"Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water," - Bruce Lee

Sales is this amazing thing because it is a constantly evolving ideation of flow. If we look at the evolution of our sport, it’s changed with the demand of what’s needed.

D2D → Retail → Trade Shows → Call Center → Zoom → AI → Next Phase of Evolution???

And with each iteration of change, comes a new floor and ceiling of necessary skill to thrive. It’s partially the reason I don’t align myself with any one style these days because style is purely subjective based on what’s required.

Think of our sales bravado training:

• Sandler

• GAP

• SPIN

• Challenger

• Solution Selling

• Value Selling

• NEAT Selling

• Target Account Selling

• Rain Selling

Then comes the trainers in all fashions:

• Zig Ziglar

• Dale Carnegie

• Jeb Blount

• Mike Weinburg

• Anthony Iannarino

• Benjamin Dennehy

• Jordan Belfort

• Alex Hormozi

• Justin Michael

• Tony Hughes

• Keenan

• Countless others

Being objective for a second, which or who is better? Based on what data?

The greatest car salesman of all time, Joe Girard, would smash all of us in retail car sales but would get bodied by an average full-cycle AE in SaaS.

Sales isn’t linear

Stylistically, each type of method works best in the environment in which it is modified but it isn’t so one-dimensional and linear.

The sales process used with SMB that is unpolished and unsophisticated would get steamrolled in Enterprise. The reverse is also true in that an Enterprise motion falls flat B2C because it’s inappropriate for the environment.

It’s all relative

Think about the static and scripted AE who sells in their tiny invisible box. They start every conversation off the same way; Agenda → Discovery → Ask a barrage of questions → Maybe do a demo → Next Steps → On and on we go.

Imagine for a second you’re a buyer and you are exposed to 100 sellers all selling the same way, reciting the same boring agenda, all asking the same questions, and following industry taught formulas —> Do you really feel you’ll give a shit about what’s being peddled?

Being incapable of mixing it up is a detriment.

This applies to prospecting, too.

Thinking about this more broadly, reflect how you consume information. Some of us prefer reading, some prefer video, some prefer audio, some prefer going right to the source.

• Only cold calling limits who you speak with.

• Only emailing limits how well you can convey your idea.

• Only subscribing to video limits those who don’t have the time to spend.

Get gud by not blindly accepting one type of style as biblical for your role.

The point is that influence is incredibly dynamic and flowing and you have to take in a hybrid approach adapted to the audience you’re serving.

Your audience isn’t just walking ATMs

I know it’s cool to think if you say just the right words and press buttons in a certain order, you’ll make the sale. But that’s just not how people operate in the real world. There are ebbs and flows to this.

Sales is a rhythm and the dance is constantly changing.

We don’t conform to a singular notion that one type of training or style is more effective than another because it wholly matters what you’re selling and to who.

The truth is the game has changed.

Being unconventional, crass, and unpolished has it’s place when there’s little differentiation in personality at the table.

Someone who doesn’t conform to an industry accepted standard doesn’t make them better or worse than the status quo, it just means the invention of sales is evolving.

With access to AI and the rapid evolution of technology scientifically engineering a new breed of sellers, perhaps the old ways will make their return. Perhaps the current style fades away into obscurity.

Hard to argue what conventional really is when our election was anything but.

People are subscribing to a different energy these days and confinement of doing things the same way they’ve always been done is restrictive and suffocating. This new mold is changing.

Who’s really right anymore, honestly?

The point of this rambling is that expectations have got to change. Your notion of sales has to change to keep up because the expectation of what used to work and what works now is slowly and silently being shattered

Raise your floor. Be like water, my friend.

Stay savage revenue mavericks.

-Landon