Speaker 1: So just as we discover pain with the customers, we
Speaker 1: need to discover REPS challenges. And when we align to
Speaker 1: a customer's value drivers, we need to align to the
Speaker 1: REPS goals.
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. Joining me today is our own John Bony.
Speaker 1: Hi. John, Hey, Rachel, how are you great to see
Speaker 1: you and hear you again?
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you for coming back on the podcast. John
Speaker 3: brought me this topic and I love it because it's
Speaker 3: a different take on offering value as a manager as
Speaker 3: a leader. You know, we talk about the fact that
Speaker 3: you have to do that, and it's a structured conversation. Right,
Speaker 3: If you're going to do it well, you want to
Speaker 3: offer value, you got to offer some motivation and we
Speaker 3: talk about value based conversations all the time, Right, It's
Speaker 3: a corner stone of command of the message, but frame
Speaker 3: it with customers. So if we so if we take
Speaker 3: that concept of that mindset and think about it as
Speaker 3: we're talking to our team members, what does that look like?
Speaker 3: So that's what we're going to talk about today. So John,
Speaker 3: let's just start right there. What does it look like
Speaker 3: when we take that rigor of command of the message,
Speaker 3: aligning value to the conversation and what's in it for
Speaker 3: them to coaching our reps?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Really good. So this is absolutely a conversation and
Speaker 1: a topic that I'm super passionate about. And the more
Speaker 1: I've put thought into this, the more it teems to
Speaker 1: make sense around when we think about command of the
Speaker 1: message and we think about this as it relates to
Speaker 1: coaching our reps, it means treating our reps like we
Speaker 1: treat our customers through structured discovery and alignment to value.
Speaker 1: You mentioned value a couple of times as you are
Speaker 1: kind of doing the intro, and that allows us to
Speaker 1: guide appropriate development with the person that we're in front of.
Speaker 1: You know, oftentimes we find that the reps don't feel
Speaker 1: like the one on ones are valuable because we as
Speaker 1: leaders sometimes don't take the time to determine what is
Speaker 1: Rachel going to find value in this count? How is
Speaker 1: she going to find value in this conversation? So instead
Speaker 1: of telling reps what to do, we need to ask
Speaker 1: open ended questions and uncover their challenges and motivations and
Speaker 1: blockers that are getting in the way. So, just as
Speaker 1: we discover pain with the customers, we need to discover
Speaker 1: reps challenges. And when we align to a customer's value drivers,
Speaker 1: we need to align to the rep's goals and when
Speaker 1: we guide the customer's decision process, similarly, when we're coaching reps,
Speaker 1: we need to guide the rep to a development process.
Speaker 1: And so this approach transformed coaching from a reactive task
Speaker 1: to a strategic leadership discipline where every conversation is an
Speaker 1: opportunity to drive growth, not just hit a number and
Speaker 1: go accomplish performance.
Speaker 3: Right when you talk about, you know, developing a team member,
Speaker 3: it's about showing them the value of changing their behaviors
Speaker 3: or doing it in a different way, or putting a
Speaker 3: discipline around it. And we talk a lot about when
Speaker 3: we're looking at opportunities or like deal reviews, we say
Speaker 3: don't call them deal inspection session, it's deal coaching. It's
Speaker 3: not opportunity inspection. It's opportunity coaching to try to get
Speaker 3: to that value based approach. And we know that coaching
Speaker 3: is learned, right, Great coaching is learned, and it's about
Speaker 3: developing that muscle in yourself to be a great coach.
Speaker 3: And it starts with kind of shifting that mindset. Can
Speaker 3: you talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you said something about developing a muscle. And
Speaker 1: one of the analogies that I've used, and this has
Speaker 1: had this conversation so many times, that it's coaching is
Speaker 1: a skillet. And it would be like taking a lawyer
Speaker 1: who has a skill set in the law and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: tomorrow we're going to have you go into surgery and
Speaker 1: you're going to perform lung surgery. Here's the scalpel ready go.
Speaker 1: They don't know the skill, they don't know what's needed,
Speaker 1: they don't know how to accomplish the task that needs
Speaker 1: to be accomplished. So coaching isn't about fixing people, it's
Speaker 1: about developing them. And there's a book that's out there
Speaker 1: by Keith Rosen and he puts it best by saying,
Speaker 1: stop solving and start coaching. When leaders treat coaching as
Speaker 1: a corrective action, it becomes punitive reactive, right, But when
Speaker 1: it's seen as a core to leadership competency, it becomes proactive,
Speaker 1: it becomes empowering, it becomes consistent. And so the mindset
Speaker 1: shift goes to building trust in psychological safety with your rep. Right,
Speaker 1: you've got to build that trust in safety, and it
Speaker 1: encourages reps to have self reflection and be able to
Speaker 1: self assas as to take ownership and the challenges that
Speaker 1: they're trying to overcome too, and that in turn will
Speaker 1: drive long term capabilities and not just short term compliance
Speaker 1: meaning they're just doing the task to be compliant. They're
Speaker 1: becoming capable of teach a person how to fish versus
Speaker 1: catch the fish forum, and so you teach them how
Speaker 1: to fish. In a nutshell, that's the difference between managing
Speaker 1: for results versus leading for growth in some of those
Speaker 1: competencies that are needed. It's about taking the time to
Speaker 1: stop solving and start coaching.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you mentioned some of those value based selling
Speaker 3: concepts at the top. When we talk about when you
Speaker 3: command your message, you really have to have a shift
Speaker 3: in mindset. So talk a little bit about how that
Speaker 3: value based coaching mirrors that shift from value based selling
Speaker 3: make that jump for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the value by coaching, it's basically the internal
Speaker 1: mirror of the value based selling, right, kind of what
Speaker 1: we've been talking about. And in both cases, the goal
Speaker 1: is to uncover what matters most, whether it's to a
Speaker 1: customer or to a rent and to align your approach accordingly.
Speaker 1: And so you know, we oftentimes as sales leaders, we
Speaker 1: will get on our teams about pre call planning and
Speaker 1: making sure they have good discovery questions and doing all
Speaker 1: the prep work that comes into it. But again, how
Speaker 1: often do we find ourselves before we go into a
Speaker 1: one on one conversation or an opportunity coaching session or
Speaker 1: whatever it may be, and we're going in with two
Speaker 1: to three five minutes of preparation because of everything that's
Speaker 1: on our plate. Fully aware that there's so many things
Speaker 1: that sit on the frontline. Leaders played, all leaders play
Speaker 1: everybody's plate, but we've got to take the time to
Speaker 1: prepare again to understand that each person is going to
Speaker 1: have different value and how do we bring that value tone?
Speaker 1: And so in selling, again, we uncover paying, we align
Speaker 1: the outcomes, We guide the buying process when we're coaching
Speaker 1: similar to what I said before, We're uncovering those challenges,
Speaker 1: we're aligning to the personal and professional goals and then
Speaker 1: guiding that development journey along the way, getting them from
Speaker 1: where they want to be to where they want to go.
Speaker 1: And I'll never forget this. I had a leader that
Speaker 1: I worked for early in my career and he sat
Speaker 1: down with me and he had this conversation. This is
Speaker 1: really where this started to get instilled with me. Is
Speaker 1: he said to me, And through the conversational understanding what
Speaker 1: was important to me, he said, look down, I'm not
Speaker 1: here to make you a better salesperson or a better
Speaker 1: leader or any of those things. I'm here because I
Speaker 1: want to help you be a better brother, a better husband,
Speaker 1: a better father, a better son, and be a better
Speaker 1: person in life. And that just stuck with me forever.
Speaker 1: It still sticks with me to this day because he
Speaker 1: took the time to understand what was important to me. Now,
Speaker 1: whether you said that to everybody, I don't know. He
Speaker 1: said it to me, and that was important to me,
Speaker 1: and in turn, I ended up being a successful rep
Speaker 1: and a successful leader because of the time he took
Speaker 1: to understand and then coach me on the behaviors that
Speaker 1: were necessary. So at the end of the day, the
Speaker 1: value based coaching mirror versus the value based selling. They
Speaker 1: both require curiosity over control. Right, we have to continue
Speaker 1: to be curious. I often will say to the sales
Speaker 1: leaders when we're doing our manager coaching day that the
Speaker 1: little kid in us has to continue to come out
Speaker 1: be asking the why. Right. Little kids are very good
Speaker 1: at asking questions that we sometimes can't answer, but the
Speaker 1: curiosity over for control, and when they succeed, we tend
Speaker 1: to ask more and talk less. Similarly to when we're
Speaker 1: in front of our customer, we should be having our
Speaker 1: customer talk more than we're talking. So when you come
Speaker 1: out of a one on one and you're working with
Speaker 1: one of your reps, ask yourself who talked more? If
Speaker 1: you spoke more, then you're probably taking control of the
Speaker 1: conversation and the rep may not be seeing the value
Speaker 1: that's necessary for them to want to come back the
Speaker 1: second time. So the same discovery mindset that wins deals
Speaker 1: also builds our reps and their productivity plan and their
Speaker 1: journey for development down the road.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really good. I'm reminded of a Revenue Builders
Speaker 3: episode we did with Mark Thurman, who is now at
Speaker 3: Tenable I believe COO, and he talked about how he
Speaker 3: felt like his job for his sales team was to
Speaker 3: remove obstacles, like that is my job to get obstacles
Speaker 3: out of their way. And so when we compare like this,
Speaker 3: value based coaching to value based selling. In these coaching sessions,
Speaker 3: your reps have challenges, right, they have pain points. And
Speaker 3: you may look at the data and see, okay, well
Speaker 3: their deal sizes are too small, or they're not getting
Speaker 3: enough meetings, Like you can see the what, but you
Speaker 3: might not know why it's happening and why they're having
Speaker 3: these challenges. So talk a little bit about how a
Speaker 3: great manager can uncover those challenges, those pain points, those
Speaker 3: obstacles using the same way they uncover customer pain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's discovery questions, right. It is taking the
Speaker 1: time to prepare before we walk in and again reflecting
Speaker 1: on if I'm going to sit down with you, Rachel,
Speaker 1: understanding what's valuable to you, what's going on in your world.
Speaker 1: I've done a little bit of homework and I understand
Speaker 1: your situation with what's going on with your accounts, your territory,
Speaker 1: your quarter, whatever, it may be, and I'm asking discovery
Speaker 1: questions to surface what's really going on beneath the surface.
Speaker 1: So some examples of some questions, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: leverage some of the things that we teach day in
Speaker 1: and day out, leveraging ted tell, explain, describe so, and
Speaker 1: walk me through, which happens to be one of the
Speaker 1: first questions that I'm gonna ask, walk me through your
Speaker 1: goal for this quarter. What's getting in the way. You
Speaker 1: had just mentioned removing obstacles. I got to help remove
Speaker 1: that obstacle. I'm probably aware of the goal. There may
Speaker 1: be a shift since our last conversation based off of
Speaker 1: client interactions. Clients things that move and change, But I
Speaker 1: really want to know what's getting in the way and
Speaker 1: how can I help you to get some of those obstacles,
Speaker 1: as you said, out of the way. So that's one example.
Speaker 1: Explain what you might do differently if you had to
Speaker 1: do a deal over again and have them walk through again.
Speaker 1: I'm getting them to ask some open ended questions just
Speaker 1: to get their thought processes, versus me telling them you
Speaker 1: should do this, you should do this, you should do this.
Speaker 1: I want to help them. It's the art of persuasion.
Speaker 1: It's getting them to come to their own conclusions through
Speaker 1: the conversation that we're having. Another example, describe what support
Speaker 1: you need form me to move this deal forward? Again,
Speaker 1: obstacles in the way? What help do you need? What's
Speaker 1: in the way, And if they're unwilling to answer that
Speaker 1: question because of pride, because of ego, whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: you got to dig deeper right understanding that the deal
Speaker 1: may be stuck and it could take you into a
Speaker 1: qualification discussion around medic to determine what is in the way,
Speaker 1: and then trying to determine what the plan can be
Speaker 1: for both of you to advance that deal forward. Then
Speaker 1: the last example I have is tell me how you
Speaker 1: think the customer perceived your last conversation, which I think
Speaker 1: is a really insightful conversation. One. Are we aware of
Speaker 1: how the customer was feeling when we're in that conversation
Speaker 1: where we again in a tell, tell, tell mode, similar
Speaker 1: to what we do when we're in a coaching situation,
Speaker 1: or we trying to engage them in a discussion, helping
Speaker 1: them to come to a conclusion, being consultative, having them
Speaker 1: talk more than we talk to understand what are the
Speaker 1: pains within their organization or department, or team, or whatever
Speaker 1: the case may be. So those questions mirror the ones
Speaker 1: we ask a customer to uncover pain and obstacles. They
Speaker 1: invite reps to reflect. It gets them to own their development,
Speaker 1: It engages in a two way conversation. So again, very
Speaker 1: similar to the things we try to teach around command
Speaker 1: of the message. It's applying those same concepts to how
Speaker 1: do we have the internal conversation that we need to
Speaker 1: have with the people that are on our teams.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I bring up revenue Builders again because we've been
Speaker 3: covering like great coaching and great leadership recently a lot
Speaker 3: in that show, and John McMahon often says, you have
Speaker 3: to figure out with your people what drives them because
Speaker 3: what drives from one person is going to to be
Speaker 3: different than what drives or motivates somebody else. And you've
Speaker 3: had some great questions there as it relates to those deals.
Speaker 3: But there's also some discovery that you probably want to
Speaker 3: do around like what motivates your people, And there's probably
Speaker 3: some good questions to use around that area as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, another really good point that understanding people's motivations goals.
Speaker 1: I like to kind of frame it up in this
Speaker 1: phase of skills, goals and interests, right, whether the goals
Speaker 1: and interests is really what we're talking about here from
Speaker 1: the standpoint of what are they really interested in? What
Speaker 1: are the goals, how do they want to get there?
Speaker 1: And again, leaders approaching reps very similar in the discovery
Speaker 1: call of it can become more collaborative and insightful and
Speaker 1: impactful if we take the time to build these questions
Speaker 1: rather than just jumping to the solutions. To mention this before,
Speaker 1: we would listen more than we would speak. We would
Speaker 1: ask the open ended questions using tell, explain, describe, walk
Speaker 1: me through, and seek to understandable before advising, and before
Speaker 1: I kind of list off a couple of questions that
Speaker 1: I think would be benefit. I often will tell people, hey,
Speaker 1: try this at home. Yeah, how often do we find
Speaker 1: ourselves trying to solve the problem versus taking a time
Speaker 1: to listen to understand, whether it's with our significant other
Speaker 1: or it's with our kids. We immediately come in with
Speaker 1: the answer, here's what you need to go do. And
Speaker 1: again we're teaching. Are we teaching how to fish? Or
Speaker 1: are we just giving the fish to somebody? And saying,
Speaker 1: here's your meal and so great coaching questions. Some of
Speaker 1: the examples that I have, there's again, what do you
Speaker 1: think is getting in your way of success? And walk
Speaker 1: me through your biggest challenge in your deal that you have.
Speaker 1: Right now, what have you tried so far? Tell me
Speaker 1: what success would look like for you in this quarter? Right?
Speaker 1: It's kind of like again Ted, tying it back to
Speaker 1: that value based conversation, what's the future look like? What's
Speaker 1: the art of the possible? How do we get you
Speaker 1: from where you are today to where you need to be? So?
Speaker 1: What does success look like for you in this quarter?
Speaker 1: And if there was one thing that you could describe
Speaker 1: that you would like to improve on, what would it
Speaker 1: be and why? And so now I'm starting to understand
Speaker 1: a little bit more about the person about what it
Speaker 1: is the success to them. Success for them in the
Speaker 1: quarter it might not be for them, and every person's different,
Speaker 1: as you said, It might not be a number. It
Speaker 1: might be something totally unrelated to what happens at work,
Speaker 1: but work contributes to that other success that they're looking for.
Speaker 1: Success for me would be making this up, Rachel, but
Speaker 1: it could be being able to pay in cash from
Speaker 1: my child's tuition that they have for this upcoming quarter. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's important. So the contribution of what I do at
Speaker 1: work is going to contribute to how I'm going to
Speaker 1: be able to afford to do that. Eying it back
Speaker 1: to a very personal thing, because I want to be
Speaker 1: able to put my child through the best education that
Speaker 1: I can. Yeah, and it's just taking that time to understand,
Speaker 1: like what are the goals, what are the motivations? How
Speaker 1: do you get from where you are to where you
Speaker 1: want to be?
Speaker 3: What are the value drivers for those people?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, exactly right.
Speaker 3: Some great things to think about, John, for our conversations
Speaker 3: this week this quarter, wrap it up for us. How
Speaker 3: about a small shift a leader can make just this
Speaker 3: week in these conversations they're having to start coaching more
Speaker 3: effectively command that coaching message.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think there's a few things, and I'll start
Speaker 1: with a simple mindset shift. And I'll give you three
Speaker 1: things that I think you can do right away. One,
Speaker 1: slow down before you speed up, slow down the impulse
Speaker 1: to solve, and just take the time to listen and understand.
Speaker 1: One of the best leaders I ever worked for, she
Speaker 1: was one of the by far one of the best
Speaker 1: leaders I ever worked for. Always took the time to
Speaker 1: listen and never just instinctively reacted. Would come back the
Speaker 1: next day and say, hey, I put some thought into this.
Speaker 1: Here's what my thought process was. And every time she
Speaker 1: would always ask what my perspective was. First, she wanted
Speaker 1: to know what I thought about overnight. My perspective was.
Speaker 1: The other thing is create space for reps to reflect.
Speaker 1: You've got to create that safe space. How do we
Speaker 1: create that time and space for somebody to be able
Speaker 1: to have some reflection, to be able to come back
Speaker 1: and have the answers necessary and feel safe in a
Speaker 1: conversation like that. There's vulnerability to this. And the last
Speaker 1: thing is building the coaching habit into your calendar and
Speaker 1: have it being rooted in curiosity, not in solving problems.
Speaker 1: And so in the next one on one that you
Speaker 1: have with one of your reps, ask three simple questions,
Speaker 1: what is your goal for the week? What's getting in
Speaker 1: the way? What would success look like? Those are six
Speaker 1: things that I just rattled off real quick, Slow down,
Speaker 1: create space, make sure that you continue to stay curious.
Speaker 1: What's your goal for the week, what's getting in the way,
Speaker 1: what does success look like? And then you'll be surprised
Speaker 1: how much your reps already know without you giving them
Speaker 1: the answers, and how much more they'll grow when you
Speaker 1: coach the rep like you coach a deal. Great if
Speaker 1: it was one of your own deals. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 1: so much more on this topic. I know that this
Speaker 1: is a brief conversation that we're having, but it's such
Speaker 1: a powerful conversation. And I think the thing that we
Speaker 1: have to understand and I said this at the very beginning,
Speaker 1: is that and you said it too, This is a
Speaker 1: skill and you can't just assume that everybody knows how
Speaker 1: to coach that when you come out of a command
Speaker 1: of the Message training session, Hey, you're going to go
Speaker 1: coach this starting on Monday. Well, do we know how
Speaker 1: to coach or.
Speaker 3: Do we just tell exactly exactly great way to sum
Speaker 3: it up for us, John, thank.
Speaker 1: You, thank you, I appreciate time as always.
Speaker 3: Yes, and try this out. Let us know how it
Speaker 3: works out for you. And thank you for continuing to
Speaker 3: listen to the Audible Ready Sales podcast.
Speaker 4: At Force Management, we're focused on transforming sales organizations into
Speaker 4: elite teams. Are 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.
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