What Are They Thinking About?

0:04 Thank you for joining us on the Winning It Selling Podcast. I'm Bill Hellkamp of Reach Development Systems, and with me is Professor Scott Plum of the Minnesota Sales Institute. After you deliver the best presentation possible, you receive a Think It Over. This happens when a prospect, instead of making a decision during a sales conversation, asks for more time to consider the offer. This response can often signal hesitation, uncertainty, or the need for more information.

0:30 It can also be a polite way of avoiding a direct note. What did you leave out? What are they dwelling on? What risk is the prospect taking when not buying from you today? What would you do different if given a do over? Think about joining Bill and I as we discuss what are they thinking about in other terrific topics on Episode 634 of the Winning It Selling Podcast. It's going to be a great conversation because I think we've all gotten the Think It Over.

1:05 Let me think about it. And that takes a lot of forms. I need to talk to my boss. Usually that's a revelation of the stuff you didn't ask before. We've had the Think It Over. We've been working with prospects. We've done ideas or even light proposals. We've gotten Think It Over. But we've won the business. And that's what I want to share today is how do we get a Think It Over and still win the business? There you go. Talk about that after we talk about the book.

1:32 All right. And the book is The New Sales Simplified by Mike Weinberg. It's The New Book. They haven't bought it. If you haven't started reading it, do it. This is a good book. So let's go into Chapter 1. I'm going to skip over Chapter 1 pretty quickly because it's just why he wrote the book. Five reasons. Sales are simple and we overcomplicate it. Why are we so afraid of prospecting? Because this is all about new business development.

1:57 It's not about sitting on and having lunch with your current customers and hoping they order some more. This is about new business development. Number three, what's the deal with so many salespeople failing? Number four, he supposes that sales 2.0 has caused many to wait for lead. Sales 2.0 being they're going to look at your website and they're going to call you because your website's so good. And number five, sales leadership and experienced salespeople aren't mentoring the new sales beginners.

2:28 So these are kind of his reasons why he wrote the book and the challenges he's seeing. But I really like Chapter 2. This he calls the not so sweet 16 reasons salespeople fail at new business development. So Scott and I have kind of highlighted four or five of our favorites. I'll touch on the ones we did in highlight, but we'll spend a little bit more time in the ones that we did highlight. So my first highlight, Scott, is they haven't had to or don't know how to create new business.

3:00 And I think the reason people don't know how to create new business is they're not being asked to. Correct. They're spending a lot of time as account managers. The number of companies we go into that there's been no formal training on sales. There's no process in that organization. And salespeople are all doing something different if they're doing anything at all. But mostly that different is they're taking leads. They're going and having conversations to see what happens.

3:32 So they do not know how to prospect. They don't know how to make a phone call. They don't know how to pick a target list, all those things you're going to talk about later. Your thoughts on they haven't had to or don't know. I think each one of these is a podcast episode that you and I can go on and talk about for 20 or 30 minutes. There you go. Maybe we'll do that. We do that with 16 podcasts. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. We've got 16 weeks of content right here from Mike's book chapter two.

3:59 I think that's based on the compensation. I think it's based on the job descriptions. I see a lot of salespeople that are out there building relationships and having multiple transactions within the relationships. The company trains the salespeople, but the company does not create a sales culture, which means everybody in the organization is responsible for keeping and maintaining clients and customers so that they order as much as possible.

4:25 So if we could have the salespeople be the hunters and we can have the account managers be the managers and manage the transaction after the commitment boy, they could multiply their revenue times to at least. So these really end up weaving into each other because I think number 16 is they're not capable of doing it. They're not the right personality. We do know that people that like to make the cold calls and do the hunting are very different than the account managers who like to just sit on it and farm.

4:54 So the farm resources, the hunters. All right. Let's go into number two. I'm going to do number two and three real quickly because we didn't choose those. Number two, they're always waiting on the company. The brochures got to come out the websites being redone. We got a new product coming out. And once we get that thing, then I'll go out and do all this prospecting. I worked with a couple of friends of mine and we were going to do a business together. And we were kind of had learned some new things together.

5:22 And so we were kind of a soft working together. And the other two people were working on their website, then they were working on their brochures and they were working on this and they were working on that. And I finally said, who cares, go out and talk to somebody about what you do and see what they say. And we'll create a brochure based on their needs. Or we'll create the website based, but they wanted to, they were aim, aim, aim, aim. And then I wanted to pull the trigger. So I walked away from that because I wanted to pull the trigger on them.

5:52 I liked them. I wanted to do that. So don't wait on the company. Right. And then how can I sell anything bill? I don't have my business cards. I'm waiting on my business cards in my laptop. I got to get my business cards. Then I can go out and sell something. I mean, the brochures are be at the printer. Right? So I got to go. I got to sign my non-compete and I got to do it. So we're going to onboard for six months. I can't believe my sales people take.

6:17 So when am I going to be on the website? I'll sell something when my picture is on the website. We had a client, Scott, that was convinced that somebody had to work for them for six months learning everything about them before they could call a customer. We were advising them that we should call the customer the first day they were on the job. First day. Almost freaked out while they did freak out. Yeah, I didn't freak out completely.

6:42 That's a past client. That's a past client. Past life. Great people just added a different vision. All right. Number three, there are prisoners of hope. Prisoners of hope of what they have in their pipeline that that's going to close. And almost everybody we've talked to has looked at the pipe somebody's pipeline and said 80% of this is never closing and you're just holding on to it. And that's the prisoner of hope. Right. Number four is one of my highlighted ones. They can't tell the story. And what he talks about in this can't tell the story is they're boring.

7:19 They're fact and fact based. They can tell the features and maybe even get the benefits. But they can't weave an interesting concept. I think also in this and maybe this is later he talks about this. They can't listen and translate. They can't listen to the customer story and translate that into to needs that we can help them satisfy. And they can't read that problem. They can't associate what they've done in the past with the needs this current customer has. So they're not good. I think they're not good at translating. So they don't know what story to tell.

8:00 Right. Right. They have a tough time applying the solution to the context and need of the prospect or client. Right. They're just they're not putting it together. Right. Number five is one of the ones that you selected. Yeah, they have an awful target account selection and lack of focus. And I, you know, I always love to start a good program with, you know, tell me about what a perfect fit is. Give me three things that make up a criteria.

8:24 A demographic, a geographic, economic, you know, area, what give me three attributes that define a perfect prospect. And then target those folks and target all of them. Don't assume that they don't want to buy or they're not interested. You have to contact all of them. And when you contact a perfect fit, you can be persistent on the follow up. You can say, if I don't hear from me today, I'll call you in two days. And over that that calling and follow up, you're building credibility, you're building confidence, you're creating name awareness, you're creating value.

8:54 And as soon as you have a conversation with them, then you can leverage all that persistence to say, imagine what it would be like if you were a client of ours. And just think about what I was treating like as a prospect, I'm persistent and follow through. I was just thinking about if you were a client of ours. Yeah, I think one of the things is really important about this is that they value what we value. And I know I just heard that before.

9:14 But we, you and I have gotten into conversations with sales leaders. And it's been fun and exciting and energized because where they want to go is exactly where we are specialized in taking people. And we know we're going to get the business based on the conversation because we're so in sync with each other about where this organization needs to go. And when you have somebody that doesn't value what you value, and what they want is something you're not good at, you're trying to fake it all the time.

9:45 Like away from a bad piece of business and save yourself time and trouble. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. And we demonstrate what we teach. I mean, the question that we always ask every time we start a follow up meeting with any of our existing clients or prospects is what's changed since the last time we talked. And we teach that that salespeople should ask that question every time they talk to a prospect. What's changed since the last time we talked and we demonstrate that every time we talk to a prospect.

10:10 And they almost get excited when we become a product of the product and they see us acting like they want their salespeople to act. It's just so validating and refreshing. And I love delivering that to all of our clients and prospects. All right, let's move on. Number six, they are late to the party. This was one that we selected. But if all you're doing is answering RFPs, you are late to the party because your competition had a hand in writing that RFP with whoever was doing it.

10:40 We had a company that we worked with. They were answering 50 RFPs a year. Yeah. And they were spending a week. They had one person spending a week on each RFP. And they were getting what Scott. One a year. One or two a year. So one person working all year to answer these RFPs. And that was because they weren't they relate to the party. And we couldn't explain it to them. And that person was the one that was typing in all the answers. That person had to call all the people in the organization to answer the questions on the RFP.

11:12 So just imagine how much time it took from other people within the company to be able to provide the data for that RFP. You think you'd get better at it. You know, nightmare. Yeah. All right. All right. Number seven, they have a negative attitude and a pessimistic outlook. If you have a negative attitude, you're just not going to sit down and make cold calls. Right. You're too convinced they're not going to work before you even pick up the phone. And if you get somebody that's interested, you sound so angry and pessimistic. They don't want to talk to you. Right. Right.

11:38 All right. Number eight is one of mine. They are guilty of fake or pitiful, pitiful phone efforts. I know this one because I have been guilty of fake or pitiful phone efforts. And here's how my pitiful phone efforts work. I sit down at my block of time that I've done and I start working on my list. Yeah. And by the time, and then I start looking them up on the internet to find out who the right person to call. And by the time it's all done, my block of time is over. I've got a list of five that I'll get to next time.

12:09 Time for lunch. Time for lunch. Get me some ice cream. I did my work. Exactly. So any thoughts on that pitiful phone effort? I agree with you. I think everybody starts there. And I think some people are a little bit more prepared to get through it and stronger to get through it. And some people just struggle with it. And they just hope that they don't have to do it. Or they do it with such lackluster enthusiasm known when they do get hold of somebody. It's not a good phone call. It's a check the box into attitude. Yeah.

12:35 All right. Number nine, they are not likeable. Don't adapt their style or have low emotional quotient. Right. Thank you. And I think that's true. Some people are just mean. Yeah. Well, this is the typical salesperson. This is this tip of sale person that doesn't really care how people respond or react to what they're saying. They're just going to keep acting like themselves and and implement the implement the training that they were taught. Unfortunately, it's not good.

13:03 All right. Number nine or number 10 is one that I chose. They can't conduct an effective sales call. This is my one of my bugaboos that I hate. And that is people don't prepare for a call. They don't think about their client and they don't prepare questions. So they go in like the first appointment I went on with my sales leader. I've told the story before. With a company I was with when I was starting to learn about training. We walked into the client's office who had been a past client.

13:32 And my boss said, well, tell me what we've done with you in the past. Yeah. And the customer said, you've done the business. Right. Didn't you prepare and know what we've done in the past? The point went downhill from there. So prepare for your sales call. Right. Right. Number 11 is one that I picked. They love to babysit their existing accounts. And I see a theme with the ones that I picked. And it's that account manager that doesn't want to be a sales rep.

13:58 And they love maintain those relationships. It's almost like they've collected all the Easter eggs and all the Easter eggs are in their basket. And they're like, look at all my lovely Easter eggs. What's the precious? I mean, look at all my Easter eggs here that I've gathered. And they don't want to work on getting anybody new in there because that might require more work and not as much time and attention on the existing accounts.

14:22 Well, those existing accounts that they spend time with might not even be buying much. Right. Because they're my good friends. They've been a customer for 30 years. Right. They buy one thing a year and we give them the attention as if they're buying a hundred. And you've talked about ranking accounts. And these are usually the C and D accounts that they end up hugging and holding on to instead of the AB accounts, the big accounts, they work on the easy accounts that are low sales.

14:49 Well, they started those C and D accounts when they were, you know, the new pup and actually doing some work. And that was 30 years ago when they created that account. So it's one of their favorites. Number 12, we didn't pick, but we'll talk about it. They are busy being good corporate citizens, meaning the company has a we need to put together a team to look at XYZ. We need to put it. I remember when I was working on a full commission for a company and our boss, the owner of the company put us on a asset.

15:18 And we asked the sales people to get together and figure out how we wanted the territories to work. We put all this time into this and we would present them and said, well, we can't do that. Right. I said to him, Hey, next time you have a committee. Why don't you tell us what you want us to decide that we will pretend that we decided it and you can pretend that we thought about it and we'll just do what you want to do.

15:44 And he said, that's not very funny. And I said, wasting all my time wasn't very funny either when I'm on full commission. I thought I was doing something good. So headhunter or hunters do not work on on gathering programs. They hate it. And I taught, I learned my lesson on that one. You said you didn't pick that one, Bill, but you had a stronger paper. I had that great story about it. Go ahead. I reviewed them this morning. Number 13, they don't own the sales process. And that means they don't even know what their sales process is.

16:15 They don't have one. The prospects have a buying system. And that's what they're leading to. That's right. The prospects are leading the program. And then they're going to get a think it over. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about that. Number 14 is they don't use or protect their calendar. They don't use protection. Yeah. You just protect your time. It's protection. Time is the only resource. Every billionaire in any time is always going to say your time is your most precious resource.

16:41 And I always say, you've got to make good time trades. You have to make good time trades, but you have to be able to own your calendar. And you have to make sure that you're getting leads into the sales process by starting conversations. So allocate time within your calendar. I love doing rush hours, which is an hour in the morning, hour in the afternoon. This is just prospecting. So it could be 10 to 11. It could be two to three.

17:02 And you're just spending an hour making anywhere between 15 and 20 attempts. And within that day, you make about 40 phone calls. You may have about three or four conversations. Hey, that's more than you've had yesterday or day before, but you got to make the attempts and you got to schedule the time. Yeah, I think a boss of mine said you got to do the 20% you hate. So you can do the 80% you love. Yeah. And maybe it's prospecting or new business development. You got to make those calls. All right. Number 15, we're getting to the end.

17:31 They stopped learning and growing. And we see that a lot. And we talk to people. We do interviews. We talked to people say what was the last book you read on sales. I'm reading one now. What's the name of it? If I would have known, you're going to ask me that question. I would have made a list before I got here. Yeah. Because I read them and I forgot everything. We're not relevant anymore. I'm not using anything. Well, if you can't remember the title of the book, how can you remember everything, anything within it? Yeah. That's right. That's right.

17:58 And a book that I find valuable I read once a year. Yeah. I know I need more of that. All right. And number 16. Yeah. Bring it home. Honestly, they are not built for it. And you alluded with this on number one, which is they have they haven't had to and they don't know how these are says they don't want to. Well, yeah, they're just they've got a lot of industry experience. I love this one. And, you know, unfortunately I've been fired by many, many different people in this industry.

18:31 But they haven't. I always say, you know, what are your accomplishments? Tell me about some of your accomplishments and tell me about some of the goals that you're working on now and what were some of the goals that you had last year that you accomplished. I'm looking for accomplishments. And like you and I always say, when we're working on hiring, you know, hire people that just have good judgments. They've got good character. They've got ambition and they're enthusiastic and they're committed.

18:55 And we can teach them a product knowledge. And when they're not built for it, as you know, I'm talking to sales leaders, the managers, if they're not built for it, you really need to think about, do you want to keep them on the bus or do you want to release them to end this? But then I have to interview and find somebody new and you should always be voting. Sales leaders are always recruiting, always recruiting when you're going to a restaurant and you have a great server.

19:20 And you're really impressed with that server. You say, I'm kind of curious. What kind of career are you thinking about? A great server is a great salesperson. And I know that because I started many years waiting on tables. And it was the best experience that I ever had for sales. And Christy Jones did the same thing. She found herself there. Okay. Well, that is the end of the sweet 16 or not so sweet 16. Don't be surprised if these become some of the topics for our next 16 shows, but this is good information. Next week, we're going to be on chapter three of new sales simplified by Mike Weinberg.

19:56 Get the book and start reading. Don't be a person who stopped learning and growing. Yeah, before we get into the topic today, let's listen to a sales tip from Anthony. Enjoy and learn from the sales tip from Anthony by Anthony Enorino, a highly respected international speaker, best selling author, entrepreneur and sales leader. Hey, it's Anthony Enorino. Now, let me tell you some key tactics to be seen as an asset. So these are the better part of this time conversation we're having.

20:28 Start with an executive briefing. If you start teaching the client the Y change and you're giving them information and you're showing them data, you are creating value in the first three minutes of the sales conversation. And it will make it very easy for your client to give you a second meeting because they already know that you know how to create value. This next one's a big one. Being one up. This means that you have to have greater knowledge and experience than your contacts. And if you have this, then you are an expert in an authority in your industry.

21:00 And this makes you very important to a client. They want somebody that looks like this, that sounds like this, that knows these things. If you can be one up and you can start by creating value, you're in great shape. Okay, this next one sometimes causes people to be a little biffy. You're supposed to lead the client. They don't do this every day. We do this every day. We are helping people with the buyer's journey. We're helping them get these results.

21:26 We should be leading them because we know more than they do about the decision that they have to make. And you should also have a deeper understanding of the client's problem than they have. They don't know the problem the same way that you and I do because we solve this problem every day. It's all we're doing. We should be giving them a better understanding of that problem, what they need to do to be successful. And that's our job.

21:53 You should now forget about your solution. Just push it out. Just push it out. You don't need to talk about it right now. What you should do is help the client make a good decision. So when we talk about consultative selling, what we're saying is you're focused on the decision making and helping them understand the factors that they need to take into account and how to weigh those things. That's what's going to make you a serious asset for a client and that will find somebody giving you a contract if you can do this.

22:23 And now I know sales leaders are like, we want velocity. Do it faster. Get it here two days sooner. Don't worry about that. The best thing for you to do is not to be a commodity, but to have a patient pursuit. And I want you to run out the clock by spending more time with your contacts than your competitors do. Just like a football game, you're running out the clock. They're not going to have any time left because you took it off.

22:49 Okay, the last thing, recognize the way you differentiate. The way that you differentiate and B2B sales is limited to the sales conversation. And the person who creates the greater value is the one most likely to win the client's relationship and their business. Alright, I'm Anthony Enorino. Do good work. See me at thesalesblog.com or come out and say hello at LinkedIn. See you soon. So he's continually talked about in our last show and that is not being a commodity. But here's how you can be an asset. So great tips from Anthony.

23:30 Our topic today is what are they thinking about? So in sales, I think it over as an indication or a stall or objection that needs to be addressed such as an unresolved concern, lack of urgency, or the need for buy in from other stakeholders. How many times does this happen? If you had a chance for a do over, what would you change? So I want to set an example. First is to kind of create what is a do over in a scenario. So this is an interview question that I ask sales people and sales managers. I said, here's an example of a salesperson that has a monthly quota.

24:06 They've just finished their third week of a monthly quota and they're 60% in to getting that number of their monthly quota. What would they do on the last week of the month in order to make their quota? And I hear a variety of answers. I would start dropping the price until somebody bought. I'm thinking about the movie office space short of burning the building down. Some of the things that they would do. But here's the right answer. And this is why is it the right answer? Because I created the question. So this is the right answer.

24:44 Avoid it happening again. So when it comes to the next month, the first week you're at 30% of your quota, the second week you're at 60% of your quota, the third week you're at 80% of your quota. And the last week you're batting cleanup with 20% of your quota. So think about measuring your quota within a week and how much do you need to be earlier in the month than later in the month. And that is a do over. That's looking at something completely different. So as we're talking today about think it overs, when do we receive a think it over?

25:16 And I would say most of the times it's after we deliver a presentation or proposal or email or quote or in some places, in some situations they throw the quote over the wall. And we've talked about that a hundred times. But I really have to ask, what are they thinking about? And I'll rephrase the question. What are they dwelling on? What do you want your prospect to dwell on after the meeting? That is the question that you have to ask yourself at the beginning of the meeting is what do you want them to dwell on?

25:49 You have a time to prepare a presentation and a time to be able to set the stage to be able to create that interest, that curiosity, that desire, that urgency, when you ask the right questions, when you start bringing the right solutions to the conversation and you start bringing some of the cost consequences and risk to the surface that the prospect needs to be concentrating on before they say no. And or think it over. They give you a think it over because they don't want to say no.

26:21 Well, I have a I have a mug Scott that says salesmanship begins when the customer says no. Yep. But what I don't like about that saying is once I've said no to something, now I have an emotional connection to that. No, I've made a decision. And so like a good lawyer, you shouldn't ask a question. You don't know the answer to you shouldn't ask for a close until you've had the you know, they're in the position to want to buy that thing that you have.

26:52 You're not trying to close early. You're trying to continue to the discussion until you feel that they're ready to say yes. And I think that's one of the problems with who was at the Tom Hopkins. You know, 500 different closes. Right. Every time you try and close, you're taking the risk of them saying, I think that, you know, I've thought about it and I don't want to do it. And now I have a big barrier to overcome. So you're right. Let's let's keep talking with them and delving into what do you like, but don't you like what changes would you make so that we can get to to a close to perfect solution for them. Yeah. And then they are less likely to have to say no.

27:33 You bring up a great point. And that is having the relationship with the know every sales process that I've ever studied learned, followed is there always seems to be dealing with that after the sale sale, dealing with that buyer remorse, making sure that they don't kick out after they've said yes, after they've slept on it. And I think we need to treat the know the same way is if somebody says no, we need to call them the next day after they've had a think after they've had a chance to think about it and say, what did I give up.

28:01 The prospect is saying, what did I give up. What do I go? I mean, it's like you do a test drive on a new car. You have a new car smell. You got that handling and the front end and everything just holds the road like like a train holding the rails. And it's like, and then you get into your car and you got a loose front end and engines a little sluggish noise. And then you're saying, what did I say no to, you know. So we need to treat the knows just like a yes if they said yes. And that is to follow up and to be able to plan enough seeds that they dwell on the loss of not having the service, the solution that you offer and going back to the way things were.

28:41 And you know what, if you present enough interest and curiosity and you paint a picture and vision for them to step into that they would get when they say yes. And you're able to uncover those objections while you're present or handling them before they even come up. You've got a greater chance of having them say yes. So what do you do? How do you get the objections out? How do you get feedback from them that you can deal with and getting all of that information before you do a proposal.

29:08 When is the best time to handle objection before the proposal. If you do it right, you should not have any objections after the proposal. And then the proposal is just a confirmation of a conversation. That's all that is. And if we don't have some of the conversations before the proposal the stalls that put off the objections, we need to deal with them. And objection is just an unasked question. So the best way to prevent objection is before the prospect ever brings it up. And if you don't bring it up, if they don't bring up, then you have to bring it up.

29:41 And if you have an impact on our decision, you have to be in the case of the prospect's office. You can have notes from conversations and then you can start off as sentenced with, you know, it's probably not the case here. But, you know, how are we going to deal with this or how is this going to have an impact on our decision? This is something I hear often, right? It's probably not the case for you. But oftentimes people are worried about this. Is that a worry of yours?

30:00 Yeah. I met a guy last week that I had an interview with 15 years ago and they were going to hire me to come in and train their salespeople. And I said, I'm kind of curious who's responsible for the salespeople and the COO said, I am. I said, oh, all the salespeople report to you. They said, well, we're in the process of hiring a sales manager. I said, it's probably not the case here. But in order for the sales training to be most effective, a sales manager is going to be responsible for the sales team.

30:27 It's probably best to bring me in after you hire a sales manager. And then we can have a cohesive sales culture because a sales manager understands what they want. I'm teaching and delivering based on what they want. And we're creating all the expectations and projections that the CFO wants. And he said, I remember that conversation. I was 15 years ago. And I didn't get hired. They didn't hire a sales trainer. And they went through about three sales managers within two years. So with that a tough time on getting that one right, I should have been smarter back then and say, how do we work together on getting a sales manager in there? But I missed it.

31:00 I brought that objection up. Luckily, I didn't make a bigger mistake with the company by creating something that could have caused a bigger problem for the sales manager. Well, I think sometimes too, we, you know, I'll take the sale and then we damage the relationship. And sometimes we have to say no out of good conscience to help them understand this isn't the right time. So I think that that people, sales people often, and I'll ask them the question, what are some of the biggest objections that you get? And they'll have this list of objections that they have.

31:34 And they'll talk about how do I overcome them? Like, like when the customer asks about, you know, this, I'll overcome it. And I said, what questions are you asking to overcome it before they ask? Right. What are you saying in your presentation? What questions are you asking early on to bring that issue out early and deal with it before it becomes this drum roll objection? Right. I don't want my clothes to be so what do you think right now? And now they, you know, now they come up with all the problems. Right. Right.

32:09 And they start to get defensive because they feel cornered and they feel unprepared to say yes. Right. We need to make them prepare to say yes. They want to say yes. And that's, that's the question that we as salespeople have to ask. What do I want my prospect to dwell on after the conversation we have today? Yeah. And you as a salesperson have to lead the conversation and you have to create enough interest and curiosity for them to want to discuss that option.

32:35 So I'll go through five quick questions to ask and, you know, feel free to substitute them, evolve them, decide when you want to ask them. But the first question is, are you interested and curious about exploring other options from what they have right now? That is a close ended question. It's a qualifying question. So I recognize it. It's a close ended question. It's a qualifying question. We need to ask a close ended qualifying question to avoid being a sump to this is one of the things that salespeople do and prospects dislike is salespeople are some to they think everybody wants to buy their solution. Everybody wants to make a change. Everybody wants to buy now.

33:13 Everybody wants to buy from them in the company and that simply is not true. You need to ask that clarifying question first. And then I'm going to challenge you a little bit on this. I think some of the things is something isn't an important to be as some if at some point that I assume that they're going to want to buy because that gives me the positive mojo I need to keep moving forward because the other option is I'm going to assume they don't need to be in a positive way. I'm going to ask them to call them going back to the kind of the sweet 16 or not so sweet 16 of pessimism. So there's a fine line between being a sump to in an insulting way and being

33:59 a salesperson understanding the application of the solution to a problem the prospect has that delivers the best value. Now you have to assume that. And in addition to that and I and I love this this next replacement to assumption is to be anticipatory. Right. So you are anticipatory and you're anticipating the problems and challenges that the prospect is having you're bringing them a solution. So you're creating a scenario of the application of that solution to a problem that they have and a better desired outcome based on that solution. Right. So what you're saying is don't get yourself too far over your skis. Right.

34:39 Assuming things you don't know yet. Right. Right. Well you need to ask the questions about their issues and their challenges and how you can help them rather than assuming I know more than you do. So in exploring options, you can ask them and open any question. What would you like to change. And and and your response you have one word your one word responses every time they stop talking your one word responses. And, and then they continue to talk. And then you say and and they continue to talk you got to get three at least three.

35:13 And then you can kind of say okay let's proceed with those. So now the next question is why now. Why do you want to make these changes now. We've already identified the changes we already defined that they want to explore the options why now. And then the fourth question is what would you like to see in a better solution. So give them the desired outcome that they're that they're anticipating based on your solution you're being anticipating their problems you're delivering the solution you're anticipating the desired outcome they have. And then the last question is what would that do for your business, your family, your life. So now you're getting into the benefits. What are they going to get when they apply your solution.

35:54 Right. And not just oh we're going to sell more or whatever but but what's the what's the deeper second level. You know I'm going to be able to keep my job. No my family's going to be able to go on vacation because we'll have enough money to do that right. Right. My kids will go to college. I mean those are all the things we work for. Not just for you know coming in from nine to five. We're working for our family and I think that we don't get deeply into those discussions about what would it mean to you. Right. If this all works out. And it's like well I've been you know I'm shooting for the CEO job.

36:31 You might not even tell you that. By asking a question they start to think about and get into kind of the dream process versus just the results process. And I have to say this a hundred times you know people buy for their reasons not ours. And if we really don't understand their reasons on why they buy. And this is one of the five words from the previous episodes because you're buying the solution because could you finish a sentence. You're buying this reason the solution because what is there because if it's not defined you probably don't have a sale or you don't know why they bought if you don't know why they bought.

37:12 Then sometimes it may be difficult to deliver that ideal solution if we're not really uncovering the why why did they buy why did they buy today. So here's the here's the solution to avoiding a think it over. What do you want the prospect to dwell on after the meeting. Make sure that you interject that you inter spurs that within a conversation you introduce stuff that plays to your strengths that the prospect is not thinking of.

37:37 That delivers more value because the prospects don't know what they want. They don't know what they need. You as a sales industry expert of the product and solution that you're offering this company. You know more about the application scenarios and in some cases you know more about the problems and the prospect has. So you have to be a problem finder not a problem solver and you have to think about what do you want the prospect to dwell on after the meeting.

38:01 And with that I will sign it over to you Bill. All right well that's a terrific discussion because the think it overs are what we deal with so often with customers with prospects. And we have no idea what they're thinking about even to ask the question so tell me what you're going to think about what parts of this are causing you concern is a great question. So that is a traditional response and the prospect most likely is going to get defensive.

38:25 Yeah. All right. That's what we don't want. All right so resources for Anthony and arena go to the sales blog.com and let me close with our golden nugget. This is from Vidal Sessoon. The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. And I think when we look at those 16 areas and what Scott talked about on getting overcoming the I got to think about it. So many sales people just don't want to do the work it takes.

38:53 Making those phone calls new business development thinking through your appointment. All that takes work. And we just want to kind of go through our day doing things the same way we've always done them. Changes is hard work. We're finding this out as we talk with our clients adoption of the new sales process is hard work. Making those phone calls is hard work. Getting new territory changes is hard work. So that's just that's life.

39:20 It's not going to be easy. And if you want to if you want to get better you're going to have to work at it. Yeah. Yeah. Great advice. Everything we talked about will be at winning at selling.com and this is episode 634. Next week in the new sales simplified by Mike Weinberg chapter three is our book club. And the topic is the losers limp. Please subscribe and share the podcast with your colleagues and on your social media.

39:44 This is episode 634. Go out and get better one skill at a time. Joyful, Sally.