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In this episode of the Science of Selling STEM, I interviewed Todd Caponi, the Founder, Speaker and Workshop Leader at Sales Melon. Todd is the author of a three time best book award winning and international best-seller, “The Transparency Sale”. He is a multi-time sea-level sales leader, behavioral science and sales history nerd. He’s guided two companies to successful exits. His next book, “The Transparency Sales Leader” is planned for the Spring of 2022. 

Todd built the revenue capacity of a tech company from the ground-up into Chicago’s fastest-growing, helped drive an organization to a successful IPO followed by an acquisition worth almost $3B, and in another organization his turnaround efforts were rewarded with a successful exit and the American Business “Stevie” Award for Worldwide Vice President of Sales of the Year.

Todd was gracious enough to reveal his hard-earned sales secrets including how to engage potential buyers with unexpected honesty and understanding the buying brain to get the deal you want, while delighting your customer with the experience. If there has ever been an episode that you mustn’t miss, it’s this one. So stay tuned and if you ever need help with a sales or leadership issue don't hesitate to book a complimentary clarity session with me HERE.

On Today’s Episode of the Science of Selling STEM:

• Inspired by his dad to go into sales and combining it with his passion for leading and teaching (02:02)
• Becoming a good sales leader despite having been an average sales person (03:48)
• The experience of leaving his franchise business to become a new sales leader (05:48)
• Using the five Fs framework to successfully build process (10:26)
• Why every sales leader should embrace their flawsomeness and ensure that they don’t just focus on the forecasts (14:18)
• How the negative are needed in order to trigger a purchase decision (17:51)
• Breaking down his passion for sales history (26:12)
• Taking sales back to being a respected profession (30:32)

Connect with Wesleyne Greer:

• Wesleyne’s Website
• Wesleyne on LinkedIn
• Wesleyne on Facebook     
• Wesleyne on Twitter
• Email Her at wesleyne@transformedsales.com

Connect with Todd Caponi:

• Todd on Linkedin
• Todd’s Website
• Todd on Twitter

Resources Mentioned:

• The Transparency Sale By Todd Caponi

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Join The Science of Selling STEM community on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and visit my website for even more content, information, and resources

As a sales manager, you are judged by the

performance of your team, and you're praised when they do

well. But one thing that you've not been able to figure out is

how to get everyone on your team consistently hitting quota every

single month. On the Snack size sales podcast, we discuss the

science of selling stem sales leadership in the science,

technology, engineering and manufacturing fields is

difficult. You will learn from sales managers just like you

that will give you actionable insights and tips on how to

develop as a leader and achieve your revenue targets every

single month. So pop your headphones in and get ready to

listen to my guest today. They will give you information and

inspiration to ensure that you have actionable insights that

you can put into place today. Hello, and welcome to another

episode of the science of selling stem. Today I am so

delighted to be interviewing Todd Caponi from sales melon how

are you?

I am fantastic and can't wait to dig in with you.

Awesome. Let me tell you guys just a little bit

more about Todd. He is the author of a three time Best Book

Award Winning an international bestseller, The transparency

sale and a speaker workshop leader as the principal of sales

Mellon. He is a multi time C level sales leader behavioral

science and sales history nerd he's got to two companies to

successful exits his next book, the transparency sales leader is

planned for the spring of 2020 to behavioral science and sales

history like I feel like I am in for such a treat, we're gonna

really, really be digging in because I'm all about behavior.

So how did you start your career? And how did you become

this amazing three time award winning bestselling author,

gosh, there's a lot but I'll tell you this, my dad

was always a sales guy, right? Like grew up in it always came

home with a smile on his face. I knew to a certain extent that

that's what I wanted to do. I was like, I consider myself like

a b b minus sales rep. When I was in sales, right? Like I

wasn't awesome. I had a couple of great years. But I knew that

my calling was something bigger, right? Leading and teaching. I

just love that. And you can ask me all day long. I don't know

where my nerdery for behavioral science started. But I just

always thought that like how our brains engage and prioritize and

decide. And by was interesting, I put the two together, I moved

up into sales leadership, you know, had a blast doing it had

some huge successes. And then we can talk about this story here

in a minute. But there was a research study that happened

while I was in my last role, and it changed my life like could

only happen to a nerd where I quit my job. And I wrote a book

all over a consumer research study that triggered this whole

thing. And I'm sure we're gonna dig into it. So yeah, that led

me to writing a book that I thought might suck because I've

never written a book before, but it's taken on a life of its own.

And now I've built a whole company around it and replaced

most of my income, all with a lot less Advil, which is nice.

So that's today.

So you said something that is so important.

And one thing that you said, and I think that this is a very

hotly debated topic is that you were a b plus b minus

salesperson, but you are a really good sales leader. So

talk to me about that. Talk to me about you being you know, an

okay, average mediocre salesperson, but you said I'm

going to be a sales manager and how you were able to really lead

those reps.

Yeah, I mean, what had happened, I was bouncing

around. So after 2000 hit and it turned out y2k For any of you

that are old enough to remember that. Like it didn't cause

planes to fall out of the sky and bombs to go off, right. Like

it turned out to be nothing. But all of a sudden, the internet

bubble burst in March of 2000. And everybody went scurrying

for, like the lights turned on everybody scurrying for cover.

And so I was bouncing around from job to job. And I was

miserable. Like I was just like, What am I doing. And for

whatever reason, on my sales team, I was always the person

that was like seeing differently about how we should be doing

things. And I had leaders that didn't agree. So I ended up in

2003. I sold everything I had, and I bought a sales training

franchise, it didn't go so well. But it allowed me to learn, like

I got certified in leading workshops, and I got to be a

nerd for all of this stuff and work with like 50 different

sales organizations to see what works and what doesn't. And then

when I popped out later, back into the tech world, I moved up

really really quickly because I kind of had a different

perspective than most people did. And so that's what really

kind of kicked things off is looking at this foundationally

plus the science together kind of made a magic combination.

Ah, so You bet it on yourself. You said, You

know what I'm gonna sell my whole life. And I'm gonna buy

this franchise. And like you said it didn't go that well. And

I think sometimes what people don't realize is things don't

always go as expected, right? Your first business, your first

job, your first career, it doesn't always happen as you

expect, but you learned so much. You learn the fundamentals of

the how the why the what, right. And then you took that knowledge

to really propel your career. So tell me when you went from,

okay, I'm a franchise owner. Okay, now I'm a salesperson

going all the way to sales leader. How are those first few

years as a brand new sales leader?

Well, that's the thing. So you mentioned in my

bio, that I'm writing a second book now called the transparent

sales leader. And that was, so I came out of the franchise world,

I got recruited to run sales operations for one of the big VC

funded tech companies in the Valley. I live in Chicago, but I

was competing out there. And I was brought in to help them get

all the fundamentals right, create the structures, the

processes do all that it was called sales training, like

sales enablement, was sales training back then. So I got

into it. I'll tell you one little side story. Day two on

the job. It was our sales kickoff. So I came for sales

kickoff was day one, day two, we have our meetings, we're going

to dinner and my CEO was like, Hey, Todd, you want to jump in

with me? I'm like, Sure. So I get in the car with him. And he

like starts interrogating me about my career and what I want

to do, and I told him, I was like, you know, Michael, I'm

part of why I took this is because I have my sights set on

wanting to run a tech sales organization at some point. And

so Tom, the guy that hired me, I want to learn from him. I want

to see how he does it. I want to see how we grow. Fast forward

about a year, they fired Tom. And I get the call from Michael,

my CEO. Sam, are you ready? We think you are. And I like yeah,

let's go right, like all excited. But to your question.

The reality hits you that I've gotten through my sales career

with a process with a structure, I mean, sales leadership, and I

immediately within 24 hours felt like a dog chasing a car down

the street, never knowing which direction the cars going.

Sometimes you catch up, it's like, you know, Jesse's having

trouble. And it's thinking about quitting that deals on the ropes

I got a forecast to do, I got a board meeting to go to, like

every day was chasing. And so I felt like I needed a structure,

I needed a process. And so I created one, and that served me

incredibly well is just a simple structure. I called it the five

F's of building revenue capacity, but I used it to plan

strategize, communicate, up, down, left, right, when the

bullets start flying, I would always have that to fall back

on. And that's like that first company, we were able to turn it

around, we grew 400% year over year, I want one of those Stevie

Awards, the American Business Award for VP of worldwide sales

of the year within two years. And then we sold the business to

SAP at a nice little multiple. And then I went on and did it

again. But I think for everybody, we are like dogs

chasing the car down the street and we need structure we need

process. And it's not that hard to find. If you look around,

you set your intentions. And day two of your

job you're like this is what I'm gonna do like a pretty much you

told the CEO, I'm gonna have my boss's job and I'm gonna do it

better. He is. And the CEO remember that? Yeah, I

was never like that cuz I love Tom, the guy that

brought me in, I would have run through brick walls for him

forever. Like, I was not expecting that call. Like, no

way. As a matter of fact, he started it by saying, I want to

make sure you're alright. Cuz I know you love Tom. Right? I was

like, Yeah, but tell me what's next, like what's going on? And

he's like, Well, we think you're ready. Like, holy crap, really?

So yeah, that was, so it was not like, I'm not that kind of like,

I'm coming for you. Right? It was like, Hey, I know what I

want. I know where I want to go. And this period here with this

company is my investment in helping me get there.

And you know, the thing is, it's if you would

have never said anything, you would have never gotten the

call, right. And so even when we're trying to climb the

ladder, or we're trying to do something different within our

career or for ourselves, you have to let people know, don't

keep it to yourself, tell people, This is what I want from

my career. And hey, this is what I want to do. And you know, some

people will come to an interview, and they'll be like,

I want your job. And you're like, Okay, great. I want to

work myself out of a job. Right?

Exactly. Yes, that's it. It's like going, you

know, punching up your GPS and telling them, hey, I want to go

somewhere, but I never tell them where I'm not gonna help. Right?

And like your leader, it's got to be the same way. It's just

like, hey, here's where I want to go. I don't expect to get it

in the next two years. So patience, but I just want you to

have that lens in the way that you think about me and the way

you coach me and when you see opportunities for me to

potentially grow so I can get closer to that you If you're not

aware of them, you have no way to let me know that they're

there. Right? And that's absolutely. So I think for

everybody, everybody, like if you know where you're going, let

everybody know who could potentially help you not with

the intention of I'm coming for you, but with the intention of

if you see those opportunities, hopefully you'll think of me.

Absolutely. So you said you had this framework,

but I think you said, the five F's that really helped you build

process. Talk to us about those five s,

yeah, I'll rattle them off for you. What I

realized very quickly is that the role of sales leader is

primarily five responsibilities, they all happen to start with

the letter F, which is nice. And it almost follows a process. And

once I identified those and wrote them down and thought

about him, like I had them on a little sticky on my monitor all

the time that I wouldn't get stuck going down the silos and

that the five F simply our first responsibility, initially and

ongoing is focus, which is you've got to focus your

organization on the right companies in the right places.

So the right firma graphics, the right demographics, the right

prerequisites, like focus, you've got to hone that, right,

you wouldn't go hunting and just blast off your shotgun in the

woods, like you've got to focus, right. And so one of my mantras

was always know science projects, right? Like, we know

what we're good at. And within that, we know where we're going

to focus. And that's where we get momentum and confidence. So

you establish and maintain focus. The second F is you've

got to then build a field, the field to support that focus,

right people in the right places with the right experiences with

the right tools and the right resources and the right comp and

all that the field is your second F. Once you've built that

field to support your focus, right, not the other way around,

you then have to make sure that you identify and grow the

fundamentals. So make sure that that field is getting the right

things right consistently. Messaging positioning,

prospecting, presenting, negotiating handoffs, that whole

process once we've done that our fourth F is you've got to be

able to predict the future through a forecast right sales

leaders got a responsibility to forecast the metrics, the KPIs

to be proactive. And then your fifth F, which is arguably the

most important, especially now is fun, which is you've got a

responsibility to build a culture where your team wants to

come, wants to stay, wants to run through a brick wall for you

and wants to tell all their friends. And once you've got

those five, that becomes literally it was my means for

all my one on ones up and down. It became my means for all

hands, meetings, board meetings, all that communication, all my

strategy and planning. And then there was one time where we had

missed a number right? After a fundraise, I was brought out to

the valley, put in a room with a sales expert that was there to

beat the crap out of me for three and a half hours. And I

crushed it not because I was any smarter, but because I had

structure. And I was able to take them through. Here's the

way that I think about it, right? Let's go through these

five apps. So we'll spend the next three and a half hours. And

hopefully you can coach me to optimize this. And this guy at

the end of the three and a half hours. Instead of me leaving

crying was like, wow, you're world class. And I was like,

that's awesome, right in mental world for me. And I think that

without the structure, I would have been just floating around

for three and a half hours and he would have destroyed me.

Hmm. So as you're going through your five

apps, I for some reason I was in visiting a football field. And

so I you're talking about focus, and I'm like, okay, that's the

ends up, okay, then you're talking about the field of like,

okay, this football field, these fundamentals and like, okay,

that's practicing. And so as you're going through them, I had

this visual, right and thinking about it, a lot of times a lot

of people use sports analogies, right. And so thinking about

like, really, your job as a sales leader, as a sales manager

is to be the coach, right? You have to run point. And so you

have in your five apps, you have the game plan in your head, you

know, all the plays, and you have to make sure that you're

bringing your team along. But you also have to make sure that

you're letting your leadership No, hey, this is the game plan.

These are the plays, this is what we have in order. And I

think so many times sales managers, they focus on the

tactical bits and pieces, and they're not thinking about I

call it matching up, right? So use going in that room with an

expert who they've paid many 1000s of dollars to come with

you into shape. It's like, right, I got it.

Exactly. That's exactly yet. And I think with

all of these pieces, too, you know, if you really dig into

each one, it's not that hard. The trap we all get stuck in is

like imagine if you were a coach, but you only focused on

the fundamentals, right? Like you didn't think about all these

other things like that was the trap that I found myself getting

into right out of the gate is Hey, Todd, you got a number to

hit go. Right. And so my focus was the forecast. Right? The

deals, every one on one was the forecast, right? And for

everybody who's a leader, if your one on ones are all about

the forecast, you're doing it wrong, right? Like we got to

think about all of these things. And then the other piece that

you said is, you know, talking about sharing with your other

leaders, that's where the transparency comes in. That if

you've got a strategy and a way that you think about got things

but nobody else knows what it is, it's hard for those people

to run behind you people are going to run behind people that

they have confidence in that are also transparent people that are

able to embrace not only what they're great at, but where they

have holes, right, they're going to run behind those people much

more than anybody who doesn't have a plan or pretends to be

perfect. And so like that's the element of this thing is that

there's a term that was coined by supermodel Tyra Banks, media

like mogul. She's brilliant, and she coined the term philosophy

and philosophy is to embrace your flaws. But know that you're

still awesome. And it turns out, that actually sells better. It

grows better, it retains better, it creates advocates better, and

it leads better when we can embrace our philosophy, this and

I just I love Tyra for that. So anyway,

awesome. I love it a lot. So So you talk about

behavioral science, how does that really play into sales?

Leadership sales? How does that help Junior career?

Yeah, so I was waiting. I wonder when you're

gonna ask that because it's, that was what, like I said,

triggered me. So you know, I've always been kind of looking at

like, how do people make decisions. And so something

happened. My last role, I was the chief revenue officer of a

company in Chicago called Power reviews, you could probably

guess from the name, we are in the review space, right? We

helped retailers and brands collect and display ratings and

reviews on their website. So you've interacted with it, you

probably didn't even know it, right? You bought a pair of

crocs. You look at the shoes, you scroll down, there's

reviews, right? And we did that with them and 1000 other

retailers and brands. But here's the study, we engaged with

Northwestern University to look at just consumer behavior when a

website's acting as a salesperson, what to consumers

do what triggers decisions. And so it was a, you know, simple

study, three data points came out of it, two of which changed

my life like a nerd. So the first data point that didn't

change my life was that we all read reviews today, right? Like,

if you're buying something you haven't bought before, that's a

medium to high consideration, meaning like, not like a pack of

gum, but something matters. You read reviews, and I'm sure you

read reviews, like I haven't found the 2% that don't like I'd

be really curious to talk to them. But the two data points

that changed my life. All right, ready, 85% of us skip the five

star reviews and go right to the negatives. Right? You do that?

Yep. So I see you nodding. So we read the force threes, twos and

ones first. And then the other data point was that on a five

star scale, and this is across all product categories, an

average review score between a four two and a four, five is

optimal for purchase conversion, meaning a product that has

negative reviews, right under it, for two to four or five

philosophy will sell better than a product that has nothing but

five star reviews. So I looked at that like a nerd and thought

that's what a website is acting as a salesperson, we're somehow

drawn to the negative first, we somehow need the negative to be

able to trigger a purchase decision. Why? And does that

apply to b2b? And it turns out everything screamed Yes. Right.

As it turns out, transparency sells better than perfection.

And so we started trying it and we quickly became Chicago's

fastest growing tech company in Chicago, right? Like all of a

sudden sales cycle sped up when rates went up personally,

because we were qualifying in deals better by leading with not

just flaws, but maybe something a competitor does better some

risk area that maybe they're not thinking about, maybe we're high

cost, we lead with that, right? If 85% of us are going to the

negative first. It's what our brain wants, it allows us to

process all the good lead with it. And it turned out that magic

happened over and over again. And I was like, I have to get

these ideas out here. Like not only because it feels good to be

transparent and honest, of course, but it sells better. And

it's 2022. Due to the proliferation of reviews and

feedback and everything we do buy an experience today. You

can't hide your flaws anyway. So throw them out there, leave them

don't lose control of your sale by letting your buyer go out and

do the research on their own and go I don't trust her because she

presented her solutions as being perfect, right. It builds trust

creates advocates. And like I said, that same type of mindset

applies to leadership with your own team. When you embrace your

philosophy, and present yourself as here's my plan. I'm pretty

darn good. ain't perfect. Here's where I need help. Here's where

my holes are. You create people that will run behind you stay

and advocate. So there's a good rant for you.

That is awesome. Wow. And as you were talking one

thing that kind of was bubbling through my brain was the things

that I always have new salespeople do at companies that

I'm working with or even within my company is a SWOT analysis,

right? Especially when they're brand new. I'm like you don't

you're not biased yet. You need to do a SWOT analysis because

it's really important to understand what the other people

are doing really good and not so good. And the same thing about

your company what you guys are doing really good and not so

good because you're like being brunt of it. Yeah, we've only

been around for three years. But right. We've only done it. Like,

literally you have to lean into it. And don't. It's not coming

at you from left and right field. I love that. But you're

right. The psychology behind that is true. It's like, I'll

read one or two five stars. And then I'm going down to the the

one starters. Right? And if something is too perfect, you're

like, these are prey groups. These are real people, right?

Yeah. And there's so many lessons in b2c that I

think are huge opportunities for b2b Like, you know, IKEA, like

if you've been to an Ikea IKEA is the number one furniture

retailer in the world for 14 straight years. Yet, when you

walk in, you need a map like you know you're in for it. If you

need a map to get through a store, you have to find it, you

have to write down the code because you get to go to the

warehouse pull 100 pound boxes on the carts that don't have

brakes. It seems like a bit of an oversight, jam it in the back

of your car, Tetris style, drive home with a souvenir injury,

open the box and find 100 parts with no words on the work

instructions under that other than like Svarta or whatever the

and F bomb your way through that and then go you know what, we

should have bought the end tables with that bedroom. So

let's go back like it's currently in like Costco is the

same, right? Like I had to go buy some provisions for my

stepdaughters birthday party. And so I was like Costco is the

place to go. You need a subscription to walk in, right?

Like you got to pay to even walk in the door. There's almost no

brand selection, like she loves ranch dressing you better like

Hidden Valley. That's all you got it. Right, and then you walk

up and it's a tank of it, right? It's two thirds of the gallon.

Like you better love ranch dressing. You throw it on the

cart like on the thing, they don't even bag it, they just

throw it in your cart. And then there's somebody at the door,

checking your receipt to make sure you didn't steal anything,

right? And you keep going back their subscription renewal rates

like 98% Why? Because embracing what you give up to be great at

your core that is magic, right? Because it creates expectations

and when you consistently meet those expectations you create

those types of flotsam experiences for people were they

know exactly what they're getting and what they're not

going to get. You go to Ikea for a purpose. If you want your

living room function swayed and you need somebody to come

assemble it and set it all up cool. That's not us go to Macy's

go to room and board go to Crate and Barrel. That ain't us. You

want small quantities and big brand selection at the grocery

store. Costco is go like hey, go to Kroger, Jul, Safeway, we're

like, that's not us. I think every one of our companies when

we do that, and we embrace it, we not only like I said all

those metric values, but we bring people in pre qualified.

And we stop spending so much time filling pipelines with

crap, right. But we get much more efficient spending time on

the deals we should be working on instead of working on deals

that ultimately we're going to lose, but we lose slowly because

we pretend to be perfect. So

hmm. And you know, I think that one of the

most important things that you said when you compare IKEA and

Costco to their big competitors, one thing that I say often is

stop giving people a salad bar, give them a salad, like all of

those choices. Choices are not good. You are the expert. You

know what the client needs, give them the product, give them the

service, don't say you can have 12345 Because it's too much. And

it's like I got like you said I go to Costco, I can get this

brand of this. And that's it. And sometimes they say this

brand didn't work well. So you can't ever find it there again.

And that's okay. Because I still go back and I try the new thing

that they brought it you know what I mean? And so I think that

that is the mindset that we in this b2b complex sales world we

really need to have.

Yeah, I mean, the one analogy to your point there

is, you know, Toys R Us, like, you know, the greatest store for

kids ever goes out of business. I think I know why. But, you

know, as they were going bankrupt, and going out of

business, you know, my kids at the time, I think they were like

five and seven. So like, right, and Toys R Us age, they were

going out of business. They're having a sale, right? Like going

out of business sale. So we see this and my wife's like, let's

take the kids, right? The kids hear that with their Hawk

hearing in the back of the car. And they're like, Yeah, right.

They're, like, never been more excited in their life to go

somewhere. Fast forward to about 25 minutes later, they're both

sitting in their car seats with a toy, and they're both crying.

Why? It's because they go in with these expectations. They're

like toys. Yeah, I'm gonna get a toy. But to your point, it's

floor to ceiling wall, the wall toys like, I want that. I want

that. I want that. And because they have so much choice, it's

fatiguing to their brains. And they've got fear that the toy

that they got is not the best thing that they could get.

Right? And the only thing that got us out of that store that

day was my wife saying, Listen, there was three things that you

really liked, right? You like that? That and that. I know

there's 100 other ones, but you have to make a decision between

these three, and we're going right and they're like so and

like, like Kryon on their way out. But that's what sales

people do, right? Where it's just like, you know, imagine a

Sherpa at Mount Everest going. It's a big mountain. Where do

you want to go? We could climb any way you want. You'd be like,

we're all gonna die, right? Like, we need a Sherpa to guide

us to the optimal way we know more than our buyers. Do. We

sell this stuff all day long. They buy our stuff once maybe in

their career, we've got to Sherpa them. And the gear

analogy is perfect, right? It's like, we're not sushi menu,

where like, give them the meal. Here's like prefix meal here.

Here's what you need. I'm going to be your personal trainer, and

not somebody who's just sitting here watching you screw

yourself. Right? Exactly.

Like literally, you are the expert. Yes, you

know your product as better than the buyer does. And so as the

expert, they need lettuce, tomato salad dressing, period,

no cheese, no croutons, none of the other things, right. So

something else that you are really passionate about is sales

history. Yes. Tell me about because this is brand new. For

me. sales history is not something I don't think I go to

much past the 80s when I'm reading sales books, so talk to

us about that.

Yeah, I mean that this whole, I've got shelves

filled. It's my nerdery I spend my week I read from books are

like this one here is 1918 The Art and Science of selling like,

I wish you could smell it because it smells like history.

But I just find it absolutely fascinating to look at really

the beginnings of what we today call corporate sales, right?

Like up through until about 1900 The predominant approach was

through manufacturers reps called drummers, right? So you

had products to sell, you hired these reps that represented a

bunch of products, you gave them samples, sent them off, and then

they would send orders, they wire orders back, you pay him a

commission, and then it became corporate, right. And it started

to come in, like into organizations, they started

training. And so it's amazing to me to watch the predominant

philosophies that we live by today be birth back then I

believe that in these books, and literally, I have something

called the sales history podcast where I just monologue on a

different topic every week, like where did cold calling begin

when did like sales process and all that stuff. But like, it's

amazing to me that I could take paragraphs from the early 1900s

drop them in LinkedIn today. No one would know they were 100

years old. And they would think they're brilliant, right? Like

90% of what I find there in like cash was and they think these

people could write like, it is amazing to me. But I'll tell you

one other piece. Do we have time for a quick story? Yeah. All

right. Well, 1916 is a particularly interesting year

from sales history. In Detroit in July of 1916, there was

something called the world sales Congress. It was the first of

its kind. It was a conference that took place in Detroit and

3000 salespeople came to it. What's interesting about that is

your first conference of its type 3000 people, the keynote

speaker was then President Woodrow Wilson. Now imagine a

sales conference today where the the keynote speaker is the

President of the United States like that would be crazy. But

even crazier is, we were about to get into World War One. And

this guy's coming and keynoting a sales conference. Why? Because

back then sales was trusted, respected and even admired as a

profession, to the point where back then, colleges were all

teaching sales, high schools, were teaching sales, there was

11, public Boston high schools teaching sales back then,

because kids wanted to get into it, it was seen as a way to make

great money. But the point is why? Because back then, our

country had an opportunity had an opportunity to kind of build

an economic power lead, but it relied on salespeople selling

the right products to the right companies at the right price at

the right time. And when they did that, and they saw the world

through kind of the macro lens, selling those right products,

the right companies at the right time helped them grow, which

helped the economy grow because they were hiring, which helped

all of us. And so that was the lens, keeping in mind that all

sales had to be done face to face, eye to eye back them. So

we had real strong relationships. And we were doing

right by the economy. And that was the lens by which

salespeople sold, something switched. And I go into that in

a couple of episodes around like when we started to flip that to

where we became self centered instead of like about our

numbers and our metrics and our forecasts, instead of outcomes

and customer success. That kind of changed the perception of the

profession and that there still were some slimy salespeople back

then. Sure. But we went from being respected, trusted,

admired to being at the bottom of gallops annual trusted

professions list for like eight years in a row now, and I think

there's an opportunity to get that back.

So as I'm listening to you talk about this

history. One thing that is It pops into my mind in industry

that I work with a lot of manufacturing. And in the

manufacturing industry, a lot of the sales people also in like

petrochemical a lot of the salespeople are a little bit

older. And if I think about it, their parents were coming of age

in that time. And so pushing their kids into that profession

was actually something like, Yes, this is a really great

career. And then we have this huge gap, right? And now we're

trying to get the younger generation to come back into

sales, because I think some of what you're talking about is so

true. Like there's that huge gap in when sales was a really

respected profession. So where it is now, and now we're trying

to get back to that.

Yeah, and I don't think we can help it. I think it

has to happen. You know, like in 2015, Forster predicted that

like 1 million b2b sales jobs that go away by 2020? Well, the

opposite happened, like 3 million at it, right. And I

think because it's a resilient profession, and part of being

resilient is realizing that our buyers don't need us the way

they used to. And so being aggressive, being slimy, hiding

the truth, no longer will make you somebody that they're going

to invite in their office. If we look at our role, just like you

were talking about earlier, right? To be the guide to be the

Sherpa to say, Hey, listen, my role is to help you make smart

decisions. And that smart decision is going to happen as

quickly as we can possibly make it happen either with us or for

somebody else. And I'm going to help you see if it's somebody

else, if it should be as quickly as possible. That is our role.

Whether we say that or not. If we come from that mindset and

go, Hey, listen, here's something that you might not

love about us. Here's something that a competitor does that if

that's going to be important. Let's talk about it now. Hey,

listen, our pricing is x, if that's way off from your

expectation, let's bet that now, right? Like if you're having a

like a six figure conversation with a four figure buyer, one of

us in the wrong conversation, you better figure that out right

now, right? When we do those types of things, and we help the

buyer predict that's when we build that trust, and people

look at salespeople, like an aide versus a necessary evil

like they were 20 years ago.

Hmm, that's good. So when you think about

this very, very full career that you've had, what is one thing

that you are most excited about accomplishing or doing? Josh?

There's

a couple, but I honestly, when I wrote the book,

my intention is and was to get the ideas out there. I literally

thought I would write this book, and it would suck. And all my

buddies would be like, Oh, Todd, good for you. You wrote a book,

right? And then I would go get a CRO role again, but I am. It's

hard for me to not be super proud of how well this is done.

But like really the impact it's having. And like, you know,

companies are like they're buying it for all their new

hires, right? Like, really, that's insane. But it's great

that I'm seeing more and more like this Rolling Stone of

leaders that are going, Yes, this isn't 1985 anymore.

Transparency does sell better than perfection. And because of

the proliferation of reviews and feedback today, we have to do it

anyway, we better optimize it right? And so I'm super proud

that this has kind of taken fire the way it is. And I'm just I'm

happy that I've had the opportunity to do this because

being a CRO was a blast was stressful as all get out. But

for me to be able to be home with my family, and then do

right by the profession is just super cool to me. And I think

that it's hard not to land there.

That's awesome. And I think that, you know, when

we're in the corporate realm, we're really excited about what

we do the lives that we're impacting. But when you write a

book, you're touching so many more people than you could ever

do in your role as a CRO. So I think that that is an excellent

thing to be proud of.

Well, thank you. Thank you. And I can't believe

I'm doing it again. So that would be out a couple months

here. So

you signed up for it again. So that was I

mean, that was a fun ride.

Exactly. What am I doing? Yeah.

Well, thank you so much time. And if people want

to get in contact with you what is the one best way

My website is just Todd Caponi calm, and it links

to everything. There's articles, videos, the podcast links, you

can connect with me on LinkedIn too. But Todd compone calm is

probably the best place to start soaking in all my nonsense.

I love it. Thank you so much. This conversation

has been amazing. And you've given us a history lesson in

sales, which is definitely a first for the podcast. So I

really appreciate you taking your time sharing your energy

and your expertise with us today.

Well, you are a delight to talk to and I'm so

happy that you invited me on so thank you.

Thanks so much again. Well guys, that was

another episode of the science of selling stem podcast and

remember in everything that you do to Transform your sales until

next time.

Thank you for joining us today on the snack sized

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