92: Why your team may be "losing" prospects and ONE drastic way to stop it

Ask yourself, as a seller, have you ever prepared so well for a sales call with your prospect and couldn’t feel more confident…but somehow your meeting was a complete disaster?!?  We’ve all been there so don’t beat yourself up about it.
But we also need to learn and improve with every experience. So get ready to get uncomfortable trying this one simple technique to stop 'losing' your prospects, especially if any of these examples resonate with you:

·    taking almost 5 min to explain 1 slide (yikes!)
·    asking a prospect over 20 questions in the hopes of a deep discovery session (death. by. discovery!)
·    presenting over 20 content slides (yawn!)

Try it out and let me know what you think. I want to hear from you! andrew@unstoppable.do

Here's to a great new year, 2022!

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Transcript

92 - Why you are "losing" your prospects and ONE drastic way to stop it

[00:00:00] Welcome to the sales Bluebird podcast, where we believe that it's just plain wrong. That sales teams of startups don't get the help to succeed like sales teams do at their bigger and more well-known competitors. If you are a seller or a sales leader at a B2B startup, especially if it's in the cybersecurity area, you're in the right place.

[00:00:34] I am your host, Andrew Monaghan, and welcome to episode 92 of the sales Bluebird podcast. As I said, in the last episode we rebranded. So if you're expecting to hear this is the bite-sized sales podcast. Actually, what I've done is rebranded this all under the sales, Bluebird name.

[00:00:54] It's a brand or a name that seemed to resonate a bit better. And from my perspective, keeping things simple is always better for me. So that's why we're all under the sales Bluebird podcast name right now. So I'm recording this in mid-January, 2022. I'm sitting here in Colorado. Cool, but a very sunny day outside is beautiful.

[00:01:17] In fact, blue skies all around. There's a little bit of snow on the grind I'm done in the Denver Metro area. So I'm not up in the ski towns, but down here we got some still on the ground. There is snow up in the ski resort. No, as much as I think they would all like, and nothing like whatever was getting in.

[00:01:35] Lake Tahoe right now, seeing some of the photos coming out of there. And it's crazy how much snow there is. So you guys must be just loving it and the bay area being able to go up there and do some good skiing at this time of the year, frankly, Tahoe deserves it. Right. But a few years of, of, uh, not much though, so good for Tahoe.

[00:01:56] Getting so much and probably having a real boom for the local economy, which is much needed. For me, just coming out of the holiday period as we all have, uh, I was really, really lucky and fortunate. My mom and my sister joined us for the holiday period. My mom is 81 years old. She lives in Scotland.

[00:02:16] I was born and bred in Scotland. She still lives there. And obviously, like all of us, she's been under various lockdowns, for a while. And in fact, it's Scotland. It'd be really strict the bud to lockdowns over the last couple of years. And there's been times where she's been stuck in her little apartment for, for weeks on end.

[00:02:35] And for her, she enjoys coming out here, obviously getting to 81 know she's fit, but, uh, you know, it has a bigger impact on your body, obviously at that age. So it's not something she does too quickly. But it's been almost three years, I think, or about three years since she was over.

[00:02:52] So it was a great opportunity for her to come over, uh, see the grandkids. I've got two girls who are teenagers, and it was great for her to be able to hang out with them. And being part of the family just hanging out in the house and helping out and, you know, interacting with the kids was just a joy for her. So that was great. 

[00:03:09] And my sister came as well. She kind of, sort of surprised us. Uh, she lives in London. She came out to Denver and, joined us for Christmas and new year. She's still here. She's taking an extra a week or two. She got. Work from anywhere really. So she's working during the day and hanging out with us in the evenings and actually my sister and I are going to take Wednesday off this week and go up and do some skiing, some good brother-sister time.

[00:03:35] So it's super fun having them. When my mom comes all this way, she stays for quite a few weeks. Obviously, it's not just a long weekend trip, from Scotland, especially at that age. So it's good that she comes for so long, but as you guys know, like anytime you have a visitor, uh, staying with you for a long period of time, it's totally. That changes the dynamics of how the family functions and in many ways it was good. Um, but I think she was looking forward to getting back into her own home. And, she must enjoy herself though, because she said that she was looking to come back in the summer. So we as a family, have a great time together reconnecting and hanging out when, you know, like many of us out there in the world have meaning to do for quite a while.

[00:04:16] So today episode 92 is a solo episode. I don't have a guest to interview today. But the topic is one that is relevant because I work with teams all the time and this thing comes up again and again and again. I think the best way to think about this is, you know, how, when. In a first meeting, second meeting, frankly, any meeting, but especially early-stage meetings with prospects and you're going through your process with them and they're working with you, but you kind of feel like they're getting frustrated or you're losing them.

[00:04:54] They're no longer paying attention. They're. Can I get distracted too easily, things like that. I'm sure all of us have experienced this over the years at various times. There could be lots of reasons for it, but the one that I see, again and again, is the concept that we as salespeople.

[00:05:14] Are taking too long to do whatever is that we have to do. And I'll give you three examples of that. There are absolutely real that are pooled from coaching discussions I've had with teams in the last few months. 

[00:05:30] First one, I had one. A seller who had to explain a slide, one slide in the first meeting deck and the one site of just them talking to explain it took four minutes, 55 seconds to go through. So one slide two, four minutes and 55 seconds. And it wasn't that complicated, a slight right. They just took so long to try and explain what was there and make the point and even ask the question. So just them talking was four minutes and 55 seconds. 

[00:06:05] Another example I had was I was listening to a gong call, with, uh, one of my clients of one of the sellers. And in a first meeting that was half an hour, the seller asks 23 discovery questions. I'm a huge fan of discovery and I'm a huge fan of questions to dry discovery, but I was listening to them asking those questions. You could sense the prospect. Getting more tense by the moment. And I always sit there cringing a little bit, you know, read the room, read the room is what I was thinking in my mind. As you know, one more question. One more question. One more question then. And what about this? And what about that? The prospect was frustrated, right? You can get the sense. They were like, Do it, how many more do you have is what they were thinking? I think. 

[00:06:55] Third example back to using a first meeting deck. One client had 21 slides in the first meeting deck and I mean, 21 content slides, not, you know, including title slides and things like that. Right. It was 21 slides of content and the calls I was listening to, they were trying to get through 21 slides. But of course, they couldn't, it was, there was too much. And what they ended up doing almost every single call was skipping a few. It was like, you know, one, two skip a few 10, 11, skip a few 14, 15. Right. And I was wondering, why would you have all those slides if you don't wanna use them? And the. You could sense them beginning to understand there are a lot of slides here. Uh, wonder how many they've got, and let me just see if I can move them along a bit faster. Right? 

[00:07:52] So in each of those situations, what was happening was we were trying to do the right thing. Right. We're trying to do the right thing, but we lost the prospect along the way. We lose them in the deck. They get bored and frustrated with the questions.

[00:08:10] And what is definitely true is at any time where you're trying to tell someone something. If you try and tell them too much, you lose control over what they remember. So let's go back to the two slides, right? So that the four minutes, 55 sacrad explaining a slide, there was a purpose to that slide. The slide was there for a reason. and I bet it was probably only one or two reasons. It was there, hopefully. But you would never know. From what the seller was doing. And the prospect probably couldn't tell, they were getting told so many things the seller had lost control about the one thing they wanted that person to remember or think about or ask questions about, or get a conversation going about.

[00:08:57] Right. Anytime you do that, you've lost control. If you give someone one thing to remember and under. They'll remember one thing, if you give them 22 things to try and remember, understand they'll choose the three or four that their brain will allow them to remember. Right. You've lost control. A brain can only take in so much.

[00:09:20] And if you give them 22, they won't remember 22, they won't get it. They'll get bored. And then they'll take away the three things they want to take away and you won't be nearly so effective. 

[00:09:32] So here is just one change. One thing to try that will make a big difference. Every salesperson can be more effective at selling, especially early stage by trying this one simple technique. And that is the idea of giving yourself some constraints, giving yourself some limits, and responding to those constraints. 

[00:09:58] So, what do I mean by that? Well, at a really high level, in the startup world, people naturally think is really good that we've raised a whole ton of money. Right? You see these announcements going out, we raised 30 million seed round at 50 million, all this sort of stuff. There's one that I saw as I Dirand at 255 million, or it's crazy amounts of money. And there's no doubt. Money is needed to scale a startup, but, there is the curse of having too much money. I remember I was at a startup in the early teens, early 20 teens, and we're really good at raising money. Right. It was just something that we seem to be able to do very well, but, you know, looking back there were definitely some things that, uh, with a lack of constraints, we were doing things that perhaps we shouldn't be. Right. We were doing things that weren't that important. And, anytime that happens, things get lost and the power of the constraint is it forces you to focus on just what's the most impact. Right. If you can only do something once or only do something twice, as opposed to 10 times, you'll want to rethink the one or two things that you need to do the highest impact and be most important. So let's go back to our examples, right? What did I do in these situations? 

[00:11:25] The first one was the person who took four minutes and 55 seconds to explain a slide. My tactic with that seller was pretty simple. I said I want to hear what you give me. The slide deck and the next day, and you have a maximum of one minute per slide, that's all you have to explain this slide. Right. And their first reaction was, wait, what, what, uh, hold on a second. Yeah, I got a one-minute. There are a lot of important points, right? These are important slides with complex concepts and all this other stuff. Right. And I said, you know, I, I get it, but, uh, I'm giving you one minute to do each. So I, you to come back to me with a version of the deck with one minute. Um, and they were forced at that point to think about each slide and say, what is the one point I want to make on each slide?

[00:12:18] Let's think about the 23 question discovery that I listened to. What do I do with that seller? What I said to that seller was let's role play. Let's think about, and then role-play having that meeting. If you could only ask three questions and then. Only three questions. And I don't mean, you know, uh, three questions, one of which is five parts, right? I mean, literally what are the three, if you could only ask someone three questions, what would you ask? And again, like, wait, wait, whoa, whoa. What, what'd you mean? You know, we've got to do all this discovery. We've got to learn all these things. I said, yeah, I get it. But let's imagine you could only ask three questions. What would you ask? So they went away with the exercise. 

[00:13:04] And then the company that had all those slides to go through the 21 slides first meeting deck with all the fonts and the texts and the diagrams and all the rest of it. My challenge to them was what is the five slide version of this? What does the five slide version again? It was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. You know, these are all these important things that we need to explain to people and tell them about and all the rest. But, and again, I was like, I get it. But let's say you didn't have the time for that. What are the five slides that you would use? So these are all examples where you imagine a PNG.

[00:13:42] Right. A gauge or pendulum. I could think about some of the swings left and right. Like a clock splint, pendulum, you know, eat in each of those situations. Imagine what really is happening in the company or the people that were doing these behaviors were way over to, let's say the left. Of the pendulum, right? It wasn't hanging down the middle in equilibrium. It was way over to the left. And they were really trying hard to keep it up there by doing the behaviors that they were doing and what I am doing when I'm giving them these constraints is taking them away over to the. Right. So I'm just moving that pendulum way over to the right. 

[00:14:24] So you go from having five minutes down to one minute, you go from 23 questions down to three questions on the right. And you go from a 21 slide deck on the left to just five slides on the right-hand side. So I'm forcing the pendulum to go way the other way and challenging them to really think through that. If you have these constraints and you don't have the luxury of being able to take all the time you want, how would you use that time? And this is a great way to really think about changing behaviors, changing habits. Changing how you do things. Because actually what happens over time? And I'm not saying to that seller, in front of a prospect, you absolutely cut yourself off at a minute. Right. All I'm trying to do is get them back into equilibrium. Right. So if they get it down to one minute per slide and they understand the concept that each slide has a purpose, and we're trying to just achieve that purpose. Maybe they'll go back to their equilibrium, which should be, I don't know. A minute and a half per slide or two minutes maximum per slide, right.

[00:15:30] Something like that. And rather than having 23 to three, maybe the right number of questions is five or six. But we're going into those into equilibrium with the pendulum very intentionally. So the ones, there are absolutely the ones we want to use with a. 

[00:15:48] So what's the takeaway for this? The first thing is, to be very honest and candid with yourself. Maybe even be a little bit harsh. Think about where are you unconstrained and taking full advantage of not being constrained. Right? Are you the person that has the way too long deck you try and go through slide by slide? 

[00:16:10] Are you the person. Has the rambling, you know, never-ending discovery. I kind of call it death by discovery.

[00:16:17] Are you the person that has to make eight points on this one slide and I'll get through it, whatever. Right. Or do you have something else that, that you just look at and go, oh yeah. I need to reign that in. that needs to be better, shorter, more concise, more impactful. And then when you identify those areas, give yourself a constraint, give yourself a constraint. That makes you uncomfortable. Right and understand why you're doing it. Don't give yourself an easier, out. Don't go for 23 down at the 12, right? Just slap it right down to three through something that when you look at and go, Ooh, this is going to be tough. Cause that's going to force you to really think it through.

[00:16:56] And then once you've got that figured out, then give yourself the leeway to expand a little bit nowhere near back to where you were before, but expand your constraint so that your pendulum comes back to the middle.

[00:17:12] Today's episode is sponsored by unstoppable.do, which is my own consulting and training business for cybersecurity startups. You know how when you're searching for your repeatable scalable sales process, but everything's not quite that simple, right? Your, your killer discovery. Aren't quite hitting home.

[00:17:31] You're starting use cases you're trying to search for. It's harder and harder to find those with prospects, In your first meeting experience, you could have come out of the meetings. Wondering did that person really get it? Did they really understand the value of what we do? Did I explain things well enough?

[00:17:47] And you kind of wish you had a partner to help you massage and work with the usual things that we do in a sales cycle, especially top of the funnel, to be more effective and get conversions coming through. That's where unstoppable comes in. I partner with a very small number of sales teams at cybersecurity startups to help deliver the tools, the processes, and the ones that are.

[00:18:10] Adaptable importantly, changeable, and ones that will move and change according to the stage of the startup that will drive towards that scalable and repeatable sales process faster than if they did that themselves. Things such as sales, messaging, sales execution, and run discovery, value-oriented discovery, a value-oriented, a sales methodology.

[00:18:34] These are things I am working on with my prospects. If that sounds intriguing to you, please contact me directly. My email is andrew@unstoppable.do or you can text or call me directly on my cell phone at (303) 956-0024. Right now I'm talking to companies about their kickoffs. Some of them are looking for a morning session to tackle their highest and most important challenge in the sales cycle. And, commonly what we'll do is do a small workshop around whatever that is.

[00:19:10] Think about the training takeaways, the practice sessions that need to happen to try and solve that challenge. Again, if that sounds intriguing to you, contact me directly, andrew@unstoppable.do or directly on my cell phone.

[00:19:24] (303) 956-0024. Talk soon…