Are you holding yourself accountable to having those business conversations? If you look at
where you're struggling now, is it because you're in the morass of sales conversations
versus business conversations. You're listening to the audible Ready podcast, The show that
helps you and your teams sell more Faster. Will feature sales leaders sharing their
best insights on how to create a sales engine that helps you fuel repeatable revenue
growth. Presented by the team at Force Management, a leader in B to
B sales effectiveness. Let's get started. Hello and welcome to the Audible Ready
Sales Podcast. I'm Rachel Klett Miller. Joining me today is John Kaplan.
Hi, John, Hi, Rachel. Good to hear your voice. Yes,
yours too. And for those of you out there listening, we know
that you are still facing a lot of buyer scrutinies, skepticism, people tied
with budgets, hesitancy to move forward with large initiatives. Maybe your contacts don't
have this sign off power they used to have. You're having to make the
case to more finance professionals, maybe the CFO, maybe other finance office people,
and perhaps all of that has put you off a little bit and you're
struggling with adjusting. So today we're going to level set on what you need
to do to effectively maneuver through a landscape of increased buyer scrutiny, and we're
going to frame it around having business conversations versus sales conversations. Yeah, I
like it. Rachel, my dear friend and co host of the Revenue Builders
podcast, talks about needing to get above the noise, and twenty twenty three
was definitely in a lot of noise, especially in the tech sector. But
if you're still feeling it, if you're still experiencing buyer hesitation in the marketplace,
you're not alone. Because what I'm still hearing Rachel is there's increased competition.
That's a good thing, but there's increased competition, and there's more competition
on deals. They got to look at more people. There's remote managing and
selling, which we've been dealing with since the pandemic, but that sometimes exacerbates
itself from in difficulty or challenge, and you need coaching and development. That's
a skill as a leader and as an employee that you really utilize that remote
situation to your fullest advantage. We're hearing about longer and more complex sales cycles
that have still continued even into the new year. We're hearing a lot about
pressure on efficiency. Like there's a lot more talk about AI, there's a
lot more talk about the tech stack, there's a lot more talk about tools
that are improving efficiency. And again those aren't necessarily a bad thing. It's
just stuff that you're dealing with internal handoffs across customer facing functions. When there's
more and more people involved in a decision, there's more and more conversations taking
place, there's more and more handoffs of conversation taking place, and so the
need to really make sure that you have some continuity with these business conversations is
very, very important. And sales organizations are under intense scrutiny. There was
layoffs last year. It's not like to the days just coming out of that
pandemic where people were just adding sales reps everywhere and you really didn't have to
be accountable for productivity. And you know, those days, I don't think
they're ever coming back. So again, let's focus the conversations today, Rachel,
on how to utilize some of these challenges to our advantage by focusing on
business conversations versus sales conversations. Yeah, and when we think about that difference
between the sales conversations and the business conversations, there are some fundamental mindset shifts
that we need to make if we are going to have the type of conversations
that get around some of these challenges that we mentioned by our husbands increase scrutiny.
So talk a little bit about the mindset we need to have to be
successfully having business level conversation. Yeah, excellent. So for me, a
sales conversation is focused on product features and functions, you know, showing a
demo winning the deal, and as a result, that leads to frequent discounting,
no decisions. You're stuck in longer and lower rings in an organization where
sometimes these organizations at the low levels are crippled by what their bosses are telling
them to do. There's just so many things that need to be prioritizing.
Again, how do you raise above the noise? So, in contrast,
a business conversation is focused on solving customer problems, creating customer value, and
achieving the customer's desired outcomes. And then as a result, you're going to
be able to charge a premium for your goods and services, and you're going
to create urgency and you're going to get access to the economic buyer because you're
talking about things that they care about. So the question that remains is for
you just sitting there right now, in your car, on a walk,
on a treadmill, wherever you are, are you holding yourself accountable to having
those business conversations? If you look at where you're struggling now, is it
because you're in the morass of sales conversations versus business conversations. Yeah. Sometimes
we think we're doing a great job at having business conversations, like we feel
like, yeah, I got it, I got it, But if we
step back and really analyze it, we aren't or we're trying to have the
right conversations with the wrong people. So help us get our minds right,
John around key ways we can make sure we are holding ourselves accountable to having
these type of business conversations. Well, I think one of the first things
you have to do, Rachel, is you have to wake up in the
morning and believe your job is to do two things. Is to attach yourself
to the biggest business issues facing your customers, and it's to identify that different
diferentiation that's most meaningful to your customer where you can influence it into the decision
criteria. So attaching to big business issues and influencing your differentiation into your decision
criteria, this is how you should be waking up. Let's take it a
step further. If I really really want to understand what my customer is experiencing,
I have to think about my job in terms of what problems am I
solving for them? Not what features and functions am I providing for them?
What problems am I solving for them? And it's kind of an outside and
approach versus an inside out approach. Hang with me for just a second.
So the outside and approach is what problems do I solve with my goods and
services? Got to wake up in the morning and ask yourself that, and
you've got to believe. Okay, Now, how specifically does my technology does
my services? How does it solve those business problems? Okay? The next
thing I got to say about is how do I solve those problems differently or
better than my competition? Rachel, We've joked about it back in the PTC
days when I told you I almost got beat on a deal because the competitor
was so desperate at the end. They got the economic buyer to believe that
a blue screen that I was providing in my graphical user interface was not as
good as a green screen that they have been used to working on for thirty
years with a competitive product. And I got to tell you, it almost
stumped me. I thought it was a joke. Thank god, I caught
myself and I asked, when in doubt, ask a question. And I
asked the question, what problem does that create for you, mister missus economic
buyer? And they were kind of very open and honest, and they just
looked at me and said, I don't know specifically what the problem is.
I think they're probably a little resistant to change. But John, at the
end of the day, I'm not going to make them use your software that's
not going to work. I'm not going to be the scapegoat does the CEO
and say, you know, give them the opportunity to say you made us
get this software and it doesn't work it you know, it sucks or what
have you. So luckily Rachel went in doubt, I'm thinking about so what
I'm just sitting there. So what I'm thinking in my mind, I didn't
say it to the person, but in my mind, I'm like, so
what what I mean by that is? So, what what does that do?
What negative consequences? And I couldn't think of any for a blue screen,
So I asked him this just happened to be a hymn in this example.
So I asked the person. I said, mister missus economic buyer,
can you tell me specifically we talked about you don't know what problems it creates,
So I'm going to try to stack ring this criteria because I don't know
what problems that creates either. So I think it's just maybe just a little
hesitancy to move on to something new, and you know, and engineers in
this example, they're more hesitant to adopt new things. So we both agreed
on that, and I said, where would you put it on the prioritization?
And I reminded him our number one differentiator. I didn't say it was
our number differentiator, but I said their number one problem was they couldn't make
changes and have it reflected everywhere in their process. Rachel, so, can
you imagine having a group of engineers one working in you know, group working
in design and one working in manufacturing. Design makes changes and manufacturing can't manufacture.
Manufacturing doesn't go back to design and say, hey, we made these
changes, so we have to update the drawings and make sure that you get
it approved by the customer because we can't manufacture the way you drew up the
designs. So we made those changes. Well, ninety nine percent of the
time those changes were being happening in both design and manufacturing with neither one knowing
so what was happening. It didn't fit the specifications for the prototypes when it
would go back to customers, and customers, we'll reject them. So I
started to get confidence just in my mind, you know, I reminded the
customer about that problem that they have of not being able to make it a
change and have it reflected everywhere. So I just asked Rachel, I said,
can you tell me is that more important than green screen and the blue
screen? And he just looked at me, like with a big smile on
his face, and he said absolutely, kind of like, keep going,
keep going, we're building our case here. And at the end he just
paid me a really really cool compliment and he said mister Kappa, and I
wish we had more sellers like you guys. I wish we could differentiate ourselves
in the marketplace like you do. So what's the moral of the story.
You wake up in the morning, you attach the biggest business issues facing the
customer. You understand how your differentiation can be influenced in the decision criteria and
how that has a business impact on your customers. And when you're ready to
do that, by then talking about how you do it, how you do
it differently, what problems you solve, how specifically you solve them, how
you solve them differently or better, and where you've done it before. And
when you speak about where you've done it before, you speak about business results
that a company has been able to get. So, for example, in
this case, that company was able to reduce their time to market Rachel by
fifty percent. For a manufacturer, that's gold. It's gold. So you
got to wake up in the morning and believe that what you do for living
matters, that it has business impact. I know, I just talked a
lot there, Sorry about that. I'm kind of you know, I'm intense
about it. Like, if you don't believe, why should anybody else.
I think that's where you start. Yeah, and to your point, John,
this is the playbook. You just got to run the playbook, and
this is how you ensure and hold yourselves accountable to having business level conversations.
These are also the type of conversations that make it easier to make the case
to finance. I know that's something many of our sellers are finding themselves having
to do, probably more and more. So let's just kind of talk about
this topic with that, lens. What tips do you have for maybe a
just seeing the business conversation with finance or elevating the right components when you're talking
to finance. Well, the reality is today our opportunities are being scrutinized,
way closer than they've ever been in the past. Twenty twenty three was it
really started there and it's just continuing. There's just some good hygiene around.
Let's make sure that we understand. Let's talk about what hasn't changed. Let's
make sure that we understand the changes or the impacts to revenue, to cost,
and to risk. That's as old as dirt. I don't care where
you're selling, what you're selling, what time period you're selling in in history,
revenue cost and risk from a financial perspective have always been criteria. So
we have to understand how to speak about what we do for a living in
ways that impacts customers revenue cost and risk. So if you're going to talk
to a finance person, you better talk about that at their level. You
get delegated to those that you sound like. So many people make the mistake
Rachel going into a financial organization, going into a financial buyer of financial contact
and talking to them about the features, about the use, about the differentiation
of the technology. You get delegated to those that you sound like. They
don't want to hear that. Financial people want to talk about revenue cost and
risk. Right, So that hasn't changed, and it's just more intense.
Now. What has changed a little bit is budgets are not the budget.
Budgets are tight, budgets are scrutinized, But when people have business issues that
are so intense that something bad can happen in the business itself, people will
find budget money. So this is what I love about the times that we're
in right now. There's huge scrutiny on spending and requests and company initiatives and
there's huge spending on that, but there's so much more scrutiny, and I
think the way that you raise your ability in these areas is be confident and
convicted about the business impact of your solutions, which means you got to understand
the business problems and here you have a platform and finance to really talk about
it from a revenue, cost and risk perspective. Remember in a lot of
episodes, Rachel, we talk about economic buyers making sure you know they have
really three things in mind. How much, how soon and how sure?
How much is this going to cost us? How soon are we going to
get a return? And how sure are we that we can get that return
with our people? And why can't we do this internally? Like, you
have to have answers for these things when you talk to financial people because that's
their language. So making sure do you quantify the benefits? You're speaking to
risk mitigation, You're focusing on ROI and long term value. You're sharing case
studies and references which highlight the business value of your solution, not features and
benefit. That's powerful, but that's not how you want to talk to a
financial person. You want to talk to them about those features and benefits turned
into great financial impact on revenue, cost and risk, and then just being
prepared to adjust your financial models to make them aligned to how your customer wants
to buy, like our customers are changing man last year in our podcast,
we talked to so many companies that so many companies are moving to a consumption
model versus a subscription you know, or perpetual license. Why why are they
doing that? Because that's where their customer is. Because a customer only wants
to pay for when they turn the light on and when they turn the light
off. Well, you've got to be aware of that and you have to
be able to adjust your financial go to market models, adjust your financial models
for your products and services which align to how your customer wants to buy.
In the end, you got to meet your customer wherever they are. So
those are some critical things, Rachel, I think we need to consider when
you know, having a financial focus, that we have to make sure that
we deliver for I think in twenty twenty four you're going to have a lot
more conversations. Well, I hope you have a lot more conversations with financial
people. If you're not having more conversations with financial people, you might be
in trouble. One last thing, Aunt Rachel I like to encourage people go
early to finance, not late. Go early to finance and get advice.
Everybody loves to give advice for Rachel. So you go early to finance and
you get in it, you get advice. Your champion can get you there,
if they're truly a champion, they can get you there. If you
go late, most times you're not going to be able to talk to the
financial people. And the only thing they're going to do is they're going to
critique your proposal. Why because that's what they do for a living. When
I talk to financial people, that's what they hate about the job. People
throw stuff on their desk with no qualification, no quantification, no understanding of
the business impact, no understanding of where the budget money is going to come
from. They're just, you know, they're putting the burden on the financial
people to go find the money. That's not how it works in the real
world. In the real world, you put together a financial justification, and
you put together that financial justification, and you talk about how to structure that
financial justification early with your financial influences, and then you will get advice.
If not. You're going to get critique, and there's a whole heck of
a lot more critique coming in twenty twenty four. Yes, that's for sure
to some of the points that you made. What you're really trying to do
here is build certainty in the purchase for the financial office, right. You
want to position it so they have certainty that they're going to increase revenue,
decrease costs, or mitigate their risk quick couple plugs. We have done some
great events talking about selling to the CFO, so I will link them in
the show notes. We have a great Revenue Builders episode with Murray Demo,
who has been a CFO multiple times. We shared some great perspective in that
conversation. And then on a center we did a live event with Jim Kellerer.
Yeah, he was the CFO of DRE. That was our largest attended
online event, wasn't it. Yes it was, And it's such a good
conversation and he has a lot of gems there for you all as salespeople.
So check out those two links in the show notes. And you know,
John, we started this conversation talking about the importance of having business conversations versus
sales conversations and if you do that right, all these other nuances that are
going to show up in your deal making, the case to finance, selling
to multiple decision makers, building the collective. Yes, all of that is
going to become much easier if you have that business conversation rather than the sales
conversation. So as we leave, leave us with the bottom line. Yeah,
so you did awesome on that right. So that was a really really
good recap. So at the end of the day, I think we just
would be we're ready, and we prepare ourselves and we know we're responsible for
a couple of things when we wake up in the morning. I have to
wake up this morning and know that I have I have to attach myself to
the biggest business issue facing a customer. I don't have to be the sole
solution for that business issue. I have to be attached to it in some
way. I have to use language that attaches me to it. I've got
to get people emotionally connected to that attachment. This is what e lead sellers
are doing right now. And the other thing that I have to do is
I have to ask great discovery questions, which helps me set the stage for
positioning my differentiation, and my job is to get that differentiation influenced into the
decision criteria. I can't tell a customer this is what your decision criteria can
be, but they can tell themselves that's what it can be. And by
the way, nobody argues with their own conclusion, So when you ask questions
that get people to their own conclusion, it's going to be their idea,
not yours. That's what e lead sellers do. So the power of discovery.
And then when you're ready to speak about what you do for a living,
make sure that you talk about the problems that you solve. Make sure
you talk about how specifically you solve those problems with your goods and services.
Make sure you understand how you solve it differently or better than the rest of
the world and the competition out there. And then be prepared to talk about
where you've done it before, with great proof points, with great testimonials which
speak to the business impact of your goods and services. And I think if
you do that, you're going to have just an outstanding not only year,
you're going to have an outstanding career. That's awesome. Let's go, thank
you, John, Let's go all right, Thank you to all of you
for listening to the Audible Ready Sales podcast. Check out the show notes.
At Force Management, we're focused on transforming sales organizations into elite teams. Our
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Our strength is our experience. The proof is in our results. Let's get
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