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In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, I share some statements you should never make to other humans.
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Famed musicians Mark Cohn and John Lennon make their first podcast appearance.
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And we take questions straight out of the LinkedIn group about buyers disappearing and the Amazon effect.
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Welcome back to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast, Podcast History.
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Bill Kasky here.
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Brian Neal here.
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We are happy to have you today.
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We know a lot of our listeners tune in every week.
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We also know we get new listeners.
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And we also know that our LinkedIn group that we talk about a lot here on the podcast has now eclipsed 12,000 members.
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We have 12,001.
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Now we need to go figure out.
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We have no idea who the 12,000th or the 12,000th and 1 is.
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Because they re not in order.
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But we decided it took us 15 years to get the 12,000 members.
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We decided we re going to double that in a year.
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So we have one year for all of you to find one friend, bring them to the group.
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We re done.
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That s easy.
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That s easy.
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How tough can that be?
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It s very simple.
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So you have something to bring us in today.
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You have a question?
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Oh, this is a thing.
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So I heard a couple of people say a couple of things to me.
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And I thought, I just wonder how you respond to these phrases.
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I think these are just things that, I m like, why do people say these things?
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Like, this is a thing.
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OK?
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Do you ever have someone walk up to you and say, hey,
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Do you remember me?
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I had someone say that.
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And you can t, what do you say?
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You can t say no, it s unfair.
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You have to, you have to remind people who you are or they have a mask on anything.
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I mean, exactly.
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To say, I would say, Hey, uh, Brian Neal from the podcast.
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Oh yeah.
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Okay.
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I remember you.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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That s a good thing.
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Well, and you re in the business like you and I are, or if they are in the business, then you see a lot of people all the time.
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I mean, when we used to go out physically, we d be in front of 100, 250 people, and they would feel like they knew us, but we wouldn t know who they were.
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So remember me could have been, yeah, I sat in the last row of that thing back 10 years ago.
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Two versions of the next one.
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someone said to me, do you want to see these pictures I ve got?
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And if you say that, what are you supposed to say?
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Not really.
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I really don t care to see your eighth grade, your kid s eighth grade graduation pictures.
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I mean, it s great that they re graduating from eighth grade because who the hell didn t graduate from eighth grade.
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But anyway, or they say, or they say, yeah, I ll show it to you.
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Don t, don t swipe anymore.
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Cause they got other bad pics on their phone.
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And then I thought this next one was a very condescending thing when someone says,
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Are we done here?
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If you get done with the meeting or something and someone says, so are we done here?
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I m like, uh, I guess we are.
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Cause there s nothing else to say to that.
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When they say, are we done here?
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What they re saying is you re completely freaking wasting my time.
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I m out.
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I just had that thing happen.
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The other night I went to Bobby Leonard who s a pro basketball coach here in town.
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He died and they had a ceremony and I was friends with his family and so they were nice enough to invite me to the ceremony down at the arena.
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It was very nice and I saw an old friend of mine who, his name is Rick Fusen.
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Rick runs Pacer Sports and Entertainment and I used to work for Rick back in the day a long time ago.
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Rick s a great guy, but when you re done, when he s done with you, you know it.
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And he doesn t actually say that, but we were talking and all of a sudden he goes, hey man, it s good seeing you.
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I m like, okay, that means it s over.
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Are we done here?
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I was in the middle of a sentence.
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All right, buddy.
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Hey, Billy.
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Good seeing you, man.
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Haven t seen you for a couple years.
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Good seeing you.
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All right, you take care now.
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OK.
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All right, bye.
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Steph s friends with his wife, Karen.
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Karen Fuchs.
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Yeah, I don t know.
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I don t know her.
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Work for her.
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He s got a lot of ex-wives.
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He s got lots of stuff going on.
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That s OK.
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OK.
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Yeah.
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OK, so we re going to.
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So LinkedIn group.
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So if you re not in the LinkedIn group, go to the LinkedIn group.
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If you re in the LinkedIn group, invite a friend in the LinkedIn group, because we re going to start to go here a lot.
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You re going to hear some really cool stuff coming from us that ll be first announced in the LinkedIn group.
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We already are, actually.
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Rachel, who does a lot of our programming and producing here, she is involved in that.
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And she s matching up people.
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We ve had a lot of people who ve said, hey, who else in Birmingham, Alabama?
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Or who else in Birmingham, England?
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Just to pick two.
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Do you want to meet up?
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So there s ways you can meet up with people.
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But go in there and just snoop around a little bit.
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Yeah.
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And we should.
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Well, we ll talk.
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You ve got to monitor these things.
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We ve got a lot of people in there pitching stuff.
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Don t sell in there.
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Please don t pitch.
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Go to learn and share.
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Don t pitch your stuff.
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Because we re always going to delete it.
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And then we re going to shame you on the podcast.
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Exactly.
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We re going to start calling people out.
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OK, so Bill put up a really nice video, and several of you responded.
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So these are questions that you asked in the group.
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We re going to take one.
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The next episode, we ll probably take a couple more.
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Or maybe we ll get to two this episode.
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We ll see.
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OK.
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And we re going to read first names, last initial.
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Mark C. Mark C. This is from Mark C. I ve been walking in the desert.
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Yeah.
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So we had a debate.
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So there s a song called Walking in Memphis by a performer named Mark Cone.
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And this person s name is very similar to that.
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We had this debate whether it was pronounced Cone or another way.
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We can t say this guy s name now, but you can guess.
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It s too late.
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Oh, here s a trivia question.
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Do you know who Mark Cone was married to for a long time?
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Does anybody on the podcast listening know who Mark Cone was married to, the guy who sings Walking in Memphis?
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Was it J-Lo?
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Nope, nope, but she was a newscaster.
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It s kind of vague, kind of obscure.
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Oh.
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She s very open about her demons with alcohol.
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She s a sober person.
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Is she L.A.?
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She s... Oh, it s from ABC?
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ABC.
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That girl?
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Elizabeth Vargas.
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Mark Cohn was married to her.
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Elizabeth Vargas for a long time.
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Yeah, there you go.
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What are we doing?
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I m thinking about it now.
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I don t know why.
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I thought about Mark Cohn for 20 years now.
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I can t get it out of my mind.
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All right, here we go.
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So the topic here is kind of interesting.
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It s kind of a unique topic here.
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The question is off the shelf.
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So Mark, our listener here in the podcast, the topic is, no, it s not off the shelf.
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So some of you sell very customized solutions for people.
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Bill and I have sales coaching that s very customized.
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We go give those of you who invite us in to come out to speak at your events.
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Those are customized programs.
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And we also have kind of off-the-shelf programs that you can join.
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You can buy a program.
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You can buy the ultimate, the brand makeover kit.
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And it s an off-the-shelf program.
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It s the same for everybody.
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And then there are some hybrid things, too.
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Sometimes there s something in the middle.
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So the question is, he s saying, hey, is this off the shelf thing a problem?
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He uses Amazon basically saying in his question here that people now buy, like they buy on Amazon, they buy everything off the shelf.
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And I think he sells
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digital IT stuff.
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And so what he s competing against is his buyers are saying, you know, we get all of your customization.
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We re just going to go buy this unit off the shelf.
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We re going to buy it as it is.
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And he s afraid that that s a problem.
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He uses a word that I m sure you ll know, Bill.
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Is it a dirty word?
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Paradoxical.
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Hair raising because of the transparency.
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Paradoxical because we salespeople buy off the shelves ourselves, and we know there are real alternatives.
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So it sucks when we re the salesperson, we get the customer s desire to buy off the shelf.
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So let s debate that.
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This sort of customized solution special versus air quotes off the shelf stuff.
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What are your thoughts?
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So we re assuming here that he has a service or a solution that is not off the shelf that he needs to be involved with or a technology person needs to be involved with to customize or to deliver or whatever.
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Yeah, yep.
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Yeah, I guess when I first read this question and studied it for a week,
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I felt like the implication here was that we want to change the dynamic of off-the-shelf.
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And so we want to get more people or fewer people to buy off-the-shelf.
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And I just don t think you re going to do that.
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And so Amazon has created, and I know everybody uses Amazon and Apple, but they ve created this wave of, hey, you pick the way you want it.
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Dell did that with computers.
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You don t have to buy off-the-shelf computer.
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You customize it.
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We ll build it for you.
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And so this has been around for a while.
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I guess my question to Mark would be, is there any way you can be a part of that off-the-shelf part early in the process?
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So could you sell them something that was off the shelf that solved a portion of their problem?
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But then to get the rest of the problem solved, they would have to engage you or a technology person.
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Now, that s a business model product formulation solution, not a sales solution.
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But it seems like you ve got to ride the wave.
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The wave is people want to be able to select something online without talking to a salesperson.
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I know this is a whole different topic of podcasts, but there s a lot of studies that are saying now that people don t want to talk to salespeople.
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They just want to go online.
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They want to get their questions answered.
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They want to go to the reviews and ratings.
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They want to go to Yelp.
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They want to see what people think about the product.
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They don t want to talk to anybody.
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They re willing to spend thousands of dollars without talking to somebody.
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So I think we ve got to build our systems around the prevalence of that idea.
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I don t think that I and I think one of the we re in this we re in a very little Comment on society.
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We re in a very binary Environment right now.
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You re the right or you re wrong.
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You re there in you re out it is or it isn t and
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And that s where this comes into play.
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You re either off the shelf or you re custom.
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And I just don t see the world that way.
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I just don t see.
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It s just not that clean.
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And so to me, everything is a spectrum.
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I teach this all the time.
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Everything s a spectrum.
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And on the far right side of the spectrum is totally off the shelf.
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And the far left side of the spectrum is totally custom.
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And people can land anywhere on the spectrum.
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They can land at a 7 plus 7 on the off-the-shelf side, a minus 7 on the custom side.
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Pick whatever numbers you want.
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That s the problem to me, is I ve seen the world that way.
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And maybe, I agree, and maybe in your messaging, Mark, maybe you re not messaging the proper reasons why they should do a custom engagement versus off the shelf.
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Because if you can t make that case, and someone shows up at your website, and it s all custom, and they say, well, I got to.
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But if you have a way to share with them why custom is better for them, or when is custom used, and when is it not used?
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There are applications where you should buy off the shelf.
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Here s where you should, here s where you shouldn t.
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Are you effective at communicating that?
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And if you re not, and you expect people just to buy because you re good looking and charming, or the website s beautiful, of course not.
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I have not validated his picture yet to answer that last question.
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That s great.
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And now that you re saying that, too, even tactically, Mark, and for those of you who are listening, my little spectrum idea, be comfortable drawing that.
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People love to see that even creation live in front of them.
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And just draw it out.
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It doesn t have to be neat or anything like that.
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And just explain the different sides and the pluses and minuses.
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And what Bill said, you heard him say, why should they buy off the shelf and why shouldn t they?
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When should they, when should they not?
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You should have balance in all things.
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So be sure as you re highlighting the different ends of the spectrum, there s a plus and a minus to customization.
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There s a plus and a, whoops.
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There s a plus and a minus to off the shelf and let people sort of point where they want to be.
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And that ll help you then vet them.
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If you re only a custom delivery shop and they re pointing plus eight near to the off the shelf, maybe they re not a prospect.
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Just go on, carry on.
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You got to know who you are.
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If you re a custom shop, then
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Go all in on it.
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Be who you are.
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And be able to communicate why that s important, who is a prospect, who s not.
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So I think we solved his problem there.
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That could be a $10 million solution.
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That really could.
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Mostly because it saves, because I think what people like Mark do is they spend time trying to convince everyone to be custom.
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And they look at these, when people say, well, we re going to get off the shelf, they get mad at them, or upset, or bothered.
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That s just a choice that they re making.
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Let them go make the choice.
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Should we take another one of these?
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Let s do another one quick.
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OK, let s do Liz S. Liz S asked the question in the LinkedIn group that you need to go be in.
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What are some strategies for keeping the process on track when there s turnover on the buyer s side?
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Very tough, especially when their process involves a very large team of decision makers.
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And just when you figure out all the people, you get rapport built, relationships built, then one or more of them leave.
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She said it s happening a lot lately.
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There s a lot of turnover.
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I agree.
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Yes.
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A lot of shifting around.
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Can I start?
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I m going to steal a little page from the referee s manual here.
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And we plan in football refereeing, American football refereeing, we plan for things to go wrong, even when they rarely do.
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But we plan, we have processes in place for, we have a whole process in place for when somebody gets hurt, we all move around positions, we all switch around.
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And so Liz, for your question, if you are in a, if any of you are listening, are in a complex buying scenario where you ve got 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 people on the other side, plan for movement.
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Just expect that one or two of these people somewhere in the process is going to disappear on you.
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And then from that plan, then you strategize your next, OK, when that happens, then we do one, two, and three.
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So you expect it to show up.
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Most people don t do any planning around that, contingency planning.
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Then when they don t, they get caught off guard.
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Then it muddles the whole thing up.
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How strong is it to go to your customer and say, when they go, hey, by the way, Susan and Tim are no longer here, say, no problem, we ve got a process for that.
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So here s what we do.
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First, we evaluate or identify who s going to take their place.
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Two, we have an up-to-speed meeting we have with them and da-da-da-da-da.
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And then third, we pick up where we left off.
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That s how we handle it on our side.
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What about you guys?
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Sort of thing.
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So I love the idea of having a process in place for when that happens.
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Yeah, I agree.
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I think if you ve built the momentum, let s say you ve got, like you said, Brian, six people in the buyer chain.
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And the momentum is going.
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I see them all as spokes on the wheel, and the wheel s moving.
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And all of a sudden, one of those spokes leaves.
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If it s a minor player, it really shouldn t.
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It shouldn t bother you.
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If it s your champion, if it s the person who s pushing the wheel inside the client company, then that s going to be a problem.
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So I would even say that, you know,
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part of your answer of define or decide who could leave, I would say, start thinking, what if my champion leaves or gets reorganized?
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There s a lot of reorganization right now.
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Maybe they re not leaving the company, but they have another assignment.
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You have to decide, how am I going to keep this thing together if my champion exits?
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That s great.
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And that s part of that, well, OK, what could?
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So is the momentum of the wheel enough that it could withstand the champion exiting?
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I don t know.
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No, because my champion, man, she is just, she s all for this.
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Well, you better have a plan B. And especially for you, Liz, if it s coming up a lot, you better get that plan B working pretty soon, because it could come up tomorrow.
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Yes.
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I m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.
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Anybody?
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Who s with me?
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Come on.
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I m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round.
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I d really love to watch him roll.
1
Oh, man.
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It s too easy.
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SPEAKER_00
Steve Miller?
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Oh, no, no.
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Journey?
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Nope, nope, nope, nope.
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I ll give it away.
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He s not alive anymore.
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He s a Beatle.
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Oh, that s right.
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It s John Lennon.
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That s right.
1
SPEAKER_00
John Lennon, great song.
1
SPEAKER_00
Isn t that a great song?
1
SPEAKER_00
That s good.
1
SPEAKER_00
We just lost all the millennials.
1
SPEAKER_00
We always do that.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s a good thing we did it near the end.
1
SPEAKER_00
They re googling, who is John Lennon?
1
SPEAKER_00
That s OK.
1
SPEAKER_01
I get you, you know?
1
SPEAKER_01
We are glad you join us every week, of course.
1
SPEAKER_01
And if you have not checked out the Advanced Selling Podcast Insider program, we urge you to do that.
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You can go to insider, advancedsellingpodcast.com slash insider.
1
SPEAKER_01
Check that out.
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SPEAKER_01
If you re not on our email list or on our LinkedIn list, if you re not one of the 12,001, make sure you go there, advancedsellingpodcast.com slash LinkedIn.
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Join us.
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Good things happening there.
1
SPEAKER_01
Go see it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Bye.
1
SPEAKER_01
Bye.