B (3:46)

China out of business.

A (3:49)

I don't know if they're reading Arthur Dunn, but we'll have to send some over.

B (3:53)

Probably not interesting to know that you spend that much time, that far back in sales. That's by my public school math, 160 years ago. How has sales changed over time? What do you learn? What's the get for you to go back to the 1880s and, and then how, like, are there immutable truths that you learn and what, what are the biggest differences?

A (4:16)

Well, it's funny that when we look today and you're reading on LinkedIn, all these posts about world of sales has changed so much. It's dramatic, right? I, I call BS most of the time on those. And as a matter of fact, I did just did this this morning and I tried to do it with class, but like somebody had written something about, oh, this has changed. And I just, all I did was just posted a quote from 1906. The point being that sales since its infancy, kind of modern selling, modern sailing, started in the late 1890s as the industrial revolution was taking off. We figured out how to make stuff and make it at scale. And as a result, you needed to hire your own salespeople, you needed to pay them, you needed to give them dedicated territories, give them quotas. They had sales kickoffs like all of that stuff. 1890s, which I know is bananas.

B (5:10)

So before that, it was all proprietors and barterers and traders selling their own wares.

A (5:16)

Yeah, for thousands of years, essentially. Interesting. You'd make something and you could take it to the public market yourself, but that didn't scale because you wanted to be making stuff. So you might hire what are called, like, manufacturers reps. Back then, they were called drummers or bagmen to go represent your staples of whatever they are, rugs, shoes, whatever you're selling, go to the market, sell them for you. And they didn't represent just you. They represented 10 different manufacturers. Well, when we start to build more complex stuff, you needed people that actually knew your products and you could train them and they weren't competing with each other, so you give them dedicated territories. And the funny thing is that the foundation of selling was built on really one word, and it was by a guy named Arthur Sheldon. So 1903, he had coined this. The quote that I'm going to give you is from 1911, from his book the Art of Selling. It's my second favorite sales quote of all time. And the quote is this true. Salesmanship is the science of service. Grasp that thought firmly and never let go. Meaning sales was supposed to be about helping customers achieve optimal outcomes and build relationships with them and see them, you know, achieve things that maybe they never thought possible. And when we do that, all boats rise. As a matter of fact, in 1916, there was a sales conference, the first of its kind, where 3,000 salespeople get together. Detroit, Michigan, July 1916. Keynote speaker is none other than then sitting president Woodrow Wilson. Imagine a sitting president speaking at a sales conference while there's a world war going on like it's bananas. But he at that point viewed the sales profession as being vital to the United States becoming a superpower and kind of adding to its lead. Everybody else is fighting, let's go create a flourishing economy while we still have the chance. And that only happens when through being a good partner and servicing customers. So when we look at that, here's the funny thing. I'm going to grab something here. So in this book that I'm holding right Here, this is 1910. It's a book called Salesmanship Theory and Practice from a guy named Thomas Herbert Russell. There's four words in here, and I just want to remind you, this is 1910. You can't see them, but I'm going to point them out and read them anyway. It says, buyers know more nowadays. Buyers know more nowadays. 1910 so when we talk about the rise of AI and everything changing today, back then that again wasn't a Math major, but 115 years ago they were worried about the rise of mail order catalogs and the proliferation of advertising, meaning everything was changing and sales had to change. What happened? The opposite happened. And so this is my long way of getting to one sentence here for you, which is when we talk about everything changing, we talk about more information available to buyers. I would argue that more information available to buyers has never made it easier on them, it's always made it harder. And that at its core, sales is the same through that lens of service. And that our job is to be the guide, the navigator for our customers and help them achieve outcomes. Maybe they never thought possible. And back to that Arthur Dunn quote, the truth won't sell it, don't sell it. Sales at its core hasn't changed. Now there are a couple of things that have. But I'll take a breath there and get your thoughts.

B (9:03)

Todd, I was hoping that was your answer, don't sell it. Yeah, it was. I didn't mean to walk you into a setup, but I knew, I knew that you would, that you would push back on it. But sales has gone wrong and salespeople have gotten bad reputations and there's Car salespeople have a certain negative stigma where I find them to be helpful, professional, well trained, necessary part of the process. They know their product. I need their knowledge to make a good decision. So when does sales go wrong? Why does the sales profession so often get a bad rap? And as a follow up question to that, like that, does that create the need for us to first disarm people before and make them comfortable before we can actually begin the sales process?

A (9:58)

Well, yeah, I mean that, that Arthur Sheldon quote, grasp that thought firmly. Service and never let go. We absolutely let go. What happened, if anybody's nerd enough to care, is you get to the late 1910s, we enter World War I, we come out of it, there's manufacturing thriving, but there isn't the demand anymore. So all of a sudden all these manufacturers had all this inventory and idle machines cost a lot of money too. And so basically desperation kicked in and these organizations told their salespeople, oh, sell go, your job is. And so the idea of high pressure came in, the idea of selling an inferior product at a higher price came in. And suddenly you went from an era in the early 1910s where pretty much every university was teaching sales. It was actually taught in high schools in the 1910s. And part of it was because it was trusted, it was respected, it's even admired. And by the 1920s, we started to erode that world war, or, I'm sorry, the Great Depression really crushed that. And then you had World War II. We basically generationed out service in the selling profession. And by the 1940s, it wasn't taught anywhere. 1950s, 1960s, organizations would go to universities and try to recruit new graduates into sales roles. Those people wouldn't even show up for the interviews they'd like, I'd rather be unemployed than be in sales. We lost that grasp. And I think so much of that just has continued to ooze on through generations, and I still see it today. I just got an argument with somebody on LinkedIn a couple of days ago that really continues to see the world of selling through the 1980s, 1970s, where it's asymmetrical information. What I mean by that is I know stuff you don't. I'm going to use that to my advantage to get you into the best deal for me possible. That's what continues to make sales gross. Taking that back, Jeff, to that idea of disarming. Did you have something you wanted to jump in with there? So interrupt me, man. Like, you know, you could just pull the string on me and I'll. I'll go. Here's the other, the piece of that. So a little story for everybody about what you had asked about disarming. So in my last role, I was the chief revenue officer of a company based in Chicago, where I am called Power Reviews. Most of you have probably never heard of them, but you've used the technology and not known it. Meaning you're buying something online especially. You know, Jeff had mentioned we're just a few days before Christmas here going online. You're buying something, you see the product, you scroll down, there's reviews under it. We are the engine behind the collect and display of those reviews on a thousand different retailer websites. So Crocs, Vineyard, Vines, Jet, a ton of other ones. As a CRO, I kind of oversaw all revenue functions, including we had our marketing team who partnered with a local university here, Northwestern, to just look at buyer behavior when a website is acting as a salesperson. Right. So nothing to do with human to human business to business selling, or so I thought. Well, what happened was they collected really three core data points, two of which changed my life. Like, could only happen to a nerd. All right, so the three that these three data points, the first one didn't change my life, is that we all read Reviews. When we're buying something we haven't bought before, that matters, right? So at the time it was 96%. It's up over 99%. Buying something online. We read the reviews. Cool. No surprise. Here's the two that changed my life. And when I say changed my life, caused me to quit my job and write a book. A book that I thought would suck because what did I know about writing? But here I am years later, still teaching it, talking about it, and I've got my third book coming out here soon. But here's the two ready? Number one is that are you one of those weirdos that when you're reading reviews, you skip the 5 star reviews and you go to the fours, threes, twos and ones first, probably, right? That's most, yes. Most of us. It does not make you a weirdo. It makes you a human being. We go right to the negatives. And the last data point was on a five star scale. When a product has an average review score between a 4:2 and a 4:5, that's optimal for purchase conversion. And again, that skews lower or higher depending on what the product is. But point being that a product that is negative reviews right under it sells faster and more often than a product that has nothing but perfect five star reviews. And so I looked at that and I'm like, all right, that's what a website's. Acting as a salesperson, does that actually apply to when a human in a business, to business sense is acting a salesperson. This idea that we can actually help aid customers in buying what we've got to sell if we lead with the truth, lead with what we give up to be great with our core. And our solution isn't perfect, but it doesn't suck like a 42 to 45 is. Yeah, pretty darn good. And we started to kind of toy around with that and the next thing you know, we became Chicago's fastest growing tech company from 2014 to 2017. And I was like, I, I gotta get these ideas out there. And so that's kind of the, the long story there. But the core being that yes, we disarm people through trust. We, we disarm people and build trust through leading transparency with what we give up to be great at our core. And we can kind of get that respect level back when we really see the world of selling through providing a service and being a guide and not being that gross early 1920 salesperson there to pound you into submission.

B (16:20)

Your insight on the scores resonates. I was Christmas shopping this morning online and I was buying this particular item and number one, there was 3,000 of these things purchased in the last month. So I'm like, okay, there's, there's, there's a lot of validation there. And the score was in the mid fours. I think it was a four, four. And I'm like, okay, that's, that's fine. That's like. But because that many people were between a four and a five, that tells me that that's good. Now if I see something with a three in front of it, now, if that's a sanitation grade at a restaurant, I'm not going in. If it's. Now, if it's the only one of its product, I will dabble down into the threes. If I have, if it's a three, nine or something like that, or if I'm staying at a hotel. But I know it's a brand, you know, it's kind of a, it's, it's close to where I'm at. I've stayed at that brand before. I mean, sometimes they'll dip down to do a three, nine or whatever. But I mean, that resonates. And if you do, if you see eight, five star reviews, I assume they're all fake.

A (17:22)

Exactly. Yeah, we, you know, it's not the scores that matters as much as the context. Right. Like my wife and I were old souls. Like, if we're going out to dinner, we're not going Saturday night at 7. We're going Wednesday at 5. And so we might go online, look at a restaurant and go to the negatives and it's like, oh my gosh, it was so crazy. We couldn't get anybody to pay attention to us. It was like they clearly understaffed and all that. And we're like, cool, that's Saturday night at seven. How's the food? Because that's not going to be the problem Wednesday at 5. That's what we all do is when there are negative reviews, A, we're looking for content I would argue we don't buy when we're convinced. We buy when we can predict. And we're looking at these reviews to try to conjure a prediction of what's this going to look like in our world. And then to your point, if there's negative reviews at all, it lends credence and credibility to the reviews that are there. So for all of you, like, you get a customer that doesn't like you and talks about it, it's not the end of the world. As a Matter of fact, it can build credibility and help customers predict better than trying to pretend that you're perfect.

B (18:35)

Todd, what would your wife say is her favorite 1800 sales story that you have? I'll tell you this over an anniversary dinner.

A (18:44)

Oh, my gosh. I'll tell you this, though. My office. So I built a collection here. You can't see it all, but it's filled with late 1800s, early 1900s books. I've got behind me. It's a telephone fully restored from 1908. Like, the bell rings. There's 1921. My wife walks into my office and was like, smells like grandma's basement in here. So that's. I think that's kind of the tone of collecting this stuff.

B (19:13)

I got baked bread and mothballs. That's what I'm. That's what I. That's what hit me with that.

A (19:19)

Yeah, I've got some old magazines here that I don't know if they had water damage or what, but I've got them wrapped tightly in plastic. It's brutal. But, yeah, she supports it. I've got pictures on the wall from 1910s. I've got 1890 pictures. It's a full museum in my office. And I think she kind of digs it, so that's awesome.

B (19:43)

She must back. I do want to go back to this concept of how sales gup. Maybe, you know, and it goes back to quotas, how sales got pushy, right? So you've got a company. You're producing all the. All the widgets now. You've got to sell these widgets, and you got to. You got to forecast your production. So now that creates pressure. Operations is now creating pressures on sales. So now sales has to create quotas, and then they have to increase their quotas. So the. The levers. The leverage inside of that is to get salespeople to do whatever they need to do to move the product. And. And then. So. So you've got that. But then also, like, I really value sales when people. We don't get it as much anymore, but, you know, we have a big office building here, and I sit two offices away from the front door, and if nobody gets the door, I get the door. And guess it used to be a rubber stamp salesperson, or it would be a copier salesperson, or, you know, are you using American Express or whatever it is? And I would always give those people time because I have so much respect for people that are out there trying to make a living selling things. And even though I knew that ultimately I was going to give them time. And I would tell them, I appreciate what you're doing. Keep after it. I'm not a customer. But you know, thanks, thanks but no thanks, but. And then you have these companies like Tupperware, Mary Kay, you've got Cutco knives. And sometimes when I get, somebody will ask, I'll be in an Uber. And I was in a Zuber one time, some says, you know, this is, I'm from this country, this is what I'm doing. I'm side hustling myself to death. You know, I, I've got this little landscaping business. And I gave him like a couple pieces of advice. He has asked me what do I do? And I said, well, number one, you know, he's working, working for a guy that was like 75 years old running the landscaping business. I said, well, first of all, ask him if he will give you the business and you technically buy it because he wants to retire and you get, you'll pay him some amount of time, money over time because it's not a business that's big enough to sell. He's just going to let it go. He's got customers, you know, see if you can do an owner finance and move into it. And the second thing is, you know, if you really want to learn how to sell, which is, you know, the guy had like kid, he had a lot of obligations and he didn't have a lot of time. I said, you need to learn how to sell something. I said, go to Cutco Knives and see if you can get into their sales training program and get yourself beat up and, and go sell Cutco Knives. So I mean, sales is, you know, it makes the world go round. But I am avoiding salespeople more and more just by the way that we can buy things online. So, you know, what is the, I mean, what do you see going forward as you know is, is sales going to continue to be as important as it always has been or do you see some trends in sales because you're so close to it that are going to be changing for all of us?

A (22:46)

Yeah, I mean, it's funny that this idea, when we talked about this, my first book, the transparency sale, this 4:2 to 4:5 idea, um, when I travel, you know, to speak or to do workshops or whatever, I always try to find something historical that I can go check out. And I was over in Amsterdam last year and I was like, all right, sales historically, what am I going to find here? I found something that I was like, you know what, this place right here. So I was in the main square in Amsterdam. And I was like, this place represents why we could probably never fully fix sales. When I say fully fix sales, the transparency sale, the whole concept of that is the idea that honesty feels good, but it actually sells better. And because of the proliferation of information on everything we do buy, experience, peer connections, AI exposing everything, we gotta do it anyway. Right? And so, you know, quota or no quota, if you really want to optimally perform, embrace this idea that transparency sells better than perfection. Right? Well, here's the thing that really is also long game thinking that in this world where people can share, you sell the wrong thing to somebody, they can scream it from the mountaintops and it'll cost you deals you never even heard before. You got to play the long game in this world. The reason I talk about the square in Amsterdam is In the early 1600s, I believe it was 1601, 1602 was the first public stock exchange. Happened right there in Amsterdam. And by public stock exchange, I'm referring to being able to collect public funds to help support the growth of your businesses. And that has always been. And I can't see a world where it won't be short term focused. I throw money into your business, you gotta be showing me quarter over quarter that you're hitting your targets and you're growing. Otherwise I'm pulling my money out. And what does that create? It creates CEOs and leaders that become so short term focused that are like jam that in there. If they've got something other than lint in their wallet, they're a prospect, get the deal and we'll worry about the long term long later. But that's why it's like public investing in that type of environment means that I don't know if we'll ever fix it fully. But then back to my original point there, transparency sells better than perfection. I can give you a little history on quotas because that was something that they did right a hundred years ago that we do wrong today. But if you really want to optimize your performance, when you lead with transparency, you sell faster. You work on the deals you should be working on and you create an extra differentiator. You're the guide, the navigator, and the other person is bashing you. Who would you rather work? I would argue trust Trump's features all day long. You want to perform better, embrace this.

B (25:48)

Yeah, I mean if you're, if I'm, if I'm listening to your through line and I was selling which interesting the way that we evaluate candidates to award them A franchise. Here we do the exact same thing is I open when I talk to them saying, look, this is going to be one of the hardest things you'll ever do. Your success is not guaranteed in a business. We're not perfect either, but we get better every single day. We collaborate with our franchise owners. I'm constantly out there outside of the industry trying to find the very best technologies. I'm working to bring in great leadership. I'm working to bring in great trade partners and things like that, but it's not perfect, because nothing ever is. So don't expect that you're going to write a check into this franchise, and then you're just going to sit there and the. It's just going to foist money and dollar bills upon you like one of those, you know, WGN money cabinets we used to see on. And we're both, by the way, Todd and I are both Chicago guys. We grew up watching wgn. Are you Cubs or Socks?

A (26:56)

I was Cubs. My wife is Socks. I became much more socks.

B (27:00)

Yeah. Broken home. I was. I was from a broken home also. Half Cubs, half socks.

A (27:04)

It's hard. Yeah, it's hard.

B (27:07)

It's hard. But we can all align upon the Blackhawks.

A (27:10)

Exactly. And the Bears. There you go.

B (27:12)

Hey, how about the Bears this year? Yeah, yeah. 31 to 3 over Cleveland.

A (27:17)

There you go.

B (27:18)

Last weekend, we'll see. My Panthers, they. They showed signs of promise, and they.

A (27:25)

Had a rough one this last week. I was. Yeah, yeah.

B (27:29)

On. On. Unforced errors will. Will hurt you. There's great parody in the league.

A (27:33)

But.

B (27:35)

But, oh, now. Now I've gotten distracted from. From where we are now.

A (27:40)

Also have an impact on your ability to sell effectively, too. So it's.

B (27:44)

Yeah, yeah, they do, you know, But. But look, logic would follow that maybe you should start a sales call telling them all the things that they're. They're sitting in their head trying to find out, right? If I'm in a sales call, I've got two conversations going in my head. I've got what you're telling me, and then I'm thinking, and the other conversation in my head is what I really need. How do I disqualify this? So if you just came out and said, look, some people are going to think we're the most expensive. Some people are going to think this. Some people think they can go with one of these other products, and those are areas where some. Sometimes we lose sales, too. But here's what. I'll tell you why. We win the sales, we win and this truthfully. And this is why I work here, and this is why we have great customers. And this is why we have good, good reviews and happy customers. So if these things are important to you, then we're a good client. But, like, if. If you want to accomplish these other things, then there's. There's certainly always other options. And now you've just disarmed them.

A (28:44)

Well, yeah. Yeah. The reason that I wrote the book the first time. So I had. We'd gotten all the data, done all the research, and I happened to be in a. It was in New York. I had something cancel. We had an inbound lead come in from a massive retailer. Their initials are Calvin Klein. And so my. My head of sales calls me, and he's like, todd, Calvin Klein just came in, like, really cool. What's going on? He talked me through it, and then I was like, wait, they're in New York. I'm in New York today. Hey, I know this is a 1 in 100 shot, so don't put any pressure on the rep, but could you have the rep reach back out to that executive over there and tell him I'm in town and I just had my afternoon cancel. If he wants to go grab coffee or something, that would be really cool way to kick this thing off. He's like, sure, I'll ask. They did. The guy said yes. So I went over to Calvin Klein's headquarters, walk in, check in, thinking, I'm just gonna have coffee with this guy. He brings me into his office, hands me the HDMI cable for his monitor, and he's like, here, you can plug this in for your presentation. And I'm like, presentation? I thought we were having coffee. It gets worse. He. People started rolling chairs in, like six, seven, eight more people. Like, all of a sudden, we're in an office, elbow to elbow, an expectation that I'm about to give a presentation. And this is hours after the inbound lead came in. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I was fresh on all this research. And then to your point, Jeff, this guy literally teed me up perfectly. And he was very New York like, no small talk. All business comes right out with, Todd, we're looking at you, we're looking at your competitor. How are you better than them? And I started just kind of how you described it. I said, hey, listen, before we get too deep into it, can I start with how they're better than us? And there's a reason why I'm saying it. It's not some Cheesy anecdote gimmick. It's they just released an add on to their core solution that not only do we not have, but it's not even on a roadmap. And before you go through this big evaluation and you write an RFP and you fly us all over the place, if that's going to be really important, let's talk about that now versus later. And they're like, what are you talking about? Like, well, I don't know much about it. They just released it yesterday. I read the press release, I read their website. So I'm no expert, but here's what it does, here's how it works, here's their initial customer and I just let them talk immediately. To your point about trust, instead of it being customer vendor, it was now a bunch of people figuring out how we're best going to leverage that most valuable asset we all have to convert to revenue, which is our time. And we started talking about it. They were like asking me questions. I don't know. I like, I don't work there. But I was selling it as though I worked for the competitor because it was the truth and because to your point, I want to qualify out of this thing if that's, I don't want my team responding to a big rfp, getting on a plane, flying to New York when we're going to lose anyway. And what's amazing is within about 15 minutes they said, you know what, we've heard enough, we're good. Most of the group gets up and leaves. It's just me and that executive. He literally showed me his paper budget, pointed to the line that he's like, can you hit that number? And I'd never had anybody actually show me their budget. First time I was trying this, they ended up not doing the RFP. Nobody flew anywhere. They decided to go with us 10 days later. And then it took four weeks to do T's and C's. But the point being we qualified in faster. We would have qualified out fast too. Again, sure it great to win. Second best thing in the world is losing fast. And the last point there is when people say, like, wow, that's gutsy, dude. Like, I don't know if I could do that. I would argue it's gutsier not to do it because they're going to find out anyway. Would you rather find out from you or from your competitor? Find out from you now or find out in three months? The answer seems easy to me that the truth always wins, especially in this world. The rise of AI the rise of E commerce, all of that kind of stuff. Embrace it. Transparency sells better. You're going to love it. And especially, Jeff, with what you guys do, you're going to find that the right customers are the ones that are not only buying, but they're buying more. They're staying, they're advocating for you, they're reviewing you positively. And those ones that you jammed in, that you weren't a great fit, they're going to cost you more business than you even know.

B (33:23)

You will always or often lose a feature and benefit showdown.

A (33:28)

Yes.

B (33:29)

It can never be about the features and the benefits. I get. How are you? I used to. I had a restoration franchise I built and sold. How are you different than servpro? I'm like, lots of ways. What matters to you? You know, I mean, I could. We could do the tick. Okay. They're a billion dollars. We're at this time. We're $50 million, you know, so they're better on that. They have massive insurance accounts. They're better at that. But here's. Here's all the reasons why people join us. And. And here's the way it is. There was a book called Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni. Have you read it?

A (34:05)

I've got it down here, yep.

B (34:06)

Okay, so that's exactly what you. I ordered the book. I started reading it. I'm like, oh, this isn't what I thought it was. But then I got interested and ultimately got interested in it and what it was. It's a consulting firm. It's a small consultancy, and they were competing constantly for consulting contracts with the large firms in the industry who had better research, more. Better sales reps, more resources, all the things right, could probably take them to the super bowl and do all the perks and all of this kind of stuff. And. But this little consulting company kept beating them. And what they did was they showed up to a sales appointment just like you did, and they went on the whiteboard and they just basically said, what are you struggling with right now? And they started working the problem. They just started. They didn't. There was no presentation. There was no. Let me show you all this stuff. It was like, we're consultants. We help people with these types of issues. Let's. Let's just work for an hour. And they. They kind of just started doing it. And the people unwittingly, well, we've got this problem. We got. Well, then, okay, well, what about this? That. And then after an hour, the people were like, well, this is really good. And they'd say well, do you want it to continue? And they'd be like, yeah, we want to keep going with, well then we'll send you the contract. And then they would sign the work. So I mean I've. That made such an impression on me. Not to try to sell, but to try to help. And so when. And then also too making sure that you're always focusing on the relationship. So we ran call center. We had an emergency services business. We did mold remediation, water damage, large scale air duct cleaning. We did government contracts, big box retails, national accounts with some water moisture control services like sealed crawl spaces. We did radon systems. So it was all about clean, safe and healthy. It was a, you know, healthy home and business. I mean it was basically our tagline. So it was all about when something happened and it impacted the home, which then impacted the health and safety of the occupants. Like boom. Advantaclean. That's, that was our thing. Okay, so how did we answer the phone? I've got water in my building. Oh, who's your insurance company? What's your deductible? No, ours was. Is everybody okay? That was our opener. Is everybody okay? Yeah, I'm fine. It was a fire. The dogs kind of hid under the bed. They got smoking, by the way. Dogs and cats and animals, they. You can't find them in a fire because they hide. So oftentimes it cannot be. They can be impacted in those types of situations when it would have been they should have foreseeably gotten out and. Or sometimes there's a car in the front of a building and you know, did it hit somebody? Did it not hit somebody? More often than not, people were okay. But I mean just the fact that we started with is everybody okay? Complete. It was a, it was, you could hear it on the call. It was so disarming. And it was like, we're, we're going to start working on your life. And then the, the, the water, the dry down, the cleanup, those are all things that come with it. But like I've got three kids that I've got to get to ballet practice and my husband's out of town and my house, all the windows in my house have been knocked out by the fire department and we have nowhere to live tonight. Okay. That's the problem. Right. And, and the rest of it was just. So if we went to work on solving their problem before and the building would be there when, when we got to it, and we always sold that way and, and I felt that was a huge differentiator for us?

A (37:41)

Well, yeah, I used to joke that, you know, I had a buddy of mine that went to medical school and they, you know, they spend half of the time in medical school learning about like, you know, the neck bones connected to the. And like, all that, all that stuff. But they spend a lot of time on this concept of clinical empathy, which is, you know, to be a good doctor, you can know all the things in the world and you can be, you know, cure and all, but if you don't have the ability to really see the world through the lens of the people that you're working with and being able to connect with them and being able to actually experience the highs and lows with them, like actually care. You know, like, the best way to show that you act, you know, to give the impression that you care is to actually care. And that's what makes great doctors. I think it makes great, great sales professionals too, is, hey, you know, Jeff, in that restoration business, you've got lots of customers you've worked with. You've seen things, you've seen circumstances where you're a good fit. Not. You've seen things where people's lives have been really disrupted and you've seen opportunities to be able to uplift them and also, you know, just be a resource for them in getting their lives back to the way it was. Absolutely. But why can't you make those connections with customers? Because like I said, trust will always trump features and benefits and price. Always, always, always. And we've got to be seeing our role as, you know, revenue generating professionals through that lens.

B (39:11)

How have you applied your work to the concept of negotiation?

A (39:15)

Well, it's funny that if any of you that are listening, think about the.

B (39:22)

That would be both of you. But go ahead.

A (39:26)

You know, think about that. The. When we get to negotiating, you know, sales and selling was what we just talked about. It was meant to be about building relationship, building trust, and helping the customer achieve optimal outcomes. And then they say yes. And what happens? Well, the way that I was taught is time to change personalities and we flip and we start subconsciously lying to customers. We don't tell them what a good deal is. And in many cases, you know, the most popular books on negotiating were taught by former FBI hostage negotiators. Like, what are we doing?

B (40:05)

Yeah, we've had, we've had Chris Foss on the, on the show.

A (40:08)

Yeah. And it's. I love his book. Please don't stick him on me.

B (40:13)

You know, no, I'm in a. I'm actually in a group with Them. And in person, he is a, he has a powerful, serious presence to him.

A (40:23)

I can imagine.

B (40:24)

He's a kid and he, he is, he is so. I mean, his words are served neat, no ice cubes and very precise. And he's very smart. And it's, it's, you know, but, but you're right. I mean, it's, it's. You're almost powerless when somebody understands the art of the. The art of the negotiation.

A (40:49)

Exactly. Yeah. And I, I've always felt like what we sell is not the release of hostages from a bank heist. We're not, you know, working on a peace treaty between warring nations or massive union labor contracts. And you know, the concept of.

B (41:05)

Well, it wouldn't work. It wouldn't work. Look, come out. We're not going to shoot you.

A (41:10)

You know that, right?

B (41:11)

No, no, it would be, if you're going to be truthful, come out, peek your head out from around the corner so we can put. Shoot you in the head. Yeah, that wouldn't, that wouldn't work.

A (41:19)

Exactly like the concepts that I teach in four levers Negotiating are not meant for that kind of world.

B (41:26)

Okay?

A (41:26)

What, what I teach is thinking through the lens of what we all sell in business to business, even in some cases business to consumer. This idea that again in the proliferation of feedback peer connections AI exposing pricing models. I just don't believe it's scalable to have every one of your customers paying a different amount based on how well or poorly you negotiated it. And so what I had stumbled upon years ago was I accidentally in a high stakes multimillion dollar negotiation for a software purchase, I kind of threw my cards face up. And by cards there's four of them. Thus four levers negotiating. Every for profit business in the world cares about four things. Number one, their pricing and their business model is based on how much stuff you buy. So volume. So commit to a larger purchase better than committing to a smaller purchase. Who knew? Number two is we all like money. So it's the timing of cash. Our businesses are run on how fast you pay. Pay faster is better than paying slower. Again, who knew? Lever number three is how long you commit to the products, technology, services. You want people to commit to a longer period, not a shorter period. And then number four is the timing of the deal or predictability, our ability, especially in businesses where we need to build something or we need labor to be available, our ability to, or we've got investors that we need to predict and satisfy so that we can invest in the business. Predictability is really Important. And so what had happened was I got into this room and I sucked at the hostage negotiators. The worst. I'm a terrible liar. I think if I'm lying, it's like, liar, I'm terrible. And so I went into this thing, I got overwhelmed, and I was like, hey, here's what our pricing is based on. How much you buy, volume, how fast you pay, timing of cash, how long you commit, length of commitment, and timing of the deal. Help us predict. Maybe we can use this as a guide to help you get what you need. Because they had asked for 35% off. All right, well, if you need to lower the purchase by 35%, maybe commit to 35% less stuff. But we can also help you by pay us faster. We'll pay you in the form of a commitment or we'll pay you in the form of a discount to pay us faster to commit longer, to help us forecast or to commit to buying more stuff. And suddenly, instead of it being a battle again, it was one of those situations where it was customer, vendor became a bunch of people trying to figure out how we were going to make this work for one another. Trust was built, we discounted less, our forecast became more accurate. And when those. When that group went to buy for another group within the organization, they negotiated their own deal. When a couple of them left and went to another company, they remembered how it was done. And the next thing you know, negotiation anxiety went away. We had consistency. So a foundation with levers. You can push and pull to get where you need to go. But for every dollar we were given away in the form of a concession or a discount, we were getting something of value in return. More volume, faster payments, longer commitments, forecastability. And I then started teaching that it took off. And that's four levers negotiating. But the point being, I don't think the old way is going to be sustainable in the world of AI. And I think it's hard to scale the kind of talent that Chris Voss has. He's amazing. Like you said, he owns a room. I just. I haven't seen organizations be able to truly grasp that. I'm trying to give everybody something easy. Just play your cards face up. Here it is. And don't use it to negotiate the release of a hostage in a bank heist, because they're probably not going to make it.

B (45:33)

So all of it's really tied to pricing, though. I mean, so like, at the core of it, it's pricing at the top, and then you've got volume, cash. Tim how long is the term and then when it. When is it going to close, how predictable it is. And that's the old, hey, if you get it done this quarter, I hit my number and I can give you a better deal type.

A (45:51)

I would, actually. So two things there. So, number one is, yeah, this is meant for the B2B world. So in business to business dealings, that's really what you're negotiating.

B (46:00)

Yeah.

A (46:01)

And in mo, in some of the bigger stakes deals, you'll have terms like indemnification, limitation of liability. The way that we work, this is. Your pricing is based on those four things. Your terms are also based on assuming a normal level of risk. And if you're going to try to amp me up on indemnification and limitation of liability, well, maybe we can make up for that somewhere else. And so that's part number one there. And I lost my train of thought on part number two. What did you just say? There was another piece to that that I wanted to.

B (46:39)

Oh, that's been minutes ago, Todd.

A (46:41)

You can't ask me.

B (46:42)

You can't ask me.

A (46:43)

Maybe it'll pop back up.

B (46:44)

But, yeah, no, I've been. I've been planning dinner, so there's been a lot of work, though. One thing I haven't heard you really talk that much about, but there's so much. There's so many people that are kind of making a living on it, and it's got to be part of your process is the concept of stories. You're a brilliant storyteller. You've got examples that help us connect with your work. How do you coach people to use stories in their sales process?

A (47:13)

All right, you ready to. I mean, if you don't already think I'm completely mental, I'm going to throw this one out to you, okay? Have people watch reality makeover TV shows. All right, I know that sounds nuts, but here's what I mean. You know, I don't know when this happened, but there was a time in the world of selling. It's somewhere in here where we decided that we should go into all of our sales engagements and just throw up, right? Like, hey, here's our mission statement and our awards we've won and our locations and our products and our NASCAR slides filled with all the logos of all the customers that we serve. Yay. We, we, we. Well, that literally polarizes people. Like, we've known that since 1620, when Sir Francis Bacon first theorized the concept of cognitive or confirmation bias, which, for those that don't know, means that once We've established an opinion on something. We will take in all incoming logic or data to support that opinion. Even if that logic or data goes 180 degrees from that opinion.

B (48:17)

We defend it. We defend it exactly.

A (48:20)

Like, think of the last time you scrolled social media and politically right. Like, if you lean one way, you'll take in the data that supports it, go, yeah, you'll take the data that goes against it and go, here's why. That's bs and you're always stronger in your conviction. That same thing happens in the world of selling, where if you walk in a room, there's 10 people there, five of them are for you, five of them against you, and you come in and wee, wee, wee all over them. What happens? Well, those people that are for you are going to be like, oh, good point. I'm stronger. Oh, yeah, you know what? Great. Those five that are against you have just been sitting there coming up with their arguments for why what you just said is bs. You push them further apart. Now, when I say reality makeover TV shows, think about the Queer Eyes, the Biggest Losers, the Restaurant Impossibles, the bar Rescues, the Extreme Makeover. What do they do in every one of those episodes? Well, they come in and to your point, Jeff, you were talking about when you get a call, you got everybody all right, and you talked about getting naked, which is putting it all on the board, like, hey, what's your current. Where are you trying to go? What are you trying to do? Why are we here? That's what reality makeover TV shows do. They start with understanding your current state, right? Like, what's going on? Why am I even here? Why are we having this discussion? Why are you investing your valuable time in talking to me? And then in the middle, what do they do? They help the customer see that their current state perception maybe is not quite right. Maybe needs some added, you know, additions or some things they're not thinking about. So how that current state is maybe not sustainable, and they lead to their solution instead of leading with it, right? So in those reality shows, it's like, hey, why are we here? What's going on? Oh, you know what? I can see you got this problem. This problem, too. Have you saw that, Seen that before? People like, I can see it. Okay, cool. And then they're like, all right, this is what we're going to do about it. Here's the plan. And at the end, everybody's hugging and crying and we're going to be friends forever. Like, that's what you want, right? So my short Story there is. Just flip the order. Don't start with. You start with them, then teach, teach, teach, and lead to your solution by. At the end. You can put all that stuff at the end. Hey, based on your circumstance, here's how we can help. Here's how we can't. Here's what we should do. Here's a plan. Up to you again. You make the customer the hero. It tells a great story. Right? Reality makeover. TV shows would be terrible if every show started with 15 minutes of the host talking about how great they are. Instead, they never talk about how great they are. They earn that greatness through the credibility and respect they build through knowing and teaching and guiding. That's storytelling. That's easy. Just flip the order.

B (51:08)

Well, it's a. You just went right through Donald Miller's book Building a Story Brand where you, You. There's a situation and there is a. There is a. There is a hero in the story. And the hero now faces a challenge, which is, what's going on? What's going on with your business? And then they. It's clear that they are either going to face catastrophe and go off the cliff. Right. And then, you know, oh, my gosh, this is what's happening. We're Our CRM. Can't now do this. And we're. If we can't do that, we're going to lose to our competitor, and we can't do all these. All the things. And then insert a guide. And a guide says, yes, you can go off the cliff, but here's something else that. That you can do. And then they lead them, and then they, eventually they take a courageous and heroic action, they buy your product, and now they go on. So the. And you are the guide in. In the story. So I guess what you're doing is you have to create the story. If the story is not clear to them, then you need to create the backstory, and then you need to insert yourself into it as the guide that can lead them through the forest and out the other side.

A (52:22)

Well, yeah. When just thinking about the restoration business, I can imagine that most of these people are calling because they have something going on, Right?

B (52:29)

Yes.

A (52:30)

I can also imagine that most of those individuals that call don't actually truly understand the full scope of all the problems that have been created by the flood, by the fire, by whatever. And so it's not to start the call by going, hey, here's what we do, and all the people that we've helped. Instead it's like, hey, what's going on? Why are we talking? Everybody cool? Good. All right, great. What are the problems? X, Y, Z. Hey, you know what? We sometimes see A, B and C as issues. Have you checked that? Have you looked? Oh, all right. Wow. Okay. My problem's bigger. I now get that Jeff gets my business. And so now that we've illuminated the true current state, here's what we do, and here's how we could potentially help you out. We do X, Y and Z. You've built that credibility. You didn't start with it, you ended with it.

B (53:20)

Get this little tip, right? So one of the things, many times we were referred by the insurance company that would lead to skepticism from the client whether we were going to be loyal to the insurance company or loyal to the customer. And I always coached our people that we were loyal to the building. Like the building spoke. Whatever the damage was. The damage was the insurance company would try to influence you that it was less, perhaps. And the customer would always say, we had the very finest of all the things and, you know, it needs to be more. And they were both, you know, advocating for more or less, depending on whether they were the buyer or the payer or the recipient. Right. So. So this is one thing I would do. And it was like in smoke, damage claims or little fires or things like that. And I would be going around doing the estimate. They hadn't signed me up yet. And I would open the cabinet and invariably. How many spices do you have in your house, Todd? Like, you're a Chicago guy, so you've got. You've probably even have fennel up there. You probably, you know, you probably have an 1880s sausage making machine in the kitchen. But, like, you've got how many spices? 50, 100?

A (54:33)

I don't have. You know, it's funny, my wife and I just discovered that spices expire, so we cleaned them out, but we probably only have about 20 right now. Okay.

B (54:42)

All right. So many people. But even if you have 20 or. But many people have like 50 or 100 of these things. And what do you think the average cost of a spice is these days?

A (54:53)

Post inflation?

B (54:55)

Post Covid. 10 bucks.

A (54:56)

10 bucks.

B (54:57)

It's $1,000 that you have, over time, unwittingly invested in these expired, you know, spices and herbs. So the insurance company, the adjuster is going to come in and they're going to open up and they're going to wave their hand at it and say, the spices. I'll give you a hundred dollars. Okay. And it's like. And people will be like. And they look at it, and it's like, well, I barely use, you know, turmeric. Okay, that's fine. And I would say, hey, just as an example, just so you understand the importance, you need to count your things. You need to, you don't need to, you need to slow down and you need to make sure that you are counting all of the things because you will unwitting just for your spices. Here, I'm seeing that you've got 42 of these, and if they're $8 a piece, you know, that's 3, 4, 3, $500. And they're probably going to try to offer you 50 or $100 for them. So just make sure that you don't get in a hurry and not get what you're entitled to. And I would just leave it at that. But that, that was truth. It was transparency. I didn't feel like I was doing anything to the insurance company that was dishonest. I was just like looking out for the customer because I kind of know that I've observed that. And if I'm standing there and I was, you know, I was a young guy, right. And I'm, and I'm kind of thought, you know, hey, I'm a high integrity type guy and you can count on us type thing. And, and I would, I would observe this happening from the insurance adjusters to the people where they're. And I would, I got to know all their little tricks, right. And not, not that they were intentionally doing it, but as they, they had training, I'm sure that was what they were told to do. And you know, they're trying to minimize their, their claims and all of that, but at that point, I can't say anything. It's like, I can't go behind and say, hey, you need to count that stuff. So. But I think more often than not, the people would be like, okay, Jeff's just proven that he's straight down the middle or he's going to advocate for us where necessary. And it was truthful, it was transparent. And then of course, what would happen is they would get offered the hundred bucks and they would be like, okay, Jeff just made me 500 bucks. My deductible is 500 bucks. He's just earned it. We're going to go with him.

A (57:08)

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. When you could predict the future like that, that builds so much credibility so fast. And you've just advocated for them too. That's fantastic.

B (57:17)

Yeah. And it's interesting. Another thing is, you know, I've had about 800 franchisees across my career over the last 25 years or so and many customers, like any, anybody who has a business has had hundreds or thousands of customers. So they see the same use case over and over again, but maybe for that customer, it's their first time. So you really do have more information. Like their, their behaviors are pretty trend. You can tell what they're telegraphing because you've had so many use cases before and you know, you really are in the driver's seat and it's yours, it's really yours to lose. I think, I think, I think sales are actually yours to lose.

A (58:02)

Well, to that point that, that's one of the big issues that. So last week I was in Dallas working with a whole revenue leadership team. And one of the questions I always ask them is, you know, when you lose a deal, so you've got a rep working on a deal, they lose it. Like, what do you, what do you do? And they're just like, hey, you know, we encourage the rep and then we get them to move on fast. I'm like, all right, cool. Well, I would, I grew up in a environment where if you lost the deal, it's because you got outsold and you suck. Right? Like, that was the kind of leadership. And I just think that your losses are just such gold mines of opportunity for you to understand and to become that expert. You know, obviously we build relationships with the wins and we learn a lot from them. But your losses, if you can truly celebrate your losses for not only the effort because you're already getting hit, you never get that time back. But most importantly, the lessons learned. What is it about their environment? What is it about the situation they're in? What is it about this person? Maybe where they are, geography, geographically, maybe their income, like whatever it is, you start to spot trends like we're losing for this reason, in this kind of firmographic and demographic environment, then we can actually. It becomes very easy the time, the next time the phone rings to start and go, all right, X plus Y equals Z. I'm going to start with Z and go, hey, listen, before we dig in, in certain circumstances like this, here's why we sometimes don't come across as the best option. Let me lay those out on you. And if you're cool with those, you're going to love this. Like, this is why we've got a thousand customers or whatever. But this tends to be a hang up. Can we talk about that first? Because if there's an elephant in the room, you better illuminate it and get it out before it destroys the whole place.

B (59:51)

Yeah, Unless. Unless you're at a circus. I mean, if you're at a circus, then let it go.

A (59:56)

Right. But there's again this idea that win fast, but lose fast. It's such powerful and it builds trust, and you're never going to get your time back.

B (60:09)

My first sales training was Sandler sales. And there's a tenant in there that says, name it. And if you see the elephant in the room, and I think they even use it, lay your cards out on the table and just name it. So as soon as you know something that everybody, everybody's thinking it and you have now they thinking they're playing this mental game against you, just say, hey, wait a minute. You know, you're probably thinking this and you just lay it out on the table and you just name it. That's very disarming. And it has to build credibility in the moment or at least start to build credibility and, and make them think, okay, this isn't just a sales guy that's trying to deceive me.

A (60:48)

Well, yeah, I mean, that Calvin Klein story that I told, I was literally selling it as though I sold for the competitors. And the reason I say that is sometimes when we name it, we throw those cards face up and go. Then I keep hearing salespeople that try to minimize that or try to jump right on. Like, you're probably thinking this and here's why you're wrong. Like, no, no, no. You gotta lend credibility to the lens by which your customers are walking into the room. Play it face up. If you're gonna lose for that reason, lose for that reason and move on. But if, if it's that, that's how you build trust. That's how you build credibility. And when you do that, when the customer then talks to your competitor and they're like, ah, those guys, they suck. Cause of this, you've now earned the right to be able to address that. That customer is going to call you and go, hey, listen, you've been honest with me. Trust you competitors saying that you guys suck over here. And if it's true, embrace it. If it's not true, you've earned the right to be able to go, you know what? That may have been true at one point. This is what we've done to address it. Good on them for saying it. But now the competitor looks like an idiot. Kind of like in the Eminem movie 8 Mile, right? That. Remember that final rap battle?

B (62:00)

Yeah.

A (62:00)

Eminem gets out there and just plays all of the negative cards that the Competitor could potentially say against him when he hands him the mic. The guy's got nothing. Right. Like, that's what you're essentially doing.

B (62:11)

By the way, love the movie never made that connection.

A (62:15)

Well, yeah, but that's what he did.

B (62:17)

That's exactly what he. I mean, I knew he did it, but I didn't connect it back to, you know, the sales process and disarming. Todd, your business is called Salesmelon, which is a name that I really, really like. What does it do? Who's the customer, and how do you deliver?

A (62:33)

Yeah. So. By the way, so sales melon. I got that name as a joke. Like I said at the beginning, I had this idea. I wanted to get the ideas out there. I wrote the book thinking my business would be like, yay, Todd, you wrote a book. Good for you. And then I'd go back and be a chief revenue officer again somewhere. And so I had to create an entity. And I had just watched the Mike Myers movie, so I married an axe murderer. And I don't remember that movie, but there's a boy that's constantly in front of the tv. He's got a giant head, and Mike Myers playing this grandpa is like, he'd move that giant melon of yours. Right. And so I always thought, like, melon's funny in terms of what I'm trying to do is give you a giant sales melon. Right. Like, I want to make you really smart through the lens of sales. And so that's where that name came from. It was a joke. My CEO of Power reviews. When I told him, he was like, that's brilliant and kind of stupid. But I didn't think this would last. What ended up happening, though, is I was out speaking about it, so doing lots of keynotes created workshops around messaging and positioning through transparency, telling stories, presentation, choreography, and then the negotiating, it took off. I wrote a second book called the Transparent Sales Leader, which is a leadership framework optimized by science on a bed of transparency. And then this third book, four Levers Negotiating, coming out at the end of January. So I speak do lots of sales kickoffs. We're January 5th is number one. And I think I've got 14 of them in Q1 that I'm doing, doing lots of training workshops just to embrace transparency and turn it into a revenue superpower for you.

B (64:18)

Okay. So most. I was going to ask your. Your split between speaking, presenting, and then consulting, but it sounds like. And more people I have on here. It's like when the speaking takes off, the speaking takes over.

A (64:32)

Well, yeah, it's lots of training and workshops. I consulting. I don't really dig, you know, the kind of that as a longtime sales leader, just like you know what I'm going to teach you, I'm going to give you the tools, give you the resources. You got it. And I'm here if you need me. But yeah, it's January, February, March, sales kickoff season, lots of keynotes and then the rest of the year lots of workshops for customer facing teams and their leaders.

B (65:00)

Awesome. It's a good life. And where can people find information on you and Salesmelon?

A (65:05)

So Todd Capone.com is the simplest place. By the way, if any of you are nerds like me. My hobby is sales history. My outlet for that is called the Sales history podcast. Again, I don't monetize it at all. They're 14 to 20 minute little episodes where I find a topic, do all the research and then just share what I've learned. So if you like that stuff, Sales history podcast and @SalesHistorian on Instagram and Twitter. But Todd Capone.com and then on LinkedIn. I share a lot of my nonsense there too.

B (65:37)

Yeah, I, I actually am going to be interested in checking one of those out. Sometimes I have insomnia.

A (65:44)

Yeah. And my voice is very soothing if.

B (65:46)

You want to listen to the first eight minutes of one. I actually, I found myself listening to podcasts to go sleep now. I don't know why. I just, you know, make sure my phone's charged up. And I mean it, it. I don't know something about that.

A (66:01)

Well, my, my last episode, I take everybody through the lessons that Woodrow Wilson taught at the 1916 World Sales Congress in Detroit. So. Talk about insomnia. I think it's interesting but it'll help you sleep.

B (66:13)

I actually think that's, I mean that is the kind of stuff that I kind of get into. So I'm gonna definitely gonna check it out. I appreciate you being on real quick. Segue, Lumal, Nadi's, Geno's east or Giordano's. Where are we going here?

A (66:27)

Luminardes is number one on us. Then Giordano's would be two Geno's east is I, I've got them number three. And part of it is because there was one. We've got a place up in Wisconsin. They just closed the Geno's east and I know why. It wasn't very good.

B (66:43)

So is it, is it in right.

A (66:46)

There at Lake Geneva?

B (66:48)

Lake Geneva, Yeah, I've been to that one. My mom lives 10 minutes from there.

A (66:52)

Yeah.

B (66:52)

So I've been there 20 times. And they closed that.

A (66:56)

Gino's east is no longer there, unfortunately.

B (66:58)

So it's not. So you're not into the cornbread crust?

A (67:01)

Not as much. I mean, Lumal Nadi's, they've got the something called the loo, which is their thin crust, which is fantastic. And then their thick crust, like their deep dish. You gotta go cheese only. We did the sausage, and it's like they put a giant sausage hockey puck on it, and I think we had a heartburn for like eight days.

B (67:20)

Yeah.

A (67:21)

So deep dish, try the cheese. You'll love it. The Lou thin crust, I think, is pretty fantastic.

B (67:26)

Yeah. So I'm excited to hear that. I am also Lou Malnati's. And part of it, I think, was proximity because there was one out in Schaumburg that I could get to. And then it wasn't until I started traveling in the city more that I got to Geno's east, which I. I do like. And Giordano's was right by my grandmother's house in Westchester. So that was walking distance. Although it's kind of hard to walk carrying a 40 pound pizza.

A (67:50)

That's exactly right. Yeah. And then you can't walk home after, so you're.

B (67:55)

You're rocking a hard place. Right. You're going to. You're going to struggle one way or another. But now the Lumo naughty steep dish, cheese, mushrooms. And I put the big brick of sausage on there because I don't get it that often and, you know, I'll tolerate that. But yeah, I do like the flaky crust.

A (68:13)

It's so good. Yeah. It should come with a side of Pepsid, though.

B (68:16)

Yeah, Pepcid. And, you know, I don't know, I've. I'm. I'm 57 now and I've. I now have a semi regular date with a cardiologist. So you're probably not happy to hear 54.

A (68:29)

So I'm right behind you.

B (68:30)

Yeah. Well, keep eating the pizza. You look good.

A (68:33)

Thank you.

B (68:34)

All right, you ready to play? We've got a curveball and a fastball for you.

A (68:38)

All right, let's go.

B (68:39)

All right, so this is going to be. Oh, this is going to be a Bruce Sutter. Okay, Bruce Sutter. Curveball, Split finger.

A (68:51)

He threw the split.

B (68:52)

Oh, he threw a splitter. Who was a good Chicago Cubs curveball thrower?

A (68:58)

Well, Greg Maddox. Just every pitch moved.

B (69:01)

That's right. Yes, we'll do that. And then the fastball would Be who? Cubs or socks?

A (69:07)

Yeah, I mean, like Lee Smith was. Yes.

B (69:10)

The closer. You're right. Yeah. That big guy.

A (69:14)

Yes.

B (69:15)

Okay, so here's the.

A (69:17)

Who'd you say we do it?

B (69:19)

Maddox.

A (69:20)

Greg. Maddox.

B (69:21)

Ball. All right, so somebody holding something you care deeply about, your Lou Malnati's pizza held over the Chicago river, somebody's going to drop it in there. You're not going to get it. You're forced to start a business in the next 30 days. It can't be something that you're currently in. This is a question that says, where do you see the market in the opport? Where do you see the opportunity in the market today to start a business? Gun to your head, you have to start a business the next 30 days. Nothing you currently do. What are you doing?

A (69:59)

You know, every conversation I have with people, they're trying to use AI and they're misusing AI and they're like, we're going to build this, we're going to do this, we're going to build these. I think, again, I'm not the expert at this by any means, so I would have a lot to learn is just create a business that helps businesses apply AI in a smart way to their business. I think in two or three years, people are going to have wasted two or three years doing it wrong, figuring it out wrong, going down the wrong directions. If there was a business right now that could go, all right, your business, here's how you should be using it. Do this, this, and this. Go your business. Do this, this. I think it's such a huge opportunity because, again, people are spinning down the drain very slowly. They've done this through history. I just think AI, it's coming. Most people are getting it wrong.

B (70:57)

I've got the guy, he did the podcast. It's one of our most popular podcasts. Jen, do you know what episode that was? Jeff Woods. It's spelled G E O F F Woods. W W W O O D S. It was on the unemployable podcast maybe, I don't know, two months ago. And he exactly did that with his method. He's got a book called the AI Driven Leader, and that has really. The day that we did the podcast, I was a 10 times better user of AI and it's. We have about 70 employees, and I. It's the only mandatory thing that I ever did for our employees doing it.

A (71:34)

That's awesome.

B (71:34)

I made them all watch it and I made them use the method to bring back to me a deliverable as to how they Were going to use the method in their roles in their jobs, and it was transformational. Our franchise owners think similarly about it, and we actually, I do. Owners only tonight for 90 minutes, and we're going to be going through it again with the owner.

A (71:58)

So I'm glad somebody's doing it.

B (71:59)

I highly recommend you watch it. It's again, Jeff woods, the AI driven leader on the Unemployable podcast. He gave it all to us. I don't. I don't know if he meant to or not, but, like, he. He did the thing, so that was great. All right, Lee Smith. Fastball right down the middle. Last question. You've got one sentence to make an impact in somebody's life. What is it?

A (72:22)

If the truth won't sell it, don't sell it. Arthur Dunn, again, I think it's that my other one is always just this concept of transparency sells better than perfection. Embrace that. Embrace the idea that salesmanship is the science of service. Combine those things. It's probably a combination of those things. So be transparent. You'll feel better about what you do. It sells better. And then if the truth won't sell it, don't sell it.

B (72:50)

We ended right where we started. Well done, Todd.

A (72:53)

Awesome. Thank you for having me, Jeff.

B (72:55)

Yeah, this was such a good time. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on.

A (72:59)

Yeah, as you can tell, we could probably talk shop all day, too. So thanks for giving me an outlet for my nerdery. Yep.

B (73:06)

Outstanding. I'm Jeff Duden. We've been here with the incredible Todd Capone on the Unemployable podcast. Thanks for listening.