Speaker 1: How to connect departmental initiatives to corporate or company initiatives
Speaker 1: is a great way in the conversation in your discovery
Speaker 1: to naturally move to other people that are probably going
Speaker 1: to have to be involved in the conversation.
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 and welcome to the Audible Ready Sales Podcast. I'm
Speaker 3: Rachel Klett Miller. Today we are going to talk about
Speaker 3: best practices for engaging other departments so critical. John Kaplan
Speaker 3: joins me today.
Speaker 1: Hi John, Hey, Rachel. You know this is such a
Speaker 1: great topic. I think it's probably one of the biggest
Speaker 1: obstacles to sell our success today. Single threaded deals where
Speaker 1: you only have one way into an account or a
Speaker 1: single relationship, that really should be a red flag.
Speaker 3: Yeah, getting multi threaded it is always a goal because
Speaker 3: we know it helps us sell larger deals. It also
Speaker 3: helps us move deals forward faster. But we want to
Speaker 3: do it in a calculated way. So let's talk about
Speaker 3: some steps to take first. John, Well, the first thing
Speaker 3: is getting an intro to the other departments, right, But
Speaker 3: you want to do it in a way that's meaningful.
Speaker 3: How do I approach getting the intro with my contact
Speaker 3: to other departments?
Speaker 1: I think that's a I think it's a great question,
Speaker 1: and I think the one of the best fundamental ways
Speaker 1: to do it is to get them to think about
Speaker 1: the larger scale of a problem that you both are addressing,
Speaker 1: and like think about like who else is impacted by
Speaker 1: the problem. And of course, when you are always trying
Speaker 1: to connect yourself to the business impact of a technical problem,
Speaker 1: many of us are talking to people that are in
Speaker 1: technical roles and there are technical problems and capabilities and features.
Speaker 1: When you expand the conversation to think about a business
Speaker 1: outcome or business impact, you're going to naturally move out
Speaker 1: of those technical departments, or a natural need to move
Speaker 1: out of those technical departments. And then when you're thinking
Speaker 1: about it, you're connecting departmental initiatives to corporate ones and
Speaker 1: the people who are responsible for them. So when you
Speaker 1: think about it, two big things there how to connect
Speaker 1: technical problems to business outcomes. How to connect departmental initiatives
Speaker 1: to corporate or company initiatives is a great way in
Speaker 1: the conversation, in your discovery to naturally move to other
Speaker 1: people that are probably going to have to be involved
Speaker 1: in the conversation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so what are your best practices? So you have
Speaker 3: the contact, maybe you get an intro, and you need
Speaker 3: to do some discovery. I imagine there's going to be
Speaker 3: a lot of times when you're going to get some
Speaker 3: objections like, hey, that's not really my area. You need
Speaker 3: to work with this person on that. How do you
Speaker 3: deal with that?
Speaker 1: I think it's really valid. I think you know, you
Speaker 1: have to encourage all of the people that you call
Speaker 1: on to think bigger about the problem and about the
Speaker 1: potential solution. Just think bigger. You should like write it
Speaker 1: on a piece of paper, think bigger. How big is
Speaker 1: the problem? And then one of the things I tell
Speaker 1: sellers all the time is that you first have to
Speaker 1: get yourself yourself emotionally connected to what you do matters.
Speaker 1: So it's like your own why why do you do
Speaker 1: what you do? What problems does it solve? What are
Speaker 1: the proof points that you're kind of emotionally connected to
Speaker 1: and then you have to get the customer emotionally connected
Speaker 1: to what they do matters. And many times what I
Speaker 1: find is many customers that I call on, especially in
Speaker 1: technical environments, sometimes they've lost their own emotional connection to
Speaker 1: what they do for their company and why it matters.
Speaker 1: So discovery is all about out helping the customer stand
Speaker 1: in the moment of their own reality and their own
Speaker 1: pain and their own possibilities. And I think the more
Speaker 1: that you do that when you ask questions, you know,
Speaker 1: you get people to give you real examples. Always look
Speaker 1: to connect technical pain to business outcomes. As we talked about,
Speaker 1: always find out who cares about the impact and why
Speaker 1: they care about it, and then what you will naturally
Speaker 1: uncover is what's in it for them. And then when
Speaker 1: you start talking to people about why something matters and
Speaker 1: what's in it for them to solve it, you are
Speaker 1: now on your way to really really good qualification and
Speaker 1: qualified conversation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great point. I know that sometimes if
Speaker 3: I've ever had to do this, one of the tactics
Speaker 3: that has worked, it's like because sometimes when you approach
Speaker 3: people in other departments, they're like, oh God, you're going
Speaker 3: to give me some initiative. I have no time for this.
Speaker 3: I've got all this other stuff, and approaching it with like, hey,
Speaker 3: we're working on this over here. I want to make
Speaker 3: sure we're not stepping on your toes or not going
Speaker 3: against something you are doing, like almost making it say
Speaker 3: like hey, we know you're busy, we're doing this over here,
Speaker 3: Let's just make sure we're not messing you up in
Speaker 3: it any way can be a great way to enter
Speaker 3: the conversation with some empathy and also potentially open the
Speaker 3: door to learn more about their need.
Speaker 1: It's also common courtesy that what you're working on, you're
Speaker 1: assuming that is going to impact, potentially impact. Do you
Speaker 1: want to make sure whatever impact that it's going to have,
Speaker 1: it's going to be positive. So whenever anybody approaches me like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm working on something and I just want to make
Speaker 1: sure that we have your best interest in mind, or
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that you know if you're
Speaker 1: going to be a benefactor of this, or I just
Speaker 1: want to make sure that this is going to be
Speaker 1: good for you. Whenever anybody has approached me any time
Speaker 1: in life with something like that, it's always a courtesy
Speaker 1: and it's always appreciated. So I think you're in really
Speaker 1: warm water there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. And the other person I want to talk
Speaker 3: about when we talk about getting multi threat is finance. Right,
Speaker 3: that finance persona is a big one, and I know
Speaker 3: it creates some anks for our salespeople out there. How
Speaker 3: do you approach getting the meeting with finance? I know
Speaker 3: that there's some nuances there you and how do you
Speaker 3: prep for John, let's hear your tip.
Speaker 1: I love that you've brought this up. I think there's
Speaker 1: several ways to think about this. I think you first
Speaker 1: always have to ask yourself questions on how things are
Speaker 1: going to be measured, because finance is always all about
Speaker 1: measurement and performance. Always. There's always metrics in the financial world,
Speaker 1: in good financial worlds, And so what I mean by
Speaker 1: that is when you start asking questions about how things
Speaker 1: are going to be measured and how things are going
Speaker 1: to be measured financially, many times the people that you're
Speaker 1: calling on might not have those answers. And so when
Speaker 1: you ask somebody a good question that they don't already
Speaker 1: have the answer to, a lot of times you're going
Speaker 1: to get the opportunity. You're an open door to go
Speaker 1: get other people involved, and specifically, I find this happens
Speaker 1: in finance all the time. So naturally, when you are
Speaker 1: asking questions about the decision process or the paper process
Speaker 1: and metrics and measurements that you're going to uncover, those
Speaker 1: financially oriented individuals who are involved are going to pop up.
Speaker 1: So when you're talking about the paper process, you're talking
Speaker 1: about metrics, you're talking about how this will be viewed financially,
Speaker 1: most people are going to identify individuals inside of their
Speaker 1: environments that are really responsible for evaluating that. And it's
Speaker 1: just kind of it's kind of an art and a science.
Speaker 1: The way that you prepare is you prepare to ask
Speaker 1: about how things are going to be measured, how things
Speaker 1: are going to be evaluated, and then you look for
Speaker 1: opportunities in that conversation where that's going to come up
Speaker 1: and those names are going to come up, and then
Speaker 1: you always try to get Like, for me, I know
Speaker 1: that financial people are going to be involved in all
Speaker 1: of my sale situations, and I can't think of many
Speaker 1: sale situations where a financial impact will not be uncovered
Speaker 1: or discovered. If it isn't, then you're probably not selling
Speaker 1: things that are you could probably be selling things that
Speaker 1: are more impactful. So I always like to just assume
Speaker 1: that this is always going to happen. And I try
Speaker 1: to get to financial people. I try to get them
Speaker 1: involved early in the process, prior to putting them on
Speaker 1: the spot to react to a proposal. And I always
Speaker 1: like to say this, you go early and you get advice,
Speaker 1: you go late and you get critiqued. So many times
Speaker 1: when I'm building a champion, what I like to do
Speaker 1: is I like to encourage that champion to take me
Speaker 1: to the financial if it's an economic buyer, if it's
Speaker 1: somebody that's going to help in the economic feasibility or
Speaker 1: viability of my solution, I like to go to them
Speaker 1: early and ask advice, and I say things like or
Speaker 1: I have the champion say things like, hey, we're not
Speaker 1: sure if we have a solution to this problem yet
Speaker 1: or not, but what we wanted to do when we
Speaker 1: start to put this solution together early, we want to
Speaker 1: do it under the confines and the constructs of what
Speaker 1: would be easier for you to evaluate. I've never had
Speaker 1: that fail, Rachel. When I go early, now, the champions
Speaker 1: don't always like it. They don't like going to financial
Speaker 1: people without the solution. How much is going to cost?
Speaker 1: But it's I you know, stick to your guns. You're
Speaker 1: in really really warm water. I have tons of examples
Speaker 1: of this in my life where financial people thanked the champion.
Speaker 1: They're like, thank you for asking. So you know you
Speaker 1: have a budget and you know this is the way
Speaker 1: we're going to evaluate it. And if you have anything
Speaker 1: that goes outside of your budget, it's going to have
Speaker 1: to have these type of sign offs and it's going
Speaker 1: to have to and when you give them the courtesy
Speaker 1: to make sure that you're not creating a problem for
Speaker 1: them later, it's amazing. It's really absolutely amazing. Now thousands
Speaker 1: of people will hear that from this podcast, but a
Speaker 1: very small number of people will actually go try it
Speaker 1: and welcome to the world of being uncommon. Go try it.
Speaker 1: Send me an email John dot Kaplan at forcemanagement dot com,
Speaker 1: let me know how it worked. Reach out to me
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn, because I'm just waiting for somebody to come
Speaker 1: back to me and tell me it didn't work. It's
Speaker 1: been twenty years since starting Force Management. I've never had
Speaker 1: anybody come back and tell me didn't work.
Speaker 3: It's so true, and I think you know, as we
Speaker 3: kind of wrap up here, John, I think if you're
Speaker 3: asking these questions about your deals, like who else do
Speaker 3: I need to talk to? Let me get to finance early.
Speaker 3: You mentioned being uncommon, that shows you're thinking about your
Speaker 3: deals in the right way.
Speaker 1: Totally. Yeah, give us a boatline, John, Yeah, you're not
Speaker 1: only thinking about where you are right now, but where
Speaker 1: you have to wind up. And that's all about preparation.
Speaker 1: So basically, in the bottom line, it's very rare today
Speaker 1: that anybody is selling single threaded. If you just look
Speaker 1: at the components of deal qualification, like in medpick, it's
Speaker 1: going to be hard to find one scenario where all
Speaker 1: your interaction for an opportunity would be and all your
Speaker 1: qualification would be with and through one person. And it's
Speaker 1: always been this way back thirty years ago when medicant
Speaker 1: pick were first developed, it always highlighted that there's always
Speaker 1: more than one person. Now when you just look at
Speaker 1: like champions and economic buyers. In the last thirty years
Speaker 1: of selling, for me, it's always been a red flag
Speaker 1: when someone tells me that the champion is the same
Speaker 1: person as the economic buyer. And I'm not saying it
Speaker 1: can't happen, but it is definitely an outlier. And so
Speaker 1: anytime somebody tells me that the champion and the economic
Speaker 1: buyer are the same person, I just considered a red
Speaker 1: flag and I dig deeper. In ninety percent of the
Speaker 1: time they are not the same person. So you need
Speaker 1: to get multi threaded. That's what the most elite sellers do.
Speaker 1: They don't ever rely on one track deal, one entrance
Speaker 1: into an opportunity. So just assume, when you're preparing right
Speaker 1: now to go into an opportunity, what are the other
Speaker 1: threads that I'm going to discover around that are there?
Speaker 1: And I won't get sucked into somebody telling me, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm the only one, I'm the only way inside the account.
Speaker 1: I'm the only one and all the information will go
Speaker 1: through me and I'll make the decision and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: That's a red flag. So just be on the lookout.
Speaker 3: There we go.
Speaker 4: Thank you, John, You're welcome, and thank you to all
Speaker 4: of you for listening to the audib Already podcast. At
Speaker 4: Force Management, we're focused on transforming sales organizations into elite teams.
Speaker 4: Our proven methodologies deliver programs that build company alignment and
Speaker 4: fuel repeatable revenue growth. Give your teams the ability to
Speaker 4: execute the growth strategy at the point of sale. Our
Speaker 4: strength is our experience. The proof is in our results.
Speaker 4: Let's get started. Visit us at forcemanagement dot com.
Speaker 2: You've been listening to the Audible Ready podcast. To not
Speaker 2: miss an episode, subscribe to the show in your favorite
Speaker 2: podcast player until next time.