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Welcome, everybody, back to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast in podcast history.
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I m leaving you in my voice.
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I m Brian Neal.
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Bill Kasky.
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Good that you re here.
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Glad to be here.
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Bill, you want to tell us a little bit about Insider Week, correct?
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It is Insider Week this Friday at noon.
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Our Insider event this week is going to be on crafting, constructing, and telling your story.
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And the story is the thing, actually, that not only makes your company unique, but also makes you unique.
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And if you can construct it properly and tell it properly, you literally can out-compete anybody, because nobody else has your story.
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No other company has your story, no other person.
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Scott Snowden and I are going to be doing an event this Friday for Insider.
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And we re going to start with construction of it.
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And then we re going to get into digitally, how do we tell it?
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And physically, how do we tell it?
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So when we re in front of somebody, how do we tell it?
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But also online, are there some things that we should keep in mind there?
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So it s all about story, making you unique, understanding your uniqueness, and then being able to tell that story.
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Love that.
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And this is timestamped now.
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So this is in May of 2023.
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That s correct.
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May 5.
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So everyone, if you re listening to this in 2026, you missed it.
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You missed it.
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Yeah, by three years.
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You can go in the show notes.
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But it s advancedsellingpodcast.com slash insider.
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And if you re not already a member, make sure you join and get in on the goodness for Friday, May the whatever that is.
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First Friday in May.
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Yeah.
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And Scott Snowden is fantastic.
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He s been around us.
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He s been a client.
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He s been an insider.
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He s been owns his own shop.
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Really great.
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And this is what he does.
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Storytelling stuff.
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Yep.
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All right.
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Quick recap.
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So we re talking about ideal client, right?
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We gave you a little framework last week.
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So you got to go do the framework.
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Hopefully since you listen to these episodes one week at a time.
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So I know you all do.
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You already did the homework, right?
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So it was good, better, best.
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demographics up at the top for good, better, best for each element, and then the psychographic for each element.
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And now we re going to go a little deeper about what to add to that or how to decide what s behind there and how to actually execute this ideal client on the marketplace.
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Yeah, we finished last week talking about how can we go deeper when it comes to understanding and communicating the kinds of problems and issues and dreams and objectives that our ideal client has.
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And the deeper we can go on that,
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the more likely that ideal client is to say, oh, man, they really catch me.
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They really understand me.
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And so that s where we ended last week.
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So Brian, do you want to go further in that?
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Or do we think that s enough there and we want to go to the next element?
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Well, I m cool at least just talking about it.
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I think the one thing I would leave with the listeners is you need to know what you re looking for when you go deep.
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When you re going into depth, you have to understand why you re doing it.
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And sometimes when you go deep, you re not looking for something.
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You might be looking for the absence of something.
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And if the absence of something, if something isn t there, you ve got to jettison and move on.
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If you listen to last episode, Bill and I both gave examples of clients and really end of the cycle potential clients that I truly believe I would have had a contract for.
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Bill, you had one, and you had to, say, tap out.
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It just wasn t working.
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So if you re doing this right, you ve got to be comfortable with walking away.
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You can t make up in your mind and see something that isn t there to try to get a deal.
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Yeah.
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I think that s the caveat here that goes back to, you know, our, when we teach abundance and detachment and intention, things like that.
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you ve got to be employing those things at a really high level to do this properly.
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Because in this environment, you cannot spend extra time with people who aren t going to close.
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We re seeing really long sales cycles.
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And you re going to get passed by if you spend too much time with the wrong people.
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And I see a lot of clients doing that right now.
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And so one thing that I think we have been taught to do from the time we got into sales is, quote unquote, find the need, find the pain, find the problem, which I m OK with.
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But would we really even know the problem if it slapped us across the jaw?
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Would we really know it?
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Yeah.
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Do we fish for the pain, for the problem?
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Do we just ask a bunch of questions and then kind of say, well, I think we re there, so now I ll pivot and we ll start talking about my solution?
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And I think that s why this upfront part really works well, because sit in a room with a handful of your mates and talk about, what are the problems we solve?
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And you ll get the surfacy stuff and then say, OK, but deeper than that.
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If I can help a VP of sales grow his or her business and earn an extra $200,000 a year, what does that do to his life or her life?
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What does that do?
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Yes.
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And it s not, oh, buy all the stuff they want.
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No.
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What does it do individually, personally, internally, in her game?
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Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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Cease and desist.
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Oh my gosh.
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Beep that out, Travis.
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Just beep it out.
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Oh my gosh.
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That s worse than F1.
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That ruined your day, didn t it?
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Not mine.
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a very nice job in California.
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So as you think about those, what s the deeper level of solution, recognize that nobody else has talked about this.
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None of your competitors go this deep.
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Right.
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And if you can then, as you re starting to ask questions, you re listening for these things that you ve already surmised might be problems.
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And I think you re much more apt to go down that direction.
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Until which time, they say, man, you really
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I feel like you really understand what we re trying to accomplish.
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That s how you know you re there.
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Yes.
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I feel like, and you said this kind of in your dialogue there, and it s really struck me.
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People stop at the first sign of a problem.
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They think they ve got enough at that point.
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And it brought an image to my mind of a personal trainer.
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So I work with a personal trainer.
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His name is Mark.
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He s fantastic.
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He loves to work with people.
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And if you go to his gym, everyone s in really good shape.
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But Mark s favorite thing to do is to take someone who s surrendering, who s really out of shape, who doesn t look like they belong in his gym, and put them on a different life path.
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And the thing is, if you polled an audience and said, how many of you would like to lose a few pounds, about 90% of the hands are going to go up.
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So does Mark have all these customers and clients?
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Everyone says they want to lose weight right there.
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He does not.
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He s got to vet further because it s hard work.
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It takes commitment.
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It takes life change.
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It takes letting go of old habits.
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And so this is the depth of, are you willing to put the time and effort and energy to change your ways?
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And this applies to companies too.
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We want more sales, Bill.
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Okay, well, is that it?
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Do we just you and I got a deal then, you know, like, no, like, if you want more sales, you got to let go what you ve been doing.
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You have to open yourself up, put your ego aside.
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That s the depth that people need to focus on when you re when you re working your ideal client, you have to go deeper to make them prove and qualify that you want to spend time, effort and energy with them.
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especially when you are going to be seeking change in some way.
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So they re going to be buying something from you.
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And is it going to cause them to have to change processes or operating systems or whatever?
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If it s not, if you re just shipping something, then I m not sure how important this is.
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I mean, the demographic of the ideal client is still important.
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But the psychographic, I mean, who cares?
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If you re just shipping, like you say, light bulbs and doorknobs or whatever,
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But most of you are not in that business.
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Most of you are in a business where you re needing to continue to work with people.
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And if change is part of that solution, you have to really make sure that they re up for change.
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And a lot of people say they are, but they aren t.
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Exactly.
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And is the, not just the individual, is the organization up for change?
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Because of these things that we all do, whether you sell new software, whether you do, it doesn t matter what it is, you flip suppliers, you work for a bank,
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There s all sorts of things that have little tentacles that have changed that have to be talked about.
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And don t be fearful of these things.
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In this environment, we see, I say it again, but way too many people spending too much time with the wrong person because they re not going deep enough on this.
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They re going, oh, yeah, I can figure.
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Oh, you don t like your bank?
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OK.
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Well, I ve got great products at my bank.
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I m like, it s really hard to switch banks, man.
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Really hard.
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Pain in the ass.
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So here s the work product here I think we should do.
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Just take a piece of paper, and you could draw some columns.
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And across the top columns, just have the, let s just say there are three columns, one with a particular problem you solve.
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Like our problem in our business might be a company not generating enough new business.
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That would be the problem.
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Or maybe another problem is not generating enough new business, not generating enough business from a current client, or we re losing clients, whatever that problem is.
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Then I want you to dissect it down.
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So list that across the top on your columns.
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And then below that, start to say, OK, well, what s the impact of this problem?
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What s the impact on the company?
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What s the impact on the human being that is in charge of solving this problem, or your contact?
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And just go down and try to do, and even what s inside that person.
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What are some internal struggles that they will have or have if they don t solve this problem?
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Just become super crystal clear.
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And you can do all this on one page.
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You re not, you don t solve 100 problems.
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You probably solve three to five.
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And I would go, I m going to take Bill s idea and pile on here.
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You have to look at not just the problem you solve, but how you solve it and what it takes from the other person to commit in time, effort, money, thought, all that, and see if they still qualify.
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And I bet you most of them won t.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, we love this, Bill.
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We d love to get more.
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OK, well, then you re going to have to do this discipline thing.
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It s like, you have to put some content on LinkedIn.
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We re not really LinkedIn people, Bill.
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Okay, then they re not willing.
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They don t qualify for the how they have to qualify for the what and why they have to qualify for the how to.
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Yeah, that s really good.
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That s good.
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You like you.
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Excellent.
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So that takes you through the ideal client.
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We did a two-part series.
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Hopefully, you ve got something that you can execute and deploy.
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I think you do.
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There s a lot there in those two episodes.
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You need to listen to those two back, because there s some stuff to go do.
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Yeah.
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For sure.
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And a lot of this is just, again, it s the mindset of when I m out in the marketplace talking to people, pursuing people,
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have one eye toward this work.
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One eye toward, is this person really an ideal client?
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You can do all the spreadsheets and all the questionnaires and audit, but we all know instinctively, as we start talking to people, whether they re the kind of people that could fit our ideal client profile.
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So there s also that qualitative part, not just the quantitative.
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Yes.
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Me like.
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All right.
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Two good episodes right there, Bill.
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All right.
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That s it.
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Go to Bill s Insider Show this Friday, May 5th, 2023.
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Timestamped, but there it is.
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AdvancedSellingPodcast.com slash Insider.
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If it s after May of 2023, there s one every Friday, or the first Friday of every month.
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They can rejoin and get the tape of the old one, right?
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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See, it s always available.
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Tapes.
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They re actually tapes.
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They re actually reel-to-reel tapes.
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Old tape.
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I think we should do that.
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I think we should go back.
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I like your answer.
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All right.
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See you next time.
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Bye.