Top Tips: Mastering Sales. Highlight Reel [Part 2]

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute, and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian, and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Here at AI, we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations, and we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. And so, in this sparring session, what we're going to do is we're going to focus on the two techniques, Empathetic reversal and the Higher authority close. And so Jason is going to try to sell me this software as a service platform that helps us with marketing. I'm going to be a little bit difficult, and he's going to show us how to use those techniques in a realistic scenario. Sound good?

Yeah, let's do it. This should be fun.

All right, perfect. So, everybody in this situation, we've had a couple of preliminary discussions, so it's not just starting from scratch. And now we're getting closer to the close. And so we're having this call at this point. So, Jason, we'll just start off with hello, and then we'll take it from there. So, Jason, how are you doing today?

I'm doing great, Kwame. How about yourself? How are things?

Doing all right. Doing all right. The summer has finally come around, which is nice. And, yeah. Excited to hang out with the kids and then play outside, so can't complain.

Yeah, that's good. Perfect. So I know that last time we spoke, we had gone through a little bit of the process, and I know that you had some questions for me or some things that we want to talk about before moving forward. Yeah.

And so, just to be candid, here, we are exploring a lot of different options when it comes to this particular platform. And so I want to let you know it's not just your platform we're considering. We're considering two of your other competitors as well. And so, really, when it comes down to it with the features that you offer. What are some of the key differentiating factors between you and them?

Well, you know, I think what's interesting is that a lot of the platforms do very similar things. I mean, yes, there's reasons to compare and there's some competitive differences. But I think really the key for me and our conversation, what I think is the best fit for you, Kwame, is that when we talked about it before and looking at what your company needs, there's certain features in our program that actually help you get to where you need to go. I mean, yes, of course there's going to be other tools that might do certain things for you, but what I saw from our conversation and you said your goals is to grow your marketing system and your platform and then also help with your role in marketing, being, you know, overwhelmed. And you have to tie in all these things. You're running marketing campaigns and feeding the sales team, that there's so much going on that this tool would help you in your world, in your role as, you know, a marketing manager.

Right? No, you're right there. And I think when it comes down to it, I'll be honest, we like your platform. We wouldn't be having this conversation if we didn't. And really, for us, at this point, it just comes down to the terms. And of course, I have what I want as the marketing manager, and then of course, I have a boss who wants to save money and a CFO who wants to save money even more. And so those are some of the concerns. And so when it comes to the terms, one of the things, especially coming out of the legal department that they wanted me to really push hard on is a cancellation process. And, yeah, that's something we're going to really need if we're going to move forward with this.

And I totally understand that. I see that all the time. I mean, you know, for us, what we found is very important is for people to get into an agreement with us for a certain amount of time. And that way everybody is in this relationship together and it's going to move forward. It's like joining a gym, and you want to join a gym month to month, and then you just stop going. Or do you just commit to it and then make it a routine and a habit and make it effective. What I found is when people do not get into some kind of commitment, especially with their marketing software, and if it doesn't work or they don't put in the time and effort, then they blame the software instead of making it A whole thing. So that's really the key that I found. But let me ask you, what is it about the terms or the process that say, your legal department, because that's who we're really talking about, what they're concerned about.

Yeah. And again, you know how it is when you get lawyers involved in the process, it becomes a little bit more difficult. But they really want to make sure that we're protected. We want to make sure that if things don't work out, that we can get out and make the necessary adjustments. So that's why they need to see that term in the agreement.

Got it. Well, all of the cancellation terms will be in the agreement.

Now, obviously, especially, you know, when we get lured into sales, people tell us it's a great career, which it definitely is, and we come in expecting to make tons of money right away and we don't make it, we get disappointed. My goal was to help those people as well, to improve their sales hustle. So the things that I would share today definitely will benefit company sellers or people who are in career right now, as well as those who are selling for themselves.

Very nice. So how would you describe your typical approach to sales?

The best way I could describe it. I spoke with a gentleman early this morning as well. And the thing that I actually would share with him, I share with you. It's all about building value. We've all heard Glengarry Glen Ross, the idea of ABC always be closing. Well, that stuff doesn't work. It may have worked for one time, it may work in some industry, but typically those are the guys that we all shy away from. It's the sleazy sales that we don't want to mess with. I like the idea of value based. Right. I like to be able to bring value to the table. When I define sales, I define it very simple. The simplest way I can share is that when you try to help others persuade themselves to get something, a product or service that's going to be in their best interest, for which they will compensate you for your efforts. So your job becomes this educator of value. For instance, if I am a doctor, say a chiropractor, and I know the benefit of healthy adjustments can do for individuals, especially those with lower back pain, and to be able to have a better way of life and function, it's my obligation to be able to educate someone about that service that they may not have known about, of how it can help them to have more peace and not wake up with pain or to go to work with pain. It becomes that Moral obligation for me to dispel, to share value and educate people that they can make decisions. You want your clients to make a decision for themselves as opposed to them feeling that you trick them into doing something. One of my first episodes was with Jeffrey Gittamer. And Jeffrey said, people like to buy, but they sure hate to be sold. No one in their right mind would say, I want to get sold something today. It's like, no, people want to go and buy something. If anyone tell you I got sold a car, they're disappointed, they're frustrated, they're angry. They want to return that car because they got sold, quote, unquote, bamboozled, tricked into getting it hoodwinked. If people say, I bought a car to feel more in control. And our job as sellers is to educate people that they feel in control, that they take that initiative and say, I did this, that I bought this car, and they'll go around and tell other people more about you. So that's my approach, is to really, really go forward and express value, share value and give value back in return. And we have can give value in so many different ways. And we could talk about that as well.

Yeah. Today, very excited about this. We are going to talk about three really important topics when it comes to sales and sales negotiations. And the first one is red flags for a bad deal. So how do we know whether or not this is a good deal for us to pursue? How to assume an authoritative power position, and then lastly, having those negotiations over budget. I know for people in sales, that is one of the most frustrating parts of the process. We're definitely going to spend some time digging in there. So how about we just start off with identifying whether or not it's a good deal. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Yeah. So, I mean, when I was in sales, I did 10 years of corporate sales for Xerox and American Express. And at the end of the day, we lived in this kill and eat type of mentality. You were always going after whatever was showing up. And as even entrepreneurs sometimes, we often filter out whether a client is a good prospect or not as well. Do they have a credit card and a pulse? And that sounds like a really good idea. Only to find out that if we pursue every single opportunity like that, we can end up getting stuck in what I like to call the winner's curse. You can sometimes win the deal and then curse yourself every single day that you're dealing with this terrible client, the one that's taking up too much time, demanding way too much doesn't understand the value. And so when we started the program, Kosalesu, I wanted us to start looking at from a different complete mind shift where it wasn't that we had to go out there and talk to every single person, but rather ask yourself, when I'm sitting in an opportunity with a client, is this the right person for me? Do they fit that ideal buyer Persona for myself? Do I want to work with them? When I understand what their goals and ambitions are, does that make me really excited? And if the answer is no, I think we need to be much more careful and respect ourselves a little bit more in the idea that we can actually walk away from those opportunities. We'll talk a little bit more about whether they have the budget and other types of lead qualification aspects of this. But when we start to understand that we don't need to say yes to everybody that has that credit card and the pulse, we can actually hold ourselves as a higher ground and ultimately it will allow our prospects to want us even more.

I love this point and it's a fantastic point because a lot of times when we are in those types of conversations, when we have the opportunity to close a deal, we feel almost obligated to do so. And whenever I'm working with people, I talk about the fact that negotiation isn't the art of deal making, it's the art of deal discovery, coming together with the other side to figure out whether or not a deal even exists. And I really like the point that you made about determining whether or not it's a good fit by your level of excitement. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Yeah. So, I mean, when we're going and getting to that lead qualification side, even determining if it's the right deal, old school sales was really focused on, well, what's your client's challenge, what's their problem and can you solve that problem? And, and this is really stemmed from, you know, Challenger really owned the space in this, the Challenger sales model, which was, you know, find out what the client's problem is, put a band aid on that problem, and, you know, it's all fixed. And so one of the things that we would say when I was working in corporate sales, I mean, this was an iconic question that we would ask is, you know, Mr. Or Mrs. Customer, what is keeping you up at night? And we would like use that as the forefront of starting the conversation. Now here's the reality is that, I mean, in today's day and age, Dr. Google and WebMD have solved every problem for everyone that has ever existed. You know, there are no problems for our clients anymore. And anything that they feel that they have, they just go to Google search and they. They find, you know, the top four vendors that can, you know, appease them or they're wiki how ing the solution and they find out the solution is just way too difficult. They're like, well, maybe it's not that much of a problem anymore. And so we don't want to be problems like, you know, solution discoverers, like, not necessarily, but we don't want to be band aid solutions at the end of the day, right? We're not looking for the bleeding wound so we can throw a band aid on it, but rather we want to help our clients achieve more. We want to be the catalysts and the opportunities as, you know, partners in a lifetime of discovery. You know, what more do you want to achieve, Mr. Mr. Customer. Right, what? Well, you know, what, what are your goals? What are your aspirations and. And how do you align with them? And it's so important to understand what those big picture goals are because, number one, if the deal goes south, right, hopefully their goals haven't dramatically changed. And you can always go back to that point. And.

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