AI Didn't Kill Sales Strategy. It Exposed Who Never Had One | John Stopper - 2038

AI is changing sales fast. But is it actually replacing salespeople, or is it exposing the sellers who never developed real strategy skills? That’s the question I explore in this conversation with John Stopper. John and I get into the difference between sales tactics and sales strategy, why AI can sometimes give sellers the wrong picture of a buyer, and why getting closer to the people involved in a deal can make the difference between winning and losing. We also talk about how sales teams can use AI to identify deal risks instead of simply using it to write more emails. Why AI Makes Sales Strategy More Important AI can teach people sales tactics, but strategy requires a deeper understanding of the situation. Tactics focus on how to sell, while strategy focuses on who, what, when, where, and why. AI can help sellers execute many tactical tasks, but sellers still need to decide which approach fits the buyer and the situation. Strong sales strategy starts with understanding customers and what will actually compel them to buy. The goal is to choose the right strategy based on the conditions of the deal. Tactics vs. Strategy: The Baseball Analogy — 03:38Knowing how to throw every pitch does not mean you know which pitch to throw. A baseball pitcher may have four or five pitches available. The right pitch depends on the batter, pitch count, runners on base, and inning. Sales works the same way. The skill is not just knowing the sales playbook but knowing which strategy to use in the moment. Choosing the right strategy can improve your position, accelerate velocity, and compress time. The Principle of Reality: Don't Trust Every AI Answer AI can give both buyers and sellers information that does not accurately reflect the current situation. Buyers can use AI to research a salesperson or company before the first conversation. Sellers can also build their account research around outdated or incomplete information. A polished AI summary can create false confidence if it does not reflect what is actually happening. Sellers should verify their assumptions instead of treating AI research as unquestionable fact. How to Surface Reality With Better Questions The first sales conversation is an opportunity to check whether both sides are working from the right information. Ask the buyer what their AI research has shown them about your company, product, or you. Share what your research has shown you about their company and ask whether you have it right. Use the conversation to identify what is missing from your research. Verify the situation before choosing your sales strategy. Different Buyers Require Different StrategiesThe right message depends on the person you are selling to. End users often care about doing their jobs faster, better, or cheaper. Managers may care more about how a solution affects their team and the risks involved. Executives are more likely to focus on strategic growth and business outcomes. Sellers need to understand the buyer's role before deciding what value to emphasize. The Principle of Proximity: Get Closer to the Buyer “Proximity sells” because sellers need to understand the buyer's world deeply enough to bring useful insight. Proximity is not about becoming the buyer's friend. It means understanding the buyer's business and seeing things from both inside and outside perspectives. Sellers should get close to the people who can influence the deal, not only the person who can approve it. Outside experience can help sellers bring insights the buyer may not have considered. Find the People Who Can Say No A deal can have strong champions and still fail because someone else inside the organization has the power to stop it. Identify the people who may resist the purchase. Ask your champion who in the organization could have concerns about the solution. Reach out to those people directly instead of waiting for their objections to appear later. Address potential resistance before it becomes a deal-ending problem. Use AI to Identify Deal Risk AI can be useful when it helps sellers think through what could go wrong. Ask AI to research the people and roles that may resist a purchase. Identify possible objections and resistance points before they appear. Continue updating the research as the deal progresses because new risks can emerge. Use AI to help build a deal strategy around what could prevent the deal from closing. Bridging Strategy: Build Relationships Across the Account One salesperson should not have to carry every relationship in a complex B2B deal. Sales managers can connect with the buyer's manager. Product leaders can connect with the buyer's technical leaders. CEOs can connect with other executives when the situation calls for it. Each person can carry a message that matches their role and expertise. Multiple relationships can help both companies become more familiar with each other. Why Executives Still Have a Role in Selling Executive involvement can be part of the sales process, especially when selling complex solutions. Executives have revenue responsibilities too. A salesperson can prepare an executive with the person's profile, the situation, the message to communicate, and the information to bring back. AI can take more operational work off the team's plate. That creates more room for leaders to spend time with customers and support revenue-generating conversations. Salespeople Need to Become Strategists As AI makes more sales information and tactics available, the ability to create useful insight becomes more important. AI has reduced the advantage that once came from simply knowing sales tactics. Sellers need to know how to use information, not just access it. The goal is to tell buyers something they do not already know. Strategy determines what insight to deliver, when to deliver it, and who should deliver it. Human-to-Human Selling Still Matters AI and digital tools should not replace direct conversations with buyers. At minimum, sellers should use video calls when meeting in person is not possible. Direct conversations can help uncover what digital research misses. Meeting a buyer in person can build trust and show a willingness to make an effort. Sales still depends on human relationships, especially when decisions are complex. Key Quote from the Episode“AI has commoditized a lot of that advantage. So now to me, selling and strategy is about how can I tell them something they don't know?” — John Stopper Resources:John Stopper:https://johnstopper.com/johnstopper.com https://johnstopper.com/ John's website also offers a free, no-obligation deal strategy report. Submit a company you are trying to sell to, and he will run it through his COMPASS system and provide a deal strategy report. Email: J Stopper at Northstore.com http://northstore.com LinkedIn: John Stopper Sponsorship Offers This episode is brought to you in part by Hubspot. With HubSpot sales hubs, your data tools and teams join a single platform to close deals and turn prospects into pipelines. Try it for yourself at hubspot.com/sales https://www.hubspot.com/products/sales. This episode is brought to you in part by LinkedIn. Are you tired of prospective clients not responding to your emails? Sign up for a free 60-day trial of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at linkedin.com/tse https://business.linkedin.com/sales-solutions/cx/20/09/sales-navigator-podcast?src=re-pod&trk=tse&veh=tse&mcid=6897323946090332160. This episode is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Foundation. Improve your connection on LinkedIn and land three or five appointments with our LinkedIn prospecting course. Go to the salesevangelist.com/linkedin https://tsesales.typeform.com/to/UCMfjZbX. Credits As one of our podcast listeners, we value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey http://thesalesevangelist.com/survey. https://tsesales.typeform.com/to/lc5yAa8P We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-sales-evangelist/id788738885, <a...

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• 1:53Speaker 00

  There's a difference between tactic and strategy. And in the world of AI, we can't just be tactical anymore. We need to have strategy, real strategy that's going to work and help us to be able to close more deals. In today's episode, my friend John Stopper is going to lay out two principles from an effective strategy system that he has that gives us a full compass view and helps us to be able to get in some accounts faster and close deals better. Check it out.

• 2:29Speaker 00

  Hey, hey, hey, everyone. Welcome to another great episode of the Sales Evangelist Podcast. I'm your host, Donald C. Kelly, the Sales Evangelist. And I'm so excited for another great episode. I'm so excited to be here with you today. And on this episode, as I mentioned, I got the one and only Mr. John Stopper. John was on our podcast earlier in the year and he, he shared some really great insights. And his compass system is very powerful. He uses AI as well as strategy to be able to help us as sales reps and sales leaders to be able to get in some large accounts and to help accelerate deals and to make our deals stick and actually close. Today, he breaks down two principles, the reality principle and proximity principle,

• 3:12Speaker 00

  and how these tie to help us to be more effective in our sales outreach, and especially how we can be more efficient and effective using AI in the right way. If this is your first time listening to our podcasts, please subscribe. We'll notify you every time we drop a new piece of content. And one of the great things about John is that he's a wealth of knowledge. So whatever information you don't get from this episode, you better go ahead and connect with him afterwards. And you can check out his previous episode on our podcast. Each of our episodes fall under one of two buckets. One, it's either going to help you to build pipeline, or two, it's going to help you to accelerate deals through the pipeline faster. Today's episode, slide right into that second one. And if you are loving all of this, again, share this episode with somebody else. As we dive in, you're going to hear why John is so passionate,

• 3:55Speaker 00

  and you're going to get an understanding about how AI could be distorting what reality really is. Check it out.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Welcome to the show, John.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Hello, Donald. How are you today?

• 4:10Speaker 00

  Can't complain. Another day in paradise. And I'm even more excited for this episode today. I'm pumped because we talk a lot about AI, but I think we scratch the surface every time we talk about AI. It's like, you know, here you can write emails or you can go outreach, blah, blah, blah. But we want to get something that gives them more girth, a little bit more to it. So I'm excited for the conversation, excited to chat about that. I bragged about you a little bit in the teaser, John, and we are bringing you back because you were on our podcast a while back and the topics are just great. You're strategists and you've done sales for a long time and have worked with some amazing organizations. But why don't you take a 10 second, give us your pitch or your 30 second commercial,

• 4:55Speaker 00

  why you are so passionate right now for where we are when it comes to AI and, and sales strategy?

• 5:01Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, AI is a tremendous opportunity. It does things that we could never do before. And what it's revealing though, is the importance of sales strategy. So, which is different than tactics. So for the past 40, 50 years, most sales methodologies focused on tactics or how you sell. And now AI has neutralized that. AI could train anybody how to sell, but what it can't do and isn't as strong at is on strategy, who, what, when, where, and why, and really getting close to your customers and understanding the things that will compel a buyer to do business with you that AI can't surface.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  All right. Shoot, you got me at hello on that one.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  Because you know, you're totally right. There's a lot with tactic and you know, it's easy stuff. People want to get a quick tactic on how am I going to get into this account? Or how can I close this deal? Or what should I say to, you know, get in my cold outreach? Tactics, strategy comes a little bit deeper. And I think that's where you bring up a good point because I feel that's, it separates. AI can do tactic, or you could even spin up someone to do the tactical stuff, like an agent to do the cold outreach, send those emails, write it with the personalization, blah, blah, blah. But the strategy, this is where we need the sellers, the humans, the consultants, so to speak, to be able to execute. And we want that portion, but AI can help us in that. So I'm looking forward to going through this.

• 6:34Speaker 00

  You have a methodology, so to speak, that you put together. Is that the right word to say it, John?

• 6:39Speaker 01

  It's an operating system. It's called the compass. It's a sales strategy operating system. And it might be helpful if I define what strategy is because people throw these terms around all the time.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  Let's go back.

• 6:52Speaker 01

  My definition is, sales strategy is the discipline of creating the power to negotiate a successful transaction in competitive, rapidly shifting and AI-powered markets. And let me give you an analogy. A major league baseball pitcher has command of four to five pitches. And which one they throw depends on the batter, the pitch count, who's on base, what inning it is, all that type of stuff. And based on that, they could throw a curve ball, a slider, a changeup, a fastball. How you throw the pitch varies by the, everybody, by the body size, right? So different pitchers throw a fastball different.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  And what we've been doing for last generation or two of salespeople is teaching them how to throw fastball.

• 7:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  And training has been how to throw it faster. And what I focus on is strategy, which is what pitch do you throw? And what is the logic behind selecting which strategy that you're going to implement? And the compass system has a fixed number of eight strategies. And that you, based on conditions, you select a different strategy, which improves position, accelerates velocity, and compresses time. That's what we're trying to do.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  All right. So I love that. And I think the analogy helps paint the picture very well. My kid is in baseball right now, so it's, that's my life, John.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. Baseball's good.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  It is.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  Especially in Florida. You can play all year.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  Seriously, and that's the problem too.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:27Speaker 00

  They don't stop. But you know, the fact though, I didn't see baseball as that, being that strategic before, because I was just like, it's such a boring game to watch. I'm a soccer player, ran track, you know, you're quick, you're doing your sprints.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  But then as I got into baseball and we were watching games, we're at a Mets game and watching Mets and Marlins. And this guy was next to me and he was explaining some stuff. It's a huge Mets fan and he was playing a strategy. And I was like, oh my goodness, I didn't think about that. And he started looking at the game differently. You're like, this isn't, it's not boring. You got to understand the, what's going on and the moves and so forth. It was fascinating. So.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  It's the exciting part.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  Yes, it is. And when you see it work, you're like, holy moly, this is amazing. This is dope. So.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:13Speaker 00

  Let's jump into the sales components with this, though. I think, again, I'm going to have you guys connect with John afterwards because there's so many great insights that you can take from him, especially if you're a sales leader. But the one thing you talked to me about was two principles. It was, one of them was proximity strategy principle. Can you just take a second and let's chat offline about this? Well, let's talk about these two principles and how we can see them in sales right now and how we can use them. That's by the end of the conversation, I want to just know how we can use these two principles.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a number of principles of sales strategy, too, that might be helpful here are reality and the principle of reality and the principle of proximity. And the principle of reality is, are all parties that are engaged in a sales transaction seeing things as they really are. And one of the dangers of AI is that it could distort reality. And not because it claiming it's inherently bad, but a buyer today is using AI as much as a seller, right? So when they, you engage with them and they want to see the sales evangelist, they have their AI go out and research Donald C. Kelly and the sales evangelist.

• 10:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  And say your website wasn't up to date or you hadn't, you put out, somebody did an analysis of you two years ago and it wasn't a recent one. The presentation, the information they're getting back paints a distorted picture of you. It's not really who you are and the value you bring and that type of stuff. So the buyer, before he's even engaged with you, has painted his vision of who you are. And also even worse could be your competition. They gather some inappropriate data and when they're communicating the same buyer, they're painting an image of you that doesn't reflect reality. And then when we do research on the buyer, we might not be seeing things as they really are.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  So what that means is if you're relying on AI, if you're relying on online search and just Zoom calls, you might be missing what's really going on. And I think what AI is bringing forward is the need to engage human to human. We need to be, meet person to person more, at least with a Zoom call. But don't rely on email alone, AI alone and other digital sources. You have to engage. And the way you surface reality is you just ask, you say, hey, my research on your company, here's the picture it painted. Am I seeing this correctly? What am I missing here? And that leads into a good discovery call.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  And then the follow up to that, you ask, tell me what your AI research has shown you and told you about my company, my, my product and me. Because I'm sure they said, oh, I got this call from John Stopper. Who is it? And he goes out to LinkedIn and, you know, say you haven't updated your profile and wow, it doesn't even show he works at this company. So I call it grabbing the paintbrush.

• 12:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Right? Everybody's trying to paint reality or maybe it's not reality. You want to grab that brush and control reality.

• 12:32Speaker 00

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• 13:35Speaker 00

  So there's two parts to this, I would say then, John. So one, you're, it would be advantageous for us to keep up to date stuff so it can help. So that's part of it. But more so the bigger part is we can't rely because of that inconsistency of the human. We can't rely on information that's out there. You have to verify, I kind of put down trust, but verify.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:59Speaker 00

  With anything and never assume is what I'm getting to some degree of that, right?

• 14:05Speaker 01

  That's correct. You know what they say about assuming and you want to make sure that everybody's seeing things based on reality.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, based on their reality. And so, John, how do I, I'm a sell, let's say I'm a sales leader and I want my sellers to be able to do this. Or let's paint the problem even more so. I did a research on, you know, ABC manufacturing company. AI gave me some intel and I take this as doctrine, as truth. I behave according to that and I'm following bad assumptions. Maybe I get in touch with someone and what I find is valuable may not be what really is an issue for them at this point. That deal could stall, that deal could slip, deal may not even take off. I may not even get to the right person.

• 14:57Speaker 00

  Is that what you would see typically would happen with that wrong information based on the reality that I have as a seller?

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, well, let's go back to the baseball analogy to simplify this. So say that you don't have insight into what inning it is. Say you're not paying attention to who the batter is and you decide to throw a curveball and that guy excels at hitting curveballs.

• 15:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Right? So you select the wrong strategy because you don't have the right information that reflects reality. So, you know, if I'm engaging with a buyer, I find that I'm not in a favorable position. I don't have overwhelming superiority. I'm not going to take a direct strategy. I'm going to take an indirect strategy. Right? Or maybe a divisional, there's a whole series of them. Maybe I'm selling to the wrong person.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  And we've also talked about the different types of value and you need to get to different people in the organization so that you can position the optimal level of value that your product or service brings. So it's important that you establish, you see things correctly so you could select the right strategy.

• 16:11Speaker 00

  This is phenomenal. Do you find that, how do we bring that up though? Like say it's a first call, I got into the prospect, I did do my research and I'm doing a first call with them. I want to ensure that I am going to send, use the right, you know, pitch, so to speak, baseball analogy to this person. And, you know, we may not even, it sounds like what I'm saying, it's may not even the time to do any of that yet. You're still gathering information initially. But how do I get that information? This is more of tactical thing though, but what would a sales leader help their seller understand to get that right information on that first initial contact?

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it would depend on who the contact is, what the profile is. So say it's someone that would be an end user of your product. And end users are usually concerned and interested in things that are going to make them more efficient. Right? So tell me how your product or service will help me do my job faster, better, cheaper. Right? So they don't care about other things. They care about, I want to do my job faster and cheaper and not work weekends. So tell me how you're going to help me. But if you're selling to a manager or an executive, that's your first call, they don't care about efficiency.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  They, not that much, right? So what, my people work weekends, I work weekends. What they care about is risk mitigation or how you're going to help me achieve my strategic growth initiatives. So based on the profile of that first call, you're going to do a different type of discovery. And that's what strategy is, right? It's understanding who you're going to speak to and what they would be interested in. So if I walk into an executive and I pull out my sheet and say, let me tell you how great our product is and here's all the, you know, bells and whistles it has and all the cool buttons and it does all this neat stuff, well, they don't care. Because it doesn't tie to what they're interested in.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Does that make sense?

• 18:21Speaker 00

  It does. Love this. Can you define proximity now? We talked about reality, proximity, and then how those two relate, and especially when it comes to AI.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have a saying proximity sells. And what proximity means is you want to get as close to that buyer as you can, not familiar. You're not looking to be their friend. You're a business person. And your job is really around doing a deep level understanding so that you understand their business as well as they do, maybe even better, and that you could position insights that they might not see, right? So they see things from inside their world, but you see things, you're bringing a view from outside. And you've worked with dozens of other companies, maybe like theirs, and seen how other companies have solved similar problems.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  So you could bring that insight, but you need to be close. And what that means is not just to the people who could say yes, but you also want to find those people that could say no. We call them snipers, right? And it's just like a sniper in war, right? They hide in the grass and buildings and take pot shots at you, and you don't know where it's coming from. So you need to find those people that could say no and neutralize them. You could do that by laying landmines. So let me give you an example. You have some champions, they want your product, but say it's a software product. IT is currently overworked, they have no bandwidth.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  And if this company buys your product, they now have another thing on their table that they got to implement. Or maybe security doesn't like your level of security on your product, right? And they're concerned about that. So that delays it. So you got to find those people. And you could do it simply by asking, you could ask your champion, hey, who in your organization would be resistant to us buying this product? And reach out to them directly and say typically, hi, I'm John Stopper. I'm working with people in your company. Typically, people in your role get concerned about offerings like ours. And, you know, I'd like the opportunity to address that with you. I'd like to really understand any objections you may have and see if I could help address them.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Even if they don't reply, the fact that you reached out, you touched them, they saw you, might make that resistance a little bit less.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. And you see, the cool thing I love about that, too, it feels like an adult, like an adult conversation. And not like this, like, well, I don't want to say something and him to get mad at me, or I don't want him to sabotage a deal. Dude, if you don't do anything, the deal is already gonna die. You might as well say something and bring it up. And the other piece I love about this as well, you didn't ask if there was a problem. You assume there, there we go assuming again, but you came to the realistic chances of there being a challenge because of what you've seen in others, based on the companies that we've worked with. You know, people in your role, technology, security folks have concern with our solution. And it may not be true or whatever, but they have concerns.

• 21:35Speaker 00

  And now that makes it so much more easier for this person to have the dialogue to say, well, yeah, this is what I have. It's not like, well, you know, one to tell you, we're working with your team. If you have any questions, reach out to us. It was direct and I, I feel that level, he got to have a level of comfortability and confidence. Maybe it's confidence, I would probably say is the better thing that would help a seller or a sales organization to be able to have that type of dialogue.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And here's the other thing that people could do. And here's the power of AI. You know, you could use whatever LLM you're using, perplexity or Claude Chat GPT, research this company and highlight the personas that may have, may resist purchasing this product.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  And research and see if you could even give me the specifics of who they are and what their positions are. And it'll come back. That's what my compass system does is that's, it takes all that stuff in it constantly. You don't do it once because conditions change. And as you go through your sales process, you're meeting different snipers or resistant points. So you're constantly running, here's my new position based on the terrain of where I'm at. Say I'm six months down the road, where's my new snipers? My head's on a swivel when I'm selling. I'm like, I know there's a sniper somewhere.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Somebody wants to take you out.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. So your AI is like your, your bodyguard, right? They're constantly scanning the terrain and highlighting deal risk. And that's what I really built as a risk mitigation system or a risk management system. Tell me all the reasons my deal won't close.

• 23:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  Program that into your AI and that will give you your deal plan. It's not, tell me all the reasons it will close.

• 23:36Speaker 00

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• 24:21Speaker 00

  The most dynamic buyer network working just for you. Accelerate your sales with LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Try LinkedIn Sales Navigator now with a free 60-day trial at LinkedIn.com/sell. That's LinkedIn.com/sell. Terms and conditions apply. Since 2013, we launched this podcast. The goal of the podcast was to share wealth of information, and I feel that we've successfully done so. As a natural byproduct, listeners like you would reach out and ask, could I coach them? Could I train their team? Could I come and speak in an S K O? Could I consult for them? And that is how we gain the majority of our business and still to this day.

• 25:03Speaker 00

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• 25:39Speaker 00

  Do you find that based on your definition of proximity, how does that ties with proximity? Because now I know the issue or I'm getting closer to the issue with the people that could be presenting the issue?

• 25:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So there's a component of strategy, I call it bridging strategy. So if I'm selling, it's B to B sales. What I do is try to build bridges or relationships between people in my company and the buyer who are best able to carry a specific message. So I'll use my manager, if I'm a salesperson, to bridge to my champion's manager. I'll use my head of product management to bridge and I facilitate an introduction. So my head of product management can have dialogue with their CTO. My CEO reaching out to their CEO.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  So what you do is you don't, not just you contacting all these people, you're using people in your company. And what that does is each one, you show them what message you want them to carry to their peer. So a CEO can bring a message about long-term strategy. Product manager can bring messages around risk mitigation. You know, so the, the type of value gets tied to that bridge. And there the companies start becoming familiar with one another. So when you're, when they're in a room having, the buyer is having a meeting and they're all talking about you. They're like, oh yeah, I talked to the CEO. Oh yeah, I talked to their head of product. Oh, I talked to the manager.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  And they go like, wow, we feel pretty comfortable with these people. So think about if you're selling and you're, you're the only one having contact. How is your company perceived when your competition is building all those relationships? That's what proximity is, right? Is simply.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  I'm an executive in a company. I'm busier than a one-armed paper hanger. I got so much to do and I've hired these salespeople and these salespeople need to do their job. They need to figure that out and to do that. I don't have to kind of go on a call. What's wrong with that mentality? And I bring that up because I've had, I've had sellers selling complex solutions with executives who have that mentality. Talking about.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Well, everybody has a number, even CEOs. And, you know, if you're in sales, your job is to bring in revenue. And if all you have to do is send an email or jump on a call that a salesperson set up or just do an outreach, what the salesperson should do is say, hey, I'd like you to reach out to the manager at this company. Here's what's going on. Here's the profile of the person you're reaching out to. Here's the message I want you to communicate and here's the information I'd like you to discover and bring back. That's it. That's a person's, you know, I've been a CEO of a company. My number one job was selling. You know, I got to go to my board and if I'm not making my number, it's not a pretty board meeting.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  You know, what are they doing? Making sure the CRM is up to date? I mean,

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's like, if that's the case, then I can use AI for that.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, that's exactly what's happening is AI can take over more and more of that operational stuff and free you up for customer engagement.

• 29:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. We need right now more than ever, from what I'm getting from you, John, we need strategists. We need to be strategists in the era of the AI revolution and AI can help us, but we can't leave selling to AI alone.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, it's interesting. It used to be what companies love to do is hire athletes to go into sales and it's because an athlete knew how to read a playbook and they knew how to get up off the ground after they got knocked down. Right? And generally they were smart, but now what you need more is like chess players. Right? It's AI has commoditized a lot of that advantage. So now to me, selling and strategy is about how can I tell them something they don't know? When information is commoditized across buyers and sellers, it's about insight and knowing

• 30:03Speaker 01

  when to deliver those insights, what they are, who to position it with. That's strategy.

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Love it. John, any other final thoughts about reality and proximity before we wrap up today?

• 30:16Speaker 01

  I think those are the key things. It's easy to qualify. Make sure you follow those two steps. When you engage with the buyer, qualify that, hey, tell me how, what your AI research showed about our company. I just want to make sure that you have the right perception. And here's what mine showed me about you. Am I seeing you correctly? And then if you can, there's so much value to getting person to person.

• 30:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Right? Just don't rely on email and AI at a minimum zoom, but if you can engage that person directly. I've met with people on Saturdays in a coffee shop near their house.

• 30:55Speaker 00

  Serious?

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're not busy. They live, you know, somewhere where I could drive and I'm like, hey, I know you're busy all week. Can I buy you a cup of coffee on a Saturday morning? Bring your dog, you know, and you sit out at Starbucks and you have, you're done in an hour.

• 31:11Speaker 00

  And that's not rapport per se. This is more than rapport you're talking about.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  It's trust. It's like, I mean, you're then you're talking business, but you're relaxed, but it's the person seeing you're making that effort to engage in a professional manner. And if that guy's going to come see me on a Saturday, I trust that they're going to do the right thing for my business.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  Amen. Shoot, I would definitely look at that in that way. John, so many great insights here. The reality and proximity principle, the whole compass model, if folks want to learn a little bit more about you and how this could work for their sales team. So John, what's the best way for folks to get in touch with you?

• 31:54Speaker 01

  They could go to my website, johnstopper.com. And what they could also do is there's a button there, a red button. And if you hit that, if you give me your contact information and a company, I don't need anything more than that. It's free, no obligation. Give me a company name that you're trying to sell to.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:12Speaker 01

  And I'll run that company through my compass system and give you a deal strategy report.

• 32:18Speaker 00

  All right. Look at that. So all of you sales leaders out there, you guys are strategized going upstream and you want to go into those bigger accounts, take advantage of this. John's giving you some stuff here. John, thank you for taking the time to come on the show today. I appreciate you.

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Thank you, Dom.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  Hey, that was Mr. John Stopper. If you haven't done so already, go take advantage of that offer business. This is pretty cool because I know all of you are trying to get into some accounts and your emails aren't working as great and you're, you're sending out tons of messages and it's not landing properly. You need to connect with Mr. John Stopper and see some of the things that he's talking about, how these can definitely help you. If you haven't done so already, please connect with him. Take advantage of that offer on his website. We have a link down in the show notes as well as connect with us, your faithful sales best podcast out there for B2B sales, The Sales Evangelist. Subscribe to the show and share it with one other person that they can get best benefit from it. Listen, I want you to thrive. I want you to succeed. But most importantly, I want you to raise your level of thinking. I want you to go out and do big things. See you on the next one.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  The Sales Evangelist Podcast is created by the Sales Evangelist Sales Training Organization. It is produced by TSC Studios. Our podcast production manager is Nancy Paul. Our audio engineer is Jershun Obayal. Our video engineer is De'San Kunado. Guest management is done by Jill Vito and Kristy Virtus. Our content writer is Carlisa Galberith. Our graphic designer is Yurvish Savalia. And I'm your host and executive producer, Donald C. Kelly.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  Sales Podcast Network.