How to Leverage the Buyer's Journey

0:03 Thank you for joining us on the Winning at Sowing Podcast. I'm Professor Scott Plumb of the Minnesota Sales Institute, and with me is Bill Hellkamp of Reach Development Systems. If as a salesperson, you find yourself trying to push a prospect into making a decision, you may be wasting your time. Perhaps you should consider that the person you hope to have as a customer has their own planned agenda. And if you try to force your agenda on them, you may lose the opportunity to move forward.

0:31 So prepare to get customer centric as Scott and I discuss how to leverage the buyer's journey and other fascinating factoids on episode 647 of the Winning at Selling Podcast. Well, if our listeners listen to the podcast every week, they're going to get a new word that they can use, fascinated factoid when they could use that when they're talking to a prospect. Well, that's a very fascinating factoid that you have. I'd like to use alliteration.

1:07 Yes, yes. So our book club today, we're still doing and finishing up the new sales simplified by Mike Weinberg. We're doing the chapter 15. Very good book. 15 and 16, yeah. Boy, great call planning activities. These last two chapters kind of seem to be getting into the business of being in the business of a salesperson. I'm so glad that Mike Weinberg agrees with our style of training selling. So much overlap. I mean, it's just amazing.

1:35 And I listen to his podcast too, every time there's a new episode, I listen to his podcast. And it's very inspiring and so much alignment. And we had him on the show back in October of 2023, I think is when that show was. We'll have to look and find out what episode it is. But it was great to have him on. But say we're going to cover chapters 15, rants, raves, and reflections. And he talks about getting to gatekeepers and talking with gatekeepers.

2:03 And it seems like these days, Bill, we don't talk to gatekeepers very often. Do you find that to be true? Yeah, I think most people have gone to that direct contact. We get their cell number. If we get a phone number. God, I had an appointment yesterday where we came up to an office and we had to ring the bell or dial the phone. And somebody from the bowels of the office had a very nice entrance, but somebody let us in after we told them who we were meeting with.

2:29 But there was no receptionist, nobody at the desk, nobody to kind of guide us to where we were supposed to go. The person we were meeting with came down and we met in an office down there. But I see that more and more. No receptionist, no secretaries. If they have assistance, that assistance isn't answering the phone for them. If I can get on a little bit of a rant. You know, these days. We're going to rant and rave in chapter 16.

2:56 Are you ranting? Oh, yeah. I thought it was at 16, we're raving? OK. But think about gatekeepers. There's also people that are in your network that you can ask for introductions and referrals from. And the point that he makes in this book is be nice to these gatekeepers. Sometimes we can steamroll them and say, hey, is Bill in? And that's traditional sales training that we all have been exposed to if we've been doing this longer than 10 years.

3:19 And that doesn't work. But think about the mindset of a gatekeeper is the mindset of a person that you have a referral networking. I've never understood that idea of just rolling over the gatekeeper. You're going to meet that person every time if you develop a relationship with that person. You're going to meet with that gatekeeper every time you get in there. And if they hate you because you're a jerk, this is not going to go well.

3:44 Right. You are not going to get your messages through. You're not going to get anyway. I've never understood the idea of being a pompous jerk. Right. Yeah. So use humor instead. And I think you're going to start a better conversation. Like Bill said, assume that you've got them as a client. So think about the gatekeeper as a person is going to be one of your resources. I love this next tip that he gives. He says, don't park closest to the front door.

4:09 Seeing this so often where us salespeople, we end up taking all of the conveniences of our prospect. And parking in front of the front door and the visitor parking when it's the last spot there is probably not a good idea. Why don't we park? Well, I think that's changing too. How so? Because there's not as many people visiting. I don't think the customer is going to be there. I don't think the customers are coming to the offices.

4:32 I think there's very few human contact or very little human contact. People are trying to do everything online. And so I think those spaces are going to waste. I think some of these things are changing a little bit as there's less person-to-person contact. But I just park far away from the door. I just want to be able to get a little bit of my steps in. And also, I don't think it's right that I take a customer's parking spot when I'm a salesperson selling to the business.

5:02 And this goes back to 800 numbers. When I was a salesperson and one of my prospects was an 800 number and they were long distance, I never called the 800 number. I didn't think that was right. That just wasn't ethical. I was not going to have my prospect pick up the tab for me, selling them, and soliciting them, my products or services. So I was dialed their local area code number. Another thing that he talks about in this chapter is stop hanging around people who are just perpetual winers on the sales team.

5:30 They don't allow any information. I always say, don't allow anything into your life. You wouldn't allow into your child's life. And if you turn your TV off when your kid comes in the room, you're watching the wrong show. Yeah. If you turn your TV off, what? You don't know how to turn a TV off? That's a bachelors. It's got you bachelors. Why would I want to turn the TV off? His TV is his companion. He doesn't have kids.

5:54 I think this is such a powerful thing. Who we hang around with. And he gave an illustration of somebody who was the experienced person talking to her co-worker, the new person. He said, I should have said, stay away from this person, because they're going to ruin your career, because they're so negative. The power of association cannot be underestimated. And what you read, what you listen to, what you watch on TV with Scott's TV always on, and who you spend your time with are going to be your future.

6:27 You better make good decisions on who your future is going to be. Right. And hang around those people. He also talks about folks that just go through the motions. They kind of check the box. I've met many of those salespeople where I get invited in. Bill, I'm sure you've seen it too. You get invited in. You get the salesperson that just check in the box. Just going through the motions. And I always boil down to how are we measuring their behavior?

6:50 And how are they comparing to the projections? Against the reality or the actual. And there lies the gap. And if we don't understand the gap, we don't understand any reason to change. But some people are doing it for real, and some people are not. And everybody in the company is counting on the salesperson to generate the revenue, to cover all of the other expenses and all of the other payrolls within the organization.

7:12 Yeah, I really, he said, you need to be on your A-game every day. The moment you walk through that door, the moment you walk through the customer's door, you are on. I used to use an example when I, when, and I'd use it when I'm teaching presentation skills. But it was, it was, I think the Lenny Bruce story. And he's all drugged up every day. And he looks in the mirror before he goes on stage, slaps himself in the face and says, show time.

7:39 And he goes out and he's like, he got electric wires in him, right? He's a different person. And, and when you walk into the door of your office or you walk into the client store, it's show time. It's time to get yourself revved up and positive and focused and bring it because, as you said, Scott, everybody in the company is counting on the sales team. The sales team sets the mode, sets the future, and they are the leaders.

8:06 They are the engine that drives the entire organization. So be that engine, be that committed. Mm-hmm, definitely, definitely. And sometimes sales people get stuck in these anti-sales cultures. And he talks a little bit about this. And these are the folks who think all sales people do, as they come in late, they screw around, they go on trips, they take their clients out to steak dinners, they have all the fun. And for some reason, I'd never see them in the office.

8:31 Well, you better, nobody in the office is going to buy anything from a lot of you. Sure, you, Ed, as a salesperson, we are also a bit of a performer. And we need to take some time, some time, to be in the green room, to be able to get our head together, to be able to prepare our lines and our scripts and our gestures and how we're going to be delivering the information to educate the influence and be persuasive in that.

8:57 That's a very emotional job. Now, if you're working the line, there's not much emotion that goes into that. Or if you're working on a spreadsheet or a computer programmer, I mean, sure, there's a lot of concentration that those folks have, but there's concentration within the work not necessarily preparing to deliver something that's a little bit more of a performance. We've talked about this enough. Salespeople don't spend any time practicing and preparing.

9:20 Everything's winging it. I've done this before a thousand times. Yeah, you've done it poorly a thousand times. And now you're going to go do it one thousand and one times poorly. I think also we need to understand that if you don't like, if a company doesn't value what you value, get out of there. Yeah. Put it hanging around a company. If you're a salesperson, they don't respect salespeople, you're in the wrong place.

9:44 I told you and I told the group before, I had a client a couple of years ago and they would take the salespeople and make them drive trucks. They would take the salespeople and keep banging down their commission. So if this sold a really big sales, like, oh, we can't pay them that much. Oh my God, we're going to pay them that much. It was 2%. 2% and it didn't last more than the first year of the sale. They have the contract for five years.

10:08 The salesperson got to pay them the first year. Jesus. And truly, for the rest of the time, you don't do anything anyway. And that was the attitude. Sales doesn't do anything anyway. They luck in them, they fall into them. Why should we pay them? Get out of there. Right. Oh, and that's a tough message for some people to hear. And in reality, a great salesperson cannot be great in all environments. And if you're not great in the environment that you're in and you were great in a different environment, you may have to look at changing the environment.

10:35 Sometimes when you're recruited, they lied. Yeah. It looked like a great deal. Run away. Go find something else. I was top on the leaderboard on one company. And I went from that company to another company and I was last. And it's like, wait a minute here. How is this working where I am last? It just didn't work. Look for an environment where you can be successful folks. And I know that that's a tough message to hear.

11:01 He talks about the dress code. And this is something that's interesting when you are able to meet in person, but most of it's virtual right now. He said, just dress one level above your customer. And these days, people are a lot more casual. And here's what I would just suggest, make it real simple. Just have a nice iron dress shirt on if you're a guy. I don't know enough about women's reward or just to give them advice.

11:23 I really don't. But for a guy just have a clean iron shirt, you can have jeans, just make sure that they're not the same jeans that you use to clean out the barn. And don't wear the same boots. Just switch shoes and you're going to be OK, I think. Yeah, it's a big shoe guy. So get your shoes polished. Make sure they're not a scuffed up mess. Right, right. You know, I think that was really good advice. And I like that.

11:46 You know, I think that you work better when you dress a little bit better. And if you dress down too far, you're going to go into a client and you're going to feel put off. I'm in a, you know, I go into a bank and they're in suits and ties and I'm in a polo shirt. I'm thinking, shoot, they got the advantage on me here. Yeah, yeah, they do. They're a little bit better dress. So, yeah. Not everybody is Mark Zuckerberg. All right, we're going to be accelerating the topic here a little bit.

12:13 Stay on time. He talks about getting into the office early and taking on the day. I think that that's a great proactive way to be reaching out and prospecting, getting kind of caught up on your email, but necessarily don't engage in those longer conversations that take more time. Don't you get your most productive activity started? And as you and I have talked about, eat the frog. Yeah, you got something that you don't like to do.

12:33 Get that baby out of the way. Move forward with your day. Yeah. Yeah. And here's something he pointed out and I've become more conscious of it. And I've noticed that you practiced it a little bit better than I do, Bill, is you don't get into that first half of the day being reactive. Get into that first half of the day being proactive. He's saying I don't answer his emails in the morning. No, I'm saying that you put all that administrative stuff off to the afternoon.

12:56 If you want to be with a client, let's meet at three o'clock. Yeah. OK, so now you have the morning to be able to set things in motion, kind of get the important stuff done that you need to get done to stay on schedule. And then those meetings, a week or so, are at three o'clock in the afternoon. It's a great practice. I love it. I really do. And it's a great way to end the day, too. Well, yeah, and your day with client calls, you're going to be more excited about what went on if you end it with cleaning your desk up.

13:21 Well, I never cleaned my desk up. I said, been on my to-do list. Clean your desk, dang it. But anyway, that's what the Christmas vacation is for. All right, should we pop into the last chapter? We want to go to the next chapter. The last chapter 16, you know, it just kind of summarizes the book in different sections. I think the ones that I really like, he put a scenario out there, Bill, and I'm really interested in your input on this.

13:40 He says, when a prospect is scheduling three competitors for presentations, is it best to go first or last, or does it make a difference? And if the presentation is on a Friday or Monday, does that make a difference? This was a real interesting situation. What do you think? Well, I don't want to be last because it's always late. So the first and second people usually go long and I get 20 minutes when I thought I had an hour.

14:06 And then it's like they don't hard close the first two people, but they hard close the last person. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, we all got to leave at three. So you only have a half hour to do yours. And so I wouldn't do last. I would probably go first. I think we set the tone. We can set some, if we know who the competition is, we can set some hurdles that they have to go over. We did that in our meeting yesterday. With a client.

14:34 And was it the day before? Is it a day before? Yeah, yeah. Money, man, my week's flying by. So we set some hurdles for our competition because we do a lot of needs analysis before we do a training program with people. We insist upon it. And now I'm sure they're going to be asked about it. And it'll be interesting to see what they come up. It's been a great value for us. So I think going first allows you to take the time.

14:59 You can bump into the other person's time and cause them to have to hurry. And there's pros and cons for all of them. Having the last word is always nice too. Yeah, what I really liked is I believe that we did enough preparation in that appointment. And we know enough about what's going on in this marketplace that we define the agenda that they should be using for the other two companies that they're meeting with. If we go first.

15:22 We know who the other two companies are. Right, right. You're saying go first then. Well, first, we end up, it's almost like a reverse RFP. We get into a conversation with them. We introduce the ideas that we think are most advantageous to the outcome that they want. And we know that the competitors cannot deliver the services that we're offering. And now they're going to deliver the services. And compare them and go, wait a minute.

15:43 You guys can't do what they can do. So we end up defining the agenda and we end up putting the business. Time will tell. We'll be happy to share that with you. I also want to close it. There are eight powerful questions in this last chapter. And if you haven't bought this book, it's not too late for you to buy the book. It is a great book. But looking for those eight powerful questions on chapter. 16. Yeah, this is one that's going to stake front and center in my library.

16:05 Yeah, yeah. And then he ends it up by saying go forth and sell. Ha ha ha ha. Our next book is going to be The One Thing by Gary Keller. The One Thing by Gary Kele. This is our 17th book we've been doing this. I have to tell you, I think sometimes we've been doing, we've done more books than some people have read in a year. Or we don't, we don't hurry through them. So get that one thing book and let's join with us. Don't just listen to us.

16:29 We have the ab-on about how some ideas have to run. We always like to hear from our audience. And we get some really great emails from them. We got to do a question and show once. We haven't done that for a while. Yeah, we should. Before we get into our main topic, let's listen to some expert selling advice in the sales tips from Anthony. And Joy and Learn From The Sales Tip from Anthony by Anthony Enorino, a highly respected international speaker, best-selling author, entrepreneur, and sales leader.

16:59 Hey, it's Anthony Enorino. OK, this is probably the most important thing that I can share with you today. If you're not an insight-based seller, and if you don't have information disparity, which means you know things that your clients don't know, and if you go in with an old school outdated legacy approach and you start talking about your company, you're going to have a very difficult time now and in the future. So what I want you to know is that your buyers, whether there's one of them or two of them or 14 people in a room, what I can tell you is that they're looking to you to help them understand their problem better than they understand it themselves.

17:40 So if you don't have that much, you're already in trouble. Now, the second thing is they're also expecting you to fill in the gaps in their knowledge and their experience. And if you can't do that for them and you can't help them make this decision, then you're going to have a very, very difficult time doing this. What you should be focused on right now is enablement that would prove that you belong in the conference room with the leaders that are making a rare decision that they have to get right on the first time.

18:11 If you don't have that, then you have to work very hard to catch up because if you're not the one that's sitting in the room with the decision makers, your competitor will be. OK, so do good work. I know this is a big one for you, but you got to do it. See me at thesalesblog.com or come out and say hello, add LinkedIn. See you soon. I really love one word when it comes to sales pitches, and that's curiosity. Always go into a sales pitch with curiosity and have the goal of your prospect have curiosity during the sales pitch.

18:47 Yeah. All right, well, our topic today is how to leverage the buyer's journey. And we've done 246 episodes together, Scott. And we spent a lot of time talking about how to sell more effectively. And in this episode, I want to focus on the buyer's journey, how we integrate our selling strategy into the way that people want to buy. So instead of going against them or coming at them at an angle, we get in lockstep with them that we don't have talked about getting on the same side of the desk as the client.

19:19 So we're going to go through five steps of the journey. And Scott, and I'll talk about how as a professional sales person, you can support what the buyer is going to do. And let me just go into these. I want to go hit them quick, and then we'll come back and discuss them. So there's needs recognition is number one. Number two, informational search. Number three, evaluation of alternatives. And that may be where you get called, purchase decision, and post-purchase behavior.

19:48 So those are the five steps. I'll talk about them in order. And then we'll talk about what we can do to help support that journey. So needs recognition at the initial stage that the buyer has identified a problem. You've talked about buying tires. I tried to break on snowy roads, and my car ended up a little sideways. And I thought, OK, it's finally time to go look into my tires, right? Or I have a desire that needs to be filled.

20:15 Boy, I've really always wanted this kind of car. I just got a bonus, and maybe I can afford this car now. So it could be internal factors. Like I desire for something, or external factor, my car broke down, and now I need to get something. So anyway, here's what I think. When we can get into that needs recognition, maybe you have some ideas on this too. We can interject ourselves into that before they know they have a need to prospecting.

20:49 We can be the external stimuli. We can be the advertisement that when we make a call and we say, hey, have you ever thought about buying this? Or we've worked with companies much like yourself, and they've had this kind of a need. Do you have a similar need? For us, it's are you happy with where your sales team is heading and what they're producing? If you're not, maybe you have to do something. Right, right. I think awareness is the first step of change.

21:17 And once you have an awareness of something, then you look at options. And I think sometimes a salesperson at the right time can introduce ideas that don't have any conceptual application at the time, but all of a sudden a problem arises in the future, and the prospect goes, oh, so that's how that would work. I would use that now here where I am, and I would get that, oh, okay, now I understand the application of the solution.

21:41 If we don't understand the application of solution, then it has no value. If we don't feel we have a need. Right, there's no need. Right, if we don't feel we have a need. So that's where we can interject into the buyer's journey. Are you networking? Are you meeting people? Are you out and about in your marketplace? Have you become an expert in whatever field you are so that you're doing presentations or speeches, maybe at a trade show?

22:06 Or you used to attend the trade show and sit behind your desk and hope somebody comes up and says, aren't you wonderful? Are you walking around the trade shows, trying to meet people, trying to become a different kind of influencer? Or are you hoping that people just walk up to you? So what do you do to interject yourself so that when that need is recognized, oh, I want to talk to Scott, I want to talk to Bill. He's out giving speeches, I've seen him, he has an expertise in this, so I want to talk to him.

22:37 Right, right, exactly. We've been doing that for many years. So the next step in the buyer's journey is the information search. And this is where it's really changed a lot over the last years. In the past, Scott, the sales person was part of the information search. So we would call in six, seven different possibilities. Okay, Scott and Bill, they do sales training. Let's call them in and we'll talk to them. But now what do they do?

23:04 They go online and they look at your website and they look for some information to say, is this person competent? Is this company got what we need? And then they narrow it down to three or four different organizations that they're going to talk to. So you cannot be an in-person pamphlet anymore. Your sales pitch, this is why Anthony Ennerino just talked about your sales pitch as useless, because everything you're bringing, they already looked up and saw on the web.

23:35 So all you're doing is repeating that. You already made the first cut, bring them something better than they're going to find on your website. Yeah. Yeah, so true. And I think a lot of the information that they look at on a website is used to disqualify. And I think sometimes when people talk too much about the company and how long they've been in business, I don't think they're really addressing the problems that they solve.

24:00 And the prospect is looking at the companies and going, does the company understand the problems that we have? If you don't understand the problems that the prospect has, there's no way your solutions are going to be applicable. Yeah. So really have the information on what problems that do you solve. Yeah, and bring some new information, some new ideas to that appointment, not just a repetition of the website. Yeah, and we talked about this I think last time, is ask questions about the symptoms of a bigger problem.

24:25 They might not know the bigger problem, but they understand the symptoms of it. Well, that's through the appointment and our questioning. We're not there yet necessarily because we haven't, you haven't necessarily been called. But I think the other thing to make sure you do, Scott, and I've heard this problem before, when I've talked to marketing people, we're advertising one thing on our website, basically an idea concept, a way of solving problems.

24:51 And the salespeople don't even understand what that is. And they go into the appointment, say, oh, we don't do any of that stuff. Right. Yes. Oh, that's not how we do it. So they're in conflict with the reason they're there. Because if I looked at the website and I called Scott at Minnesota Sales Institute, whatever he said on the website is what I'm expecting to have reflected in my conversation of Scott says, oh, that stuff's just marketing crap.

25:19 Oh, that's still on the website. That's on the website. They took that down. Oh, I believe you were still advertising. Yeah, we don't have that sale anymore. Let me write you out of check because you can't even get the website correct. I'm going to buy a solution from you. So make sure you're in tune with what that website is saying about the company, because if you're not, you're going to be in conflict with what the expectations are of the buyer.

25:42 Now, they don't have great, you know, they're not looking for every eye to be dotted and T to be crossed, but they don't want to. If they said, you know, I want somebody that's going to, you know, create something special for me in the sales. And we say, no, no, we just do off the shelf sales training. Yeah, right. They're going to say, well, this isn't what I bought. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, all right. Step three in this process is the evaluation of the alternative.

26:07 So the customers gathered their own information and they're going to want to talk to some winners. Usually it's three. Is it? It's almost always three. Is it three? Yeah. Three is the number. Yeah. ABC one, two, three, location, location, location. Three is the number that puts in our mind about really checking something out. And so they've gathered information and now they want to talk to you as a sales professional, right?

26:32 Right. Right. So this is where you come in and through professional discovery, through asking questions, not telling them about your company, they already have the broad overview. Okay. Now they want to have a conversation. You asked them questions to get more specific about their needs. And then your job is to tie what your product or service will do to the specific needs of the customer. So good discovery is crucial to get that narrowed down to be a specific need.

27:03 And another thing I think is important in this step is to make sure that you've got enough trust and rapport established with your prospect that they know that you're being an advocate for them against the problem, whether or not your solution is the right one or not. And I know we want to sell our solution. I understand that. But you want the prospect to be able to feel like you're giving them direction and being their advocate, navigating the best solution for them.

27:28 And you can ask qualifying questions that play to your strengths and navigate them towards your solution. If you really believe your solution is the best value for them too. We, I'll give you an example of this. Scott and I had an appointment. This was six months ago, seven months ago. And it was a company that sells to consumers of home products. So they're meeting in the home with people. And what they wanted was a hard close.

27:54 They wanted a hard sell and a hard close and just keep closing, keep closing. That's how we sell. Don't let them out of the house sort of thing. And Scott and I turned on the business because it wasn't the way we sell. It wasn't the way that we work with customers and we were going to be in conflict with them the whole time. So we did them a favor by saying, look, I just don't hire us. Scott had some good suggestions for them and people who would teach that kind of sales training.

28:22 And we walked away from it because it wasn't going to be, it was going to be in conflict the whole time with the time we started. Right from the start. Like to teach. You know, what is cognitive dissonance? That cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance. Scott doesn't like words that have more than two syllables. So that's not, I can't spell it, but I can say it. All right.

28:42 And so I think the second part of this is you differentiate your solution. So one of the things you have to do in that primary meeting is not just learn the needs, but you need to know what the difference is. And so the meeting Scott and I had the other day, he was able to find out who our competitors were, which then allowed him to highlight what some of those differentiators would be. As he said, we set those bars high for the next people that would be coming in to have that conversation.

29:09 And so I want them to say, not only will this company be able to solve my problem, but they've got some unique pieces to it that I hadn't even thought were necessary, but I like those, those necessary pieces. So you connect it to their needs and you differentiate your solution in that first meeting, or you may not have a second meeting. Great advice.

29:33 All right. The fourth step is the purchase, purchase decision. And the customer has finally decided to buy a specific product or service, considering the evaluation of alternatives and potential promotions or incentives. So they put it all together. They said, okay, this is what I'm thinking of buying, where we intercede as salespeople is often with either a quote or a proposal. Now I think a proposal drives a decision, a quote is something to compare against.

30:00 So what I want to do in professional sales is I want to go into them and say, okay, we had this conversation. Here's a situation as I understand it. Here's how we would solve that situation for you. This is how long it's going to take and this is what we're going to need. I may not have pricing even in it at that point because I want to make sure that, because I don't, I may not know enough to price it out, but I do now know enough to put together a proposal that says, here's how we'll solve that.

30:29 We work through that and then we can put that timing or that those last pieces on it. But that's where we connect for the customer is through that proposal. And we talk about it all the time. Don't throw your quote or your proposal over the wall. You do not send a proposal to the client and wait three days and say, how'd you like it? You sit down with them, you commit to that time, you walk through it and you hope they make changes to it so it becomes their document.

30:58 It thoughts on that, Scott. And how do we do that virtually, Bill? We do that all the time. You and I, we get our client on the, on the Zoom, we share our screen, we go through the proposal. We did not send it to them before we share our screen. We do not have it before the presentation step online. Virtually share the screen, go through each paragraph, practically read it out loud, yes. And then get the comments and interaction with your prospect and questions and clarifications and any changes like Bill talks about.

31:27 And then you get to the end and then you end up changing the cover letter to version two. All right, we got version two now. And they've made the changes. Yeah, we made the changes and we sent it off to them. And, and this one has two lines at the bottom of it where they sign and where we sign and the data and off we go. And that's how we do it virtually. And I'm telling you, it's very, very effective and it really stands out.

31:53 And that proposal is going to do this thing called a contract. It really, it really stands out. Yep. Yep. It's amazing. It's amazing if you do it right. And I've never had anybody say, no, just send me, just mail me the proposal. Of course, every prospect is going to say, I don't want to talk to you. Just mail it to me. Well, I'm sorry. That's just not the way that we do this here. That's not the way we do this here. Yep.

32:11 Because I want to make sure that this is the right answer and not just the one that we've given you. Perfect. Perfect. That's right. That's a great answer. All right. The last piece, post purchase behavior. So the customer is bought from you. This is where a lot of sales fail in that movement from sales to delivery. And they're going to determine their satisfaction almost immediately with your product or service and how they feel about it is going to influence any future buying or any business and any recommendations they're going to make.

32:43 So those referrals that you want are going to count on how you make that turn over. I think you need to follow up because you've got to think about the long-term relationship.

32:55 Don't leave it. Don't turn it over to delivery and hope they do a good job. Right. They don't have the same skin in the game as you do. And you don't want buyers remorse. You don't get repeat business. Well, we need to be careful in that area because sometimes sales people need to concentrate on being salespeople. And sometimes they can get into that gray area where they end up crossing over and they start getting involved in delivery and account management which then takes them out of the field from getting new contacts and new conversations started and new sales.

33:25 So when does a salesperson hand it off to delivery? I think is what needs to be really analyzed in that culture within the company. What do you think of that bill? Well, I think it's true that you can't get in it forever but you better do something about it because I don't trust delivery to do it all. I agree. This is my client and 90% of the companies we work with Scott. I'm both the account manager and the hunter. Right.

33:51 Right. So I'm going to get involved with it no matter what. Even though we advise companies get an inside sales team that account manages, most of the inside sales teams become order takers. They don't know how to account manage. They're not trained to do that. And so I still think the reality is it's a good idea what you say. Reality is I'm the account manager on that account anyway. So this is a crucial time to make sure that we're working together well.

34:22 That we're getting started on the right foot. That's right. And then work yourself out of it. So think about this buyer's journey, need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, the purchase, and then the post-purchase behavior. That's where you need to intervene professionally as a salesperson. Get yourself in tune with that buyer's journey. And then you're not going to be in conflict with that buyer.

34:51 Let's go on to our golden nugget as we wrap up. Sure. Our golden nugget is a quote that I shared a couple of weeks ago, but I think it really is enough importance to be repeated. We should not have a fear of failure but of succeeding at the wrong things by Frances Chan. And I really have been reflecting on this over the last couple of weeks. And I really am susceptible to this quote because I have a fear of failure. But I have a fear of failure of doing the wrong things and getting good at it.

35:23 Yeah, we can't be good at everything. I think one of the things that we should always focus on is where are our strengths and how can we play to those better and not always trying to improve and take something we're terrible at and get good at it. So we can be competent in areas. As John Maxwell says, there are some things that you're a two in and maybe you can get yourself to a five but you're never going to be attending them because it's just not who you are.

35:50 Focus on those things where you can be a seven, eight, nine, ten, become competent in some of their areas as well. So that's what training is about helping you fill in some of those holes and get better at those things that you should be really good at. Great quote. All this information can be found at winning at selling.com.

36:06 Go there. Look at the show notes. This is episode 647, 647. Next week, we're going to have a good friend of mine, Frank Gustafson. It's going to be on. And guess what the topic is going to be on? Oh, how appropriate goal setting. I really want to be here. Oh, look forward to that. I think you're really going to love the conversation with Frank. He's a jovial guy. He's out of Texas. I met him when he lived up here in Minnesota and I'm looking forward to that very, very much during the holiday season.

36:30 So no book club next week, but get your copy of one thing. The one thing by Gary Keller, and please subscribe and share this podcast with your colleagues and your social media networks. Go out and get better one skill at a time. Joyful selling.