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In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, GenX Alert, we revisit a longtime Labor Day tradition in the United States that every GenXer and Baby Boomer will fondly remember.
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Bill gives a Hall & Oates concert review, and I m just going to tell you, it s not very good.
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And we go to the LinkedIn group.
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For our topic today, we re going to do the first of a three-part series on how to get a deal unstuck.
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Welcome back to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast, Podcast History.
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I m Bill Kasky.
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And I m Brian Neal.
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Welcome, everybody, again.
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It is Monday, and we are so pleased to be able to speak with you today.
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We ve got some awesome things planned for you over the next 30 days.
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You re going to start hearing about it here, actually, next week.
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If you have not joined our LinkedIn group, go to advancedsellingpodcast.com slash LinkedIn.
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We are over 12,000 members right now, and we actually did a poll in the membership, in the group this week to see what you wanted to talk about.
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So if you re not a member, you can t respond, we d love to have you a member there.
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Yeah, 12,100 and so.
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Let s get that to 13,000, shall we?
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OK.
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Sound like a Jerry Lewis telethon.
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Not Jerry Lee Lewis.
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Jerry Lewis telethon.
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Remember those days?
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Uh-huh.
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Oh, yeah.
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Jerry Lewis telethon.
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Some of you are probably too young to remember.
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Sammy Davis.
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Oh, yeah.
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Jerry Lewis, MDA.
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There was a thing to do back when we were kids on Labor Day weekend in the United States here.
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Oh, that s right.
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It was Labor Day weekend telethon.
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Yeah.
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Jerry Lewis, performer from back in the 50s and 60s.
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The thing about that telethon is it raised money, a lot of money for, it was a muscular dystrophy.
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Yeah, muscular dystrophy, MDA, yeah.
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But the show was amazing.
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It was amazing.
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I mean, it was a 72 hours who s who in the entertainment business.
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And that s how you raise money.
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Yeah.
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And then your kids used to go around, we d go around the neighborhood, collect money, go down to the mall, Eastland Mall in Evansville, Indiana, go to the fishbowl, and then dump the money in the fishbowl back in the day.
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Or read on they re asking answered.
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Yeah, you just text your check in exactly.
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No, you just you just Go fund me go fund them go somebody.
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I ve got a little a little read for you here today Brian, but you mentioned I don t know if I should say that.
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I ll go ahead Sam.
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You mentioned Hall and Oates guys is a oh, yeah, man Yeah, do we talk about this?
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Well, I saw your Twitter.
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Okay.
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I saw your Twitter.
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Oh
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Hall & Oates is an American band, been around, they re probably 72 or three.
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They are classic, I mean, 70s, 80s, kind of yacht rock, wouldn t you say?
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Yeah, of course, they re in there.
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And they have a list of, they have a list, playlists a mile long.
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I mean, it s unbelievable.
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And so my wife wanted to go see them.
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So we went out to what I affectionately refer to as Deer Creek.
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Same here, always, Deer Creek.
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It s an outdoor amphitheater here in Indianapolis and went to see them and they canceled from last year.
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So I ve been looking forward to this for a year.
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And they were back, and here s my analysis of it.
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Certain songs, I was two minutes in before I realized what the song even was.
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Oh, really?
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Like it was bad?
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Yes.
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Really?
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It was bad.
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That s so disappointing.
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And what was interesting is I m not sure how much of it was the band and how much of it was the sound engineer.
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Oh.
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Because when I was sitting there, then I m thinking, is this just me?
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And my wife was saying the same thing.
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And the crowd went from going nuts to sitting after about three songs.
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And I looked online in reviews.
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And the last seven or eight shows they had done, everybody was complaining about the sound.
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No kidding.
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Yeah.
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And the next night, I went to see, you know, I m not a big fan of Tom Petty.
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I think we talked about that.
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I m not a big fan.
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Until last weekend, I went to see a cover band do Tom Petty, and he s unbelievable.
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Yeah, I ve seen them.
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Fantastic.
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They are really good.
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Really good.
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And I went to the sound guy halfway through, and I said, I just want to tell you, I was at Hall & Oates last night.
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I m here tonight.
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You re doing an awesome job.
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He goes, what happened last night?
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And I told him, he goes, that s weird, because they bring all their people with them to every show.
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Strange.
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It wasn t a great show.
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I ll leave it at that.
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I cut a little slack because they are 74 years old.
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But I don t know if it was them.
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You think their sound engineer is 74 years old?
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I think he s deaf.
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I think he s still back there in the reel to reel on the 16-year-old tape.
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That s good.
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Anyway, so that s it.
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That s it?
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OK, you want to go to our topic then?
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Yeah.
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OK, so we re going to go.
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One of the poll items that we put in the LinkedIn group was how to deal with stuck deals, stuck deals in the sales process.
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And stuck deals can mean a lot of things, and it can mean a lot of places.
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So what Bill and I thought we would do is let s do a little three-part series on how to get deals unstuck, or talk about why they get stuck and how to keep them from getting stuck.
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In three predominantly normal parts of a process, you would say the beginning, the middle, and the end.
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It s a very scientific way to think about the sales process, isn t it?
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Very, very high level beginning, middle, and end.
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So today, we re going to talk about what happens when you get stuck at the beginning.
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Maybe right after a discovery call, after someone says, hey, I like what you sent me here.
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Send me some more information.
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Would love to do a schedule of another discovery or something like that.
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And then it goes.
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So anything in the first couple of stages, from an initial phone call to an official discovery call, or from a discovery call to whatever that next call in your process might be.
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Yes.
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I think another one that s interesting to me is the call in, the dreaded call in, which I love those.
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I love when people.
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I go, we got this huge deal, da-da-da-da-da-da.
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Where did it come from?
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Well, they called in.
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Yeah, yellow pages.
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Yeah, of course.
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But all of these are situations that we all deal with, where we have some level of excitement up front that s high, and then all of a sudden, it dissipates really quickly.
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Can t get them to call us back.
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Can t get them to schedule.
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What do we do?
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Do you want to talk about why it happens or give some thoughts to what to do or what do you want to do?
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I think we should talk about why.
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I was just thinking that in the beginning of any process, whether it s you being the buyer and you going to Apple and thinking about a new computer or
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You know somebody coming over to your house to sell you something.
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There s always a very vulnerable place there where if you if you pitch too hard and come too quickly and lean too much You will get resistance from the prospect.
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Yes and
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And so I think in terms of the why, sometimes if that first discovery call goes well, we get excited.
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And chances are, we might be more excited than they are.
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And then we push a little bit too hard for the next call.
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And then things start to freeze up.
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So I think
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One of the things we have to be mindful of is in that first phase, we ll call it, the beginning part, we have to be conscious that it s a vulnerable phase for them, for us.
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And I think any other word doesn t describe it.
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The budding of a relationship is a vulnerable time.
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Oh, wow.
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That s quotable.
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The budding of a relationship is a vulnerable time.
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The budding of a relationship.
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B-U-T-T-I-N-G is what I meant there.
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Is it D-D?
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D-D?
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D-D.
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D-D.
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That s really, really great.
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The budding.
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Budding.
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Budding.
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Budding.
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Budding, budding, budding.
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Here is, I ve got a little phrase I ve been using, saying a little bit.
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Suggesting that people downshift their emotional gear to neutral.
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downshift into emotionally neutral.
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Because what happens in the beginning stages, you think about those of you who make, some of you do cold calling stuff or cold outreach, or even if it s lukewarm outreach, or if you get a connector and someone connects you to it, any time you get a new opportunity, you tend to get emotionally forward and up.
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It s kind of what you re saying, right?
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It s exactly what you re saying.
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Yeah.
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And so the moment that that first discovery part, the very first thing, whether they say yes to a meeting, anything, that s your trigger to downshift to emotionally neutral.
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So it s not like, oh, we got a great meeting.
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We have an awesome meeting scheduled.
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Oh, we got a really big opportunity that just called in.
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Oh, my gosh, they filled out the form.
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So you re just emotionally neutral.
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You just downshift.
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You re just going to have the meeting and back.
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And that, I think, sets you up.
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But you need that trigger point.
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So I like to coach the trigger point is whatever that first commitment is, whether it s a meeting, they schedule a demo, they agree to a discovery, or they just call in.
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It s like, hey, yeah, I saw your stuff on the internet.
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I d like to talk to you about joining one of your programs.
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Trigger, downshift, emotion neutral.
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OK.
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That s all we know.
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We re just right back down.
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Versus, oh, great.
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Thanks for calling.
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Yeah.
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Same thing, probably.
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Yeah, and a lot of that is what goes on in your own head as a sales professional that gets in your way.
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What movie do you start playing out?
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Oh, man, we got this guy coming in.
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Maybe we ve got five behind that, and maybe there s three.
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And what s this guy s VP of sales?
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So I like that, downshifting and neutral.
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Just be unbiased.
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Just play with what is in front of you.
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What s in front of you is not someone who wants to cut you a check for $1.5 million.
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What s in front of you is someone who just happened to call.
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And so deal with what s in front of you.
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Deal with what s in front of you.
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That s really good.
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Also, I think it s interesting that we re talking about this, because the skill of the sales professional here is one of hyper
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awareness and judgment about the psychological intricacies of the sales process and of new relationships and all that.
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I think when we re not in neutral, when we re in forward, flying forward at 80 miles an hour, we re not even self-aware.
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No.
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And we think, well, he called us, so he surely wants to talk, so let s see if we can book this deal today on the call.
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We ll give him 10% off until Friday.
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And we ve got to be, again, hypersensitive that there is a seasonality to this.
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And the first season is where we re just checking each other out.
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And so how you behave in that first season is going to determine.
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I think it actually, if you downshift into neutral, as you say, which I like, I think the deal happens quicker.
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Ah, yeah.
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Versus, well, if I downshift into neutral, that s going to take four more calls.
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No, no, no.
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That s not what we re saying.
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We re saying, go slow now so you can go fast later.
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Yes.
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Ooh, we re full of quotes today.
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Well, we know that we re under the gun on quotes.
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Under the gun to get quotes out, right?
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Quote cards.
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That s really great.
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Or it will go.
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Or as the old Western saying, when a guy was standing up looking at, the bull was standing up looking at the cows.
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No, no, no, no, no, no.
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No, I used to tell that joke.
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I stopped telling that joke.
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It s actually retold from the movie Colors, where there are two police officers up standing on top of the hill in Los Angeles.
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Old movie from the 80s, Colors, about gang warfare in LA in the 80s.
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You can look at that.
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And it s Sean Penn s in that movie.
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That s the young cop, so to speak.
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But that s a really good story.
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I don t tell it anymore, and I used to.
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It s very discreet.
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It s perfect, isn t it?
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It s a wrong story.
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For sales, too.
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But we can t tell it.
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Anyway, everybody knows what that is, probably.
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Let s see.
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Here s a thing to think about.
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Do you talk too much in your discovery?
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So we re still early phase.
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And our friends at Gong, we re actually doing, can we say that yet?
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We re teasing it out.
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We ve got some fun stuff.
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Our friends at Gong, Gong s sales enablement, revenue intelligence company, really, really great product program.
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We re going to be doing some special stuff with them.
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That s your little tease.
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Stay tuned.
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They ve got some stats that show this, that when we talk too much on discovery,
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Odds go down that we get the next action.
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And that s what they measure is, do I get the second and third call?
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Do I get into the middle?
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And so I would have you examine the amount of talking you do in early discovery.
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That would include your emails.
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If you read your emails and they re overloaded with jargon,
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Check to see if you might want to scale that back a little bit.
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Your discovery meetings.
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Are you doing a lot of telling, here s what we do, and talking about yourself and your company?
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Or are you doing a lot of questioning and curiosity and engagement?
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intrigue, that sort of stuff.
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I think this causes people to get stuck, because a consumer or a buyer on the outside looking in goes, oh, wow, I d love to talk to those guys at the Advanced Selling Podcast.
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They look pretty cool outside looking in.
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They send us a note.
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We up on the call with them.
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We wear them out.
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We wouldn t do this, but we d wear them out talking.
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They re like, oh, OK, never mind.
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They don t say never mind, but they say,
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OK, well, thanks for the time today.
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God, this has been great.
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Yeah, really appreciate your time and very informative.
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If you hear the words very informative in a sales call, that means you talk too much, guaranteed.
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You don t want people to say, versus, wow, this really has my wheels spinning.
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You ve really got me thinking.
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That s a much better response from a buyer than, wow, this has been very informative.
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Thank you very much.
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So let me talk to a couple of people and maybe give you a call back next week.
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That s a no.
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That means you talk too much.
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There s my idea on that.
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Bringing back the automotive discussion, shifting into neutral, is the...
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is the idea that when you re in a race, you re constantly on that edge of spinning out and being effective and passing cars.
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And I think indie racers have that.
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There s that edge.
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There s always that edge.
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If I go too fast into the turn to try to overtake this competitor, I might spin out into him or into the wall.
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And so there s constantly a feathering back and forth between what s too much eagerness and what s not enough eagerness.
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And I think the more aware we are of that, the more likely we will be to feather it correctly.
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And I just think you d have to be mindful.
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I just think that s the number one thing is, okay, I m getting ready to go into this call.
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I just had a call yesterday, brand new prospect.
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And I was thinking on the way to the call, I need to make sure that I m interested, because I am interested, but still not attached to it and not desperate for it, because I m not.
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And so I think just a mindfulness is sometimes all it takes up for me.
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I love that.
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A little deep breathing, little eyes closed before the call.
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That s really, really good.
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And I spun out into their driveway.
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He kind of came in sideways.
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Here s something that I think is interesting.
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Again, I do a little too much gong quoting sometimes, but they have such good stats.
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They have a stat about talking about pricing up front in the first call.
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And I m going through a buying process now where I m the buyer.
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So me and our CEO are talking to this firm to help them have them hire them to do some help.
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I ve talked to some other peers in town,
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And they said, do you know how much they charge?
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And I m like, no, we haven t talked about that yet.
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We re going to be in our second meeting.
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They re like, OK, well, here s what we pay, and here s what everyone s telling me.
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I m like, oh, gosh, OK.
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If it s what everyone else is paying, we re not there yet.
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I m just not willing to invest that kind of money for what this particular group does.
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Gong says that if you talk about money early, your odds go up that you get the next meeting.
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And that s a big debatable thing, because a lot of people are taught to not talk about pricing in the first call.
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I have changed my tune on that.
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Yeah, I ve changed my tune.
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I think if you re getting stuck in the beginning,
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It could be because you haven t talked about it, or it could be because you talked about it in the wrong way, or in a weird way, almost too soon with no context.
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And so I would have you examine, if you re getting stuck in the beginning of a sales process, ask yourself, where did I have a money conversation, and what did it go like?
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Did I denominate paying enough?
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Did I put money onto it?
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All that other stuff that we teach.
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That, I think, is a reason people get stuck in the beginning.
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Yeah, I would say if I have no idea what the cost is, it s easy for me to say, to arrive at a conclusion that I can t afford it, when really maybe I could, or I think I can afford it, and really I can t, or I m just not about affording, it s just about whether I m willing to invest those resources.
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So I like that, I think we should do a whole episode on that.
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Yeah, that s really, really good.
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Because I think things get stuck, and often we don t know.
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So the best we can do is surmise.
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We can say, well, maybe it s because I m not talking about money.
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Maybe it s because I really didn t find the problem.
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Maybe I was talking too much.
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SPEAKER_01
Maybe I wasn t even talking to the right person.
1
SPEAKER_01
So there s lots of reasons it gets stuck.
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SPEAKER_01
But I think early, we ve given you some tips today that hopefully can help.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
And if you want to join our LinkedIn group, of course, go to advancedsellingpodcast.com slash LinkedIn.
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SPEAKER_01
We might be doing these polls.
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SPEAKER_01
We had a poll that we did the other day.
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SPEAKER_01
And like Brian said, getting stuck was the number one.
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SPEAKER_01
So today, we talked about the beginning of the process.
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SPEAKER_01
Next week, we re going to talk about, as we get deeper into the process, how do we get unstuck or not get stuck at all?
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SPEAKER_00
Stuck in the middle.
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SPEAKER_00
We ll talk about that, too.
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SPEAKER_01
I know.
1
SPEAKER_00
I know that band.
1
SPEAKER_00
We do.
1
SPEAKER_01
OK.
1
SPEAKER_01
All right.
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SPEAKER_00
See you next time.
1
SPEAKER_00
See you.
1
SPEAKER_00
Bye.