In this interview, host Peter Winick talks with Andy Paul, founder of Zero Time Selling, about the challenges of selling complex solutions in today’s multi‑buyer environment. Andy argues that the core mission of a salesperson is not to persuade but to provide the precise information a buyer needs to make an informed decision. He frames every sales interaction as a question‑and‑answer exchange, emphasizing that sellers must identify the specific information gap at each stage, answer it completely, and do so quickly to maintain momentum. Continuous prospect qualification throughout the buying cycle is essential, as is avoiding the habit of reinventing the wheel for each deal. By treating complex sales as a repeatable process focused on speed, completeness, and clear information delivery, sellers can simplify complexity and gain a first‑mover advantage.
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Peter Winick. Today I am here with my guest Andy Paul. Andy is the founder of Zero Time Selling and the author of Zero Time Selling, which is a 2011 top 3 sales and marketing book.
Nice of you to get that in, by the way.
Thank you.
That plug, thank you.
Here's the plug. Here we go. We can do it again in slow motion if you'd like. So we live in a world today where it's rare that one buyer is making a sales decision. So a sale is more complex, meaning there's lots of people involved. Sales are more complex because the product solutions and offerings that we sell are more convoluted. They touch more different areas of the business.
Sometimes, yeah.
Right? A lot of cases. How do we— how can you be successful selling complex things in a complex world? How do you make that simple?
Well, I mean, some things are sort of irreducibly complex, but the sales process isn't really one of those. I mean, I think that's really one of your tasks as a seller is how do you break it down to its most basic components? Because I think people sort of misunderstand what their mission is on a daily basis when they're out trying to sell. OK. And so—
and the mission is?
Well, so conventionally, you ask people what they think it's about, and they say, well, I have to convince the customer to buy the product.
Convince, persuade.
Persuade, and so on.
That's old-school selling. Here's how I— I think it's old-school selling.
So really what you're trying to do Because you are trying to give the customer the information they can make— they need to make an informed purchase decision.
Okay.
So at its heart, what really selling is about is just questions and answers. And if you think about that as my role as a salesperson is to provide the information the customer needs to make a decision. You know, and that's based on certain questions that they have. And so no matter how complex the sale is, every day when you approach that, that Let's say, is there should be a question that you're answering, right? That's what's motivating you to call that customer.
So if there's a question that you need to answer every day, and I like keeping it simple, basically kind of taking it up a level and going, okay, I'm putting this PowerPoint together for this meeting, or I'm doing this for this call, the question I'm trying to answer is X. So now you have to think about, okay, am I doing that quickly enough? Because speed's important, we've talked about that. And is my answer intelligent enough? My answer is okay, right?
Right, because what happens is that And this is, this is a real problem that sellers have in general, is when deals go slow, right? Then the first thing they do is they blame the customer, right? I was at a conference recently, and the organizer of the conference, a well-known name in the sales field, said, well, geez, this seems unfair because there's all these mechanisms online, social media, for sellers or for customers to rate sellers and companies, but there's nothing to rate buyers because we should be rating buyers because buyers are slow, right? There could be slow companies And I'm sitting there thinking, gosh, I like this guy, but he's got it completely wrong, dead wrong. Because when a deal loses momentum, it's because you as a seller aren't providing the information the customer needs to move to the next step in their buying process.
Right.
Now there are exceptions, right? There could be things happening that are outside your control. But in the main, this is the reason deals go slow, is the customer's not getting the information from you they need to progress in their buying process.
So you— so the gap could be you thought you answered his question, but you did it incompletely.
You did it incompletely, right?
He's still perplexed.
He's still perplexed.
So you have clarity, right? You can move to the next level. Right.
So you should be able to evaluate every deal you're working, even the most complex, by saying, what is the information the customer needs now? What's the answer the customer needs now to take that next step in their buying process?
And could it be as direct as, you know, sometimes in a sales process things are moving pretty quickly and then you hit kind of a little bit of a rut and you're not sure, you're guessing that it's They're involving other people, but you— I mean, is it okay to ask them, say, hey listen, what is it that you need from me? What can I answer for you right now to make your life easier, to make this an easier decision for you to make whether it's a good or a bad decision?
Right, you should always be asking that question, right? Because it's sort of like prospect qualification. You're continually qualifying the prospect throughout your entire sales cycle because there could be a point where they're no longer a qualified prospect for what you're selling. Similarly, continually ask them the question, what is the information— if you're not aware, if you haven't If you don't have a lot of experience, let's say, and you're not familiar with the information that you need to provide at each step of the buying process, then yeah, you need to be asking. I mean, if you're an experienced seller, you should pretty well know, right? For the customer to make this decision, these are the things they need to know, these are the timeframes they're going to need to know it within their buying process.
Right.
And be able to serve them that information with additional information to help them with that context that we've talked about before, developing a context for the decision. But it shouldn't be a mystery to you, right? Salespeople typically go out, especially even in complex sales, and they seem to want to recreate the wheel every time, reinvent the wheel every time there's a new deal. It's like it's, it's a mystery to them. Yeah, it's not a mystery.
So sales guys, regardless of the complexity of the product offering or solution, the salesperson's role is pretty simple. Answer the questions, answer them effectively, and answer them quickly. That's what you're saying.
Answer completely is really the key, right? If you can do it with speed, it's going to help you because there really is a first mover advantage in sales.
Great. Thanks so much. Andy Paul, author of Zero Time Selling and founder of the firm by the same name.
