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In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, I m curious about the evaluation system for a unique skilled job.
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We highlight an iconic brass instrument and wonder if there are any famous soloists in our midst.
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And we take a video bonus question from Seth who asks about the best strategy for team selling.
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Welcome, everybody, to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast in podcast history.
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My name is Brian Neal.
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Me, Bill Kask.
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We are here every week.
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We re glad you joined us, new listeners.
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Welcome to the show.
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We re glad you found us.
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There s a big LinkedIn group with about 11,000 fans of the show that talk to each other and share ideas and answer questions and things like that.
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That s the Advanced Selling Podcast group on LinkedIn.
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And also, we go on the road.
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If you re booking a fall sales retreat right now, or you re a salesperson, and the last seven fall sales retreats you went to were boring,
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Please send us an email, listener at advancedsellingpodcast.com.
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Just put in the subject line, come see us.
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Even if you re the salesperson, even if you re not involved in the planning of the sales meeting, we ll take care of that.
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Don t worry about that.
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All we need is the introduction to your VP or whoever that is.
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So we d love to come see you back on the road, out on the road again.
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Fall s a great time, too, because looking at planning 2020, and it s going to be a great year.
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The economy is going to be hot, so this is a good time to plan for next year.
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And you do that by having good retreats with good quality people like Brian Neal.
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Speaking of hot.
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One of my favorite smells in summertime is the smell of asphalt being laid down.
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And there s a huge construction project going on near my... I just heard it today.
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I just heard there was some delay.
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Is this true?
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What could possibly go wrong with that?
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Anyway, but besides that, so I m walking down the sidewalk in my neighborhood, which is now under complete construction, these roads.
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And there are some steamroller drivers driving around.
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And I got to thinking, from an employee evaluation standpoint, like we have KPIs and metrics and things, how do you know if the steamroller driver is doing a good job?
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I m like, well, Ed, looks good.
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Everything looks flat to me, nice and smooth.
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The road s nice and smooth, Ed.
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Good job.
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Do it again.
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How do they, because there s no lines, there s no, you can t get out of the lines.
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You can t, you know, you just kind of drive the thing back and forth.
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And I m, and I m just, I m really curious, guys, because we got people that those people that work heavy machinery are very highly paid, skilled and they re skilled.
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So there s some thing about it.
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With the steamroller, though, it s unique to me.
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I think it would be a square footage.
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I don t know.
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It would be a quality and quantity thing, probably.
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Like how efficient they are at driving it to getting it to a certain plane level grade.
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Anybody that knows anything about this, send us an email about this.
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I m just really curious.
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Because asphalt s usually square footage in depth.
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Or maybe it s cubic footage.
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Maybe it s cubic, too, because there s a depth to it.
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But I thought there was something about that.
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Yeah, I noticed you ve been leaving some lines on your... Well, seriously, it s like you sort of just drive back and forth, and I m assuming the steamrollers weighted a certain degree so that it knows, but there s got to be a skill to it.
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I just thought it was kind of interesting if I think of all the things you could do.
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If you re the line stripe painter, I can tell if you did a good job like everybody can.
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So, Brian, just like the steamroller operator, you wanted to do more this month but didn t have the time, tools, or processes.
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This goes for salespeople, sales leaders.
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Outreach.io, the leading sales engagement platform, supports sales reps and managers by making it simple to humanize and personalize communication at scale, automating the soul-sucking manual work and dramatically increasing the productivity and efficiency of all revenue-generating teams.
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You can check them out at outreach.io forward slash asp to chat with them and receive a new a copy of their brand new book a free copy on sales engagement go to outreach.io forward slash asp Great sponsors great partners of ours and they re generating a lot of leads A lot of people from our podcast have been calling them to set up demos and some information calls.
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So outreach.io slash asp
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And one of my clients is an active user of Outreach.
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Of course, they came.
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I think they listened to the podcast, and they plugged it in.
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And it s really, really slick.
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Good.
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Because I get to see it work now with the sleeves up sort of deal.
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It s really, really great.
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It does what they say it does.
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It removes a lot of thinking and like, what do I do?
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When do I do it?
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It just really, really automates the process in a nice way.
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Good.
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Thank you, Max and the team at Outreach for being sponsors of the podcast.
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OK, next, we are going to go.
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Is this a first for us?
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It could be.
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I think it is.
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It could be.
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This is a first.
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You said to the person who sent this video, and it s a listener video, which we usually ask for listener audios in some video.
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But you said, I think this is a first.
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And I came back.
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I did not read your message.
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And I said, you know what?
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I think this is a first.
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And he s probably like, do you not read each other s messages?
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Yes, it is a first.
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So it s from a guy named Seth D. Do we know where he s from?
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I don t, no.
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Bright guy in the consulting, management consulting business.
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So let s hear his question, then Brian and I ll come back and comment.
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Hey, Bill and Brian.
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Hey, I really appreciate your podcast.
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Listen a lot.
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Bill, I ve read your book.
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Brian, I don t think I ve read any of your books, so I need to get cracking.
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But really like the attitudinal guidance of being detached and believing in abundance and setting your mind straight.
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But for those of us who are in consulting sales, might be selling management consulting or accounting or business services of some kind,
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that require us to be kind of shoulder to shoulder with a technician or subject matter expert.
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We don t always control the sales process in a dialogue in the meeting and so would love your thoughts on two things about coaching for in the meeting discussions and things like that so that we re able to really hear what the client wants to tell us and be able to have empathy and
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and listen for the things that are important and create an environment of safety that they can kind of open up.
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And then secondarily, how do we talk to those folks about sales process?
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Because many think they re really good salespeople and they think they can dictate, you got to make 20 meetings a week and they go quantity over quality in terms of sales process.
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So would love your thoughts on how those of us that are in a team sale can manage that and be more effective.
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Thanks.
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Thank you, Seth, for our first ever video question.
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Kind of reminds me, remember the show Cash Cab?
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Oh, yeah.
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One of my favorite shows.
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Yeah, he had it going there.
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He had it rocking a little bit.
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But they had a video bonus question.
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I feel like Seth should get some sort of video bonus for sending a video question.
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We are going to have that video, I think, in the LinkedIn group, correct?
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So you can see Seth.
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Unless Seth tells us not to do that, then we won t.
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Or as Jane said, we ll blow her out of his face.
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Which I thought was kind of funny, too.
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He had a great voice, too.
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Good quality sound.
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He does.
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Everything was good about that.
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And just a real thoughtful question, too.
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Yeah.
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Really thoughtful.
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So we re talking about team selling.
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And not everyone does this.
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And even if you don t think, well, I don t really do this, you do this to some degree because there s some person at your company who delivers likely what you sell.
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So I want you to think about that if you re not a direct kind of what Seth s question is, is why take a technician with me?
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A lot of our clients do that.
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Subject matter expert.
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There ll be a deliverer coming with.
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Could even be a CEO or your VP of sales.
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It could be somebody else who is not you.
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And it could be technical or it may not be.
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It may be financial technical.
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But the question is, how do I control that?
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How do I manage it?
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It s really, really good.
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And he actually answered part of the way I would answer his question in his question, which is, how do I coach these people?
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And that, to me, is my first answer on this is,
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You have to look at this, in my opinion, as an opportunity for you to coach the people on the sales process, both with your customer and the general sales process that you re in.
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And I think sometimes we re fearful to do that, because when we bring subject matter experts in, they re really smart in a subject.
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And we kind of like coddle around them and work around them.
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Fought over them.
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Totally.
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A little bit like, well, I was able to get Derek here just for 15 minutes, right?
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Yeah, exactly.
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I just picture Derek being like shuffled in with a bunch of handlers, right?
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A bunch of guys in tuxedos and white clothes.
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All of a sudden, mid-sentence, he s out of there.
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I m sorry.
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I must.
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I ve said too much.
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15 minutes is up.
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I m out.
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I ve said too much.
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So don t coddle these people.
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And you ve got to give them their space to be themselves.
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But I think you ve got to look at yourself as the expert in selling.
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If they re the expert in whatever they are, you are the expert in selling.
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And because you re the expert in selling, you should know how to handle the process.
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And I think you give yourself free license to coach them.
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And coach them doesn t mean kind of nudge.
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It means, this is how this is going to go.
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You re OK to lay that thing out.
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We re going to start here, do this, then I m going to cue you.
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You re the master of ceremonies.
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Getting a little hold of myself in the conversation itself.
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So the first step to this is before you even sit down in the meeting.
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So the worst time to coach is when they re in a meeting and your subject matter expert has gone off on a tangent.
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It s hard to bring him back then.
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So you want to coach.
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And I like what you said, Brian, is you re the master of ceremonies here.
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You re the controller.
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You re the orchestra leader.
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Orchestra leader does not yield to the tuba player.
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You would know more about tuba playing because of your musical background than I. But I doubt if the orchestra leader ever yields to someone else.
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What do you think we should do here, tuba section?
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It s all very scripted out.
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And the same thing here is you have to be in control of this.
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So up front, sit down.
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And don t just talk about at the 17-minute mark, Brian, I want you to say this, because it s never going to work like that.
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It s got to work more from a flow standpoint.
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So say, look, here s some boxes.
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We re going to do the introduction first.
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And in the introduction, I m going to share with them what we do, why we do it.
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I m going to yield to you, Pete.
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And I d like for you to share what your role is.
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We re going to ask the customer.
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And then go to the next section.
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So just kind of block it off.
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I think that s a better way to do it than script it out.
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You just said, I was going to ask, I said, I was going to ask, what s the word in acting when they are setting up the play?
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It s blocking.
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It s blocking.
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That s what it is, right?
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But this person stands here, then you move there, then you take the pen, you move.
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That s blocking it out.
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That s what you do in this case.
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I totally agree.
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It s all about blocking and tackling.
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And I m also now, I can t help but wonder if there s some good tuba solo out there, some tuba soloist or a piece ready for tuba.
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Yeah, so we re going to hear the Philadelphia Philharmonic featuring.
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Come up with a tuba solo on this one.
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featuring Inger Hukwitz on tuba.
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Oh, Inger for the tuba.
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It s tuba.
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It s a good tuba.
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That s really good.
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The tuba name.
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So.
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Oh, so step one is you ve got to take control of this pregame.
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Yes.
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This is your pregame.
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Yeah, this is when you do it.
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And I like the idea of saying, generally, here s where we re going to talk about this issue that we know the customers had because they told us that first meeting.
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And John, you re going to be responsible.
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Come up with a couple of minutes here.
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But at the two-minute mark, I m going to say,
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John, go ahead and take another minute, then we need to move on.
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So create the cues, create this whole blocking thing.
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Yes, Bill was tapping his watchless wrist when he was doing that.
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That was the international sign for hurry the fuck up.
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What s the time?
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Are you going to call me or text me?
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Call me, text me, message me.
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I think that s really, really good.
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I think this goes along with, I think I m just adding something to what you said.
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It s really important to define roles.
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Define roles when you re in your setup, too.
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That s part of that deal.
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Not just the blocking, but who s doing what.
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So if we have a question about pricing, that yields to Bill.
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If we have a question about process,
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That yields to Travis.
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Question about content yields to Brian, and so on and so forth.
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Yeah.
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But the salesperson has to be the one that distributes those questions, too.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, it s super, super important.
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So what about in the meeting?
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Yeah.
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So let s say we re there.
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We ve done a proper amount of coaching.
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Let s say there s a salesperson and a sales engineer and maybe a financial expert.
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There s three of you, for lack of a better number.
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So let s say that,
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something happens that we re all out of sync.
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And maybe the subject matter experts are talking too much.
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Maybe they re not.
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Maybe the salesperson freezes up, and they re looking at you for advice.
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And you re like, I have no idea where we are.
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What s a good way to get out of jams in the call?
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Yeah.
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The football field, we go to the replay booth.
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They just bail us out every time.
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So you just call up and say, the previous five minutes is under review.
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Walk out, go under the hood.
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Have a drink.
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Yeah, exactly.
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This is really good.
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I love the idea.
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This is part of the role thing.
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I also love doing this.
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I ve been doing this with my clients when we re doing practice sessions, when we re doing role playing or practicing.
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I ve now gone, I used to just divide people up in twos, like get a partner and do it.
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Now I only divide up in threes.
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So there s always an observer there.
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I think the observer is the gift in this segment where there s someone that s noticing
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when maybe I m talking and you re talking, and we re losing.
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But Jane notices, and she s the noticer.
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I think it s good to define that that person that s like, hang on, they can time out us.
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The person from our team can time out us and say, hang on, guys.
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Tom, I feel like what Bill and Brian were just saying was making you confused.
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That s what I saw on your face.
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I love the person to call that out.
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Isn t that the salesperson, though?
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Ideally, isn t that the person?
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Unless they freeze.
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Unless if I m the salesperson and I miss it.
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And then I m out of it.
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Yeah, which can happen very easily.
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I just like everyone to know when they re the observer, they re the observer.
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Because I think what a lot of people do in these meetings is they re waiting for
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So you re saying your piece, and I think of something that I want to add to it.
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So I clock out, and I just wait for you to, and then I go, oh, and another thing is, boom, as opposed to staying neutral to you and going back to the customer, the observer, the watcher.
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So let s make a rule here that it should be the salesperson who s the watcher.
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I m good on that.
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But if the salesperson is out of line, then you ve got to appoint somebody else.
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And it s not about watching what you say.
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It s pulling focus and watching the entire.
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So if you see the prospect start to look at his imaginary watch, then you say, let s take a quick break here.
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I ve noticed that maybe we re losing some people, and maybe you re not following, or we re confusing, or whatever.
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So I like that, too.
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A little football adage there.
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We call that saving the crew.
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Like, I m not predominantly responsible for the game clock.
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But if the game clock is screwed up, and I m the only one that notices, and I step up and go, hang on.
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You have to say something.
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And I get huge kudos for that, if that occurs.
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You know what I mean?
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Yeah.
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OK, and then Seth s last point here was he talked about how sometimes I sense he was saying that the subject matter experts or the technical people talk about numbers of calls per month.
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I wasn t sure where he was going with that, whether they were.
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Dictating that to him, but that s not their role.
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That s not the subject matter experts role to tell you how many calls you need to make.
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You should be conscious of your brand and what your action plans are, what your plans are and goals and all that.
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So I don t know that we need to address that one.
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And it seemed a little backwards to me, but I think I understand.
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Sometimes people, be they experts in one thing or experts in all things, so they think they re experts in sales.
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And like, well, we just need this many meetings.
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They ll just show up.
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I think a lot of subject matter experts, like attorneys, used to go to law school, get in a law firm, and just expect all the business to come their way if they just did their thing.
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And now they re realizing they actually have to go out and have meetings and business development and that sort of thing.
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That could have been where that was coming from.
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And then some smart ass from the back yells out, you re not making enough calls, Seth.
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Got to make more calls.
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You wouldn t have this problem.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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All right.
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OK, Seth, thank you for that.
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It was an awesome question.
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And we can get into a little bit more detail about that later.
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I like the tech, because there s a lot of organizations where the technical people are in the process.
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They are.
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SPEAKER_00
And they can be a great help and a great asset, or they can screw things up.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they should be in the process, just as long as they re coached and managed by the salesperson.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_00
Cool.
1
SPEAKER_00
All right.
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SPEAKER_00
If you have a question, send us an email with a voice memo on it to listener at advancesellingpodcast.com.
1
SPEAKER_00
We love to get these things, just like Seth s.
1
SPEAKER_00
And we ll be continuing to promote those.
1
SPEAKER_00
And we want to hear from you, to hear your questions and comments.
1
SPEAKER_00
And even if they re funny stories, anything will do.
1
SPEAKER_00
So send us a note at listener at Advance Selling Podcast.
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SPEAKER_00
We ll get it on.
1
SPEAKER_00
And we ll see you.
1
SPEAKER_00
Around the world make sure you send us an email to come see us listener at advanced selling podcast calm Love come see this fall.
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SPEAKER_00
Bye.
1
SPEAKER_01
See you