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In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill brings us in with his happy voice, we say our peace to a gone-too-soon hoops legend, and we talk about how to find out the prospect s story behind the story.
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Welcome back to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast in podcast history.
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I m Bill Kasky.
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I m Brian Neal.
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I m trying to liven up my voice a little bit after your brother imitated me and made me sound like some kind of old curmudgeon.
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No, he said, he works on these voices.
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He listens.
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And he goes, I was working on you, and I didn t really do Bill very well, but I ll work on Bill.
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So he ll find these little idiosyncrasies.
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We should play that.
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When he gets me perfected.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Then I ll have him do another one.
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And I know I ve watched myself and listened to myself enough to know that sometimes I get serious.
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He opened my eyes there a little bit.
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A little velvety smooth radio voice.
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Yeah, you tell him to go himself.
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No, no, no, it s good.
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No, it s flattery.
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So if you are in the process of planning a sales meeting, sales retreat, some kind of a rollout, and you d like to have
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Brian or Bill or both of us to come out you can go to uh, send us an email at listener at advanced selling podcast I know we always say that but every month we get one or two more We do and we re kind of planning out two or three months in advance So if you have something coming up, we d love to do it.
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Also the deal work studio is reopened
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You ve heard us talk about it, so just go to advancedsellingpodcast.com.
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Big green button you look for for the deal work studio.
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That s the $1,500 one hour work on two deals.
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We ll record it, give it to you.
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Clients are telling us, big hit.
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Big hit for value for what you get there.
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Because you get learning, but more than that, you get a deal, hopefully unstuck, and get a better result and close the deal from it.
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And we don t do any playlist.
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We don t put music in that thing or anything.
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We just get right to the point.
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Only the live gigs do we do the playlist for.
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All right.
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And then next episode, we re going to be doing from the road.
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We are.
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On our way to Chicago, we re going to be mic d up, and we re going to do a four-hour podcast where we start Indianapolis and we end in Chicago.
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And you ll have to sift through it to get the good nuggets.
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The only downstroke is we re taking a motorcycle.
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Bill s going to be on the back, so we got some really nice mic covers.
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Do I have to hug you, or do you have some hand?
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There s a guy who did a comedy thing about that, which was really funny.
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Like, I get on the motorcycle with my brother-in-law, and I m not sure what to do.
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Like, am I going around the waist?
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Am I going, you know, full gut?
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Well, there s always the sissy bar on the back, but I don t want to hang onto that, so I m going to have to.
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The uncomfortableness of being shotgunned on a motorcycle.
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It s no good.
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So it will not be a motorcycle.
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It will not be.
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Just FYI.
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Just kidding.
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Hey, Brian, before we get started, I have a question for our sales people listeners.
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Have you noticed that your sales tools are good at telling you what to do, but wouldn t it be great if they actually did the work for you?
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The fact is, the number one problem sales people have is booking prospect meetings.
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We all have it.
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If you don t get the front end working, then the back end s not going to work either.
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It s one of those things that gnaws at you all the time.
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It s in your guts.
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When you wake up in the morning, it s when you go to bed at night.
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Do I have enough first appointments?
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You should know about one of our great sponsors chronologic the world s first calendar monetization engine Chronologic takes leads from any channel and converts them to meetings literally books out your calendar for you So you can maximize your meetings your pipeline and ultimately your compensation You can use their technology for yourself book a demo at chronologic dot AI that s chronologic k r o n o logic dot a I
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So we were, you know, when Brian and I meet and we sit down and we start working through topics, Brian has a consulting and training practice, I ve got one, and there s a never-ending supply of topics, right?
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There s problems, there s challenges, there s training things that we do.
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And you experienced that last episode where we talked about an upcoming agenda for a training that we re doing.
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And several things have happened in the past few weeks.
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There s always things happening in the news.
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Kobe Bryant, who is dearly beloved by many people in the US and probably around the world, passed in a very tragic helicopter accident with his daughter and seven other people.
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There s been the breakout of flu in China.
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There s lots of things going on, as there always are.
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There s a never ending.
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And so Brian and I were talking about, how do we bring this in to a lesson for all of us?
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And so we thought that the way to do this is to really look at the subtext underneath all of these stories, and as well, underneath you as a sales professional or CEO or VP of sales, and also the subtext when you are calling on somebody.
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Because there s always the story that we hear in the media, but then there s the story behind the story.
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Yes.
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We talked a little bit about one of our favorite radio icons, Paul Harvey, last year.
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We talked a little bit about Paul Harvey.
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And Paul Harvey had a program called The Rest of the Story, and he would tell a story.
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And I m putting my Paul Harvey voice on again.
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And he would, it s a backstory.
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It was what s behind the real story.
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And there always is something.
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And as Bill and I were talking, we said, well, let s, yeah, let s take these.
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Cause there s, there s the, um, you know, the backstory behind Colby s life, you know, and it s, it s, uh, you know, mostly wonderful.
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And then there s some bad, it s like any other life though.
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I talked to a group of friends of mine and like, yeah, you know, I said like, well, how do you, I heard a newscaster, they always want to dig something negative up.
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Like, well, what, how do you foot these,
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bad things.
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And I m like any other human being.
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The guy had made some mistakes and was flawed and did the best he could and was a great guy.
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But there s a context behind it.
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There s a context behind his work ethic.
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What drove him?
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What drove him to win an Oscar?
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He said when he got his Oscar, he s like, my dad always told me, dream big, think big.
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So if I m going to make a movie, I might as well make a movie and try to win an Oscar.
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He just had that.
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So there s subtext.
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the disease thing.
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Like, well, OK, well, in broad scale, where does it fit?
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So we re looking at what s behind the thing.
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What s behind.
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What s underneath it.
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Yes, what s underneath it.
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Yeah, what s another story.
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Yeah, speaking of Kobe, I read a book by a guy named Tim Grover, who wrote the title of the book was Relentless.
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And he was Michael Jordan, who s also, most of you know, but a basketball NBA star, won like seven titles.
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And was a standout and he hired this Grover dude from Chicago and once Michael either retired or went on to another coach.
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He took up Kobe Bryant And yeah, I remember in the book he talked about the work ethic that this guy had and he would literally call Grover his trainer up at 10 o clock at night and say I know we ve got a time for 8 a.m.
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Tomorrow and
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Let s move it up to 4 a.m.
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and just crazy hours because he was obsessed with winning, with excellence, with performance, getting the most out of his body.
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And you know, he played for 20 years, 19 years, and he was probably 40, 38 when he retired, 39.
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And I think he came out of college.
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Did he go to high school?
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He came out of high school, yeah.
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So he played for 20-some years.
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So I don t know what stories you heard about that we might be able to parlay into sales or anything, but.
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Yeah, same.
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I mean, to me, when I think about the, it s the back story.
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And so where things came from and what he was like.
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And so you hear he grew up, his dad played professional basketball in Italy.
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And so he was not just bilingual, he was multilingual.
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He knew Spanish, and he knew some fluent Italian, and then would learn.
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He was very worldly that way and understood things.
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And then he was born, it almost seems like genetically, with this love of basketball.
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He said, the moment I heard the ball hit the ground, that was my thing.
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And then he had so much natural talent.
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He could have gotten away with not working as hard as he did.
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Yet, he had this engine that drove him to continue to work, and to work, and to work, and to be better, and better, and better, where most people say, dude, you re Kobe Bryant.
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You got it.
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You re the best Laker ever.
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It s amazing to hear some of these other Laker greats say he was the best Laker ever, Magic Johnson.
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and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaq.
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And so the contextual thing is I think about he went to the gym by himself with his trainer.
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No one else around.
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No one made him do it.
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It wasn t part of a practice.
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He didn t get paid extra for it.
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He did it all himself.
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That, to me, is the context behind the things you see, the rings and the Hall of Fames and all that jazz and the money.
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Yeah, we just don t see the 4 a.m.
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practices.
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We see the rings and the Hall of Fame and the money, and we see him with a great relationship, it sounds like, with his children and all that stuff, but we don t see the work ethic.
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And I was thinking about this as we heard about the situation and the tragedy, and I thought,
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You know, the work ethic and the obsession with success can make you alive, and it can also kill you.
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And I don t know what happened.
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I was talking to a client the other day, and they were like, I wonder what that conversation was like when the pilot said to Kobe, hey, it s going to be pretty foggy.
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I wonder what happened there.
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Was Kobe like, no, we re not going to go.
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to protect my family?
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Or was he like, we got a game.
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We got a game because that s what we do in the Bryant family.
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We play, and we succeed, and we win.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, totally.
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You just don t know.
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Don t know.
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Well, I wrote down a couple tactical comments or philosophies thing.
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So my coach, a guy you know, Mike Donahue, I was with for a long time, very, very excellent coach and smart business person.
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In our peer group, he would talk a lot about what he called the left-hand column.
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And the left-hand column, if you look at an old-school standard notebook paper, like the yellow legal pad, it has these two little red lines on the side.
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And the theory in the left-hand column, or if you just took a Word document, it has that left-hand.
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And if you ve got a typed page and you re analyzing it, you write little notes in the left-hand column.
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You draw an arrow over or an X or a red.
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With a number two pencil.
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With a number two pencil, for sure, so you can erase your comments in case someone doesn t like them.
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And we always talked about that in our group.
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What s your left-hand column saying?
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And I think that s a great mechanism to take into selling.
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As you re listening to answers from a prospective customer, what are you sensing and feeling in the left-hand column?
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What s behind the answers?
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Where are things coming from?
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Where s the root of that?
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If they re being mean to you, why are they being mean to you?
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If it s going too easy, why is it going so easy?
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If they ask you a question, why d they ask?
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And so it s a good little mechanism.
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I like to coach my clients to say, when you listen to yourself, so when we record calls on inside sales teams, when you listen to it, what did you hear in the left-hand column?
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What did you hear?
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What tonality did you pick up on the buyer?
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Those are all things we re talking about.
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We know what the words were, but what s the attitude or the vibe behind the words?
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Exactly.
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Well, I think that s good.
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And so you started down the prospect.
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What are you not hearing from the prospect?
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And I think that s also what s in that left column, as you say, as Mike Donahue says, is there s always a subtext and a substory behind what the prospect s issues are.
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So the prospect says, Brian, thanks for coming in today.
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Let me tell you, my biggest issues are one, two, and three.
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And sometimes what we do is say, well, we found their pain.
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We got their issues.
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We got it.
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I can do this.
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We can do it.
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Yeah, we can solve.
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Why don t we put together a proposal?
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OK, great.
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Now, obviously, listeners to this podcast would not do that quite the way I did it, but
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There s always a sub-story underneath each one of those problems, like, how did this problem occur?
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Why did you let it occur?
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Why have you been living with this for the last 17 years?
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What happens if you don t fix it?
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What s really going to be the impact of these three problems?
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And the prospect says, well, you know what, now that I think about it,
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Numbers two and three, really no impact.
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But if we don t get number one solved, we ll be out of business in two and a half years.
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So there s always a story underneath it, and you owe it to your prospect to ask those questions.
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Do not go back into this, well, you know, he already told me.
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He would have told me the rest if he d wanted me to know the rest.
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No, that s BS.
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He would not tell you the rest because they don t even know there s a subtext and another dimension to it.
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So you, as a sales professional, have to wear the hat of inquiry and say, OK, they were very open with one, two, and three.
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They ve also got to be open with what s behind each of those.
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Yes.
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Yeah.
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And I believe, too, and this is a commentary on a sales methodology that we re both really familiar with that I just don t like, the whole concept of buyers are liars.
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I truly don t believe people do that intentionally.
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They re not hiding, holding something back on purpose.
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They just don t have the mechanism or sometimes even the awareness to even see it or let it out for themselves.
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And they ve never thought two steps, three steps down.
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Or they ve never thought personal impact.
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Like, yeah, you know what?
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If we don t get this thing fixed, we re not able to sell the company, I m going to feel like a failure.
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They ve never really taken it out that way.
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You re almost playing a little bit of a therapist.
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I don t think they do that intentionally.
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No, you are.
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You know what I mean?
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Yeah.
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Buyers are liars if the seller is the traditional seller.
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We ve got to figure out if that s going to be on a t-shirt or a hat.
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Let s just say it s got to be a better.
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Now that we re making swag every episode.
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But buyers are liars to sellers, to amateur sellers, who are in there convincing and persuading and defending and all that.
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Well, of course, people lie.
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But if you show up with a whole different spirit and a whole different attitude and way of doing business and ethos that we ve talked about here on the podcast, go back and listen to some of our what kind of mental state do we need to be in, emotional state, then they don t lie because they don t have to lie, because there s nothing to defend against, because you re not there to create resistance.
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You re there to find out what are the issues that are really happening.
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Absolutely.
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I wrote down another little mantra to carry around with you, and that is trust your curiosity and your intuition on this left-hand column stuff.
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Trust your curiosity and your intuition.
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Everybody has it.
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I don t care if you re an engineer, computer scientist, or an actress, or an artist.
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Everyone has intuition.
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Even engineers are designing something, and they get this feeling that I m going down the wrong path, or this just doesn t seem right.
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Everybody has it.
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It s innate in us.
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There s a book called The Gift of Fear, which talks a lot about this is actually a genetic thing.
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Oh, I m sure.
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The gift of fear.
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So trust that.
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And then I wrote down, you have to be a little careful with this, if you feel it, say it.
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If you feel it, say it.
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So if you truly learn to trust your intuition, your curiosity,
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and you re feeling, you re having a gut feel, I don t want you to hold that in anymore in your sales conversation, I want you to say it.
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I want you to say things like,
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This is feeling to me like if you don t get this done, it feels like you think you might be taking a step backward in your career, or something like that, where it s like, whoa.
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Good therapists do that.
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So you re saying, say it yourself if they re not saying it, and if you have a hunch that that may be what s happening.
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Let them then either agree with it or not, or tell you that you re wrong.
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Yep, either validate it or say,
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Nope, wrong, that sort of thing.
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But don t be afraid.
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People are afraid to go there when that alarm is going off so strongly.
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That s because we re not, I don t even think most people hear what people say.
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I think our motor is constantly running about the next question, the next, oh, oh, I thought this was a done deal.
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Now he s saying he s going out.
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Oh, God, what am I going to tell my boss?
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Even worse, we re listening for the buying signal, air quotes.
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And I m like, oh, you got those problems.
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Yeah, I got it.
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I can do that.
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I got you, right?
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I m in.
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We want to listen as little as possible.
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I want you to listen as deeply as possible, as long as possible, and as patiently.
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Until all questions are exhausted, you will have a better and clearer picture of the issue than any of your competition will.
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Your competition is not asking any of these questions.
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And you will know which ones to not pursue by doing that.
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You will know, based on what I m hearing,
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this is an opportunity that we are going to take a polite pass on for whatever reason.
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That is.
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You ll be way more efficient if you do that.
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I ve got a whole, I looked at the time here, we probably don t have time to do this, but I ve got a whole area that I think also this applies to, which is our own self performance, our own performance in sales and in business and in life and in income.
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And I think we need to do another episode on this.
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We talked about prospect, what s the subtext there?
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We talked about Kobe Bryant.
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But maybe next time we talk about specifically what s the subtext in our own lives that may be holding us back.
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Yes.
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So let s do that.
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I ll make a note.
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You make a note.
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I m done.
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No, it s good.
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Done.
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That was a good one.
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Yeah.
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So we obviously congratulate ourselves.
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Wow.
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Well, that s wow.
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We re really good at this.
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Brian, you did a good job.
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But Bill, you nailed it.
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I loved how you brought us in with a brighter voice this episode.
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That was really nice.
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Do you notice how my voice also went down as we went?
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Because I m trying to modulate.
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SPEAKER_00
I need a voice coach.
1
SPEAKER_00
I need your brother voice coach.
1
SPEAKER_00
You can hire a voice coach.
1
SPEAKER_01
They have those.
1
SPEAKER_01
All right.
1
SPEAKER_01
Hey, if you want to bring us in, send us an email.
1
SPEAKER_01
Listeneradvancesellingpodcast.com.
1
SPEAKER_01
Come see us.
1
SPEAKER_01
There s also a form you can fill out on the website.
1
SPEAKER_01
If you want us to do the deal work studio, really, really good high value program for that.
1
SPEAKER_01
We work on real live deals.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s a big green button on the website.
1
SPEAKER_01
Look for the big green button, and we ll get in touch with you and schedule those things for you.
1
SPEAKER_01
That is it.
1
SPEAKER_01
We will see you next time on the Advanced Selling Podcast.
1
SPEAKER_01
Bye.
1
SPEAKER_01
Bye.