Ryan Dohrn breaks down his 3D Sales Strategy: prospecting, running effective meetings, and keeping customers long-term. In meetings, ask three discovery questions: what's the core problem, how long has it existed, and what have they tried. This sequence builds psychological commitment and positions you as the solution.
Hey friends and fans, Ryan Dohrn here with your sales training tip of the week. This week we're talking about the 3D sales strategy that I so often deploy when I'm meeting with my customers. I'm asked all the time, hey Ryan, how do you sell as much as you sell and still do all the other things that you do— speaking and running conferences, and your wife has businesses and all that different kind of stuff? It's because I'm super organized and I'm super strategic. Now let me just give you a point of honesty. The way that God designed my DNA, okay, I— or whoever you think designed you— I'm just not an organized person by nature. I'm kind of one of those, woo, let's just have a good time kind of people. But what I— a person— what I recognized is that when I'm organized in my sale, when I've got my sales process and strategy really ironed out like I do with my 3D Sales Strategy, I almost always move further, faster with each one of my customers. Now, if you follow me for a while, you know that I'm a big fan of the power of 3. And so that means I always present 3 pricing proposals. I have 3 words in my subject line, 3 sentences max in every email. I reach out to people every 3 business days. So why would my strategy of asking questions in my 3D sales process be any different? So the 3 dimensions, or the 3, if you will, levels of my sale First is prospecting, then it's— the second is having great meetings, and the third is retaining customers for a lifetime. Now, when I'm on a meeting with somebody, I also deploy another 3-step process, and that is helping them or asking them what their problem is. The second step of that is finding out how long or how big this problem is, and then the third is to figure out what they have or have not done to fix that problem. Now, the reason I do that is because it allows me to be the person that removes pain, their pain, from the occasion. So let's walk through a little scenario together. I'm meeting with a customer, having a really great conversation. I get to the point in the process where I'm asking some questions, and I might be talking about what their pain points are. For example, I might say, if I could wave a magic wand, so to speak, and eliminate one of the pain points that your business has right now? What could I do to help relieve that pain? How could I be the biggest help to you? Then they give me either a pain point, a problem, a goal, something that they want, they desire, and something like that. Now normally I want to focus in on big pain points and what my software, my media, my products, my services can do to eliminate that pain. Or help ease the pain. So whatever I ask as a question, I really want to identify their biggest pain points, however you want to ask it. Then the next piece, the second step of this, is I want to find out how long has this been a problem. Has this been a problem for a month? Has it been a week? Has it been a year? Has it been the last 5 years? I want to identify very specifically how long they've been struggling with this little piece, this little area of focus. Then the third thing that I want to do is I want to find out what have they done? What have they done to fix the problem, to alleviate the pain, to get over the hump, to reach the goal? Now, the third piece is kind of important. It really is psychological. The reason it's psychological is because if I can get them to admit that they've, A, got a problem, if I can get them, number 2, to admit, hey, they've tried to fix it and haven't been successful in fixing it, number 3, I can get them to help me understand how long that's really been a problem. Well, then friends, you've got a winning scenario on your hands, especially if your product or service can help alleviate pain or eliminate the problem. Psychologically, I want them to declare out loud that this has been a problem for the last 6 months, or they've tried other companies, other software, other marketing ideas to alleviate this problem, and it still hasn't gone away. You know, something that I observe, friends, on almost every sales call is that most people don't have a plan. They don't have a roadmap that they follow on each one of their sales calls. Now, we've talked about it a bunch of times, but this is one piece of my total sales call, and that is identifying their problem, figuring out how long they've had this problem, and then figuring out how much money they've spent or what they've tried to do to fix this problem in the past. Friends, every single meeting with a customer, an advertiser, or whatever should follow some type of plan. What you don't want to do is, well, you know, every client is different, every advertiser is different, every customer is different. Yeah, but if you handle your sales strategy that way, you'll never be able to identify repeatable patterns of success. And this 3D process that I'm sharing with you— what's your problem, how long has that been a problem, how much money, time, effort, and energy have you spent to fix that problem— that's one piece of the total meeting that helps you be able to help them identify the pain and position yourself as a person that can potentially be a savior, be the person that removes that pain. Never forget, friends, in the total sales process, a total process is built up of all kinds of little pieces and plans. This is one of those pieces that I want you to really think about as you're asking questions and trying to get deeper with your customers and build Better relationships. Never forget, friends, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it. And they're not. We're not crazy. I mean, we're a little— I say that jokingly. We're a little crazy. Sales is a great job. It'll feed your family for a lifetime. Friends, love to come and speak at your sales conference. Love to be of help to you and your team. If I can be of help, reach out to me over at ryandohrn.com.
