Latest / What is Business Development? / Episode 125: Sales Discovery Success with Trevor Weber
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, brought to you by
- 0:06Speaker 1: the Global Business Development Association, delivering the strategies and tactics
- 0:11Speaker 1: to boost your career and corporate growth.
- 0:20Speaker 2: Hello BD pros, and welcome to the Global Business Development
- 0:25Speaker 2: Association podcast called What is Business Development Now? Folks, Business
- 0:33Speaker 2: development is tough, and you know, when it comes to sales,
- 0:39Speaker 2: strong sales performance doesn't begin with a pitch, it begins
- 0:44Speaker 2: with discovery. And so today we're going to talk about
- 0:49Speaker 2: discovery and how to do that effectively with a book
- 0:54Speaker 2: author we've had on the show before, Trevor Weber. He's
- 0:57Speaker 2: back again with a brand new book. And before we
- 1:02Speaker 2: get into that, let me tell you about an older
- 1:04Speaker 2: book that's been around for a while now, and that
- 1:08Speaker 2: is The Business Development Body of Knowledge. You can get
- 1:12Speaker 2: a copy of it on Amazon, and when you read
- 1:15Speaker 2: the book, you can then take the Business Development Professional
- 1:19Speaker 2: certification online at the Business Development Association's website. That's at
- 1:25Speaker 2: BD Association dot org. BD Association dot org. Join us there,
- 1:32Speaker 2: find access to the book, get your BDP certification, and
- 1:37Speaker 2: then after reading that book, jump right into Trevor Weber's
- 1:42Speaker 2: latest new book. And this is a really interesting book
- 1:47Speaker 2: that's a part of Trevor's The Seller's Framework series. So
- 1:54Speaker 2: this is his latest book in that Seller's Framework series,
- 1:59Speaker 2: and it is on the mindset and structure required to
- 2:03Speaker 2: conduct effective sales discovery conversations in complex B to B
- 2:10Speaker 2: environments through the continued fictional story of Jason and Jason's
- 2:15Speaker 2: a corporate trainer coaching sellers through a discovery masterclass. And
- 2:20Speaker 2: through this fictional storyline, you'll see how mindset shifts translate
- 2:26Speaker 2: into real world sales conversations. And a little bit about
- 2:31Speaker 2: our author. He's been on the show before, and Trevor
- 2:35Speaker 2: is a certified coach with two decades of sales experience
- 2:39Speaker 2: and he has dedicated his career to helping individuals and
- 2:43Speaker 2: organizations achieve growth through leadership, development, communication and enablement. So, folks,
- 2:52Speaker 2: it's always great to have authors back to the show.
- 2:56Speaker 2: And Trevor Weber, welcome back, my friend.
- 3:00Speaker 3: Hey, it's great to be back, Tony. Thanks so much
- 3:02Speaker 3: for having me again, and very honored by the introduction
- 3:05Speaker 3: and appreciate all you're doing.
- 3:08Speaker 2: Yeah, well, hey, we appreciate what you're doing, Trevor. You're
- 3:11Speaker 2: advancing the art, science, and ethics of business development. So
- 3:14Speaker 2: we can't wait to jump into your latest book again, folks.
- 3:18Speaker 2: The name of the book is called Sales Discovery. It's
- 3:21Speaker 2: available on Amazon, and it teaches you how to ask
- 3:25Speaker 2: better questions, uncover client needs, and close more deals. So Trevor,
- 3:31Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about why you wrote this book.
- 3:35Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's been interesting, Tony. So I've been
- 3:38Speaker 3: in sales now, as you mentioned, for about twenty years,
- 3:40Speaker 3: and everything from B two C B to B small
- 3:45Speaker 3: mom pop shop selling photography twenty years ago was my
- 3:48Speaker 3: first job, all the way to being in rooms and
- 3:51Speaker 3: on calls with executives in the C suite. And one
- 3:56Speaker 3: of the things that I've noticed over the years is
- 3:59Speaker 3: that the baseline of discovery, the foundation of discovery is
- 4:03Speaker 3: the same, but how we approach is completely different. And
- 4:07Speaker 3: in all the sales trainings that I've been a part of,
- 4:09Speaker 3: and the sales trainings that I've done, and coaching and
- 4:12Speaker 3: videos and books that I've read, a lot focuses on
- 4:16Speaker 3: the tactics of discovery and how to ask questions and
- 4:21Speaker 3: what it what it really sometimes doesn't address, is the
- 4:24Speaker 3: mindset behind it and how do I just gain that
- 4:27Speaker 3: mindset of discovery and ask, you know, ask good questions
- 4:31Speaker 3: and uncover what the client need is and really move
- 4:35Speaker 3: that a deal forward in a way that's going to
- 4:37Speaker 3: help me to create a solution for that client. And
- 4:39Speaker 3: so so the Sales Discovery Book is a part of
- 4:43Speaker 3: the larger series, the Seller's Framework, And I believe that
- 4:48Speaker 3: discovery is the foundation, or the one of the primary
- 4:52Speaker 3: foundations of the sales process. And without it, you know,
- 4:56Speaker 3: as Mike Weinberg kind of states, is that, you know,
- 5:00Speaker 3: presentation without diagnosis, without discovery a sales malpractice. And so
- 5:06Speaker 3: when we look at it and we start there, I
- 5:08Speaker 3: think everything else follows, and our solutions are better, our
- 5:11Speaker 3: value is presented well. And so that's weirdly where I
- 5:15Speaker 3: started to write this is I asked myself what is
- 5:19Speaker 3: a good discovery conversation? And really what it comes down
- 5:21Speaker 3: to is the mindset of curiosity, and so I think
- 5:24Speaker 3: that's where it's started.
- 5:26Speaker 2: Well, you got me curious about what's in the book
- 5:28Speaker 2: and some of the top tactics and takeaways. Can we
- 5:32Speaker 2: start with number one? What's your first takeaway from the book?
- 5:37Speaker 3: Yeah, and it actually is exactly what we're just mentioning is.
- 5:41Speaker 3: In chapter I think it's two or three, we talk
- 5:43Speaker 3: about the mindset of curiosity. And as sellers, you know,
- 5:47Speaker 3: we go from meeting to meeting, day to day, week
- 5:50Speaker 3: to week, and you know, I've been on the phone
- 5:52Speaker 3: with a lot of clients, with a lot of people,
- 5:54Speaker 3: and it's easy for me as a seller to make
- 5:57Speaker 3: and to bring assumptions into my calls because when I
- 6:01Speaker 3: come to a call, it's easy to say, what, I've
- 6:04Speaker 3: heard this before. I know where this is going. Oh yep,
- 6:07Speaker 3: this is going to be about price. Oh, this person's
- 6:09Speaker 3: going to object in this place, and a lot of
- 6:13Speaker 3: stagas those assumptions, which is what they are, are helpful
- 6:18Speaker 3: because they help guide the process, but they can also
- 6:20Speaker 3: be incredibly preventing of our sales process. And so as sellers,
- 6:27Speaker 3: one of the things that we need to be able
- 6:29Speaker 3: to do is to break or break the pattern of
- 6:33Speaker 3: those assumptions and say, okay, is this actually what it is?
- 6:38Speaker 3: Because when we've already decided internally, well I've seen this before,
- 6:43Speaker 3: that actually unconsciously begins to develop our next question and
- 6:47Speaker 3: it guides the conversation away from understanding what the client
- 6:50Speaker 3: actually needs. And so the mindset of curiosity kind of
- 6:54Speaker 3: comes in and says it's where we ask ourselves, like,
- 6:57Speaker 3: what else could this mean? Like, what do I not nderstand?
- 7:00Speaker 3: What am I not seeing? What am I not understanding
- 7:03Speaker 3: about this client and their need and their situation. And
- 7:06Speaker 3: so when we step in and disrupt that assumption that
- 7:09Speaker 3: we've made and have that mindset of curiosity, it puts
- 7:12Speaker 3: us in a place to better understand this particular client needs.
- 7:17Speaker 3: And it's not to say that we're dismissing our previous assumptions,
- 7:20Speaker 3: like a lot of times they can be accurate, But
- 7:23Speaker 3: for this particular client, I want to know what's their situation,
- 7:26Speaker 3: what's important to them, what are challenges are they facing?
- 7:30Speaker 3: And so when I begin to go in with that
- 7:31Speaker 3: curious mindset of saying, what do I not understand yet?
- 7:36Speaker 3: And I'm asking myself that question, that allows me to
- 7:40Speaker 3: internally be curious. So now my questions are reflecting of
- 7:44Speaker 3: that individual as well. And so I think that's like
- 7:46Speaker 3: that's almost even the foundation of the entire book and
- 7:50Speaker 3: where it kind of where it begins with and it
- 7:52Speaker 3: kind of it's it's specifically and intentionally in the beginning
- 7:55Speaker 3: of the book.
- 7:56Speaker 2: Okay, right, and should be at the beginning of every
- 8:00Speaker 2: engagement with prospects can you give us an example of
- 8:04Speaker 2: what may be a good forcing function to help people
- 8:07Speaker 2: get in that mindset? You know, it's great to say, hey,
- 8:11Speaker 2: be in the mindset, but how do we actually force
- 8:13Speaker 2: ourselves to do that? Is there some easy way or
- 8:16Speaker 2: some tactical way that you would advise for folks to do,
- 8:20Speaker 2: maybe write down a question before or set of questions
- 8:23Speaker 2: going into the initial engagement with the prospect. I don't know,
- 8:27Speaker 2: I'm just throwing some things out there, but what do
- 8:29Speaker 2: you recommend?
- 8:31Speaker 3: I would actually recommend those two things that we can do.
- 8:33Speaker 3: One is in the preparation, like you mentioned, before the conversation,
- 8:36Speaker 3: but then I think also is during the conversation. So
- 8:39Speaker 3: when we look at it before the conversation, we begin
- 8:42Speaker 3: to look at, you know, maybe who we're speaking with.
- 8:45Speaker 3: If I have an engagement with, for example, somebody in procurement,
- 8:48Speaker 3: what are my preconceived assumptions that I have about procurement,
- 8:52Speaker 3: what's been my experience in the past, what's been my
- 8:55Speaker 3: what was my most recent experience and how did that
- 8:58Speaker 3: play out? And and almost too, you're reflecting to make
- 9:03Speaker 3: sure that I don't bring those previous assumptions into this call.
- 9:07Speaker 3: And then like you mentioned write down a question of Okay,
- 9:10Speaker 3: what's my internal question that I'm asking myself or what's
- 9:13Speaker 3: my internal story I'm telling myself about this person or
- 9:16Speaker 3: about this situation. What's a question I can reframe to
- 9:19Speaker 3: actually ask them? And so if I have the internal
- 9:23Speaker 3: belief that well, procurement just always stalls deals, well I
- 9:27Speaker 3: need to then say, Okay, what where does that belief
- 9:29Speaker 3: come from? And I need to work through that and
- 9:31Speaker 3: reflect through it, And what's a better question that I
- 9:34Speaker 3: can ask or reframe to go back into it and say, Okay,
- 9:38Speaker 3: procurement just cares about and they're protecting the company. That's
- 9:43Speaker 3: their role. And so if I come at it from
- 9:44Speaker 3: that perspective, now I've shifted my mind from well, they
- 9:48Speaker 3: just care about stalling the deal to they're trying to
- 9:52Speaker 3: protect the company. Now what question can I ask, Hey,
- 9:55Speaker 3: I fully understand that you're wanting to protect the company.
- 9:57Speaker 3: That's important to you, but it's important to me too.
- 10:00Speaker 3: How can we work together to move this forward? And
- 10:02Speaker 3: so now it's complete change and how I've asked a
- 10:04Speaker 3: question and I'm creating a safe place for that person.
- 10:08Speaker 2: Yeah. I like what you said there, Trevor, because that
- 10:11Speaker 2: fundamentally encapulates, encapsulates. The initial part of the business development
- 10:15Speaker 2: body of knowledge where we talk about the importance of
- 10:19Speaker 2: business development is trust building. And in order to build trust,
- 10:24Speaker 2: it's based on neuroscience. You have to have purpose, empathy
- 10:28Speaker 2: and truth. And so your question in your curiosity mindset
- 10:35Speaker 2: is really rooted in understanding what is the purpose, having
- 10:40Speaker 2: the empathy to understand what is the purpose and the
- 10:43Speaker 2: mission of the person I'm talking to. So it may
- 10:45Speaker 2: be procurement and it's easy. Yeah, sure, it's easy to say,
- 10:48Speaker 2: oh boy, here we go, just another gatekeeper or another
- 10:51Speaker 2: roadblock on my way to progress and getting this deal closed.
- 10:55Speaker 2: But you're saying, approach it from an empathetic standpoint, Understand
- 10:58Speaker 2: what's their purpose, what's their mission, and then asking the
- 11:02Speaker 2: questions so that you can get to the truth, whether
- 11:07Speaker 2: it's the extrinsic requirements or the true intrinsic requirements that
- 11:12Speaker 2: often a lot of people don't know. So really powerful
- 11:15Speaker 2: mindset shift that you're talking about, and it makes sense
- 11:18Speaker 2: you have it front loaded in the book. So Trevor,
- 11:21Speaker 2: let's jump on to key tactic or takeaway number two
- 11:24Speaker 2: from your book.
- 11:26Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and to your empathy point, it's stepping into
- 11:29Speaker 3: their shoes. That's really what it comes down to, is
- 11:32Speaker 3: understanding their world. And yeah, tactic tactic number two and
- 11:36Speaker 3: this is this is controversial, you know, and and I
- 11:39Speaker 3: think part of the reason I included this in the book.
- 11:41Speaker 3: And it's nothing new, it's nothing that is, it's not
- 11:45Speaker 3: my idea. I just expanded on it because I've seen
- 11:49Speaker 3: a lot in the sales space that some salespeople are
- 11:51Speaker 3: completely on board with it, and other salespeople are like, Nope,
- 11:54Speaker 3: it's old, outdated. Nobody wants to use it anymore. And
- 11:58Speaker 3: I even had somebody said they would adamantly never use it.
- 12:00Speaker 3: It's a horrible philosophy. And it's the idea in business
- 12:04Speaker 3: development is no different. It's a band and you know,
- 12:09Speaker 3: a lot of listeners and I and I joke in
- 12:12Speaker 3: Jason's narrative in the beginning of the book, and you know,
- 12:15Speaker 3: Jason announces it as he's doing one of the trainings
- 12:17Speaker 3: and Zoe, one of the characters or those salespeople, leans
- 12:21Speaker 3: forward and laughs, She's like, really, is that like fifty
- 12:24Speaker 3: years old? And I do that intentionally because I want
- 12:28Speaker 3: people to know that, yes, I understand that some people
- 12:31Speaker 3: view this whole idea of budget and authority, timing, need
- 12:35Speaker 3: and they're like, that's a horrible sales process. But what
- 12:39Speaker 3: I also want people to understand is well, it depends.
- 12:42Speaker 3: It depends on how you use it. And when I
- 12:46Speaker 3: was in you know, retail sales years ago, bant was awesome,
- 12:51Speaker 3: like do you have the money now? Are you going
- 12:53Speaker 3: to buy now? Is it you or your kid that
- 12:56Speaker 3: wants this? And if you leave the store, yeah, timing's
- 13:00Speaker 3: done that you're probably never coming back. And so in
- 13:02Speaker 3: that moment, ban was used phenomenally, but it was more
- 13:06Speaker 3: of a very quick qualification do you have the money?
- 13:09Speaker 3: Are you ready to buy now? Is there a need? Yeah?
- 13:12Speaker 3: Your kids screaming, so you want to get out of
- 13:14Speaker 3: the store and you just want to buy it. That's yeah,
- 13:15Speaker 3: that's a need for you as a parent. But when
- 13:18Speaker 3: we begin to shift and we begin to look at
- 13:20Speaker 3: enterprise sales, business to business sales, and the sales process
- 13:24Speaker 3: is longer, and even now sales processes is far more complex.
- 13:29Speaker 3: I think where we begin to struggle and the challenge
- 13:31Speaker 3: becomes is that we have all these sales methodologies out there,
- 13:35Speaker 3: but at the baseline of it, when it comes down
- 13:37Speaker 3: to it. BAN is still incredibly relevant, and so in
- 13:41Speaker 3: the book, I walk through how it's just we need
- 13:43Speaker 3: to expand it into more of a system instead of
- 13:46Speaker 3: a checklist of do they have the money, do they
- 13:48Speaker 3: have the authority? Do they have the timing? And need?
- 13:51Speaker 3: It's really coming down to asking the questions aroout, Okay,
- 13:54Speaker 3: let's talk about budget, what where's priority lie? And there's
- 13:58Speaker 3: different idea and mindset and even questions around priority because
- 14:02Speaker 3: budget comes down to priority. It comes down to who
- 14:05Speaker 3: holds who holds it, and it's also inter connected to
- 14:08Speaker 3: the other pieces. If they don't have a high enough
- 14:11Speaker 3: need and if there's not a high enough business problem,
- 14:15Speaker 3: then yeah, budget is not going to become priority. And
- 14:18Speaker 3: so when BAND operates in silos and we use it
- 14:22Speaker 3: as that checklist, we don't ultimately follow a sales process
- 14:27Speaker 3: that's that's efficient and that's going to get us to
- 14:29Speaker 3: where we want to go. But when we start looking
- 14:31Speaker 3: at BAN as an interconnected system and we start saying okay,
- 14:35Speaker 3: budget and timing, you're going to impact authority and need
- 14:38Speaker 3: and we start expanding it and that from that lens,
- 14:41Speaker 3: that's where I think that BAN actually can be really
- 14:43Speaker 3: powerful and it's it's an anchor that we can return
- 14:46Speaker 3: to on a regular basis to make sure that our
- 14:48Speaker 3: deal is actually grounded. And when it comes to authority,
- 14:52Speaker 3: it means you know, like I mean, especially since COVID
- 14:56Speaker 3: buying decisions and authority is no longer with one, two,
- 14:59Speaker 3: three different people, its entire buying committees, eight, ten, fifteen,
- 15:02Speaker 3: twenty people. And so when we start looking at authority,
- 15:06Speaker 3: it's asking the questions of Okay, who signs off on this,
- 15:10Speaker 3: who who in the company is going to be an influencer,
- 15:13Speaker 3: who's the antagonist, who can say no? And who's that
- 15:18Speaker 3: silent person in the background, for example, that said that's
- 15:21Speaker 3: not going to say anything, but behind closed doors, they're
- 15:23Speaker 3: the one that closes out the deal. And so the
- 15:26Speaker 3: chapter walks through different tactics and ways to be able
- 15:29Speaker 3: to walk through a van in a totally different way
- 15:32Speaker 3: than just simply qualifying a lead, for example, on a
- 15:36Speaker 3: very first phone call, which I believe that that farm
- 15:38Speaker 3: of ban is not actually helpful unless you're in a
- 15:42Speaker 3: very quick, twenty second, low cost, five hundred dollars sale,
- 15:46Speaker 3: then yeah, sure, use ban all day long and qualify
- 15:49Speaker 3: the heck out of it. But for longer enterprise sales
- 15:51Speaker 3: B to B sales. BAN is more of a system
- 15:54Speaker 3: than it is a qualification.
- 15:57Speaker 2: Yeah, well, and you know you have BAN, you have MEDIC,
- 15:59Speaker 2: you have med pick, you have.
- 16:03Speaker 3: Does.
- 16:03Speaker 2: Yeah. And in the Business Development Body of Knowledge, we
- 16:07Speaker 2: actually list a lot of them to include BAND, and
- 16:11Speaker 2: we talk about the history of them and how they've
- 16:13Speaker 2: influenced sales over the past fifty plus years. And there's
- 16:20Speaker 2: a chart in the Business Development Body of Knowledge where
- 16:23Speaker 2: you can see what each one of them covers. And
- 16:27Speaker 2: you know, the funny thing is a lot of them
- 16:29Speaker 2: overlap and they're fundamentally getting to the same things, and
- 16:34Speaker 2: they just approach it from a different angle. And what
- 16:36Speaker 2: you're saying is, don't necessarily use it as a rigid
- 16:40Speaker 2: checklist to qualify prospects, but use it as a framework
- 16:46Speaker 2: and a guiding system. And you know, you could potentially
- 16:52Speaker 2: mix in other methodologies as well, but as an overarching architecture.
- 16:57Speaker 2: You're saying, Hey, it's still works well as long as
- 17:03Speaker 2: you don't use it rigidly. And so, okay, great, we're
- 17:07Speaker 2: we're we're talking about band as tactic number two and
- 17:11Speaker 2: can he take away what's he take away? Number three?
- 17:15Speaker 3: Yeah? And you know in this uh this to the
- 17:17Speaker 3: chapter or the title of this chapter is called the
- 17:19Speaker 3: lost skill. I think it's a it's a skill that
- 17:23Speaker 3: we talk a lot about in sales, but we don't
- 17:26Speaker 3: practice it nearly as much. And you even talk about marriage.
- 17:31Speaker 3: I think it's incredibly and powerful in relationships and marriage
- 17:34Speaker 3: as well. And it's it's listening, you know, is you
- 17:38Speaker 3: probably know Gong has done a lot of studies, and
- 17:40Speaker 3: you know, I looked up one of their studies from
- 17:42Speaker 3: last year, and still they say that top performers the
- 17:46Speaker 3: talk list in ratio sixty percent listening forty percent talking,
- 17:51Speaker 3: and which I actually believe that it should be a
- 17:52Speaker 3: lot more than that. I think I believe that especially
- 17:55Speaker 3: in initial conversations with the client, we should be listening
- 17:58Speaker 3: about seventy percent of the time. But our default as
- 18:02Speaker 3: human beings, I think, is to talk. We like the
- 18:05Speaker 3: sound of our own voice, and we like to be
- 18:08Speaker 3: able to say everything, and we think we know the
- 18:11Speaker 3: direction we're going and we want to jump in. But
- 18:14Speaker 3: in sales, is you know, the learning and the information
- 18:18Speaker 3: comes in the listening. And you know, years ago in
- 18:22Speaker 3: one of my sales roles was when I first heard
- 18:25Speaker 3: the phrase, if you want a better answer, ask a
- 18:27Speaker 3: better question, and I believe that that's still true, but
- 18:32Speaker 3: I add to it, it's like, but you can't have
- 18:35Speaker 3: a better question if you're not willing to listen to
- 18:37Speaker 3: the answer, because the answer is where the information resides
- 18:42Speaker 3: to inform us of what question to go next and
- 18:45Speaker 3: where to lean next. And so the chapter talks about
- 18:49Speaker 3: passive listening versus active listening and the power of a
- 18:52Speaker 3: silent pause. Pauses are so awkward, but one of the
- 18:58Speaker 3: things I would encourage listeners to do is that when
- 19:00Speaker 3: your client is talking, pause and count to three before
- 19:04Speaker 3: when you feel that they're finished, before responding. It's awkward.
- 19:08Speaker 3: The first time I was introduced to that, I started
- 19:11Speaker 3: doing it on my calls. It was probably ten years ago,
- 19:14Speaker 3: and my sales director at the time, I was having
- 19:17Speaker 3: a hard time of responding real quick. I'm a fast talker.
- 19:20Speaker 3: He's like, Trevor, what I want you to do is
- 19:22Speaker 3: when your client finishes, I want you to count to
- 19:24Speaker 3: three and then respond. I had client after client like
- 19:31Speaker 3: come back while I was on the phone with them,
- 19:33Speaker 3: like are you still there? You're still there? And I
- 19:36Speaker 3: was like, yep, yep, I just wanted to make sure
- 19:38Speaker 3: I allowed you the chance to finish your thought. Doing
- 19:43Speaker 3: that is incredibly powerful because it allows them to finish,
- 19:47Speaker 3: and it allows us to process what we just said
- 19:50Speaker 3: and gives me the ability to either decide do I
- 19:53Speaker 3: respond with a question or are we ready to move
- 19:55Speaker 3: forward with a solution or the next step. So I
- 19:58Speaker 3: would say the biggest advice that I would give else
- 20:00Speaker 3: people just in general is I mean, and this is
- 20:03Speaker 3: very direct, pause and shut up when when it comes
- 20:07Speaker 3: to discovery, because that's where we begin to learn. If
- 20:11Speaker 3: we're talking, we're not learning. And I think that's where
- 20:12Speaker 3: the challenge comes.
- 20:15Speaker 2: One one thousand, two, one thousand and three, one thousand,
- 20:19Speaker 2: How am I doing? How am I doing? Trevor?
- 20:21Speaker 3: You did great? Good job?
- 20:24Speaker 2: Hey uh Tactic number three, folks, count to three seconds
- 20:28Speaker 2: after your You know your prospect is done saying something
- 20:32Speaker 2: because there's probably something else there, and including those strategic
- 20:38Speaker 2: pauses in the conversation really can lead to some more
- 20:43Speaker 2: powerful information sharing. And I think you know the other
- 20:47Speaker 2: great thing about that, to Trevor, is it gives you
- 20:52Speaker 2: the space, your conscious brain the time to process what
- 20:58Speaker 2: your prospect was saying, and that may open up the
- 21:03Speaker 2: door for you to ask an even more insightful question. Wow,
- 21:10Speaker 2: great stuff packed into this book, Trevor. I think, folks,
- 21:14Speaker 2: if you really want to grab yourself a copy of
- 21:17Speaker 2: the book, it's called Sales Discovery, Ask better questions, uncover
- 21:22Speaker 2: client need and close more deals. It's part of Trevor's series.
- 21:28Speaker 2: You'll also find that he's had two previous books. One's
- 21:33Speaker 2: called The Fundamentals of Selling and then the other one
- 21:36Speaker 2: is The Sales Discovery Field Manual. So when you go
- 21:40Speaker 2: to Amazon you can see all three of those, add
- 21:42Speaker 2: them to your collection and follow this series. Trevor, let
- 21:47Speaker 2: me just kind of summarize what we talked about today. Now,
- 21:50Speaker 2: key take away from your book Number one is have
- 21:56Speaker 2: the questioning mindset, the mindset to ask better questions that
- 22:02Speaker 2: focus on empathy, purpose, and then that way you can
- 22:06Speaker 2: get to the truth. And then the second thing is,
- 22:12Speaker 2: you know, you really want to engage the prospects and
- 22:18Speaker 2: understand what they are fundamentally trying to address. When it
- 22:25Speaker 2: comes to BANT, you know, and band has been around
- 22:28Speaker 2: for a long time and some have challenged it and
- 22:33Speaker 2: said it's no longer a modern methodology for engaging with prospects.
- 22:38Speaker 2: But what you're saying is, look, that may be the
- 22:41Speaker 2: case if you follow it rigidly, but if you use
- 22:44Speaker 2: it as a framework, if you use it as a system,
- 22:48Speaker 2: then it can really lead to great opportunities with your prospects,
- 22:53Speaker 2: particularly in the complex enterprise B to B sales, however
- 22:56Speaker 2: you want to characterize it. And then the final key
- 23:00Speaker 2: takeaway is create that strategic space, that pause in the discussions.
- 23:08Speaker 2: Don't rush into the next question, don't rush into what
- 23:12Speaker 2: you want to say next. Give your prospect that space
- 23:16Speaker 2: to pause three seconds. A three second pause with these
- 23:21Speaker 2: three tactics can lead to some great opportunities. And folks,
- 23:26Speaker 2: if you want to read more, it's all packed into
- 23:29Speaker 2: Sales Discovery available on Amazon. Ask better questions, uncover client needs,
- 23:34Speaker 2: and close more deals with Trevor Weber. Trevor, how can
- 23:38Speaker 2: folks follow your work and connect with you?
- 23:41Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks, Tony, Well again, thank you for having me, Tony,
- 23:44Speaker 3: And it's been it's been an honor. And you know,
- 23:46Speaker 3: with this book, at the baseline of it is what's
- 23:49Speaker 3: your mindset around discovery. That's really the biggest question is
- 23:53Speaker 3: you know, when we when we begin to move away
- 23:54Speaker 3: from tactics and training and everything is is do you
- 23:59Speaker 3: have a foundational mindset of curiosity and how does that
- 24:03Speaker 3: drive your discovered process? And I would love to connect
- 24:06Speaker 3: with people on LinkedIn. You can find me there. The
- 24:10Speaker 3: Seller's Framework dot com is the website for all of
- 24:14Speaker 3: the books from everything from the Fundamentals of selling to
- 24:17Speaker 3: the from Seller to Sales Leader Sales Discovery book, and
- 24:21Speaker 3: I've got both of them here, both the Field Manual
- 24:24Speaker 3: which is over a thousand questions that in different stages
- 24:28Speaker 3: of the sales process. And then I'll be publishing some
- 24:32Speaker 3: future books on mindset and client research, business acumen, how
- 24:37Speaker 3: to sell a value. There's simple reads you can do
- 24:41Speaker 3: in a single sitting and that's my goal of them
- 24:44Speaker 3: is something you can sit down, you can read. It's
- 24:46Speaker 3: a narrative, so it's story, so it's fun and not
- 24:50Speaker 3: simply a lot of theory and a lot of it
- 24:53Speaker 3: comes from my experiences in the field of twenty years.
- 24:56Speaker 3: And so grateful for you having Amy on Tony It's
- 24:59Speaker 3: been as all it's an honor and looking forward to
- 25:01Speaker 3: see where everything goes.
- 25:03Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Trevor, it was great to have you back
- 25:05Speaker 2: on the show and we can't wait to have you
- 25:07Speaker 2: back again when you publish your next book. Trevor, thank
- 25:10Speaker 2: you so much for joining us.
- 25:11Speaker 1: Thanks Tony, thank you for listening to the Business Development Podcast.
- 25:19Speaker 1: Join our free community of corporate partners and business development
- 25:23Speaker 1: professionals advancing the art, science, and ethics of the business
- 25:27Speaker 1: development profession at Gbdassociation dot org.