John Barrows on this episode
John Barrows is CEO and founder of JB Sales and has trained sales teams at Salesforce, LinkedIn, Google, and Amazon for nearly two decades. He's been in the trenches through multiple waves of outbound innovation and has deep expertise in sales methodology, team development, and go-to-market strategy.
The core thesis: We're still in the efficiency phase of AI-driven outbound, not the results phase. Reps are sending faster, but they're not selling better. Most claims about AI tripling results lack real numbers behind them, and organizations treating AI as a top-down rollout are destined to fail. What actually works requires ground-up buy-in, cross-functional collaboration, and a commitment to foundational work that most companies skip.
The reframe: The SDR model was never truly profitable when analyzed as a standalone function, and cold outbound has become primarily a marketing channel rather than a sales function. The "give a shit factor"—genuinely caring about the person you're reaching out to rather than treating them as a sequence—is what separates reps who get responses from those who don't. Authenticity and proper ICP segmentation matter far more than AI templates or speed at scale.
This episode covers why top-down AI adoption fails, how to run sales hackathons that get your entire GTM team building solutions together, why email might be about to become valuable again, and the foundational work in ICP and segmentation that must exist before any outbound strategy can work.
What we cover in this episode
-
0:23
AI hype vs. reality Separating FOMO from signal in AI-driven outbound claims and LinkedIn noise.
-
3:56
Efficiency phase, not results AI has improved speed and workflow, but hasn't actually tripled sales results or quota attainment.
-
6:51
Why top-down fails Centralized AI mandates don't work; ground-up engagement and hackathons get better adoption and faster iteration.
-
10:04
Sales hackathons model Cross-functional GTM teams collaborate weekly on specific weak points, vote on solutions, and iterate rapidly.
-
22:01
SDR model unprofitable SDRs cost $6k per deal, turn over in 16 months, and only 62% hit quota; roll under marketing, not sales.
-
27:12
Give a shit factor Authentic personalization and genuine interest in the buyer beats templated sequences and automation.
-
33:43
Email's second act AI filtering and hyper-personalization will make email the most valuable channel as inboxes become cleaner.
-
36:41
ICP foundation required Without proper segmentation and buyer personas, no outbound strategy works, AI or not.
The lines worth sharing
We are absolutely still in the efficiency phase of AI and not the results phase of AI.
John Barrows · 3:56
Top-down thinking in today's world of AI is a fool's way of thinking. It has to be ground up, all hands on deck.
John Barrows · 6:51
Your results aren't going to change until you start giving a shit about the person you're reaching out to.
John Barrows · 27:12
If somebody is taking the time to understand who I am and what I do, then it stands to reason they're an expert and maybe they can help me.
Eddie Reynolds · 30:36
Common questions from this episode
Is AI actually tripling sales results in outbound?
No. John Barrows challenges anyone claiming AI has tripled results to show the numbers. Most companies are in the efficiency phase—reps send faster but don't sell better. Real results require foundational work, cross-functional alignment, and iterative testing, not just AI tools.
Should AI adoption be top-down or bottom-up?
A hybrid approach works best. Instead of executives dictating solutions, run sales hackathons where cross-functional teams (sales, marketing, rev ops, AI-native talent, experienced reps) collaborate weekly on specific GTM problems, vote on solutions, and iterate rapidly.
Is the SDR model still profitable?
Not as a standalone sales function. SDRs cost $6k per deal, have 16-month average tenure, 62% quota attainment, and less than 50% convert to AEs. SDRs work better as a marketing function focused on brand impression and awareness, not commission-based deal flow.
What makes outbound work today?
Authentic personalization combined with proper ICP segmentation and buyer persona definition. The 'give a shit factor'—genuinely understanding and caring about the prospect—beats templated sequences. Reps who manually research accounts and tailor messages outperform those using automated cadences.
Will email become valuable again?
Yes. As AI gets better at filtering and personalization, inboxes will become cleaner and filled only with highly relevant, timely messages. Email will emerge as the most valuable outbound channel because signal will dominate over noise.
What's the foundation before using AI in outbound?
Define your ICP and buyer personas, segment your target list carefully, and ensure reps understand the companies they're calling. Without this foundational work, no outbound strategy works—AI just scales bad behavior faster.
SEO meta description
John Barrows on what's actually working in outbound now: we're still in AI's efficiency phase, not the results phase. Real wins require foundational work.
Target keywords
John Barrows outbound sales
AI outbound sales effectiveness
SDR model profitability
sales hackathons
ICP segmentation outbound
give a shit factor sales
email outbound channel
AI sales reps results
top-down AI adoption fails
cold outbound marketing function
sales team AI implementation
buyer personalization outbound
Read the complete conversation
Auto-generated from the episode audio and lightly cleaned. Expand to read or search inside.
Read the full transcript · 73 KB · John Barrows
EDDIE0:04Welcome to Go to Market. In this podcast, we share tangible, actionable playbooks from the trenches working as go to market strategy and rev ops consultants for our clients here at Union Square. Consulting and candid conversations with revenue leaders in the market that have been there. Now let's get into it.
EDDIE0:23All right. Today we are going to talk about how AI is changing outbound. Today my guest is John Barrows, CEO and founder of JB sales. John, thank you so much for joining me today.
JOHN0:34Yeah, thanks for having me. It's good to see you.
EDDIE0:36Likewise. I always feel so nervous on the intro. It's like you got to get it all out and then it's all easier after that.
JOHN0:42I do my integrals after the fact. I never do them before the fact, just in case I do fuck them up.
EDDIE0:48I'm too lazy for that. But I respect it. And, you know, it's like particularly particularly nerve wracking with you because I want to give an intro and I have known you or known of you for like 15 years. You and your team have trained sales reps at Salesforce, where I worked, LinkedIn, Google, many other companies. It was your training that I took when I first learned about the basics of Outbound at Salesforce, which is ironic because I'd already been in sales for like ten years and had never taken any course.
EDDIE1:15That taught me any like actual best practices on the thing. And so, you know, this is the second time I think you come into the podcast, and I'm just excited to dive into it with you again today.
JOHN1:24Yeah, man, it's been a long, interesting road. Right. And AI is definitely making things more interesting. Let's put it that way.
EDDIE1:32Yeah. I mean it's I think I feel this way. I'm sure you do too. I think a lot of crows and revenue leaders feel this way. It's like it's exciting what's possible. It's also stressful and nerve wracking feeling this massive FOMO, feeling like you're constantly behind it seems like everybody else is doing all these amazing things. Every single LinkedIn post is about this new, like, you know, thing that somebody built over the weekend and clawed and fired their entire sales team, and you're just like, okay, like, how do we separate, you know, the noise from the signal here?
JOHN2:00Yeah, yeah. It's getting tough, right? I've actually I mean, I still post on LinkedIn all the time, but these days I've kind of removed myself from engaging on LinkedIn. Yeah. Like, you know, consuming on LinkedIn. Because to your point, it's it's nothing but FOMO or fear or or even just comparison in the sense that, you know, you see, everybody is always telling, oh, you know, crushing it.
JOHN2:25And I got this and I just was able to do that. And I, you know, IPO here and 100 million there. And it's like, you know, like we were talking about before we got on here. Right. It's you know, if you live in the US and you're doing okay, you're doing better than the vast majority of most people, no matter what you hear about these billionaires and trillionaire and all that other stuff, it's kind of the same thing on LinkedIn.
JOHN2:45You know, most people are not doing as well as they look like they're doing on LinkedIn. But it's it's, you know, human comparison. What is that comparison to the thief of joy or whatever that saying is? And I try to remind myself of that and just stay in my lane and not try to compare myself to too many other people.
EDDIE3:04So
EDDIE3:04I feel the same way. I try really hard to think about the long term over the short term, and I feel like every time in my business that I'm just scrambling to try to, like, figure something out really quickly, it tends not to have the best results. Whereas if you really take a step back and think about the long term, I think like, and this is what we're gonna get into in the podcast, like how do you build the fundamentals, how do you make the thing actually work?
EDDIE3:23And usually that requires for me multiple iterations. And sometimes you have to like go down the rabbit hole and like peel the onion back and dig deeper. And I don't mean to be too metaphorical here, but I mean like literally where you discover, oh, the reason this thing isn't working is because the layer beneath that is not working.
EDDIE3:39And I got to go fix that. And then you find another layer below that. And I think it requires this level of dedication that these posts on LinkedIn of like, oh, I just built this thing in Claude over the weekend and revolutionized my go to marketer, replace my sales team. You're like, really? Like, can you report back when you have real results to report?
JOHN3:56So that's where I think we're at right now, is that we are absolutely in still in the efficiency phase of AI and not the results phase of AI. Like I challenge anybody to tell me that they've tripled their results, quadrupled their results because of AI time back. Sure. Efficiency more like better at making the, you know, connecting the dots and everything else.
JOHN4:20Absolutely. But triple you know, whatever your results come on. And I and I ask anybody, including myself, that whenever you see somebody who's saying, oh, I just did this thing and comment, Claude and I'll drop you the just take two seconds to see what are they selling? Because if they're appointment setters and they're giving you a prompt about like, the whole flow is like when people are selling what they sell to drive revenue.
JOHN4:49That is what you need. But it's what they do. It's a different story. So like for me, it's always like when I talk to other sales trainers and, you know, consultants who talk about, oh yeah, you know, build your brand and build your brand and, you know, you just got to do and I'm like, could you back off a little bit?
JOHN5:04Yes. Brand is important. There's no question about it. But, you know, as a sales trainer or sales consultant who sells sales training and consulting, two sales reps, it's a hell of a lot easier to build your brand. You know, like I'm a crackhead who sells crack to crackheads. It's pretty easy for me to sell the dream to a crackhead, right?
JOHN5:25But go tell that 22 year old kid who's selling to, you know, selling cybersecurity to CISOs to build your brand and see how long they last at it. Like, again, it's important. It's just not as easy as 99% of people let you know it. Like make you think it is.
EDDIE5:42Yeah, I couldn't agree with that more. And on the flip side, and I'm sure that you've seen a lot of this and we'll get into it like we've had a lot of people in the podcast that are cross and really established companies like serious amounts of revenue, 50 million, 100 million, 200 million in revenue that have revolutionized their go to market with AI and have real results to report.
EDDIE5:59But none of them said that they built it over a weekend.
JOHN6:01never, ever, ever, ever, ever. It's a systemic. The only ones that I've ever seen do that are like rev ops, marketing, sales, alignment, you know what I mean? All in this like build it together, not just some sexy prompt. If somebody did or some new AI thing that somebody implemented, it takes a village, if you will, to make sure that this stuff works the right way.
JOHN6:24And those results. I mean, I think what was the report about a year ago that MIT came out with? Like 95% of corporate AI initiatives have failed. And because I think AI is really still good for individuals, it's fantastic for individuals, right? Because you can get creative, you can do it. But once you start to standardize on AI, it starts to unravel real fast, especially if you don't have buy in from the group and almost that ground up approach.
JOHN6:51I think top down thinking in today's world of AI is is a fool's way of thinking about it. Because the the days of like an executive, a singular 2 or 3 figuring out, okay, a what's the problem that we're trying to solve be what are the solutions out there? See, let's go evaluate those solutions. Pick one, implement it.
JOHN7:11I mean, you're 9 to 12 months out of any real implementation of any technology at this point, AI specifically. And can you tell me what this world is going to look like in 9 to 12 months? Like, I can't tell what it's going to look like 9 to 12 days from now. So so that top down, like we're going to do it this way, and then you're going to do it the way that we want you to.
JOHN7:31I just don't think it is viable at this point. I think it has to be a ground up like all hands on deck. Let's all work together here. Let's figure out where where we can make iterative improvements and then just keep tweaking and adjusting and going, because what works six months ago is just not working anymore right now.
EDDIE7:46It's such an interesting perspective. One of the people we had on our podcast was Kyle Norton, and he wrote an article in this specific debate. Right. And the way he framed the debate is, you know, basically, should we have a bunch of salespeople, five coding solutions for themselves versus having like a centralized approach where you have rev ops, developers, etc.?
EDDIE8:03And he makes a strong argument for the latter. Now, I think, like even his argument, and I don't want to screw up in trying to paraphrase an article that I haven't read for a month or two, you know, I think that there's tremendous value in this sort of like ground up approach where like an individual sales rep, especially somebody with a little bit of experience that has the context of conversations with customers, that seeing things on the front lines every day, if they sit down to try to like, figure out their own solution, they're probably going to get pretty far.
EDDIE8:31And for some reason, my head is going straight to triggers, which is probably something that I first started thinking a lot about via your training. And I remember talking to reps and they're like, I'm using this tool. I'm using that tool even at Salesforce, like to find all these triggers. And it's like, that makes sense to me. But on another level, trying for that rep to try to compete with a really, really talented rev ops team where you've got strategic folks, you've got, you know, developers, you've got the crow behind them, you've got budget, you've got resources, and they're spending all day, every day trying to build these enterprise solutions for their own team.
EDDIE9:04You know, maybe like I'm just looking at this through a different lens from you. And we're saying the same thing here. But I'm a big fan of it's hard for me to believe that like five years from now, we're going to just have a bunch of vibe coded solutions built by salespeople for themselves.
JOHN9:17And actually, I don't think I actually don't think that's the right approach at all. I think there's a hybrid approach between the two, and it's not
JOHN9:24individual reps doing their own thing. It's just, well, let's go back to the one that everybody you know is familiar with the cadence. It's the same thing with the cadence discussion, right? With the sales loss, the outreaches and all that stuff.
JOHN9:33There's two usually main approaches that most companies take. One is marketing locks down the messaging, creates it all, creates the sequences and then gives it to the sales reps with no autonomy at all. And sales reps just kind of push buttons. Right. That and that's what you get with that scenario is the sales reps just push buttons. They don't care.
JOHN9:50They don't try. They don't really engage all they're just okay, I'm supposed to get this. Now on the flip side, you give sales off to whatever it is to the reps and say, go ahead, do whatever you want to do. Create whatever cadence it becomes this rat's nest. There's that. Neither one of those is the right approach. It's the hybrid approach.
JOHN10:04And when I talk about, you know, the ground up, it's my, you know, how I work with lots of my clients would recommend my clients work is almost ten year sales organ to a sales lab. And because for a couple of reasons, one is if you don't if people don't feel involved right now and engaged, they're going to a get scared.
JOHN10:24We're all looking over our shoulders. And when is AI going to come for us? Right. All of us. And so if you don't learn out loud together, you're letting these reps do what they're going to do anyways. They're going to go play with this stuff anyways. It's easy enough to do for anybody and they're not going to be they're always going to be looking over their shoulder.
JOHN10:42And so if you can align the two talk about like a you know, you know how engineers have hackathons, right? Well I think we should do the same thing with Salesforce. I think we should turn our sales organ to a sales hackathon, right? Where once a week, once a month, whatever. Get the whole GTM work together sales, marketing engine, you know you can and that type of stuff break up in a little groups of like 4 or 5 people, right?
JOHN11:05So it's a mix of stray and old, you know, the young generation that has the AI native, the older generation that has the experience, the marketers, the seas and pick any aspect of the GTM approach that isn't working. That is that is kind of the weak link of the process or whatever. And give a framework. And Saturday, everybody, you have about an hour, whoever can figure out either with existing tools or with AI, a better way of doing this thing, whatever it is, right?
JOHN11:29Looking for triggers, automating this, prepping for meetings, any of that stuff. Whoever figures out a better best solution wins. And then everybody goes at it for about an hour or two, whatever. And then everybody presents their solution. We vote on which one we like. Then we go ahead and implement that rev ops, then takes it from there and starts to tweak it and, you know, say okay, no.
JOHN11:47And then quick turnaround. Did it work right. Great. Fantastic. What's the next thing we're trying to get here. So rev ops can do kind of the fundamental stuff on the back end while all this stuff is happening. But if you're not engaging with the organization right now, like I came out of a rev ops, there was a rev fest that was about a month and a half ago.
JOHN12:06I would go nimbly, right. And Jen, she's fantastic. Rev Fest is actually one of the cooler events out there. But what happened was, you know, it was obviously all rev OBS and somebody came up on stage and said, hey, how many enablement people are in the room? And a couple of hands went up and there was a couple of like, low level boos that I heard in the audience, like, boo, right?
JOHN12:26And I was like, Now Jen took it a different way. She thought, oh, it was not enough for her. And I was like, I don't think that's what it was, because the speaker then kind of went on to say how enablement was, you know, in the world of AI is questionable on the value of them. Right? Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of bad enablement out there, just like there's plenty of bad rev ops out there.
JOHN12:45But then they went on to profess about all these things that Rev ops was doing to produce all this great information for sales reps, to then leverage in the sales process and surfacing things and all this stuff. And I'm like, I think you're missing it. All this wonderful stuff that you're developing and producing for sales reps, the vast majority of sales reps aren't equipped to use that information in a way you know, in a meaningful way when it comes to engaging with a client.
JOHN13:09And so if you're if we're still in this rev ops is better than enablement or marketing is better than sales, and sales is over here and marketing is over here and rev ops is over here. Those organizations are failing and will fail, period. It's the ones who do this that are going to, that are going to survive, because it's such an iterative process right now.
JOHN13:30If you are not lean, if you are not agile, if you are not constantly testing and trying things out and involving the entire org, you're going to fail, period.
EDDIE13:40Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And for the people just listening to this on audio, you get a little hand signal that I think stood for some level of integration if I interpret it correctly. And I totally agree. I think the lens that I look through is somebody that's been working in rev ops since I started this company about ten years ago,
EDDIE13:56that I've seen so many, you know, failed initiatives, whether it's like something as basic as just implementing Salesforce just because there's not somebody to carry the ball forward.
EDDIE14:03So it's like, okay, we've got that MVP in place. And we saw this with our clients when I first started. And we would do these six week projects, and then we call them six months later after they stopped working with us. And it's like, how's it going? It's like, well, we're still trying to get the reps on Salesforce.
EDDIE14:16Now, granted, like those are some there's a lot of issues there that are starting to be solved with AI. Like especially like all the admin work that I'm excited that reps don't have to do as much of. But for me, like the big thing was nobody carrying the ball forward. So I love this idea of a hackathon. I love the idea of getting ideas from the front line, especially as somebody who spent my entire career in sales and I still sell today.
EDDIE14:36I don't want somebody like working off in a silo that's never carried a bag, that doesn't understand what my day to day looks like. But at the same time, we've got to, like, carry this forward, make sure it works, we've got to iterate on it. We've got to get the reports. And then ultimately, for me, where the rubber meets the road is is there a report that shows that a we're executing this thing, whatever that thing is, and B it's producing the desired result.
EDDIE14:57So if we're trying to do outbound and we're like booking a bunch of meetings and none of them convert to pipeline, well then the job is not done, right?
JOHN15:04Yeah. I mean, that's why I think it's, it's, you know, faster cycles test, iterate test, you know, in to a reasonable amount of time. You don't want to give up too fast on something. But and to your point, if there's not a champion internally, who's running with it, who's responsible for it, just like training, you know what I mean?
JOHN15:20Like, you know, so many people look at training as as the fix. You know, they invest in the training. Oh, the trainer comes in and it's like and and I love the question when they ask, well, what's the reinforcement of the yeah. What's your reinforcement package. I'm like where your manager is going to be. Who's going to own this.
JOHN15:39You know what I mean? Like, are you going to do this on a weekly basis in your forecast reviews? Is the executive going to ask the VP of sales, who's going to ask the director of sales, who's going to ask the managers? Are they. Where are they on this metric? Where how are you using this thing. Right. And if that's not there, then it is what it is.
JOHN15:58Training is what it is. You know what I mean? It gives you that bump. And a few preps are going to take it and run with it, but then it'll die on the vine. And so if you're not, if you don't have a plan these days, it's almost not worth doing. You know, if you haven't thought through, okay, who's going to be like our, our, our Swat team, if you will, like the group of people that we're going to test this with.
JOHN16:18And what are we going to look at? What are those metrics and who's going to own it? What are the milestones that we're going to look at to prove the whether this is working or not? If you don't have that and you're just throwing spaghetti up against the wall, then, you know, you might find something that works, but you're going to have an organization that's all over the place.
EDDIE16:34Yeah, I couldn't agree more. We have a bunch of frameworks that we've created for our website on outbound inbound, just overall go to market. And we've got these four levels. One is fundamentals and X is adoption and optimization. And then amplification where you have like AI and automation. Right.
EDDIE16:49And so we kind of think of the base of the pyramid as the fundamentals and adoption.
EDDIE16:52So the fundamentals are like what's our basic process our technology etc.. And then adoption. How do we get people to actually do the thing right. How do we execute? And then for me, within that adoption, it comes down to having a management cadence of reviewing reports and coaching reps. And so I don't mean like that we're painting by numbers here.
EDDIE17:09But if, for example, our goal is to do something that results in more pipeline being generated, if managers are not looking at those reports on a weekly or daily basis to see if we're actually generating more pipeline and then coaching reps on how to improve, like, what's the point of any of this?
JOHN17:23and look, I think it gets back to we're in a,
JOHN17:28we're in a society of of well, look, I think as human beings we are all wired to be lazy. Period. Leaves path of resistance. I mean, if you go all the way back into history and, you know, the caveman, that type of thing, like, you know, they might not have eaten for like 3 or 4 days, you know what I mean?
JOHN17:44So it was all about conserving and how quick, you know, how easy can I do something before I have to put in the effort? So just as humans, we are, we look for. And you can prove this right now just by scrolling through LinkedIn again, go look at all these posts that say, oh, you know, look at this prompt pack.
JOHN17:59And, you know, just comment, Claude, and I'll send it to you. And they get a thousand comments on their post like clockwork, like that, that that saddens me every time I see it, because it just means that they're all those thousand people are begging for the easy button. They're begging for the just, just, just do this. And they're not willing to put in the work.
JOHN18:17That's why the people who are willing to put in the work, the companies who are willing to put in the work of companies, who are willing to put the systems in place and stay consistent with the ones that win, and the ones that are just looking for the quick fix tend to be the same as the reps who are looking for the quick fix.
EDDIE18:31Well, let's get into brass tacks here and I'm going to start with a question. This is like the longest intro ever, but I really enjoyed it. I hope the audience did. Somebody hit me with a question and I don't want to name drop. I know you know this person and a lot of people listening to it as well.
EDDIE18:45Let's just say that this person works at a very large like PC firm and used to work at a very large tech company in like the go to market tech ecosystem, and is an expert on the topic that you and I are talking about. And he hit me with this question the other day and he's like, do you know any companies were outbound is working well, they don't have a strong brand and kind of can unpack this.
EDDIE19:08So it's like the first question is like, who's actually succeeding in outbound today? And are any of those companies, companies that don't have a strong brand? Now, this is a difficult question for me because we work with somewhat mature companies. And it's like, how do you define like an unknown brand? I don't know, but I'm going to throw that question at you.
EDDIE19:25And I'm curious, like what you're seeing right now in 2026, June 18th, as of the time of this recording, who's succeeding in outbound right now? Forget AI for a moment. We'll get back to that. But who's just winning it at outbound period?
JOHN19:39Very few that, myself included.
JOHN19:43Cold outbound right now. And it's been this way for a while, to be honest, is a marketing function. It's I I've given up on it as a sales function. I actually I did I did a presentation at Pavilion a while back and it was about a year ago, actually, about nine months ago.
JOHN20:03It was called anything but predictable. And and it was how I think the predictable revenue model, I think, ruined sales in a lot of ways. The segmentation of roles, the assembly line approach, I think it turned us way more into a process than an art. And I'm a science guy when it comes to sales. Like, I think sales should be more of a science than an art, because the science lays the foundation for the art form.
JOHN20:23But I think we have way over science sales, and we've turned it into this assembly line. And so we were able to get away with it in the in the good old days. Right? I positioned 2010 to 2022 was the golden age sales, especially in tech. Right? I mean, when interest when money was free grow at all costs, ROI didn't matter, right?
JOHN20:40We could send out those massive email blasts, you know, set up disco calls. Anybody with a pulse asked them, ask questions and offer a discount. Like that's kind of what sales was for about 15 years, quite frankly. And and did outbound work then. Sure. But I think it was just because, you know, everybody's like, all right. Yeah. What what else what else can we do.
JOHN20:59What else can we do now. Personalization at scale and all this other stuff. It's if you're not familiar, if somebody's not familiar with you, the likelihood of somebody taking a chance on a new offering they've never heard of before or has no brand or anything like that from a cold outbound scenario is so low. I mean, you've heard the stats, and by the time, you know, I think it's like less than 5% of anybody's addressable market is actually in market to buy in the other 95% or at some level of zero to, you know, some interest.
JOHN21:32So that's why brand matters. That's why, you know, I look that's why every single SDR organization that I've worked with in the past 2 to 3 years and even further back are have rolled up under marketing, not sales. I mean, let's be the the presentation that I did. You know, there's this whole predictable revenue model of STR is becoming BDS becoming A's.
JOHN21:53And this really great flow is just bullshit right now. The SPR.
EDDIE21:57Somebody who has never an STR like I still have never understood it.
JOHN22:01It's well, if you look at it, if you look at it fundamentally back then it made sense because it was the proving ground and development ground for sales. If you looked at it, if you look at it as a separate function in and of itself, it is the most unprofitable part of any business if you just look at it as its own entity.
JOHN22:20But if you layer on, okay, well, we can get relatively cheap labor out of school. We can teach them the ropes, whatever, and then they can grow into sales reps that then become a ease and stay with us. Right? Theoretically that makes sense in that regard. But the average SDR at this point, or at least nine months ago stated their company for state of their company, not their job, state of their company for 16 months.
JOHN22:45So all that, all that stuff that we put into training stars and hoping that they'll become echoes, the vast majority of them don't even stay at the company less than 50, even if they do, less than 50% of the stars that do stay at the company, less than 50% of them turn into A's. The others turn into customer success or marketing or something else.
JOHN23:03The average quota attainment is 62% of STR. So they're not even they're not even their quota at that point, right. That it costs to get one deal. It costs $6,000 for just the portion of the revenue, $6,000 for the first year. And that's just the SDR. Forget about the AI. Forget. So if you're if you're a isn't like 50 or more like it doesn't make any sense.
JOHN23:30But we put stress on companies of selling like a $3,000 ACV solution. Like are you out of your mind? So no, it never really worked. But it was a blitz in the market. And I think now if you understand that, then you can start to justify the SDR role. If you look at it more as a marketing function, the fact that they're still getting paid commissions, still, I don't I don't understand, you know, maybe a quarterly bonus based on revenue numbers that come in, but not arbitrary number of dials that you hit or erroneous meetings that you booked because you had to.
JOHN24:05But it's an impression point world, right? Because that voicemail might then be somebody could read it while they're sitting on the toilet, you know, read the voicemail on their phone and then be like, oh yeah, remember that email? Let me go look at that email. Oh, let me go. Look at that LinkedIn profile. Let me go to the website.
JOHN24:21Let me now jump into AI and do it. And so you know, there's still a place for it. It's just not anybody who thinks it's a sales role is is sadly mistaken in my opinion.
RACHAEL24:32Quick pause. Everything we talk about on this show. Diagnosing go to market ops. Prioritizing projects for revenue. Impact processes. Metrics. Insights. Building a predictable go to market engine. We've built frameworks for all of it. They're free and undated on our website. Union square consulting frameworks. The link will also be in the show notes, so make sure you check that out.
RACHAEL24:55All right. Back to the episode.
EDDIE24:57Let me break this down a little bit. I'm going to share some some things I'm seeing like from firsthand experience as well as what we see with our clients. And for context, we've got a lot of clients in B2B tech, and we've got some clients that are not in B2B tech. And so it is interesting to see how in some other industries, like they just don't subscribe to all these things that we, you know, hold as gospel in the tech industry.
EDDIE25:17It's like, I see I saw somebody post the other day, he's like, does anybody still hire like commission only reps? I'm like, yeah, the entire real estate industry, the entire automotive industry. And those are just the ones I know off the top of my head. So like insurance, the way that B2B insurance, the way B2B tech works is not the way all go to market works.
EDDIE25:34And so we definitely have some clients, especially outside of tech, that, you know, have outbound working. For me personally, I don't know if you'd consider this outbound, but for the last number of years, we've been reaching out to potential partners to a lesser extent, like folks like yourself that are in consulting or marketing agencies, much more so, like Peck firms.
EDDIE25:52And I totally believe in building brands. So I'm doing a podcast with you here, and that helps. And sometimes people are like, yeah, I saw your podcast, I saw your LinkedIn, I saw your newsletter, like happy to chat, but a lot of them don't. A lot of them don't know me from Adam. And there are particular firms that I've wanted to get in front of where I'm just like, I'm going to reach out to this guy 15 times via LinkedIn, via phone, via email, via care package in the mail.
EDDIE26:12Like I don't do enough of that, but it's an idea. And then if that doesn't work, go to the next person and the next person, the next person, and thread the needle. And I can't really think of very many accounts where I've done that, and we haven't broken in every now, right now. And so for me, like when you compare that to like the STR model of like we're going to log in to outreach or sales loft, we've got our 15 step cadence.
EDDIE26:36And I struggle using these tools as much as I'm a fan of them. Like there's always some idea that pops into my head, and then it's 17 clicks for me to do the thing that I want to do instead of send the email that it tells me I have to send because, like, maybe I want to send them a LinkedIn.
EDDIE26:49Maybe I want to comment on their LinkedIn post and wait two days and then come back and I get stuck in this, like this workflow that's so rigid that I can't get creative. And getting creative for me seems to still work. Now, granted, I'm not doing it at scale. I don't have like a ten person stream. I'm managing.
EDDIE27:07And yeah, and I have like the CEO title and some brand behind me. And you think that's the difference?
JOHN27:12It's it's the give a shit factor. And, you know, you probably heard me say this before Morgan came on board, right when Morgan worked for me. Morgan and Groom are early days. You know, he was he was an SDR str manager, and he came on board and he was created cadences. And he was the, you know, king of working with those tools.
JOHN27:30And he'd go, okay, results. And but then they leveled off and, and he came to me one day and he said, John, I don't get it. Like, I feel like I'm doing all the right things and I'm just not getting the results that I would expect to get it based on all the effort that I'm putting in here.
JOHN27:43And I go, it's like, what do I need to do to change to to be able to get better results? I said, Morgan, your results aren't going to change until one thing does. And he said, what? I said, till you start giving a shit, man. And he goes, what? I go, I know you give a shit about your job and working here and all that stuff, but until you start actually giving a shit about the person that you're reaching out to and think of them as a person, not a sequence you have to send, not a call you have to make, not a, you know, until you start thinking like, as somebody who wakes up
JOHN28:10in the morning has to bring their kids to school, right? It sits in traffic, gets yelled at by their boss, has 15 other initiatives that they're working on. Until you think of them that way, your results aren't going to change. And so what your what your approach is the right approach. It just doesn't scale. Which I mean scale as it now it can, if done the right way with the right tools to surface of signals and that type of stuff and really get pinpointed on your ICP.
JOHN28:35But so few companies are patient enough to do the foundation work that you talked about previously on your pyramid there, of making sure that they're going after the right companies, that ABM is set up the right way so that they're making the impression points. And you look at companies and you realize, wow, this is somebody based on where they are and what they're doing.
JOHN28:54We know we can help. And if I know, I can help because I've seen this before and I line with your values or whatever it is as an organization. Well, now my messaging and my approach becomes a lot more authentic and that these days authenticity comes screaming through because. Because all this AI stuff can make you sound absolutely fantastic, but it is so hollow and I can feel it in every single one of them.
JOHN29:19I look at a lot of these AI generated emails and I'm like, yeah, that's good, but that wasn't you. And and to me, if I know it's AI, I actually just wish there was one thing that I think would solve a lot of problems for a lot of people is if there was some way across the board, whether it was social videos, emails, you name it, that had the little blue check mark on it where it was.
JOHN29:40Well, red, yellow, green right. So red being fully AI generated, yellow being AI augmented and green being fully human. Because if I know it's AI, I'll actually read it. I'll be interested in it. But the moment a human tries to use AI to pretend like it's them and it's like it's human and I sniff of AI, I discredit whatever it is the video, I don't care.
JOHN30:04How about valuable it is? If I feel like you use this to pretend like you were that smart or that good at whatever it was like, I don't give a shit. And I think a lot of people are the same way.
EDDIE30:14I'm curious about why, and I'll tell you why I care first, because like, I think I was talking to somebody about this and I think they were like accusing me of having a big ego here. And I thought about it and I'm like, maybe that's part of it. But for me, if someone's reaching out to me and they're asking me for 30 minutes of my time, I'm looking at this as an investment in the most scarce resource I have.
EDDIE30:36I can find more money, I can't find more time. And why should I invest 30 minutes with somebody? It's not because I have this huge ego and someone has stroked that ego. It's that if somebody is like actually taking the time to go to my website, go to my LinkedIn and understand who I am and what I do, and then decided to reach out to me, then it stands to reason, like they're the expert at whatever it is that they do and who they help.
EDDIE31:00So if they've invested time and they believe they can help me, then maybe they can help me. Now. I might still say no to that meeting. Sure. But if they're telling me, like, hey, it's not worth my time to do any of that, I just used a template and or had the AI do it, and I haven't even received like very good AI emails either.
EDDIE31:14And maybe that's just because I run a small business and I'm not like the worthwhile investment for the company to figure it out. But it's like even these AI emails, it's like they scrape my LinkedIn post and regurgitate it. But like, there's not like a really strong connection between what I said in my LinkedIn post and what it is that they're pitching.
EDDIE31:27It's just like this weird drop off of, like, I know that you said like that. You know, you just had a kid. Congratulations. And by the way, like, you know, are you SOC two compliant? I'm like, what? And it's just for me, it's like, it seems like what you're signaling is that this isn't worth your time, so why should it?
EDDIE31:44Why should I genuinely believe, ego aside, that this is worth my time.
JOHN31:48And I'm there with you? I do this and I encourage every buyer to do this. By the way, I a little while back I took about. Yeah, I took 20 sales calls from 20 different reps vendors in the in the tech space. Right. Stuff that I was interested in but I was that was secondary. The main reason I was doing it was because I want to see like, all right, how bad is it out there as far as sales reps abilities to, you know, discovery calls and those type of things.
JOHN32:16Right. And every single meeting I take with a sales rep, I do the exact same thing the first five minutes of every meeting say, hey, Eddie, thank you so much, man. I appreciate the time here. So before we get going. Could you just do me a favor? Just tell me what you know about me in the company so far, so we can kind of skip whatever we need to skip here.
JOHN32:34And when I tell you 14 out of 20 couldn't even tell me. I did sales training. And by the way, that's all you had to do. Oh, oh, oh. You know, I'd see you do some sales training consulting. John, I see you work with some pretty cool logos. You maybe got some on site and on demand stuff and blah, blah, blah, like that's it.
JOHN32:50As long as you just said that. We continued the conversation. 14 out of 20 couldn't even say that. Well, you know, the telltale sign is always, well, you know, I was on your website, but I'd really like to hear from you what you, you know, it's like, so guess what? I hung up on 14 out of 20 people within five minutes of the conversation.
JOHN33:06That's not an ego thing. That's a fuck you thing. To your point, my time is valuable. So is yours. I'm not saying my time is more valuable than yours, but if you want my time, you better value it because you asked for it. You know what I mean? If I ask for your time, I damn well better do it.
JOHN33:25You know what I mean? Like that. That's a difference. Like. And so I don't think it's being an ego for you to to expect somebody to have, you know, put some effort into. Now, don't get me wrong, there's there's certain things that just hit, you know what I mean? No matter what. Like when you get that email, it's like, shit, man, I need that.
JOHN33:43And that's why I think in the future, I know, you know, a lot of this conversation is about like, the future of outbound and those type of things. People say, like emails did. I actually I think maybe here in the short, short term, I think email is going to come back to being one of the most valuable. I think our inbox is going to be incredibly valuable moving forward.
JOHN34:00You know why? Because think about Instagram for a minute, right? Instagram has got me on like that. That algorithm. I've trained that up well. That algorithm has trained me. So now like, literally everything on Instagram is like, yep, want that? Didn't even know that was a thing. That seems really cool. You know what I mean? So it's so tailored to what I like, stuff that I didn't even know I needed.
JOHN34:23I'm like, that's great. You can't tell me that in a year or two that our AI isn't going to know us well enough, and out there in the ecosystem is going to know our digital footprint well enough to start sending super hyper personalized, timely, relevant emails. And our AI version of us is going to be filtering all all the bullshit and letting the stuff get in.
JOHN34:46Not just spam, but like things that. John, you should probably look at this. Eddie just wrote a really cool email about some research that he did on you and gave this offering, and this is one you should pay attention. And so I think our inboxes are going to be clean as shit here in the next couple of years with super relevant stuff.
JOHN35:00And at the end of the day, in that scenario, do I care if it's a human or not? No, I don't,
EDDIE35:05I wouldn't care either. I mean, for me, like the bar is so low, if somebody reached out and they just said, hey Eddie, I know you run a small professional services business, this is a problem that you're probably facing. And if I was facing that problem, I'd be like, you know what? Like, maybe you could help me, but, like, I think the problem is so many of the pitches I get are like, hey, Eddie, I know you do x, y, z.
EDDIE35:21Like, I want to tell you about how we helped Oracle. And I'm like, cool, okay. And I got a call today and I thought this was really interesting, this SDR, Cole calls me and I see the number pop up and I'm like, fuck it, let me pick it up. And he's like, what does he say? I can't remember how he opened it, but he was pitching an AI like SDR solution.
EDDIE35:43Some aspect of it I didn't understand. And his pitch was like, it does all this account research and so you can understand the account, everything like that. And he starts opening up and he's like telling me about like what your stars are doing. And I'm just like, oh man. Like, could you have made this any easier for me to be like without actually having to be a dick?
EDDIE35:58And I just was like, so help me understand this. So your tool will do all this account research and you can understand all these things about the account before you pick up the phone. He's like, yeah, absolutely. And I was like, so you would be able to know if a company has like a team of stars. And he's like, yeah, absolutely.
EDDIE36:10Like we use zoom info and he just goes into his pitch. Right? And I'm just like, he's like, so how are your stars doing things? And I'm like, I don't have any stars. And I'm like, so do you don't use your tool to do that thing? He's like, no, no, no, it's really we don't use our tool for that.
EDDIE36:26And I was like, okay. And then but then like when I and I think I'm kind of like mixing up the order of conversation here. And then I told him that we didn't have any stars and he just hung up on me, and I wasn't even mean about it. I was just like, you're wasting your own time because you haven't done the segmentation.
EDDIE36:41And if I could kind of bring this conversation full circle back, because I know we're already two thirds of the way through the podcast, I want to talk about the foundation here, and you already touched on it. And for me, like if you haven't carefully defined your ICP and your buyer personas and build out segmentation and you have this like very carefully curated list, which is not hard to do, such that when you're calling and pitching a solution for stars, maybe call people to have says crazy idea
EDDIE37:06isn't is that not like the basic foundation of outbound, whether you're using AI or not?
JOHN37:11Yeah, 100%. And it's again, it goes to the give a factor. It goes to it goes to business acumen. You know, the problem is, is you and I I mean, you're younger than I am, right? I just hit 50 when I, when I grew up like in sales, like I had to do all the great work like this shit.
JOHN37:28You know what I mean? Like, literally when I say knock on doors, I mean knock on doors, like, knock. If I get thrown out of office buildings, I had to go to take like a Polaroid of a, of a directory and then go back and do some homework, you know what I mean? And then send a mailer and then do it and then handwritten notes.
JOHN37:43And so I was able to kind of like build those muscles, if you will, from the foundational part. Like I understood business, I understood body language, I understood what it was like to give a dumb pitch and watch somebody physically, like, literally like physically see them like shut up or throw me out of the office, not just in this world.
JOHN38:03Right. And so now for somebody like me is like, AI is a superpower because I have this, like, context and I can I can question it. I go, no, so I can use it for the right reasons. I can use it to do the right type of research and but I won't use it to automate anything. Now, unfortunately, relatively newer generation who grew up after Covid.
JOHN38:25In this world, everything's been transactional. So a lot of the grind in the things that created the foundation and the fundamentals just aren't there anymore. And we've gone from this search engine to an answer engine, and that's a dangerous thing, because we can all argue that Google and the search engine would kind of give us whatever it felt like giving us, right?
JOHN38:42But at least it was a perception of choice, right? We had to maybe read an article, heaven forbid, and kind of click on something every once in a while. Now AI just gives you the answer. And for those of us that are curious, it's a fantastic thing. For those of us that aren't, unfortunately, the vast majority of people who are just going back to it lazy, caveman, blah.
JOHN39:04They're just going to copy, paste, send. They're just going to tell, hey, here's a good lead for you. Call them, here's your pitch. Go. And they're not making the connection that why.
EDDIE39:17Why for me this is this is not just a generational thing. This is a culture thing within the industry. So like for background, I sold vacuum cleaners door to door and used cars before I graduated college. And I knocked on doors. And I'm. I'm younger than you, but not by much. I turned 43 in a couple of months and and I was selling, I think, my first sales job.
EDDIE39:37I was like maybe 16 for like an actual job. I sold stuff door to door that I like before that. But actual job, I was like selling vacuum cleaners door to door. But I spent the bulk of the first ten years of my career in finance, like I was calling major private equity funds, saying like, hey, I know you're raising $1 billion fund.
EDDIE39:53I'd like you to hire my company to help you raise your fund. It was unfathomable for me that I would like, not understand who they are and what they do. Trying to make a pitch like that. Right? Even though I was only, like 27. And so then I did that for a few years, that particular job. And then I went to Salesforce and like, I think Salesforce did a lot of things right.
EDDIE40:12You know, we had your training, some good stuff there, but it was still so much more transactional than what I was used to. And then I've just seen like the whole predictable revenue model just carry forward. And I remembered, like part of the reason I went to Salesforce is I was drinking the Kool-Aid of the whole thing. And I was trying to tell, like my, my colleagues on Wall Street like, hey, like, these are some of the things that we could do.
EDDIE40:34And they were just like, that's insane. Like, there's no way that like, we're going to have like an STR team. They were resistant to content marketing, and you can see that they've come around on that kind of stuff. But I kind of jumped into the industry and I saw like the opposite end of the spectrum, and it just continued forward.
EDDIE40:50And it just feels like everybody wants this easy button. And to me, like I've hired two sales reps recently that unfortunately didn't work out. And with both of them, I was like, I want you to tailor each of your messages. We have outreach. You can use it, but I want every single message tailored. And they were booking meetings and then they got busy and they're like, let me just use the template.
EDDIE41:11And all of a sudden the meetings dried up and I'm like, and and then both of those folks left and went elsewhere. And these are folks from the tech industry. And it just it seemed to me like like one of them was like, yeah, I'm just going to go back to my old company because they just feed me leads.
EDDIE41:25I don't have to do this. And I'm now at the point where I'm like, I'm going to hire somebody that's not from the tech industry, that's not been brought up this way, that is willing to, like, roll up their sleeves and do the hard work and do the research and manually write the email. And by all means, to the extent we can use AI to do that, let's do that 100%.
EDDIE41:45But we can't skip the important steps to make the person on the other end feel like we care about them.
JOHN41:50No, I mean, I should I partner up with a group called Service to Software, and it's taken military veterans and they take my training and they're transitioning military veterans into tech sales. I'd rather have one of them all day long. Talk about work ethic. Talk about, you know, following a process and, you know, doing what they need to do, like all day long.
JOHN42:09But yeah, we have you know, it's the problem is and we can make the analogy here to the trophy generation. Right. Like everybody's looking for the easy button, the trophy generation. And everybody's always every kid wants a trophy. Well yeah. And who gave them the trophies.
EDDIE42:26Well and that's the thing. Like I don't blame this guy. And like I kind of feel bad saying this on a podcast to like knock somebody that worked for me because he worked hard. He's a really good guy. And why would I blame him for going back to a job where he just gets fed leads? And for me, it's a little bit difficult to compete against like a VC backed company.
EDDIE42:42That's like, hey, look, we're going to spend $5 to generate $1 of revenue. And I'm like, yeah, that model doesn't work for me. So if I'm trying to compete against you for the next sales rep, I'm just going to lose that battle. By all means, give that guy $5 to generate $1 revenue. I'll pass.
JOHN42:58Yep. 100%. Well, and again, I think this is what the VC world did to to I mean, I blame a lot the SaaS companies and the tech companies. Sure, I blame the VCs because this grow at all cost. Go profitability. Who cares. We top line revenue growth go I think created a lot of bad habits and a lot of terrible companies and a lot of the trickle down effect of, well, that's the way it was supposed to be.
JOHN43:23That's why you see people, you know, popping from roll to roll, roll to roll to roll, as opposed to like staying for a little while, then moving up to an AI because they just they hit the wall as an STR and they go look for the easier version and the easier version and the easier version and you know, or try to skip through these as quickly as possible to get to the AI, because that's where the money is made, right?
JOHN43:45Nobody has any patience anymore. And it's and I get it because things are moving faster than I've ever seen them before. So why? You know, we also have to understand, this is one thing that that I that struck me a while back and it was the I think it was the millennials, and it was probably about 10 or 15 years ago where I said, look, I did a post of like, you know, stop doing what you're supposed to do.
JOHN44:06And the whole idea was like, you know, you're supposed to do this and you're supposed to do that, like, like with me, right? I was married, I was engaged for seven years when I was a kid, or I was I was with a girl for seven years. Right. So what was I supposed to. I'm supposed to get married.
JOHN44:19I'm supposed to buy a house. I'm supposed to have a kid. I'm supposed to do these things right? I knew that our relationship wasn't great. But what do you do after seven years? You're supposed to do that, right? Well, you're supposed to get a job. You're supposed to get promoted. You're supposed to move into this world. And I'm like, stop doing that.
JOHN44:32Like, stop doing what you're supposed to do. And and because those two things got broken for me, like, I got fired from it and she, you know, and she dumped me. And that was the best things that could ever happen to me. But what was interesting was the rep said, well, John, that's all well and good for you because because you had a structure to, to deviate from.
JOHN44:50And there's comfort and structure. Right. Like when I was growing up. Yeah. Like you went to college and then after you went to college, you got a job and then you stood at that job for a while, and then you got promoted so you could deviate if you wanted to. But it was a it was comfort knowing that there was a structure here.
JOHN45:05There's no structure anymore. Anything is all over the place. And so the kid was basically like, like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do at this point. So I think that's the problem is there's this angst going on right now of you said it when we started, like, you feel like you're behind all the time, like AI is moving so fast, no matter how much you quote unquote stay up to date on it, you still tomorrow will feel behind.
JOHN45:27And so there's this immediacy to I need to get this, I need to do that. And I don't think anything but age and experience gives you perspective on slowing the fuck down and how you know, you're going to have a 50 year career in front of you. So, you know, spend the 16 months as an STR because that's, you know, when you make a move to an AI, you have a 90 plus percent success rate versus leaving after, you know, getting promoted after six months as an STR and you have a 90% failure rate, you know what I mean?
JOHN45:56Like there's like, I got to get to this thing and and I need this quick hit, you know, endorphin rush on my TikTok because I got to get that video. So everything's transactional right now. And I don't think it's necessarily anybody's fault, other than the evolution of where we've gotten from from a tech, from a social and everything else.
JOHN46:11So it's rare to find those people that have that perspective, and those are the ones that I want to hire, and those are the ones. That's why hiring of grit and work ethic and those type of things is brutal. But it's what you got to look for.
EDDIE46:23Yeah. And I do think like that's something where you just have to experience it. And I don't want to like knock the younger generation because there are people that have experienced things that you and I will never go through by the time they're 16, you know, oh my God. And, you know, and like, I think like, you know, economics make a big difference.
EDDIE46:37Like, I hate when people paint like an entire generation with a broad brush and it's like, oh, these kids have been given everything. And I'm like, okay, how about the first generation immigrant? Like, had to work for everything in their life and they're only like 20 years old, but like, they fought and clawed their way to like first kid to go to college and their family, etc., etc. it's like, let's not take credit away from that person, no worries.
EDDIE46:55But I will say, like your story gives me this visual. I remember vividly like exactly where I was. I was running on this treadmill literally in like 2010, and I was so angry because I was the first AI in this startup. I had left finance because this was the financial crisis wasn't working out for me. I went to work at this like tech startup.
EDDIE47:14I ended up going back to finance because I had zero interest in like being like a tech sales rep at that time. And I just felt like I was the biggest failure in life because, like, like my career path wasn't working out. I was working on plan B, I was in this tech company not selling anything. I was the only like, no idea what I was doing, making cold calls, trying to like, make stuff happen and just failing miserably.
EDDIE47:37And even though I was like earning a good base salary and like more money than all of my friends, I just was like running on this treadmill, like literally going through the motions in my head, asking myself why I was such a miserable failure. I ended up leaving that job, going to New York, getting a couple pretty good jobs on Wall Street.
EDDIE47:52But that planted the seed in me where I'm drinking the Kool-Aid, ended up going work for Salesforce and then doing this thing for the last ten years. And it's like that job literally like built the life that I have today. And I couldn't even recognize it at the time because I was so pissed that I wasn't crushing quota and like, putting another bullet point on my resume during one of the most difficult, like years in like the economy in the last 100 years.
EDDIE48:14But I just didn't have that perspective at that time.
JOHN48:17I don't think you can I you know, that's why people ask, like, if you could go back, you know, what would be some advice? One, one piece of advice would just be pay attention. You know what I mean? Like pay attention to how the company is making decisions, how your boss rolled out that new comp plan, how you and just realize, like all these little building blocks are eventually going to put you in a position, right?
JOHN48:40That's why, like in your 20s, you should fail a lot because your responsibilities are limited. You know what I mean? 30s, probably pick a lane, 40s if you haven't really kind of pick your lane by then you're kind of fucked. But but you can still reinvent yourself then. And so I do think that as much as I and I think you're probably the same, you know, one of the big reasons I do what I do is because I've made so many mistakes, so many mistakes along the way, and I've failed hundreds, if not thousands of times in my hope, in what I train.
JOHN49:15And what I do is, is to share some of those experiences. So the person behind me doesn't have to make as many not make done, but don't have to make as many as I did so that they can get there maybe a little bit faster. Right. And so because, because age is the biggest teacher that any of us will have, experience is the biggest teacher any of us will have.
JOHN49:36And you can think about how fucking young, dumb and idiot you were when you were a teenager in your 20s. I mean, we were. I was invincible at that age. I thought I knew, like, I mean, ego, I don't know, I wasn't like that wicked cocky kid, but man, I was I was up there and and and if some old man came to tell me, like, dude, slow down, you know, you gotta I'd be like, dude, fuck you.
JOHN50:00I'm on a rocket ship right now. I can, I'm going to conquer the world, right? And until you get your teeth kicked in a couple of times until you realize, like, oh, you know, there's a couple. I mean, I'm sure there's a couple of people on. I don't want to call it any names with some, like, influencers who are rage baiting, you know, the cohort kill, you know, all this crap, and.
JOHN50:18They're like, yeah. And I'm like,
JOHN50:20You're my. And anytime they come after me, like, be like, you lose your old. I'm like, you're adorable. I'm like, you're adorable. The the fact that you're, you know, do this for another six, maybe 12 months is cute. It's, you know, come to me in 20 years and still do this. Like, do you know how many people I was at?
JOHN50:41I was having this because I was. I'll tell you right now, two nights ago. I've been in not a great place for the past couple of weeks because I'm like, Q1 was great for me. Q2 disappeared, Q3 disappeared. I was like, Holy shit, what's going on? Right? And Mid-Market Texas is what I built my entire, which is the epicenter of the fuck off when it comes to AI and the disruption.
JOHN51:01Right? So I'm like, oh my God. I'm like doing everything and it's not working, but, you know, grinding and everything. And I went and met with my mentor, who was the best sales person I've ever met in my entire life. He's the best trainer I've met in my entire life. And he sells to the enterprise one figure, and he's going to kill it, right?
JOHN51:15He's he's doing fine because enterprise is better than mid-market. And I sat down and he's and he's the same thing, same pipelines empty. Nobody's calling him like that type of thing. And and he was like, but John, he goes, when was the last time you had a boss? And I was like 2011. He goes, so for 15 years you've worked for yourself.
JOHN51:41He's like, you got a house, right? He's like, you got a house in Costa Rica, don't you? You're putting your daughter through school, you got a good wife, you got a car. It's like, do you know how many people do that can can stay on their own for 15 years? He's like, we've had a real good run, man.
JOHN51:58He's like, did you think it was going to last forever? You know, even even at this age? I'm like, I kind of was hoping it was going to last a little, you know what I mean? But but he's looking at it. He's like, oh, man. He's like, you just got to be going back to what we said, gratitude earlier, you know what I mean?
JOHN52:10Like, so I think there's a there's an appreciation for for longevity. And anybody who thinks, you know, that that flash in the pants, like, just. Okay, cool. Talk to me in ten years, talk to me in 20 years. And most people don't make that. And then most people have to go back to doing what they were doing or, you know, eat some humble pie before they realize that, you know, their shit stinks too.
EDDIE52:33Well, you remind me of just dumb things we say and do in our 20s. And I'll go back to the same job that I was talking to you about earlier. And I remember talking to my colleague Ben, who at the time was just like part of our customer success team, and we were selling basically a version of Salesforce to private equity.
EDDIE52:48So after a year, I leave, I go to New York and I'm like, going to get a job in private equity. And I remember I was standing on a train platform talking to him on the phone and just the dumbest, like 2020 something comment ever. And I'm like, yeah, Ben, I'm going to go try to like, work in private equity and make some real money.
EDDIE53:02Even as I said it, I was like, what a dick thing to say, right? Well, anyway, fast forward this like shitty little like software company that I worked at. It never made it big, but they sold the company and Ben became the CFO prior to selling the company. And last time I reached out to Ben, he's only a couple years older, man.
EDDIE53:18I'm like, hey, Ben. Like, you know, it's been a while. I want to catch up. What are you up to? And he's like, I'm retired. And I'm like, oh yeah, see who made the real money? Like, now I don't think he's driving a Ferrari, but like, Ben doesn't have to work anymore. And I think he's in his 40s.
EDDIE53:32It's like like, you know you know hindsight is 2020.
JOHN53:36You know how many tech bros that I know who look down on blue collar? All my friends are blue collar. Like, I'm actually one of the only like, of my core group. Grew up in, you know, Bedford High School in Massachusetts. Here, most of my friends are contractors and construction guys and whatever it is. And you know how like the easiest from from like the white collar to that.
JOHN53:58Do you know how many of those kids are actually millionaires? Like the ones who are the landscaper who stayed with it and did the unsexy thing, the guy who, you know, went into, you know, laundromats or whatever it was. And like, these people live in credible lives. They make tons of money and you would never even know it.
JOHN54:18And I go back to Gary Vaynerchuk, man. Like, you know, I don't follow him nearly as much as I used to. But, you know, he said this. He goes, look, happiness is the goal, period. And happiness is relative. And everybody's got their own definition of it. But I know a bunch of millionaires who are miserable pricks. I know people who make 50 grand a year and are happy as pigs in shit.
JOHN54:42They go to their 9 to 5, they come home, they coach their kids soccer game, they have their weekend, you know, beers with their friends, and they live a very simple, happy life. And to me, those people win. The millionaire billionaire I like. I just look at all these like trillionaire and like, how much money do you need, man?
JOHN55:04You know what I mean? Like, and don't get me wrong, it's everybody's got their own definition. But I think if you're chasing something that is somebody else's definition of happiness, you're chasing the wrong thing. That's why whenever I talk to somebody who's trying to make some life decisions, I ask them very directly. I'm like, have you gone through the core values exercise yet?
JOHN55:25And like, what do you mean? I'm like, have you gone through? I'm like, they're like, oh, I know my values. I go, no, no, no. Have you gone through the core values exercise yet where you literally sit down and you talk through and there's a process that you can go through. And I actually created a little AI prompt pack to guide people through it.
JOHN55:39And it's one of those things where once you do that and you kind of recenter on what your core values are, you start to look at things a lot differently. You start to realize what's actually important to you, and then you start to make a lot better decisions about your career, in your life and everything else.
EDDIE55:52Couldn't agree more. We're almost at time. This has been a fun conversation, way off track, but fun. I'm curious to see how the metrics are going to come out for this. Like people really stuck with it, or if they were just looking for brass tactics. But this is awesome. John, where can people find out more if they want to know your philosophies on life and finding meaning, or if they just want some brass tactics for like improving their outbound engine or sales in general, where can they find you?
JOHN56:18I appreciate the websites. You know that's what you get. Everything right. So Jay Barrows com you know that's where my YouTube channel is. And you can go in the resources and Instagram and all the other fun stuff LinkedIn obviously you know and I put a ton of super tactical stuff out there for for sales across the board. But also I have the podcast make it up in Monday's, where I've evolved from those tactics to conversations about mental health and all those type of things.
JOHN56:43Because, you know, I'm I'm on a journey just like everybody else. And just like I tell people, I'm not really a sales trainer, you know, I'm a sales rep who happens to train. I'm a business professional that's out there scraping and just like everybody else is. And what I'm trying to do is stay a little bit ahead, you know, maybe 1 or 2 steps ahead so that I can maybe guide whoever is paying attention.
JOHN57:03And that's why these type of things are great, man, because you do. You never know who's listening. So like metrics to me on like listening viewership, they don't matter nearly as much as the, you know, the email, the DM that I get from somebody that says, hey man, you train me ten years ago, 15 years ago, I know you don't remember me, but you know that one class changed my perspective.
JOHN57:23Or man, I listened to you on your podcast the other day, and the way you were talking about this really changed my perspective. And now I'm doing this. That to me is worth a million downloads.
EDDIE57:31Well, hey man, I went through your training at Salesforce and I used it to build my company, so thanks, John.
JOHN57:36There you go. Right. I'll tell you, man, like that, that when you look at like the likes and the comments on LinkedIn and the easiest way to beat the algorithm is be you, be genuine, try to help. Because you might not get a million comments, but man, when you get that from that kid who said, Holy shit man, thank you so much for saying what was on my mind or whatever.
JOHN57:59It's like I said, it's worth a million fucking likes or commas that you could get on any post, so I appreciate that.
EDDIE58:06Well, thanks for coming on to the show, John.
JOHN58:07Thanks for having me.
EDDIE58:09Thanks for listening to the episode. If this resonated. Please give us a five star rating and a follow. It helps us reach more people, and you get our latest and greatest content without having to search for it. And if you're looking for hands on help and go to market strategy and or rev ops, please reach out to us.
EDDIE58:23We help our clients with everything from annual planning to improving processes and go to market, implementing systems to support those processes and go to market AI. We're always happy to offer a free consultation to help you identify the best opportunities to improve your go to market engine, with or without our help. You can find us at Union Square consulting.com and the info will be in our show notes.
