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In this episode of the Advanced Selling Podcast, Bill channels his favorite radio DJ.
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I then challenge all aspiring DJs to take the I Need a Lover Challenge, and we offer a glimpse into a brand new program we re offering by tackling the age-old problem about commoditization.
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Welcome back to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast on planet Earth.
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I m Bill Kasky.
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I m Brian Neal here.
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And you know we come to you every Monday, every Monday.
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And we ve about ready to put the finishing touches on 2017, my friend.
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Isn t that crazy?
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Do you know when I always give my wife static about she listens to this one radio station here in town.
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It doesn t matter what it is.
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It s kind of a throwback to some of the more progressive rock stations back from years ago, but with this guy in the morning, and I know this guy, and he s a really good guy.
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Here s the way, here s the way every song starts.
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So, comes out of a commercial and then the intro to the song.
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Hey, this is Bill Kasky back at WTW2T and we are going, the weather today, 35 degrees, looking for a high of 39.
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It s gonna be a little cloudy, so you might wanna take a jacket and it s gonna be loading at 25, so if you re going out to a game, you better make sure you wear a heavier coat and Turkey Day s coming up here in the next couple days and you better
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Better make sure you don t burn yourself on the turkey.
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And here s a new song from Fleetwood Mac.
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And then he tries to hit the vocal, but it s always the weather.
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It s always the weather every time.
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We had this contest.
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We ve talked about this, I think, on the podcast.
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Talking up the vocal.
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That s called The Hook.
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Right?
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Where you hit the hook is where the music starts.
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There s a lot of ways to say it.
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Yeah.
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And so the song by John Mellencamp, I Need a Lover, is 221 to the hook.
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I know this.
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221.
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Doug Drozen, fact check me on that.
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Music doesn t start, I Need a Lover by John Mellencamp until 221.
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And if you try to fill 221, that s the test.
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Well, and that song, there s a lot of faux starts, too.
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You think he s coming in.
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You re right.
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Yeah, it s good.
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That s funny.
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But it s like, why do we always really go back to the weather?
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We always default to the weather.
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When I got the weather here, I don t need, you know.
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Average high today is 50 degrees.
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We re going to be well below that, too, in the high 20s.
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You ll need a jacket tomorrow, too.
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I don t like them telling me what to wear.
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God bless them though.
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My parents, you know, they re retired now and the rumors are true.
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It s all about the weather.
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That s all they talk about.
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And they re talking about snow storms in February already.
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It s like, well, I don t know if we can drive up in February.
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I m like, why not?
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I mean, it s weather.
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I mean, it just gets really bad in February.
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It s icy.
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And I m like, it s in February and it s December.
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Anyway, I love my parents.
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Oh, that s funny.
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Okay.
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Well, part of what we re always trying to do here at the Advanced Selling Podcast is give you topics and curriculum, if you will, that helps you look at the world in a new way.
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And sometimes it requires you to look at yourself in a new way.
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And we ve got a topic today that we believe is going to be helpful.
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Now, one of the things that we re going to be doing over the next few days, you re going to hear something from us here at the Advanced Selling Podcast.
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And assuming that you have either downloaded something from us recently, or you re on the LinkedIn group, or you re an app user, or you re on the email list in some way, you will be getting notification of a brand new solution that we re going to be offering.
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Today s podcast is kind of taking some of the problems that we believe exist in the market and fleshing them out a little bit.
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We re going to give you some advice, too.
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But one of two things, you re either going to really like what we say today and feel like it applies to you directly, or you re not.
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And if you re not, it still might be helpful, but it s not going to be as helpful as it is for those people who say, man, I ve got to make some changes here.
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Yeah, you should really listen to this episode with a real open mind and a high level of self-awareness to think, OK, is this something that I really think can catapult me into 2018?
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Because we know for a vast majority of our audience, the answer there will be yes.
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For some of you, because of the nature of the topic, it may not apply.
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You may already be really good at this idea.
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Either way, as Bill mentioned, we re calling that our inner circle, the people that are in the LinkedIn group.
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that we have your email address from our product.
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We call it the Inner Circle.
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We re gonna have an announcement about a new program that speaks to today s topic specifically.
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That announcement s coming on December the 6th.
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So for those of you not in the Inner Circle, it d be a good time to get in.
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But before we start, we ve got a quick announcement from our good friends at stamps.com.
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You know the U.S.
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Postal Service is an important tool for any business reaching every household every day.
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Stamps.com, though, is the easiest way to access all the amazing services of the post office.
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Stamps.com brings all the amazing services of the U.S.
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Postal Service right to your fingertips.
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You can buy and print official U.S.
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postage for any letter, any package, any class of mail using your own computer and printer.
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Stamps.com makes it easy.
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They send you a digital scale, which we love here at the Advanced Selling Podcast.
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Automatically calculates the exact postage.
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Stamps.com will even help you decide the best class of mail based on your needs.
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No need to lease an expensive postage meter, no long-term commitments.
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I use Stamps.com here at the podcast because it s easy, it s simple, and it s much less expensive and more hassle-free than going to the post office.
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Right now, you can enjoy the Stamps.com service, special offer, four-week trial, plus postage, and a digital scale.
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Go to Stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage, and type in Advanced Selling.
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That s Stamps.com.
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Enter Advanced Selling.
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So we re going to call this topic the silent killers of commoditization.
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And what we mean by that is there are things that are crushing our spirits in the market and causing us to be commoditized.
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And we ve defined commoditization for you in the past, but here it is again.
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It s the thing that happens or the things that happen in the market that make you look like everyone else.
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And when you look like everyone else, you get treated like everyone else.
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And that s not always positive.
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You don t get a chance to charge a 40% premium or a 90% premium or a 5% premium.
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Everything gets down to price.
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So commoditization is a huge problem.
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And we re going to give you three or four things each that we think lead into that.
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That s good.
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Yeah.
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And as you re listening to this, most of you are in some element of a business where that is the case.
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Now, some of you may not be.
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Some of you might be.
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Bill, I don t know if you have any clients in this world, but they have very low competition, very low pressure from competition.
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Price is never an issue.
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No, most people have something.
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Some of you may not be so much, but probably not, that there s some element of this going on.
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It s a good move, though.
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You like that?
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Yeah.
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We know better.
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It s kind of like the move when you go to download something online, and a pop-up box comes up and says, yes, I d like my free report, or no, I m happy with business the way it is.
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I am a deadbeat dad, and I have no interest in it.
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I embrace the status quo.
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I actually like to go backwards before I go forward.
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That s right.
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But this is an issue for everyone.
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So as you re listening to this, we re going to take a different approach, though.
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I think in the past, everyone has tried to fix this problem with technique and tactic in the sales conversation.
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And Bill and I are taking a completely different approach to helping you fight this pulldown to commoditization.
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I love the word silent killer, too, because this is one of those deals that is creeping on us, and we don t know it s creeping on us until it s too late.
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And there are things that we can do, and the things Bill and I are going to talk about in this and in the new program that we re going to tell you about coming up December 6th, both address these at a very, very deep level.
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So we ll go through a couple of these.
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Do you want to start, or do you want me to?
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Yeah, I ll start.
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The first one I have is actually more of an issue than anything else.
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And the biggest problem that I m seeing right now, because we have a lot of companies, not everyone s in the tech space, but there are a lot of technology companies and service businesses where it s kind of an economy shifting to service and tech versus manufacturing.
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Either way, it still applies here.
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And that the product is the brand.
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The product is the brand, not you as the salesperson as the brand.
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And so this is a fundamental change, I think, in thinking, because everyone listening, at some point in your sales career has been taught about the product and everything you re supposed to say about it and the feature and the benefit that s old and overused.
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But also, it s become a crutch for people.
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People have looked at it and said, I represent this product.
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And the good thing is they feel proud about that.
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The bad thing is that brand has replaced them as a salesperson s brand.
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And so you have to first step back from that and go, OK, no longer is my, quote unquote, brand my product.
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Or even the company I work for, my brand s got to be me.
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That s step one in this whole deal.
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And I ve got a client that I m working through with this.
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We re early on in the engagement.
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There is a young company, young people in the company.
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They re great to work with.
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They re very open to coaching things.
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And as I m analyzing what they put together on their own, it s really good.
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And what I m realizing is that it s very product focused.
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They re pushing.
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the brand that way.
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And we switched their presentation all up to make them the brand.
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And they just had their first big trade show since we did that.
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And they said the conversations were night and day.
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Yeah, that s awesome.
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Night and day.
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One person even at the trade show was listening to their story in the new way that we did it, in the way that you and I are going to teach in this program.
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And they had CFO, COO, and this other person.
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And the VP of HR looks at the CFO and says, did you bring the checkbook?
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because they wanted to buy it there at the trade show.
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I m like, that s really good.
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That s a connection.
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And it s all because they started looking at their brand differently, not at the product, but as the story and the things we re going to talk about.
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So what would be an example of a situation a person would be in as a listener that wouldn t work?
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where they are not the brand.
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And it s not even fair to try to make yourself the brand because you re just not.
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I mean, is there a?
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It s really hard for me to go there.
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I m just so hell-bent on this personal branding.
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It s just really hard.
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The only thing I can think of is if I m able, like Amazon,
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You know, like if I m selling things direct to consumers, one, there s no salesperson there usually involved or something.
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Yeah, but it s hard for me to think of.
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I don t know.
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I would think that if you as a sales professional are not bringing any value at all, like if the Amazon person calls you to make sure that you ve received your shipment, they re still bringing a little bit of value.
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But if you re in a sales role where you are obscure, you re hidden in the back room, nobody knows your name, and you re not at the cheers bar.
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Then maybe you don t have a place for a personal brand.
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I thought of one, or a version of one, a couple.
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If the vast majority of your business is calling on government entities, if you sell to the government, we ve got a lot of companies that do that.
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They sell to the government.
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I think that would be a place.
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And then just below that might be if you re selling to really, really major manufacturers who have really stringent requirements around RFPs and purchasing and stuff.
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then your brand is highly, highly diluted.
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So if that s your deal, yeah, maybe not as much.
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Still, though, it s going to impact.
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I still, even on the second one, I think the government, yes.
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But the RFPs, I still think that a human being at some point is making a decision, and they re taking into account the landscape of all the different options.
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Yeah, no doubt.
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OK, here s my first one.
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Yes, please.
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I think one of the silent killers of you being commoditized is when you feel like you have to sell when you show up.
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And what I mean by that is if someone looks in the yellow pages, I know the yellow pages aren t even around anymore.
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online.
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Somebody looks for somebody and they find them and they call you.
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Let s say you re the target of a call and they say, hey, tell me a little bit about your company.
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I m interested in this product and tell me what your company does and what your price is.
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I think you are now in a position where you have to sell.
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And I want you to get out of that.
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We want you to get out of that feeling like you have to sell and convince and persuade.
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And the way you ll do that is to have a brand, personal brand, that s out there in the world that s telling your story.
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Sells for you.
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for you so that when you get the call, they say, Brian, you know, I ve read some of the stuff you ve done and I ve heard a lot about you and I ve listened to the podcast.
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I want you to come over and talk to us about our sales team.
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Yes.
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So it totally flip flops and flips the script on the traditional process.
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So if you find that
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Every time you show up, you re feeling like you have to sell and pitch and do all that stuff.
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Then you re being commoditized.
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You are.
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And you don t realize it.
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You don t realize it.
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If you re having to do any of that at all, there are so many ways.
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And Bill and I talk about this in this program we re going to tell you about on December 6.
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So many ways right in front of you that you already have started that you just need to enhance what you have already built and use it that totally change the game.
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Totally change the game.
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You ve got one more, and I ve got one more.
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Ready?
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Next.
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My story is average at best.
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My story is average at best.
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This was the shift.
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So the client that I just told you about, they had no element of story in their initial offering, presentation, pitch, demo, whatever name you want to give to that.
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And so I was fishing forward in the room.
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And they re telling me all this technical data and all this stuff.
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And then they went into a little bit of, even just a little bit, which we would teach here, like a little bit of client pain.
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Well, they re frustrated by this.
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And it wasn t working for me.
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Finally, the president of the company, she goes, she s talking about one of their customers and said, this guy, this customer, who s one of our best customers, made my mom cry.
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I m like, what do you mean?
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He s like, she did everything he asked for, and he would yell at her because he couldn t get the stuff that he wanted the way that it was happening.
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And I m like, OK, freeze.
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That s the story.
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Now they open now with a picture of the founders.
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That s the first slide, is a picture of the four founders standing there.
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And she tells the story about her mom crying from this customer.
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She said, everyone laughs, and they re in it.
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And I mean, it s a massive difference.
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Wow.
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So it connects.
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Totally connects.
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A whole different level.
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Totally, yes.
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And if you compare them, which we did, we put them up on the board so we could look at them.
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Like, here s what we started with, and here s where we are now.
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You re kind of like, I can t believe we even started there.
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But that s what people do.
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Their story is not refined.
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It s not personal, emotional.
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People can t go into it.
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That s a massive, massive problem.
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You know, you and I have, we share a client and I had a coaching call with one of the folks here last week and it kind of belies that too.
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It s the same thing.
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It s the story.
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They started to tell the story pretty well, but within 30 seconds they were off into here s why we re better than who they re currently using.
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And so when you do tell your story, finish it.
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Don t just start it, finish it.
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And in this program, we ve talked about on the podcast too, is come up with your story, write it out, script it out, and then you can always go back and modify and tweak and delete and critique and all that.
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But you need to have your story because you don t know when that s going to be used.
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And sometimes people say, well, but there s certain times I can t tell my story.
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Okay, but you gotta have it ready because you never know when you re going to need it.
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Okay, here s one I have, and that is begging for appointments.
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I think, remember, we talked earlier that commoditization means that you re doing what everybody else does.
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And I think what happens is when you start the relationship by begging, and I know people will say, oh, but Bill, I don t beg, I m strong, I don t beg.
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Well, there s a,
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there s a through line of begginess to people when they really want the business and they re in that convince and persuade mode.
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You may not know you re doing it, but there s that touch of it that comes across, even if it s just little things like, well, would you like me to call you next Tuesday at four, or would five o clock be a better time?
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Even though we say, well, that s just giving the prospect a choice, no, it s kind of beggy.
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So I think we have to,
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we have to get away from begging at any point during the sales process.
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Because if we do, if we get away from it, we will start to look differently than everybody else.
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And if we don t, we re just going to be like everybody else, because everybody else is begging.
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That s it.
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The problem is, if you ve got no personal brand to lean on, no one s going to want, when they see you reaching out for those appointments, they don t see anything different in your personal brand, which we talk about in this program, then they will dismiss you.
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They just do.
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And so the things that you and I talk about, I know that speaks directly to these things.
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So that when we do even try to get an appointment for the first time, the way that we do that s totally different than what we ve been doing, because we have all these assets to use in our personal plan.
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So as we said earlier, if this tickles you a little bit and intrigues you, then over the next couple of days, you, the insiders to our podcast, and presumably you are one.
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If you re not one, by the way, very simple way to do it is go to our Advanced Selling Podcast LinkedIn page and join the group.
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And now you ll be an insider.
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You ll get access to something very special on December the 6th.
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Yes.
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Yeah, that s the day to mark your calendar.
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So when you get the big news about this program that we re going to launch in the coming weeks, you need to be on that list.
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Insiders.
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All right.
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We will see you next week on the Advanced Selling Podcast.
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See you then.
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Bye.
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Bye.