So let's work together to make sure that every time you and I talk and
everybody else we talked to in your organization, together, everything we're talking about
attaches back to the business outcomes. Otherwise you will have wasted a lot of
time, and your CFO or was ever making that decision, is going to
push back hard. You're listening to the Audible Ready Podcast, the show that
helps you and your teams sell more faster. We'll 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 Enforce Management, a leader in B to B
sales effectiveness. Let's get started. Hello, I'm Rachel clap Miller. Welcome
to the Audible Ready Sales Podcast. I'm joined today by the Brian Walsh.
Hi Brian, Hello, Rachel, so Brian. Today we are going to
tackle three common sales challenges as I love this topic. Yes, this is
a good one. I was really excited when you sent me this one.
This was good. Good, good those of you listening. As you can
imagine, we get a lot of sales execution questions. They come in through
social Brian will get him on LinkedIn. He gets them when he's doing his
trainings, and often there's some repetition in what people are asking. So I
thought we would tackle three common sales challenges right now and have Brian kind of
run through his best practices for dealing with them. And as you can see,
he's very excited, and we're going to get started all right now.
You've always decided to do podcasts with you. I didn't want you to think
I'm not right. No, I know, I know the excitement is real,
it's there, But today I know we like this topic. So let's
get started. The first one. We've all been in this situation. You're
late to an opportunity, the buyer is farther along in their decision process,
and you would like you've got to back it up. You've got to reassess
the situation. Brian, let's start with this one. How do you get
your buyer to rethink the way they're attempting to solve their problems? And then
you know, consider you okay, great question. I think the first thing
you do, and you know our friend day Day, it's his line,
make yourself equal before you make trying to make yourself better. So I think
the most you have to do is be comfortable acknowledging where the customer already is.
There's nothing wrong with that that I think at least then puts you on
some even ground where you can start to then maybe get them to think a
little bit differently about things. And the first thing you've got to do to
do that is be able to present a perspective on either the problem they're trying
to solve or outcomes that maybe they haven't thought about yet, or from the
problem or outcome side, at least taking where they are to another level.
Right, Maybe they haven't thought about those problems deeply enough. Maybe they haven't
thought about who else is impacted by those problems, or what are the consequences
of those problems? Right, there's pain associated with what's happening, or otherwise
they wouldn't be bothering to look at it. But there are probably additional consequences
or implications if they don't solve for those things really effectively. There's outcomes the
same way. Have we thought about those outcomes from multiple perspectives, not just
maybe you who's looking at technology, but the business buyers, right, the
economic buying one. It is going to care more about, you know,
what's this going to do for the business in terms of revenue or cost or
risk and those kinds of things. So I think that's the first thing you're
going to do. And if your company, well, I believe your company's
on the hook to give you that kind of content. Right, If he
has given you that content, you have a responsibility to think and use it.
If your company hasn't given you that content, then you've got some work
to do, because, like it's hard enough to learn how to use content
like that and tee it up when it has been given to you. If
it hasn't been created by the company, that's the first question I'd be asking,
where's our content that helps us expand these conversations about where the customer is
and where they're trying to go or why would they do something and why would
they do it? Now? I think that's part one. Part two is
then you get into acquired capabilities, right, And I know you asked me
to think about this, so you know, if you can do those two
things, well, now you're in a better position to start to get them
to think a little bit more deeply and widely about what they're going to require
in a solution, not just the features. Buying features and capabilities are part
of it, But what are all of the things that they need to think
about from a requirement standpoint, the product and its capabilities, the contract,
effective implementation, you know, customer success, all those kinds of things.
Because if you can do that, now you're in a position to really get
them thinking about why required capabilities really matter. Because there's three or four things
here. One is, every required capability has to attach to solving the problem
or achieving the outcome. Otherwise it's i material, it doesn't matter, and
the customers shouldn't want, shouldn't have to or want to pay for that right.
The second thing is you've got to help customers think about a clear definition
of the required capability. When somebody says something it has to be secure,
well what does that mean. If you don't define it, it's really easy
for people to say, oh, yeah, my product is secure, my
technology is secure. And then you've got to have clear metrics around that that
says, okay, we've defined what security means. Now what's the proof when
somebody says they actually can do security in the way that we've defined it.
And all of that is attached back to the outcome. Right, this requirement
for security as defined in the following way with the following test that I'm going
to hold all potential vendors to, Well, why is that important? It's
important because it helps solve for an outcome, because that's the only reason somebody
would pay for it. And then, last, but not least, you've
got to be really good at using questioning. Right. We like to use
the phrase trap setting questions, questions that help the customer think through what matters
and potentially trap the competition, because if you can do those four things that
I just watch you through, you're in a much better chance to look the
customers say, Okay, well we started by helping you expand where you are
and where you're trying to go at least the mindset of why that matters and
who else has impacted. That's led to a conversation that does a better job
of identifying and defining the requirements to get there. So now I'm in a
position to say, so, now, let's stack rank which of these required
capabilities are most critically important to getting you to those outcomes. Now, you
may not like the answer, right, especially if you've entered late. I
think this is important but if you get good at this, you can do
what I just talked about in one really good conversation with somebody to start to
answer the question do we even belong in this deal? Right? I'm not
saying you'll get all the answers in one meeting, but you'll start to be
able to answer two questions, do we belong this deal potentially? And am
I in front of someone who's going to allow me to truly participate or are
they using me as you know, column fodder for their spreadsheet. Yeah.
The power in that lies back at looking at those solution requirements, required capabilities,
figuring out if you got a shot doing the little discovery having a conversation,
then you've got your roadmap to move forward. And that roadmap might be
say goodbye, yeah, or that road might be see if you can get
this person to take you to somebody else, Or that roadmap might be this
person is just getting in our way. If we're going to go after this,
we have to go around them. I don't love doing that, but
there are times where that's the right answer. At least having that conversation the
way we just talked about should start to give you some data points about the
opportunity and about the person you're sitting in front of. Yeah, okay,
so before we move to the second sales challenge, this one also comes up.
And so before we move to the next topic, I want to ask,
is there a play here to try and get in with a smaller solution
if you come late to an opportunity. Yeah, I mean it's a good,
great question. You're talking classic competitive strategy here, right, which is
go direct my army against your army. Last person standing wins. Direct strategies
typically only are affected when you have superiority at both the capabilities and the relationship
front. And I'm talking significant like a three to one advantage. Most deals
are actually one on flanking strategies, which is a lot of what we were
just talking about. Right, We're flanking the deal with additional differentiation and different
points of view. Right. What you're talking about is your next best option.
Direct is first, if you can flanking a second, fragmenting is third.
Hey, I'm showed up late to this party. But here's the deal,
Rachel. This big thing you're looking at, twenty five percent of that
thing we are best at, and we can attach to the other seventy five
assuming you're going to choose the following leader or the following potential options. I'm
a better fit for that twenty five percent. And again I'm going to have
to do what we were just talking about in terms of pain and outcomes and
require capabilities to prove that out. But fragmenting. This is often where a
fragment strategy makes perfect sense, because if you can't fragment, then you either
delay or you got to walk away. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's
a great question. All right, good, great tips tips there. I
hope some of you out there who are late to an opportunity or taking notes.
And here's another one that's big one. You don't have access to the
economic buyer. Many of us know that if we're in it a fire.
But the point is how do we get the access? So talk through your
steps for gaining this access. We talk a lot about well you've got to
talk economic language, but how do you get noticed? How do you get
access in order to have that conversation. So I think this is a real
point in question with what's happened in the marketplace right now. Right things have
tightened up, they still are a little still tight. There's more people scrutinizing
every deal, and it's they're going to higher levels. I have confirmed that
with every CEO and CFO that I've been talking with over the last six months,
and in every engagement we do, they're in the room and I'm purposefully
having that conversation and they are confirming everything that we all know, and that
creates something else. And I'm not sure a lot of people have thought about
it's not just the fact that deals are getting more scrutiny. The CFO is
starting to get involved at much lower level sized deals than they ever did before.
But because of that, now their plates are fuller, and so they're
struggling to keep up. So what do people do when they're struggling to keep
up? They find any way they can to move from one thing to the
next. And I recently asked the CFO this question. I said, Hey,
now that you're looking at more and more than you ever did before,
what percentage of those solution proposals, whether they're in paper format or digital,
when you are alone in your office, are jumping off the table and grabbing
you by the throat and saying you can't afford to do this. Now,
you can't afford not to do this now. You need to do this now,
and he said zero. So there's my first piece of advice. It
sounds academic or maybe try. You have got to ensure that every conversation you
have in your deals, I don't care who you're talking to. In the
end, every conversation has got to attach back to the business conversation. And
I think you also have to be overt and say to people, listen,
here's what we're seeing in the market over the last nine months. Every deal
we do is going to the cfo's desk. So lets you and I and
Rachel work together to make sure that every time you and I talk and everybody
else we talked to in your organization together, everything we're talking about attaches back
to the business outcomes. Otherwise you will have wasted a lot of time,
and your cfo's ever making that decision is going to push back hard at best.
So I think that's the first thing. The second thing that I would
think about is it's attached a little bit to what I was just talking about,
is ensuring that every step of the way everything that you communicate back to
the customer is attached to the business outcomes. Right, Because now what you're
doing is you will not in every case, but you will collectively start to
be seen more as someone who cares more about our outcomes and our business than
selling me something. And again, I fully understand that that could come across
as like a mindset or just well that's a nice to do thing. I'm
telling you it's a separation thing. It's the kind of thing that will separate
you from others. Again, you may not always like the answer, but
I'd much rather get out of a deal early because what I do for living
is not going to be impactful enough for your business, then spend six months
on the deal, put it in my forecast, only to find out that
your organization was never going to pull the trigger on it because it just wasn't
important enough. And if it's not important enough, we can talk about,
Okay, what will make it important enough? And when does that make more
sense? Right? Because look at right now, the other thing that's happening
is fewer deals are getting over the line because there's fewer resources. So let's
just be honest about where we are in that opportunity. And then back to
the previous conversation, maybe we fragment some of it out and go get the
smaller deal now and set up metrics for the larger deal later. But at
least we're doing that eyes wide open. And then I think the last thing
I would say in terms of getting access to the economic buyers. Some people
aren't gonna like this. This is going to sound like heresy, but I'm
gonna say it anyhow. Stop expecting to get taken to the economic buyer.
Yeah, yeah, they're busy. They have people who do their jobs for
a living. If you just have to be honest with yourself, if your
title is account executive, CFOs aren't sitting around saying, oh my god,
I can't wait to see that account exect're just not. Yeah, that's why
everything you do with the people on their team has got to match, and
it's got to speak on your behalf when you're not in the room to the
business the end. Yes, that's great, really good final point there.
So I think, you know, we also say one way to get access
to the economic buyers to leverage your champion, because the champion, as Dave
Davies was just in my office talking about before recording this podcast, how a
champion is the force multiplier with medic because you get a champion. It helps
with every other letter in that acronym. And that's also a big topic that
comes up with the reps that we work with. Okay, I'm an economic
buyer, but I don't have a champion either. How do I go about
finding a champion? How do I demonstrate the value of somebody championing my solution?
What are your best tips for kind of identifying a potential champion and then
nurturing that relationship. Okay, so let's start with this. Economic buyers are
kind of like this probably gonna be a bad analogy, grizzly bears. If
you go into the forest, you know, there's a grizzly bear. There's
always a grizzly bear in the forest. I'm trying to do this on the
fly. Champions are kind of like unicorns. Every deal has a grizzly bear,
every deal, every forest has a grizzly bear, Every deal has an
economic bier. Not every forest or every deal has a champion or a unicorn.
That's the first thing I think we have to be honest with ourselves about.
I think the second thing we have to be honest with ourselves about is
people have one good meeting with somebody and they come running back to their team
going, I've got a champion. Now you don't. At best, you've
got somebody who's a nice person who might be a coach. Right, So
that's the other thing. I think. You've got to be honest about the
person you're in front of. And if you think you've got somebody who's who
might become a champion, you've got to be honest with yourself about where you
are. Have I identified somebody whose potential champion material and what am I doing
to develop that relationship. So here's a few tips. First and foremost,
don't make the mistake of seeing you thinking you've got a champion after one or
two good meetings. What you should be doing early when you think you've found
somebody that might be able to play the role is look for people who other
people listen to. Right, the classic champion definition, stuff is still in
play, right invested when invested, interest in awesome. But that's like after
we've developed a relationship. What I want you looking for are people that other
people listen to, people who have a track record of getting things done,
people who are skeptical. Now skeptics and cynics look a lot alike, and
they make us uncomfortable as sellers because they ask us tough questions and we're sometimes
like, where does that question come from? That feels like a negative question?
Why is that person asking me that I thought they liked me? Right,
But skeptics are actually very powerful potential champions. Now you have to separate
them from the cynics. And here's how you do that. Because they look
a lot alike. The difference is when a skeptic asks you a question and
you reply, either verbally or through action, in a way that's credible,
the skeptic will start to con hurt. Cynics won't. So you'll start to
see different actions. A skeptic starts to have a deeper conversation with you,
A skeptic starts to maybe do things that help you because you are helping them.
A cynic is using you, right, So look for skeptics. And
here's why. When skeptics speak internally for other people, listen because the organization
knows that they're skeptic, not a cynic. And the organization knows that well.
When that person speaks, they only speak because they've done the work and
they know that what they're about to say makes sense and is valuable, So
look for skeptics. I'd also say look for people who are either directly attached
to or at least indirectly impacted by the problem right or set a different way.
Look for people who have a lot of authority around the technical buying decision
or have heavy influence in it. Look for people who have heavy influence in
the economic buying decision. I mean, look, the end all be all
would be to have a champion who's the ultimate economic buyer. But that's asking
a lot, right, because that'd be the fourth person to Look, that's
your unicorn. There's a really good that's the kayuny unicorns, right, So
I think I think there's that. So there's some tips on identifying the right
kind of person. Let me give you some thoughts on developing that relationship,
because that's the next thing you've got to do, right. I think one
of the things people forget is it's okay to be honest with someone. So,
like, if we're starting to build this relationship and I view you as
someone that's got some of what I was just talking about, there's nothing wrong
with saying you, Look, there's some serious importance for us in knowing how
you feel about this engagement, this project, and the role that you can
and want to play. Like, there comes a point in building this relationship
right where I have to find a way in a way stylistically that works for
me and is comfortable for you. In having this conversation, it says,
Rachel, what role do you want to play in this? What role can
you play in this? Because I want this to be a great experience for
you, not just for your company, and I don't ever want to put
you in a position that you're not comfortable being in. That's part of this.
I think there's there's a lot to be said for being really reliable and
really credible in everything you do and doing that in a way that's you know,
got a customer first kind of mindset. But when someone asks you to
do something, the way you follow up, not just the timeliness, but
with the you know, with the credibility that you follow up, you're much
better off saying to someone in the moment, you know what, I don't
have the right answer for the question that you just asked me, but I
promise you I will get you an answer by and you know it'll be confirmed
by the you know an smme those kinds of things, the way you respond
and act on a day to day basis, in terms of credibility and reliability.
Like I'm having a flashback right now to when I left my twenty seven
year career to come here. There was a customer at the going away party
who took the microphone at one point and said, like, I don't even
love because this is highly complimentary to myself, which sounds I don't like talking
about. But he said, Hey, we're gonna have to reevaluate our relationship
with your company. And I was like, what are you talking about?
And he said, because you know our business and that's what you cared about,
and I've never forgotten that. And I think that's what I mean when
I say credibility and reliability. And then everything you do for them is focused
on them getting smarter and be more prepared to help their company, whether you're
in the room or not. Like there's some ideas on how you develop these
folks. And then, last, but not least, I'd say the earlier
you can look for these people and start building these relationships, the better.
In a perfect world, you'd rather do it when there's not even a deal
on the table. And the reason I say that is the moment of sales
cycle or a buying cycle kicks off in an organization, and the deeper they
get into it, the more the walls start to naturally go up in terms
of building these relationships with people. And it's both a natural defense mechanism for
some people. It's also along sometimes a customer mandate that Hey, as we
get into these buying cycles, we start to cut off communication or information a
little bit because they, for whatever reason they feel that's the best way to
deal with a potential vendor. That's that. And then last, by not
least, you've got to make sure they get the credit. Like do you
develop a champion or even a really good coach, You've got to make sure
that they get the credit in in a way that's appropriate and genuine and all
of that. So there's some thoughts on that, Yes, just just a
light question there to end. Yeah, but no, that's it's such a
big topic and there's so many nuances there. But I think you know with
this last topic, you don't have a champion. The earlier one, you
don't have an acondemic buyer or the first one that you're laid to the opportunity.
Kind of the overarching theme that you weave through that is it's never about
you. It's about the customer and their outcomes. It's about your champion and
what's in it for them. It's about the economic buyer and what's in it
for the business. And having that mindset always, I don't want to say,
will prevent these challenges, because they're always going to be there, but
they will give you the framework of which to address them. Yeah, and
imagine this if the tips around these street topics gave you a ten percent lift.
Because there's no silver bullet, right, life, right, But imagine
if you could get a ten percent lift in your business or a fifteen percent
lift in your business just by taking these kinds of ideas and just going to
a level of depth and breadth that most people don't. That's the kind of
outcomes you can get. Yeah, maybe that should be my new audible Ready
Sales podcast marketing campaign. If you listen to these podcasts and you get a
ten percent lift, extreme value here, Yeah, there is. And you
know we've all gotten the anecdotal feedback from people who listen to these Yeah,
every time we go to an event, now somebody will say I'll start to
talk about the audible podcasts and revenue builders our other podcast series, and somebody
the room who's already a listener, we'll pipe up and say, let me
just tell you how good that stuff is. So that's great. We love
to hear it. Thank you Brian for walking through those with me today.
Thanks Rachel all right, and thank you to all of you for continuing to
listen to the Autobattle Audible Ready Sales podcast. At Force Management, we're focused
on transforming sales organizations into elite teams. Are proven methodologies, deliver programs that
build company alignment and fuel repeatable revenue growth. Give your teams the ability to
execute the growth strategy at the point of sale. Our strength is our experience.
The proof is in our results. Let's get started. Visit us at
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