Robert calling with me, right? And so it's hard to say because I don't think the spread is going to be that big doing what we're doing. James Thornberg (15:54): Yeah, because I look at his numbers. I mean, he's really good. He's got a completely different approach. I steal a lot of stuff from him, but he's got the energy and he's done a really good job. James Thornberg (16:04): We've had a good run and we have completely different approach. Like I said, I steal his jokes and things like that, but we're both trending around that 10%. And I haven't seen anybody else. James Thornberg (16:15): We had somebody working with us and really their problem wasn't... They were converting lower. I'm happy when I have people calling for me, when I hire more people trending at 5%, doing what we do. James Thornberg (16:28): And as long as our conversions on the closes, I'll take that all day long. The problem is finding somebody to actually do the work, making the dials. But the 5%, I would take that all day long. Chris Beall (16:40): You say making the dials, I've never seen you make a dial. You must make one to get any connect done, isn't that funny? James Thornberg (16:45): I mean, it's just a joke, yeah. I mean, what else are you going to say? I mean, it's hard to... You've got to say make dials. Corey Frank (16:50): I hate pushing buttons. Chris Beall (16:53): Yeah, it's a funny thing though. Even my reps talk about making dials. And so I go, let me check. Let's see, you made one yesterday. Okay, that's pretty good. You had 5.68 hours of conversations and you talked to something on the order of 55 people. Chris Beall (17:11): So you pushed a button 55 time. I don't know, I'm going to check with your doctor and see whether you're checked out to be allowed to do that or you got arthritis or something. Corey Frank (17:19): You change every day and you get the guy with a good bull pin, you get about five days rest between starts and a... You've got about nine days rest between fingers. I guess that's the strenuous. Corey Frank (17:30): So James what's missing? What's a skill when listen to people like Cheryl or Ryan or Chris Beall or Scott or any of these other masters, right? What keeps you awake at night saying, gosh, I wish I had more of X skill to get to 11% or 12%? What are you working on right now to boost that even more? James Thornberg (17:51): That's a tough question to answer. I mean, my pitch, I like the framework. I would like to be able to condense it but still be able to get the same messaging across in terms of the problem. James Thornberg (18:04): And so I'm working on some things to try to tweak that to make that better. So, if you guys could help me out with that, that'd be great. Chris Beall (18:11): Well, I actually think you do two things in a cold call. It's your own business, so you can do it and it's fine. So you actually do a little bit more description of what you do in a way that doesn't insult that person. Chris Beall (18:23): It's such a new kind of thing anyway. It allows them to think about it and you get a pretty qualified meeting. They're intrinsically qualified. I mean that actually in your business, I think intrinsic qualification is probably pretty straightforward. Chris Beall (18:35): Everybody who's running an IT shop that's bigger than a bread box has tech purchases they've got to do. Timing. Timing is timing. Who knows, right? So the question is, are they in market right now? Chris Beall (18:46): But you actually do, in my opinion, a little bit of the discovery call. Not that you're doing discovery, but you're offering them the chance to see whether they fit into that kind of problem set so to speak at this moment. Chris Beall (19:00): So that's fine. I mean the 10%'s a really big number because your conversions go up. The average shop that folks are running when reps try to do anything resembling discovery, anything resembling qualification on a cold call, they can't cross that psychological barrier that keeps them from blowing the trust. Chris Beall (19:25): They just can't. When they switch to selling, they follow one of the two big problems, which is either you get the, we are set, which is not answerable. No one in the world can answer the, we're set objection. Chris Beall (19:37): Oh, that's great, James, we're set. No, you're not. What are you going to do, right? Fight them on that one? Yes I am. No, you're not. Yes I am, right? Information's superiority. I know my situation- Corey Frank (19:50): So wait, all set means go away. Chris Beall (19:53): That's right. All set means go away. What it means is you've told them enough that you've offered them another way out of the conversation and their goal is always the same. Chris Beall (20:01): I think this is the hardest thing about cold calling is to remember that your goal is whatever, right? If it's just to get trust, it's nice and simple because you always win. If to get meeting as gravy now or a follow-up later, then it's good. Chris Beall (20:17): Because I didn't blow it so I can talk to him later, right? So I'm kind of setting the table. So that's all kind of like an okay place to be. When you try to go to the next thing, you start selling. Chris Beall (20:35): And when you start selling, you're screwed. It's just all there is to it because the person has one goal. You cold-call somebody, they have one goal right up until the point where they hang up the phone. Chris Beall (20:47): And that's to get off this call with their self-image intact. It's actually a qualified goal. Goal, get off the call. Qualification, can't blow my own view myself. That's the only constraint that keeps them from hanging up immediately. Chris Beall (21:03): That's why when James you offer, hey, I'll tell you this and then you can hang up. What you're doing is actually kind of shining a light on the other side of that goal, which is by the way, I'm pretty sure that you want to keep yourself image intact. Chris Beall (21:16): So, kind of hang with me a little bit here, right? The elements of civility. I actually think this is where the game is played and this is why cold calling is so hard, is we have a hard time keeping in our heads and our hearts that the other person's goal is to get off this call with their self-image intact. Chris Beall (21:38): And the moment we offer that as an exit, they're out. They're gone. Corey Frank (21:44): So, which is why a challenging question or using marketing language that could put them in an awkward position where they don't know something is so damaging. Is that what you're saying? Chris Beall (21:56): Oh, the marketing language. We all know what marketing language is for. Establish ourselves in a category and differentiate from others in the category in a way that's of value for our target audience and no one else. Chris Beall (22:09): That's a master's level course in marketing right there. There's only two things we're trying to do. We're in this category and we're different from the others in the category in a way you care about and value. Boom, done. Chris Beall (22:20): Use either one of those in a cold call in your toast. As soon as you say the category, you're saying you are waiting for a sales rep to call and tell you about a category of solution that apparently you're not aware of, you idiot. Chris Beall (22:39): I mean, it's like, that's not what they're waiting for. And marketing departments get close to cold call messaging because they think it's their job. Guaranteed failure. You're just shooting yourself in the head every time. Corey Frank (22:53): And is that much of the core of a three, four, 5% conversion rate versus 25, 50% plus conversion rate? Chris Beall (23:04): Yeah. I mean the person who gets the 25, 50% conversion rate, they only have one goal, to get trust. Then they have another question which is, if I were to lead from here with curiosity, will it resonate sufficiently with this person? Chris Beall (23:21): Which means is my list any good, not if anything else, that they will agree verbally to take a meeting? At which point I'm done. And then I see one more, very delicately, maybe we can get it on the calendar. Chris Beall (23:37): But if not, so what? Modern tech says send them an email with a calendar invite. It's on their calendar. They agreed. Why should we question their agreement? Who are we to say no that wasn't an agreement when you agreed to meet with me? You dog. If you don't put it in blood, I ain't meeting with you. What's that about? Corey Frank (23:54): Yeah, that's- James Thornberg (23:59): [inaudible 00:23:59] conversions though. I mean it's dependent upon the industry that you're in and what you're selling. Would you agree or disagree with that? Chris Beall (24:07): I watched Cheryl and I don't know. I mean, commercial insurance is impossible. There's no way to get meetings there, right? Scott Webb gets them at that level. And it has to do with mindset and the willingness to put the meeting in the air rather than on the calendar. Chris Beall (24:26): That is, it's using a modern thing that wouldn't have worked before, right? If I got a verbal from you in whenever, 1992, that said, yeah, sure, I can meet with you? And it's like, okay, great, I'll shoot you something, and then... There's no and then. Chris Beall (24:45): But if I shoot you a calendar invite, it's on your calendar and you did agree to meet. Well, I told you we could move it around. If you don't show up, I also know you answer the phone, so we're going to have a little conversation that's very nice, very respectful. Chris Beall (24:59): Something important must have come up for you, when would be a better time to meet? So, if Cheryl calls this going from if to when, and I think it's the biggest thing we do in sales, is we go from if we're going to engage, to when we're going to engage. Chris Beall (25:14): And we just leave if behind. There ain't no if anymore. It's just a question of when. Corey Frank (25:20): Let's get Cheryl on the phone and have her pitch a bridge point. Chris Beall (25:23): I tell you what, you probably [inaudible 00:25:27] James Thornberg (25:29): Heads up competition. Let's see. Corey Frank (25:32): What's next for the cold call king James? James Thornberg (25:34): Next for the cold call king, year three for me. Corey Frank (25:37): Yeah, you're coming in year three. James Thornberg (25:38): I did. I mean, I survived. I mean, people, the hardest part of this business, people pretty much run out of money in six months, 12 months, depending on how much money they have. And they say you're a made man if you make it two years. James Thornberg (25:50): So I'm pretty much made it. Now it's just a matter of building the business. So I'm thinking about trying to find people to make calls, give me a little bit of help. I mean, we'll see. James Thornberg (26:04): But next year 2022 is about building and getting a little bit more finesse about my processes and things like that. I mean, it's been a lot about survival for the last two years. And so now that I'm at a point where, hey, it looks like you made it here. Probably some tweaks for 2022. Chris Beall (26:22): You laid out for me in June of 19, you called me and helped me a lot. It was a very difficult time in my life in that week that tragedy had occurred. Chris Beall (26:34): And I was walking through the airport in San Francisco, going out to take an Uber over to the Rosewood Hotel and meet with Sean and John and Manny and talk some things over about the business. Chris Beall (26:46): And you called me and said, I'm thinking about doing this. Could you be of some help? There is nothing better in the world than having somebody ask you to help them. That's simply when you're feeling imperfect, that's wonderful. Chris Beall (27:00): And you laid out a high-level plan. You said, "This is what I think I can do." Because I asked you kind of how did the numbers work? And you laid out kind of how the numbers work. Chris Beall (27:08): You're the only person I've ever known in a 42-year business career who's told me how the numbers were going to work and then made the numbers work just like that. Because you're pretty much on plan, right? James Thornberg (27:21): Right on plan. I'm doing better actually. So this year I'll probably close out the year at, first year with 16,000 this year. I'll do right around 150 to 160. And then I have about between 250 and 300 next year. James Thornberg (27:34): So right on the trajectory. I mean, it's rates up and I think next year's going to be where I land my, maybe not an elephant, but a game-changer in terms of opportunities that are on the pipeline and things like that. James Thornberg (27:49): But I've been scrapping quite a bit. Nothing real big, no silver bullets. Just day in, day out. I've closed, I can't remember what it was, it was like 35, 40 deals, somewhere around there, I think since I started. But yeah, it's been a great experience. Chris Beall (28:07): No, it goes both ways. It's been really just tremendous working with you. That discussion we had on, I think it was November 5th. I think it was the day before my birthday. Chris Beall (28:18): I was out on this barefoot run and we were talking about what could happen going forward and kind of put something together. And I totally remember how excited I was about that conversation, because I thought, wow here's the guy that's really going to go after it and do it right. Chris Beall (28:32): And so it's just pretty cool. I mean, Corey, how often do we get to do this, right? To be just a part of somebody doing it right, making it happen. It's astonishing. Corey Frank (28:43): I used to be in the cheap seats and watch you week after week, month after month put those calls on the board, right? It's great. It's incredible thought leadership. It's incredibly brave. Corey Frank (28:57): Have you had clients who have seen you go through this process as well? Is that endearing for any of them? Did they appreciate the hustle factor? What do they say when- James Thornberg (29:09): Yeah, I have a few fans. I don't promote it a lot. I don't really use LinkedIn for a lot of prospecting and things of that nature. So if people find me, they find me. James Thornberg (29:18): And then I have some existing customers and I've won a couple people over and people respect it I think. They respect the work that I'm doing, you know what I mean? I'm trying to provide for my family and trying to make things happen. James Thornberg (29:29): I mean, it's entrepreneurship. Just a single guy with really just ConnectAndSell and doing the work, so. Corey Frank (29:38): Well, it just shows, we've talked about this in virtually every episode, right? I mean to define your market and you have. And to dominate your market and you're on the way to get basically a deal, deal and a half every month on average for the two, two-plus years that you've been doing this. Corey Frank (29:56): I mean, you've tasted blood every month, right? You're knocking them down and the money's made in the follow-up. And clearly with all the relationships and the exhaust and the residue of the picker-uppers that you've had over the last two or three years that may not have been ready or in market, right? 20 months ago- James Thornberg (30:15): All the people that I've met with, I mean, it just keeps on stacking up. And that's what I mean. I mean, it's not a six-month run. It's not a 12-month run. It's not even two years. James Thornberg (30:25): It's I think at the end of three years, we'll see how it really kind of plays out. And it's exciting. Chris Beall (30:31): Well, this show's called Market Dominance guys, and it's about actually dominating market, which you're doing. We've never done this. I'm thinking of sharing a little screen here. Let's give it a shot and see what happens to us. Chris Beall (30:43): I'm going to have to explain it because it's an audio podcast, but here you are. James, this is you. This is only starting in April, because you switched over to a Salesforce kind of thingy rather than what we were doing before. Chris Beall (30:56): But actually these conversion numbers, look at this, that's meeting count. So what we're seeing is starting out of an April of this year, 10 meetings a month, 12, 23, 22. Chris Beall (31:09): Ooh, August was quiet. Did you go on vacation? Nine, and 25 meetings in, or 26 meetings in September. And then October was a little quieter. It was a little smaller number, and 26 again in November. Does this look familiar? James Thornberg (31:26): Yeah, it's a little inflated because the way that my Salesforce is integrated, there's ones that I kept. It's basically people that I'm following up with that I've met with before. So it's counting those meetings. So it's probably 15% off. Chris Beall (31:41): Oh, I see. So this is actually your follow-ups. Well that was kind of what Corey was just talking about. It's so interesting that sales... This is the difference between sales and market dominance to me. Chris Beall (31:52): Sales tends to be about this quarter and occasionally about this year. You're not doing sales for somebody else. You're building a dominant business. You're building a business that's going to provide your family with a legacy. Chris Beall (32:04): This is for real stuff. And Abby once said, if you want a good driver, strap him to the bumper. You're strapped to the damn bumper. James Thornberg (32:12): Yeah. Well, for sure. Chris Beall (32:14): I don't normally screen share because we have videos, but not everybody gets to see them but this is what dominance looks like. And if anybody's listening to this gets a chance to go out and follow Funnel Radio and find out where this video of this went. Chris Beall (32:32): You're literally looking at a picture of market dominance, because we talk cold call, cold call, cold call, cold call. We talk cold calls, but statistically the purpose of a cold call is to generate opportunities for follow-up calls. Chris Beall (32:46): And then meetings generate opportunities for follow-up calls also, because guess what? Just because we met with them, doesn't mean they're knocking on our door the next day. Corey Frank (32:55): Yeah, and you're proving the math of 36 months to dominate a market. And that's the math right? Chris Beall (33:02): Never changes. Market dominance is a 36-month process. It just is because the replacement cycle for everything in B2B is about three years. Corey Frank (33:12): Yeah, and you've got to be front and center when a guy like James talked to you last month and he's going to a call again this month. Because you know he is going to pick up the phone again. Chris Beall (33:22): And the joke's going to be the same joke, and it's still funny. Corey Frank (33:25): It's still funny. James Thornberg (33:27): Hey guys, my wife just texted me SOS. I don't know what's going on. Just bear with me for a second, or are we almost done? Do we want to- Corey Frank (33:34): Yeah, we're going to wrap it up here. So the king, it's Chris, it's always good to be in the presence of royalty. And James, we want to thank you for what you do to our profession. Corey Frank (33:46): And certainly as an advocate of ConnectAndSell, an advocate of cold calling, an advocate of humanity, of human-to-human interactions, couldn't be bigger fans than me and Chris. And we certainly appreciate all you're doing. Corey Frank (33:58): Wish you nothing but success. And for those of you who don't follow James Thornberg on LinkedIn, you're missing out certainly. So please subscribe to his page. Corey Frank (34:07): So James, any final thoughts and words of wisdom you could give to mere mortals, non-royalty folks like ourselves? James Thornberg (34:17): I don't know. I mean, my wife just texted me SOS. I guess my dog ran across the street. So I've got to run upstairs before I get in trouble. And she's leaving in a little bit too to go to book [inaudible 00:34:28]. James Thornberg (34:28): But hey listen, if you guys want to get together again or have another conversation, it's up to you. Corey Frank (34:33): Beautiful. Well, for the Market Dominance guys, this is Corey Frank with Chris Beall. Until next time, keep dominating your market. Chris Beall (34:40): Thanks guys.

What makes a great cold caller? Our guest today on Market Dominance Guys, James Thornburg, Enterprise IT Strategist at Bridgepointe Technologies, defines the characteristics of a great cold caller as someone who puts in the hard work by having lots of conversations  — and also has a little charisma. James uses humor and ConnectAndSell’s Lightning platform to connect to his prospects, and then shares his cold calls on LinkedIn for all to learn from — or be entertained by. Our hosts, Chris Beall and Corey Frank, are enthusiastic listeners, each touting the entertainment and educational value James provides with his cold-calling triumphs as well as his train wrecks. Listen in as these three sales guys discuss James Thornburg’s ability to “pivot to a chuckle” on this Market Dominance Guys’ episode, “Is Cold Calling a Form of Slapstick?” About Our Guest James Thornburg is the Enterprise IT Strategist at Bridgepointe Technologies, which offers a service that helps design IT or telecom projects for their clients and includes selecting the right supplier at the right price with no extra cost to their customers.