‍

Alex Bruschi

SUMMARY

How does the speaker suggest responding to the objection "I don't have time"?

When a lead says they don't have time, the speaker says to slow down because it's often a way to avoid the question. If they keep talking, it's likely they're not in a meeting, and the SDR can figure out what the best next step is, like making sure the pitch is short and relevant to the persona.

How does the speaker suggest dealing with the objection "I'm not interested"?

The speaker says that the most common objection, "I'm not interested," is often a deflection, and that a cold caller's main goal should be to get the person's full attention and start an honest conversation before trying to make a sale.

How much of an effect does the SDR manager have on how well the SDRs do?

The speaker says that the SDR manager has a big effect on the success of the SDRs because he or she sets the tone, work ethic, and structure for the team. The manager can help SDRs avoid pitfalls and find the best way to do things, but in the end, it is up to the SDR to use that information to their advantage.

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00]

Ricky Pearl: Today on a Couple of Pointers Podcast, we're lucky enough to have Alex Bruschi from Sales in Real Life. Welcome to the show.

Alex Bruschi: Ricky, thanks so much for having me. Pleasure to be here.

Ricky Pearl: I always get excited when I talk to professionals that have a lot of experience in cold calling and professionals that are busy starting something new. So if we dive right in, you happy to talk about some cold calling tactics?

Alex Bruschi: Let's get to it, Ricky.

How do you like your team to handle the objection? I don't have time.

Ricky Pearl: So, firstly, on objection handling. How do you like your team to handle the objection? I don't have time.

Alex Bruschi: Dunno, time for what? So how do we, how do I want my team to handle it? Good question. First off is you wanna slow down because nine times outta 10, this is a deflection, right? They just wanna get you off the phone. So if somebody's truly on a meeting, And you slow down and you take your time. If they're actually on a meeting, they're just gonna hang up the phone

Ricky Pearl: I absolutely love that. I love that they saying they don't have time, so you slow down.

Alex Bruschi: Slow down. Yep. So if they continue the [00:01:00] conversation after you slow down, you know in your head that they're not actually going into a meeting, like I said, if they do indeed hang up the phone on you right away. And okay. You know that they were actually walking into a meeting.

Ricky Pearl: I love this American approach. It's so brutal, right? Ah, this is now gonna be a trial by fire. We are gonna put this to a test. I'm gonna slow down and if you try, if you don't hang up, then you're lying to me. It's great. But I imagine that actually does work because the instinct for an SDR when someone says I'm in a rush, is they stop speeding up and you can't win it that.

Alex Bruschi: Exactly. And what you're doing is you're asking them the question, are you actually in a meeting without you saying those words? So you slowing down, taking your time. If they are continuing the conversation after you've slowed the pace dramatically. Then you have the answer in your head of, okay, this person's not actually going into a meeting.

And then you can assess from there of what your next, of, what your next best step is. So if you do slow down and the person still says, Hey look I'm [00:02:00] running into a meeting. What is it? Hey look, just lemme take a real quick second here cuz I don't even know if it's worth me calling you. I was calling because of X, Y, Z, right?

And make sure it's something succinct. Make sure it's something crispy, and make sure it's something that your persona actually cares about. Because oftentimes, as I mentioned earlier, you'll find that they just dive right into a conversation. And oftentimes they'll say, Hey Alex, I have no interest in talking about that whatsoever, but at least you got your point across right?

You're not gonna make another 5, 10, 15 cold calls, emails to this person just to get the same response.

Ricky Pearl: We,

Alex Bruschi: As a generality,

What was the most common objective that your team faced?

Ricky Pearl: They've now saved their, your number in the phone as do not answer. So you can call them another 30 times waste. Your spin your wheels. They're not getting round to you. Now, what was the most common objective that your team faced?

Alex Bruschi: Common objective objection.

Objection: Let me speak proper English on the show

Ricky Pearl: Objection. Let me speak proper English on the show.

Alex Bruschi: I just wanted to make sure I'm answering the right question. The most common objection always in, in my opinion, and this one in [00:03:00] many instances, I also believe is a deflection, is just the flat. I'm not interested

Because most of the times when someone says, I'm not interested. They're not even listening to you, right?

They're just trying to get you off the phone as soon as possible. So you, as a cold caller, your first and primary goal is make sure that you actually have the person's undivided attention that you're speaking with. They are no longer deflecting. They are actually answering the questions that you're asking.

They're not just saying anything to get you off the phone. And you're having a genuine back and forth exchange. That's the number one goal that I think a lot of people miss out on, is they just want to go for the kill right away when you need to just start an honest dialogue back and forth before anything else.

That's step number one.

Ricky Pearl: That's so interesting.

How did you practice getting the prospects undivided attention?

Ricky Pearl: How did you practice getting the prospects undivided attention?

Alex Bruschi: You gotta you gotta ruffle some feathers sometimes, right? Sometimes you gotta say, you know what? You can hang up on me right after I [00:04:00] finished saying this if you're not interested at all. But why I was calling was X, Y, Z. Sometimes you gotta say something like, look, I'm sure you've had a ton of people cold call you this week, or A ton of people cold call you today, but I don't wanna waste my time doing a bunch of other emails and a bunch of other cold calls with you when we could just take 20 seconds right now and see if this is something that we would be a fit for or not.

You're trying to, you're trying to shake out the truth, right? You wanna shake the truth out of the tree. Branche. And that's why I say the number one point is to make sure that they're actually listening first. They're not just saying, oh, I'm not interested. I'm in a meeting. Let me just get this guy off the phone as soon as possible.

What's the actual truth behind those answers?

Ricky Pearl: Now, both of those examples that you gave me, rarely elevate your status as a cold caller to equal with the prospect. I don't wanna waste my time. As opposed to what some might do where they're trying to go in, in a lower state of saying, look, I don't want to waste your time with you having to read an email from me that you don't want or aren't interested in.

What could I put in the email? So like they being serviance did you often practice like equal status calling? Was that a theme?

Ricky Pearl: What could I put in the [00:05:00] email? So like they being serviance did you often practice like equal status calling? Was that a theme?

Alex Bruschi: That is something Ricky honestly just came with time. Sales is the only full-time job I've ever held in my career. I've been through I've been in the game, let's just put it that way. And when you've been in the game long enough, you realize that at its core, it takes two people to make a sale, right?

You're not gonna manipulate somebody into a close, right? You're not gonna drag someone across the finish line. There has to be some genuine level of interest on their end. Even if it's 90 10, right? Even if it's 95 5, it can't be a hundred zero. So if the person who you're reaching out to just has no interest whatsoever, and you've genuinely determined that they have no interest whatsoever, right?

They're not just deflecting. You have gotten the truth out of them that, hey, this just isn't a fit for me. Why am I gonna take my time? Keep calling that person you can call. Call somebody 20 times and you knew in the fifth [00:06:00] call that they weren't interested. Take those other 15 calls and reach out to 15 other new people rather than wasting your time with these same folks.

Ricky Pearl: Make makes a lot of sense. Now I really want to talk about your new gig, your new podcast, your new show, but I've just got a few quick questions about SDRs that I still just, I'd love your opinion on one of those.

How much of an influence do you think the SDR manager has into the success of the SDR versus the SDR themselves?

Ricky Pearl: You would've trained a lot of BDRs and SDRs in your time. In all honesty, how much of an influence do you think the SDR manager has into the success of the SDR versus the SDR themselves?

Alex Bruschi: Really good question. This is of course subjective, because I'm sure there are crappy managers that have gotten all-star SDRs. That would've been great under any manager, and I'm sure that there are some managers that would make any SDR. Great. So there's no absolute yes or no answer to this. But what I would answer is that the SDR leader has a tremendous impact on the [00:07:00] SDRs who are on their team because the SDR leader not only sets the tone in terms of the work ethic in terms of the approach, in terms of the framework that you're using.

There are some SDRs that are using such bad frameworks in their cold calls. They're never gonna be successful, right? Doesn't matter how many cold calls they make, doesn't matter how many emails they send out. And that's a, that sounds harsh, but it's just the truth. And it's up to an SDR leader to identify some of those pitfalls and help those people at least get on the right track so that they're not just spinning their wheels in a completely different way.

A line we've heard this in America a lot. I don't know about folks outside of America, but people will always say, I could sell salt to a slug, right? Or some sort. I could sell, I, I could sell ice to an Eskimo. Stuff like

Of course, in theory, those things sound great. But in the modern day and age where buyers have the freedom to go on the internet and look at reviews and look at [00:08:00] competitors, there're pretty much no industry with no competitors.

That type of mindset just doesn't work anymore, right? If you're an SDR and you're trying to sell salt to a slug, I don't care how many phone calls you make, right? You're not gonna you're not gonna make any progress. So I would say that where the SDR leader has the biggest impact is on the framework, is on the mindset behind the cold calling, and then it's up to the s d R to take that information and then make it.

Have you ever had an SDR that was genuinely underperforming?

Ricky Pearl: Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Have you ever had an SDR that was genuinely underperforming? Not because they didn't put in efforts be put on a performance improvement plan and come out the other end of that successful, or do you, in the organizations that you've been a part of, was a performance improvement plan or pip, just a kiss of death.

Alex Bruschi: So the organizations that I was working at where I was overseeing SDRs pips, were not were not a thing. They didn't exist. So for me it wasn't necessarily relevant, let's just say. [00:09:00] But what I would say is that overall, my take on Pips is, They're not really entirely effective because salespeople are paid on commissions.

If you're getting put on a pip, that means you're not earning a lot of money, right? If that person doesn't wanna earn more money, sales probably isn't for them anyway. So whether you formalize with someone, Hey, you're on a. Or whether or not they should know that their performance is lacking, right? It's their paycheck, it's their livelihood.

So I think that rather than doing something so formal as, Hey, you need to do this, or you're fired, that person should already have a clue that, Hey, I wanna make more money. And if they don't wanna make more money, and if they don't wanna improve themselves, and if they don't wanna get better at cold calling and cold email and cold outreach, then sales just might not be for them.

Ricky Pearl: It all comes back to that sales leadership, that SDR manager potentially they should know on a daily or weekly basis how things are going for them. Yeah. None of this should be a surprise, but let me get into the myth [00:10:00] of what I wanted to chat you about. You've got this incredible new thing that you've started.

Outta nowhere and it's just so interesting. Can you tell me a bit more about it?

Alex Bruschi: You're you're kind, Ricky. Appreciate you. Yeah, so I started a new podcast called Sales Stories in Real Life. And I think the best way for me to go into it would actually be to tell the story of how I actually created the idea. And I've actually only shared this privately. I've never shared this publicly.

You want

Ricky Pearl: Oh the.

Alex Bruschi: The first place where I share this?

Ricky Pearl: I don't know. You give it some thoughts. I'll tell you what. Record it now, and if you are seeing this on the internet, then you know we decided to release it.

Alex Bruschi: There you go. There you go. So, this was actually, ironically enough a few months ago, my wife and I moved from LA to San Diego excuse me, backwards San Diego to la and. Our rent went up very significantly and it gave me the kick in the behind to say, Hey, I gotta figure something out for myself, right?

I gotta figure out like how I can not only make up this difference, but I gotta figure out how I can [00:11:00] put myself out there more, right? Like I know that I'm capable of more. I know that I've been in these circles, particularly on LinkedIn and in these sales circles, and I have things that I could share.

But I don't know how to turn it into something tangible, right? I don't know how to pack it, package it into something tangible to share with the world. And so one of the first weekends that we moved to LA we went to a farmer's market. And at the farmer's market there were two bakery stands side by side.

Let's just say, let's just say that they had the same pastries. I walk up to the first bakery stand and I start looking at the pastries, and two seconds later, the person at the stand is Hey, can I help you with, so, The classic question and I deflected, I said, oh no, I'm good. Thanks. And

Ricky Pearl: Yeah. You are under pressure now. You don't wanna engage in a conversation, you just wanna buy some fucking pastries.

Alex Bruschi: I'm resistant. It, to my previous point, it wasn't a conversation. It was just a canned response and I wasn't even listening really. I just said, Hey no, I'm good. Yeah. I'll move on. And so I walk up to the second bakery stand and. guy doesn't say anything. I'm looking around for [00:12:00] 30 seconds, 45 seconds a minute.

Which feels like an eternity when you're in that moment. And so I'm just, looking around, huh? These pastries look good. And then the gentleman says something really interesting to me. He goes, did you find anything you like yet? And I was like, I'm a salesperson, right?

I'm acutely aware of when I'm being sold to. And so to have someone hit me with a question like that, it just hit me like a ton of bricks, right? Even if you're not selling B2B software, even if you're not selling B2B products, there are the same underlying principles in sales that work for all of us and don't work for all of us.

And right in that moment, I knew. This is a very relatable way to talk about sales, right? If you're on a sales podcast and someone sells legal tech and you work in SaaS, their takeaways may not be relevant to you, right? It may be industry specific takeaways, whereas if you're talking about just everyday items, right?

Donuts, bread, [00:13:00] baker, everyone's walked by a bakery, right? Everyone's walked through a farmer's market. Everyone's been sold these everyday items. And so it just hit me like a ton of bricks in that moment of, wow, I, I really need to put something like this out there into the world, because there's a lot of basic principles that salespeople are still missing on to this day that they just need an easier way to digest and understand.

And that's exactly where sales stories in real life came.

Ricky Pearl: That is, I love that cuz we don't get a lot of that, right? We only hear about sales from like the senior vice presidents of sales for some enterprise that has a 30 billion budget. And this is how I scaled my team from five to 300. You like, no.

What about like these underlying prints? I love that for selling pastries at a market. Absolutely brilliant.

Alex Bruschi: Here's the thing too, if you're I follow a lot of enterprise salespeople. I'm not calling anybody out here. Let me

Ricky Pearl: I love enterprise sales. That's one of my passions.

Alex Bruschi: If you're an enterprise salesperson and you're talking about the six [00:14:00] figure deal that you closed, and I'm an SDR, who's six months into the role, those takeaways don't mean anything to me.

To set a meeting with somebody on a cold outreach versus closing a six figure deal, those are two entirely different sales motions, right? You should not be taking advice from people that are doing a completely different sales motion than you. However, beneath all of those sales motions are the basic principles of sales, and that's, I think, an area that is just totally un.

What brought you here today?

Ricky Pearl: And I love that. I was looking at a a demo last night of a product called Contura, and I don't know if Hector. He's got, he's built a brilliant product and he was reviewing the statistics on certain questions that came up in demos because this is part of what the product does. And the most asked question that did poorly was what brought you here today?

What brought you to the meeting today? And it's a very common question that, you know as a kickoff to a discovery call and the top performing one as opposed to what brought you here today was what peaked your [00:15:00] interest. It's, so similar and so subtly different. But one sends you in a completely different path with a completely different mindset. And it's those kind of nuances, which you only really get from from learning from salespeople in real life.

Alex Bruschi: You took the point outta my mouth. I was gonna say you, you just told me that stat live on the spot. We didn't talk about this pre-show or prepare for this or anything. And I love that stat so much because you nailed it. It's asking me exact same question, right? The answer that the buyer is giving would, in theory, be exactly the same, but in one way.

When you say what made you come take this meeting? The buyer's like you called this meeting with me and now you're asking me why I took the meeting. You're wasting my time here. And now they're on the defensive right away versus what piqued your interest, right? It's about them.

It's not about you. So when you're asking why did you come to this meeting, that's a self-serving question, right? That's you asking your buyer to take time out of their day. To tell you why they came [00:16:00] to your meeting. When you ask a buyer what piqued your interest, it's about their interest, right? It's not about you.

They can say what piqued my interest was I have no interest in your product, but you sent me an awesome cold email, right? So I just wanted to come and see what was up. You have no idea what they will say. But just by changing the inflection of the question to them and what they care about versus you and what you care about, to your point, the prospect is gonna open up in an entirely different way.

Small difference, but huge

Ricky Pearl: Huge. Huge. Yeah. Now, let me, one of the challenges I see a lot of companies have, and I'm gonna use your analogy of that pastry, booth at the market. So let's say you walk into a third pastry booth. And the, the person on the stall doesn't say, can I help you?

Which builts up resistance within you and doesn't say, have you found something you liked yet?

Ricky Pearl: Which builts up resistance within you and doesn't say, have you found something you liked yet?

But instead uses a personality and [00:17:00] just goes straight to a conversation and leaves you for 45 seconds so you can browse and it says, Hey mate, listen. My wife and I were having a debate. I think more people preferred unfilled croissants. She thinks most people prefer croissants with chocolate.

What's your.

Alex Bruschi: Am I allowed to, am I allowed to cuss? Or is

Ricky Pearl: No, I've got Go for it. Go for it.

Alex Bruschi: Okay. That's fucking brilliant, right? Because right away I'm totally, my defense is totally down. You're not asking me that question to sell me, right? You have me in the mindset. Okay, let me help them settle this debate.

Right? Filled or unfilled croissants. And now your mindset is in a completely different place. And meanwhile, the bakery owner is sitting back there figuring out, okay, what kind of pastries does this guy like, right? What kind of pastries should I offer him? Let me make sure I'm offering something he actually wants,

Ricky Pearl: But we see this so often, right? So to me that's like the great salespeople like they'll work out something like that. Hey mate, we're having a debate filled or unfolded, and then the person says, filled. And you go, oh my god. All right, mate. Move [00:18:00] off to another store. You're not one of my people now I'm joking.

We, we like, and you start working them through. They're having a good time, like amazing sales. But sales leaders can't, are struggling to replicate that. You bring on that perfect SDR, you bring on that like incredible salesperson who has this, but it's not scalable because like you bring on the next person who's a bit dry and they get into the meeting and goes do you like filter or unfilled pastries?

Yeah.

Alex Bruschi: Why? Why are you asking me?

Ricky Pearl: Yeah. All of a sudden you're like I do not want a filled pastry from this place. You're like, I think there's something in it that shouldn't be. So it becomes like very hard to scale.

How much are you, do you find the seller's personality drives like the real great sellers versus have you seen some really good systems? Just things that work and are consistently better

Ricky Pearl: How much are you, do you find the seller's personality drives like the real great sellers versus have you seen some really good systems? Just things that work and are consistently better.

Alex Bruschi: This is, again, one of those answers where I don't think there's an absolute, I think that there are products and there are sales in specific, let's just say a more simple sale, right? Where the solution is very straightforward. That I think could [00:19:00] be more systematized, right? Where it's hey lemme just make something up.

You pay XDE department X amount of dollars. And we outsourced that department and we could do it for you for X amount of dollars cheaper, right? It's just straightforward. It's just either this makes sense or this doesn't make sense. But if it's more of a nuanced sale, let's say for instance, then it's more conversation based rather than qualification based.

So that would be the two distinct buckets I would stick them in, is if it's a kind of qualification based sale, right? If your company does. Then we're a good fit for you. That could be very systematized. But if it's a more nuanced sale, where you've gotta prove out an ROI, right? Where you have to sell the vision, where you have to teach them something that they never knew before.

That's something where you want each individual person to add their own personal flare to it. And this kind of goes back on what I said earlier is that an SDR leader can give you frameworks to follow, but ultimately at the end of the. Don't get it twisted. It is up to you, [00:20:00] meaning the SDR to put your own personal touch on your outreach that you're doing because when you have your own personal touch on it, the prospect feels that.

They know, okay, like I, I'm talking to Alex here, right? I'm not talking to SDR at whatever company, right? talking to an individual. They're talking to a human. So that's the biggest thing is when you add your own personal flare, you're then humanized, which means that even if you're reaching out to somebody and they don't want what you're offering, you're reaching out to them in a humanized way.

They'll tell you, Hey, Alex, appreciate the outreach, but I'm not in. Which is fantastic, right? You're saving all this time again, not wasting your time with folks that have no interest anyways.

Ricky Pearl: And often it's been a good experience for them. Now, so you've got this like wealth of knowledge. I've picked up about 10 or 20 nuggets within within a few short minutes. You must have a lull of knowledge you want to convey across in your show.

How did you decide if you're gonna record weekly, monthly, quarterly? How did you succumb to a format?

Ricky Pearl: How did you decide if you're gonna record weekly, monthly, quarterly? How did you succumb to a format? Talk me through this process of, in your [00:21:00] mind you're at this bake sale and there's so much knowledge that needs to be shared to where you are today.

Alex Bruschi: So, lemme say this again. You're very kind. I had other ideas. So lemme let me, I guess start even take a step back. I've had other ideas like this before that I never executed on, and so that's why I said earlier I knew I was capable of more, like I've had ideas and the longer you sit on an idea and don't take action on it, your ego talks to you out of it.

Oh, this is gonna be stupid. Nobody's gonna watch that, right? You don't have enough knowledge to do X, Y, Z. And so for me, once I had the idea, my first two steps, I knew I had to move immediately, right? Because I had seen ideas that I've had fizzle out before and who knows if they ever would've been successful or not, was buy the microphone.

I found a microphone on Amazon for $34.

Ricky Pearl: Yeah. Okay.

Alex Bruschi: I got a webcam and then it was reach out to a bunch of guests. That was the biggest thing is if I reach out to guests. Exactly. If I reach out to guests and they say, [00:22:00] yes, now I have an extra sense of accountability right Now, if I don't go through with it, then I gotta reach out to them and tell them, oh, hey, I ac I actually backed out and I'm not doing it anymore.

You're kinda pinning your ego against yourself a little bit. Where

Ricky Pearl: That is such a classic move. When I start a new sport or a new gym or a new activity, I buy all the gear. So now I'm motivated by my guilt. You bought the gear, you threw the guests on. Now you've locked yourself in. You've gotta deliver.

Alex Bruschi: Exactly. Exactly. And so when I was reaching out to guests, I reached out to maybe say 20 people right away. And I would say four or five immediately said yes. And and the rest of 'em didn't respond. And so right away I was amazed at, wow, you just get four people.

That's a month's worth of content, right? If you do one episode a week, and then we started releasing an episode a week, and all of a sudden other people in the timeline saw, oh wow, Alex is actually doing this, right? All those other people. All those other people who I had reached out to all of a sudden I had a wave that came back, and then people were [00:23:00] saying, oh yeah, I would love to, or maybe their inboxes were busy who knows what it was. But that initial wave of outreach, a lot of folks didn't reply right away. And once they started seeing episodes in their timeline, a lot of them reached out and were extremely supportive.

And so before I knew it, I had wrapped. Maybe 15 guests, right? Which was like, whoa, I can either do, this could either be like three, four months of content or I can, really blitz the market here. It was a unique time. It was Q4 and so I had just focused on just recording episodes.

I I told you this pre-show, I didn't even have a logo yet, and I was recording like 10 episodes. We didn't even have a logo until the fifth or sixth episode was released. So the point is just if you have the idea, just go for it, right? Just go for it. Don't worry about all those things that you think you need and are gonna need eventually, just focus on your main kpi, which for.

Was getting good guests and recording episodes. And then once you have 15 episodes in the hopper, then you can decide, Hey, let's do two episodes a week now. Hey let's move to [00:24:00] six episodes a month, right? What, whatever it is. You have the power of being nimble, right?

If you're small and you're early, you can make changes fast. And I don't think a lot of people realize that you don't have to have it all figured out, just. And the best path will start making itself clear once you get feedback from others. That's the biggest thing.

Ricky Pearl: Yeah, I, and it's such a great approach, right? Because very often we try, I call it shadowboxing, I'm like, shadowboxing future decisions, and I just realized I don't need a shadow box. Like when that decision comes, I'll have a lot more information that it will just be much easier to say, ah, I need a, weave left, or I need a weave, right?

And you just dove straight in. Like not even having a logo and focusing on that K P I is such a strong lesson. There ever so many people just get caught up in everything that they need to do it perfectly, and they let perfection get in the way of progress Now

Alex Bruschi: That's exactly it.

What are some of the things you wish you would've done differently?

Ricky Pearl: Like what are some of the, what are some of the things you wish you would've done differently?

I know it's still new, but any big mistakes yet?[00:25:00]

Alex Bruschi: So this isn't really a big mistake, but I'm gonna use this example because it very much plays into what we were just talking about. When I first started the show, I was doing my own subtitling and my own editing. Which for those who have never done it before is very time consuming. It's very monotonous.

If you've never done it, you would be amazed at how long it takes to edit and subtitle a video. It's outrageous actually, especially when it's a video over 10 minutes long. Let's just say. And when I noticed right at the beginning, I was using a software that Had some sort of AI generated captions, but they weren't very good.

You had to go over and you had to kinda re-listen and fix them. And in the beginning I was going over and I was fixing every single word, right? And making sure everything was perfect, right? Like you said earlier, I was too focused on the perfection and I was getting a little discouraged, right?

Sometimes it would take me hour, two hours to subtitle a video, and this is very.

Ricky Pearl: Two hours. Two hours. You must have been pretty good at it.

Alex Bruschi: Like it, it was, a lot of it was AI generated, so I was going through and

Ricky Pearl: Use the [00:26:00] tools. Yeah.

Alex Bruschi: But the point is that an hour or two hours may not seem like a long time for somebody who's listening, but this is on top of your work hours, right? This is after hours. You know what I mean? So this is time that you could be spending with your family, right?

This is time that you could be doing things that you love and instead you're over the computer and, going through each and every word. And so the point is. I recognized eventually there was one episode that I had put out and, it was a tight week and I was short on time and I knew that there were a lot of errors in the subtitles, but I had no choice but to just put it out.

And the funny thing, Ricky, not one person said a thing. Not one person said a thing. And in fact, I'll even nail that home point. Even that point home, even one more time, I did an episode where it was episode 10, but at the beginning I said, Hey everyone, welcome to episode 11 and to your point, I was shadowboxing going back and forth.

What do I do? Should I record the whole, should I rerecord the whole thing? Should I tell the guests, should I do this, should I do that? I ended up just releasing it. Not one person [00:27:00] set. Not one person set a thing.

Ricky Pearl: The thing I try and remind myself is half of the videos I enjoy on whatever, on TikTok or YouTube shorts or Instagram, whatever I'm watching, like it's basically a person holding a phone at their waist level and I'm almost looking up their nose whilst they're walking and eating an ice cream, telling me some interesting topic, right?

Like the quality of video I'm o willing to consume. At the moment is so low, as long as the content is educational, it's exciting, it's interesting. I'm learning something. I feel like this is a useful thing for me to watch. I don't care if they're walking, talking the same way. I don't care if my employees are in a hoodie, lying in bed whilst taking a meeting.

It's value that I'm looking for. And I'm sure most of your guests are the same.

Alex Bruschi: That's exactly it. And what I would even say is that it's human too, right? When you make mistakes, right? If there's a little error in your subtitling, if you know you mi, you mispronounce a word, it's human. It almost makes the listener relate to you even more because you don't just seem like some perfect unattainable celebrity figure.

Let's just [00:28:00] say you're just a human, right? You're just Alex, you're just Ricky.

Ricky Pearl: It's a phenomenal tactic, like Sandler would teach that in Having that like self-deprecating humor I've seen like Eric, no Skalski use it in making deliberate misspellings in emails that he would then follow up with another e another cold email going, oh, sorry mate.

Dunno how I let this slip through the spell check. I meant conversations or I meant conversions, correcting himself because that's so human is to make a mistake and it automat. Brings in, I don't know, some kind of sympathy or empathy. So what's the vision? Now tell me you've started, you've kicked off, you've done something fucking brave.

That's exciting. Now what? Because this is the part where the work kicks in and you've gotta start molding it into something a little bit more robust.

Alex Bruschi: Definitely. So, at the time that, that we're recording this our next biggest move, let's just say is moving to Spotify and Apple Music. Right now we're operating on LinkedIn and we're operating on YouTube. And those two channels are great. We're of course spreading [00:29:00] awareness and we're of course building a bit of a base here.

But the real meat of the audience is obviously on the podcast forums, right? That's where people can go and just really binge. So that's our biggest next thing. And the only reason I share that is because I wanted to share something tactical. But Ricky, here's the truth. Our next biggest thing is just keep executing.

The only thing that could stop us is us. If we just focus on, hey, no matter what happens in 2023, just make sure the show still exists in 2024. The rest is gonna work itself out because to your point, then we're gonna start shadow boxing ourselves on all of these issues that may or may not be there. Make changes that may or may not be needed.

So if you're listening to this and you wanna start something, the most important thing that you could focus on by far by. getting feedback from your target audience, getting feedback from your target market, because whatever you think is best, whatever you think is the worst, doesn't [00:30:00] fucking matter.

What matters is what your target market thinks. If you think it's the worst and you should never do it, and you put it out there anyway, you don't know if your target market is gonna say, Hey, this is great, right? I've never been so into the show, or I've never been so into this product. You could put out something that you think is incredible and people could think it's awful.

So what matters or the opinions that matter, excuse me, are the opinions of your target market, not your own opinions.

Ricky Pearl: Everything's gotta be that customer centric.

Alex Bruschi: Just release it. Just take that step and your customers will tell you what to do next. You don't have to shadow box out those decisions. I'm still, I'm stealing that from you, by the way.

I love that, Ricky, that was brilliant.

Ricky Pearl: Oh man. I can give you a few more. Some of them aren't maybe we'll get banned on a platform like this, but now I love that. Just starting and what you did. Maybe it came with a bit of maturity, but being willing to put yourself out there on a podcast, on LinkedIn, on YouTube and get feedback.

Cuz everyone listening to this is gonna be like yeah. Of course. That makes sense. Of course. That makes sense. But then when you're getting feedback on a [00:31:00] podcast that you've made that you've fucking slugged, the tr, the transcription that you've put your heart and soul in, and people give you feedback that isn't nice, it hurts the ego.

People think, oh, of course I'm gonna want feedback until they get it. How do you deal with that? What have, obviously as a seller, maybe you've built up some resilience.

How do you deal with the feedback in a humble way?

Ricky Pearl: How do you deal with the feedback in a humble way?

Alex Bruschi: Really good question. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do a clip right now that I want you to chop up for sure, because I'm gonna humanize myself here a little bit. My first two episodes I ever recorded were with more Aine and Jen Allen. I'm sure a lot of people listening may know those people. Yeah. I'm sure.

You probably know those people, Ricky.

Ricky Pearl: They like idols.

Alex Bruschi: Yes. The first two episodes that I recorded with them. This wasn't even releasing it, right? This is just recording it. I was so nervous during, it felt like there were bugs crawling in my skin. As soon as I pressed stop record on Zoom, I jumped up outta my chair, right and shook because I was just [00:32:00] holding it in the whole time, right?

I was so nervous. I was so nervous. And then even after we were done and before we started, both of them said, th this que, I'll never forget this question. What are you nervous? What are you nervous about? It's just your ego trying to keep you safe, right? Our egos don't want us to be humiliated, right?

Our egos don't want us to be embarrassed. Our egos don't want us to make mistakes, but in reality, when you can get over that wall that we create for ourselves, on the other side of that wall is where all the magic happens. So to your point, when you do get that feedback, and let me be, lemme be clear as well.

I never had somebody comment on one of my episodes and say, Alex, this is the fucking worst thing I've ever seen in the world. You should go, kick rocks. There's not really a lot of people out there that are just so, rude. Let's just say that they're gonna do something like that.

And even if, so here's what I like to. And this is actually a LinkedIn post I'm gonna make, and I haven't made it yet. So we'll see when this releases.

Ricky Pearl: And that's what

Alex Bruschi: May, maybe.

Ricky Pearl: It's spare on some [00:33:00] inspiration. It's meant to be for our audience, but if it comes for you, we are happy to.

Alex Bruschi: May, maybe I made this post, maybe I haven't. And I spoke to a good friend James Perry about this many times. Is imagine you get a thousand views on a post, right? That's a low number for some people. High number for some people. Let's say one person. Let's say one person out of a thousand trolls, that's less than 1%, right?

Just put that into perspective. That's 0.1% of people that said something bad. That means 99% of people are good, right? So if you're doing something brave, if you're doing something courageous, sure. You always have to have the expectation in the back of your. That you could get some poor feedback, but what different is it than getting hung up on?

What difference is it than, a prospect, saying, go fuck yourself. Like that next second. It's just back to reality, right? It's done. It's a temporary stretch of time.

Ricky Pearl: You've brought up some great examples of how sales is a phenomenal precursor to be an entrepreneur to working for yourself. Cuz those [00:34:00] attributes that you've just spoken about are like 1 0 1 for a salesperson.

How do I get told to fuck off and then have a smile on my face is second, later on the next dial.

Ricky Pearl: Like, how do I get told to fuck off and then have a smile on my face is second, later on the next dial.

Cause the phone's just automatically darling, that level of resilience is. Becomes natural for sales professionals and you need that. Like even just in starting a podcast, you need that resilience, which you've developed through sales people can develop in, in, in many other ways. That's so, so interesting.

Another observation I've had. Every guest, regardless of if they seasoned professional, absolute success in every factor of their life, as others might perceive it, the first question they ask after the show was recorded. How did I, do you know, was that okay? Did that sound fine? And we, it's great to get to see that from the other side where we build up these idols in our mind, but they also just human and we don't necessarily see it cause it's been edited out.

But I got a lot of joy out of that and I was like, ah, everyone feels this way.

Alex Bruschi: I am laughing so hard over here because a lot of my guests have said [00:35:00] the exact same thing too. So to your point I think of myself as a nobody, right? And I look up to these people as idols, right? Like I admire them genuinely, right? These are great people, these are smart people. These are people that are at the top of their industry.

And to your point, they said the exact same thing to me afterwards is how did we do right? How did I do? How did it go? And here's something else that I wanted to add on what you previously said. With resilience, it's a. Don't get it twisted. Resilience is a muscle, right? Just like you exercise your bicep, right?

Just like you practice running, right? You don't just make a phone call one day, get hung up on. And smile and make another dial, right? You exercise that muscle, you get told, f off a couple times and then you just build that resilience muscle and are willing to take bad feedback and move forward.

So by the time I had gotten into the podcast show again, the, on the on the spot, nerves will always be there. That's just part of being human. That's just part of having an ego, right? We all have egos. If you think you don't have an ego, then. Don't

Ricky Pearl: I mean there's like ego in the Greek [00:36:00] sense of, I, it's not it's not necessarily a bad thing. Ego's important.

Alex Bruschi: Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. It's not letting your ego keep you from the things that you want to do. It's working together with your ego. Not like butting heads with your ego, let's just say. So I had already exercised that muscle to your point. know, I've been in, I've been in sales for eight years.

I've done door to door sales, I've done in-person sales. I had, people threaten me in their homes when I was selling life insurance. So I, I've been through the ringer, it doesn't just happen overnight.

Ricky Pearl: I'm sorry about that. Instant. Yeah, it could have been

Alex Bruschi: It's all good. That's great. That's great. But no, seriously the point is that it's a muscle, right? So if you're listening right now Exactly, and you're too nervous to get out, Or somebody said something mean to you on a cold call and it ruined the rest of your day. Don't think, man, I could never do what Alex is doing.

Or I could never build up a resilience muscle that's strong. Yes, you can. It's exercising a muscle, exercising your bicep, learning [00:37:00] how to learning how to do long distance running, right? It's just make a little bit more progress, right? So if somebody tells you to f off on a cold call and it ruins the rest of your day, the next time somebody tells you to f off on a cold call, let it ruin an hour of your day, right?

Let it ruin two hours of your day versus your whole day. Just exercise that muscle a little bit more, and then eventually what you're gonna realize is that people don't care about. They just don't, I'm sorry to break the news. People don't care about us. That person who tells you to F off on a phone call five minutes later is gonna be focused on something else, and they're never gonna think about you again.

If that one person makes a negative comment on your podcast episode, five minutes later, they're gonna be thinking about something else and never thinking about you ever again. And once that reality kind of sets in, then you come to that moment, at least this is what it was for me. only have so much finite focusing power in a day, right?

I only have so much finite abilities. Why am I gonna waste any of that on these people that don't matter? [00:38:00] It just makes no sense.

Ricky Pearl: I've got a little bit of a vindictive edge in me, so I always think like those people who tell me to air off or rude, they're probably quite angry. It's probably released some like cortisol and chemicals in them. And I just think they're going like, they're gonna be like irritated for the next 30 minutes because they've set themselves off, I'm gonna be fine in 30 seconds and that's how I'm going to, that's my victory.

Like they've ruined their day, not.

Alex Bruschi: Way to say it. Perfect way to say it. I love that.

Ricky Pearl: And obviously when people are mean, it's usually a reflection of themselves, not you, but gimme,

I just want a few quick more things on the show, right? Who should watch it?

Ricky Pearl: I just want a few quick more things on the show, right? Who should watch it?

Alex Bruschi: If you are a salesperson, if you're in cs, if you're in marketing if you want to get started in sales, if you're a salesperson and you're not starting conversations right, you're having a lot of combative conversations, you're not having genuine back and forth conversations, the chances are. You don't necessarily stink at sales.

The [00:39:00] chances are probably that you just aren't doing the basic principles correctly, right? The chances are you're just not doing the basics correctly. And so sales stories in real life is meant or was created to be an approachable way to teach people the core elements of consumer. It's not just for salespeople.

Obviously salespeople may have a lot more relatability to it than other roles, but if you're looking to nail down the basics, if you want to learn things in a more approachable way, If you're tired of listening to all of your favorite podcasts, and all of your podcasts are just covering the same topics over and over again, if you're an SDR and you're tired of hearing enterprise AE talk about closing six figure deals, and you're far away from being at that point us out sales stories in real life. That's I R L sales stories I R L. You could search us on YouTube. You could find me on LinkedIn. Alex Brewski. I accept all connect requests. I'm[00:40:00] would objectively say I'm very friendly. I'll happy to help at all times. I've been in your shoes before.

I promise. If that fits your mold, then you should definitely check out at least an episode and let me know what you think. I don't, I practice what I preach. If you saw something on the show and you think it could be better in a certain way, if you thought it sucked and you think we need to take some new ideas out, hit me with it.

I'm always ready to listen. I'm always ready to take your feedback.

Ricky Pearl: I love that. And something you can achieve so well. The guest of a host, hopefully, like I did today, is all this expertise is out there with the real people who have these real stories like you, Alex, who had a fucking epiphany whilst eating a croissants. Yeah, I, people need to learn from this because you can go through your whole week, your whole month, your whole quarter.

And not really learn that much. A lot of what's being taught super high level, I can, I can't tell you how many times I've watched a medic kind of seminar and enterprise sales and how I love it. I [00:41:00] genuinely love it. It's a passion enterprise sales, but how unuseful it is in so many sales situations, right?

Particularly, we are doing top of funnel for customers. So to be able to pick up this expertise from people in real life, I love the concept.

Alex Bruschi: Yeah, absolutely. If you're an enterprise ae, get advice from other enterprise AEs, right? If you're an SDR, seek advice for people talking about top of funnel, right? If you're an SDR, you don't need to know how to close a hundred k deal, right? You need to learn how to make a meeting that closes a hundred K deal.

So just. Stay in your lane. Number one, first and foremost, and focus, you said this earlier, focus on the progress, not the perfection, right? Just get a little bit better. That's it. Just get a little bit better, and as the time goes, you'll get there.

Ricky Pearl: Awesome. So now people sales irl.com. Find you on LinkedIn, send a connection request, you're gonna accept it unless you specifically put sub useless pitch in your message, which I hope everyone knows you should not be doing

Alex Bruschi: Yeah, don't don't pitch. Don't pitch me [00:42:00] crypto or four, but outside of that shoot, shoot me a connect request

Ricky Pearl: Yeah, fuck. When I see crypto in that headline, like that said, I've only got like 20 people in, in LinkedIn that I've hit ignore. All crypto, right? . This whole thing is gonna now be demoted because I've even said crypto, so the algorithms fucked, right? I'm sorry man. We've ruined it. So we've ruined

Alex Bruschi: Cut that part out. Cut that part out.

Ricky Pearl: Thanks man. It's been such a blast having you and I've learned a lot. I'll, super, super motivated to speak to you. Like I know your experience as a leader within the, that top of funnel and you've coached up more people. And then I could shake a stick at. And on top of that, you're starting this incredible journey, which I've been so impressed by.

And I just wanna give you one little piece of feedback. I know you've said you want feedback. When I've seen your podcast and I've only seen however many episodes come through my feed, to me it looks as what the hell? This thing's huge. Like how did he get all these people? How did he, This is going so well, look at this.

This guy's a celebrity, [00:43:00] LinkedIn sales podcast level slow down Kim Kardashian. But I was so impressed with what I was seeing. So I just wanted to give you that feedback that whatever you're doing from a layman's perspective it's genuinely it's so encouraging and it just looks.

Alex Bruschi: That means a lot, man. I appreciate it. I don't don't take myself too seriously. So here's what I would say as a big time, last parting word. Ricky had these very nice things to say about me and I'm a nobody in my eyes, so how can you elevate yourself in a similar manner, support other people, these people that came onto my show.

Didn't just pick me out of a hat, and say, Hey, let me go support Alex. I didn't craft up such an amazing message that they said, let me go on Alex's show. The reality is I was supporting them all for months and months. I was commenting on every post that they had put out for months at a time.

Providing them genuine value, right? So that way, by the time you drop, let's call it 50, a hundred comments on somebody's post, right? Think about how much you've given [00:44:00] that person. And then when you say, Hey, can I have 45 minutes of your time to record a podcast episode? They know my name, they know my face, right?

They've seen me. They have a positive view of me, right? I've been a supporter of theirs. I've never asked for anything. That hundred times that you give in the one time you ask, you make it so much easier for the other person to say yes. So just support others relentlessly, right? Don't keep tabs, don't say, Hey, I commented on that person's post 10 times and they never commented on mine, so I'm gonna stop. No, just support other people for months at a time. And then when it's time to. Ask. Simple as that.

Ricky Pearl: In incredible parting words cuz that is first of all, clearly what's worked and it might be a bit of pill for some to swallow on. Here's a genuine experts. Who's done it and the advice he's giving is that you just have to give. It doesn't take a day. Give and give given, keep giving for months and months before you start to receive.

I love that. And I think I'm gonna take a lot out of that from that [00:45:00] too, and hopefully some people watching this. So Alex, Matt. It's been amazing and I hope to catch up with you soon and I'm super keen to follow this journey sales in real life because that's the only place sales actually exists.

And I'm gonna watch every episode cuz there's something I've gotta learn from every one of those guests.

Alex Bruschi: Ricky, thanks so much for having me. This has been an absolute blast. Last thing, shout out to Jesse Willette. If it wasn't for Jesse I'm not sure you and I would've ever connected as tightly as we were.

Ricky Pearl: The pirate. The Pirate ship, the Sales yacht club,

Alex Bruschi: Heck yeah, man. Heck yeah.

Ricky Pearl: Power of Community.

Alex Bruschi: Power of community, indeed, Ricky, seriously, thanks so much.

This has been a blast.

Ricky Pearl: Great chatting to you.

‍