Buyers are going to change, needs are going to change, and that's all part of selling. Your ability to be audible ready or prepared for when those changes come will help you control the deal.
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Welcome to the Audible Ready Sales Podcast. I'm Rachel Klep Miller here with John Kaplan. Hi John, him Rachel. So today we are going to talk about controlling your deal, a topic that is often difficult to master. We all know what it feels like when we are in control of an opportunity. But John, when we talk about controlling your deal, what does that mean? What comes to mind when I say that?
The first thing that comes to my mind is it's really all about qualification in control. I mean, I think I'm thinking about I'm doing everything that I can at each moment to ensure that this opportunity is qualified and moving forward with urgency. So I know there's a lot of words in there, but that's the definition I'd like to use as we go through the rest of this.
Yeah, and when we say control, we aren't talking about just pushing the deal through. We're still talking about aligning to your buyer's needs and how they buy. We just want you to be in a situation where you're being proactive, not reactive, doing those great things that John just mentioned. So let's talk through some things that may happen to take you out of control, to show you are in control,
and how you might counteract them. John, what do you do when a buyer already assumes they know what you do, and perhaps it isn't right, they feel like they know everything about you. That is an example of when you might not be in control the conversation of the opportunity. How do you handle that well?
I think this is such a great point because all the data says that buyers believe that they have access to the right information and all the information that they need to educate themselves on our solutions, and therefore then just focus on interacting with us transactionally. And that's a real real issue, a real real concern, and that's just because of the access to information out there. So if you do run into this scenario, I talk about meeting
the buyer wherever they are. So if you sense the buyers, assuming that they know more about your products and services and your industry, allow them to start there and let them share with you what they know. It's important for you to understand where they're coming from. So, for example, if a customer says, I've done a lot of research on your product and here's what I found, start there.
What do you like most about what you've uncovered about our products a service or our company, and what caused you pause? I always ask those questions because on the upfront, typically they're going to say they're going to be very, very cautious. They're going to talk about potentually being expensive, not having all the features that they need. But let them share the information and then go right into your discovery.
So it's an outside and approach. At the end of the day, your ultimate goal is to attach your solution to the biggest business issues facing your customer and influence the decision criteria with your differentiation. So that's ultimately your solidifying medpick and medic which we're going to talk about here in a little bit, But wherever you are there you go just take whatever information they have and begin your discovery from there.
Yeah, that's a great tactic, great thing to remember. The other area where you put yourself in a reactive state is when a buyer throws a wrench into your process, like something you weren't expecting. And it may happen often maybe it's kind of a late stage approval that you weren't expecting. Like so and so needs to buy into this. We didn't think they had, but they need. You've got a new stakeholder in the deal. I know that happens a lot. How would you handle that?
Well, I think you're just going to have to assume that it's going to come. Yeah. The first thing is to qualify the decision process early and often. Again, I would normally say, so, this doesn't happen, but it's going to happen. The better you do your job. When I say attached to the biggest business issue, the good news is is that it's going to be more valuable. The more valuable things tend to be more costly. The more costly it's all relative in terms of a return on investment.
The more funding we're talking about tends to be people with higher power and influence. So just assume if you're selling anything worth its while, things are going to get added. And if you've done this qualified early and now there's a new stakeholder, ask questions like how did this develop? What got this person interested? Assess the situation. I would just assume that it's going to happen. If you qualify early, you're finding out the process. If you're qualifying continuously, you're
going to find that there's new stakeholders. Very few solutions are single threaded today. But if you did not qualify, So if you qualified the decision process and it's developing before your eyes, play where your feet are and ask how was that person involved, what's important to them? How do we both get to them to make sure we have their requirements. Nobody likes to. I always tell sometimes I have like a over zealous champion, and that's a
whole other conversation. When we could do a podcast on but let's say have an overzeales champion. They're like, Hey, don't worry about it, we just need to This new person got involved and we just need to They have a few questions and I always ask that buyer slash champion to sit in the seat of that individual. If we don't go out and address them properly, and we don't do that in a way that helps them feel included, then can you imagine the feeling of something being done
to you versus for you. Nobody likes to have things done to them. So even with overzealis champions to tell me, oh, don't worry about it. You know there's a few questions. Just just get the answers and I'll get the information back to them. I'm always leary on that because it's not courteous. It's you know, it should always be a courtesy to include those people in the process and make
them feel like they're included. So always stand in that moment of that other buyer, that additional buyer, that additional person in the process, and just ask yourself and the champion do they feel like do you think they're going to feel like something's being done to them or for them? Yeah?
That's great, good tips there. I think the other situation that happens often and another one that we should expect, but could put us into a reactive mode and make us feel like we don't have control of the deal, and that's when a competitor enters the situation. How do you handle that, John, what's the action plan there?
Well, first of all, this should be a non issue because you are always competing with someone or something, even if it's doing nothing or doing it themselves. And I would consider any deal that you're working on right now and that you're calling no competition that deals at risk. There's always competition. The economy is competition, right. Well, yeah, it's a red flag for me to say. It's not if competition is going to come, it's when competition's going
to come. So let's go back to what we talked about. We said we're doing two main things that we're always doing as sellers. We're attaching the biggest business issues, and we're influencing the decision criteria with our differentiation. The very nature of doing that process of making sure that the decision criteria is favorable for the customer and favorable for us influenced by our differentiation, you have to consider competition and so that if you're doing that, if you're constantly
doing that, competition will always be considered. And remember, if we truly have champions, then they're just as invested with all of these issues we're talking about as we are. So if the deal is not qualified, if the deal is not in control, or the opportunity is not qualified, the opportunity is not in control, it's the same for the champion. So when you have a champion that is has power and influence, is actively selling on your behalf
and as a vested interest in your success. The very nature of that definition means you're not alone on these deals. So if the competitor shows up, it's not just competition against you, it's competition against you and you're champion because you're focused on the same things. If another person shows up in the process, it is then the champion's best interest to listen to you, because you do this for a living every day. Let's say you're selling software. They
don't buy software every day. You sell software every day. They don't buy software every day. They're doing things that need your software, and so that champion at Behoo's that champion to really utilize that relationship with you to attack these things. But the main point I wanted to say, Rachel is you're never alone. If you're feeling alone on a deal, you're at risk because it means you don't have a champion. Yeah.
And as we talk about this, John, you're giving us some great tips of what to do when something happens. But the overarching theme here is to be anticipate and be proactive. And there's two concepts at play here that if you're disciplined about following them, these situations will be less of an issue for you. And one is qualification. This is why you use a tool like medic or medpick.
Yeah, Rachel, I think medpick. Medic is one of the greatest tools ever created in the history of sales. I love its origin at PTC. When we were all there at PTC, my buddies and I. I didn't invent medic, but I was at art of utilizing medic and it was invented at PTC and it was in The results were unbelievable historic. I think medic and medpick and qualification. It's the equivalent of like a wearable like an Apple watch.
It gives you real time updates on your health and in this case, it's the health of your sales opportunity. So you're always qualifying and how that helps you be proactive instead of reactive. I hate being reactive in life. I hate being reactive, and I think qualification, medic medpick, whatever the variations are of that help you stay in that proactive mode. So this is one of the greatest
disciplines ever created in sales. It's right up there with asking outside in discovery questions, which great discovery questions are the ones that allow the customer to make it all about them and then give you the right to earn the right to make it all about you. So it's right up there with great discovery and qualification are kind of pivotal pillars in the history of sales skills.
Yeah, and great selling means being proactive to your point. The other concept I wanted to bring up is one of ours here at Force Management, and that's what we call being audible Ready. We love it so much we name the podcast after it. But talk about how that's at play here, Johnnah.
Yeah, I mean audible ready. What it's always meant to me, Rachel, is in anything in life, you prepare and you over prepare to try to create a situation where you're ready for any scenario. And where we're audible already comes from is the sports analogy. When somebody comes up to a competitor, and they see what the competitor is doing and then they change their play or they make an audible to
address a better advantage based upon what they see. So for me, audible ready it just means that you're able to adjust to true north no matter where your buyer is. And that's what I meant by kind of like playing where your feed are. You meet the buyer wherever they are, and you rely on qualification to keep you true north.
So if you're prepared with what an ideal opportunity should look like, you will notice when an opportunity is not ideal, and therefore you are permitted to kind of take action. So buyers are going to change, needs are going to change, and that's all part of selling. Your ability to be audible ready or prepared for when those changes come will help you control the deal.
Be a racious qualifier, be audible ready, be proactive with your customers and your selling process. But John, I want you to give us a bottom line to wrap up this conversation today.
This gabe a pretty good one. Let me try. Yeah, Bi don and I like it, So play wherever your feed are meeting, meet the buyer wherever they are in the buyer's journey and keep control of the sales process by utilizing medic medpick qualification process. In the end, I said that there were three master kind of skills that you have to have. You've got to be able to when you wake up in the morning as a seller, You've got to be saying, I need to attach myself
to the biggest business issue facing this customer. I need to influence decision criteria with my differentiation. And as you just so eloquently put it earlier, I need to be a voracious qualifier when you wake up in the morning. If you're listening to this podcast, look at those three things and it should help you control any deal on the planet.
That's awesome. You said it better than Ida John. Thank you.
You're welcome, go get them.
Thank you to all of you for listening to the Audible Ready Sales podcast.
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