Latest / Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth / 63: Serve dessert first ... it will make you more successful in B2B sales

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63: Serve dessert first ... it will make you more successful in B2B sales · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Ever find that your prospects disengage a little bit or even switch off when it's your turn to talk to explain what you do?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the problem is that you got the menu in the wrong order.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Bite-Size Sales Podcast, where we believe that you don't need to take time out of the field or off the phone stuck in a classroom to get great sales training, and that taking bite-sized steps each day to get better at your craft is the best way to improve your results.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Andrew Monahan, and I'm using my 20 plus years in B2B sales to bring you simple, actionable ideas that you can use every day to help you get better.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Sales Bluebird curates content from all these sources and gives you three mindset tips, three sales skills tips, and three sales leader tips once a week in your email inbox for free.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sign up right now at salesbluebird.com.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to episode 63.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I've had this happen in my career before, going back many years.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you're in a meeting, you're doing the discovery, it's going well, you got a great discussion going, you're framing out some requirements and some impacts, and you get an idea that you can probably help them.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's naturally the part in the conversation where they either want you to or you're gonna do it anyway, transition to, well, you know, thanks for the information.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let me quickly explain how I think we can help, right?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I've seen it before where you know you just have to flip out the slides and suddenly people start slouching and they they get their phones out and they're looking at the window, like here we go.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: The sales guy's gonna go off on one here and tell me how awesome this is and not really tell me what I want to hear.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not the it's not the discussion they want, right?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and naturally, you know, if you're gonna be, if you think someone's gonna tell you stuff you don't want to hear, you don't really listen that much.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a natural reaction.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I know early on in my career, back in the early stages, it was not uncommon for these decks that we would use.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: They would literally start off with, you know, here's how we were formed, and here's our founders, and you know, here's all the locations, the number of customers we have.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was all, you know, the good faith bit was we're trying to build credibility.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to say that we we know what we're doing.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, at that point in the conversation, the prospect kind of wants to get to the point, they're not that interested in that stuff yet.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: They want to understand what we're gonna do for them.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in all honesty, I haven't seen that terrible kind of you know, uh sleight of our office building type stuff for quite a while, which is great.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: But what I do see a lot right now is people start with what we do and what our product's called and you know our founding story and things like that.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And these are things that are not bad.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't think they're the great and the high impact way we can do things.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're not terrible in any shape or form.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: But what it does mean though is you end up going down this path with a prospect where you're actually leading them towards the big idea, the big outcome, the big thing we're trying to convey, right?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you start off with, well, here's how we were formed, and here's what our stuff is, and here's what we do, and you kind of go through it, and maybe there's a demo or something, and then suddenly at the end, they tack in the oh, and you know, by the way, we have big impacts for for people just like you, right?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: The trouble is at that point in the conversation, usually the people you want to excite are bored for one, they're not listening that intently.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what you've actually done is you've lost control about what they're gonna remember, right?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you are banking on them, staying engaged for 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes to get to the big point and the big reveal and the big impact stuff that you've had with other people, then you've lost control of them remembering that stuff, right?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna remember other stuff and you've no idea what that is.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's really important to think about this in a different order.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the phrase I've heard, and I love this phrase, is how do we give them dessert first?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: You imagine the menu, and rather than going from appetizers to to main courses and all the rest of it, you say, okay, here's the good stuff, right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the the nice sugary, creamy, chocolatey dessert that you're gonna be so excited about.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about that first, and then we'll get to the the kale salad and the uh pasta, whatever else is on the menu, right?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: So give them the dessert first.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, so the challenge for you from this is what is in your sales cycles, what's the dessert that you want to give them first, right?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, for example, what it might be is right, you've you've got the you've got the requirements, you've had the great discovery conversation, you understand the impacts, and you just know in your mind there's two other customer stories where they had similar size of company, similar projects you're working on, and the outcomes were delivered that they're looking to deliver, right?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: So rather than go into, well, here's how we started and here's this, and you call our product this and it does this, and all just go straight to the thing and say, listen, you know, I listening to what you were saying, two things came to mind about other customers that had the same situation.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and you go through it.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, John Smith at this company, do you know them?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Same role as you had this problem, which sounds very similar to the one you had.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was the summer of 2018, they had the problem, weren't sure what to do.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: They then worked with us, and at the end of the day, the big outcome they got was this, this, and this, which is, I think, what you said you wanted to get, right?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then the second thing is, you know, you give another one.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta get something that grabs them, metaphorically, grabs them by the lapels and said, pay attention, this is good, and it's high impact for you, and it's highly relevant to what we just talked about.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe the customer story isn't your thing, but maybe it is, I don't know, right?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine if you can grab them to the point and say, Well, that's good, and then they're asking for more, but I want to know how your stuff works.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know this, right?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Well, that's fine, let's let's go into that right now, right?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then you start with some differentiation stuff.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: The reason we're different, the reason our customers like our stuff compared to others, is that we do these two or three things in a very different way that actually causes those big results that we talked about, right?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you you're then kind of doing almost backwards, right?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of it, you're going through, well, let me let me tell you exactly the the the stuff behind the scenes here, or show you what you want to see, or give you the kind of what of what we do as opposed to the how and the why.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So my challenge for you then is is what is that big dessert that you can give them that's gonna grab their attention at the start, that's gonna make them pay attention, that's gonna be the thing they remember, and then everything you do backs it up as opposed to the current way of doing things which I see a lot, which is well, let's do all the backup first and then get to the big reveal or the big point right at the end when everyone's lost interest.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can do that, you're gonna be more effective, you're gonna catch their attention more often, and just remember the phrase write it in your notebooks when you're going to meetings, give them dessert first.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you like this episode, the single most useful thing you could do to support this podcast is share it with your sales network.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: It'll probably take you less than 20 seconds.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: All you need to do is click the share icon in your app right now and share it wide and far.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: It will mean the world to me and it could make a difference to those you share it with.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I need your suggestions, please.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a topic you want me to cover or just want to get in touch, simply email me at upside at unstoppable.do.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's upside at unstoppable.do.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And now to wrap up, training without implementation is just entertainment.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And pretty poor entertainment when I deliver it.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure you take action on what you learned today and keep getting it better and better each and every day.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Also, this world does not need more sales BS.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: So please don't create any more.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Be great at the fundamentals, be honest, be real, be yourself, just do not BS.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, I'm signing off as the great Joe Sexton would by saying, gone to sell.