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Welcome back to the Advanced Selling Podcast, the longest running sales training podcast in podcast history.
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I m Bill Kasky.
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Brian Neal here.
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And we love you guys.
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We are so appreciative of all the LinkedIn, the comments, the emails we get.
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It s an awesome group of people who listen to this.
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There s a place there you can download or sample some of the top 10, 15 episodes that we ve done over the past thousand years.
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And we love having you.
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And also, if you have not joined us on the LinkedIn group, make sure you go there.
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Let s see, it s advancedsellingpodcast.com slash LinkedIn, or just go on LinkedIn and look for Advanced Selling Podcast Group.
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Brian.
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Home office today.
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I m in my home office, not in my studio.
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You know why, don t you, Bill?
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I do not.
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Why I m in my home office and not in my home studio?
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Well, I m avoiding some traffic.
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something to do with the eclipse?
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Well, I m avoiding the traffic because we record our home bases in Indianapolis, Indiana, which, as you know, is in the path of totality.
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Today s eclipse day, and the United States has so aptly let us know over the past 14 or 15 months
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Today s eclipse day, so we are in the path of totality.
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It s really pretty outside, actually.
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It s going to be a really fun day.
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And I m a science geek.
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I love things like this.
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And I m kind of done.
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I m ready for it to be over.
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I m ready for it to be over.
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You re kind of done?
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That hasn t even happened yet.
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No, but that s the thing.
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I m ready for people to stop using the word totality.
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It sounds bad to me.
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Like, you re in the path of totality sounds like destruction.
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I ve never heard it.
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I ve never heard that.
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The path of totality?
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No, I ve never.
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I mean, you literally have not heard the path of totality over the past four every 10 minutes.
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I ve heard we listen to just not.
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Oh, my gosh.
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Then you are.
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God bless you.
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See, everyone listening is on my side.
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I guarantee it.
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Yeah.
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You re lucky that you ve been immune to this.
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If it s local news everywhere, like just Google, just Google path of totality.
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Essentially, what it means, what it says, the sun
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will basically be totally blocked by the moon.
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But the phrase, to me, path of totality sounds very ominous.
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It sounds like bad things are going to happen.
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And then I heard my stepson saying that he s 13.
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I m like, that s, you know, if the kids are saying it, we ve gone too far.
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And then the totality lasts, I think it s going to be four minutes and four seconds.
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He and his buddy were debating yesterday.
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Is it 3 o clock Eastern?
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Something like that.
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Yeah.
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Like three Oh three Oh four reason.
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I don t know.
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Yeah.
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It s, it s really cool.
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It s really fun.
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Go sit outside and watch it.
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And then it s also funny.
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Cause then you d be like all, you know, 400,000 people come and they sit down and then for about six minutes it gets dark and you re like, Oh my God, it s dark.
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It s like, it s dark.
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I can t figure out.
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And then since it s already happened, we ll move on to the topic.
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But thing I can t figure out is there s a whole lot of drama around where to watch it, but you can t watch it.
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So there s a whole lot of, well, you got to go to the island here.
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What about here?
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And so I get there and I m looking up and people were like, Oh no, you can t watch it.
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Well, what the hell am I doing here?
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Careful with this.
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Cause I know you ve had some eye issues.
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Um, you know,
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There are about, I would guess four to eight people out of 10 who are going to take a peek.
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Like, can you really not watch it?
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I m going to go ahead and just glance up there anyway, without my glasses on glasses.
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I know they re all saying you can t watch it, but I m just going to take a peek.
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I mean, surely it s not going to do that much damage to me.
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Well, the way I look at these things, it s like, um, it s like when, uh,
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someone says, oh, you can t let your, you can t let your kids, uh, you know, walk to the school cause it s a block away.
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And I always say, okay, have there been a lot of kidnappings in, in this area in the last 20 years?
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No, but you just never know.
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Well, the odds are they re going to be fine.
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That s what I wonder.
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I know there might be, I gotta be careful with this kind of stuff, but you know, I d like to meet the people like, like, so what happened?
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Well, the last eclipse I was, you know, I took the glasses off and I looked, I looked, I shouldn t have looked, they told me not to look and I looked and now here s where I am.
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Well, maybe some of my issues are because I looked at an eclipse.
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Really cool fun times and glad it ll be over when this episode
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release.
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So I thought, what could be an eclipse topic?
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And here s my topic unplanned.
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Bill has no idea what the topic s going to be.
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Salespeople tend to be optimistic by nature, don t we?
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We tend to be positive, sunshine oriented.
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And then here comes the moon.
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Here comes the darkness over the sunshine.
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And we don t like it.
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We want to move the darkness away as quick as we can.
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That s like the eclipse we move.
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And so we want the eclipse to end.
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We want the moon.
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So this is like, um, think about the, the idea of objections or resistance in the way that being the moon in front of the sunshine, we want it to be all warm and fuzzy and gray.
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And it got me thinking about, um, or do what s the best way to approach.
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um, uh, negativity in the sales process for salespeople.
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Cause I think there s a real issue with this.
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I think salespeople are, um, there s almost, uh, this would be a little heavy, like an epidemic of optimism in selling people are overly optimistic in selling.
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And I think it has us more harm than good.
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not only in how we approach customers, but also how we handle resistance with customers.
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We handle them in an optimistic, forward, positive way.
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Oh, yeah, we can do that.
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Here s how we overcome that.
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Here s how we fix it.
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Let s get to the sunshine.
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Let s get to the good.
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And I d love to get your take on that.
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So everything that we do, this is what I m interpreting here, everything that we do is
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Come through the filter the prism of optimism whether it s handling objections or whether it s taking an order or whether it s going out on a dinner with a dinner cruise with a client we re always in that optimistic state and you re feeling is sometimes that s not the state to be in absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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I had what prompted this a bit other than the clips that I ve been planning for.
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Yeah, that s a stretch, but go on.
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Since 79, since the last one, since October of 79.
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Great topic for a podcast.
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Yeah.
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In fourth grade, writing notes down, uh, like this would be a great podcast topic.
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Your friends were like, Oh, what are you talking about?
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My grandpa is 54.
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We were working on a pricing deal with one of my clients, and it was so interesting to see the rooms separate.
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The situation was basically a competitor.
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was, Oh, I can t do good math here.
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It was a two and a half X difference.
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Anyway, my client s competitor was two and a half X less than my client.
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Yeah.
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Point is aside from some, something with like majorly missing, we tap out, you move on.
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You can t touch that deal.
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You know what I mean?
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Like if we re at a million bucks and my competitors at, at three 30.
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Okay.
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I mean, unless there s a guy double check real quick, like, are we sure we re like apples to apples here, which we were, we re out.
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But half the room wanted to stay in like, well, let s let s demonstrate value.
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And I m like, no.
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So I m like, dang, these people like, what are you doing here?
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So
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thoughts on that.
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Yeah.
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I think it was the optimal thing.
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Let s try to get it.
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Let s make it good.
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And I m like, no.
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Or you hear the, well, we may not get this this time, but we ll build relationships for the next time.
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Right.
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I think you build a relationship by leaving.
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It s not naked.
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I m doing you a favor by exiting the process.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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And good.
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And I m also like good on the competitor to be able to figure that out, you know, and I don t know their math, but good for them.
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I m like, okay.
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Oh, they gotta be losing money.
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That s why they re buying the business.
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They re out of business.
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We want them to have that one.
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Yeah.
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I like the topic and I m, I m wondering sometimes if we look
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We re not looking accurately and realistically about these things because we think that these things are not in our favor.
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You know, we ve heard the saying before the kites rise against the wind, not with the wind.
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And when there is, when there is an objection, let s, let s take other than objection, other than just what you re talking about here, this two and a half times, but when there is an objection, we see that as a negative.
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And really the objection is a chance for us to rise and to
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And to get maybe the objection is a favor they re doing for us to help us get better at the sales process or the communication of the value.
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So if we look at it as a lesson to say, oh, you know what?
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They re objecting to our terms.
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OK, let s look at those.
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Let s not negotiate.
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Let s just look at what can we learn from that.
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Yes.
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And I don t think we do that enough.
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I think we see them as things to knock down, objections to things to knock down, move around, navigate around, overcome.
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I mean, just think of all the terms that we use.
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And I m not opposed to navigating around them, but sometimes there might be something, a lesson in there.
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See, that s really great.
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And how many times have customers taught us things like that?
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A lot of us deal with sophisticated customers who have just very good general business acumen that can apply to any company or any business or system.
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And look at our companies that we re working with and say, hey, have you guys ever thought about delivering your product this way or delivering this thing or doing your product in pricing terms that way?
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And instead of me just going, like, no, no, this is what we re doing.
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Here s why.
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And here s why you should buy it this way.
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Going to your point, like, hmm, that s interesting.
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Talk to me about that.
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What do you see in there?
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Yeah, right.
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Almost again, I m getting free consulting back from my prospective client.
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Yeah.
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And it feels really, I think the thing that, and I love what you said about the, and you didn t say this this way, but what it felt to me was it felt collaborative.
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And that s part of the other element of this, I think, that gets missing is there s this, this tit-for-tat ping-pong, we go back and forth.
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It doesn t feel like we re working with someone.
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If there is some negativity, if we, if the moon is in front of the sun, see, I m going to keep going back to that eclipse.
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The moon is in front of the sun.
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It s not, um, visualize this.
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They re pushing the moon in front of the sun and I m pushing it back out of the way.
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And we re both pressing on it back forth.
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It s not that we re moving it together.
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We re moving it together.
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You know, we re on both sides of it either way.
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Because I also, we added a step in our process at Blind Zebra, we actually just added a couple months ago, a step in the process called Yellow Flags on purpose, where we come with a list of potential things to get in the way of an engagement.
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And so does the customer.
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It s actually called Yellow Flags, football stuff.
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But, you
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And it just makes it so easy then.
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And everyone just talks about, you know, do we have the, you know, the capacity to implement a program right now, whatever the case.
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Yeah.
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And, you know, I hear a lot about the challenger sales, challenger selling, and I m not really all that equipped to comment on it, but
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I feel like, well, if we re going to bring up stuff that s uncomfortable, that s what we should be bringing up, or the yellow flags that happen in a deal.
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And we know what they are.
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It s, well, Bill, but we can t ask, how do you ask that?
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Come on, you ve been in business six months.
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You know what the hell they are.
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You know what the yellow flags are.
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And so rather than waiting for them to bring them up, why aren t we preemptive?
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We ve been talking about that for years, preemptive problem solving, preemptive strategy of bringing up the objection.
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You bring it up so they don t have to.
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You re doing them a favor.
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And when you bring it up, they feel like, oh, OK, well, this dude is being unbiased with me.
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He s being honest with me.
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And you are.
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Yeah, we have that in one of our, one of our guiding principles is objectivity.
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And I ll use the phrase down.
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I use this dorky phrase now that I drive it, you know, I drive a stick shift again.
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But I bought a car that s a manual transmission.
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Oh, cool.
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New one.
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So I downshift into emotionally neutral.
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I teach my clients that.
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Downshift into emotionally neutral so that I m just objective about this.
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Then I m not worried about it.
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It s just a thing, just a problem to solve with my customer or my client.
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That s all I m thinking about.
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And I agree.
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I think, back to what we talk about a lot on this podcast, is my intention.
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you have a duty to share with someone.
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Here s an example.
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If you re going into a new client, Bill, and you know, obviously, clients spend money to work with you.
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The second thing they spend though is time, and that s a thing.
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You have to say, is this a good time to do this?
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Are there other priorities in the business?
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Are they doing a new product launch?
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If they re doing a new product launch, this may be a bad time to do a program.
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Just talk about it.
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And if it is, we ll just wait until the fourth quarter to do it.
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Does it make sense to do that?
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It s just, just reasonable.
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Um, that s a bridge to, that s a bridge pretty far though, for people to, to, we re all driven by the, the monthlies and the quarterly numbers and the indicators, and we re looking for our pipeline, you know, everything, everything in our structure won t allow us to do what you just did.
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I m not saying it s right or wrong.
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I like your, I think you re exactly right.
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I teach my clients that too, but there s a lot of opposing forces there that are occurring, which are, we got to make the numbers this month.
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Our stockholders are waiting for this.
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Yeah, I know the customer should wait, but let s pressure them.
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Let s force them to buy by giving them a discount, reducing our margin.
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Let s get it in the door.
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I mean, you know, that happens all the time.
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Yeah.
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And you know what I think happens from there?
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They don t buy with a discount.
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And then we turn them off so much.
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They also don t buy in the fourth quarter, which they would have.
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And the fourth quarter gets here in a snap.
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That s the other thing people forget.
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I wouldn t want nothing more right now sitting here on April the eighth.
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I should know that because it s eclipse day.
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April the 8th, I would want nothing more than someone saying, we would, we want to commit to this for the fourth quarter.
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I ll take a fourth quarter deal a day all day long.
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Cause you know how many people are going to be chasing deals in the fourth quarter?
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And they re like, God, I wish you would have had one of these closed in April.
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Everybody, you know?
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It drives me nuts.
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But if you are unbiased and don t really care when they start or when they start to solve their problem, it allows for a much cleaner, clearer communication.
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There s not a lot of drama around it.
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It s not like you re trying to push them, like you said, away from the sun.
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They re trying to pull you up.
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There s none of that.
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You get out of that.
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And that s a more joyful process.
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But yet, I m just telling, I mean, you know this, there s just, there s a lot of forces that say, well, that s not going to work for us in our business.
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And I won t work, there are certain companies, in fact, I had to, I had to give this, had to fire a prospect before they even became a client, because they were bugging the hell out of me about
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You know, how many hours is this going to take?
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And I m like, well, you ve got a $4 million problem.
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What difference does it make how many fricking hours it s going to take?
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What if it takes 100 hours?
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Whoa, I spent 100 hours for $4 million?
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$400,000 an hour or whatever the numbers are.
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No.
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Okay.
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Then you re not a prospect for me.
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And they agree.
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And they said, okay, good.
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Goodbye.
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For everyone like that, there s two or three others that say, well, no, this is a big problem.
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We are willing to commit the time, but if you re not, like you said, it s time and money.
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It s Reese.
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There s one of two resource buckets.
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It s either time or money.
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Yes.
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And if you don t have the time that you re not going to trade, you got to trade time for money.
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And if you re not willing to trade the time, then you won t get the money.
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And no sales leader wants me to follow their sales team around with a GoPro camera for a week and play the tape back in front of them.
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No sales leader wants me to do that, I promise.
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And then have that sales leader tell you that my sales team doesn t have time to work with you, Bill Kasky.
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That s right.
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That s right.
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Whoever that person is, have them call me.
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I ll freaking follow their sales team around.
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We don t have time to work with Bill Kasky because we ve got, you know, we don t have an hour a week.
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I ll show you.
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Yeah.
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You re busy, busy sales team.
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That s good quality selling time.
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Four hour lunch on Friday, 10 to 2.
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God.
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Anyway, people have their head in the sand.
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They do.
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They do.
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So I think the lesson here for you listeners is to just think about your approach energetically first to optimism here.
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And when you re feeling these resistance points,
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downshift into emotionally neutral, emotionally neutral, and think about these things as objective elements.
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And I love what Bill said.
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These, these are gifts from our clients.
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What we have perceived in the past to be negative things,
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are really gifts.
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They really are.
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They can teach us something.
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They can keep us from getting a bad deal.
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And we need to be unafraid of them.
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Unafraid like we are unafraid of the eclipse.
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The sun will come out on the other side.
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We trust.
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I m not a big fan of reframing things to move away from the truth, but an objection might just be reframed as a question.
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And instead of, instead of hearing it as a stall, remember we used to talk about stalls and objections stall.
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I don t want to do this right now.
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And I, I object to, I object to you, Brian, Neil, I object to what you ve said.
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I object to your, maybe we just reposition.
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These are some questions.
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It s a Q and a all of selling just a Q and a one big fricking Q and a session.
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You ve got questions for me.
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I ve got questions for you.
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I m questioning you as to what your problems are, what you re trying to accomplish, what your vision is.
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Your question to me is this.
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Is this the right time?
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Just a Q&A session.
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Yeah, totally. 100%.
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It s funny you say that.
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Before we close, can I promote the book?
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We went back.
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I think we talked about this a couple of times.
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But go to 12boldmoves.com.
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I took some of the insider content from 2023, created a booklet for it.
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It s a 35-page book.
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There s a little fee to it.
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It s an e-book.
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But go to 12boldmovesbook.com, or I think it s in the show notes, and you ll get access to it.
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It s really good.
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I had a lot of really positive comments on it.
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So thank you.
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That s awesome.
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We like you.
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OK.
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See you next time.
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Cheers.