July 18, 2024 | Read online
Helping elevate the people and profession of Sales by sharing authentic conversations, practical tips, expert advice, relevant tech and real-world lessons from my experience selling every day. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Halloween is the best holiday of the year because adults can dress up and act like children and no one judges us for it.
My wife and I have a Halloween party every year where we invite a bunch of friends over and party like we’re 25 again.
This year the theme was Boston, which made it easy.
I dressed up with my friends as the Dunkings and tried to pull off the Tom Brady look. No one likes me with hair by the way :).
Anyway, I recorded 4 podcast episodes this week with some incredible people, which reminded me of a few stories and tips I think are important to share so let’s get going.
TACTICAL TIPS: Ask these questions
SALES RESOURCES: Notebook LM
SALES FROM THE STREETS: Why you should tell your story
TACTICAL TIPS:
Ask These Questions
If you’ve been following me for a while you know that I’m a fan of the book Jolt Effect.
It’s the third in the series of Challenger Sale and Challenger Customer.
I’m not sure I 100% agree with their solution to the problem but they absolutely nail what I think the problem we’re all facing in Sales is right now which is Indecision vs No Decision.
Things are moving too fast right now, and there are too many options, which is why people are scared to make decisions.
I’ve never been in a sales environment like this before. Customers know they have a problem, they know they need to make a change, and they know your solution is better than what they’re doing and may even be less expensive, but they still won’t make the decision to change.
The reason is that very few people get fired for not making a decision but plenty of people get fired for making bad decisions.
The point that the Jolt Effect highlights is that once someone knows they need to make a change, we need to shift from leverage FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) to trying to derisk the decision for them.
Everyone has been through bad implementations or invested in a technology or solution that hasn’t come close to meeting expectations.
These are the thoughts that climb into every buyer's head as they get closer and closer to making a decision on a new solution.
This is why I have been calling it out recently and bringing it up before I even send the proposal.
Here are the questions I ask to uncover No Decision AND Indecision:
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When do you want to have this implemented or what’s the “go live” date?
- This is not about the decision timeline, this is the date they want to go live with my solution
- This allows me to back into when they need to sign the contract so I can get everything in order for them related to the contract, implementation resources and more.
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What happens if you don’t go live with the solution by that date and what’s the impact to the business if you don’t?
- Hopefully we already know the impact the problem is having on their business and what happens if they don’t go live on that date. This is the stuff we use for FUD (“every day you don’t solve this problem, you’re losing $x, etc.)
- This question is about covering “no decision” because if there is no true impact on their business if they don’t go live on that date then either A) we’re not talking to the right person or B) I would not forecast that opportunity.
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What happens if you make the wrong decision? What if you choose the wrong vendor and it doesn’t work the way you want it to. Help me understand what that looks like.
- This is the new question I’ve added to try and uncover indecision.
- I’m basically calling out the elephant in the room to see if they will open up to me about what they’re worried about.
- Most of us are taught to sell the utopian future of the client’s life after implementing our solution. The problem is, no one believes in that utopia anymore. That’s why I talk about everything that could go wrong and then do everything I can to reassure them why that won’t happen with me or what I’m going to do to mitigate that risk for them.
Try adding these questions in order to your discovery process and see what happens.
SALES RESOURCES:
Google’s Notebook LM
Have you checked out Google’s Notebook LM?
I had a podcast this week with my good friend Jaime Diglio who wrote a new book called Moneyball Leadership.
I never have time to read the books of everyone who comes on the podcast so I always ask for the Cliff’s Notes or a summary if they have one which they rarely do.
Jaime took her book and put it into Google’s Notebook LM and not only did it summarize the key points for me but it also created a podcast episode where two people (AI agents) talked about the book.
It was fascinating but frightening for me at the same time because the podcast sounded like a legit podcast and if you didn’t know it was AI you would have no idea they weren’t real people.
Regardless, this was an awesome way for me to quickly get up to speed on her book and have relevant questions to ask her about it on my podcast (which is still me….for now ;).
SALES FROM THE STREETS:
Why you should tell your story
Most people don’t share their stories on social because they’re afraid of what people will think and that no one will engage or care about what they’re posting.
That’s using a limiting mindset to think about the value of posting and sharing your story.
I wanted to share a story I was reminded of this week during one of my podcasts to help reframe it for you to focus on the potential positive side of sharing your story because you never know who’s listening and who you could impact.
For those of you who have been following me for a while, you know that a few years ago, my Dad passed away.
It was a rough time for me as I struggled to deal with all the emotion that comes with losing a parent for the first time.
I didn’t share everything I was going through but I was posting on IG Stories and talking about it on my podcast with other people who have dealt with grief since I tend to use my podcasts as an open therapy session sometimes.
Fast forward about a year and I was in a much better place mentally than I had been in a long time.
I was at an event at the Trillium Brewery in Boston during Hubspot’s INBOUND conference and was meeting a bunch of people in person who had been following me for a while on social.
One guy came up to me and asked for a hug which I thought was a little strange since I didn’t know him but I'm a hugger so I said sure.
After the hug he thanked me and then said something that I will never forget.
He told me that I saved his life.
Wait…..what???
I was really confused since I had never met him before so I thought he was joking and asked him to help clarify for me how in the world I could have saved his life.
He went on to explain that about a year ago, his mom passed away from cancer, his brother died on the same day unexpectedly, his wife left him, and his company fired him for taking too much bereavement time.
This all happened to him within the span of a couple months. Are you fucking kidding me??? Based on the grief I dealt with after losing my Dad, I couldn't imagine dealing with that plus everything else he had gone through.
He told me that he was homeless, lived in his car, and even contemplated suicide.
He then shared how he had been following me on social and listening to what I was going through with my Dad.
What I was sharing and how I was dealing with it gave him hope that he could get through what he was going through, too, so he decided to keep going instead of ending it all.
Now he was back on his feet, living in an apartment with a good job and a girlfriend, and he was in a much better place, which is why he wanted to come to the event and thank me in person.
I’ll say it again - are you fucking kidding me???
I was speechless and almost burst into tears at that moment so I hugged him again and thanked him for still being here to tell his story to me.
I’m sharing this story with you not to brag but to highlight the importance of why I think you should share yours.
You might not get a lot of likes, comments, or shares but someone out there is listening and if you can make a difference in one person’s life then it’s worth it in my opinion.
I’m proud of the 30-50k downloads my podcast gets every month, the 300+ episodes I’ve done and all the great guests I’ve had on the show but if I never get another download or another guest to come on I don’t care.
Knowing that my podcast and my story had that kind of impact on someone makes it all worth it.
Share your story. You never know who’s listening and what a difference you can make.
ADDITIONAL WAYS YOU CAN LEVEL UP YOUR SALES GAME
- The JB Sales Membership is where you’ll get access to my live training, workshops, AMAs and OnDemand catalog so you can level up your sales skills every day! 3000+ Sales pros have already joined. Are you next?
- The industry-leading Make it Happen Monday Podcast where you’ll get insights and inspiration from some of the most interesting and influential people in the world of Sales and business. (this is where you’ll hear the Guy Kawasaki episode on May XYZ)
- The JB Sales YouTube channel with practical tips that you can apply immediately to drive results along with interviews and content that is guaranteed to get you to think differently.
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