We were lucky to catch up with Brian Court recently and have shared our conversation below.
Brian, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Before we talk about all of your success, let’s start with a story of failure. Can you open up about a time when you’ve failed?
Earlier in my career, I bought a recruiting business. Up to that point, I’d experienced success as a salesman and I thought because of my success, that would translate directly to being a good business owner. Spoiler alert – it did not. While the salesman in me was able to keep making things happen, the logistical and operations side of my business suffered. I didn’t do well in hiring people (I lack discernment when hiring because I like everyone, I wasn’t organized enough to keep my employees clearly on task, and I felt obligated to do everything they were doing). The other thing I really struggled with was planning. I’m a wonderful creator but a terrible planner. This combination made for a daily struggle! It was not enjoyable. My wins didn’t feel like wins because I was failing at a bunch of other things. But fastforward almost 20 years and with that suffering, I learned my limits and my weaknesses. I know what to avoid, what to ask for insight on, what to run by a team and what to delegate. and as importantly, I know my strengths. I finally moved to a company that allowed me to utilize my strengths as a mentor, a creator, and a leader and behind me is an entire operations team that comes out on top where I come up short. Learning how to run a small business is about learning to stay in your lane and offload the things you don’t do well. Even though I bought a franchise that came with structure, I was completely unaware of where my strengths and weaknesses lie and it meant my daily life was overwhelming. Now I spend my time in my wheelhouse,
Brian, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
About myself: I grew up in a small town in WA state with 3x siblings (I’m number 3). I went to two small schools for college to play basketball (one in CA where I would live for 23 years after college but the second in GA where I met my wife-to-be. We were married shortly after I graduated and pregnant before I had a real job (and btw that daughter works for me today)! My wife and I are celebrating 26 years of marriage, have 4 kids, and my wife, after being a stay at home, home-schooling mom, completed a Masters degree in psychotherapy to start who 3.0 as a small business owner. A supportive partner has been such a gift in my personal journey of failures and successes and I’m grateful for her! I think another important aspect of who I am is someone significantly impacted by ADHD, which I came to learn at the ripe age of 45yo. I spent 20+ years of my life beating myself up over forgotten appointments, missed details, inability to plan properly, etc. Over the last five years, as I’ve learned other ADHD adult stories and what it means to have ADHD, it’s been significant in my ability to accept myself, delegate my weaknesses, stay in my strengths, and build tools (including a daily mindfulness practice rather than adderal prescription) to help me lean into this.
What I do: I’m a salesman. I’m also a creator. Good sales requires both. You need to be able to interest people in talking with you, working with you, etc. As a professional, I’ve made over 100k cold calls. In doing so, I’ve successfully grown my own book of business from scratch in several entities. While I embrace being a salesperson, I posit that the greatest salespeople in the world are teachers and coaches. They sell without selling and I consider myself to be both. My joy has always been in helping people (i.e. my prospects and customers) and providing them education is the enjoyable way that I do that. In my current role, I”m a partner in an IT Value-Added Reseller and I position myself as a technology consultant. I hope to discuss customer problems (i.e. pain points) and then cooperatively discuss solutions. I’ve learned over 20 years of sales, that frustratingly, pain is the greatest motivator for buying. If you understand this, you’ll save yourself a lot of wasted time. You can have a great product but if the customer isn’t feeling pain in the area your product lives, they will tell you it seems really interesting but they will stay with their status quo. SO, as a reseller and as a mentor to sales people, I encourage them to find and focus on the customer’s pain because, if we can solve that, they’re motivated to transact AND they’ll consider you a valuable resource (not just a salesman).
How did I get into what I do: Long story short. I got married young and pregnant before I had a job. I started interning with a friend at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. While I knew nothing about financial markets I saw right away that people needed help! They were focused on products (i.e. stocks and mutual funds) but had no plan – (i.e. when is enough enough, when should they sell, etc.). I saw most people making the wrong decisions. We wanted to help through education (i.e. developing a financial plan). The crazy part is most people couldn’t wrap their minds around a plan so they defaulted to “what product do you have?” I told my wife a couple months into the job “people are treating me like I’m a sales person!” While that was disheartening, I frankly embraced it. I realized “If I sell you something, you’ll give me the opportunity to sell you something else. And eventually you’ll give me the opportunity to do the planning I initially wanted to do with you but didn’t have the credibility to ask for the time!” So instead of fighting this perception, I embraced selling. That influenced every job I’ve taken since. And in my current role as a partner in a Value-Added IT Reseller, I tell all my Account Managers – EMBRACE SELLING. “You’re more than a salesperson. You’re a coach, a teacher, a helper, an advocate. But until you earn that, you’re prospect is going to treat you like a salesperson. Embrace it and you’ll see it transform over time.” After Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, I found myself in a 100% commission based account manager role (i.e. sales) at a start up IT reseller and I’ve been in the space ever since, with the exception of a 3 1/2 year diversion where I bought a recruiting franchise. I share that story as my biggest failure.
What type of products do I provide: I primarily sell networking infrastructure and cybersecurity solutions. It’s a combination of hardware, software and services. We primarily sell refurbished solutions (i.e. green, sustainable solutions) but we also sell authorized partnerships too.
What problems do we solve? One of my favorite sayings and I attribute it to Thomas Sowell is, “There’s no such thing as a solution, there’s just exchanging problems.” I love this humbling reality because it’s a reminder that solving a problem can also mean creating a new one AND there’s no such thing as a perfect solution or perfect decision. There are several ways to solve the same issue. With that being said, we provide solutions for company’s networks. A perfect example of my saying above is many people know about the “cloud.” Well, it’s simple and easy BUT you never own it. You’ll always pay for the cloud. On the other hand, if you buy a 4TB hard drive and store your pictures on that, you don’t have to pay a monthly fee. It costs you more upfront but saves you money in the long run. Both have advantages and disadvantages. That’s what I want my customer to understand – “What are the options available to you to solve this problem and what are their costs / benefits?”
What’s different / sets us apart: I used to be really big on trying to set myself apart – trying to highlight what was different. Maybe it’s my older age, but I don’t care about that anymore because the reality is there are very few companies in any industry with a true differentiator! Banking, Telecommunications, Retail Clothing, Restaurants, etc. What’s their real differentiators? They don’t own or do something that someone else can’t do! So I spend less time on what’s different and more time on what the customer can expect. You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to differentiate yourself by speaking directly and then SIMPLY doing what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it at the cost you said you’d do it at. Additionally, don’t avoid hard conversations (like lead times getting delayed, etc.). Don’t sell best case scenarios. Be upfront, transparent, own the disadvantages of buying from you just as much as the advantages! That’s my differentiator.
What am I most proud of:
I’m most proud that I’ve taken some individuals who swore they had no interest in “selling” and helped them grow multi-million dollar books of business and have transformed prospects into customers into friends! And they love their job because they’re not selling – they are helping their customers (and that involves sales). So I love that! It’s rewarding and it’s impacting their families lives in a meaningful way.
What do I want potential clients / followers / fans to know about me/my brand/my work:
I want what I’m doing to be meaningful and I want to help potential clients / followers / fans to find what they’re doing meaningful also. Most of us don’t have the luxury of our “dream” being our job. I’m the same. But I’ve been able to take the opportunity and make it meaningful beyond myself. I’ve gone through some significant transformation over the last 30 years of my professional life – from thinking very small, shirking from responsibility, not wanting to have the “burden” of people relying on me (too much pressure) to recognizing the world offers abundant opportunity, it needs mature leaders / mentors and I hope to encourage others to see and grow into the same!
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I’ve lost my best customer(s) several times – sometimes representing 40-50% of my income. The reasons vary but I often share with our Account Managers, “this year’s best customer will not be next year’s best customer.” One of my customers was bought and we weren’t onboarded with the new company. Another customer was lost because they changed their buying philosophy (I sold refurbished gear and they went to New only). Another customer cut their program after 11 years, giving us 30 days notice. You’re going to lose your best customer (probably several times) so are you doing the things / activities to backfill the pipeline when that happens? That’s the lesson. Your contact at the company will move on (most likely), the company’s strategy will change, your stakeholders may lose their voice in a management change, etc. You do yourself a huge favor to anticipate this rather than let is surprise you.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
My biggest regret from my early years of selling was my lack of understanding how important relationships are. I was focused on transactions. I got paid to buy and sell. When someone had made a big purchase and I knew they weren’t going to be buying, I moved on to the next thing. Again, I was 100% commission so my mind was constantly feeling like I was starting at zero every single month. The reality was, that with each new transacting customer, I was building up a “recurring” business. While I didn’t know when or who would be buying consistently, if I would have focused on the relationships it would have helped me grow faster. I survived off pure activity (i.e. 100k cold calls) but 10-15x great relationships could have brought that cold calling to a halt and instead of searching for transactional business I would have been into partnering and solutions! Focus on the relationships. It doesn’t mean being best friends. It doesn’t mean “I really need this guy to like me.” It does mean, “I’ve helped you once. How can I help you again? What problems are you trying to address now? If it’s not in my wheelhouse, can I connect you with a resource that it is? What can I do to be helping you?” This is how you earn longevity. You make yourself indispensable vs. a transactional, one product sale.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dhd.com
- Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/itpartner
Image Credits
iphone and Samsung get all the credit!