Can you talk a little bit about kind of the niche you occupy with your clients?

Yeah, the niche that I'm involved in is is very unique because it combines it combines a couple of different things.

I'm a practitioner practitioner.

That that has a system, if that makes sense.

So I've written books, as you mentioned.

And one of one of the things that did for me, my business partner in that project, Hal Thorsvig, he was having difficulty writing a book about his his methodology, sales methodology.

So he finally said, look, I need a type A like you, and I need somebody to come in that has some use cases, some practical cases in business, because I've got a sales methodology, sales training company.

James, what role have trusted peers or thinking partners played in your own career journey?

Anything

else you want to share? I don't know if you have anything coming out or how,

how organizations can, can reach out to you.

Um, I do have a website, um, and it's, um, James B Hayden, H-A-Y-D-E-N.com.

So, um, that's best, best way to get ahold of me.

I was eight and nine years old and she took, she took me to see them.

And, you know, it's like, you know, I'm not gonna, not gonna get into the stinking thinking and, and, um, took me to a real estate investing seminar.

So, um, I, I remember as a kid, a little bit older, but coming back from one of the seminars, and I told my friends, you know, the secret to building substantial wealth is opium.

And they're like, what? Other people's money, you know, leverage.

Yeah.

And understanding what she did, my dad was an engineer, so I had a right brain, left brain set of parents.

Is entrepreneurship wash, rinse, repeat? If you do the same things that brought you success, you'll continue to be successful?

The... working for yourself and that thrill of building it and the, the thrill of the hunt and doing that is, um, I don't know if I call it wash, uh, rinse, repeat, but it's, um, I think I know it's something that gets, gets in people's blood and, um, they want to do it again.

Uh, I, I've seen really very few people, uh, go from launching their business, having a successful exit, and going to work for a giant company.

It doesn't happen often.

I've worked for two big companies myself in the past, and great companies or great springboards and great, great things to hang on my resume, but it's, um, it just didn't fit me.

And so, um, the, the really good entrepreneurs that, that do that and they go back into, uh, building, building another business, there's usually a variation on it.

There's something they've learned and, and some sacrifice they've made.

Is there any X's and O's that they should really start diving into?

But, you know, it is like, than what people thought at first or we thought at the time anyway but but i see actually here and not everybody can see that if you're only listening you will not see it but on his screen it says we see tomorrow first so that goes hand in hand with what you just said and so what shifts are you seeing then in b2b sales that many companies still might not see or underestimate

Things have changed dramatically, really incredibly dramatically.

I wrote the book with one of my business partners, Hal Thorsvig in 2013, and was advising companies in New Zealand and that I was brought in by the government to work with them on companies that are expanding globally and did work with about 80 companies there.

And so they utilized my book and some of the methodology in 2022.

One of the CEOs said, hey, what's in your book is not what you're advising us on these days.

So people aren't picking up the phone anymore and calling people.

It's changed the way we contact people.

One or two

Hi.

Sure.

Well, it's good to be here.

My life seems like a puzzle, so, you know, maybe I could get some wisdom and advice from you, Mike.

Um, so.

I've worked for over 140 companies in my career, generated over a billion dollars in B2B revenue.

That's what I've done.

I felt for, like, business people I work with, that story about vulnerability, the story about openness, um, creates a space in their company and a space in their relationships that they wouldn't have if maybe they didn't hear my story.

This-

People are super valuable and, um, I've been called in and it's like, "Oh, hey, we've gotta fire this person." What if, what if we could get them to be more productive? It doesn't work in every case, but, um, that's the approach I like to go in with.

Let's give that person a chance.

Um, human capital is still the most valuable asset any company has.

So With you, James, and everything that you focus on and how you help people and you help companies, if someone was to ask you, what makes you different? What makes James and his differentiating factors completely different from other people in your space? What should people know that make you different and how you go about things?

You're going deep.

It's great.

There are three things.

One is over time, I've developed a great deal of pattern recognition.

I mean, some of that comes with just more laps or more spins around the sun, right? And it's not only pattern recognition, but it's pattern integration and then pattern creation.

So I'm creating my own patterns, but I start to see...

And how is that going to affect business owners like yourself and like myself and the people that are listening and watching this? What should they be on the lookout for to best prepare for making a pivot or looking things through a different lens?

Founder-led selling is a superpower until it becomes the ceiling.

The thing that got your startup its first million in revenue is the same thing that will stop you from ever hitting 10 or 20.

I'm James Hayden.

I've generated over a billion dollars in B2B revenue in my career.

And I've watched 140 plus founders fall into the same trap.

Founder-led selling works because you carry the scar tissue.

What is the difference between a revelation that breaks someone and the one in your view and in your own words that actually makes them to get more clarity?

If you can imagine not knowing some things about who you are and wondering your whole life what that is and If you look at the mind like a computer, there's part of the processing of the brain that's always working on who am I, who am I related to? The person that just walked by me, could that be somebody I'm related to and not knowing? So as somebody who's adopted part of your processing always is, whether it's conscious or, in most cases, it's unconscious, but you're processing that.

And that's filling up your mind with something that you could be doing, like, in the need hierarchy, you could be achieving more things towards self-actualization.

And so... it's very difficult to describe because I met my birth mother over 20 years ago.

Birth father was the last piece of it this last year.

And it's been such a piece that in my life and knowing now, if you can imagine your life as kind of puzzle pieces, we're figuring it out.

And especially as an adoptee, it's nature versus nurture, right? So my parents, Parents that raised me, there were certain characteristics and wonderful things.

How did all that come together when you look at your career and everything, how you had to put yourself together?

You can talk to hundreds of thousands of different podcasters for various reasons, but we link together because I have to sell myself to you.

That's it.

That's it.

And, um, AI today is an amazing servant, and it should be a servant, not a master.

Rashad, you know what kind of freaks me out is Sam Friedman, ChatGPT.

Yes.

He's saying that people in their 20s and 30s, the biggest use of ChatGPT is therapy.

But you're going to want that personal touch to really make that final decision.

If there's a message for listeners, I would say because a lot of, a lot of salespeople, a lot of sales teams come to me and say, you know, "Is AI going to replace me?" And I think that's a good question.

People should be taking a look at, at how to improve and how to level up their skills, and I would say emphatically no.

And the people that will be most successful however, will be A enable-- A- AI enabled salespeople and revenue generators.

It's letting, letting AI be your servant-

Mm.

I mean y-you--- I -- Chris That's a really good question, and you hit the, hit the nail on the head.

One of the things he said is as technology increases that velocity increases we're going to have more need for human touch Human interaction So he called high tech/high touch and that really stuck with

You could look at it, we could say 140

companies, they can't keep a job, which...

It's like choice to do it that way.

But we all have different skill sets.

And mine is coming in and evaluating companies.

And what I really see in so many of the companies is...

And the value for people like us coming in is we can be objective.

Yeah.