In this week's episode, hosts Brandon Lee and Carson V. Heady explore the transformative journey in sales methodologies with Lee Salz, author of "Sell Different!" and "Sales Differentiation."
Delving into the concept of a sales contrarian, the discussion unveils how traditional sales tactics are being reevaluated for modern effectiveness.
Key Points Discussed:
◾ Value-Driven Discovery Calls: Emphasizing the importance of making discovery calls interesting and focused on the buyer rather than the sale
◾ Maturity Assessment in Sales: Introducing an innovative approach to assessing and enhancing sales team maturity for better performance.
◾ Shifting Sales Mindsets: How adopting a contrarian perspective can lead to more successful sales strategies by challenging conventional wisdom.
◾ Importance of Sales Process Over People: The critical role of a solid sales process in ensuring sustained sales success, rather than relying solely on individual sales talents.
◾ Utilizing LinkedIn for Sales: Strategies for leveraging LinkedIn effectively to establish subject matter expertise and engage potential clients without direct selling.
This episode emphasizes the need for sales professionals to adapt and innovate in their approaches. By reimagining sales from a contrarian viewpoint, there's potential to transform challenges into opportunities for growth and success.
Don't miss out—your next big idea could be just one episode away!
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Speaker 1: Welcome to Mastering Modern Selling Relationships
00:00:04
Social and AI in the buyer-centric age.
00:00:07
Join host Brandon Lee, founder of Fist Bump, alongside
00:00:11
Microsoft's number one social seller Carson V Heddy and Tom
00:00:15
Burton, author of the Revenue Zone and co-founder of Leet
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Smart, as we explore the strategies and stories behind
00:00:22
successful executives and sales professionals.
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Dive in to business growth, personal development and the
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pursuit of excellence with industry leaders.
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Whether you're a seasoned executive or an aspiring leader,
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this podcast is your backstage pass to today's business
00:00:37
landscape.
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This is Mastering Modern Selling, brought to you by Fist
00:00:41
Bump.
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Speaker 2: We're buddy to Mastering Modern Selling,
00:00:51
episode 74.
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Carson is here with me today.
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I'm Brandon Lee Carson.
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Heddy, we're missing Tom today because he is home sick.
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He's probably on the couch watching Love Boat Love Boat
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reruns, maybe watching our episode, you know.
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But we wish Tom well.
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We hope he gets better.
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Speaker 3: But for everybody we got to.
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Speaker 2: That's right.
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We have a great show and I think, Lee, this is gonna be a
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high energy show.
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I think Carson and Lee are gonna get really revved up and
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going.
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Speaker 3: I'm already revved up Like we were just talking in
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the green room and like Lee's got me all kinds of fired up, so
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I can't wait.
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There we go.
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Speaker 2: Look at the way we start.
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So everybody on the podcast, we welcome to episode 74.
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We appreciate you and, like, if you love what we're talking
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about, we'd really appreciate the give us a quick review,
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share us with your friends all of that fun stuff.
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We'd be really grateful for it.
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And then everybody that's live with us, whether you're on
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LinkedIn, you're on Facebook, you're on Twitter, you're on
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YouTube, wherever else it is that we're streaming these days
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we'd love to have you join us.
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So if you throw in the comments , love to hear who you are,
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where you are, but any questions you have, any comments you have
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, we want you to be part of this conversation.
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We live in a modern world, right ?
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Just cause we're the ones on screen doesn't mean we're the
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only ones talking.
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So come and join us and let's get on the show.
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We'll get moving on it.
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So this episode is called Re-Imagining Sales a journey
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from sales contrarian to sales champion.
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Our guest is Lee Solz.
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He's the best selling author of Cell Different and Sales
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Differentiation.
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Lee, welcome to the show and then tell us what the heck does
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this sales contrarian thing mean ?
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Speaker 4: Thank you, Brandy.
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You know I was hoping we were gonna talk love vote.
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I mean, you just brought me way back.
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My parents would go out on Saturday nights, I'd be home
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with my grandmother and we'd be watching Love Vote, followed by
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Fantasy Island, and I'm just going to go-.
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Speaker 3: I'd always walk in and my parents were watching
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Dallas.
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Speaker 4: Oh, sure, yeah absolutely who shot JR.
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Speaker 2: My reference was for me in the 80s, when I was home
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sick and my parents worked.
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It was on the couch watching Priced Is Right, love, vote
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reruns and then Twilight Zone.
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I think that was my three.
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Speaker 3: Young and the Restless was always on during
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the day.
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Speaker 4: Carson, how about with you, man?
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I wasn't watching that.
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Speaker 3: No, I didn't want to, but somehow.
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I got hooked and I still remember the storylines, but I
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digress.
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Speaker 2: Yes, wait was Young and the Restless is Young and
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the Restless.
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A story about DDRs.
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Speaker 3: I'm not gonna take the bait.
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That's a joke, yeah.
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Boy, you just threw a fastball down the middle and you just
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took the Carson.
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That's a good one, that was good.
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Speaker 2: Layed it in there.
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Does Young and the Restless count as our movie reference for
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the day?
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Not really.
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Speaker 3: We're gonna have to try harder.
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Speaker 2: Okay, let's try harder.
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Well, lee, tell us a little bit about yourself and your
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experience and Sales Contrarian.
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I love it, I love Contrarian, so bring it on.
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Speaker 4: Thank you.
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So I'm a sales management strategist and I work with sales
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organizations to help them develop strategy, process and
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tools to win more deals at the prices that you want.
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That's the trademark expression that I use.
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And to your point about Sales Contrarian, I look at the entire
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journey from the first time we pick up the phone and we're
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prospecting all the way through.
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We get a signed order or a signed contract, we got customer
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service, we got account management and I'm looking at
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these old school methods and saying I'm not sure if they ever
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really worked, but it's time to get the dust off of the process
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and look at a new way to approach things.
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Speaker 2: That's awesome.
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So we've got a bunch of bullet points on our agenda that we may
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or may not get to them in the right order, because I know
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there's two things that I'm really excited about and I know
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Carson's excited about Is value-driven discovery calls.
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I think that is huge important, because most discovery calls
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are boring and focused on sales, not the actual buyer.
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And then we want to talk about your maturity assessment.
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So, carson, where do we want to start?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think let's give us a little preamble
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too.
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Lee, like you said, a mouthful as you started, and I think one
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of the things you and I talked about right before we jumped in
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was you're embarking on a pretty strategic change that not a lot
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of organizations.
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A lot of organizations do a great job of talking the talk,
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but as far as really adopting the change and the effort that's
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required in creating and nurturing a sales culture, it's
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pretty daunting.
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So you take us on the journey.
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Like, how do these conversations usually start?
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What do you see as kind of the biggest pain points that
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organizations are grappling with ?
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And then how do you diagnose and treat these situations?
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Speaker 4: Okay.
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So that's a great start, and I'm going to share a quote from
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one of my CEO clients.
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He's got a great line.
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He says there's the business that happens to us and the
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business we make happen, and most can't distinguish between
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those two.
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Right, there's a business that happens to us, business we make
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happen, meaning when the economy's cooperating, we got a
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great differentiator interest rates are low, not much
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competition.
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We look like we really have this sales game nailed.
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And that's when sales leaders, owners, presidents, ceos, they
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say why do we need to invest in sales?
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We're killing it.
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Then we hit economic headwinds.
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We've got tough competition.
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Maybe our differentiator isn't a differentiator anymore.
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The economy's not cooperating.
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We go boy these salespeople.
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They can't sell anything, they're terrible the same group,
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mind you.
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And it's because we don't have the ability or we do have the
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ability, the desire, to distinguish between the business
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that happens to us and the business that we make happen.
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And that was one of the reasons why I developed the assessment
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tool, which we'll talk about later but being able to have
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that framework in place so that your salespeople can produce the
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results that they want.
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Speaker 3: The people on the front lines know the difference.
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I'd love to hear.
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I had an amen moment when you said that, and I'm surprised our
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chat isn't lighting up yet with folks saying an amen moment,
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because what you just said, lee, really resonates.
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It's fascinating to watch, and what I've usually seen as a
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common trend with organizations is that they may invest in a
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sales training of some sort, but it's a one and done, you know
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they'll do it.
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There's no followup, there's no practical execution, and you
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better believe that if somebody goes out there and they're
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trying to develop new muscle, that you agree in the sales
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training, hey, this is great, this will make me better.
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But then you go out and you do it a few times.
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It doesn't feel good and I go back to what I call my
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comfortable way of failing.
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So I would love to hear from your vantage point where have
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you seen these really succeed and what do you think is the
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biggest thing that organizations today need to be considering if
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they're serious about developing a sales culture?
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Speaker 4: So can we go with a little time machine?
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We're gonna go back in time.
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We're gonna go back to the future, if you will.
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Speaker 3: I have to make reference.
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We got a lot of time.
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Speaker 4: You have your movie.
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You want a movie?
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I give you a movie.
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Speaker 2: Okay, we're going back to and our favorite movie
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that gets talked about the most on the show ever So-.
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Speaker 3: I also have to say so .
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For Valentine's Day, my wife gave me a Doc Brown clock.
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He's hanging from the clock, so Brandon off to show you guys.
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Speaker 4: It's amazing, I love it, Wonderful.
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Okay, so I'm gonna take you back now to high school science
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class, the Heated Adams Workshop .
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Right, they gave you a Bunsen burner, a flask of water, and
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what you did was you took the flask of water, you put it over
00:09:06
the fire the heat, if you will and the atoms went crazy,
00:09:10
bounced it off the walls and as soon as you took the heat away,
00:09:13
they returned to a static state, and I share that story.
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When executives reach out to me about me coming in and doing a
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keynote, a training program, what have you?
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And they say so, let's say I'm gonna come in for some period of
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time and then I'm gonna go away .
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So tell me about what you have in place today to reinforce the
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work that I'm gonna do with your team.
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And if the answer is we don't have anything, my counsel to
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them is not only should they not bring me and don't bring
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anybody in, because you're gonna have the heated Adams
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experience.
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You're gonna have a team that gets all fired up for a couple
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of days and then they're gonna go back in the field and say
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what is that I'm excited to go do?
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There's no reinforcement, and so some of the work that I get
00:09:59
into with clients is developing sales playbooks, and I don't do
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that unilaterally.
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I don't sit here in Minneapolis and say, let me tell you how to
00:10:06
build your sales organization.
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I'll host these brain show sessions with their team around
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a wide array of topics, mine out the information from their team
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and then put it in an organized fashion in a playbook and say,
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okay, now we've determined the right way to sell for your
00:10:22
organization.
00:10:23
Now let's get everybody following those best practices.
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Speaker 2: Lee, I'm curious of something just personally how
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often do you hear a team, you go through that and you do your
00:10:37
analogy and you say, if you don't have something in place to
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keep this going, don't hire me, but don't hire anybody.
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How often do you get a CEO or a sales leader that just look at
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you like a deer in headlights?
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Speaker 4: Pretty common and actually very quickly the
00:10:53
conversation shifts to tell me about that playbook thing that
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you do, because they very quickly recognize that whoever
00:11:01
they're gonna bring in doesn't have a magic wand, so they're
00:11:03
not gonna come in, do something for a day, two days, three,
00:11:06
whatever it is, and boom, you're gonna triple your sales results
00:11:09
.
00:11:09
That's just not gonna happen, not if you don't have a
00:11:11
framework in place to get the results that you're looking for.
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Speaker 3: What are the old school tactics that need to go,
00:11:19
and what do we replace them with ?
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Speaker 4: Great question, so I'm gonna stir it up a little
00:11:25
bit.
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One of my.
00:11:27
There we go.
00:11:28
One of my-.
00:11:30
Speaker 2: Is the contrarians coming out?
00:11:32
Speaker 4: Love it.
00:11:32
One of my counsels to executives and people may
00:11:36
bristle at this, but I'll explain Love your process, like
00:11:41
your salespeople.
00:11:41
That successful sales organizations are founded in
00:11:46
process, not in people.
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Salespeople are gonna come and go.
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That is the nature of this world.
00:11:52
It's not like when our parents took their first job and they
00:11:55
retired with a gold watch in that same position.
00:11:59
You get a couple of years, they move on.
00:12:03
I had this one client.
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I would get phone calls and emails and texts on the weekends
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at night saying so and so just resigned.
00:12:12
It was catastrophic Every time a salesperson left and the
00:12:17
reason was they had no process, they had no system.
00:12:20
So this was a business where there was high turnover in sales
00:12:23
.
00:12:23
It was to be expected.
00:12:25
And the CEO said tell me how we reduced the turnover.
00:12:30
And my question back was what if we can't?
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What if we accept the fact that the turnover is just gonna be
00:12:39
and we need to build the business based on that Meaning?
00:12:43
Let's develop a process, let's put the systems in place,
00:12:47
knowing that people are gonna come and go.
00:12:49
It's gonna happen.
00:12:51
So we did that for every vertical market that they served
00:12:53
.
00:12:53
We built that framework out and you know what happened?
00:12:56
The calls went away.
00:12:57
I would connect with her one day and she said oh so, and so
00:13:02
just moved on.
00:13:03
That's okay, we hired someone else and they're just gonna pick
00:13:05
up where the prior person left off.
00:13:07
And it was interesting.
00:13:09
Before that, when I ran sales reports for each of the vertical
00:13:13
markets, it looked like an EKG report.
00:13:15
You get this.
00:13:16
You could see when someone left and when a new person came in.
00:13:20
Now it was because they were founded in process.
00:13:27
Now I'm not saying don't be good to your people.
00:13:29
Yes, you take great care of your salespeople, but the
00:13:32
foundation if you look at any successful sales organization,
00:13:36
the foundation is not the salespeople, it's the process
00:13:39
that's in place.
00:13:41
Speaker 3: I like that you call that out, lee, because I feel
00:13:43
like, yes, be very, very good to your people, but in an ideal
00:13:46
world, my team's a destination team.
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I have an organization that's a destination and there's a
00:13:51
succession plan.
00:13:52
People are gonna move up, they're gonna move out, we're
00:13:55
gonna attract new talent.
00:13:56
We wanna make it an attractive place for talent to come, but
00:13:59
it's gotta be rock solid with process or, frankly, if it's not
00:14:02
, people aren't gonna wanna stay , they're gonna get frustrated
00:14:05
and they're gonna leave because of the lack of process.
00:14:07
Speaker 4: Exactly, exactly.
00:14:09
So those are the kinds of things when we talk about this
00:14:12
whole sales contrarian thing there's a lot of advocates for
00:14:17
let's just go hire great salespeople.
00:14:19
So you asked for sales contrarian.
00:14:21
I don't believe there's an entity called a great
00:14:24
salesperson, and I can prove it.
00:14:26
I love when executives take me to task on that.
00:14:29
I'll ask them.
00:14:31
I'll say how many of these so-called great salespeople
00:14:34
strong resume, great track record, polished, look have you
00:14:37
hired and they failed in your company?
00:14:39
If you believe there's an entity called a great
00:14:42
salesperson, then you must also sign up for one of two of the
00:14:44
following given that they failed , either that salesperson
00:14:48
arrived on your doorstep and completely forgot how to sell,
00:14:52
or your company is the worst company in the history of
00:14:55
business to sell.
00:14:55
For which is it Cause?
00:14:57
You said you believe in great salespeople and they had it.
00:15:00
See, the issue is the word great and where it's placed
00:15:05
Every sales role.
00:15:06
It's like a fingerprint.
00:15:07
The factors that lead to success, failure,
00:15:10
underperformance vary in every single role, and one of the
00:15:15
mistakes we make when we're hiring salespeople is we start
00:15:18
the process by recruiting and getting a talent pipeline going.
00:15:22
That's not the first step.
00:15:24
The first step is to analyze the role and understand the
00:15:28
performance factors, the factors that would cause someone to
00:15:30
succeed, fail or underperform in it.
00:15:32
And then, once we understand that now we say, okay, now we
00:15:37
know the DNA that we're looking for and we put a candidate
00:15:42
evaluation process in place to expose the matches or lack the
00:15:46
rub between those two.
00:15:47
So now we're not looking for great salespeople, we're looking
00:15:51
for the right salespeople with the potential to be great in
00:15:55
this specific role.
00:15:57
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, we got like five episodes of content
00:16:00
just in what you said in the last two minutes there, I think.
00:16:03
So I've got like three questions and I won't overwhelm
00:16:06
you with them, but I am curious about that last part that you
00:16:11
said.
00:16:11
When we're looking for the salesperson to match, the role
00:16:16
are we getting into, like disc profiles, predictive index
00:16:21
tendencies, what are you looking ?
00:16:23
Speaker 4: at there?
00:16:24
Great question.
00:16:24
So I am not a fan of any of the sales assessment tools that are
00:16:29
out there and my issue isn't the science, it's the way we use
00:16:34
them.
00:16:35
In the hiring process.
00:16:36
We put way too much weight on that tool.
00:16:39
So if it says don't hire them, we knock them out of the process
00:16:44
.
00:16:45
So if we're gonna put that much weighting on it, let's just skip
00:16:49
the entire interview process, all the other steps.
00:16:51
Give them the test.
00:16:52
If they pass, we hire them.
00:16:53
If they fail, we don't Too much emphasis.
00:16:56
But if we go through the step that I described the performance
00:17:00
factor steps and I described that in my book Higher Right,
00:17:03
higher Profits you understand the role then what we're saying
00:17:08
is and this is what I say to clients all the time I want you
00:17:11
to take that assessment tool, go back to the consultant that
00:17:13
you're buying it from with this performance factor portfolio and
00:17:18
ask that consultant to show you how this instrument is gonna
00:17:21
help you identify the matches or lack thereof between the
00:17:24
candidate and those factors.
00:17:26
So if we're using it as one data point, that's a healthy way
00:17:31
to use it in the process.
00:17:32
It's a way to expose matches or lack thereof.
00:17:35
But if we're gonna use it as a judge and jury.
00:17:37
It's not a good use for it.
00:17:41
Speaker 2: I love that.
00:17:41
I love that and I've got an example of that.
00:17:44
I mean my largest, most successful company I built.
00:17:47
We did that around.
00:17:49
All of our roles is.
00:17:51
We built out what the role needed to do and we used a tool
00:17:56
called the Sibmon Survey that got into people's tendencies.
00:17:59
What activities did they tend towards naturally and what
00:18:03
activities did they tend to avoid because they didn't really
00:18:06
like doing them?
00:18:07
And we did this like okay, well , they fit, they're gonna
00:18:12
naturally go do these things and they're gonna naturally not do
00:18:15
these things.
00:18:16
They're a perfect fit and it seemed to be a really good
00:18:19
recipe.
00:18:20
I like that.
00:18:21
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:18:21
So when you look at these performance factors, let's say
00:18:23
you have writing skills on the list, because so much of what
00:18:28
salespeople do is writing right.
00:18:29
There's emails, there's proposals, right.
00:18:32
And I get these calls from the executives.
00:18:35
They're saying my salespeople, they can't write, they can't put
00:18:38
two words together in a sentence.
00:18:39
Now with AI, it's getting much easier.
00:18:42
Products like Grammarly, which I swear by, I use it all the time
00:18:45
and I'll ask them how did you evaluate their writing skills
00:18:52
before you extended an offer?
00:18:53
And you know what answer I get Dead silence because they never
00:18:57
did so.
00:18:58
If you're saying a highly impactful performance factor is
00:19:01
writing skills and you're not assessing it in the evaluation
00:19:06
process, well then you're gonna get what you're gonna get, which
00:19:09
is not good.
00:19:09
We're called Correct.
00:19:11
So they say, okay.
00:19:13
Well, how can I assess that?
00:19:14
I'm like well, there's a few different things you can do.
00:19:17
One of the things that I like to do and it allows them to
00:19:19
measure a number of different vantage points is to write a few
00:19:23
scenarios, realistic for their business.
00:19:25
But someone could answer if they weren't from that industry.
00:19:29
So you'd write a little paragraph and have them respond
00:19:32
in writing in how they would resolve that particular issue.
00:19:36
So, for example, you'd say you present a proposal, you thought
00:19:41
everything was on track and the prospects response is your price
00:19:46
is too high.
00:19:46
What would be your approach to resolve that issue?
00:19:51
So there's several things you can measure.
00:19:53
One is writing skills, because you're asking for it in writing.
00:19:55
See if there's philosophical alignment, to see if their
00:20:00
approach to navigating that issue is in alignment with what
00:20:03
you would expect one of your salespeople to do and a whole
00:20:08
host of others.
00:20:08
For example, you would say ask them when could you have this
00:20:11
for me?
00:20:12
And if they miss their self-imposed deadline, they're
00:20:16
out of the process.
00:20:17
Because if they can't meet their own deadline, there's no
00:20:20
way they're gonna meet yours or prospects.
00:20:21
They're not gonna have that for it.
00:20:23
Now, if there's an emergency and they say, hey, by the way,
00:20:26
this just happened, I'm not gonna be able to meet that
00:20:28
deadline, they communicate that that's perfectly fine, but if
00:20:31
they just miss it, they're out.
00:20:35
Speaker 3: I wanna kick this going down, because you're
00:20:38
hitting on something that's really important not only to
00:20:40
sales leaders, who can and should be looking for different
00:20:44
types of experiences that are relevant to what they're hiring
00:20:48
for, and I don't think that a lot of them do that effectively.
00:20:52
And on the flip, they think, hey, I'm just gonna go out and
00:20:54
find somebody that's selling for my competition and I'm gonna go
00:20:56
nab them, and then they come and they fail, and then they
00:20:59
wonder why.
00:20:59
But the reality is.
00:21:01
I love where you're going with this, lee, and so, not even from
00:21:04
a sales leadership vantage point, but also as a seller
00:21:07
today, what are some of the new skills that we should be looking
00:21:10
for as sales leaders and accumulating as sellers,
00:21:13
especially in the rise and advent of social selling and AI?
00:21:17
I'd love to get your thoughts on that.
00:21:19
Speaker 4: Sure, but I wanna come back to something you just
00:21:22
you talked about, about hiring from the competition.
00:21:24
That's the lazy way that we go about it, and I have to tell you
00:21:29
my own personal experience.
00:21:31
I made this mistake.
00:21:33
I call it my greatest day in sales management.
00:21:36
My worst day in sales management.
00:21:37
It was the same day.
00:21:39
So I was in the technology training industry and we were
00:21:43
going gangbusters and I heard one of my competitors wasn't
00:21:46
doing very well.
00:21:46
So I get a call from this guy, sales person from this
00:21:50
competitor, representing himself and five others, saying, hey,
00:21:54
we wanna come play for your team , and I became starry-eyed.
00:21:58
I'm like, oh my gosh, this is, you're looking for talent.
00:22:01
I got a half dozen guys that wanna come play on my team.
00:22:03
So hang up the phone.
00:22:06
We schedule time for them all to come in, run into the GM's
00:22:09
office, tell them about all this stuff.
00:22:11
We start re-forecasting numbers .
00:22:13
We haven't met these guys yet.
00:22:14
We're re-forecasting our numbers and how well we're gonna
00:22:18
do they come in.
00:22:20
I wouldn't even call them interviews.
00:22:24
We didn't interview.
00:22:25
We practically had the offers ready to go as soon as they
00:22:28
walked in the door, played ahead just a couple of months.
00:22:32
Every one of them failed.
00:22:34
And when I look back at that it's like of course they failed.
00:22:40
There was a complete mismatch because I described the other
00:22:43
company as a competitor.
00:22:44
But our businesses were so different.
00:22:46
They were selling individual training courses to companies.
00:22:51
We were selling comprehensive certificate programs primarily
00:22:55
to individuals, career changers.
00:22:57
So, yes, it's the same technology, yes, it's education,
00:23:00
markets completely different, price points completely
00:23:03
different and a whole host of other differences.
00:23:05
And it was so obvious as I look back and go and we never should
00:23:08
have hired any of them.
00:23:09
But we get blinded.
00:23:12
We hear hiring from the competition.
00:23:14
The reason I call it lazy is we go.
00:23:16
Well, I don't have to teach them the industry.
00:23:17
I don't have to teach them the product Done.
00:23:22
When I was in the employment screening industry I remember I
00:23:26
took over this role had a whole big sales organization.
00:23:29
I had this one woman on the team and she had been selling
00:23:33
for four different employment screening companies in her
00:23:36
career and I traveled with her and everything she said in the
00:23:41
prospect meeting was factually correct.
00:23:43
Problem was she could have had any business card in her hand
00:23:47
and that meeting would have been identical.
00:23:49
The entire industry had become vanilla to her because she
00:23:54
didn't see any meaningful differentiators.
00:23:56
She was selling employment screening, if you will.
00:23:59
So I don't advocate for hiring from the competition as a
00:24:03
winning strategy.
00:24:04
I say those are the ones that are the toughest to evaluate
00:24:08
because you call it an interview , right, you're meeting with
00:24:11
them, they know the language, they know what you want to hear,
00:24:14
it's a fun, enjoyable conversation, but if you haven't
00:24:19
put in place what we talked about before, those performance
00:24:22
factors, and for each of those performance factors you've
00:24:25
identified ways to evaluate the match or lack thereof.
00:24:28
So interview questions is one of them, writing technique, like
00:24:32
we talked about, is another, but they need to go through that
00:24:36
same level of scrutiny as someone outside the industry,
00:24:40
even more, to get past this fabric of they know the jargon,
00:24:45
if you will.
00:24:45
So I can determine if they're going to be a success right here
00:24:49
in my organization.
00:24:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's almost like I would and I've
00:24:54
hired from externally, but they've got to add something
00:24:59
that my team doesn't have today.
00:25:01
If there's a experience that I'm trying to level up my team
00:25:04
on that they have, if there is some type of skill set or an
00:25:09
area that I think they can elevate to some of the parts,
00:25:12
absolutely I'm not going to just add them for adding them to
00:25:15
stake.
00:25:16
Speaker 4: Yep, but the question you were asking me was around
00:25:19
today's tools.
00:25:20
So let's start with LinkedIn.
00:25:23
That's a huge, huge question.
00:25:25
Today, if someone sends you an invite, you can measure with an
00:25:32
egg timer how quickly you're going to get a solicitation
00:25:36
Right.
00:25:36
You get a tip tick, tick, tick.
00:25:37
Hey, buy my stuff.
00:25:42
Well, that's not an appropriate way to use LinkedIn.
00:25:45
The beauty of social media is and Brandon and I talked about
00:25:51
soft line if you decide you want to be seen as an expert in,
00:25:56
let's say, babysitting, you could do that in 30 days without
00:26:00
creating one video, without writing one blog post.
00:26:03
If all you're doing all day long is sharing information
00:26:07
around babysitting, the world very quickly will say ah, you're
00:26:11
an expert in babysitting, you didn't make a video, you didn't
00:26:14
write any content.
00:26:15
So, with salespeople, when we're looking at the opportunity
00:26:19
, again, I'm going to focus on LinkedIn because obviously
00:26:21
that's the biggest business platform.
00:26:23
They need to be sharing content related to the industry they're
00:26:29
in to demonstrate subject matter expertise.
00:26:32
But then go a step further and engage in conversations in the
00:26:36
group Again not saying buy my stuff, but creating an
00:26:39
environment so that others look at them and say you know what
00:26:44
when I need this?
00:26:45
I need to talk to Brandon because he clearly has what I
00:26:48
need and that, to me, is such a foundational expertise that
00:26:54
they've got to have.
00:26:55
It can be taught.
00:26:56
The question always, when we again coming back to those
00:27:00
performance factors, what do you want to teach and what do you
00:27:03
not want to teach?
00:27:04
Because there are some things you say we can teach it but we
00:27:06
really don't want to.
00:27:07
And there are other things, like resiliency, where you say I
00:27:12
don't think you can teach someone to be resilient.
00:27:14
Either you are or you're not.
00:27:16
So those are some of the decision processes that you have
00:27:20
to go through when you're considering sales talent.
00:27:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Lee.
00:27:24
I want to address real quick everyone that's listening.
00:27:27
We know there's Hello.
00:27:32
Speaker 4: Brian, your audio just went out.
00:27:34
Speaker 3: We just lost your audio, brandon.
00:27:37
Uh-oh, brandon, maybe having some technical difficulties, so
00:27:42
I'll just mention.
00:27:43
I think we need to find it.
00:27:44
Speaker 4: Please stand by.
00:27:46
Speaker 3: What I think he's trying to say is that we know
00:27:47
some comments are coming through , but we weren't able to funnel
00:27:51
them in into the stream.
00:27:53
So if you've got some comments, we'll make sure to address those
00:27:55
here shortly.
00:27:56
And I think one of the areas that we want to kind of shift to
00:28:00
, Lee is around we're seeing more and more the shift and the
00:28:10
need to acknowledge that we're in a buyer-centric market.
00:28:13
I love that you called out earlier the benefits of working
00:28:18
in an environment where we're almost gifted or we benefit from
00:28:22
the climate that we're in, and I've worked in cloud for years
00:28:25
and obviously there was a very big boom and then there were
00:28:28
economic headwinds and then you find out what you're made of and
00:28:32
you know.
00:28:32
But now buyers can arm themselves with so much, they
00:28:37
have so much information at their fingertips and it's only
00:28:41
going to become more and more with the advent of AI and how
00:28:45
they can arm themselves.
00:28:45
I'd love to get a feel for how do you work with sales
00:28:50
organizations today to really build that culture, that innate
00:28:54
culture around buyer-centricity and infusing that into discovery
00:28:59
calls and really every step of the sales journey.
00:29:03
Speaker 4: So one of my favorite questions to ask salespeople
00:29:06
who knows more about the world of potential solutions in your
00:29:09
industry you or the people you sell to?
00:29:12
I've asked that in every industry you can name, in
00:29:15
countries all around the globe.
00:29:16
Every single time I've gotten the same answer it's me.
00:29:20
I know more about the world of potential solutions than the
00:29:24
people I'm selling to.
00:29:25
So we have the internet, we have AI and all this other stuff
00:29:28
.
00:29:28
Salespeople will always have a greater expertise than the buyer
00:29:33
and my gosh they should.
00:29:34
They're the ones that are representing it.
00:29:36
So when you understand that you have both an obligation and an
00:29:42
opportunity, I believe in sales.
00:29:45
We have an obligation to help people make an informed buying
00:29:48
decision because of the expertise that we have and that
00:29:51
gives us an opportunity to shape buyer decision criteria,
00:29:54
because they don't know how to buy what we're selling, even the
00:29:58
most trivial.
00:29:58
I have a client in Theta.
00:30:00
Minnesota has a lot of idiosyncrasies and put your own
00:30:03
punchline in there.
00:30:04
One of the interesting ones is every homeowner and every
00:30:11
business contracts for their own trash removal.
00:30:13
So on Wednesday mornings today is Wednesday there's a parade of
00:30:18
garbage trucks coming down my street representing every hauler
00:30:22
that you can imagine.
00:30:23
So I need to purchase these services.
00:30:26
It was interesting when I bought my home here, the first
00:30:29
thing I did not first, but one of the first things I did, I
00:30:31
went to Home Depot and bought garbage cans.
00:30:33
You don't do that here.
00:30:34
The haulers give those to you.
00:30:35
They want you using their cans and you would say, boy, it seems
00:30:40
pretty easy to buy trash services, very straightforward.
00:30:43
Well, it's not.
00:30:44
There's a game that's played in this industry.
00:30:47
What these haulers do is they put a cheap number in front of
00:30:51
you.
00:30:51
Let's say we're going to charge you $9 a month to pick up your
00:30:54
trash, and then you get your bill and it's not $9 a month.
00:30:59
There's all these fees that are added in.
00:31:01
Now we just think, if you look at your cell phone bill, you go
00:31:05
well, fees, that's just a part of the bill.
00:31:08
It's not.
00:31:09
These haulers create these fees .
00:31:12
They innovate these fees to add margin to your account and the
00:31:17
general public doesn't know that .
00:31:19
So they just get lured by.
00:31:21
Oh, I'm paying $12 today.
00:31:23
If I switch to you, it's $9, and they get the bill and
00:31:27
they're paying more than they were before because the other
00:31:30
hauler has added all of these fees.
00:31:32
So something as simple as trash , we don't even know how to buy
00:31:35
garbage services, you can imagine what it's like when
00:31:38
you're talking about a complex solution that most salespeople
00:31:41
are selling.
00:31:41
So we have this opportunity to shape buyer decision criteria.
00:31:46
Now, just because we know that we know more than they do about
00:31:50
the world of potential solutions in our industry than they do,
00:31:53
that doesn't mean that they agree with you.
00:31:55
You can't go in and they say, oh, my goodness, thank goodness
00:31:59
you're here, because I didn't know how to buy this stuff
00:32:02
Because of the internet.
00:32:03
They feel like they do.
00:32:05
So one of the things we've always talked about in sales was
00:32:08
the importance of questions Like there's questions that we
00:32:11
have to be asking to lead them down a path, so that they see
00:32:16
what we see.
00:32:16
If we make statements like well , you know, I know more about
00:32:20
this space than you do, so I'm going to tell you.
00:32:22
Tell you about what you should know when you're making an
00:32:26
informed buying decision.
00:32:27
We're going to make for a very short interaction, but if you
00:32:31
ask questions, lead them down the path, like one of my
00:32:34
favorite questions, or I should say, the response I look for is
00:32:38
you know what?
00:32:39
No one's ever asked me a question like that before.
00:32:41
That's how I know I'm providing value, not with the statements
00:32:46
I'm making, but rather the questions that I'm asking,
00:32:49
because what I want them to do is think differently about the
00:32:52
world of potential solutions they could have.
00:32:57
Speaker 3: I love that.
00:32:57
I spend a lot of time with salespeople and it's all about
00:33:03
don't go for the low hanging fruit, don't go for the obvious
00:33:07
Right.
00:33:07
Sometimes you got to shake things up, ask very provocative
00:33:11
things and, honestly, I don't care what sales methodology you
00:33:13
subscribe to.
00:33:14
I think there's a lot of great benefits in a lot of them.
00:33:16
At the end of the day, you want to be thinking about what is
00:33:19
the unique, differentiating way, not only that my company can
00:33:24
help these folks and how I can help the folks, and sometimes
00:33:27
it's about getting in there, creating something, bringing
00:33:31
some mutually beneficial relationships to the table, and
00:33:34
then getting the heck out of the way, like I'm just a sales guy.
00:33:37
But, lee, you said something earlier that made me feel like
00:33:41
I'm like a noble knight when you said we've got this obligation
00:33:45
to inform people of your help to make an informed decision.
00:33:49
I take pride in that, so thank you.
00:33:51
Speaker 4: That's wonderful Way to go.
00:33:53
So let me tell you oh, you're back, Brandon's back.
00:33:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was in a time machine.
00:34:00
Speaker 3: I think he was in a time machine.
00:34:01
He was watching the live show.
00:34:02
Speaker 4: No, he was watching a love boat episode.
00:34:03
That's it and I don't mean to interrupt.
00:34:06
Speaker 2: I just I'm back, but please keep going, Okay.
00:34:10
Speaker 4: So let's talk, because obviously what we're
00:34:13
talking about is some of the discovery issues.
00:34:15
Right, and one of the big issues.
00:34:18
I'm actually on this mission with discovery.
00:34:20
I want to get rid of the word, because if you ask salespeople
00:34:24
about discovery, what do they always think about the questions
00:34:27
they're going to ask and what they're going to tell and show
00:34:29
somebody?
00:34:29
And another favorite question I ask them I say, okay, so if I
00:34:33
agree to take a meeting with you , obviously you call it a
00:34:36
discovery meeting.
00:34:37
What do I get out of it?
00:34:39
And you know what I hear back?
00:34:41
The same as the question before nothing, definition, silence,
00:34:46
that issue, right, there is why prospecting is so darn hard.
00:34:49
We've conditioned people to believe that unless you're
00:34:52
actively seeking something, don't meet with a salesperson,
00:34:56
because only they get value out of it.
00:34:58
So the word that I like to use and I'm not going to say
00:35:02
innovated this that consultation .
00:35:05
So my hobby when I'm not doing the sales thing, I'm a
00:35:09
competitive power lifter, and when you do that, you wind up
00:35:13
with various ailments, and I'm dealing with a neck issue right
00:35:16
now.
00:35:16
So a couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor because of this
00:35:21
neck issue.
00:35:21
And if you think of why I went to the doctor.
00:35:24
I went there to become wiser about the circumstances that I'm
00:35:28
having and understand the potential remedies.
00:35:30
That's why I went.
00:35:32
I would not have gone to the doctor if I thought I was a
00:35:36
scientific experiment and only he got the benefit of that time
00:35:40
with me.
00:35:42
So if we have the mindset of a consultation and we say I need
00:35:47
to figure out what meaningful value can't you say value,
00:35:51
meaningful meaning.
00:35:52
It has to matter to me that I'm going to provide during this
00:35:56
interaction and then I'm going to communicate that when I'm
00:35:59
prospecting Because when I'm prospecting if it's a voicemail,
00:36:03
it's an email, god forbid you get the person live.
00:36:06
If all I come across is that traditional salesperson, I want
00:36:10
to meet with you using the two words.
00:36:12
By the way, I tell salespeople all the time.
00:36:15
There are two words you want to get out of your vocabulary it's
00:36:17
I want.
00:36:17
No one cares what you want, except one person.
00:36:20
Do you know who that is?
00:36:20
It's not you, it's mom.
00:36:23
No one else cares what you want .
00:36:26
So we owe it to the state to their benefit.
00:36:31
Speaker 3: I'm gonna start listening to Lee every morning
00:36:34
before I go to work Because you got me so fired up, and so this
00:36:38
is very similar to a conversation that I was having
00:36:40
very recently, because it's that same exact thing around
00:36:43
discovery, using the same medical analogy we try to go in
00:36:48
and diagnose based on what we want the outcome to be.
00:36:51
That's the point.
00:36:52
They don't wanna talk to us or care talk to us about those
00:36:56
types of things.
00:36:57
They don't care what we love to do or what we want to do, but
00:37:01
the reality is, if I show up and it might be helpful if I throw
00:37:05
out a couple of ideas where I think I could add some immediate
00:37:08
value hey, I know some folks in this segment of my organization
00:37:12
that have helped organizations like yours do X, I'd be happy to
00:37:16
introduce you.
00:37:17
There's a story that I could tell or something along those
00:37:19
lines Cast a wide net.
00:37:21
Don't try to diagnose before you get the consultative meeting.
00:37:25
There you go.
00:37:26
Cast a wide net.
00:37:27
Try to make it sound like it's gonna be a value to them and
00:37:30
that you're actually thinking about ways that you can be
00:37:32
valuable to them Instead of just saying I'd love to get a
00:37:35
meeting to review your portfolio or review what keeps you up at
00:37:39
night, like we've got to stay doing that.
00:37:42
Speaker 4: Well, along those lines I tell sales people the
00:37:44
word discovery is a kitchen item .
00:37:46
You don't say that to someone let's have a discovery meeting.
00:37:49
You've just said let's have a sales call, I'd rather have
00:37:52
brute canal.
00:37:53
I mean, no one is looking forward to that experience with
00:37:56
you.
00:37:56
You don't say let's schedule a discovery experience.
00:38:00
You just told them you want to have a meeting for you, Then
00:38:02
have it by yourself.
00:38:03
So, Brandon, you asked me about this whole sales contrarian
00:38:07
thing.
00:38:08
So let me throw this right down the gauntlet.
00:38:10
You ready Go for it.
00:38:11
Every sales training program out there says you begin that
00:38:15
meeting by setting an agenda, and it sounds like this what I
00:38:19
want to do today is ask you some questions and tell you about
00:38:22
our stuff.
00:38:22
What I want to do today?
00:38:24
So prospecting is so darn hard.
00:38:27
We're lucky enough to finally get one of these meetings and we
00:38:30
screw it up in the first few seconds by saying what I want to
00:38:33
do today.
00:38:33
What I advocate for is not making a statement, but rather
00:38:38
asking a question.
00:38:39
For this to be a great use of your time.
00:38:41
What do you want to make sure we talk about here today?
00:38:43
Those two things have done.
00:38:45
That question was two things for you.
00:38:47
First of all, it conveys that you genuinely care that they get
00:38:52
something out of this interaction, and the answer
00:38:55
truched the course for the whole meeting.
00:38:56
Sales is an open book test.
00:39:00
Speaker 3: And that's true of every meeting you're ever in.
00:39:02
You need to arrive at what's the desired outcome at the onset
00:39:05
.
00:39:05
Speaker 2: Amen and Lee.
00:39:07
How much.
00:39:07
Going back to the hiring and the assessment and just for lack
00:39:14
of a better word a personality profile, whatever the system you
00:39:17
have.
00:39:17
How important is that?
00:39:18
I mean because that's a different mindset entirely than
00:39:24
a lot of the stereotypical perceptions of a hard charging
00:39:27
salesperson that goes in and says, hey, for this to be
00:39:31
valuable, it's going to be all about you.
00:39:34
That is very, very different than the normal view of a great
00:39:40
salesman.
00:39:41
Speaker 4: Correct.
00:39:42
So this whole mission about being a sales contrarian that we
00:39:46
keep coming back to is building this awareness, this
00:39:50
recognition that and what I'm talking about here today.
00:39:53
I'd argue this conversation we could have had in 1930.
00:39:58
I don't believe people want to hear what I want to do today, in
00:40:01
1930, anymore than they want to hear it in 2024.
00:40:04
I think we just did it wrong and we just kept replicating
00:40:08
that over and over and over again.
00:40:10
Speaker 2: And I don't have it with me because I'm not sitting
00:40:12
at my desk, but I would be holding up how to win friends
00:40:15
and influence people, because I always come back to that book.
00:40:19
Like that book never lies, it always comes back to how you
00:40:24
treat people, how people feel when they're with you.
00:40:27
Are you speaking in a way that they feel heard and seen and
00:40:31
valuable, or are you talking about you?
00:40:33
I mean, that's the foundation of that book.
00:40:37
Speaker 3: Exactly, exactly, and people were more tolerable of
00:40:40
bad sales tactics before because they needed us to fill in the
00:40:43
blanks more before than they do now.
00:40:46
Speaker 2: Well, and it goes back to what, Lee, what you were
00:40:48
saying, at the very beginning, your CEO client of yours had
00:40:51
said we don't know the difference between sales that
00:40:54
happened to us and sales that we create.
00:40:57
Speaker 4: Right.
00:40:58
Speaker 2: And we thought I mean , I've said this many times when
00:41:02
I first got into sales, my first job, I thought I was
00:41:05
really good at cold calling.
00:41:06
It wasn't until later that I realized that they just needed
00:41:10
information from me and they were using me Right.
00:41:13
It was that I was good.
00:41:17
Speaker 4: Yep, exactly, exactly .
00:41:20
So let me come back to something we talked about.
00:41:24
One of the questions I asked salespeople about who knows more
00:41:27
about the world of potential solutions, and I mentioned that
00:41:29
that was an opportunity that we have.
00:41:31
So let me tie this into prospecting.
00:41:34
There's a strategy that I've developed.
00:41:36
I call it my unknowingly strategy and it works
00:41:39
tremendously well Based on that premise that I mentioned before,
00:41:41
that we know more about the world of potential solutions in
00:41:45
our industry than the people we're selling to.
00:41:47
So in that prospecting strategy of unknowingly the question of
00:41:51
the last salespeople I said OK, we agree, you know more than
00:41:55
they do about the world of potential solutions in your
00:41:57
space.
00:41:57
So what are those?
00:41:59
What are the things that you know that you find they don't
00:42:02
know?
00:42:02
So we talk about the outreach.
00:42:05
For example, I'm working with a company.
00:42:10
They handle property tax management and they have found
00:42:14
that most companies are unknowingly overpaying property
00:42:18
taxes.
00:42:18
So we developed a campaign around this unknowingly theme.
00:42:24
So the subject line to email is unknowingly overpaying property
00:42:29
taxes.
00:42:29
I'm pretty sure that it's going to get opened.
00:42:34
If you think about when we make a decision, no matter what it is
00:42:37
, we always want to feel like we've made an informed decision.
00:42:41
We may not have bought the most expensive, we may not have
00:42:44
bought the cheapest, but we feel , whatever decision we made, we
00:42:48
did it in an informed manner.
00:42:49
Someone comes along and says you're unknowingly doing
00:42:54
something, you're unknowingly out of compliance.
00:42:56
You get the Labrador effect, the huh, you know the dog would
00:43:01
put the head.
00:43:01
What do you mean?
00:43:02
And so the obvious response is what do you mean by that?
00:43:05
And I always tell salespeople if you're going to use this
00:43:08
strategy, you better be ready for that.
00:43:10
Question Door is open.
00:43:11
And if you're not prepared with where you're going to take the
00:43:15
conversation from, there, strategy is going to flop.
00:43:17
So you can't just say, hey, I like that unknowingly thing.
00:43:21
Let me put that in place.
00:43:22
When they say to you, what do you mean by that?
00:43:25
You have to have a game plan to take them through that
00:43:28
conversation.
00:43:31
Speaker 3: I love that.
00:43:33
I feel like, as sellers, you've got to be very intentional about
00:43:38
understanding the things that you have control over, like the
00:43:41
quality of messaging, how you show up.
00:43:44
I learned a lot my first year as an account executive when I
00:43:48
would take a counterintuitive approach to doing outreach.
00:43:52
I would listen to what I was being told as the reason people
00:43:55
didn't want to talk to me, and then I would almost form this
00:43:58
counterintuitive approach that basically turned it on its head,
00:44:00
like a lot of people didn't want to talk to me because they
00:44:03
didn't want to buy anymore.
00:44:05
They already felt like they were very informed in that area
00:44:08
of technology, so elevating the conversation was part of it.
00:44:13
You can control what you say and how you get or earn that
00:44:17
meeting, but also every step of the process.
00:44:20
There are different things that you can do to have a higher
00:44:22
probability of getting the desired outcome, but you have to
00:44:25
make it all about them, and that's the buyer's specificity
00:44:28
element of it.
00:44:29
They don't care what you want to talk about.
00:44:31
I think they were very tolerant of some of the verbiage that we
00:44:36
would choose to use as sellers for decades upon decades because
00:44:40
they relied on us more for information, but right now it's
00:44:44
like playing the Super Bowl every week.
00:44:46
You've got to bring your A game and, lee, I love what you said
00:44:48
about prospecting because it is.
00:44:49
It is challenging.
00:44:50
When I talk to salespeople, some of the biggest beefs they
00:44:53
give me is how hard it is to prospect, how they don't enjoy
00:44:56
it.
00:44:56
I've always personally enjoyed it because I take it as a
00:44:59
challenge, like what can I do or say to earn this meeting?
00:45:04
What is the unique approach that I want to utilize in order to
00:45:07
get that meeting.
00:45:08
I guess where I would love to go with you next is, as you
00:45:12
spend time with salespeople, what has been the biggest aha
00:45:18
moment that you've had?
00:45:19
How has your approach changed over time of working with sales
00:45:22
organizations and salespeople?
00:45:26
Speaker 4: This was one of the shocking things to me.
00:45:27
So I've been doing this since 2007.
00:45:30
I expected most of my conversations were going to be
00:45:34
this difficult, challenging, complex issue and it's not.
00:45:39
It's mostly rudimentary, elementary basic, foundational
00:45:44
conversations.
00:45:44
I have two sons involved in college baseball.
00:45:47
One just graduated from college .
00:45:49
He was a hitter.
00:45:50
My other son's still in college .
00:45:52
He's a pitcher.
00:45:54
And when I would take them for lessons when they were very
00:45:57
young sure, it was revolution, it was new.
00:45:59
But then as they got older and they go for lessons, expecting,
00:46:04
like these pearls of wisdom, I'm going to throw 10 miles an hour
00:46:07
faster, I'm going to hit the ball 50 feet further.
00:46:10
They were hearing the same things over and over again and
00:46:14
they were told you know what?
00:46:15
That's the same thing the professionals are doing, Right,
00:46:19
hitting off a tee.
00:46:20
You learn that at six years old you hit off a tee Major league
00:46:24
hitters.
00:46:24
Joe Mallard just got ducted into the Hall of Fame, talked
00:46:27
about how many balls he hit off a tee every single day as a
00:46:32
major league player.
00:46:33
So we're looking for this silver bullet and the reality is
00:46:37
, if you do the fundamentals well, the sales take care of
00:46:40
themselves.
00:46:42
Speaker 3: I love that Because I was watching this thing earlier
00:46:44
today about Kobe Bryant the same thing.
00:46:46
He was a student of the game he took 1 shots a day.
00:46:50
You don't have to be the most athletically gifted athlete to
00:46:52
be a champion.
00:46:53
You nail the fundamentals and it's not going to work every
00:46:57
time.
00:46:57
Your process isn't going to work every time and you will
00:47:01
modify your process.
00:47:02
You will take on new tools.
00:47:03
New relationships will matter, tools will come in and out, but
00:47:08
at the end of the day, nail the process, nail the fundamentals,
00:47:12
and if you do it over and over again, you're going to be
00:47:14
successful.
00:47:14
Period.
00:47:15
Speaker 4: Sorry, I cut you off.
00:47:16
No, when I work with salespeople, a lot of times I
00:47:21
get the.
00:47:22
That's not always going to work and I say, absolutely, you're
00:47:25
right.
00:47:26
I don't think anybody's holding you accountable for 100%
00:47:29
closing rate either.
00:47:30
So the idea is to move the sales needle and when I take
00:47:34
them through in keynote talks, for example, if we could be just
00:47:37
10% more effective in every step of the sales process,
00:47:41
multiply that out and see how many more deals you end up with.
00:47:44
Incremental gains is what we should.
00:47:48
Be insatiable in our search for Incremental gains.
00:47:51
If, like for example, we talked about the technique, about the
00:47:55
agenda, not a statement asking a question.
00:47:57
Is it going to work every time that you're going to have this
00:48:00
miraculous experience?
00:48:01
Of course not.
00:48:02
But if I just made you 10% more effective in that step of the
00:48:05
process, multiply that out through the rest of the sales
00:48:08
journey.
00:48:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, you go from a 250 hitter to a 400 hitter in
00:48:12
baseball, you're in the Hall of Fame and it's not massive
00:48:15
changes to your swing, it's tweaks, it's finding consistency
00:48:19
.
00:48:20
Speaker 2: That's it.
00:48:20
You know, as we're wrapping up, I kind of summarize and you
00:48:26
guys tell me if this is an easy and accurate summary.
00:48:30
Be other oriented, be about your buyer, buyer centric, and
00:48:38
go to the basics, ask good questions, Listen, serve and
00:48:44
then rinse and repeat over and over again and don't expect 100%
00:48:49
success.
00:48:51
Speaker 4: Now there is one thing that I can tell them.
00:48:53
I can tell our audience that I personally guarantee you will
00:48:58
increase your closing ratio.
00:48:59
I guarantee it works Right.
00:49:03
Everybody wants to hear that.
00:49:04
A ratio, it's a numerator and a denominator.
00:49:08
Right?
00:49:08
The numerator is a number of wins and not denominator is
00:49:11
number of proposals.
00:49:13
Cut down the number of proposals you put out.
00:49:15
They're earned because we make a statement.
00:49:20
We don't ask you to make a statement.
00:49:21
I'll put together a proposal for you.
00:49:23
Okay, I'm not committed to do anything.
00:49:27
You want to go do some work and put a proposal together?
00:49:29
God bless, have at it.
00:49:32
So if we look, you know we talk about qualifying up front.
00:49:35
You know for to see if they're the right fit.
00:49:38
Same thing for a proposal Qualify, Do they have the
00:49:41
authority to do anything with it and do they have a desire to do
00:49:45
anything with it right now?
00:49:46
If they don't, why are we putting together a proposal
00:49:49
You're not going to win.
00:49:50
So if you want to increase your closing ratio and, by the way,
00:49:53
have more selling time to go after the real deals, cut down
00:49:56
on the number of proposals you're putting out.
00:49:57
Put them out in the right circumstance.
00:50:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, but sending out proposals make us feel good.
00:50:03
What's the term you use, Carson ?
00:50:04
We fail comfortably, or we comfortably fail yeah.
00:50:07
Speaker 3: I remember years ago.
00:50:09
Speaker 4: You got to be in it to win it.
00:50:10
Oh my God, you got to be in it to win it.
00:50:12
Speaker 3: Years ago that I was in the call center, we had just
00:50:15
started this call center and I was leading the operation.
00:50:17
We hired a bunch of new sellers and you know these folks would
00:50:22
walk around and, oh my gosh, I just got asked to send out a
00:50:25
proposal and they were walking around like they had closed this
00:50:28
massive deal and I was saying to myself, like you know, you're
00:50:33
never going to talk to this person again.
00:50:34
In actuality, you know, because customers, just like you know
00:50:39
they're very well-meaning but they're not confrontational
00:50:42
people.
00:50:42
They don't want to.
00:50:43
You know, that's why I always tell people a yes or a no is
00:50:47
better than a maybe.
00:50:48
So I would rather know are you invested in being down this path
00:50:51
, going down this forward, or you have to see what we might be
00:50:54
able to do together or not?
00:50:55
And if we're not, I have resources, I can go elsewhere.
00:50:59
That's fine and good, and a lot of people because they want to
00:51:04
see what you can do together.
00:51:05
That's why they go down the path.
00:51:06
But yeah, I love that approach, lee, great call out, and I love
00:51:11
that as we kind of wrap up too, I'd love to spend a little bit
00:51:13
more time, too, on your assessment, anything else that
00:51:17
you can tell us about the sales organization maturity assessment
00:51:21
.
00:51:21
What sets it apart?
00:51:22
Why did why and how did you come up with it?
00:51:25
And how is that adding value for people today?
00:51:28
Speaker 4: So the first thing is , my wife laughed once you heard
00:51:30
the name of it because she's like maturity you I was going to
00:51:36
say, at first glance I'm like I definitely shouldn't take it,
00:51:40
because I don't Exactly see.
00:51:42
That's the problem we have.
00:51:42
So this was 10 years into making, and I'm going to start
00:51:46
by saying it's free, so we're not trying to sell you anything
00:51:49
and the website is assessmysalescom.
00:51:51
So there are three expressions that are commonly used
00:51:56
synonymously to describe a sales organization Sales department,
00:52:00
sales team and sales force.
00:52:02
I look at them as stages of maturity that we started today
00:52:06
sales department and we graduate over time to a sales team, but
00:52:12
the ultimate performance level is sales force and what this
00:52:16
assessment does.
00:52:17
By the way, it's not for salespeople and it's not going
00:52:20
to answer the question of can you sell or not?
00:52:21
That's not what this is.
00:52:23
This is a mirror test for owners , presidents, ceos, coos, sales
00:52:29
leaders, and the answer you're going to get is have we built
00:52:33
the sales organization framework that can produce the results
00:52:37
that we want?
00:52:38
Because so often we say let's just hire a bunch of salespeople
00:52:42
and hope for the best.
00:52:43
Yeah, we talked about this earlier.
00:52:45
Our foundation needs to be in process.
00:52:47
So this is going to delve into new client acquisition, account
00:52:52
management, sales management, hiring, onboarding and
00:52:56
compensation.
00:52:56
So you're going to get an evaluation score as well as
00:53:00
here's what you need to do to move to that next level of
00:53:03
maturity Plus, I'm offering a complimentary consultation to
00:53:07
anybody who completes it and wants to review their results.
00:53:11
Speaker 3: Not a discovery, not a discovery, and it is not a
00:53:15
sales call in any way, it's all about them.
00:53:18
Speaker 4: Assessmysalescom, thank you.
00:53:20
Speaker 2: There it is.
00:53:21
Well, Lee, thank you so much and I want to let everybody know
00:53:24
hey, we did not ignore you all day today.
00:53:26
I know Nora is telling us that there's comments that she sees
00:53:30
on LinkedIn.
00:53:31
We are not seeing them inside a re-stream today.
00:53:34
I have no idea why Technology.
00:53:36
So we are so sorry.
00:53:39
We know we have a great audience.
00:53:41
Usually you guys give us great comments and we bring you on and
00:53:44
you join the conversation and we just kind of, you know,
00:53:47
dropped that today, but it wasn't intentional.
00:53:49
So please forgive us and Lee.
00:53:52
Thank you so much, Carson, I think you're pretty fired up.
00:53:55
Lee was a great guest.
00:53:57
Did you get your movie reference in, or are we just
00:54:01
going to go with Lee's movie reference today?
00:54:05
Speaker 3: Hmm.
00:54:07
Speaker 2: You got a summary in there.
00:54:09
Speaker 4: Well, Carson, you actually did it and you didn't
00:54:11
realize it.
00:54:11
Oh boy, there's a scene in Bull Durham where Kevin Costner is
00:54:17
talking about the number of additional base hits you have to
00:54:19
get per week to go from an average, easily forgotten
00:54:23
ballplayer and an immortal in the Hall of Fame, and the answer
00:54:26
was one One more hit a week was the difference.
00:54:29
So you reference that.
00:54:30
When you said 250 to 300, there is your movie reference.
00:54:34
Speaker 3: And when you speak of me, speak of me well, bull
00:54:38
Durham.
00:54:39
Speaker 2: Bull, durham.
00:54:40
I love it All right.
00:54:42
Well, carson, finish us up, and Lee, thank you so much for
00:54:46
doing it.
00:54:46
Speaker 3: This was awesome man, Really great show.
00:54:48
Thank you for being on and thanks, everybody for being on
00:54:52
with us as usual, with mastering modern selling.
00:54:55
Until next time, happy modern selling.
00:55:00
Speaker 2: Thank you.
00:55:00
Thank you for joining us today on mastering modern selling.
00:55:07
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to
00:55:08
subscribe for more insights.
00:55:10
Connect with us on social media and leave a review to help us
00:55:14
improve.
00:55:14
Stay tuned for our next episode , where we will continue to
00:55:16
uncover modern strategies shaping today's business
00:55:18
landscape.
00:55:18
Learn more about Fist Bump and our concierge service at
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00:55:25
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00:55:31
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