Andy Hedrick breaks down his 2V2R system for closing B2B deals: Value (concrete revenue gains like 5-7x returns), Verified results (one-sentence client testimonials), Risk (embed solutions like dual-run pilots), and Resistance (identify internal blockers like IT or legal before they kill the deal). Your pitch should take under ten minutes and hit numbers, logos, and proof within five seconds.
Chapters
Hi, my name is Gerhard Schwartner, and welcome to Selling Power TV. Today we have a very special guest from Oklahoma City, Andy Hedrick, and he's the author of a brand new book, The 2V2R Rapid Sales Growth System. I took a look at the book, and you say that most sales teams are losing deals Before the first conversation ever happens. Tell me about it.
The world we live in now, when somebody reaches out to me, I immediately go to their website and their LinkedIn and look for value. And if I can't see it within about 2 minutes, I don't even go to the sales meeting.
The terms are very simple. You talk about value, you talk about verified results, and then you talk about risk and resistance. What is value?
Value are things, 3 major ones that we focus on. Can it help them grow revenue? Can it help them cut costs? Or can it help them streamline with tangible numbers? So like 30 to 50% less admin time, 5 to 7x revenue growth. When you're talking soft cost savings and things, and that's part, you really need to get to hardline profit because every leader, you know, founder, CEO, VP, they're looking for profitability.
The second B is the verified results. How do you tease that out? How do you show that? How do you prove that your results will be there and it's not just fiction?
A lot of times when we work with a startup, their verified results are from past experience. Right? So we'll say, go to some of your past colleagues' prior results and get some people to say, he's very good at planning and implementation of this to achieve results in this area. But if for more mature companies, go get testimonials. And the thing that we've done too with testimonials, nobody wants to read a paragraph. So what we do is we tease out of that testimonial 1 to 2 sentences at the most, and it's the impact statement.
So now let's talk about the dicey part of the sales call, the risk. How do you get the customer to articulate the risk? Because in most cases, they don't tell you.
What you do is you bring the risk in to the pitch. So let's talk technology for a minute. Maybe you have a dual solution that runs for 2 months. Right? They have the old, they have the new. They see the new running better, they turn off the old. That's a mitigation of risk right there. You know, every IT staff is overbooked pretty much. So you say, we have a turnkey solution, it's SaaS, and we train your staff on running it. Your IT involvement is like 2 hours. And I recommend a pitch of no more than 10 minutes. And then by the end of the meeting, you're talking How do we do this? Where can we start?
In your book, you write about, um, customers are not rejecting salespeople, they are rejecting friction. What does friction look like in today's B2B environment?
Knowing the resistors is important, whether it be technology, consulting. What are those resistors internally? Is it IT, compliance, legal, procurement? Whatever it is, how can you help those people? Everything is a committee now, right? Any sort of a purchase of multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. And one of the things that's a bad sign when you're in a sales meeting is at the end they go, I need to circle back internally. When they say, I need to circle back internally before I can meet with you again, they're gonna go try and pitch your solution to the resistors in their organization. And it's not gonna go well. And then what do we do? We identify and address those resistors in the process.
You say in the book that the first sales call is now digital. Buyers are making decisions based on not what the salesperson says, but what the digital experience is all about. How do you make a first good impression digitally?
Two big ones, just right out of the gate. Include some bulleted numbers, include some client logos, and include some testimonials. If you do those 3 things, you'll be amazed when you get to your meeting, it becomes more about, well, how do we do this? They go to your website, can they within 5 seconds, within 5 seconds, can they see what your value is and that you've done it before?
Andy, final question. What's your take of AI? How do you use it in a way that it builds credibility rather than destroys it?
There's some really cool things going on in AI in research, the research part of your ideal client profiles. But I would caution everybody out there, emails and other automations that are trying to custom write a message for you, be careful. Be really careful with that. I've seen it done really poorly much more than done well.
I would recommend that anybody who has listened to this go to amazon.com and just search for Andy Hedrick. Um, his book is the 2V2R Rapid Sales Growth System. And in my opinion, This is a better book than the Challenger sale.
