Language and Tone Increase Close Rates with Mor Assouline

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My man.

Welcome to the show.

Thanks Katie, I appreciate it. Loving on here.

Let's go baby. I'm ready for this. So, you know, my style is very similar to yours. No fluff, no backstories, no. How did you get into sales? Let's talk about the demo, right? Because this is where we work so hard to get someone to it and then all of a sudden it just turns into a feature dump backstories, logos. So let's start with what the things you've seen that people do wrong in the demos. What are some of the most common errors you're seeing? And then we'll start getting into what to do about it.

Yeah, I always default to the immediate answer of lack of discovery or very shallow discovery. So they'll ask maybe a question like, what's the reason that you're. And I always bring this example because that's the question you should be asking on every demo. But what's the reason you've scheduled the demo? Let's assume for a minute it was an inbound lead, because it depends if it's coming from outbound or inbound. But let's assume it's inbound motion and they scheduled a demo. So prospect AE asked the prospect, what's the reason that you scheduled a demo? Prospect says, yeah, we're looking to improve our current system. We want to look for a more robust system. And AE goes on to the next question, and that's called shallow discovery. They don't. What does that even mean, robust system and easy to use system? Dig. And they don't dig enough. And I don't know if they don't dig enough because they feel like they're imposing or two, they feel like they. That's enough of information. A lot of times they feel like they are imposing. They feel like they are interrogating. Because I asked them, how come you didn't dig enough? And they're like, yeah, I don't want to, like, bother them with more questions. And so I think that's one of the reasons.

Okay, so let's keep going down that path there. Right. So then how can an AE or SDR maybe, if they were the ones on the disco call, how can they set the stage to be able to ask more of these questions and to be able to dig a little bit deeper without it feeling like an interrogation.

Yeah. So I think sort of like what we're doing, right, we're just having conversation and then I gave you an answer and then you're like, all right, let's dig into that a little bit. You're doing discovery on me right now. And I. The mistake that AES make is like, they'll ask a question, they'll get the answer, and then they'll move on straight to the next question. They don't. Don't even, like, acknowledge what they just heard. So a trick to do this is sort of like, acknowledge what you heard from the prospect. So if the prospect said, yeah, we're looking to. The reason why I booked a demo is because we're looking to get. Have a more robust system. So, like, how to dig there? Be, like. When you say more robust system, how do you mean? So, like, repeat back what the prospect said and then just follow it up with a question.

Yeah, I like that. One of the things that we worked on a lot with our closers was like, acknowledge and ask more. Right? Like, oh, robust. I like that. Tell me a little bit more. What does that mean? Like, go. Go deeper in that. I haven't heard that before. And just letting them go a little bit more in discovery.

Yeah. One thing I noticed that, and I have, like, I'm 50, 50 on this, whether I like it or I don't like it. But when the demo, like, I say demo, because I think every demo should have a discovery. But the AE will say something like, all right, I have. They'll set the agenda for the call. They'll set the stage for the call. And then they'll say something like, all right, I have some questions I want to ask you. I don't know if I like it or I don't like it. Because the moment you say that, it then becomes an interrogation versus, like, small talk. Small talk. And be like, by the way, what's the. Like, just throw in, like, a by the way. Like, I. By the way, I noticed that blank. How did you, you know, hear about us? And then they give you, like, naturally transition into the conversation with your questions. Don't even tell me you're about to ask questions. Just naturally do it. That if you notice people that are really good networkers, they don't go to a networking event or meet a student and be like, all right, I have questions to ask you. They just sort of strike a conversation. Like, I remember I went to an event once, and the person, so I'm Jewish, and it was like a holiday. And so the person that was leading the services was singing a tune of the prayer, but it was a tune that not many people knew about. And afterwards, I didn't know this person. I came up to him, I was like, by the way, was that tune this particular singer? He's like, yeah, like, oh, I love that singer. Did you hear And I just went straight into the discovery side. And we stayed in touch, connected on Instagram. We became good friends. So just naturally going into it and stop thinking about it as, like, I need to ask these questions, just have conversation. Yeah.

Because I. I do like it in Discovery as long as it's done for the right reasons. Right. Because I do think it's important to set the stage a little bit of, like, what's about to happen, but it's connecting the dots on why they benefit from you asking the questions. Right. So it's not just, I have a couple of questions to ask you. Would that be okay? It's like, hey, I have a few questions to ask you to make sure we're not covering things that don't matter or to make sure we're not wasting your time or that we're not going down a path that isn't relevant. Would that be okay? And now you have permission to ask those questions. Right. So they don't. Because also, too in disco, like, I might be sitting there like, I just want to know price. I just want to know price. I just to a price. Whereas if I've given permission. All right, well, yeah, go ahead and ask a few questions now. I can. And you can guide it along the way there.

Yeah, that's the other 50, 50% side of me where, like, I'm, Like, I'm okay with setting up the stage by saying I have questions if it's relevant, like you just said. Yeah. So I'm always down the middle with that. But yeah, I mean, the trick is like to remove the interrogation side of it is just instead of jumping to the next question after you've got your answer, like, it's very. It's sort of like a selfish thing, like, you got what you wanted, now you're getting. You keep taking and taking and taking and so providing some sort of feedback to that prospect after you get the answer and then moving on to your next question.

I like that. And I think. And that's where, you know. So a lot of reps miss in discovery, for sure. They just completely miss it. But also too, the next thing I see a lot and I'd love your feedback on, is even if they did good discovery, they don't use it. It's like they ask the questions and then it gets into the demo and then nothing. So, like, how should they be using the information they learned in discovery in the demo?

Yeah. So, yeah, I've seen that happen a lot where I've told an ae, ask about who else they're evaluating as far as competitor wise and then justify your question to let them know that. This way you can compare and contrast for them, but they never did on the demo. And then I call them out, they're like, you're a liar. Then you should lie to them. But going back to your question. So there are three questions I think are extremely important to find out before you even get started with a demo. It's the why, it's the goals and it's the timeline. So the why would be like, hey, Kevin, I saw that you scheduled demo. Curious, what's the reason you decide to schedule a demo? But I'm looking for your. Usually when I ask the what's the reason? Question, I'm getting a pain point, slash, challenge response. Yeah, we don't, we're using this. We don't like it, whatever. Let's assume now I get the answer to the why question. The next question after I find out the challenge is your expectations, your goals. So, hey, Kevin, if you were to choose whether it's us, whether it's Patient Pop, whether it's another competitor, what would success look like to you in the first 90 days? That usually gets me to get the prospect to talk about their goals and their aspirations and what they want. Not necessarily what they need or what they want to solve, but what they want. And then, so now I have challenges and I have their goals. The next question I need to find out is the timeline question. Like, are they looking to accomplish this next year, next six months? What is it? So I'll say something like, hey, Kevin, so it sounds like what you're trying to do is you're currently losing money using XYZ software and you're spending about four hours a month. And what you'd like to get to is only work an hour a month and be able to work on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And you'll say, yes, okay, so when would you like to accomplish that by? And then that usually gives me the timeline question where it's like, well, you need this yesterday or we need this next quarter, or we need this next month. Next month as in the 31st or as in the 15th. And then I'll feel more comfortable going into the demo. Obviously, there are a lot more questions, but when I go into the demo and before I talk about a feature, I won't just present the feature as like, all right, let me show you this feature. I'll weave, I'll like, sort of like leverage what I've learned from disco to present the feature. So I'll say something like, Kevin, you mentioned earlier that one of the things that you're spending a lot of time with every month is manually typing in the hours for everybody on the CRM. So one thing that I think will help you save about two hours a month is the ability to do X, Y, Z. Then I'll start talking about the feature. So the time in which you should use disco throughout the demo is before you present a feature, call out what you've heard from them and then bring up the actual feature.

Yes, and I think that's so important. I want to get super tactical here real quick because one, I want people that are listening right now. I want you to go back and listen how he can't even help but do clarifying questions even while he's role playing. Like, did you all catch that? He says, oh, like next month. Oh, by next month do you mean, like, it's just so immediate for you.

Right?

Like the clarifying questions, which I love. Now, how do you remember to do this? Or how do you remember to bring these things back up? Because I think people miss on this often. Like, hey, you asked the question, how are you remembering to connect the dots? Or how are you bringing that back up into the demo?

Yeah, so I mean, this isn't, this isn't a hack. Because the real way to remember anything is pre and post demo repetition. So, like, how do you. Like, I used to play basketball in high school on varsity. Like, how would I remember to do a certain move? I wouldn't remember to do it on the spot. I'd remember it by watching gameplay footage or going back to the. So the only way to remember is to practice after the call and then before the call. So role playing before the call, after. If you do this enough time, you're. We're. We're practicing is just like waking up and brushing your teeth. It's just sort of a routine. It, you'll naturally just remember. I mean, one of the things, like if you were to join. Even if I were to join a company now and do demos, I'd probably tank. I wouldn't do the demos the way I'm preaching it, because there's a learning curve. So the way I would remember things to remind myself, like, oh, make sure to ask this. I was taking a little sticky note and then just like very small, like, like big letters, but like very few letters, put it on my computer screen and hopefully I'll remember to look at it. But otherwise there is no hack to remember it, in my opinion. I Think the way to do it is just practice enough times where it becomes second nature.

Yeah, no, for sure. And I think. And that's the confidence to do it. I will give a little hack here. And salespeople aren't going to like this hack, but it actually works. Take notes, y'. All, Take notes, but keep them in front of them. And what I teach my team is called the T method. Right? So you draw, like a T on a piece of paper. On the left side, you're writing down what they said. On the right side, you're tracking how often you can bring it back up. Right? So someone says that, like, yeah, like, dude, we're wasting two hours. You write down wasting two hours, and then you keep track. How many times can you bring back up wasting two hours on that demo? But we trust our memories in sales too much. Right? Because let's be honest, salespeople, when we're asking these questions, are we always listening? Or are we, like, asking the questions, but we're thinking about what we're gonna ask next? So take notes on these calls, too.

Yeah. You know something? When I used to interview AES, one of the criteria for them to even be considered for the role is how fast they type. So I would do a typing test, and the reason why it was so important, because I want them to be able to listen and type at the same time and not look at the keyboard. It's so, like, I'm, like, when I'm listening to a call, I will write down not only, like, what you say, but how you say it. So, like, Kevin sounded frustrated, whatever it is, Right. Like when he said this. So typing fast is really important. Going to your point. Yeah, I guess that is a hack to keep the notes. So I'll usually have, like, obviously have two screens, and on one screen, I have my CRM open with the note section opened up. And I have. If you're using HubSpot, let's say HubSpot has a feature called snippets where you can save. You can say, like, hashtag D is like a keyword key. Yeah, keyword that you can save. And when you click hashtag D, it'll populate all your questions that you've. That you've created before. And so that's an easy way to not have to type up all the questions. It's in advance. And then always have that notepad open, I think where AES, like, freak out or they, like what you said, they forget is they feel they don't have control. They don't Feel comfortable, like, with silence. Like, they're, like, just jumping onto next thing. So, like, I've been on a call where I had. I wanted to, like, ask the prospect something. And because I was, like, confident on the call, like, kevin, I wanted to ask you something. What was it? I'll feel comfortable in that moment, and I'll look up the question like, ah, there it is. That's what I wanted to ask you. Then I'll ask that question.

It's so crucial there. And, like, again, these are tactics, y', all, that I want you to listen not just what he's saying, but also what he has. He has his questions ready. He has them in front of him. Right. This isn't like a. Oh, you get no bonus points for not using your script or checklist on a call. You get no bonus points for that. No one's like, oh, great job. You didn't have your questions. And front of. You have them ready, y'.

All.

And you can hear it in his voice. You can say, okay, great. You know what? I think we have what we have here. Let me double. Oh, I totally forgot to ask you, like, when are you hoping to get this done?

Yeah, right.

Like. And so one of the things, though, that I want us pivot to now that I hope people are listening to is our tone, right? So be even being able to ask, like, oh, wait, I totally forgot.

More like, what.

What are we doing here? The tone lets you get away with that a little bit. And right before we hit record, you already talking about tone, which I think is so important. Let's bring this up now. Like, the tone through discovery and demo. What are some of the things that you teach or coach people on around tone?

Yeah, so tone, like, one thing I say about tone is, like, what is it? So if you were to type up an email, let's say, and you wanted to, like, emphasize certain words like free or, like only, what would you do? You would bold the word only. You would underline free. Like, you'd create contrast in the email and the words. And so tone of voice is. Tonality is exact same, exact same thing, except you're not writing, you're talking. And so tonality provides contrast in what you're saying. And so there are, like, the framework for tone of voice. It's tone of. It's the tone of voice, which is what I call, like, voice sentiment, which is, like, your emphasis. So, like you said, I. Oh, I forgot to ask you that. Role play. Well, I forgot to ask you that. That sentiment was like, oh, shit, I forgot, like, hold on. It was a certain feeling that I felt. Pace of speech. That's how fast or slow you're saying the words. So you could say something like an example. If you're. Like. If you're able to migrate someone's data in just 10 minutes, you can see the word in just 10 minutes, either really fast to show that it's quick or really slow. So, hey, Kevin, if you sign up with Patient Pop today, we'd be able to migrate your data in just 10 minutes. I slowed down the words in just 10 minutes. And then the last part of the framework is fluctuation of voice. So that's your high or low pitch. So, like, the perfect. I do this every time. We'll do a little experiment. I do this in my workshop. I want you to see the word, like, tiny. Just, like, say it.

Tiny.

Okay, Now I want you to say it again, but before you say it, I want you to, like, envision in your head what tiny actually looks like. Like, visualize it and then say it again.

Tiny.

All right, so if. If you were to close your eyes and listen to that, you're. You said it the first time. Tiny. The second time, you said it was tiny. And like, when I do this in the workshop, I have everyone. They go like this. Tiny. And everybody's like, eyes squint, their fingers go do the same thing. Huge. Huge. And then now visualize it.

Huge.

Eyebrows go up. Eyes widen up. And so these are three things that you can play with when you're talking about tone of voice. The easiest way to do it is just to get animated. Use your hands. That's why keeping video on is so important.

I didn't realize that sales. There are still sales reps not having their video on.

Yeah, funny story. I didn't keep it on for years. I was like, no, it's stupid. People are going to judge me. I look too young. They're not going to like how I look, whatever it is. So I made assumptions. And then I saw the data out there. I'm like, you know what? Let me just test it out. And it just. It's. Yeah. I'll never go back to not having video.

Like, again, half y' all, turn your video on. Dress up. Turn your video on. All you need is a white wall behind you. Like, if you have to reorg the room to make sure you have a what? Like, but be on video. Because, again, tone, right? Like, we forget about this. Tone is everything digitally. Because you don't get. Get body language as much if you can give some body language. They can see your hands, your eyes, that you're smiling, all of that. It really carries weight right now. Let's go one step lower. Here then too is like, are there places where you're using tone intentionally? Right. So there. Are there places where you're like, I slow down here on purpose. Or when I'm talking about pricing, I use a certain tone. Or when I'm talking about features, like, where do you apply the tone?

Yeah. So for me at least, tone comes off very naturally. I think it comes out very naturally for you. When you were like, oh, yeah, I almost forgot, like, you role played. That that was a very natural thing that you did. Even what I just said, that was a very natural thing that I did. I said, that's a very natural thing that I did. So I don't think about it really. But you see that word. I said the word but. And I emphasize but. Yeah, it's sort of second nature. Yeah. So it's hard for me to answer that one. But if you're taught, I guess, like a hack for someone that it doesn't come off naturally, then if there are punchlines in what you want to say. So maybe it's a feature that has a punchline. If it's. Let's just say you're able to migrate data in just 10 minutes and that's like a punchline for you, then that's where you should emphasize. So if I were an AE listening to this episode or a sales manager VP of sales, make a list of your punchlines for your features. Make a list of your punchline for your customer. Whatever it is that you want to drive home, that is really important that makes you different as a software. And then that's where you should emphasize it.

I like that. Okay, perfect. And so now let's then transition into the actual running of a demo. And you kind of. You touched on a little bit towards the beginning. I want to really dive into this now around, like, so I've done good discovery, I've taken notes, I've practiced enough. So, like, my tone can be natural in the right moments. Now, how do I run a demo? Like, what are things that have to occur in that demo in order to drive close rates up.

Yeah. So a couple of things. Number one, you don't want to wait till the end of the demo to find out if the prospect is interested in purchasing or making decisions. So what you should do is what I call gauging interest. And so that you do that throughout the demo. It's Sort of like a continuous discovery motion where after you show a particular feature. Side note, let me backtrack even more. So let's hold on that for a minute. Only show the features, at least in the beginning. Prioritize the features that solve the prospect's problem, the challenge, and align to their goal. So if they want to solve a problem or achieve a goal, start with those particular features. Don't waste your time with like the bells and whistles. So that's number one. So, okay, so you showed them that. The second thing is now gauge interest. So after you've shown them a feature that was aligned to a problem that they solved. So hey, prospect, you had mentioned that one of your challenges using HubSpot was X and let me show you. And then you show it to them. After you show them that feature, you ask them, is this aligned with what you're looking for? Because if they say yes, then you're one step closer to the close. If they say no, you shouldn't move on until you figure it out. Hold on, what's happening here? So there are different questions you can ask to gauge interest. Is this aligned to what you're looking for? Is this what you're expecting? You mentioned that Sally on your team, on your marketing team would be using this. Unfortunately she wasn't able to make today. What do you think she would say about this? Like, getting feedback from what you just showed them would allow you to actually improve your chances of closing the demo. Because if you ignore it and you just ask any questions and then you move on, you have no idea if they like it or they don't like it.

No, I love that. One of the things that we focus a lot on, we called them BLCs, which were benefit latent check ins. So not saying like, does that make sense? But asking a question where you can get them to tell you the benefit, right?

Yeah.

So how would this impact? How would you use this? How does this compare? Is this faster or slower than you do it now? What will this allow you to do? Right, where you get them to tell you the benefit back versus so more. This is going to let you be so much faster. Does that align? You can also say like, how much faster is this compared to what you're doing right now? And they tell you, well, that's considerably faster. It's like, so is that aligned? And then you get that double right of like the alignment like them to tell you the benefit back. So I love, I love that. Okay, so now, so I want to. We went through it too Fast focusing on the things that matter to them early in the demo is so important, y'. All. This is not one of those, like, save it to the end so you can make, like, a big ending. You lost me 20 minutes ago because I'm sitting there bored. So that's so important. Prioritize that. Then we're getting, like, the pre sell, the engagements, like, you know how they're going. Then what do we do?

So, I mean, so you've already gone through the demo. Let's assume you've gone through the disco, you've done the demo, you've gauge interest, they're interested. Now you're. You're sort of talk going through the price, where I see AES sort of stumble. They sound really confident when they're talking about features and benefits and all this crap, but they go to the price and they're sort of fumbling either stuttering, they're talking faster. They're. They're not comfortable in the space. Like, if you ever notice someone that isn't comfortable, like for me, for example, I need to hold something when I'm standing. If I'm talking to somebody, I can't just keep my hands flat. So I get a little. I fumble a little bit. But AES, people that are really comfortable in just holding nothing, they're comfortable with your hands open and talking like that. And so the metaphor here is you should feel like the pricing should be the most comfortable area of the demo, in my opinion, the most. It can't be like, all right, let's go overpricing. And I don't want to impose on you the pricing. You should be very confident around the pricing. The way to do that is just you slow down how you speak after you talk about the pricing. You don't speak first. People tend to speak first because they feel awkward and awkward silences. And so pricing is another area before, obviously, the next steps and all that stuff.

But pricing, yeah, I think that's key. And it's funny because I think a lot of reps, obviously, they get nervous there because now it's like, this is where the rejection can come, or this is where the no can come. But also, funny enough, it's one of the things that we also do the least, right? You get to run a lot of discovery, then you get to run a certain amount of demos. You don't always get to do pricing for everybody. So they actually don't get to present pricing as often, which I also think back to an earlier point you made, which is the repetition. They don't practice this enough.

Yeah, they don't practice it.

No one practices the segments of this. Right. Everyone practices that demo. Then pricing negotiation, the trade, the back and forth, they don't do those things. Right. And so one of the things that you talk about in your content, right, is like, you know, creeping towards this 50% close rate, you know, being able to close 50%. If you think about the best students that you've worked with and the orgs that you've put together, like we started with, you know, what do people do wrong? What, how do the best piece this together? Like when you look at the reps that are closing 40, 50% of their deals, how are they bringing this all together to accomplish that?

Yeah, so it's, it's. They, they take everything that we just talked about. So they don't, if they have a 45 minute demo, they don't, they don't really milk the entire 45 minutes unless the prospect wants. But the main thing is they, they actually leverage the discovery that they learned earlier on. And they don't leverage it just on the feature side, they leverage it throughout, like even at the end of the pricing. Hey, you mentioned that you wanted to implement this by March 15th. In terms of timeline and in terms of what you've seen, does this fit, does this software fit what you're looking for? Yes or no? So you're gauging interest again and then they essentially go for the close. So one line that I like to say, this is more of a line that drives more urgency than anything else, but this may sound overly ambitious, Kevin. And then I go for my sort of my ask. So, Kevin, I know this is going to sound overly ambitious, but you had mentioned that you wanted to sign up in on the 15th. I know you're really busy and you're onboarding two other AES. Once you onboard them, you won't really have time. What if we did this? What if we get you signed up today, get you booked on a call with onboarding next week? This way you'll be ahead of schedule for the 15th, you won't feel stressed out. And if you sign up today, we'll be able to maybe slash off like 10% off the price. Would that work for you? And so I'm going for the close. I think AES don't know how to. Not all, but they don't know how to actually go for the close. They're like, all right, so I'll send you an email with some steps and then we'll get something on the Calendar, like they don't know what to do after. So I think that's another one.

I love the way that you ask that though. The what if we. It's just a softer way to ask. It's not as aggressive. It's not. Can I get you going right now? It's like, well, what if we, if we choose now, what if we did this right? I always love the. How could we get this done by X, right. And being able to put some of that back.

Collaboration. Yeah.

Like so, I mean, to your point, right, you're going to onboard two AES and God, like your time's going to disappear. You won't have time for this. And this actually will help you. Like, how could we get this done before they start? Like, what would that take? And having a conversation there but having like being confident. Because it's true. Most sales reps actually don't ask for the close. They're hoping that the buyer says, I'm ready to buy. You want them just to be able to say yes. Closing should be a yes. Can we get you started today? Can we start working with you today? Can we start like, yes, that's the close versus what do you want to do? Yeah, pressure on the buyer.

That's why I think the. Like, I always go, I always say like closing doesn't start at the end of the call. It starts in the beginning of the call and then throughout the demo when you're, during the discovery, when you're doing the upfront contract, when you're gauging interest to see if it's aligned with what they're looking for. Because if you're doing that throughout the demo, by the end of the demo you'll already know. It's not like anecdotally you'll know. You'll know because you've asked those. Does this align with what you're looking for Question, you'll know if it's a fit or not. You'll just now reinforce it to the prospect and confirm that it is a fit. And then if it's like I've heard, I heard a demo yesterday, I was listening to a call of an AE and the prospect was clearly like, yes, I like this. Let's I'm interested. And the AE was sort of like fumbling on the. On demo. They could have asked right then and there. So Kevin, it sounds like it is a fit. My next question is, what can I do today to earn your business? Like just a straight up question. And you don't. You, you should ask that question when, like, everything is aligned. If you obviously, like, there's a lot of like, I'll get back to you on this because I'm not really sure of the answer, whatever it is, then maybe don't ask that question, use that for a follow up.

But yeah, no, I think that it's so important, y', all. And I've said this a lot on podcasts and on stage and things like that. The close, to me is the least exciting part of this. Yeah, the close is easy. Getting someone ready to close is the hard part. And that's what we've been talking about today is how do you get someone to that peak emotional and rational state to say, yes, I'm willing to change. Right? Yes, I'm willing to do this. Which is the last question I wanted to dive into before we wrap up, is how do you get people to move away from what they're doing right now? Because so often the number one reason deals lose is no change occurs. They don't go with you, but they also don't go with somebody else. They never actually make that change. So do you have ways or tactics or ideas on how to move people away from what they're doing right now so that they're ready for that change?

Yeah. I mean, again, my answer is going to sound like repetitive, but it comes down to like the discovery question of timeline earlier on. It just keeps going back to that because if you don't ask that question, you'll find yourself in a situation where you're like, how do I make this person move? Like, I don't know, how do I. Somebody messaged me the other day, how do I send an email to get them to close? And I asked them, do you know what their timeline is? And they said no. I was like, then how can you ask them to close? But let's assume for a minute that you're obviously selling an SMB type of software, not enterprise, where it really is just signing up and testing it out. And so one of the things that you to do is to get them sticky with the software. And so if you're on the call, you could do something like this. Hey, Kevin, why don't we do this? You mentioned that you want to be able to play around with this. So let's create an, let's create a free trial for you right now. I'm not even going to ask. I'm just going to do it and then, and then I'll create the free trial for them. If they stop me, then fine, they'll stop me. And then I'll get them to sign up for the free trial so they can actually test it. And then I'll set up, like, the next steps agenda for them on the calendar. I'll say something like, so, Kevin, you know what? Like, I know you're really busy, and typically you're like, I know you're looking at this, and you're probably looking at a bunch of stuff, and I know that you'll need it, but if you don't actually, like, I'll feel confident enough to call out that people like you won't actually do anything because you just get so busy. And I'll say something like, but I want to make sure that I'm helping you out here. So let's do this. Let's get you on the calendar for next week. We'll do another. Another call to go through the motions again. And then after that, we'll set you up with onboarding after you've subscribed. Any concerns with that? Like, Like, I'm getting. I'm also collaborating. I'm getting their opinion. But again, short answer is it goes back to the disco and making sure you find out about the timeline, who they're evaluating in terms of competitors. That's a big one. A lot of times A's go in blind. They have no idea who they're up against. Yeah.

And I love that. And I do. I want people to go back and listen again to the difference between what he's asking versus where he's guiding. Let's set this up. Let's set this up. Let's get something on the calendar. Let's do this. This is the next best thing for us to do here. And you guide them because we do forget this. I think often in sales, we sell this every day. Our buyers buy it once. And so they may not know a good timeline. They may not know the right good steps.

Right.

They'll just say, yes, send me an email. And they don't even know what the best steps are in order to actually bring this across the line. So being that guide of saying, so normally legal gets involved next. And we both know legal is going to tear this contract apart, so why don't we go through it together first? You can get ahead of it, and then we can send it off. Right. And like, being that guide on how to buy, I think is overlooked often by salespeople.

Yeah. I think salespeople also need to focus more about, like, what's in it for them versus what's in it for me. So when they're setting up next steps because their manager told them to, they're thinking about it as in like, what's in it for me as the rep. And so they push the next steps, but it comes off like, why should I put next steps? Or they send an email, an email with like added value. But it's really not what's in it for them, it's what's in it for me. So that's why you said it earlier, which I loved. It's like collaboration, like, how do we do this? How do we get this to the next step? And asking that question to the prospect, that's more about like, what's in it for them.

So real quick tip for y'.

All.

Value is determined by the receiver. If they can't use it, it's not valuable. So just keep that in mind. That value based follow up or that value based prospecting, if they can't use what you gave them, it is not valuable. So just remember that more.

My man.

This is exactly what I was hoping it to be because again, this stuff doesn't get talked about enough out there. So I want to wrap with, you know, kind of the final question we always go through, right? Because the name of the podcast is Live Better Sell Better. Right? Because I do have this weird idea that if we took better care of ourselves, if we had more energy, if we had more joy and happiness and fulfillment, that the sales also would improve. What would your live better advice be for people listening?

I do this every morning. So I, like, we will go about our day and then we'll get stuck and we'll think that the computer and the world that's happening on the other side, like software sales or whatever it is, is like the center of the universe. And then we sort of like tunnel vision. We ignore everything around us. But in the morning when you wake up and you go outside and just look at like the trees or whatever it is, you're like, holy shit, there's a world beyond this world. It's kind of like the Matrix, like there's a real world. And so we, we lose sight of, of that when we're spending time in the computer. And so what I do in the morning is I have a list of affirmations. Like just I have my own affirmations that I write down. It's corny, it's rah, rah, rah. But you know what, if you think about it, and I heard this last night, actually, meditation. What is meditation? It's being able to sort of imagine and use your brain to imagine something and calm yourself down and live in the moment. If someone's really being really negative or being really angry or being really sad, whatever it is, what are they doing? They're essentially meditating. They're just meditating on the wrong thing. They're using their brain to imagine things that are negative. So in order, I think the way to anchor your day is to meditate properly earlier in the morning. And by just doing affirmations like we do, so such negative self talk all the time. We're essentially doing affirmations all the time, but it's just negative affirmations. Just fight fire with fire. Do positive affirmation. Repeat the same things over and over and over again throughout the day. Like, my affirmation doc paper is like, right, literally right here.

I was just going to say, I got my cards right here. Right.

It's right here. And if I feel for the moment that I'm feeling stressed out and I'm like losing sight of reality, I'll pull it up, I'll close the camera, I'll step aside. I'm still in my environment, my stressful environment, and then I'll say my affirmations. It's easy to be not stressed when you're not in the stressful environment, but if you're able to do that in the environment, that's better. But that, yeah, affirmations. I do this in the morning.

I love it. It's funny, man. I was like, I got my cards right there. Like, just the same idea in between a meeting, right before something, like, just flip through them a little bit. Just reinforce who you need, who you need to be right. And so more.

My man.

This was phenomenal. Where can people get more of you? Where can they follow you? Where can they get more of your. Your content?

Yeah, they can follow me on LinkedIn. You can listen to my podcast Sass talk boxes from week to close. I don't talk about prospecting. It's all in, like, once you actually get the lead. Yeah. Check out my podcast. That's not close. Follow me on LinkedIn on a newsletter. FTC newsletter. It's on my feature section. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, my man. Well, I appreciate you, your energy, your insights, your tactics here. Thank you so much, my dude. This is great.

Thanks, man. Appreciate.