The Mic Drop Method to Frame an Inverse Outgroup with Belal Batrawy

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What we want to do fundamentally is provoke, is create this artificial choice in the road. You either got to go this way or, or you got to go this way. All right? And both, you know, whatever you decide to do, it's your decision. There's consequences. Just, just be aware of those consequences. All right, so how do I provoke? How do I create this fork in the road that people got to choose? So I'm going to give you an example. And Katie, forgive me if this is repetitive because we're digging back to the podcast episode that we did about provocative messaging way back when, but that, that's the formula. All right, so I, I, I've got a, I've got a free worksheet you guys can, can sign up for from, from my LinkedIn profile. It's called the mic drop method. It's the way to do this on a cold call. So we follow four steps. You do permission problem, provoke promise four steps. So permission based opener. Hey Katie, you're not expecting my call? Do you have a moment? I promise to be brief. Great. I know that the number two cost after payroll for most fast growing startups like yours is health benefits which have been increasing 9 to 15% year over year in the state of California. How are you handling your second largest cost, rising 9 to 15% year over year? What did I just do? Right? I didn't say anything about my company, I didn't say anything about my offer. I didn't say anything even about myself. I just asked Katie a really well thought question that was framed in an intelligent, insightful way. I already know what your second largest cost is, Katie. I already know you spend most of your money on payroll and I already know how much your costs are increasing year over year. Now there's, there's three outcomes to this. Outcome number one is they go, nah, our benefits increased last year 6%. Really? Wow. You know What? That's great. Congratulations. Because the majority of CFOs that I speak to are not beating the curve before I let you go just so I can learn. How did you manage to beat the curve? What are you doing differently that's showing you success? Just so I can be informed. So now they're choosing over here. No problem. That's not you. The other is that people embrace the problem. They actually start talking to me about that. They answer the question right. They start telling me, well, we've been talking to our broker about that. Now I've gotten them to embrace an issue that I know can be polarizing. How do you address this? This is not something that has an easy answer to it. And I've got them on this side. The most common response to this sales pitch was people going, who is this? Or who is this? Again, because they were so surprised, in 20 seconds flat, they went from hello to being asked such a thoughtful, insightful question. And when that happened, I just repeat. Hey, this is B dad calling from Trinet again. I know that your second largest cost after payroll is health benefits, and those have been increasing 9 to 15% year over year. Just curious, how are you handling your second largest cost rising that much? Just go right back into it. I'm provoking around a problem that I know is difficult for my buyer to address. Let me give another example. Okay, so at Stratify, I was an advisor for them and they sold the product to wealth advisors. And there was a bunch of tools already in the marketplace, so highly competitive space. Okay, again, we don't want to sound like all the other fruit vendors. We don't want to claim that we're better and we're this and we're that because all the other ones are claiming that they're better than this and that. And what we were selling was not new or unique. I mean, we obviously, we thought it was unique. We knew that we were doing something different, but hell, our prospects didn't know that. So here was our opener. All right, again, permission based opener. We used to use the connect and sell one. Can I have 27 seconds to tell you why I called? Fantastic. Okay. And then we'd say a lot of wealth advisors cobble together tools like riskalyze, hidden levers, and totem in order to create risk profiles for their clients. How are you creating risk profiles today for your clients? We would name our top three competitors right then and there, and we would use the word cobble because cobble has a negative connotation to it. Right. I have to piecemeal shit in order to get the job done. We already knew what it was like for a wealth advisor. We already knew those tools were never sufficient. On their own they were okay, but they weren't great. And again, we'd get two reactions. Either people would be like, no, I, I love Risk alliance. I think it's great. Or yeah, we use hit. We just signed up for hidden levers. It's, it's, we're excited to use it. Hey, no problem. Great. I got nothing to sell you. Congratulations on finding a winning thing. If it ends up not working out for you, would you be okay with me reaching out in six to nine months time just to check in on how things are going done or they would actually address it? Yeah, we hate risk allies. I just don't even believe in risk profiles anymore because it's never worked for me. And they would start embracing the problem and talking about was a lot easier to get them to embrace the problem than to object to a pitch. It's a lot easier to get them to embrace the problem than to object to a pitch. So you don't pitch, you just problem state. And again, there's no other vendor in the market doing that again. Your competition is going in with the stuff. We talked about roi, unique selling propositions, features and logos. All of a sudden you're coming in from a completely different angle. This goes back full circle just so I can drill this home for you guys to this idea of inverse out group. If you're in, you know what the problem is. If you're in, you know what's up. If you're out, you're just, you know, talking about yourself and not really understanding what's going on. In my world, when you can frame a problem and then ask me a thought provoking question around that problem, you show me you're here, not here instantly. And just like that, in 20 seconds on a cold call. We did this right. We showed them that we get them and we manipulated the social paradigm from buyer versus seller to something more favorable. Like a student asking a teacher trying to learn, how are you doing it? What do you do today to address that?

And y', all, I want to give y' all the 2am test here. That question you need to practice hundreds of times so that when the moment is there, you can actually deliver it. Because if you deliver this but you don't sound confident, then you're in trouble, right? Like, oh, hey, hey, blah. So I talk with CFOs all the time and they really, no, I called the 2am test, I should be able to hit you up at 2am on a Saturday morning. I don't care how many Red Bull vodkas you've thrown back and maybe a Long island iced tea. You should be able to deliver that just with the tone. Because otherwise you miss your shot. Because, you know, he's talking about this, scanning this in and out. Which do you think we're more prone for? Scanning people out or scanning people in? What do we do faster, Scan someone out or scan people in? We scan out. We are. Any interaction you have with someone you are looking for any reason you can to scan them out. They're not part of my tribe. They're not part of me. They are not safe. So if you don't nail the tone when you deliver this, even if you say what well is talking about, it's gone, you've missed that shot. So practice this question, y'. All, over and over and over. Driving into the office, if you're going the office, when you're walking the dog, like, just like this is so important, but you have to deliver it the right way.