The episode of The Grow Fast Podcast featuring Victor Antonio, Sales Trainer & Motivation Keynote Speaker of the Sellinger Group focused on modern sales strategies, particularly the evolving role of technology in the sales process. Victor highlighted how AI and digital tools have transformed the way businesses interact with customers, stressing that while sales enablement tools have grown, salespeople still spend only a third of their time on actual sales activities. He emphasized the importance of building trust through subject matter expertise and keeping the customer’s best interests in mind. The conversation also covered the challenges of today’s sales landscape, including the shift from traditional sales tactics to approaches that account for more informed buyers, as well as the role of AI in simplifying commodity sales.

Another key topic was the significance of understanding the customer’s buying journey, as well as the impact of social media and AI on sales engagement. Victor discussed how salespeople are increasingly reliant on digital channels like LinkedIn but cautioned against hiding behind tools instead of building meaningful connections. He also explored the future of sales in light of AI advancements, suggesting that while AI will replace simpler sales roles, complex sales will continue to require human interaction. Victor’s insights into the future of AI, combined with practical sales techniques, provided a comprehensive view of how sales professionals can adapt and thrive in an evolving digital marketplace.

You can find the whole episode of the Grow Fast Podcast with Victor Antonio here:

‍Youtube

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Sellinger Group

http://www.sellingergroup.com/

The Grow Fast Podcast is brought to you by Breeze, the fastest, easiest, and lowest-cost way to process RFPs, RFIs, security questionnaires, and other important documents.

Breeze

https://www.breezedocs.ai/

‍

This is the transcript for this episode:

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, Victor, how are you?

Victor Antonio [00:15]

I'm doing good. Mark, yourself.  

Mark Shriner [00:18]

Pretty good. Pretty good. Hey, first off, thank you for coming on the grow fast podcast. You have a really amazing kind of, you know, credentials and background related to sales. But, you know, you started off though, as a with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, correct? Then you achieved an MBA, which is kind of an unusual mix, unless you're Andy Grove, you know you transitioned to becoming a leading sales consultant, motivational speaker, sales trainer. You have a podcast, sales influence, finding the why in how people buy with over 100,000 downloads per month. You have a YouTube channel with 202,000 subscribers, and you have an online training academy which has, I think, over 500 videos. So, you've got this tremendous amount of experience and knowledge. And I'm really just happy for you to come to the show.

Victor Antonio [01:18]

Thank you. I appreciate the invite.

Mark Shriner [01:21]

I'm looking forward to talking to you about selling in the modern world in relation to how social media and artificial intelligence are affecting the way that we do our jobs. But before we do that and talk about that, where about you located?

Victor Antonio [01:39]

Right now, in Alpharetta, Georgia. I was born and raised in Chicago, a little background. My family's originally from Puerto Rico. They moved to Chicago in the late 50s, and so I always tell the story, you know, had that humble upbringing. You know, my parents had a third and fifth grade education, so didn't speak the language, so my mother was always about to go to school, get the education, you know, get the great job. I decided to get an engineering degree because I heard engineers make a lot of money. I am a true capitalist, by the way and, I remember I went into engineering school, graduate from engineering I one of the best degrees. I mean, I just love that degree. To this day, I really, I still use my engineering degree, and I think it's a valuable degree. Even I hear people saying that, you know, is college worth it? If you get the right degree, it's worth it and then so eventually, what happened was I got into sales. When I realized I was doing a lot of sales calls with salespeople. As an engineer, I would go with the salesperson, right? We call it a four-legged call, right? So, salespeople would bring me along, and after a while, you know, I saw what they did and around that somewhere around, you know, a year or two into that, you know, my wife's like, Can I stay home? You know, we just had our first child. And I said, well, I need to make more money, and I can do it if I go into sales. Downside is, I have to travel more to which he says, What's your point? Right? And I said, okay, and I got into sales. That's a short version of how I got into sales.

Mark Shriner [03:05]

Well, that's awesome. And I, I'm wondering at what point was so when you you're out there selling, and you said that, hey, you know, I see what these guys do, and I can make more money. Was there something else that kind of drew you towards it, aside just from the potential, uncapped upside.

Victor Antonio [03:22]

No, let me be clear. Okay, true capitalist. I'm value for value. Like, I'm they say that.

Mark Shriner [03:31]

You know, salespeople are motivated by like, three different things. And one of them is, is money. There's that, you know, unlimited upside. The other is recognition, like, hey, look everybody. Look at, look what I did. The other one is the kind of autonomy, you know, I can kind of go out and make my own.

Victor Antonio [03:46]

I think the autonomy is big. Something we don't talk about often is that a sale, as a salesperson, you're like a, like a walking business unit with your own PNL center. You're walking in PNL center. And so, I think I love that. I think I was, if I were to give it a trifecta, right? It would be, obviously, the money, the autonomy, and I think also just being out there, you know what I mean, you know, Frontline, meeting customers and talking to them, those three things really made sales very pleasurable. If I can add a fourth one, you know, the travel was also kind of cool, because, you know, you know, as a kid.

Mark Shriner [04:18]

Obviously, your wife is a fan of that.

Victor Antonio [04:22]

So, there was a moment, though, Mark, here was the moment. I was working for a company out of Minnesota, right? And like, and I love Minnesota by the way, yeah all for sure, you betcha. And so, we were living there for 10 years. I'm working for a company. It's called EF Johnson wireless company. I was the application engineer. I just designed a large wireless system. We were presenting it to Iowa State power and gas. Long story short, we won the deal. Sales dude, Victor, they accepted your system design. We won the deal, right? And I forgot the number was, I think it was like a $5 million deal, right? Big deal. And so, I remember the sales guy took me out. And after. Of that, you know, he brought me back, took me out to dinner, steak dinner, you know, like steak lunch, rather just like whatever you want, Victor, you ordered. Got back, and I was all happy, until, you know, an older engineer told me, you know, why are you so happy? And I said, I'm happy because, you know, Ken Cook, the sales guy, took me out to lunch, paid for it, and because we won this big deal. And then he says, well how much do you think you spent on you. I said, easily, about 50 bucks at the time. And he says, well, how much do you think he's going to make a commission off of your design? I go, I don't know. He was like, well, I don't know. He goes, well, first phase, you'll probably make about, you know, X percent, maybe, like, $50,000 I hope you enjoyed your lunch. And he walked away. He was like, What the hell mark, you know?

Mark Shriner [05:42]

And I was all happy. I got a steak lunch. Yeah?

Victor Antonio [05:45]

I was like, oh, like, yeah, floaty. It is like, you know, that dream killer showed up. But that was, like, one of those moments that you go, huh? These guys make a lot of money. And then I talked to other salespeople, and I forgot what they were making, and I go, you know what? Even though I got an engineering degree, I've always been a very not, not always, but, you know, I have a high sociable personality. And so, I said, you know what? I think I can do this.

Mark Shriner [06:06]

Yeah, it's funny. I have a similar story. I one of my first jobs was an assistant editor for a computer magazine, and I thought the magazine was all about the articles that we were publishing, these amazing articles about, you know, the latest motherboard technology and so on and so forth. And I remember one time the publisher was complaining about one of the sales guys and, you know, and he let it slip. He said, So, ‘how much do you think we pay him?" And I said, I don't know. I was thinking it can be as much as, like the Assistant Editor, right? Because it's all about the words and that, you know. And I had no idea how the advertising game worked back then. And then, you know, it turned out that guy was making four times what I was making, and the light bulb went on for me. And I was like, Wait a minute. So, he goes out to customers and talks to them, which is what I do. I go out to customers and talk to them, and I write a story, and he sells them an ad. I think I can do that. And that's what I started doing.  

Victor Antonio [07:01]

Yeah, Everybody has a sales moment of realization.  

Mark Shriner [07:04]

It's a light bulb came on. Hey, I do, like I said, want to talk to you about, you know, social media and AI in selling stuff. But let's, let's start from the beginning. You know, you've met, you've worked in sales, and you've met 1000s of salespeople all around the world. If somebody was thinking about going into sales, or, if you were running a small business and you had to hire salespeople, what would be some of the key attributes you'd either look for in yourself or in for the people that you're going to hire, in terms of like, These are indicators of success in sales? That's such a tough question.

Victor Antonio [07:39]

You know, I always, when I get that question, specifically, I always mark Roberge wrote a book called The Sales acceleration formula, and he founded HubSpot. And there is no better book that I've read on selling, and I've read a lot of books that I would recommend when it comes to figuring out what is the personality slash characteristics of the best of the best. Nobody has really laid it out like he has. And I would defer to him, because I can't, I can't one up that one. I will give you some of the things I strongly agreed with him on in his process. And it's really good. If you're hiring people you want to read this book. It's worth every penny. The thing is, you know, Will is a big one. We always talk about skill and will, right? We've all heard that, right? You know, you the phrase is, you hire for will and you train for skill. And I'm always like, you know, these little cute sayings. I'm always like, Yeah, let's put a little asterisk on that. If it's a simple sale, I would say I would agree with that, just hire for what you know, for will, and then we can train them on the skill. But if there was a simple to complex sale spectrum, as you move towards the end of the complex sales spectrum, you know, you have to find somebody who has a lot of industry experience, subject matter experts, people who have some experience, not so much so that they're set in their ways. They don't want to listen to the customer. Listen to the customer. It's almost like finding that sweet spot. Not too young, not too old, just right? Goldilocks effect, right? What? What I've learned, and what I've come to accept, is that selling today is about trust, right? If I trust you, I'll probably buy from you. So, I've gone because I'm an engineer, I put equations on everything. I have to figure out the formula, right. So, I've come up with the trust equation. I think it's a pretty damn good one, and it has three variables, three aspects of this. Of the trust equation, the first thing the customer wants to say is, you want to do what a customer is, to take their point of view. The Empathy piece like understand their business, understand your struggles. So, for example, if you're having a sales performance problem, well, walk me through what you're having problems with. Problems with. Where are they not closing? Where are they falling apart? Where are they not following through? I need to understand that, right? I'm talking about, like, for example, when customers come to me and they go, Victor, I need sales training. I always say, well, let's walk through it. The POV. What are you struggling with? Why? Who? What? Where, where? Why? Why? The second part of that. Trust equation, the plus sign is you have to be a subject matter expert. In other words, you have to know your domain. Like I study sales. I've studied every orifice of sales. There is, you know what I mean, and literally, there's like, you know you can't shock me too much, I mean, so I know sales I know I know human beings, and I know salespeople. I know their habits, I know what they like to do, and their tendencies, their biases, whatever. And I get that I have to transmit that to my customer. I understand you. First that second, here's what I know. And then the third part, I think, is always the most important but very subtle, is that as I'm talking to you, I want to keep your best interest in mind. Now, in other words, let's say you're showing concern about budget, then I'm going to keep your best interest in mind. Let's figure out a way to work with your budget. If it's speed to value, look Victor. We need to wrap them up quickly. Okay, I'm going to keep your best interest in mind. Here's what I'm going to suggest. And so, I think those three things kind of play together, if I understand you, I'm a subject matter expert, and I'm looking out for your best interest. That, to me, is the ultimate level of trust that you can develop. The customer. Just saying, you know, you got to build trust always sounds hollow to me. What does that mean? Take your point of view, be the subject matter expert, keep your best interest in mind when you put a proposal in front of them.

Mark Shriner [11:19]

I totally agree with all, with all of that. And I would say, in fact, it's funny. I read Jordan Belfort book The Wolf of Wall Street about and he has, he had a process called the straight-line sales. And he's, he was primarily doing B2C. They were selling, you know, investment advice. But it was the same thing, nobody's going to buy from you if they don't trust you, and how do you develop trust? They have to one trust the organization that you're representing, and they have to trust you, which means you have to be relevant and bring something to the table, some subject matter expertise, right? And if they don't see, if they don't trust either your organization and they don't believe that you're an expert, then they're not going to talk to you, right? B2B. Maybe there's some other factors involved. The thing with trust, though, is it takes time, you know, if you think about personal relationships, it before you know, I want I got to get to know you, you, you know you. Maybe you've got it. You've got to prove yourself. You mentioned a couple things there that can help accelerate that. Are there anything else? Is there anything else you can do to kind of accelerate that trust building process.

Victor Antonio [12:23]

I’m going to gently disagree with your premise, okay, please, that you need a lot of time to build trust. And I'll give you a perfect example. Okay sometimes, take times, we can argue what that take times means, because it depends on the industry, right, and you're right, as you move down the complexity spectrum, you need more time. But here's what I've noticed, and I'll give you an example. I'll give you B2C. Example, we were going to buy a roof for the house, or I just replaced the roof. And I'm like, I'm like, kind of that, I don't know, type C, not very detailed oriented, like, you don't, you know, I will never build a rocket, because I'd be like, 8% good enough. We missed. What's the big deal? My wife, on the other hand, is like crossing T's dotting eyes all the way through if she looks at something. I mean, if she wants to, like, put up a roof or something to get a new roof, she will go down the shingle rabbit hole, right? She'll go down through. What's it going to do to rip it up? What type of TARP you have to lay underneath, whatever it may be, right? She'll go through that whole thing. And so sure enough, sales guy comes over the first one we call, you know, we called on and, you know, he tries to be like, hey, you know, I'm, like, Dude around here. And he keeps looking, Mark, he keeps looking at me, right and not looking at my wife. And I'm doing this. I'm actually, if you're listening this, I'm just staring at my wife. So, he would look at my wife and not me. I said, I almost think, dude, don't look at me, look at her. This is the center of influence right here. It's not me. He just didn't get it. And he would, my wife would ask him questions, like really tough questions, and he couldn't answer them. Like, if he did answer them, they were half assed answers. And she'd follow up, because she's good with the follow up questions. So, you, are you saying, and don't do it.

Mark Shriner [14:05]

You should have videotaped that as a trading a trading day, man.

Victor Antonio [14:09]

Of what not to do. And then you can hear, mentally back petty we goes, well, that's not what I discovered. Here's what I found. And then she would just, you know? And it was just, I felt bad for the guy, because it was like he was getting skewered, you know, death by 100,000 cuts right in front of me. And I'm like, who is this doesn't go well. She goes well, you know, okay, well, let us think about it, and we'll get back to you. Which means no, right? Yeah, the second guy comes over and this guy, the older guy, right? Got the blue jeans, the flannel shirt, he comes over and, you know, introduces himself. He says, let me do a walk around, and then we can talk. Sure. Doesn't walk comes back to talk to us, right? Man, I think he just basically, if there was arm wrestling going on, it was over, like, in 10 minutes. Because no matter what my wife threw, what threw Adam within 10 minutes. Time she was like, just firing at it. Goes, well, you could do that, but here's what you need to consider. Here's what you need to think about. Have you thought of this? Have you thought of that? No, if you, I mean, if you want to spend the money, you can do it here, but here's why. I would invest the money, you know, instead of doing these shingles, you want to put some ridge vents up here, work on this office do this. Here's why. And he would describe air flows. And I'm like, Oh my God. And I was just like, watching this. Well, he was old.

Mark Shriner [15:21]

True subject matter expert, yes, who's put on his advisor hat and to help you figure out what's what you really needed to get done. Because a lot of times the customer, they think they know what they want, but if you drill down on it, maybe they want that result, but they don't know how they want to get it. But that sounds like a, yeah, a great salesperson.  

Victor Antonio [15:42]

So, that answers the question like, how do you accelerate trust? That's a big one, right there, right the accelerate trust is to be to listen to him, but also more once you're a subject matter expert, and I'm a fan of like Matt Dixon and Ted McKenna's book The Jolt effect. Have you read that book? Because it's interesting. Yes. Okay, so if you remember, there's a company called tether that looked at 2.2 point 5 million calls. They analyzed 2.5 million calls to figure out what the best of the best do. And there were two things that came out of that, all that data. One was that customers lack the confidence to make a buying decision, right? They lack the confidence they're looking for you to kind of tell them, you know, and they talk about advocacy mode advocacy. Here's what I would recommend, which is counterintuitive, what we've been thought like. Well, listen to the customer. Let them guide you in terms of what they want. No, that's not what today's customers want. What's happening in the market. You know this already. Mark is customers are so overwhelmed by choices, they're looking for a subject matter expert to help them, guide them, to help them make that buying decision. And the key phrase is to give them the confidence to pull the trigger. So that's what our job is, you know, usually, you know, I mean, back in the day, when I used to listen to Zig Ziglar’s, like, you know, sales is a transference of emotion, you know, great. Back then, pre internet, one could argue today, it's a transference of confidence. If I'm if I can convince you, yeah, this is, this is what you need. And give you the confidence to make that decision, you'll make that buying decision.

Mark Shriner [17:08]

Makes a lot of sense. And so, I mean, if you talk about the day that we're the days that we're living in right now, in terms of we have this paradox of choice because of the internet and some of the other factors that are out there, yes, so How else does that affect how salespeople operate? And we can talk specifically about, for example, social media. I mean, a lot of people spend their whole strategy is based upon LinkedIn. And you know, what are you seeing in terms of what works, what doesn't work? What advice would you give?  

Victor Antonio [17:38]

Well, I was literally having this conversation with a friend of mine yesterday. We're talking about sales, and I've been like screaming for a long time. It's like, you know, people are hiding behind the tools they're texting, right? And year after year, like, literally, pre, pre pandemic, even to today, uh, let's say pre pandemic. They used, on average, three tools in the tech stack. Right now, today, they have seven to 10, depending on the company, right? Yet, with all these sales enablement tools, they're still only spending a third of their time on actual sales activities. The number hasn't changed. Like a third of their time is spent on sales activity, the other spent on research, administrative work, whatever it may be. And I'm like, has anybody questioning this insanity that we're dumping 10s of millions of dollars in the sales enablement tools, but we're not moving the needle on in other words, expanding how much time they're spending with the customer. I hypothesize mark. So, I put it that way because I'm not sure, but here's what my finger to the wind says. We have a generation, especially the last two generations, that have grown up with computers, social media, you know, and devices, right, like droids or iPhones. And it's much easier to send text, send an email, to pick up the phone and actually call. Now, I'm not going to be that old guy going, Oh, you got to pick up the phone and call. I'm not saying that because every, every, I guess, every domain has its way of approaching it. What channel do you want to use, or what mix of channels? But I think we've, we've gone become afraid of contacting people. And its amazing how many times I pick up the phone and call somebody and they actually answer, right? You know. And this whole thing about full quality doesn't work. I'm like, Dude, don't say that, you know.  

Mark Shriner [19:18]

You're preaching to the choir here. My mantra has always been, get the meeting. Get the meeting. Get the meeting. Covid threw a kind of a monkey wrench into that for a little while, but you're right. The younger generations often will consider, you know, texting is okay, but if a call is considered to be aggressive, and I'm like, okay, that's fine if you've got another way to get the meeting, if you've got another way to make the sale, but if you don't, you know, what are you going to do? Because you can spend your whole life doing quotes, unquote research, and you can be working on your LinkedIn profile and your community, but if you're not getting the. Results. What else are you going to do?  

Victor Antonio [20:01]

Another thing to consider, because you're absolutely right. Another thing to consider we don't talk about Mark, is that we're always looking at improving salespeople, right? Like, improving salespeople like, okay, give them the tools. Give them this. Give them some AI, give them some, you know, some automation. Give them some responders, right? Well, we haven't thought about, and this is where my podcast comes from now, I started that podcast in 2008 right? So, and even then, I was saying finding the why and how people buy, because it's not how you sell, it's how they buy. This is what's really changing. So, you know, when you highlight the fact that you know what's changing social media, I would pull back even further and just say the internet changed everything. Because we if you go, if you look at the history of sales, now it's going to be pre internet, post internet, I would argue, also you're going to have a third space now called pre AI and post AI, right? But let's just stay with pre internet, post internet. Pre-internet customers didn't have a lot of information. Post internet, they have a lot of information. Some will say they're 7080, 90, 95% into the buying cycle, which means they're well informed. And so, all these old sales strategies, these sales pitches, simply don't work anymore. You pointed out already one of them, the whole ABC, always be closing, trying to pressure people. It's not working. And I forgot what study? I think it's a Gartner study that so in the Gardner study, and they looked at B to B executives, and I believe the number is 76% of B2B executives, decision makers, don't want to talk to a salesperson. They want to have a sales rep, less experience. And I think what's happening, Mark, is that numbers moving further and further up. In other words, people are saying, I don't want to deal with this, because every time I deal with a salesperson, I they're like an unknown. I don't know what they know, or don't know. Am I really talking to a subject matter expert? And this is a perfect transition into why I think AI is going to be a big deal, like, bigger than most people imagine. And I'm getting, I'm getting pushback from everybody, like Victor, you know, you're a sales trainer. How can you say that the sales profession, the modern day, way of selling, is in jeopardy? Oh, it's in parallel, right? Because of what's coming. And so more and more we're going to enable now buyers, with more tools and more power to make a decision by themselves. Less and less will you need salespeople.  

Mark Shriner [22:22]

Okay so, what does that look like for me as a salesperson, and how, you know, how can I be effective in that environment? And then, what does that look like for the customer?  

Victor Antonio [22:35]

Well, it's a tough question to answer, right because we don't know how fast this is going to accelerate. I think it's coming pretty quickly. Like right now people are like, well, Victor, these chatbots, the voices, I can tell it's a robot to which I remind them, yeah. You know, the net internet was around 15 years then when Netscape came out, it was one of the most that was an ugly browser that was just the first version of it. So, what we're seeing now is AI in its nation, stage right, and we're making judgments on that. You fast forward this three years game changer, because this is not a linear growth, it's exponential growth. And so, let's look at what's going to, I think what's going to happen is that if we go on the spectrum of simple to complex, right? Simple sale, complex sale, almost like a Pac Man starting on the simple side, you know, the AI going to start gobbling up all the simple sales. And we see it happening already when you go on Amazon, do you talk to a salesperson? No. When you go to a website to buy, let's say, a shirt, even a suit today, do you talk to a salesperson? No, right? And it's the technology is going to advance. Now let's go all the way to the other extreme, like complex network designs. You're still going to need somebody to talk to, just to kind of confirm, because that's a big investment, and I don't, I don't know where that.

Mark Shriner [23:44]

I was going to say roofs, but you know.

Victor Antonio [23:48]

So, by the way, so we can, so if you look at sales, right, that's the spectrum. But here's what's interesting, and I'm glad you highlight this, because there are exceptions, especially within the residential industry. So, when I look at, let's say, commodities, obviously going to be AI’d out if I have to buy software packages today, guess what? If simple software packages I can go buy them myself. Don't need a salesperson. If it gets complex, I need a salesperson. So again, complex sale in the B2B enterprise, you're going to need salespeople, trusted advisor, consultative, selling, type of salespeople, but you highlight something that's really important is that when you look at residential sales in general, roofing, plumbing, windows, landscaping, I don't know, HVAC, so forth, it's on pools, right? That stuff's not going to be AI’d out, yeah, but I would argue that I won't need as many people to support that function anymore. So, for example, I'll now be able to go to a website, design my pool, right because I have the technology. It's happening already. And so, design the pool, move things around, and then all of a sudden, I can get a build. Material price and maybe even qualify for financing. Now, I'll still want to talk to somebody about this pool design, but I'll start doing it myself. So now, instead of having I'll say 10 people on staff, maybe you just need three or four people. That's it. I'm saying that even though it won't impact salespeople on one side, in other words, in the roofing industry, again, we still need people to get up on the roof. Robots can't do that. Yeah, we still need somebody to come into the house and actually close the deal. Robots really can't do that, because, again, customers want to talk to people today. But if you look at the operational side of it, the administrative side of it, AI is going to gobble all those jobs out.  

Mark Shriner [25:38]

Yeah, I would say, like, now that we're on the topic of residential, I would say most of your trades are fairly insulated or protected from the from AI, so those jobs are not going to go away. Yeah, you know, you're still going to need your plumber to come out and, you know, and replace the toilet or whatever.

Victor Antonio [25:56]

Can I give you an example? How it might affect them on the operation side? Sure, because, because I did this presentation, I think you'll find this fast. I think the audience will find this fascinating. So, there's a, there's a website that was developed by Andrew Ng, which is the founder of Coursera, right, yeah. And it's called landing lens. I think if you go to landing.ai, you'll see what I'm talking about. Let me give you a physical example in, as you say, in the trades on the residential side. So, let's say I'm a window manufacturing company. Here's what here's how I can use landing lens. What it is is a visual recognition AI system. Here's how I can train it. I did it myself. It takes literally minutes to train an AI machine, which, in and of itself, is incredible. Here's what I do. Let's say I have a window company, and I got all these returns of windows that have broken, seals, whatever they may be, right. Frames cracked, whatever it may be. What I do is I take pictures of all these windows that come in, right? Let's say I have that inventory of Windows pictures, right? All I do is go to landing.ai. This, how simple it is. Mark, I upload all the pictures of all these defective windows, right? Then step two, I go over and I draw. Gives you an option to draw a red box around the damaged area of each of these windows, right. Step two. Step three, I hit a button called train. It trains the machine correct, right, and then it tried to predict. Here's what you then do. Mark, I'm a window company. You call up, right? You go into my chat box. You go, Hey, one of my window has broken seal. I want to replace it. I'm almost sure I'm under warranty. Blah, blah, blah, right? The machine will now say, can you send me a picture of the window or point your webcam at it, right? You will do that, and it will look at it, and it'll be able to make a decision, yep, that's a broken window. It'll then access your record. Says yes, it's still under warranty. It'll then access the calendar for the technician, says yes, we have these dates available. Would you like to confirm? Yes? Okay, confirm that day automatically sends you an email. No person required.

Mark Shriner [28:04]

Yeah, but somebody's going to have to come out and install it. So, but this, but, but that front end work, that operational element, and I would argue that for a lot of the trades, the sales element, has radically changed over the last 1015, years, anyway, because of the internet. Because if I go in and type plumber, right, I'm going to get these, these, these aggregate sites over their lead aggregation sites, where I'll put in and they'll send somebody out. But it's not, it's just somebody who subscribes to get leads from these sites, right? So, most of these, you know, tradespeople out here have already kind of outsourced their sales. They're not outgoing doing bids, unless they're larger organizations, right? Most of the smaller ones these, you know, you had a couple roofing companies come out, but how did they actually find out? How did your wife find them? Are they building their own websites? Are they going and doing outbound marketing? No, typically, most of them are using something already online, and so I could see the sales element of that totally being outsourced to AI applications, maybe walking around taking a picture of your roof, for example. And I mean, because I can take a picture of a tree and it'll tell me what kind of tree it is, right now, they're apps for that for different wildlife. It can listen to a bird and tell you what kind of bird it is. You can point it at the stars, and it can tell you what constellation you're looking at. Why can't I take a picture of my roof? It could probably figure out the size and everything like that. And, yeah, yeah. So, I totally agree with you there.  

Victor Antonio [29:28]

The pool industry uses, you know, Google Earth, yeah, you know, to begin a design on the house. So, I mean, just they could pull that information and easily do that.  

Mark Shriner [29:39]

So, if there's a lesson to be learned. Here it is, if you're going to go into sales, probably want to go into something that's a little bit more complex. And if you know, especially if you have already, have a subject matter that you're, you know, a deep expert on, that's something that's going to kind of protect you for a while, right? But if, but I guess on the opposite side. If you're an organization that is selling something that's considered to be a commodity, whether it's a service or a product, probably can leverage AI to kind of make your sales experience easier, I guess.

Victor Antonio [30:11]

Yeah, I think you can. So, what can small companies do that? Maybe sell a commodity, right? And that is one of the things you're going to see is the like this, growth did not boom in micro enterprises. In other words, what used to be 100 people can now be done with maybe four or five people. Forget that. When Facebook was bought, it only had 13 people. You know, it wasn't a big company. And so, what's happening with all this technology is enabling us to do more with less people. My biggest concern is what, you know, like, Goldman Sachs predicts over what is it? 100 million jobs we lost over the next, you know, 5, 10, years, something like that. Just an incredible number. I think it's 300 million actually. And so, you know, it's, I think that's what's coming. And so, when I talk to salespeople today, they're asking, oh, Victor, where do I fit? It's hard for me to answer, because it depends on the industry and how fast those efficiencies are going to move through the industry. In other words, AI, different technology. You know, we know that the trades and this, maybe this is a stereotype, but I believe this is true. They're never at the front end of implementing the latest and greatest technologies, right? They're always lagging, right? They're not, they're not the, what's called, what's called, that first wave in the distribution goes, they're not the edge, yeah, they're right at the beginning, right? You have the bleeding edge. And so, they take a while to kind of jump on, right? And so doctors is that it goes, that's the diffusion curve. And so, and these, you know, most, most of these trades are, y'all just say, you know that industry, the residential usually like laggards, right? They're not early adopters. And so, I guess there's time for that to kind of shake out. I mean, none of us know where it's going, but I think to deny the technology can't be used to create new efficiencies, reduce headcount.

Mark Shriner [31:48]

But I guess I'm looking for lessons learned here. And one of the lessons I'm taking away is, if you're going to be in sales, do something on them, on the more complicated, on the spectrum, that's a little bit more spectrum complicated. Yeah. So, when you go into, you know, you're providing training for organizations, you know you talked about the tools or the skills or the attributes needed to develop trust, what other kind of training, or, yeah, skills do you work on?  

Victor Antonio [32:14]

Yeah, I was, I got to share this data point with you, because I've blown away. This is a real data point. This is not like, you know, something out of the study. So I was doing a presentation a large company, and it's a, you know, it's a window company, and we were doing this Q A session, and this one franchisee stood up, and I remember she were talking about her business, and I said, Okay, so what percentage now I'm going to talk about referrals. Specifically. How do you get more business in the pipeline? And she I said, you know, what's your referral rate? And she says, Well, 26% of our business something like that, 26%, it was 2020, plus something, right? 26% of our business comes from referrals. I was like, dang, that's like a third, right? And I said, out of curiosity, what's your close rate? And she says, What's about? 62 and I was like, holy buckets, that's pretty good, right? I said, How are you doing this year? And I thought she was going to give me a different number. It's going down. She goes, No, it's going up. We're like 50 plus. I think it was like 54, 56 you know it was 50 plus percent of our businesses coming from referrals. I said, What's your close rate? And she goes, Well, it's gotten better. It's eight, about 85 it was 82, 85 and I'm thinking, oh my god, she just basically eliminated her cost of sales, right? And her profit margins have to be going up shorter sales cycle. I highlight that because here's a person who's figured out that your existing customer base is where you want to play, and you could win there. You could dominate that. And for some time, there's still going to be some of that business out there. If you're waiting for leads to come in, that might be tougher. A lot of companies are struggling right now. Mark with they don't have the leads they had during the pandemic, especially in the trades, residential. Remember, during the during covid, man, it was manna from heaven. Leads were coming in. You know, long sales cycle, exaggerated price now it's flipped. Now it's a buyer's market. Not a lot of leads. And guess what? People are pulling back on their money. And so, you know, I thought I'd highlight that dynamic, because somebody might be listening says, how do I grow my business? Well, how often do we focus in on referrals? I don't hear that conversation a lot. And so back to your question that if you're in sales today, what can you do? You’ve got to learn technology to keep up with what's changing. I think that's number one. Two, you're right on the spectrum of simple to complex. If it's a simple sale, you're going to be AI’d out. It's complex. It's even better. What I don't know how to answer for people is like, you know, well, what education should I pursue? And I'm usually lost.

Mark Shriner [34:40]

Well, let's but, I mean, the referral thing is awesome, and I'm a huge proponent of always asking for referrals after. You know, there's a certain time and certain way to do it for you, but you so we could agree that it's important. How would you coach salespeople to ask for referrals? When and how?  

Victor Antonio [35:00]

The way this person, that was really interesting, is that, once everything was installed, like, well, first of all, let's talk about how not to do it. Okay, never ask for a referral. Would you just sign the contract, and you haven't done anything that never makes sense to me, you know, or don't really, don't do the whole upfront agreement. If we provide a grant ..

Mark Shriner [35:17]

Quid pro quo.

Victor Antonio [35:21]

You know, you're like, I don't know you. I don't know you. It's almost like, you know, it's, it's like, we go on a date. Do you promise to? You know? And yeah, it's like that. That's how it feels to me. Sometimes what she was doing was very interesting. Once everything was installed, she would show up, the owner would show up with the technician, do a walk through the house. Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, good, good. Are we good? Check this, everything's fine. And then it was then, after everything was said and done, she would ask for the, you know, for the referral. And she did. I asked her, What do you say?  

Mark Shriner [35:58]

Because you said, let me just stop you there. You can't just say, Would you mind giving me a referral? They'd be like, Meow, maybe, sure, but how does Yeah, so they don't even know what that means sometimes. So go ahead.

Victor Antonio [36:11]

Here’s what she said. And I thought this was really interesting. And by the way, you're highlighting a very good point. Never asked, hey, give me a referral.

Mark Shriner [36:17]

What does that mean?  

Victor Antonio [36:19]

Have to be very specific, right? You know, you got to say, it's almost like, if I say, hey, you know, do you want to go out to eat? You're like, Okay, what does that mean? What you know. But if you say, hey, look, you know, you start defining types of restaurant, you know, whatever, maybe you could get very specific on a referral. You have to be specific what you want. Here's what she did, she said, and I thought this was just it was subtle but brilliant, she said, so let's say I'm talking to you. Mark. Said, Mark, you know, glad you're happy, Mark, one of the ways that I grow my business, right? One of the ways that I grow my business is getting referrals from people like you. And, right? Yep, I said that. She would say, Do you know anybody who is, has a house, and very specific, that has a house that's maybe been in, you know, 5, 10, years, and might be in the market for some windows, right? It's very specific. But here's what was the brilliant approach. You just say, one way we grow our company. We, our, not personal. She said, one of the ways that I grow my business because now you're talking to me, you're not talking to me.

Mark Shriner [37:33]

You and me, yep.

Victor Antonio [37:35]

And she said that was it. We just do that as part of the process, and I think we don't bake that into the sales process, the closing process, or I'll say, post close service has been delivered.  

Mark Shriner [37:46]

You know, value has been acknowledged.  

Victor Antonio [37:49]

Yep, yep, and then you get the knot, and then what do we say? What's the language? And it doesn't have to be that complicated. We just have to bake it in, know where to place it, and know what to say, and then be good at delivering that line that script.

Mark Shriner [38:04]

Yeah and I think that's specific, the more specific you can be, because people, you know, we're all got a million things going on our mind and like, Okay, who could I introduce you to? I don't know, but if you could say, you know, I noticed your neighbors their windows, look at it a little bit, they might need some help. Would it be okay for me to mention that we did some work with you? Sure, you know.  

Victor Antonio [38:26]

Yeah, by the way, I love that, that that's even a better approach. I really love that approach, because what you're saying is, look, I'm driving up the block. Do you know the neighbors right here? Yes, those are the data. I said, I've noticed I did a walk by, because, you know, we always clove relief the neighborhood, right? Yeah, relief. And I said, I've noticed that this neighbor right here that has some windows that might need some, you know, repair or, you know, replacement. Do you know them? Yes, I do. One of the ways I grow my business. Do you mind and then use your phrasing? Because, again, it depends on how you want to say it. Sure. One of the ways I grow my business is, you know, from people like you give me referrals. Do you mind if I use your name when I talk to da da da and if she has any question, would you mind if she asks you a question about the windows, you know?  

Mark Shriner [39:17]

I can guarantee you that if you do work on two homes in a given neighborhood, you're going to get more work too, because that network effect kicks in. Man, did you say, hey, how are they doing on your house? Oh, it's amazing. I love these people. Oh, contractors from all my neighbors all the time, whenever they got somebody good, I'm over there, like, hey man.

Victor Antonio [39:43]

I've had people, we just have some trees knocked down, yeah, and neighbor comes over. He's like, it's almost like doing a drug dealer. Like, what they do for you.

Mark Shriner [39:52]

Hey, I want to ask you, you know, I know you do motivational speaking. And clearly. Have a lot of energy, so I want to break that down. What do you do to kind of maintain your energy levels? And then also, you know, what advice would you give to people who are struggling to stay motivated? Because salesman, if you're not motivated, it can be a hard job. You're going to get beat up a lot, right? So, you need the energy. So how do you keep it and how do you stay motivated?  

Victor Antonio [40:25]

Fear?  

Mark Shriner [40:28]

Check she's going to look at the paycheck.  

Victor Antonio [40:34]

So, Mark, I tell people this, they think I'm like, not being serious about this. But fear has always been a great motivator for me. So, we didn't have a lot of money back then, you know? And I remember when I was in high school, I was going to quit, not, I mean, not go to college, graduate from high school, not go to college. And my mother said to me, okay, if you quit, you have to go to work with your father at a factory he was working at, and it was like a little factory. And I'm like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. Let's go to college, right? That's why I went to college. And so, I joke about to make money, but also the fear of going to the factory. I've been driven by fear in a positive way, because I think fear is a good thing if, if you know, you mentioned Andy Andrew Grove, right? Yeah, you know, early on, you just kind of, you know, in passing, you mentioned him, right? You know, he was the, he was CEO of, uh, Intel, Intel, right? And he wrote the book, only the paranoid survived, right? And so, I've always lived with that mindset that, you know what I mean, I'm paranoid, but in a good way, not paranoid like a skittish rabbit. I'm just like, Okay, we don't know what the market's going to do. You know, I'm kind of old school in the sense, like, all right, let's keep debt out of the out of the picture. Let's not do that. Let's not try to impress anybody. I haven't, did you know that I have a television show, a reality TV show.

Mark Shriner [41:47]

I did not know that.  

Victor Antonio [41:49]

Okay, so I have, a man of many talent.  

Mark Shriner [41:53]

What aren't you doing? What aren't you doing Victor?

Victor Antonio [41:58]

And so, I have a reality show. It's on, you can find it on like, Hulu, Amazon. It's called Life or Debt, not death. Life or Debt. The guy that helped me or mentored me a bit on there was John Taffer, the guy who did Bar Rescue. Okay, so we were both on the spike channel. So now that the series spike was bought by Paramount, you'll see it on the Paramount network. If you have Paramount, it's on there. Grab it for free, and it has an 8.8 IMDb score, which is amazing. So, in this, the reason I bring this up mark is because the show's all about this, and he found me online, by the way, that's another story, but the show's about this. My job is to help families who are struggling economically and financially, right? So, what I do is, I go and visit the family. I spend five days with them, a whole week, right? And I try to figure out what happened. How did it happen? And then, how do we get out of this mess, right? And at the end of the week, I give him a blueprint. I give him resources, just like John Taffer does. You know, you know he's got contractors. Why have lawyers help you with bankruptcy mortgage, you know? HR, if you need a better job, you know, I had all the resources. So, I give you all the tools and the resources. When I leave at the end of five days, I come back in 90 days just to see how you're doing, right? And so that's the show. You'll see an episode. And by the way, it's not always roses. I'll just say this, by the fourth episode, they hired a bodyguard for me on set. Every husband wanted to kick the living boop out of me, right? And so, and not all the endings are happy. They're not. But what was interesting, I bring this up because in there we talked about, this is pre pandemic, right? 2018, and pre pre-inflation, 75% of American families living paycheck to paycheck. At the time, 75% of American families live in paycheck to paycheck. And so, you know, when you, when you when you've experienced poverty, you just don't want to go back. Not afraid of it, been there, done that, just don't want to go back. That's the fear part. What motivates me? Here's why. This long answer to your question about motivation. If today you're not worried about having enough savings, you're a fool. If today you're worried about what people think about you and you're spending money for no reason, you're a fool. And, by the way, if you want to be able to do those two things, spend money. Live the lifestyle. Live the Vida Loca, great. Go into sales. Because in sales, you have the opportunity to make money, because you could again. There's no cap. If you write, find the right company right as long as you can sell, you can make money. There is no limit to what you can make. And I bring this up because I'm motivated by not wanting to go back to what I used to know. And that's like, you know how something is so imprinted in you when you're young. I don't ever want to be here again, yeah. And so that is the fear that motivates me. And so that's been the benefit, I guess, of growing up a little bit underprivileged. And so now, you know, Dude, I'm so frugal, it would blow your mind, like, if I don't have to spend money on something, I just got rid of my Volvo. You. That's 22 years old, 22 years old, yeah, and people like, can't you afford new car? Oh, I can afford new car.

Mark Shriner [45:07]

How many miles you had?  

Victor Antonio [45:11]

I have 235, I donated to a, it was one of those nonprofits where, you know, guys, yeah, off drugs and all that stuff. So I was, it was cool, but my point is that I am motivated by not going back there and not being so dependent. Because if I could just add this one last top spin on this ball, and that is this, when you owe money, it's a form of indentured servitude. Yeah, right. And by that, I mean is you can't make decisions objectively because you are subjectively tied to a debt totally the only way to untether yourself from that and be able to think for yourself and be who you want to be is to reduce your debt, if not eliminated altogether.

Mark Shriner [46:00]

Totally agree with you, and by the way, it's a heck of a lot easier to save money than it is to make money, because the money you make gets taxed, and what you take home is, you know, is a smaller percentage. But what you just talked about, I mean, that mentality or philosophy used to be kind of prevalent for I would say, my grandparent's generation, people who went through the Great Depression, they were emotionally and mentally deeply affected by living through that time.  

Victor Antonio [46:30]

We’re traumatized.  

Mark Shriner [46:31]

Yeah, traumatized.

Victor Antonio [46:32]

It’s two words, we’re traumatized.

Mark Shriner [46:33]

So appreciative of some of the small things. When I grew up, if you had a single car garage, not a carport, but a real garage that was like, oh my god, they've got a real garage, man, they've got a car to put in it, and another car in the driveway. And you drive around now, and people that 345, car garages, and it's and it's not even, they don't even put their cars in there, because they got so much garbage in there. The debt thing, I think you know, my definition of hell would be in to be working in a job that I didn't enjoy, commuting an hour each way to get there and back, working for a boss that I was afraid of, but I was I couldn't do anything because I was paralyzed with fear, because I only had a month's worth of savings in the in the bank, I mean, and there's a lot of people living that way. And I just want to you know there's, like you know, there's, like you said, 75% of Americans are living paycheck to paychecks. So totally with you on that. And I also have a healthy, I think, amount of fear in terms of, you know what? I want to work hard because I want to keep, I don't want to lose the lifestyle that I'm living. And I also have some aspirations. It's not always looking back. It's also looking forward when you're doing your training. Last question here, when you're doing your training, because a lot of salespeople are like, well, you know, I don't feel motivated. Or maybe the company should do some motivational training. Or sales managers like, hey, I want to motivate my team. And I kind of feel I'm old school. A lot of that motivation should come from inside. If it doesn't come from its inside. If you don't want to be the best, I can't really convince you now, there are times that I can say, Hey man, you did an awesome job. Hey everybody, let's, let's give a round of applause to Victor for what you know. He just, you know, closed that huge deal. But what else can you do if you're in a leadership position to motivate your teams? Or do you just say, hey, it's got to come from within.

Victor Antonio [48:20]

I think it is sad. It when I hear salesperson says my manager doesn't motive.

Mark Shriner [48:28]

I'm glad we're aligned on this.

Victor Antonio [48:29]

I'm like, I think that's just sad. I think you know, if you can't, you know, and this is not one of those, you know, pull yourself up from the bootstrap's conversation. I'm not talking about that if you are dependent on somebody else to motivate you, how sad is that, that you've basically relinquished your control of living to somebody else, right? Because, you know, I go back to Stephen Covey's book, which is based on a lot of stoicism, right? Yeah, there's, there's the things you cannot control, the market, the economy, politics, inflation, you know, whatever, devaluation of currency, you can't control that stuff. So, you focus on what you can control. That's philosophical core stoic system, right? Yeah. And what can you control? You can control what you focus in on. You can control your attitude towards what you're focusing in on, right? You can control where you invest your time and your money, like in yourself, right? And then again, you know? How do you spend your time and what do you do? These are things we can control. And so, I focus on that. And so, when somebody says I'm not motivated, I almost want to say, I can't help you, because I'm going to push you one step further. A lot of times, here's why I would blame managers, if I can blame managers and leaders where they don't do their job. If you sell windows, for example, and it could be pools, doesn't matter. You just pick something, right? Let's say software. Let's go with software. Let's go with technology. You sell some piece of software, right? And I asked people, I said, What do you sell? And you go, didn't you see the software? I said, Yeah, I sell. Software, but what do you sell? And they go, the software, the features, the benefits, what it could, you know? I said, Well, what is that? And he goes, Well, we sell value, so what's the value? And they go, What do you mean? What's the value? I said, What's the value of what you sell? For example, I sell sales training, right? Yeah, that's not value. Here's the value. Here's what I do for companies. When I go to your company, here's what I do. I train your salespeople so they can sell more. If they can sell more, they have more money. Each person has at least 2.5 people in their family. They can support their family to help them go to college. What I do is prop up your company, help you sell more so you can have more people build your business and have more people employed. That's the value I provide through my sales training. Okay, I'm motivated. I just trained salespeople. No, I help salespeople survive and make money so they can help their families, send their kids to college, help the company grow again, hire more people and make this economy run. Man, that's how I contribute. In exchange, I expect you to pay me what I'm worth.  

Mark Shriner [51:06]

I feel pretty good, and I will write the check, man.  

Victor Antonio [51:09]

So, some people, you go, I just sell roofs. It's like that story about the you've heard this cliche story, right? There's, there's three different guys cleaning bricks, right? You heard the story, right? Now, I thought everybody heard this one. So, somebody goes up to the first guy goes, what are you doing? So, I'm cleaning bricks so we can reuse them. Sorry. And the other guy says, what are you doing? He says, well, I'm cleaning this brick so we can build this building. And the third guy says, what are you doing, dude, we're building this church. This is where people are going to come to worship. This is where people are going to find salvation. This is where people are going to turn their lives around. That's what I'm doing. When I'm cleaning this brick. That's right, that's like saying, that's my purpose, that's my mission. This is why we do what we do. And a lot of leaders don't do that. They don't explain value at that level right to their people. They say, well, we just sell software. Well, if you sell software, then you've basically, if I can say this way, Mark, they've commoditized the salesperson's brain because they didn't teach them the value of what they're really selling.  

Mark Shriner [52:10]

Yeah. Understand why you're doing it, why you're doing it. Or Victor, amazing conversation. And I'm sure we could rattle on here for several hours, given the chance to follow your experience and all the different activities, and probably there's some things like, you have a TV show. I mean, who has a TV show or cable that's awesome.

Victor Antonio [52:28]

11 episodes, by the way. So, it's pretty cool. That's awesome. You just check it out. Yeah, you should watch, you should watch it, Mark, and just get back to me. Just watch a couple episodes.

Mark Shriner [52:35]

I will and if people want to reach out to you, is LinkedIn the best way to do that?    

Victor Antonio [52:41]

Yeah, LinkedIn or just off on my website. So, you go to Victor antonio.com, victorantonio.com, you can do two things there. One is, you can download some free books. I got one on the AI. I wrote the first book on AI and sales back in 2018 Sales Ex Machina also have something called the Sales Velocity Academy for anybody who wants continuing education. Check that out. But victorantonio.com is where you'll find me.  

Mark Shriner [53:02]

Awesome, hey, Victor, thank you so much for being on The Grow Fast Podcast, and hope to cross paths to you one day soon.    

Victor Antonio [53:08]

Thank you, Mark. It's been a pleasure man.  

Mark Shriner [53:09]

Cheers.