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In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill shares his frustration with tedious and awkward questionnaires, I serve up one of my favorite Bill Murray movie lines as a sales mantra, and we take a listener-inspired question from Julian who asks, is it okay to go over the buyer s head?
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Welcome, everybody, back to the Advanced Selling Podcast.
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My name is Brian Neal.
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What s your cue?
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Oh, and I m Bill Kasky.
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And we are here every week.
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What happened to the rest of us?
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We are the co-hosts of the longest running sales training podcast in the history of sales training podcast.
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Yeah, kind of off game here a little bit, coming back from, you know where I was this weekend?
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Fishing.
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Were you really?
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I went fishing with my son, Sam.
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We went down to Isle Morada.
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And you go dolphin fishing, not for dolphin.
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Oh, really?
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Like the dolphin that you see at SeaWorld.
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That s good.
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We re very well cared for, by the way.
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You should go to SeaWorld.
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Exactly.
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How long until SeaWorld is just out of business?
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It s like a trout pond.
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It s not going well.
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Turn it into a trout pond.
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But no, we caught mahi-mahi, dolphin fish.
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And they re just so fun to catch, really fun to catch, fun to eat.
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We brought home like 13 pounds of fish.
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It s really great.
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Does he like fish?
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It was good.
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Oh, yeah, yeah.
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Yeah, he s really good.
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He loves two fish.
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That helps.
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That s really, really good.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, what are they going to do with SeaWorld?
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I feel like there s never good press with SeaWorld.
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Well, when 60 Minutes, wasn t 60 Minutes there over the weekend or something?
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Oh, they were?
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I saw some article or some TV show that was going to interview the former head, the killer whale trainer.
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OK.
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I know they re all about conservation stuff, but there s a party that s like, can we just let these guys go?
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Free Willy.
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I know.
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Come home.
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But see, this has been going on for 20 years.
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I know.
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Was it Blackfish?
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Was that the name of the documentary?
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I don t remember.
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It was a documentary called Blackfish.
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Travis assures me that was the name of it.
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So this is not a new thing.
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But it s like, how have they stayed in?
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Their PR must be really good, their marketing, who have stayed in business for that long.
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And people just let it keep rolling.
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So I had something happen to me here a couple weeks ago.
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I got a, a friend of mine is looking to get his marriage annulled, Catholic church.
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He got married when he was, I don t know, 1920 and he hasn t been, hasn t got divorced at 25 and he s 63.
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So it s been 40 years.
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And so I got this, he asked me to serve as a witness or whatever.
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So I got this 18 page, 18 pages.
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It s a big deal.
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of questions about my relationship with him, his relationship with his former wife, his relationship with his parents, his parents  relationship with each other.
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I mean, some of these things, it s like, oh, come on.
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And as I got further into it, I got snippy.
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Oh, did you?
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I got a little snippy with their questions, with the answers.
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Mike, on one of these, it said, was he treated any different than his brothers or sisters?
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And my answer was, how would I know that?
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Question mark.
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Do you think that s?
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And I actually saw him later, and he said, yeah, probably not a good idea to get snippy.
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That s probably not a good.
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It depends.
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Well, as the resident Catholic on the show here.
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Well, that s why I brought it up.
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You d have a comment.
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Yeah, it s a big deal.
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It s a really big deal in the eyes of the church and the people going through the process.
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And I know it s a very interesting, heavy deal there.
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And if you re not in it, you can kind of see, like, what are we doing here?
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Which might be one of the reasons that our attendance is down a little bit.
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I don t know.
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See if we had a different experience.
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And then I noticed that your answers are all on a piece of paper.
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They re all written out too, right?
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They are written out.
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The other option, they said, in the instruction manual was to take them and rewrite them on your own word processor and then answer them, key it in, which I wasn t going to do because a lot of my answers are just one word answers.
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They get more snippy as you go.
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They get a little snippier.
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In fact, I started to pontificate a little bit.
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He talks about how did he express his anger?
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And I said, I recall that when he would get down, he would use humor to get out.
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Shouldn t we all have some kind of vehicle?
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I m like preaching.
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How did God express his anger?
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How about that?
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And then the other thing that happened to me, like the same week I got this, I got summoned, not summoned, but inquired for jury duty.
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And what they do now, I didn t know this, is they sent the piece of paper and said, would you agree?
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And I said, yes, because you kind of have to.
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And then they send you another 15, 16 page questionnaire on an actual case.
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Did you know they did that?
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No, I didn t know that.
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Well, there was a guy in southern Indiana right near where you grew up.
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Oh who went into a house?
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Kill killed a person raped the woman killed her and then ate her I know so now they start talking about this case.
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That s being I assume it s being Changed the jurisdictions changed up to Hamilton County.
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Yeah, and
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And would you give a person leniency if they did this, and then they did this, and then they ate her, if you knew the person had emotional problems?
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And I m like, and all these questions.
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And finally, I started to get snippy with that, too.
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Don t send me a survey longer than five pages.
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If he ate her, would you think he had emotional problems?
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I m going to go out on a limb and say, mm-hmm.
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Wow.
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I didn t hear about this.
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That s crazy.
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It was five years ago.
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Smokies.
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So it s been smoking around.
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So I will keep you updated if I get it.
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Wow.
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I should bring those questions.
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Because then they start to get into, what is your philosophy on the death penalty?
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And I m like, I m just sitting here Saturday night, minding my own business.
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Now I ve got to pontificate on the death penalty?
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Trying to find a couple of podcast ideas.
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Try some peace.
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Yeah, right.
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That s the deal.
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Hey, before we dig into our listener-inspired topic today, I ve got a question for you.
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Do you ever wish?
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You could have done more this month, but just didn t have the times or tools or processes.
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OK, we are going to take a listener-inspired question here today.
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And it s something we ve talked about in the past.
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It keeps coming up, though.
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So Bill and I are just going to riff on it.
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It s not like a plan, like we sometimes do three things, three things.
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We re just going to pontificate.
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And the gist of the question is very simple.
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You re talking to a prospective buyer, and everything s going great.
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You re getting lots of yeses and nods.
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And then it goes somewhere else, to a committee, up the chain to the boss, or something like this.
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And then you get stuck.
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And you don t know whether or not you should go over the person s head.
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That s what we always hear.
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Should I go over their head?
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Or we say, should I go around them to try to get this deal closed?
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That s really the question on the table.
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And so we re just going to riff a little bit on this subject, because it comes up.
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We ve done podcasts about this in the past.
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But because it keeps coming up, I think we need to keep giving it some energy.
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And the whole grand question is, when I get in that situation, should I go over someone s head?
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Should I go around them to get to the person who s stalling and where it s stuck?
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So you want to riff a little bit?
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You want me to go first?
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Well, my first question is whenever these kinds of things come up and I start to struggle with the answer, which I always do here because I always feel like, well, it kind of depends.
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I mean, it kind of depends on the relationship you have with these people inside the client base.
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And I always ask myself, are we asking ourselves the right question?
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Is this really the right question?
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Because when we re not, then we ll struggle with an answer, and you and I will talk for 15 minutes, and then everybody will leave sort of less than satisfied.
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So I would like to first discuss that with you, is if you think this is really the question that is going to help the most people.
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How do I get around somebody?
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doesn t seem like.
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Can I ask a different question?
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Absolutely.
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That s good, because that got my brain.
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That s a really good thing to do here.
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So what I would ask a different question is, how do I manage my sales process so this doesn t happen?
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is maybe a little better question than how do I stay out of it.
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How did I get in this position?
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How do I get in there?
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Yeah, exactly.
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Let s explore that for a minute.
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So how do we, what parts of us get into the situation up front?
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My first thought is we ve all got to realize, and I ve said this over and over, I get real in a training room when I m with people live.
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I m very, very heavy duty on this.
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You ve got to stop thinking about the decision maker.
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You can t say the decision maker anymore.
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It does not exist.
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It s not a person.
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It s not a human.
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Everyone, they re looking for it.
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We ve got books that talk about it, selling to Vito.
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Good book back in the day.
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I just don t think it s relevant anymore.
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We ve got to get out of that mindset.
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And we ve got to get into the mindset that all deciding is a process.
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And that s all it is.
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And the people are in the process.
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So you have to stop looking for the decision maker, bosses.
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I m talking to you, sales managers.
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Quit asking yourself.
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salespeople, well, who s the decision maker?
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I hear it all the time.
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You can t do that.
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Because this is what happens.
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It s a lazy default.
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It is.
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It s a lazy default.
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Yes.
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Yeah.
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Because then we think if we magically know and get to that person, we re going to get the deal.
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And that s not the case either.
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Cause you know, cause you re going to have influence from other people.
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So even if you re the, well, he s the one whose name is going to be on the check.
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Exactly.
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Other people can enhance a deal and make it better or odds go up or, you know, blow it up on you.
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Yeah.
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And we re not saying not to call on that person or to only call on the downed people.
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We re just saying that it s never one.
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It s a process, like you said, Brian.
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It s a process.
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I want to know what it is.
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But here s one question that I have for you.
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And this came from, is it OK if we say his name?
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Yeah, of course.
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OK, Julian sent this in.
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Yes, correct.
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And he actually was nice enough to send us a voice memo.
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He did.
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Are we going to play that or not?
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I don t know if we ll have a snippet.
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It s kind of long.
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So yeah, but Julian s the CEO.
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Well, he didn t say his name.
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Yeah, but he had a really good question about this and So here s my question.
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Mr. Julian.
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Hmm.
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Why are you not in the decision process?
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Oh
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Why is it that we abdicate all this control?
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Maybe that s not the right word.
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I wanted so bad today to use that word, abdicate.
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Abdicate.
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Yeah.
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It s the abductors and the abductors.
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What is to abdicate?
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To give over, isn t it?
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OK, I don t know.
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If I abdicate my crown, I don t know.
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If it s not the right word, you guys look it up and point me out synonyms.
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I don t watch the show.
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Is it a simile to Bend the Knee from Game of Thrones?
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Do you watch Game of Thrones?
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No, I do not.
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I don t either.
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But I know there s something there about bending the knee.
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Yeah, so when since when do we abdicate control give up control to the prospect?
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So we re in there trying to get the decision.
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Well, wait a minute.
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You re a human being You are you re the one that s bringing value to this equation There are the ones that are upset because they don t have the right vendor I think the Julian said this in the which we didn t say but they re not real happy with the incumbent and
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And so why is it that we are always the ones who are having to go through the motions and say how high when they say jump?
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Why don t you, Julian, have some say in the decision process?
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Maybe if you said to them, look, if I can t meet with the executives here, I m out of here.
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Yes.
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To which Julian would say, well, you just can t say I m out here, because this is a big, well, you know what?
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You don t have it now.
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You do not have it now.
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You ve tried to work with them.
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It sounds like he s sold them maybe some little stuff over the years.
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So what do you have to lose?
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You ve got nothing to lose, because you have nothing now.
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You don t.
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You ve got nothing.
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You re a zero, Julian.
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Do you remember the movie Meatballs from the late 70s, early 80s, a long time ago.
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It was with Bill Murray.
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But he s at the summer camp, and there s the kids who are kind of like the normal, kind of how I grew up, just a little below middle class or middle class-ish.
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And there s the camp with the fancy kids who get picked up in limos and stuff.
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And he goes through this big thing.
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He s doing this pep talk before this big contest between the camps.
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And he keeps telling them, it just doesn t matter.
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It just doesn t matter.
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It just doesn t matter.
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That s his saying.
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And so they use that to beat this other camp and all these camp games.
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But it just doesn t matter.
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That s the thing to take away from that movie is, you re right.
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It doesn t matter.
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If you talk to him, don t talk to him.
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If you get the deal, you get the deal.
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You got to realize life s going to carry on.
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So you have nothing to lose.
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We got all wrapped up in this stuff like, well.
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No kidding.
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And then you want to hurt the feelings of the person.
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I m jumping over.
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Why would you?
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I mean, I m not saying don t care about people s feelings.
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That s not what I m saying.
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But I m saying if your intentions are good, you proceed forward with the process, which is to get everyone s input and perspective.
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So it gets back to your, and we don t have too much time here yet left, but the notion of what s the sales process from this point up to this point.
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And I think that s one thing that s worth taking a look at.
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And maybe we could do another episode on that.
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But this idea of if our sales process is all wrapped up in us convincing and persuading and trying to get a deal, we re never going to be able to walk.
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We re never going to be able to detach because we re going to be too invested and enslaved in the outcome.
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Correct.
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It doesn t work.
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You see what happens.
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This happens.
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This happens all the time.
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So just release all that stuff and let that all go.
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Get your intentions square.
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And then you re free to do whatever you want to do and say whatever you want to say.
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And then you re not going around people and not going over people s heads.
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I m acting out of the goodness of you and them and everybody else.
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Exactly.
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It s not an ego thing.
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It s not a personal thing.
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I just want to get everyone s input that s going to move this thing forward and get it to a decision, a yay or a nay.
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But when we don t have that mission or that intention, all this other stuff starts to enter into the fray.
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Well, Brian could be mad, but what is he going to say?
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Well, you know what?
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They have lunch every day.
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I better do it on Tuesday afternoon after they have lunch so it s a week before.
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Oh, come on.
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No, you can t.
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So in Julian s question, he mentioned the fact that he s a startup, I think.
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So there s the attachment part.
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I m the startup.
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I m the only salesperson.
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There s where attachment comes from.
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I don t want to let this stuff go.
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I m telling you, once you learn to let it go is when it all comes together.
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Exactly.
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And so if Julian s listening and hearing us kind of
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Get after him a little bit.
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Yeah, this will help.
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I mean this approach will help you get the business It s not that this approach will force business away.
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This is exactly what you need to do It is because the customer doesn t know that you re a startup and doesn t know that you re trying to figure out a way to make payroll they don t look all they care about themselves and hiring a vendor that seems like they re really good and solid and strong and
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Yep.
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If you want to bring Brian, Neil, or Bill Kasky, or both of us, into a sales retreat, sales meeting, sales workshop, we are game for that.
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We re starting to book fall right now.
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Jeez, we re in June.
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It s time.
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And so fall s a good time for those kinds of things.
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So send us an email to listener at advancedsellingpodcast.com.
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Subject line, come see us, or some version of that.
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And we will be in touch with you.
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I m going to be down in southern Indiana.
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this week and working with a team of people.
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I ll report back when I get back.
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They re really good podcast listeners.
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A lot of really good people down there, it sounds like, and I ve talked to a few of them.
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So we ll see you next time.
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Sounds good.
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Bye.