Unravel the Things Left Unsaid by Your Prospect with Charles Muhlbauer

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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, I'm 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, pardon me if I missed part of your question. The to. 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're 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. 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 next. 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 up. 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, does it 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, like, hear this. We go through. There's a lot of ways to do this, but the themes are very similar. Right. We are trying to ask questions. We are trying to build curiosity through our questions. And the beauty of questions. Right. 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 selling. 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've. 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 gonna ask it. I'm not gonna get permission. Right. Especially when it comes to the tough.