A $1mm W-2 salesperson

In my late teens/early 20s, I ran up a net worth of over $5mm. I then ran it right back down to $0. I did this a couple of times all before the age of 22. Poker taught me a lot.

Why am I telling you this? I have zero concept of money.

It’s a superpower of mine, and one maybe we can get you to adopt.

For the better part of my career, I was a deal maker. Or what my bosses called me, “the white whale hunter.” I closed deals that no one else could with the companies we only dreamed of.

I’m now focused on creating a world of “white whale hunters” or as Rick likes to call them, “rainmakers”.

In my search of wanna be rainmakers, I’ve found a pretty sad pandemic.

It involves senior-level sales leaders, VPs, and CROs who don’t think what I’ve done is possible. I’ve been called a liar, a fraud, and some other super fun words that don’t bother me in the slightest.

I ask them every time if they need references. The answer’s always “NO!” They’d rather believe I’m lying than believe it’s their own fault they aren’t doing what I do.

It’s all good, why am I telling you this?

Many salespeople, heck, many of you reading this have a poor relationship and thought process around money.

You’re controlled by money.

Which, as a result, has you controlled by your prospects.

It impacts how you run discovery calls, prospects, negotiate, and communicate with anyone that you could sell to.

There are three parts to every salesperson:

1. Will

2. DNA

3. Skills

Read more about it here.

Back to this newsletter and…”A $1mm W-2 salesperson.”

I am that salesperson.

The rest of this newsletter is going to be bullet points on how I did it.

The thoughts, ideas, mindset, tips, tricks, and whatever else you can think of. It will be a rambling, rapid fire, stream of consciousness, that won’t be complete, but will get the ship moving in the right direction.

• I wrote a letter to myself post-dated 1 year of what my life was like at $1m.

• I knew my numbers. I knew exactly how much I needed to sell to make $1mm.

• I got agreement from my company to pay for it when I hit it.

• I decided I was at a company, with a product I could do it with.

• I never let my goal and the potential money impact how I acted with prospects.

• I lived by the 80/20 rule

• I acted as if my pipeline started at zero every day.

• I never spent time with a prospect who didn’t have a problem.

• I was the worst at doing admin and meeting work. Somehow my bosses did it for me because I was bringing in the revenue.

• I never was the most liked, but I was always the most trusted.

• I never left a meeting without a next scheduled meeting.

• I never convinced anyone to buy from me.

• I never sold to anyone that didn’t convince me to sell to them.

• I never spent time with people I didn’t want to help.

• I never took a sale without solving a problem.

• I never accepted the first no.

• I never accepted a price objection as being too expensive.

• I relied on technical experts to handle technical questions.

• I closed every day. Either the next step or Closed-Lost.

• I made sure every prospect won personally.

• I made sure my boss never missed their number.

• I made sure to make my boss look good in front of their boss.

• I went after closed-lost accounts of my peers.

• I asked for referrals from my happiest customers.

• I made friends with competitors and gave them referrals.

• I never qualified. Only disqualified.

• I wrote a letter to myself post dated 1 year of what my life was like at $1m.

• I live by the mantra “everything is your fault.”

• I never lost a deal because of something my company did.

• I always had 20 companies wide, 10 employees deep at all times.

• I got into a texting type relationship with all decision makers.

• I did deal reviews with junior reps.

• I did mentorships with peers in different departments.

• I had such a strong “why” I wanted $1m that it was impossible to fail.

• My only closing technique was “So, what do we do next?”

That’s all for today.

Until next week,

Chris