Don't over complicate it, create a framework in your mind, and deliver on that framework through the entire engagement process. 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 clapp Miller. Our team has pulled together some great insights from our Force Management experts on executing great sales calls great sales meetings. This episode features segments from our conversations on the topic. Starting it off as Antonella O'Day, who talks about setting up that first meeting. We all know what it feels like when it goes right and how it feels when it goes horribly wrong. Antonella goes through how to set yourself up
for success. Obviously, this can vary from organization to organization depending on the stage of the sales process, but in general, that first meeting does to give it some context it's such an important one. It really lays the foundation on how the relationship is going to progress and if there's even a relationship to be had. There to quate it to something that most people can relate to. It's like a first date, right. Depending on how it goes,
it'll determine if the second date is even going to happen. But kind of back to your question. If I'm a seller, what should my goal be? And I think there's a few things that we should be thinking about and looking at here now. The first goal, and I think we had in that should be front and center for any of these first meetings, is understanding
the customer needs. Use this as an opportunity to start to uncover technical problems, business problems that need to be solved, the people that may be impacted by it, and possibly what they're trying to achieve related to those technical and business outcomes. The beauty of making the customer the center of this conversation is that through asking really good questions, you're going to naturally build rapport. And speaking of rapport, that leads me to my number two goal, which is
starting to lay the foundation for a good relationship. How do we do that we focus on the customer, we ask good questions, we listen, but we also provide industry knowledge, we provide our point of view, maybe we share some parts of a proofpoint or two. I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that in these first meetings that's very often revolve around discovery, it's about asking one question after the next, when in fact it should be a
really good give and take. So you need to bring value into the organization, and that's where bringing all those other elements related to your knowledge and insight really come into play. The third goal I would have for a meeting is to identify as many key players that will be part of the decision making process. You need to get a line of sight into this as early as possible. Don't be shy about starting on meeting number one. Who will be involved?
When will they be involved, so that if the opportunity continues to move forward, you know who you need to connect with. And finally, though it may seem really obvious, the goal is what the customers looking for aligns nicely with your solution, or you think there's a potential match there, confirm the next meeting, like what are the next steps making sure you that you nail that down. And so those are the big things in terms of goals
that I think about when it comes to that first meeting. I love that. I mean, obviously we buy from vendors in marketing, app force management and as sender, and when I'm on the call with a vendor, I've obviously appreciate somebody who's really skilled at selling. And if it gets into sounding like a therapy session when I just throw up all my problems and having I'm like, wow, this person is really good at getting to the technical and
the business Paine. Okay, so you mentioned the prep things I think through before getting into the call. We also repeatedly, I know we recommend sending an agenda in advance, but let's talk about best practices around aligning with the customer before that first meeting. Having that agenda and providing it ahead of time to your customer. That's such a big piece of the puzzle. There's nothing worse than going into a first meeting as a buyer and not knowing what to
expect. Going back to that first date analogy, it's like knowing that you're going on a first date, but not knowing where you're going and so you end up wearing jeans and maybe a T shirt, but they end up taking you to like a five star formal restaurant. Super awkward. Right, It'll impact your perception and your overall feeling related to that date, same as that
first meeting. Send an agenda, Let your buyer provide some feedback related to the items that they might want to discuss the audible ready in the moment, and you know, in case something shift, but in terms of like some additional best practices, what should be part of that agenda? I think first and foremost, like what's the purpose of the meeting? And I love to outline that at the very top of the agenda. Is it to determine the
needs of the customer? Is it to understand their challenges? Are you trying to align their needs with services whatever the case may be, Like, what's the purpose behind this so that that is like top of wine for them as well, And then really laying out some clear and concise items that you want
to tackle, and they should be prioritized. If it's a good meeting, you may not get to all your items, so you want to tackle the ones that provide the items that provide the customer and you the most value first, so that they're motivated to schedule of follow up meeting. I would also, like I mentioned before, give the buyer the ability to add items so
that they're actively involved in the process. This seven straits that you're very thoughtful and that you're actually willing to focus on them versus your own agenda throughout the whole process. I'll also add include some potential outcomes. If the meeting goes
well, don't miss this. Don't be shy about laying it out. They should know what comes next, and it could be something like, okay, so if this meeting goes well and we see there's a potential bit, the next step would be having a meeting with additional stakeholders, or maybe it's a
deeper discovery meeting or whatever the case may be. But laying that out so they know and are not surprised when you lay out like next steps during the conversation, and include the agenda in the meeting invite so that it's easy to access. I speak to this from a personal experience. Simple things make a big difference for a buyer that has a lot on their plate. So if they don't have to like shuffle to find an email where you sent the agenda,
and it just in that meeting invite. It just makes a whole process that much easier. These little things really add up, don't they. When you were selling entonella and when you're coaching other reps, do you have a favorite opening question that you like to use or tactic you like to do to get the conversation going, particularly in that first meeting. So interesting because that
you have a favorite question. I get asked that a lot for some reason, and it's interesting to me because I don't have a favorite question, and I'll tell you why I don't. I don't feel a standard generic question is ever good enough. When you think about that first meeting, it's really your opportunity to show that you are worth doing business with. So if you really need to demonstrate that you're above average in terms of other people they may be
interacting with. I like asking questions that may relate to some of the research that I've done, maybe something along the lines of. I read recently that the use of AI and chatbox services are driving a better customer experience, but at the same time, users are very concerned about privacy risksociated with it. How is that impacting your organization. It's broad enough that I'll get them comfortable
talking about things. But hopefully, I know, based on my research, I'm angling it to get into a deeper conversation, and it does a couple of things, Like I'm showing them I did my homework. I'm getting them to think about and share their point of view. So all those types of
things I think add a lot of positivity to the conversation. And depending on any specific information that I had gathered ahead of time, I may ask some thought provoking questions associated to it. So maybe something like you shared with me prior to this meeting that the lack of automation is causing your company to operate in a less efficient matter. Can you provide me with some examples of how
that is showing up or demonstrating itself within your organization. Now, I'm providing obviously some context around my path for questioning ahead of time, But the whole point of this is that I'm going with a line of questions that would make sense, that is relevant and is specific to that customer. So it's never can it's never generic, it's always really well thought out. I love that. And you know, all those tips I think are good to get a
person to open up. But we've all had those meetings where the person maybe accepted the meeting, but they're shut off or not really open to conversation. What other tips do you have to get them to open up. This one's an interesting one because no two people are the same and what might be driving them to be guarded or maybe a little closed off in the conversation. I think a good starting point here is to really like emphasize, don't get flustered,
and be patient. It's not uncommon for buyers to be guarded at some level, and you bet two when you consider the number of vendors that they're probably interacting with, you know, day to day, week to week, month to month, So it's not personal. Patients say the course you know, execute on your plan. The other thing I will say is you want to be open and positive as well, especially if that's your normal like state of being. If you want to get that in return from the buyer,
you have to give that. So if you your whole persona is open, positive, chances are as the conversation continues, they'll start to lead in that direction as well. Even if they start closed off in the midst of that conversation, stay laser focused as to what they're sharing with you and what they're
saying. I try to find words phrases that seem to connect or show a high level of interest for them, and I craft my follow up questions around those, because if they mentioned it, chances are they want to talk about it. If I can get them to talk about something they want to talk about, then I increase my probability of them opening up to me. And related to that, I make sure that my questions are open ended. The worst thing you could do a closed off or we get guarded buyer is asking
those closed out in questions force them to talk more. The more they talk, the more comfortable they'll get over time. Yeah, those are great tips. It reminds me of our concept called the seller deficit disorder. I'll go ahead and link then this show notes. But you are reaping the results of every salesperson that came before you. So if the person had shut up,
they probably have a lot of experience dealing with some bad salespeople. Those experiences, I'm sure they would say, are not positive, So you should anticipate that going into some of these conversations. Yeah, particularly on the first meeting, right, you got to earn your stripes, so to speak. One of the things I wanted to talk about, particularly on this topic of the first meeting, because initially they're not going to give you a lot of time
on their calendar. It might just be a short conversation. So what are your best practices for managing that clock during the meeting? You want to make sure you leave enough room to align on next steps you want to get somewhere in the call. How do you manage the clock? There's a lot of pieces here to take into consideration. I think the first step you want to take is set expectations and get confirmation on how much time you both have available.
It's important, especially in a virtual meeting, which a lot of them will become these days. People tend to have meetings stacks back to back when they operate virtually. So just asking, I know we have thirty minutes, forty five minutes, sixty minutes for this conversation, does that still work for you? And just knowing what your parameters are up front and be thoughtful about how much time you're spending on each of the topics you've put on the agenda.
And this goes back to that whole concept of prioritizing. It helps to know you're tackling the most valuable items first. The one thing I will add here, though, is if a buyer included an item or two that they want to cover, make sure you were working that into your timing and don't
let those items be the ones that don't make it into the conversation. You want to be thoughtful that balance, right, So if you want the customer to be engaged and what you want to talk about, you have to engage and what they want to talk about as well, and then only take the time that you need. If you have a forty five minute meeting schedule and you only end up using thirty minutes, take thirty minutes. Don't waste your
buyer's time and try to like extend it out. If you're forty minutes into a forty five minute meeting and you're having a great, in depth conversation, be thoughtful. Say something like, I'm really enjoying this conversation, but I
know we're coming up on time. Do you have some additional time right now to continue our discussion or do you want to continue this in a future meeting To be really thoughtful about making sure that you're not over extending your stay per se, and then make sure there's time to agree and outline those next steps. I would say five to seven minutes at the end for sure, to
really like nail down what that might look like. This is not where you want to like brought up to last thirty seconds and be like, oh, let's talk about next steps. The clock has run out, so you're going to give them an out if you don't take advantage of it in the moment. The goal of the whole entire conversation is to move forward, or maybe in some cases to step away and say, hey, this is probably not a fit. Let's you know, let's go our separate ways. Either way,
you deserve to nail it down. So if the goal is to move forward, talk about what those next steps will look like, who will be involved, and what it's going to entail, and then include that in your follow up agenda. Next step is Brian Walsh. I love Brian's insight here on owning the next step. How can you prep yourself so you're able to end the meeting in a way that drives the next step in the deal? Great question. You got to think about who am I in front of?
What the relationship I have with them? Because that drives the next step. What role do they play in this decision that the next step? How are they politically aligned with the other people in this decision? That drives the next step. Like all of those things you've got to be thinking of, And I think the other thing you gotta do is you got to back up to what's the objective for this meeting? Like you got to start there. I got let's just use an hour, right, I have an hour with this
or multiple people, this person or multiple people. What's my objective today? What am I trying to achieve for both me and for them? That is the thing that then puts you in a position to say, Okay, if we achieve that objective, now, what's the appropriate thing for me to ask this person to do? And maybe it's more than one thing. I'm gonna ask Rachel to introduce me to she's in engineering. I'm going to ask her to connect me to her counterpart in manufacturing. Right, it's to sponsor a
joint discovery call. But I'm also going to ask Rachel to x help me go get some additional data that specifically identifies how big her problem really is. So it can be more than one thing, but it's got to be attached to the buying decision right in an appropriate way, and it's got to be attached to her. So, for example, I may not ask Rachel to introduce me to the CFO whose four levels above her, right, I mean,
everything is appropriate. So I think to start with the objective for that moment, and assuming we achieve our objective, what's the appropriate next steps that I can really think my teeth into with that person or that group of people I'm in front of. I love that And I think also when we talk about positioning the next steps, as with anything in your sales process, you want to be seen as a partner with the prospect. So how can I
position them so I'm partnering with the customer on the next steps? I think you know what I'm about to talk about. And well, this is one of my favorite things. I was talking to on a group this week. We're talking about value negotiation, and we got on this topic. I can still remember the names and the places in my sales career, and no matter what job I was in, where we were strategizing for a meeting the next
day. I was fortunate enough to work with people who really understood the value of that, who taught me that, And so we had an important meeting. No matter what level of a customers organization we're going to be, there's lots of important meetings top the bottom. We would strategize the day before, right, and we would do a few things. And sometimes it would before the day before, sometimes it might be the week before. And I'll explain
why. We would get a room, and the first thing would ask ourselves is okay, we have an hour with this person or this group of people. What's our objective? Let's agree on the objective to that conversation. What are we trying to achieve in that moment, one thing or multiple things? Okay, good? What's our agenda? And the associated choreography. Who is
going to do what? Because we had a tendency, especially as deals got bigger, we had a tendency to have two or three of us in the room along with two or three or four of the people from the customer. So who's doing? What role am I playing? What role are you playing? Okay? And now we got complete alignments that I'm going to do X and you're not going to step on that. You're going to do Y and I'm not going to step on that unless I pull you into you pollium,
what's the agenda? Certain thing was okay, Now what's the act? Right? What are we going to ask them? What's the appropriate set of next steps that we're going to ask for, assuming we ave the agenda or the objective of our agenda, And then the last thing we would do is we
send it to the customer. So this is the true answer to your question about partnering, right, we would send that to the customer, to a phone call or an email to the right person or people and say, hey, looking forward to next week's meeting or tomorrow's meeting, here's our objective for the hour or the half hour we have together. Here's our agenda for that meeting, and here's what we're going to suggest is the appropriate next step or
step assuming we achieve that or that objective. Let me know your thoughts seeing them are out one o'clock the next two day at noon whatever. And surprise, surprise, no one ever canceled the meeting, right. I mean, because I've had people say to me, oh, I don't know if I send that like not know the worst thing that's going to happen. If you're going to get some feedback that helps you take a look at or shift your objective, your agenda, or or the next steps. That's the worst thing
I ever saw happen. Worst thing I ever saw happen. People would say, hey, I get it, but because you also add X your agenda, or they understand why you would ask us to take your proposal to the board, right, that's like an ultimate next step, and sometimes that's the appropriate one. But I actually think before we do that, we would need
to take it to our chief information officer or our VP of right. So the worst thing it will happen is you'll get some feedback that helps you understand, Okay, this is how this person views it, I can tweak it. And now everybody's walking into the room eyes wide open. Because here's what happens. If you don't do that. You walk into a room with a great objective, a great agenda, and even a really well outset and next steps. But Rachel doesn't know that. She'll be fine with the objective.
He might change it on the fly, She'll be fine with the agenda. He might add something on the fly. But wait until you get to the next step. No matter how great the meeting is, when you after at the end to do something, I guarantee you it's going to kind of catch her off guards. Why do you want to do that? Like it's just
a business conversation. So even if she's agreeable, she's still got to stop and think about it that way, everybody's walking in the room knowing what's going on, where we're headed, why we're here, what we're trying to achieve, and what we're going to do next. If we get to that outcome, why wouldn't you do that? Again? To your point, and something you and I talk about a lot. This is about how we sell now what we sell? Yes, Yeah, planning the seed in advance with your
customer, making it party of your prep. I mean from what you said, you know, sending that to your customer in advance, I guess it almost be an outcome of the prep that you do. Right, your next step in the prep is to crap that email and crep them. Yeah.
I just really cannot come down on this part enough. In terms of hitting the nail with a hammer, this might be one of the most important things you do to ensure that every conversation you have with a customer is a great conversation, even if it's not as critical a conversation, at least walking in the room being able to say to Rachel, Hey, Rachel, I know we have an edge chance to talk ahead of time, but I thought, let me just take the first minute or two and talk about these are what
I think are our objectives today, and here's how I think we should spend our thirty minutes from an agenda perspective. That looking good. Yeah, that's looking good. Okay, good, And assuming we get there in the last couple of minutes, let's just talk about and then you just throw in what you think that your appropriate next steps would be. Let's just talk about you, assuming today as me he goes, well, we'll talk about you sponsoring
and discovery question with the follow other people. Because normally, Rachel, when we're sitting with somebody like you, eventually we also have to understand this perspective from this person on your left, this person who works for you, and this person on your right, that kind of thing. So, Brian, we've talked a lot about the prep. As we know, things don't always
go as planned, So talk a little bit about this adjusting. You may need to do on the fly, what am I doing throughout the conversation to confirm my next steps are right or adjust them? Yeah, great question. You've got to be present in the conversation, and that means you've got to
allow for right turns and left turns from the customer right. So what that really means is you've got to listen with the intent to understand what's being said and ask a question based on what you just heard, not the next question on your lip. Right. We all do this, right, we all are, and I do it. It's an awful habit. We listen to people with the intent to reply to them. We listen to people with the intent to say, you tell me your story, and I, oh,
I got a story I want to tell her. I do this. You have to be really careful. So if a conversation starts to turn and you're not sure where it's going or why it's going there, and you're trying to get it back on track, you can say things like, hey, this is an interesting topic and not thought and it seems to be going down a road that we haven't initially planned for, which is good, But how would
you like to adjust our attenda or the time that we have left. So that's kind of how you keep yourself in the moment and you remind yourself, Okay, I got something else I got to get back to you. But right now Rachel wants to take those conversation to the right, Let's see where it leaves them. That's the worst thing that happens, But I think I'll just say it one more time. It's being present in the moment and letting
whatever needs to happen happen. It's okay. The worst thing that might happen is you learn something else and you got a reason to have another meeting. We all know that a sales process is made up of continuous sales conversations. In this segment, John Kaplan goes through the elements of the deal you are building so you can make sure you stay focused on building the value story for your customer throughout all your conversations. In a sales process, you've got to
think to yourself that you're building a framework in your mind. So your job is to uncover and get your buyer emotionally connected to their positive business outcomes, required capabilities and metrics, and after you've uncovered those and you've attached yourself to the biggest business issues, and you've influenced the decision criteria with your differentiation and
fully understood how they're going to measure success. You're ready to share with them how you do it, how you do it better, and what your proof is. So that's the framework that you're building. It might not happen in one call, it might not happen in one conversation, but it's the framework of value creation. And then how you're pivoting. So you're using these sales
calls and they should be focused on basically filling out the framework. So you want to put yourself into a position to give what we like to call the ultimate summation. Can you imagine you're following up with a customer and you're saying, mister, missus, customer, these are the positive business outcomes that we've been talking about. Here's what you said is required in order to achieve those
positive business outcomes. These are the technical capabilities. Oh and by the way, I'm not saying this, but i'm internally I know that they're highly differentiated for us with our differentiation. And here's how you said you were going to measure success. Let me talk a little bit about how we do that at our company. Let me tell you how we do it differently or better and where we've done it before. So we've often we often talk about purposeful buyer
contact. Your job throughout the process is to manage the framework, share relevant insights with them, share what you're hearing from other customers, and remind them of the next steps that you agreed upon. Don't overcomplicate it, create a framework in your mind, and deliver on that framework through the entire engagement process. I know we have a lot of customers out there who use medic or Medpick, and you've talked about the filling up the buckets of the Mantra positive
business outcomes, required capabilities and metrics. But we also want to make sure through our calls we are filling up those qualifications, so to speak. We also want to make sure after those calls that we are assessing where we are with qualifying the deal. Yeah, I mean, this is a critical process,
but it's also a pretty simple process. So after each and every conversation that you have with the buyer, you should visit medic or medpick, whatever version of qualification you're utilizing use it as an X ray for your last conversation. What information have we valid and what information do we still need? Reiterate the qualified information in your follow up and let the gaps guide both you and the customer to success. I've often shared medic with a buyer and mapped out
my assessment of the sales campaign with them. This works best when working with your champions. Your champion will love it. You've got to try it. You remember, by the very definition of a champion, they want the solution as much as you do. It will help them guide their own actions with the campaign internally. So it is a pretty simple process. Overlay it, assess it, overlay it after each conversation that you have. Don't be afraid
to share qualification with your customer. Again, great buying signals Such a great tip. I know when we work with vendors were purchasing solutions in the marketing department for is. I love kind of peeling back the layers and looking at this because often there are, like you said, helping us solve a problem that I am dealing with every day. So I'm happy to go through those
things and figure out what we need to do to solve those problems. Yes, so as we're looking at the deal the buckets, we've talked a lot about that, what will come to light often is some gaps and you want to assess where you may need some help from other people on your own team.
Yeah, I mean remember simplifying again, you're looking to discover and uncover positive business outcomes require capabilities and metrics through your discovery process, and you should be leveraging all available resources, your managers, your technical resources, your post sales resources, and other customers as well. So we tell our clients that is why having a common language of value and qualification is critical. It keeps
everybody focused and then sync yeah asolutely. So I know, John, a lot of people are out there listening to writing notes or thinking about the calls they had yesterday, maybe this morning, and what they need to do. So what's the bottom line here? Wrap it up for us? Okay? So for me, sales is a process, it's not a series of events. Be prepared to demonstrate to your buyers through great discovery and active listening,
that you understand their business and that you've listened to them. Use a framework and common language around value creation. We talk about positive business outcomes, require capabilities and metrics, and then pivot to how you do that, how you do it better, and where you've done it before. After every call, qualify your information in your position with medic or whatever version of that qualification you're using. Be discipline in this way, because it is what elite sellers do.
If you work for a company that helps you do this, you're blocked if you don't ask them why they don't and if you don't like the answer, go find a team that does, because that team will win championships over and over again. As you proceed in your sales conversations, remember you are helping the customer reach their own conclusion that they need your solution. Here again is John Kaplan. Your goal is to make it their story, to make
them the hero in this story. So give them the slides you know that outline the key parts of the deal. You may call it a walk around deck. We use the term here at force management of what we heard slide. That's a telltale sign when somebody asks you about that, like can I have that, that they're getting ready to go tell the story from their point of view to others and those others who need to hear it inside their own
companies, and that's part of your job. You're first you got to understand the story, and then you help other people be the hero and the story, and then you help them go tell the story. That's great, John, and you want to make it. You want to make it easy for them. So yes, you can give them the walk around deck, but there might be some other things that you can do that go beyond it.
I have helped people write email templates before I've sent them an email template like, hey, when you share this, here's an email templates to share. I know that you've like role played for example, what are some other ways
that you've gone beyond just passing along the slides? Yeah. I like to think of always beginning with the end in mind for you and the buyer, So let them think about what it's going to feel like on top of the mountains, and then work backwards with all the steps and all the people involved
to get there. And I call this a reverse timeline. And you know my favorite questioning and reverse timeline is and then what happens, and then what happens and then what happens, And what you'll find is critical people that you haven't talked about so far with this buyer are going to pop up in this conversation and it will allow you to immediately have a conversation about what's that person's role in this decision. And then, like you said, I like to
role play with people. I like to you know, well, let me be that person and I like to ask them questions like so what and says who, so what? You know? Why is that important for us? So what's the big business issue that it impacts? You know? Why is it any different than anybody else that you've talked to out there? So we got to get ready for our differentiation And where have they done it before? So I like play the buyer with my champion or my coach or my potential
champion. So role playing on a reverse timeline is some of the best advice that I could give you to really identify who else is going to be involved in this process and what might they care about. And when you talk about we've mentioned a word to elite a lot, and when you talk about what it takes to be elite, it's going above and beyond it, doing these
extra things. Another phrase we use sales as a game of inches. All these things add up to give you more inches in those opportunities you're trying to move forward. John, give us a good bottom line to wrap up. Yeah, you know again. I think the bottom line is you need to tell a story. I've said that, you know, ten times in this
little segment. You need to tell a story not only in a way that resonates for the buyer, but help them emostly connect to it by helping them make it their own story and really help them identify with how they can be the hero and the story. And when they make it their own story, they go out of their way to sell it to others. Some great tips for you to execute on today. Thank you for listening to the Audible Ready
Sales podcast. At Force Management, we're focused on transforming sales organizations into elite teams. Are 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
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