WHAT THE INSIDE OF A ENTERPRISE DEAL LOOKS LIKE AND HOW TO WIN IT

Hey, so today's episode is going to be a little bit different. I'm going to talk about something that I've been using as kind of my secret weapon when I want to understand a large complex sale. So, you know, the good old days when we were on site, when we could visit, it was easy to see what goes on in a large complex sale.

But today, how do we do that? Uh, you know, there's no—

the movies and the TV shows are not really realistic. They have some of the ingredients, but it's more entertainment than it is education. What I found is murder mysteries. Murder mysteries are great, and especially today because there's so many people who cover them. On the internet.

And why not leverage that? You get all these different viewpoints, and it's a lot like a sale. Because a sale, what is it? It's a decision. It's to pick one thing over another or just do nothing. And that's really what a trial is. But a trial, you know, much more structured than an enterprise sale.

And you would think that that structure—

and you know why the structure's there, because there's a lot at stake in a trial. It's somebody's freedom, somebody's liberty, somebody's ability to have freedom, and that's what they care most about, or sometimes their life.

Let me give you a great example, a little treat.

Um, I don't know if you've heard about the Karen Reed murder up in Massachusetts.

Now, I remember hearing about this on the news, talking to my family who still live about a half hour from where it happened.

And I know the area because I grew up about half hour from there. So it kind of has a personal connection. But what's great about this trial or the situation and how it applies to sales is the— there's 2 narratives. One, that she hit her boyfriend with a car, or he went into this house that she dropped him off at, got into some kind of fight, and Died and they put him out in the front yard. Now, why is this case so good from a sales standpoint? Neither one of those narratives makes much sense at all. I mean, do you hear about, you know, people backing over their significant other? Maybe forward, but backwards? And usually there's something that really builds up to that. It wasn't here. Or going into a party and getting into a fight. Yeah, we hear about that, but these are, these are adults. These are, you know, he was in his mid-40s. Uh, the house they went into, they were in their mid-50s, had 5 kids, and they were friends, acquaintances at least. So which one makes sense?

Neither.

Okay. Which does the evidence prove to? Now, this is the good part. In sales, we talk about the evidence all the time. And what's great here is you get to see people's reaction to the evidence. Some people believe it, some people don't. Some people try and break it apart. Some people just accept it on face value. Sound familiar? This is a lot like sales. And what you'll learn by watching this is how delicate decisions are. Because when you're in sales, certainly in the early years, you think a decision is like written in stone. It is like a whim, and it flip-flops. So why watch this?

If, if you're looking for a way to understand human nature and the variety of backgrounds and values and beliefs and how they apply, plot The personal wins. Now, what's also great about this case is there appears to be some shenanigans going on.

Why? Well, the house that he was going to for this afterparty is owned by a Boston retired police officer.

The victim Uh, is an active Boston police officer. Most of the people at the party were associated with law enforcement in some way, or relatives.

So also what happened, the lead investigator is family friends with the people at the party. Wasn't there, but has connections through their family. For instance, one of the nephews that was at the party was the ring bearer at his sister's wedding, and they have pool parties together. Okay, so here, here comes the hard part. Now, the evidence is all over the map. Some proves or gives value to that she did it. Her taillight is cracked, or she admits it's cracked, and that's why they have— they believe that he was run over. But it doesn't really make sense now, does it? Have you ever tried to back up really fast in your car? Um, my situation, I have to back up every day to get the car out of the garage, and it's kind of a little, um, Delicate because I live on a very narrow, short street and I got to come out of the garage and I've got, you don't want to hit anything and it's, but try going fast backwards. Even if you have a rearview camera, it feels weird and it's a, it's very different.

Now you got to think the other side also is What's going on here? Now, the evidence is the pieces of her light are all over the scene, but not when they first investigate. On the first, uh, investigation where they're picking up his body, they're moving around the snow trying to find stuff. They find his hat, but he's missing a shoe. Well, the shoe shows up hours later. Pieces of the backlight show up later that day, 12 hours later, and there's a lot of them. And there's also a snowstorm. So this is a great story, a great mystery, and a great example of how groupthink works. Because ask yourself the question right now, who do you think did it? Was it the girlfriend who dropped them off? Did he— she run over him because of a spat? Or did he go in the house, get into a fight? Well, you want more evidence, right? Or do you want to just go with Occam's razor, which says, you know, the most likely thing is the answer? Well, that changes as you start looking at the evidence. And then all of a sudden, a maverick, a champion, raises his head. This journalist, Aidan Carey, I believe is his name. He goes by the title Turtle Boy. Now, that may seem kooky, but he's a legitimate investigative journalist, and he's done a pretty amazing job pulling this case apart. And finding real both evidence that the police had and kind of mapping out how this happened and the relationships between the players. And he's— it just gets layered deeper and deeper. So he's the champion that you'd see in an enterprise sale that's Breaking the beliefs. So he's the guy that you do want on your side because he's the one that wants to really change the company. So you get to see these personality types and start thinking about how does this relate to my deals, Brian?

Well, this is what's going on inside the company when we're not there.

People are bickering and arguing and changing their minds and re-equating what they care about.

And everybody, both lawyers are saying, well, don't look here, look here. And that's because we can really only focus on one thing at a time. So if you're looking for a way to really understand How people think, how they make decisions, how fragile that is. Now, to convict her or to get her innocent requires a unanimous vote by 12 jurors. Now, think about that. Unless it's— they really prove the case, either side trying to get 12 people to agree. On something that is really hard, where there's evidence on both sides and neither side makes any sense. Neither does. So this is what happens in deals all the time. And you listen to, like, even because I've become a Turtle Boy fan, I listen to his videos and they all think that, oh, there's going to be a verdict. That day, the day they go, and it's time of this recording, it's been, I think, the whole week, 5 days of deliberation. And they say they're hung, but the— at this time, the judge wants them to continue deliberating. Now, now think about that.

What does a hung jury sound like? Uh, no decision.

Doesn't it?

See, see the analogies here?

No decision. Oh, is that why it's so hard to get these deals done? Now, this is why we on the outside looking in don't understand what's going on. We have to be on the inside, or at least understand what's going on. On the inside and participate with as much and as many of those decisions and micro decisions as we can, and not just rely on our champion. Because in this case, the champion is a journalist. Yeah, he can help the defense. And talk about shenanigans! They arrested him. You know, claimed it was witness tampering. Well, it's not illegal to interview a witness or try to interview a witness as long as you do not break the law by harassing them, trespassing them, or assaulting them. You can ask anybody a question. It's a free country, and he's a journalist. So he ended up having to serve 60 days on these charges, and guess who arrested him? The lead investigator of the state police. You see where I'm going here? Because we think that everything is open and fair and competition, and that companies are run by structures, authoritarians, and that there's a lot of logic here. But what you really find out is there's nothing but a logical or a lot of personal wins. Because everybody who's involved in this case except for the defendant was a witness and was, um, interviewed. So you can listen to those. And now think, who are we in this? Well, we're the— we're the lawyers. We're trying to get our views agreed upon. So think about this, because it's a lot like a beauty contest sale that we all get pulled into that we think is a good opportunity.

And what I've learned is the more structured a company makes the selection process, the less likely you are to win it, because the structure is usually to cover for what they've already decided. You see this all the time with a blind RFP or a blind RFI. Where'd that come from? Why do people engage in procurement? Because procurement doesn't decide when the company wants to buy something. Procurement administrates the purchase, no matter what they tell you. So here, the lawyers, we're the salespeople, and we have to get our views in front of the jury and break the opponent's views. So it's this constant feature-benefit FUD on the other side, trying to deframe that FUD. Now, the other thing I learned from watching this, there's a lot of people who just come up with an answer. Oh, she did it, or no, they did it, and they don't really explain why. Now think of that in sales. How does that work in sales? It's kind of the, the know-it-all that's not really thinking. They're reacting. It's the platitudes. Now also think, how do tips and tricks work in this type of situation? What's the tip or trick to win a jury or to win a murder trial? See how silly that question is? Or what's the best way to win a murder trial? Because that's how people always frame it. What's the best way to Get a meeting. Well, it's not that simple. There's a lot involved. It's a skill. See, in law, you have to go to law school for 3 years.

Why?

Because you have to learn how it's done. All the rules, the procedures, the definitions, the case study. To become in sales, You need no skills and you need no training at all. You need to be willing to do what your manager tells you. Now imagine if we had like 3 years of teaching people how companies buy and how people make decisions instead of how to pitch our product. I really encourage you to check out these trials as a way of studying Organizational thought, because this is very analogous to what we run into. We may not want to know the complexity, but that doesn't change whether it's there or not. It's there. And we need to win. So instead of jumping to a conclusion or looking for just the easy way, because there is no easy way. The easy way is to become good at sales, and then everything becomes easier, instead of trying to find the easy way. Because I've been trying to find the easy way my whole life. Now, also think about how do you prove something? Now, how do you use evidence in your sales? Compared to your competitors, because this is what happens often, certainly on the enterprise side. They don't go with one product without looking at other products. That's what that blind RFP is—is to justify what they've already decided on. So what do you do? You have to get in there. You have to get and talk with more people. You. Have to find your turtle boy within the account. The person who wants to do the right thing, who wants to change the company, has to have that type of personality. It can't be that even-keeled, I don't care, I just do what I told. That's not a champion. Convincing them may not do much because who are the jurors in our deal? They're all those people in the decision path, the people who have to approve it economically, functionally, politically, and manage that change. And let's face it, what's the personal win for each person here? You know, the personal win for the jurors, get the hell out of there, right? Move on with their lives. They want to do their job, but You know, come on. What's the likelihood you're going to find 12 people agreeing on a case like this? I mean, when I first started looking at it, I flip-flopped myself. None of it made sense either way, and I would be like, "Well, he looks like he got in a fight." Yeah, but do do adults do that? Really? I mean, especially police officers. They're trained. To de-escalate, not escalate. Okay, that doesn't make sense. And if they did get in a fight, maybe there was an accident where he hit his head and he passed very quickly. And do you not call and admit if it's just an accident? It's an accident, right? It's not— it's not murder. So why don't you just call for help and, you know, face that? Because what, a little scuffle and something accidentally happens? I mean, that's not that bad, is it? Apparently. I don't know. So don't let me sway you on the decision of this, but go check it out. You can search Karen Reed on YouTube. You can check out Turtle Boy. His stuff is very Time intensive, but good. If you want a couple of quick hits for the best ROI on your time, I would go to microdot, micro.dot, all one word, on YouTube. They've done some great videos on the case that are probably around 10 minutes and you get the whole story. But I like to dig in. As a pastime. I find it kind of my reality TV, and it helps me remember what's going on, to, to see the big picture of the deal and not just service the deal. And then you see the difference in the quality of the witnesses. And I'd love to point out the accident reenactment person from the state police. It's pretty funny because we have these people in our deals all the time, people who just make stuff up or come up with some reason not to buy our stuff, and we still need to get around them. So I hope you enjoyed this as a little treat, a little different episode. Also, a little story. Over the weekend, last weekend, I saw this kid at a party who was watching this guy play the piano, and he was a professional piano player. He was there to entertain the crowd, and he made it look really easy. And it was very clearly a very talented guy. And as soon as he was done, I saw these kids that were— they looked at it, they watched it, and they thought to themselves, that looks easy, let me try it. And of course they get there and they bang the keys and it's, it's just noise. It's not music. This is a lot like sales, meaning we all see it. And the difference is We don't see the difference in sales between music and noise. So we see sales as the piano. It looks easy, but when we do it at the beginning, we generate noise, not music. That's the same thing with everything. We need to learn how to play the piano, practice playing the piano. Have an instructor show us what's right and what's wrong and how to do it because people have been playing the piano for centuries and there's a system to it. Why not learn that system? Unfortunately, sales, it's kind of subjective because everybody's a little different. Every deal's a little, little different. Every company's a little different. And most people don't know the difference between noise and music. But noise wastes money and takes a lot of time. Music is money. Which do you want to make? And in sales, how do we practice? On real people? No, no, that's not how you practice. Imagine the lawyers. Not practicing for this case.

They don't get a redo. In sales, we think we get a redo, but we rarely do.

What do we get? We get, uh, no decision, lost deal, don't call me back, ghosting. In sales, we got to get a product like brevitypitch.com where we can have those practice conversations. Without any of the overhead, finding somebody, setting the context, playing the game, scheduling time, going off on tangents. You have control over it. And if you don't practice, it's malpractice, isn't it? Ask yourself, would you hire a musician who didn't practice? Would you hire a chef who only cooked when they had to? Didn't have passion for food, passion for cooking, passion for your reaction? Of course not. Why would you do that with a salesperson? Sales is not a degree. It's a skill that we develop. And, you know, Babe Ruth Great quote about yesterday's home runs do not win today's games. I wish they did, don't you? Because that's one of the downsides about sales. We have to show up all the time and we have to be the best. Otherwise, there's no commission for second best. We'll see you next time. Check out brevitypitch.com. If you want to become better at sales, get an instructor, get somebody who knows how it's done at b2brevenue.com. Sign up for one of the 2 courses. Start the Conversation, Get the Meeting. This is the prospecting course. If you need leads, start the conversation, get the meeting. If you've got leads and you've, you've got deals, but they're not closing or they take too long or they're too small, Winning the Complex Sale is the course for you. We'll see you next time. If you see my stuff fly by on LinkedIn, give it a little like, a little comment, a little share. We'll see you next time.