Tom Martin is President of Converse Digital, a sales trainer and consultant, and the author of The Invisible Sale. Tom spent several years researching the science related to information delivery, processing, retention, and persuasion and used his findings to develop a highly effective approach to sales presentations that he calls The Perfect Pitch.  Tom also brings a unique approach to sales training that foregoes the traditional "one-size-fits-all" approach and, instead, involves an individualized program for each audience and participant.

In this episode of The Grow Fast Podcast, Tom talks about unique challenges faced by SMBs when selling, what sales enablement tools are important, how to deliver a memorable presentation, and what traits to look for when hiring salespeople.

You can find the whole episode of the Grow Fast Podcast with Tom Martin here:

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This is the transcript for this episode:
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Mark Shriner [00:00]

Welcome to The Grow Fast Podcast where we talk with leading sales, marketing and personal growth experts about how companies can accelerate sales, optimize marketing, and grow their businesses fast. Let's go, Hey, Tom, how are you?

Tom Martin [00:16]

I'm doing good. How are you?

Mark Shriner [00:17]

Pretty good. Pretty good. I'm up here in the Pacific Northwest, and it's the best time of the year, because we have this the sun comes out finally, you know, and it's nice, and you're down in Louisiana,

Tom Martin [00:27]

Yeah, it's the worst time of the year. The sun's out all the time. And it's, you walk outside, and you just immediately sweat. It's great, if you like, to have a 24/7 sauna. It's, it's good for the skin.

Mark Shriner [00:39]

I've been told great for weight loss and general health. That's right!

Tom Martin [00:43]

I don't know about the weight loss piece, but I think I keep putting too many liquids back in my body, but, yeah, it's, it's, I mean, it's beautiful today, but, yeah, it's a little warm.  

Mark Shriner [00:54

Well, that's good! Hey, you know, I'm really looking forward to this conversation. You have a tremendous amount of experience in sales. You've written a book called The Invisible sale. You've done research on sales related to how people receive, process, retain information, and I want to talk to you about that. I also want to talk to you about some of the sales training that you recommend, because I'm aligned with you that I don't believe that one size fits all in terms of sales training. You know, different people, different organizations, all have different needs, and I want to talk to you a little bit about your research and the sales training. But before we do that, if it's all right, I'd like to kind of talk about some of the unique challenges faced by small and medium businesses or SMBs, in terms of, at an organizational level, you know, going out and creating awareness in the market and selling their products and services, and then maybe at the individual level, in terms of, you know, providing kind of customized training. That was a big mouthful, so let me just throw it over to you. If we think about the SMB market, what are some of the unique challenges they have in terms of selling their products and services.

Tom Martin [02:05]

I think that the two that I've run across in my career most often is resource and resources. They don't necessarily always have the budgets to be able to afford the kind of resources big companies can, and especially in a digitally centric age, they don't always have maybe the money to have a really robust web site or robust collection of digital content that they can use during the selling process. The other big thing is it doesn't affect all SMBs, but an SMB that is smaller, but trying to cover a very large region, regional, national so you've got a relatively small sales team trying to cover a really large region. And let's face it, I mean, you know this, when you're sitting behind the windshield or sitting on an airplane, you can do some selling. You can be somewhat productive, but not nearly as productive as productive as when you're sitting across table from somebody, or sitting even, you know, nowadays, across, you know, a Zoom meeting. So, I think that is, that is a huge challenge for them, is, you know, how, how do, how do they harness technology to be able to scale, you know, really network at scale and be super-efficient.

Mark Shriner [03:16]

So, and, yeah, and I'm sure that's a huge issue, both in terms of budget, to afford those resources, but then also just have the in house expertise, you know, I mean, if you go to work for an enterprise, they'll have not just a marketing team, they'll have a HubSpot expert, right? And the person has done HubSpot, you know, implementations or deployments in three of his previous roles, right? So, you know, the deep subject matter expertise SMBs, they don't, they don't have that, both in terms of the funding or that in house expertise. So, if we focus on the digital kind of resources and that, that challenge there, how do you, you know, how do you advise SMBs to kind of work around that?

Tom Martin [04:01]

The approach I usually take with him is, let's, let's look at what you what you need. Let's look at what, from a digital perspective, you can afford. And, you know, you might not be able to afford HubSpot. It's, it's not, you know, it's not Marketo expensive, but it isn't cheap either. I mean, it's, it's an investment and you know, but there are things you can do with lower priced CRM tools, like nimble is a I recommend that to a lot to SMBs, because it's a killer CRM tool, great mobile app, etc. It can do a lot of the things a HubSpot can do. It can't track your website, which is the beauty of like a HubSpot, is that you can see people on your site, and can get a lot of invisible buying signals and so forth. Okay, so you don't have that, but at least you have a killer CRM, you have email sequences. You have all these other tools that HubSpot gives you. You have some basic open and click tracking on your emails, etc. So. Right? Let's start there, you know, let's walk before we were on and by, you know, helping them figure out this step they can take. They can hopefully grow their sales to them. Maybe one day, they can upgrade to a HubSpot or something, you know, of that nature, a little bit bigger. And so, I find it's just really a lot of times they just a lot of them, they don't even know what they don't know. They don't know what's available, or they don't know how inexpensively they could set up, you know, I can, I can set up every salesperson's desk so that they've got almost like a mini studio to enhance their ability to deliver really high end. This is not just zoom or teams calls but presenting virtually and show them how to do it. And when you show them, it's like, oh, well, that's not that expensive, right? No, it's not, but they just don't know, and they don't have time to go do the research to find out.

Mark Shriner [05:53]

Well, and the landscape for sales enablement tools is growing so quickly, and you know, you have things like seamless AI and zoom info and Kong, or Kong, I don't know how you pronounce it, and these other tools, maybe, can you talk a little bit about you? Because you said, you know, you could create this studio of tools, or like a dashboard for salespeople in an SMB, what are some of the must haves? And you don't have to give specific company names, product names, but in terms of, okay, we already talked, you need a CRM. But what are some of these other tools that are just kind of a must have these days?

Tom Martin [06:36]

Well, I think the CRM is the main thing. I think, some sort of, some sort of sales activity tracking system, and ideally even a sales activity scheduling system. So ideally you would want the ability that when a new prospect or lead is put into the system that you could automatically schedule the first, let's say, year of touches against that prospect or lead. To me, that is, you know, it goes hand in hand with CRM some CRMs can do it. Some can't, something like that. And then, you know, obviously, a reporting so you can stay on top of the team to make sure that they're doing it. I think those are our minimum. I think you have to have, you know, again, if you're if you're doing a lot of like this, where you're over zooms and team calls, I think you have to have really high-end cameras and good microphones so that you get a really good presence. I think you have to standardize on, you know, you need to standardize on some video platform that's going to be your platform of choice. I think the other thing is, you have to have, I think a website's a mandatory and not just a website, but a website that is literally like a massive FAQ. You have to have a repository of really good content. I don't know if you ever heard there's a gentleman named Marcus Sheridan has a great philosophy. They ask you answer, and he's a big HubSpot guy, great guy. And I love his philosophy, because it's such a concise yes and in but you need that. You need to have a repository where a salesperson can quickly find the answer to every question that's ever been asked about the product or service, and not just the answer, but the most perfectly crafted answer, the one that should absolutely move the move the prospect down the pipeline or over the hurdle. Because what's really interesting about that is, and I've tested this over the last 1520, years, if, if somebody asks me a question and I give them an answer, their BS filter is about a seven out of one to 10, with 10 being, I don't believe anything you're saying. One being, I believe every word out of your mouth. Most people, when I take them through this, this study, this research, they'll come in at around a seven. But if I give them a piece of content that answers it, and I say, hey, you know, our marketing people, or somebody wrote this, I think it's the perfect answer. Can I send it to you? They'll read that answer, and their filter will be a down around a three. Yeah, when you think about it, it's completely illogical. I mean, if I'm sending you something, it's probably going to be the most perfect answer. It's going to be the most biased answer.  

Mark Shriner [09:32]

It's like when you go to a car dealer and the salesperson there can tell you, hey, you know this Bronco is way better than his jeep. And you're like, Yeah, whatever. Dude, you just want to sell a car, but then they pull out something from Consumer Reports, or, you know, car and driver, and it compares the two cars, and it shows that the Bronco is better than the jeep. And you're like, Oh, well, this looks legit, honey. Let's get the bronco. Yeah.

Tom Martin [09:59]

Yeah, and it's and it works. You know, that's great because it's because you're a report, but it even works when it's your own company's content. And I think the reason why is that, mentally, you assume because the contents, the content, predated your question. It existed before you asked the question. You know, how could he have possibly known I was going to ask that? You know, exact question. Well, he didn't, but you're the 100th person this year that's asked it. That's why the contents there, it's why somebody built it, you know. But it is illogical, but it happens, it works. And so I think that's a big thing. You have to have the ability to build that content. You have to have the ability to, you know, to store it and then very quickly, be able to find it and use it and share it, because, again, so much of so much of sales nowadays is becoming like this. It's over a video I've, you know, I don't know about you, but I see it even with my own clients here in New Orleans, locally, though, you know, we'll schedule a meeting and they'll say, oh, just send me a link to zoom or, Hey, I'll send you a teams invite, and they're literally two minutes down the road. Yeah, but they it's

Mark Shriner [11:06]

interesting, because I've trained sales teams all around the world. And my number one rule, or one of my number one rules, I have several of them, but one of them is get the meeting. Because until you get the meeting until you have a face-to-face conversation with somebody, you're just like a piece of paper and a stack of resumes, right? I mean, you're not going to stand out at all. So it was always get the meeting, and then covid came along and messed up that whole thing. And, but, but, but even this, this is better this, you know, this virtual meeting is better than not, you know, not having a real conversation, and it's weird, like, do you think people because I feel like, you know, if you have a face to face meeting, you can accelerate the trust building process and that relationship development. Do you think that we have adapted now and this virtual meeting? They're okay to do that.

Tom Martin [11:59]

I don't think we've adapted. I think some people have adapted fairly well, but I don't think we have, because just managing a virtual meeting is so completely different just building trust and empathy and all the things that, like you said, you can do face to face, because you can pick up on so many signals. But you know, I love your philosophy because even in a world where this is acceptable, I agree with you, you still want to push for a face to face. Because the to me, the beauty of a face to face, especially if I was on their in their offices, in their building, or whatever is it, as long as you walked in with big ears and big eyes, you got to see a lot of things that were clues, right? You could, you know? And I remember, I was doing some some workshops for Toyota dealers, not Toyota cars, Toyota Forklifts and stuff. And one of the, the the head distributor guys, said, You know, we want our people to get in there. We want them in the in the warehouses with big ears and big eyes so they can see other types of forklifts or other types of machinery or issues that we know we can solve, but you don't. But the person either doesn't tell you, doesn't think to tell you, doesn't know you solve that, but your salesperson can see that, and all of a sudden, now you've got a second, third or fourth type of opportunity that you can push down the line. And so, but, yeah, we're a lot of times this, unfortunately, is becoming more the norm. But again, that's just where people, you know, we've got to continue to have the people who the biggest people haven't adapted is if people are being forced to present a sales deck, any type of sales that requires deck presentation type, things people have not that we've not adapted to, that they're still using that same presentation deck that yeah, it might work in the boardroom, but it doesn't work in the Zoom Room. They're not, re they mainly because they don't think they know they need to, or they don't know how to rebuild them for enhanced presentations, through virtual presentations, but they'll get there eventually, because this, unfortunately, I just don't think this is going anywhere.

Mark Shriner [14:11]

So, I totally agree with you, whenever possible, get in there, because it's not just the relationships you're done. You can see so much more and pick up on those clues. And it's funny that you bring up like the traditional presentation, because when I started in sales, the whole thing was, you go in, ask a couple discovery questions, and then do a presentation, and the presentation in B2B scenarios was typically like this. This is a problem that everybody in the industry is facing, and if you don't solve this problem, you're going to have all this downside, right? But if you do solve it, here's what you could have, and here's what our solution is. Oh, and by the way, our company was founded in 1980, and you know, you have all these slides.

Tom Martin [14:50]

Client slides..

Mark Shriner [14:53]

And then, and then, part of the thing that changed that is when people started bringing it for in my opinion, started bringing their devices into. Meetings, and if you don't keep them engaged, they flip open that device and start checking emails and stuff like that. Give you kind of like and, you know, and so, so you can't, you can't go in there with 3040 slides and do that anymore. So, what's your work around for a scenario like that? Because you do want to convey some information, right? But how do you, how do you work through that?  

Tom Martin [15:19]

Well, the way we do it is, I've spent the last probably, I guess, seven or eight years now it actually started, a client asked us to do this for them. I've spent the last seven or years really diving into the research around how people process information and retain it, and what we've learned in what the science says is that when you walk in to do that presentation, they're going to forget 90% of what you're presented with. What you're presented within two days. And you know, part of that's biological, but a lot of it's just design and how people are building presentations, how they're delivering the presentations. So, we've spent our time trying to understand the science behind, you know, how do people process and ultimately retain information, and then we apply that science. I was just doing it yesterday for we were doing a workshop with a client yesterday, and it really comes down to, they're not going to, they're not gonna remember everything. So, you've got to figure out, what's the what's the core, what's the elevator speech for the presentation, so to speak.

Mark Shriner [16:17]

What do you want them to remember when you walk out of there and a week later, they say, Hey, how was that meeting with Tom? And they're like, You know what? He told me, this, this and this.

Tom Martin [16:25]

That's usually, literally, it's, usually, it's four, no more than five, key ideas points, whatever it might be, one idea or one solution with three or four support points, whatever the case might be. But, yeah, so it's doing that, but then it's, it's rebuilding your deck so that you're strategically repeating that information. Roughly about 30% of your slides should be this repetitive slide, because that's what, that's what drives it home. You know, that's what, you know, that's what passes home and but unfortunately, people get caught up like I said. We were doing this workshop yesterday, and one of the participants goes, Oh, well, our competitor has a super awesome video that's part of their slide, because they use Digidek, and it's this fancy presentation tool. And, you know, we're just, you know, using a PowerPoint. And I was like, all right, what was the video about? And they're like, Oh, it was all about how awesome, you know, their destination is, because this was a DMO. And I was like, alright, the whole presentation is about how awesome the destination is. That's what they're trying to do, is get the meeting player to book a meeting there. What did, like, what was the sales message? I said, what was it? What was the presenter saying? Like, while this little video thing he's playing in the background, looking so cool, he's like, I don't remember. Like, yeah, exactly.

Mark Shriner [17:38]

You know, it's funny. You mentioned videos, because when somebody turns on a video in a in a sales or business meeting, for me, I feel like, Oh God, this is like you're going into pure sales mode, because whatever's on that video is, it's just not personalized at all. It's, this is your mass marketing message that you're just going to try to kind of program me with. And I kind of find it a turn off, because there's another reason, if I'm having you watch a video, I'm not talking and you're not talking. It's just we're all looking at the screen, and I don't even need to be there to do that. I could have sent you a link to the video, but that's my little..

Tom Martin [18:15]

And you're stuck. Let's say it's a 60 second video, 90 second video, and you're standing there looking at the client or the prospect, and you can see like this is not hidden. They're not digging this. You're stuck, unless you're smart, unless you're confident enough to go, Well, you know, that's pretty good. You guys can watch the rest of that later. Let's and you jump back in, which most don't. And so now you just have 60, 90, seconds of dead space, you've lost any type of momentum.

Mark Shriner [18:43]

Totally agree with you. And I'm sure you've seen this where they can't get the damn video to work, just like, because, you know, if you're doing it virtually, and then they've got the video queued up over here, and it's like, not working, or they can't. They can see it, but they can't hear it. And I'm like, why would you do this, man?  

Tom Martin [18:59]

Well, and this guy was talking about, they had the video, like, embedded, and so it's playing in the background, like on the screen, while the presenters talking and so, and I'm like, Man, you don't, like, you're not competing with your slide deck for it, you know. And most, most presenters are going to lose, because that video is, you know, $100,000 of high-end production specifically designed to capture and hold attention by people who do nothing but do that all day long. You're probably going to lose that battle more often than not. And it was funny, because once we kind of walked through it, the guy was like, Yeah, you're right. We probably should just stick with good old-fashioned PowerPoint. I said, Yeah, you should stick with good old-fashioned PowerPoint and just be a better presenter.  

Mark Shriner [19:45]

So, you know, there's the old adage, you should tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them, and that kind of reinforces the message. But why don't you talk about some best practices going through slide? Side by slide in terms of, you know, I've just presented a slide with five bullet points on it, you know, I could just go on to the next slide. Or do you have any techniques to kind of help summarize, or kind of, you know, get that, what's the word encoded in your audience's brain?

Tom Martin [20:19]

Yeah, well, the biggest thing, I think the biggest failure that we tend to see with presentations is the slide is will, what do we call? I call it a show up and throw up slide. So, the slide shows up and just throws all the information up on the screen at the same time. And if there's four or five bullet points, or, you know, whatever, it all comes up, and then the practice, you know, because the presenters, he's, he or she is using it kind of like a script, really, that's kind of what they're doing. They're kind of cheating and that's really the, the biggest mistake people make. And the reason it's such a mistake is that there's a part of your brain called the Wernicke area that's, that's where, when I'm speaking, that's the part of your brain that translates the audio into, Oh, those are words, and those words mean what they mean. That same part of your brain does that for anything that you read, and it can't do it. It can't process both at the same time, and so it tries to pop back and forth and multitask, which it doesn't do very well. And so that's the biggest mistake, because what happens is, if you've probably done this, maybe you're reading, maybe you're on your phone, you're reading an email or something, and your co-worker, your spouse, whatever, starts talking to you, and after like, a minute, you look up, you know, huh? What? Yeah, because you're not listening. The truth is, you were listening, but because the Wernicke area couldn't process your wife's voice words and the written words you were reading simultaneously, you didn't hear and you probably didn't remember much of what you were reading either, because your brain's jumping back and forth trying to do it. And that is like the single biggest if salespeople would stop doing that, that alone would significantly improve their efficiency, effectiveness and persuasiveness as presenters, because they would find that alone would help their audience remember more of what they're saying. The other big thing is just really sitting down and you know, if I'm going to go give a presentation, I'm going to work really hard to know what you think today, where's your brain today, and then I know where I want you at the end of the presentation, in terms of what I want you to believe or think or feel. And that gap, that's my that's my talk track. Is that gap and what story do I got to tell you? What data or information do I have to tell you in? How should I format it in? What sequence should I tell it to you so that it makes sense to you? It comes to you in a framework that makes it really easy to connect all the dots. And instead, you'll see salespeople show up and they'll just throw all the information every slides, basically as important as the one before or after every points. There's no hierarchy of information. They have made no attempt to organize it for you in a way that, oh, okay, I get it. We're talking about a, b and c. And then here's more details. I mean, if, again, if they would just do that, you would find your presentations are a lot more effective. I think you'd find people pay more attention too, because what happens is, if you're trying to work as the audience to make sense and connect all the dots yourself, it creates what's called cognitive load. And a high cognitive load means you're using all your brain power to understand, which means you have no brain power left over to actually remember. And so, you know, when we work with clients, we try to help them flip that script so they're not using a lot of brain power to understand, which means they've got way more brain power left to encode and put that into the mental hard drive, which then produces better memory, you know, retention, which is super important nowadays, because, let's face it, you seldom walk in and make a presentation and walk out with a decision. You know, it goes to a buying committee, or they review, you know, everybody gets around, talks about it, you know, four or five days later, especially if you're in a multi company, pitch for something. So, if you can't get them to remember what you said, chances are you're not going to win.

Mark Shriner [24:12]

No, I think you bring up really good point, because a lot of times what I'll look at is, okay, you know, obviously part of the discovery process you'd ask, because who else is involved in this decision, or who are the other stakeholders? Who else would do we need to get on board with this, and they'll say, Oh, well, we'll definitely need to, you know, get the CFO ready for that. So, part of my job now is to prep you to go and talk, convince your CFO that this is a good investment of resources, right? And so when I when you walk out of there, if you forget everything that I've told you, you're not going to be able to close that deal with the CFO. But if I kind of help you retain the key points and also understanding that the CFO is going to want to look at numbers, probably, versus maybe your HR team or somebody else, another stakeholder. So that's, that's, that's really important. What about like when you're presenting? Stop in the presentation? Are stopping on the slide and asking questions. I mean, it takes a little bit of confidence. But do you do? You advise doing that?

Tom Martin [25:07]

I always, like, you know, when I give presentation, I always tell, you know, look, if you have a question as I'm moving through this, just ask, because a question asked and answered. You know, in context, is usually a better, you know, it's just better for everybody. Yeah, it also too some people. There are some people that if they have a question, if they don't understand something, they almost can't consume the rest of the presentation, because they're, they're, they're still trying to solve whatever it is they didn't understand or couldn't, couldn't figure out or make sense of and it almost puts, like, a mental block. They like that's they really can't go with the rest of the presentation. So I think it's, you know, you're better off making sure you can even, I'll do, you know where I'll as I finish a section, I'll even stop saying so did all that makes sense is that everybody's with me. We're all tracking, and I also encourage people look, ask the question, because if you have it, I guarantee someone else in the room has it. But just nobody wants to be the one to ask. So please ask. Don't wait till the end. I agree, though a lot of salespeople get worried by that it throws them off. It just kind of throws them off because they're especially if they're trying to memorize their pitch instead of just knowing their pitch, which are two different things in my mind. But again, I think it's a it's a more effective it's a more effective approach. And I mean, you might learn something that you go, Oh, I'm going to go off I'm literally going to go off script, because that question, either we haven't addressed this, or that question tells me that there's something going on that I missed during my my learning phase, and if I don't address it, all the other stuff I'm going to tell them isn't going to be any good or maybe even be irrelevant. So better to figure it out and be able to pivot mid presentation, if necessary.  

Mark Shriner [27:05]

Totally agree with you, and I like to keep it as interactive as possible. You got to get through your slides, but that's not your objective, really. Your objective is to connect with the audience and like what you said, is to help them remember what the key points are that even two or three days later, sometimes I'll after a slide or two, would say So Tom, are you seeing something similar to this? Or have you experienced anything like this? Or how does your organization deal with these challenges again? And you're collecting information, you're getting useful information that possibly that could help you kind of close the deal later. What are some other techniques to help people, kind of retain that information?

Tom Martin [27:47]

Man, we can sit here all day about going on through these.  

Mark Shriner [27:49]

Well, I learned about the Wernicke, the Wernicke complex, and I'm gonna try that next time my wife asks me, and I'm gonna be like, Honey, it's not me, it's the Wernicke. It's not functioning.

Tom Martin [27:59]

So, I'm just gonna tell you she's gonna call BS on it. Mine does!

28:01

I know? I know, even though I literally all the way in the red.

Tom Martin [28:08]

Oh, I even have handed her the research studies that you know, because it's named after the German scientists who discovered it. And I still get, Nah, you're not listening. But no, that strategic repetition, saliency. Is another thing where your brain is designed and it's hardwired to pay attention to that which is different. So, for instance, if you're presenting charts and graphs, anything statistical or charter graph, you know, if you look at, you know, you put it, you create a chart in, like, say, PowerPoint. It makes a pretty chart. All the colors are really similar, puts it in a nice color palette, and puts, you know, a legend and all that. Usually, you're only talking about one piece of data on that chart that charts supporting a key point. So in one of things you want to do is, is the salient point? You want to find a way to highlight that salient point, whether that's using a color, whether that's, you know, doing you know, however, there's lots of different ways to do it, but you really want to highlight like, hey, look, this is the point of this chart or this slide. Everything else is contextual data to help you maybe consume or make sense of the point. But really just dialing in and using that saliency motion and animation can do the same thing, because otherwise, again, you know, they're working really hard to understand it and try to figure out what you're saying. They're trying to process all this data that's on there. So, saliency is probably the other big one that people should focus on.

Mark Shriner [29:53]

I'm so glad you said that about charts, because I it's so hard for me and I just makes me feel stupid once. Somebody puts up a chart or a graph, and I'm trying to figure out, what am I looking at here? What, you know, what? How is this? What's important? And it does make me feel stupid, you know? And then, now, it's never good to make your customer feel stupid, right? But also, I'm not getting your key point. So, if you can summarize it and say, hey, you know what we're looking at here is this general trend? Or what you can see this? This is in 1999 there was this anomaly, or whatever it is, but please interpret it for me man.

Tom Martin [30:28]

Yeah, that's, and that's again, I think it's you see, if you ever watch it like researchers present, you ever watch like research studies being presented? I mean, they believe their job is just to tell you everything they learned during this research study or whatever, and it's like, no, that's not. I mean, yes, that's what I want to know, but no, it's not what I really want to know. Is, what does it mean? Everything Do you that you learned? What does it mean? What does it mean for my company? What does it mean for what I should or should not do moving forward? Just tell them that if they want all the deep details, great. It's there. It's on the slide, or put it in an appendix. Also, appendix is make use of appendixes. I think that's the other big thing people don't do. Like you said, you're talking to somebody, and they're going to have to pitch it to their CFO, you know, put all the numbers the CFO needs, in the in the in the appendix, in all that kind of heavy detail. Put that in the back. And, you know, when you present, tell me say, Look, you know, some of you may want X, Y or Z, I have all that in the back. Or don't say anything, just present and let them ask the question. And if someone says, you know, if CFO says, Well, you know, how is this going to perform? Or out on a five year running or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you can say, well, actually, I have that detailed, if you'd like, I can jump to that. We have a slide at the end that's in our appendix here. Would you like me to go there now? And sometimes they'll say, oh, no, it's okay. I don't want to break up the whole thing. Just you got it? Though, I do. I'll point it out to you when I'm finished. Or if it's really important, they'll say, yeah, actually, can you go that? And now you know two things. One, well, two things happen. One, you know, ooh, this is really important. This is probably a decision variable. You know, it's not just, you know, this is going to be maybe a make or break your thing. But the second thing it does is it really makes you look like you have, you know, that you're buttoned up totally because, you know, and I've watched people do this that have taken our advice and done this, and, you know, a client will do and this works prospect or client, and they'll say, Oh, well, what about such and such? Oh, I have that on slide 20. Oh, well, let's go there. Okay, come back. Oh, I have, yeah, later the next one. Oh, I have that slide 57 after like, two or three of those, they stop asking those questions. Yeah, because they're like, he probably has it. And so it just improves your credibility and trustworthiness and all of that, which, again, just the more trustworthy, the more credible you are, the more persuasive you will be. It's just, it's just a natural functioning of the two variables coming together.

Mark Shriner [33:05]

I agree with all that. And that's, again, you're trying to develop credibility and trust and part of that equation is just showing that you're prepared and that you're knowledgeable, and that also that you can bring some value to the table. Because if you demonstrate that you have that kind of that knowledge. You're not just some person who randomly walked into this role. You are a subject matter expert. And I find that prospects or customers, they really like it when you can help, maybe educate them or help them understand more what the market's looking like, or what some of the solutions look like. So totally agree with you on all that. Let me ask you. We jump over to the sales training now. Well, no, let me back up. You said, Oh, I got it on slide 20. Or I have the answer. If somebody asks you for something and you don't have the answer prepared, or maybe you don't know it off the top of your head, how do you respond? Then I don't know.

Tom Martin [34:04]

It's not that I don't know how to respond. The response is, you know, that's a great question. I don't have that in this deck, or I don't know, but that's a good question. If you'll give me 24 hours, I will get back to the office and find out for you. Hopefully you're not saying, I don't know, like you didn't anticipate the question or you, but it's okay not to have anticipated every question they might have. So, by just saying that's a good question, I don't I didn't anticipate that would be something important to you. I don't have that in this deck, but if you'll give me 24 hours, I'll get back to the office, I'll pull it and I'll send it over to you, and I'll copy everybody, so everybody can have it move on. Worst thing you can do is try to BS your way through the answer.  

Mark Shriner [34:53]

I think we're totally aligned there as well, man. I think, you know, we're all human beings, and we all want to, you know, be the subject we had. Expert. But, sometimes you just say, hey, you know, that's a really good question. Haven't heard that before, but I like it. Is it okay if I write it down and get back to you within I'd like to the 24 hours thing too, because another thing, when you when you create a time bound commitment to somebody, and then you reach that or meet that commitment, you're also developing trust. They're like, Oh, you know, Mark said he was going to do that, and then he did it. Okay, give him the go the trust. The trust meter goes one, one, you know, one number to the left or right.

Tom Martin [35:32]

Absolutely, it takes confidence to say, I don't know. I don't know why. I've never understood why people are so scared to admit a lack of knowledge or a lack of anticipation of a question, because it, to me, it's like one of the most confident things you can say in a presentation, because you're basically admitting, I guess you're not, you're not really admitting failure, but you maybe people perceive it that way and as a as a prospect or a client, if somebody looks at me and goes, you know, either I don't know the answer, no one's ever asked me that, or any of the things you were talking about. I'm like, all right, cool. That's somebody who's confident in their abilities. They're trustworthy. And then if they do, like you said, they follow up and they get it within the timeline or ahead. Okay, great. You just put another check in the trust box. And that's the thing, you know. That's the other thing about presentation, I think people don't realize is that every presentation is actually two presentations. There's the first presentation is the prospect deciding whether or not you're worthy of being listened to. Are you trustworthy? Are you credible? And credibility is huge. You know what everybody always talks about, Oh, you do business with who you know, like and trust. That's 75% true. It's who you know, like, trust and find credible. I know, like and trust my mom immensely. I love the woman I would never take her recommendations on. You know SAS software, she's not credible. She know me about SaaS software. Even if a SaaS software company hired her, I could very quickly feel, figure out she doesn't know anything about SaaS software. She's not credible. And I think, you know, that's the thing in sales people.

Mark Shriner [37:09]

This podcast, though, man, you have to, you're gonna get a phone call from What do you mean?

Tom Martin [37:14]

I've used that one before. She knows. No, I used to laugh when she would when the book came out, her my dad went on this, like, massive trip and throughout Southeast Asia, and they kept taking pictures with the book everywhere, on social media and everything and I even joke all the time that people say, you know, you know, is the book any good? I'm like, hey, you know, my mom said it's the best book she's ever read. She doesn't know anything my mom, she used to being used as a foil, but, yeah, but the truth is, is that that's the thing people forget. Like the first presentation, is you actually gaining permission to be persuasive, right to have the authority to tell a company how they should make, you know, a multi thousand, or in some cases, multi million dollar decision, right? The second presentation is the actual presentation, and that's the one we all think about work on practice, but so many people forget about the first one, and they just assume, because they are a salesperson for a certain company, or because they have a certain title, that the client and prospects going to consider them credible and worthy of being listened to. And I, to me, it's just a huge mistake. It's a bad assumption to make.

Mark Shriner [38:28]

Agree with you and there, I mean to me, it even goes back to like, showing up on time, you know, making yourself presentable. You know, even just things like a handshake, eye contact, you know, it conveys confidence, building rapport. These are all kind of sort of soft skills. But they're really important. They're, you know, so that, and that's why I said earlier that the sales is such a broad area, because it can go into so many different areas. We can talk about the tools, we can talk about the techniques, we can hard skills, soft skills, all that. So amazing subject. Let's talk about training now. So, you know, we talked earlier about one size doesn't fit all. Talk tell a little bit about your approach. In terms of if you're going to go in and provide training to an SMB, maybe they've got 15 sales people. How do you figure out how to do that?

Tom Martin [39:20]

Well, obviously, you know, you do a lot of exploration and discovery with not just, not just the directors of sales, but the salespeople themselves. Will put a lot of times. We'll put everybody through a simple survey just to gage both, where the management team thinks everybody is and where the team thinks they are in terms of skill sets, etc. But the other thing too is that is what I find is every sales force I've ever looked at in 30 years, I you can put salespeople in one of four buckets. They're either in. Buckets are like the type of salesperson that they just naturally default to being. And the first bucket is a vending machine. They're basically just order takers. They're really not comfortable or not able to do anything to influence either A, the decision to buy or B, what to buy. Classic vending machine. You see, I see a lot of that. They just, they're really good at just taking orders. And so, if you're the market leader, great, they can be great salespeople. And you see a lot, you see those a lot, like in distribution or commodity sales, you see a lot of that kind of stuff. The second is a grocery store, again, you know, not really, necessarily doing much to stimulate a buy, but can simulate what to buy, but it tends to be based on relationship. These are those, those great relationship sales people. They can, you know, their their customers love them. And they'll go to the they can go to the customer say, Hey, we got a new product coming out. Can you do me a favor and buy, you know, whatever a case, or, you know, whatever the initial order. And so what you'll see is like the sales of new products will go like this, and then they'll flatten, and then they'll drop. And it's because they can't get that repeat because, you know, they already leaned in the relationship. Or there'll be a website on a website tends to be more information driven sales. They're They're much better at it, sort of tactical sales, using content, using logic, really making great arguments, making great presentations. They're also one of the key characteristics is that makes somebody a website is like a good website. They are absolutely just like dogs with a bone when it comes to growing cart. Like every time you ever buy something on the web, what's the first thing the website does tries to get you to buy another.

Mark Shriner [41:39]

Get recommendation. I can't check out. Man. There's too much good stuff here.  

Tom Martin [41:45]

And so, website sales people will do that. They're really good at like growing cart and getting people to buy more of a client's products and services. And then at the top of the food chain are florists. And those are your true, trusted advisors. They're great at building relationships, really knowledgeable, really well trusted, and where you know you have a florist. And the reason I call them florist is, if you think about when you buy like roses, when you buy roses through a florist, it's really one of the few things in the world that you ever buy sight unseen you call you just assume something nice is going to show up. That's a huge trust. So anytime you've got a salesperson that is really good at just the client will buy things because they trust the salesperson is leading them down the right direction. They don't really push back a lot. They don't ask for a ton of backup and support. They just really allow that person to guide them. When you look at a Salesforce, you can usually classify every salesperson in one of those four buckets. And then, you know, then we'll sit down and say, okay, based on that, what should the individualized train? Because if you've got a couple of floors, they may not need much training other than maybe some technical proficiency. Hey, there are floors, but they don't know how to use the CRM, or they don't use a CRM, or they don't know how to use Zoom very well. So, it's very technical oriented. If it's, you know, a grocery store, it might be okay. They need to learn how to use information and build arguments and, you know, improve their presentations, because they're not really good at maybe making that argument to buy, so they don't have to lean into the relationship so much. You know, vending machines, you've just got to figure out whether or not you're going to fire them. Are they trainable?

Mark Shriner [43:30]

Yeah. But in some industries, if with some products or services, maybe that's all you want, you know, is a vending machine, right?

Tom Martin [43:39]

It can be, you know, like I said, if you're, you know, if you're the industry leader, it can be great. I used to do a lot of work in the liquor space, and as long as we were working with one of the big brands, that of the company where it was, you know, an order taker was all you really needed. But when the company was trying to launch challenger or smaller brands using that same sales network, and those brands really suffered, and some of them ended up kind of dying on the vine, because they did have a lot of vending machines, and those folks just that's not that's not going to happen. They're not going to help you launch that smaller product. So, you're either gonna have to pummel the market with lots of marketing spend to pull it through the market, or, you know, it's going to weather on the vine, but a lot of time even that, it's just, you know, helping a client. A lot of times it's, you know, that training might be well, before you worry about training that person, you have to first figure out, are they trainable? And if they aren't, then maybe it's time to get rid of them. And if they are, then, okay, what do they need? Can we move them up to a grocery store? Can we teach them relationship building schools. Can we teach them how to develop loyalty and trust and credibility so that at least they can lean into relationships to help them sell, and that they can actually want to sell and influence the buying decisions? So that's how we approach it. And you know, when you customize it like that and you put people in groups, I just think what you're doing is you're getting a more. Uh, you're getting a more efficient ROI out of your training spend, because everybody's getting exactly what they need, versus just everybody gets the same thing. And so, as a person being trained, you're sitting through something, you're like, I know all of this. I don't need this. You check out and maybe you check back in when it's covering stuff you really do need, maybe you don't. So, I think it just creates a lot more efficiency.

Mark Shriner [45:26]

Makes a lot of sense, and I really like it, because I've delivered one on one, training, small group training, and then training to large groups. And for me, they all have their unique challenges, but the one that I feel probably least fulfilled as the person who's delivering the training is the large groups, because it's kind of a cookie cutter approach. Hey guys, and you know that half the people in the audience already get this lesson, this lesson, this lesson, so it's it can be challenging. And what I try to do in those scenarios is make it as interactive as possible, so that people who do know can play the role of the mentors, the people who don't know, and we can model things. But that's challenging, especially if you're doing it remotely or virtually. You know, it's so challenging.

Tom Martin [46:13]

I had to do, we have, like, a half a day biz do, business development workshop that we do and to save money, the company wanted us to do it virtually for them so that they didn't have to either pay me to travel or pay their people to travel. And oh, it was so hard. It was it's just training is just so unless it's one on one, I can do my one-on-one coaching with clients over video. No problem. It's fine. But, man, when you're when you're doing any type of workshop, I don't know about you and your way you've found in your training, but I have just found that I feel like I'm so much more effective if I'm in the same room.

Mark Shriner [46:53]

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And the other thing is, when you're doing it remotely, you're also competing with their phones and their wives and whatever else.

Tom Martin [47:07]

Hell yeah, you know, there's a second screen open, literally, some things on it.

Mark Shriner [47:12]

In the stock market, the, you know, sports, you know, ESPN, whatever it is.

Tom Martin [47:18]

Oh, hell yeah! But again, that's why you have to, you know, if you are ever selling things remotely, that's why you have to present very differently. You have to use different tools, different cadences, different approaches, because you're battling that second screen, because everything, let's face it, we all have it. I've got three right here in front of me. You're on one. I've got my main computer monitor and my laptop monitors over here. I could be watching the Paris Olympics right now, if I had not.

Mark Shriner [47:44]

Very important there. Tom!

Tom Martin [47:46]

You're very important. You're on the main one, that I'm actually, thank goodness. Like I'm saying, like, if I was, you know, if this was a sales presentation and I was getting bored with what you were saying, I could have my email or something right below camera, and I can, you would probably figure out eventually that I'm looking at it, maybe, if you know, but, um, yeah, you know, it's just, it's, I just, I've always felt face to face was the best, yeah, just, you can get a better vibe. You can kind of see and feel. Is this person getting it? Are they not getting it? Are they or are they getting it, but they're buying it or not buying it? And you can see, like I said yesterday, we're doing this training, and I was talking to the client at the break, and I'm like, so what are you thinking? I mean, you know your people better than I do. He's like, Yeah, everybody's in. There's two or three that are kind of they're not right there with you yet. I'm like, is it the two or three you would have expected to not be with me? He goes, Yep, exactly. I was like, okay, good. If it's the three you expected to be tough sells and not really jumping heading along into this that's good. That means things are going well this morning, you know, so but yeah, you wouldn't better pick that up in a virtual environment. It's just too hard.

Mark Shriner [48:59]

Yeah. Let me ask you. What advice would you give for people who are trying to hire salespeople? What do you look for in a sales candidate to demonstrate or to show you that you know what this person will probably do a good job.

Tom Martin [49:20]

The number one trait I look for is curiosity. Do they? Are they? Are they truly, a curious person? Not that they can ask questions or will, but what are they truly curious about getting the answer, not just as it ends to a means, but they just legit enjoy learning about other people, about other people's situations, about how they might be able to solve something that curiosity. All the greatest salespeople I've ever met are just they're curious by nature. The second thing I look for is, are. Do they follow through? I mean, do they do? They do what they say they're going to do, or if they tell you you're going to have it in 24 hours, you have it in 24 hours. Other thing is critical thinking. I try to challenge people's critical thinking skills. And because, yeah, at the end of the day, a lot of times that is what sales is. It's, you know, it's, ah, you know, I actually, I stole this from one of the very first interviews I ever did coming out of college. I was in interviewing an ad agency, and it was the second round interviews. And I thought it was going to be just, Hey, do we like this kid? And if so, we're going to hire him. And I get in this and this guy, this guy looks at me, says, Alright, he goes. So your Mercedes Benz and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and there's this new company, Lexus, and they are doing X, Y, Z, and they're stealing market share. What do you do? What's your marketing plan? I'm like, oh, okay and, you know, and so I spouted off without, you know, I, you know? I said, well, this is what I would do, and here's why I would do it. And it was really funny, because after I got hired, I asked the guy is, like, Dude, that was kind of a, I'm not going to use the word I use, but that was not a nice question. You know, I was a little shit. And he goes, Yeah, he goes, but here's the thing. He goes, I really didn't care if you got it right or wrong. I just wanted to see how you'd build your argument. Could you build a rational argument whether I agreed with you or not? Could I see how you got where you're and so that's what I'll do. I'll ask some sort of a question like that. And again, I don't really care if they get it right or wrong. I just want to see, can you build me on the fly, a logical rational can you connect dots in a way that makes sense, even if I disagree, because I don't know if you've seen this, but I find that's one of the most lacking skills these days. We're we are our I guess it's our education system. We're putting out people who are really good at regurgitating information that's been told to them in the proper format, but we're not necessarily turning out people that are really good at just being able to take this, think about it, and then solve it, or at least quasi solve it in the in the moment.  

Mark Shriner [52:15]

So yeah, that opens up a whole another can of worms, because something that I'm really passionate about. But if we look at our education system and how we're raising our kids these days, there's actually a great book called The Coddling of the American Mind. It talks about how we take the kids and we protect them from any kind of adversity, and we control all their free time by, you know, all these organized activities, instead of them just going out to play with their friends and negotiating, hey, what do you guys want to do? Why should we do it? And, you know, in doing these, in dealing with, like conflict internally, but then they go off to university, and you have safe spaces, and you're not allowed to actually openly debate controversial issues, which was what university was actually originally part of the to learn these critical skills and kind of push back on the, you know, just the quote, unquote doctrine of the day. And so, then you get out there and congratulations, you've got a job, you got a degree. Now, go get a job. You get a job. And they're like, Okay, so we want you to take care of this. And they're like, but so no, I mean, that's we could literally talk hours for this, because I think it's massively important. And let me just ramble on for one more second, because I have three, three boys, and you know when we talk about the importance of specific skills. So for example, whether it's accounting or, you know, computer programming, for example, versus general skills, which would be like, you know, reasoning, persuasion, you know, the ability to communicate an effective manner and I say, you know, those hard skills are really, really important. Some of those jobs coding could be replaced by AI in a few years, we don't know, but the ability to go and actually communicate with people and be persuasive and kind of critically think through problems, that's not going to be replaced, neither is your plumber. But so, I mean, it's, it's hugely important.  

Tom Martin [54:13]

Well, I've always said sale, the ability to sell and persuade other people is a superpower that guarantees you will always be employed. Somebody somewhere is always going to need something sold, and not everybody can sell. So if you can do it, you know, but it's interesting you're saying about the education is that the other big thing is, and this is when I'm looking at, really, like younger, you know, 22 to say 29 - 28 you know, entry level is, can I get them to call me back on the phone? Because you'll reach out to them and they'll text you back, or they'll email you back. Can they, you said earlier? Can they look me in the eye and shake my hand, yeah, and have a conversation face to face with me and. And, you know, do they do they pull their phone out? That's my first thing. If you go, you come into an interview with me, and your phone's out, you better be really impressive. And if you, God forbid, you look at it, if you look at it, oh man, it's not gonna be a good day.

Mark Shriner [55:20]

And so that could be some it maybe doesn't fit into the, so you've planted the seeds in me, the vending machine, the grocery store, the website, or the florist. That's just a general skill that goes across all four levels where that, I think you can teach. And it's probably just, it's to some degree generational. I mean, people my age are guilty, but sometimes as well, but very generational. And people need to understand that when I you know, if you pull out your phone in the middle of a conversation, even take a look at it, what messages are you sending the person that you're talking to? You know?

Tom Martin [55:55

Oh, there's, I think it's Simon Sinek. Has this great YouTube video. He's on stage giving some talk, and he has some he says, hand me my phone. And he talks about how just the fact that you bring the phone into the environment of a conversation, you don't have to look at it, you know, it doesn't even have to be on the fact that it's in your hand. It changes the vibe, and it changes the you know, because in like, I said, in like, I tell you know, when we do our training, I tell people, Look, if you're at a meeting with someone and their phone is on the table, your the your hurdle just got higher. And I said, if the screen's facing down, you got half a chance. If the screen's facing up, you better be super compelling, because the screens facing up for a reason, they're worried, you know, the FOMO thing and what it but, you know, like a simple trick we teach all the time is, when I go into a meeting, I will make a point of taking my phone out of my jacket or pocket or whatever I'm wearing and turning and saying, Give me a second. I want to turn this off so that, you know, like my family, they're on the emergency so even if I have it in silent mode, if my kid calls, it's going to ring, and I don't want to be disturbed while we're having our meeting. And I'll make a big deal about putting that off and putting it away in my bag. And I do it for two reasons. One is to tell them you are the most important for the next 30, 45, hour, whatever you are, the single most important thing in my in my life, which is, like the sexiest thing you can do in the world anybody. Because nobody gives you their undivided attention anymore, right? And so, when someone does, it makes you kind of sit up a little talk. Oh, okay, they're into me, cool. But the second thing does is it primes them to go.  

Mark Shriner [57:43]

Maybe they should check theirs off.  

Tom Martin [57:44]

Maybe, I should do it too. And I've actually watched people do it, people who I've watched them in other meetings, and they don't do it, but just that simple priming technique. And if you can get that phone out of the room, especially if it's a group presentation, you get all those phones out of the room. I just think you're you've already elevated your ability to persuade.

Mark Shriner [58:06]

And help them maintain because they're paying attention

Tom Martin [58:10]

Absolutely! It's I have a love hate relationship with phones. I mean, I love the technology. I remember when it first came out, I had a Blackberry, and I was a solopreneur, and I was so excited that I could be in two places at once, because it just made my life so much easier. And now fast forward, you know, 20 years or whatever, and like, Oh, my God, it's like a freaking digital leash. I hate it. I wish I could throw it away, but yeah, so, you know, I think, like I said, curiosity, critical thinking, good communication skills, you know, do they look in the eye when they shake your hand? Did they maintain eye contact? Did they put their phone away like that? Just sort of some of those etiquette skills, like, to me, that package right there. I can work with that. I can, I can, I can round the edges, I can teach the skills. But those are those sort of intangible things, that I can't train, that into you.

Mark Shriner [59:06]

You can create awareness, though, in the person and say, hey, you know, this is, this is what I'm perceiving. I've I remember coaching somebody, and we the part of the coaching processes was that I went on a sales call, actually went on, like, three or four different sales calls with the person, and he'd have a habit of, he, you know, he wore suit, and back in the day when people would wear ties and, but he'd have a habit of, when he'd meet somebody, if we were standing, he'd put his hands in his pocket and kind of lean against the wall. And this is like an initial meeting, right? We're not all friends here, right? And so I just took him aside after like, the second meeting, and I said, here I'm gonna show you what you're doing, and you tell me how you feel. And he goes, I do that. And he goes, you're right, I do. I never even thought about it, but it just looks like I'm a sloth, and I don't care, right? You know? And I was like, Yeah, that's it. But, and then he changed, but, so it wasn't. You know. And sometimes when you're talking about people's personal behaviors, it can be painful, but I say, Hey, you gotta put your body armor on. I'm gonna just tell you what I see. I might be wrong, but let me just, you know, kind of model this out for you and that awareness sometimes helps. Sometimes people push back. They're like, No, no, I'm not gonna change.

Tom Martin [1:00:18]

And you know, you're right. I like how you positioned it. You're not trying, you you're coming from a place of caring. You're trying to help the individual be better, and trying to just pick on them and, you know, tell them that you're bad. You're just saying, I think you could be more effective if you stop putting your hands in your pockets and leaning against the wall. You know, that's probably not a great look. So, yeah, no, I It's, I tell you, that's the that's going to be the thing I think in the next, you know, if I look forward the next five to 10 years, I think that interpersonal skill and that awareness and that ability to make to really handle oneself in a in a physical environment with prospects and clients, I that might be one of the big game changer skills that separates the superstars from the just the average salespeople, because we do have this whole generation coming through that for many of them, that's not a strong suit, because they've grown up looking at phones and iPads.

Mark Shriner [1:01:23]

Text, Text, Text, Text. I really have kids, you got me beat. I got three. But it was funny, like, you know, soon as they got to their teens, we'd go like to soccer game in the back of the car, right? Or practice kids in the back the car, and they're not talking. And I look back there, and they got the phones out, and I say, Hey guys, sorry, you know, say my son's name, his dad, I'm kind of militant about this. You got to put your phones away. They're like, what? I'm like, no, no phones in this car, man. And guess what? They start talking. But you know, it's just like, What do you want to teach your kids? You want to teach them how to, teach them how to, like, be a slave to this? Mine's not, by the way, that's just the case. Don't get your feelings here. So, but the or do you want to teach them to be able to communicate, and, you know, have fun and you know, because what's more enriching and but I think there's a lot of concern people are tough. We're getting into another topic. But I think a lot of parents are concerned about being too tough with their kids or whatever. But come on, man, being a parent's not easy.  

Tom Martin [1:02:27]

You know, it's interesting, because I have four in the oldest to youngest, the gaps 10 years. So my oldest came into that like, 13, 14, you know, the teenage years, right on the Earl like, there were, there was no iPhone there that there was, you know, the little old fashioned phones that had numbers on that you could tell, yeah, and so she kind of came through all of that. She was, you know, probably high school or college, you know, once, like you started really having social media and all that stuff. Whereas my youngest, you know, he's 16 right now, so, I mean, he has grown up in that world of digital screens, and it's real. And then my other two are in between, and so it's been really interesting for me, not just as a parent, but just, you know, as a salesperson, as a, you know, somebody who's a researcher, you're doing research. It's been really interesting for me to watch how they have adopted technology or not adopted technology. And you know how, how it's in you know how it's influenced, how they use that technology today, and so forth, and just what their relationship to that technology is, and it's, it's just really, you know, it's been very interesting, and we've been fortunate. My three boys all went to this middle school here in New Orleans. It was an all boys school, and I loved it because, like, the first day we took them, they my son walks in, and the principal, you know, meets him, and my son goes, Hey, or whatever, and the guy looks at him, and he goes, No, no. And this is something they were militant about this. They would make sure every boy in that school knew how to properly shake your hand, look you in the eye, you know. And they would, they would, they would constantly reinforce it. They would walk up to the boys and be like, how you doing. And they would, you know, how you doing today, D and, and if you didn't look him in the eye and shake a hand and give a nice, solid shake, you got a little bit of a fuss that. And, yeah, but it's great because the you know, it's such a little thing, but, and maybe you've experienced this, like, when you do properly look at someone who shake their hand, how many times does somebody ever say, Oh, it's a good shake. Yeah, the person's like, 45 or older, maybe 50 or older, but like, people notice it, and it's different. And so yeah, I think the next 10 years gonna be super interesting to watch.

Mark Shriner [1:04:53]

I actually did a mini workshop on hand shakes because there's ways to do it. There's not ways to do it right? And you don't want to do to, you know, you Scott, should be a firm grip. You don't want to break somebody's wrist or right hand. You never want to pull them in too close or twist their arm, you know, because, like some people shake and they pull in, it kind of, you know, can make you feel awkward. So, there's, there's, there's, it's not, it's but if you, if somebody shows you when you're young, it, like you said, it's something that you can use over and over again, and it makes a good impression, yeah, at least in our old school way of thinking. I don't know about these days, but I don't know.  

Tom Martin [1:05:32]

Well, at least for the next few years, we'll be okay, and you know, till the next generation fully takes over the world. But by then we'll sit on golf courses someplace we won't care.  

Mark Shriner [1:05:41]

Hopefully so, hopefully so! Hey, Tom, I really enjoyed this conversation. I'm pretty sure we could continue for another hour or two talking about sales and, you know, the kids these days and whatever. But hey, thank you so much for coming on the grow fast podcast. And if you're up in the Seattle, Pacific Northwest Area, let me know.  

Tom Martin [1:05:56]

I will absolutely, thank you for having me. I'm always flattered when anybody wants to listen to what I have to say, so and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's been fun. We obviously have a lot of similar thoughts about the world.  

Mark Shriner [1:05:56]  

Awesome. You take care.  

Tom Martin [1:06:08]

Cheers Me, too.  

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