Unravel the Things Left Unsaid by Your Prospect with Charles Muhlbauer

Foreign.

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. So something for everyone listening, right? The old school way of, like, get them to say yes. Get them to say yes. Get them to say yes. The more yeses that they say, the more likely they are to say yes is not true. In fact, what they have found is if someone has the ability to say no, they're actually more likely to say yes. It's when people feel trapped that they push back when they don't feel like they have a choice. And that's why I like the way that you ask this what I also want everyone to listen to. He has been dropping some very serious insights on how to do discovery. But I want you to listen to his tone. I want you to rewind and go back and listen to what tone he gets into when he's asking his discovery questions. It is a very calm, confident, inquisitive. This is why, like, I go against the grain with a lot of sales people. Like, I don't actually ask my reps to stand when they're on a demo, right? Or like, energy creates, you know, emotion. I actually want you being calm because when you're hype, you don't listen. You don't listen. You're gonna miss the little things, right? And so the little things are what matters, right? Sometimes it's the things that are not said that matter most as you go through discovery. Like, how do you work with your team to catch those nuances, right? Or to take that pause or to ask that extra question of the things that maybe aren't being said as you go through discovery.

So two things. One, when I'm having a coaching session with an AE and they're talking to me differently than how I hear them on the call, going to ask them straight up, why do you talk to me differently than when you talk to a prospect and say, what do you mean? Your tone is very calm. You're treating me like somebody you Know, you're much more casual, still professional. Why. Why are you treating me differently? I find that the AES that perform really well. I mean, there are many reasons why they perform well. Okay, Many variables to it, obviously. But the AES that do perform well in general sound just the same on the phone as they do when they're talking to me. There is no difference. And so tone is a big thing. The second thing, and, Kevin, part of me, if I missed part of your.

Question.

When paying attention to things that are unsaid, which are sometimes the most important, the way to help get there is to recap. Is to recap. And there are AES that are afraid to recap because they're afraid to indirectly communicate to the prospect that they don't understand something. That's one reason why they're afraid to do it. Another reason why they're afraid to do it is they are afraid to. They find that recapping what someone just said doesn't do anything. Like, why would I recap what you just said? Like, what does that accomplish? I'm just. Wouldn't you be. Wouldn't you have the reaction of, why are you repeating what I just said? But when you recap what someone said, one of two things happen. They either say, exactly, you got everything correct. Which is what I want to know. Two is they'll say, well, no, that's not exactly what we do or how we do it or what the problem we have is. It's this. Oh, okay, clarification. Or three, you got it exactly right. And they say, yeah, and. And then they tell you more. That also gives the AAE a chance to continue to think when I'm recapping what you just said. It takes any pressure off of me to think about what I want to do next or what I want to ask. It's actually an amazing solution to take all the pressure off me when I would normally say without recapping. Oh, okay, Kevin, cool. And then I'm like, what do I want to ask next? In the meantime, I could just recap. Oh, so what is that? So what you're saying is this, this, and this and that. Oh, interesting. And now I'm, like, out of my head completely, and now I can listen more, be more present, be more curious, and the questions will come better. And the worst case scenario is, let's say, I don't know what question to ask next and there's silence on the phone. I just say, kevin, I apologize. I'm just processing what you just said and taking some notes on that so I appreciate it. So I just love. Recapping is an amazing, amazing tool. So simple.

It's simple. And I want everyone listening. Pay attention here. Right? There's a difference between recapping and parroting. A lot of reps parrot. They just say back what the person said. That is not recapping. Okay. When you know, okay, so which one of these you're struggling with? Yeah, I'm struggling with connect rates.

Okay.

You're struggling with connect rates? Struggling with connect rates. Okay, got it. That's just a parody. You're just saying it back now. Some of my favorites there, like tell me more is one of my favorite discovery lines by far. But I love to set it up with like a curiosity builder. Right. Of they say something, you go, interesting. Really?

Huh?

Oh, wow. Like something that makes them like, it triggers curiosity. Like, oh, interesting. Can you. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? I haven't heard it phrased that way before. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? I think you might approach this differently than others. Right? And you give them that little justifier as well. That kind of lifts their ego. Oh, that was always my favorite setup is a curiosity response with a tell me more with a justifier. Oh, interesting, huh? Charles, Tell me a little bit more about that. I haven't heard someone phrase recaps that way before. Like, could you give me a little bit more?

That's very cool. I like that a lot. Another formula is simple formula that I help AES execute in order to keep the thread. They said something you and you say, oh, that's interesting. When you say X, then the next part of that sentence is when you say X, how do you mean? How do you mean? Actually, I'll talk about this for a quick second. Is not. It's not. What do you mean by that? What do you mean by that? Can come off as aggressive and make somebody defensive. How do you mean? Maybe grammatically doesn't make any sense, but when you change. When you say connect rates, when you say you have a problem with X, how do you mean? People open up, and that's like a mini formula. When you say X, how do you mean? When you say y, can you tell me a little bit more about that? So I like yours as well. Just a different version of it.

And that's the beauty of this. Shawn, I hope you can hear this.

We go through.

There's a lot of ways to do this, but the themes are very similar. We are trying to ask questions. We are trying to build curiosity through our questions and the beauty of questions. I don't think it's any surprise that we share very similar backgrounds in discovery if one of your favorite books was question based sellings. It's one of my favorite books too. Right. Is you can actually sell through questions because you wouldn't be asking some of these questions if you didn't have solutions to them and that's what people forget about discovery. I wouldn't be asking you about connect rates if I didn't have a way to improve your connect rate. And so you're subtly like planting seeds of they may have something for this as well through discovery which I think is really really good. You got permission. Right. And I'm a big believer in this as well. You know a lot of salespeople feel like they you know you want to avoid being told no so I'm just going to ask it. I'm not going to get permission. Right. Especially when it comes to the tough question.