Bridging Generations in Sales and Outreach

E11 with Walter Crosby - Cigars, Sales Teams, and Straight Talk for CEOs

• Butch Nicholson • Season 1 • Episode 11

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In this episode, Butch Nicholson sits down with veteran sales strategist Walter Crosby, host of the Sales and Cigars podcast, to explore why so many sales teams struggle to reflect the vision of the CEO and how to fix it.

Walter shares insights from four decades in the field, helping business owners identify broken systems, misaligned incentives, and outdated hiring practices that quietly hold their sales teams back.

You’ll hear why relying on “industry experience” is often a trap, how modern buyers are changing the rules, and what CEOs must do to align compensation, culture, and clarity inside their sales org.

He breaks down why defining your ICP is non-negotiable, what it takes to motivate different generations on your team, and why LinkedIn is a credibility tool not a cold call shortcut.

If you're a Gen X or Boomer business leader trying to modernize your sales approach without losing your edge, this conversation is a masterclass in building a professional sales team that actually performs.

Bridging Generations in Sales and Outreach is hosted by Robert (BUTCH) NICHOLSON and produced by Fist Bump

Helping Gen X and Baby Boomer leaders turn their reputation into revenue—without losing the human touch.

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(Speaker 2) Welcome to Bridging Generations in Sales and Outreach. This is where experience goes to level up. I'm Butch Nicholson. I'll be your host today. And just one quick thing, we want to thank Fist Bump for being the sponsor of our show. They've done all the marketing, the promotion, and are producing the show for us. So big shout out(Speaker 2) to Fist Bump. So I'm glad to have Walter on our, Walter Crosby is my guest today. Walter and I connected on LinkedIn and you can see Walter with his cigar. When I saw the name of his podcast was Sales and Cigars, I knew we were going to connect because sales and cigars are two of my favorite things also. Walter, welcome to the show.(Speaker 1) Introduce yourself for us, please. Walter Hunt Well, thanks for having me, Butch. I appreciate it. And you're right, we connected on LinkedIn and we just kind of had a couple of cool conversations where we connected. I've been in sales for 40 years in a professional sense.(Speaker 1) Prior to that, I was really in sales as well, but as a kid. So I've sold everything from dirt to buildings to services. It's become a passion the last 30 years of trying to help elevate the profession, help sales managers, help CEOs connect their vision with what their sales people are doing, trying to get, you know, fix those problems. When I was back east for a family wedding this this weekend, and my mother inlaw is like, can you explain to me again what it is you do? And(Speaker 1) so I, you know, I tried explaining the detail and I'm like, look, if somebody owns a business and they have a sales team, I help them fix the problems. And she's like, why don't you just say that? And I'm like, cause it's more complicated than that. But so I think that's the the best way to introduce myself is that I help CEOs and business owners fix their sales teams performance problems. Thanks. I suspect that's what we're going to talk about today.(Speaker 2) Yeah, well, let's hop right into that. You know, one thing one of the things you said to me when we talked was that often the sales team doesn't reflect the CEO's vision.(Speaker 1) Speak about that for a minute, please. Yeah, it's an interesting idea that a CEO might have a super clear vision of what it is that they're trying to accomplish with their company and what their core values are. And they are able to articulate that to their team, right, whether it be finance, operations or sales, and they get it out there. But I think the disconnect that I see most often is that they don't help that individual, that employee, understand what it is they can do every day to fulfill that vision. Right? So some of it is that they have, they need to be able to make decisions at their level(Speaker 1) of function. And sometimes it's about just not really clear, like how much latitude that they have to make sure that that vision is happening. And I usually give this example of, I work for a manufacturer of fire alarm systems, and there was a particular order that was supposed to go out, and it was hot, needed to be with the customer on a particular day. And the guy on the shipping dock sent out three of the four boxes to the customer. And then he called me and said, Hey, I'm sending out the three(Speaker 1) boxes, they should have enough to go spike the job. But I've holding back this one. And like, why'd you do that? And he's like, well, there were some of the, they were damaged. Some of the product was damaged and there's no sense in sending out damaged product to the customer because they would just have to send it back.(Speaker 1) And I like, that's brilliant, Gary. I mean, that's just, thank you. So I called the customer, told them what to expect. They were like thankful. And to me, it was really important that they understood that that employee on the dock, he'd been there a long time, he knew his job really well, but he had the ability to hold that back.(Speaker 1) He felt that he had that control to be able to make sure we did the right thing for the customer. And then he communicated that control to be able to make sure we did the right thing for the customer. And then he communicated that, right? Which is really, really important as well. So if we don't let, and you know,(Speaker 1) I gave him a lot of praise for that. I went to the owner and said, okay, you know, this is what he did. This you got, you should, you know, you know, give him a little pat on the back or, you know, an attaboy. Because that, that needs to be reinforced, right? Making a good decision to help our customers is what the vision was, right? We wanted to be(Speaker 1) different. We were a smaller company, we competed with large organizations, and we needed to be able to share that we're nimble, and that we could make good decisions. And that was part of it. So if we don't help them see that, then they don't do it. And we we don't take advantage of our of our of the opportunities.(Speaker 2) Yeah, you know, Walter, that makes me think I know sometimes companies can kind of have the theory of, we're gonna hire a bunch of salespeople and we're gonna throw them up against the wall and whoever sticks will stay and whoever doesn't is gone.(Speaker 2) Talk about the role that the CEO or the business owner in particular needs to play with the hiring process.(Speaker 1) Well, depending upon the size of the organization, right, if it's a, you know, a smaller, smaller company, and the CEO has is close to the to the team, they still need to set that vision. What are we looking for? What do we want our sales people to be good at? And that's what we start with when we're helping somebody find better salespeople, is literally defining what that person looks like. What do they need to be good at? What(Speaker 1) do they need to do every day? Because if you just hire a salesperson from your industry, because they have industry experience, right? There's that myth out there that you got to have industry experience and that we're special, right. I call BS on that every time I hear it, unless it's like a super, super technical product where it might come into play. What I want them to think about is what do they need to be good at and who are they going to call on? Who's the customer? What's that ICP that, you know, ideal client that we're looking for? What do they care about? Because we're really selling the solutions, the feelings that we're getting to our buyer.(Speaker 1) So if we know somebody that has industry experience, but they're a retread, they're just going to keep cycling through. And it's super expensive for a business to cycle salespeople. And worse if they don't cycle them and they keep them on. So we want them to look at what do they need to be great at? And also what industries are adjacent to yours who call on the same buyer?(Speaker 1) So if you if you're calling on a CFO and you sell a particular type of software, who else calls on that CFO? Who knows the language? Who knows those buyers? Who might have a Rolodex of those buyers to help you? You can teach them your product. If you can't teach them the questions that they need and(Speaker 1) get somebody on boarded inside of 30 days, then you really need to rethink your onboarding process.(Speaker 3) Walter, you and I have never talked about this, but it came up with 30 days, then you really need to rethink your onboarding process.(Speaker 8) Walter, you and I have never talked about this, but it came up, a question came up for me, for you,(Speaker 2) in what you just said there. One of the things that I find an alarming number of times, or a percentage of the times is that companies don't really have a clear ICP. They may say it's B2B businesses between a million and 50 million in sales, but they don't know the things that they really need to know about the client. Things like what are their pain points? Do we even have something that would help them? Give me your thoughts on that, please.(Speaker 1) So a few weeks ago, I was met with a team from an IT company, right? They supported IT for companies and they had just hired a salesperson and that salesperson was in this meeting. And I asked them the question in front of the CEO,(Speaker 1) in front of their, their sales leader. I'm like, who's your target market? And she's like, well, we're, you know, automotive. Like, okay. Can you be more specific? And she's like, well, no, it's just automotive people. I'm like, so you're going to go call on Ford Motor Company and General Motors. They're going to they're they're a client for you. Well, of course not.(Speaker 1) OK, so we're ruling people out. So I went through that idea with with the salesperson and I looked at the CEO and like, she's got no idea who you should help. She's going to spin her wheels, calling on the companies that are too big or too small, right? What's the niche? What's the ICP? And what does that company look like?(Speaker 1) And what do they care about? And what are their problems? Because she needs to be able to go ask them questions about, do they have that issue that you can solve? And it's not just IT is the same everywhere. Certain companies have bigger problems to worry about. Some of them are more concerned(Speaker 1) about security, some are just making sure they got good up time. So it's a huge problem. If we don't tell our salespeople, this is what our buyer looks like. They care about these things. They're in this role. The decision maker is in this role. And sometimes there's a committee, sometimes there's an influencer. We need a champion sometimes. Right? So if we haven't done that(Speaker 1) for the salesperson, they're going to just go out and flail around. And it is the business owner, the sales leader, the CEO, like it's their responsibility to give that information to the salesperson. Because if you don't, they're just going to go do something and then they might get it right, they might not. And why make it more difficult? Give them a fighting chance by defining that individual and what it looks like to be successful.(Speaker 2) Yeah. And you know, one of the things I find is salespeople waste a lot of time calling on somebody who has no need for their solution.(Speaker 1) Well, like the example I gave, Ford and General Motors, they got a couple of IT people laying around, right? They got their own thing covered. Like they don't need this little company coming in and solving problems. Now, was she going to call on them? Probably not. But the point is, there's tier ones, tier twos, tier threes. Which one is the right fit for this company? Are they(Speaker 1) trying to extend to a market? Who's their current customers? What do they do really well? Who makes, who do they serve well and where do they make great margins? Where is it that they provide great service to these customers? So if you can't define that for your team, then they're going to, it's going to take them longer to get up and running. They're going to make a bunch of mistakes and it's going to frustrate the hell out of everybody.(Speaker 1) So Walter, what's the CEO's responsibility in hiring salespeople? I know they're obviously(Speaker 2) not on the front line, but what's their responsibility in the hiring process?(Speaker 1) Well, you know, they're responsible for everything at the end of the day, right?(Speaker 7) Sure.(Speaker 1) And top line revenue is an important aspect. So they have to help set the stage for what that salesperson looks like, right? They need a leader that can define the vision and transfer that to the individual. Make sure that they transfer the CEO's vision.(Speaker 1) But I think one thing that CEOs don't spend enough time with is making sure that their comp plan is in alignment with what they want their salespeople to do, right? So if you incentivize a salesperson to grow current accounts, and you want that salesperson to go open up new logos, but you're incentivizing them to hang with the 10, 12 big customers that you have(Speaker 1) and expand that, you have misalignment. So you're not gonna go get those new logos. So there really should be some thought looking at what the plan does and what the incentives are for the salespeople. And we wanna think about that.(Speaker 1) And then we also wanna think about the salespeople that we hire, what's their motivation? We're baby boomers, right, you and I, and we've traditionally been motivated by money and getting a little bit of recognition, President's Club, Champion's Circle, all that stuff. And that's been a-(Speaker 6) Have a lot of fun.(Speaker 1) Right, and they're important, but so is the commission, Chuck, right? That's what got us up out of bed in the morning. But today, that's starting to shift. I mean, it's already started to shift maybe five, six years ago, because some of these salespeople(Speaker 1) are intrinsically motivated. And the big difference there is they wanna be part of something that's bigger than them. They want to be part of an organization, a community that's doing good work. So if we don't position our organization well, we don't can put a comp plan together that motivates that person. We don't give them a path, career path, that allows them to get better professionally, right? So they want to rise, want everybody to rise with them.(Speaker 1) They want to grow as an individual. They want to grow as a professional. So we have to take that into consideration that that particular group of people are motivated differently. So you have a different conversation. You and I, like, but you know, we've got this comp plan.(Speaker 1) There's no cap. If you keep your margins at the 40 percent mark, you're going to make 12 percent commission. If you drop below that, you're going to make 10. That's motivating for us to know, all right, we want to stay higher margins, and we're going to hold the line on the price, and we're going to sell value. That might not be the way that you motivate the intrinsically motivated(Speaker 1) individual. So you have to take all of that into consideration. Where's your pool of people coming from? And if you don't have that alignment with your cop plan, you're incentivizing them to do the things that you don't really want them to do.(Speaker 2) You know, Walter, one of the reasons for starting this show is obviously you and I are baby boomers. And there are a lot of baby boomers working today that before the crash of 2007-8 would have told you they'd have been retired by now. But they're not, but they are some of the best people out there. There's two statistics that are a little dated, but I believe they're probably both still true. And one is that the average B2B buyer today is 39 years old.(Speaker 2) And I've got a daughter 40, and I can tell you that she definitely buys different than I do. The other thing, the other statistic was that today the buyer has gotten 75% of the information that they want before they want to engage with a salesperson. And I know when you and I started, the only choice a buyer had was to call a salesperson(Speaker 2) to get information. And now they had all the information they want in the palm of their hand literally.(Speaker 1) It's a different world than it was when you and I started. It's a different world than what it was 10 years ago. I think those statistics are pretty close to what they are now. The buyers have changed. The journey that they want to take with your sales team is different. They're coming in later into the sales process. Right? So we need to find the balance as a sales, a salesperson, we need to find out find the balance between giving them what they need, but also qualify these people and talking about their problems differently than they than they're currently thinking about. And that's, you know, in a...(Speaker 3)...(Speaker 1) In a transactional world, that's harder to do. And from a consultative fashion, where there's more complex decisions, if we're not telling these people, these buyers, information, giving them information, instead of asking what keeps you up at night, we should be able to tell them,(Speaker 1) here's what's around the corner. And if you're not getting prepared for this, you might have a problem. Right? So we want them to think about things differently. And if we can demonstrate that credibility as a salesperson, we're going to get their attention. They're going to see that we're bringing them value. Instead of trying to pitch and chase and push, we're getting them to think differently about their particular situation, right. And it's nuanced. We need to be clear about what's going on in our world and that, you know, as a salesperson. But that's part of the job is understanding the business that you're calling on, understanding the concerns of that buyer. So, I mean, if(Speaker 1) you're just going in and pitching, I got this great piece of equipment or I got this great product and, you know, we're going to do it better than our competitors. You're going to lose because you've just lowered that, you know, that expectation. They're not, they're not, you're not differentiating yourselves. Um, I've sold, uh, I've sold the product from a small company against companies like Honeywell and Siemens, right.(Speaker 1) And Johnson controls these large organizations. And they could always go buy a job if they wanted, right? They could go out and, and, and sure, be competitive with pricing and make it up on the back end. And so we had to be, we had to be different. So I would literally tell a buyer, hey, what I do, and what they do 98% exactly the same. So can we talk(Speaker 1) about the 2%? Right? That's just one example of differentiating. But if we can go tell them what they should be worried about, and we're on target, it's a huge advantage in creating that credibility, creating that, you know, compelling reasons to get them to think about something that they hadn't. And if we can do that, they're leaning in instead of laying back and folding their arms(Speaker 1) in front of themselves, right? Because we don't sound like every other salesperson. We don't need to sound like we're pitching. If we can do that as a salesperson, you really are professional.(Speaker 2) Yeah, that's good stuff, Walter, thank you. So so this is something that I'm very passionate about and I am 100 percent biased about because I am a salesperson. But one thing I've never understood in my 40 plus year sales career, it seems to me just logically thinking(Speaker 2) that marketing and sales ought to work together and it ought to be a great relationship. And it never is. It's almost like they compete. So what's the CEO's role in working with marketing and sales to make sure that they are working as a team(Speaker 2) rather than competing with each other? I mean, I don't know how many times I've heard marketing says, we've given you all these leads and sales says, all these leads are terrible. Well, for those older out there, the Glen Ross story, look that up if you're younger.(Speaker 1) Yeah, it's an iconic movie, but it highlights all the terrible things that salespeople do and that businesses did. But I think the role of the CEO in that situation is to make sure that the marketing and sales, the leaders are talking, right?(Speaker 1) That they're actually having conversations about data, not opinion, not about some nefarious, you guys are just out to get us to make us look bad. They gotta act like a parent, I guess, the CEO with these two children. And you're gonna sit in the sandbox(Speaker 1) and you're gonna play nice together, right? So if they start kicking sand at each other, the CEO's gotta step in and say, look, what are we trying to achieve here? The vision is to reach these people and say these things. And, you know, what, what I see happen a lot is that we're not clear what what marketing is doing(Speaker 1) and what salespeople are doing. And there has to be congruence between the two. We can't just marketing can't talk about X and Y. And then the salespeople come in and flip, flip it around and start talking about A, B and C. So we have to really be aligned. Again, CEO's role, business owners role, to make sure that that vision is correct. But some of it is just the the sales leader has to look in the mirror and say, what is my team really doing here? Right. They might be doing the activity, but are they saying the right things? Are they are they using the right tone? I have a client where they when they talk to their buyers, the buyers are first time buyers for this product.(Speaker 1) They're scared. There's fear, there's skepticism. So they have to present themselves as, you know, the uncle or the aunt that's gonna help guide them through this process, right? And they have to have more of an authoritative tone to make this buyer feel comfortable(Speaker 1) that we're gonna walk you through this. And if this isn't a good fit, you get to make that decision. We're not going to put a round peg into a square hole. So I think that congruency is really important, that that CEO is part of making sure the messaging is there. You know, we do a facilitation with folks to help them get that message right. Because marketing has to say these(Speaker 1) things to get that persuasion started to get the people to understand why they should even look at us, because there's so much noise out there. But then sales can come in and say something different and screw it all up. So that's our goal is to get all the right stakeholders in the room, talk about these things. And then the output is here's the marketing message that that you've been using. Here's what sales needs to do to continue that conversation and not upset the apple cart to make that buyer feel like what they started with is what they're finishing with. And that we're really helping that that individual because the buyers again like you said are They've changed they're more skeptical. They have more information(Speaker 1) There's so much noise out there if we don't do something to stand out. We're we're gonna we're gonna fail(Speaker 2) You know Walter one thing I find with a lot of people that I've worked with over the years If there's a problem with sales The first thing they wanted, you know, the first thing just the company does is blame the salespeople You know, you're the salespeople sales are bad. It must be your fault and it seems like they never look to see if it's the system, you know, is the system broken?(Speaker 2) And a lot of times it'll be well, we just need more leads, we need more leads, we need more leads. But again, more leads might not necessarily be the answer. There may be a problem with the system.(Speaker 1) Well, I think if you're a CEO or a business owner listening to this conversation, one of the things that they can look at there is, are the salespeople talking about their opportunities or their deals in a way that is the same? Are they able to talk about how they take a buyer through their journey? And they should be using the same language. The stages of their sales process should be defined. Clear stages, how you get from one stage to the next. There should be milestones in each(Speaker 1) one of those stages that must be achieved before you can get to the next stage. So it becomes your process and your methodology become your language, the sales language for your organization. So is that broken? Often it is. And it is the foundational element of if you're just letting your salespeople go out and wing it, and you got a bunch of gunslingers out there, I think this, the, the company needs to look in the mirror and see what have we, what do we have here? What do we, what are we providing the team as a structure? Because if you don't tell them how to do it, they're(Speaker 1) going to go do something. And it's probably not going to be what you want. It's probably not going to be what the founder did originally, the things that they were saying, the things that they were talking about. So looking at the systems, and systems for a sales organization, or the sales hiring process, right?(Speaker 1) Are we attracting and retaining and onboarding the right people? Are we managing them well? Are we giving the sales managers and the sales leaders the right tools to do their job? Do we have the right people in the right seats?(Speaker 1) That's a critical aspect of this where you probably experienced this in your career. You're a top producer, you got the awards, and then somebody comes along and says, hey, we need somebody to help manage these people. And you're really good at the sales. How about you come be the sales manager?(Speaker 4) Right?(Speaker 1) And the first time I was dumb enough to do that, I thought it was a promotion and I was gonna do really well. And it was a pain in the ass, right? Because I knew what to do, but then I had to go teach these guys(Speaker 1) and coach these guys on how to do it. It wasn't my forte. I had to learn how to do that. And often if you promote that best producer to that role, right, you frustrate that individual, you frustrate yourself as the business owner,(Speaker 1) and the rest of the team gets frustrated because we're not doing what we need to do. And they start micromanaging or starting to be the hero. Instead of helping the salespeople get better and close business themselves, they come in and save the day. So there's lots of lots of ways that that can get screwed up. But if you don't have that base, sales(Speaker 1) process and methodology that you can talk about with your team, and this is how we do it. Right. This is how it's done here. And we do it this way because it works, because our buyers are educated in the ways that they need to be educated. We're qualifying the way we need to qualify and our our conversion rates are there.(Speaker 1) So, you know, all of that comes to the one thing that CEOs really, really want is an accurate and reliable revenue forecast. How do you get that if you don't have a solid sales process that's staged and milestone-centric? If you don't have that as a foundation, then your forecast is going to be, oh, it's ways the wind blowing today. I'm confident that these deals are going to close. Why?(Speaker 1) Well, we had a good conversation. What makes it a good conversation? If you don't have that clarity, then your revenue forecast, you're going to get a $5 million forecast for the month. And then when I ask a CEO, this question during my discovery process, how much do you discount your forecast? And it's, it's, it's amazing. Some of them are discounting at 40 and 50%. Because it's never right. And I'm like, why are(Speaker 1) we, why aren't we fixing the problem rather than just, you know, discounting it? Doesn't, it doesn't make sense. Well, how am I supposed to fix it?(Speaker 5) Okay.(Speaker 1) Right. And this is the conversation we're having. We, you build the infrastructure in place and build the systems. And at the end of the day, that is the CEO's responsibility. They, they need to have that there. And if they don't know how to do it, they gotta hire somebody like us or a sales leader who could put all of those tools in place.(Speaker 2) Yeah, Walter, we could do a whole podcast on two different things you just said. One, we could do a whole podcast on the fallacy of most companies pipeline, because it's usually about 25% of what they think. And the other thing just from personal experience, I was an A to A plus salesman. And they got me to go into management for one year and I was about a C-minus Manager and I lost about 50% of my commissions and only made up about 20% of that in my(Speaker 2) Override as a manager. So that was my only foray into management(Speaker 1) Yeah, similar for me. It was a disaster. I remember the conversation. I was at a holiday party and the guys that owned the company called me, said, hey, we wanna talk to you at the bar,(Speaker 4) come over to the bar, right?(Speaker 1) So they offered me the sales director for North America. And again, I was dumb enough to take it. So on the way home, I was explaining to my wife, you know, what this meant, and she's like, well, this is great. Congratulations.(Speaker 1) But have you ever managed anybody before? Because you can barely manage yourself. How are you going to manage five other people? And it's like, you know, boom, that little the balloon popped. And she wasn't wrong. Right. And it was what I needed to hear because I had to go figure it out. But most sales managers don't. It's(Speaker 1) hard. It's a different set of skills. It takes some patience. And if you're not coaching your salespeople as a sales manager, 50% of your time, you bury your head in the CRM or you go out and on calls and try to close deals for your sales team. You need to coach them to be successful or coach them out depending upon the situation. And if you don't know the difference, then you shouldn't be in the role.(Speaker 1) And it's also a pay cut for those of us who are doing really well. Cuz that was the other thing my wife brought up about six months later, that the income dropped a little bit.(Speaker 3) Of course.(Speaker 2) So Walter, let's wrap up with this since we're talking about bridging generations. And earlier I said, I know I buy different than my daughter buys. Let's talk about the important, or I'd like to hear your thoughts on the importance of social media(Speaker 2) and especially LinkedIn, because whether you like LinkedIn or not, it's clearly the business social media platform. So share your thoughts with that for us, please.(Speaker 1) I think LinkedIn is a tool that you can use well or you can use poorly. So if your toolbox has a full set of tools in it and you're always using a hammer, you're not gonna be able to fix everything that comes at you. So I think LinkedIn is really important as an opportunity for a salesperson to be consistent about what it is that they're doing and about what they important. So I use LinkedIn every day something goes out. It's rarely a pitch of any kind.(Speaker 1) So and I have a formula that I try to use with my posts where I'm hooking somebody with a headline, you know, is this something because they can scroll through it, and if we don't grab their attention, there's no chance of any engagement. So I try to talk about the same things in different ways. And then I tell a story, right? So you got a hook and you got a story,(Speaker 1) and that story is providing a lesson or providing some piece of information or education. And then there's a call to action at the end. And that call to action isn't buy my stuff. That call to action is if you want to learn more, go here. If you want, what do you think about this particular problem? What have you tried? Right? So, or go listen to the podcast I was just on with Butch because we talk about all of this, right? So these are things that I think people get wrong. I've done this test at different times(Speaker 1) in the last few years where an individual pings you to be a member, to be a connection and then they immediately pitch you. And I just, I delete them. And I'm now much more cognizant of who's trying to connect with me and what their real objective is. Cause we don't need to pitch on LinkedIn. We need to provide ideas and help people see(Speaker 2) that we have credibility. Yeah, I think the last thing you said there is really important, Walter. One of the things that I found on LinkedIn, and one of the things that we promote at Fistbump, LinkedIn is not for sales. If you think you're going to make sales on LinkedIn, you're just wasting your time. If somebody asks to connect with me and then(Speaker 2) the next thing I get from them is, can I do a demo for you this afternoon? That's an immediate don't follow and put on the default list forever following up with. People want to know from influential people on LinkedIn, people want to know, tell me something I don't know. What have you learned? What are your experiences? What life stories do you have that I can relate to and deal(Speaker 1) with? It's really about making connection, not selling something. Absolutely. If you want to sell something, you can run ads on things where they're specific, right, where you're actually, you know, selling an idea using an ad because that's what that's what the ad is for. But if you're just using LinkedIn as a platform to to share ideas, you can't you can't pitch. It's a quick way to get yourself blocked or never make connections.(Speaker 1) And I think there's a misconception about that just about everywhere. It doesn't matter if it's the states or some other country. It happens all the time. I just want to say thank you to Frank and Luis for being on the call or being in the chat this morning. We appreciate that.(Speaker 2) Before we wrap up, Walter, is there some last words of wisdom you'd like to leave with us?(Speaker 3) Try to be different.(Speaker 1) Try to have different conversations with your buyers. Pitching features and benefits died years ago. The phone still works. Pick up the damn phone. You got to know your buyer, you got to know when when the right time to call him is. But there are so many people on LinkedIn and other social media platforms that saying the phone is dead, sending emails, right?(Speaker 1) I mean, I have people pitch me, like, hey, we can get you meetings by setting appointments for you using the phone. But they're sending me an email or they're trying to connect with me on LinkedIn. If they just picked up the phone, but they're sending me an email or they're trying to connect with me on LinkedIn. If they just picked up the phone, they might have a little bit more(Speaker 1) credibility in that regard. So I think as a sales professional, think different, try something different, try to help. And if you're a business owner, really make sure that there's alignment between your marketing and your sales, and that your sales has the basic foundational elements that it needs to be able to perform. I like to think of it as giving the team a fighting chance.(Speaker 3) Thanks, Walter.(Speaker 2) That was great. That was a lot of wisdom in your sharing this morning. I appreciate that. People want to get in touch with you. Walter, where's the best place?(Speaker 1) LinkedIn. Really, it's the spot where somebody can get to know me and understand what it is, how I think, without having to have a conversation. It's a great place to start. And then if somebody wants to talk, they ping me on LinkedIn, I take meetings all the time from from folks that have questions. And if you just have a question, I'm happy to have conversations. I don't need. I mean, we're trying to grow the business, but I'm not desperate and gonna pitch every time somebody(Speaker 1) calls me. To me, it's about helping first. And if you do enough of that, everything comes back to(Speaker 2) you. I think Mr. Ziegler said that years ago. Well, thanks, Walter. Hey, I wanna say thanks to Frank and Luis for being in our chat this morning. If you're a baby boomer or a Gen Xer still in sales and this all seems a little new or a little confusing to you, I want you to remember this. We're not starting over. I'm sorry, we are. We're not starting over. We're evolving. And old school wisdom is still right. People wanna buy from people they know, like, and trust.(Speaker 2) But we've gotta use the new school tools. So thank you very much. We look forward to seeing you next week at 10 o'clock on Friday, Eastern Standard Time in the US. Thanks, Walter. You can reach out to Walter on LinkedIn,(Speaker 2) and you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. and you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. Have a blessed week.

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Robert (Butch) Nicholson

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