Latest / What is Business Development? / Episode 119: Top 3 Takeaways from "Fix Your Broken Sales Calls" with Jonny Holsten

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Episode 119: Top 3 Takeaways from "Fix Your Broken Sales Calls" with Jonny Holsten · What is Business Development?

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, brought to you by
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  Speaker 1: the Global Business Development Association, delivering the strategies and tactics
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: to boost your career and corporate growth.
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  Speaker 2: Hello BD pros, and welcome to the Global Business Development
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Association podcast called What is Business Development? Now? Folks, a
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  Speaker 2: lot of companies they'll obsess over pipelines, close rates, and
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: revenue goals, but then they'll miss out on the one
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  Speaker 2: metric that drives everything. And I bet you'd like to
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  Speaker 2: know what that one metric is. But hey, before we
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  Speaker 2: get to that, let's talk about some metrics that you
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  Speaker 2: can learn in this fine book called the Business Development
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  Speaker 2: Body of Knowledge. And this book is available on Amazon,
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  Speaker 2: and when you read the book, you can then take
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  Speaker 2: the Business Development Professional Certification exam online at the Global
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  Speaker 2: Business Development Association website. That's at Gbdassociation dot org. Now,
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  Speaker 2: let me tell you a little bit about this other book.
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  Speaker 2: It's new on Amazon. It's called Fix Your Broken Sales Calls.
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  Speaker 2: It's by our guest today, Johnny Holston, and this gives
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  Speaker 2: you six steps to better conversations, shorter sales calls, and
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  Speaker 2: higher close rates. And you know, let me also tell
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  Speaker 2: you a little bit more about the book. When you
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  Speaker 2: use this book, you're using the same methodologies, this six
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  Speaker 2: step system that's used to train hundreds of sales pros
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  Speaker 2: and generate tens of millions in new revenue by improving
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  Speaker 2: the very deals that are one and lost on And
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  Speaker 2: our guest today has a lot of great experience in
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  Speaker 2: all of this. Johnny Holston not only is he the
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  Speaker 2: author of Fix Your Broken Sales Calls, he's also the
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  Speaker 2: creator of Bridge Selling framework, and he's worked with small
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  Speaker 2: businesses and large businesses that are over one hundred million
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  Speaker 2: dollars in annual gross revenue, and also some household name
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  Speaker 2: brands to help them improve their discovery calls, shorten sales cycles,
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  Speaker 2: and build consistent, repeatable sales systems. Johnny specializes in helping
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  Speaker 2: teams turn unpredictable sales conversations into measurable, coachable processes that
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  Speaker 2: drive predictable revenue. Well, I know we would all love
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  Speaker 2: to have some predictable revenue, and uh, let's bring our
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  Speaker 2: guests to the stage. Johnny Holston tell us about some
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  Speaker 2: predictable revenue that we could get with Bridge Selling.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Tony, thanks for having me.
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  Speaker 4: I appreciate the time today and looking forward to dive in.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great to have you here, Johnny, and folks again,
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  Speaker 2: we're going to talk about Johnny's new book. It's called
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  Speaker 2: Fix Your Broken Sales Calls. You can get it on
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  Speaker 2: Amazon and it has the six steps to better conversation,
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  Speaker 2: shorter sales cycles, and higher close rates. So, Johnny, can
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  Speaker 2: you tell us a little bit how about how you
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  Speaker 2: got into the field business development written large. I know
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  Speaker 2: you're a sales expert, but how did you get to
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  Speaker 2: the into the field? Then why did you write the book?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 4: The reason I wrote the book is my origin story
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  Speaker 4: actually begins in marketing messaging. So for years I would
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  Speaker 4: travel around either go visit a client in.
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  Speaker 3: Person or do something remote.
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  Speaker 4: I'd work with marketing teams and we'd focus on what's
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  Speaker 4: our marketing message that's going to attracted an ideal qualified lead.
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  Speaker 4: And what I noticed was time and time again, and
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  Speaker 4: ranging from small businesses to huge corporations with large budgets,
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  Speaker 4: they had the same common challenge, which was when a
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  Speaker 4: lead is generated, they didn't always have a clear game
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  Speaker 4: plan for how they were going to execute that conversation.
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  Speaker 4: And so I realized even brands with great marketing, great messaging,
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  Speaker 4: They were leaking revenue oftentimes like crazy because they just
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  Speaker 4: didn't have a game plan going into their either discovery
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  Speaker 4: calls or consultations with a buyer.
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  Speaker 3: Or whatever they would call a sales call.
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  Speaker 4: And that led me on a journey to say, all right,
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  Speaker 4: how can we develop a frame market a methodology that
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  Speaker 4: is a few things. One, it helps stack the deck
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  Speaker 4: in the favor of the salesperson to close the deal, right,
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  Speaker 4: how can we set them up for success? How can
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  Speaker 4: we also eliminate bad fit buyers as early as reasonably
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  Speaker 4: possible in our sales process? And the third thing is
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  Speaker 4: how can we create sort of a mutual framework for
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  Speaker 4: selling where the buyer doesn't feel taken on, you know,
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  Speaker 4: yanked around, They feel served, not.
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  Speaker 3: Sold to, is what like to say.
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  Speaker 4: And so that really ultimately led to the creation of
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  Speaker 4: the Bridge Selling Framework, which solves for all three of
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  Speaker 4: those things. And on top of that, it's also a
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  Speaker 4: scoring formula. It's a scoring rubric. So if you use
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  Speaker 4: the Bridge selling Framework, you can create a custom scoring
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  Speaker 4: formula for your deals and your calls, and we can
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  Speaker 4: get deeper into any of those things. But that's that's
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  Speaker 4: really the background story was saying, all right, how can
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  Speaker 4: we help teams have better conversations with their buyers?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is great, Johnny. I'm really excited to jump
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  Speaker 2: into the content of the book. Everything you just indicated
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  Speaker 2: those top three things I was doing today in CRM,
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, a lot of that rush and you know,
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  Speaker 2: as business developers were constantly out there engaging with our prospects.
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  Speaker 2: We're nurturing them and we're you know, addressing those leads
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  Speaker 2: that are coming inbound and those leads that were actually
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  Speaker 2: pursuing outbound. But really, at the end of the day,
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  Speaker 2: it comes down to preparation and process and if you
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  Speaker 2: don't have those, you can spin your wheels a lot. So, Johnny,
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  Speaker 2: let's jump into the top three takeaways or tactics from
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  Speaker 2: your book. Again, folks, I'm showing the cover on the screen.
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  Speaker 2: If you're just listening, it's the book is called Fix
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  Speaker 2: Your Broken Sales Calls by Johnny Holston. You can find
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  Speaker 2: it on Amazon. Johnny, let's talk about the number one
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  Speaker 2: top takeaway from your book.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think the biggest takeaway is that we want
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  Speaker 4: to eliminate as much subjectivity from the.
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  Speaker 3: Sales process as possible.
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  Speaker 4: Sales and by nature it's very subjective, right, and you're
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  Speaker 4: sitting in a deal review, or you're reviewing a pipeline,
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  Speaker 4: or you're looking at your leads list, and you're trying
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  Speaker 4: to figure out why it did a deal close and
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  Speaker 4: why did another deal not close? And many times there's
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  Speaker 4: not a clear answer for that, or there may be
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  Speaker 4: some hunch one way or the other. The takeaway in
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  Speaker 4: the book is a great sales process.
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  Speaker 3: It should be.
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  Speaker 4: As objectively measurable as possible. And so the one thing
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  Speaker 4: you'll notice in the book is to close a deal,
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  Speaker 4: you've got to effectively talk about six different things or
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  Speaker 4: always be talking about these six things in the book
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  Speaker 4: that we go over. And the beauty of that is,
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  Speaker 4: once we know what the six things are, we can
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  Speaker 4: accurately point to a deal and say either this is
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  Speaker 4: stuck because we haven't done these things, or it closed
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  Speaker 4: because we did, or we lost it because we did not,
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  Speaker 4: and uh the Yeah, the first takeaway is eliminate subjectivity
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  Speaker 4: as much as possible.
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  Speaker 3: And that's that's where I like to start.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great, Johnny, because I you know, we're constantly
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  Speaker 2: plagued with this subjectivity, especially for sales leaders or b
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  Speaker 2: D leaders, Uh, we love to all sit around the
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  Speaker 2: table with the team and and and then assess what
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  Speaker 2: our p WIN is on a particular deal. And p
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  Speaker 2: WIN is probably those one areas. It's the metric that
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  Speaker 2: I think has the most subjectivity involved in it sometimes.
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  Speaker 2: So having that objective that eliminates that. First of all,
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  Speaker 2: it gets everybody on the same sheet of music, and
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  Speaker 2: we're all comparing apples to apples, and we're not just
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  Speaker 2: addressing what a particular business developer thinks their p WIN
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  Speaker 2: is just by spitfalling and going, well, now I think
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  Speaker 2: my p WIN is forty percent. Okay, well why do
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  Speaker 2: you say that? You know? So can we dig a
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  Speaker 2: little bit deeper into how do we eliminate that that subjectivity?
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  Speaker 4: Well, the first way to do it is we'll use
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  Speaker 4: the analogy that's in the book, which is closing a
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  Speaker 4: deal or closing a sale. Now, this could be either
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  Speaker 4: advancing from one stage to the next. So let's say,
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  Speaker 4: if you're an SDR, your version of a quote unquote
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  Speaker 4: closed might be converting to a handoff to the next stage. Correct,
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  Speaker 4: So that's how we want to view this analogy. At
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  Speaker 4: least is closing a deal or closing a stage. It's
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  Speaker 4: like crossing a bridge. That bridge has six different things
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  Speaker 4: that must be done for it to work right, and
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  Speaker 4: that is we need to know our buyers. They need
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  Speaker 4: to be accurately qualified. We have to match those pain
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  Speaker 4: points with a solution. We have to answer every question
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  Speaker 4: and go deep into Q and a overcoming objections all
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  Speaker 4: those things. Then we need to give clear next steps
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  Speaker 4: and either close the deal or schedule. And when we
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  Speaker 4: looked at many different sales processes, it always came down
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  Speaker 4: to those six things happening. And so how we can
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  Speaker 4: eliminate that subjectivity is to say those six things that
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  Speaker 4: I just gave you are generic. But the beauty is
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  Speaker 4: we can actually change the titles and change the words
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  Speaker 4: and change the meaning of each one of those steps
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  Speaker 4: to make it hyper specific to each company. And that's
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  Speaker 4: where you go from a generic framework to a unique
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  Speaker 4: framework for your company. Now then it's a matter of
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  Speaker 4: did we do these things, did we partially do these things,
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  Speaker 4: or did we skip a step?
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  Speaker 3: And that's where you get very.
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  Speaker 4: Very clear cut, subjective feedback on your deals and your
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  Speaker 4: sales process.
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  Speaker 3: And that's the first step of it.
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  Speaker 4: The next step is just holding to a high stand
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  Speaker 4: like if you're a sales leader, you're a manager, or
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  Speaker 4: even if you're an individual contributor, you need to hold
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  Speaker 4: yourself to a standard where you are being honest and real.
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  Speaker 4: If you skip something or you did something haphazardly like
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  Speaker 4: you need to have hold yourself accountable so you can
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  Speaker 4: have objective clarity, even if it's just yourself that you're
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  Speaker 4: thinking about it for.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is great, Johnny, because you know you're listing
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  Speaker 2: six steps. You know, you get the pain points, qualify,
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  Speaker 2: so on and so forth as you indicated. You know,
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  Speaker 2: I think some folks who may be listening might be
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  Speaker 2: involved in business development engagements that may be complex. Some
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  Speaker 2: people call those enterprise sales deals or large business of
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  Speaker 2: business deals. However you want to frame it where there
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  Speaker 2: may be more complex, more steps involved. But folks, regardless
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  Speaker 2: of whether it's six steps for your company or you know,
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  Speaker 2: fifty steps for another company, where there may be an
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  Speaker 2: actual complex engagement, you're going to find as a company
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  Speaker 2: that there are a certain number of steps that have
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  Speaker 2: to be executed and completed successfully. Otherwise your p WIN
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  Speaker 2: is zero. And so you get away from this. The
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  Speaker 2: beauty of your system, Johnny, is you get away from
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  Speaker 2: this whole subjectivity of thing as well. I think my
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  Speaker 2: p WIN is thirty percent. I think mine's forty percent. Okay,
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  Speaker 2: let's just stop guessing and let's just show me what
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  Speaker 2: you've done. If you haven't checked off those boxes, you're
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  Speaker 2: not going to get there. You're not going to get
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  Speaker 2: to a closed one deal. And so this is great.
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  Speaker 2: This is great because it gets everybody on the same
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  Speaker 2: sheet of music. It's purely objective. Did you do it
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  Speaker 2: or did you not do it? If you didn't do it,
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  Speaker 2: all right, what are we talking about here, Let's just
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  Speaker 2: move on to the next deal. All right, Well, let's
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  Speaker 2: move on to the next key takeaway Johnny from your book.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, the other one would be the lot of teams
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  Speaker 4: or even individuals. We have an environment where we're practicing
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  Speaker 4: sales on our customers, so we're not necessarily we don't
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  Speaker 4: have a culture of training and a strategy going into training.
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  Speaker 4: We know that sales leaders listen to you as little
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  Speaker 4: as one percent of the actual sales conversations that go
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  Speaker 4: on on the floor. So if you're an individual rep
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  Speaker 4: and you're getting coached from your leader, there's a great
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  Speaker 4: chance that maybe they're not really listening to all your conversations,
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  Speaker 4: or they might not be as in the weeds as
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  Speaker 4: you are. And that's another reason why having this common
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  Speaker 4: language of your bridge and your steps, it helps create
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  Speaker 4: more effective coaching and more detailed conversations, because if a
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  Speaker 4: deal gets stuck, it's going to be in one of
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  Speaker 4: those six areas. And so even if you don't have
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  Speaker 4: a culture of role play or culture of training at
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  Speaker 4: the company you work with, spending some time thinking through
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  Speaker 4: your bridge, your deals, the thing that you're working outside
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  Speaker 4: of your conversations. Don't just go in ready to wing it,
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  Speaker 4: and instead go in with more of a strategy and
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  Speaker 4: a thought process behind it. You will see great results
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  Speaker 4: because we see two things. Either sales are treated like
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  Speaker 4: a slot machine and you'll go into a conversation you'll
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  Speaker 4: hope it hits, if not, onto the next when in reality,
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  Speaker 4: the flip side is spending just a minute or two
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  Speaker 4: to have a better approach to that conversation before you
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  Speaker 4: go in will increase that p win, It'll increase your
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  Speaker 4: close rate drastically. A point that goes along with this
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  Speaker 4: is we know sixty eight percent of sellers go into
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  Speaker 4: their conversations with no set structure for their calls. And
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  Speaker 4: I would say it doesn't matter what structure you use.
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  Speaker 4: You need to have a structure. Otherwise, if you get
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  Speaker 4: hit with an objection you don't love, or you get
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  Speaker 4: punched in the mouth with a question you're not prepared for,
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  Speaker 4: everything goes out the window, and so you need to
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  Speaker 4: have a plan to fall back on.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what you're saying is go in prepared and
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  Speaker 2: have your talk tracks, your key talking points, your win themes,
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  Speaker 2: you're ghosting themes, and have those already prepared. Now, there
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  Speaker 2: are also probably talking points that you have as as
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  Speaker 2: your standard content that you that your company has and
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  Speaker 2: that probably all of the business developers on the team
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  Speaker 2: consistently use. But what you're saying, Johnny, is you need
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  Speaker 2: to go one step beyond that. Just don't pull out
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  Speaker 2: the PowerPoint presentation and start rolling right into the pitch
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  Speaker 2: without personalizing, tailoring it to the needs of your prospect.
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  Speaker 3: Right, that's exactly right.
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  Speaker 4: When we go back and we listen to you, sometimes
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  Speaker 4: when we work with an organization, we'll listen to one
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  Speaker 4: hundred of their conversations. Like with our own ears, we're
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  Speaker 4: not copy pasting into AI and you know, getting bulk
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  Speaker 4: slop insights, we're really listening and we're really taking the
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  Speaker 4: time to see, and we found that when a deal,
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  Speaker 4: the data tells us, well, the data tells us a
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  Speaker 4: couple things. One of the data tells us that when
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  Speaker 4: you match a paint, you match a solution without tying
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  Speaker 4: it to a pain point, the odds of closing that
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  Speaker 4: deal plummet. But we've seen time and time and time
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  Speaker 4: again when we look at the team of let's say
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  Speaker 4: ten sellers, and two of them are crushing it, and
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  Speaker 4: eight of them are nowhere near as good as they
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  Speaker 4: could be. The two that are crushing it, they're waiting
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  Speaker 4: to introduce any potential solutions until after pain points have
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  Speaker 4: been dug up or discovered in a chat. So it
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  Speaker 4: doesn't necessarily mean it has to be at the end
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  Speaker 4: of the call or the middle. It can be in
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  Speaker 4: the near the front, but it still has to come
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  Speaker 4: after identifying pain points. Because if you've got ten features
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  Speaker 4: or benefits about your product or service, you don't just
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  Speaker 4: want to list all ten. You want to list the
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  Speaker 4: three that connect to pain points. And you can't do
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  Speaker 4: that unless you've slowed down to discover discover the pain
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  Speaker 4: that you're actually there to solve and there's ways to
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  Speaker 4: do that. Asking great questions is the key.
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  Speaker 3: We know.
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  Speaker 4: We know when a seller asks eleven or more questions,
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  Speaker 4: close rates or advance rates can go up, can go
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  Speaker 4: up as much as seventy four percent. So if you're
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  Speaker 4: listening to this and you're thinking, hey, my pitch is
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  Speaker 4: falling flat, or deals are stalling out, or I'm just
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  Speaker 4: not having great conversations, I would sit down and I
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  Speaker 4: would ask what are the best eleven questions I can
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  Speaker 4: have on the screen in front of me or on
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  Speaker 4: a notepad on my desk. That way, when it's time
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  Speaker 4: for the pitch or it's time to explain what we do,
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  Speaker 4: I'm actually tying it back to relevant things for the
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  Speaker 4: person on the other side. So that's an important takeaway
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  Speaker 4: as well.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, Johnny, I think there's a pattern
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  Speaker 2: here that you're creating in your whole methodology as it
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  Speaker 2: relates to the business development leadership, the sales leadership, whatever
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  Speaker 2: type of leadership role you're involved in the prospecting and
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  Speaker 2: conversion process. Is pattern and recognition, right looking at the data,
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  Speaker 2: looking at the conversation that you're the conversations that your
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  Speaker 2: team is having looking at the activities that they're taking.
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  Speaker 2: And you know your first key takeaway was objectivity. Okay,
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  Speaker 2: what are those activities that you know you can objectively
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  Speaker 2: step back look at and go okay, those significantly contributed
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  Speaker 2: to a win. Great. Your key takeaway number two is
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  Speaker 2: as a BD leader, what is being said, what is
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  Speaker 2: being asked in the conversation that shows a pattern of
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  Speaker 2: success and making sure your entire team is equipped to
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  Speaker 2: have those at the ready, but also that your team
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  Speaker 2: is ready to roll with the punches tailor their pitch
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  Speaker 2: moving into the discussion. So these are very powerful takeaways. Johnny,
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  Speaker 2: let's roll right into tactic number three.
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  Speaker 4: Then, yeah, this is perfect pattern recognition is what you
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  Speaker 4: just talked about. And I would say the big takeaway
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  Speaker 4: number three is ultimately, every seller you just need to
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  Speaker 4: have a list of five.
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  Speaker 3: To six key phrases. We call them magic pivots.
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  Speaker 4: When we'll go back and listen to tons of calls,
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  Speaker 4: we'll be able to identify almost every single closed deal
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  Speaker 4: is because of the sale aim three or four or
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  Speaker 4: five sentences or phrases. And what you should start asking
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  Speaker 4: yourself is, if you're a seller, all right, can I
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  Speaker 4: go back and listen to my last ten closed deals
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  Speaker 4: and what was said or talked about that successfully advanced
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: that conversation. Your job is to write those things down
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  Speaker 4: and standardize it. That is a great example of how
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  Speaker 4: you go from being a slot machine to an assembly line.
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  Speaker 4: If you know, hey, when I ask these questions, or
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: I say these phrases, or I go about this step
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: in this way, it works if you're doing it for
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: yourself amazing. And if you're leading a whole team, even
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: if you know who your top performer is and you
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: analyze what they're doing, you will pick up on trends
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: with probably a little bit a little bit of hard work.
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: You don't have to go in you're gonna have to
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: sit down. I call it the call cave. You're gonna
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: have to go sit down and hunker down and listen.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: To calls for a few hours.
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: But you'll pick up on what are those five or
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: six things that really are forcing functions like An example
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: of this might be we worked with one team where
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: they had a marketing follow up resource. So they would
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: send this resource in their marketing follow ups, and when
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: somebody didn't convert, they would get put in a sequence
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: we discovered that there were a few different reps that
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: were using that follow up resource live in conversation. They
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: were sharing their screen, they were walking the buyer through it.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: They were and that was not.
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: Part of their standard process. But we recognized some people
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: here are doing very well.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Why is that?
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: And we were able to take that asset and include
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: it in their discovery call structure. So those are the
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: things you pick up on when there's a pattern that
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: you can identify. If one person is doing something very well,
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: you need to put it in a model that everyone
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: will understand. And once you do that, you've now systematized
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: your best performer and then it just becomes a matter
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: of training to those forcing functions. So, yeah, that's a
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: big one is recognize patterns, come up with the five
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: or six things that are real forcing functions, and you're
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: going to see big time elevation of people who are struggling.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Johnny and I think this this is so great
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: because what you're really doing is educating BD leaders to
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: understand how to effectively lead based on pattern recognition, not
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: just precedence on Hey, let me tell you what I've
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: done for the past twenty years of my career and
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: let me tell you the you know, the the upstart
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: business developer, how you should be doing business development now
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: it right, Yeah, nobody. First of all, nobody cares what
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: you did Dinosaur. Okay, that may have worked twenty years ago,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: but no offense, no offense, right, So this really, you know,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: and so many BD individuals that were great as an
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: individual contributor struggle as BD leaders. And what you're offering
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: any prospective BD leader or somebody who is an existing
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: BD leader to really take their game to the next
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: level and make it fair for everybody on the BD
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: team as well, because you're being purely abcive. You're not
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: favoring any particular business developer on the team. You have
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: all the data. It's out in the open, everybody can
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: see it, and everybody can use it effectively. Well, Johnny,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: we're at the point in the show where we're going
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: to have the magic pivot to the end here.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: But let here you go.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Let me just summarize your key takeaways and jump in
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: if I happen to miss anything. Folks, Again, we're just
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: summarizing Johnny's fantastic book here. It's called Fix your Broken
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Sales Calls. It's six steps to better conversations, shorter sales cycles,
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: and higher close rates. It's available on Amazon. So, Johnny,
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: let me summarize. Key takeaway number one is objectivity. You know,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: come into the role as a BD leader, as an
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: individual contributor with objectivity. Remove the subjectivity of yeah, you know,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: I think my p wins thirty percent. Okay, Well, let's
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: look at all those critical steps that we know. We
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: know for a fact because we looked at the data
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: over and over again, we know you have to do
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: these specific steps to win a deal. And if you
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: haven't done those, then I don't really care what your
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: pe win is because you're not. We know for a
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: fact it's not going to work. Okay, So objectivity, folks,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: is critical here. And then you know key takeaway number two.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: You know, as a as a BD leader, it's really
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: important to once you've eliminated that objectivity, you know, don't
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: allow your team to be the sixty eight percent that
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: go into a prospect engagement cold and they just use
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: the same old PowerPoint slides and wish for the best,
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: no demands preparation. If you've looked at the data, objectivity,
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: you know, the talking points they need to state, you know,
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: the key points they need to make, and more importantly,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: everybody has to tailor the discussion to the specific needs
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: of their prospects. Can't go in cold. As we used
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: to say in the Navy, nobody survives prost contact without
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: a plan, and no plan survives first contact. So you
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: always have to be nimble, and you have to be
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: ready to ask those thoughtful questions of your prospects. And then,
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: finally is key takeaway number three, it's the pattern recognition.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Right as the BD leaders, Let's look at that data.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: What are those activities that led to success? Closed one?
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: What are the talking points? What are the questions that
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: were asked during those engagement discussions? Johnny, did I miss
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: anything that you'd like to add?
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: No, that was a great summary.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: Although I would like to leave your listeners with one
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: fun exercise they could take with them for the road.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: If that's okay, Yeah, tell us please.
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: If you are coaching yourself or you're coaching a team,
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: one way to take your coaching or your training from
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: more subjective to very objective would be the game of
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: asking the well, why is that or what does that mean?
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: Five times over?
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: So an example of this might be let's say you're
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: telling your team or even you're telling yourself, Hey, you
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: need to be better at qualification. Well, what does that mean? Well,
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: that means we need to do this in the first
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: five minutes. Great, Well what is doing this? Put words
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: to it, and you'll eventually get yourself to a point
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: where you're not saying, hey, let's be better about qualification.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: You're going to be saying, hey, let's use this specific
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: phrase in the first ninety seconds so that we're saving
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: everybody's time, and you will notice a massive jump in
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: the quality of your coaching versus just generic advice that
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: you're giving. So do that work, play the why is that?
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: Or what does that mean? Game, and you'll find yourself
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: really getting to some gold nuggets that change the way
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: you coach and change the way you change your behavior.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, specificity is the key to success. And folks, specifically,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: i'd like you to go out and take a look
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: at Johnny's book. It's on Amazon, Fix Your Broken Sales Calls. Johnny,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for sharing the key takeaways from
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: your book today. Thanks for all your contributions to the
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: business development profession, and we look forward to having you
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: back on the show.
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: Sometime happy to do it, Tony.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you for having me, Thank you for listening to
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the Business Development Podcast. Join our free community of corporate
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: partners and business development professionals advancing the art, science, and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: ethics of the business development profession at Gbdassociation dot org.