Speaker 1: You know why you're different than the competition, But the
Speaker 1: key way to stand out as a seller is to
Speaker 1: get the customer to care about the differentiation.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Audible Ready podcast, The show that
Speaker 2: helps you and your teams sell more Faster. Will feature
Speaker 2: sales leaders sharing their best insights on how to create
Speaker 2: a sales engine that helps you fuel repeatable revenue growth,
Speaker 2: presented by the team at Force Management, a leader in
Speaker 2: B to B sales effectiveness. Let's get started.
Speaker 3: Hello, I'm Rachel Klatt Miller. Thank you for listening to
Speaker 3: this episode of the Audible Ready Sales Podcast. You know,
Speaker 3: we often say that there is as much differentiation and
Speaker 3: how you sell as there is in what you sell.
Speaker 3: So what do we mean by that. That's what we're
Speaker 3: going to talk about today. Key steps you can take
Speaker 3: to differentiate the way you sell, how you do it,
Speaker 3: John Kaplan, This is something we know that elite sellers
Speaker 3: do and are continually striving to get better at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of my favorite topics. It's differentiation
Speaker 1: for most people is hard, and I think that we
Speaker 1: kind of simplify it with some ideas that you can
Speaker 1: do with not a lot of effort, just some mindset right.
Speaker 3: Kind of your day to day rhythm. You know, we
Speaker 3: always say that sales is a game of inches, and
Speaker 3: those things you can do to differentiate you in the
Speaker 3: way you sell is part of the game of inches.
Speaker 3: When you talk about them on the surface level, they
Speaker 3: don't seem like that much, but add them up over
Speaker 3: time and they can really make a difference. So let's
Speaker 3: get into some of the ways you can do that.
Speaker 3: The first area I want to talk about is what
Speaker 3: you can do with those initial calls, your discovery. I
Speaker 3: know we've done a whole podcast on this, but it
Speaker 3: really comes down to approaching them with empathy and understanding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's really good. It's a mindset.
Speaker 1: It's a mindset of empathy, understanding, and also a kind
Speaker 1: of preparation. We've got to remember, buyers are skeptical, abous.
Speaker 1: They they think that we're like all the other bad
Speaker 1: sellers that they've encountered before. And by differentiating yourself, you'll
Speaker 1: give yourself an edge. And I think the first step
Speaker 1: is to be confident in what you do for a
Speaker 1: living and to constantly put yourself in the shoes of
Speaker 1: the buyer. You don't just show up begging for orders.
Speaker 1: That's a horrible disposition. Your job is to understand your
Speaker 1: customers by listening to them, and don't just work through
Speaker 1: a script. If somebody gives you a script, it's not intended.
Speaker 1: It's a navigational tool. It's not intended to be a script.
Speaker 1: Approach your conversation with empathy and understanding and that'll show through.
Speaker 3: That's it. And the way you do discovery is really
Speaker 3: so critical. Asking questions at the right time in the
Speaker 3: right way requires prep having that right mindset, as you
Speaker 3: talked about, but also active listening. So what are your
Speaker 3: best ways to prepare to do this?
Speaker 1: Well? Preparation and active listening is really the only way.
Speaker 1: When you prepare, it gives you a calmness, it gives
Speaker 1: We call this the Audible Ready podcast, and what we
Speaker 1: mean by that is because you're prepared, you can actively listen,
Speaker 1: and you actively listen because you're prepared. And you know,
Speaker 1: we talk about three buckets. When I go into sales calls,
Speaker 1: I know that there are three main buckets of information
Speaker 1: that I am gathering constantly. The first they're in no
Speaker 1: particular order, but positive business outcomes those are the implications
Speaker 1: of the problem that create great business outcomes. That's one bucket.
Speaker 1: I'm also looking for technical required capabilities. And in order
Speaker 1: to understand the technical required capabilities, you have to ask
Speaker 1: great discovery questions to the customer. But you have to
Speaker 1: be prepared with your differentiation because you are shaping those
Speaker 1: required capabilities to be more favorable for your customer and
Speaker 1: more favorable for you in the form of your differentiation.
Speaker 1: And then metrics, and this is we need to discover
Speaker 1: how they're going to measure success. So when I'm prepared
Speaker 1: to ask discovery questions around those three buckets, I just
Speaker 1: I think of myself as like a catcher in baseball.
Speaker 1: I throw the pitch back to the pitcher and then
Speaker 1: they throw me something, and whatever they throw me, it's
Speaker 1: either a positiveusiness outcome or require capability or a metric.
Speaker 1: I am putting those in the proper buckets. And when
Speaker 1: I think about simplifying that way, it's easier for me
Speaker 1: to actively listen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So let's talk about the situations that you might
Speaker 3: find yourself in when you're going against competitive solutions. Right,
Speaker 3: that's a product differentiation point, but you all so play
Speaker 3: a role in it as a seller to in how
Speaker 3: you are dealing with that differentiation.
Speaker 1: You know why you're different than the competition. But the
Speaker 1: key way to stand out as a seller is to
Speaker 1: get the customer to care about the differentiation. So it's
Speaker 1: not just knowing the differentiation. It's got to be a
Speaker 1: value to the customer. So they need to see the
Speaker 1: value in that differentiation, and if they don't, you'll just
Speaker 1: sound like all those other bad sellers. And if you
Speaker 1: don't know what kind of relationship they have with a competitor.
Speaker 1: Most times people are trying to go at differentiation to
Speaker 1: talk about how much they're better than the competition. Well,
Speaker 1: you've got to earn the right for that, because people,
Speaker 1: by nature are loyal to those not present. So use
Speaker 1: the differentiation as a way to bring value to the customer.
Speaker 1: So saying I'm better than the competitors is great. Everybody
Speaker 1: says it, right, But it's only great if you believe it,
Speaker 1: and it's only great if the customer believes it. So
Speaker 1: what differentiates me as a seller is when I can
Speaker 1: get my customer to care about the differentiation as it
Speaker 1: relates to their outcomes. Let me give you a quick example.
Speaker 1: When I first got to PTC years ago, we had
Speaker 1: this differentiation, which is actually unique, and it was called
Speaker 1: bi directional associativity. Now, when I first saw it, they
Speaker 1: explained it to me, a change made anywhere is reflected everywhere.
Speaker 1: Now I'm kind of a Microsoft generation, so when I
Speaker 1: heard this, I was a little disappointed, a little freaked out.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait a second, So you mean a change
Speaker 1: made anywhere, like in a document, is reflected at was
Speaker 1: kind of like global find and replace. And the people
Speaker 1: at PTC that were training me, they're like, exactly, And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, Like, I just left
Speaker 1: ten years at Xerox in a very high level job
Speaker 1: to come as a front line manager to PTC for this. Well,
Speaker 1: I obviously didn't understand the differentiation. I didn't understand the value.
Speaker 1: I had to put myself in the seat of the customer.
Speaker 1: So one of the trainers asked me. They said, John,
Speaker 1: do you understand the way people design and manufacture products?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, I don't really understand that. So
Speaker 1: they taught me and they're like, when you make a
Speaker 1: change late in a process, it creates havoc on a
Speaker 1: manufacturing environment and design through manufacturing environment. So the fact
Speaker 1: that we can make a change anywhere. Everything is updated,
Speaker 1: the drawings, the tooling. It's like at the press of
Speaker 1: a button, everything's updated. So I was like, okay, And
Speaker 1: then I saw my first demo and I saw the
Speaker 1: application engineer Rachel demonstrate this, and there was a CEO
Speaker 1: of a manufacturing company sitting in the demo, sitting in
Speaker 1: the room watching the demo, and I looked over and
Speaker 1: their jaw hit the table. So what I did was
Speaker 1: I asked a few questions and say, hey, that looks
Speaker 1: like that this could be pretty important for your organization.
Speaker 1: Why did you react that way to what you just saw?
Speaker 1: Tell me how you're currently doing that. And I just
Speaker 1: started asking discovery questions around the emotion that I got
Speaker 1: back from what I was saying. And then I later
Speaker 1: I learned it's like, okay, once you learned a differentiation,
Speaker 1: you have to ask yourself some questions. So what if
Speaker 1: the customer doesn't have bi directional associativity, Well, that means
Speaker 1: that they can't handle changes very often, and when they
Speaker 1: do handle changes, it creates a massive timing implication. It
Speaker 1: creates a massive scrap and waste implication in the manufacturing department.
Speaker 1: So once I understood what it's like to not have it.
Speaker 1: I started to ask questions about problems and implications of
Speaker 1: not having that differentiation. It totally totally changed the world
Speaker 1: for me. So my point is, when you hear your
Speaker 1: company's differentiation, you have to ask yourself, so what does
Speaker 1: that mean to the buyer? And once I did that,
Speaker 1: it unlocks something very very powerful for me because once
Speaker 1: I understood the problems, I didn't just tell them about
Speaker 1: the problems Rachel. I asked them about when they encounter
Speaker 1: those problems or challenges, And it totally turned the ownership
Speaker 1: to their problem, not my problem, and I was ready
Speaker 1: to help them with my differentiation. A huge, huge learning
Speaker 1: lesson for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a key way when you do that repeatedly
Speaker 3: to differentiate yourself from other salespeople they might be dealing with.
Speaker 3: So we talked about discovery, we talked about differentiation. The
Speaker 3: other component is you want to make sure you're continually
Speaker 3: staying tied to their positive business outcomes, the results you're
Speaker 3: trying to drive for them. And you might align on
Speaker 3: this at the beginning of the sales process, but then
Speaker 3: people forget about them, right, So to keep everyone focused
Speaker 3: on that value, you're going to drive and the outcomes
Speaker 3: you're going to drive for them is really a next
Speaker 3: level skill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's just simplify this. I think the two greatest
Speaker 1: elite skills of selling right now, there's actually three, I believe,
Speaker 1: but the three greatest skills. Number one is attaching yourself
Speaker 1: to the biggest business issue facing your customer, Attaching what
Speaker 1: you do for a living to the biggest problems and
Speaker 1: challenges and getting credit for it. The second thing is influencing,
Speaker 1: like we just said, influencing customer decision criteria with your differentiation.
Speaker 1: In the case of the bi directional associativity example that
Speaker 1: I just gave you, Rachel, is I knew that if
Speaker 1: I got bidirectional associativity or in the customer's language, a
Speaker 1: change made anywhere is reflected everywhere. Rachel, we won every time.
Speaker 1: So let me just simplify that. All I needed to
Speaker 1: do was to influence that differentiation into the customers required
Speaker 1: capabilities into the decision criteria, and since it was unique,
Speaker 1: meaning nobody else could do it, the ballgame was over.
Speaker 1: The third one is we have to be a voracious qualifier.
Speaker 1: You have to be a voracious qualifier, so we have
Speaker 1: to keep customers focused on measurable outcomes that they're looking
Speaker 1: to achieve and the require capabilities that are going to
Speaker 1: get them there, and your customers are often frazzled like
Speaker 1: they're too close to the pain and they're too close
Speaker 1: to the technical pain and the implications of that technical pain.
Speaker 1: And sometimes example, with the bi directional of sociativity, I
Speaker 1: would ask, give me an example of the biggest project
Speaker 1: that you're working on right now. They tell me about
Speaker 1: a product, and I'd say, so with the ability to
Speaker 1: make changes, what do you think late in the process,
Speaker 1: what will happen with your relationship with the customer, What
Speaker 1: will happen with the relationship to the cost model, What
Speaker 1: will happen to the relationship with revenue? What will happen
Speaker 1: to so all of a sudden, this bi directional associativity
Speaker 1: is connected to business outcomes. And what were we known
Speaker 1: for at PTC. What bidirectional associativity turned into RACHEL was
Speaker 1: reducing time to market for manufacturers by more than fifty
Speaker 1: percent on average. That's why we grew from zero to
Speaker 1: a billion dollars. We were known by the business outcome
Speaker 1: we help customers achieve just as much as we were
Speaker 1: known by our differentiation in the product capabilities. So sometimes
Speaker 1: you have to keep reminding because this means things to
Speaker 1: different people at different levels than an organization. I used
Speaker 1: to constantly have to do this. I have to remind
Speaker 1: the engineers, Yes, it was great for your engineering capability,
Speaker 1: but it was also great for the company. And I
Speaker 1: found that I was able to build great champions inside
Speaker 1: of organizations because I got them emotionally connected to that
Speaker 1: business implication of that technical capability. So bi directional associativity
Speaker 1: was tied to reducing time to market, and reducing time
Speaker 1: to market was associated with massive growth and profitability for
Speaker 1: product launches. And we created thousands and thousands of technical
Speaker 1: champions and the business champions by just connecting that technical
Speaker 1: capability to a business outcome. Really really powerful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and something that you can do in every opportunity
Speaker 3: that you're in. A great thing to be focused on.
Speaker 3: The Next point I wanted to talk about is what
Speaker 3: happens away from the deal, Away from the opportunity. What
Speaker 3: are you doing when there isn't something to work with
Speaker 3: the customer, And that's making sure you're sharing value with
Speaker 3: customers and prospects.
Speaker 1: I like this a lot because there's some elite sellers
Speaker 1: that do this really well. And I think that the
Speaker 1: greatest sellers. You know, back in the day they said, oh,
Speaker 1: he or she is a relationship builder, and that got
Speaker 1: a lot of knocks. They're like, oh, this person's a
Speaker 1: relationship builder. And I always used to cock my head
Speaker 1: to one side a little bit, like how is that
Speaker 1: a bad thing? Like every single stat in the world,
Speaker 1: the importance of relationship on personal health, the importance of relationship.
Speaker 1: I'm building champions. You're never going to build champions if
Speaker 1: you don't build a relationship, and you build a relationship
Speaker 1: by continuously adding value. So this moniker of a relationship seller,
Speaker 1: I think just totally got messed up there thinking people
Speaker 1: are dropping off donuts. And I don't think that's what
Speaker 1: anybody ever meant when they said a relationship seller. What
Speaker 1: I mean by a relationship seller is that you are
Speaker 1: constantly communicating with your customer and you have a reason.
Speaker 1: You have purpose. It's not just.
Speaker 4: Hey, how you doing? You know, do you want to upgrade?
Speaker 4: How's the product going? Blah blah blah. Maybe it's your
Speaker 4: marketing team put together a piece of thought leadership. I
Speaker 4: just saw rep today from Force Management sent something out
Speaker 4: to a prospect, actually a customer, they're already a customer, and.
Speaker 1: It was a great value added piece on something that
Speaker 1: they had been talking about a year ago and something
Speaker 1: that came out in the marketplace and they sent it
Speaker 1: to the customer. And that's constantly adding value, that's constantly
Speaker 1: staying on the customer's mind, letting them know that you're
Speaker 1: thinking about. Your job is not only to sell them stuff,
Speaker 1: but your job is to make the company successful, their
Speaker 1: company successful, and them successful. So you got to stay connected,
Speaker 1: you got to reach out, and you got to add value,
Speaker 1: keep the lines of communication open. You never know where
Speaker 1: that person is going to end up. You know, most
Speaker 1: of champions, most examples of champions, wind up being champions
Speaker 1: in multiple companies, in multiple situations. So the point here,
Speaker 1: Rachel is always stay tethered, always stay connected, and always
Speaker 1: add value.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's differentiating how you sell. As we said, it's
Speaker 3: anthony understanding and discovery. Differentiation in a way that the
Speaker 3: buyer cares about, sharing value on the sales process, focus
Speaker 3: on those positive business outcomes, and stay tethered. Ways to
Speaker 3: differentiate yourself. I know you've got a great bottom line here, though, John,
Speaker 3: I'd like.
Speaker 1: To begin it with what you just said, So let's
Speaker 1: write this one down. How you sell can be just
Speaker 1: as as important as what you sell. Huge preparation helps
Speaker 1: you be an active listener. You can't actively listen if
Speaker 1: you're just kind of listening to pieces and parts of
Speaker 1: what a customer is telling you and you're waiting to
Speaker 1: make your next statement. When you're prepared with great discovery,
Speaker 1: you're prepared with the three buckets of positive business outcome.
Speaker 1: Require capabilities and metrics and great discovery around that, you
Speaker 1: can actively listen so much better. Fill up the three
Speaker 1: buckets that we talked about, make your differentiation purposeful and valuable,
Speaker 1: and connect what you do always to business outcomes. And
Speaker 1: that is a formula that will never never equal failure.
Speaker 1: So always be differentiating whether you're selling a product or
Speaker 1: you're selling your relationship of value to that buyer.
Speaker 3: That's it. Thank you, John, You're welcome, and thank you
Speaker 3: to all of you for listening to the Audible Ready
Speaker 3: Sales podcast.
Speaker 5: At Force Management, we're focused on transforming sales organizations into
Speaker 5: elite teams. Our proven methodologies deliver programs that build company
Speaker 5: alignment and fuel repeatable revenue growth. Give your teams, the
Speaker 5: ability to execute the growth strategy at the point of sale.
Speaker 5: Our strength is our experience. The proof is in our results.
Speaker 5: Let's get start. Visit us at forestmanagement dot com.
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