Speaker 1: We had no issue looking someone in the eye and saying,
Speaker 1: hold on a minute. We do these things really well.
Speaker 1: But you tell me what on this list isn't important
Speaker 1: for you, and we'll take it off.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Audible Ready Podcast, the show that
Speaker 2: helps you and your teams sell more faster. We'll 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: our fps, responding to them in a way that puts
Speaker 3: you in a favorable position. Joining me today is our
Speaker 3: own Brian Walsh. Hi, Brian, Hi, Rachel, how are you good? Good?
Speaker 3: Happy to have you here today.
Speaker 1: It is always my pleasure. I love talking to you
Speaker 1: about this stuff.
Speaker 3: Awesome and we've talked about it before. It's a big topic.
Speaker 3: We could probably do a whole hour on this topic,
Speaker 3: and we'll dive into some different nuances about the RFP today,
Speaker 3: but really the first assumption is that if you're getting
Speaker 3: an RFP, you're likely a little late to the party.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean, and I think that's the traditional concern, right,
Speaker 1: And as you and I have talked already a little
Speaker 1: bit previous to today, the definition of an RFP has
Speaker 1: probably changed in a way in that, you know, in
Speaker 1: the old days, people would come to the table having
Speaker 1: some set of expertise internally, or maybe they've engaged a consultant,
Speaker 1: or maybe they've already worked with a vendor and they've
Speaker 1: written an RFP. There's so much more information out there
Speaker 1: now that it's almost as if every time and interaction
Speaker 1: starts with the customer coming to us with some interest.
Speaker 1: You know, they've done some research on their own. So
Speaker 1: even that is like a verbal form of the RFP.
Speaker 1: And and what I think, And it just hit me
Speaker 1: as you as you said it, and I because I
Speaker 1: agree with the assumption. But it's almost as if getting
Speaker 1: an RFP maybe we should be thinking of it as
Speaker 1: like an invitation to the party, okay, And it's like
Speaker 1: the question now, is is this a party I want
Speaker 1: to go to? And is it a party I want
Speaker 1: to step in, take a look around and get the
Speaker 1: heck out of? Or is it a party I want
Speaker 1: to go to and actually participate in. Maybe that's just
Speaker 1: a little shift on the on the on the concept
Speaker 1: because there are you know, three or four big things
Speaker 1: that I got to understand. How did they get here?
Speaker 1: Did they get here on their own or do they
Speaker 1: are already have some help? Are they using the internet
Speaker 1: and doing all their own research, whatever that might be.
Speaker 1: And then for us, it's getting an understanding, you know,
Speaker 1: if it's a written RFP or it's a verbal conversation,
Speaker 1: just listening and or fully re to better understand what's
Speaker 1: happening so that you can assess your position before you
Speaker 1: try to improve your position right and determine your response.
Speaker 1: And I have to tell you, as I was thinking
Speaker 1: about it this morning before we got on the call,
Speaker 1: I was reminded of some of the greatest strategists I
Speaker 1: was lucky enough to work with. And I think about,
Speaker 1: you know, just names, no one that's going to know,
Speaker 1: but Dan On Nuskin, Becky Mitchell, and Tom Grohle, who
Speaker 1: might be a recognizable name because Tom is the uncle
Speaker 1: of rock and roll as Dave Grohl. But Tom Grohl
Speaker 1: was one of my mentors. So those three names were
Speaker 1: mentors of mine. As a sales rep. And one of
Speaker 1: the things all three of them had in common was
Speaker 1: this ability to really assess our position and to include
Speaker 1: a case like this where there's a live deal on
Speaker 1: the table that we've been invited to participate in. And
Speaker 1: for them, it was all about strategy first, not just
Speaker 1: oh we got something, let's go run to act. It
Speaker 1: was about really assessing what is this thing that we've
Speaker 1: been invited to all about, and how do we figure
Speaker 1: out do we belong, how do we influence it before
Speaker 1: we just run with some set of answers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of great things that you've teed
Speaker 3: up in those opening comments, and I was reminded of myself.
Speaker 3: You know, if you think about when you call a
Speaker 3: vendor looking for a solution, there's already been a lot
Speaker 3: happening internally before you get to that point.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean you sit on that side of
Speaker 1: the desk, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's never the first move, right, right. So you
Speaker 3: talked about strategy and really assessing your position. That's sort
Speaker 3: of that internal work that needs to be done. But
Speaker 3: then the question is how do you determine a great response?
Speaker 3: Because that next step of what you do influenced by
Speaker 3: the strategy is can really go a lot of different ways,
Speaker 3: and you have to be strategic about that response.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, I should probably the rest of
Speaker 1: what I'm going to say in today's podcast with I
Speaker 1: am not the loan expert, right, I just want to
Speaker 1: make sure because I'm afraid that somebody might hear someone
Speaker 1: we want to say and they'll say things like well
Speaker 1: what about or yeah, that works in this situation. And
Speaker 1: you know, as you said, we could talk about this
Speaker 1: concept for an hour, but I do think there's a
Speaker 1: couple of things you have to do. And I kind
Speaker 1: of mentioned in a minute ago. When I look at
Speaker 1: an invitation, because that's really what this is, I got
Speaker 1: to ask myself, is this a party I'm even interested
Speaker 1: in attending? And that should come from your knowledge of
Speaker 1: the account in the political landscape in sidey the account,
Speaker 1: the relationships you do have or don't have. It goes
Speaker 1: back to the concept of account strategy and planning. Have
Speaker 1: we been working on this account to develop champions or
Speaker 1: at least coaches and those kinds of things, or is
Speaker 1: this a cold opportunity for us. That's the first thing.
Speaker 1: And then inside of that, I think You've got to
Speaker 1: have a willingness. If you decide you're going to try
Speaker 1: to participate, you have to have a willingness. Or maybe
Speaker 1: it's a point of view that just says, listen, whether
Speaker 1: this customer buys from us or not is not the
Speaker 1: first question to answer. The first question to answer is
Speaker 1: what does good really look like? Now I'm going to
Speaker 1: sound like a broken record because I talk about this
Speaker 1: all the time, but my job is to help the
Speaker 1: customer to find what good looks like so that we
Speaker 1: can look at that from both sides of the desk,
Speaker 1: and I can start to answer the question before the
Speaker 1: customer even does. Am I a good fit for that?
Speaker 1: Because if I've really helped you think through what good
Speaker 1: looks like and we've landed on what good looks like
Speaker 1: for you and your organization, it then should become obvious
Speaker 1: to me and my team are we a good potential
Speaker 1: fit for this set of outcomes and what it takes
Speaker 1: to get to those outcomes? So I should be qualifying
Speaker 1: this opportunity in that way first, before I start thinking
Speaker 1: about what can I compete against other offerings that it
Speaker 1: might already be at the table. Take that out of
Speaker 1: the equation. Because that clouds your vision. That gets you
Speaker 1: focused on getting the win over the competition, versus defining
Speaker 1: and anchoring tim catoism, which I love, right, anchoring the
Speaker 1: conversation and the problems we're trying to help you solve,
Speaker 1: and more importantly, in my mind, the outcomes we're trying
Speaker 1: to help you drive. I think it got to start there.
Speaker 1: You got to have the willingness, you know, to make
Speaker 1: the customer earn your expertise a little bit when it
Speaker 1: comes to your product and your solutions, right because you know, well, kid,
Speaker 1: you're going to say something, I think.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, No, no, I think your to your point.
Speaker 3: It's about the outcomes, and they know where they want
Speaker 3: to get to, and they think they have the solution requirements.
Speaker 3: But it's kind of your job to trying to late
Speaker 3: the truth there and make sure that that path is
Speaker 3: really going to get them to the outcomes yeah they
Speaker 3: want to achieve.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, because I think you know, it's the idea
Speaker 1: that you if you can anchor the conversation in you know,
Speaker 1: and we all have our own style. My style is
Speaker 1: to try to help the customer realize that Look, you know,
Speaker 1: you want me to talk about me and how we
Speaker 1: how we can address this RFP or this listen requires.
Speaker 1: The problem is I could talk about me for hours
Speaker 1: on end. I need enough context to make sure that
Speaker 1: what I'm about to say about me actually aligned with
Speaker 1: where you're trying to go. So, I mean, I get it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to honor the required capabilities you come to
Speaker 1: the table with. But my first responsibility, I think, is
Speaker 1: to get some things on the table that you may
Speaker 1: not have thought about yet, or you may not have
Speaker 1: thought about fully yet, in order to expand the universe
Speaker 1: of what's important for you to think about right before.
Speaker 1: Because I think this is all about and this is
Speaker 1: my mindset I'm when I say this, I think this
Speaker 1: is all about the customer getting to a great outcome
Speaker 1: and to your point about triangulating the truth. So I'm
Speaker 1: not only trying to triangulate the truth about that what
Speaker 1: is really a great outcome and what's truly required to
Speaker 1: get there and if you really thought about all of
Speaker 1: that and if you really thought about all of that
Speaker 1: with depth. But the other thing I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: is I'm trying toqualify you, right. I mean, you're the
Speaker 1: one who invited me to this party. Do I want
Speaker 1: to spend time with you. Are you worth spending time with?
Speaker 1: And you know, because it's the old you know, A third,
Speaker 1: a third, a third, even when the owner organization is
Speaker 1: an RFP. In a way, I'm of the strong belief
Speaker 1: that a third of the people involved in that RFP
Speaker 1: are the ones actually sponsoring it. They want to see
Speaker 1: some change, they're going to put their names on it.
Speaker 1: A third of the people, you know, they're all long
Speaker 1: for the ride, they'll, they'll, they'll, they're all in for
Speaker 1: the change, but they're not going to put their name
Speaker 1: on it. They don't want to own it. And then
Speaker 1: there's a third of the people who are praying to
Speaker 1: God this thing doesn't happen because it's going to change
Speaker 1: their life. They don't want it. Right. And my only
Speaker 1: point is I'm constantly trying to triangulate who am I
Speaker 1: in front of? Am I talking to? Which one of
Speaker 1: those three people am I talking to? And if I
Speaker 1: find myself in that third person's office, I'm not suggesting
Speaker 1: that that data point alone means I qualify me and
Speaker 1: my team out of the deal, but I probably does
Speaker 1: qualify me out of their office. Right, So all of
Speaker 1: these data points matter but it does. I think I'll
Speaker 1: go back to first and foremost, you have to anchor
Speaker 1: the conversation in what are you really trying to solve for?
Speaker 1: Because if you can get that door open about what
Speaker 1: are the outcomes you're trying to achieve, it's easier to
Speaker 1: start talking through required capabilities at a deeper level. It's
Speaker 1: also easier to pull them back and say, well, how
Speaker 1: did we even get there? What problem are we trying
Speaker 1: to solve for?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and focusing on the outcomes is a really easy
Speaker 3: way to make a buyer focused the conversation hier focus.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And by focusing on the outcomes, it's another way
Speaker 1: to qualify the person you're in front of. Technical buyer,
Speaker 1: economic buyer, coach, potential champion, potential enemy, someone who cares,
Speaker 1: someone who's on for the ride, someone who doesn't care.
Speaker 1: I mean, all of those things start to become a
Speaker 1: little bit clearer so that you can then come back
Speaker 1: and start to make some educated decisions, not on the
Speaker 1: final outcome. Are we going to participate or not? But
Speaker 1: what's our strategy to then go forward?
Speaker 3: Right next? Your next steps?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, As you're triangulating the truth and listening to them
Speaker 3: talking about outcomes and solution requirements. The other thing you're
Speaker 3: assessing is there a competitor already in there? Are we
Speaker 3: behind as it relates to our competition?
Speaker 1: Yeah? And as a result, again, it's another strategy moment.
Speaker 1: What's the competitive strategy we need to play into here?
Speaker 1: Because if some competitors already got relationship and has already
Speaker 1: built some differentiation into the conversation me trying to meet
Speaker 1: them directly on the battlefield is probably not going to
Speaker 1: be the best of ideas. I'm going to have to either,
Speaker 1: and I think you got to have both of these
Speaker 1: to make the strategy work. I'm gonna have to take
Speaker 1: a step back and ask myself, is this a flanking
Speaker 1: opportunity or a fragmenting opportunity? Can I flank the deal
Speaker 1: with additional differentiation that I have that is important to
Speaker 1: getting the outcomes? And even but that's only going to
Speaker 1: work if I've also got relationship, right, I've got some
Speaker 1: credibility in the account. And then secondarily, or do I
Speaker 1: fragment it? So I look at this large deal and go,
Speaker 1: this thing is set up seventy five percent of it
Speaker 1: for the competition already, and that makes perfect sense. But
Speaker 1: this twenty five percent over here, we do really well,
Speaker 1: how do I maybe pull that piece of the deal out?
Speaker 1: Like that's that's like a real serious competitive strategy conversation
Speaker 1: that should be happening early if something's coming to us
Speaker 1: and we can already tell other people are engaged. Here's
Speaker 1: the other thing too, when you think about the people
Speaker 1: if you've got a third party involved, like a consultant,
Speaker 1: which happened, which is happening more and more right in
Speaker 1: certain industries. It's been happening in other industries for a
Speaker 1: long time. But if you've got a consultant in the room,
Speaker 1: you've got to be start to ask yourself some questions
Speaker 1: about that. What does that relationship mean to the customer?
Speaker 1: How does that consultant get paid? Right? What is their
Speaker 1: objective which is you know, often not totally aligned. Their
Speaker 1: objective is to save money, right, because that's how they
Speaker 1: get paid. They get a percentage of cost savings and
Speaker 1: this and purchasing is aligned with that to one extent
Speaker 1: or another. And then the line of businesses does even
Speaker 1: isn't even aware of that relationship. They've got a responsibility
Speaker 1: to the customer base or to the patient or whatever marketplace,
Speaker 1: you know, vertical market I'm in. So then you've got
Speaker 1: to start to triangulate all of that. There's a lot
Speaker 1: more than just oh you want these ten requirements. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you how we do it right?
Speaker 3: Right, Because really this r an RFP verbal, however it
Speaker 3: comes to you, is an opportunity and you have to
Speaker 3: decide what you're going to do. Two of that those
Speaker 3: key questions asking your customer what outcomes you're trying to drive?
Speaker 3: How and then how are you going to ensure that
Speaker 3: your requirements actually drive those? And you know you're sort
Speaker 3: of circling around this other point with the RFP. That
Speaker 3: can be a little bit of a dance that when
Speaker 3: you decide this isn't for us and you need to
Speaker 3: walk away, that is not always easy, especially if there's
Speaker 3: an established relationship there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk about the walking awayside, and then
Speaker 1: we'll talk about the what about going all inside? Right?
Speaker 1: So but on your on your question, the contents of
Speaker 1: atit and gratefully, I think this is really in and
Speaker 1: of itself a really important skill set, right because we've
Speaker 1: all seen this go really bad, like I remember no
Speaker 1: names please, right, we'll protect protect the guilty but I
Speaker 1: remember getting a phone call from a Fortune five one thousand,
Speaker 1: I think for five hundred client, and it was the
Speaker 1: administrative aid for the CEO, and we had responded to
Speaker 1: an RFP and midway through we got cut. So we
Speaker 1: didn't we didn't walk away, but we got cut. But
Speaker 1: this is close. The rep shows, without any agreement from
Speaker 1: anybody else, the account executive on the on the account
Speaker 1: chose to send the CEO a letter letting the CEO
Speaker 1: know how awful his team was in no uncertaint terms.
Speaker 1: And obviously I had no idea about it, nor did
Speaker 1: anyone else, but I'm the one who got the call
Speaker 1: from the CEO's office, and of course, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: I immediately took responsibility and apologized, and he was happy that
Speaker 1: I was willing to, you know, own it, and you know,
Speaker 1: we walked away having a good conversation. But you know,
Speaker 1: there's a way to exit gracefully, you know. And whether
Speaker 1: it's midway through the RP when you think you're about
Speaker 1: to lose, or it's early on and you're seeing yourself,
Speaker 1: I don't think we belong in this one, as much
Speaker 1: as we'd like to compete. If this was a brand
Speaker 1: new opportunity. Maybe we could better influence it, but these
Speaker 1: require capabilities are already set up for somebody else, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. You have got to find a way to
Speaker 1: exit gracefully and live to fight another day. And again,
Speaker 1: even that is a skill, and I think how you
Speaker 1: do that? Again? It goes back to strategy. It goes
Speaker 1: back to In one account, we just might be able
Speaker 1: to call somebody up and say, listen, Rachel, we've known
Speaker 1: you a long time. The reality is we already know
Speaker 1: that like you, and I may be so tight that
Speaker 1: I can say Rachel's reality is this has clearly already
Speaker 1: been written for ex competitor, and that's okay. If that's
Speaker 1: if that's where this is headed, those things happen, and
Speaker 1: if we can't influence it, let's just move on right.
Speaker 1: In other cases, it might require a more formal response.
Speaker 1: We used to do a lot of this kind of thing,
Speaker 1: where we would look at an RFP and say, hey,
Speaker 1: if it had the following couple of outcomes in it
Speaker 1: and or the following couple of required capabilities, we could
Speaker 1: potentially play. And so we would send a letter and
Speaker 1: just stay very very kindly, hey, based on your RP.
Speaker 1: It looks like this is where you're headed. We believe
Speaker 1: that there's some conversations around the following outcome and or
Speaker 1: required capabilities that need to be had. If you if
Speaker 1: you'd like to have those, we are a potential player.
Speaker 1: If not, that's okay, but we're probably we're not going
Speaker 1: to play because we don't. You know, it just doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. That's probably the wrong language, which you get
Speaker 1: the point. And what I find interesting is you would
Speaker 1: immediately find some things out. Those conversations on one in
Speaker 1: the spectrum or somewhere in the middle would immediately tell
Speaker 1: you if your gut is correct. You might It wasn't
Speaker 1: all the time, but more frequently than people might think.
Speaker 1: We would get a response to the verbal conversation that
Speaker 1: I just walked it through, or the written conversation I
Speaker 1: gave an example of that would say well, whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, come on here, come in here and
Speaker 1: talk to us about that stuff. Okay. Again, it didn't
Speaker 1: mean we were going to stay in the deal, but
Speaker 1: it did give us the opportunity to go in and
Speaker 1: try to influence and I better understand so that we
Speaker 1: could look the cuts in the eye, often in that
Speaker 1: very moment and say, okay, based on this conversation, we're
Speaker 1: all in. Or based on this conversation, we're clearly not
Speaker 1: the right fit. And by the way, here's what we
Speaker 1: think you might want to do. You might want to
Speaker 1: call these people like especially I'm laughing because especially, like
Speaker 1: if this was already wound for one competitor, we didn't
Speaker 1: want to make it easy for the competition. We you know,
Speaker 1: so if we knew somebody else who could make their
Speaker 1: life difficult whether they win or not, and and like
Speaker 1: an honest competitor for the you know, for the customer
Speaker 1: to consider, we say, you know what you should do.
Speaker 1: You should call those folks over at because they're another
Speaker 1: group that might be able to do this really really well,
Speaker 1: you know that kind of thing. Again, I'm doing this
Speaker 1: with the customer's best interest in mine, but I'm also
Speaker 1: trying to make life a little more difficult for one
Speaker 1: of my competitors who's already made tried to make my
Speaker 1: life difficult by writing an RFP and then getting me
Speaker 1: pulled in as a second or a third bit. So
Speaker 1: you get my point, right, I mean, but this is
Speaker 1: all about really good strategy and preparation. It's all about
Speaker 1: really think it's chess like this is thinking three four
Speaker 1: moves ahead, not just reacting to the move that the
Speaker 1: other player just made on the board, right, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not the greatest chess player, but I
Speaker 1: understand that concept really well, and so I would my
Speaker 1: biggest piece of advice on this would be when you
Speaker 1: get something like this, stop for a minute and think
Speaker 1: about strategy before you just act.
Speaker 3: Right before you reacts too.
Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, And this idea of exiting is
Speaker 1: another example of that. Don't just exit with a knee
Speaker 1: jerk reaction. Exit in a way that sets you up
Speaker 1: for other conversations in the future, sets you up with
Speaker 1: some credibility, at least gets people at least set your
Speaker 1: exit in a way where no one can say bad
Speaker 1: things about you for exiting. How's that at a minimum? Right,
Speaker 1: that's like the minimum?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I like I love that point, Brian. And I'm
Speaker 3: also reminded of a vendor search. I guess you would say.
Speaker 3: We had several years ago, and I had a relationship
Speaker 3: with one of the options, and they qualified themselves out,
Speaker 3: and they had had meetings with us, and they qualified
Speaker 3: themselves out by an email. They sent me just a
Speaker 3: blank an email. It's like, hey, I don't think this
Speaker 3: is a good fit. And I already had an established
Speaker 3: relationship with them, and I was taken aback by that.
Speaker 3: And guess what you know, four years later, we're looking
Speaker 3: for the same type of vendor and I did not
Speaker 3: call them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's not it's what's you know, people don't
Speaker 1: remember what you said. They remember how you made them feel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, or you know, it's not what you say,
Speaker 1: it's how you say it. Whatever, whatever, idiots and whatever,
Speaker 1: whatever you call those things, whatever that might be, it's
Speaker 1: that's truth. It's it's how you do it. It's going
Speaker 1: to matter, and it may open up the door to well, wait,
Speaker 1: what do you mean we shouldn't date? What do you
Speaker 1: mean you don't want to date me?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Right? Right?
Speaker 3: So you mentioned you mentioned strategy, and I know that
Speaker 3: we've covered this topic and some other error and some
Speaker 3: other webinars and podcasts, but I wanted to talk about
Speaker 3: it here too. Is you do have the opportunity if
Speaker 3: you're strategic and you're doing the right account planning and
Speaker 3: you have the right relationship to help the customer build
Speaker 3: the RFP. Who would who wouldn't want to do that?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Being there so early? But I think the question is
Speaker 3: always how, And you have some great thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: I'd love you to talk through some tips to help
Speaker 3: the sellers out there actually.
Speaker 1: Try and do that. Yeah, I thinks, because I think
Speaker 1: this is important first and foremost. You know, you got
Speaker 1: to look at the universe of your territory and be
Speaker 1: honest with yourself about where are my opportunities long term?
Speaker 1: Because you know there's pipeline there, there's ongoing deals that
Speaker 1: you're working on. But then there are other accounts that
Speaker 1: require a different lens. There are accounts that, because of
Speaker 1: their size or just how the company is built, they're
Speaker 1: more formal, right, and you know RFP like so that
Speaker 1: first thing, understand your territory makeup, and understand which accounts
Speaker 1: are probably more apt to live in this world of
Speaker 1: a more formal process, and then start thinking about forget
Speaker 1: the deal level, forget the RFP level for a minute,
Speaker 1: start thinking a level up at the account plan. Who
Speaker 1: are the people that once decisions start getting made that
Speaker 1: are going to affect us. Who are the people inside
Speaker 1: of that organization that are going to matter when it
Speaker 1: comes to writing an RFP, putting an RFP together, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and start creating what we used to call,
Speaker 1: and I think is still often called a relationship strategy.
Speaker 1: And it's funny when I use that word sometimes you'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got lots of
Speaker 1: personal relationships in the account. I'm like time out. There's
Speaker 1: little R and there's big R. Like little R is
Speaker 1: that right, we go to lunch, you take my phone
Speaker 1: calls that kind of stuff. Big R is We're having
Speaker 1: business conversations that are forward thinking, right, And they both matter.
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting one doesn't matter and the other does.
Speaker 1: They both matter. But when I talk about relationship strategies
Speaker 1: with people, I'm thinking about again strategy keyword, getting in
Speaker 1: a room and really thinking about, especially if there's more
Speaker 1: than one of me calling on the account. Who are
Speaker 1: all of these different players by name or by title
Speaker 1: that we know we need to start building relationships with
Speaker 1: and how are we going to do that? Who inside
Speaker 1: of our team is going to do that? How is
Speaker 1: Rachel going to go after this person and the marketing
Speaker 1: team that we normally need access to, while Brian goes
Speaker 1: to this person uh, and the people who typically own
Speaker 1: the lines of business, somebody else is going into some
Speaker 1: technical parts of the business. How are we going to
Speaker 1: build those relationships over time so that there's some strategy
Speaker 1: against strategy and thought out execution to do that. Because
Speaker 1: if you live at the account level, it makes it
Speaker 1: a lot easier to do the next thing, which is
Speaker 1: to start getting them thinking about the issues that we
Speaker 1: are most relevant to in their world before those issues
Speaker 1: either become big, big issues or before somebody else gets
Speaker 1: in there and starts building an RFP at the product
Speaker 1: level that we now have to respond to, right, And
Speaker 1: that's you know, because what happens is another competitor's coming
Speaker 1: in at the low level and they're trying, you know,
Speaker 1: they're trying to product hide the conversation and basically get
Speaker 1: somebody at the low level to spend twenty thousand or
Speaker 1: forty thousand dollars a budget to do a science experiment
Speaker 1: and to hope that science experiment turns into some enterprise opportunity.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that's a bad strategy depending on
Speaker 1: the account, but again, that's a tactic that somebody else
Speaker 1: might be using. And if you're not having if you're
Speaker 1: not building these relationships and having these business conversations on
Speaker 1: the front end. There's a good chance that that might happen.
Speaker 1: Right now, all of a sudden, somebody's brought something from
Speaker 1: the bottom of the organization up and people are starting
Speaker 1: to look around, going, oh, that's interesting. What does that
Speaker 1: thing do? What does it solve for? So before you
Speaker 1: know it, you've gotten backdoored into an RFP. So that's
Speaker 1: why I think this thing is so important. I think
Speaker 1: the other thing you can do is I have found
Speaker 1: this very effective in the past is to have a
Speaker 1: we used to call it internally, I think we used
Speaker 1: to call it an RFP or a big influencer and
Speaker 1: what it was. And again, this is like anything else.
Speaker 1: If you're not careful, people will see it in the
Speaker 1: wrong way. But we had a document when we would
Speaker 1: do large managed services engagements for example and other large
Speaker 1: but there's just just one example where we could go
Speaker 1: into an organization and we say, listen, we know you're
Speaker 1: thinking about this topic. We understand you know why you
Speaker 1: would be thinking about it for the business, and this
Speaker 1: is where you're trying to go and this, for example,
Speaker 1: is the cost savings and the people impact on everything
Speaker 1: that you can do for the business. It's all very
Speaker 1: positive stuff. What we have found though, is the numbers
Speaker 1: associated with these projects are so big for the company,
Speaker 1: The outcomes are so big for you, whether you do
Speaker 1: it with us or not, that that can start the
Speaker 1: cloud judgment and people can get so focused on the number,
Speaker 1: the outcome, the cost savings and all of that stuff
Speaker 1: that people forget what it really needs to get to
Speaker 1: that outcome and make sure that you not only get
Speaker 1: to that outcome, but then it actually stays. It doesn't
Speaker 1: revert back to the old way six months later because
Speaker 1: you didn't do it right. So we'd like to give
Speaker 1: you something. This is a two to three pager. These
Speaker 1: are all of the things, and we would write it
Speaker 1: in customer language, not product or future language. These are
Speaker 1: all of the things that we know organizations need to
Speaker 1: think through so that they could come to the right
Speaker 1: conclusion for themselves. Security was like, as an example, like,
Speaker 1: if you don't think through security as it relates to
Speaker 1: the following two or three or four bullets, there's a
Speaker 1: good chance you're going to make a decision and something's
Speaker 1: going to go wrong on the other side. I'm not
Speaker 1: telling you what decision to make. What I'm suggesting to
Speaker 1: you is these are the three or four security bullets
Speaker 1: that you and your team better think through before you
Speaker 1: ask anybody to come in here with products and solutions.
Speaker 1: It was obviously well written for us because of the
Speaker 1: product and solution differentiation we had, but there was no
Speaker 1: one that could read it and say, oh, that's because
Speaker 1: you do this and other people don't do it, or
Speaker 1: that's not what it was. It was. This is stuff
Speaker 1: that whether you buy from us or not, if you
Speaker 1: don't think through good up, you're going to have revolts,
Speaker 1: you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera as a result.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I love that idea. And you know
Speaker 3: you're really making the point Brian that it's while you're
Speaker 3: going to sort of tee up your differentiation, it's vendor
Speaker 3: and not agnostic. But I may say you're teeing up
Speaker 3: your differentiation because it matters to the customer. The fact
Speaker 3: that you do it this way will lead to better
Speaker 3: outcomes of the customer. I mean, that's why you're selling
Speaker 3: what you're selling. So making it in the outcomes of
Speaker 3: the customer and almost vendor agnostic. Yeah, can really be beneficial.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The worst thing that ever happened when we did
Speaker 1: that was we had a couple of clients who and
Speaker 1: as I remember, they were both more procurement driven. They
Speaker 1: weren't lying a business type of folks. But you know,
Speaker 1: they got a little upset because they'd look at it
Speaker 1: and they'd start to dig it, and they'd say, to
Speaker 1: your point, oh, I get it. This is all built
Speaker 1: around you, guys, and your solutions and how much better
Speaker 1: you are. And we had no issue looking someone in
Speaker 1: the eye and saying, hold on a minute, we do
Speaker 1: these things really well, but you tell me what on
Speaker 1: this list isn't important for you, and we'll take it off.
Speaker 1: That's not what this is about. This is about whether
Speaker 1: you buy from us or not. What does it take
Speaker 1: to get to a great outcome like we were. We
Speaker 1: were we were doing contracts that were very large and
Speaker 1: five to seven years long, and we're going to have
Speaker 1: an impact on a customer's business. That's that is fact.
Speaker 1: And the numbers, not just the dollar valued us, but
Speaker 1: the numbers to the customer were significant. And so we
Speaker 1: had no problem looking the customer and say, hey, this
Speaker 1: is about whether or not you can you can cut
Speaker 1: whatever your total revenue line is at the top, if
Speaker 1: you can save somewhere between I don't know, one to
Speaker 1: two percent of that. If you don't want to do that,
Speaker 1: that's fine, But if you want to do that, this
Speaker 1: is what it takes to get to those kinds of
Speaker 1: outcomes and actually make it stick. So that's how to
Speaker 1: your point. It's yeah, I love how you just discuided.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to add that additional piece in because
Speaker 1: it's just it's about you. If I'm the right fit,
Speaker 1: that will be a natural outcome.
Speaker 3: Exactly exactly. This is such a meati topic, Brian. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we could do like a ten part series on it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think I'm going to land the plane here. I
Speaker 3: would love for you to wrap this up, kind of
Speaker 3: give us a summary. I know that there are a
Speaker 3: lot of people listening out there who are finding themselves
Speaker 3: in this very situation right now. I'm sure they're going
Speaker 3: to say, oh, let me go back and write that
Speaker 3: down or backtrack this podcast. But if you could just
Speaker 3: kind of wrap up your key points as it relates
Speaker 3: to these RFPs, I'd love to have you do that
Speaker 3: here as we close.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, first and foremost, I think However, the opportunity
Speaker 1: comes to formal RFP verbal requests somewhere, you know, request
Speaker 1: for information whatever, that might be the first thing you've
Speaker 1: got to be willing to do is take take a
Speaker 1: breath and really look at this thing and ask yourself,
Speaker 1: what is this initial thing telling me? And let's think
Speaker 1: about the more formal RP. Because if it's the verbal request,
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, well that's easy. It's like, wait, stop
Speaker 1: right there for a minute, help me better understand what
Speaker 1: you're trying to achieve before I start talking about myself. Right,
Speaker 1: that's the one. But on the formal side of this,
Speaker 1: it's you really got to read it, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you got to read the dang thing, and you have
Speaker 1: to really think about, Okay, what is this as written
Speaker 1: telling us? Look, and I know you're making some assumptions,
Speaker 1: but looks like it's already been written for looks like
Speaker 1: this is pretty early stage. And then you can take
Speaker 1: that that initial understanding and match it up with the
Speaker 1: relationship strategy that you do or don't have in your account,
Speaker 1: and you can start to make some of the decisions
Speaker 1: about next steps. But what I promise you is a
Speaker 1: universal truth is that unless you wrote the RFP, which
Speaker 1: we're not talking about in this case, that the first
Speaker 1: next step is to is to get in front of
Speaker 1: people to better understand do you have any opportunity to
Speaker 1: help this customer think through this conversation more widely and
Speaker 1: deeply than they would have if we weren't in the room.
Speaker 1: That's the first decision you got to make, and then
Speaker 1: get into the how are we going to do that?
Speaker 1: So that you can then show up And I think
Speaker 1: this is the other thing I would recommend you have
Speaker 1: to show up at these meetings with something. The RFP
Speaker 1: influencer that I talked about a few minutes ago is
Speaker 1: a good example that you can use to get people's attention.
Speaker 1: Here's another quick example. In these large managed print services
Speaker 1: deals that I used to work on, we had a
Speaker 1: ten question test and I loved this. We would get
Speaker 1: a meeting with we would try to get it with
Speaker 1: multiple people, but even if it was only one, we
Speaker 1: had ten questions. And I've helped other clients I walked
Speaker 1: them through this example for and some of our clients,
Speaker 1: I've helped them kind of build their own version of
Speaker 1: this doesn't answer to be ten, it might be five, whatever,
Speaker 1: But we had ten salient points, and they were discrete questions.
Speaker 1: They were yes, no, They break the rule on open
Speaker 1: ended questions. They were closed ended questions, but they were
Speaker 1: purposefully closed ended because we would say to everybody in
Speaker 1: the room, Okay, we're going to ask you ten questions.
Speaker 1: Don't share your answers with anybody else. And the first
Speaker 1: question would be who, by name and title is the
Speaker 1: project sponsor. The second question would be something like what
Speaker 1: are the business metrics that are being used by that
Speaker 1: person to judge the success of this project? The third
Speaker 1: was and then we got into some yes and knows
Speaker 1: about the collective organization, et cetera. And then when we
Speaker 1: got down we say okay, we'd go around the room
Speaker 1: and say, Rachel, how many yeses or actual answers do
Speaker 1: you have? And Rachel would share her answers, Oh, I
Speaker 1: answered yes, or I have an actual answer to four,
Speaker 1: somebody else would have five, would to somebody have seven.
Speaker 1: We'd say, okay, what does that tell you? And then
Speaker 1: we would make them we'd make them figure it out,
Speaker 1: because what that tells you, first and foremost is we're
Speaker 1: all not on the same page. We all don't have
Speaker 1: the same answers. And then we would say, look, here's
Speaker 1: our experience. Our experience is if you can't do eight,
Speaker 1: if you can't answer eight or nine of these ten
Speaker 1: questions collectively, you should not do this project with anyone
Speaker 1: because we know from our experience, and we can point
Speaker 1: to other accounts clients where it didn't work because they
Speaker 1: couldn't like we have learned, these are the ten questions
Speaker 1: that will tell you whether or not this project is
Speaker 1: going to succeed, whether you do it with us or not. Now,
Speaker 1: some of those couple of those questions probably started to
Speaker 1: lean towards our differentiation, but a lot of them were
Speaker 1: actually about them. And so the point I'm trying to
Speaker 1: make here is a lot of what we've been talking
Speaker 1: about today is about how you sell, not what you sell.
Speaker 1: A lot of it has been about your willingness to
Speaker 1: look somebody in the eye and go listen, whether you
Speaker 1: buy from me or not. Let's just put that to
Speaker 1: the side for a second. Well, let's just have a
Speaker 1: live conversation about what you're trying to achieve, how you're
Speaker 1: going to measure success, whether or not you've got alignment
Speaker 1: around that internally, so that we can then have an
Speaker 1: odd conversation about what does it truly take to get there?
Speaker 1: Because if you're willing to have that conversation with me,
Speaker 1: I'm willing to give you everything you need to include.
Speaker 1: Look you in the eye and say I'm not the
Speaker 1: right fit. Who would deny that? I'll tell you who'll
Speaker 1: deny it. The one third of the people who don't
Speaker 1: want anything to do with this goes all the way
Speaker 1: back to what we talked to the beginning, and that's
Speaker 1: and that's a data point, right, And I know what
Speaker 1: I do with that data point. I'll let you choose
Speaker 1: to do what you want to do with that data point.
Speaker 1: And I and I think that's what it really boils
Speaker 1: down to. This is about how you react in a moment,
Speaker 1: not what you say. I mean, what you say comes
Speaker 1: right behind it. But you get my point. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's my summary. Oh, last, but not least, you know
Speaker 1: my favorite. Out of every ten deals you work, you're
Speaker 1: going to win three just for showing up. They know you,
Speaker 1: they love you, they like you. Whatever you're gonna lose,
Speaker 1: You're gonna lose three just for showing up. They know you,
Speaker 1: they hate you, whatever, you know. It's the four in
Speaker 1: the middle. That you really got to compete for, and
Speaker 1: so your ability to quickly assess when you get an
Speaker 1: RFP in the mail, you know it ain't the first three, right,
Speaker 1: It ain't one of the ones you're gonna win automatically
Speaker 1: because you got the RP and the mail. But now
Speaker 1: so now it's in one of the other two categories.
Speaker 1: This is one you're really gonna have to compete for
Speaker 1: or one you're gonna lose no matter what. And I
Speaker 1: think it was our friend John mcmahonon said there are
Speaker 1: two winners in every deal, right, the REP who wins
Speaker 1: the deal and the first REP to get out of
Speaker 1: the deal because they realize they don't belong in it.
Speaker 1: Whoever said it, I'll give John credit. I've never you know,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if it's true or not. But
Speaker 1: somebody said, I think it's brilliant. So that's the thing here,
Speaker 1: really understand quickly can we compete and is it worth
Speaker 1: competing for? Strategy and then execution the end the end world?
Speaker 3: Drop the mic right there, fight for those four All right,
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Brian. I appreciate you joining me
Speaker 3: for the conversation today.
Speaker 1: My pleasure. Thanks Rachel, see soon, all right, and.
Speaker 3: Thank you to all of you for listening to the
Speaker 3: Audible Ready Sales podcast.
Speaker 4: At Force Management, we're focused on transforming sales organizations into
Speaker 4: elite teams. Our proven methodologies deliver programs that build company
Speaker 4: alignment and fuel repeatable revenue growth. Give your teams the
Speaker 4: ability to execute the growth strategy at the point of sale.
Speaker 4: Our 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.