Latest / What is Business Development? / Episode 163: “How To Sell When You Hate to Sell” with Dr. Shane Smith
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, brought to you by
- 0:07Speaker 1: the Global Business Development Association, delivering the strategies and tactics
- 0:12Speaker 1: to boost your career and corporate growth.
- 0:22Speaker 2: Hello, BD pros, and welcome to the BD Podcast, the
- 0:26Speaker 2: official podcast of the Global Business Development Association. And today
- 0:31Speaker 2: we're here with a guest author, Dr. Shane Smith. And,
- 0:36Speaker 2: you know, hey, let me ask you folks a question.
- 0:39Speaker 2: Have you ever felt like you were in a situation
- 0:43Speaker 2: where there's a call you have to make? You know
- 0:46Speaker 2: exactly which one I'm talking about. Maybe it's that follow-up
- 0:50Speaker 2: email you've drafted four times and you never sent it.
- 0:53Speaker 2: Maybe it's that referral you keep meaning to ask for.
- 0:56Speaker 2: Maybe it's that price you haven't raised because raising it
- 0:59Speaker 2: means having a conversation you'd rather avoid. Now you're stuck
- 1:04Speaker 2: between two bad options. Either you can learn to sell
- 1:07Speaker 2: the way that sales guys sell, which feels like it's
- 1:11Speaker 2: fake and it's a little gross, or you can keep
- 1:14Speaker 2: avoiding that conversation and watch your business stall. Well, we're
- 1:19Speaker 2: going to have a great conversation today with Dr. Shane Smith.
- 1:21Speaker 2: But before we do that, let me have a conversation
- 1:24Speaker 2: with you. about the business development body of knowledge. This
- 1:28Speaker 2: is the universal guide for our profession, recognized by business
- 1:32Speaker 2: developers around the world as our common.
- 1:34Speaker 3: Body of knowledge.
- 1:35Speaker 2: And once you read the book, then go over to
- 1:38Speaker 2: our website at gbdassociation.org so you can learn how to
- 1:45Speaker 2: get your business development professional certification. Okay, folks, we're going
- 1:51Speaker 2: to talk with Dr. Shane Smith today. about his new book,
- 1:55Speaker 2: it's available on Amazon, How to Sell When You Hate
- 1:59Speaker 2: to Sell. Now, Dr. Shane Smith is an entrepreneur, a
- 2:03Speaker 2: business educator, an author, and a creator of the NICE
- 2:11Speaker 2: sales method, a practical approach to selling for people who
- 2:14Speaker 2: would rather help customers than pressure them. Before entering academia,
- 2:20Speaker 2: Shane built his career in the business world where he
- 2:23Speaker 2: discovered something that would eventually shape his approach to teaching sales.
- 2:27Speaker 2: And that's you don't have to become an aggressive, high-pressure
- 2:31Speaker 2: salesperson to be successful. You can sell by asking better questions,
- 2:37Speaker 2: listening carefully, and helping people make decisions that are right
- 2:41Speaker 2: for them. His book, How to Sell When You Hate
- 2:45Speaker 2: to Sell, introduces the NICE method and challenges the idea
- 2:49Speaker 2: that successful selling requires being pushy, slick, or someone you're not.
- 2:54Speaker 2: His philosophy is simple. Great selling is about convincing people.
- 2:59Speaker 2: It's about guiding people with questions that help them self-discover
- 3:02Speaker 2: their need for change, their need for your offer. Well,
- 3:08Speaker 2: with no further ado, let's bring Dr. Shane Smith to
- 3:12Speaker 2: the show. Shane, welcome.
- 3:14Speaker 3: Thank you. I'm glad to be here. I really appreciate it. Yeah.
- 3:19Speaker 2: It's great to have you on the show, Shane. Can
- 3:20Speaker 2: you tell folks a little bit how you entered the
- 3:22Speaker 2: business development profession and did you write the book? Yeah.
- 3:27Speaker 3: Um, so it wasn't by choice. Um, so right out
- 3:32Speaker 3: of college, which was a long time ago now, back
- 3:35Speaker 3: in the nineties, I think the culture of coming out
- 3:38Speaker 3: of the business school, uh, at that time, I call
- 3:42Speaker 3: it the Michael J Fox effect. A lot of his
- 3:45Speaker 3: characters really, uh, personified the mailroom to C-suite kind of climb.
- 3:52Speaker 3: And that's really what I wanted to do. And I
- 3:57Speaker 3: didn't necessarily get the dream job that I had hoped
- 4:00Speaker 3: to out of college. And what that meant is instead,
- 4:05Speaker 3: I had to go back to the family business, which
- 4:07Speaker 3: was a very strong, thriving business. There were almost 200 employees.
- 4:14Speaker 3: But being that I had already done the mailroom and
- 4:17Speaker 3: some other aspects within that company over the summers as
- 4:21Speaker 3: I interned, the job that my stepfather had for me
- 4:26Speaker 3: was sales, a producer, an account executive. And gosh, that
- 4:32Speaker 3: was the most awkward thing for me to try to do.
- 4:36Speaker 3: It just at that, especially at that time of my life,
- 4:41Speaker 3: I will tell you, I'm an introvert. I'm socially awkward.
- 4:44Speaker 3: Why I ended up in sales and then later standing
- 4:47Speaker 3: in front of hundreds of people every day as a professor,
- 4:50Speaker 3: I don't know why, but that's where I landed. And
- 4:56Speaker 3: to make matters worse, it was insurance sales. And I
- 5:02Speaker 3: don't mean that that's bad, but what I mean by
- 5:05Speaker 3: it is the perception of it is bad. oh, I
- 5:08Speaker 3: got to work in sales and I got to sell insurance.
- 5:11Speaker 3: I'm an insurance salesman. Oh my gosh. So yeah, that
- 5:14Speaker 3: was my beginning to it. And we were unique. We
- 5:19Speaker 3: sold insurance that Jake from State Farm wouldn't touch. So
- 5:23Speaker 3: we sold, actually my stepfather was a carny at one
- 5:27Speaker 3: point and he got into insurance and started this business.
- 5:31Speaker 3: We sold insurance to carnivals across the whole country. And
- 5:36Speaker 3: so that was the cool part of it. Um, but, uh, it,
- 5:40Speaker 3: it meant that I had to travel, which was fun
- 5:42Speaker 3: at that young age, but I had to sell. That
- 5:45Speaker 3: was my only focus in that role and the existing Salesforce, uh,
- 5:52Speaker 3: in there that trained me, which really wasn't any training.
- 5:56Speaker 3: It was just kind of like model what I do kid. Um,
- 6:00Speaker 3: it was not a good fit for who I was
- 6:04Speaker 3: and I tried to change. to be their way. And
- 6:09Speaker 3: it was me in another skin and it was not
- 6:13Speaker 3: comfortable to me at all. And so I just went
- 6:17Speaker 3: back to being me. And through time, I kind of
- 6:21Speaker 3: discovered a pathway through that sales process that taught me
- 6:28Speaker 3: how I could be me, stay in my own skin
- 6:32Speaker 3: without trying to pretend to be somebody else. and make
- 6:36Speaker 3: the sale and make clients with great retention throughout the years.
- 6:43Speaker 3: And I taught myself that method, if you will, but
- 6:49Speaker 3: it wasn't a method at the time. It was just
- 6:51Speaker 3: me being me. And it wasn't until later, 15 years
- 6:56Speaker 3: after being in professional sales, that it became an academic
- 7:00Speaker 3: and got my PhD. And without me wanting it because
- 7:05Speaker 3: I was trying to run away from sales as far
- 7:07Speaker 3: as I could, I landed at the one university that
- 7:10Speaker 3: had the world's largest collegiate sales competition. And they asked
- 7:15Speaker 3: me to teach sales. So I couldn't get away from it.
- 7:19Speaker 3: And now looking back, I'm very grateful for it because
- 7:23Speaker 3: being in that role as an academic now, learning from
- 7:26Speaker 3: the actual proper ways of selling, not just being salesy,
- 7:33Speaker 3: But having corporate sales training, learning consultative selling, and learning
- 7:39Speaker 3: techniques like the spin technique, Neil Rackham, that gave me
- 7:45Speaker 3: a foundation of what I needed to take what I
- 7:49Speaker 3: had learned myself, apply it, and give it some form.
- 7:54Speaker 3: And I realized, wait, I have something here. And then
- 7:59Speaker 3: entrepreneurship became popular in universities. And I started working with
- 8:04Speaker 3: real life entrepreneurs out there in the real world, grownups,
- 8:08Speaker 3: if you will, that were running a business. And I realized,
- 8:12Speaker 3: wait a second, a lot of these so-called failed businesses
- 8:17Speaker 3: can't be because they weren't smart enough because they're damn smart.
- 8:21Speaker 3: It can't be because they didn't start with enough money
- 8:24Speaker 3: because they knew that going into it. And I started
- 8:28Speaker 3: conversing with them, part of my research as an academic.
- 8:32Speaker 3: And I uncovered, to my amazement, that most of these
- 8:36Speaker 3: failed small businesses, these failed entrepreneurs in their early years,
- 8:42Speaker 3: was not from what you would think, but instead from
- 8:47Speaker 3: the fear of entering a sales conversation, which guided them
- 8:52Speaker 3: to go back to their office, which was often a
- 8:55Speaker 3: second bedroom in their house, and put more money into
- 8:59Speaker 3: Facebook ads, send out some more emails. everything they could
- 9:04Speaker 3: to avoid that conversation at the luncheon at, you know, the,
- 9:08Speaker 3: the chamber luncheon or, or what have you. So that's
- 9:12Speaker 3: when I realized I really need to put this, this
- 9:15Speaker 3: on paper. I really need to share this to more
- 9:18Speaker 3: people than, than I'm currently doing in workshops. So that's
- 9:22Speaker 3: kind of what led to the book.
- 9:24Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. That's great. I love that story. Yeah.
- 9:28Speaker 2: And so when did you create the nice method?
- 9:32Speaker 3: Yeah, so I realized that what I was doing was
- 9:38Speaker 3: not salesy at all. And in fact, most of us
- 9:41Speaker 3: run away from sales because we encounter and remember the
- 9:45Speaker 3: bad sales experiences. A lot of your viewers are great
- 9:49Speaker 3: at selling and are not salesy at all. But when
- 9:54Speaker 3: you ask an entrepreneur that is good at baking brownies,
- 9:58Speaker 3: and then they wake up and realize that, wait a second,
- 10:01Speaker 3: I need to sell my brownies to the restaurants and
- 10:05Speaker 3: to the stores, that's scary. And so they avoid it.
- 10:11Speaker 3: And it had me recall my experience as a new
- 10:16Speaker 3: salesperson back in the 90s selling insurance to carnival owners.
- 10:21Speaker 3: And I remembered my first sale. And what it was,
- 10:26Speaker 3: was me just trying to avoid a sales conversation and
- 10:31Speaker 3: just trying to be a normal human being, but was
- 10:33Speaker 3: socially awkward, didn't know how to have a conversation with
- 10:36Speaker 3: a stranger. And it really just forced me to ask questions.
- 10:41Speaker 3: And the more questions I realized that I had, It
- 10:46Speaker 3: gave me some form to what types of questions to ask. Later,
- 10:50Speaker 3: the spin technique became a good foundation for me in
- 10:55Speaker 3: consultative selling. But then I realized most people still don't
- 10:59Speaker 3: want to be told what to buy. They want to
- 11:03Speaker 3: discover what they want to buy on their own. And
- 11:07Speaker 3: that's exactly what I had done unaware back on that
- 11:13Speaker 3: carnival lot that first day is my questions guided that
- 11:18Speaker 3: person to self-discovery of their own need for a product.
- 11:23Speaker 3: And that opened them up to, Hey, you know, I
- 11:28Speaker 3: sense that you're here for a reason, Shane, please tell
- 11:31Speaker 3: me now what you do. And they invited me into
- 11:33Speaker 3: the sale as opposed to me pushing through the door,
- 11:37Speaker 3: if you will, as a salesperson.
- 11:41Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. And you are officially the first, uh,
- 11:44Speaker 2: carnival insurance business developer we've had on the podcast. So
- 11:47Speaker 2: thank you for that.
- 11:48Speaker 3: I have some stories behind it.
- 11:51Speaker 2: Talk about a niche. Talk about a niche industry. Fascinating.
- 11:56Speaker 2: I'm sure you saw so many interesting things and it
- 12:00Speaker 2: was a kaleidoscope of customers that you really enjoyed meeting
- 12:03Speaker 2: and helping, I'm sure, through the years. So, all right. Well,
- 12:07Speaker 2: so Shane, let's jump into key tactic number one from
- 12:10Speaker 2: your book that you would like to share with us. Yeah.
- 12:14Speaker 3: So again, this book is geared to those of us
- 12:18Speaker 3: watching your channel and knowing that they never were comfortable
- 12:24Speaker 3: with selling. So they're reaching out and they're looking for
- 12:26Speaker 3: help here. This works with experienced salespeople that are comfortable
- 12:32Speaker 3: with it. But the person we're dealing with primarily is
- 12:35Speaker 3: that individual that's just avoiding those conversations. They feel and
- 12:40Speaker 3: they remember the bad sales experience. So they're trying to
- 12:43Speaker 3: avoid it. And oftentimes, it's just the fear of rejection
- 12:48Speaker 3: is what we call it. So tactic number one is
- 12:50Speaker 3: recognizing our fears. And instead of just saying, I'm afraid
- 12:55Speaker 3: of rejection, I like to be more specific. And so
- 12:59Speaker 3: we list four types of fears. And you might be
- 13:03Speaker 3: just one of these, or you might have all four.
- 13:06Speaker 3: So to sit with this, to recognize them and even
- 13:10Speaker 3: name them psychologically, my PhD is consumer psychology. So I
- 13:16Speaker 3: use that underlying tone in the book. But when we
- 13:20Speaker 3: recognize our fears, it helps us deal with them a
- 13:25Speaker 3: lot more. We confront them that way and we recognize
- 13:28Speaker 3: them when they happen and that allows us to do
- 13:31Speaker 3: something with them. So There are four basic types of
- 13:35Speaker 3: fears that we encounter as this type of sales experience.
- 13:39Speaker 3: And the first one is if I try to sell,
- 13:42Speaker 3: I feel inauthentic and I base my personality on being
- 13:48Speaker 3: an authentic and genuine person. So when I'm trying to
- 13:51Speaker 3: sell to someone, I'm afraid I'm going to be or
- 13:54Speaker 3: feel inauthentic or they'll perceive me as such. So that's one.
- 14:00Speaker 3: The second one is I don't want to manipulate anyone
- 14:03Speaker 3: into something that they don't want, even though I know
- 14:07Speaker 3: they need it, even though I know they will benefit
- 14:10Speaker 3: from it. I could save their business. I could save
- 14:13Speaker 3: their marriage. I could save their life. But I don't
- 14:16Speaker 3: want to put them in a position where someone might
- 14:19Speaker 3: say yes just because they felt they needed to. So
- 14:23Speaker 3: that holds some people back. The other one is relationship cost.
- 14:28Speaker 3: I have a rapport with this person. I don't want
- 14:31Speaker 3: to ask them for business because they might say yes
- 14:34Speaker 3: just to protect our relationship. I don't want them to
- 14:38Speaker 3: avoid me in upcoming encounters because they're afraid that they'll
- 14:45Speaker 3: need to do business with me. So there's another one.
- 14:48Speaker 3: That one is more with people we know already. And
- 14:52Speaker 3: then the one that's closest to rejection is I don't
- 14:56Speaker 3: want to hear the verdict. Because especially as entrepreneurs, this
- 14:59Speaker 3: is ideal for the entrepreneurs out there. When we create
- 15:05Speaker 3: our business, it's our baby. Whether it's a good or
- 15:08Speaker 3: a service, it is our baby, especially when it's a service,
- 15:11Speaker 3: when we're a coach. We're basically holding up the lion
- 15:14Speaker 3: cub to the world and the sound begins. And we're
- 15:20Speaker 3: basically asking, do they think our baby is as beautiful
- 15:24Speaker 3: as we think our baby is? And we don't want
- 15:26Speaker 3: to hear the no. And we're even afraid to hear
- 15:29Speaker 3: the yes, but question whether they truly meant it. So
- 15:33Speaker 3: we often hold that back and never even get there.
- 15:36Speaker 3: So those are the four basic fears. And if you
- 15:40Speaker 3: identify with any of them, now you might recognize it
- 15:43Speaker 3: and do something with it as you move forward.
- 15:46Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think those fears are completely normal. And
- 15:52Speaker 2: as business developers, we are the masters of anxiety. We
- 15:55Speaker 2: must master not just the anxiety of our prospects and
- 15:59Speaker 2: our customers because they're filled with anxiety. Otherwise, they wouldn't
- 16:01Speaker 2: be talking to you, but also your own anxiety. And
- 16:05Speaker 2: it's tough sometimes, but giving them a label, identifying them
- 16:11Speaker 2: gives you a pathway to confront them and start to
- 16:14Speaker 2: control them. So, OK, I love tactic number one, understanding
- 16:19Speaker 2: how you can master and control your own emotions. that
- 16:22Speaker 2: could roadblock you from being a success. All right, so
- 16:25Speaker 2: let's move on to tactic number two.
- 16:28Speaker 3: Okay. Tactic number two falls in a very common field,
- 16:32Speaker 3: but I'm going to address it in a more unique way.
- 16:37Speaker 3: And that is niching down. You need to differentiate yourself.
- 16:41Speaker 3: And this goes beyond business development. This is all business.
- 16:45Speaker 3: This is all marketing. You need to be uniquely different
- 16:49Speaker 3: and do not try to sell to everybody. Again, focusing
- 16:54Speaker 3: on the entrepreneur, but this works for every sales position
- 16:57Speaker 3: out there or business development position out there. And that
- 17:03Speaker 3: is to find your niche. And I always say niche
- 17:07Speaker 3: until it hurts and then niche some more because you're
- 17:10Speaker 3: probably still not even close to how niche you need
- 17:13Speaker 3: to be. There's this thing in psychology we call the
- 17:16Speaker 3: majority fallacy, and that's for We use it in entrepreneurship
- 17:21Speaker 3: to describe the idea of a new business owner that says, gosh,
- 17:26Speaker 3: for me to be able to survive on this, I
- 17:29Speaker 3: need to sell to everybody and just get 1% of
- 17:33Speaker 3: them to say yes. And this is why I hated sales.
- 17:37Speaker 3: I was an actual stockbroker. I had my Series 7
- 17:39Speaker 3: for a while. And that was the law of the land.
- 17:43Speaker 3: It's a numbers game, kid. Just keep dialing. You got
- 17:47Speaker 3: to hear a thousand no's before you hear a yes.
- 17:49Speaker 3: It's a numbers game. And I was like, that's the
- 17:51Speaker 3: most idiotic thing I've ever heard of before. I can't
- 17:54Speaker 3: take that many no's. So my philosophy now, and I
- 17:58Speaker 3: do it myself and I see others do it successfully
- 18:02Speaker 3: more times than the opposite way, is don't sell to
- 18:05Speaker 3: a thousand people. Sell to 10. 10 that you know
- 18:09Speaker 3: need your product desperately and find their uniqueness and position
- 18:16Speaker 3: your product specifically to them 10. those 10 and likelihood
- 18:21Speaker 3: you'll sell and get 10 yeses back, right? And if
- 18:24Speaker 3: they say no, then you likely probably didn't present it
- 18:28Speaker 3: well enough for them to really understand it. So niche
- 18:32Speaker 3: until it scares you and then niche some more for sure.
- 18:35Speaker 3: I call it the unique three. Be unique. Offer a
- 18:39Speaker 3: unique solution to unique person with a unique problem. And
- 18:44Speaker 3: if you can really hone in on You don't need
- 18:47Speaker 3: to be Nike having to sell it to the masses.
- 18:51Speaker 3: You could be a new shoe company that sells it
- 18:53Speaker 3: not to someone that is inspired to be athletic, but
- 18:57Speaker 3: is inspired to see their kid next year because the
- 18:59Speaker 3: doctor told them to get off the couch and start exercising.
- 19:03Speaker 3: A unique, it could be the same shoe, just instead
- 19:06Speaker 3: of a swoosh, it's a swish. But the way you
- 19:10Speaker 3: market it to that unique person with that unique problem
- 19:14Speaker 3: could win your target market. Yeah.
- 19:18Speaker 2: Find the people with a high probability of pain, pain
- 19:21Speaker 2: that you can solve with your product. I love that
- 19:23Speaker 2: tactic number two. And that's a lot of what we
- 19:26Speaker 2: do in business developers. It's a lot of research. It's
- 19:29Speaker 2: a lot of careful analysis, thinking through where are the
- 19:32Speaker 2: people with the pain. I always like to say that
- 19:36Speaker 2: business developers are like lifeguards. You don't run around the
- 19:39Speaker 2: beach blindly tripping over picnic blankets and people telling them
- 19:44Speaker 2: that you're there to save them. They're perfectly fine. You
- 19:46Speaker 2: need to keep your eyes out on the horizon, look
- 19:48Speaker 2: for the people that are in trouble out in the water,
- 19:50Speaker 2: and that's your job. You go out there to go
- 19:51Speaker 2: save them. So this is great. All right, let's move
- 19:55Speaker 2: on to tactic number three, Shane.
- 19:58Speaker 3: Yeah. This is the core of the book, and it's
- 20:02Speaker 3: all about the power of questions. And we use questions
- 20:05Speaker 3: in consultative approach. We use question in in relationship sales.
- 20:11Speaker 3: But I take it a step further. And again, this
- 20:15Speaker 3: Neil Rackham spin technique for those that have studied sales
- 20:19Speaker 3: at a corporate strategy level know it well. I just
- 20:24Speaker 3: take it a little bit further. And the power of
- 20:26Speaker 3: questions to put it on us, the person that doesn't
- 20:33Speaker 3: like to sell or doesn't believe that they like to sell,
- 20:37Speaker 3: this person is afraid of having a conversation about selling
- 20:41Speaker 3: their product and offering it to that person. And so
- 20:45Speaker 3: we use questions simply as a means that it's strategic,
- 20:50Speaker 3: but it also softens the opening to the door. And
- 20:56Speaker 3: many of us have been warned or told, I should say,
- 20:59Speaker 3: to just educate them. Just inform them about the value
- 21:04Speaker 3: and the greatness of your product. And we often end
- 21:07Speaker 3: up in the friend zone and then they go buy
- 21:09Speaker 3: from someone else that actually asked for the sale. So
- 21:13Speaker 3: we don't want to do that. But oftentimes just asking
- 21:17Speaker 3: questions with no purpose is misguided as well. So we
- 21:23Speaker 3: do want to lead with questions, but it's more than
- 21:26Speaker 3: just helping ourselves, although it does. it opens the door
- 21:32Speaker 3: for their own self-discovery. And what I've created is a
- 21:38Speaker 3: format of questions. I call it the NICE method, N-I-C-E.
- 21:44Speaker 3: N is for notice type of questions. I is illuminate,
- 21:48Speaker 3: C is cement, and E is exhale. And basically, it's
- 21:54Speaker 3: a strategic order of questions where N, the notice questions,
- 21:59Speaker 3: are for you to learn a little bit more that
- 22:02Speaker 3: you couldn't find when researching before the meeting. But the
- 22:07Speaker 3: big part is those questions are softballs and they loosen
- 22:11Speaker 3: up the buyer to a point where they are no longer, yeah,
- 22:16Speaker 3: I allowed you to come in here today to try
- 22:18Speaker 3: to sell me on something because I need to have
- 22:20Speaker 3: an open mind, but I'm closed and I'm ready to
- 22:24Speaker 3: say no at all costs, right? So we know that
- 22:27Speaker 3: questions loosen them up. And so we're going to use
- 22:30Speaker 3: the softball questions, give them the sense of, okay, they're authentic.
- 22:36Speaker 3: They're truly trying to learn about me. I appreciate that.
- 22:39Speaker 3: So it lessens the guard a little bit. And then
- 22:42Speaker 3: the I and the C questions, illuminate and cement questions
- 22:47Speaker 3: work together. Because oftentimes, in fact, I probably guess more
- 22:54Speaker 3: than 90% of the time, as a salesperson, as business development,
- 22:59Speaker 3: our biggest competition is not our competition. It's the buyer
- 23:04Speaker 3: themselves and their status quo. They are fine with whatever
- 23:09Speaker 3: product they currently have. I'm good, right? It's in our
- 23:14Speaker 3: reptilian brain to stay with what we know because it's
- 23:19Speaker 3: safe here. We know our own devils. We're fine. That
- 23:23Speaker 3: is status quo. So when we enter a sales conversation,
- 23:26Speaker 3: It's typical for them to say, nope, thank you, but
- 23:29Speaker 3: we're good, no matter how good of a conversation you have.
- 23:33Speaker 3: So the illumination questions are questions that start uncovering their problems,
- 23:39Speaker 3: their pain, or missed opportunities. And the cementation questions start
- 23:44Speaker 3: making them feel how heavy of a problem or a
- 23:47Speaker 3: pain this really is. They said, oh, it's not that bad,
- 23:51Speaker 3: but your questions are uncovering just how serious they are.
- 23:55Speaker 3: And if you do these well, by the time you
- 23:58Speaker 3: get to the fourth and last question, they are really
- 24:02Speaker 3: sensing this. You've led me into this dark forest. How
- 24:05Speaker 3: in the world do I get out of here? And
- 24:08Speaker 3: so your fourth question is an exhale question, a release
- 24:13Speaker 3: and a relief. And that's the opportunity when we all
- 24:16Speaker 3: know we can say, if I showed you a way
- 24:18Speaker 3: that you could get out of this dark forest, would
- 24:21Speaker 3: you be interested in hearing how we could do that?
- 24:24Speaker 2: Right.
- 24:25Speaker 3: And We all know that question, but now we've created
- 24:28Speaker 3: this sense of, wow, you didn't injure me, but you've
- 24:33Speaker 3: made me feel my limp. And I realize now I
- 24:37Speaker 3: probably should look at correcting that. Please tell me, Shane,
- 24:42Speaker 3: what can you do for that? And I've had people,
- 24:44Speaker 3: when I've done it right, people beat me to the
- 24:47Speaker 3: Excel question because I built up so much of that.
- 24:51Speaker 3: I hate to say anxiety, tension for sure. of them
- 24:57Speaker 3: thinking about something they often don't want to think about,
- 25:00Speaker 3: and now they're there. I like to think of it
- 25:03Speaker 3: as a counselor, not a consultant, but a counselor. It
- 25:06Speaker 3: goes past the consultant. Think of watching a movie with
- 25:11Speaker 3: a stereotypical counselor sitting behind you while you're laying on
- 25:14Speaker 3: the couch. There's a box of tissues on the table
- 25:18Speaker 3: side of you, and you've been seeing them for months.
- 25:23Speaker 3: All they've done is ask you questions about you, your life,
- 25:26Speaker 3: your family, and your history. They've known for the past
- 25:30Speaker 3: two months what ails you. But it wasn't until today
- 25:35Speaker 3: they asked you the questions that made you sit up
- 25:38Speaker 3: in that couch and say, my gosh, this whole time
- 25:41Speaker 3: it's been my mom, right? And that's the self-discovery we
- 25:45Speaker 3: want the buyer to feel like, oh my gosh, it
- 25:48Speaker 3: is more serious than I thought. Please help me. What
- 25:51Speaker 3: can you tell me what to do?
- 25:54Speaker 2: Yeah, so powerful, so powerful with these questions. And I
- 25:58Speaker 2: really like the structure that you have, this nice method
- 26:02Speaker 2: of structuring those questions in a certain way that is
- 26:06Speaker 2: sequenced to lead to success. All right, Shane, if we could,
- 26:12Speaker 2: this is the point in the show where I like
- 26:13Speaker 2: to summarize what we talked about today. So tactic number
- 26:17Speaker 2: one is that first powerful nature of, really engaging with
- 26:28Speaker 2: those that you need to understand what your competitive differentiator
- 26:33Speaker 2: is out in the marketplace. What's that unique value proposition
- 26:37Speaker 2: that you have? And then the second thing is understanding
- 26:43Speaker 2: how you can niche down, right? Niche down and niche
- 26:46Speaker 2: down even more and find the unique problem for the
- 26:51Speaker 2: unique person with a unique product that can really help
- 26:55Speaker 2: solve that problem for them. And then the final tactic
- 26:59Speaker 2: was this nice method. It's to notice, it's to illuminate,
- 27:03Speaker 2: it's to cement, and then it's to give them the
- 27:06Speaker 2: pathway into Excel, that success pathway that really, at the
- 27:13Speaker 2: end of the day, transitions you from a salesperson, transitions
- 27:16Speaker 2: you even more from a consultant and transitions you into
- 27:20Speaker 2: a counselor. that really helps guide them into self-discovery. And Shane,
- 27:27Speaker 2: how can folks discover you online? How can they connect
- 27:30Speaker 2: with you? How can they get a copy of your
- 27:33Speaker 2: book and follow your work and become one of your
- 27:35Speaker 2: clients as well?
- 27:37Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, first I'd love for them to explore the book,
- 27:42Speaker 3: which is available on Amazon. If you Google or if
- 27:46Speaker 3: you search that term, probably add my name just to
- 27:49Speaker 3: make sure. as there are some similar titles out there.
- 27:53Speaker 3: You can't miss the big yellow print though. So another
- 27:57Speaker 3: way is to visit the website, niceguy.biz, niceguy.biz, and that'll
- 28:04Speaker 3: take you to my website there. We take people all
- 28:07Speaker 3: the way through cohort versions of a group of 10
- 28:11Speaker 3: people at a time through this book to develop their
- 28:14Speaker 3: own specific questions, to hone down on their niching, So
- 28:19Speaker 3: when they leave it, they are comfortable to enter that conversation.
- 28:24Speaker 3: So absolutely.
- 28:26Speaker 2: Great. Well, you've been a nice guy. You've shared your
- 28:29Speaker 2: nice method with us. And we've had such a wonderful
- 28:32Speaker 2: time with you today, Shane. Thank you so much, Dr.
- 28:36Speaker 2: Shane Smith. Love to have you back again sometime soon.
- 28:39Speaker 3: Thank you for the opportunity and to speak to your viewers.
- 28:43Speaker 3: Thank you.
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