Positive outcomes require capabilities metrics. These are the three buckets I'm filling up as I'm going through my discovery. I have to make sure those buckets are full.
You're listening to the Audible Ready Podcast, the show that helps you and your teams sell more Faster. Will feature sales leaders sharing their best insights on how to create a sales engine that helps you fuel repeatable revenue growth. Presented by the team at Force Management, a leader in B to B sales effectiveness.
Let's get started.
Hello, and welcome to the Audible Ready Sales Podcast. I'm Rachel Klatt Miller. Today we are going to talk about best practices for playing back what you've gathered from your customer. John Kaplan joins me today. Hi John, Rachel, how are you good? Good? Like I said, we're going to talk about the importance of validating what you heard from your customer and playing it back to them throughout the sales process. Right, this is than just like a one and done thing
if you're a command of the message alone. This is what we call the mantra. You build it throughout sales process and then you're delivering it back to the customer throughout it. If you don't know command of the message. We're talking about really gathering and replaying those critical components of the deal.
Yeah, let's set a little context here. So for the past fifty or so plus years, researchers have asked buyers about their experiences with sellers and the top two challenges that come up when they ask them, what are the biggest challenges you have with sellers? The top two or the following number one they don't understand my business. Number two they don't listen. And we refer to this as
the seller deficit disorder. So this skill of playing back what you heard is critical, and I want to try to simplify it.
Today and then often just last when we talk about sending the pain and getting the right information. But let's talk about some of those best practices when you're playing back what you heard or articulating the mantra. It starts with great follow up on those initial calls.
Yeah, so after every conversation, I'm recapping what I heard in my recap at the end of the call, and my follow up emails and the beginning of my next call.
And I like to think about discovery as like filling up three buckets of sand So I have three buckets and I'm going to fill them up, and the three buckets are labeled positive business outcomes, required capabilities or decision criteria, those things that are technically required in order to meet those positive business outcomes, and then how people are going to measure success or metrics. So positive business outcomes, require
capabilities and metrics are the three buckets. And I'm filling up these buckets as I'm going through my discovery call in my conversation, and this allows me to gather additional information if there's any gaps that I want to make sure that we get aligned in the next step. So, for example, mister missus customer, what I heard you say is, these are the positive business outcomes that you're trying to achieve.
And I go look into that bucket, and if I don't have any positive business outcomes, then what I do is I know that I'm not ready to talk to them about pivoting to a solution. So I asked some discovery questions. So these are the positive business outcomes that you talked about. You also said this was the technical required capabilities. Well, guess what if I look into that bucket and there's no technical required capabilities that are favorable
for us with our differentiation. I'm not done with discovery. I can't pivot to selling them something. I don't fully understand them. I haven't fully listened to them. That's what that seller deficit disorder is talking about. Now, look in the bucket for metrics, and this is how you said you were going to measure success. So if I haven't filled up those buckets, I can't pivot to how we do this, how we do it differently, or how we do it better and where we've done it before. I
can't pivot to my solution because I'm not ready. So again, this allows me to gather my additional information where there are gaps, and that's something I'm adding to for every call. Recap positivesiness, outcomes, require capabilities, metrics. These are the three buckets I'm filling up as I'm going through my discovery. I have to make sure those buckets are full. If they're not full and I pivot to talk about my solution, I'm not going to be ready yet, So I'm going
to have some gaps. And that's what makes people say you don't understand my business. Yeah, because we don't know the business outcomes you're trying to achieve and you haven't listened. Yeah, because I can't tell you what you told me, and I can't tell you what's critical based upon what you told me and how you're going to measure success. This is all part of that seller deficit disorder. So that's what you're recapping. What I heard you say has to
be around those three pillars. Positibusiness outcomes require capabilities and metrics.
Yeah, and you do it right. And if you follow those A key component you're talking about it can be that email or your follow up tools can be a great tool to get different perspectives from other stakeholders in the deal. How do you use them for that?
Yeah, I love it. So just by sharing what you heard and asking for feedback, you're not saying that this is what I know or this is what I'm trying to convince them. I'm not trying to convince them of anything. It's just that you're telling them what you've heard, and it's a great starting point for a conversation. This is what I heard from your organization, This is what I heard from somebody else in your organization. Could you please give me your take on it? Okay, so what are
you doing. You're proving that you're learning about their business, and you're proving that you listen by the very fact that you're saying, this is what I heard. So you're attacking the seller deficit disorder. And then you're allowing people based upon kind of a level playing field or a starting point that says, this is what I've heard. Could you please comment on this. It's a great place to
start conversations as you move throughout an organization. Well tell me what because people are thinking it, what do you know about us? Tell me what you've heard? What have you been doing in this account? And it's a great place. This recap, this mantra is a great place to begin every conversation with a new stakeholder.
Right and in the mantra, this is what we heard. As you talk to new stakeholders, as you gather more information, it really expands as you move through that sales process. It represents the multiple stakeholder perspectives, and it can be a tool to constantly validate and qualify your deal. So when we think about qualifications, one thing I wanted to bring up is how important those required capabilities or solution requirements are in this process and how you are articulating them in your recaps.
I'd say critical, but it's like, I don't want to make that to sound like some cliche, but I'm telling you that if you can't discuss the required capabilities or the decision criteria, you have no chance at winning. And if you do win, you have no chance of understanding whether you've got a great deal or an average deal, or whether you even wanted the deal or not. So he or she who owns the required capabilities of the decision criteria actually owns the customer and owns the owns
the opportunity. So I like to say the two biggest skills for elite sellers are always about attaching to the biggest business issue, and that's going to come from what we talked about earlier with positive business outcomes and discovery around that. And then influencing decision criteria with your company differentiation. That's your job. You need to influence the required capability, not just gather the required capability. You need to influence
the required capabilities with your company differentiation. It's got to be good for the customer, and it's got to be in their own own language, and it also gives us a great baseline for prioritization. So if there's neutral or unfavorable criteria or require capabilities, that you've got the ability. This is a really important point. A lot of times I get notes back from people say, hey, I've got
decision criteria here. You told me that we need to influence it with our differentiation, But there's actually some decision criteria here that's good for the customer and it's something that we don't do well. What do I do about that? And I think that's such a great question, because there are some times where you're going to have a situations where you build this for criteria and you build this require capabilities, and you find out you might not be
the best one to compete on this. And it's the only reason why people hesitate to move on is because they don't have pipeline. And that's not going to be a good idea for you or the customer. So let's talk about what happens when you do get and it's going to happen. There's going to be decision criteria that's going to show up, or require capabilities that are going to show up, and they're less favorable for you and
more favorable for a competitor. The first thing I do is I always ask the customer to describe that for me, Rachel, because what I know is is that elite sellers, when you're elite, you just know that you're different than others. And when you spot this, sometimes what happens is some non elite sellers they convince the customer or they say, you need to put this in the criteria to be able to compete against, so we can compete against this
company or what have you. So a lot of times I just ask them to explain to me what that means, so they'll have something on there, like you know, let's say it's in the old days, we used to have this thing by directional associativity at PTC was kill or knockout criteria. Well, if I was a competitor, I'd say, mister missus, customer, what is your understanding of what that means? And they're either going to explain it like they understand it, or they're going to explain it like a competitor just
told them to put it in there. And I know I might not be giving it the right words of the right justice, but you know what I mean, when you hear what I'm saying, Like you can tell when somebody talks about something and they understand it, or somebody talks about something and they've just heard it. And I used to love this because I used to say, Okay, well, so explain to me. Give me an example of how
that's manifested itself in your environment. I start asking all these questions and they're feeling very uncomfortable, and they're like, and I just let them off the hook. I don't have to say, like, what I want to say is aha, I know that's required capability. You don't know what that means. And my competitor just put that in there. I mean, I want to say that, but I don't say that. I just say, well, let's prioritize these and I take
one of our differentiators. Let's say one of our influenced criteria, and I say, is it more important than this? And if I've on my job and we've talked about how important it is and we have specific examples, nine times out of ten, what happens, Rachel, is this unexplained favorable decision criteria for the competitors, it winds up moving down the priority list. And that is the best advice that
I can give you. So all the while while you're refining this criteria or influencing it, shaping it until it's good for the customer and good for you. And that is really what you do for a living. When you swing your feet over the end of the bed the side of the bed. In the morning, I should wake up and say, today I need to influence decision criteria with my differentiation critical on every opportunity, on every conversation.
Are you're good? And make sure your customer understands your differentiation.
That's why you got to use their language, Rachel. You can't write your own like x Y doublejzy wizaboo, and that shows up in the decision criteria and you know that that came from your competitor, and so just ask them questions like what does that mean for you, mister missus customer.
That's one of the things I wanted to make sure we highlighted because you've mentioned it a couple of times. You use this tactic to make sure nothing's changed, as things always do in the deal, and your competitors are probably doing that too. They're like, hey, take a look at this. Are we all on the same page. But one way you can differentiate yourself and how you sell is make sure you are communicating in the client's words, like, how do they speak about it? How do they interpret
your differentiation required capabilities outcomes? All of that.
Yeah, you know, it's such a good point. It's never about us, It's always about the customer. That's what outside in mentality really means. You want them to see you as a partner in their business, so you should speak in their language. And one of the greatest compliments did we get, you know, from our customers at Force Management,
is that they say that you sound like us. And really, all we've done is we've taken our principles and we've put it into their words, so by the time it gets to their organization, it looks like it came from their organization. And I love hearing that because I know that they see us as that we're invested in their success. And remember, you want your customers to feel like, remember what they said, you don't understand my business and you
don't listen. Well, if I'm using your words, then I inherently am going to come off as sounding like I understand your business. If I'm using what we're talking about this recap. In this mantra, I am inherently going to be repeating back what they told me and what they said, so they're going to immediately feel like that I've listened. It's not that complicated. It's not easy, but it's not that complicated.
Right, important any ones. I mean, John, you've gone through some great tips here for day, and I know there's a lot of great takeaways. Wrap us up with the bottom line for everyone listening.
Yeah, okay, So for me, remember those buckets. There are three things I need to fill up in every conversation. Doesn't mean in every call I'm going to fill those buckets up totally, but there are three buckets that I'm filling up in the beach and I got a positive business outcome. Bucket I got to require capabilities, and I interchange require capabilities and decision criteria. So I've talked about both,
I mean require capabilities. In this instance, one of the buckets require capability slash met decision criteria, and then the third bucket is metrics. And we always want to use the customer's language for you to overcome what we were talking about as that seller deficit disorder. If you just look at those three buckets. Do I understand their business? Yeah? If I'm talking about positive business outcomes, Do I listen
to them? Yeah? If I can repeat back to them what I heard about them, and I can, and then I can take it to the ultimate step is to influence that decision criteria with my differentiation. And that's a great, great winning success.
There you go, All right, John Chaplin, thank.
You, You're welcome.
Go get them, Go get them, everybody, and thank you for listening to the Audible Ready Sales Podcast.
At Force Management, we're focused on transforming sales organizations into elite teams. Our proven methodologies deliver programs that build company alignment and fuel repeatable revenue growth. Give your teams the ability to execute the growth strategy at the point of sale. Our strength is our experience. The proof is in our results. Let's get started. Visit us at forcemanagement dot com.
You've been listening to the Audible Ready podcast. To not miss an episode, subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast player Until next time.