Don't worry about inexperience, don't be intimidated first, make it all about discovering the customer problem and earn the right to talk about what you do for a living.
You're listening to the audible Ready Podcast, the show that helps you and your teams sell more faster. We'll 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 katt Miller, joined today by John Kaplan.
Hi. John, Hi, Rachel.
So today we're going to tackle a topic that really comes up a lot in our negotiation trainings, but it also relates to just straight selling, and it has to do with general experience. Many of you out there listening are finding yourselves just a few years out of school trying to sell to much more experienced executives professionals. I say it comes up in negotiation because we get questions a lot from less experienced reps who are trying to
negotiate with seasoned procurement professionals. We've all been there, right, It can be intimidating, but also a bias that you're a bias your buyer has of you that you have to overcome. So John, we've all been there, no matter our current age.
Yeah, I mean, I think this is a really great question and topic. I think it comes up and I like this point because I think you always want to be respectful and prepared, but you don't want to be intimidated or overwhelmed by experience. Period. You want to respect experience,
but you don't want to be intimidated. So I think the thing to remember is the most elite seller, they first make it all about the buyer, and that's all the buyer cares about because what they don't believe is they don't believe we understand their business, and they don't believe we're going to listen to them. That's what all the data says. So if you just focus your energy and attention to first make it all about the buyer, then you earn the right to make it all about
your company. And I think that's a really good frame that we should kind of hang on to as we continue to discuss this.
Right focusing on the buyer helps you in all things is selling, but especially if you're a greener wrap selling two more experienced professionals. And it starts with something you say all the time, John, having confidence and conviction and what you sell for a living. And that comes down to not necessarily always understanding your product, but also related to the buyer understanding the problems that you solve.
Yeah, I mean, like, nobody cares how experienced you are if you can solve their problem. So if you understand how you can solve the problem, it helps your confidence and conviction around what you do for a living. So
let me give you a quick example. I think a lot of the listeners know that I started Force Management after a great career, in my opinion, a great career, So sorry it sounds a little bit, it sounds a little bit of boasting, but I thought it was a great career at PTC, and I was selling engineering software to engineers. So a couple of problems. Number one, I wasn't an engineer. Number two, I'd never sold software before,
so I came from a hardware company at Xerox. But I was a fairly good seller, and I was prepared with how my company had prepared me in What I mean by that is they helped me understand the art of discovery. And so the first thing I would do is that would ask customers, design engineers and manufacturing engineers.
I'd ask them to walk me through their process. And as I walked through their process, I started to ask additional questions about where bottlenecks were and how often those bottlenecks happened, and what were some of the challenges that were associated with that, How did that impact the company, how did that impact the customer, How did that impact things like pricing on products and delivery on products? And inside of that, I had huge confidence and conviction that
our company had solutions. I'm not telling you don't have to understand your solutions. You have to understand your solutions. But what I did to get my comfort level was to start uncovering the problems first and then seeing the reaction of how big those problems were and how challenging those problems were. I made the customer always hungry to learn more about what I could do to solve them. And later on in my career, when I thought, you know, when I knew more about the products and services and
I was feeling more and more comfortable. I actually started doing less discovery and started to tell people about my products and services because I wanted to prove to everybody how smart I was and how I had made the transition. I did understand engineering, I do understand manufacturing now, and a really cool lesson happened to me. The more that I knew about the products and services and the more that I told them about their problem, the more they
resisted me. And so it was a really good learning experience for me. My maturity came from first understanding their problems, and then I earned the right to talk about what we did and how we did it differently. And so I just want people to remember that nobody cares about how mature you are or how much experience you have. They only care if you understand their problem and if you can articulate a solution that meets or solves that problem.
I know we have people that listen to this podcast. You know, they're driving, they're working out, they're sitting at home on their computers. Take a step back, ask yourself, are you truly positioning your selling activities today, this week, this quarter around what is important to your buyer? Get clarity around those business problems you solve. John, I'm sorry were going to say something.
No, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just love that so much. It's like just sitting with that and reflecting on it and say, before I open up my mouth, I actually have a little enemy within that says, you know, why are you talking? Why are you talking? And if my brain can't answer because the customer said this was the problem, then I shut up. And it's really it's not much more difficult than that.
Yeah, I pause there for effect because I wanted everyone listening to.
You did it well. You did it well, and since I'm not comfortable with silence, I jumped in there like every other sales rep would. That's well done.
So really think about think about that to all of you listening out there. Get clarity around those business problems you solve. If you're a command of the message customer, make sure you are owning that value framework. Understand the problems you're solving as they have meaning to this specific buyer. Another simple way for you to gain clarity around those problems in a way that you can articulate them back in your sales conversations is that concept we have done the essential questions.
Yeah, for me, this is what helps me get my mind right. So and PTC did such a good job for me, and so many companies are doing this such a good job. And if you're a company listening, listen up to this. If you're a manager listening, or a leader listening, listen up to this. If you are a seller, listen up to this, because it's got a perspective for
all of you. Is that when I contemplate the answers to the four essential questions, doesn't matter how much experience I have, whether I'm inexperienced or whether I'm a truly ten yeared employee, the four central questions are incredibly solid, and I wake up in the morning and really get my mind focused around this, which gives me confidence and conviction. What problems do I solve for my customers? What problems
do I solve for my customers? And we always talk about being audible ready, so that means when I speak about problems, I have to speak about technical problems. I have to orb depending upon what type of sales you're in. If you're not in a technical sale, I have to think about end user problems. I need to think about process problems. I need to think about business problems. And so when we answer that question, what problems do we solve for our customers? We have to be audible, Eddie,
no matter who we're speaking to. How specifically question number two, how specifically do we solve those problems? Here is where we get to talk about our goods and services, but only as they relate to solving those problems. How do we solve it differently or better than anybody else? How do we solve it differently or better than anybody else? This answers the question of what is your differentiation and where have you done it before? Where have you done
it before? Are the proof points? And when I'm a new seller or I'm an inexperienced seller, that's one of the first things that I would do is go to those proof points and really understand what have we actually done for customers? What problems did we solve, How specifically did we solve them, How do we do it differently or better than anybody else? And what was the outcome? And now I believe, because that's the evidence I need.
And when you believe, you will get confidence in conviction, which will come across as experience, which will come across as people wanting to lean into you. Stay focused around the answers to the four central questions. If you don't think you can answer them. If you're a leader and you're listening to this podcast and you don't think your company can answer them, you better get squared away, get
the answers aligned answers to those questions. If you are a seller, wake up in the morning and say, I'm going to consume the content that my company gave me around these four essential questions, and it's my job to execute them and show my character as it relates to being able to execute them with great skill. And I think those four essential questions can get you really, really focused,
and I see people just skyrocket and their confidence. Whether they're new in an industry or whether they're a new seller, it really doesn't have any bearing. Once you get your arms around the answers to those four essential questions, you're good to go.
Yeah, and you talk about executing on the essential questions, John, I think that's a really important point because when you wrap your head around the answer to those questions, it's not enough to just rattle the answers off as bullet points. You need to make them meaningful for your buyer. We set it at the top, what is important to your buyer? That is how you get that confidence a conviction you're
talking about. You need to customize those answers in your conversations to what matters to the buyer.
Yeah, with the world we live in now, the buyers are multiple buyers. Most of us are selling complex solutions that have multiple buyers. We're either selling things as a service or it depends upon the usage and insights into that usage and what Normally you just sum all that up, it's typically multiple on ramps to a customer conversation, which means, no matter who I speak to, no matter what the problem is that they're experiencing, I have to be ready.
And like we just said, I think the answers to those four es central questions are a great way for us to get ready. Okay, I'm going to go talk to a network administrator. Okay, what problems do they typically experience and how do I solve those? Well? How do I solve them differently? Are better than anybody else? And where have we done it before? Okay, I'm going to go talk to a CIO or an executive. What problems and I'm going to elevate those problems and connect them
to business issues. The whole point is you have multiple on ramps. You have to be audible ready, and you have to approach. Like we said at the beginning of the podcast, you have to make an approach which is outside in I'm first going to make it all about you before i make it about me and my company.
Yeah, the other topic I wanted to make sure we covered a little bit more, and it's one of those essential questions, what's your proof Where have you done it before? Proof points people want to know you can do what you say you can do, and they're helpful for all salespeople, but they can really be essential in gaining the trust and respect of seasoned decision makers.
Yeah. I think they're really kind of twofold.
You know.
First and foremost people want to know you can do what you say you can do. So if you say that you drove a specific result for a similar type of company, that's going to get their attention no matter how many years of work experience you have. People also want to mitigate, you know, mitigate risk, so they want to know there's some assurance that you're going to deliver the same result. And that's how proof points can help.
The second thing that proof points can do, and I said this a little bit earlier, but I love to see people utilize proof points to really gain their own confidence and conviction, to really read these proof points and really sit and reflect with these proof points, to say to yourself, what I do matters? And so you should dig into the story and understand the problems that were solved, how you solve them or how your company solved them, and what was the result, and connect the result all
the way to the business outcome. And if you didn't do the deal, it doesn't matter. Don't just throw out a logo. You know, we do business with Bank of America, what have you. Nobody cares about logos. What they care about They do care about logos, But what I mean by that is they want to know what happened, What problems were you addressing, how did you solve them, how did you solve them differently or better? And what was
the outcome. Now you'll do two things. If you consume those proof points in that way, you will instantly raise your credibility with a customer, and you will lower ri Like you talked about Rachel but you will also build your own confidence and conviction that what you do for a living matters because you.
Have proof Yeah, and as a company, it's really important to get a process around gathering those proof points and having a process to transfer that knowledge, to transfer that story to other reps. I mean it's critical and mitigating risks in all your deals. But when you talk about enabling greener reps, I mean those stories, those metrics can be the negative information that gets an experienced buyer to open up and have and further the sales conversations. It's really important.
Absolutely.
Okay, John, wrap it up. Let's give a closing bottom line on.
This topic, this couple of things. First thing I want to say is if you're listening to this podcast and you're having a oh crap moment, an oh crap moment means, Okay, I understand the four cents of questions, but we don't have the answers. Nothing is more critical for you right now. If you are a sales leader, if you are a CEO, if you are a seller, if you do not have the answers to those four essential questions, you're going to
be compromised out in the field. And you want to couple that with bringing on new people into an organization, maybe that don't have the maturity in the organization or in the industry, or just basically maybe even in selling experience. If you don't equip them with that, you are really putting the outcomes at risk. So that's kind of first and foremost for me. Now let me speak to the people out there that this podcast was really kind of intended for. You know, first is, Hey, sometimes I get
a little intimidated with talking to executives or whatever. Don't worry about inexperience. Don't be intimidated. First, make it all about discovering the customer prop and earn the right to talk about what you do for a living. When you first make it all about the customer's problem, you are solving something that we call the seller deficit disorder, which executives don't believe that you understand their business and they
don't believe that you're going to listen to them. The very active going through discovery to understand and uncover and validate those problems will give you the equivalent of experience and maturity in front of any executive. Prepare yourself by understanding your company's value by understanding the answers to the four essential questions. And if you can't do it, if you don't know it, talk to your boss. Talk to
your manager. If you're a manager and you don't have it and you can't do it, talk to your executive team. Executive team. If you guys can't do it from an aligned perspective and you don't have common language around these, get busy and get common language and alignment around the answers to the four central questions. It's critical.
Boom, mic drop, John Kaplin, thank.
You, Thanks, Rachel all right, thank.
You to all of 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.
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