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The world's best conversations about B2B selling happen here. This exciting new podcast from Andy Paul, the creator and host of the Sales Enablement Podcast (with 1200+ episodes and millions of downloads) is focused on the mission of helping increase your win rates by winning a bigger percentage of the deals in your pipeline. In this unique round table format, Andy and his panel of guest experts share the critical sales insights, sales perspectives and selling skills that you can use to elevate your sales effectiveness and create the buying experiences that influence decision-makers to buy from you. Host Andy Paul is the expert on modern B2B selling and author of three best-selling, award-winning sales books, including his latest Sell Without Selling Out. Visit andypaul.com to subscribe to his newsletter for even more strategies and tips to accelerate your win rate!
Hi friends, welcome to the win rate podcast. I'm your host, Andy Paul. Now this is Brian Dietmeyer. And Brian is one of my guests on this episode of the win rate podcast. Brian Dietmeyer is the founder and CEO at Close Strong. My other guests today for this discussion about sales effectiveness, the buyer experience and improving your win rates are Ruben Castaño.
Ruben is the CEO at Six Connects and to keep me very busy, he's also CEO at Reviji. Also joining us as Cinch and Craner. Sinjin is the founder and managing director of Agrarian Rural Marketing. Now, one listener note before we jump into today's discussion, if you enjoyed this show, please do me a favor, take a second now before we begin to rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts.
It helps us to get discovered by even more professional sellers just like you who are looking to take their careers to the next level. So, thank you for your help with that, and if you're ready, let's jump into the discussion.
Okay, friends, that's it for this episode of the win rate podcast. First of all, I want to thank my guests, Ruben Castaño, Sinjin Craner, and Brian Deetmeyer for sharing their wisdom and insights with us today. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast, the win rate podcast with Andy Paul on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Again, thank you so much for investing your time with me today. Until next time, I'm your host, Andy Paul. Good selling everyone.
Hi friends.
Welcome to another episode of the win rate podcast. I'm your host, Andy Paul, joining me another. Excellent cast of experts joining us to talk about sales. Give everybody a chance to introduce themselves here. We'll start with you, Ruben.
Sure. I'll kick it off here. My name is Ruben Castano. I'm CEO of refugee. We're a sales enablement account planning tool. We are owned by Dora Holdings, which is a software company outta San Antonio, Texas where I reside from. And it's Dora Software is an aggregator of of SaaS based organizations.
We're at 18 companies of refugee being one of them. So. So, it's a small growing organization, and sales is always top of mind, so hopefully I can provide some color for today's conversation.
Brian
Brian, let's go with you.
CEO of Close Strong. We're a relatively new VC backed startup, and we do something called precision guided selling, which is really leveraging AI and modern software to guide sellers kind of through every stage of the sales cycle.
Okay. Yeah, we definitely want to dive into that and joining us again. Gosh, you've been here a couple of times, at least Sinjin Craner.
Yeah, thanks, Andy. Thanks for having me back and putting up with me. I'm Sinjin Crane. I run a business called Agrarian and I specialize in training rural salespeople in psychology. So anyone that's selling to farmers, so probably a little bit different from maybe a normal guests and I'll try to keep up.
All right. So, I mean, we'll go back to you, Brian is so just finished recording another episode of this right before we joined here and we're talking a lot about The role of AI in B2B sales, which is the topic du jour these days on most conversations around is, so tell us a little bit what you're doing and where you think the real, you know, most effective role, let's say of AI in B2B sales.
So it's funny, because I just had this similar conversation. So the one thing about, AI is enabling technology to allow us to scale stuff we couldn't do in the past. In my past services business, we did a lot of deal coaching. It's very difficult for me to scale. Super expensive for my customers. And it was always frustrating.
We did training in deal coaching and I was frustrated because they love the training, but how much did people use it after we left? We knew the one to one coaching made a huge difference, but difficult to scale, expensive for the client. So AI is really the enabling technology for us to scale. You know, that one to one in, in a kind of cost effective manner.
I, you know, I will add, and Gartner just came out with a report on this. You know, what we're building is just to confuse things. There's AI and now there's IA, intelligent applications. And so if anyone's interested in this subject, you can do a quick search on a Gartner, the demand grows for intelligent applications, which is basically kind of modern software that's sprinkled with AI. to make it smarter and cooler throughout the process. So we didn't even know there was a name for what we were building until Gartner came out with this report. So that's it's not your pure LLM in the typical sense of the word that takes a year to have advocacy, but with intelligent applications, I think a lot of people are struggling to say, yeah, but what's the real useful application.
And I think IA is going to help make stuff more useful.
So before I let you go on that is, so how's that being useful for you
So it's,
in terms of your
yeah, so, so what we do in the simplest sense is we curate best practices. Think about your top performers some of your top senior leaders from qualifying to who should we be talking to? What should we be talking to them about? What kind of discovery should we do? How do we map to different competitors? We curate all that information and put it into the AI. What's happening is every rep has this one on one guide to say, okay, I'm qualifying this opportunity and it's giving them actual qualification opportunities that drive win rate, you know, drive renewals same kind of thing to say, all right I'm stakeholder mapping.
Here's the exact titles you should be talking to that sort of thing. I'm going up against this competitor. Okay. How do I fare against this competitor? And it's using. The traditional software kind of pushes that curated best practice in front of the rep, and then the A. I. Can manipulate it to, for example, push out custom discovery questions, right?
Say, All right, we've mapped out. Is it qualified? Are you talking to the right people? Can you compete? And now what do you need to know? And this is Where it switches over into AI and AI analyzes all that and says, here's seven or eight really high yield questions for these specific stakeholders to, you know, de risk the deal, fill in some of the stuff you don't have in later stages, it will help package solution configurations that match that customer needs.
So it's at several AI takes the curated data and manipulates it and gives it back to the rep in a way that, like, boom, here's something you can use right now.
Interesting. Yeah, I mean,
Is that what your product represents today, Brian, or is that how you're, that's how you're using it as a sales organization?
We just, it's a great question because we, I was dying to have our own instance of this because I was doing a lot of this stuff manually, right? Which is the reason we built it for other people. So, yeah we built we're a year into this. We're about six weeks from launch. You know, we've got a beta that we're up and running now, but yeah, that's what we'll be doing for our customers.
And yeah, and firsthand, I found that it sure, it saves me a lot of time.
so Ruben, tell us a little bit about Reviji, because I mean, that also is a sales execution platform, right?
Yeah, I mean, I so wanted to comment on what Brian was saying, because there's so much relevance, and it feels like we probably should collaborate after this because Much of what we do and what Brian is talking about especially the sales coaching aspect and bringing the A, AI capability to scale that capability.
I like to think of it as, as it's, so Revigy does account planning. So I like to think about it as account planning very much as a build out view of telling me what it is and what Brian is talking about and what we try to represent as well. but now tell me what to do.
Yeah,
strategies, account planning strategies execution and what's been very interesting in this process is we have very much aligned ourselves in the past to make it a methodology driven because that's how many of these organizations try their account plans, whether it's MedPIC or Challenger or Miller Hyman, whatever it may be.
And no doubt what we're finding more and more is. Because the sales process per se is no longer a linear process, right? And we're very much coached, this is step one, step two, and then go back to step one, step two, step three. Regardless of what methodology it is, this is kind of the, make sure you get your metric, make sure you're an economic
Right, right, right,
a new salesman process.
And it's become very agile, right? The buyer wants to do its own research, use AI or chatbot to use their own research. And less talking to the individual sales rep. So the I'm, I fully embrace what Brian is talking about at bringing AI into the picture because we have to build a microsite of information driving the buyer to, to you.
And so the individual or the buyer is armed enough when you do get the opportunity to talk to 'em. 'cause our, the sales cycle world is changing. It is very much a. Called it a spaghetti of it's just, it's simply not a linear process anymore. So, so Revegi tries to put an agile plan in place, trying to bring in third party, trying to bring intelligence into the overall account plan bringing in the research data, bringing in, think about what a rep has to do, understand all their their financials, thinking about any kind of M& A activities, thinking about what their objectives and strategies are for the given.
organization. So bring all that information together and develop what once was a very sophisticated pen. Allow it to build a plan for you. Leveraging some AI technology, right? So, there's a lot more to embrace in this regard.
Yeah, but isn't, you know, one of the issues that still exists though, is that Yeah, I mean, you're sort of referring to in some respects, we don't, some people use the term spaghetti diagram. This refers back to, you know, Gartner's, you know, 2018 study on buyer enablement, which showed that, yeah, the decision making process was anything but linear within organizations.
But I would still suggest that, you know, companies that are out there and that B2B sellers organizations of most sizes that are using a CRM system where they embed their stage based process. They are still looking at it in a very linear process. And that's to me is sort of the heart of one of the real B2B sales these days is that You know, we're wedding our sellers to a methodology like medpick that is very linear when the buyer is anything but linear in their decision making process.
And we see the results of that because, you know, win rates are on the tank and buyer dissatisfaction is measured by Gartner and Forrester. You know, hey, 75 percent of buyers don't want to talk to salespeople anymore. first of all, I think the number's wrong. I think it's 100 percent of buyers don't want to talk to salespeople.
But when you are a seller talking to a buyer, it's because they need to talk to you, right? They need help in some aspect of their decision making. Otherwise they do it by the cells, right?
I mean, I just want to, I was just going to jump in there, Andy, listening to it and add it, you know, Brian, fascinating what you're talking about there, we actually have a, sorry to be so uncouth and distasteful at this time of the morning where I am, but, you know, we have a different AI, which is called artificial insemination, where I train bull semen clients, so that's our equivalent of AI down here, but that, that said, my friends it was in our world, sorry I didn't mean to be
You couldn't resist. I know. Go
I could, I was just, I couldn't resist
see it. I could see it on your face,
it was
I know it's Andy's show, but I strongly encourage that to Jim. So.
Oh good. So we can have some banter, but so interesting because, you know, Andy, I bought your listeners for those that were still listening around, you know, you have these wonderful guests on this wonderful knowledge around AI and IA and all these sort of things. And sometimes I think we are forcing our buyers for a process rather than feeling our way for a process.
And I would love someone who can. Create the merge or the Goldilocks formula of the psychology with the technology where we've got the soft and the hard because I feel where I'm picking up on the conversation is we join us, we're trying to force our buyers through a process and sometimes that doesn't help them buy and as you know, human decision making is not anything but linear and you know, we talked about it before, you know, we have to have the humanization of the buyer.
Yeah. Process as opposed to the optimization. 'cause I feel we just, sometimes we just put too many blocks and too many barriers and it's all cliche and cliches are true. That's why we keep using it. It's not B2B, it's B two me. Right.
Yeah it's fascinating to me because Ruben, what you said, and Sinjin, what you said earlier, I was on with a GM at Outreach who leads their revenue analytics platform. And he said exactly the same thing you guys are saying, that it's not linear. And he said, one of the reasons all of these tools exist is because we could wrap our arms around these analytics and and then present them.
But he said, really, I think Sinjin to the point you were making, it's the sentiment. Now, with things moving up and then moving back, Ruben, as you pointed out, that we now need, he said, we couldn't scale sentiment analysis in the past, but now with AI, we can do a combination of the aggregate data that does give us good insights, along with some sentiment stuff which is a
And nonlinear and spaghetti like.
So it's fascinating to me. This is the third time I've had this similar discussion today. So. You guys are right on with that.
Yeah, well, because I think that is for me, this is really the challenge with AI is I think that if You know, the early applications have come to market in the sales world, primarily are all about doing more, right? We're just going to compound the issue, which exists at the top of the funnel with, you know, that we've created with all the sales engagement platforms where we've, you know, bombed out email inboxes and no one will answer the phone dah, with our sequences and cadences and hey, let's use AI just to do more of that, right?
And, you know, for me,
True. Yeah.
how do we use it in a way that really helps the buyer make their decision? Right? Because one of the things that doesn't exist in most sales technology is, how does this help the buyer? Most of it is geared to, how do we help the seller? But at the end of the day, we're not paid for activities as salespeople, we're paid for outcomes.
And it is. And
wouldn't know that by reading
Andy, isn't that the effectiveness versus efficiency? Like a lot of it has been efficiency tools and you just nailed the effectiveness
yeah, absolutely. Right. I mean, we still, we know like in the SAS world, the most recent data average win rates, 18 to 20%. And you get, you know, which are rock bottom win rates, I believe, and B2B sense. And then you've got, you know, big thought leaders on LinkedIn talking about go to market efficiency. And it's like, well, okay.
I mean, aren't we by definition being hugely inefficient if we have all this activity in our pipeline and we can't win any of it.
I wonder Andy and how all you guys feel about this because Andy, you just touched on the decision making thing. And most of us were taught back in the day to understand the customer's decision process. We now know that's It's broken. We're understanding a decision process that's resulting in no decision because the committee buys and I happen to believe this is where I'm curious to see what you guys think. A number one skill for sellers in today's market is being able to lead that decision process and add value to that decision process and not necessarily how to buy my stuff. But if I'm selling firewall protection software, what's the most effective way to source firewall protection software? And I'll finish that quick with a quick story.
Someone said to me once that, you know, sellers are like, you know, well, buyers are like veterinarians, right? They're dealing with a horse and then a snake and then a pig and they're buying all this different stuff where sellers were not only neurosurgeons were spinal neurosurgeons. We've watched 5000 people source firewall protection software or revenue management software.
And we
Whatever. Right. Right.
Just a crap ton of insight to be able to bring back to them. And that's where I'm curious because I think that's a key selling skill emerging in 2024 is going from
I love what you're saying there, Brian, because, you know, we talked about. Everyone talks about the hallowed turf of being a trusted advisor, but I think we get too far ahead of ourselves. We actually need to play the role of buyer assistant. And ultimately, you know, we need to sometimes, I think, ban this whole kind of sales mentality.
Because I think a lot of what works in sales for me in our small world, in rural and agriculture and agribusiness and agritech is, we actually need to be the complete opposite. Of what normal sellers are, which is helping buyers buy, just like Andy's talking about, help them make good decisions, regardless whether it's us or someone else, and that engenders trust, that engenders that most important thing you talked about, which is sentiment, and then Andy, on one of his earlier episodes, he talked about a very important word called intent, and you know, our intent as a seller, that is something that a buyer's brain feels and senses before it thinks.
You know, because the biobrain will feel before it thinks. So I think you're spot on there. Mmm.
is that from a mindset standpoint, is that really different? I mean, Brian, in your past as a sales coach, I mean, don't you coach, don't you coach the sales reps to, to behave in that manner to understand the buying process and understand the buying intent.
I, I'm not sure that has changed so much other than. The opportunity to do so is a short window. It's a really short window to do so. To build the credibility and be able to do so is what's really changed. But I don't think the desire to try to be a, and understand and drive the buyer intent or coaching a rep to do that is any different than in the
Maybe, maybe, maybe not, But I think about what Sinjin just said about helping the buyer to make a decision not to buy your product, but to source this solution, which is a
completely different mindset. I talked to someone the other day.
One of our clients who said, I'm going to give maybe 20 percent of my sales force is ready to have that objective discussion as a true consultant, a sourcing consultant about how to source.
Now, I hope it's mine that you buy. But I think that's where the change is. Ruben.
Interesting.
but to that point, Brian, it's, there was a I think it was called insight led selling published by Steven Timmy is professor at Georgia tech university published now three, four or five years ago, but where he had done some extensive survey B2B buyers. And the buyers, yeah, gave the exact same stat, is that only 79 percent or something said they felt that sellers showed up prepared to talk about their problems, not their product.
Right?
and Andy, I'm sorry, you keep making me think of this with that statement. So Jim Dickey with CSO insights and now with sales mastery.
Jim. uh, he did put out this buyer study, the buyer said sellers are the ninth place they go out of ten to get insight. That's the bad news. The good news was those same
buyers said, I will see them if they have something to bring me.
And I think we're talking about one of the things we can bring them. So that's the good news.
Yeah, when I think that one of the problems exists, and we've been talking about various sort of mindset elements here, is that just start with like discovery, right? And so I get so frustrated when I read all these posts on LinkedIn about discovery, and I hear people write about discovery, because discovery has sort of devolved into this thing where it's just about, I'm going to ask you questions on my MedPIC chart to see whether you're a fit for my product. Not, I want to understand what your challenges are and maybe help you begin to understand what some of the possibilities are and some of the opportunities exist if you were to address that problem and it's become so by step recipe oriented selling paint by numbers, if you will. I use that example once and no one understood what it was.
But paint by numbers as opposed to, yeah, I'm going to get in there and ask them good questions and help the buyer figure it out. And I'm going to figure it out along with them. And if we can do that, if I can build the credibility and trust, then yeah, they'll invest some of their time in me. by the way, Andy, That's where AI sings. And that's part of the way we're using it is to say, Okay, here's my buyers. Here's their KPIs that we can impact with this sort of solution. Now build me high yield discovery questions that are getting after the business issues that they're focused on their KPIs.
They're trying to move. And I think AI is brilliant at that.
Yeah, and I like your example of that, because it, but then we have to depend on the sellers to actually use it, right? And not fall into a pattern of saying, Hey, here, I already did that once, right? Now I'm going to use these same questions again with, you know, similar type companies. I'm selling into a specific vertical.
And I think that's one of the real disservices we do to buyers is we assume since they look the same externally, that they are the same internally. And I think where AI could be really useful is if they use, seller used it for every account. They could be in the same industry, you know, the ag business that St.
John's
Mmm. Mmm.
but they're going to be different.
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, another place, you know, you've got to think about where you're coming from as a seller is your true intent is to serve rather than sell. I'm really hot on that. Me and Andy have spoken that before. You know, when you force someone for a process that's dogmatic and maybe more feels like an interrogation rather than a consultation, you know, all we're doing is we're coming from the stance.
The stance we've taken is we are here to sell someone something and that just turns up in, that turns up in the feeling and the experience and the Spidey sense Of the of the potential buyer it's like it's a turn off and all this technology is trying to be more efficient But it's actually, you know Drucker style.
It's not being effective, right? So yeah, i'm with you. 100. It's like just be really clear on What your role is what your stance is what your intent is and ruben's exactly right around You know, this isn't new but ruben because Bias being so burnt and bruised with this dogmatic robotic process.
You're absolutely right. The windows even shorter, so their antennae for bullshit is so much higher and their tolerance is so much lower. It's obviously hugely for farmers because they're very oversold to and so you've got to get to it and you've got to click to that right part of their brain or they're just gonna go.
You're just like everyone else. You're serving your needs, not mine. When we know that if we serve the best interest of the buyer Rather than our own, we will make more
But I, I, I wonder I'm sorry, go ahead.
Yeah. Let Ruben go for a second.
No, I, go ahead Brian, that's Oh, I was just kind of wondering what you guys think because what keeps coming to mind is that there's diagnosis and prescription is here. You should buy this thing. But I feel like from we've done billions in live deal coaching that the diagnostics part. But I feel like when the diagnostic is done, like a good doctor will diagnose you, you feel like you are paying attention.
You're trying to understand what problems you're solving for, and I think at the kind of highest level, that's maybe where it's broken, is the diagnostic piece.
Well, yeah. We'll take your experience with medical doctors these days. Right. I mean they you walk in, they've got, maybe get what? 10 minutes. You know, it's, if that, and you walk in it's, and yeah I, at the beginning of this year, I signed up here locally in San Diego or in for with one of the big healthcare systems for a concierge medicine, which is You know, instead of the doctors having 2, 500 patients and you get 10 minutes with them, you know, you pay a little money up front, but they spend an hour with you.
And you can get an appointment at two days notice. And just the difference of the physician come in and feel that they have the time to spend with you you know, it's completely different, right? To your point, Syngin, about, you know, you can just, the experience is so completely different, is,
I mean, I'm conscious we should let Ruben in, but the last thing I'd say around, we often get in all the textbooks and go diagnosed like a doctor. I prefer to sell like a surgeon. So basically when you go to a surgeon, they imbue you, man or woman, imbue you with confidence and are so consultative and high care.
Hippocratic Oath, you know, do no harm, but they are so good at giving you confidence that you're making the right decision. So I think, yeah, there's a high level of selling, but I'm conscious Reuben, you might have some thoughts on that.
No, look I'm listening in. This is all I feel like we're all walking like, you know, in a world of landmines, all of us experiencing the same challenges, right? We didn't. And what, one of the things that I find consistent here is we keep talking about the discovery and the diagnosis and it assumes we have the opportunity to do so.
And I think what I'm kind of representing a little bit is those chances are less and less, right? It's, those chances are diminishing and when you have them, you have to see them absolutely. And all that we're saying is applicable. I'm trying to figure out how to continually figure out, use technology, i.
e. AI. Especially with the lack of utilization of Google AdWords or the effectiveness of them anymore. And ensuring that your product gets represented that you get the attention of the research that is needed from the buyer. You get the proper resources, you have the right content, you build the right microsites.
You get the right intel to be able to put yourself in a position where you can build the credibility with the said buyer. To, to me those are That's the biggest challenge because you might only get one crack at it. Where I would say in the past you're constantly sharing your product or your consultative discussions among several people trying to identify your champion and Identifying a champion is going to be it has it becoming significantly harder and harder because you're selling to an overall community and that to me remains the biggest challenge.
There's not a single That the world of a single champion is becoming kind of scarce now. Like, it almost doesn't exist.
yeah, so I, let's dig into that for a second, because I'm of the belief that was a myth,
Ah.
single champion. I mean, in my experience, and I only go back close to 50 years in sales is, you know, selling big deals large, some of the largest companies in the world, all around the world is, I always had lots of stakeholders involved in these.
You know, we were selling seven, eight, sometimes nine figure deals. There were always lots of people involved. There was not one, generally one champion. There could be an economic buyer. We knew certainly knew who that was and you know, they sort of stood out, but that's, you know, those still exist today. I just wonder whether we make too much of it, right?
Is, you know, if you sell a large complex deal, there's lots of people that can be involved with it.
Yeah, and I do think there's multiple stakeholders and to your point, however, I think what we speak to now is the quality and the level of influence of that champion, right? Because if that individual has the level of influence in that given organization, he's your champion, you instantly build credibility, Because we're aligned.
We're aligned with your, with that guy in that organization. And people gravitate to him, even though there are multiple stakeholders, you're always going to have multiple stakeholders. But if you identify the guy that people gravitate to and that, and you're aligned with that person, it's just incredibly powerful.
right, so how is that different?
Finding that one guy anymore.
but I do. Ruben, a couple of things you said, one access is harder. So I, yeah, I
heard you loud and clear. it's
so hard.
it's really hard. And then the other thing you were just talking about, too, is, yeah, what we've just been referring to informally as sort of the thought leader. You just said it. The guy or the woman that when they say something on the committee, The rest of the committee is looking over and that may not be a champion.
And I think a thought leader is a little different notion than a champion. That people that other people in the committee respect and they see that person, you know, and identifying that person. And since that's like the psychology, it's like, how the hell do you identify who is the thought leader?
If you listen closely enough, you hear people say, well, you know, shit, if
Andy it, yeah, I'm down with that.
that's right,
Yeah,, in our world you know, whether it's Australia, New Zealand or the US, we're looking for what we affectionately call alphas, alpha farmers. their growers, producers, food or fiber that others in their region or their community or the district of their shire look up to.
And there's certain telltale signs. So it's probably aligned with what Ruben's saying is, you know, finding that person that is that sort of lighthouse for others who is willing to take on things. And, you know, whether it's agri tech, the, you know, they're more forgiving, they've got the balance sheets, they've got the equity and yeah.
So, , regardless of the sector, the psychology is the same, right? You know, but the thing. The thing that I sort of keep harping back to is, you know, we're so assumptive in the way that we sell and, you know, we'd have to be, I feel we would all be served a lot better if we detached from the sale, you know, we're talking a lot about product, but, , we're so product orientated these days, you know, we need to be prospect orientated and, , I always say this in when I'm training my guys like show up and throw up, you know, verbal vomitor, feature creature, you know, no one wants that.
So, it's back to our earlier thing, even if it is the champion that we're talking to, let's really get orientated about them and their problems, as Andy says, rather than the product we've got to sell. Detach yourself from the sale, is the best advice, right? And you know, be non assumptive, because, yeah, the more we're trying to sell, the less we sell.
I, it's probably got nothing to do with what we talked about,
, I saw a great quote about sort of this detaching from the outcomes. It's from God, I forget his name. I think it's Mike Smith. I can't remember. He's cross country and I think track coach as well at Northern Arizona University, which has one of the great collegiate cross country programs.
Mmm.
he said when he's talking to his runners, he tells them, he says, you want to be the runner at the starting line who doesn't want to win the race. Right? Because you're there about the process. Right? You're there about your performance from the start line to the finish. If you focus on your performance, then the outcome is going to
Wow.
Yeah.
And I thought, you know, that makes so much sense, right? , you want to be the salesperson who doesn't, Want to win the deal,
Yeah.
You're there to execute your process, to help the buyer make the decision. chances are you're gonna increase your odds of winning the deal about how, because in part, largely about how you're perceived by the buyer, right?
There's this whole, you know, since I had written about this in my second book is. Is we tend not to think about the importance of things like first impressions when you were talking about us, , you know, the science is full of this knowledge of what's called precognitive processing, where we form perceptions of people without knowing it, right within 250 milliseconds, you know, the blink of an eye, we're forming impressions of the people that, that we meet
It's so true. It's so true. Because
Yeah.
good you brought up, because that's a survival mechanism. That's back to caveman and cave women times. Like literally in a blink of an eye, we've gotta make a decision about are they a friend or a foe. And, you know, this detachment concepts brilliant because at time of recording only a few weeks ago, we had the Olympics.
And , they focused on the process, not the podium. And I think salespeople could really gain a lot. I mean, I love sports site, you know, and how it comes across to sales, you know, and yours is a great example here. But you know, that detachment and taking a non assumptive stance that my job, my only job as a professional salesperson is to help my buyers make good, accurate, and informed decisions.
And when we do that, they feel, not think, they feel safe. Yeah. Because no one feels safe in a sales person's
And that, that, that's,
No, I agree.
I'm just, sorry, that allows people to lean in, right? I think, versus lean back.
And I've
And then they're vulnerable.
Yep.
then they tell you stuff. They tell you more than your other rep or SDR. And then you can follow your line of questioning into the conversation and you're in that sacred, you know, very important place where they're going to be vulnerable with you and tell you about this specific, not general, specific present pains.
Right. You can show my book again because I wrote about that Cinchin, he's got my book behind him on his bookshelf.
Of books.
I do have a somewhat, a little bit unrelated question, but back to the champion conversation, I'm curious as to what others think about. The challenge associated with as we look at especially for us that are older fellows we're very accustomed to the traditional QBRs and top to tops and annual reviews, etc.
And I'm wondering if we're all feeling as challenged as I've seen it, where given that most of these organizations are, if not completely virtual. Very seldom come into the office or have scattered away from the city, et cetera. And so, so uniting a group that you once had in the past is a lot more complex to organize these events, which I found these events to be very critical in the ongoing relationship.
So I'm curious as to what you guys are experiencing on that and what you might be doing about that.
Go ahead, Brian,
Well, I mean, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is like the human touch. If I get where you're going, which is let's jump on an airplane. Let's go see someone. And it's Yeah. And that was jure. That's how we did it. And especially I lived on airplanes. And now I live in this medium here.
So yeah, if I'm hearing you right, it's like, yeah, we've
and it's like we almost have to relearn that. Hey, there's the appropriate time. Let's go back out and see somebody. Let's jump on a plane. My team just did that a
couple weeks ago. And it was like it was, but it was like a new thing when one of my partners brought it up.
He's like, well, why don't
we all fly out to Seattle and go meet with these guys? You know, four of us flew out there and it was cool. And I have to tell you, by the way, it was a blast. I feel like it's been so little. I don't know about you guys, since I've done that stuff in person that we had so much fun and for sure.
The human element changes face to face.
Absolutely. People want you to come back out now. I mean, first of all, you know, if you're dealing with more senior level people, they're back in the office, by and large, right? I mean, that's happened. Yeah. It's, you know, less so, more hybrid, let's say, the lower down the organization you go, but want to get together.
That's my experience. People want to get together. And I, just the number of, you know, and other talks I've been doing recently, just in person, you know, the way that trend has changed over the last year, people are more driven. It's yeah, you get together with, yeah, I did one with 400 salespeople last month, and it's like, that was the first time they had done one since, in five years, this particular organization, a global sales organization. Their people were just so charged up by being able to get together. I just think it's happening more and more, and I think, you know, if you can, yeah, it's interesting, because you read, and I talk to sellers a lot who, express frustration. I can't get hold of anybody.
Right. that no one answers the phones. I can't send an email. And I've served, yeah, I have some empathy, but sort of limited sympathy for that because, you know, when I started selling, no one answered my emails because Email didn't
Don't worry about emails.
Right. And no, no one answered my phone calls because every call went to a switchboard to receptionist, to what we didn't even call it admins.
Then we called secretaries.
That's right.
You never talked to anyone on the phone. And so we had to be creative about how we were going to engage with people. You know, and That's why I love books like Stu Hynek's book, you know, How to Get a Meeting with Anyone, which is full of these creative strategies about how you reach out to people that's differentiated, that captures attention.
And you have to Everybody has to start thinking that way. It's no longer just, I'm just going to go execute my 20 calls and a hundred emails. No, I gotta do something different. I gotta be.
Yeah.
And I, you know, an example I give is, you know, early in my career, when I was faced with that same problem, I was selling into the construction industry, computers and the construction industry, selling to large size construction companies.
I couldn't get it on the phone is I would hold a, seminar every week in my office, which was basically a demonstration of our job cost accounting system. But, yeah, I would send out postcards to the CEOs. I would follow up like mad. And I knew if I sent out 20 postcards, I'd get two people in, I was going to get one prospect. And I just did that execute week after week, right? Cause I wasn't having any luck knocking on doors. And I'd certainly no one's answering the phones and I didn't have email to send. So you just have to be creative and do something different. And you can still do that today, I believe for sellers, but they just too many sellers, just, they've been sort of socialized that there's a recipe for everything
Yeah, I mean,
not a, there's not a recipe for everything.
So you just got to figure shit
Yeah, totally right. Ruben, you were saying earlier
about, you know, access and I just connected what you were talking about Andy with that. It's like, we have to get creative again about access. And, and I wonder if you guys see this, it's like pre And post COVID and where the market is now. Like, I've had plenty of people tell me the old playbook, they just doesn't work. Does not work in today's environment like people demand gen people everybody that I'm talking to that like we're throwing the same stuff at the
wall We threw in a different economy or a different environment. And so yeah, we're Ruben you're right on access and Andy I love this notion of like we have to get super creative to get in front of people
that's why I said, I recommend Stu Heineck's book.
yeah, but why do potential buyers put access up? You know why they put access up? Because they don't want to talk to us. You know, Andy was saying we're at 75 percent or 100%. They don't want to talk to us because how we make them feel. So everyone's made our job really hard. So in our farming world, We call it the sniff test or the eyeball.
They want to eyeball. They want to take you all in the character And that's kind of very old school very old fashioned Particularly if i'm training teams They want me to fly over for the first one and induct them or kickstart them They want to take you all in because they want You know, sales is a contact sport, isn't it?
And the contact makes the impression. So what impression are you trying to make? Well, your impression comes from your intent or your stance. And that's why you've got so many walls, so much lack of access because they're like, they're very skeptical and cynical of your intent and your
and I wonder
This is where something like, I was gonna say something like your product, Brian, perhaps as you talked about the example you gave is first impressions are so important is don't show up the way you always showed up before. You don't have to anymore. You can use the tools. You can use AI to say, okay, yeah.
What are some unique questions? Right? That, that I could pose to this that are not questions you've ever asked before. This is a challenge I give to reps all the time is your next discovery call. Ask at least one question you've never asked before. And then I'll further challenge them. I'll say, do that once a week, right?
One discovery call, one new question. And I said, after 10 weeks, you have a whole new set of questions. You're asking people.
That is great advice. That is great advice because the brain. is inherently lazy, it's an energy miser, and it's a predicted pattern recognition machine. And they're going, here we go again, someone's selling me something I don't want. And the farmers do it as well, and they go, oh, bloody rural rep, driving up a drop feed for whatever it is.
And you have to break. Their automatic guessing machine and Andy you are spot on that is great advice around asking a question you've never asked before and doing one a week and then you end up with a swag bag of to your point, Brian, high yielding, highly unique questions that really shattered the cynicism, skepticism that really the majority of other reps have
So I, I wonder, and I've been dying to ask this question, and I think Sinjin, if I heard you right, with your focus on psychology, I'm wondering how all you guys feel. I feel like EQ, high EQ, leads you to caring about other people and there just isn't enough. I've done searches on this, and searches on this, like how much are reps being prepared for high EQ, which is the emotional intelligence of the, you know, looking at the human you're talking to, and yeah, you guys are all shaking your heads, but I feel
Look at Andy. Andy's been talking about this for decades, you know, like
but I'm a lone, I'm a lone voice in many cases. It's like, You know, we bring these young people into the workforce that have grown up differently than many of us did, or most of us, you know, did on this call, where, you know, they weren't having. Two hour long conversations on a telephone, like we did with friends, right?
Growing up, they've been messaging their friends. They've been, you know, establishing the way they establish their relationships is different. They're not comfortable in the environments we put them in. And so we presume that they have these skills, these EQ based skills. Which they don't and we don't train it, right?
It's yeah, I had a friend who took over management a large sales organization. They said yeah, I want to do some training I said, you know, what should I focus on and as I said the human skills And business acumen, don't spend a dime training sales skills because you're going to learn it from your manager anyway, or you're going to learn it through experimentation.
But we need to arm people with these basics, which is, yeah, how do I connect with another human being? How do I build trust? Who teaches building trust? I mean, sure there are some companies that do, but I mean, in general, they're not training us. How do we train trust? And then. Yeah, if we can ask them to teach people how to have an actual business conversation, because who's learning about business?
They may go to undergrad, mid school or something, but by and large, you can learn that stuff, you still don't know anything when you come out, right? So, let's teach these things, because that's really it sort of starts with this idea. I think somebody brought it up is, and it's one of my, you know, things to advocate for is have you ever gone out and asked your buyers how they wanted to be sold to, you know, before you put your process together, before you train your salespeople Before you hire people, right?
I had a guest on the show, my original podcast years ago. Who's talking about, you know, we're getting hired a bunch of people. We're, yeah, we're looking for some hunters. I said whoa, hang on. Have you ever asked your buyer? Do they want your sales person to be a hunter? No. How's that benefit them? All right. So. Yeah, we just have to, we have to engage with the buyers also at how they want to deal with us. And we need to train our people in the skills that you're talking about, Brian, EQ and business acumen. They're the ones that make the buyer feel like we're listening and engaged.
Yeah, I mean, you know, we talked about it and some of your wonderful guests in the show And you they've talked about this the very important concept of you know, Leslie The next was on they're talking about, you know importance of buyer safety, you know You just cannot make buyers feel safe and to your point Brian They're not gonna open up guys If you put them for a regimented robotic system That doesn't make them feel safe in your company because when someone's feelings not feeling safe you they are not vulnerable I mean while you were talking any this is lovely quote by Antonio Damasio He's a neuroscientist and he said We are not thinking machines that feel, we are feeling machines that think.
You know, so we feel before we think, and so your point is so valid around supporting the younger generation coming through, going like, let's understand death, not short, superficial, shallow, you know, like let's go deep here. Let's really see the person, make them sure that they feel, Seen, heard, and understood.
You know, that's summarizing, that's asking better questions, and feeling our way through the conversation versus forcing them through a conversation. I don't know.
Ruben, what do you think?
Well, I'm I even took a little notes here. I like the idea. Don't teach him sales skills.
Yeah.
Think bigger picture, right? Think see, I'm always thinking, think of them, how to probe, how to do discovery, what questions to ask, how, why you're asking these questions.
Peel the onion, right? Go a little, go second, third tier kind of stuff. But you're just fundamentally saying it's the human skill. It's the emotional associated to it. Yeah, that's not that's very good advice.
and I think that, you know, to sort of go along with that is, you know, you brought up discovery is again, one of my frustrations with discovery is I may have mentioned this before is, you know, it's all oriented to trying to find out if they're a fit for our product, not how can we help you?
100 percent different mindset.
so to me, there's a hierarchy that sellers should work through, which is first, you want to help the buyer think about the possibilities. What are the opportunities that come from the possibilities and what are the outcomes you can achieve from specific opportunities? And yet, You look online again, and sort of the conversation taking place, it's all about connect your value to their pain points, and I will contend, and I'm just only talking to someone who's won the better part of a billion dollars in orders over the course of my career, I've never asked anybody about their pain points, buyers don't have pain, they have
I love that.
challenges, and we have to help them understand what the challenges are and what the opportunities that result from them.
Addressing the challenges people
No one,
you know, people invest to achieve something and we've gotten people so focused on this idea of loss aversion, which I believe is doesn't even exist. I know there's people big arguments about this was, you know, more recent out of Northwestern and University.
Actually, Mike, Brian, that says loss aversion does not exist. And so it's
The poor late Danny, Daniel Carmine will hate you for that, Andy.
but hey, Daniel Kahneman was the one that was retracting several of his things like about priming and framing because he said, Oh, well, we sort of took the results out of too small of a sample. Right? So nothing's holy these days with these. So, you know, we just, you know, We have to orient ourselves different words.
Yeah. If we show up and say, are you, my questions are all oriented about trying to see whether you're a fit for my product as those two, well, what are the possibilities here if we can address this challenge, what are the
I love the,
that result from that
did you hear the language that Andy was using, and obviously you were being hypothetical, you know, are they fit for us? And our product, you know, immediately the language gives you away because the sentiment, the intense drive in that choice of language and so if you can flip it, then it's completely different, isn't it?
I mean, that's the thing. It's like, you know, it's a we versus me language, you know, like it's all about us and what we need to do and it's our process and see if you're fit for our product and product fit and market readiness and all the rest of it. It's like, no, actually you tell me about you. But of course, Andy's absolutely right.
I mean, I find it nauseous when say, you know, what's your biggest pain point? It's like, you know, what keeps you up at night? You know, how do we win? These are all desperate, disgusting,
in the world, right?
Worst question, like, you cannot bore your buyers into buying. You gotta like, you gotta like, get them into, I don't I nicked that from someone, I picked, nothing is an original thought of mine, as you've already probably worked out.
But like, make them feel different, because if you treat them differently, they will treat you differently, and that's where you get a breakthrough, I think,
Well, one of the great trainings for me, and. Again, I've written about this in my books, and I talk about it again in my newer book, is I spent a chunk of time working for companies that didn't have products. We had technologies, and we were going to design and develop products for companies. So You know, I started this one company, the CEOs, I said, well, who should I sell to?
He said, anybody you want to, as long as they pay for the development and pay for a certain minimum number of units that we produce. And so I just had to go out and start having, it was a communications technology,
That's fun.
talk to communications companies, but I just, I had to go out and have conversations where I wasn't trying to persuade somebody to buy a product.
Cause I didn't have a product. I was just trying to identify challenges and possibilities and opportunities. And if I could do that, then potentially we'd have a
Well, it's funny too on
Conversation, big
sorry, on the human side of all this, you know, Jim Dickey was telling me years ago about how he got into sales. He's got a a degree in therapy. Right. And so I think I can't remember what may have been IBM or the equivalent where they were trying to get him into sales.
And he was like, well, my degree is in, , talk therapy. And they were like, well, what is that? And he explained it. They said that's selling. Right? So, it's like, that, and that is, a therapist shouldn't be trying to sell you something and Jim will go back on that all the time, that it's, that, that's what made him a great sales guy.
I, I agree. Right. Cause I mean, , therapists aren't supposed to give you the answer.
Frust,
Yeah, they don't
frustratingly so sometimes.
They don't tell. They ask. I mean, in addiction counselling not that I have any experience with that, but when I've read about it, they talk about motivational interviewing. And they're surfacing and trying to, there's a beautiful book called Immunity to Change, I can't remember who wrote it, it's down there, but they talk about motivational interviewing and surfacing.
The real reasons why someone would want to change and then taking ownership for that change, because, you know, reactants theory is simply like when we tell people to do something, we force something and they don't have agency or autonomy over that choice. They're not going to own it, you know, because reactants very down here in Australia and New Zealand, we had some really tough COVID and we were all told, don't panic buy.
By our various governments and premiers. What did we go and bloody do? The first thing we went and did was clear the shops and panic buy like hell. It's like bugger that. You don't tell me what to do. So why are we telling buyers what to do instead of asking them what they want? It's simple. We make it too complicated.
We do. I agree. All right. Gentlemen, we sort of reached the end of the time. This has been such a fun conversation. Thank you so much. And I'm just going to presume that all of you can be reached on LinkedIn. Everybody nods. Good. Yeah, I used to ask that, you know, individually, but then it was always, yeah.
Connect with me on LinkedIn. So, all right. Well, thank you so much. I look forward to having everybody back again. I'd love that. This is a great conversation. So thank you so much.