[SPEAKER_00]: This is The Sales Grady Podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, I'm Jeb Blunt, guest selling author, fanatical prospecting objection, sales EQ and ink.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm here to help you open more doors, close bigger deals, and rock your commission check.
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back to The Sales Grady Podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Jeb Blunt Jr. and today we have one of our favorite guests on the show, the author of the first meeting differentiator, the recent release of the number one best seller.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am so proud of this book.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've been here.
[SPEAKER_02]: been promoting Lee for years and years and years.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this book is really, really a difference maker for sales reps who are either in the field or, you know, who are inside sellers, this first meeting differentiator book is something you should have on your shelf.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Lee, I'm glad to have you back on for a second show in the season of releases.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm glad that you were able to join us for a quick podcast here as well as ready.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm happy to be back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought that we could do more of a show the audience and lent them here.
[SPEAKER_02]: You walk through different scenarios that allows you to flesh out some of these ideas from the first meeting differentiator a bit more and show people why they should have this in their trucks and their cars on their desk when they're having these first meetings.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the first
[SPEAKER_02]: scenario is a wrap that stuck in a commodity trap.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have a really good wrap for name is Sarah.
[SPEAKER_02]: She finally muscles her way into a first meeting with the director of IT, but that director is completely all business.
[SPEAKER_02]: We know this profile and he clearly doesn't want to play any of the discovery game.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the second that Sarah asks, I just want to learn a little bit more about your current systems and your challenges.
[SPEAKER_02]: The director shuts her down.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says,
[SPEAKER_02]: Stop, I appreciate you, but I'm in back to back calls.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know your company is great, and I know your competitor is good.
[SPEAKER_02]: So just tell me your price and we'll go from there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sarah, of course, Panics, and she mumbles something about value, sends the price sheet, and then the deal goes clipped.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we call that like dead on arrival.
[SPEAKER_02]: What did Sarah do wrong?
[SPEAKER_02]: It may be not necessarily wrong, but how could she have handled that a bit different based on what you've written in the book and what you've seen in the field?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this isn't realistic at all, this never happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's dissect this a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first thing is you said the word discovery, and as you know, I'm on a mission to eradicate the word discovery from the sales vocabulary.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's why, and this is the root cause of the issue with this director of IT.
[SPEAKER_01]: When sales people look at that first meeting through the lens of discovery, they think about the questions they're going to ask and the information they're going to share.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I ask them, so what is that person you're meeting with, get out of that meeting?
[SPEAKER_01]: They say, well, they'll learn about my stuff and our company.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not interesting, because I mean, you take this example, the already is working with somebody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what else you got?
[SPEAKER_01]: What would be meaningful value that you're gonna provide during that interaction?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's where a lot of sales people get stuck.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason is they look at that first meeting through the lens of discovery, which in my opinion is an equal of centric sales step.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we only see it from our side of the desk, meeting the information we're gonna share, what we're gonna ask them, what we're gonna do.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't give the slightest thought to the meeting for value.
[SPEAKER_01]: that they're going to get out of that interaction.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the first reason why we're stuck with this director of IT because he believes in lightfully so, that he's not going to get any value out of that meeting.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, might not just ask for that price.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm sympathetic with the director of IT in this instance, first of all.
[SPEAKER_01]: My council to salespeople
[SPEAKER_01]: is to think about the meaningful value that you're going to provide during that interaction.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it can't be about your company and your stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: What they're looking for, it's something that's going to help them personally in their role, help their company or best of all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Both.
[SPEAKER_01]: And once you define the meeting full value that they're going to get out of that interaction, you fold that into your prospecting messaging.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, Joe, but we get together.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to share with you a best practice that directors of IT are using to creatively reduce costs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, let me know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Learn something if I meet with late.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to take that meeting.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second thing is, in which you shared Sarah asked, I just want to learn a bit about your current system and challenges.
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, you're communicating, this is all for you, nothing for that, which is why the director's shutter down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that comes back to way salespeople have been taught to set an agenda.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I want to do,
[SPEAKER_01]: is learn a bit about your current system and challenges.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I want, we've just reinforced the message at the purpose of this meeting is for me with that expression I want.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Jeb, there's only one person in the world who cares what you want, do you know who that is?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's definitely not other people.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's your mom.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one else cares what you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what if we started this meeting with a question?
[SPEAKER_01]: Jeff, for this to be a great use of your time, what do you want to make sure we talk about here today?
[SPEAKER_01]: And that question does a couple of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number one, it tells you what's most important to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: which charts, of course, for the whole meeting, then you convey the importance that you have and then getting meaningful value out of the time that you spend together or invest as a better way to phrase that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanna stop here and just highlight what you've outlined.
[SPEAKER_02]: We just so fundamental, it's just a challenge that we see in every sales organization and we even experience ourselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes we can fall into this trap, which is the ego's centric,
[SPEAKER_02]: way to go into a first time appointment.
[SPEAKER_02]: I like the way that you line up your perspective on this, which is I have sympathy for the buyer.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't believe they're going to get anything out of this meeting.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they're justified and saying, tell me your price because you're going to do the I want to know more about you, Spiel, and you're getting to know more about me has not resulted in more value for me in a long term.
[SPEAKER_02]: Same man.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just give me the pricing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I so I think that
[SPEAKER_02]: If we just did a quick role play here, and I was the director of IT, and I, you know, you were, Sarah, that you're Lee in this, in the situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I said, just tell me your price and, you know, we'll go from there.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you practically set up the meeting so that it's not geared towards your goal of positioning the conversation and the best win probability scenario for you to close the deal and more of the best way to deliver value?
[SPEAKER_02]: So what is it that you do to pivot in the scenario if someone says, just tell me your price and we'll go from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you tell them and you lose because you haven't differentiated yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you refuse to tell them and now you've irritated them and you're out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody in any sales situation, there's always a question on their mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why much is it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't matter what you're talking about, they want to know how much it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And usually, it's premature, just like in this example here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you let that question come up, you have two choices, tell them or don't tell them and neither of those roads are paved with gold.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my suggestion is you
[SPEAKER_01]: you're proactively neutralized this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll give you an example.
[SPEAKER_01]: This comes up in the mortgage industry.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that price in question is your rate.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with up mortgage sales people do is they don't let that come up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, Jim, make sure a big question on your mind is, what's your rate?
[SPEAKER_01]: If they wear to allow that question to come up, one of two things happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: They tell them to rate and hang up and shop it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whether if you still tell them to rate and the person gets irritated and hangs up, again, either way, it's a bad situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what they do is right up front to say, I'm sure a big question on your mind is what you're right and you're probably thinking of the 30 year fixed mortgage, which is most people are looking at what you probably don't realize is that there are over 200 mortgage programs in this country, each one of them has its own rate.
[SPEAKER_01]: qualifying criteria and application at this moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know which of those 200 to even talk with you about.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if we should have a conversation for about five minutes, I'll be able to narrow down from the potential 200 down to the select view for you to consider.
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, each one of them I would share the rate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the idea is
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm showing some expertise and you can see that third path is much more likely to lead to a path of gold and letting them raise that point just tell me your price and we'll go from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The only way that works is if you have the low price if you're a Walmart if you're the low price provider that you know what I would love to share the price with you because I know it's lower than what you're paying today, but how many salespeople are in that situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: not many and crucially working in that scenario has not always been the best place to work.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's no.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also the deal you went on price today is the one you lose tomorrow on price.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I have a big smile on my face.
[SPEAKER_02]: I used to work in the industry that's a heavy commodity.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was Nutella Communication Services.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we had this exact scenario in literally every single sales conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're right, I didn't put it in these words.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you give them the price or you don't tell them the price, either road is not paved and gold.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tattoo that on your arm, if you need to, before we can go into sales calls,
[SPEAKER_02]: because you're thinking, well, I don't work in mortgage industry.
[SPEAKER_02]: I work in, you know, SaaS or I work in logistics, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, whatever industry you're working in, one of the things I'll tell you is that just they don't hang up or, you know, they get irritated.
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the two options.
[SPEAKER_02]: What they're doing is they're either just checking out of your conversation in either case.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just saying, well, I've got the price.
[SPEAKER_02]: They got the rate or he irritated me or they irritated me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm completely not paying attention to you and you've lost the conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I think that this is just really sage advice for any sales professional going in to really any sales meaning along the way, not just your first time appointment, and I want to go to our second scenario, which is I'm calling this the emotional tangle and the loss of trust.
[SPEAKER_02]: software so he's targeting VPs of Binance and he's really really proficient.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's all logic, he's all facts, all ROI, and he goes in with a lot of ammo in his belt.
[SPEAKER_02]: In his first meeting with a VP of Finance, Mike is flawless.
[SPEAKER_02]: He uses data, he shows the cost of an action, and he proves scientifically in with numbers, why his product will solve their problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the VP is nodding along.
[SPEAKER_02]: He seems totally engaged, and the Mike leaves
[SPEAKER_02]: Thinking this deal is an absolute lock.
[SPEAKER_02]: He probably told his manager.
[SPEAKER_02]: I fived him on the way back in the door We've never seen that before, rightly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Never in never.
[SPEAKER_02]: Two weeks later, the deal collapses.
[SPEAKER_02]: The VP chooses to go with a competitor with a truly inferior product But sends an email that says we chose to go with Mark's team.
[SPEAKER_02]: We felt that they were a better cultural fit for us He had this meeting everything seemed to go well.
[SPEAKER_02]: What did Mike do wrong and how could he adjust in his next meetings to avoid this outcome?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure you've got a lot to say about the meeting in the knife diving your manager on the way back into the office.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's probably not a good thing to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you've reminded me, my favorite all-time TV show is law and order.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not all the spin-offs.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the original.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it came back a few years ago as a reboot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was this episode where the prosecutor was trying a case.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he felt like he had all the facts.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the evidence he needed to get a conviction.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he could tell the jury wasn't with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it goes into the district attorney's office and he takes him through the case and after he hears that the district attorney looks at him he says the problem with your case is it's all fact no heart and a jury isn't buying it all logic no emotion and a jury isn't buying it well this is interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm working on a book here called the first meeting differentiator and there's a chapter in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not empathetic expertise and engage the emotion when selling and we learn something in the legal profession.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now law and order talks about being ripped from the headlines so I couldn't use that as a source.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I interviewed a judge, prosecutor, a litigator, and a trainer of litigators.
[SPEAKER_01]: about the ways they're using a motion to affect jury decisions and the conversations we're just fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: The prosecutor said to me, what I'm trying in case, I'm going to take the jury on a journey, say that faster times, the jury on a journey of the ability to convict, to having the desire to convert.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the only way that happens is by engaging their emotions.
[SPEAKER_01]: So bring this around
[SPEAKER_01]: having the ability to contract with us to having the desire to contract with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, the only way that's going to happen if I engage in their emotions.
[SPEAKER_01]: If anyone wants to say he was telling me he goes, if I have a firefighter on the stand, without asking fact-based questions, I'm asking emotive questions like, what did you deal when you entered the building?
[SPEAKER_01]: because I want the jury to feel like they were in that fire fire fire and if you look about what we do in sales where we ask questions, we ask logic questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, every salesperson on the planet has heard the expression people buy based on emotion and justify their decisions with logic.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the scenario you gave me, Jeff, it was all about logic.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we had a logic conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this happens all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a major alignment issue in sales.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're having logic conversations and they're making the decision based on emotion.
[SPEAKER_01]: German bitches deep to my house that if we recorded 100 first meetings, all sale types, all market segments, countries all around the world, 99 of that 100, the entire conversation would be logic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe all 100.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I struggled with this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, if every sales person has heard that expression, why doesn't anyone do this?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought back to when my son's great college baseball, when they're first playing the game, I know you played as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you remember when you were little when you're first playing the game of baseball, the croutches would say to you, now the name of the game is to hit a home run.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I do.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was a, I was a little pip squeak.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was there's no way I was hitting this ball at the park, but they kept telling me that anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Stephen and David didn't do it until they were taught how to hit home runs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the flaw here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're preaching to salespeople this expression.
[SPEAKER_01]: People buy based on emotion and justify their decisions with logic, but we haven't taught them how to implement it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what are things that I could have done was develop emotive questions?
[SPEAKER_01]: What you do is take the questions that you're asking today during a first meeting and look for the ones where there is an opportunity and an necessity to turn it into an emotive one or give you an example.
[SPEAKER_01]: A question I'm guessing a lot of our listeners ask is, what's the biggest challenge you face in your business today, but as a result of that question you've been information well I don't want information I want information with color flavor texture I want to know how they feel.
[SPEAKER_01]: about what they're sharing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what if we phrase the question this way?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what's that one thing in your business that you're like, oh, we gotta get this figured out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we gotta get it figured out yesterday.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's that one thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Jim, did you feel that question?
[SPEAKER_01]: That you did.
[SPEAKER_01]: It drives a bit more, again, colored to that question.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've noticed that when people ask this question and I noticed that when I was doing it, when I asked, what's the biggest challenge in your business?
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a black and white answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: a more emotive conversation from there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you just end up asking more logical questions afterwards.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if they open up and say, something like, I really wish that I had this and then they give their emotions to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can see their passion in what they're talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're far more likely to give you information that you could use, that is actually solving a problem and not just giving them a proposal.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm working with some clients on this right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's the feedback that I'm getting from them when they go from answering these logic questions to these emotive questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting longer responses, deeper information.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the person the other side of the desk is coming away saying, you know what, these guys really get me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what we're looking for as a result of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you find that, as you've written this book and as you've done all your research and working with more and more sales teams on this particular topic, have you found that it's a misalignment because sellers, belled that buyers are only looking for logic because buyers are sort of telling us that
[SPEAKER_02]: they don't want, they want no nonsense coming to my office and tell me what you have and then leave because, you know, they've been sold enough times that they know that that works to get, you know, weed out the transactional conversations and so most salespeople default to logic versus, you know, buyers really actually want that emotional conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: We know this because you've done those studies and sellers are maybe unwilling to reach into that bucket in maybe the fear that it will lash back at them in some capacity.
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't found it to be a fear thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm yet to work with a salesperson when I teach in this because I'm really scared about what's going to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: This could backfire on me.
[SPEAKER_01]: A number one thing that I've found is they just haven't been taught how to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've heard that expression people by based on a motion just by the decision with logic, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: They haven't been taught how to do it and the importance.
[SPEAKER_01]: just kind of words that passed by.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that this then leads into our next scenario pretty well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Mike has learned.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's picked them out.
[SPEAKER_02]: He went back to the office and he didn't high five as manager, but it can't high five anymore, but knuckles is okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Knuckles is okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: A nice and a little knuckle tap, a little out of boy is okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't do a big celebration until last check is in the bank.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we've got a team member.
[SPEAKER_02]: Her name is Julia.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Julia is really, really smart.
[SPEAKER_02]: She finishes her meetings with a lot of momentum.
[SPEAKER_02]: She has all the right questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: She has an emotional conversation, identifies major pains and challenges and then positions.
[SPEAKER_02]: The solution that she has perfectly.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always leading into a clean win, but didn't she ask the soft question?
[SPEAKER_02]: She says in the meeting, so what are the next steps?
[SPEAKER_02]: And the prospect gives her the classic.
[SPEAKER_02]: This was helpful.
[SPEAKER_02]: I need to take all this information back to my team.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm talking over.
[SPEAKER_02]: I need to get back with you with an update.
[SPEAKER_02]: Give me about 10 days or so to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Julia leaves the meeting.
[SPEAKER_02]: She feels really good about herself.
[SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't soft knuckles.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's smart enough not to do the high five.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she sends a nice email and then there's nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: She gets crickets, you know, 10 days go by, no conversation happens, no emails, nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this deal completely stalls out and dies.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I want to clarify this is that, you know, we talk about a fanatical prospecting and then we're going to reason for failure in sales as an empty pipeline, but this is not a pipeline problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a first meeting failure.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that you have a really strong foundation in your book and framework to your book that will help sales reps avoid the scenario.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think this is really, really common across all industries.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure you see this a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: So when people leave a sales call and everything went well and they did what you taught up until the very end in the deal stalls, what is going on there?
[SPEAKER_02]: And how do you start to coach people to avoid this road that has no gold on it?
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a visual that I got as you are reading this scenario.
[SPEAKER_01]: You ever see in a football game where the receiver makes a great catch and he's running down the field.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he drops the ball, he thinks he's in the end zone, but he's actually before the end zone and he dropped the ball before getting in there and then the defense picks up the ball and takes it back the other way, that's what this reminds me of, we have the first meeting and it went great.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some things that need to happen, it's part of the framework for the end of that first meeting and the first one you're going to say is so obvious, but I don't find enough salespeople do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for investing time with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've spent time with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: They invested time with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have 400 things to do and if they give you five minutes, they give you 50 minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: We put those aside.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're with you for that period of time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So start with a thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you need to give yourself what I call the meeting full value test.
[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, you think the meeting went well, ask this question.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do we do today?
[SPEAKER_01]: What I'm looking to hear back, you know what, this was fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: You really made me think differently about what I'm doing or what I was considering doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to make sure that they got the meeting full value out of that meeting that I think they did.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then here's the next piece and this is where Julia got herself in trouble.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every first meeting that has gone well needs to finish with a defined next step and a scheduled next interaction if you don't do that you're opening the door to get ghosted I get asked this question all the time how do you reduce ghosting one thing that I have found works fabulously not every time you're not on close is that you schedule that next interaction while you're sitting there everybody has to count on their phone and then send it invite.
[SPEAKER_01]: The likelihood of them showing up is extremely high.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't give you the exact numbers, but it's extremely rare that I've had someone not show up to a subsequent meeting after the first one has gone well.
[SPEAKER_01]: The cases I've had has been some emergency that got called into a meeting, whatever that might be, but not being ghosted, not being blown off.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know what's interesting, Jeff.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, you'd say, well, rocky sales people have that issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not, that's everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, even myself, it's so easy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The meetings, there is just wrap it up, everything's winding down.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so easy to say, hey, Jeff, I'll follow up with the next week, we'll schedule time and continue the conversation, or to schedule a presentation or what have you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those scheduled next interactions are key.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's talk about the next steps.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you said, she has to solve questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, bringing deals to fruition is our expertise, not the prospects.
[SPEAKER_01]: What we need to do is make a recommendation.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, based on what we talked about here today, what I recommend we do next is like.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you got to know what you're going to take it.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your thoughts?
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was sort of going to sink their perspective, but he will prefer to follow the guidance of experts.
[SPEAKER_01]: If she would have made a recommendation around that next step, she would have had a different outcome, which you would rather was a little bit of a curveball here.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was helpful and you to take all this information back to my team, talk it over and I'll get back to you with an update in about 10 days.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I would have done that situation said, well, let's do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's schedule a Zoom meeting for two weeks from today, as I mentioned, you'll have an update about 10 days.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we can regroup, we'll get the feedback from your team, and then figure out next steps from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet the meeting on the calendar, even if it's tentative, it's better than having nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: that's so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to go back to a line that you dropped in the middle of talking about this that everyone should pay attention to, which is it is our expertise to move deals to a close, not the customers.
[SPEAKER_02]: it is our expertise and they want to follow an expert through the path.
[SPEAKER_02]: The golden rule of sales cardinal rule of sales is don't leave a sales call without next steps, but it's so easy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to go back and tile this together.
[SPEAKER_02]: You talked about changing your perspective on the sales, the first time appointment from discovery to a value centric conversation that you're delivering
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you have, you know, Mike who was so logical and all he did, and he was right, but he was wrong, because the road to goal is not paved with logic.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's emotion and having a real conversation with somebody, human conversation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then once you have those two things in place, don't forget that you are in sales.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're flipping that empathy scale from.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's super empathetic, understanding the customer to, okay, I've got to go hunt, I've got to go bring home the revenue for my business and I have to win and winning is important winning the right way is more important.
[SPEAKER_02]: So getting those next steps on the calendar is what you have to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not what you should do and it's not what you think other sales people are doing better than you it is what you have to do every single time.
[SPEAKER_02]: in order to make sure that you are a hair performer in your space and what you're doing, I want to give you some space here, given all of these scenarios, we've walked through a couple of different sales reps here.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is it that you're seeing the most in the field today?
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you were a sales leader, if you were running a sales team or your VP of sales, which one of these areas would be the most priority to focus on first when it comes to training or upskilling your team?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's start with that meaningful value conversation because if you can't get a meeting, you've got nothing and then when you look at the meeting, the overarching objective of the first meeting is to beat the high enough level of interest that they want to continue interacting with you afterwards and if you accept that premise, you say, I don't need to ask every question during the first meeting, tell them everything in the first meeting because you know something not going to remember it anyway, pace the process is my council unless you're expecting to walk out of a first meeting with an order.
[SPEAKER_01]: You did face the process because what you're up against is the famous Herman Epping House study.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're familiar with that one, Jeff, I would love for you to recount it for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a researcher in the late 1800s and he developed what's known as a forgetting curve and it's still valid today.
[SPEAKER_01]: What he found is that people forget 50% of what they learn within 24 hours and remember less than 10% a week later.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you do that math, you have a one hour first meeting.
[SPEAKER_01]: They only remember about six minutes of it a week later.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you say, I'm going to bring my CEO to the first meeting, I'm going to do a demo, I'm going to
[SPEAKER_01]: Look out my slide deck and show them all the things that we can do and on and on.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's left?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why should they continue interacting with you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you can't say, I know they showed you the demo, but I'm sure you forgot it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's do it again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not awkward.
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to pace the process.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think about what absolutely needs to get accomplished during that first meeting to achieve overarching objective to peek a high enough level of interest that they want to continue interacting with you afterwards.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm stunned.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was so good.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that what I'd like to do now is give you some time to tell people and sales leaders and anyone who is in a customer facing role that has any affiliation with the sales process, why they should pick up your new book, the first meeting differentiator, if people a little bit of information about where they can find it, what's in that butter and why they should pick it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the book is available everywhere you purchase books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's even in some of their brick and mortar stores as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wherever you go to get the book, be sure to go to firstmedingbook.com, firstmedingbook.com, things you can do there.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, you can download the first chapter free.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then once you do purchase it, sign up for the bonus that I'm going to be providing, which is three master classes exclusively for book
[SPEAKER_01]: to help you implement what you read.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's again, exclusively for book purchasers.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you heard me talking about here today, that first mean that consultation is the deal foundation.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's week, the deal is week.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to stop looking for these manipulative closing techniques at the finish line and recognize if we want to move the sales needle and we're more deals that the prices you want, that opportunity resides and how you handle that first meeting.
[SPEAKER_02]: For Mr. Lee Sous, who is the number one best selling author in this book has been flying off the shelves for two months.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is gold star to prove by sales gravy as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: In myself, the first meeting differentiator go ahead and pick that up anywhere you buy books.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is an incredible resource for sellers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then go check out those resources that Lee talked about on the first meeting differentiator website.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go get those right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, Lee, for joining us on the sales gravy podcast.
[SPEAKER_02]: We will catch you next time.