The Hidden Cost of Sales Nobody Talks About

Sales can be one of the most rewarding careers in the world. It can also be one of the most demanding.

Quota pressure.
Rejection.
Uncertainty.
Constant performance expectations.

Most people see the commissions. Very few see the mental battle behind them.

This episode breaks down the psychology of sales, how top performers manage stress, and the practical tactics that help sellers avoid burnout while maintaining high performance.

We also dive into the realities of cold email, cold calling, handling objections, and the constant tension between marketing and sales teams.

And because AI is becoming part of every seller's daily workflow, we explore how tools like Jason are helping teams eliminate repetitive work and focus on what humans do best: building relationships, understanding buyers, and closing deals.

If you've ever felt the pressure of sales, this episode is for you.

In this episode, you'll learn

• Practical tactics to avoid burnout in sales
• How elite sellers manage stress and pressure
• The psychology behind long-term performance
• Why mental health matters in sales
• The relationship between marketing and sales teams
• Cold email strategies that still work
• Cold calling objections and how to handle them
• How AI tools like Jason are changing daily sales execution

Thanks to the partners supporting Confessions of a Seller.

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They’ve built one of the strongest multichannel outbound platforms in the market — taking teams from research to meeting booked in one system, enabling modern Allbound execution.

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Connect

Alan Ruchtein https://linkedin.com/in/alanruchtein
The Modern Seller: https://alanruchtein.com
Kevin Meyer https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-meyer-2931b9b1/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/confessionsofaseller/
TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@alan.ruchtein
Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2dAEChz6zKS4BsqIm4Mexn?si=812eaf6ef673458a
Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/confessions-of-a-seller-podcast/id1886097916
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Transcript

0:00

Mental health and internal wars between marketing and sales, call email, call calling, objection handling, and unique strategies, and much more, that's exactly what you're going to learn in these episodes of Confessions of a Seller. So without further ado, let's jump in straightforward. Kevin, another episode we have here. Another episode. But before we jump into those hot topics, I think we have to thank our main sponsor, Chase Nai by Reply. As uh you guys support us the whole journey through our podcast, an all-in-one sales solution from prospecting to booking the meetings, um, and kind of an autopilot with a new uh human touch. And everything in between, everything in between. So um it helps us booking meetings on a daily base while we're recording the podcast. So Jason helping us here. So he's next year to us, and uh our our our co-pilot is running autonomously, I would say. But yeah, so check all the information in the description. Jason, reply.io, all the information how to use it, how to become a better seller using AI within your uh twin seller. Yeah. Uh and yeah, so basically thank you, reply, and let's jump straight into it, man. Yeah, let's jump into it, Ellen. Um, one topic I think what we really would love to analyze today is the mental health of salespersons. What is the mental health? Because we're always uh listening to this, that it's it's kind of a taboo topic, right? Yeah, but what is the mental health? What is so important and mainly in sales? What is this thing that we should take care of and not just only selling, but the mental stuff of it? Yeah, I think you know, sales is such a stressful profession that you have you are under target pressure, you have to reach your objectives on a monthly base, quarterly base, annual base. Your manager uh pressuring you as well. Exactly, management pressure, um, so everything around that, you know, but on the same time you have to have your your daily life as well. You know, there are people who with with families, kids, yeah. Um, and I think it's really important that um the mental health is um is taken care of, otherwise you cannot perform. Yeah, um, and it's a really hot topic out there. I think from a um male perspective, okay, uh specifically, many men don't like to talk about this topic because they uh we feel diminished or our ego is exactly right? Exactly. But I think it's really, really important to to talk about it and take care of it, right? Yeah. Um, Ellen, could you give me maybe like a couple of examples how you take care of your mental health when you have like a stressful period, right? You have multiple clients, um, you have to deliver uh results to them. Um, but yeah, you feel the stress coming. Um, in your case, not from the management, because you're uh Yeah, but I've been there as well. Yeah, you've been there. If you could share a little bit from your experience. And also when you put your own pressure, because as a solopreneur right now, as you're saying, Kevin, I think that this is something that we don't use to talk too much, even from a male perspective. But any anyone that is going through sales, the one that is saying to you that they don't have that pressure, they don't feel that stress, they are even they are not human or they are lying. Yeah because at some point, even more with quotas going higher every single day, more pressure, more um due diligence that you have to go through, and every single uh action of objective, it's needed to be done by yesterday. Yeah. We feel that pressure. So there are a couple of things that I would like to share and discuss with you that we always talk behind the scenes. That it's how can I make sure that I am performing, but without having three burnouts in the journey, during the journey. So the first thing for sure, and this is high level, and it will sound like hey, this is something that I already heard, but it's important, is making sure that you have a clear detachment after you uh finish your work zone or work time or whatever it is from your personal life, that work-life balance. At some point, you won't find the perfect balance, but it's important to have it. The second thing that I would say is find someone in the journey, in that company or in the pro um in the potential um yeah, company that maybe you are going to join, that is ahead of the journey. Yeah. And make it your body, your accountability body. Like a mentor. Exactly, like a mentor, like a coach, someone that will help you, that will help you go through those uh obstacles that at some point we don't we have no idea how to deal with. Yeah. And on top of that, having a clear sense of what I should do in order to avoid these uh mental things that will kick us. Yeah. Before jumping into more strategic things, what are your thoughts on having a coach, having a buddy, having someone that will help you throughout the getting getting first of all to your first point, right? Your first point about having like a clear cut between uh work and private life. I think it's tough as well. How do you do that? I mean, how do we do it? I I'm I am guilty. I don't do that whatsoever. Me needed, to be honest. It's I think it's a really difficult one, but there are many people out there who have two work phones, uh two phones, yeah one for work, one for private. Correct. I don't have that. I have everything on my private phone, I get my emails. Um They're always connected, man. Yeah, 5 p.m. uh on a Friday, 6 p.m. on a Friday, you get an email. Um work with other territories, um uh maybe you get in the middle of the night something which you wakes you up and then things like and then you'll read the email and you'll think about it, right? It's crazy. So I think if you are able to separate work with uh phone with private phone, that's something really, really important, and as well make a clear cut, right? You say you finish at 6, 5 or whatever, then don't go after that time again to the laptop. Put that laptop into a bucket or in a drawer and stop using it. Yeah, and I since I since I became actually father, uh I realize it when because my son, for example, said uh once I was sitting at 7 p.m. at the laptop, and he said, Dad. Dad Do you want to play with me? I are you're still working, and I was like, he's uh get four years old, and they were like, Yeah, I just need to finish that. And he and then I was like, okay, he really wants to play. So I just closed the laptop. Priorities, man. Yeah, because you know, uh and and this is the hard part in sales, because in sales, actually, you never you never finish. Yeah. It's not like a project. Exactly. You never finish. Exactly. So every time that you that's why this dilemma of why do we suffer so much when we have to take some time off? Yeah, holidays or vacation. Yeah. Because we know that if we have a quota in a month and we are taking one week off, 20%, 25% of our quota effort is going away. Yeah. It's insane. Most likely you won't hit it unless something happened. Yeah. And you're already stressed and suffering, and this mental health start kicks in. Yeah. So there are a couple of things that I would like to share that we were discussing as well. That it's okay, we understand that for sure, work life balance, it's important. How do we get there? It's not that easy. Yeah. To have someone that can help us throughout the process, it's important. So either find it outside your job, or someone that is ahead in the journey, or someone in the company that can help you as well. But there are some strategies or some frameworks or some actionable tips that you can follow in order not to rely only in motivation or how your brain operates that day, but in activities and in real actions. Yeah. The first thing that I always suggest to every seller out there, it doesn't matter if it is selling SMB, mid-market, or enterprise. You can give your um opinion on enterprise. It's split your whole quota into breakdown or waterfall unique activity or activities specifically made to be measured. Yeah. For example, you need to define what is exactly important and prioritized to be done now, what later, and what in the future. Yeah. Let's put a clear idea into it. So, for example, if you have this X, Y, C quota that you have to achieve, what are the activities behind that quota in order to make that happen in terms of deals or opportunities that you need to create, meetings that you need to book, amount of emails, calls that needs to be done. So you break that down into a clear, measurable outcome, yeah, and you define, okay, for the next 30 days, I will take action into this. For the upcoming meetings that I or opportunities that I would like to close in the next 30 to 60 days, I will need to go through these uh activities. And for the 90 days, I will need to take action into these other activities. And you go through that daily operation and you don't rely on motivation. I think what do you think about this? Or how do you structure your day as well? Definitely. I think this is like a simple and easy framework you can actually directly apply. Break down your activities. Another framework I like to use is the Eisenhower rule. I don't know, have you heard about it? No. So the Eisenhower rule is um really important tasks, um handle them immediately or handle them uh as soon as possible. Then not that important tasks, um push them uh uh a little bit later, or delegate them. Okay, and uh not important tasks, put them into the trash. Okay. So it could be like uh yellow, red, red, red, yellow, green analysis of priority. Yeah, so there's so many not important emails you receive from, for example, internal emails. Internal emails where you think, okay, uh maybe I should put something onto it. But if if it's not that important, don't waste your time on that. Because you know, m many of the small problems they get solved by themselves. Imagine just an example. One of your team uh members uh in your team says, Yeah, uh I would need to, do you have this PDF file for me or do you have a specific document? And then if you ignore it, uh I would not say ignore everything, so if you say uh if you don't handle it at a moment, this person will ask at the same time multiple other people, yeah, and one of those people will definitely help them, right? So you should have put certain priorities in those tasks and then delegate to yourself immediately or um throw it into the traction. So just to clarify, what you're not saying or suggesting anyone to hey, don't be a team player or help other ones, but sometimes you are doing revenue activities, yeah. And sometimes you just need to focus. And if that means answering a Slack or a Teams or an email 30 minutes later or one hour later, no one will die. Exactly. And there's no problem about it, but you are finishing your then you're being measured, but but by what you're being measured. That is your KPIs. 100%. And you need to focus on that. So I love that strategy. Now that you mentioned that, I was thinking about the the Pareto rule, right? This is something that everyone, I guess, out there uh uh at least listened to it. That is the 80-20 rule. That is basically 80% of the real results happens within the 20% of the actual or comes from the 20% of the actual activities or or impact that we have. So what we are saying with this uh rule is hey, and we talk about this in other episodes, sellers are doing more than 60 or 70% of their time non-revenue activities, meaning internal CRM cleaning or whatever the activity that it is that is not helping them to get towards where they want. And that's why then we have mental crisis, uh missing quotas, a lot of burnouts. So focus on what is impacting your KPI, focus on talking to clients, focus on activities that will book meetings, focus on that 80% into prioritize things that will directly impact your your outcome. And there's something specifically for new sellers out there, it's hard to know what they should prioritize because when I when I started, I was like, okay, I need to help everyone and need to do everything. You need to be all over the place. Everything has the same priority level because you don't really know what should be priority. But how do you how what are the the skills that you develop in order to identify this? Like analytic thinking is really uh important uh part here. Um that you understand what might be having the highest priority and whatnot. Okay. What brings you to the best possible outcome of those tasks which you have to deliver first? I think that's really important. And like you said, point number two, having a mentor, having someone who already walked that path can help you with that, right? They said, okay, focus on their your priority deals which we have in this quarter, where you see that chance that these are deals which can could potentially close, right? Strategic moves or whatever the thing. I mean, I love it. And I think that that's one of the most it's not a hard skill, right? It's not something that you see it and you study and you learn it. Yeah. Because it's part of the experience. So everyone that is listening out there, bear with us. This is not just something that just happened overnight. Yeah. But we will, and you will, and we already did as well, you will suffer through, hey, how can I make sure that I handle everything? At some point, you need to start saying no in order to say, hey, this is helping my mental health. Because at some point, your mental health, I know a lot of sellers that really want to be sellers and they love the profession and they are really good at it. But because of not having the right management within the emotional intelligence and how to deal with it, this can make or break your career. And they moved into another area or into another role completely different. Yeah, I saw many STRs who started as an STR. I think that was the right uh move, but then they realized no that it I cannot handle it. It's a really hard job. You know, you you have to reach your target, right? It's hard. If you don't as a seller, if you don't reach your target like a year, uh it's it's okay. It's maybe okay. It depends on the organization. If you do a second year like that, you're out. You're done. Yeah, you're done. This is what we heard from another uh special guest that we had in the podcast. That it's and I love that phrase, that it's you are as a seller, you are as good as your last quarter. Yeah. So what does that mean specifically? Well, how do you how do you analyze that phrase? Yeah, because of course, every you start always at zero again in the in in the next quarter. Yeah. Um, or even at the next fiscal fiscal year. Yeah you you can have the best year ever. You can be going uh being uh 200% quota, filling it. They sent you to Hawaii presidents club, yeah, you party there. Yeah, and then uh bestseller on 1st of January, you go back to zero. Back to zero, you start again. So it's it's that's it's tough. But I think there are a lot of tactic, but outside of of work, Alan, I think there are also quite a lot of things what you can do. For example, I realized when I like for a certain period of time, I stuck stopped doing like sports. Okay, and I automatically love this human touch that you're going to put into it. I think I felt automatically that my str I was not my body couldn't handle that level of stress anymore in comparison when I was doing sports, right? Whatever, if you go running or gym or whatever you like, find something that can be your route to the ground. Um I completely agree with you. Like switching off the uh taking out the taking the black and just don't think about work, right? Sometimes for people could be sports, for others could be art, going to the park with a book, yeah, whatever that can disconnect your brain from the actual 24-7 thinking about how to follow up, how to send an email, how to uh be um people pleaser to my boss and to the everyone in the company. Yeah, I think that is key. What is what is your like um I like uh sports, man. Yeah, I'm a I to be honest, I need to tell my body, but but I yeah, I'm if I don't go to the gym or I don't go to play football or paddle or do something about sports outdoor, yeah. Um even my girlfriend is telling me, it's like I I can feel that bad mood. Yeah, not because I'm in a bad mood, but you can feel that you are not relieving that stress that it's accumulating just because you're doing things. And it's not because it was a stressful day. Sometimes I have a really good day, really productive, and I'm really happy about the outcome. Yeah, but you've been active and you need to release that so then you can refresh and start getting it. Yeah, just like sitting all day. Exactly, man. Exactly. It's something simple. Like exactly. I thought like, okay, um, because I was uh sitting so much, I thought I have to make a change. So I bought like a I bought like a walk you a walking pet. So I follow you. I bought the same one because I saw it at your house. So I think it and it's good, you know, like just you know, standing desk, walking pad, you make your 10,000 steps. At least do you move while while you're working on it? It changed everything. That doesn't mean that you should not go out afterwards, because of course it's super important. But um, yeah, there's some tips and tricks you can easily apply to to there are yeah, absolutely. And there are two things that we were talking that are really powerful. Again, as a seller, we are always being measured by the outcome, by the desired outcome, by the ultimate KPI, right? But we need as a seller in order to avoid getting into that burnout. There are there is one strategy, there are two strategies. One specifically, I want to put them over the table and we can talk about it. The first one is basically the effort versus outcome KPI that I will explain in a second. And the other one is the Friday deal or the Friday end of the week autopsy that I want you to analyze that one. But basically, what we say when there is the effort versus the outcome KPIs is that as a seller, we only control the effort ones, not the outcome ones. We are being measured by the outcome ones that we can call them the lagging indicators, but we are measuring, we can measure and track and control the leading indicators that are the effort ones. So no matter if you close a deal today, or if you didn't close a deal today, or if you book or not a meeting today, but if you go through your efforts and you check them all every single day, you have a winning day. Yeah. You have a a winner 100%. So basically, going into an example, if you ask if you're a seller, I always suggest to have a clear understanding of how many calls do I have to make, how many discovery calls do I have to have, how many emails do I have to send. What are those activities coming back to the uh packets that we were defining in the breakdown that will make myself getting closer, if I know my numbers, my conversion rates, my objectives, that will make us closer to the objective, but we are not analyzing the objective because the objective will kill our brain. Like kind of uh back engineer. Exactly, reverse engineer totally. So if I have to close X and I know what are the things that I have to do to get there, I break that down into a monthly, daily activity, and from there I start executing. So we don't rely on motivation, we don't rely on the end of the month's good luck. We don't rely on feeling good or feeling bad. And it's simple nowadays because you can even just put like, okay, I have a target of 1.1 million. And we have these as well. Exactly. I have a target of 1.1 million, and then say, okay, I need this amount of uh of deals or um I have this close rate and then this average sales cycle. And then you uh put like a certain outreach uh into Jason Jason AI, exactly um of number of emails you you need to send out, and then of course you can already say this outcome will come uh back um if you know already your uh past data. Exactly. And then automatically you can can uh have the numbers there. But 100%. But what do you think about the the deal autopsy or the Friday autopsy about what you're doing on the week? Yeah, Friday autopsy, I think it's really important, and many sellers don't do it. And I think What is the Friday autopsy, by the way? Friday autopsy is that you need to reflect on the whole week what happened, right? Um did you do the the the task you wanted to achieve? Did you progress those deals? Um what mistakes probably um uh I did? Um did I have any distractions during that week where where I could not finish certain tasks which I wanted to finish? Like really making an autopsy of all their executables executables in the during the week, which you would love to uh wanted to achieve or what was their idea. And you just you don't need to do it uh just for task as well for um deal autopsy, right? Exactly for a specific deal for a specific opportunity. If you want a deal, analyze it why you want it. If you lose a deal, even more important, right? You need to analyze why you lost that deal because you sometimes you you learn much more from the loss of 100% than from the one deal. Absolutely. So basically, in a nutshell, the the autopsy of the week, it's block yourself one hour, Friday, 3 p.m., 5 p.m., whatever the time it is, and it's being acting like a zoom out. Yeah. And you are your own manager, yeah, right? And you say, okay, what happened this week? What are the things that can be done better? What are the things that I did that I can change or I will keep based on the outcome? Yeah. And the outcomes, the real results from that week, let me analyze them, let me dissect them. Like, okay, this was closed, this was booked, this was lost. What happened? What are the common denominators? What are the things that I can repeat in the next week and the things that I will avoid? And this is how you become better, right? And it's not only about motivation again, it's about execution. Yeah. I think also what helped me is, for example, writing like a kind of summary email at the end of the week to your to your manager. Okay. I I like to do that because this is kind of as well, like having an autopsy, like seeing, okay, what did you do? And then So the the past actions and the next actions that maybe what what what will c come out from the the actions I had, what will be the next plan? I love it. Just, you know, your manager get a good understanding what how uh if your week was protective, if they need to support you, of course you need to be honest in that. Um that's the key. Um but your manager will love it, I'm telling you. And you're forcing yourself to analyze what you're doing. Yeah, exactly. You force yourself to analyze. You need you need you go back to the calendar, you check what you have done, and then you know, see, okay, uh, there's actually a task I missed, for example, right? Many of uh we cannot remember everything. So it's pretty important to uh make this bio C and see uh where to improve. The Friday autopsy out of it, yeah. This this leads me to uh another idea or another topic that I would like to cover with you, man, that it's again, it's everything related because we are trying to talk about how mental health can be handled in the right way and all these tactics, but moving into the internal world that we were mentioning before in the intro, that it's why there is always that feeling that it's either marketing fault or sales fault or and we are blaming each other. Why that happened? Why instead we don't work as a team because that's what we want at the end of the day? How do you see this moving forward in the future? Do you see that this happens in every company? Uh, marketing blaming sales and the other way around. What is your your concept about it? I think it ha I think it uh it happened in all companies I worked so far, to be honest. Okay. Um because there's a disconnection between those different departments, right? So you think it's a could we agree on that it's a communication thing at some point or an alignment in the objective or what or how they are being measured? Yeah, because everyone has their own targets. Okay. Everyone needs to, you know, want to achieve their own targets and they see, for example, salespeople see sometimes marketing as just the people who deliver leads, exactly. But then the leads are sh shits. Exactly. Exactly. The biggest problem is actually if if the if you are a salesperson and you complain to marketing that the deals are sh the leads are shit, yeah, just go to marketing, speak with them, tell them what kind of leads you want, develop together with them. And why you think they are bad. Yeah. Or or why you are not able to close them. Or I mean there are something happening here. You know, give them um straight feedback where they can work on that instead of like um having an all-hands meeting and say, yeah, the last marketing meetings uh deals I got was really bad. Exactly. Really try to have a clear communication, right? Um, I love to speak to the marketing people, to the uh to our uh marketing team to develop like a strategy at the beginning of the quarter. What kind of webinars should we make? Um, how where could they support? Can they support in certain events we are organizing in my territory? Yeah, so you should see your territory as your own small company. Okay, and then having your marketing team as well supporting you with that, but develop because you know your territory the best. Never no one will know it better than yourself. You you you you you need to be the own manager of your own territory, like their own CEO. And if if if you can give the the marketing team the relevant information which they would need to support you with, they will help. They will help you. They will help you because it's it's a win-win situation. But it has to be a direct communication with what is your take on that, Ellen? I think that um there is a a really gap between knowledge on from both sides, I'm saying, because marketing is saying to leadership, yeah, hey, we got 2,000 new leads. Sales is saying we got out of those 2,000 just seven opportunities. Yeah. And leadership is saying pipeline is moving slowly. Yeah. So everyone is at some point, without saying it, blaming the other. Like, hey, we got a lot of leads, those leads are not converting, pipeline is moving slowly. So leadership has one point of view, marketing has another one, and sites has another one. Everyone thinks that everyone is doing the right thing, but in the end of the day, we are not communicating and we are not aligned within the objective. And I completely agree that needs this needs to be solved in a way that it's two-ways communication. Exactly what you were saying. The main objective is understanding why. And this is what I call like the feedback or insight loop that should happen. That it's every week, every two weeks, every month, if you want to do it in a deeper way, or once uh every two weeks and then once a month, you need to gather with marketing and sales. And if you have, for example, there are some teams and companies that have revs as well connected to marketing, so depending on your structure. But marketing to make it simple, marketing and sales should gather together and say, hey, this is what I deliver by the end of the month, amount of leads, MQLs, marketing qualified leads that are following this criteria based on what you're telling me. And this is what happened. So let's analyze the results and say, hey, you are not closing because of the quality of the leads, because you as a seller, you are not doing good, because maybe there is not the right timing, but the lead was okay. Yeah. So you need to understand where is the stage, what's happening. And from the other side, marketing will tell you what should I change or shift uh in order to leverage. Maybe we don't need 2,000 leads. We need 1,000 that are super narrow down, and you will have a better conversion rate. But that's not happening. No, no, and I think the the one really important point where the miscommunication or uh disconnection between those two departments is um the salespeoples uh are actually the researcher for the marketing because they are in connection and in touch first line with the prospect. They know which pain points are, which trends are happening. How should marketing know if they don't speak to the salespeople? So if the uh marketing people are leveraging the salespeople as their researcher and ask them, hey, what are the main pain points you were discussed in the automotive industry in the last quarter? Do you have any kind of war stories which we can then use and convert into marketing? Marketing material, and you can use that afterwards into your outreach. That's the loop, two-way loop uh communication. Well, same, like if you close a deal, uh salespeople always complain we do not have enough case studies. But then just uh make it mandatory that your salespeople asking at the end of a deal, would you mind to, you know, um if you're happy with our service, um uh be uh open exactly a feedback or a case study. A case study, and then automatically the marketing media will be extremely happy to help you with that because you can use that afterwards again to reach out to similar companies like that, right? Absolutely. Again, it's really back and forth. It's working as a team, but uh, but I'm laughing because when you were saying this this how to do it, I was thinking like, hey, maybe we can make a confession here in the confessionary. But it's we will uh we would agree into that marketing is the one that is guilty, but that's not the case. No, uh as a seller, we always think that way, like, hey, our our leads are not the best ones, or I cannot convert these BS uh leads that I'm getting in the CRM. The reality is there's not always none, always, it's like that, it's mandatory. There's not either marketing 100% or sales 100%. If we don't communicate, if there's not a clear alignment where the company is going and what are the things that we need to go over in order to for both of us succeed, then we'll be this push or pull from both sides because we are fighting against our interest, right? Yeah, no, 100%. I think it's it's it's really, really important to you know, um and even understand each other's targets, right? Exactly. For example, I think many marketing transparency. Yeah, my many marketing people know maybe the annual sales target uh the sales team has. Maybe not, but also I may the other way. Yeah, there may be the salespeople don't know what is the target for for marketing, right? So um, if you are able to understand, it's really, you know, you you have to work to an um you you uh like a a common goal. Yeah, and the common goal is to reach the target, and they can uh of course help you in some. I love this topic because let me let me share a story. When we don't know the targets, and we know that targets targets drive behavior, but not only because of the commissions and the money that we talk about it, but because we need to get into that target. Sometimes, because we don't know that, we are blaming each other. But the idea the the reality happens when we put this over the table in a clear communication, and then something someone from the leadership team will say, you know what, targets are not aligned towards helping each other. Let me give an example. There's a company that I used to work with, marketing was measured by the amount of leads that they were bringing to sales, marketing qualified leads, MQLs. And the number was something around 7,000 um leads per month or something like that. Oh yeah. Okay. Uh, because it was a big industry, we were targeting different um different markets and so on and so forth. But besides the number, the idea is if they have to bring 7,000 leads per month that will fit a criteria, and we are not able to close them, then maybe the market is telling you, you know what, these 7,000 leads are not really qualified. You need to change the way you define your ICP, your ideal customer profile. So that needs to be 3,000, but better narrow down or more qualified. So then we didn't know that from the sales perspective. So we were always saying, hey, you're sending us 7,000 leads, 8,000 leads, you're hitting your quota, and we're closing close to zero. Yeah, they have another. Maybe we are bad sellers, but not that bad. Yeah. Zero. Zero percent. So then when we understood that they were like, even they knew that they had to send less but better quality, they say, but we need to hit our quota. Yeah. So we need to send the 7,000. I don't care. So when we raise that to leadership and say, hey guys, you know what? I think that we are not able to sell. We're not able to sell because this is happening. And from the other side, they are forced to send whatever it takes. Why don't we align on the objective? It's like a way wasting each other's time. Exactly. Once this happened, but it's even in a company with 10 employees, this could happen because there's miscommunication, man. So then the marketing says, okay, I'm relief. I'm not going to be measured by 7,000 leads. I'm going to be measured by quality and quantity. Yeah. So I will be sending you 2,000, 2,500, but the ones that you will close. Conversion rates went up, everyone was happy, and they were hitting quota as well. So exactly what you're saying. Like sometimes that doesn't mean that we need to know exactly what you're going towards in terms of KPIs, but we need to be aligned because if not, the KPIs will be pushing us doing different things. Definitely. I think, and you know, as well, like there's as well always this discussion about and I would love to hear your point of view on that about should be the SDR team under the marketing team or the sales department, right? Yeah. Because from an outreach perspective, and I think we can then afterwards jump into the topic of cold, called Exactly, and call email and cold email, which is like a daily task of an SDR, because the marketing people, of course, are giving the SDRs the relevant material to work on to be able to do a proper outreach. What is your take on that? Like, do you think it should fall under marketing or under sales? There is a gray area there and a thin line. Um, because at some point, SDRs or BDRs or sales development people, it's doing research. And we will jump into AI, Jason as well, and how that can impact the way we sell. But ultimately, they are selling. They are qualifying or pre-qualifying, or they are also being measured by potential revenue or meeting books that can be converted into revenue. So at some point, that's sales. I do believe that they need to be in sales because they are always working with sales-related people that are either closing or moving upwards that deal. So 100% I agree that they should be sales. That doesn't mean that depending on what are the objectives that you give to an SDR, sometimes an SDR called SDR, with the responsibilities that they are given in that specific company, they should be in marketing. Because if they are just doing marketing-qualified efforts, they should be marketing. Yeah, like typically inbound uh or inbound that is coming from the some forms in the website that is just checking if everything goes well and then sending to sales. That's marketing. Yeah. You can put SDR role, but it's not an SDR specific. Yeah, I know. It's like inbound, inbound. So 100% they should be uh sales related. Yeah, no, no, I I same I have the same feeling. Like um, but um let's jump into the cold email. Another topic. Another topic. A lot of uh hot topics we're discussing today. Let's about um call email, call calling. Yeah right. Um uh I think huge topic. Huge topic. I think we could fill like hours with discussing this. Ellen, the framework guy. Uh I I I and I I love your content um on call emails because it's so valuable out there. Like um having also uh there's frameworks clear structured on the one pager. Could you maybe share with me your top one, two, three frameworks which you would recommend the salespeople out there who are listening to to use um uh to book meetings? Yeah, absolutely. Um I would like to answer this in two ways or split the answer into two parts, and then we can recap if you want. And I would like your your ideas. The first thing is how we can, I'm fully into how can we use AI as much as possible without compromising quality on what we do in order to make sure that we are more efficient, we are 10 times faster, we are researching faster, booking more meetings faster, and then qualifying even faster. On top of that, with the research that the AI can do on our behalf, having those insights to create different angles of attack within the cold email, for example. Okay. Having that into consideration, I'm a clear uh believer or a pro believer that on top of AI, that we will talk about JSON, for example, and how reply is doing that, put your own master brain as a human in order to connect the dots and make yourself more human and better. Okay. So with that in mind, there are a couple of things that I'm testing right now using JSON. That is basically, first of all, with JSON, I define super easy what are the uh the things that I would like to sell, my offer. Yeah. Right. Jason uh uh understands my offer, value proposition, my website, studies everything about myself. That it could be done in to whatever the other companies that are out there. Once it has all that information, I say, okay, I will target BPs of sales from this type of companies in these industries with this amount of people, right? That are going through these specific triggers or signals or intent, right? Uh searching for a type of solution or just got a fundraising or they have opening roles. And as well, I think important, of course, every kind of buyer persona has their own pain, right? Exactly. Every pains. Uh so it's really important to have it tailored based on their own pain. Each message is different. Yes. 100%. So with that in mind, then what I do it's okay, Jason is like uh it's like my twin doing the full AI research on my behalf 24-7 and fulfilling every day to me too, with Alan. You need to target these guys because they are following the criteria that you define. From there, answering to your question. There is one email that I'm testing right now, one framework that is the it's called the one-line sentence email. Right? It's just one sentence. Tell us more. So it's just one like one sentence. Okay, and it's hello, one sentence, and that's it. You hit send. Wow. Right? So it's completely different to what we are used to. Yeah. And again, it's not working for every single market and every single persona, but it's super relevant. And it's called the one-liner or one sentence, and basically it works in this way it's hey Kevin, imagine that you are a VP of sales, right? And it says something like this if starts with if always. Okay. If we could help your team to solve X potential problem, imagining that as a trigger, I know that you are just hired three SDRs and you're ramping them up and you need to scale, and you just got a fundraise and you are growing. So if we are able to help you ramp your three new SDRs in half of the time without hiring 20 extra sales for people and or extra tools by cutting XYZ results in half. Again, this is just an example, but it's one line that is basically the structure and the anatomy of the email. It's if I can get you to solve this problem with a specific number by doing this specific action without you suffering this other consequence that it's adding more people or adding more tools, would that be helpful for you? Bye. Bye. Nice. I love it. One sentence. Really good. Straight to the point. So one point, one, one problem, one uh one unique point of view, one offer, one solution. One solution. Right? So that's that email or that framework is giving us a lot of results. But again, it's not about the email. It's about the information we gather before that is completely relevant to that email, right? The email is just a consequence of the framework. Jason is doing the heavy work and saying, This is the people that go through these triggers in this industry that you're trying trying to target with your offer. Yeah, here you have it. Alan, do your job. I take those leads, I put them into a campaign that will be connected to my specific framework, and we ship it. And with if if uh tools like Jason, you can do send this message as like have a multi- uh multi-channel approach as well. Like you send out this email, um, you send at the same time an email on LinkedIn, a DM, uh, uh DM or like uh a voice note. You can even record that in a voice note, you know? 100% to have a disrupt disruption of the patent. 100%. Someone hears suddenly a voice note, uh, the people are like, oh, not so many people are sending the voice notes. Do you use do you usually use uh voice notes? I tested it uh a certain period of time and now I do it again. Um and I've I've uh some people are uh responding pretty well to that. Because if no one is sending a voice note, no, no. And right now you can do it at scale as well. So basically, that's the idea. Uh, this is one framework. I have a lot of other type of frameworks, but but again, I don't want to overwhelm people. But I think that the idea behind it, besides JSON and besides AI, is as a consequence, yeah. Use put the relevant information that is coming from the relevant research, in this case Jason, and on top of that, send it to the right persona within the right timing, right? I re I really love that. But do you think the this sentence you can use as well during cold calling? Absolutely. Right. No, absolutely. Because you know, like uh it's a why not? It's a clear statement. I said, hey, uh the opener should change a little bit. Of course, uh it's say, hey, uh Alan, um I know I call you out of out of the blue. Um uh it's it's a cold call, but um a really well-researched one. A really well researched one. Um I have one topic you can decide if you would like to hear it. Do you give me five seconds, uh 15 seconds or whatever. And then bam, you drop that. Exactly. Like, yeah. If I can help, if we can help you get or solve this specific problem by doing this specific action without going through this consequence, would that be helpful? Yeah, this is the framework. Remember, it's going to solve a problem by doing something specifically without, and this this word is the most important because you are lowering the risk. While you lower the risk, the value goes up. Yeah, the more you lower the risk, the more the value goes up. So basically it's without doing this specific uh or suffering this specific consequence. Let me put an example that everyone would uh understand. Imagine that you want to go to the gym and you wanna get really fit and lose, I don't know, 10 kilograms, right? What happened? If I'm telling you, Kevin, you need to stop uh eating everything, you need to work out 24-7, five hours a day during the next two years, right? And on top of that, you won't be able to have like not even one glass of beer. It's like too heavy and a lot of compromise. Not gonna do that. Exactly. It's like too heavy, you like you want the result, yeah, but it's too heavy to get there with a lot of compromise that you know that that won't happen. The risk is so high that the value goes down. Yeah. But if I'm telling you, there is a way that you can get there without going through the crazy diets that you will see out there, yeah, and without avoiding one uh beer every five days, uh, but still you will get to this result. It would be crazy to analyze it, then you will say, hey, the risk is going down, the value is going up, I'm not going to sacrifice that much. Sounds really good. Why not? Yeah, why not? You are lowering the friction, and then it will make feel the other guys feel stupid for not saying yes, I want to hear more, right? It's like putting uh actually the the the word yes already in the mouth of of of the prospects, right? Uh 100%. So yeah, I think what I would love to ask you uh uh one typical objection doing doing call calling. For example. Um uh we really I like I I think every seller out there get on a daily base, right? For example. Um uh which is um yeah, send me an email. Okay. So I think everyone got that. Yeah, send me an email, please. Even cold calling or or be uh or after a discovery call. So it's it's it's typical, like, yeah, okay, please don't. You're brush brushing me off. Don't, don't, uh, I don't want any more information from you. It's it's fine. Send me an email and uh it will go directly into the trash. Yeah, right. So how you handle that objection usually when you when you do this um through those kind of call calls? I have two ways, depending on the conversation. Uh one is usually usually using the actually that's why a call framework. Yeah. That is basically actually that's why you call Kevin. Yeah. If I send you, I thought that if I send you an email, I will raise more questions than answers. So I I would be super happy to send you an email, but in order for me to be relevant to send what you would like to see, can I ask you a couple of questions? Because if not, we both know that whatever I'm going to send you, you won't read it and I won't uh be sending something interesting. Yeah. Right? In in summarized words. So actually that's why I called. That will raise more questions than answers. Mind if I ask you a couple of questions to understand what would be interesting to you? So I put some relevance into that email. Yeah. One thing, you're disarming the objection to understand if that is a really real objection or it's just a brushing off that it's like, I don't want to talk to you. Yeah. The other option is like straight to the point. Like, can I ask you a straightforward question before sending that email? Yeah. And you will most likely get a yes because it's the last question. Just the last question before I go away. Yeah. Yeah, tell me. And then you said, asking me to send you an email, it's a polite way to brush me off. Yeah, like straight to the face. Like exactly. Confront them. What is exactly that you would like to see in that email? Yeah. No, you know what? I'm not brushing you off. I'm just uh busy right now. Okay, before I send you an email, maybe I can call you in 20 minutes from now and we talk about this, this, and that. Is that okay? I use a similar simil well similar thing. How do you do it? I usually say, yeah, like send me an email. I said, yeah, sure, I could send you as well an email. Um, but it will take you definitely more than 10, 15 minutes to read through all the information I will send you over. Um, would it not make sense just to jump on a quick call, I don't know, next week, Monday, Tuesday, so I can exp pretty uh like I can explain you a little bit more in detail um how you solve problem A for a company which is similar in a similar industry like you always bring like a like a key clear case study or clear um uh result into into the um uh conversation and then trying to book a meeting with them directly. 100%. So straight to the point at some point. And then really wait. Like uh if they say yes or no, uh no, then you already can feel uh there's no interesting. You're disqualifying as well. If they say yes, look, okay, then that that don't just send some options. Uh are you in front of your computer? Yeah, I am. Um okay, cool. Um how does next week, Tuesday, for example, or the tomorrow at 2 p.m. look like for you? Um you book it in the moment. You book it in the moment and say, did you receive it? Wait. Exactly. Wait for it. Can you confirm it so you have it in the calendar? And then you have it in the calendar. That's smart. Um and then do you know, like, wait for that? The thing is that as you're saying, most sellers, first of all, they struggle to do what you're saying. Yeah. But when you go through that, we feel the relief of, oh, we went through the hard part. Yeah. Oh, thank you very much. I will send you an email with the invite and that's it. If you went through that hard part, stop there and do the last part that is confirming the meeting. Yeah. Right? You are there. You're already there. So just ask one of them. One other 30 seconds. Yeah, exactly. It's what it and it, you know, that that's the most difficult part for us sellers for doing cold calling, is that people don't see you. No. They're just hearing your voice. What do you have to lose? Yeah, exactly. Did they uh curse you or scream at you? Well, okay, this happens, you know. Exactly. That comes down to the mental health as well, right? Exactly. I have one objection for you. Yeah, tell me. Um, in fact, I have a lot of them, but I would like to ask you, or you can pick out of those. Yeah. I have. We have a competitor in place already. Yeah. Um, call me back in six months from now. Yeah. Or we don't have uh, or you are too expensive. Which one would you like to pick? I can go with the other ones. We have a competitor. Okay, so the question is when you call someone and they have, you know what, they say to you, hey Kevin, you know what? We already have a competitor for that, so thank you. What would you say? So usually I always start to never talk bad about the competitors. Um, it's not how you how how you should do it. I said, Oh yeah, great. Uh I I thought so that you have a competitor because um, you know, and uh they actually, I know that they're doing a good job, know your competitors, right? But um what I always say, if you would need to rank your current provider from one to ten, um uh ten absolutely happy, zero absolutely unhappy, where would you rank them? Right? And if they say they they never said a ten. So if they say eight, eight, and then said, oh good, uh good, perfect. Is it okay to ask why an eight and not an 10? What do you think is missing? And then like the two points, you already know your competitors, and you know already how you can put the anchor at those two points and try to get get them in. So you're using their information to trigger a solution on why what they are missing on their side. I think that's it I like that psychological trick. It it it works pretty good, um, and most of the times because it gives you then as well a good way how you know uh how you tailor in a later stage your demo account specifically on those two points which are missing for them. Of course, uh you need to be able to cover all the other um uh points as well. I love it. Um but I it helps helps pretty well. I love it. I love it. So on my side, uh the other objection before jumping into the cards, it's call me in six months. Six months, yeah, three six months. That's a really common one. Let me ask you the question. Sure. Um yeah, Ellen, um we have uh uh now uh could you please call me in six months? It's not the right moment now. Okay. Straightforward question. What would it hap what would happen in six months from now that it would change the way that you think or that you see this project? Yeah, good question. I think um, yeah, it's just not the right moment at the moment to to do. Um for that reason, I think from the capacity per capacity problem we have, um I could not handle the pro the project at the moment. Awesome. Thank you very much. Again, I will call you whenever the the right time it is, but it looks like it's not because of the solution, it's not a right solution for you right now. It looks like there is something internal happening that is not allowing you to handle this. If I can help you with that, would that be something that you would be interested in analyzing it right now? Yeah, I think like like I said, if you could help me to get more time back and if your solution is able to do that, I think yeah, it would be would be definitely interesting. And we go from there and we book the meeting. Maybe it's not the right timing in reality. Yeah, but I uncovered the right pain that it's we don't have the capacity. Yeah, right? Uh, an extra question can always be. Dig deeper. To like be like Sherlock Holmes. Try to find like the trust the first answer. Yeah. Like, I don't have time, you are too expensive. Send me an email. Why? Yeah. I'm calling you right now. I just need to understand with with three words in 25 seconds. I cannot understand what's happening. Yeah, definitely. So dig deeper and move into the conversation into whatever you you feel more comfortable. Yeah, right. Yeah. Okay, so let me let me kick this off. Yeah, let's do this. The end uh and the final part of our confession of a seller episode, the confession of a seller game. Let's do that. We have this game that is uh we have a lot of cards here. Explain it to our audience, but exactly. We have a lot of cards here, and basically each card has a question within different categories. We're going to ask two questions to each other, and the question needs to be answered by yes or no, and why in less than 60 seconds? Absolutely. Let's start. Let's start. Okay, so the first question is about sales. And it says the best reps talk less. Yes. Why? Because um, if you talk less and then there's this uh 70-30 rule. Okay. So you should uh let the top prospect talk 70% and you should talk just talk 30%, which is difficult. I it's extremely difficult. It doesn't matter how experienced you are, it's really difficult. But if the prospect talks longer or more, automatically they feel more comfortable, and then they will be able to share more. Right? Ask an open question and let them talk. Okay. And it's difficult. Mute yourself. Uh when when when are the tricks? Mute yourself, stop talking. Mute yourself, stop talking, or just like look, look at him and then let just stare at them. Let just let them talk. And if they if if if they pause and they wait for a response, just continue looking at them. It it's uncomfortable, yeah, but then they think, oh, but maybe I should add something to that, and then they continue. So basically, but this is connected to comp to conversion rates. If they if we speak less, most likely we are asking better questions, but likely we will close more. Yeah, definitely. Good. Next one. Um, one for you rolling structure, SDRs plus AE's or full cycle reps. Man, this is a really difficult one. I would go with uh full cycle reps. Really? Yeah, right. I wouldn't agree with that. Yeah. In fact, if you asked me this yesterday, maybe I had another opinion. Uh but because of my experience selling mainly in mid-market and SBs, uh, when you have a clear differentiation between SDRs and AEs, yeah, most likely there is a break in the communication between them. That doesn't mean that you can succeed. But when you have shorter sales cycles and you have one person dealing with the full sales cycle, then you're always dealing with the same prospect and the conversation and the flow goes all along. Yeah. Because if not, the prospect talks to the SDR, the SDR gives the notes in the CRM, and then the AE jumps in and asks the same questions again. So it's kind of a friction within the process. That's the only reason why I'm saying this. Okay. Besides that, I think that when you split uh the roles, you have more focus, you might perform better. Uh, I had experience in both being full sale cycle or split it as the R A E. Um, it depends on the scenario. Even more, and just to finish, with solutions like reply, right now, yeah, that you can have one full-sale cycle because you have a lot of tasks that are being handled by by Jason in this case. Yeah, so you can enhance yourself and work like a two-in-one, let's say. Absolutely. I think um AI can definitely like Jason AI, as even SR SDRs can use it. That's to really enhance them. Enhance them by seeing their superhuman power, superpower. Um, but yeah, definitely. Absolutely. Let's go. Last one on my side. Yeah. AI in sales. AI will replace SDRs, yes or no, and why? I think no. Okay. Um, like in the near future, I don't think so. Okay. Uh, it will enhance, like we said, um the SDRs, make the life easier, make the life more effective, more efficient, focus on the uh soft skill, engaging with uh with with prospects, and building again this human touch which we lost, I think, uh the last couple of years. Perfect. Last one. Let's do it. AI and go to market. AI prospecting beats manual research. 100, 1000, 1 million percent yes. Yeah, yes, absolutely. It's exactly what we are saying and what we are preaching and what we are using, and why reply as well. It's part of our uh of these confessions of a seller episodes and sponsor and main partner. Because we think and we believe that AI is here to enhance us. Yeah, to make us, if we are productive at 1x, to be productive at 10x. Yeah, and this is exactly what the AI is doing. It understands what we do, how do we sell, who do we sell it to, our offer, our value prop, um, our competition, our case studies, and use that to build an engine that will prospect for you, do the research for you, and then you use your brain to put that into execution. So 100% yes. Perfect. And yeah, so I think we we are done for today, Alan. Crazy episode. Another episode, a lot of hot topics from mental health, jumping into um a lot of things. Uh like the the internal war, internal war, marketing sales, then into um templates, frameworks, and uh uh calling calling, email. So really hot, hot, uh hot hot topics. Yeah, again, um I think thanks uh again for our main sponsor, Jason, II by reply. Um we we talked a lot about it. If you have any questions, um drop them in the in the comment section. We can help you set it up or test it out or anything that you will like. Definitely. So um subscribe if you didn't do it to this point. You uh shame on you. Subscribe right now, click the bell. Uh more episodes to come, a lot of things that we will share. Um, any questions, reach out to Kevin, reach out to me, send us an email. We're happy to help. We are sellers, we live, we breathe, and we suffer sales. Yeah. So anything that we can do for you, here we are. Confessions of a seller. See you in the next one. See you in the next one.