Sell to the In-Group: How to Make the Prospect the Hero of Your Story with Belal Batrawy
31 Jan 2026 · 2 min
This is a podcast episode (host Kevin "KD" Dorsey; guest Belal Batrawy) about sales messaging and positioning. The episode explains how to make the prospect the "hero" of your story using in-group framing and provocative messaging that triggers the limbic brain, includes tactical examples for outreach and demos, and opens with a sponsor ad for Clary's Revenue platform. A concrete example cites CFOs facing healthcare cost rises of 9–15% year over year.
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Every company has breakdowns in their revenue process. Sure thing. Deals slip into next quarter, competitors creep in and swipe deals away at the last minute, and deals getting single threaded that don't get to power. These are just a few examples of revenue leak, but there are a ton more and they're preventing your team from reaching their sales targets. That's why I'm such a big fan of Clary's Revenue platform is the only tool that actually helps leaders take control of their revenue and thrive through any market conditions. Especially when things get tough. You can't afford to miss a single detail, but you also can't be leading by gut. Clary combines the science and the art of sales and sales leadership. So go to clary.com if you want to answer the most important question in your business. Are you going to meet, beat or Miss on revenue? Welcome to the live Better Sell Better podcast with your host Kevin Dorsey of Inside Sales Excellence, the number one Patreon group and YouTube channel for tech sellers and tech sales leaders, where we dive in deep for tactical advice on how to book more meetings, close more deals faster, and lead sales teams to success. But we don't stop there. We also focus on the person in salesperson. We talk about mindset goals, time management and so much more. So thank you for listening and if you're interested, head on over to patreon.com InsideSalesExcellence now with that, grab a notepad, get ready and let's dive into the good stuff.
One subtle thing that I didn't point out so far is that when you make this shift into thinking about how do I show my prospects and buyers that I'm part of the in group? How do I change a social paradigm? How do I create this compelling, provocative messaging that's going to invoke the limbic brain and cause my prospect to choose to show me that they can either embrace the problem or reject it. Okay, part of this is this idea of who's the hero? Who's who's the center of the story? When I call up Katie and I mention that Trinet script and I'm talking about CFOs like yourself are dealing with rises in health care costs of 9 to 15% year over year, am I the center of that story? Or is Katie's tribe of CFOs and him the center of that story? Who's the hero? Who am I talking about? I could easily have said, hey Katie, I'm part of Trinet. Trinet is a PEO that helps CFOs save on rising costs of 9 to 15% with health benefits. Who's the center of that sentence? I help my company. We do this. We help people like you that are struggling in the water, that never asked for help. We throw out free life rafts and buoys to save you. Oh, you're not drowning. Oh, you don't want help?
No.
I'm shocked. I'm shocked. I always wonder those people when we used to have malls open, right when I go into the store and they'd be like, can I help you? Why do you lead with that? It's such a stupid question, right? Instead you should say something like, who are you shopping for today? Yourself or someone else? That's a great opener, right? Walked into the store for a reason. I'm assuming you're here for someone. Must have someone in mind. Is it you or someone else? That's a great opener. I'm looking for me. Okay, men's section is over there. Let me know if you have any questions. I'm looking for my wife. Okay, women's section's over there. I don't know if you have any questions. We have, we have some deals on xyz, right? Like people don't want unsolicited help. We're not interested in that. It's a turn off for us. So you look at your sales copy, you look at your messages, your emails, your demo, your disco questions. Who is it about? Who's the center of the sentence? Is it your buyer or is it you? Because the buyer is supposed to be the knight in shining armor and you're supposed to be Merlin. The whole point of what you're doing is to give the magic sword that's going to help that knight slay the evil dragon. Your job is not to be the hero. Don't be the hero. You know, step out. That's why I call it the mic drop method. In 20 seconds or less, I can go from getting a hello on the phone to getting the other person talking and myself off center stage. I want to drop the mic. I want you to speak. So I'm going to ask, I'm going to frame a problem that I know you have. And I'm going to ask you a question, how you handle it. I'm going to take a step back and let you take the floor and address it. I don't want to talk. I'm not the hero. So that's a huge part of this, right? So the classic line that I see on all the LinkedIn profiles, like all these sellers, like the most generic profile tagline that I see is we help or I help. Blink with blink. I help. CFOs struggling with rising benefit costs. You know, I help. I help. You know, doctors get more appointments. Okay, who's the hero in that sentence? Seller. It's the seller, not the buyer. Who's supposed to be the hero? Supposed to be the buyer? Seller. Play your part. Instead of saying, I help, blank with blank, be like, do you struggle with. Have you found that? What issue are. Have you had enough of. Now you're talking about me. Gotta make it about them, not you.
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