Pitch the solution early and they stop needing you

Thank you, Mihras, and thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate really appreciate the opportunity to talk about things I love.

Nineteen ninety six. I I think well perhaps everybody wants to start their own business sometime, or at least a lot of people do. but for me, it was at my first sales training course where I was being trained, something called K training in nineteen seventy nine, along the Bayswater Road in London. And I remember sitting there and thinking I'd like to be the bloke up front doing the training and unfortunately i it took me twenty years to get around to it which is probably a good thing.

I well the number one thing for most organizations is finding new business leads, new opportunities, filling the pipeline. it's it's the thing that most people struggle with. That's why we get inundated by emails from people offering to do it for us. all businesses, if you if you unless you've got very good spam controls, you know, you get endless emails from people offering to do your cold calling for you. and these days, of course, you you get there's plenty of e

AI platforms out there that that offer to do some form of it as well.

well, the the thing is is to figure out what they're trying to accomplish and and put yourself on their team. It's simple as that really. if you look at the website you'll see it's enormously broad. It's I started with a website in nineteen ninety-eight, I think it was. And what happens with the consultancy is every time you build some every every everything's different. Everybody wants something slightly different. So you tend to build things for what people want. And and then you think, well somebody else might want that, so up it goes on the website. over time it becomes a sprawl. well certainly if that's been the case for my website anyway. so it's a bit of a lad in its cave really but but then that hopefully it's adding lots of value. That's that's what I hope that's it's my intention for the website.

treating it treating them more like sales and less like project management. It's really the challenge of a complex sale is trying to get two herds of cats on the same page at the same time. And 'cause you've got all you you y if it's high value, let's say, you know, a million pounds or half a million pounds or hundreds of thousands of pounds or even tens in some cases, y there's lots of people on your your organisation who contribute to that effort. And there's lots of people in the customers organization who have to be consulted or involved in the decision-making process. and getting those two groups of people aligned is quite a challenge. So I I suggest that more often complex sales anyway, it's more like project management and less like say interpersonal skills. you need the interpersonal skills, you've got to have all that under your belt. that there's an awful lot more to it that you have to take into account and and manage. and this is all all of course you're managing it, although none of these people report to you. None of the people in your own organisation or the customer organisation actually report to you. So it's all about persuading people to do what you need them to do rather than being able to direct them to do what you need them to do. Even in your own organisation.

well you have you you've got to be able to contact you've got to be able to speak to a broad range of people within the customs organization, and that alone is sometimes the challenge. you'll find that quite often somebody's appointed to be the interface for the potential vendors and that person, maybe deliberately, maybe not deliberately, tends to try and channel the information through themselves. Whereas in actual fact you need to you need to have a conversation with all of all of the stakeholders, all of the people who are contributing to the decision. There's something I call clear, and precursor to that is something called the three rules. Three rules are make no assumptions, which is really difficult to do. And declare your intent to make no assumptions, which is easy to do but nobody ever does it. Nobody argues with it either. You say I'm trying I'd like to try and avoid making assumptions in this process. Is that okay with you? And nobody's ever gonna say no to that, are they? nobody's gonna say, I want to make assumptions, and they don't. And so if you've made that agreement, then whenever there's an assumption arises, you can you can call back to that agreement. It's like a a way of reaching out and saying, Well, should we examine that? and then don't talk about the solution because as soon as in sales, as soon as you talk about the solution, they say, Great, send me something, or you know. put it in writing and then they think they don't need you anymore. So because every time you call them after that, they think you're just saying you're calling to say, Well, have you made your minds up yet? Which probably you are. And they haven't 'cause they were all these hurdles, internal hurdles that they've got to sort themselves through. And so y you mustn't talk about the solution until you've drawn out all the stuff you need to talk about. Because otherwise why do they need to talk to you, right? And and that's really difficult to do because you know most about the solution because that's what you're selling, and the customer doesn't want to talk about their soft underbelly. to Covy phrase that one. I think that's where I got it from. so they don't want to talk about their problems, they want to talk about this exciting stuff that they might buy. and so the salesperson and the customer collude to talk about the solution. So it's really, really difficult to not talk about the solution. And so clear is circumstances leverage expand advantage requirement and this is written up on the website again so anybody who wants to go and if if if any of this is struck a chord go to the website you'll find a panel in the right hand side that says clear follow that and it it more or less explains the whole thing. Now I mean there's some s there's quite a lot more behind it but but it's enough to get you started on what we're talking about there.

Yeah, that's that that's the s I think that's the second level. So the first level is pre-qualification. Does it fit your ICP? Do they fit your ICP? The second level is quantified qualification. The third level is historical conversion rates. And the fourth level is the salesman's gut instinct. So those are those are the four levels in the article. I'm sure you'll refer into an article.

well the the quantified bit, well I've I've been I've been I attended lots of sales courses. I've read hundreds, if not thousands, of books. and so the quantified qualification bit was drawn out of pulling on all the good qualification questions that are out there. So I mean, whatever you follow, even if it's simple money authority me man or Scotsman or Medic. Any one of the other dozen or so acronyms out there that tend to guide qualification, they're all based on a series of questions, bands, whatever. And it was learning some of that or distilling some of that and creating my own version in a way that you can score the questions. So the statements. So in the in the QQA, I call it quantified qualification assessment. this their statements. And so such as I understand how this this is a simplified version. I understand how this requirement is going to be funded, right? or that's not actually one of them though. It's along those lines. They won't come to my head off the top just like that. but so you score them out of ten or any number you like really and that gives you a way of assessing where you think you are. And the idea is if you know the answer, you score high. If you don't know the answer, you score low, and then adjust it accordingly, depending on how much you know about each statement. And if you've looked at the assessment, I think there's 14 questions on the win predictor. and they're distilled from the questions that top salespeople ask when they're trying to qualify a sale around the world. That's where I got them from. And it's no secrets. If you go and Google it, you'll find endless stuff on this.

Ha ha. there are people who are there are people who like talking to other people more than some do. So there's some people hate talking to others and and others love it, right? And that's a good starting point. You need to like talking to people to to be good at selling. you need to at some point become quite masterful of interpersonal communication skills, right? And understand how persuasion works and how influence works. however those things can be learned. So if if you're motivated to do it, so the number one thing is really motivation, do you want to do it? And that lots of people think sales look hate hate the idea of trying to talk to somebody about doing something that they're not doing at the moment and persuading them to. had exactly that question. I was I was invited to give a talk at my son's school, and it was about it was the Six Formers and and

it it was how b how do they you know get the places they want at universities and get jobs and all that sort of thing. And during the break one of them said to me, Well what you know, what is this selling thing? And he was just sort of challenging. And and so I what is selling? Selling is helping people do what they want to do. And this didn't stick with him. So I said, Well what do you like? You know what what's your passion? And it turns out like many many youngsters at school they want to be in a band one of my sons is in a band and there's been several bands over his and he so I say, you want to be a rock star? So he kind of sheepishly grinned and said, Well yeah, kind of he's a guitar player. and so I I said, well if if if I could show you a way to more reliably get into that kind of business and be successful at it, would you want to know more about it? and that's a that's a terrible sales lie really, but it's one that it works. As long as you're talking to somebody About their passion, what they really want. So sales is about helping people do what they want to do. And if that sounds odd, because well, why don't people do what they want to do anyway? well, how many of the people you know are doing exactly what they want to do? Some are, sounds like you are. you know, if you love doing these podcasts, you're doing what you want to do, right? but most people are in jobs they don't really want to do. Isn't that true? and so a and even in business, businesses are they doing what they want to do? it's always a compromise, isn't it? And so figuring out how to help people do what they want to do, that's what selling is. That's my definition of

I ha I

Okay, it's coming, the robots are coming. I use Chat GPT every day and I quite enjoy engaging with them. it rather. it it's it's endlessly polite, it's never critical, and I get stuff done with it, right? I've had calls from AI SALS bots. not many because as you may know, the law is not clear on it in Europe, certainly the UK anyway, as to whether it's automation or not. Because if it's automation you can't you can't you know, there are rules against it. but if it's not automation then maybe you can, but that's not been cleared up yet. So so at the moment all of the AI stuff is limited to sending e emails, automating the email process, right? and again it's something I teach is what if if you're going to the best way of getting somebody to engage is to mount a campaign. And so you you produce a series of messaging. It can be delivered via multiple channels. Every message has to be related to what you can do for people, but has to be new and different and interesting. And not pushing them to buy. So the idea is you get an engagement with them through conversation over time. What you're pushing for is them to say, stop sending stuff to me. I know is good as a yes, or okay, let's talk. And you if you build a series of a dozen, 15 messages. some of them can be voicemail messages even. then what What happens is you'll get to that point. You'll get to that point where they either engage with the sending. Even if they say no, you can go back in six months' time and either they'll ch they'll be changed, their situation will change and you can start all over again, right? So there's n never say never. you don't have to give in. the point is is not to get boring. Because if you're boring or if you're too direct or too buy this, buy this, buy this, then they just block you. Right? I mean it's easy to do with modern technology to exclude anybody sending stuff from your email address or your domain or whatever you want, you know. And so and and so y you absolutely when you do the email stuff, you should have a one click unsubscribe. And the automation, the AIs can do this really well if they're if they're set up to do it properly. And they're gonna get better and better. They are. And at some point I imagine they'll probably clear up the in in Europe or the UK, the use of the technology, an actual call. I don't know if you know, if you tried talking to Chat GTP, you can have a voice on it now and and it's I it sounds like a real person. It's a bit verbose. It's a bit bit verbose, but it's it's really good. And as I say, I I don't talk to it every day but I use it every day. and I

I think it will happen and probably AI will take over the first levels. Do people prefer to talk to a person on an AI? It depends. If the person is really good at their jobs. This I've just finished another article about about how do you how do you it does ai actually improve your sales, does it actually improve your results or not? And that depends what you use the safe time for because it will save you a bunch of time. But what do you use that time for? And the what you have to do is to get better at selling. You still have to get better at selling. And so there's quite a lot to do To get your team, just though they may be able to rely on AI to get the first step on the ladder, they've still got to get much better in order to get the benefit of using AI, right? so I don't think it's the end for humans, not quite, not yet. Although there's lots of scare stories out there. So I just that does that answer your question? I'm not sure. I I could talk for hours on this subject.

It's not no, you know, if you if you talk to it, you know it's not following its yes, it has to have guidelines, it has to be trained, absolutely. you or I can go to an AI, you can sign up on Chat GPT and arrange to pay them some extra money and then you can train an avatar to be you just by uploading all your stuff to it. And it's not that difficult. You can you don't have to be a coder anymore, you can write software with them. I do frequently. I've started some fairly involved projects using AI. I'm I'm not a coder.

Hay Yeah, retrain as a coda. no, I don't know. I love the only reason I'm still doing the main reason I'm still doing what I'm doing is because I love doing it. you know, helping people do what they want to do. the the the advice the reason I'm a bit skeptical about diving into a consultancy type training, sales training type business is because people tend to only do it when things are going well. What I've discovered is that as as economies wax and wane, when there's when you're doing well, you tend to think, well, we haven't done any sales training for a while, let's do some sales training. Or if somebody needs something, you you you're okay with the money, it's easy. But as soon as the purse strings tighten, the discretionary spending stops. And sales training is discretionary spending. So and like some some elements of marketing, it's discretionary spending. So as soon as as soon as You know, the the things tighten up, people stop doing things like that. And so you get this roller coaster. Maybe it's true in all businesses, I don't know. I think I would have if I could have started again now with knowing what I know now, I would probably invest a lot more in systemizing stuff and coming up with useful platforms. Not necessarily CRMs. CRMs don't work very well because they don't they don't multiply sales on their own because they don't make the sales job easier. They just make salespeople more controllable. I think the main reason for having a good CRM and enforcing its use is for the managers to feel like they're in control of salespeople because salespeople are not very easy to control typically.

That's that's like cast my back to my myself back to nineteen ninety six and what would be the see there weren't really any CRMs then, even then. the technology it was the the internet was still early days. I built a website and making information available. Information, it was all about getting stuff out there in the beginning. you could you could sell any kind of old information data online back at the beginning. I'm not sure what I would do. I'm not sure I would even do it in the same business. But as I say, I've it's pa and I've not made a fortune, but it's paid my way. I've put kids through private education and and I love doing it. So probably maybe I would do the same thing, I'm not sure. I don't know how to answer that question. Today, of course, it's completely different.

this well the website HTTPS colon slash slash sales sense dot co dot uk with all s a l e s e n s e dot co dot uk. anybody who wants it can get a copy of one of my books which is called Sales Success Formula. it's it's forty odd pages, it's not you know, it's not a thin lead magnet. It is a lead magnet, because i if you Got the book, and you read it and think that's all good ideas. you'll find you don't have the resources to do it, and and all the way through, I'm saying, you need some extra help, come and give give me a call. So it is a leave admit, but it is one that it it details six common obstacles to success in selling and how you deal with them, and it gives you blow by blow how to do it. So this it doesn't hold anything back. there's something I've it's currently got a price tag on called the SALS 60. Called the Sales Professional Toolkit. I've got loads of free assessments on the site. One of the assessments is in that, but also a whole bunch of answers on what to do about any areas you want to strengthen. And there's something called the called the power to speak in public, which I wrote about 25 years ago, maybe more. And I've just recently won gone through it and updated it all, and that's on the website as well somewhere. think I'm offering that for free, anybody who asks for.

It's been a really enjoyable experience. don't wish it away. Don't wish it away. It all goes far too fast. And thanks for having me for having me on the show and and I've really enjoyed it and you ask great questions. Thanks, Micholas.