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You know, Brian, I ve been using stamps.com now for probably two years, and I find that it saves money.
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with a special offer that includes a four-week trial, plus postage, and a digital scale without any long-term commitments.
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Go to stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage, type in Advanced Selling, that s stamps.com, enter Advanced Selling, and never, ever go to the post office again.
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SPEAKER_00
In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill tells a joke that to date has gotten zero laughs.
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We ll see what you think.
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Our stomachs yearn for an unusually favorite food of both of us, and we teach you how to trash talk your competition.
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Welcome to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast created exclusively for sales professionals to help you create your own sales success.
0
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My name is Brian Neal.
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I m Bill Kasky.
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And we are your hosts for today s episode.
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We re glad you are with us.
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We are on the road.
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On the road, on the road, on the road.
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Where are you headed, Bill?
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Anywhere.
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I had a lot of trips in January and February.
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I don t have anything in March.
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Little light.
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I m here.
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Little light, homebound.
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I m here, too, until spring break.
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Then I m going to Aruba.
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Are you really?
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Yeah.
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Oh yeah.
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Should be fun.
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I spent my first honeymoon in Aruba.
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Did you really?
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How was that?
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You like it?
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I heard it s great.
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It was very windy.
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I heard it s very windy.
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Very windy.
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They have divi divi trees that actually are bent over because of the wind.
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But it s really nice.
0
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Snorkeling is really good.
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I heard it s wonderful.
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I know how you love snorkeling.
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I do love snorkeling.
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Yeah.
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Free of...
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What do you call that thing?
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The snorkel?
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What s the thing that comes out that you breathe through?
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What is that called?
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It s your breather.
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It s gotta be called something.
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Breathing tube?
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Someone who snorkels a breathing tube?
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I don t think it s a breathing tube.
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Unless you have a trach.
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Is Doug Drozen in fact-checked snorkeling equipment?
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I don t know.
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Anyway, we digress.
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Let s see.
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We ve got All In on our website.
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All In, a comprehensive training solution for salespeople, great audio program.
0
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New listeners need to go do that.
0
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So you have a joke.
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Well, I don t know.
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That s playing pretty loose with the terms there.
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But I heard this story the other day, and I thought it was really cute, humorous.
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I laughed out loud.
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I don t laugh out loud at a lot of things.
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I thought this was really funny.
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So in the meantime, I have told it to four or five people.
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Not one snicker.
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Not even a smile.
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Not even a, oh, there you go.
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Good for you, Bill.
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Did you like that one?
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Because I always laugh when I tell it.
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So here it is.
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You tell me.
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I m ready.
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So you re laughing more about the story than you will at the story.
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So this little boy, probably eight or nine years old, and he s losing his teeth.
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And of course, the tooth fairy is around.
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And so one day he loses a tooth, and he puts it under his pillow at night.
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And he wakes up the next day, and there s a dollar there.
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And he s a little suspicious by this time.
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He wonders, who is the tooth fairy?
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And so his mom makes breakfast for him, and he s getting ready to leave.
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He goes, mom, he says, are you the tooth fairy?
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And she goes, well, honey, I ve been keeping that from you for a couple of years.
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Yes, honey, I am.
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And I m really glad you figured it out.
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And you re a really smart boy.
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He goes, OK.
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I kind of thought so.
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He gets ready to leave, and he looks back and says, well, how do you get into the other kids  houses?
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That s really good smart kid No, nobody laughs.
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It s really good.
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That s a good clean joke.
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I know it takes it I like it.
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Anyway, well, maybe we should have our listeners email us
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And we ll read them on the air.
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Listeners, email us your favorite clean joke.
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Oh, yeah.
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And we ll read a few of them on the air, because we like to tell little joke things before.
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And we ll give props to the listener.
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And we ll give props when they re good.
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And maybe we can have a little vote.
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So yeah, if you re listening and you have a joke that s readable on the air, you want to email us a joke.
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That would be really fun.
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Email us a joke, a good joke.
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And I d like to hear if you like that one, too.
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Or if you think it s lame.
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That was clever.
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That was really, really cute.
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I actually think it s kind of cute.
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I think it s really good.
0
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All right, topic.
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Why don t you introduce it?
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Let s do it.
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Yep.
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How to trash talk your competition.
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Oh, I love this topic.
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How to trash talk your competition.
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We ve been waiting to do this one for 10 years.
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I know.
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I got five great, yeah.
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My little side business that I work on in the fall, there s a lot of trash talking.
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People always want to know who s the worst trash talker on the football field.
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And I m telling you, the worst trash talkers are the people who listen to the Advanced Selling Podcast.
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At least you will be after this.
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I m telling you right now.
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So we re going to talk about how to not really trash talk your competitors.
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But we re going to talk about how to be a great competitor, how to best compete against your competition, not how to trash talk your competitors.
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Because if you ve listened to this show at all, you know that s not really how we work around here.
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If you follow this advice, they ll be trash talking you.
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They will.
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They will.
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They ll say, you know, it s a damn
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Advanced Selling Podcast again.
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I know those guys.
0
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I tell you, they buy the business.
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They always buy the business.
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They do.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Don t you love it when people say, oh, they re competitive.
0
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They re always buying the business.
0
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The other thing that s interesting to me, and God bless, you go into your clients, and it s so far, just about 100% of the companies I ve worked with my whole career have said, no, we re not the cheapest.
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And I m going, OK, someone out here is the cheapest.
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They just are.
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Right?
0
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And if you are, you should be telling the whole world that you re the cheapest.
0
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It just might be a different sales strategy.
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But it s funny how many people say, no, we re not the cheapest.
0
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Well, who is?
0
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And then they ll say the company.
0
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And if I go talk to them, like, well, we re not the cheapest.
0
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It s those guys.
0
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They re the cheapest.
0
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Or they say, you know, we re not the cheapest, and we re not the most expensive.
0
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We re right there in, as I call it, no man s land.
0
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There s no difference at all.
0
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Yeah, pretty much we re average across the board.
0
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We re kind of average in everything.
0
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I love that.
0
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It s very, very funny.
0
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OK, so how do we best compete?
0
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We ve probably done shows on this before, but this came up with a couple of our clients, and so we thought we d devote some attention to it.
0
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Yes.
0
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So in my first two, I wrote in biblical grammar, if that s OK, biblical English, if you will.
0
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Ready?
0
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My number one, the best way to be a competitor, how to be a really good competitor.
0
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First thing you need to do.
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very specifically is know thyself.
0
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Know thyself.
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You have to know who you are as a sales professional.
0
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You have to know how your solution best fits your client s issue or problem or helps them gain or garner some opportunity.
0
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And you have to know where you fit in the grand scheme of things relative to all the people that you re competing against.
0
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And to me, the key word over all of this is you have to do that objectively.
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You have to do it objectively.
0
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Because where most people fail, I think, in the competitive landscape is to acknowledge that there are certain elements in their offering or solution that might be an Achilles heel, might be a step down from a competitor.
0
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The best salespeople that I work with, they know where their competitors are good.
0
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These guys are good.
0
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And if you listen to the best football coaches, you listen to any of them.
0
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they ll talk to you about how scared they are of the other team, no matter how good their team is.
0
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They re like, these guys in this situation, boy, they can do this.
0
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This defense can do things to us that we ve got to really prepare for.
0
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So that s a matter.
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I used to think that was all bluster.
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I don t think it is.
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I really don t.
0
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So what they do is they ll look at the strong parts of that offense or defense, and they ll become very focused and concerned about that, because that s where their advantage is.
0
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Yes, because they know both where they re good, but also where they re not good and where they re weak.
0
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Now, it doesn t mean you re leading with your weaknesses.
0
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It just means that you know where they are, that you re aware of them.
0
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I think salespeople tend to dismiss those or ignore them, deny that they re there.
0
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I ve got one here that is probably a cousin to that one, a distant cousin, a redheaded cousin, as we say.
0
SPEAKER_00
I heard the term, this is first cousin once removed.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
First cousin once removed, which I think is actually your,
0
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your cousin s relationship to your kid.
0
SPEAKER_00
Is that a genealogy term?
0
SPEAKER_00
I think so, yeah, if you spend a lot of time on Ancestry.com, which I pay the annual fee for and have looked at once a year.
0
SPEAKER_00
You did?
0
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I m like, you know, I might look at it this year.
0
SPEAKER_00
So here s another $200 set on fire.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s great.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, just in case something pops up.
0
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I m going to do one with DNA test, too, to see how Italian I am.
0
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A new member would pay $5, so you ve got to keep your membership alive.
0
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I do.
0
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I think you can out-compete by being better at seeing the world through your customer s eyes.
0
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And it s a kind of an addendum to what you talked about there is know thyself, but know your customer and what their pains and issues are.
0
SPEAKER_01
And don t just, I don t like this idea of pain point.
0
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And I hear that a lot.
0
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And I know I ve probably even said it.
0
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You ve probably said it.
0
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I think we ve talked about it on the show before.
0
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Because when I hear the words, well, I don t know what their pain point is, you re implying there that it s one little thing that s simple.
0
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And once we identify it, we re off to the races.
0
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Pain is complex.
0
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And I don t even think it s pain.
0
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It s just, what are the circumstances in the customer s world that you can bring value around?
0
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And how can you
0
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Help them live their business life better, improve financially.
0
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But see the world through your customers  eyes.
0
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No competitor is good at that.
0
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And you might not be either now, but you can get good at that.
0
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So every time you re with a customer, try to see the world through their eyes.
1
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That s how you differentiate yourself.
1
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Because if that customer is being called by three vendors, and one they feel very connected to because you can see the world the way I see the world, you ll have an advantage.
1
SPEAKER_01
You just will be different.
1
SPEAKER_01
You just will be different.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so many people start to focus on this beat the guy, beat the customer, or beat the other vendor.
1
SPEAKER_00
Beat the other vendor.
1
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They lose sight of it.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s really good.
1
SPEAKER_01
Here s one I had I wrote down do more than they re asking do more than they re asking I believe in competitive landscapes People just think that they re supposed to do what the customer is asking for so if you re in an RFP or competitive bid is we d like to see your proposal on how to do and develop this particular app with this functionality with these requirements
1
SPEAKER_01
So we do that.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we never sit back and go, OK, here s how much it would cost to do that and what we did and all that stuff.
1
SPEAKER_01
Here s another approach, though, that you didn t ask us for.
1
SPEAKER_01
We don t think you need to do this in a handheld app.
1
SPEAKER_01
We think you could actually do this in a cloud atmosphere.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so we put together what that would look like, too, even though you didn t ask for it.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Or to say, whether you do this with us, or them, or the other competitor, if you re going to go down this mobile app path, we would suggest you do the following things.
1
SPEAKER_01
You need to call this other company and make sure that they re involved in this, or whatever.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because we ve seen clients fail with that.
1
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So just think of ways to do more than the customer is asking for.
1
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Because so many times in competitive landscapes, that s all we do.
1
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We think we just got to answer all the questions, show better on all the things they ask for, and don t push back on them.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and it s not, you said more, but it could be different.
1
SPEAKER_00
So here s another alternative, here s another way to look at it.
1
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Think about when you re buying something and they do that to you and you say, you know, I can take you down this path, I will sell you this, but you know, something you might not know about is we ve got this thing that attaches to that thing and it s a little bit less, but it does so much more.
1
SPEAKER_00
Do you want me to quote that?
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God, thank you so much.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I like that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Really, really good.
1
SPEAKER_00
I have here Bring Value.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I know that s kind of trite today because we re always talking about it.
1
SPEAKER_00
But Gary Vaynerchuk wrote a book called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the theory of that is, for those of you who haven t read it, if you haven t read it, you should get it.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s a really good book.
1
SPEAKER_00
He says that when you re in sales prospecting mode, you need to be of value to people.
1
SPEAKER_00
Bring value, bring ideas, bring articles, bring podcasts, bring something to that customer that lights their life up, that in some way brightens things for them.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m not just talking about cookies and deviled eggs.
1
SPEAKER_00
Wait a minute, that s kind of weird.
1
SPEAKER_00
I had deviled eggs Monday.
1
SPEAKER_00
I love deviled eggs.
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, they re the best.
1
SPEAKER_00
I had deviled eggs on Monday.
1
SPEAKER_00
If they re done right.
1
SPEAKER_01
From MCL Cafeteria.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, they would be done right.
1
SPEAKER_01
MCL, they were wonderful.
1
SPEAKER_00
But bring value with something.
1
SPEAKER_00
If you ve written an article, if you have something on LinkedIn that would be of value to them, I just feel that if you re always trying to right hook, which is where you re asking for the purchase, and not jabbing a little bit first, then they don t feel it with you, and they feel
1
SPEAKER_00
they feel that you re there just to make the sale.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you are.
1
SPEAKER_01
You are.
1
SPEAKER_01
Because you re being that way.
1
SPEAKER_01
And some of them just jab, jab, jab, jab, jab.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s true, too.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s true.
1
SPEAKER_00
Never left hook, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
That s equally as popular.
1
SPEAKER_01
What is the red dust on top of the deviled eggs?
1
SPEAKER_01
the red little sprinkly stuff.
1
SPEAKER_00
Is that paprika?
1
SPEAKER_00
That s what I thought that was.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t think it s cinnamon.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t think that would taste good.
1
SPEAKER_01
No, that wouldn t be good.
1
SPEAKER_01
Okay, here, I ve got one.
1
SPEAKER_00
When you re in a competitive situation, we are going to get deviled eggs right after this.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, what do you guys have?
1
SPEAKER_01
We want two dozen deviled eggs and a fork.
1
SPEAKER_01
is give space in a competitive environment.
1
SPEAKER_01
Think about experience over solution.
1
SPEAKER_01
So here s what I mean by that.
1
SPEAKER_01
Most people just think we got to show them a great solution to their problem and with great investment numbers and great ROI and da, da, da, da.
1
SPEAKER_01
But we tend to lose sight of the buying experience that they re having.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so I really want you to think if you re in a competitive environment,
1
SPEAKER_01
You want to beat your competition.
1
SPEAKER_01
Your buying process and experience needs to be better than their buying process and experience.
1
SPEAKER_01
Part of that is with giving space, letting people say, yeah, there are goods and bads to this.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re going to go through some analysis with you.
1
SPEAKER_01
The analysis on its own should be useful.
1
SPEAKER_01
You can use the analysis with the other people you re talking to besides us.
1
SPEAKER_01
Those are space-giving statements that I think create wonderful experience and make people lean into you more than into the competitor.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s good.
1
SPEAKER_00
My last one was just never be afraid.
1
SPEAKER_00
Never fear the competition because they have as many issues and problems as you might think you have.
1
SPEAKER_00
Nobody s perfect.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s always gaps in coverage and there s always gaps in, like you just, I mean, that thing that you just said could be the game changer for you.
1
SPEAKER_00
It could change the game and direct things in your way.
1
SPEAKER_00
Never be afraid.
1
SPEAKER_00
Always compete, and also never be arrogant, because you re no better than they are, even though I know we get pumped full of product knowledge to imply that we re better, but it s got nothing to do with product, I think, or it s got less to do with product and more to do with how you interact with your customer.
1
SPEAKER_00
What a great way to end.
1
SPEAKER_00
Never be afraid.
1
SPEAKER_00
Let s go get some devil eggs.
1
SPEAKER_00
Let s go.
1
SPEAKER_00
Don t be afraid of how many eggs you re going to have.
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, that does it for today.
1
SPEAKER_00
If you ve not downloaded a free copy of The Ultimate Pre-Game Audio Program, do so right now.
1
SPEAKER_00
Just go to ultimatepregame.com to find it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Check out the products page while you are there.
1
SPEAKER_00
We d love to see you at your company, at a retreat, a national sales meeting, association.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m going to be talking with somebody later today about that very thing, so we d love to come out and visit you, either Brian or I, or both.
1
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And we d also love to hear your feedback or question.
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You can send your question as an audio recording, and we will be using it in a future episode.
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We re going to be ratcheting up the mailbag here.
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We ve been a little lax, but we want to hear your questions.
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So if you re not comfortable audio recording it, then send it as an email to listener at advancedsellingpodcast.com, and we will play it.
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We will play it.
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See you next time.
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Bye.
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Bye.