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These are questions You've got to understand
what business outcome are you driving to,

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what's the sequence, how specifically are
you planning to get there. You're listening

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to the audible Ready Podcast, the
show that helps you and your teams sell

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more faster. We'll feature sales leaders
sharing their best insights on how to create

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a sales engine that helps you fuel
repeatable revenue growth. Presented by the team

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at Force Management, a leader in
B to B sales effectiveness. Let's get

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started. Hello, and welcome to
the Audible Ready Sales Podcast. I'm Rachel

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Klapmillern. We often talk about competitors
on this podcast. They're important, right

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you want to understand your differentiation,
your competitive differentiation. But a lot of

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times, particularly when budgets are tight, we are competing against funds being directed

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to other places. So we're competing
against other initiatives, not necessarily like competitors

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who have our same solution. It's
always a risk. John Kaplan joins me

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to talk about this today. Rachel, this is a great topic and it's

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so relevant right now as people are
trying to get above the noise. Yes,

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rising above the noise, and so
John, this is really sort of

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competing against do nothing aligning to the
pain, more specifically the pain of not

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doing anything with this particular initiative that
you're trying to sell. So, John,

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let's start with what I'm asking to
understand if this is something I'm dealing

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with in the account that if I'm
going to be dealing with competing initiatives,

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let me just answer it flatly.
Yes, you are always going to be

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competing with different initiatives. The extent
to which you are differentiating against those initiatives

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will be your ability to align yourself
to the problems that that customer is experiencing

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and highly differentiate yourself in that process. So the answer is yes, yes,

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yes, you're going to have this
risk every time you do a deal,

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every time, for every opportunity.
But let me break it down a

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little bit, and I want you
to get a piece of paper out.

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I'm going to give a couple seconds. Get a piece of paper out.

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If you're out for a walk or
whatever. Just go back to this podcast

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and go back to this section because
I want you to write these down.

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These are questions you've got to understand, and you could ask them just this

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way. What business outcome are you
driving to what's the sequence, How specifically

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are you planning to get there?
Then you're associating the problem that they have

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with how you might be able to
solve it, and how you solve it

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relates to that problem. It's all
about the initial discovery. So there's some

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initial great discovery questions. How are
you prioritizing initiatives right now? What's making

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its way to the top. What's
the biggest business issue facing your customer right

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now? What are they doing technically
to solve this issue? You don't want

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to assume that they're not doing anything, So what are you currently doing?

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What do you like most about what
you're doing right now? What's not working

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so well? How are you measuring
success? Folks? This topic is all

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about discovery. As in most challenges
in our sales process or in our daily

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lives, it's all about discovery.
Yeah. I also think too, John,

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It's part of that decision process qualification
that I'm doing with medic right.

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If I'm weighing who is going to
be making the decision? How do I

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use my decision process stage of my
qualification to make sure I'm accounting for competing

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initiatives? I like it. Now
you're starting to triangulate around the acronyms.

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This is like you hear me talk
about how to get it in your blood.

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What you just said is especially critical
in a few areas. So first,

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if we just take a look at
medic or medpick, you have a

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decision process and decision criteria, and
this feeds directly directly into what we're talking

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about. Feeds directly into this.
You also can hit it with metrics or

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economic buyer. So decision process,
decision criteria. Just look at medpicks.

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This falls directly into this prioritization.
It also feeds directly in for how they're

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going to measure a solution and who
the economic buyer is and how to get

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to the economic buyer. So,
in fact, if you understand like the

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eye, let's look at that the
eye identification of pain for both the technical

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pain and the business pain, and
you understand all the negative consequences that are

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appearing because they have this technical pain
in business pain. That's a home run

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avenue to go down. So it's
not complicated. You look at medic,

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you look at MEDPIC, you look
at Discovery. Don't even think about,

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oh, how do I understand their
priorities? Just by the process of asking

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discovery questions to get these topics up
on the table, you will understand prioritization,

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right, and you always say,
John, you want to find pain

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that can't go another day without yes
fix, And if you do that,

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it doesn't matter what other initiatives are
out there, largely right, because yours

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is going to be the priority if
it can't go anywhere longer without being fixed.

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Rachel, that's exactly right. So
once you understand the problems from both

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a technical and a business prospect,
from a technical and a business point of

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view, and you understand how we
can influence the technical decision criteria with our

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differentiation. Let me repeat that,
once you understand the problems from both the

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technical and a business point of view, and then you understand how you can

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influence the technical decision criteria with your
differentiation, and we can understand how they

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will measure success. We're now ready
to pivot and speak about how we do

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that. People often ask me how
you do what that? And how we

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do that is the decision criteria.
How we do it better differently, that's

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our differentiation and where we've done it
before is our proof points, case studies

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and testimonials. Always go outside in
before you go inside out. Remember it's

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not just what you sell, but
how you sell that can be just as

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important and differentiating you out in the
marketplace. That's true. And remember,

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I guess if there isn't a direct
tie between your two initiatives, things like

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that you might be competing against.
You really got to find the urgency in

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your deal, and that aligns with
finding the measurableer pain. So how do

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I remind my customer of the pain
that they're going to alleviate with my solution

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or the pain they're going to have
if they don't move forward with my solution.

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I love that set up, Rachel, and I want people to listen

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to this very very careful. If
you're walking, you're riding a bike,

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stop for a second, because it's
not that you will have to remind them

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of their pain. You don't remind
them of their pain. You need to

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remind them that you understood their pain. It's significance to both the technical pain

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and the business pain, and that
it has real negative consequences. So here's

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the skill, Rachel. It's not
to tell people that they have a problem

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hoping to convince them of the urgency. The skill is to ask great discovery

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questions that can get them to stand
in their own moment of pain, where

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they wind up convincing themselves that they
have a problem, and then it becomes

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urgent because it was urgent for them. People rarely argue with their own conclusions.

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And Rachel, when we get done
producing this thing, I want you

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to cut that snippet for me because
I'm going to post that everywhere. That's

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right, good done, Consider it
done. And really, what you're talking

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about, John, are some of
the same tactics that we use when we

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talk about competing. Again, do
nothing because there really are potentially doing nothing

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as it relates to your initiative.
Yeah, you know, when you think

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about it, the only time you
really run into do nothing is when the

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customer does not think the problem is
urgent enough and therefore they've not prioritized it.

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Do you understand So, Rachel,
when somebody says to me, oh,

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you know, they're dragging their feet
there, that's our problem. If

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they're not prioritizing us, we haven't
prioritized it for them. We haven't helped

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them. This is why you have
to have deep. While you got to

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go deep on discovery, many people
have taken training from me before, Rachel,

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and they remember me shouting in the
room go deeper, go deeper,

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go deeper. What I'm really talking
about is connecting it to the negative consequences,

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almost to the point where the customer
says, uncle, I give and

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Rachel. I actually had a customer
tell me one time, this is exactly

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what they said. They said,
Okay, smart guy, it's obvious that

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we have a huge problem. Why
don't you spend a minute or two telling

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me what you think you can do
about it. It's one of my proudest

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moments in selling. And look,
I'm not trying to pester my customers,

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but I am trying to get them
to participate in their own rescue. I

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need you to cut that as a
snippet too. Were full of them today.

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Yeah, we're on a roll.
Yes, there are going to be

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situations that we run into, John
where you really have to put your initiative

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on hold because of other priorities and
they really need to do those initiatives before

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yours. But if you find that
out, that's still great knowledge. And

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this conversation provides you a way to
stay in touch. Yeah, and I'm

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just going to kind of reiterate.
You're absolutely right. But if I'm doing

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my discovery right and my product has
value and meaning, I should be able

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to overcome that. I should be
able to get someone to create their own

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urgency. But look, you asked
a specific question. There are times that

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that's not possible. And if for
some reason I've not done that, then

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absolutely I continue to keep in touch
with the customer. Again, not to

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pester them, but to drip them, you know, drip to them good

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pieces of information, articles, announcements, industry news, et cetera. One

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of my favorite sellers on the planet
is somebody works for us named Paul de

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Moore. He sends these podcasts,
Rachel. These podcasts we do because that's

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a walking audition for what we're going
to teach people and why they would buy

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us. He sends these podcasts to
customers and he's not asking for an order,

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but he is front and center every
week with them. Yep, exactly,

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And what a great way to be
uncommon right to be an elite seller,

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John, You've given us some great
tactics to use when we're faced with

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this situation. I know many of
you are faced with differentiating and competing against

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alternative uses for that budget in your
prospect companies, wrap it up for us

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as we close. Yep, it's
all about discovery. Prepare great discovery questions

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that can get your customers to stand
in their own moment of pain. Let

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the urgency get created by them.
The more you tell them they have a

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problem, the more they're going to
resist. You. Make it all about

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them before you earn the right to
make it all about you. Go crush

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it always, always. Thank you
John, my pleasure. Thank you to

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all of you for continuing to listen
to the audi Already Sales podcast. At

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Force Management, we're focused on transforming
sales organizations into elite teams. Our proven

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methodologies deliver programs that build company alignment
and fuel repeatable revenue growth. Give your

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teams the ability to execute the growth
strategy at the point of sale. Our

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strength is our experience. The proof
is in our results. Let's get started.

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Visit us at forcemanagement dot com.
You've been listening to the audible Ready

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podcast. To not miss an episode, subscribe to the show in your favorite

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